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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Sociologist Matthew Desmond has an amazing book called Evicted that talks about criminal act evictions and profiles people who have been the target of them. The book follows very low income renters in Milwaukee through years of their struggles to find and keep housing. It also follows individual landlords from the same neighborhoods. It’s technically an academic subject and is impeccably researched (the notes section in the back could be its own book) but it reads like a novel. It won a Pulitzer iirc.

    He also just published Poverty, By America last year. I’ve only just started it, but it’s just as readable. He explains overly-complicated regulations and social services red tape in a way that’s concise and easy to understand, and he illustrates their consequences through his interviews with real people. His books should be required reading for every American.






  • It’s not that deep. It’s just misogyny.

    “Privilege is when equality feels like oppression.” When “straight white cis male” is the default, all resources are “male” resources. All history is “male” history. Not sure how that’s so unfair.

    There are men-only 12 step meetings. There are men-only homeless shelters (way more than there are for women or LGBTQ folks actually). Men-only recovery programs. Men-only church groups and support groups. A few years ago a domestic violence org in my hometown changed from being women-only to accepting all genders, including straight cis men, and it certainly can’t be the only one in the US. And of course men had to create a male counterpart to International Women’s Day. There’s a million resources and groups for prostate cancer and testicular cancer (because I’ve literally heard men complain about the amount of recognition breast cancer gets - not that breast cancer only affects women…) Plus your “no nut/no shave November.” And of course, any space, organization, or institution that is not gender specific to begin with generally becomes dominated by straight white cis men. Maybe you just aren’t looking hard enough for these “male resources.”