For Radical Women

[kittyit]

Many feminists are concerned about the way transgender ideology naturalizes patriarchal views of sex stereotypes, and encourages transition as a way of attempting to escape misogyny. In this brave and thoughtful book, Max Robinson goes beyond the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the transition she underwent and takes us through the processes that led her, first, to transition in an attempt to get relief from her distress, and then to detransition, as she discovered feminist thought and community. The author makes a case for a world in which all medical interventions for the purpose of assimilation are open to criticism. This book is a far-reaching discussion of women’s struggles to survive under patriarchy, which draws upon a legacy of radical and lesbian feminist ideas to arrive at its conclusions. Robinson’s bold discussion of both transition and detransition is meant to provoke a much-needed conversation about who benefits from transgender medicine and who has to bear the hidden cost of these interventions.

ebook available on all major sellers! USA buyers: barnes & noble | IPG UK buyers: preorder on amazon | gazelle books Australian buyers: spinifex

[riddarkatto]

Made some stickers, you can get them here!

[focusedandfearless]

Rage becomes her - Soraya Chemaly

[balkanradfem]

“Women are not selfish when they refuse to please others, they are not cruel if they decide to deal with their issues before anyone else’s, they’re not difficult when they stand up for themselves and they are not stupid when they decide to show kindness.”

— (via furiousradfem)

[lacangri21]

“No liberation is possible for women in a world in which inequality, and specifically the inequality of women, is sexy.”

— Anticlimax by Sheila Jeffreys, 1990

[the-greene-party]

“Our brains were two million years in the making. That long, slow accretion doubled our cranial capacity. And the first thing we did with it was say thank you. We drew the megafauna and the megafemales, sculpted and carved them. The oldest known figurative sculpture is the Goddess of Hohle Fels, and 40,000 years ago someone spent hundreds of hours carving Her. There is no mystery here, not to me: the animals and the women gave us life. Of course they were our first, endless art project. Awe and thanksgiving are built into us, body and brain. Once upon a time, we knew we were alive. And it was good. 

And now we leave the realm of miracles and enter hell. 

Patriarchy is the ruling religion of the planet. It comes in variations―some old, some new, some ecclesiastical, some secular. But at bottom, they are all necrophilic. Erich Fromm describes necrophilia as “the passion to transform that which is alive into something unalive; to destroy for the sake of destruction; the exclusive interest in all that is purely mechanical.” In this religion, the worst sin is being alive, and the carriers of that sin are female. Under patriarchy, the female body is loathsome; its life-giving fat-cells vilified; its generative organs despised. Its natural condition is always ridiculed: normal feet must be turned into four-inch stubs; rib cages must be crushed into collapse; breasts are varyingly too big or too small or excised entirely. That this inflicts pain―if not constant agony―is not peripheral to these practices. It’s central. When she suffers, she is made obedient.” 

― Lierre Keith, ‘The Girls and the Grasses’ 

[woundgallery]

SARAH LUCAS

scans from Collings, M. 2002, Sarah Lucas, Tate Pub, London

[homopsychology]

From A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A TRANS WOMAN AND A FEMINIST WHO ISN’T JUST A FIGMENT OF THE TRANS WOMAN’S MIND (x)

[lacangri21]

“While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.”

— Right-Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin

[bardcoremusical-deactivated2021]

Do you remember when Dorothy exposed the Wizard of Oz, and you heard the booming voice say, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”? Well, let me tell you, when we women begin to expose the actions of men, we hear this sacred voice urging us to protect and forgive. This voice is so ancient, so powerful, so authoritative that we’re overcome with guilt and shame—even though we’re the victims!

I’m here today to tell you something about that voice. That voice telling you to protect and forgive men, that voice urging you to be a little more patient, a little more tolerant—that is not the voice of God. It’s the voice of the men behind the curtain. The only reason it sounds like God is because they have been amplifying themselves for two thousand years and using a lot of special effects.

Tied to that stake, watching the fire come closer and closer, I realized that God the Father was a lie. He’s an invention of the good old boys to cover their tracks and their asses. I realized that the closest I had ever come to any real sense of spirituality was alone with my voices, or in the company of other women.

The Second Coming of Joan of Arc by Carolyn Gage

[femsolid]

I have a feminist friend who lives in the USA and volunteers as an escort for an abortion clinic. These women make sure the women seeking help can get there safely. I won't give out my friend's identity for safety reasons but she's been sharing her experience over the years and I just want to give you a glimpse of what it's like. Also, she's a remarkable woman and I love her and thank her for everything she has been doing for women.

[femsolid]

[oldfilmsflicker]

One Child Nation, 2019 (dir. Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang)

[brittle-things-delicately-sewn]

I’m simply baffled that you describe the act of prostitution as a “profession” and a “service.” Sexuality is the most intimate sphere of human life. Do we get to keep that at least, pretty please, or do we have to let every single part of ourselves be completely commodified and capitalized upon? Since when has the Left been the champion of the sale of all human desire? You call sex a service, as if it were possible to separate it from the Self, the Body, the Person; as if you could simply peel it away, place it in a nice little box on the shop counter, and then some fellow shows up, hands me 50 euros and walks out with the sex. Is that how you picture it, yeah? You even speak of “poor working conditions”—do you actually believe that the abuse we have suffered and so many of us still suffer is somehow ameliorated if we’re given a nice “workplace”, as you call it? “Working conditions”? What are you even talking about? Under which conditions is the abuse that johns inflict on us acceptable to you, pray tell? Or do you simply not see it as abuse, ignoring what exited persons and trauma researchers are telling you? Sixty-eight percent of all prostituted people have post-traumatic stress disorder, and that’s not counting depression, addiction, borderline disorders and psychoses. Do you think these things are a result of “poor working conditions”? Every exited woman I know describes what she experienced in prostitution as sexual abuse. Our having tolerated sexual abuse or having been forced to do so does not turn it into a profession!

