#patriarchy OVER

[lukeslywalkers]

2013 tumblr users would be so excited to find out that pad commercials are using red liquid instead of the mysterious blue liquid

[transmechanicus]

I know some people have unfathomable beef with the term but i really don’t see the issue with transmascs describing their specific experiences with societal mistreatment and persecution as “transandrophobia”, like i think it’s good to be able to discuss specific experiences and articulate the problems you’re facing actually.

[padawan-historian]

electing a brown skinned cop who uses imperial feminism to reinforce American exceptionalism all while she backs the same colonial projects and state funded violence that allows for the re-criminalization of poverty, the erasure of civil rights, and the expansion prison industrial complex is not a win.

there are a multitude of ways and workings to disrupt, divest, and dismantle the master’s house. kamala winning this election doesn’t fix this lovecraft country. kamala winning this election means a return to our communities to manifest direct action, collective liberation, and radical abolition that upRoots fascism, imperialism, and white supremacy from our gardens.

[andsheoverthinks]

i think the reason white women/white feminists glorify the 'strong independent black woman' trope is because they mistakenly think it's some GNC, anti-patriarchy thing that black women came up with to stick it to the man... we didn't. idk what the men told you. but make no mistake it's not about us being respected leaders but moreso packhorses.

the strong black women trope is very much gender-conforming and hyperfeminine. it may not be pink and ribbons and cute but it is indeed Feminine (Pertaining to Female Stereotypes). the strong black woman is the ultimate 'mother' figure (see the Mammie stereotype). she gives and gives and GIVES, having no feelings of her own. she can be abused and raped and tortured without showing any trauma or shedding a tear. she is whipped to the point of death while in labor. her children are stolen from her at birth. she breastfeeds her mistress's children the milk meant for hers without a complaint.

she is self-sacrificing having no self-love or indeed self-identity. every Black woman tries her best to escape this stereotype in order to maintain her self-identity. this is the stereotype which causes us to die at crazy high rates in childbirth... still think it's empowering? Black women cling to the feminine aesthetic because we hope it will humanize us, earn us a scrap of empathy. we hope people will look at us and see just a woman instead of a black woman. you can laugh all you like at the bright-under-eye dark-lip-liner long-nails IG girls but you don't understand how they got there. 'princess' may be a cage but it's a nicer and better cage than 'mammie.'

women of all races have to escape the programming but it's different for all of us.

why do you think hollywood loves portraying the strong black woman struggle love stereotype so much? do you think holly-WEIRD is down with the cause?

being 'soft' and expecting to be waited on and prioritizing our feelings is GNC for Black women. that's how men behave, after all.

*waves hand* make me a plate.

[agardenintheshire]

for when you've just been through a trauma here, okay?!

for @simptasia

[canichangemyblogname]

Look. Because some of you need this spelled out for you.

Men are not oppressed for being men. That includes trans men.

Imagine this scenario:

A young boy skins his knee. He begins crying. His father tells him to suck it up because “crying’s for girls; boys don’t cry.” Later, they’re playing t-ball. Same father tells his son that he throws “like a girl” and no son of his is going to be a “sissy.”

Is that boy being oppressed for being a boy?

Spoiler: no.

Has he just faced misogynistic oppression?

Spoiler: no.

Has he faced the negative consequence of a patriarchal ideology predicated upon the idea that women and men are fundamentally different with different “natural spheres” of behavior and norms? Yes. Has he faced the negative consequences of a patriarchal ideology that holds preconceived notions about women and believes them the “lesser sex” due to a myriad of factors like “being emotional” and “being weak?” Yes. Are his father’s words a reflection of his own misogynistic beliefs about women? Yes. He lives under a patriarchy, his entire worldview is constructed through misogyny. Is that boy being oppressed by an system that upholds male dominance and the domination of women? No. Is he facing misogynistic oppression? No.

