#antifeminist backlash

[taliabhattwrites]

Transition care is being outlawed and institutionally gatekept the world over.

Trans existence is the reactionary scapegoat du jour, a convenient symbol for regressive ideologues to rally against because we constitute a convenient effigy to burn, an existential threat to the patriarchal ideology of 'immutable', 'biological' sex upon which their 'natural order' (of male-supremacy and misogynistic exploitation) is founded.

During a cultural moment where the right's intentions to directly attack bodily autonomy and non-heterosexual, non-reproductive modes of existence are being plainly stated, where the nativist and natalist violence upon which states and their colonial orders are founded is being made most explicit, the response to this overt declaration of war on our ability to do what we will with our bodies is ... non-existent.

Feminism is being thoroughly repudiated by the left, by advocates of collectivization and queer activists alike. The "male loneliness crisis" is spoken of as our most pressing cultural issue, eliding the reactionary turn among men who are responding to deepening capitalist contradictions by demanding their patriarchal entitlement over women's labor and bodies. Trans people's existence is considered a luxury belief, established and proven healthcare is called 'experimental', and we are perceived as affluent eccentrics seeking novel forms of costuming rather than a thoroughly brutalized, impoverished, and stigmatized demographic sinking further and further into the margins.

Conservatives who rail against abortion and no-fault divorce now claim the label of "women's rights" because they also call for the eradication of transsexuality. The connections between the opposition to trans existence and women's political and economic independence are obvious, but no one is making them.

We are not organizing a robust, materialist, ideological opposition to this reactionary backlash on the basis of bodily autonomy, the emancipation of marginalized genders, or the right to exist independently from patriarchal structures such as the nuclear family.

We are arguing with each other about validity, about whether it's "biologically essentialist" to observe that society enables men to exploit women, and about whether anyone who speaks plainly about misogyny is a "TERF".

I stand here seeing things get worse for my sisters and my siblings, cis and trans and non-binary and intersex and queer and even heterosexual and more, watching us devour each other while working class men settle for dominion over their wives and families in exchange for being compliant for their bosses, and I wonder if we'll realize what must be done before it's too late.

I don't know. I don't have an answer for you.

At least, not a good one.

[is-this-really--life]

Ok actually idk why it's controversial to say men have gotten worse in recent years.

Like I get traditional gender roles and belief systems from the 50s fucking sucked but every older guy I work with *now* in the 21st century is super respectful meanwhile gen z males are all misogynistic trolls in human form.

[ffxiiiapologist]

Idk about the rest of y’all but people in my circles very much were approaching the “unnecessarily sex scenes discourse” with a focus on longstanding objectification of women in media, I know it’s the habit of people on this website who posture as Intellectual and Above It All to only broadcast the most risible takes to put on blast but I promise there are actual meaningful things to be said

[autolenaphilia]

I don’t care about accusations of ”pedophilia.” I will not give a fuck, I won't investigate your claims, I will just ignore it.

For one thing the accusation of pedophilia is often entirely meaningless. This is because pedophile/pedo etc are words that carry the taint of child rape, of calling up the disgust such an act naturally produces, but are accusations that don’t require such an act or a victim of it. If you call someone a “child rapist” that has weight, but you also have to back it up with a victim this person supposedly raped for the accusation to actually be meaningful. But words like “pedophile” carries no such demands, it literally just means “someone who has an attraction to children.” It doesn’t require an actual victim. It’s an accusation about how someone feels in their head and can thus be liberally applied. Someone criticizes your asinine submarine idea to rescue some children in a cave? Call them a pedo. And even words that once had a more specific meaning, such as “grooming” can be stretched beyond all meaning to mean whatever it wants to. Someone talked to under-18 people about sex and gender in a way you don’t want to? Call them a groomer.

In a culture of pedohysteria, pedojacketing is easy. And it’s especially easy to weaponize it against queer people, the idea that queerness spreads through queers recruiting children by molesting them is one of the oldest queerphobic narrativeness out there. I’m using “queer” here because this is a narrative used both against gay and trans people. But in the present transphobic/transmisogynistic backlash it’s most often used against trans people, especially transfems, as transmasc people are more often infantilized.

But on a more deeper level “pedophilia” is the wrong framing of the real problem of child sex abuse. It’s literally a medical term, a diagnosis. It makes child sex abuse a problem of some sick individuals with a diseased attraction.

This is of course a bad and antifeminist understanding of what rape and sexual violence is. It’s an inevitable and natural expression of power. The widespread rape of women is caused by the patriarchy, of men having power over women. And the misogynist oppression of women with sexual violence naturally extends to young girls. But all children are disempowered in our society. Adults have power over them in the patriarchal family, in the capitalist school system and other institutions of our society. Sexual violence against children flows from the power adults institutionally and systemically have over them. The vast majority of sexual violence towards children comes from the family and schools, not the “stranger danger” of creepy weirdoes hiding in bushes.

This is the reality that the framing of sexual violence as the result of sick individuals with a diseased attraction obscures. And it inevitably calls for a reactionary carceral and psychiatric response, justifying the police, prisons and psychiatric institutions. That’s why “what will we then do with the pedophiles?” is such a popular clichéd response to prison and police abolitionism. This very framing of the problem calls for a carceral response. If the problem of child sex abuse is sick individuals instead of the system, if we constantly root out and punish individuals we will eventually solve the problem.

In reality carceral responses actually make the problem of sexual violence much worse. The police, prisons and involuntary psychiatric hospitals are violent expressions of power and thus create the conditions for rape.

Pedohysteria is constantly used to justify the expansion of state power. Here in European Union we have had a legislative push to ban end-to-end encryption and make all online communication accessible to law enforcement, total online surveillance. And the reasoning is because otherwise pedophiles can use e2e communication to secretly send child porn to each other without the police being able to do anything, which is of course true, that does and will happen, but doesn’t justify killing all online privacy. This “chat control” act is literally called “regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.”

