list of feminist horror books for all my radblr horror fans!!
if you're sick of misogyny/rape scenes/sexualized murder in male written horror, these books are for you! all of these come with varying levels of trigger warnings, so i highly recommend looking them up before you dive in!
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a classic. most people look over the clearly feminist theme to only remember the Creature, but it's a heart wrenching feminist book about autonomy, misogyny, with pretty significant religious misogyny undertones
-Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado will always and forever be on my all time favorite books list. it's a collection of short stories, but the first one is the absolute best, called The Husband Stitch. she's such a gorgeous writer, The Husband Stitch especially is so haunting and heartbreaking, telling the story of a woman's life marrying and having kids, and what her husband takes from her, and just generally a representation of married women's pain and oppression.
-Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth is addictive. also incorporates marriage themes and complex i cities but deals especially with female "paranoia" and "hysteria" (quotes bc we know those concepts are man made for women and forced onto us). it has this domestic aesthetic that's very creepy and also just very cool
-Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung. ohhhhh my. i'm in love with this author, she's so incredible. Cursed Bunny is a short story collection that deals with misogyny, generational trauma, aging as a woman, and even delves into being kink critical if you're keen at interpretation. she's from South Korea, and also deals a lot in Korean culture and Korea-specific misogyny. it is translated to english, so unfortunately i will always mourn the writing style of it in original Korean but it's still written so beautifully!
-Hangsaman and The Haunting of Hill House both by Shirley Jackson. i'm sorry to clump them both together but for the sake of space + time i will. they're both gradual-horror, they definitely build. a lot of female hysteria type stuff, female loneliness, just generally such a good, creepy vibe that culminates in a truly scary ending.
-Maeve Fly by CJ Leede. a lot of people here on radblr call for truly insane female leads. this is that book! the main character is truly just a bad person, a psychopath, and she isn't moralized or justified in any way. she is allowed to just be crazy and evil without being diluted because she's a woman. women don't tend to get to be evil--truly evil--in media like men do, so it's cool to see a true madwoman. it's very witty, very clever. it's also a love letter to LA in a way, which hit home for me lmao. it's really just a peek into the mind of a psychopathic woman and the crazy stuff she does. very entertaining. not for the faint of heart.
-Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester is sooo good. i don't normally get too jumpy about my horror, but this one had me looking up every two seconds to make sure i was safe. genuinely very scary. it's got heavy mother daughter themes, it's primarily about the demureness and politeness expected of women and girls. the "pretty smile" thing is obviously a reference to catcalling, but also to the expectation that we should always be pretty and polite and content and demure. it's a lot of women just breaking free and going mad.
-A Guest in the House by EM Carol. i read this one online and then NEEDED to own it so bad i bought it immediately. it is a graphic novel so a slightly different medium, but the art is so stunning and moving. it's also got marriage themes, about repressed lesbianism, women's desires etc etc. it's so good and beautiful and moving
-Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica is another short story collection. not necessarily all horror, but most. i had to read this one twice it was so good. it's harder to talk about short story collections because there's so many different plots and themes, but trust me, it's fantastic
-The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert. it's a bit more rudimentary writing, but it's so so so good. it captures girlhood so wonderfully, especially the whimsical, daydream part and equally the dark, insane, human-sacrifices-with-barbie-dolls parts of that makes any sense. it's about goddesses and monsters and dreams and girlhood and the trauma of growing up a girl and it's marvelous
-A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers. not exactlyyyy a horror but kinda?? it's about a female cannibal who kills and eats her lovers. it's hilarious, like laugh out loud until the people around you stare hilarious. the main character is so witty and man hating and cool. she's a misandrist icon, just so suave and clever and ruthless.
i'll reblog with more books as i find and read them! :)
Respectfully, bisexuality is a sexuality and not automatically a political performance.
A woman can't "claim" bisexuality and then have sex with both women and men. She just is bisexual.
Considering patriarchy, the way that men pressure and coerce women to "settle down with a man," the common self-hatred that bisexual women feel - including the fear that by existing and having feelings for other women, we might harm them because being bisexual is somehow "unclean" in some way - it's not fair at all to squint at bisexual women accuse them of being "exploitative and fetishistic."
There is also the very simple, very human situation of a bisexual woman having consensual, no/low-strings attached sex with another woman, that fizzling out, and then coming across a man that she clicks with and starts a relationship with.
Or are we saying that a bisexual woman who is rejected by a lesbian and then who eventually partners with a man is somehow offensive for... some hypothetical lesbian hypothetically thinking, "Actually, she's not for me because I want a girlfriend who loves rockclimbing and she prefers walking on the beach"?
