Robert Kalman, I Am Here: Lesbian Portraits, 2013 - 2015.

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Gender non-conforming women are so cool!

Butch lesbians are awesome!

Stag/tomcat bi women are rad!

GNC straight women are dope!

All women who subvert femininity are doing good work just being themselves! You’re all wonderful valuable women!

Keep up the good work just doing you! Thanks for your presence in making gnc women visible!

For me, being bare chested means freedom. Running around shirtless is a big “fuck you” to all the misogyny I internalized as a young girl related to the acceptable ways for the female body to exist. This body is the only one I’m ever going to have, so I’m doing my best to unlearn all of the patriarchal bullshit placed on it just because I’m female. I don’t need to remove my breasts to have the right to exist bare chested - society needs to get over the idea that these breasts exist to be sexualized. Fuck em all, do you. You don’t need any permission ✌🏻️

A common theme I see amongst young feminists, who are starting to understand the depths of male violence against girls and women, is a feeling of such hopelessness that it concentrates into a feeling of bodily inferiority; a feeling of being weaker, being rapeable, being impregnatable. And sometimes even, in turn, hating oneself and ones female body.

I want every woman out there to know that the physical ability to commit violence upon another person is not a superior trait, despite what generations of men would like you to believe.

Men give violence and brute strength value. So let's talk about where we should be giving value to the female body.

First, the reason men are on average stronger than women is also their downfall. Testosterone is a hormone that gives the ability to build muscle and maintain little fat. To simplify how it works, it burns hard and fast to build. This means that it burns hard and fast through the body as well. Mens bodies breakdown quicker- hearts fail, muscles degenerate, etc. They die younger than women.

Essentially, female bodies are more flexible and have a better endurance. This is because our bodies and systems are built for longevity - not power. Mens bodies are built for power and quick burn.

Our uteruses (and other hormonal regulatory systems in our bodies!) love us dearly. Our bodies regulate hormones, limit testosterone, and ensure we don't burn out quick. We experience menopause and men don't. We've been taught this is a bad thing.. But our bodies slow down and stop the hormones that would burn us out, and mens bodies don't. Menopause elevates our lifespan and quality of life.

In fact, this reproductive/regulatory system is so important, we have fat deposits that protect these organs. This allows us to be healthier for longer, too!!

It also helps a ton that we have a boosted immune system, much better than our male peers. On top of that, we have higher pain tolerances! We are better equipped to fight off things that ail us, and persevere through things that would bring us harm.

So we know women live longer, and in better health - but why is that? Is it just testosterone? Is it just to get pregnant? No! Our bodies don't exist to sustain a baby (though they can, and the fact that all life on earth exists because of women is an astoundingly powerful truth) they exist to sustain us - because we were and are community leaders, healers, caretakers, providers - we are immensely valuable.

Why, evolutionarily, are we this way? Because older women bring more value to communities than older men. Look up the Grandmother Hypothesis in evolution studies; it says menopause evolved because it allows women to live longer, because women (specifically grandmothers!) are key to community survival and kin relationships. Older women are key to our species survival; not just for the lifes they may or may not create, but for the relationships, the community, the reasons we live.

Some other miscellaneous thoughts...Sexually, we are the sex that has an organ made entirely for pleasure. We are the sex capable of multiple orgasms, and stronger. That's worth some thought.

So how do men play into all of this? Men are a genetic mutation of us that exist to provide sperm, if we'd like. Men who had more testosterone became stronger than men with less (therefore better at hunting, building shelter), making them more desirable mates, meaning that the next generation of men was stronger as well. And there they placed the value in strength. Which translated to the value of violence.

So the next time you find yourself valuing the capacity for violence, instead look to value the capacity for creation.

Womanhood is made vulnerable by males who choose violence. And that's why our work as feminists is so important. But I promise you - your body was not designed to receive conflict, but to outlast it. You were designed to build something better.

My tip is to stop using the word dysphoria as an umbrella term for all of your discomfort and instead break down all of your symptoms and work on each of those separately. Ex: "the idea of people seeing me as a woman makes me dysphoric -> feel anxious" (then look up ways to handle anxiety), "seeing my breasts makes me dysphoric -> want to rip them off (or something similar)" (look into ways to combat thoughts of self harm, for example I started drawing on myself with markers to give me something else to look at), "I associate women with feminity, so identifying as a woman makes me dysphoric -> feel like I don't belong" (work on changing your mental definition of a woman, I did this both by unfollowing almost all of the feminine women on my social media and replacing them with other gnc women (this doesn't have to be a permanent change if you don't want it to, do what works best for you) and by writing my own stories where women were represented the way I wanted to be seen (I did this because I found it really difficult to find media like that already made))

Dysphoric radfems sound off with tips on how you deal with it

New Hubble image of NGC 2174 by Hubble Space Telescope / ESA

big muscle lesbians you are so fucking valid

Taking advantage of a total lunar eclipse, astronomers using our Hubble Space Telescope have detected ozone in our atmosphere. Why’s this important? 🔭 Researchers can now use this new method – and space telescopes – to continue the search for life in our universe. Find out more HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: https://go.nasa.gov/3fGbZ0I

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! 🎃 👻🦇🕸

This spooky interstellar scene lies within the dusty expanse of reflection nebula IC 2118 in the constellation Orion, the Hunter. IC 2118 is about 800 light-years from our neighborhood, close to the bright bluish star, Rigel, at Orion's foot. It is often identified as the Witch Head nebula for its appearance in a wider field of view. Rigel is the source of illumination for IC 2118, and it is just beyond this frame at the upper left.

Image Credit & Copyright: Casey Good/Steve Timmons

There are other women like you. There are other women who think the way you think, who feel the way you feel, who act the way you act. There always have been and there always will be. Womanhood isn’t whatever shallow archetype the world has tried to convince you that it is. It’s going to be okay.