BlwackQwuen

Black lesbian My sexuality is not political Call me lesbian, not queer

[levonsnape-deactivated20230929]

I love The Golden Girls.

[gholateg]

Ya’ll don’t have any idea how fucking brave and needed these plot lines were.

This was before Ellen came out.

This was before civil unions.

This was before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

This was when your ass could be fired, blacklisted, and shunned with no legal protections for even being hinted at being gay.

And the Golden Girls said “Fuck you, Fuck this, we’re doing it anyway.”

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

When it comes to heartbreak, I feel like lesbians need this reminder more than most people, so:

You'll find somebody else. I know in circumstances like this it can feel like your dating pool is incredibly small. I know it probably feels like you'll never get over it, or even if you do it won't matter because there'll just be another heartbreak waiting for you. I know it feels like you'll always be overshadowed by someone else. I know it's easy to feel undesirable. But I also know that that's bullshit lmao. There are so many women who are interested in other women. There are so many women who'll find you desirable and who'll have a crush on you. I mean, think about all the women you've had a crush on. Do you think they found themselves beautiful? Do you think they thought they were someone people would want to date? But you liked them all the same. One day you'll like somebody else, and she'll be head over heels for you too. In the meantime, focus on yourself and building yourself up. You've got this ❤️

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

I want young lesbians to know that you don't have to settle for mistreatment.

If you're interested in a girl and she's being flaky about her affections for you (entertaining affection from other girls or even boys) then you deserve so much better.

You WILL find someone else. You don't deserve to be only an option for somebody. You deserve to come first. You deserve someone who's just as interested in you as you are her and who's loyal.

You deserve someone who's in love with you and doesn't just see you as someone to play around with.

[sespursongles-deactivated201906]

I was thinking about this post from yesterday again. Centenarian man says the key to living a long life is to have a woman around. Centenarian woman says the key to living a long life is to have no man around. And that other post about how studies consistently show that girls do better at school when there are no boys around, while boys do worse when there are no girls around. This is a pattern that holds true in other contexts; women tend to be happier, healthier, less stressed, without men; while the opposite is true for men.

It boggles the mind that with this kind of information out in the open, known, with obvious conclusions screaming in our faces, feminists today still ridicule and devalue the concept of separatism. It can take so many forms too—supporting female-owned businesses so that more women can earn a living without having a male employer; female-owned housing options because so many women are preyed upon by their male landlord; female-only vacation venues so that more women can have a male-free holiday every once in a while; supporting female creators so that women have more choices if they decide to only read female authors or listen to female musicians, and then of course the more ‘drastic’ fight for larger female-only institutions in society. But while some of these struggles (usually the low-stakes, non-threatening ones) are sometimes given perfunctory support in the name of Girl Power, the larger topic of separatism is hardly ever given coherent thought, support or space to grow; the fact that the best thing feminism can do for women is giving more women in all strata of society the possibility to exclude men from various aspects of their life, is still pretty much taboo and rarely given serious consideration outside of small feminist niches (often disparaged as extremist or utopian). Instead, feminists devote most of their energy and resources to activism that still involves men at some level, or on supporting women who choose men and will ultimately siphon all that support and energy and time and money back to men. 

I didn’t expect to get 30K notes on my childbirth post and won’t have time to answer all the asks and comments I got about it, but someone asked what inspired me to write it—it was reading about the lives of the women I mentioned in that post. I read a lot about women’s lives, be it biographies or diaries or letters, so patterns become obvious, and all other factors balanced, if you value physical safety, intellectual growth and self-realisation, you have to come to the conclusion that not having a man in your home was and is a blessing. And really you could extend this to having any man in your life at all—father, brother, son, male employer… Among the memoirs I read this year there was one by a woman who was exploited and raped by her boss, and then Lydia Cacho’s writings about her fight to help little girls victims of sex trafficking and to keep her shelter for battered women open. I don’t exactly seek out this kind of stories—after the Cacho book I picked up the memoirs of a Hollywood actress, expecting it to be a fun mindless read, and there ended up being a long section about how she was molested by her older brother as a kid and ended up as an anti-CSA activist as an adult. I discovered that most American male politicians who outwardly portrayed themselves as good family men fought tooth and nail behind the scenes to try and prevent anti-child rape laws from being adopted.

