#when will white feminists learn this and apply it

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

And it’s coming over you like its all a big mistake

[doberbutts]

One of the things that really confuses me (I'm a cis woman of color) is this doubling down on the idea that Black men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're Black, gay men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're gay, trans men aren't oppressed because they're men, they're oppressed because they're trans, etc. It feels like people are being intentionally obtuse. You can't separate my identity as a POC from my identity as a woman. I am treated the way I'm treated because I'm a woman of color, those two things work together. That's where discussions of intersectionality originated. So to say you can separate a privileged identity from an oppressed one is just.... not how anything works?

I constantly see "masculinity isn't criminalized/demonized, Blackness, queerness, transness are" and it's like.... no, that's not how this happens. Marginalized men face specific oppression based on the intersection of their identities. It seems like lately people are willing to understand that for women but not willing to for men and I just don't know how we make any progress if radfem rhetoric has become so pervasive that people are refusing to see lived realities rather than some abstract hypothetical they've come up with.

Personally I think this is due to (white) people seeing and liking black theory that they personally agree with or that makes sense to be applied to their own lives, and then cut out all the parts that are inconvenient for them to have to reconcile. Much like how many, many, many black feminists who are cis women have said "hey, white feminists, stop it with the all men are rapists thing, it actively contributes to black men getting lynched for crimes they didn't commit because it gets weaponized unfairly against our brothers" and white feminists collectively forgot how to read and abandoned their listening skills while still praising other parts of black feminism that talk about domestic violence and sexual assault and oversexualization and reproductive rights and rightly taking black men to task for their continued complacency in this.

The phrase "intersectionality" originated in black feminist theory. I do not trust any white person to fully understand black feminism when they use it as a bludgeon to make the inconvenient bits be quiet. Much of what is on this blog is black feminism. It is inconvenient for white people to have to consider how their words and actions may harm people of color while still lifting themselves up.

As you have said, you cannot separate the "of color" from the "woman" parts of your identity. You are a woman of color. That changes how both sexism and racism works against you in a system that is both sexist and racist. I, in the same manner, cannot separate the "trans" from the "man"- if I were not a man, I would be a woman. I am AFAB, if I am a woman, I am not trans. There is no "you experience this because you are transgender, not because you are a man". In order to be a man, in my body, I have to be transgender*. Just like there is no "you experience this because you are black, not because you are a man". I am a black man. The black experience is inherently, often forcibly, gendered. I can tell you exactly how people treating me changed in a "before" and "after". I can tell you that yes, some of it absolutely stems from the "man" part, they treat me this way because I am a black man.

But people often misunderstand intersectionality to be, exclusively, axis of oppression. And so they say, well learn intersectionality, men aren't oppressed and thus it's not an axis of oppression to combine. But that ignores that some men are oppressed, marginalized men are oppressed and often with a very gendered slant. And it ignores that, like how you cannot separate the "woman" from the "of color", neither can you do that with men.

Men are not the default. They are slightly less than half the population, same as women.

*re: in order to be a man in my body I must be transgender; yes, I am intersex. However I have been out as transgender for 17 years, and discovered I am intersex 6 months ago. So for me, that is very much the case. For other intersex people who were assigned female at birth, that may not be the case. This is something that works on an individual level but cannot be broadbrushed as there are many different opinions among intersex people regarding our cisgender vs transgender status.

[mithliya]

it’s exhausting being among “radical” women who don’t even apply class analysis when it inconveniences them. “radfems” on here will all come together to say men don’t experience misandry & women hating men isn’t akin to systemic oppression, but then a huge portion of u will unironically argue heterophobia and racism against white people are legitimate things because oppressed groups aren’t nice enough when criticising your prejudices online 😐 like please stop pretending to be at all radical and go back to learn the basics of radical feminist thinking

[creature-wizard]

Do you think resistance to the idea that Judaism is a closed practice comes from the idea that a central tenet of Christianity is that Jews don’t understand their own culture and said culture actually belongs to everyone?

This absolutely plays into it a lot, along with the whole "Judaism is just Christianity without Jesus" belief. Christian conspiracy theorists just assume that whatever mystical secrets and spiritual truths Jews have uncovered also applies to them and their beliefs, so when they aren't claiming that Kabbalah is a dark magical practice, they'll claim that it actually supports Christianity and some not-too-distant end times date.

