Sultana's Kingdom 🐅

and how any time women are given greater freedom to choose, birth rates across the population fall to replacement level? which is inherently sustainable?

and in some places, birth rates are falling BELOW replacement level, which is even MORE sustainable considering the outsized resource use of people in the same places????

and how we are part of a system, and even when we aren't trying, we act in a way that balances it??? how it is men who are the problem!!??

Korean feminists and everyday women are refusing/not wanting to have children in an increasingly sexist and anti-female society. 4B movement is very admirable.

photographs for people who can’t use link

Radblr also talks constantly about how women should support and work with other women.

But I never see radblr talking about how women should uplift, encourage, and support girls 🤔

Girls are the most vulnerable group of people on earth, and also the most powerful force of social change.

Millenial girls grew up to embrace liberal choice feminism and spread it through pop culture. Where was radical feminism during 1995-2010 when millenial women were just girls? What were radical feminists doing when we were all playing with bratz dolls and watching totally spies? I’ll always have nostalgia about the 00s pop culture I grew up with. But, that culture was the breeding ground for the choice feminism self exploitation hell we live in now. Spice Girls, Cheetah Girls, Destiny’s Child, Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears were all marketed to millennial girls age 6-10. How is there any doubt about why millenial women are teaching gen-z girls to exploit themselves? It’s tempting to think of libfems as malicious narcissists or shallow idiots, but they aren’t. They were girls groomed for ‘sex positivity’ through 00s pop culture. They were girls radical feminists failed. 

Radical feminism is always defined and organized around the root of subjugation women face–sex and reproduction.

Why not organize radical feminism around the root of female future, power, and success–girls?

Feminism is called a women’s movement. Occasionally, it’s referred to as a movement for women and girls. I think prioritizing women over girls in our concept of feminism is one of the greatest mistakes feminists ever made.

Feminism should be a movement for girls, supported by women. 

If you are 20+, you are no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, a girl. I know girlhood is hell. I know it leaves us scarred and wounded. I know we feel the universe cheated us out of a girlhood brimming with carefree adventure and exploration. But it wasn’t the universe cheating us. It was adult women failing us. Adult women who were too focused on the damage their own girlhood did to them. This cycle of girlhood trauma has left women’s movements chasing their own tails for a century.

Patriarchy is passed through generations by men socializing boys and women socializing girls. If men are initiating boys into the fraternity of sexual subjugators, women are initiating girls into the sorority of victimhood. Radical feminism was built within that sorority, and it shows. 

All feminist writing I’ve read delineates women’s historical trauma and ties it to the subjugation of women in contemporary society. Through feminism, we find other women and discuss our shared past traumas with each other. In the internet age, we do this on a personal level through blogs and forums, or on a societal level through hashtags like #metoo and #yesallwomen. Feminist discourse builds up to a model of women’s universal suffering. And through that we identify males as the bastards behind it all. Radical feminism calls class recognition through shared trauma ‘consciousness raising’. They cite consciousness raising and solidarity between women as the greatest sources of female power. In other words, radical feminism elevates the sorority of victimhood as the key to female liberation. 

But the more I piece this out, the more it looks like a damn crab trap. The shared trauma, the model of women’s universal suffering, it only leads us to perpetuate our subjugation. There’s comfort in thinking what happened to you happened because you’re a woman. There’s comfort in seeing traumatic events as predestined. But predestination is the oldest crab trap in the book. Through predestination, we see victimhood as a right of passage and a key to wisdom. We overlook naive girls until they’ve been victimized enough to trauma bond with women. 

I’m not saying we should throw out radical feminism and start from scratch. Women coming to terms with trauma is a step towards female liberation, but it’s a step that will take a lifetime. That, unfortunately, is the nature of trauma and PTSD. There is no way to resolve past trauma. You can read all the feminist discourse ever written, and you may find some comfort in it, but the trauma will not heal. 

I know a lot of us take comfort in that catchphrase about women not being responsible for our own oppression. We need to start recognizing this as a thought terminating cliche and blackpill feminist idea. Saying we have no hand in our own oppression means women’s liberation depends entirely on men. This, of course, renders women’s liberation impossible.

If we’re looking for more than comfort, we’re going to need more than radical feminism is currently offering. If we’re looking for liberation, we must do the most uncomfortable thing possible. We must dismantle the victimhood sorority. We need to stop saying our trauma happened because we are women. We need to stop being complicit in patriarchy by holding up victimhood as a right of passage to womanhood.