The pedohysteria also justifies vigilantism, which tumblr callout culture is part of and is also a deeply reactionary and even fascist phenomenon. Vigilantism rests on the idea that what the police do is right, but they are not doing it well enough, because they are too reigned in by liberal ideas such as laws and regulations and the courts. So random people should take on the role of police to punish “criminals”, like pedophiles. And this goes through tumblr callout culture. A subtext running through pedojacketing callouts of transfems is the idea that transmisogyny does not exist and does not lead to transfems being disproportionately punished, but instead transfems are using their minority status to get away with sex crimes.

This standard conservative rhetoric about how liberals often literally let minorities get away with murder justifies their reactionary vigilantism. Of course in reality, transfems are far less likely to commit sexual abuse of children than other groups of people, because we are systematically excluded from the very institutions where such abuse happens, such as parenthood/the family or schools, because of the transmisogynist stereotype that we are all perverted child rapists. And the callouts of transfems as sex predators are in themselves abusive and protect actual abusers, just like how police and prisons are.

So no, I will continue to not give a fuck if you call someone a pedophile.

[lesbiancorvoattano]

i think online, people on the left have really de-centered feminism in their politics. i see so many regurgitated mra talking points spewed by people on the left. so many causally misogynistic jokes. the treatment of amber heard. it feels like just a few years this kind of stuff wouldn’t slide, or at least wasn’t as popular. we’ve ceded so much ground to misogyny,

it feels like the only people on the internet these days that identify explicitly as feminists are transphobes. i’ve seen people be called terfs/radfems for discussing basic feminism stuff. are we really ceding the womens rights movement to these patriarchy collaborators (which is what terfs are)?

there’s a global antifeminist backlash right now. it’s hard not to think of these changes within the online left as part of this antifeminist backlash—a more subtle form of it of course, but none of us (or our political beliefs) exist in a bubble.

where does this leave us? we have women all over the world losing our rights, and a left that doesn’t really seem to care all that much.

what are we doing here?

[ofthin]

NEAR THEM, THEIR SISTERS FOUR; THE GORGONS, WINGED WITH SNAKES FOR HAIR — HATRED FOR MORTAL MEN.

MEDUSA are a four member girl group consisting of members Choi Gain, Son Jiyeon, Yu Chaerin and Hirono Ikumi, better known by her stage name, Hero. The group was put together by Valentine Records in 2018, when fourteen trainees were selected from a pool of fifty to be sorted into three debut teams. Dubbed Debut Team B, the five girls to be selected for the girl group prepared alongside their to-be brother groups Tarot and Sour Candy for two years. Medusa were second to make their debut in late 2020, following several delays necessitated by the abrupt departure of former member Zhang Shiyu, who was unceremoniously dropped by Valentine after being photographed on several dates with fellow trainee Jung Jumin just days after the announcement of their planned debut date. Despite their rocky beginnings, the group debuted to a level of success that even the lofty Valentine Records hadn't expected. With their debut single Paint The Town skyrocketing up the charts, Medusa quickly earned the highest selling debut under the company, and broke many other records, cementing them as monster rookies straight out of the gate.

Medusa are known for their high budget, cinematic music videos. Their visual media depicts the girls in the role of superheroes (though this could be through a number of different lenses; from comic books to morning cartoons, blockbuster movies to magical girl anime, etc.) Medusa's sound is often described as chaotic and cool, characterised by a slick production and often a playful delivery. Medusa's music tends to centre empowerment and explore the subject of gender. This, alongside the members' own values, has made them a common target of antifeminist groups; resulting in an influx of negative articles and rumours spreading about the girls throughout their career. Since the villain figures of the Medusa's hero themed videos are typically male, the backlash of Medusa's (corporately inoffensive) female empowerment message became so ridiculous that the group were accused of 'inciting violence against men.' Though it's unconfirmed that it was in relation to the article, the same day it was posted member Choi Gain tweeted; 'this is the happiest day of my life.' The hate train reached it's peak in 2022, when their song Trash was banned from broadcast due to 'derogatory language.' The song, which encourages a third party to dump their unfaithful boyfriend, was taken out of context, and misrepresented as 'man-hating' by certain online communities, exacerbating the hate thrown Medusa's way. The song was not altered or resubmitted for approval, and promotions for the track were cut from a full music show run to a few fanmeetings. Unconfirmed rumours spread online that the Trash era was 'cancelled' because the girls refused to censors it's lyrics in order to appeal the ban. This is widely regarded as fake today, but it does align with the group's activity suddenly slowing to a crawl, which some believe to be Valentine' idea of a punishment. (What record label would be stupid enough to keep money out of their own pockets just out of spite? Well. Valentine Records.) No news of Medusa's comeback was given throughout the majority of 2023 until the final quarter of the year. Though November saw the release of their first full album, Made You Look!, which achieved critical acclaim and won the group Best Album at the 33rd Seoul Music Awards, promotion and rollout for the record was nowhere near as in depth as those for Sour Candy or Tarot's first full lengths. Despite the success of the album, the conclusion of it's promotions ushered in another period of inactivity for the group, with only very recent reports confirming work on their next record was underway.

While Valentine's lazy management of a group with such selling power is baffling to most, Medusa have still amassed a huge, vocal fanbase off the back of their talent, musical quality, and tenacity in the face of constant scrutiny. However, no matter how many charts they top, or awards they win, there's no hiding from the unsurmountable expectations on their shoulders to uphold the legacy set by the legendary girl groups to have come out of Valentine Records before them. Living up to those expectations, however, would probably seem a little less Sisyphean for the girls of Medusa if the man who'd benefit most from them reaching the top would quit kicking them back down the mountain again.

CHOI GAIN. leader, main vocalist, lead dancer. SON JIYEON. main dancer, vocalist. YU CHAERIN. lead vocalist, lead rapper, visual. HIRONO IKUMI 'HERO'. main rapper, maknae.

PAINT THE TOWN. (Digital Single, 2020) Title: PAINT THE TOWN. GORGONEION. (Mini Album, 2021) Title: YAH-HO!, PINK VENOM. RISING ACTION. (Mini Album, 2021) Title: NARCISSISTIC. TRASH. (Digital Single, 2022) Title: TRASH. MADE YOU LOOK! (Mini Album, 2023) Title: MIDAS TOUCH, MADE YOU LOOK!