When you read (or hear) enough women’s life stories you really have to wonder what feminism is good for if it doesn’t focus on helping women to keep men out of as many aspects of their life as they want, and fighting for female-only spaces and institutions (like Cacho’s shelter, but not only—the litmus test for useful feminist activism should be “Will this contribute to denying men access to women in some way, thus empowering the women who would like to keep men out of some aspect of their life?” The women who don’t want to keep men out will always be able to make that choice because our entire society is structured around supporting it. Feminism should support the other choice, make it possible and safe for more women. Criminalising pimps & johns while helping women exit prostitution contributes to that second choice. So do anti-child rape laws. And women’s bars or cafés. And women’s studies programmes (“gender studies” don’t). And anti-porn activism. And fighting for women’s right to father-free parenthood (eg right to use anonymous sperm donors, rather than wanting fathers to be more involved with their children. And generally fighting for the opposite of fathers’ rights, which are coincidentally a major concern of the MRA movement.) And fighting for legal family / social units where women can share property and healthcare and pass on inheritance. Etc, etc.)

The women who scoff at this or rush in with “not all men” are typically very self-centered (”I sure don’t want to separate from men, so why should I think of the women who do?”), and refuse to look any further than their own Good Dad or nice boyfriend (and it’s worth mentioning that Lydia Cacho said all the men she talked to in brothels, including the brothels offering child prostitutes, were ‘normal’ married men, probably described by their wives as good husbands and fathers.) Your average mainstream feminist will tell you that “feminism is about choice” but feminism should not concern itself with helping women choose men, as patriarchy already has this covered. Meanwhile, women’s choice to distance themselves from men is not currently supported by feminism at all, when it should be the beating heart of feminism. More often than not, it is derided and disparaged. Marilyn Frye explained why in her essay about people’s attitudes towards women who want to separate from men even in minor ways: 

[…] When those who control access have made you totally accessible, your first act of taking control must be denying access. Access is one of the faces of Power. Female denial of male access to females substantially cuts off a flow of benefits, but it has also the form and full portent of assumption of power. [And] if there is one thing women are queasy about it is actually taking power. As long as one stops just short of that, the patriarchs will for the most part take an indulgent attitude. We are afraid of what will happen to us when we really frighten them. This is not an irrational fear. It is our experience generally that the defensiveness, nastiness, violence, hostility and irrationality of the reaction to feminism tend to correlate with the blatancy of the element of separation in the strategy or project. […]

By comparing Charity and Sylvia’s life to the lives of their contemporary women who had 18 children, what I meant was “being able to choose to live free from men is a blessing”, but a lot of women have interpreted that post to mean “birth control is a blessing”. But the makeshift, imperfect shield that protects you from someone who might hurt you and doesn’t care if he does is a very minor blessing compared to the power to live your life free from this person and the associated worries. Has birth control empowered women to deny men sexual access if they choose to? (Some women have argued it has done the opposite.) Feminism has become a very hollow word but nowadays I measure the sincerity of a woman’s commitment to feminism by the support, help and sympathy she extends to the women who want to keep men out of their lives / sex lives / children’s lives / bars / feminist groups / etc.

Before anyone interprets this as “lesbian extremists want me to become a lesbian, leave my man and live in the woods with them” because many het/bi women feel threatened by separatism and lash out defensively when the topic is brought up—this is about being able to choose to keep men out of some aspects of your life, or your entire life. How this choice should be facilitated and how the women who make it deserve to be supported and respected much more than they currently are by feminism (I won’t even touch the obvious lesbophobia behind the rampant ridicule and contempt towards separatism). How feminism becomes just another patriarchal institution if it values & supports choices that include men more than choices that exclude men.

