#i blame the capitalistic patriarchy

[butmakeitgayblog]

i don’t have a uterus so forgive my ignorance but… 2 weeks??? 😭 i thought it was one wtf have i been lied to

That absolutely is a lie pushed on society by big pharma and the industrial complex (don't fact check me on this) I mean everyone is different snd everyone has their own fun little insanity inducing ~quirks~ to their cycle, but most people I've known who have periods usually have the week or so leading up to the period where you are either extremely hungry or hate the sight of food, ya bloat, boobs are sore, ya get so fucking horny that a bitch gets close to licking their own phone if someone hot enough scrolls through. And none of that covers potential skin issues, sleeping issues, depression issue, etc.

Then the actual period begins 😒 which is a whole other clusterfuckery bag of systems to deal with. And they say 2-7 days. If you just felt like you heard an echo in the distance, that was the feral wildbeast screech of every person who is on day 9 of their period. Who thought they were done and went back to regular clothes only to fUCKING START SPOTTING AGAIN 😤

And none of that even begins to account for anomalies like endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome which can lead to even longer periods, more frequent periods, intensely painful periods (think stabbing pain. Burning pain. Feeling like your lower intestines are being wrung out like a wash towel.)

And we do this every month. While working. And cleaning. And cooking. And being general useful members of society.

My point in all this being, everything you've ever learned as a "generalized rule" about periods is a gotdamn lie and just, just listen to people who have periods when they say it's hell and we deserve to nap, complain, and eat our little treats in peace

[drdemonprince]

The Barbie Movie is confused -- and it is confused on purpose, because it can't actually acknowledge the role that capitalism and white supremacy play in the patriarchal system that it wants to give itself credit for acknowledging. And so the film introduces patriarchy as a force with no agent or system behind it.

Ken, an oafish goof is able to find the concept of patriarchy and transmit it to the entirety of his society simply by learning about it and speaking about it to his fellow Kens. There is no use of force, no political organizing (notably, the Kens try to take over the political system after they have already taken hold of the culture), no real persuasion even -- simply by hearing about patriarchy the women in Barbieworld somehow become brainwashed by it.

This means we never have to really see the Kens as genuine antagonists, we can still laugh at their bizarrely crammed-together multiple dance numbers and forgive them when they, like the women, are freed of the patriarchy simply by women speaking about the fact that sexism exists. Both the origins of patriarchy and the solution to it is as simple as an individual person telling their story.

The CEOs that run Mattel in the Real World in the film are similarly cartoonish and devoid of real agency. They're even portrayed as generically interested in the idea of Barbie being inspiring to girls. The movie can't even acknowledge their profit motive, and it can't make any of the men running the company look too powerful or even too morally suspect -- but the film does still want to have Barbie encounter sexism in the real world and grapple with the harm "she" (the consumer product, and not the social forces and human beings that created her) has supposedly done.

In the Barbie Movie, patriarchy is a genie in a bottle, and no one is to blame - except maybe Barbie herself, since the movie spends a significant amount of time discussing how she is responsible for giving women unrealistic beauty standards.

And so Barbie is depicted as both sexism's victim and sexism's fault. She's dropped into a patriarchal world that the film acknowledges has a menacing, condescending quality -- but the film can't even have an underlying working theory of where this danger comes from, and who had the power to create this patriarchy in the first place, because that would require being critical of Mattel and capitalism.

And in the film, ultimately the real world with all its flaws and losses and injustices is still preferable to Barbieworld, because you get to have such depth of feeling and experience and you get a vagina, so how bad could really be? And hey, when you think about it, the Barbieworld is just an inversion of the real world, isn't it? A world with women in power is just reverse sexist, so it was justifiable for the Kens to want to take over, and what does it say that all things being equal Barbie still would prefer to leave behind her matriarchy and join the patriarchal capitalist world? That's the real world. Real world is struggle and sexism and loss and pain and capitalism and death and we must accept all of it but it's worth it..

It's not that I'm surprised the film's a clarion call for personal choice white feminism and consumer capitalism. I just expected the call to be a little more seductive or in any way coherent. I wanted to have frothy fun, and instead I was more horrified by the transparency of its manipulation than I was by even the most unsettling moments in Oppenheimer.

[turquoisemagpie]

With all the shit JKR has risen about feminism and what it means to be a woman, I’m always reminded of a metaphor I was taught by the amazing feminist philosophy lecturer back in university. This was back in 2017 (quoted from lecture notes I saved) way before terfs started getting traction, but it rings true today more than ever. 

“In feminism philosophies there are three types of philosopher: the individualist, the radical, and the socialist. 

Here’s a metaphor for how they work, called ‘The Wall, The Lion, the Sheep’. 

The wall represents society, particularly capitalist patriarchal society. The lion represents men, the sheep represents women. 