TRUST IN ME . . . JUST IN ME.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Li Zhou at Vox:

NFL kicker Harrison Butker is facing widespread backlash after giving a college commencement speech that casually dabbled in misogyny and homophobia. Butker, who has won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs in recent years, delivered the address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, on May 11. In it, he criticizes everything from women prioritizing professional careers to Pride Month to abortion access.

An outspoken conservative who is close with leading right-wing figures including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Butker’s speech closely echoed Republican rhetoric and fixated on issues that have been popular fodder for conservatives as they try to mobilize their voters ahead of the 2024 election. “I think it is you, the women who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said in his speech. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

The Chiefs have not commented on Butker’s remarks and the NFL league office distanced itself from them. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People. Butker’s speech advances the same agenda that the GOP has been pushing not only in its rhetoric but through policy. At least 21 Republican-led state legislatures have approved laws that ban or restrict abortion access and at least 20 have approved bills that curb access to gender-affirming care for minors. Butker’s remarks — which emphasized people “staying in [their] lane” — are the latest attempt to weaponize religion to achieve the same goals.

The backlash to Butker’s speech, explained

Butker joined the NFL in 2017, and is considered by some analysts to be one of the best kickers in the league. In recent years, he’s also been vocal about his support for conservative causes. On his Instagram page, Butker is pictured alongside Sen. Hawley, a darling of the religious right. He was previously photographed with Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a white couple that pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. And during the Chiefs’ visit to the White House in 2023, he wore a tie expressing his opposition to abortion rights.

The Chiefs have been in the cultural spotlight not only for their on-field success but also thanks to tight end Travis Kelce’s relationship with pop star Taylor Swift. Butker referenced a Swift song lyric in his 20-minute speech and described Swift, a music mogul who is one of the most famous people on the planet as “my teammate’s girlfriend.” (For the curious, Butker cited the Swift lyric, “familiarity breeds contempt” in order to criticize priests who rely too much on parishioners for adulation and support.)

Kansas City Chiefs K Harrison Butker made a commencement speech at Benedictine College last weekend that drew lots of controversy, including his sexist and antifeminist view on women in careers, his anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans statements, and his anti-abortion extremism he espoused in his speech.

He delivered small kick energy and heapings of hate.

[noireasy]

It still breaks my heart when normie women comment on some aspect of the patriarchy and feel compelled to add that they don't hate men like the antifeminist backlash has really been THAT effective

[fem-lit]

Young women express feelings of being scared and isolated “insiders” as opposed to angry and united outsiders, and this distinction makes backlash sense: The best way to stop a revolution is to give people something to lose. [The anti beauty myth/feminist movement] would need to politicize eating disorders, young women’s uniquely intense relationship to images, and the effect of those images on their sexuality—it would need to make the point that you don’t have much of a right over your own body if you can’t eat. It would need to analyze the antifeminist propaganda young women have inherited, and give them tools, including arguments like this one, with which to see through it. While transmitting the previous heritage of feminism intact, it would need to be, as all feminist waves are, peer-driven: No matter how wise a mother’s advice is, we listen to our peers. It would have to make joy, rowdiness, and wanton celebration as much a part of its project as hard work and bitter struggle, and it can begin all this by rejecting the pernicious fib that is crippling young women—the fib called postfeminism, the pious hope that the battles have all been won. This scary word is making young women, who face many of the same old problems, once again blame themselves—since it’s all been fixed, right? It strips them of the weapon of theory and makes them feel alone once again. We never speak complacently of the post-Democratic era: Democracy, we know, is a living, vulnerable thing that every generation must renew. The same goes for that aspect of democracy represented by feminism.

— Naomi Wolf (1990) The Beauty Myth

[susansontag]

one thing that has become apparent to me in reading about the histories of religious women coming to consciousness about their condition under patriarchy, even those that ultimately upheld and/or agreed with patriarchal ideals of womanhood but nevertheless strived for favourable positions as speakers, preachers, writers, etc, is that feminist development across history, and contemporarily, needs to be considered as just that: a development

is a christian woman who became a preacher and believed the holy ghost operated through her, whilst ultimately ascribing to the idea that women should ultimately follow their husbands’ orders, a model feminist? no, of course not. not even if we introduce a concept of a sort of ‘proto-feminist’ and adjust the definition for time period; she would have female contemporaries who that label applies to, but to herself it wouldn’t. but is her coming to consciousness of the constraints placed upon women in her church, of her shirking an entirely domestic traditional role and learning to read and educate herself, etc, not part of a historical feminist development? this happened time and time again in different time periods, and presumably more and more as the centuries went by

perhaps this sounds self-evident, but I think it becomes more interesting when we consider contemporary examples of women who are politically active in, say, conservative groups, antifeminist groups, and religious groups more firmly on the traditionalist side in regards to women’s rights. some of these groups will be even more firmly antifeminist in some ways and in all likelihood less in others when compared to the past religious groups I was referencing above. but they have in common that in many of them women, despite what is being espoused by the groups, will take on public and political roles, something that ironically they would not be allowed to do in many cases if the group had a means of enforcing their beliefs on a wide scale. these women are, if not progressive of course, at least alike to these past religious women who held deeply conservative beliefs alongside wanting to make something of themselves, understanding that was possible, and making it happen

I’m not going to attempt to find any conclusion in this extended musing. could I say ultimately women in conservative groups taking on leadership roles is a net positive for historical feminist development, and evidence that these groups may well implode under their own hypocrisy and women’s ambition at some point in the future? will women abandon these groups as they are constrained more fully, as this conflicts with their aspirations? or are women’s faces and voices being showcased here because it aids antifeminist backlash to see women justifying their subservient role?

in many cases it’ll likely be a combination of women’s natural ambition and opportunism provided by the want to manipulate their voices for an antifeminist cause. but it’s still an interesting tension and a part of this overall arch of feminist development. conservative women can say a lot of things but it’s what they do (and how this conflicts with what they say) that’s more interesting from this viewpoint. if women from conservative positions are behaving markedly unconservatively, this should be of interest to feminists as an opportunity to raise ideas, to exploit this common knowledge of women’s position. this is very much how many socialists discuss reaching conservative strains of the working class. anyway. opening this up to more musings and thoughts by fellow women

[mariacallous]

The pantheon of autocratic leaders includes a great many sexists, from Napoléon Bonaparte, who decriminalized the murder of unfaithful wives, to Benito Mussolini, who claimed that women “never created anything.” And while the twentieth century saw improvements in women’s equality in most parts of the world, the twenty-first is demonstrating that misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills. Throughout the last century, women’s movements won the right to vote for women; expanded women’s access to reproductive health care, education, and economic opportunity; and began to enshrine gender equality in domestic and international law—victories that corresponded with unprecedented waves of democratization in the postwar period. Yet in recent years, authoritarian leaders have launched a simultaneous assault on women’s rights and democracy that threatens to roll back decades of progress on both fronts. 

