#Silencing women

[profeminist]

"The Taliban in Afghanistan have implemented a bizarre new edict that will further curb the voices of women who are already prohibited from speaking in public.

Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women, reported Amu TV, an Afghan news channel based in Virginia, US.

“When women are not permitted to call takbir or athan[Islamic call to prayer], they certainly cannot sing songs or music,” he said in remarks reported on Saturday.

“Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear ... How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else,” Mr Hanafi was also quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph.

A woman’s voice is considered awrah, meaning that which must be covered, and shouldn’t be heard in public, even by other women, the minister said."

Read the full piece here: https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/afghanistan-taliban-women-hearing-speak-b2637984.html

[coochiequeens]

Germany WTF?

By Genevieve Gluck September 23, 2023

A woman in Germany has been warned by a court after comparing a transgender organization’s recently-adopted mascot and a symbol known to be used by pedophiles. Rona Duwe, a women’s rights campaigner, has received an order from the Higher Regional Court in Cologne barring her from further comparisons.

The initial complaint, lodged against Duwe in March, referred to a series of comments she had made online criticizing the distinct pink and blue butterfly being utilized as a mascot by a board member of the German Society for Transidentity and Intersexuality (DGTI – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Transidentität und Intersexualität).

The butterfly, which has been named Fiely, is a mascot of the northern German trans self-help group Fielappers – a low-German word translating to “butterflies.” Trans-identified male DGTI board member Julia Steenken has appeared holding the butterfly in public situations, and, according to Duwe, the mascot has been present in photos taken at several court proceedings, at meetings of the national parliament or Bundestag, in medical clinics, at events with families, and with the police.

The butterfly mascot was designed by Andrea Fleßner, a trans-identified male involved in the founding of Fielappers. Fleßner also has a close working relationship with DGTI.

Fiely is often seen posed amongst other childlike-toys on its dedicated Facebook page.

The butterfly symbol utilized by Fielappers [L], and a list of pedophilic symbols identified by the FBI [R].

See rest of article

By Genevieve Gluck September 25, 2023

The city of Berlin has prompted outrage from locals after offering a graphic picture book on prostitution to children via its official website. The book, titled Rosie Needs Money (Rosi sucht Geld), is advertised as a resource for youth aged 6 to 12 years old.

According to Equal Opportunities Officer Kerstin Drobick, the book is a “helpful tool” for explaining prostitution to children of families residing in a red-light district of Berlin, located in Kurfürstenkiez, known as Kurfürstenstraße.

“In the years in which the Tiergarten Süd and Schöneberger Norden neighborhood management offices dealt with the issue of street prostitution and also had many conversations with residents, this was one of the topics: What do I say to the child? The Tiergarten Süd district management has faced this courageously,” Dobrick says in her defense of the book.

“An order was placed for a children’s book that tried to explain to the children what was happening there. Interestingly, extensive research has shown that educational books for children aged 10 and over avoid this explanation.”

Drobick also explains that the book on prostitution, which features graphic illustrations, was created “with primary school children and other people [in mind].”

See rest of acticle

[haggishlyhagging]

In retrospect I think that, had I not had my doubts born of my own personal experience about the likelihood of Mary Wollstonecraft bursting forth from nowhere as a solitary (and not very attractive) figure, I would probably have accepted the (patriarchal) portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft as the first. I would probably have dated women's protest from the end of the eighteenth century and would not have come to believe - as I now do - that while ever there has been male power there has been female resistance. I might even have constructed an argument based on the concept of progress, from the first passionate stirrings of Mary Wollstonecraft, to the beginnings of a 'movement' fifty years later, to the demand for suffrage, the gaining of the vote - and somehow fitted in the current feminist revival. It was partly because I decided to find out who said what before Mary Wollstonecraft that I have reached my current conclusions - that as far back as we can go we find evidence of women's protest against male power, and evidence of male power being used to eradicate it from the record.

When one begins to appreciate what Aphra Behn, Mary Astell, 'Sophia', Catherine Macaulay and Olympe de Gouges said (and I must apologise for the omission of Helen Maria Williams who proved to be a little too elusive), the notion of progress becomes meaningless. 'Coming and going' 'appearing and disappearing', beginning anew virtually every fifty years and sometimes not attaining comparable insights to those who have gone before but who remain unknown, does not resemble progress. It does, however, constitute women's tradition.

