Latest Posts by monsteradarling - Page 6
gay men are not discriminated against because they're gay. they're hated because being attracted to men is seen as a feminine trait, and our society sees being a woman as shameful.
men, no matter their sexuality, are not oppressed.
gay men are not the victim.
Took a year to complete this quilt! Pattern is by NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg called Cupola View. Fabrics used were also designed by Karen, the collection is called Earth Views.
god I fear your opinion on bisexual lesbioromantics lmao. like- i call myself bi lesbian because I have sex with men and women but i've only ever felt romantically towards women and like I feel like whatever you're opinion is on that is probably interesting enough to be studied in a lab
i think people who call themselves bi lesbians should kill themselves
Naoki Ito: Urban Nature (2009)
'but-but bsdm and violent sex doesn't affect anybody!' yes it does. now girls who want to be seen as attractive and loved normally by their partner in bed is considered a 'puritan' and 'vanilla'. they are shamed and routinely made fun for liking something normal by people irl and in the media.
i hate seeing amazing women question their own worth because of men who only see them as walking holes and laborers
The internet is amazing for unlearning what the patriarchy has taught us to be automatic. It's even better to practice personal feminism.
Because we're online, we can take a step away and analyse our thoughts if we feel angry, disappointed or disgusted at another woman. We have the ability to pause and not hate the woman that sneers at feminism, but feel grief for her and understand why she rejects it.
When we catch ourselves lashing out at other groups of women, the internet gives us the opportunity to work through those negative emotions and remind ourselves that patriarchy pits us against each other on purpose.
It's an incredibly powerful tool to use. Where else can we finally learn how to personally dislike another woman, to hate her views or wish that she was better educated, but not blame her for countless generations of patriarchy and still genuinely hope that she grows, succeeds, lives well, is happy and, most of all, safe? Where else is the space that allows us to go through the negatives to come out the other side, even when it's hard, without harming another woman?
In this space, where feminists will most likely agree on 90% of issues, there's still anger and infighting and backbiting thanks to the misogynistic female socialisation that tells us that nobody hates women more than other women, and that misogyny carrying on to think that other women want to trip you up or are readying themselves to attack to tear you down.
Men aren't thinking about how best to free women. We have to do that ourselves. Do you honestly think we can even come close to dismantling even one small section of patriarchy if we haven't learned to actually stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other women?
If you can't support and uplift and care for other women even in the same space with the same general ideals as you, how do you think you're going to be able to support and uplift and care for the women that hate everything that feminism stands for and promotes everything that feminism stands against? How are you going to be patient and understanding enough to teach her? How are you going to avoid victim-blaming her if she ends up being hurt?
That's why the internet is so useful. We can learn to dislike other women and step away from other women for our own sanities if we need to, we can understand that we will never be able to be best friends with every other woman, we can criticise other women and hold other women to account for their actions, but with this curated space and time to think, not being face-to-face, we can start the process of genuinely caring for every single woman anyway - especially the ones that we dislike the most.
I'd argue that that is the most important activism that feminists can do right now, the one that has to happen first before patriarchy can actually be ripped apart the way that it needs to be.
The mountains stand guard, the river tells tales, and the trees listen.
There's been tension between women of different sexualities in feminism from the beginning.
As a bisexual woman, over the years it's made me feel that there's more suspicion of us in feminism because there's this strange belief that bisexuals can turn off part of our sexuality if we want to (which we can't), so if we don't do that then we're traitors or fetishists or something else damaging or harmful, but if we're perceived as being able to turn off part of our sexuality (which again, we aren't), then we're treated with suspicion because what if we decide to turn it back on and betray everyone.
I'm too old and too tired to jump through hoops and beg other women who are supposed to be equally supportive of me and others like me please, please, I'm one of the good bis, I promise! I'll help tear down those evil bi women to prove I'm good! I won't say a thing if there's biphobia, aren't I a good girl?!
