Monsteradarling - Deliciously Monstrous

This is exactly what I mean.

There isn't an either/or choice that has to be made here. It is entirely possible to criticise that socialisation, explain the risks and strongly encourage women not to partner with men, as well as be there for them if they make that choice anyway, because we're supposed to be feminists and support all women, even if the choices that they make are anti-feminist.

Pretending that me basically saying "let's actually be feminists and remember just how strong a drug female socialisation is, so maybe don't be misogynistic and victim-blame women that get abused" is the same as "never speak against that harmful socialisation" is just ridiculous.

It's reasonable to feel frustrated sometimes when it comes to women still partnering with men, but the rush there is to attack them and blame them for patriarchy grinding them down enough to partner with men despite knowing feminist theory personally sickens me.

And I don't want to hear any version of "but you shouldn't be criticising women when men do..." because if feminists don't keep our house in order and can't even show the basics of compassion over that, the cornerstone of what patriarchy wants, then we may as well roll over and show men the white flag. There's no hope for women if feminists can't even be kind and offer grace to other women.

I love how the concept of female socialisation and patriarchy completely disappears out of the window for some feminists as soon as straight (and some bisexual) women cave into getting into relationships with men.

“feminists would rather be wage slaves than care for their husband and children” so instead of being a wage slave i get to be a maid for a wage slave. wow thats awesome

We should always talk more about the emotional manipulation and gaslighting that comes from being women under the patriarchy. Violence and threats only go so far to oppress women. The rest of the trap is the way that patriarchy has managed to trick women into keeping ourselves down, without us ever noticing it.

Take this paragraph:

Like Buffy, do we feminist women turn to mediocre men who can express messiness so that we don’t have to? Does it make us feel stronger, more powerful, or more competent by comparison—but also keep us measuring our worth in relation to others rather than to ourselves? The strong woman/bad boyfriend phenomenon reminds me of how I felt when I first began interacting with transgendered (male-to-female) women at book signings. The women whom Amy Richards and I met during the Manifesta tour often came with a critique that the book had no discussion of transgender rights. I felt terrifically defensive—obsessed with the way the M-to-F pre-op women would dominate the evening, often with just their physical bigness. I hated the way they invaded a woman-only space, seeming to merely endure our reading so they could get to “their” part of the evening. “They wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that if they had been born women,” I seethed. “You don’t see female-to-male pre-operative men heading to the Harvard Club to demand inclusion. Why is it always women who have to make more space and take in everything?” But as I learned more about the history of transgenderism and met more transgendered people—M to F and F to M and points beyond—I revised that interpretation. I wonder now if it offended me that these women could be aggressive and take up space while I still thought I couldn’t. - From Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics by Jennifer Baumgardner

From a question about mediocre men that immediately brought TIMs to mind, this feminist woman automatically felt righteously repulsed at men forcing their way into a female-only space, who clearly didn't care about female issues, and only endured discussions of women's issues and thoughts so that they could bleat about themselves instead.

Instead of her accepting what she knew, the fact that TIMs act like men because they're men, and TIFs act like women because they're women, she flipped a switch, threw in that she met a range of trans "and points beyond" people, and suddenly, TIMs taking over women's spaces and demanding that everything be about themselves became her own moral failing.

Again, this last line:

I wonder now if it offended me that these women could be aggressive and take up space while I still thought I couldn’t.

Critiques of her understanding of feminism aside, from the above text, she knew what men are like, and she was right to seethe. And yet, patriarchy is so strong that women will tie themselves in knots to be seen as acceptable to others, because of the teaching that men always matter more.

In her case - and in quite a lot of other cases, from women who won't really even think about feminism across whatever spectrums there are, I would wager - there will be this underlying idea that these men that claim womanhood are simply somehow better women than they are, and that is why those men deserve support and love and kindness over everything else.

Because those men are the kind of women that actual women are telling themselves that they should aspire to be. That actual women are failures, and the fakes are somehow the real deal.

Those women can tell themselves that it's about being unapologetic and loud and forceful about their individual needs - but it's another manipulative trap. Women can never become like those brave TIMs. As soon as they try, they're called TERFs, remember?

Look at the number of women who spend so much time defending TIMs, whether they're trans identified or not. Of course they do. They've been taught that the best of women, the most vulnerable of women? Those better "women" are all male.

Why do I say all this in regards to the trans issue? Because we're living in a time where numbers of women have genuinely been gaslit into believing that men can be women, in such a relatively short space of time. That men somehow can become biologically female through saying a few words out loud.

If that doesn't tell you how effective the psychological abuse of women is under the patriarchy, I don't know what else will.

National Biways (Aug/Sep, 1994)

I'm going to have to read that, thanks so much for the rec!

It's another one of those things where, once you see it, it's everywhere in patriarchy.

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.

Life. Death. Together. Gone, but still reaching for the sky.

Why, yes, feminism does have to support all women, even the ones you don't like, that's kind of the whole point.

That doesn't mean you *agree* with everything any woman does. It doesn't mean you give any woman anything she asks for. It doesn't mean you excuse everything every woman does.

What it does mean is that no woman is responsible what men do, no matter how ill-thought her choices, and she is still entitled to the benefits of feminism.

i promise it is not subversive or satirical to be a caricature of what men think of women. they don't get the "joke" you are literally just reinforcing those beliefs