not to sound like a commie but you cannot wish for the abolition of racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and sexism without also wishing for the abolition of capitalism. the oppression of poc, women, disabled, nd and lgbti people are linked to the struggle of the working class and their common source is capitalism. if capitalism stays, you can never meaningfully abolish any form of oppression.
tbh its weird reading radfem posts criticizing libfems as the only alternative to radfeminism. a good thing to keep in mind when writing discourse is that theres rarely only 2 options in those things. theres more than 2 lefts, etc. political ideologies (because feminism is political) can vary a lot. even if it seems like everyone who doesnt think the way you do thinks the same, they rarely do. lumping everything you disagree with under one label just isnt intellectually honest.
criticizing what you see as “the opposing side” as if it were a monolith isnt good either. & im p sure not two feminists (lib or rad or whatever) will have the same view of their feminism. listen to viewpoints you disagree with once in a while, its healthy.
do yall have neat books youd recommend on marxism, feminism, materialist perspectives, that kinda stuff? ive read 0 books in my entire life and im trynna change that. id rather theyre not too long as my attention span is shit but if its really good go ahead still ✌️
Okay, so guys, gals and non-binary pals, today I’ve got a bit of a task on my hands.
I have a whole bunch of writing to do today for my art project, which, as some of you may know, is about designing and doing the concept art for a fantasy video game, where all of the characters I have time to design will be women and/or non-binary, people of colour and MOGAI (some of my characters will also be disabled and/or neurodivergent, however the latter isn’t easily conveyed in a drawn design, but it will be mentioned as an aspect of their character).
Unfortunately, this idea has hit a bit of a speed bump. One of my art tutor’s (who happens to be a SWERF) is making my life difficult and is basically pushing me to write an essay “justifying” myself and my actions against men (who, in her mind, I’m “oppressing” by not designing male characters oh no). And I’m fully willing to do this, even though its gonna be emotionally taxing in the long run, because I am sadly not very good at vocalising my opinions and feminist thoughts (I get stuttery, choke on my own words, panic, and I end up coming up with a jumbled mess). It took a great deal of effort to even convince her that the term “POC” to refer to people of different ethnicities (who aren’t white) isn’t racist and KKK equivalent (to be clear, she didn’t understand the difference between calling someone - and I hate to type this - “coloured” and “person of colour/people of colour”).
Now, part of this includes writing as to why I made the decision to make all of my character designs women/non-binary. Part of my decision was due to time constraints - all of my important characters were women/non-binary, and I only have time to design the important characters in preparation for the final pieces and presentation - but also partly because I didn’t see the need to create male characters, or feature them as people of importance. A large part of the storyline is these characters standing up to patriarchal systems and oppression, but my tutor argues its “not really equality” if I’m not including men, and says I’m oppressing them by creating an all women/non-binary cast of characters. I tried to explain to her that oppression can’t go both ways but my words became jumbled and she didn’t really listen. So now, she’s asking me to explain it in written words. Trouble is, I don’t really know how to write it either. Its a kind of complex subject, and not one I’m used to explaining unlike objectification, representation of queer characters and POC, etc. So I’m asking for help.
If anyone could help me out with explaining this, please reblog this with your ideas on this subject and how to write it out. I’d really, really appreciate it (please note: I will just block you if you come into my inbox complaining about male oppression or being a TERF. I’m not asking your opinion; I’m asking how to elaborate on feminist theory)
At 11 o’clock at night, you moved across the train car to sit far too close to two girls about half your age so you could interrupt our conversation to tell us how pretty we are. We said thank you, have a good night, and went back to our conversation.
You interrupted us a second time to say that you didn’t want to bother us, but we needed to hear it, how pretty we are. We said cool, thanks, have a good night, and went back to our conversation.
You interrupted us a third time to say you wouldn’t say anything else, you didn’t want to bother us, you just had to let us know. We said have a good night, and went back to our conversation.
This seemed to perplex you. You came all that way across a train car to bestow upon us this life altering knowledge - the fact we were pretty - and all you got was a polite thank you? You grumbled about gratitude, about how you better not end up on facebook, were we putting you on facebook? Why was my friend looking at her phone? Was she putting you on facebook? All you’d done was tell us we were pretty.
At this point, my friend says, “Sir, we’re trying to have a conversation. Please don’t be disrespectful.”
This was when you got angry. Disrespectful? YOU? For taking the time out of your day to tell us we were pretty? Did we know we were pretty?
“Yes, we knew,” says my friend.
