#feminist consciousness

[haggishlyhagging]

Fortunately, Susan knew a brainstorming technique called "think and listen." Months later when I was explaining to Mary Daly how "think and listen" worked, she told me that Nelle Morton had described the same process in her 1972 essay, "The Rising Woman Consciousness in a Male Language Structure," only calling it instead, "hearing into speech," or "hearing into being." Finding "hearing into being" a much more felicitous description of what happens in this process, I immediately adopted that name for it.

The process itself is very simple—feminists will recognize it as having some of the best characteristics of consciousness raising (CR) as it was done early in the movement: no interruption or evaluation is allowed. With time and use I came to appreciate the very complex genius of this process. As a brainstorming measure, it has no peer, and it is the perfect mode for addressing questions such as those I posed to the women who were to meet in San Jose.

It works best in a group of three that has an hour and a half at its disposal. Everyone in the group has equal time to talk—in this case, a half hour each—uninterrupted and with out evaluation. This is a revolutionary experience for some women. Being seriously and completely listened to, being genuinely heard, hardly ever happens to women in ordinary everyday life. Many women cry the first time they try this process. Their being so avidly heard in the present causes them to realize how deeply they have been wounded by being ignored and disregarded, shut up, talked over, and found inconsequential or amusing during most of their past lives.

It is also often the first time women have ever listened to somebody else for a half hour or so without responding, without murmuring, "Oh yeah?," "I see," "Um hum," "I know how you feel," at appropriate intervals. Or laughing, or making sympathetic noises. It is often the first time they have ever listened to somebody else without allowing their facial expressions to communicate understanding, puzzlement, disagreement, or a host of other reactions. It is not easy for women to learn not to respond. We are thoroughly conditioned to respond. We always respond. That is one of our roles in patriarchy—to be the responders, the chorus. Men talk, and we nod and say breathlessly, "Then what happened?" or "Oh, yes, I'd love to hear about your childhood rock collection!" Our children have legitimate needs for our attention. They need to have us laugh when they're witty or cluck with dismay when they tell us their woes. Our faces are infinitely plastic: we are required to register admiration, servility, sympathy, concern, sorrow, and understanding all day long every day. We almost cannot not respond by this time in our lives. We almost cannot allow somebody to set forth upon this quest for their own ideas in our presence without our solicitous questions and reassurances, our reactions stamped clearly on our visages, our oohings and aahings—we are such active listeners. When we first try to listen passively to others, some of us feel like traitors; we feel as if we're doing something illegal, as if we might be arrested for it any moment.

-Sonia Johnson, Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation

[blackpilljesus]

I saw this from the female separatism subreddit & the responses are some of the biggest reasons for separatism et al (or extinction if I'm being candid here). Moids cant be reformed they are fully aware of the hell they force women to live in. MaIe achievement & happiness is rooted in female exploitation & life. Their glory days are based on our horrific days. No amount of love, kindness or facts will change maIes and we cannot happily or even neutrally coexist with them.

Main points across answers:

Many want to experiment but not permanently be women

They dont want to be in constant danger or lose their autonomy at the hands of maIes for merely existing

They dont want to deal with childbirth (& periods)

They dont want to have to share spaces with species much stronger than them with ulterior motives

It makes me go crazy seeing people give moids benefit of doubt for their evil like "maIes just dont understand", "we need to teach maIes", or claiming that maIe violence is a result of maIes struggling with (expressing) their feelings. I get that women love maIes and it can be hard to imagine that people can intentionally be so evil but it is what it is. MaIes have no problems expressing themselves, abusing women is what maIes choose to do because they enjoy & benefit from it - that is their expression.

MaIes see the same news of women being abused, raped, and killed like we do except rather than be disheartened or alarmed they're either apathetic or satisfied. It isn't aliens that's committing GBV it's maIes & maIes have no problem reminding women of this when women anger them (such as rape threats & threatening women they'll end up on the news/true crime). The victim blaming, denial, and derailment of misogyny is part of the game to keep the system alive, they know the events occured & are a systemic occurence they just dont care. Hell not only do they not care, they rejoice in it or get off on it.

