#they ask why you're so violent. they tell you that you're a bad activist.

[inkskinned]

the tradwife movement is the same as it has always been - back in the kitchen, back to breeding - it just has better branding.

when i was younger, i hated pink. i was not like other girls. this is now something i'm embarrassed of - this was not me being a "girl's girl."

but it was expressing something many of us felt at the time: i literally wasn't what girlhood was supposed to be. this is a hard thing to explain, but you know when you're not performing girlhood correctly. it isn't as easy as "i liked x when girls liked y" - because there were other girls that liked x, too - but i never figured out exactly the correct way to like x, or to be interested in y.

now there is the divine feminine. this is the same rhetoric it has always been: women are biologically driven to like pink and ribbons and submitting to our husbands.

the problem is that the patriarchy found a better PR team. because yes, actually, i want every woman to have the choice to be a homemaker. i also want her taken seriously for her legitimate home-making labor. i want her to be recognized as also having a job, just unpaid. i want men to have this opportunity, too.

but it is no longer "i made this choice and I love it." instead it is a sixteen-paragraph rant about how selfish it is that my generation isn't having kids. instead it's long videos about how if you feed your children processed foods, you're going to kill them. instead it is "this is what womanhood is supposed to be. i feel bad for any other choices you're making."

the shame spiral is just prettier. it is large houses devoid of personality. it is the implication: if you don't have this, you aren't happy. the solid, everlasting assurance: women are actually supposed to be submitting. this is the default. this is the natural state of things. all other attempts inflict suffering.

but you can no longer say i'm not like other girls. you can no longer reject this image completely. you cannot find it revolting, even if you know that the underbelly is toxic and festering. sure, it is the same repackaged patriarchy. but the internet does not have shades of grey. you should support and reward other women! your disgust is actually internalized misogyny. not because you are seeing a vision of yourself the way they're trying to train you to be. not because you feel her ghost pass within an inch of your earlobe. not because your father will eventually ask you - why can't you be like her?

because they figured out how to make it beautiful: women will sell other women on this idea, and we will find the singular loophole in feminism. sure, she's shaming you in most of her videos. sure, she implies that a different life is obscene. but she just wants you to be happy! you'd be happier if you were listening!

and the whole time you're sitting there thinking: i'd actually just be happier if i had that kind of money.

[redditreceipts]

how to improve your hate comments

I get a lot of hate comments, but few of them are actually innovative or hurtful. I'm gonna tell you how to improve on them so you can make your next hate comments more creative and actually get under my skin instead of making me chuckle

TW: suicide, homophobia, threats of violence

first, we have the classic. i have received dozens of comments telling me to kill myself. I would advise you to not write something like that, because it literally does nothing to me and is kinda boring. you could improve your hate comment by wording it a bit more interestingly, something like "nobody would miss you if you killed yourself" so I would actually read it

0/10

then, we have the homophobic / misogynist slur comment. It reads kinda desperate for a reaction, especially when you have sent me like 10 asks already (like this person did). it's also lame because I am a woman, so why would calling me a faggot hurt me? it just makes you look homophobic. if I were you, I would just write the hate comment without the slurs, because if you accuse me of being a transphobe and then use all of these slurs kinda refutes your own argument

2/10

the threat of violence comment, I have already had this a couple of times. it's not that bad in the sense that it is not boring, but from a trans activist perspective it's not smart to write comments like this because it proves our point that you're just some weird ass violent creeps.

4/10 because you're committed, but not more because of bad optics for your own movement

and there we have someone trying to make me feel bad. this person does not know much about the relationship I have with my parents, so from their perspective it is a guess: if i had a bad relationship with my parents, if would have hurt me, but unfortunately for them my parents already love me so it doesn't do anything. but keep trying! at some point you'll probably find something that I really feel bad about :) I believe in you!

8/10 because this person did actually try

[arizonaconservativegal]

Oh, I should clarify that there's nothing wrong with watching certain shows, but in some ways I do think the media you consume influences your worldview if you're really sheltered or if you don't get out much. Many of these online activists don't have experience with actual real life political activism so they approach politics the way they approach their shows. I know we should "let people enjoy things" but it's concerning

Kids these days need their worldview spoonfed to them and I think that's a combination of a) iPad parenting, b) schools that teach you to cite sources but not think for yourself, and c) a lack of organized religion. No one ever taught them how to map out their own values and form their own moral compass and work through questions that aren't black and white. Pop culture has become their only guide for these things and the problem there is that pop culture only tells you one answer - not how to think through the question and arrive at that answer yourself, much less with room to arrive at a different answer. They are told X is good and Y is bad but they have no idea why X is good or what is so bad about Y.

And they think that by interacting with media that says X is good, they are supporting the idea that X is good. If you interact with media that doesn't say X is good, it is obviously supporting Y. Since Y is bad, they can only interact with things that support X or explicitly condemn Y. Media consumption becomes activism and if you interact with the wrong thing, people will think you support Y and therefore you are On The Wrong Side and should be condemned.

When someone presents them with option Z, they have no idea what to do with it. They can only assume that if X is good, anything that isn't X must be bad like Y is bad. Because if Z was good, it would just be part of X.

