[dykemind]

i love that when i'm in lesbian feminist type spaces even women who annoy the fuck out of me use female default

[saltoncity]

work tomorrow is one of the worst things that can happen to you

[horribledream]

work tomorrow is what is going to save me from this two day streak of depression.

[hedgehog-moss]

Because I continue to overestimate my llamas' respect for informal agreements, I opened the pasture gate to let everyone graze a bit around the neighbour's barn. This area has a fence that can be jumped over pretty easily, but I was going to be sitting there watching them the whole time—well, watching them intermittently while reading a book, but if I glance up every 2 minutes, realistically how could four slow herbivores

😔

If you would like to join me on this long and patient llama hunt, I have prepared a crude map of the terrain so you can get your bearings. We are starting on the road right next to the neighbour's barn.

My first instinct was to resolve the situation through diplomacy. If the animals wanted to slightly broaden the grazing perimeter, well, okay; I could let them eat on the side of the road. Unfortunately, only Pirlouit supported this plan.

He kept trying to stop and eat, while the llamas had places to go.

So I followed them along the road for quite a while, patiently waiting to reach the wider stretch where I knew I could sprint ahead, overtake everyone and force them to turn around. Not yet a full victory but at least I'd feel like I was regaining some influence over events.

But Pampérigouste is familiar with my manoeuvres, and she turned around of her own initiative before we reached this spot, left the road, and led everyone into the woods for a bit (and almost managed to shake me off as I kept getting slowed down by brambles, being the only person in this situation who was wearing clothes); then she re-emerged on the road near the barn, and went into the neighbour's pasture. Which is quite vast, and goes all the way down to the torrent.

So naturally, Pampe went all the way down to the torrent—following a route of astonishingly unnecessary complexity and glancing back now and then to check that her followers had not lost faith.

The other animals clearly felt that once you've reached a vast and lush pasture, the logical next step is to stay and eat (while Pampe sees it as evidence that vaster and lusher pastures remain to be discovered.)

... that is, until we reached the torrent and I finally managed to turn everyone around, back in the direction of their pasture. At that exact moment, Pampe realised grazing was an urgent priority.

Once we finally reached the road, with Pampe bringing up the rear at an aggressively leisurely pace, I figured that if I got the rest of the herd back in their pasture, she would grudgingly follow.

I was wrong.

The other animals briefly hesitated (it was getting late; their pasture was right there; they don't like spending the night in unfamiliar places) before recommitting to Pampe.

We could have actually followed the road in this direction all the way back to my house, and therefore the other, upper gate to their pasture, bringing this expedition to a neat and peaceful conclusion. Pampe solved this problem by throwing herself into the woods.

At this stage I feel that my updated map will be more informative than human language.

(I made an attempt to restore coherence to our journey through the use of directional arrows.)

When we somehow ended up back in the neighbour's pasture after an exciting (not for me) chase through the woods, I admitted defeat, and texted my neighbour to let him know my animals would be spending the night in his pasture due to circumstances not meaningfully under my control, but I would be back on the case in the morning to get them home. Having met Pampe, he didn't ask any further questions.

I didn't really believe that the animals might magically return on their own during the night, but still I left the pasture gate open—but only the one near my house; the other gate by the neighbour's pasture remained closed because I just couldn't face the slope again.

And somehow, the next morning, when I opened my window, everyone was here.

I should add that my neighbour later found several tufts of llama wool caught on his fence in various places, allowing us to partially reconstruct the llamas' return journey (that's me in the background attempting to get a statement from his cow.)

I have therefore updated my map once more to illustrate (in green) the final stage of this expedition, based on physical evidence and on my partial understanding of Pampe's worldview.

But really the moral of this story is that giving up and going to bed works. Always give up!

[letters-from-x-deactivated20260]

A radical feminist’s reading list-

Classic

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Sexual Politics by Kate Millett

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978 by Adrienne Rich

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Fiction

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

The Gate to Woman’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper

History

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici

The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas

The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner

Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World by Rosalind Miles

Women of Ideas: And What Men Have Done to Them by Dale Spender

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World by Rachel Swaby

Intersectional

Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis

Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks

It’s Not About the Burqa by Mariam Khan (editor)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga (editor) and Gloria Anzaldúa (editor)

Lesbian

Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective by Sheila Jeffreys

The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture by Bonnie J. Morris

Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism by Suzanne Pharr

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence by Adrienne Rich

Liberal vs. radical

Female Erasure: What You Need to Know about Gender Politics’ War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights by Ruth Barrett (editor)

End of Equality by Beatrix Campbell

Feminisms: A Global History by Lucy Delap

Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 by Alice Echols

Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Sheila Jeffreys

Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism by Miranda Kiraly (editor) and Meagan Tyler (editor)

