Building separatism

lesbian | 35 | croatian

[balkanradfem]

So everyone, I um,, bought a house.

That's a crazy thing to say on tumblr, let me elaborate.

In my country there are many remote, small rural villages, going extinct with young people moving to cities, and old folks dying and then leaving the property to their next of kin. Their next of kin don't use it, it gets all neglected and overgrown, they live too far to bother to fix it, so they put it on the market kinda cheap. People don't usually look to buy houses in the middle of nowhere. But I do!

I bought a house that is 10 years abandoned; it isn't livable yet. There's no kitchen or bathroom, no fireplace. It has holes in the walls and the ceiling, it's missing plaster on the bricks, it has wild animals living in it right now. But it's a house. It has brick walls, or most of them, it has a roof, the foundation seems stable. It has windows. It has doors. They don't close but they exist. After I decided to buy it, they even added a house key to it. It didn't have a lock outside. It was just sitting open. There's no water installations. It has a well. I'm unsure whether the water is fit to drink.

I'm supposed to renovate it, but the fun is I don't have any money for renovation, I didn't even have the asking price, I had to sell stuff to afford it. The location is 'middle of nowhere' so I'm not going to find a job. It's just going to be me, the wild bird that built a nest inside, and the cat that lives in the attic. But I'm not gonna be homeless. The prices in the city became so high I could barely pay rent with my income, and the place I was renting informed me I have to be out in two months, so I made some quick decisions.

The house has some land with it! It has old, dried up fruit trees, few remains of broken structures the previous owners took down and left there, and some abandoned grape vines. The land isn't even, it's mostly a hill side. There's a lot of brick, wood, fallen trees and wire fence abandoned on the property.

I'm going to try and fix the walls using sand and clay, I have to make at least one room safe from the elements in order to be able to stay overnight, and the travel is so brutal I have to stay overnight in order to work on it. If anyone has experience fixing a house with 'stuff you found outside', I would love advice.

[fishing-lesbian-princess]

Well obviously I can’t have chronic fatigue, that’s a real problem for real disabled people that’s diagnosed by doctors probably. Clearly I just have some sort of perpetual exhaustion issue, that is also almost certainly my fault somehow

[cherrylimeade-l3sbian]

We go down to a local community center a lot to volunteer and junk. I ran into this older lady who was coming by to just drop off some peaches from her car bc she's as sweet as the damn fruit. Anyway, we were talking and she started talking about her husband and, shocker shocker, he fucking sucks.

Won't go anywhere with her. Insults her. Makes her play tradwife for his slobbering ass. All that shit. Anyway, she was clearly trying to, like, gauge if her lack of enthusiasm for his behavior was warranted. A lot of her questions kind of boiled down to, "Am I just being a hysterical womyn or was that kind of mean of him?" And I proceeded to sit and talk with her but mostly listen to her vent and add commentary about him.

And if you could see this womyn laugh and kick her feet, absolutely scandalized at the way I was talking about him and how I was affirming her. At some point, I said, "You should bring him down here. So I can talk to him." And she does that scream laugh with hands over the mouth and says, "I would love to know what you'd say to him!"

But eventually, she did get emotional and kind of teared up. She said, "I know he has issues but...he's just plain mean, sometimes." Flat out told her to leave him. She's in her 50s so, reasonably, she took it as a joke. But this is California, baby. Half his shit became hers the second they said, 'I do.'

Then, in this momentary confidence, she says, "I always thought of moving to (beach city in CA), getting one of those cute trailers and just going to church and just getting away from all the opinions and noise."

Do I think I am going to change this 50+ year old womyn's entire life from one conversation while we held peaches in our hands? Obviously not. But this was one of those times where I almost defaulted to just comforting her without actually objecting to the negative force in her life out of fear of ... I don't even know. Coming off too strong? Being rude? I'm writing this and I don't even have a foundation for that fear other than I am not immune to the propaganda.

All I know is that I, not generally a hug initiator, asked for a hug. And that lady who I plan to see this week hugged me so hard and said, "Thank you for all your kind words, young lady."

Starting off June strong!

[balkanradfem]

I volounteered at pride and despite having some complaints, I had a blast.

Sitting with the organisers and volounteering was a completely different experience then sitting by shyly and not talking to anyone. This time people were coming up to us and I was getting introduced to everyone. I got to hang out all other volounteers, which were almost all women!

