#anti toxic feminism

[limerence-leftovers]

I know two men who are currently single. One is 26, and the other is 38.

I’ve spoken with both of them at length about what they want in a woman, seeing as they’re cishet and white.

They both immediately went for physical attributes. Thin, but needs to have a nice butt. Boobs can’t be too big. One likes short hair, the other likes long hair. They also went into facial features for some reason. That was the part that made me really uncomfortable as I hadn’t expected either of them to have been that focused on appearances.

Aesthetics came next. Both want ‘alt goth / witchy’ women. It should be worth noting both of these men said their potential partner can’t wear too much makeup.

Lastly came personality and interests. They both said this is the most important thing to them, but they also ‘have to be pretty’. Oh, and they need to listen.

I have some single ladies I’ve also spoken with.

It’s the opposite. They rarely care about looks. It’s about chemistry, emotional connection, feeling safe, and sharing common goals / ideals.

While I know it’s not ‘all men’ it sure as fuck is a lot of you. Also both of these men think they’re part of the ‘good cishet white liberal men’ who voted for Kamala, despite one of them not voting at all.

He’s the 38 year old. To make things worse, he’s trying to date a 24 year old. 🤷‍♀️ His criteria for a potential partner was also under the age of 30 because it means less baggage and they’re still ‘fun to be around’.

You don’t want to know what he doesn’t bring to the table. Either of them, rather. 😅

We do have a male loneliness epidemic, but it’s not women’s fault. We don’t owe you anything. We’re not vending machines you put tokens into and get sex out of. Male culture made by men and perpetuated by men has made men this way. And it’s your job as men to fix it, not point the finger at us and say it’s our fault for not wanting to be with you. Some of us like myself want to actually HELP you, but you guys rarely want to listen. You instead want to complain to us about our gender and how unfair we’re being by not giving you a chance.

We don’t owe you anything.

On January 20th, 2025 and forward, they’re going to try to take our rights. They may succeed.

Men have to take from us because they’ve gaslit themselves into seeing us as the enemy, despite having driven us away by their own actions centered around self interest.

“It’s not all men. But it sure is a lot of you.”

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift is a Female Rage icon? Get a Grip.

I’ve just received word that Taylor Swift is calling her show “Female Rage: The Musical.” Here is my very much pissed off response to that nonsense:  

The phrase, Female Rage has an intimately rich history:  

Some of the first accounts of female rage dates to the Italian renaissance. To be clear, women in those days were not allowed to become painters- the arts were seen as the domain of men. They did not believe that women have rich inner lives capable of delivering the type of artistic innovation with which renaissance men were obsessed.  

However, rebels abounded, through the might of their fucking rage. Several women created some of the most compellingly emotional paintings I’ve ever fucking seen. They did it without permission, without financial support, and often under the threat of punishment. They did it as a protest. In paintings like “Timoclea Killing Her Rapist” by Elisabetta Sirani (1659), and another by Artemisia Gentileschi “Slaying of Holofernes” (1612) as it depicts the bravery of Judith as she slayed a traveling warlord out to rape Judith and enslave her city. The painting often is referred to as a way Artemisia was envisioning herself as slaying her rapist. These paintings were used against these women as proof that they were unfeminine- and far too angry.  Both these women suffered immensely for their audacity to call attention to the violation men perpetrated on them. Female Rage bleeds off these paintings- bleeds right through to the bone-deep acknowledgement of the injustice women faced being barred from the arts and having their humanity violated in such a sick way. Both women were hated- and considered far too angry.

In philosophy, also as early as the 15th century, an example of female rage is a philosophical text, often hailed as one of the first feminists works in the western world, written by Christine de Pizan titled The City of Ladies (1405). She wrote in protest on the state of women- writing that “men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually know women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are” (“The City of Ladies”). People mocked her all her life- but she stood fast to her convictions. She was widowed at a young age with children to feed and the men wouldn’t let women have jobs! She wrote this book and sold it so that she could feed her family- and to protest the treatment of women as lesser than men. Her work was called aggressive and unkempt- they said she was far too angry. 

