#but i don't like misogyny

[cosmics-beings]

i feel like, in attempting to pin a single "ultimately guilty party" between starscream and megatron, people seem to miss that their story is one of the cycle of abuse. they both perpetrate violence that they were exposed to, as a result of or way to cope with their own trauma. this is a very real phenomenon. i still remember when i was about nine or ten and realized that my abuser's mother was also like that, and he was probably just repeating the way he was raised. its not an excuse for any parties involved. people can be both victims and perpetrators of abuse and neither role diminishes the other. their own abuse is still traumatizing, and the abuse they inflict on others is also still traumatizing. you cant pin one person in the cycle as "ultimately at fault" and absolve everyone else of guilt. people are more complicated than that.

also yeah i bet if nova and fem!skywarp were TC and masc!skywarp like in the og, people would be like nooo how can he treat his trine that way-- but people dont care about nova and fem!warp. they see starscream mistreating them and just shrug. fans have a problem with being unable to assign interiority to female characters unless guided there, so i suspect fans are just... not thinking about how that treatment would affect the girls. if it were a male character being mistreated they'd go "nooo he's gonna let that affect his self worth" or something but fans never really do this for female characters, they just take everything at face value. like oh she was kicked. huh. hey starscream is on screen again

I think ultimately, this is exactly what Earthspark is trying to do, I just don't really think the fandom caught that, which would be okay if there weren't a lot of harmful thoughts being perpetrated that skewed victims.

This is why, despite people being upset that Megatron has a redemption arc in Earthspark, I'm glad he does. Because he is also an abuse victim, he has to live with the trauma, and now he is breaking that cycle or can, in his own way. Because now he also has support and family. He doesn't have to fight, he doesn't have to exist in an abusive dynamic or relationship. He's free.

Likewise, Starscream is also breaking that cycle. But it only works if you acknowledge it. That's why I absolutely hated people attempting to argue away the fact that Starscream were abusive to Skywarp and Nova, because this is a cycle of abuse, that needs to be broken and you cannot sit there and try to act like it doesn't happen.

Because the wider part of the episode is that both Megatron and Starscream, who were victims of abuse and hurt each other, and other people, literally DECIDED to end it there. I think that Earthspark is trying to show us that, that abuse is far more complex, especially when you have two people who are victims of abuse and acting out because of it.

They both decided to stop, and to do better. And in order for that to work, you have to also acknowledge that it's a cycle and in a cycle, everyone is to blame when they start hurting others. This isn't excusing Megatron and it's certainly not excusing Starscream.

and :Re the misogyny regarding skywarp and nova--it just gets me really upset. Because it was a teaching moment and the fandom missed it. not only did they miss it they tried to explain away why that was okay, why him treating them the way he did (which is probably something starscream did for YEARS!) was okay. Like again, that is the cycle that is being perpetrated that you literally cannot ignore or attempt to excuse. And it was such a perfect teaching moment for the fans and they ignored it.

Most fandoms, no matter how progressive they claim to be aren't really going to care about female characters especially if they're used in a male character's narrative. Hashtag is usually just reduced to propping up Starscream, and Nova and Warp are just seen as extension of his narrative, which is literally what happens with female character.

The episode was spelled out plain as day that the way he treated them wasn't okay and he needed to be held accountable, but like you said, people just shrugged.

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[trans-androgyne]

Yes, trans men and mascs have historically been subjected to less public violence and ridicule than trans women and fems. Is having privilege really the only reason you can think of for that? Have you considered that they had less ability to be publicly visible in the first place? Please remember that the lack of autonomy women have historically been granted also applies to transmascs. They would have been considered the property of men. Spousal rape wasn't illegal everywhere in my country until 1993. How easy do you think it would be for forcibly impregnated transmascs to transition? For abused transmascs in general? Do you think they were all even allowed out of the house often without a man? There are so many stories of transmascs being forcibly institutionalized for being trans. Is that situation and otherwise being quietly abused and erased really so much better than hypervisibility?

