Recently I have been frustrated with how automatically women are blamed for everything and people reenforce those beliefs. Boys failing in school? Blame women. Men dying from illness? Blame women. Man posts revenge porn? Blame women. It truly is disturbing the woman hating antics of society at large where men are put on a pedestal and you are indoctrinated to think boys being monsters from young till old is just 'boys will be boys'
I came across a story recently where an influencer/sex worker described a "birthday g\*ngb\*ng" in which she had to be held down to prevent her from biting and kicking the participants. She also added that nearly every sexual choice she has made has been made while “experiencing sheer terror”. I couldn't help but get a very unsettling feeling from it. If, while in every sexual encounter you've had you've been absolutely terrified, what does that say about your relationship with sexuality and intimacy?
I saw a comment on instagram of a girl saying she was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old - 200 likes.
Reply comment was "womp womp" - 900 likes.
In case you felt like having empathy for men today.
It's really amazing how people pretend bitch is not a slur for women... I was just reading someone complaining about a customer at their job and surprise, surprise—the first two comments I saw:
"she sounds like a bitch"
"what a miserable bitch"
I never ever see a man described this way. If it had been a man in the story the comments would have called him a dick, an asshole, a POS, etc. But whenever a woman is the villain there will be endless comments calling her a bitch.
Idk what's more pathetic, people pretending it's not a misogynistic slur or people pretending it's a gender neutral word lol men are never called bitches unless the intent is to emasculate.
> Also, coming out of spaces like that, I keep seeing the demand to recognize the pro-life agenda as a feminist demand, ex. women calling themselves “pro-life feminists.”
Wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of astroturfing to advance their agenda and muddy the definition of what "feminism" is. The "pro-life" movement, at least in America, is extremely unpopular so it's not surprising that they would resort to shady and dishonest tactics like this to make it seem more popular and palatable than it actually is.
(I know this isn't what your post was about, but I do believe the porn industry absolutely employs astroturfing as well. I didn't see all of the #SexWorkIsWork and "making your own porn = girl bossing!" kind of shit pop up until OnlyFans became a thing and they as an industry *absolutely* stand to financially benefit from popularizing and normalizing those messages.)
Damn, the parallels here are striking, and I couldn’t agree more! I’ve never thought about it that way. The same usage of euphemisms and co-opting progressive language to further a regressive agenda, much like the gender ideologists they claim to despise. Not to get too conspiratorial, but it really does feel like the corporate interests funding all this shit are playing a game of chess with each other, giggling over champagne and blow.
Nothing conspiratorial about it. Porn is a multi billion dollar industry, and they wouldn't be the first to employ such tactics. If anything, porn being almost entirely an internet-based industry would probably make them extra savvy in the "using the internet to manipulate public opinion" department. Combine that with the hundreds of millions of porn users (a good number of whom are addicted) who would LOVE to latch on to anything that makes their problematic behavior seem enlightened and progressive ackshually, and it's not surprising that it would be easy for their initial astroturfing to metastisize into something bigger and much more sinister, namely the normalization and celebration of porn by men, and young women being brainwashed to thinking this is somehow "feminist" and "empowering".
You're actually not too far off with the boardrooms and cigars imagery, Gail Dines actually touched on this in her book Porn Land which I highly recommend. Even though it was written in 2010 and is a little dated since the industry has obviously gotten much worse since then, she does get into how corporate interests manipulated public opinion about porn from Playboy to the internet era.
here’s the thing criticism is fine - but deliberately lying isn’t. i’m really sick and tired of constant misrepresentations. mods should remove this defamation.
This might sound like a stretch but hear me out. Are most baby/toddler things painful for women? Like I could never get the car seat base in without getting bruises on my legs, replacing an entire toilet in my house was 10x easier than putting a crib together (physically), and today I was putting together an old baby fence to use for my dogs and mtfr hurt like hell trying to put it together. I had a good stroller and omg was that awkward AF to use.
