#Gail Dines

[honeyriot]

"Interestingly, feminists seem to have understood from the beginning that all issues are "women's issues," so it's not coincidental that they were also founders and organizers in the earliest stages of (only a partial list): anti-poverty work, abolition of slavery, child-welfare crusades, penal reform, public-health campaigns, peace movements (regarding every violent conflict, including the Civil War), and environmental activism-often overtly identifying a problem as a symptom of the underlying malady: patriarchy. Women's activism in the temperance movement, for instance, was based on their precocious analysis that a correlation existed between male alcoholism and wife battery; more than a century later, scientific data would confirm the experience-based hypothesis of these "crazy" women."

"Later, not content with a support role, some women would successfully disguise themselves as men to fight in the revolutionary war of independence, as Deborah Sampson did. Small wonder that by 1776, while in Philadelphia at the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams would receive from his wife, Abigail Smith Adams, the epistolary prophecy warning him that "If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." Unfortunately, Adams heeded her advice no more than Thomas Jefferson heeded that of his de facto wife, Sally Hemmings, on denouncing slavery. Nor would this be the last betrayal of female citizens by a revolution that would set an example for worldwide "democracy." Westward expansion, for instance, relied on female labor and sacrifice. As one anonymous Iowan woman wrote at the time, such life "was mighty easy for the men and horses, but death on cattle and women." There were a few roles that broke free from the presumptive one of wife/mother (schoolteacher, solo farmer, businesswoman, even brothel-madam or missionary), but roles enjoying such relative freedom were unattainable for most women."

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Pornography is to sex what McDonalds is to food. A plasticized, generic version of the real thing.

Gail Dines, The Philosoph

[stopusingporn]

I need to try to read Pornland again, I got the book a few years ago but it's a harsh read for sure.

[womanfetishizer69]

very broad question, but does anyone have any interesting books/papers about feminism they've read recently. i have read most of what we'd consider feminist essentials or commonly cited books in this corner of the internet and i want something new to start on. i'd especially like if anyone has interesting modern stuff when it comes to criticism of religion

[selkie-on-land]

Françoise Gange : Avant les Dieux la Mère Universelle, Le Viol d'Europe d'un mythe à l'histoire d'un continent

Marija Gimbutas : the language of the Goddess

Heide Göettner-Abendroth : Matriarchal societies : Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe / Les sociétés matriarcales : Recherches sur les cultures autochtones à travers le monde

Gail Dines : Pornland

What's a book written by a woman that changed your life or that you consider a classic? Any genre, any language.

[kkoffin]

You know what I would actually love to see? Productive liberal feminism. Because I have friends that I would call genuine liberal feminists, and I don’t think mainstream liberal feminism is at all what it should be.

In theory, right, if liberal feminism is feminist action through law, policy and regulation through existing institutions, it could do good things. Theorising about a feminist revolution and a perfect world, talk of culture and separatism is great and all, but we need to fix the world we currently live in so it’s friendlier to women as well, and i believe that’s what liberal feminism should be. There’s things to improve upon through law in the western world, but moreover there’s countless of things to fix and change in other countries to help women. I do honestly believe this kind of feminism is equal or even more important than radical/cultural feminism. I’ve considered shifting my own focus to things like this, considering I’m studying law and crime anyways.

A productive liberal feminism movement could help illegalize FGM worldwide, remove mandatory hijab or covering laws, have harsher punishments for offenders in honour killings. It could get more women into parliament, force law enforcement to take sexual crimes and hate crimes against women more seriously. It has done good in past, no doubt: such as laws surrounding what questions can be asked to the victim in sexual assault or rape cases, and what personal information of the victim the jury can be provided with.

But unfortunately, reality is that historically, liberal feminism has been extremely individualistic, and focused only on upper-class white women (See: Betty Friedan in the 1960s telling women that the solution to their problems (emotionally) is to get a job and get out of the house - whilst most working-class and WOC already had a job, or were working too much from home to consider a job. She came to this conclusion because she only talked to and researched upper-class white women)

Gail Dines often says liberal feminism operates on a basis of “If i’m happy then fuck you”. The fact alone that liberal feminism nowadays focuses on “Empowerment” rather than looking at the genuine struggles that even lower class women in their own countries face, let alone struggles and liberation of women in other parts of the world is telling of its intentions and individualistic view. Honestly i feel like liberal feminism should be a separate term, and this “empowerment” “feminism” should be called something else - and not be called feminism. I believe much of the “empowerment” movement is regressive and anti-feminist. In a sense, it’s even conservative, the way it wants nothing to change functionally, only to maintain current culture and systems, except without any criticism.

