fixyourfeminism - Tumblr blog

[fixyourfeminism]

no phrase is gendered; every phrase is gendered; is the person using the phrase engaging with a regime of gendering? does the person being addressed feel gendered by the phrase? or, better: is the person speaking structuring their phrases to inflict discomfort and distress? does the person being spoken to feel discomfort or distress? are you interested in instrumentally using claims that fragments of language have essential properties to defend a practice of care, or will you instead focus on defending the practice of care on its own merits?

[fixyourfeminism]

Lenin the real life historical figure is a he, the egregore of Lenin as a modern day tumblr blogger is a she

[fixyourfeminism]

misandry isn't real. no man on earth is oppressed on the basis of his being a man and not for some other factor, because there is not a place or a society on earth where a system of social forces exists to privilege some other gender category at the expense of men. this is basic social theory. any argument to the contrary is sophistry and wordplay. science denial isn't cuter when it's a social science. you people are so incredibly, willfully stupid, jesus, fucking delete your blogs

[fixyourfeminism]

i was reading about that influencer who groomed and trafficked several young women (not andrew tate) and most articles mainly focus on the "exciting" parts of kat torres' fancy lifestyle and the novelty of a beautiful lady pimp, but what stood out to me is that those women very explicitly said that the prostitution laws in texas were a major part of keeping them trafficked. the threat of their own criminalisation and the fact no one could be in any contact with them without risking a felony (letting an 'established prostitute' into your car can be enough) is what prevented them from escaping even after the abuse was so severe the grooming wasn't keeping them at heel anymore. it's been said many times but the way a sex trafficking victim can openly say the state's laws were aiding her trafficker and keeping her in that situation indefinitely if her family's efforts hadn't resulted in being rescued from the outside and it'll still be fully glossed over in all the discourse about the case is nuts. i can't think of a more dire indictment

[fixyourfeminism]

A poster of a female cadre photographed by Christian Freund. Source: Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG).

Women’s Liberation

A striking aspect of the popular revolutionary movement in Dhufar was the PFLOAG’s commitment to the liberation of women, a policy that was adopted at the 1968 Hamrin Conference. The PFLOAG believed that the liberation of women was central to the success of the revolution which would not come about automatically but through a sustained struggle against the “objective backwardness” of society.  1 The Dhufar Revolution was influenced by Maoist thought, including on the equality of female cadres, popularised through Mao’s famous declaration that “women can hold up half the sky”.  2 Women’s political participation in the armed struggle alongside men was deemed an important aspect of equality while specific policies were later implemented in the liberated areas to transform the social position of women, such as the banning of female circumcision, polygyny, and the reduction of the bride price after unsuccessful attempts to abolish it completely.

The PFLOAG’s policies remarkably challenged the “unhappy marriage” between feminism and Marxism, as conceptualised by the Western feminist scholar Heidi Hartmann in 1979 – in other words, the tension between women’s liberation and national liberation. 3 The PFLOAG recognised the double oppression faced by women, both in terms of their position as women in relation to men, and in terms of their position as women in relation to the economic system. Attracted to the PFLOAG’s radical position, the Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour travelled to Dhufar in 1971, capturing documentary footage of women fighters later used in her 1974 film The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (Saat El Tahrir Dakkat). 4

I was a defeated feminist in Lebanon. The Lebanese Left was not interested in feminist issues and kept closing the subject under various pretexts, one being that the women will be free when the main enemy, Imperialism, is defeated. […] I couldn’t believe my ears when the representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf opened the subject of women from his own initiative and proudly said that the Front was fighting against women’s oppression — because women were not just oppressed by imperialism and class society, but also by their father, husband, brothers. I dropped my other film projects and put all my energy into making this film.  5”

— Heiny Srour on The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived

The campaigns for, and implementation of, the above mentioned policies came through the initiatives of revolutionary women, the Bahraini cadre Laila Fakhro (Huda Salem) for example pushed the PFLOAG to ban female circumcision and limit the bride price. 6 Laila Fakhro also played an important role in the revolution through political education, teaching, care-work, women’s activities, and the PFLOAG’s media and foreign relations. 7 The PFLOAG’s other main periodical, 9 Yunyu (9 June), was a monthly magazine which preceded Sawt al-Thawra’s founding, set up in June 1970 by Laila Fakhro and Abdel Rahman al-Nuaimi (Said Seif). 8

Sawt al-Thawra promoted women’s political participation in armed struggle, drawing parallels to female fighters such as Vietnamese women and thereby placing the PFLOAG’s revolutionary women in the wider tradition of the revolutionary Third World. The periodical highlighted and documented women’s protest, arrests and mistreatment of women and girls by the British-backed regime, and women’s internationalist activities. Women’s representatives and delegations took part in many regional and international conferences, prior to and after the official establishment of the Omani Women’s Organisation in June 1975, a committee headed by Wafa Yasser.

