#when people talk about white women feminism this is what they mean.

[huntquinlan]

wait hold on this had me dying laughing it was the worst take i’ve seen on here so far. not properly tagged of course so it wasn’t blocked 🙄

it went something like: people who ship elucien support arranged marriages and the “nice guy” mentality IRL and thus are violating girl code or whatever😭😭😭

[gothra]

this is a POC (post of color). white people need not reply.

It’s crazy, every time a celebrity/influencer/public figure has some post/tweet uncovered wherein they used racist/language that is insensitive to some alternative marginalized community as a teenager I see posts from my people swearing that a “racist phase” was something that only the white kids do and it’s like we all collectively forgot the era of the internet where the most popular form of humor was just racism, homophobia, misogyny, ableism and almost everyone was taking part in it. I grew up w white kids and black kids and they were all saying the same shit to somebody else. I heard enough jokes about Asian people to fill a book. Let’s not pretend that the black community isn’t rife with homophobia and ableism that we inflict upon our children in a unique way. there are so many ways in which our community is uniquely better than white communities and I just don’t think that one of those ways is “our teenagers don’t say bad shit”. We have teenagers NOW who say bad shit. And I know it’s not an excuse because it never is. It’s not an excuse when we do it either. LESS of us (people of color) spoke that way in our youth than white people, but it was only LESS and not NONE. And this is coming from someone who never had “that” phase at all.

[sokkastyles]

I think people tend to forget when they talk about Katara in ATLA that she's a woc written by white men, and that shows in some of the ways that she is idealized by the show for her proximity to white femininity, particularly when it comes to her relationship with Aang.

I'm thinking in particular of how the show compares her to Meng in "The Fortuneteller," who is written as undesirable because she's an ethnically coded girl who aggressively pursues a boy, who remarks that she can never measure up to Katara because "her hair seems so manageable." I do think that often in the fandom, Katara runs up against stereotypes of black and brown women as aggressive and unfeminine, but in-series, Katara is expected to be feminine, praised for being so in comparison to other women, and also derided for it. She is told that she should heal and not fight. Her maternal qualities are there to make her an ideal love interest for Aang while also making her out to be bossy and irrational if she also doesn't want to kiss him.

And while I do think it's important that Katara is one of the few protagonists of color in animation who does get to be seen as a romantic ideal, who gets to be the "heart" of her friend group, in universe, Katara very much speaks out against the perception that she should be soft and nurturing at all times (but only when convenient to those around her) and take a step back and let men handle things. You can't talk about intersectional feminism without talking about both what Katara wants in universe and how she is portrayed by white American writers. So when I see people say "let Katara be feminine," mostly in defense of how the white writers used her as a prize for their hero and then shelved her, citing intersectionality as a buzz word, I have to wonder if they actually know what that means.

[doberbutts]

It's astonishing to see people say "All fear of men is reasonable and okay, but you shouldn't be afraid of black people obviously" and you having to reply, "Hey, question? Aren't black men people?" Everyone clinging to their fear of men while never examining their actions which could harm men of color, in this case, black men who have historically been killed and lynched in great numbers by white women weaponizing this fear to end their lives. Read the Will to Change! bell hooks talks about this! She talks about how white people, especially white men, have distracted from their own patriarchal masculinity by portraying violent women-haters as aberrant and abnormal (So, clearly Black men are more likely to be dangerous because they're already aberrant and abnormal in our white supremacist society). PLEASE understand your fear isn't fucking value-neutral and can be inherently be trusted!!!

Also, on the topic of patriarchal masculinity, I think that term really encompasses what we're talking about when we say male privilege is highly conditional. It's also what makes this uncritical man-hating so devious. Like, bell hooks says, contemporary feminism has provided a place for some women to construct a sense of self outside of sexist expectations, but the same can't be said about men. So by distrusting trans men, telling them they should accept feeling unwelcome in queer spaces because "your identity as a man means you have to earn other's trust (even if you haven't done anything other than exist), you're conflating transmasculinity with patriarchal masculinity. Which is so fucking damaging? Not to mention how people love to destroy and hurt transmasc's emotional selves, the same rituals that bell hooks talks about which so severely damage cis men (who were the book's main topic), and we're doing this to a marginalized, queer group who face immense systemic oppression.

Just--I hate how we mutilate trans men's emotional selves, demonize them because we assume all men possess patriarchal masculinity. I hate how we can't talk about marginalized men because apparently, that means we believe in misandry, when in reality, we're trying to talk about how men of color are portrayed as the worst of masculinity to deflect from white men's violence.

Disclaimer: Sorry for this big ass ask. Just seeing you have to respond to people with a basic lack of understanding of intersectionality and who weren't subtle about their racism--gosh.

And the biggest issue is that I understand why the kneejerk reflex happens- there's a lot of men who have engaged in the most bad faith of bad faith discussions about men's issues and somehow have turned it all onto "so it's WOMEN'S fault things are like this" rather than "so how do we work together with everyone in society to break free", and so a lot of people have their guard up from the start and don't care to listen to the last bit because they think it's more of the same.

Unfortunately, all this will do is continue to make us spin our wheels. We are always stronger together.

[disinherited-dornishman]

Personal thoughts on Team Black, Rhaenyra, and Misogyny.

This is going to be a messy one as regard structure but also topic. Stay with me, people.

I've been seeing a lot of accusations of misogyny against anti-team black, anti-rhaenyras, and anti-hotd posters for criticisms uttered, and I can't help but be a little dumbfounded. Like are we really doing this? Pointing out that Rhaenyra was reckless for having 3 bastards is not misogyny. I'm sorry, as much as you guys might love your make-believe character, I'm just not humoring it. Not if you're going to make the conversation about feminism and sexual liberation.

Okay, let me just say. Rhaenyra having Jace I can understand. An experiment that was stupid but also respectable in a way, because Laenor was definitely traumatized and not fit for keeping up their agreement, so I can support that mistake wholeheartedly for the empathy behind it. But Luke and Joffrey? After finding out that her genes get overriden by Harwin's?

Plain stupid. I'm sorry, that's just playing with fire, especially since she should know how precarious her position would be after the precedent of the Great Council that robbed Rhaenys of her birthright on the basis of her gender.

And like, I'd be fine with it if the show didn't portray it as this girlboss, don't-give-a-fuck win, because all it does is highlight how ignorant the showrunners are about the world in which their show is set! I liked selfish and decadent Rhaenyra in the books, she didn't need to be treated as a hero for it.

And the fact that the rest of the world and everyone in it is portrayed as being at fault for not going along with what's basically that society's equivalent of a political clown show is absurd. Pointing this out doesn't mean I'm condoning it either, I'm criticizing the show's lack of self-awareness. It's so obvious the showrunners are disconnected from the their world.

GRRM writes all his characters as believable people grown up in a medieval society, but critiques it through his own modern moral lense in a way that's seemless, yet in this show they use characters as mouthpieces to spout modern feminist and egalitarian ideals from characters who are ruling class. Who the fuck are they kidding? If you want to make a feminist show, don't use bourgeoisie feminism!!! Idgaf about some Princess' sexual liberation while she's allowed to hold feasts that rips the food from the tables of peasants! There's nothing inspiring about that!

Rhaenyra, one of the single most bourgeois figure in the show, is supposed to be praised for her "sexual liberation" when it literally threatens the stability of the entire realm, and directly caused a war in which countless sexual atrocities were committed and will still be committed? Forgive me if I can't find it in me to be inspired.