And of course, more broadly, Christians have been trying to assert that other people simply didn't understand their own cultures since very early on - see Acts and the story of Paul on Mars Hill. And then in the Middle Ages, perennialism was popular among Christians (so I have learned from ESOTERICA), and after tapering off in popularity during the Renaissance, was popularized again by the likes of Helena Blavatsky, and to a degree by Eduard Gerhard's Great Goddess hypothesis, which has (at least in certain circles) all contributed to this view that Lilith was this ancient goddess who was revered until she was demonized by the evil patriarchs. A number of radfem types assert that because Lilith was a goddess demonized by patriarchy (which of course, there's no evidence for), she's effectively open to all women as this sort of feminist icon, or even a manifestation of the dark divine feminine. And since radical feminism is a predominantly white movement, you have a lot of people who really do not like being told no.

[creepykuroneko]

Dear white people,

I am begging you to please learn the difference between sympathy, empathy, and how you do not need both to help other people.

I am saying this as a brown, genderqueer, autistic, person who has dealt with all different types of bigotry over my life time.

The best way I've ever seen sympathy and empathy explained in an oversimplified form is as follows:

Sympathy, "that sucks bro"

Empathy, "I feel you bro"

You do not need to feel bad for someone in order to help them. Simply recognizing they are in a bad situation and in need of help is more than enough.

I often see white people shit on brown and black communities for supposedly being more homophobic and transphobic than white communities are. Yet ask any queer person of color and they will tell you they would rather hang out with cishet people of their same race than hang out in the white LGBT+ community because of the racism they experience within the white queer spaces.

No I'm not a fan of Christianity and I think America would be better if people were less religious but I do recognize that in America black churches do more for the black community then other Institutes do. I have known more black queer people who were facing homelessness and were able to get help from their church versus any government lead organization or white focused queer spaces. Good luck explaining this to White LGBT+ people though. They refuse to acknowledge not only the problems within their own community, but how other communities outside of theirs take care of each other while yes still being problematic.

When the script is flipped though, when it's a white woman who is very blatantly bigoted and hateful, who suddenly finds herself and in dire need of help, suddenly white people are willing to put their politics aside to help people. I've noticed when women of colors speak up about how they do not feel bad for a former Trump supporter who is now living in her car suddenly every single white person is a feminist. You'll notice that often times the people who say they do not feel bad for said white woman never actually say she deserves her situation. Other people fill in the gaps that they believe are missing. Suddenly It's what about helping people? What if it was you? We need to lift each other up.

For those of you who lack reading comprehension I do NOT believe anybody should be homeless, starving, or without basic necessities.

I simply believe you do not have to feel bad for someone to help them.

People like to joke about how people who live in red States deserve what they get for living in a red state. What about the people who were born in that situation and do not have the means to leave? Not to mention the fact that it is a white centric colonizer point of view to have the mentality of " I'll just move away and gentrify some other neighborhood rather than fix the problems in my community".

I just find it awfully convenient that anytime it's a bigoted white woman who is in dire straits, suddenly everyone can put their politics aside to help her. When it is literally anybody else, it's crickets chirping in the room.

I have seen more men of color put themselves in a potentially dangerous situation to see if a white woman who is crying needs help then I have seen white women reach out to men of color and ask if they need help. So "why" is it that the group I see all around me be more compassionate towards other human beings gets scrutinized for supposedly not being more empathetic?

Everyone can help make the world a better place. Yes everyone deserves access to food, clean water, shelter, and medicine. Even awful people. It does not mean that you have to love thy neighbor though. I can recognize that this bitch means me harm and still believe she has every right to apply for food stamps. Because guess what? When one person falls through the cracks, the crack gets bigger and swallows us all up. It does not mean that I have to feel bad for her though. And quite frankly, asking people of color to feel bad for someone who actively means them harm is disgusting.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Links Roundup

Here are some recent links from the interwebs that Ariel has been chewing over.

Rethinking Masculinity: Teaching Men How to Love and Be Loved

I have the softest soft spot for this sort of content, I’m not going to lie. As a girl who was taught to fear men (not just from being raised in Toronto during the height of the Stranger-Danger zeitgeist, or having my primary bullies throughout my life being boys, or having to be a teenager in the grossly regressive early 2000s, or attending youth group during the rise of Evangelical-style purity culture in my denomination), I kind of love the idea of not having to run through an internal safety checklist each time I meet or interact with a man and decide whether or not it’s worth the risk to engage. This is warped thinking! But it’s what I was taught to do to survive, and old habits are hard to shake, but knowing that there are men out there who are actively rethinking masculinity in an inherently feminist, decolonial way gives me hope that can change, and that future generations of little girls won’t have to dodge quite so much structural shittiness, and that future generations of little boys will feel much more comfortable with who they are.

Degrowth as a Concept and Practice: Introduction

I admit I’m actually not really knowledgeable about degrowth - like, sure, I know it’s a philosophy/proposed economic policy/theoretical concept / thing, and I like to think it’s pretty obvious in its aims from its very moniker, but I’ve never actually sat down and read up on the details of degrowth and what it would entail. Or talked to anyone knowledgeable about it, for that matter. So this article series is very nice as a primer.

