Latest Posts by tinyangryflower - Page 3

An activist from SCUM, a French radfem activist group, crashed the red carpet at the Cannes festival to call-out surrogacy, often used and promoted by movie stars.

Btw she's the same one who did a similar act last year.

I’m seeing a lot of posts all over Reddit attempting to explain what gender critical feminists actually believe, and a lot of them are completely wrong. This is a post addressed to newcomers who are visiting this sub to figure out what gender critical feminism is all about.The first thing to get out of the way is this: no, we don’t believe that you MUST have periods to be a woman. I’ve seen so many posts saying “JK Rowling is menopausal and doesn’t have periods, so by her definition she wouldn’t be a woman!” or “not every woman has a period, some women don’t have uteruses!” She isn’t saying that at all. Having a period is not a necessary condition for being a woman, but it is a sufficient condition. It’s sufficient in the sense that if you experience menstruation then that automatically puts you in the woman category (or at the very least it puts you in the female category). But it’s not it’s not necessary that you must be capable of menstruation in order to be put into the woman category. In any case, what Rowling was upset about was female erasure. It is, quite frankly, deeply disturbing and insulting for many women to be called ‘menstruators’ or ‘period havers’. This , we feel, reduces us to a biological function. The ‘bloody good period’ charity once referred to women as 'bleeders’, and not only does this not make any sense (men can bleed too!) it is also degrading. 'Bleeders’ sounds like a dehumanising slur. Notice there’s a pattern here - when have you ever heard males been referred to as 'ejaculators’ or 'sperm producers’?

I’m going to try to debunk two other claims I’ve seen floating around that are just bollocks. The first is that gender critical feminists conflate sex with gender. The second is that we are biological essentialists. Both of these claims are false, and both particularly sting because a lot of gender critical feminists of the first and second wave of feminism actually railed against these concepts in the first place.

So, back to basics. Sex is biological. Sex refers to the two reproductive roles - male and female. Males produce small mobile gametes, sperm. Females produce the large immobile gametes, eggs. Sex is not a social construct. It is found all across nature. Plants have sexes. Animals have sexes.

Gender is a social construct, and is not the same thing as sex. This was recognised by Mary Wollstonecraft in the 18th century, but was really emphasised by the second wave. Gender is social norms of femininity and masculinity. Gender are roles, behaviours, stereotypes, and expectations placed on human beings according to their sex. Male humans are supposed to live up to masculine gender expectations. Female humans are supposed to live up to the feminine gender expectations. Boys are supposed to like violent sports, getting angry, not crying, not eating salad, the colour blue, being dominant and in control, being logical. Women are supposed to like kittens, being sensitive and empathetic, watching their weight, pink, babies, being a homemaker.

Women are human females who have the feminine gender imposed on them. And men are human males who have the masculine gender imposed on them. And gender also operates as a hierarchy. Femininity is inferior to masculinity.

Feminists pointed out there was nothing natural about gender. Women do not naturally want to be nothing more than baby makers, who cry and like pink glitter, who only care about adornment and home making. This is all a social construct. Gender operates as a constrictive trap, forcing women into one 'natural’ lifestyle.A big project of the second wave was to point out the artificiality of gender roles, and to break women out of them. There is no one way to look like a woman. Women can wear makeup, have short hair, wear whatever they like. There should be no such thing as masculine and feminine interests - why shouldn’t a man enjoy knitting? Why does that have to mean he’s somehow less of a man, or a sissy? And why shouldn’t a woman enjoy car racing? Why are we so obsessed with gendering everything, from clothing, to food, to hobbies, to pets, to cars? Second wave feminists established that just because someone is female doesn’t mean they are, or should be, girly. Women do not naturally behave, or think, in a particular way.

Gender critical feminists have always held fast to this idea that there is no necessary connection between sex and gender roles. If I tell you I have blue eyes, can you infer anything at all about what my tastes are from that information alone? What is my career? My hobbies? My interests? My behaviour? My aspirations? My overall appearance? No -of course not. That is because we don’t imbue having blue eyes with any significance. Blue eyes has no connection to your personality or your cognitive capacities. Well, that’s what gender critical feminists think about sex. If I tell you a person is female, that doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about her hobbies or interests. At most it tells you she’s a human who is very likely to experience the incidents of being female - she is likely to be capable of menstruating. She is likely to be capable of getting pregnant. Beyond those basic facts of biology, though, females are people and can have a wide range of behaviours and appearances. There is no 'right’ way to be a woman. Literally the only precondition is that you be female. That’s it.

