#the whole underlying transphobia and sexism of it?

[horror-vampire]

why is the fact that transandrophobia can and does exist still a controversial topic? transphobia, transmisogyny, transmysoginoir, sexism, racism, they're all linked together. some of u still need to recognize that the patriarchy and things like colonization, istitutional racism and cultural hegemony they all contribute to a system that finds everything "out of the ordinary" extremely dangerous, offensive, or pityful. while transfems may be considered dangerous, which puts them in danger btw, transmascs may be considered incapable of making their own decisions (leading to a deep lack of medical care, harassment etc), BECAUSE everyone still thinks of us - all trans people - as our assigned gender, BECAUSE of these societal rules that oppress everyone, AND with that comes specific sets of discriminatory acts towards the specific groups it targets. black people, people of color, transfems and trans women, they all suffer the most. they've been on the front lines since forever and they're considered expendable. that doesnt exclude other groups from facing different kinds of oppression. even if they're not worse as a whole, they're still oppressions and they coexist. if people dont want to believe im a man and try to convince me im quote unquote a stupid little girl, there's layers and layers of where that comes from: they dont think im trans, being transphobic and violating my bodily autonomy <- they think I'm a woman <- they think (even if it's subconscious) that women aren't capable of deciding for themselves. ive also heard so many times "eww men are so gross" and "they suck" and everyone hates men (its not true and that's abundantly clear by the privilege men, white men in particular, hold) but the fact still stands: i want to be a good man, and i never fucking know where to look because so many are shit and im so tired. despite it all im aware its a phenomenon that goes with the societal structures we still hold, and the blame to the individual can and should coexist with that underlying notion.

[little-witchys-garden]

Tw: transphobia + sexism

I gotta say this is all " alleged " because from what I heard he threatens any trans person that dares call him out....

Sooo let's talk about this dude

{ also no my phone isn't glitching out, his graphics are just that bad..}

He's a cis I believe queer man that targets trans people and cis women { mostly cis wlw }

He has a lot of videos of him just harassing and making " parody " songs and posts invalidating lgbtq+ people mostly trans people and wlw.

He has " talks " with trans people acting as if he just wishes to have a " friendly " conversation then harasses them..

He takes photos of trans people and uses them for his " educational " aka harassment videos and " parodies " mocking their looks. I I believe he takes the photos without their permission..

He also invades trans spaces and women's spaces to make mocking harassy videos...

He also has underlying hints that feminism is making kids trans???? He also comments and likes many comments claiming feminism and the trans community are

" cults "

He and his followers are a danger to trans youth and all lgbtq+ youth as a whole.

Please block and report him

[floatingcatacombs]

Why Tomoyo’s Mom is a Political Lesbian

12 Days of Aniblogging, Day 1

In my Cardcaptor Sakura gushpiece last year, I made an offhanded promise to write about why Tomoyo’s mom is a political lesbian once I finished my watchthrough. With all 70 episodes under my belt, it’s time to investigate what I was grasping at there.

I will never be over Sakura’s poncho in episode 2

We hear about Tomoyo’s mom as early as the second episode of the show. After Sakura and Tomoyo make plans to break into their school at night, Tomoyo arrives with a full security escort in a tinted vehicle, with an armored van full of costumes for Sakura right behind her. You see, her mother is the president of a very large toy company, which means that she’s ridiculously rich and able to assign bodyguards to her kid like it’s nothing. The two observations that instantly come to one’s mind are that a) all of the bodyguards are women, and b) they all have the gayest haircuts imaginable.

“And here are my conspicuously butch and femme bodyguards”

The rest of Tomoyo’s family situation really only shows up in Episode 10 and 11. We are properly introduced to her mom (Sonomi), and the chip on her shoulder. She’s out to spite Sakura’s father in increasingly lavish ways, and we learn that this stems from a long-standing grudge – Sakura’s dad married the girl that Sonomi was also helplessly in love with. So that’s the ‘lesbian’ box checked off of my argument.

That haircut..sure is asymmetric

But what about the ‘political’ part of ‘political lesbian’? I probably should have started with that rather than Cardcaptor wiki synopses. Political lesbianism is a combination of second-wave feminist ideals with the notion that sexuality is a choice. Rather than dumping a manifesto onto you, I’ll sum up the underlying philosophical argument at play here:

1. Sexual orientation is a choice, as is choosing to act on sexual orientation. 2. Heterosexuality is inherently patriarchal and oppressive. 3. Women have an obligation to avoid and fight patriarchy wherever they can.

___________

Conclusion 1: All women should avoid heterosexuality. Conclusion 2: All women who continue participating in heterosexuality are abandoning their obligations.

