the vulvabender

🌈✨beginnger baby-radfem things to do for yourself because we’re all brainwashed by the patriarchy✨🌈

- No more shaving. Or cosmetics. Or makeup. Throw them all in the bonfire. Don’t let old billionaires and men profit on what the world told you to be insecure about. If men can get away with not owning wash cloths we can get away with abolishing costemtics. All you need is hygiene products to stay clean.

- if your pubes get too long just cut trim them with scissors. A lot less time consuming and it’s not painful and itchy

- That short hair you’ve been wanting? Get it. However, pixie cuts are a lot more mateinence than long hair in my opinion

- stop using words like bitch and cunt and whore and slut. They’re slurs extremely normalized by the patriarchy. And when someone says them, be offended. Show it. They’re slurs.

- COMFORT > BEAUTY. No more wearing clothes that look good but feel awful. Dresses restrict movement. You can still look good without the discomfort.

- call men out on their bullshit. Speak up. Tell them how stupid they sound to their dumb faces (seriously, we let them get away with too much)

- eat heartily. Most of these diets are myths.

- Leftist misogyny is still misogyny. Liberal men and liberal women with internalized misogyny are still misogynistic. Don’t feel like they’re automatically right all the time, speak up.

- Sometimes, the need for acceptance is still strong. Keep consuming radfem content even if old feelings of yearning for male attention and acceptance start to resurface. As they say, recovery is not linear

- THINK CRITICALLY. Don’t trust the general public’s perception of things.

- NOT EVERY RADFEM IS RIGHT. REMEMBER TO THINK CRITICALLY EVEN IN RADFEM CIRCLES. The amount of radfem drama I have seen.......

- If you watch porn, quit. It's destructive to you and to the women in it.

- Read the works of radical women. There are a number of radfem reader book posts/masterlists going around, some with free PDFs: examples are here, here and here.

- Make sure to read about and read the works of radfems of color. Here’s a post with some info and suggestions.

- To see through men's bullshit better, read Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft (possibly the only book by a man I will ever recommend)

- TALK TO OTHER WOMEN. Make an effort to prioritize them in your life. Listen to them, too. Spend less time with men.

- If you’re able, with either money or time, support organizations that prioritize and help women: shelters, DV orgs, abortion funds.

- EXAMINE your judgements of other women. Why does this person rub yo the wrong way? Is she too chatty? Maybe she’s annoyingly peppy? Do you feel like she is untrustworthy for reasons you can’t really explain? Think critically about how we are predisposed to think unfavorably about women, and neutrally about men.

- BELIEVE WOMEN. If there is a “he said, she said” situation, believe her first. It doesn’t have to be an abuse allegation, it can be something as simple as a minor disagreement. As a default, people will blame her and take the man’s side, even before hearing all the details. You may find yourself doing so as well. Even when I feel it’s against my best judgement, or I mistrust the woman involved, or the evidence points against her – believe her anyway. I tell you I have never once regretting doing this. I’ve never been wrong to do this. And even if you end up being wrong, at least you were wrong for the sake of other women, instead of siding with a shitty dude as a default.

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