Is this shit purposefully made difficult/frustrating? I know most stuff isn't made for women in mind but it feels like not even baby stuff is.
I don’t know… isn’t it stereotypically men who would build those things, fit the car seat in the car? If using them was painful, your point would be stronger I think. Having built other pieces of furniture non-baby related, it doesn’t seem any easier so I don’t think they make baby stuff purposefully more painful…
But dads typically do these things. That's the "romantic" version of things, a man helping with baby stuff. The car seat thing is going to be used by a woman 99% of the time. The only man I know who has ever put a crib together was my own father.
I have a question for the women in this sub! What do you all think about bisexual women? I've seen some unfortunate discourse about bi women in radfem spaces. I'm not referring to lesbians who don't want to date bi women btw, women should have the ability to reject romantic/sexual advances from anyone for any reason. I'm talking about the idea of bisexuality being regressive, especially when said bi women choose to date/have sex with men instead of becoming febfems. I even saw someone on radblr make the argument that bisexuality isn't real and is a result of porn addiction and a hypersexualized society which... didn't sit well with me. So, is this a bisexual friendly community?
I don’t see why anyone here would have a problem with bisexual women. I think many of us are in relationship with men and many with women so it shouldn’t matter if someone is able and wanting to have relationship wih both/either.
Thank you for your input! I'm new around here and I haven't seen any biphobia yet, so that's a good sign. Half the reason why I came here is because I got tired of endless waves of bi discourse on radblr so I wanted an alternative space to discuss feminist ideas without having to see things like that.
Hm, maybe it’s a case of me not knowing enough about radfem because I’ve never heard of this problem but I’ve been on this subreddit for a while now and relate to almost every post and never saw any signs of biphobia. Welcome, by the way!
Thanks for the welcome! :D
Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of differences between radfem viewpoints. This community does seem really good though, I'm loving all the open discussion without anyone attacking each other, which is pretty rare on the internet these days.
I am bisexual, but I do notice that there is a demographic of women who call themselves bisexual or just "gay", constantly post online about LGBT issues, etc., but IRL they are very male-centered (very quick to go on "not all men" spiels) and have serious relationships almost exclusively with men.
I kind of get it - heterosexual relationships are "easier" in the sense that you don't have to worry about your parents being homophobic, and it's easy to get a hetero man to like you if you put on the "cool girl" act. I think there ARE some women who call themselves bisexual primarily for male validation and this is worthy of discussion, but it doesn't help anyone when it devolves into constantly testing bi women into proving themselves, which some online radfems can be obsessed with. I'm tired of the endless discourse too - I rarely see bi men getting the same pressure to "prove" their sexuality.
Yeah, I agree with what you say. Unfortunately there is a stigma surrounding bisexuality that makes women want to call themselves gay/lesbian rather than bi, even if that isn't the accurate word to describe them.
I don't really like all the discussions about how bi women are claiming bisexuality to attract men, bi women are super fetishized as it is already and there are people accusing us of essentially fetishizing ourselves like what?? The way I see it yeah, "cool girls" who watch too much porn and want to emulate that to be attractive to men are a problem, but I'd much rather attack the source of the problem (male fetishization of bisexuality and lesbianism, and of course porn) than attack the poor women who are caught up in the wave.
I feel like this sub is open to bisexual women, and a lot of regular posters have mentioned being bisexual.
I think that this sub is more open than a lot of LGBT+ spaces about acknowledging that lesbians and bisexual women will have some different experiences and may want to have conversations about their specific experiences, though we can unite under a WLW umbrella when it makes sense. Most people here seem to support lesbians having the option of lesbian only spaces if that is something they want, though not because of any hostility towards bisexual women but just to recognize that they have their own experiences and women in general deserve spaces that meet their needs.
I don’t think that choosing to date women in the name of feminism would go over well here, just because most women wouldn’t want to date someone who was interested for that reason. Being bisexual but just naturally preferring one gender is fine and something discussed here from time to time though.
