#intersectionality with Judaism

[sunbeamedskies]

Hating nazis does not mean you’re not prejudiced against Jews. Posting about how you’d love to punch a nazi is not your get-out-of-accusations-of-antisemitism free card

[notaplaceofhonour]

thread

[hero-israel]

I found an organization called the Indigenous Coalition for Israel, which looks pretty good, but it’s apparently an international Christian initiative according to the website. Should I distrust this as an Evangelical ploy or something?

Also, I learned about it from an article on Tablet, which is a pretty good Jewish news site generally but they often go a little crazy (they had one article about how evil the trans rights movement was from a token cis gay guy who I could find no other writing credits from so he might not even be real (the article is melodramatically called “The Great Transitioning”) and I watched a talk from one of papers’ leaders and he said because of antisemtism on campuses, Jews shouldn’t go to college)

Tablet is wildly, embarrassingly erratic. They've had a lot of good commentary from respectable authors like Matti Friedman, Dara Horn, and Phyllis Chesler, but they also platform absolute far-right wackos who insist Q is real, hydroxychloroquine is better than vaccines, and environmentalists are pussies. They did apologize for their "Harvey Weinstein is a particularly Jewish kind of rapist" article, but it is still on their site. Just this very week they published a propagandistic profile of RFK Jr. that went all-in on his anti-vaxxism. In like 2015-16 I was comfortable citing Tablet as a source in mixed company, but now I often hesitate. I'll sometimes still post their better articles here, but I usually first check to see if someone less crankish has covered the topic.

And that ambivalence is on-topic for the Indigenous Coalition for Israel, which seems to be a non-proselytizing, non-apocalyptic Christian / Maori philosemitic group based in New Zealand. I've seen a lot of their op-eds around, including in Israeli papers, and most of what they write about that topic is a good match for what I already believe. As a concept, it is very beneficial to counter the bullshit narrative that Jews are white colonizers, indigenous to nowhere, and that the fight against Zionism is the same as getting European rulers out of Vietnam and Zimbabwe and whatever. Unfortunately, their founder seems to be a TERF. I don't have the heart to search back much further through her Twitter feed for examples before the Posie Parker thing. Any concepts that ICFI articulated that happened to be positive and good for Jews and Zionism were already true before and regardless of ICFI's involvement. If they are not safe allies for LGBT Jews, we don't need to settle for them as allies at all.

[anteroom-of-death]

White Atheist leftists stop lumping Judaism in with Xtianity in your trauma fighting challenge: Impossible

[adrestianflames]

A quick PSA on the Roe repeal and antisemitism:

Religion did not take away the right to vote to abortion in the US. Christofascist evangelism did. Judeo-Christian values did not lead to this decision, because Judeo-Christian values do not exist.

Judaism does restrict the right to abortion. Fetuses are not considered to have souls or personhood. Banning abortions is considered to be an infringement on Jewish liberties, and Jewish congregations are already filing suits to legally protect our religious freedom and right to abortion. [1] [2] [3]

You will see the Right suggest that America is a "Judeo-Christian" nation, and that this decision by the Supreme Court is in line with "Judeo-Christian" values. They did this with Uvalde, and they're doing it with Texas' succession. In response, you will see anti-religious and likely culturally Christian atheists blame the wrong targets. Leftists will rally against all religion. They will rally against Jews. Some of them have been aching to-- anti-Israeli sentiments breed antisemitism like wildfire, even among anti-fascist, pro-minority communities. [1] [2] [3]

On the other side, the same Christofascist Right that claims to support Judeo-Christianity is using this incident to revisit blood libel, the conspiracy that Jewish people kidnap babies to eat and use for blood sacrifices. We have already seen this used by Christian nationalists against Jewish women who support abortion. [1] [2]

Obviously, focusing on protecting people with uteruses in red states is the first priority right now. There are a dozen other top priorities surrounding abortion right now. But please remember that Jewish people are about to get stuck in a very uncomfortable middle ground. Jewish people will face hatred from the Right because they think we eat babies. Jewish people will face hatred from the Left because they think we're responsible for the religious ideals that led to the repeal. Neither of these things are true.

Please remember to practice intersectionality in your activism. Reblog this post. Educate others who fall into the pitfalls of anti-religious hate. Speak up to protect and defend Jewish people in your community. None of this will distract from pro-choice advocacy.

