#it just benefits the oppressor

[disco-cola]

not people still unfollowing me on insta after three months of continuous posting for gaza and at least 22,6 THOUSAND PEOPLE BEING K!LLED OFF

[dreikit-23]

Tumblr be normal about transmascs challenge

[master-k0hga]

| ... Well, I WAS ok with this last night, but now I'm not entirely happy with this doodle...-

Oh well, not like they're the main focus on this blog, I'm mostly really focusing on my OCs and the other few personal projects here... Although doesn't help with Tumblr just no longer filtering themselves, showing off their true colours for the longest time and also jumping on the "AI" bandwagon too along with just being a dictated lot like the rest of the assholes who make up 100% percentage of all brands-

I'm just a fucking idiot who just wants to draw OCs, post random fcking art and show it off when I'm not fcking working and killing myself over a job that will never release me from the clutches of bullshit!

WHAT WAS SO. FUCKING. HARD ABOUT KEEPING ONLINE AS A DUMBASS PLACE WHERE THERE WAS NO PLAGIARISM, POLITICAL BULLSHIT FOR SITES TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AND FUCK THEIR OWN USERBASES. WHILE ACTIVELY CONTROLLING AND TAKING THEIR FREEDOM AWAY!

Not like we ever had freedom to begin with-

Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, DeviantART, Instagram, T- HERE! WHEREEVER FUCKING ELSE! Fuck all CEOs and teams of the online world, people just wanted ONE place where they could escape hells of reality even just for a LITTLE WHILE and NOW look what you did- Kill yourselves!! I fcking hate corporates I hate the rich I hate the system and I hate governments all around thr world, D I E ffs fuck humans and their greed I hope this shit ass race gets OBLITERATED with NO fcking trace of the human existence left!! Fucking disease, pests, a literal INFECTION of life itself!

Fuck you fuck you fuck you I hate this fcking world, do me a fcking favor and fcking blow up already!! I've had e-fucking-nough

. Art © Me . DON’T RE-POST .

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is being mad that Out Flag Means Death did the "broken heart = justified reason to be evil" to your favorite character, but afraid to talk about it because you don't want to be perceived as a homophobe. Amatonormativity is everywhere.

yikes

[mysticwiki]

it took me about 8 years, since this is my first time playing the game, but i now understand why all my mutuals who love da:i also hate it..... there is so much to unpack here, but i am also enjoying myself SO much but WOW some of the writing??? the narrative choices????

[cruelsister-moved2]

this is why we won't survive if we continue to focus on the oppressed but ignore the oppressor and the oppression because people might acknowledge that more than 1 in 4 women have experienced sexual assault, but doesn’t that bring up concerning questions about how many men have committed it? a lot of you are building a frankly deranged worldview where misogyny is just a natural part of the world that we’re all equally helpless against and apparently the solution is to completely deny it exists and force women to make nice with the people actively benefitting from our subordination. this happens with other forms of oppression frequently too but you seem to have the most difficulty in grasping that the patriarchy is intentionally maintained by people who benefit from it. There is no oppression without oppressors and your activism is far worse than useless if it frightens you to admit that 

[lesser-vissir]

One thing I've noticed about the general circle of bloggers that say it's anti-black to say all Americans benefit from US imperialism is that they seem to be the same group more or less that has intensely transmisogynistic reactions to the idea that tme black people oppress white trans women.

It seems to me like these bloggers have built their politics on the idea that black people cannot hold privilege over non-black people and get really defensive when told otherwise, and view that rhetoric as itself anti-black, hence the reaction when a white trans woman says something about transmisogyny.

To me it looks identical to the way transandrophobia bloggers will react to being told that they hold privilege over trans women. In that, being oppressed (and therefore a victim by default) is such an ingrained part of their identity that they view an attack on that rhetoric as an attack on themself.

