“Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear f*cking heels”
Boldly / Via youtube.com
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Women Who Hate Heels Wear Them For A Day
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Tamil Nadu Police Officers Called Out Sexism In Films For Causing Crimes Against Women
“I personally feel as a lady police officer, I need to raise my voice against this.”
The Indian film industry has been known for years for its misogynistic approach to stories and have been called out for it often.
Recently, DCP S. Lakshmi of Coimbatore spoke out against the terrible precedents set by Tamil films, and how they have often directly led to crimes against women.
She took it upon herself to speak up against the misogyny.
She also added that her appeal was made to prevent further crimes against women.
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44 Tweets For Women By Women That Are Just Really Fucking Funny
“Oh my…yet another gentleman caller has sent me his penis portrait…”
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15 Photos All Feminists Who Don't Have Time For The Patriarchy Will Understand
“Idk I think feminism should be called something different, like common sense or something.”
Twitter: @bananafitz / Via imgur.com
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The Passion Of Ivanka Trump
Win Mcnamee / Getty Images
Ivanka Trump’s new book, Women Who Work, reads like an alien who speaks only French wrote it with Google Translate.
“We enjoyed riffing on our core values,” Ivanka writes in a section on personal mission statements. “We’re training for marathons and learning to code,” she offers randomly in middle of a paragraph about aspirations. She references the “modern, self-purchasing woman” and describes the act of “cultivating authenticity.” One chapter instructs you to ask a dozen friends to write a “narrative about a time when you were at your best.” Because Ivanka has a literal brand that sells material objects, rather than an existential (“my brand”) brand, Women Who Work also produces surrealist exercises like “At Ivanka Trump, my team and I are striving to create the lives we want to live.” (At Katherine Miller, we are, too.)
If you accept that this is not a good book — it does not adequately achieve its stated purpose of advising women on how to navigate their careers — then there’s actually something of worth to be found here, even something revealing. Women Who Work offers a portrait of Ivanka Trump.
That portrait emerges only against the text, though. Women Who Work repeats certain words over and over again in different pairings until they blur together: define, redefine, prioritize, architect (used repeatedly and bizarrely as a verb), essential, crucial, cultivate, connect, connections, authentic, authentically, organically, multidimensional (as in the multidimensional life that you, a woman who works, live) — but all must be in service of your passions.
Nothing defines the modern, self-purchasing woman like her passions.
“Hire for passion,” Ivanka writes. “You can teach anyone to do virtually anything. You cannot teach passion.”
“We’re pursuing our passions and unabashedly making them priorities,” she writes. Passion is “what you bring to the party.” You must “devote yourself to your passions.” You must “prioritize them” — that is, your passions — “to architect a life you will love.” There’s no “final destination,” because “living a life according to my passions is really about the journey.”
“Passion to me, and to many of the women I know, is our purpose, our reason for being. It’s what infuses our lives with meaning,” Ivanka writes. “Passion is what makes us feel most alive.”
This goes on for pages and pages, and though nothing lingers quite like the haunting dullness of “Passion is what makes us feel most alive,” the book repeatedly puts forth passion as absolute directive, a spur, without ever describing what that means in practice. This is ridiculous, obviously, to care this much about one word in a book meant as branding exercise. But still: Women Who Work decouples the concept of passion from any specific activity (the subject of Ivanka’s is never quite clear) or any emotional experience (there are no feelings of doubt to be found here). It’s an affectless passion. Imagine a group of 35-year-old women staring toward the horizon and repeating, without inflection: Passion is what makes us feel most alive. Passion is what makes us feel most alive.
The longer you read Women Who Work, you can end up in this kind of philosophical spiral. You can begin to reconsider what you’re doing with your life and why. What is passion? What does it really mean? This isn’t Ivanka’s fault, exactly; the word "passion" has become a synonym for interest — an activity more than a feeling.
There’s a certain kind of performative feminism, feminism of the affluent, that seems preoccupied with the idea of passion as activity. This is the feminism concerned with the relative corporate positioning and affirmation of women who went to top 20 schools (rather than, like, the interests of a college-dropout mom or the first woman from a black or Latino family to go to a state college). Passion then becomes something you do — like open a bakery or a lifestyle consultancy group after 10 lucrative but crushing years in banking — or self-care as a luxury item or maybe a positive way of branding “intensity.” We’re talking the passion of a Nike Instagram ad (running through blue-gray city streets in neon orange sneakers, the word HEART appearing, set to a synth-bass line if you accidentally click the volume).