[silver-horse]

it's fascinating that those biphobes compare women liking astarion to women liking legolas and they mention a popular post that says "I never understood why so many straight women are into legolas. what do you think he is going to do? top you?" they bring this post up like some sort of proof "haha. so right. so true."

EXCEPT the notes on that popular post are filled with THOUSANDS of women commenting "no. I am gonna top him" and "bold of you to assume women can't top" and a lot of them are bisexual women commenting "I am bi and I only like men who look like a girl lol" honestly relatable Lmao

they act like that shitpost is pointing out some truth about how those women are silly. but the replies on that post show the stupidity of that assumption. people really don't get that feminine looking women don't just want to be rough handled by some masculine dude. and people have varied tastes and sexual desires. there is so much misogyny all tangled up in the biphobia. but it's subtle in a way that they don't notice their views on these matters are flawed because even when we point out what's wrong with these gender essentialist stereotypes, they ignore it and treat it as a joke "haha you all act like we wanted to behead bisexuals"

[thisismisogynoir]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[wishesofeternity]

The thing about HotD is that it while it absolutely minimizes the agency and ambition of both Rhaenyra and Alicent, this is specifically used to glorify Rhaenyra and frame her as righteous while condemning Alicent and framing her lacking. That's the key difference in both their textual portrayals that has directly led to 90% of the fandom hailing Rhaenyra as the second coming of Christ while spewing the most hateful vitriol at Alicent just for existing. But y'all are not prepared for that conversation.

[hollow-dweller]

i think it's time for fandom to accept that some AUs are simply A Bad Idea. your lilo and stitch au with two white dudes is a bad idea. your portrait of a lady on fire au with men is a bad idea. your encanto au with a white family is a bad idea. culture and gender and race *matter* in many source texts, and erasing or appropriating that in order to see your two favourite white guys hug is, you guessed it, a bad fucking idea.

[lesbianchemicalplant]

I get that “you can just not wear makeup, it's okay to not wear makeup” can sometimes be the exact thing that someone needs to hear, or to be reassured about. but some people are really condescending about when and how they pull that out and who they say it to

like, there is a social reality of misogyny that women are punished for not appearing a certain way, with all the more severity as a function of class, racism, transmisogyny, etc.

that punishment can be the difference between employed and unemployed. having food and not having food. being treated as less competent and less worthy as a person not only by men, but also by other women and people of any gender in general

and tbh, it's especially fucked how some transmisogyny-exempt people say this to trans women, particularly toward those of us with facial hair / stubble that stands out very visibly from our skin. like a trans woman wearing makeup is obviously just too dumb, shallow, misogynistic, and femininity-obsessed to know better, so they take it upon themselves to remind her that “you can be a woman without wearing makeup! :)” in the same voice they use to tell a toddler that the mushy peas are good

do you think trans women wearing makeup while going to job interviews or working customer service positions (or even, yes, trying to exist in public life in general) are all just stuck-up assimilationists with Bad Ideas about gender? do you think it's only trans women with pointedly transmisogynistic values about “passing” who would ever wear makeup or dress a certain way to try to be treated less horribly by the world around us?

especially if you're vividly aware of how you yourself are punished for not wearing makeup—how do you not extend that awareness to other women? including other women who would pretty fucking obviously be treated even worse for it than you are? (how seriously have you considered that some women might be treated worse for it than you are? treated worse by someone like you, even?)

“you can just not wear makeup” “you don't need makeup, there's nothing about your face that needs fixing” okay well hiring managers will absolutely discriminate against me for not wearing makeup to job interviews, but thanks for enlightening me I guess

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Body Horror and Internalized Misogyny

This post showed up in my "for you" feed, and I commented that 63% of people have internalized misogyny, to which two other people asked how being afraid of getting pregnant was misogynistic, so I thought I would explain.

