#definition of feminism

[vexingwoman]

I love it. they couldn’t decide between the circular, non-functional definition of “a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman” and the sexist definition of “a woman is anyone who is feminine” so they just went with both.

[burningtheroots]

That‘s why I don’t trust crime statistics anymore. Although women‘s rates are already very low compared to men‘s, the fact that many TiMs are counted as women now, too, means that actual women‘s statistics are even lower.

[lem0nademouth]

when i say we need to believe in expertise again that includes removing sociology terms you don’t understand but have been dressed up as Social Justice Lingo from your vocabulary. i have a degree in sociology and it would still be irresponsible of me to use words like intersectionality outside of an academic setting because, at best, i’ve made my language less accessible, and at worst, i have spread misinformation by misusing that language. you’re not a sociologist and that’s fine. it’s not your job to do macro level analyses of society over coffee with your friends. the extent of your activism can be “be kind and compassionate and respectful”. that will do so much more than playing armchair scholar.

[uncanny-tranny]

The worst lie you can believe and be told is that women are emotional and men are logical, that men's, essentially, men's emotions are logical and neutral while women's are not, and are in fact frivolous and shallow.

[redditreceipts]

so this is a kinda interesting post, because it seems to be an honest attempt at answering the question "What is a woman" in a non-circular and trans-inclusive way:

So OP says that this definition gets rid of the circularity, and he's right in that. Saying that a woman is "someone who identifies as female" is better than saying that a woman is "someone who identifies as a woman". But what he's kinda missing here is that the "circularity"-criticism of the standard definition is only one of the many criticisms we have. I mean, a definition not being circular is kinda the basic requirement that every definition should fulfill. But there are more criticisms that I have with the definition proposed by OP:

This definition doesn't help us to make sense of the world. If we want understand workplace discrimination, for example, it doesn't help us to ask "do you identify as female"? A person presenting as a man but identifying as a woman would not experience misogyny, but a person identifying as male and presenting as a woman would experience misogyny. We could not understand discrimination, because there is nothing that would connect women other than their female identity. It has close to no analytical value, and is therefore a bad choice in sociological discussions.

It leaves out a ton of trans people who recognise their biological sex. If you scroll my blog just a little bit, there is a ton of trans people telling me that they understand themselves as a "female man" or "male woman", and that they still recognise their biological sex and that it's important for their identity. A large percentage of trans people don't identify with the sex they are transitioning towards, and they would be excluded from your definition.

A large percentage of women don't identify with their sex any more than they identify with their hair color or their height. These people would be excluded from your definition. I, for example, don't really identify with my sex and I couldn't care less whether I was born male or female. Being female is not a part of my identity.

There are people who, due to illness or disability, don't identify as a certain sex. If I was for example in a coma, I wouldn't think anything and therefore not identify as any sex. Would I be agender for the time I'm in a coma? Or what if I'm dreaming and in my dream, I'm male? Would I be then a man for the time? Or would my dream-me be a man and the sleeping body still be a woman? Or do I have to be of sound mind for my identity to be valid? What about very dysphoric people? Would they be of a sound mind? And what about people with a severe disability, who can't move or speak? It is possible that they don't identify with any sex, maybe they don't even really understand the categories of "male" and "female". Would a thirty-year old biological female who has such a severe disability that she has never spoken nor reacted to a spoken word, and can't control her limbs to move, be considered a woman if we don't even know that she knows what the differences between the sexes are?

How can we call anyone a man or a woman if they never expressed an identification with any sex? For example, I don't know whether my great-grandmother has ever said that she identifies as a woman. Should I therefore not consider her to be a woman? What about Ötzi, the frozen man from the stone age that was found thousands of years later? We don't know what he identified as. How can we then refer to him?

How does the definition "a woman is someone who identifies as female" improve our understanding of the world in comparison to the former definition of "adult human female"? It has a lot of downsides, for sure.

I'm of course open for discussion! Tell me what you think :)

[ivyrosetglued]

Sticky Situation 1/8

Heya! I bring you the first page of a new TG comic that I commissioned from the beautiful and the talented https://www.deviantart.com/kellymorgon. The text for this was edited by another super lovely caption creator https://www.deviantart.com/frommisogynisttomaid. I really hope you enjoy this! I’ve never posted a TG comic before so let me know what you think in the comments! Don’t forget to check back for the next part. Remember my main platform is deviantart so I alway post there first: https://www.deviantart.com/ivyrosetglued Have a lovely day.

