#not everyone knows what feminism actually is

[lizardlicks]

i can not "this tbh" hard enough. Remember when Emma Watson gave a speech about bringing men into feminism because dismantling the patriarchy benefits everyone?? Remember that was in 2014??? Remember that it was actually working and actively recruiting men away from the manosphere, chan boards and subreddits with the promise that if they hated the game and it made them miserable, men didn't have to play it either?

You can thank a rad fem for the full 180 on that. And no, I'm not exaggerating, most of the movement leaders have gone on record saying that they actively worked to reframe their gender divisive ideology to make it more hip and cool sounding, then methodically went after the younger generation of queers who hadn't yet establised ties or absorbed any of the history-- specifically young wlw-- in the new and fast growing online communities on Twitter and Tumblr.

Radical Feminism is a hold over from the feminism of the 60's through the 80's. While the feminists of that day made massive strides for equality in the work place, it left behind vulnerable populations and didn't make very strong in-roads to cross collaboration, inclusivity, and diversity. It was already considered too ridgid and out of date by the 90's third wave feminist movement, and by the 2010's with the expansion of queer rights and queer visibility in online spaces, while still being at least mostly protected by anonymity, we were making huge in roads towards the idea that feminism was for everyone, and the ultimate antidote to patriarchal power structures. Conversation focused mostly on addressing those structures, how to undermine and dismantle them, how to empower the men in our lives to do that, and to support them in breaking away from it. It's where the idea of toxic masculinity came from: not that being male is toxic, but that there are ways of performing masculinity that are toxic, ways that are healthy and foster community and growth in their lives, and that men could still be manly men without the extra baggage attached. That our spouses, brothers and cousins could do it better than their father's did. That they could get therapy, have have help, and pass something better onto their sons.

I have a lot of cis male friends who I would have described as chest thumping manly men types back in the day, who sat down and had thoughtful conversations, who came out the other side staunchly feminist, far more aware and intentional, and brought that into their friend groups and work places.

If you want to know what happened? We stopped having that conversation. The rad fems were successful, they got into the heads of young fem queers and convinced them to put a wedge into their lives with men.

They even got into the heads of the transfems they hate! Do you know how many fresh hatched eggs I see to this day spouting anti-male propaganda that was originally handed down from TERFs? (Ladies, they're not going to welcome you into the non-existed Secret Inner Magical Sanctum of Womanhood no matter how loudly you scream about men sucking. They don't even do it for most cis women.)

And meanwhile the pewdiepies and Andrew Tates of the world never stopped talking to the men. Who did you think they were going to listen to after getting shut out and shut down?

And if you don't believe me, this blog has existed for over a decade. You can go back into the archive and view posts from 2012. Reblogged a LOT of feminist posts back then because there WERE a lot! Whole reams of queer and feminist theory were being drafted in real time between the people it affected most. You can see the shift especially in 2016 onwards in less and less as we quit being able to have those conversations without a rad fem jumping in and either shifting the narrative or distracting everyone with nonsense and sometimes vile accusations to shut it down completely.

This was calculated and intentional because a handful of people where very pissy that they weren't leading the direction of the conversation in the new online era anymore.

Genuinely, what happened to “feminism is for everyone”?

That’s the feminism I grew up with: encouraging people to recognize that fighting sexism and restrictive gender roles helps folks of every gender. We’d push back on the idea that feminists hate men, pointing to inclusive feminist literature and how many men are feminists.

Now, there are so many people insisting that the solution to patriarchy is to openly hate and ostracize men no matter what. Why? What is the benefit? It’s certainly not effective in fighting oppressive structures to exclude half the population from your cause on the basis of immutable traits. It may feel cathartic to say horrible things about men and try to punish them for your frustrations with patriarchy. But the only actual effect I see is the increasing right-wing radicalization of young men, who are being told that the left hates them for the way they were born and presented with an abundance of proof that it’s true.

