when male academics constantly refer to men by their surnames and women by their first names
like you’d never go to a lecture expecting shakespeare to be referred to as “william” but it’s not at all uncommon to sit through an entire lecture in which jane austen is referred to constantly as “jane”
it’s such a petty thing but it just really rubs me the wrong way, like it has a real suggestion of respect and admiration/lack thereof
kind of like how during the 2016 election everything was Trump vs Hillary
did y’all, perhaps, forget there was a whole other Clinton in office before and that maybe they used her first name to avoid confusion, lol?
We’ve had two President Roosevelts, no one refers to them as Roosevelt and Franklin. Even newspaper headlines from the times called them simply Roosevelt
We recently had two President Bushes. Bush Sr. was still alive when Bush Jr. was running and in office, and news agencies still referred to him as Bush
America was able to read this headline and hundreds like it and know which Bush it was talking about. When the news mentioned a Bush vs Gore debate we all knew that it wouldn’t be the ex-president debating
There was even a Bush running against Trump in the primaries and no one said Jeb vs Trump
One odd complaint I’ve seen is that “AO3 hasn’t changed”. First, if something is well designed and working, it shouldn’t need to change constantly (does anyone actually like it when Tumblr makes random changes to things? no.)
Second, even at a cosmetic level, it’s just… not true? Not unless you haven’t been around very long.
AO3 in 2008 – the first decent cap from the Wayback Machine.
AO3 in 2009. Still in closed beta. About 5500 works.
AO3 opens for general signups! 2010. Also, our logo makes its appearance :3
2011 – the tabs appear at the top of the page. Things looking generally more tidy and less squished.
2012 – a more chipper intro page. Things shifted around a bit as well.
2013 – looking a little more classy now. Tweets available on the main page.
2014 – some more subtle changes, including adding the number of works and fandoms in a prominent place. 1.2 million works at that point…
2015 – look how much it’s changed! The categories move to the front page for ease of access. Recent news updates also on display. Nearing 2 million works…
2016 – I admit I picked this one because of the news update about buying a new server “after holding together mail with sticks and strings”. Nearing 2.7 million works.
2017 – cosmetically few changes but look at the works number – 3.3 million works. This was just about a year ago (October 2017) and the current number today is about 4.2 million. You can also see from the news post that this was when we were in the middle of upgrading to HTTPS, which was a difficult but important process.
And here we are at more or less the present – 2018 (September to be precise). I agree fully that if you joined the site in the last 3 years, you might not have seen a lot of cosmetic/interface changes, but that’s because people – volunteers – spent the previous 5-6 years hashing those out to get them into their present state.
More importantly, you might not have noticed the under the hood changes that necessarily come with going up by roughly a million works a year. You might not have noticed the updates to site security that came with HTTPS, and maybe you didn’t even notice the huge changes to searching and filtering over the past few months. I get that it’s easy to say “nothing has changed”. That’s because there’s a team of volunteers who are working hard to make sure pages keep loading quickly, downloads keep working as expected, searches find you what you’re looking for, and downtime is kept to a minimum. Without them, I guarantee you would notice a lot more changes at this rate of growth, and not for the better.
Ella Dawson has genital herpes, and she wants to tell you about it.
She’s not speaking up for the shock value — she’s telling you because she wants all of us to be able to talk about STIs without shame or stigma. When we make it okay to talk about, she says, people are more likely to get tested and less likely to be afraid to share their status.
In her badass talk at TEDxConnecticut College, Ella tells the story of her diagnosis, how she overcame feeling like “human trash,” and why we need to end the stigma — now. It’s packed with information (and a shot of humor), and if you didn’t already agree with her, you will by the time she’s done.
(Full disclosure: Ella is TED’s social media manager. This post was written by her boss who is so incredibly proud of how fearlessly she speaks out.)
OK What the fuck is wrong with this bitch. Getting herpes is most definitely a reflection on a bad decision!!! There is something in this world called condoms!! Oh yeah and they are free at Planned Parenthood so you can’t even use the fucking excuse that they are expensive or your broke so you couldn’t buy any.. Seriously what the fuck I am not saying you have to make it a big deal that you have herpes and have to tell the fucking world but you need/should tell your sexual partner..
Hi! That’s me. I’m that bitch. Nothing wrong with me except for an anxiety disorder and a runny nose today.
Here’s a fun fact you should probably know: condoms do not prevent the transmission of herpes. That’s because herpes is transmitted through skin contact, not fluids, and a condom does not cover all of the areas where genital herpes can express itself. Herpes is also often transmitted through oral sex, which most people do not use protection for. Using condoms and dental dams can greatly reduce your risk of getting herpes, but telling people to just use condoms is quite useless advice. I should know—I was a Planned Parenthood volunteer who used condoms religiously when I contracted genital herpes.
Many people do not tell their partners that they have herpes because they do not know they have herpes in the first place. That’s because many people can carry the virus without showing symptoms, and herpes is not tested for in most standard STI tests. But most people have herpes—in fact, according to the World Health Organization, 2 in 3 people in the world have HSV-1, which is the strain of herpes that I have. In all likelihood, you have herpes too. You may have even contracted it from a family member who kissed you on the mouth when you were little.
I tell all of my partners that I have genital herpes before we have sex because I think they have the right to decide what they want to do with their bodies. I consider it part of obtaining informed consent. My partner who transmitted herpes to me did not give me the option to decide whether or not I wanted to take the risk of contracting the virus, and I think that was probably because he did not know he had the virus. I harbor no ill will towards him for transmitting to me. If he’d disclosed his status to me, I would have fucked him anyway.
Considering the fact that you know that condoms are available for free at Planned Parenthood—and that your tumblr is full of porn GIFs, no judgment!—I hope that you have been tested recently for herpes as well. It requires a blood draw, so if you’ve been peeing in a cup for your STI testing, you don’t know your herpes status. If you test positive for herpes, which you probably will, statistically speaking, I’ve written this guide on what to do after you’ve been diagnosed. I hope you will find it helpful!
Thank you for watching my TEDx talk, which you absolutely made sure to do before calling me a bitch, and have a wonderful evening!
DRAGGEDT
She said I’m that bitch….. I’m already gagged I haven’t even finished reading this
This is why I love Ella. She’s smart af, kind, but also ready to drag a bitch should she need to. Queen of telling it like it is; science edition.