#our movement. these are feminist spaces first women's spaces secondary

[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.

[sinterhinde]

Haraway, 1985

Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg is a radical archetype for emancipatory self-construction that models conscious reshaping of socially imposed identities. The cyborg represents the plasticity of our socially constructed identities: our ability to transcend the limits of prefabricated identities and overwrite oppressive, socially imposed roles. Understanding social construction through this lens gives social workers and clients the conceptual tools to deconstruct rigid identities—particularly those of gender identity—imposed by society. These identities are the subject of active political contestation; they are the product of economic, social, and cultural relations and institutions. The concept of the cyborg provides an emancipatory model that denaturalizes and destabilizes rigid essentialist binaries and instead recognizes the chimeric multiplicity of the individual.

Abstract by Nicholas D. Tolliver, 2022

https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/mar4-1k48

We are all cyborgs: How machines can be a feminist tool

By Nour Ahmad

Upon hearing the word “cyborg”, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is a fusion of human and machine. Our imagination might even drift to an image of Frankenstein’s monster or a depiction such as Major Mira Killian in the anime Ghost in the Shell. A cyborg is actually just a hybrid — part mechanism, part organism. The cyborg, as a concept, is associated with scientist, innovator and musician Manfred Clynes, who deployed it in his 1960’s article Cyborgs and Space, where he argued for altering the human body to make it suitable for space travel.

We, thus, might perceive this concept as being in the future, far from the here and now. However, Donna Haraway, an American biologist and feminist, claims the opposite. She believes that we are all already cyborgs. More significantly, she posits that the advent of cybernetics might help in the construction of a world capable of challenging gender disparities, a proposal she made in her 1985’s essay titled A Cyborg Manifesto. 

How, then, would the notion of cybernetics make for a post-gender understanding of the world? And how would it be a tool for women to undermine the roles imposed on them by society? 

Cyborgs and human nature

The investigation into human nature has always been an essential pursuit for schools of philosophy and a basic assumption made by political ideologies. The answer to the question “what does it mean to be a human?” determines the orientation of a political movement or an ideology. Patriarchal societies have historically adopted an essentialist interpretation of human nature, so as to justify male domination over women. It makes the claim that each of the sexes has a specific role to play and, ultimately, considers the feminine to be secondary to the masculine and thus subjugates women. In such societies, predetermined sets of values and behavioural patterns are strictly enforced on both sexes.  

In A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway explores the history of the relationship between humans and machines, and she argues that three boundaries were broken throughout human history which have changed the definition of what is deemed cultural or otherwise natural. The first such boundary was between humans and animals, and was broken in the 19th century after the publishing of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. As the biological connection between all organisms was discovered and publicised in this book, it served as a rejection of notions of human exceptionalism and superiority, turning the evolution of the organism into a puzzle. It also introduced the concept of evolution as necessary for understanding the meaning of human existence.  

The second boundary-breaking event relates to the relationship between machines and organisms (be they human or animal). As the industrial revolution arrived, all aspects of human life became mechanised. As human dependence on machines surged, machines became an inseparable part of what it is to be human; an extension of human capability.

As for the third boundary, it concerns the technological advancement that has produced evermore complex machines which can be miniscule in size or, in the case of software, altogether invisible. First came developments in silicon semi-conductor chips that now pervade all of life’s domains. As these machines are practically invisible, it is then difficult to decide where the machine ends and humans start. This machine thus represents culture intruding over nature, intertwining with it and changing it in the process. As a result, boundaries between the cultural and the natural became more and more intangible.

“…the advent of cybernetics might help in the construction of a world capable of challenging gender disparities.”

In this context, Haraway uses the cyborg as a model to present her vision of a world that transcends sexual differences, expressing her rejection of patriarchal ideas based on such differences. Because a cyborg is a hybrid of the machine and the organism, it merges nature and culture into one body, blurring the lines between them and eliminating the validity of essentialist understandings of human nature. This includes claims that there are specific social roles reserved for each of the sexes which are based in biological differences between them, in addition to other differences such as age or race.

You are cyborg!

Since first practicing agriculture, using tools to increase production and developing language and writing, humans have been able to boost capabilities and expand their potential. Today, the implantation of artificial organs has been a vital development in the field of medicine, while the smartphone, for example, serves as an extension of human memory, our senses and our mental functions as well. The advancements made in GPS and communication technologies allow us to be present remotely and even grant us the ability to exist outside of the limitations of our time and space frameworks. All these aspects of technology are an expansion of human beings and an augmentation of our physical and cognitive abilities.

Taking all of this into consideration, the cyborg seems present here and now. In an interview with Wired magazine, Haraway said that being a cyborg does not necessarily mean having silicon chips implanted under one’s skin or mechanical parts added to one’s body. The implication is, rather, that the human body has acquired features that it could not have been able to develop on its own, such as extending life expectancy. Indeed, in our current state, cybernetics exist around us, and in simpler forms than futuristic visions. Even maintaining our physical fitness is today cybernetic, from the use of exercise machines to the many food supplements available as well as clothing and footwear engineered for athletic activity. Moreover, the culture surrounding fitness could not have existed without viewing the human body as a high-performance machine whose performance can be improved over time.

On the other hand, a cyborg is “a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” according to Haraway’s manifesto. The internet has brought about profound changes in human consciousness and human psychology. Virtual reality does not only surround us, but it also involves us in its own processes. The social dimension to technology plays a role in the construction of our identities, whether through online games, discussion forums or social media, where our identities can be as multiple as the online platforms that we use.     

Therefore, we can now say that we are all cyborgs, as technology “is not neutral. We’re inside of what we make, and it’s inside of us,” as Haraway formulates it. In modern life, the link between humans and technology has become inexorable to the extent that we cannot tell where we end and the machines begin. 

Cybernetics and feminism

Feminist issues lie at the heart of the concept of cybernetics, since the latter’s prospects erase major contradictions between nature and culture, such that it is no longer possible to characterise a role as natural. When people colloquially use the word “natural” to describe something, this is an expression of how they view the world, but also a normative claim about how it should be as well as a statement on what cannot be changed.

In this context, the cybernetics erase gender boundaries. For generations, women have been told that their “nature” makes them weak, submissive, overemotional and incapable of abstract thought, that it was “in their nature” only to be mothers and wives. If all these roles are “natural” then they are unchangeable, Haraway said. 

Conversely, if the concept of the human is itself “unnatural” and is instead socially constructed, then both men and women are also social constructs, and nothing about them is inherently “natural” or absolute. We are all [re]constructed when given the right tools. In short, cybernetics have allowed a new distinction of roles, based on neither sex nor race, as it provided humans the liberty and agency to construct themselves on every level.

“Because a cyborg is a hybrid of the machine and the organism, it merges nature and culture into one body, blurring the lines between them and eliminating the validity of essentialist understandings of human nature. This includes claims that there are specific social roles reserved for each of the sexes which are based in biological differences between them, in addition to other differences such as age or race.”

Therefore, through her notion of the cyborg, Haraway calls for a new feminism that takes into account the fundamental changes that technology brings to our bodies, to reject the binaries that represent the epistemology of the patriarchy —binaries such as body/psyche, matter/spirit, emotion/mind, natural/artificial, male/female, self/other, nature/culture. Technology is simply one of the means by which the boundaries between identities are erased. Cyborgs, in addition to being hybrids, transcend gender binaries and can thus constitute a way out of binary thinking used to classify our bodies and our machines and accordingly “lead to openness and encourage pluralism and indefiniteness.”

Haraway’s idea is based on a full cognisance of the ability of technology to increase the scope of human limitation and thus open opportunities for individuals to construct themselves away from stereotypes. And while Haraway describes A Cyborg Manifesto as an ironic political myth that mocks and derides patriarchal society, she still claims that cybernetics lay the foundation for a society in which we establish our relations not on the basis of similarity, but on harmony and accord.

(mediasupport.org)

[menalez]

I agree with anti suicide as man-hating is intrinsic to feminism because anger is a natural reaction to your oppression. This emotion is the driving force behind any social justice movement, without it, there would be no motive. So I think its natural for some of these women to get offended by that take because the trauma and consequent anger theyve suffered as a result of patriarchy were guiding forces to awakening to misogyny and accepting radical feminism in their lives. At the end of the day, you can love women as a class, but you do not need to love a woman to fight for her rights. What was that about feminism being for even the most vile woman? Many of these women have had shitty female relatives and friends that they might despise, but their hatred and anger of men and their male supremacy is their driving force to be passionate feminists. Also, i dont understand that ask that said it must be OSA women disagreeing with you— wouldnt OSA actually agree since theyd be the ones more likely to center males in their lives? Wouldnt they be more inclined to say that “man-hating” shouldn’t be the root of feminism? That didnt make much sense to me. Women often talk about their hatred of men because its unacceptable to do so in other spaces. Radical feminism is meant to be a space in which we can vent our frustrations with male supremacy. As for your comment about women who both hate men and women— well, those women arent feminists then. Theyre excluded from radical feminism by virtue of being misogynists so it wouldnt render your argument null. I hope this makes sense. Im trying to be civil

i addressed everything u said in other reblogs and posts but

1. didn’t say anything against man-hating. im literally a man-hater. i just don’t think the basis of one’s feminism being hating men is gonna work. loving women should always come first when it comes to fighting for the rights of women

2. said nothing against having emotions. loving women is an emotion, and it’s a motivating one. didn’t say anything against hating men, once again it just shouldn’t be the root of one’s feminism. nothing wrong with it as a secondary aspect of ur feminism but when it’s all about hating men and women come second then how is that even feminism anymore

3. it honestly feels like a slap in the face how many OSA women saw that im a lesbian and then used that to act like i haven’t been abused, raped, harassed, and oppressed by men. once again, ive said nothing against hating men nor against being angry at ur oppressors and it’s honestly offensive talking to a woman w PTSD as if she doesn’t understand that trauma first hand

4. i literally meant loving women as a class… no one can say there isn’t a single woman they dislike. im constantly talking about my ex and how she abused me like it’s not like im expecting anyone to love every woman otherwise they can’t support women’s rights. but how are you gonna fight for the rights of women when u don’t love women as a class? if u don’t centre that love for women in ur activism for them?

5. u don’t understand that ask saying OSA women are the one disagreeing with me because you didn’t check and see they are in fact OSA women who are angry with me because they were recently hurt by a man and assumed i was saying they aren’t allowed to be angry at men. nowhere did i not all men or justify men or say it’s not ok to hate them.

6. “well those women aren’t feminists then” you guys really can’t read because i literally said that hating men does not a feminist make and a true feminist is centring women and loving women before anything to do with men. that’s it. and after someone repeatedly making it clear her issue is with lesbians and “ssa radfems” and using that as her basis for attacking me, the same exact person u said u agree with here, maybe don’t try to tell me this has nothing to do with homophobia and being OSA

[atelier-kristel]

3 Incredible Women and NFT pioneers to watch out for

It is a prevalent opinion that the world of crypto, NFTs and (to an extent) IT is largely dominated by men, where women are relegated as outsiders who are trying to get in. However, this is far from reality, as we have seen over the past two years how women have capitalized on the evolving NFT technology and now occupy prominent space in the global NFT and crypto community.  

As a female artist working prominently in the NFT art space, I wanted to use this blog to highlight and endorse female talent in this field, who are creating feminist art and using this tech to further their ambitions.

So, here the 3 female NFT pioneer artists that you need to keep your eyes on:

Yam Karkai (https://worldofwomen.art/)

How can we talk about female NFT pioneers without mentioning Yam Karkai, the founder of the World of Women (WoW) community and NFT project? Having worked in the digital art space for quite some time now, Yam has certainly been an NFT trailblazer with WoW as it helps provide equal opportunities for all women and features over 10,000 artworks from female artists across the globe. The collection has now completely sold out and some of the artworks can be found on the secondary market.  Additionally, portions of the proceeds from the NFT sales have been used to donate and support various women-focussed charities such as Too Young to Wed, Rockflower Fund, Code to Inspire and She’s the First.

Speaking of her art, her style is visually stimulating as it makes a dynamic use of bold colours, fantastical imagery and soft lines to create striking portraits of women. She has mentioned that the inspiration of her art comes from her own experiences, having lived in multicultural communities throughout her life.  

Krista Kim (https://www.kristakimstudio.com/)

Having always been a visionary on the convergence of art and technology, Krista Kim is a contemporary artist and the founder of the Techism Movement which focuses the union of futurism, art and technology. She made waves in the NFT space, when she sold her first “digital home” for $500 000 as part of her art project called “Mars House”. With her new NFT collection listed on SuperRare, Krista is continuing to create thought provoking artwork which questions the direction in which our future and technology is headed.  

Besides her impressive work in NFTs, Krista also produces work through her Krista Kim Studio which expounds on her artistic philosophy and the Techism Movement. Over the course of the pandemic, she has created Meditative Design which is a creative extension of her practice that intends to integrate the practice of meditation into everyday lives through art, architecture, design and fashion.

Maliha Abidi (https://malihaabidi.com/)

Maliha Abidi is a young woman wearing many hats: she is an artist, author, entrepreneur and an NFT creator amongst many other things (she is also one of the co-creators of the first school in the Metaverse). Originating from Pakistan, Maliha has worked from the US to create art that raises awareness for women’s rights across the globe. She has self-published a beautiful book called Pakistan For Women, which features 50 profiles of well-known high achieving women from Pakistan and is already working on her second book, Rise: Extraordinary Women of Colour Who Changed the World.