Why are we going back to treating men and women as different species? It doesn’t fix things to say “well women are the good gender and men are the bad one” this time. If you sincerely want to dismantle sexism, you’re going to have to unpack and let go of all sex and gender essentialism—even that which considers women inherently pure and men inherently immoral.

[butch-reidentified]

gyns or trolls or radblr orbiters or whoever tf is frequently sending me TRA-style anons like "hey @______ is actually abc and said xyz and reblogged a post you made, im gona need a 5 page essay from you condemning her right away!" and literally including zero (0) receipts or anything:

1. grow up

2. fuck off

3. it's such "hey just so u know, op of that post u just reblogged is a terf!" energy

3. you know you phrase these things in ways that make any sane person 👀 right? like yall say shit like "[url] said rape is good and deserved in [absurd context]!" i always think, is that what she said or what you heard or what you pretended to hear? bfr

4. I'm not gonna go digging for some bullshit you vaguely referenced and paraphrased with zero receipts. burden of proof is all you.

5. when im on tumblr i stick 90% to my own blog. making my own posts, drafting new potential posts/reblogs, editing old drafts, going thru notifs and asks, DMing favorite mutuals... then 5% is going down random weird rabbit holes usually unrelated to radblr/feminism and the last 5% is reading the top 7 or so most recent posts on my dash. i miss the drama p much every time bc i dont lurk or read a ton on radblr, and even when i do catch some drama, as i learned the hard way, there's usually waaayyy more context than i realize and everyone assumes i have seen said context but i have not. im like a radblr top, i make the posts not consume them ☠️ (sorry i couldnt resist)

6. if you genuinely thought someone was a risk to others on radblr or pushing genuinely evil fucked up rhetoric, maybe sending an anon to me about them isn't the most productive way to address it. refer back to point #1.

xx

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

it’s fucking obnoxious how mras absolutely destroy the chance of discussing how misogyny harms men bc it does! they're not the main targets but it still happens and it’s genuinely a really fucked up part of the patriarchal system we're under that’s important to talk about and fight bc it hurts people! like, i found this video about like these two young men who were sexually abused by their mum and dad and eventually snapped and killed them (which, y’know, i cannot blame them for at all) but like this was ages ago and the prosecution basically argued that it was fine and didn’t effect them bc they were little boys. and that’s horrific! that’s the misogynistic idea that women are too weak to cause any harm and men are stronger and as such are less “irrational” getting these two people harsher sentences! because they believed that little boys being traumatised after being molested was ridiculous! even though misogyny is not Aimed at men, it Can hurt them severely. those men were made laughing stocks and sentenced to life in prison. but it wasn’t bc “women are the privileged ones” or whatever, it’s bc the courts could not imagine men being “weak”, bc to them abuse trauma was just, essentially, women being hysterical. and therefore, men having it was a duplicitous lie. and not speaking about how that happens harms women too! if abuse trauma is still seen as basically a silly woman thing then not only will male victims of abuse be mocked female ones will be infantilised at best or Also mocked at worst. bc that is the same mindset that leads to us mocking female victims of abuse!!! it’s the same thing and the same form of misogynistic thinking!!! you cannot eliminate one without the other!!! and the fact these things are not talked about much in the context of the misogyny they spring from is awful bc it means anyone who genuinely is trying to look into the issue in good faith is going to find weirdos blaming feminism and not, like, the patriarchal reasons. there used to be a lot more, and i get people started doing it less to decentre men and stuff, but nowadays all you find out when you look for it are people calling it feminist misandry and that’s not a good thing for people to find looking up a genuine issue!