[whoisspence]

the way he was turning as red as the lipstick in this video ugh i need him

[genericpuff]

Do you know "Eggnoid"? It's a rather old webtoon about a girl being put into circumstances on taking care of a robot guy who hatched from an egg (hence the title) the robot guy appears to be a grown man, but he has mental capabilities of a toddler and even acts like one. So, it's like those types of "born sexy yesterday" tropes but the gender reversed. The girl also repeatedly shown crushing over the robot guy and at some point, she called him her boyfriend despite she's supposed to be his caretaker.

I haven't read it, but I can definitely attest that there's a double standard when it comes to gender roles and age gaps / situations of grooming / etc. in literature but especially in webtoons. And by that I mean I've legit seen people hold comics like Lore Olympus accountable for their gross dynamics between a young teenage girl and the much older and richer love interest, but then turn around and say it's "couple goals" for a teenage boy to hook up with a much older woman. At the end of the day there's still a power imbalance due to the age gap and the massive differences in life experiences between the two, gender doesn't really change that.

Big ole' sip of hot tea as a take, but speaking as an AFAB, a lot of women are just as capable of grooming and taking advantage of younger men in the same way as men towards young women, it's just that on the surface people tend to get skittish about addressing that because they don't want to sound like they're going "yeah well actually women though-" and dismissing the notion of toxic masculinity. Which yes, that's a fair thing to worry about, some people do use that as a way to dismiss the arguments made regarding patterns of grooming behavior in men towards young girls (among many other problems in which men and toxic masculinity are held accountable), but like any topic of this nature, it's not always a cut and dry black and white thing. Toxic masculinity and the grooming of teenage girls by adult men is a very real problem! But just like how we can understand the nuance that being a man by default doesn't immediately make you a predator, we should be able to understand the nuance that being a woman doesn't give you a free pass to do the same things we call out men for doing without consequences. It's like the double standard in LO that it's okay for Persephone to do the same things - if not worse - than what Leuce and Minthe and Thetis do, because she's the main character and she's not some scummy "mud-sucking" lower class person, she's rich and a Queen and she's wearing a giant hat so it makes it okay /s

Unfortunately the saying of "I support women's rights and women's wrongs" is being used in a completely tone deaf "literally excusing the main character of her crimes and wrongdoings against others because she happens to be a woman" kind of way, while missing the real point of the saying - supporting women's wrongs doesn't mean you celebrate their abuse towards others, it just means women shouldn't automatically be viewed as irredeemable "crazy bitches" for making mistakes like any other human does, and like any other human, they should be given the opportunity to grow and heal and learn from their wrongs.

When it comes to Persephone specifically, it can't even be chalked up to a "one time mistake" anymore, she's literally been showing patterns of abusive behavior for years now and refusing to take accountability, and now even Rachel is meme'ing on it knowing fully well it's what people are calling Persephone out for in the critical spaces. That's not "supporting women's wrongs", that's enabling the wrongs of a person because they happen to be a woman, and that's not okay. Persephone isn't a "girl boss", she's a bully.

I think the double standard in these age gap romances also speaks to the idolization and fixation on women as being nothing more than conquests for men as well. People who romanticize age gaps between a young woman and an older man think, "Wow, that woman is so mature for her age, enough that an older richer man would choose HER to be his wife! So romantic!" when in reality those who know those dynamics are unhealthy and toxic recognize it as an older man taking advantage of a young woman who's being love-bombed into believing she's "mature for her age" so that she'll sleep with him. Meanwhile, on the other side of it, those who romanticize young men getting with older women tend to come at it from the angle of "well she's so old and washed up, no man could ever love her, her chance for love and a happily ever after is gone now! it's so wonderful of that young man to give that sad and lonely old woman love and attention!" and yet fail to see it from the same perspective of an older person manipulating a young person with zero life experience, because there's still this deeply-rooted ideology that women are "used up" by age 30 and any man who gives her attention beyond that age range is a hero. Completely neglecting the fact that relationships aren't off the table at all for older single people and they don't need to involve robbing the cradle.

I blame the lack of older couple representation in media tbh, so many mainstream romance stories are basically just this:

To pull it out of the perspective of LO and webtoons for a second (sorry, I'm going on a hell of a tangent here), remember how gross it was when it was revealed in Fifty Shades Darker that Christian had been introduced to the concept of BDSM at age 15 through one of his mom's friends (i.e. an older woman!) who Anastasia calls "Mrs. Robinson"? And they had that relationship until he was 21? And they never really did anything about that, it was pretty much just there to explain why Christian was fucked up but he still got married to Anastasia, an innocent woman who he was repeating the cycle of abuse with, and lived happily ever after anyways?