Degrowth advocates argue that we need to transform our everyday practices to respect and work with the fragile, limited, yet bountiful Earth on which we rely to exist.

Sounds pretty solarpunk to me. But just because something sounds good doesn’t mean it’s actually good, so this series really helps dig into the details, especially if you’re not a policy wonk (and are more of a yes-okay-there-is-a-forest-but-let’s-pay-attention-to-the-tree-species person) like me. I think, however, that a lot of smaller projects that solarpunks are working on (such as makerspaces, community resiliency, and local production of goods/food) fits pretty well under the umbrella concept of “degrowth” even if that label hasn’t been applied to them.

The Animal Feed Industry’s Impact on the Planet

This is a fascinating article on the ramifications of the land-use needed for “making animals the caloric middlemen” in the human food chain. This is an aspect of meat-eating that I’m a little embarrassed to admit didn’t actually occur to me until university (when I learned about it from fellow students). City girl, what can I say? We all have blind spots.

Which is why I like that this article exists, because while I think it’s easy, knowing what I do now, to roll my eyes and go “pfft, coulda told you that for a nickel,” there are people out there, many of them I’m very sure, who probably haven’t encountered this as a concept before. CW, though, for the middle bit of the article. This isn’t a happy topic.

Population can’t be ignored. It has to be part of the policy solution to our world’s problems

I was ready to tear this article apart just on principle, as I am so used to encountering this type of thinking in the green movement as a signal for eco-fascism. “There are too many people” translates, in most cases, to “there are too many poor brown people”. This is repugnant ideology as it lays the groundwork for racism at least, if not outright violent massacres. However, this article is written by an Australian professor who makes it very clear that in so-called developed (aka white settler) nations, there is simply an amount of people that puts undue pressure on the natural environment, and our ability to feed ourselves. I wish there was more discussion of this in general, to combat the insidious eco-fascist narrative that overpopulation is an issue because of “those people over there”. That’s really not it at all.

Paradigm Shift: Part 4 - What Might a Sustainable Lifestyle Look Like?

This is part four of a series talking about living sustainably - and this particular article uses the author’s life as an example. I sort of love this kind of media - even though since she lives in the Pacific NorthWest in America, a lot of what she talks about is really not applicable to me - because it helps me to develop my imaginative tools. When faced with an issue in my life where a necessity clashes with a solarpunk value of mine (eg, getting around on my own vs not buying into automobility), I’m better able to think of alternatives (carsharing, transiting, using an electric or non- bike, etc) because I have a “rolodex” of examples in my imagination that I can shuffle through.

Plus it’s very hopeful and inspiring to read these sorts of stories. Yes, “carbon footprint” is a problematic concept and etc but there’s something to be said for carefully considering your lifestyle and deciding to do the difficult things in order to be a better neighbour to the flora and fauna around you. Which is nice.

[queering-ecology]

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ. Tapestry Institute. https://tapestryinstitute.org/mitakuye-oyasin/. Referencing Sicungu Lakota Elder Albert White Hat.

Their website defines itself thusly: Tapestry Institute weaves Indigenous Knowledge to life through activities and publications that use Indigenous ways of knowing, learning about, and responding to the natural world. The particular post I am referencing is about the Lakota phrase ‘Mitakuye Oyasin’ (also spelled as Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ, mitákuye oyásʾį). “The Lakota phrase Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ describes Reality by addressing it as “All My Relations.” All humans, all animals, all plants, all the waters, the soil, the stones, the mountains, the grasslands, the winds, the clouds and storms, the sun and moon, stars and planets are our relations and are relations to one another. We are connected to each other in multiple and vital ways. When one is in pain, all are harmed. When there is justice for one, there is more justice for all.” 

This quote is important as it confirms the idea that ‘Mitakyue Oyasin’ is more than merely a meaningful phrase, but is a way of describing Reality. It also helps describe the sheer scope of what the words mean. What is also important to recognize is the belief in pain and justice also being interconnected as this can be connected to feminist ideas expressed within much queer ecology. But, the post also emphasizes that even though ‘All our Relations’ is the most common translation of the words, “the phrase actually bears within it rich layers of additional meaning that cannot be easily translated into English. It’s important to point this out because words and ideas, stories and rituals, are bound together into a single reality that must be respected, not misappropriated”. 

Finally, the video interview with Albert White Hat adds even more complexity: the wisdom in these words are not “merely a collection of historical ideas or words” but “ a system of powerful knowledge applicable to the lives and struggles of people right now”. This ultimately supports my thesis; that indigenous worldviews (in this case, Mitakuye Oyasin) can be in symbiosis/symbiopoesis with queer ecology--the concept is a tool (a much more besides) that can be applied to the struggle we face in healing our planet.