The first official visit by an Omani women’s delegation, comprising Nadia Khaled and Huda Muhad, took place in July 1975 in a symposium on women’s economic development organised by the Soviet Women’s Committee in Alma-Ata, Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Following this trip to the Soviet Union, the delegation visited the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at the invitation of the Women’s Federation of Vietnam. 9 These encounters were important for producing strong ties of solidarity, the exchange of experiences and ideas, and direct engagement with a major source of their own inspiration, the Vietnamese people’s struggle. Most significantly, these material links demonstrate that Dhufar was not a detached revolution in a little-known and distant part of the Gulf, but one that was globally connected and which importantly placed emphasis on women’s political participation.

[fixyourfeminism]

A response from a reader to this post-

A Story from the former fighters of the PFLOAG. Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf

At first, it took a lot of convincing on my part to get them to open up about their experiences, mainly because I assume the government kept harassing the members even after the revolutionary efforts ended in '75. I think many of them thought I was just another undercover agent questioning them, but I managed to convince them it was just out of interest.

They mentioned a name that is quite ubiquitous in the southern province of Dhofar: Tafool Sahal. Tafool Sahal was one of the fighters, and I believe she was the first woman to be martyred in the entire revolution. She was a member of the Women's Detachment and had the duty of guarding the brigade's camp and the schools of the Front all the way to the west, near the border. The detachment was ambushed and came under heavy fire and aerial bombings in an area called Hauf. Tafool Sahal held her position in the battle and did her best to fight off the imperialist forces for hours on end. Despite orders from high-ranking officials of the Front to retreat, she kept her post and defended the detachment and the refugees of the camp until she was shot and injured and had to change position. She was eventually killed in a valley.

She kept the imperialist forces busy and gave another detachment the opportunity to move approximately 400 people—comprised of injured fighters, children, civilians, and students of the revolution—to a safer area. The story says the Women's Detachment went on a search mission to look for her, and they found her body in the valley, still carrying her rifle. They dug a grave next to where she died and buried her there. Tafool Sahal's burial site is still visited to this day by many people. The other names the fighters mentioned were Fatma Mas'ood, Muna Salem, Fatma Ghannana, Noor Awadh, and many others that I unfortunately cannot remember right now and whose stories I do not know.

[fixyourfeminism]

Totally fascinated by the number of people who are essentially saying "I would not be upset by seeing sex but it Broke The Rules so I would be." Also the number of people who are specifically saying it's a matter of "i didn't consent to see somebody's kink" in an entirely hypothetical situation where they just happened to stumble across two people fucking somewhere. They not only attribute a quality of premeditated calculation by pervert voyeurs to trick unsuspecting members of the public to see them having sex to the simple scenario of "there are two people having sex", but they also phrase it as though bearing witness to sexual deviance is what is harmful and not the simple act of the sex alone.

Cannot stop thinking about that one reply where somebody said they were more offended by a gay man getting his pits licked in the club than they were two people straight up fucking in the corner. And the other poll I made where over 20% of people said exhibitionist sex is inherently wrong even if nobody sees it.

The issue isn't about the actual harm being done to so many people. Hell, me getting told I deserved to be sexually abused and raped and shit illustrates the outrage is the simple idea at all. But the logic, the thought process being used to work this out, is not in regards to whether or not anyone actually gets hurt or affected in any way at all. It's this metaphysical ruleset. It's about whether or not the intentions and personal thoughts are Impure, and unfalsifiably attributing this Impurity to the vaguest concept of hypothetical people.

Absolutely fucking bizarre. Desperately hope all of you think about this way fucking harder and assess your biases.

[fixyourfeminism]

TAKEAWAYS:

We are in the biggest Covid surge in the US in at least two years

Time to wear a mask in crowded spaces (personally, I'd recommend one in all indoor public spaces and crowded outdoor spaces)

Immunity has waned and the new variant is 'distinctly more challenging to our immune system'

Updated boosters should be available the week of September 1st

The US needs to invest more in nasal vaccine programs, and should have already - this is the thing that could help actually get us out of the woods.

We are continuing to see more folks develop Long Covid even from mild infections

You should just read the article it's not that long but that's the run down

Me Editorializing: Let’s protect and care for ourselves and each other!

