BlwackQwuen

Ya’ll don’t have any idea how fucking brave and needed these plot lines were.

This was before Ellen came out.

This was before civil unions.

This was before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

This was when your ass could be fired, blacklisted, and shunned with no legal protections for even being hinted at being gay.

If you're interested in a girl and she's being flaky about her affections for you (entertaining affection from other girls or even boys) then you deserve so much better.

You WILL find someone else. You don't deserve to be only an option for somebody. You deserve to come first. You deserve someone who's just as interested in you as you are her and who's loyal.

It boggles the mind that with this kind of information out in the open, known, with obvious conclusions screaming in our faces, feminists today still ridicule and devalue the concept of separatism. It can take so many forms too—supporting female-owned businesses so that more women can earn a living without having a male employer; female-owned housing options because so many women are preyed upon by their male landlord; female-only vacation venues so that more women can have a male-free holiday every once in a while; supporting female creators so that women have more choices if they decide to only read female authors or listen to female musicians, and then of course the more ‘drastic’ fight for larger female-only institutions in society. But while some of these struggles (usually the low-stakes, non-threatening ones) are sometimes given perfunctory support in the name of Girl Power, the larger topic of separatism is hardly ever given coherent thought, support or space to grow; the fact that the best thing feminism can do for women is giving more women in all strata of society the possibility to exclude men from various aspects of their life, is still pretty much taboo and rarely given serious consideration outside of small feminist niches (often disparaged as extremist or utopian). Instead, feminists devote most of their energy and resources to activism that still involves men at some level, or on supporting women who choose men and will ultimately siphon all that support and energy and time and money back to men. 

I didn’t expect to get 30K notes on my childbirth post and won’t have time to answer all the asks and comments I got about it, but someone asked what inspired me to write it—it was reading about the lives of the women I mentioned in that post. I read a lot about women’s lives, be it biographies or diaries or letters, so patterns become obvious, and all other factors balanced, if you value physical safety, intellectual growth and self-realisation, you have to come to the conclusion that not having a man in your home was and is a blessing. And really you could extend this to having any man in your life at all—father, brother, son, male employer… Among the memoirs I read this year there was one by a woman who was exploited and raped by her boss, and then Lydia Cacho’s writings about her fight to help little girls victims of sex trafficking and to keep her shelter for battered women open. I don’t exactly seek out this kind of stories—after the Cacho book I picked up the memoirs of a Hollywood actress, expecting it to be a fun mindless read, and there ended up being a long section about how she was molested by her older brother as a kid and ended up as an anti-CSA activist as an adult. I discovered that most American male politicians who outwardly portrayed themselves as good family men fought tooth and nail behind the scenes to try and prevent anti-child rape laws from being adopted.

When you read (or hear) enough women’s life stories you really have to wonder what feminism is good for if it doesn’t focus on helping women to keep men out of as many aspects of their life as they want, and fighting for female-only spaces and institutions (like Cacho’s shelter, but not only—the litmus test for useful feminist activism should be “Will this contribute to denying men access to women in some way, thus empowering the women who would like to keep men out of some aspect of their life?” The women who don’t want to keep men out will always be able to make that choice because our entire society is structured around supporting it. Feminism should support the other choice, make it possible and safe for more women. Criminalising pimps & johns while helping women exit prostitution contributes to that second choice. So do anti-child rape laws. And women’s bars or cafés. And women’s studies programmes (“gender studies” don’t). And anti-porn activism. And fighting for women’s right to father-free parenthood (eg right to use anonymous sperm donors, rather than wanting fathers to be more involved with their children. And generally fighting for the opposite of fathers’ rights, which are coincidentally a major concern of the MRA movement.) And fighting for legal family / social units where women can share property and healthcare and pass on inheritance. Etc, etc.)

The women who scoff at this or rush in with “not all men” are typically very self-centered (”I sure don’t want to separate from men, so why should I think of the women who do?”), and refuse to look any further than their own Good Dad or nice boyfriend (and it’s worth mentioning that Lydia Cacho said all the men she talked to in brothels, including the brothels offering child prostitutes, were ‘normal’ married men, probably described by their wives as good husbands and fathers.) Your average mainstream feminist will tell you that “feminism is about choice” but feminism should not concern itself with helping women choose men, as patriarchy already has this covered. Meanwhile, women’s choice to distance themselves from men is not currently supported by feminism at all, when it should be the beating heart of feminism. More often than not, it is derided and disparaged. Marilyn Frye explained why in her essay about people’s attitudes towards women who want to separate from men even in minor ways: 

[…] When those who control access have made you totally accessible, your first act of taking control must be denying access. Access is one of the faces of Power. Female denial of male access to females substantially cuts off a flow of benefits, but it has also the form and full portent of assumption of power. [And] if there is one thing women are queasy about it is actually taking power. As long as one stops just short of that, the patriarchs will for the most part take an indulgent attitude. We are afraid of what will happen to us when we really frighten them. This is not an irrational fear. It is our experience generally that the defensiveness, nastiness, violence, hostility and irrationality of the reaction to feminism tend to correlate with the blatancy of the element of separation in the strategy or project. […]

