Foraging and Feminism

I thought TW were supposed to be safe to be around.

men hate feminine women, they meet the standard and the standard is seen as inferior and degrading, they wear the “uniform of the inferior class” willingly and so men will mock them for it, their existence is seen as proof that women naturally value male validation over anything else 

men hate women. all women, and they want women to hate each other

2002 - shortlisted for the Caine Prize

2003 - joint winner of BBC’s Short Story Awards, winner of the O. Henry Prize

2004 - shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction

2005 - Hodder fellowship at Princeton University, wins Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book

2007 - wins Orange Prize for Fiction and Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

2008 - Master of Arts from Yale University, MacArthur fellowship a.k.a the “Genius Grant”

2011 - fellowship at Harvard University

2016 - honorary degree from Johns Hopkins University

Focus not only on women, but on men and non binary people as well. Feminism is an equality movement, which means we need to uplift EVERYONE. Not just women.

No, it is not feminist’s job to protect pro gender-identity politics.

Why? Because, feminism and gender-identity politics are literally two contradicting theories.

The word “gender” was coined in the 1950′s by sexologist John Money (a pro-genderist, mind you) as a literal replacement word for the term “sex-roles”. Gender means “sex-roles”. Feminists in the 1970′s embraced “gender” as this distinction between biological sexes and the power relations that surround the two most common biological sexes, males and females. John Money also attempted to condition a child (David Reimer) into identifying as a girl when the infant suffered from a botched circumcision. He conditioned said child through sexual abuse with his twin brother, Brian Reimer, and believed that pedophilia love was a thing. David and Brian would later both die from suicide in their adult lives. 

John Money thought of gender as a “social identity”, much like Tumblr genderists. Genderists support his ideology, and in that, his actions. They also walk over other oppressed groups to support (transwomen) male violence against females which you can observe in nearly every anti-gender post that genderists have commented on. They silence females for talking about reproductive issues, pressure lesbians into having sex with them and call them “transphobic” when they don’t, advocate for sex reassignment surgery (benefiting privately run institutions and capitalistic ideals) to conform to sex-roles rather than safer and healthier treatments for dysphoric individuals (like me), ignore black radical and trans radical feminists by claiming they “hate themselves” (they call this “internalized trans-misogyny” for trans-radicals), do not think of how legally identifying into a social role is going to mess up sociological data on male/female violence, steal ideology from feminist and critical race theory such as the concept of “intersectionality” to use it against oppressed people just to validate their identities, and take terms from the inter-sex community, such as “afab”, and misuse them, advocate for anti-recovery techniques for mental illness such as exposure therapy (something ESSENTIAL to recovery for mental illnesses like Body Dysmorphoric Disorder, anxiety, depression, OCD, phobias, etc).

Feminism is for the liberation of women as an oppressed class. It is not about protecting men at all. Feminism can be a very productive movement without protecting men since Feminism is anti-gender and benefits the oppressed sex. By claiming that feminism is about equality and lifting both men and women up, you are implying (maybe on accident) that women and men are already on the same playing field and that no power relations/oppression exists between men and women. Here are some helpful images that explain radical feminism pretty well (I do not take credit for any of them except for the first one):

We live in a patriarchy (and not an equal society or matriarchy) because men hold the most power, authority, and wealth. I am going to focus on US only.

In government (2015 statistics):

Source

Women in Congress currently hold 19.4% of 535 seats.

There are only 3 women in the US Supreme Court.

Women hold only 20% of the 100 seats in the Senate.

Women hold only 19.3% of 435 seats in the House.

Women hold only  25% of 312 statewide executive seats.

Women hold only 25% of 5411 seats in the State House/Assembly.

Only 24.3% of women hold 7383 seats in State Legislature.

Only 17% of 100 seats belong to women mayors in the 100 largest cities.

Only 18.4% of women hold 1393 seats as mayors in cities over 30,000.

In Media (2015 statistics):

Source

Film:

Men were 73 percent of all Hollywood TV writers in 2012. Women were 27 percent.

Women television writers earned about 92 cents for every dollar that white male writers earned in 2012, a penny more than the 91 cents women earned in 2009.

Men writing for film accounted for 85 percent of all screenwriters. Women represented 15 percent. That compared to 17 percent in 2009 and meant that men screenwriters outnumbered women screenwriters by a more than 3 to 1 margin.

Women film writers earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by white male film writers in 2012, down from 82 cents in 2009.

