#or justify why they don't have to be a feminist but should still have all the entitlement to the feminist spaces we create to talk about

[feral-radfem]

Hey if you're a non-radfem and you want to make a complaint that radical feminist critique keeps getting applied to you because you hang around radical feminist spaces here is my advice: leave.

Honestly, I'm so tired of seeing this shit. Go find some other places to hang out. I don't care that you came here because everyone else kicked you out for being a "transphobe". That does not make it our responsibility to soften our movement and our criticisms so that you feel comfortable in a movement you have no intention of of committing to. You are welcome here on the basis of being a woman, however, if you can't handle the feminist action that goes on in these spaces, then you need to leave. That is a you problem, not ours. I'm tired of hearing y'all whine that we don't coddle you enough and then adding anecdotal evidence of feminist harm or strawmen arguments for why you're justified in doing patriarchal actions were other women are not. There is not a single identifier or life experience you can tell me that is going to make me think that you deserve to be exempt from the same criticisms I would level at any other woman. If you're an adult, you should be mature enough to hear them. If you are not mature enough to hear feminist critique, you need to leave feminist spaces.

if you want to be self-serving, it is completely your right to do so. I've heard a number of you in passing claim that you "don't want to be feminist, you want to be people". Which, while that's an insulting sentiment as a feminist, just demonstrates that the only person y'all care about is yourself. You see being a person as inherently being self-serving and self-centered. First and foremost, it's all about you. That level of selfishness is pathetic and frowned upon in collective spaces. Feminism being one of them.

Just save us all the headache and go away. Y'all are one of the only groups of people on the internet who are able to piss me off in seconds, istg.

[hadesoftheladies]

i think it's important for the women of radblr to genuinely ask themselves: are you feminist because you hate men or because you love women? is your feminism centered on your anger toward men or is it centered on love for yourself, your life, women, and the world? because if your activism is dependent on how often men make you angry, they're still winning. it is IMPORTANT that our activism drives us toward community. we can't all be here just to be angry and we can't leave when we don't feel angry anymore. that shouldn't be the purpose of this community.

we are not unique in our ability to analyze patriarchal society and understand misogyny. many women have done that before us. but they stopped calling themselves feminists. why? because they had no community and they got tired of "being angry." when they call us just a bunch of "angry feminists" it's partly misogyny, but it's also from genuine experience. it's okay to be angry, healthy even, because it's justified. but if that's all that's holding you to feminism, then you'll just become a jaded anti-feminist woman in a matter of time. you'll just burn out and get bitter and maybe even blame feminists for it.

we should be learning from each other. we should be curious. we should be re-centering ourselves, not just de-centering men. we should be finding joy in being women. in sisterhood. we should be broadening our horizons and bettering ourselves.

life's too short. and if we want a better life for ourselves and the women after us, only love can give us the strength to last the whole fight. and give our lives joy and meaning while we have them.

[ofbreathandflame]

Why you care so much about what feyre and her stans are doing🤔

you know, im actually very glad you sent this in anon, though i know it wasn't sent in good faith. when i say feyre 'stans' - i am being 100% sarcastic. my argument is that i don't believe the people who peddle the idea that they hold feyre to be first actually believe that ideal. i also believe they end up purposely derailing actual conversations about abuse, feminism, and racism bc they don't want to actual critique rhys, so they end up selling much more intentional bs to avoid the conversations all together,

as to why that matters - i can explain.

(1) i think a lot of people who work under the idea that they like feyre 'first' believe that a female perspective = feminist. in theory, i believe a lot of rhys stans subconsciously (or consciously) understand that his actions are villainous (to some capacity). like they do understand that there's only so far they can actually support sexual assault. i think a lot of people use feyre to circumvent this issue: if feyre agrees or even likes the abuse, then it cancels out the implication of the it. and this partially because the book flocks to do the same thing - it never introspects about what x character's actions say about them as a character. think about it - even if we work with the idea that rhys doesn't enjoy the abuse he put feyre through, going as far as to reiterate that he feels shame -- we have to question why the story responds to that with plainly stating that feyre actually enjoyed the abuse and/or felt genuine attraction rhys in those moments. because then it (a) removes the idea of moral-greyness; rhysand never has to reflect because the story always believes he secretly justified. (b) there should still be a conversation about what that means. the mating bond operates as both a justification and a rebuke of feysand's actions (c) it puts into question what the story is actually arguing about feyre's trauma from utm. if feyre always secretly wanted rhysand utm...so much to unpack there. we're not genuinely rebuking abuse. and that's fine if you're drawing a scene or simply entertainment - it becomes worrisome when we considered that there is a lesson being put forth.

(2) people who use feyre as the scapegoat to often time sidestep conversations. feyre's narration is only considered when it validates rhysand's abuse - other times, the idea that we should consider canon wholly (analyze the information we're given v. what we're told) becomes nonexistent. so even though feyre has reiterated her boundaries to rhysand (and even though rhys is already aware of those boundaries via his mental snooping), there still this need to 'hear things from rhys side' - even though we know what feyre choice would have been. we know that feyre would have never wanted that information kept from her. its literally been her only consistent trait- don't lie. and as i said in this post: even the act of creating the intervention undermines three books of feyre's narration cementing her boundary.

(3) 'feyre stans' often hijack the conversations; the conversation about racism (and rhys's absue) always stalls because -- AGAIN -- there's only so much analysis they can happen before you realize the problem is both sjm's ideology and her obsession w/ rhys. at some point they always end up defending sjm (and her racism and misogyny). there's a struggle between actual unpacking rhysand's action and what that means for him as a character. they do want to have the serious conversations, just not in a way that detrimental or all-encompassing. selective reading, plain and simple.

i also believe thats why there so much overblown hate for tamlin (that in my opinion, backfired terribly esp over the last three years) is merely insecurity about the problems w/ rhys's charcater. morally, there only so many conversation we can have before the weirdness rears it head. we can't argue tamlin is abusive and then in the same breadth argue for the neccessity of the same form of abuse. we can't argue that rhys is morally-grey and then ignore the greyness area. we also cannot say rhys grows as a character if we argue that he never grows from the person we met utm. we can't say that we 'recognize' he was wrong, but then constantly uplift those very moments as moments of love. we can't say sjm has racial/moral in her story and then remove how that effects more favorable characters.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Clarification I definitely should have done ever since season 4 and the Ladynoir conflict started escalating, but hey, let's just get it out:

There are reasons why I'm harping down so badly on Miraculous' Girlboss feminism and defend Adrien as much as I do.

To get the feminist (in-universe) explaination out of the way first:

I would be lying if I said that I like the direction the show has taken Marinette's character and the story in general. But regarding her specifically I simply have to say that most of my problems with her are how she is written as Ladybug, Guardian, and especially leader & partner. Not in her civilian self. Hence why you won't find that alot on my blog, only when it contributes to the overarching double standards problem from s4 I take issue with.

I simply cant deny it, Ladybug is a kind of leader I just came to not be able to respect alot anymore in how she operates most things bc she doesn't really ever look passed how things look & stand for herself, and what SHE needs & wants. Marinette is a very low empathy person in the sense that she struggles putting herself in other people's positions, or remembers considering that at all.

But that's not the reason why I can't respect her as leader. I have ADD, that would be really hypocritical of me.

What leaves me unable to respect her as leader though (& honestly kinda even wanting Alya to take her position) is the fact that the show doesn't see much wrong with Maribug doing that.

They don't properly depict this as flawed leadership she actually NEEDS to grow out of by making up for her shortcomings by, for example, making other people her official co-leaders. Instead the show since s4 (& kinda s3) will proceed to put it's feminist foot down if Maribug isn't actually in the end 100% correct and "totally girlboss justified" in any given case - with CN & authorities specifically - no matter the context. Ergo she's barely ever truly improving her weakpoints in partnership skills for example & continues doing the same mistakes over n over.

like she genuinely would benefit from having Chat Noir as her co-leader too, not just Rena Rouge. But no. The neurodivergend low-empathy girl can't have a high-empathy boy co-leader bc apparently thats misogynistic now, huh ?

Again, I have ADD and I'm also a woman. In fact, I actually have alot in common with Maribug (hence why it hurt so much once s4 took her away from me), so forgive me when I still say: I am NOT going to lower my standards of my believe that neither of those aspects get to be an excuse on everyone else's expense regarding LEADERSHIP (which I do also am in the position of in my life).

And I repeat: LEADERSHIP. Not Marinette herself as a person necessarily & esp not her civilian life.

People always say that her critics wouldn't be so hard on her if she were a man, but I strongly disagree. In my experience, if Marinette were a boy people would actually draw a line nowadays and call out that Mariano is too stuck in his own head to be a good leader (& partner). And maybe even demand that he shouldn't be in that position anymore either at all or until he's in a better head space.

