"She said to stop."

"You're being rude for no reason, don't speak to her that way."

"Don't call her that."

"She's right, I agree with what she's saying."

"She has experience, she knows what she's talking about. We should listen."

"She has faced rape threats, stone pelting and her mother and sister have been stalked because of the work she carries out in her community. Nineteen-year-old Koyel Sarkar is the head of an all-girls group in Siliguri that works for ending child marriages in her community, and they have together stopped eight child marriages in the past two years alone.

...

Her work involves making public announcements in the local market to spread awareness about child marriages, conduct street plays as well as talk to her community members to collect information about an impending child marriage. Other girls in her group also tip her off. In many cases, she then tries to meet the young girl whose marriage is being planned, and strikes a casual conversation with her to find out the time and date of the wedding. She then strategizes on how to stop it.

Once, she even dressed in festive finery to gain entry into a house, where a wedding was scheduled, in order to stop it.

...

wanting to wear clothing from the boys’ department

wanting to cut your hair short

not wanting to wear makeup

being attracted to other girls

hating your body

hating getting your period

hating your breasts and/or vulva

wishing you weren’t a girl

not feeling like a girl

Many mothers consciously reinforce patriarchal ideals, but this is not the only way that we learn patriarchy. We observe and internalise our mother’s place in the world, how men treat her, what work she has to take on and what she doesn’t, we learn what to expect from our mothers vs our fathers and match up what we know of them to society and vice versa. Pretty much all of us will realise our mother doesn’t hold the most power and we will also be conditioned to expect more from her ourselves (the classic example is the father hurts the child and the child is angrier with the mother for not protecting them)

I feel like toxic positivity is really prevalent in the New Age and Manifestation communities, and I just want to show people what it is and how to avoid it.

Toxic positivity is the assumption, either by one’s self or others, that despite a person’s emotional pain or difficult situation, they should only have a positive mindset. - Dr. Jaime Zuckermane

Signs of Toxic Positivity

Hyperfocusing on positivity

Pushing away negative emotions.

Classifying certain emotions as bad and certain ones as good.

Not allow yourself to feel "bad" emotions.

Believing the right mindset can cure physical/mental illnesses or disorders.

Hiding your negative emotions.

Feeling guilty when you have negative emotions.

Dismissing other people's negative emotions and thinking they just need to be more positive.

Ignoring problems in hopes they go away.

Examples of Toxic Positivity

Manifest positivity!

I am in control of my destiny and will be cured (of physical/mental illness) if I manifest it!

Everything happens for a reason.

If I can do it, you can do it.

You have so much to be grateful for!

Positive vibes only!

Quitting is not an option.

Smile, crying won't help.

Being negative won't help you!

Everything will work out in the end.

Don't think about it, stay positive!

When I was a little girl, at first, it was fine. Because all the kids wanted to do was run around and play. But the other girls “changed”, becoming more feminine. Soon enough they wanted to play princess and I still wanted to be a knight. And they noticed, and being the one weird kid in a classroom full of kids got me bullied relentlessly. That was when I started to isolate myself.

But it didn’t stop there because you see, I went to high school eventually where we weren’t playing games like that. We could talk about anything we wanted… but my appearance wasn’t up to the standard everyone expected. I didn’t wear makeup, I didn’t give a shit if my clothes were fashionable as long as they were comfy. But this time I had a few friends!

… and then they started to criticize me. And suddenly every day I came to school and no one had anything nice to say to me. It was all done under the guise of “we care about you and want people to stop picking on you” but they didn’t realize their words hurt way more than any other bully. They were basically saying no those bullies were right, there is something wrong with you, you should change.

And then back home I was getting it bad too. My mother, a lovely strong woman who has changed so much since then, always brought up how I looked. And again she didn’t mean it in any cruel way and she didn’t realize what was going on at school but can you imagine what that’s like? To have literally nowhere that you feel safe to be yourself?

I have literally had one friend in my entire life who has never criticized my appearance, and he’s a gnc gay guy who grew up just as insecure as I was.

To this day I am still so uncomfortable around people. To this day I still take every bit of criticism as an attack because when I was young? Everything was an attack at my very being.

And looking back there was absolutely nothing wrong with me! I wasn’t even THAT GNC but just the act of not caring about my appearance was enough to be a federal fucking offence. This fueled my internalized misogyny for most of my life because I could not trust women because every woman in my life treated me like I was defective.

I am still so lonely and I don’t know if the damage done can ever fully be undone. I’m working on it, but I’ve been working on it for years and I’m still a mental wreck.

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http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/23330-childbirth-an-athletic-event-sports-medicine-used-to-diagnose-injuries-caused-by-deliveries