♀️

sideblog // forensic psychology student // 22 // febfem // UK // instagram: @radfem.athena

[pronoun-fucker]

I made a post about this yesterday, and I didn’t expect to get this much done so quickly, but I’ve made a google docs document with as many sourced radical feminist arguments as I can find. I’m going to keep updating it as I come across more, but I’ve added quite a lot already so I figured I’d share the link now, so here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-i6zYkIbnHqljJ6kw0aIlJu3qX_fsRSl6GOgnB1knbQ/edit (OLD LINK)

I went through all of the links to make sure they worked, but I might have missed some so if anyone finds any broken links, please let me know and I can find a replacement for it. Also, if you know of any posts you think should be added to this, you can add the link under this post or tag me in the post so that I can add it in.

Edit: the Google doc was restricted for spam, so I have appealed and will hopefully get a response soon. If I don’t get a response within 2 weeks then I’ll just create a new one and update the link here

Edit 2: It’s still restricted so here’s the new link

Radfem sourced arguments

Radfem sourced arguments This is a document containing sourced arguments on radical feminist points. At the time of making this, all links

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[woman-for-women]

woman-for-women Resource Navigation Masterpost

Radical Feminism Sources/Studies Masterdoc

Feminism - Studies/Sources Masterdoc Project

Feminist Studies/Sources – Masterdoc Introduction 0 Acknowledgments 0 Document Revision History 0 Dysphoria/Dysphoric People 0 Rise in Refe

Radical Feminism Infographics

Prostitution

What Percentage of People Want to Leave Prostitution?

Age of Entry into Prostitution

Rates of PTSD among Prostituted People

What Percentage of Prostituted People are Victims of Rape while Prostituting?

[amporeon-deactivated20140524]

IMPORTANT: So they had these cards in the women’s restrooms at this doctor’s office that I was at. I’m really happy that they put them in there because it makes it easier for a woman to escape an abusive relationship without the abuser expecting anything. It gives me hope when I see things like this.

[terraparticle-deactivated201403]

Oh yes, because women are never abusers.

[amporeon-deactivated20140524]

I never said that they can’t/ aren’t. I’m well aware that some women are. I was just trying to talk about a positive thing that I found in a restroom. Don’t turn my post into something that it’s not. God fucking damn it, it’s like you can’t talk about something positive on this site without someone trying to ruin it or twist the original posters words.

[richfurry-deactivated20140621]

Thank you so much for the positive post, and the VERY true words at the asshole commenting on your post. This is the exact reason why I don’t like this website sometimes. Christ.

[roman-numerals]

If you have to qualify Situation A with “but Situation B happens, too,” do you actually give a shit about Situation B? Or are you looking for ways to derail Situation A?

[savanna]

^

[macromolecular-deactivated20250]

40% of domestic violence is experienced by men, do you suppose they also put these cards in the men’s restroom?

Wouldn’t seeing these cards in the restroom alert abusers that there were probably the same cards in the other gender restroom, possibly making them more violent and cutting off their partner even more from resources that could help them?

This seems ill thought out. Unless, of course, they are only in the women’s restroom. In which case they are ignoring 40% of domestic violence victims. I wonder why.

[roachpatrol]

getting really tired of this 40% myth and how frequently everyone scrambles to believe it because they want to look reasonable and fair.

http://www.kcsdv.org/learn-more/myths.html:

While some people may believe that there is a higher reported incidence of women experiencing violence by their male partners due to men underreporting when they are victims, the reality is the opposite. In 2008, 72 percent of the intimate partner violence against males and 49 percent of the intimate partner violence against females was reported to police.Catalano, Smith, Snyder, & Rand (2009). Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings: Female Victims of Domestic Violence. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, NCJ 228356.

http://www.thecitizen.org.au/features/what-about-men-lies-statistics-and-peddling-myths-about-violence-against-women

Researcher Elspeth McInnes…  recounts some of her research that showed that when men talked about women’s violence against men, some cited abuse as not having a hot meal on the table, not having the children bathed before bed, or women spending money on gambling or shopping. At the more severe end of the spectrum, they nominated verbal and emotional violence as abuse. Then, a tiny minority documented physical abuse, and an even smaller minority named sexual abuse. 