The patriarchal backlash has played out across the full spectrum of authoritarian regimes, from totalitarian dictatorships to party-led autocracies to illiberal democracies headed by aspiring strongmen. In China, Xi Jinping has crushed feminist movements, silenced women who have accused powerful men of sexual assault, and excluded women from the Politburo’s powerful Standing Committee. In Russia, Vladimir Putin is rolling back reproductive rights and promoting traditional gender roles that limit women’s participation in public life. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un has spurred women to seek refuge abroad at roughly three times the rate of men, and in Egypt, President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi recently introduced a bill reasserting men’s paternity rights, their right to practice polygamy, and their right to influence whom their female relatives marry. In Saudi Arabia, women still cannot marry or obtain health care without a man’s approval. And in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s victory has erased 20 years of progress on women’s access to education and representation in public office and the workforce.

The wave of patriarchal authoritarianism is also pushing some established democracies in an illiberal direction. Countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders, such as Brazil, Hungary, and Poland, have seen the rise of far-right movements that promote traditional gender roles as patriotic while railing against “gender ideology”—a boogeyman term that Human Rights Watch describes as meaning “nothing and everything.” Even the United States has experienced a slowdown in progress toward gender equity and a rollback of reproductive rights, which had been improving since the 1970s. During his presidency, Donald Trump worked with antifeminist stalwarts, including Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, to halt the expansion of women’s rights around the world. And despite the Biden administration’s commitment to gender equity at the national level, Republican-controlled states are attempting to reverse the constitutional right to abortion, which is now more vulnerable than it has been in decades. 

Not surprisingly, women’s political and economic empowerment is now stalling or declining around the world. According to Georgetown University’s Women, Peace, and Security Index, the implementation of gender equality laws has slowed in recent years, as have gains in women’s educational attainment and representation in national parliaments. At the same time, intimate partner violence has increased, and Honduras, Mexico, and Turkey have seen significant increases in femicide. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these trends worldwide, forcing millions of women to leave the workforce and take on additional unpaid care, restricting their access to health care and education, and limiting their options for escaping abuse. 

The assault on women’s rights has coincided with a broader assault on democracy. According to Freedom House and the Varieties of Democracy Project at the University of Gothenburg, the last 15 years have seen a sustained authoritarian resurgence. Relatively new democracies, such as Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, and Turkey, have slid back into autocracy or are trending in that direction. Countries that were considered partially authoritarian a decade ago, such as Russia, have become full-fledged autocracies. And in some of the world’s oldest democracies—France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—antidemocratic sentiment is rising in established political parties. 

It is not a coincidence that women’s equality is being rolled back at the same time that authoritarianism is on the rise. Political scientists have long noted that women’s civil rights and democracy go hand in hand, but they have been slower to recognize that the former is a precondition for the latter. Aspiring autocrats and patriarchal authoritarians have good reason to fear women’s political participation: when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy. In other words, fully free, politically active women are a threat to authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders—and so those leaders have a strategic reason to be sexist. 

Understanding the relationship between sexism and democratic backsliding is vital for those who wish to fight back against both. Established autocrats and right-wing nationalist leaders in contested democracies are united in their use of hierarchical gender relations to shore up nationalist, top-down, male-dominated rule. Having long fought against social hierarchies that consolidate power in the hands of the few, feminist movements are a powerful weapon against authoritarianism. Those who wish to reverse the global democratic decline cannot afford to ignore them.

WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINES

Scholars of democracy have often framed women’s empowerment as an outcome of democratization or even a function of modernization and economic development. Yet women demanded inclusion and fought for their own representation and interests through contentious suffrage movements and rights campaigns that ultimately strengthened democracy in general. The feminist project remains unfinished, and the expansion of women’s rights that occurred over the last hundred-plus years has not been shared equally among women. As intersectional and anticolonial feminists have long argued, the greatest feminist gains have accrued to elite women, often white and Western ones. Yet women’s political activism has clearly expanded and fortified democracy—a fact that autocrats and illiberal democrats intuitively understand and that explains their fear of women’s empowerment. 

In the past seven decades, women’s demands for political and economic inclusion have helped catalyze democratic transitions, especially when those women were on the frontlines of mass movements. Democratic transitions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia during the 1980s and 1990s were driven in part by mass popular movements in which women played key roles. Our research shows that all the major resistance movements during the postwar period—those seeking to topple national governments or to win national independence—featured women in support roles, such as providing food, shelter, intelligence, funds, or other supplies. But these movements differed in the degree to which they had women as frontline participants—those who took part directly in demonstrations, confrontations with authorities, strikes, boycotts, and other forms of noncooperation. Some, such as Brazil’s pro-democracy movement in the mid-1980s, featured extensive women’s participation: at least half of the frontline participants were women. Others, such as the 2006 uprising against the Nepalese monarchy, featured more modest frontline participation of women. Only one nonviolent campaign during this period seems to have excluded women altogether: the civilian uprising that ousted Mahendra Chaudhry from power in Fiji in 2000. 

Misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills.