Imagine a new scenario:

A TERF tells a trans man that he’s just a hysterical little girl who needs to be protected from predators trying to brainwash him into “trans ideology.” The TERF laments his “mutilation” of his “god-given” body and fertility, imploring him to become a mother and fulfill his “natural duty.”

Are the TERF’s words a reflection of her own reactive, reductive, and misogynistic ideas about women and girls? Yes. The TERF’s worldview under the patriarchy is also constructed through misogyny. Her ideas about everything— from race to queerness to women— is influenced by misogyny. Is the man being oppressed for being a woman? No. Is he being oppressed for being a man? Also no. He’s being oppressed for being trans. Has he faced a negative consequence resulting from a worldview that believes that men/males and women/females must be fundamentally separate and different and keep to their “natural” spheres? Yes. Is he being oppressed for being a woman? No. Is he being oppressed for being a man? Definitely not.

Do trans men face unique oppression because of the intersection of their queerness and their man-ness? Yes. Does that mean they’re oppressed for being men? Fucking no. Everyone has their own unique experience of privilege and oppression. Intersectionality is the study of how oppressions and privileges intersect at the socio-political level. It refers to the interconnectedness of social categories.

Trans men are not oppressed for being men; they simply face a transphobia different from that of trans women on account of how the privilege of being a man interacts with a trans man’s transness. They also aren’t oppressed for “being women.” When a trans man faces barriers to things like proper cervical care, it is for reasons different from why women face barriers in similar care. A practice or idea can be rooted in a misogynistic worldview under a fundamentally misogynistic system and society, but that doesn’t mean men face misogynistic oppression. It especially does not mean that men face oppression for being men under the patriarchy.

Transness and man-ness will also be affected by things like class, race, place of origin, immigration status, and even whether the man is gay (in the sense he likes men). Man-ness is complicated by various marginalizations. Man-ness (“being a real man”) under the patriarchy is defined very narrowly, designed in a way so that most people lose. Straightness is a feature of being a “real man” under the patriarchy, but we wouldn’t claim gay men are treated “like women” or being oppressed for “being men” when the definition of man-ness is weaponized against them.

This is not that hard to grasp.

Men are not oppressed for being men. That goes for ALL men. Misandry is not real. It has no political or societal consequences. The same goes for transmisandry.

[atopvisenyashill]

Please tell me more of your thoughts on maegelle, maybe it’s cause I’m new to the Fire and Blood side of the fandom but I’ve never seen anything deeper about her maybe being negative. Especially in regards to her mother/family. I’m quickly becoming Saera girlie and I wonder if Magelle’s role in the church might’ve contributed to her sister’s “”rehabilitation”” being bad enough to have her leave the continent.

Okay so the thing here is that she does to Alysanne what Jaehaerys does to Alyssa, which is force/cajole their mother into taking back and living with a man who has publicly humiliated her and made incredibly clear he has no respect for her, but we only really whack Jaehaerys for this. The first quarrel is more personally egregious to me because it's only Alysanne who must bite her tongue here and not Jaehaerys - she is not asking for anything extreme here! Her daughter committed the heinous crime of fucking before marriage, it's been like three years, and three of their daughters have subsequently died, but he hasn't calmed down at all about Saera. Alysanne even tries to compromise by just asking to fly to Lys to visit her and he forbids her from seeing her own fucking daughter. That's an insane level of abuse. And what does Maegelle do? Well she tells her parents that they need to keep up appearances and be seen in public together. Reminds me a lot of show alicent's "you may slap him about as you like at home but out in public we must be united" comment - essentially, Maegelle is telling Alysanne she has to cope with being barred from seeing her daughter and grieving her losses properly to keep up appearances. I mean fuck, maybe Alysanne genuinely wanted a divorce from Jaehaerys. Maybe at that point she was so distraught she wanted Jaehaerys to take a lover, and replace her, and leave her the hell alone so she could be with Gael or otherwise just go to Lys anyways. But Maegelle puts a stop to all of this by invoking Rhaenys' wedding and how they need to look united. Ghastly behavior.

