#anti marriage

[radifemsara]

[aux-squiggle]

BRITISH COMMUNIST PARTY SAYS SEX WORK ISN'T WORK

To be more specific, they say the mantra "sex work is work" should be retracted by trade unionists and society at large.

Some highlights:

Women and girls should be able to secure well-paid jobs, good housing and education without the need to prostitute themselves. Prostitution is not a genuine and free choice; it is a survival behaviour, mostly engaged in by working class women and girls who suffer economic disadvantage.

Prostitution is inherently violent and requires in and of itself the subjugation of women and girls – there is no form of work where this could ever be acceptable.

Health and safety regulation is impossible in the sex trade: in any occupation that involves exposure to bodily fluids workers wear masks, gloves, gowns, and goggles to protect themselves. Prostitutes can never benefit from these levels of protection because of the nature of prostitution.

Extreme levels of violence, rape, degradation, and humiliation cannot be regulated against as they are part and parcel of prostitution. Such levels of harm against workers in work would never be tolerated. Women in prostitution experience more physical and sexual violence that women on average. A study by Germany’s federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth reports that 41% of women in prostitution experience physical or sexual violence, or both, in the context of prostitution.

The sexual sadism that prostitutes are exposed to causes the type of physical internal injuries and psychological trauma that should never be accepted in the world of work.

The murder rate is particularly high in the sex trade. Prostitutes are almost nine times more likely to be killed than soldiers in combat. Legalisation of the sex trade does not protect the lives of prostitutes. Since Germany’s legalisation of the sex trade in 2022, there have been 85 homicides of prostituted persons committed by clients. In addition, there have been at least 49 attempted homicides.

Pregnancy and even multiple pregnancies are risks arising out of prostitution which have adverse implications for the woman herself, for children born out of prostitution, and for society itself. This should never be accepted as an overhead of “employment”.

The high levels of substance use necessary to enable prostitutes to cope with the abusive practices of the men who buy sex should never be tolerated in the world of work.

Alternating bolding for readability.

Highly suggest reading the whole thing!

[balkanradfem]

I was thinking the other day about how often biblical stories imply that any sort of species can be started with just one and one female of the species, and sells this as the correct (maybe only correct) way to start things. Like Adam and Eve, they're supposed to be the starters of humanity, one (presumably young) male and one again, presumably young woman.

It repeats again with Noah's ark, where two animals of each species are collected, one male and one female, so they could all 'start their species anew'. Noah's family also is presumed to be the regular, one male + one woman, enough to re-start the humanity.

I understand that these stories were written to establish and force the idea of nuclear family being necessary, good and the start of everything, and if you don't think further than 'oh yeah one male and one woman are capable of making a baby' and you stop thinking there, you might be sold with these stories. But if you think about it for a second further, the implications of this are absolutely atrocious.

One young male and a young woman, are never accompanied by their parents or their grandparents in the stories. They're purposely isolated from their families, or are presumed to not even have family, which means none of them has any support, anyone to go to for advice or help, nobody to rely on to do the massive amount of labour of having and raising even one child. This is already where it falls apart, two young people do not have the knowledge, experience or wisdom to raise a small child, alone. They need their mothers, they need their grandmothers, they need elders and community in order to be able to function - first of all tell me who is delivering that baby they're having? Where is her midwife? It's never mentioned how she gets through childbirth in those stories, apparently she just 'figures it out', while in reality birth is dangerous, and women need both emotional and physical support during labour. There's nobody in this story who knows how to deliver the child safely, or how to save one or both of them should the things go wrong. They both have a chance of dying and then the species is dead. This is all ignored and pretended not to be an issue.

So next in the story we're led to believe that these two young people have made a (mistake) baby and are raising it alone and this is fine. Even funnier is that they often first have a male baby, as an effort to repopulate their species, I mean yeah thats gonna do you a lot of good for sure. Two young people of the opposite sex, without any elders, community, family or support, have one significant power imbalance - the male will usually be physically more powerful, while the woman will be more intelligent, resourceful, adaptive, thoughtful, resilient, and infinitely more vulnerable during the times of labour. It has been shown again and again, that in these circumstances, males do not find it appropriate to protect and treasure the women, but they use their physical advantage to overpower and control her, and her reproductive abilities. But in the stories this is 'fine' because she should 'listen' to this dumber, bigger, less intelligent, more aggressive, more demanding, more exploitative, more dangerous, less useful creature who is completely parasitic and depending on her kindness, intelligence, ability to make food, reproductive abilities and sense of forgiveness of his crimes towards her, to survive. Women are apparently just supposed to be hosts for parasitic males, while isolated, not given a way to overpower him except poison, which is then again depicted as 'bad' because she should just resign to live in servitude to the creature if she wants to prove that she is 'good'. This is bullshit.

