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khali-shabd · 4 years

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Choice Feminism

Feminism is the collective term for multiple movements that are responsible for bringing women the same rights men enjoy all over the world. It is composed of many political, social, cultural phenomena that, over the years, have bridged the gap between men and women and brought equality to the sexes. Over the years, this movement has evolved, changing with the need of the times. At the beginning, it was simply the right to work and vote, then moving to things like being part of the military, the right to abortion, and many efforts to change cultural mindsets regarding female sexual liberation, beauty standards, etcetara. These social and cultural feminist movements have fought for a women’s right to choice, to give her the ability to choose and make life decisions without being ostracised by the law or by society. However, as more and more women feel liberated to indulge in it, the act of choosing is being rebranded into an act of feminism, and women are being idolized or looked down upon for making certain choices. Thus comes in the performance of ‘choice feminism’, the phenomenon that is failing the very real movement of feminism in endless ways.

Choice feminism has come into play in the more recent years as women worldwide have begun to embrace their right to choose. It is a more individualistic approach to feminism, essentially saying that the individual choices of women are feminist unto themselves. While this notion may appear harmless on the surface, it is actually deeply flawed and problematic in multiple aspects.

First of all, choice feminism implies that all women have the privilege of making all their own life choices without any external circumstances that influence it. It makes the ignorant assumption that all women are on equal playing ground while making these choices, when reality is usually far more nuanced than that. For example, a choice feminist may say that a woman choosing to be a working mom is feminist, however, this woman and her partner are also the only ones able to provide for their family, especially if they are barely scraping through with their collective incomes. While this woman did make a choice, one that was afforded to her by the feminist movement, this choice was not made by her as a woman, but her as a human being. Further, the feminist movement fought to make this choice available to a women the same way it is available to men, bridging the gap between the sexes, so that there is equality in the kind of opportunities and choices afforded to each. Hence, due to this equality, this choice becomes simply a human choice instead of a feminist one, especially when the playing ground is uneven.

Taking the same situation into account, choice feminism neglects the actual changes that need to be brought about to once again, even out the playing ground in this woman’s situation. Choice feminists, in their fixation with making this woman’s choice a ‘feminist choice’, ignore the many underlying social and political issues in her situation, such as the exorbitant prices of childcare which force this woman into working overtime, or the social issue of childcare always being the woman’s responsibility with her husband having limited involvement purely because he is male. Would this still be her ‘feminist’ choice if she desired self-actualization from staying at home and dedicating her time to her children?

Choice feminism stems from a fear of politics, and the fear of being viewed as too ‘radical’, too ‘judgemental’, or too ‘triggered’. By staying in the safe bubble of only appreciating women for making choices, choice feminists stay away from criticism, opposition, and judgement. However, feminism as a movement is far more than this- it cannot be simply reduced to praising decisions as if they were revolutions. Choice feminism inhibits the growth of feminism as a movement by refusing to challenge the status quo on deeply rooted problems we as a society have decided to turn a blind eye to. Feminism always has, and always will be about change- it exists to change long-standing positions and problems in society, culture, and most importantly, policy, such that we are able to advance on the path to creating equality for men and women. It is a fundamentally flawed notion to separate feminism from politics, because the very objectives of the two are impossibly, permanently entangled within each other.

Finally, because choice feminism is so mainstream and so futile, it ends up distracting from actual changes and goals that feminists strive to make and reach. It ends up being detrimental to the movement, bringing about no real social or political change to bring equality to men and women, which was the original point of feminism as a whole. This hyperfixation on the choices that women make is entirely pointless and serves as no real stepping stone to the goals we have set as feminists, such as access to menstrual products or making abortion legal worldwide. Women choosing between two mundane things is not feminism, and should not be branded as such. A choice does not become inherently feminist in nature just because it has been made by a woman.

Feminism, for years, has fought to provide opportunities for women, so that they have the freedom to choose the way they wished to live. However, just utilizing the opportunity feminists of history provided us with isn’t feminist- it is simply human. Feminism extends far beyond making a choice, it exists to free people from the constructs of the patriarchy. We should not be complacent in just making and defending choices, we need to push the envelope and challenge the status quo until we are all equal in every way we need to be.

#writing #write #article #essay #feminism #choice #choice feminism

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themiscyra1983 · 4 years

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So Here’s What’s Happening On The Twitters: More Cis White Nonsense

For their twenty-fifth anniversary, the Women's Prize for Fiction, in conjunction with Baileys, is reissuing books (in ebook format) by (presumed) female authors who used male pseudonyms under their "real names," and it is already a load of bullshit.

CW: misgendering, erasure, racism.

George Eliot (credited on the Baileys edition of Middlemarch as 'Mary Ann Evans') explicitly stated in her lifetime that, at least in literary terms, she wished always to be quoted as George Eliot. It's in her letters (specifically the 5 December 1879 letter to James A.H. Murray, George Eliot Letters 9:279), and she continued writing as Eliot even after her identity was publicly revealed. Even in the context of her married life, she preferred to go by Marians Evans Lewes.

Vernon Lee (credited on A Phantom Lover as Violet Paget) went by Vernon Lee outside of literary contexts, dressed in men's clothing not as a disguise but as everyday fashion, and had romantic relationships with women - reducing her to 'Violet Paget' erases her gender variance and potentially outright deadnames her.

George Sand (credited on Indiana as Amantine Aurore Dupin) likewise wore male clothing and maintained an ambiguous gender identity among her contemporaries; Victor Hugo once said "George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother."

Sui Sin Far is credited as Edith Maude Eaton, her birth name, on the cover of How White Men Assist In Smuggling Chinamen Across The Border In Puget Sound Country, which she published as Mahlon T. Wing. While this may not disrespect her gender identity, it DOES erase her Chinese heritage (she was born to an English father and Chinese mother) which was vital to her writing, it disrespects her wish to go by Sui Sin Far to emphasize that heritage, and (considering that the title contains what is now, at least, a racist slur) it puts an entirely different spin on the book from the cover ALONE.

Baileys already had to pull one of the titles, The Life of Martin R. Delany (originally published under Frank A. Rollin, credited to Frances Rollin Whipper, I’m not bolding a name here as I don’t know her preference) because, in the year 2020, they somehow used a stylized image based on a famous photograph of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BLACK MAN AND HISTORICAL FIGURE, for the cover. They're conducting a "full investigation" but literally no one caught this at any point in this process.

These are just some examples and I don't care to do a deep dive, but like a lot of white British "feminism" these days, it appears this was half-assed, disrespectful of the authors' personal identities, and racist. Look - the past is a foreign country, the gender spectrum as we understand it today would probably be a foreign concept to these figures of our past, and we can't KNOW precisely what they would have wanted had they lived in today's world. All we can do is try to understand the context of their lives and proceed accordingly. It is as wrong to proclaim that every one of these people were simply making choices they 'had' to make to get by as it would be to proclaim that every woman who ever dressed in male-coded clothing for whatever reason was trans.

BUT. This "birth name" initiative is profoundly disrespectful in any number of ways, and yes, borderline transphobic. And it does not help that virulent transphobes are pouncing upon any criticism, particularly from trans people of course, along those lines. The state of free gender identity and expression in the UK remains appalling and projects like this do not help.

#cw: transphobia #cw: racism #cw: erasure #gender variance #white so-called feminism

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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 5 years

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Degenerations – Between Pride and Gender Victimhood

I am an anarchist, I am not a feminist because I see feminism as a sectarian and victimist withdrawal, I have never made any gender discrimination although I don’t use gender-friendly linguistic conventions, on the contrary I often use dirty politically incorrect language. I think that the annulment of gender privilege and similar oppression is already contained in the search for anarchy, that is to say in the practice of anti-authoritarian relations, and should be cultivated there. Ah, I forgot, I loathe consciousness-raising in public meetings and I also consider assemblies to be blunt instruments. I understand and also have the will to meet. But I see how all too often the assembly degenerates into sterile self-representation.