BUT THEN. Less than two years later, Aemon dies and Jaehaerys names Baelon heir. And look, Alysanne is 100% right to be pissed the fuck off at Jaehaerys for naming Baelon - from our several comments about Rhaenys being called "our future queen", the fact that Aemon and Jocelyn never have any other kids, I think the fact that Rhaenys has a dragon as well, all of that makes very clear that everyone is sort of expecting Rhaenys to carry on the Targaryen line in some form or another. Beyond that, Jaehaerys knows damn well that Alysanne has historically been touchy about this - see her comments about little Daenerys. Jaehaerys, with this move, makes it clear that he had never planned for Rhaenys to be queen at all and was misleading everyone. This one is on par with Rogar's nonsense imo because it's so public and everyone knows how Alysanne feels about the succession. He doesn't talk it over with her after she's lost a son btw, he just announces it and takes everyone by surprise.

AND THEN ONCE AGAIN. HERE COMES MAEGELLE. "mom just get over it." And again, what does Jaehaerys give up here? Nothing. He's either sending Maegelle or he's just straight up leaving Alysanne alone and assuming she'll come back to him? It's just nasty. She's losing the ability to walk, to ride her dragon, to remember people's names, she's barred from seeing Saera, she's got a daughter the age of her grandchildren because Jaehaerys forced her to have another child, and she's not even allowed to just spend her last years on Dragonstone being left to age with what dignity she has left. No, she has to be at court, she has to be by her husband's side, because That's Her Place. It's just as smug, just as cruel as Jaehaerys forcing Alyssa to Rogar's side - and the cruelty, in my opinion, is the point here. "You made your bed now lie in it" type behavior, towards a woman who has just been publicly disrespected, who is grieving her dead children.

So anyways, do I believe Maegelle was just as viciously cruel to Saera and that's part of why Saera ran away? I can absolutely believe that yes. I think we see that a lot with Septas to be honest - women who get a thrill out of torturing other women who don't conform properly. Mordane actively eggs on the gap between Arya and Sansa until it becomes a gaping chasm, Moelle and Unella are happy to take orders that involve them sexually humiliating Margaery, her cousins, and Cersei and take a sort of sick glee out of doing it, so I don't think it's exactly far off to say Maegelle had a cruel streak in her that came out when it came to the women in her family not conforming properly. I think we can also take into account George's general distate for religion and Catholocism specifically and the way the Septas work as nuns, and the way nuns were like, insane at various catholic schools. I think there's an interesting play here right - that Jaehaerys can look a mother who put her own life on the line to make him king and hand her right back to the husband who hates her to die having his kids, because he's being vindictive and cruel about her having the audacity to remarry without his permission, and Maegelle looking the mother who has ruled capably and given her the space to be what she wanted to be, and hand her right back to the husband who clearly has no respect for her whatsoever, because she's cruel and believes a woman is not allowed to have differing opinions from the man who currently owns her. It doesn't matter what Alyssa or Alysanne personally did for the two of them; they're women, and they have no right to disagree with the men around them.

[fayevalcntine]

Positioning Louis as the "Edwardian wife who becomes trapped by her husband" in a literal sense does no justice to analyzing his actual place and role as a Black man in his society and in his relationship with Lestat. Any interpretation or analysis you do of him when it comes to their relationship cannot be stripped of the racial aspect because it's constantly there. Texts analyzing Edwardian wives (and particularly ones this fandom loves to bring up) typically were white and the dissection of their place in societal rules are always viewed from the aspect of gender that is within these texts only allowed to white women, but never to Black men or even Black women. And gender and race become inseparable when you discuss the latter, no matter how people may view it.