This all sets aside the idea of passion as intellectual suffering. The archaic definition of the word actually concerns the agony of martyrs (i.e., Christ’s death on the cross). But even the technical modern definition entails interior violence. The word literally means “extreme, compelling emotion” — an emotion that implicitly has an “overpowering or compelling effect,” something that NEEDS to be exercised, that owns you in some way, that can inspire sacrifice or despair or euphoria, something that can break you, actually. This ranges from sexual desire to the depth of emotions to a single emotion in the extreme, the personal investment that leaves you crying in some public place over the World Series. Life is difficult and complicated, and passion — an uncontrollable emotional vector — can be realized, or unfulfilled, or eternally fluid between the two, at the mercy of events beyond our rational selves.
To link any significant part of your life with a true abiding passion, then, is to risk fracturing the whole.
Which isn't to say Ivanka is devoid of passion. Weirdly, her book does offer — through a handful of details and a mental exercise in subtraction — a portrait. Again, the whole thing basically reads like the French alien wrote it, so anything that doesn’t read that way stands out, creating a sharp silhouette.
She really likes running, for one thing: She loves training for races, loves intense hikes. Jared and she literally sort out loose ends while going on a weekly, scheduled run together (no music). Running actually sounds like her only hobby; the most detailed section of the book concerns complex hotel deals that Ivanka oversaw, as she attempted to shift the direction of the Trump Organization into a brand with real hotels. She mentions in passing that she micromanages Instagram crops. She routinely sends email at 11 p.m., and repeatedly and offhandedly describes the kind of ordered schedule that an intense person might favor. “Unlike Elizabeth,” she writes of an example of a woman’s cherished routine, “I’ve never really loved bath time, but it falls within our evening routine, so I try to make it special for the kids.” (This produces the mental image of a glum Ivanka Trump willing herself to enjoy bath time.)
The subject of her kids, actually, produces this rare note of discord:
Becoming comfortable authentically expressing myself as a female executive with kids was a bit of a journey for me. So many of the women in my life — like my three sisters-in-law, whom I adore (two are stay-at-home moms, the other works outside the home) — had been so unabashed and transparent in embracing their new roles after having children, and yet I was rather guarded. Part of it was a preference for privacy, but another part was grappling with whether being a young female executive with a baby would undermine my authority in the eyes of my colleagues and peers in a very male-dominated industry. I didn’t share a single picture of Arabella publicly until after her first birthday, at which point the paparazzi snapped a photo of us at an airport. I didn’t want the first photo of my daughter to be sold to the press, so I posted an image myself on one of my social media accounts; after that, I began posting photos of our family more frequently. I wasn’t expecting the overwhelming number of comments I received in response to these candid family snaps. So many people expressed surprise and relief that I was comfortable revealing a more private side of myself… "So amazing! You’re not wearing makeup. I’m used to seeing you on The Apprentice…" [...] Knowing my family is in the spotlight, I decided I was going to embrace it.
Whether you buy her reasoning here or not, this needless admission of doubt in a cheerful book suggests that Ivanka is actually quite private. In these details, Ivanka emerges highly compartmentalized, driven, disciplined, guarded, family-oriented, obsessed with extending the business, obsessed with the details of selling that brand, perhaps disinterested in culture, perhaps unfamiliar with the messiness that accompanies the common feeling of not knowing what you want to do with your life, someone who likes the rigor of training for marathons and the structure of observing the Jewish sabbath. “Sometimes” she likes turning on Real Housewives and “eating a giant bowl of pasta with a glass of wine” — but, if Ivanka Trump is honest with herself, “it’s kind of counterproductive.” You can have a passion for feeling a certain way, and perhaps hers is for being in control.
But the company and brand and the negotiated privacy they offered will never be exactly what they were a few years ago.
So if she does love that feeling of control — if that’s even close to correct — then these days, Ivanka’s experiencing a distinct kind of agony.