This is a seriously weighty argument. If we accept all three premises, we are left with the conclusion that not only is heterosexuality harmful to women, but women must abandon straight relationships, otherwise they are actively collaborating with the enemy.

What does the world even look like if one follows this argument to its conclusion? Most political lesbians also believe in lesbian separatism – the notion that women’s liberation cannot be achieved by collaborating with men. Women ought to give up marriage, families, and sex with men, otherwise they will never be able to overcome institutional sexism. As an alternative to sex with men, women could consider…sex with women! But whether they have sex with women or none at all isn’t a big deal in the scheme of things. What really matters is the political action of refusing heterosexuality.

political lesbian praxis

The Daidouji family’s living situation all but confirms Sonomi’s commitment to separatism. She lives in a modernist mansion where all of her maids, guards, and other servants are women. Most notably, she has no husband or male partner to be seen whatsoever. Sakura even makes the observation that Tomoyo never talks about her father. Other than whatever happened for Sonomi to have Tomoyo, she appears to have completely cut the concept of men and patriarchy out of her life. If her goal was to create a lesbian separatist dynasty, she appears to have succeeded (Tomoyo is, of course, a baby lesbian in the making).

Me gaining class consciousness

There is a certain allure to political lesbianism. The idea that men are the root of all suffering and cutting ties to men provides a fairy-tale escape for some women. For anyone who has ever felt threatened or imbalanced in heterosexual relationships, it offers an explanation on top of the way out. Of course, choosing to be a political lesbian still requires swallowing some pretty big pills. Should we try?

The most challenging premise at first is the idea that sexual orientation is a choice that can and should be changed on a whim. The social construction of sexuality is definitely not a mindset that has won out. In fact, the modern gay rights movements in the United States has specifically been spearheaded with the idea that gay people are “born this way”, a purely biological challenge to the idea that someone can just decide to like women once they hear about the evils of men. Indeed, the political lesbians of old were somewhat split on whether sexuality is socially constructed or a biological impulse. However, they can just take the middle ground and argue that it doesn’t really matter – lesbian relationships may or may not be able to provide an alternative to heterosexual relationships for historically straight women, but what really matters is the political act of refusing heterosexuality. If a woman cannot bring herself to love other woman, she can simply take a vow of celibacy or otherwise avoid men. This brings us straight to the second and third arguments – that heterosexuality itself is oppressive and must be actively resisted.

Sure, patriarchy and oppression are bad, but the routes chosen to argue against them are important. Although they believe in flexible and constructed sexuality, political lesbian’s arguments against heterosexuality are extremely biological. The seminal pamphlet “Love your Enemy?” argues that “there is a very special importance attached to sexuality under male supremacy when every sexual reference, every sexual joke, every sexual image serves to remind a woman of her invaded centre...” Penetration, specifically, carries strong symbolic significance in reinforcing the power of men on top of its physically invasive component. Even non-penetrative heterosexual sex still contains that roleplay of power and powerlessness to a political lesbian. There is no loophole that will allow women to keep loving men ethically – the demands of political lesbianism are Kantian maxims.

Sonomi loved Sakura’s mom to the point of viewing her pairing off with a man as a betrayal. It’s very easy to see it as an ideological betrayal on top of the personal one.

The elephant in the room is, of course, the third-wave notion that femaleness and maleness are not inherently tied to genitalia. After all, to the shock and chagrin of many a radical feminist, some women have penises. Is their sex inherently heteropatriarchal? What about men who don’t have penises? Do they have a get-out-of-jail-free card from this whole mess? What about nonbinary people, who have been completely ruled out of this conversation so far? In arguing a biological model of oppression, political lesbians will need to be able to answer for all of this.

Most of them respond by biting the bullet and doubling down on their original positions. They claim that trans women are just scheming men in dresses, that trans men are gender traitors who want to abandon their fellow women in pursuit of male privilege, and that nonbinary people are simply confused. It is through this reasoning that so many political lesbians grew up to be trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Many former members of the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group, such as Julie Bindel, have gradually pivoted from arguing for women’s rights on all fronts to single-mindedly becoming obsessed with making sure that trans people are forcibly excluded from all gendered spaces. Not only is it depressing to see so many radical feminists fall down this pathway, it’s terrifying to watch as TERFs gain more and more of a media foothold as they start to team up with their enemies, the religious right, over their shared hatred of transgender existence.  