This is why I can't take this approach to analyzing Louis' story seriously because if you don't consider the racial aspect in his relationship even to himself and his sexuality, what's the point? You're still centering the standards that were more placed upon white male/female couples than you're willing to look into the unique structure of Black families, religion, their view of homosexuality and how that sooner heavily influences Louis than the family's "need" for him to be sold off to an Edwardian husband. Even in Louis' own story, him and Claudia being Black is more centered on than any demeaning "housewife" comment he tries to go against from Claudia's perspective. She makes that comment once, whereas we have at least two episodes from Louis' perspective that have very blatant hints and showings of the racism he still suffers from under the Jim Crow era and how it affects his self-worth as well as his relationship with Lestat who doesn't seem to take into consideration how any of the blatant racial aggressions and objections still affect Louis and what he considers to be important to achieve in his own life.

Then there's also the pointed topic of Louis' position as a Black man who is a pimp to the Black women he has as sex workers, as well as how his position as a Black father affects Claudia, another Black girl. If you insist on Louis being centered as this "Edwardian white wife" who is confined by his implicit gender in his marriage, where does that leave Claudia and the blatant misogyny and disrespect she gets from both him and Lestat? Lestat who is her white father abuses her. Positioning Louis within the strict confines of "being her mother" doesn't do her any favors because he didn't hesitate to choke her when he was deeply emotionally distressed, nor does it make him look any better when he's fine with chopping up her diaries and then delivering them on a silver platter so that Daniel, another white man, can read and dissect. Even if he does this under the sole pretense of "doing right by her", how does it in any way help when he also can't face up to his failures towards her?

[angel-archivist]

It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.

The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.

The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.

The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.

The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?

[transvarmint]

Being a woman does not make you immune to being misogynistic, nor does it make you any less prone to being misogynistic.

You are not less misogynistic by virtue of being a woman. You are not any less capable of perpetrating it.

To believe that being a woman in and of itself makes you less likely to be misogynistic is just essentialism. It implies that other genders are more misogynistic solely only the basis of their gender, rather than being misogynistic based on the choices they actively make.

To not be misogynistic, you must actively choose to fight against it, everyday. You must actively make choices that challenges systemic and social misogyny. You must question your own biases and how they influence your behavior.

You cannot be passively anti-misogyny. Your gender does not give you a free pass.

And importantly, women can absolutely perpetuate misogyny against other women, AND people who are not women. So you must be checking yourself for misogynistic bias in ALL interactions.

*** Before anyone comes at me, YES this applies to men and all genders as well. No, I'm not blaming women for systemic misogyny. I'm simply pointing out that everyone plays a role in it. Women are capable of perpetuating bigotry, especially if there are other intersections at play. Women are not perfect victims, they are human beings who have autonomy, and that autonomy includes the capability to uphold harmful institutions. ***

*** Also yes, experiencing misogyny on a daily basis will cause you to have a different relationship to it. Some folks respond to that by fighting against misogyny, but others respond to that trauma by continuing the cycle of abuse. This is just a fact. ***

[blessedmoonsoul]

such an experience being a girl growing up in an african home. you'll really watch all the women in relationships/marriages spending entire days cooking for men who would barely even say thank you when they serve them food. and then these women think they can speak to me about the wonder and joy of marriage LMFAOOO girl you are in JAIL.

[caffeineandsociety]

The thing is, if you buy into the specific brand of pop feminism that posits that the problem with patriarchy is that an environment that claims men are good and women are bad will result in a reality that men are bad and women are good, rather than that we need to, yes, deconstruct the way men are pressured to be assholes in very specific ways (among MANY other things), but do so as a step toward tossing the entire concept of a Bad Gender and a Good Gender,

I don't care how much you brag about hating terfs. I don't care how much you hype your (probably fairly gender conforming lbr) transfem friends up as gorgeous goddesses. I don't care how much you deck yourself out in trans pride colors or donate to Mermaids or promote trans help charities. You will NEVER successfully be normal about trans women as a whole. Even if you are a woman. Even if you are a trans woman.