If you want the show to be feminist, display the themes through the people at the bottom, the normal workers, the whores, the thieves, the daytalers and smiths and carpenters and undertakers and farmers, etc etc. Don't ask people to cheer for a reckless white woman from a colonizer background with a biological WMD at her disposal for breaking the social contract of a ruling class SHE'S A PART OF and risking destabilizing her entire country, it's fucking insulting! And don't get me started on the gender essentialism of the whole "women good, men bad" horseradish horseshit.

I'd love to discuss and analyze these concepts if we're talking about Rhaenyra's character arc, her as a person, and the themes of patriarchy that one can glean through her. But if we're talking actual, meaningful, proletariat feminism that means something to the medieval society they live in?

You wanna praise this brave monarch for sexually liberating herself, go ahead and praise the female Romans in Spartacus while you're at it. Praise their sexual liberation when they avail themselves of sex slaves taken from Thrace and Gaul and wherever else the Roman Empire had reach and rape them for fun. Understand I'm not comparing Rhaenyra's actions with having her kids with Harwin to rape, I'm pointing out power dynamics. And at least that show had the decency to show that the patrician romans were cruel and vile alongside their humanity, unlike HotD which seems to insist its ruling family of dragonriding depraved incestuous monarchs are actually virtuous while literally having Meleys burst through the floorboards and massacre a crowd.

P.S.: for any Anti-Rhaenyras, please don't start shit about her unless you wanna discuss how the writers fucked up her beloved character. I actually liked her in the books and she should've gotten a bigger part than Daemon, so don't slander her all willy nilly. It's unconstructive and I feel no desire to engage.

[biohorror-human]

Trans people may or may not have popped off with the "block every radfem you see" idea because holy shit. You are all some of the most pessimistic and spiteful fuckers on earth. You all claim not to be bio-essentialist, and then turn around and say shit that is, at its core bio-essentialist. All of your ideas, in some way, revolve around hurting someone else. Want to destroy the gender binary? Certainly attacking trans people will help. Want to destroy child marriage? Tell people not to marry brown people, just, ever. Want to destroy the patriarchy? (This is the best one) Never organize, never protest, never coordinate, just sit around and cultivate a nightmarishly toxic environment and then have the GALL to ask "why are people so open about their disdain for radical feminism?"

Because all your ideas are rooted in hate. The last time I've had discussions this fucking bleak with people is when I got into an argument with an actual self-described Nazi. Btw, I know you radfems are super exclusionary and refuse to cooperate with any other social group, but maybe Nazis would be up your alley? Considering they also have an affinity for eugenics and wanting to eliminate general swathes of the population, I think you'd be great for each other.

I mean, just to list some of the bullshit you people constantly say which doesn't line up with any of the other shit you say: "trans and GNC people destroying the gender binary (which is good because we radfems don't like the gender binary) is actually BAD now because we were using that gender binary to call all men oppressors, and now we have to actually confront what specific societal issues enable someone to be an oppressor, instead of just saying that being a man makes you an oppressor (which is bio-essentialism, which we disagree with, unless you're amab, in which case then bio-essentialism is actually something we super-agree with)

And that's just one of the ones that I actually went into the effort of tracking down. In terms of shit that I've just seen on a whim: you say you hate bio-essentialism, but also people born male are naturally more oppressive. You say women should have the freedom to do whatever they want, unless that "want" is dating men, because even if they're happy in their relationship, they're actually secretly sad and lying. Because since when did feminists hold the belief that women could understand their own emotions? Pretty clothes are also bad, because men like to look at clothes. Nevermind what the woman behind those clothes thinks, you shouldn't be able to enjoy anything for any reason because a man might look at it and also enjoy it for a split fucking second.

You know what that last one makes me think of? How abusive husbands tell their wives that they can't wear revealing clothes because it will attract the gaze of other men. But history is obviously not your forte, because if it was you'd understand that the only way social movements like feminism prosper is if they cooperate with other social movements, a concept you could really stand to learn a thing or two about. Another cool historical fact is that segregation is, historically, frowned upon. But I still see you talking about how white women shouldn't date brown men, and how asian women shouldn't date white men.

You know, they actually made a haven for people like you. And no, this isn't going to lead to a "Nazi Germany" bait and switch. It was a place where women could only marry into their own race. Where police were around every corner. Where women actively ratted out people betraying that law. Where women were literally not allowed outside past a certain time. It was South Africa under fucking apartheid. You believe, on a fundamental level, the same shit that traditionalists (nazis) and conservatives believe in. You make yourselves miserable as a form of protest, but because your circles are so exclusive, the only people there to witness your misery are other radical feminists. You're creating a hyper-dense misery sphere that doesn't even take that pain out on the patriarchy, only on other women. You have absolutely, undoubtedly got to be the worst rebels in the history of rebellion. You're literally making the patriarchy's job easier by pre-misery-ifying women. You're streamlining the misery process. I've never seen another social movement do that.

I think the only thing you guys actually accomplished was making men who cared or were curious about your movement equally miserable. You know what I got when I tried to join the radfem discussion? When I made the MISTAKE of trying to learn about your cause to better support it? I got fucking berated. you people finally had a man WILLINGLY come up to you to internalize your ideas. And you know what you chose to say to me? When I had a question, you mocked my voice. You compared me to an ogre, or a giant. You said women SHOULD be scared of me because of the way I was born. You said I was a natural-born rapist. You spoke about how my androgens made me develop into a beast- made me resent my own body, on top of how I already dissociated with it. You demonized any thought of sexuality, shot down any idea of body-positivity. And even then, even after all that I thought it may have been positive. I thought maybe it made me stronger, that maybe I was more like you because I was able to see the flaws in my own biology. Nah. You just wanted me to be miserable, like you. I was your willing punching bag for all of your anger and resentment. You're the femme-fascist matriarchs of self loathing. The only boiling bucket of crabs who not just drags the crabs trying to escape back in, but actively coaxes new crabs to join. You want a revenge story in a world where revenge only leads to more suffering. Your definition of equal is only met when every man is twice as miserable as you. That's not a world anyone, man or woman or anything else deserves to live in.

I have a bunch more shit to say but even thinking about you miserable fucks is starting to rub off on me. Fuck the patriarchy. Trans pride rules.

[brujahinaskirt]

Okay, I obviously made the above post as a leetle joke, but since it's getting not insignificant traction, I do want to offer a more serious note.

I love this about Arthur. It's probably my favorite thing about him, but let me use this fresh new RDR2 meta post to clarify exactly what I mean. Despite the aspects of his personality & appearance that are traditionally hypermasculine, and despite how often he is annoyed with people (especially incompetents or people who meddle with his plans), Arthur is decidedly NOT annoyed by the social performance of femininity or by traits that are/were frequently stereotyped as feminine. Ever. Regardless of subject. I might go so far as to say he seems to canonically prefer hanging out with women and with "feminine" men.

Your long-winded, bullet-pointed analysis is below!