In the 18th century, a young Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, A Vindication of the Right of Women ( 1792) upon learning that the civil rights won in the French Revolution did not extend to women! She wrote in protest of the unjust ways other philosophers (like Rousseau) spoke about the state of women- as if they were lesser. She wrote to advocate for women’s right to education, which they did not yet have the right to! She wrote to advocate for the advancement of women’s ability to have their own property and their own lives! The reception of this text, by the general public, lead to a campaign against Wollstonecraft- calling her “aggressive” and far too angry.  

Moving into modernity, the 1960’s, and into literary examples, Maya Angelou publishes I know why the caged Bird Sings (1969) in which she discusses the fraught youth of a girl unprotected in the world. It beautifully, and heart-wrenchingly, described growing up in the American South during the 1930’s as it subjected her to the intersection of racism and sexism. The story is an autobiographical account of her own childhood, which explains how patriarchal social standards nearly destroyed her life. Upon the reception of her book, men mostly called it “overly emotional” and far too angry. Maya Angelou persisted. She did not back down from the honesty with which she shared her life- the raw, painful truth. With Literature, she regained a voice in the world.  

Interwoven into each of the examples I have pulled out here, is the underlying rage of women who want to be seen as human beings, with souls, dreams and hopes, yet are not seen as full members of society at the behest of men. They take all that rage, building up in their souls, and shift it to create something beautiful: positive change. Each of these cases, I have outlined above, made remarkable strides for the women as a whole- we still feel the impact of their work today. They were so god-damn passionate, so full of righteous anger, it burst out into heart-stopping, culture-shifting art. Feminine rage is therefore grounded in experiences of injustice and abuse- yet marked too by its ability to advocate for women's rights. It cannot be historically transmogrified away from these issues- though Taylor Swift is doing her best to assert female rage as pitifully dull, full of self-deprecation, and sadness over simply being single or losing money. She trivializes the seriousness with which women have pled their cases of real, painful injustice and suffering to the masses time and time again. The examples above deal with subjects of rape, governmental tyranny, and issues of patriarchally inspired social conditioning to accept women as less human than men. It is a deadly serious topic, one in which women have raised their goddamn voices for centuries to decry- and say instead, “I am human, I matter, and men have no right to violate my mind, body, or soul.”  

The depictions of female rage over the last few centuries, crossing through many cultures, is an array of outright anger, fearsome rage, and into utter despair. The one unyielding, solid underpinning, however, is that the texts are depicting the complete agency of the women in question. The one uniting aspect of female rage is that it must be a reaction to injustice; instead of how male depictions of female rage function, (think Ophelia), the women are the agents of their art with female made- female rage. They push forth the meaning through their own will- not as subjects of male desires or abuses, but as their own selves. That is what makes the phrase so empowering. They are showing their souls as a form of protest to the men who treat women like we have no soul to speak of.  

Taylor Swift’s so-called female rage is a farce in comparison. Let’s look at an example: “Mad Woman” (2020). I pull this example, and not something from her TTPD set, because this is one of the earliest examples of her using the phrase female rage to describe her dumb music. (Taylor Swift talking about "mad woman" | folklore : the long pond studio sessions (youtube.com)  

The lyrics from “Mad Woman” read “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/... And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry”  

How exactly is agreeing with someone that you are “crazy” a type of female rage in which she’s protesting the patriarchy. The patriarchy has a long history of calling women “insane” if they do not behave according to the will of men. So, how is her agreeing with the people calling her crazy- at all subversive in the way that artworks, typically associated with concept of female rage, are subversive. What is she protesting? NOTHING.  

Then later, she agrees, again, that she's “angry.” The issue I draw here is that she’s not actually explicating anything within the music itself that she’s angry about- she just keeps saying she's angry over and over, thus the line falls flat. The only thing this anger connects to is the idea of someone calling her angry- which then makes her agree that she is... angry. So, despite it being convoluted, it’s also just not actually making any kind of identifiable point about society or the patriarchy- so again, I beg, what on Earth makes this count as Female Rage?  

In essence, she is doing the opposite of what the examples above showcase. In letting an outside, presumably male, figure tell Taylor Swift what she is feeling, and her explicit acceptance of feeling “crazy” and “angry,” she is ultimately corroborating the patriarchy not protesting it. Her center of agency comes from assignment of feelings outside of herself and her intrinsic agreement with that assignment; whereas female rage is truly contingent on the internal state, required as within our own selves, of female agency. As I stated above, the women making female rage art must have an explicit agency throughout the work. Taylor Swift’s song simply does not measure up to this standard.  

