Listening-andor-learning - Call Me Kri

Huh, I hadn't thought of that the first time I read it but there is a pint there- Victor begins thinking that he'll create something beautiful and wonderful but after actually seeing Creature he experiences a massive depression event and abandons it. As much as he insists that he'd make a decent parent; that insistence comes from a place of arrogance and lack of foresight.

He brings Creature into a world that despises him. Creature is a brilliant mind, well read, he shows compassion towards the family he watches over, and helps without being asked, but the world offers Victor's child nothing but physical abuse and abandonment until he grows painfully resentful. There's the idea there that if Creature had any positive relationships, maybe everything here could have been avoided. On the anti-natalist end though, bringing Creature into this world is in and of itself an act of arrogant cruelty. How could he know what people are like and choose to create a child anyway.

Frankenstein feels like a very anti-natalist work. From the modern perspective of course. With the original context, the themes about the progression of science and the nature of humanity still stand

like i really hope you understand those people really really REALLY believe WHOLEHEARTEDLY that you can escape misogyny and oppression if you try hard enough. and if you can't, that's because of your lack of effort. it is your fault, your individual fault you're oppressed. don't ever think about reaching out to other women and helping each and fight against sexism together. do NOT gain class consciousness, only think about yourself. you're NOT like those weak women, they deserve the oppression but not you!!!!!!

I feel sick

I'm on holiday at a mall and there's a family getting candyfloss, I don't know what religion they were but all the females, even the little girls (5 or 6) are fully veiled

And the little boys are eating candyfloss off sticks together and the youngest girl is crying and stamping her foot because she can't eat hers due to the veil and she has to take it home in a bag

‘This is just like if there was pushback against not being attracted to <insert any other kind of person>’

Yeah I actually find those, ‘if you find yourself not attracted to <group> check yourself’ posts gross too actually. I’m a believer in radical consent: You’re allowed to say no at any time, to any person, for any reason and no one should ever be shamed for denying someone access to their body. Sorry if that upsets people but I’m not sorry for holding to that belief.

Social Construct Masterpost

I was inspired to make this post because of the mass confusion on tumblr about what social constructs are and how they function. I will start with a simple example:

This is a one dollar bill. It is an excellent example of a social construct. This piece of paper represents a specific amount of spending power in the society that it exists in (the USA). An individual person could decide personally that it represents 1000$ worth of spending power, but it would not matter because like all social constructs, the collective agreement between individuals in society is what determines the meaning of the construct. There are laws on the books about currency but it doesn’t stop society from changing the meaning of a dollar; after all, in times of scarcity a dollar is a much more valuable asset than in times of plenty. The exact value of a dollar is something that fluctuates in tune with other factors, including things like consumer confidence- meaning, how consumers feel about the economy. Social constructs can change based on changes of opinion in the population. 

One way to test if something is a social construct is to remove it from its native society and see if it retains the same functionality. The US dollar is accepted in some foreign countries, but in other places, it is just a piece of paper. 

Another way to test if something is a social construct is to remove people from the picture entirely and see if it retains its functionality. Without people to give a dollar meaning it simply becomes paper. 

Contrast the attributes of a dollar with say, biological sex.

Male humans produce sperm and much higher levels of testosterone than females. Females produce ova and offspring if their eggs are fertilized and implanted. Individuals who are sterile still have either male or female anatomy which serves sexual functions for the individual. Virtually everyone on earth qualifies as one sex or the other, with or without malfunctioning or variations. Is this binary a social construct?

Does the collective agreement of society give male and female organs their functionality? Absolutely not. Humans did not always have an understanding of how pregnancy happened, and yet it happened anyway. Individuals who don’t know about or understand reproduction can and do get pregnant via sex. No matter how many people got together and decided that females inseminate males there would be no change in the function of testes or ovaries. 

The functionality of human reproductive organs is also impervious to cultural or geographical differences. All over the world people get pregnant and have babies by mixing sperm from males with ova from females. There is no exception. 

Removing humans from the equation also has no effect on the biological reality of mammalian reproduction. Male mammals are male, female mammals are female, and only one of the two can give birth. 

Biological sex is not and never has been a social construct.

Another example is gender. Femininity is the easiest example to discuss. Lets look at different examples of femininity from around the world:

As you can see, what it means to be feminine or girly is very different depending upon the society. None of these is the “correct” femininity, just different versions from different cultures. There is no objective way to determine what makes someone feminine in any given culture- you have to ask people. 

The nature of femininity is totally subjective and relies on the collective agreement of society. If you move one of these women into a different society their defining feminine characteristics instead become physical characteristics with no gender designation at all. In fact, what would make you gender conforming in one culture would make you gender non conforming in another. Gender also changes in individual societies over time, so the meaning of being feminine in America in the 1800s would differ markedly from what it means to be feminine in America right now. How people feel about the construct changes its meaning.Thus we can easily say that gender is a social construct. 

Op is saying that therapy is the wrong tool to use against bigotry, not that no bigot can ever change their beliefs. If a rich person believed ‘poor people are poor because they’re born genetically inferior’, that belief likely wouldn’t cause them problems in their day to day life. It’s probable that it wouldn’t come up at all and it’s not really a therapists job to make them confront that belief or change it in any way if they’re fine holding that belief (ie the belief isn’t pathological). That doesn’t mean the belief can’t be changed *at all*- Evangelical Christianity is an ideology that therapy isn’t supposed to fix but it’s something a person can be talked in or out of believing through books, dialogue with peers etc.

you cannot therapize misogyny out of a man because values are not pathologies. him not believing women are human will not be fixed by cbt or exposure therapy because it is not a cognitive health issue. it is an ideological one.

That wasn’t the original argument. Op didn’t say, ‘JK Rowling does a lot for women but her posts are bad’ it says ‘Rowling isn’t a feminist just Gender Critical.’ That’s why her actual feminist actions are relevant in this conversation in the same way it’d be relevant to bring up The Carnegie Foundation if we were talking about his views and influence on education (but obviously not if we were talking about all the horrible shit he did for workers rights.)

j.k. rowling is probably the biggest example of why i say that TERFs and GC’s aren’t the same group of people and they have a different orientation towards enforcing patriarchy. because rowling isn’t even pretending to be a “feminist.” she never posts about feminist politics. she’s a straight woman doing what they do best i fear (derogatory).

anticapitalist e-commies when you say that the sex industry is exploitative

It does worry me sometimes when I’m going through blogs and find a kid in Radfem spaces. I don’t interact with them and but I sincerely hope these girls are staying safe. Never post your face or body, always use a pseudonym, if someone’s making them feel unsafe or sexually harassing them have an adult they can talk to, know they don’t owe strangers anything etc.