sludgepop:

some dumbass: inclusive language makes no sense all words in spanish are gendered and replacing the ‘a’ and the ‘o’ with an ‘x’ makes everything literally unpronounceable and is useless outside of written language 

me:

Meet Interesting Milfs

NEW BOOK OUT NOW!

She Loved Me Too

To Death, justice and revenge look the same.

For centuries the Kingdom of Rosa has prided itself as a place where nature and the arts are nurtured and celebrated. The people who live there are known to be talented and ambitious and Iseul Hann is no exception. Despite her young age, her immense musical talent had granted her a position in the royal orchestra, and being promised to the love of her life has left her with nothing else to wish for.

That is until one night everything is taken away from her. Alone and defeated she ends up in a different Kingdom living a life she doesn’t want. With nothing left to lose, when her path crosses with a man that Kings and Queens tremble before, Iseul asks for the only thing he can give her. Closure.

NEW CHAPTER EVERY SATURDAY AND WEDNESDAY

Don’t know who needs to hear this today but,

your gender identity is valid and you don’t need need to apologize for preferring different pronouns or name. 

Credit:George McCalman

Ava DuVernay is a force in Hollywood, having made a name for herself not only as a director, producer and screenwriter, but as a champion of change. Now, more than ever, media representations that we see daily in print, on television, and in films are being called into question. But, for the past decade, Ava DuVernay’s mission has been to push for more inclusivity on sets and on screen. “Diversity is not just a box to check. It’s a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us,” DuVernay said in an interview with Fast Company.

How did DuVernay become a Hollywood game changer?

Her story isn’t a straight line — it’s a series of pivots based on strong determination and the willingness to take chances to forge her own path. Born in Long Beach, California, DuVernay was raised in a matriarchal environment with lots of women who always encouraged her to follow her heart. She grew up near the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles and was the first African American student body president at her high school. Film wasn’t her dream from the get-go. As an undergrad at UCLA, she pursued a major in African American studies, then shifted into the world of public relations after spending time as a journalist. 

Ava DuVernay gave the commencement speech at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 2017. Photo credit: UCLA 

At 27, she started her own public relations firm, The DuVernay Agency. As a film publicist, she was able to get close to different filmmakers, seeing how movies were made firsthand. This proximity to the world of film enamored her. While on a film set in East Los Angeles for the 2004 crime thriller, “Collateral,” DuVernay had an aha! moment when she realized that she wanted to be the one telling the stories, the one making the movies. “Javier Bardem was on set, and something about the scene with Javier and Jamie, this brown man and this black man: It was this gritty place in East L.A. at night, with a digital camera, and I just loved it,” she shared with Rolling Stone. “I started writing a script that weekend.“

In 2011, she self-financed “I Will Follow,” her first feature film she wrote and directed, after a few years of learning the film trade while working on shorts and documentaries. Just three years later, she directed the acclaimed “Selma,” a film about Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march. Following the release of “Selma,”DuVernay was the first African American female director to be nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. With the upcoming release of “A Wrinkle in Time,” boasting a budget exceeding $100 million, DuVernay is now the first African American woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of that size.

Ava DuVernay on her journey to become the first black woman to direct an Oscar nominated film. Credit: TIME

Beyond her notable accomplishments and series of “firsts,” she’s hoping to create a larger shift in Hollywood, one with varied voices and stories in cinema. Just three years ago, she expanded her film distribution company to become ARRAY, where female filmmakers and people of color are at the forefront. “It comes down to who gets to tell the story? If the dominant images that we have seen throughout our lifetime, our mother’s lifetime, our grandmother’s lifetime, have been dominated by one kind of person, and we take that, we internalize it, we drink it in as true, as fact. It’s tragic,” DuVernay wrote in Timemagazine. “It goes beyond the film industry. These are the images of ourselves we consume. It affects the way we see ourselves and the way other people see us.”

The world of film in the United States has been built and defined by the predominately white patriarchy. But with her courageous streak and fearless creativity, DuVernay is opening doors for women, people of color and those who have been underrepresented in the film industry for so long. By advocating for a diverse set of at least 50 percent people of color and women, DuVernay has put her own politics in action: “Inclusion is really half — half of the cast, half of the directors, half of the writers are women or girls, half of the room, more than half of the room is of color,” she shared with Ellemagazine. “I think we get really satisfied with less.” And she’s just getting started. For “A Wrinkle in Time,” DuVernay warned the each of the department heads on her crew not to submit the same list of hires unless they could prove they had considered others. In making inclusion a key nonnegotiable in her creative process, DuVernay is changing the narrative for how stories are told and who gets to tell them. 

spiritsandsunflowers:

SURPRISE!

Not only are my Etsy store and website back open, but I’ve released CLOTHING!

At the moment, only the “Support Inclusive Heathenry”, “Blessed Heathens”, and “Blessed Heathens - Pride” designs are up, but I’ve got plenty more to come!

I know it’s been a long time, but if you’re still here, thank you from the bottom of my heart for continuing to support me as I figure out my way ❤️ You really so mean the world to me, and I’m so thankful you’re here.

Texas Inclusive Heathens

Please reblog to spread the love!

spiritsandsunflowers:

A biracial Thor?!

How could this be??

Here’s my explanation for why I depict the mighty Thor in such a manner

nm114-001:

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.”

- “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” Audre Lorde

As someone that works in the medical field, I wonder which language one could possibly use to talk to people that feel like ‘biological sex is a social construct’. If naming relevant body parts/organs feels like an insult, what would be a respectful way to navigate such a conversation?
(Yes, it is often relevant to know such things.)

By Ceri Jones 

Diversity is a hot topic – and rightly so. Science exists to challenge how we work, exploring new ways of thinking and alternative approaches to problem-solving. But the scientific community itself is not immune to scrutiny, and it is important to apply the same keen eye to the socio-political aspects of our working relationships as we do to actual projects.

As an advocate or ally, it is vital that we ask the tough questions around inclusive, intersectional diversity to keep the topic at the front of people’s awareness. To learn more about it, the Materials World team is going to the first ever Diversity Challenge event in London, UK this week.

We spoke to co-founder Luke Davis to find out what to expect on the night.

Luke Davis: 

Science, the incredible body of knowledge that has led to significant medical and technological advances, is presented as something only a privileged group of people can do. In history books, classrooms and in films, we are taught that mainly rich, abled, cis-gendered white men do science. Therefore, those of us who are different find it hard to see ourselves as physicists, engineers, biologists, or programmers. Finding role models who look and talk like us, who have achieved in science, gives us hope that we too can do it.  

Inspired by the popular BBC2 quiz show University Challenge, this newly launched event, Diversity Challenge aims to showcase the incredible stories and achievements of under-represented scientists. It consists of two teams of diverse scientists from around the UK, who battle out their knowledge on under-represented scientists and their work.

Before the mind-boggling quiz there are short talks by early career researchers, highlighting under-represented scientists from the past and the present, while looking to those of the future. The idea is attributed to Luke Davis, a physics PhD student at UCL, who is currently working with co-organiser Dr Faith Uwadiae, an immunologist at the Francis Crick Institute, and Kayisha Payne, a chemical engineer at AstraZeneca and founder of BBSTEM.  

The launch event takes place on ​19 September 2019 at The Royal Institution, London, at 6:00 - 8:00pm​. Assuming the role of Jeremy Paxman as quizmaster, is Dr Suze Kundu, a nanochemist, writer (Forbes Science), presenter, and head of public engagement at Digital Science. Fellow materials scientist, Dr Jessica Boland, a lecturer of functional materials and devices at the University of Manchester, is also taking part.  

Join us at the launch event by getting your tickets here: https://bit.ly/2lSBLsl.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @DiversityChall, where this week we will be tweeting out sample questions to get you ready. 

Think you know your stuff?

In this panel, Jackson Bird tells us how to be smarter, better allies.

- Your trans friends don’t have to be encyclopedias. Ask, read, listen.
- Model inclusivity in your behavior
- Be careful with language (pronouns, even casual expressions like “dude”)
- Encourage a learning environment. It’s okay to mess up, but learn from it!