look at the medusa straight on.

and she's not deadly. she's beautiful and she's laughing. -- helene cixous

[workingitinportland-deactivated]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY onegirlrhumba

[onegirlrhumba]

clarawebbwillcutoffyourhead made this for me for my birthday (which was yesterday and which was lovely, thank you) and i saw it late but it is fantastic and i love it so, so much. SO MUCH. words cannot express.

[onegirlrhumba]

feminist theory 101: a crash course (originally posted 4/2012, updated 10/2013)

as a public service, i’m taking it upon myself to formulate what amounts to a basic, introductory “course” on feminist theory. as anyone who has studied it knows, feminist theory encompasses a wide range of subject matters and approaches, and it can be very difficult to locate a useful starting point. it can be doubly difficult for people who are not involved in academia and lack access to related resources. paring the field down is both an impossible and subjective task, but i hope that the readings grouped and linked below give some insight into both the content and trajectory of feminist theory as a discipline. admittedly, it is a very western-centric trajectory, one that academic feminism is still trying to alter with varying degrees of success. additionally, i am including a few second-wave radical texts that may be transphobic or totally ignore other marginalized women; they are problematic but necessary in understanding the direction(s) of feminist theory.

n.b.: this is the second, revised version of this post.  i have replaced dead links and swapped out a few of the articles and books for ones that i feel, a year and some months later, are better suited for this collection.

some of the readings are in the public domain or are made available on the web; others are PDFs that i have created or accumulated over time. all readings are for educational use only; share that shit, don’t sell it.

enjoy.

first wave feminisms

mary wollstonecraft, a vindication of the rights of women

seneca falls, NY women’s rights conference, declaration of sentiments

sojourner truth, ain’t i a woman?

harriet taylor and john stuart mill, the subjection of women

friedrich engels, the origin of the family, private property, and the state

mary church terrell, the progress of colored women

ida b. wells, lynch law

emma goldman, the traffic in women

first stirrings of the second wave

simone de beauvoir, introduction to ‘the second sex’

betty friedan, 'the problem with no name,' chapter 1 of 'the feminine mystique'

the radical anglo-american turn and its discontents

kate millet, sexual politics

shulamith firestone, the dialectic of sex

combahee river collective, combahee river collective statement

adrienne rich, compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence

audre lorde, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house

the french psychoanalytic/marxist turn

helene cixous, the laugh of the medusa

luce irigaray, 'this sex which is not one' (book, full text)

julia kristeva, women’s time

monique wittig, one is not born a woman

post-structuralist feminisms

linda alcoff, cultural feminism versus post-structuralism: the identity crisis in feminist theory

susan bordo, feminism, western culture, and the body

judith butler, gender trouble (in full)

nancy tuana, coming to understand: the women’s health movement and the epistemologies of ignorance

intersectionality/WOC and global south critiques

chela sandoval, u.s. third world feminism: the theory and method of oppositional consciousness in the postmodern world

patricia hill collins, black feminist thought (in full)

kimberle crenshaw, mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color

gloria anzaldua and cherrie moraga, eds, this bridge called my back (excerpts)

gayatri spivak, can the subaltern speak?

chandra mohanty, under western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses

vandana shiva, staying alive: women, ecology, and survival in india (in full)

reyna ramirez, race, tribal nation, and gender: a native feminist approach to belonging

queering feminisms

j. jack halberstam, transgender butch: butch/ftm border wars and the masculine continuum

eve kosofsky sedgwick, epistemology of the closet

lauren berlant and michael warner, what does queer theory teach us about x?

feminist critiques of science/feminist science studies

donna haraway, simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature (full text)

sandra harding, the science question in feminism (selections)

anne fausto-sterling, the five sexes: why male and female are not enough and the five sexes revisited 

the new materialist turn in feminist theory

elizabeth grosz, feminism, materialism, and freedom

elizabeth a. wilson, somatic compliance - feminism, biology, and science

diana coole & samantha frost, introducing the new materialisms

myra j. hird & celia roberts, feminism theorises the nonhuman

[workingitinportland-deactivated]

CONSENT IS NOT SEXY

Consent is not sexy.

Consent is basic. Consent is NECESSARY. Consent is not always (or often) sexy.

