zizi

an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small / in blast-beruffled plume / had chosen thus to fling his soul / upon the growing gloom

[recoveringsoulsposts]

From the 4B subreddit.

[donutfem]

Cosleeping with infants is still VERY unsafe due to the risk sheets/blankets provide as far as asphyxiation and risk of crush injuries from the mother.

[virtualcremefem]

funny how if a man is cancelled it's still okay to consume his work (book, game, etc.) and even be a big fan of his work

but if a woman is cancelled her work becomes untouchable and unmentionable, god forbid you're still a fan of the work

[vintage-bentley]

It’s crazy how as soon as I started reframing the way I thought about BDSM to focus on the “dom”’s role, I started being far more critical of BDSM.

Nevermind that the “sub” likes the feeling of being hit. Why does the dom enjoy beating their partner? Sure, the sub’s trauma is healed when pretending to be a child. But why does the dom get off on their partner pretending to be a child? Maybe it’s true that a rape fantasy gives the sub a sense of control over a traumatic event. But what does it say about the dom that they find it hot to pretend to rape somebody?

Once you start asking these questions, BDSM seems a lot less innocent and much more harmful than we’re led to believe by the narrative of “sub seeking pleasure or healing from an all-benevolent dom who we’re not really going to talk about”.

Whenever you see something relating to BDSM, ask yourself: what kind of person enjoys being on the giving end of this? Nevermind the sensations or experiences that the receiver is seeking. What’s in it for the “dom”?

[evenlesssentimentaltranslator]

”Men are not abstract phenomena; they’re sentient humans who make choices” is something I find myself saying a lot.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[zombiifem]

75% of domestic violence victims are women, and 95% of perpetrators are men (statistics vary depending on region, but they all follow a similar pattern). i wanted to make a piece about this domestic violence statistic and how it IS sexed violence, especially since some men think that pointing out patterns of sexed violence is “discrimination” against them. saw a post a while ago about how there seems to be a lot of movements about making sexed-violence (rape, IPV, prostitution) seem like it equally happens to both sexes when in reality women are more often than not the victims. but i included the first line because i’m not invalidating male victims.

[bushpropaganda]

libfems can't even acknowledge that women are oppressed because we're FEMALE and yet they believe they're the true experts on what feminism is. do women now choose our oppression since we could simply identify as another gender and opt out of womanhood? can i be oppressed today because i feel like a woman but not be oppressed tomorrow because i feel like a man?

literally what are the logistics of gender-based oppression? how the fuck does it even make sense when, according to liberals, gender hinges on self-ID, is ever-changing, is a spectrum, and nobody has a clear definition of what "gender" even means?

afghan, iranian, somali, sudanese, and hundreds of million of other women around the world aren't being asked their fucking pronouns before they're stripped of their personhood and treated like cattle, or forced to undergo FGM, or murdered via honor killings, or legally beaten by their husbands, or gang raped by a dozen men.

this is not schrodinger's oppression that exists in a separate plane of reality where a group of people are oppressed for a set of characteristics yet those characteristics can be chosen at will. like are u aware that there would be no oppression in the above scenario because to classify something as oppression it literally requires that immutable characteristics are shared between a group of people (which is what causes them to be oppressed).

like are u actually stupid or are u just a male-centered misogynist masquerading as a feminist?

[cassandwrath]

sometimes i just brood about how i can't walk around shirtless in public, which is such a simple privilege males have over females that really shouldn't mean much. however, it's impossible for me to rebel against this expectation on my own; the reason i don't just say "fuck it" and walk out shirtless is because i would become a sexual object to every man i see. the intent i had would be hijacked by the male gaze, if that makes sense.

i also see this hijacking thing happen with sexual liberation, where women were/are trying to reclaim their agency and right to have sed with whoever, but many men don't see it like that. they just see women they can have sex with, and the meaning is lost on them.

this observation has always frustrated me and it just sucks that you can see the pattern in a lot of aspects of feminism, where men will pick out parts that benefit them and THEN support those parts for their own benefit.

[sichorean]

A long time ago I was staying at a place in the middle of nowhere in NZ, and it was only women there, and one day I come across a woman putting out the washing with no shirt on

And she sees me and apologizes and I go "No worries!" because it didn't bother me none, and she said she normally covers up when there's new people around, but if I'm not bothered she'll keep doing it and "you should give it a go, does wonders for you"

So I did, and it was magic. Being topless in the sun and eating an orange and feeling the breeze is something every woman should be able to experience if she wishes.