The patriarchy already demands enough out of women, and biphobia already damaged me enough when I was younger, I'm not carrying that burden too.
Respectfully, bisexuality is a sexuality and not automatically a political performance.
A woman can't "claim" bisexuality and then have sex with both women and men. She just is bisexual.
Considering patriarchy, the way that men pressure and coerce women to "settle down with a man," the common self-hatred that bisexual women feel - including the fear that by existing and having feelings for other women, we might harm them because being bisexual is somehow "unclean" in some way - it's not fair at all to squint at bisexual women accuse them of being "exploitative and fetishistic."
There is also the very simple, very human situation of a bisexual woman having consensual, no/low-strings attached sex with another woman, that fizzling out, and then coming across a man that she clicks with and starts a relationship with.
Or are we saying that a bisexual woman who is rejected by a lesbian and then who eventually partners with a man is somehow offensive for... some hypothetical lesbian hypothetically thinking, "Actually, she's not for me because I want a girlfriend who loves rockclimbing and she prefers walking on the beach"?
I don't know how there's anything feminist about accusing bisexual women, the ones who are fetishised by men as being hypersexual and forever consenting, about being sexual deviants who exploit other women.
Even as a straight woman looking in from the outside, I can't help but be offended by women who claim bisexuality but say they are attracted to women and will fuck them but will only be in a committed relationship/partner up with a male. It seems exploitative and fetishistic.
im so tired of being unable to say "no/please stop" because if i do the other person will hurt themself
Couldn't reblog because it's a community post but I really wanted to lol
every woman thinks she's evil and irredeemable for making a few avoidable mistakes while every man goes about his day thinking he's normal after having emotionally tortured at least 5 different women
The greatest trick of the patriarchy was to teach countless generations of women to be kind.
We can talk about statistics all day long, but the weaponisation of our compassion is what keeps us on our knees.
When we see studies about violence, the immediate reaction is but men can be victims, too, and examples like that are why the false ideas of the patriarchy hurts men, too and feminism is for everybody are so prevalent. Women have been so broken down by generations upon generations of manipulation through be kind that is feels wrong, that it feels psychologically painful to centre ourselves.
Instead of women being able to come together and fight for our rights as one, this malicious forced compassion makes us sideline and silence ourselves, with the reward being tricked into feeling like I'm a good and selfless person. When women dare to centre ourselves and put ourselves first reasonably, then we're gaslit into believing that we're being selfish, cruel and even violent, and when other women snap and snarl, tired of our treatment, then they're entirely dismissed as being any modern version of hysteric.
Men like to hide behind the idea that we're the manipulative ones that psychologically damage, but without a thousand generations of men reinforcing that we should think again and actually have kindness and compassion for others, women as a whole would be able to see through the blinders of oppression.
After all, to be anti-prostitution has been reframed as hating sex workers.
Fighting against systemic violence and rape against women is ignoring male victims and supporting female perpetrators.
Protecting female-only spaces is excluding a vulnerable minority's right to exist.
Few ordinary women want to be made to feel like they're hateful or cruel. As soon as we talk about women's issues, examples of individual men are brought up, and women are tricked into talking about them by either proving how kind we are ("of course I don't want anyone to be raped, male victims deserve help!") to distract us from our issues and re-centre men again, or women dismiss that obviously malicious call for compassion ("feminism isn't about men, sort your own issues out!") and then men use it as a reason as to why feminism is evil, because anything without kindness and compassion is wrong.
Women need to be taught that it's not unkind to put ourselves first, and that men use our compassion against us.
In feminism, our kindness and compassion must be reserved for our fellow women.
Women can be kind and compassionate to men in their private lives if they want, but that isn't part of feminism - and they need to be reminded that they won't get that kindness and compassion returned.
Summer skies
I’m ready for the night drives
I quite literally watched the ruling live, terrified that the Supreme Court would rule against women. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.