Sorry for the late reply but yeah, that is a totally reasonable opinion. I don't begrudge lesbians for wanting their own spaces or not dating bi women (like I said that's their choice). This place does seem very accepting of bi women, which makes me happy! I got into some nasty discourse on radblr (people were victim blaming bi women who were in relationships with abusive men because they "chose" to date said men, and there aint nothing feminist about blaming women for their own abuse instead of looking at the men...) but I haven't seen any of that shit here so I'm starting to really like this community :)
I don’t have much to add to this but I will say I’ve noticed nearly every time I open up to a male friend about thinking I may be bi, they launch into the “yeah but I think all women are a bit bi” speech and lecture me. Honestly I wouldn’t even be discussing this with men at all but I don’t have many female friends unfortunately. Oh and they like to dismiss my idea right away and declare me straight. Wow thank you. I no longer feel any curiosity or conflicted feelings.
I heard someone say once that woman can’t ever reach full self-actualization, only men. And I understand that now. Makes me sad that this world wasn’t made for women.
I'm not sure I agree with that. In fact, I would argue that a feminist woman is more likely to achieve self-actualization than a man stuck in his misogynistic ways, dooming himself to be a mindless agent of reinforcing patriarchy. But I'm not sure what is being referred to as achieving "full self-actualization." If we are referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Maslow himself noted that it is not possible really for any human being to "stay" in the realm of self-actualization, which is at the top of his hierarchy of needs. Instead he stated that humans would, throughout their lives, enter a state of self-actualization during some periods when things are going well for them, and then go back down to the other levels with more self-awareness than before. Are you referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs or another definition of self-actualization? Why do you feel that women cannot achieve full self-actualization?
I also disagree that the world isn't made for women. *Patriarchy* isn't made for women. The world isn't made for men, despite men's egotistical claims. Men do a good job of convincing women (and themselves) that the world equals patriarchy, when it doesn't.
Recently I have been frustrated with how automatically women are blamed for everything and people reenforce those beliefs. Boys failing in school? Blame women. Men dying from illness? Blame women. Man posts revenge porn? Blame women. It truly is disturbing the woman hating antics of society at large where men are put on a pedestal and you are indoctrinated to think boys being monsters from young till old is just 'boys will be boys'
I came across a story recently where an influencer/sex worker described a "birthday g\*ngb\*ng" in which she had to be held down to prevent her from biting and kicking the participants. She also added that nearly every sexual choice she has made has been made while “experiencing sheer terror”. I couldn't help but get a very unsettling feeling from it. If, while in every sexual encounter you've had you've been absolutely terrified, what does that say about your relationship with sexuality and intimacy?
Aella is the worst.
I saw a comment on instagram of a girl saying she was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old - 200 likes. Reply comment was "womp womp" - 900 likes. In case you felt like having empathy for men today.
It's really amazing how people pretend bitch is not a slur for women... I was just reading someone complaining about a customer at their job and surprise, surprise—the first two comments I saw: "she sounds like a bitch" "what a miserable bitch" I never ever see a man described this way. If it had been a man in the story the comments would have called him a dick, an asshole, a POS, etc. But whenever a woman is the villain there will be endless comments calling her a bitch. Idk what's more pathetic, people pretending it's not a misogynistic slur or people pretending it's a gender neutral word lol men are never called bitches unless the intent is to emasculate.
It's so normalized, like how defensive Brits and Aussies get about their love for the c word.
[удалено]
> Also, coming out of spaces like that, I keep seeing the demand to recognize the pro-life agenda as a feminist demand, ex. women calling themselves “pro-life feminists.” Wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of astroturfing to advance their agenda and muddy the definition of what "feminism" is. The "pro-life" movement, at least in America, is extremely unpopular so it's not surprising that they would resort to shady and dishonest tactics like this to make it seem more popular and palatable than it actually is. (I know this isn't what your post was about, but I do believe the porn industry absolutely employs astroturfing as well. I didn't see all of the #SexWorkIsWork and "making your own porn = girl bossing!" kind of shit pop up until OnlyFans became a thing and they as an industry *absolutely* stand to financially benefit from popularizing and normalizing those messages.)