[golden--flowers]

Ouughh another so good Andor episode

[transmaverique]

its just such a basic view of feminism to me i guess. like we cant talk about how emasculation is an enforcement of toxic masculinity, how it is racialized, how it effects both transmascs and transfems. bc mens rights arent real, of course, feminism is about womens liberation, not destruction of the patriarchy.

we cant talk about how misandry (such as it is) is a dogwhistle for terfs, bc of course they only ever mean transfems when they say "men". we cant talk about the ways white cis women have utilized toxic masculinity and white supremacy to harm black men, specifically. we cant talk about the ways cis women hold privilege over trans men.

its just so... like... you rush to say "misandry isnt real" because you dont want to engage with the more complex dynamics of oppression that arent as clear cut as "cis man oppress cis woman". and like, sure, misandry isnt real. i dont care enough to squabble over what language we use. and i dont care enough about whatever silly jokes you make on your blog. but you have got to realize that by only ever seeing men as inherently oppressive to you by merely existing you are actively aiding radical feminism.

you are lending legitimacy to bioessentialism by refusing to engage w these more complex gendered oppression dynamics. you are lending legitimacy to bioessentialism by treating men as inherently different and inherently oppressive to women.

[marcooze]

There's alot of terfs posing as transmascs in the transmasc tags rn, so i just wanna make it clear to those who follow me: - Yes transmascs have transmasc specific issues - No that does not mean we are inherently more oppressed than transfems - Yes we deserve to have a term for it for ease of discussion - No it does not oppress anyone to have such a term - Yes, alot of people have flawed views on transmasc issues - No, this is not the fault of transfems Now more than ever we need to uplift ourselves and our fellow siblings with "out-of-the-norm" gender identities. Please Please Please be wary of posts making generalizations like "Transfems dont want us to have-" "Transmascs are just taking away from-" Thats just bait trying to pit us against eachother, please block people like this.

Minors/Younger Trans people especially, please know, our enemy and oppressors are not eachother! Think long and hard about who exactly benefits when we spend our time hurting eachother instead of lifting eachother up and fighting as a united group.

[leikeliscomet]

(Reposting from twitter)

My POV as a Black fan that thinks Dot and Bubble's racism commentary is trash

Rewatched Dot and Bubble and I'm gonna break down from my POV as a Black fan why this episode didn't work for me & why it's an awful racism commentary. Long arse post incoming:

The whole "You should've noticed the cast was all white except for fifteen ha your bias is showing" doesn't work for a show that's been predominantly white for 60+ years. D&B casting has been the default for most of the show so its not abnormal enough to be a racial litmus test. An example is the Matt Smith era The only reoccurring character of colour in s5 (2+ appearances) is Liz 10. Artie n Angie in s7. 0 in s6. RTD's own era isn't fully safe either. For many eps Martha or Mickey are the *only* Black characters. Most POC are side characters or extras.

White fans should be aware of the predominantly white casting of the show but this late in the game feels cheap. Most of the show has gone through 100% white episodes including fan faves and it was never an issue back then bc it was beneficial. This is so hollow. Representing racists as cartoon caricatures SEVERLY underestimates the danger of white supremacy irl. White supremacy is system designed and constructed and rebranded over centuries. It is not accidental. People aren't racist bc they don't know they're racist because they *do* They know the system that oppresses POC, Black people especially, benefits them socially and financially and that is why they participate. Its not stupidity it's intention. That should've been the Finetime core not Lindy goofing around bc the arrows are gone or some shit.

Human Nature showed us racist young people that exercised this power bc they knew this. They may be children but they are still dangerous bc of their views. Martha knew this. The silly tech obsessed gen z angle erases this danger and that of actual gen z white supremacy

Instead of the camp goofy tone we could've gotten a serious focused episode. The slugs and millenial/gen z social media silly distracts from what could've been the main theme of colonisation instead of saving it for 10 mins of exposition at the end & scattering microaggressions. Saving Fifteen's racism scene for a goofy episode was a horrid idea. Spending 30 mins on representing racism as silliness then giving a dramatic dangerous score is the definition of tonal whiplash. Representing his oppressor as a blonde bimbo again does not take this seriously. Fifteen went to 1960s BRITAIN & got through it unscathed. Finetime is a fictional futuristic land but the racism of 1960s Britain was real. If anytime was right it could've been Devil's Chord. Distancing yourself from a panto villain is easy but addressing your history is hard.

The scene itself is incredibly performed so I'll give Ncuti his flowers but what he used this skill for could've been so much more. Having his FIRST SCENE begging to save a racist is disgusting. It isn't Black people's responsibility to show compassion to people that want us dead. Yes the Doctor helps the baddies bc they care. But they're aren't ignorant to prejudice. The liberal anti racism of who is so jarring and why I still think Thin Ice is performative. When white people are angry at injustice it's radical. When it's Black people we're aggressive.