“Women were talking about being run over, being drugged and raped at knifepoint, having their children dangled over high rise balconies till they did as they were told and of course you get verbal and emotional violence,” says McInnes. “When we were talking about physical violence against men, one of the worst examples was that she banged his head with the cupboard door – which isn’t good – but the sheer level of fear, harm and terror that women talked about was simply not present in what the men’s data showed.” 

http://www.feminist.org/other/dv/dvfact.html#notes

The vast majority of domestic assaults are committed by men. Even when men are victimized, 10% are assaulted by another man. In contrast, only 2% of women who are victimized are assaulted by another woman.2

http://womenandpolicing.com/violencefs.asp

Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, (1, 2) in contrast to 10% of families in the general population.(3) A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24% (4), indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general.

in conclusion while domestic abuse hotlines in men’s bathrooms would be great too, women are the majority of victims of violent, life-threatening domestic abuse by a lot more than 40%, and men are still the majority of perpetrators of violent, life threatening domestic abuse, even to other men and boys. this is not a remotely equivalent situation.

using abused men and boys to prop up the myth that women abuse men right back nearly as much is toxic, abhorrent nonsense. we need to cut it the fuck out. 

[bitter-strawberries]

Thank god somebody debunked the 40% myth. 

[the-radical-feminist-deactivate]

Men: The conversation isn’t about me? WELL LEMME FIX THAT…

[fall-and-shadows]

“Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don’t generally see these men is simple: They’re rare…….Even if abused men didn’t want to come forward, they would have been discovered by now…..Among my physically abusive clients, nearly one third have been arrested as a result of a call to the police that came from someone other than the abused woman. If there were millions of cowed, trembling men out there the police would be finding them. Abusive men commonly like to play the role of victim, and most men who claim to be “battered men” are actually the perpetrators of violence, not the victims.”

-Lundy Bancroft from Why Does He Do That

“Men tend to underestimate their use of violence, while women tend to overestimate their use of violence. Simultaneously men tend to overestimate their partners use of violence while women tend to underestimate their partners violence. Thus men will likely overestimate their victimization, while women tend to underestimate theirs. As evidence of this, men are more likely to call the police, press charges and less likely to drop charges than are women.”

-Michael Kimmel from Male Victims of Domestic Violence

[ms-revived-frogs]

So the whole “men are less likely to report because they’re not taken seriously” thing is a whole lie? Hmm…

[vivienvalentino]

some sites for when you’re bored and looking for new music

spotalike creates a playlist based on a song

magicplaylist  creates a playlist based on a song

dubolt  creates a playlist based on an artist

boilthefrog creates a playlist between any two artists 

predominant suggests you albums based on cover art color   

music-map  suggests similar artists

gnoosic  suggests similar artists and songs

[aeolianblues]

bandcamp.com -> click on something people are currently buying

bandcamp.com -> type in a genre and go to the tag or just https://bandcamp.com/tag/[genre-name] and have fun

cannot stress this enough

[like-a-ruby]

came across a reddit thread in which a bunch of men discussed a video game where the player can punish or reward little nonhuman creatures in order to train them, and someone said it disturbed him to learn that some players punish the creatures more than is needed, because they (the players) just seem to enjoy it. this triggered a debate on whether it’s unethical or no big deal to hurt virtual creatures who don’t feel pain and aren’t sentient, and the consensus was that it’s wrong, because it’s not about whether the creature feels pain or minds being punished, it’s about the fact that the player enjoys doing this to them and that means something is wrong with him

what are the odds that this random sample of men on reddit are anti-prostitution activists and tell their male friends there’s something wrong with them if they watch porn? lol their thread literally sounded like a radfem post about how it doesn’t matter if a woman in porn / prostitution / bdsm consents to what’s being done to her or claims to enjoy being degraded, it’s about men’s enjoyment of practices that degrade and hurt women, and what it means. turns out men perfectly understand the concept, they just don’t think it applies to these topics because they feel more empathy towards nonsentient nonhuman video game creatures than towards women

[johnnydeppisstillguilty]

Quit Your Bullshit

At this point if you’re still falling for Depp’s smear campaign I have no interest in wasting my time swaying you to the truth but do me a favor and shut up with these moronic talking points:

Amber Heard was found guilty of abuse!