The wall cages both the lion and the sheep, which makes the lion angry because he wants to be free, but with no one else to attack, he attacks the sheep, the sheep dealing with both the caging of the wall and the force of the lion. 

The individualist feminist sees that the issue is the sheep and suggests “It’s the sheep’s fault for getting in the way of the lion” most them saying “That’s just nature/life!” or at ‘best’ suggesting “Move the sheep out of the way”. That may work in the short term, but the lion is still there, and he can move more freely; he will just attack the sheep again. The individual feminist says that any women suffering the abuse of men or the patriarchy should make their way out on their own, doing minimal effort to help, even blaming the woman for ‘doing this to herself’, falling into the easy solution of solving a problem by victim blaming. 

The radical feminist sees that the issue is the lion and suggests “Declaw the lion and take out his teeth.” That may stop the sheep being harmed in the short and long term, but now the lion is suffering. Radical feminists say that men are the issue and seek their punishment, “an eye for an eye”, not realising that they are ‘othering’ men in the same way women have been ‘othered’. Radical feminists see anything related to men as evil; they don’t see a trans woman as a woman, only as a lion in sheep’s clothing, nor do they see a trans man as a man, only as a misled sheep. They overlook the truth that not all men hate women; lions don’t eat everything that crosses their path. 

The socialist feminist sees that the problem is the wall and suggests “Break the wall down.” The lion is free and runs away to be free, as does the sheep. The problem is solved for both the sheep and the lion. A socialist feminist recognises that the harshest societies have moulded us to be the oppressed ways we all are, and the most effective way to help women is to help everyone; tear it up from the roots. With the oppressive system broken, not only will women have more freedom from patriarchal tyranny, but men will be freed from the toxic masculinity that comes with those systems. Everyone is happy. To be a true feminist is working to destroy an oppressive system to truly help women and all those who are othered by capitalist patriarchy, and anything that allows men to escape the enforced repression of the patriarchy is a great bonus. 

The biggest issue that holds back true feminists is this: walls are harder to break when they keep getting rebuilt by the ones who are so stubborn that the problem is the lion or the sheep. To them, using the oppressive forces of a closed wall gets them what they want, which is to be right, rather than to actually solve the problem.”

JKR is now using the transphobic tory party, currently in charge of the UK government, so further restrict trans voices; a radical feminist that seeks to use the bricks of this current Wall to make sure she is heard, oblivious and probably careless to the fact she’s deafening the voices of other feminists who will now probably feel ashamed to say they’re feminists... 

Feminism is not just helping women, it’s helping those marginalised, those oppressed for who they are, those othered by a system that wishes to box the un-boxable. Feminism is just the name of another movement to help as many people as possible. 

I am non-binary, and I’m a feminist, and the opinion of one close-minded author isn’t going to change that. 

[molsno]

if your political stance is that people changing their bodies to be more attractive is wrong because it's "unnatural", you're wrong on all accounts. people have been modifying their appearances to be more attractive, including physically and permanently altering their bodies, since before the dawn of homo sapiens as a species.

the problem is not that women are choosing to undergo cosmetic procedures to better meet the beauty standards of the present day, and if you think that women (especially trans women) simply choosing not to do these things would accomplish anything, you're sorely mistaken.

the problem is that men hold institutional power in society, and they can use that power to punish women who don't conform. yes, this power they hold undoubtedly influences the decisions of women who undergo these cosmetic procedures, but those women are not all mindless drones bowing to the patriarchy because they don't know any better or they haven't liberated themselves. yes, some of them hold internalized misogyny and willingly uphold these standards, but most of the women who choose to modify their bodies understand that refusing to do so will materially harm them. they're making informed decisions to improve their well-being as much as they can under the conditions of the society they live in.

frankly, I find the idea that most women aren't intelligent enough to realize that they're "complicit in their own oppression" appalling and horrifically misogynistic. you can criticize "choice feminism" all you want, and there are very good reasons for doing so, but placing doubt on women's intelligence and agency, thereby blaming them for their own oppression, is not progressive. it has long been a radical feminist tactic, in fact. if that's who you want to align yourself with, then frankly I don't think you have anything interesting, insightful, or even true to say about feminism.

if, however, your problem is that women are being pressured into cosmetic procedures that they will be punished for not adhering to, then your goal must be to abolish the power structures that allow women to face these punishments in the first place. your targets should be the institutions of wage labor, private property, colonialism, police, the medical industry, organized religion, state marriage, and all of the other institutions that uphold the global system of capitalist exploitation. only when women can no longer be deprived of our individual human rights for failing to conform to the misogynistic expectations placed upon us will we truly be free to make decisions about our own bodies.