Well, that was the last straw. How dare we know we were pretty! Sure, you were allowed to tell us we were pretty, but we weren’t allowed to think it independently, without your permission! And if we had somehow already known - perhaps some other strange man had informed us earlier in the day - we certainly weren’t allowed to SAY it! Where did we get off, having confidence in ourselves? You wanted us to know we were pretty, sure, but only as a reward for good behavior. We were pretty when you gifted it upon us with your words, and not a moment before! You raged for a minute about how horrible we were for saying we thought we were pretty, how awful we turned out to be.
I took a page out of your book and interrupted you. “Sir, you said you wouldn’t say anything else, and then you kept talking,” I said. “You complimented us, we said thank you, and we don’t owe you anything else. It’s late, you’re a stranger, and I don’t want to talk to you. We’ve tried to disengage multiple times but you keep bothering us.”
At this point, our train pulled into the next stop. My friend suggested we leave, so we got up and went to the door.
Seeing your last chance, you lashed out with the killing blow. “I was wrong!” you shouted at us as we left, “You’re ugly! You’re both REALLY UGLY!”
Fortunately, since our worth as human beings is in no way dependent upon how physically attractive you find us, my friend and I were unharmed and continued on with our night. She walked home; I switched to the next train car and sat down.
So, strange man, I know you’re confused. I don’t know if you’ll think about anything I said to you, but I hope you do learn this: when you give someone something - a gift, a compliment, whatever - with stringent stipulations about how they respond to it, you are not giving anything. You are setting a trap. It is not as nice as you think it is.
But you’ll be happy to know that when I sat down in the next car, a strange man several seats over called, “Hey, pretty girl. Nice guitar. How was your concert?”
“Thanks. Good,” I said, then looked away and put on my headphones, the universal sign for ‘I’d like to be left alone.’
“Wow. Fine. Whatever. Fucking bitch,” he said.
Fucking creepers. May I ask how feminism or anything similar would actually have prevented this from happening? This ya already socially unacceptable.
Men - because to be clear, I called them ‘strange men’ because they were strangers to me, not because there was anything abnormal about them - act this way because they are raised in a culture that lets them believe their time and opinions are more important than the time and opinions of women, and that as a consequence, they are owed women’s attention. They are socialized to believe women should be grateful to them for their attention, and that they are being denied something rightfully theirs when women are not.
Raising someone with feminism, the idea that all sexes/genders are equals and thus no party is beholden to or more important than another, would have prevented this by not allowing men to grow up expecting ‘rights’ that are not actually theirs. You say this is socially unacceptable, but there were 20+ people on that train who actively watched us being harassed and did not say a word. It is socially unacceptable, but this kind of thing happens to me and many other women multiple times a week, with often more traumatic results.
So, yes, I believe more feminism would prevent sexist moments like this. Also, water is wet, the atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, and cheese is addictive.
Sorry to reblog from the source, but I thought the chain of comments was rather unnecessary. All that needs to be said is that this documentary examines gender inequality and how patriarchy contributes negatively to our society.
This is a feminist issue.
And anyone on Tumblr who’s too close-minded to recognize it as such due to a nonsensical blanketed hatred of men’s issues need to re-evaluate their motives.
THESE ARE REAL AND HORRIBLE MALE ISSUES CAUSED BY THE PATRIARCHY. IF YOURE FEMINIST, THESE SHOULD ANGER YOU. IF YOU’RE NOT, HERES ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT THE MOVEMENT.
have I already reblogged this? don’t give a fuck.
The patriarchy hurts everyone.
I WANNA MENTION THIS BECAUSE EVERY TIME SOMEONE MENTIONS THIS THING ABOUT SUICIDE I FEEL I SHOULD BUT IN
MORE WOMEN ATTEMPT SUICIDE
MORE MEN SUCCEED
Women are more likely to use non-lethal methods such as pills while men tend to use firearms.
Something to keep in mind.
I need feminism because the father of my children thinks his depression is invalid because he is male.
You do not know how accurate this is. At school, I have to deal with boys trying to swallow their problems because they’re afraid that their peers will tease them. They have to prove their masculinity all the time to avoid getting bullied.
If you hate men’s problems, hate men in general, then you are not a feminist. You’re a misandrist.
In first grade, a boy named John— a notorious troublemaker—systematically chased every girl in our class during recess trying to kiss her on the lips. Most gave in eventually. It was easier to give in than keep running. When it was my turn, I turned and faced him, grabbed his glasses off his weasel face, and stomped on them on the hard blacktop. He ran to the principal’s office and cried.