Female biology is different from male bioloogy, and due to us living in a sexist society is often pathologised and overlooked. For example, menstruation has been coded as 'unclean’ and impure - gender stereotypes are interposed on top of natural biological functions. So what Rowling was trying to emphasise was that for women our sex is deeply important to us. It’s a core part of our experience going through the world. We are stigmatised for having periods, stigmatised for going on contraception, stigmatised for abortions, stigmatised for giving birth (too many or too few babies). And so there are important political concerns that only apply to those with female bodies. Also, female bodies are often a locus of state control. The state will try to control women by controlling their bodies (see abortion legislation, forced sterilisation,) What that means is even if you accept that trans women are 'women’ (whatever women means) there must still be room for a distinctive female rights movement. Some dude on the Reddit front page was given hundreds of awards for blithely saying “no one is saying sex isn’t real - we are just saying that sex isn’t important.” With no respect, dude, it’s just not your place to say that. Women are pointing out that sex IS important to them - women are dying because they are taking drugs that have only been tested on male bodies. Men can’t handwave that away with claims that 'sex isn’t important’. WE are telling YOU that it is. It’s important. It’s not bigoted for women to campaign for their sex based rights.

Biological essentialism is related to all this. Biological essentialism is the view that sex roles are natural. BECAUSE I am female it is therefore natural for me to like babies, be more emotional, and to desire to go shopping. But as I already covered, this view was contested by second wave feminists. On average, women may enjoy makeup more than men. They may be more caring and nurturing, They. may be less into train and plane spotting. But none of this is natural. Women aren’t born this way. There is no natural connection between women being female and women liking makeup. There’s no biologically essential way for women to be.

You may notice that people on Reddit just don’t seem to really get what biological essentialism means. Biological essentialism has nothing to do with saying 'women have female bodies.’ It’s not 'essentialist’ to say that women are female. That’s just part of the definition of woman. Biological essentialism is the claim that because someone is a woman they have to behave or think in a particular way. In actual fact, many commenters will support trans theory using biological essentialism. One male commenter bravely attempted to define women - “ a woman is someone who conforms to our societies expectations of femininity - they dress in a feminine way, think in a feminine way, have feminine interests and so on.” This is pure essentialism. Gender critical feminists completely deny that there is any such thing as 'feminine’ thoughts. What on earth is a 'feminine’ way of thinking? If you say that women are more ditzy, creative, and less logical - isn’t that just super sexist? And what’s a 'feminine’ interest? Are we really back to the bad old days of saying you are less of a woman if you enjoy dirt bike racing? Are you less of a man if you film makeup tutorials? On this definition I would simply fail to be a woman. I wear pants. I don’t have typical feminine interests. I work in a male dominated career. I find this definition really sexist - it says that women have to think and act, and look a certain way in order to be women. they have to conform to femininity.

But the definition that a woman is an adult human female is not biologically essentialist because all it tells you is that women have female bodies. That’s it. Women can look and act in any way they like.

To recap and clarify - gender critical feminists are against biological essentialism. And they do not think that sex and gender are the same thing!

here’s my perspective:

liberal feminism is individualist. it affirms anything a woman does out of choice regardless of the impact of said choice. for example, if a woman chooses to appear in hardcore pornography, great! she chose it! liberal feminism neglects to look at the impact of such actions—young boys and men see this, fetishize it, expect women to enact it in real life. young women and girls see it, think that maybe it’s worth a try because that other woman enjoys it, think there’s something wrong with them for not enjoying it, and possibly get hurt.

radical feminism is not individualist. it is collectivist. in the case of hardcore pornography used above, radical feminism doesn’t care that one individual woman said she liked being in porn. it doesn’t matter because of the great majority of women and girls that are trafficked, raped, abused, and murdered for men’s sexual gratification. it doesn’t matter because of all of the harm the industry does to women and girls at large. the choice of one doesn’t matter when it adds to the collective harm of women as a marginalized class.