Her finishing remarks corroborates the fact that she's agreeing with this patriarchal standard of a "mad" or crazy woman:

"No one likes a mad woman/ You made her like that"

Again, this line outsources agency through saying "you made her like that" thus removing any possibility of this song being legitimate female rage. There is simply no agency assigned to the woman in the song- nor does the song ever explicitly comment on a social issue or protestation of some grievous injury to women's personhood.

She honestly not even being clever- she's just rhyming the word “crazy” with “crazy.” Then later rhyming “angry” with “angry.” Groundbreaking stuff here.  

Perhaps Taylor Swift is angry, in “Mad Woman,” but it is not the same type of rage established in the philosophical concept of female rage of which art historians, philosophers, and literary critics speak. Instead, it is the rage of a businesswoman that got a bad deal- but it is not Female Rage as scholars would identify it. In “Mad Woman” I fear her anger is shallow, and only centered on material loss- through damaging business deals or bad business partners. She is not, however, discussing what someone like Christine de Pizan was discussing by making a case for the concept that woman also have souls like men do. In her book, she had to argue that women have souls, because men were unconvinced of that. Do you see the difference? I am saying that Swift’s concerns are purely monetary and material, whereas true examples of female rage center on injustice done against their personhood- as affront to human rights. Clearly, both things can make someone mad- but I’d argue the violation of human rights is more serious- thus more deserving of the title “Female Rage.”  

Simply put, Taylor Swift is not talking about anything serious, or specific, enough to launch her into the halls of fame for "Female Rage" art. She's mad, sure, but she's mad the way a CEO gets mad about losing a million dollars. She's not mad about women's position in society- or even just in the music industry.

She does this a lot. The album of “Reputation” was described as female rage. Songs in “Folklore” were described as female rage. Now, she’s using the term to describe TTPD, which is the most self-centered, ego-driven music I’ve heard in a long time.

Comparing the injustice, and complete subjugation, of women’s lives- to being dumped by a man or getting a bad deal- wherein she is still one of the most powerful women of the planet- is not only laughable, but offensive. 

[nothing0fnothing]

As a young girl in the church I was taught to "respect myself."

We were told it from every angle. Our teachers, our preachers, our parents. "As a woman you have to respect yourselves." "How can men respect you if you're not respectful of yourself?"

I'm not sure why an 11 year old girl needed tips on how to make men respect her, but they felt it was important nonetheless.

So I educated myself and spoke my mind. I wanted to be respected for how clever I was. I asked questions that were thoughtful and well reasoned, I corrected elders when they were wrong and I focused on knowing as much as I could.

They didn't like that.

So I put all that aside, and instead I learned about feminism. I decided I should be respected for how firm I was. I said no loudly and clearly. I made my boundaries known and I reacted loudly when they were crossed.

They didn't mean like that either.

So instead, I put myself in therapy. I wanted to be respected for how self assured I was. I started caring for myself and putting me first. I healed from my trauma and learned how to not repeat old cycles, and everyone who I could, I brought them up with me.

They didn't like that at all.

No, apparently the type of self respect they wanted me to learn was the type where I beleived lies at face value, said nothing to those who crossed my boundaries and wallowed in depression and toxic cycles. But also like, while keeping my shoulders covered or something.

Silly me.

[itsdafinalbraincell]

Tradwifes are not on tiktok filming themselves making food at home. They are "arranged" to marry a man and stay in the kitchens of their extended family, dreams forgotten. Like my maternal grandmother.

Tradwifes are not on tiktok filming themselves proclaiming to be anti-feminists. They are harassing and abusing their daughters and daughter-in-laws for not being the perfect, submissive, docile woman. Like my paternal grandmother.

Tradwifes are not on tiktok filming themselves taking care of their children. They are miserable and lost and take it out on their daughters, controlling them in every way possible and crying wolf when the young woman recognises her worth and leaves. Like my mother.

[misandresther]

If masculinity was not so fragile, they would not be teaching our sisters since toddlerhood to reject politely instead of teaching males to accept and handle rejection well.