Bc with male characters people are actually drawing lines now in important factors when it comes to power & the accountability coming with it, bc in the end being in change means it ain't about you

Hence why e. g. Steve Rogers (Captain America) was then a fucking fugitive from the law when shit got real in the MCU. They had to do that bc of his leadership morality not being able to exist well within a corrupted & complex law system under fire and attack. My man's an amazing battle leader, but the MCU did VERY well leaving taking care of all kinds of social & political matters to Tony Stark. This kind of nuance ain't Steve's strength. Marinette & Steve are actually a EXTREMELY similar type of leader and it's interesting that I don't exactly vibe with him too much either in that regard, but like him as person the way I did Marinette. So for me it's definitely an issue with their type of leadership.

But the mainstream female leader characters are often still "too female" to get held to the same regular standards bc telling a female leader character in a complicated and not entirely beneficial situation & position 'yeah, it's sucks but you're not the center of the universe'' is now more often than not still "too mean/ sexist"

again, Steve was made an outlaw for a reason and you can bet if he had been a Stephanie people would have made all her struggles about sexism & called the 'outlaw leader' route after Civil War misogyny, merely bc "society doesnt respect women". This is whats happening with Maribug & it clashes with her leadership style.

Hence why there AREN'T ALOT of mainstream female leader characters. And if we get some, most of them are narratively defined by how powerful & in control they are for THEIR OWN BENEFIT and it being depicted as 100% right & just in general (like with Marinette) which goes against what a normal leader should be, so alot of people don't like them (ignoring the actual sexist people for a sec)

The first Wonder Woman movie for example was so well-received for a reason. They did it RIGHT (& may I please also recommend Wakanda Forever? Fuck, that movie was GOOD)

--

But yes, it's notably how Maribug treats Chat, who is supposed to be her partner and friend, that I take alot of issues with.

And yes, I would say the same if LB were male and CN female. Ladynoir is so rooted in toxic femininity that this "partnership" (or just the entire LS) the way it is could NOT exist today in gender bend. S4 and the s5 finale in particular are unthinkable in gender bend and they sold it as "justified female empowerment" & "unparalleled loving treatment" from Ladybug's side Chat Noir needed to learn to be GRATEFUL for.

All while, and I will never stop stressing this: the show has never stopped writing Marinette to treat Chat Noir as if he basically just spawns into existence once he puts on the mask. He's HALF a human being. Even once she falls in love with him in s5.

This is the fundamental and deep seeded problem of where my issues come from here. It never stands in question if Adrien views Marinette and Ladybug as full human beings, but the other way around that very much is the case. In whatever way it's depicted. Yes this is a line I draw, especially because of the whole Sentihuman thing.

I personally am alot more like Adrien regarding Friendship and partnership (or what his character initially started out). They are heavy & meaningful topics for me. So seeing Marinette being utilized to girlboss all that into the ground with Chat Noir, esp in s4, while she apparently barely ever even noticed anything wrong with how she treats him in the first place as she literally replaced him with Alya/ Rena in everything but name

cause buring him under a wall of secrets & lies meant she can still 100% benefit from his eternal devotion by letting him believe she's too alone to be a partner anymore AT ALL. (Kuro Neko onwards and then NEVER stopped letting him think she's just as alone as he is. NEVER. She's still doing it in s5 while leaving him 100% isolated which was then his demise in the s5 finale.)

and gives Alya the deluxe partnership entirely on his expense, while barely ever sparing him even the most basic thought in anything; & by "Risk" then literally having them switch status. Rena is her actual partner she fully treats that way and he's merely her favorite temp hero with no rights, which Rena was previously.

And the only reason why Chat was treated with something resembling to fairness or dignity again in season 5 (& finally wasn't a rag doll for her every little mood anymore...) was because Maribug plainly had no other choice and had her team & position of power taken away by force while Alya renounced for her own safety. And yet she's still treating him as half a human being even by the end of S5. AFTER her character development. He's Chat Noir and that's where his existence ends in her leadership & friendship. CN and Alya in s5 are literally 2 halves of ONE PARTNER.

All that was painful to watch to say the least. Bc it's imo honestly a disgrace to friendship and partnership. I can't put into words how ashamed I would be of myself if I treated someone the way Marinette treats Chat Noir (again, HALF A HUMAN BEING).

Much less a friend I claim to love dearly and don't want to loose (another thing the MCU did better regarding Steve's fall-out with Tony over Bucky... I should really make that comparison post why Steve works for me & Marinette doesnt)

Just the mere fact that Marinette in "Elation" even told Chat "It doesn't matter who's underneath your mask" is honestly outrageous.

Because thats simply what it is for me. If s4 & 5 Marinette were portrayed from a similar morality angle to Emonette in the Paris special I would have much less issues with her. Cause thats ironically an angle female characters barely get & is mostly used to redeem the broken bad boys with a hidden heart of gold™.

Double irony: s1-s3 actually DID put civilian Marinette often into that angle, hence why I really liked her, but then s4 suddenly said "well, her methods & actions really dont matter. She's wrong, but actually not really; ergo she should get rewarded in the end. Always. But with a few exceptions. Here n there she loses to claim otherwise. But actually the world just needs to learn how right & amazing she is."

She makes countless mistakes but often either doesn't really learn from them anymore or they just don't "count" bc that's 'what makes her quirky & loveable', so having any issues with her now means you hate women. And she's a very flawed leader but actually never did anything wrong. Ever. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I will be VERY blunt now: The moment you put a female character into the leader role the FEMALE aspect is supposed to be of secondary importance. And a leader, by the nature of the position, ALWAYS has to be questioned morally wise in my opinion bc of the fatal blindspots that will automatically occur in every leadership.

And it happened here too: Chat Noir's treatment. But they demanded that her being the (female) leader means she's OWED to treat him badly & gets to keep him as blindspot on HIS expense bc she doesn't like thinking about him existing as civilian person.

A leader is ALWAYS somebody who is NOT going to sit well with everybody regarding their approach. That's a normal instinct, and in fact it would be highly dangerous if that wouldnt happen at all. So if I, or other people, don't respect her as one that simply means she has an opposition the way every leader has & is being held to normal standards a leader should be held to, regardless of gender.

Sorry if you think thats sexist, but in my opinion that's a YOU problem. I personally respect female leaders too much to not acknowledge them as anything else but the potential threats they are. The same way I do with male leaders.

You're leader first, woman second. If you can't handle that get out of the leadership position (yes, oc that also applies the other way around). Feminism was about making sure that women cant be excluded from e. g. position of power just bc we're female. The goal wasn't to have yet another group of people stomp their foots, now claiming that they are OWED power once they wanna have it to feel powerful. But that's what Marinette was used to teach an entire generation of children, especially girls.

The last thing you will EVER get me to do is accept that I should be holding women - specifically for equality, female empowerment and leadership - to LOWER (moral) standards as I would the men in her position.

Buddy, I am NOT gonna fucking do that. Just the thought is pissing me tf off, and has ever since s4, cause it directly plays into the misogynistic thinking of:

"Women can't be given power, status or even too much focus as human beings because they're too irrational and immature to be able to then lay proper priorities & take rightful accountability for their shit like a man in power could; and not just scream and cry while playing the oppressed victim card the moment things don't work out & they aren't being given the special female treatment to let them mostly off the hook consequences wise.

Leading to everyone around them, especially the MEN, having to step up, do the work & basically babysit the women like children - while still having to give her the credit as person in charge - turning the women more or less into toddlers wearing a queen's crown"

Which, by all means, Adrichat in every dynamic of the love square by season 5, Gabriel at the end of "Recreation" and even Luka & Félix (& "thankfully" Alya too since s4) had to do for Maribug in alot of ways.

Pick up all of her slack in several major areas & catering to her while simultaneously having to still give most of the credit to HER or else they would be "mean to the female lead" (it's also telling that Alya is treated the best here, & goodness dont get me started on Su-Han...).

And with that out of the way, a few more meta reasons:

1) I'm NOT watching a damn documentary. Marinette is NOT a 14 year old, she doesnt exist & isnt based on a real person or story. She's a fictional main character and narrative tool, so forgive me for approaching this differently than a real life case.

and 2) in everything I watch I automatically look out for the narrative's blind spots and victims of the writings' favorites. I take it this seriously because this is career related for me.

Hence why I have barely ever liked a main character and ironically Marinette/ Ladybug was once one of the few exceptions (alongside Korra from Legend of Korra and Blitz from Helluva Boss)

Look, when I for example watch Helluva Boss or a Yugioh show I will automatically pay extra attention to how the female characters are being treated bc they are obviously treated worse by the writing and much more neglected and scapegoated than the male characters.

