Overheard

Not to offend anyone, but I was raised to take care of my husband. Cleaning up, washing his clothes, wearing gloves and an apron while handling the body, and acting very sad at the funeral.

About Those Lonely Men

Man vs Bear

Notice how the bear hears "No!" and fucks off.

Are we clear on this now, guys?

The Women

Dale Spender

1943 - 2023

Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says, "Oh, I'm not a feminist", I ask, "Why? What's your problem?"

Overheard

If it was actually possible for women to sleep their way to the top, women would be running the whole goddamned show by now - you dumbass.

The far more likely reality is that men have been engaging in sexual extortion, withholding the rewards and promotions women have earned in order to get sex.

Look At Yourself

• When a young girl is raped, and you defend the rapist.
• When a guy shoots and kills a woman on the street, and you defend the shooter.
• When a guy is being totally disrespectful of the women around him, and you say nothing.

• Your cynicism doesn't make you interesting.
• Your smug dismissal of anything that moves normal people to feel sorrow doesn't make you manly.
• Your support for somebody who gets a kick out of pushing people around sure as fuck doesn't make you strong.

Women see and hear your reactions to the shitty things going on all around us - especially when you cheer it on, or you just shrug it off with some stupid epithet that you think is cute.

You're not being clear-eyed and pragmatic - you're being an asshole.

So the "crisis of male loneliness" isn't because there's a problem with women - it's because women are very much aware of what a big fuckin' jerk you are.

Leopards Are Eating His Face

"You need a man's protection from the monsters. And never mind that men have pretty much always been the monsters you need protection from. But hey - you think it was bad before? You ain't seen nuthin' yet, sister."

Dude - the Plutocrats are the ones beating you down. It's the billionaire parasites and their coin-operated politicians.

This is not Men vs Women, any more than it's Red vs Blue, or White vs Brown, or Libs vs MAGA. If you'd figure that out, and stand up against it, you'd find plenty of women fighting at your side. Because women have been fighting that battle for millennia, and they've got plenty to teach us. So shut the fuck up and learn, dumbass.

Overheard

Women don't owe the world babies.

They don't owe men babies.

And they don't owe anyone

an explanation for any of it.

Maybe we could all just

mind our own fuckin' business.

The Supreme Strength In Perceived Weakness

Nobody's coming to save you with a flag and a casserole.

Today's Monte

Women's standing in just about any segment of any society is a pretty good barometer of the overall health of that society.

And if my goal is to subjugate people in general, why not enlist half the population to help subjugate the other half?

Divide-n-Conquer works wonders, and there are so many different ways to apply it.

Today's Today

Happy International Women's Day

Questioning

I've said (on more than a few occasions), "Women will save us - all we have to do is stay the fuck outa their way and let 'em do it".

My intention was to acknowledge women's strength and capabilities. But apparently, in some quarters, it's not welcomed as any kind of encouragement, and has garnered some clapback.

So I'm having to reassess and recalibrate.

I didn't mean to put anything extra on your shoulders, ladies. You owe me exactly nothing.

Like I said, I've been hearing quite a bit about this. And though it's not aimed directly at me, I take their meaning. So I'm sorry. I'll try to be more mindful, and do better.

Today's Belle

In 2008 they told McCain that if he was more than 5 points underwater with women, he was gonna lose. He was, and he did.

And I'll say it again:

Women will save us. All we have to do is stay the fuck outa their way and let 'em do it.

Go get 'em, ladies.

I'll hold your stuff

while you fuck 'em up.

I'm right behind you,

and I'll be here when you're done.

A Poem

... by Danielle Coffyn

If Adam Picked The Apple

There would be a parade,

a celebration,

a holiday to commemorate

the day he sought enlightenment.

We would not speak of temptation

by the devil, rather,

we would laud Adam's curiosity,

his desire for adventure

and knowing.

We would feast

on apple-inspired fare -

tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.

There would be plays and songs

reenacting his courage.

But it was Eve who grew bored,

weary of her captivity in Eden.

And a woman's desire

for freedom is rarely a cause

for celebration.

She's Gonna Need It

Women Will Save Us

and I'll be

standing right

behind them

holding their stuff

while they fuck you up. 

Dear Mr Butker

The Yankee Farm Wife would like a word

Mic Drop, Bitch

... like 3 or 4 times.

Get Wise

I wasn't fully aware of it back then, but I do remember the time when women were all but invisible outside the confines of their marriage, and their kids, and managing their households.

PoliticsByTabitha

Pushback

Mahsa Amini at 22 years old

Yeah - she's like really dangerous,

what with her insistence on

making her own decisions and all.

Assholes

People will be free. Even if we vote ourselves into bondage, there's always a kernel of dissent - a small group who won't knuckle under - who won't be fooled, and who will eventually bring the others around.

When the size of that kernel is potentially half of your population, you'd best be paying attention.

I'll say it again: Women will save us from ourselves - if we can figure out how to get the fuck outa their way.

The story of Iran’s Mahsa Amini uprising told through its most iconic images

It was a movement that began with the death of a young Iranian woman from a small Kurdish town. Over the next year, it spread on social media and captured the attention of the world.