TLDR it’s an honest to god shame that liberal feminism is such a mess and is so individualistic, and it’s fucking weird when people say “radical feminism is white feminism” when we seem to be the only ones concerned with anyone but upper-class white people who have the privilege to seek “empowerment” rather than liberation from oppression

[streamzoo]

Great room - large modern marble floor great room idea with multicolored walls

[jinmark]

Dining Room Kitchen Dining in New York

An illustration of a sizable, minimalist kitchen/dining room with yellow walls and a beige floor and limestone flooring

[midnight-els]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the West Wing would have been even better if they'd had a White House cat. Some headcanons bc I was thinking about it today:

Jed gave the cat a very grand, biblical name. Everyone else has shortened it to something very stupid.

Obviously all of the press and the public adore the cat. There's a minor upset in a polling themed episode when Joey confirms that once again the cat has higher approval ratings than the president. Josh is cross that they are polling on this at all.

There is one chair in the Oval Office that is The Cat's Chair. The staff know not to sit there as you'll get a. covered in fur and b. screamed at by an irate cat trying to force you off. They never warn any of their least favourite congresspeople about this.

The cat wanders around in the background of episodes, often being chased or petted by the extras.

The cat is not allowed in the situation room. The cat is always in the situation room. They had to come up with a special bug detecting protocol for the cat in case anyone tried to take advantage of this.

Ripped from the headlines plot about a congressional investigation into something related to the cat, based on the incident about Clinton's cat's postage.

The cat LOVES Air Force One. The Secret Service do not love having to get him on board or captured to get back off.

Leo and the cat are best friends. They're basically this meme. Leo's the grandma. Jed is the mom.

Aside from Leo, the cat loves the secretaries best. They always have lots of treats for him in their desks. Debbie is the only one he doesn't get on with; she has resorted to using a plant mister to spray him when he tries to get on her desk.

Josh thinks he and the cat are archenemies. The cat hasn't paid more than 2 seconds notice to Josh in his life.

CJ and the cat are archenemies. CJ was very pro-cat until she caught it fishing in Gail's bowl one day. Now she's at war to keep it out of her office. She's still trying to convince Danny to write a piece exposing the cat's dark side to its adoring public. Carol is very tired.

Sam wants so badly to be best friends with the cat. The cat thinks he's trying too hard. Will ends up exactly the same way.

Toby and the cat have never properly interacted and both are very happy to leave it that way.

The cat is supposed to stay in the residence during big events. Abbey stopped enforcing that after he got out and scratched Lord John Marbury when he picked him up against his will.

The cat has a secret service code name. One time, the code names are changed and an overenthusiatic reporter tries to break a story on the first lady's 'unusual activity' by following what he thinks is her code name. It's the cat's. CJ dines out on this for weeks.

The cat occasionally goes missing. The secretaries and Charlie have a recurring B-plot where they have to go and recover him. Somehow, the cat has always ended up somewhere relevant to the A-plot.

The cat properly goes missing after the incidents with the Thanksgiving turkeys and the goat in CJ's office (aka prime cat territory). Each time she claims she'll be nicer to the cat when it returns. Each time it lasts about two days.

Margaret thinks the cat has psychic powers and frequently provides warnings based on her interpretations of 'the signs'. Usually she's right.

The cat somehow makes off with the final edits for the state of the union one time (of course they were only handwritten on one piece of paper). Chaos ensues.

Jed tries to send the cat to Manchester partway through the series. After large-scale outcry from the staff, press and public he is returned to the White House. Unfortunately, after a couple of months as a barn cat he is even more badly behaved than before.

The cat is in both Jed and Abbey's official portraits.

[maaarine]

"I wish that people who are inclined to crusade against "dangerous books" or "abusive ships" would try to think about fantasy in a way that's less literal and more psychological.