In fifth grade, I was asked to be a boy’s girlfriend over email. It was the first email I ever received. He actually told me he wanted to send me an email, so I went home and made an AOL account. We went to a carnival and he won me a Garfield stuffed animal, and then he gave me a 3 Doors Down CD. A few days later, he broke up with me, and asked for Garfield and the CD back. I said no.
In sixth grade, a girl in my year gave head to an eighth grader in the back of the school bus while playing Truth or Dare.
In the summer after sixth grade, I kissed a boy for the first time at sleep away camp. He was my summer love. During the end-of-the-summer dining hall announcements, where kids usually announced lost sweatshirts and Walkmen, an older girl stepped up to the microphone, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and proudly stated, “I lost something very precious to me last night. My virginity. If anyone finds it, please let me know.” The dining hall erupted into laughter and cheers. She was barred from ever coming back to the camp again, and wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.
In seventh grade, I told my brother I decided when I was older wanted a Hummer. What I really meant was I wanted a Jeep, but I didn’t know a lot about cars. My mother overheard and screamed at me for “wanting a Hummer.”
In the summer after freshman year of high school, I went to sleepaway field hockey camp with many of my close friends. One of them, named Megan, I had been friends with since kindergarten. One night when I was showering, she ripped open the curtain and snapped a photo of me on her disposable camera. I screamed. She laughed. We both laughed when I got out of the shower a few minutes later. After camp was over, her father took the camera to the convenience store to get it developed. When he gave the finished photos back to her, he said, “Your friend [Anonymous] has grown up.”
Sophomore year of high school, one of my best friends Hilary had a party in her basement while her mom was away. We invited some of the guys in our grade and someone’s older brother bought us a handle of vodka. One of the boys who came sat next to me in Spanish class. His name was Thomas. I remember playing a simple game, where we passed the bottle of vodka around in a circle and drank. I remember being happily tipsy and having fun, to suddenly being very drunk. Thomas and I started chanting numbers in Spanish, and he leaned towards me and kissed me. We kissed in the middle of the party, with all of our friends cheering. Then we went into Hilary’s bedroom.
Hilary’s bedroom was in the basement, on the ground floor, with a large window next to her bed. When someone went outside to smoke a cigarette, they realized it was a front row seat to what was happening in the bedroom. It was dark outside, and the light on was in the bedroom. They called everyone outside to watch. I don’t remember getting undressed, but apparently we were both completely naked in Hilary’s bed. A friend of mine told me later she tried to open the door and stop what was happening, but Thomas must have locked it. They said they pounded on the door. I don’t remember hearing them pounding. I don’t remember seeing everyone’s faces outside the window. I remember Thomas holding my head down, and shoving his penis into my mouth. I remember trying to resist, pulling back, but he held his hands firmly on my head, pushing my face up and down. That’s all that I remember.
The next day, my friends and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I couldn’t eat anything, and it wasn’t because I was hung over. Every time I tried to put food in my mouth, I felt like I was choking. Anytime a flash of the night before appeared in my mind, I felt like vomiting. My friends sat with me in silence. Then they told me a girl named Lindsey, who had briefly dated Thomas freshman year, had stood outside and watched the entire time. Even after everyone else stopped watching. My friends said they didn’t watch.
On Monday, Thomas and I sat next to each other in Spanish. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact. I went to the girls bathroom and threw up. I hear Lindsey and Thomas live together, now, ten years later.
Junior year of high school, my teacher for Honors Spanish was named Señor Gonzales. Señor Gonzales had all of the girls sit in the front row. Señor Gonzales called on any girl who was wearing a skirt to write on the chalkboard. Señor Gonzales asked a friend of mine, who had broken her finger playing an after school sport, if she broke her finger because “she liked it rough.” Señor Gonzales was a tenured teacher.
Senior year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Colin. He was on the lacrosse team with Thomas. He told me that sophomore year, Thomas told everyone on the team what happened that night at Hilary’s. Everyone cheered. Colin said that, even then, he had a crush on me. Even then, he wanted to punch Thomas.
Colin and I lost our virginities to each other. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have the baby. He didn’t believe in abortion. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have a C-section. Colin said that if I didn’t have a C-section, my vagina would be too loose for him to ever enjoy having sex with me again. Colin said that he wouldn’t let our child breastfeed. He said his mother gave him formula, and that he turned out just fine. I didn’t get pregnant.