shut the fuck up, terf

It’s a depressing turn of events! Still, even knowing that the movement is rooted in transphobia, can political lesbianism be salvaged? The idea of women’s-only-spaces as a place for comfort, safety, and liberation still feels powerful and immediately understandable and implementable. Though the mainstream LGBT+ movement gained widespread acceptance through advocating that there was nothing they could do about their sexuality, compulsory heterosexuality is still a real thing for many women and spaces to help recognize that would be very useful. Of course, the definition of a woman is going to have to broaden to be trans-inclusive, and as recent efforts to amend the Gender Recognition Act in the UK have shown, this is very difficult in the current TERFy political climate. But I don’t think that every bit of political lesbian ideology needs to be shelved or trashed. As future waves of feminism start reigniting and reconciling various second-wave and third-wave conflicts, I’d estimate that political lesbianism is going to get a fair reevaluation amongst mainstream feminists sometime within the next decade, with the bad parts hopefully cut and the strong parts returned to public consciousness.

pretend kero-chan is giving this lecture ok

So where does this leave Tomoyo’s mom? uhhhhhhhhhhh

Tomoyo’s mom manages to achieve the lesbian separatist ideal of a life lived without men, but she only manages to do so by taking advantage of her vast wealth to set up her own miniature state of sorts. However, this totally goes against the radical feminist principles of grassroots organizing and class consciousness. In achieving the physical goals of political lesbianism, Sonomi has completely missed the symbolic goals of the ideology and is actually reinforcing heteropatriarchal power structures. With her vast concentrated wealth and vertical power hierarchy over her guards and maids, Sonomi is reproducing the very male supremacy power structures that radical feminists work to fight against. Though she may fancy herself a political lesbian, she probably would not be welcomed by any of them.

Also her hairstyle is still kind of bad. terf bangs, lol

[knightofraguel]

okay fuck it, i posted this in a reblog but im still pissed off and jkr just keeps being shittier so here's my take that no one asked for on jojos bizarre TERF shit:

so im a trans man who hangs around with lesbians for the most part. im a survivor of abuse (i get to check yes down the whole abuse type sheet you get with new therapists so that's fun), abuse from a man who was... ill just say in a position of power, when i was young and before i knew even what being transgender was. i grew up with a conservative family, fox news over dinner, self proclaimed progressive, "boys are just naturally better at math," surrounded by purposefully useless men type of conservative. i grew up with the "hairy man in a dress" stereotype, with p much zero discussion of queer people ever. i was raised with a lot of the rhetoric jkr is spewing, and with all of this being said, with such similar beliefs told to me for so long, with how long i agreed with them...

Joanne needs to grow the fuck up. she got comfortable with the conservative's shroud of early 90s progressive politics and never gave it a second thought past there, never questioned that if you're born with a female reproductive system that you are a woman and experience sexism in a way only "real women" can. and you wanna know why, with her dumbass takes on trans men, i can be sure of that?

AS A TRANS MAN I EXPERIENCE MALE PRIVILEGE, JUST AS TRANS WOMEN EXPERIENCE OPPRESSION AS WOMEN.

intersectionality is essential to feminism, because the concept of gender (which is the social application of sex) applies to all of us in complex ways which highlights the underlying systems of abuse at play (also of note is that intersectionality especially includes racial politics due to absurdly increased abuse of WOC in comparison to white women, but as im white i dont feel that its in any way appropriate for me to speak for POC).

as a passing trans man i experience, and now for nearing the majority of my life have experienced, white male privilege. i have legal and medical discrimination to deal with, but lack much of the social female experience of discrimination. a non passing trans man (as i once was) may experience all levels of female oppression, laced with the active dangers of transphobia which often increase the amount of female targeted oppression (ie aggressive catcalling, increased threats of violence and the casual reminders of possible violence, and people feeling entitled to grope your body, often claiming that they're checking to see if its "real," which for me started in school).

equally, trans women experience the social oppression that other feminine presenting people do, alongside the discrimination of being trans, all the way down to medical discrimination, but instead of being told "go on the pill" by the doctor for everything wrong with you it tends to be more "we dont know enough about long lasting effects of hormone therapy, so let's lower your dose since there doesnt seem to be anything *physically* wrong with you :)" (which the lack of medical understanding of hrt stems majorly from the medical field overall ignoring women during medical testing, but that's easily enough for its own post).

it's not about genitalia, it's never been about genetalia, feminism is about stopping the oppression that people experience for being women, and to end the way that femininity is shamed while simultaneously being idolized as The Single Way A Woman Is Allowed To Exist. it's about how being seen as a woman puts a target on your back, how women are constantly in danger, how that fear is fostered by our culture telling women that they can't save themselves from that danger, while that exact same culture dismisses those dangers once the damage has already been done.

i could say this about most TERFs, but if jkr put even the tiniest bit of genuine, openminded thought into the beliefs that she holds onto so tightly, she could probably come to these conclusions on her own. but until she grows up and chokes down her pride she can choke on my dick

[handdrawnhardlyworn]

Flyposting!

