For Great Justice!

note is in response to this 

This sort of thinking also trains straight and bi women to expect to get treated like shit by their partners instead of believing that men are compassionate, kind, generous people who should be expected to treat their partners well.

And, not to get all “what about cis people” on this but there are young teen boys on this blogging platform who are learning that they are “trash” simply for looking at or being attracted to women and there are adult men on this platform who are  trying to turn themselves inside out to try to “make up” for their maleness and framing men as terrible, unsafe, selfish, bad people is the exact kind of gender essentialist bullshit that says all women are compassionate and good communicators and naturally maternal caregivers.

It’s crap! It’s garbage!

You can write off all cops as bad because they all looked at an abusive, corrupt system and went “I want to be a part of that.”

If you write off “men,” the type category, fifty fucking percentish of the goddamned species, as trash you’re looking at a little boy or a black father or an autistic teen or a gay pensioner or even just a totally run of the mill cis straight white dude and saying “you were born wrong.”

And you know what, for fucking YEARS I’ve been saying “feminism benefits men too” and “feminism helps everyone” and there has been this loud minority of utter fucking assholes saying that men are trash and there’s no such thing as misandry and I’ve been trying to say “yeah, okay, those people are assholes but they’re not really a huge part of the movement” and but now it seems like their shitty ideas about purity culture have crossed over to the mainstream and their shitty sex negativity has crossed over to the mainstream, and radical feminism in general and TERFs in particular are brimming with misandry that is an exact fucking mirror to the misogyny of blackpilled incels and we are very calmly letting it infect our discourse and discredit our philosophy.

ALSO all of this bullshit broadcasts and spreads the idea that women must always be protected from men (which is exactly how JK Rowling justifies her transmisogyny) which does NOTHING to accomplish the equality that feminism is nominally about.

“Men are trash” and “kill all men lol” is a memeified, gender-swapped version of Mike Fucking Pence refusing to meet with women unsupervised because they might contaminate or tempt him. 

When young boys see those posts everywhere and start to get (rightfully) upset, the most "understanding" groups seem to be ones that are proud of being men. They're told that they're special or superior in some way and after such a blow to their confidence, they want to believe it. They're told to read books written by women exposing how "manipulative" women are. It becomes an obsession and that pride becomes rampant misogyny.

And if I find a post like this, like "men suck" or whatever, you bet your ass I'm worried, that I'm scared. That I'm cautious and afraid you're a terf because that behavior is harmful.

I'm a feminist, but sometimes I see posts about people ranting about women getting hurt and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because that sounds like what terfs say all the time. They act like women are the victim of everything. When they're not. They still have autonomy and still can hurt others.

So if you post stuff like this, I'm cautious of you. Because I know that mentality hurts so much. It causes so much pain.

The Cancer Research UK organisation needs to be investigated.

It is insane what is happening in the UK

What exactly is the unified message for radfems? Many of them seem all over the place and wanting insanely different things. It’s hard to grasp what’s the goal of this new wave of feminism and that’s an issue personally for me.

I know your blog doesn’t specifically say that you’re a TERF/SWERF but are radfems doing anything to actively expel people who support massively damaging policies to large groups of people from your community? Or at least actively inform people is that radfem is more about inclusivity rather than divisive, damaging comments made from a vocal minority.

Radical feminism appears to only benefit cishet, white, females from first world countries. Is this incorrect? If so then how with specific examples?

Radfems have the appearance of trying to dictate what modern femininity should look like and shames women on both ends of the spectrum for not exemplifying that ideal. Housewives to soldiers are shamed for not being a proper feminist. What exactly would fit the bill of representing femininity to a radfem?

Radfems tend to be very vocal about letting women’s voices be heard but when a conservative women speaks she is often shamed, ridiculed, or passive-aggressively insulted into silence. Why do radfems do this when one message I’ve seen across the board is giving women the power to not be afraid of speaking their truth?

1.

