Cameron Esposito

"I was walking on stage not too long ago, and before I even hit the mic, this dude sitting in the front row just yells at me ‘you look like a woman who doesn’t sleep with men!’. He yelled that at me like as if I don’t know. He yelled that at me like it was going to be a surprise, and an insult. Here’s the thing: I look like a woman who doesn’t sleep with men because I am a lesbian… and that’s one of the biggest parts. This look, this is on purpose. To attract women."

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Oppression

Harvard University President Lawrence Summers asks a panel of scientists what genetic differences could explain why there are fewer women in science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson responds with his experiences as a black man growing up with the many societal roadblocks to becoming a scientist: i.e. "Don't you want to become an athlete?"

Tyson says: "Before we start talking about genetic differences, you have to come up with a system where there is equal opportunity. Then we can have that conversation."

I love that he does this gracefully without tearing down or resorting to attacking President Lawrence Summers. He gives his own perspective based on his experiences rather than focusing on attacking someone else's perceptions.

http://www.upworthy.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-reveals-that-hes-been-black-his-whole-life-hilarity-and-wisdom-follow?g=2&c=hpstream

Take a look at what sexual consent looks like. Laci Green gives really clear visuals and she's incredibly funny!

Religious Patriarchs

so last night was the vagina monologues... and we had protesters. a few of us went out to talk to them, telling them that their posters and presence may be triggering to sexual assault survivors... at one point one of the women said that the play promotes lesbianism. i immediately shouted out, pointing at myself, "lesbian, right here!" proving her point no doubt, which i actually have no problem with -- what is wrong with "promoting" lesbianism after all? why is that a "bad" thing to do? -- i could not help declaring my existence, an act of confirming my existence and making myself visible to them.

they were preaching that women needed to "get back in place" in order to be "moral" beings again: chaste, pure, de-sexed... they also had a sign that said the vagina monologues demeans women. they said the play encourages masturbation, which they considered dirty and immoral. i asked them what was wrong with masturbating. i knew it was futile to say anything (they *knew* my soul was condemned to hell and that I had "lost" my way... paternalism at its best), but it's just such a curious worldview, one i can't help but want to understand... i know understanding it, understanding their beliefs, will help me figure out how this patriarchal society keeps itself alive.

The Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls in Love

A love story between two young women in high school of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance. Released in 1995, it is a great example of the social struggles lesbians go through.

Review by Sarah Warn on afterellen.com

Randy Dean (played by Laurel Holloman), a white girl from the wrong side of the tracks who lives with her lesbian aunt and her aunt’s girlfriend after her fanatically religious mother left her to work with Operation Rescue full-time. Randy is the school outcast, laughed at and called a “dyke” by the other kids because she looks kind of butch and “acts like a man”.

The girl she has a crush on is Evie (Nicole Ari Parker), a feminine, college-bound upper-class black girl who has lived alone with her mother (a developing-nations consultant) since her father divorced her mother when Evie was four to marry a white woman.

The two girls go to the same school, but move in completely different circles: Evie hangs with the popular girls, and Randy with her geeky gay friend Frank. They meet late in their senior year when Evie has car trouble and asks for help at the gas station where Randy works, then later, end up in detention together. The girls form a friendship outside of school in which Evie introduces Randy to the wonder of opera and Walt Whitman, and Randy introduces Evie to her unique family and the wonders of being a social outcast.

 Click here for full review.

Malcolm X

Whenever someone doesn't quite understand the world as I do or if they don't quite get what they're saying is problematic, I always think of this quote by Malcolm X:

“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.”

"If these Walls Could Talk 2" on Lesbianism

Review by Sarah Warn on afterellen.com

"If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) focuses on lesbian lives in three different eras/segments over a forty year period, framed within a single house. This is a thoughtful, issue-driven drama about some of the challenges lesbians face, and the change in cultural attitudes over time towards women who love women.

The first piece is set in 1961 and it opens at a screening of The Children’s Hour, a movie that was at that time extremely provocative and controversial because of the suggestion of lesbianism as the central theme. We see two older women, watching the movie together with tears streaming down their faces.

The viewer has to make the leap that if these women are at least sixty years old, they were born around the turn of the century and hit adulthood, possibly coming out to themselves and a select few other women, in the twenties. So they have been probably been exposed to social scorn and ridicule their entire lives.

This segment sets up that feeling of contemporary uneasiness between the couple and the society around them, but doesn’t fill in much of a backstory for the women.

Tragedy strikes when one of the women, Abby (Marian Seldes) is injured and her long time partner Edith (Vanessa Redgrave) cannot see her in the hospital. This piece is really about silence, and how Edith must remain silent about her relationship to Abigail, and then mourn silently. Much of the subject matter in 1961 is very timely to the recent focus on same sex marriage, since it deals not just with the emotional loss of a partner, but the rights lost because these women couldn’t claim each other as legal spouses.

"1972", the second segment, is a story about Linda (Michelle Williams), an out lesbian in a group of budding young lesbian feminist college students, including her two best friends played by Natasha Lyonne and Nia Long.

Linda and her friends decide to visit the gay bar in town for some consolation and adventure, but find a surprising clash of cultural values, philosophy, and wardrobe there. Not fitting into that environment either, the group decides to leave — but Linda, enchanted and intrigued by the politically incorrect butch lesbian Amy (Chloe Sevigny), decides to stay. Linda finds herself falling for Amy, she must deal with the disapproval not only of society as a whole, but her own friends, who mock Amy for her appearance.

The final segment, "2000", introduces us to an affluent, middle aged lesbian couple in the process of trying to conceive a child. Ellen DeGeneres is hilarious and touching as Kal, the doting partner of Fran (Sharon Stone). This is a charming story of the agony, for two women, of not being able to bring about the intentional physical manifestation of love, a child, without outside intrusion/assistance.

Ellen is surprisingly good in the role of the supportive, non-child bearing spouse who would like nothing better than to get her partner pregnant. Stone is a goofy, screwball femmey lesbian that shines in her moments of grounding the couple and showing tenderness to her partner.

See original link to this article here.