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Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart for Them (2024)

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Set It Off (1996) dir. by F. Gary Gray

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“Darling, darling. I live in you, and you would die for me. I love you so.”

carmilla (stone) lithograph | prints here

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Always remember:

Ubiquity does not a non-issue make.

The prevalence of misogyny doesn't mean it doesn't matter; it's just less-visible because of patriarchy's universal hold systemically, globally, and subconsciously. An issue doesn't stop being an issue just because it's so commonplace we've never looked directly at it once in our lives.

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“Very often this year, when people asked me what I was working on, and I answered, ‘A book about Jewish lesbians,’ my answer was met with startled laughter and unmasked surprise bordering on disbelief, ‘Are there many?’ — as if the juxtaposition Jewish/lesbian were just too much. To me, these responses had the force of warnings. I got the message. Or rather, it got to me. While I fought against silencing myself completely, I did begin to hesitate before answering, to assess the safety of the terrain. I began to understand the limits that the dominant culture places on ‘otherness.’ You could be a Jew and people would recognize that as a religious or ethnic affiliation or you could be a lesbian and some people would recognize that as an ‘alternative lifestyle’ or 'sexual preference,’ but if you tried to claim both identities — publicly and politically — you were exceeding the limits of what was permitted to the marginal. You were in danger of being perceived as ridiculous — and threatening …

“Combatting invisibility. At first it seemed an easy task. I would talk to Jewish groups about homophobia. I would talk to lesbian groups about anti-Semitism. I would talk to both groups about the need to affirm and accept difference. I would remind each group that invisibility has a trivializing, disempowering and ultimately debilitating effect on its members. And both groups would remember and understand. But it hasn’t been that simple, for each group has absorbed some of the myths and distortions about the other without any apparent consciousness of irony …

“I was pained but not surprised to feel invisible as a lesbian among Jews. I was terribly disappointed and confused to feel invisible as a Jew among lesbians. While lesbian-feminists have increasingly begun to acknowledge diversity, anti-Semitism is still not taken seriously in the lesbian-feminist movement. Anti-Semitism has not been included by name in the important litany of 'isms’ against which the movement has pledged itself to struggle: sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, ageism, able-bodyism …

“I have been distressed to find that many gentile lesbian-feminists with otherwise highly sensitive political awareness, are reluctant to give attention to anti-Semitism, to understand how it operates, and to consider seriously their participation in it. For it seems unlikely that any individual can altogether avoid internalizing the prejudices of the dominant culture …

"It seems incredibly ironic that the strong presence of Jewish lesbians (many with radical activist backgrounds) in the lesbian-feminist movement goes essentially unrecorded and unnoticed in any positive way by Jews and gentiles alike. Few lesbians have recorded the Jewish lesbian presence to any extent, and they are all Jewish writers: Nancy Toder, Elana Dykewomon (Nachman), Melanie Kaye, Irena Klepfisz, Alice Bloch, Ruth Geller, Harriet Malinowitz, Martha Shelley. The near invisibility of Jewish energy in the lesbian-feminist movement may itself be a result of anti-Semitism, real or feared: a response to the fear that if Jews were more visible as Jews, they would be accused of controlling the movement …

Again the nagging question. Should I make a fuss? … Then I remember. Whenever I 'made a fuss’ (i.e., raised the issue of lesbian invisibility) at a feminist session where the speakers failed to include lesbians in their presentations, I had the support of the lesbian community. It was understood that the discomfort was to be theirs, not ours. Speaking out now, as a Jew, would there be the same lesbian support?”

— Evelyn Torton Beck, from the introduction to Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology (1982).

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"I warn you that in times of great economic chaos, especially when people had dreams of affluence that they now are not going to realize-and when they are not able to have even the choices their parents had economically-women are at risk. We will be told, "You were wrong to think you could have it all. You must repent of your aggressive ways, you must repent of your ambition." In times of fear and anxiety people will be looking for false scapegoats, false solutions, and one of those solutions will be that all of this can be solved by sending women home again."

--Betty Friedan

She originally said this in the 80s, btw.

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I replied to this man with "they all oppress women" and he blocked me 😭😭 you guys help

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😑

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Roberta Colindrez, qué mujer

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a smooch to start the day (caitvi || arcane)

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"Lydia Garnett’s Close Shave Chronicles Butch Style in all its Iconic, Tender Glory"

[Source, which includes more photos and the interview with Lydia Garnett] Lydia Garnett: Close Shave (Copyright © Lydia Garnett, 2022)

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I often see & hear women talking of "why the second wave failed". Why the radical feminism of the 70s "didn't work". What feminists "did wrong". I don't think the radical feminism of the 70s failed. Women didn't do anything wrong. What happened was that the backlash from men was too swift, too strong. The movement grew quickly. Finally, a mass movement of the oppressed fighting back against their oppressors. But when men realized what was happening and began to push back, women got scared. Like frightened troops on a battlefield, women scattered. The movement grew too fast and there was not enough groundwork, not enough planning to prepare for how to handle the huge numbers of mobilized women who were terrified of men's threatened or actual punishment for women's mass disobedience. But how could feminists have prepared for such a backlash? How can we blame them? There was no groundwork because a feminist movement of that scale hadn't happened before.

The radical feminists of the 70s were the groundwork. What they built then, we have now. We have it all, access to almost everything, from almost anywhere in the world, via the internet. In the 70s, feminists did not have the trove of feminist insight that we have now. They created it for us. We have their legacy. We have Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Audre Lorde, The Combahee River Collective, Sheila Jeffreys, Catharine MacKinnon. We have a history now that literally did not exist in the 1970s. The second wave did not fail. It inspired a generation of women to learn about ourselves. We can do now what they could not; we can prepare. We know what a backlash looks like. We know what it looks like when men are frightened and how they threaten us. We know how women respond to these threats. We have foundational knowledge. We can try again. We have a whole library's worth of information, strategies, insight, analysis, history, theory, most of which did not exist 50 years ago. What a gift that is. All is not lost. We have the knowledge and the reach to organize. In time, if we stay strong, never waver, and remember the tools that the second wave gave to us, we have the power to create a movement even stronger and more explosive than the second wave.

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a phrase that kinda bothers me when talking about women's historical roles in europe is "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear it so often, those exact words in the same order even. and once you learn a little more you realize that the massive gaping hole in that list is fiberwork. im not an expert and have no hard numbers, but i wouldnt be surprised if fiberwork took up nearly as much time as the other three tasks combined, so it's not a trivial omission.

it's not a hot take to say that the mass amnesia about fiberwork is linked to the belittlement of women's work in geneal, but i do think there's a special kind of illusion that is cast by "cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children." you hear that and think "well i cook and clean and take care of children (or i know someone who does) and i have a sense of how much work that is" and you know of course that cooking and cleaning were more laborious before modern technology, but still, you have a ballpark estimate you think, when in fact you are drastically underestimating the work load.

i also think that this just micharacterizes the role of women's work in livelihoods? cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children are all sisyphean tasks that have to be repeated the next day. these are important, but not the whole picture. when we include all kinds of fiberwork—and other things, such as making candles or soap—women's work looks much more like manufacturing, a sphere we now associate more with men's work. i feel like women's connection to making and craftsmanship is often elided.

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I love to see the general public finally waking tf up

Guess what group has been talking about all these things for years and was demonized, shamed and threatend for it 🤔

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"if hell is a teenage girl then heaven is a woman"

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DANNECKER, Heinrich Ariadne on the Panther (front and back views) 1812-14 Marble, height 146 cm Liebieghaus, Frankfurt