It was a civil trial.  No one is found guilty in civil trials, that’s not how they work.  She was found liable for defamation, not abuse.  And Depp was found liable for defamation in her countersuit.  So if you want to claim the trial found Heard guilty, then by your own logic, it found Depp guilty as well.

She has a history of abuse!

Depp supporters allege that Heard was arrested for assaulting her former partner, Tasya van Ree.  In van Ree’s own words: 

“In 2009, Amber was wrongfully accused for an incident that was misinterpreted and over-sensationalized by two individuals in a power position. I recount hints of misogynistic attitudes toward us which later appeared to be homophobic when they found out we were domestic partners and not just ‘friends.’ Charges were quickly dropped and she was released moments later. It’s disheartening that Amber’s integrity and story are being questioned yet again. Amber is a brilliant, honest and beautiful woman and I have the utmost respect for her. We shared 5 wonderful years together and remain close to this day.”

Depp was found innocent!

No, he was found liable of defamation.  Specifically, he was found to have defamed Heard through his lawyer’s statements that Heard and her friends orchestrated an abuse hoax.  As in, it was defamation to say she wasn’t abused.  That is the exact opposite of being found innocent of abusing her.

Amber Heard ruined Depp’s career!

He ruined his own career.  Look at all his failed films that premiered well before his abuse of Amber Heard came to light: Transcendence, The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows, Mortdecai, Alice Through the Looking Glass.  Here’s a Forbes article from 2014 about his string of bombed films.

Depp got dropped from Pirates of the Caribbean for being an unprofessional sack of shit who was constantly hours late to set, had to be fed lines through an earpiece, and cost Disney millions after he injured himself on a bender.

Here’s a Disney executive testifying that Amber Heard’s op-ed in the Washington Post had nothing to do with Depp’s removal from the Pirates franchise.

Depp didn’t lose his role in Fantastic Beasts until he lost the libel suit that he brought against The Sun.  Turns out when you bring a case to court claiming you’re not a wife beater, and the judge says you are, film studios will ask you to go away.  Even then, Depp was paid in full for the third Fantastic Beasts film due to his contract.

Here’s Depp drunk or high off his ass while presenting an award.  His former agent testified that after seeing this, studio executives were calling her asking what the hell was wrong with her client.

Here he is falling down drunk outside a nightclub.  This is the shit that ruined his career.  Heard wanted him to get sober.

She cut off Depp’s finger!

He cut off his own finger while drugged out of his mind.

Here are two texts he sent to his doctor confirming this.

Here he is on audio saying “the day that I chopped my finger off.”

She abused Depp!

Unsealed court documents show that Depp “does not allege a specific cause of action for intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress; does not assert that Ms. Heard’s actions caused him a specific psychiatric injury; and does not claim that Ms. Heard’s actions caused him to experience unusually severe emotional distress.”  The documents further state that there was no “specific physical or mental injury” suffered by Depp from Heard.

In other words, his own court filings say he wasn’t abused by her.

She’s on tape admitting to abusing him!

The recording of Heard telling Depp no one would believe him if he said she abused him?  “You can please tell people that it was a fair fight, and see what the jury and judge thinks”?  The context of that clip is Heard telling Depp she feared for her life during one of his abusive episodes, and him whining that once she threw a can at him.  He was trying to make her out to be equally guilty and she was pointing out how ridiculous the comparison was.

Heard saying “I hit you, I didn’t punch you”?  He forced open a door on her feet, and she shoved it off herself, hitting him.  That’s the context.  In the same recording, he even asks how her toes are.

Here’s a transcript of the full recording from one call.  Everything in red is what was cut out when Depp’s lawyer leaked it online.