[basofy]

god this was so cringey shut up all you've ever seen regarding women has been a smelly rat in the mirror and distorted photoshopped images of women with big boobees you know nothing

[athena5898]

So before reactionary feminism forced its way into our spaces, part of feminism was fighting *against* the segregation of sports. Because you will always come back to dick heads like Walsh's question "what is a woman" if you are smart you'll know that anything outside of self-identification WILL ALWAYS be abused. In essence, Patriarchy and strict gender rules is inherently fascist because it's entire purpose is to create a "us vs them" situation. Nature is so much more than your limited understanding of biology. There are always exceptions and there are always outliers. Even if there wasn't you can't look me in the eye and tell me that it's better for the "safety" of everyone for women to just not be in sports then to have actual liberation. Fascism is a reactionary beast to begin with. It doesn't stop till it consumes it's own tail. There will never be enough to appease it. It will continue to make us vs them till it kills us all. So are we just going to let them win or are we going to actually do something about it?

[aingeal98]

The part of the Zionists rhetoric I've seen online especially here on tumblr that really... not so much confuses or disturbs me because every part of supporting racism and genocide is disturbing, but the part that makes me nauseous in a very specific way, is how many of these people claim to be leftists. Not the Israeli government or the majority of Zionists obviously, they're proud racist right wingers. But here on tumblr you have people who believe in feminism and queer rights and would agree easily enough with surface level takes on how racism in America is bad. And when it comes to conservatives and red fascists they can easily tell when a right wing racist or homophobe is arguing in bad faith, they can make long posts explaining the harm behind terf rhetoric and how it differs from the actual fight for women's liberation. They can look at the Russia and Ukraine conflict and use critical thinking to call out bad actors with ease.

But then with Israel and Palestine they just... Flip. All the bad faith arguments they criticised before is now their modus operandi. They ignore the ongoing genocide and the Palestinians talking about it and focus on the oppressors, only reblogging the same one or two Palestinian voices once every now and then that say everything they want to hear and nothing more.

I think the most striking example is that "antisemitism bingo" someone made where the ongoing genocide was something to be laughed at and the blog made fun of Palestinian civilians being tortured. And yet when a blocklist went around of people who interacted with that ghoulish blog, clearly explaining why we should avoid them, (Hijt:The racism and dehumanisation of Palestinians) these "leftist zionists" immediately were like "Oh its a block list of Jewish blogs! It's only blocking us because we're Jewish!"

Like it's the most bad faith easily disproven illogical argument that every random 4chan troll can make. It's not my actions it's because I'm white! It's not my homophobic remarks it's because I'm straight!

I still struggle to understand how they're able to flip so easily from intelligent historical and societal discussions of oppression and intersectionality to denial of the Nakba, denial of the apartheid and racism that has ruled the Israeli state since its conception, denial of the Israeli terrorism and colonisation ongoing in the West Bank that Palestinians have been speaking up about for years (The save Sheikh Jarrah campaign and the murder of peaceful Palestinian activists predates October 7th by quite a bit and yet received far, far less coverage by western media) and denial of everything the government and soldiers and many citizens are currently doing to murder as many Palestinians as possible. How do you go from pointing out cult tactics to a Maga style tribalism enthusiast just because it's Palestinians being oppressed and not another group?

The only reason I can think of is that unlike say, white people or straight people, zionists DO have an understandable, real fear that they can use to promote their racist cult. Antisemitism exists worldwide and is a problem in every single country. Unlike ridiculous concepts like "white genocide" or misandry, there is grounded, factual and understandable reasons for Jewish people to want a community where they can feel safe. And anyone who truly cares about equality for all must be committed to stamping out and dismantling antisemitism in every country and neighbourhood, because Zionists sure as hell aren't. The more antisemitism exists the greater their fuel for justifying and promoting Israel as the One True answer to it all.