Respectability politics is a tool of white supremacy. That if one pleads and is nice enough they can earn liberation. What would white fans think of Fifteen if he DIDN'T beg Lindy? If your allyship with Black people depends on showing kindness to racists you are NOT an ally.

Next up is Ricky. It was established ALL Finetime citizens have white supremacist views yet Ricky September stans refuse to see him in any negative light. Just like Joan Redfern white dw fans refuse to see racism if a character is likeable. If nice guy Ricky's a racist, then anyone no matter the niceness can be racist too and that's a pill white fans aren't ready to swallow. If racism is systemic and not about individual character, then what's keeping them safe? What happens when YOU are under the microscope.

THIS is why we NEED Black writers in Doctor Who. The nuances, depth and complexity of the Black experience can only be told at it's best by Black creatives and not guessed, assumed or spoken over by white fans and white writers. It's okay to put ego aside and say you don't get it.

"Im white but I loved the Doctor's reaction" "I'm white and i thought the racism commentary was great" "I'm white but i-" Yet again, we have to sit through another round of white and non Black fans of colour dictating Black representation for us. I'm so fucking tired man. AGAIN IM YELLING FROM MY HILLTOP TO WATCH SHOWS BY BLACK WRITERS. Almost EVERY single theme in Dot and Bubble and frankly most of the show has been done WAY better in other media. RTD is not the authority on Black stories. We are. Always have been and always will.

Tl;dr Dot and Bubble is an unserious and tacky racism commentary. It's core message is drowned by more RTD Who camp. Don't tell me this episode was good at representating my own experience. It wasn't. S15 having Black writers isn't a need it's a must. Goodbye.

Reblog this version pls

[germiyahu]

I also don't like the assertion that Jews are trying to conflate "criticism of Israel with antisemitism/the Israeli state with Jewishness as a whole" because you... YOU... did that first and you do it more easily than you breathe.

You interrogate every complaint of antisemitism, just to make sure it's not actually whining about someone being mean to Israel. You investigate the person's social media history to make sure they're not a Zionist. You turn around and act so enlightened and wise when you say "Right because Netanyahu wants Jewish people to think criticism of Israel is antisemitic, and he wants Jewish people to think that they have to have ties to Israel and that Israel is the only place they'll feel safe, that plays right into his hands," like you're doing this for Jewish people's benefit. Like you're not one of the people making Jews feel unsafe.

The fact of the matter is that Israel is intrinsically Jewish. By design yes. But also for the fact that it's just logically true? Most Israelis are Jewish. Most Diaspora Jews have friends and family in Israel. It's not a function of flags or national anthems. It's a function of people. Saying "Well conflating Israel with the idea of Jewishness is antisemitic," changes nothing about that. It's words with no value. It's empty air. Because what have you done to advocate for Diaspora Jewry and make them feel like they're not subordinate to Israel? What have you done to assure them that your disdain for a country that most of them have personal familial and cultural ties to is not motivated by bigotry? What have you done to include them and center their safety when advocating against Israel's policies?

Yes, the more people are antisemitic and weird about Israel to Diaspora Jews' faces, the more of them will gravitate closer to Israel. But that's not the point. The point is that if your criticisms of Israel were normal, we wouldn't have a problem. 99% of Diaspora Jews would join you. But you tell them they're not allowed to defend Israel in any context and they're not allowed to defend themselves when your "criticism" of Israel harms them. You don't want to admit that these can overlap. You just want them to silently add a rubber stamp of approval of whatever you say or they can leave.

It's clear you don't see Jews as a marginalized group. This is not how Leftists treat marginalized groups. This is how they treat the oppressor group, the dominant group. Diaspora Jews are at best an ally to Palestinian liberation. Because you don't see them as different from Israelis, you see them as the group that benefits from the oppression of Palestinians, not as a group that has nothing to do with Palestine and is historically and contemporarily marginalized by Western society, the society you live in.

And yet for all you conflate Diaspora and Israeli Jews you clearly want to keep Israel and the Diaspora divided, isolated from each other. They can't show solidarity with one another because that's (((ZIONIST COLLUSION))) and confirmation of a media controlled conspiracy or something. You want Diaspora Jews under your thumb and you want Israeli Jews dead. You're not as subtle as you think you are.

[decolonize-the-left]

I've noticed a rise in radfems/TERFs in feminism tags and more specifically trying to rebrand as The Real Feminism or True Feminism since it's "for the girlies" or whatever.