In suggesting that Mary Wollstonecraft was not alone, and that she had foremothers, I do not want to devalue her 'originality' or minimise her contribution - that has been done systematically and enthusiastically by the masters - but I do want to suggest that she is one of many (and there will be countless more that my 'diggings have not unearthed) and that it has been in patriarchal interest to silence and conceal such women. I do want to suggest that we should be suspicious of the treatment of women as lone figures, for it is by such a process that they become isolated from their sex, that they are classified as an aberration and of little or no relevance to women, that they are made vulnerable while the contributions of women around them are made invisible. I do want to suggest that when we know that for centuries women have been saying many of the things we are saying today, and that men have been interrupting them, we do feel confident, we do feel inspired to emulate some of those women we have reclaimed. It is because such knowledge of women of the past - and there have been hundreds of them - is empowering for women that every effort has been made to make it disappear in a patriarchal society where power is perceived as the prerogative of men.

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

[manthropology]

the next thing i want to see Lana cover is her mouth

[lauramakabresku]

God's grace wanders at night among the fields of the soul

[thearbourist]

Silencing Women: Academic Freedom and Unthinkable Thoughts (Full Event Recording)

Men’s rights activism whether happens to be wearing a dress or not, silences female voices.

[s00mia]

[froggerland]

GIRL NAVY GIRL NAVY GIRL NAVY!!!

[apple-grass-and-smiles]

The most consistent writing decision on this entire show is that if someone is in trouble and needs a place to crash, they will end up at Lucy’s apartment

[inkskinned]

there's this video you've probably seen already where a woman is shaking in front of a microphone and delicately tries to ask - how can i make my husband listen to me, i've tried everything, i don't want to seem ungrateful and the other man laughs - the problem is that you married a man, we're only listening 25% of the time and we only understand 5% of that! and the audience laughs and the woman laughs and you just sat there, phone in your hand, letting the sound of it echo

and the thing is that people make think-pieces about it (isn't this one of them) and satire versions and "flipping the script" which is good and fun but at the end of the day, there's some truth in that man's response about men-not-listening. and you have tried to language that feeling for years, this sense that you can only take up 33% of a conversation before others view it as being "dominating".

it's not that they aren't listening, it's that the action they're taking is purposefully silencing. it's different. you accidentally-don't-listen a lot; just because the world is loud and you're distracted. you don't mean anything by it. and the truth is that the man who spoke is relying on that to be true of you; the way it's true of everyone. but there is a different undertone to his kind of not-listening. what he means is they don't respect you and you shouldn't expect them to. there is a difference between oh shit i forgot to take the trash out and why didn't you remind me to do it, just like there is a difference between i didn't realize you wanted to go out this weekend and why do you expect me to plan things why can't you just tell me where we're going.

and the thing is that it isn't just him, and it's actually not just because of your gender - your skin, your class status, your weight, their ableism - it happens often. so often it feels like a tightness around your throat and a weight in your stomach. you're not even "really" allowed to be upset about it, because to them it's a joke. and they laugh. and you know exactly the amount of work that goes into every conversation. how you have to work to condense down your thoughts into intelligent, crisp soundbites; worried someone will try to swoop in and cut you off. and there's this sense from everyone else - oh stop being so sensitive, are you really upset just because they weren't listening and you don't know how to say the way that feels when it happens constantly.

there's that video of the science summit where a woman in the audience finally says let her speak please! and the whole crowd bursts into applause and the man leading the summit holds up his hands and bows his head and says oops, sorry! like what he did was awkward and embarrassing, a little social gaffe that happens easily. later in your meetings, you're asked to take notes, and you don't say anything, you just hear let her speak please! ringing in your head and know that you'll never be brave enough for that kind of thing. and besides. think of all the people who agree this was a one-off, he just got excited and all of the people who say one man is not indicative of all of society

at the dinner table you're talking about someone you don't like and how he's not good to his girlfriend and how she always has to remind him to put the effort in and before him, she was glowing with curiosity and passion but now she just seems... tired, unhappy. that he likes the way she burns out; she stays home and takes care of him and their 2 kids. and your father sniffs and says that men take a while to learn those kinds of things. and you just stare at him and think about your childhood and are like - no wonder i turned out like this

and you want to say - there's no fucking secret school or mystic form of communication. i was not sent to Rearing a Child University. i did not graduate from Getting Chores Done College. i ask questions and i listen and i pay attention, because that's basic fucking human decency. it stems from respect, and how i respect others and their agency. i clean the house because someone should clean. not because it comes "naturally".

