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Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Mood: Don't Bring Me Down..

Don't
Bring
Me
Down.

Between this being day two of non-stop, very gray rain,

And me getting my period at the EXACT moment I needed to leave the house this morning,

I am in NO mood to be brought down today.

I feel as ferocious as a angry Lion.



Just don't bring me down, ok? Thx.


WTS.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Edgy Breastfeeding Clothing Line


Breastfeeding gets such a bad rap these days. At least breastfeeding in public. It's ok for adults to eat in public, but not babies. I don't understand why people feel so uncomfortable seeing a woman do one of the most natural functions known to humankind.
When witnessing public breastfeeding, people seem so taken aback and flustered.




Many women are often met with "You should take that to a restroom!" 

Do we need to discuss public restrooms people? 

Half the time their unsuitable for peeing, let alone feeding an infant. Who the hell wants to eat in a room that smells like poop? Or worse?

Although this clothing line may not take away any of the stigma of public breastfeeding, it at least makes it easier for mothers to get their breast out and back in again quickly. A line equipped with numerous zippers and cool style, it's made public (and non-public) nursing  that much easier.

We all deserve to eat in peace. This includes the lil' bambinos who still need mommy's breast to survive. Way to go Leche Libre! You've freed the nipple all while providing a stylish way to do it. Moms everywhere take off their hats to you..

And their bras. 



- WTS

#freethenipple #feedthechildren 






Andrea Newberry didn't go to an expensive design school or work for years in fashion houses before starting Leche Libre. She felt the sea of stretch jersey and spaghetti straps among nursing tops and dresses left her feeling frumpy. As for style, nobody's out there winning awards for cool breastfeeding design. Up until now, nursing moms might as well put their personalities on a shelf. Refusing to lose her sense of self and personal expression, Newberry took on the problem using the fundamentals of pre-school education: if you can't go around it, and you can't go through it, you have to go over it — with really cool zippers.

And with that, Leche Libre was born.




For the past few years, Newberry has worked on perfecting Leche Libre, a hip clothing collection for breastfeeding moms. The innovation is simple, yet effective. Vertical zippers that run over the bust make it easy to comfortably nurse anywhere, any time. No more blankets over shoulders, no more bathroom stalls, no more awkward hiding in the corner. These designs are comfortable, chic, and functional.

Just zip and sip, baby.

Besides the technical triumphs of Leche Libre, the designs are just damn cool. Newberry's collection presents true closet staples — the little black dress, the structured black jacket/sweatshirt, the effortlessly cool tunic — that women can wear with confidence long after the baby's been fed. And this ain't no fast fashion falls-apart-in-one-wash rodeo. Moms deserve something sturdy and they get it with this line.

What you get with Leche Libre:
  • BOTH stylish and functional nursing apparel with looks you'll want to wear whether you're breastfeeding or not. 
  • Zippers along the bust provide easy and discreet nursing access so you can never worry about breastfeeding in public again. 
  • Nurture yourself AND your baby at the same time with styles that allow you to represent your individuality while being the best mom you can be. 
  • Versatile garments perfect for professional settings with easy pumping access! 
  • Garments which are ethically manufactured in the USA to empower women on both sides of the transaction.


To support and/or order from Leche Libre:

https://leche-libre.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders and pre-order one of the new items in the collection.

I think this line is FAB! The holidays are among us. This would be a great present for any new or nursing mothers you may know. The combination of style and functionality is truly a gift.

Source
Author
Leche Libre Facebook

Thursday, November 17, 2016

White Women Voted for Trump in 2016 because They Still Believe White Men Are Their Saviors






White women have a history of betraying their sisters. The 2016 election was no exception. According to exit polls, 53% of white women in America voted for Donald Trump. The pattern of white women choosing white men over women of color underscores some of the more insidious machinations of patriarchy and the racism ingrained in the feminist movement. White women's modus operandi for gaining power—economic, political, and otherwise—is simple: acquire power from those who have it. And those who've historically have had it are white men. This has resulted in white women's historic abandonment of their black and brown sisters, as well as their more heinous adoption of white supremacist rhetoric to advance their own status.


These ethically unjustifiable strategies are evident in some of the feminist movement's darkest days, beginning with the fight for suffrage. After the decision was made to exclude women from the 15th Amendment, which gave free black men the right to vote, leading suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted blatantly racist rhetoric. Frustrated with the stonewalling of women's suffrage, they actively courted and collaborated with white supremacists in exchange for financial assistance to advance their cause. By aligning themselves with white men, these early feminists turned their back on black women and even black suffragists. White male supremacists welcomed the coalition, as Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in a piece at the Atlantic, because it would shore up white nationalism at the voting booths.

During the next wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, a similar strategy played out, this time on a structural level. The organizations fighting for women's rights deliberately excluded their black and brown sisters so as to appear more acceptable to the white male legislators who held the power.

