Life Things

You know what, I'm gonna add on here and defend Eloise without dragging Pen.

Everything, everything Eloise knows about feminism, she has taught herself. Her peers, her circle. her family, have not only not taught her about feminism, they have actively tried to teach her sexism, trying to drum it into her head that as a woman the only thing she can aspire to is marriage and motherhood and anything else she might dream of is foolish, or outright unnatural.

They taught her this because this what they believe, so not only does Eloise have to learn feminism, she has to rebel and actively unlearn sexism, taught to her by not only those she dislikes, but those she loves best.

She has been taught to see lower classes as a world apart from herself, to be treated with kind condescension at best, but always to be removed, with the expectation that their lot in life is never to be as good, as free or privileged as their own.

This is what Eloise has been taught. She has been taught this by her family, by the Bridgertons. Her limited understanding of the world, of classism and feminism, shows up in a way that her family's does not, because she challenges it. She is learning, she is actively seeking out literature and people and assemblies in order to learn. She is setting a challenge for herself to learn. She's choosing to do so, not in the hopes of being flattered or admired but at the risk of censure from nearly everyone she knows. She is choosing to learn.

Because she's on this learning journey, her ignorance shows up. She reveals herself as a beginner. The ignorance of those around her is not so evident, because they're not learning. They're not making the choices she's making. They're existing happily within their privileged, upper class bubble, only occasionally 'slumming it' for the fun of it.

But Eloise, she wants to learn. All these people rooting for someone to "put Eloise in her place" by pointing out the truth in the world, as though Eloise isn't actively searching out these truths, isn't choosing to try and dig deep into social matters such as feminism.

What Eloise is trying to do is what loads of us are trying to do, but she's doing it in a world where feminism isn't mainstream, where there's no internet or wide varieties of feminist literature or university courses in gender studies. In a world where sexism is a revered, uncontested staple of society.

How many of us, who criticise El's feminism, would do so well as she has done with what she has. How many of us would even try?

i do care if someone hires someone to clean though like you can’t just throw that out there as if it isn’t well known that those people that are hired to clean your home exist because they’re poor. wash your own dirty dishes

I understand what you’re saying, but you also seem to be ignoring the fact that people who are hiring these poor people to clean their houses are giving those people jobs. If they weren’t hiring them to clean their houses, these people may not have a job at all.

i don’t agree with this logic. i don’t think we need to settle for a job or nothing, is the same to be said for women who work under slavery like conditions in clothing factories in poor countries? why can’t we fight for change instead of accepting that some people just have to be maids

Before she moved in to take care of her, my aunt hired a maid to come to my disabled grandmother’s house once a week to clean for like 2-3 hours and paid her $80 every time she came over. There’s no way my grandmother, who had a bum hip from a car accident and hobbled around with her walker (back when she could even walk), could clean her own house. Maids provide an invaluable service, especially for the elderly and disabled, and they shouldn’t be eliminated just because you think their jobs are somehow not good enough for anyone to be doing. Many jobs like housecleaners, gardeners, etc., are great for people who may not speak the local language, who may have had a limited education, or who came here as adults with limited opportunities. My grandfather, who could speak four languages fluently but his English sucked, became a janitor at the age of 58 to support his family when they first came to America, and his kids always advocated that you should treat blue-collar and traditionally low-paid workers with respect because those jobs are valuable and even someone who cleans toilets is a person who is trying their best. Basically, we shouldn’t try to eliminate these jobs; they should just be better compensated.

yes i agree! i think that disabled people should have help and that it should be easily available for them but to me that wasn’t what the post was talking about!! i read it as a wealthy people simply hiring help to clean just because they can not because they need to. in an altruistic society people who love to clean could become a maid without having to depend on it, if everyone’s basic needs where met and no one would be walking hungry without their job that’s a different story to me! so while yes we do need to bring respect and wages to these jobs i also don’t think it’s unfair to think about if people actually need their houses cleaned by someone else! some do, including the disabled, some don’t!

But here’s the thing.