Regarding her work in the NFT space, she is a co-founder of a successful NFT project which features her popular portrait art titled, Women Rise. The project has over 5,600 NFTs and is focussed on bringing 100,000 more women into the Web3 space by the end of this year. Maliha aims to utilize “this technology as a decentralized runway to bring opportunities that have been kept from so many communities, and especially women. People’s voices who have never been valued or heard finally will be – and opportunities in tech, education finance and the overall economy will be far richer than ever before.”

There are plenty of other incredible women that are taking charge in the NFT space which I hope to feature in my future blogs soon but for now; I would love for you to go check out and support the amazing work of the women featured in this blog. So, go on and show them some love!

Shop my artwork collection HERE.

Check my digital artwork collection HERE.

[comrade-meow]

Why do so many young women hate feminist trailblazers like me?

For anyone uninitiated into the various waves of 21st-century feminism, this will no doubt come as a shock. But in my opinion, what passes right now for modern feminism is doing women more harm than good.

Many young women today are not only pandering to men in their so-called feminism, but seem utterly unconcerned that the hard-won rights achieved by older women in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are at risk of being catastrophically eroded.

They are helping everyone but themselves. In many ways they are betraying everything I and my brave colleagues fought for. This is the worst clash across the generations I have witnessed since coming to feminism in 1979, aged 17.

In universities around the UK and beyond, women are being fed a type of faux feminism, often by men reluctant to lose any of their privilege.

Julie Bindel, who came to feminism in 1979, says the rights achieved in the 19060s, 1970s and 1980s are at risk of being catastrophically eroded. Pictured: Julie (left) with Emma Humphreys in 1995 after a campaign to free her from jail for killing her violent partner

These women are being bullied and cajoled into accepting nonsensical concepts that are, at best, naive and, at worst, downright dangerous.

Prostitution, say these young women, is a job just like any other. They also argue that pornography is liberating. And finally, that trans-women should share female-only spaces such as hospital wards and domestic violence refuges.

This last makes me want to weep. It was women of my generation — often called second-wave feminists — who, 50 years ago, built rape crisis centres and refuges with no funding or salaries. To see them being dismantled by the very women who may one day need them is heartbreaking and infuriating.

I don’t think these women — almost all of whom would call themselves feminists — realise they are complicit in eroding our rights, for the simple reason they are no longer taught feminist history in universities. Instead, they are fed a sop of incomprehensible post-modern claptrap by ivory tower academics.

Feminists of my generation are not just ignored, but actively disparaged — or worse.

Since January 2004, when I offered an early opinion on the trans issue for a national newspaper, whenever it becomes public that I am about to speak at an event, always about an aspect of male violence and always as part of my campaigning work, a mob forms with the aim of bullying the organisers into un-inviting me. This is always played out in public and it is always humiliating. Sometimes the organisers capitulate.

I have been invited then uninvited from numerous events at universities following protests from trans activists and supporters of ‘sex work is work’ politics. I have also been invited to, then de-platformed from a number of events exploring free speech.

By contrast, genuine achievements of the past go unrecognised. From the very beginning of my involvement in the women’s liberation movement, we were out on the streets, waving placards, carrying banners and shouting through loudhailers, protesting the laws we wanted to change.

Julie said feminism has been rebranded and repackaged as ‘just be kind and nice to everyone’. Pictured: A 1970 women’s liberation protest

It was our campaigning that led to the introduction of the offence of coercive control; that barred the use of a woman’s previous sexual history in rape trials and ensured anonymity for the victims of sexual assault; and outlawed rape in marriage, which — young feminists are often astonished to discover — was perfectly legal in England and Wales until 1992.

Absurdly, there is no longer any expectation that being a feminist requires you to do anything feminist at all. Instead, and ironically given my experience, feminism has been rebranded and repackaged as ‘just be kind and nice to everyone’. Young women are told it is simply about the ‘choice’ to be who you ‘want to be’.

But if feminism is about choice, what does this mean for the women and girls who don’t have any? The girls forced into marriage, the women pimped out by violent boyfriends, the women on benefits living in temporary accommodation with young children they can’t afford to feed?

For feminism to mean anything, it has to be for all women and not just the privileged few.

Do young women even know about ‘the battles we’ve fought for them

You might ask, as many young women do, what is there still left to fight for? Although my generation of feminists and those that came before chalked up numerous victories, women are far from liberated. Levels of male violence towards women and girls are off the scale, as we have seen with the tragic events of recent weeks.

Conviction rates are so low that rape has been more or less decriminalised. Sexual harassment is endemic in our secondary schools and still a problem for many women in the workplace.

Many young women claim to be feminists, but seem to spend their time dismissing those of us who do the work — as opposed to simply talk the talk — as ‘irrelevant’, ‘bigoted’, and ‘past it’. Do these women even know about the battles we’ve fought and won to afford them some freedom?

Julie said in the current climate of misogyny, many young women are turning on feminists like her rather than pointing the finger at abusive men. Pictured: A rally to celebrate International Women's Day in 2020

In 2018, for example, Ash Sarkar, a media commentator, tweeted about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act, claiming the introduction of ‘self-identification’ would not have any effect on the rights of others. I replied: ‘Unless you are a female in prison, one of the most disenfranchised groups on the planet of course.’ It was a reference to the case of Karen White, the transgender sex offender placed in a female prison who went on to sexually assault two female inmates.

When, in reply, Sarkar claimed ‘bigots’ like me didn’t ‘care about women in prison’, it was too much. Had she known her feminist history, she would have been aware that I am the founder of Justice for Women — a campaign I began in 1990 — and have helped countless abused women get out of prison.

When I came to feminism, there were no laws protecting lesbians from discrimination and abuse; violent men often won custody of children when women left a marriage; and domestic violence was treated by police as a ‘private matter’. All of this changed because of active feminists, as opposed to those who sit on social media virtue-signalling.

In fact, a woman reporting rape five years ago had a much better chance of seeing justice done than she does today. There were 1,917 fewer rapists convicted in the year to December 2020 than in 2016-17, a decline of 64 per cent.

In the current climate of misogyny, many young women are turning on feminists like me rather than pointing the finger at abusive men. Yet there are young feminists doing invaluable work to challenge male violence and bring about women’s liberation.

Julie said social media activism isn't the answer, as the #MeToo movement is no substitute for action. Pictured: A women's liberation protest in 1971

The campaigning group We Can’t Consent to This, which successfully abolished the ‘rough sex’ defence so often used by men who kill women, continues the work I was involved in as a young feminist when we, too, abolished the insidious defence of ‘provocation’, used by a number of men who’d killed their wives because of ‘nagging’ or alleged infidelity.

Of the 1,000-plus women attending the 50th anniversary of the Women’s Liberation Movement conference in London, in February 2020, a minority, but significant number, were in their 20s.

And when I launched my new book last month in London, well over 100 of the 250 books I signed were for women under the age of 30, with some in their teens.

Right now, we need feminism more than ever, but not the kind that puts men first. In the real world prostitution is not a liberating career ‘choice’, and increasingly violent pornography is not ‘sex-positive’.

Neither is social media activism the answer. The #MeToo movement is no substitute for action. Let’s point the finger at men who rape rather than expecting yet more women to lay bare their horrific experiences.

We live in a world in which rape, femicide and everyday abuse and harassment are ever present.

To change it, we need to be united and not divided by generational conflict. Somehow, and urgently, we must find a way to bridge the gap. Fighting among ourselves wastes time — and there is no time to lose.

Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation, by Julie Bindel, (£16.99, Little Brown) is out now.

[khali-shabd]

Gender Theory

Readers, let us begin with a simple question- what is gender?

The Biological Theory Of Gender, and a majority of society, would say that gender is defined by biological sex, namely hormones and chromosomes. If you release estrogen and have XX chromosomes, you are female, and if you release testosterone and have XY chromosomes, you are male. However, this is an extremely flawed vision of gender for two reasons: one, that whatever proof of hormones altering gendered behaviour has been found only in lab rats1, which possibly will not exhibit the same extreme change in behaviour if the hormones were administered to them naturally in their own environment- and rats are not human- we have far too many differences as species for this study to be considered valid for homosapiens as well. And two, chromosomes are not strictly XX or XY- around 1 percent of the world population is intersex (and a similar percentage is redheaded, so its not inherently ‘anomalous’ or ‘unnatural’) , which means that they can have chromosomal variations such as XXY, X, XXXY etc, all of whom develop differently as compared to people with the traditional chromosome combinations. 

Further, there are far more things that define ‘biological sex’, namely:

chromosomes

gonads

sex hormones

internal reproductive anatomy (such as the uterus)

external genitalia.

Out of these, in humans, genitalia and internal reproductive anatomy can be changed without there being a significant change in gendered behavior. Sex hormones, when administered to bodies change secondary sex characteristics more than any sort of behavior; with the exception of testosterone increasing sex drive and sometimes increasing ‘ego’. Every single part of this definition of binary biological sex is challenged by the existence of intersex people, henceforth proving that sex is not binary and never has been, unfounding the existence of a sex-based gender binary in itself. Further, transgender individuals have a completely different gender identity as compared to their biological sex, and it has been scientifically proved that this is because their brains develop in the same way the brains of the children of the gender they identify with do. That essentially means that the brain of a transgender woman develops similarly to the brain of a cisgender woman, and the brain of a transgender man develops in the same way the brain of a cisgender man develops. All in all, there are far too many differences in the experience of biological sex to confine it to a binary, hence unfounding the theory that gender is based on biological sex.

Then how do we define gender?

There are a number of theories, but the most logical one at the moment would be Judith Butler’s Theory of Gender Performativity. Butler says that gender, as an abstract concept in itself, is nothing more than a performance. We ‘perform’ our gender by carrying out actions that we associate with it. They further say that this does not mean that it’s something we can stop altogether, rather something we’ve ingrained so deeply within us that it becomes a part of our identity, and it's the part of it we call gender identity. Gender, hence, is created by its own performance. Butler also implies that we do not base gender on sex, rather we define sex along the lines of established lines of binary gener, i.e. male and female- despite the fact that more than 10% of the population does not fall into this binary sex, and has some variation in their biological sex that does not ‘fit’ into either category. Gender in itself is so culturally constructed by western society that anyone who does not perform their assigned gender ‘correctly’ is punished- this applies to not only queer individuals but even men who do not ascribe to or criticise predefined ideals of masculinity. They are made social pariahs and excluded as outcasts, leaving them to find and create their own communities and safe spaces. This is shown in the way society ostracises queer-presenting individuals, makes fun of ‘soft’ men, and forcefully tries to ‘fix’ intersex children whose variations in biological sex cause no harm to them. I quote:

“Because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one’s belief in its necessity and naturalness.”

One of the criticisms of Butler’s theories is that it does not seem to apply to transgender individuals, whose innate gender identity is not the one that they have been assigned to perform at birth; whose brains develop the same way that their cisgender counterparts’ brains do from birth. Butler themselves have responded to this, saying:

“I do know that some people believe that I see gender as a “choice” rather than as an essential and firmly fixed sense of self. My view is actually not that. No matter whether one feels one’s gendered and sexed reality to be firmly fixed or less so, every person should have the right to determine the legal and linguistic terms of their embodied lives. So whether one wants to be free to live out a “hard-wired” sense of sex or a more fluid sense of gender, is less important than the right to be free to live it out, without discrimination, harassment, injury, pathologization or criminalization – and with full institutional and community support.”

Later on, Butler goes on to say that the main point of their theory is that identity is constructed, which means that it allows us to change how we view it as a concept. It leaves room for us to subvert gender roles, challenging the status quo on what it means to identify as someone of a particular gender, and re-structuring society such that we rally for change not along gender lines, rather on the basis of what’s right.

Further, if we combine the work of the psychologist Sigmund Freud with Butler’s theories, the latter does actually apply to transgender individuals. Freudian theory states that we internalize concepts of gender based on our parental figures at birth. That is, if you are born female, you begin to look towards the person who closest resembles your gender identity; which in this case would be your mother, to be your role model for your behavior as to how women are meant to act. Your mother would be your guide to how you perform your gender. If she crosses her legs, you cross your legs. If she dresses in a particular way, you would too, until you were exposed to the exterior world and allowed to develop your own sense of style. As such, you create your own gender identity within your mind, and perform that identity the way you have been taught to by your maternal figure. When you are transgender, you view yourself as innately as the gender you identify with, hence you base your gender identity off the parental figure of that particular gender. This means, if you are female to male trans, you would base your gender identity on your father, and accordingly perform your gender in that way.

Now the question arises: How do we create gender identity outside of gender roles? How do we identify anywhere on the gender spectrum while abandoning the performance that comes with that identity? Why is it important?