The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism by Dorchen Leidholdt (editor) and Janice G. Raymond (editor)

The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male by Janice G. Raymond

We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler

Pornography, prostitution, surrogacy & rape

Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

Slavery Inc.: The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking by Lydia Cacho

Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines

Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self by Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade by Sheila Jeffreys

Only Words by Catharine A. Mackinnon

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade by Janice G. Raymond

Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle Over Women’s Freedom by Janice G. Raymond

Psychology & trauma

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman

Toward a New Psychology of Women by Jean Baker Miller

Theory

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism by Mary Daly

Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin by Andrea Dworkin, Johanna Fateman (editor) and Amy Scholder (editor

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone

Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks

Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis by Robin Ruth Linden (editor), Darlene R. Pagano (editor), Diana E. H. Russell (editor) and Susan Leigh Star (editor)

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State by Catharine A. Mackinnon

The Sexual Contract by Carole Pateman

Other

Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now by Jenny Brown

Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression by Christine Delphy

Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery

Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West by Sheila Jeffreys

Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues by Catharine A. Mackinnon

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection by Janice G. Raymond

How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ

Man Made Language by Dale Spender

Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth by Marilyn Waring

[fairycosmos]

accidentally got stuck in a compulsive thought loop instead of living any sort of life

[mothmanmagicalboy]

no sorry i dont really use instagram, i can contact you via ouija board, spirit box, fluctuations in temperature, flickering lights, and certain rituals. i am also on tumblr.

[00000066]

[kronkk]

If I have to hear that man’s version of fast car one more fucking time I’m going to jail

[tiktoks-for-my-besties]

[alexaloraetheris]

My favorite brand of people are musicians who hear Rush Fucking E, which isn't technically meant to be played by a human at all, and immediately picking up their instrument and going 'bet'.

[theinternetarchive]

california through the eyes of photographer wilson davis ellis, american c. 1940s-50s.

[thenatsdorf]

Itchy snoot. 

[softsaryn]

[headspace-hotel]

HE DIRT BROKEN :(

[cisthoughtcrime]

.

[horribledream]

🫂

[lilac-bloom-deactivated20220430]

if you believe gender doesn’t exist and all human brains are the same then start referring to everyone as they/them

if you’re so “gender critical”, then why are you so insistent on gendered pronouns?

[radmenace]

As Shulamith Firestone put it, “[T]he end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally.” In this future, we could ostensibly all use they/them pronouns (possibly with the exception of within medical/scientific fields, or when describing sexuality). However, we have not arrived at this future yet, and in order to fight for it, we must be able to name and describe the problem of patriarchy, and the problem is not gender-neutral. Gendered pronouns are useful in many instances, such as describing male violence towards women (ex: he hurt her), affirming women as normal by replacing “he” with “she” in academic texts/ interpolating a male reader into a female point of view (ex: the reader can see examples in her own life), and identifying others within/not within the sex class (“can i bring her along to the meeting today?” may yield a different response than “they” or “he”). Color-blindness is widely accepted as being an ineffective way to solve racism (as well as a racist microagression) so why is sex-blindness different? That being said, there are many situations today where using they/them is perfectly reasonable (such as when describing somebody one does not know, ie “what are they like?” “an ideal candidate for this position will have their own car.”)

[subaruseventhsister]

As manhattanrf is says, language change without any actual change in society is simply making it harder to say what you need to say and to illustrate what you need to illustrate. It’s erasure.

Beyond that ,there are plenty of examples of languages that are grammatically genderless, including genderless personal pronouns, and yet those societies still manage to make patriarchal distinctions between men and women, and somehow it’s mysteriously always the same pattern of oppression where “he” oppresses “her.”

Notice how Chinese feminists in the 1910s and 20s actually tried to introduce a feminine character into the Chinese, arguing that they needed a word that referred to women so they could simply talk about themselves in their writing.

Or how in France they are currently doing the opposite of English, actually officially validating feminine versions of words because they’re discovering that people don’t remember that a woman might have a traditionally male career otherwise.

Not to be too harsh about this here, but pretending that an English “they” is somehow the solution to gendered opression is historically ignorant and linguistically imperialistic.

[womens-priorities]

Language change without any actual change in society

is simply making it harder to say what you need to say

and to illustrate what you need to illustrate.

It’s erasure.

[ireneradblr]

In patriarchal societies, gender neutral language is generally interpreted as male-default language for positive things, and female-default language for negative things. It therefore serves to further increase sexism and reinforce stereotypes. Eg, say ‘doctor’ and people will assume a male doctor, say ‘prostitute’ and people will assume a woman in prostitution. Whereas using gendered language, if I say ‘I went to see my new doctor today - she’s much better than my last one,’ the word ‘she’ in that sentence serves to challenge the unconscious stereotypes held by the listener.

