Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
psssst the reason feminists don’t advocate for the drafting of women in the armed forces is because conscription in and of itself violates core feminist values such as bodily autonomy. the feminist position on who should or should not be drafted is not “everyone should be drafted equally”, it is “nobody should be drafted at all”.
and if your feminism is thorough, you’re opposed to the imperialist and militarist mindsets that create a conscription service to begin with but, you know, whatever
Emma Watson on 'her naked pictures' rumors in Media
And the thing is, what she was talking about was really BASIC. Like feminism 101, high school version. Nothing complicated or radical. Completely sanitized and said in the nicest way (which was where some of the criticism of it came from) and she gets threats. Literally any woman opening her mouth and saying anything at all about feminism, just using the word itself, is enough to incite backlash and violence. Think on that.
I love all of the anti-feminists that are posting all kinds of stuff about Leonard Nimoy passing because he was a staunch supporter of feminism and did a bunch of shit I’m sure would have pissed them off so hard if they’d paid attention.
He campaigned for Nichelle Nichols to be paid the same as Takei and Doohan.
He also put out a book called The Full Body Project which featured provocative photos of plus-sized women because he felt Hollywood’s strict beauty ideals for women were bullshit
How much would the anti-sj side of tumblr froth at the mouth if they knew that?
“BUT BUT BUT FAT IS BAD ACKNOWLEDGING THAT FAT WOMEN CAN BE SEXY IS LITERALLY THIN SHAMING OPPRESSIVE SJW BULLSHIT RESTRICTING MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO TELL FAT PEOPLE THEYRE UGLY AND GOING TO DIE TOMORROW.”
i won’t link to the full review of our show the other night, or even name the publication (if you care, google), because i don’t want to give the writer the satsifaction of the hits. but can i talk for a moment about how incredibly much this pisses me off? thanks, i will. the review begins:
“‘How can I make my friends into feminists?’ ran one of the more odd questions put to Amanda Palmer during a sit-down Q&A in the midst of this show. One answer, if you happen to be an internationally adored cabaret artist, is probably not to coo and gaze adoringly at your bestselling fantasy author husband for two hours in public.”
…and it goes on to give the rest of the show a great (four star) review. the show was, by the way, fantastic. neil read for about an hour, i played for about an hour, we did a bunch of great songs together, and i think pretty much everybody had a stellar fucking time.
anyway.
i’m not even sure what the journalist MEANT by this statement. did he mean “real feminists shouldn’t show open affection for their husbands?” or did he mean something else? the fact that i’m “internationally adored” and neil is “bestselling” seems to be part of the point he’s making, but….what’s the point? that if i were a real feminist i’d stand there screaming “I KNOW YOU THINK YOU’RE HOT SHIT, GAIMAN, WITH YOUR BEST-SELLING MAN-PENNED NOVELS AND ALL THAT CRAP, BUT I AM FAMOUS CABARET WOMAN! FUCK YOU MAN! I ALSO MAKE AN INCOME! I STAND HERE, EQUAL TO YOU, AND SHOWING YOU AFFECTION WOULD CLEARLY BE A SIGN THAT I KNOW I BELONG TO THE WEAKER SEX.”
rawr.
what?
the larger irony, of course, is how i ACTUALLY answered the question, which was something along the lines of:
“if you’re trying to turn your friends into feminists, i think you’re taking the wrong tack. i would back up and start off by not trying to turn them into ANYTHING…this is how we got into this whole mess in the first place.”
as far as i’m concerned, the most powerful feminist can do WHATEVER SHE WANTS.
THAT IS WHAT DEFINES A TRUE FEMINIST.
this includes: wearing heels, wearing combat boots, wearing nothing, sporting lipstick, shaving, not shaving, waxing, not waxing, being political, being apolitical, having a job, being homeless, gazing at men, gazing at women, gazing at porn of all sorts, glamming up like a drag queen, going in man-drag, being in a five-way polyamorous relationship, being childless, being a stay-at-home parent, being single, having a wife, having a husband, and gazing/cooing adoringly at those wives or husbands anywhere they fucking choose, including elevators, restaurants, puppet shows (well, maybe keep it g-rated if there are small children present), ….or on theatrical stages at fringe festivals. are we getting the picture here?? the most powerful feminist can do WHATEVER SHE WANTS. the minute you believe you’re a “bad feminist” because you said the wrong thing/wore the wrong thing/got married/chose to have children…or otherwise broke some unspecified ”code of feminism”: DON’T BUY IT. THERE ISN’T ONE. you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT. ANYTHING. THAT’S THE POINT.
let’s say that one more time for good measure:
ANYTHING.
don’t let anyone try to turn you into a feminist.
just be one.
Anonymous: so you're a straight dude and you're a feminist? don't you get sick of being told how terrible and awful straight guys are
I mean, I guess? But not really. Here’s a few things about when people say stuff like “cis het guys are fucking disgusting.”
1. When it comes to harmful comments, being told that cis heterosexual guys are shitheads is the bottom of the barrel.
Do you know why it doesn’t really bother me when I hear shitty things about cishet guys? Because on the wide fucking spectrum of gender and sexuality, we have it easiest by a fucking MILE.
