#or sexism disguised as feminism(?)

[elswing]

SHUT UPPPPPP ABOUT THE TROP ELVES NOT BEING ELVISH ENOUGH SHUT UPPPPPP ABOUT THE TROP ELVES NOT BEING ELVISH ENOUGH

listen i love the vibes the pj trilogy elves gave off in the movies but having a solid chunk of your main cast looking very detached and spending 78% (with an additional 21% if they're female) of their screentime mogging the camera completely devoid of expression or apathetically gliding in slow motion to-and-fro offering occasional cryptic advice to the mortal characters just.. Would Not Work. unfortunately.

morfydd clark's constant scrunched up >:{ faces are not un-elvish you are just accustomed to seeing liv tyler deliver lines with her features carved from marble. also what happened to "people who think the elves are chill hippies should read the silm they're actually so crazy irrational and homicidal" OH BUT WHEN IT'S A DEADBEAT MOM IN A TUNIC AND MEDIEVAL PANTS,

[ladyloveandjustice]

I felt like my faith in humanity was dying reading the tags on that Atla poll. Half of the hero team and one whole villain squad were women ffs, during a time when most shows still had on designated girl slot on the team, or maybe two for tomboy and girly girl.

"Being motherly is Katara's whole character" I see, I see

Wanting to master waterbending -> being a mom

being fed up with her own slow progress and lashing out -> being a mom

stealing back a cultural heirloom in spite of the consequences -> being a mom

taking on two waterbending masters and defeating one with their own technique -> being a mom

standing up for the oppressed and exploited -> being a mom

ecoterrorism -> being a mom

suggesting a kiss between herself and Aang and being offended by his idiotic reply -> being a mom

having big and impotant battles in all three season finales -> being a mom

lmao about the ecoterrorism you're so right and she was so right for doing it.

Yeah there was a tag that Katara's entire character was "being a Mom and her trauma" which again, I think it just straight up misogyny disguised as feminism. I've never heard anyone say "all there is to Zuko is his trauma" despite the narrative spending so much more time on him grappling with it.

Why is it when it's a female character, having trauma and exploring that trauma is a bad thing? Katara's pain and anger and hatred and grief is just as important as a male character's, but instead it gets dismissed and used as a point to get her. When it's a male character, it's "complexity" but when it's her she's a stereotype. The fact her trauma was taken seriously, that she got mad and wanted revenge and was terrifying when she attempted revenge in a way that was usually reserved for male characters is actually really important to me! There are so so many male characters that have this kind of trauma and it makes them cool and angsty and badass.

(lmao now I'm imagining someone saying "all there is to Batman is being a dad and his trauma". Why have we never heard that. god the misandry).

That's all there is to her character? Like what about her staunch commitment to justice and desire to put herself on the line to help anyone in trouble without caring about the consequences? What about her constant stubborn rage and desire to challenge the establishment? What about her resistance to sexism and willingness to challenge tradition? Her tendency to hold massive grudges? Her desire to make fun of her brother every chance she gets? Her passion for honing her waterbending and commitment to her craft? Her desire to fight and get better at fighting? as you said, her intense jealousy when Aang catches on to waterbending better than she did, to the point where she lashes out at him (she's clearly momming him there SUCH a Mom)? Her anger at her father for leaving her and her brother behind? I could go on.

"she and toph are not as complex as aang and zuko" no you just care about them more. Skill issue. (love how poor Sokka gets left out).

TBH I do think "The Runaway" exaggerated her motherliness (and in framing her as a wet blanket. she LOVES having fun and committing crimes. Though you could argue her concern there had to do with the gravity of what they were about to do and the possibility of getting caught, which is what she emphasized rather than it being "wrong" (i mean it was wrong. but Katara didn't seem to care lmao). if anything it was ooc for Sokka to be so into it considering his earlier commitment to the schedule and previous disapproval of theft.) But it also made the point she was very much forced into this role at a way-too-young age as a result of absent parents.

And she, notably, RESENTS that. One of the first things we learn about her is she resents that! She screams at Sokka that she's sick of keeping the family together, sick of doing his laundry, that how she's treated is sexist...it's not something she enjoys, and that makes sense! in the Big Joel comments I saw a lot of comments related to how she's parentified (using that specific term).

I don't think her love and protectiveness of others falls under being a mom, btw. There are plenty of times she acts as a peer to the others, or is even the immature one in the situation. Especially in the first season, where Sokka really had the role of the wet blanket (he was kind of parentified too, fandom just doesn't really focus on that. It just manifests in a different way because he was asked to be "the man of the house". His early sexism, his need to be in control, the way he often chides Aang and Katara for goofing off, his (sometimes very justified) paranoia about things going wrong and hyper vigilance about protecting the group and keeping them on task ,those are all things that partly come from thinking he has to assume a parental role imo). It is an established part of her personality but every time she looks after someone or holds the team together is not "being a mom".

If you want to see a Katara that's entirely defined by her trauma (her anger left out) and relationships with men, just go watch the netflix show or the movie. You'll notice the difference!

Well i just really went on a rant there. But I do deeply love Katara and she's my favorite and fandom misunderstands her so much. As much as I was talking about the atmosphere of 2005, I think there's something much more insidious about dismissing female characters but dressing it up as "feminist critique".

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

📓anon here. one thing I've noticed recently is that there are a lot of male swifties these days, who use Taylor swift to further their sexism. like there was this video of this black woman talking about not liking Taylor Swift and her music. Rather than letting her just have her own opinion, this man started trying to call her out on her so-called misogyny and started making claims that people only complain about taylor swift.

a lot of male swifties use liking taylor swift as a safeguard to their own sexism. like as if liking taylor swift immediately makes you this feminist king and if anyone says anything about her it gives you the right to be an asshole. and it's especially common among white men on the internet, who attack women of colour.

imagine liking taylor swift to prove yourself as a #feminist (esp as a white cishet man doing jt for swiftie p*ssy) oh we are in the pop culture dark ages right now aren’t we…

swifties always use feminism as a deflection for their racism when they harass black women and women of color who critique her. im sure white ppl are critiqued but not the point or level black ppl especially women are. so many gay men are straight up MISOGYNISTIC AS FUCK but think bc theyre gay theyre not??? mental gymnastics.

tldr (white) men pretending to like the most milquetoast white female celeb to get away with harassing women of color is part of this larger trend right now of reframing/disguising racism, misogyny, etc. as justified and progressive. swifties doing this are echoing taylor’s behavior of branding herself this way. disgusted but not surprised

[turtlesandfrogs]

I'm gonna share one of those tips you hear about, and practice for like 18 years, and then realize really helped you out.