radical feminism recognizes women as a sex-based marginalized class. as radical feminists, we have to examine what harms women as a class, not as individuals. liberal feminism—pervasive mostly in the western, developed world—focuses on individual harm, individual autonomy, while failing to realize that a great number of women around the globe do not even have the ability to be autonomous, let alone determine what they do or do not want to do with their lives.

if a majority of women involved in the porn industry are being harmed by it, does it matter that a minority say they enjoy it? if a majority of women are harmed by beauty standards and the beauty industry, does it matter that some women like wearing makeup and shaving their body hair? if a majority of women seek safety in female-only spaces, does it matter that some women don’t care for them? why are a small number of women—mostly white, upper-middle class, western, straight, femininity supporting women—praised for being and claim to be feminists when all they do is reinforce patriarchal values and neglect a majority of their sisters around the world?

more than that, why do liberal feminists not care to do any real analysis of the structures that harm women if a few women claim to enjoy it? why are they mainly listening to the “sex work is work!” crowd and not the countless numbers of women who were traumatized by the industry? why, as a culture, are we prioritizing patriarchal and capitalist values and proclaiming them as feminist? why do liberal feminists not think beyond their relatively small western bubble? why are the reasons for willingly entering the porn industry, per se, (i.e. childhood sexual abuse) not considered? why are the repercussions not considered?

one of my main beliefs is that no woman has a choice until all women have a choice. i don’t care if a relatively small number of white western women (the majority that i see supporting liberal feminism, and also trans rights activists) ‘enjoy’ commodifying themselves because the majority of women don’t have the choice to be commodified. i don’t care if a woman likes wearing makeup because the makeup industry harms women. i don’t care if you choose to reinforce the patriarchy because your privilege protects you from a great deal of its harm because this choice of yours gives men more reason to believe that women enjoy enforced femininity, objectification, abuse, rape, so on and so forth. your choice is meaningless because none of us live in a vacuum.

unless all women are liberated, no woman is liberated. we should prioritize our work around our sisters of all colors, from all parts of the globe whose sex prevents them from having many of the choices we do in the west. we should use our choice to have a voice to uplift the voices of women without such privilege.

fight

Since it was suggested so many times in regards to understanding why JK Rowling is an evil bigoted transphobe, I've finally watched the Contrapoints video. And it's clearly evident that Contra does not understand radical feminism & hasn't researched it well. That's probably why her "Gender Critical" video was also superficial

Here Contrapoints says that defining womanhood.... Simply doesn't matter.

I wish it were more acceptable for girls and women to just call feminine beauty expectations degrading.

The only wrong abortion is that which women are forced or coerced into getting. All the rest are good actually, yes all of them.

"radical feminism helps patriarchy stay in power" yeah.. you're right being pro abortion, anti porn, anti sw, anti beauty standards helping patriarchy very well.

and sticking to gender stereotypes which patriarchy loves, denying same sex attraction and sending women death and rape threats is probably very anti patriarchy

That reminds of me of someone saying Aerith was trans and someone responding

“The only thing trans about her is how early she died”

I remember lmao, that was hilarious.

More seriously: Does OP realize that women can also be sarcastic, crack jokes, like food and wear chokers? It's such a dumb reason to think she's trans.

“Women who have objections to marriage, I have no problem with. Men who vocally object to marriage from the left, claiming some sort of ideological purity, I find laughable. The refrain of “let’s not sign any PAPERS, that’s giving in to the MAN, man” started being used by leftist men in the mid to late 1960s. Not particularly coincidentally, this is when the women’s movement was making huge strides in getting no-fault divorce laws into legislatures, eventually seeing the first passage of such a law in California in 1969. Once women made huge strides in custody and divorce proceedings, and could divorce men without having to submit onerous requirements of proof, leftist men suddenly decided they could do without the “oppressive institution” of marriage. Cohabitation still means, due to resource disparities between men and women, that cohabiting women in hetero relationships (especially impoverished ones) often find themselves homeless and propertyless after a breakup. Divorce provides an arbitration mechanism for the fair division of property obtained in the marriage and a separation of property obtained prior to the marriage. Women who are against marriage often have sound reasons. Men are typically rather transparently self-serving.”

—

Jeanette Theodora.