Well, the answer isn’t simple. For its importance, I allude, once again, to gender performativity theory- Butler even uses some evolutionary stances to support her views, saying that gender performance stems from gender roles which stem from the fundamental differences between the prominent male and female sex at the very beginning of evolution. Now that 'evolutionary' behaviors don't matter at this stage of societal, cultural, and psychological development, it renders gender roles and hence the performance of gender redundant. However, we still perpetuate these ideas regardless of their importance, or rather their lack of such. And in this process, we end up defining and segregating far too much on the basis of gender- from small things like friendships to even the feminist movement, which is majorly perpetuated and held up by people who identify as female. Other groups like men end up purposely excluding themselves from a movement that can benefit them as well(through deconstructing and eradicating ideas of toxic masculinity) just because of how strongly it is divided on the basis of gender lines. And as for how we create gender identity outside of gender roles; it takes a lot of work, at first, to unlearn all the biases you have internalized about what it means to be a certain gender. You have to actively work towards deconstructing what gender and gender identity means to you, and how much of it comes from societally misguided stances about the ‘role’ of a gender is. It may mean ridding yourselves of the school of thought that women belong in the kitchen and men belong in workplaces or even identifying and removing hidden biases such as those of toxic masculinity and/or toxic femininity. Lastly, it takes an understanding that often, gender expression is not the same as gender identity; and also that most gender expression is how people show how they feel the most comfortable viewing themselves. Once you’ve managed to deconstruct your biases, it’s just a matter of how you feel comfortable viewing and expressing yourself; and what label, among the myriad, you identify with the most. That would be your unique self-expression and identity.

[novakidds]

can i ask what it’s like to be both a radfem and a trans person? like how are u treated in the radfem community and how does your view of yourself differ from typical non-radfem trans people? i’m sorry if this seems invasive but i’m actually also a transman and it’s rare for me to find blogs like yours. i often find myself agreeing w radfem ideas but all my friends r hardcore trans activists and it makes me scared to ever admit it

this is a good question, thank you anon. never feel the need to apologize for asking legitimate questions, this is what radfems are 100% into- open discussion :]

i ended up typing a LOT so im gonna tuck it away with a read more a little down the line. my bad bro

i completely understand how you feel, transitioning (lol) into the radfem community meant losing some trans-activist friends who formerly had rays of sunshine beaming from their rears. suddenly someone they knew had become, in their eyes, ‘dangerous’ which has never ceased to baffle me because i was... y’know, still me. still feminist, still lesbian, just focusing on women’s issues and calling out male behavior, which is what feminism was made for, right??? i was very bluntly disagreed with in that regard, due to my belief that trans women are biologically male.

that’s a pretty key difference between me and other non-radfem trans people i think. trans people are, and always will be, their biological sex. if we weren’t, what would we be transitioning from, exactly? our dysphoria is based in our sex. i’ll tally up the biggest beliefs that differ me, personally, from ‘them’:

1) you cannot change your biological sex. your biological sex and resulting primary/secondary sex characteristics are the reason you feel the need to transition. otherwise, what you are experiencing is not a desire to become the opposite sex, but distress at how others treat you due to your sex. this is why a lot of detransitioners are women due to how poorly women are treated, and the resulting regret of having changed their bodies so drastically in an attempt to escape sexism.

2) gender roles and the unfair standard for expressing gender are oppressive and should be abolished. women are attacked for being masculine, meanwhile... uh, drag queens exist. (i’m currently figuring out wanting to be perceived as a man vs hating performing gender for people hnnng)

3) medically transitioning, as it is now, is hazardous guesswork at best and a moneygrab by Big Pharma at worst. hormone blockers on minors, diagnosing gender dysphoria with precious little questioning, and ESPECIALLY the emphasis upon medical transition all serves as a lifelong detriment to the lives of gay and GNC people who simply don’t have the language to understand who and what they are before trans ideas found them first. there are also precious few trans people who have lived for great lengths of time after these surgeries and hormone treatments, and so there is next to no research on how these surgeries will affect ones life longterm. i can’t find the discussion on this as i type this, but i believe there was also concerns about elderly transgender people suffering from dementia being disoriented and in distress at their primary or secondary sex characteristics being missing. but again, we literally cannot know because this movement is so fresh, yet has such rapid traction.

4) activism for trans rights is on easy mode. the reasons being, say, rich white men are funding it, and places like iran pushing for the forced transition of gay people to make them appear heterosexual. what is truly being fought for? what is truly being fought against? this was a big thing that made me opt the hell out.

5) trans people still have many (if not all) behaviors of their assigned gender. i say gender and not sex, because although there are different hormones at work and chemicals are produced by the sexes at different quantities, this does not make shit like “lady brains.” that concept is misogynistic. hear me out: 98% of sexual crimes are committed by males, and proof of this can be found in the statistics of crime (october 2011 to september 2012) in the criminal justice system for england and wales. an easier to read chart with the gender of offenders and crimes can be seen right here. i can’t find the source as i type this, but iirc roughly 40% of transgender women who have been convicted of a crime were convicted of some form of sexual assault, but in spite of this statistic there is a push for transgender women to be put in women’s prisons. it’s a dangerous neglect of male-pattern violence. have you noticed how transgender men never push for access to things like, say, “gentleman’s clubs?” it’s because as females we’re socialized for complacency. we don’t want to take, vandalize, and take some more like males are socialized to do.

TL;DR

i refuse to view transitioning, trans activism, and the oppressive perceptions of gender that are required for trans ideology to exist without a critical lens. i also refuse to blindly trust males who want access to female spaces. this has, in one person’s eyes, warranted very violent threats.

the worst i had ever received from a (presumed) radfem was this anonymous ask. at worst it was a little condescending. (the answer i gave is probably old and not super relevant btw, no worries over not reading it.) i do sometimes fret to myself when i get caught up in thought about never finding ‘my people,’ but usually when i actually talk to other radfems mutual respect is perfectly intact and i was just overthinking it lmao

the biggest thing i can tell you is- being trans and believing in women’s rights as a radfem have one big thing in common that you need to embody: self-confidence. not necessary loving yourself to bits, i’m still on that path myself. just the belief in yourself that you know what you’re talking about, you know yourself well enough to make this decision, and with that knowing you refuse to crumble over the fear of what other people think. because using peer pressure isn’t politics, it’s outright bullying. any activism that depends on manipulating the human need to fit in is no longer activism- and once you’ve distanced yourself, you’ll see how much of that emotional bribery is occurring, and it being used against radfems with the assumption that they, like other women, will apologize and fall in line.

you can do it, brother. no longer having those old friends was the best thing for me in regards to my confidence and growth, and plenty of radfems will understand the system shock of being dubbed ‘dangerous’ and blocked by people they formerly talked to in a matter of a day. if they throw a hissy fit, just know that it isn’t you- and that at the very least, i’m here for you if you do decide to take the plunge.

[desbianherstory]

There is in fact a constant conflation of sex work, sex rackets and lesbianism in the popular consciousness in Kerala that needs to be disentangled. [...] Morever, perhaps because both the "lesbian" and the "sex worker" occupy the far end of the continuum of who is a "bad woman" in Kerala, we have found in our work in Sahayatrika a repeated confusion between these identities. Thus in our factfinding investigations of lesbian suicides, in several cases local people believed the deceased women to be either willingly engaged in sex work or forced into sex rackets, although we found no corroborating evidence for any of these charges. Such beliefs seemed to be informed both by constructions of women from marginalized groups as being sexually available, and a popular confusion that women’s sexuality, when not conforming to hegemonic structures, must be read as either prostitution or sexual exploitation. The constant mistaking of our own organisation as a "sex club," is yet another example of this conflation.

The stigmatisation and threat of violence implied in being labelled as a "lesbian" or "sex worker" in Kerala society in fact functions as a means of controlling the social, emotional and sexual autonomy of any woman, in a way which erases the struggles and rights of those who actually belong to these categories. The societal impact of being identified as a lesbian and all the connotations that go with it is, as already noted, a major deterrent for the visibility of women loving women in the society. Yellow newspapers such as "Fire," which regularly carry stories about lesbians, illicit love affairs and sex rackets, also use the discrediting power of media as a form of retaliation. Thus, when the two women I spoke about at the beginning of this article fought back against their negative media coverage by holding a press conference and threatening a lawsuit, the tabloid newspaper responded by increasing their defamatory and falsified coverage, issue after issue, both of the young women and the activists who advocated on their behalf.

The perils of "moral infection" not only limit the actions of individuals but also of social organizations. Perhaps the situation is changing—but sometimes even supportive organisations and activists have feared being tainted by the same social stigmas which are used to invisibilize and silence sexuality minorities, leading to a sort of isolation and ghettoization among social movements. Thus, when we first started raising lesbian suicides as an issue among social organisations, there was a tendency to push us to work with those activists already engaged in controversial sexuality issues, especially sex workers’ movement. And while the alliance between sexuality minority groups and sex workers’ movements is important and powerful, based on a common experience of sexual "othering," it can sometimes lead to a compounding of marginalizations. For example, Sahayatrika has needed to share office spaces with other organisations for reasons of safety; but the only spaces that were initially available to us were with our allies in the sex worker’s movement. Sex worker’s projects are frequently evicted from their building spaces and therefore change locations frequently, as neighbours come to (mis)understand and oppose such projects’ functionings. Sahayatrika’s own efforts were thus affected by this structural instability, as we also lost our office space with each subsequent eviction. However, it is possible that efforts to rent space by a self-standing sexuality minority or lesbian rights organisation would also be subject to this same cycle of evictions in Kerala.

The fear of visibility and social stigma by association has also resulted in a reluctance `for even sympathetic organisations and movements to publicly support lesbian/ sexuality minority rights. Again, this situation may be changing; and it is effected by invisible status of sexuality minorities themselves. For example, last year when two teenage girls who pretended to marry were kicked out of their secondary school, we wrote a complaint to the Kerala Human Rights Commission; encouragingly, many local activists endorsed our petition. But in this case we took care not to label the incident a "lesbian" issue for fear of stigmatizing the girls involved; and it remains unclear whether a petition about an openly "lesbian" issue would have had the same support. Similarly, in the recent case of the two women who want to live together but denied having a lesbian relationship, this denial itself became the focal point for some media and public. In such cases, it is sometimes easier even for supporters to focus upon the damage of a supposedly false accusation of lesbianism, rather than articulate the implications of the marginalization of lesbians themselves.

Among women’s groups, although there has been increasing receptiveness towards lesbian and sexuality minority issues, at least conceptually, some argue that feminists, already designated as "bad women" in the society and burdened with charges of "breaking up the family," are not ready to publicly support more controversial issues like lesbian rights. However, it is important to recognize the ambivalences that some feminists (and other progressive activists) have towards sexuality rights are not only rooted in "morality" or the fear of moral contagion but also in a very real situation of social and sexual violence towards women. The tendency, as evidenced by public campaigns against sexual harassment, rape, and forced sexual trafficking, is to locate the politics of sexuality primarily in a paradigm of sexual violence or exploitation.

Sahayatrika itself, as already mentioned, has also tried to raise awareness by locating issues such as lesbian suicides within a violence against women framework. Both the human rights approach and the prevailing feminist practice in fact tend to emphasize violations of rights or experiences of violence. But the legitimacy gained through articulating lesbian issues through paradigms of violence or victimization leaves unaddressed perhaps more challenging and disruptive notions of sexual and personal as well as socioeconomical autonomy for women. Can we work for a lesbian politics that articulates the implications of giving choice to women about the types of relationships, families and economies they might form? And can we move beyond presenting lesbian existence as a site of violence and conceive of a lesbian (or a feminist) politics that is based on the right to desire?

—Devaki Menon, “Lessons from Sahayatrika”

[penumbra-rp]

Congratulations Akanksha, you have been accepted for the role of Bellatrix Black!

Her gaze flicked towards the interviewer, and the thin veneer of a post wave feminist boss slid over her skin “— I think it’s really important for me to be seen in this position. It’s rather odd that the fashion industry is catered towards women and yet most executives, and even designers, in the top fashion houses are…men.”

Admin Ash: Akanksha, I absolutely adored that Bellatrix was the feminist force of nature that the fashion world wasn’t ready for but she forced them to accept. You said that Bellatrix was a woman better suited to battle, wearing her skin like armor and possessing the keen readiness to obliterate obstacles in her path in whatever form they took. And as you go through the stages of her life, you can see that she’s in a consistent fight, grappling with numerous battles -- with her mother to take on less upper-class societal norms, with her father to be taken seriously as a business woman, with her volatile nature as it needed to be subdued without the proper outlet to put it. But now that the Death Eaters have given her that outlet, I’m beyond ready to see Bellatrix tap into her nastier self. 

Please check out our checklist for joining Penumbra. 

01. Out of Character

NAME: Akanksha

AGE: 23

YOUR BIRTHDAY: 10/31/1995

PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

TIMEZONE: EST

02. In Character

CHARACTER: Bellatrix Black

CHARACTER’S PRONOUNS: she/her/hers

FACECLAIM: Crystal Reed

CHARACTER’S BIRTHDAY: April 14th, 1988

PERSONALITY:

(+) EFFICIENT – Electricity followed the path of least resistance and Bellatrix was the same way; she saw her solutions in straight lines. Obstacles were removed not circumvented. In the business world, this garnered her praise – she had an uncanny ability to cut through bureaucratic paperwork. In the other matters, this trait was especially welcome. Deliveries were made quickly and discreetly. And those who interfered were eliminated at once, with little time spent contemplating the morality of it all.

