#capitalism and misogyny

[chester-fester]

I've been watching movies on a couple free-with-ads streaming services lately, and is it just me, or have ads--especially ads targeted towards women and girls-- escalated over the past few years. Full body antiperspirant?? Razor ads showing women shaving their arms and feet???

Anyway, here's a pic of my hairy legs.

[hussyknee]

Vajra Chandrasekera is a Locus and Nebula award-winner and has been short-listed for a Hugo Award this year. You can find his Tumblr here: @adamantine and his twitter here: @_vajra

[decolonize-the-everything]

Hi! I'm a white queer person who has decided to vote 3rd Party unless Kamala demands ceasefire, but am nervous that it might allow Trump to win and enact Project 2025... What should I do if he does?

The same things you were gonna do if Kamala won.

Honestly? The same stuff you should be doing now anyway.

Protest, mutual aid, getting in touch with your community since it's them you'll be fighting alongside, direct action (like housing and feeding people or derailing trains and military cargo ships), advocate for 3rd parties & for human rights to be codified, and don't get distracted by performative progress.

Before Biden leaves office:

Demand Biden & Kamala ratify with the ICC again and call for a ceasefire.

Demand a re-election & demand trump be removed from the ballot.

And I do mean demand since Trump is pledging to commit genocide and overturn US government; Biden would be absolutely in his right to do remove him and is hypocritical enough to do so imo.

The Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers. Have him remove Trump.

You want it to work?

Start calling trump a terrorist. Think of shitty hashtag names like genocide Joe and make it go viral.

Demand that he be removed the race and barred from serving in any public office forever. Make it impossible for democrats not to concede to such a rational demand. Put on pressure like they've never seen. They need to think the entire country feels that way.

If Joe is stepping down for Kamala anyway what does he have to lose in the last 3 months by pissing off his entire voter base?

A re-election when he's 100?

They're already contented with Kamala replacing him.

And if Trump wins:

go back to the 1st paragraph. Because he will be targeting political opponents which means it might as well be 1984 in this bitch already since the internet is forever :)

Protest, mutual aid, getting in touch with your community since it's them you'll be fighting alongside, direct action (like housing and feeding people or derailing trains and military cargo ships), advocate for 3rd parties & for human rights to be codified, and don't get distracted by performative progress.

You need to be building community offline and speaking to Real people about your concerns and learning how a rebellion happens and how far the people in Your community would go to protect you or anyone else.

You need to find out who you can trust and who has your back and you need to work together to find a way to fight back against the bigotry and fascism growing in your community.

Reminders from last time:

Learn how to spot a cop or learn how to Be Quiet until you can confirm a cop is not present especially at protests

Bring back White Silence is Violence

NOW is the time to find local protest orgs, their sites, and their bail funds

Figure out what lawyer represents protesters near you and start spreading the word immediately.

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Street Medic Handbook because even basic street medic skills are good to have

Listen to women of color, start looking towards the organizers of color in your area. If they are uplifting Palestine and learning how to decolonize it or themselves then so are you, etc.

If you cannot take direct action then learn where to donate, what names to spread, what orgs you need to support, how to help with supplies, or if you can help with rides, babysitting, escape routes, etc.

Now is the time to find out how protest laws near you have changed so you don't catch a bogus charge

New tips:

Agree as a gen z/millenial collective to fight Trump on the basis anti-white supremacy rather than anti-republican/anti-trump rhetoric as that's too divisive and doesn't name the actual oppressor we want gone which is white supremacist fascism (because Trump is but a figurehead and removing him alone will do nothing)

Learn about intersectionality. NO not what you think it is what Kimberlé Crenshaw said it actually is. Then apply it this and work on whatever privilege you have so everyone can work together instead of prioritizing their own struggle

Learn the 14 characteristics of fascism

If you're athletic and fast: learn to de-arrest, but watch out

Go thru the MADR zines! Read 'Accomplices not Allies',

Get used to the idea of broken windows, looting, and burning police departments now. Understand they are just stuff. If the USA can commit genocide then it can take a a few broken buildings. Like if liberals can let genocide happen to stop project2025, then why not let Americans break windows to stop Trump AND project2025? There are lives at stake. A window shouldn't stop you from saving them.