Little baby me, years and years ago, when she first emerged from homeschooling and came across feminist thought for the first time*, found an article that told you to look in the mirror, naked and bare faced, and find something about your body that you liked. And make a daily practice of it.

See, the underlying thought is that we live in a society where lots of companies are competing for your money, and one of the ways they do it is by telling you your body has some flaw that you need to rid yourself of or disguise. Some chub, some off-white teeth, too much hair, too little hair, etc etc. Companies make you want their products by undermining your self-image and confidence. We are surrounded by advertisements that attack perfectly normal and healthy aspects of being alive.

That and really unhealthy and non-inclusive beauty standards.

Anyway, I started doing this in college, and I still flex in the mirror every night, because I love my arm muscles. Maybe you really like your eyeballs, or that one freckle, or your hair, or whatever. I really recommend finding at least something, daily, about your body that you appreciate. It's been great for my self esteem and relationship to my body and health.

Also, you'll buy less, which is fundamentally eco-friendly.

*mom did have one element of feminism, which was to never allow yourself to be financially dependant on a man if you can at all help it. However, she also had beliefs like (tw for misogyny and religious sexism) women are inherently less smart and less strong, women are bad at math, uteruses will fall out if you lift too much and you'll become incontinent, and a man should always lead the household. Etc.

[caeliangel]

Radical feminism is just white supremacy disguised as feminism.

Ps - if I said anything weird or that makes no sense, or that is just not right, tell me! I am tired, and also white

It is white woman supremacy. Lot of arguments arround radfeminism are really just racism recycled. A lot of things they hate other women for, a lot of their ideologies are not only racist, but also misoginistic. It's misoginy wearing a nice woman costume, yet they're so scared of the so called men in women costume from their fantasies. You know, the one they made up in order to hate. White feminism in general is harmfull. If your feminism fails to fight for the opression of woc, then it's racist. If your feminism doesn't adress racial oppression, it's not working. If your feminism doesn't put a light on every oppression, it's inefficient.

For those in doubts, read this

https://www.newamerica.org/the-thread/the-gaps-of-white-feminism-and-the-women-of-color-who-fall-through/

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=d711b259beecc7c55de1cf94fdc9e3c9eb7b167f

Radical feminism says that woman oppression is the fundamental oppression, but if you truly believe that, your eyes must be closed. In fact, classing oppression as more or less fundamental is pointless. You have to know (simply) that nobody is free from opression or oppressing depending on multiple factors. And these factors don't always jump in your face, which mean that the way society sees you is also important. Not everyone has power over x group and not every group can be oppressed by x group. White radfems think black men oppress them, but it's more complex. As a group, black men have no power over white women. Alone, a black man could oppress a single white woman, but the group has no power over white women. (This is why intersectionality is actually important)

" Radical feminism had to make racism subordinate to sexism or else cease to be radical feminism "

Radical feminism never thought about black women when emerging, because feminism was ruled by white women.

[madam-melon-meow]

VRISKA SERKET IS A BISEXUAL WOMAN.

This is Homestuck canon. She is a transgender woman. This is Pesterquest canon. If you can respect the one you can respect the other.