By focusing our attention and wrath on people who might buy things they don’t really “need” (OH the wailing over AOC’s $300 purse) we lose sight of the actual problem (Uber and Lyft spending $200 million dollars to defeat legislation that would require them to treat their workers as employees).

Rich people hiring cleaners because they’re “lazy” is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem. If all rich people started picking up their socks and doing their own dishes tomorrow, it wouldn’t increase the wellbeing or economic security of the rest of us one iota. No small cosmetic change will do that. Only fundamentally changing the legal and economic landscape will do that.

And in the meantime, people’s goalposts for who is “rich” and who is “lazy” will always be so flexible that it will inevitably hit a lot more poor people with disposable income than actual 1%ers.

I know as a disabled person that we are constantly put under scrutiny to prove we’re “disabled enough” to afford accommodation so you absolutely CANNOT say “this is the rule but of COURSE disabled people are excepted uwu.” If the rule isn’t built to accommodate disabled people in the first place, it WILL be used to treat us like shit unless we can meet whatever level of “disabled enough” a random unqualified stranger has decided is today’s benchmark, and meeting that will mean a constant surrender of our rights to privacy and dignity.

This is all probably useless when talking to someone named “70s lesbian” but I really truly promise you, policing people’s choices and “rescuing” people from immoral or “demeaning” work is not nearly as useful as focusing on improving societal and material conditions for workers and poor people.

As a disabled person, I don’t want to rely on someone being “altruistic” to do necessary housework I’m too fatigued and in too much pain to do  - and on people deciding I was “disabled enough” through some arbitrary standard to require help. I get enough of “you’re just lazy and your pain is made up” already, thanks. I’d love to be in a position able to pay someone a fair wage to help deal with housework that I can’t do without hurting myself.

In the same way, I don’t drive. If I need to go somewhere, I really like when I’m able to pay someone for this service! I don’t like having to wait for a friend or acquaintance to be available, and coordinate their schedule with mine, and take time out of their day, and possibly resent me for it (especially if I need to go several places), and have the option of withholding this help in the future if they decide to be an asshole. (I’ve been in abusive situations before where my basic needs have been used as leverage against me. e.g. “Well, you set boundaries I don’t like, so I’m not going to take you to your doctor’s appointment”.)

If I can just say “Here, have money in exchange for doing this thing I can’t/don’t want to do”, things are a lot simpler. Relying on other people to help out of the goodness of their hearts isn’t practical or realistic for longterm, day-to-day survival stuff. (If it was, disabled people wouldn’t be in the shitty situations we’re so often in, and so many of us wouldn’t live in poverty.) It’s a nice IDEA, but it doesn’t tend to happen on a large scale. Cleaning is unpleasant! I’m sure there exist people who enjoy some aspects of it, but if I had to wait for someone to clean out the cat box because they want to, it would never get done. Because cleaning up another animal’s bodily functions is gross and stinky, and if it’s not your cat you really should be compensated in some way for this. I want everyone to have UBI, too, so that they’re not in a position where they HAVE TO do it or starve, but that’s a separate issue.

Hi, I’m employed part-time by a cleaning service, and I also work full-time as a janitor, and I gotta say, I’m not loving some of the takes in this thread.

1. First of all, there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with employing a service to make your life easier, whether you need it or not. I feel like we should start with that. A person who hires the services of a maid or cleaning company is well within their right to do so, whether it’s because they can’t do it themselves or it’s because they just don’t want to. That’s their choice! They are paying money for a service! Except in cases where they are hiring someone directly, they do not control how much the employees who clean their homes/offices/businesses get paid!

