[wholeheartedsuggestions]

eventually you realize you don’t want to die. you just don’t want to live the life you’re living. and slowly you try to create a life you want to live. just gotta start there.

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

i’m not going to or trying to tell you that it’s easy or that it’s possible to ever fully have the life you dream of. there are things you might want out of life though that you can get to. small things, even. do you feel like you want to be more of a reader? pick up a book somewhere you think you might like. do you feel like you would do better in a different city? start planning what that could look like. do you want a hot chocolate today? try to find some time to go treat yourself to one.

it’s not really about having your ideal life. it’s about making the one you have better in ways you can.

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

if you can’t find little things like a book or a drink of a nice face wash at night or a little plant friend, i don’t know what to say. i just hope you find something 💔

[blignick]

[griefpotion]

this is what i'm talking about when i say leftist men use their bullshit ideology to be violent misogynists. it's not praxis to support women beaters. as if chris brown isnt rich af either.

[omgthatdress]

Emma Chamberlain came dressed as the dirty glass of water you use to wash the paint off your paintbrush, complete with 90s Ellen DeGeneres hair!

[stonefemmesiren]

a lot of you really need to internalize that acting avoidant isn't cute at all and that it will cost you experiences and life outcomes if you don't change course

[bloomfish]

Men watching Sabrina Carpenter: oh noooo pls don't objectify the female body as satirical commentary 🫣 all these sexy ladies doing sexy things is soooo offensive to me as a sexist man, u have rly shown me whats what 🫣🫣 I have truly grasped the Subtle Satirical Implications that treating women as subhuman is Bad, its Wrong, very Naughty. 🫢 I am a feminist now that I have been Schooled by seeing the exact images that I wanted to see

[sapper-in-the-wire]

[animelionessmika]

[borg-collective-deactivated2023]

[pure]

patriarchy is the longest enduring form of subjugation that exists. we need to start saying capitalism exists because of male supremacy. we need to start saying white supremacy exists because of male supremacy. #They like to lie about the order of events to downplay the ideology that unites them all.

[pure]

one thing the sea of machine-translated international feminist tweets has taught me is that none of our insights are limited to just one nation. i was actually shocked to see how similar so many of us are. men and their sympathizers have spent years lying, saying “feminism is for white women,” “feminism is western,” “feminism is only for the truly oppressed third world masses,” etc. men need us to believe the lie that we live in totally separate worlds so they can enforce their brotherhood of nations through our subjugation. men and their sympathizers have to dissuade us from seeing and speaking to each other because women’s solidarity has the potential to cause an extreme disruption to the property claims they enforce on us. the desire for women’s subjugation exists across all spheres of society, and no one race, nor one class, nor one nation is exempt.

while a number of femicide cases against black women are in the news cycle…i’ve seen rhetoric ramp up about how uncontrollable and misbehaved we are, because we emasculate black men by resisting the property claims they’re entitled to as men. a tweet comes to mind where women all over the world report the same thing: when a man can’t control women in his “own” ethnic group, he calls another ethnic group of women more desirable based on their perceived submissive behavior. we are all living under the same male supremacist structures, and we are all subject to the same bag of trickery. we must match the ferocity of our insights with tangible political organization, mobilization and solidarity.

[gnomebutch]

is this supposed to make me support sex work. this further proves that the industry preys on desperate and vulnerable people. the answer to this issue is getting better support networks and welfare systems put in place, not enabling prostitution.

[ihatemenandtherearereasons]

Exhibit 3343

[flowerlygirls]

its also so stupid it could be funny if it wasnt horrifying. can you imagine an adult with enough money to raise a child standing in front of the condom shelf going "wow these are too expensive. guess ill risk having a child!".

but i guess... the only way they couldve seriously meant for it to work, was to specifically target broke (and perhaps stupid) young adults/teenagers who will actually go "ah too expensive but i bet pulling out is just as safe". and then when you have thousands more teen pregnancies on hand you just go "you slutty irresponsible teens shouldve been safer" when they demand any help from their governtment at all

[queen-mayhem]

It's worth remembering that this is China and their social services put ours to shame. This isn't like the US, where the government restricts methods of family planning and then tells you you're fucked if you can't support your children.

The first and most important big difference is that abortion is affordable, widely accessible, and not stigmatized in China. Teen mothers are rare in China because the overwhelming majority of teen pregnancies end in abortion. (85-99%, depending on the source you're looking at. rates are higher in urban population.) This tax does not affect abortion.

The second big difference is that China has massive social support programs for mothers and children. Guaranteed 5-6 months or more of paid maternity leave, subsidized childcare and preschool, a basic income program for the poor, national programs to promote flexible employment for working mothers, and universal healthcare. These programs are imperfect - there's not nearly enough public childcare to meet demand, the basic income program is extremely minimal and doesn't phase out, the "mom jobs" are mostly in low-wage/low-skill employment, public healthcare doesn't cover everything, etc - but this is taking place in a totally different environment around social support.

