Radical Female

So I posted these two images that I made in a post together just shy of a year ago, and the post got 10,000+ notes. Today I saw a meme with a text convo of someone sending one of them to a military recruiter (which is extremely funny) and I thought “oh I should find that post again”

but when I went to find it, it had completely vanished. not just the original post, but even reblogs of it. I couldn’t even find screenshots anyone had taken of the original post. it wasn’t brought to my attention as a reported post, tumblr never even contacted me about deleting it, it just… disappeared

So I did what any child who grew up in a relatively well-adjusted home would do when faced with disturbing new information: I turned to a parent for guidance. I asked my father, the only male in my life other than my younger brother (I’ve always had mostly female friends), “do men really wish it were still like that?” Because I was so young, and I was so used to seeing myself as fully human, it was strange for me to imagine that anyone would think these things about people like me.

And my own father, a respectable man in his early 40s at the time, who never beat me, never beat my mother, who, as far as I know, has never cheated on her either, hesitated. His daughter, the flesh of his flesh, looked at him in the eye and asked him, “do people like you really see people like me like things, and not like peers?”, and he hesitated. He then said “well, I think everyone wishes they could have someone else at their service all the time like that…”

we, as radfems, need to actually be there to help detransitioned women. we can't just use them in arguments and toss them aside, as some of you lie to do. we need to show that we support them, because they deserve love.

Crazy thought I know, but gay people don’t actually find homosexuality to be restrictive, as if we’re always so tempted to dip our toes into bisexuality or something but don’t feel allowed to. Gay people actually find embracing our sexualities to be extremely liberating and freeing and not restrictive in the least.

Watch: Chika Okoro’s must-see TED Talk exposes the damaging effects of colorism.

And yeah, people are allowed to talk about their sexual interests and if people attack them for it (outside of actually wanting to fuck real children or animals or to actually rape people or whatever) then that does in fact make them a victim. It’s not hard to just ignore shit you don’t like and go on with your day. No one is forcing you to read what they say or watch porn videos of fetishes you don’t like. If you don’t like BDSM then don’t click on BDSM videos. It’s that simple. You’re certainly not a victim if you click on shit you know you don’t like.

“Someone else is obviously doing it to them or making them do it”? Probably not, right? You would acknowledge that they’re doing it to themselves and believe them when they say they found it a very pleasurable experience.

Would you feel okay with it, though? Would you not think something strange is going on, if you’re sitting in front of a person who’s telling you they just LOVE cutting their flesh open to experience the pain that comes with it?

I don’t understand how adding the sexual factor is able to change our opinions on self-harm.

A few weeks ago my mom stapled pages of a story in one of her women’s magazines together and handed it to me. She gave it to me pretty much with the tag lines “for your feminist blog” and “something new to consider.” Indeed it was; she knows me well.

The story is titled “I was forced to be pregnant.” With a title like that, reading it was actually not on the top of my to read list. I thought it was about women not exercising their right to choice. I was very, very wrong on that one.

Have you ever heard of Reproductive coercion? It is a term that was quite recently coined by the advocates against domestic violence to describe a certain type of abuse some women face. It occurs when a man pressures their partner to have kids and/or impregnates them against their will. Reproductive coercion comes in three different types: 1. Emotional pressure that turns into verbal and physical abuse. 2. Sabotaging birth control 3. Marital rape Over 75% of women 19-49 who reported once experiencing domestic violence also endured some type of reproductive control by men. It’s all about control and domination over a woman’s body.

The first story in the magazine is about a woman who got married around 36 years of age. After a few months of dating her boyfriend talked excitedly about having children. After he proposed he began calling her “The Babymaker.” She then confided with him that one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. He in return insisted she see a fertility doctor. She recounts, “I had finally met a great guy who was eager to start a family with me. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?” Soon after her honeymoon he persisted on in an obsessive manner, but his efforts had to be temporarily halted as she had to get emergency back surgery. Alas, 6 months into recovery he was back to pressuring her again. She was in much pain at the time due to her back, but she agreed to In Vitro Fertilization. She then became pregnant, but soon miscarried. In response, her husband grabbed her by the neck, choking her. He apologized, blaming his outburst on his grief and had her sign up for another round of IVF. And then a third round. She tried to put him off with the excuse that she needed to weigh more before she could take treatments, her husband forced her to get on the scale often and filled the fridge with fattening foods. “It hurt that all I was good for was getting pregnant.” She recounts. At the end, he screamed at her, threatening to replace her with a maid if she couldn’t get pregnant and she told him she no longer wanted to have his child. He destroyed bedroom furniture, pushed her down the stairs and threatened her with a gun. She fled to a domestic violence shelter.

The second story was about a woman who faced marital rape. This woman was 40, had a then boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage. After telling her boyfriend she did not want any more children, her boyfriend refused to wear a condom and began to rape her.  She then became pregnant with her third child. Birth control was never an option for her because she couldn’t hide pills anywhere for he went through all of her belongings. Three months after giving birth, he raped her again, impregnating her with twins. She lost the twins in a physical fight with him, but soon became pregnant again. During her recovery she begged her obstetrician to remove her ovaries and devise a lie to tell him; that she had cancer. After a decade of sexual abuse and violence she was able to get a job that kept her out of the house and often times traveling.

One in four callers to the National Domestic Abuse hotline said that their partners had tried to force them to become pregnant. Why? As one woman stated, “Its like he wants to own me from the inside out.”  Having a baby is the perfect tie that binds. These type of abusers want to create a circumstance in which their partner is dependent on him.

WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD?

I went to the Student Health Center—they were completely unhelpful, choosing to lecture me about the importance of safe sex (recommending condoms) instead of actually listening to my problem.

Then I went to Planned Parenthood. The Nurse Practitioner took one look at my fading bruises and stopped the exam. She called in the doctor. The doctor came in and simply asked me: “Are you ready to leave him?” When I denied that I was being abused, she didn’t argue with me. She just asked me what I needed. I said I need a birth control method that my boyfriend couldn’t detect. She recommended a few options and we decided on Depo. 

When I told her that my boyfriend read my emails and listened to my phone messages and was known to follow me, she suggested to do the Depo injections at off hours when the clinic was normally closed. She made a note in my chart and instructed the front desk never to leave messages for me—instead, she programmed her personal cell phone number into my phone under the name “Nora”. She told me she would call me to schedule my appointments; she wouldn’t leave a message, but I should call her back when I was able to.

And that was it. No judgment. No lecture. She walked me to the door and told me to call her day or night if I needed anything. That she lived 5 blocks from campus and would come get me. That I wasn’t alone. That she just wanted me to be safe.

I never called her to come to my rescue. But I have no doubt that she would have come if I had called. She kept me on Depo for a year, giving me those monthly injections in secret, helping me prevent a desperately unwanted pregnancy. 

automobile

changing coolant

changing oil

changing tire

jumping a car

plumbing

toilet running

basement flooding

replace a faucet

clogged drain

electrical

replacing light switches

blew a fuse

installing overhead light

earth vs. neutral vs. live wires

home

patching drywall

finding studs

like i recently had to change my car battery and freaked out cause i thought id electrocute myself but turns out new batteries come with directions and its the easiest shit in the world so long as you can lift the damn thing.