2. That said, maid/cleaning services may get tipped, but they are still beholden to minimum wage laws. If you want to talk about paying us more, THAT’S how you’re going to do it, not by policing who is and is not “allowed” to hire these services. That said, it might be a good idea to actually do some research into how much a maid or cleaner actually gets paid. I think it’s going to surprise quite a lot of you. Obviously not every person who cleans is going to make a fair wage, but like. Quite a lot of us do, actually. For example, at my part time job, I make $17.50/hour. At my full time job, I’m salaried at $34k/year, with full benefits–and I mean full, including full health, eye, and dental coverage, retirement plan, accruing PTO, the WORKS–and a yearly raise, because,

3. Anyone who cleans in state- or federal-owned buildings are state or federal employees. I’m not sure if the same can be said for municipalities, but I know at the very least, public school janitors are… I’m fairly certain ALL employees of the city in which they work, if not the state. I work as a janitor at a state college, which makes me an employee of the state, which entitles me to the benefits and union protections of literally any other employee of my state. So, like, to make my next point,

4. Please get it out of your head that we need to be pitied for our “demeaning” work. First of all, that is incredibly condescending. Second of all, our work is extremely important! We perform necessary services to society across the board! Please stop looking down your nose at people who clean for a living!! Third of all, I obviously can’t speak for every person who cleans for a living, but from my own personal experience, I have been treated with significantly more respect by my clients at every cleaning job I’ve ever worked than I ever had working retail or food service. Obviously you’re going to get an occasional client having a bad day or who is generally unkind, but even then, they’re almost always appreciative of the work we do. I do not feel demeaned for my work. The only time I have ever felt ashamed of my work is when people TREATED my work like it’s something to be ashamed of.

5. Maybe some people “just have to be a maid,” but like. A lot of us enjoy our work? We take pride in it?? We get a sense of satisfaction seeing something that was dirty and gross NOT BE dirty and gross anymore??? Like, yeah, if I had the choice I’d prefer not to clean strangers’ houses or a bunch of classrooms, but that has nothing to do with the work itself, and everything to do with the fact that I’d just? Like not to work?? But even if UBI were instated tomorrow, I’d still want something to do with my time, and if I, with my level of experience and education, had to choose between the types of jobs available to me, I’d still pick what I’m doing, just because I enjoy it more! I don’t have to deal with vast hoardes of the general public! In fact, most of the time I’m alone! I work at my pace! Nobody’s standing behind me, rushing me or telling me to smile or docking my hours because I’m not up to some arbitrary standard. I LIKE MY WORK!

I know my experiences are not universal. I know there are plenty of cleaning companies that aren’t going to treat their workers with respect, and I know there are even more clients out there who are going to look down on us for the work we do. I know full well that we deserve better wages and better benefits and better treatment for the important work we do (and the fact that none of us qualify for the covid vaccine despite consistent exposure to everything from hospitals to public schools to private offices to private homes is definitely one thing that boils my blood when I think about it too hard).

But, again, this is not demeaning work. This is not shameful work. And there is no line to say whether or not the work I do is justified. I am being paid to perform a service. Whether that service is in the home of someone who can’t clean up after themselves or someone who just wants their time at home not to be interrupted by chores isn’t my business, and it certainly isn’t the business of someone who’d see me out of a job just because they don’t like that fact.

the "tumblr is hard to use 🥺" comment from staff is so funny bc like. its not untrue. but the solution isnt to make everything algorithmic, its to stop hiding the FAQ pages deep inside the site. just like. explain shit to new users. a concept. also obviously just fix the search function

Eloise “is a white feminist who doesn’t care about other women,” is such a weird take when she’s not the one taking cheap shots at the first Black Queen during her granddaughter’s funeral, branding her cousin a fallen woman, nor calling Kate a beast for wanting to protect her sister.

But, yeah, how dare she not have managed to single-handedly topple the patriarchy at barley 18. That monster.

Let me get this straight, Eloise wanted to learn and Edwina wanted to not be lied to. And yet, their totally not vindictive desires are unforgivable in comparison to Dan Humphrey in a corset?

Genuinely and truly ppl who think children can be "innately evil" or "born bad" have no business working in childcare, pediatrics, education, child psych, or child services of any kind. How can anyone hear about a young child demonstrating violence and NOT immediately come to the conclusion that at some point in their short and vulnerable life they have been exposed to unspeakable violence. There's no such thing as a "bad seed" and to claim there is is either eugenics (genetic markers of evil) or using supernatural fantasies (demonic possession etc) to justify doing real tangible harm to a real tangible living child.

Why accusations of Eloise being a White Feminist don't hold up.