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9 Ways You Don't Realise You're Being Internally Misogynistic Towards Your Mom
I’m guilty of it. You’re guilty of it. Let’s work on it together.
Real talk: We, as women, have consciously or ignorantly judged, slut-shamed, discouraged, or stereotyped other women over the course of our lives.
The teen years were a particularly ignorant time for a lot of us from a feminist point of view.
But even now, while a lot of us (including myself) identify as feminists and genuinely believe in the encouragement, protection, and freedom of women, we sometimes tend to display a form of misogyny without realising it — internalised misogyny towards our mothers.
Dharma
And I've been taking notice of the shitty things I do, have done in the past, and have seen my friends doing, that are forms of internalised misogyny, which our brains "allow" because we do it all in the comfort of our homes. Let's take a look at some common situations and work on them together:
YRF
When you compare her to your friends' moms.
I had an awful habit as a teenager where I would come home from a friend's house and tell my mother how great the friend's mom was, and how "cool" she was, and how much she did for us. How she spoke to us so impressively, and understood the workings of the world better. I would sometimes imply (and other times, outrightly tell her) that she needs to up her game. Because my friend's mom seemed "more educated" or more "well-spoken".
There is no one particular kind of ideal mom.
Dhrupad
When you expect only her to cook, as if cooking at home is her job.
Working or stay-at-home, it isn't your mother's "job" to cook for you and the rest of the family. You cannot get angry at her because she hasn't cooked. It is not her job as the woman of the household. Help her with her chores, and help around the house in general now that you've grown up.
Gender roles are not just for you to defy. Your mom should be able to un-adhere to them too.
Eros International / Via desimartini.com
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Women Wear Fake Nipples For A Day
Free the nipple!
Boldly / Via youtube.com
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Bollywood, Stop Your Sexist Bullshit While Casting On-Screen Moms
While men play lead roles in their fifties, women start playing moms in their thirties.
Recently, she was asked about the mere nine-year age gap between her and her on-screen son in a Film Companion interview.
Earlier this week, Twitter user @BollywoodQing posted a thread pointing out the same longstanding sexist trend of having a tiny age gap between on-screen Bollywood moms and their kids.
While filmmakers consider men of all ages bankable leads and love interests, women are quickly relegated to supporting maternal roles pretty soon into their careers. Shah Rukh Khan can play a leading man in his fifties, while the women across from him remain in their early twenties, and some actresses play moms in their thirties itself.
The underlying (and sexist!) problem is that women are sexualised early and considered too unattractive to be leads as soon as they show signs of normal ageing. Though that's been changing in small pockets, it's still a widely accepted trend.
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White Women Drive Me Crazy
KL Ricks for BuzzFeed News
Yesterday I stepped on a white woman’s yoga mat by accident and she looked at me like she had woken up to me standing at the foot of her bed, like I had just suggested we murder her husband and run away together. She looked at me like I had escaped from a zoo, like a hippo had found its way into this Brooklyn yoga studio and was casually waiting for the 8 a.m. class to begin. She looked scared, like she had just found out that the world really did end in 2012, and she had been going to yoga three times a week since then for no reason, because she is actually a ghost.
She looked at me like I did not exist in her world; but here I was, and she did not know what to do with me.
Sometimes white women look at the rest of us like they are hungry. These are the kinds of white women who might refer to us as chocolate, or coffee with or without milk, or Princess Jasmine. Common accompanying behaviors include commenting obsessively on our features; asking us to speak languages we have nothing to do with; really trying to take selfies with us; an uncomfortably overblown interest in our lives (especially when they find out we have heritage from Egypt or other suitably palatable brown countries their ancestors have stolen from); and using the brown hand emojis.
They say, “Are you okay?” when they know we are thriving.
Sometimes they look at us with grief and pity, like they’re watching a UNICEF ad rather than a person dancing very discreetly to Moby at a bus stop. This look comes from a place of assumption — for example, “It must be hard to be a liberated Muslim woman (let me save you).” And then surprise — for example, “You are so articulate.”
Sometimes they look through us with a hard, vacant stare after we have said something funny or clever, or when we look even better than we usually do. This look is also employed when it becomes no longer convenient or safe to be allied with us, and can be turned on very quickly and without warning. They say, “Are you okay?” when they know we are thriving. They say, “Are you okay?” instead of “I feel uncomfortable,” because they are not used to feeling uncomfortable and they are happy for us to be the problem instead.
