I like this tree because it looks like an elegant staircase, so I put a camera there. There wasn’t a lot of traffic but I loved this sweet Junco lady who sat just there for a bit. The females of the slate-colored variety we have around here have browns and peach tones, just like you see here.
See that picture above? That’s a close up of my great grandmother’s immigration papers when she first came to the US back in the early 20th century. But my great grandma’s information isn’t the important part here. The important part is that line in the middle there about how they arrived in the country.
And how ‘stowaway’ is a legitimate, valid option to select.
So yeah. They absolutely just showed up, and that part of immigration history needs to be talked about a lot more.
REMINDER THAT TRAVEL VISAS AS WE KNOW THEM TODAY WERE INVENTED IN THE 1930S TO KEEP JEWISH REFUGEES OUT OF COUNTRIES THAT DID NOT WANT AN ‘INFLUX’ OF THEM, THEREBY FACILITATING THEIR GENOCIDE :)))))
When I was Mormon, the ages for missions were 19 for men and 21 for women.
Before my faith.exe program suddenly crashed, I was doing everything I could think of to keep it running. I knew the church had to be true, and I knew it wasn’t working for me, so I knew there had to be something I needed to change so I could make it work, because it had to work.
When I was 19 my faith finally shut off. Without my permission seemingly all at once I didn’t believe any more. And I couldn’t believe again if I wanted to. Some part of my brain working on the problem without me finally saw the magic trick and it didn’t matter what I wanted to believe anymore, because I couldn’t undo what I knew. And what I knew was that actually it didn’t make any sense and it couldn’t be made to make sense.
A few years later, the church changed mission ages from 19 and 21 to 18 and 19.
And I was like, oh no. Because I am absolutely positive if that had been the case when I was that age, while I was in a furor trying to make the the church work for me, I would’ve absolutely signed up for a mission. In an attempt to get closer to god, to the truth, to inner peace, I would’ve tacked all my hopes in this mission to bring me absolute faith. There’s no way I wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity.
I don’t know what would’ve happened in that timeline. Maybe I would’ve gotten my endowment and immediately been like “actually, I can’t.” Maybe I would’ve made it to the MTC, but given up before the mission proper. Or maybe I would’ve gone on the mission, married a Mormon man, had Mormon babies, and perpetuated the cycle. I don’t know.
But I do know, whether it only would’ve extended my loyalty to the church by a few months or by years or by my whole life, I would’ve stayed longer. They would’ve retained me by forcing a commitment out of me when I was just barely out of high school.
Now imagine if all that social pressure was also funded by taxpayers and proudly displayed on mainstream tv and film.
I keep seeing people try to dismiss my sympathy and advocacy for veterans by saying “Actually, most recruits aren’t lower class they’re middle class! And actually the greatest predictor of who is recruited is whether their family is also in the military!” As some kind of “gotcha”. And I’m just like.
I mean.
Yeah.
The military is a cult.
Most cults get most of their members by retaining the children of existing members and raising them in the cult. The greatest predictor of whether you will be in a cult is if your parents are.
Stuff about vulnerable populations and poverty only apply to converts. You don’t have to wait for people to be desperate and impressionable if you can get them when they’re kids.
I hadn’t figured out my way out of my cult when I was 18. If I had been expected or encouraged to sign a contract of commitment, I would have. And if breaking that contract was a federal crime? All the more reason not to question it, to protect myself from the repercussions of the answers.
“They’re not victims, they’re just military brats copying their parents” is not the gotcha you think it is.
I can, in fact, still feel sympathy for them, and outrage on their behalf.
The military industrial complex is a machine of imperialism and colonialism and capitalism. The US military is a global terrorist organization. And like most terrorist organizations, it’s a cult. And I have sympathy for cult survivors.
Hospitals are struggling for nurses right now because people are leaving the profession entirely or leaving for temporary travel contract positions that pay well. They have been treated poorly, underpaid for the work they do, and inadequately protected this year, and they’re done.
My brother in law said they’re advertising for a position in his normal unit, offering twice his salary. But they won’t offer him extra to stay after risking his life working in the COVID unit for months, so he’s out. It’s absolutely insulting, and so many industries are going to have a major reckoning coming up.
My father retired early because they refused to hire just one person to help with the work load. They had to hire 5 people to replace him.
This is a common occurrence amongst his retired coffee group.
