"This Is A Phone Alarm. One Of Those Is Enough To Wake A Grown Man"

things that happened to me when i was a woman in STEM:

an advisor humiliated me in front of an entire lab group because of a call I made in his place when he wouldn't reply to my e-mails for months

he later delegated part of my master's thesis work to a 19-year old male undergrad without my approval

a male scientist at a NASA conference looked me up and down and asked when i was graduating and if i was open to a job at his company. right before inquiring what my ethnicity was because i "looked exotic"

a random male member of the public began talking over me and my female advisor, an oceanographer with a pHD and decades of experience, saying he knew more about oceanography than us

things that have happened to me since becoming a man in STEM:

being asked consistently for advice on projects despite being completely new to a position

male colleagues approaching me to drop candid information regarding our partners / higher ups that I was not privy to before

lenience toward my work in a way I haven't experienced before. incredible understanding when I need to take time off to care for my family.

conference rooms go silent when I start talking. no side chatter. I get a baseline level of attention and focus from people that's very unfamiliar and genuinely difficult for me to wrap my head around.

like. yes some PI's will still be assholes regardless of the gender of their subordinates but, I've lived this transition. misogyny in STEM is killing women's careers, and trans men can and do experience male privilege.

The target audience

404 Media

DOGE Employees Ordered to Stop Using Slack While Agency Transitions to a Records System Not Subject to FOIA

Employees at Elon Musk's agency have been told "OMB is asking us to stop generating new slack messages starting now."

This is enormous. Please spread this news.

FOIA is the Freedom of information Act, which allows citizen oversight of government activity. It means you can request to see government records. This is so ubiquitous that all federal employees take yearly training about it. What this means is that DOGE knows they are committing crimes as they decimate the federal workforce and compromise its systems, and so they are now moving to exempt themselves from all FOIA requirements so no one can see what they are doing.

I did in fact get some sexual encounters ruined by laughing

Hey, your arms are going to shake when you hold yourself above someone for a while during missionary. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, your thighs and lower back are going to start aching eventually, and you'll need to change positions or slow down. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, your tummy is going to make noises when you're anxious during your first few times with them. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, you're going to burst out giggling sometimes. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, you're going to dislike one, two, or a few things you thought you would've liked. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, you're going to struggle to finish sometimes. Or keep it in. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, you're going to stumble around sometimes. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey, you're going to need to take a few deep breaths sometimes. It won't ruin the moment.

Hey. You won't ruin the moment.

And if they say that you have, they don't deserve a moment with you.

♡♡♡

Capitalists have somehow got it in their minds that capitalism is human nature, even though it's literally the system most removed from it

my kid has started to write stories and like, no lies, they’re funny as fuck

shouldn't have wished to live in more interesting times

This is literally the obedience training that molds us into capitalism. And capitalists think it's human nature

There's this interesting phenomenon where when you're a child, or some other vulnerable minority dependent on a job for shelter, you are actually under duress almost constantly. You can't say "I don't want to work today," you cannot say "I don't want to do the dishes, actually," you cannot choose not to participate. In a lot of cases, the punishment is explicit. Your parents might yell at you. Your boss might fire you. But in other cases, it's implicit. The mood will sour. You lose leeway. People get mad at you. And that creates a really shitty environment where you're constantly being coerced to do things!

And here's the kicker; you're not allowed to acknowledge that. You cannot acknowledge that you are being coerced, you cannot acknowledge that your free will is not being respected, because that's punished too. Your boss insists that you act excited. Your parents punish you for acting surly. You are forced to fake enthusiastic consent, constantly. It's a fucking nightmare. Your hand is being forced, you do not have the option to say "no," and if you ever, for a second, try to acknowledge that, everyone acts like you're the aggressor.