💘

Lily / 25 / Australia

[teenscoolest]

[horreurscopes]

i have never felt as mature as when i finally understood (through therapy) and internalized (through emotional work) that you cannot connect and communicate with some people no matter how kind, compassionate, understanding, articulate, eloquent, or smart you are, and that sometimes a person not listening to you does not reflect on your communication skills or ability to connect or straight up intelligence. in a way, it’s letting go of the belief that you have the power to make people understand you. communication is a two-way street, and needs two willing participants. some people are just walls, and it has been unbelievably helpful for my mental and emotional health to let it slide and know that it does not affect me or my self worth. 

[tockthewatchdog-deactivated2020]

too many people think intersectional feminism means “being a woman is not oppression by itself, only when it’s combined with a different oppression” instead of “misogyny intersects with other oppressions to alter and intensify the nature of the daily terrorism all women face”

[partialbirthabortion]

“If you start [the abortion argument] from the fetus, however, it’s hard to get back to the women who’ve had those 55 million abortions since Roe, let alone the ones who had illegal abortions before it, and are still doing so in great numbers around the world. You end up debating essentially unresolvable points: If we can agree that a fetus is fully formed at birth, what about the day before birth, a week before viability, or when it can feel pain or when it has a heartbeat or when it is implanted or at the very moment of conception? For abortion opponents, there is no logical stopping place, because fetal development is a continuous process, the unfolding of inherent capacities. Just as, in order to make the fetus visible [with ultrasound] the woman’s body must be rendered invisible, so the interests of the fetus (if something that does not think, or perceive or have self-awareness can be said to have interests) erase those of the woman. What is graduating high school or not feeling ‘ready’ to mother a child or the fact that you are living in your care compared with the very existence of this tiny, helpless creature? Abortion becomes a one-sided contest between responsibility and fecklessness, life and lifestyle, innocence and experience, which is to say innocence versus guilt. No one describes pregnant women as tiny or helpless- they are huge and powerful, they could kill a baby!- much less innocent. But fetuses are always innocent, even more innocent than babies, who scream and fuss and are full of needs and rage- ‘like a fiend hid in a cloud,’ as William Blake put it- and a fetus is way more innocent than a woman, even a rape victim, because what was she doing in that dress, in that place?”

— Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt

[gustavowasright-deactivated2022]

Men who refrain from misogynistic comments until a woman does something rude or immoral or mean are in fact regular old misogynists! Actually, a lot of the time those men’s passion arises primarily not from condemnation of her actions, but from EXCITEMENT at getting to express their misogyny in an “acceptable” format. Well guess what asshole, anyone with a brain can see through your bullshit, and I personally hate you.

[argumate]

sci-fi plot: yeah and in this futuristic city he meets a woman–

producer: is she a stripper? is she a callgirl? does she get her tits out? is she a cop working undercover as a stripper? is she a sexy assassin who has sex with her victims and then kills them sexily? is she a robot stripper? is she a mystical being of pure energy who has no need for clothes and a great rack? is she a holographic beer advertisement?

[medusanevertalks]

“And who is her performance for? Women? If so, what are we supposed to learn from her story? Surely not that we can find happiness through weight loss and a bottle of peroxide. Or can we?    According to the makeover story of modern female culture, the after is always construed as the real you that was just itching to assert her identity, to reveal her real face. After enough of these stories, however, not only is there no difference between character and appearance; the story of inner value collapses into yet another story of the surface.”

— Virginia L Blum, Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery; 2003

[fall-and-shadows]

Why Men Don’t Like Funny Women

The plight of the single, funny lady

When they would ask men and women what they looked for in their long-term partners, both genders would say they wanted someone “with a good sense of humor.” It was only when researchers pressed their subjects on what they meant, specifically, by “sense of humor,” that the sex difference became clear. Women want men who will tell jokes; men want women who will laugh at theirs.

….

