Anything That Moves (Summer, 1991)

This is exactly what I mean.

There isn't an either/or choice that has to be made here. It is entirely possible to criticise that socialisation, explain the risks and strongly encourage women not to partner with men, as well as be there for them if they make that choice anyway, because we're supposed to be feminists and support all women, even if the choices that they make are anti-feminist.

Pretending that me basically saying "let's actually be feminists and remember just how strong a drug female socialisation is, so maybe don't be misogynistic and victim-blame women that get abused" is the same as "never speak against that harmful socialisation" is just ridiculous.

It's reasonable to feel frustrated sometimes when it comes to women still partnering with men, but the rush there is to attack them and blame them for patriarchy grinding them down enough to partner with men despite knowing feminist theory personally sickens me.

And I don't want to hear any version of "but you shouldn't be criticising women when men do..." because if feminists don't keep our house in order and can't even show the basics of compassion over that, the cornerstone of what patriarchy wants, then we may as well roll over and show men the white flag. There's no hope for women if feminists can't even be kind and offer grace to other women.

I love how the concept of female socialisation and patriarchy completely disappears out of the window for some feminists as soon as straight (and some bisexual) women cave into getting into relationships with men.

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.

Rainforest~~☆

(x)

i promise it is not subversive or satirical to be a caricature of what men think of women. they don't get the "joke" you are literally just reinforcing those beliefs

'but-but bsdm and violent sex doesn't affect anybody!' yes it does. now girls who want to be seen as attractive and loved normally by their partner in bed is considered a 'puritan' and 'vanilla'. they are shamed and routinely made fun for liking something normal by people irl and in the media.

BBC News

Trans former judge to challenge Supreme Court's gender ruling

Victoria McCloud, who stepped down last year, said the judgement had violated her human rights.

I hate this. They can't stop themselves from doing everything that they can to destroy women's rights. It's narcissism all the way down.

My favourite quotes from him:

"The Supreme Court failed in my view, adequately, to think about human rights points."

Because women's rights mean nothing, but men's entitlements are suddenly human rights.

"[This judgement] has left me two sexes at once, which is a nonsense and ironic, because the Supreme Court said that sex was binary," said Dr McCloud. "I am a woman for all purposes in law, but [now under this judgement] I'm a man for the Equality Act 2010. So I have to probably guess on any given occasion which sex I am."

There is no guessing. He's biologically male. He's deliberately obfuscating because he has a Gender Recognition Certificate.

"I am now expected to use male spaces. I have female anatomy. It isn't safe for women to use the men's loos. It is as simple as that."

I don't know what to say to this level of delusion.

The fight never ends. It's exhausting. Just leave women alone.