Absofuckinlutely. After my sexual assault, most of my friends: gas lighted me and told me I was making a big deal over nothing; acknowledged that it sucked but why hadn’t I forgiven him yet?; or just didn’t know what to do to help me and awkwardly avoided talking about it. It was an incredibly lonely and damaging time.

I have lots of friends. Lots and LOTS of friends. I don’t know a single woman in my friends group who hasn’t been sexually assaulted. Not a single woman out of dozens of friends. This doesn’t surprise me, and it saddens me. But me and my friends group (which spans ages 27-51) are SMH over this. All of us have lived…

Nope. No criminal charges were brought forth because he wouldn’t take a polygraph and he lawyered up, so it went civil. A juvenile judge made what is called an, “abuse finding,” which is basically the same thing as saying she believes he’s guilty. But yeah, he doesn’t even have to go on a sex offender registry. Also,…

The biggest, darkest secret in this country is how utterly commonplace rape is for girls and women.

The ways in which we, as a society, fail girls and women continue to astound me and fill me with rage.

Rape is a very common occurrence in my life. 3/4 of my female friends and family are rape survivors, including my sister and mother. Nearly 100% are sex assault survivors—many much more than once. The biggest, darkest secret in this country is how utterly commonplace rape is for girls and women. And of course, how…

The self blame of sexual assault victims is such a reflection of society’s victim blaming. I count myself incredibly lucky that I come from very stubborn stock and I refused to blame myself for the shitty things done to me by shitty people. However, I have a cousin, same stock but can’t find her way out of substance…

I volunteered on a sexual assault hotline for a few years, and you’d be surprised how common stories these are... I frequently talked to women maybe twice my age who had a devastating experience in their teens that turned into drug addiction, depression, and everything in between for years after. And the degree to…

Agreed! I also think there’s a tendency to paint Katniss as this hero with superhuman resilience when she is really just a (very strong) young woman forced beyond the breaking point.

I didn’t like it at first, but the more I thought about it and read about it, I understood what Collins was trying to do and how I’d misunderstood the themes of the stories ‘cause I’d whipped through them so fast. In retrospect I completely agree with you; it’s the only ending that makes sense for the series, and the…

It seems like I’m a minority opinion, but I really liked the ending of Mockingjay. How else could it have ended while staying true to the reality of the whole series? It honestly seemed as optimistic as possible to me. What else could Katniss do, other than survive, tenuously, with the only person who had suffered as…

I’m pretty sure that was the point. War didn’t magically solve these issues, and by the third book it’s abundantly clear that Katniss is suffering some pretty major PTSD. I’m always so surprised at people that were disappointed in Mockingjay, and how everything didn’t come to a neat, happy little resolution. I liked…

The series’s entire point is that, for average citizens, war rarely means triumph, it means trauma. You’re not supposed to have the catharsis of a typical war movie—Collins’s entire point is that that shit is an invention of the movies. It’s not supposed to feel “worth it” at the end.

According to the NYT, io9 is being folded into Gizmodo (I know, it makes zero sense to me, too). :( :(

So brilliant. The day after they are publicly called out for having a problem with female writers, they make Jez the gossip ghetto and try to push a female-owned and edited rival (Wonkette) out of the market.

If they shut down the Slot or move it over to Gawker, I REVOLT.

After reading that article about women on gawker, it’s hard not to hear WEMMIN B LIKIN CELEBRITIEZZZZZZZZZ all over this announcement.

Are they seriously that idiotic? They are turning one of the premier women's issues blogs into a fucking celebrity tabloid? Sure Jez covers that shit sometimes but it is not goddamn People magazine. This is the most insensitive thing I have read in a long time. I will likely just be patronizing i09 from now on as the…

WTF?!?!?!

Dayna’s piece is a good read. I read it last night, and it links to some other interesting articles, as well. It’s a sad, discouraging rabbit hole to go down.
I hadn’t thought of that point about long form pieces on Jez fading away, too, but it would kind of fit - and I hope it doesn’t happen! I’d hate to see the…