(+) INTELLIGENT – Perhaps if knowledge wasn’t such a means to an end, she would have spent more time in academia. Nonetheless, Bellatrix actively sought to learn more, to know more. From languages to stocks, she kept an attentive eye on new trends. Developing a vast and in-depth repertoire of skills was what kept her far and ahead from anyone else, and she aimed to keep it that way.

(+) PROTECTIVE – Bellatrix protected what was hers. She’d learned at the foot of her father, strict but unhesitating when crushing those who would do his family harm. Those outside her family must work much harder to be considered one of hers. But once they’ve earned their place in her shadow, she will do whatever necessary to protect them and more often than not, their mistakes.

(-) VOLATILE – Bellatrix has always struggled to hide what she’s felt. This issue is greatly compounded by her mercurial nature. She went from calm to furious in a breath, and settled just as quickly. This made her rather unpredictable; some days she’d let a mistake pass and others she’d use it as an excuse to indulge in her more violent tendencies.

(-) CRUEL — Perhaps the most offensive aspect of Bellatrix was her particular brand of violence. She didn’t simply eliminate her obstacles, she obliterated them. For any perceived slight, her retaliation was ten-fold. She was quite simply mean, and rarely for good reason. Bellatrix enjoyed being cruel; it slaked some tormented creature inside her that she’d never been able to articulate.

(-) DOGMATIC — At the end of the day, you were either with her or against her, and she would interact with you accordingly. No one could truly be neutral in Bellatrix’s eyes. Her black and white worldview fed into her narcissistic notion that only she knew best. The only complicated relationships she had were those with her sisters; the differences between them were obvious, but there were striking similarities as well. Beyond them, Bellatrix didn’t allow herself the murkiness of gray areas.

BRIEF BULLET POINT BIO:

NAME – Bellatrix was born in the middle of a thunderstorm, screaming from birth. They named her for a constellation, as the Blacks had always done. They named her for a warrior, and it meant something when the Black family gave their daughter a title like that. Bellatrix was born with turmoil inside her, one that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Her skin would always feel stretched tight, like armor, and the first time her mother dressed her up for fun, make-up making a little girl seem older, she knew that femininity would only ever be war paint for her.

MIRROR – It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a girl. She had no problem with her body, the budding curves, the slimmer face. It was all the expectations that came along with it. She fought her mother because she didn’t want to wear dresses. She fought her father because she wanted to be involved in the family business, not married off. She fought her sisters because maybe if Andromeda stopped being so difficult, maybe if Narcissa stopped being so perfect, maybe then her parents would turn their attention away and she could finally breathe. She wanted to shriek so loud her mirror would crack, and maybe then the jagged reflection would look more right to her than the dark haired, red lipped princess who stared back.

ACADEMIA – She somehow scored the highest marks in her class but very nearly didn’t graduate from secondary school due to the sheer number of transgressions. Her father’s lethal charm, both carrot and stick at once, ensured her graduation and there was something in his eye that told her he was proud of her. On the cusp of adulthood, she finally managed to prove to her father that her mind, her hands were worth far more at House of Black than as a negotiating piece. Bellatrix studied the right courses, spent her summers interning at the fashion house, and graduated from the Slytherin School of Social Science poised to take over.

CAREER – The moment she was initiated into the Death Eaters, the clawing, hungry thing inside her settled. Or rather, it was appeased with the promise of danger, with the deadly games and trades, with the scent of blood. Executive Director of House of Black itched less when it was meant to be a cover and not her reality. She did her job well, better even, once she had an outlet for the tendencies that made her blood simmer beneath her skin until she burned from the inside. For that had always been the struggle of a starry warrior – Bellatrix was fearless and bright, but she was at her best in battle.

OPINION – While Bellatrix appreciated the privileges associated with The Sacred 28, the gendered aspects of the culture grated on her. Being raised in that culture allowed her to slip in, seemingly one of them, but her family always knew better. Only the youngest Black had thrived in those spaces. She preferred The Death Eaters mostly because it was the first place she had been able to be her complete self. For the first time, she hadn’t had to shave off the distasteful pieces of herself to be seen as appropriate. The Death Eaters had provided her a true sanctuary, and Bellatrix would be damned before she let some upstart activists ruin that.

INTERVIEW:

i. How do you feel about your current occupation?

— Bellatrix didn’t bother smiling; she hadn’t been pleased about the interview in the first place. In fact, she distinctly remembered telling her youngest sister that as Marketing Director, Bellatrix expected Cissy to head off any and all journalists. She didn’t have the time or, quite frankly, the temperament. “I enjoy my work, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, dark eyes still focused on the contract she was reviewing. “It’s a very high energy environment, which suits me particularly well. And—“ her gaze flicked towards the interviewer, and the thin veneer of a post wave feminist boss slid over her skin “— I think it’s really important for me to be seen in this position. It’s rather odd that the fashion industry is catered towards women and yet most executives, and even designers, in the top fashion houses are…men.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “There’s legacy and family here, yes, but House of Black continues to be trendsetting in more ways than fashion, and for that simple reason I could never consider a position anywhere else. I love this company and my job.” She smiled then, more bared teeth than grin — she’d never been able to truly hide the predator in her — and the unspoken for now became clear.

ii. What song would you say describes yourself?

— Bellatrix tilted her head in consideration. Lips curving into a smile that was relatively softer, more knife edge than blatant fangs, she turned back to her computer. Neatly manicured nails (she never bothered with fancy colors sticking to nude or black) tapped her keyboard with ease and accuracy. A click, and a thrumming beat began to fill the office followed by a rich female voice. We wear red so they don’t see us bleed… “Trouble by Valerie Broussard.” She didn’t offer any further explanation.

iii. Does reputation matter to you?

— She leaned back, chair tilting and arms folded across her torso. There was a quickness to her movements, something a little faster, slicker than Narcissa’s stunning grace or Andromeda’s serene gentleness. “Of course it matters, how could it not – businesses are built on reputations; but deals only come through when you have the knowledge, the skill, the competence to back your reputation.” She observes the interviewer for a moment. “I know I match up to my reputation.” Her quick up-and-down gaze seals her assessment and the interviewer can sense her judgement easily; they don’t even have a reputation, none that she’s heard of, so she doubted they had the competency either.

iv. What is your relationship with your parents like?

— It was the first time in the interview that Bellatrix was caught off guard. Everything in her felt jagged for a moment – being off-tilt was uncomfortable for a woman who prided herself on her preparation. But she was a Black. So Bellatrix straightened her spine, shoulders back, chin up, dark eyes even. “I suspect you’re asking due to the nepotism here.” She didn’t mince words, or care to lie. “Family always comes first; that’s how I was raised. My relationship with my parents is complicated and definitely improved once it became a more adult relationship, like anyone else. But I also know, that they will always have my back, and I will always have theirs.” A more honest answer would have been too nuanced for her to articulate to someone who knew her well, let alone an absolute stranger. Her family had been both cage and sanctuary, and her parents had always held the keys to the lock.

v. What languages can you speak?

— Unlike Andromeda, who only spoke a few languages because she didn’t study them further, unlike Narcissa, who pretended she only knew a couple, Bellatrix boasted her five languages with an arched brow and a smug tilt of her chin. “French, Italian, Russian, Japanese,” she listed, each word emphasized with another pointed finger. She added her thumb and gave a cheeky wave. “And of course, English.” There were a few more she could fumble her way through, strictly for business needs, but Bellatrix wasn’t the sort of woman to advertise in which ways she was mediocre. She was the best because to her, there was no other way to be.

vi. If your home was on fire and you could only save one item, what would you choose?

— The question felt rather silly to Bellatrix. She didn’t feel attachment to items, her loyalty was to her family. And even then, the material objects that mattered to her most was almost always kept close to her. “My work bag,” she answered with an artless shrug, angled to gesture the sleek black leather bag. “I keep my laptop, wallet and phone in it – in this digital age, my most valued possessions are all kept safe in cloud storage.” Besides, family heirlooms were more her sisters’ realm.

vii. Which Hogwarts University faculty did you study at? The Gryffindor School of Applied Science, the Ravenclaw School of Humanities, the Slytherin School of Social Science, or the Hufflepuff School of Art?

– Her patience was beginning to thin, each inane question causing her jaw to set. “I believe this is information you can find with a quick search,” her voice was dangerously saccharine, and the nervous stutter she received in response pleased her. “This time, I’ll save you the work.” Don’t let there be a next time, she said, not through words, but through the hardness of her gaze, the line of her neck the slope of her nose. “I completed an accelerated course of study to graduate with both my undergrad and master’s in International Commerce. From Slytherin.” What a quick search wouldn’t tell the interviewer was that in those five years, she very nearly also completed an Industrial Operations Engineering degree from Gryffindor. She’d liked applied sciences well enough, but not enough to fight her father on it.

vix. What is your social media username?

— “Another thing you can easily search, so this time I’ll let you handle it,” Bellatrix responded dismissively. “If you have any other questions, please email my assistant. Had I known what a waste of time this would be, I would have had you do that in the first place.” Her voice was cool and matter-of-fact, and before the interviewer had even stood, Bellatrix had turned back to her work. Fortunately for the interviewer, her username was easily found on her business card;@BellatrixBlack printed in neat font above icons for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It was clear upon further research that Bellatrix didn’t run her social media – they were highly curated business accounts. And no amount of research would reveal her extremely private personal tag that she only used for Snapchat & FlooNet: @bellatrixie.

[hendriksen36french-blog]

EU Lifts Many Permissions Versus Belarus In spite of Human Rights Issues.

When you lift the weight, weightlifting increases your heart rate during the brief ruptureds of power. The lift in my block of apartments is such an antique it has a cable grille as well as doors that open up in an outward direction, like the ones in Woman in a Cage, allowing me to play pranks on visitors by making believe to be the little boy ghost from Animosity as well as peering in at them as they rotate gradually previous. It is much easier if we consider the numbers from pascal's triangular installation right into spaces. He raised his hand to comply with the next step but I ordered it softly as well as place it pull back. The players continued to be in high spirits and also were heard giggling that their combined weight could have triggered the lift to bend. In the year to the end of June, concerning 35% of those joining The Gym had actually never ever been participants of various other health and fitness centres. 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Throughout the night meal, partaken of amidst the gathering shadows of golden, our newly discovered buddy again showed his power as a trencherman. Universal home gyms that utilize different types of resistance are less expensive than those with weight heaps. This is dealt with by the use of circulation transformers as well as power transformers Generally, a power transformer has two sections: a main coil and secondary coil. It's the maximum use your time, says Tom Holland, author of Beat the Health club." You get everything simultaneously as well as you're not in the gym for an hour." He recommends choosing an upper body, lower body, abdominal muscles and after that a cardio interval. Because it's longer and also does not have to do as much hefty lifting as the first period, I'm really delighted regarding Power period 2. Gym policy should need that team get training in the operation of any type of brand-new devices in the gym. Nonetheless, you must remember that running a fitness center is a really costly endeavor. The late-arriving rangers quickly involved the aid of the Yellow Ranger, as well as began lowering the variety of Quantrons. The brand-new SunBurst Six lift will be the initial in the Northeast US with warmed seats (Mount Snow set up a six-pack bubble chair a number of periods ago, yet it does not have seat heating units). One can get power quicker if one dispels the suppositions that the world is just, that intelligence as well as competence alone will certainly gain incentives, or that concentrating on the little tasks is a one-way ticket to middle administration (rather the contrary - discovering just what nobody else knows is the very best way to order power). Gabe was midway throughout the gym where the Never-ceasing foot soldiers were training prior to he recognized where he was. There are plenty of gyms if you would certainly rather be in an air-conditioned area. Doubters Agreement: It plays like an extended episode, yet The Powerpuff Girls Movie is still great deals of fun. The success of the Gamings has actually elevated hopes of a rise in rate of interest in handicap sporting activities involvement, yet the study of health clubs and recreation centres, accomplished in behalf of the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability, discovered that many centers are not really prepared to capitalise on the potential demand. With a large range of items made specifically for home exercise enthusiasts, any person wishing to get into much better form should consider a Bowflex Sport house gym. Balance as well as resistance equipment could be utilized independently or with weights. The incredibly high nitrate level in the water is leaving thousands of newborn babies in danger of poisoning. Acknowledging the influence of my subconscious mind over my power of will, I shall take care to send to it a guaranteed as well as clear picture of my CLEAR PURPOSE in life and all minor functions bring about my major objective, as well as I will keep this image CONSTANTLY PRIOR TO my subconscious mind by DUPLICATING IT DAILY. The TRX and also competitors like the Jungle Gym XT will certainly permit you to greatly exhaust your core and overcome useful series of movement you wouldn't have offered to you with dumbbells alone. No, as if https://studiosante.de/onycosolve/ , the wall surface it sat on, as well as the house it was held inside of, merged the power. After years of lack of exercise, TJ returned as heaven Space Ranger in order to help the Galaxy Rangers combat the Psycho Rangers. The issue is that lots of people miss one workout as well as prior to they recognize it, they haven't been to the gym in 4 weeks. Bel came to me with an old buddy of mine, among the good friends who quit on me. He lightly slid his arms around me as well as raised me from the messy health club flooring. There excel reasons to be hesitant of the concept that a win for Clinton will usher in a feminist utopia-or also just higher political power for women. The power relocated external from me, or perhaps I moved on via something that was always there, however tonight I could notice it. Siobhan moved forward, and the power did not fill her. And also it predicted that kite power would certainly cost so little that developing countries would be able to use it to wean themselves off polluting diesel generators as well as various other carbon-heavy power sources. If you want straightforward exercise tools instead of a way of life principle, check neighborhood authority centers.