You see nowadays you risk having to start off with such a preamble in order to enter the thicket of clichés on gender and feminism, disentangling yourself in the intricate incapacity to relate to the anarchist galaxy, with a range of behaviors going from hyper-emotiveness to the bureaucratic calculation of what stand (and degree of negotiable compromise) to take in a struggle. I don’t think that authoritarian and sexist behavior can be fought by trying to spread new linguistic conventions or by cooking up shreds of mainstream indignant rhetoric (among which #nonunadimeno [enough is enough], the femicide count on TV, pride, red shoes and rainbow ribbons) in an alternative sauce.

Rather these should be recognized as signs of yet another operation of the deconstruction of real meaning and recuperation in act. Convinced that one is opposing them, in actual fact one is adapting to the very behavioral and normative codes conceded by dominion as ways of releasing tension.

It’s nothing new that economic and political power is tending to swallow up and re-digest everything, faster and faster; consider for example the pearls of anti-sexist, anti-racist or whatever it might be neo-conservatism and conformism that are being dispensed by the media every day.

I believe that the first misunderstanding is the inability to put certain kinds of behavior into context, within what should be a wider critique of relations and communication and interaction between individuals in the anti-authoritarian sense, reducing them to the level of questions of gender.

Gender categorization, in LGBTI (XYZ…) style, should be left to those who need to feel themselves a protected category, in pigeonholes more suited to a Linnaean categorization of individuals than free bodies and minds. Instead, we find such pigeonholes in anti-authoritarian milieus, which should already have internalized their refusal.

By the way I’m far from believing that so-called liberated spaces really are such, in fact they often become parking lots for various forms of malaise and instead of enhancing the quality of life and relationships they risk lowering it even more.

For example it’s not possible to see every inability to interact in a meeting as sexism, authoritarian imposition or gender violence: I read in a pamphlet [1] that was around last year stigmatizing the latent violence in relations between comrades ‘the oldest exercises power over the youngest, those with more experience impose themselves on those who have less, whoever is stronger on the not so strong, mirroring the relations of the existent we say we want subvert.’

This is supposed to be a critique of authoritarian attitudes in anti-authoritarian milieus and it would be valid, were it not that it banalises and flattens everything: there is a fundamental difference between imposition of strength and the expression of experience. The inability to express oneself or to act is neither authoritarian nor anti-authoritarian, and can only be solved individually… otherwise we come to the idiocy of praising inability and inaction.

The concept of emotive violence or the violation of emotional integrity is even more ephemeral, because it promotes this analytical junk among anti-authoritarian individuals who should have far sharper critical weapons and practical capacity of intervention. As well as emptying of meaning the inflicted and brutal violence it is being compared to.

How can we claim to engage in an unrelenting struggle against authority and dissertate on revolutionary and liberatory violence if we cannot even react individually to some ‘undesired comment in the street’ (by taking it for what it is, and dealing with it accordingly with the person who spat it out) or keep up an animated discussion during a meeting without having recourse to the shield of violated sensitivity? Why do we find ourselves reading the disarming and obvious idiocy that advises making love with a woman in order to avoid an unwanted abortion? [2] Why codify, even in the field of gender, only for “female gangs”, like conquest, self-defence from aggression and harassment? Isn’t this a problem common to all genders among liberated beings?

Why should we revisit the most outworn products in the wardrobe of 1970s feminism, such as separatist meetings… maybe calling them workshops (a really ugly term that combines work and shop, borrowed from business conventions and unworthy of free discussions)?

I read the spectre of the same reductive and banalising mechanism in another recent publication, the Italian edition of the Rote Zora claims [3], i.e. the intention to sensitize only a female audience about a group of women who carried out armed struggle in the 1980s and 90s in Germany, insisting on the choice of gender, of very great interest on some feminist topics, as a privileged discriminating factor for taking them out of oblivion… given that one doesn’t want it ‘to belong to official history. It is written by men’ [4]… What?!? Is it not that official historiography tends to not talk about them because they were angry, not angry feminists? Just as it doesn’t deal with – or distorts – the history, actions and writings of so many other angry men and women? The partial vision is not that of Rote Zora who experimented their own path of individual and collective struggle and liberation in the context of wider anti-imperialist and anti-capitalistic action, but of those who try to make a flag out of it in order to give more credibility and specific weight to their own theorizing, to then reduce themselves to looking for ‘paths of self-defence’.

Why entrench oneself in a ‘feminist and lesbian’ discourse [5]? Why yet another protective cage, rather than develop the beauty and infinity of more advanced ideas of the critique of domination (not only gender), put forward and tested?

‘Sisterhood’ has always seemed to me to be a form of allusive alienation of transversal political alliances between oppressed and oppressors, between ‘inter-classist’ as it has become fashionable to say again… adverse parties. I also happened to see a booklet [6] recently containing an Italian feminist’s interviews of some female veterans of the Spanish revolution in 1936, aimed at finding a questionable ‘sisterhood’ between women anarchists engaged on the front line (and in the background with Mujeres Libres), the POUM and Stalinist women.

It was quite significant that almost centenarian anarchist revolutionary women were far more lucid and open in their critique about the limitations of feminism than their interviewer imbued with 1970s’ clichés was: in the extreme calm of a life lived to the full, they were able to explain simply the equal relations between male and female comrades, and how they managed to ridicule and neutralize the machismos that emerged among the most retrograde and stupid of their comrades. In short the practices and theoretical contribution of these women are far more advanced along the path of liberation of the individual and the negation of authoritarian dynamics than those of feminists who glean from their experiences, defending simulacra of struggle instead of the struggle itself. The need for auto-da-fé, the ‘deconstruction of one’s male privileges’, the search for separate places for discussions, self-awareness and self-analysis in public seem a little too much like signs of these times of over-exposition and woolly thinking, parading ‘struggles’ by category and interior struggles, to end up not struggling at all.

Anna,

Women’s prison of Rebibbia, Italy

October 2018

[1] Violenza di genere in ambienti antiautoritari ed in spazi liberati [Gender violence in antiauthoritarian milieus and in liberated spaces], Italian edition translated from Spanish in 2017[2] Critica all’aborto [Critique of abortion], Jauria – Trans-feminist publication for animal liberation, issue 1, Summer/Autumn 2015[3] Rote Zora – guerriglia urbana femminista [Rote Zora – Feminist urban guerrilla], Autoproduzione Femminista, 2018[4] From the introduction to the same book[5] Which the Rote Zora women themselves didn’t think relevant. From a 1984 interview with Rote Zora: ‘Some of us have children, many others don’t. Some are lesbian, others love men’, page 51, ibidem[6] Donne contro [Women against], Isabella Lorusso, ed. CSA editrice, 2013

#Anna Beniamino #Féminas Brujas and Insurrectionalists #insurrectionary anarchism #post feminism #post feminist anarchy #queer nihilism #anarchism #communism #anarcho communism #feminism

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kateofthecanals · 7 years

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A Woman’s Worth, According to “Game of Thrones”

The other day I thought to myself, is there a single female character on GoT who has not at some point been encouraged, both on a Watsonian and Doylist level, to resort to violence and/or sex in order to solve all her problems?