Look. Structural misandry doesnt exist like MRAs like to claim, but structural binarism and gender essentialism sure as hell does, as does the "boys will be boys" attitude toward men's misbehavior, which the individual "men are entitled trash" attitude doesn't combat, but reinforces-

And just because there is no such thing as structural misandry doesn't change the fact that trying to create a No Men Allowed space will exclude closeted trans women. It doesn't change the fact that there are plenty of out trans women who are constantly second-guessing themselves as to whether or not they've Really Distanced Themselves Enough from manhood to Count, no matter how many times you insist that self-identification is all that matters. It doesn't change the fact that not every trans woman is a 100% binary woman who feels no connection to maleness whatsoever. It doesn't change the fact that you CAN'T tell the difference between a cis man and a butch trans woman a lot of the time based on external signifiers - ESPECIALLY if the latter is early in transition. It doesn't change the fact that these standards will be enforced even harder against BIPOC trans women, in light of the way BIPOC are treated as inherently hypermasculine in all the worst ways. Hell, if it were truly as simple as Men Bad Evil Oppressors, Women Good Innocent Victims, Masculinity Valorized, Femininity Degraded, that wouldn't work as a racist oppressive trope but rather have the OPPOSITE effect, you realize, right?

In fact, you won't even succeed at being normal about a lot of cis women! If you see facial hair as an immediate red flag if it's not paired with a Sufficiently Feminine Signifier, whoops, now every woman with hirsutism is The Enemy! This is exactly why we're fighting against the campaign to do genital inspections on suspected trans athletes - I genuinely wonder from time to time how many people would have fallen for that campaign had it not been coming exclusively from people who were open and vocal about misgendering trans women.

You can't actually be normal about women just by deciding the problem is that patriarchy got it backward about Who Is The Good Gender.

[nonstandardrepertoire]

as a Jewish transsexual, the Jewish ethno-nationalist¹ sales pitch has always left me cold.² over and over again, i've heard people plugging the State of Israel offer some form of the following: "history teaches that we can never fully trust non-Jews with political power to protect Jews; the only way to make sure Jewish people are always safe is to create and maintain a state where Jewish people have the political power, so we can look out for ourselves"

but the thing is, the worst transphobic harassment i've experienced in my life has come from Jews. i don't think this says anything about the relative transphobia of Jews vs non-Jews, anymore than the fact that most of my birthday presents come from New Yorkers says anything about the relative generosity of Californians, but still. the people who followed me out of the subway filming me while yelling transphobic abuse were Jewish. two of the most relentless boosters of the current wave of transphobia in the US — Ben Shapiro and Chaya Raichik — are Jewish. i should be safe in a state run by such people?

and the obvious response is to say that, well, this is about keeping me safe as a Jew, not necessarily as an anything else. it's a bulwark against anti-Jewish violence, not every other -ism under the sun.³ but the thing is, i'm not a potato-head person. you can't just snap off the trans part of me and the Jewish part of me and say the latter part is safe even when the first isn't. i'm 100% Jewish and 100% trans; if i'm not safe as a transsexual, i'm not safe as a Jew. and if i'm going to be having to fight transphobia anyway, what difference does it make if the people passing bills stripping my rights are Jews or not?⁴

if you really lean into the logic at play here — "no one outside a vulnerable demographic can be trusted to care about people in that demographic" — it's easy to wind up in absurdity. because if i can't trust goyim to have my back as a Jew and also can't trust cis people to have my back as a transsexual, perhaps i need a state run by and for Jewish transsexuals. but wait! white Jewish transsexuals are certainly regularly horrible to, eg, Black Jewish transsexuals, so we probably shouldn't be in the same state together, to say nothing of separating out the poor, the disabled, those without college degrees . . . and before you know it, you're committed to the idea that the only just world is one where we're each a state unto ourselves, perfectly safe in absolute isolation from one another — no society, no coming together across difference to lighten the burden of living, just infinite atomization, the perfect unending unwinnable war of all against all

and this, i think, reveals the fundamental futility of the project. as a transsexual, i don't think my safety will ultimately come from removing myself from people not like me. safety, i think, comes not from cutting ties, but from building them. i will only really be safe in a society that accepts difference, multiplicity, strangeness, variety. i will only be truly safe in a society where we come together — across the gulfs that separate us — to take care of one another