Meanwhile when I watch Miraculous and She-Ra, I do the opposite and pay attention to how the male characters are treated bc now they have the gender-biase against them.

And when I for example watch Avatar the last Airbender or Legend of Korra [and She-Ra, that show is great], then I actually get to be mostly fucking happy for once in my life jfc

I'm not going to elaborate too much more on this because I already named by my main point in the beginning: Chat Noir's - not even Adrien's, I mean CHAT NOIR - sometimes honestly awful treatment being the biggest moral and narrative blind spot of the entire show, and honestly where most of Maribug's problems then are also rooted in. Hence why I started focusing so much on Chat Noir since season 4. I look at the overall narrative and circumstances and look for the blind spots that needs to be solved to get to the core of the problem of this whole mess, to get effective results.

And that was and even by the end remained the fact that Adrichat is treated so badly, scapegoated in every possible way in the name of "feminism" and kicked out of the story where HE is at the core of most everything going on, just so the show can force Maribug into everything, make things about her that have no business being about her

Just so she can then be made to constandly turn around and scream, cry and stress about problems - and go about them in the least effective way - that wouldnt be there in the first place if she wasnt the main character of a story that isnt hers.

Mate, I dont know what to tell you here, but the fact that we are following Marinette Dupain-Cheng ,who has nothing to do with anything besides being the cool action girl, is and will always remain of the of core problems of this show. I WISHED that wasnt the case. But for the love of everything, Kagami would have made so much more sense as the female lead, but no.

Anyway, I will leave it at that now cause I already elaborate much further than I initially wanted to, I just wanted to finally have all this stated.

This Blog is not a full representation of how I lay priorities in (feminist) media in general, my view adjusts to the piece of media I'm watching.

And unfortunately, ever since season 4 Miraculous turned into a full blown extreme case and has only gotten better somewhat recently. So I will continue doing what I always do: focus on the fucking VICTIM whose bad treatment pulls down the whole show's quality, and here that's plain obviously Adrien Agreste/ Chat Noir.

And with all due respect: Die mad about it.

[is-the-fire-real]

'Reminder that "punch a nazi uwu" leftists utilize Nazi rhetoric to justify punching Jews.

It was never about punching Nazis; it was about getting social permission to punch.'

It was this very mentality that drove me away from considering myself a liberal anymore (I AM VERY MUCH LEFT LEANING, I DIDN'T DECIDE TO BECOME CONSERVATIVE JUST TO BE CLEAR. I just don't feel like those spaces have any intrinsic safety any longer). It feels like so much of western leftism has become about "punching up". I don't think it's about compassion or concern anymore, it's about finding the "right" targets. And so often that was just used as a way to excuse bigotry. I'm a goy but I noticed this on a personal level plenty with people identifying as feminists, they'd be perfectly okay saying something unquestionably sexist, as long as "white women" was attached onto the front. It's very much the same with shaming people over physical features that others may have, as long as the individual person is "bad enough" it doesn't matter if wide foreheads or big noses or acne are features many people have and would feel hurt by seeing them used as an insult, because they're only "really" directing it at "one of the bad ones"

So, I'm going to link to this piece again because it's been embarrassingly useful, and explains why I say things like "pretending to believe" despite their clunkiness. For new material, I hope you don't mind that you have accidentally triggered a massive unskippable cutscene, but you tapped into a few things I have been pondering and I'd like to take advantage of your observances to add my own.

Part of what you're discussing here, which I agree with, is that toxic slacktivists pretend to believe that they are Good People Doing Good Work. They are Bad People and their work is Bad Work, but if they all get in a group and pretend together that it's Good, then that's almost the same as being Good, right?

Another worthwhile aspect of what you're discussing is something I became aware of in the aftermath of the collapse of Occupy Wall Street. One commenter on a liberal blog I still follow lamented that mass protest never seems to accomplish anything, and how the millions of people who turned out for OWS protests should have affected more political change. Considering most of them could also vote, write to representatives, etc., something other than littering and arrests could've been done.

Another commenter pointed out that he had personally been at most of the anti-Iraq War protests, including the largest worldwide protest on 15 February 2003 (6-10 million estimated participants). But most of those protesters did not agree with each other. There were at least four major coalitions of antiwar protesters showing up then and thereafter. The ones he listed were:

"Just war" advocates who believed the Iraq War was unjust.

Total pacifists who believed all armed conflicts are unjust, and therefore the Iraq War is as well.

Right-wing bigots who believed a war might potentially benefit those they thought of as religiously or ethnically inferior and subhuman.

Xenophobes, both left- and right-wing, who believed "the US can't be the police of the world" and that any action taken outside USian borders was immoral.

Imagine four people with these beliefs in a room talking about the Iraq War... then bring up the war in Ukraine to them and see how fast the coalition falls apart.

"Well, the war for Ukrainian liberation is a just war," says the just-war advocate. The pacifist starts to scream "HOW COULD YOU DEFEND ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT LEAD TO CHILDREN DYING, YOU MONSTER!". The right-wing bigot says they support the war, too--on the side of the ethnically and religiously superior Russians. And then a left-wing xenophobe says we're wasting money that should be supporting American workers and uplifting Americans out of poverty instead of buying new bombs for Ukraine.

And your "antiwar" coalition collapses, with the pacifist wandering off to agree with the xenophobe while the just-war liberal and the right-wing bigot scream at each other pointlessly and without resolution.

This is one of the wisest breakdowns of human behavior I have ever discovered:

Any coalition of people is made up of many sub-coalitions who only temporarily agree on a single aspect of a single issue. Making sure the group does not collapse prematurely is the true, unsung labor of movement maintenance.

To be real, it's much easier to let one's coalition collapse and scream about how The Menz, or The CIA, or Greedy Capitalists, or The Jews artificially forced your group's collapse than it is to admit that one might just suck a big one at coalition building. This is especially true among leftists, who are sometimes anti-hierarchy and frequently fall for populist, anti-expert nonsense. Having a leader means you're suggesting someone should have authority, and a lot of leftists are allergic to that suggestion.

Moreover, though, a lot of "leftists" are "leftists" but only agree with one or two aspects of leftism.

To use your feminism example: I have absolutely seen feminists who think they can be misogynists so long as they say "white" before they say "woman". I mean, who can even argue? I have also seen feminists who think they can be gender bioessentialists so long as they're doing it towards "men" (a category which includes a lot of people who neither look like men, nor live as men, nor benefit from male privilege). I have seen feminists who think they can call themselves "trans allies" while consistently ignoring, degrading, and dismissing the concerns of anyone who isn't a binary trans woman. Etc.

The thing is, they are all feminists. What makes someone a feminist, at bottom, is the acceptance of and opposition to patriarchy. That's it. It's similar to how what makes a person a Protestant Christian is the acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior--you might need to do one or two things to be considered a part of a specific branch of Christianity, but all you need is that one specific belief about that one specific idea. There's a lot of bunk about how "you can't be a REAL Christian unless you do X" just like there's bunk about how "you can't be a REAL feminist unless you do Y", and it's all bunk.

There are people who might be really bad feminists or Christians, but that's not the same as not being feminists or Christians.

So, the coalition of leftism has several sub-coalitions who actually despise each other. Here is my proposal for the sub-coalitions. (Please keep in mind that I am not defining groups by how they define themselves, but by the far more useful metric of their actions.)

Liberals who agree with leftist economic thought, but strongly disagree with leftist conclusions regarding violent revolution. Liberals do not have time for online arguments and superficial action. They are generally participating in protests, running for office, writing postcards to advocate for candidates, informing voters, and working within the system for positive change that alleviates suffering. They are pro-expert but opposed to a vanguard party due to its inherent authoritarianism.

Tankies, whose primary interest in leftism is authoritarian. They oppose capitalism and support violent revolution because they imagine themselves as the vanguard party who gets to control everything when the revolution comes.

Anarchists, whose primary interest is opposing hierarchy. They want to burn down the system because it is a system, and frequently become angry and defensive if you try to ask them any questions about what would be built out of the ashes.

Progressives, whose primary interest is opposing liberals. They also oppose capitalism; they are, like tankies, positioning themselves as the vanguard party because they are already in political power. What makes them Not Tankies is that they care more about sticking it to "the Dems" than they do about actually being the vanguard, opposing capitalism, or achieving anything of worth or meaning politically.

"Red fash", who used to be called "beefsteak Nazis". They say all the right things regarding violent revolution and economics/capitalism, but they only believe what they believe for the sake of their specific ethnic group and nation (frequently, white and USian, but this is extremely popular in Europe too). IOW a red fash wants the vanguard party to only have whites of a specific ethnicity in control of the revolution; they only want universal health care for "their" people, that sort of thing. Some red fash are actual Nazis cosplaying as leftists, but some are just really, really, REALLY bigoted leftists.