I am begging you all to help me bury them.

Because as a teen who grew up during the peak of exclusionary "bi/pan/aces aren't vaild" and "kill all men" era where the concept of misandry THRIVED I'm telling you this feels extremely similar.

And radfem/terf ideology got mainstream from those sentiments being so popular and so easy to tap into. It was framed as being righteous since men were oppressors.

"Women are good and men are just mean oppressors! Look at everything they've done!" is such a common sentiment in those circles.

It also completely lacks critical feminist thought.

And we're STILL dealing with the affects of it over a decade later.

.....So let's talk about JKR since she's currently the Figurehead and favorite of the movement that's trying to rewrite feminist history.

It's 2023. It's a year before a US election where Project 2025 and Trump would happily create a road for trans and queer folks to be imprisoned if not worse.

Which is I'm sure why JKR has been photographed and interacting with multiple members from The Heritage Foundation, people whove spoken for them, and people who attended theyre meetings. She even enjoyed watching Magdalen, who who she credits for becoming a TERF.

But do you know who Magdalen is? Or what else she was saying? What about any of the other people in the photo? Do you know the scope of what JKR was internalizing and how bad it was? Do you know she has ties to conservative anti-abortion groups?

Do you know what The Heritage Foundation? Probably not and they're the worst so let me tell you why it's such a huge red flag for her and other so-called TERFs and radfems to be associated with them.

Because I can tell you right now she heard a lot of things from those people and there is no fucking way in hell that it was just about queer people or just some sex-specific concerns. And it wasn't just passive bigotry.

Anyone who doesn't conform to the idea of a white, straight nuclear family (re: single mothers, leftists, immigrants, gay couples, etc) is made out to be an enemy of the state.

Anyone they can justify as a "national threat." Yes, they call us all a national threat on their site, their book, and the pamphlets they pass out to politicians. The details are listed on their website including the Mandate For Leadership which is their instruction guide for the next president.

I'm not exaggerating when I say it calls for genocide, prison camps, and eugenic cleansing.

Several people in that photo don't even support abortion, a basic women's rights that JKR claims to care about deeply.

JKR was consuming white supremacist dogma under the guise of feminism.

And she's not willing to admit or correct it which is where the problem lies. She won't even admit to herself that she was fooled or that it's bad or hypocritical.

My concern is that she is not the only person who's fallen for it and there are more everyday.

So it's very important to me y'all learn how to filter out what Actual Feminism is in this age where literal fascism is attempting to take its place.

Firstly,

Real, actual feminism will be welcoming to EVERYONE

Because the patriarchy doesn't only affect women or cis people or white women and it's an insult to every previous feminist icon to say otherwise.

Feminists have been fighting for decades to unite people under the concept that Patriarchy is a system that will be brought down with allyship and solidarity.

They've been fighting so hard and so long to prove that everyone deserves the same rights as men.

That women are just as capable as men and shouldn't be stopped from entering fields of study and sports dominated by men. They've been fighting to prove that women are just as capable and smart as any man is, that men would benefit from it dismantling patriarchy too.

Women fought side by side with the queer community to get Roe v Wade passed in 1973. You know why? Because despite what radfems and TERFs will tell you trans women benefit from protecting and standing up for bodily autonomy.

Do not let bigots tear drive a wedge between two groups that experience gender based oppression and would benefit from the same exact rights.

We have changed history together and they're terrified we'll do it again.

A screenshot from the largest feminist organization active right now, The National Organization of Women.

Notice how the T is included. They even posted this video two years ago when LGBT and specifically trans rights started really coming under attack in 2022.

Trans women are women.

Trans men are men.

ALL women deserve rights.

Every gender deserves equality and fairness.

And feminism is for all of us or it is for none of us.

Because nobody deserves to be treated the way patriarchy treats us.

