Guest Blogging – Page 4

Feminists Should Support Immigration Reform

Some people find it difficult to understand why immigration reform would be considered a feminist issue, but feminism and other human rights efforts are not mutually exclusive. Feminism is about fighting against inequality, exploitation, violence and ignorance, and the fight for one marginalized group is not so different from another. Thus, feminists should come out in support for immigration reform.

Props to My Pops: A White Man Gets it Right

My father is an odd fellow, one not reflected in most Father’s Day cards. He rarely watches sports, would never buy a sports car, hates golf due to working as a caddy in his teens, and doesn’t wear ties. While he loves his tools and is constantly reconstructing our family home, it’s not because of any need to display masculinity. He does it because he worships my mother and wants her to have anything he can create. It’s a bit of selflessness that is rarely reflected in mainstream media, and appreciated or expected of men – especially towards their partners and the world around them.

Five things to say to a friend who confides in you that they’ve been sexually assaulted

1) Don’t say anything at all.

Pleasure Politics Part I: Employment, Economic Justice and the Erotic

Too often we are led to believe that work must be something separate from pleasure: that we are to do what we love on the side, in our spare time; that pleasure is an extra-curricular activity, a hobby, a side gig. As if only a privileged few are supposed to do work that is fulfilling and passion-driven. As if pleasure is a luxury, not a necessity.

Know: these are lies.

Not our fight: Male Violence and the Bystander Effect

[Trigger warning for domestic violence]

These good people, these people whom, albeit in different industries and capacities, are each individually working to make the future a better place than the present, do nothing. They, of relative privilege, watch the aforementioned horror unfold. Some are stunned. Some don’t notice. Some shake their heads. It’s a shame, they think. It’s fucked up, they think. It makes my blood boil, they think. But they do nothing. They hold their girlfriends tighter. They back their friends away from the scene. They try to break their stares. They go get more drinks. These are good people. But they do nothing. They are silent.

A few try. Three university age young women try. They do as their friends tell them. Go get security, they say. But security does nothing. This is between a husband and a wife, they say. Please go back inside, they say. The young women beg their friends and the bar security to do something. They do nothing. Get away from the car, they say. There is nothing you can do, they say. You’re going to get hurt, they say. You’re being irrational, they say. It’s not our fight, they say.

Star Trek Into Darkness and Khan

Guest Bloggers Paul and Renee: We blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We’re great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms – but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.

Excluding Women from Combat Is Just Plain Wrong: A Navy Captain’s Story

Our guest blogger is a retired Navy captain Dwayne Oslund, USN (Ret.), partnering with the ACLU to advocate for women openly serving in combat roles.

During my 25-year career as a Navy officer and helicopter pilot, I was fortunate to witness firsthand the genuine skills and capabilities of U.S. servicewomen. But at the same time, these brave women were limited in their opportunities by arbitrary rules that had nothing to do with their abilities and, if anything, hurt the readiness of our military. I also saw women rise to the occasion when the policies that excluded them from certain positions yielded to the realities of modern warfare and the challenges of maintaining an effective fighting force.

Healing the Toxic Intoxication of Fat Hatred

I recently tried once again to read George Orwell’s 1984.

As always, I got a few chapters in and had to stop because it was so depressing that I couldn’t live in Orwell’s evocation of mind-controlled totalitarian world for a minute longer. One thing I did get out of the experience was adding one more time reading the early chapters including the Two Minutes Hate scene. Early in the book the hero, Winston Smith takes part in his office’s mandatory daily group hate ritual, an exercise in bonding and mind control.

Breakfast: Not Sexier than Before, but Funnier than Ever

Having a product called “Sexcereal” is funny enough.
Seriously promoting it as being full of foods that make you sexy is funny enough.
Having different versions of it for men and women is funny enough.

But honestly, the folks behind Sexcereal are in the wrong business. Hollywood pays big bucks for people who can be this hilarious: