Well look at you! Made it all the way to this very day, the one when tonight is Friday night, and it’s very nearly spring and here you are. The beginning of March always feels like waking up late on a Saturday, like how did we sleep so late but also we really needed it, didn’t we? Now we get to stretch and take ownership of our decisions and turn this time into something we’re proud of.
I’m going to fucking paint.
I hope you have the most luxuriously replenishing weekend, even if only for a moment, because those tiny spots sure do count. Let’s read some things!
+ Queer and Trans Women of Color Are Central Focus of New Castro Art Exhibit.
+ Meet Greet ‘n Eat with Autostraddle’s Carmen Rios at #NYFLC2016 in Washington, DC 3/12!
+ Lots of people are currently talking about The Watermelon Woman, a film with a Black lesbian protagonist written, directed, starred in and edited by a Black lesbian, Cheryl Dunye! You can watch it and you damn well should. If You Love Queer Feminist Films by Women of Color, Watch This Movie.
+ Top Chef Star Karen Akunowicz Talks Gender Dynamics in the Kitchen.
+ The Breast Cancer Treatment Side Effect Nobody Warns You About by Catherine Brereton.
Every night I bandage my wife’s arm from fingertip to shoulder. First, gauze bandages around her fingers in an elaborate, well-practiced pattern. Next, wider strips of flannel anchored around her thumb and wrapped from her wrist up to her armpit. Finally, the elastic bandaging, fastened like a gauntlet around her palm, up her arm to her shoulder, and back down in a double-layer of stiff fabric. We cut the right arms off all the t-shirts that she wears to bed to allow for the increased girth of the bandaging. After wrapping, her arm is essentially immobile; she can flex her fingers, but can’t bend her wrist or elbow. It’s an involved process; it used to take twenty minutes, but with practice now only takes five. Without this wrapping Susan’s arm will swell. Her fingers will puff until she can’t bend them, then her wrist will inflate. Finally, the swelling—which can easily increase the size of her arm, hand, and fingers by 35%, maybe more—will reach her underarm and shoulder, spreading round into her back and down to her ribcage. By this point, she’ll be in pain as her skin is stretched to capacity. She can live with the disfigurement, she says, but the pain is the worst part. There’s no relief. She has a condition called lymphedema, a side effect of her recent treatment for breast cancer.
+ Space of Queer Tomorrow: “I Need People to Know This Shit Existed.”
+ Here’s What Mardi Gras Means To LGBT Teens.
+ Fugitives in Their Own Land: Meet Kenya’s LGBT Refugees.
+ Every Time She’s Harassed, This Biologist Creates a Wikipedia Page for a Woman Scientist.
+ The Sexist Garbage Women Athletes Face, According to WNBA Star, Elena Delle Donne.
+ The Problematic Rape Reporting on ‘This American Life’ by Nikki Gloudeman.
+ Meet Nzingha Prescod: America’s Leading Black Woman Fencer.
+ Painting the Naked Female Gaze is a piece by J.H. Fearless about Rose Freymuth-Frazier and her brilliantly beautiful paintings and how it feels to take them in with your eyeballs. LOVE IT.
+ Out of Her Justice League: ‘People v. O.J. Simpson’ Writer On Marcia Clark, Sexism, And The Haircut by Jessica Goldstein.
+ Female Architects Are Being Closed Out of Their Own Profession by Anne Quito.
+ She Wanted to Do Her Research, He Wanted to Talk Feelings by A. Hope Jahren.
+ Building Solidarity to Overcome Invisibility: Sex Workers and HIV-Focused Activism by Anna Forbes.
+ Excuse me while I all-caps this headline even though it originally appeared in normally capitalized form: WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR UTI VACCINE by Lauren Oyler.
+ Wichi Women and Girls Through Their Own Lens.
+ How to Hate Yourself by Laura House.
+ It’s a Lot More Fun to Play Make-Believe With Your Kids When You’re High on Weed by Kathryn Jezer-Morton. Have a feeling!
+ This this this this this: Why, Neurologically, Success Doesn’t Stick — And How to Get It To by Esmé Wang.
+ The World According to Men by Christina Asquith.
+ Some Zootopia thoughts you might relate to? Idk I’m just watching this Zootopia train rumble through my Feedly like it’s “Formation” or something and I just can’t understand it! Anyway: Why Is Everyone Trying to Explain Zootopia Like It’s So Hard to Grasp by Jaya Saxena.
