-dont talk over me
-dont talk over her
-you just repeated exactly what i said
-dont touch me
-move
-youre wrong
-dont repeat me
-dont interrupt me
-youre not the first person to think of this
-dont assert yourself into this conversation
-you have no agency to speak on this
-dont speak for meTbh something to keep on a slip of paper in your back pocket
these are all very important things
YOU HAVE NO AGENCY TO SPEAK ON THIS
“dont speak for me”
feminism
Rowan Blanchard is done with apologizing and done with labels
Rowan Blanchard of Girl Meets World is proving once again why she’s a modern role model for young people. In a post for Rookie Mag, Blanchard wrote eloquently about not apologizing for who you are. But rather than only talking the talk, on Twitter Saturday, she opened up about her sexuality and labels.
These are forms of male aggression that only women see. But even when men are afforded a front seat to harassment, they don’t always have the correct vantage point for recognizing the subtlety of its operation. Four years before the murders, I was sitting in a bar in Washington, D.C. with a male friend. Another young woman was alone at the bar when an older man scooted next to her. He was aggressive, wasted, and sitting too close, but she smiled curtly at his ramblings and laughed softly at his jokes as she patiently downed her drink. ‘Why is she humoring him?’ my friend asked me. ‘You would never do that.’ I was too embarrassed to say: ‘Because he looks scary’ and ‘I do it all the time.’
Women who have experienced this can recognize that placating these men is a rational choice, a form of self-defense to protect against setting off an aggressor. But to male bystanders, it often looks like a warm welcome, and that helps to shift blame in the public eye from the harasser and onto his target, who’s failed to respond with the type of masculine bravado that men more easily recognize.
Please stop ending your critiques of bigoted self-identified feminists with “then you’re not really a feminist.” That’s not a useful statement to make. It’s more useful to say “then you’re a bad feminist, and you are using feminism in a harmful way.”
Feminists can be racist. Feminists can be classist, ableist, transmisogynist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, whorephobic, homophobic, intersexist, terrible people and still be feminists. It makes their feminism tainted and flawed and oppressive and not very useful, but it doesn’t erase it.
Pretending that only people completely free from bigotry are “actual” feminists gives us an excuse to not address the very real problems happening in our movement, by people who are very much a part of it, or even leading parts of it.
To say bigots “aren’t really feminists” allows us to ignore the white supremacist and transmisogynist histories of Western feminist movements, allows us to be self-congratulatory about our own imaginary lack of ingrained prejudice, and neatly absolves us of taking responsibility as a movement for bigotry happening within that movement.
So yes, let’s acknowledge that people can be shitty feminists. But to imply that their shittiness neatly removes them from the movement is to deny the harm that they’re able to do as part of it. And that’s not helpful.
yoooooo
Here’s some more:
- You interrupted me, I’m not finished talking
- You’re making me uncomfortable
- Leave me alone
- Don’t talk to me like that
1. You repeated my idea
2. You’re in my space
4. No, I won’t do that for you
5. I am aware of thatI have asked you to leave me alone already.
I’m not sure how to make my previous statement of “leave me alone” any simpler for you to understand.
You are being disrespectful.
Since you are not respectful, I will not be nice.
My presence is not an invitation for you to speak to me.
My being alone is not an invitation to speak to me.
How dare you ignore my saying “leave me alone”
I do not know you, I do not trust you.
You are invading my personal space.
You calling me a bitch does not change the fact I want you to leave me alone.
Feminism didn’t teach me to hate men, but it did teach me to stop prioritising them over women.
And it turns out a lot of men think that’s the same thing as hatred.
I said it once and I’ll say it again. Instead of claiming to not hate men, think about why so many people think you do.
This is literally an explanation of why.
Men grow up in a world where men are always more important than everyone else. Refusing to go along with this and actively prioritising women feels like hatred to men who conflate their unearned position of power with their identity.
Maybe instead of obediently supporting the status quo, you should put some critical thought into why so many men get irrationally angry when women want to be treated fairly.
5 Years ago today, Kanye West dropped ‘Monster’ giving Nicki one of the most acclaimed verses in Hip-Hop History.
Today in feminist history
(Source: http://thecandycoven.tumblr.com/)
The problem with the self-proclaimed “Male Feminist”
Men can be feminists. To identify as a feminist is simply to say that you agree with the idea that men and women are social, political and economic equals. But for some men, a specific breed of “Male Feminist,” it’s their quickness to the draw, their willingness to embrace the label, that arouses skepticism. At best, they are hopelessly naïve. At worst, they are charlatans using the veil of feminism to disguise their sins. If you’re a man who wants to legitimately earn his feminist badge, you don’t need to actually treat it like a badge.
I saw a little girl today who was absolutely riveted by the life in the rotting seaweed around the harbour. I love seeing these little moments, because it takes me back to some of my first experiences as a ‘young naturalist’ of sorts.
I was nearby, photographing and identifying pollinators: I was just about to go over and ask her what she had found…
Both of us had our moments shattered, however, as her mother started screaming at her about getting her clothes dirty. Unfortunately, I also have memories of moments like these, where the female obligation to be decorative trumped my right to be fascinated and curious about the world around me.She immediately started crying when he parents took her by the arm and led her away.
For those of you who are parents or caregivers, think of what is means to prioritise a child’s appearance over her learning and interests. It’s not fair to socialise girls this way: it breeds self-consciousness, insecurity, and I’m absolutely sure has a direct link to why girls and women are under-represented in the sciences.
I am finding it very interesting that over 1600+ people, presumably mostly women, have indicated over the past few hours that this experience resonates with them.
For those of you struggling to understand the connections I’ve made: this commercial actually lays it out quite well.
I am also finding it interesting that the only people objecting are young men (and this lone female anti-feminist blogger). Criticisms so far include: “are you sure that’s what you saw,” “you’re being dramatic,” “are you sure you’re not blinded by feminist bias,” “feminists say this to hurt boys,” “stop making everything into feminist propaganda,” “jesus christ not everything is social justice,” “this has nothing to do with gender,” and “this is economics.”
The thing is, I’m not pulling these connections out of thin air: I’m drawing on scholarship, my observations (data), and my own experiences,
in that order.I am wondering what it would take for me to be taken at my word about my perception of reality, and my academic background. In order to be objective, should I have a male witness come with me at all times, and notarise my observations? Should I get a male co-author to peer-review my life? I’m half-joking here.
(If you sincerely need a man to vouch for my rationality, my legal partner oz7am – scientist, electrical engineer, radio amateur, and most importantly, male person – will be happy to provide you with assurances that I am not suffering from hysteria.)
In all seriousness, I’m a person who spends about a two hours a day photographing and doing some pretty detailed writing about plants. I took a break from regular programming to talk about this incident, because it took a long time for me to overcome some pretty noxious – and astonishingly similar – socialisation I received in my own upbringing, and really dive head first into applied science.
I’m not trying to have a conversation about laundry: I’m trying to talk about girlhood, because for many women, it was full of nebulous little moments of deprivation like these that are difficult to even see or comprehend when you haven’t lived them.
I don’t want young girls to have to overcome their stifling childhoods the way I did: I want their childhoods to be full of nature, adventure, play, and curiosity. I’m just trying to do my part to make a slightly better future.
# whenever people talk about tumblr being this horrible place where SJWs run amok
#I just think of stuff like this #where a whole shitton of dudes yell at a woman who is literally talking about something she is an EXPERT IN
#and think ‘lol you have no idea what you’re talking about’ #tumblr sure is full of hate but it ain’t the SJWs you need to complain about