[revolutionarysuicide]

preaching to the choir im sure but it's crazy to me how liberals say that being a revolutionary is doomerism/hopeless. it's communism or extinction and I have the optimism to believe that we can have communism before capitalism destroys the planet on which we live. it's communism or genocide and I have hope that genocide is not a necessary inevitable part of the world. it's communism or borders and I have the optimism to believe that we can have a world without borders. revolutionaries don't just say that hoping for the impossibility of our oppressors taking pity on us and enacting liberation on our behalf, is a fool's endeavour, we also say that we don't need it and oppressed people do have the power to emancipate ourselves and all humanity. I don't think that's hopeless at all, that challenges every doomerist assumption capitalism and liberal ideology is based upon. being a revolutionary means believing in what the powers that be claim is impossible, and having hope that oppression is not an inevitable part of the world. I think claiming that voting for small reforms that only benefit the ruling class and a minority of the oppressed, is the only realistic hope we have, and we can never set our sights higher than that, is an incredibly hopeless and bleak worldview. frankly I'd kms if I were a liberal tbh, I can't imagine being ok living in a world you believe to be so hopeless

[autolenaphilia]

The understanding of feminism on this site is absolutely terrible. To the point where people have no idea of what feminism even is. It’s especially annoying when people on here claim to be feminists, but contradict basic tenets of feminist thought.

And to be fair, feminism is a complicated and not united ideology at all. But let’s try to explain anyway. A basic tenet of any feminism is that society is a patriarchy. Women are oppressed and exploited, and men are the oppressor class. Men gain advantages for being men, which is what male privilege is. And feminism is about destroying this system of gendered oppression, the patriarchy.

This is as basic as it gets. And that we live in a patriarchy is easily proven. Patriarchy theory is a theory, but it’s a very well-supported one. Basic statistics and other evidence prove women are disadvantaged and discriminated against, and that men prosper in comparison. Misogyny is real, it’s an oppression that definitely exists.

Yet this basic understanding consistently eludes people on tumblr, even as they claim to be feminists and say “fuck the patriarchy.” People are at best reluctant to acknowledge misogyny as being real and lack understanding of it.

Talking about misogyny will get you accusations of being “terfy” when it’s just basic feminism. Even transfems get these accusations. I’ve already lamented that many people who are anti-terf (which you should be) don’t know what a terf is. What is actually “terfy” is having biological determinist and cisnormative explanations of who women are and what causes misogyny. In reality, trans women are very much women, and have to navigate the world as such. We constitute an especially oppressed subset of women, due to suffering from an intersection of both misogyny and transphobia: transmisogyny. The recognition of misogyny as an oppression we experience is needed to explain our experiences and suffering. We are not men, and are exiled from manhood and it’s privileges due to rejecting it and not performing masculinity.

Particularly disturbing are people who claim to be feminists and yet argue that “misandry” is a real thing. It’s often not said to be “misandry”, I’ve read words like “antimasculism” (more or less explicitly) used as substitutes for the term “misandry”. It is often phrased in terms of “the patriarchy hurts men too.” That the patriarchy is just harmful gender norms that oppress all genders more or less equally.

And those who adopted this have abandoned feminism, often without acknowledging it. They have abandoned the most basic feminist tenets, such as we live in a patriarchy, a society that benefits men. The idea that men do not gain privilege from being men and are in fact hurt by it is an anti-feminist idea.

It’s an incoherent way of analyzing gender. The question of who is the oppressor class in this analysis is eluded entirely. Who benefits from oppressing men via gender norms? Feminist theory is clear about men being the oppressor class who benefit as a class from the oppression of women. It’s a basic question, yet studiously avoided, sometimes in terms of blaming it on the system, understood as some impersonal monster, not as a system that exists to benefit certain people.

It also misunderstands how masculinity works. Sure, being forced to adhere to masculine gender norms hurts, I’ve been badly bullied myself for breaking them. But even if the patriarchy hurts men, it more importantly benefits them. It privileges men, because that’s the literal definition of patriarchy.

Masculinity benefits men, that’s why they perform it. The proper performance of masculinity is needed for being recognized as a man and thus given male privilege. It gives them power over women (cis or trans), even other men (like gay men) and degendered others, the ability to commit violence against them with impunity. Men who perform it are not the primary victims of masculinity, the victims of the violence done to prove masculinity are. And privilege is what men are afraid of losing if they appear non-masculine. It’s the fear of losing their status, of experiencing just a smidgen of the horrors trans women are given everyday. Men will do violence to avoid that. I don’t wish to downplay the horrors of being an openly gnc man (especially if they are also gay or queer in some other way). but they still have a privileged position compared to women in general, and especially transfems.