Sometimes, when we defend ourselves, white women look at us with the utmost fragility. They claim access to emotions such as fear and pain without missing a beat, like they were born to do it, before we can even dare to consider that we may be frightened or hurt, too. Their eyes rattle in their sockets, saying, “Why do you punish me for having such a big heart?”
On an East London playground in 1999, the kids are playing kiss-chase. It was a playground game and potential site of trauma for many of us, where boys chased girls and girls chased boys, and if you were caught you were kissed. I didn’t play because I didn’t want to chase the boys and also I wasn’t invited to play because the boys certainly did not want to chase me, but I watched, and I wished I was a boy and I wished my boobs would come quickly. My first crush was either Mary-Kate or Ashley; I don’t remember which. I sat in front of the television before school, 9 years old, buck-toothed and wiry headed, lost somewhere in the space between wanting to kiss her and wanting to be her. Looking at her shiny pug nose felt warm, like toast or wetting the bed, and I was happy alone, watching her through the glass.
White women, especially the monied ones, are so dangerous because they are allowed to be so soft. Stroke by stroke, they construct a type of womanhood that viciously negates the fact their bodies still function as agents of white supremacy. They are so gentle with themselves that they simply cannot comprehend that they could be oppressed and yet still oppressive.
White women are innocent until proven innocent until proven innocent.
We are taught to walk home with our keys between our fingers for protection from men in the night, but no one tells us how to defend ourselves from the white women who will try to ravage us from the inside out, with a smile, a comment, a betrayal, a vital inaction, a look. How they will choose comfort over effort, how they will read this and think I am talking about someone else, another pardon. And even if we are told, even if our mothers tuck us into bed with a warning, we won’t truly hear it, because white women are innocent until proven innocent until proven innocent.
On the beach last summer, my friend J said, “Think about Islamophobia, transphobia, slavery, prison … Black and brown men experience as much gender discrimination as white women.” And within the safety of a nonwhite circle of friends in the sunshine, with no white feelings to protect, no white shock to absorb, we leaned in and considered it: the person who asked J if they are a “rug dealer,” the racism and fetishization of feminism, and all of the times I have walked through a room of white women to stand next to a man of color without even thinking about it.
It’s funny, because sometimes a white woman is so delicate that I will elicit a full-blown horror reaction from her just by standing too close to her stuff, even though she is a white woman doing yoga and so in fact none of this was ever her stuff at all. It’s not funny, because this look becomes a call to the police, becomes another brown person incarcerated in a cell or a psych ward, another black person murdered. Despite having received more love in my life than is reasonable, and despite being told I am beautiful, as an instruction, from the beginning, this look is the reason I have always felt dirty — or at least never quite clean.
The look at the yoga studio felt familiar, like an old relative I had not seen in a while and didn’t want to see. As I registered the look, I regressed to the childhood version of myself who did not know why I was being looked at or what I had done wrong, but knew what humiliation felt like and knew what panic felt like and knew what it was like to be a wild animal, a beast or a pet. The depressed version of myself, unable to be looked at by anyone, watching British TV dramas with entirely white casts in the dark and feeling cozy, or some fake version of that. The adolescent version of myself getting hot for Mary-Kate, for Cameron, for Scarlett, waiting for them to notice me, lick my face, touch my hair. Brown people are the greatest time travelers, existing so many places at once and yet definitely also here.
This look is the reason I have always felt dirty — or at least never quite clean.
We eat eggs and I tell Y about how when I was 8 years old, I taught my white friend, B (actually called Becky), how to count to 10 in Urdu. How at school the next day she looked at her feet as she shuffled past me, and the white teacher pulled me aside and asked me why I was bullying Becky, because Becky’s mum said I was bullying Becky, and that maybe it would be best if I didn’t sit next to her anymore. She suggested this with the kind of half-arsed, sad-eyed, apologetic shrug that white women perform when it is less of a scene to administer psychological warfare against a brown child than it is to challenge your fellow white woman.
I remember well the acute shock and confusion of that day. I had been so damn sure Becky and I were having a good time. I felt so guilty, despite my mother’s insistence that Becky’s mother was a racist bitch and that I had done nothing wrong. I felt frightened of myself and my potential to hurt innocent white girls without even realizing it.