Firstly, radical feminism isn’t a new wave so much as a return to the values of second wave feminism, which is being championed by a new generation! Our collective goal is the liberation of women from historical and societal structures that bind them, working with an understanding that women suffer from sexism, or sex- based oppression. While we may have differing ideas on how to accomplish this goal, or the best route to take, you’ll universally see womens liberation on the forefront of our messages! Radfems agree that gender is a social class we ascribe to biology, that gender is the expectations and socializations we apply to our own innate biology! I.e. women are submissive, caring, like pink, will be mothers, will wear makeup…and men are strong, and unemotional, like blue, will be providers, will cut their hair short. Radical feminists say “we shouldn’t live in these boxes! Our biology doesn’t determine our interests, our abilities, who we love, or what we want to do with our life!” Radical feminists want a dismantling of gender roles, specifically because they are used to subjugate women.

2.

Radical feminism is for women, and liberating women, and it does so unapologetically. We understand that our feminism focuses on sex- based oppression - our sex being female. No radical feminists are trans exclusive. Trans men are as affected by female bodily autonomy (deserving access to female medical care, cervical screenings, breast exams, abortions, birth control, menstruation) as any woman. They deserve respect in the unique challenges they face in the cross section of transphobia and misogyny they face in the world. They deserve spaces free of male violence. The policies we pursue reflect that. People use the term “trans exclusive” because trans women do not play a role in our activism, as they are male-bodied and therefore do not experience sex-based oppression.

SWERF is interesting, isn’t it? I am not anti-sex workers at all. I am against the sex work industry. The term SWERF is like saying anti- child labor individuals are against children. On the contrary, I want sex workers (primarily female) to be liberated. I do not believe in the commodification of female bodies. I do not support an industry where rape is an on- the- job issue. I do not support an industry that puts price tags on women. An industry that the average age of entry is 14, where 90% of women want out, an industry that makes it more difficult to assist trafficked individuals, and is supplemented by trafficked individuals, an industry that does so much evil to women I have other posts you can reference if you need.

Again, all our policies value the liberation of women above anything else.

3.

I think you’re confusing radical feminism with liberal feminism, but let’s dive in! Cis - nah, trans men are the female sex and deserve protections from sex based oppression as well. Check out the radfems @spooky-rad-luka @discyours @bone-jar !! Het - we are literally almost all lesbian or bi, but there are some het radfems! White - actually, the radfem community is black, brown, Jewish, asian, latina, and white too, sure:) (check out what our sisters in Korea are accomplishing right now!)(or our sisters in Kenya!)(or our sisters in Saudi Arabia!)(or our sisters in Brazil!) Or talk to @empanado-feliz about the movement against Bolsonaro! Radical feminism is worldwide, because it discusses sex-based oppression, not identity politics. It concerns itself with child brides, and FGM, and menstruation huts, and the Indian rape crisis, and religious subjugation of women’s covered bodies, and the abuse and rape of women worldwide.

4.

This is being confused with liberal feminism too, I think? Radfems believe theres no wrong way to be a woman. You just are. It’s innate. There are plenty of GNC women in our movement. As for femininity, it’s a performance of beauty standards. Most radfems acknowledge the harm the cosmetics industry does to young women by the internalizing that their natural face is “wrong”. Or how shaving is the idealization of a female prepubescent body. We try not to engage in harmful behaviors, and encourage others not to as well!

5.

Andrea Dworkin wrote a piece called Right Wing Woman, I’m not suggesting you read a full novel, but heres a snippet that you might find useful. As a rule, I try not to regard other women as my enemy. I understand the anger of others though, certainly.

6.

I think that’s a classic misunderstanding - to radical feminists, feminism isn’t about equality. I don’t want to be ‘equal’ to a standard set by men; I don’t want to be drafted (I don’t want anyone drafted!), I don’t want violence, or indifference, valued in my life. I would rather men rise to women’s standards, personally. Of valuing empathy, emotional intelligence, managing house tasks, viewing other women as humans.

