Today, a brief foray into racist conspiracy theory, courtesy of the Men’s Rights subreddit. This is from a discussion of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s internet porn ban, which the Men’s Rightsers seem to think was orchestrated by the evil feminist overlords.
Lovely! You may wish to peruse k66ish’s comment history for many other nuggets of wisdom that may involve use of the word “cunt.”
Thanks to Cloudiah for pointing this one out in the comments here.
emilygoddess — or any of the many things spread out in front of me because my dumb ass thought sewing on a leather toggle would be a hell of a lot easier than it is. I mean, my pen-knife knife-pen alone has one very sharp pokey thing (excellent as a leather punch); two lengths of xacto types blades and saw blades, 3 of each; tweezers, wire stripper, flat head and philips screwdrivers. I could take your eye out and connect it to a circuit board! (Or stab myself in the thumb repeatedly while cursing about leather, either way)
Hmm…actually, most of my sewing box. My fabric scissors Do. Not. Go. Near. Paper., snips, two jewelry pliers and a wire cutter, oodles of sharp wire, dear gods does anyone need that many pins and needles! Safety pins…
I mean, TSA would have a field day with my sewing supplies and all purpose pen (um, the pen itself sucks actually XD )
This comment brought to you by the letter Y (am I sewing leather) and the number 10 (the number of holes punched in said leather).
@emilygoddess
Yes. That. Ugh. So glad I’m in Canada these days.
Oh dear… Argenti, we have two pairs of scissor’s, and the husband knows he’s not to use mine, because mine are The Holy Fabric Scissors, but they’re both the same colour so I freak out every time he’s using any scissors because I think they’re mine. Also now I miss my jewelry pliers and box of odds and ends and whatnot… I can’t wait until I can have all my things back out of storage *sheds a single tear*
What leathery thing are you making? I haven’t ventured into leather yet myself, but I’m kind of considering the idea of trying out glovemaking.
dustydeste — I’m just adding a toggle clasp to the um, little bag attached to my big bag. So this really shouldn’t be that hard!
Since this really isn’t remotely on the scale of gloves, I haven’t much to offer besides punch the holes first and make sure everything lines up.
And hell yes for The Holy Fabric Scissors! The polyester lining on that jacket was bad enough without the scissors catching, nobody touches my fabric scissors! I hope you get your odds and ends box out of storage soon.
RE: M Dubz
Yup. And I also ran into folks who seemed to rank kinkiness on whether you were in ‘the scene’ or not; your private life didn’t count.
Seeing as I find the scene really dubious and full of horror stories, it just wasn’t worth it to me.
@LBT- Thank God I seem to have developed an everyday superpower to attract sane and rational kinky people to myself as friends through college, grad school, whatever. Plus there was that rather large contingent of us who were friends in HS and then all looked at each other about a year ago and went … you too??? okay, great. let’s get pizza.
I don’t play with any of these people unless I’m dating them, but I can talk about my sex life like a human being without worrying about hiding anything. Which is really exactly the level that I want my kink in the public sphere. I have friends who are in the local kink community, and meeting some of their kink friends… well… hm.
Argenti Aertheri,
You wrote,
——————————————————————————————————————–
I don’t follow where that change should be made, in part because burqas and hijabs are very, very different.
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I’m aware but I was pointing out that some Muslim women don’t ware Burqas or Hijabs contrary to the stereotype. Also there are lot of Muslim men who clearly don’t have a problem with women, including Muslim women choosing not to ware either of them.
Ah, ok, I get where that change was supposed to be made then. I was just confused since plenty of Muslim women chose to wear hijabs, but idk if anyone chooses to wear a burqa, but certainly not nearly as many as wear hijab.
Oh and just Argenti is fine, you can drop Aertheri if you want.
Argenti Aertheri,
Glad I was able to clear things up. Sorry about any confusion I may have caused.
“Replace your meaningless, fear-mongering buzzword with my own meaningless, fear-mongering and you’re spot on!”
My Holy Fabric Scissors were stolen by those morons at airport security!
/rage
Maybe, with enough tuna, you could bribe Mads or Fribs to use their claws to cut the fabric?
Knowing Mads she’d just try to chew it (more yarn than fabric these days).
@LBT
Yep. It doesn’t help that the BDSM scene has legit reasons to fear outsiders finding out about them, a fact which abusers are all too happy to use to their advantage.