hell, you had to google "how to boil an egg" the other day, just because you usually make them scrambled. you can never remember which of the 2 bathroom cleaners make chlorine gas, only that two of them definitely do. you've accidentally bleached your clothes. it took you like 3 years of self-teaching before you figured out how to actually cook things correctly - for that whole time, you burnt or undercooked everything. but you did teach yourself; just like you taught yourself how to listen with empathy. just like how you taught yourself to think before you speak. to be kind first, to be better at communicating. it seemed like a good thing, an adult thing.

the joke the man in the video makes is that women say i'm fine! when they are not fine. and you think about the 150 conversations that happened around that; about how she probably has had so many arguments with her husband. how she said i'm upset you don't take me anywhere and he got mad at her because of course i do, you made me go to that stupid restaurant like last week and she probably said that's not what i'm saying and he said now i'm supposed to be psychic or something and she said no of course not and he said how am i supposed to know what to do when you don't even like everything and she said i do like things and he said well how am i supposed to win? and her pastor probably told her to be more grateful because they do things at all, even if she has to plan them and her mom probably told her that's just how men are honey and she probably cried over her journal, trying to figure out why the fuck she "has everything" and is still so bitterly, horribly unhappy

and how, in your life, for so many reasons, you looked down the barrel of another argument; of explaining yourself and being vulnerable and begging for help again. how many times you just said i'm fine because it was better than doing that again; it was better than wringing yourself out when it's literally easier to just pretend. because he wasn't going to listen. your father wasn't going to be better and your boyfriend wasn't going to be better and your boss wasn't going to be more respectful.

and you sit in front of a video of a woman shaking, looking horrible and guilt-wrought that she's even asking this question. and you know; deep in your heart - that's you. in a different life, you are her. you've stood in her spot. and you had to listen while someone else cackled - why would we bother to notice when you talk?

[behindthescreamz]

melissa barrera’s bloody selfies from the set of “abigail” (2024)

[arkiwii]

pass the yuri!!!!!

[coochiequeens]

If Jenny Salesa thinks hiring a violent man is ok then I hope the women of New Zealand vote her out next time she's up for election.

By KATRINA BIGGS MAR 25, 2024

Today, March 25th, is the one-year anniversary of the worst mob violence ever seen against women in New Zealand. Today, I also heard that a Labour Member of Parliament has employed the man, Shaneel Lal, who was instrumental in whipping up that violence, as an executive assistant. Not only was he instrumental, he videoed himself on the day being jubilant about it.

Allegedly, that MP is the Hon. Jenny Salesa, the MP for Panmure-Ōtāhuhu in Auckland, and the spokesperson for Ethnic Communities, Customs. So far, I’ve only had hearsay that she’s the MP who has employed Lal, and phone calls to both her electorate and parliamentary offices to verify it were answered only by voicemail. However, she and Lal do go back a few years, when she selected him to be her youth MP at the age of 18. If it’s correct that Lal is indeed an executive assistant for Ms Salesa, it’s difficult to see how he can be an astute choice as an aide for the Spokesperson for Ethnic Communities, considering his background as a fervent anti-woman activist.  

But, Shaneel Lal has been continuously rewarded and lauded for his efforts for the ‘LGBTQIA+ community’. In reality, his efforts for the ‘LGBTQIA+ community’ boil down to making demands which mainly favour the TQ+ faction of the acronym. From what I understand, and it may have changed from the last time I read this, Lal identifies as ‘queer trans’, and uses they/them pronouns.

Any pushback against Lal’s efforts, like not wanting any man who says he’s a woman to have free and unfettered entry into all women’s and girls’ spaces and sports, he claims are “transphobia”. Shortly after his part in stirring up the violence against women in Albert Park, Auckland, on 25 March 2023, Lal got the ‘Young New Zealander of the Year’ award, whose main sponsor is Kiwibank. Now, he has a job as an executive assistant for an MP.  

It's incomprehensible how so many MPs, including women MPs, turn a blind eye to Lal’s appalling behaviour against women. Seemingly, they’re able to pretend it doesn’t exist. My own engagement with MPs and councillors, though, has demonstrated that it may not be an uncommon practice for some to ignore all those things which could interfere with the implementation of a pet project, or appointment.