And although the creation of female-only options in society would benefit even the women who do not want to distance themselves from men (because then they would be able to make a real, informed choice between life with men and life without men, having experienced both), the fact that many women would not choose separatism is irrelevant. The feminists who fought for the right to divorce didn’t sabotage themselves with “What about the women who WANT to stay with their husband??” They fought to give a choice to all the women who don’t. They understood that some situations are beyond fixing and you have to be able to divorce. Feminism that fights to improve & reform men or to help women who choose men be happier & more comfortable with that choice is the equivalent of fighting for het couple therapy. Feminism that fights for separatist options and female-only spaces and institutions is the equivalent of fighting for the right to divorce. If you understand why divorce is important, you should understand why separatism is important. It’s actual female liberation—it’s not forcing any woman to swear off all men forever, it’s giving women as a class the possibility to choose to ‘divorce’ men as a class. Giving safe and good options to any woman who isn’t interested in ‘fixing’ men or her relationships with them but just wants out. A feminism that doesn’t fight for this has completely lost its vision.

[icoclusterranger]

this is shifting the overton window. we need to swing the pendulum further than what’s currently considered “realistic” so that we expand our potential of reality. otherwise we’ll continue to live in stagnation as women under the control of men, and that’ll remain the norm and our confines. living under men is like a fish living in water, to reference david foster wallace: 

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’”

asking men to shift the window in favor of us is impossible (or at least virtually impossible) for them to even consider (or want to consider). women need to be in charge of stretching this boundary, showing it’s possible, if we want any form of true empowerment, empowerment that doesn’t need to be filtered thru whether or not men have access to our reproductive abilities.

separatism isn’t even the furthest we can push the window. honestly, separatism doesn’t even sound wild or unreachable to me anymore. i moved past the feelings of “this is impossible, but a hopeful goal to strive for, like the moon, and being respected a bit more by men will be our stars” to “this should be normal, and im not waiting for men’s stamp of approval to embody this way of life and to actively advocate for it” right quick lol

[nakimushiga-ru]

Osa feminists stay reminding us that their the majority and we should have more empathy towards them as they are the ones who are most likely to suffer from male violence? So they are not only telling us to stay on our lane but are categorising us as the other women because somehow our lack of our attraction to males makes us less likely to suffer from violence. They go on and on about how the *little* homophobia we come across online doesnt represent real life feminist activists groups and i have to laugh. Dare you say that since they are the majority then the power to overthrow the system is in their hands all of a sudden you are the biggest victim blamer. Can osa feminists be honest with themselves and with us? Because i'd rather a woman be honest about the fact that she wants me to hold her hand while she warms her cage and play house with our oppressors than to hide behind crying victim blaming when she sees fit.

if they had a shred of integrity... we wouldn't be in this mess

[sharkfinshuffle]

I hate when people consider me masculine because of my muscles (and the fact I enjoy lifting), because the vast majority of women throughout history were working class women who carried out manual labour. I still remember the size of my grandmother’s forearms back when she worked in the school kitchen - without the privilege of an electric mixer. Or the size of the women in paintings of Scottish fishing or farming communities. Or the descriptions of teenage girls expected to operate canal locks, pushing against the force of tonnes and tonnes of water.

The majority of women throughout history had to work manual, physical jobs, and had the body to match. If the majority of women throughout history had a physique you’d consider “masculine”, maybe you should re-consider your definition of “masculine”?

