The most unrealistic thing about Star Wars, a series of science fiction films about magic space priests, is that Padme was 5yrs older than Anakin and didn’t once consider that maybe she could do better.
But he had so many desirable qualities, like hating sand and an untamable space temper.
You know, seen from a certain point of view, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” is a song about a really weird game of Telephone.
The Night Wind tells the Little Lamb about a star.
The
Little Lamb, understandably freaked out by the fact that the sky is
talking, runs to the Shepherd Boy going “The sky is talking! It’s got a
big voice!” (and, based on what I know of sheep, probably also “Will it
eat me?!” and “Can I eat it?”)
And then it goes off the rails.
The Shepherd Boy stomps off to tell the Mighty King (and how well
connected is this kid, anyhow? He just shows up at the palace, waves to
the guards, walks on in) that there’s a child shivering in the cold and
we should bring him silver and gold (We? Does this kid have silver and gold on hand, too? Which…might explain the ease of getting an audience, actually…)
At
no point does the Shepherd Boy mention that his source of information
is a possibly delusional sheep, which, okay, I might not bring that up
to begin with, either. But how does the Shepherd Boy know any of this?
The Lamb is still back in the field babbling about a voice in the sky
talking about stars. Where did the child come from? Did the Shepherd Boy
make a detour and find all this out? Why even bring the Lamb into it,
in that case? And why is the Mighty King going “Whoa! One of my peasants
just waltzed in to tell me about a disadvantaged child? THIS MEANS
PEACE AND LIGHT!”
Honestly, if you’re that easily impressed, you
have to figure that a new faith gets founded in the kingdom practically
daily. “Your Majesty, the washerwoman’s here and she says there’s a fish
in the stream with a–” “ALL HAIL DAGON!”
Look, I know it’s a
Christmas carol, I am just saying that the narrative does not follow
logically from the Night Wind talking about stars to the King informing
the populace that there’s a new religion in town. There are some gaps.
…yes, I am also really, really annoying to sit next to at movies.
I had an internship in Kenya over the summer and we swung by the Giraffe Sanctuary over there, and they had a bunch of food pellets that you could feed to the giraffes, and you could put a pellet between your lips and the giraffe would gently pluck it away, like a kiss. So fuck yeah I wanted to get a kiss from a giraffe I was so on that boat.
I don’t even know what went wrong but the giraffe knocked the pellet out of my mouth and when it couldn’t find it, just started mouthing my entire face, this things head is thrice the size of a horses if it puts it into perspective for you this animal is HUGE, its weird snake-tongue was all wiping across my face trying to find a food pellet that wasn’t there oh my god until it finally gave up and pulled away, there was just strings of its thick, antiseptic spit connecting my face to its mouth I tell you it was so bizarre to being living that moment.
SO maybe the correct description was a giraffe was just mouthing my face but w/e it was a 10/10 experience would def mack again.
In all of my workspaces I have been gendered as a woman, and all of these things have happened to me. . I find the more ‘technical’ or corporate the teams are, the more likely that the responsibility of ‘non essential labour’ in the office falls on women and femmefolk (my current office is actually very good in this respect, which is really refreshing).
What is this comic about? Well, generally things like keeping the office tidy day to day, setting up for and cleaning up after meetings, organizing gifts and social events, fundraising, congratulations and condolences ‘from the office’, and administrative work like minutes-taking… pretty much everything that is ‘volunteer’ is likely to fall to women.
Sometimes when people argue that this work is non-essential, and that women only do it because they want to do it (and that, by extension, these just aren’t things that men care about). The thing is, community building is essential work. People who talk about having great work environments talk about things like hanging out with colleagues after work, having summer sport leagues, lottery groups, that time everyone pitched in vacation time during a family illness, that gift card that appeared on your desk on your birthday…that’s all stuff someone thinks about and plans and organizes, and it’s non-billable work, so they often do it for free, and that person is more often than not a woman. And that’s important, vital work, it makes people feel like they can come to work every day and at least not hate it all the time.
It’s completely devalued labour, and it falls in the laps of women to maintain. Sometimes guys think they’re participating by having the idea of the work: “Jim’s mother passed away – maybe we should get a card to pass around for him” – but the idea is as far as that participation goes. The organizing and execution of that ‘nice idea’ falls on someone else entirely.
Stuff like this totally undercuts women at work. For example, any time it’s assumed that I’ll take meeting minutes, my ability to participate fully in that meeting is compromised because I’m taking notes instead of concentrating on my own contributions.
And not doing this work has consequences too. There was a workspace where I was totally watching this happen, so I resolved to act like the men on my team did. I left rooms when they left them (in the condition they left them in), I used the kitchen in the same way, I left my desk in the same condition, but guess who got called out on failing to contribute to the office environment? It wasn’t the guys.
If you’re a guytype and you want to be a good ally in your worplace, be the person who volunteers. I mean it. Look around, see who’s doing the work that isn’t in their job descriptions, and pitch in. Take notes, buy cards, organize drinks, and for goodness sake, tidy the kitchen. And it’s ok if this social stuff really isn’t important to you, but don’t you dare be the person who says that it’s not important work, and then feels slighted when no one remembers their birthday.
If you’re already doing this, awesome. Keep up the good work.
“If you’re a guytype and you want to be a good ally in your workplace, be the person who volunteers. I mean it. Look around, see who’s doing the work that isn’t in their job descriptions, and pitch in. Take notes, buy cards, organize drinks, and for goodness sake, tidy the kitchen. “
Important!
also, it’s basically a win-win situation. guytypes that do emotional labor aren’t overlooked the way women that do it are. they’re noticed, praised, and rewarded for it— think about all the fuss that gets made of dads who manage to competently perform any amount of childcare whatsoever.
so you’ll be helping women out in the workplace by freeing them up to actually work on the same things at the same rate guys do, plus getting credit for all the tasks that people wouldn’t even realized needed doing because they were unconsciously leaning on women to get it done invisibly.
i am having flashbacks to playing the shrek soundtrack off the ps2 with that floating cube while i tried to transcribe the lyrics onto that yellow paper we always seemed to have
and that gave me worse flashbacks to playing spice girls and aqua off the psone on that player with the purple circles and dancing to the squiggly visualisations
Like, 90% of infomercial style products were designed by/for disabled people, but you wouldn’t know that, because there is no viable market for them. THey have to be marketted and sold to abled people just so that any money can be made of off them and so the people who actually need them will have access.
I think snuggies are the one example almost everyone knows. They were invented for wheelchair users (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a coat on and off of someone in a wheelchair? Cause it’s PRETTY FUCKIN HARD.) But now everyone just acts like they’re some ~quirky, white people thing~ and not A PRODUCT DESIGNED TO MAKE PEOPLES DAY TO DAY LIVES 10000X EASIER.
But if at any point you were to take your head out of your own ass and go “Hey, who would a product like this benefit,” that would be really cool.
This makes informational make so much sense now.
Like… of course there’s no reason for that guy to knock over that bowl of chips. However, the person it was actually designed for has constant hand tremors that would make this pretty rad, but since we don’t want to show that in a commercial, here’s an able bodied guy who can’t remember how gravity works.
Shit. Those commercials suddenly get a lot less funny when you realize it’s pretty much just people ineptly trying to mimic disability.
Or like the thing for the eggs? Like, oh, it cracks eggs perfectly, you only need one hand?
IT WAS DESIGNED FOR PEOPLE WHO ONLY HAVE THE USE OF ONE HAND.
Or the juice bottle pourer? For people who’re TOO LAZY TO POUR THEIR OWN JUICE? Or FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY BEARING WEIGHT IN THE HANDS.
It’s amazing how with just a few words by a few people, my whole perspective on something can shift entirely.
callanswall 