[ofshivelight]

i've been trying to figure out how to word this for months, but i think i've finally got it. as a jewish conversion student, i feel like i exist in this liminal space of identity, somewhere vaguely and ambiguously between firmly "not jewish" and "jewish". as someone who also generally skews left politically, i'm very conscious of cultural boundaries and intersectionality, and part of the respect for other identities that i cultivate in my life involves abstaining from cultural appropriation. but in this liminal space of conversion, i find myself struggling with the dissonance of not being halachically jewish while still knowing/feeling deep down in my soul that i am a jew. it's lighting shabbat candles and feeling two contradictory things at once: 1. that i'm appropriating judaism and that's wrong, and 2. that i'm fulfilling a mitzvah that my soul longs for and that's right. but i have to remind myself that i can't "appropriate" a religion by earnestly converting to it. that makes no sense. this might have something to do with my impostor syndrome on some level, the way i end up feeling like a fraud no matter what i do, but that's a different conversation

[intersectionalpraxis]

I’m starting to get worried that because I’m criticizing the Israeli government, it could lead to me turning antisemitic or something unknowingly. How can I talk about the horrors that Palestinians are going through because of the Israeli government without spiraling into bigot territory?

The first time I ever learned about Historic Palestine was during my second year of University when I took an intersectionality class. For transparency, I was ignorant about many global issues when I was 17/18 years old, because living in a white-settler state (Canada) -with a formal education system that didn't cover topics or histories that didn't align with their 'diplomatic narratives about western countries and their perspectives,' I was, unfortunately, (although, not to excuse, it's something I still feel shame for -I wish I had known better) ignorant about many histories/herstories/and their-stories.

That was over 12 years ago, and I have many regrets about not knowing what I eventually learned -but that's the unlearning, learning and growth process -the starting point and the ongoing research ventures and accountability for oneself to understand what is going on in the world is what's important.

The reason why I'm starting off with this story is because I met a Palestinian activist during that class. She was featured on a panel alongside a few other activists, including a Sudanese women, and each of them spoke about their resistances to settler-colonizers, imperial powers, and systemic violence. And I will never forget what the Palestinian activist said during a Q&A session -that she would be willing to die to see Palestine free in her lifetime.

I think it's important to note that 'Israel,' has only existed since 1948. Indigenous Palestinian people were forcibly displaced (750,000 of them) -and tens of thousands were killed and 400 villages were destroyed (this is referred to as the Nakba of 1948). So, in essence, 'Israel' is full of settler-colonizers -they have been illegally occupying Palestine for decades and have been slowly, but surely, stealing land, terrorizing and murdering Palestinian people and have control on essentially every single aspect of a Palestinian person's life -right down to their access to water, electricity consumption, and travel -to name a few.

You are not antisemitic by criticizing a settler state that has been and continues to systematically ethnically cleanse Indigenous Palestinian people. You are not antisemitic by calling out settler-violence, carpet bombing, and the rampant and merciless destruction of an entire city's infrastructure. You are no antisemitic for saying it's immoral that the IOF is attacking hospitals, places of worship, schools, and refugee camps because it has killed thousands of Palestinian people -most of whom are defenseless children. You are not antisemitic for saying that it is a double standard for 'Israel,' to claim what they have been and are doing isn't a form of terrorism (despite breaking international laws and dozens of UN resolutions).

I am not an expert, but I do want to state (as some activists and writers here have) that conflating Pro-Palestinian liberation with antisemitism is something Zionists in the IOF and around the world have carefully crafted so that it deflects from the real issues here and that is the mass human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and illegal occupation that the IOF has done for decades in the first place.

Judaism and Zionism are DIFFERENT -being Jewish and following the Torah is not like what Zionists in the IOF want; which is literally to burn Gaza to the ground by either genociding Palestinian people and/or mass displacing them. There are MANY anti-Zionist Jewish people and anti-Zionist Israeli Jewish people who are against what the IOF is doing, and I think that is important to note here. Because you're not going to spiral into bigotry when you know that being in solidarity with Palestine means you are supporting people who want to be free from a violent occupation.

There are a few posts I have seen, one of them being "10 Talking Points," or to some effect when talking to Zionists who insist you're being antisemitic, or 'oppressive against Jewish people,' that I would highly recommend reading. I do not have it to link here, but I am hoping it is searchable.