One lady was a head nurse that ran two floor at her hospital. They wanted her to take on more work. She agreed to do so oy if they gave her a small raise and hired an assistant for her. They refused so she retired early. They had to replace her with 20 people.
You are NOT replaceable!!! They tell you this to make you complacent to their exploration of you.
For the record this is missing the post where he explains that she didnt go in specifically to harrass the worker. She went in there just to inform something along the lines of “ i know you dont have control of this but the sign is misleading and I need to tell your manager” but then the worker started preaching the “true science” and girl had the green light to go to war from there
the absolute BEST rival dynamic is where one of them is like “you are my equal unlike any other, you respect me and my power even if you disagree with my methods, i will only die by your hand and you by mine, perhaps i want your attention perhaps i love you, together we challenge each other to unseen heights, we are each other’s destiny, we are intrinsically linked,” and the other person is genuinely like “please die”
You know maybe amatonormativity exists but it’s hard to say that when I’m 90% sure gay people were not being encouraged to seek out relationships by the wider culture until maybe 2005-ish
what’s amatonormativity?
A Tumblr-based sociological theory that boils down to “compulsory alloromanticism” but I’ve also seen it defined to include monogamy as another expectation under the header of amatonormativity
Amatonormativity is not tumblr based- it was not created on tumblr nor was it popularised on tumblr. Amatonormativity was not even coined by asexual people or with asexual people in mind exclusively.
Amantonormativity was coined by feminist academic Elizabeth Brake in her book “Minimising Marriage” to refer to:
the assumptions that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. (Source)
Amatornormativity doesn’t just affect asexual and aromantic people. Whilst it’s often asexual and aromantic people you see talking about amatonormativity (because we become hyper aware of it due to how it affects us), it actually impacts the lives of people of all orientations, including LGBT+ people.
Amatonormativity in practice is…
The assumption that all single people are unhappy with their status and looking not to be single.
“Coming of age” milestones often revolving around romantic accomplishments (first kiss, first crush, first love, marriage, etc).
Non romantic partnerships (sexual or platonic) being looked down upon.
A sort of relationship hierarchy where marriage is at the top and everything else falls somewhere below it.
The expectation for romantic partners to be more important than jobs, hobbies or other commitments in a person’s life. And the belief that people who choose to pursue the former are selfish.
People who are not seeking exclusive romantic relationships being seen as less mature, stable, trustworthy or settled.
The structuring of laws and society on the basis that eventually everyone will be in a committed romantic partnership (marriage).
The toxic idea of a “friendzone” (which of course, overlaps with misogyny), where friendship with a woman is seen as “second prize” to a relationship with her.
People settling for someone they’re not really happy with or compatible with just to fulfil the desire or expectation to have a partner.
Non-aromantic asexual people trying to normalise their orientation by saying they can still “fall in love” or “have relationships” “just like anyone else”.
Asexual people or people who don’t feel attraction to anyone feeling pressured to seek out and enter into relationships.
And much more…
Violations of amatonormativity would include dining alone by choice, putting friendship above romance, bringing a friend to a formal event or attending alone, cohabiting with friends, or not searching for romance. (Source)
Also the way turning down a request for a date, while single, is often viewed as some sort of terrible insult instead of an analysis of poor compatibility.
Also the idea that it’s wrong to break up with someone unless they’ve done something objectively terrible enough to “deserve it” rather than because the relationship isn’t doing anything for you.
It also encourages people to stay in abusive relationships because it pushes being in a relationship is the highest priority/being alone is terrible.
Also….
“I’m 90% sure gay people were not being encouraged to seek out relationships by the wider culture until maybe 2005-ish”
Yes.
Yes, they were.
They were encouraged to seek out heterosexual relationships.
You can’t uncouple Amantonormativity from Heteronormativity. One is built into the other. Heteronormativity means there is one right way to have a life, and that way is being straight, is falling in love, being monogamous, is complying to certain standards of beauty, it’s being white and thin and abled.
ALL of those things go into the ideal norm that is oppressing ALL OF US. It doesn’t matter in WHICH way you stray from the heteronormative ideal — if you’re polyamorous or if you’re gay or if you don’t fall in love or you love while disabled. ANY WAY you stray from it is punished.
Amatonormativity is not just “you must fall in love.” It’s “You must fall in love in the right way with the right person.”
So yes, amatonormativity is absolutely linked to heteronormativity.
And, as ace-and-ranty hinted, it is also linked to the supremacy of monogamy. Amatonormativity also excludes all forms of polyamory.