[femsolid]

“I came to learn that women have never had a history or culture of leisure. (Unless you were a nun, one researcher later told me.) That from the dawn of humanity, high status men, removed from the drudge work of life, have enjoyed long, uninterrupted hours of leisure. And in that time, they created art, philosophy, literature, they made scientific discoveries and sank into what psychologists call the peak human experience of flow. Women aren’t expected to flow. I read feminist leisure research (who knew such a thing existed?) and international studies that found women around the globe felt that they didn’t deserve leisure time. It felt too selfish. Instead, they felt they had to earn time to themselves by getting to the end of a very long To Do list. Which, let’s face it, never ends. I began to realise that time is power. That time is a feminist issue.”

— Brigid Schulte: Why time is a feminist issue (via librarianbyday)

[fruitsfruits-deactivated2023072]

Have your super radical praxis or whatever the fuck but I prioritize the well-being of children, and their right to live in a home where they can be taken care of and provided for, over anything else. They are, in fact, the absolute most vulnerable group. My feminism will never pretend or suggest that a woman giving birth to a child means she’s a holy saint who should have a “right” to the child even if she’s completely unfit. Children aren’t fucking property.

[deaddruid]

there is really nothing "artistic" about putting foundation on your face to even out your skin tone, concealer under your eyes to hide your natural colouring, black gunk on your eyelashes to make them look longer, etc. and you cannot convince me there is anything creative about trying to make yourself look the exact same as anyone else. if you want to put bright red glitter on your eyelids that's your business but we all know that very few people are doing extravagant makeup looks on a daily basis. the vast majority of makeup is about ridding yourself of all imperfections and looking the same as everyone else, often at the expense of your skin, eyes, money, and time.

makeup is fundamentally about preying on women's insecurities and convincing us that our natural faces are not good enough. why don't the vast majority of men want to participate in this fun artistic practice? why are their bare faces considered acceptable at formal events, job interviews, workplaces, auditions, etc.? there is something inherently demeaning about the fact that an entire sex is expected to paint their faces to be deemed societally acceptable. men have convinced us that our natural faces are too ugly and offensive to be seen without a coat of paint on. it is insulting, demeaning, and the furthest possible thing from empowering.

and the other thing is that wearing makeup does not exist in a vacuum. when you buy another $50 foundation, you are lining the pockets of men who have built careers of off women's insecurities. when you fret about "putting on your face" before leaving the house, your daughters, nieces, cousins, friends, etc. all see that and internalize those messages as well. they are learning that their faces are also too offensive to be seen in public, and they will in turn teach that message to the women in their lives.

the rise of social media is the biggest evidence of this: for the first time, girls as young as 10 and 11 are buying and wearing makeup to school. and not only are they wearing makeup, they are GOOD at makeup. they have barely hit puberty but they've internalized everything they see online that tells them their bare faces are not good enough.

i'm tired of pretending this isn't insulting. our looks are not the most important thing women have to offer.

[opheliasongs]

Teenager who killed husband after he raped her is sentenced to death in Sudan

Activists in last-ditch effort to save 19-year-old condemned to death for stabbing the man she was forced to marry as he assaulted her

“A 19-year-old Sudanese woman has been condemned to death by a court in Omdurman for stabbing to death the husband to whom she was forcibly married, who she says raped her with assistance of his family.

The death penalty for Noura Hussein was confirmed by a judge on Thursday after her husband’s family rejected the possibility of financial compensation and instead asked for her to be executed.

The case has attracted widespread attention on social media, where a campaign Justice for Noura has been trending on Twitter.

Her legal team now has 15 days to appeal the sentence.”

SIGN THE PETITION: https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-noura-maritalrape-deathsentence-sudan Tweet #SaveNoura and #JusticeForNoura to boost the signal.

