#we need a feminist movement again so bad

[catgirltoes]

Gotta be honest the constant objectification of women's bodies is a bit tiring sometimes.

[genderkoolaid]

Hi. You always post a lot of info so I'm wondering if you might be able to help me. Is there a difference between radfems and TERFs? Are they both bad? If so, why are they bad? Are there any dog whistles to look out for when it comes to these groups? Please ignore this if it makes you uncomfortable. I've seen a lot of people pointing out that they're bad, but never really saying why. I want to make sure I follow intersectional feminism and not those groups.

Radical feminism is the name of a branch of feminism. It originally got its name because it advocated for extreme changes to society to address female oppression, but developed into a specific worldview which I (off the top of my head) would define by certain traits:

Oppositional sexism. Men and women (or "males" and "females") are fundamentally opposed. Oftentimes this is bioessentialist, arguing that this opposite comes from biology, but it may also be framed as a political necessity; a radfem might argue that gender and sex are fake BUT we need male vs female as political identities in order to identify our "allies" and "enemies". Regardless, males and females are physically distinct and political enemies. You can tell a man from a woman, either from their body or their behavior, the two categories cannot overlap, and no other gender/sex-labels are relevant.

Fatalistic perspectives on patriarchy. Not only are males and females opposed, but this cannot be changed. This may be bioessentialist (the opposition comes from something in our nature, which cannot change) or gender-essentialist (the opposition comes from socialization which occurs as a child due to outside pressure and/or internal gender identity, and cannot change.) Focus is not placed on an ideal future where men and women are equals and social partners. Instead, there is a sense that there is no way to truly have a society with men and women where males do not oppress females, or try to. Sometimes this is more implicit and other times you have people who explicitly believe in creating & enforcing female-only societies.

Misogyny as the source of all oppression, or at least the most important & the one people should identity themselves as before anything else. Those who call themselves intersectional generally only really care about other issues to the extent that they affect women in some way. Part of the downfall of the original radical feminists was the fact that the dominant groups were upper-class white women, who ignored racism and classism and silenced poor women & women of color, insisting that anti-racist and anti-classist action distracted from The Movement & that calling out other women's bigotry was anti-feminist.

A general suspicion of sexual desire and sex, often expressing itself as whorephobia (anti-sex work) and anti-kink attitudes, specifically under the argument that they are inherently misogynistic and abusive. Sex is associated with men and maleness, which again, are inherently the enemy. Sex WITH men, or with a person or object that could be construed as male, is especially bad.

The impetus to make your personal life As Feminist As Possible– "The personal is political." That isn't a bad slogan on its own (it's true), but with radical feminists it expresses itself as a high standard of Radfemmaxing. You should be celibate if you are attracted to men, or become a political lesbian, you shouldn't be masculine OR feminine (anti-butch & femme sentiment), you should reject makeup and shaving, you should cut off male relatives and even abort male fetuses– and you must identify with womanhood and femaleness, while rejecting any identity related to manhood and maleness. It's not just that you should examine your desires and choices and question why you feel the way you feel (again, this is a good thing). Radfems have the belief that they already know the correct answer to that Introspection, and if you come to any other conclusion than theirs (I like wearing makeup because it's fun, I want to be a man because it fits me), then it's taken as proof you are still brainwashed.

TERFS are trans-exclusive radfems. They believe that being trans is not real, or at least not healthy or an acceptable feminist stance. TERFs tend to use the language of "sex" and "males vs females." Many use the term "gender critical," meaning they see gender as fake and damaging, while sex is real and the proper platform for feminist analysis. I once saw a TERF define her stance as "it's not degrading because its feminine, its feminine because its degrading." They believe in things like autogynophilia and rapid onset gender dysphoria, and attribute transgender identity with sexual trauma, internalized homophobia and internalized misogyny.

TIRFs are trans inclusive. They believe that transgender feelings are natural and should be listened to and followed, and that feminism should take gender identity into account. However, they still have a "male vs female" worldview. They may argue that transgender men's internal gender feelings led them to internalize male socialization, while trans women internalized female socialization, meaning that all trans people's experiences with gender and misogyny align most with cis people who share their gender identity.

In both cases, anti-nonbinary exorsexism and intersexism are unavoidable. TERFs will label intersex people as "males/females with a disorder" and attribute nonbinary identity either to internalized misogyny (FTX) or to avoid being held accountable for male privilege (MTX). TIRFs similarly fail to acknowledge how someone's socialization can be affected by intersexism. MTX people are either trans women in denial or flamboyant cis men; FTX people are either trans men avoiding their privilege, or cis women avoiding their privilege*.

Not everyone who uses radical feminist arguments or shares the general perspective openly identified as radfem. There are many "cryptos" who purposefully obscure their political identity to spread radfem ideas in queer & feminist spaces. Other people adopt the general ideas of radical feminism without consciously identifying as one, because of cryptos and how pop feminism often adopts their flashier ideas. So it's important to understand these qualities as on a scale, with some versions being more subtle while others are explicit.

Radical feminism always reduces trans experiences (& experiences in general) to a simple, uncrossable binary, based either in gender or sex. Nuance and cros- or non-binary gender experiences are seen as anti-feminist and aligned with the patriarchy, if not part of a targeted plan to hurt feminist movements.

*the idea of "AFAB privilege" is. a thing in some people's analysis of transmisogyny.

[doberbutts]

I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

[gor3sigil]

Little things about being transmasc and/or a trans man:

As trans men and/or transmasc, we always are told to "do better" than cis men, and at the same time to conform to the patriarchal model of masculinity (white, able bodied, strong, thin, necer show emotions etc) to be seen as men/masc.

But you have to understand that some trans men don't want to perform that type of masculinity or CAN'T altogether.

Furthermore, our sexual orientations are often weaponized against us. If we love men, we're called slurs or in more feminist spaces. we're told that we're just women with extra steps, and if we love women, we're asked why we can't just be lesbians or told that we are doing patriarchy all over again. And if you dare to identify gay, you're told that no gay men like p*ssies, and if you dare to identify as a lesbian, you can't because no lesbians like men. And that is without considering the very broad sexuality/romantic spectrum, where your transness is basically a weapon too (aromantic ? Yeah, figure, you're trans and confused. Bi ? Yeah, figure, you're trans and can't decide. Asexual ? Yeah, figure, you're trans or WORSE you're afab and traumatized and so on and so forth).

Gender nonconforming trans men/transmascs are relentlessly called trenders within the community or asked why they even bother to transition. In the outside world, we are often read as a threat and assaulted because of it. But if you are gender conforming, you'll have smirky cis women tell you how you just fantasised about being a Big Strong Man and are just matrixed by patriarchy or too traumatized to live as a woman.

Want to transition medically ? Oh, but T is a BAD hormone that does BAD thing like make you gain WEIGHT and gives you ACNE and makes you GROSS. On the weight topic I could write a book about the horrible fatphobia within the community because I kid you not, I have been a girl teen with EDs who hung out in pr* an* forums and I've seen some shit in transmascs groups and passing tips that have a real resemblance to what I saw back then. Same for transmascs/trans men fitness groups.