But I was talking about going topless in front of some others recently and firstly the men were all for it, until - "Well.. they could be topless if they're like.. 20. Imagine going to a topless beach and all the Nanas have theirs out"

"Or fat girls"

Like the women here are discussing a really basic inequality and how it would be nice to feel free and unsexualised and un-judged for showing the same amount of skin as a man

And the first consideration from men is

How can this advantage the pp

How could this disadvantage the pp

[theshadowofthephoenix]

I keep seeing posts from people who claim they will be blocking anyone who posts any content from the new Harry Potter show that begins airing in December.

So I wanted to say you’re all being ridiculous. You consume media all the time by actual rapists. You watch movies with actors who have killed people. You read books written by racists and homophobes. All. The. Time. And it is so unimportant to you that half the time, you don’t even know.

This business with JK Rowling is a witch hunt. She follows a different kind of feminism than you do. And sometimes she’s a little rude about it. (But we don’t tone police here.) She has never put hands on anyone. She has started charities with her own money. And she is an outspoken advocate for women experiencing domestic violence.

She has expressed acceptance for LGBT people, yes including trans people. She just does not believe a person can genuinely change their sex, that some ‘inclusive’ terminology dehumanizes women and that sex segregated spaces are necessary to protect women.

There is a reason that JKR is being derided the way she is, and it’s not because she’s the worst person in the world. And if you step back, if you read her words, you’ll see why.

Anyway, keep putting Harry Potter content on my feed.

[vintage-bentley]

Nicholas Brendon, the actor who played Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died recently. The response was an outpouring of love: fans affectionately calling him “Nicky”, his former costars putting out loving statements about him, fans sharing stories about meeting him, so many Xander scenes and quotes from BtVS being posted. Fans called for mass streaming of “The Zeppo”, a Xander-centric episode. Nevermind that the creator, Joss Whedon, was/is abusive too.

You’d never know that Brendon had physically abused women.

In fact, when a handful of women pointed this side of him out and cautioned people about pouring love out for an abuser…they’d be told that it’s a complicated situation, that he was a complex person, that it’s okay to mourn the person he once was and just put aside that pesky woman-beating side of him. After all, the poor sweet man was troubled.

Watching this all unfold really put into perspective for me how little people care about women, especially compared to how much they care about worshipping men no matter what they’ve done. You can’t even mention Harry Potter or god forbid JK Rowling without people jumping on you to lecture you about how she’s evil and unredeemable and needs to die. I’ve even seen people call for boycotts of brands just because they did a HP collab. Yet you can post a loving tribute to “Nicky” and people will join in supportively, never once mentioning that he abused women. You can separate the art from the male artist, but don’t you dare suggest doing the same for a woman.

[sangredesirena78463748-deactiva]

examples of EXTREMIST beliefs in radical feminism

-baby girls don’t come out of the womb liking the color pink

-lesbains shouldn’t be expected or encouraged to sexually interact with penises

-women’s bodies don’t exist for consumption

-a billion dollar industry built on poor self esteem that lines the pockets of wealthy white men isn’t feminist 

-females are oppressed, not femininity

-gender is learned and enforced, not innate

-women deserve full bodily autonomy

-abusing women even in a sexual context is bad???

-people’s actions don’t exist in a vacuum and they are influenced by society

-gender nonconforming women aren’t men or have masculine privilege

[kkoffin]

guys last year was great but how about this pride month, to really own the terfs, we get a really good faith and honest understanding of their ideology and then totally destroy them by filling their tags a clear and scientifically/logically backed reasoning of why we disagree with them!! and if they dare argue we should reply in good faith and consider how their criticism of our ideology harms them! i dont think anyone has ever done this before so they would have nooo idea how to handle it! instead of using fascist tactics of silencing them or lying about what they truly believe, we turn their tags into truthful explanations of their beliefs and thoughtful criticism!!! that would be totally awesome and would totally work in our favour

maybe even pick up a radfem book and read it through before taking stuff entirely out of context and lying! this would be so fun

[always-polite]

Hello, I will argue with you in good faith if that's what you want. I'll start by asking where you're at.

What's your position on trans people? Is it possible for a person to change their gender? Is changing your gender ever a good thing?