And then you keep going on about the stigma, saying we mustn’t be stigmatized. I agree with you on this, but I have to stress that it’s not the stigma that’s raping, abusing, and killing us. It’s the johns. Sadly you draw the wrong conclusions from the demand that prostituted persons mustn’t be stigmatized.

You write:

“This [stigma] is expressed in a lack of recognition of their profession.”

To be clear, what you demand is basically for the abuse of prostituted women to become normal. You want it to become a job. You want the abuse to become ACCEPTABLE. In short, you’re fighting for women’s right to call the suffering of sexual abuse a job. Or better: You’re fighting for men’s right to abuse women and minimize that abuse by calling it “work.”

Then you write:

“Thus parts of the left have repeatedly pushed for a ‘full ban on prostitution’ or the supposedly progressive ‘Swedish Model’, claiming that sex work/prostitution is the ultimate expression of patriarchy.”

Let me get this straight: This sounds like you don’t think prostitution is an expression of patriarchy. If it’s not that, what is it, then? Why are 98% of all individuals in prostitution female and johns almost 100% male? Now don’t say it’s because we live in patriarchy.

Then:

“However, the feminist response cannot be to take a paternalistic approach and try to tell sex workers what a decent life should look like.”

I’m dying to find out where you get this from. People who see prostitution as destructive and inhumane aren’t being paternalistic, they’re expressing solidarity with us. And that’s exactly where you could do with a little practice. You need to stop flogging that stupid notion that every person who recognizes prostitution as harmful is some kind of conservative moralist trying to lecture “fallen women”. Acknowledging the suffering and misery of prostitution and stating that it is violent doesn’t constitute lecturing; it means SEEING the real conditions that prostituted people live in and thus showing respect and care to those who suffer within and because of prostitution.

Read full letter at Survivor Megaphone

Open letter by Huschke Mau and eight other women exited from prostitution. Originally published in German under the title “Die Linke Freude an der Prostitution – Huschke Mau an die Bremer Linksjugend” at sisters-ev.de, 21 April 2016

In response to Left Youth Solid, an official youth organization of the German party The Left, regarding the position paper “Solidarity with Sex Workers – No to the new prostitute protection act – No to paternalism and other-directedness in the sexual service industry”

via Anti-Porn Feminists, Original translation from German to English by Survivor Megaphone

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

o woman

@carfghanistan 2021

Shamsia Hassani

Shamsia Hassani (born 1988) is an Afghan graffiti artist, a fine arts lecturer, and the associate professor of Drawing and Anatomy Drawing at the Kabul University. She has popularized “street art” in the streets of Kabul and has exhibited her art in several countries including India, Iran, Germany, United States of America, Switzerland, Vietnam, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and in diplomatic missions in Kabul. Hassani paints graffiti in Kabul to bring awareness to the war years. In 2014, Hassani was named one of Foreign Policy’s top 100 global thinkers.

(Celebration of Female Artists in History)

*

“oh woman remember who you are woman it is the whole earth” 

— Joy Harjo

[c0nt8ct-deactivated20211225]

The Federation of Anarchism Era in Iran and Afghanistan is accepting donations to help activists escape Afghanistan. The country is likely to fall to the Taliban within the next few days and they won’t show any mercy to activists fighting for freedom there, so please help out if you can.

[c0nt8ct-deactivated20211225]

The Taliban has taken Kabul; the activists mentioned above were not able to get away in time and are unable to receive any money.

[c0nt8ct-deactivated20211225]

The federation’s updated its donation page; it’s main focus now is charting a path for activists to leave. Donations will still help out.

Now, our and their latest efforts must coordinate a path for them to leave. This is possible either through financial cooperation so that they can enter neighboring countries either legally or by smuggling them across borders, or through our formal or informal international relations to get them asylum in safe countries, if possible.

Anarchist comrades outside Afghanistan can also send immigration invitations to our comrades, provided the embassies in question continue to operate before the Taliban can fully establish their government and establish their own security and intelligence agencies.

Another point is that as a result of more than 40 years of war in Afghanistan, and especially the recent Taliban war, many people need financial help because they have either been internally displaced or have lost their jobs due to the war and turmoil situation; Financial help in this regard would be necessary and effective.

[bundibird]

This article was posted on the 10th August 2021.

Heres a link to the crowd funding page for Rukhsana Media.

[fine4une]

The acts of violent men benefits all men

An Afghan woman in Kabul: ‘Now I have to burn everything I achieved’

A university student tells of seeing all around her the ‘fearful faces of women and ugly faces of men who hate women’

[nickyhowareya-deactivated202305]

As a woman, I feel like I am the victim of this political war that men started...

All I could see around me were the fearful and scared faces of women and ugly faces of men who hate women... Most devastating to me were the ones who looked happy and made fun of women. Instead of standing by our side, they stand with the Taliban.