In the first half of the twentieth century, women played active roles in anticolonial liberation struggles across Africa and in leftist revolutions in Europe and Latin America. Later, pro-democracy movements in Myanmar and the Philippines saw nuns positioning their bodies between members of the security forces and civilian activists. During the first intifada, Palestinian women played a key role in the nonviolent resistance against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, organizing strikes, protests, and dialogues alongside Israeli women. In the United States, Black women have launched and continue to lead the Black Lives Matter movement, which is now a global phenomenon. Their organizing echoes the activism of forebears such as Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and other Black American women who planned, mobilized, and coordinated key aspects of the U.S. civil rights movement. Two women revolutionaries, Wided Bouchamaoui and Tawakkol Karman, helped lead the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Yemen, respectively, later winning the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to bring about peaceful democratic transitions through nonviolent resistance, coalition building, and negotiation. Millions more like them have worked to sustain movements against some of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, from tea sellers and singers in Sudan to grandmothers in Algeria to sisters and wives in Chile demanding the return of their disappeared loved ones outside Augusto Pinochet’s presidential palace.

It turns out that frontline participation by women is a significant advantage, both in terms of a movement’s immediate success and in terms of securing longer-term democratic change. Mass movements in which women participated extensively on the frontlines have been much more likely to succeed than campaigns that marginalized or excluded women. Women have been much more likely to participate in nonviolent mass movements than in violent ones, and they have participated in much greater numbers in nonviolent than in violent campaigns. To explain why women’s frontline participation increases the chances that a movement will succeed, therefore, one must first understand what makes nonviolent movements fail or succeed. 

Generally, movements seeking to topple autocratic regimes or win national independence are more likely to prevail when they mobilize large numbers of people; shift the loyalties of at least some the regime’s pillars of support; use creative tactics, such as rolling strikes, in addition to street protests; and maintain discipline and resilience in the face of state repression and countermobilization by the regime’s supporters. Large-scale participation by women helps movements achieve all these things. 

On the first point, power in numbers, the advantage of women’s participation is obvious. Movements that exclude or sideline women reduce their potential pool of participants by at least half. Resistance movements must achieve broad-based support to be perceived as legitimate. And the larger the mobilization, the more likely the movement is to disrupt the status quo. General strikes and other mass actions can bring a city, state, or country to a standstill, imposing immediate economic and political costs on a regime. Mass mobilization can also generate a sense of inevitability that persuades holdouts and fence sitters to join the resistance. People want to join the winning team, and when there are large numbers of diverse participants, that can help encourage tacit or overt support from political and business elites and members of security forces.

Frontline participation by women is a significant advantage for mass movements.

Second, popular movements improve their chances of success when they persuade or coerce their opponents to defect. In research on public attitudes toward armed groups, scholars have found that female fighters increase the legitimacy of their movements in the eyes of observers. The same is likely true for nonviolent mass uprisings. Significant participation by women and other diverse actors also increases the social, moral, and financial capital that a movement can use to erode its opponent’s support system. When security forces, business elites, civil servants, state media, organized labor, foreign donors, or other supporters or enablers of a regime begin to question the status quo, they signal to others that it may be possible to defy that regime. For example, during the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos ordered the security forces to attack large crowds of demonstrators who were demanding his ouster. But nuns who were participating in the protests put themselves between the tanks and other demonstrators. The security forces could not bring themselves to follow through with the assault, averting a massacre that could have altered the course of the revolution. High-level defections followed, and Marcos eventually fled the country, leading to a democratic transition. 

A third way women’s participation makes mass movements more effective is by expanding the range of tactics and modes of protest available to them. Everywhere it has been studied, diversity has been found to improve teamwork, innovation, and performance, and mass movements are no exception. In particular, diversity enhances creativity and collaboration, both of which help movements tap into broader information networks and maintain momentum in the face of state crackdowns. Women’s participation also makes possible culturally gendered tactics, such as marching in full beauty queen regalia, as women did in Myanmar’s pro-democracy protests in 2021; cooking food at the frontlines of demonstrations, as women did during an uprising of farmers in 2020 and 2021 in India; or protesting naked, as women in Kenya, Nigeria, and many other countries have done in order to stigmatize or disarm their opponents. Some protest movements have relied on social shaming. For example, during antigovernment protests in Algeria in 2019, grandmothers told riot police to go home, threatening to report the officers’ bad behavior to their mothers. In Sudan that same year, a women’s Facebook group named and shamed plainclothes policemen: its members outed their own brothers, cousins, and sons as members of the shadowy militias that were trying to terrorize the opposition into submission. 

Women have also developed other forms of gendered noncooperation that can benefit mass movements. Consider the origins of the term “boycott.” In the late nineteenth century, women cooks, maids, and laundresses in County Mayo, Ireland, refused to provide services and labor to an absentee British landlord named Captain Charles Boycott. They encouraged others to join them, making it impossible for Boycott to remain in Ireland and inspiring a new name for their tactic. Women have pioneered other forms of social noncooperation, as well. Although the antiwar sex strike in Lysistrata was fictional, it is likely that Aristophanes had some historical precedent in mind when he wrote the comedic play. Women activists have organized sex strikes over the millennia: Iroquois women used this method, among others, to secure a veto over war-making decisions in the seventeenth century; Liberian women used it to demand an end to civil war in the early years of this century; Colombian women used it to urge an end to gang violence; and on and on. 

Power in numbers, the persuasion of opponents, and tactical innovation all help facilitate a fourth key factor in the success of nonviolent people power movements: discipline. When movements maintain nonviolent resistance in the face of violence or other provocations by security forces, they are more likely to mobilize additional support and, ultimately, to succeed. And movements with women on the frontlines, it turns out, are less likely to fully embrace violence or develop violent flanks in response to regime crackdowns. At least in part, that is likely because having large numbers of women on the frontlines moderates the behavior of other protesters, as well as the police. Gendered taboos against public violence against women and against violent confrontations in the presence of women and girls may explain part of this phenomenon. So might the higher political costs of violently repressing women who are participating in sit-ins and strikes.

Women from different backgrounds face different risks of violent repression, however. The women on the frontlines of movements demanding and expanding democracy often come from oppressed castes, classes, and minority groups. They are students and young people, widows and grandmothers. Women from marginalized backgrounds have often been ignored or subjected to greater violence during mass mobilizations than have wealthy or otherwise privileged women who benefit from patriarchal authoritarianism. This is why, for example, “Aryan” German women succeeded in securing the release of their Jewish husbands during the Rosenstrasse protest in Berlin in 1943, whereas Jewish women would have been arrested or executed for such a protest. Black Americans who powered the U.S. civil rights movement similarly faced much greater risks than did the white people who participated as allies. Only sustained cross-class, multiracial, or multiethnic coalitions can overcome these dynamics of privilege and power, which is why such coalitions are crucial for facing down violent authoritarian repression and pushing societies toward egalitarianism and democracy for all. 