Don't want to transition medically ? Lol theyfab. Like so much a woman. Very lady like with a bonus of bringing the movement down.

When it comes to inside the community, we can't talk about specific issues without being shushed, intersex transmascs, and trans men face a LOT of hardships and are insulted. I remember a friend of mine who is an intersex trans man receiving death threats and got told to [redacted] himself when he talked about his experiences as an intersex trans man BY TRANS PEOPLE.

Bipoc trans men and transmascs are always confronted to the white standards of passing coupled with the rampant racism within and outside of the community.

And one thing I can not not bring up: I think a lot of people forget that we can't mourn our dead. Why ? Because these past years, transmascs and trans men have been forgotten from TDOR lists. I remember seeing Twitter threads from trans men adding them because we don't even KNOW when someone has died or they are deemed as women and the death is treated like a feminicide. And it has been a constant.

We can basically never please no matter what we do.

That's my 2 cents on the transandrophobia because I feel like it needs to be said. If you still think that trans men and transmasc individuals don't face specific issues, think again.

[dykeulous]

the infantilization of men is so severe, so mind-blowing and so present in all parts of leftist spaces, and we should be calling that out more often. cancel culture tends to be very flawed itself (i’m not saying that people shouldn��t face repercussions for their wrongdoings, and i’m obviously not talking about actual bigotry & crime here, that isn’t cancel culture– cancel culture is made up of snide people who want to appear to stand a high moral ground, picking on anyone who makes a small mistake, or even just generally on anyone who they deem weird, cringe & unlikeable– refusing to let people move on from their *unproblematic* past), and a lot of people point out how it does a very bad job at addressing actual problematic behavior & instead focuses on ostracizing and partaking in cringe culture as its brother culture– but what is often swept under the rug is how cancel culture entertains & platforms heavily problematic men, even allowing rapists scot free– while its focus is primarily directed at women. cancel culture wishes to bully & tear down any woman it deems unlikeable, and this is not an overstatement, nor is it an unnecessary exaggeration; cancel culture proves itself time and time again to be very forgiving, and even forgetting of actual crime and bigotry committed by men, and in turns infantilizes said men, while it pays special attention to micromanaging & twisting women’s words. cancel culture is misogynistic, and it is based on the First Rule of Misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

this issue extends further from mere cancel culture. the rigid problem regarding the infantilization of men, and the encouragement of micromanaging & surveillance of women is extended to leftist & progressive spaces in general. the superiority complex of leftist men is set aflame & left to keep burning joyfully as it wishes, leftist men believing they are more intelligent, more progressive and tolerant than leftist women ever will be. all a man has to do in order to be considered a hero and an activist icon is say something that supports queer capitalism here & there, and for a woman to even be referenced once, she has to be a highly intelligent sociologist & activist politician, completely compliant & submissive, inconsiderate of her own emotions & boundaries and willing to debate her own basic human rights with a smile imprinted on her face. leftism is not exempt from misogyny, and leftist spaces aren’t sexism-free, especially given the inflated ego of leftist men & the tendency to treat female liberation as a side quest, and female oppression as a bystander to other systems of oppression, being extremely primarily class reductionist & failing to analyze the categories of “woman” and “man” as two classes with their own oppressive relations connected to labor. female socialization; women being nurtured to be more kind, more considerate, more gentle, more nice– all of this is being efficiently used against us in the very end, waiting to bite us with lethality. women are expected to be perfect advocates, perfect activists– and when we fall short in any way, when we dare show even the smallest signs of being human and not working as robotic vehicles 24/7 made to solve world problems– we get called misogynistic slurs, and smear campaigns ran against us.

the insane infantilization of men within leftist spaces is a problem that needs to be fixed, immediately. leftist men are not exempt from criticism. feminists are tired of having to do the majority of work and still being stabbed in the back by our supposed allies, while genuinely dangerous and horrible men are being allowed to conceal in the shadows by leftists, and sometimes they are even celebrated. the male hero, male savior, perfect male activist icon– mainstream leftist spaces infantilize & idolize the men they crown the movement’s heroes of the week, painting them as infallible, misunderstood, Cool Cute Quirky Little Guys; and if those men end up being racist or misogynistic, and even if they are accused of something as severe as rape, their fanbase will be ready to fight wars for them & sweep the evidence under the rug, say there is no evidence, say the evidence is not enough, not neatly provided– their fanbase will do anything to preserve these grown men as their perfect celebrity gods, incapable of wrongdoing, incapable of being scum and danger. this issue further extends to men who aren’t leftists at all, who aren’t popular or celebrities at all– it extends to normie men, to ordinary men. this can be observed when a teen person wants to come out as gay or trans to their parents, and they record/track this process on their social media– the observers are usually more likely to critique & be suspicious of the person’s mother, despite the fact that men are usually the perpetrators of violent homophobic & transphobic hate crime. the person’s father is often presented in such a light that will give the audience an overview of men being such cool & chill creatures, such rational creatures. people will often post text messages of them coming out to their fathers where their father acts confused but supportive, or says something as simple, disingenuous and uninteresting as “i don’t care”– and the viewers will go crazy, presenting this father as such a cool father, as such a supportive parental figure for commiting such non-actions; while in the same breath bullying mothers & calling them cringe when they buy rainbow products for their children.

you need not go in deep details, searching for specific scenarios– you get the idea of what is being said here. this is not a non-issue, and it must be fixed. leftist women do so much for this movement, yet they are unappreciated & straight up degraded when they slip even a little off the current mainstream standards, being presented as monstrous and bigoted, and downright evil. a woman can do so much actual activism, for gay & trans people alike– but as soon as the micromanagers of her words find something to be mad about, or accuse her of wrongthink– it is over for her. it all goes in the trashcan, all of the work she has done– all the while literal rapists are allowed to run free. class reductionists are going to yell leftist infighting! at me, but if leftist infighting is when women point out valid criticisms of how the people within our movement are treating us, then we will never be truly united in tackling systems of oppression. stop coddling men.

[grison-in-space]

Reading Men Who Hate Women (Laura Bates, 2020) at the moment. She's talking about the manosphere: the massive online communities of men who congregate to talk misogyny, ranging from PUAs to MRAs, incels and MGTOW. These aren't new topics to me—I've been following this off and on since watching Gamergate kick off—but Bates handles them well and I think this book could serve as an introduction if this is a movement with which you're not familar. By the way, it's been a decade since Gamergate this year. Isn't that a kicker?

(Incidentally, I first ran into the concept of incels way before I think many people did: when I was still on AVEN, c. 2006-2007ish, I remember a few occasions where users ran into incel communities and brought them to our forums to ask: is this like what we're doing? Is this like us? Consensus quickly solidified on the direction of "no," each time, not least because asexuality dialog at the time was extremely clear about divorcing desire from action, and it was very clear that the desires centered in that community were very different than the ones people in asexuality spaces were untangling.)