Let's Talk Palestine on Instagram also has some wonderful educational resources, one of which covers how to have important conversations with people around you, but highlighting the terrors (as you noted) that Palestinian people go through. You can find them there, and in the next 24 hours, I will try my best to post and transcribe some of these resources.

This is by no means encompassing, but I hope this offered some clarity. Thank you for your question!

[paopuofhearts]

Mmmm I see a lot of interesting tags as people start following me for posting about being Native and Jewish when I discuss the intersectionality of these things.

So I'm just gonna. Like. Say my stance, because some of y'all are (potentially) really pushing some hardcore with some shit that goes directly against what I said in those posts.

Palestine is suffering through genocide and ethnic cleansing, as defined by the UN. Genocide is defined as "the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part... killing members of a group, causing serious harm to a group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part" (alongside measures that impact children and limit the future of said group). That is a non-negotiable fact.

Hamas is a terrorist group. Terrorism is defined based only upon whether or not civilians are targeted. In this, plenty of nations and revolutionary groups easily fall under the label of terrorism. Hamas is not special in this regard. They are not decolonizing, and to say so is a major slap in the face to decolonial efforts.

*I would also add that Israel, by definition, also employs terrorist tactics, and could therefore be considered a terrorist nation. They do target civilians, and that's literally all terrorism as a tactic is. Terrorism becomes a moot point when both sides do the same thing to each other.

*I would to do a whole aside into the binary belief that's been pushed recently that decolonization must be violent because colonization is violent: this is inherently harmful and reductionist, because it demands that an oppressed group must act in the same way as their oppressors for freedom. Fuck that.

Israel as a modern day nation is built on the methodology and structure of settler-colonialism. Settler-colonialism is not a Western, European, or White concept: it is only related to Western, European, and White identity because it has been perpetuated the most by these (overlapping) groups. It was also literally stated by people who pushed the Zionist Movement (Herzl) that Israel as a modern nation would be a settler-colonial state. This can be considered what China has done to Tibet, or what Japan did during WW2.

The reason I say it is a settler-colonial methodology and structure, as opposed to the other definition that it must be a foreign entity taking over an indigenous entity as noted in the examples above (and this is why people need to agree on how they use terminology, because these kinds of words may have different definitions that can completely change your meaning), is because Jewish people are not foreign, they are indigenous. Judaism is directly tied to the land in multiple layered ways; you cannot separate it, even in diaspora.

*As a side note, this also applies to Zionism itself: it is a concept and a movement in which definitions may have some similarities but are very different. Zionism as a concept can mean two things (potentially three, but let's stick with two) from my understanding: seeing Jewish people in diaspora as their own autonomous group, similar to how Natives have tribal sovereignty - or simply meaning Jewish people have the right to return to the land they were forced into diaspora from in some way, potentially much like the Native Land Back movement where this does not necessarily mean completely taking over the land itself, but having access to it. Zionism as a movement is what created Israel as a modern nation state through the methodology and structure of settler-colonialism. To me, Israel may have originated as a promise for this, but it is not how to go about this; Israel is Not Okay in how it's going about this, and is no longer representative of Zionism in that regard (if it ever was to begin with, because Settler Colonialism is wrong; there are other ways to achieve what Zionism as a concept aimed for, and a Settler Colonial Nation State is Not It). Learning to understand how the term is being used is incredibly important, because it is not a one definition term, same as settler-colonialism.

So here's a fun fact that involves all these points: oppressed minorities that experience colonization and genocide are not immune to committing colonization and genocide against others - this is literally something any group can do to another group if they have resources to do it. This happened during the Rwandan Genocide, this happened during the Cambodian Genocide, this happens even today with plenty of other nonWestern, nonEuropean, nonWhite groups towards other nonWestern, nonEuropean, nonWhite groups. This is not specially reserved for only people within power against people without power. In fact, it's one of the remaining vestiges of leveraging what's left of Western, European, White imperialism: pitting oppressed minorities against each other to extract resources and influence by perpetuating conflict.

Why else is the US so involved in this conflict? Why else are so many nations engaged with trying to benefit from a zero-sum game where one side can be a sole victor instead of trying to work out other options? (Especially when people living through this have done and are doing the work of building bridges to support each other?)

Anyway. Palestine deserves to be its own nation once more. Zionism as a concept is something I support because Jewish people were forced into diaspora and forced from the land they are connected to. Realistically, Israel isn't going anywhere, but allowing a nation to actively and openly commit genocide and ethnic cleansing is horrific and terrible, and should never be supported.

