#femininism

[intersexfairy]

having breasts does not make you a woman. having a vagina, vulva, or ovaries does not make you a woman. having XX chromosomes or an estrogen-dominant body does not make you a woman. having a period or the capability to have children does not make you a woman.

having or not having these things can affirm your identity and make you feel more like yourself, for sure. but the point is your body does not decide who you are - you do. you are in control of your own gender, your own identity. you are you no matter the body you inhabit. and i hope that if you dont feel it now, someday your body feels truly like home.

💜 this post includes intersex people. don't forget your intersex peers! 💜

[starrlighttheestud1]

A major thing I’ve noticed in the “soft life” and “reclaiming my femininity” discussion is how many of these women’s biggest fear is being perceived as a masculine, feminist lesbian. As we all know, masculine lesbians are the rawest, pure form of a “wild, uncharted” woman. We don’t care how men perceive us, we don’t follow the feminine often times eurocentric beauty standards pushed on us, and when partnered, we don’t follow extreme gendered roles because of an allegiance to religion or societal norms. There are so many cishet women who won’t cut their hair, wear baggy pants, or go without doing heavily feminine beauty routines like getting their nails or eyebrows done out of fear that men with view them as “ugly” dykes and not approach. Even though, we as actual masculine lesbian women have still had men approach us in a sexualized way. When a woman is fully indoctrinated into to patriarchal culture, it’s hammered into their brains from an early age that your biggest currency is the ability to get and keep a man long enough to get married and have children. They believe that their freedom is tied to being partnered and married and financial taken care of, and they believe feminism, pro-choice ideas, and gender nonconforming lesbians are preventing them from having that picture perfect life, which is why they use the word feminism as a slur against women who don’t hold men in such high regard as they do.

[crash476]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I do appreciate when characters actually talk about what they want in life: they're hopes, and dreams, and plans. Especially when it comes to romance and family. I do want to know what they want or don't want, what scares them and excites them. Seems like a natural topic of conversation in real life. But in so much media, marriage and children have been treated as a natural endstate for women. And after years of feminism trying to deconstruct this assumption and present alternatives, there's this conservative backlash that really wants women to give into the pressure of marriage and children. And it's not helped by, I hope, well-meaning people insisting that characters don't need to talk about what they want. I do understand the frustration people have with Hollywood treating audiences like they're stupid. But like, I do think it's important for these conversations to happen, and present a wide variety of reasons for and against romance, marriage, and children

[vancouvery]

Watching the dedicated Xena channel on Roku, and I haven’t watched Xena in years. When it was on-air I didn’t watch it much: it was “corny TV”, & I didn’t own a TV anyway (long story— half poverty/half stubborn resistance to mainstream culture). I recall the lesbians around my Art Skool environs sure loved it, and would spill plots & storylines when asked like a D&D obsessed nerd talking about his latest campaign.

Tonight I’m getting an odd comfort from it, not from the subtext (yes rly Tumblr, O site of subtext), but the Bechdel-test passing of it, the women-dealing-with-shit of it all. The ep I’m watching now has had one (1) man show up & he had one (1) line and hasn’t appeared since.

I guess I’m Xena-deficient, having worked in a male-dominated career for over a quarter-century (!!!!!) Actual woman colleagues I worked with elsewhere have since died, or left the career track. Feelin’ my feminism tonight, my inner warrior-princess is feeling old, and tired, and is really beginning to wonder when the male chuds will ever stop attacking…

[lary-the-lizard]

It’s really insulting when someone treats kindness like it’s naive and ignorant and weak because it’s the opposite to all of that. I acknowledge that everything is falling apart and life is hard and we’re really tired and because all of that is true, I will be kind. Even when I’m hurt, even when I’m angry, I will be kind, because I know how important it is that we be kind right now.

That doesn’t mean that we ignore abuse, it means we confront it before it gets worse in the way that causes the least harm. It doesn’t mean that those that cause problems don’t suffer consequences. It means that we create an environment so they can’t cause more harm and get the treatment they need. It doesn’t mean we can’t express our anger. It means we learn to express it in such a way that solves our problems instead of creating more.

Kindness does not ignore or belittle or tolerate harm. It addresses them instead of making them worse. There’s this old Jewish quote, I’ve read it three different ways, “To be kind to the cruel is to be cruel to the kind.” The other two versions substitute kind with lenient and compassionate. Almost always, avoiding harm doers instead of confronting them because you don’t want to be rude causes them harm. Just like patriarchy kills women it kills men even as it benefits them. Confronting sexist. It is important that we protect victims of misogyny and and patriarchy as much as we can and in our work towards irradiating patriarchy we are also being kind to men. Showing kindness to those that need it most is not choosing to be unkind to those that caused the hurt. Taking away someone else’s ability to destroy another’s life is giving them time to choose differently. It gives someone else time to help the would be perpetrator meet their real need rather than taking their pain out on someone else.

[thepaintedchateau]

..."every woman in this world wears a little sparkle, some in their dress, and some in their eyes"...

~Shahla Khan

[battling-my-demons]

It's not about you😊