But the solution of Israel involved ethnic cleansing in order to built their majority Jewish state, and relies on racism and genocide to maintain it. Just like any other coloniser state, it's not sustainabile and is constantly spiralling towards fascism. (America currently contending for loudest spiral) And that is obvious to anyone who reads up on the history or just like. Talks to Palestinians for five seconds. Israel exists due to racism and dehumanisation of Palestinians, and anyone who considers that an acceptable sacrifice is blatantly morally bankrupt. But the tribalism is simply too strong for that sort of logic and understanding, and whatever reasons they may have for falling into Zionism, it's still unacceptable. If you're still on here talking about "demonising Israel and exaggerating genocide (for the woke agenda, is what they're two steps away from saying) then I have no sympathy or time for you. One day you will be forced to reckon with your cognitive dissonance and willful ignorance, and the self righteous racist narrative you cling to will no longer be enough to protect you from judgement. Normal people with their morals screwed on right don't support fascism and racism. Leftists sure as hell shouldn't support facism and racism. (And yes this goes for those who defend Russian and Chinese imperialism too.)

You talk about feeling isolated, about having no one but fellow zionists to rely on. No one else will accept how complicated the situation is, you say over the sound of ten thousand murdered children killed and celebrated by the fascists you're carrying water for. Everyone else is just too antisemitic! You say as the Israeli government and military celebrates Hannukah by bombing Palestinians and joking that they're lighting one of the candles.

I genuinely can't tell if these people are aware they're full of shit or just so scared that they've dived deep into cult mentality with zero critical thought allowed. But either way, there should be no more space for them in our community than a nazi, a homophobe or a Trump supporter. They may have parroted similar ideals of equality and justice for long enough, but when push came to shove and the issues began to hit too close to home, they decided that supporting facism is how they want to cope. So be it. Palestine will be free with or without them and I will mourn the intelligent principled people they could have been, but at the end of the day you have to draw the line somewhere. And supporting genocide is generally a solid line to go with.

[starlooove]

Actually hate girlboss Steph malewife tim shit bc most of the time it’s literally just another facet of “he’s so cool and interesting” while she’s just there

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Might be more of a white culture thing. I get called names often when I point to actionable things one can do. Usually from particularly Black and other PoCs, they're more straight with me than white women are when they assume I'm a woman, even if I point out I'm NB and particularly don't subscribe to white (US Middle Class) woman's speech, which I never could quite master nor like.

There was a study on white women's speech about an Italian family, I think, granted US-based immigrants, where women of the family were taught more to be "peacemakers" and use indirect questions, (not the Jewish kind of questions) to particularly needle people into doing action.

Jewish speech (since I was raised Jewish as part of being adopted), tends to have more rhetorical questions to challenge people to think more deeper or examine their thoughts. (Plenty of papers on this, I actually wrote a long post about it)

But outside of (white) Jewish circles, often questions are used as passive aggressive behavior and ways to diffuse conflict. Such as the white woman speech of something like, "We do not hit other kids. How do you think the other kid feels?"

BTW, this is far from the white woman's tears and toxic white women's speech as pointed out by Robin DiAngelo, but does show the gulf between how women are treated between cultures and often I've observed PoCs are more likely to try to conform to white ways of gender when faced with someone white due to mainly stereotype threat and also some speech patterns which are harder to deal with if you aren't versed with how to deal with the toxicity. People tend to hedge their bets.

By the way, straight pitching here, but I'd really, really like a philosophical discussion on two things, though I'm well aware these are loosey goosey. And yes, maybe influenced by the US election:

The questions are these two:

Does true altruism exist? Is there a way to make an outgroup care about the in-group, when they have no skin in the game and keep showing up? I remember the episode you did about Sam Altman? But it didn't get into this question. We're stuck worldwide with people who don't care, but is there a philosophical way to get people to care about groups they don't belong to?

And the other question is how does one sell an idea of masculinity that is not the Alpha, Beta, etc set and can we escape that to men in such a way that they feel invited? I've read about sacred masculinity and also the secure masculinity models, but worldwide the shift towards that ultra masculinity seems to be winning because it feels powerful. The current movement of feminism is asking how to reframe masculinity itself.

I'd like to see it in an intersectional way for both topics. Such a way that it sees internationally and through lens of intersectional queerness.