[kkoffin]

gender as a whole should be abolished, as it’s the foundation of patriarchy. gender is a tool of oppression, used to make women subordinate and submissive, and get men to join the military.

abolishing gender will also abolish gender dysphoria - i wholeheartedly believe it’s the best solution for trans people, compared to accepting that these people are going to be miserable until they spend thousands of dollars on cosmetic surgeries - that’s assuming those surgeries even do effect the misery. realistically speaking, you get hormones, you are happy for 5 minutes before you want top surgery, after that you want bottom, after that you want facial surgeries, then whatever comes next. there’s no end to it most of the time because a male person will always be of the male sex (vice versa). even if you could fully change sex, they’d be dysphoric about the past, the fact that they were born the “wrong” sex.

separate note: maybe be you can change gender - if you look enough like a woman, people who are unaware will treat you like one. gender is a social construct. that doesn’t mean you change sex, and i think women need sex-based protections and rights. bathrooms, changing rooms, prisons etc should be sex-based.

i reject the concept of gender, because it’s patriarchal, so ‘changing’ gender is irrelevant to me. i don’t “identify” with any gender because i don’t “identify” with a tool used to mark me as and shape me into obedient potential property.

current trans ideology reinforces gender roles in the extreme. “i’m wearing a skirt so you must think i’m a woman” “i always like playing with dolls so i must be a woman” “if you don’t want to wear makeup and dresses you must be a man”. it also places this social construct above material reality in terms of importance. the core of a lot of trans theory is the outright denial of sex (which is absurd by the way. i’m not going to waste my time arguing against “oh but words aren’t real so nothing is real” bullshit). what i’m trying to say is reinforcing gender roles is bad, yes. most of the time, changing gender is 99% reliant on gender roles and stereotypes.

tldr maybe you can change gender, and maybe i can do a bank robbery with a fake but realistic-looking gun because they’ll treat my fake gun as a real threat, and socially it’ll be registered as a real weapon. gender is a social construct and it should be abolished. that’s what acknowledging gender as a social construct has always been about - getting rid of it.

[vegantinatalist]

[friendlyfreakazoid]

Right-wing men openly and unashamedly say they hate women. Leftist men, being so progressive and enlightened, just say they hate white women and cis women and “terfs” and wealthy women and mean girl nurses and “Karens” and bitchy teenage girls and women who take feminism “too far” and misandrists and mothers and women who don’t coddle men and women who can’t take a joke and their girlfriends and theirs wives and and and

[exgynocraticgrrl-archive-deacti]

Historian and Feminist Scholar Gerda Lerner

[hadesoftheladies]

women's sports is one of the loudest and most successful anti-patriarchy campaigns in human history. what women's sports did and does is prove, over and over again, the excellence, the raw power and strength of human woman. it completely disrupts ideas on gender.

you have big, powerful women in rugby. fast, endurable women runners. impeccably strong gymnasts. women with strong, large bodies that take up space. that are HEALTHY. they are not RESTRICTED or ladylike. they are free of the stillness/deadness that femininity demands. no corsets. no (aesthetic) thinness. no hourglass bodies for gawking. women's sports screams to society "we are fully human, not objects, not small men. we are not domestic dolls. we are hunters and foragers. fighters."

why do you think men are so vitriolic about it? why don't they want women in football? why don't they want it televized? why do they keep harassing female basketball players? why do they insist on dressing women in sexualized uniforms? why do they now make it taboo to exculde men from women's sports?

i firmly believe it's because women's sports tears patriarchal gender ideology apart so effortlessly. it completely spits in the face of patriarchal political propaganda and shows how null it is. it forces all of us to view women as full, as the beginning of human excellence, as central to human history. not as decorative sexual objects, no matter how men want us to be.

that's why there's so much aggression and derision when it comes to women's sports from men. because women's sports destroys the idea of femininity and depicts women as non-derivative. women must be monsters and cannot afford to play into the childlikeness that femininity demands. the arena of sports forces us to focus on women's physical performance rather than appearance. their strength rather than how attractive they are. their skill and strategy. their humanity.

women's sports events are also hotbeds for female and lgb solidarity like you have no idea!

y'all need to start watching women's sports. not only because is it exciting, but it deprograms the patriarchal bullshit out of you so fast. you realize how much is possible. how much we can all achieve right now.

[loklover123]

As a woman that has done sports her whole life. It really does boost your confidence and i honestly think that it's so important for little girls to do sports not only for the physical and mental benefits sports and exercise offer you but because they teach you important skills like teamwork, how to be competitive at a healthy level and be kind in both victory and defeat. You form really strong long lasting friendships, my oldest friend's are the girls i grew up playing sports with or dancing.

Physical activity and proper nutrition is SO important for young girls it really sucks that women and girls have been forced to be WEAK for centuries. It about time we change that.

[fidnru]

The Insidious Reasons Doctors Are Botching Labiaplasties

Many doctors performing labiaplasties were never taught vulvar anatomy—leaving some patients scarred and unable to feel sexual pleasure.

Content warning for genital mutilation, medical trauma

When Jessica Pin got a labiaplasty at age 18, her consent form read, “excision of redundant labia.” Instead, the doctor cut off the entirety of her labia minora and performed a clitoral hood reduction she never agreed to.