The share of minority television writers rose to 11 percent in 2012 from 10 percent in 2009. But, by a 3 to 1 margin, white TV writers outnumbered minority TV writers.

 Minorities represented 6 percent of film writers for the decade ending in 2009, when that rate fell to 5 percent. In 2012, the figure remained at 5 percent, which meant that minorities were outnumbered by 7 to 1.

While writers aged 41 to 50 got most of the gigs in Hollywood, that reality largely reversed itself once those writers turned 60.

Facebook’s Workforce is:

69 percent male overall, and 77 percent male in the leadership ranks.

 57 percent white, 34 percent Asian, 4 percent Latino, 3 percent bi-racial or multi-racial and 2 percent Black overall. 

Of workers in tech jobs, 85 percent were male and 15 percent were female. 

Of all those tech workers, 53 percent were white, 41 percent were Asian, 3 percent were Latino, 2 percent were bi-racial or multi-racial and 1 percent was black.

Of workers in non-tech sectors, 53 percent were male and 47 percent were female.

Of non-tech sector jobs, 63 percent were held by whites, 24 percent by Asians, 6 percent by Latinos, 4 percent by bi-racial or multi-racial persons, 2 percent by blacks and 1 percent by people of some other race. 

Google’s Workforce:

70 percent of all workers were male and 61 percent of them were white.

Additionally, men accounted for 79 percent of Google executives, 83 percent of tech workers and 52 percent of its non-tech workers as of January 2014, the month for which Google calculated data it released to the public in August 2014. 

LinkdIn:

75 percent of LinkedIn’s leaders were male. 

Of all company leaders, 65 percent were white, 28 percent were Asian, 4 percent were Latino, 3 percent were bi-racial or multi-racial, and 1 percent each was black or some other race.

53 percent of all LinkedIn workers in the United States were white, 38 percent were Asian, 4 percent were Latino, 2 percent were black, 2 percent were bi-racial or multi-racial and 1 percent was of some other race. 

83 percent of LinkedIn workers in tech jobs were male. 

Racially, 60 percent of tech workers were Asian, 34 percent were white, 3 percent were Latino and 1 percent each were black, bi-racial or multi-racial, or some other ethnicity.

Of those in non-tech jobs, 53 percent were male and 47 percent were female. Racially, 63 percent of non-tech job-holders were white, 26 percent were Asian, 5 percent were Latino, 3 percent each were black or bi-racial/multi-racial and 1 percent was some other race. 

Yahoo:

Of Yahoo employees who were at least vice presidents or even higher up the corporate ladder, 77 percent were men, according to Figures Yahoo Chief Development Officer Jacqueline Reses released in June 2014. 

Yahoo has a female CEO, Marissa Mayer. 

Men held 85 percent of Yahoo tech jobs and 47 percent of non-tech jobs.

 Yahoo provided a racial breakdown for its U.S. workforce only: 50 percent of employees were white, 39 percent were Asian, 4 percent were Latino, 2 percent each were black, of mixed race or did not disclose their race. In the C-suite of Yahoo’s U.S. offices, 78 percent of executives were white; 17 percent were Asian; 2 percent each were either Latino, of mixed race or did not disclose their race; and 1 percent was black. 

Apple:

Men comprised 70 percent of computer, mobile giant Apple’s workforce Apple reported that seven out of 10 members of its global workforce are men. The Cupertino, California-based company’s announcement was based on summer 2014 personnel data. 

Apple reported that females accounted for: 28 percent of its leader ranks. 35 percent of its non-tech employees. 

20 percent of its tech employees.  

On-screen development:

By race, 74 percent of female characters were white, 14 percent were black, 6 percent were Asian, 5 percent were Latina and 1 percent were some other ethnicity. 

Women actors had 42 percent of all speaking parts, a drop of 1 percent from 2012-13 but higher than 1997- 98’s 39 percent. 

As women characters aged, they were less likely to be cast. Of all female characters, 32 percent were in their 30s and 17 percent were in their 40s. The respective Figures for male characters were 33 percent and 25 percent.

Males directed 86 percent of all TV episodes. 

White males directed 7 out of 10 episodes. 

All women and minority men, combined, directed 3 out of 10 episodes.

 Men of color directed 17 percent of all episodes, an increase over the previous year. 

White women directed 12 percent of all episodes, the same rate as the previous year. 

Women of color directed 2 percent of all episodes, the same rate as the previous year. 

Overall, by age, 59 percent of female characters were in their 20s and 30s, while 58 percent of male characters were in their 30s and 40s. 

Of all characters, 3 percent of females and 4 percent of males were older than 60. 