Whether we like it or note, the acceptance of armed, violent revolution as a Good Thing means that leftism has always regarded punching up and violence as a necessary component of leftist thought. This is not a perversion of Real Leftism. This is leftism. If you think revolution is good and necessary instead of a terrifying possibility, then you also think punching up is okay; it's just a matter of who is Up and who gets to punch.

Of the five sub-coalitions I described, only one has rejected violent revolution--and it's the one all the other leftists accuse of being right-wing. And interestingly enough, only liberals are habitually accused of secretly colluding with the right... when red fash are natural allies to the right, and when all other forms of leftists openly ally with right-wingers so long as they say the right things about economics. (See under: "After Hitler, us" leftists, left-wing Trumpistas who think they'll rule the ashes after Trump burns down the current system.)

And if you believe in violent revolution, then (let me be facetious for a second) what's the problem with making fun of your political enemies for being ugly? If we believe Steve Bannon is a Nazi, aren't we obligated to stop him by any means necessary, and doesn't that include mocking him for his alcoholism? Isn't mocking someone for their appearance and intrinsic characteristics mild compared to, say, threatening them with exploding cars covered with hammers? Or retweeting pictures of pitchforks and guillotines?

If we believe Ben Shapiro is an opponent to the revolution we accept is necessary and vital to the movement, then what's a little antisemitism in the name of the people? Don't we have to be bigots to oppose bigots? And--

--oh. There's that horseshoe bending round to the right again.

[absolutebl]

Hi.

I was watching TharnType for the first time. I started wondering why people have issues with gay for you and wifey and other things like that. From what I'm seeing it isn't intended in a harmful spirit. It's not received badly in the show in context. I'm not just specifically talking about TharnType but just these tropes in general. I was wondering if someone, the writer/screenwriter, director, any actor or someone else said that they'd intended it as demeaning or in a bad way... I don't know if I phrased that correctly. But I guess I'm wondering what people are basing this on. Even UWMA's Pharm's entire demeanor. Before I watched it I'd read that he is too feminine and damsel in distress-y. But watching the show made me realize that he is traumatized. I noticed similar patterns with other shows as well. Is it audience interpretations?

BL Is a Mess of Really Damaging Stuff & You Probably Shouldn't Just Accept it

Because, if you do just accept it without thought, you're also being damaged. If you're gay, you're being taught a type of gayness that doesn't exist and will fuck up your expectations. If you're straight you're misinterpreting what an entire group of people are like (that's prejudice, FYI). And if you're somewhere in between you're learning really bad behavior patterns for your coming out and self actualization journey.

And no, I don't think you're capable of distinguishing fiction from reality, because you've just asked a question that patently demonstrates a burgeoning parasocial tendency. (And yes, parasocial relationships can and do form with fictional characters. Why do you think I am so terrified by KinnPorsche fandom and shipper culture?)

Here have some education, first one is free:

Imaginary Friends & Real-World Consequences: Parasocial Relationships (YouTube video)

But also, if you don't want me to rant about this, and you just wanted to justify your questionable taste, you should stop reading right now. I get it, denial is great! Go sail that river.

Here I am talking about the good BL can do. That doesn't mean I'm blind to its flaws.

Still reading?

Okay, well, now you asked for it.

And guess what, I'm not gonna sugar lube coat it.

Consider yourself Drunk Type lying in a bed and I'm Tharn's c*** shoving some dry BL reality into your a******.

Oh, don't like that image, do you?

Tough nuts.

Put yourself in my position. I don't wanna have to do this either.

Consider this a "BL narratives made me do it" post.

I'm not responsible for anything, I'm just an archetype.

I'll be your seme for today and you were all just "too cute" for me to resist and now you have to take some tumblr dub con...

But first:

Seme uke when it specifically conflates seme with "the man" and uke with "the girl" is old fashioned, anti-feminist, and anti-queer. Here's some of where I talk about it, but I talk about it a lot. Too much, some might say.

Pharm is a blushing maiden archetype character, I talk about it and what that means here:

It's sex negative. And a lot of it stems from internalized misogyny and ties to something called benevolent sexism. It's pretty rampant in BL.

Yes I think Pharm's behavior can be perceived as traumatized, but that trauma is brought about by In's past actions and the fact that In was punished (BY THE NARRATIVE) not just for being gay but for being a self-actualized pro-sex uke character.

There is a distinction being made between critical discourse over narrative versus how the characters behavior makes an audience feel (within the immersive experience of the drama). Some viewers care about this distinction, others do not.

I very much get why someone might like TharnType (I did) but actually also, you might want to think about why you like it despite the messages the narrative is sending... You might want to think about not just the characters in their little perfect romance world together, but consider if you were in the position of either of those characters how you would feel or behave.

And NOW the Dub Con Portion of tonight's BL party

Okay I was trying to be my usual semiseme-welcoming snark self but ya know what, let's be VERY FUCKING CLEAR HERE because I am jet lagged and tetchy....

We (the collective of BL critics here on tumblr) aren't always talking about WHAT is depicted so much as HOW it's depicted, and whether that HOW allows the WHAT to skate by without encouraging the audience to reflect on the damage the WHAT does to their own perception of what is romantic. Or what is queer. Or what is morally acceptable for decent human interaction.

Like thinking, for example, that it's okay for Tharn to RAPE Type while he is drunk.

Why on earth is that okay? It's NOT OKAY. It's just NOT!!!!

Did Type ask for it?

Did he dress too sexy?

Was his skirt too short?

Was he too much of a jerk?

Did he want it anyway?

Did he not protest enough?

Did he protest too much?

You gonna make that call for him, are you? You read his mind (apparently the way Tharn can?)

But SERIOUSLY.

What if you were actually in Type's position? Roommates with someone you didn't like who molested you when you were drunk. At home. In your own bed. What if that roommate didn't look like Tharn? What if your roommate were the wrong gender or body type or age or familial relationship (!) for your preferences? How would you actually feel?

Because if you're okay with this, really okay for yourself, you have a strong kink and you need to seek out the appropriate community or you are signing up for a very abusive relationship and likely an early death.

Can't put yourself in Type's shoes/bed?

How about Tharn?

Are you the kind of human who would molest a drunk person just because you desired him? Her?

Because they're homophobic and you want to punish them with your queerness?

Because they were a jerk to you?

You always get back at people by raping them?

You an old white dude putting your hand down secretary's shirts because they're just "too cute to resist"?

Why should you have to resist taking what you want? Who cares that there is a whole other human involved?

Grabbing ladies by the pussy any chance you get and bragging about it, are ya? Or is it somehow different or less damaging because TT is dude on dude?

So, are you gonna justify taking what you want and violating another person because they're the same sex?

Now who's being "gay for you"? This is going all the way into DL closet case "it doesn't count if it's with a man" territory.

Because if you are any of the above 8, please block me right tf now. (And... do I have a world leader to recommend for YOU to get into a car with.)

GAH!

Fucking TharnType.

Anygay...

I talk about dub con here:

My initial post about TharnType is here, but more recently here's us having a whole ThanType discourse unpacking Mame among other things as part of the BL movement both as a genre and as a fandom:

and here's an important article on rape culture in Thailand

Gay for you talked about here:

Wife language talked about here:

I'm gonna go watch some BL trash that, hopefully, doesn't have any rape in it. (You never know tho...)

Fuck me (consensually) I am so tired.

I'd drink but I did too much of that already this week.

Maybe I need to eat something.

Don't troll m,e just block me.

For heaven's sake please.

(source)

[shewhotellsstories]

It’s crazy ironic how you go on and on about how “Penelope stans call Eloise a white feminist/criticise her/etc to bring up their fav (Penelope)” when literally all u do is criticise Penelope as a half baked attempt at defending Eloise.

Let me be clear - I am not a Penelope fan. I do not like her, and I fully agree with your criticisms of her. That said, it’s ridiculous how pretty much ur only method of responding to Eloise crit is by bringing up things Penelope has done. Like, they are two different people. Penelope’s bad behaviour does not in fact have any bearing on how Eloise should be examined.

And all this while constantly complaining about the same damn thing u urself are doing ??? Insane levels of hypocrisy honestly

You know, I went a good chunk of the summer without getting any obnoxious anon messages. But all good things must come to an end, and of course, the peace would end over Regency Era Perez Hilton. So let's get into this anon.