Of course, men are oppressed too, but it’s not for being men. Working class men are oppressed under capitalism. A long list of oppressive systems like racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and so on do oppress the men who are affected by them. Men thus often find their male privilege curtailed by these oppressions, especially if they are affected by several at once. And because of this there are indeed situations where women can hold power over men (white women do often hold power over black men in white supremacist societies for example). This does however just curtail their male privilege, not negate it entirely. You just need a more complicated analysis, that takes those factors into account. Still, all else being equal, men hold power over women. It’s when comparing gay men and lesbians, comparing disabled men and women, and so on, that you can truly see the privilege these disadvantaged men still hold despite the real oppression they experience. Women are also affected by these oppressive forces, and their effect is made worse by intersecting with misogyny. Men in oppressed communities still have power and privilege over the women in that community. Their experience of oppression looks different, but that’s due to the absence of misogyny, rather than the addition of any misandry (as another tumblr post put it, and which I can’t find now, so I can’t give credit. Would love to be given a link if you can find it).

And we have to be careful when talking about oppressed men, because their experiences are often exploited to justify anti-feminism. The fact that the oppression is real is exactly why it’s useful, because it can be decontextualized to argue that men are oppressed for being men. Propaganda often lies by omission, than by outright making things up. Warren Farrell, “the father of the men’s rights movement”, used the experiences of working class men dying in dangerous jobs and as soldiers in war to argue that male power was a myth, and in fact “men are the disposable sex” or “the expendable gender.” Those deaths are real, but the context that it’s due to capitalism exploiting the working class is removed, and instead attributed to their gender. The facts that working class women also suffer and die from exploitation and that capitalist men benefit from the exploitation of the entire working class are ignored. It also eludes why women don’t die as these men do. Women are kept out of many “dangerous” jobs and the military in order to justify their subjugation as “the weaker sex.”

It’s a terrible argument, and Farrell and the men’s rights movement he helped create are openly anti-feminist and deeply misogynistic, denying women’s oppression. Yet I’ve seen variations on Farrell’s argument posted by supposedly “pro-feminist” blogs. Queer bloggers here will hold up the sufferings of gay and trans men as proof misandry is real, that men are oppressed for being men, ignoring that their oppression is due to homophobia and transphobia. And still against all reason still use the word “patriarchy” and being feminists, despite denying the analysis of society as a patriarchy where men are privileged for being men.

At least Farrell and his fellow proud MRAs are honest about rejecting feminism and believing patriarchy is a myth. I’m glad at this point that I was and am a fan of David Futrelle’s blog criticizing and mocking the men’s movement, because that has enabled me to recognize and criticize the arguments they use, a thing some people here clearly need some help with.

Often these bloggers bring up the ancient anti-feminist accusation of feminists not being a movement for equality at all, but about hating men and their masculinity. Anything critical of men as a class who holds power over women is understood as “misandry” or “terfy”, and so is any criticism of masculinity as a gender role. Criticism of masculinity are only made in the context of “toxic” masculine norms hurting men, never in terms of how it confers men power and privilege and how the misogyny of hegemonic masculinity hurts women and other people. I suppose in this kind of thinking my earlier criticism of masculinity as a tool for gendered violence is enough for them to call me a misandrist. And like I’m not. All men benefit from patriarchy, but if you are a man and don’t abuse women or are a misogynist, you are okay as a human being in my book. What else can I say?

These criticisms are not just taken as misandry, but as some kind of widespread norm, despite really only being made in feminist and queer spaces. So making a tumblr post saying “it’s okay to be a man, it’s okay to be masculine.” is seen as reasonable, despite that being literally what the vast majority of society already believes (including the feminist spaces that can reasonably be targeted by this statement). It’s a bizarre statement to make in a patriarchal society that favours men and expects them to be masculine. It again echoes MRA complaints about how society has been captured by a feminist conspiracy (with anti-semitic undertones, as any conspiracy theory has, that’s how MRAs answer the question of “who is oppressor class for misandry?” btw).

It illustrates how a bad understanding of feminist theory leads people into some rather right-wing positions, all while clinging to the banner of being a feminist or progressive. Our society is a deeply misogynist one, yet in response to feminist gains it likes to cloak its misogyny in a kind of superficial feminism. And acknowledging misogyny is a real oppression is hard when you grow up and live in a society that justifies it. It’s especially uncomfortable to do so if you benefit from it. It’s more comfortable to deny misogyny. But it’s work that needs to be done. Or else you can turn into basically an MRA while still believing yourself to be a feminist, which seems to be the trajectory of some people on this site.

[doberbutts]

I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.