By comparing Charity and Sylvia’s life to the lives of their contemporary women who had 18 children, what I meant was “being able to choose to live free from men is a blessing”, but a lot of women have interpreted that post to mean “birth control is a blessing”. But the makeshift, imperfect shield that protects you from someone who might hurt you and doesn’t care if he does is a very minor blessing compared to the power to live your life free from this person and the associated worries. Has birth control empowered women to deny men sexual access if they choose to? (Some women have argued it has done the opposite.) Feminism has become a very hollow word but nowadays I measure the sincerity of a woman’s commitment to feminism by the support, help and sympathy she extends to the women who want to keep men out of their lives / sex lives / children’s lives / bars / feminist groups / etc.

Before anyone interprets this as “lesbian extremists want me to become a lesbian, leave my man and live in the woods with them” because many het/bi women feel threatened by separatism and lash out defensively when the topic is brought up—this is about being able to choose to keep men out of some aspects of your life, or your entire life. How this choice should be facilitated and how the women who make it deserve to be supported and respected much more than they currently are by feminism (I won’t even touch the obvious lesbophobia behind the rampant ridicule and contempt towards separatism). How feminism becomes just another patriarchal institution if it values & supports choices that include men more than choices that exclude men.

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes ‘What the hell is water?’”

asking men to shift the window in favor of us is impossible (or at least virtually impossible) for them to even consider (or want to consider). women need to be in charge of stretching this boundary, showing it’s possible, if we want any form of true empowerment, empowerment that doesn’t need to be filtered thru whether or not men have access to our reproductive abilities.

makeup is fundamentally about preying on women's insecurities and convincing us that our natural faces are not good enough. why don't the vast majority of men want to participate in this fun artistic practice? why are their bare faces considered acceptable at formal events, job interviews, workplaces, auditions, etc.? there is something inherently demeaning about the fact that an entire sex is expected to paint their faces to be deemed societally acceptable. men have convinced us that our natural faces are too ugly and offensive to be seen without a coat of paint on. it is insulting, demeaning, and the furthest possible thing from empowering.

and the other thing is that wearing makeup does not exist in a vacuum. when you buy another $50 foundation, you are lining the pockets of men who have built careers of off women's insecurities. when you fret about "putting on your face" before leaving the house, your daughters, nieces, cousins, friends, etc. all see that and internalize those messages as well. they are learning that their faces are also too offensive to be seen in public, and they will in turn teach that message to the women in their lives.

the rise of social media is the biggest evidence of this: for the first time, girls as young as 10 and 11 are buying and wearing makeup to school. and not only are they wearing makeup, they are GOOD at makeup. they have barely hit puberty but they've internalized everything they see online that tells them their bare faces are not good enough.

“A 19-year-old Sudanese woman has been condemned to death by a court in Omdurman for stabbing to death the husband to whom she was forcibly married, who she says raped her with assistance of his family.

The death penalty for Noura Hussein was confirmed by a judge on Thursday after her husband’s family rejected the possibility of financial compensation and instead asked for her to be executed.

The case has attracted widespread attention on social media, where a campaign Justice for Noura has been trending on Twitter.

Her legal team now has 15 days to appeal the sentence.”

Bi radfems: *one half*: ….so we can’t act like lesbians and bi women experience the same level of discrimination and heterosexism? Why are you yelling at me when men are the cause and beneficiaries of everything?1! You’re dividing us, we can’t win. Done.

*other half*: those mean lesbians will never understand how they have privilege over us - like genderists say they do - because they aren’t attracted to men, they don"t have to deal with anons calling them bisluts despite all of the posts specifically putting down lesbians and lesbian sexuality written by bi women too but whatever you still aren’t allowed to say they are hetero privileged and obsessed with men because that’s misogyny and their feelings matter more than them telling lesbians to fuck dick, they don’t understand that some of us are dick repulsed so that makes us practically lesbians and on the same level as lesbians am I right, bi girls unite against the lesbians we are the true feminists and the true woman lovers radical111!!!*

as if calling women, who attack and demonize lesbians for not loving men and not protecting their precious fragile male feelings, nuthuggers (there is no gap between the words) is bad in any way. only if you think heterosexism and homophobia must be supported you will have a problem with calling lesbophobic women that. should i refrain from calling bi and hetero women who advocate for the rape of lesbians in the name of universal love for penis “dick-worshipers” as well? it’s telling that you think it’s misogyny when a lesbian attacks the source of privilege of the groups of women that oppress her. being a male-attracted woman in a lesbophobic world gives you immense privilege.  

there is actual oppression going on btw. like when bi and hetero women call lesbians perverted because of our homosexuality and advocate for our “corrective” rape that will cure us from our manhating bigotry and support the conversion of lesbian teens through “exploration of sexual fluidity” so a man’s dick can have a chance and loudly try to normalize the transing of lesbian children to create some illusion of heterosexuality and uphold heteronormativity. these are not isolated incidents. they describe the lesbophobic web that bi and hetero women as a group with structural power over lesbians have been participating in weaving because it benefits them.