If you've read my blog you'll see that my issues with Penelope Featherington pre-date her falling out with Eloise. I've said I think she punches down quite a lot. I've said I find it wildly unethical that her stans call what she does "reporting" because reporters have ethics, editors, a responsibility to fact-check, and ways of being held accountable if/when we get something wrong. When you're hiding behind a pseudonym and printing whispers and rumors as fact, with no way of verifying if it's truth that's just not happening. Additionally, at the end of season one after the reveal I posted that I didn't think Penelope's hurt feelings over an unrequited crush were as serious as the threat facing Marina as an unmarried pregnant girl (google fallen women, they tend not to live long). I don't think that Colin deserved to be tricked, but given the alternatives of a lifetime of poverty or being married off to a creep twice your age who approaches an engagement the same way a person purchases a horse, I understand why the desperate 17-year-old pursued the boy her own age who she knew would at least treat her well. Not only that, but I said I found it gross that she was smiling in Marina's face while having exposed her secret in the cruelest way possible.

Here's another Eloise-free critique of Penelope, she's the worst kind of mean girl, the kind with a victim complex who wants to do nasty things while still being seen as an angel who can do no wrong. Do you want another criticism of Penelope that has nothing to do with Eloise? I think it's icky that she mocked Kate for being a spinster and called one of the few Indian women on this show a beast. I heard that was in the books too, but fun fact, Black and brown people being compared to or flat-out called animals has a racist history and present. Despite the "Penelope woman of the working class people" song and dance, I pointed out that she's trying to stay in Madame Delacroix’s good graces because she can blow the whistle on her.

I've said, it annoys me that people behave as if Penelope's crush being unrequited is a terrible hardship that justifies all her misdeeds, when Colin has never been cruel to her about romantic feelings he doesn't know are there. Contrary to Penelope stans version of history he hasn't tried to lead her on or hurt her, he treats her like a friend and nothing more. In Queen Charlotte, I said it was a dick move to needle the Queen about her lack of heirs during her granddaughter's funeral.

Now, you're saying that I only use Eloise to criticize Penelope, but not only is that untrue it's devoid of context. I only started comparing Eloise and Penelope because after their falling out Penelope's stans started saying that Eloise was a privileged white feminist as a reason that Penelope's actions weren't wrong and why she had no right to feel betrayed. Eloise's feminism is flawed, there's a lot she hasn't considered because she's been sheltered. ICYMI, I pointed out that she failed to understand that due to their class differences, Theo was in more danger than she was because he didn't have a rich family nor the protection that comes with her surname. I even agreed with Theo getting frustrated with her because due to class he is vulnerable in a way she is not. Furthermore, when Penelope stans say Eloise is an entitled white feminist it's not really about what Eloise has done, it's said in service of absolving Penelope of any wrongdoing. I've pointed out that it's said as if in comparison Penelope is Audre Lorde and hasn't been almost as privileged as Eloise up until her father died.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Who acts like more of an entitled white feminist. The girl who is ignorant or the girl slut shaming other women and notably hurting women of color for her own selfish gain? Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony would be proud. Sure, it's despicable that they used racism to gain support for women's suffrage and threw Fredrick Douglas under the bus, still wanting voting rights is less selfish than wanting the high and financial gain that comes with running an anonymous burn book.

Call me a hypocrite if you want but I've got the receipts to show I started criticizing Penelope way before she fell out with Eloise. And frankly, it's hypocritical of you not to realize that my Eloise and Penelope comparisons are a response to the "Eloise crit" that are just thinly layered Penelope apologism and revisionist history.

Have the day you deserve anon.

[thee-dawn-and-thee-dead]

I know a lot of people here don't fuck with black pill ideologies (which is fine I get it) because of thee attachment to incels. But alot and I do mean a lot of y'all radical feminist would benefit from reading the think pieces they have on male nature and even female nature (Btw having common sense and looking around you would've saved you even more time honestly) . Trust me being faced with the dark reality of the world is chilling yet freeing you no longer questioning why things are the way they are ,Why does life have to be this way??? Nope non of that you accept what you cannot change and change what can be improved on, because sitting up in y'all cribs all damn day watching hate porn of men BEING MEN isn't changing a godamn thing. Look I don't hate men no more than I hate the lion who just tore apart the gazelle like thanksgiving dinner I understand male and female nature, Once you put it in the back of your mind and let it marinate that humans are infact ANIMALS all you see is organisms reacting accordingly to their own distinct nature simply nothing to be mad about ,But no amount of socialization can remove or change what is innate and natural we understand this when it comes to animals why not humans???

Sidenote: I made this post because of Tumblr's very deep obsession with hate porn of men. That shit is EXTREMELY self-defeating and mentally draining (I should know) but you have to move on. Hell I used to suffer from the "women r angels syndrome" (yea I made that up) but I had to eventually learn on my own that women aren't inherently better humans ,And just like men their nature for the most part is self serving and destructive albiet less destructive than men it's still pretty damn bad. When I realized this what do you think I did??? Do you think i went scouring the Internet for female hate porn???To answer your question yes ,Yes I did and it was a depressing and miserable time in my life. All that type of consumption did was make my view of the world colder ,darker and harsher and allow me to feel more justified in my hatred of humanity... The world is already a cold dark place but it becomes even darker when you go out your way looking for it.

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

All right, since I've been asked, I think with the issue of male sexual victimization in regard to feminism is it's too many separate discussions at once that get blended into one other. So I am going to attempt to separate them based on what I have observed over the years and add my beliefs on those points. I believe the big ones are, in no particular order of importance, Male Suffering, The Word "Rape", and The Responsibility of Feminists (indented for clarity).

(Disclaimer: I want to make clear that what initially drew me to feminism was it was the only ideology that attempted to answer why sexual assault happens and what should be done about it that didn't look at it as only individual actions, but a whole, worldwide culture that upheld it. And that is still one of the primary things for me. It's what drove me out of TRA circles (cotton ceiling). It's what alienated from liberal spaces (justification of pedophilic and rape fetishes, lolicon, ddlg etc.). The encouraging of sexual assault is just not something I'm ever going to justify, no matter who does it or to whom.)

1) Male Suffering

We know men suffer from male sexual violence and coercion, but what about when the perpetrator is female? We've all seen men laugh off having sex with the high school teacher. Many men don't seem to talk about sexual assault being hurtful to them unless it's to derail feminist discussions or to garner pity and trust from women. Men can't get pregnant. The average man cannot be held down by the average woman. If he is not being penetrated he's unlikely to come away with any physical injuries if the assault is coercive. But I argue yes, he does still suffer. He doesn't suffer in the all encompassing terror of knowing this could happen again (has for most women), knowing most of your sex's lineage has been through rape, knowing the world thinks this is what you're for, and knowing this will remain ubiquitous long after you. But he suffers nonetheless. Consider: if a woman is attacked and beaten up by a group of women, it's assault. It's terrifying on an individual level. and she will be traumatized. But it's not like a woman being jumped by a group of men, or like a same sex attracted individual getting jumped by homohobes, or like a Black person getting jumped by white people. It's not a hate crime. But it's still assault. I argue that if sexual assault was rare and purely individual, only committed by a few sickos, it would still be extremely traumatic to the individual. More so than physical assault even because sex is supposed to be a mutually wanted act. Any perversion of that is inherently traumatic for the person on the receiving end. Again, regardless of who is doing it to whom. Why do so many men joke about it then? Well, for the same reason women usually don't: we know it could happen to us; it has happened to most of us, and it's primarily men doing it to women. When men joke about the opposite it's pure contempt. It's "ha ha, we can do this to you and mentally destroy you and the very idea that you could do that to us is funny". The men and boys who are victimized by women? They don't care about them. Why would they? "Man up! Take a joke! Wish it was me! ha ha!" If it didn't happen to them, they don't care. If it did happen to them, well, that's another discussion.

2) The Word "Rape"

I made a post years ago inviting discussion about this very thing and didn't really get much of a response, but I'm bring it back here. Is rape a specific kind of sexual assault (victim must be penetrated, for example)? Is it what the law determines? Or, is it men's sexual assault of women? I'm coming more and more to believe it should be the third. Sexual assault describes all sexual victimization that goes beyond sexual harassment. I'll use physical assault vs hate crime as an example again: if a man punches another man in the face, assuming no homophobia, racism, etc. is at play that is an individual attack. It's a bad one. The man punched could end up with a broken nose or jaw, missing teeth, etc. and he should get justice and medical care and any therapy he needs. But it isn't a hate crime. Just as women who are sexually assaulted feel all their female ancestors, sisters, and the women who will come after them, when men sexually assault women they know their male lineage has had generations of conquest through the rape of women. Sexual assault is always an individual trauma but it also beyond that when men sexually assault women. Rape for a long time meant only what men do to women and only under very specific circumstances. Before that it meant abduction. How did it get from that to it's current meaning? Because of what men did (and do) to the women they abduct, often with the intention of forcibly marrying them. Why should rape now include the sexual victimization of men? Maybe it should! It's not so much that male victims shouldn't be included under a widely known word describing sexual assault. It's that there should be a word that describes male sexual assault of women only. If it's not rape, we could bring back outrage, I suppose. But why is sexual assault not enough? If it's law, well, push for change. My country doesn't have a law for rape; it all counts under sexual assault. There are no hate crime laws regarding what men do to women. Words are some of the few tools we have. I am asking genuinely, though. Once again, I believe sexual assault is traumatic for the victim regardless of who is doing it to whom, and that also goes for female on female sexual assault and male on male sexual assault. I suppose it could be argued that it's still rape if a woman sexually assaults a woman to impress a male partner. Or that male on male sexual assault is still rape if it's a tool of war or part of a hate crime. But again more and more I do think we need a word that is specific to male sexual assault of women. Generations upon generations of people have not been born to sexually assaulted men or to women sexually assaulted by other women. Gangs of female soldiers don't sack a village and rape all the men or women in it. Sexual assault is always an individual trauma. Rape is man's attempt at conquest over woman. To use another comparison: the witch. We know some men were accused of witchcraft, but it was (and still is) primarily targeted towards women. And this is why we say that men cannot now be witches. Not when they dealt the sentence of sexual torture against women who owned land and/or had knowledge of herbs.