MaIes set up environments that work in their favour which simultaneously ensures that women will lose. They know women are set up to live in damn near impossible conditions for us. It's normalised for women to defenselessly share personal & private spaces with beings much more stronger than them with ulterior motives for us, it's trap. It's interesting how these moids aren't saying that they'll just cover up and *poof* harrassment gone, or they'll just pick a nice guy & they'll be okay. MaIes know the net negative they are towards women.

MaIes know that childbirth is a painful process & what do they do? Demand it happens and make it even MORE painful for women. MaIes that impregnate women do not love or care for them. Pregnancy itself is dangerous & sometimes lethal, often comes with a range of health issues, to cause someone to be in that condition especially in a environment where abortions are illegal is reckless & unloving. Now imagine how sinister & full of hatred one has to be to impregnate someone and abuse them on top of that. Many women risk their health & lives to reproduce with a Y and they get abused by said Y instead of being taken care of. Deranged.

Realising that maIes are aware of the evil they inflict is one of the things that radicalised me. It isn't a miscommunication or ignorance issue, their violence is intended. They want control. The cruelty is the point. Instead of wasting time & energy trying to change maIes or hope that they "understand" one day, focus on yourself & other women (who prioritise women). Moids aren't oblivious to female pain they enjoy it. A lot of women treat maIe evil like it's a mistake on maIes part but it's calculated terrorism. I know that this will go over many womens heads as they refuse to hold strong negative sentiments about moids as a collective so if you're not a woman like that, take this post as a sanity check. You aren't crazy, it isn't all in your head.

[aunt-kats-chats]

The fact that people are claiming that they won’t trust the allegations against Neil Gaiman because the author of the article is “TeRfy” is bullshit. People cry out “support victims” unless the supposedly wrong kind of person calls attention to it. Like fuck man just the age range between Gaiman and his victims is more than enough evidence for me

[sunbeamedskies]

I love Taylor Swift, but you all have got to stop falling for the media pitting women against each other.

Billie was most likely not shading Taylor- she was talking about how she personally does not want to do a 3 hour show, and she believes her fans don’t want her to do one either. She also emphasized releasing multiple versions of physical albums that aren’t eco friendly is a systemic industry issue.

I’m a huge Taylor fan, but not every comment another artist makes is specifically about Taylor.

The amount of people here who see anything that could vaguely be criticism of Taylor as a personal attack is not healthy. If you are prone to jumping to conclusions, you need to take a step back from the internet and chill. The media LOVES framing quotes from someone like Billie as being 100% about someone like Taylor because it gets them clicks.

Taylor is also not flawless. She is one of MANY musicians who release multiple versions of albums as part of cash grabs. She doesn’t need to do it- she’s the hugest musician on Earth- but there’s such a pressure to do so that she does. There’s nothing wrong with wanting her and all the other musicians who do it to do better

[mikasasrippedtoenail]

Women's existence as a social class is a profound reality. The poorest man-bruised and battered by the capitalists- still has access to the labour of a woman-his wife. With what little strength he posseses, he exploits her cooking, her cleaning and ofcourse her sex. Misogyny is the oldest form of slavery. When it comes down to men and women, no barriers of race, caste, creed or class prevent men from abusing women. The belief that women of upper station live in ivory towers that shield them from sex based oppression needs to die. The hold of patriarchy upon them is albeit light; howerver, you cant dismiss that their performance of feminity is also a show for the poorest of men. The poor man is a sex buyer, a wife beater and a rapist. His poverty does not dissuade him from committing violence against women. Unlike women, it does not make him more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Removing class will not dismantle the patriarchy for men will hate and violate all women regardless, be they rich or poor.