i think there are illuminating parallels with feminist/lesbian separatism here. in its most extreme versions, such separatism abandons the demand that women be safe around men and instead attempts the task of building a space without men for women to inhabit. similarly, it seems to me that Jewish ethno-nationalism abandons the demand that Jewish people be safe around goyim and instead attempts to build a space without goyim for Jewish people to inhabit.⁵ i think Jews can and must be safe among goyim. i think women can and must be safe among men. i think trans people can and must be safe among cis people. that is the kind of world i am committed to fighting for, not one where we give in to fear and retreat into gardens walled by suspicion and hostility⁶

i'm not going to pretend that that's an easy world to build.⁷ i'm not going to pretend i can point to a bunch of stable, just, pluralistic societies and go "eh, just do what they did!" (altho there's no shortage of societies i can point to that went the "this place is for us and only us" route and wound up producing dystopian nightmares⁸). i'm not even going to pretend that i think building a just world from where we are now is inevitable, or even that i always think it is possible. there are days it is very hard to believe. but i always think it's worth striving for. if a just world that guarantees a good life to all isn't worth striving for, what is? if we are to suffer defeat, let it be a slow defeat, a long defeat, a fighting defeat. i am not willing to give up on my neighbors. i am not willing to abandon the charge of seeking the good for those not like me. i am not willing to abandon the hope that will seek the good for me despite my strangeness to them. and i reject any philosophy or politics that asks me to do so

_________________________________________________

¹i'm using "Jewish ethno-nationalist" here because i think it's been subject to less semantic dilution than "Zionist", and i want to avoid semantic arguments here as much as possible. whatever prescriptivist arguments you want to marshal that this or that term should mean X, i think it's clear that the descriptivist ship has long since set sail when it comes to "Zionism". (when pushed for specifics, i've seen self-professed Zionists and anti-Zionists outline essentially identical political programs, which certainly makes it seem to me that these terms are of minimal utility at best)

²obviously, what's happening on the ground is very bad. but critiquing what's happening on the ground often runs into severe questions of evidential reliability and can also leave the impression that Jewish ethno-nationalism is a good idea implemented badly, which is why i want to take aim at this level here

³given the European origins of this movement in its modern incarnation, i think it's unsurprising who gets imagined as "just a Jew" and not any other marked category. and from there, i think it's also unsurprising (if depressing) how various Jews who do exist in other marked categories have been and are treated by the "Jewish State" — the promised safety turns out to be predicated on all the usual axes of whiteness, wealth, ability, and so on

⁴indeed, i have often found that groups predicated on the idea that "we're all in alignment here" are often much more resistant to acknowledging members' various bigotries than groups not predicated on that assumption

⁵and, similarly, this attempt to cleave the world along one axis of hierarchy invariably reveals the inadequacy of one-identity-only frameworks for tackling the full complexity of the world. among other things, feminist/lesbian separatism has come under sustained critique from Black feminists like Barbara Smith for sundering ties of solidarity that are critical for fighting racism. victimhood and oppression are not fixed, ontological states, but fluid, shifting, contextual relationships. we cannot undo the snarlingly intertwined systems of oppression by replicating them in miniature

