Waddesdon Manor

How We Got Here

The misapplication, distortion, and clumsy/careless use of social justice concepts is one of the most pressing issues facing women and racial and sexual minorities. People have taken insane, disrespectful liberties with the language and justice tools invented by oppressed groups to name and explain their realities. The result is that once effective justice tools - such as anti racism, anti-homophobia and anti-misogyny- has now lost all credibility and has been rendered a joke. The constant appropriation and careless abuse of these justice tools, (largely by inherently privileged people) has devastated liberation movements to such an extent that one could imagine it's being intentionally done as a form of sabotage. Once useful, powerful ideas and concepts have been watered down and misapplied to the point of absurd parody. Most notably, the concept of "gender". The word "gender", once understood to refer to the system of sexist oppression inflicted on women- is now used to refer to personality traits, fashion sense, mental and psychiatric symptoms, aesthetic preferences and one's degree of conformity to social and cultural stereotypes. This has devastated the coherence, clarity, and intellectual respect of feminist theory. What's worse, this total abuse and disrespect of justice language is now being used to justify an "anti-woke" movement, where people suggest that genuine justice concerns be dismissed along with the nonsense meanings and misapplications created by careless, privileged individuals who greedily appropriated justice tools and borrowed from their legitmacy for selfish, nefarious purposes. This must end. Grassroots justice movements must reclaim their language, ideas, and concepts and rebuild. We must resist the psychological and intellectual theft.

I think that's incredibly interesting, but it's also worth noting that the reason that those people feel that way is because they've been trained to see the world that way.

When friends, social media, charities, celebrities and even governments push the idea that a person's identity is a set of tangible things that can be seen and touched and bought, from hairstyles to clothing, then to flag pins and phone covers and stickers, then to be without that is to be without an identity. Without those gender identities, then they're ostracised from their friends and peers indulging in the same thing. Are they even real people at all?

I think it's less that it's a deliberate bridge to cross a social gap, and more a way for them to cling to something tangible that they can then point to in their own minds and say that is why I feel so different and ironically, that is why I feel so alone. Then, they can connect with others that feel just as alone, which whips the social contagion frenzy even higher.

The world right now is one that pushes the idea that to fix something, you need to buy something else. Actual, helpful introspection, figuring out what their hopes, dreams and even hobbies are to connect with others ends up becoming too daunting.

If you're afraid, why on earth would you go out of your way to risk being ignored or hurt or laughed at by someone in the real world, when you can safely buy things and slap flags and different pronouns onto a social media account? Why risk engaging offline with anyone when the online world has a safe echo chamber that tells you how good and valid and perfect you are, and underlines that everything that feels difficult or hurts you is because of others not understanding you? Is it not comforting to have such a strict set of rules to follow and lines to regurgitate, when, if left alone to think for yourself, you might be wrong and end up upsetting someone else and then ending up even more alone? Does it not feel good to be given permission to lash out and hate everyone and cut out everyone that tells you a harsh truth? Isn't it cathartic to tear apart others, just the way that the bullies at home or at school tore you apart?

It taps in perfectly to the stereotypical teenage angst, and it's addictive, too. There is nothing more addictive in this world than the taste of righteous anger and even more righteous hatred - directed, of course, towards the safe (and encouraged) target of women that see through it and just won't play along.

why do you people like gender so much? it's annoying

[The Bi-Monthly, Vol. 3 #3, 1979]

Thank you! I'm currently reading (Un)kind by Victoria Smith on a recommendation from here, and it's incredible just how much weaponised kindness from female socialisation has weakened us as a class.

I think it's also important to remember that few women would even recognise throwing other women under the bus for "acceptable feminism."

I know that I was abused, and when I was safe, I sought out therapy. It was that work with my therapist that allowed me to see just how bad it was. When she first mentioned that I was made to constantly question my reality, that sounded absolutely absurd. To cut a long story short, with her help, I ended up realising that I didn't just "need a little support," I had CPTSD and the abuse was horrendous.