The Girls. Most noticeably, Arthur actually sits down to talk with and actively confides in the camp Girls (Tilly, Mary-Beth, Karen) more than anyone else around. These three are the most traditionally "girly" (single, 20s, active, pretty, unattached, highly social, feminine, chatty) members of the gang, though of course they are still criminals and don't perfectly adhere to all period-typical standards of feminine comportment. He doesn't mock the girls** like he sometimes does with other auxiliary members of the gang (like Uncle and Pearson, playful or not). Notably, he doesn't even gently tease Mary-Beth for writing her "silly" romance novels, a highly feminized hobby which she speaks about in a self-depreciating manner, much like Arthur speaks about his own artistic hobbies. Rather, he talks to her about writing like a peer and encourages her to write more by going out of his way to get her a nice pen. Crucially, there is no canon romantic or sexual interest in any of the girls on Arthur's behalf. He just feels the most comfortable in their company and seems to value their advice/opinions on life the most. To me, this is much stronger proof than his forever-burning torch for the cultured & ladylike Mary, which is (or was once) rooted in romantic desire. ** Unless the player persists in Antagonizing them, and these lines (while sometimes shockingly cruel and offhandedly sexual in nature; see Arthur teasing Tilly about pursuing Javier) are largely about goading them for laziness or, in Karen's case, her alcoholism. That said, many of the Antagonize lines strike me as clumsily tacked-on & poorly rooted in canon, which could indicate: (1) an Arthur who is deliberately trying to be disruptive (a generous interpretation), or (2) writers instructed to add throwaway content that will make a certain type of childishly misanthropic gamer (think 13 y.o. boys) squeal in glee with relatively low impact on the overall story.

Campmates. Following the above point... who doesn't Arthur hang out with much? The manly men of the gang; the very people social mores suggest he ought to be hanging out with. Bill, Micah, Joe, Cleet, and even Dutch. (To some extent, this includes John and Sean, but I'd say John sort of lives at the edges of gang life anyway, and Sean is, well, Sean.) Conversely, which male gang members does Arthur hang out with a lot? Sweet little bookish Lenny, a wordy, positive-energy, breezy intellectual who has just barely become an adult. Introspective, soft-voiced, long-haired Charles, who is traditionally masculine by some standards (strong, usually calm, can be standoffish) but decidedly NOT so when his appearance/demeanor is judged by the white Christian American male standards that began to dominate masculinity concepts in the later decades of the 1800s.

Algernon. Oh, my, Algernon. Arthur clearly dislikes Algernon's fancy, loud, outrageous clothing. But weirdly, he seems to like Algernon, not just tolerate him. Arthur in fact goes through significant personal discomfort to avoid hurting Algernon's feelings (the awful hat, the POST.MAN. sobbing), and he immediately says yes to having tea with him without any awareness of a coming business proposition, though half the time Arthur clearly has no fucking clue what Algernon is talking about. I am left to conclude that on some level, he just enjoys hearing Algernon talk, which is word-for-word what he says while listening to the Girls argue about romance novels ("I just like listening to you [all] talk." Hello????). I mean, for God's sake, he meets the man while he's choking to death on a nut at a fancy party, and the second thing Algernon does is tell him he looks like a guy who wears a corset. If anything was going to set off the boiling defensiveness of a dude who worships masculinity, thirty seconds with Algie would have done it.

Margaret, Mistress of Fucking Danger. It's pretty clear Arthur doesn't like Margaret. But that has little to do with Margaret's femininity & cross-dressing (this doesn't faze him at all when Charles Châtenay does it; more on that below) and everything to do with Margaret's deceptiveness and highly selective memory. It's not until the bullshittery unveils itself that Arthur starts getting visibly pissed off at Margaret. Conversely, Arthur does seem more positively disposed toward Sally Nash. (That said, this quest has a lot of problems and poorly aged lines that are depressingly easy for a politically motivated jerkoff to soundbite and miscast as Rockstar being pro-bigot. Cue 800 heterobnoxious gamerbro ARTHUR MORGAN ULTIMATE ANTI SNOWFLAKE SIGMA MALE OF THE WEST YouTube videos.)

Albert, my beloved. Rather than goading him to man up, Arthur tries to persuade Albert (whom he very obviously likes) to pick safer animal photography subjects, e.g. horses, and doesn't insult him for his lack of wilderness knowledge (an aspect of traditional manliness that is highly relevant to Arthur's lifestyle). You'd think he would tear into him for this shortcoming, given that they share so many of the same interests and passions, and IMO his genuine eagerness to serve as Albert's protector and facilitate his art is highly convincing evidence that Arthur does not necessarily view masculinity as a net positive.

Arthur is a basic goddamn boyfriend-hater. He pretty much harshly disapproves of every husband, boyfriend, male partner, etc. in the game and is very, very vocal about it... except one extremely unlikely candidate: Beau Gray. Weak, dandy artist Beau Gray, whom Arthur takes one look at and promptly hands the only gun to Penelope. Arthur is curt and impish to Beau at times, but helps him in his relationship troubles willingly (without collecting repayment), and seemingly for no other reason than the fact he can see that soft, fearful Beau is genuinely head-over-heels in love with Penelope. Is he projecting his own young love for Mary onto them? Maybe/probably, but Beau could not possibly be more different from young Arthur, and Arthur seems to believe this difference will make him a good husband for Penelope. A good husband, in Arthur's view, seems to simply be a man who ardently loves his beloved, regardless of his ability to provide for/protect her, and whose only goal in life is to live that life at her side. This is completely antithetical to mainstream late-1800s views on what constitutes a good husband and what it means to be a man.

Châtenay. Arthur shows us some of the most obvious delight and mirth he experiences in the game when he's hanging out with Charles "Allo Boys" Châtenay, who is straight up in drag a third of that time. This baffles Arthur a little, but doesn't disgust or repel him. I've written about this mission elsewhere at greater length because it is one of my favorite disasters, but it's worth mentioning here too.

Trelawny. Arthur clearly enjoys Trelawny despite his grumbly claims to the contrary. Most of these "claims" are just Arthur's established way of affectionate teasing (he does much the same with Uncle and Pearson, both of whom he genuinely likes). His authentic gripes about Trelawny are all about a perceived flightiness/lack of loyalty to the gang, not about his flamboyance. And even these gripes are half-assed, in Arthur's usual way.

Bluegills & Daisy Chains. One of the most genuine moments of softness we have with Arthur in RDR2 is when he takes Little Jack out of the camp to go fishing. Arthur's usually a much truer version of himself when he doesn't have to play the Big Bad Gang Lieutenant role, but this moment of escape is especially important, and not just because Arthur reveals his fondness for children and his natural understanding of how to talk to them. I notice this: Arthur tries to gently teach Jack about fishing, and Jack is completely fucking uninterested. Jack prefers to make flower chains for his mommy. Arthur doesn't scold him for his drifting attention or his lack of attraction to masculine past-times; on the contrary, Arthur goes out of his way to encourage and protect Jack's natural sweetness and innocence. That's a wild stance for a murdering outlaw to have re: the "next generation" of his family. Hell, I've encountered far too many 21st century dads in my own family who flip their shit when their tiny sons prefer hanging out with women & partaking in "womanly" hobbies like art, cooking, and flowers rather than hunting and fishing.

"...and be a god damn man." This seems like classic masculine bluster on the surface, but what does this keynote line mean in the context in which Arthur says it? Well, it's complicated. This statement serves as (a) Arthur's goodbye to John, (b) Arthur's final call to action for John, and (c) Arthur's last wish for his brother's life. But it certainly does not mean standing and fighting or being tough; i.e., "dying like a man." In that moment, it means abandoning all masculine bluster and revenge fantasy, and running away: leaving violence and fighting and brotherhood and all that crap behind to simply be there (alive, present) for your wife and son.

