Make sure you read the article she’s responding to!

gabydunn:

By Gaby Dunn for Thought Catalog as a response to THIS.

1. Don’t expect women to dress for your boner. I do not get up in the morning hoping you’ll see my new pants and pop wood.
2. Stop approaching women who are alone on the street. Stop hollering at women “from the passenger side of your best friend’s ride,” as TLC would say. When has this ever turned out well for you?
3. I will send naked pictures to whoever I goddamn please. Or I won’t. That’s my choice. You as a man receiving those pictures should probably not forward them around if they are sent to you — like you are a, you know, decent human being with feelings and compassion and common sense.
4. If you don’t want women to think all men are dicks because of a few knuckleheads, maybe let your friends know they shouldn’t be assholes to women. If you see something (a friend speaking derogatorily about women, etc.), say something. (“Hey, man. Come on. That’s not cool.”)
5. Don’t pretend you’re a guy in a beer or yogurt commercial. You’re not stupid, incapable of emotion and communication or genetically predisposed to be neglectful. Contrary to movies and TV, men are usually well-rounded, functional people!
6. Don’t expect your significant other to feel loved because you’re not going out with the boys on her account. She will not be waiting for you. She will hopefully be busy with her own friends, hobbies and interests outside of you. If you want her to know you really love her, might I suggest saying, “Hey babe. I love you.”
7. Don’t be an asshole to female sports fans. They already feel marginalized and all they want is to sit back, maybe have a beer and watch their favorite teams just like you do. Just because they are female, doesn’t mean they can’t speak intelligently about players or stats. Don’t belittle them. They are already out of their element, sadly.
8. It’s okay not to like sports or video games. It’s okay not to like action movies. It’s also okay to like those things. Turns out none of that stuff has a gender! I know. It’s crazy.
9. We get it, you like cars (and football in several cases). Or not. Maybe you like baking and 90s hip hop. Maybe you like New Pornographers and Converse sneakers. Maybe you like gardening and politics. Maybe you’re a whole person and not a gender stereotype.
10. Treat people as individuals with minds and hearts, and not just like a body to pick apart for things like stretch marks and nipple hair. Every girl in the world, even your mom, has one boob bigger than the other. This is normal.
11. Do not expect that a woman’s actions are always in some deranged effort to “snag a man.” It’s best to not be willfully ignorant and assume women don’t ever do anything that isn’t about men.
12. Try your very hardest to never rape anyone. If you see a girl wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her. If you see a girl walking alone, don’t rape her. If you see a girl at a club put her drink down and turn away from it, don’t rape her.
13. If you base your expectations of women on Marisa Miller, just stop. Or find someone like Marisa Miller. No judgement here.
14. Remember that you are a fully-formed human being with interests and experiences and not a cardboard cut-out doll from the back of GQ Magazine.
15. Take as many photos while out with your friends as you want! Upload them all to Instagram and filter them to make them pretty. You’ll smile scrolling through them one day.
16. Remember that any body type can be attractive. Some women are just naturally thin. It’s actually faux-feminist to say that only curvy women are “real” or “healthy.”
17. Don’t neglect your girlfriend when she needs you. You’re her support and her other half. If she, similarly, is being emotionally distant and is not being supportive of you, either talk to her about it or don’t stick around. You deserve someone who cares and gives you the attention you need (regardless of gender)!
18. STOP pitting women against each other. Stop comparing two women solely because they’re both women. It’ll be a lot easier for female friendships to form and then everyone will be happier!
19. That Die Hard movie you’re about to watch? Yeah, Bruce Willis is going to fight some people, stop a bad guy from destroying the world and probably walk away from some explosions like a tough bad-ass. Look, now I just saved you four movies and the new one, A Good Day To Die Hard, coming out next year. Oh? That’s not why you enjoy watching a movie and I should probably just let you watch what you want like an adult? Okay.

Yes! 

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itscandidlycara:

Wait, let me back up.

Hi, my name is Cara and I’m a 21 year old woman. Every 28 days, give or take, I have a period. And it fucking sucks. Today, was one of those where I take from the 28 day cycle. I wasn’t due for another period for at least a week, but considering that my period is pretty much permanently irregular, I get to wake up a lot of mornings in a pool of my own blood. Hmm. Lovely.

I then proceed to dump my sheets, my underwear, and my pajamas in my laundry room in a tub filled with cold water, with the hopes that this timeI haven’t ruined them permanently.

What next? Well, a shower of course! To wipe off the smell of rotting blood from my body! Squeaky clean and towel fresh I have about a two minute window before the volcano of blood begins to erupt again from my vagina.

