I mean, to start with, throwing out a claim like that with no sources to back you up is not exactly arguing in good faith. It takes a lot more work to deny something when you’re provided with exactly zero context on where or when this might be true (and it certainly isn’t true in all countries at all times based on the data we have available).

There are some studies which suggest that lesbian couples do have a higher rate of domestic abuse. The CDC 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), for example reported that:

Four in 10 lesbian women (43.8%), 6 in 10 bisexual women (61.1%), and 1 in 3 heterosexual women (35.0%) reported experiencing rape, physical violence, and/or stalking within the context of an intimate partner relationship at least once during their lifetime (Table 3). This translates to an estimated 714,000 lesbian women, 2 million bisexual women, and 38.3 million heterosexual women in the United States. Bisexual women experienced significantly higher prevalence of these types of violence compared to lesbian and heterosexual women. (p. 18)

But it concluded that:

There were no statistically significant differences between the of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking when comparing lesbian women and heterosexual women.

This comes down to the fact that, as other commentors have alluded to, there are far fewer women overall in lesbian relationships compared with those in same-sex relationships. Even if the proportion of those suffering domestic abuse is slightly higher in lesbian relationships, there are far more women being abused in heterosexual relationships.

On top of this, it’s important to remember that this percentage is from one survey undertaken in one country, and the reports that exist on lesbian spousal domestic abuse have statistics that vary wildly. The Wikipedia page on lesbian domestic abuse has a good summary of other difficulties in getting a clear picture of its prevalence:

Literature and research regarding domestic violence in lesbian relationships is relatively limited, including in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Many different factors play into this, such as “different definitions of domestic violence, non-random, self-selected and opportunistic sampling methods (often organisation or agency based, or advertising for participants who have experienced violence) and different methods and types of data collected”. This causes results to be unreliable, thus making it difficult to make general assumptions about the rates of lesbian domestic violence. This has caused rates of violence in lesbian relationships to range from 17 to 73 percent as of the 1990s, being too large of a scale to accurately determine the pervasiveness of lesbian abuse in the community.

With regards to homicide, there is again the issue of when/where, plus the lack of detailed statistics. But the chapter on Intimate Partner Homicide in the Routledge Handbook of Homicide Studies (available to download here suggests that the rate of lesbian spousal homicides is in fact the lowest compared to those in heterosexual and gay male relationships:

Available statistics suggests that the rate of IPH [Intimate Partner Homicide] is the lowest in lesbian couples compared to IPH rates in gay and heterosexual couples (Gannoni & Cussen, 2014; Mize & Shackelford, 2008; Statistics Canada, 2019). (p. 179)

That’s honestly all I have time to write right now. But in conclusion, no, what you’re stating here isn’t true, not at all.

I’ve been travelling a lot lately and I seem to manage to forget something different each time…

But ideally:

• Skincare: oil-based cleanser that I can use mornings and evenings, Byoma clarifying serum cos otherwise my skin is not happy, moisturiser, sun cream

• Other: shampoo decanted into small bottle (my hair needs washing every other day), deodorant, tooth brush

• Makeup: primer, glow drops, concealer, multi-purpose pink crayon (can be used as under-eye colour corrector, blush, lip liner and eye shadow depending what I feel like)

I tend not to bring conditioner (can live without), hair moisturising serum, exfoliating serum (only use once a week), eye liner, mascara, lip stick, brow gel, blush, setting powder, foundation but if I were going to a wedding or something I would probs bring all of these.

Ooh that looks good, I’ll have to try the vegetarian version she has.

Leaving this bannock recipe that I often make with soups or stews - super easy and you end up with fresh warm bread in under 20 minutes!

I havn’t used Amazon for a few years and honestly, it just takes discounting it as a possibility. There’s no one website equivalent but the more you search for places to buy things, the more you build up a repertoire of sites for specific things.

I recommend Ethical Book Search for finding cheap second-hand books. Bookshop.org for new books.

Argos can be good if you need an assortment of random things, although it doesn’t always have everything.

Cass Art for art supplies and Love Crafts for knitting and sewing.

B&Q and Screwfix for DIY and home stuff.

There’s probably more places I use semi-regularly that I can’t think of right now. You often end up paying slightly more but I think it’s worth it to not support Bezos and I buy less stuff than I would otherwise which is good in the end anyway.

That’s devastating. I hadn’t heard of the Arran whitebeam before, I’ll have to look out for it when on Arran next.

Arran whitebeam is one of the rarest and most endangered trees in the world. It is a hybrid of rowan and rock whitebeam which has stayed on the Isle of Arran since the last glaciers were formed.