Bates handles the topic with grace, compassion, and a deep understanding that I really wish more writing on radicalization or terroristic networks used: people in real pain, who are struggling in pitiable circumstances to do their best and clearly need more support, can also in their pain be truly dangerous to others. Hurt people hurt people. Compassion for pain suffered is important—you can't understand recruitment without understanding that—but you also have to understand that pain, fermented in darkness, can create deadly poisons. Pain isn't essentially holy or cleansing or cauterizing. It doesn't accomplish anything good by existing. If we can relieve it, we should—but we should follow harm reduction principles as we do so, lest pain be allowed to multiply and fester.

What gets me is that in 2017, in the wake of the Google bro "manifesto," I spent a feverish week writing what wound up being a 20,000 word rebuttal studded with what eventually totaled 100+ peer reviewed citations. It got quite a bit of reach and covered ground ranging from effects of testosterone on behavior, the concept of effect size in sex differences, basic statistics, the ways that humans treat people differently based on their perception of gender, intersex trauma, and whether feminists care about men's problems (yeah, actually, and they should).

I released that piece, changed up my name and fannish presence—my long time pseud was tangled all over the piece's genesis—and hunkered down for the reprisals. I expected harassment and vitriol. It never really came: I ignored the comments on the post, after a bit, and I held boundaries on what I was willing to pay attention to. But by and large, I had no direct consequences from the Manosphere.

Perhaps the piece was too long (although I got many comments from people who read it and found it useful, and I included an index). Perhaps it was simply that I included a headshot of myself, with uncharacteristic red lipstick and characteristically buzzed hair, and cheerfully discussed throughout that I was butch and queer: sometimes I confuse people who are very focused on bioessentialist sex differences, because I don't fit their paradigms in the slightest.

About six months later, James Damore attempted to frame his incredibly poor decisions in light of his Asperger's, and I did get a couple dudes on social media presenting me with this information apparently in the hope that it would shock or embarrass me. I immediately pointed out, acerbically, that I'm equally autistic and that he was making us look bad, and they melted away again into the background. It wasn't really the well of terrifying anger and obliterative fury I was expecting.

I find myself reading these stories in Bates' book and thinking about the internet I grew up on: AVEN by 2005, WrongPlanet the same year, listening to people on the margins talk about their fears and hopes and dreams and theories about themselves. I find myself thinking about narratives and meaning, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and why.

I'm certainly not the first person to worry about radicalization of young autistic people, especially autistic men. Not even close. Paradoxically, it's a group of people for whom an understanding of intersectionality is crucial: young disabled men often alienated deliberately from conceptualizing themselves as disabled, without the tools to understand why life is hard and painful and never seems to reflect their experiences, trying to construct understanding beyond one's singular, isolated defective wrongness—which is what's left, if you take community off the table.

(Have I mentioned how grateful I am that so many autistics are trans spectrum? Imagine if we weren't, and if I didn't have so many transfeminine sisters funneled along those same currents and drifting closely enough alongside to understand. My sisters, so many of whom are out there living and modeling better ways to understand and participate in gender as a social activity: by figuring out what is most comfortable for you, understanding that comfort for one might be agony for another, and taking steps to shape your own life into a fashion that wells forth the most peace and joy. It's a message we all need to hear, but that is a group of people I hear singing so loudly from my place in a different wing of the choir, and I love them for it.)

I don't have answers. As is, so often, the case these days, I have only grief and love, and the determination to build better structures where my own hands reach. I had intended to direct my career, once, to undermining the entire concept of "good genes" models of evolution and explaining how their convoluted connections to natural phenomena are better explained by other, more direct motives. Since 2020, I've been moving in a new direction—but what precisely it is, I'm not sure.

Sex differences is certainly a piece of it, though. Even if I find myself often enough writing that it's not enough to know a sex difference in one species to assume that another will reflect a similar relationship: we should study sex differences in animals, but we really shouldn't assume that humans will have the same ones or work the same way. I suspect this won't be the first time I tangle with that community. I suppose it depends how much authority I can accrue as protection first.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749333039047442432/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost74884185043?source=share

Sorry, long rant incoming.

Someone in the replies said it, but I think it needs to be said again where everyone can see it: I think a lot of the attitude that anon is somehow secretly pro-censorship because they think certain preferences are skeevy, and strenuously insisting that bad attitudes can NEVER be media's fault.... idk, maybe take it out of the context of debates about sexually explicit/pornographic media for a moment?

There are works of media that had pretty direct effects on activist and political movements, good and bad. Uncle Tom's Cabin inspired a lot of people to fight against slavery. The movie Birth of a Nation, which showed a history of the U.S. with the KKK as heroic, is considered by most historians to be a major contributor to the revival of the KKK in the 1920s. The Nazis used films, books, music, art, and so on in their propaganda, knowing it would help their ideas go down more easily. The Soviets did too. Every dictatorship did. Even democratic countries have done it as well, usually but not always in more subtle ways.

Do none of those count, because "oh, people who were going to be convinced by Birth of a Nation would be racist anyway"? "Good, non-racist people wouldn't be convinced by it"? I mean, the latter is true: there were plenty of people, especially black Americans but plenty of white allies too, who boycotted the film at the time. The NAACP led a boycott. But do you really think NO ONE was convinced? (What about people who previously didn't feel any way about it one way or the other? Were they just innately more evil, even if it might've just been that they weren't aware? Do supposedly progressive people in fandom realize how much this sounds like Christian original sin rhetoric...) And does it matter purely about media fully changing minds, or also how it galvanizes people who already think one way? If it gives them new talking points, new ways of thinking about it and convincing others? If it helps them believe their cause is more important and worth fighting for?

So why does this all suddenly change when we're talking about sex? Is porn really this special class of media where somehow all the rules about how we can both like things and also be critical of how media (fiction, news media, whatever) influences us - "be critical of the media you love," as a tote bag sold by Feminist Frequency said - just stop applying for some reason? Or maybe if something is bypassing your rational brain entirely and going directly for the pleasure centers, there's all the more reason to think critically about what it's saying? Propaganda is designed to bypass all that, too.

Also, if media really has NOTHING to do with it, that just wouldn't explain why it's disproportionately anime that feature these specific elements that seem to attract more people arguing for why it's wrong to be upset by rape or child exploitation in real life. I don't believe that everyone who watches slavery isekai or lolicon approves of those things irl - I think for the vast majority of people, it IS a fantasy and that's the point - but I have noticed that in places like the Anime News Network or Crunchyroll forums, the comments become a cesspool of creepy people arguing for why ages of consent should be lowered and mean feminists who don't like watching media with rape in it just need to get over themselves, in a way they just don't when you're talking about Attack on Titan or My Hero Academia or Shoujo Romance #4891 or whatever.

As another person in the notes said, abusers ARE opportunistic. They'll use something like Twilight as easily as they'll use the most uwu, soft, "non problematic" ship to argue for why they're allowed to abuse you. But I don't think that means we can't be critical (not calling for censorship, of course! but like, writing op-eds and stuff) of media that makes their arguments a little easier, maybe even directly makes their arguments for them.