It's incomprehensible how so many MPs, including women MPs, turn a blind eye to Lal’s appalling behaviour against women. Seemingly, they’re able to pretend it doesn’t exist. My own engagement with MPs and councillors, though, has demonstrated that it may not be an uncommon practice for some to ignore all those things which could interfere with the implementation of a pet project, or appointment.

Besides being employed as an executive assistant for an MP, Lal is also said to be employed by Labour as a policy researcher. That is a much bigger worry, in my opinion, even without Labour currently being in government. I would put money on it that he will be researching ways to take the word ‘sex’ out of any policy (or piece of legislation, as well, perhaps) he possibly can, and replacing it with the word ‘gender’. The word ‘gender’ may have been used narrowly once as a polite euphemism for ‘sex’, but there’s no limit to how it can be used now. It’s wide open to be interpreted any way a person chooses. Potentially, any man with a self-described gender-identity of any sort, that has no male words in it, gets a free pass into all women’s and girls’ spaces if he so desires.

It's hard for me to imagine a bigger insult to women from Labour than to employ the man who was instrumental in whipping up the worst mob violence against women ever seen in New Zealand, and which shocked much of the world. Unless they’re well-behaved fawners, Lal is no friend to women. Women who don’t fawn are also entitled to sex-based rights, and no one should be giving them away on us – so why are MPs not only doing that, but employing a man who will revel in doing it?

In the event that we need reminding, after the aborted Let Women Speak rally, Labour’s leader, Chris Hipkins, said he would have been proud to support the protest against Posie Parker (Kellie-Jay Keen). He may have found it politic to change his stance a bit since then, but when Labour then goes and employs a man like Lal, it makes me very nervous.

Labour leader, Chris Hipkins, verifies that Shaneel Lal is employed as an executive assistant by a Labour MP (see the last three minutes of the video)

[haggishlyhagging]

“Often the most offensive and repellent terms of the times have been used to describe a particular woman's character, and by implication to discredit her ideas. Such abuse has served to discourage other women from expressing their ideas, or else has indicated the good sense of expressing them anonymously and thereby trying to find a measure of protection. This also helps women to be invisible and promotes their disappearance.”

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

[tinfoil-jones]

How did the mayor elections go in the Jerk Ford universe? Cause Stanley would have no reason to run for mayor, and even if he did, the twins wouldn't have to help him

Some of the Stanchurian Candidate was handled Here.

The reason Stanley was running for Mayor was at the behest of the younger Mystery Twins, because Mabel and Dipper knew that Gideon was gunning for the position via his dad, and there was no way they'd let the town be under Gideon's control.

Gideon has even more disdain against the whole Pines family due to Stan confiscating his amulet, Dipper beating him up, and what Jerk Ford did to his family.

Stan may still be well-liked by the community, but some of the townsfolk have recently soured their opinion of him because even if they don't know how he did it, he must be the reason Jerk Ford is back because no one else would ever even think about trying to bring him back.

@aroace-get-out-of-my-face suggested way back in the OG post that part of Stan's canpaign would be "I will make sure my brother goes into town less."

While Stan does agree to run for mayor, he refuses to make that a part of his campaign.  So the kids have to be creative.

In one of the Journals, Jerk Ford had written about an invention called "The Free Will Tie", and how it "protected the wearer against brainwashing, possession, suggestions, and political cartoons". Dipper had gotten better at deciphering Ford's trolling and deduced that it must do the opposite and mind control the wearer instead.

They ask Jerk Ford for the tie and he vehemently refuses, saying something along the lines of his tech didn't need grubby little fingers messing with it. So they wait for him to fall asleep in the living room (Jerk Ford didn't sleep in the basment or his old bedroom, because "he didn't like sleeping anywhere that didn't have multiple exits") and once he's asleep they sneak into his lab and steal the mind control tie.

Things go pretty similarly to how it does in canon, with Gideon controlling his father via possession spell, the only difference is he's doing this from a safe distance away in the woods and not from jail, since he didn't go to jail in this.

Things go awry as they did in canon when the dynamite is set off on the monunent with the twins on it- Stan initially tries to save them like he did in canon, except this time he's unable to because Soos pushes him to the ground and beats him with a shovel because the sparks had set him on fire.