[glittertimes]

“Another example is with the “child-free” movement. Child-free living is often framed as a feminist reclamation of our bodies or an ethical choice not to bring more children into the world. Whilst everyone should have reproductive autonomy, there is no such thing as child free living because children exist everywhere in all our communities, within which adults in particular have a responsibility of care. Parenting is community care, and community care is parenting. They are one in the same and therefore everybody -regardless of age- should be working on their parenting skills. The linguistic framing of “child-free” is also problematic: young people are not some harmful or oppressive force to be liberated from. Children need to be free from the adults, not the other way around! And most people discussing or practicing I have outlined do nothing like most people, to support youth. Any so-called liberatory framework that affirms adult power and agency without simultaneously identifying the oppression of young people and fighting for our power too, is just ageist.

- Innocence and Corruption: An Abolitionist Understanding of Youth Oppression by Aiyana Goodfellow

This is something that’s always bothered me about people who advocate for being child free but I didn’t know how to put it into words!

I totally understand the frustration with the pressure to get married and start a family! No one should be forced to have children if it’s something they don’t want, and I get wanting to divest from discussions about children altogether bc of those pressures.

But the child free movement focuses so much on adult freedom and fulfillment when there’s so much being left out about how children suffer from patriarchy and capitalist expectations as well!

Your life can be fulfilling without children or raising a family, but we can’t blame all of adults’ problems or lack of fulfillment on children when the real thing we should blame is patriarchy and capitalism. Which again, children do not benefit from, they’re just as oppressed (if not more so!) as adults under these systems!

[diamondperfumes]

Analysis on how Daenerys is the antithesis of Old Valyria, which somehow leads to the conclusion that her death is the rightful ending because it'll signify the "true end" of Valyria, is odd for two main reasons:

House Targaryen aren't the only ethnic Valyrians left in the world. In Westeros there is still House Velaryon and House Celtigar. In Essos there are countless ethnic Valyrians, a diaspora spread across Lys, Volantis, Myr, Tyrosh, Pentos, Qohor, and Lorath. Volantis fashions itself as the inheritor of the Valyrian legacy. And even if Dany defeats the Old Blood of Volantis (which I believe she will), ethnic Valyrians aren't going to drop dead just because Dany dies. (Whether the idea that all Valyrians should die is truly progressive is a question I leave up to fans––personally, I think GRRM depicts the Westerosi murdering Rego Draz after blaming him for the spread of The Shivers, during Jaehaerys I's reign, and the Westerosi alienating Larra Rogare of Lys, prompting her to leave her husband and children, as bad things––but even logistically and practically speaking, Dany is not the "last Valyrian.")

What is a "progressive" culture in Westeros? Braavos, a capitalist city, seems to be the only place that fits the ASOIAF fandom's standards of progressiveness. I suppose Dorne does too, if fans steadfastly ignore all the ways George problematizes that (which fans tend to, at least on here). Most, if not all, the cultures and ethnic groups depicted in Planetos have perpetuated a combination of slavery, conquest, genocide, mass murder, wars for dominion over the land, feudal casteism, exploitation of the commoners, and of course, patriarchy. Can fans even identify concrete "progressive" traits of the different Westerosi regions, from the North to the Iron Islands to the Westerlands to the Stormlands to the Riverlands to the Crownlands to the Vale? If the idea is that Daenerys has to die to put a rest to the oppression of Valyrian culture, which cultures are left that inherit a progressive mantle?

Again I don't have a grand conclusion to this post. Consider these as questions to ponder over.

[ipusingularitae]

I'm feeling that some ppl interpretate the [man hurt → fascist] like we can't hold men and patriarchy accountable for the process. like "oh if you didn't hurt him he wouldn't have descended into fascism in the first place". and i truly need these ppl to give a closer look into the processes and institutions.

bc it's not coincidental that these men go to fascism and conservative spaces and ideologies, it's not something that happens to happen. and i feel like a lot of ppl are blaming marginalized and oppressed groups for feeling enraged and not wanting to be around others that reproduce oppression in the first place, like everything wasn't a consequence of a system that constantly sustains individuality and those behaviors towards them (marginalized groups)

like, it's kinda obvious when you see the bigger picture. but on a smaller level, some responses to, for example, barbie and ken relationship in the recent movie, or snow and lucy gray. yeah it's funny "the boy was heartbroken and became a fascist" at first bc it's so absurd, but then when a bunch of ppl start to take that seriously i get... concerned.

the barbie movie had a clear premise, yes, and the mirroring of the real world to barbieland is there. no, kens shouldn't be invisible and maybe we shouldn't focus on a capitalist and liberal society in the first place, but ken relying on patriarchy isn't supposed to be taken on a simplistic way. if we take the mirroring aspect, the way ken take patriarchy is WAY different than the way women take counterculture movements, especially considering that feminism is about equality and not matriarchy. SO it's not to be taken on a superficial level, there's a reason why men go to patriarchy in the first place bc men does not grow in a women dominant world. the way women use feminism is not the same way ken used patriarchy. feminism should be a movement that also targets capitalism, and so yes (surprise) the approach on the movie was white and neoliberal.