I’m honestly at a loss to think of a single female character, past or present, where this hasn’t been the case. Obviously the example frequently referenced around here is Sansa. Here is a young woman who, as written by George R.R. Martin, possesses a keen intellect but also a fair amount of naivete... because, like, both those aspects can exist at the same time. She is not a warrior like her sister, and she is not a seductress like Cersei, and yet she’s managed to survive through FIVE books without having to resort either to violence or sexual manipulation and has relied instead on her intellect and the traditionally feminine pursuits she has been brought up to cultivate. This is something D&D apparently cannot conceive of (even though it’s literally been written out for them in black and white). In their minds, a woman cannot be “strong” unless she’s got blood on her hands and/or a sexually available body. They literally cannot wrap their tiny brains around the concept of nuanced women. Even those who do possess martial prowess, like Brienne, Arya, and Asha, are reduced to shallow stereotypes and have had all their unique qualities stripped away in favor of this almost cartoonish thirst for blood.

D&D have made it quite clear over 7 seasons (yes, the first 4 included) that a woman in this universe is only “worthy” if she is willing to kill people and/or have sex. They cannot possibly serve any other purpose and still be of use to D&D’s narrative. Just look...

Sansa: Revenge Murder. She had been advised in the past, by both Cersei and Littlefinger, to use sex to get want she wants, but then she ended up getting raped. So maybe that “counts” in D&D’s eyes? After all, she did get her all-important “first kill” out of it... That, according to both D&D and Sophie, was what her “entire arc was leading to.”

Arya: Murder. She’s basically a homicidal maniac at this point, and it’s framed not only as a good thing, but “badass”. We’re supposed to be cheering as this lost, damaged child repeatedly stabs people with a cold smirk on her face.

Brienne: Murder. Absolutely no qualms about it either. Shanking dudes is just another day at the office for her! The epic moral dilemma that defines book-Brienne (”no chance, and no choice”) simply does not exist here.

Dany: Murder/Sex/Nudity. The Holy Trifecta! No wonder D&D love her so much! She’ll get naked and jump into bed AND murder entire cities all before Noon! We have seen Dany “struggle” at times with the dilemma of using violence in order to find peace, but in the end, the solution is always the same: YES OF COURSE YOU SHOULD USE VIOLENCE! Never once has she been like, “you know what, the loss is too much of a burden on my conscience, Imma sit this one out” without that being framed as a “wrong” decision. Because we need CGI dragons and massive casualties in order for her to be seen as “strong” and “competent”, dammit! We also need to see dem tittays!!!!

Cersei: Murder & Sex. Another D&D darling, obviously. In the books, Cersei is clearly off her rocker, makes bad decisions constantly, and literally no one likes her. (She’s basically show-Littlefinger.) And yet, on the show, her poor decisions and wisdom are treated as “correct”. When she tells Sansa that love is a sham or that she needs to use her vajayjay to get what she wants in this world, these things are framed as legitimately good advice. Cersei is basically this show’s moral compass. In D&D’s eyes, Cersei is the only character who is playing the game correctly. She is the only one who gets it right. “Kill or be killed, fuck or get fucked.” There is literally nothing else in between these two extremes.

Melisandre: Murder & Sex. Okay, so Mel hasn’t murdered anyone directly, but she’s had her hand in quite a few homicides. She’s utterly willing to see people die to get what she wants, and she’ll happily throw her titties at them along the way. Nevermind that book-Mel honestly believes that everything she’s doing is for the Greater Good, and nevermind that book-Mel doesn’t need to be nude every 5 seconds to get her point across... show-Mel is simply an evil enchantress, period. Oh, but then something horrible happened in Season 6 -- we found out that (a) she’s actually 3,000 years old ewwwwww!! and (b) she finally realized her “powers” aren’t all that reliable and came to regret all the murderin’ she’d done. She basically had her “worth” stripped from her twofold. Also, Carice Van Houten turned 40. And so guess who we BARELY saw in Season 7? Yeah, D&D literally made her LEAVE THE CONTINENT since she’s no longer of use to them.

Yara: Murder & Sex/Queer-Baiting. Yeah, another fun thing about D&D&Co is that they assume all female warriors are lesbians. They outright said as much about Brienne, and with Yara they just went ahead and showed it, and called it “representation” lmao. Even though Asha Greyjoy probably has the most healthy hetero sex life in ASOIAF. Sexuality in Yara’s case is even worse because she is also used in D&D’s massively disturbing depictions/endorsements of toxic masculinity. Her advice to her own brother, who was sexually mutilated, to either “get over it or kill yourself” (all while she’s groping a sex slave IN FRONT OF HIM) was actually framed as GOOD ADVICE. This was already apparent in the narrative but then D&D themselves confirmed it in the ITE!!!

Missandei: Nudity. Here’s a female character who is actually allowed to have a brain, but even then she is constantly undermined by the far superior intellect of Saint Tyrion. But it doesn’t really matter either way, because Missandei’s true purpose on the show is to look hot.

Olenna: Murder. Lady Tyrell is far too old to be sexy, so naturally she has to be out for blood at all times, and advising other people to murder as well (”Be a dragon!!!”).

Ellaria/Sand Snakes: Murder & Nudity/Sex. We can just go ahead and lump all these together. In addition to being the poster children for D&D’s insistence that all females, including sisters, must be catty to each other at all times, they are, of course, overly-sexualized and obsessed with Revenge™. It wasn’t enough that Ellaria was canonically bisexual, but D&D felt that her appeals for peace in the books were literally unworthy of proper adaptation. “We reconceived the role to make it worthy of the actor’s talents.” For them, Ellaria doesn’t deserve to even exist unless she’s vowing bloody vengeance on literally everyone for Oberyn’s death... including Oberyn’s own family(???). And the Sand Snakes? Well, one of y’all better get nekkid to keep it interesting! Who cares if the term “bad pussy” is apocryphal to this universe???

Margaery: Sex. From the moment Marg first popped up on screen, her titties popped out. She’s been a sexual character from the beginning and has repeatedly used sex as a tool for manipulation. She’s the protege that Cersei’s been looking for! Nevermind that, in the books, Marg, like Sansa, actually uses her wits to scheme and manipulate instead of her vagina. Luckily for D&D, they had room to age up Marg just enough that we could see her naked IMMEDIATELY, and once she traded in her low-cut dresses for Silent Sister gowns, guess what happened to her?

Myrcella: Neither, #RIP. Though, to be “fair”, they did re-cast the role with an older actress so that she could wear skimpier dresses and get groped by Trystane...

Gilly: ????? I mean, she’s just been reduced to Sam’s nagging girlfriend at this point. She did offer him sex (5 minutes after almost being raped) but she hasn’t threatened to murder anyone YET... But she’s also dumb as a post, so I guess D&D keep her around to make Sam look smarter?

Lyanna Mormont: Faux-Feminism! Lyanna is too young to be sexy or physically intimidating, so obviously the only other options for her are to re-affirm Sansa's idiocy (”Lyanna Mormont wouldn’t have been dumb enough to write that letter, so age is no excuse!”) and to further the faux-feminism agenda where crucial, life-preserving activities like knitting are ridiculed simply because they are “girl things”.

Meera: Murder. Honestly Meera was unusual in that she didn’t seem to possess the thirst for blood that the rest of the weapons-capable women on GoT did, nor any overt sexuality. But it’s okay, cuz D&D found other ways to undermine her! Like having her almost raped (a rite of passage for all true GoT Ladies I guess), and her constantly squabbling with Osha was a given according to the unwritten rule that if there’s more than one woman in the same scene at any time, they HAVE to be catty to each other, NO EXCEPTIONS!!! Anyway, without anyone left to kill or any way to be sexually available to Bran, she’s useless and no longer on the show. I’m sure we’ll find out next season that she was raped and murdered on her way back to the Neck (which Bran will have no reaction to).

The Waif: Murder. Just pure, unadulterated, completely incomprehensible murder. Did we ever really find out WHY she was so pathologically out to get Arya, other than the above-mentioned Rule of Cattiness?? Like, gods forbid she be an ACTUAL mentor to Arya...

