#it's enough to radicalize you

[doberbutts]

If you want to know some knowledge that will piss you off:

In various higher paying jobs, especially anything related to STEM (you know that thing that everyone apparently is supposed to have a goal towards if not business), your employer DOES provide your clothes for you.

I've worked in my clinic for just over a year and my employer has provided roughly 700 dollars worth of uniform. I know this because I receive a voucher to spend as cash to purchase my work clothes, so I have the actual dollar amount. This is partially because even a cheap shirt and pants combo is about 40-50 bucks minimum but still, that's 700 dollars of uniform I do not have to buy.

When I worked my first minimum wage job I had to find and purchase my work clothes myself. When I worked for a company that "provided" work clothes, they mean they provided two work shirts and the rest I had to either buy from the company uniform website myself or I had to use my own clothes and wallet and shopping time. Working at my current job, the only thing I have to buy with my own money is socks and shoes.

I don't think employers should be legally allowed to ask anyone to dress up for interviews. I should be able to walk in off the street in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt and interview for jobs because employers are supposed to be interviewing me and my skills, training, education, and experience, not the nicest clothes in my closet.

It's discriminatory towards poor people to ask otherwise.

It's also just fucking audacious to demand that the people you need to provide the labor to keep your workplace going put on a suit and dance around like a trained monkey before you've even hired them.

[avicecaro]

“The abusive man learns early in life, from his surrounding society and beyond, that when he becomes an adult he has the right to swallow a female whole, and that in this way he will fill the vast emptiness inside of him and feel empty no more. He learns that the female of his choosing owes him her life entire in this fashion, that it would be wrong of her to fail to sacrifice her life and herself in this way. Not only that, but he learns that this self-erasure will be her greatest joy.

He gets these messages all over the place, from his own unhealthy relatives all the way up to police responses, courts, and Disney movies.

All of what he learns is a lie. It is a moral lie, meaning it’s a lie about what’s right and what’s wrong; no woman’s life should ever by martyred to fill a man’s (or anyone’s) emptiness. But not only should this not be done, it also cannot be done. Thus it is not only a moral lie but also a lie about the nature of reality. A human being cannot be vacuumed into the inside of another person and become part of that person, in some kind of twisted reversal of the birth process. It’s absurd that it’s even necessary for me to state this.

The abusive man hates the woman for continuing to exist outside of him. No matter how hard she may try, in her terror and in her trauma, to disappear inside of him, she simply cannot do it. (And if she gets some support in her life, she may even attempt to refuse to continue trying.) He hates her for this, for still being there, because he was taught that to disappear inside of him is her unlimited obligation and will make him whole.

When you find yourself wondering why the abuser hates you – as most abused women do at one point or another – this is why: because you continue to breathe, because you have skin, because you eat food and then move with the energy of that food, because by getting out of bed and standing up in the morning you have once again demonstrated your failure to become him.”

Ever Wonder Why Your Abusive Partner Hates You? blog post from Lundy Bancroft, on his website lundybancroft.com

[thepeacefulgarden]

[leonardcohenofficial]

like i do not think we have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to interesting and meaningful theatrical storytelling / i am someone who is wholeheartedly and directly invested in the development and production of new theatre (as this is quite literally part of what i do for a living) and yet i can count on both hands the number of new plays i've read and/or seen this year that i would consider groundbreaking in terms of content form aesthetics politics etc. and the plays and playwrights that purport their work to be oh-so-radical and "out there" and avante-garde rarely are doing anything i find remotely novel + the plays and playwrights that have stuck with me most this years are ones created by artists who i think are invested in (not to sound hokey but) what the art itself is doing and what reactions are drawn upon viewing it and what bigger conversations can occur when we engage with this particular piece of storytelling in this moment

[idkwhatimdoingbutslay]

Caitlyn literally went to war for the cooch. Caitlyn LOST AN EYE FOR THE COOCH. She set the bar imo.

[madamtrashbat]

If I see one more thing that says "hey please don't vote for Trump it would be really bad" and the response on it is "oh so you support genocide? You expect me to vote for an old warmongering fascist? Joe Biden is a fucking murderer and you hate Palestinians how does the boot taste Zionist must be nice to only care about poor widdle white Americans asshole" I'm gonna start throwing ninja stars.