These are all things that can coexist, and if you cannot comprehend that or disagree, potentially due to lack of understanding (which I find disappointing, as that implies a refusal to use terms correctly simply because they do not jive with the argument you want to center) or emotional reactionism (which I find completely fair, as this is a traumatic issue and affinity grouping is sometimes necessary for mental health), I would suggest unfollowing me.

At any rate, as I've said before: support Palestine without shoveling antisemitic propaganda by decentering the actual issues or erasing actual support. That's all.

[whyshedisappeared]

Dear World: I Don't Care

by Avi Lewis

I don’t care that you sympathize with Hamas

I know you wouldn’t tolerate any of the things they did to us if they would’ve done it to you

I don’t care that you’re outraged by Israel’s response to the massacre more than the massacre itself

I know you would do everything to eliminate such pure evil if you experienced it yourself

I don’t care that this doesn’t fit neatly into your carefully constructed narrative of ‘Israel as aggressor’ and ‘Palestinian as victim’

The truth hurts sometimes, but hey, don’t let facts get in the way of your feelings

I don’t care if you think we are at fault, that we had it coming, that Hamas’ actions’ didn’t occur in a vacuum (or to deny they ever happened)

If you feel that the poster of a kidnapped child hurts your cause, maybe yours is a lost cause

I don’t care about your calls for a premature ceasefire, about your demand that we provide them with electricity, that we stop fighting for ‘humanitarian reasons’

What of a humanitarian gesture to release our 230+ hostages – elderly, children, babies – snatched from their cribs?

I don’t care that you’ve rallied for Palestine as part of your march for LGBTQ rights, trans rights, workers rights, socialism, climate change, intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, fighting Islamaphobia and ‘all forms of racism’

Your gullibility would be laughable if it wasn’t so hypocritical. None of those things exist under Hamas

I don’t care that you ‘love Jewish people – just hate Israel’, that you have some friends that are Jewish, that maybe you’re ethnically Jewish yourself – and therefore you’re entitled to levy every libel in the playbook against us

Words matter. They lead to actions. When a lie is repeated often enough it’s accepted as truth. You are laying the groundwork for more attacks against us

I don’t care that you wave the flag of ‘human rights’, that you’ve become overnight experts in international law, that you shout fancy slogans you don’t understand such as proportionality, occupation and apartheid

Your humanity is selective. In your mind, human rights don’t apply to us because we are undeserving. You didn’t speak up when our women and children were horribly assaulted

I don’t care if you think we are colonialists, imperialists and settlers and that we should just go back to where we came from

We are back to where we came from

I don’t care if you believe in a one state solution, a two state solution, a federation, an internationalized Jerusalem or any other theory drawn up in your ivory tower

We won’t readily hold out our necks and endanger our lives in order to satisfy your thought experiments and placate your conscience from afar

I don’t care if you consider yourself anti-Zionist but not antisemitic

We’ve seen enough Jews around the world attacked over the last 3 weeks under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’

I don’t care that you think we are too powerful, too technologically advanced, too sophisticated

If we didn’t build ourselves up to this point we’d get eaten alive by Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran and Palestinian terrorism

I don’t care that you blame us for 1948 refugees, for the fact that they have no state, for the keys that they wave in their fantasy of ‘right of return’

Three weeks ago we got a glimpse of what that ‘return’ looks like and what it means for our children

I don’t care if you think we aren’t real Jews, that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism, that Jews are a religion and not a nationality and so we deserve no state

Your denials have zero impact on the strength of our ideals and the self-affirmation of our identity

I don’t care that you accuse us of flaunting the myriad of UN resolutions, inquiries and statements

They reflect more on the institutional decay of the UN than on us

I don’t care about your media coverage, the lies, the equivocation, the acceptance of Hamas talking points and statistics

You echo chamber is just a another weapon in their strategic arsenal

I don’t care that you accused us of bombing the Al Ahli hospital

It was only a matter of time before you found a symbol for Israel’s wickedness. The subsequent retractions were a fig leaf once the truth emerged that Islamic Jihad was responsible and that the hospital is still standing

I don’t care that you see us as a criminal state, a terror state, usurpers, baby killers, Christ killers, Khaybar Jews or any other depravity that exists in your mind

Your libels lay the groundwork for our dehumanization. Rings a bell. We will fight it