[abearinthewoods]

Toxic masculinity looks like a video of women explaining they dont date guys who drive teslas

Its also the 50 thousand people who upvoted it on reddit, the thousands of comments agreeing with video or joining in to mock such guys, as well as any man whos decisions or self worth are influence by it.

But most importantly: its the 12 year boy who just saw that video and all the comments and upvotes and just internalized the message that his self worth is based upon what women think of him. Something he'll subconsciously express when his first rejection feels like a personal attack.

So when i say toxic masculinity is enforced by men and women alike, this is what i mean.

[hoefortoes1]

the toxic masculinity of desi men pisses me off so much, on the one hand, they teach women modesty and how to cover themselves more, while on the other hand, most of these men are porn addicts who get off by seeing women getting degraded and treated like objects.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

re your commentary on swifts feminism

her song the man has always bothered me particularly how it's been labeled and used as some "feminist anthem" when it's not about feminism. she literally says she'd rather replace the man on top and get to get away with all the bad behaviors men do, "if a was a man" means she'd be the one "flashing dollars and getting bitches and models", being a baller and not a "bitch", and referencing leo dicaprio also feels weird to me given his track record of throwing female partners away the second they hit age 25. if it was really about feminism it'd be a song about getting rid of that structure entirely, not having anyone in a position above someone else especially to abuse wealth and social power but instead it's over three minutes of her wishing she could be in that position instead

Hello! Apologies this took me a whole week to get to <3. I totally agree with on "The Man"(2019) though. This song is such a snobby, classless disgrace.

I always forget that people really believe that to be a feminist anthem… and I just don't understand how people think that?

It's not a song about disrupting the patriarchy. Taylor Swift is singing about climbing the corporate ladder, and wishing, simultaneously, that she was privy to male privilege.

Like she's already privileged, and yet she's singing about wanting even more privileges…. LOL

Swift is not a feminist and I will literally die on this Hill. She's not even a LGBT ally either- but that's a post/rant for another day.

She cares about exactly one thing- herself. Absolutely nothing in any of her songs that she markets as feminist music takes about issues facing women as a whole- or even extends empathy towards other women. All of it is so completely self-centered.

Especially, "The Man."(2019) I'm sorry, Miss Swift, but as a real feminist, I really have no desire to replace men at the top of the hierarchy- I want to destroy the hierarchy.

Also, since you're giving me the opportunity to talk about this, can we talk about how gross this line is: " and they would toast to me, let the players play/ I'd be just like Leo in Saint-Tropez" First of all, she's saying that if she was the man she would be applauded for sleeping around so much, and if she was a man she could be like Leonardo Dicaprio who famously refuses to date anyone older than 25?

Like she's really out here repackaging sexist power imbalances, ones that encourage the objectification of other people, in romantic relationships and singing about how she wishes she could do that without being called out? She's romanticizing Leo's creepy dating life, as perpetually single yet using young girls like accessories, and yet in all of her other songs she is crying about how much she wants to get married and be "pushing strollers." Make it make sense.

Also, uhhh… the men are also called out for being creeps? Why would we stop doing that if gender roles were suddenly reversed?

My aim with feminist activism is to destroy gender roles altogether…

Anyway. She's a fraud.

And you have brought up a remarkably good observation in her music- because this theme extends out well past just "The Man" (2019).

God this song makes me so mad- How does she get away with selling this shit as Feminism??????????????????? She's probably never read a feminist text in her life.

I have this ongoing theory that her idea of "feminism" is just being able to climb the corporate ladder. Like she's just so clearly only imaginative when it comes to business. She really should have just focused on becoming a businesswoman, because she's certainly not a poet or a feminist.

[sad-wet-cat-hannibal]

✨ Tell Andrew Tate to go fuck himself ✨

I just found this amazing crowdfunded not-for-profit legal campaign supporting 7 British women who experienced alleged rape and serious sexual and physical assault by Andrew Tate. The criminal investigation at the time screwed them over and they're fighting to have the criminal case against him reopened and Tate brought back to the UK to face justice.