[fixyourfeminism]

Feminist Standpoint Theory

Standpoint Epistemology in General. Standpoint theories claim to represent the world from an epistemically advantaged socially situated perspective. A complete standpoint theory must specify (i) the social location of the advantaged perspective, (ii) its scope: the subject matters over which it claims advantage, (iii) the aspect of the social location that generates epistemic advantage: for example, social role, or subjective identity; (iv) the ground of its advantage: what justifies its claim to superiority; (v) the type of epistemic superiority it claims: for example, greater accuracy, or greater ability to represent fundamental truths; (vi) the other perspectives relative to which it claims advantage, and (vii) modes of access to that perspective: is occupying the social location necessary or sufficient for getting access to the perspective? Many limited claims to epistemic advantage on behalf of particular perspectives are uncontroversial. Auto mechanics are in a better position than auto consumers to know what is wrong with their cars. Practical experience in fulfilling the mechanic’s role grounds mechanics’ epistemic advantage, which claims superior reliability.

Standpoint theories usually claim that the perspectives of subordinated social groups have an epistemic advantage regarding politically contested topics related to their subordination, relative to the perspectives of the groups that dominate them. Classically, standpoint theory claims that the standpoint of the subordinated is advantaged (1) in revealing fundamental social regularities; (2) in exposing social arrangements as contingent and susceptible to change through concerted action; and (3) in representing the social world in relation to universal human interests. By contrast, dominant group standpoints represent only surface social regularities in relation to dominant group interests, and misrepresent them as necessary, natural, or universally advantageous.

Marxist Standpoint Theory. Marxism offers the classic model of standpoint theory, claiming an epistemic advantage over fundamental questions of social science and history, on behalf of the standpoint of the proletariat (Marx 1964, Lukács 1971). Workers attain this standpoint by gaining collective consciousness of their role in the capitalist system. In virtue of their oppression, they have an interest in the truth about whose interests capitalism serves. In virtue of their centrality, they have experiential access to the fundamental relations of capitalist production. In virtue of their practical productive activity, they represent it in terms of use values (labor values), which are the terms in which the fundamental laws of economics and history are expressed. In virtue of their standing as the agents for the universal class they will become under communism, they represent the social world in relation to universal human interests. (Capitalists, by contrast, represent the world ideologically in superficial (exchange value) and parochial (class interested) terms.) Finally, the collective self-consciousness of the workers involves, like all successful intentional action, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Workers’ collective insight into their common predicament and the need to overcome it through revolutionary action generates a self-understanding which, when acted upon, gets realized. The epistemic advantage of the standpoint of the proletariat is thus also grounded in the epistemic privilege that autonomous agents have over what they are consciously doing.

Grounds of Feminist Standpoint Theory. Feminist standpoint theory claims that the standpoint of women has an epistemic advantage over phenomena in which gender is implicated, relative to theories that make sexist or androcentric assumptions. Variants of feminist standpoint theory ground this epistemic advantage in different features of women’s social situation, by analogy with different strands of Marxist epistemology.

Centrality. Marxist feminists, such as Hartsock (1987) and Rose (1987) focus on women’s centrality to the system of reproduction—of childrearing and caring for bodies. Because women tend to the needs of everyone in the household, they are in a better position than men to see how patriarchy fails to meet people’s needs. Men, in virtue of their dominant position, can ignore how patriarchy undermines subordinates’ interests.

Collective self-consciousness. MacKinnon (1989) argues that men constitute women as women by sexually objectifying them, i.e., by representing their natures as essentially sexually subordinate to men and treating them accordingly. Women unmask these ideological misrepresentations by achieving and acting on a shared understanding of themselves as women—as a group unjustly constituted by sexual objectification. Through collective feminist actions in which women refuse to act as sexual objects—as in campaigns against sexual harassment and rape— women show that representations of women as sexual objects are not natural or necessary. Their privileged knowledge is collective agent self-knowledge, made true by being put into action in feminist campaigns.

Cognitive style. Some early versions of standpoint theory (Flax 1983, Hartsock 1987, Rose 1987) accept feminist object relations theory, which explains the development of gender identity in male and female children raised by female caregivers. Males acquire a masculine identity by distinguishing themselves from their mothers, through controlling and denigrating the feminine. Females acquire their gender identity through identification with their mothers, blurring boundaries between self and other. Males and females thereby acquire distinct cognitive styles. The masculine cognitive style is abstract, theoretical, emotionally detached, atomistic, and oriented toward control or domination. The feminine cognitive style is concrete, practical, emotionally engaged, relational, and oriented toward care. These cognitive styles are reinforced by the gendered division of labor—men having a near monopoly on positions of political, economic, and military power calling for detachment and control; and women being assigned to emotional care for others. The feminine cognitive style claims epistemic advantage because ways of knowing based on caring for everyone’s needs produce more valuable representations than ways of knowing based on domination (Hartsock 1987). Institutionalizing feminine ways of knowing requires overcoming the division of mental, manual, and caring labor that characterizes capitalist patriarchy (Rose 1987).

