elisi's humble abode

MANY SPOILERS! Proceed at own risk.

( BARBIE SPOILERS )

This #InternationalWomensDay is all about the @PayGapApp bot and all the tweets it’s causing companies to delete once they get called out 🔥 pic.twitter.com/taiPu78BeA

— Dr Kirstie Wright (@rocksandwiggles) March 8, 2022

~

Evacuation at the railway station in Kharkiv.

Photo: Elena Fateeva pic.twitter.com/Aq5bBVKv76

— The New Voice of Ukraine (@NewVoiceUkraine) March 7, 2022

~

This is a very scattered post. Have a beautiful song:

THE SINGER 2017 Sandy Lam 《My Dearest》Ep.4 (Sandy Lam was the winner of the Singer competition the year Dimash was a contestant. She is incredibly famous in China, and it's easy to see why.)

You may have seen quotes or snippets of this, but the whole thing is worth watching.

Last time he was here, we got Brexit.

This time. Well.

But surely you can see the pattern?

ETA: Sad that it’s not coming home and that a lying, misogynist, racist President is coming instead? Here’s a list of the sort of organisations he hates that you can donate to as another form of protest:

https://www.toptrumptargets.uk/

And you can also help the NHS by buying their song and helping them to #1 (multiple links if you go to Twitter):

https://twitter.com/NHSVoices/status/1015128682782953477

On a more serious note, you may have seen this statistic:

BBC: Domestic Abuse Rates increase by 38% when England lose

Information and Support: Domestic abuse
Many links, I am sure most would appreciate a donation.

Mostly I've just been dumping them all in a draft in gmail named 'wimmin'. But I thought it was a shame that they should stay there, so here is the mother of all link posts. A lot about #MeToo and Aziz Ansari and... Just wimmin's stuff generally.

( Read more... )
ETA:

With one week left in our campaign, every pledge helps. We need to raise the whole $20,000 or everything we did raise is lost. Will you get out your credit card? Let's end #domesticviolence homicide → https://t.co/G40WPsMyNl pic.twitter.com/LlFI21JbZb

— Jeanne Geiger Ctr (@JeanneGeigerCtr) March 2, 2018

GRRM: Melantha, Done Right At Last

The Guardian: 'Women are better writers than men': novelist John Boyne sets the record straight
Male authors are always pronouncing their own brilliance – or boasting about not reading books by women. So, after a lifetime of writing and attending literary festivals, John Boyne would like to get something off his chest …

Newsbeat: Colin Kaepernick accepts Muhammad Ali sports award from Beyonce

Pledge: Urgent Legal Action for Our NHS - Round 2

Petition: Richard Branson and Virgin Care: return the NHS’s money, and never sue the NHS again

This is amazing. Follow the link, the threads are golden. Like, crying with laughter:

“I am sorry for all the times I stabbed men, just a little, in my previous workplace. After years of counseling, I stopped stabbing men.”

— Kate Harding (@KateHarding) October 28, 2017

And from Vox:

The double life of the “respectable” men who harass women
Harassers don’t just have power over women. They have the social power to get away with it.
Money quote:

That, right there  —  I’d argue  —  is the impulse behind sexual harassment. It’s about getting away with something. It’s about seeming to be one sort of person, a “pillar of the community”  —  responsible, dignified, respectable, a family man, a liberal, a progressive, Presidential, whatever  —  while really being A Very Bad Boy. That’s exciting for some men. Not the being bad part. The getting-away-with-it part. It isn’t just about power over individuals, the women you victimize. It’s about power over society and the court of public opinion, the thrill of risking everything on one roll of the dice, knowing that it isn’t really all that much of a risk  —  because nobody will believe her.

It struck me as particularly relevant re. Joss...

I just rewatched Mad Max: Fury Road for the first time in about a year and now I'm all in my feels about female characters, so: a thread.

— Foz Meadows (@fozmeadows) September 1, 2017

Read the whole thread. Very much worth your while. Money quote:

That's how implausible female strength is to these people: they literally think it's an element of fantasy worldbuilding, like dragons.

Serendipity is a funny thing...

This whole Joss mess has come along exactly as I decided to finally delve back into the AtS 'verse and finish a WIP I abandoned years ago. (As it happens, it's the only fic I've ever properly planned out, so I found my extensive notes and actually know where the story is going!)

Now, before beginning to write I figured I should probably watch a few episodes, just to make sure I had their voices right in my head; so I watched A Hole in the World and Shells. And it's a fascinating exercise in doublethink (doubleview?).

Like, I love the 'verse. I love the characters. I love the story. I will always be grateful to Joss & co for creating this world.

But there is also the fact that (the very very special) Fred has SIX men standing around her bedside. All of them going to go out and try to SAVE her. (See subject line...)

As you know, the only other women (still standing) in the extended cast are Harmony (who is delightful, but mostly comic relief) and Eve, who is very powerful yet lost all agency the second she lost her boyfriend. ETA: Oh and there's Nina too. I like Nina. It's sad her role never extends beyond Being The Girlfriend.

The interesting thing is that the same week my girls decided to watch [the new movie version of] Les Mis.

And it was exactly the same thing:

- Men make things happen.

- Women have things happen to them.

This is why Buffy (and Wonder Woman, Rey, et al) are so special. They make things happen.

(Possibly more musings later, but this is a pretty well-trodden path, and I'm preaching to the choir...)


Also I'm realising this is probably a pretty awful way to try to get people to read my 'Spike & Angel & Illyria go on an epic quest to undo the power of W&H' story, as it's rather male-centric. AH WELL. It's not like LJ is teeming with people reading AtS fic anymore. Although I should probably point out that there's a good deal of Buffy & her Slayer army in it too...

For those who want to try (and the lovely handful which read the first few chapters back in 2013 when I started posting and might want to have another look), you can find the fic here (well, the first 7 chapters):

Divided Destiny

More chapters coming soon! :D (*crickets*)

'Peter and Jane and Mummy Too' writes about International Women's Day.
Random quote (it's all good):

Women’s rights have come so far in just the last 100 years, but despite that, predictions suggest that the gender gap won’t fully close until 2186 (World Economic Forum). So, true equality may possibly not exist until our granddaughters’ granddaughters’ granddaughters’ time. That’s why the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Be Bold For Change’, because there is still so much more to change, and 169 years is too long to wait!