The Best Women People. Who are the best people Arthur knows, by his own crystal-clear declaration? Abigail and Sadie. Sadie's a rough-and-tumble, super-violent gunslinger and Abigail's a stubborn thief & a former sex worker (in the time Arthur has known her), but they are also, critically, two wives: the most traditional feminine role for a woman of the time period (and indeed perhaps most of human history once the concept of "wife" subsumed that of "mother"). It's also important to note that Arthur doesn't truly give up on Dutch until Dutch abandons Abigail, which serves as Arthur's point of no return. The other men left in the gang at this point specifically note that she's "just a woman" and not worth going back for. Arthur is straight-up shocked by all of this; he obviously considers her among the most worthwhile and value-having members of the gang, and certainly one of the most core members of the gang. Without any hesitation or doubt, the instant it's clear Dutch is cutting Abigail loose, Arthur declares: "That's that, then."

tl;dr: Arthur unironically prefers hanging out with women and queens and I love that for them.

[euniexenoblade]

I'm transmasc and I don't think I completely understand the discussion around TMA/TME.

I'm pretty sure I mostly agree with you. Like, "transandrophobia" is not a helpful or accurate description of the transmasc experience, and I can see how it could be used to belittle what transfems go through.

Transfems definitely get more attention from hate groups. Transmasc erasure sucks, but it can definitely be a blessing when the bigots are picking their targets.

I keep seeing posts comparing trans men to incels and MRAs. I haven't seen many transmascs who would warrant that comparison.

That's not to say it's necessarily an unfair comparison. On the contrary, it probably means that there's a lot of transmisogyny going around that I'm not seeing. And if I'm not seeing it, that probably means I'm inadvertently participating in it.

IDK why I felt the need to send this to you. I guess I was hoping you'd tell me how to do better, which totally isn't your job. Feel free to ignore me and/or tell me to fuck off.

I'll send you $20 for tolerating my bullshit. Have a nice day.

Ok I wanna answer this before I get too high (I'm honestly feeling it already). Thank you for the $20, when I realized I forgot to pack a lunch today that money helped me eat still so legit thank you.

So first off, "trans women get more attention from hate groups, transmasc erasure sucks but can be a blessing." (I can't copy and paste on this screen, so I'm paraphrasing) yes but I wouldn't call erasure a blessing, no matter who it's for. They're two sides of a very fucked coin, on the one side transfems get lots of attention and vitriol, and the erasure of transmascs makes it harder for some transmascs to understand they can be trans. But on top of that, the form of transfems we see are never real representation, 99% of the time it's a transmisogynistic ideal of trans women, it's the weirdo white boy spreading lipstick all over their face just before they smash the mirror in a fit of "dysphoria" kind of shit. Though transfems have extreme visibility, our actual selves are not visible, we are ultra violet rapist horn dogs or we're the super ignorant, super emotional crybaby.

And, a side tangent, cuz you sorta did a thing the transandrodorks do that is frustrating. It's not a measurement of what's "worse." That's not how oppression works, that's not what we are saying, we are talking about the forms of oppression.

Men are not oppressed for being men. They can be oppressed for a variety of things, racism, ableism, interphobia (is this the right term I forget), homophobia, etc etc. Masculinity is rewarded, masculinity is the desire, patriarchy exists so men get to be above women. Things like "misandry" do not exist, they are inventions of violently misogynistic men, your MRAs, your incels, your conservatives (this includes liberals btw).

The person who coined "transandrophobia" used to talk about wanting to correctively rape lesbians. I'm not gonna go at someone's kinks, but the blog was not presented as a kink blog, I literally went there myself and read the posts when this first popped off and they come off as true lesbophobia in the context of their blog and coupled with the misandry posting, this person literally looks like MRAs and incels. The defense the community uses is "it's a kink are you kink shaming?? It was on a private locked blog!" Which, the latter, no it wasn't, I literally went there and looked, and the former. Idk I think if you're saying you want correctively rape lesbians while also talking about misandry and counting "transandrophobia," you look misogynistic and homophobic.

The main writers people follow for transandrophobia related content are straight up liars, who make shit up, and one specific non horse entity consistently cites himself as his own "source" and when he doesn't, he cites terf blogs that are connected to kiwifarms and sites of the sort. They will take bits talked about in feminism and present it as a thing they discovered and present it as transandrophobia. Ie. "Men can't show any femininity and can't cry and that's misandry" despite things like this are discussed at length in feminist texts, men can't do these things cuz that makes them more "woman" in the societal lens. Yeah it's fucked, but it's misogyny, not misandry.

I am, consistently, misgendered by the transandrodorks, and so is every other trans woman that disagrees with them. And it's definitely intentional.

Then there are token trans women who don't know much of anything about feminism or transphobia and will straight up harass you for saying women are oppressed. They often weaponize transmisogyny against other transfems, they misgender, suicide bait, or in velvetvexations case, will stalk your blog for two days even though you ignore her and when she's sees you're on a date with your wife, she goes to your wife's blog and starts messaging her instead. Legit, this woman is one of the worst people on this website, the only reason she's not seen as communismkills 2 is cuz men like her.

On top of this, terfs consistently support "transandrophobia" as a concept and constantly say that transandrophobia is compatible with terf ideology. The transandrodork community is ripe with terfs and crypto terfs. Like that one who said he hoped a friend and I get raped, cuz saying "men arent oppressed" warrants wishing rape on people. Or the trans guy that outright said "trans women are male" and tripled down harder saying "trans women don't experience misogyny and oppress transmascs cuz they're really men," claims that were so wild that even velvetvexations couldn't agree with them lol.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: not every person that believes in transandrophobia is a bigot or a bad person. A lot are just young transmascs who are under read about oppression and history, and this terf/transphobe community swoops in and pretends to be representing them and sucks them in. For every disparaging transmisogynist piece, there's two more that are talking about the problems of transmascs. So when you tell these guys "that's a hate group" they don't remember the post calling trans women men, they remember stuff about T being super illegal. So they think we are attacking them for having a problem, not the actual bigotry on display.

Honestly, if these people would just stop misgendering trans women, they might have more trans women who'd be nice to em. But that's the consistent trend.

Transandrophobia is a violent, transmisogynistic ideology that is propped up by terf ideology. That's why they are compared to MRAs and incels.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep8 Musings - Lestat & Gender: "I am she, she is me."

Scrolling the tags and sighing, cuz I just KNEW people were gonna take this line out of context, as proof that Lestat's the woman/wife/mother/femme-fatale (which @dwreader had to explain cuz folks just don't get it X X), blahblahblah. I've already said my whole bit on Lestat as the patriarchal father/husband, and the dandified matador/killer (a la Bruce). But I just wanna remind y'all that THE SAINT IS NOT A CITY.

Either the fandom's got a bunch of new Lestans posting who missed the discourse from S1 about the meaning behind Les's monologues from the books; or y'all just have frightfully short memories.

He's NOT talking about stupid effing New Orleans; and he's NOT calling himself a woman. He's talking about LOUIS. Louis' motherland! Louis' culture! Louis' ancestor's bones! Louis' grave soil! Louis's HOME--Louis' back at home, and Louis IS his home.

But here y'all go, always centering everything on Lestat's yaasification, and ignoring the Louis-shaped elephant in the room.

Lestat's been talking about Louis to his nameless Millennial Fledgling this whole time. Everyone knows who Louis is--and what he means to Lestat. This is CRUCIAL for Loustat going forward in TVC, when Lou's held as collateral against Lest by Akasha and Rhoshamandes.

But for some reason Lestans are hella quick to separate Lestat's identity from Louis every chance y'all get, then wanna whine & complain about the QotD movie pairing Lestat with Jesse, or AR tryna pair Les with Tom, Dick & Harry.

And YES, I will die on the hill that this whole anti-feminine discourse about AMC!Louis is couched in racial prejudice and biases--a trap that even Black fans who are pro-Louis fall into, while ignoring the struggles of effeminate/feminized gay Black men in their own effing community (X X X X).