The judge that read out the ruling bent over backwards to play down the judgement and he underlined more than once that trans people were already protected under the Equality Act and, more laughably, that we had to remember that the ruling wasn't a victory for either side, even though it was a clear victory for women, purely to still bow and scrape to these men.
You'd think the Supreme Court ruled to dump every man in a dress in acid. It was literally just to decide what "woman" and "sex" meant in the wording of the Equality Act.
Their "peaceful protest" vandalised a statue of suffragist Dame Millicent Fawcett, the only statue of a woman, and the only statue created by a woman, in Parliament Square with "fag rights" scrawled across her, too.
Of course a tech bro organised this.
real talk: how could people get off to their partners being hurt in bed. i don't even want to entertain that though. it's awful. it's sickening. whoever is into violent pornography or sexual acts should be executed. why is it not okay in any general setting but the moment it's in bed it's okay.
list of feminist horror books for all my radblr horror fans!!
if you're sick of misogyny/rape scenes/sexualized murder in male written horror, these books are for you! all of these come with varying levels of trigger warnings, so i highly recommend looking them up before you dive in!
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a classic. most people look over the clearly feminist theme to only remember the Creature, but it's a heart wrenching feminist book about autonomy, misogyny, with pretty significant religious misogyny undertones
-Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado will always and forever be on my all time favorite books list. it's a collection of short stories, but the first one is the absolute best, called The Husband Stitch. she's such a gorgeous writer, The Husband Stitch especially is so haunting and heartbreaking, telling the story of a woman's life marrying and having kids, and what her husband takes from her, and just generally a representation of married women's pain and oppression.
-Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth is addictive. also incorporates marriage themes and complex i cities but deals especially with female "paranoia" and "hysteria" (quotes bc we know those concepts are man made for women and forced onto us). it has this domestic aesthetic that's very creepy and also just very cool
-Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung. ohhhhh my. i'm in love with this author, she's so incredible. Cursed Bunny is a short story collection that deals with misogyny, generational trauma, aging as a woman, and even delves into being kink critical if you're keen at interpretation. she's from South Korea, and also deals a lot in Korean culture and Korea-specific misogyny. it is translated to english, so unfortunately i will always mourn the writing style of it in original Korean but it's still written so beautifully!
-Hangsaman and The Haunting of Hill House both by Shirley Jackson. i'm sorry to clump them both together but for the sake of space + time i will. they're both gradual-horror, they definitely build. a lot of female hysteria type stuff, female loneliness, just generally such a good, creepy vibe that culminates in a truly scary ending.
-Maeve Fly by CJ Leede. a lot of people here on radblr call for truly insane female leads. this is that book! the main character is truly just a bad person, a psychopath, and she isn't moralized or justified in any way. she is allowed to just be crazy and evil without being diluted because she's a woman. women don't tend to get to be evil--truly evil--in media like men do, so it's cool to see a true madwoman. it's very witty, very clever. it's also a love letter to LA in a way, which hit home for me lmao. it's really just a peek into the mind of a psychopathic woman and the crazy stuff she does. very entertaining. not for the faint of heart.
-Such a Pretty Smile by Kristi DeMeester is sooo good. i don't normally get too jumpy about my horror, but this one had me looking up every two seconds to make sure i was safe. genuinely very scary. it's got heavy mother daughter themes, it's primarily about the demureness and politeness expected of women and girls. the "pretty smile" thing is obviously a reference to catcalling, but also to the expectation that we should always be pretty and polite and content and demure. it's a lot of women just breaking free and going mad.