[frowzyspeaks]

Women As An Imaginary Whole

Equality has served as a recurring theme throughout the relatively brief existence of America, “Home of the Free”. Birthed from the foundations of racism and shouvanism that make America the place it is, rebellions and movements have inevitably occurred in effort to salvage America’s (but most importantly, the white man’s) image and the well-being of minority groups that fight to exist within it’s realms. The Civil Rights Movements of the 1950’s and 60’s seemingly resulted in a major shift of power within society by leading to landmark decisions such as Brown v. The Board of Education, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Nineteenth Amendment. Inherently, black women have been an undeniable catalyst for this change as they have always been, but we are seldom given proper praise due to the “feminist” movement. White women semi-consciously label our prominent female figures in African-American history as “feminist” in a phenomena dubbed Black Feminist Revisions History Project or BF-RHP due to their lack of actual white feminists who have contributed significantly to the progress of women, an imagined whole, as a result of interest convergence theory.

Black Feminist Revisions History Project enables the backdoor appeal in order to make feminism seem as if it is universal and made for every woman-- transcending beyond  race, ethnicity, sex, religion, and socioeconomic status. BF-RHP is the practice of indiscriminately reclassifying historically significant Black women feminist, often posthumously. They usually did not self identify as feminist based on the available historical record. This revision appears to be a direct consequence of Derrick Bell’s interest convergence theory that essentially states that white people only do things to advance Black’s if they reap some sort of benefit from it and will abandon their promises once they have received their benefits. Interest convergence applies here because if white women are able to claim black women as feminist heroes, it masques how mediocre their efforts throughout history truly are. This is proven by their hesitancy to claim black women as allies pre-civil rights movement era and then their readiness to suddenly accept us after death. The relevancy of this phenomena should serve as a reminder to Black women that white women are not our allies, but rather secondary supporters of white supremacy.

If these black women are not feminists, what are they? This is a question that self-acclaimed feminists may ask an Africana women who have questioned the true essence of the “feminist” movement that white women try to universalize. White women utilize feminism as a movement to make themselves equal to their male counterparts, simply because that is the only barrier they face in their journey to liberation. The white race has a women problem because the women are oppressed. Black people have a man and a woman problem because black men are as oppressed as their women. By making men as a whole rather than specifically white men seem like our enemies forges false bonds between us and white women and erases race as the root of our oppression, which allows white’s to control our narrative and allows space for white supremacy to flourish uninterruptedly.

Black women should take on the label of Africana womanist in opposition to feminists to maintain the true essence of our plight for equal rights as a separate entity and an extension of the advancement of our people as a whole rather than as an agent of white-based motives. Africana womanists strive to primarily uplift their race as equal or to equal conditions of our white peers because our race will always transcend our gender in the society that we live in. Our first enemy is not the men who have slaved in the fields with us, the same men who have persevered through the cruel circumstances of racism.  Africana womanism views feminism, the suggested alternative to these problems, as a sort of inverted white patriarchy, with the white feminists now in command and on top. Our enemy is indisputably the white race as a whole, not just the men that serve as the face, but also the women who contribute to our seemingly permanent second class citizenship. Classifying our struggles as women’s issues rather than Black women’s issues or more simply as Black issues only creates a platform for white women to use us as a stepping stone to their longed-for seat next to white men at the top of the oppression pyramid.

In conclusion, Black women should remain wary of the ways of our white “allies” due to their underlying goal to promote white supremacy and to paint themselves as victims as opposed to agents of oppression themselves. My knowledge of interest-convergence theory allows for me to label their suppression of the advancement of Black women as yet another ploy to put themselves on top, as well as allow for me to realizes they will do everything in their power to convince us that their movement is our movement as well. Meanwhile, white feminists are actually “bra-burning man-haters” as their efforts are miniscule in comparison to the efforts of their Black “counterparts”. Black women should take a stand to reclaim our history as our own and empower ourselves as a race first rather than our gender because our anatomy is not what has hindered us for centuries.

[super-queer-hannibal-obsession]

The M/M Shipping Thing: Misogyny, the Male Gaze, and Feminist and Queer Representation

Follow up post to this one, here. Read this to see my thoughts on the importance of allowing women to see men through a lens where male sexuality is something to be celebrated, not feared. Seems like a lot of people can relate to this, and I just love talking about it so have some more of my thoughts.

First of all, it’s a numbers game…

Going off of this point by @colt-kun which I’ve copied and pasted here. This gives a great overview of a purely statistical analysis of why m/m ships are more common.  

“There’s also the sheer numbers to take into account.

Take the first Avengers movie as an example (because frankly its one of the few recent blockbusters with two female speaking roles). Two females, Black Widow and Maria. Then eight males, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Loki, Fury, Coulson.

Not counting polyships/selfships for ease of math, and using the characters cisgender identities bc that is what they are largely seen as (no disrespect meant to any trans/nb interpretations)

Possible f/m ships: 16 (35.5%) Possible f/f ships: 1 (2.2%) Possible m/m ships: 28 (62.2%)

That’s not even accounting for screentime, character chemistry, interaction times, etc. thats just the NUMBERS.

When there’s a large disparity in character gender then yeah, you’re going to see a heavy inclination to m/m ships because that’s really ALL THATS POSSIBLE. The fans have a natural desire for more story and romances, they want to world build and AU. We’ve done that since stories were first told.

So of COURSE you’re going to see a lot of women - of all sexual orientations - leaning towards m/m pairings because when there’s only potatoes at the buffet… you eat the potatoes. Think of all the shows an movies with only one female character in a cast of men. Is it really difficult to see WHY there’s a lot of m/m ships there?”

Mainstream media is male-centered and male-dominated.

Going beyond just the numbers the fact is that in the majority of popular films and TV shows many of the female characters aren’t well-rounded or on screen as much as most of the men. There is a tendency for women to be the secondary characters or maybe to have one main female character. This makes it hard to really relate to and invest in a lot of the female characters out there. Not that people don’t, but it’s not going to attract a huge following.

Take Supernatural (low hanging fruit I know) where even if there are a large number of women that appear throughout the series, there aren’t many that stick around(and let’s not even go there with all of the deaths and how sexist that is right now ha)or interact with each other in a way that would lead to a lot of shipping. Even in my lovely Hannibal fandom, the Marlana ship which people love and people write for just isn’t going to have as much of a following just based on the fact that they aren’t the main characters. And Marlana is a good example of a w/w ship where they aren’t objectified, don’t die, and still it’s a secondary focus. There obviously are some exceptions, but they are few and far between.

The Male Gaze:

Also, women (and any gender that isn’t cismale) are trained to see film through the male perspective. Film and TV is usually shot with the male gaze, so women learn to see through this lens. We grow up learning to empathize and put ourselves in the shoes of male protagonists because otherwise we would have very little media to enjoy. I think this is part of why it’s natural for women to ship m/m ships. I also think that shipping men and sexualizing them can be a subversion of the male gaze and is an empowering way to flip that script for many women.

We could go into a whole other discussion on internalized misogyny and patriarchal culture and why there are some not so great reasons women might gravitate towards m/m ships, but I think it’s important to see all the reasons why this is and to not demonize women for doing something that makes sense both statistically, sociologically, and psychologically, etc.

Men rarely have to put themselves in the shoes of women in film. So, I do feel like there is a difference between straight dudes watching lesbian porn and women who thoughtfully engage in a m/m ship. You can’t ignore the gender politics at play and how these factors interact. In an ideal world, people of all genders and sexualities could enjoy bodies without all the baggage of sexism and homophobia, but sadly that’s not our world.

This famous, awesome thread really sums it up:

Disclaimer:

I do think there are women who fetishize and act awful when it comes to m/m ships. (I also realize there are lots of other intersections at work in film such as race and class that I’m not really addressing.) Especially those who don’t do any of the emotional or intellectual work around the history of the queer community and who don’t engage in activism of that sort. Plus, if you are a straight woman who loves and supports gay male ships but you’re grossed out by queer women or you’re objectifying actual queer men in your life, it’s time to check yourself and stop that.

Homoerotic Subtext:

Also, women, and queer people across the board, have been trained to read subtextual clues like pros. Women are especially adept at reading into stories since they are so rarely represented in positive ways. Queer people do this, too. It makes sense that women, especially queer women, would pick up on interactions that have homoerotic subtext easily. And, since film is male dominated, it is much more likely the subtext will be between two men. Also, let’s just face it, the history of film is male centered and homo eroticism is a big part of it, and it’s usually about good looking white dudes. The LGBT community itself still has a long way to go in portraying and magnifying people of all genders and sexualities more equally.

The weight of the male gaze on queer women.

There’s also the problem of objectification. I like to write, read, and see fan art about w/w ships, but there’s always that weight of feeling like you’re objectifying women all over again and feeling unsure about it. Honestly, I think that many of us in fandom should probably do what we can to write more femslash and write original queer female characters, but there are a lot of reasons why these ships aren’t as popular as m/m ships. There’s a lot of baggage around portraying women and female sexuality. And lesbian sex is so objectified that it can be a minefield to navigate even when(once in a blue moon) a good f/f ship opportunity comes along. But, even with that, there are some thriving ships such as Korrasami and Clexa(oh look another queer woman is dead. This is why we can’t have nice things). Queer women do celebrate and create fandom around good w/w ships when we get the chance. 

Misogyny and Mocking Fandom:

Lastly, and I’ve read lots on this before so this is just my take, people tend to demonize fandom and m/m shipping because it is something that is driven by women, mainly made by women, and made mostly for other women (and nonbinary folks, too).

Even in the LGBT+ community, there is a lot of misogyny. Cis gay white men are the face of that movement, and they often don’t realize the sexism that is still alive and well in the community. It’s easy for people to laugh at, mock, and critique shipping because it is very much a space not created by men. I also think it’s easy for some privileged gay men to point out perceived injustice but not realize the sexism inherent in what they are saying.

Fandom is very much a place where women explore their sexuality and can enjoy seeing men being acted upon, not just being the actors. It’s no surprise that women are intrigued by the sexual politics of queer men given the messages about being penetrated and being acted on that women get all the time. Analyzing sexual dynamics through a m/m relationship makes a lot of sense psychologically as it isn’t tied to a male/female gender dynamic in the same way. I think it’s a very natural way for women to see sexuality , and things like dominance and submission, as a personal preference and the beauty and excitement of different ways of expressing sexuality.

People like to enjoy women’s work while also mocking it.

Also, I know many queer men who enjoy m/m smut, fan art, etc. from fandoms where I’m sure that 90 percent of the work is being produced by people who aren’t cisgay men, and are very likely people who identify as women. So, while I know that some queer men are cool with it and some aren’t cool with it, I think it’s important to keep in mind that many of them are benefiting and enjoying from the work that female driven fandom is creating.

In conclusion:

Once again, it’s important to not be a homophobic, fetishizing, clueless person. I see instances of problematic behavior and thinking among women who ship men together often, and it’s a problem and needs to be called out when it happens. But, for all that is holy, stop acting like all of these women are gross, homophobic fetishizers and look at all the reasons why m/m shipping is such a phenomenon. I always think being self-critical and analytical is important. It’s also good to listen to different perspectives because these are intersectional issues with valid discussions to be had.

Sorry this was so long. I really could go on and on, and this is what happens when I miss writing feminist/queer theory papers. ;)

[topmixtrends]

TO TURN THE PAGES of Spill is to watch the invisible become flesh from the language of humming, longing, living, and dying. Drawing from the deep aquifers of the work of Hortense Spillers, American literary critic and Black feminist scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s poetry is an overflow and offering of Black voice. It is a voice mostly for Black women that illuminates a world critically and lovingly restored with dimension and structure by the work of Hortense Spillers. Characterized by intermittent rhyming, a perspective that is at once fluid yet rooted in the language of the body and the usage of space and citations, Gumbs weaves narratives of hope, desperation, and knowing into one sharp longing. It is a “poetilitical praxis,” an unflinching look at what pain has wrought and what fruit might yet be born.

A queer Black troublemaker, a Black feminist love evangelist, and a prayer poet priestess, Alexis Pauline Gumbs holds a PhD in English, African and African-American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University. Her scholarship spans the Audre Lorde Papers at Spelman College, the June Jordan Papers at Harvard University, and the Lucille Clifton Papers at Emory University. Alexis is a public intellectual and essayist on topics from the abolition of marriage to the power of dreams to the genius of enslaved African ancestors.

  Alexis is the visiting Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts at University of Minnesota. Her conversation about Spill can be found at Left of Black, and more about her work can be found at alexispauline.com. The second book in the series, M Archive: After the End of the World, comes out in a few weeks.

Alexis makes time for me right after a dentist appointment, so that’s where we begin.

¤

JOY KMT: How are you?

ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS: Doing well. I didn’t engage in full-scale battle against the dentist and dental assistant, which I used to do when I was a kid. I guess meditation works. Because of how I don’t really get numb from anesthesia and how I am in the throes of grieving my father, I have been thinking a lot about Lucille Clifton’s poem “water sign woman.” I have a Cancer rising sign. She talks about the “feels everything woman.” That’s me.
 

