#it sucks to have to come to terms with the fact

[boomstab-papa]

Oh absolutely, giving misogynists captive girlfriends/wives isn't going to fix anything. Being a little more misogynist to try to appease misogynists won't work.

But "giving any credence" is such an interesting phrase to use here, because it's so ambiguous and also accusatory. What does "giving credence" mean? Who has been doing it? What have they been advocating for? Who, for example, has been saying leftists should be more misogynist, and how?

I'm not alone in this confusion, either, there are several comments on the tweet who are equally perplexed.

The fact is that the left DOES NEED a better approach to people who are feeling lost, angry, and scared.

Alt-right "self-help" authors and programs are hugely popular. These predators target lost, scared, and angry people. They're cults, really. And no matter how much the left discusses things like "can we stop parroting bioessentialist bullshit because hey, men aren't destined to be misogynistic assholes"... these alt-right cultists don't ever even have to TALK TO a leftist to repeatedly hear "leftists hate you for being born white/male/rich/etc". I really can't get over how Rush Limbaugh popularized the term "feminiazi" and told an entire generation that feminists were angry man-haters when they literally are not. But that's exactly how the grift works!! I should know, I grew up in exactly this Rush Limbaugh kind of house!!

"Don't blame the hyper-wealthy for ruining the economy, blame women and foreigners for taking all the jobs! Don't blame the ruined economy when nobody wants to have kids anymore, blame the women! Don't blame patriarchy and all the misogyny it taught you when women avoid your misogynist ass, blame the women! Remember, the feminazis hate you!!"

So what to do?

On an interpersonal level, sometimes it can be really easy. This is a comment made to Innuendo Studios's video "How to Radicalize A Normie" on this exact topic (which I highly recommend watching).

"Hey, ex-alt-right member here. First, really like this series. I feel like you’re validating the radicalization that me and my male friends experienced. Putting it into words and showing us how we got tricked, exposing the magician and their tricks. Second, I vot out not through argument and discussion but actually through feelings. I was very edgy and would use the n-word in jokes all the time. My male friends would not call me out on it. But a female friend of mine said it made her uncomfortable and that she didn’t appreciate these jokes when we played fortnite together. That shook me to my core as I cared for my friend and that’s how my deradicaliztion started. Just wanted to add in this personal story, keep up the great work :)"

If this is someone you know, tell them their behavior is not cool.

THIS GOES DOUBLE FOR THE MEN READING THIS. Misogynists are more likely to listen to you than they are to listen to women!! If someone is being a shithead in your vicinity, consider: are you gonna let it slide? Or are you maybe, possibly, going to be the one thing that yanks them out of a hatespiral and prompts them to re-examine their hateful worldview? Tell them "hey not cool".

This might not work the first time. This might not work at all for some people. But if the situation is relatively safe, then it's worth trying.

And this does not mean that you personally are responsible for "centering men in your conversations" or "marginalized people putting in even more emotional labor" or "if a man is misogynist it's because you failed him" what the fuck ever like I've seen in this discourse. Come the fuck on.

It means you can probably try saying something to somebody you know. And if it doesn't work? You can say you tried.

On a policy level, we have more work to do. It shouldn't come as a surprise to any leftist that the current economic and political system in the USA exists to separate and exploit people. I think we all agree it really sucks to live in a system like this. Your average reactionary misogynist also thinks the system sucks, but as explained above, they've been trained to place the blame on some convenient scapegoats instead. Immigrants. Women. Queer people. Muslims. Anybody who's not white. Et cetera. "Government needs to get out of the way of smart people and then Elon Musk will build a utopia for The Faithful (which includes me) on Mars" or some shit.

These people need to hear that their anger is justified, but that their blame is misplaced. They need policies that will hold the responsible parties accountable. They need policies that won't leave them impoverished and isolated and exhausted after working a 40+ hour work week. They need to realize the system isn't sorting people into "the worthy rich" and "the unworthy poor", rather, that it's exploiting everyone except the wealth-owning class. They need to realize it's their politicians' biggest campaign donors that are doing this to them.