You've circled around these topics, gone through them talked about queerness, communication, but I've felt like it's a glancing blow. I'm aware this is a hard ask. But I have to admit the last US election and watching other elections where people have swung far right on self interest alone over community has left me wondering if I missed something. Distrust of community that deep leaves me reeling.

I encountered women who were willing to, for example, stick it to trans people over protecting their own rights and philosophically I do not understand why they would choose hate over saying everyone deserves rights. I did the sit down and listen, but hit hard dead end walls, like I was being an elitist for going to college and the pursuit of knowledge is being snobby. Or literal professed Neo-Nazis, like telling me people should believe in Mein Kampf. And I'm sitting here thinking what more could I have done to make people care and care about people unlike them as a really marginalized person. It hit so many walls, and I tried very hard not to yell, scream, but reason through emotions, logic, but I can't help feeling a little frustrated that maybe I didn't know enough in order to get them to see a different way and move them that little bit or at least crack their wall through the interaction.

Separating The Art from the Artist ('s Gender)

an interesting thing I've observed:

I've been making art for my whole life, and I publicly transitioned a few years ago, and it's super interesting how much criticism changed when I came out

When I was in the closet the criticism I got for my work was a lot more useful. It was generally constructive, usually specific and actionable, usually coming from a place of sincerely engaging with my work even if it didn't always like it. So even the negative stuff was usually helpful?

Whereas now, most of the criticism I get seems a lot more "vibes based"? It's more vague; it's more likely to contain factual errors like "The work says X" when the work doesn't say that, or even says the opposite; the criticism is often less actionable; and it's more likely to treat my work as something that has accidental features to which the audience has a reaction that is the most important thing, rather than something that has deliberate features because I chose to put them there? And so it's judged much more by whether people vibed with it rather than by whether it achieved what I intended it to

idk, it's just interesting, maybe it's not a gender thing maybe it's just that people's media literacy is changing? maybe i'm attracting different audiences now? maybe I'm just worse lol

[radelenagreco]

i'm #newtoradblr i've spent so much time these past two weeks scrolling through radfem blogs i knew i had to make an actual radfem side of tumblr blog for my own sanity. the way i "peaked" is kinda funny 3-4 months ago i liked a radfem post without realizing and all of a sudden i had other radfem posts recommended to me by the algorithm and i was so annoyed because i was very anti-terf etc but for a couple days i read through a bunch of radfem blogs and it was actually such a relief to encounter FEMINISM not some watered down version of it but i felt guilty due to 5+ years of conditioning (and also because i had a nonbinary friend sitting right next to me in class as i was doing this) and i also didn't like the prominent use of the word moid? but anyway, 3 months later, i'm not sure why but the mra nature of the trans movement has grown so much more apparent to me i have like three mutuals who are trans men on my other blog and i would find myself rereading the few feminist posts i would reblog/write because these people are literally reblogging shit like "don't think like a terf. men aren't your oppressors, they're your friends/neighbors/brothers/fathers. if you think that any man could harm you you have been fooled by terf rhetoric" like actual morons/meninists. anyway two weeks ago i saw a post made by someone i knew was a radfem on my twitter tl and i don't know why i knew i was ready i went through her blog and through many others and now here i am.

[misspermitted]

I appreciate Yan Ling immediately noticing Nings crush on Zhang Zhe but not noticing the weird ass relationship she has with his teacher/cousin despite witnessing it firsthand many times.

Ning stares at ZZ once in admiration and YL is like “yes you love him” meanwhile Xie Wei and her are eye fucking in literally every scene and YL is like “yes this is a normal student-teacher relationship.”

How are the pushover emperor and the immoral business guy the only people who have noticed this. Y’all are supposed to be smart!!

[h-f-k]

why? What are people saying? That taylor deserves having those pics?

yeah. because whenever taylor experiences what every woman on fucking planet earth experiences (sexual harassment, misogyny, etc) it's all diluted to "well she's a billionaire" "but she's a white feminism" "oh who cares, it's taylor swift" and it's so disgusting.