First, the option that the majority of people voted on was this: Pregnancy "sounds like unreal terrifying body horror". Not just something scary or dangerous, but body horror. So lets talk about that first.

Body horror comes from taking something normal and natural about the body and twisting it. Putting teeth where there should not be teeth. Grafting dozens of arms onto every part of the body. Faces in odd places. Limbs bending the wrong direction. Think Dark Souls et al.

Now, one could try to describe normal bodily processes as horrifying, but I wouldn't call this body horror. Take puberty, and all the crazy things your body goes through during it, or describe exactly how each organ keeps you alive in detail. Or take "Skeletons", by Ray Bradbury. This is a horror story in which a man feels aches in his bones and becomes convinces that his skeleton--all skeletons--are some form of Other, some entity inside people that is trying to get out. He describes seeing his wife's skeleton peering out of her mouth each time she smiles, and seeing the shape of people's bones poking out just below the skin.

The thing about this story is that the skeleton is not actually what is horrifying, but rather the man's phobia of the skeleton. It's one of those stories where the protagonist is clearly not in his right mind. It only veers into body horror once the inhuman doctor that first stoked his fears into a phobia shows up and sucks the skeleton out of the man, leaving a gasping, jelly-like mass with nothing to hold it up.

Body horror inherently comes from something being unnatural, something a body is not supposed to have or be able to do.

If one were to view a racial trait, such as more or less body hair, darker or lighter skin, or the presence or absence of epicanthic folds as horrifying, we would call that person racist. If they viewed their own racial traits as horrifying, we wold call that internalized racism.

So now we can circle back to pregnancy. True, pregnancy can be dangerous and scary, and one's body goes through some pretty crazy changes during and after it, but it's also something that female bodies have evolved to be able to do. The potential to become pregnant--the specific gametes and organs and hormones--is literally what makes a body female, at least for placental mammals like humans. Pregnancy is a normal, natural, uniquely and definitively female biological process.

You don't have to want to get pregnant, and it's totally fine to be scared about being pregnant. But to treat it as something unnatural, or as the original poll said, as "unreal terrifying body horror" is to see the capabilities of the female body as somehow Other and alien and twisted. That is misogyny. When women view our own bodies this way, it's internalized misogyny.

[blueskittlesart]

deeply refreshing to see someone critical of Swift who also like, genuinely likes her. Like i'm neutral to positive on her, but the online discourse has been absolutely rancid. flipping between "Taylor Swift has never done anything wrong ever and she's a fucking genius" and "Taylor Swift is the worst lyricist of all time and also a bad person" is exhausting, so thank you for like. nuance or something lmao

not to make it serious for a sec but i genuinely think that being able to like things that are bad is really important. like I think that it's an important skill to be able to look at something and see what you personally enjoy about it and then take a step back and acknowledge that objectively it's flawed. and to also be able to acknowledge that liking something isn't necessarily an identity or a moral stance. and i think that fandom space in general could really benefit from more people taking the time to learn how to do that. it's okay to like things that are bad

[separatist-apologist]

Feyre: Rhysand is my mate and I'm telling you this to your face.

Also Feyre: If you try and break my mating bond, I'm going to ruin your life.

Also Feyre: If you drag me back to Spring against my will, I'll destroy everything you love.

Tamlin: Break her mating bond so I can drag her back to Spring and we can start over.

Also Tamlin: I can't believe you destroyed everything I love and ruined my life!