Afterward, when she touched her clitoris, there was no sensation. Since then, she hasn’t been able to orgasm, or feel much of anything at all, without a vibrator—something therapists and doctors dismissed as normal or a consequence of her “not being in love.”

When she wrote to her surgeon about what happened, he said he’d given her what she asked for. But an examination from his colleague confirmed that the dorsal nerve of her clitoris had been cut, leaving scars.

She wanted to report her surgeon, but her psychiatrist warned her that the board would defend him and attack her. Plus, the loss of her sexual functioning combined with the backlash she’d received for talking about it had left her suicidal. By the time she felt mentally healthy enough to speak out, the statute of limitations had passed. The doctor went on to win awards and become president of the state medical association. And even after she got yet another examination from his colleague, her surgeon said the scars must have been from a different surgery (which she never got) or that she must have done it herself (which she didn’t).

When another woman, who wishes to remain anonymous until her case goes to trial, got surgery to repair a tear to her labia after a sexual assault, she told the doctor not to go anywhere near her clitoris. “The doctor decided they needed to remodel my entire vulva, without discussing with me or asking for my consent, thinking this was best and would improve the ‘appearance,’” she remembers.

Instead of the minor repair she requested, her inner labia were completely cut off, and the skin of her outer labia and clitoral hood were pulled inward, causing nerve damage. In addition to losing all sexual sensation and ability to orgasm, she developed “extreme burning sensations, sharp pains in my clitoris glans, shaft, up the inguinal nerves and into my cervix.” She now finds it difficult to walk due to the pain. She had several consultations with doctors who do reconstructive surgery for botched labiaplasties. “They told me it looks like FGM,” she says.

A study she conducted that is currently awaiting publication has identified hundreds of women who have been victims of botched labiaplasties. Their complaints include complete amputation of the labia, inability to orgasm, clitoral injuries, and labia minora stitched to their labia majora, clitoral hood, or vagina.

It’s unclear how common incidents like these are, but they’re common enough that there are discussions on online forums dedicated to botched labiaplasties, as well as doctors who specialize in correcting them. One of them is Michael Goodman, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the California Northstate University School of Medicine, who estimates that “well over a thousand” women suffer from botched labiaplasties each year. This number will likely grow, as labiaplasty is the world’s fastest-growing cosmetic surgery, seeing a 45% increase in 2016 alone.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The cultural theorist Mark Fisher noticed the link between neoliberal ideology and the changing face of psychiatry, describing the shift towards individual illness framings during this period as just another form of privatisation: the privatisation of stress. Fisher saw biological psychiatry as politically convenient to neoliberal capitalism, because it pinned distress on our brains in the form of ‘chemical imbalances’, rather than our social or material conditions. If we look at, for example, the framing of the workers’ struggle since the dawn of neoliberalism, we can see evidence of this ‘privatisation’. Over recent decades, strike days have fallen while working days lost to ‘stress-related illness’ have skyrocketed. Biological psychiatry has provided us with a lens of analysis that ignores political disorder in favour of individual disorder.

Micha Frazer-Carroll, Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health

[missmentelle]

What abusers believe.

If you’ve ever had to deal with an abusive person in your life - like an abusive parent or partner - you’ve probably wondered what made them treat you that way. If you understand why abuse is happening, the thinking goes, you might be able to figure out how to make it stop. 

So why do abusers do what they do? Do they have anger issues? Drinking problems? Past trauma? Personality disorders? Do they just need to get in touch with their feelings and learn how to communicate better?

Nope. 

Abusive behaviours come from abusive beliefs. Abusers - whether consciously or unconsciously - hold specific beliefs about relationships that drive their behaviour and allow them to justify the horrible things they do. Even if your abuser has never put their beliefs into words, you’ll probably recognize a lot of these abusive beliefs:

You are responsible for my emotions. It is never my responsibility to reflect on my emotional reactions or learn better coping skills - it’s your responsibility to stop doing things that make me angry or upset.

I must act on my emotions. If I am angry, I am going to lash out. You have no right to criticize me for that, and it’s not my responsibility to learn to manage my  emotions - you have to stop making me lash out at you. Asking me not to act on my emotions is controlling and wrong.

You will always be responsible for my emotions. Even if the relationship ends, you will continue to be responsible for my emotions, and I will expect you to continue to prioritize my feelings.

If I have feelings about something, it’s my business. If something you do or think causes an emotional reaction in me, then I have a right to get involved or tell you what to do. My feelings must be the priority. You don’t have the right to tell me that it’s none of my business. 