Depp is on tape saying “I headbutted you in the fucking forehead.  That doesn’t break a nose.”  He is on tape screaming abuse at her, telling her she doesn’t exist and not to pretend to be authoritative with him.  

He is on tape saying, “Shut up, fatass,” in response to Heard telling him to put his cigarettes out on someone else.  He is on tape asking Heard to “write him a letter every morning” reminding him not to hurt her.

He is on video destroying property while intoxicated and injuring himself in the process.

He is also silent on tape on three separate recordings when Heard references his abuse toward her.  He doesn’t deny it.

Everyone believed Heard’s lies for years!  It ruined Depp’s life!

No one ever believed Amber Heard.  Here are people calling her friend io Tillet Wright a liar when io spoke up about calling 911 while Depp was assaulting Heard.

Here are people calling Heard a liar for not being injured enough in photos.

This is a Depp fan blog calling Amber a liar in 2016.

People were booing Heard as she walked into the UK court.

Even more screenshots of people calling her a liar.

She claimed Depp raped her with a broken bottle but she never sought medical attention!

Heard never said the bottle was broken.  She said she hoped it wasn’t broken.

Only 21 percent of female sexual assault victims seek medical attention.

She denied him medication!

Heard did not withhold medication.  When Depp was detoxing, she gave him meds at the time they were prescribed and not earlier than that.  Depp said giving him medication at the prescribed time was “one of the cruelest things she has ever done” to him.  Which is further proof from the horse’s mouth that he wasn’t abused.

The Virginia trial overturned the UK trial!

That’s not how anything works.  The UK court found that it was true to call Depp a wife beater.  Nothing that happens in the US can change that.

The UK trial only had to prove that The Sun believed what Amber said!

Wrong.  In the UK, the defendants in libel cases have to prove that what they wrote was substantially true, not that they thought it was right or trustworthy.  Justice Nicol found that twelve of fourteen assaults Heard testified to really happened and put her in fear for her life.

The UK is known for libel tourism because it’s so easy for plaintiffs to win libel cases there.  The Sun has been sued for libel dozens of times and have only won twice.  Depp’s case was one of them.  He was that obviously an abuser.

The judge was biased in The Sun’s favor!  His son works for them!

If his son worked for them, Justice Nicol would not have been able to try the case.  That’s called a conflict of interest.  This is common sense.

Here’s an article from The Sun calling Justice Nicol a dictator for ruling against them in another matter.

Also, two appellate court judges upheld Nicol’s findings.

The entire UK case was decided based on Heard’s word alone!

This is blatantly false.

Justice Nicol wrote a 129 page ruling that reviewed each incident of abuse and all of the evidence (photographs, medical notes, contemporaneous text messages, diary entries, emails, etc.) for each incident.

And again, two appellate court judges upheld this ruling.

She shat in the bed!

She didn’t.  Depp decided to use a dog’s accident to smear her and forever associate her name with something gross, like the chess player accused of cheating via vibrating anal beads or Richard Gere and gerbils.

Here are the judge’s findings:

For what it is worth, I consider that it is unlikely that Ms Heard or one of her friends was responsible. Mr Depp had left that night for his property in Sweetzer. As long as he was away, it was Ms Heard who was likely to suffer from the faeces on the bed, not him. It was, therefore, a singularly ineffective means for Ms Heard or one of her friends to ‘get back’ at Mr Depp. Other evidence in the case showed that Boo (one of the two dogs) had an incomplete mastery of her bowels after she had accidentally consumed some marijuana. Ms Heard gave evidence that Boo had in the past defecated on the bed and that she herself had cleaned it up rather than leave that task to Ms Vargas. On 29th October 2014, Ms Heard wrote in a text message to Kevin Murphy that (see file 7/3(b)/H27.2), ‘Last night she [Boo] shit on Johnny. While he was sleeping. Like all over him. Not exaggerating.’

What’s more, Depp was the one obsessed with shit:

Here he is asking an assistant to defecate on the floor so Heard, thinking the dog had done it, would have to clean it up.  He claimed in court that he made this text due to his lavatorial, childish sense of humor.