It’s possible that men are indifferent to their partners’ funniness precisely because funny women are smarter. There’s some evidence that men are less attracted to women who are smarter than they are. In a study out this month in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, when men were introduced to women they were told had outperformed them on an intelligence test, they rated the woman as less attractive and were less likely to say they wanted to date her.

These biases have a chilling effect on women. The idea that women aren’t supposed to make jokes can trigger stereotype threat, a phenomenon in which simply telling someone that their “group” tends to be bad at something hinders that individual’s performance. Told that their humor isn’t wanted, many women don’t bother.

A 2001 study that analyzed casual conversations among young people found that while men told more jokes and more successful jokes in mixed company, women told many more jokes when they were in all-female groups. “Evidently,” the researchers concluded, “women only joke when men are not around.”

[catlogicdefiesall]

I wonder if things are getting worse? I wasn’t a young person even twenty years ago, and had been working nearly twenty years then, and had never been subjected to this sort of shit. (Other sorts, certainly, but not this.) I was always cracking jokes, using sarcasm, and making everyone - men and women - laugh in my workplaces, and among friends. The only people who didn’t respond well were management dipshits who didn’t laugh at all, and nobody had a high opinion of them. Is it a generational thing, yet again, or a cultural thing (Australia vs, presumably, the US) or were I and everyone I worked with in multiple industries all outliers? :(

[benyw]

“women only joke when men are not around”!!!

I’ve noticed that the way women talk in all female groups is so different from the way we talk when there’s a male around!

And when men say “women aren’t funny” the first thing I think is that he 100% has never truly heard a woman speak freely. I never laugh more (or, perhaps more importantly: laugh more honestly) than when I’m with other women - and only women.

Also, males get a false sense of their own ability to tell jokes, because women will laugh at any attempt a male makes at humour. Even if it isn’t funny at all, a woman will laugh at a male’s obviou attempt at making a joke just to be polite, or to avoid the fallout from a damaged male ego (“what’s wrong with you? don’t you have a sense of humour?”).

[misandryblues]

^^ yep

[virgoassbitch]

Most men love women who possess confidence only when it makes them fun, flirty, and comfortable in their sexuality. But the second you demonstrate high standards, a strong will, and the assertiveness required to call them out of their bullshit then all of a sudden you’re a bitch.

[radfem-femsep-femsup-amazon-blog]

[herkind]

Things men who are serious about becoming feminist allies have to do before they can even think about claiming they respect women:

- Stop watching porn - Call out their friends who watch porn and tell them how unacceptable it is - Stop making rape jokes - Stop laughing at rape jokes - Never, ever buy sex - Stop taking part in the dehumanization of women in prostitution and other parts of the sex industry - Read about consent, the responsibility to make sure consent has been given before sex and under circumstances where the other person was free to make their own choices, read about sex as self-harm and circumstances which can make it difficult for someone to say “no”, read about how victims of rape can freeze or dissociate as a natural reaction instead of screaming or fighting back, and make sure you really, really understand all these concepts and what it means when actually engaging in sexual relations - Listen to female feminists and make sure you don’t silence them or talk over them - Tell other men to listen to female feminists - Tell other men never to derail conversations about feminism or violence against women with “not all men” or “but what about men?” - Turn your energy into calling out and making other men aware of how they perpetuate misogynistic ideas and structures - If women tell you that you’re not welcome in a particular feminist space or that a space is female-only, respect that - Listen, listen, listen and learn to become more aware of all the little (and big) ways and the nuances of them in which men uphold their domination, belittle and silence women, condition women’s humanity and right to speak up, threaten women with violence and violent consequences, perpetuate rape culture, perpetuate oppressive gender norms and ideas about “how women should be” and reinforce the view of women as less of human beings than men

[medusanevertalks]

“Female socialization is a process of psychologically constraining and breaking girls ― otherwise known as “grooming” ― to create a class of compliant victims. Across history, this breaking has included so-called “beauty practices” like female genital mutilation and foot binding, as well as the ever-popular child sexual abuse. Femininity is really just the traumatized psyche displaying acquiescence. In its essence, it is ritualized submission.”