-- Symbiosis is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two biological organisms of different species

-- ‘Symbiopoesis’ or “how organisms can be intimately involved in each other’s development” (squid and light emitting bacteria, bees and pollination, acacia trees and ants, wasps and figs). (Rahder)

[valocity95]

SASHA!! THE DAUGHTER!!! i feel like she played such a big role with just her words alone. like my brother and i were talking about this post watch. when she says stuff like "oh barbies a n@zi" or "white savior" i dont think its because she actually believes/d it, i think its because shes just a bad feminist. and thats okay, we're all not perfect feminist, especially when we're as young as her.

but i feel like her character was written with saying all of that because theyre sorta like "buzzwords" online. (not saying its okay that they're buzzwords or that i personally believe that, but just saying what i see around, yknow?) j think it just shows how when we throw around really important words willy-nilly, than young kids trying to learn and grow into activists for causes they genuinely believe in start saying things they dont mean out of just pure ignorance. obviously at the end, sasha is better, but its a growth thing, yknow?

i just feel like she highlights how when kids see all of these terms online they try and apply them and end up hurting their movements rather than helping, just because they genuinely dont know any better. this is all coming from a "kid" btw. ive done it myself but hey man education is key!!!

[angelfacemjj]

Idk about y'all, on non Brazilian tiktok, but here on braziliantok there is an arisin' movement of black girls simply... Disassociating themselves from feminism. And before anything, no it's no conservative shit going on, my girlies are not this stupid. They are still gonna fight against misogyny, but not with the feminist label. Not anymore.

The thing going on is that, African Brazilian women see no reason to fight for women's rights by the side of feminism anymore, because white feminists keep treatin black girls like shit.

White feminists ignore that black women's struggles are different and keep regurgitating racist bullshit, and when black women call that out, they get slapped with the “sorority rule” that always applied for all girls, except black girls.

Now add that to learning the history of racism inside the feminist movement since it's origin, and you get the reason for this post.

But don't take this as a “omg, anti feminist black movement in brazil”, because, from what I've seen, that might be just another tiktok discourse, and braziliantok discourses are incredibly stupid almost every time. Take this as just a random thought in the middle of the night. (In ThE mIdDlE oF tHe NiGhT 🎶🎶 /j)

[thelesbianpoirot]

There are a lot of people who mock Taylor Swift because they don't like her music and she's a rich apolitical white woman so she's fair game to them and that is whatever. I don't like her music myself. Her fandom base is largely female, but she does not have the huge gay male backing big a female star usually has. That intrigued me because gay men love massive female pop stars.

However, there is a vocal section of men, straight and gay, that mock Taylor Swift. I learned it was because she isn't sexy to them. A lot of people who find her sexy are lesbians. She doesn't make sexually explicit degrading music which is usually what you need to be an uber popular woman in today's music market. So the female icons gay men of today flock to are all hot women showing their tits and ass.

once a post that got popular that said people need to leave lesbian women who are apart of the slash shipping industrial complex alone, because it doesn't mean attraction to these characters, it is just a dumb male centered hobby, and It compared it to how gay men love sexy starlets. It's why homophobic Nicki Minaj will always have a more loyal young gay following than Taylor Swift. Everyone on the post kept saying all lesbian shippers are actually bisexual. They couldn't fathom why women would be doing the woman hobby, identifying and engaging with male characters if they weren't sexually attracted to them.

Yet no one questioned the sexuality of gay men obsessed with the sexual appeal of female popstars. They can't just be talented, they have to be sexy. And so many gay dudes commented some version of "of course we wouldn't like her, she's flat, sexy as cardboard, etc misogynistic insults." So many gay men are mad when Billie Eilish wears baggy clothes and doesn't have her tits out. Why are you as a man invested a sexy woman if you're not attracted to her? Can it be you identified with these women growing up and still as a man you benefit on some level from the sexual exploitation of women in media. It can be a completely neutral and (or a negative thing) devoid of sexual attraction for you. The same thing with straight men, they idolize big strong masculine men in media or athletes, to the point of hero worship, collecting merch excessively, demanding that every male character be a muscular beast in the live action adaptations, posters on their walls, obsessive curating their online life about them. Get mad when even hot female characters take the limelight away from their male favorites. Are all these men bi or gay? You wouldn't think that.

