Prunus persica
I don't know what makes me sadder; the bimbofication to become famous, or the fact that it worked.
Thank you! I'm currently reading (Un)kind by Victoria Smith on a recommendation from here, and it's incredible just how much weaponised kindness from female socialisation has weakened us as a class.
I think it's also important to remember that few women would even recognise throwing other women under the bus for "acceptable feminism."
I know that I was abused, and when I was safe, I sought out therapy. It was that work with my therapist that allowed me to see just how bad it was. When she first mentioned that I was made to constantly question my reality, that sounded absolutely absurd. To cut a long story short, with her help, I ended up realising that I didn't just "need a little support," I had CPTSD and the abuse was horrendous.
Going through that shifted my perspective about feminism. Patriarchy and female oppression is that abuse, but on a global scale and spread across every woman in different ways.
The reason that I mention all that is that abuse survivors sometimes can't see the abuse that they're going through. They don't even register that they're avoiding words or phrases. They might not even recognise how much of their perspective has been deliberately warped by their abuser(s). It might not even occur to them that putting themselves first is even an option.
When that's scaled up and made much more subtle, and the patriarchy works to whisper more manipulation, it's not a surprise that there are a fair number of women who are trapped by "be kind!"
Feminism is only kind to women. We can choose or not to be compassionate and supportive of men, but the point of feminism is to be technically unkind by taking away things that men have felt entitled to for so long. It's not a surprise that the patriarchy is obsessed with ensuring that we know that we're supposed to be the kind ones.
The greatest trick of the patriarchy was to teach countless generations of women to be kind.
We can talk about statistics all day long, but the weaponisation of our compassion is what keeps us on our knees.
When we see studies about violence, the immediate reaction is but men can be victims, too, and examples like that are why the false ideas of the patriarchy hurts men, too and feminism is for everybody are so prevalent. Women have been so broken down by generations upon generations of manipulation through be kind that is feels wrong, that it feels psychologically painful to centre ourselves.
Instead of women being able to come together and fight for our rights as one, this malicious forced compassion makes us sideline and silence ourselves, with the reward being tricked into feeling like I'm a good and selfless person. When women dare to centre ourselves and put ourselves first reasonably, then we're gaslit into believing that we're being selfish, cruel and even violent, and when other women snap and snarl, tired of our treatment, then they're entirely dismissed as being any modern version of hysteric.
Men like to hide behind the idea that we're the manipulative ones that psychologically damage, but without a thousand generations of men reinforcing that we should think again and actually have kindness and compassion for others, women as a whole would be able to see through the blinders of oppression.
After all, to be anti-prostitution has been reframed as hating sex workers.
Fighting against systemic violence and rape against women is ignoring male victims and supporting female perpetrators.
Protecting female-only spaces is excluding a vulnerable minority's right to exist.
Few ordinary women want to be made to feel like they're hateful or cruel. As soon as we talk about women's issues, examples of individual men are brought up, and women are tricked into talking about them by either proving how kind we are ("of course I don't want anyone to be raped, male victims deserve help!") to distract us from our issues and re-centre men again, or women dismiss that obviously malicious call for compassion ("feminism isn't about men, sort your own issues out!") and then men use it as a reason as to why feminism is evil, because anything without kindness and compassion is wrong.
Women need to be taught that it's not unkind to put ourselves first, and that men use our compassion against us.
In feminism, our kindness and compassion must be reserved for our fellow women.
Women can be kind and compassionate to men in their private lives if they want, but that isn't part of feminism - and they need to be reminded that they won't get that kindness and compassion returned.
I also hate that criticism of this is supposed hatred of bisexual women who have felt attraction to 99 women, but attraction to only 1 man ever in their entire lives, or like it's hatred of the same-sex attraction side of being bisexual.
It's frustrating because a lot of bisexual women have connected their sexuality to their activism, like falsely announcing that they're attracted to every single woman ever is somehow the same as being feminist.
Everyone with any sense knows those bisexual women are lying. Whether it's a lie to themselves to try and self-soothe over hating that they're bisexual, or whether it's to try and protect themselves from accusations of being male-centric in some way, it doesn't do anything but hurt themselves - and other bisexual women - in the long run.
Bisexual women who say "I'm attracted to all women and one man" are so cringe. It's just virtue signalling. And trying to compensate for the supposed negative of being male-attracted.
you know threating violence against women is still misogyny? right? even when it's against women you hate? you know when you say shit like "i wanna drag terfs out of the bathroom by the hair and curb stomp them" or "i hope republican women get raped and/or have an unwanted pregnancy so they can face the consequences of their actions" you're threating violence against specifically against women? and that's misogyny? you know that right?? right?? right??????
It might sound strange, but peaking about gender helped me to accept my bisexuality, understand feminism and start me on a real path to understand that I'm a person whose actual consent matters.
When I was younger and unsure (and quite hateful about) my bisexuality, and thoughtlessly repeated some feminist talking points, I ignored all of my doubts because they know better. At first, I didn't know why I was uncomfortable and upset about the push for bisexual women to accept being in sapphic relationships with males. Or why it was transphobic for a bisexual woman to not date/have sex with a TIM. Etc etc etc.
I doubted myself and my upset until I saw the sexual harassment of lesbians, and others that were much more intelligent and switched on than myself pointing out the lesbophobia and rape promotion and apologism, as well as the repeated, underlined anger about sexuality and consent.
It was first my outrage about lesbians (and, to a much lesser extent, gay men) that made me realise, wow, my sexuality doesn't implicitly suggest consent, which then made me sit back and actually consider how other women were fawning to avoid the rage and lesbophobia and biphobia and doxxing and rape and death threats, which then spread further to understanding my existence as a woman.
There's a stereotypical and misogynistic point that men bring up about how feminists are always miserable and obsessed about oppression, as if it ruins us somehow, but it absolutely does feel more grounding.
You spend your whole life isolated and only allowed crumbs of sanitised and safe "feminism," to the point where you dismiss every slight and every harm, from the mansplaining to the assaults as random or bad luck or whatever else, and then suddenly, you're not crazy or oversensitive anymore, you're able to understand it.
As twisted as it sounds, it's grounding and peaceful, too. If you can break free and question the so-called holy right of males taking everything female for themselves, when family members, friends, the media, charities and even governments promote it all as progressive, then you can question everything, and there's no more empowering start to a journey than that.
Does anyone else feel more grounded since becoming gc. I'm no longer being asked to ignore my instincts, my emotions, and the reality around me in favour of a constant "religious" trial. I used to be so disassociated, but now I can just point out the obvious and not feel like I'm going to burn in hell for it lmao. Lots of religious words in here but you get it. I mean it when I say tras are spiritual. You have to be to ignore reality that much. And it feels just as good when you deconvert.
National Biways (Aug/Sep, 1994)
gay men are not discriminated against because they're gay. they're hated because being attracted to men is seen as a feminine trait, and our society sees being a woman as shameful.
men, no matter their sexuality, are not oppressed.
gay men are not the victim.
the most infuriating thing about personal growth is that even if someone else did have the answer you needed and conveyed it to you in a precise and effective matter, it won't make sense until you're ready for it. you could hear it every day of your life and it wouldn't matter a fucking bit until it finally clicks. there's very little you can do to influence when that happens, either
every woman thinks she's evil and irredeemable for making a few avoidable mistakes while every man goes about his day thinking he's normal after having emotionally tortured at least 5 different women