"We accept all girls in kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout. If a child is living as a girl, that’s good enough for us. We don’t require any proof of gender."
—
Rachelle Trujillo, vice president for communications of the Colorado Girl Scouts, responding to a story about a transgender girl who was allowed to join the Brownies.
Coloradans are mad cool, I’m just saying.
(via scarlettshazam)
(Source: knitmeapony, via tehblackbirdflies)
"The kind of people who think women are congenitally unfunny also tend to be the kind who think (secretly or not) that women are congenitally unsmart. One could write a (humorless! feminist!) dissertation on the nuances of both stereotypes, but I’m pretty sure that’s it in a nutshell."
— Kate Harding (via damekatharsis)
(Source: kateharding.net, via damekatharsis)
"
What we have is not a war against fakery, it is a war against that which displays itself as fakery; we’re all supposed to be pretending that we’re naturally wide-eyed and soft-skinned and blushing and blemish-free. Women are expected to be photorealist portraits of femininity, not expressionist canvasses; lies are tolerated only in so far as they are told convincingly. But when we start being too overt about the fabricated status of natural femininity, there’s a lurking danger that we might start to question their absurdity, or realise that we can invent altogether new images in radical moulds.
Perhaps, then, instead of demonising fakery, we should embrace a proliferation of artifice, in a style that refuses to acknowledge the existence of any such thing as ‘natural’.
"
—
Shona McCombes, In Defense of Fake Beauty.
Good post. It also points out that ‘natural’ beauty is infinitely more difficult to achieve, more time-consuming, expensive, and restrictive. There is a class element in calling another woman’s hair or makeup, ‘tacky’—think how often the term is paired with ‘trashy’.
The ‘natural’-looking beauty featured in Aveeno ads is just as contrived as the more exaggerated femininity seen in M.A.C. ads. There’s nothing more (or less) feminist about avoiding peroxide, fake tanner, or super long acrylic nails. There’s nothing wrong with liking a ‘natural’ look either, but you have to be careful not to use your preference for self-presentation as a means of judging and policing other women.
"No man is in any real physical danger on the internet— or even in real life — from feminists. Women are regularly beaten and raped — even on college campuses — but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a feminist setting."
— Hugo Schwyzer, on the use of the term “male bashing” (via scarlettshazam)
(Source: michellehaimoff, via sequined-k)
"This is often how you fight sexism in ordinary life. You don’t dive in front of that Afghani girl about to take a bottle of acid to the face and shoot the guy attacking her. You just influence the people around you by expression your opinions forcefully. […] Pro Tip: “Afghanistan, infinite no backsies!” is not a valid argument to the effect that a given woman should shut up about some given topic."
— Belle Waring, 10 Problems Women Need to Fix Before They Can Complain About Problems With Popular New Software, On a Blog