although you can to use your access in information (internet) to go deeper into other ways to approach the topic, the hunger games one makes me much more concerned. because a lot was very clear. other things i think should've been more clear, like the way coriolanus despised lucy and sejanus very much in the book (we know why they didn't make that more obvious tho). but essentially i think there's more discussion to have in more complex ways in this story. bc it shows how one thing is connected to the other, how the stuff do not go alone.

the way he acted towards lucy and his subsequent response to her not complying to what he wanted makes it clear how he didn't descended into conservative ideology from nowhere. since the beginning he felt like the world owned him something, like he deserved more (and I'm not talking ab just his financial situation, although that is linked too). bc his father was a great army man, and they were from a dominant space before the districts dared to rebel, and so he had this thing being reaffirmed all the time - how he didn't had what he was supposed to have, this greatness. and ppl bully him for it, they make fun of him and that makes him feel more wronged. so when lucy gray does not accept what he wanted, when she realizes what their life would be and runs away, he goes to the thing that was there all along. it wasn't a new outside thing, it was present in his life since the beginning, it was there before him, and ppl would say that it's simply human nature so... why wouldn't he go along with it?

i think the barbie movie did a good job when they showed that barbie putting ken aside wasn't right and it came connected with her alienating herself from her existence. but the movie didn't show how everything is connected to the systems and the economic, social and cultural structures, the movie does not try to show how maintaining the system will continue to do harm, or how the hierarchy system it's the problem in itself. it goes so far into saying that "someday maybe the kens will have as much influence as women have in the real world" but does not provide the first step to dismantling the culture that has been fucking everything up since 16th century (at minimum) - again, very white and neoliberal.

but THG saga shows us how everything is linked. and so seeing ppl putting it on a simplistic way makes me very concerned and confused bc... IT'S THERE. and it's not subtext, it's not implied, IT'S THERE. OPEN AND EXPLICT AND WELL EXPLAINED IN 4 BOOKS/MOVIES.

anyway that was a big rant, thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[girlxcaffeine]

wait but feminism from a marxist perspective (actually doing material analysis) is also male-exclusionary, just like terfism is.... so they're basically the same when it comes to the trans question. also fascists are famously not pro-feminism so idk which fascists you think are aligned with radfems?

Fascists are not aligned with radical feminism, but radical feminists align themselves with fascists- at least in terms of the tangible effect that they have on society. Radfems may recognize that capitalism is at the core of the patriarchy, but by basing their feminist praxis on the exclusion of trans women/sex workers/etc, they enforce the scaremongering and manufactured outrage that fascists are currently using to control the masses. Both the “trans scare” and the “indecency scare” can be likened to alt-right movements like neo-nazism, the “protection” of traditional marriage, and red scare politics. Also, although anecdotal, it’s worth noting that I often find radfems blaming sex workers and trans women for women’s oppression, which, transphobia and misogyny aside, takes the responsibility off of the shoulders of the bourgeoisie. And while some marxist feminists certainly do exclude trans women, marxist feminism does not wholly rely on their exclusion (so it can be separated from trans exclusion, unlike radical feminism, which relies on bio essentialism, thus excluding trans folks). In this day and age, marxist feminism often coexists with trans marxism- which also relies on the foundational understanding that the root of oppression is our capitalist mode of production.

[strangesmallbard]

i do hesitate to end shiv criticism with acknowledgment of her privilege. obviously no one has to empathize with shiv roy personally—once you break away from the Aristotelian drama, it’s really hard to empathize with a woman who covers up sexual assault and just made 3 million dollars from that deal—but her positionally reveals the lie capitalist patriarchy sells, and white cishet women often eat up. by further acknowledging shiv’s marginalization in her own cultural context, we can better understand white supremacy, misogyny, capitalism, and power.

for example: the baby. white supremacy needs more white, able bodies. according to the white supremacist belief system, these babies come from white, able-bodied cisgender heterosexual women (the only true women to people who ascribe to this belief system.) a woman is a wife and a womb. she derives all her power from her husband and her children. in the usa, power and capital are synonymous.

logically, shiv should be able to wield her considerable privilege (money) to break the glass ceiling. but she can’t. logan infantilized her; even though he could logically realize she was the ideal heir, she would always be his little girl. tom never could stomach his subservient role; that was bound to explode, eventually. her brothers sexualize and demean her; even though they love her, they would never accept her as the boss.

in s4, shiv tries to use mattson, only to be used in turn. mattson logically knows shiv is smart and capable, but most of all, he wanted to fuck her. any respect derived from his attraction to her; when he realizes she’s pregnant with another guy’s baby, he loses this respect. he’s also super fucking weird about women and doesn’t like when they’re powerful. shiv knows this information, and thinks she can play it smart enough to come out on top. but the heterocapitalist patriarchy swings the hammer, and shiv has to rely on the husband she once controlled for power, in the end. (and we cannot victim blame here—again, you don’t have to empathize with shiv to understand how everything went down.)

tl;dr - shiv roy can use her own considerable capital to gain power, but not ultimate power nor respect. even if she did win the job, she’d have to contend with misogyny tenfold. she’s the kingmaker and never the king. her brothers elected a fascist for president and her husband is in charge of her father’s company. we cannot diminish the role of kingmaker in reifying these harmful systems, but we can examine its many nuances to learn more about them.