I don't know how there's anything feminist about accusing bisexual women, the ones who are fetishised by men as being hypersexual and forever consenting, about being sexual deviants who exploit other women.
Even as a straight woman looking in from the outside, I can't help but be offended by women who claim bisexuality but say they are attracted to women and will fuck them but will only be in a committed relationship/partner up with a male. It seems exploitative and fetishistic.
Can reddit user "lesbianwithabeard" leave bisexuals out of their homophobic fetish?
Those fucks were the ones that pushed back any idea of bisexual confidence by screeching that bisexuality as a sexuality was automatically transphobic. They always latch on to actually oppressed groups to try and force others to feel sorry for them - and then immediately attack them afterwards for not grovelling enough at their feet.
No one owes anyone else dates or sex at any point ever. To claim otherwise is to be pro-rape. That's it.
Lesbians are more trans accepting than gay males yet I don't see tifs complain about "transphobic preferences" as much as tims do. I suspect it's because lesbians are more pressurized to be accepting than gay males are, and you know why.
This was sitting unfinished for months but I got it together and completed it in time for pride.
Edit (6/12/23): I believe only the first Joseph Ambrosini photo was confirmed to be taken the first night of the Stonewall riots; I couldn't find sources that indicated if the other photos were taken on that same night or not.
Too many bisexuals are allergic to admitting that they're just bisexual.
It's always been bad with bisexual self-hatred, but the rot worsened when the definition of bisexuality was eroded to "attracted to two or more genders" that allowed straight people entry.
I remember being at university years ago and seeing signs up saying what was essentially, "If you have close friends of more than one gender, you may be bisexual" as part of all this. I wish I was joking.
why did none of you tell me that India Willyboy said he was ABDUCTED BY ALIENS AND EXPERIMENTED ON
I guess if you believe a man can become a woman you can believe anything
So a TIF who, in that very screenshot, calls herself a "gay man" and therefore outs herself as being a homophobic heterosexual who fetishises gay men is the fault of bisexual liberals?
bisexual liberals have achieved levels of homophobia that the Westboro Baptist Church could only ever dream of
It might sound strange, but peaking about gender helped me to accept my bisexuality, understand feminism and start me on a real path to understand that I'm a person whose actual consent matters.
When I was younger and unsure (and quite hateful about) my bisexuality, and thoughtlessly repeated some feminist talking points, I ignored all of my doubts because they know better. At first, I didn't know why I was uncomfortable and upset about the push for bisexual women to accept being in sapphic relationships with males. Or why it was transphobic for a bisexual woman to not date/have sex with a TIM. Etc etc etc.
I doubted myself and my upset until I saw the sexual harassment of lesbians, and others that were much more intelligent and switched on than myself pointing out the lesbophobia and rape promotion and apologism, as well as the repeated, underlined anger about sexuality and consent.
It was first my outrage about lesbians (and, to a much lesser extent, gay men) that made me realise, wow, my sexuality doesn't implicitly suggest consent, which then made me sit back and actually consider how other women were fawning to avoid the rage and lesbophobia and biphobia and doxxing and rape and death threats, which then spread further to understanding my existence as a woman.
There's a stereotypical and misogynistic point that men bring up about how feminists are always miserable and obsessed about oppression, as if it ruins us somehow, but it absolutely does feel more grounding.
You spend your whole life isolated and only allowed crumbs of sanitised and safe "feminism," to the point where you dismiss every slight and every harm, from the mansplaining to the assaults as random or bad luck or whatever else, and then suddenly, you're not crazy or oversensitive anymore, you're able to understand it.
As twisted as it sounds, it's grounding and peaceful, too. If you can break free and question the so-called holy right of males taking everything female for themselves, when family members, friends, the media, charities and even governments promote it all as progressive, then you can question everything, and there's no more empowering start to a journey than that.
Does anyone else feel more grounded since becoming gc. I'm no longer being asked to ignore my instincts, my emotions, and the reality around me in favour of a constant "religious" trial. I used to be so disassociated, but now I can just point out the obvious and not feel like I'm going to burn in hell for it lmao. Lots of religious words in here but you get it. I mean it when I say tras are spiritual. You have to be to ignore reality that much. And it feels just as good when you deconvert.
Naoki Ito: Urban Nature (2009)
‼️Good news for today‼️
Polish trans people will no longer have to literally SUE THEIR PARENTS to get their gender marker changed!
This is huge!!!