My other blogs are linked below: steampunkbanana (funny stuff) and steampunkrainbow (my interests).
Stop Stigma Sacramento
The Mental Illness: It’s not always what you think project was initiated by Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Behavioral Health Services to:
-Reduce stigma and discrimination
-Promote mental health and wellness
-Inspire hope for people and families living with mental illnessStop Stigma Sacramento is one of the many projects here working to support those with mental illnesses. These are all over the county—on billboards, community boards, and gas pumps.
For mental health resources in the county, visit the NAMI Sacramento website
I’m so in love with this.
this is amazing
but now what I’d like to see them do is make one of those ads a teenager with post traumatic stress disorder. because there is a stigma around the fact you can only have ptsd if youre from the war; both examples here seem to insinuate that from race and age. I would like to see a teenage girl or boy in one of those ads too
or dissociative identity disorder
amazing movement but I’d love more inclusivity of all mental illnesses - esp the ones with the biggest stigmas. I like they included schizophrenia in there tho
When it comes to what disorders are actually shown, it all depends on who is willing to be this public with their diagnosis. (These billboards are over some of the largest streets in the county. Some mental health clinics have a table full of brochures and cards.)
I’m not sure when this project began, but I noticed them just after I moved here last January. I just saw a couple with depression then. Soon there were more with depression, and a few with bipolar. Soon schizophrenia, PTSD, ADHD, and OCD.
It seems like they started small, just getting the basics out, but are now growing. And hopefully, because this has been so well received, more people (esp those with more stigmatised disorders) feel safe enough to be part of it.
19th June 2013
Reblogged From sanityscraps
Notes: 15638
Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.
In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:
The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.
In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately."
[x] (via neighborly)
As a teacher, I give girls what I hope is a lot of attention. I don’t know if I give girls their fair share, but I aspire to, especially after noticing that boys are willing to use their greater share of teachers’ attention to get girls who they feel aren’t being quiet and docile enough punished. I have therefore acquired a reputation for “caring more about the girls.” This has had two marked results: Some straight boys have gotten more hostile toward me, and most girls have gotten more confident around me. This makes me think I’m doing something right.
Longer thoughts on how this phenomenon relates to sexual harassment in classrooms, if you’re interested: The girls figured out I won’t report them if they hit boys who are sexually harassing them, I’ll only report the boys. This led to an increase in how often girls got the last word and boys got smacked in my classes, and, also, to a DECREASE IN HOW OFTEN GIRLS GOT SEXUALLY HARASSED. The sexual harassers seem to have been depending on the sort of “equal blame” and “retaliation is never warranted” and “don’t hurt others’ feelings” perspectives so many schools try to instill in kids; the sexual harassers were usually the ones bringing me into the situation by saying, “Miss, she hit me! You should write her up!” Once they figured out I was only ever going to respond, “If you don’t treat girls like that, they won’t hit you,” the girls got more confident and the sexual harassers largely shut the fuck up.
In schools, fighting against sexual harassment is often punished exactly the same as, or more severely than, sexual harassment — a lot of discipline codes make no distinction between violence and violence in self-defence, and violence is ALWAYS the highest level of disciplinary infraction, whereas verbal sexual harassment rarely is. Sexual harassers, at least in the schools I’ve been in, rely heavily on GETTING GIRLS IN TROUBLE WITH HIGHER AUTHORITIES as a strategy of harassment — creating an external punishment that penalises girls for and therefore discourages girls from fighting back. Sexual harassers are willing to use their greater share of floorspace to ask to get girls who won’t date them punished. By and large, teachers do punish those girls when they swear or hit. Schools condition girls to ignore sexual harassment by punishing them when they speak up or fight back instead.
Once the sexual harassers in my classes understood that girls wouldn’t be punished for rejecting them, they backed off around me. And there started to be a flip in what conversations I get called into — girls are telling me when boys are being nasty (too loud and dominant), instead of boys telling me when girls are being uncooperative (louder and more dominant than boys think they should be).
(via torrentofbabies)
reblogging again for the wonderful commentary.
(via partysoft)
Holy crud, so glad I read this. Reblogging for other educators.