They hit their first goal of £50k last summer, and updated their stretch goal at the time to £75k. The campaign only has 6 days left to acquire the remaining 17k. The money will go towards work that includes: "continuing to gather and prepare all the evidence needed to strengthen our case. Our lawyers are working on a not-for-profit basis, so all your donations will go towards making this the best possible case and nothing else."

I love this donation message

[shitswiftiessay]

swifties call olivia wilde a “misogynist” and a “woman hater” for seemingly shading taylor swift’s jet pollution.

[bi-dykes]

Source: Pinterest 💜 Credits: @ amargadaxo

[feralboo-the-weirdo]

BARBIE SPOILERS. if you have not seen it and you don't want spoilers, just skip over this. Unless you would like some prior warning for it. :)

This is honestly the only summery of the Barbie movie I can give without going into a giant rant:

Spoiler: Yes. They pushed both. I just couldn't get the other meme to work.

dang, I have a feeling this is going to garner quite a bit of hate, but as a disclaimer before I go into what I will try to keep a tiny rant-- I understand there are people who did like it and I want to like it, because it's you know, it's Barbie and the old movies were wonderful, but... the movie made itself irredeemable to me.

Yes, it was satire, but it was honestly hard to tell what was satire and what they proclaimed was truth. I hated it. Every moment I spent in the theater I wanted to leave it.

why was how they broke the brainwashing reminding women how mistreated they are? Like. HOW. DOES. THAT. FIX. ANYTHING? was it satisfying for a bit? admittedly yes, the initial rant the mom gave was satisfying.... and then they dragged out the bit and it was just like "what on earth is this?" why is this what unbrainwashes them?

Also, I know people are going to get onto the "well they were white so that explains everything" No. no it does not.

Also everything they brought up they did not go deep into. like Ken being hurt by the Patriarchy too. they spent about five minutes (if that) on it and then were like "yay! problem solved, it's barbie land again." Also mental health. Was handled VERY poorly. it's not a joke. as someone who deals with mental health struggles on the daily I did not appreciate how they presented it.

The "only baby dolls" thing. This should not have made me hate this movie so much because it's (MAYBE???) satire. But still. They have not been the only doll to exist ever.

This movie hated both genders equally but tried to make it seem like they loved women.

Also. I hated the extremes they went to in the real world. Not every man is Evil. there are some that definitely should not be allowed around women or other people yes, but not all of them are evil. And not all women are good either.

No one, the barbie movie: women are so mistreated, woah is us!

Also the barbie movie: eck! we're so powerful we can't stand it!

But mostly, I just hated it because I was promised a happy movie of Barbie having a midlife crisis and Ken coming along for the ride and instead it was like Tik tok. in movie form.

This movie did not make me feel anymore comfortable with my gender. if anything it made me feel worse. I left the theater feeling like I should have been empowered, but I just felt gross. Overall, this is probably the last post I will ever make for this movie because I want it to fade into the background and be ignored. The worst insult I could give this movie is ignoring it's existence entirely.

Does anyone else miss when movies just had strong CHARACTERS instead of it being a strong gender? like it wasn't "LOOK A FEMALE WHO IS A CHARACTER!!!" and "oh, a guy character, gross." Why does it have to be so extreme? Like I appreciate there are more female protagonists out there but I also miss when they weren't all hot headed, arrogant, jerks, and when they were FEMININE. like. what. is wrong. with. being soft??? also I miss smart male protagonists. and male protagonists in general who were good characters not comic relief. (unrelated, but semi related note: I will never forgive the Harry Potter Movies for what they did to Ron to make Hermione smart. Ron is SMART TOO. My boy deserved better!)Like there was a while there where women and men both had equal roles in stories and they were good because they were good characters and now... it's just politics. and I'm sick of it.

I don't know what Barbie was supposed to be but it was not what I wanted to see when I went to see it. I had low expectations, but somehow, it failed them. failed them hard. Honestly, I don't know how anyone likes it, and I'm still to angry at it to look for reasons why people did. Maybe in a few years after my anger at what this movie was actually about subsides.