(via liesofthepatriarchy)

have a hog wild weekend

Ppl will be like “end the stigma around mental illness uwu” but still judge you if you’re unemployed or single or not completely self-sufficient or healthy or perfectly groomed or still live with parents and don’t see the hypocrisy in that whatsoever

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

+ Letterboxd Reviews

bonus:

so I came across this video on my fyp of a detransitioner who is adamantly anti-“terf”:

but she notes that, as a detransitioner she is allowed to speak on trans issues:

and here is her comment section:

it’s a fucking cult.

No matter how appeasing you are to them, if you leave the religion you are excommunicated. This isn’t like being “ex gay” because transition, an action, is different to being SSA, an inherent trait.

Also note the “I would never ever detrans”… okay? This isn’t about you. If you have to declare this in the comment section of a random detransitioner, maybe you’re insecure!

I love how we are supposed to think that men have a monopoly on logic and rationality when one of their favorite problem-solving strategies is “kill my entire family and then myself”

bites u but i have abandonment issues so i never let go and am now a permanent ornament to your person

Not trying to go on a rant (and yet already ranting) but I’m sick of people faking that “granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn” isn’t an AWESOME feminist catchphrase, and branding it as white feminism because “Karen your granny is a christian conservative” like yesss it’s true my granny is a christian conservative but she also secretly had her tubes tied in an illegal clinic because my grandpa was against birth control, and my great-grandma ran away from home at 15 because her parents were against interracial marriage, and my great-great-grandma fled her country because there were no job opportunities for poor women there, and my other grandma also fled her country because her boyfriend tried to force her to have an abortion and she wanted to have her baby, and my mom never married and chose to raise a child on her own, and I am a feminist butch lesbian, and this is what this quote is about, it’s not about your granny being pagan, it’s about valuing your matrilineal lineage of subversive women, even if their subversion was minimal, because they could have been killed or maimed any time by men for not conforming to gender roles even in the slightest way, after all, the witches who indeed were burned were more often than not also just regular, mostly christian conservative, women that somehow pissed off a man

Where’s that post that’s like “as a woman from India radical feminism is the default feminism in the global south” and some American replies like “uh yeah I was born in Louisiana I know the south is filled with bigots like you”

lol i hate today’s era of absolutely zero nuance takes. a friend didn’t behave exactly as you’d wanted them to? cut them off. a guy didn’t text you back instantly bc he has his own life? he’s just giving you breadcrumbs. doing something makes you uncomfortable? don’t do it anymore. someone isn’t instantly available for you? disinterest. just absolutist statements that often don’t apply to the multilayer situations of everyday life. like. stop. literally just stop it

one thing that i think mainstream feminism does not address nearly enough is the impact of patriarchal religion. in the US, for example, many girls grow up being EXPLICITLY TAUGHT that women were created to be subservient to men and that their destiny in life is to be submissive to their husband as if he were god. this is not a rare experience.

based shadow

the entire argument of men being oppressed under patriarchy due to them being expected to be strong and assertive is so easily debunked when you realize that they’re not expected to be that way, they’re just automatically assumed to be. women under patriarchy are forced into proving their submission and sensuality through subscribing to the lifestyle meanwhile even the most meek men are simply assumed to be smarter and better as leaders simply due to their sex. masculine stereotypes are not oppression, they’re privilege.

If eyeliner grants women more power, why does it not grant men more power? Who is granting women power when they wear eyeliner? Why? What kind of power is it?

If eyeliner is worn almost entirely by women and wearing eyeliner "sharp enough to kill a man" is feminist, which specific feminist issue does eyeliner tackle (menstrual health, sexual harassment, medical misogyny, domestic violence shelters)?

How does eyeliner liberate you from the patriarchy (not make you feel good, liberate you ― there's a difference)?

sorry to be harsh on movies it's just that i really like when stories are good

Yana Wernicke’s new book Weggefährten (Companions) examines the connection between two women and the farm animals they care for after saving from death (x)

GENDERBENT HANDMAID’S TALE?????

Meghan Dailey on Louise Bourgeois’s Maman

not he ate him up 😭😭😭

I really love how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie….is just “This Writer”…..they wouldn’t even name her??? How disrespectful can you be???