3) The Responsibility of Feminists

I believe that men can be sexually assaulted by women. I believe even if it isn't rape, it's still terribly traumatic. So what is the responsibility of feminists to male victims of sexual assault? I argue none at all. Individual feminists may have compassion--I certainly do. They may choose to campaign for male victims in addition to their feminist work. But feminism is not about equality as some suppose it is; it is a movement for the liberation of women and girls from male violence and control. People can care about two things at once. But it is not feminism's obligation to address male victims. No, not even when the perpetrator is a woman. Male victims of sexual assault do not gain a magical insight into what it's like to be a woman. He may share various symptoms of trauma with a female sexual assault victim, but there is not a whole history behind it. He is still a man. And he displays his self-entitlement as a man when he demands that feminists include him. See, it's pattern: thing sucks, women speak out about it, push for changes and supports, men come out of the woodwork to say "What about me? I too suffer from this! Why aren't you helping me?" Well, where were you before? It's a matter of priorities. Men don't like being assaulted or murdered or sexually assaulted or tortured, etc.. And yet these things go on and on and on. Why? We're told it's only a few bad apples. Not all men. So why haven't the supposed majority of good men put a stop to the few bad men? Because men benefit from a violent world, and the benefits to men as a class ultimately outweigh the harm to the individual. A man blackmailed into sex with a woman he doesn't want may well go home and coerce his wife. There are billions of men on the planet and my love of science tells me they can't all be bad. Even, say, 0.001% of 4 billion is 4 million. And whatever the number actually is--we'll never know--there are bound to be some male victims of sexual assault and men who have not been sexually victimized who genuinely want to see change to reduce human-on-human violence even at the expense of the benefits they have as men in Patriarchy. But it's not enough of them, and it's certainly not the ones who demand feminist attention.

So those are the big three, as far as I can think of right now. There are subcategories, I suppose, such as believing male victims. That would fall under the feminist responsibility discussion, and my personal opinion is that as an anti-sexual assault activist you absolutely have an obligation to believe all alleged victims, but as a feminist you only have the obligation to believe all female victims.

I think it would be good, if we're going to be talking about this issue (and I think it's arguably a waste of time in feminist spaces) to keep the discussions separate. Feminists put off by one can still participate in either of the other two. Feminists making observations regarding another need not engage with the rest. Likewise feminists setting boundaries regarding what they want to discuss need not be forced to justify it with her opinions regarding the others. In each case she can simply say, "That is a different discussion".

[apocalypse-gang]

What's your opinion of people outside of the West that don't know anything about JKR but still play Hogwarts Legacy?

This is just a strawman argument.

I don't know what you want me to say here. Idk if you're genuinely curious or if you want me to provoke me to prove trans people are irrational meanies so you can buy a video game guilt free, or you want someone giving you the greenlight to yell at someone who isn’t aware.

If they don't know, they don't know. There's not anything I can do but inform those who don’t know when I can.

Harry Potter is huge, with hundreds of thousands of products and a cultural phenomenon. I want to say they should know about Joanne's beliefs as she's gotten more and more vocal, and it has been reported on by across multiple platforms, but Harry Potter is so much bigger than we can possibly imagine and how's been a pop cultural phenomenon much longer than she's been open about her transphobia. 

But I’m finding a majority of people who are buying the game are online, and most people online are aware and

Are actively transphobic so they’re buying it out of spite.

B. Are casually transphobic, so they don’t care at all.

Feel guilty about buying the game and use donating or just feeling bad to get people to reassure them it’s okay they bought the game.

Care more about a video game than trans people, and use “death of the author” and “no ethical consumption under capitalism” (neither which they understand) and also “some trans people are harassing people so they’re the Real oppressors” (aka transphobic rhetoric used to justify stripping our right) as excused to justify why they don’t feel bad and aren’t transphobic.

Genuinely believe they did nothing wrong and can still be a trans ally despite knowing their money will be donated to transphobic causes. 

And for people who were able to purchase the game without knowing about Joanne’s transphobia or the antisemitic story, I'm not going to pretend I'm happy with it, or it makes where the money is going fine. 

And, for the people who are ignorant? I don’t hate them. I’m frustrated where their money is going and I'm sad they're ignorant of the reality of their situation and the game their playing. I'm sad they aren't aware of the harm their money will cause, and I wish I could inform these people and they would return the game. I wish they never bought the game in the first place. I wish JKR wasn’t a bigoted, I wish the game wasn’t bigoted, and I wish all the money this game made was put to helpful causes or better art.

But we don’t live in that world. Joanne is a bigot and likes being a bigot and likes pretending to be a feminist. All she cares about is getting money to fund her anti-trans causes. She doesn’t care if fans agree with her or not, or if they're aware of her beliefs, she’s just happy to be having money. She has stated she doesn’t care what her fans think, she sees them as people helping her.

I'm frustrated where their money is going, people are allowed to be upset by this. They're allowed to be angry that people are buying this game, whether or not the person knows it’s harmful. Because the harm is still there and is still harming people, whether they’re intended to hurt someone or not. Are people not allowed to cry when someone accidentally hurts them?

People are especially allowed to be pissed with others trying to act like they’re allies all while knowingly buying this game. Allyship isn’t something that depends on when you feel like it. Allyship shouldn’t be playing into what JKR wants, which is money. You are either an ally or not. 

Idk, anon, is this enough?

[finalmoment]

strongly negative criticism of religion under the cut / traumaposting

the idea that religious beliefs and practices should be allowed to exist free of critique, an idea that rests on the concept of "sacredness" which marks certain topics as being exempt from mockery, criticism, and challenge...is very insidious. i can acknowledge that critique is itself does not happen in a vacuum and directing a disproportionate amount of it at, say, muslims at a time when global islamophobia is on the rise is a way of masking islamophobia under other banners (feminist / progressive ones, generally) - that indigenous religious practices have also targeted in this way as a way to proselytize christianity... that still shouldnt allow anything to exist beyond challenge.

there is no amount of marginalisation that entitles you to hold religious views that justify discrimination against other people, at the end of the day. and proselytization/conversion isn't the only vector of harm contained in religious belief, beyond even its effects on the behavior of people who believe. hinduism is the easiest example of what im saying. while indians, as racially marginalized and colonized people on a global scale, experience oppression, many indians also benefit from the caste system, which is an explicitly caste practice that has superseded hinduism and spread to other religions in india. brahminical hinduism does not convert or proselytize, however. it is an inherently exclusionary practice. that is, there is practically no way to "become" brahmin in an official, sanctioned sense. you are either born one or not, as with all castes. the conversion mechanism of hinduism is more accurately an appropriative one; it subsumes other religious traditions and practices into hinduism, and these communities are accorded a place in the caste hierarchy without their consent.

this is why, when people say that people should respect all religions, im inherently suspicious. what is "respect"? i do not believe what you believe. i have no allegiance to the things you hold sacred. nothing is inherently sacred. why should i accede to your beliefs about the world, simply to comfort you? why should i pretend it makes sense or that it's equally valid? what are you demanding respect for? is it something intangible and unknowable, in which case why should i care, or is it something material, in which case your rights entitle you to non-interference (i will defend your right to do as you please, in the same way that i will defend someone's right to do drugs or take hormones or wear what they like), or is it a practice that continues only because it always has, without consideration for what this practice signifies or who it leaves out?

religious people, in my experience w them, tend to be prone to a persistent fragility of thought. not only do they want to believe whatever it is they believe, they also want me to act like this is a sensible thing to believe and act on, and they're highly injured when i won't play along. like no, i don't want to do your rituals so you can pretend that we're homogeneous in our beliefs, so that you are freed from the inconvenience of divergence or critique. i don't want to act like there's a reason more sensible (or, "scientific") for doing these things than tradition, or that tradition is explanation enough. and i don't want to cede to the idea that i am the oppressive element because i don't agree with them, and that their attempts to bring me in line are neutral and even positive (god is totally real, and even if you don't think so you can still be religious :D)

there is no end to these musings. i just find myself often exhausted with religious people, and i have had to spend most of my life subject to their stupid beliefs and stupid whims and their panicked attempts at reinforcing compliance when i object to whatever is going on.