So how about we apply this to lesbians? While tumblr is filled with openly faux lesbians (bi and straight up straight women dating men) there is a concerted effort to always question a woman's word, and believe everything a man says. Do we think lesbians raised in male dominated society are born inoculated against male worship/centeredness, even if it's not sexual. Straight men aren't. Do you believe lesbians are inherently born with a feminist mindset, and there aren't male worshiping lesbians out there. That there are certain hobbies that make a woman a lesbian, and some that disqualify her? There are some lesbians getting surgery to have a faux dick attached to her person, without ever wanting to ever be sexual with a real deal dick. it's clear that we are just as vulnerable to male hero worship as anyone born in this patriarchal society, and sometimes it manifests in the most womanly of ways, slash shipping.

Slayerlez was right. I miss her.

[detransition]

I’ve said it before but I will say it again: living as a trans man was an irreplaceable part of my feminist awakening. I came out as trans when I was 13, about 8 months before I started high school.

In my very white, Christian town, nearly every little girl looks forward to wearing makeup. Girls would start wearing foundation and full faces of makeup in 8th grade. Girls started shaving their whole bodies Years before that (I started shaving when I was 10). In my very posh, middle class district, fast fashion and frilly dresses are The way to bond with girls your age. Go to the mall and shop. Help each other look cute.

I was not a particularly enlightened 13 year old. I was not so fed up with sexism that I saw through all the marketing schemes and propaganda telling women that the best way to use our time is to work on cultivating our appearance. I was falling for this socialization hook, line, and sinker.

And I hated it so much, but I couldn’t figure out why. I saw boys my age skipping the long hours of clothes shopping and makeup application. I wanted to skip it too. And when I came out as trans, I DID skip it. I never learned how to apply foundation or eyeshadow, and I shaved for the very last time when I was 13. I didn’t wear a dress even a single time throughout high school.

Today, I do not feel the need to look beautiful for strangers. I do not feel like my bare face is ugly, or like it is unprofessional. I have never felt the urge to put on eyeliner for a special occasion. I have never felt the urge to shave my legs for a date. I have never felt ugly for meeting up with people in sweatpants and a t shirt. There is not a voice in my head reminding me that I need to be pretty. I Know people would treat me better if I was feminine all the time, but I am not scared that people will think less of me for being myself. I Know people accept and love me when I am not dolled up.

I would not have this peace of mind with my body, or my appearance, if I had not spent so much time living as a trans man. If I hadn’t fought so hard to be free from femininity on the grounds that I was secretly a man, then I would never have felt this comfortable rejecting femininity while Knowing that I am a woman.

I’ve seen feminists struggle with this. I’ve seen smart women, women I love, struggle with this. We know femininity is a cage, we know it wastes our time and our money, but we are terrified to leave it. But I got to leave it. I couldn’t be more grateful for the time I identified as a trans man because of this.

from communalbong (deactivated) | thinking of detransition? you are not alone

[inmyhorrorsera]

S5E7 "Hybrid Creatures" thoughts

That's it. Those are my thoughts.

.

.

.

Kinda...

I'm kinda used to the writers putting Nadja in situations and see what it sticks, but (un)holy shit its so obvious that they don't know what to do with her character. What we do in the shadows learn how to write women challenge.

I don't know if the Guide even appeared. My stream stopped a couple times and I have to refresh so maybe I missed her (if not see previous point because it also applies to her).

LOVED Nadja's kitty hair buns, love to see that at least the hair and costume department still cares about her.

The line about burning the school made me roll my eyes, not only because that story doesn't make sense with what we learned about her childhood, but also because I can FEEL when tv shows throw lines with the specific expectations of them being gifed, become memes, etc.

I know it's stupid to discuss about the ethics of Laszlo's experiments on the dick and balls show but in this episode I was all 😬😬😬 about it. Like, I don't give a shit if it was done with comedy purposes, animal experimentation is one of the subjects I will never find remotely funny or make jokes with, specially if we start thinking... How much consent Guillermo gave for Laszlo to straight up play with his DNA in this way? He has nothing to say about it except for a confused frown or looking panicky at the sight of the creatures?? More important, if Nandor did this exact same thing the past season and created the hybrids with a Djinn wish or whatever, how would the fandom have reacted??? (spoiler: waaay more angered than when everybody's fave Laszlo does it).

The work of puppetry and digital effects was good as always, nothing bad to say about the team behind the cameras that puts all their hard work and craft on this, sadly, mid storyline.

Despite how little I care about mAd ScIenTiSt Lazslo plot, the moment when Guillermo believes he won't help him anymore was truly heartbreaking just by looking at his face. You can see he really has all his hopes in Laszlo finding a 'cure'.

I wish the whole thing about Guillermo being incapable of killing the hybrids hit me harder (as if we didn't saw him luring innocent teenagers so they can get killed in the literal pilot).