You can believe both that everyone has the opportunity to read, watch, listen to, play what they want and make up their own minds about it, and that it's wrong for the government to ever decide what media is and isn't "acceptable," and also believe that media often is saying things that aren't apparent on the surface and that you should be critical of those messages, *especially* with the stuff you like.

The point is just that porn isn't like, fundamentally different from other fictional media in this way. (Or, hell, I would argue that fictional media isn't functionally different from other mass media in this way. If anything, fiction's politics are often more insidious in a way that makes it easier for them to reach people who might not otherwise be open to those messages in the form of, say, blatantly right-wing news media.)

It's particularly strange to me when people jump all over someone for expressing how something can be insidiously creepy in a more mundane way. The line people are upset about that used the word "unpack" was just making the point that even if we can agree lolicon isn't outright advocating pedophilia, even if we agree the point is that it's a fantasy and they're not like real children at all and that's what people like, it's still working within an idealization/fetishization of helplessness, innocence, and dependence, and that still has a lot that you can critique from a feminist perspective. It's still a thing that plays into some crappy societal ideas about who women are supposed to be, and is selling that to men as a romantic ideal. There's still a lot we can talk about there! And it's still totally fair for women to be wary of men where that seems to be all they're into - because for some (and I believe this was what anon was initially trying to say was their experience), it does impact how they treat real women. It doesn't have to be everyone for it to have an impact.

There's a lot of anime that presents women that way, even way outside of lolicon. A lot of it's anime I like! I'm still critical of that aspect of it. I still wish that particular part of it were different.

I still don't see how this makes me "pro censorship" unless I believe some kind of institution should mandate that that not be included. And whether that's the government, or the industry itself (people do kind of narrowly focus on "the government" in a way that would make a lot of industry-run censorship that was still very harmful, e.g. the Hollywood Hays Code, not "count"), or anyone, I very much disagree with that. Creators should be able to create what they want. A lot of what creators are doing with this is unconscious, is reflecting societal biases they learned but haven't thought deeply about.... which is precisely the point of critiquing how those show up in a work.

People love to talk about "secretly 'anti' attitudes" but at the end of the day, support or opposition to censorship is pretty straightforward. You believe someone should be stopped from making a particular kind of media, or you don't. If you don't, you're not pro-censorship, no matter how much you personally may not like that that media or a particular aspect of it exists. Most people who care about media have some media they wish didn't exist. It's about what they do about it that makes them pro or anti censorship. Talk to people who donate to or even work for the ACLU or other anti censorship groups; most of them don't like racist or sexist stuff, but they also don't believe it should be banned and that's the point.

Bringing it back to the discussion at hand, I think the point was just that you can't be blind to how power dynamics influence this stuff. I wouldn't even say specifically cishet men are at fault here, since some people who read this blog seem to think that anyone saying that is automatically talking about bioessentialism as opposed to like, societal stuff (don't ask me why, this has been explained on here enough times in enough different discourses over the years, I think). I'd just say anyone with power in that particular context. There's a reason why it's specifically mainstream media, aimed at groups in power, that tends to draw in creeps excusing the real thing... in a way that just similarly is not true of people in fanfiction fandom, who are usually a member of one or more oppressed categories, exploring that in their own marginal work. Fans of rape fanfiction just don't act the way that fans of slavery rape isekai do. It's because there is fundamentally a difference both when you're someone whom society tells you are entitled to everything you want in this particular arena, and also when a work is mainstream, broadening its reach, and speaking a particular message from the lens of people with economic and social power (who are making these mainstream works) and given approval by publishers/media studios/etc. in a way that is not the case with amateur work with tiny audiences. And, frankly, there's a difference between something that eroticizes rape from the point of view of the perpetrator vs. the victim.

Not a difference in terms of how legal it should be. Not a difference in whether every single person who watches it or likes it is bad. But a difference in terms of what it's saying, how it's saying that, and often the effects they have as a result. That, too, is true with every topic, not just sex.

I feel like a lot of people getting mad at these do fundamentally agree with this, but just have a weird blind spot when it's put in any sort of terminology that reminds them of certain bad arguments they've seen in fandom, uses any words that can be dismissed as "radfem" or "anti" or whatever, and so just refuse to engage with the actual meat of what is being said.

If you do actually believe though that it's wrong to EVER think media can have a negative effect on what people believe about irl issues, because there was always something "already there" that was going to "come out anyway" if it affects you that way (again, people: this is "original sin" rhetoric), and if you ever privately judge people for the media they like you're secretly pro-censorship. You do have to recognzie that both you personally come up short and also most peopel doing real concrete real world things to fight censorship would also come up short!

I think sometimes of an editorial that said "if you love Return of the Jedi but hated the Ewoks you understand feminist criticism" in terms of how you can be bothered by the sexism of a piece of media in a way you'd be bothered by any one individual element of it, and still overall like the whole. And also, you can be offended by something, even wish it didn't exist (don't we as nerds all have entries in some franchise we like or another that we wish didn't exist for fannish reasons?), without believing that it should be officially made to stop existing or have never existed in the first place. That last part does actaully matter as like, its own thing. It is in fact separable from just being able to have personal judgey feelings about media and about the people who liked it.

And opposing it does not mean in any way that we have to just stop thinking critically about the media we love, or that we have to act like media can never have any influence on people. We on the left tend to talk about sexism, racism, homophoia and so on as being influenced by culture and society. Well, guess what is part of society and culture? Fictional (and other kinds of) media. That's part of that societal programming we get. It's why you'll see some of it even from people whose parents very much tried to resist teaching them certain things, because they get it from media anyway. I was raised by strenuously feminist parents: it was the media that taught me what gender roles were and how I was expected to adhere to them.

--

Look, I realize it's a bit rich of me to say this, but people are not going to engage with your actual points if you cannot be more succinct.

[anti-terf-posts]

Hi, this may not be the right place to ask, but I’m just wondering what’s so wrong with radfem ideology? I can’t really find any proper resources detailing why it’s wrong, besides screenshots of either toxic people saying toxic things, or screenshots of tradfem blogs. My own research hasn’t brought up anything either, as I can’t really find radfems saying anything horrible like a lot of anti radfem posts describe them saying. Again, sorry if this is the wrong blog, feel free to ignore this ask if that’s the case!

BEFORE WE BEGIN: I AM NOT AN EXPERT. I USED ARTICLES WITH NUETRAL OPINIONS ON RADICAL FEMINISM, AND BASED MY OWN OPINIONS ON IT. USE THIS AS A SOURCE AT YOUR OWN RISK

This one is actually kind of tricky, because some radfem beliefs are actually very valid and are arguably reasonable.

For example, Wikipedia states, "Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts" Which like, totally makes sense! The patriarchy needs to be dismantled entirely in order for women to have true freedom.

