mamastiles:

men don’t get to decide what is misogynistic

straight people don’t get to decide what it homophobic

cis people don’t get to decide what is transphobic

white people don’t get to decide what is racist

people in positions of power

don’t get to decide what is considered oppression

that’s how we move backwards, not forwards

apollyptica:

If we want our community to be inclusive, you need to listen to our points of view. 

There is no homogenous experiences in the ace community. What aces of colour deal with is not the same as what white aces deal with. 

Asexuality does not exist in a vacuum, and must be examined and talked about in a critical fashion. 

You must understand that there are groups of people who have had asexuality (different than our understanding of it but still the same word) forced on them or have been hypersexualized beyond compare and cannot access asexual spaces in the same way due to racism. 

Asexuality (and things like it) have an old history in certain groups, and it is vital to understand that. 

You can’t approach the experiences of aces of colour from a white perspective; you can’t. Because you won’t understand. 

Our community is multicultural, and it is important that our discourse reflects it. 

I’m reminded of what I was talking about at the International Asexuality Conference at the Asexuality and Ethnicity panel I was asked to be apart of: “You cannot parse my asexuality from my race. They are not separate. You cannot fully understand my experiences if you break them apart.” 

We are apart of this community

If asexuality discourse does not actively include aces of colour or have our voices dominate in discussions of our experiences with racism and the impact it has had on our asexuality, then it will be inaccurate. 

unhappyhorses:

One of the most pervasive myths in the training world, whether working with dogs or horses, is the myth of dominance. The myth goes that animals have a static hierarchy, which determines who’s at the top and who’s at the bottom, and is a major source of conflict and dictates the everyday behavior and attitudes of individual animals. An animal which exhibits aggressive behavior is trying to be dominant. The top individual, the most dominant animal, is the alpha. They have absolute command over the other individuals. In training, you have to be this alpha figure, because if you don’t assert your authority over the animal, they will exhibit dominant behavior, which expresses itself as aggression, pushiness, and refusal to listen to commands.

There are dozens of layers to this myth, but I want to address as thoroughly as I can the foundation of the faulty mindset, the most common misconceptions, and the alternatives.

Firstly.

The idea of there being an ‘alpha’ individual arose from the work of Rudolph Schenkel, who wrote Expressions Studies on Wolves in 1947 after observing an artificially constructed pack of captive wolves. These wolves, placed in close quarters with strangers and forced to compete for resources, developed the highly aggressive, intimidation-based behaviors we now associate with the typical pecking order. More recent studies by Dr. David Mech indicate that a wild wolf pack is formed not of highly competitive individuals fighting for dominance, but a mother and father wolf, and their offspring. The pack is not a competitive structure, but a cooperative one. See here for more information on the context of these studies and their role in dog training.

The concept of the alpha has become ingrained in our culture, and melded nicely with our own traditional, coercive training techniques. Observation of social animals in the wild reveal behaviors that we attributed to ‘dominance’ or ‘leadership’, because it was an easy interpretation to make. If one horse tends to walk at the forefront of the herd, they are both literally and figuratively the ‘leader’. If a horse chases another horse away from a prime spot at the watering hole, it’s because that horse is higher on the totem pole. We assigned the ‘alpha’ role to the horses we deemed the most dominant, and then we made the leap to using these presumably natural and static roles in our training.

And here is the most critical mistake.

Dominance does exist. But it exists in a fluid state, when there is competition for resources. One animal exerts dominance over another animal in order to take control of said resource – maybe a mare in heat, maybe a bucket of grain. But these roles of dominance and submission are not static, and they do not generalize to training.

The first and most obvious reason is that dominance only occurs in the context of resources. Animals fight each other over food, yes, but as the ones providing that food, we have automatic control over these resources. We control what the horse eats and when. We control where they live. We control their access to water. We already exert dominance over our horses in the most important sense of the word. This is why you cannot fight with your animal for dominance. That conflict does not exist. All the people you see striking their horses in the name of control, claiming that their horse is ‘trying to be dominant’, are laboring under a misunderstanding of natural social behavior.

And here we come to the second major misunderstanding: we assume that behaviors are innately submissive or dominant.

When a horse enters our personal space, or tries to itch their face on us, or when a dog climbs up on the couch next to us, we assume that this is a purposeful display of insubordination and disrespect. But these behaviors have absolutely nothing to do with dominance, because again: Dominance occurs in the context of fluid, moment-to-moment control of resources. Behaviors such as entering your space are in actuality more often a sign of trust and affection, and have absolutely nothing to do with dominance or disrespect. Other behaviors are attributed to submission, like licking and chewing, and moving out of your space, when in fact these are respectively signs of stress or a behavior learned to avoid punishment. (Probably the most obvious example is the practice of join up, which supposedly harnesses natural horse behavior to teach a horse to see you as a benevolent leader, as if this ‘joining up’ is an innate response to dominant behavior, but which really works through negative reinforcement instead of harnessing instinct and body language.)

The result is incredibly harsh punishment of innocent behaviors. If someone believes that a horse which noses and nips is trying to be disrespectful or dominant, and when they believe that this static hierarchy exists, they believe they are justified in punishing that horse severely. They believe that this small behavior (like nosing, or entering your space) is a symptom of a huge problem. They believe that if they don’t punish these small oversteps, it will result in a horse which believes it is dominant, believes it is in control, and then will assert itself with more extreme displays of dominance. They believe that they need to constantly beat back these small insubordinations, and keep their animals in check, or they will face dangerous consequences.

You see this belief taken to ridiculous extremes. You see riders who believe that as long as they maintain dominance over their horse, the horse will naturally exhibit complex, trained behaviors. They believe that a horse’s ‘submission’ is necessary for collection, they believe that if they are dominant enough their horse will walk over above and around any terrifying obstacle, they believe that a horse which ‘sees them as a leader’ will automatically walk at their side, come when called, stop and go when you do (see ‘joined up’ horses). You see this throughout the natural horsemanship world, in the way trainers direct you to ‘drive’ your horse’s hindquarters and forequarters ‘the way an alpha mare would’.

And of course this means that if a horse hasn’t learned this behavior, and fails to perform, they are at fault. They are being dominant. They don’t respect you. A horse that bucks isn’t confused, or distressed, or possibly in pain – they’re naughty. They’re disrespectful.

This is the biggest disservice we do to our horses when we train with dominance and respect in mind. We assume that their lack of learning isn’t about our poor teaching – it’s about their instinctive desire to undermine us.

I’ll probably make more posts addressing this in the future, but for now I’m going to leave off with that, and these links:

• Dr. Sophia Yin – The Dominance Controversy
• The Myth of Dominance – paper with information specific to horses with pertinent studies cited
• A pamphlet put together by the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior explaining why dominance doesn’t apply in training, which ‘recommends that veterinarians not refer clients to trainers who coach and advocate dominance hierarchy theory and the subsequent confrontational training’
• A page on the ASPCA website explaining the origin of dominance theory and why it’s faulty
• The RSPCA’s view on dominance based training and why you should avoid it

ozymandias271:

dear authors of urban fantasy:

the Roma are a real people

they are not a fantasy race

they are an oppressed group

“the Roma are magic” is a trope which has been used to oppress them

don’t say “there’s nothing blacker than a gypsy’s magic”

wtf is wrong with you

would you say literally any other race of people is inherently magical? no? then DON’T FUCKING DO IT TO THE ROMA

geekhyena:

anarchykin:

a reminder to not post screamers for halloween

a reminder that there are people with various medical conditions on this website and driving to the hospital because of your shitty screamer is not funny

don’t do this

THIS. IT’S DANGEROUS, FFS.