Sorry but that lady character didn't work for me and the "Helen the Magic Johnson" joke was unfunny and kinda old :/ i wonder if half of the wwdits fandom even got the reference (also lmao shameless product placement, you can tell they needed the money to pay for the cgi used on the creatures).

Colin was like his season 1 self. I bet the wwdits reddit ate up that shit.

See also: Laszlo calling Guillermo 'Gizmo' again. Hated it.

Colin becoming the stereotypical 'cool' white liberal teacher was hilarious specially when he said the cliché "history is written by the oppressors" line because that's where the parody becomes too obvious. This is the guy whose dna results on s1 were "100% white" after all. AND YET some people here are still celebrating and repeating it as this 'so true bestie 😔✊' moment without realizing the show's laughing at you, not with you. But hey, this is the we don't get satire even if it bites on our ass site. Imagine fans celebrating when Kendall Succession shouted "fuck the patriarchy!" in front of the paparazzi for being a #feminist. That's how wooosh the moment went over some of y'alls heads.

Nandor and Colin at the museum felt a little tackled on, but at least Nandor annoyance at his personal items being displayed was fun.

And Colin being friendly (dare I say…sweet?) with him at the end again gave me a happy smile. I'll never guessed this season was all about the Colin and Nandor (Condor??) era but I'm all for it.

Biggest Mild laugh of the night: Nandor mannequin having male and female lovers on the display, the dude is wearing Calvin Kleins!

I can't say much about Guillermo leaving the hybrids at the senior home because it's a overused ending for wwdits at this point. Seriously, when this show doesn't know how to end an episode they always do the same shit: Leave the characters that are a problem in a different place. It happened with: Topher at the zombie sweatshop, Jim the vampire as the volleyball coach in Tucson, familiar Benji in a different city/state (forgot where), The Baron and the Sire in the countryside, Derek working at Sean's MLM, Freddie!Marwa in the Uk. They have done this ending 👏🏼lots 👏🏼 of 👏🏼 times👏🏼already!!

Having a wank?! The setup and payoff for this joke really worked.

Next episode seems interesting.

Anyway, I am once again asking for the Djinn...

[doberbutts]

I really wish people like that anon understood that it's kinda strange to compare oppression? Like comparing white supremacy and patriarchy feels kinda reductive to me. They're different systems with different histories and the main reason I see people bringing up men in discussions about the patriarchy is bc when (usually cis and white) women make generalizations about men and their power within the system, the man they're imagining is the most privileged man that could exist (white, straight, cis, neurotypical, able-bodied, etc). But men as a category is so much broader than that, and marginalized men do not benefit in the same ways. And if you have to make that many qualifications when making a statement maybe the argument is kinda weak. Are all men safe to walk the streets at night or is your default a white cis straight able-bodied neurotypical traditionally masculine man

That's where intersectionality needs to come in and that's why it's been so frustrating in my experience to have these conversations, bc so many people absolutely refuse to acknowledge it as not only a factor but one of the biggest/most impactful

It's "learn intersectionality" until they're actually challenged to apply it to more than just their own demographic, and then it's "how dare you imply that other people also have problems".

Anyway honestly my biggest gripe with comparing racial oppression to gender/sex oppression is very simple. You can trans your gender but you cannot trans your race. Someone who is transgender has lived, many times, as more than one gender. This does not happen to race outside of very specific circumstances with adoptees, blended families, and interracial families (which is also why it's really only these folks who use terms like 'transracial' properly) and therefore that should illustrate the difference between both of these systems.

What's even more annoying is that this is feminist and black racial theory that I'm talking about. These aren't right wing or MRA talking points. And yet they're met with defensiveness and derision because I'm not willing to say that I think people within these groups experience zero problems as a result of their demographic, even if their demographic is "on top". You cannot narrow a person down to only a single demographic, that's literally the entire point of intersectionality is that we are all made up of many pieces and focusing on a single piece misses the bigger picture.

I'm not saying there's no such thing as the patriarchy (there is). I'm not saying there's no such thing as male privilege (there is). I'm not saying there's no such thing as white supremacy (there is). I'm not saying that these aren't systemic problems (they are). I'm not saying these aren't problems that individuals continue to further because it's convenient for them to not change (they do). You'd think I was, with these types of reactions.

[fourdiagnosesinatrenchcoat]

Do you have some queer book recommendations, then? Regarding the recent post?

OH BOY DO I!

I'm a professional bookseller and try to get paid for my opinions but let's be honest, when someone asks for queer book recs you are going to struggle to shut me up two hours later

Amateur by Thomas Page McBee

This transcendent memoir chronicles the author's experience training to fight in a charity boxing match as an absolute novice--and by extension his exploration of masculinity as a transgender man. Beautiful writing about what it means to be a man in 21st-century America.