Like do furries and omegaverse fic writers "normalize bestiality"?

No, the fantasy of human animality is not about literal animals, it's about unleashing what is symbolically "animalistic" in us, the drives and urges that human taboos and decency forbid.

Are people who are into "Daddy doms" or diapers or whatever "literally normalizing pediatrics?"

Well no, it's not usually about that at all. Ageplay is usually about fantasy regression to the social position of someone who has no responsibilities and needs to be taken care of.

The fantasy, or the roleplay scenario, gives you permission to be taken care of.

Edward Cullen's notorious "I like to watch you sleep" feels creepy to a lot of people. And fair enough. "Creepy-ness" is subjective.

But I feel like you can find Edward creepy and still understand that for Stephenie Meyer, "Twilight" is not the expression of a literal desire to be stalked by creatures of the night.

The fantasy is of a protector watching over you. A witness. A guardian angel.

Like when you're a kid and you want your mom to stay in your room with you until you fall asleep. (…)

When I watch "Fifty Shades", I don't feel like I'm watching a seasoned predator. I feel like I'm watching a woman's fantasy. Because I am.

And if people like Gail Dines are too obtuse to notice the difference, that's kind of their problem.

I've been holding this in for 10 years, and I'm gonna say it.

I am begging these people to learn to think psychologically instead of literally, so that they're not constantly baffled and traumatized upon encountering literally the most common type of sexual fantasy that people have."

Source: Twilight | ContraPoints

[lilyartemisia]

I wish people would just stop trying to convince me that there is nothing wrong with the industry or being a part of it. It's very exploitative and predatory on women, especially those who enter because they don't have a support network to speak of and nowhere to go. I wish every boy and man could be forced to read the above and also the related and eye-opening work of Gail Dines, Pornland. When I first read it, especially it came to how the industry works and the fact that it shits on every minority one can or could think of, it was mindblowing. I'll never forget how men's-only magazines like Penthouse, Playboy and Hustler were created to again, prey on men and their deep fears and insecurities about "how to win The Woman of Their Dreams" and how to cultivate a certain image and market it to these men and how it brainwashed them into thinking that the "image" was that of a "successful" and above all, "masculine" man. Or how the "language" in porn videos and gay male culture have its roots in sexism and misogyny, especially words like "bred", for example.

Random thought but

Yeah I think its important to listen to prostitutes and other ‘sex workers’ but ‘sex workers’ aren’t a monolith, and there’s going to be some who completely support the ‘sex work’ industry despite a shit ton of trauma (or even because of that trauma).

So when I’ve been listening to hundreds if not thousands of ‘sex workers’ (prostitutes, porn stars, strippers, etc) talking about their traumatic experiences, a couple of ‘sex workers’ saying they like it isn’t going to change my mind. If I changed my opinion every single time a ‘sex worker’ told me their experience, I’d never have a solid opinion.

The way that libfems choose to prioritize the voices of OnlyF*ns women, cam girls, and findoms who love the industry, I prefer to prioritize the voices of prostitutes, strippers, and porn stars who were exploited by the industry.

When I’ve met the average American prostituted woman, homeless and in my town, who sits down at my job for shelter and describes her struggles to me, an 18-year old McDonald’s worker, and explains she’s in the situation because her husband beat her so bad she went partially deaf and she couldn’t hold a job, so he abandoned her, and she started selling herself outside of the nearby gas station to get money for food… I’m going to listen to that.

When one of my close friends moved across the country and had to prostitute herself so her and her girlfriend could afford to room themselves in a shitty motel after their roommates kicked them out and their families refused to help because they’re lesbians, and she texted me after a particularly brutal day where a man beat her so bad she (who is already physically disabled) couldn’t move from the motel bed for hours… I’m going to listen to that.

When I go online to see another porn star killed herself after experiencing horrendous abuse in the porn industry, and the people who did that to her never faced consequences and are still making porn… I’m going to listen to that.

And if you choose to defend sex work, that’s your prerogative. But I won’t.

And before the actual slowest people alive comment:

If the shoe does not fit, don’t wear it.

[honeyriot]

Pornography is terrorism. It is rape propaganda and has always been a political tool aimed at oppressing of women both individually and as a class.