[runthepockets]

Tbh I'm really tired of battle of the sexes wars. Like, if it isn't cis men and women arguing over who has it harder, it's trans men and women doing the same shit. It's article after article of (rightfully) angry women talking about swearing off dating and sex forever due to dudes being so perverted and invasive, and the worst men you've ever met having their voices amplified in retaliation, both further alienating the women whose approval and affection we so desperately crave and making it harder for other men to talk about legitimate anxieties and struggles we have navigating the world. I hate that articles about high suicide rates and high rates of isolation and depression in men has brought out women who say things like "oh wah wah men's feewings I cannot BELIEVE I have to take RESPONSIBILITY for this CRAP again men are lonely cus they SUCK MEN'S FAILURES are the reason they're miserable", even when none of the studies are implicitly or explicitly blaming women for this problem (and even if they were, there's gotta be a way to deescelate / point out the entitlement of these accusations without victim blaming).

I hate that I end up dating and befriending a lot of feminist women who routinely encourage men to be vulnerable, and then my vulnerability immediately triggers an argument or a shitty dissmissive attitude or me being accused of manipulation, and I hate that those same women having (understandable) biases against men have gotten me up in arms reacting in pretty similar ways. I hate the way men talk about women's bodies when women aren't around. I hate the way women talk about male sexuality when there are no men around. It all feels awful. And I hate that voicing this to queer friends hasn't really gotten me anything but "lol thank god I'm not straight" or something of that nature. I hate how straight relationships have the potential to be just as beautiful and vindicating and empowering as any other human relationship but we're all barred by socioeconomic factors and poor / vastly differing communication skills.

This is why I got so into Men's Liberation two years ago. It gives me a space to vent my feelings and greivances as a straight guy without feeling like a total jerkoff while also being sympathetic to feminist ideals and views. It's very grounding. I can practice run and analyze my greivances after properly grieving in a safe and educated space, then I can approach the women in my life without the cotton between my ears and my defenses lowered instead of immediately shutting down at the first sign of discomfort. It's why I'm so loud about a lot of these issues; I believe everything is connected, and if men and women's lives and experiences and socioeconomic statuses are so deeply intertwined with each other under cishet capitalist white supremacist patriarchy, they need to be intertwined in the process of abolishing it, too. But I can't do that with my trauma and anger dictating my politics, nor can the women that find themselves in my sphere. It's also part of why I stopped hanging out in woman dominated spheres as often; while I'm not going to deny women their right to vent, the anti-male sentiment was debilitating, and I deserve a life free of any more neurosis around my manhood than I already may have (there was also nothing there for me anymore anyway, being a straight dude and all).

I think this is another thing I like about being straight; as nice as it I'm sure it is to never have to worry about these seemingly trivial aspects of "straight culture", and as much as I support gay people having spaces to feel at home in their own skin and to vent about their oppressors, it also seems like it sometimes blinds you to the fact that the "opposite gender" isn't really going anywhere (or that the opposite gender even exists, generally) and gay seperatism isn't a realistic or helpful solution, even for other gay and trans people.

[josieandthepussycatsofficial]

A girl bathed in Barbie-pink light blinks slowly, staring down the selfie cam. She’s massaging her swollen, freshly filled lips with acrylic-tipped fingers, “just like my cosmetologist said to.” Bulbous, rhinestone-encrusted dollar signs dangle from her earlobes, swaying as she speaks. In the next video, a blonde’s platinum locks are pulled taut in pigtails. She sits cross-legged in a fur coat, a notebook in her lap open to a page reading “CAPITALISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL <3 <3 <3.” A girl in a baby blue miniskirt glances glibly over her shoulder as she steps onto a stairmaster, overlaid with the caption “me at 24: fully bimbofied only concerned with feeling good and pretty.” Next, a harrowing flashback: an image of her at a computer, typing frantically, worry lines creasing her forehead, the following phrase floating above her: “me at age 15–19 in an unquenchable thirst for truth and knowledge which only led to despair.” [...]