Eloise isn't actively choosing to exploit other women's oppression for her own self gain.

Eloise isn't actively choosing to ignore other women's oppression for her own self gain.

Eloise isn't refusing to learn about other women's oppression for her own self gain.

Eloise isn't refusing to learn about other women's oppression.

Eloise is choosing to learn.

No one around her wants her to learn. They want her to know less, not more. They want her to focus on getting a husband, not challenging the patriarchy.

Eloise is choosing to go beyond her comfort zone, mix with others, learn with others, take other people's situations into account. Eloise has a very limited understanding of the world because her education has been limited. It has been "How To Get A Man 101". Everything beyond that, Eloise has chosen to learn about herself.

Eloise is on a learning arc. But not only is she learning and growing as a character, she is actually making the choice to learn and grow. Flawed characters being on a journey and learning as they go along is common, it's pretty much every lead character in Bridgerton. But Eloise is the character who is choosing to learn for learning sake, who is choosing to develop her understanding of the world and find out more about the lives of people beyond her set.

I pray to every God that Eloise Bridgerton continues to slouch, wear crazy bangs, and never undergoes the horror that is known as the 'glow up.'

Don't let 'maturity' for Eloise mean wearing the same gowns her sisters would wear, 'embracing femininity' and shedding her 'childish gnc traits' and accepting her lot in life as wife and mother.

Don't let feminism for Eloise mean 'choosing' the exact life the patriarchy would choose for her but have it be feminist because it's her 'choice'.

Don't let Eloise grow out of being talkative and confrontational and risk taking, but instead have her find a cause to harness those traits for, and be ready to accept the social consequences that fighting for a cause would bring.

Do not let Eloise's arc have Eloise grow into a character who has learned to conform, but instead into a character who has reached the full potential of her rebellious ways.

I wish the people who just dismiss Eloise as a 'nlog' and a 'bad feminist' could just acknowledge that what Eloise is trying to do is actually really bloody hard. Being a feminist in that world is really hard.

We live in a world where, with the internet and the media, feminist thought and theory and the history of feminism is at our fingertips. Where you can probably find a feminist support network to help you grow as a feminist. Eloise does not.

She has no guidance, no mentors, no support group to learn things from. Everyone in her life (maybe excepting Benedict) until Theo treated Eloise's politics like a silly childish hobby. At worst, they're actively hostile. She has to go out and find feminist teachings and theories on her own, because no one is trying to teach her or help her themselves. She doesn't have the internet or access to a College Gender Studies course. She's got nothing but her own gut, and what she can find out on her own.

Aside from having to learn about feminism on her own, she has to unlearn all the sexism that has been drummed into her head since she was a child. You grow up in a sexist setting, you're gonna be programmed to think sexist thoughts. Eloise isn't just learning about sexism, she's deprogramming what's already been shovelled into her head.

The women around her, her mother and sisters, accept their lot in life as women, accept the assigned roles of man and woman and seem to have made their peace with it. They don't to dig and uproot those thoughts because deep down, what they'll find will be too distressing.

Eloise knows how the world her has kept women confined, she knows that women play a part in their oppression by being passive and enforcing it on others. She doesn't know how to handle it or put her thoughts into actions, or how to approach and understand the complexes she has about gender roles and traditional femininity and yes, the women who uphold them, because literally no one has shown her the way. She's got no one to set a precedent for her, or even simply empathise with her.

She's a nlog? Tell you what, she's no more critical of the women in her world than the men. And if she found likeminded women, she'd jump for joy. She's isolated and cut off and alienated from the women of her social circle, because they uphold the societal rules that keep women as 'fine ladies' instead of 'rational beings.'

The one example the women around her have set for Eloise is to accept and submit. Maybe grumble at times, maybe push a boundary where it's just too inconvenient not too, but at the end of the day, be a wife, be a mother, wear a dress, just stop asking for something else.

But to just accept is not acceptable for Eloise. So she's going to fight back. She doesn't know how. She doesn't know what the cost will be.

She is going about this completely alone.