Listen to the feminists.

Listen to Andrea Dworkin:

Listen to Catharine Mackinnon:

Listen to Kathleen Barry:

Listen to Sheila Jeffreys:

Listen to Gail Dines:

Listen to Diana E. H. Russell:

[lizbethborden]

Its so true, Dworkin and Mackinnon predicted everything about this current era. Porn has become sex now; teenage girls being bullied into anal and getting choked by boys and coerced into sending nudes at an age typically understood as one of “exploration”—now porn defines sex and sexuality; and Gail Dines and many others have talked about the deeply deadening effect of porn on empathy and the ability to recognize women as people. Porn crept ever further into the mainstream and it has totally saturated our culture, from the ‘arts’—not just streaming/TV or Lars Von Trier films, but I’m thinking of stuff as small as frames of comic books traced from porn, art distributed online traced from porn—to the personal intimate lives of human beings, women being choked, spat on, beaten—then again, even back in the 80s, men were using porn to abuse women, and the most widely available stuff was still not as vile as the porn you can find with a 2sec Google search from any phone or computer today. Deepfake porn turns all women existing in public into potential victims of violent and degrading misogynist fetishism and sexuality. OF and its ilk makes it possible for any woman to monetize herself in the form of porn and in a time of increasing economic instability, inflation, high food and gas prices, the upcoming potential loss of health insurance for millions, I’m sure it’s more appealing than ever. Porn terminology is everywhere, “MILF,” “ebony,” etc. And all of this is done under the guise of sexual liberation and free speech, and to argue against it is seen as puritanical, condescending at best, hateful, antifeminist, “SWERF”/“TERF”-y at worst. It is a demonstrated fact of the research done into porn that it shuts off vital abilities to connect with women as human beings, to empathize with women and to reject violence against us; that porn usage conditions the user into seeking out ever more intense, bizarre, violent content to use in order to achieve the same pleasure and orgasm that “vanilla” content used to do for them. What must it be doing to all of us, collectively, to have porn on every level of our culture now? What is it doing to the position of women in our society, already half citizens at best, earning significantly less than men, with our bodily autonomy stripped away in many states, being denied life-saving procedures and medications—not just mifepristone etc but even things like lupus medication and anti-inflammatories that may potentially affect us and our bodies if we chose at some point to maybe get pregnant—even being arrested for drinking or taking drugs while decidedly not pregnant because it could affect a potential fetus at some point? Are we not degraded objects already? What does it mean for us to be reduced to “cumsocks” and pornographic objects on top of all this? How deeply destructive is this society, how much further will it go to enforce the category of woman as hole, woman as receptacle, woman as vessel, woman as meat?

[haggishlyhagging]

The book list copied from feminist-reprise

Radical Lesbian Feminist Theory

A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection, Jan Raymond

Call Me Lesbian: Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Theory, Julia Penelope

The Lesbian Heresy, Sheila Jeffreys

The Lesbian Body, Monique Wittig

Politics of Reality, Marilyn Frye

Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism 1976-1992, Marilyn Frye

Lesbian Ethics, Sarah Hoagland

Sister/Outsider, Audre Lorde

Radical Feminist Theory –  General/Collections

Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism, edited by Miranda Kiraly and Meagan Tyler

Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, Renate Klein and Diane Bell

Love and Politics, Carol Anne Douglas

The Dialectic of Sex–The Case for Feminist Revolution, Shulamith Firestone

Sisterhood is Powerful, Robin Morgan, ed.

Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader, edited by Barbara A. Crow

Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf

Sexual Politics, Kate Millett

Radical Feminism, Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, eds.

On Lies, Secrets and Silence, Adrienne Rich

Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals, Marilyn French

Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law, Catharine MacKinnon

Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, Sandra Bartky

Life and Death, Andrea Dworkin

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, eds.

Wildfire:  Igniting the She/Volution, Sonia Johnson

Homegirls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Barbara Smith ed.