But this is BY FAR more endemic in spaces predominately occupied by straight white women, who utterly fail to relate to their direct antithesis: gay Black men (X X). So of course they'll leap on every chance they get to glom onto long-haired blonde white drama queen Lestat as their spirit animal, even when he's LITERALLY TELLING Y'ALL that he himself identifies himself with LOUIS.

(Lestat's toxic color blindness is a whole 'nother conversation, omg. X X X)

Lestat says "she" because it's conventional speech to refer to places--especially continents, countries, and cities--as female, denoting motherhood and wives--places as people that take care of their own, as a mother would her children and/or spouse; a la the Statue of Liberty, personified virtues, and most abstract concepts we've inherited from Greco-Roman gender inequality about women as home-makers (HOUSEWIVES) being barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen. It's not even an exclusively English phenomenon. NOLA, like any city, is referred to as a "she."

So yes, to an extent, Lestat is channeling LOUIS; waiting at home for his spouse to come back and TAKE CARE OF HIM again. But Lestat is NOT a home-maker. He's living in a nasty AF shack, with only his music for company (and we know his tour's all about TVL & Akasha & Marius & Claudia & Louis). He treats his own Millennial Fledgling (his BLOOD CHILD) like trash; setting him on fire "IN LOUIS' HONOR" and not even knowing his name--he's NOT tryna be no one's MOTHER. He couldn't even bring himself to be Claudia's effing FATHER when she was literally burning alive two feet away from him, FFS.

But it's not about the brick & mortar or the PLACE itself--it's about the PERSON it's attached to--cuz Lestat always knew that Louis would eventually come back to NOLA--come back HOME--and FIND LESTAT WAITING FOR HIM THERE.

EVERYTHING & ANYTHING FOR LOUIS.

But AMC leaves it deliberately open-ended and ambiguous what Louis says to Lestat during their hug, and we don't see Lestat in Dubai, or any implication that Loustat is remarried/a couple again. Louis' putting down the torch, to stop accepting everyone's effing dregs; "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Cuz Lou's decided to finally start learning how to live on his own for the first time in his entire life; for himself, not other people--AND realize that he doesn't need to rely on his husbands to fight his battles for him. "I own the night!"

[thegreatimpersonator]

since y'all seemed to want this.... here's the live notes i took while listening to each song for the first time (bold are thoughts i had during later listens)

fortnight: 

‘i was a functioning alcohol till nobody noticed my new aesthetic’ what the fuck does that even mean…

love the fact she gave post the female collab treatment. don’t wanna hear what he has to say. 

they’re voices sound actually good together? 

some pockets of the melody are catchy

okay i don’t hate this 

ttpd:

her red flags are on fire in this song lol

this seems very half-cooked

also jacks weird mixing continues to plague us all

CHARLIE PUTH???? WHAT THE FUCK WHY HE HERE

tattooed golden retriever??? ……no way

my boy breaks all his favorite toys:

i blinked and it’s half over

this also is like… half cooked and didn’t need to be released tbh

i love the way she sings the second verse tho

down and:

the production does not match the vibe

did tpain produce this

i’m… kinda bored lol

like i have nothing to say this also didn’t need to be released tbh 

this grew on me a lot actually

so long london 

the production is so futuristic? 

oh im obsessed with how she sounds on this one

her talk-singing in the verses is great

honest lyrics without any clunky unnecessary metaphors! a win!!

the fast-paced verses with th slow chorus is really really cool

a favorite so far

daddy i love him

i can barely hear her? the bad mixing continues 

‘growing up precociously sometimes means not growing up at all’ oh yeah WE KNOW

is this…… is this about her dating matty and loving how people hate him… no fucking way she’s this stupid

SHE IS BEING THIS STUPID

‘it’s white noise’ yeah yeah that’s exactly how id describe him  

.... anyway y'all remember when fans really believed the little mermaid theory and this song was supposed to be about how 'joe stole her voice' lmaooo

we will pretend this one doesn't exist!

fresh out the slammer

are we getting another ‘i didn’t cheat technically’ song lol

what is this weird tempo change….

okay kinda catchy

it’s sounds exactly like you are in love at the end….. jack is really out of tricks

florida

‘my friends all smell like weed or little babies’ what the fuck is she even talking about anymore 

i’m sorry but i’m laughing at the phrase ‘fuck me up florida’

again the production sounds so detached from the vocals 

i honestly still have no idea how i feel about this one

guilt as sin

an real instrument?? wow crazy 

okay she’s kinda cute? catchy and fun, love the melody

i love when she goes up at the end of the vocal 

okay…. i don’t mind this one she’s catchy, a little too long and drawn out but cute

who’s afraid of little old me?

what is this production? it’s way too soft to be as threatening as they’re trying for 

why did jack push her vocals back so far when she’s supposed to scream…. that’s ruins the whole thing…. she’s supposed to be screaming and threatening….. not quiet and far away…. hello

this song is trying very hard to be threatening but it’s not... vigilante shit 2.0

‘you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum they raised me’…………… upper middle-class pennsylvania? 

‘i’m drunk on my own tears isn’t that what they all say, that’ll  sue you if you step on my lawn’ okay bar?

the bridge was good but that’s about it.

i can fix him 

…………… not another matty song oh god

‘i can handle a dangerous man’…… im too stunned to speak this is so embarrassing 

wow taylor really is that girl who like ‘women supporting women’ and then dates/defends a racist bf…. a walking example of white feminism

intersectional feminism found dead.... twice....

loml

okay this is really nice? 

I WAS ACTUALLY ENJOYING THE SONG WHY DID SHE RUIN IT BY SAYING ‘MR STEAL YOUR GIRL’ 💀

if we ignore that one line we're good this is good. im refusing to let that line ruin such a good song

i can do it with a broken heart

‘bitch smile’ why are there so many cringey lyrics on this album lol

what is this song omg why do i kind of like it 

taylor please learn depressed isn’t a synonym for sad 

they recycled the mastermind production 

wait till taylor finds out most of the entire world is sad while they're doing their job and has to pretend they're not

smallest man who ever lived 

oh i think i like this?

‘you said normal girls were boring’ GIRL AND YOU DIDNT IMMEDIATELY GET UP AND LEAVE??? EWWWW??? she's not beating the pick-me allegations

'i just wanna know if rusting my sparking summer was the goal' okay love that line

i like this a lot

the alchemy

no….. no way this is real

i cannot

THE SPORTS METAPHORS WE JOKED SHED DO THAT AND SHE ACTUALLY DID IT OH NO 

touchdown ✅ teams ✅ benches ✅ winning streak ✅ the league ✅

she’s doing…… the worst thing ever this is so laughable 

the corny lyrics are on overload 

‘this time it’s heroine with an e’ didn’t she write folklore? i can’t remember 

that literally was an snl parody of a taylor song

clara bow

love how the guitar sounds… bet money this is an aaron track 

a stevie nicks reference!! a win!!!

i like this one a lot no cringey lyrics yet

nope never mind she name-dropped herself don’t like that

overall really liked it tho

the black dog

i think i like it?? this is kind of what i expected the album to be

okay for once the weird production choices kind of pay off

imgonnagetyouback

kinda catchy? 

she loves a fancy car getting wrecked line

the pre-choruses are the best part 

this would’ve been better without the jack of it all bc he loves a song that doesnt build to anything

this just comes down to personal preference: i don’t like her lighter vocals with jack’s heavy production (ie most of lover lol)

the albatross

a real instrument!!! production that matches taylor’s voice and is well mixed!!! aaron’s arrived!! 

i think it’s solid, has good writing and she sounds great. that's about it.

chloe or sam or…

took me a solid minute to have any semblance of a fuck to know what was going on but okay

okay i love this one

wayyyy more emotive than like… most of the original album

a lot of the 2nd version (or whatever this is lol) are way more emotive, maybe because her voice isnt drenched in reverb so we can actually hear her voice emote better

how did it end

this sounds like an old school adele song? 

i love this one too…. 

her being upset people wanna know what happened but then also feeding it while promoting the album oop 

i love the story of this one it's so refreshing

so high school

THE PRODUCTION is so good ugh aaron never fails 

the man here is a walking red flag girl and the lyrics are ~not it~ but the production is too pretty to hate it

fuck these lyrics are so bad lol

maybe if i disassociate hard enough i can ignore the lyrics and just listen to the production and vibe

give me a karaoke version of this song and we'd be so back

i hate it here

i mentioned disassociation and she made a whole song about it!!!! this one’s mine!!!! 

