Nüshu 女书 Was A Women-only Script Used By Yao Women In Jiangyong, Hunan Province, China.

in a perfect world, girls like me would not exist

i hate that “cosmetic surgery isn’t self-care it’s the result of an advertising campaign to sell you on surgical misogyny.” because yes, it’s factually correct, but it also doesn’t interrogate the entire conceit of ‘self-care.’ the wellness industry disproportionately targets women (men are obviously affected too, but i do not remember tiktok having a ‘clean boy aesthetic’ that involved all the thirst trap guys going out and getting identical athleisure sets). ‘real’ self-care, if such a thing even exists, is mostly about executive function and not product. being your own tradwife. taking a bath, making a tasty dinner, meditating, medicating, exercising. and even then, it’s done in the service of the grind. take a bath so you don’t feel as stressed about work, so you can go to work tomorrow without mailing pipe bombs to the ceo. get enough sleep, so you don’t have a meltdown during your lunch break. get some salad in you so you don’t develop a nutrient deficiency and go to the hospital and stop working. or, if you do your work from home and it’s unpaid domestic labor: eat greens so your husband doesn’t leave you because he’s found another younger, hotter wife. lose weight so you can safely birth more kids. the ritualistic elements also are placebos– if you do it you must be doing it for a reason and it must be working.

all of self-care as we know it is in the service of capitalism. even the things that DO work (eating healthy foods, exercising, sleeping enough) to improve mental/physical health and aren’t on their surface things you buy end up serving the patriarchy. you get rewarded for being the ideal capitalist subject. especially if you’re a woman.

so i’m going to be a bit satan-like and argue that yes, plastic surgery IS self-care. but self-care is NOT empowering. nothing we do as individuals is. for women, it’s business expenses all the way down. as i’ve said before, it’s not the ‘choice feminism’ of the libs and it’s not the ‘radical feminism’ of radfems. it’s something both more nihilistic and more coherent than either.

🌵 Curtis’s botanical magazine. London ; New York [etc.]: Academic Press [etc.].

Inflatable Dress from MARRKNULL Spring 2022.

📸: MARRKNULL / ImaxTree.

Alice Auaa spring/summer 2014

flaye. oil painting

“Australia Day” is almost over and I haven’t even seen the photo of Burnum Burnum planting the Aboriginal flag on the cliffs of Dover and claiming Britain for the Indigenous people of Australia on my dash yet

opalized bones

finally i understand Females by Andrea Long Chu

“Feminine penis” all penis is feminine. Having a dick makes you girly, it’s fag behavior