Let's look at the next stage, where even more disasters await us. So they raised their child, or children, who have only had these two people to look up to, so they've likely picked up the patterns of 'male is to be served or violence happens, women need to keep their head down and obey or the violence happens', and now the children are supposed to repopulate the species. With? whom? This concept relies entirely on incest? With children who have been raised on learning the massive power imbalance? We're supposed to have sisters accept sexual slavery from their brothers at this point, if we want to have a species of humans? The bible is promoting this?

The bible at this point realizes they've fucked up and write down 'well the sons just went to the nearest village to find girlfriends' OH YOU NEED A VILLAGE NOW DON'T YOU? Now you remembered that actually no, you will now rebuild a species without just one male and one woman and in fact, villages are necessary, and your story leads straight into incest and sexual slavery of women. Presumably the women in the village have whole families and not just two people put in this unnatural position of parasitism and power imbalance. But we don't know, we're supposed to remember 'one male + one woman is correct and nothing else is okay', when the concept is fucked up from the starts and they eventually cave and introduce a village, but do it casually like it doesn't really matter and the story totally wouldn't end up in forced incestuous pregnancies and making a mess of human gene pool.

It was so important for the bible to establish, and re-establish this concept because that is the only way for males to be able to isolate, use and control young women. The concept where women don't have their own mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, families, friends, and villages to protect them from abuse, that is the only scenario where one male can sit on his butt, call himself the 'provider' and then raise his voice and his hand whenever she doesn't do exactly as he says. It's disgusting, and there's nowhere else this can go except abuse. Males will never be unwilling to use their physical advantage to hurt and control women, and we've watched it for centuries, they were more willing to kill women than to accept that we have the right to vote,, the right to divorce them, the right to abort at will (they're still more willing to kill us than to accept this right). No woman is safe in an union with one male, without her family, friends, and a network of support. To live her entire life normally, she needs to rely on the knowledge, experience and wisdom of her elders, so she wouldn't have to do everything alone, and learn everything alone. Male, in return, usually learns all the tactics of manipulating and isolating a woman and will use those, so she needs to be ready and have strategies to defend herself, to be able to escape if it comes to that.

And sometimes, even when the woman has all the support in the world, the male still ends up killing her, because he gets a chance to do it, and it's always at the distraught and horror of everyone who loved her.

Thinking back, the concept of nuclear family had to be invented because males didn't feel like they were able to control the women enough. They likely needed to establish this because they noticed that women were able to go on uncontrolled, they were too 'free', too supported, too resourceful to just trap and control. They needed to convince women that the right thing to do was be alone with one male person who just happens to be stronger and that in fact, not doing so is dangerous and wrong. The concept of nuclear family put the control right in their hands where they wanted it, and it's still ongoing, and we're sick of it. It's a trap.

If you don't believe these stories have influenced our views, think about how males sometimes dream up concepts where they're the 'only male left on the planet', in company of the woman who they're interested in. They relish in these fantasies because they believe in that scenario, they're entitled to rape her. She isn't entitled to resist because then she's responsible for the downfall of humanity, for not repopulating the species, and they feel that this responsibility has to fall so heavy on the woman's shoulders that she will not possibly try to resist him. Women still do, women say right away that if they were the last one, they'd kill themselves instantly. Because we know and understand there's no repopulating the planet with just male and one female. There's just female sexual slavery and incest.

Possibly even the story of Adam and Eve is just a fantasy concept of one male who looked at a woman who was able to say no to him, and thought 'well, what if we were the only humans existing. How would she be able to refuse me then'. And he realized she couldn't. So he wrote it down and sold it as the ideal utopia created by god himself. And we've all been hearing his fetish fantasy like it's gospel. And then the rest of the story is focused on how wrong Eve is for resisting the rules of the male, and the even more powerful male god, how she'll be punished for eating a piece of fruit. We should have never fallen for it.

[swagging-back-to]

so more than 50% of marriages end in divorce, the other 50% by death (of which, a considerable amount would be familial homicides. 63% of female homicide victims---killed by an intimate partner--were murdered by CURRENT husbands. 92% by a male they knew.)

70% of divorces are initiated by the woman

60% of divorces are because of infidelity.

and yall still tryna romanticize coupling with males and marriage in general?

[misskremlintsarina5294]

Governments really cater to people who are married, with kids, than the people who aren't married, with kids. It's unfortunate. I don't wish to bring anyone in this harsh world. It's not worth it, in my honest opinion.

