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6th grade love notes

I’ve always been pretty out of touch with my body. My breasts started to grow when I was nine, and I was cat called by old men and groped by my peers a lot from then onward. Every time I get my period, I cried because I felt so ashamed of myself and because it’s so painful that I usually end up vomiting. And being gay only made it worse, because I felt so much shame and stigma around women’s bodies, I felt like I was going to hurt every woman I touched the way that I hurt.

Learning about radical feminism has helped me so much.

It’s when I see that every feeling I have laid on my body comes down to a misogynistic society, every single last one of those self-hating thoughts, that I can come to terms with myself.

I can declare my body fundamentally innocent. It has never tried to do me wrong. It exists for itself. It works so hard to keep me alive. It’s what I was taught that has to change.

As soon as I said that one sentence, “I declare my body fundamentally innocent”, I felt such a weight off my back.

which is why they think when we say “women have vaginas” we’re saying “women are vaginas.” they can’t fathom sex as an objective, nonpersonal aspect. women have vaginas. they’re not vaginas. they have them. but when you percieve “gender” as your whole being, putting perameters on it is “limiting” and “reductive.”

it’s like saying they went from being male to being something else, and it’s very dehumanizing.

hello all!

my name is Olive. I’m a teenage radfem of color. I am in the early stages of creating an online magazine for teenage/young adult radical or rad-leaning feminists, and am looking for contributors!

as you can see, my tumblr blog is really new BUT I have been a part of the tumblr radical feminist community for a little over a year now (had to delete a couple months ago for privacy reasons, remade YESTERDAY!). I’ve been daydreaming about an online magazine for young radfems for a while now, but all of the rhetoric surrounding the Women’s March yesterday (both good and bad) has finally prompted me to take action into my own hands. i’m creating this website in the hopes of giving life to something that can centralize the growing(!) community of young female radical feminists, provide us with a stronger sense of sisterhood, and give us all a loud, unified voice. That being said, it’s an important point that this will not be on tumblr. I feel like tumblr can be really disjointed, and having one place to be oriented in will help achieve the goals I stated above.

I love the attitude of this community, and I want this site to have that same smart, witty, feisty, and loving vibe that we have on our individual blogs, with content focusing on radical politics, activism, and our specific experiences as teenage/young adult women. think, if Feminist Current and Rookiemag had a baby.

I am gauging interest within our community for CONTRIBUTORS to the magazine. (btw, I am reaching out to ALL the rad/leaning feminists. Though this site is AIMED at teenage/young adult women, I want be clear that I AM looking for contributors OF ALL AGES, and of course ethnicities, sexual orientations, and all that. basically, if you’re a woman, if you’re a rad/leaning feminist, I want you!) the magazine’s content will be varied: journalistic writing (editorials and such), photography, art, music, poetry, comics, humor, etc. will be published, as long as it is relevant to radical feminism, or our specific experiences as teenage/young adult women.

if you are interested in becoming a regular contributor (YOU CAN REMAIN ANONYMOUS !!!! Or not, your choice its whatevs), or contributing ANYTHING AT ALL, or have any help/advice that you can offer in terms of building this website, or just wanna have a chat, orshowmepicsofyourcats, ETC. PLEASE reach out to me via [email protected]. if nothing else, I want to just get out the word that this is a thing, it’s coming soon, watch out for it, and PLEASE spread the word!  

I think these coming years are gonna be super weird times, what with Trump being our president and the mainstream feminist movement becoming so unfamiliar, illogical, and alienating. I am aware of a few other radfem zines out there, but we’re gonna need as many venues and platforms for us to gather and communicate as we possibly can get. i think if everyone’s just wants to no-platform us, we’re gonna have to make our own damn platforms and put out as much content as we can.

which is why they think when we say “women have vaginas” we’re saying “women are vaginas.” they can’t fathom sex as an objective, nonpersonal aspect. women have vaginas. they’re not vaginas. they have them. but when you percieve “gender” as your whole being, putting perameters on it is “limiting” and “reductive.”

A lot of disagreement between gender critical feminists and transactivists is about the meaning of words. What is a woman? Is a woman anyone who identifies as a woman, or a person with female anatomy and socialized into the inferior role under patriarchy? What is a lesbian? What “counts” as queer?

Language is used for communication and undoubtedly the meanings of these words are understood to be different to different groups. “Male” will be understood to include transwomen and all amab people in a post in radical feminist circles, but will not include them and will probably include transmen in liberal feminist and queer theory circles.

“Woman” in particular has a long history of meaning behind it, and that history should be respected; it is vital to understanding female oppression in the past. But, it could be argued, meanings of words can change over time, as they expand to stay useful.

And that’s just it. What definition of “woman” is most useful, most necessary, especially in feminist discussions? One in which no commonality is named except identity, which is changeable and self-defined? Or one which specifically names commonalities in biology and socialization from which to form useful activist work and analysis? There is a purpose to the category of woman, and a way to discuss female anatomy and socialization as it relates to female oppression is absolutely vital. It’s vital to addressing the way that society, which does not much care about internal identity, treats female people; our struggles to access reproductive healthcare and abortion, the sexual and domestic violence we overwhelmingly face compared to men, the way we are neglected and even killed as babies and fetuses, and many more issues that can clearly be tied to our bodies. This definition of woman does not reduce us to our bodies, it names them as instrumental in understanding our oppression, and it is the only definition that is useful to the goal of liberation of women. Thinking of woman as an identity will never be capable of this, when it shallowly obscures female oppression as a disrespect of “femininity,” constantly changing.