You've had it, I know you have - you're sitting in the same spot you always sit in, watching the same show you've watched a hundred times, watching the same commercials you've watched a million times, and it hits you right between the eyes.
A feeling like you want to scream and run. A feeling like you're ready to rip your skin off and either dissipate into the air like smoke or fall to the floor in a pile of dust.
You know what that feeling is? Because I've been wracking my brain to figure it out for YEARS and I finally got it.
You're fed up.
I'm fed up.
WE'RE ALL FED UP.
(yeah, yelling... sorry not sorry)
It's the same sexist jokes over and over. The same fat shaming, the same thin shaming, the same war of the genders that they hope we never catch on to. I love my sweetie, I really do, but I really also wonder if he realizes that what's easy for him to watch tears me open sometimes. (Big Bang Theory... yeah. I'm getting really sick of their shit. They've already gotten strongly worded letters from me about their continual fat shaming and geek girl shaming. It looks like I'm going to have to write more letters.)
You're (we're) fed up because it's shit like this that keeps the towers of inequality so high. It's things like this that perpetuate the stereotypes of the gendernormative and the sizes that society deems "realistic", never mind that the people they show are the minority in terms of average size of a human being. We're fed up because it's the same thing every. single. day. and no matter what we do it isn't changing.
I saw a commercial for a medication for joints today - it opens with two women moving up from one floor to the next. One woman is walking up the stairs briskly and the other is on an escalator. The woman walking gives the woman on the escalator side eye as the voice over talks about "moving easily"... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Drug companies are now using shaming as a sales technique too. Wow. FUCK THAT. No one deserves to be shamed for taking an escalator instead of the stairs. You have NO IDEA what that woman's situation is so how dare you give her shit for not walking briskly up the stairs in heels like you are. FUCK OFF.
It's time to do something about this. ALL of this. The drug testing that is mandatory to hold some jobs (almost any job) in this country... we're all up in arms about the possibility of making welfare recipients have to drug test, and know the stats that say we're not actually doing anything with that testing except wasting money, but we're all complacent when it comes to the drug testing we're subjected to... why?? Time to change it. The agist, sexist, sizeist jokes - they're everywhere and we just put up with it because it's funny? No. Time to change it. The gender jokes, the mis-gendering, the gender shaming... Time to change it. Slut shaming. Time to change it.
It's the new year, and we all make resolutions - this year, instead of making a resolution that only helps you, make a resolution that helps everyone. Don't play into the stereotypes or shaming. Rise above it and be an example of tolerance and acceptance.
We have the unique ability to make real impact on our world with our magic. We also have the ability to VOTE - a magic all its own. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, that's up to you. I am going to tell you to go Vote, as often as you're able to based on local and national elections. I am going to tell you that real change begins when you exercise the power we all have to control who sits in government.
Yes, it is tedious. Yes, it's not always convenient. Yes, you have to make time for it. But think about this - women and men have died to give you the right to help decide what happens in this nation. We, the complacent, docile, lazy populace are being led around right now. What do you think would happen if we decided to take the reins back? What if the people in the driver seat were US?
Great things could happen. Let's find out.
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