“It starts so young,” Y says, when I stop talking. “How we learn to doubt ourselves, second-guess our intuition, mistrust what we know to be true, and all because white people are meant to teach and not to be taught.” Eighteen years later, the affirmation still feels fresh, like it feels godly to tell this story to the person I love and not have to explain the experience of constant emotional contortion, not have to explain why it hurts.
About two years ago, I walked into some art event in downtown Manhattan, realized I was the only person of color there, and immediately walked out. I guess my time being a token was over. In this city where emergency vehicles wail like mothers, like the worst has already happened, I have learned not to live in the shadow of whiteness. I have learned that I am the sun, the object and the shadow. I have learned to bend over, to shake my arse, to put my fingers deep enough inside myself that at the age of 27 I finally put a tampon in right. Cleanliness is overrated, and I have always seen beauty in the city.
I dug my bare foot into the purple yoga mat and held the white woman’s gaze.
My first panic attack was on a Northern Line tube carriage in London during the summer of 2011. I didn’t know what anxiety was yet, but I had it pretty bad, and I had become obsessed with the fear that I would jump in front of a train or be blown up, should I successfully make it onto one. Despite having no idea how any type of bomb works, I would methodically check everyone’s hands to see what they were doing whenever I got on a train or bus. This was my secret, because I was ashamed that I had become the horrified white woman, but the more I tried to suppress her, the more anxious I became.
I did not expect to shout at the white woman with the yoga mat, because I do not shout. I cry, I stay in my bedroom for weeks, I write, I make sly remarks to people I love, I cut myself, and I slap people too hard on the arm when they make me laugh, but I don’t shout. Maybe I’ll prove them right if I shout: “Look, it speaks.”
A couple of years after that panic attack, I was standing in a huge crowd of white people at a music festival, wearing a backpack with some wires inside. I opened it to get something out and I registered a sharp feeling of gratitude that none of them seemed frightened of me. Guilt, even, that I had put them in a situation that could be perceived as a threat. I’m the bomb, I realized, standing there. I am the bomb. I had not become the horrified white woman; rather, her panic, disgust and fear, her grotesque theatre, had found a home inside me, and it had flourished to the point of saturation. I was seeing explosions everywhere because I was finally ready to explode.
“Listen, it was an innocent mistake,” I shouted at the horrified yoga woman. You could also call it a generally audible remark, or one tangible thing in a giant sea of mental fuckery. Innocent. I am innocent. I have always been innocent. “So if you could fucking relax I would really appreciate it.”
I walked away, waiting for remorse, shame or anxiety to visit, as they usually do after any sort of confrontation I get into in white people’s rooms. They did not come, and in the space they usually inhabit I felt something like peace, or at least it was quiet.
Later I ask my friends, “Is this what it feels like to give no fucks? Has my time finally come?”
“Sweet dominion over white emotion,” N replies with a slow smile. R the poet says, “I want their bigotry to die in public. I want to kill it enough to become human.” Emerging from a cloud of cigarette smoke, P announces, “I think Princess Jasmine was the first brown femme I had a crush on. I mean, she was such a great princess of color until white women ruined it.” We look at each other and laugh.
At work last week, my colleague pulled me aside hurriedly and said, “I’m really trying to work through something in therapy, but if I can’t, I might have to drop a bomb on you later, okay?” I said, “Okay,” but I also could have said, “Why do white people always want to drop bombs?” or “Sorry, this dumping ground is full” or “In 2017, can white women relax?”
I don’t know if I liked sleeping with white women because I’m queer or because they all smell so good. Like if I pressed my body against theirs and breathed deeply enough, some of their clean might rub off on me. I just wanted to feel clean. I wanted to smell good. These days I mask my smell with the scent of roses and a Burberry perfume I can’t afford and everyone says I smell good but I don’t fuck white women anymore. ●
Aisha Mirza is a writer and counselor from East London living in New York.
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Straight Men, We're Actually Asking For Your Opinion This Time
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7 Pictures Of Kid Activists That Will Melt Your Big Ol' Heart
“I love naps but I stay woke.” From The Little Book of Little Activists.
