#but people are lazy and defeatist and say it doesn't matter

[brothermoth]

when misogyny becomes feminist: (please actually read what I say don't just be reactionary)

"Radical Feminism" is misogyny.

Full fucking stop: it is misogyny to claim women cannot and do not perpetuate harm. It's so deeply fucking misogynistic that it's pathetic when they can't understand that they're the same as the people who thought women couldn't ride trains because their uterus would fly out.

It's a thing called agency that is very very important. When you remove harmful people from a group and pretend everyone must be perfect to be worthy of human rights, you strip them of their agency.

I've been horribly abused by a number of women in my life. It will never excuse me turning around and hating all women. They're people. Men are people. Terfs are people! They deserve to be safe and have bodily autonomy just like everyone else. They're still fucking assholes though! (CRUELTY IS NOT FUCKING ACTIVISM).

Women are capable of rape (it happens around the same frequency, actually. It's not considered assault because of misogyny). It's misogyny to deny women the ability to be harmful. Radical "feminists" you are stripping women of the ability to be a fucking human being.

Women can enjoy sex! Anti BDSM people, you are dehumanizing grown adult women. You are stripping them of their agency as human beings. They are not a shivering oppressed huddle to be protected like a child in a video game, they're PEOPLE. If she enthusiastically consents, that is all that matters.

You are being preyed on. You're a blunt object used to bash progress over the skull until it's quiet.

There was a man named Marcus Garvey who stood up and said that black people needed to be free of oppression. He was absolutely right in saying this. But then he turned and said "we need to go back to Africa", and he said that African Americans are simply better than those currently living in Africa. Because clearly they're more civilized.

That is racism from inside the house. It is a cruel man taking hurt, downtrodden people and using them to beat down others who have not done anything wrong.

Girls, that's YOU. You're absolutely facing a world that is much harder for you than for others, and you have every right to be upset.

It doesn't mean what you're doing is right. It's not right. No, men should not have mandatory vasectomies. Women's rights do not ever have to come at the cost of others'. Nobody's human rights should EVER come at the cost of anothers'.

Radical feminism is an ideological cousin of Zionism. Jewish people have been through so much for so long, and so have women. It doesn't mean they need a fucking theocracy. They deserve to be safe in whatever fucking country they live in. Women don't need to be a separate species from men, they need to be safe where they are.

Radical feminism is not radical. You're not saying anything that hasn't been said already. It's lazy. It's defeatist. It is a movement without a spine or a backbone, but its covered in sharp thorns to keep everyone away, even hands trying to pick weeds.

How do you find equality in a society that does not want you to?

You fucking work for it. We're not in the end times, we're a blip on a timeline bigger than we can imagine. This thing you are fighting is not inherent to men or women, it's a consequence of European ideas (it kinda started with Greece, in my opinion, because Rome ran with it and then Christianity cemented it).

It sounds ridiculous but you know what? Activism is emotional labor. No, you don't owe it to anyone, but if you want change you fucking do it. You teach your sons kindness. You teach them to stand up for girls. If you want change men MUST be included in discussions. I'm sorry if it sounds like a "not all men" moment but it's true. You NEED people in a privileged class to be included. You NEED that change from INSIDE the house. Every successful movement must lean on their allies because oppressed people are OPPRESSED! It shouldn't be that way, but oppressed groups do not have the power alone to make change.

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I started this more angry but I've set it to the side and come back a couple times to edit some of the angry parts out because it's not what I really want to say.

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[hyruviandoctor]

yeah, voting is good and all, but I don’t think systemic change will happen with it. The government’s mostly blue right now and look where we are, no cancellations of student debt, abortion protection laws are crumbling, still no true plan on how to deal with COVID, immigrants are still being held in cages.

So much should be done, but just voting won’t help solve anything unless we reform our government completely. We cannot wait for politicians to care about the people they “serve”, because all they do is appeal to the masses and then sell out the moment they get their votes. The system is broken, voting helps the tiniest bit, but we need true government reform and we need true representation and power for the working class.

America has the chance to be a good country, but its sins are too great, and capitalism was built to always have a group of people in that system to be in servitude for the wealthy. Not saying we need Communism, but we need a definite social and political reform that exists outside of voting. That’s just my two cents though.

I know your heart is probably in the right place, but you're actually quite wrong.

The government is not mostly blue right now. The White House is democrat, yes. The Supreme Court is stacked conservative republicans. The Senate is 50/50 (with a handful of dem senators voting more closely with their repub peers more often than fellow dems on big topics). The House of Representatives is barely majority democrat, by a margin of ~20.

I agree that voting isn't where this all stops and that more action must be taken to change our government on a fundamental level, but acting like change doesn't start with exercising your right to vote is misguided and, frankly, foolish. If people didn't get out and vote in 2020 because they felt the US' "sins are too great" for voting to matter, Donald Trump would still be president and things would be infinitely worse. Everyone voting for Biden knew it would take a lot of time to undo the damage Trump did, especially without abusing his power the way Trump did. I don't like the guy, but he's better than the alternative.

The things you list as reasons you think the dems are failing are precisely why you have to vote for more progressive candidates. The people elected now are mostly doing damage control, and without a super majority they can't do anything. Biden is too moderate, the lead dems are too moderate, but they're better than the conspiracy theorist right-wing Trumpers trying to seize power. We need more people in office that will push for the future, not keep things the same or pull us back to the past. And you do that by voting. By getting involved in your local elections, your local political reform organizations and charities. By attending rallies and protests and signing petitions and so much more.

But to say voting won't change anything is defeatist and untrue.