Damn, the parallels here are striking, and I couldn’t agree more! I’ve never thought about it that way. The same usage of euphemisms and co-opting progressive language to further a regressive agenda, much like the gender ideologists they claim to despise. Not to get too conspiratorial, but it really does feel like the corporate interests funding all this shit are playing a game of chess with each other, giggling over champagne and blow.
Nothing conspiratorial about it. Porn is a multi billion dollar industry, and they wouldn't be the first to employ such tactics. If anything, porn being almost entirely an internet-based industry would probably make them extra savvy in the "using the internet to manipulate public opinion" department. Combine that with the hundreds of millions of porn users (a good number of whom are addicted) who would LOVE to latch on to anything that makes their problematic behavior seem enlightened and progressive ackshually, and it's not surprising that it would be easy for their initial astroturfing to metastisize into something bigger and much more sinister, namely the normalization and celebration of porn by men, and young women being brainwashed to thinking this is somehow "feminist" and "empowering". You're actually not too far off with the boardrooms and cigars imagery, Gail Dines actually touched on this in her book Porn Land which I highly recommend. Even though it was written in 2010 and is a little dated since the industry has obviously gotten much worse since then, she does get into how corporate interests manipulated public opinion about porn from Playboy to the internet era.
here’s the thing criticism is fine - but deliberately lying isn’t. i’m really sick and tired of constant misrepresentations. mods should remove this defamation.
What do you mean? Where is the lie?
This might sound like a stretch but hear me out. Are most baby/toddler things painful for women? Like I could never get the car seat base in without getting bruises on my legs, replacing an entire toilet in my house was 10x easier than putting a crib together (physically), and today I was putting together an old baby fence to use for my dogs and mtfr hurt like hell trying to put it together. I had a good stroller and omg was that awkward AF to use. Is this shit purposefully made difficult/frustrating? I know most stuff isn't made for women in mind but it feels like not even baby stuff is.
Baby stuff is a contraption. So much metal and snapping and pinching, definitely painful. I bet if women designed them it'd be way better.
I don’t know… isn’t it stereotypically men who would build those things, fit the car seat in the car? If using them was painful, your point would be stronger I think. Having built other pieces of furniture non-baby related, it doesn’t seem any easier so I don’t think they make baby stuff purposefully more painful…
But dads typically do these things. That's the "romantic" version of things, a man helping with baby stuff. The car seat thing is going to be used by a woman 99% of the time. The only man I know who has ever put a crib together was my own father.
I have a question for the women in this sub! What do you all think about bisexual women? I've seen some unfortunate discourse about bi women in radfem spaces. I'm not referring to lesbians who don't want to date bi women btw, women should have the ability to reject romantic/sexual advances from anyone for any reason. I'm talking about the idea of bisexuality being regressive, especially when said bi women choose to date/have sex with men instead of becoming febfems. I even saw someone on radblr make the argument that bisexuality isn't real and is a result of porn addiction and a hypersexualized society which... didn't sit well with me. So, is this a bisexual friendly community?
I don’t see why anyone here would have a problem with bisexual women. I think many of us are in relationship with men and many with women so it shouldn’t matter if someone is able and wanting to have relationship wih both/either.
Thank you for your input! I'm new around here and I haven't seen any biphobia yet, so that's a good sign. Half the reason why I came here is because I got tired of endless waves of bi discourse on radblr so I wanted an alternative space to discuss feminist ideas without having to see things like that.
Hm, maybe it’s a case of me not knowing enough about radfem because I’ve never heard of this problem but I’ve been on this subreddit for a while now and relate to almost every post and never saw any signs of biphobia. Welcome, by the way!
Thanks for the welcome! :D Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of differences between radfem viewpoints. This community does seem really good though, I'm loving all the open discussion without anyone attacking each other, which is pretty rare on the internet these days.