Women do not have to suffer. Women do not have to be victimized. Girlhood does not have to be characterized by neglect. If we use all the power of women’s class solidarity to protect and celebrate girls, we will escape the cycle we are in. We need to stop prioritizing the lives of women over the lives of girls. We need to make girls’ liberation the primary goal of feminism, even if we have to sacrifice personal freedoms to do so. That is the true right of passage. Being an adult doesn’t mean perpetuating the past into the present. It means passing up on your needs in the present to secure a better future for the next generation. 

For example, some pro female athletes spend all their time training, working with media and sponsors, focused on their own career. Other pro female athletes sacrifice their time off to travel to schools and camps to work with girls.

It’s easy to say “women should have the freedom to choose whether or not to help girls.” But that’s classic choice feminism. What does it look like when there is no choice? USA Women’s Basketball requires senior national team members to commit to mentoring girls. If they don’t go to camps and mentor girls, they get kicked off the team. With only 1 loss in 3 decades, USA Women’s Basketball is the most successful national team in any team sport, male or female. That’s the power of mentorship.

The point of my post is not that women’s and girls’ liberation are in conflict. Women’s issues are important. Girls issues are important. And girls, female humans age 0-19, are the demographic that should be prioritized. But, not because young people are more worthy humans than old people. They should be prioritized because it’s extremely strategic. A girl-centered movement is more effective than a woman-centered movement. A movement for girls supported by women is better than a movement for women that girls find confusing.

There is one area where women’s and girls’ rights are in conflict. Child rights vs. parental rights. Girls should have more power to make their own health, education, religion, and housing decisions. Daughters’ welfare should be prioritized over mothers’ welfare in domestic disputes and conflicts. The girl with behavior issues who screams and shoves her mom? Don’t side with the mom in that situation. Figure out what is going wrong in the household and help the girl.

I have no empathy for women who neglect or abuse girls in response to patriarchy. Every woman is contending with patriarchy. Most women are dealing with their own traumas. But guess what? Most of them don’t neglect and abuse girls. The ones that do should not be forgiven. They should have to live their lives contemplating the repercussions of their actions.

Feminism should laser focus on how women traumatize girls by passing on patriarchal and homophobic socialization. That is the key to liberation. That’s the thermal exhaust port in the patriarchy death star. Break that link and patriarchy falls apart.

Girls are vital and I don’t see them represented enough in feminist discussions. A handful of stuff about girls in a sea of stuff about women? That’s not good enough. Girls should be the main topic.

Of all my posts, this is the one that people have the hardest time with. I think that’s because most of us are adult women. It’s tough to conceptualize a movement that doesn’t center us.

You want to help women's sports, right? And there's a few hundred thousand of you across all social media platforms. That's a pretty big number.

Guess what? I have great news. There's actually an extremely effective way for you to protect women's sports competition. And it's extremely easy.

Choose a favorite pro women's sports team.

That's it! That's all it takes. Pick a favorite team. Any sport. Any pro league. Take an extra step beyond supporting your national team and pick a favorite professional team. There are hundreds of women's pro sport teams. So it shouldn't be hard to find one you like. You don't even have to be interested in sports to do this. Maybe you like the star player because she's fun to follow outside of her athletic career. That's fine. Just pick her team then.

So once you pick your team, find out how many games they play in a season. If they play 40 games, you need to at least watch 20. Since this is your favorite team, it's reasonable that you would watch at least half the games, right? And feel free to post about the team, too. Enjoy all the trials and tribulations and fan content that they produce for you throughout the season.

Men's sports is based on the whims of billionaire investors. So men's sport leagues are whatever billionaire investors want them to be.

Women's sports is based on fans. So women's sports leagues are whatever fans want them to be.

Right now, the women's sports fanbase wants trans-inclusive leagues. So, female athletes, who are 100% financially reliant on fans, have no choice but to go along with it. The trans-inclusive queer+++ community makes up most of the women's sports fan market.

That's right. The kids with 8 different neo pronouns are doing a better job than you are. They're doing a way better job showing up for professional female athletes. Ultimately, their ideas are backwards and terrible for women's sports. But that doesn't really matter. Fans come first.