The Democratic Party needs to actually talk about this. I'll be dangerously pithy here: the Democratic Party needs to sound more like Bernie Fucking Sanders. Politicians need to oppose health insurance companies and get Medicare For All going. Politicians need to stop voting to give the military two fucking billion dollars every single day and fund free college and trade schools. Politicians need to tell business interests to fuck off and get a livable minimum wage AND a universal basic income passed, which will severely undercut employers' ability to exploit and isolate us.

And we need Citizens United repealed. Badly. I'm not trying to imply the problem is only with Republicans' campaign donors, because Democrats' biggest campaign donors are also often the same people exploiting us. But look at how Democrats did a tiny little bit of pro-union and anti-trust work these past 4 years and they screamed bloody fucking murder. If Democrats are relying on these people's money to get them elected, I think it's going to be really hard to get policies passed that will actually make USAmericans safer and happier (ie. address Republicans' economic fears that they keep blaming on various scapegoats).

Although with Republicans controlling the entire Federal government for the next two years minimum, this feels more distant than ever.

That's what we need to be taking seriously. If you don't give any credence to the fears and insecurities underlying the horrifying reactionary politics, you're not actually addressing anything. If you can't admit that capitalism fucks all of us over and makes all of us miserable and looking for a remedy, are you even a leftist?

[blueskittlesart]

I’m so sorry how much bullshit HP fans are continuing to putting trans people through, Im so fucking sick of it. I mean its international news that jkr is almost single handedly bankrolling the transphobic movement in Scotland and for the second year in a row Ive had to explain to a ‘well meaning’ friend of mine that her harry potter halloween party isn’t just poor taste and I don’t care if she has trans friends who are cool with it I’m not fucking going and its fucking embarrassing. I just wanna shake people. Fucking stand up for something. Consume other media. Sorry not sorry your comfort characters are trash and so are you until you grow the fuck up

what really gets me is that i WAS a huge harry potter fan back in the day. my best friend mailed me a hogwarts letter on my 11th birthday. I got picked to do the wand-choosing thing at universal, and of course i made my parents buy me that fucking $40 wand afterwards. I dressed up as hermione for halloween like 3 years in a row. I've read every single book. I've watched all the movies. I bought the fucking lego sets. but you know what i did when she lost her shit on twitter? i STOPPED FUCKING BUYING HER SHIT. what is so hard about that. genuinely. idc if you used to love the characters. i did too. they don't stand for what we thought they stood for and that sucks but you are an adult and you have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes things aren't what they say they are. find something else to love. or at the very least SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.

[the-jesus-pill]

You’ve got to forgive yourself for being traumatized and needing to learn how to function again. 

Recovery isn’t always nightmares and depression, it’s forgetting to eat, being scared of what others might see as completely normal things, it’s getting random panic attacks, not knowing how to take care of yourself, not knowing how to live like an adult, even if you’re twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, of feeling like you’re failing to function in a world where everyone seems to have their shit together. 

If you need help, ask for it. Go to forums and ask for advice. Take advantage of community resources. Buy pre-sliced veggies and fruits, eat instant meals if you can’t cook for yourself today. Hire someone. Ask a neighbor for a favor. Buy any item you think might make life easier, even if you feel like you aren’t ‘disabled’ enough to have it. 

Some of the depression posts (ie open your windows, take a shower, go outside, call a friend) are really helpful but they’re not always enough. I’ve found advice for spoonies, people with chronic pain or other disabilities have the best tips because they know what it’s like to be bedridden, out of energy, stuck in a brain fog. 

You may never return back to the energy you had when you were younger and you might always need to use crutches to help you through life. It’s the same with medication. 

Trauma is a real thing that happens to you, it physically alters your brain and it’s alright to have lasting scars. 