Nothing I do knocks men down. Nothing I’m demanding knocks men down. It is not my fault if they stumble when they fall off my back, I will not be a doormat anymore. I don’t care about “demasculating” men; if their masculinity isn’t built on subjugating women, then they’ll be just fine!

And if you worry about radical feminists “excluding men” from the conversation, you need to ask yourself why you’d like a movement by women and for women to include men’s voices. Should Black Lives Matter groups worry themselves about including white voices? Why should any group prioritize the voice of their oppressors? It’s nonsensical. Feminism isn’t for men. Radical feminism certainly isn’t for men.

“i don’t like when people treat me like a woman; i just wanna be treated like a person”

something like that.

and internally i’m like (!!!!!!!!) are you listening to yourself? the dichotomy you just set up was literally woman vs person, where “woman” is necessarily separate from the category of “person!”

MY GUY, that’s the misogyny talking! the sexism has convinced you that you cannot be a full person and a woman at the same time! and what you’re REALLY saying is “i don’t wanna experience sexism” and “i hate the way a misogynistic society treats me/what it expects from me.”

but not wanting that, not feeling comfortable bearing the burden of our sexist society, seeking to live outside those constraints—none of that mean you’re not a woman!! and if anything, it proves you’re already a full person, just like every other woman! it’s the misogyny that is a problem, not the fact that you’re a woman. and it’s certainly not something you can opt out of by identifying away from woman and calling yourself non-binary.

“The first thing they’re doing is using the search function on the website to input their own name, or somebody they know, but who nobody else knows, in order to see if this website really works,” Ruch said, “to see if it’s really possible that we identified 1,500 people.”

The site received a traffic boost after a far-right website linked to it, Ruch said. ZPS built a map of names that appeared in the same users’ searches. From those searches, alone, they learned the names and associates of approximately 25 rioters they hadn’t previously identified.

“What we got was quite a network of who knows who, and who else was in Chemnitz,” Ruch said.

U.S. anti-fascists have pulled similar stunts. This summer, undercover activists cozied up to the organizers of a far-right march, and offered to make a website and coordinate T-shirt orders for the event. The website, which did not charge for T-shirts, asked participants for their names and addresses, supposedly to calculate shipping costs. Instead of sending free T-shirts, the activists behind the website published the names and addresses they received.

ZPS’s performances have previously landed it on far-right extremists’ hit lists. In April, German police arrested a soldier who was suspected of planning far-right terror attacks, which he allegedly wanted to blame on refugees. The man also reportedly kept a list of leftist figures he wanted to murder, among them ZPS affiliates.

A September investigation into the alleged would-be-terrorist revealed a larger ring of suspected extremism among Germany’s military elite. Germany’s FOCUS magazine reported that the criminal investigation had uncovered a network of far-right soldiers and officers planning for apocalyptic violence on “Day X,” when they would take over the country.

“It’s terrifying, but I don’t want to live in a country where I can’t do radical political art,” Ruch said. “We need to know who this is, who finances it, who the driving forces are.”

 Dickens originally set out to write a Very Serious Pamphlet About the Plight of the Poor in Modern Times, with numbers, and statistics, and gruesome details about the state of debtors prisons. And he realized that it would probably not change a single thing, in the end.

So he changed it to fiction, and made it emotional, and focused on the lives in one specific family.  And he also self-published it, because he realized that a for-profit publishing house wouldn’t want to touch it.  And gave it to friends.

Not only did it help change people’s attitudes toward charity organizations and help reform labor laws, it also (pretty much) revived the whole custom of celebrating Christmas at all.

The pamphlet was going to be called ‘An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child’

He decided to write the story because he realised that soap-boxing factory workers and their employers on the importance of educational reform wasn’t going to work on a society-wide scale.