[bellasophies]

Middle class liberal feminists make this argument all the time: “I am being sexualised anyway, so I may as well make money from it” this is a terrible argument, why are you not fighting sexualisation, harassment and rape? We all have to fight it. Do not give in to patriarchy. Do not be its tool!

[cendrillonmedousa]

When men claim to be leftist who voted rightwing due to feeling alienated, I am baffled. What baffles me is that their feelings of alienation would be fairly recently. With these men as chronically online as we can reasonably assume, the Internet did not start having a change in opinion regarding women and girls until around the late 2010s. Even then, it was met with backlash and watered down at every turn, and it is more of a large minority than a majority. Mainstream picking up on this trend has a rather obvious air of pandering and hoping to cover up their previous blatant treatment of women and girls.

I am also confused to the claim of no male role models, especially when it comes to America. If you open up a history textbook, there is an array of American men, from all walks of life, to choose from. If you open up a nightstand in an American hotel, you have a book about the central figure in most republicans' religion. In my opinion, it shows a type of inflexibility that most girls do not struggle with: being able to be inspired by someone who does not share your sex.

[theshiftingwitch]

I know this is mainly an LOA / shifting blog that I keep faceless and anonymous, but in real life I am a staunch feminist with so much burning rage in my veins. So think twice before coming into my inbox to shit on women because you think loa or shifting got a bad rep because of them! You think I'm going to sympathise with you while you throw around the word "female" like it's a curse and blame innocent creators for trying to have fun with their content, think again. I will burn you at the stake before I engage in your misogynistic bullshit. I get you're tired of misinformation but I will block you faster than you can blink for throwing that shit around.

Happy fucking shifting ❤️

[eclecticwordblender]

yes marriage is a way to subjugate women but i got to thinking today about how marriage is a testament of love is also an incredibly classist idea!? this is not to diminish the feminist analysis but to develop upon that.

marriage means not an exchange of rings but an exchange of labour. think about practices where upon the death of an older brother, his widow marries his younger brother.

even heterosexual sex being about love is a privileged class condition. heterosexual sex being about (male) pleasure is also a privileged class rhetoric. yes heterosexual sex is disproportionately for the pleasure of males but also it is a tool to actively oppress and confine your wife.

there is also a deliberate unthinking via which upperclass males who consider themselves free from misogyny approach a romantic and/or sexual interest. the woman he gets intimate with is not his to oppress via sex. she is his tool to assert his supremacy over other males. there is a certain desire in this kind of a male to please his woman partner, but it is not driven by the aim to please her but rather by the aim to be better than the other males she has been intimate with. the male who is not a part of this privileged upperclass uses sex as a weapon for he can only assert power over his wife.

often upperclass males who consider themselves free from misogyny and claim to altruistically love their partners stay in a marriage even when the wife goes through chronic illnesses. oh he loves her despite it all. but does he, really? or does it not matter because he can afford a caregiver, he does not have to be one. his wife is not his maid, his wife is his tool which asserts that he is a respectable good man. the male who comes from outside this circles knows his wife to be his labourer. the male from inside this circle thinks the same, but he can afford physical labour, what he needs from his wife is a labour of emotions, a labour of the mind.

upperclass males do believe women from their circles when they talk of atrocities committed by males outside of their circles. they stand with their women. this comes not out of love for their women but out of love for their class. this is rooted in upper class solidarity. their women are tools to show the rest of the world, outside their circles that they are better than everyone else, why the rest of the world is regressive. tools to justify the dominance of themselves and the males in their circles.

this is why i always say that as women OUR FOREMOST SOLIDARITY SHOULD BE FOR OUR SEX CLASS. i believe women when they say they are in fulfilling heterosexual relationships (even when i acknowledge that the relationship still disproportionately favours their partner). PATRIARCHY BENEFITS FROM THESE "FULFILLING RELATIONSHIPS" it is in the interest of patriarchy to keep some women happy, so it can continue to divide women.

but always remember, just because patriarchy chose to keep you happy today, does not mean it will let you be happy tomorrow. the minute a male from your upper class circle decides to turn his back on you, he throws you out of the circle of upper class solidarity. all the power you hold is contingent upon how you appease the males from your privileged circles. you have only been empowered AND NEVER EMANCIPATED.