@Argenti
I’ve read articles about an activist in Paris who still wears her head-to-toe, face-covering garment (I don’t remember if it’s a burqa or something else) in defiance of the ban. I’ll see if I can google up something.
Also, I’ve occasionally wondered if the expectation (or option) of covering yourself from head to toe would make “passing” a whole lot easier for trans* women in those cultures.
Dustydeste:
Face-concealing masks aren’t generally banned in public streets, only in more high-security environments. This is why Islamic face veils aren’t banned in public streets either.
This brouhaha is specifically about face veils (niqab) and not the more mainstream kind that only covers your hair/neck (since some people in this thread seem confused about that). That said, I don’t doubt that the people who want to ban niqabs also feel (to a lesser extent) threatened by all Islamic veils and would ban them if they could.
Heck, probably some of the people who supported the French niqab ban thought they were banning all Islamic veils. It’s not like western bigots are well-versed in these issues.
I honestly thought France had banned the wearing of “overt religious symbols” (as a way of eliminating all Islamic head-coverings without appearing to target them). I could, of course, be wrong.
OK, Google tells me that law only applies to schools, and/or that I was thinking of Turkey.
There was an interview in our morning paper a couple of years ago with a few women who wore niqabs and discussed their various reasons for choosing to do so, and how pissed off they were at the assumption that obviously they must have been forced to do so, or possibly brainwashed into thinking they wanted it themselves although they don’t really. And then one of them added that “obviously, some people reading this interview will think I’ve been brainwashed into claiming I’m not brainwashed” or something like that.
Personally, I think it seems really uncomfortable to be covered up to that extent. Personally, I would also hate to be a sex worker, I really don’t understand people who say they like that line of work, and it’s also completely beyond me how people can get any sexual pleasure out of being beaten etc. BUUUUUUT I can’t generalize from that to the conclusion that nobody chooses to do so, that everyone who does any of these things is either forced to or somehow brainwashed.
I really think there are a lot of parallels between how some feminists speak of sex workers and women who are veiled up.
I should add that I’m not exactly contradicting you, Argenti, since you didn’t write “I’m certain nobody chooses to wear a burqua!” and I also think that choosing to cover your face is not all that common. Just that it exists.
It gets murky to me. There are societal pressures that can’t be easily untangled from our personal choices.
I work in some very male dominated fields. I’m rewarded overtly for my interest in them. Can I ever say ‘well, I just chose them because I like them’ knowing that women who make the same choices have to fight to be accepted?
A woman who chooses to be a stay at home mother and says it’s her choice–that’s fine and great and good, but at the same time, there’s a lot of work to be done around making sure that women who choose not to aren’t judged, and that nobody is pressuring women to only be stay at home mothers.
Head coverings and sex work? It can be a valid choice, but we still need to talk about societal pressure.
I have to run, but wanted to clarify that I had completely forgotten about niqabs and wouldn’t lump them in with burqas. I can get that some women choose to wear them, the idea of choosing the wear the stereotypical COVER ALL THE THINGS burqa…that I can’t wrap my head around.
You’re an awesome-people magnet? I’m impressed. And jely. Very jely.
My superpower is just making other people forget stuff. Hence, Amnesia. Feel free to blame all things you forgot on me. Heck, I’m pretty sure I made Linkara forget his badge at a con one time.
>>>Face-concealing masks aren’t generally banned in public streets
They are in Montreal now. Fucking liberticidal laws. A few people wearing a mask is a motive for declaring the entire demo illegal, and the cops have whisked a few friends of mine (including my lover) from the streets just for wearing a scarf.
@Arctic Ape
I guess I was just under the impression that mask laws were more common in the States than they actually are, due to my living in Virginia for a good bit, where state law explicitly forbids the wearing of masks in public by those over 16, with a few caveats.
For the record, to be entirely clear, I am totally against banning any veils, hijab, burqa, or niqab. I think any such ban would cause many, many more problems than it would solve. I just can give credence to a comparison between mask laws and potential veil laws. I think the mask law is unnecessary and problematic, but I can see where, from a purely legal perspective, it could be used as a jumping-off point for initiating a veil ban as well. I would hope that any such laws that came to be passed in the States would be challenged and defeated on terms of religious freedom and/or freedom of speech/expression.