Shireen: Neither, #RIP. Shireen was #tooprecioustoopure for this world, and that was entirely the point, wasn’t it? Nobody that sweet, kind, smart [shudder], and innocent [double-shudder] has any place in Weissteroff. She was only there for the maximum #feels when she was ruthlessly (and inexplicably) murdered and then immediately forgotten about once she served her purpose.

Selyse: Murder. She kind of suffered the same treatment as Lysa, in that her sexuality was used against her and she basically turned to murder to compensate for what she lacked.

Walda: Neither, #RIP. This one still infuriates me. In the books, Walda, although described to be rather overweight, still manages to enjoy a very healthy sex life with a husband not known for expressing more than a pointed stare. In fact, she’s so into it that even Roose Fucking Bolton finds it (and her) charming!! NONE of this made it into the show. No, instead, we have Ramsay making tasteless fat jokes (”OMG HOW DO YOU EVEN FIND HER VAGINA?!??!”) because lulz fat women enjoying sex don’t be ridiculous!! Ultimately she’s just there to be laughed at and then killed off for plot. Imagine if D&D were actually as progressive as they think they are and used this as an opportunity to depict and endorse body positivity on their Emmy Award-winning prestige drama watched by millions of people around the world..... NAAAAHHHH MORE FAT JOKES PLEASE!!!

Those are just some of the more recent crop of female characters, but this applies to past ones as well...

Catelyn: Murder. Poor Cat couldn’t even have a book-canon sex scene because no woman over the age of 40 is allowed to be naked on-screen (see: Melisandre) unless it’s for comedic effect or to deliberately make us cringe. So, that’s when D&D decided they had to amp up the Thirst for Vengeance quotient on her! Even though Cat was a POV character, and Robb’s entire war was seen through her eyes, they never allowed her any sort of meaningful introspection, either about the war or her family. Like Sansa, it was more important to highlight all the “mean” things she did to the Heroes of the story (”Maybe if I had loved Jon, this war wouldn’t have happened!!”) and retool the timeline so that she looks as dumb as possible (letting Jaime go before she ever found out about Bran & Rickon). The Red Wedding couldn’t have come sooner, amirite??

Lysa: Murder & Sex. Here’s an example of an “older” woman’s sex life being played for laughs. She was never meant to be taken seriously as a sexual being, so let’s make her wedding night with Littlefinger as outrageously ridiculous as possible. Yes, I know, it was presented this way in the books as well, but the difference is, we had way more backstory on Lysa and so it came off as more sad and pathetic than just outright comical. She was also the one who poisoned Jon Arryn, thereby kicking off the WoT5K, but that (extremely crucial mystery that hung in the air for 5 books and 4 seasons) has since been rendered meaningless because “Robert’s Rebellion was built on a lie”...

Shae: Sex/Nudity. And here’s a classic example of D&D seemingly making a GOOD decision to “improve” a character but having it ultimately blow up in their faces. Having Shae be a confidante/protector of sorts for Sansa ALMOST worked. It certainly gave her something to do than have sex with Tyrion constantly. But in the end, that just made Shae look all the more like a shitperson when she threw Sansa under the bus at Tyrion’s trial. It was an actual betrayal, as opposed to a calculated maneuver by someone who ultimately never gave a shit about Sansa OR Tyrion. It ultimately made Shae look even WORSE than her book-counterpart, imo. Book-Shae was just doing her job; show-Shae actively fucked over 2 people she seemed to genuinely care about. It was a more nuanced character, but at the end of the day, they did it to serve Tyrion. It probably never even occurred to them that someone couldn’t genuinely love him (and those who don’t pay for it dearly; see: Sansa), and it was out of the question to make Saint Tyrion look like a FOOL for deluding himself into thinking a prostitute loved him. So she had to be the real deal, and her murder by Tyrion had to be 100% justified.

Osha: Murder & Sex/Nudity. It wasn’t enough for Osha to become a surrogate mother to Bran and Rickon; mothers are SO BORING after all. And it wasn’t enough that she was a wildling woman capable of killing a man a hundred different ways. Best throw in some gratuitous nude scenes just because. As far as D&D are concerned, the only way she can kill a man is by fucking him first. It works the first time, but when she tries the same ruse with Ramsay, she is killed for it. I mean, OF COURSE. The Great Ramsay Sue would never fall for such a thing, pffft!

Ygritte: Murder & Sex. She was already a little firecracker in the books, but leave it to D&D to give her the Cersei treatment by basically blackmailing Jon into sleeping with her. Some could argue dub-con for the books, but the show was outright non-con. But because she’s a hot lady and he’s a dude, it’s not looked at or framed that way at all. Instead we’re made to think “JACKPOT, JON! woooot!”

Talisa: Sex. When the “not like the other girls” trope goes too far, you get Talisa. Yes, she was presented as a strong, smart, capable woman, but in the context that they put her in, it didn’t make sense. Because D&D don’t know how to write a female character like this within the context of ASOIAF. And the re-working of this arc in Robb’s plot went from “doing it for honor” to “doing it for dat bootay!!” So, of course, it wasn’t enough that she was “not like the other girls”; it was CRUCIAL that we got to see her naked too, lest she be taken TOO seriously...!

Ros: Sex/Nudity. Like, literally, that was her one and only function. There’s that well-known rumor that she was killed off in the show because the actress didn’t wanna do any more nude scenes, but she has denied this was the case, but who knows, really? Knowing D&D as we do, would we REALLY be surprised if the rumor was true? I mean, why else would they get rid of her? If she was still game to throw her rack around and perform pornologues, why would they willingly give that up??

Karsi: Murder. This gal has the distinction of proving D&D’s claim that no one would have cared about Jeyne Poole utterly wrong, null, and void. Karsi had a cumulative screen time of about 10 minutes total, and I remember watching the live-tweets come in during “Hardhome” and people, including myself, being really excited by her character almost immediately. But surely there had to be a catch -- ah yes, The Worst Crime In Westeros: being a mother. That was her ultimate undoing. Of course, we learned soon after the episode that the character was originally written to be a man, but it was changed to a woman because OBVIOUSLY only a woman -- only a mother -- would be THAT opposed to killing children, even undead ones.

Maggy The Frog: Sex. Well, kinda... Look, fact is, Maggy the Frog was supposed to be some old, gross witch, and D&D turned her into a Burning Man groupie.

That about covers it, I think, feel free to add more if I’ve forgotten anyone. But basically you can see the pattern here loud and clear. It amazes me that so-called feminists who watch the show religiously haven’t picked up on this... or, if they have, don’t seem to have a problem with it??

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lydmill26 · 3 years

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The Law and the Intersectional Global Feminist

The focus of my commonplace book project is how laws affect women worldwide. Laws are rules put in place to regulate behavior. Laws can be derived from religious texts as well as from general societal needs. Laws should be constructed to help and protect people. Laws ensure our rights against abuses by other people, organizations and by the government in charge. Unfortunately, laws are created by those who are in social, religious and governmental power. These leaders are not always elected by the majority they govern and therefore may not represent the needs of all the people. These individuals who are in religious and secular power are predominantly men who may not be able to relate to or understand how the laws affect women specifically. Lawmakers may also be motivated by selfish gains.