I don’t care that you’ve inverted the truth by accusing us of genocide

If positions were reversed and Hamas held the power we do now, you’d see what a genocide looks like

I don’t care that you’re angry, boiling and outraged

I don’t care that you’re glued to your TV screens and Telegram channels

I don’t care that you’re mad

I don’t care if you’re out on the street, waving your flag and chanting your slogans

We won’t die silently the way you want us to

For the first time in 2,000 years we are organized, we are motivated and we will defend ourselves

We fight for light over darkness

Morality over evil

Not that it matters to you – but we will stick to the rules and hold the high moral ground not because you expect it from us, but because they are a value for us

We will do so ethically and thoughtfully, for we are the People of the Book

Our power and strength are our necessity, because the alternative for us is:

Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Pittsburgh, Toulouse, Farhud, Hebron, Birkenau, Belzec, Babi Yar, Kristalnacht, Kielce and Kishinev

Do you think for a moment that we would return to that reality just to make you feel a little better?

You are deeply mistaken…

World,

For so, so long, I really, deeply cared

I cared about fitting in

I cared about what you think

I cared about being a model citizen

I cared about setting a personal example of how a tiny people in a tough neighborhood could still be a Light unto the Nations

How the world’s oldest minority – now a majority here – could treat its own internal minorities par excellence amidst the complicated and messy reality of ethnic conflict

How we could painfully dismember parts of our homeland and offer them on the platter of peace to Palestinians that want neither peace nor some parts (they want all of it)

How we could dazzle you with USB sticks, drip irrigation, operating system kernels, Nobel Prize winners, swallowable medical cameras, deep tech, quantum mechanics, generative AI and cures for disease

But now I’m finally accepting that you don’t care

You never did

You don’t see and you don’t hear

And because I cared about what you think so much, that so deeply hurts

But you don’t have my best interests at heart

You take issue with my base identity, with what I represent

Don’t expect me to wait for your approval this time

It doesn’t matter what I do, you’re not going to change

It doesn’t matter how I act, because your issue is with who I am

Now I’m going to block out your noise, and do what it takes to win this war

Today

Finally

I no longer care

[pieceofchocolate]

I love mastermind but I feel so stupid when reading it, it’s my favorite fanfic right now but when reading the comments, everyone’s so smart and understand the politics asap and I’m just here in my little corner. Like there’s so much nuance outside of British politics (which sue me I do not know anything about) but there’s other aspects like intersectionality etc that I only know a surface level basis of. I’m reading the comments and there’s commenters who are holding such amazing conversations on jewish people and israel and how it’s depicted in the west and how people forget that zionism is a separate thing to judaism and I wish I could add to the conversation but I can’t. Or well not yet at least, Mastermind has definitely inspired me to take up an interest in politics! I’m starting with my own county so I won’t be knowledgeable enough to start these conversations but when I am, I hope to re-read mastermind in a new lens! thank you so much ❤️

Babe!! First of all thank you for the kind words <3 My intention was to write it so that you wouldn't NEED to know a lot about politics to understand what's going on but hopefully it could add a bit of spice to those who are nerds about a particular topic. And well since the political system in Mastermind is a fictional mash-up I hope a lot of people will be able to recognize SOMETHING that applies to their country. I'm glad it has awaken your interest though!! Not everyone needs to be a political nerd and especially not on the REALLY nerdy level, but I think it's so awesome and important to have a bit of insight to what's going on in society and especially in the country where you vote (if you vote!) If you have any questions or if you're curious/want resources about anything in particular mentioned in Mastermind (or anything else tbh) I'm always happy to talk politics <3 <3

Thanks for reading!

[sunbeamedskies]

People on here spreading propaganda that the Iranian government is good...stop.

You are hurting Iranians, Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and more.

The Iranian government does not give a fuck about Palestine. All they are interested in is spreading their power and influence across the Middle East. They even hurled missiles at Al-Aqsa Mosque, which potentially could have destroyed or damaged it if the Iron Dome didn't exist. The only seriously injured victim in Israel was a 7 year old Muslim Bedouin girl. Many Arab countries understand how dangerous the Iranian government is and intercepted some of their missiles.

Iranians have been screaming at the top of their lungs that they don't want war and they are tortured and murdered by their government, but your desire to view the Middle East as a sports match makes you want to root for anyone who is against Israel. The Iranian government literally hosted a Holocaust denial convention in 2006 which included David Duke, one of the former leaders of the KKK. They are not against the Israeli government for the right reasons, but for antisemitic ones. The growing antisemitism in Iran due to their rule drove out thousands of Iranian Jews, many whose only option was to move to Israel.