My research into the contemporary punk movement led me to discovering flyposting. It’s been all around us the whole time without us even noticing. It’s a method in which you create an image, usually digitally or collage, and paper-mache stick it onto anything you can find in a city, and run before you get arrested basically. You can use any media, screen printing, sketching, typography, as long as you use a lot of glue to stick it so they can’t just tear it off. It’s similar to spray painting, just arguably faster and you can be more precise with your messaging.

You may remember this image becoming popular on social media, it caused quite a commotion. It’s a photograph of a fake Conservative poster that appeared on public transport, created by the artist Foka Wolf.

It actually had to be fact checked by many news sites* as it was so convincing that the Conservative party might word something so poorly, similar to the recent scandal in which they stole an independent ballet dancers photo for their “Rethink, Reskill, Reboot” campaign, I’ll include the image below, the link is in the references! It was extremely patronising, especially to the dancer herself. They used her photograph without asking, and changed her name, the underlying message of the Conservative party taking what they want from a person of colour is just so wrong and uncomfortable. This also kicked off a campaign called “we are viable”, where many independent artists began posting about how we don’t need to change our careers just because the government is handling this pandemic so poorly*

Foka Wolf, similar to Banksy, is an anonymous street artist so it’s quite hard to say where they get their inspiration from, or who they are, but their work speaks for itself. I refer to them as “they” even though many news sites refer to them as a “he”, but some of their work refers to themself as “she” or “they” so it’s quite confusing! I like to think this is a critique on assuming talented anonymous artists are male all the time, or even gender theory.

They make humourous fake advertisements for big corporations like Greggs (image below) and critiquing political parties. They appeared publicly at least somewhere around 2018-2019*, started pranking big cities in the UK before moving on to even New York. It appears that Birmingham is where they lay their head however, I didn’t realise how much of their work I’d actually seen from living there till I saw their Instagram. They also post real phone numbers you can call to get a funny voicemail, or sometimes there’s a chance Foka Wolf will pick up. They also critique racism, sexism, transphobia, all the topics I’m interested in commenting on. Below I’ve included a few examples of his work, my favourite being the Greggs theme park.

I really enjoy their work, in my opinion it definitely fits with the contemporary punk wave, poking at people, satirical humour, anti-establishment messaging. I’m really inspired by this artist and it’s definitely the type of work I’d want to do sometime, legally of course. 👀

References:

Foka Wolf Fact Check

Mikkelson, D. (22AD). Did UK Conservatives Vow to “Cut All Homeless People in Half”? [online] Snopes.com. Available at: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cut-homeless-people-in-half/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2020].

We are Viable campaign

Date and author not known

Weareviable. (n.d.). Home | We Are Viable. [online] Available at: https://www.weareviableuk.com/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2020].

Conservative Ad Scandal

Photographer “devastated” by government-backed “Fatima” dancer advert. (2020). BBC News. [online] 15 Oct. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54553828.

Who is Foka Wolf?

Brennan, J. (2019). Meet Foka Wolf, the Birmingham Banksy. [online] Time Out Birmingham. Available at: https://www.timeout.com/birmingham/things-to-do/foka-wolf-interview.

‌

[cryingalexanders]

so i just finished reading julia serano's 'whipping girl' after borrowing it from someone, and.. i really liked this book. i think the way serano approached certain issues within feminism and queer discourse was really nuanced and refreshing. and how she debunked various academic theories on transness by showing the biases and lack of genuine consultation of actual trans people on each side was really great. certain chapters, such as the part where she talks about the history of medical gatekeeping of trans people was incredible and illuminating, and helped me understand why the community is the way it is today (and made me really saddened about our history, as well reinforced my nervousness about gender clinics).

it's interesting though, how she talks about how men are punished more severely by society for deviating from gender norms than women are, and the reasons for why. basically the thesis of the whole thing is that femininity is seen as worse than femaleness is, especially when it's exhibited in people who according to society are not supposed to be feminine (i.e. amab people). the book pivots away from and critiques the popular feminist idea that sexist oppression is based on biology, and at several times articulates that sexism can affect anyone, just in different ways and for different reasons.

serano also talks about gender as being a sort of class that is widely seen as immutable but can in fact be crossed over, which is what trans people do when they transition from one gender to another. maybe i'm biased, as someone who has the experience of trying to make society see you as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth, but her observations about gender in relation to how other people gender you just absolutely rang true to me.

i also really liked her "intrinsic inclination" model for explaining the natural variations in human gender and sexuality. basically everyone having what she calls "subconscious sex" (what we now would call someone's gender identity), contrasted with the category of "conscious sex" to describe whether someone experiences their body in concurrence with their inherent gender identity (i.e. whether they're cis or trans), gender expression, and sexuality. (though the concept of "conscious sex" is also potentially problematic in my eyes, the prospect of applying that category to certain people seems iffy.)