[chaos-event-horizon]

An update of a sort.

Have been informed that Goldie is looking at this blog and screenshotting it to make comments about how she doesn't like or support proshippers and "doesn't give special support to anyone" and that includes trans people, because trans people are normal humans, but has never once said anything bad about them or incorrectly gendered anyone.

Hmm. Interesting.

"I couldn't be further from a trans exclusionary feminist, I respect trans people and don't align myself with feminists!" || "Trans rights activists are so dramatic! The person who has called for their rights to be taken away and supports groups calling for their murder is OBVIOUSLY in the right here! They should really just listen to her, I'm sure they'd agree that they are horrible people if they did!"

Ah, yes, how big and different of you.

"Anyone with a uterus is a woman. All afab people are women. Didn't your mommy teach you the difference between men and women? I am ignoring the fact that you specifically mentioned trans people because I think that as long as I don't mention them, no one will read between the lines here when I say that if you were born with a uterus you are a woman and nothing will ever change that. This cannot possibly mean that I am disrespecting trans people because I am ignoring them."

You're right, what else could that possibly mean?

And not a proshipper? Not supporting proshippers?

Hmm. How very strange. Then maybe you should stay the fuck out of the tags and stop using them to promote yourself? Since all this shipping stuff doesn't matter to you, why bother forcing your ass in? Since you think proshippers are so stupid and dramatic, why are you using them to try to get people to interact with you-- something that clearly is not working, since you claim to not like anyone here besides the person who is telling everyone involved with "problematic" media to kill themselves?

I'd say that this could all be chalked up to misunderstandings, as it is implied that you are from Germany... however, English is not my first language, and I seem to be able to understand these things well enough.

I'm aware that there are people who follow Rian and I, and who we interact with, who still interact with this person and claim that she's a lovely person who would never hurt a fly. You know, except for the very obvious blood kink and sado-masochism. Whatever, I do not care. The only thing that concerns me is the health and happiness of my family and close acquaintances, and whatever drama is attempting to be stirred up about this is just needless internet dick measuring.

But if you're going to have a pissing contest, at least have the decency to not chew on your own feet while trying to aim. The results might get messy.

As for avditor or whatever, I know all I need to. He's an asshole who sends threats and calls people pedophiles for liking fictional things. He's a twerp. He's an idiot. He's a blowhard who is simultaneously claiming to defend and bow down to a group while talking over them and telling them to kill themselves when they correct him. And I personally think it's hilarious that he hides behind all those acts, just like you do-- and yes, Goldie, I know someone is showing this to you for your viewing pleasure, in the hopes that they get to see more drama to light up the inevitable darkness of all of your worthless existences. I'm fairly certain that if I hadn't put my foot down and turned off anon, we would have been hit by another laughable wave of bitches and cunts that seem to be at the neck and call of that sad little group.

So go ahead. Say what you will. Eat your own tail as you all bend over backwards to justify your own hypocrisy while condemning people who do far less. I quite honestly do not give two shits, except insofar as how it effects Rian. why not screen shot this and pass it to your own followers? You can circle-jerk and claim victory to your heart's content, and eat shit while doing so, as I will no longer be addressing these issues directly.

I however am tossing this whole farce aside, now. Because quite frankly I'm too busy to deal with arrogant insects. Enjoy whatever conjecture you wish to continue spinning on this, because I will no longer be publicly speaking on this matter, and neither will Rian.

But if I hear about anyone sending anon threats on our behalf, I hope you imagine the sound of my crushing your skulls and think better of it. We will have none of that.

[martian-garden]

Discord Group was discussing how fear of AMAB bodies in queer spaces happened and here's my experience from watching some of the beginnings of modern "inclusive language" (afab, amab) getting weaponized. Putting it here in case anyone else has seen similar shit or is curious to see what happened to me. For the purposes of perspective, as this happened around me, I still identified as a woman at this time/was an egg.

>not to oversimplify how we got here, but basically a bunch of feminists (real) started talking about the trauma many women have with men (valid). and then a bunch of (ime) baby feminists who had not done an extensive amount of work and had lost the plot of Gender Equality being the intended result of feminism started blaming men as individuals for the patriarchy, instead of other people caught up in an unbelievably complex system in which all players are trapped. and then that validated people's reflexive distrust for transfem people and nb amabs, AND trans men who pass, and ALSO hurt cis men who are BTW ALSO VICTIMS HERE, THERE ARE VERY FEW WINNERS IN TOXIC MASCULINITY, it's a societal framework, not a deliberate attempt unless you're fuckin andrew tate or someone richer than balls with serious social swing. and yeah then we got to a point where like. afab people of all genders are sometimes rly fucking asinine around amab people of all genders bc they've been taught that their trauma responses, which are frequently genuine, are in fact okay reasons to treat people like shit

>that's my take anyway

>it's imo part of a broader societal phenomenon where the access to information about therapy and therapy terms and concepts without being able to GO to therapy bc of trash healthcare costs and lack of coverage means that people are validating each other's trauma without the main core of therapy, which is doing work to mitigate it. so you have a lot of people repeating stuff like "your feelings are valid" while missing the plot, which is that no. feelings are feelings. they're things that happen to you for (a) reason(s), and they're not your FAULT, but they should not dictate your behavior. feelings are like a sensory input. they are information and a reaction that you need to work in concert with. and sometimes they don't like something that they have no business not liking, or that maybe they have business disliking, but WOULD HURT OTHER PEOPLE if you acted on them.

The issue is that people are trying to use therapy terms to justify themselves and their pain (ok) but not actually realizing that it's part of a maladaptive response that does damage--to you and to the people around you (not ok). but bc they don't have access to the second half of that, they just get stuck in a loop of Bad Feeling = sign to avoid thing or Bad Feeling = i shouldn't have to feel that way, without critically engaging with why or how it's also kind of your responsibility to make yourself not feel bad.

This essay brought to you by a guy who spent 4 years at a college with 4 therapists, at least 2 of whom were quacks (small town, no off-campus resources) and 1300 students, over half of which were in some kind of active crisis at any given time. I watched the Sexuality and Gender Alliance club start hosting events "only for women and afabs" bc amab people, regardless of sometimes being women, were going to make it so that people were traumatized, despite pushback from several AFAB NB PEOPLE who didn't like being lumped in with women or divorced from their own masculinity.

btw if you're wondering, the painting of AFAB people as victims and inherently vulnerable DEFINITELY contributed to the TERF notion of women being inherently harmless, in need of protection, and also that femininity is delicate. It just reinforced the shitty gender norms that OG feminists wanted to destroy. It's very fucked up.

Anyway to any young feminists: AMAB people are your friends, your allies, your family. trans people's assigned sex or genitals are not inherently traumatizing, just like someone's scarring isn't inherently traumatizing. Trauma isn't a god. Stop giving it that power to hurt other people, even if you don't perceive them as vulnerable--bc GUESS WHAT, EVERYBODY IS- and rob you of some of the most precious connections you'll ever have.

[radically-bitter-coffee]

I don't mind spoilers about CSM (I've already been spoiled and I don't care about spoilers that much anyway, I think good stories can't be ruined by them) so you can say your thoughts if you want!

Alrighty then!

The thing that would irk most feminists watching CSM is probably this one character in particular: Himeno.

Himeno's character is, when boiled down, very "manic pixie dream girl". She introduces and/or encourages other characters to do "bad" things like smoking cigarettes, drinking, and hooking up whilst drunk. She has her reasons for being the way she is, and I would not say her character doesn't make sense or that these traits and actions come out of nowhere, but you can clearly tell after her death that she was written specifically for a male characters development.

Now, CSM is Not above killing off characters for character development in backstories, male Or female. In fact Himeno's backstory involves lots of men dying.

Himeno's death is definitely written to factor into a male character's development, and even slightly for the protagonist's, but I do think it was a suitable end for her.

Onto the whole hooking up whilst drunk thing though... that was gross, I'll admit. Episode seven is when she encourages Denji (who I think is 16) to drink at a gathering with their coworkers. She gets drunk, makes out with him (it's a gross scene, emeto is involved), later takes him back to her apartment when he passes out (probably due to drinking too much as he's still dizzy/drunk when he wakes up) where they proceed to sleep on the same bed, with her in her underwear and a tanktop. After she asks if he wants to have sex with her but he refuses, he goes back to sleep but on the floor instead. She sleeps on the bed.

