File -> Phrases That Are Going To Shift Something In Me Forever

goodgoodgood.co

This New Website is Making It Easier To Shop for Plus-Size Clothing

A new website aims to make finding ethical, sustainable plus-size clothes (that actually fit) a whole lot easier.

"Shopping for clothes is already intimidating. There are so many options and styles to consider, as well as factors like sustainability and ethics.

But for people in fat, disabled, or queer and gender-nonconforming bodies, it’s even more arduous.

Nico Herzetty, Emma K. Clark, and Paul Herzetty wondered: What if there was a way people could shop — not necessarily by color or size — but by measurements, materials, and ethics?

So they set off to create their website: Phoria. 

Here, shoppers can set up a free profile, add their body measurements (and “typical fit challenges”) and peruse over 270 brands. Once these data points are entered, users can personalize their pages with “saved,” “recommended,” or “hidden” brands. 

Pages can be totally private, or shared with the community to connect over styles and brands.

Aside from fit, brands in the Phoria database (which claims to be “the largest database of plus-friendly brands”) can also be filtered as “gender-neutral,” “woman-run,” “small business,” or “natural fibers.” Users can also filter for price, preferred styles, and more.

Pictured: A screenshot of the "Fit Challenges" feature on a Phoria user's profile.

Some brands include popular names like Athleta, Levi’s, and Patagonia. Others are small businesses, like Beefcake Swimwear, or Hey Peach.

“For so many people, it feels too damn hard to find and keep clothing that fits in all the ways that really matter. So we’re doing something about it,” the Phoria website reads.

“Unlike most online shopping experiences, we center the needs of plus-size women, nonbinary, and trans people, and prioritize supporting clothing brands focused on sustainability, ethics, and inclusion.” ...

That team — made up of Clark, and Nico and Paul Herzetty — calls themselves “fat, disabled, and very, very queer.” 

“These are some of the main ways we identify, and they’re qualities that have directly impacted our ability to get dressed every day in a way that feels good,” the Phoria team introduces themselves on the website.

Pictured: A screenshot of Phoria's plus-size clothing brand database.

In addition to catering the user experience to women, non-binary, and trans people, Phoria is also a benefit corporation, or a B corp.

“We’ve legally required ourselves to consider the interests of all our stakeholders — customers, employees, the planet, and our shareholders,” the Phoria website explains.

“Our specific public benefit purpose is to reduce people’s dependence on buying mass-produced items made in unsustainable ways and to use human-centered business models to boldly challenge economic systems of inequity.” 

Right now, in the early stages of the company’s business, it doesn’t make any money.

“We’re focused on building something that genuinely solves plus-size people’s challenges around clothes shopping and supports smaller and more sustainable brands,” Phoria’s website states.

So, spreading the word seems to be of utmost importance...

Additionally, TikTok creators @couplagoofs (a queer couple named Morgan and Phoebe), recently shared a video in which they discovered Phoria. They met the website’s creators at a fat liberation event in their city and were introduced to the tool.

Quickly, commenters responded with gratitude and excitement.

“It is so disappointing to sort through pages of plus size clothes that aren’t even plus size,” a TikTok user commented. “This is gonna be such a good tool!” 

Some even shared emotional responses, speaking to the need at the heart of Phoria’s mission. 

“I’m… gonna cry,” another commenter wrote. “I’ve needed this my whole life.”"

-via Goodgoodgood, November 20, 2023

googling shit like "why do i feel bad after hanging out with my friends" and all of the answers are either "you need better friends" (i don't; my friends are wonderful) or "your social battery is drained, you need to rest and regain your energy levels" (i don't; i've got tons of energy, it's just manifesting as over-the-top neurotic mania). why is this even happening. it's like some stupid toll i have to pay as a punishment for enjoying myself too much

for the past few years i’ve had a personal rule that i do not sign anything i haven’t read - mostly because i genuinely think it’s a good idea, but also as a kind of social experiment - and i wanna share some observations

when i worked at an amusement park, i was one of like two or three people in a group of around twenty young adults who read the employment contract

i gave up on reading every TOS and privacy policy early on - now i only read them if it’s a website or company i’ll be giving personal information to (and even then i only skim them) - but i’ve never found anything super suspect in one

i also have an exception for when i’m made to feel like i’d be an asshole for stopping to read something. notable examples of this going into effect include the patient-intake paperwork at the ER when i went in a few months ago. (i really wish i’d just gone ahead and been the asshole in that situation, even though i have no reason to think there was anything bad in it)

i think the only time i was the only one to read something that the people who gave it to us actually wanted us to read was the waiver at a cat café, which included a lot of safety information about how to interact with the cats

one time i was approached by a guy with a petition who told me it was an anti-fracking petition (which was a real petition that was going around at the time), but the paper he handed me was a petition to instate a “citizenship requirement” for voting. i pointed this out to him and he tried to convince me that even though that’s what it said, it’s not really what my signature meant, and then named the university he graduated from as though it gave him some level of extra credibility??

i have more than once been given a HIPPA form at a doctor’s office where my signature certifies that i’ve been offered a copy of their privacy practices, when i had not, in fact, been offered a copy of their privacy practices. the last time this happened, the receptionist didn’t actually have a copy of their privacy practices, and had to get me to me sign it several days later once she got a copy from her manager

