#we're fighting for womens liberation remember?

[scarlettfevor]

I know that radical feminism and celibacy aren't ever going to be popular among women, but the 6b4t movement has shown that it can work, So I don't understand some radfems logic of agreeing that it's a good thing for more women to be at least aware of radical feminism but whenever a lot of women are showing interest in it, like now, you decide to discourage them by making snarky comments about how celibacy could NEVER work for them so they might as well not even try

[atlantis-fell]

I'm not even going to bring up the books to support my point, I can make another post on that, but my biggest problem with House of the Dragon is how they write the women. Its like they're scared that if they give the women characters too much personality agency or power, the viewers will forget they live in a sexist world. This wasn't as obvious in season one because the show had a lot going on.

Why did all of the main women with speaking lines possess the same personality of peace keepers while all of the men were blood thirsty even beyond reason? Why did we have to see Rhaenyra be disrespected to her face by her vassals lords to prove sexism is bad when in-universe they'd be executed on the spot if logic was applied in the writer's room? Why did a man have to be shown a vision by the gods to cement his support and acceptance of a woman as a ruler? Why was Alicent excluded and surprised by a coup she was actively planning for and even started the Green faction for in the absence of her father? What do you mean Alicent had to be ousted from influence by the men to realize she propped up monstrous power hungry incompetent men in usurping Rhaenyra?

Even in s1, we're deprived of seeing Rhaenyra's individual influence and power at court (retinue, input, favor) since she's always in this state of desparation to make her a sympathetic underdog because the writers dont trust the audience to accept a multi-faceted woman protagonist (powerful, vulnerable, confident, rageful, ambitious, etc), which makes all of the men in her life saviors in some way. Why do we need a prophecy to be relied on so heavily to empower Rhaenyra to rule vs the simple fact that she wants to defend her birthright and her enemies are willing to destroy the peace, the kingoms, and themselves before letting that happen?

Remember in Game of Thrones s1 - s4 where we had a group of well written women characters with distinct personalities, motives, and storylines with complexity that didn't rely on being disrespected by men 24/7 to prove their agency and power was limited due to social confines of gender? Catelyn was comfortable in the patriarchal mold for gender while proving to be a politically savvy, knowledgeable, and active influence in the war. Melisandre was a Preistess whose dedication to fighting for humanity in the Great War was so pure that it made her do horrific acts directly and indirectly despite being on the "right side." The calculating, clever, and manipulatitive Margaery and Olenna of House Tyrell are the true rulers and planners of their House - a direct foil to the tyrannical callous & aggressively patriarchal Lannisters - who truly loved their family and desired their security despite being driven by advancement. Cersei Lannister, a narcissist who desired power and absolute control above all else, malicious and incompetent, hateful at the confines of her sex, and haunted by prophesy. Daenerys is a princess but had to fight for every bit of agency she had and realized she had to halt her ambition and her family legacy to liberate others. I say this to say this was all written under patriarchal societal conditions.

[not-gray-politics]

anyway the americanized version of 4B is just a repackaging of terf ideals and we should call it what it is (I don't have enough context about korean culture/history to pass any judgement on the original movement; this post is specifically about the most recent version of the movement that's been gaining popularity in the U.S. since the election.) I support boycotting misogynistic industries and cutting off toxic people, especially when they vote against your rights, but if your response to this is to start talking about the inherent evil of men and cutting off all men in every circumstance when about 53% of white women (the vast majority I see making 4B content recently) also voted trump. I think your focus is in the wrong place. The call is coming from inside the house. Divorce that shitty husband who's been exploiting your labor, break up with that boyfriend who doesn't respect you, stop talking to that relative that's celebrating your loss of reproductive rights, stop supporting that business with a trump sign on their property, absolutely. I will always encourage you to find people who support and care about you and to build community and safety for eachother. But don't turn around and hang out with women who advocate for the exact same right wing bullshit with a coat of pink paint and call it "4B". Don't rely on terfs who think you're inherently weaker and dumber and will always remain less powerful than men. They do not actually care about advocating for your rights, they only care about hurting the right people and keeping you afraid. They'd vote against you in a heartbeat if it meant hurting a trans woman, they probably already have. They shout about girl power, sisterhood, womens' solidarity, but they do not believe we can overcome misogyny in any meaningful way. There's a lack of faith that we can ever prevent the root causes of misogyny, that men will always be inherently predatory and unable to control themselves around women and have power over us and there's nothing we can do to stop it or change it, so they believe in bandaid solutions like segregation to "protect" us, (inadvertently placing the responsibility on women to make up for mens' actions, which is my primary issue with 4B, not everyone has the choice to just "avoid all men" or "avoid toxic men" or "not have sex/children/etc.";) instead of advocating for meaningful activism and change so that no one needs protecting. They're not feminists, they're defeatists. It's a belief in mysogynist dystopia, and you should know by now how I feel about dystopia. (It's a tactic to drain your motivation, keep you from imagining a better world, and keep you complacent. Always resist dystopia.) They will not be there for you when it matters. Remembering the intersectionality of these issues is so important right now. You cannot advocate against trans rights, gay rights, poc rights, disability rights, or fat liberation and then say you advocate for womens' rights. Racism and misogyny are historically intertwined. Fatphobia and racism and misogyny are historically intertwined. homophobia and transphobia and misogyny are historically intertwined. ableism and any form of eugenics are DIRECTLY linked. Half the shit we hear about any of these minority groups is just a recycled antisemitic talking point. To the bigots in charge we're all the same. If you're not a white, cishet, financially powerful able-bodied man, they want you to be subservient and fall in line. We share the same fight; for our dignity and for a better future. It's equal rights for all or none, you can't separate them from eachother. If they're coming for one of us they're coming for all of us sooner or later.