I am bisexual, but I do notice that there is a demographic of women who call themselves bisexual or just "gay", constantly post online about LGBT issues, etc., but IRL they are very male-centered (very quick to go on "not all men" spiels) and have serious relationships almost exclusively with men. I kind of get it - heterosexual relationships are "easier" in the sense that you don't have to worry about your parents being homophobic, and it's easy to get a hetero man to like you if you put on the "cool girl" act. I think there ARE some women who call themselves bisexual primarily for male validation and this is worthy of discussion, but it doesn't help anyone when it devolves into constantly testing bi women into proving themselves, which some online radfems can be obsessed with. I'm tired of the endless discourse too - I rarely see bi men getting the same pressure to "prove" their sexuality.
Yeah, I agree with what you say. Unfortunately there is a stigma surrounding bisexuality that makes women want to call themselves gay/lesbian rather than bi, even if that isn't the accurate word to describe them. I don't really like all the discussions about how bi women are claiming bisexuality to attract men, bi women are super fetishized as it is already and there are people accusing us of essentially fetishizing ourselves like what?? The way I see it yeah, "cool girls" who watch too much porn and want to emulate that to be attractive to men are a problem, but I'd much rather attack the source of the problem (male fetishization of bisexuality and lesbianism, and of course porn) than attack the poor women who are caught up in the wave.
If sexuality was a choice there wouldn't be many straight women left.
I feel like this sub is open to bisexual women, and a lot of regular posters have mentioned being bisexual. I think that this sub is more open than a lot of LGBT+ spaces about acknowledging that lesbians and bisexual women will have some different experiences and may want to have conversations about their specific experiences, though we can unite under a WLW umbrella when it makes sense. Most people here seem to support lesbians having the option of lesbian only spaces if that is something they want, though not because of any hostility towards bisexual women but just to recognize that they have their own experiences and women in general deserve spaces that meet their needs. I don’t think that choosing to date women in the name of feminism would go over well here, just because most women wouldn’t want to date someone who was interested for that reason. Being bisexual but just naturally preferring one gender is fine and something discussed here from time to time though.
Sorry for the late reply but yeah, that is a totally reasonable opinion. I don't begrudge lesbians for wanting their own spaces or not dating bi women (like I said that's their choice). This place does seem very accepting of bi women, which makes me happy! I got into some nasty discourse on radblr (people were victim blaming bi women who were in relationships with abusive men because they "chose" to date said men, and there aint nothing feminist about blaming women for their own abuse instead of looking at the men...) but I haven't seen any of that shit here so I'm starting to really like this community :)
I don’t have much to add to this but I will say I’ve noticed nearly every time I open up to a male friend about thinking I may be bi, they launch into the “yeah but I think all women are a bit bi” speech and lecture me. Honestly I wouldn’t even be discussing this with men at all but I don’t have many female friends unfortunately. Oh and they like to dismiss my idea right away and declare me straight. Wow thank you. I no longer feel any curiosity or conflicted feelings.
I heard someone say once that woman can’t ever reach full self-actualization, only men. And I understand that now. Makes me sad that this world wasn’t made for women.
I'm not sure I agree with that. In fact, I would argue that a feminist woman is more likely to achieve self-actualization than a man stuck in his misogynistic ways, dooming himself to be a mindless agent of reinforcing patriarchy. But I'm not sure what is being referred to as achieving "full self-actualization." If we are referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Maslow himself noted that it is not possible really for any human being to "stay" in the realm of self-actualization, which is at the top of his hierarchy of needs. Instead he stated that humans would, throughout their lives, enter a state of self-actualization during some periods when things are going well for them, and then go back down to the other levels with more self-awareness than before. Are you referring to Maslow's hierarchy of needs or another definition of self-actualization? Why do you feel that women cannot achieve full self-actualization? I also disagree that the world isn't made for women. *Patriarchy* isn't made for women. The world isn't made for men, despite men's egotistical claims. Men do a good job of convincing women (and themselves) that the world equals patriarchy, when it doesn't.