Month: April 2016

What do you do in half an hour?

hcconn:

If I offered you $4 to come to my house and make me dinner and wash my dishes afterwards, would you do it? Probably not. But that’s what a minimum wage worker at McDonald’s can do in a half hour.

What about $8 to come over and play with my kid and teach her to read and change her if she needs it and do all other assorted activities for an hour? Again, probably not. But that’s what a day care worker might do in an hour.

If I paid you $4, would you come over and make my bed and vaccume my room and do some of my laundry and clean my bathroom and pick up trash and dust? Probably not but that’s what a hotel maid might do in half an hour.

When you break it down into smaller increments it’s obvious that people need to be paid more, that the minium wage is pathetic.

i know it isnt your job to explain, but that twitter thing between lena dunham and the other person about sex work… how does the original tweet (lena dunham’s) add to systemic misogyny? i dont really understand.

tessfowler:

lady-feral:

It’s the fact that so many people talk about sex work as if it is the only variety of labor that is dehumanizing. It’s very telling that as a culture we refer to sex work, and sex work only as selling one’s body, when hard physical labor, military service, hours behind a cash register, being crammed into a cubicle doing mindless data entry, compromising one’s values because management requires one to push predatory lines of credit etc. ad nauseum literally ALL are demeaning and dehumanizing. It is misogyny and misogyny alone that criticizes a woman for being paid for sex while glorifying a man for joining the military and killing other human beings.

Why is it that as a trans woman I would be vilified for paying my bills by opening my legs but as a man all of the degradation and abuse I received when I literally gave up my freedom didn’t subject me to the same criticism? Was I not selling access to my body? Every worker in a capitalist system is required to trade their body, health, and labor for the basic necessities of life, but only sex workers face this ridiculous double standard.

Lady Feral being my hero once again. I love her.

escavel:

sopphistries:

tittyrants:

fire-lord-frowny:

It really, REALLY bothers me when I hear people frame climate change and other environmental crises as something that everyday, average-ass people are responsible for, and not corporations and entire governments. 

Like literally, how can a regular-ass person ~opt out~ of all damaging behaviors while still being able to function in society? 

You literally can’t. 

The future of our planet is not down to whether or not someone recycles their water bottle. 

It’s down to whether or not governments and corporations decide to quit sucking up all our resources and poisoning the earth with reckless abandon. 

I mean obviously people should still live as cleanly and as sustainably as they can manage where they are and with what they have, but like. THAT isn’t the major issue. 

govts and corporations have deliberately put the onus on yr individual choices so the system can continue being as destructive/profitable

God bless this post this pisses me off so much

Also this hyper-individualist shift of responsibility is largely an American thing and consumerism is framed as a solution- e.g., buy more shit that’s sustainable! That’ll fix the problem (buy a new, green water bottle! buy a new, green car! buy a new, green whatever-the-fuck that’ll just ultimately produce more waste)!

I took a course in sustainable engineering.

The professor mentioned that even if every private individual in the world were to conserve resources and the environment the ol’ Jimmy Carter way- by turning down the thermostat, recycling your glass and plastics and metals, cut down on luxuries, take shorter showers, etc., it would only get us 10% of the way to where we need to be in order to avoid global catastrophic climate change.

The vast majority of freshwater use is from industry and agriculture. http://www.worldometers.info/water/ 

The vast majority of CO2 emissions is from industrial and electrical generation sites and associated vehicles. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

Private individuals hardly make a dent, even in ideal conditions.

prokopetz:

I hate to be the one to break this to you, dude, but as a general rule, women don’t pretend to virulently hate men they’re secretly in love with as some sort of elaborate courtship ritual. That’s a trope we made up to justify why the male protagonist always gets the girl in the end even when it’s starkly at odds with prior characterisation. In real life, if she acts like she thinks you’re a creep, it’s because she thinks you’re a creep!