Depp, Hunter S. Thompson, and Marilyn Manson attempted to defecate and urinate on Depp’s own Hollywood Walk of Fame star.  They were unable to do so.

They were both abusive!

Mutual abuse is not real.  And real domestic violence experts recognize that Heard was Depp’s victim.

Either grow a brain or just stop talking.

[ms-hells-bells]

holy fucking shit. The American national institute of health found in a study that tracked 33,000 women over 11 years, that women who use chemical hair straightening products more than just 4 times a year, their risk of uterine cancer DOUBLES. the risk goes higher and higher the more straightening products are used. This is talking about going to the salon and them getting your hair straightened. The most impacts by far are black women, who get their hair straightened more and start straightening earlier. I'm talking, separate from this specific study, 3+ times higher lifetime risk overall of aggressive uterine cancer than women of other races.

I have talked before about how many "harmless" products like hair products, nail products, etc. Not only are poisoning women, but disproportionately affect black women, who use far more feminine products due to standards of misogynoir meaning that "natural" black women are seen as masculine and unclean and unprofessional. But women of all races are being KILLED due to femininity. People scoff at how women used to die from wearing makeup full of lead and arsenic and asbestos, but it just keeps happening over and over again.

[pussyhat]

Hair straightening chemicals associated with higher uterine cancer risk

NIH study finds Black women may be more affected due to higher use.

[genderisareligion]

This is why “black women aren’t allowed to be feminine, let them be feminine!” from liberals pisses me off, as if that’s supposed to sway me to their side or show their support for our struggle

Why tf should we be competing with white women or any other kind of woman to see who can poison themselves the fastest? No fucking thanks. Kill femininity

[ladielabrys-deactivated20230204]

Introducing the Radical Feminist Library!

Hi Radblr, I'd appreciate if you shared this link! I've accumulated hundreds of books from the second and third waves to create the Radical Feminist Library ! ++(Library on another site) The link is available to everyone, and feel free to share it with others.

If you have any book requests, or EPUB requests, send me a message! I'll see what I can do.

If you'd like to follow me on twitter, my handle is the same as on here.

My pages are meant to talk about radical feminist theory & feminist + lesbian history. Thanks for sharing!

[steakoilsaleman-deactivated2022]

Johnny Depp fans pay $3k to unseal court documents to get dirt on Amber Heard, but ended up unintentionally exposing Depp and information he tried to keep private.

Johnny Depp suffers from erectile dysfunction

2.Johnny Depp attempted to use revenge p*rn against Amber Heard by submitting her nudes into evidence along with information she briefly worked at a strip club before fame— all while knowing the trial would be televised

3.: Johnny Depp actually submitted manipulated photographs of his “injuries” with altered metadata.

4.: Johnny Depp intentionally manipulated audio tapes of arguments between him and Amber, and refused to provide any recordings that weren’t edited or altered. The metadata also confirms they were manipulated.

5.Here’s a sample of missing pieces of audio from the infamous Amber Heard tapes that were leaked by Johnny Depp’s team. (The deleted portions are in red)

6.Johnny Depp fought to have expert testimony from a renowned psychiatrist denied, in which she concluded “Amber was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Mr. Depp”. Amber revealed to her during a session WITH Depp that he was abusing her and that she would fight back.

7. The most damning piece of evidence that Johnny Depp attempted to have sealed— his declaration that Amber Heard did NOT cause him any “specific physical or mental injury”.

Much more damaging evidence can be found via:https://archive.ph/OMjhk

Johnny Depp is the abuser. Amber is a victim of abuse and global DARVO

[maladict]

I think the place where so many of these “hyperfemininity but make it empowering” ideas fail is the assumption that men care about your interiority. Like “I present myself as a bimbo but I’m actually a full, self-aware, empowered person with thoughts and ideas”, yeah they don’t give a shit though. Every woman who has been made out as a bimbo or a sexpot or a Playboy bunny is a full entire person, with thoughts and experiences and opinions and feelings of her own. It’s not subverting anything to pretend that’s an innovation and that the new, ~empowered~ bimbo is separate from ye olde pinup girl. As long as they’re getting the catering and sexual gratification out of it, men aren’t gonna care about the personhood of the woman under the makeup. They never have.