Start a fun themed book club night with your friends if you have to. idc. But the work needs to be happening yesterday if you haven't started anon 💗💗💗

You got this.

You don't have to do all of those things but you can do something, so figure out which one it is.

[mynqzo]

“im a hater at heart” and its biphobia

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I exposed a misogynistic capitalistic jerkwad about his true plans on stage when he was about to present his aquarium's grand opening because he poisoned my mother.

[zenosanalytic]

This is really good, please watch it.

[coochiequeens]

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.“ - Lü Pin

To find evidence that China’s feminist movement is gaining momentum – despite strict government censorship and repression – check bookshelves, nightstands and digital libraries. There, you might find a copy of one of Chizuko Ueno’s books. The 74-year-old Japanese feminist and author of Feminism from Scratch and Patriarchy and Capitalism has sold more than a million books in China, according to Beijing Open Book, which tracks sales. Of these, 200,000 were sold in January and February alone.

Ueno, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, was little known outside in China outside academia until she delivered a 2019 matriculation speech at the university in which she railed against its sexist admissions policies, sexual “abuse” by male students against their female peers, and the pressure women felt to downplay their academic achievements.

The speech went viral in Japan, then China.

“Feminist thought does not insist that women should behave like men or the weak should become the powerful,” she said. “Rather, feminism asks that the weak be treated with dignity as they are.”

In the past two years, 11 of her books have been translated into simplified Chinese and four more will be published this year. In December, two of her books were among the top 20 foreign nonfiction bestsellers in China. While activism and protests have been stifled by the government, the rapid rise in Ueno’s popularity shows that women are still looking for ways to learn more about feminist thought, albeit at a private, individual level.

Talk to young Chinese academics, writers and podcasters about what women are reading and Ueno’s name often comes up. “We like-like her,” says Shiye Fu, the host of popular feminist podcast Stochastic Volatility.

“In China we need some sort of feminist role model to lead us and enable us to see how far women can go,” she says. “She taught us that as a woman, you have to fight every day, and to fight is to survive.”

When asked by the Guardian about her popularity in China, Ueno says her message resonates with this generation of Chinese women because, while they have grown up with adequate resources and been taught to believe they will have more opportunities, “patriarchy and sexism put the burden to be feminine on them as a wife and mother”.

Ueno, who found her voice during the student power movements of the 1960s, has long argued that marriage restricts women’s autonomy, something she learned watching her own parents. She described her father as “a complete sexist”. It’s stance that resonates with women in China, who are rebelling against the expectation that they take a husband.

Ueno’s most popular book, with 65,000 reviews on Douban, is simply titled Misogyny. One review reads: “It still takes a little courage to type this. I have always been shy about discussing gender issues in a Chinese environment, because if I am not careful, I will easily attract the label of … ‘feminist cancer’.”

“Now it’s a hard time,” says Lü Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist who now lives in the US. In 2015 she happened to be in New York when Chinese authorities arrested five of her peers – who were detained for 37 days and became known as the “Feminist Five” – and came to Lü’s apartment in Beijing. She narrowly avoided arrest. “Our movement is increasingly being regarded as illegal, even criminal, in China.”

China’s feminist movement has grown enormously in the past few years, especially among young women online, says Lü, where it was stoked by the #MeToo movements around the world and given oxygen on social media. “But that’s just part of the story,” she says. Feminism is also facing much stricter censorship – the word “feminism” is among those censored online, as is China’s #MeToo hashtag, #WoYeShi.

“When we already have so many people joining our community, the government regards that as a threat to its rule,” Lü says. “So the question is: what is the future of the movement?”