— Female Erasure; chapter 23: The Girls and the Grasses by Lierre Keith; 2016

[medusanevertalks]

“They reclassify healthy adult female flesh as “cellulite,” an invented “condition” that was imported into the United States by Vogue only in 1973; they refer to this texture as “disfiguring,” “unsightly,” “polluted with toxins.” Before 1973, it was normal female flesh.”

— Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth; 1990

[heavyweightheart]

school schedules are designed in such a way that kids are deprived of adequate food and sleep. the sleep piece has been written on extensively, but it’s quite plain that requiring young people to wake up at 6am during the developmental phase when they need the most sleep and tend to stay up later is a terrible public health move. 

from an eating perspective, it’s just as bad. say a middle or high schooler eats breakfast (if they even eat breakfast) at 7am, then doesn’t eat lunch until 11-12 (and lunch is often inadequate), then has after-school activities, etc. and may not get home until late afternoon, or eat dinner until evening. and kids in school are not generally allowed to snack in class or given time to snack between classes. these gaps between eating times are way too big for adolescents! they need a lot of food–more than adults–to support the growth process, just as they need more sleep.

it’s no wonder many kids start eating reactively in their teens, especially after school or at night–they’re not being adequately fed during the day. even if kids aren’t restricted from eating freely/fully at home, their daily lives regularly involve periods of energy deficiency. add to that the social pressures around body size, and it’s a recipe for disorder at an epidemic level

[heavyweightheart]

And it’s not an accident or a simple public health mistake that schools are designed this way—they are the training ground for laborers who’ll spend a lifetime on the bosses’ schedule, stripped (to varying degrees depending on social location) of their bodily autonomy and health

[sangredesirena78463748-deactiva]

the most simplest way of explaining patriarchy, the way that finally got it to click for me was this:

all men directly and indirectly benefit from being seen as stronger, smarter, morally superior, and overall better than women. whether they actively participate in misogyny or not, they still benefit from it

all woman directly and indirectly suffer from being seen as less intelligent, vapid, morally weak, and inferior to men. whether they have been physically victimized by misogynists or not, they are still victimized by misogyny

[kiefbowl]

why does he want to beat his girlfriend during sex? why does it help him cum? where did she learn to ask him to do it or, alternatively, be ready to say yes?

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness. To further divert your gaze, he may work to shape your view of his past partners to keep you from talking to them directly and to prepare you to disbelieve them should you happen to hear what they say. If you could follow the thread of his conduct over a series of relationships, you would find out that his behavior isn’t as erratic as it looks; in fact, it follows a fairly consistent pattern from woman to woman, except for brief relationships or ones he isn’t that serious about. Above all, the abusive man wants to avoid having you zero in on his abusiveness itself. So he tries to fill your head up with excuses and distortions and keep you weighed down with selfdoubt and self-blame. And, unfortunately, much of the society tends to follow unsuspectingly along behind him, helping him to close your eyes, and his own, to his problem. The mythology about abusive men that runs through modern culture has been created largely by the abusers themselves. Abusive men concoct explanations for their actions which they give to their partners, therapists, clergypeople, relatives, and social researchers. But it is a serious error to allow abusers to analyze and account for their own problems. Would we ask an active alcoholic to tell us why he or she drinks, and then accept the explanation unquestioningly? This is what we would hear:

“I drink because I have bad luck in life.”  “I actually don’t drink much at all—it’s just a rumor that some people have been spreading about me because they don’t like me.” “I started to drink a lot because my self-esteem was ruined by all these unfair accusations that I’m alcoholic, which I’m not.”

When we hear these kinds of excuses from a drunk, we assume they are exactly that—excuses. We don’t consider an active alcoholic a reliable source of insight. So why should we let an angry and controlling man be the authority on partner abuse? Our first task, therefore, is to remove the abusive man’s smoke and mirrors, and then set about watching carefully to see what he is really doing.

-  Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men