You ever invite your coworker to watch you give birth just to spite a racist
Okay howmst the fuck has a ship doctor in the far future never handled a birth without the father present? Are sperm donors and gay couples and trans women no longer a thing in the bajillionth century CE?? :/
I while understand the frustration with erasure sometimes it helps to look at things through the cultural context of when something was made. Star Trek the Next Generation was made in 1987, this particular episode I believe aired in 1988 a time when a future where the husband was always present for the birth would have been amazing to many of the people watching the show as men had only been allowed to be present for the birth of their children for 10/15ish years at that point in the US.
Women (and many men) fought for decades with hospitals to even have men allowed in the delivery room during the early stages of labor, which can last for several hours, and hospitals only began to give in to their requests in the 1960s but even then they would be kicked out of the room by hospital staff before the actual birth took place. So many of the couples watching the show would have had to go through labor without having/being allowed to support their spouse regardless of their wishes. Having the child’s father present for the birth only began to happen in the 1970s and 1980s. Which means most people watching this show either went through birth without the support of their spouse, were not allowed to support their spouse during the birth of their child, or their own mother’s went through that during their birth.
A future where the husbands were always present for the birth was still a little crazy to consider in the late 1980s. A good kind of crazy for the people living in that time, it showed a future where the wishes of the couple were finally consistently listened to by medical professionals as a result of the actions of people during their or their parent’s lifetimes. And it does that by also subverting it in allowing Data to step into the role of the father when the father was unknown and/or unwilling/unable to fill that role (I’ll be honest my knowledge of Next Gen is a bit spotty and I have not seen this whole episode, just a piece of it at family Thanksgiving). The woman’s desires as to how she would give birth are listened to and respected, something that still doesn’t happen in many hospitals now and would have been seen as even more revolutionary then. So while it isn’t perfect I think this scene was actually fairly impressive for its time and cultural context and shows a future that many people of that time would have seen as ideal.
I think this kind of contextual understanding and analysis is really important because things that look antiquated now were revolutionary then. I remember reading that the mini skirts in Star Trek TOS were legot just in fashion (about 64’ ish), one of the actresses (the one that played Rand) requested they be in the show and both her and Nichelle Nichols said they didn’t see them as demeaning but liberating in that time and context. Where as NOW it looks like ‘sexy male gaze’ but then it wasn’t.
Miniskirts are comfortable and easy to move in - unlike longer bulkier skirts, which had previously been required for “modesty.” And unlike the approach of “we’ll just put them in pants,” miniskirts made a statement that women crew-members weren’t being treated like men. Miniskirts were a way to say “I can be an attractive woman, wear comfortable clothes, and still look professional and do a serious job.”
The clothing for that message today would be different.
This is also why the bridge crew of TOS may seem “tokenistic” today. When it came out, the Cold War was in full swing and “Soviets” were maligned and hated, Black people could not count on their right to vote being honored, and mixed-race people (like Spock) were called horrible things like “half-breed” and “zebra.” A white man was in charge of the ship, but Gene Roddenberry was fully aware that a chunk of the viewership read him as queer, and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DISCOURAGE THAT READING, at a time when “homosexual activity” was illegal in the United States!
By today’s standards, “one of everything? How tokenistic.” In 1966? “A Black woman, a Russian, a man from multiple cultures, and a man who loves differently, all top of their fields, all working together and finding common ground to learn, grow, and help where they can? What a wonderful future!”
“these are my daughters Marigold, Adelaide, and Cordelia and here are my sons Bongo Dongus and Dumbo”
Male hobbit names not in the Baggins family:
Samwise Merry Peregrin Sméagol Adalgrim Ferumbras Gerontius [normal fantasy names no weirder than Aragorn or Gandalf]
Male hobbit names who arein the Baggins family:
Balbo Mungo Bungo Bilbo Frodo Dudo Longu
Hobbits aren’t like that, it’s just Baggins. Same energy as that post that says: “i hope that baby yoda grows up to talk like a normal person and we find out yoda was just a fucking freak”
hot flaming take i’m abt to slap you with: it’s not acceptable to punish children for their grades, no matter the circumstances.
lost a follower for this one!
Any situation in which the grades are “bad enough to punish” is a situation in which your child is already struggling, and needs, more than anything, your support and affection.
If you punish them you will teach them nothing but how to loathe
Girl: The boys don’t know about this yet but like, when you guys peel off your skin layers, like when we like shed-
Boy: I want, with all my heart- I feel, in my bones, I feel like this is a joke, but- But then I read the comments. Do you- do you guys shed? D-d-do you shed your skin? Do you do that? Is that- Is that like- What- What-what are the other masks for? What-what are the other face masks-? What does that do? D- Is it once a month? Like a Netflix subscription? Is- is it twice? Do they hit you with two? How does- How does- I have so many goddamn ques- Sweet chalupa Jesus I jus-
/end transcription]
The VD just doesn’t tell you how desperate his voice is
So many of my family members are dealing with this. And they’ve found that the company has made opting out of auto pay damn near impossible. The place where it used to be on the site has changed, calling results in getting disconnected, when they finally found it on the site, it “times out” when they try to cancel….its just a fucking mess.
We got lucky. I’m like 80% sure we have a rate cap because I haven’t seen it spike and I’ve been watching it fairly closely. But I’ve got aunts, geandparents, friends who have had their entire paycheck taken for electric bills when they barely had power for 3 hours over the course of 5 days. Money they needed to replace food gone bad, to fix water damage, to make car repairs, all gone to a bill that shouldn’t even exist because they didn’t even have power for 3 days.
Friendly tip from a long-time bank employee… If your money is on autopay directly from your account# or card, you can put a STOP PAYMENT on that shit! But do it at least 3 days before it is due to be pulled from your account. There may be a $20-30 fee for it, but that is much better than a power company trying to pull hundreds from your account and overdrafting you.
Also, if they already pulled a ridiculous amount of money from you… if you believe that the charges are for power that you did not use you likely can file a dispute with your bank. If you lost power tell them about that and say that services were not received, or if there are sudden new previously not disclosed fees you can state that the price is different than disclosed. Those sorts of reasons should keep banking systems from messing with the account itself, as it would do for a fraud claim. Filing a dispute against your power company might not get you your money back, but it MAY. It may also allow the bank to waive a stop payment fee if you fear a second round of hiked rates. Just ask the banker about that before filing the stop paymen as some systems will ONLY waive the fee if it’s done DURING the dispute process….
But! You have to remember that the stop payment is there until YOU remove it. While some banks may remove them after 6 months, or 1-5 years…. it will be your responsibility to remember to reestablish your payment relationship with the power company, and you’ll also then need to let your bank about it when you want to start allowing payments to process again so they can remove the block.
And for those worried that it might somehow look shady: No, the banker will NOT think you’re trying to pull a fast one. The banker is 10000% likely to be on your side when you explain the situation and ask them questions.
If this information helps even one person then I’ll consider it a wonderful use of my time to type it out and post it. Y’all stay STRONG!!!