[weepylucifer]

it's beautiful to picture the anodic dance club as like, the new hot spot for the young people of martinaise to hang out and all bond with each other and have all their different worldviews mingle and create new things... but lbr chances are half of those people are going to end up just not really liking anodic music. like, thanks for keeping the pale hole contained or whatever but this music blows

[tiredtriedfailures]

no words to describe the way i love ekko (ive written paragraphs on oaragraphs) all ill say is isnt it crazy how after aang ive collected only 2 characters who are as perfect and theyre Miles and Ekko

[kings-highway]

i think part of the reason Iwaoi has the ability to make me so feral has almost nothing to do with any romantic relationship but rather the fact that they are equals in almost every way and yet Iwaizumi must still feel like he is powerless. Like we know Iwa is good at volleyball he's the ace and goes on to be the trainer for the japanese national team. And we know explicitly that Oikawa is not a prodigy, his technical skill has never been what makes him a good player, he is not someone Iwa wouldn't be able to keep up with. So Iwaizumi probably knows Oikawa's limits because he knows his own. And even though the infamous knee injury is technically not canon we know he does sustain an injury, we know he stays up all night preping for games, we know he stays in the gym long after practice is over until Iwa drags him out. Iwa and Oikawa may be equals, but Oikawa is an Icarus. They both have wax wings but only one of them is going to fly too high and come crashing down again. And Iwa knows this. He knows every game, every push forward, every move Oikawa makes is almost inherently destined to end in a firey blaze not because Oikawa isn't good enough but because he's not programmed to feel satisfied. Iwa has to send him off to Argentina. He has to see him at the Olympics, he has to watch him push himself higher and higher and higher and he must just be screaming inside 'can't you see we're wax wings? we're not eagles or crows, we can't go up that high' and yet there's nothing he can do because Icarus doesn't listen. Not in Crete and not in Japan and not in Argentina. All he can really do is learn how to manage sports injuries, learn how to stretch torn muscles, how to recover broken bones and sooth aggravated egos and be ready on the sidelines with burn salve and love. Whether or not you like to consider the relationship as romantic is up to you but I for one cannot fathom a more heartwrenching story than that. Do you think Iwa ever wondered if he were capable of loving his best friend enough to change his nature? Do you think his efforts to do so would be unfair to Daedalus, as if Iwa would be able to love someone more than a father loves his son? Would he try anyway? Do you think Oikawa knows any of this? Or does he just think Iwa's concern comes from thinking Oikawa isn't good enough to compete with the birds? When Oikawa hits the ocean, do you think he'll realize it's not his fault that wax melts in the sun?

[trans-axolotl]

so im going into therapy (or social work, more broadly) as a profession (in school rn). i know that not everyone in anti psych would support that, understandably, and im not under an illusion that therapy isnt tied to the whole system and process. but i want to bring a liberationist, anti-racist, pro-mad, and abolitionist ideology to help who i can

do you have any suggested resources or reading recommendations or idk any insight on how to inform the way i go about juggling anti psychiatry in a profession that is considered going hand in hand with it?

Hi anon.

I think there can be ways that people working in the psych system can leverage power and resources in a way where they're acting in solidarity with psych survivors and mad people, but in reality, this very rarely happens, even among professionals who identify as radical or as having lived experience.

Fundamentally, the psychiatric system is one that perpetuates structural violence, and in smaller and larger ways, anyone who works within the system to legitimize it contributes to and is complicit in that violence. So I think that for anyone who is planning to work within the system, you need to be upfront with yourself that there is harm occurring and that isn't something you can just ignore or act like that's something you're separate from. Even if you're not working inpatient or facilitating forced drugging of someone, there's still a lot of ways that therapists can be complicit in psychiatric violence.

One of the most obvious ways is through mandatory reporting. I believe that in order to be an ethical therapist you must break the law--mandatory reporting is a dangerous way that mad people are surveilled by the state, and therapists must work to interrupt that and prevent it. There are a lot of therapists out there already talking about practical ways to avoid mandatory reporting and how to be upfront with clients about it, and I can link some of that at the end of this post. I won't say it's always easy, but we have an obligation to each other to do everything we can to stop psych incarceration from happening.

I think there's a lot of ways that even outpatient, therapists are asked to enable other forms of psychiatric violence. Even if in your practice, you're really focusing on liberation, respecting autonomy, etc, there are ways that other psych professionals might try to get you to help them perpetuate different forms of harm. And because of your degree and licensure, there's this power imbalance between you and your client that means you do have the power to enable these kinds of harms. The degree next to your name means that you will always be believed over your client and that is a lot of power to hold. If you're working with a client with an eating disorder and their dietitian gives an ultimatum that they have to be hospitalized or they're refusing to provide care, what do you do? If your client's psychiatrist is refusing to answer questions or let them switch to other types of medications, what do you do? If your client is involved in a court case and you're getting subpoenaed for their medical records, what do you do? If your MSW program requires you to do one of your internships in an inpatient program, how do you prevent that from happening? There are a lot more examples I can think of, but these are just a few things I wanted to highlight for ways that therapy is still entangled in the larger system.

