Bad Ad
This commercial could easily be confused with the juvenile & sexist ads for Carl's Jr. But this company doesn't sell burgers. You'd think that a luxury cars maker would want their brand associated with class and elegance -- not juvenile humor and tacky stereotypes about frumpy smart women and dumb blondes. Way to be classy, Mercedes. :/
Vietnam
In June 1972, Kim Phuc was pictured in a world-famous and iconic photograph from the Vietnam War. She was the naked child who was horribly burned with napalm and was running from an airborne attack.
Since then, Kim has found a way to transform her suffering into good. She runs The Kim Foundation International, and she acts as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO. She has transformed into a viable, visible symbol of peace and hope. Hers is an important story of resilience, courage, and forgiveness.
Give Birth
I love this advice! But even if you took a different path, it's never to late to grow into yourself.
Is America Ready for a Male Leader?
LOL -- I love this little bit of satire regarding the different ways we speak about male vs. female politicians. The role reversal points out how absurdly sexist and condescending it is:
"The Secretary of State job requires both tenacity and restraint, both of which may be difficult for a man's unique chemical constitution. The male hormone testosterone, while responsible for such wondrous miracles as back hair and upper body strength, is also responsible for an increase in male aggression, anger, and even violence. Diplomacy is a difficult enough task without having to temper a man's natural tendency to throw chairs through windows when angered by gridlock. ...
"In addition to fluctuating male hormones, a male Secretary of State will undoubtedly be faced with the difficult task of trying to balance work and family. For generations, men have tried to 'have it all' — the great career, the perfect family, a hot body, a youthful, buoyant buttocks ... I know it's not the 'politically correct' question to ask, but it needs to be addressed when making important decisions about men in the workplace: if Jon Huntsman is appointed head of the State Department, can we trust him not to shirk his responsibilities in favor of fulfilling his duties as a father of seven? ... Who is going to make after school snacks? Can America, with a clean conscience, remove a father from his natural role as hands-on provider and permission slip signer?"
Read more at Jezebel.
It’s a Nipple, Not a Pepperoni
A talented Maryland tattoo artist has made a name for himself as an expert in a valuable niche. Vinnie Myers started out tattooing fellow soldiers in Army boot camp, but has since devoted his business to helping breast cancer survivors. These customers are looking for more than a cool new piece of artwork to decorate their bodies -- these are women who just want to feel whole again:
"[Vinnie] has perfected the three-dimensional nipple tattoo, restoring a final mark of femininity to at least three women a day, who have come from as far as Saudi Arabia and Brazil to Vinnie's Tattoo Parlor ... 'The industry standard has always been draw a circle where the nipple should be and color it in,' Vinnie said. 'When I first started doing it, I said to myself: Why should I do a tattoo of a nipple and make it look like a pepperoni, when I can make it look like a nipple?'"
What keeps Vinnie's work from looking like pepperoni is his attention to detail:
"Vinnie took a peach-colored Sharpie and drew concentric circles where the areola, the dark area around the nipple, and the nipple itself ought to be. First on her right breast, then her left. ...
Vinnie first tattooed in the lines of the two circles, then started shading the areola, making his way to the nipple itself. He also took special care to do what are called Montgomery Glands, the little raised dots in the areola.
Creating a three-dimensional image, the appearance of a raised nipple, is all about using light, shadow, and color to create illusion. This is what distinguishes a gifted artist."
Vinnie has helped hundreds of women feel normal again after losing their breasts to save their lives. His artistic talents enable his customers to see what look like "healthy normal breasts, with fabulous nipples."
"About 290,000 women will get diagnosed with breast cancer this year. About 50,000 will get reconstructive surgery, and 90 percent of those get some sort of areola. But it can be unsatisfying, with no image of a nipple. Furthermore, says Vinnie, surgeons often use vegetable-based dyes that fade quickly."
Although insurance companies will cover the cost of nipple/areola reconstruction, it's often difficult for a patient to collect without a fight. Fortunately, Vinnie charges only $400 for his services, which makes the cost less financially restrictive for women who've already fought enough.
Check out Vinnie's website with several before-and-after photos of his work. NSFW, for obvious reasons.
We Won – Deal With It
There have been a lot of sore losers since election results were announced -- plenty of political pouting, arguing, and Facebook un-friending. The losing side wants us to stop gloating and just get on with life. Ordinarily, I'd agree, but not this time. They want us to stop now, even though all throughout election season, these same people didn't stop making inflammatory attacks and absurd claims about the Nazi-Communist-Socialist-liberal agenda, the Black man in the White House, gay marriage bringing on the apocalypse, baby killers, sluts wanting you pay for them to have sex, "legitimate" rape vs. girls who "rape easy," and so on. In spite of all this "fair and balanced" rhetoric, conservatives still lost fair and square. But now they want everyone to stop talking about the election and to shut up with all our celebrating.
Well, you know what? Fuck that! Fuck that, because YOU are the ones who lit the fires. YOU are the ones who started shit. YOU are the ones who fought to take away people's rights to their lives and their bodies. YOU are the ones being degrading and insulting. So damn right we're going to express how absolutely thrilled we are that we shut that shit down!