[persephonesprose]

films and literature and nonsensical thoughts of 2024

the year was full of demons. art was not one of them.

literature that made me understand being human

On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion ★★★★★

"We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were." No one will understand why I need a journal, why I can't go a day without putting my thoughts down on paper, better than Joan herself. I fear forgetting, but I think I fear never having that piece of myself somewhere in the physical world more.

Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon ★★★

Every now and then, reading a YA novel becomes something magical. I don't know why fifteen year old me didn't read this when I was gifted it. But I'm sort of glad to read it as an adult, because of how it views life and risk taking and the act of living.

films to watch at three a.m.

Frances Ha: ★★★★1/2

I watched this and was sent into an existential crisis at 5am. In a good way. The love I have for something so simple to say "it's okay to be where you're at even if life sucks." is unmatched. I'm terrified of growing up because I think I'll do it wrong, but this film taught me to love the mistakes just as much if not more. I could write an essay about this and I probably will.

This Beautiful Fantastic: ★★★1/2

I ended the film in tears. Good ones, but still tears. If there was ever something to show me that love and change are all things that make you so human it's beautiful, then this would be it. But I mainly loved it because it reminded me of my grandpa.

The Greatest Hits: ★★★★

If a movie could devour a heart, this one did exactly that to mine. Grief is that one human emotion I've never allowed myself to feel. And music is the escape that gets me away from it. Until they looped them together. Grief is love and I understand that a lot more now.

Colette: ★★★★

I spent the whole movie rooting for her to murder her husband. And in all honesty she should have been allowed. I knew very little about Claudine, yet after this I want to feast on her works as if they were fine dining. They probably are.

On the Basis of Sex: ★★★1/2

Now more than ever we have to remember what women fought for, the equality and liberation we deserve. The film made a fire burn in my chest. Rage at why we're still fighting the same exact fight decades later.

Good Will Hunting: ★★★★1/2

This film has haunted me for years now, but I've never actually sat down to watch it. I'm glad I did when I was in my twenties. Because this is a film to rewatch when I'm thirty and forty and fifty. I think as time goes on I'll see a different way each time.

The Jane Austen Book Club: ★★★★

Oh the joys of getting to sit and yap about Jane Austen with wine and good friends. Not to mention falling in love. I think films that feel like revisiting a worn out novel instantly hold such an appeal.

Moulin Rouge: ★★★★★

If we didn't have tragedies, how would we understand being human? I've cried to lots of films, have found comfort in the layers of grief. But this one took my breath away. I'm ashamed to say it's taken me too long to finally watch it in full, but I'll never see life the same way after.

albums to play in the kitchen at midnight

On The Inside: Gotts Street Park

Special love to the song Got To Be Good. Would recommend dancing by the fridge light to this.

Songs For No One Vol. 1 & 2: Victoria Bigelow

It's soft and lyrical and invades your soul without even trying. I recommend to be listened to with wine.

The Death of Summer & Other Promises: Etta Marcus

Every song of hers opens me up like I'm getting prepped for an autopsy. She picks at my heart and expects me to be okay afterwards. Definitely 2am existential crisis songs.

[tobiasdrake]

The final confrontation!

Y'know, it's hard to disagree with Magneto when the humans hate us so much that the Americans and Soviets put aside their differences and agreed to turn the Cuban coast into glass to kill us.

Magneto, of course, Returns to Sender these missiles but Xavier immediately advocates for mercy.

Sometimes I think these movies don't want you to like Xavier. Like. We all agree that's a fucking dipshit thing to say to a Holocaust survivor, right? Xavier set himself up for a sharp and much-deserved comeback. Why would you say that?

Xavier then starts a fight to protect the ships full of armed soldiers trying to exterminate our race.

Magneto overpowers Xavier, so Moira comes in with a gun.

And one of Magneto's deflected shots goes straight into Xavier's spine, paralyzing him.

Magneto Force Chokes Moira with her own goddamn dog tags holy shit. And then Xavier drops the line.

But. Like. That's extremely debatable.

On the one hand, it was Magneto who deflected the bullet that hit Xavier's spine.

Then again, it was Moira who fired the bullet at Magneto to be deflected.