Women cannot be defined by gender alone. Intersectionality is the concept of how a person’s many experiences and identities combine to create a unique perspective on how things and events affect them. Women are affected differently by unfair practices and laws because their identity is based on multiple sources. Race, culture, gender identity, religion, economic situation, education level, political climate are all factors that determine how a woman is affected by a policy or law. Good intentioned laws, therefore, do not result in the same fair and equal treatment of all women worldwide. Women around the world are not all the same and their needs and goals cannot be reduced to a single story. Women’s intersectional identities must be understood and considered when advocating for their feminist rights and to eliminate and change unjust laws. Women should also have the freedom to determine for themselves what laws are most beneficial to their wellbeing. They must also position themselves to have the power to change laws that are unfair to them.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s article, Mapping The Margins, shows that laws and policies against domestic violence in the United States do not benefit all women equally. For example, women of color who seek emergency shelter from their abuser do not receive adequate services and counseling because the government funded agencies and its leadership use “intervention strategies based on women that do not share their background”. (Crenshaw, 201). Although these women experience the same physical abuse as affluent white women their lack of job skills, economic disadvantages, childcare issues and limited housing options makes their abuse experience unique. Counseling services and resources need to catered to helping them achieve independence and self reliance to overcome the circumstances that perpetuate domestic abuse. Leadership in domestic violence shelters must institute policies that are in line with their clientele’s identity in order to be effective in helping them. Immigrant women who do not speak English are also discriminated against in domestic abuse shelters. They can be denied access to emergency care because a ruling has determined that if they cannot understand English they would not be able to participate in counseling. Immigrant women may also believe that they must remain with their abusive partner or face being deported. The laws and policies do not seem to recognize the unique identities and the needs of immigrant women. “By failing to take into account the vulnerability of immigrant spouses to domestic violence, Congress positioned these women to absorb the simultaneous impact of its anti-immigration policy and their spouses’ abuse.” (Crenshaw, 202). It can be argued that the government is attempting to protect as many abused women as possible by funding emergency shelters. However, what I have learned is that these shelters do not meet the needs of the intersectionality of women living in American most desperate for help. Leadership must include women who more closely identify with the struggles of the women they are attempting to serve. Only then can strategies and policies be developed to end the cycle of domestic abuse.

Around the world, women are expected to adhere to the male acceptability of conduct. When they don’t laws are created and their meaning interpreted to force women to conform. The LGBTQ+ community has experienced hash and inhuman treatment and punishment for publicly announcing who they are. In a large number of African countries religious and governmental laws prohibit homosexuality. What I have discovered is that religious laws are inconsistent and their meanings are interpreted to benefit those in charge. Buddhism, for example, identifies “sexual misconduct”as one of the “10 non-virtuous deeds”. (https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/07/religious-groups-official-positions-on-same-sex-marriage/ ). Some scholars interpreted this to mean homosexuality and others understand it to mean adultery. Religious laws are open to the interpretation of the individual scholar. Religious laws can also be skewed so that their meaning justifies why people must behave in a certain manner. In the novel Under The Udala Trees, by Chinelo Okparanta, Adaora tells her daughter Ijeoma, “‘God intended for it to be man and woman. And God intended also for man and woman to bear children.’” (Okparanta, 73). However, in the Bible Jesus tells his male disciples, “Love one another; as I have loved you”. (John 15:12). These examples can be viewed as conflicting Bible interpretations on who one should love. Religious leaders are predominantly male and it appears to me that the teachings in the Bible are used by some as a weapon to intimidate women into certain behaviors that conform to men’s desires of acceptable behavior.

In addition to religious laws, governmental policies and laws can also limit a women’s freedoms. Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries. The punishment is jail, stoning and death. Some leaders such has as President Mugabe of Zimbabwe introduced legislation banning homosexual acts. President Jammeh of Gambia established laws that would decapitate any lesbian discovered in the country. Biases and the threat of legal action for being a gay woman in certain African countries is rooted in cultural and religious values. According to Ilan H. Meyer of Columbia University members of the LGBT community “have a higher prevalence of mental disorders than heterosexuals.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pec/articles/PMC2072932/ ). Laws that alienate and prosecute lesbian women have both physical and mental consequences. What I have learned is that a woman who identifies as lesbian is not protected by religious or governmental laws in some countries. They are discriminated against both socially and legally and are denied access to services. Advocating for feminist rights in countries that outlaw same sex unions must take into consideration more than sexual orientation. To best serve and assist the LGBTQ+ community of women we must also understand how their intersectional identity combines with being gay. Creating support for lesbian women and changing laws and mindsets must be done in conjunction with understand the life and customs of these women.

An aspect of this class that interested me and prompted me to learn more about is when religious laws intersect or affect secular governmental law. Most notably in this class it was seen in Muslim countries. Islamic law is also referred to as Sharia. Sharia “guides all aspects of Muslim life, including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna.” (https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/Islam-governing-under-sharia). Some Muslim countries observe a “dual legal system” which incorporates religious laws with secular laws. Other Muslim countries observe a fully secular government. However some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and others practice a “Government under God” system of law. In these countries Sharia is the law followed and in forced. Under this strict interpretation of the Quran, and interpreted mainly by ruling male scholars and officials, women are under male guardianship at all times and must be covered in public. The interpretations of the teaching of Muhammad in this form of government limits a woman’s choice in dress, marriage, divorce and inheritance. According to Anne Sofie Roald, an associate professor at the University of Malmo, Sweden, “differences in interpretations resulted from differences in the scholars’ social and cultural settings. (Http://www.exhibitions.globalfundforwomen.org/exhibitions/women-power-and-politics/elections/Quran). What can be surmised is that the Quran and its laws are open to the perception and understanding of the mostly male clergy. Islamic feminists believe that the teachings and laws of the Quran should be structured around concerns that fit Muslim women. For example, women should have the choice to wear a hijab or burqa and wear it as a way of practicing and asserting their Muslim identity. It is important not to define Muslim women who choose to cover themselves by a single perspective. The veil is not a symbol of oppression for Muslim women but rather an independent way of doing what they feel is righteous and safe. However, wearing a veil, hijab or burqa should be a choice rather than a command.

Feminism strives for the fair, just and equal treatment of women. What this class has emphasized for me is that fair, just and equal treatment of women is not simply remedied by the good intentioned few. To fully defend and support global feminism we must first understand a woman’s unique perspective of life and how circumstances will affect them. Identifying and comprehending a women’s intersectional identity will enable us to advocate for the feminist interests and needs of women different from ourselves. Developing alternative strategies based on the background of the women most in need will allow for better and more complete assistance. The results will have longer lasting effects on their lives. Laws and policies that directly affect women need to be created and instituted by women who can relate to the unique needs of thewomen they serve. Leadership must therefore include more women with different backgrounds. Both religious and secular laws need to be interpreted by the women who share and can relate to their intersectional identity. Global feminism is also the ability and willingness to support the choices of women different from ourselves. Education, tolerance and compassion can help make great strides in the battle for women’s equality and global feminism. Most especially, I have learned that laws are enacted to protect and defend the masses. I believe this is right and admirable. However, I also believe that these laws need to be interpreted by those who understand the unique intersectionality of women they are designed to help.

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piratefalls · 8 years

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posting because my friend @ampersandy doesn’t have facebook anymore.

this is what i took from my experience at my local women’s march.

When I debated going back to college – a luxury I am lucky to have, especially with the knowledge that I will not be accruing new debt – I struggled with where I wanted my education to go. I had no idea what area of study I wanted to fall in, having too many interests that rarely intersect to decide on just one department. I applied anyway, knowing that at least being accepted gave me more options than I had as someone on the outside looking in. Most of the classes I was interested in were full by the time I was allowed to register, and one of the only classes left that I had any interest in was a Gender and Women’s Studies course titled: “Queer Lives, Queer Politics.”

After yesterday, I don’t believe that this was in any way a coincidence.