Going through that shifted my perspective about feminism. Patriarchy and female oppression is that abuse, but on a global scale and spread across every woman in different ways.

The reason that I mention all that is that abuse survivors sometimes can't see the abuse that they're going through. They don't even register that they're avoiding words or phrases. They might not even recognise how much of their perspective has been deliberately warped by their abuser(s). It might not even occur to them that putting themselves first is even an option.

When that's scaled up and made much more subtle, and the patriarchy works to whisper more manipulation, it's not a surprise that there are a fair number of women who are trapped by "be kind!"

Feminism is only kind to women. We can choose or not to be compassionate and supportive of men, but the point of feminism is to be technically unkind by taking away things that men have felt entitled to for so long. It's not a surprise that the patriarchy is obsessed with ensuring that we know that we're supposed to be the kind ones.

The greatest trick of the patriarchy was to teach countless generations of women to be kind.

We can talk about statistics all day long, but the weaponisation of our compassion is what keeps us on our knees.

When we see studies about violence, the immediate reaction is but men can be victims, too, and examples like that are why the false ideas of the patriarchy hurts men, too and feminism is for everybody are so prevalent. Women have been so broken down by generations upon generations of manipulation through be kind that is feels wrong, that it feels psychologically painful to centre ourselves.

Instead of women being able to come together and fight for our rights as one, this malicious forced compassion makes us sideline and silence ourselves, with the reward being tricked into feeling like I'm a good and selfless person. When women dare to centre ourselves and put ourselves first reasonably, then we're gaslit into believing that we're being selfish, cruel and even violent, and when other women snap and snarl, tired of our treatment, then they're entirely dismissed as being any modern version of hysteric.

Men like to hide behind the idea that we're the manipulative ones that psychologically damage, but without a thousand generations of men reinforcing that we should think again and actually have kindness and compassion for others, women as a whole would be able to see through the blinders of oppression.

After all, to be anti-prostitution has been reframed as hating sex workers.

Fighting against systemic violence and rape against women is ignoring male victims and supporting female perpetrators.

Protecting female-only spaces is excluding a vulnerable minority's right to exist.

Few ordinary women want to be made to feel like they're hateful or cruel. As soon as we talk about women's issues, examples of individual men are brought up, and women are tricked into talking about them by either proving how kind we are ("of course I don't want anyone to be raped, male victims deserve help!") to distract us from our issues and re-centre men again, or women dismiss that obviously malicious call for compassion ("feminism isn't about men, sort your own issues out!") and then men use it as a reason as to why feminism is evil, because anything without kindness and compassion is wrong.

Women need to be taught that it's not unkind to put ourselves first, and that men use our compassion against us.

In feminism, our kindness and compassion must be reserved for our fellow women.

Women can be kind and compassionate to men in their private lives if they want, but that isn't part of feminism - and they need to be reminded that they won't get that kindness and compassion returned.

As an indigenous person, every time a white trans person talks about their “genocide” I’m gonna just start posting facts about an actual genocide that happened in America.

a small reminder to questioning people that it’s okay to read opinions you don’t agree with. there’s nothing immoral about reading and considering what other people have to say. taking in information and learning is not in itself a transgression and your beliefs won’t be shaken by reading things unless you do, in fact, think that they are accurate, which is okay and you should be free to explore that further without anyone breathing down your neck. 

anyone who attempts to make you believe that you can’t read things said by certain people is trying to control you, because they know that alternative opinions could cause some people to stray from being under the influence of their own group, and they don’t care about these individuals’ well-being at all, only their own status and how many people will uncritically listen to everything they say. 

it’s always okay to question. there’s nothing you aren’t allowed to think about. 

Seven Falls, Santa Barbara 𖦹 April 2025

real talk: how could people get off to their partners being hurt in bed. i don't even want to entertain that though. it's awful. it's sickening. whoever is into violent pornography or sexual acts should be executed. why is it not okay in any general setting but the moment it's in bed it's okay.