gorl, i guess...

My friend started her period unexpectedly while we were at our local temple (in America) for dance class. Asking around if any of the parents had pads (all of them apologized and acted like adults about it), I thought surely the front office has a first aid kit. Don’t they have pads? When we asked, not only did they not have any, when one of the women gave one from her purse, the head secretary told us “There are men who need to use the first-aid kit, ya? So we don’t keep period things there.” Not even ibuprofen (which has so many more uses than period pain).

There are girls in India and Nepal (and other places, but I just read an in-depth piece about the situations in Nepal) who have to go to the “period hut” when their period comes and not leave until its over. They can’t wash and dry their cloth pads in the daylight, so they do it at night when the pads won’t dry properly before their next use, making them vulnerable to infection.

It is incredibly important, especially in India, to break the taboo surrounding periods. Break the secrecy around an event that happens to almost every woman, every month for literally half of her lifetime. Break the hiding, break the cover-up, break the SHAME.

holy shit i’m losing my mind

The second is the idea that women’s bodies must be offered sexually as a part of advocacy. It’s the idea that lesbians must prove our goodness to Transwomen by revoking any sexual autonomy. Its the idea that it is bigotry to be homosexual. It’s also the idea that rape by deception is acceptable.

The third is the idea that only transwomen are allowed sexual autonomy and others, especially lesbians are not allowed to live their own sexuality. It’s the gas lighting idea that transwomen no longer have male bodies.

The fourth is again the idea that being a lesbian is wrong, awful, bigoted, oppressive. It’s also the repeated idea that lesbians are simply tools to sexually validate the ego of males.

Consent can’t be bought

The majority of prostituted women want to exit

Poor women and girls of color are disproportionately funneled into the sex industry

The industry relies on there being a vulnerable and uncared for class of women and girls to sexually exploit

Racism, classism, imperialism, slavery, and colonialism are all embedded in or connected to prostitution

Prostitution is a cause and result of inequality between the sexes

The sex industry is proven to rely heavily on trafficking and exploitation

It promotes violence against women

It is violence against women

Prostitution is inherently violent

The sex industry encourages, promotes, and caters to male sexual entitlement

Under full decriminalization and legalization, prostituted women are still murdered, raped, assaulted, and stolen from by pimps and johns

Women who have escaped from prostitution have high rates of PTSD and other disorders

The industry promotes fetishization, stereotypes, and sexualized racism and racialized sexism against women of color

“Consensual sex work” and human trafficking are inescapably linked (Oof)

The liberation of women and an industry dedicated to the objectification of women cannot coexist

It reduces women to sexual objects and masturbatory aids

The sex industry preys on the most marginalized women and girls

Porn culture harms women and girls (yes, even “feminist” porn)

The normalization of sex as “work” degrades the status of women as a class

These are a few reasons for the abolitionist stance I came up with at the top of my head. The only reason to be pro-porn and pro-prostitution is if one believes that the orgasms of johns, profits of pimps, and pleasure of a few “happy hookers” is worth more than the safety, freedom, and humanity of every other woman and girl.

TL;DR

Charlotte Brontë eschewed marriage longer than most (writing to Ellen Nussey that she wished they could just set up a little cottage and live together) but she finally married at 38, became pregnant, and died before her 39th birthday. If she had married younger would Jane Eyre exist? I was reading that biography of Charity & Sylvia last month and comparing their life together in their little cottage to the life of their married female relatives, which was honestly hell on earth. One of Charity’s sisters had 18 children. Charity’s mother had 10 living ones, and probably some additional stillbirths. She gave birth to her first child age 19, in 1758, then to a pair of twins in 1760, then another child in 1761, another in 1763, another in 1765, another in 1767, another in 1769, another in 1771, another in 1774, another in 1777. Charity was the last child and her mother had been sick with tuberculosis for months when she became pregnant with her, and she died soon after giving birth.

I wish people would call this murder—this woman was murdered by her husband, like countless other women who do not ‘count’ as victims of male violence because straight sex is natural, pregnancy is natural, childbirth is natural. But when after 20 years of nonstop pregnancies this woman had tuberculosis and suffered from severe respiratory distress, severe weight loss, fever and exhaustion, and her husband impregnated her again, her death was expected. He must have known; he just didn’t care. This woman’s sister—Charity’s aunt—remained a spinster and outlived all of her married sisters by several decades, living well into her eighties. (Ironically, male doctors in her century asserted that sex with men was necessary for women’s health. The biographer quoted from a popular home health guide which said that old maids incurred grievous physical harm from a lack of sex with men.) And this aunt had the time and liberty to develop her skill for embroidery to such an extent that two museums still preserve her embroidered bed drapes. She accomplished something, she nurtured her talent and self. Her name was also Charity, and I find it interesting that Charity’s mother named her last daughter, whose pregnancy & birth killed her, after her childless, unmarried sister.

Am I cisgender?

Coming out as ‘non-binary’ throws other women under the bus

I wasn’t like other girls. I liked pokemon, I liked Dragonball Z