‘without all the racists’ GIRL HUH

WHAT WAS THE REASON

also... girl don’t act like we don’t know you’re fine with that lololololol

if i had a dime for every time i was liking a song to then have it slapped away because of a bad, out-of-pocket lyric…… 

thank you aimee

this isn’t grabbing my attention 

oh the bridge is interesting 

it’s meh 

i will never be thanking the people that bullied me thanks tho

i look in peoples windows 

what do you mean aaron didn’t produce this??? it’s well-made and has instruments? 

i love this one, again a really interesting and unique concept that's very refreshing to hear at this point when a lot of the songs feel repetitive

the prophecy

aaron guitar!!!! 

she’s nice i like her 

i've really grown to love how she sings this one, the melodies are cool.. however i feel like we've heard the same melody.. like on this exact album... where she upturns at the end of every line...

cassandra 

this seems very…. familiar… idk i feel like we’ve covered this (i mean there are 31 songs we’ve already covered everything lol)

this is such an aaron song, that's a classic 'the national' piano

i like her voice in this one tho, sounds good

peter

oh love i love this

now this? THIS feels the most like a taylor swift song

once again she’s at her best with a simple instrument and emotive simple lyrics

the piano reminds me of champagne problems

the bolter 

i like this! the chorus is so cute

oh i like that ending line a lot!

she’s cute, a little long and drawn out but cute

robin

i haven’t seen anyone talk about this one

welp…. i literally have no feelings toward this one but sounds pretty! 

the manuscript

oh this is soooooooo powerful 

i love this concept 

her ending the album on another introspective album that sums everything up a la dear reader yep yep!!

if you actually read of this ily 💗

[earthphoenixstories]

White tears, brown scars and the internet jumping on a black trans person hate campaign.

I realise that a lot of the OL fandom are under 25 and are still at an age where y’all are learning and maturing and that’s great. However as someone who is close to being 40 I need y’all to do some reading for me.

White Tears, Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hand.

The black person at the centre of all this is a trans person that doesn’t identify as a woman. Yet all I see is blatant misgendering. This black person upset you, therefore their gender identity becomes meaningless.

Sadly, this behaviour isn’t new to me. I’ve watched it happen for too long many times over the years.

So of course what is the next step when white people get in their feelings? They hit the pockets of creators. Demanding refunds, getting them demonetised, trying to silence them by any means necessary.

The most recent example of this that I can think off is White Woman Whisper on TikTok. During the man vs bear debate, she pointed out that black women generally, would feel safer in a board room setting with a white man than a white woman. Oh boy did the white women get all up in their feelings about that. Within hours, White Woman Whisper had been removed from the TikTok creators program and hate white women making endless think pieces about how upset they were.

Y’know what? Tough. Sometimes y’all need to ti be told the truth even if it upsets you. I don’t trust white people, and I’m half white myself.

When a white person makes a mistake it’s “they’re young, they’ll learn. Everyone needs grace to grow and become better.”

When a black person makes a mistake it’s, “wow, that’s so disrespectful how can you think that? I hope you get fired. I’m reporting your comments to your boss, your school, I’m going to blast you on the internet.”

We don’t get “grace”, we aren’t allowed to learn and grow. There’s immediately “discourse” and the need to hold that black person “accountable.”

Where is this smoke for 99% of white folks who use their privilege as a shield.

It’s not until a whole person does something that crosses a line and stars upsetting white women that they start to get called out.

See JK Rowling and Elon Musk as examples. Queen Terfette literally named the only black adult in the series “Shacklebolt” and no one batted an eye. Her name choices were praised for being “clever” and “imaginative.”

She even did an interview where she called her fans “delusional” and no one spoke up against her. Even when she started saying openly transphobic things, she was protected. Until the dam burst and the tables turned.

And yet all that time black folks and other people of colour were calling her out and pointing out the lazy and offensive ways she talks and writes about non white people.

Which brings me to this morning, and I wake up to y’all dog piling on a black trans person for … saying that the way black trans men are portrayed made them uncomfortable.

Y’all are exhausting.

No, we don’t have to sugar coat our feelings to protect yours. No, we aren’t responsible for your actions and reactions to us. No, we aren’t being “aggressive” or “mean” or “confrontational” when we speak up for ourselves.

I’ve read some comments about disliking the discord profile pic. Okay. I mean, I personally snorted at it when I saw it. But y’know what? Y’all need to ask yourselves why you don’t like it. Is it because a black person is holding a whip? Is it because some white dudes are working the fields?

Here’s a story from the book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the origins of American Gynaecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens.

When white slave owners wanted to punish pregnant black slaves (who were forced to work even when they were heavily pregnant), they would get a slave to dig a hole large enough for the woman’s pregnant stomach, then have the woman lie face down - her stomach in the newly dug hole.

The slave master would then proceed to whip the pregnant woman with the hopes that the unborn baby would feel the mother’s pain and behave better when they born.

Did that upset you? Did it make you disgusted and angry? I felt that way. I was so horrified I had to walk away from the book and calm down.

Black people still feel that generational trauma. We still have to live with the knowledge that is it what was recorded. Who knows what else happened to our enslaved ancestors that never got recorded? We’ll never know. That will always haunt us.

And y’all are upset over a picture that never actually happened.

Stop.

When Kendrick said “they not like us” he was talking about y’all.

[genericpuff]

All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (A Prologue)

So I referenced a certain article in a recent reblog/ask response and I just need to talk about it because what the actual fuck-

This has to have been written by either a bot or a hater who's reached peak god tier level at playing the long con sarcasm game because NOTHING about this feels sincere or even factual. Much of it almost has to be read in a mocking tone for it to make any real sense.

It says "Lore Olympus" (literally in quotations) in just about every single paragraph over and over again and every single talking point revolves EXCLUSIVELY around Persephone, which I suppose comes as no surprise considering that seems to be all the comic - and its fanbase - cares about at this point.

I really love (/s) how Persephone's "evolution" is being naive and then 'blossoming' into an independent woman who relies entirely on the rich man who groomed her to solve all her problems.

Also all she's done since becoming Queen of the Underworld is abuse lower class people. That's the stuff feminist dreams are made of <3

While we're talking about the main leads, "poster child" is definitely a word for Hades, I think a more appropriate term would be "literal child". And boy howdy, 'god of consent' sure is a title to give the guy who ripped out a lower class satyr's eyeball and beat him half to death.

This man owns slaves, btw. And both he and his "powerful wife" are equally horrible to lower class people, especially women.

This is hands-down the funniest section of the article and we're only three bullet points in.