i thought serano's identification of the relative privilege of FTMs in the trans community was accurate, but i felt it was missing certain considerations. particularly when she was talking about the exclusion of trans women from women-only events, who would then turn around and allow transmasculine folks in. her point here seemed to be that transmisogyny was being leveraged against trans women by the organisers while trans men got off scot-free, but i would’ve argued that the trans men attending were also complicit in the transphobia being directed towards them.��she didn't mention how notable it is that trans men have historically been willing to throw their own identities under the bus in order to access women's spaces (perhaps i’m missing something, and things were just different in 2007, but that is something i don't understand or approve of), as well as the simple underlying transphobia (i.e. cis people not considering trans people's genders real or as real as their agab) of that whole situation.

i also don't know if i'm willing to embrace the idea of abandoning the concept of "male privilege". serano's own accounts of her experiences seem to demonstrate that it's real, at least on certain levels. i just feel it would be a dangerous idea for me to embrace, as an FTM who one day will likely gain access to certain privileges upon being read as male by society. if we throw the idea out, how are men supposed to be mindful of the fact that we're treated differently (in a lot of ways undeniably better) than women? the fact that masculinity also has its own restrictions just doesn’t discount that concern, i think.

i could relate to a lot of what serano said, regardless. even though this book is seen as especially important for transfeminine people, i also got a lot out of it. i’d recommend it to anyone interested in feminism or anyone trying to understand trans perspective on gender (as if there’s the one, i know). it’s not perfect, but there’s some really good stuff in it.

[vorpalmusings]

Pat Bidol’s Formula: Back to the Smartboard

Time for my once-a-year serious topic.

Perhaps you have surfed the internet long enough to run afoul of Pat Bidol's formulation that "Racism= Privilege + Power."  This formulation, originally put forth by Pat Bidol in her 1970 book "Developing New Perspectives on Race” is one of the central tenets of modern standard social justice rhetoric. It is also fraught with a lot of extremely harmful examples of bad thinking.

Bidol and those who have embraced her ideas essentially aim to redefine the concept of Racism so that it is only applicable to specific people who meet the specific requisites. A minority, for example African-americans, cannot be racist towards white people, because they do not have the power to significantly impede white people. This is Bidol's attempt to highlight institutionalized racism against minorities. 

Conceptually, though, this creates a very real problem. To begin with, what Bidol tries to redefine as the only definition of racism is nothing more than a specific application of racism to a particular sphere- in this case, governmental and social laws and customs geared towards diminishing and hostilizing minorities. From an epistemic perspective, this is a process that truncates the proper hierarchy of concepts by mistaking a concrete action for the abstract principle at work. While Racism (the belief that one race is superior to others) is the proper abstract concept, institutionalized racism (Jim crow laws, segregation customs and laws, social engineering government programs, law enforcement bias)  is one of the direct concrete forms that are the result of actions that originate from holding these abstract ideas about race and superiority as true.

Every human concrete manifestation is the direct result of one or several abstractions that are, consciously or unconsciously, accepted as truth.  An improperly-identified abstraction makes it impossible for a person to correctly identify the nature and origin of concrete manifestations. 

In order to successfully address an effect, you must be able to properly identify the cause. From there, you will be able to formulate a plan of action that attacks the source, instead of merely one of its symptoms. Clear identification is necessary because the majority of concrete manifestations and behaviors can be tracked to an immediate abstraction, and that abstraction can subsequently be traced back to an original fundamental irreductible abstraction-  an epistemological method of evaluating reality that exists at the highest level and cannot be traced further back. Its scope is so wide that it is the origin of various lower abstractions and they, themselves, the generators of various concrete actions and applications.

Bidol's method truncates the process of abstraction and creates a  deformed entity.  Epistemically, Prejudice is the higher abstraction of which Racism is a more specific application, and institutionalized racism is the concrete action resulting from that abstraction applied to the world. Bidol's forumla of Racism=Power+Prejudice is engineered to place emphasis not on Prejudice, but on Power. 

It is not surprising, then, that the whole scope of social justice theory is almost exclusively focused on power dynamics and power structures. It treats power as if it were the irreductible abstraction, so that the content of a reprehensible belief (believing a race to be superior to others)  is only to be found reprehensible if the owner of those beliefs has enough power to act on them in a significant manner- those who hold beliefs that are positively phobic of another race need only worry about them if the object of such beliefs is below them in a prescribed scale of power.

This is the complete erasure of virtue ethics, where there is a heavy emphasis in finding the right belief based on a rational process and acting properly on it. It is, in essence, the belief that moral character is irrelevant and that only power itself matters when judging the actions of others.