(via eupheme-butterfly)
As a girl who would not be shut up and would not tolerate teasing or abuse from boys in my class and was several times sent to such higher authorities for it, reading this is extremely, extremely vindicating. I was lucky, though, because being a particularly bright, advanced student for those grades, they generally took my side and I never got into any severe or lasting trouble. Again ,this was luck, and shouldn’t be the rule.
(via eruditechick)
I was going to write that exact last paragraph; WOW.
(via supersandys-space)
(Source: colinfirthhasmoved)
(Source: caramelblackness)
tumblr does for social justice what peta does for animal rights
this is seriously the best analogy ever
Okay, can I say something from experience here?
When I first joined tumblr I literally knew NOTHING about racism, or cissexism, or transmisgyonny even. I’m a white kid who grew up in a mostly all white town and believed that while racism still existed it was mostly gone in the world and wasn’t that big of a deal any more. I had no idea what cissexism even was or what transmisgyony was EVEN THOUGH I WAS TRANS because I’m a trans* male for once so I never experienced it and I had INTERNALIZED so much cissexism and transphobia into my own brain that I seriously didn’t think it was that much of a big deal.
You know what changed my mind about all these things? Tumblr. I followed people who were from other countries, cultures, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, etc. Through their blogs I got to learn about how they experienced the world differently and while I will NEVER understand what it’s like to be a person of color or a trans* woman I HAVE learned what privilege is and in what ways I had it. I learned that certain things I had been saying/doing were actually racist or homophobic or transmisgyonistic. NOT to mention that I learned about things that I hadn’t even thought about like fat shaming and rape culture. That’s right, before Tumblr I had NO idea what rape culture even was and I learned that things I had been saying were actually contributing to it.
You know what I also learned about through these so-called “social justice blogs”? HISTORY. I learned about history that wasn’t filtered through the white-washed lens of a history text book. I learned that there were in fact people of color in Europe back in Mozart’s day, that there were women pilots in Russia who helped bomb the Germans in WWII, how the oppression of the indigenous people of Australia breaks almost every law of the Geneva convention, and that -HOLY SHIT- Africa actually is made up of many countries which have internet„ clothing, water, and a middle class!
I was ignorant before Tumblr, disgustingly so, and even though I know that I’m still VERY ignorant when it comes to the world I’m learning, and MOST of my learning is done through Tumblr because here people who don’t normally have a voice are able to make posts and have other people who don’t experience the same things they do SEE them, and if those people choose to (and they SHOULD choose to) then they can LEARN from the posts they see and become a better person.
“Social justice” Tumblr helped ME PERSONALLY become a better person. So go on, say that people blogging about their oppression doens’t teach anyone anything. I fucking dare you.
Also, PETA is horribly sexist, classist, cissexist, racist, and ableist, and comparing a community of largely marginalized people who are hurt by PETA’s actions to PETA is a really really shitty thing to do.
commentary.
and boom.
if i could choose a super power it would be having the power to literally slap sense into people
“HAHAH you’re so fucking pathetic i hope you die”
SLAPS
“wait what im saying could seriously hurt a person and drain their confidence completely and i shouldnt do that to anyone wow”
OCD is something one has, not something one “is,” and most people who say, “I’m so OCD” do not have OCD and could use a thesaurus and some sensitivity training.
Here at UfYH HQ, we don’t use “OCD” as shorthand or a humorous description for personality quirks or behaviors. It’s a legitimate medical condition. Words are important, and there are better ways to get your point across without trivializing someone else’s health issue. Some potential alternatives:
- Extremely particular
- Attentive to cleanliness
- Hates when things are dirty
- Excessively tidy
- Fastidious
- Exceptionally neat
- Predisposed to cleanliness
P.S. OCD doesn’t always (or even usually) mean that someone is extremely clean or organized.
#it’s not about being politically correct it’s about not being a jerk
Petition the Obama Administration to mandate education about sexual assault and rape in schools
The last petition we were pushing did not obtain enough votes, we will not stop until this is mandated. Please vote on the WHITEHOUSE.GOV website, it takes 2 seconds and they never send you emails.
Good Idea
I support this 100%
wow signal fucking boost
To me this is a blindingly obvious thing that should be taught, and it’s a crime that it isn’t. SIGN! And REBLOG! Signal Boost! Let’s make sure it gets enough votes this time.
there are days when i actually cannot see feminism debates or race debates or stupid people or islamophobia
and then there are days when i can see them but i can’t interact with them, or if i do, it’s going to be coated with cynicism
i don’t have the mental or emotional energy to constantly fight those battles or be weighed down by the desire to educate
i don’t know much about self care but that’s something that i’ve figured out. that if i wear myself thin for people who (not only don’t give a shit but who) are stuffed with misconception and prejudice, i’m not going to be able to sleep or breathe or function.
i’ve wanted to write about this a lot because i’ve noticed it more and more lately. being jaded hurts. i’ve stepped out of the sociocultural matrix. taken the red pill. and it’s killing me inside.
and it’s not that i don’t want educate! it’s that i can’t. because when you’re up against someone who insists that 1. transgenderism is a mental illness and 2. you informing him that what he said is really offensive and he calls you uncivilized and incapable of having a civil discussion.. the frustration clots your blood and oozes down your spinal cord. it’s the worst kind of bitterness because you WANT to teach and you WANT to shake them by the neck and you WANT it to be easier because why can’t everyone learn like you did or understand anything outside of their little bubble of life. especially because it affects you. i can’t imagine how people fighting racism feel. bless you all.
i’ve stepped out of the sociocultural matrix. taken the red pill. and it’s killing me inside.
I have changed my views about so many things since joining tumblr, and am still in the process of evolving and adapting my views. I need to make a list some time about all the things I now think completely differently about.
If your argument against why you don’t trigger warning things is, “There are no trigger warnings in the real world, anybody who wants trigger warnings is just a coward who can’t face reality” or anything along those lines then you’re a fucking asshole.
Do you think those of us who need trigger warnings are fucking newborns?
Do you think we’ve never stepped outside of tumblr?
Do you think whatever happened to us to make us need trigger warnings didn’t happen in the real world?
No you goddamn idiot. We know that there are no trigger warnings in the real world and we’re subject to constant anxiety because of that shit.
So if we ask you to trigger warning things in a small corner of our lives where there are the RESOURCES and EXTENSIONS for us to browse the internet without having to have bouts of anxiety, then you should fucking respect that instead of trying to prepare us for the fucking “real world” that your moronic ass thinks we don’t live in.
so uh people who laugh at ‘tumblr feminists’ for seeing sexism everywhere
has it ever occurred to you that
sexism might actually be everywhere
and you just don’t see it because it seems normal to you?
?????
David N. Elkins (via eibmorb)
I have wondered this to myself so many times. If I could wave a wand and make my depression disappear and never have happened, would I still be the same person I am today? Would I do it? This is a really good quote summing up that feeling that I presume everyone who has/had depression will have thought about.
(Source: fegegtas)
Yeah, yeah, I know you “it’s just a game” guys. “Dude, it’s just a game.” I’m not an idiot. I know I’m not Tommy Vercetti. I know I’m not an albino-skinned guy with two blades chained to his hands who gets perturbed easily. I know I’m not a fat Italian plumber.
But I do worry about you guys, sometimes. You do know that all those pixels on a screen mean something, represent something, communicate something, right? You do know that the flickering images on a screen make you feel something, make you laugh, make you cry because, you know, they’re familiar, not real, but they remind you of real circumstances, real moments of joy, real moments of tragedy?
And you do know that the game as a medium can make you think about what you choose to do even though you still know that it isn’t real? By the way, that’s the cool thing about the medium.
If I, and others, are more attenuated to thinking about choices and consequences, it seems to me that this medium might be very well suited to us. Maybe this isn’t the medium that you’re looking for. Maybe this isn’t the medium that you are ready for. Because this is a medium that makes you complicit in making the choices and witnessing the consequences.
"G. Christopher Williams, for every asshole who’s ever said “it’s just a game” (via candyandcusswords)
BOOM
1. Name the real problems: Violent masculinity and victim-blaming. These are the cornerstones of rape culture and they go hand in hand. When an instance of sexual assault makes the news and the first questions the media asks are about the victim’s sobriety, or clothes, or sexuality, we should all be prepared to pivot to ask, instead, what messages the perpetrators received over their lifetime about rape and about “being a man.” Here’s a tip: the right question is not, “What was she doing/wearing/saying when she was raped?” The right question is, “What made him think this is acceptable?” Sexual violence is a pervasive problem that cannot be solved by analyzing an individual situation. Learn 50 key facts about domestic violence. Here’s one: the likelihood that a woman will die a violent death increases 270% once a gun is present in the home Remember, a violent act is not a tragic event done by an individual or a group of crazies. Violence functions in society as” a means of asserting and securing power.”
2. Re-examine and re-imagine masculinity: Once we name violent masculinity as a root cause of violence against women, we have to ask: Is masculinity inherently violent? How can you be a man/masculine without being violent? Understand that rape is not a normal or natural masculine urge. Join organizations working to redefine masculinity and participate in the national conversations on the topic.
3. Get enthusiastic about enthusiastic consent. Rape culture relies on our collective inclination to blame the victim and find excuses for the rapist. Enthusiastic consent — the idea that we’re all responsible to make sure that our partners are actively into whatever’s going down between us sexually — takes a lot of those excuses away. Rather than looking for a “no,” make sure there’s an active “yes.” If you adopt enthusiastic consent yourself, and then teach it to those around you, it can soon become a community value. Then, if someone is raped, the question won’t be, well, what was she doing there, or did she really say no clearly enough? It will be: what did you do to make sure she was really into it? Check out this Tumblr page on enthusiastic consent.
4. Speak up for what you really really want. Because so much victim-blaming relies on outdated ideas about women and men’s sexuality, taking the time to figure out what you actually want from sex for yourself and learning how to speak up about it can be a revolutionary act, and inspire others to follow suit. Bonus: it will almost always improve your sex life, too! Jaclyn Friedman wrote a whole book on the topic.
5. Get media literate. Media, like everything else we consume, is a product; someone imagined, created and implemented it. Ask the right questions about who creates media that profits off the objectification of women, especially women of color. Feed your mind and heart with media that portrays women as full human beings with the right to bodily autonomy. Go to FAAN Mail to learn how to “Talk Back” to media creators and browse their Facebook page for alternative artists. You’ll not only be healthier yourself, but you’ll be simultaneously calling into being a media ecosystem that will be healthier for everyone.
6. Globalize your awareness of rape culture. Yes, different societies have particularities when it comes to gender based violence, but it is counterproductive to essentialize entire nations/cultures/races. Look to global strategies—like creating momentum for the US to ratify the global Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and participate in addressing the phenomenon of rape as a tool of war. Also, let’s reauthorize Violence Against Women Act before we cast aspersions on the misogyny of other cultures, shall we?
7. Know your history: For those of us who live here in the US, we must acknowledge and learn from the US’s long history of state sanctioned violence. Consider the genocide of Native and First Nations people, the ever-present legacy of slavery, the lackadaisical relationship we have with due process (i.e. Japanese internment, Guantanamo) and the gendered nature of all this. There are no quick links for this one: you’ll have to read some big books.
8. Take an intersectional approach. The numbers tell us most but not all of what we need to know. What the numbers can elide is the lived reality of women, LGBTQ people and others of us whose stories don’t make it to the headlines. Don’t forget that sex and gender are different and there are more genders than two. People who are gender-non-conforming, gender queer, trans and/or those who complicate the gender binary experience violence at disproportionate rates. Think about how a person’s income, race, sexuality, and citizenship and immigration status would impact their ability to use the criminal justice system as recourse, and come up with strategies that address those challenges. Move the most vulnerable from the margin to the center to develop effective solutions.
9. Practice real politics. You may be crystal clear about your own rejection of rape culture, but when someone you know calls a woman a slut, approach him/her from a place of empathy. Try telling them that you know they probably meant no harm, but that you’re concerned that they may be doing some anyhow. And then explain why. And be patient: very few of us change our views in an instant. It may take time and repetition for it to start to sink in.
10. Lobby your community. Rape culture thrives in passive acceptance of female degradation, victim-blaming and hyper-masculinity in our communities, both physical and digital. Report abuse on Facebook. Lobby college administrators for more safe spaces to discuss sexual assault on campus. One in five women are assaulted during their college years, yet many colleges don’t have a competent system for reporting incidences and punishing perpetrators. Go here to learn what to do about rape on your campus.