 Females accounted for 46 percent of characters in programs with at least one female writer and 39 percent of characters in shows with no female writers. 

Females accounted for 47 percent of the cast in shows with at least one female creator and 39 percent of the cast in shows with no female creators. 

 In that cumulative category, these researchers concluded that in 2013-14 women were: 40 percent of producers, which was up from 38 percent in 2012-13. 26 percent of writers in 2013-14, down from 30 percent in 2012-13.  21 percent of executive producers, down from 24 percent in 2012-13.

19 percent of creators, down from 23 percent in 2012-13. 

16 percent of editors, which was unchanged from 2012-13.

 13 percent of directors, up from 11 percent in 2012-13. 

 1 percent of directors of photography, down from 2 percent in 2012-13. 

Women in video game development:

Overall, 48 percent of gamers were female. 

Women and men each purchased 50 percent of video games. 

Women aged 18 and older were 36 percent of gamers, while boys aged 18 and younger were 17 percent of gamers. 

On average, all adult gamers have been playing for 16 years; women have been playing for 13 years, on average, and men for an average of 18 years 

Online Harassment:

Of young women aged 18-24, 26 percent said they had been stalked online and 25 percent said they were sexually harassed online, and that some of those threats were sustained over an extended period.

In addition, women said “they do not escape the heightened rates of physical threats and sustained harassment common to their male peers and young people in general.” 

Women were more likely than men to find their most recent experience with online harassment extremely or very upsetting; 38 percent of those women and 17 percent of those men described their suffering in those terms. 

Although they hold almost 52 percent of all professional-level jobs, American women lag substantially behind men when it comes to their representation in leadership positions (source):

They are only 14.6 percent of executive officers, 8.1 percent of top earners, and 4.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.

They hold just 16.9 percent of Fortune 500 board seats.

In the financial services industry, they make up 54.2 percent of the labor force, but are only 12.4 percent of executive officers, and 18.3 percent of board directors. None are CEOs.

They account for 78.4 percent of the labor force in health care and social assistance but only 14.6 percent of executive officers and 12.4 percent of board directors. None, again, are CEOs.

In the legal field, they are 45.4 percent of associates—but only 25 percent of nonequity partners and 15 percent of equity partners.

In medicine, they comprise 34.3 percent of all physicians and surgeons but only 15.9 percent of medical school deans.

In information technology, they hold only 9 percent of management positions and account for only 14 percent of senior management positions at Silicon Valley startups.

White men–by overwhelming numbers–hold the majority of power, wealth, and authority in the US.

Now that we have covered how women are oppressed by men in America, let’s look at the demographics of US women vs. other regions worldwide in violence statistics.

Regional data (source):

The report represents data regionally according to WHO regions.

For intimate partner violence, the type of violence against women for which more data were available, the worst affected regions were:

South-East Asia - 37.7% prevalence. Based on aggregated data from Bangladesh, Timor-Leste (East Timor), India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand.

Eastern Mediterranean - 37% prevalence. Based on aggregated data from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine.

Africa – 36.6% prevalence. Based on aggregated data from Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

For combined intimate partner and non-partner sexual violence or both among all women of 15 years or older, prevalence rates were as follows:

Africa – 45.6%

Americas – 36.1%

Eastern Mediterranean – 36.4%* (No data were available for non-partner sexual violence in this region)

Europe – 27.2%

South-East Asia – 40.2%

Western Pacific – 27.9%

High income countries – 32.7%

Violence against women in high-income countries:

In Canada a study of adolescents aged 15 to 19 found that 54 per cent of girls had experienced “sexual coercion” in a dating relationship. v 

In the United States, 83 percent of girls aged 12 to 16 experience some for of sexual harassment in public schools. xviii

The United States is the third country with the highest rape statistics.

Another source on how the US has awful sexual assault rates.

The United States is rated one of the highest countries in the world for violence.

The US is a terrible place for women.

22 countries where the gender wage gap is smaller than the US

U.S. women are more likely to die during childbirth than women in any other developed country, leading the U.S. to be ranked 33rd among 179 countries on the health and well-being of women and children. 

US women paid less in every industry.

The U.S. ranks high on education and economic opportunities for women. But it ranks 60th on political empowerment, compared to Canada’s (ranked 20th overall) 42nd position.

When I went to school, there were several autistic and down-syndrome boys that would constantly sexually harrass and hit on girls and we were not allowed to speak up about it because they “didn’t know any better”.