Bidol's emphasis on power suggests that it is the power to act on ideas that makes those ideas good or bad- but is this truly so?  I hold that the relationship functions the other way around: that the nature of the ideas being held determines the quality of action that will result when the individual has power to act on them. But what is also true is that even without the power to enact them on a wide-ranging scale, those ideas are still going to affect how the individual treats and judges others, the sincerity of their relationships, and a myriad other details.  To assume that only the powerful can create an impact is to be hopelessly naive and simplistic. Power does not alter  the nature or rightness of the beliefs, merely their range of impact.

One of the harmful effect of Bidol's truncated identification is that it lessens the moral guilt of individuals who embrace bigoted beliefs if they are considered a powerless minority. In those cases there is nothing that is seen as an imperative to change for the better in the same way that such pressures are thrust at more empowered demographics. What seems at first like an attempt to protect the powerless results ultimately in a practice that, if embraced, will prevent moral maturity and, in its worst examples, encourage moral corruption through openly embracing double standards.

The greater problem, however, is that it leaves those who wish to fight against such bigotry without weapons with which to properly target it. Social justice theory is obsessed with fighting inequalities of power, but it has erroneously identified the origin of such inequality and has spent most of its embattled life fighting on this front.  And yet, despite its theories and practices, the ascent of a truly horrible president and his core base tells us that the problem of racism has hardly been addressed or remedied in the United States. Why is this so? Because of, as I said earlier, erroneous identification.

Institutionalized Racism, that is racism expressed in the practice of political and social institutions, is a concrete manifestation of the belief of Racism (the belief of one race being superior or inferior to others). But it is not the only manifestation of racism- the expressions of racism in the personal sphere outside of institutions can also be just as harmful and hurtful. Racism, therefore, is the abstraction that influences different concrete manifestations of these ideas. 

Moving one abstraction tier back, we see that Racism is only a more specific application of Prejudice,  an affective feeling toward a person or group member based solely on their group membership. As a higher abstraction, this concept not only generates the more specific Racism, but it also engenders Homophobia, Religious Discrimination, Transphobia, Xenophobia, etcetera. Moving further back, we need to find the pre-requisite belief that makes Prejudice a valid outlook.

Collectivism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that emphasizes the group and group identity over everything else. It is the concept that negates the individual as his or her own end and instead sees the individual as the means to the collective's ends. If all people are reduced to nothing more than the membership of the groups to which they belong, then that becomes the only metric by which to judge them. This is the birthplace of all Prejudice, and this is what needs to be fought in order to destroy its concrete manifestations.

The social justice movement has failed to do this. With its focus on power structures, it has spent decades tinkering with the symptoms but not the cause. What's worse is that it has adopted the rhetoric and the tools of Collectivism. With a heavy emphasis on grouping individuals by degee of victimhood and encouraging the explosion of identity politics-focused groups, the Social Justice landscape has become fractured with an infinity of smaller collectives, each one measuring their degree of oppression versus the others, with rampant in-fighting amongst themselves and against those whom they supposedly see as allies. Very little has been achieved, and the attempts of these groups at passing laws and rules that aim at punishing speech is yet another example of how the movement is entirely focused on the wrong aspect of action and power (punishing people's ability to speak) versus effectively dismantling the underlying ideology. 

The Alt-Right is, perhaps, the greatest indictment of the Social Justice movement's theories: a reaction that emerged precisely as a push back against the Social Justice groups' focus on conduct and performance (power). These efforts achieved nothing, except embolden those who held despicable ideas to the extreme, and to the point of supporting a candidate who was the embodiment of all horrors of behavior that their opponents sought to control. Racism, the real racism and not Bidol's formula, never went away or diminished- it merely went underground, its roots perfectly healthy because the Social Justice movement spent its entire time nipping at the leaves.

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, misoginy and many other issues are real problems that affect our society to this very day. In order to obtain real results we must be able to identify the real source of the problem. Bidol's formula not only doesn't add up, it is harmful to the moral fiber and effectiveness of any movement that adopts it as a bedrock from which to formulate a solution to these problems.

[tanjazavala7-blog]

Feminism Needs To Be Reclaimed By Today's Teens They're Our Future.