And forget asking them about nuance. They panic when they see it because they truly don't know know to think about something more complex than an either/or. There isn't one right answer they can learn from some tv show. Nuance requires you to think about exceptions to the rule. If you don't have the skills to evaluate Z on your own, then you certainly won't be able to parse out when Z might apply instead of X.

Like I said at the top, this is a problem with how we teach kids. It's not the fault of the media they interact with. Watching some dumb lefty show will not make you a lefty. But if you've never been taught how to form your own conclusions, watching only dumb lefty shows will leave you parroting what they say. Playing a violent video game will not make you become a murderer but if you've never been taught that murder is bad or why you shouldn't hurt other people and all you know is that your game encourages you to kill people in it, you would think that is normal behavior. Most of us at least were taught enough to recognize that the violent video game is not a good place to learn your morals so we can play them as intended everything is fine but not everyone was taught how to think about political or moral philosophy.

So anyway, yeah it's fine to watch a silly show where everyone is either good or irredeemably evil - sometimes that can be relaxing because it doesn't ask you to think much and we all need that from time to time - but it's not meant to teach you how the world works because that's not how the world works. And it's fine to watch a show that has an agenda. It's even fine to decide you agree with what they're saying and adopt that into your own worldview - but you should be the one making that decision. The tv should not be doing it for you. If you don't understand why what they're saying makes sense to you, then you don't actually agree, you're just repeating the last thing you heard. Sometimes things just instinctively feel right and that's cool but then you need to challenge that idea and refine it. You should be able to identify the underlying principles driving that idea and use it to extrapolate next steps and figure out where the boundaries are or if its application is conditional on anything else and it should hold up against opposing information. If you don't know how to do that, people will manipulate you for their own purposes with ease.

[rantingcrocodile]

define trans right activists? like who is saying those things you're claiming? i bet your definition of tras is just anyone who isn't violently anti-trans which literally makes no sense at all. "rape and homophobia and violence is bad" yeah that's why i refuse to have anything to do with you terfs because you're full of shit like that. that's why you show your asses by laughing at trans rape victims and sending us threats and being pro conversion therapy for trans ppl. that's why you can't stand when grown queer adults have consenting sex with trans people. like you're a real handful and an annoying cunt, i might as well report you for harrassment the way you're tagging me and screaming "DEBATE MEEEEEE!!!!" like a banshee. fuck off

You want to report me for harassment, when you tagged me first on a post that wasn't even yours, keep tagging me and have sent me a bunch of asks?

I'm harassing you because I have the "audacity" to answer you?

Also: "Who is saying those things you're claiming?" literally spend five minutes on @tra-receipts. Any claims that you won't have seen any of my examples is a blatant lie, because they're everywhere.

Notice how you jump to falsely accuse me of harassment than even say "lesbians obviously can't like penis" and "it's not transphobic to not want relationships and/or sex with trans people" and "it's obviously homophobic for people to say that lesbians should go to therapy so they can start liking penises" and "it's wrong for trans rights activists to tell "TERFs" to die or want to punch them".

You can't do it for some reason.

If you can't do it, that means you don't agree with the above.

If you don't agree with the above, then you're homophobic, pro-rape, pro-conversion therapy and pro-violence towards women that even slightly disagree with you.

Which is exactly why the majority of us have a problem with trans rights activism.

[rantingcrocodile]

You're after a good faith response from me, and yet you attack my friends, call us rape apologists with no evidence, and overall treat us like shit. So tell me, why should I treat you with even a modicum of the respect you have refused to show me?

Where, exactly, did I "attack your friends"? Who did I treat "like shit"?

It sounds like you're attempting the old, "If anyone criticises trans rights activism, then that's a personal attack and I'm going to reframe what happened as you being bad so I can avoid what was said because the answer would make me look bad."

Let's make this easier, so you only have to provide as few words as possible. All you need to do is answer with a "yes" or a "no."

Do you support trans rights activists that claim lesbians can and do enjoy sex with penises?

Do you support trans rights activists that guilt-trip and coerce others into relationships and sex by weaponising transphobia?

Do you support trans rights activists who want lesbians to go through therapy to make them accept sex with penises?

Do you support trans rights activists that write out fantasies of rape, violence and murder towards "TERFs," i.e. "Punch a TERF" constant repetitions?

If the answer is "no" to all of those questions, then I do not have a personal issue with you at all. My issue is with the current state of trans rights activism, not individuals, unless those specific individuals are bad people.

If the answer is "yes" to any of those questions, then when you asked:

Why are TERFs allowed to equate trans rights and existence with rape, murder, conversion therapy, and more, and yet when trans people call them out on this, we’re the scum?

The answer would become, "Because you and the vast majority of trans rights activists promote homophobia, coercive rape, conversion therapy and violent rhetoric, since even you agree with it, and we, as ordinary, decent human beings, see those things as wrong."

It's an easy answer. It doesn't take paragraphs. Stop twisting around the issue.

If you can't answer the above, then the only answer that makes sense is that you do agree with them and you know that they're wrong.

This is simplified. You don't get to twist around words. We're keeping this as easy and transparent for everyone for a reason, so there's no hiding behind semantics.

I'm waiting.