However, radical feminism dismisses the idea of legal/class based misogyny, which is ridiculous, considering the fact that women in higher classes often have more power over lower class women, and sometimes even enforce gender roles against lower class women (making them do household chores like taking care of the children or cleaning the house for them, etc.)

And let's not forget the racism rooted in radical feminism. Radfems claim that misogyny is the most basic form of oppression, which completely erases the oppression of people of colour, which has been around since almost forever.

In fact, in the early days of this movement, many black women refused to associate with radical feminists due to their ignorance of oppression against women of colour. It was only after radical feminists began to listen to woc, and start including them in their feminism that they decided to join the ideology.

Moving the discussion over towards prostitution and pornography. Radfems believe that both of those are inherently bad things. It is true that women in lower socioeconomic classes have a higher chance of being prostitutes, but it shouldn't be true. Yes, women who are coerced into sex work in any way should have the freedom to quit, but this should not clash with a woman's freedom to join the industry if she wants to.

So, sometime after the radical feminism movement was started, radical lesbian feminism began.

These women believed that they were helping women fight oppression and misogyny simply by being lesbians, because "heterosexuality inherently oppresses women". This statement is incompatible with the belief that women should have the freedom to do what they want. If lesbians are unable to control who they're attracted to, then why isn't that the same for heterosexual women? And let's not ignore the blatant biphobia that comes with that. A bi woman should have the freedom to choose to be in a male/female relationship without judgement (as long as she isn't being coerced into the relationship) and saying otherwise completely erases bi women's experiences as queer people.

Speaking of queer people, we all know and love the classic TERF, or, FART, as I like to call them. (Also, if you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic about loving TERFs. No one loves TERFs.)

Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists believe that the trans movement "perpetuates patriarchal gender norms," and "is incompatible with radical feminist ideology."

If you couldn't tell, this is greatly untrue. Radical feminism just believes that we need to get rid of the patriarchy and has nothing to do with how people identify. If you take a look at pretty much any article that discuss radical feminism, you'll see the history of anti-trans rhetoric being spread by the ideology.

Being anti trans is probably what radical feminism is most well known for. Over the course of many decades, the ideology has become less about women's movement, and more about punishing trans people for their existence. Hell, even a quick search of "radical feminism" on this god forsaken site will reveal that their main motive is no longer about women's liberation and has now become all about oppressing trans people.

As my mum put it; "it's the cycle of abuse. These women are so traumatized by the patriarchy and misogyny, that they feel the need to abuse the easiest target."

To recap, the radfem ideology is racist, biphobic, and most notably, transphobic. And if that's not enough to convince you that it's problematic, I don't know what is.

[earlgreyinpajamas]

Any recs for merthur and time travel? Or like, modern au when Arthur gets out of the lake? Thanks!!!!

time travel

Complementarity, Entanglement and the Uncertainty of Destiny —or— A Feminist Mage in King Arthur's Court by Jenrose (@jenroses), procoffeinating (@procoffeinating)

Merlin was once told that Arthur would rise again at the hour of Camelot's greatest need. But a thousand years pass, with no Arthur. When the last war comes, and the world dies, and Arthur still doesn't return, Merlin suddenly realises that the hour of Camelot's greatest need… was a thousand years ago. Sometimes he's a bit slow on the uptake. Fortunately, he's figured out how to go back. What would YOU do if you had 2000 years of experience in the body of a 17 year old, and absolutely nothing left to lose?

Note: E-rated sections clearly tagged, can be skipped.

~~~

we can't talk about time travel without talking about this fic: i.e. the finest 100k words fix it

2. time, mystical time by andiwriteordie

Finally, the man tears his gaze away and meets Arthur’s eyes once more. “I seek the aid of your Camelot,” he says, but his voice sounds more hesitant now, as if he’s had to change his response for some strange reason.

Merlin can’t help but believe that reason is him.

“As for who I am,” the man says with a bit of a chuckle, and he glances around the room again at familiar faces, at his friends. “I am Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot.”

Or:

When a mysterious stranger shows up to Camelot claiming to be Arthur from the future and seeking help for his sick consort, Merlin learns some things about himself, about Arthur, and about a future he never dreamed was possible.

~~~

wonder who that consort is

3. you can call me dangerous (these are the sins of my youth) by wastefulreverie (@wastefulreverie)

When an accidental spell sends Camelot's future crown prince spiraling into the past, it's up to Arthur to navigate secrets past and present.

Or: Arthur and Merlin's son cannot keep a damn secret.

~~~

i'll admit that it doesn't have the most conclusive of endings, but i had a blast reading this fic ergo the rec

arthur returns

A Faire Fight by Zaharya (@zaharya)

Arthur caught sight of Merlin when there were maybe fifteen of them left. He faltered, jaw dropping open, and it was pure luck the man charging at him had terrible aim, or he would’ve failed out of the melee right then and there. Pulling himself together, he made quick work of his attacker, before putting some distance between himself and the others to collect himself. And, perhaps, to stare just a little. Merlin was… magnificent. He wielded his sword like an extension of his own body — a lesson most of Arthur’s knights had never truly mastered. His movements were quick and precise, yet fluent, graceful in a way Arthur had never seen before, as he landed disqualifying hits on two, three, four opponents in rapid succession.

Or: The one where Merlin brings a returned Arthur to a medieval faire and they fight in a tournament.

~~~

safhjsdfhjdl so cutee

2. Let’s Talk by Salamandair

Merlin has had a terrible, awful, no good, very bad week. So, he goes and vents to the one person who would understand

~~~

as far as i am concerned, this is what happened in the last 5 minutes of merlin season 5

3. I think of loss and I can only think of you by wanderingtrickster

Arthur comes back... but not the way Merlin expects. On top of that, he can hardly believe it's real. Seriously, he... hardly believes it. Though it becomes easier when Camelot's former king tackles him into the bathtub and they both end up soaked. On top of that, Arthur is being surprisingly affectionate.

In his own way that is.

~~~

one of my fav arthur returns fics

[werebutch]

hey i saw someone already said that the person posting abt 4b was a terf, and you may have already learned this (sry if i'm just repeating information), but the 4bs movement as a whole is trans exclusive, especially of transfems. @/rui-cifer is a good source on this. also this post:

https://www.tumblr.com/rui-cifer/766451115992760320

I really appreciate when people bring my attention to things like this because I always want to know more, as always these things have to be criticized from the trans POV or we would get nowhere. So tysm ♥️ I DO want to know what you think (if you’d like to talk more, no pressure) the alternative is ? That post is great at pointing out this problem and everything in it SHOULD be acknowledged and fixed, especially if women in the US plan to replicate 4b, although (slight tangent) I also have my doubts about it lasting very long because of the nature of Americans.

But I don’t think the solution is to completely forget something as seemingly powerful as 4b? By that I’m talking about women withholding from men, obviously not the exclusion of trans people.