Bingo Love by Tee Franklin et al

Bingo Love made me cry on an Amtrak train. It's a wonderful romance about two women who fall in love as teenagers, but are separated by their families, only to come into each other's lives again when they are grandmothers.

The Rules do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

Ariel Levy's blistering memoir is a beautiful piece of writing that centers around a time of her life that can only be described as devastating. Perhaps it is her journalistic training that keeps this story from feeling sentimental. I loved every word.

The Manor House Governess:A Novel by C A Castle

This is a modern queer take on Jane Eyre (which was never really my thing -- Heathcliff rules, Rochester drools) in which a gender queer young person takes a job as essentially a governess for the daughter of a wealthy British landholder. The household is full of mystery, including the girl's brooding older brother who our hero is undeniably drawn to.

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

I've read this book so many times.

The reader never learns the gender of the narrator of this love story--which would feel like a gimmick in the hands of a lesser writer. Winterson uses the premise to explore the nature of love and self.

The Magic Fish (A Graphic Novel) by Trung Le Nguyen

This is a gorgeous coming of age story, full of art nouveau-esque illustration, fairy tales, immigrant longing and struggles, and young queer hearts just pulsing with life.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

**read this one when you need the same feeling as you got from Red White and Royal Blue but with a little less sex**

This book charmed my pants off. Liz is a wonderful, memorable heroine, with a lot of obstacles in her way, but that doesn't stop her from finding her path forward. I laughed, I cried, I didn't want it to end.

Check, Please! Book 1 by Ngozi Ukazu

**read this when you need the same feeling you got from Heartstopper but with a little more sex**

You don't HAVE to love ice hockey to be totally charmed by Eric "Bitty" Bittle, the newest member of Samwell University's men's hockey team, and by Jack Zimmerman, the team's moody, stern, and totally gorgeous captain. Along with Book 2, presented here are Bitty's 4 years as a college hockey player, and the lessons he learns about life--and himself--in that time.

Outlawed by Anna North

A gender-bent, feminist, alternate universe Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid retelling, set in a world where the fledgling United States was decimated by a flu epidemic in the early 1800s. The remaining colonizer population is dedicated wholeheartedly to fertility and childbearing, so women (like Ada, our heroine) who cannot bear healthy babies are sent off to convents at best, or tried as witches at worst. She teams up with the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, and her adventures begin.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

High-brow science fiction that takes on issues of class (& related issues of race), corporate power, and personal identity.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

A novel like none I've ever read before. Emezi drew from their own experiences for this narrative about self and power and sex, integrated with Nigerian folklore.

Mortal Follies: A Novel by Alexis Hall

A lesbian Regency romance narrated by Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream? Yes please! A sexy, fun, fantastical tale that's kicked off with the protagonist falling under a curse that promises ever increasing scandal and danger.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

A lush, thrilling sapphic fantasy set in an Indian inspired world full of dangerous magic and even more dangerous politics.

Mrs. S by K Patrick

Mrs S is gorgeous and casually devastating, a sexy slow burn obsessive forbidden queer love story. Every note is exactly right.

I'm stopping there cuz it's late and I've had a day but this is just pulling a fraction of the titles on my staff picks list.

[spiderfreedom]

Stop derailing discussions of misogyny

Saw a post on my 'for you' page that says that many experiences women have are also experienced by men. For example, that bald and fat men are body shamed, that black and gay men are afraid to walk at night, and so on. The message was that feminists are too short-sighted and should stop assuming women are special, because men can relate to many of these issues.

It brought me back to my first years learning about anti-racism. One of the main things that was drilled into everyone's heads was this: just because two groups of people appear to share a similar experience doesn't mean it is the same experience, and bringing this up when someone is talking about group A's experience is a derailing tactic.

It would be very common for someone to write about an issue faced by black people, like feeling weird for having people stare at your hair or skin, and then a white person would write that people also stare at their hair because they have fine blond hair and live in Japan, or that they're seven feet tall, so they know what it feels like to be on the outside.

There is nothing wrong with trying to empathize with other people's experiences. But there is something wrong with trying to equate them. Being a blond person in Japan and being manhandled or photograph is tedious, but it is not the same as racial ideologies surrounding black people's hair. Similarly, being gawked at for being very tall is certainly othering, but it is not accompanied by racial ideologies about your skin color and its 'exoticness' or 'inferiority.' Moreover, introducing this only distracts from the original topic, which is the ways in which black people are othered due to their race.