But also, it was Magneto threatening the humans' lives that provoked Moira and Xavier to start fighting him in the first place.

But also also, Magneto was retaliating against the humans trying to carpet-bomb our race out of existence.

There's not really any levels of blame beyond that? So in the literal sense, Moira did this. Charles refused to practice shooting guns at Magneto back during the training montage, even though Magneto asked him to. He couldn't control his deflection trajectory; He never got to practice.

But in the larger sense, the humans did this. They started this fight. They tried to slaughter us all. If Magneto had dropped the volley in the sea, they probably would have just fired another. They back down because he nearly wipes out both fleets with their own missiles.

Using their own missiles, Magneto threatens the fleets so badly that both captains start delivering the stock We're All Going To Die Here quotes to their men. They never try to fire a second volley.

In the X-Men vs. American and Soviet Naval Forces fight, Magneto's show of force is what wins the battle.

Then Xavier goes home and proclaims himself to still be CIA at heart.

Moira has to tell him to stop thinking of the X-Men like mutant cops. Then Xavier mind-wipes her and we close out Moira's story with this line.

This movie is weirder about women than I remembered. This is literally the last word ever spoken about Moira in the film. I guess it's meant to explain why she's a doctor in Scotland instead of a CIA agent in The Last Stand?

While Xavier's ruining Moira's career, Magneto breaks out Emma.

Because he's sad that Xavier left him and wants a new telepath to replace him. Though the way he delivers this line suggests he's probably just being coy. Magneto loves to chew scenery.

The more likely reason he broke Emma out is because liberating his fellow mutants from human confinement is his thing. He doesn't need a reason to fuck with the CIA. He's cool like that.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

I threw down pretty heavily with SURJ this year, and also wasn't particularly happy with their post-election analysis. I'm not necessarily looking to move orgs, but I'm curious what the takes on the WFP/Move On call were. I'm in the contacting them to see if I can get the recording, but I'd also love to get your deeper opinion.

the recording of the mass call is here (I couldn't recall the coalition name while drafting that post and was in a rush to get to something and probably should have waited). I will admit I was not in like, a great headspace to remember details, and I had to drop off early, but I have signed up for my local meeting which is tomorrow (check your area! there's links on the same page). It focused a lot more on community building and tangible plans put in place and a lot less about Our Fellow White Women coming from educated lefty white women in Brooklyn who only have access to other educated lefty white women in Brooklyn. I also think that it did contain some useful post-mortems. I do not think it's correct to say Democrats made all of the right choices over the past 4 years but the issue is less "we have abandoned the working class" and much more "messaging is fucked, a lot of programs move too slowly, and we should have prosecuted Trump much more quickly." Like, more generally, I think that capitalism is a massive problem and is a major factor why we're at where we're at. but SURJ felt like, well, Very Online Leftists who are like "under late stage capitalism we are all fucked" and when you ask "ok what should we do about it" they're like "stop capitalism" and when you're like "ok what are the actionable steps" they're like "CAPITALISM BAD". Or to put it another way, to reference the Daniel Hunter 10 steps article, it felt all very public angsting, no action. And perhaps it was just that that call was Wednesday Night and Worth Fighting For was Thursday and they'd had another day to pause and grieve and breathe but the former just made me feel like they were wallowing and the latter was the first thing that made me feel better that wasn't pure distraction.

also: Judith LeBlanc was a smart choice. I feel better today for having gone to my synagogue and talked to old left-leaning Jewish people. I think you need to spend time with people who can say "the steps backward are unacceptable, and also, I have gone forward once and I will keep doing it and I know the work might not be done in my or your lifetime and we still do it." I also think it's a key point in coalition building to have the former head of the Communist Party given an equal platform as Jamie Raskin and Pramila Jayapal and Leah Greenberg. (I also found Ash-Lee Henderson to be a fantastic host/moderator here; again, I think SURJ's mission isn't inherently bad in theory but it really does turn into a lot of Liberal Urbanite White Woman (and sometimes men) self-flagellation. Like...you should not make women of color do the work, but you should fucking listen to them instead of talking forever about how bad and sorry you are about other white women.)

[nastrond-skelly]

Remember kids

Israel is a puppet of NATO made to keep a hand in the middle east.

When the state was created they didn't even want holocaust survivors there because they thought of them as weak.

What is happening in Palestine is called an ethnic genocide through deprivation of resources and repeated bombing of infrastructure and civilian buildings supported by NATO, not "self defense".

Hamas has literally nothing to do with Isis, they're two completely different organizations.

If you're Jewish and support the liberation of Palestine you're not a self hating jew, you're a well informed human being with some fucking empathy.

The palestinians authorities have stated multiple times that when the stolen land is returned to the Palestinian population no Israeli civilians will be harmed or asked to leave the country, they will be free to leave if they wish but no such things will be forced upon them.

The image of Palestinian soldiers western media depicts is a gross dehumanization of people who are just fighting for the lives of their own people, the idea of them as women-hating gay-burning children-decapitating terrorists is some shit Israel made up to get centrists and liberals to support them.