All (“popular” or at least not exactly niche) feminist movements throughout history have had problems like this. Racism and transphobia are the ones most apparent I think. That’s not okay now and it never was, and I know you know all this lol I’m just making my point.. I don’t think the solution to this is to freak out and condemn feminist actions right now. PLEASE don’t take this the wrong way 😭 you and me both know I don’t mean explicitly anti trans talking points.. I simply mean that I believe 4b, and more broadly, feminism, can exist without being anti trans..IF cis people actually try. Again I think if women ARE going to participate we as trans people and cis allies need to push to make them include us, and I don’t think it’s going to be the majority that do, instead it’ll be niche groups. But that’s kind of just how it’s going to be at this point in time, and it’s how it’s always been. It’s sad but I mean .. that’s .. it. Feminist movements always seem to be overwhelmingly white and cis but there WERE niche groups that weren’t. I think at this point that’s all we can hope for ? Society as a whole is not pro trans, and even though it would be ideal and we 100% should be aggressively pushing for it, I don’t think we can expect a very wide feminist movement to be either.. I don’t think that’s how this works

I’m very open to discussion on this and I’m not a trans woman so obviously I will sit my ass down and listen. But truly. I’ve been seeing on my dash that feminism is bad for the sake of being feminism, which is supposedly a “red flag”…. It’s weirding me out. I’m not at all saying that’s what you’re doing but I fr don’t think we need to avoid feminism like that LOL we just have to work towards making it more inclusive. Obviously. Because that’s never going to be finished lol. Feminism can exist without being anti trans, we know this ♥️

[comradekarin]

That last ask you got here, just reminds me of the fact that while TS fandom claims to be all about feminism and women supporting women, it surely lacks intersectionality and it SHOWS and this is in great part because that’s the kind of advocacy they get from the celeb they worship, that’s why is dangerous to just pander to one kind of feminism as if everyone had an universal experience, when it couldn’t be further from the reality, we need to have those conversations we need to learn from one another and whoever has a privilege, should make good use of it to uplift those who can’t at the moment

Yup!! That’s basically the point I’m trying to hone to be honest. Again, I absolutely believe we should support female artists in the music industry, especially when they will be held to higher standards than other male artists (even in that area we can have a conversation about the dynamic race plays between male artists, too). However, it’s imperative we discuss how Taylor and her fans only use feminism to tell other people they can’t be mean to her, or critique her. Are these group of people the minority in the fan base? Maybe, sure. But should we sweep it under the rug and let it fester just because it’s the minority? No.

Do I believe the average Taylor Swift stan is normal and doesn’t hate black women? Yes. I believe there’s a lot of them who just enjoy her music and don’t feel the need to bash other black female artists in order to prove how much better Taylor is. Nonetheless, there’s still a large group of her fans who claim to support all women but will not hesitate to degrade and shut out the voices of woc making valid criticisms against Taylor. Just look at the Matty Healy situation. A white woman’s partner is exposed for making disgusting racist comments about black women, and the responses are not “this powerful rich white woman is continuing to date this man and is being complicit through her silence, which is enabling his repulsive behavior and she needs to be held accountable” but instead “we need her to stay away from this bad man!”. Yes, because the image and reputation of this white woman is more important than the dangerous rhetoric her partner is spreading about the same women she claims to support! Yes, because this white woman can have a collab with the same woman (ice spice) her boyfriend was making racist remarks about and everything is ok! Yes, because it is the white woman who is the victim here, and if you can’t see that you’re a misogynist!

Taylor’s silence during the wave of transphobia, the criminalization and banning of drag shows, the uptick of hate against black women, and so much more just makes sense when you look at the company she keeps. Didn’t her team try to sue a journalist for stating Taylor constantly toes the line with conservatives and white supremacists a few years back? Just look at the CO2 emissions drama where everyone was like “man I hate privileged white millionaires” and then she dropped an album and everyone forgot? Any critique for Taylor is met with these responses: A) Taylor isn’t the worst apple out of the bunch so why is she getting attacked like this B) Y’all would never do this to male celebrities so just say y’all hate women C) Why is Taylor blamed for the actions of other men or D) [justifying anything Taylor has done].

So, what you’re saying is correct anon. We can not talk about feminism and supporting “all women” while also trying to lump the struggles of all women into a single category. The initial Feminist movement itself excluded other women of color, it was something only meant for white women. White women have a level of privilege over other women of color, and we can’t pretend they don’t because they’re just “women, too”. White women and their fake white tears have done so much harm to marginalized communities, especially my own black community. I want this conversation to actually mean something, for it to be a moment of self reflection, for it to actually be about supporting, advocating for, and uplifting the voices of all women. I don’t want this talk of “support all women” to only be brought up when someone attacks your white fav.

[stardustjie]

I'm complaining because that's what Tumblr is for anyway. sorry if it's too political and nonsensical, but I need to get this out

I really hate how social media has gendered perfectly normal human behaviour. I mean, in the west we always had that tendency and the modern generation in general can understand why saying "girls do this, boys do that" is kinda archaic. in the last few decades women gained a lot of rights that before were exclusive of men and we have way more freedom, but now with the whole "masculine energy vs feminine energy" thing it feels we are getting backwards.

and like, western society is patriarchal and used to be way more strict with very defined gender roles and gender appropriate behaviour so the very concepts of masculine and feminine have existed for centuries and it's not like I'm against them existing, but saying that a woman being assertive and taking up space is in her "masculine energy" is not something I wanted to hear in 2024.

again, masculinity and femininity as concepts do exist and I wholeheartedly believe they can be found in every single person because at the end they are just behaviours and personality traits and everybody can possess them. they coexist like the left and right sides of our bodies coexist. fuck, good and bad coexist in person — therefore I think reducing a person whole essence into imaginary gendered energy based on western standards is a disservice to them and to the battles the feminist movements has done.

I'm sweet-tempered which is feminine but I'm argumentative which is masculine but I'm also caring which is feminine but I also swear like a sailor which is masculine but also — what energy should this be?

what I'm trying to say is that we spent decades trying to teach women they are allowed to take up space and make themselves heard because their voices matter and now some "femininity coach" on tiktok is pushing this idea that certain traits and behaviour are inherently gendered and to be happy you need to be in X energy and find a partner that is Y energy. that's not even a real job.

"you need a masculine man that allows you to be in your feminine energy" but why do you need a man's permission? why is the masculine energy about treating your partner as a child? you might as well live with your father at least he likes you.

[atla-confessions]

That hemoglobin iron nonsequetir is wild... I mean, iron's in myoglobin too, so if bloodbending worked the way a lot of its fan think it works then that theory would naturally be borne of it... Although that's just a few grams in a whole body, a far cry from the 60% of water unless you get creative like Magneto, hehe.

...Ah what the heck, I'll brainrot bout "bloodbending" for a bit.

Bloodbending is definitely not just moving around the blood in people's body and making them move along with its sloshing, it's a nickname for manipulating the water in all the body's tissues similarly to how you can move the water in plants to make the vines move. Water is present in all body tissues, not just blood. The technique probably focuses more on moving the water in the tissues besides the blood, logically.