All semester long I learned about power structures, both social and legislative, that put certain groups of people at a disadvantage the further they are from that power source. That power source, generally speaking, is a white, able-bodied, straight, cisgender male. Are you a person of color? Take a step back. Are you employed? If you are, stay put. If not, take a step back. Are you poor? Take another step back. Are you disabled? How’s your access to healthcare? Higher education? Take a step back for every one of these things you do not have at your fingertips. That is your relationship to power and the people who have the most influence. I want to make this post, and my experience at yesterday’s Women’s March on Champaign-Urbana, about those power structures.

Yesterday, I stood in a muddy park on an unseasonably warm, beautiful January afternoon, surrounded by women of color, of different ability, of different socioeconomic status, of varying levels of education, women who are transgender, and I listened. I was given a reminder that I desperately needed.

This is about more than just fair wages, but I want to break something down here really quick. I know everyone gets tired of hearing the phrase: “for every dollar that a man makes, a woman makes $0.79.” This is both true and misleading. For every dollar that a man makes, a woman does make less. The year after President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act (2010), the statistics broke down as follows:

White men: 100 Black men: 74.5 Hispanic men: 65.9 White women: 80.5 Black women: 69.6 Hispanic women: 59.8

Wage discretion is real, but it is more real for people of color than it is for me.

This is about more than just sexual assault and rape. Now, if you know me at all, you know that violence against women is an issue I hold close to my heart, for reasons that don’t need to be rehashed here. But when we think about sexual assault and rape, what is the kind of person who comes to mind when you think of a victim? If you pay attention to the media at all, you probably imagine a white woman in her 20s. What they don’t tell you is that while 80% of all victims are white, minorities are somewhat more likely to be attacked. This breaks down as follows:

All: 17.6% (approx. 1 in 5) White: 17.7% Black: 18.8% Asian/Pacific Islander: 6.8% American Indian/Alaskan: 34.1% Mixed Race: 24.4%

And that doesn’t even include rape and sexual assault committed against men. Yes, women can be rapists too. According to a 2002 NCVS report, one in every eight rape victims were male. When we have a conversation about sexual assault and what needs to be done to end rape culture, we must include ALL victims, not just women. This also does not include rape and sexual assault committed against members of the trans community, which most studies reveal a whopping 50% will experience sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.

This is about more than reproductive rights. This is about access to life-saving healthcare. Viagra and vasectomies are covered by insurance plans, and no one bats an eye. When women want access to birth control, suddenly everyone is in a tizzy. You see what I’m getting at here? Dudes want to prevent pregnancy and that’s fine, but when we want to take control of our ability to get pregnant, suddenly we’re making irrational choices and need the government to intervene. Never mind the fact that the pill is not prescribed SOLELY to prevent pregnancy, but is also used in treatments for endometriosis, PCOS, and adult acne.

Also, please do actual research on Planned Parenthood, because they really are an incredible organization that provides sex education, whose goal is to reduce teen pregnancy through education, and provide women – a good portion of whom are low income and cannot afford hospital visits – with quality preventative healthcare like pap smears, mammograms, cancer screenings, and STD testing. If you can’t do it right now, that’s fine. In the meantime, let me give you a short primer: taxpayer money does not pay for abortions because Title X exists, abortions are 3% of their total services, and someone getting an abortion is none of your damn business anyway.

This is about more than just an Electoral College-elected leader we feel does not represent us. Or, at least, represents some of us. “How did this happen?” we kept asking ourselves on November 9. “Aren’t we better than this?” I thought we were, too. But, again, that’s my privilege speaking.

However – and this is something I find incredibly interesting – the exit polls of this most recent election tell a very interesting story. Most of the people I saw on Facebook after the election who were angry, or saddened, or just lamenting the fact that we’d elected probably the least qualified individual in recent history to our highest government position, were predominantly white. You want to know who put him in office? Predominantly white people. Exit polls in CNN show that 62% of white men and 52% of white women voted for Trump, with only 7% and 5% voting for neither candidate or not voting at all, respectively. Everyone else – black men and women, Latino men and Latina women, and other minority groups – overwhelmingly voted Clinton or didn’t vote for either/vote at all. I’m still trying to parse how I feel about this one, honestly, but I’m sure I’ll let you guys know when I figure it out.

I wanted to believe that we were better than a person who sought to divide us under the guise of making this country great again. America is, and can be, great, despite the fact that its history has not always been great. I know, I know, “We weren’t part of slavery, so why do I still have to defend myself against it? I didn’t kill all those Native Americans when Columbus sailed the ocean blue!”

First of all, DUH. You were born in 1993. This is hardly something I can put solely on your shoulders. BUT - and this is the part we struggle with - these terrible things ARE part of this country’s history, and we DO have to own that. Do we have to be proud of it? No. In fact, I’d encourage you to not be proud of it. However, as a historical moment, are we not supposed to learn from it? Are we not meant to arm ourselves with information so that we do not repeat what’s been done? That is why these conversations still take place: because we keep forgetting.

What this is about is togetherness. This is about recognizing where your place is in this world and using it in whatever way you can to lift up those who are not as fortunate as you. This is about the importance of mobilization. It is about feminism that is not limited to just white women, but is inclusive of all people regardless of gender expression, sexual orientation, race, creed, socioeconomic status, and physical ability. This is about the importance of knowing when to speak and when to sit down and listen; the importance of me, as a white woman, knowing my place at a table that is not designed to make me feel comfortable, or congratulate me for finally catching up with everyone else, but rather teach me how I can be better even if it involves hearing hard truths. My job, as a white woman, is to listen, to get educated, and to amplify the voices of women and men throughout history that our textbooks have silenced for far too long.

This is about learning the meaning of true ally-ship, that not all things are about you, but are about others and how you can do something that benefits them. Being an ally is hard work, and it’s supposed to be. We must not let our sisters be swept aside because of their skin, or their queerness, or their religion or ability or the life she chooses to lead. We must embrace them, encourage them, raise their voices when they are not being heard. True equality cannot be achieved until we are ALL equal players on the same field, in all facets of life, status, and government. We do not yet have these things.

Being brave is not about convenience. Being brave means stepping up to the plate even when it’s hard, when there’s nothing in it for you, when it scares you. Being brave is a lot of things, but it has never been, nor will it ever be, easy. I will be the first to admit that I have not always been brave. But I am going to try. I’m going to get more involved. I’m going to be a voice, a mouthpiece for other women who need to be heard much more than I do.

Whether you believe it or not, as a white individual, you ARE privileged. Having the luxury of not noticing that privilege is something women of color, trans women, poor women, and disabled women do not have.

At the end of all of this, all I’m asking is that you think about where you stand in this world, and the power you hold simply by existing. Have you ever gone to sleep wondering where your next meal will come from? Have you ever gone to sleep cold because you couldn’t pay your bills? Have you ever missed out on important moments in your kid’s lives because you had to work to make sure they were fed? Have you ever been followed around in a shopping mall because someone decided that YOU were the sketchy person they needed to police that day? If you haven’t experienced these things, you might be privileged.

The question is: what will you do with it?

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marcusssanderson · 6 years

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50 Feminism Quotes About Empowerment and Equality for Women

Our latest collection of inspirational feminism quotes to make you feel empowered.

Throughout history, women have been battling against patriarchy and a predominately misogynistic society. Women have banded together to fight for their right to vote, combat discrimination, disband rape culture and portrayal in the media, and reprimand crimes against the female gender.

Feminists have won some great victories, but the battle for gender equality has evolved into a powerful movement with ambitious feminists leading the charge.

The most recent #MeToo campaign has been shedding light on discrimination and exposing the predation of women in the entertainment industry. It has offered a necessary outlet for victims of sexual assault and opportunities for more women and men to learn about and align with feminism.

It takes a courageous person to fight injustices and speak up for what is right. To help fuel your feminist flame, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and powerful feminism quotes, feminism sayings, and feminism proverbs, collected from a variety of sources.