SEX-CLASS CONCIOUSNESS ABOVE ALL. THIS AND ONLY THIS IS WHAT WILL SET US FREE.

[haggishlyhagging]

The first women are fleeing the massacre, and, shaking and tottering, are beginning to find each other. Their first move is a careful joint observation, to resensitize a fractured consciousness. This is painful: No matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper. It is everywhere. The division Yin and Yang pervades all culture, history, economics, nature itself; modern Western versions of sex discrimination are only the most recent layer. To so heighten one's sensitivity to sexism presents problems far worse than the black militant's new awareness of racism: Feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. Many women give up in despair: if that's how deep it goes they don't want to know. Others continue strengthening and enlarging the movement, their painful sensitivity to female oppression existing for a purpose: eventually to eliminate it.

-Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

[fabfem12]

Self-alienation and the female

The female body is used to relegate women to the sphere of being inferior. Men tell women that they are inferior because our bodies are weaker; for this reason, it is natural for men to dominate us. We are to nurture because our bodies can give birth, and we are to be excluded from the world and from intellectual pursuits because the female body and mind are meant for intuition, not for enquiring, not for investigating intricate concepts. The woman is meant for intuition because conscious reasoning is a male feat, and intuition does not get in the way of reproduction and objectification because the woman instinctively wants these things. The female body means that the very things that make a man human, literacy, intellect, and creative intelligence, are stripped away from the female person because of her body. She is to only exist for sex and sexuality.

This becomes the foundation for female self-alienation; the body becomes a foreign object to the girl or woman as it is the vessel of her oppression; it is the grounds on which she is denied her humanity. Her body betrays her from the time she is born and till the time she dies. It betrays her in birth when she is killed or maimed through FGM for being female; it betrays her as she lives when she is relegated to being an inferior being; it betrays her in old age when she is no longer able to serve people; through reproduction and providing care to other. The female body makes the women expendable, exploitable, a commodity and inferior. The woman's body betrays her from the moment she is born, and for this, the woman and girl never fully reconcile with herself. There is no forgiveness, only damnation.

[aunt-kats-chats]

Something I think about a lot is how women, myself included, have been afraid of being pregnant even when we haven't had any sexual contact with a man. To me that says something but I'm not entirely sure what

[carpathxanridge]

already seeing posts like “we’re never going to have a 4B movement in america, this interest in it isn’t going to last” like damn it’s only two days after election day. you don’t think that as radical feminists we can work to direct women’s anger and anxiety at a trump presidency into meaningful activism? you don’t think it’s worth even trying? y’all are right that if 4B just remains a trending buzz word that women will go back on it, and that it’s an uphill battle to start this kind of movement in america. but damn maybe instead of posting to radblr about how doomed we all are you can get out there and act to take advantage of the interest in 4B to kickstart the real feminist action/activism. start putting up stickers about 4B in your town or city. start consciousness raising IRL. make a post about 4B to your IRL socials instead of just into the radblr echochamber. i personally have decided this is the push i needed to finally start a feminist group on my campus, as we don’t currently have one at my school, for both consciousness raising as well as fundraising for abortion funds and hopefully partnering with the local women’s center. this is the moment to stop with the doomerism and turn all of your theory into praxis.

[queenvhagar]

The whole point of Fire and Blood is white supremacy. Viserys didn’t want Argon as king because his blood was not pure enough, he was of “Alicent blood”. So why, if they wanted a black and white moralistic show, they are on the side of white supremacy.

