malariamonsters

theriotmag:

Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their “traditional” marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate “nice guys.” The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don’t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of any gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it’s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.

Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.

-From If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? On Jezebel

strangeasanjles:

ethiopienne:

syriaslyradical:

fearsome-fag:

A prof told me the other day that the title is what her partner thinks, that she is sure that feminism is simply an idea planted by the system to keep actual change from occuring. My prof expanded on it a bit, and I sat down and thought about it too, so heres a mix of our…

Yes but let’s keep in mind these criticisms of feminism have long been theorized by WOC since the 18th century with little regard from mainstream feminists …….. that there are COUNTLESS woc who have devoted their lives to making feminism a more inclusive space. In fact, here’s a crash course explaining how feminist theory in the past has dealt with these issues:

—-FEMINIST THEORY CRASH COURSE—-

Feminism moves in between these branches (not a mutually exclusive list, just listed most prominently recognized theorists by each)in order to directly oppose mainstream feminist discourses loaded with eurocentrism, phallocentrism, orientalism, imperialism, racialized colonialism, capitalism (which goes hand in hand with feminist movements as commodification of a so called revolutionary struggle!), white supremacy, ethocentrism, transphobia, ableism and much much more:

1. post colonial theory-undoes the victimization discourse of western feminists/their metonymic blurring of different forms of oppression through an essentialist explanation

• indigenous feminisms-Andrea Smith
• transnational feminism—Chandra Mohanty

2. global feminism/”third world feminism”- disrupts idea that feminism is an inherently “western” ideology

• African feminism- Ama Ata Aidoo
• Islamic feminism-Huda Shaarawi

3. Women of color feminism-emerged to counter cultural hegemony of white western feminism

• black feminism-Audre Lorde, Combahee River Collective
• Afrocentric feminism-Patricia McFadden
• Chicana feminism-Anzuldua
• womanism (check out Alice Walker and Layli Phillips to find out more why this isn’t a subcolumn or branch of feminism completely)

4. critical race theory-comes from radical POC law professors who acknowledge feminism’s lack of tools in making visible the ways racial supremacy is embedded in the law system. Check Kimberle Crenshaw, Barbara Smith, Patricia Hill Collins, Susan Schechter

5. Black nationalist feminism—opposes anti-blackness in feminist movements

• Africana womanism (different from African feminism and womanism)

6. Feminist hermeneutics-analyzes religious studies as a source of feminist theory

7.Feminist Science studies—disrupts biological determinism. Check out Ruth Hubbard’s “Fact Making and Feminism” as an intro to why science needs to be included in discussions of feminist discipline

8. Queer theory-holy shit i can’t even start on the ways its disrupted mainstream feminism but HEY:

Flower crown feminism is in no way a reflection of  the deeply rooted radical work Women of color, transnational, zapatista, chicana, african-american, “third world” (global south), indigenous and native, queer, dis*abled and post-colonial feminisms have carved out.

When Ida B. Wells called out the racism of progressive feminist leaders in 1894 IE suffragist Frances Williard of Christian temperance union who publically represented black women voters as a threat to modern society, Wells was not about that “abandoning feminism” life

When Paula Gunn Allen pointed out that white American feminism ripped off gynocentric Iroquois nations, who held their own feminist rebellions as early and before the 1600’s, she wasn’t about that “abandoning feminism” life

 When Linda La Rue, the Combahee River Collective, Barbara Smith Claudia Jones, Audre Lorde and countless others called out the heterosexist, classist racist shitfield that was the women’s liberation movement, they weren’t abt that “abandoning feminism” life

When Beverly Guy Sheftall, Rudolph Byrd, and Johnetta B. Cole anthologize unpublished works of queer poc thinkers in I Am Your Sister, Still Brave, Traps,and Gender Talk, they aren’t about accepting white feminism as the dead-end truth. 

WE CAN’T DISREGARD THESE CENTURIES OF WORK SUBVERTING DOMINANT PARADIGMS AND CREATING SPACES FOR CHANGE BECAUSE A WAVE OF PASTEL COLORED “GRRRLS” REEMERGE AS THE PRIVILEGED SUBURBAN GRANDDAUGHTERS OF THE SAME RACIST FEMINIST WHO STORMED THE POLITICAL SCENE LOUDER AND WHITER THAN ALL THE REST, FIRST IN THE 1870’s, 1920’s, 1970’s, AND THEN 1990’s

Instead let’s make this a fight to continue the legacy of these radical visionaries

in reclaiming our spaces,

reaffirming our rights to tell our own stories freely, to live in the security of our own bodies, and to rewrite histories of social movements that replicate hierarchy within.

*swoon*

To read later because skimming it made my morning.

(via crunkfeministcollective)

ozyreads:

and if i die today…: Because of the Times

thehappyfangirl:

makingfists:

It’s like this…

You’re fourteen and you’re reading Larry Niven’s “The Protector” because it’s your father’s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know what it’s about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because she’s been doing it her whole life and he’s only just learned - and he gets mad that she’s better at it than him. And you don’t understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, she’d be better at it than him. She’s done it more. And he’s got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.

But you’re fourteen and you don’t know how to put this into words.

And then you’re fifteen and you’re reading “Orphans of the Sky” because it’s by a famous sci-fi author and it’s about a lost generation ship and how cool is that?!? but the women on the ship aren’t given a name until they’re married and you spend more time wondering what people call those women up until their marriage than you do focusing on the rest of the story. Even though this tidbit of information has nothing to do with the plot line of the story and is only brought up once in passing.

But it’s a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.

Then you’re sixteen and you read “Dune” because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and it’s one of those books you have to read to earn your geek card. You spend an entire afternoon arguing over who is the main character - Paul or Jessica. And the more you contend Jessica, the more he says Paul, and you can’t make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause she’s tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paul’s challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to a girl.

Then you’re seventeen and you don’t want to read “Stranger in a Strange Land” after the first seventy pages because something about it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. All of this talk of water-brothers. You can’t even pin it down.

And then you’re eighteen and you’ve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesn’t stop your brother or your father from trying to get you to read more.

Even when you bring them the books and bring them the passages and show them how the authors didn’t treat women like people.

Your brother says, “Well, that was because of the time it was written in.”

You get all worked up because these men couldn’t imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable. 

You tell him - this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world that could be and they couldn’t stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, but society would grow. 

But he blows you off because he can’t understand how it feelsto be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and desperately wanting to like the books your father likes, because your father has good taste, and being unable to, because most of those books tell you that you’re not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. It’s all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo - enough that you recognize it’s off, but not enough to pin down what exactly is wrong.

And then one day you’re twenty-two and studying sociology and some kind teacher finally gives you the words to explain all those little feelings that built and penned around inside of you for years.

It’s like the world clicking into place. 

And that’s something your brother never had to struggle with.

daxsymbiont:

when men are jealous of other men, it’s a topic worthy of entire books and plays, which may be lauded and analyzed for grand themes and homoerotic subtext. but women dare write a few songs about their jealousy of other women, and suddenly it’s proof that those women are catty and petty, a sure sign of internalized misogyny and “girl hate”. and it must fit the paradigm of I’m Not Like Other Girls — it certainly can’t reflect frustrating societal prejudices, or the double bind of the virgin-whore dichotomy itself, or teenage insecurity, or latent lesbianism. because women’s work is so shallow as to permit only one interpretation. and of course, every little girl exposed to it will absorb exactly the same lessons as you, an adult immersed in feminist criticism. because children aren’t imaginative and responses to creative work aren’t incredibly varied.