If you feel guilty for having believed in Israel's bullshit in the past, don't, no one is immune to propaganda, i believed the russian federation was a communist country until i was 16 for fuck sake, we all fall for this shit when we're ill informed, even more if you live in countries like America when they barely tell you where Europe is.

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Special Address by the President on the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

December 6. 7 a.m. The Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A day of the strong. A day of the brave. A day of the unbreakable. Men and women. Warriors. Heroes.

All those who continue to defend the state. And all those who gave their lives not to give up Ukraine. And right now I am heading to the Wall of Remembrance. Many people know where it is, many have been there. And for those who haven't been yet, it's worth going. To see the faces of our heroes. To look into their eyes. And just be silent. And in that silence, to reflect. To remember. To comprehend. To compare this morning with the morning 651 days ago. How loud it was. And how fearful it was for many. But fear was defeated. And now everyone has heard about us. How tough it was back then, but now we're not ashamed.

To recall what we could have lost and what we have preserved. Knowing exactly who made it possible. For the sake of what exactly. Knowing what exactly we are all defending. We're defending our own. We're defending what's ours.

And today, most of us have the opportunity to live and work in our cities. Walk along our streets. Not Kirova Street, by the way, but Hrushevskoho Street. Yes. For almost two years now, there have been checkpoints and fortifications here. Hedgehogs. But they're our hedgehogs, not someone else's jackals.

Those who naively believed that it could be different. That three days would be enough, that it would go their way. But we have those who have proven and continue to prove: it will be our way. They prove it every day. Those who are fighting for our freedom. On the frontline, in trenches, tanks, aircraft. In all branches of our forces, in all our brigades. In our east, in our south, in our north. Throughout our Ukraine. Those who are fighting on the front and defending our peaceful regions.

And now I am walking through the capital of our beautiful country, not someone's guberniya within someone's empire. I'm walking from the Office of the President of Ukraine, not someone else's gauleiter. Ahead of us is the European Square, where our blue and yellow flags fly, not tricolors. Ahead is St. Volodymyr's Hill. In honor of our great prince, not their petty czar.

And such moments inspire a lot of thoughts, you draw a lot of conclusions. You recall what is behind us and know what lies ahead. Behind is the daily struggle for the temporarily occupied territories. The liberation of these territories is ahead. How else could it be? These are our lands, these are our people. Is there an alternative? No, there is not. Nine years and 651 days of war are behind us. Victory is ahead. How else could it be? Is there any alternative? We all know there is not.

And nearby we see the beautiful Dynamo Stadium. And one day, fans will return here and to all stadiums in Ukraine. Thousands of them are now in the ranks of the Armed Forces. They are fighting for what is ours. Like everyone who did not allow the occupier to parade here. And that's why there are monuments to ours nearby. To our Chornovil. Our Lobanovskyi... Monuments to our prominent figures.

It's a little cold outside, but my heart is warm. It's slippery, but I know we'll make it. In every sense. Because I know that we are actually walking together. It was hard, but we endured. It's not easy now, but we are progressing. No matter how difficult it may be, we will get there. To our borders, to our people. To our peace. A just peace. A free peace. Against all odds. Together with you. And thanks to you, our people, our Armed Forces of Ukraine.

I congratulate all of you on your professional holiday.

Today there is only one expression – "well done". There is only one emotion – gratitude. And there is only one wish – victory. Commanders, please take care of your soldiers. Take care of yourself, be true to yourself. Congratulations on the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine!

And let us remember: St. Nicholas the Wonderworker will come to those who behaved well. To those who behaved despicably, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will come. The creators of justice.

Well... I'm almost there, in a few minutes I'll reach the Wall of Remembrance. The memorial wall in honor of our heroes. I am sure that for each of us, it will be a reminder and will serve as a wall for our spirit. A wall that fear, despondency, despair, discord, or the thought of giving up won't break through. We are strong. We are the wall. We stand.

To defend our land. To protect our people. To achieve victory. Glory to all our warriors, glory to our Armed Forces!

Glory to Ukraine!

[argyrocratie]

"Lola: It all began for us in the early days of 1971. A woman friend invited us to a meeting of the Women's Lib Movement ["MLF" in French]. The whole group went, but the boys had to stay in the café next door. Three of us walked in, plus that friend. We started by saying:

-Sorry, but, as far as we're concerned, we live as a group with boys, some are gay, others aren't totally gay, and we'd rather not be separated from the boys who fight these battles.

-We stand for gender-non-mixing.

-OK then…

I wouldn't say we were pleased. Then we took a look at ourselves: "Shit, see how badly dressed we are, don't we look down and out!!…" As a matter of fact, we did look like tramps compared to all these young women. And then we heard absurd statements such as "I am a Lesbian by political choice", until one of us, me probably, cried out:

-And not for pleasure, you idiot !?