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.

“Nobody can change the micro level.”

‘The first step’

In 2001, when Lü was a journalist starting out on her journey into feminism, she founded a book club with a group of friends. She was struggling to find books on the subject, so she and her friends pooled their resources. “We were feminists, journalists, scholars, so we decided let’s organise a group and read, talk, discuss monthly,” she says. They met in people’s homes, or the park, or their offices. It lasted eight years and the members are still among her best friends.

Before the book club, “I felt lonely when I was pursuing feminism. So I need friends, I need a community. And that was the first community I had.” “I got friendship, I deepened my understanding of feminism,” Lü says. “It’s interesting, perhaps the first step of feminist movements is always literature in many countries, especially in China.”

Lü first read Ueno’s academic work as a young scholar, when few people in China knew her name. Ueno’s books are for people who are starting out on their pursuit of feminism, Lü says, and the author is good at explaining feminist issues in ways that are easy to understand.

Like many Ting Guo discovered Ueno after the Tokyo University speech. Guo, an assistant professor in the department of cultural and religious studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, still uses it in lectures.

Ueno’s popularity is part of a larger phenomenon, Guo says. “We cannot really directly describe what we want to say, using the word that we want to use, because of the censorship, because of the larger atmosphere. So people need to try to borrow words, mirror that experience in other social situations, in other political situations, in other contexts, in order to precisely describe their own experience, their own feelings and their own thoughts.”

There are so many people who are new to the feminist movement, says Lü, “and they are all looking for resources, but due to censorship, it’s so hard for Chinese scholars, for Chinese feminists, to publish their work.”

Ueno “is a foreigner, that is one of her advantages, and she also comes from [an] east Asian context”, which means that the patriarchal system she describes is similar to China’s. Lü says the reason books by Chinese feminists aren’t on bestseller lists is because of censorship.

Na Zhong, a novelist who translated Sally Rooney’s novels into simplified Chinese, feels that Chinese feminism is, at least when it comes to literature, gaining momentum. The biggest sign of this, both despite and because of censorship, is “the sheer number of women writers that are being translated into Chinese” – among whom Ueno is the “biggest star”.

“Young women are discovering their voices, and I’m really happy for my generation,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”

By Helen R Sullivan

This is the third story in a three-part series on feminism and literature in China.

[hadesoftheladies]

wish people understood that being vegan isn’t about “treating animals like human beings” or expecting them to “behave like people.” it’s actually about holding humans to human standards of cognition and personhood. it’s not about whether cats can verbalize like humans or not. it’s about the fact that we need consistent ethics in regard to suffering individuals. it’s about the fact that as humans our cognitive advantage is also our responsibility. our mindfulness means we are even MORE responsible for our actions not less. it is inhumane to use the helplessness of another as justification for your exploitation of them. this is the same ideological rhetoric behind misogyny, racism and anti-Semitism. The same rhetoric that justifies killing the poor who are less “moral” hence less deserving of your moral consideration. your ethics should be consistent because moral reasoning is something humans must do because of what we are. It is not contingent on the cognitive capacities of the moral subject we are considering. you wouldn’t justify cutting up a baby for pleasure because it had lesser cognition than you. so vegans are holding humans to humans standards. that means we are in a unique position to understand and do something about the large-scale plight of suffering individuals at the hands of human beings. that makes us more responsible, not less. our superior cognition makes us more responsible for the underprivileged, not less. the same way a parent is more responsible for their toddler by proxy of knowing and being capable of more than said child.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Housing insecurity is racist & violent

"Seventy-five national, state, territorial, and local domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking organizations filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) urging it to support the rights of people who are homeless, including unhoused survivors, in City of Grants Pass, Ore. v. Johnson. This case is one of the most important SCOTUS cases regarding homelessness in the past 40 years. The amicus brief, authored by the National Housing Law Project and Sexual Violence Law Center, argues that housing is extremely limited for gender-based violence survivors, often forcing them to make impossible choices between sleeping outside or suffering continued violence. Criminalizing survivors will only increase their and their families’ risk of violence, trauma, and housing insecurity."

