Sapphic-bottom - Loving Women

Know their names and their stories.

Women can be investigated for murder for giving birth to a stillborn child or having a miscarriage. Rapists get sentenced to little/no prison and get off without even having to register as a sex offender. Women are still paid less than men. Condoms are free, but birth control is not and some states in the U.S. are even taking away the option for IUDs. After giving birth, women who have ripped their own flesh from the physical trauma of giving birth can be stitched back up and then given one too many stitches to make her “tighter” for her husband, thus why this occurrence is called “the husband stitch”. Men can get themselves sterilized no problem, but women often have issues finding a doctor who will sterilize them without them being married and having their husband’s consent.

Alright, so go ahead. Tell me how feminism isn’t needed anymore. Tell me why you think that any of the above situations are anywhere near the ballpark of being “okay”. But before you open your mouth, think about how you would feel if I had just told you the situation was reversed. What if I told you that men got paid less than women? That if a 12 year old boy got raped by another man, there would be no consequences for the rapist? What if I told you men needed their wife’s permission to get sterilized and if they weren’t married yet then they might have to wait until they are just in case their wife wants kids?

Sexism isn’t a joke. It’s a real problem that affects real people. It’s still a current problem. Just because women can vote and we’re allowed to own land doesn’t mean all of our problems went away.

“An Open Letter to Non-Vaxxers: Tonight, while enjoying a nice dinner, I got a call from the director of my son’s preschool. She was calling to tell me that they had made the decision to put my son in a different class because two children in the class he was supposed to be in have “opted out” of their vaccines. This may not sound like a big thing. He is still in the Tuesday-Thursday class, and since he doesn’t start school until next Tuesday, it’s not like he has to get readjusted to a whole new class. No harm, no foul. Actually, this is a big deal–a very big deal. You see, my son is immunocompromised. He has cancer. He was fully vaccinated and supporting the whole “herd immunity” thing before his cancer diagnosis, but that darn chemo wiped out his immunity to the communicable diseases against which he had already been vaccinated. So, parents who choose to not vaccinate because you feel it’s the “right choice for your family”, I would like to thank you. Thank you for adding yet another worry to my plate and my husband’s plate. You see, we already worry about a lot–it’s an unfortunate part of your child having cancer–you worry every night. On top of worrying about things like relapse, organ toxicity brought on by chemo, debilitating late effects of chemo, secondary cancers brought on by chemo, the mental effects of having more than three years of painful treatment, we now get to worry about, of all things, measles. And mumps. And whooping cough. And chicken pox. Let me explain something about having a child with cancer to you: everything is robbed from your child in some form or another. Friends, Halloween, Christmas, play dates, school. It’s all taken away at some point or another and in some form or another because we have to protect our children from germs, because if they catch the wrong germs during the worst part of treatment, they can die. My son was isolated from everyone except immediate family for an entire year. For parents whose children are going through chemo, the decision to send them to school is a momentous one. It requires a leap of faith and trust in the surrounding community, in your child’s teachers and administrators, and in the families sending their children to school. It requires herd immunity. Now, even though my son is now in a different class than your unvaccinated children, I get to worry about him using the communal bathroom, the playground, and even walking around the halls with them. If there is an outbreak of measles in, say, Austin this winter, I won’t know if you have relatives in Austin and went to go see those relatives for Uncle Bobby’s birthday. I won’t know if your child was exposed to measles at the Austin Chuck-E-Cheese and then showed up at school on Tuesday. Oh, I’m sure you’ll do your due diligence and call the school to inform everyone that your child has come down with a case of the measles once it appears, but, the damage is done–the exposure to my immunocompromised child has already happened. It’s too late. Your choice just earned him a ticket to the hospital. Your choice just earned him a lot of shots and more toxic drugs in the desperate effort to stave off whatever disease your unvaccinated child passed to him. If, God forbid, he does come down with that disease, your choice just earned him a trip to the Pediatric ICU for a while–days, maybe weeks. Your choice may cost us our son. Who knows–it depends on how his already stressed body handles everything. People like to say that in choosing to not vaccinate, they are making the “best choice for their family”, and that, after all, their children are the ones at risk, not other people’s children. No, sorry, you’re wrong. Choosing to home school is a choice that is made in the best interest of a family–it impacts nobody but your family. Choosing to eat all organic and locally grown food is a choice that impacts nobody but your family. For that matter, choosing to eat nothing but fast food and frozen meals is a choice that impacts nobody but your family. Choosing to not vaccinate impacts my family and my immunocompromised son. It impacts the teacher who is pregnant and teaching your non-vaccinated child. It impacts the man going through chemo who happened to be behind you in the grocery store when your unvaccinated child sneezed. It impacts the mom next to you at the pick up line at school who is on immunosuppressive drugs for her rheumatoid arthritis and who is bending down to hug her child just as your unvaccinated child coughs. Your “choice” has repercussions for your community. Part of the cost of living in a first world country is that you have to do things that support the community in which you live. You pay taxes to pay for the police that respond to your 911 calls, to pay for the teachers who teach your children, and to pay for roads to be plowed and paved. You obey traffic laws to ensure an orderly flow of traffic. You don’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater because to do so would cause pandemonium and chaos. Sometimes, to live in a place with the privileges we enjoy here in America, you suck it up and do things you don’t want to do because it’s for the communal good. If everyone chose otherwise, we would not be a first world country. We would be a country without laws, roads, and schools. We would be a country overrun with disease. Your responsibility to your community is to vaccinate your child. The number of people who actually, literally, physically can’t have vaccines is extraordinarily small. The number of people who choose to not vaccinate is not–it’s growing. These people cite a vague unease about the number of vaccines a child gets or statistics they learned from Internet memes on autism. They confess conspiracy theories about Big Pharma and how it’s all a ploy to get doctors and pharmacists rich. They share anecdotes of a college friend’s neighbor’s son who got so sick from his vaccine he was hospitalized. They say their child got incredibly sick from the one round of vaccines he or she got at his 2 month visit, and they said they’re not vaccinating anymore. Guess what–if your child is sitting here today, talking, walking, eating, laughing, playing, and learning, he or she wasn’t that ill from the vaccine. He or she got a fever and reacted to the vaccine–it doesn’t mean they had an “adverse” reaction. I am horrified, non-vaxxers, that you are so quick to forget the lessons of history. You’re spoiled and selfish because you have never seen the horrors of a society in which vaccines are not available. Perhaps you should talk to my mother about her neighbor growing up–the one who contracted German measles while pregnant with her third child. That third child was born deaf and with brain damage, thanks to his mother catching that communicable–and now preventable–disease while pregnant. Perhaps you should talk to anyone over the age of 60 about what it was like when polio was around–how nobody was allowed to go swimming or use public drinking fountains for fear of catching that dreaded–and now preventable–disease. Perhaps you should talk to the parents of a child with cancer whose daughter spent a month in the Pediatric ICU during treatment because she caught chicken pox–a preventable disease–from an unvaccinated classmate. Perhaps you should take a trip to a third world country and explain to them why they should not be lining up in droves to get their children vaccinated by the Red Cross or other relief organizations. Perhaps, better yet, you should keep your children out of school.”

