the thing that gets me about about barbie is that barbie land wasn’t even purposefully a matriarchy, barbie land came about because of the way little girls were playing with their barbies, it wasn’t created by mattel it was created by the people using the toys, so the fact that the barbies ignored the ken’s and had girls night every night wasn’t because they had some bias against him, it was just an accurate depiction of how kids play with barbies. I had some ken dolls as a child and they were essential to the plot in the sense that of course my barbie has a boyfriend because that represented the world i saw around me, but also he didn’t have any purpose in my dream world because i was only interested in what the girls were doing because they represented me and how i wanted to be, I wanted girls night every night I wanted the girls to be president and austronauts and not because of some inherent feminist idea but because I was a girl and I wasn’t thinking about boys, ken was an accessory. this movie wasn’t made to change the world but it showed a different perspective than what we usually see which I thought was fun. Men don’t have to be the centre of all our stories and its not even because we hate them, sometimes we’re just not thinking about them

“I’m like, ‘Okay, she’s a doll. She’s a plastic doll. She doesn’t have organs. If she doesn’t have organs, she doesn’t have reproductive organs. If she doesn’t have reproductive organs, would she even feel sexual desire?’ No, I don’t think she could,” Robbie said. “She is sexualized. But she should never be sexy. People can project sex onto her. Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it’s fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt.”

Margot Robbie said Ace Barbie Rights with her whole chest.

“don’t reduce this female character down to a love interest” does not translate into “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest.”

preventing female characters with strong, compelling narratives from experiencing love, intimacy, and affection is just as regressive as reducing them down to sexual accessories for male characters. it assumes that women must choose between a romantic interest and depth of character and ignores a far more productive message: that women are capable of possessing both. 

“When I was young, women were raped on the campus of a great university and the authorities responded by telling all the women students not to go out alone after dark or not to be out at all. Get in the house. (For women, confinement is always waiting to envelope you.) Some pranksters put up a poster announcing another remedy, that all men be excluded from campus after dark. It was an equally logical solution, but men were shocked at being asked to disappear, to lose their freedom to move and participate, all because of the violence of one man.”

— Rebecca Solnit, Grandmother Spider in Men Explain Things To Me and Other Essays

This picture from Syria protesting war in Ukraine actually made me tear up.

Abandoned by the world, destroyed and still having enough compassion to think about others.

Herman Munster’s message still holds true over 50 years later. Be kind, love others and strive to be a better human. (The Munsters-1964) 

female empowerment in disney

it’s always been there. ever since “snow white and the seven dwarves” it’s been there. but not in the form of the princesses. no, more rather in the side characters and the villains.

take the evil queen, for example. this bitch did everything on her own, and got a man to kill someone for her in what i can assume is the 1500s. if that doesn’t speak female empowerment to you, i got another example.

maleficent & the fairy godmothers. maleficent did all her shit SOLO, with a crow as a sidekick. “oH, bUt pRiNcE pHiLiP KiLlEd hEr-” yeah, with the fairy godmothers’ help. without their enchantments, philip would’ve gone BYE BYE against maleficent.

ursula; powerful sea witch that tricked literally everyone, so what she got impaled by eric, she still technically won. melody; no main love interest, went on an adventure against her parent’s consent to get a mermaid tail (that she rightfully deserved), saw her mistake, and saved the day in the end. cruella; bitch had two men working for her, while she pulled all the strings in, like, the 1800s or somewhere around there.

my point?

female empowerment has always been a part of disney, but not always with the heroines. but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still count. just because villains are, well, the villains, doesn’t mean that it should be dismissed.

He didn’t want any accolades, y’all. In fact he looked visibly uncomfortable up there, but he had to get so many thoughts across and just kept going. Respect.

Watch: Kristen Bell opens up about the mental health double standard and how she manages her own struggle.

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Soulmates are not your ~other half~, that’s just nonsense. You are a whole person already, not half a person. A soulmate isn’t even inherently romantic. A soulmate is just the other sock in a matched set. You’re still a whole, complete sock on your own, you are perfectly functional paired with any other sock, it’s just that it’s even better when you match. A soulmate is literally just the person who makes your soul go “!!! Same hat!!!” and wave excitedly.

What the Hell is “Gaslighting”?

In 1938, a stage play called “Gas Light” debuted for the first time. The play is about a husband who gradually convinces his wife she’s insane by acting strangely and secretly manipulating objects in the house - like dimming the gas lights in the attic - and refusing to acknowledge that they’ve changed. Today, the term “gaslighting” is used to describe any behaviour designed to make another person question their sanity.  Gaslighting is abusive behaviour. Any person who tries to make you doubt your own sanity does not have your best interests at heart. Gaslighting is a tool to keep you in an abusive relationship, and prevent you from reaching out for help. 

In its weakest form, gaslighting means convincing you that you are misremembering or exaggerating something that happened. “I never said it like that, you’re exaggerating!” or “You’re making it sound worse than it was!” are common examples of gaslighting. At the end of the conversation, you might even find yourself apologizing to the other person, even though you were pretty sure that they were in the wrong. This sort of thing can happen in a normal relationship, especially if one or both parties aren’t very self-aware, but it’s a concern if it happens all the time… especially if only one person seems to have a faulty memory. Gaslighting can also mean convincing you that events didn’t happen at all. Your abuser can absolve themselves of responsibility, and keep you in check, by convincing you that abuse never took place. “We never had a fight at my brother’s wedding… are you feeling okay?” or “I’ve never thrown anything at you in my life! Do you have a fever or something?” are more serious examples of gaslighting, and they are absolutely not okay. If someone is trying to convince you that a fight or episode of abuse never happened, that’s a huge red flag that cannot be ignored.  At its very worst, abusers may go out of their way to stage strange events in order to confuse their victims. An abuser trying to keep a victim in check, or socially isolate a victim, may go out of their way to act strangely in order to make their victim doubt their own mind. Abusers may steal things from you, disappear for days on end and claim that they told you where they were going (or deny being gone), or mislabel your reactions as they’re happening (eg. pretending that you are irrationally angry when you are actually calm). These are also huge red flags, and cannot be ignored.  Gaslighting is not unique to abusive romantic relationships: it is also common in toxic parent/child relationships, sibling relationships, friendships or school bullying. Anyone who mistreats you can gaslight you.  The best defense against gaslighting is self-confidence, and careful recording. Trust in your own mind. You know when you’ve been abused. You know your own reactions. And write things down - keeping a careful record of abusive incidents and what was said or done gives you a record to consult when someone else gets in your head.  Gaslighting can make it especially difficult to recognize and leave a bad relationship, and no one deserves to go through it. Know the signs. Protect yourself. You deserve better. 

When your lady on her period.

You were told by this man that America is the greatest country in the world! He went on about how precious America was how you needed to make sure it remained great! And he told you anything was justified to preserve that great treasure, that pearl of great price that is America! Well, I say America is nothing! Without its ideals its commitment to the freedom of all, America is a piece of trash! A nation is nothing! A flag is a piece of cloth! I fought Adolf Hitler not because America was great, but because it was fragile! I knew that liberty could be snuffed out here as it was in Nazi Germany! — Steve Rogers, What If Captain America Were Revived Today?

Why Did They Come?

Oh boy if you’re mad about the US separating children from their parents, putting people in camps, and having a zero tolerance policy towards asylum seekers that has led to deliberate extensive cruelty as a futile deterrent wait until you hear about Australia.