These seem like very grandiloquent words to discuss tedious tumblr discourse but of course small issues can reveal people’s deeper convictions and worldview. To give examples, I’m thinking of this post and this one, among others. The former is a mlw crying about lesbians using words like “bihet” or “handmaiden” and she literally just accuses lesbians of heterophobia over and over again—”Punishing any woman for her sexuality is gross”, “women do not get to choose their sexual orientation”, “let’s cease putting down women because of who they sleep with”, “Isn’t the point of radfeminsim to lift each other up? So why are bisexual and straight women the exception?” Even ignoring her conviction that radical feminism should be about lesbians lifting up their oppressor group—it’s really mind-boggling to me how bihet women are dead-convinced that lesbians are not only being “lifted up” by radfems but are the only group within radical feminism being supported, while bi and het women are not. Heterophobia is rampant within feminism, you guys. She also accuses lesbians of biphobia which, again, means accusing us of heterophobia, since it amounts to believing homosexuals can oppress het-attracted people. Trans activists would be proud of all these bold reversals of reality. (It’s funny to me that mlw radfems will claim that words ‘critical’ of their heterosexuality—like bihet—are misogyny, but will also appropriate instances of obvious lesbophobia and claim it is really misogyny and hurts all women. When they can use lesbophobia to make themselves seem attacked they do; when they have to use heterophobia to make themselves seem attacked they do; what they want isn’t logical consistency but to make sure feminist discussions remain centred on bihet women at all times in a way that absolves them of everything and doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable.)

The second post is just vagueblogging about my post critical of fatherhood that completely misses the point. It starts with “The argument that fathers are useless or that men are not capable of raising children is a deeply anti-feminist statement” Again this is a baffling reversal, and very revealing of who she thinks feminism is for. She explains it with “saying that only women or, worse, only mothers, are needed / qualified to do the overwhelmingly lonely and repetitive work of raising small children just reinforces unfair gendered expectations.” What I was saying is that only the people who do not belong to the group that has >96% of all child rapists (that’s men, just in case) should be considered “qualified” to be around children. All the feminist criticism of my post has been about mothers’ rights and mothers’ freedoms while I wrote it with children in mind, after hearing about a baby raped to death by a male relative. I may be simple-minded but it’s really baffling when what you say is “Women caregivers do not rape children to death” and what people reply is “It’s problematic and bad feminist praxis to expect men not to care for children”. I don’t care honestly, I just want little girls not to be raped to death. Some feminists* seem to completely forget that girl children are also part of the group “female people” that feminism claims to fight for. (* Not to be even more controversial but I have found that these feminists are more likely to be het-attracted women, while lesbians in general seem to care and worry more about girl children as a group. If I had to find an explanation I would say it’s out of instinctive sympathy to a fellow group of female people who should not have to deal with male sexuality under any circumstances and yet are surrounded by it every day and keep being harmed by it. Lesbians are able to empathise more viscerally with how fucked up that is. One thing tumblr taught me is that wanting to engage with male sexuality dramatically hinders your empathy towards the women who don’t.) These women’s mindset also strikes me as, why focus on girls rather than grown women, I survived girlhood after all and am never going to be a little girl again so what’s in it for me? And it’s easier to focus on women and argue that they need a co-parent (a male one, for unexplained reasons) so they can have a life or go back to work, than to focus on children and somehow find a feminist way to make the argument that a male presence in the home is safe and beneficial to little girls. I’m talking about girl children being hurt by men (physically or psychologically) and they ignore it to remain dead focused on mother’s freedoms and rights (to have a male around), which means dead focused on bihet women.

—basically, everything radical feminism produces is for and about bihet women and their right to live the life they want, i.e. a life that includes males and safeguards heterosexual privileges. E-h really summed it up when she said feminism (rad or not) is just het couple therapy. The one thing that would actually have the biggest impact—pushing men out of as many aspects of their life as they can—is the one thing they will never consider doing. Their feminism is nothing but a gimmick built around this core of loyalty to men to make themselves feel better. I suspect that one thing they love about radical feminism is the male socialisation theory, which absolves men of being categorically flawed. The main difference between them and libfems is that libfems say that men are not awful, only a small minority of them are, so there’s no need to ponder uncomfortable thoughts like whether we are right to continue loving and fucking them, while radfems say most men are awful but it’s not their fault, they were only taught wrong and can be taught better, so there’s no need to ponder uncomfortable thoughts like whether we are right to continue loving and fucking them.