#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 the threats to 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.

[taliabhattwrites]

I mean, it is--the social problem is that women (not just straight women) are withholding the sex that straight men are rightfully entitled to from them, instead of acquiescing to it as sexual objects without regard for their own desires or bodily autonomy.

I understand the point being made about whose sexual agency is being centered, but that's explicitly part of the reactionary framing--women are not supposed to have sexual agency at all and the problem to 'correct' is explicitly women now having the ability to escape marriages, garner an income without being dependent on husbands, or make their own decisions about terminating pregnancies.

Women not having sex is a huge problem for patriarchy, because women are designated as for sex, and any ability we have to secure sexual autonomy must be violently stamped out.

If straight men are not having sex, straight women are not having sex either. But that’s not considered a social problem.

[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?

[woman-respecter]

i feel like a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge that there is real material benefit in the oppression of women. like. men profit off of it. men have profited hugely off it for thousands of years literally. i really believe the modern antifeminist backlash is rooted in the fear of losing that profit more than anything else. some men are real allies (props to them! I appreciate them!), some are just misguided, some can be reached, sure. some understand that there is a material benefit to having an indentured sex servant who will do your laundry for you. you can’t reach that last kind of man, and he’s not interested in being reached. but he must be stopped all the same

exactly. they hate that they don’t have a mommygirlfriendslave.

[hyenagurl]

i think if i were in their position i would tell myself any number of frankly delusional things about the choice i made to surgically alter my genitals for life, if the other option was to face the fact that i was duped by the new pharmaceutical-disguised-as a-civil-rights movement into permanently disfiguring myself

these people will tell you with a straight face that you don't understand basic biology

[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

[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

[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?