-A Guest in the House by EM Carol. i read this one online and then NEEDED to own it so bad i bought it immediately. it is a graphic novel so a slightly different medium, but the art is so stunning and moving. it's also got marriage themes, about repressed lesbianism, women's desires etc etc. it's so good and beautiful and moving
-Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica is another short story collection. not necessarily all horror, but most. i had to read this one twice it was so good. it's harder to talk about short story collections because there's so many different plots and themes, but trust me, it's fantastic
-The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert. it's a bit more rudimentary writing, but it's so so so good. it captures girlhood so wonderfully, especially the whimsical, daydream part and equally the dark, insane, human-sacrifices-with-barbie-dolls parts of that makes any sense. it's about goddesses and monsters and dreams and girlhood and the trauma of growing up a girl and it's marvelous
-A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers. not exactlyyyy a horror but kinda?? it's about a female cannibal who kills and eats her lovers. it's hilarious, like laugh out loud until the people around you stare hilarious. the main character is so witty and man hating and cool. she's a misandrist icon, just so suave and clever and ruthless.
i'll reblog with more books as i find and read them! :)
Thank you! I'm currently reading (Un)kind by Victoria Smith on a recommendation from here, and it's incredible just how much weaponised kindness from female socialisation has weakened us as a class.
I think it's also important to remember that few women would even recognise throwing other women under the bus for "acceptable feminism."
I know that I was abused, and when I was safe, I sought out therapy. It was that work with my therapist that allowed me to see just how bad it was. When she first mentioned that I was made to constantly question my reality, that sounded absolutely absurd. To cut a long story short, with her help, I ended up realising that I didn't just "need a little support," I had CPTSD and the abuse was horrendous.
Going through that shifted my perspective about feminism. Patriarchy and female oppression is that abuse, but on a global scale and spread across every woman in different ways.
The reason that I mention all that is that abuse survivors sometimes can't see the abuse that they're going through. They don't even register that they're avoiding words or phrases. They might not even recognise how much of their perspective has been deliberately warped by their abuser(s). It might not even occur to them that putting themselves first is even an option.
When that's scaled up and made much more subtle, and the patriarchy works to whisper more manipulation, it's not a surprise that there are a fair number of women who are trapped by "be kind!"
Feminism is only kind to women. We can choose or not to be compassionate and supportive of men, but the point of feminism is to be technically unkind by taking away things that men have felt entitled to for so long. It's not a surprise that the patriarchy is obsessed with ensuring that we know that we're supposed to be the kind ones.
The greatest trick of the patriarchy was to teach countless generations of women to be kind.
We can talk about statistics all day long, but the weaponisation of our compassion is what keeps us on our knees.
When we see studies about violence, the immediate reaction is but men can be victims, too, and examples like that are why the false ideas of the patriarchy hurts men, too and feminism is for everybody are so prevalent. Women have been so broken down by generations upon generations of manipulation through be kind that is feels wrong, that it feels psychologically painful to centre ourselves.
Instead of women being able to come together and fight for our rights as one, this malicious forced compassion makes us sideline and silence ourselves, with the reward being tricked into feeling like I'm a good and selfless person. When women dare to centre ourselves and put ourselves first reasonably, then we're gaslit into believing that we're being selfish, cruel and even violent, and when other women snap and snarl, tired of our treatment, then they're entirely dismissed as being any modern version of hysteric.
Men like to hide behind the idea that we're the manipulative ones that psychologically damage, but without a thousand generations of men reinforcing that we should think again and actually have kindness and compassion for others, women as a whole would be able to see through the blinders of oppression.
After all, to be anti-prostitution has been reframed as hating sex workers.
Fighting against systemic violence and rape against women is ignoring male victims and supporting female perpetrators.
Protecting female-only spaces is excluding a vulnerable minority's right to exist.
Few ordinary women want to be made to feel like they're hateful or cruel. As soon as we talk about women's issues, examples of individual men are brought up, and women are tricked into talking about them by either proving how kind we are ("of course I don't want anyone to be raped, male victims deserve help!") to distract us from our issues and re-centre men again, or women dismiss that obviously malicious call for compassion ("feminism isn't about men, sort your own issues out!") and then men use it as a reason as to why feminism is evil, because anything without kindness and compassion is wrong.