Before you judge Eloise as a feminist, think about how you would be doing in her shoes, with no one to support you, no one to teach you, learning about this all by yourself, surrounded by people trying to constantly convince you you're wrong, you're defective for feeling this way.

I love that Eloise is a realistic depiction of what a feminist would be like in this world, with no guidance, no mentorship. Lost, isolated, strained with other women, still with so much to learn, but trying so, so hard. A perfect feminist in her world, at her age, with her support group, would have made Eloise a lesser character. She would have been a cardboard cut out created to avoid critique and soothe the audience, instead of being a honest depiction of a teenage girl whose deeply held beliefs are out of step with her society.

Instead of condemning Eloise for a being a failure of a feminist (when she's still a child FFS!) how about being impressed that in following her own initiative, she's come this far, and despite all the opposition she's facing, she has held true to her principles and is willing to go even further.

Also gender studies don’t exist yet, at least not in the way they do now!

Also, She Can’t Attend University Because She is a Woman!

She Can’t Vote For New Laws, because Women Couldn’t Vote in the 1810s

She Can’t Fundraise By Herself, Because She Has No Money By Herself. All Her Money Comes From The Estate That Her Brother Runs!

She Won’t Have Her Own Money Unless She Leaves Society To Fend For Herself Because She Has No Rights To Property, Finances, Or Her Own Body!

Eloise is the most forward thinking, ahead of her time character in the show. What's interesting is that her daywear, with its filled in necklines and ribbons and stuff, actually has some of Bridgerton's most historically accurate looks. The clothes that make her stand out and shows she's at odds with the ton is the stuff that makes her look most real for the period.

In a way, that makes sense. The leading ladies who want this romance and marriage and are comfortable, upper class lady life, are there for the fantasy. The escapism. So their modernised ballgowns and looks, which makes them appealing to the modern audience, are part of that fantasy. Eloise's clothes, which have a firmer foot in reality, shows how she is rejecting that fantasy. She isn't there to indulge in the idealised, fantastical regency era, but to explore the reality of being a girl who doesn't fit into this hyper-fem world, and who questions the status quo.

this is why i hate the ‘q slur’ ppl.

“clearly since u do not tolerate chronically online baby gays actively demonizing ur political identity and the liberation movement you align yourself with u have not experienced real world oppression” are u expecting me to give u an itemized list of the times i’ve been hate crimed and targeted? and even if i did, would y’all not just say i was lying? “hate crime” to y’all means “a qu**r person posted something abt themselves on tumblr dot com and didn’t tag ‘tw q slur’ >:(”

also i never said i was from the south, i said i was from a red state. northerners progress their “north vs south” mindset past the civil war challenge.

groundbreaking news for these people, but the first people who were the loudest about reclaiming queer, and saying shit like "queer power" "queer as in fuck you" were victims of queerphobic violence. That's why they called themselves queers.

I hate this idea that the only people who use "queer" are privileged babies, and any real victim of queerphobic violence must hate that word and never want to use it or see it.

i love it when people say that consensual surgeries that patients actively sought out and have a high satisfaction rate are ‘mutilation’ and focus more on that then they do about the medical procedures taken out on newborn babies genitals for literally no reason. i feel like one of these is worse.

Met my roommate best friend from high school

He’s used the term bitch a lot when talking about women..

Oh my god he dreams of being a landlord

Country girls don’t like him for some reason

Met my roommate best friend from high school

He’s used the term bitch a lot when talking about women..

Oh my god he dreams of being a landlord

I can't find this post on my blog because tunglr has such a functional search engine, so I'm posting it again.

I feel this so hard.

Brennan gets so into character that you can actually see his soul temporarily vacate his body.

ssǝupɐɯ oʇ ǝldɯǝʇ ɐ ʇlınq ǝʌɐɥ ǝʍ puɐ looɟ ɓuılqqɐq ɐ ǝɹɐ no⅄

Be sure to pick up your wifi Oreos when you go grocery shopping.

Be sure to pick up

your wifi Oreos when you

go grocery shopping.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

when you’re telling someone that you were on the wikipedia page for defunct US retail outlets and they’re like “why” and you suddenly realize that this is not someone you can successfully communicate with