Rolling Stone describes these bimbos as “anticapitalist,” not to mention “staunchly pro-sex work, pro-LGBTQ,  pro-BLM, and anti-straight white male.” Media outlets are generally taking bimbos at their word on their progressive feminism, with i-d writing that today’s “subversive bimbo” is giving the term a new, leftist lease on life, “tak[ing] away some of the misogynistic power with which the term was originally wielded by the patriarchy.” PhD researcher Stephanie Deig calls bimbos’ “hyperfemininity” a “form of anti-capitalist critique” in VICE, and TheNew York Times lauds their fluency in “social justice language.” There is, obviously, a layer of irony in the performances on BimboTok, rife as they are with winks and jokes, but their ironized tone reads more like resignation than liberation. [...]

 In another tradwife’s vlog, entitled “How to Marry a High Value Man and Become a Housewife,” women get a philosophical quandary to consider. Is there a difference between submitting to a boss and submitting to a husband, and might one be more pleasant than the other? “If you think about it, you submit to your boss, who makes you clean stupid shelves at your retail job. Wouldn’t it be better if you were cleaning your own shelves? And [at home] your boss wants to sleep with you, but in a good way.” Uncomfortable as it might be to admit for those of us who do call ourselves feminists, she’s making some points. With workplace harassment extraordinarily common and many of the jobs available to women low-wage and menial, working for a man who loves you and pays you well might start to sound pretty pleasant. But as Zoe Hu writes in Dissent, “the twist that makes tradlife a phenomenon of our times is its earnest criticism of life under capitalism,” but its next twist is foisting the blame for capitalism’s consequences off its power players’ shoulders and onto “the gloomy figure of the working woman” and her politics: feminism. A tradwife tweets “idk who needs to hear this but the feminist movement was a scam made by the government to get the other half of the population working so they double the tax intake.” Meanwhile, someone else tweets succinctly: “the left hates happy people.” Hu argues that tradwives cast feminism as a “defunct and joyless system,” and this is where bimbos and tradwives begin to blur together in the feed, to align, algorithmically and existentially.

[eto-bee]

It’s crazy that people are dunking on the Barbie movie for not being some pinnacle of moral superiority (bc I guess they expected that from Greta?) first of all i don’t think anybody’s *happy it’s a cash grab even though it is (i think gg did what she could with what she had- she’s not in charge of Mattel & therefore not really in charge of the whole message).

Second I think it’s bullshit how people are saying it’s not subversive in any way (bc they are equating anti- capitalist as the only type of subversive message there could possibly be)- it IS subversive bc being feminist is subversive. Otherwise droves of men wouldn’t be upset by its very milquetoast feminist/ self care message. It’s going against patriarchy in a very simple and straightforward way. Feminism IS anti-capitalist the farther you go into it, but this is feminism 101. The basics. And all adults who see the film know that Mattel is holding the reigns. I don’t think Greta can be blamed for that

Thirdly and lastly this is one of the only blockbusters I’ve EVER seen in my 30 years of life that directly addresses US. That’s by US for US (women). That’s about our feelings. That’s about our views. And that’s about our complicated ass feelings towards Barbie. I don’t know one woman who doesn’t have complicated feelings about Barbie. But that’s beside the point. I don’t want to say a woman blockbuster is beyond reproach, but why does a blockbuster aimed at women have to be fucking perfect? It did SO many good things. There are so many different Barbies that represent different skin tones and body types. Kids are going to see that. And people want to bash it bc it’s selling toys? So is fucking everything!!! People with blockbuster money are going to make blockbusters that sell toys!!that’s what they do. I’m not saying it’s a perfect world but there was real good done with the Barbie movie. That shouldn’t be discounted and I’m tired of people expecting things to be some kind of media that’s beyond reproach in order to be a solid good in our society

[cadyrocks]

Full disclosure: never played much with dolls of any kind.

One important criteria for the Barbie movie was "can this movie make me forget that this is a toy commercial". It kinda got there? I guess the crass commercialism of the first act was intentional, but it doesn't make it less crass when the way to get to the real world involves 6 different accessories that you can buy. For money.

Similarly, the gender politics were... Odd. A combination of baby's first feminism - filtered through the lens of a toy marketed to little girls, obviously - and some genuinely bizarre beliefs about men and patriarchy. Patriarchy is obviously awful, but every Barbie is just immediately on board with being giggly eye candy? Learning about the real world immediately turns Kens into stereotypical macho douchebags? (To quote one of the funnier lines in the movie, "It's like I woke up from a dream where I really cared about the Snyder Cut".) The resolution is similarly bizarre; in Barbieland, the solution to patriarchy is to distract the kens by making them jealous of each other, and then... Vote them out. Just some really weird shit. Like I said, it's baby's first feminism. Another character even calls this kind of capitalist feminism out in the film, in a scathing critique of Barbie that just gets dropped once it's inconvenient.