I got there early to help set up, and got introduced to an adorable 19yo who we can call M. I was late to realize that M had different pronouns and almost immediately got in trouble, but it turned out okay. We were putting up decorations in the park, climbing up ladders to tie stuff up to trees and hanging flowy colorful flags. At one point I started feeling comfortable with the two and stopped worrying about what I was saying, so I admitted to the 20yo (we can call her Z) that I hate being given orders and I will only concede right now because I'm volounteering and she does know this stuff better than me. And this was the Wrong thing to say. She glared at me and went 'I'm so happy to know that you are doing this against your will,' and I went 'Nooo' 'and that you hate every moment of it' 'that's not what I was saying-' 'I feel like a dictator right now' 'I didn't mean that, I meant you know this better and I respect you!' 'It's too late'.

This did not blow over, for the rest of the day we had beef. She would, however, hug me after mocking me and clarify that she was joking and it was a revenge for what I said earlier. So I would realize that she was not in fact, bullying me and laugh about it. I guess we are friends now. And she told me she's bisexual, I had falsely assumed her a lesbian before.

M helped us with all the setup; at one point Z told me to bring a big box, and I couldn't lift it (my left arm is still not doing well), and then M went and got it easily. I was shocked because M is a tiny little thing, and said 'I want to know how much stronger you are than me. Want to arm wrestle?' and it was on.

We had a long arm wrestle on a bench with an audience of like 5 other women and it was the most fun ever. I lost but it was a formidable loss! I think the main organiser saw me arm wrestling another volounteer and it was not what I was there for but hey, how could you blame me.

We had a desk with a bunch of little flags and decor, so people would come up and ask for a flag or to have sparkles and makeup put on them. I noticed nobody was asking for the lesbian flag, and told Z in a hush 'if anyone takes the lesbian flag, tell me!' and she accused me of trying to make her find me a date, and I wasn't really, just wanted to see other lesbians. She made fun of me anyway. For revenge. I wondered out loud if I'm the only lesbian there, and she told me it was statistically impossible, because some of the preformers are lesbian, but they're from other cities.

I wondered how the 42yo gay male leader organiser felt about the lack of gay men in there, so I just asked him 'Hey how do you feel about the fact this is 90% women' and he was surprised and said 'I didn't even notice that! We organisers don't care about such things' so I asked 'Well can you see even 5 gay men in here?' and he laughed and joked 'What, should we name them all now?'

Apparently he didn't care! I was the only person frustrated by the lack of gay people.

I was let into secret underground rooms and got to snoop through storages, and I did lots of small chores with other women! Like carrying and bringing, getting keys and unlocking. All through it we were joking and laughing, even if we didn't know each other. There was one guy who seemed to follow women around to insert himself in conversations and mansplain basic concepts, so I steered away from that, but there wasn't much of that, most of the crowd were women.

The leader organised a display of some gay images, and those were put up in the middle of the event so everyone could see them, and some people were absolutely estatic. It was me, I was those people, but I wasn't the only one. People were looking at the pictures for a long time.

There was some very young girls! 14 or 15. They looked like they walked out of a k-pop music video and all of them featured some very high aesthetic concept, stuff I could not recognize or name. It felt like they walked out from the internet almost, I've never seen that in real life. They held very polite conversations with the organisers. Everyone in general had very high maitenance aesthetic, like brightly colored hair, special haircuts with hair that stood up on its own, lots of makeup, clothing that was specifically made to fit an aesthetic trend, dozens of accessories. It was like walking into a gathering of anime characters. They looked very cool but I much preferred the simple black-clothing no makeup appearance from a group of preformers, which were the lesbians.

I was busied with the volounteer work when the march started so I couldn't spy on it immediately, but once I did, I could see that the signs I made were picked up and carried, very cool, but! There was no lesbian flag. It turns out nobody picked it up. It was left at the beginning where people could pick up signs and flags. It just didn't happen.

I came complaining to Z about it, and she was like 'well you didn't want to be in the parade and carry it!' and I just pouted at her. Am I not the only lesbian here if nobody else is picking up the lesbian flag?

I still did enjoy the march. Some of the signs were mine, and I helped organize the thing, so I was like, yeah, thats my thing over there. It didn't feel alien to me because I participated. And it was mostly women, though I'm not sure if any of them were lesbian, or if they were, they wouldn't name herself that. I heard phrases like 'demiboy', 'demisexual', 'asexual', 'aromantic', 'genderfluid', 'transmasculine' and while I can't relate to any of that, at least they were women and all really nice.

I had great fun. I talked to so many women, I was made to laugh, I told a joke too, I arm wrestled, I had someone draw a little rainbow on my arm. I didn't really connect with anyone or add them on socials, but that's alright, I didn't click with anyone. I feel much more friendly with Z even though I have offended her gravely, but apparently that's what it takes.

