Hey lovelies! We’re going to ease you into another week with a wrap up of some of the things we’ve been reading from around the social justice internet. Make sure to share what you’re reading and writing and your thoughts in the comments below!
- University professor and mother Alice Dreger talks about our cultural aversion to teaching children about sex and asks: what if we admitted to children that sex is primarily about pleasure?
- Remember when bell hooks “called Beyoncé a terrorist” and the internet erupted? Well the Crunk Feminist Collective gives some serious context and nuance to the conversation as well as a healthy dose of things to think about
- A growing number of US university students are starting to ask their schools to include trigger warnings on literature
- NPR condemns music critics for almost entirely ignoring Irish opera singer (mezzo soprano) Tara Erraught’s talent an performance in favor of insulting and fat shaming her in their reviews, a treatment they [gasp!] don’t similarly extend to her male colleagues. (content note: excerpts from critic’s fat shaming reviews are quoted)
- As a reminder during Pride month, here are 36 reasons why QPOC-only spaces are very necessary
- In a recent interview, social justice icon Angela Y. Davis talks about what’s radical in the 21st century and the fact that she’ll be returning to teach at UCLA 4 decades after Gov. Ronald Regan had her fired.
- From the archives, director/producer/screenwriter Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas, etc) gives her acceptance speech for the HRC Visibility Award from 2012
I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn’t find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others. If I can be that person for someone else then the sacrifice of my private civic life may have value.
- People are #NOThappy about Pharrell Williams cover photo for ELLE magazine where he ditches his famous “mountie”-style hat for a feather headdress
- Lucy already wrote about the UCSB shooting here, but here are some other links that we’ve been reading on the subject
- This article sheds light on a post from pick up artists (PUAs) blaming women for the shooting and generally indicating that if women don’t sleep with them then another massacre is inevitable
- Arthur Chu talks about misogyny and entitlement in male nerd culture, how media has been complicit in reinforcing it, and challenging us all to be more critical of the tropes we are presented with
- Here’s a look at how all intersections of the White Capitalist Patriarchy are responsible for creating the UCSB shooter (Content Note: selected sections of Rodger’s “manifesto” are discussed in detail)
- Autostraddle lays it down about the need to stop using the construct of “biological sex” to defend trans-antagonism
Those who claim that sex is determined by chromosomes must not realize that sex is assigned at birth not by chromosomes, not even by gonads, but by genitals. In fact, the vast majority of us never learn what our sex chromosomes are. Sex isn’t something we’re actually born with, it’s something that doctors or our parents assign us at birth.