If bloodbending was specifically sloshing around blood and making people move that way, the technique would be prima facie bad because that will just kill people. You are describing stopping the blood from flowing, creating, at minimum, mitral regurgitation and capillary leakage. It would also definitely cause edemas and permanent brain damage. Again, among numerous other complications, including death after a couple minutes of it.

So if bloodbending was literally moving people around by manipulating the flow of their blood, it should be outlawed because that's just not something can be done safely.

(Not to mention the fact that the movements would not physically look like they do in the series if this was how it was done. And the interrupted bloodflow would be turning anyone being bloodbent blue or at least pale, which would be an obvious tell if that were the technique.)

Bloodbending forcibly robs people of bodily autonomy, and Katara is pro-bodily autonomy and thinks that forcibly taking that away from people like it was taken from her is a deep violation and act of violence against another person. That's very in line with feminist teachings and just human rights ideals in general.

Also, even outside of that, it's assault. Like, legally speaking, this would classify as a form of assault unless you're doing it to yourself or with express permission. Assault is already illegal so I think it's fine to specify that this type of assault is also illegal.

Bloodbending is not about the literal movement of blood, but to entertain the idea of that:

Most of the time I see people suggesting using it to stop bleedout, what they're describing will absolutely just create an embolism. It's sad because the obvious answer if you want a medical application for "waterbending blood" outside of the healing magic is using it in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment. (I can't imagine it'd be very sterile but that's at least an application that makes some level of sense to me.)

And if you want a medical application for the thing that bloodbending actually refers to (puppeteering bodies through the movement of the water in tissue), the obvious practial answer is assisted physical therapy.

But given what we see of the technique, I'm inclined to thing that would not actually do much to help the muscles develop and would further injure any patient that needs physical therapy in the first place. Still a more sensical application idea than holding blood in place in a vein "so it doesn't bleed out" instead of wrapping it in a bandage or something though.

🤔

[secularprolifeconspectus]

You and your colleagues who advocate the prohibition of abortions feel moral satisfaction from the imaginary salvation of unborn children, but do you care what happens to these children after they are born? Are there people who will take care of them, do these people have the resources and opportunities, are they able to give them everything for life? Because very often those who persuade people not to have abortions and give birth disappear from the lives of children when they cease to be in the womb

First, the HUBRIS you have to have to assume we're saving imaginary children. If you want to argue fetuses aren't people, then just do that. Don't come at me with some bad-faith whataboutism. Make a good fucking argument to prove some humans aren't people or shut the fuck up! Burden of proof is on you!!

Second, thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about some of my FAVORITE organizations and initiatives.

The short answer to both of your questions is YES.

At one point in time I also fell for the forced-stillbirther propaganda that said "pro-lifers don't do anything for mothers once the baby is born!" But after researching the early Pro-Life Movement, I learned I was lied to! Just see this article from 1975:

"It will be called the Emergency Pregnancy Service Aid Centers... According to Mooney, the centers will “try to help women with problem pregnancies, with money, housing and counseling. We will try to find a way to ameliorate her situation.” Mooney said that many people have donated money for the projects and others have offered to provide shelter for as long as needed.” Mooney, whose group is eight months old, said it is “an alternative to the right to lifers. We are a little more liberal. There are two shows in town.”

So from the very beginning Pro-Lifers have been doing the work to support mothers.

That doesn't mean some mothers didn't fall through the cracks of course, but it's not because *no one* would help them. It's not up to Pro-Lifers to end child suffering before we can end baby murder, anymore than it was up to slave abolitionists to end racism before they could free Black people. Fetuses are actual people, and killing people doesn't solve issues we must solve as a society; that is a "final solution," and it is genocidal.

Now who is doing this work in the modern day, you ask? Well, let me introduce you to

Let Them Live

Currently (November 2023) they are raising $28,000 for Carly so she can keep her baby and get back on her feet! I've seen them raise over $20,000 in funds for these mothers time and time again. Their friend Maison DesChamps sometimes free-scales skyscrapers to raise awareness for their fundraisers. It's insane. They even have an "Adopt-A-Mom" program. From their website:

Let Them Live assistance is tailored directly to each individual mom’s circumstances. Generally, this includes paying for rent, utilities, car payments, gas, food, a baby registry, financial literacy classes, counseling, and assistance in finding full time employment. Our counselors work with each mom to create a financial plan that is specific to their own unique situation. Generally, the counselors are able to get the moms completely back on their feet during the last few months of their pregnancy. Our aim is to facilitate each mom’s financial stability and independence by the time her baby is born.

And there are SO many testimonials from women they have helped. (<-Links)

I also want to give a shout-out to New Wave Feminists and their Stellar Shelter that helps immigrant and refugee moms at the border!

I also know individuals who have made huge sacrifices to help women and children after the baby is born. My friend Lauren threw herself on the car windshield of a mother who was driving to an abortion and begged her to not do it, promising to raise the child for as long as she needed if she wouldn't kill him. She didn't kill Mayson, and Lauren raised him for an entire year on her own until his mother was back on her feet.

And there's organizations that lobby for better government social safety nets for struggling parents, such as Democrats for Life.

Recently the Pro-Life Movement has also established two new campaigns to help alleviate the struggles of parenting. The first is Make Birth Free, which I hope is self-explanatory. The second is "Building a Post-Roe Future", which entails:

Accessible and affordable healthcare for parents and children—including expanding Medicaid funding for prenatal care, delivery, and postpartum expenses—to reduce the financial barriers to welcoming a new child; Expanded child tax credits that promote family formation and lift children out of poverty; Paid parental leave that ensures every infant can receive the close attention and nurturing care they need from their mothers and fathers in the early months of life; Flexible work hours to enable families to establish a tranquil home life, with predictable work schedules and better options for meaningful part-time employment; Affordable childcare options that support working parents, without disincentivizing the choice to raise young children at home that many families say they would prefer;  Fully enforce existing prenatal child support laws while seeking effective new ways to demand that all men take responsibility for children they father.

I hope that's enough to prove to you that we really do give a damn!

What are YOU doing to help women who feel financially forced to abort but would keep their babies if only they had the money?

If your answer is "I donate to kill their babies instead of making parenting an equally accessible choice", you're a hypocrite, a loser, and an enemy to the working class!! BECOME A BETTER PERSON AND DO BETTER!!!!

[gendercriticalthinking]

I'm a radfem but I have a boyfriend too. I don't talk about him online 1) obviously nobody wants to hear about men in radfem spaces, especially lesbians, which I don't blame them for 2) some people on here are really just not normal about it and I don't want the drama 3) I personally think you can have a bf and be a radfem if you have strong, uncompromising boundaries when it comes to sexism and not tolerating it. Idk, I feel weird about lying about it but I also don't want to invite issues when we attract so much hate for our beliefs as it is.

That's absolutely understandable, and I agree! Women, and lesbians especially, deserve to have female-exclusive spaces! It's just a little off-putting to come into a space where everyone says "my feminism is for all women!! female solidarity!! i center women first!!" and then something most women have in common and is innate to them causes multiple rounds of controversy???

