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Posts tagged feminism

15,800 notes

Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their “traditional” marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate “nice guys.” The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don’t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of either gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it’s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.

Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.

Lindy West for Jezebel: “If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?” (via lauratheoutlandish)

(Source: jezebel.com, via lightsaboveyouglowing)

Filed under thank you thank you thank you feminism

251,813 notes

sevenpoints:

iidelirium:

captainragtag:

hey what if someone invented a machine that allowed women to transfer their pregnancies to men and then the government passed a law that if a woman didn’t want to have a baby the biological father was required to carry it how fast do you think birth control would stop being an issue

BEST NIGHTBLOG POST EVER

“IT’S UNETHICAL TO FORCE PEOPLE TO CARRY A BABY!!!!” MEN SHOUT

“NO SHIT!!!!” WOMEN REPLY

(via gwehyddarbyd)

Filed under always reblog feminism

11,181 notes

Anita Sarkeesian faces backlash for disabling Youtube comments.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, people are taking to the Internet to complain about Anita Sarkeesian. The first installment of her long-awaited video series about sexism in video games was released yesterday, inspiring an inevitable torrent of backlash. Aside from suggestions that she “stole” the Kickstarter funding for the Women vs. Tropes in Video Games series, much of the criticism is because she disabled comments on the YouTube video.

[…]

Leading the charge against Sarkeesian’s decision is Tumblr user amazingatheist, who posted a ten-minute video entitled “Who’s The Damsel Now?“ Arguing that Sarkeesian’s “censorship” of YouTube comments counteracts her message about strong women, and that her TED talk about online harassment amounts to “whining,” amazingatheist says:

“What are you afraid of, Anita? Why can’t people have a discourse about your material? Why can’t people make their opinions towards your content known? I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature — probably most will — but so what?”

Ironically, the existence of this response means by definition that amazingatheist is making his opinion known, as well as participating in a discourse about Sarkeesian’s material. [READ MORE]

(Source: hellotailor)

Filed under feminism

19,926 notes

The reality is that so-called pro-life movement is not about saving babies. It’s about punishing women for having sex. That’s why they oppose birth control. That’s why they want to ban abortion even though doing so will simply drive women to have dangerous back alley abortions. That’s why they want to penalize women who take public assistance and then dare to have sex, leaving an exemption for those who become pregnant from rape. It’s not about babies. If it were about babies, they would be making access to birth control widespread and free and creating a comprehensive social safety net so that no woman finds herself with a pregnancy she can’t afford. They would be raising money for research on why half of all zygotes fail to implant and working to prevent miscarriages. It’s not about babies. It’s about controlling women. It’s about making sure they have consequences for having unapproved sex.
“How I Lost Faith in the Pro-Life Movement” by Libby Anne (via albinwonderland)

(Source: possibilitygirl, via lightsaboveyouglowing)

Filed under feminism libby anne is one of my favourite people on the internet

3,168 notes

‎People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, […] They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal.

Harriet J

(via ceasesilence)

(Source: lesshumansmorecats, via nerdpoet)

Filed under feminism

9,102 notes

because it seems necessary to say this:

gingerhaze:

Men’s Rights Activists, why do you think people are laughing at you?

It’s not because we think you shouldn’t have rights or that your problems don’t matter. I want men to be able to wear pink and drink fruity drinks and wear makeup and engage in other perhaps unfairly stereotypical “feminine” activities without getting harassed. Custody battles should be decided fairly without defaulting to the mother because she’s stereotyped, because of her gender, as a better caregiver. I hate that men are raped and don’t report it because it makes them feel emasculated. I think that the concept of masculinity that’s being pushed by our society is really messed up and extremely harmful to men.

The thing is, instead of spending five minutes researching what feminism is actually about and realizing that it actually would help ALL of the above issues, that we’d actually be on the same side here considering you give a crap about women (which is, well, in question), you’d rather start your own counter-movement (often IN OPPOSITION to feminism) about how your own problems matter more. “Why are we not talking specifically, exclusively about ME, right now?” 

Feminism IS NOT and NEVER HAS BEEN about hating men. It’s not about women taking over the world and stripping men of all their rights. If you believe that, you’re operating under a faulty understanding of the issue and should do some research. 

When you force your way into this discussion with an intense focus on men’s rights (or rights, as society would call them), you misunderstand the issue at best and belittle the systematic oppression of women around the world. When the issue you bring up is, “But I’M always expected to pay for dates!” then yes, people will laugh at you.

Filed under feminism

29,137 notes

-andthewaves:

“Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions.Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately.”

— [x] (via neighborly)

(Source: colinfirthhasmoved, via lightsaboveyouglowing)

Filed under feminism

1,919 notes

[TW: RAPE, RAPE CULTURE ETC] When high-status high school athletes commit felonies, especially gang rape– they are surrounded and protected by their fathers, their school administrations and their communities. These out-of-control, rapacious thugs are our school’s heroes — “our guys,” as the gang rapists at Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey were called nearly two decades ago. The players themselves hold to a code of silence, the omerta of sexual assault: No one ever rats out a fellow bro. The parents, the school and the community circle wagons in a culture of protection around the boys.
It’s often the girl herself, and her parents, who are vilified and receive death threats for daring to expose the crime in the first place. Raped boys, too, dare not complain: A few years ago, after rookies on the Mepham High School (Long Island) football team were sodomized with broom handles, golf balls and pine cones in a pre-season hazing ritual, the rookies’ parents got anonymous death threats for standing up for their brutalized sons

The 18,437 Perpetrators of Steubenville by Michael Kimmel - Ms Magazine

(via callingoutsexists)

(Source: callingoutbigotry, via thelxiepia)

Filed under feminism tw: rape tw: rape culture this is what rape culture looks like