I am sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I have a moon in Pisces, so I understand the “feels everything woman.”

Yeah. I miss him so much. He was actually one of the first people to read Spill.

What was his reaction?

My dad was a big cheerleader for me, so of course he was like, “It’s groundbreaking, it’s stunning, it’s going to take the world by storm.” But that’s what he said about everything I did so …

It’s true, though.

My dad would say, “Just because I’m biased doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

How would you say general reactions have been to Spill?

The reactions have been really humbling. People have written beautiful letters and emails about how the work is impacting their healing, their relationships, their creativity, and their lives. And it’s been a wide range of people from other scholars and poets, people in my neighborhood, and dance classes. I wanted it to be a space for all my communities of accountability to be together, and it seems like it’s working.

Over and over again people have told me that the scenes are out of their own lives and the lives of the people they love. And when I share the book, I use it as an oracle. I ask people to think of a question and then a number and I read them a page and it seems like the book is able to speak to their lives and get all into their business. Long story short, a lot of people are looking at me like I’m a witch. And they aren’t really wrong.

I’m really struck by the tenderness with which you were able to render scenes, even when they were scenes of deep antipathy — “she loved the soft blue ocean of wishing he would die,” for instance. Why and how did you frame those very devastating scenes like you did?

The one thing that was present for me every moment of writing the book and that I hope is present in every moment of the book is love for Black women as Black women above everything, despite everything. So in a moment like that scene where this woman is trying to use all the gentleness and servility she has been taught to destroy, the person she sees as her oppressor, abuser, exploiter, love is still there. Her love for herself is there. Even if it can only be expressed in her desire to be free from the situation.

I think that no matter what we are going through, and even if we are not in a so-called “empowered” or “positive” space, mood, or situation, love is there. My study of Black women as a Black woman has taught me that. Love is always there. Always. Even when it seems completely impossible that it would be.

You start the book and each chapter with the definition and synonyms of spill — the title of your book. It seems both an homage to Spillers and a declaration of defiance. What is the container that you intend to overflow in this book?

Yes, I definitely think of this book as a celebration of the fact that Black women have not been contained, even though our blood has been spilled over and over again (including internal bleeding). I also think of the book as a libation to honor our ancestors and begin a ceremony that doesn’t end in the book. You have to use it every day. So I think the container has many names. Heteropatriarchal capitalism? Colonialism? The Western idea of the individual life?
 In the next book (coming out in March!), I write about the Black Feminist Pragmatic Intergenerational Sphere, which is just of way of referencing what Audre Lorde said in “My Words Will Be There,” which is that who we are is beyond the limits (or container) of one lifetime. But most explicitly what I designed the book to defy was the oppressive interlocking set of narratives that entrap Black women every day.

What kind of ceremony do you see springing to life from this work?

For me it is the opening part, the libation, of a three-part work. A triptych. This is the part that opens the way for ancestral honoring and healing. The second part, “M Archive: After the End of the World,” is about long visioning about what the material evidence will be of this apocalypse we are going through. And then the third part is actually what I am writing right now. It’s called “DUB: Finding Ceremony.” Which is another way of saying yes, this is an oracle. And what’s cool is that it still functions as an oracle for me, even though I’ve read it more than a hundred times.
 And the other thing I love is that other people are using it as an oracle. A few weeks ago a healer was doing tarot readings paired with pages from Spill on Facebook. I was like, “Wow! Draw one for me!” And it was right on point! So the primary ceremony I think Spill calls for is for Black women, all of us by the way, cis and trans, to recognize ourselves, each other, our ancestors and what we’ve been through. And to recognize the love and life-making that has also been there the whole time and is still there. And the secondary ceremony is for everyone who doesn’t identify as a Black woman to also understand that their healing is bound up with ours too.

How would you describe Spill in terms of genre and intent?

I think of the pieces on each page as scenes. I think of the book as a whole as a poem (#epic) and I think of every scene as poetic. And I think of it as an index and an oracle and a meditation. My intention is for the technologies of Black women poets, fiction writers, hip-hop artists, priestesses, singers, mamas, fugitives, stylists, and literary theorists to converge in the same space. Sylvia Wynter says, “After humanism — the ceremony must be found,” and I wanted to find a ceremony where we could be together, and where I could be with the revolutionary work of Hortense Spillers and with everyone else I love at the same time. Finding ceremony is a poetic act. So it is poetry.

I think you’ve partially answered this, but as a multidisciplinary artist and Black feminist scholar, what was the impetus for this book at this point in your career and life?

Right, I thought about what my intellectual writing would look like. And I thought about the people whose work has impacted me the most. I thought about Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Alexis De Veaux, and Barbara Smith and how none of them wrote “novels,” even though the novel was the most marketable form of writing available to them. My dissertation is about the poetics of survival and mothering in the work of those four geniuses and I think about them at all time. I thought about other academic theorists I cite the most: Hortense Spillers, M. Jacqui Alexander, and Sylvia Wynter, and how, to date, none of them have published a traditional scholarly monograph. They have all these essays collected (or in the case of Wynter uncollected) that change everything.

And so with that in mind I decided that building on the work that I have done to create spaces for my communities of accountability to be with the Black feminist creative and movement writers that I love, I also wanted to have creative space to be with my communities in the worlds created by the Black feminist theorists I love. Also though, it wasn’t a decision like how capitalism and individualism and Western education teach us to think about decisions.

When I decided to do the daily writing process that resulted in Spill, I didn’t really have thoughts about who would publish it, or if it would be published at all. I just knew it was what I should do. 
And I’m actually still doing it. First thing every single day. And I am as surprised as anyone by what it looks like. But what I’m not surprised about is that it is infused with love for Black women in every moment. Because that’s the one decision I keep making by continuing to be alive. To love Black women (myself included) with everything I have, every day. That’s what my life is.

At the end of Spill you seem to shift to a longer and broader timeline, moving from individual intimacies to a more collective oracular vehicle, sort of in the vein of Ayi Kwei Armah. Also, throughout the text, rhyme, space, and sound tend to shift the movement of the text at will. What was your decision-making process like behind the movement of the text or what guided the movement?

What a generous comparison! Yes, that’s true. The end of the book is more explicitly collective and intergenerational. The way the scenes appear in the book isn’t the order I wrote them in. It was a conscious decision I made when I was ordering the manuscript to move from the intimacy of the first scenes to the collectivity of the last scenes. And maybe because that’s how my day goes. I wake up very early in the morning to be with myself. And then my partner and I intentionally come together, and then it’s later in the day usually that I’m actually in community. And the way that rhyme and rhythm work in the text … to me it’s a poetics of fugitivity. The sound of being on the run, compelled, but sometimes being able to stop and be with people, stop and be with self, stop and reflect, but then you are on the run again. 

Can you speak more to the poetics of fugitivity and fugitivity discourse?

Sure, so Harriet Tubman and Phillis Wheatley get explicit shout-outs in Spill. And they were both enslaved women who in completely different ways spilled out of and upset the container of gendered and racialized slavery.

Fugitivity for me, for us now living in what Saidiya Hartman calls “the afterlife of slavery,” means that we are still entrapped by the gendering and racializing traps that made slavery possible. But we exceed it. We stay in love with our own freedom. We make refuge for each other. How do we do it? With our movement, with our braveness, with our leaving, with our words, almost always with food involved. So the scenes in Spill are scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity because for me they all feature a desire to be free and the urgent impossible-to-ignore presence of the ongoing obstacles to our freedom. It’s making me think of my teacher, my cherished intellectual mother Farah Jasmine Griffin’s book on Billie Holiday, If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery. Our navigation of freedom requires so much creativity, and the work of saying it while also hiding it. That’s a fugitive poetics.

I wanted to ask you personally, why did you include a thank you to me in the book?

Oh girl! Because you completely inspire me in general! But also specifically because when I was writing that scene after Spillers’s words “a question that we cannot politely ask,” I immediately thought of your work and the confrontational, epistemic liberating questioning you do in your poetry. And also your refusal to be limited by the “polite.” How you say, “they say we are strong but they really mean silent.” It’s exactly what I am talking about in Spill. Reading your work while I wrote Spill had a crucial impact on me and I had to acknowledge that.

Reading Spill was deeply nourishing for me. It took me back to my secret life. I think the unwavering radical love that you offer in this book helped peel back my shame. So thank you so much for the opportunity to read and the opportunity to explore with you.

Wow, I am so grateful for that. That’s the ceremony of Spill, I think, to give us space to acknowledge all of it.

How is the eclipse treating you?

The eclipse is amazing! We put candles all over the house and were drumming and dancing.

Yeah? My house is a mess, so I was playing Alice Coltrane and cleaning and went outside to watch the eclipse.

Super powerful and profound energy. Yeah, change is coming; you can feel it.

It’s a potent time to be talking. I appreciate you taking time out your day.

[Laughs.] I appreciate you. They’ll speak about it in legend — “On the day of the eclipse, the Nat Turner eclipse, Joy KMT and Alexis Pauline Gumbs spoke about the healing qualities of literature.”— When we’re really old, they’ll speak about it like this. [Laughs.]

What have you been thinking about Spill?

I just did this reading with an amazing poet named Cynthia Dewi Oka, and Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, who is an amazing poet, student of Audre Lorde, mother of Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest and Afro-Trinidadian genius, author of many books of poetry, and another person, Raquel Salas Rivera. It was really interesting because a lot of the poems in Cheryl’s newest book of poems, Arrival, are thinking about her family and ritual, and a lot if it is in Trinidadian English, and Raquel’s poems are all in Spanish, and she translates some of them into English; Raquel is a Puerto Rican poet. So I was thinking about, “What is the vernacular of Spill?”

When Black women talk to me about feeling like, “Oh my gosh, I feel like you wrote this just for me,” what makes it feel that way to other people? What’s recognizable? I think some of the vernaculars of Spill have to do with food and cleaning and domestic rituals and domestic work, hair braiding and grooming. I think there’s a lot of tactile language. Language of touch.

I realize that I’m always thinking about Black women and I love Black women, and obviously I was engaging with a Black feminist theorist the whole time I was writing it. But I think what makes it effective, intimate, ritual space for me and for other Black women does have to do with familiar forms of care that are in the book. Even if it’s for a slaver, which it sometimes is, or if it’s considered to be surplus labor, that work that we do to keep other Black people alive, that is not sanctioned by the state.

You asked me, before the interview, about the relationship between Fred Moten’s work and mine. Well, Fred was on my dissertation committee. But before I even met Fred, Fred Moten’s work, In the Break in particular, had me thinking about how powerful Black maternity is. And how scary it is, you know, to everyone in the world who is threatened by that power. And yet, how revolutionary it is to honor it for what it is. That’s actually one of the things that I love about your work. What happens if we understand everything in the world, all of the systems of oppression that target and seek to harm Black women and Black mothers especially. What if we see all of that as proof of and as a response to the amazing power that is Black mothering and that is the Dark Feminine? What does it mean if we acknowledge that? I would say that that’s the primary connection between the work that I’m doing in Spill and the work Moten is doing there. And it’s not a coincidence that that would be the connection because they both come through Spillers.

That’s the thing about Spillers’s work, that has me coming back to it forever and ever and ever ever. It’s the basis for how he develops that theory of Black maternity, also.

Well, I know we jumped right back into the interview, but I wanted to ask you, how have you been?

I’ve been good. I know last time we talked, I had just come back from the dentist and was talking about my dad. I still think about him every day. I was just thinking this morning about the fact that my dad was an amazing friend to me. I never thought about that until literally this morning. About the fact that, “Ah, I was actually friends with this person.” And I feel really grateful for that. That was a really powerful definition of our relationship. And what if I never realized that? I feel like the reason it took me so long to realize that is patriarchy. My dad did not play the patriarchal role, but there is something about the Black longing for patriarchy that’s deep. It’s something that I think is super toxic, hateful, and ridiculous and illogical.

Hortense Spillers writes about this as well in her essay, “‘The Permanent Obliquity of an In(pha)llibly Straight’: In the Time of Daughters and the Fathers.” There’s no such thing. There’s no Black patriarchy, there’s not gon’ be no patriarchy, there’s really no such thing as fathers and daughters in relationship to what Black life has meant. The essay looks at a short story by Alice Walker and the strange incest story that the guy in Invisible Man tells. It talks about these stories as examples of how ownership, the way a father owns a daughter in patriarchy, is not Black relationality and is sick and disgusting to begin with. And that these stories basically offer how absurd that is but also how harmful the desire for that is. And as usual — this is what I love about Hortense Spillers so much — in conclusion, Black people are inventing a whole different type of life. Basically we’re doing a whole other thing that makes all these other things possible. At least for me, that’s the queerness with which I read Spillers’s work. It’s like okay, if there’s no such thing as Black fathers and daughters, then what are Black relationships built on? Black social life and Black community? If we know we cannot own anything, even our bodies and even our loved ones, then what is our relationality made of? It’s not made out of property, but we’ve been made into property.

What does she say relationships are made out of?

Let me go ahead and open the book. So I don’t misquote, but basically she talks about our relationships being built on choice, our relationships being built on shared ritual practice, our relationships being built on creativity, creativity that can’t be necessarily owned. So that’s a general paraphrasing. Of course the way she says it is going to be beautiful and incredible and impossible to paraphrase, but …

Would you say that interpretation of Spillers’s work is the foundation for how you approach Spill? And also, it’s funny that we started on this path of conversation, because one of my questions is: What do you see as the relationship between Black masculinity and Black femininity in Spill?