I’m a kid from a blue-collar, working-class background, doing my master’s degree at an Ivy League school. I’m incredibly grateful to be here, and I fully understand that this is an opportunity most people of my upbringing never get to have. Not everyone here is from a rich background - there are other working-class kids, getting by on loans, scholarships and part-time jobs. But for the most part, the people around me grew up very differently than I did, and although I love my friends, there are things about my life and my college experience that they’re just never going to get. Things like:

Money can buy good grades. My wealthier friends aren’t slipping the TAs a wink and a $100 bill on their way out of the midterm, but being wealthier does make it easier to earn better grades. I have to work a part-time job in order to afford my rent, while my rich friends are abstaining from work so they can focus on school. That’s 20 hours per week that they can spend on school, while I’m at my job. Our school is in a neighborhood in Manhattan that I can’t afford to live in - I’m spending at least ten hours per week commuting, while they live steps from campus. That’s all extra time that they can spend studying, or just relaxing and getting the sleep they need to be mentally alert. Many of my friends pay to have a laundry service pick up their dirty laundry and bring it back clean and folded (which is common in NYC). I can’t afford this, so instead I spend hours lugging laundry up and down five flights of stairs, because I can’t afford to live in a building with an elevator. I cook and prepare my own meals, they eat mostly takeout. And so on, and so forth. My life is filled with hours of work, chores and annoyances that they don’t have to deal with, and all of it cuts into my time. We may be taking the same classes and doing assignments that are the same difficulty, but I’m going in with a 40-hour per week handicap that they can afford not to have. 

“Follow your dreams” is a risk some of us can’t afford to take. My old roommate spent long hours agonizing over whether she wanted to major in art history or creative writing. For me, that would be like asking if I preferred a pet dragon or a unicorn. My biggest passion in life is fiction writing, but I can’t justify spending tens of thousands of dollars to study it - I’m paying for my education by myself, and I had to choose a field that would let me make enough money to pay back my student loans and afford my own rent after graduating. My friends can focus on the things that really interest them, without worrying about future career prospects. A lot of them are using their college years to “find themselves” and plan to take some time off to travel the world or work on their art after graduating. Many of them have parents with connections in hard-to-access industries like fashion, publishing, television, or the art world. They can take unpaid internships and go for their shot at a one-in-a-million dream job - if it doesn’t work out, they can move on to something else, no harm done. If I put tens of thousands of dollars into being an author and it doesn’t pan out for me right away, I’m in deep shit. I’m happy for people who are able to follow their true passions, and I wish more people were able to do so without fear, but I’m tired of the pitying looks and condescending lectures I get when I tell my friends why I’m not in school for my greatest passion. I didn’t make that decision because I’m boring, or because I don’t believe in myself hard enough - I made that decision because my parents co-signed on all my student loans, and they could lose their house if I can’t find a job. 

Your “funny mishap” is my “life-changing disaster”. My friends talk about the time that they accidentally got drunk and spent all their rent money at a strip club, or the time that they slept through their final and had to re-take a class. For them, these are funny stories. For me, this would be a life-defining catastrophe that could change the course of my 20s and beyond. If I blow all my rent money, I can’t call my parents to beg for more - I could get evicted, or ruin my credit score. Best-case scenario, I’d probably have to take on so many extra hours at work that I could barely finish my schoolwork. If I sleep through a final and fail a class, I will lose my scholarship and be unable to complete my degree. To my friends, I come across as uptight and overcautious, but I don’t have a choice. The same mistake carries much greater consequences for me than it does for them, and they have a hard time understanding that. I wish that I could be carefree about money, and laugh about accidentally getting drunk and spending $500 on Amazon, but I can’t. It can be hard to tell the difference between “oh shit, this really sucks” and “oh shit, I’m going to be dealing with the consequences of this for years” when you’ve never been on the latter end of the spectrum. Again, I love my friends, and I’m happy that they don’t have to have these stresses in their lives, but it’s hard when they attribute my cautiousness to a personality flaw, and not to the financial reality of my life. 

      I won’t lie.  Sometimes its fun to think about being an American, especially when it comes to war stuff.  Everyone knows how to yell “Semper FI!”  Everyone knows what it looks like to plant a flag in Iwo Jima.  Some people know what its like to be old school G and say “Nuts” when the Nazis ask you to surrender.

