Living Mirrors Illuminate The Water 🪩

Flying Bats, woodblock print by Kono Bairei

the misogyny speech

my favourite thing ever in the history of this universe is the misogyny speech. i love it. i love it so much. 

for those who don’t know what the misogyny speech is: australia’s PM julia gillard was our first female prime minister and was bullied relentlessly throughout her career by sexist politicians saying that as a woman she was unfit to lead. and then. then. one day, julia gillard snapped.

the resulting three-minute speech, known simply as the ‘misogyny speech’ in australia, was possibly the most epic smackdown seen in australian political history, surpassed only by “i wanna do you slowly”. it was incredible. students memorised it and marched through the streets yelling it. a national australian choir arranged it as a five-harmony piece. even hillary clinton went out of her way to meet julia gillard and tell her how fucking awesome the misogyny speech was.

i, personally, have the misogyny speech memorised. because i live in tony abbott’s electorate, and my dream of dreams is to see him at the shops one day and follow him while yelling it.

the misogyny speech: as australian as vegemite.

Anyway, if you read marriage certificates from church records, a full 85% of first marriages for young women were around 18-19 years old. The rest skewed higher, into the early twenties, with only a few being below that age and only one in a thousand was younger than 16. 

The age of puberty has declined over the centuries as girls get better nutrition, as well, so throughout the middle ages the age at which a girl could expect her first period was around 16, where modern girls often get it much younger. 

The idea that women in earlier ages were married and mothers in their early teens is a myth. Marriages of children were usually only between noble families, and made for political reasons, or creepy old bastards who wanted a child-wife and could get away with it because they were rich and powerful. They often would point to the fact that the Roman elite did the same thing as justification. The Romans, of course, would point to the Greeks doing the same thing as justification, the Greeks pointed at the Assyrians, and so on back through the ages. 

It was considered disgusting by normal people then and still is. 

This myth is still brought out and touted by sick fuckers. Know it for what it is; a falsehood. 

Diving Helmet From René Piel Companies. France, Paris Around 1935

The Palestinian (1977)

The sign of high quality is the fact the book was banned by the government. Trash literature NEVER EVER had any troubles with the law.

(via Cedar Tree after a storm in Central Kansas yesterday : pics)