"

The “wives, sisters, daughters” line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying,

“We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.”

This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.

Women are not possessions.

Women are people.

"
— The Believer Logger: I am not your wife, sister or daughter  (via sonicy0uth)

(via muslimfeminists)

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beyondsilkroads:

The game of chess and the majority its many precursors originated in Asia and Asia Minor, as early as the 6th century. Most historians put the origins of chess in India during the Gupta Empire (320-550 CE) where the game was known as chaturanga, which means something akin to “army”. Chess’s earliest incarnation led to the development of other strategy games all across Eruasia, including xiangqi and go in China as well as shoji in Japan. Chess owes its modern adaptation to the Europeans, introducing the black and white board and as well as the modern accepted movement of individual pieces.

Chaturanga spread to the rest of Asia and Asia Minor along the Silk Road, where it became a favorite game of the Persians, which led to it becoming popular by the Muslims who inhabited Persia and then North Africa. The Persians spread chess through Russian trade routes until it hit Europe as well as pushing it through Greece and Spain.

Read More

(via indophilia)

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shortformblog:

This was the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year, a shot of a number of casualties after a bombing in Gaza. The event itself wasn’t fake, but as one tech expert figured out, the photo was ‘Shopped.

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"George W. Bush failed to keep us safe, partly because he happened to be president when al-Qaeda succeeded in perpetrating a major attack, partly because various other attacks happened during his tenure, and most unforgivably because of his reductionism and hubris, pursuing a needless war of choice on false pretenses and executing that war poorly for years on end, in part because he elevated loyalty to his immediate underlings above having competent help. The “he kept us safe” talking point is factually inaccurate. In closing, it’s worth noting that the president doesn’t swear an oath to keep us safe, but to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Bush failed at that too."
— Conor Friedersdorf (via azspot)

(via azspot)

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frombaghdadwithlove:

god bless my immigrant parents

who break their backs

just to strengthen my own

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Nearly 260,000 people died during the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012, a study shows.

Half of them were children under the age of five, says the report by the UN and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net).

(Source: almuntadatrust, via newsflick)

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مآ أجمّل أنْ تصمتْ
فيْ ؤجهْ منْ ينتظرْ منِك الخِصَام 

وما أجمل أنْ تضحك
فيْ وجهْ منْ يُنتظرْ منك البكـاءْ

How beautiful is it to stay silent
When someone expects you to be enraged from them.
And how beautiful it is to laugh
When someone thinks you are going to shed tears.

(Source: desertwinds, via frombaghdadwithlove)

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"I could see the veins through your skin like a map to inside you."
— Francesca Lia Block, Wasteland (via erraticintrovert)

(via frombaghdadwithlove)

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"Swear to God, I can’t stand to hear a woman claim that she thinks like a guy and hates women because they’re all catty. That’s misogyny. The very fact that you, as a woman, think differently than how a socially-stereotyped woman is supposed to think is proof that our gender “norms” are fucking us over. Women are not all alike. Some of us like football. Some of us like talking on the phone. Some of us like religion. Some of us are emotional. Some of us speak three languages. Some of us have boyfriends. Some of us have girlfriends. Some of us wear lipstick. Some of us don’t shave our pits. Some of us have kids. Some of us worry we’ll drop our best friend’s baby. Now please stop claiming that you don’t act like a woman. It doesn’t make you a special fucking snowflake. It makes you a perpetrator of misogyny."
—

owlonthesill (via gogogadget2lesbiansdoingit)

Egg-fucking-zackly. I know women who seriously think they’re special or part of some elite breed of women because they “get along better with men.” Please.

(via lawbyrd)

(via maarnayeri)

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"Go to sleep or I will call the planes."
— How some Yemeni parents warn their children, according to activist Farea al-Muslimi, testifying before Congress on the use of drones. (via The Washington Post)

(Source: officialssay)

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