[elisabeta-darling]

RIP wedding dress😂

[certifiedcatgirl]

marriage and patriarchal symbolism

Clare Chambers points to the sexist traditions surrounding marriage and weddings; she writes:

Symbolically, the white wedding asserts that women's ultimate dream and purpose is to marry, and remains replete with sexist imagery: the white dress denoting the bride's virginity (and emphasising the importance of her appearance); the minister telling the husband "you may now kiss the bride" (rather than the bride herself giving permission, or indeed initiating or at least equally participating in the act of kissing); the reception at which, traditionally, all the speeches are given by men; the wife surrendering her own name and taking her husband's.

[ohheyguyss]

What is this BS I've just seen?

[witchesbeangry]

My music teacher told me he mentioned me in a conversation because I'm learning my instrument real fast. It's true that it's simply because I practice a lot. The response he got was something like

"it must be because she probably doesn't have a husband".

Gotta love the assumption that if I were married I'd dedicate all my free time to my husband, like I wouldn't be able to take an hour a day to practice an instrument, or have any other hobby for that matter.

Reason #9374910 for me not wanting to get married.

[strideofpride]

Oh this whole interview is so good

[neurotypicalabusesurvivor]

In Rome full service sex workers were more respected then being someone's wife. Many women choose to be full service sex workers to escape marriage. Marriage has always been about sexual and domestic slavery of women by men.

The patarachy demonizes sex to protect the social construct of marriage. It demonizes sex work, it demonizes homosexaulity, it demonized pre martial sex, it demonizes none monogamy as these things naturally threaten the social construct of marriage.

Marriage was always about entitlement, and control, it never was about love.

[radifemsara]

Women were never created from men's ribs, not ever. It is HE who emerges from HER womb. Framing the father as the life giver is a patriarchal lie, it's not true.

[aux-squiggle]

Men can never and will never be worth it in this society. 4b/6b4t

[qwilanikan]

On Marriage in Fandom (with specific emphasis on Good Omens)

I’ve been reading a lot of GO fan fiction recently, and mostly I have been loving it! There are some amazing writers in this community and I’m so grateful to be able to benefit from their time and skill and imagination! But… I have a lot of cognitive dissonance when it comes to shipping Azicrow, and others, and the romanticization that fandoms put on marriage and them being married/husbands.

Some context:  I am a relationship anarchist.  

I wrote another post with more details about what this means to me, including my opinions on marriage as an institution, with a bunch of links to articles and resources if you are interested in digging into this a bit more.

So, I mentioned some cognitive dissonance.  I am pretty obsessed with Good Omens and with Aziraphale and Crowley and their relationship.  But, the fact that they rely solely on each other, does not align with my own values.  I don’t think it is healthy for them to have no other sources of support.  

And, of course there is a lot of discourse about them being ‘husbands’, what with the ‘ineffable husbands’ thing and such. 

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and felt compelled to try to express after encountering it over and over. Even though there are things about their relationship that don’t align with my values, I gush over Azicrow since they are not real, it’s a fantasy.  I have lifelong friends that I rely on and trust and care about deeply.  And so I can admire that in their relationship.  But once it enters the realm of marriage it gets harder for me.  

I see a lot of idealization of marriage in fandom without reflection or critique.  This is not unique to fandom by any means, it’s ingrained in our socialization.  

I am uncomfortable with so much emphasis on marriage (and hierarchical romantic relationships). I think organized monogamy and rule-based relationships (especially marriage) are about control and ownership, not love and respect and trust.  I don’t find that appealing at all. I wish the focus was on their love for each other, rather than creating a rule-based relationship between them and idealizing that.

I try to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the warm fuzzies of Aziraphale and Crowley being cute. I love Aziracrow because I see their love and care for each other and their care for the world and humanity.  I want to celebrate that love and I don’t want to imagine that they are trying to control and coerce each other.  I don’t think that supports their love, I think it supports unhealthy systems in our society. 

notes:

* I want to acknowledge that this is not specific to Good Omens.  For instance this has been very present on the OFMD fandom since season two, and is just everywhere all the time.

* I have historically mostly lurked, and consumed fandom, rather than engaging publicly myself.  But this is something that I really care about and I want to be able to discuss. (Please feel free to engage with me about this!)

*I read one fic, (To reveal my heart in ink by chaoticlivi), which I loved. And something that I really appreciated about this fic is that even though Az and Crowley’s relationship was definitely sexual, and probably romantic (whatever that means… but that’s another topic), Az still continued to call Crowley ‘friend’ the whole time.  I loved that so much! There’s no reason they can’t still call each other ‘friend’ regardless of the ways that they relate might shift over time.