Oppression. Women have an interest in representing social phenomena in ways that reveal their oppression. They also have personal experience of sexist oppression, unlike men, whose power enables them to ignore how their actions affect women. If epistemic advantage is grounded in oppression, the multiply oppressed have additional epistemic authority. Thus, Collins (1990) grounds black feminist epistemology in black women’s personal experiences of racism and sexism. She uses this epistemology to supply black women with self-representations that enable them to resist demeaning racist and sexist images of black women, and to take pride in their identities. The epistemic advantage of the oppressed is sometimes founded on“bifurcated consciousness”: the ability to see both from the perspective of the dominant and from the perspective of the oppressed (Harding 1991, Collins 1990).

Access to the Feminist Standpoint. Every standpoint theory must explain how one gains access to it. Most standpoint theories represent the epistemically advantaged standpoint not as given, but as achieved through critical reflection on the power structures constituting group identities. If the group and its interests are defined objectively, the facts that constitute the group and its interests are publicly accessible. So anyone can theorize phenomena in relation to the interests of that group. However, if epistemic advantage lies in collective agent-knowledge, its site lies in the group defining itself as a collective agent. The privileged standpoint is not that of women, but of feminists (MacKinnon 1989). Men can participate in the feminist movement. But they cannot assume a dominant role in defining (hence knowing) its aims, given the feminist interest in overcoming male dominance.

Goals of Feminist Standpoint Theory. Feminist standpoint theory is a type of critical theory. Critical theories aim to empower the oppressed. To serve this aim, social theories must (a) represent the world in relation to the interests of the oppressed; (b) enable the oppressed to understand their problems; and (c) be usable by the oppressed to improve their condition. Claims of superiority for critical theories are thus fundamentally based on pragmatic virtues (Harding 1991, Hartsock 1996).

[fixyourfeminism]

People in the comments are saying it's her fault she's with him, no one else should feel obligated to help, etc etc etc but then you're all SHOCKED when a horrific abuse case like the Turpin family happened and neighbors didn't check on the kids despite suspecting something bad was happening.

It's like there's no sense of community among anyone and this is portrayed as a good thing...until the worst happens.

[fixyourfeminism]

[fixyourfeminism]

Performance durante la funa al acto pinochetista de ayer, graficando cómo se torturaba en dictadura.

Fotografías con sus respectivos créditos en ellas.

[fixyourfeminism]

I think its really funny when people get mad at the pro-hairy pussy posts on this site (yes including posts hating on bald pussy) and take an angle of “wow everyone is being so weird about shaving now and its so wrong to judge peoples choices like this” because like. Okay. Either you dont fuck or go outside, or you have been doing whats expected of you so long you have no idea how people who dont make the same choice as you are mistreated. Because so many people ESPECIALLY MEN are still convinced simply having body hair is unhygienic and will shame and dehumanize anyone who has it in the most vile and unnecessary way. Like youre seeing so many of these vehement bush or die posts BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE PUSHING BACK AGAINST THAT NOTION its not happening in a vacuum but once again tumblr users are out of touch with what actually happens on planet earth

If you like shaving: congrats, there are millions of people who would not accept you any other way

[fixyourfeminism]

You can make one post on here that's like "I really hate that women are expected to shave" and out come the 1 million people who all tell you they need to shave for sensory reasons

[fixyourfeminism]

[fixyourfeminism]

i don’t get the point of the demure trend it also took a lot of explaining to me and reading an article about its origins to even get what it was. i hate the word demure it’s so 1950s woman suffering under suburban heteropatriarchy vibes. im normally a let people enjoy things type person but come on why that word

[fixyourfeminism]

i mean they werent just 'accounting' for the idea though their post implied they actually assumed that. why can't we all just not assume anything about each others' genders if we dont know each other

one time i was at a gas station with my long hair and boy shirt and baggy woman's pants and i saw a tall girl in a lovely dress walk in. i smiled and we made eye contact and we silently assessed that we were both transfem and talked for a bit about dresses and purses and partners and went on our way. im very glad she did not look at me and think "who knows what this person is i will not make any guesses" because otherwise i wouldnt have had this nice moment and instead we would have silently let each other pass and both felt a little more alone than we really were.

so like. idk. maybe trust trans women to have a grasp of what their kind looks like.