Please do research before spewing ignorant bullshit that harms everyone. There is no shame in admitting you were misinformed. Peoples' lives are worth more than your bruised ego.

[sbahour]

As our Jewish friends celebrate their High Holy Days, I wish them well and a future that serves peace with justice. In that spirit, I suggest this book that shows the way forward...

“Wow. Wow. Wow. A riveting, densely packed, bottom-up tour de force on Jewish Palestine solidarity work.

A heavy dose of intellectual food for thought on those working on reclaiming Judaism, painfully transforming from indoctrination to enlightenment, by consciously “unlearning” with a bold determination to employ the Jewish tradition of social justice in the struggle to end the nightmare Zionism, through Israel, has brought upon Judaism.

This deep dive research is founded on dozens of interviews with those American Jews acting in “critical caretaking” of their Judaism while in the trenches of social justice to dismantle and rebuild the doxa they have been brought up to believe.

The book addresses the dynamics and inner workings of the intersectionality of Palestine solidarity work as it relates to the Movement for Black Lives, the Church, and the LGBTQI communities.

Bottom line, Judaism is just as beautiful and convoluted as all religions, and where there is a will to constructively employ it in advancing social justice it is powerful.

Days of Awe informs us that, not only is their hope but hope is being played out—here and now—as we live through these turbulent times."

~ Sam Bahour

[women-wellness]

Cultural Perspectives on Menstruation: Taboos and Traditions

Menstruation is a biological process experienced by individuals worldwide, but cultural perspectives on menstruation vary significantly. Across different societies, menstruation has been subject to diverse taboos, rituals, and traditions that reflect cultural, religious, and social beliefs.

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Here's an exploration of cultural perspectives on menstruation:

1. Taboos and Stigmas:

Impurity: In some cultures, menstruation is considered impure, leading to restrictions on women's participation in religious activities, communal spaces, or even their daily lives during menstruation.

Secrecy: Menstruation is often surrounded by secrecy, and open discussions about it may be discouraged. This can contribute to the perpetuation of myths and misinformation.

2. Religious Perspectives:

Religious Practices: Some religious traditions have specific guidelines regarding menstruation. For example, in Hinduism, women may be restricted from entering temples during menstruation, while in Judaism, there are rituals associated with purification after menstruation.

Symbolism: Menstruation is sometimes symbolically linked to broader religious themes, such as fertility, life, and the cyclical nature of existence.

3. Coming-of-Age Rituals:

Celebrations: In some cultures, menarche (the first occurrence of menstruation) is celebrated with rituals and ceremonies marking the transition from girlhood to womanhood. These ceremonies may include teachings about womanhood and responsibilities.

4. Traditional Practices:

Isolation: In certain societies, menstruating individuals may be isolated from the community during their periods. This practice is often rooted in beliefs about purity and the potential negative influence of menstruating women.

Special Accommodations: Cultural practices may include providing special accommodations for menstruating individuals, such as separate sleeping quarters or specific utensils for eating.

5. Modern Perspectives and Activism:

Challenging Taboos: In recent years, there has been a global movement challenging menstrual taboos and advocating for open conversations about menstruation. Activists work to break down stigma, improve access to menstrual hygiene products, and promote education about reproductive health.

6. Menstrual Hygiene Education:

Promoting Awareness: Initiatives around the world aim to educate both men and women about menstruation, dispelling myths, and promoting a more positive and informed perspective on this natural bodily process.

7. Economic Implications:

Access to Products: In some cultures, limited access to menstrual hygiene products due to economic factors can further contribute to the challenges faced by menstruating individuals.

8. Intersectionality:

Gender Inequality: Cultural perspectives on menstruation are often intertwined with broader issues of gender inequality. Challenging menstrual taboos can be part of a larger effort to address gender-based discrimination.

Conclusion: Cultural perspectives on menstruation are deeply ingrained and reflect the values, beliefs, and norms of a society. While some cultural practices celebrate menstruation, others perpetuate taboos and restrictions. The ongoing discourse around menstrual equity, education, and advocacy aims to foster a more inclusive and supportive global perspective on menstruation—one that recognizes it as a natural and integral aspect of reproductive health.