[macabrelesbian-deactivated20170]

I’m just so tired and so over lesbians having defend our existence constantly

[houroftheantichristwolf]

You cannot force lesbians to like cock. It will not happen. The most self hating lesbian doesn’t and wont like it no matter how hard she may try to force herself to. I think the majority of you liberal homophobes have that knowledge but get off on the idea of influencing vulnerable lesbians to submit to heterosexual sex and get off from having us have to constantly describe how we hate cock and what we find sexually and emotionally pleasing about women. You see lesbians as get off material, sex toys and as sources of emotional validation who may not confront you and just comply because many lesbians are afraid of being ostracized….it’s obvious you feel threatened by lesbians who maintain their boundaries because then you can’t use them like you thought you could. I have no doubt that the majority of you are opportunistic fetishistic assholes who want everything from lesbians with no consequences; and, a lot of you even want ally points/want lesbians to feel “grateful” for you being true homophobic fucks as if you can be much worse toward lesbians but are pretending you are showing any restraint since you have learned that there won’t be much consequence in harming lesbians in the first place. 

[sense-ascendere]

Y'all sure do love to feel morally superior to lesbians.

[houroftheantichristwolf]

Lesbians: *tell bi radfems to not act as if we experience the same level of homophobia so shouldn’t act like we experience the same discrimination because we do not, ask that they don’t appropriate our experiences in order to promote female prioritization that seeks to dismiss the homophobia women perpetuate because the biggest issue in their eyes is misogyny and their highest priority is “uniting” women as if women don’t also oppress women, tell them that they hold lesbians to a higher standard than the homophobes in their community and portray themselves as morally superior and objective in contrast to rightfully angry lesbians calling out heterosexism which bi women see as misogyny just because they don’t want their hetero privilege to be acknowledged*

Bi radfems: *one half*: ….so we can’t act like lesbians and bi women experience the same level of discrimination and heterosexism? Why are you yelling at me when men are the cause and beneficiaries of everything?1! You’re dividing us, we can’t win. Done.

*other half*: those mean lesbians will never understand how they have privilege over us - like genderists say they do - because they aren’t attracted to men, they don"t have to deal with anons calling them bisluts despite all of the posts specifically putting down lesbians and lesbian sexuality written by bi women too but whatever you still aren’t allowed to say they are hetero privileged and obsessed with men because that’s misogyny and their feelings matter more than them telling lesbians to fuck dick, they don’t understand that some of us are dick repulsed so that makes us practically lesbians and on the same level as lesbians am I right, bi girls unite against the lesbians we are the true feminists and the true woman lovers radical111!!!*

….this has been a learning experience about the current members of radfem community….

[houroftheantichristwolf]

I had no community of lesbians nor knew any out lesbians growing up. I had to learn shit on my own and somehow, I never ended up having the idea that lesbians were mean overlords and supposedly oppress bisexual women for liking men and are more misogynistic, etc. I never had the idea that women who fucked dudes could be lesbians as long as they were fucking women too.

I think a lot of you need to do some digging and find out why you have the ideas that you do and why you expect lesbians to accept them and say nothing when they contribute to making our lives hell. Instead of assuming lesbians are being “mean” for the sole purpose of hurting your feelings like you want everyone to think just to not have to do any damn work, why don’t you ask yourself if what you’re saying is stupid harmful bullshit.

[radfem-gossip-archive-blog]

Exclusionaryhomosexual calls bi women nut huggers and tags posts about bi women the same way. She's a lesbian. It happens. Stop denying it.

[pineapple-harms-pizza-deactivat]

And? She never stated to be a radfem, lesbians don’t have to be the figures of your homophobic ingrained feminism.

[exclusionaryhomosexual-deactiva]

first of all i call bi and hetero lesbophobic women nuthuggers. where are the hetero women in all of this radfem meltdown? in your attempt to make yourselves look like poor victims of the mean privileged lesbian you have tried to hide that. because it would underline more clearly the real imbalance of what is happening here. whining cause of hurt privilege and feelings vs tearing down oppressors and the way they operate.

as if calling women, who attack and demonize lesbians for not loving men and not protecting their precious fragile male feelings, nuthuggers (there is no gap between the words) is bad in any way. only if you think heterosexism and homophobia must be supported you will have a problem with calling lesbophobic women that. should i refrain from calling bi and hetero women who advocate for the rape of lesbians in the name of universal love for penis “dick-worshipers” as well? it’s telling that you think it’s misogyny when a lesbian attacks the source of privilege of the groups of women that oppress her. being a male-attracted woman in a lesbophobic world gives you immense privilege.  