And finally - as bad of a sign as this is, the 13% tax on condoms works out to about 5 yuan per pack. The average daily income of a chinese worker is 150-300 yuan. The basic income program provides 800-1000 yuan per month (or did in 2016, which is the latest I can find actual numbers on how much dibao was worth). This article makes the argument that this tax is mostly symbolic, and I think the author has a point. It's not nearly enough to actually change people's behavior. The point is to signal the Chinese government's new pro-natalist priorities. The point is to say "No no, we're serious. We really do want you to have kids now. We know we spent the last 40 years telling you not to have kids but now we want you to have kids."

Which still isn't great - it's never good when governments start trying to "encourage" women to have children - but the context is totally different.

[everything-is-crab]

I have a friend who claims she's a feminist. Last time we talked and she was speaking of how frustrated and annoyed she was with her mother. Her issue is that her mom is very submissive and wouldn't do anything even if it slightly irritates her father. You see the mom is a gifted cook and my friend suggested she turn it into a business. She was happy with the idea until her husband expressed disinterest. His lack of enthusiasm meant that she abandoned her ambition. So my friend points it out as her mom's weakness. She can be free if she wanted to and her father would probably come around once the business becomes successful. After all, she had the support of her grown up kids and other family members. I just find it sad she's not putting the blame on her dad. She just says that he acts that way with her as well but she never listens and does things her own way and he's proud of her for it. I guess I always found her as someone who admired perceived strength rather than be empathetic with people's struggles. She had shown admiration for Modi and even Hitler for their "strength" as she puts it but does not support their ideologies.

I am gonna ignore the last part because that's just weird of her to say and idk how to comment on it.

But the rest I have mixed feelings towards. My attitude over women as a class has changed a lot especially in context of middle class and richer Indian women.

I have seen too many patterns of women and girls choosing convenience, comfort and even the tiniest validation from men over efforts to do something for themselves whether small or big.

And I have observed and thought a lot but the only thing stopping some women are their own minds. Call it social conditioning or call it cowardice or anything.

Whatever term you want to put on it, I just know no amount of activism and pep talk is going to help them unless there's a drastic shift in their own individual mentality. So yes I do understand your friend and why she puts the blame on the mom.

At one point you can't excuse this using any feminist theory anymore.

However since she is her mother she should pay some more respect and offer more grace to her(assuming her mom has never abused her or been toxic). But that's a personal flaw of your friend.

She's right in her logic but maybe not the way of expressing it.

[mynorthernattitude]

and for the lady, perhaps a fking break?

[64mpg]

i’m in a bad mood please pray for my victims and their families

[turtlesandfrogs]

At one point I had a housemate who had been through multiple abusive or at least unhealthy relationships, and it effected the way they interacted with the world and others around them.

One of the effects was that they couldn't admit to mistakes or accidents. They would lie when they could, and they'd try to cover it up when they could.

One day, they broke one of my glass dishes in the kitchen. I wasn't at home at the time, so they cleaned up in a hurry and then hurriedly scrambled to glue it back together. They never said anything to me, and I wouldn't have ever noticed-

Except I walk barefoot in my home and two steps into the kitchen I had a small shard of glass in my foot. Looking for a source, I noticed the dish in the drain, and looked a lot more closely at it than I normally would have, and noticed a small piece missing from where they had glued two larger pieces together.

It took me a good twenty minutes to fish that glass out of my foot. I then went and vacuumed very throughly, as two dogs and a cat lived in that house, along with the humans.

If they hadn't been stuck in the patterns they learned when they were younger, they might have told me about the glass, and I could have worn shoes until it was safe. They might have spent longer cleaning it up and making sure the floor was safe, instead of trying to cover up their mistake by gluing the dish back together.

If they could have broken out of those patterns, they would not have put those around them in harm's way.

Break out of your unhealthy patterns. They're hurting you, and they're hurting the people around you. If someone over reacts to something like a broken bowl, the answer is to remove them from your life, not to go around gluing bowls back together without saying anything.

[turtlesandfrogs]

I forgot to say it, but this is both metaphorical and literal. It was a very real shard of glass in my foot AND a lot of us pick up unhealthy coping mechanisms and then go on to unintentionally hurt others. So please, please, work on identifying behaviors and thoughts that end up hurting you and those around you.

Because sometimes it's not just a shard of glass. Sometimes it's a lot bigger and more harmful.

[sunsetbuddie]

we used to get christmas episodes of television. halloween episodes. valentines. we used to get television that felt like part of your life. like it was happening alongside your life. now we mostly get 8 episodes dropping all at once every two years and they don't have time for any of that. i miss characters living alongside us

[curioscurio]

who else up hurkleing their durkleing

[thyming]

I do love some hurkle-durkleing in the morning.. ✨

[americanelegy]

“I saw you talking to yourself” god forbid a girl ask an expert for advice.