[powerfem]

I hate shapewear wtf I don't even have words for it. Of course your body isn't smooth, you aren't a chorizo. "Blah blah it gives me confidence" why does it give you confidence? Why do you feel like you have to wear toght clothes/body con dresses? Moreover, why do you have to look "smooth" in those?

How is this feminism?

[theradicalbutch]

Nowadays it seems really obvious to me that a lot of “beauty” products are designed with the intention of removing women from their humanity as much as possible. Women have to wear makeup that makes our skin not look like skin. if you’re too pale? Tan! If you’re too dark? Bleach your skin! Fake eyelashes, contour, lip fillers, facelifts, and other cosmetic surgeries will erase any other distinctive features you have on your face. Don’t forget to shave! Don’t like shaving? Wax it all off! Don’t like waxing? Pay to have your follicles burnt of with a laser! Have fat on your body? Here’s 50 new diets to try! Still have fat on your body? Suck it out and put it in your ass instead! Body not smooth? Wear a corset shape wear! We’re expected to wear tight clothes we can’t move in every day; we’re expected to wear heeled shoes that make us walk weird like a newborn horse to formal events. All of this combined makes it to where when you put a man and woman next to each other we barely look like the same species anymore. It’s easier for men to dehumanize us if we look more distinctly different than them.

[ggrainger-uclan]

I am a student researcher at the University of Central Lancashire doing my final year forensic psychology project on homophobic cyber bullying coming from within the LGBT community. This study consists of one questionnaire, including a few demographic questions, then three questions asking about participants experiences with the subject of the study. All data collected will remain anonymous and confidential.

If you are interested in participating this study, please use the link below. You will be able to withdraw to from the study at any point until submission. If you have any questions about this study, please contact me at [email protected], or my project supervisor at [email protected]

Link

[softcore-revolutionary]

Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault

When I was six years old, I gave my first bl*wjob. “It’s a game”, said He. “Don’t you want to play?” It was too big, and I threw up on him. He said I’d do better the next time.

When I was seven years old, I watched a group of fellow second graders cheer as a boy in my class tried to kiss me. He hugged me from behind, giggling all the while. I threw sand in his eyes, and was sent to the Principal.

When I was eight years old, I had an elderly teacher ask me to stay behind in class. He carried me on his shoulders, and called me pretty. “Teacher’s Pet!” my friends declared, the envy visible on their faces. They ignored me at lunch that day.

When I was nine years old, an older girl on the school bus would ask me to lift my skirt up for her. She was pretty and kind, and told me that I could only be her friend if I did what she said. I wanted to be her friend.

When I was ten years old, a relative demanded that he get a kiss on the cheek every time we met. He was large and loud, and I proceeded to hide under my bed whenever I learnt that he was visiting. I was known as a rude child.

When I was eleven, my auto-man told me that we would only leave if I gave him a hug every day. He smelled like cheap soap and cigarettes.

When I was twelve years old, I watched as a man on the street touched my mother’s breast as he passed us. She slapped him amidst the shouts of onlookers telling her to calm down. She didn’t calm down.

When I was thirteen years old, I exited a restaurant only to see a man visibly masturbating as he walked towards me. As he passed, he winked lasciviously. My friends and I shifted our gazes down, aghast.

When I was fourteen, a young man in an expensive car followed me home as I walked back from an evening class. I ignored his offer to give me a ride, and I panicked when he got out, only to buy me a box of chocolate that I refused. He parked at the end of my road, and didn’t go away for an hour. “It turns me on to see you so scared.”

When I was fifteen, I was groped on a bus. It was with a heart full of shame that I confided in a friend, only to be met with his anger and disappointment that I had not shouted at the molester at the time when it happened. My soft protests of being afraid and alone were drowned out as he berated my inaction. To him, my passiveness and silence were the reasons why things like this continue to happen. He did not wait for my response.