Junior year of college, I lived in Denmark for the spring semester and studied at the University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns are illegal there. Pepper spray is illegal there. One night, my friends and I went to a concert at a crowded club in a part of the city I didn’t know very well. I brought a tiny purse with money, my apartment key, and my international cell phone. For some reason it made sense at the time to put my purse inside my friend’s purse. Maybe I didn’t feel like carrying it. We were both drinking. My friend left the concert to go home with her boyfriend. One by one, everyone I was there with left the concert, until I was suddenly alone and I realized I didn’t have my purse, or any money for a cab ride home.
I started walking in the direction that felt right. I walked for a long time. I had no idea where I was, and didn’t recognize the area. It was almost 4 am. I was on a residential street when a cab pulled up next to me. I asked the driver if he could drive me to an intersection down the street from my apartment.
I don’t have any money, I said.
I really need your help, I said.
I will do it for free, he said.
Sit in the front, he said.
I sat in the front. We drove in silence for some time, until he pulled over on the side of a dark street.
I don’t want to do it for free anymore, he said.
He locked the car doors and reached across the center console and slipped his hand up my skirt. He grabbed my vagina. Hard. I pushed his hand away and unlocked the door. I ran down the street and realized he had taken me a block away from the intersection I wanted. I walked to my apartment and threw rocks at my roommate’s window until she let me inside. She yelled at me for waking her up. I escaped. Nothing happened. I was fine.
The summer after I graduated college I helped Hilary find an internship. She was an art major and wanted something for her resume besides waitressing. We found a posting on Craigslist to be a studio assistant for a painter in the Bronx. It was listed as an unpaid internship. The toll for the George Washington Bridge was twelve dollars, plus gas, but she got the internship anyway. She wanted the experience.
The artist was a 38-year-old Canadian painter named Bradley. Hilary was 22.There was another intern there, an art student from Manhattan named Stella. Bradley needed assistants to help him make bubble wrap paintings. Stella and Hilary would take a syringe and fill the tiny bubbles with different color paints until it formed a mosaic. Bradley always had Hilary stay after Stella left to clean the paintbrushes and syringes. He told Hilary she was beautiful. More beautiful than his wife, who he only married for citizenship. He told Hilary they had a loveless marriage. He told Hilary he wanted to have her beautiful children. They began an affair. He told Hilary has wife knew and didn’t care. He told Hilary he was going to leave his wife soon.
Everyday Hilary drove to the Bronx, cleaned Bradley’s paintbrushes, and had sex on the studio floor. Everyday she went home with no money, and everyday she paid the toll at the George Washington Bridge. She needed the internship for her resume, she said. It was too late to find a new job, she said.
I could go on. I could tell you a lot more. About the whistles on the sidewalk, the kids who sat at the bottom of the stairs in high school to look up our skirts, my friend who was a prostitute in South Carolina, the men who’ve cornered me in parking lots and bars calling me a tease, the unwanted grabbing on the subway, the many times my father has called me fat, the time I traveled to the Philippines and discovered Western men pay preteen locals to spend the week in their hotel, the messages on OKCupid asking to “fart in my mouth.” About how I wasn’t sure if I had been raped because I was drunk and kissed Thomas back. How he raped my mouth and not my vagina, so that must not be rape. How easy it was for me to escape the dark street in Copenhagen, and how that made it not matter since “it could’ve been worse.”
Men have no idea what it takes to be a woman. To grin and bear it and persevere. The constant state of war, navigating the relentless obstacle course of testosterone and misogyny, where they think we are property to be owned and plowed. But we’re not. We are people, just like them. Equals, in fact, or at least that’s the core of what feminism is still trying to achieve. The job is not over. We’ve made great progress. There are female CEOs, though not very many. There are females writing for the New York Times and winning Pulitzer prizes, though not very many. There are female politicians, though not very many. But these advances are only on paper. The job won’t be over until equality permeates the air we breathe, the streets we walk and the homes we live in.
I think back to how easy it was for me, in first grade, to feel fearless and strong in my conviction to stomp on John’s glasses. I felt right in reacting how I did, because John’s behavior was wrong. But his was an elementary learning of the wide boundaries his gender would go on to afford him. For me, it would never again be so easy.
Now if you would have reblogged and agreed with the quickness if these were men laughing a woman being raped that I bashed but have pause to do so now it’s a bunch of ladies laughing at a man being raped, you’re a part of the problem too.
Absolutely disgusting & ignorant. Rape is rape whether it happened to a man or woman.