You’re not broken, your life is not over and you can still be happy. 

It’s not your fault.

[rox-of-iu]

no thought only MQF in brain* (*even more than usual yeah.....)

ok lads listen up. i love allllll Mu Qingfang designs ok? all the interpretations are cool and valid and dear ok BUT. whenever I personally try to draw MQF without a 'stache he just looks to me like a first-year med student ok hjdfhkfd

but anyway. when i was scrolling around and being completely normal about MQF i saw a lot of ppl say stuff like 'this is my 'mqf is actually pretty' agenda' and its alwaysss about peeled mqf SO I HAVE A POINT TO PROVE OK. mqf with a moustache can be also a prettyboy ok?? i can prove it 😭😭

so here are my qingfangs where i turned up the babygirl vibes to absolute max as i could hsdfjkhdskfh 💜

[ermuellert]

hard to come up with funny lil coping posts when all i can think about is how bayern has had so many seasons to prep for the impending transitional period where we have to reconstruct following the departures of a lot of our key core players and here we are at the end of thomas's second to last season and we are probably in the worst position we could be in ! great.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[bunnyboy-juice]

blah blah blah blah blah

[naes-dairy]

I guess the root of my problem is that I feel really out of place everywhere.

[parelmoer]

.

[toxicshipsincorporated]

I feel like people are equating neonazis trying to co-opt a movement that was started by a group of people who have been driven from their homeland by the acts of a violent colonial state as a way to 1) delegitamize the movement because it benefits and validates white supremacy and white supremacist ideology that says all non-whites are at their core evil violent animals but also 2) appeal to the anti-semetism that is baked into a lot of Western peoples' core beliefs and reality is the same as white supermacist groups endorsing someone like Donald Trump.

You might say, oh well that is the same! And I would say, you have no spine and have zero desire to actually fight for a better future and are instead interested only in crown yourself and your own group as the most moral and best team on the playing field.

We should 100% take steps to protect young folks (and frankly old folks) entering into the activist scene from falling into white supremacy and anti-semetism. A lot of people (in particular Western and white ppl) need to be vigilant as they join the cause for Palestinian liberation and freedom to keep in check the anti-semetism AND islamophobia that has been taught to them practically since birth.

But for me, to say that neonazis and white supremacists would seek to scout in pro-palestinian movements BECAUSE being pro-palestinian makes you anti-semetic is islamophobic and I'll even go so far as to say anti-black because of the strong connection that Black American civil rights activists have to Islam and to Palestine.

[verytendou]

Looks up wikihow for what to do when you realize your office has 5x the amount of budget of every other executive office combined

[chadsuke]

Books Read in 2023:

Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have by Tatiana Schlossberg (2019)

Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto by Aaron Bastani (2018)

You Suck, Sir by Paul Bae (2014)

Utopia For Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman (2014)

Revolutionary Petunias by Alice Walker (1973)

Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (1999)

Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream by William Powers (2010)

Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Farming by McKenzie Funk (2014)

The Environmentalist's Dilemma: Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis by Arno Kopecky (2021)

[ID: Covers of aforementioned books. End ID.]

[amphibifish]

christine cqnigula is so mecore

[harlequinchaos]

.

[s0fars0perfect]

just had a conversation with my sister about her high school class reunion, which turned into a conversation about my high school class reunion (it's this year) and it's weird. it's so fucking weird to think about.

[savcir-faire]

missing rolling over after a bad one and nuzzling into someone else’s warm skin. missing talking animatedly about dying in the dream and oh there was this segment where we were flying kites and then i WAS the kite and i did this swoop dip barrel roll that i could feel in my gut and throat and then watching him sagely nod and tell me in increasingly funny melodrama what my dream “means” until my heart is racing from love rather than fear as we chuckle under the same blanket. missing the feeling of being raw and known and chosen over and over and over and over and idk. i think mayb that was my one. everyone should get One.