The ethical failures of white women resulted in black women creating their own feminism—womanism—as well as their own groups such as the Combahee River Collective, which argued that ending the systemic oppression of all women was a political imperative. “[W]e are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking,” they wrote in their mission statement.

White feminism, by contrast, is the calculated rejection of intersectional sisterhood in favor of the acceptance and appreciation of white men. In its most destructive form, it is racism masquerading as self-empowerment. This is apparent in Elle magazine interviews with a handful of female Trump supporters after the election, who claim that they are “absolutely not racist” and they really just care about the “economy” and “get[ting] a good job.” These women's myopic worldview and unrepentantly American sense of individualism is not feminism, nor can they claim they are not racists if they are willing to overlook the bigotry that fueled Trump's campaign.




The millions of white women who voted for Trump—a man accused of rape, a man who has publicly called women “pigs” and jocularly riffed about sexually harassing and assaulting women—also seem to have been willing to ignore Trump's misogyny in order to get rid of the “establishment.” (Because nothing says “establishment” like a feminist woman president of the United States who actively declares Black Lives Matter!) History will judge them for helping to tip the election. White women account for 37% of the American voting population, which means the votes of black and brown women, no matter how impressively they turned out for Hillary Clinton (94% of black women; 68% of Hispanic and Latino women), were countered by the large swath of white women who supported Trump.

White women need education, empathy, and a collective consciousness. In the minds of the 53% of white women who supported Trump, what makes them think that a sexist, racist white man will change the system and upend “the establishment”? This contradictory logic highlights a toxic cocktail of cognitive dissonance, internalized misogyny, and not-so-subtle racism that continues to impede women's political and economic progress. This isn't ideology; this is about ending the oppression of all women and eradicating the structures that prevent women from controlling their bodies and their lives.

It's clear now that far too many white women still see white men as their saviors. Feminism will not succeed in its goal of ending oppression until white women break this pattern. Because as history shows, white men are in no hurry to make women their equals—in fact, doing so would only threaten their sense of masculinity and their manhood.


Instead of turning to men for political coalition and social acceptance, white women need to turn toward women of color. This is the message of the late Harvard lesbian-feminist Barbara Johnson, who wrote in her conclusion to The Feminist Difference that “conflicts among feminists require women to pay attention to each other, to take each other's reality seriously, to face each other.” Only by doing this will we be able to eradicate women's internalized misogyny. Johnson continued, “feminists have to take the risk of confronting and negotiating differences among women if we are ever to transform such differences into positive rather than negative forces in women's lives.”

While racism is undoubtedly a significant factor in white feminists' failure to engage in intersectional activism, history also suggests that white women have been largely risk-averse when it comes to building coalitions with their black and brown sisters. This is near-sighted and unambitious logic. As Audre Lorde famously wrote in 1984: “the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house,” because “[t]hey may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.”


This is arguably also the reason why the feminist movement seems to be in an interminable state of stagnation when it comes to women's advancement and liberation—a circular movement of two steps forward, one step back. We are still dealing with many of the same issues as our foremothers when it comes to equal pay and equal rights; reproductive rights are in constant limbo; and we face a never-ending struggle to be respected as human beings, not sexual objects to be “grabbed” whenever a man has the urge to do so.

Feminism depends on vital, intersectional sisterhood. White women, black women, and brown women must face each other, engage in and accept our differences, if we are ever to rise together.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

The Move Out of my Way! Challenge




I saw this posted on my niece's FB page and decided to give it a try. First, let me start by saying I am a personal space freak. For reasons that have nothing to do with being meek, I usually move out of any and everyone's path simply because..

I don't want them touching me.

That means ANY part of me. Don't let your bag brush against me, your coat, NOTHING. 

If I have to jump on a mountaintop to keep from having someone enter my personal sphere?

Consider it done.

I ladies and gentlemen, am a Boundary Queen. 




Judge me if you like, just stay in your space whilst you do it. :-)

Anyhoo, I decided to make an exception to my moving-out-of-the-way rule to see how men would respond when I didn't veer off my path so that they could walk freely. Basically, I didn't inconvenience myself to spare them the trouble.

One guy moved out of my way completely!




But he was young so it kinda doesn't count. His sexism and expectations for women to be meager, passive and docile haven't fully matured yet.




I plan to do this experiment for the remainder of the week. I might do it for the remainder of my life if all goes well.

Ladies, LET'S DO THIS CHALLENGE!! Men, you can participate by observing yourselves. Be honest about your expectations. When walking inline with a woman, do you expect her to move out of your way? Tell the truth guys. 

Report back and tell us how it went!




-WTS

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

The Best of Mae West





Gotta love Mae West. Bold. Brazen. Beautiful and funny. A star of the 1920s whose sense of humor and feisty spirit is still relevant today.


Too bad she's not running for president. At least then we'd have a female candidate that was likeable.

-WTS.