Fugitive Information, Kay Leigh Hagan

Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, bell hooks

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, bell hooks

Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage

Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes, Maria Lugones

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Alice Walker

The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer

Right Wing Women, Andrea Dworkin

Feminist Theory – Specific Areas

Prostitution

Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution, Rachel Moran

Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy, and the Split Self, Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade, Sheila Jeffreys

Female Sexual Slavery, Kathleen Barry

Women, Lesbians, and Prostitution:  A Workingclass Dyke Speaks Out Against Buying Women for Sex, by Toby Summer, in Lesbian Culture: An Anthology, Julia Penelope and Susan Wolfe, eds.

Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution, Jan Raymond

The Legalisation of Prostitution : A failed social experiment, Sheila Jeffreys

Making the Harm Visible: Global Sexual Exploitation of Women and Girls, Donna M. Hughes and Claire Roche, eds.

Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress, Melissa Farley

Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant, eds.

Pornography

Pornland: How Pornography Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, Gail Dines

Pornified: How Porn is Damaging Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families, Pamela Paul

Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Andrea Dworkin

Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality, Gail Dines

Pornography: Evidence of the Harm, Diana Russell

Pornography and Sexual Violence:  Evidence of the Links (transcript of Minneapolis hearings published by Everywoman in the UK)

Rape

Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller

Rape In Marriage, Diana Russell

Incest

Secret Trauma, Diana Russell

Victimized Daughters: Incest and the Development of the Female Self, Janet Liebman Jacobs

Battering/Domestic Violence

Loving to Survive, Dee Graham

Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, Lundy Bancroft

Sadomasochism/”Sex Wars”

Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties, Irene Reti, ed.

The Sex Wars, Lisa Duggan and Nan D. Hunter, eds.

The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, edited by Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice Raymond

Sex, Lies, and Feminism, Charlotte Croson, off our backs, June 2001

How Orgasm Politics Has Hijacked the Women’s Movement, Sheila Jeffreys

A Vision of Lesbian Sexuality, Janice Raymond, in All The Rage: Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism, Lynne Harne & Elaine Miller, eds.

Sex and Feminism: Who Is Being Silenced? Adriene Sere in SaidIt, 2001

Consuming Passions: Some Thoughts on History, Sex and Free Enterprise by De Clarke (From Unleashing Feminism).

Separatism/Women-Only Space

“No Dobermans Allowed,”  Carolyn Gage, in Lesbian Culture: An Anthology, Julia Penelope and Susan Wolfe, eds.

For Lesbians Only:  A Separatist Anthology, Julia Penelope & Sarah Hoagland, eds.

Exploring the Value of Women-Only Space, Kya Ogyn

Medicine

Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

The Hidden Malpractice: How American Medicine Treats Women as Patients and Professionals, Gena Corea

The Mother Machine: Reproductive Technologies from Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs, Gena Corea

Women and Madness, Phyllis Chesler

Women, Health and the Politics of Fat, Amy Winter, in Rain And Thunder, Autumn Equinox 2003, No. 20

Changing Our Minds: Lesbian Feminism and Psychology, Celia Kitzinger and Rachel Perkins

Motherhood

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich

The Reproduction of Mothering, Nancy Chodorow

Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, Sara Ruddick

Marriage/Heterosexuality

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, Adrienne Rich

The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880-1930, Sheila Jeffreys

Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution, Sheila Jeffreys

Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, Michele Wallace

The Sexual Contract, Carol Pateman

A Radical Dyke Experiment for the Next Century: 5 Things to Work for Instead of Same-Sex Marriage, Betsy Brown in off our backs, January 2000 V.30; N.1 p. 24

Intercourse, Andrea Dworkin

Transgender/Queer Politics

Gender Hurts, Sheila Jeffreys

Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett

Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds, Cordelia Fine

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, Cordelina Fine

Sexing the Body: Gender and the Construction of Sexuality, Anne Fausto-Sterling

Myths of Gender, Anne Fausto-Sterling

Unpacking Queer Politics, Sheila Jeffreys

The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, Janice Raymond

The Inconvenient Truth of Teena Brandon, Carolyn Gage

Language

Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues, Julia Penelope

Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary, Mary Daly

Man Made Language, Dale Spender

Feminist Theology/Spirituality/Religion

Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation, Mary Daly

Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Mary Daly

The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas

Woman, Church and State, Matilda Joslyn Gage

The Women’s Bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Pure Lust, Mary Daly

Backlash

The War Against Women, Marilyn French

Backlash, Susan Faludi

History/Memoir

Surpassing the Love of Men, Lillian Faderman

Going Too Far:  The Personal Chronicles of a Feminist, Robin Morgan

Women of Ideas, and What Men Have Done to Them, Dale Spender

The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner

The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-Seventy, Gerda Lerner

Why History Matters, Gerda Lerner

A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft, ed.