99% of people are very accommodating when you tell them “i want to read this before i sign it,” but it’s never what they’re expecting

on a related note, if someone thinks it’s important that you know what’s in something they’re giving you to sign, they won’t wait for you to read it - they’ll go through, point to each section, and tell you what it says. this is what happened when i signed my lease, and it’s actually a pretty common instance of using my asshole exception, because then i feel like i’m calling the person a liar if i stop to read it myself

the moral of the story is… like… we treat a signature like it’s the absolute most surefire way of saying “yes i understand this and agree to it,” but in practice there’s not even a pretense that a signature means you’ve READ whatever you’re signing. in fact, handing someone a piece of paper and saying “sign here” is one of the LEAST effective ways to make sure they understand and agree to something, and PEOPLE KNOW THIS, and we do it ANYWAY because what else are we gonna do? notarize it??

i don’t have a solution but like. that’s kinda fucked up, you know?

So I taught my students during the first few weeks of class that for their paper, they needed to cite profusely. They needed to cite more than they thought they should cite. They needed to cite multiple times per paragraph. I told them that it was literally impossible for them to over-cite. I showed them an example of my own published papers. It was in the rubric.

At the end of the term, I graded their papers. Most of them did ok. Some of them only cited 2-3 sources even though their References section had 6 sources. And some of them... some of them didn't cite a single time in their entire paper. They had their citations in the References section, but didn't cite them in the paper even once.

Some people just do not follow directions. It's baffling.

And that doesn't even get into all of the APA style errors. Those I can forgive because citation styles are confusing. Citing enough and citing correctly are two separate parts on my rubric to account for this fact, actually.

BUT - it just gives me data for how to teach this even better next semester. I don't have any way to require them to use a citation manager, but the students who used one did MUCH better than those who didn't.

i was already chewing this over but i got some reblogs that made me consider saying my opinion out loud. to be direct: applying the dynamics of identity based politics towards disability is a far inferior social analysis than treating disability as a class [and gaining some class consciousness]

social analysis benefits from zooming out from time to time otherwise we risk focusing too much on the individual when society and culture is about groups of people.

i don't dislike discussions around identity in regards to social analysis. there's many instances where it's worthwhile. although i feel like the strength of any analysis of the sort would be linking the individual (identity) to the collective (social status). the categories that make up "identity" are made relevant by the social, cultural, and material conditions which brought them into existence. for example i am mixed race and may identify as such. but the existence of this label hinges on the global understanding and categorization of race, and that which separates white people from brown people.

in this sense when you make disabilities about identity, it sort of levels everyone into "disabled" or "not disabled" instead of looking at disability as something belonging to a class of disenfranchised people. which is why i think people get threatened by the idea that there are heavily disabled people, because they feel like it's shifting the cornerstones of the criteria for "disabled" away from them and taking that "identity" away. i also think this is why intra-community disagreements end up becoming so personal: because of the notion that someone disagreeing with you, a disabled person, on disability, is an invalidation of your legitimate claim to the disabled identity. instead of what it usually is - a difference of opinions based on either different experiences, levels of knowledge, locations, or so forth

furthermore there are people with health conditions that are not disabling. it may disadvantage them in some situations, but it largely doesn't exclude them from abled society. there are also people who are usually abled, but currently have an injury. most people i talk to would agree that they are not disabled. i think both of these groups might have overlapping experiences with the disabled community. but if you centre disability on identity, and having the experiences to justify that identity, then people with health conditions are forced to frame them as a disability to be listened to, and disabled people often dislike their experiences being related to by someone who was injured for a few months.

i think this is what leads to conflicting ideas, loopholes, and arguements. i think it is fine to say that a person who had to use crutches for 3 months will have some knowledge on the experience of using crutches. but they are not disabled like me, a full time crutch user - not because we don't share experiences (we might do!) but because our relationship to abled society, and our social status as people are different. being disabled disenfranchises you legally, socially, academically, economically, culturally, and religiously even. this makes up a large part of the disabled class experience, even though some people who are not disabled may relate to us in symptoms, and even if two people who are disabled have no common symptoms!

finally if you consider disabled people as a class then you can rightly call ableist disabled people what they are: class traitors

It doesn't come naturally to you doesn't mean you can't do it

We all learn

I’m at a sociology conference and just attended a memorial for one of the giants of our field, and one of the panelists told this story…he was at a meeting with this guy, who he got his PhD under and had a long standing relationship with, and he was bemoaning the current state of the world, and he asked this old professor, “how can you be so optimistic? I can’t ever be anything but a pessimist.”

and the old professor said, “you little fucker, I’m going to make a statement and then I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and beat your ass. What good does your pessimism do?”

and that really struck me. not the least because I also knew this old professor and he very rarely swore, so I know this was something he was really worked up about. what good does your pessimism do? What GOOD does your pessimism DO. I’ll be thinking about that for awhile.

hello google chrome refugees

don't use any of these browsers, they're also chrome

Here are my favorite firefox plugins for security/anti-tracking/anti-ad that I recommend you get

please get off chrome google is currently being investigated for being an Illegal Monopoly so get outta there okay love you bye

i wish there was an easier way to tell the difference between an "if it sucks hit da bricks" situation and a "sometimes being an adult means doing things that you dont wanna" situation

I realise there is only so much advice you can follow. Ultimately, you have to live. That means making mistakes. You can’t go through life expecting that wise words will be enough. Sometimes you have to suffer to learn the lesson.