Ok but can we talk for a second about that “I’m not a feminist, I’m pro-equality” bullshit? Because these womens laughing at a man being raped are *not* feminists. If you’re pro-equality, guess what, you’re a feminist. That’s it.
Now, yes, rape is rape no matter what and no one is “asking for it” and except for the part about how you’re not a feminist, I totally agree with this tweets.
okay but like. girls being made fun of for liking things that are either marketed toward them or popular (or both) is REALLY prevalent?? and like?? sexist?? like blatantly sexist??? and if you actually read the article its like?? talking about destroying the idea that a girl is “less than” just bc she likes popular stuff? like man that’s important please stop
The bolded excerpt from the article captures it really well.
“Liking something popular doesn’t make you lame. Discounting someone for having some of those same interests does.”
And this is something that happens pretty exclusively to women. The article even points it out. When men enjoy things that are popular among men, no one comments on in, certainly not in a negative way. No one laughs at men for liking CrossFit, or beer, or watching football. It’s okay for men to like things that lots of men like because mens’ interests are good and valuable from a societal perspective. Because men are good and valuable. But when women like things, those things become the subject of shitty, sexist jokes that further the belittlement of the interests of women and women in general.
This is just another way for men to shit on women and to further brainwash women and girls with internalized misogyny. This becomes another case of “I’m not like other girls.”
“Oh she likes pumpkin spice lattes and Sex in the City? That’s so gross and lame. I like Guinness and WWE. I’m just not like other girls.”
As though being like others girls is so bad. But thanks to the idea that liking what other girls like makes you a “basic bitch” and thus lame and to be laughed at, another generation of girls is growing up thinking that women and the things they enjoy are detestable and to be laughed at while the interests of men are somehow superior and preferable. That girls doing things that make them happy is some sort of sad joke.
And that’s complete bullshit.
And the first comments make me wonder when exactly tumblr decided that it’s ok to make fun of white girls for everything…
Tumblr loves the phrase “white girls” because it lets them indulge their apparently overwhelming desire to shit on girls for liking girly things while pretending they are actually talking about whiteness and are therefore free of internalized misogyny (and free to also shit on girls who say that they are “not like other girls” because they don’t like the completely innocuous things that tumblr just said girls are terrible for liking.)
You could write a very detailed sociology paper on all the ways that women on tumblr have found to shit on other girls while pretending they are actually doing something else. See also, the exorbitant hate leveled at celebrities who are popular with teenage girls for relatively minor things that is secretly more about getting to imply that the young female fans are terrible for liking this person than anything to do with the celebrity. (Or show, movie, book, whatever…)
THIS IS MY FAVOURITE THING RIGHT NOW.
“WHITE GIRLS” DOESN’T NEGATE THE FACT THAT YOU’RE STILL JUST TALKING SHIT ABOUT WOMEN
So for all you feminists out their who think that all men should die, remember, you are not a feminist.
reblogging for the last comment
Yes
Legit question, I’m not trying to hate on feminists or anything. Why is it called feminist if they’re for equality?
That’s a very good question and thank you for asking so politely.
The word feminism was coined by Charles Fourier in 1837, a French philosopher who advocated for the emancipation of women because he believed society treated women as slaves. We weren’t allowed to vote, own anything, or work a real job. Women were ruled by their fathers/household patriarch until they married at which time they’d be under the rule of their husband. If a woman did not belong to male household she was shunned by society and had very little means to make money, most of them unsavory. You know the idiom “rule of thumb”? That comes from a running joke that started in the 1600s, and was still around in Fourier’s time, that said it was okay for a man to beat a woman with a stick as long as it wasn’t any thicker than his thumb.
The point of the word feminist, and the feminist movement, has never been to say that women are better than men. The point is that women and things associated with women have been given a lesser place in society and we want to bring those things up to a place of equality. The focus is on the feminine because that’s what’s being pushed down. However, focusing on the feminine does not mean we’re focusing only women. Men are belittled and called “less of a man” anytime they portray a trait that is associated with femininity. If women and the feminine were equal to men and masculinity then that wouldn’t happen. Feminism is about raising up things associated with females to have an equal place in society as the things associated with males. It’s called feminism, not equalism, because the focus is on raising up not tearing down. Equalism would suggest that male things need to come down to a lower level so that female things can meet it in the middle. That’s not the point. The point is to raise up the feminine so that it’s on the same playing field that the masculine is already on. We don’t want men to lower themselves, we just want them to make room for us.
This needs to be spread far and wide to everyone on tumblr.
