#Gail Dines

[radfemverity]

What ‘empowerment’ means for men is having a good education, a career with status, wealth, and political connections. What ‘empowerment’ means for women is showing your breasts in public, sexting nude images, and having a Brazilian wax.

For men it is about having power in the body politic, while for women exposing the body is the politics of power. Guess which one comes with real power?

— Gail Dines

[strezzedanddeprezzed]

  Choice feminism will never yield any real results because it treats the patriarchy-the system that traditional feminism aimed to destroy- as almost nonexistent. Yeah okay, ‘patriarchy’ is thrown around as a buzzword, but it’s never seen as a legitimate means of controlling women by choice feminists. Here’s why.

    Choice feminism assumes that every choice a woman makes is made in a vacuum. A woman’s choice to wear makeup is her choice made without the influence of beauty standards pushed by a trillion-dollar beauty industry made by men. A woman’s choice to do sex work is her choice uninfluenced by hyper-sexualization and misogyny created by the porn industry once again created by men. A woman’s choice to participate in kink culture is her choice uninfluenced by the porn culture and influence men created to keep women submissive. 

          Critical thinking is thrown away just so choice feminists can say ‘look at me! I’m empowered doing things men have always expected me to do and benefit from’. Proving some half-thought-out point about women’s autonomy is more important than breaking free from the financial, political, and cultural systems of oppression the patriarchy created for these feminists. 

          Throwing around ‘fuck the patriarchy’ does nothing when you don’t acknowledge it as an extremely powerful force that penetrates women’s lives and influences decision-making. 

[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."

[alphie-in-the-sky]

[strezzedanddeprezzed]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/202304/how-common-is-violence-against-women-in-porn 

This article is the worst take on violence in porn I’ve seen lately. The article completely dismisses any acts of violence on the basis that these acts are taken out of context and ‘are actually standard elements of consensual BDSM’.

I see this same point being made about context everywhere. ‘It’s not violence if it’s consensual’ or ‘it’s part of BDSM’. However, no one ever wants to analyze the impact BDSM and porn has had on setting women back and normalizing sexual violence against women. 

It doesn’t matter if you individually love being hit or you like being dominated. However, porn is available to everyone and the messages from porn have hurt women deeply. Porn has made violence against women and subjugation to men appealing to many women. Porn has influenced an extremely high number of women to fool themselves into thinking they’re sexually liberated when they’re just catering to men’s misogynistic ideas about women. 

Going back to my main point now. Porn isn’t okay just because it makes you feel good. You can’t say porn is good because it’s a part of BDSM culture. You can’t excuse violence in porn because of ‘context’ or ‘some people like it’. 

Porn is setting women back. Porn is disguising violence as a kink and excusing misogyny. Porn sexualizes every single part of women including every body part, every aspect of their personality, and their career. Porn promotes violence against women 100x than against men. Oh wait, but according to this article it all goes back to the context of each individual video. The fact that women are the ones being brutalized in 99% of porn videos apparently means nothing.

I’m literally done with this rhetoric. 

[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.

[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

[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.

[luaminesce]

"FEMEN*ZIS ARE TAKING AWAY SEXINESS IN MY VIDEO GAMES!!1!!"

Dude, it's conservatives and fascists are planning to censor/ban sexiness in video games because of "degeneracy" and "protecting children"; not folks like Sarkeesian and such who are... just talking about video games.

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

piqued-curiosity/714824491771035648 and this is the post it's about: biphobia-central/710642957130268672 I'm sorry to gossip but this pisses me off so much. She really thinks it's ridiculous and unjust that bi women are mad she went out of her way to express support and admiration for a rape apologist that said bi women are just like TIMs. Of course she'll lecture bi women for "getting hung up" on something stupid and trivial like what worthless dick worshipers we are, but she won't ever ever criticize her friends reblogging those things uncritically. She doesn't see it as a bad thing if the woman she reblogged it from believes all those things lol the bad guys are obviously the dick worshipers that won't tell her she's justified for supporting this. Also like.... she's seriously comparing a random tumblr user that calls bi women dick worshipers to Andrea Dworkin? The prostitution and rape survivor that spent her life campaigning for women? Yeah Dworkin said some out there stuff but she's living in some fairy tale if she thinks Dworkin wasn't heavily criticized always. Just shows how she thinks the rape and effort of OSA women are insignificant compared to merely being a lesbian. Why doesn't she compare her beloved to the other random tumblr users here and now who get called porno shit by her buddies like once a month for saying they have a bf?

If someone frequently uncritically likes, reblogs, and interacts with biphobic/lesbophobic/misogynistic others, it's generally because they agree with the biphobic/lesbophobic/misogynistic others. Oh, it's infuriating, I just don't understand how some people can see an online friend/mutual make offensive, sexually degrading, or intellectually dishonest comments and simply look the other way. Like, whatever happened to being 'pro-women' and 'female-centric?'

There are unfortunately a huge number of radfems and radblr orbiters who do this and I'm honestly not surprised by P - I see her name pop up when I'm trawling through some of the most hateful biphobic blogs in the likes (but I can't say I know a lot about her specifically) (she's a recommended blog for some of them lol).

The comparison seems really lazy. Who's the rape apologist? Oh, and what do you think of the original 'postmodernism is bisexual supremacy' post?

[mithliya]

hE is nOt pErfEct, bUt nEither ArE AnYonEs gIrlFRiEnds 🤓

https://www.tumblr.com/trinitycove/721870004020248576/what-post-are-you-referring-to-i-reblogged-a-post

genuinely don’t care for that tho i’ve seen many ppl screenshot it and such. i know people on here are gonna pretend their man is a great guy and totally the biggest male feminist possible and whatever else.. i’ll never meet him so i dont care & i’ll take it with a grain of salt bc why would any of these women mention their mens’ negative traits? “he usually cooks!” but they never say if she usually does everything else. “he helps women!” but they never say if he says misogynistic shit sometimes and they have to side-eye him. we’ll never know in actuality so why bother speculating? it’s a stranger’s even bigger of a stranger boyfriend. but i just don’t know why insist u are a radfem while with a man. the things listed are not even radfem-specific. opposing porn is not a thing only radfems have done. neither has opposing trafficking been radfem exclusive, neither is anything else mentioned. so why is the radfem label necessary for random het-partnered women to claim

[makiruz]

Oh never mind, Gail Dines actually is a TERF

[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