The Elizabeth Cady Stanton-Susan B. Anthony Reader: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches, Ellen Carol Dubois, ed., Gerda Lerner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Suffragette Movement, Sylvia Pankhurst

In Our Time: Memoirs of a Revolution, Susan Brownmiller

Women, Race and Class, Angela Y. Davis

Economy

Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, Marilyn Waring

For-Giving:  A Feminist Criticism of Exchange, Genevieve Vaughn

Fat/Body Image/Appearance

Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Oppression, Lisa Schoenfielder and Barb Wieser

Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, Sheila Jeffreys

Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, Jean Kilbourne

The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf

Unbearable Weight:  Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, Susan Bordo

The Invisible Woman:  Confronting Weight Prejudice in America, Charisse Goodman

Women En Large: Photographs of Fat Nudes, Laurie Toby Edison and Debbie Notkin

Disability

With the Power of Each Breath:  A Disabled Women’s Anthology, Susan E. Browne, Debra Connors, and Nanci Stern

[myownwholewildworld]

this is a peace offering for my A MAN CALLED JOEL girlies (gn). i know some of you are patiently waiting and everytime i read someone is looking forward to an update of this series, my heart gets a little warmer. so please have this little angsty snippet <3 hopefully it will be the next thing i post!

“What’s that?” his brother’s eyes squinted, head tilted. “What’s what?” “Your neck. It’s… bruising. The heck have you been doing?” Tommy’s fingers reached up to the neckline of his shirt, pushing it down to have a better look. Just as you had tried to do. Joel swatted his hand away, huffing dismissively. His skin crawled, the idea of being touched unbearable, even by a friendly hand. “‘S nothing. Had an accident, that’s all,” he mumbled, sauntering towards the dining room. “An accident? Did you accidentally put a rope around your neck or what?” Tommy laughed at his own occurrence, palming Joel’s shoulder as he walked besides him. Internally, Joel flinched—a gesture he didn’t let break through the surface. “I have. I’m tired, brother. I want this to be over. It’s… I feel like my life is slipping away through my fingers. I’ve survived insufferable things, and it just feels wrong now. I’m drained of purpose. I’m tired, so very tired. I need’a rest—lay my head on the pillow and drift away… forever. See my babygirl, hug Tess. God, Tess…” he thought. But those words never escaped his mind, tucked away in the confines of his guilt, of his dread. Of his desperation. Perhaps he should have spoken then—crack the shell of his feelings open, ask for help. But what had help gotten him so far besides heartache? Besides an overwhelming sense of failure? Speaking to Gail had only made things worse for him, forcing him to paint the picture of a crude reality with a clarity he’d been evading for years. Decades. But he didn’t speak—wouldn’t burden his brother with his thoughts. Because it wouldn’t make a difference, Joel had made up his mind. No words would change everything he’d done, all the decisions that had led him to Death’s door. “Benji’s been asking about his uncle the whole day. He’s got two new toys, a couple of miniature dinosaurs. Ellie gave them to him this morning,” Tommy happily chirped away, unaware of the hole he was digging in Joel’s chest. Deep and throbbing like an open, infected wound—a wound that would never heal, that would fester until his heart would rot past mending. Past salvation.

[researchgate]

i mean wasn't it discovered that Bancroft manipulated women or something? (Idr the exact detail).

I never understood why people need ideologically pure people. No knew is ideolgically pure. Bancroft might be shitty, his book Why Does He Do That is still an important source on abusive men. Gail Dines' political opinions might not be perfect — they might be bad — but her writings are still important when they fit.

i’m just saying, if the authors of some of radfeminism’s favourite modern books (gail dines, lundy buncroft, etc) had a radblr account they would be bullied off the platform in a matter of hours. this doesn’t even only apply to modern literature if you look hard enough