This is the story of Iran’s uprising through its most memorable images.

1 Mahsa Amini’s death

On Sept. 13, 2022, Mahsa Amini was visiting her brother in Tehran just days before her 23rd birthday when she was stopped and taken away by the country’s infamous “morality police,” for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.

View this post on Instagram

Within hours, Amini lay in a coma in a hospital bed, with Iranian police claiming that she had suffered a heart attack. Her family said she was beaten. The image of her shared on social media shook the country.

Three days later, she died.

2 Removing the headscarf

The protests began on Sept. 16, the day Amini died, with crowds gathering outside the Tehran hospital where she spent her final days.

As she was laid to rest in her hometown of Saqqez the following day, women took off their headscarves in protest. They chanted “woman, life, freedom” — a slogan that would soon be heard across the country.

پرچم مازنی‌ها ✌️👏
ساری، ۲۹ شهریور؛ مراسم روسری‌سوزان!#مهسا_امینی #مهساامینی pic.twitter.com/b2sAPJGIyV

— Pouria Zeraati (@pouriazeraati) September 20, 2022

translated:
Mazniha's flag ✌️👏
in Sari, 29 September; Burning scarf ceremony!
#Mehsa_Amini #MehsaAmini 

Some women took off their headscarves, waving them in the air or setting them on fire. Others cut their hair in public, openly defying the morality police.

کرمان، میدان آزادی#مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/wk535lhtr9

— Kayhan (@cosmos196196) September 20, 2022

translated:
Kerman, Azadi Square

3 Targeting images of Khamenei

Images of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are everywhere in Iran, a symbol of his unquestioned authority.

As anger rose, protesters tore down posters and burned billboards featuring his face. “Death to Khamenei” became a rallying cry.

Burning Khamenei's billboard in Yazd with a Molotov cocktail. One way to show how much he is hated inside Iran.
#MahsaAmini #مهسا_امینی #IranRevoIution pic.twitter.com/0Kv85GIo4k

— Omid Memarian (@Omid_M) November 8, 2022

4 Rising up in universities

Universities became hubs of protest as young people became leaders of the movement. Campuses were raided by security forces. The government cut off the internet. Some students were detained or forced to abandon their studies.

When Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, visited one university in an attempt to calm protests, he was greeted by angry students yelling “get lost.”

Students at Al-Zahra University—an all female uni in Iran—shout in protest upon President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit:

“Death to the oppressor, whether it is a king or a [supreme] leader”pic.twitter.com/PyoCPQIgr8

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 8, 2022

In one clip, a group of young women can be seen singing the song “Baraye,” which became an anthem giving voice to protesters’ grievances and received a Grammy award for Best Song for Social Change.

5 Remembering Amini

In late October thousands of people made their way to Amini’s grave to mark the 40th day after her death — known as a “chehellom,” an especially important moment in the Iranian Shiite funerary tradition.

A photo of a young woman standing on a car without a headscarf became an iconic image.

6 Taking the protest to sports

Acts of protest weren’t confined to Iran. A number of Iranian athletes appeared to support the uprising on the world stage. Climber Elnaz Rekabi took part in a competition in South Korea without wearing a headscarf — mandatory for all women representing the country abroad.

Concerns for Rekabi’s welfare grew after a stilted message posted on her Instagram account claimed she was unintentionally not wearing a headscarf. She later returned home to crowds of supporters.

In November, members of Iran’s men’s soccer team at the World Cup refused to sing the national anthem during their first match against England, widely interpreted as a gesture of solidarity with the protesters back home.

Sardar Azmoun, a forward on the team, has been the most vocal champion of the uprising. “I don’t care if I’m sacked,” Azmoun wrote in a since-deleted post on Instagram last September. “Shame on you for killing people so easily. Viva Iranian women.” He later issued an apology on Instagram.

When the team was eliminated from the competition, protesters at home erupted in celebration over what they viewed as a symbolic defeat for the Islamic Republic.

سنندج شادی مردم پس از باخت تیم فوتبال جمهوری‌اسلامی.#مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/uCn7FWZ1E0

— +۱۵۰۰تصویر (@1500tasvir) November 30, 2022

translated:
People's happiness in Sanandaj after the defeat of the football team of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

7 Showing global solidarity

در مراسم خاکسپاری جواد حیدری، از کشته‌شدگان اعتراضات به قتل #مهسا_امینی، خواهر او موهایش را بر مزار برادرش کوتاه میکند. pic.twitter.com/g3lg4fUsqq

— +۱۵۰۰تصویر (@1500tasvir) September 25, 2022

translated:
At the funeral of Javad Heydari, one of the victims of the murder protests #مهسا_امینی , his sister cuts her hair at her brother's grave.

As the death toll rose during protests, a video shared on social media showed a woman cutting her hair over the grave of her brother, Javad Heydari, who was killed during the demonstrations. The gesture is found in ancient Persian literature as a sign of protest, anger or grief.

Women around the world, from members of the Iranian diaspora to politicians and celebrities, cut their hair in solidarity.

And BTW - "morality police"? How in the blue-eyed buck naked fuck does that make sense to somebody?