I understand some are attached to lesbian headcanons. But if yourr bedrock is to insist she experiences comp-het. A THING THAT DOES NOT EXIST IN ALTERNIA. A THING THAT IS NOT SUPPORTED BY CANON. THEN YOU ARE BEING BIPHOBIC. PLEASE DO NOT SPEND PRIDE MONTH ERASING CANON BISEXUALITY. IT IS UNDER REPRESENTED AND MUCH MALIGNED FROM BOTH OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE QUEER COMMUNITY. BISEXUALITY IS QUEER ENOUGH. BISEXUALITY IS BEAUTIFUL. CHARACTERS LIKE KARKAT. VRISKA. TEREZI. DAVE. ROXY. ERIDAN. GAMZEE. THESE HAVE ALL EXPRESSED BISEXUALITY. IT IS CRUELTY OF THE HIGHEST ORDER TO BE BADGERED BY COMP HET THEORIES ABOUT CANONICAL BISEXUAL CHARACTERS. IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THIS MESSAGE I AM SORRY BUT I REFUSE TO SIMPER AND KOWTOW REGARDING MY SEXUALITY. BISEXUALITY SHOULD NOT BE ERASED. IF YOUR DAVE HEADCANON RESTS ON OVERCOMING INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA THEN BISEXUALITY DOES NOT PREVENT THAT. SIMPLY RELABEL IT INTERNALIZED BIPHOBIA. BUT COMP HET WAS COINED BY ADRIENNE RICH-

~~~~~~~

A (transphobe, if you cant figure this out from the rad fem rhetoric) proponent of the belief that all women can be lesbians regardless of sexual orientation by identifying as a “woman-identified woman”, aka thst the woman’s focuses are on the needs and emotions of other women. This belief is A core component of the lesbian separatist movement began in the 1970s, which should be pinging alarm bells. This is the organization that believes women’s bisexuality , MY sexuality, is inherently anti-feminist because of the implied desire for penetration, sexual dominance, and submission. This woman stated that women due to their socialization could not ever freely “choose” to enter a hetero relationship, that coercion was ever-present. Her words imply bisexual women (and others socialized as girls while growing up) have inherent lack of agency, erasing the freedom and truth of our love for what can be perceived as straight relationships. Ti Grace Atkinson said “ feminism is a theory, lesbianism is a practice.” Lesbian separatists take this to mean Feminism is the theory and lesbianism is the practice, reflecting an assumption that lesbianism is the purest and most desirable manifestation of feminism, and that bisexuality thus is sullied and impure. Compulsory heterosexuality was coined by a TERF for the inherent purpose of invalidating bisexual and transgender women, as both run up against the terf ideology that all men are bad, that all relations with amabs are bad, that amabs are rapists in disguise and abusers on the prowl and to sleep with a man or anyone that could have been a man taints you. Bisexuality has always been transinclusionary. Those who exclude the one tend to exclude the other. terf theory should not be your bedrock of queer or feminist theory. What hurts one letter hurts us all.

S. Young’s “ Breaking silence about the B word“ has a fantastic paragraph about coming out as a lesbian and learning from other lesbians that my sexuality was considered a copout, that bisexuals were treasonous and would run back to men and leave the lesbians behind, that only lesbians had an anti-patriarchal sexuality, that we were buying into sexism by being bisexual. while gay men do not seem to view bisexuals as sleeping with the enemy as strongly as lesbians view us, there is still the presumption that a bisexual man is just trying to hold onto heterosexual privilege.  these views are not absent from fandom spaces.

Bisexuality is treated as a transitional category, as experimenting, as promiscuity, as being a liar and a cheat. To reduce every bisexual character you come across, to force them to “pick a side”, to comment on ship art of characters like John and Vriska as “generic boring and straight”, to similarly comment on art of characters like Vriska and Terezi as “lesbian favs”, to insist it is homophobic or lesbphobic when people push back against this categorization- this is cruel. This is biphobic. This is bisexual erasure. Andrew Hussie, no matter what you think of him, was very clear. They wrote a story in which an entire species is bisexual “by default”- where Kanaya is the only troll in a set of 12 to have a mono sexuality (albeit, while still displaying biromantic tendencies, at least in the ashen quadrant). Whatever issues you have with Vriska and Eridan viewing relationships with eachother and others (Terezi, Tavros, Kanaya) (Feferi) via the lense of their ancestors, that does not erase their bisexuality. (Vriska) canonically dated killed-by-Terezi!John , and followed it up with an albeit unhealthy relationship with Meenah. Vriska had a celebrity crush on nic cage, implied she was attracted to Karkat, and had a relationship with Terezi. Eridan flirted indiscriminatorily with most of his friends of both genders. Gamzee’s infamous flirtations with Tavros and relationship with Terezi exists. So does Roxy’s pursuit of Dirk and her insistence that Jane is hot. Dave pursued relationships with Terezi and Karkat, Davesprite dated Jade. Karkat caught feelings for Jade, John, Dave, Terezi. I could go on but i will not- there are many bisexual characters in homestuck, after all.

Many people view bisexuality as not committing, as not picking between “us” and “them”, as having “passing privileges” by finding an opposite gender partner. We are experiencing a time of great unrest. Do not return to the days of isolating aspects of the community, of infighting that weakens us. You see what rhetoric is being used against the transgender community, against anyone who dares to do drag, to break the binary boxes. Bisexuality breaks boxes too, by daring to love our own gender and other genders. By being unapologetically attracted regardless of sex. Fandom biphobia is nothing so serious as real world oppression, sure. You could say it is just another pin prick. But each pin prick makes me bleed. And I only have so much blood to give.

I see many musicians irl reduced to straight women or gay men when they have repeatedly expressed bisexuality. This is cruel. This is biphobic. This is not the move from inside the community i want to see. For young queer kids online, those experiences will shape them as much as bisexuals being kicked out of the gay organizations does those who are old enough to join one. Homestuck helped me understand I was allowed to be bisexual- i thought bisexuality didn’t really exist, especially not for women, when i was 13. If my first experience with homestuck had been being told vriska is a lesbian and is only compulsive about perusing boys, i would have never understood what i was feeling, because my crushes on boys as a kid, my relationship with men as an adult, those were not and are not a sign of being coerced by society. These feelings do not deminish or delegitimization my attraction to women. To say such a thing is to take away my agency, to reduce me to either an experimental straight girl or a lesbian who is “just confused”- the latter of which is rhetoric transmen and asexuals have aimed at them. This is a biphobic world you have been raised in. All i ask is that you do not impose the rheotric of a biphobic transphobic “feminist” on characters and people like me. This a shitty rant, but i needed to say it.

[alex-richey]

Blog Post #5 (Due 10/3)

How does the merit system in “Nosedive” parallel our perception of social media following?

In the “Nosedive” episode of Black Mirror, each person ranked everyone they interacted with, and one’s overall ranking determined how they were perceived and interacted with by others. This immediately reminded me of how social media status dictates our interpretations of one another. As few people would admit it, I know of many people who when looking at someone’s Instagram account for the first time, make judgments about them based on how many followers they have. Furthermore, when it comes to influencers, many companies only want to collaborate with those who have a certain amount of followers, leaving smaller social media creators to work extra hard to build their platforms. In “Nosedive,” each character’s rating offered benefits to those with particularly high ratings, such as reduced rent, access to certain buildings, and better overall social standing. This is an eerie, but realistic, example of how we let social media standing guide our interactions with people in the real world.