That’s a good question. And yeah, it’s very much framed by those questions. And you know, that essay is not an essay that I cite in Spill, but I got back into that essay — it has always been one of my favorite essays of hers — trying to process my grief around my father and not wanting my grieving process to be shaped by patriarchy. So I actually ended up writing some other scenes that are not in Spill, that have a similar process based on quotations from that essay, and some scenes that are based on Sylvia Wynter’s work, which is what the third book is.

Is that M or the next work?

It’s the next work, called Dub, Finding Ceremony. But this piece in feminist formations is me processing around my father and it cites this essay and it cites ethno and socio poetics, by Sylvia Wynter. I think it’s coming out soon because they just paid me for it today. I think it’s coming out today. Who knows? Sorry, I have you on speaker phone and I’m climbing my book shelves looking for this book.

It’s okay.

Yeah, but the relationship between masculinity and femininity, I mean I think one of the things I was present to, especially in the section, “what he was thinking” was just the violence of masculinity. A lot of the violence that the feminine figures in the book are fugitives from is masculinist energy, but it’s also the predictable result of the imposition of masculinity. I felt like those were scenes that made it visible in a particular way, and there is a scene in there where I’m very much thinking about Invisible Man, that scene where a young man is seeing his mother being disrespected over and over again by a paternal figure. The imposition of masculinity, especially in terms of Black social life, has been profoundly destructive. And Black femininity has been in fugitivity from that in a particular way. I think that might be one way that it shows up in Spill. But then, I think that there’s a lot of different possibilities. Some of the scenes around Black masculinity and femininity in conflict, I’m definitely drawing on Alice Walker’s work, I’m definitely drawing on Zora Neale Hurston’s work, I’m definitely drawing on — I think about Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I think about masculinity in Jamie’s life as something that comes through the scenes in Spill. I think about “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and the ending of the book is definitely an offering in reverence to that story.

So yeah, I would say that the relationship between masculinity and femininity and the work in Spill is a relationship that is also — the masculinity and the femininity of the people in the book are fugitive from patriarchy. It’s also fugitive from binary. It really is trying to escape that. So part of what Spill is about is how sometimes you don’t escape something until it’s impossible to ignore how violent it is. And at the same time, whatever the revelation is within that violence is what is making it possible for something else to happen beyond that binary. Beyond what patriarchy has made masculinity and femininity. So you know I think about that in the way that Toni Cade Bambara talks about in “On the Issue of Roles,” which is definitely another influence on Spill. But I think actually the relationship between masculinity and femininity in Spill is as complicated as the relationship between the relationship between masculinity and femininity in Black women’s writing. As we know, at the very outset of what literary historiographers call Black women’s writing renaissance, when Ntozake Shange and Alice Walker and Toni Morrison had these widely deep texts that were centered on the experiences of Black women, that were probably the most widely acceptable that texts about Black women that had ever been, by Black women, immediately the pushback was around the portrayal of Black men. That it was unfair to show the forms of violence that Black women experience. It hasn’t stopped, as we know. That’s the archive that I am soaked in, that spilled out in Spill. And at the same time, like how June Jordan writes about Zora Neale Hurston’s work in contrast to Richard Wright’s work, saying whereas Black masculinist impulse in protest literature is like, “ F you white man!” and this is why we need to destroy this terrible racist society — which June Jordan definitely agreed with — but if you look at Zora Neale Hurston as your model for what Black literature is, you see the relationship between Black people invested in within the work of Black women. I wouldn’t make a gender binary around that either. But what she’s saying is if you look at Zora Neale Hurston as our model, that’s what we are going to have again and again. We’re going to see that the revelations, the complexity and the nuance is really in relationships between Black people, and what about that as an argument for the world that we want to create. Not only relationships between Black people and white people. So I would say Spill is that too, saying that there is something to be learned in the gendered relations of Black people that is key, core, really primary. And it’s learned. And if healed, would absolutely change everything. Who is considered family? What Spillers is saying is that, Black family is based on who preserved life and the calling for life. Who creates kinship? It’s not going to be based on patriarchal traceability and lineage. Because people have been sold away and are being dispersed over and over again and displaced. Revolutionary mothering is the way that I think about it. Who is participating in the preservation of life? That’s the vernacular of Spill. If you go back to what I said in the beginning, that’s what’s happening. Cooking is happening. Cleaning is happening. Hair is being done. You know, all of that is happening. People are being warmed.

I’m such a baby trying to get into this Spillers. But I appreciate the challenge of her work.

It is complicated, what Spillers is saying, and it’s almost impossible to say. Given the language and structures and thought that we have all been trained into, how deeply her work unsettles those it’s almost impossible for her to say what she’s saying. And at the same time, it’s really simple but it only requires the small thing of forgetting everything you know. For me, that’s the poetic imperative. Every poet is saying things that’re unsettling and making possible ceremonies for something to be said, that couldn’t be said otherwise.

I wanna talk about craft with you a little bit. What, in your writing, signaled to you the evocation of ceremony? What are the components of language that create ceremony?

The first scene in Spill, the person tried every possible ceremony they knew about and it’s still as bad as it looks. They had candle, they had the food in the corners, all of it. The ceremonies that had been known up till then were not sufficient to the reality and in a certain way had to either be what offered that clarity or be left behind. And similarly, making the greens, that ceremony changes. The way that person makes the greens changes throughout that scene. There’s something important about that, that the ceremony that they started with and the ceremony that’s available is asking for something else to be created. So how does that happen? Writing can be like a wormhole, a nonlinear path to a space from where one started. That’s the fugitive technology.

For me, the repetition of rhyme is the fugitivity. The arrival at the urgency that’s asking for your own revelation. Fugitivity for me is like, okay, so we have this flight and we’re compelled and propelled and the momentum of the pieces of Spill is evoking that through the rhythm. What does that embodied experience give and demand? It demands ceremony in a particular way. Fugitivity demands many ceremonies. One of the things I talk about in the beginning note is, “we have to create the space now we gotta leave.” The rhythm shapes that movement.

The other thing I would say is listening. The major skill that I had to develop to be present for this work was to listen. Hearing different people read them, I can tell that it is what I heard when I hear people read the scenes at performances. That’s important because the words are there or the punctuation that we have access to, and you know I’m doing weird stuff with punctuation, it’s not a given that it would sound like what I heard when somebody brings their own voice to it, but I still hear the rhythm that I heard. It means that rhythm holds the possibility for that ceremony. The shifts in the rhythm signify the shifts in the ceremony. I think that’s how it shows up in the language. That’s the language that gets you to get into the rhythm that makes this possible.

It’s not to say that the language is a signifier or that you could substitute any word as long as it had the syllables, I’m not saying that at all, what the language references is also important, domestically ceremonial and creating and providing intimacy and access in really important ways. The actual content of the language is what has my neighbor be able to be like, “Oh, this makes me think about my mom and my aunt.” But at the same time there is something rhythmically happening, and it was transformative for me to be able to experience those rhythms in the process of making this work.

You said you were listening. What were you listening to?

I needed to hear the phrase. I had written down the phrases [from Spillers’s work] and I would open up the notebook that had the phrases outside of their context, and I would work with the one my eyes fell on. Then I would cross it out after I worked with it. I was distilling it in that way because I had to look at the phrase and not then go, well here’s what she meant by that. Here’s what I think about it. I had to not let my brain fill the space. I had to leave a space and listen to where the phrase took me. Who is this? What is the scene? Where? As I was hearing it and writing it and seeing it, the rhythms were very different. Sometimes there was a breathlessness at the end of writing it. Sometimes I would reread it and be like woo! Sometimes the experience was like um-hm. Sometimes it was a feeling of being transported and traveling back into my actual life. Who has the actual expertise to tell this actual story is who I had to listen to, and understand that I’m in relationship to who that is through my intimacy with Black women’s writing, and that legacy of listening. Listening to storytellers and also listening beyond, listening to the silence of a room, that those writers have been doing. And realizing that it was all there. Like if I had been a lot more quiet a lot earlier in life I would have heard this before. And it was these phrases of Hortense Spillers that could get me to have the level of stillness and listening to hear whatever it was. It was the technology for it.

I wanted to ask you about your next work, M. I got the sense from the description that it seems to build on Sylvia Wynter’s discourse on humanism. Can you talk a bit about M and the connection between Spill and M?

First of all, Sylvia Wynter is always there. I first heard about Sylvia Wynter from Brent Edwards. I went to this summer thing at Dartmouth and I had this one conversation with Brent Edwards who was a speaker. He mentioned ethno and socio poetics by Sylvia Wynter — and this is the deep generosity of Black scholars without which I could not participate in intellectual life in the way that I do — he mailed me a photocopy of this essay. That was very important because it was only published in the journal of this conference in 1979, so it wasn’t very accessible. The context of this essay is that the conference seemed like it was for anthropologists who were interested in poetics, like do certain poetics come from certain ethnicities, preserving indigenous language and poetics but in a super colonialist way, so I don’t even know why they invited Sylvia Wynter to this conference unless there was some subversive person that wanted them there. In this essay, Sylvia Wynter breaks down the entire invention of what you think a human is. She’s like, let me go through the medieval times, the sense of God, Robinson Crusoe, and basically she’s breaking down all of Western civilization to say that there is no ethnopoetics, there is no ethno — there is no us, because what you all have done is to create a them and then said that hat them has no language. So this entire project that you think you’re doing, you can’t. You’re not. But, there’s such a thing as Black poetry, and there’s such a thing as Indigenous poetry. It’s not along the lines of ethnicity that you are thinking about. It is the possibility of being able what is impossible to say. For me, that was a very important moment in my life because I was like, “That is what we’re doing!” Yes. Yes. It is the impossible daily work. Black artists and Indigenous artists in particular, we’re using these languages that are literally what makes it impossible to say what we gotta say, do what we gotta do, be with each other, be here. From then on I was like I have to read everything by Sylvia Wynter. She’s saying, none of this stuff is natural, none of this stuff is permanent, so we can think of some other stuff and do it and the sooner the better because this particular train of thought is destroying everything. So back to the question. M, the citations from that work come from M. Jacqui Alexander’s Pedagogies of Crossing, so it’s a similar process that I did for Spill but a completely different set of essays that took me to totally different places and post-apocalyptic futures. One of the things about this future is that the perspective is from someone who is archiving the material evidence of the end of humans. But that does not mean that there are no beings, or no beings related to those of us who are the current humans or not humans based on anti-Blackness. But it does mean that that category has expired. And it may actually mean that we all die. There are multiple possibilities in the text, but it does imagine what is after the human, and Sylvia Wynter says that after the human the ceremony must be found. So what are the material components of that post-human ceremony? What are the memories, what are the practices, what are the rituals that constitute that? And how would someone describe it who could see it as history? And definitely, there’s nothing that I’ve written before I read Sylvia Wynter and definitely after I read Sylvia Wynter that’s not in conversation with Sylvia Wynter. Not a tweet. Everything is in conversation with Sylvia Wynter in some way.

So, final question: What’s your recollection of how we met?

From my perspective, it was like the hugest gift that you came to DC from Pittsburgh and were like, “Hello, I heard you were doing oracle readings, I’m here to open the oracle.” The way I got to DC, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival had a special thing they were doing about Black adornment called “The Will to Adorn,” inspired by how Zora Neale Hurston talks about Black adornment. They asked me to come, and I don’t know what they thought I was going to do but what I knew there was to do was to create this wearable oracle created on a daily basis out of Black feminist texts. I remember what was going on in your life but I don’t remember what your question was. I remember you talking about Oshun and the cinnamon and cleaning the new space you were in and the artist grant you had just gotten. I’m just really inspired by you and your life, and how you understand everything to be a part of your creative practice, like the ants and how you dealt with the ants by putting cinnamon down. And you know I’ve never stopped reading your work and I’ve never not been blown away by the brilliance, the honesty, and the rituals that you create in your community. I just feel like we have the same religion.

Yes, I feel similarly. I feel like much of my work is in conversation with your work. Did anybody ever tell you that talking to you is like talking to a nourishing whirlwind?

[Laughs.] No, but I like that though. I should put that in my bio. I like that! I identify with that. I know it’s a lot. I know I’m all over the place, but I’m glad it’s nourishing. I’m glad it’s clear that it is all love. That’s all it can be.

¤

Joy KMT is a healer, poet, and ritual artist. She is the founder of the Tabernacle of Immaculate Perception.

The post We Stay In Love with Our Freedom: A Conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2DZxLug

[fairplayforwomen]

I am a transgender woman.

I was born a girl.

Lucky for me I was born a girl whose parents understood pretty much that what kids generally want to do is wear wellies, and shorts or dungarees, and involve themselves in complicated experiments and construction work at the end of the garden.

Unlucky for me that tricky incidents like bridesmaidship and weird uncles happened sometimes. Unlucky that the primary school I went to had a line down the middle with girlie games on our side, and boyish games on theirs and, when it was time for sport, the boys got to wear shorts (which I wore when I wasn’t doing school sports) and the girls had to wear silly little wraparound skirts which, in any kind of athletic behaviour or windy weather, could be termed flaparound, un-wraparound skirts.