[amagicdoctor]

let's put some thought into it shall we? the principles of resurrection on krakoa would only be agreed on religiously by the christian and jewish mutants while muslim mutants wouldn't believe in it. buddhist and hindu ones on the other hand would only agree if it was reincarnation (mind in different body). kurt's law aka the cultural mandate goes in line with christianity, islam and judaism but the last two allow contraception regardless. there needs to be different places to pray at on krakoa

I'm pretty sure you're just trying to summarize what you can, anon, but I'm not sure if I would wholly agree with your statement. I have a rebuttal, but to argue against it we would be going even deeper into theology and intersectionality 😅 but that's not important at all.

But like the writers, they too are making generalizations of things. Kurt does come from a Catholic background so his political motives are going to be aligned with his own personal beliefs. So I do agree, from at least that stand point, that his rule would align with some Christian and Jewish mutants.

When you mention different places to pray I totally forgot about having holy places to congregate at!! Y'all already told me these people had to fight for schools. 🤦🏾‍♂️I doubt there are any churches or temples anywhere.

Aaah and then what about the religous people who aren't being helped to eat what they need to eat, pray where they need to pray. Having spaces to bury their dead (cause again, having an afterlife or lack there of is one thing, but funeral services are different for SO many people too), all this other stuff.

Also I get the whole mutant religion thing being made to be universal for all (which is nice conceptually but realistically it didn't work out lol), but (excluding those who are happy to be a part of multiple religions) what about those mutants that just want to keep their own religion seperate? I'm trying to imagine the sort of person who isn't stubborn so to speak, but someone who has a lot of pride in their background. They don't want to adopt this spark, or a resurrection thing into their belief system. They'll probably still stand with Krakoa as a haven for mutants, but these people would probably try to make their own space as well. If that's even allowed 😳😅

And as I'm writing this out, now I'm thinking about all the pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders coming to Krakoa. I feel as though people like them already have a following that they would bring with them to Krakoa. It would be so cool to explore how they would make a new life for themselves, either blending this new mutant culture into their own, or living against it.

Then again these questions and curiosities of mine may not ultimately matter. The series seems to follow only the main X-Men characters and the council. I think an anon already said there aren't a lot of new characters being explored, and I did talk about if they ever had a side series, they could explore topics like that so Krakoa can be a truly new world building experience! But Krakoa is literally ending this year?? So now there's not even an opportunity for that 😅 At this point I'm just wasting my breath

[dyke-bars-never-last]

Louise Fishman

(January 14, 1939 – July 26, 2021)

In the postwar era, when the popular role model Rosie the Riveter was refashioned into June Cleaver, Fishman was a basketball player intent on becoming an artist. The liberating physicality of the gesture eventually drew Fishman toward painting. Not to mention the powerful impact of her mother and aunt, both were professionally active women artists.

“Reinvent myself ”

When I was meeting with my women’s group, circa 1969— I decided never to paint again, unless it came out of my own experience. I began to learn stitching, knotting, working with liquid rubber and many other materials I found in the surplus store ... I cut my large grid paintings into strips and began to weave them together.

By approaching painting as a kind of quilt-making, Fishman gendered her materials, politicizing the given or “neutral” aspects of painting. The Victory Garden of the Amazon Queen (1972), landed her in the 1973 Whitney Museum Biennial.

I was thrilled to be included, but suffered severely because of the difficulty of being singled out, separating me from my mother and my aunt and the other members of my painters’ group who were not included. 

The “Angry” series

From 1973, Fishman scrawled the righteous feelings of her female lovers, friends and comrades-in-arms across each painting, breaking yet another modernist taboo—the one against treating text as image.

I made a decision to make an angry painting for my then partner, and then for each of my women friends, and finally for women who had inspired me, that I loved, (Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia founder Ti-Grace Atkinson, the dancer Yvonne Rainer) etc.

Both a structure & a disintegrative force

Although Fishman had come out in the late 1950s, it wasn’t until the early ’70s that she found her community in a group of lesbian writers and academics. Envious of their journalistic skills, she used the idea of writing to generate a new body of work.

She took up meditation, and Buddhist art became an important influence on her work. Chinese calligraphy, in particular, conflated gesture with writing.

“Remembrance & Renewal”

In 1988, Fishman was deeply moved by her visit to the Pond of Ashes, a memorial built on the site of the Birkenau crematorium, and she collected a handful of silt while there. The ashes were mixed into oil paint, a theatrical act that rendered Jewish identity materially present yet still largely invisible.