There's been so much bigotry throughout politics lately, an incredible amount of sexism, homophobia, and racism. And those who support those ideals -- or those who can so casually excuse them -- deserve to be called on it.
This is the most politically involved that I've ever been in my life, because as many other women realized -- our rights are being threatened. And I'm finding it really hard to separate people from their politics, because beliefs matter. They impact your worldview and your behavior toward others.
You're entitled to believe in whatever you want, but you are not entitled to impose your beliefs on me. And I don't care if it's under the guise of religion or if you believe that God Himself personally spoke to you. Because when you start forcing your beliefs on me, it becomes abundantly clear that your "traditional values" are less about following a moral code and more about oppressing others in the name of your self-serving ideology. Those are not values that I will abide by. You are not allowed to infringe on MY rights, MY body, MY choices, no matter how "righteous" or "justified" you believe yourself to be. Your beliefs do not get to trump my freedom. Your sense of entitlement over others' personal lives, your selfish belief that you have the right to control others -- these are complete and utter boundary violations. How dare you say that your beliefs matter more than mine! That kind of arrogance and lack of compassion astound me.
When our rights are attacked; when we're treated with condescension and our morals, maturity, and ability to make decisions about our own bodies and lives are questioned; when the definition of rape is twisted to benefit the rapist and punish women -- well, damn right we're going to take it personally! We're going to defend ourselves against insulting, selfish, and paternalistic attacks against our humanity. We're going to stand up against sanctimonious bullies who use religion and legal maneuvers to chip away at our civil rights. We're going to vote for the people who actually respect our constitutional and moral rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we're going to question the integrity of those who are so willing to throw our rights under the bus. How dare you speak about freedom when you are so intent on attacking ours.
In this election, we had more on the line than you did. We had more to lose. And guess what? YOU built that. So hell yeah -- of course we're going to celebrate and we're going to do a bit of gloating about how we prevailed.
We won. You lost. Deal with it.
Ewww … Boys Are Gross!
Love the horrified look on this little girl's face! LOL
Tailoring Your Reality
A woman recounts a story about a friend's experience winning a free style consultation with Clinton Kelly from the TLC show "What Not to Wear". The friend wore a plus-size and had a hard time finding clothes that fit her well. She assumed that it was because of her size, but she couldn't seem to get good results even when she tried to follow plus-size fashion tips from the show. She asked Clinton what she was doing wrong, and he shared this secret:
"His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there."
Everything is altered. So many of us find fault with our bodies for not fitting the clothes, instead of finding fault with the clothes for not fitting our bodies.
"I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are 'wrong,' who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself."
Remind yourself of this helpful little secret the next time nothing in your closet seems to fit. Remind yourself the next time the diet ads start making you think you need to lose weight. Remind yourself when you start feeling fat and ugly and worthless. Because the truth is, the flaws may simply be in your jeans — and not in your genes.
No More
This got me all choked up -- this courageous woman is taking back her power ...
The Voice
By: Shel Silverstein
Which One?
Yeah, that's probably not a good sign ...
Celebrate
Hey Girl, Ryan Gosling would like to celebrate with you. ;)
Shut Down the Vote
Congratulations to the elected women who found a way to shut that whole thing down tonight!
via Unite Women
Pomeranians for Progress!!!
(Yes of course he did it himself! ;)
Chris Rock the Vote
This is pretty damn funny -- Chris Rock's special message to undecided white voters:
A Woman’s Place
The conservative social forces conspiring to roll back the clocks on women's reproductive rights have much in common with the forces that tried to keep women from having voting rights. In an attempt to undermine suffragettes' struggles to gain rights that men were able to enjoy, these women were demonized as ugly, masculine, bad mothers, morally challenged, promiscuous, childish, and emasculating to men. Nearly 100 years have passed since then, but not much has changed:
“The social pressures that resisted suffrage can’t be underestimated. ... It wasn’t just that women had to fight for the right to vote, but women had to fight for the right to speak in public to be able to advocate for their own rights. ...
The battle for suffrage wasn’t just about the legal right to vote, but it was also about women’s ability to be public figures, not confined to the home. It was more broadly about women’s role in society. ... "The messages you find on anti-suffrage postcards from the 1910s are not dissimilar from what you might hear from Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly today in the 2010s. Suffragettes were drawn as conniving coquettes, ugly, mean spinsters or, worse, ugly, mean wives who left their families helpless as they attended town-hall meetings. ... “That was a common theme, that if women were given political power they would crush men and upset the gender roles in society, particularly in the family. ... “We operate with this zero-sum mentality, which is, if women gain rights, men lose them. ... You see the same sort of idea that if people of color or ethnic minorities make gains, whites therefore lose something. So if men only understand their identity in relationship to being bigger than women, then it’s a trade-off. You see it in dozens of anti-suffrage postcards, showing men being hurt if women advance. Human beings seem to operate with this mentality where if you expand the rights of some, it diminishes the rights of others, instead of collectively expanding the rights of all of us as a people.”
Read more here:
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright, 1st woman to become United States Secretary of State, appointed by former President Bill Clinton ...
So He Could Run
(This should say Barack just for consistency's sake, but thought it was great nonetheless) ...