[pregtboy]

wtf is it with so many preg kink blogs getting increasingly right wing and coming out as transphobes. i really do hate some of y'all

[sergle]

what I was talking abt earlier. we have fully looped back around and away from feminism, societally, whereas before it was very Feminism 101 to acknowledge that many parts of existing as a woman in a misogynistic society are painful and upsetting. not that being a woman is Inherently Negative in a bubble. but that living on this earth, in the conditions we're living in, is hostile to women. and that gender is a performance. that many of the Staples Of Femininity as accepted by society are things that you have to create and perform and mold artificially and aren't inherent, that COMPLAINING about day to day difficulties of existing as a woman is something that you're allowed to do. acknowledging these basic, again, feminism 101 things, that something tied to womanhood is more time consuming or more expensive or more dangerous Because Of The Problems. does not CREATE the problems. that when women complain about having to perform femininity, they are not, in fact, oppressing themselves. the call does not come from inside the fucking house. saying that you HAVE suffered does not fucking equate that you believe you SHOULD have suffered.

like I could talk about this for hours. how braindead and one-dimensional the Takes are getting. "being a woman is looking in the mirror and going fuck yeah i'm a woman" damn. I guess any negative experiences you have by living in a misogynistic world... are your fault if you are anything but positive? "you don't actually want liberation" we've fully gone back to telling feminists "you WANT to be oppressed" when anything negative about our society is pointed out. it's not real until I say it out loud, I guess, and then I'm actually the one who caused it. if anybody expresses any unhappiness with how they're treated or the status quo or the language and culture surrounding womanhood and femininity. they've created it, right that second. they invented it just now. it wasn't a problem before somebody complained, right? also trans women aren't braindead zombies who just follow the flow of whatever cis women around them say. I am pretty fucking sure they are very much aware of pain, and are MORE than aware of the swirling torrent of misogyny and standards of femininity than anybody else. actually. and I am pretty sure someone complaining on tumblr that being a woman means always putting on a performance is going to make someone change their mind about transitioning. also "performing femininity" as a necessity to being treated well as a woman is not fucking NEWS to your Local Trans Woman. I AM PRETTY SURE SHE GETS THE CONCEPT. using trans women as a scapegoat for this braindead perspective on gender politics is spineless, meritless, and pathetic.

[babsaros]

hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.

they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.

trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny. like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up. stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.

[uncanny-tranny]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I have really complex feelings about this, and much of it is inspired by my personal experiences and a bit of learning about what other trans people experience. If I come across as messy, it is because of these reasons.

There's this unshakable feeling I have that when allies and even other trans people talk about trans people, transition and motivation for transition, and anything related to such, that there's only certain things that x type of trans person can (and should) experience and talk about.

Like, when people talk about FtMs/trans men/transmasc people, a common idea is that we're motivated to transition to game the system, to manipulate people into treating us better because we're now seen as men. A huge reason I never even bought into that idea is because, since transition (especially medical), I have been treated worse than I ever have been. Since transitioning and being on testosterone, I've been catcalled, had people insist I hand my number over, and I have to emphasize that I've never experienced these things until a couple of years ago (to clarify, this was in my real, corporeal life). I honestly can say that, while transition has saved my life and soul, I am treated worse by others than I ever had been pre-transition. However, because the idea of transmascs is that "they were victims of misogyny and they only want to escape it through transition" is popular even among some trans people, I feel like it's almost... taking something away by acknowledging that. Add to this that I'm white and that TPoC have so many experiences that intertwine with race, and that race absolutely goes into how trans people are treated.

I am not saying that my experience is the only valid or true one. I am very aware that I'm probably an outlier. However, I just notice that, time and time again, people hear what they want to hear about transness, and if people have even slightly different points of view from their experiences, it doesn't matter, or worse, those people are duplicitous and conniving.

[hazel2468]

Something that I need people to understand, especially on this hellsite. Is that oppression does not depend on who you actually are.

It depends on how the world sees you.

If the world sees you as X identity. They will treat you as X identity, whether you are or not. If the world sees that you are not X identity, but they can use the oppression of X identity as a cudgel to make you act the way they want you to? They will use it.

Oppression is NOT dependent on who you actually are. It depends on how the world sees you. It depends on how people see you and what they decide to put on you because of that.

Oh. And when someone experiences a form of oppression that is NOT based in the reality of who they are? It's still that kind of oppression. It's not "misdirected"- it is still that kind of oppression being leveraged to maintain the current social climate.