When I was sixteen, I discovered that Facebook had a section of inbox messages named ‘others’, which contained those mails received from strangers, automatically stored as spam. Curious, I opened it to find numerous messages from men I had never seen before. I was propositioned, called sexy, asked for nudes, and insulted. Delete message.

When I was seventeen, I called for help as a drunken man tried to sexually harass me in a crowded street. The people around me seemed to walk by quicker.

At eighteen, I was told that sexism doesn’t exist in modern society. I was told that harassment couldn’t be as bad as us women make it out to be. That I should watch what I wear. Never mind you were six, never mind you were wearing pink pajamas. That I should be louder. But not too loud, a lady must be polite. That I should always ask for help. But stop overreacting, there’s a difference. That I should stay in at night, because it isn’t safe. You can’t get harassed in broad daylight. That I should always travel with no less than two boys with me. You need to be protected.

That it can’t be that hard to be a girl.

I am now nineteen years old. I am now tired.

By Anonymous Artwork by Mayka

[the-wandering-vagina-deactivate]

This is the fucking truth. I remember getting in trouble every single time I shouted and fought men who violated me. I was the bad one, the criminal one.

[ihatemenandtherearereasons]

Exhibit 1001

[eliyanah-deactivated20220918]

@sapphicgem​ sure thing. i figured this was deserving of its own post. it’s something i really care about, since both my mother and grandmother have had hysterectomies, and it’s not unlikely that i will need one eventually.

firstly, i’ve heard many women argue that hysterectomies don’t pose any risk as long as the ovaries aren’t removed. that’s false. some preliminary research even suggests that women who have had hysterectomies are at higher risk of heart disease, obesity, and high blood pressure.

and that’s not to mention both short-term and long-term effects on your pelvic organs, such as prolapse (you know, when your intestines fall out of your vagina)– nearly 1 in 8 women who have a hysterectomy will need pelvic organ prolapse surgery.

some other possible long-term side effects include urinary and bowel incontinence, pelvic organ fistula, and renal cell carcinoma. urinary incontinence a common side effect, and women over 60 who have had hysterectomies at some point have a 60% higher risk of urinary incontinence. 

both pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence are often treated by implanting surgical mesh to hold your organs in place, and…

removing an organ, especially a larger one (and yes, compared to other organs like the appendix and gallbladder that are more commonly removed, your uterus is large, about the size of your fist), has lasting effects, even if only because there is now a space in your abdomen where there wasn’t before. your uterus holds the rest of your organs in place. my mother had a hysterectomy 15 years ago, and since then, she has been unable to run because she can feel her organs moving around. she also has chronic pain from scar tissue in her pelvis. 

and all of that is not even including the side effects from removing the ovaries, which is included in total hysterectomies, and can cause early menopause, lifelong hormone imbalances, and early-onset dementia.

so, you understand why i fly into a rage whenever i see some insufferable but well-meaning teenage girl say something like “i don’t want kids or periods so i’ll just have a hysterectomy!” hysterectomies should be an absolute last-resort for serious uterine conditions. contrary to what many women on r/childfree or whatever would say, i believe hysterectomies are overprescribed, and as we learn more about their long-term effects, other alternatives such as ablation are becoming more common to treat issues like endometriosis, fibroids, and polyps. 

women are not dolls made of separate, disconnected parts that can be taken out at will. i firmly believe that the “solution” of hysterectomy in many cases where it’s not necessary is the result of males dominating the medical field for so long– it’s the same reason so many exclusively female medical conditions are so poorly understood. men just don’t care. 

yes, women face ridiculous barriers of misogyny and condescension when they try to get sterilized. but there are other, low-risk, less invasive alternatives for sterilization, such as tubal ligation or bilateral salpingectomy. and extremely heavy, painful periods (believe me, i’m familiar) can be managed by a hormonal IUD or an ablation. any doctor who is willing to perform a hysterectomy on a perfectly healthy woman just because she doesn’t want kids or periods is not a doctor i would trust to do anything.

[sapphicgem]

thank you so much for the detailed response!