there is actual oppression going on btw. like when bi and hetero women call lesbians perverted because of our homosexuality and advocate for our “corrective” rape that will cure us from our manhating bigotry and support the conversion of lesbian teens through “exploration of sexual fluidity” so a man’s dick can have a chance and loudly try to normalize the transing of lesbian children to create some illusion of heterosexuality and uphold heteronormativity. these are not isolated incidents. they describe the lesbophobic web that bi and hetero women as a group with structural power over lesbians have been participating in weaving because it benefits them.

but sure make a “misogyny issue” out of a lesbian calling those women nuthuggers, manlovers or penises’ rights activists (i just came up with it but it suits so many bi and hetero feminists and conservative women). fighting fire with fire is always evil when you are the oppressed minority and you have to stand up to true societal status and power. your whining does sound like how men react . “oh i called a woman a worthless cunt that should be raped and she responded with useless dick i’m going to cut your balls off. the misandry and the violence!1!” you do become what you love i guess.

[sespursongles-deactivated201906]

I’m glad I stopped interacting with the radfem community on this website as it’s just a festering pit of lesbophobia, but I still find really inane critiques of my old posts from rad/rad-leaning women at times and it’s just so tedious—because when you’ve read enough of the same arguments and patterns, you start seeing them in a big-picture way, not as arguing over a particular issue but as revealing a deep-rooted, unrelenting investment in males and heterosexuality. That’s really all there is to it—whatever they might say, the vast majority of bihet radfems are deeply attached to men & the hetero social foundation, and the privileges they gain from it. They will never stand for too strong a criticism of it, they will never want to jeopardise it, even if it means tacitly endorsing the continuation of men’s global wide-scale terrorism of women.

These seem like very grandiloquent words to discuss tedious tumblr discourse but of course small issues can reveal people’s deeper convictions and worldview. To give examples, I’m thinking of this post and this one, among others. The former is a mlw crying about lesbians using words like “bihet” or “handmaiden” and she literally just accuses lesbians of heterophobia over and over again—”Punishing any woman for her sexuality is gross”, “women do not get to choose their sexual orientation”, “let’s cease putting down women because of who they sleep with”, “Isn’t the point of radfeminsim to lift each other up? So why are bisexual and straight women the exception?” Even ignoring her conviction that radical feminism should be about lesbians lifting up their oppressor group—it’s really mind-boggling to me how bihet women are dead-convinced that lesbians are not only being “lifted up” by radfems but are the only group within radical feminism being supported, while bi and het women are not. Heterophobia is rampant within feminism, you guys. She also accuses lesbians of biphobia which, again, means accusing us of heterophobia, since it amounts to believing homosexuals can oppress het-attracted people. Trans activists would be proud of all these bold reversals of reality. (It’s funny to me that mlw radfems will claim that words ‘critical’ of their heterosexuality—like bihet—are misogyny, but will also appropriate instances of obvious lesbophobia and claim it is really misogyny and hurts all women. When they can use lesbophobia to make themselves seem attacked they do; when they have to use heterophobia to make themselves seem attacked they do; what they want isn’t logical consistency but to make sure feminist discussions remain centred on bihet women at all times in a way that absolves them of everything and doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable.)