+ Your Phrase Is Problematic by Julia Burke.
+ Adventure Loving Dogs (And Their Owners) to Follow On Insta.
+ How to Flake Out on Plans If You’re Depressed by Jacqueline Novak. Just saying.
Look what you’re doing this weekend: How to Create a Working Ghostbusters Trap.
Laneia is the Director of Operations and founding member of Autostraddle, and you're the reason she's here.
Laneia has written 916 articles for us.
Oh My God Laneia I wish there was an app-version of you. Like every time I doubt myself or feel down or worry too much I would launch the app and a blurb that sounds like the first paragraphs of Also.Also.Also would appear and all would be right in the world !
It would feel like wrapping yourself in a super warm blanket and a hot cocoa, and your mom kissing your hurt knee, and putting on new socks !
thank you for that breast cancer article! I spent many nights doing the wrapping and that was good to read.
oh mich i want to give you all the hearts
I love that AS is linking to articles about women in architecture. There is a huge divide between men & women – and especially queer women in the industry and it’s something you never really hear about in “the real world”. Thanks!
I guess it depends on the kind of sex you have? I always try to remember to go just in case even tho i think mostly it doesn’t apply to the kind of sex i have but i’m not sure so…
Ugh both the articles about women in science and the UTI make me rage. I’m just sick of “women’s” problems being seen as less necessary of solution. I’m sick of being on the short end of that stick.
Ugh especially women’s health. I’m tired of being an afterthought for drug trials. I’m sick to death of issues with vaginias and ovaries and uteruses having unknown causes and no real solution because they aren’t seen as important health problems that actually need a solution and have issues getting funding to get studied.
the mardi gras article really rubs me the wrong way. Why on earth would you focus on Australia, of all places, when talking about mardi gras? Sydney is already worlds ahead of anywhere in Louisiana when it comes to lgbt visibility and rights. If you’re going to focus on gay rights in Sydney, fine. But don’t act like the article is about mardi gras as a whole, because it isn’t. Ugh. Buzzfeed never fails to dissapoint.
Because the Sydney Mardi Gras actually ‘They Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras’ is not at all related to ‘Mardi Gras’ but is a month long LGBTIQ pride festival.
fair point, i do wish they’d clarified a bit more or mentioned that it was Sydney pride in the title so i didn’t get my hopes up and think that it was something about my state for once lol.
I’m glad you explained that because I’d been seeing pics of my aus friend at mardi gras and was thoroughly confused as to why australia has mardi gras a month later than here…now i get it has nothing to do with easter thank you
A VACCINE FOR UTIS??? They are the bane of my life even though I’ve never personally had one. Do you realise how much they mess with an elderly persons brain? Take your normal dementia sufferer. They forget things and get confused but are generally okay. Two days into a UTI they are bouncing off the walls! Paranoid about all sorts. This could seriously change elderly peoples quality of life.
Yes! And when someone has lost the ability to self-report it can be so much more difficult to diagnose and treat! There is such a strong correlation between physical and psychosocial health.
Yep yep yep. Very often we’ll go out for a change in mental status, walk in the house and you can just smell the uti…dangerous for your kidneys, especially if you live alone and no one is regularly checking on you.
Here to report that sex with other people with vaginas can still totallllllly lead to a UTI so peeing afterwards is still a good idea.
My very first UTI was one week into my very first relationship with a woman. I had never had sex that was that…enthusiastic/exuberant before.
I mean, still worth it, obvs.
i need a vaccine for UTIs like two weeks ago thanks, help me dr lizz you’re my only hope.
So much good stuff. I’m always surprised my browser doesn’t crash under the weight of all the rapidly opened new tabs.
Thank you for linking to the piece about the rape story on TAL. It echoes many of the thoughts I had while listening to the episode- this is one of those cases where I think editorializing was called for, and they really dropped the ball in the way they framed the story.
“How to hate yourself” that shit is funny! All week I’ve been feeling soo down. Like i just cant shake it. Then while reading that i was thinking whyy am i reading this?? But now that I’ve finished, i feel better. Like yeah, its super easy to feel down on myself. Think about all the shit that has ever gone wrong and wallow in it. But when someone puts it like make sure you dont forget that one thing you really hate about yourself, it seems comical. It forces you to be like hey hey hey, there is also some good stuff buddy!!
How to Flake on Plans is TOO REAL as I sit here showered but not dressed & coming to terms with the fact that I am flaking on plans due to a perfect storm of anxiety triggers.
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