     When you are Canadian though, you come from a culture that doesn’t really have much of that. Don’t get me wrong, we fight when the time is right and we have held our own against the best gone through some of the more brutal battles over the past hundred years.  But its not Glory that drives us and its not Glory that we remember.  Its Duty.  We go to war when a war needs to be fought.  When the threat is great and the day is dark.  And we go in on the first day.  We have answered when called even though it cost us 200 thousand casualties (killed and wounded) in the First World War and a 100 thousand in the second.  Large numbers for a country yet to pass 10 million total population back then.  And still when our Allies called upon us we again went into the thick in Korea and Afghanistan and when the UN needs troops to keep the peace somewhere.

     But for all that we don’t get a lot of movies.  We have distinguished military units with brave histories going back centuries, but hardly any Canadians know them by name and even less would recognize their battle cries.  If you asked an average Canadian if we had “Special Forces”, the most likely answer would be a “I guess so.”  Because, in the end, I think, what Canadians value is sacrifice more than glory or even tradition.  We have always been less interested in telling people how ready and eager we are to go to war, and instead just quietly think about the cost when our Country tells us it is time to go to war.

    We train, we do the job and we try to come home to the people we love. Many of us make it back, some of us don’t.  And it’s them we remember and honor on this day.

    This young man left his home and his loved ones just like over a million other canadians in ww2…but he never returned.

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/1079421

     Instead he met his end with his mates aboard a B-24 liberator on a cold grey day in October 1943 off the coast of France.  His flight was hunting German Submarines that were almost succeeding in starving out England.  

http://www.rafb24.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2834:bz753&catid=20&Itemid=394

    Pages on the internet.  They will not make it into any movie.  No one at the head of a parade somewhere will talk about Daniel McInnis.  No one will claim he said something defiant as his plane was ripped apart by German fighters.  

   But Canadians know him.  Because we know his family and friends were hoping he would make it through the war and return home.  But he never did.  One distant allied plane saw his final moments from miles away.  And that’s it.

   Do we know he was brave?  Yes.   Do we know if he wished he were somewhere else at that moment?  Of course!  What young man has nothing better to do than die?  Was he scared?  I think he must have been but I hope it was very brief and he had a moment to think of the love he had known.

  And so decades later his country does not honor his machismo, or his keen combat skills or even his willingness to destroy the enemy that truly was threatening the world.

   No, on this day we Canadians honor him and all the fallen not for what they were willing to do but what they were willing to sacrifice to get it done.  When he left the shores of Prince Edward Island he probably thought he would be one of the lucky ones, but the idea he might not be did not turn him around.  He went and he fought and he died because it was what needed to be doing and he trusted in his King and Country not to spend his life foolishly.

  This is what we do.  

  This is what we remember.

here are all the links

https://jfrej.org/understanding-antisemitism/

https://newjewishagenda.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/the-past.pdf

https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism/

https://jewishcurrents.org/essay/the-soros-myth/

https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/12/stronger-by-resisting-antisemitism/

https://m.facebook.com/100000475997274/posts/2058961167463063/

https://m.facebook.com/517931451/posts/10154917807541452/

https://jewschool.com/2016/11/78215/anti-semitism-in-the-trump-era-what-i-learned-growing-up-in-rural-america/

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html

https://forward.com/opinion/407988/one-year-after-charlottesville-black-jewish-solidarity-is-more-important/

https://twitter.com/egsophie/status/925910663406473217?s=21

https://twitter.com/ibjiyongi/status/972827846556241920?s=21

https://forward.com/opinion/national/390486/as-an-arab-jew-i-am-exposed-to-anti-semitism-from-the-right-and-the-left/

The NYPD show up to a white supremacist rally:

As for McInnes and his “Proud Boys,” check out this terrifying video compiling some of McInne’s violent rhetoric: