mikkipedia:

funkyfest:

dbeat:

thewomanofkleenex:

During the first season or two of Roseanne, Roseanne Barr was treated horribly by the producers, who wanted to get rid of her, even though she was the creative genius behind the show, which was based entirely on characters she had developed. She went with “success is the best revenge,” working extra hard to make sure the show hit the #1 spot, knowing at that point she could seize creative control. She hung out with the crew and supportive castmembers (including John Goodman, who flat refused to do the show without her), and put a list on her door. That list had the name of every single person who worked on the show. When they pissed her off, she’d cross off their name in red. Everyone in red was to be fired the second she was in charge. She took this policy from Machiavelli, and she made good on it. Her first move was to fire everyone who had tried to shut her down. She also promoted a number of women writers and fired a number of men writers for being sexist. So, this shirt is no lie.

The continuation to this story is that those writers got picked up for Home Improvement. Which makes total sense.

Tool Time, indeed.

She got SO much flak for firing all the writers. Firing men! She did an awesome interview on Donahue (shut up) and it was like

“So you fired all your writers.”

“Yep.”

“It can be hard in the creative world, when there is a team, to be able to tell who is doing a good job and who isn’t.”

“Well I happen to be able to tell.”

Oh my god. That is fucking priceless. And YEAH! That Home Improvement thing doesn’t surprise me in the least. Show is FULL of condescending/sexist writing. Fucking awesome. And had she been a white male, tv/hollywood would be jacking her off THEN. Stay misogynistic Hollywood. Never stops surprising me. 

face-down-asgard-up:

face-down-asgard-up:

It’s also important to point out that the awareness campaigns for breast cancer tend to focus mostly on white women. Now, it is true that white women are more likely to get breast cancer. However, it is rarely mentioned that WOC, especially black women, are more likely to die from it than any other group.

By excluding their narratives from the conversation, we help contribute to a society that seems fine with this.

Gonna reblog this even though I just posted it because I want it to sink in. I didn’t even know this until it was pointed out to me.

writingfail:

How media clearly reflects the sexism and the racism we cannot see in ourselves.

somekindofbecca:

I wanted my first-year film students to understand what happens to a story when actual human beings inhabit your characters, and the way they can inspire storytelling. And I wanted to teach them how to look at headshots and what you might be able to tell from a headshot. So for the past few years I’ve done a small experiment with them.

Some troubling shit always occurs.

It works like this: I bring in my giant file of head shots, which include actors of all races, sizes, shapes, ages, and experience levels. Each student picks a head shot from the stack and gets a few minutes to sit with the person’s face and then make up a little story about them. 

Namely, for white men, they have no trouble coming up with an entire history, job, role, genre, time, place, and costume. They will often identify him without prompting as “the main character.” The only exception? “He would play the gay guy.” For white women, they mostly do not come up with a job (even though it was specifically asked for), and they will identify her by her relationships. “She would play the mom/wife/love interest/best friend.” I’ve heard “She would play the slut” or “She would play the hot girl.” A lot more than once.

For nonwhite men, it can be equally depressing. “He’s in a buddy cop movie, but he’s not the main guy, he’s the partner.” “He’d play a terrorist.” “He’d play a drug dealer.” “A thug.” “A hustler.” “Homeless guy.” One Asian actor was promoted to “villain.”

For nonwhite women (grab onto something sturdy, like a big glass of strong liquor), sometimes they are “lucky” enough to be classified as the girlfriend/love interest/mom, but I have also heard things like “Well, she’d be in a romantic comedy, but as the friend, you know?” “Maid.” “Prostitute.” “Drug addict.”

I should point out that the responses are similar whether the group is all or mostly-white or extremely racially mixed, and all the groups I’ve tried this with have been about equally balanced between men and women, though individual responses vary. Women do a little better with women, and people of color do a little better with people of color, but female students sometimes forget to come up with a job for female actors and black male students sometimes tell the class that their black male actor wouldn’t be the main guy.

Once the students have made their pitches, we interrogate their opinions. “You seem really sure that he’s not the main character – why? What made you automatically say that?” “You said she was a mom. Was she born a mom, or did she maybe do something else with her life before her magic womb opened up and gave her an identity? Who is she as a person?” In the case of the “thug“, it turns out that the student was just reading off his film resume. This brilliant African American actor who regularly brings houses down doing Shakespeare on the stage and more than once made me weep at the beauty and subtlety of his performances, had a list of film credits that just said “Thug #4.” “Gang member.” “Muscle.” Because that’s the film work he can get. Because it puts food on his table.

So, the first time I did this exercise, I didn’t know that it would turn into a lesson on racism, sexism, and every other kind of -ism. I thought it was just about casting. But now I know that casting is never just about casting, and this day is a real teachable opportunity. Because if we do this right, we get to the really awkward silence, where the (now mortified) students try to sink into their chairs. Because, hey, most of them are proud Obama voters! They have been raised by feminist moms! They don’t want to be or see themselves as being racist or sexist. But their own racism and sexism is running amok in the room, and it’s awkward.

This is hugely important.

Just because you don’t “hate women” doesn’t mean you’re not sexist.
Just because you don’t “hate black people” doesn’t mean you’re not racist.

We all carry the unconscious bias and oppressive stereotypes that we’ve been raised with, and that we see subtly reinforced by the media and by others on a daily basis.

Patriarchy/Kyiarchy live in our heads, hidden where we can’t see them, and it takes a life-long effort to educate ourselves and question our motives to break them down.

[TRIGGER WARNING: Rape/Rape Culture]

roachpatrol:

axiomaticacorn:

roachpatrol:

Ha ha nice try this has got to have been shopped. The Republican principle of personal responsibility actually means that women are the personal responsibility of men.  

I love your posts and all, Roach, but can you please not be so generalizing??? No offense, but it’s hypocritical to just throw a carpet statement over a group of people. I know it might be surprising, but the republican party are not a horde of sexist hate demons from the cavernous belly of Jörmungandr.

Probably.

Anyway, I would much appreciate it if you didn’t say things like that.

Okay I was being pretty snarky there on purpose but hypocritical? Fucking nope. The Republicans are not some randomass group of people who should be exempt from summation, criticism, or my deep ire, they are a political party. With voluntary membership and an agenda that explicitly involves a reduction in women’s health and rights. You don’t judge a political party by what some of the nicer members would like to stick up for, you judge that political party by the legislation they try and enact, and right now the Republican party is damn well synonymous with sexist hate demons. There’s a few guys saying ‘maybe we should let women make their own choices about their own bodies?’ and there’s the official Republican Platform which is that no they shouldn’t. The stuff they are working to do is directly affecting my civil rights and employment opportunities and ability to obtain health care.

If you consider yourself part of the Republican Party, if you are voting Republican, you are directly responsible for enabling these people to keep doing what they’re doing. Supporting guys like Randy Moody, okay, great, awesome, send him a cookie with YOU NOTICED WOMEN ARE PEOPLE GREAT JOB iced on it. But throw in with a party that’s actually working on the whole to improve and increase people’s choices and opportunities, for fuck’s sake, and maybe if enough people do that the Republican party might start fielding more guys like this instead of guys like Mitt ‘No abortions for rape and incest victims’ Romney.

Political rant of the night over, I’m fucking done.  

ALSO: REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ALSO affect non-identifying women and the trans* community. 

hamburgerjack:

She’s giving up sideboob

If you’re going to claim to be doing it, do it all the way.

Like what was she even doing?

I think she just wanted to take some pictures.

Occasionally, when talking about sexual orientation in my Sociology courses, a student will ask “Why can’t we have a straight pride parade?”

It hasn’t happened a lot, but enough students have asked the question to make me want to offer a response. I want to point out that the question tends to…