[ihatemenandtherearereasons]

Schoolgirls call for school uniforms ban in sex shops

The girls are concerned about the sexualisation of children and they want change

I can't believe this has to be done but please sign if you can

[mayonnaiseolivia]

direct link to sign

10,000 signatures = gov't responds to petition

100,000 signatures = considered for debate in parliament

[ihatemenandtherearereasons]

British/UK citizens !!

[ihatemenandtherearereasons]

Please !!

[kelpieradfem-blog]

not the reason radfems want to destigmatize and appreciate periods: because they’re cute and fun and not gross at all. the actual reason: girls are shamed for their periods, to the point where girls literally die in menstrual huts. periods are given as a reason women should not be leaders. tampons are taxed as a luxury. girls are taught to hide the fact that they get periods (hide pads/tampons, for example)

[dancethedarkaway]

like even right now in Britain girls from low-income families are missing school because of their periods:

One pupil, who started her period aged 11, told BBC Radio Leeds that she had taped toilet roll to her underwear and missed school every month because she couldn’t access sanitary protection.

“I wrapped a sock around my underwear just to stop the bleeding, because I didn’t want to get shouted at,“ she said. “I once Sellotaped tissue to my underwear. I didn’t know what else to do.

“I didn’t get any money because my mum was a single parent and she had five mouths to feed, so there wasn’t much leftover money in the pot to be giving to us.”

Women in poverty here are using newspaper and old socks. Tina Leslie, who founded Freedom4Girls (a charity that provides sanitary protection in Kenya) said:

“I knew it was happening to homeless women and women accessing food banks, but not in schools. It’s something you don’t think about until somebody tells you.

“It is linked to poverty. In developing and third world countries it’s well-known that 60 per cent of women and girls don’t have access and they win five days of education, but it’s not widely known that it’s also an issue here in the UK. We knew it was happening, but not on what scale.

“There were 25,000 visits to food banks in Leeds alone last year. So if you’re at crisis point you go to a food bank and, like in Kenya, if you can’t afford food you can’t afford sanitary protection.

(fwiw the population of Leeds is 750,000.)

In America a model was fired from Hyundai last month for having her period. She wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom and consequently soiled her clothes, then was asked to go home “because of her “period situation,” according to her US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.”

As she was being paid by the hour, Rickert wanted to carry on working. She protested but was told to go home.

Two days later, Seifred called Rickert and told her she was being fired “because Hyundai heard about Ms. Rickert having her menstrual cycle and they didn’t want Ms. Rickert representing the company anymore,” according to the EEOC complaint.

The situation is much, much worse in much of the world. In Nepal:

the practice of isolating women during their period [known as chhaupadi]  exists across the country in differing forms… In some places, women cannot be in their own homes during their period; in others women can be in the house, but not in the kitchen and worship room. They are also forbidden from touching other people (especially male members of the family or neighbours) or cattle and from growing fruit and vegetables. Women become untouchable.

[in some parts] menstruating women are literally banished to a shed while they bleed.

Some of them die. Women subjected to chhaupadi are at risk of health problems, including pneumonia, suffocation, and sexual assault, during their menstruation. It is also blamed for prolonged depression, young women’s deaths and high infant mortality rates. 

In urban India, 43% of girls use reusable cloth, yet they are often washed without soap or clean water. 

Another study found that 88% of women in India use old fabric, rags or sand to manage their flow, because they cannot access or afford commercial sanitary pads 

A study in Mukuru, Nairobi found that girls ages 10- 19 reported having sex with older men to afford basic needs like sanitary pads. 

In another study, 73 percent of interviewed Bangladeshi garment workers reported they miss work for an average of six days per month (resulting in unpaid work days) due to vaginal infections caused by unsanitary menstrual materials. This is a loss that few can afford, particularly those  who live on less than two dollars a day.

From the same link, according to UNICEF, 83 percent of girls in Burkina Faso and 77 percent in Niger have no place at school to change their sanitary menstrual materials.

1.25 billion women don’t have access to a toilet during menstruation!!

We need to end period stigma and increase access to sanitary protection worldwide. 

Dignity Period, Femme International, and Freedom4Girls all accept financial donations. Can’t donate? Then keep talking about it!!