The second post is just vagueblogging about my post critical of fatherhood that completely misses the point. It starts with “The argument that fathers are useless or that men are not capable of raising children is a deeply anti-feminist statement” Again this is a baffling reversal, and very revealing of who she thinks feminism is for. She explains it with “saying that only women or, worse, only mothers, are needed / qualified to do the overwhelmingly lonely and repetitive work of raising small children just reinforces unfair gendered expectations.” What I was saying is that only the people who do not belong to the group that has >96% of all child rapists (that’s men, just in case) should be considered “qualified” to be around children. All the feminist criticism of my post has been about mothers’ rights and mothers’ freedoms while I wrote it with children in mind, after hearing about a baby raped to death by a male relative. I may be simple-minded but it’s really baffling when what you say is “Women caregivers do not rape children to death” and what people reply is “It’s problematic and bad feminist praxis to expect men not to care for children”. I don’t care honestly, I just want little girls not to be raped to death. Some feminists* seem to completely forget that girl children are also part of the group “female people” that feminism claims to fight for. (* Not to be even more controversial but I have found that these feminists are more likely to be het-attracted women, while lesbians in general seem to care and worry more about girl children as a group. If I had to find an explanation I would say it’s out of instinctive sympathy to a fellow group of female people who should not have to deal with male sexuality under any circumstances and yet are surrounded by it every day and keep being harmed by it. Lesbians are able to empathise more viscerally with how fucked up that is. One thing tumblr taught me is that wanting to engage with male sexuality dramatically hinders your empathy towards the women who don’t.) These women’s mindset also strikes me as, why focus on girls rather than grown women, I survived girlhood after all and am never going to be a little girl again so what’s in it for me? And it’s easier to focus on women and argue that they need a co-parent (a male one, for unexplained reasons) so they can have a life or go back to work, than to focus on children and somehow find a feminist way to make the argument that a male presence in the home is safe and beneficial to little girls. I’m talking about girl children being hurt by men (physically or psychologically) and they ignore it to remain dead focused on mother’s freedoms and rights (to have a male around), which means dead focused on bihet women.

—basically, everything radical feminism produces is for and about bihet women and their right to live the life they want, i.e. a life that includes males and safeguards heterosexual privileges. E-h really summed it up when she said feminism (rad or not) is just het couple therapy. The one thing that would actually have the biggest impact—pushing men out of as many aspects of their life as they can—is the one thing they will never consider doing. Their feminism is nothing but a gimmick built around this core of loyalty to men to make themselves feel better. I suspect that one thing they love about radical feminism is the male socialisation theory, which absolves men of being categorically flawed. The main difference between them and libfems is that libfems say that men are not awful, only a small minority of them are, so there’s no need to ponder uncomfortable thoughts like whether we are right to continue loving and fucking them, while radfems say most men are awful but it’s not their fault, they were only taught wrong and can be taught better, so there’s no need to ponder uncomfortable thoughts like whether we are right to continue loving and fucking them.

When you really look at what these women are saying, what people or what small issues receive most of their scorn and criticism (the sheer amount of posts critical of mean lesbians using mean words vs posts critical of men…) you realise that they see themselves as radical due to criticising some patriarchal institutions that libfems won’t touch, but that they will never accept to question their selfish attachment to the few harmful patriarchal institutions (fatherhood, hetero relationships, etc) that happen to coincide with what they personally want out of life. (Of course they often just so happen to coincide with their main source of privilege.) For all their lip service about prioritising women and lesbians and lifting up girls, they give absolutely no fucks about the parts of the female population—such as girl children and lesbians, to remain on the two examples I gave in this post—who stand to gain nothing (and continue being hurt) from their support of their Pet Patriarchal Institutions. To the point where some even call us insane (verbatim) for calling fatherhood or the hetero pairing “institutions” and seeing them as the crucial patriarchal pillars they are. (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that fathers’ rights and the right to be provided with a girlfriend are the two issues MRAs are most passionate about and most want to enshrine into law.) Listen to what bihet radfems say in response to these kind of points—do you just expect women (do you just expect me) to stop dating men and be lonely and sad?? None of it is actually about other women and rational feminist analysis and what courses of action have the best chances of liberating women as a whole from male oppression—it’s about them and their feelings and what they personally want out of life. There’s nothing radical or feminist about it.