But it’s like this everywhere. Men with intellectual and developmental disabilities have the privilege of *getting away with absolutely everything*. Every single one of them I’ve ever met ended up being a pervert and sexual harrasser/assaulter.

They DO know better. They just know they can do absolutely whatever they want and get away with it. They have ALL of the male entitlement of regular men +1000. Boys with these disabilities treat little girls not as if they’re human, but as if they are play-toys for their own amusement. I know because I experienced and witnessed it from these people.

Meanwhile, autistic girls are often *targeted* because they tend to be naiive and trusting and shy/quiet, which makes them prime targets for sexual assault, harassment and rape. Women and girls with autism/other disabilities are *blamed* for absolutely everything and we have to constantly be hyper-aware of our behaviour and apologize for absolutely everything, even stuff that isn’t out fault.

 We don’t talk about this enough in depth, as the topic is avoided. in trans circles, the reason given for this is that talking about the vagina is dysphoria inducing. This morning I decided to look at the literature. Here is what I found.

Your genitals change when you’re on testosterone. in fact, clitoral enlargement is one of the very first noticeable changes, starting within the first week. the clitoris grows very fast  past the clitoral hood, which can have a couple outcomes. 1) the clitoris is so sensitive it is distracting or painful for it to be touched. because the clit has grown past the clitoral hood, it can hurt just rubbing against your underwear when you walk. Also, sex can painful. The other outcome of clitoral growth is something I read on r/detrans; it seems that sometimes the clitoral tissue grows too fast for the nerves, which means the clitoris becomes dead in terms of sensation. You might never experience sexual pleasure again, because these changes are permanent. 

Now, vaginal atrophy. here is a study from 2013, which“[investigated] the effects of long-term T treatment on vaginal tissue histology, estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) and beta (ERβ) expression and proliferation in female to male transsexual subjects (FtM).” The control groups were premenopausal women and postmenopausal women. the sample size is a scant 48, but I still think the point comes across.  

here is a graph showing a comparison of vaginal epithelium thicknesses among the three groups. 

As you can see on the left, the FTM vaginal epithelium thickness is much lower than the control groups. This can lead to painful tearing.  

The right graph is testing for Ki67 immunostaining—I googled what this meant. Ki67 is “a protein in cells that increases as they prepare to divide into new cells”. It seems that the more of it you have, the more likely your body is to create aggressive tumors. But the fact that the FTM  bar is so low doesn’t seem like a positive for me. I’m only a lousy liberal arts student, but my hunch is that because there’s so little Ki67, the vaginal cells have trouble renewing themselves, which means the vaginal wall becomes thinner and thinner and thinner. The right graph showing the epithelium-growing protein leads to the left left graph showing epithelium atrophy. If you in STEM, tell me if I got that wrong.

this graph is an evaluation of vaginal glycogen content between a)pre menopausal b) FTM, c)postmenopausal women. here is what this study tells us about glycogen: 

A glycogen-rich vaginal milieu is a haven for the proliferation of Lactobacilli facilitated by the production of lactic acid and decreased pH. Lactobacilli and their antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory products along with components of the epithelial mucosal barrier provide an effective first line defense against invading pathogens including bacterial vaginosis, aerobic vaginitis-associated bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa.

So, glycogen is important to keep your vaginal microbiome healthy. it prevents all sorts of infections. As we can see from the graph, the vaginal glycogen content of the FTM is much lower than the control groups. keep in mind that the FTMs were only required to be on testosterone for a year prior to participating in this study. So the glycogen content is in worse shape than in postmenopausal woman, after potentially only a year.  This leaves FTMS at a higher risk of infection than either of the control groups.Also, since glycogen lowers vaginal PH (acidity), your vagina becomes less acidic without it. the acidity of the vagina kills bacteria, so a more basic vagina is a haven for infection.  

Now, this study from 2016, called Pelvic Pain and Persistant Menses in Transgender Men . Here are some of the causes listed for FTM pelvic pain: atrophic or infectious vaginitis, cervicitis, cystitis, STIs, adhesions, post-surgical sequelae, musculoskeletal disorders, and neurogenic.

atrophic vaginitis: vaginal atrophy due to low estrogen

infectious vaginitis: because your glycogen levels are low, your vaginal PH is high, remember. so FTMS are prone to infections from all fronts.

cervicitis: irritation or infection of the cervix. Again, caused by infection that would be avoided with a healthy PH that is prevented by low glycogen.

cystitis: Urinary tract infection. Low PH leads to high risk of infection. 