Why is language especially important when discussing social problems and feminism?

The language we use when discussing social issues is very important because it can make the difference in acknowledging or dismissing nuance in these issues. As we read two weeks ago, intersectionality is vital when discussing feminism to ensure that “women’s rights” include all women. As discussed in The Revenge of the Yellowfaced Cyborg Terminator, the authors argue that Haraway’s position as an established, respected white feminist grants her the privilege of an audience: people want to listen to her. However, if a woman of color made the same arguments, she’d likely have a much more difficult time gaining that same audience. When discussing social issues like sexism, it’s important to think critically about the language we’re using and how it may be interpreted to build stronger, more nuanced arguments.

How is voice-based racism more prevalent now than ever?

In her TedTalk, Dr. Lisa Nakamura explains voice-based racism in reference to the judgments we make about someone’s race based on their voice. She argues that with the rise of video games with live audio features (where you can play with friends and strangers), there’s also a rise in voice-based racism online. When we believe we know someone’s race simply from their voice, we open the door for stereotypes and prejudice to guide our interactions with that person. Furthermore, everyone is prejudiced, and these prejudices continue to exist online. I believe making judgments on someone’s voice online is relatively similar to making judgments about their appearance in real life, so voice-based racism is especially important to analyze and acknowledge when we are guilty of it.

What is ludo-Orientalism and how does it work?

→ In The Race card: From gaming technologies to model minorities, the author defines ludo-Orientalism as the way that the “design, marketing, and rhetoric of games shape how Asians as well as East-West relations are imagined,” as well as how Asian people are constantly depicted as “other.” It also refers to the way social constructions of race are perpetuated through games and disguised as “play.” This can be particularly harmful because when something is deemed fun, we assume it to be lighthearted, and we often even assume it to lack any real, societal effect. However, the portrayals of racial groups through video games are often disguised versions of stereotypes, that then get perpetuated for the sake of “a fun game.”

Fickle, T. (2019). The race card: From gaming technologies to model minorities. New York University Press.

Richter, M. (2016). Black Mirror: Nosedive. episode.

Nakamura, L. (2011). TedXUIllinois - Dr. Lisa Nakamura - 5 Types of Online Racism and Why You Should Care. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT-G0FlOo7g

Ow, Jeffrey A. “The Revenge of the Yellowfaced Cyborg Terminator: The Rape of Digital Geishas and the Colonization of Cyber-Coolies in 3D Realms’ Shadow Warrior.” Asian America.Net: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cyberspace.

[haggishlyhagging]

Farsighted thinkers have pointed out that the moral imperative of respect for life, formerly understood in quantitative terms, must now be understood in terms of the quality of life. This has obvious implications, such as the need for population control and for bringing a halt to the waste of resources and pollution of the environment. Such needs are not understood by the machismo mind. Marcuse uses the category of obscenity to describe the behavior of the "affluent monster." He points out that "this society is obscene in producing and indecently exposing a stifling abundance of wares while depriving its victims abroad of the necessities of life . . . in its prayers, in its ignorance, and in the wisdom of its kept intellectuals." Meanwhile, of course, the affluent society pretends to be improving the quality of life, disguising what is actually happening by its usual techniques, which I have called "reversal."

Marcuse observes that the Establishment abuses the term "obscenity" by applying it, not to expressions of its own immorality but to the behavior of another:

Obscene is not the picture of a naked woman who exposes her pubic hair but that of a fully clad general who exposes his medals rewarded in a war of aggression; obscene is not the ritual of the Hippies but the declaration of a high dignitary of the Church that war is necessary for peace.

Marcuse's perception is acute, and he rightly calls for "linguistic therapy" which would free words from almost total distortion of their meanings by "the Establishment." Yet I must point out that the therapy will never be radical enough if the basic obscenity is perceived as capitalism rather than sexism. The very word "obscene" itself, as used by "the Establishment," suggests the locus of the essential perversion and victimization. Marcuse's own insightful juxtaposition of the naked woman and the fully clad general reveals the basic reversal in phallic morality which is still observable in socialist as well as capitalist societies. Such social criticism does not go far enough. It employs revealing instances of the powerful elite's sexist behavioral, imaginative, and linguistic distortions while still perceiving these distortions' radical source in capitalism and their cure in socialism.

Another sentence from the same essay of Marcuse is symptomatic of this phenomenon of shortsightedness. He writes:

Thus we are faced with the contradiction that the liberalization of sexuality provided an instinctual basis for the repressive and aggressive power of the affluent society [emphasis mine].

It should be stressed and this is what feminism is doing—that the so-called liberalization of sexuality "provides an instinctual basis for the repressive and aggressive power" of the sexist society. For of course it is not a genuine liberation of sexuality that displaces the obscenity of generals and projects it upon naked women, and the essential disease is not affluence in itself. The lifting of taboos on genital sexuality does nothing to liberate from sex roles. Marcuse himself says that this relaxation binds "the 'free' individuals libidinally to the institutionalized fathers."

Such expressions of insight into the sexist nature of the oppressive society, strangely coupled with failure to direct the critique directly and essentially at sexual oppression, is characteristic not only of intellectuals such as Marcuse but also of more "popular" expressions of social criticism. Such films as The Godfather, The Ruling Class, and Deliverance can be seen as brilliant exposes of the social disease which is patriarchalism. One could almost believe that the writers and directors must be committed feminists. Yet the functioning of these productions, with their amazingly revelatory juxtapositions of sex and violence and their exploitation of phallic symbolism, has not been directed intentionally to the service of feminism. Perhaps one could call such "understanding" of sexual alienation "subintentional." Recognition of the real enemy's identity is so close to the surface of consciousness of the writers and directors of such productions that some feminists tend to find the experience of reading such books and watching such films almost unbearable. "They know not what they say," it would seem. Then it is clear that women will have to speak forth the identity of that which is destroying us all. The subintentional revelations of male critics indicate that some receptivity to this knowledge may be possible—that the capacity to hear is closer to consciousness than we would have expected. The time for us to speak is precisely now.

-Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation

[aethersea]