You must judge me on my intentions, not my actions. If I didn’t mean to hurt you or scare you, then you don’t have the right to be hurt or scared. No one has the right to try to hold me accountable unless I meant to hurt someone.

I get to decide what your intentions were. If you hurt me, you meant to hurt me. If you make me jealous, you meant to make me jealous. Nothing you do is ever accidental or unintended - everything you do is intentional and malicious, even if it was a response to something I did.

My feelings are genuine; your feelings are manipulation. If I’m upset, my feelings are real and important. If you are upset, you have an ulterior motive - you’re just trying to be manipulative and get attention or sympathy for yourself.

You have freedoms because I allow you to. Every freedom you have in your life - like wearing what you want - it’s because I generously allow it. I expect you to be grateful to me for that. I have the right to take those freedoms away whenever I want, and I expect you to obey.

If you set boundaries with me, you are mistreating me. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t set boundaries with me. You are doing this to intentionally hurt me, which means I don’t have to respect those boundaries.

You holding me accountable for hurting you is worse than me hurting you. My pain at being called out is worse than your pain at being mistreated. If I feel bad about something I did, I have already been punished enough. You trying to discuss the issue or hold me accountable is just your way of abusing me.

If I apologized for something, you have to forgive me. If the relationship has ended, you have to reconcile with me. You don’t get to ask for more time apart or more discussion of the issue - once I’ve apologized, the matter is closed for good.

The relationship is not over until I say it is over. So long as I want a relationship with you, you must have a relationship with me. Your feelings are irrelevant. Even if we have broken up, you must remain available to me so we can get back together in the future. Not wanting a relationship with me means you are mistreating me or being immature. 

I am the authority in this relationship. I am smarter and more perceptive than you. I know what is best for both of us. My version of events is always the correct one. I have superior judgement, taste and opinions. If you question me or disagree with me after I’ve given you the correct answer, you are disrespecting and mistreating me, or you are simply immature and incapable of knowing what’s good for you.

I have the right to control you. It is my absolute right to decide what you do and who you associate with. You have no right to disobey me. I am owed obedience and control; if you don’t give me those things, you are wronging me and cheating me out of the relationship I deserve. 

If you resist my control, I am allowed to do whatever I think is necessary to get it back. Once you’ve resisted me, I am justified in whatever I do to regain control of you. I am not responsible for my actions when you resist my control; you forced me to do it, and it’s your own fault. 

I should be your main focus. Everything else in your life comes secondary to me. When you make decisions, my feelings should be your first consideration. You are expected to make sacrifices for me and put me at the center of your life; I am not obligated to do the same for you. 

If I spend money on you or do something for you, you are in debt to me. You spending money on me or doing things for me does not erase your debt to me, and I am never in debt to you. You are indebted to me for as long as I decide. I may decide that your belongings and earnings also belong to me, since I allow you to have them. I may also decide at any time that you owe me for gifts I gave you, even if they were meant to be gifts.

I am not abusive, and you are not allowed to tell me otherwise. I know what abuse is, and real abusers are significantly worse than me. If our relationship has ever had any good times or positive moments, it can’t possibly be abusive. If you accuse me of being abusive, you are the one abusing me, or you have been led astray by bad influences. 

Relationships should be effortless (for me). I am owed a relationship that is peaceful and requires no real effort from me. It is your job to make sure we have that kind of relationship. If there is any tension or conflict in the relationship, it is your fault, and you are depriving me of the relationship I deserve to have. 

Abusers and victims alike often buy into the narrative that abuse is rooted in anger issues - after all, abusers are frequently angry, and anger is an issue that can be treated. But this narrative just isn’t true. Abusers aren’t abusive because they are angry. Abusers are angry because they are abusive. 

A non-abusive partner is not someone who has learned how to control their rage whenever you spend time with your friends or get home 15 minutes late from work. A non-abusive partner just doesn’t feel any rage in those situations. An abuser’s rage is firmly rooted in their beliefs about relationships - they feel entitled to a relationship that meets their impossible expectations, and when they inevitably don’t get it, they bubble over with fury. Whether they know it or not, they have firmly entrenched beliefs about how relationships should be, and those beliefs are at the heart of their abuse. 

Can abusers stop believing these things? Maybe. If they can acknowledge that they have these beliefs, accept that these beliefs are dangerous and unreasonable and let go of these beliefs, maybe it’s possible for them to no longer be abusive in the future. Maybe. But it’s not your job to hang around and find out. If you’re in an abusive relationship of any kind, you deserve better. There are many people in this world who don’t hold abusive views of relationships, and you deserve to find happiness with them.