Thetis and Persephone have never even so much as spoken one word to each other outside of the courtroom that Thetis technically put her in after plotting against her for an entire season.

Eros is a man. Nothing wrong with that but it comes with the unintentional icky hilarity of implying that because Eros is the gay best friend, that means he's a woman.

They literally don't read this fucking comic-

Everyone always relies on this weird talking point of Demeter not being able to "let Persephone go"... y'all, she just didn't want Persephone to outright move to Olympus, she wanted her to commute. That was it! That was literally the only problem! She wasn't preventing Persephone from pursuing a higher education or telling her she wasn't allowed to work, she literally fucking encouraged it! And with the added later context of Persephone killing a bunch of mortals - and, ironically, the fact that Persephone was assaulted/put in harm's way by TWO SEPARATE MEN in the first two days of her time in Olympus - yeah, I don't blame Demeter for not wanting her daughter to move cold turkey actually LOL

Also hilarious that they claim Rachel has turned "tradition" into "innovation" when the only thing she's managed to do is set back modern feminism in her young adult readers by 80 years and re-establish misogynist brainwashing in her adult ones. Rachel, your fanbase was literally shipping a victim of abuse with her abuser just a few days ago.

oh boy this is uh

this is some cult shit ngl

and the "rewriting the script of Greek mythology" part is VERY concerning knowing what we know about Lore Olympus and who it was written by. This is literally cultural appropriation, full stop, and it exists because Lore Olympus - and works like it, made by people like Rachel - exists.

I can't even commit to the original theory that this was written by a bot because it all feels very pointed and intenetional. This is being written by someone who, at the very least, REALLY sucks at media analysis and writing, because the entire article is just "Lore Olympus, buzzword, Lore Olympus, buzzword, buzzword, Lore Olympus", it's like a white knight incantation for guilty virtue signallers who have zero clue what they're talking about. And at worst, yes, it's appropriation from someone who doesn't mind taking a culture's stories and myths and promoting their erasure by people outside of the culture like Rachel.

And that's it, that's literally the article lmao

*EDIT: There was a section here before addressing the writer of the article from a very opinionated POV that, while isn't unusual for what I do here, did feel necessary to remove after I was contacted by the article writer who addressed the flaws in their original article and is now seeking to correct them with revisions/an article rewrite. So I felt it only fair as a compromise to at least remove that section as it really doesn't have a whole lot to do with this post as a whole and can be removed without entirely ruining the flow of this analysis. If/when that article is rewritten, I'll be revisiting this post and my overall analysis !

And honestly, it's all really telling, because this does accurately reflect the state of the LO fanbase.

Not only do many of the people who defend this comic like it's their job not pick up on the blatant misogynist tones that are going on in its narrative (I can't even call them "undertones" anymore, they're no longer that subtle) but whether or not they even read the comic at all is up for debate with how much stuff they tend to get wrong in their own arguments and justifications. And this is something that's VERY regularly seen in the fanbase discussions, readers will constantly be unaware of things that happened because they skimmed through it at lightning speed just to see if Hades and Persephone kiss and so they can get the top comment on Webtoons so they can be "ahead of the fanbase". It's no wonder that Rachel has gotten used to getting away with retconning things because her fanbase didn't even read what she established the first time.

Rachel's fanbase was literally defending the romance ship of an abuser and his victim on the newest FP episode preview. When that FP episode came out two nights ago and Hera said, point blank, that he didn't love her but abused her, I could only think of that portion of the fanbase who was very audibly simping over Kronos in the IG comment section. Are they actually having their moment of shameful clarity now? Or are they just gonna move the goalposts and pretend that didn't happen?

I don't want to say anything bad about Shelby here because she really seems like she's fighting for her life on this site that she's trying to get off the ground, but a lot of her other articles also come across as very one-note while being peppered with buzzwords that make it seem like what she's talking about is "progressive" when it really isn't. Case in point, Lessons in Chemistry has been commonly criticized for not actually appealing to the demographic that its Mary Sue-ish main character is supposed to represent - women in STEM career fields.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Lore Olympus is not 'feminism', it's white feminism that is designed to appeal to predominantly heterocis white women who think the solution to misogyny is to willingly submit to it and accept the status quo - that it's "empowering" if the woman is smiling and having all her needs paid for by a man. Sure, I can accept that different women will be looking for different relationship dynamics, some women genuinely are happy being in a relationship where they support their husbands first and foremost. But can that truly be called feminism? Or is the real feminism the choices we make along the way that we should be given the freedom to make?

It says a lot about the folks who tend to regularly prop up LO on a pedestal like this as some "revolution in feminism" despite the contrary after spending more than just 30 seconds skimming the attention-grabbing art, and Shelby is just one of many. She's not the worst of the bunch, though.

That goes to someone else who I want to give proper light to in their own essay. Someone who definitely earned a good stern talking-to this past week and has, thankfully, had consequences dished out to her for her horrible actions towards queer POC writers.

If you know, you know. If you don't, buckle up.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

I was so impressed with your toe-to-toe comment on the French philosophy anon. So happy to have found you, omg! I heard Taylor called her ttpd set as the "female rage musical." I take it she knows the impact of the song Labour by Paris Paloma which has been dubbed as the female rage anthem. So naturally, here is the 34 year old culture vulture, can't-have-any-ideas-of-her-own that is Taylor Swift hopping there wanting to get the attention away from it when that song is quite phenomenal. One song compared to her 31 diss tracks that's nothing to me, at least, but the excessive sentimentality of an infantile woman in her 30s. It's gross the confessions she's put on that album. And even her own fans are comparing her to Olivia Rodrigo. That's she's copying everything about her - song, outfits, the "female rage" theme just to mock her. Somehow, Swift thinks it would do her a world of good. People are catching on to her antics which are absolutely disgusting, btw. I'm hoping one day you write about all these completely ridiculous gross things she's done using her own lyrics. You know what I mean? I hope someone write about her nasty lyrics and that it completely destroys her.

Thank you ha, I'm glad you found something meaningful in that post. I will not lie, that Anon actually hurt my feelings for a second (I got over it by writing my response), but I was upset at being so misunderstood. I'm not out here levying unreasonable criticism at Taylor Swift. All will be based on reality, or interpretation of her own lyrics.  I’m defs out to get her though- in the most legitimate way possible- and maybe someday I will publish for real on her. I have a couple of criticisms that I will not be putting on my blog- because I want to say it on a bigger platform. : )  

I do see a lot of harmful things in her music that I have been resisting the urge to write about for YEARS! Even back in 2009, listening to "Love Story" I remember thinking to myself, oh this is nothing like what Shakespeare meant and it's also a weird appeal to the patriarchy through the "I talked to your Dad/ Go Pick out a white dress." It's so clear that she's just reduplicating mainstream attitudes on romantic relationships by using Christian Conservative social standards of needing the father's permission to ask the girl's hand in marriage. She obviously wanted to attract the Christian- Conservative fan- base with that song, and that's exactly what happened. Her marketing is tied to the phrases she places inside her songs in a way that is extremely calculating. She, Afterall, learned from the best at attracting mainstream, Christian, conservative fans, Toby Keith (hate that fascist, white nationalist freak). (WHoops, that was mean- oh well, he’s dead anyway). (and if he wanted me to be nice- he shouldn't have been a fascist).  

It's so obvious, and I really figured everyone else was also aware of the ways in which Swift interpolates patriarchal standards in her music. I have many more examples- I could write a whole essay on it.  