I was surprised by how quickly I became relaxed and started joking around and talking to everyone without a filter, because that hasn't happened to me in years. I felt more normal than anywhere else. Looking at the gay photos and knowing everyone else in there approves and likes them, made me feel really good. I was able to casually mention I'm a lesbian in a conversation and it was a normal thing to say. It was a great day. I would volounteer for pride again. I think that's the way to experience it.

[balkanradfem]

Jesus post anon again.

I forgot to add one last thing. Why did the hype explode into the cult of today.

I think modern men are far more aware of the promotion of men at the top of the hierarchical structure with women as subservient, even the slavery and violence, and they love it. For modern women, I think the ones who romanticize it are not aware or refuse to consider the slave reality of the women of the time. They can agree to a position of submissiveness. But because it’s modern times, women do have more rights and protections that both religious men and women consider. Since it can’t be just like old times, the religion is fine and dandy. But they won’t criticize the reality of female slavery of the time of their favorite cult story book.

For less fanatic women, religion insists upon the Jesus devotion and frowns upon focusing too much on anyone else. Some don’t care too much. Some like that their family likes him. It’s not that deep…

And then there’s the modern m/contemporary women who focus more on the Virgin Mary. That upsets a lot of the Jesus fans.

I just wanted to share, don’t feel obligated to do anything. Thanks for sharing your stories and thoughts. It’s interesting and refreshing.

I feel like you're talking about tradwives maybe? Or any religious women who don't see the reality of it. I do think it's due to being young, groomed, not really given any access to feminist materials or feminist history (they get told to stay away because it's evil), and lots of times they're just raised in a cult, lied to constantly.

And yeah sometimes it's just a part of culture and so normal nobody even thinks to question it, like we don't question eating food and drinking water.

I do get endlessly annoyed by women arguing the same misguided points but I do get where they come from, so I'm not mad at them. M*n did a lot to ensure female children are raised in religious environment without any other perspective or point of view.

And even with that, due to the internet we have a massive amount of women waking up and leaving religion, more than ever before. It's almost like when they made the internet they forgot women might use it to communicate with each other.

Remember when there was a general saying 'there are no girls on the internet' because m*n thought if any girls or women are around, they're here to be used for their sexual needs, so women just went undercover and didn't reveal their sex, while m*n pretended to be women for attention? But secretly we were already developing our own spaces in fandom and forums and fanfiction sites, where they wouldn't think to go. Look at us now! We are declared and speaking up, dominating websites, being catered to by algorithms and criticizing everything under the sun. Recruiting feminists and waking women up from religious stupor every day.

Also I have no clue about the 'virgin mary' fans, whats that about.

[balkanradfem]

Hello! I wanted to share a few thoughts on your past post on Jesus.

I think part of the hype is that his works (physical and metaphysical) were interpreted as done of his own free will.

Whereas women and girls of that era and area were property of their families and under their father, husband, brother, son, or unrelated male slaver. It was their duty and purpose to serve the family for the interests of the head male. Women were effectively tools.

So it seemed novel and revolutionary for a man to be more selfless and community serving than the average free man. It was a foregone conclusion that women serve selflessly, as if it’s our ultimate purpose and we have no higher faculties or aspirations. Entitled men agreed amongst themselves, called it a done deal, and applied physical force like it proved a divine rule for them to subjugate women.

Women did not have a choice but to toil for others. Jesus, a free man did some of that for others and men only paid attention to an interpretation of it where they were closer in order to the divine, even godly.

But the comments about women seeing themselves and being seen as more akin to Jesus and Jesus as woman is very intriguing.

Oh that is well said! It does explain why jesus was seen as the most special boy. It does, however, disgust me on a deep level they could (and still do) consider women as beings without agency or free will, and I know women still had both and practiced it wherever they could, eventually for getting more rights too.

So everyone was just dead wrong! And we should consider whether men have any free will because in any situation they just look to lie, scam, abuse and exploit; that doesn't sound like a lot of agency if they only go for 4 things in every situation ever. I think their parasite brain is holding them hoatage so they can never achieve anything genuine, and they adhere to imaginary hierarchy based on violence, which makes it feel like they choose to worship aggression and force. Which isn't even good for them. They also can't socialize due to always falling back to deceptive tactics of parasitism and get addicted to media that makes them sick (pornography, violence), go on massive killing sprees (wars, terrorism) and if they're not following some orders they fall into a depression.