Feminism quotes about empowerment and equality for women

1.) “You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.” – Brigham Young

2.) “Feminism is not a dirty word. It does not mean you hate men. It does not mean you hate girls that have nice legs and a tan, and it does not mean you are a bitch or a dyke, it means you believe in equality.” – Kate Nash

3.) “We need to encourage girls that their voice matters. I think there are hundreds and thousands of Malalas out there.” – Malala Yousafzai

4.) “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” —Margaret Thatcher

5.) “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” ― Jane Austen, Persuasion

6.) “Though we have the courage to raise our daughters more like our sons, we’ve rarely had the courage to raise our sons like our daughters.” – Gloria Steinem

7.) “Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.” – Andrea Dworkin

8.) “Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with.” – Emma Watson

9.) “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” – Maya Angelou

10.) “My coach said I run like a girl. And I said if he ran a little faster he could too.” – Mia Hamm

11.) “[Unlikeable women] accept the consequences of their choices, and those consequences become stories worth reading.” – Rozane Gay

12.) “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” – Madeleine Albright

Feminism Quotes about Self-determination and freedom

13.) “My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it’s very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.” – Ani DiFranco

14.) “Women, we endure those cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut. We are living with small tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. And we’re still getting up.” – Michelle Obama

15.) “A huge part of being a feminist is giving other women the freedom to make choices you might not necessarily make yourself.” – Lena Dunham

16.) “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” – Madonna

17.) “ I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be.” – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie

18.) “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.” — Madeleine Albright

19.) “Feminism is not just about women; it’s about letting all people lead fuller lives.” – Jane Fonda

20.) “Feminism isn’t a cloak that I put on in the morning and take off at certain times. It’s who I am. I look at the world through eyes that are very alert to gender injustice, and I always will.” – Chimanda Ngozi Adichie

21.) “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminisn is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that distinguish me from a doormat.” – Rebecca West

22.) “There’s just as many different kinds of feminism as there are women in the world.” – Kathleen Hanna

23.) “Feminism is not dead, by no means. It has evolved. If you don’t like the term, change it for Goddess’ sake. Call it Aphrodite, or Venus, or bimbo, or whatever you want; the name doesn’t matter, as long as we understand what it is about, and we support it.” – Isabel Allende

24.) “More than ever, I am aware of the need to support and celebrate each other. I like to believe I am part of a global support group network of 3.4 billion. Imagine: if you can fall back on the 3.5 billion sisters, and the many good men who are with us, what could we possibly not achieve?” – Nicole Kidman

25.) “They tried to bury us; they did not know we were the seeds.” – Mexican Proverb

Feminism Quotes to help you feel like a badass everyday

26.) “There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – Virginia Woolf

27.) “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” ― Irina Dunn

28.) “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” – Malala Yousafzai

29.) “Feminism isn’t about making women strong. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” — G.D. Anderson

30.) “Feminisim’s agenda is basic: it asks that women not be forced to choose between public justice and private happiness.” – Susan Faludi

31.) “I want women’s rights to be equally honored, and uplifted, and heard…but I want to see us fighting the fight for all women — women of color, our LGBTQ sisters, our Muslim sisters. I want to see millions of us marching out there for our rights, and I want to see us out there marching for the rights of women like Dajerria Becton, who was body slammed by a cop while she was in her swimsuit for simply existing as a young, vocal, black girl. I think we are inching closer and closer there, and for that, I am very proud.” – Solange Knowles

32.) “There’s a strong chance the next Bill Gates isn’t going to look anything like the last one. So I’m interested in finding solutions that will help ensure we recognize her when we see her.” – Melinda Gates

33.) “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” – Charlotte Bronte

34.) “I believe the rights of women and girls is the unfinished business of the 21st Century.” – Hillary Clinton

35.) “I’m a feminist. I’ve been a female for a long time now. It’d be stupid not to be on my own side.” – Maya Angelou

36.) “Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.” ― Sheng Wang

Other Inspirational Feminism Quotes

37.) “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” ― Cheris Kramarae

38. “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

39.) “You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.'” —Erin McKean

40.) “I am not ashamed to dress ‘like a woman’ because I don’t think it’s shameful to be a woman.” – Iggy Pop

41.) “Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them. – Unknown

42.) “A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.” —Melinda Gates

43. “We need everyone to be a feminist. Feminism is the fight for the equality of sexes, not for the domination of one sex over another.” – Najat Vallaud-Belkacem

44.) “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.” – Betty Friedan

45.) “Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.” – Maya Angelou

46.) “Your silence will not protect you.” – Audre Lorde

47.) “One isn’t born courageous, one becomes it.” – Marjane Satrapi

48.) “I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.” – Mary Shelley

49.) “No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.” – Michelle Obama

50.) “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you would threaten the man.

Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?

We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Did You Enjoy These Feminism Quotes?

Feminism is a commendable crusade for women’s rights. Gender parity is something that women have struggled to achieve for years. Although there have been accomplishments along the way from outstanding and heroic women, the fight is certainly not over.

When things feel tough or if you’re needing an extra push of encouragement, nothing will make you feel prouder to be a woman than to read empowering feminism quotes from feminists who understand the struggle for the freedoms we have today.

Did you enjoy these feminism quotes? Which one was your favorite quote? Let us know in the comment section below. Also, take a minute to share with your fans and followers.

The post 50 Feminism Quotes About Empowerment and Equality for Women appeared first on Everyday Power.

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republicstandard · 6 years

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Analyzing the Democrat Platform: Abortion, Guns, and Healthcare.

Welcome to the final part of our analysis of the Democratic Party. Let us commit wrongthink one last time against the most progressive party platform Democratic Party has ever had.

Voter IDs

This is the first time I have ever encountered the idea that “enhancing our democracy” and “protecting our voters” means that voter ID laws should be scrapped. I, as a foreigner, am impressed by this extreme courage from the Democrats. People are generally used to more subtle ways to enact such an outrageous law; but the Democratic Party is not subtle at all. They cite that it “suppresses minorities” for some reason. By the very same logic, minorities are oppressed in various other things that also require an ID, such as being able to drive!

Countries like Norway and Brazil have much higher turnouts than the US despite having voter ID laws. Perhaps the problem is not the voter ID laws but the fact that the Americans are opting out of the corrupt, inefficient and ugly Democratic-Republican system? Nevertheless, if people do not care enough to have IDs, they should not be able to vote. Frankly, they do not deserve to vote, if they cannot even go through such a simple process. It is not a strange thing to assume that a party that supports lifting the restrictions on election security is a party that is much more likely to tamper with elections. The Democrats should keep their mouths shut about election integrity until they start supporting voter ID laws. This behavior is embarrassing any self-respecting person.

The Democrats promised to “end Citizens United” and other big money financial contributions. I suppose those big money financial institutions were idiots because they still ended up donating to the Democrats; or maybe they knew that the Democrats wouldn’t keep their word.

Abortion

One issue that has been very hot for years all over the western world has been abortion. Let us be clear: this issue is about determining whether we should be allowed to kill a baby before it is born, or not. One interesting claim that I see from pro-choice activists is that a fetus is not technically a living being because it is not a human being yet. That argument is simply outrageous and idiotic, you don’t expect a horse, or a dog to grow from a human fetus. We expect a human being, and the process of its birth has already started at conception. Another argument made is that without the mother the embryo wouldn’t survive. that is quite possibly the worst and the most dishonest argument for pro-choice that I have ever seen. To counter this so-called “argument” one needs to consider whether people on life-support should be killed. After all, they cannot survive without that machine. How about asking them whether we should kill welfare dependents? Is not the welfare state itself, a kin of machine? Are welfare recipients not “alive” because they are dependent on the state? It doesn’t end here, how about we kill the entire human race? We are all dependent on many things, such as Oxygen, food, money and so on. This might seem like an absurdists argument, but it follows the same exact logic. The notion that fetuses aren’t “living beings” because they cannot live independently without their mothers, is a disgrace.