Apparently, everyone thought she was a feminist? Bro, she became a "feminist" if only to evade criticism and capitalize on mainstream pop-feminist trends. She's not a real feminist. Her use of “feminism” to evade critique ties directly into her other marketing strategy of telling the world “I’m so innocent and young” all the time. 

Also, her co-opting of the phrase Female Rage has made me angry, exceptionally angry. I saw that she's trying to trademark the phrase. I am incensed. I will post about it soon. 

I wish Swift would stop co-opting legitimate terms and pulling only the most shallow- self-centered conception of the term out to use in her mediocre music. She’s like if Pinterest was a person- and I’m tired of it.  

Paris Paloma’s “Labour” is amazing, because guess what- it actually speaks about the experience of women under patriarchal standards in a way that respects the seriousness of the topic. I absolutely believe that Swift saw how viral that song went and decided she needed to cash in on that too.  

And she is totally copying Olivia Rodrigo. Can you imagine being 34 and trying to act 20? I would die of embarrassment. But it's so obvious that it's getting weird.

I have much more to say on this topic- sincerely I could write a book on the conceptual point of “Female Rage” in media. I have thousands of examples, and I’ve been studying this stuff for years. I will, however, ramble on no longer. Thank you for your kind words- and I hope you enjoy my upcoming writings.

[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.

[velvetvexations]

The dots... I've connected them and revealed your dastardly schemes. the letters TR and F are all contained in the word [tr]ans[f]em, which proves that everytime you talk abt TRFs, you akshully mean all transfems ever 🤔 checkmate atheists. 🤔🤔 /s

It's a funny thing because transfeminism and radical feminism are (supposed to be!) two different things, but transfems are called transfems because they're transfeminine, not necessarily transfeminist, so transradfem is awkwardly close to transfem because of this linguistic convergent evolution shit lmao. If I could be persuaded to not call TRFs "TRFs" it would be on that basis.

A non-kink confession: sometimes I mistype urls and, if pronounceable enough, they turn into an unwanted vocal stim. I have been beset by one for so long. If I say another tormentous fucking "vevlet" I will [insert cartoonishly over the top violent act here] for real this time

Vevlet is my Eastern European cousin.

oh yeah a friend of mine uses twitter a lot and apparently the birthday boy thing is kinda big over there. fuckin annoying.

aggravating

"but of the two times I've said that one was explicitly about a something a self-identified TME said, so it's really hard for me to agree that TRF=transfem unless you're predisposed to reading what I say in the worst way possible." I am actually genuinely upset at how deliberately and maliciously people are taking you out of context, this is literal bad faith readings!!! Oh my fucking God!!!!! How devoted do people have to be to this exclusionary rhetoric to keep saying that you're saying the exact OPPOSITE of what you're saying??? B.I.T.E. method jfc

People are like. "Velvet just uses the idea of TME TRFs to excuse hating trans women," and it's like.

No, I fucking viscerally hate guys like the one from yesterday who said he'd fight any "transandrophobia chud" and then blocked me when I said I was game, not to mention all the ones who've said something like "I know trans men have male privilege because I've socially ostracized trans women."

i fucking love ur aesthetic posts

Thank you!

This is out of pocket but like, ive been thinking abt those posts that are all "why are you transitioning to be a man? Do we really need More white men?" Hit me as crazy cause like Could you imagine if someone was like "Do we really need More White Women?" People would flip their shit Its crazy how the answer is "mind yer own fucking business when it comes to others gender journeys"

and White women are truly not any fucking better than White men lmao

I guess complaining about TME genderfuck trenders fagdykes didn't get the TRFs far enough so now all trans women are nonbinary? for fuck's sake. like what is up with the cope here?

it's like yeah what IF the moon were made of pudding

are you into VTM &, if so, do you have a clan you enjoy playing?

I loved Bloodlines but not having a consistent gaming group until this year I've never been able to fully get into it as a TTRPG fan. Which I align with varies because we're a system but I'd say that of those of who are connected to vampires, Aleph is a Brujah and Kuroko is Nosforatu. Agatha isn't a vampire but they are very Malkavian.

[abearinthewoods]

A comment of mine from r/curatedtumblr:

Feminism/feminist means multiple things. one is a synonym for WRA, a descriptor. (like MRA, is just an advocate for men's rights, its a descriptor). another is a body of academic work (and the people in it), and a 3rd is an ideological identity (more along the lines of radfem and 4b and the others i don't know or understand).

There is nothing wrong with a discussion on how the carelessness of the 2nd is stoking the fires of the 3rd and in some cases inadvertently introducing misandry into the 1st.

When we assign words with negative connotations to the male gender, specifically words that by their construction direct the negative connotation at the man/male gender: (mansplain, manchild, manspread, toxic masculinity(when directed at behavior instead of expectation), patriarchy(to a much lesser degree)) could we maybe be creating or reinforcing any negative gender stereotypes that might play a part in turning turn group 1 into the group 3?

When we push the concept of male privilege, are we not giving people the tools to excuse their bad behavior towards men to other people, who may be in the first camp (as most people who believe in gender equality are) and not as knowledgeable to see past it?

When we blame men's issues on the patriarchy are we subconsciously implying feminism, the force against the patriarchy, can not perpetrate men's issues? Could this not be creating a barrier in self reflection?

When we use a word tied to a lack of sexual conquests to attack men, are we not reinforcing the idea that one's value as a man is tied to their sexual conquests? (aka: patriarchal notions of toxic masculinity)

When we talk about strong role models for girls under the framework of improving girls sense of worth (viewing them as human beings), but strong role models for boys under the framework of improving how boys behave to make them more useful/respectful towards women and girls (viewing them as human doings)…. Are we not reinforcing the notion of viewing one with empathy more over the other? or viewing the other with a highen sense of suspicion (Secondary to that, thought experiment: how much traction do you think a role model for girls would get among young girls if they were consistently praised by the adults for how respectful they are towards men?)

And this still doesn't even touch what i think is the biggest issue. Criticizing feminism is seen as misogynistic, even when its not, so it not only becomes a useful shield, keeping the misandry from being addressed, the victim of the misandry gets re-victimized when they get accused of being what they were hurt by.

Somebody who has started to notice the sometimes subtle and easy to miss misandry in how a lot of feminist arguments end up being exercised in practice will only start to see more and more.

Its a eye opening experience that gets frustrating because then nobody believes you. its either a standalone antidote, which invalidates the person's experiences being subjected to it or seeing it as an attitude or if you try to point out the trends its a bad faith mra narrative.

As for radfems, I don't care about them, i see them on tumblr, they don't rep feminism to me. r/twoxc does on the other hand and the misandry in there is palatable and feminist arguments around privilege and oppression are used to excuse it, including by reddit admins when its reported.

I'm not even talking about the women drinking from a coffee mug of white male tears, i'm talking about the countless women and men and publications that were excusing it and poking fun at the men who expressed their emotional discomfort with it.

How would you prefer somebody talk about this? It has to be talked about. This is a mens issue that needs addressing.

When men's DV shelters open up, who is protesting them? Suing them for being gender exclusionary? bankrupting the org, driving the founder to suicide, then opening up a women's only DV shelter after buying it for cheap on auction?

When the feminist ex-director of NoW holds a talk on male suicide, who are the people protesting it and yelling misandry slurs into the face of the men who had multiple friends commit suicide and were hoping to find some answers?

Let me guess? "Not all men feminists?"

Sure, as a mra who is a fan of bell hooks, i can agree; but could we please not deny or attack the lived experiences of men who have seen that side of feminism because they don't perfectly express their frustrations in the correct way.