In the same scene, right before asking to have sex, she calls another woman a bitch because she finds the protagonist and that other male character I mentioned earlier stupid for crushing on her when she won't love them back. It's a bit reminiscent of reddit nice guys.

This all makes sense with her personality and backstory and all but I do think they were overall... not needed at all. They're so gross that I can't even say they're particularly fan service. They aren't drawn in the typical "huge tits huge ass very saturated blush" way either, it really is just not a nice scene. One could argue they are for her character, and they are, yeah. I don't think it truly justified it though.

Now besides Himeno, I should also not fail to mention that Makima, the character everyone talks of as a femdom, is also not the best. Clearly written for the manga authors fetish, Makima is also definitely grooming the protagonist, even though she doesn't exactly have romantic or sexual intentions with him. While Makima's lack of attraction does change things in terms of whether this would be called pedophilia or not, she does encourage his attraction to her, and promises things like letting him feel her up in exchange for doing things such as hunting a specific creature, and says that she'll let him do more for bigger accomplishments. Her strength as a character comes from being very manipulative, mentally strong, and having Some Sort of Magic.

Again, I have all this to say about Himeno but overall I did enjoy Chainsaw Man a lot. The animation is pretty, the characters both male and female are likable, the world building accomidates the added fictional creatures nicely. The protagonists want to get with a woman is not in the typical shounen perv way, as he wants an actual genuine connection (which is why he refuses Himeno's advances) but finds sex to be a physical representation of that as an emotionally halted teen.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

I’m always sensitive to the ways internet culture pressures people to adopt certain performances of how to be a person. And it feels like the most aggressive of these pressures are about how to be a modern woman.

For example, there’s a well-meaning but casually destructive trend that’s prevalent on Instagram. These memes idealize a state of impossible self-regard in women, an unachievable narcissism that’s justified through a garbled kind of feminist empowerment. You are not merely to be a healthy and functional adult who rises above the depredations of everyday sexism. You have to be some sort of Amazon warrior queen mystic who “manifests” what she wants through sheer force of will. It’s not hard to see where such impulses might come from. Women are systematically robbed of confidence in essentially every human culture, unless it’s in the specific arena of physical attractiveness or motherhood. I don’t know how you’d go about denying that. [...]

Unfortunately, the way that meme culture has responded has been to produce images like the one at the top.

There’s an endorsement of absolutely deranged self-confidence, an impossible level of self-belief that I imagine is actually only achievable while high on PCP. The meme I’ve included is in fact a pretty tame example of the genre. The idea seems to be that because women often lack confidence for bullshit reasons, we should convince women to try and pump themselves up with confidence like a child overfilling a balloon. Ideas common to these memes include that you don’t care about what anyone thinks (you do and should care), and that normal emotions are beneath you (they’re not). The problems in your life, no matter how mundane, are all the product of sexism or haters or sexist haters, and there is no such thing as a legitimate conflict between two sincere people who both have defensible desires. Anything that obstructs your goals, including people with their own autonomy, is merely an obstacle to be stepped over without a second thought. The standards of self-love here are so lofty that they seem just as unreachable as all of the other social standards that woman can’t possibly meet.

I find the attempts to embody this trend pretty sad. You may get a pretty standard picture on a woman’s Instagram, completely innocuous, and the caption will be like “watch out bitches, I’m finally ascending to my final form.” It’s all a little… strange.

Sadder still, this stuff comingles with the batshit generalist mysticism that is so common on social media today. Horoscope stuff, obviously, but also Tarot and numerology and (let me calculate the necessary number of quotation marks) “““““““energy”””””””. The previously-mentioned notion of “manifestation” has endured as a zombie grift 15 years after the publication of the book that popularized it, The Secret. Manifestation or “the Law of Attraction” tells people that everything they get or don’t is the product of their desires and intentions, so stop complaining about your leukemia, thanks. How this fits alongside the Zodiac stuff, which asserts the exact opposite of you being solely in charge of the events of your life, is unclear. One way or another you end up with an incomprehensible set of beliefs about the world that are both exacting (if you don’t tend to your energy you deserve what you get) and opaque (who could actually follow all this shit?). As an atheist this concerns me. As a feminist it offends me: apparently now women need literal magic to escape oppression. For whatever reason, the popular conception of the paths to women’s liberation just gets more convoluted and inscrutable over time.

I don’t know, to me being a badass bitch doesn’t seem fun. It seems alienating and tiresome. Also I’m so sick of the constant modern insistence that we love ourselves. Stop telling me to love myself all the time. Mind your business.

Here’s what I suspect: mentally healthy people, if they still exist, aren’t healthy because of the constant presence of positive feelings of self. They are healthy because of the habitual absence of any feelings of self at all. (I guarantee you this is already a thing in psychology or some 19th century German philosophy but it’s proving stubbornly resistant to my Googling.) Where we’ve gone wrong as a civilization in terms of understanding confidence is in thinking of it as a presence, as an emotion. But I think what we perceive as confidence is simply not constantly thinking about yourself and your value. That’s more real and sustainable to me than thinking about yourself all the time and consistently feeling good about what you find. Unfortunately it seems like not thinking about yourself is what many modern people find hardest of all.

Bad folk wisdom about confidence is all over our culture. [...] Whatever the case…. I am not a woman and I have no idea what it’s like to experience the endless swings in society’s perception of not just What Women Need to Be Now but also Why Women Need to Reject What Society Thinks Women Need to Be Now. I don’t want to condescend, nor do I want to do the Good Male Ally routine. I just want to say as a typical dude that it’s not that men don’t feel much pressure to conform to gender stereotypes. We do. It’s that we don’t have to deal with the meta layers women seem to have to navigate, the sense that you can’t just resist societal pressures to act according to gender expectations but rather have to swing wildly between one conception of femininity to another, endlessly made to worry that you’re doing it wrong as you try to shake off one bogus caricature of your gender while leaping to another. [...]

There was a version of this post that included a bunch of the weird empowerment/yoga/girlboss/mysticism/juice cleanse memes I’m talking about and made fun of them. But I realized pretty quickly that it would be a shitty thing to publish. The women who are making and sharing those memes are just trying to navigate a bewildering array of choices about how to exist in a sexist world, and if they’ve arrived at a cartoonish version it’s only because all the more mundane approaches seem to have failed. It’s certainly possible that I overemphasize meme culture and that it’s all ephemera that nobody takes that seriously. But I suspect not. Memes are a language of the youth, and it appears that the youth are facing the same old challenge of forces that pressure women to be everything and nothing all at once.

[aphroditeslesbian]

After 4 years of thinking I was non-binary during my latter teen years, I desisted once my girlfriend sat me down and explained basic feminist ideology to me. Don't get me wrong, I already thought I was a feminist – but I had been slowly getting brainwashed by neoliberal feminism/trans activism/qu**r activism, and their ability to sell fallacies really is on par with cults... But I digress.

My point is that as soon as my girlfriend had the patience and strength and bravery to explain why it was so hard for her to just call me by my neo pronouns, my chosen name, etc, I finally sat down by myself and faced something that as a supposed feminist I should have seen from the get go: feminism is the notion that all women are worthy human beings. There are no ifs or buts, feminism is the fight for women's rights because female human beings deserve rights. There is no moral or political component that changes a woman's undeniable right to basic decency.

What brought me back to myself in feminism, after years of self hatred and years of nurturing my dysphoria like it was precious and made sense... Was the realization that if I knew that all women deserved respect, then I would need to extend that respect to myself.

This is no excuse for women's hatred of women, but a lot of us extend our own self hatred to other women. All that we cannot forgive in ourselves, we do not forgive in other women.

And that can be justified when we do not forgive other women's complacency and their full on choice to support men's violence against us... But it is the venom in our movement whenever we hate women for their hatred of themselves. Because the truth is most of us were raised to hate ourselves, and it takes a lot to untangle yourself from the notion that you deserve suffering and pain. If we let that seep into our politics, then we are failing other women just like we were failed.

The personal is political, and so I'd urge every woman to first look into herself, and find all the ways you still do not extend empathy to yourself. How much of that lack of empathy do you extend to other women? How can we change that?

What saved me in my early days of realizing being trans wouldn't, is that I surrounded myself with women. I found women I didn't like, women I liked, women I had things in common with, women I shared nothing with. And I dug deep to find our most relevant link, the one thing all women can know about themselves and other women: we are all female human beings. We are unconditionally deserving of respect.

All other judgements should be secondary to this notion. And please note that "respect" doesn't equal liking someone, doesn't mean blindly agreeing with someone, it doesn't mean to make excuses for them. It just means to empathize with other women's humanity and flaws, even if they're not who you wish they were.