These adorable brothers who believe in gender equality.
Xander and Owen, ages 6 and 8.
Viking
This 9-year-old who wants to remind young girls that they are valuable and powerful. “Freedom to me means choice," she says.
Jayna, age 9.
Viking
This 5-year-old cutie who knows that diversity matters.
O, age 5.
Viking
This 9-year-old who knows just how smart and strong girls are. “If I could give one piece of advice to other kids it would be: if you want to make a change in the world, go ahead. Nobody can stop you,” she says.
Eden, age 9.
Viking
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18 Things That Don't Make You A "Bad Feminist"
Having a Pinterest board all about your dream wedding doesn’t make you any less of a feminist.
Seeing as you're reading this post, you probably identify as a feminist: someone that believes all genders are equal.
Giphy / Danny Chang / Via giphy.com
But there are times when every one of us has felt like a "bad feminist".
Like you're not fulfilling your duty as a feminist, or not doing it correctly.
Universal Studios
Like if you've ever felt sad for being single, even though you damn well know you shouldn't need anyone.
There's nothing wrong with wanting companionship. That's just human nature.
If you've ever caught yourself judging another woman for something superficial.
We're all guilty of doing it,
Oxygen
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Beta Male
LULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZLULZ
BuzzFeedVideo / Via youtube.com
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Four Questions About India's Future That Are Answered Best By Our Past
Noah Seelam / AFP / Getty Images
Confronted by moral and ethical dilemmas that we grapple with on a daily basis, our habit as Indian millennials is to look outside our culture to find solutions. We look particularly to the West.
But what if I were to tell you that you do not have to look too far to learn about harmonious modern ways of living? What if I were to tell you that your highly-liberal role models, who thought way ahead of their times, reside much closer home?
Yes, modern role models and the liberal ways of life are buried in our own past. Ancient Indian mythology and theology promotes concepts that are in tune with many needs of modern society. Let’s dive into some examples and look at how we can take a cue and learn from our own traditions to lay the building blocks of a futuristic social set-up.
1. Freedom of expression
There is no translation for the English word “blasphemy” in Vedic Sanskrit, the language of ancient India. This signifies that speaking your mind about Gods, sacred notions, and religious practices wasn’t curbed.
The same is depicted by an incident in the Natya Shastra, the more than two-thousand-year-old text describing performing arts in ancient India. In this text, an account is given of the first play that was ever performed, which was apparently insulting to some of the divine beings in the audience. They were agitated and wanted the performance stopped.
They were prevented from doing so by Lord Brahma. He conveyed to them that what takes place within the boundaries of the stage is sacred and the performers have the liberty to say what they want. Freedom of expression at its finest.
2. Women's rights
Via hinduwebsite.com
One of our ancient scriptures clearly states that the Gods abandon any land where women aren’t respected. The Rig Veda highlights the presence of Rishikas – woman Rishis – in Vedic times. For context: during the Vedic period, Rishis were revered and held the highest status in society. They were, in some ways, akin to the prophets and messiahs of the Abrahamic faiths. This directly indicates what an evolved society it must have been. Women were respected and held the highest positions of reverence.
Furthermore, the names of some of the Rishikas, as mentioned in our ancient scriptures, when loosely translated mean “independent,” “auspicious,” “limitless,” “courageous,” and “scholarly”, signifying that they thrived in an equal social set-up.
This culture needs to be revived in modern India. "Equal" is the key term here; not pro-man or pro-woman but equal. Equality forms the very crux of positive feminism. In a society where both men and women are treated as equals, everyone peacefully move towards prosperity.
3. Casteism
Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India
In ancient India, hierarchies were not based on birth, but on karma, which ensured that individuals progressed based on merit. For example, Maharishi Valmiki wasn’t born a Brahmin but he still went on to attain one of the most revered positions in society, that of a Rishi. Similarly, Maharishi Satyakam Jabali was the son of a single Shudra woman. But his intellectual brilliance ensured that he attained one of the highest honours in Lord Ram’s kingdom and became a Rishi.
Technological developments in the field of genetic research today have made it possible to prove that there was no birth-based caste system in ancient India. Modern genetic research has shown that inter-mingling (i.e. children born from inter-marriage) between different genetic groups was quite common in ancient India. And this intermingling between different genetic groups stopped somewhere around 1500 to 2000 years ago.