Women need to be taught that it's not unkind to put ourselves first, and that men use our compassion against us.
In feminism, our kindness and compassion must be reserved for our fellow women.
Women can be kind and compassionate to men in their private lives if they want, but that isn't part of feminism - and they need to be reminded that they won't get that kindness and compassion returned.
I embroidered a Monstera leaf as a gift.
Here it is twinning with the Monstera in the gift receiver´s house 🥰
See how close I came to running out of green thread under the cut:
It was so close, I´m glad I made it 💗
Seven Falls, Santa Barbara 𖦹 April 2025
My kofi ♡
We should always talk more about the emotional manipulation and gaslighting that comes from being women under the patriarchy. Violence and threats only go so far to oppress women. The rest of the trap is the way that patriarchy has managed to trick women into keeping ourselves down, without us ever noticing it.
Take this paragraph:
Like Buffy, do we feminist women turn to mediocre men who can express messiness so that we don’t have to? Does it make us feel stronger, more powerful, or more competent by comparison—but also keep us measuring our worth in relation to others rather than to ourselves? The strong woman/bad boyfriend phenomenon reminds me of how I felt when I first began interacting with transgendered (male-to-female) women at book signings. The women whom Amy Richards and I met during the Manifesta tour often came with a critique that the book had no discussion of transgender rights. I felt terrifically defensive—obsessed with the way the M-to-F pre-op women would dominate the evening, often with just their physical bigness. I hated the way they invaded a woman-only space, seeming to merely endure our reading so they could get to “their” part of the evening. “They wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that if they had been born women,” I seethed. “You don’t see female-to-male pre-operative men heading to the Harvard Club to demand inclusion. Why is it always women who have to make more space and take in everything?” But as I learned more about the history of transgenderism and met more transgendered people—M to F and F to M and points beyond—I revised that interpretation. I wonder now if it offended me that these women could be aggressive and take up space while I still thought I couldn’t. - From Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics by Jennifer Baumgardner
From a question about mediocre men that immediately brought TIMs to mind, this feminist woman automatically felt righteously repulsed at men forcing their way into a female-only space, who clearly didn't care about female issues, and only endured discussions of women's issues and thoughts so that they could bleat about themselves instead.
Instead of her accepting what she knew, the fact that TIMs act like men because they're men, and TIFs act like women because they're women, she flipped a switch, threw in that she met a range of trans "and points beyond" people, and suddenly, TIMs taking over women's spaces and demanding that everything be about themselves became her own moral failing.
Again, this last line:
I wonder now if it offended me that these women could be aggressive and take up space while I still thought I couldn’t.
Critiques of her understanding of feminism aside, from the above text, she knew what men are like, and she was right to seethe. And yet, patriarchy is so strong that women will tie themselves in knots to be seen as acceptable to others, because of the teaching that men always matter more.
In her case - and in quite a lot of other cases, from women who won't really even think about feminism across whatever spectrums there are, I would wager - there will be this underlying idea that these men that claim womanhood are simply somehow better women than they are, and that is why those men deserve support and love and kindness over everything else.
Because those men are the kind of women that actual women are telling themselves that they should aspire to be. That actual women are failures, and the fakes are somehow the real deal.
Those women can tell themselves that it's about being unapologetic and loud and forceful about their individual needs - but it's another manipulative trap. Women can never become like those brave TIMs. As soon as they try, they're called TERFs, remember?
Look at the number of women who spend so much time defending TIMs, whether they're trans identified or not. Of course they do. They've been taught that the best of women, the most vulnerable of women? Those better "women" are all male.
Why do I say all this in regards to the trans issue? Because we're living in a time where numbers of women have genuinely been gaslit into believing that men can be women, in such a relatively short space of time. That men somehow can become biologically female through saying a few words out loud.
If that doesn't tell you how effective the psychological abuse of women is under the patriarchy, I don't know what else will.