What will it be today? A piece of chlorinated toilet paper cardboard with a string that I get to shove up my hole wherein the blood will sit and rot until the next time I can shove another piece of chlorinated cardboard up the same hole? Or, a plastic lined toilet paper diaper attached to my underwear that causes rug burn to my vaginal area when I walk? Well the later requires less coordination, and it is early, so I guess I’ll be sitting in a period diaper today. The best ever.

Of course, I could always just get birth control, and lessen this whole shit. But 1) I can’t afford it 2) I can’t ask my dad to pay for it because, guess what? Just like the men who run my government, my father correlates birth control with sexual promiscuity! Thus, sitting on my rotting blood, undergoing severe cramps that have on more than one occasion caused me to black out, it is! (Not that birth control is such a walk in the park either, our bodies have to learn to deal with the hormones and other chemicals and consequences that birth control entails.)

Then, I get to go to class, where I have to pretend that I am not a leaky faucet of blood and tissue. I get to sit in Calculus, and if heaven forbid, I need an additional pad, I have to be discrete about it, so as not to offend the men’sgentle sensibilitiesto the fact thatI am the one dropping tissues and blood from my body through my vagina.  

I once asked a male to take me to the pharmacy so that I could pick up (GASP) pads, or as we like to call it “feminine products” (again, so as not to offend the gentlemen’s overly sensitive natures) and had him equate me talking about my period to him talking about his erections.

ARE

YOU

FUCKING

KIDDING

ME

No.

This is nothing like your fucking erection’s. I don’t derive any enjoyment from this. I can’t mentally control any ounce of this entire process. I can’tmasturbate my problem away. My period does not end in orgasm.

It stays. For at least five days in my case. Draining blood out of my body. Causing me severe cramps, making me irritable -not because I’m uncomfortable (which mind you,would be reason enough) - but because my hormones are all over the place, bloating me up to two sizes larger than I normally am, I have to actively fight not to smell like a fish market, and on top of that, you want me to be hush-hush about this? Because it’s icky foryou?

And this is not an attack on that one man, this is an attack on ALL MEN who on top of sitting on their throne of gender privilege want me to stay quiet and be content about the fact that five days out of every month I get to undergo thishappiest of joys.

And then, these very same men have theaudacityto get annoyed because we don’t want to listen to their bullshit complaining about traffic? Or whatever other meaningless story they happen to tell us while our bodies are actively fighting against us? Then we get to be the butt of their tired-ass jokes? Sorry, I am most certainly not sorry.

I repeat NO. I say women come out of the period closet and say, “You know what, this happens to me. Every. Fucking. Month. And it’s terrible. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY MORNING.” Because the truth is, if I live in a country where Viagra is covered by medical insurance, but birth control isn’t, I can no longer keep denying that I live in a country that is actively waging a war on women. And if I live in a country that is actively waging war on my sex, the least I am going to do is break patriarchal social propriety to inform anyone and everyone of the shit biological process I was BLESSED enough to be born into.

Hello, my name is Cara, I’m a 21 year old woman, and today I’m on my period. Let me fucking tell you about it.

YES. Thank you. 

This hit home for me because the reason that I got on birth control is because I have a very irregular periods - in fact, if I don’t take medicine I often won’t have one at all. This is called amenorrhea. It can happen for many reasons and is always annoying. 

I’m convinced this whole birth control/women’s health controversy and debate is a product of certain people attempting (and succeeding) to gain media attention. I just can’t believe that some people in America in 2012 can possibly be ignorant enough to think that birth control is unethical. What happened to freedom of choice? How can so many people possibly ignore that and all the health issues?  Why now after birth control has been around for so long? I could rant longer, but I’d rather do something I enjoy so I’m going to go eat a burrito. 

Get over it.

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It’s discouraging and disappointing that this organization refuses to continue funding cancer screenings for women. People’s heath is at stake, yet the “pro-life” organization refuses to see all the good Planned Parenthood does underneath the controversy. 

If this bothers you too, please feel free to sign this petition. 

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1. You might break a nail.

2. You could bruise a male ego or two.

3. You’ll eat properly and still be able to lose fat. Work of the devil!

4. You’ll look more like an athlete and less like a runway model. Skeletal is sexy, right?

5. You’ll be able to lift heavy things without asking a man for help, thus upsetting the balance of the universe.

6. You will be seen in public without high heels.

7. You’ll grunt, sweat and feel sore. So unladylike!

8. You’ll be proud of your pert bum instead of being self conscious about it like a normal woman.

9. You’ll be more active and confident instead of sitting around looking pretty. What are you, some kind of feminist?

10. You’ll be stronger, leaner and sexier – and we all know where that can lead!

Oh, woe!

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Feminism is anything but the rejection of femininity. It is about embracing that femininity and demanding that the world embrace it the way they have embraced masculinity for most of our history. 

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• hellogiggles