Some time later, we heard about the birth of the FHAR [the Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action]. Of course we rushed in headlong. We went there with our bunch of friends, we threw ourselves body and soul into this struggle: what attracted us was that it was not a homosexual liberation front, but a homosexual front for revolutionary action. We thought the same about Women's Lib: it's positive for groups to organise for specific causes, provided the specific is not there to stay, provided it eventually merges into the general revolutionary course - remember we believed revolution was round the corner. We were sure the existence of Women's Lib was important and positive, if it worked as a specific tool within a broader range of activities, i.e. if it was gender-mixed. Similarly, we thought the existence of the FHAR was important and positive, if it was also gender-mixed.

G.D.: Mixed in the sense that it was open to non-gays ?

Lola: That's right: open to all walks of life. In fact, the early FHAR supported polysexuality. At the time, we moved into a flat rue Charlemagne (in the Paris 4th district, the Marais area): lots of people would live there or come to sleep over, and the place became a sort of annex of the FHAR. This was where I met the very young man who later became Hélène Hazera. The FHAR had district committees, so we created the FHAR Marais committee. In those days, the Marais was a working class neighbourhood where you heard Yiddish on every street, we had no idea that the area would later morph into a hub of homosexual commodification. Our place became an awful mess where people debated, smoked pot, had mescaline, made love and intermingled, where the district committee held its meetings and prepared its actions. We kept proclaiming how free our sexuality was. I remember, I used to go out wearing big boots, naked under a cassock - a gorgeous dress. In short, we were engaged in permanent no-holds-barred provocation. We fucked in public places - we'd been doing it for a long time.

G.D.: What actions did you prepare ?

Lola: For instance, creating havoc in the ghetto. The gay ghetto, I mean: the specialised homo clubs. We'd go to the club door and tell the guys: "Get out of the closet !" Other actions too. One day, we heard that gay-bashing was taking place in the Buttes-Chaumont park. Some of our friends went. Suddenly gay-bashers were faced with a troop of screaming fairies - even those who weren't fairies overdid it a bit - and the homophobes got beaten up. That was fine. Bashing gay-bashers

(...)

G.D.: And what about class struggle ?

Lola: For us that was part and parcel of our life and activity… When friends happened to be working, we were involved in whatever occurred in their work-places. I personally was doing surveys. We'd become part of a sort of informal gathering of casual data-collectors - similar to what is now called a coordination - which met once a month. As all data-collectors were in intermittent employment, that gathering helped them register with the social security system, get unemployment benefits, etc. And it also provided information about the companies which mistreated us, how they tried to screw us, and how to fight back.

(...)

We acted where we worked. Unlike the gauchistes, we did not take action everywhere, we acted if we were called upon. When a friend of ours was employed somewhere and needed some help, we were ready. Wherever we worked, we were of course involved in struggles as soon as they occurred. That was our class struggle. In the post-68 situation, everything was being challenged. And as (despite our anti-work stand) we had to work now and again, we weren't inactive in the work-place.

We also did a lot of shop-lifting, we did "free check-out" actions. Often on the spur of the moment. We would decide "Let's go !", and we went. We were always on the go because our purpose was to exist as a group in order to be able to act. We helped abortions to take place, we provided shelter for very young people, one who'd run away from social services, another from a seminary, we housed various kinds of homeless guys. Daily life was a big issue.

For us, summer 71 was like an incredible Summer of Love. Anyone could land on our door-step, debate, fuck and use drugs a lot. This was when the Gazolines came into being: the following year, we marched together for the funeral of Pierre Overney, with the Gazolines dressed as merry widows. (14)

G.D.: This was 1972. The FHAR was launched at the beginning of 71, and you left…

Lola: …after about 5 or 6 months…

G.D.: …so this was all happening…

Lola: …in the blink of an eye.

G.D.: A year, at the most.

Lola: Less. Our communal life and all the rest of it… it was all in the blink of an eye"

-"Revisiting Sex and Class", On a gender-fluid childhood, May 68, women's lib, radical gays and Lesbians, identity, #MeToo, and a bit more: an interview with Lola Miesseroff

[genderisareligion]

I appreciate your Input on the whole lesbian vs OSA woman,really, Im not only crypto because of the TRAs but also because fights on the internet happen so fast and I just cant deal... Especially when its friendly fire. Anyways, not too long ago an older feminist (like, active feminist she did so mich) told me that there where always these discussions between OSA and lesbian woman in feminist spaces (and we talking 70s). And I kind of do understand it, but I also think its really sad, unproductive, and if you feel like people are talking bullshit on the web, maybe Block them? Anyways, love your attitude on this xoxo

Thanks. I didn't have a radfem dedicated blog like this for most of the time I was on here because I can't deal either lol it just becomes inconsequential to me when I try to imagine/remember that there's another person sitting on the other side of the screen and IRL would I feel like owing the random stranger all the effort? Probably not. Haven't seen official numbers on it but judging from being parked here so long and just observing the average user of this site is a white American liberal in their early 20s if that who reads fanfiction more often than actual books, so...lol no