hi hello I'm lurking the tags on that wuxia spiderman post and you said my sleeper agent activation phrase, "that show with all the badass women" - I don't suppose you remember enough identifying details for me to find it?

(the wuxia spiderman post)

I do! I watched it on Netflix, where it was called Handsome Siblings. it was extremely fun, but I do have to warn you that I watched this just after finishing The Untamed, which has like three women who all die tragically. so my standards were ROCK bottom.

however! this show begins with a helpless damsel revealing herself to be the biggest badass in this ambush, and then she and her husband are accosted by not one but TWO other badass women, and the three of them have a big showdown. they are totally fighting over a guy, but this was already more women onscreen at once than I was expecting. I was absolutely not prepared.

then we flash forward twenty years and meet our heroes, two brothers separated at birth who are traveling the land. one of them was raised by the martial sect of badass women, and he travels everywhere with two lady bodyguards who are cooler than you and will make sure you know it. the other promptly runs into a woman disguised as a man, who's got a deadly rivalry with another woman (not disguised as a man) and the two of them have a massive showdown. the woman disguised as a man joins our travels and becomes one of the major characters.

we hop between the brothers as they run into villains, heroes, people in need of aid, etc. many of these are women, and many of these women are stone cold badasses.

also, one of the brothers is nobly honorable in all his dealings, while the other is a conniving sneak who's just here for a laff. they're trying to kill each other. obviously I have a preference for the conniving sneak, but they're both a lot of fun to watch.

this show was adapted from a novel (or series of novels?), the one mentioned in the spiderman post, and I got the strong feeling throughout that the novel was full of Ye Olde Sexism, but the showrunners made a concerted effort to give all the women a personality and a spine and all that to fix it. but it's possible I'm wrong, and they were already cool! sometimes Ye Olde Feminism is a little hard to recognize when we don't have the historical context, and it's doubly hard when watching a modern adaptation, so really I wouldn't know. but wherever it is all these female characters get their, y'know, personality and moderately believable goals, it's a great time!

[genderisareligion]

Have you noticed that a big part of the unconditional support transactivism receives from women despite this movement being built on misogyny is because many MANY so called feminists don't want to actually acknowledge male supremacy? They eventually will criticize/oppose to one or another sexist event (like the abortion ban in USA) but as time goes on, they just forget it and even manage to despolitize them. Now, reproductive rights isn't an integral part of women’s rights anymore, it's “queer/lgbtqia+ rights”, “bipoc with vaginas rights”, etc.

But nothing makes it more obvious than the fact that women(even black/indigenous women) easily accepted they're “cis” - implying they have privileges for their womanhood not being denied - which is laughable because how being “acknowledged” as women is a privilege when to be a woman - specially a woc - in a misogynistic world is oppressive? The acceptance of the infamous “cis” also implies that both men and women are equally oppressive towards trans people, thus the analysis of male violence lost space to the more malleable “gendered violence”. By place both “cis” men and women, any observations of male patterns of violence is discouraged because it's “transphobia” (but why it would be transphobia if trans women are women like “cis women” and are targeted by men most of the time? Hmmmm) and a vile MRA rhetoric start to take place in feminism disguised as a true compromise with “gender equality”: women can be as bad if not worse than men. Women aren't victimized by male supremacy, in reality it's men who are the biggest victims. In the name of “not infantilizing women” for JUST acknowledge that misogyny exists, people are infantilizing men and giving them a free pass on their mistreatment of women.

Many so called feminists also lack sex class consciousness and they internalized all the sexist shit we have been taught by our society. So they really act that trans women are the ones who bring humanity to women's status, this is why claims like “If you don't think trans women are women, it means you think women are inferior” what is the connection between a man thinking he is a woman because he identity as one (whatever that means) with women supposedly inferiority? Women literally carry the whole humanity! Our bodies are complexes and prepared to survival and they pull out this weak guilt tripping rhetoric and women eat this up, think the only way they can achieve humanity is through males? Pffff

Honestly, after reading The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner(a must read to any feminist), this actual state of feminism became even more clear: men have stolen women's humanity, women's knowledge of our bodies, even the position of the creators of life, despite the fact that they can't get pregnant. The next step is stealing the womanhood itself and it isn't a random event, it's part of their colonization of females. Understanding how they operate helps us to fight back.

🙏🏽

“Cis” is the biggest pile of horse shit and my #1 source on this has always been and will always be my girl Audre Lorde. Who in the entirety of the book Sister Outsider goes to great lengths to emphasize: women can simultaneously have different lives/womanhoods (ex.black versus white womanhood, ie intersectionality) while working together against patriarchy. I think it’s funny/sad that today the white man’s “intersectionality” hates black women like me who reject gender roles and claims there is a sweeping “cis” womanhood privilege that’s so universal it automatically places all non trans “afabs” (nearly 50% of the goddamn globe) above trans “afabs” and “amabs” in status and life quality. Audre also goes to great lengths to support the statement “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” which I’ve always pretty plainly taken to mean that gender will never dismantle sexism.

You’re 💯 on these feminists who can’t deal with the reality of male supremacy. Gender framework is a sugar coat that makes things easier to cope with. I get it, sexism is pervasive and normalized as fuck and it’s scary to think about how angry a lot of men would probably get if things actually changed and they didn’t have access to female abuse as often as they do. But I’m personally also fed up with being scared and highly prefer just being pissed off back lol and trying to actively do something about changing it. They can be mad all they want, I’m not stopping until we get our humanity back fully even if it’s not within my lifetime and step #1 is naming the problem

[voidandcold]

You're young, so I'm going to say this as nicely and clearly as I can: "radical feminism" is just white supremacist patriachy in a pink hat.

There is no "war on women", there is just white cis men in positions of power that have managed to convince white cis women in positions of (slightly less) power that all their problems come from trans people, not the cis men, and that the solution is to make it so that no trans people are visibly existing anywhere in public.

But, spoiler alert, there have always been trans people, and there always will be. The Nazis tried to erase all traces of our existence in the Thirties (that's what the infamous book burning was about), but we are still here. And it should give you pause to realise that you are literally aligned with the literal goddamn Nazis of Nazi Germany in "the trans question". And also with the current fascist dictatorship in Russia. Is this really where you want to be? If not, why would you think they're right about this but not anything else?

