#liberal feminist theory

[misespinas]

“Woman is not born; she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed. She becomes symbol of this, symbol of that: mother of the earth, slut of the universe; but she never becomes herself because it is forbidden for her to do so.”

Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981)

[whereserpentswalk]

Transphobic women will say things like "of course I'd rather be male, and would prefer a male body, and wore male clothing as a child, but every woman wants that. I've now accepted my female gender role fully which means everyone else can". Like, my guy that's not normal, I think you're going to be much happier and more euphoric once you're a boy. Like, so much of terfism and tradwifism is egg behavior, I want to put you in boy clothes and let you enjoy being a cute guy and being called handsome by straight girls.

[lilithism1848]

[nx18]

Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.

Bonnie Burstow

[queerism1969]

[feministdragon]

Women and the Subversion of the Community, by Maria-Rosa Dalla Costa

This is the first essay (downloadable pdf) to point out that housework done by women is actually invisible unpaid work that is necessary for the economy.

As anyone who comes home from their job and has no energy to feed themselves and clean the house knows, people who work outside the house really need a 'wife'.

Capitalism says that women's unpaid labor should be paid in 'love', because if capitalism actually had to pay for women's work, labor costs---already the highest portion of a business' costs---would skyrocket and cut into profits, and as we know, Number Must Go Up. Paying for women's labor would slow down that Up way too much. So capitalism and culture collaborate in making everyone think of women's work as a labor of love, not something to be paid for.

Marxism says that women have to be 'emancipated' from the labor of the home to be free to enter the world of paid labor, but now we understand that the 'superwoman' model is also not sustainable. Women can't be caretakers of the home and also breadwinners in the market, we're just too tired.

Tictoc says we should just give up and go back to being housewives, but that's not going to solve anything.

The real solution is to reinvent our economic system.

Which is radical, I know. But we're at an impasse, and trying to solve large problems. Large problems require large solutions.

Marxism is not radical enough, because it does not include the economic value of the unpaid labor of women, the care work that is the foundation of not only our economy, but our life as human beings on this planet.

We need an economy that supports the life of human beings, not human beings that slave to support the life of the economy.

...

I have to stop here but if you're interested in following this i'm going to keep posting under #feministdragon reinventing our economy

[tiredwomansworld]

The reason why women feel left out by modern progression is bc the modern idea of progression is focused around the equality model. Everyone is equal. This dates back to the civil rights movement and the feminist revolution. They fought for equality and neutrality in society. The reason this doesn’t really benefit women (and even black people in regards to the civil rights movement) is because this world was historically dominated by the male and made in his image. Every system and world view we have was curated based off of the needs of males. And even if it wasn’t done intentionally, it’s still the result of men having total disregard for women so much so that our societal needs were never met. So when “progressives” push for “equality” they’re pushing for women to be “equal” in a world that was never designed for their comfort or even basic satisfaction. The playing field will never be even because it’s not curated based on the equal needs of every opponent, it’s based off of the needs of only 1. Males. Women are left chasing a dream that they will never truly be content in because we are in a world we will never truly be content in.

[itellmyselfsecrets]

“When feminists acknowledge in one breath that black women are victimized and in the same breath emphasize their strength, they imply that though black women are oppressed they manage to circumvent the damaging impact of oppression by being strong…Usually, when people talk about the “strength“ of black women they are referring to the way in which they perceive black women coping with oppression. They ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression…The tendency to romanticize the black female experience that began in the feminist movement was reflected in the culture as a whole. The stereotypical image of the “strong“ black woman was no longer seen as dehumanizing, it became the new badge of black female glory…Black women were told that we should find our dignity not in liberation from sexist oppression but in how well we could adjust, adapt, and cope…No one bothered to discuss the way in which sexism operates both independently and simultaneously with racism to oppress us…The stereotypical image of the black woman as strong and powerful so dominates the consciousness of most Americans that even if a black woman is clearly conforming to sexist notions of femininity and passivity she may be characterized as tough, domineering, and strong.” - bell hooks (ain’t I a woman: black women and feminism)

[misespinas]

“There is something every woman wears around her neck on a thin chain of fear – an amulet of madness. For each of us, there exists somewhere a moment of insult so intense that she will reach up and rip the amulet off, even if the chain tears at the flesh of her neck.”

Robin Morgan, “Goodbye to All That” (1970)

[whereserpentswalk]

Hey, did you know there are some people who choose not to go through puberty? Like this is an actual thing, it's rare, but it happens. Some nonbinary people choose to take puberty blocks their entire life (or once they're adults have surgery to prevent puberty more permanently). You can be an adult who hasn't gone through puberty and still live a happy and enjoyable life. Don't let conservatives convince you that puberty blockers are some toxic thing that has to be gone off of soon after it's started.

[feral-radfem]

I think a lot of y'all would be better at politics in general if you got away from the concepts of conservative and liberal.

They are not opposites of one another, there are usually actually a lot of overlaps between the two, and using these terms in arguments is usually just used to dismiss the other person's point without any intellectual integrity.

Also, no general political groups like 'liberal' or 'conservative' are monoliths of thought. There are degrees of how liberal or conservative someone that changes depending on the topic at hand and this stance, depending on the topic, is likely subject to change with new information presented. This mindset is the precursor to black and white thinking and tribalism within politics, do yourself a favor and stop using them.

[radfembri]

forgot my professor identified as nonbinary and i turned in a paper with a whole paragraph on how anne fausto-sterling’s intersex “research” was debunked 22 years ago :P

[queerism1969]

[feministdragon]

"When Marx specifies the particular capitalist form of exploitation which, according to him, consists in the appropriation of surplus labour by the capitalists, he uses this general term in a specific narrow sense. But ‘exploitation’, as is explained in the next chapter, has a much wider connotation. In the last analysis it means that someone gains something by robbing someone else or is living at the expense of someone else. It is bound up with the emergence of men’s dominance over women and the dominance of one class over others, or one people over others.

If we do not talk of exploitation when we talk of the man-woman relationship, our talk about oppression, or subordination hangs somewhere in the air, for why should men be oppressive towards women if they had nothing to gain from it? Oppression or subordination, without reference to exploitation, becomes then a purely cultural or ideological matter, the basis of which cannot be made out, unless one has recourse to the notion of some inborn aggressive or sadistic tendencies in men. But exploitation is a historical – and not a biological or psychological – category which lies at the basis of the man-woman relation. It was historically created by patriarchal tribes and societies. Thus, with Maria-Rosa Dalla Costa I speak of exploitation of women in the triple sense: they are exploited (not only economically, but as human beings) by men and they are exploited as housewives by capital. If they are wage-workers they are also exploited as wage-workers. But even this exploitation is determined and aggravated by the other two interlinked forms of exploitation."

Patriarchy and Capital Accumulation  Maria Mies p.72

[theburialofstrawberries]

he does ultimately end up having a liberal and inconsistent view on marriage that assumes sexual division of labour due to natural sexual differences but john stuart mill.. this was quite romantic of you..