We have the most privilege and the least resistance in a LOT of things. We never have to deal with our actions being called into questions and we’re allowed a stupid and ridiculous amount of wiggle rooms with ideas like “boys will be boys.”
We can do things women would get crucified for doing. Sleeping around doesn’t make us “slutty,” it makes us “studs.” Spending a lot of time focusing on our look and style doesn’t make us “shallow,” it makes us “classy,” even though neckbeard fedora MRA dickheads have ruined that word.
So if a woman wants to call cishet guys gross, it’s kinda like calling a white dude a cracker. You can’t be racist or sexist to the people who are in power, because it’s an institutionalized thing.
2. Here’s the thing. Straight guys are kiiiinda the worst.
I’m sorry, but have you SEEN other dudes? Jesus christ, we’re fucking awful.
It’s gotten so bad that literally like 80 percent of the time I’ve begun to talk to a new girl through the internet, dating sites, tumblr or texting, they seriously make a point to say something like “holy fuck I’m so glad you can have an actual conversation.”
When I see screenshots of dudes texting it’s so fucking terrible. This “what would u do if I was there right now lol” bullshit is so disgusting, charmless, lame and fucking pathetic, it reminds me of me when I was like 18 and I fucking hate 18 year old me. He’s a sexist and a dipshit.
And that’s not even the worst of it. This isn’t even touching the sort of hatred and hostility that a LOT of men have when it comes to rejection. I’ve SEEN conversations women have had with men where, once the woman rejects the guy as politely as she can, he immediately turns on her.
As soon as he has to fathom the idea of a woman not wanting him to shove his terrible dick inside her for 20 seconds, he gets fucking furious. He insults her weight, appearance, anything he knows she might be insecure about. It’s horrible and disgusting.
This is just a SMALL part of the shitty things that cishet guys are capable of because we’re taught to think of ourselves as kings who, if the women are lucky enough, will bestow our kingly dick and balls upon them.
This isn’t even TOUCHING the dangerous ideas of the friend zone or how dehumanizing and manipulative it is, but I’ve talked about that before, mostly because I used to be one of those white knight dudes and I feel horrible about it to this day.
3. The most terrible thing to men? IS MEN.
Somehow, MRAs got this idea that feminism is about killing men and taking their place or something. That just goes to show why feminism has to exist, because somehow men’s rights activists took a movement about women and made it about them.
But here’s the thing. The terrible shit that happens to men? We pretty much do all of it to ourselves.
First of all, there’s the idea of toxic masculinity. We raise boys to believe that they have to be tough. “boys don’t cry,” we try and tell them. And because of this, they feel pressured to be tough and to feel nothing, so they’re emotionally stunted and filled with anger.
Second of all, we throw out dangerous ideas that grant them more freedom to be shitty to each other. “boys will be boys,” we say as we write off bad and violent behavior.
Let’s look at that mixture. We’re telling young boys that they aren’t free to express their emotions in the natural way, so they end up bottling up everything. Then, we grant them the freedom to be physically and verbally aggressive to other people.
That’s a dangerous mixture.
Even beyond that, MRAs are so quick to shout “things are bad for men too” at so many things, then when presented with those ideas, they write them off as invalid.
Whenever we talk about the statistics of women who are raped and how it’s a problem and a crime of aggression, men are so quick to say things like “Men get raped too!”
But if you look on Facebook, as soon as someone posts an article about some 35 year old teacher who raped a 17 year old boy, it’ll literally only be the men who say things like “heh, that boy is so lucky” or “wish I had a teacher like that!”
do you know what it means to claim that men are also raped, and then immediately joke about how lucky it is for a man to be raped by a woman?
It means that you don’t give a fuck about other men. It means that you don’t give a fuck about other human beings. It means that literally the only reason that you said it, without caring about the men who are hurt in those crimes, is because you want to take attention away from the VASTLY higher number of women who are raped and make it about you.
That is why women need feminism.
And that is why I don’t mind seeing jokes about straight(ish) dudes like me on tumblr.
What feminism does for men: -Helps fight to end discrimination over men wearing “feminine” clothes such as skirts and dresses -Helps abuse victims who are male -Helps to end the view that males who show sad emotions are ‘wimps’ or ‘girls’
What meninism does for men: -Nothing -nothing at all
Coworker brought in her baby. Baby is adorable and well behaved.
Still don’t want one.
Amount of time until coworkers trying to tell me that I should have one: 15 minutes, followed by “you’ll change your mind someday.”
I’m kicking myself that I’ve ever made comments asking someone if/when they want kids because I fell into the expectation that everyone must want them.
When I got married, I really appreciated that my dad’s speech mentioned joy at our union whether we chose to have kids or not. I was on the fence about babies, and that’s what I told anyone that asked. If I hadn’t had my baby, turning 30 was my cut-off mark where I would have joined the child-free camp.
But I have massive respect for women that are staunchly child-free and I’m sorry they have to put up with that shit.