A RISING TIDE

Women who participate on the frontlines of mass movements don’t just make those movements more likely to achieve their short-term objectives—for instance, removing an oppressive dictator. They also make those movements more likely to secure lasting democratic change. Controlling for a variety of other factors that might make a democratic transition more likely—such as a country’s previous experience with democracy—our analysis shows that extensive frontline participation by women is positively associated with increases in egalitarian democracy, as defined by the Varieties of Democracy Project. 

In other words, women’s participation in mass movements is like a rising tide, lifting all boats. Researchers have found that inclusive transition processes lead to more sustainable negotiated settlements and more durable democracy after civil wars. Although there is little research on settlements that come out of nonviolent mobilizations, the presence of women likely translates into increased demands for electoral participation, economic opportunity, and access to education and health care—all of which make democratic transitions more likely to endure. 

Women’s participation in mass movements is like a rising tide, lifting all boats.

What happens when inclusive popular mobilizations are defeated and no transitions take place? Incumbent regimes that stamp out inclusive mass movements tend to indulge in a state-sponsored patriarchal backlash. The greater the proportion of women in the defeated movement, the higher the degree of a patriarchal backlash—a dynamic that has ominous implications for Afghanistan, Belarus, Colombia, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, and Venezuela, all of which currently have inclusive people power movements whose outcomes are uncertain. Our research shows that countries with failed popular movements tend to experience major backsliding in both egalitarian democracy and gender equality, making them worse off than before the movements began. In other words, the impressive impact of women’s frontline participation on the probability of democratization is contingent on the movement’s victory; women’s participation leads to democratic change and women’s empowerment only when the broader movement succeeds.

THE AUTOCRAT’S PLAYBOOK

Authoritarian leaders and illiberal democrats have responded to the threat of women’s political mobilization by reversing progress on gender equality and women’s rights. Their motivation is not all strategic—many probably believe in sexist ideas—but their worldview is self-serving.

In fully authoritarian states, the mechanisms of sexist repression can be uncompromising and brutal. Often, they take the form of policies that exert direct state control over women’s reproduction, including through forced pregnancies or forced abortions, misogynistic rhetoric that normalizes or even encourages violence against women, and laws and practices that reduce or eliminate women’s representation in government and discourage women from entering or advancing in the workforce. 

In China, for instance, Xi has launched a population suppression campaign against the Uyghurs and other ethnic and rural minorities, forcing birth control, abortions, and even sterilization on many women. Women from ethnic minorities now face the threat of fines or imprisonment for having what Beijing considers too many children. In Egypt, state control over women’s reproduction is harnessed to the opposite effect: abortion is illegal in any and all circumstances, and women must seek a judge’s permission to divorce, whereas men have no such requirement. In Russia, where abortion has been legal under any circumstance since 1920, Putin’s government has attempted to reverse the country’s declining population by discouraging abortions and reinforcing “traditional” values. In all three countries, despite nominal constitutional commitments to protect women against gender discrimination, women are dismally underrepresented in the workforce and in powerful official roles. 

In less autocratic settings, where overtly sexist policies cannot simply be decreed, authoritarian-leaning leaders and their political parties use sexist rhetoric to whip up popular support for their regressive agendas, often cloaking them in the garb of populism. In doing so, they promote misogynistic narratives of traditionalist “patriotic femininity.” The scholar Nitasha Kaul has described these leaders as pushing “anxious and insecure nationalisms” that punish and dehumanize feminists. Where they can, they pursue policies that assert greater state control over women’s bodies, while reducing support for political and economic gender equality. They encourage—and often legislate—the subjugation of women, demanding that men and women conform to traditional gender roles out of patriotic duty. They also co-opt and distort concepts such as equity and empowerment to their own ends. Although such efforts to reassert a gender hierarchy look different in different right-wing settings and cultures, they share a common tactic: to make the subjugation of women look desirable, even aspirational, not only for men but also for conservative women. 

One way that autocratic and illiberal leaders make a gender hierarchy palatable to women is by politicizing the “traditional family,” which becomes a euphemism for tying women’s value and worth to childbearing, parenting, and homemaking in a nuclear household—and rolling back their claims to public power. Female bodies become targets of social control for male lawmakers, who invoke the ideal of feminine purity and call on mothers, daughters, and wives to reproduce an idealized version of the nation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has argued that women are not equal to men and that their prescribed role in society is motherhood and housekeeping. He has called women who pursue careers over motherhood “half persons.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has similarly encouraged women to stop trying to close the pay gap and focus instead on producing Hungarian children.

Across the full range of authoritarian and semiauthoritarian regimes, sexual and gender minorities are often targeted for abuse, as well. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people are seen as undermining the binary gender hierarchy celebrated by many authoritarians. As a result, they are frequently marginalized and stigmatized through homophobic policies: Poland’s “LGBT-free zones,” for instance, or Russia’s bans on “LGBTQ propaganda” and same-sex marriage. Beijing recently went as far as banning men from appearing “too effeminate” on television and social media in a campaign to enforce China’s “revolutionary culture.”

Despite their flagrant misogyny—and, in some cases, because of it—some authoritarians and would-be authoritarians succeed in enlisting women as key players in their political movements. They display their wives and daughters prominently in the domestic sphere and sometimes in official positions to obscure gender unequal policies. Valorizing traditional motherhood, conservative women often play supporting roles to the masculine stars of the show. There is perhaps no better illustration of this dynamic than the dueling women’s movements that supported and opposed Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 presidential campaign in Brazil. Bolsonaro’s opponents organized one of the largest women-led protests in the country’s history under the banner of Ele Não, or “Not Him.” His female supporters swathed themselves in the Brazilian flag and derided feminism as “sexist.” 

In the patriarchal authoritarian’s view, men are not real men unless they have control over the women in their lives. Trump’s masculine authority was therefore heightened when his wife, Melania Trump, walked behind him onto Air Force One, and it was challenged when she refused to appear with him in public. Sara Duterte-Carpio, the mayor of Davao City, in the Philippines, and a daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, was a front-runner to succeed her father until he announced that women are “not fit” to be president. Despite the country’s history of female heads of state and Duterte-Carpio’s leading poll numbers, she dutifully filed her candidacy for vice president instead. 