It got rather more awful.

We found the world densely peopled with men telling us it was the permissive age

That continued to be the case at secondary school, although it got rather more awful when we were all trying to work out how to deal with first periods.

This was the early seventies, the ‘permissive era’, the heyday of Jimmy Savile, and if you weren’t there to experience it, let me tell you he didn’t stand out as particularly unusual back then. As we turned from girls into young women, we found the world densely peopled with men telling us it was the permissive age, that we could do this, and this, and that, and telling us in ominous detail what was wrong with us if we refused to do this, this and that.

More members of my family were to some extent autistic than weren’t.

I knew as autistic people generally do, it wasn’t me. I was called a tomboy and a rebel

Looking back from the age of about forty, looking carefully with the help of my daughter, who was at the time learning to deal with a child with quite pronounced autistic traits, I finally understood that more members of my family were to some extent autistic than weren’t. I’d never realised because I’d been given to understand that autistic people don’t notice or even don’t have emotional reactions, that they miss subtle signals, don’t do empathy – whereas I had always struggled to find my place in what seemed to me a maelstrom of human emotions, actions and reactions.

I could see precisely what people were trying to be, and trying to get me to be, I just knew – as autistic people generally do, that it just wasn’t me. I was called a tomboy and a rebel and all the rest of it.

Sexual power games gave me about as much freedom as a whip gives a dominatrix.

No amount of whip-waving will win you a dollar on the price

I didn’t want to be a bloody rebel. I just wanted to find a place I could relax.

I did try out all the girlie stuff, including the sexual power games, briefly, as a teenager. I looked right – I was tall and willowy at a time when tall and willowy was fashionable but what I discovered was that the ways and wiles of the kind of creature I was supposed to be gave me about as much power and freedom as a whip gives a paid dominatrix. As one famous whore once put it, no amount of whip-waving will win you a dollar on the price.

I rejected that along with everything else.

I had to settle for being a gender-rebel. I had a go at being a lesbian

I rejected that along with the idea of being religious, of being academic, of being sporty, of everything else I most desperately tried and then put down.

I had to settle for being a ‘rebel’ as it seemed to be what I was seen as whatever I did. And that included being a gender-rebel. Seventies girls were allowed to be sexily boyish – but not to be in any way mannish.

I had a go at being lesbian and gave a decent woman a hard time discovering I wasn’t much good at that either. In adulthood, I failed to hold down job after job. It was only really at menopause that I learned how to put down all the gender crap and be a person.

I do what I like now. I’ve even gone back to experiments in engineering.

I went to a girls’ school, and so engineering never got mentioned

I do what I like now, which mostly entails doing what men do because it’s easier, cheaper and more practical. Trouble is, career and financial failures all down the line mean I don’t have the kind of income a man of my socio-economic background might expect to have. That’s because I’m not a man. I’m a woman.

I never became an engineer for one thing – it was what I used to do in the garden when I was a kid but I went to a girls’ school, and so engineering never got mentioned. I didn’t even know it was a thing.

Now, for the first time in my life, I am learning how to be me. I’ve even gone back to experiments in engineering at the end of the garden.

Everyone else had decided a woman was. I know what a woman is now, and I love it.

I never really was a woman by gender. Few women are. It’s a social construct

The key was coming to understand that the only reason being a bit autistic was ever a serious problem for me (social embarrassment, the noises in the walls, occasional panic attacks due to over-stimulation – these aren’t serious problems, I got the hang of them over the years) the only serious problem I ever had was what everyone else had decided a woman was. I know what a woman is now, and I love it.

I love my daughter, I love having grandchildren, I love that I’ve learned to be friends with women in the way that women are, I love my sewing machine and knitting needles as much as I love my shovel and wheel barrow – but now, as an older woman, I no longer get into trouble for rejecting my gender – all the claptrap that younger women are supposed to partake of, all the claptrap I never could relate to. I never really was a woman by gender. Few women are. It’s a social construct that many struggle to manage.

As an older woman, I no longer get into trouble for rejecting my gender.

Women tiptoe into gender-divergent after menopause, when they will get less flack

The answer I found was to be a gender-divergent, or gender-critical, or transgender woman. Many women are. A large minority, possibly even a majority, tiptoe into that territory after menopause, when they will get less flack for it.

It’s a terrible and dangerous thing to get sex & gender mixed up. I understand.

I worry that many autistic youngsters are being steered down the road of ‘sex-change’

It’s a terrible and a dangerous thing to get sex and gender mixed up, especially if you take steps as a result that aren’t easily reversed. I understand that, I really do. I worry myself silly now that many autistic youngsters are being steered down the road of a medical/surgical ‘sex-change’ long before they have a chance to learn what I learned. What most of them need is a ‘gender change’. What surgeons do would not have worked for me, it will not work for many.

When my mum died, as distressed and out-of-kilter with the world as she’d almost always been, I coasted for a year in a kind of shock, then sank into the blackest depression I’ve ever known. How much of her plight was my fault for being all wrong? Was my life now an irreversible ruin? How could I ever feel love again, if I did not love what I was? … I do understand how all this can seem impossible to face and to deal with.

Women’s spaces, women’s bursaries, women’s groups, sex-specific record-keeping:

These things are necessary to help women be women without injury

But depression is, if you’re lucky and spot the signs, a dark road back into the light. Another thing I understand, now I’ve sorted out who I am, is that women’s spaces, women’s bursaries, women’s groups and sex-specific record-keeping, all the things that help women deal with the consequences of being female, of being the child-bearers and usually the carers, and all the rest of it – all these things are necessary to help women be women without injury.

The women’s movement needs to explain that you can change your gender.

We understand precisely the traumas and dramas of trying to change your gender

One of the things the women’s movement needs to do now is define anew and preserve their spaces and practices. Some of those facilities may be amenable to gender-divergent men. We need to state publicly and clearly which ones are, which ones are not and, in each case, why.

Another thing the women’s movement needs to do is explain to the world that you can change your gender (and that feminists have been saying that, and doing that, for years), we understand precisely the traumas and dramas of trying to change your gender and be accepted by society.

We understand that it took men in general a lot longer to get their heads round it – but many did, via glam-rock in the ’70s, and the ‘gender-bending’ of the ’80s and ’90s.

Women know about changing gender. We also know you can’t change your sex.

We need to support gender-divergent women, and men need to do some serious work

Oh yes, we know about changing gender – but we also know you can’t change your chromosomes, and your chromosomes determine your sex. Instead, I suggest women need to give better support to gender-divergent women, and men need to do some serious work on finding out what men need, especially what gender-divergent men need, in order to live without injury.

  ©Kay Green October 2017

Being gender-divergent I am a transgender woman. I was born a girl. Lucky for me I was born a girl whose parents understood pretty much that what kids generally want to do is wear wellies, and shorts or dungarees, and involve themselves in complicated experiments and construction work at the end of the garden.

[tribuarganzuela]

An afternoon with Finnish activists, mothers and educators

After our institutional interviews, it was time to get in touch with more informal realities. We wanted to meet people who, like us, are closer to the social movements than to the institution. Thanks to Lotta Meri Pirita Tenhunen, a researcher specializing in political communities and a Finnish activist based in Madrid, who got us into contact  with several people. We were lucky enough to spend an afternoon getting to know other realities and other glimpses about raising and caring for kids in Helsinki.

The first stop was in the cafe of a central bookstore. We were meeting Warda Ahmed, cartoonist, activist, cultural worker and feminist, and Atlas Saarikoski activist and feminist journalist. And both, moreover, mothers. We had a coffee listening to their views about the current situation for people like them who are caring in Helsinki, with more than one child, aware of and active in the political situation and with cultural interests and temporary jobs.

Some of the most powerful issues we addressed were:

The cuts are affecting the maintenance at home policies and the day care quality

Currently, the home stay money allows you to stay up to three years caring for your child at home. However, the achievements of the seventies feminists fights are now in danger because the conservative government is calling it into question. There is talk of the transition to new benefits such as the Icelandic model (which contemplates 6 months per parent and 6 months enjoyed by both), which, whether or not they have positive aspects, are a reduction of the current three years. Another backlash of the neoliberalism here In Finland.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the cuts have not stopped hitting. The current government wants to justify the reduction of aid to care for children at home with the twisted argument that the people who benefit from this assistance are mostly migrants and excluded sectors, to whom a job would serve to "turn them into functional citizens". The result is the impoverishment of the parents, especially mothers, since the type of work she can access (the increase in the unemployment rate is a pressing reality in Finland) will have low salary and conditions. There is a whole ongoing debate in Finland, even within feminist currents, on this issue.

The changes are happening very fast and the cuts have not stopped coming. And, most dangerous, they often do so in the name of the liberation of women. Strategies of the right wing are to disguise the cuts policies in the name of feminism and of protecting poor and migrant women (they can be at home). This upper class argument shows its worst face against minorities and poor people.

The decrease in the quality of care and education services is another expression of the cuts and something that is very worrying is the increasing of the ratio of the day care groups.

-Isolation and (Not) Equal Homes

"Staying at home gives you some kind of freedom", recognizes Atlas, who is about to have her third child, "but it also isolates you. "In spite of the wide range of care options that Finnish families have (home policies to take it home, nursery, kindergarten, Pre-School, alternatives between Nursery or take it at home, Family Caffés, or cultural activities at the parks, specially in summer, where free lunch is given), the phenomenon of isolation continues to occur, especially among people who decide to raise at home. That argument has also been used in a twisted way by the government, who argues that with less help, people will leave the house and integrate more.

Therefore, the vertigo of staying at home and of not being able to do anything but caring and somehow being disconnected from the world is just as present among Finns as among the inhabitants of southern Europe, as we could see in the first part of our research. A lot of mothers are scared of being at home because of this tendency.

Nor do labor policies help in this regard since, although the law protects working mothers, employers look at age and reproductive possibility as a determining factor.

Another problem shared between mothers in northern and southern Europe is the question of households or non-egalitarian couples. The issue of permissibility of permits and non-transferability is also in the debate of the Finnish Feminist Party -as we are told by Warda, one of its leaders- who is studying the program of measures of the Swedish Feminist Party to try to do their adaptation to Finnish reality.

Atlas thinks it is fundamental that both parents could spend at least two years ideally

so that the implication was more balanced. Regarding the symbolic asymmetry between genders in relation to care, it is worth it to look at the cultural stigma of childcare for Finnish man (with respect to his Scandinavian companions). The fact that the term "Swedish Dad" exists referring to a man dedicated to childcare and, therefore, or implicitly, not entirely masculine, speaks for itself. We say goodbye to Atlas and Warda, in a very grateful mood. And wishing luck to Warda! Next year there will be municipal elections in Helsinki and the Feminist Party will take power!

Afterwards, we were fortunate to be invited for coffee at Solja Kovero's house, a philosopher and activist and her two companions, Anki Sievänen, experienced teacher at Kindergartens and Heidi Kangas, former Kindergarten teacher, and now university student to be Secondary Teacher. And Punni, Heidi's daughter! We were greeted with a huge tray of Karelia, the typical Finnish cake, made by Anki.

With them we addressed the issue of education in particular. They gave us a review of the modalities and the current conditions of Kindergarten, institutions that they both know very well. Kindergarten is not totally free but mostly affordable because it depends on the parents’ income. On the other hand, Private DayCare is very expensive (if you are not registered you do not have the right to DayCare). Pre-schools are free (from 3 to 6) and they were created in the seventies.

The question of the cutbacks related to education came out immediately. Anki also told us about the increasing ratio per class and the lack of staff. In general terms, the quality of education is getting worse (less space, less activities) because of the decreasing of resources. Although, public kindergartens are still great places and people trust in them, although this trend is changing now because of the lack of resources. The middle class is changing now, looking for something special such as innovative pedagogy.

Heidi told us about her experience about being a young mother of a baby (Punni is one and a few months) still studying. She does not receive allowance or extra benefits at the university. Punni is now in DayCare, but she still needs help from some friends, as her partner is working full time. Here in Finland, it's more common that people rely on relatives than on friends.

We were also talking about the issue of (Not) Equal Homes. In 99% of the cases, the women are the ones who stay at home for a long time and also women are more engaged with education, indeed it's a challenge for Finnish society to get over this gender gap. Anki and Heidi complaints about the same idea that everybody has about Finland, but this is a superficial view. "Finland is not so equal. The glass ceiling is also an issue". Especially with the new conservative politicians putting more and more pressure on women (pressure to be mothers, to be the perfect mother, to parenting as a way of consuming) with their conservative culture. "The new right wing (now in government) is the most horrible government for women”.

For all these questions, Heidi thinks it could be crucial to develop more solidarity between parents to fight against isolation; more flexibility to do things collectively and imagination to create a collective childcare system (it's not even easy in big cities).

For Anki it is important to say how much time the kids spend at Kindergarten (8 or 9 hours) and to develop special policies to avoid the creation of ghettos. Both of them agree on how city planning is a deciding factor in avoiding segregation. Cheap houses are in certain areas, far from the center, where it's difficult to mix. This favors racist structure in everyday life, which allows discrimination and makes Helsinki a less friendly city.

We finished our day exhausted but happy to have gotten to know all these warm and interesting women! Thanks to all.