The same concept applies to misogyny. The post said that "fat men and bald men are also judged for their bodies!" Beauty standards for men and women, but they are far harsher on women than on men. Women are penalized more than men for failing to partake in beauty rituals. Women are told their worth is in their beauty. Men may naturally feel bad if they fail to meet beauty standards, but men are encouraged to find value in other achievements. This is especially clear when it comes to racialized beauty. Black women's appearance is policed more than black men's in the office, with black women's hair, bodies, jewelry, and makeup being subject to criticism for failing to meet professional standards. Black men's appearance is not policed to the same level as black women's. As such, it is the clear that the primary factor in beauty policing is one's female status. Bringing up fat and bald men serves to distract from this just like bringing up blond people in japan and seven foot tall men distracted from black othering.

The other one I remember was that "black men and gay men are also afraid to walk at night." This one is a little more complicated because black men may indeed feel afraid to walk certain places because of their race, and visibly gay men may feel afraid to walk certain places because of their (inferred) sexuality. But only women are afraid to walk certain places because of their femaleness, and that is what feminists bring up when we talk about how men aren't afraid to walk places.

Moreover, being afraid to walk alone or walk at night is an extremely common experience for women across race or class or sexuality. To the point that in places where everyone used the bus, women didn't go out to certain night events because they were afraid to wait for the bus in the dark. I've never known a black man or a gay man to not take the bus at night because they were afraid they would be subject to racial or homophobic violence at a bus stop. The situations are more circumscribed - black men report feeling unsafe and worried walking through neighborhoods where there are a lot of white people (where they could be falsely reported for crime) or through neighborhoods with a lot of crime (because they may be taken for a sucker if they walk around with their head in the clouds). Similarly, gay men know there are areas with higher rates of homophobic violence, countries they may not visit, or that they may not be able to appear in public with their boyfriends/husbands. But - notice how different this is to the woman's experience, because there are no neighborhoods she has to avoid or behaviors she has to avoid, it is the entire night, it is the possibility that you will be treated as prey because you are alone.

So yes, black and gay men have limited freedom of mobility compared to white straight men, but it's clear that the reasons for this are very different from what women experience, and that the limits on their mobility are not the same as what women go through. And to be real, I've never heard a black man or a gay man say that he felt he had missed out on opportunities in life because he was afraid to take the last train home, or that night was coming and it wasn't safe for him. I see black men out on the street at night all the time, coming home from public transit, or just hanging about. I see far fewer black women walking in public. Racism affects both, but sexism/misogynoir further curtails the freedom of the black woman. (We can even talk more about how black women are often forced into unsafe situations like walking alone at night because they are forced into taking the worst jobs to make ends meet. But that's another post.)

We should be aware of how racism and homophobia impact everyone, including men, but to bring up racism against black men and homophobia against gay men to claim that "it's not just women who are afraid" is nothing but a way to derail the conversation away from what women go through and downplay misogyny. It also compares an assumed white straight woman with black men and gay men, instead of making a comparison of black men with black women, or gay men and gay women, which ironically erases the racism and homophobia they experience on top of misogyny.

Downplaying misogyny isn't "intersectionality", it's derailing.

[my-chemical-rot]

Not something I’d really want to get into on this blog too much but the whole “the left has Failed Men and that’s why men lean conservative! We need to center men more in leftist discourse!” argument is so stupid to me, for one because we already center cis men as the default state of being and we’ve been doing that for centuries on basically every side of the political spectrum (read literally any feminist theory ever oh my fucking god), and two because. it’s just wrong. The idea that men are more conservative simply because The Left^tm is mean to them is almost completely backwards. Conservatism is about protecting the status quo & leftism/progressivism is *generally* about Improving upon the status quo; and in a patriarchal system, that status quo tends to serve men as a class. When it comes to like feminism & gender liberation, obviously men have no inherent interest in improving upon a status quo that implicitly serves them so they’re either going to be uniformed/undecided or conservative. They don’t care about making the world better or learning how to if it’s already working so well for them. Being nice to them on the Left won’t convince the average man under capitalism that maybe he shouldn’t be paid more than his female coworkers or whatever. It’s not because the left & evil feminists or whatever are too mean & radical… literally no matter how liberal we are & no matter how nice we are & how much we restrain ourself & how much we try to “dial down” feminism & how much we try to “re-center” men that won’t fix anything because the problem isn’t with the Left. And obviously this is about men as a demographic and as a class & not like Every Single Individual Man Ever. I know intersectionality is a thing (and hypothetically this could be applied to basically any other axis of privilege/oppression. White people as a group are generally more conservative, cis and straight people, able bodied people, etc etc. are all served by the status quo. If you told anti-racist activists that the Left needs to be nicer to white people to make white people less conservative you’d be called an idiot) and I know there are men who are leftists & men who believe in feminism & everything. The point is that re-centering men is so obviously not the solution & so obviously a reactionary co-opt that basically just blames feminism for something caused by patriarchy.