Reading from second wavers let alone speaking to them lets me know homophobia among feminists has been a long conversation with seemingly no end. But I really wish more of us were meeting offline, to help with the realization that we're not so different. I feel it's an advantage the women's liberation movement had in the past that we sorely do not right now and it's actively hindering us from making moves. TRAs have made it so hard to organize online even that I know it's hard to do but I really encourage all of you to meet as many radical feminists and even just straight up feminists (even liberal feminists) in real life as you can and try to find common ground with them

So many women in the world don't care about feminism, not even always out of malice but because it can be so inaccessible in certain parts of the world, that I'm a huge proponent of "agree to disagree" with other feminists especially online. Like 98% of my disagreement with posts I see on here from anyone ever I keep to my motherfucking self lol. Thinking about things I've been wrong or bigoted about in the past, it almost always took someone I know/something significant happening in my actual life to change my mind on those things, not some internet stranger. So idk why so many people try so hard at Tumblr arguments

[thorne1435]

I hope this isn't too heavy, but as a male survivor, I just wanted to thank you personally for your takes on male liberation. The ways the patriarchy harms men are on full display if you're a man who's survived abuse, or god forbid, assault. Because men are the "strong ones", you're rarely ever believed, especially if the other person wasn't another man (because you're stronger, right? why didn't you fight back?). And because men are the assumed perpetrators against women, if you're a man abused by a woman, often times you're called the real abuser instead. It's hard to talk about, because we're always seen as "speaking over" women (aka the "real victims"), and then with all that the silence that's been forced on us means people don't think it happens because "more men would speak up". So I want to say thank you. Seeing more people talk about this gives me the courage to be more open about it.

Nono, no contribution is too heavy. This is a heavy topic in general. Honestly, thank you! I forgot to even touch on this aspect of misandry. I guess I should just say "Don't mention it <3" and not turn this into a lecture but...here i go lecturing anyway (I'll delete this if you want me to.)

I can't remember how many fucking times I was told "Men can't get abused/raped." when I was a child.

This goes back to how men are meant to approach conflict and sex, which is to say, decisively to the former and affirmatively to the latter.

On that note...I am not a survivor of that kind of abuse. I only know what I've been told by some friends who are and were willing to share their experiences with me. But from what I've learned from their perspectives, it's pretty fucking miserable to be gaslit by an entire society about something this traumatic. Whether that be not listening to the victim after they confide in you or just outright telling them they're lying. Both of which are incredibly fucked up things to do.

And that sounds familiar doesn't it? This is something we fought for, for women, and to an extent are still fighting for. Which begs the question, to me, why are men not allowed these same weaknesses?

But I already know the answer. It's because men aren't supposed to have any weaknesses. And I guess people would rather dismiss that then challenge the behemoth that is the effects of the masculine role.

[papirouge]

Not American Christians right now telling me that Jesus in that HeGetsUs commercial from the Super Bowl is too liberal (for washing someone’s feet)/not the right way to be a Christian. 💀 my own cousin wants another crusade across Europe for God and believes that God would want us to conquer and unite believers under an army. That commercial which was paid for by conservative Christians too, triggered him so much for showing christians as weak ???

When you said that you saw a vision of three world being misled by Islam, I can see it now. A lot of christians are not listening to Jesus or his teachings, they’d rather be violent and be jihadists because they’re getting more and more crazy

Having a commercial to promote Christianity is INSANE. Especially during the satanic circus called the Superbowl. Thinking this was a good idea shows how spiritually bewildered US evangelicals are.

Those Christian crusaders 2.0 are delusional. Jesus is the sword - we're not entitled to fight and go to war anymore. We're not under the same prescription as the Israelites. Christians are spread all accross the world, we don't have a kingdom/place to defend, a temple to (re)build.. Our kingdom will come when we die or after the rapture.

Those people strike me as individual unable to make any significant change in their life (they're false converts so of course they won't have any fruit of the spirit) so they cope with this powerless by boasting those delusional dreams of grandeur of reconquering the middle east, defeating Islam etc. Good job defeating the kingdom of satan in middle east when you can't do shit about your own country, Josh 💀

Those Christians are technically jihadist but they somehow think they're different. Sorry but Christians can't look down on Islam saying how superior and peaceful our religion is, and then turn around and threaten to establish the kingdom of our Lord with guns and bombs... Spilling blood for Jesus is a totally nonsense anyway, and any person encouraging such endeavor is not a child of God.

I think you refer to a prophetic dream I got about women being attacked in what looked like a museum? I think there were leotards involved... As well as a Catholic church burning... My memory is weak, I'll have to look into my archive bc I don't remember making a link to Islam.. but other Christians indeed forecasted civil wars into Europe between Muslims and non Muslim + World War III with Russia and China allying against the USA that will eventually lose. Many argue that Daniel vision of the bear eating the 3 ribs (Daniel 7:5) is Russia literally eating up the world (domination). Russia is routinely symbolized as a bear in today's world news so it really doesn't seem farfetched

[historicalfightingguide]

"Today on Murderhobos, our first guest episode! *Gasps, oohs and ahs*

We're joined by fantasy author, friend of the show, and noted trans historian Alina Boyden to discuss transness in history. We talk about Lia De Beaumont, the Chevalière d'Éon, one of the most famous trans women in history, and a kickass swordswoman. We also talk about the way academic historians often fail to recognize trans experiences (and trans women in particular), and why that matters.