Fully free, politically active women are a threat to authoritarian leaders.

While women are pigeonholed into traditionally feminized roles, patriarchal authoritarian leaders trumpet their power with gratuitous displays of masculinity. Putin posing topless is the viral version of this public peacocking, but casual misogyny, carefully staged photo ops, and boastful, hypermasculine rhetoric also fit the bill. Think of Trump’s oversize red tie, aggressive handshake, and claims that his nuclear button was bigger than Kim’s—or Bolsonaro’s call for Brazilians to face COVID-19 “like a man.” This kind of talk may seem ridiculous, but it is part of a more insidious rhetorical repertoire that feminizes opponents, then projects hypermasculinity by criticizing women’s appearance, joking about rape, threatening sexual violence, and seeking to control women’s bodies, all in order to silence critics of patriarchal authoritarianism. 

The counterpart to this violent rhetoric is paternalistic misogyny. As Kaul writes, “While Trump, Bolsonaro, and Duterte have most explicitly sexualized and objectified women, projecting themselves as profusely virile and predatory, [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi and Erdogan have promoted themselves as protective, and occasionally, even renunciatory, father figures . . . to keep women and minorities in their place. . . . [They] are at times deeply and overtly misogynist, and yet at other times use progressive gender talk to promote regressive gender agendas.” 

As tolerance for misogyny in general increases, other shifts in the political and legal landscape occur: protections for survivors of rape and domestic violence are rolled back, sentences for such crimes are loosened, evidentiary requirements for charging perpetrators are made more stringent, and women are left with fewer tools with which to defend their bodily and political autonomy. For instance, in 2017, Putin signed a law that decriminalized some forms of domestic abuse, despite concerns that Russia has long faced an epidemic of domestic violence. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump famously minimized a video that surfaced of him bragging about sexual assault, dismissing it as “locker room talk,” despite the fact that numerous women had accused him of sexual assault and misconduct. Once Trump became president, his administration directed the Department of Education to reform Title IX regulations to give more rights to those accused of sexual assault on college campuses.

Finally, many autocrats and would-be autocrats promote a narrative of masculine victimhood designed to gin up popular concern about how men and boys are faring. Invariably, men are portrayed as “losing out” to women and other groups championed by progressives, despite their continued advantages in a male-dominated gender hierarchy. In 2019, for instance, Russia’s Ministry of Justice claimed that reports of domestic violence were overstated in the country and that Russian men faced greater “discrimination” than women in abuse claims. In a similar vein, aspiring autocrats often maintain that masculinity is under threat. Among Trump supporters in the United States, such claims have become commonplace. For instance, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, recently blamed leftist movements for redefining traditional masculinity as toxic and called for reviving “a strong and healthy manhood in America.” Representative Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, echoed Hawley’s sentiments in a viral speech in which he complained that American society aims to “de-masculate” men and encourages parents to raise “monsters.” 

fight on

As an engine of genuine democratic progress, activism by women and gender minorities threatens authoritarian leaders. Although many autocrats and aspiring autocrats no doubt believe the sexist and misogynistic things they say, their campaigns to restrict women’s empowerment and human rights also seek to undermine potential popular democratic movements that would oust them. 

Those who wish to combat the rising tide of authoritarianism will need to make promoting women’s political participation central to their work. Domestically, democratic governments and their supporters should model and protect the equal inclusion of women, especially from diverse backgrounds, in all places where decisions are being made—from community groups to corporate boards to local, state, and national governments. Democratic governments should also prioritize issues that directly affect women’s ability to play an equal role in public life, such as reproductive autonomy, domestic violence, economic opportunity, and access to health care and childcare. All these issues are central to the broader battle over the future of democracy in the United States and around the world, and they should be treated as such. 

Democratic governments and international institutions must also put defending women’s empowerment and human rights at the center of their fight against authoritarianism worldwide. Violent, misogynistic threats and attacks against women—whether in the home or in public—should be denounced as assaults on both women and democracy, and the perpetrators of such attacks should be held accountable. The “Year of Action” promoted by the Biden administration to renew and bolster democracy should include an uncompromising commitment to stand up for gender equity at home and abroad. Efforts by the U.S. Agency for International Development to support human rights activists and civil society groups could likewise make explicit that women’s empowerment and political participation need to be integrated throughout all democracy renewal efforts. 

If history is any guide, authoritarian strategies will fail in the long run.

Internationally, a multinational coalition is needed to explicitly reject patriarchal authoritarianism and share knowledge and technical skills in the fight against it. Those who are best equipped to build and sustain such a coalition are feminist grassroots and civil society leaders, as they are often the most aware of acute needs in their communities. An ambitious summit or conference convened by a multilateral group of countries or a regional or global organization could help jump-start such an effort by bringing women and their champions from around the world in contact with one another to share their experiences and strategies. One step in the right direction would be to dramatically increase the support and visibility given to the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. 

Finally, organizers and supporters of mass movements for democratic change need a gender-inclusive agenda in order to attract women to the frontlines and to leadership roles. Supporters of democracy at home and abroad should focus on assisting, amplifying, and protecting civil society groups and movements that are pushing for gender equity and work to make sure they are included in any negotiations or transitions that follow mass uprisings or democratic movements. Pro-democracy groups and organizations must understand that truly inclusive movements—those that transcend class, race, gender, and sexual identity—are the most likely to achieve lasting change. 

If history is any guide, authoritarian strategies will fail in the long run. Feminists have always found ways to demand and expand women’s rights and freedoms, powering democratic advancement in the process. But unchecked, patriarchal authoritarians can do great damage in the short run, erasing hard-won gains that have taken generations to achieve.