It's deadly and makes them defective if they practice free will so I think they should give it up already and just do what women tell them to. It would benefit them to be tools.

[rabbiteclair]

auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"

[balkanradfem]

I'm gonna say it. I don't think Jesus is that good. Hear me out.

So christians sell the idea that Jesus was the kindest person ever and that the entire point of the religion is to be more like him. Today I'm going to argue why both of this is false.

Why is Jesus good? They say it's because he's full of love and kindness, well how does this manifest in his day-to-day life? He is very forgiving, he hangs out with the outcasts, sinners, sick people and prostitutes, he feeds the hungry and washes people's feet. Nothing to complain about, right?

Well I can think of a significant part of the population who did those things, and more, way before jesus arrived. Their name is women. Women have been forgiving crimes comitted against them, giving chances to the poor, sinful and the outcasts, feeding everyone from birth, washing everyone from the start of their life, and have been prostituted thus being the only ones able to empathize with prostitution.

Some of jesus's main miracles (witchcraft) have been about making food from nothing, making wine from water and healing. Women's role in society has been to make food, even when the times were tough and they had very little resurces, they were expected to provide healing and nursing as well, as if they're natural healers.

So how come? Why, when the bible was creating the kindest and most loving m*n, they used all the traits and actions of women, to show how good he is? And he can make wine on top of it, just to be the 'cool girl'. This is written in a book that has barely few women named, where nothing women did or said mattered except for giving birth, where women were sidelined into oblivion. What is bible trying to say?

Jesus is appropriating women's work to showcase what a good and special male he is. 'He is so good he's doing what a woman does" is the message. But when women do it, it doesn't matter. It only counts if a m*n does it, and we will give him a saint status while ignoring billions of women who did it before him.

And then to really rub it in, he volountarily suffers for other people's sins. Something women have been doing since we existed. It had been said that the bible had to torture a male as a symbol because a tortured and murdered women is so common, it wouldn't feel like anything out of the ordinary. Torture and death only matter when done to males. And look women, isn't he so kind to suffer for your sins. What fucking sins are we even talking about.

Jesus is just some guy whose grift is appropriating women's labour for attention and following. Had he been kind and just, he would have highlighted women's labour, women's kindness, their deserved place as the creators and caretakers of society. He would have told us who cooked the last supper. But no. He only boosts his own image and talks about his daddy issues. We have seen m*n do this before.

Now let's look how this 'emulating jesus' works in practice; as a good traditional christian you're supposed to marry and have kids. Jesus never married. Hmm. He never had kids either. He wandered around and gathered following, like a cult leader would. Interesting.

It seems that jesus was never a 'provider' but males are supposed to be 'providers', as communicated by the religion. Who are they emulating? It doesn't seem like m*n are really pushed to emulate jesus at all, they're emulating, well. What do we call when you keep someone in your house and this person does constant labour for you, but you don't pay them and expect them to keep doing more and decide if they get any resources or say in their life? Slave ownership. Anyway.

Women are strongly pushed to emulate Jesus' forgiveness and kindness, they're the ones who feel closer to him, seeing as he does similar things, but isn't this kinda circular and nonsensical? He is emulating us. And then we're told to emulate a male who took credit for our accoplishments. He didn't have to marry a guy! He didn't even have a career or give birth or raise a kid! His love was just in preformative miracles! Where was his family, his social circle of equals who weren't just followers, his social obligations, people he took care of? He never committed to anything, wandered around telling stories and had bunch of people follow him, we would call him a bum and we wouldn't be wrong. He doesn't even emulate us well because no woman is as irresponsible or attention seeking as jesus.

His ultimate act of kindness was to 'sacrifice himself for humanity', and women already do this, with way less demands for attention or glory. Sacrificing our well being and our bodies in order to create new people is inherently female, even dying in pain and doing it volountarily. It's what women have done forever. They made up one guy and said 'see m*n do it better' and 'this is more important than anything you have ever done or sacrificed' and no it isn't. It gave everyone guilt issues to hear in detail about jesus being tortured while torturing women is made into entertainment and porn. Our collective sacrifice enabled humanity life, jesus just made everyone feel guilty and bad for him. Again, it's what we've seen m*n do before.

Women don't have to emulate jesus because we already did all that, before him and better than him. Jesus is a strawman for males to get to lecture women about forgiveness and sacrifice, traits that somehow never manifest in their personalities. Incidentally, it is always males we are told to tolerate, forgive and sacrifice for, when not even jesus had to deal with that. When are we allowed to abandon everything to go to the desert and work on personal philosophy? Apparently we just need to stick to forgiveness and sacrifice, and then submission - when was jesus submissive? Don't answer that. I shouldn't type that on tumblr. You have to find a fanfic to meet jesus they want you to emulate.