I am a Jew and will always identify as one. I try to follow the Judaism described by Abraham Heschel: compassion and love for all creatures, despite how difficult I sometimes find that task to be.  That is, of course, an utter simplification of Heschel’s teachings.  I try to be present when there is suffering.

The Grid

Fishman’s studio in upstate New York was destroyed in a fire in 1990, so she relocated to New Mexico. She began spending time with Agnes Martin in her studio, and the close contact with Martin’s drawings rekindled her interest in the grid. Fishman saw that the grid could be employed as a form of meditation rather than simply a compositional device.

Despite (or, perhaps, because of) the trauma of the fire, the mournful, anxious introspection that marked the “Remembrance and Renewal” paintings was replaced by a new confidence and depth of feeling.

Letting go of her nagging mistrust of beauty, Fishman uses a roller to help create a roughly gridded black ground punctuated by window-like patches of color.

“Black Paintings” & interlocking calligraphic marks

Since 1996, her paintings, suspended between states of becoming & decay, emergence & dissolution, evoke ruins built upon ruins, the feeling that the artist is excavating, searching for what has been hidden as well as properly burying that which has been neglected or forgotten by others.

Shades of blue

Fishman recalled that the blue hues of her paintings made in the early 2010s were variously alluded to a 2011 visit to Venice -- the ocean surrounding the Italian city, Titian paintings, and the eyes of Ingrid Nyeboe, whom she married the year after.

I’ve known Ingrid for a very long time, because I knew writer and critic Jill Johnston, her spouse of 30 years. But one of the things I never noticed until Jill died and I went to various memorials and events that Ingrid had organized was that Ingrid’s eyes are this Danish blue. I was really struck by that. I mean you do look in your lover’s eyes, right? I’m in my early 70s, and I do think about my mortality: how much time do I have left to paint, what am I going to look at, what do I want to do with my time to make it rich and continue to make it rich? So all of those things take on a poignancy that I think, as a young person, I may not have had—I may have noticed her blue eyes, but I don’t think I would have integrated it the way I have.

Fishman’s usual ratio of cardinal elements has been reversed—little clods of earthy pigment get caught up in a centrifuge of light, water & atmosphere.

I see a theatricality in the new paintings, which comes from a number of things, for example, the grandness of opera... but I felt there was a spirituality and humanness, a humane-ness, a compassion, a connection with paint that was about compassion.

I was working on about three or four paintings and I was getting very upset because there was this odd theatricality about them and there was also, this quality of everything moving up and out, explosively. And I was very critical of it because I tend to be very formal. One day I just happened to look across at this one painting, which is now called “Assunta” and I thought, what is this? Next to it there was a postcard of Titian’s “Assumption.” And I looked and I thought, for Christ’s sake, it's all about Venice, it’s all about this drama in these paintings. And it’s about the sky. So it all came to me and it was a tremendous relief.

Being a painter, making paintings, continues to evolve.

One thing I will not do is make paintings that don’t teach me something. I often destroy something—not destroy it and throw it away, but scrape it down or repaint it or something, unless it really does something that’s like, “Oh!” and teaches me something.

Every time I go somewhere, I notice something visual, and it ends up ultimately in the work. Esther Newton, a former lover of mine, and an esteemed cultural anthropologist, wrote a paper on consciousness-raising in which she compared it to religious conversion theory.

“‘Always Wild At Heart’ – an Interview with Louise Fishman.” Yeast – Art of Sharing. Die Plattform Zum Thema Teilen Und Teilhabe., http://www.yeast-art-of-sharing.de/kunst/always-wild-at-heart-an-interview-with-louise-fishman/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2021.

Butler, Sharon L. “LOUISE FISHMAN with Sharon Butler – The Brooklyn Rail.” The Brooklyn Rail, https://brooklynrail.org, 4 Oct. 2012, https://brooklynrail.org/2012/10/art/louise-fishman-with-sharon-butler.

Greenberger, Alex. “Louise Fishman Dead: Abstract Painter Dies at 82 – ARTnews.Com.” ARTnews.Com, ARTnews.com, 26 July 2021, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/louise-fishman-painter-dead-1234599995/.

Moyer, Carrie. “A Restless Spirit – ARTnews.Com.” ARTnews.Com, ARTnews.com, 2 Oct. 2012, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/a-restless-spirit-62951/.