It also has something to do with why gays successfully got gay marriage before they got, say, “federal protection from discrimination in adoption cases” or “the right to be gender nonconforming in public school”. People who think it’s weird to see a man in a dress can still wrap their head around “he wants to marry the man he loves” because all you did was swap the expected pronouns.
Amatonormativity does pressure people into heteronormative relationships, but it also exists within the gay community and allies, to place a monogamous marriage to a same-sex partner above, say, a polyamorous polycule, or an asexual living with a queerplatonic friend.
Add to the list: the expectation that various other things should be cheerfully sacrificed for the health of the marriage. If one partner suddenly wants more kids, or for their partner to quit a job/turn down a promotion/break off a friendship, people will often view the other partner as selfish and unreasonable if they don’t put “the marriage” (really the other person’s wants, disguised as or promoted to the whole marriage) ahead of their own priorities and desires, even if the other person has suddenly dropped a completely unexpected wish on their heads after never indicating such an issue previously.
I’ve seen a Reddit thread where someone’s significant other—girlfriend, not spouse—wanted them to break off a lifelong (20+ year) close friendship due to feelings of insecurity about the relationship, and there were people lining up to insist that the romantic relationship took precedence over the friendship, and I wanted to make an account and jump in asking them how many of their exes they considered more important than their longest-lasting, closest friendship.
Not only because romantic relationships don’t always last and this person was statistically likely to become an ex, and not just because isolating one’s significant other from their friends is usually a red flag, but because the friendship had not been concealed from the significant other and either they hadn’t been around long enough to attain seriousness enough to jettison a lifelong friendship over (for the same reason you don’t marry someone you’ve known for a couple months) or they’d sprung this on the OP out of nowhere after it not being a problem previously. Either way, a lifelong friendship has value and it’s weird to see people think it should be so lightly discarded, just because Romantic Relationship More Important (regardless of length or quality).
There’s also a tendency, running alongside the primacy of the romantic partnership, to view a person who’s become your romantic partner as yours to change, or even view your desire for a particular person to expect them to change to get you.
People do a disturbing amount of getting with someone they’re not well compatible with just because they like them in other ways, with the full intention of expecting them to change once they’re dating, or demanding that they change once the relationship is established enough to be painful if broken, hoping and often banking on the other person reshaping themselves for the relationship. People also do a disturbing amount of lying about themselves to make themselves temporarily more attractive, in the hopes of getting the other person attached before they reveal the truth.
(While we’re at it, add the viewing of unrequited romantic love as a preventable tragedy that could be fixed by the recipient “giving them a chance” or trying to love them back or just accepting a relationship with them, especially as if they get to claim placeholder rights if the person is single. For that matter, add the tendency to preface and pre-strengthen an attempt to date someone by asking if they’re single.)
Ironically but unsurprisingly, a whole goddamn lot of the functions of amatonormativity come at the expense of actual love.
an attempt at a summary for @howdytheredemonsitsme-star and others: amatonormativity is the societal expectation that you’ll form a romantic partnership with only one person of the “correct” gender, and that relationship is ranked above all your other relationships. The various above reblogs talk about the way that expectation affects many parts of our lives.
Ok, this is a little niche, but I have a theory for all you Discworld fans. Why doesnt Carrot have a beard?
A few facts to start with:
1. All Dwarves have beards.
2. Carrot is, culturally, a dwarf. He sees himself as a dwarf and other dwarfs accept him as such. (He’s just a very tall dwarf.)
So why would Carrot NOT have a beard, if all Dwarves have beards and Carrot is a dwarf? Would he choose to shave? Why? He wouldnt, right? Is there some reason he CANT grow a beard?
Another fact to remember about Disc Dwarfs:
All Dwarves are raised as men. Regardless of their biological sex and whether they are XX or XY, they are men, they use he/him pronouns, etc. (The fact that some dwarves have begun to identify and present as women is very recent in Disc history after all, and not all XX dwarves identify or present as women)
So, follow me here- the Dwarves in the mountain find a human baby. Regardless of that baby’s biological sex, they would be raised as a dwarf boy/man, yeah?
So…. may I present the theory- the reason that Carrot, a dwarf man, has no beard is because, you following, he is biologically an XX human. The fact that he cant grow a beard doesnt make him less of a dwarf man than the fact that he is 6+ feet tall.
ALT