Yeah. That was pretty fucked up.

[posing-as-neurotypical]

You can't be a feminist if you hate men.

[womenaremypriority]

Every other post by the gendies on here is scolding the others in their movement who still have basic common sense for thought crimes. And every time they do it just gets more deranged and harmful. People who still have some boundaries are scolded for ~exclusionism~ and ~upholding the gender binary~ and have to play along even though they know it seems wrong. It’s so so freeing to leave their bullshit cult where definitions change 24/7 and you have to be on your feet constantly. They keep running from that sex binary and it keeps finding them!

[yesornopolls]

Do you identify as a feminist?

[uncanny-tranny]

If you treat trans men* like we always have access not only to being seen and treated as men, but also treated like cis men, and thus, do not need to be included in any discussion whatsoever because we apparently already "have it all", you're frankly not going to treat trans men* well. So often, people assume that as a political group, trans men* have it better when, frankly, cishet patriarchy wants us just as dead as any other trans person. Treating trans men* who bring this up like we're "asking too much" and are just whining about problems you don't think matter as much is cruelty, and is, in fact, transphobic.

[tumblingthedan]

This excerpt pretty much summarizes why being told that I dress like I don't care about my appearance isn't wholly accurate. It's more so I don't care about looking like other people's idea of what a woman should look like, let alone their idea of a beautiful woman.

The full article for anyone interested:

[heroines-of-olympus]

Reyna’s not allowed to die, so it’s okay actually, the parallels don’t matter 🙏💕😌

[hadesoftheladies]

How dare feminists center women’s struggles and define male oppression from the root lol. Feminists too smol brained to understand dialectical materialism. Feminism is a device of division that should be stopped. Feminism is . . . uh . . . racist. Feminists don’t understand women’s liberation or class struggle. Even the Marxist feminists are just uh . . . revisionists because Marx and Engels were already pure and perfect feminists with pure and perfect analysis

Women whining about their oppression is dividing the proletariat. Women don’t deserve their own political party that centers them lmao? There’s uh, working class struggles we all have to fix first! Then women will be free! If we were all just commies and marxists and people just understood that capitalism and imperialism (male-created) were abolished, men would be nicer and normal to women and women’s issues would evaporate! Because that’s worked so well before! Obvi!

feminists women are so stupid and don’t understand anything

feminism has done nothing for actual people men

[apenitentialprayer]

There Is No Maternal Instinct In Humans

By definition, an instinct is a behavior that does not have to be learned, shows almost no variation between members of its species, and manifests in a rigid sequence of behaviors performed in response to stimulus. It's also called a fixed action pattern, or FAP. In bears and pigeons, hibernation and homing are instincts. In some species, caring for newborns is instinctive. [...] A rat has a maternal instinct. So, too, does the grayback goose, who immediately pushes any round object near her nest inside to incubate it, no matter if it is a billiard ball placed there by an impish ethologist or an actual egg. Round object (stimulus) produces rolling behavior (response). The less intelligent an animal, the more its survival depends on instinct. In contrast, almost every aspect of primate behavior is mediated by a larger and more developed brain. Evolution has equipped us with a neocortex that requires us to learn in order to survive. With a neocortex, biology remains relevant but is no longer determinant. Natural selection ultimately favored flexibility. Animals that can rapidly adapt to shifting conditions have an advantage over those that can survive only a narrow range of circumstances. [...] The neocortex allows flexibility, but the loss of instinct also comes at a cost. Charles Snowdon, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, has spent his career studying marmosets and tamarins, cooperatively breeding New World monkeys. In most groups of tamarins, the young help to take care of babies, while in a minority of groups, they do not have this opportunity. In a field study of tamarins without prior infant-care experience, Snowdon and his team discovered that babies born to first-time parents never survived. They guessed that naive mothers and fathers didn't know enough either to parent on their own or to accept help from more experienced kin. Later, from comparative data, his team discovered that the survival rate was much better in groups where young siblings helped out with babies. Across primates, infants born to inexperienced parents have higher risk of death. Snowdon explains, "When they don't have experience with infant-care skills, there's a very low breeding success rate. Parenting skills are learned. They're not innate, for males and females equally. Both are clumsy parents. [...] You have to learn to share care of your baby[...]"

- Darcy Lockman (All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership, pages 71, 71-72, 73-74). Slightly reformatted to avoid wall of text, bolded emphases added.