Another thing that feels important to me is to make the distinction between being a "good therapist" and helping people, because I don't think those things are the same. I see a lot of "radical" therapists get fixated on this idea that they need figure out ways to make the psych system run smoother, to improve access, to overall make the psych system better, and that this is the only way to help people. It's really important to be able to separate those ideas. For me, psych abolition is a project of building up our capacity to care for each other while destroying the systems that currently enact violence on us, and reformist ideas about expanding psychiatric systems, increasing funding, and legitimize psychiatric authority gets in the way of actually transforming care. I think in order to help people, you need to commit to being a "bad therapist" in the eyes of a capitalist healthcare system.

One recommendation I have is to read Franco Basaglia's writing and learn about his approach of the democratic psychiatry movement. As a psychiatrist, he saw his role as a way to disrupt the system and deinstitutionalize. He has this quote where he talks about how they weren't focused on eliminating problems, but rather on how deinstitutionalization would create more chaos and new problems--and how that created so much possibility for transformation. I think he's proof that there are certainly ways that psych professionals can act as accomplices who actually are in solidarity with psych survivors, but it's rare.

Last point I have is that although you gain something from professional training and licensure, there's also a lot you lose. MSW programs often don't actually teach you the skills you want to learn about how to actually support people--there's a lot you're going to have to learn from continuing education credits. From my friends who have gotten their MSW, I've heard a lot of complaints about how surface level a lot of information is, and also about how a lot of the way that information is taught reinforces hierarchal ideas and doesn't respect patient autonomy. I'll also say that gaining licensure oftentimes creates barriers for radical action--I've seen so many therapists who then become so attached to holding onto and not losing that licensure that they weigh it above mad people's lives. I've heard so many therapists say "Oh I can't speak up against restraint because I'll lose my job/I can't ignore mandatory reporting because I'll lose my license/etc etc etc." And I think that can be a really damaging mindset that harms your potential to actually help people. There are several therapists I know who are in the process of intentional de-licensure because of this, but regardless if you pursue that path or not, this is a mindset you need to be on guard against.

All that being said, I think there is a need for more abolitionist therapists who are able to help support our communities, both in terms of creating that space for individual support and on a collective level. There are ways that you can leverage your access to resources and the way you're seen as legitimate in the system to help advocate for people, get them support, and interfere with psych violence. I have a therapist comrade who keeps working in inpatient psychiatry specifically so that they can continue to sneak in banned materials to the ward, prevent illegal restraints, be involved in court proceedings as an advocate, connect people to mad liberation resources, let psych patients use their phone, document psychiatric abuse with the plan to fairly soon release that information as a whistleblower, and more that I'm not going to talk about publicly. They still grapple with the fact that they are currently perpetuating harm at the same time, but to them, it's worth it to be able to sabotage things in that way. And I think that there are ways that you can take the information you learn in your program that is actually useful and find ways to bring that directly to your communities, and that there is good you can. I just think you have to be very intentional and aware of what it takes to actually do that, rather than just staying complacent with the label of being a "radical therapist" without doing anything to make that true.

For resources--here's my psych abolition drive with a lot of different zines, books, workbooks on different psych abolition topics. I really would recommend reading Psychiatry Inside Out by Franco Basaglia as an example of successful psychiatric resistance.

I would also suggest checking out Mutual Aid/Self Social therapy--the people who created this project are trusted comrades of mine, have both gotten their MSW or LMFT, and they have a lot of helpful insight into how to navigate things like avoiding mandatory reporting, de-licensure, etc. They have a discord server and also have regular online MAST meetings to train people on what MAST is and how to set up a MAST collective.

Genuinely wishing you the best of luck through school and appreciate that you're actively thinking about these things.