STIS: self explanatory. Low PH leads to high risk of infection

Adhesions: “a band of scar tissue that joins two surfaces of the body that are usually separate.” this can happen after surgery, or, you guessed it, infection. 

post-surgical sequelae: “a condition which is the consequence of a previous injury. Basically, after surgery… you’re at high risk of infection, big surprise. 

musculoskeletal disorders: “the interaction between a genotypic female skeleton and increased muscle mass as a result of testosterone therapy may result in changes in postural carriage”. So,  on testosterone your skeletal structure stays the same (wide hips, small ribcage, etc), but it has been documented that your bones grow thicker and your muscles grow bigger. this may seem okay, but your body is not meant to handle that kind of mass.  Not sure how this specifically relates to pelvic pain, but I assume the phenomenon has the potential cause systemic chronic pain. Again, STEM people, fact-check me please.

neurogenic: this seems like a typo… neurogenic what? when I googled this word the first thing that comes up is “neurogenic bladder”—which means incontinence due to “a brain, spinal cord or nerve problem”. It can be caused by a urinary tract infection. Surprise surprise.

Buck Angel, possibly one of the oldest living FTM transexuals, almost died from complications due to longterm testosterone use. Here is an excerpt from his instagram post after surgery: 

No one ever told me about atrophy. EVER. I suffered for years with debilitating cramps. Mostly after sex. The gynecologists, well the ones that would see me and many would not, would say “ oh thats normal pain” what the hell is normal pain? They said that because they had no clue. They just kept giving me testosterone and the pain just kept coming. One day I passed out. Fever. Emergency room. Infection. Sepsis. They said “ wow if you waited five more minutes you might be dead” They had no clue. After years of testosterone on my reproductive system is had atrophied. Beyond belief the doctor said. He had never seen anything like this. My cervix fused to my uterus. An infection formed. This was the cramping. The infection burst. This is the sepsis.

btw this person is a porn star and so had been having painful sex on the regular, which also put her at risk of infections which her body was unable to fight off due, I assume, to low glycogen levels. Because her vaginal epithelium was so thin, it was prone to tearing, and tearing is bad for low-acidity vagina that can’t fight off infections. 

To avoid some of the… drawbacks… of testosterone, trans men are recommended a hysterectomy a few years into their transition. “In one cross-sectional study 20% of respondents had a hysterectomy to decrease post-testosterone cramping and another 22% to stop “extreme bleeding and cramping.” so that’s 42 percent of trans men who had hysterectomies to prevent excruciating pain. Ironically, according to this and this source, hysterectomy puts you in danger of pelvic organ prolapse and pelvic floor dysfunction, bowel dysfunction, incontinence, fistulas, and sexual dysfunction. did I mention a hysterectomy puts you at a higher risk of dementia?? 

In conclusion, the damage that testosterone does to your reproductive organs in only a few years is overwhelming and often irreversible. It can kill you. it will put you in chronic pain for the rest of your life. The only feeling you will have during sex is pain. After a while, you may have trouble walking and pissing. if you have the surgery to correct the pain from your uterus, you will be at exponentially higher risk of infection, but you will continue to be in pain for the rest of your life due to your pelvic floor collapsing. And you won’t be able to control when you shit.

It is not a matter of if, but when. Nobody is exempt from these effects. You might deteriorate quickly, or slowly. But you will deteriorate.  The way you will deteriorate will be agonizing and undignified. 

Do you still think it’s worth it?

Edit: Glycogen raises the PH of the vagina, so a lack of glycogen means the FTM vagina will become less acidic, not moreso as I stated in the original post. this makes sense because the usual PH of the vagina is from 3.8-4.5, which is very acidic already and this acidity fights off infection. 

ever wonder why the gay agenda was sidelined so quickly in favour of the trans agenda? because we're whole by ourselves, we don't need to be medicalised for life nor do we need to spend thousands of dollars in expensive plastic surgeries and beauty products. trans people are profitable, way more profitable than the lgb can ever be. that's why suddenly there are depressive teenagers getting ads about how hormones will make their life better, heal all their wounds. because it's better to SELL you something than simply tell you that you're fine just as you are.

Yes, I'm sure the multimillionare male founder of a virtual prostitution platform is listening to the ethical concerns of TERFs 🙄

IF YOU ARE A PERSON OF COLOR AND/OR LGBTQ DRIVING THROUGHT GEORGIA, DO NOT STOP IN CUMMING, GA. DO NOT STOP IN FORSYTH COUNTY, GA PERIOD.