The leftist side of the discussion loves to jump to appeals to scientific truth, but upon further inspection, their position is quite anti-scientific. One easy way to show the truthfulness of this is on their views of race and how we are all blank slates, as discussed in the previous article of this series. The same goes for abortion. Recent research suggests that the heart of the unborn begins beating at 16 days after conception. This is before the woman knows that she is pregnant. Strong evidence for the pro-life cause comes from this collection of acedemic quotes from Princeton University.

"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down." [Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]

Considering the other arguments from pro-choicers, such as “but what if a child is born into a bad family”, which presupposes that a family does not have any responsibility for their children. It is an argument that is used to shift the goalposts to another issue. It is a fallacious argument, and should not be taken seriously in a debate about abortion. One other popular, and more of a libertarian argument is “It is going to happen anyway and should therefore be legal”. The same can be said for murder and many other crimes. Why should we punish murder if “it is just going to happen anyway”. Of course, there will be illegal abortions from some incredibly irresponsible parents, which is why they will be punished. Under a system that acknowledges the reality of the pro-life case, the aborters will either be punished by the government if they get caught, or they will be punished by the fact that the doctor that is willing to help them kill a baby is going to be unreliable. That is a risk, sadly, that many are willing to take, worldwide.

At the end of the day, it is not “your body your choice” but “your body and your choice, his body and his choice”. The requirement is that neither of you negatively affect each others’ existence, whether that is intentional or unintentional. The fact that abortion turned from a “life” issue to a “woman’s rights” issue illustrates how abhorrently hazardous feminism has become, to the point where everything, -including the lives of their own babies- has become a hindrance for so-called “freedom”. There is no doubt that the push for contraception, birth control and various other harmful “solutions” is to solely enable a woman’s “freedom”; which is a code-word for degeneracy.

Education

College debt relief and attempting to make “debt-free college a reality” are in reality a means with which to make the student loan debt and college tuition prices astronomically higher. Simple supply and demand is at play here. If we pledge to offer state subsidies for debt relief for students, we artificially increase the demand for college, and since the demand increases, tuition prices increasing wouldn’t be an unrealistic outcome to predict. As a matter of fact, that is what has happened ever since 1980, and the cost of attending college has increased by 260 percent! In comparison, the CPI has increased by 120 percent, which means that the cost has increased by 140 percent. This is done with your tax money. The money that would otherwise be used to invest in markets and businesses with good future, is instead being taken by the government so the government can pardon student debt at your expense.

Healthcare

The Democrats’ biggest and their proudest child, is no doubt, the healthcare system. There is this empty and semantic discussion on healthcare, about whether it is a privilege or a right. What categorizes something as a right in this modern world is merely a piece of paper written by some people with the power to enforce this idea with force. Some "rights" end up being the cause of our deaths. Bearing this in mind, we should rather debate whether the system itself is efficient or not, rather than proclaiming our rights.

In terms of ethics -and I have gone over this many times in my columns for Republic Standard- you cannot claim the moral high ground when you support that the government should take money from the citizens to pay for other citizens’ healthcare (or any other program's) coverage. For those who cried that destroying Obamacare would kill people, The Manhattan Institute have showed -with absolute brilliance- that destroying Obamacare would result in zero lives lost. I would go as far as to claim that Obamacare is actually contributing to why people die in the first place. To support this claim, we can observe a graph of age-adjusted mortality rate. It seems like the reduction of mortality suddenly ceased, and instead got a tiny bump, which is certainly interesting to see.

But aside from that, one more particularly glaring piece ofevidence is the reduced US life expectancy rate.

Even considering the economic reality, Obamacare is in a very rough spot.

Why are costs increasing even though the effectiveness of the service has decreased? We can thank state monopolies, and the 83 percent market share that is split between four insurance firms.

The Second Amendment

When it comes to gun rights, Democrats are fighting against the constitution. For Neoliberals and leftists, the constitution is losing its meaning and is slowly turning into a piece of paper, rather than the foundations that the US was built on. The Democratic Party Platform is actually surprisingly quiet on the Second Amendment putting it on the backburner. Contrast this with how they hawk about how guns are bad every time a mass shooting happens, and we see the disdain the Democrats hold not only for the constitution, but for their own base for whom this platform should be an informative document. I would like to use this as an opportunity to give you the truth about guns and violence.

Democrats talk about 33000 people dying by the gun. The important part here is the word “death”. This does not only include homicide, but also suicide. 60% of people that die from gunshot do so by committing suicide. This means that 60 percent of those deaths would in all likelihood happen in one way or another. What about the methods of acquiring those firearms? By using France as an example, we can see that while there are 12 million firearms in the country, more than 8 million of them are illegally owned.

Let us take a look at an inmate survey in Chicago for a sample of this behavior in the United States.

It would be remiss to fail to acknowledge racial aspect of this discussion. As we have concluded in our previous article, races do have different characteristics and act in different ways in response to various situations.

There is a very strong correlation between Black/Hispanic population and crime. This is not explained by poverty. Rich black kids are more likely to go to prison than poor white kids. Is this systemic racism, or White supremacy? Not when racial propensity for crime is factored in. As John Q. Publius notes:

America does have a violent crime problem, but the thousands of bodies piling up in Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago, and Detroit isn’t because of white males or marauding racist police officers. That, my good friends, is largely the province of a certain subset of our population who are far more likely than their white counterparts to commit criminal and violent acts. This group commits 52.5% of all homicides despite consisting of just 13% of the population (and of that 13%, it is mostly young males doing the killing, which amounts to maybe 2-3% of the US population).

This is a double whammy for blacks. Blacks in America are 5 times more likely than the national average to be the offenders in a firearm related assault. They are also 15 times more likely to be on the receiving end of it. This is a plague on Black America, and a resolution must be found. If Black Lives truly Matter for protesters, they should talk about gun violence and how to stop it, instead of de facto blaming the police.

The most popular part of any gun control debate is the public mass shootings part of said debate. Every single time a mass shooting happens, there comes an intense debate between pro-gunners and anti-gunners. Get ready, because this will shock you: 98% of Public Mass Shootings happen in "Gun-Free Zones".

If you, the reader, wanted to commit a mass shooting, would you rather do it in a gun-free zone, where law-abiding citizens are most likely not going to be armed, or would you rather do it in any other place where the chances of an armed guy shooting you is a plausible possibility? The answer should be very obvious. Gun-free zones, which Democrats support, cause mass shootings rather than prevent them.

And of course, the eye candy of the pro-gun argumentation would be Switzerland, a country that is very well known for allowing citizens to have guns. The result? One of the lowest crime rates in the world.

There is research that estimates that in 55000 to 80000 incidents, guns have been used to deter crimes. These are low-end estimates, high-end estimates can reach up to 4.7 million per year. Even if we go by the lowest estimates, 55000 per year is still a lot, particularly compared to the homicide rate. Across every metric, it is clear that responsible gun ownership leads to a safer society.

CONCLUSION

This is the end of my analysis of the Democratic Party Platform. we have covered the Democrat view when it comes to many topics such as Economics, LGBT, Crime, Social issues and so on. I can state that during my analysis, I was thoroughly appalled by the illogicality of this party platform. This Party Platform is what happens when you attempt to create “the most progressive party platform in its history”. Towards what end are we progressing?

The result is a system of tyranny. Resist it with all your might.

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marcusssanderson · 6 years

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50 Feminism quotes about empowerment and equality for women