So the twins do fall from the manuments nose, with the ropes untying them from the chairs some point before the fall. Without her grappling hook, Mabel can only cling onto Dipper as they descend to their untimely deaths.

There's bone cracking sounds - but not from her or Dipper. Someone caught them before they could hit the ground and to their shock it was Grunkle Stan's brother.

He looks at them both quickly - checking to see if they're okay?? - before carefully setting them both down. One of his arms is at a weird angle it isn't supposed to be at, and there's a little bit of blood coming out of the corner of his mouth so he must have an internal injury, but neither of those things are what's disturbing about Jerk Ford right now.

He's completely silent. He says nothing - he's always got a rude remark or witty remark that is also rude ready. But not now. Now he's just stalking towards the stage, and every person he passes also suddenly goes quiet.

Dipper is also at a loss for words, clinging back to Mabel as she still is to him, he had seen Jerk Ford sprint out of the treeline. He'd heard from his stories that he was more of a runner, but he didn't know a man his age could run that fast. Wendy runs out of the crowd to go check on the twins.

At this point Soos had managed to take out the fire on Stan, and was helping him back up, Jerk Ford doesn't stop his stride but he does at least glance over at his brother and nephew, confirming by sight that they're both okay.

Stan's trying to say something to his brother but he's coughing too much to form words and Soos is desperately trying to keep him from making any sudden moves, he seems to be trying to break away for some reason.

Everyone's silent in the crowd as Jerk Ford stops right in front of Bud's podium.

Then in a flash he leaps right over it at Gleeful and starts beating the dog sh*t out of him. Bud doesn't stand a chance.

Take in mind, this is Bud's size in comparison to Stan in canon:

Also take in mind, Jerk Ford is scrawny compared to his canon self. And in fact, according to the AUs artist @tearosepedall, Jerk Ford is also slightly shorter than his canon counterpart.

So everyone just watches in horror as an old man with a broken arm and multiple broken ribs savagely beats a younger guy three times his size like he owes him money, and is showing no signs of slowing down, stopping, or mercy.

Wendy is compelled to cover the twins' eyes because not only is the beating that bad, but none of them knew Jerk Ford could be scary, isn't he supposed to be just some nuisance? Nuisances are supposed to be harmless! And he said he prefers elusion over fighting.

Dipper gets a cold, sinking revelation that Jerk Ford could have easily snapped him in half any of the times Dipper has hit or tried to hit him with a blunt object.

Bud gets into pretty bad shape at the assault, which doesn't stop until Gideon also runs out of the treeline crying and begging Jerk Ford to please don't kill his dad it wasn't his fault he'll leave his family alone just please stop.

Gideons bellowing causes a chain reaction of Jerk Ford halting his beat down, Stan finally breaking free from Soos' hold and running over to pull his brother off of Gleeful, and Wendy with the twins in tow also running towards the stage.

Whatever Stan did or said to Jerk Ford must have flipped a switch because as Wendy, Dipper, and Mabel are on the stage with the rest of the mystery crew, Jerk Ford is back to his normal self, because he makes a grumpy remark about how the kids "fell on him because he just happened to be standing there".

Now everyone votes for Stan because they're too scared of what Jerk Ford will do them if they don't, and Stan wins the election (also Bud Gleeful gets picked up by an ambulance), however Stan ends up turning down the position of mayor to Tyler Cutebiker, the last remaining candidate, citing that he's realized he needs to focus more on his family.

They go home and Jerk Ford takes some kind of weird medicine out of his bag and injects himself with it - he explains to Stanley that it's something that can heal bone breaks in the span of a few minutes (Broken Bone Serum), but the kids didn't hear this because as soon as he's healed, Mabel runs in with stickers, gauze, glitter glue, and ace wrap demanding to cast Jerk Ford's arm.

Jerk Ford lets her do so but he complains the whole time, which doesn't dampen her spirits in the slightest.

What does dampen her spirits however is that when Stan caught on fire it burnt off a bunch of his hair so now he has short hair and a more disturbing resemblance to his 'bad' twin (something that irks Dipper). Mabel is so sad because she can't braid Stan's hair anymore! Who else is she going to braid train with in this house? (It might not be spotted initially but in the artists design for Stan he has long hair that he pulls into a ponytail or a braid)

[lauramakabresku]

Into great silence