The logic of christianity doesn't make sense. M*n are emulating nothing and sticking to 'having all power and getting their way', while women emulate a preformative male. Is this what life shoule be built upon?

Being told that Jesus is the kindest human and then looking at the facts of it is infuriating. Every woman is kinder. Every woman does more already. And we are told we don't do anything and shamed for existing in our bodies while he gets credit. Cancel this m*n.

[meirimerens]

you're telling me this guy's a bouncer? huh... and what does he bounce on, if you don't mind me asking...?

[gurlonawalk]

every time i see a woman i’m like good for her. coolest girl alive

[gurlonawalk]

this was meant to say every time i see a woman riding a skateboard but also yes

[cutecipher]

there's art inside me trying to get out

[collapsedsquid]

A German court has ruled that Google is directly liable for what its AI search overviews say. Previous case law shielding search engine operators from liability doesn't apply to AI overviews. The Regional Court of Munich hit Google with a temporary injunction barring the company from spreading false claims about two Munich-based publishers through its AI-generated search overviews (case no. 26 O 869/26). The court classified Google as a direct infringer because the "AI overview" is its own content, not just a list of search results. Google's AI overviews had falsely tied two publishing companies to scams, subscription traps, and shady business practices for certain search queries. According to the court, the AI mixed up information about other, genuinely sketchy companies with the plaintiffs and drew connections that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. The publishers sent Google a cease-and-desist letter, but Google didn't respond appropriately.

[amaliazeichnerin]

Is Africa leading the solarpunk future?

Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa are building solutions that richer nations could learn from

Interesting blog post.

[reasonsforhope]

I've been saying this for like 3 years now!! Always excited to see more coverage of it!!

If you're interested in the future of solarpunk, ecopunk, and a sustainable, livable future, African, South Asian, Latin American, and Indigenous climate movements are absolutely some of the biggest places you should look.

[mala-santa-radfem]

estén atentas a la situación en colombia con el tema de la mutilación genital femenina. estamos hablando de una práctica que está afectando niñas menores a 5 años. ya basta de esta barbaridad y de mirar al otro lado.

[mala-santa-radfem]

in english: FGM is about to be outlawed in colombia. i'll keep you updated after june 18th or hopefully sooner.

UPDATE: FGM IS NOW BANNED IN COLOMBIA. GREAT JOB AND CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERY FEMINIST AND ACTIVIST GROUP WHO HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR YEARS 🥹💜

[balkanradfem]

hello! The post is several days old now so I may have missed some updates, my apologies if so. Re: you no longer have a gig with hip lady. Thank goodness for that, first off!! Great job sticking up for yourself. <3 I am so sorry you had to. The comments were full of insight and a few alluded to this thing, but the behavior you described reminds me of my mother being angry at me about being forced to be around my incestuous father, to a tee. It’s crazy-making—the sheer RAGE they direct towards us instead of the male is so sad. I know why they do it, it’s very sad, but it’s not ok. Hierarchies trickling down.

take care <3

Firstly oh goodness anon I am so sorry you had a predator in your house, and such a disgusting and dangerous one. I'm so sorry he hurt you. I'm mad at all systems patriarchy put into place so he would have access to you, and that your own mother failed to protect you. And then even more bizarrely that she had the absolute nerve to rage at you? I need to have words with her. What the fuck.

This is devastating. You had zero parents in this situation.

I only hope you're doing okay, thank you for sending this message to me and drawing a paralel of womens loyalty to predators instead of their own children and peers.

I've been sad thinking about the hip lady, because she was a big part of my life at this point, and I think of all the time and sleep I sacrificed to care for her, and how she seemed genuine when she said that she loved and appreciated me. I feel bad for falling for it, for thinking this wouldn't change with the slightest inconvenience. I wish I cared less. I'll get over it tho! I am pleased to never see the predator again.

Anon thank you for the message and I hope you get people who truly love you in your life! She should have killed your father in his sleep tbh.

[meangirlnurse]

oh my god

[meangirlnurse]

[suigintou]

my apologies to the lovely lady who had only just begun constructing her beautiful spiderweb in the immediate path of the side door this morning when i, in my self-centered desire to vacate my home of assorted household refuse, came oafishly barging through the sum of her efforts. i shall meditate upon my actions and how they harmed not just her, but all women of the world, and endeavour to do better