— Alex Pomadoni via Imgur (via whatthesimonsays)

“In 1984, when Ruth Coker Burks was 25 and a young mother living in Arkansas, she would often visit a hospital to care for a friend with cancer.

During one visit, Ruth noticed the nurses would draw straws, afraid to go into one room, its door sealed by a big red bag. She asked why and the nurses told her the patient had AIDS.

On a repeat visit, and seeing the big red bag on the door, Ruth decided to disregard the warnings and sneaked into the room.

In the bed was a skeletal young man, who told Ruth he wanted to see his mother before he died. She left the room and told the nurses, who said, "Honey, his mother’s not coming. He’s been here six weeks. Nobody’s coming!”

Ruth called his mother anyway, who refused to come visit her son, who she described as a "sinner" and already dead to her, and that she wouldn't even claim his body when he died.

“I went back in his room and when I walked in, he said, "Oh, momma. I knew you’d come", and then he lifted his hand. And what was I going to do? So I took his hand. I said, "I’m here, honey. I’m here”, Ruth later recounted.

Ruth pulled a chair to his bedside, talked to him

and held his hand until he died 13 hours later.

After finally finding a funeral home that would his body, and paying for the cremation out of her own savings, Ruth buried his ashes on her family's large plot.

After this first encounter, Ruth cared for other patients. She would take them to appointments, obtain medications, apply for assistance, and even kept supplies of AIDS medications on hand, as some pharmacies would not carry them.

Ruth’s work soon became well known in the city and she received financial assistance from gay bars, "They would twirl up a drag show on Saturday night and here'd come the money. That's how we'd buy medicine, that's how we'd pay rent. If it hadn't been for the drag queens, I don't know what we would have done", Ruth said.

Over the next 30 years, Ruth cared for over 1,000 people and buried more than 40 on her family's plot most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.

For this, Ruth has been nicknamed the 'Cemetery Angel'.”— by Ra-Ey Saley

Girls who can pull off wearing a dress and heels one day and ripped jeans with converse the next can also pull off my underwear

here’s the link to donate to george floyd’s official memorial fund if you are able to contribute. if you can’t donate, please share. being black shouldn’t be a death sentence.

To all the lesbians who gave their first kiss to a boy.

To all the lesbians who aren't "golden star lesbians".

To all the lesbians that had to deal with compulsory heterosexuality.

To all the lesbians who felt pressured by society to be with boys.

To all the lesbians who had a really tough time coming to terms with their identity.

To all the lesbians who put up with any kind of lesbophobia on the daily.

To all the lesbians who have to listen to guys their age sexualizing gay girls.

You are walking through hell with your chin up and I am so proud of you. I love you and you're valid.

17 calorie AMAZING strawberry ice-cream!

okay guys so I was super craving something cold and sweet and tried this out and this tasted SO GOOD. If you want it a bit more creamy add more of the milk of your choice, but this proportion is my fave so far!

(This recipe makes 2 servings, but I could only eat one it’s so filling - I had it for lunch)

🔆 6 medium frozen strawberries (24 cal)

🔆 40 ml of your milk of choice (Alpro coconut almond - 10 cal)

🔆 0 cal sweetener (stevia)

🔆 Lots of ice!

So place all your ingredients in a blender, blend until all the ice has broken down and enjoy! If its runny pop into the freezer for 10 mins and it should firm up to more ice-cream-like consistency 💖