You're never going to live in a world without men or masc-aligned people, so to think that every single one of them is a predator just waiting for a chance to pounce is going to cause you a massive amount of self inflicted mental harm. Likewise, to think that no woman or fem-aligned person is capable of causing you harm is going to leave you super vulnerable to the ones that do.

I'm not expecting you to answer this, I'm just hoping that you think about it.

If radical feminism is just white supremacy in disguise, how come most radfems seem to be POC? A considerable portion of them not even living in white countries?

If it's "white cis men" causing all the problems for women, how come women are oppressed globally? You think women killed by morality police have white men to blame? Honey, no. It's all men. It's a male problem.

I do not think that trans people are responsible for the patriarchy. I just think it's a super regressive way of thinking, and I post about it a lot because here on Tumblr, trans activism is the norm. It makes me feel that much more like I need to speak my mind.

For example- I think of trans activists like I think of tradwives. Sure, they aren't responsible for sexism, but they aren't exactly helpful in women as a whole breaking those chains. Woman is not a feeling, and someone born and raised as a male can't know how it feels to be a woman. When a male identifies as a woman, what he's identifying with is whatever caricature of womanhood he has in his head. We don't need transition. What we need is to normalize gender nonconformity.

On top of that, many trans activists are holding the acceptance of homosexuals back. Insisting that it's a "genital preference" and that gay men can never attracted to females, or that a lesbian is a "woman loving woman" and lesbians who don't try penis are "fetishists" it's the same homophobia conservatives have been throwing at us for years under a new coat of "progressive" paint. Before -if you were a woman who didn't like cock- you were a dirty sinner. Now you're a bigoted genital fetishist. It's all the same.

Trans activists are aligned with Nazis in that regard, isn't that right? The reasoning and the execution are different among all three groups. Surely you can see that? No radfem want trans people dead. We just want all these gender roles to stop. We want the repackaged homophobia to end.

It really isn't cool to call everyone who disagrees with you a nazi, by the way. It really downplays what a nazi is.

I'm not going to dignify the "not all men" portion of this with a response. Look at some violent crime statistics or something.

And no, of course I don't think women won't hurt me. Nor do I think all women are good people. I don't think I've ever said anything to make you think that?

I'm sorry for taking so long to reply to this, and I'm sorry for keeping it so short. But I don't want to repeat myself over and over and over again to everyone who says these things to me. I HAVE thought about it. That's why I'm here.

[smokestarrules]

The reason RWBY rewrites fall flat where other fandom's rewrites soar is because rewrites are typically about adding something that was missing, removing something extraneous, or tweaking minor elements that ALMOST worked in canon but needed a little nudge.

The problem with RWBY rewrites is that the "missing elements" that get added back in are "sexism, homophobia, really creepy fanservice, and someone's poorly disguised fetish" and what gets removed are "feminism, good writing, and interesting world-building".

Yup!

Rewrites are at their best when they're being written in good faith; usually the author enjoys interacting with the source material but wishes it could have gone another way. A lot of RWBY rewrites just... aren't that.

[darkfrog24]

A few weeks ago, I read Pamela Paul’s defense of JK Rowling in the New York Times. According to Paul, Rowling only said a few things about trans men and trans women, and they were very mild. With all this hate on J.K. Rowling for being anti-trans, I figured I should probably find out what she actually did. I found this article in Glamour.

JKR wrote a joking post in which she implies another post that says “people who menstruate” should have just said “women.”

JKR posted, “I don’t hate trans ppl and would march with them, but I think sex is real and has consequences.”

So far so not that bad. This is similar to what Paul said JKR said. But the Glamour article goes on to cite a post on her own website where we see Rowling’s views straight from the source.

Rowling says she’d been researching trans issues for a book, including taking notes on Twitter posts, and she accidentally hit “like” instead of just taking a screenshot on one of them. She doesn’t say what this Tweet said but does say that she was harassed after that, so I’m guessing it was transphobic.

Again on Twitter, she followed a then-dying lesbian who’d been (JKR’s words) a “a great believer in the importance of biological sex” and supporter of lesbian women’s right not to date “trans women with penises.”

She says TERFs shouldn’t be considered trans-exclusionary because “they include trans men in their feminism, because they were born women.”

She cites stats on people detransitioning out of regret that strike me as probably inaccurate. I heard elsewhere that most people who detransition do it because of prejudice from the outside, not belief that their transition was wrong.

She cites parents claiming that whole peer groups of girls decide to transition at once. That strikes me as questionable.

She seems to think that girl-presenting young people transition to male roles because they want to “escape their womanhood” and the sexism it entails.

She acknowledges that transition is the right choice for many people, acknowledges the increased risks of violence they face, and says she knows and likes at least one trans woman and thinks of her as a woman.

She says that women and girls are in danger from policies that allow “any man who says he’s a woman” to enter bathrooms. It’s my understanding that men don’t pretend to be trans women to enter bathrooms to harass women.

Okay, so in this essay, she seems sincerely afraid for other women, but the thing she’s afraid of—predators pretending to be trans women—isn’t real, and it would be relatively easy for her to learn this. What I’m drawing from this piece is that 1) Rowling doesn’t think she’s anti-trans. 2) She is anti-trans access to women’s spaces. 3) She has a number of misconceptions about trans people, many of them harmful. 4) She claims to support trans people in terms of protection from violence.

Back to Glamour.

Rowling deleted a Tweet praising Stephen King right after King made a pro-trans post and blocked King.

Rowling claimed there were fake Tweets on Twitter attributed to her.

Rowling said gender affirming care was like conversion therapy and that doctors were pushing it on teens.

Rowling wrote a fictional book about a man who disguises himself as a woman to kill women, which matches her fear of men pretending to be trans women.

The article cites Tweets in which people send death threats and say nasty things to Rowling.

Here’s my take-away: Rowling’s not the cartoonish proud anti-trans Mel-Gibson-style ranter I was expecting. She’s someone who’s anti-trans but doesn’t think she is. Not everything she says about women and trans people is wrong, to the point where I can understand why she doesn’t understand how any of it is wrong. She has indeed been harassed and hounded online. This is consistent with posts I’ve seen claiming that Rowling went through a process similar to the one that turns teenaged male netgoers into incels and fascists. They say something somewhat offensive out of ignorance, then they’re met with hostility, and then they allow themselves to be driven away from facts and toward self-justification. The difference is that those boys are children who can be forgiven for not knowing better and Rowling is an adult.

