selected ramblings for later reference

In regards to sexual harassment—many men seem to have trouble with the idea of sexual harassment as a genuine threat, on some kind of instinctual level. In the future, I believe I will deploy this metaphor: say you’re with someone who has a gun, and you do not. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to hurt you, but that they have a greater capability, because they are better armed. Sexual harassment is like someone putting their hand on their gun. They haven’t drawn it yet, or pointed it at you- it’s not a direct and explicit threat on your safety—but it’s a clear signal that the possibility is now on the table. That is how many women view sexual harassment, because sexual harassment can, under some circumstance and with some people, evolve so quickly into genuine threat. And rapists do not walk around with a sign on their forehead announcing their intentions, so I have no way of judging whether or not a man who makes an over-the-line comment, or grabs my ass, is the kind of person who would escalate to drawing his gun, if you get my deeply uncomfortable phallic imagery, and I think you do.

— sorrel on dreamwidth (via dinahlance)

(Source: netrikon)

Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’

What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!’ This is the matriarchal approach to learning.

— Barbara Alice Mann, Iroquois woman (via cultureofresistance)(via shannonnagig)(via so-treu)

(Source: socialuprooting)

Koschei turned, gripped Marya’s chin, and kissed her — not on the cheek, not chastely or unchastely, but greedily, with his whole, hard mouth, cold, biting, knowing. He ate up her breath in the kiss. Marya felt he would swallow her whole.

— Deathless, Catherynne M. Valente (via corcordium)

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

— Walt Whitman (via wildfflowers)

(Source: fernsandmoss)

People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.

— Diane Setterfield  (via skylinesdarling)

(Source: atomos)

Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

— Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood (via thallydraper)

I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald. (via kayleyhyde)