Article from July 29:

Housing advocates across Indian Country say Native Americans and Alaska Natives likely will feel the full weight of a June 28 Supreme Court ruling that has cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on unsheltered people sleeping outside in public places. Native Americans experience homelessness at a disparate rate. Advocates say the housing crisis is a reflection of our society’s unwillingness to address systemic issues.

“It’s criminalizing poverty,” said attorney Caroline LaPorte, who is an immediate descendant of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. “We are much more comfortable with putting, and paying, for people to be incarcerated.” LaPorte is the director of the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Resource Center, a project of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and she is the board chairman for the StrongHearts Native Helpline. STTARS focuses on the intersection of housing insecurity and gender-based violence. A lawyer, she said the Supreme Court’s decision was enraging. “Everybody belongs in our communities. They deserve to be safe, and it is our responsibility. We are required to make sure that those people have the things that they need,” LaPorte said.[...]

Announced on June 28 in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the court found that outdoor sleeping bans don’t violate the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.

[neechees]

Settler colonialism is legit one of the most evil things to exist and I think it's the root of many of the world's problems today.

[intersectionalpraxis]

a guy just told me retail work is just 'punching in a bunch of numbers at a register' and i couldn't help but laugh because not only are they working class as well -they are also someone who can't afford to live anywhere else except their mother's basement. which is peak irony to me.

this was meant to be 'insulting' to me because i work retail and they make a little more than me, and despite the fact that i like my job -i love the people i work with and it's a healthy/non-toxic environment -there are few things i wanted to say here/unpack a little.

Sometimes your work does become part of your identity -especially if you've trained or studied to work in a specialized field, but it's not solely what makes you. Yes, you're a cardiologist/work with patients, but what else? Do you have hobbies? Do you like travelling or are you a homebody? Do you like to dress casually or wear tutu's at conventions? There's more to us than the money we earn.

Sometimes you just work to make money -that's it. At the end of the day, not all of all us will like or enjoy what we do for a living. It's great if we do, but most of the time it's meant to pay the bills and let us live the lives that we want -do things that make us happy. I wish it wasn't a work to live scenario for most of us because truly fuck capitalism -but this needs to be said. Your jobs are often just the work you do to survive.

This sentiment about customer service being 'less skilled' and therefore 'less respectable' is a classist, ableist, and bigoted sentiment to have. Considering if there weren't people making your fucking coffee, getting food prepped and ready to be served/sold, or helping you find the perfect outfit/overall helping you navigate a ton of product knowledge on an array of goods and services (among many other examples, this was just grazing the surface) -who else will? Millions of people do this, every single day -and the sheer disrespect given to so many of us is just baffling to me.

Many people with BA's and MA's aren't working in the fields they thought they would years ago (I'm bringing this up because this was something else that he said to me). Many of us still have debt and are figuring out our lives -and you know what? That's okay too. You don't have to be where anyone else is because you're your own person/on your own path. Whether or not you get into the work you've always wanted to do or you stay in retail -so be it. I'm tired of people saying that one job or career is more respectable than the other. It's vile.

I'm many things, and one of those happens to be someone who has and continues to work in retail. I have co-workers ranging between their late teens to fifties -who are from varying strolls of life and I've had the pleasure and privilege of getting to know them and their experiences. I have also met many lovely people who have been so kind and gracious to me -and have said I make a difference to them. And that's all that matters.

I'm a passionate writer and poet -I have anxiety and OCD. I love listening to music, going on walks with my dog, and I'm a major foodie. These are just some parts of who I am, and I won't ever let anyone talk down to me or anyone I know. Because if you can't see us as all part of the working class struggle to begin with, go touch some grass please.