An important thing to recognize, that the writers and fans fail to see, is the fact that GRRM wrote the ASOIAF series as a subversion of common fantasy tropes. Good and just royals, chivalrous and honorable knights who protect the innocent, prophecies as a force for good, enlightened and benevolent magic race of beings, fairytale love stories and happily ever agrees, clear black and white stories of good vs evil... all of these things GRRM wrote to subvert in his books. Royals play their game of thrones and are concerned with their own power most of all, knights are not always good people or honorable and in fact are tools of an oppressive system, no race is inherently superior and believing this drives violence and destruction of those very people, people marry for duty and duty is the death of love, and there are no clear cut black and white conflicts in the real world, just complex and nuanced situations where both sides think they're right and do what it takes to reach their goals for their own reasons. This subversion of fantasy tropes and elements in favor of a realistic exploration of what the sociopolitics of those worlds would be is something that defines the ASOIAF series and sets it apart from the rest. The faithful adaptation of these books and maintenance of those subversions and the integrity of the underlying themes of the works is what made the early seasons of Game of Thrones such outstanding and praiseworthy television.

The writers of House of the Dragon do not see the truth of this. Instead, they have co-opted symbols of fantasy and other surface level elements present in the ASOIAF series and used them to construct a story more in-line with traditional fantasy stories. In their hands, the conflict is a black and white morality tale of good vs evil that presents a magical race of people as superior to others and presents prophecy as an uncritical force for good and justification for a devastating war. Sprinkled in are characteristic yet surface level shock value factors - like incest and extreme violence - that were present in Game of Thrones. Ironically, their writing is antithetical to the ASOIAF series and what GRRM set out to write with his stories. This is the fundamental issue with House of the Dragon and the ultimate failure of its adaptation.

Because the writers and fans have bought into an unsubverted fantasy story, they choose to support a race of people who believe themselves superior to all others and the violence they use to keep control of their subjects. The critical view of fantasy as a genre and stories set in medieval feudalism are entirely lost on them, beyond a surface level, modern viewpoint focusing on one isolated element of oppression that existed in those times. Because the story only focuses solely on the dimension of misogyny as a system of oppression and fails to acknowledge its intersection with other systems of oppression present - racism, classism, and ableism, namely, among others - it fails to fully explore the dimensions of power present in this society and therefore its politics feel limited and messages feel shallow. It's the focus on misogyny and setting aside of all other dimensions of oppression that firmly centers this show on a white feminist perspective, to its detriment.

All of this said, to the first part of your ask: I don't think that was really a reason for Viserys' decision to not make Aegon is heir. Even though it certainly is an instance of him othering his children by Alicent and viewing them as separate from Rhaenyra, he supports Rhaenyra as heir because she is his favorite child and the child of his first wife. The context of the line concerns when Alicent proposes a union between Aegon and Rhaenyra and Viserys dismisses the idea because he thinks her sole motivation is that she wants her own bloodline on the throne, which to be fair to Alicent is what anyone would want in her situation. It's not necessarily of him not having "pure" blood per se. If something like that was really an issue to him, he would have wed a Valyrian, and he did have the option to do just that; instead he married Alicent and has multiple children with her.

Aside from Viserys' wishes, Targaryen supremacy is absolutely linked to white supremacy. And so many choose not to see it in lieu of uncritically seeing Targaryens as actually belonging to a magical, exceptional, and superior race of humans. Their buy-in to this fantasy trope is in opposite to the actual intentions and goals of the original author.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Ship And Let Ship, etc. but primary Thomas/Alan shippers in the CPeak fandom irritate me

you're so desperate to make this very woman-centric movie all about men that you latched onto the only two young guys who share the screen for even an instant?

they exchange a total of five lines. I counted. and no signs of even really liking each other beyond "I don't want to kill you"

(arguably "because this woman I love wants you alive and for little other reason" and definitely "but not badly enough to just refuse to stab you, even when I'm the only armed person in the room as well as the tallest and possibly the strongest")

I know ships have been built on less, and this is EXTREMELY subjective, but within that extremely subjective space...I ScreamTM