[butchpeace]

Expanding on this because I think there’s a good point being made here.

Some trans people do support gender abolition halfway. They think sexism is bad and they want everyone to be able to dress and act however they want. But they don’t support gender abolition in the radical sense, where it means that people see them as masculinized females and feminized males. The breaking point is when people start to see them as a member of their biological sex.

Gender abolition is a feminist concept. In feminist gender abolition, “gender” itself is defined as the roles and norms assigned to females by the patriarchy which keep women subordinate. So gender abolition is about breaking down the gender norms that primarily oppress women, so that we can all be on an equal playing field.

Real gender abolition means that it doesn’t matter if someone is female or male, our sex shouldn’t define anything else about us or about how society treats us. There would be no gender norms to oppress anyone.

In the ideal world of gender abolition, some people may want to change their sex for various reasons, but I don’t think they would have “gender dysphoria” as we see it today. It would probably be more of a feeling of curiosity or jealousy at most. People would likely just get over it, considering there is no way to truly know what it’s like to be the opposite sex.

What trans people talk about as “gender abolition” is either just about people dressing how they want, or it’s actually something like sex abolition. The ideal world of sex abolition is one in which people stop seeing biological sex and stop thinking biological sex is important. Everything is mixed, lots of people are androgynous, sex doesn’t matter, there are no sex-specific spaces.

That idea is:

1. Impossible. Our human brains are extremely good at recognizing biological sex. The idea that the average trans person can ever become truly androgynous is based in an unrealistic fantasy.

And

2. Anti-feminist. Females have different bodies and different needs than males. Females are subject to the bulk of sex-based violence and sexual assault. Breaking down the categories of sex, breaking down the sex-specific resources in healthcare, sports, and social support, breaking down the spaces females need in order to feel safe in a sexist world, is anti-feminist and misogynistic.

It’s impossible for trans people to be in favor of gender abolition. Their identities are based on traditional gender norms staying the way they are.

Trans women don’t want cis women to stop acting and dressing in a traditionally “feminine” manner. Trans women don’t want cis women to be liberated from the oppression that causes them to spend hours picking out clothes, doing their hair, and putting on makeup.

Because if cis women stopped doing those things, everyone would understand that womanhood is not defined by those things. If cis women stopped doing those things, everyone would see how different trans women are, whose performance of those rituals is the only proof they have of their so-called “innate womanhood”.

It would all fall apart if cis women stopped performing patriarchal femininity.

[oysterie]

i do acknowledge i need to watch what i say wrt gender women men cis ppl etc just augh.

[howtobeamagicalgirl]

:T

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Do terfs know it’s possible to be like “I like girls but I’m not into dating someone with a penis regardless of gender. It’s just a personal preference. I can think that without saying that genderqueer people are invalid and dangerous” or do they live like they see with V.A.T.S. and everyone is marked as hostile?

I’m using someone attracted to girls in this example because the last one to show up in my feed was a lesbian who was VERY vocal about girls having a penis, but that can go for any gender and any orientation. You can just, not be attracted to an individual, that is very much a thing. You don’t need to find everyone fuckable. You don’t have to be so weird about it and start to get hostile towards random people for just existing. The stuff I have seen those people say unprompted is insane. They really do see things as “penis bad” and ignore everyone and everything else.

[angel---eater]

i truly have no tolerance for this fandom shittin on random fans personal trans headcanons. someone saw themselves and their experience in this character, isnt that beautiful? why dont you mind your business and focus on your own fan stuff? wouldnt that make you happier? someones headcanon doesnt negate yours. what the fuck is wrong with yall. its playing make believe x2. its just a headcanon. real life trans folks are in active danger right now and some of yall are wasting all your energy abusing others over which pronoun set figments of someone elses imagination 'should' be using