You can find Alina and her books at https://twitter.com/AlinaBoyden

Subscribe to the show on Patreon: bit.ly/murderhobospatreon

Make a one-time donation to the show: bit.ly/donatetomurderhobos"

If you enjoy spy drama, fencing, duels or show combat, if you're interested in the history of trans folks, if you've ever wanted to know more about 'Chevalière d'Éon' or more precisely Lia De Beaumont, or Chevalier de Saint-Georges or Henry Angelo or Domenico Angelo you'll most likely find this particular episode interesting and worth a listen.

Furthermore if you specifically want to learn how to use a smallsword you may find the Smallsworders facebook group or the Smallsword Symposium facebook page useful.

Similarly this video may be a fun intro to smallsword fencing.

Honorable mention to the sparring clips embeded here.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen the following links:

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Some advice on how to start studying the sources generally can be found in these older posts

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Remember to check out  A Guide to Starting a Liberation Martial Arts Gym as it may help with your own club/gym/dojo/school culture and approach.Check out their curriculum too.

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Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and Resilience by   Kajetan Sadowski   may be relevant as well.

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“How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach & Practice Sports Skills”  by Rob Gray  as well as this post that goes over the basics of his constraints lead, ecological approach.

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Another useful book to check out is  The Theory and Practice of Historical European Martial Arts (while about HEMA, a lot of it is applicable to other historical martial arts clubs dealing with research and recreation of old fighting systems).

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Trauma informed coaching and why it matters

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Look at the previous posts in relation to running and cardio to learn how that relates to historical fencing.

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Why having a systematic approach to training can be beneficial

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Why we may not want one attack 10 000 times, nor 10 000 attacks done once, but a third option.

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How consent and opting in function and why it matters.

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More on tactics in fencing

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Types of fencers

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Open vs closed skills

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The three primary factors to safety within historical fencing

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Worth checking out are this blogs tags on pedagogy and teaching for other related useful posts.

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And if you train any weapon based form of historical fencing check out the ‘HEMA game archive’ where you can find a plethora of different drills, focused sparring and game options to use for effective, useful and fun training.

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Check out the cool hemabookshelf facsimile project.

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For more on how to use youtube content for learning historical fencing I suggest checking out these older posts on the concept of video study of sparring and tournament footage.

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The provoker-taker-hitter tactical concept and its uses

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Approaches to goals and methodology in historical fencing

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A short article on why learning about other sports and activities can benefit folks in combat sports

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Consider getting some patches of this sort or these cool rashguards to show support for good causes or a t-shirt like to send a good message while at training.

[mala-santa-radfem]

hi, have you read anything about Erin Pizzey & the whole thing of her defining victims of IPV who fight back as "violence-prone" and "victims of their own violence"? i'm trying to wrap my head around how someone can go from starting the first domestic violence shelter to becoming an MRA, do you happen to know of any books, sources, any thorough information about her whole deal & the surrounding cirmustances?

so i was reading a little while having lunch so this isn't a fully dive under any means.

she did amazing things for women but you must remember even the most ardent feminist can be male oriented. it can happen unfortunately. regular women, whether they claim to be feminists or not, have no intention of separating themselves from men, or seeing them as the sole creators of our oppression. your everyday feminist probably thinks we need men to defeat patriarchy and that they're victims as well. your everyday feminist probably doesn't think her boyfriend/husband/father/brother is a bad man and therefore feminism should care for men.

i don't know erin's circumstances and i definitely want to read more about her but it seems like she found out some men are victims too (which is possible) and decided to fight for that while simultaneously calling women capable of inflicting the same violence on men (which i don't believe, even if we're capable we simply don't do it)

MRAs seem to love her though ! and that already tells me a lot. i don't wanna assume she dragged feminism for not caring about men enough but if she did then that's the problem. we don't have to care about men if we're a movement for female liberation. domestic violence is sex based violence against the female sex.

i did find some resources about women, ipv, conservationism and how we mistreat each other. not particularly about erin but i hope they can help you. this is just my opinion after a quick search, i'm just making assumptions here and i hope other gyns can step in and add something or correct me.

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[rametarin]

We need to remember this, at the root of it all:

The arguments between the sexes have always been a thing. They will always be a thing, barring some sort of transhumanist overlord unleashing a virus that uncodes the human genome so we're all just single chromosome mutants or something, or every sun in the universe fades out.