[lesbian-ashe]

I'm tired so making a pinned post

DNF/DNI IF:

you are a terf/radfem/truscum!!! how is this confusing I'm a nonbinary girl with a trans girlfriend! fuck off you're not welcome!!

you're a proshipper meaning you support pedophilic, abusive, incestuous, or homophobic pairings (gay men paired with women/lesbians paired with gay men), or support sexual art/writing/material of children in any way. alternatively pro-kink in the shitty ugly way like DDLG and shit like that. I hate you.

no bigots, pro-cop, anti-choice, etc. seems very obvious but for posterity's sake

are antifeminist/believe in misandry. I know there's a lot to criticize with feminism esp. white and cis feminism but I'm not standing for this huge antifeminist backlash lately

radinclusionists/radqueer

zionist/pro-Israel

NFT or AI supporter

do not follow me if you believe that ANY men can be lesbians or that you can be bi or pan and also a lesbian at the same time. you're a lesbpophobe, transphobe, and biphobe. I don't care. don't debate me about it. don't even talk to me. I'm not fucking listening. lesbophobes in general fucking block me. you will be blocked if you even say a word in argument about it to me

[textualviolence]

im pretty sure i remember the moment the tide shifted and tumblr feminism fell into that fucking libfem/radfem divide from hell. Around the time those posts started going around like "people seem to think that just because we're talking about the hitherto unacknowledged ways white women enforce racism, that white women are somehow singularly responsible, omitting white men from the equation" (ostensibly correct take) -> "intersectional feminism and the focus on racism and other issues not centered on only women are making it seem like women are each other's enemies when we should all be allies" (okay) -> "women are self flagellating for whatever privilege they might hold instead of focusing on the oppression they face" (red flag) -> "we focus on every other oppression except sexism. feminism should be about sexism FIRST. other opressions are their own thing" (massive step forward in the feminist consciousness FULLY obliterated) -> "its misogynistic to expect women to always care about every other social issue except the sexism that affects them. the one, central, worst and most intense social oppression they face, that only tangetially interacts with other forms of social oppression" (just completely fucking inaccurate picture of reality) -> "the central power conflict is between men & women and nothing else affects the power struggle at all" -> "women are the oppressed and men are the oppressors" -> "women cannot socially oppress others as they are powerless, be it men or other women" -> "women do not have any responsibility to check their own intense potential for harm towards marginalized communities" -> "any violent rhetoric borne from rage, frustration, feelings of powerlessness or sheer innate bigotry & lack of empathy towards others is just ~victims expressing their frustrations." -> "any comment towards the way i could possibly be harming marginalized communities through my words & rhetoric is sexism" "feminism should be about supporting women and ending sexism so when you criticise my hateful angry position that i arrived at through pain & anger at the reality of sexism its antifeminist backlash"

[courtneysmovieblog]

The live action “Little Mermaid” is great, get over it

If there’s one thing all the backlash of The Little Mermaid has proven, it’s that the Disney fandom has gotten pretty toxic. And I’m not just talking about all the racist tantrums over Halle Bailey being cast as Ariel.

Are the live-action version of cherished animated films necessary? Of course not. Are the CGI versions of characters we know and love weird-looking? Yes. Are some of the story changes dumb? Yes.

But do not treat the people that actually enjoy them like they’re any less of Disney fans as anyone else. People are allowed to like whatever they like without being accused of somehow betraying the original films.

That being said, while I have enjoyed most of the live action movies, warts and all (with the exception of Pinocchio and Lady and the Tramp because they sucked), I can honestly say that the new Little Mermaid is probably the best one to date. Say what you want about Rob Marshall, the man knows how to do a musical.

From the very second we heard Halle Bailey sing “Part of Your World” in the trailer, we knew she was going to be awesome. And she’s more than just that beautiful voice, she plays Ariel with all the passion and fearlessness that made us fall in love with her back in 1989. It’s ironic that critics are quick to dismiss her version of Ariel as “too feminist” when the character has been unfairly derided as antifeminist for so long.

Also in her favor is her amazing chemistry with Jonah Hauer-King, who plays Prince Eric. As much as we loved the animated version, it was a necessary change to flesh out their romance more than just love at first sight. Hauer-King, for his part, gives Eric more depth than he had in the original, and the scenes with them interacting are what really make the movie great.

Melissa McCarthy--I never doubted her for a second. For once, Disney didn’t screw up their classic villain. This Ursula is even more evil than before, and fabulously so. She doesn’t just chew the scenery, she eats it up and leaves no crumbs to be found.

Regarding Flounder and Sebastian and Scuttle: just ignore the CGI. Daveed Diggs is a delightful Sebastian--his version of “Under the Sea” is a blast. Jacob Tremblay is a perfect Flounder. And love or hate Awkwafina, she made me laugh as Scuttle. You’re going to have to come to your own conclusions about her solo song though.

The lighting is nowhere near as dark as some people were complaining--or perhaps it just looks better on the movie screen. And while the underwater scenes may not be realistic, it’s lovely to see all the bright and colorful sea creatures.

The Little Mermaid shouldn’t be dismissed as a pale shadow of the animated movie. It’s a fun movie on its own, and it was obviously made by people who love everything we love about Disney classics. Don’t let the racists, nitpickers, and overall killjoys stop you from from enjoying it.

But if nothing else, this is definitely Halle Bailey’s breakthrough role. And if there’s any justice in the world, she’ll be swimming in more casting offers very soon.

8 out of 10

[woman-respecter]

Yeah, a lot of feminist accounts get false flags cos of the amount of terfs on here, i've cleared you now tho so u should be good!

all due respect i dont think terfs are the only people to blame for feminist accounts getting a false flag i think there is like a genuine antifeminist backlash on this website and this is just one small part of it :/

[patternbreaking]

for days i have been reading posts on here and thinking back to gamergate and the formation of the alt-right. i've already lived through one wave of intense antifeminist backlash that began with people getting violently mad that women were talking about misogyny on the internet. watching other tme trans people fall for obvious repackaged "men's rights" talking points makes me feel like something really ominous is taking shape. i spent 2015 and 2016 begging other leftists to take anti-trans violence seriously, to prioritize antifascism, and to see how these things are interconnected. when i helped organize protests against MRA and alt-right speaking tours, half the struggle was convincing the "progressives" and Good Allies around me why they should even care in the first place. more people call themselves antifascists these days, but how am i supposed to trust you'll actually show up when you're needed if you don't even believe that transmisogyny really exists?