[kiseiakhun]

I started with succulents like everyone else but tbh orchids are rapidly becoming my plant blorbos. Everyone takes care of them wrong and it's not your FAULT because the care instructions that come with them are!! Incorrect!!! If you do what they say then your orchid will die!!!! If you give them the right environment they're SO easy. They're such easy plants to grow. They have been UNFAIRLY SLANDERED by a MISINFORMATION campaign. They don't deserve this.

[bebatzelbub]

I am also firmly on the orchid bus

Love these pretty babies. It's not their fault they're misunderstood.

[kiseiakhun]

I'm grabbing your shoulders and looking deeply and homoerotically into your eyes. Listen to me. Listen. It Is Not Your Fault. They sell orchids in these shitty little plastic pots and fill them with water and stick them in heavier ceramic pots without ANY drainage holes. And then the fucking care sheet tells you to water these TROPICAL PLANTS with ICE CUBES. Of course they're going to die.

Orchids are a special type of plant called an epiphyte. You know those little air plants that are all the rage now?

I'm talking these babies. You can do cool things with them like this:

And this:

(link to the Etsy shop btw. These look cool. Though honestly you can probably find some art miniatures and do this yourself without much effort)

They don't have roots, so you can do whatever you want with them. You can put them in a globe or put them on a statue or just leave them on a table, they don't care. They're super low maintenance and easy to keep alive. All you have to do is dunk them in water once a week.

That's an orchid. An orchid is an air plant. In the wild, they grow on trees. Their roots are designed to anchor them to trees, not to dig into the soil. They NEED air. The moment they get waterlogged, which they will in those shitty little pots that you buy them in, they're going to rot, and eventually the whole plant will die. They can't have ANY sitting water. None. They need pots with drainage holes that are elevated so air can reach them from the top and bottom. This is what I mean by elevated btw:

Put something at the bottom of the pot that creates an air gap between it and the surface. Make sure it has gaps so air can flow through. Put a plate at the bottom to catch water when you water your orchid, every 2 weeks or whenever you remember. I have solved all your orchid woes.

And don't water them with fucking ice cubes. I'm going to find whoever invented the ice cube advice and fight them with my fists. These are tropical plants. They don't know what ice is. They're not evolved to deal with below freezing temperatures. If you water them with ice cubes you're just going to give your orchid frostbite, and it will die. No ice cubes.

ALSO if your orchid is in a pot, make sure you use orchid bark, not soil, as its potting medium. Though, honestly, you don't even need a pot. Like:

Look at them, just chilling. THIS is how they grow in the wild:

I think that's a different species of orchid than the phalaenopsis orchid we grow in cultivation, but the point still stands. That ^ is their natural habitat.

You can see the roots are just hanging out in the open. This is why air is so important to them. Air is more important than water. I'm like ?? 90% sure orchids can absorb ambient water through the air, but I'm not 100% sure so don't quote me on that. I did forget to water my orchids for 2 months once and they were fine, so. 🤷‍♀️ As long as they have enough air flow, they're more like succulents in terms of care. You water when you remember to, and just forget about them the rest of the time.

[veritasrose]

All this is so good! Also, if you have a bathroom window, they LOVE the humidity in there. I grew a whole windowsill full for years and it was so easy!

[satanfemme]

otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

[satanfemme]

I don't think my parents are aware that what they did was abuse. in fact I think one of the reasons they abused me was because they lacked the self-awareness, introspection, and education needed to realize what they were doing counted as abuse. if they did have more self awareness &etc, they would have likely stopped. it is not productive to insist they woke up in the mornings with the intent to psychologically torture a kid for no reason, when that is self-evidently not the case or within their motivations.

I'm speaking annecdotally here but I think many cases of abuse are like this. I think when reckoning with the reality of how abuse functions in our society, you must come to terms with the mundanity of it including the fact that abusive people are primed to overlook the harm of their own actions through the shield of mundanity and (lack of) intent.

[demonprincex]

making good posts used to be a thing insane people did. and now it is the only possible way to advance in a career in hundreds of professional industries

[demonprincex]

if youre a hairstylist you gotta advertise it on instagram. tattooist. instagram. writer. performer. visual artist. therapist. all on instagram. lots of bars make their bartenders advertise their shifts on story posts to try and lure customers in, these days. every fucking job you can possibly do, you have to be a personal social media manager for, and be as active in the world of digital representation and engaged in the discourse as only the most suicidal graduate students of 2012 were

[byronicjamie]

^this

[pusheen-the-radical]

by thanos

[cisthoughtcrime]

can u believe this clip is from 2008