Sex-positive feminism is likewise called pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism or sexually liberal feminism. #GamerGate fans additionally attacked feminist doubter Anita Sarkeesian, whose Tropes vs. Ladies in Video clip Games collection attempts to call out and inquiry sexist stereotypes in video games. The feminist movement is in area to supply level playing fields for people. Should you cherished this short article along with you would want to get more information about http://cuvegliofilmfestival.it/liftoskin-pelle-liscia-truffa-bel-viso-sito-ufficiale generously pay a visit to the webpage. We're a diverse collective (sexuality, racial, financial, job, geographical, and so on) of doers that have made it our mission to transform the discussion of exactly what it's like to be a lady-- as well as in doing so, make our world a far better area. The campaign to nix words bossy" as a putdown of assertive girls was criticized and also buffooned not just by conservatives yet by left-wing and also liberal feminists The #YesAllWomen Twitter hashtag created in response to Elliot Rodger's shooting spree as well as his YouTube tirades about women being rejected generated a groundswell of compassion for females's stories of violence and sexism-- however likewise unease from pro-feminist men and women who felt all men were being unjustly reproached. When males are against feminism, it's frustrating, if inevitably predictable - groups with power have actually always been loathe to give it up. However when ladies come out versus sex justice, it feels worse: no matter exactly how edge, the increase of the anti-feminist female is not simply complicated however a dishonesty. I myself have actually never ever had the ability to learn exactly what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I share views that differentiate me from a woman of the street or a doormat. " Exactly what is it mosting likely to resemble," states Power, "to have this generation of individuals who are completely attuned to all these terms as well as groups and analyzing all these concerns from a very young age?" Brought up to know they amount to males, fourth-wave feminists are pissed off when they're not dealt with therefore, but have ample self-confidence to yell back. By 1968, although the term Women's Freedom Front appeared in the magazine Parapets, it was beginning to describe the whole females's motion. In 2014's large comic conventions reported approximate gender parity, with the variety of female guests growing more than two times as quick as male ones. The info is just as legitimate in societies where ladies can't elect, drive, date, or have pre-marital sexual relations, as it is in the West where every one of those tasks are conveniently available to a lot of women. Simply puts, pluralists withstand the lure to grand social concept," overarching metanarratives," monocausal descriptions," to enable that the explanation of sexism in a specific historical context will depend on financial, political, lawful, and social factors that specify to that context which would certainly protect against the account from being generalised to all circumstances of sexism (Fraser and Nicholson 1990). In a write-up entitled Transfeminist Crossroads," Garriga-López tells the tale of the problems and concessions, the shared visions and also split commitments, that beset a trans feminist lobbyist group in Ecuador that attempted to obtain an expense passed allowing people to provide their sex as opposed to their birth sex on their identification documents. A local of Alabama, where her intro to social causes was with the civil rights activity, Velez arrived at Georgetown, a Jesuit university in Northwest Washington, in 1981 as a college student in the English division. With the introduction of Feminism and also gender-equality, females have actually lost their conventional role as allowable and socially-acceptable sex-related "child-substitutes" (except in Japan). This acknowledges that commitment to and also advocacy for females's legal rights has not been constrained to the Female's Liberation Movement in the West. " The idea is that males will certainly deal with women much better if we present ourselves respectfully," Schreiber informs me. Actually, much of the anti-feminist work - brand-new as well as old - has actually been based on the concept that if females typically aren't on a pedestal - sex-related and also otherwise - after that guys will certainly act out. Feminism can be studied from the viewpoints of the real activities for equality or from the writings of both individual, analyst and observer addressing the underlying issues of why ladies have actually not been and also are not considereded as equivalent. Rather than providing a consistent position of feminist transphobia, the articles remind us that transsexuality was questioned, scrutinized, talked about, and approved or rejected by various feminists at various times. Where most shows would certainly have area for 1 or 2 main female personalities, Orphan Black has lots, as well as it enables the show to represent a range of ladies. White Female, Black Women, and also Feminism in the Motion Years," Indications: Journal of Women in Society and also Society, 27( 4 ): 1-095-1133. Holding various other elements continuous, they found that in between 2004 as well as 2016, assistance for feminism-- belief in the existence of social discrimination versus ladies, and also the need for higher women political power"-- grew progressively associated with assistance for the Democratic Celebration. Third-wave feminists often concentrate on "micro-politics" as well as test the second wave's standard as to just what is, or is not, helpful for females. Some might prefer to specify feminism in regards to a normative claim alone: feminists are those that think that women are qualified to equal civil liberties, or equivalent respect, or ...( fill in the empty with one's preferred account of injustice), and also one is not required to think that women are presently being treated unjustly.

[fetus-cakes]

a friend of mine linked this interesting article: How French intellectuals ruined the West and it has some interesting ideas but I need to nitpick at a few things

“This, along with Foucauldian ideas, underlies the current belief in the deeply damaging nature of “microaggressions” and misuse of terminology related to gender, race or sexuality.” Is she suggesting that microagressions are not deeply damaging? Or that the language used to discuss gender, race or sexuality does NOT affect the politics of the discussion at hand, sometimes even making the argument itself aggressive? 

