Too Many Bisexuals Are Allergic To Admitting That They're Just Bisexual.

Prunus persica

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.

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??????

To add, even back in 2009, there was a push that "bisexuality is transphobic," something that was designed to both attack anyone that dared to think about science (because bisexuality is being able to be attracted to both women and men), and also to wear bisexuals down.

Even on a website where bisexuality was defended, even back in 2009 when that page was published, bisexuality as a sexuality was already massively weakened, where bisexuals were so broken down that they were already tying themselves in knots to not be seen as transphobic.

Bisexuals in general are the absolute worst at defending ourselves and our sexuality, thanks to just how prevalent biphobia is everywhere. It tends to be so much easier for bisexuals to latch onto an entirely different label to try and obfuscate the fact that they're bisexual - both to themselves and others.

What isn't talked about enough is the intersectional bigotry that bisexual women face. A bisexual woman is seen as hypersexual and is presumed to have zero boundaries, so if she dares have any then she's a lying tease who can't be raped because she always wants it, who is both the hateful, lying and homophobic straight woman looking for male attention, but also the closeted self-hating lesbian as soon as she dates a woman and needs to admit to being a lesbian already because denying it is selfish and she needs to think about other lesbians, but if she dates a man after breaking up amicably with a woman, then she suddenly and finally becomes the evil, abusive bisexual lesbophobe that preys on unsuspecting lesbians to use them and deliberately lies to use lesbian culture.

Is it any wonder that bisexuals made up a whole bunch of nonsense labels to avoid accurately being called bisexual, when there's both so much entitlement to our time and bodies purely for existing, and also so much hatred of us?

We talk a lot about how it’s homophobic to tell lesbians that they need to be open to dating males.

But by focusing on on how harmful this is to lesbians, we leave bisexuals behind.

Many trans people have an attitude of “If lesbians/gay men don’t want me, at least bisexuals do.” And that’s just not true, and not fair to bisexuals. It leads to a culture of expecting bisexual women to be okay with any configuration of biological sex, hormonal status, and body parts.

Bisexuals are therefore framed as a group of women who are supposed to be available as a potential partner for anyone who wants them.

So it’s not just homophobic, it’s part of rape culture. Because it aims to teach (mostly) women that they’re not allowed to form their own feelings about their sexuality and their attraction. It teaches women that their sexuality isn’t for them. Their sexuality is a political statement, and there is a right and wrong statement to make.

The fact of the matter is that no one has to date someone they’re not attracted to. No one has to try to develop attraction for someone they’re not innately interested in. No one has to “examine their preferences” when it comes to who they want in their bed. This includes bisexuals.

Yes, women standing up for ourselves does lead to a lot of lonely mtfs who can’t get dates. No, that is not women’s problem.

This affects all of us, but it affects bisexuals in a unique way that’s worth talking more about.

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.

Couldn't reblog because it's a community post but I really wanted to lol