[dreamingamongthestars]

The amount of anti-orca rhetoric on this site is astounding like don't you all realize you're trying to cancel an apex predator right. A literal animal. Compared to what humans have done to other animals they're docile. They're altruistic to humans. They're matriarchal and everything they do is taught and directed by the eldest female in the pod. Yes, including being ruthless to their prey. God forbid women do ANYTHING

[wild-wombytch]

Oh well, today is male entitlement day, it seems. Sure, get surgeries and take the place of natural women and reap the money out of it. (I can confirm that France 3 Region is a legit information website btw)

Beauty contests should die anyway, since they're the most basic patriarchy in action, but yeah, now males will make women even more insecure...

I swear today's Reddit scrolling makes me want to peak another time.

ETA :

Roughly (not a good translator) : "Last year, the student decided to sign in the official contest of Haute-Vienne. [As to] boost her self confidence, make her family proud and to prove the people who mocked her wrong...there are many reasons."

Quote : <<I wanted to be able to tell myself that I am a young woman. I can be pretty, desired, be liked>>

Quote 2 : <<Among all the [economical?] partners, some people aren't accepting, Lara says. At the end of the day, it's good to force things. To show that a trans woman can be miss or dauphine. Because during the contest, some parents complain to the president. Thankfully, the committee defended me. I heard someone say "Ah, but that's a man" and I wanted to tell him "yeah and the man is first dauphine". We need to stop with taboos and nastiness. We need to teach values of tolerance and acceptance>>

This make me sick. This male self-id as a man right there and say we need to force things and force women to accept that else they're intolerant. Male thinking 101.

ETA 2 : Oh and btw, laser hair removal is at least partially refunded *by society/health care* in France. Too bad for the real females contestants who have to pay their own shaving I guess (you know, because natural body hair is too gross for patriarchy to handle as part of straight beauty standards)

[cat-in-a-mech-suit]

Can we make a genderless and non exclusive but specific term that encompasses butches and studs (including masc/gnc trans women and fems), transmasculine people, nonbinary people, trans men, and anyone who experiences challenges to their masculinity in a way that marginalizes their gender? It’s beyond time to have a way to talk about how anyone who falls within this group is marginalized and erased within the lesbian and trans communities and broader society due to a specific positionality of being very inconvenient for cis, patriarchal, capitalism, regardless of identity. Anyone who has a marginalized gender, may or may not identify as a woman, and identifies with or expresses manhood or masculinity is marginalized in a specific way that continues to be perpetuated within lesbian and trans communities as well as being economically disadvantaged in wider society due to being a marginalized gender that is for the most part non sexually exploitable by patriarchy while also not possessing patriarchal power. Stone Butch Blues is a great book on this but is only one perspective. We need an inclusive way of looking at the ways that misogyny, butchphobia, transandrophobia, transmisogyny, and capitalism (and other systems) come together to make masculinity a social death sentence for some people, but not others. Radical feminism and liberal, capitalist feminism have clearly proven to both be untenable frameworks for this discussion.

[doggirlbuffysummers]

This is just like unfiltered thoughts but like. honestly I feel like BTVS is a "feminist" show in a similar fashion to the "anti-capitalism" of numerous shows on services such as Amazon prime or apple TV or the like (big corporations that are a part of the problem with capitalism) that portray capitalism as unquestionably bad but also as this inexorable force that the protagonists can fight but never overcome. Buffy fights lots and lots of misogynistic characters but the show isn't actually interested in pushing back against the misogynistic tropes that are so prevalent in our society, so Buffy ends up facing misogyny from her friends that isn't presented as such. It presents misogyny not as a societal problem that needs societal solutions but as an individual problem that needs to be solved by individuals (almost always women).

If you take this post out of context as "Buffy's friends are shitty and awful" instead of as a problem with the writers I am stabbing you with hammers.

[thedarksideofmymoonhasmatches]

She said ~ 2022

Maria Schrader