Intriguingly, this also corresponds to the period that Dr. Ambedkar had postulated the caste system became rigid and birth-based. So, it seems quite clear that ancient India was not casteist. The system we have today, where hierarchy is decided by birth, is a corruption of our progressive ancient ways.
4. LGBT rights
India Today
Various Hindu texts and scriptures feature queer folk and also showcase the relative acceptance of sexual differences in people to an extent that it was a non-issue.
For example, King Bhangaswan, changed his gender and turned into a woman without his choice being curtailed, and went on to give birth to many children. Similarly, the founder of the Chandravanshi clan, Ilaa, born a girl, later changed into a man called Ila. In fact, one of the names of ancient India was Illaavarta, in honour of Ilaa.
Even the Smritis – various different law books penned down at different stages in time – have been fairly liberal towards homosexuality.
All the above instances show that many answers to the future lie in our past, in our ancient scriptures. Indian myths and ancient texts actually aid the cause of liberalism.
By being liberal and open-minded, we are not being less Indian; we are in fact being more Indian. We are honouring our great ancestors.
Amish Tripathi has authored five books — The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, The Oath of the Vayuputras, Scion of Ikshvaku, and Sita – Warrior of Mithila. His books have been translated into 19 Indian and International languages.
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23 Hilariously Savage Responses From Feminists
“The difference between period pains and getting kicked in the balls is one is a compulsory monthly event and the other is probably because you were being a dick.”
When someone was given an epiphany.
queenof-thediamonds.tumblr.com
When nobody was asking for an opinion.
Again, no opinion needed, thanks.
When the truth was laid out.
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God Bless The Women In His Life Because Virat Kohli Just Said He's A Feminist
“Everyone should be a feminist.”
Internet's boyfriend, Virat Kohli, has always been very vocal about the love he has for the women in his life.
And he has also apologised for men being assholes.
Today, in an interview with Mint Lounge, Kohli went a step further by accepting that we all need to be feminists.
Getty Images
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18 Times The Internet Made Some Fucking Good Points About Masculinity
“Imagine masculinity so fragile that you can’t even touch your own face.”
This truth about beer:
This apparently "repulsive" gesture:
This dog who just wants to flaunt their new bows:
This aversion to sweet smells:
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Ladies, The Censor Board Is Finally OK With Your Existence!
Looks like Mr. Nihalani got his hands on some brain pills because Lipstick Under My Burkha will FINALLY be releasing on July 28.
Lipstick Under My Burkha came into the spotlight after the Censor Board refused to certify the film in February this year.
Prakash Jha Productions
The reasons listed for their refusal include that “the story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life”, “contanious [sic] sexual scenes”, and “audio pornography”.
![The reasons listed for their refusal include that “the story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life”, “contanious [sic] sexual scenes”, and “audio pornography”.](http://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2017-06/5/6/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane-03/sub-buzz-28570-1496659576-2.jpg)
People were baffled that the Censor Board managed to outdo itself again with its ridiculous rationale.
The filmmakers appealed to a film certification tribunal (FCAT) after which they were guaranteed theatrical release rights with some cuts and the A certification. However, they didn't have a buyer to be able to sell the film.
Prakash Jha Productions
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29 Reasons To Really Love Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande has always been a beautiful human, but after last night’s One Love Manchester concert, the whole world knows it.
Last night Ariana Grande headlined her One Love Manchester benefit concert in tribute to those who died at her concert on 22nd May.
Getty Images
And rightly so – she's always been amazing. And here's exactly why.
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11 Times Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Gifted Us With Her Wisdom
“If feminism were really accepted we wouldn’t have a room full of men making decisions about women’s bodies.”
The One Book, One New York program was a partnership between BuzzFeed and Commissioner Julie Menin and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.
"When you're writing, forget about the ones you love. Don't think about the reader or you will censor yourself. Be true to yourself. Don't worry about what people will like."
Sarah Stacke/New York Public Library
"I think it's important for a writer to not be in a rush. Focusing on the end increases anxiety."
Sarah Stacke/New York Public Library
"I think writers often write about the lives they wish they led."
Sarah Stacke/New York Public Library
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