The experiences trans men and women have with misogyny will never not be fascinating to me. Like, for the first time ever we have this huge sample size of people who have experienced how their gender presentation affects how people interact with them, giving tangible proof of misogyny in action. And it can’t just be swept aside with ‘MaYbE tHe wOmEn JuSt miSuNDerStOoD’ or ‘mAYbe tHe mAN diDN’t MeAn iT LiKE tHaT’. I mean idiots will still make idiot arguments but at least it chips away at them a little bit.

I love ‘dreich’ (rhymes with ‘greek’) because it perfectly sums up British weather most of the time.

Also a fan of ‘banging’, as in top, class, right good.

This made me think of an article I read today about the Nazi occupation of Rome during WWII:

Marjorie Scaretti, my great-aunt, lived in Rome for much of her life. She was in the Apennines after the armistice talks of July 1943 and returned to Rome on 20 October, two days after the remaining Jews of the Roman ghetto were sent by train to Auschwitz. Her husband, Enrico, was a banker, some of whose property and businesses were appropriated by Mussolini after he refused to join the Fascist Party. Aunt Marjorie kept a diary, and in its pages she writes about the furtive lives Romans led during the occupation: the ceaseless speculation about where the Allies were; whether the Nazis would destroy Rome by defending it from an Allied attack, turning it into another Stalingrad; at which prison or police station someone was being held and how to get them out – many arrests in the months of the occupation were entirely arbitrary.

[…] She wrote of ‘the hair’s-breadth escapes, the adventures, the amazing and often fantastic existence of thousands of fugitives, coupled with the fear, the secret anxiety, the danger and the want, the heroic, the ludicrous and the vile – all packed into the daily life of the harassed citizen’. Josette Bruccoleri, an interviewee in Trevelyan’s book, spoke of the same unease: ‘Everyone seemed to be in possession of some great secret which they did not dare reveal. People hardly spoke to each other and if they did it was only for a moment. I myself felt like a time bomb ready to explode, but like everybody else I did my best to look as innocent as possible.’

Not exactly the same, but every day it feels like there are more and more echoes of the past.

You’re welcome! Glad it was useful :)

I don’t have time to translate right now but here’s an article from Deutsche Welle that goes into some detail on the (alleged) property damage. Essentially it’s tied in with the attempted occupation of the FU university in Berlin. Hope that helps!

I’ve started seeing a few more comics/memes which have women as the representative of a universal experience (rather than, as you say, representing a sexist trope) and it’s absurd how happy it makes me.

The actual article, in case anyone’s interested: https://archive.is/qfunJ

People can argue all day long that we should be responsible for our own pads/tampons etc. but ultimately these arguments of where the responsibility lies miss the point. It’s just nice, it’s such a relief when you get caught out and have an emergency and you know you don’t have to worry about making something makeshift or finding a shop or having some change to use one of the crappy vending machines in the bathroom. I was ambivalent about free period products before moving to Scotland last year but just having them available when you need them is fantastic. Like the state doesn’t need to provide them but god does it make such a difference when they do.

Yes! Both so useful…

I use white vinegar for cleaning the microwave as well - a tub of it heated up fin there for a minute and it makes it much easier to clean.

And a sprinkle of bicarb in the bottom of a bin to reduce smells.

Intentional: pack of tissues, lip balm, tampons, pen, packet of oatcakes, Loop earbuds, headphones, purse, keys, hair ties

Unintentional: old receipts, old tissues, oatcake crumbs

Occasional: notebook, book to read, shopping bag

Tbh it just feels like another way to administer the same drugs. I wish there was more focus on actually developing birth control that didn’t have the wealth of side effects.

I stopped taking BC a few years ago because it had such an effect on my mood but I’ve sort of resigned myself to starting up with it again.

I have anxiety around things in my body that I can’t control so the implant is off the table for me anyway and to me this just feels like an implant but worse.

That’s great news. I thought it already was, but it turns out it’s just some places that offer it for free so good it’s being expanded:

The new announcement aims to increase access to the morning-after pill; while it is already available for nothing from most GP surgeries, most sexual health clinics and some NHS walk-in centres, not all pharmacies offer it for nothing, with some women paying up to £30 for the medication.

I think part of it is basing everything off adult human proportions. Like top right has a fat old man face in a cat body, and bottom left has like a buff human body with a cat head.

It’s similar to old paintings of children and babies, where they’ve just done an adult human but smaller, instead of looking at how the proportions of small children are actually completely different.