“we are at a unique point in history where the status quo is fairly consistently liberal, with a liberalism that upholds the values of freedom, equal rights and opportunities for everyone regardless of gender, race and sexuality.” This is highly subjective depending on who and where you are! In response to this, I’m just going to copy a status written by a transgender woman living in Oregon: “But think of the time we exist in. Where fascists have full backing of the cops to beat people on the streets with impunity, where women’s health is being attacked simply out of violent misogyny to the point where almost every form of health care for women is being threatened, and where the right-wing is getting more and more violent and dangerous and powerful while the attempts to be kind and compromise have only made the problem worse because the fascists interpret that as weakness and have openly stolen elections and given rise to a whole resurgence of literal nazis happily sieg hieling across America.” These two women are literally talking about modern times in the same country!

“Freedom of speech is under threat because speech is now dangerous. So dangerous that people considering themselves liberal can now justify responding to it with violence. The need to argue a case persuasively using reasoned argument is now often replaced with references to identity and pure rage.” Speech has always been dangerous. Speeches about how black people are shiftless criminals, Muslims are violent sexist terrorists, trans women are child rapists are dangerous. Yes, we have to watch ourselves not to censor others just because we catch a whiff or a hint of opposition. At the same time I see nothing wrong with censoring racist, white supremacist speeches done in public places by drowning them out with megaphone noise. Is this the violence she speaks about? Or is she talking about people vandalizing and setting the Free Speech bus on fire? Because that bus was literally a tool to spread hatred and misinformation around, stopping it was an action that benefited everyone. Extreme yes, but also justified. I know saying “the end justifies the means” is a dangerous thing to say, because it can easily slide into becoming oppression. It’s something important to watch out for. However, I don’t think it’s NEVER appropriate, I’m just not that hardcore of a pacifist.   

“Despite all the evidence that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia are at an all-time low in Western societies, Leftist academics and SocJus activists display a fatalistic pessimism,” Again, highly subjective and a tad too optimistic in my opinion (this piece was published March 27 of this year, post-US election and post-all the shitstorms that came of it). There is truth here in that people tend to focus on the negative and that the negative tends to make bigger news than the positive. THAT SAID I’m really doubting that “all time low” when in the US and Europe literal white supremacy parties are getting a lot of political traction. Heck, I’d say the way that the US election and Brexit happened was due to xenophobia. What’s the reality then?  

“In South Africa, the #ScienceMustFall and #DecolonizeScience progressive student movement announced that science was only one way of knowing that people had been taught to accept. They suggested witchcraft as one alternative.” I thought we were talking about Western postmodernism here? And this statement has been heavily condemned by African scientists and scholars, some of them even the students at the event! Also one person/group going to an illogical extreme doesn't mean the entire movement is invalid. This reminds me of the BLM activist who suggested we phase out the police entirely: an very reactionary and implausible goal; but that doesn't negate the fact that police brutality is highly racialized and that's a big problem. Racist bias in science and medicine are a problem too.

“I encountered the same problem when trying to write about race and gender at the turn of the seventeenth century. I’d argued that Shakespeare’s audience’s would not have found Desdemona’s attraction to Black Othello, who was Christian and a soldier for Venice, so difficult to understand because prejudice against skin color did not become prevalent until a little later in the seventeenth century when the Atlantic Slave Trade gained steam, and that religious and national differences were far more profound before that. I was told this was problematic by an eminent professor and asked how Black communities in contemporary America would feel about my claim. If today’s African Americans felt badly about it, it was implied, it either could not have been true in the seventeenth century or it is morally wrong to mention it.” Problematic does not mean “it shouldn’t exist”, it means “you need to examine this more closely and critically to make sure it passes muster”. Studying racism and colorism and how attitudes towards black people have fluctuated across the ages is actually important work!, but you do have to watch out with how you present and phrase things. And I think you’re reading too much into that implication, because I get the feeling most non-Shakespearean scholars would find that tidbit fascinating.

“The rise of populism and nationalism in the US and across Europe are also due to a strong existing far-Right and the fear of Islamism produced by the refugee crisis.” I agree with this, but it seems in contradiction to the earlier bit about how such things are at an all-time low.

“The Left is not responsible for the far-Right or the religious-Right or secular nationalism, but it is responsible for not engaging with reasonable concerns reasonably and thereby making itself harder for reasonable people to support. It is responsible for its own fragmentation, purity demands and divisiveness which make even the far-Right appear comparatively coherent and cohesive.

We must address concerns about immigration, globalism and authoritarian identity politics currently empowering the far- Right rather than calling people who express them “racist,” “sexist” or “homophobic” and accusing them of wanting to commit verbal violence.” So we should address these concerns, but not identify the root cause? We can acknowledge and validate people’s concern while still pointing out that these ideologies were borne from prejudice and hatred. This last bit seems overly concerned with white fragility: we can tell people they’re wrong, but if they call them racist the whole argument gets shut down. If this is the problem, what solution is the author suggesting? That we tiptoe around the feelings of the people who are (ignorantly or not) espousing harmful ideas?