[mochayoubi]

i was very surprised at how difficult it was to find (good) resources for learners that accurately describe how 部首 (in English we translate this to be the "radical") work in 漢字 (kanji). i pulled these from a very comprehensive guide of kanji from おじゃちゃん, a native speaker who is also a language teacher and if youre interested in learning more, you should check out her full overview here.

to a beginner this might not be as useful - but when you get deep enough into japanese i think it's worth it to understand how kanji is actually used by native speakers. understanding how the radical works can also help you guess at meanings and recognize common patterns that may make memorizing kanji easier

[mithliya]

i feel like some of you do genuinely need to go offline tho bc of all things to have a victim-complex about, being simply told not to date men should not be one of them. that is quite literally what every woman has been raised to believe her purpose is. women are literally treated as inferior failures with no value if we, for whatever reason (including innate sexuality), do not want to be with men. you will live through your boyfriend being called jakey, and you will also live through being told you're not a radfem because you have a boyfriend. it will not kill you, i promise. you will be ok. go offline, kiss your precious boyfriend, and maybe go on a nice picnic date together so you can remember just how normal and accepted, even encouraged, heterosexual relationships are.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[nanasketchdump]

Awake at 3am cooked off new ADHD meds, rotating angrily in bed pure fuming over Eurocentrism

[menlove]

as a card carrying terf I don’t think trans ppl are disgusting and neither does any radfem i’ve ever met, vast majority of us dgaf about trans people specifically; we want single-sex spaces to exist and btw trans people need those single-sex spaces too. trans women deserve to have spaces for Just trans women and cis women deserve spaces with Just cis women etc etc. i highly recommend doing some actual research into radical feminism instead of repeating the "theyre all conservatives who hate gnc people and find trans people disgustinf and want to kill them" that is simply not true lmao. you may be surprised a what you learn! sincerely a gnc lesbian and proud radfem

I have in fact done much research into radical feminism babe! trust me I have spent hours in yalls spaces! and you simply cannot speak for every single terf just as I can't speak for every trans person. you can't say "come on NO ONE IS SAYING-" just like I can't say that either. do you know every terf? have you seen every blog? have you been a trans person (particularly a trans woman) on the internet trying to just exist in peace? no? then you don't get to say "no terf is SAYING-" because yes, a lot of you are!

"no terf thinks trans people are disgusting" cool so when I was 19 and hadn't touched testosterone a day in my life and had she/they in my bio one of you coming into my ask going "I can tell by looking at you that you'll never be a woman lmfao" bc I'm latine w a shitton of body hair and non-eurocentric features, THAT was out of love for ✨women✨.

when yall (not you specifically but your group you associate with) get on twitter and pick apart the selfies women post telling them they're ugly and following it up by saying you KNOW they're "men" and it turns out 9/10 you've just harassed a cis woman who just doesn't meet eurocentric beauty standards, that's so totally cool and awesome and out of love for cis women and a want for separate spaces right?

when yall go into trans people's asks and tell us to kill ourselves, call us pedophiles, call us rapists, call us ugly... that shit just doesn't happen, right? and yes I'm Aware yall get death and rape threats too. you shouldn't, it's gross on both sides, but really it's not proving your point here.

it's fucking infuriating. you're infuriating. because radical feminism could be something worthwhile (and funnily enough I've met a lot of older ex radfem lesbians who have veered away from it bc of how fucking vitrolic yall are towards trans people). but instead, it is steeped and inseparable from the mire of hatred and disgust that you parrot. you don't give a single shit about women, whatever sex.

I'm an assigned female at birth lesbian who has only ever slept with other people with vaginas (consensually anyway). I can't tell you the amount of hate I've gotten from yall. just for being trans. even though I meet your definition of being a woman and being a lesbian. it doesn't matter because your hatred for people you deem as degenerate outweighs actually fucking advocating for feminism.

I'm not even going to argue with you on how useless single sex spaces actually are bc despite their best attempts there's always going to be problems (namely: fun fact cis women can be awful too AND how the fuck are you going to check and enforce this rule? what is your end goal?).

but what I AM going to say is no, sorry, that's NOT what a lot of you think. that's what YOU think. that's why YOU'RE a terf. but actually fucking look at the people around you. go on a trans person's blog or twitter who's receiving harassment and fucking try and tell me it's to promote "uwu safe spaces" like.... be fucking serious with me right now lmfao

you're not conservatives! but you are a bunch of fucking assholes who care more about harassing trans people than building a feminism that might actually have teeth. if you're using those teeth to attack a group more vulnerable than you, you're just an aggressor.

tldr you don't speak for all of them, go fuck yourself, etc

[lorynna]

Saw this video on Tiktok today and yes, I'm aware it's just supposed to be a silly joke but I couldn't help but think about the underlying message that perfectly translates into gender ideology.

First 3 slides are the original, last 3 slides are my version