Capital F Feminism is not to be imagined as "women thinking for themselves/liberating themselves." That is not what it is. Feminism is Marxist Class Struggle Theory and Critical Theory (trying to use the principles of class struggle theory) through a gynocentrist (and, therefore, supremacist and biased) lens. In other words, when you strip away all the academic nonsense speak, feminism is a bunch of socialists being encouraged to think of women as a concept as these victims of living in a species where the females are, by their own definition of oppression, oppressed by males. Not objectively, not individually, but conceptually. In principle. Divorced from reality, divorced from history, demanding one to consider things on the basis of Marxist viewpoints and collectivization and class consciousness.

Technically speaking, every racist is "class conscious," because a racist cares about their class- race. So they see their own race as oppressed or threatened by other races (classes) and are looking out for #1. Does that sound legitimate? Fair? No. It's racism. Class Struggle Theory with race as class just encourages ethnosupremacism. It's not that white people are invalid and so this form of class consciousness is illegitimate, solely for white people. It's that racism and racial discrimination to or from or by any race to another, is wrong.

And when you do the same thing on sex (or "gender"), it is also wrong.

But Marxists separate the prejudices and bigotries of what they consider minorities, from majorities. If it's a collective group Marxism believes is enthralled and oppressed by their dialectic position vs. another "class" (in this case, men) then they see the oppressed as justified and never guilty of any sort of crime against what they view as "the oppressor." It fetishizes the principle of the underdog this way, and does not actually CARE about what bad blood or history exists between them. In fact, it explicitly only cares about the reality when it can underline the principle, because the bad things only matter when it's the Oppressor Class doing harm to what it sees as the Oppressed Class.

What Class Struggle Theory and Critical X Theory do is they offer a readymade enabling ethos and philosophy to ride whatever group fighting against another one to justify their Protagonist Syndrome and use a secular form of philosophical absolutism to see themselves as the transgressed and violated party, pour their passion and histrionics into it, and carry on about revolution and romantic imagery of rebuking their oppressors.

Feminism was this phenomenon expressed between male and female, choosing the female to characterize as inherently oppressed under the male sex. But it's just close enough to the very real struggles that it sneaks its way in and one can assume the fiery bluster to just be passionate delirium in support of the real, objective cause.

But at the end of the day, the Class Struggle Theorist/Critical Sex Theorist, is only in it for pushing the idea there can be no equality without socialism. It's a very reductive way to evangelize for socialism, without even mentioning socialism until there's a power vacuum that needs filling. Just as designed.

Having established this, we go a step lower in the pyramid. The Gynosupremacist that gets drawn in and attracted to this deceptive, snake oil headfuck because they're jealous, insecure and maybe even rightfully upset about the unfortunate historical state of women and femininity in any given society around the world. Perhaps not to them specifically, but upset at how women are treated elsewhere. This culture encourages women to act out their upset at the men around them vicariously by embracing class consciousness and collectivism. Randomly shoving boys their own age that may not even have had sexual thoughts yet, as a way to "get back" at the rapists and smug frat boys that break grown women's hearts, and encouraged to do so because, "that's a minority getting back at an oppressor!"

Feminism encourages this lashing out and "class consciousness", and it's why it struck the TERFs so blind when feminism decided that woman was not limited to a sex, but also extended to any feminine gender. Because Feminism is not about females, it's an expression of class struggle theory and socialist revolutionary struggle. It dressed in women's clothes, pretended to care about gendered equality, when in fact it only cared about arguing on behalf of an idea of women and demanding everybody entertain their notions of gender as class, and treat class consciousness and class struggle theory as historical realities.

Women were used by feminism, which appropriated women's rights and polluted the language in a masterful way, all while pretending to be owned by and for women. And then it threw female sexed people under the bus when they started to say, "feminism is to represent the female sex, not 'the female gender.' Where feminism dictated to them: "Feminism is for the female gender. You bio-essentialist fascist."

That vehicle is gone. The most popular and positive seeming source of organization and literature for gynosupremacist advocacy is beheaded and dead. The perfect beast we knew from the 60s to 10s is gone. It can never come back, as the very principles of Feminism have forsaken the female sex, and gynosupremacists are now without solid footing to stand on, homeless and hopeless of ever getting that kind of clout, again.

The Intersectionalist Feminism is closer to purely masked off, ideological socialism than before, and it will never have the appeal to cisgendered women that it had before. And I thank it for that. In the name of ideological purity, it has destroyed its own economic base.

As socialism always will.

And the most important takeaway from this is now that the invisible party has been accounted for and their mask fallen away, we can start having reasonable conversations about sexism and equality without constantly tripping over this socialist nonsense demanding it be considered and contribute to the conversation.

Feminism is a factory for creating misogynists. That's ultimately its sole (if not often-understood) purpose, and all it lastingly achieves in the world, especially today.

[socialistexan]

Blue no matter who, right?

Notice how many fewer of our supposed allies showed up when it was a Democrat doing this.

It goes to show that so many liberals only cared about trans rights because the people on the Blue team told them to. The second it's a Democrat bringing up transphobic legislation we're on a fucking own.