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"Within the current ‘postfeminist’ climate, young women are constituted as subjects of ‘capacity’ in terms of their educational and occupational attainment (McRobbie 2007). Education and employment are the privileged routes to female success and mobilization and can only be capitalized upon by those positioned to do so. Not all young women benefit equally in these hierarchies of ability and attainment. Those from middle-class families are more likely to become part of the new competitive ‘career’ elite, whereas working-class girls are resigned to more routine work and have ‘jobs’. Yet these young women are still expected to get a degree and show flexibility, capacity and individualism pin a labour market which otherwise deems them as occupational and educational failures."

- Rebecca Brown and Melissa Gregg, in “The Pedagogy of Regret: Facebook, binge drinking and young women” (x)

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firstwavefeminist:

People often use the argument that if we were to ban internet pornography from public library computers that it would be a slippery slope to censorship of material throughout the library system and that big brother would take over and end freedom as we know it.

This isn’t exactly logical as accessing pornography in a public place where others are exposed to it isn’t a human right nor does it have any intellectual merit whatsoever despite the fact that many of its producers may wear glasses.

We’re always told as women, when we raise objections to pornography that if we don’t like it we don’t have to watch it, we can spend our lives without being exposed to it (if only that were true) if we want so we need to shut up and let others be because consent forms.

But the library is a public place, where mainly women work.  Where low income women use computers to look for jobs, cheap housing and opportunity to better themselves.  The women who work in libraries have to deal with men jerking off to other women being abused in front of them, and also have to deal with the semen they leave under the desks.  Low income women have to deal with semen on the computers they’re using as well.  They also have to deal with sitting next to a man masturbating.  Viewing other low income women being prostituted on film.  

It makes sense now why there’s very little objection to it doesn’t it? This is an issue that mainly effects public employees and low income women, who have no right to be free of sexual exploitation, it has to be in our communities and minds always.

Áll feminists should be alarmed by the fact that the poorer you are the more likely you are to be exposed to pornography. I have the luxury to sit at home and do my work on my own computer with the help of my own internet connection. Poorer women cannot do that and have to deal with men consuming pornography in public libraries (because they themselves are poor or want to keep it secret from family, friends and relatives).  Or think about the fact that sex industries are usually located in the more deprived parts of cities.

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petitesurrealiste:

the public/private school divide (which is huge, particularly in this country) is the key means of reproducing class distinctions in the next generation.  as a former public school kid who now goes to an “elite” university, I cannot begin to express how true this is.

nothing sickens me more than public funding for private schools

it’s cool man, we’ll learn math from burned-out depressed teachers in portable classrooms with no air conditioning in 40 degree weather with 30+ kids while listening to rats breeding in the roof

and that was a very nice public school

if you can spend a day in the underprivileged schools in the west and tell me afterwards why rich peoples’ kids deserve a higher standard of education and ultimately a far superior standard of living (and let’s consider where that wealth came from, hmm? - oh yes, it’s neoliberal capitalism so obviously hard work lol lol), then you are truly reprehensible

/drunk class rage

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"

The middle class and the poor seldom encounter each other, and so, as a woman born to poverty, the naming of the middle class as the ultimate classist aggressor seems ludicrous to me. I am not unaware of how the middle class benefits from the oppression of the poor, but in my neighborhoods, it was not the middle class who were arresting us and shaking us down. It was not the middle class beating us up, spitting on us, robbing us of our integrity. It is the working class who actively and vehemently hate the poor.

In radical lesbian discussions of classism, poverty is occasionally included as a subgroup of the working class. The sardonic irony of this is astonishing. The working class affirm repeatedly that their families never took a dime that they hadn’t earned, that they would have died rather than accept welfare or food stamps. They rankle at being treated like poor people, at being regarded as part of the undeserving and unfortunate teeming masses. They make little or no attempt to hide their contempt for what they regard as the lazy, crazy, criminal, poverty class, and yet no one ever calls them on their own classism. In fact, their claims to hard working virtue are offered as proof that the working class absolutely does not deserve to bear the burden of classist oppression. This very argument implies that the poor do deserve to be oppressed.

"

- from No Mercenary Warrior by Bridget Collins (via medusasseveredhead)

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Rosie the Riveter represented working-class women

life-tbd:

Let me repeat that, working. class. women.

Not all women’s rights. Not feminism.

Working. Class. Women.

While the message falls under feminism, it caters to a specific group of women.

Please remember that that next you decied to dress up like her.

Or make art work incorporating her image.

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lilacturtl:

uncdan:

stfuhypocrisy:

pastaistheopiateofthemasses:

religiousragings:

cheatsheet:

In case you’re a graduate of one of the many colleges in North Carolina and were feeling embarrassed. (via Buzzfeed)

If this doesn’t say something to you, you are almost certainly green.

Discrimination is a trait of the ignorant. 

This puts everything into perspective

Some nice evidence that education is generally progressive. In other words, smart people are generally progressive people.

Classism will get you nowhere. Cut this bullshit out.

“Smart people are progressive” is well, an ego syntonic delusion let’s call it that. Smart people can be all over the board, politically. But conservatives believe the same thing about themselves, and can pull up anecdata to “prove” it as much as this map proves anything.

Poor, disenfranchised people are more likely to belong to traditional religions. Maybe in part because while smug, white agnostics from NYC treat them like shit, their fundamentalist pastor preaches a reassuring and empowering message that helps them cope with the fact that this nation sold them out, as poor people, ages ago, and that there is less and less hope of seeing that “American dream” every day.

Poor, disenfranchised people might think gay marriage is something being foisted on them by sneering, kale-swilling city progressives who think they are ignorant pieces of shit.

Just something to consider.