If Rowling comes back from this, it’ll be by putting her money where her mouth is: She claims to feel solidarity with trans women because they’re at risk of domestic violence like she was. JKR could follow up on that by supporting legislation, advocacy groups, and other organizations that protect trans people from violence. However, even according to Paul, JKR has argued that trans women should not stay in the same domestic violence shelters as cis women.

In the United States in the 20th century, many whites voted for laws that said “separate but equal.” I can’t think of an example of even one who went to bat and demanded that Blacks be given equal facilities and resources as the law seemed to demand.

This does not address the concerns about Rowling and antisemitism.

[thoughtlessarse]

Cologne, Germany. New Year’s Eve 2015. Several dozen women are sexually assaulted, robbed and intimidated by a crowd of men of Arab and North African origin. Investigations reveal that among the accused are several refugees who entered the country through Angela Merkel’s open-door policy. The episode caused a wave of anger and forced the government to tighten its asylum rules, an action on which extreme right-wing parties across Europe capitalized to justify their rejection of immigrants, who had become the scapegoats of sexism and violence against women on the continent. A decade later, the consequences of that event are still reverberating in European politics. Now that extremist formations are gaining more support and, therefore, more power (they already make up six governments in the EU), the strategy of instrumentalizing feminism to promote their xenophobic policies is already spreading in countries such as France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. This phenomenon is known as femonationalism, a term developed by Italian sociologist Sara R. Farris in the book In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism (2017). The concept has since evolved, Farris explains, as far-right parties are “getting smarter and smarter.” “[The far-right] understands very well that women’s empowerment is an issue that is there to stay and that from that battle there is no turning back from this battle. And by accepting this, they are trying to present themselves as more modern and moderate parties that defend our rights,” said the professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, via video call. There are many examples. In Spain, Vox says it will not be “complicit in the robberies, the machete attacks, or the rapes” that the distribution of unaccompanied minors arriving in the Canary Islands would, in the formation’s view, entail. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni came to power in 2022 with a campaign focused on the rejection of immigrants, during which she shared a video of the rape of a woman by an asylum seeker. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) spread the Great Replacement theory and proposed encouraging higher birth rates among German women.

continue reading

[fraugremlinreads]

A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Mist and Fury and A Court of Wings and Ruin

⭐ TW: Violence Against Women, Dub-Con and SA

I have a lot of issues with this author, one of them being that I think that SJM is a rather incompetent writer.

She never once thinks about the nuance of anything she writes, she cannot mentally fathom the implications of her words. She simply writes them down because they make her feel hot and bothered in the moment and she thinks that will be good.

She attempts to cover very difficult topics, but with such lack of self awareness that it comes off as if she is making fun of or making light of the victims of SA and even Rape, and it shows in everything.

The way that her characters are written, the world, and how the two interact with one another. There is no grace or respect. Just random strings of thoughts pulled together.

It is because of her horrible ability at writing interesting male or female characters, even being incapable of writing fae in an interesting way past them all sounding like 12 year old boys on steroids. There is nothing compelling about anything happening.

I just do not know what to say, other than, do better? But, honestly, I have no intention of ever reading another book by this dreadful woman again. It is rather disgusting how willfully ignorant someone can be about women's issues while profiting off of the pain and misfortune of their experiences.

Sarah J. Maas, and vicariously through her characters, seeps a poisonous form of exploitation and sexism at woman that is rebranded as feminism. A poison that re-affirms male supremacy and dominance and implies women are inherently helpless and weak victims who can only ever become empowered through bourgeois means, or men.

If you want to read more, and are prepared for spoilers, or even prepared for the thought of throwing up, feel free to continue reading.

Potential Spoilers, but necessary Spoilers

Below is a list of her sins against woman and how she not only re-affirms sexism and the consequences of it, she romanticizes and advertises these to young girls who she has a moral obligation to. A moral obligation that she instead exploits and re-affirms to young girls that the only woman who can be empowered is a bourgeois white woman who was born special and unique and better than all the other women.

Her female characters, for starters, to obtain Empowerment, seem only capable of doing so through re-affirming male supremacy. She takes toxic male traits and rebrands them to be used by woman. We see this in the behaviors of every single male character introduced. We see this across all media. To be a woman is to be weak. To be a man is to be powerful. Therefore, to be an empowered woman, you must reject what is womanly, thus perpetuating sexist stereotypes about womanhood and what it means to be a woman.

To be powerful. to be male, you must be emotionally immature, volatile, aggressive, disrespectful and behave as though you are a 12 year old boy with no self restraint and think calling a woman "Karen" or "slut" is a clever insult.

In the same light, Our lovely main character becomes more brutish and hostile to those around her, while trying to convince us that she is actually a very good and kind person, and this is disguised as "healing" and "empowerment."

There is also an issue of choice. To Sarah J. Maas, Feminism is purely choice. While yes, of course we want women to have choices, she glorifies the idea of choice far more than the actual consequence and act of it. If I hold a weapon to you and demand you eat a burger, do you eat it because it is your choice? or because you were threatened to and wish to preserve your life?

And yet, Our FMC romanticizes the idea that the main LI gave her delusions of choice, and this makes him a superior male character.

The constant themes of rape and SA and sexism, classism, racism and so on are handled so poorly, I can only assume it was done out of incompetence. I do not think SJM would intentionally butcher and ignore the implications of her writing so thoughtlessly, and yet, due to her privileged and willfully ignorant life, it seems to her that SA is simply a means to an end to produce drama and tension for her.

Considering that hardly anyone ever talks about the Fertility festival being a glorified rape festival, we are assured that, no, the woman wanted it.

If I am drunk and agree to sex, is it consent? If I am drugged and taken to bed, is it consent?

Did I consent to being touched by another person because I decided to ride the tram at night?

These are the implications of the festival, but rather than narrow in on these questions, she slides by it with such a rapid fumbling, I doubt she even realized the parallels herself, instead, playing it off for cute drama and its never really addressed again.

Then there is the issue of "Sexual liberation" trying to co-exist in a supposedly sexist and rigid gender-rolled society. Is the society rigid or is it not?

You cannot have a sexually liberated main character who is comfortable with her sexuality that simultaneously lives in a sexually repressive world.