2. Like that's the thing though!! If you want to be a feminist, and you claim sexuality is innate, how can you not be normal about the most common type of female sexuality. Yes the vast majority of men are awful and not worth being in a relationship with, yes I do think most women would be happier alone than with the average man, especially right now. But why is the conclusion here "het women bad and stupid, i laugh at your suffering because it's your fault for not listening to me as i berated you" and not "let's help women understand they're allowed to have standards and boundaries, and that they don't have to be in a romantic relationship to be happy"???

3. I'm not a radfem and haven't read much primary-source info on it outside scattered quotes posted here, so I can't say whether or not having a boyfriend/husband is incompatible with it or not. Either way, the fact that you and I and other women feel weird/guilty/uncomfortable about talking about one of the most important people in our lives is a huge red flag to me. Either something rings true about radfem criticisms of het relationships and he might need to go, or something really stinks on here. Or both, I guess. But again, helping women figure out their worth and their standards does a lot more good than telling them "your whole life you just listen to what random men tell you to make them happy. that's bad. now listen to what i, a stranger, tell you to do to make me and other women happy." She still is operating on female-socialization autopilot where her personal beliefs and boundaries don't matter, it's just that she's doing it for you and other women instead of men. Which is progress to some people I guess???

Overall I think it'd be better if radfems with this mindset called themselves lesbian feminists instead of radfems, since their beliefs align with that strain so much. Or make up a new name for it if they want idk. But either way, they're putting women off feminism as a whole and making things worse as a result (and if you point this out to them they often don't seem to care, having a "fuck those dick riders they don't deserve to be happy then" attitude, which again, odd way to react if you claim to be a feminist).

Like if giving up makeup--an optional hobby that's something even women who like it are sometimes willing to admit is expensive or annoying or time-consuming or uniquely targeted at them--is still a sore topic to a majority of women, how tf do they expect "suppress your innate sexuality" to go over??? And it'd be one thing if it were just Some Ladies Online, but uhhhh there's a history here. Multiple books were published touting political lesbianism as praxis. It's A Thing and you should probably talk about it more than you do if you actually want the women you mock to engage with the movement and leave their abusive male partners!

(For the record, I'd be over the moon if women stopped wearing makeup every day and never felt the need to again... but it's so easy for me to say and think that when I never liked it in the first place. To me, small things like getting women to admit part of the reason makeup makes them feel good is because it's a societal expectation for them to wear it, or if they slowly start feeling comfortable wearing less of it or less often in public, that's real progress that could never come about from hardline cold-turkey-now-or-you're-antifeminist guilt tripping. Much like transgenderism, regardless of how it makes the people involved feel, at the end of the day reality and actual progress is most important, and if believing/talking a certain way doesn't actually get us anywhere then it's time to try something else.)

I wish I could remember the user on here who wrote about this in her tags, but it comes down to "You say you believe misogyny is pervasive, near-invisible, taught to us in such a way that we believe it without realizing it, and extremely difficult to fight back against, yet you're so impatient and unkind to women who don't snap out of it the moment you dump extremist tenets on them. Do you need a reminder of why feminist is an uphill battle, or do you not actually think it is?"

I've said this before, but it feels like they've turned feminism into their own version of NLOG, where lesbians and febfems and celibate women are the True And Wise Women and the rest of femalekind are the vapid selfish Other of the "other girls" giving the True And Wise Women a bad rep and causing their undeserved suffering.

TL;DR Feminism that cares more about hating men than helping women gets us nowhere.

[sawthatmountainburn]

I haven't watched the barbie movie and don't really plan to, I just have a problem with some arguments people have been making in its defense, as they are weak arguments regardless of what piece of media they're defending. specifically it's the "this is just feminism 101 for kids, it doesn't have to be a whole manifesto!" type of dismissive arguments.

first of all, if a movie is marketed as feminist and the fanbase praises it for its feminism, people who go see it will have certain expectations based on their own idea of feminism, since feminism is an umbrella term for different ideologies whose common trait is that they want rights for women. who counts as a woman, what specific rights they should have and how we should get them are all points of contention, without even getting into intersecrionality just yet. (very broad generalization, also some leftist feminists disagree with the 'rights' framing) there's only so many grains of sslt you can take, before you decide this is just too far away from what it was presented as and clearly, many women feel this way about the movie.

second of all, regardless of how a piece of media is marketed, it is always fair game for critism, whether that be from a feminist perspective, an anti-racism perspective, a leftist perspective or whatever else you can come up with. to demand that people simply not bring up these critiques because it's ruining people's fun or it's not that serious (but still serious enough that you call people misogynists for criticizing it?) is blatantly reactionary. it's the same thing angry geek boys do when you point out their funny little sci-fi and fantasy shows have weirdly few POC in them. you can say a criticism is in bad faith or based on a misreading of the text (I've seen this about the gynecologist scene, for example), sure, but what I'm seeing more commonly is just a total dismissal of these critiques and perspectives, as if the movie simply isn't subject to it for whatever reason.

expounding upon this, the "feminism 101" part of the argument is similarly reactionary. to reiterate what i said in my last reblog about this, the way people talk about this movie gives me the impression that it's way more suited to the ~2012-2014 pre-gamergate era of tumblr feminism, when people said stuff like "eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man" and feminist criticism was treated as more of a checklist of good and bad tropes. we're almost a decade past that era, with many events that changed the political and pop cultural landscape in the meantime, so what was passable back then might not be such now. we've talked extensively about intersecrionality, issues of race have been brought up time and time again, especially in light of the BLM movement and anti-Asian racism in the COVID era, queer issues have also been gaining more and more traction, etc etc, I can't and won't recap the last decade of political development. my point is, if you're a feminist in 2023 (or any other type of left-leaning politically active individual, but the barbie discourse is about feminism, so that's what I'm talking about specifically) you cannot simply ignore these issues and say multiply marginalized women will have their time, but they need to wait for the privileged women to go first. actually, it was always unacceptable to demand marginalized women support more privileged women while getting nothing in return, but it's even more obvious and ignorant in the current era, after we've been trying to make people understand intersecrionality for years.

it's also insidious how the implication is that feminism needs to be dumbed down for kids (a dubious claim in the first place) and for some reason, that dumbing down involves flattening everything to being about the most privileged women possible. why shouldn't young privileged girls learn about the issues that face their less privileged peers face? why should girls of marginalized groups have to sit and listen about the issues facing their privileged peers, but never being given the tools to discuss their own issues? whom does this dynamic serve exactly and why is it not only acceptable to continue to exist, but it also important to so vehemently defend?

I'm not trying to tell people not to like the barbie movie, that's really not what I care about. I'm saying the types of arguments being made reveal a failure of intersectionality and a dismissal of multiply marginalized women's issues, coupled with a self-centeredness which should be unacceptable to any serious feminist. stop making excuses for a hollywood blockbuster funded by a multi-billion(!!) dollar toy company and start giving a shit about the women in need right in front of you!