Not that it's all bad. The boardroom scene is excellent, with Will Farrell making a terrific misogynist who doesn't get that he's a misogynist. There are some extremely funny jokes, and Margot Robbie is an excellent Barbie. "Weird Barbie" was both an excellent character and a source of a lot of funny jokes, she was great all around.

But given the level of culture-consuming hype around this movie, even on the queer sex site... I guess I expected more. I don't blame the movie for that, but like... I'm riding along enjoying a silly plot and suddenly we cut to a sight gag involving accessories you can buy, shown like an ad splash page. I'm enjoying a heartfelt family moment, and then a character complains that her mom wouldn't buy her a new doll. As said, the commercialism was pretty crass.

The Barbie Movie is a fun, lighthearted, diverse 2-hour-long toy commercial. Maybe I would be less ill-disposed to it if I had seen it before they announced the Polly Pocket movie, or if the ads before the movie weren't for a sequel, a sequel, another superhero movie, and a movie that's gonna be a feature-length ad for a racing video game, but I honestly don't think I would recommend it. It wasn't for me. If you're less sick of advertising, you'd probably enjoy it more, but given that you can buy every character in the movie and their outfits, I'm going to credit Greta Gerwig for the world's most impressive ad, and call it a day.

[cassidyreturns]

Original Miss: A War on Hope

TW: Capitalism, Patriarchy & Sin

"No, I am not who you think I am. I am so much more, I am One with Source. I am Limitless, Infinite, Powerful, Abundant, Complete from the Start, Creator of All. I Am that I Am." -Fia

The idea of "Original Sin" is so prevalent in American culture.

I have never been a Christian, or follower of any Abrahamic religion, but I have been rooting out their teachings all my life.

It is the foundation in which our Western society was built upon: the idea that there is something inherently wrong with you, even at your birth. (Sidebar: Doesn't this sound GREAT for commerce?)

If we are not born Good, then the rest of our lives are spent trying to find Redemption, correct?

And if we are all born with a Moral deficit for simply Existing, who is to Blame for that?

And what does an Effective Punishment look like in the Material when the possibility of the pits of Hell are still waiting for you?

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Capitalism, Patriarchy and Sin are all attempts to remove Divinity, especially from marginalized groups. To remove the Divinity from something is to remove Dignity. (Others call this their 'Humanity.')

These three are a DEADLY combination used as an agent of control over the masses. It is so effective, that even the citizens will police each other on the day-to-day because underneath it all is the assumption that they, and their neighbors, are not Good.

We see this in books, movies and other stories of heroism--if something is Bad, it deserves punishment, usually at any means necessary. The ends justify the means, so to speak. And don't most of us fancy ourselves the hero?

Under capitalistic governance, we use the other two (patriarchy and sin) to justify how we make our laws and our cultural rules. We use these governmental and cultural decrees to allocate our artificial and organic resources. For example, it is a governmental-backing that if someone needs something, they should have to work for it. (Money).

We all KNOW we have basic needs that HAVE to be met in order to continue living. But with commerce and government dictating even our basic-level needs, creating a life in which we are free to thrive almost seems comical.

If you do not have the Freedom to Live, (basic needs = survival) you do not have the Freedom to be your most Authentic Self.

If you do not have the Freedom to be your most Authentic Self, you do not have the Freedom to pursue Happiness.

And without the pursuit of Happiness, there is no Hope.

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The culmination of these, and other forms of oppression, are designed to only amplify and enhance themselves and each other with their entanglement. The goal is to have our morals and our actions jumbled up so intently, it resembles a mess of cords with no direct starting or ending place. Get your hands on it, follow one all the way through to its origin--then three more tangle, and it somehow looks worse than before.

There is war going on - for your Body, Mind & Spirit.

We can no longer treat Hope as a luxury; we simply cannot afford it.

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1556755391102451712

Many of the actions of survivors who remain entrapped in abusive relationships that the broader culture sees as complicity in their own abuse are often themselves covert acts of resistance to their abuser’s domination. Thread on “control in the context of no control.”

For reference, I first came across “control in the context of no control” in the incredible work of domestic violence theorizing that is Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life, which I cannot recommend highly enough!

Firstly, we must begin with an understanding that abuse is not the result of individual pathology, nor is it an unfortunate mistake of otherwise well-meaning people. It is a social system that allows abusers to constrain, exploit, and co-opt the agency of their victim(s).

Abuse is not about toxicity between equally empowered people, but is more akin to violent capture: the abuse victim being more akin to a hostage or prisoner and the abuser, their captor.

Not being able to leave an abusive relationship is a symptom of abuse, not its cause.

When one is entrapped in an abusive relationship (whether it be with a romantic partner, a family member, etc.) one feels the limitations that capture places on their autonomy, and it is extraordinarily painful and alienating.

It is not simply that the relationship is bad or abusive on its own, but that it exists within a broader social system that makes the control the abuser wields possible.