These cannot be co-existing functions.

Not only that, but the entire usage of sexual liberation in this book seems less about combating harmful bodily shame directed at woman but rather, once again, glorifying "male privilege" and suggesting that an empowered woman must be as sexually carefree as a man, otherwise, she is internalizing patriarchy by choosing to be conservative with the usage of her body.

There is nothing wrong with being a virgin. There is nothing wrong with being not a virgin either. But it is the pure avoidance of having the character simply buy into social narratives (despite this book series supposedly being a journey of liberation and healing) and trying to make her "feminist" that is not only harmful to other woman who may actually struggle to escape out of difficult situations, but also perhaps have more emphasis on sexual restraint out of their own volition and perhaps do not feel the need to be sexually explorative to be sexually comfortable with themselves. It also fetishizes the idea of a sexually empowered woman and dehumanizes women who do not fit into the mold of what SJM sees as an empowered and strong woman.

Together, FMC is openly not a virgin and LI1. Is aware of this and even comments on it and doesn't shame FMC about it.

So why then, later in the series, does he suddenly shift gears to slut-shame her? If his character was into slut-shaming, he would have always slut shamed her. Instead, she wants a sexually repressed world where the characters switch between modern mainstream feminist thoughts whenever it suits her, and of course, male feminist allies only have the consistency of mercery in a tube whenever she needs them to shake things up for some quick gasp drama.

Slut shaming is merely drama. the act of sex is used to paint a lack of consistency. Also ties into this, considering there is an entire fertility festival where woman are raped, however, slut shaming is also still normalized? Im surprised there are any fae women left at all, considering how often its their fault for getting date raped due to magic.

SJM had the power in her hand to create two very distinct worlds. One, a human world that she painted to be a medieval human world with human gender norms, and another that could have been a glorified feminist utopia. She chose not to, and instead made the fae almost painfully more sexist and archaic in every way. I genuinely do not know what the point of this was?

What is more horrifying is that Fae society genetically supports male supremacy?

Male Fae are actually superior to female fae?

Why?

Why would you adhere to and biologically prove sexism and then try to preach about feminism?

what are you trying to say here?

So, fae society is an admittance to and defense to sexism and male supremacy, this is further supported by making 3 human women become powerful and special fae. Not only can human women not receive equality, but only if she is as powerful or more powerful than that of a male.

Once more, I have to ask. Why?

Are you saying that women cannot actually by their own merits receive or deserve equality to that of men?

That true equality only comes from becoming a bourgeois "special" female?

That the only women who can become equal to men are women who are biologically on par with men?

Do you realize how absolutely sexist and deranged that is?

This review honestly covers a lot of the topics about the Love Interests and is very in depth. After reading the books myself, I have to agree with them on their points. I am mostly focusing on the Feminism aspects, but this video goes in depth in the Abuse and SA/Rape events.

In conclusion, in every chance that SJM has to tell women that they are equal to men and deserving of respect, there there is a difference between biological differences or biological supremacy, she instead affirms and supports Biological Male Supremacy and re-codes social affirmed behaviors as privilege, and so re-affirms toxic traits as a biological right to men rather than trained/learned behaviors. She tells women that to be equal to a man, she has to be a special kind of woman. To be a woman is to be weak and dependent on men. To be an empowered woman is to be special. To become a man and what makes up a man.

SJM is not an advocate for feminism. she is an advocate for the patriarchy. She reaffirms and praises male dominance at every turn and seems unable to escape it.

[musingsofarandomgirl]

I want to say something that's been in my mind for years. I've never wanted to call myself a feminist, even if I do stand up when women are treated unfairly. Why ? Because more often than not, women think that feminism is a competition against the opposite gender.

"I can do that better than men."

"This woman won the race over the other guys."

Feminism isn't about who's better than the other. At least it shouldn't be. Skill and talent don't even have anything to do with gender, anyway. I've seen it SO many times that it's sad, really, how feminism is used as tool to spit on the male gender. One time I searched for quotes from feminists, seeking empowering words, and instead I found statements that were downright terrifying and concerning of the person's mental wellbeing, women blatantly admitting to wanting to hurt men, insulting them and saying things that were absolutely foul and vile. I never went looking for feminist quotes again, let me tell you. And these famous, hateful women were the kind of people representing feminism ?

I hope it's gotten better now, but I still see it all the time - women using feminism as a weapon to opress men. Just because women have been opressed since the dawn of time does NOT give them the right to repeat the same experience with the male gender, because that is not fighting for women's rights - it's lowering yourself to the same level as your opressors, creating a vicious cycle serving only to satisfy your own ego. Is that the kind of world we want to create for the future generation, the example we want to set for our children ? Do NOT feed the ideal of sexism.

I also often see feminism confused with arrogance by a lot of "modern" women, nowadays, who refuse to receive help from men to prove they're not weak, that they can open the door on their own and climb counters to get a jar from the highest shelf. I'm sorry, is this what feminism's come to ? Whether you can open a door or reach the top shelf on your own ?

If you're truly a feminist, if you feel strong and confident in your own body...then why do you feel the need to prove it all the time, and repeatedly say it out loud - feeling insulted by simple acts of kindness, or gallantry ? That isn't feminism. It's insecurity disguised by arrogance, and it sets yet another bad precedent. If a person is truly confident in themselves, independent and strong, and they KNOW it, they wouldn't feel the need to say it all the time. They wouldn't care if other people believed it or not, because they know it in their hearts, and the opinion of others don't matter.

Feminism is about standing up to women who are treated unfairly. It's about equality - not competition, who's the best, a battle with the other gender, or whether a woman can do everything on her own. Feminism is about the rights women deserve, the way people see them and treat them.

And the issue isn't with men, because trust me I've encountered women who were sexist with their own gender quite a few times - which is honestly baffling. The issue is with ALL of us, us people as a whole. Women, men, everything in-between, and how we regard one another. Equality will never be achieved if humans always find a way to think themselves superior to something. Whether it's plants, animals, a measly mosquito, one country over another, one race over another, a man of a color and a man of another. Men over women. Women over men.

That is the true source of all our problems. Superiority. Until we find it in ourselves to realize we are no better than the next person in this tiny, tiny fraction of the universe - then we will always repeat the same mistakes, whether it's about racism, sexism, etc.