* Also, as occult/ethereal beings there is no practical advantage of them getting married, as they don’t need the financial or governmental benefits it gives you, so the only reason to do it is to idealize the idea of it and its hierarchical nature

[haggishlyhagging]

While male prophets were devising more varieties of marriage, some of the female prophets were arguing against it altogether. There were several bases for their stance. Some, like Roxanne Dunbar, argued against marriage because revolution was a full-time occupation, leaving no time for purely personal concerns. They called upon women to leave houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, land, to give single-minded dedication to their salvation. It sounds absurd. Still, how does it differ, when you come to think about it, from the same rationale for celibate religious orders?

Other radical female prophets objected to marriage not only because of what they felt it did to women but also because, like their conservative opposite numbers, they saw it as a major support of the status quo. But whereas conservatives argued for strengthening marriage because they wanted the status quo protected and preserved, the radical women argued against it because they did not. They were against marriage precisely because, as Judith Brown put it, it did shore up and support the status quo:

The institution of marriage ... is a potent instrument for maintaining the status quo in American society. It is in the family that children learn so well the dominance-submission game, by observation and participation. Each family, reflecting the perversities of the larger order and split off from the others, is powerless to force change on other institutions, let alone attack or transform its own. And this serves the Savage Society well.

Still others argued against marriage not only because it was conservative, but also because it was antirevolutionary in the sense that it deflected the righteous anger of workers against their exploiters. The wife who offered an emotional refuge to her husband from the jungle warfare of occupational competition was supporting a nonhumane system. Fran Ansley is speaking here:

Women serve as "lightning rods" for men's frustrations at other factors in their environment. This can be especially serviceable for the ruling class. Often it is the man of the family who experiences most directly the real power relationships in the society. (He sells his labor to a capitalist who then exploits him; he has a direct relation to industrial production; etc.) When wives play their traditional role as takers of shit, they often absorb their husbands' legitimate anger and frustration at their own powerlessness and oppression. With every worker provided with a sponge to soak up his possibly revolutionary ire, the bosses rest more secure. Chauvinist attitudes help to maintain this asocial system of tension-release.

But it is once more a case in which the woman pays. The mental health of men, their balance, is preserved by the ministrations of their wives, who salve the wounds inflicted on them by the outside world. The real beneficiaries in this framework are employers and exploiters of men against whom the aggression of unsoothed men would wreak itself. All is at the expense of wives, says Beverly Jones: “the inequalitarian relationships in the home are perhaps the basis of all evil. Men can commit any horror, or cowardly suffer any mutilation of their souls and retire to the home to be treated there with awe, respect, and perhaps love. Men will never face their true identity or their real problems under these circumstances, nor will we.”

Some argued against marriage because it was so oppressive for women. They translated the material presented in chapter 3 into polemics. This was how Judith Brown saw it:

The married woman knows that love is, at its best, an inadequate reward for her unnecessary and bizarre heritage of oppression. The marriage institution does not free women; it does not provide for emotional and intellectual growth; and it offers no political resources. Were it not for male-legislated discrimination in employment, it would show little economic advantage. Instead, she is locked into a relationship which is oppressive politically, exhausting physically, stereotyped emotionally and sexually, and atrophying intellectually. She teams up with an individual groomed from birth to rule, and she is equipped for revolt only with the foot-shuffling, head-scratching gesture of "feminine guile." ... Marriage ... is the atomization of a sex so as to render it politically powerless. The anachronism remains because women won't fight it, because men derive valuable benefits from it and will not give them up.

Some argued against marriage because it did not provide a suitable unit for the rearing of children. "There is," said Roxanne Dunbar, “little reality in the human relations in this society, and least of all in marriage. Ask the children what they think of the institution which supposedly exists for their upbringing, their beneft. All the love between ‘man and woman’ in the world will not make that tiny unit any less lonely, any less perverted to the child who is raised within it.”

A few, finally, fought marriage because they hated men. In reply to the "official" position against man-hating among the female prophets, one of them— Pamela Kearon—made a plea for open recognition of its existence in the displaced form of hatred of other women: "there is no dearth of hatred in the world. I agree.… People do not react to oppression with Love.... When women take their hatred out on others, those others are likely to be other women.... If hatred exists (and we know it does), let it be of a robust variety. If it is a choice between woman-hating and man-hating, let it be the latter."

It is doubtful whether these antimarriage arguments had much effect on the marriage rate. But the fact that they could be articulated, whether accepted or rejected, cannot help but affect the future of marriage. The idolatry of marriage was finally being challenged.

Jessie Bernard, The Future of Marriage

[pigeonriot]

i bring a certain "we should abolish the institution of marriage all together" vibe to the conversation that the liberal ✨love is love✨ ✨marriage equality✨ lgbts dont like very much