Abuse is a cage specifically crafted for the subject of the coercive control. The individual bars of the cage include the tactics of the abuser, but also the complicity of shared community, the precarity created by larger systems of control like capitalist patriarchy.

I premise our exploration of “control in the context of no control” with this because it is vital for people to understand that remaining in an abusive relationship is much less a “choice” one makes than it is the shape of the material conditions in one’s life.

As I’m sure many of us can empathize with, escaping the material conditions of our lives is rarely a simple task.

So it is with abuse survivors. Many survivors risk increased poverty, deportation, loss of children or community, houselessness, and death in escape attempts. So, enter “control in the context of no control.”

Survivors, even when we remain entrapped in the conditions of abuse, even when our agency is wildly constrained, never fully become the meek, passive objects our abusers want us to be. Even when we try.

Because the reality is that, despite our abuser’s attempts to dehumanize us, make things of us, we remain irrevocably human, and we strive to, however we can, reassert our sense of our own humanity and a feeling of control over our own lives.

Sometimes this can mean physically or verbally fighting back, but remember that abuse is a system of capture and that the constraints on our actions are often so extreme that direct resistance can mean opening ourselves up to more violence.

The acts of resistance, of asserting our own sense of control in an environment where we have little to no control, aren’t necessarily conscious or even always good for us, but rather serve as stabilizers in conditions that are everything but stable.

Acts of asserting control in a context of no control can look like: accepting the abuser’s value system, accepting blame for the abuse, using substances to cope with abuse, finding ways to cut corners while following an abuser’s rules, attacking the abuser, and more.

You’ll notice that some of the examples I listed above seem to be more liberatory and direct resistance to an abuser’s control, while others seem to be acts of complicity with it. The latter is what I intend to focus on here.

If you have been abused, as a child or as an adult, it is likely that you have found yourself wondering what it was that you did to bring such abuse about. Perhaps you still carry guilt for having thought so, as if accepting their logic made you complicit in your own abuse.

During the abuse, you likely also went to great lengths to acquiesce in advance to what you thought your abuser wanted, or, after being punished for an “infraction” you may have poured a lot of energy and attention into “correcting” that part of yourself.

I am here to say that, rather being a reflection of an inner weakness or complicity in your own abuse, your acceptance of some of your abuser’s values or beliefs about you is an incredibly natural response to being entrapped in a situation in which you have little to no control.

Being at the whim of another is... terrifying, dehumanizing, and profoundly alienating. When escape is not an option, remaining in the state of “I have no control over what happens to me” is incredibly damaging to the stability of our self-concept. It is not sustainable.

So, as a result, we often resist our abuser’s totalizing control in ways that, on their face, appear paradoxical. We find a sense of control in a context of no control by blaming ourselves, because then we can feel that our actions can have a meaningful impact on our conditions.

A child in an abusive home has virtually no control over their own agency, but as a human being needs at least a sense of that control. Rather than accepting that our parents can and will hurt us whenever they’d like, we find a sense of control in accepting fault for abuse.

By doing so (believing that if we just speak, act, clean, submit, caretake well enough, change our appearance, do well in school, etc. the abuse could stop) we, in a sense, resist the true conditions of the abuse that work to obliterate our sense of personhood and agency.

It is easier to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us (and therefore, that is is within our power to change it) than it is for us to believe that people who should care for and love us seek to render us subjects to their will through violent control instead.

To my fellow survivors: rather than an expression of weakness/complicity, the ways you tried/try to find control in a context of no control was/is an act of resistance, even if it felt/feels like the opposite or continues to hurt you.

You have fought for your own humanity at every step even if you have been unaccustomed to viewing it that way. You were/are in a context that sought to rip your agency from you. It is NOT your fault, neither the abuse nor your internalization of its message.

To those who wish to be the allies of survivors: it is long past time for you to unpack the beliefs you have about abuse and develop a real analysis to how it functions. You must abandon victim-blaming in ALL its forms, and help survivors expand our agency.

The only people at fault for ongoing abuse is the abuser, their community support, and larger systems of domination that make abuse difficult to impossible for survivors to escape. It is NOT the fault of the survivor, no matter the actions they took to assert their own agency.

[lowcountry-gothic]

99% of us are struggling to survive under this imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy, as bell hooks would call it. But not all of us know that that’s what the problem is. And so many of us are blaming someone. I hear a lot of men blaming women, I hear a lot of white folks blaming people of color and Black people, I hear a lot of rich people blaming poor people. But what I hear is, part of what it is like to be white is to be suffering under a system that is exploiting you, causing you harm, and not knowing it. And blaming yourself. And that sounds terrible. I’m not joining any white liberation movements, but I feel for y’all.

Andre Henry, Hope and Hard Pills, “Why Are The White Guys So Sad?”