In conclusion, I finally remembered why I don't go see movies anymore. I want a story, not a message. Barbie provided a message. a very dark undertone that hid under "discover yourself and your role in the world :)"

P.S. If you liked Barbie and wish to tear me to shreds, please remember I was not the target audience, I did not "get it" as those in the target audience did.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Hi jsyk Taylor was offered the opportunity to buy her masters and she said no. She was then offered the opportunity to trade for them. For every new album she made with the company she'd keep that masters and get 1 old albums masters. She/her dad/team refused both but accepted the $15 mil when the company changed hands. It's pretty common for nobody to own their masters but Taylor's contracts protected her and her music significantly more than any other artist. From what it looks like, she didn't want to make an actual money/business deal with a business, got mad they wouldn't bend over and take it, so they made ~a business deal~. Also, I don't know much about scooter but I do know he's Jewish and Taylor likes to drop dogwhistles when she talks about him. And the fans went after his kids?? Fuck this lady fr.

That's what I assumed.

I never bought the idea that it was all sold out from under her without her foreknowledge. After her decades of work in the business, and the fact that her father owed part of the company, I just absolutely never believed it when everyone lost their minds saying Swift got her music stolen.

It's not stolen- first of all, because she never owned the masters in the first place. People can't steal things from you that aren't yours to begin with. Besides that- it's literally just how the music industry works.

All these artists want high quality production and marketing- well they get that high quality production and marketing through contractual obligations wherein the master copies of the work belong to the production company- that way everyone who worked on the production gets their fair share of profit from the music.

It's not "stealing;" it is literally just contractual obligations so that the sound crew- the marketing team- the mixing artists- and the overseeing production company all get paid too. These people also work on the music- so why should only Swift get paid for the music??

It's like saying the camera crew of the movie production team shouldn't get paid because they are not the "real" talent as the actors.

What?

Swift just felt entitled to being the only person to make money off her catalogue- even though she's not the only person to put work into creating it- and that's why she's really mad.

PS- I will be looking into Swift's antisemitism. Frankly, this is the first I've heard of it.

But this is part of what I mean when I say her "feminism" is always predicated on capitalism rather than any real pro-women activism.

[hyperfocusfeatures]

these memes can be funny but sometimes we seem to forget that stuff like this is really good for mental health--and fyi this is exactly the kind of thing a good therapist would tell someone to do!

hobbies like this can be incredibly effective interventions, especially for therapy-resistant populations! men who have been socialized into seeing therapy as an ego threat are a prime example of this

i yearn for a world full of feminist mens' work and ubiquitous, available, anti-patriarchal, stigma-free mental health services. but in the meantime, dudes getting into gentle hobbies is pretty cool

[old-acc-discourseisdumb]

If you’re wondering why men are ‘not allowed’ to be affectionate with each other without being called gay or to have female friends they aren’t in love with, it’s because of hegemonic masculinity.

Raewyn Connel came up with this concept, the ideal which all men are expected to compare themselves to. Hegemonic means dominant in a social or political context.

Outside of hegemonic masculinity, there’s complicit masculinities expressed by men who aren’t ‘the perfect man’ but still uphold it’s ideals, such as the typical virgin gamer stereotype, physically weak men, unmarried middle age men, unemployed men, etc. marginalised masculinities are men who don’t receive as many benefits from patriarchy due to class, race, disability, trans identity, etc. This is a distinct (but often overlapping) category from subordinated masculinities, meaning men who are grouped with women but still have significant benefits of male privilege. These are feminine men, emotional men, gay men, etc.

Psychologists Amy Cohn and Amos Zeichner say there are four dimensions to hegemonic masculinity: competitiveness and dominance; emotional inexpressiveness (except for anger); gender role stress (maintaining the act of masculinity); and homophobia and misogyny. Men who defy these hegemonic ideals, such as men who are open about mental health, men who parent their children, men who are allies and feminists, and men who don’t exhaust themselves with those standards are all written off as subordinated masculinities, grouped with gay men.

Notice all of those standards are essential for friendship. Emotional vulnerability and equality especially. That creates a standard for men where they’re allowed to want sex (and expected to) but aren’t allowed to want emotional connections, so actual closeness is impossible for the man with hegemonic and complicit masculinities.

TL;DR the components which make up ‘ideal masculinity’ contradict close friendships, so men are assumed to be incapable of forming bonds which aren’t sexual in nature.

Btw I got all of this from Gender: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele. Highly recommended book to help deconstruct gender norms and to learn more about this stuff

[rebelforart]