⁶the fear is certainly a real emotion; it is one i have felt at times myself. sometimes it is even based on an accurate perception of the world! but also: sometimes not. my fear of kitchen knives spontaneously levitating and flying around the room certainly feels real to me, but it's not a thing that can actually happen. one of the really hard things to do in the world, i've found, is parsing out the fears that are just feelings i'm having from the fears that tell me actual actionable information about the world and then striking a livable balance between reasonable precaution and paranoia. precautions against danger often come with their own set of risks: locking a door to keep out potential thieves ups the odds of being trapped in a building fire; using a different complex password for every site raises the risk of forgetting one and having a critical account shut down; the medications that drastically cut the frequency of debilitating migraines can raise the likelihood of other adverse health effects. more broadly, viewing neighbors with suspicion, fear, and distrust has a corrosive effect on the social fabric, and makes it harder to structure society to make sure everyone has food, clothes, housing, healthcare — all the things a society is supposed to do. (it's hard to convince people to take care of people they're afraid of, especially if they believe (rightly or wrongly) that they will have to give up something they care about (usually money, but also convenience, prestige, power) for that to happen.) and that corrosive effect can get very extreme — when fascism wants to recruit you to its cause, the sales pitch is usually less "hey, do you want to unleash horrific violence against those folks over there?" and more "hey, aren't you tired of being ~afraid~? don't you want to feel ~safe~? isn't it about time you had all the wealth, respect, and power that's rightfully yours and that's been kept from you for so long?". fear isn't the only way that horrors get unleashed, but it's a very potent one. (i don't think there's a formula for striking the right balance here. as with so many balancing acts, too much comes down to context and the specifics of all those involved, not least because the scale and nature of threats can vary so wildly. i believe that everyone deserves to be safe (insofar as any of us mostly hairless apes clinging to a thin crust of dirt on an iron ball whirling thru the cosmic void around a sphere of nuclear fire can be safe from loss, grief, accident, disaster, or misfortune...), but being and feeling are different matters, and pursuing the feeling of safety without limit can easily lead to logics of annihilation.) (and indeed, i am not the first to be struck by the fact that in many ways it is in the interests of the State of Israel, as a state, if Jews feel unsafe in the rest of the world, because that feeling of unsafety is so easily leveraged to both increase political support for the State of Israel and encourage Jewish people to leave the Diaspora and move to the State of Israel. which, unnervingly, is where you sometimes find the State of Israel and its agents taking the position that Jews don't belong anywhere that isn't the immediate environs of Jerusalem, a position that is ultimately indistinguishable from any number of dime-store Judeophobias)

⁷indeed, i think this is one of many places where it's easier to identify the problem than it is to solve it. many middle schoolers can explain the problem of Fermat's Last Theorem; barely a handful of professional mathematicians in the world could explain the proof. my cat can figure out how to break a vase even tho he can't reliably find a toy he's just been playing with when he's sitting directly on top of it (it's fine, he doesn't follow me on here, i can say that about him); in some cases, a skilled artisan can repair the vase so it functions again; no one in the world can turn back time so that the vase was never broken to begin with. it's easy to invent chessboard solutions to entrenched societal conflicts — move this border here, enact this constitution there, change this societal attitude for all involved, and hey presto!, utopia. but the world is not a game of chess. education, advocacy, activism, political organization, even wildcat direct action — these are all slow, effortful, uncertain processes, and everyone with a different vision of the future is also exercising their agency to change the course of events. i think societies are easy to break and hard to repair. in many cases, i don't really know how we go from here, the real world as it actually is with all its shattered bones and aching wounds and long-festering resentments, to there, a world of true justice. but i think it's worth trying. i think it's worth imagining. i hope you do too

⁸like, idk what even to say if "Germany for the Germans" doesn't set off alarm bells. even if they raised up a brand new continent from the ocean floor, i still think i'd be wary of the political project of building a ~Jewish state for the Jews~. i don't trust nationalism of any flavor. i think the Diasporic notion of feeling kinship with and responsibility for people all around the world regardless of borders, flags, kings, bureaucracies is beautiful and worth cherishing and protecting. i don't dream of finally being on top of the hierarchy; i dream of there not being a hierarchy to begin with

[mallgothchloe97]

Being a women is exhausting. I’m tired.

We’re under paid, over sexualized, not strong enough, too strong, too emotional, too fat, too skinny, we’re the reason he can’t control himself, we deserved it, we’re stupid, we’re too loud, we’re too quiet, we’re gold diggers…. And apparently now we’re learning there’s been lead and other toxins in our tampons and pads. It never ends.

It never fucking ends

I’m tired.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Sometimes do you ever remember the soupçon of misogyny in the press during the early (and latter) days of Joever and want to bust kneecaps lmao

[isawthismeme]