Consent is sometimes awkward, difficult, or embarrassing. Sometimes asking for it is scary, because the possibility of rejection is scary.

Consent is changeable, depending on circumstance (I consent to fuck you for $500, with a condom. I consent to fuck you here at the moment, with a condom.) Consent can be revoked at any time, especially if the circumstances and agreement on which consent was negotiated change. (I consented to fuck you for $500, with a condom. Both of these must be involved or my consent is void. I consented to fuck you with a condom. You took it off. This is rape) You can revoke consent. This must be respected.

Consent can be desireless and still valid.

Consent can be given under constrained financial circumstances and still be valid.

Coerced consent is not consent.

Consensual sex is NOT the best sex, the best that can be said of consensual sex is that it is not rape.

Not all consensual sex will be good.

Consent is still and always necessary.

Sex without consent is RAPE.

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Chaos in Ferguson. Sunday night, part 2 [part 1]

[onegirlrhumba]

i just started reading donna tartt's the goldfinch. have you read it? are you reading it? can we talk about it? it seems like everyone else already is.

i also, finally, finished volume 1 of karl ove knausgaard's my struggle and, has anyone written about how it's the overblown aestheticization of blogging and its myriad banalities and obsessive desire to self-archive? because, like, it is, and if not, maybe i should write something about that?

[chromaticaa]

TELL ME ABOUT UR CRUSH ON ANON

[fleurs-for-u]

yes please do this

[onegirlrhumba]

TERF: we are here to abolish the genders

Feminist: oh, so we won't use gendered pronouns anymore?

TERF: no keep those

Feminist: gendered clothing?

TERF: no thats ok

Feminist: segregated bathrooms?

TERF: no those are important

Feminist: so we're going to do something about the gender binary, yeah? We're going to attack the idea that gender is intrinsically linked to one's anatomy, and we're going to boost the visibility of trans and intersex people, who face the most violent consequences of the sex and gender binaries - yes?

TERF: no

Feminist: then what are you going to do, exactly? What is your plan? How are you going to accomplish this?

TERF: abolish gender

Feminist: How?

TERF: abolish it

[islayme]

Jenny Holzer, Survival Series, 1983-85

[onegirlrhumba]

we hit a wall when we were alone

we didn’t know how to control

no one ever told

i showed you how to hold my hand

and kiss me slow and unending

i’ll show you how to love

(an endless war)

[onegirlrhumba]

i know that i should stop finding ways to narrativize my life and instead just enjoy it rather than figuring out where all the pieces fit together and how, but it's really hard when you know someone who actually stops on the sidewalk to pluck honeysuckles and teaches you how to release and taste the tiny drop of nectar the flowers contain. that's not real life.  come on.

[marginalutilite]

What could be more delicious than Terry Castle dishing about Susan Sontag?

[crumbduck]

Michael Gira makes a solo album dedicated to his cowboy hat where he records himself screaming the word GOD and loops it for three hours

[heislergoldale]

that’s the whole show, really

[les-aubes-sont-navrantes]

It’s that thing when you’re with someone and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it, but it’s a party! And you’re both talking to other people and you’re laughing and shining and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes. But…but not because you’re possessive or it’s precisely sexual but because that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad but only because this life will end. And it’s this secret world that exists right there in public unnoticed that no one knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s…that’s what I want out of a relationship or just life, I guess.

Frances Halladay (Greta Gerwig) in Francis Ha (via les-aubes-sont-navrantes)

[onegirlrhumba]

how do you process the knowledge that one of the most important people in your life is leaving the city that they, in no small part, defined for you? how do you rearrange your mental and emotional map of the city to recognize that they're no longer part of it?  how do you do that especially when you've had both feelings and Feelings for this person and are mourning the loss of the possibility of said (f/F)eelings ever coming to fruition?  at what point do you tell such a person that you love them? should you ever tell them?  asking for a friend, obviously.

[onegirlrhumba]

new haircut, finally finally finally after putting it off for months.

[fuckyeah-radicalfeminism-blog]

Sex-positive ideology works off of the assumption that women’s sexualities are repressed by puritanical standards (e.g., women should wait until marriage to have sex). But in reality, the idea that women should be sexually available at all times is just as prevalent.

yentagang (via fuckyeah-radicalfeminism)