Jezebel: Women Speak Drastically Less When They’re Surrounded by Dudes. And That’s Bad.

“I (and, I suspect, pretty much any woman) can access that feeling really quickly and vividly—when you find yourself in conversation with a circle of men and, against your better judgment and all your feminist impulses, you just turtle up. You retire. You forfeit, because their lungs are bigger, they’re groomed for assertiveness since birth, and you’re groomed to assume that nobody will take you seriously anyway. You wait for a pause in a room of interruptors. Sigh. I do it like crazy, and I am a fucking loudmouth feminist yelling machine.”

So this happened today…

In my Harlem Renn. Literature class we were talking about the sexual repression of one of our characters. And we started discussing how this character’s fight against this inner repression by acknowledging her oppresion could be considered feminist (YA THINK?) And a girl in my class was asked by the professor to define feminism for the purposes of this discussion, and she started her definition by saying “I dont know if there are any feminists in the class, i dont mean to offend….blah blah blah” 

The muscles in my face revolted against my brain and i made the ugliest face at this girl because i was so freaking pissed!!

  

This class is almost all women (one man in the class) in a very liberal school, and yet it still isn’t assumed we’re feminists? It isn’t assumed people who are intellegent and comfortable talking about FEMALE SEXUAL REPRESSION DUE TO THEIR MALE COUNTER PARTS we are feminists? YOU ARE A MOTHER FUCKING WOMAN YOU FUCKER!! Do you not believe you should have equal rights? 

Fuck you. Fuck your ignorance. Fuck your internalized misogyny (previous statements of hers had me snap a pen in half.) Fuck your condescending tone when saying “feminist.” AND FUCK EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CLASS WHO WASN’T AS OFFENDED AS I WAS AND STILL CLEARLY AM.

…and then fuck me for not saying any of this in class. 

“The thing about patriarchy is that individual men, gay and straight, are often really wonderful people who you love deeply, but they have internalized some really poisonous shit. So every once in a while they say or do something that really shakes you because you’re no longer totally certain they see you as a human being, and you feel totally disempowered to explain that to them.”



The thing about this quote is it makes me really emotional (PMS admittedly might be a contributing factor as of right now.) But it gets me right at the pit of my stomach. This, this moment when one of your male friends makes a joke about women in the kitchen, or rape, or assumes gendered stereotypes about you and you cant react properly because you have no idea how to verbalize why it hurts you so much - to know other people have these moments, although sad, makes me feel better. Most of my friends, people I love dearly, are men and most of them at some time or another has made a joke about this (or said it seriously, which is even worse.) To know I’m not being sensitive, that I’m not reading into their words too much, to know other people experience this and can vocalize it better than me is really comforting. I’m not happy other people have these moments, because as you know if you’ve ever experienced it, it is the worst, it punches you in the stomach and acts like it has no idea why you’re bruised and out of breath. But to know I’m not alone in my feminist sufferings, sometimes is my only comfort when my friends make these very comments to me daily and have no idea why I’m so awkwardly silent after. 

I think it’s imperative to clarify these sorts of photos, so they are not misinterpreted. The “Discover your Clitoris” slogan is aimed at women, to take back their sexuality. Now, what do you mean take back, the clitoris is on a woman so she obviously always owned it. False. For millennium the first thing taken from a woman was the ownership of her body, and her sexuality. This is still on the forefront of feminism - woman’s sexuality. As women, we are told to be shameful of our sexuality, to ignore it and “fake it.” To this day, female genital mutilation happens all over the globe - (which if you don’t know) thereby entirely disallows women to ever enjoy sex. Our sex is the first thing stolen from us, and the last thing we try to take back. These images and slogans, to me, mean discovering and taking ownership for our clitoris (the very part of our body entirely designed for sexual pleasure) because sexuality is natural and normal and something to be proud of. Women, find your clitoris, and next time someone tries to take ownership of it…remember it is yours, and you are strong and remember me and the woman in this photo - we know you are strong enough to own your own clitoris.

I think it’s imperative to clarify these sorts of photos, so they are not misinterpreted. The “Discover your Clitoris” slogan is aimed at women, to take back their sexuality. Now, what do you mean take back, the clitoris is on a woman so she obviously always owned it. False. For millennium the first thing taken from a woman was the ownership of her body, and her sexuality. This is still on the forefront of feminism - woman’s sexuality. As women, we are told to be shameful of our sexuality, to ignore it and “fake it.” To this day, female genital mutilation happens all over the globe - (which if you don’t know) thereby entirely disallows women to ever enjoy sex. Our sex is the first thing stolen from us, and the last thing we try to take back. These images and slogans, to me, mean discovering and taking ownership for our clitoris (the very part of our body entirely designed for sexual pleasure) because sexuality is natural and normal and something to be proud of. Women, find your clitoris, and next time someone tries to take ownership of it…remember it is yours, and you are strong and remember me and the woman in this photo - we know you are strong enough to own your own clitoris.

Twelve Frozen Hearts: This Makes Me Want to Puke

twelvefrozenhearts:

I feel a rant coming on!

You know who reads this shit? Young, dumb, and inexperienced girls read this. It fills their head with the idea that they are entitled to something that must be earned. Sure, you’re gonna’ have a harder time earning it because you’re a woman, but that doesn’t mean…

Posts like this are what remind me how important the feminist fight for equality is. A post like this just shows a clear misunderstanding of basic psycho/social structure of gender, sexism, and our modern world as a whole. 

You think if you raise girls that their opinion doesn’t matter, that they are not important or smart or valued they will have any opinion when they’re “old ladies?” Once they are “old ladies” their backs will be bent from the burden of womanhood in a society that hates women - not osteoporosis. If you raise girls to undervalue themselves, you will have a generation of “old ladies” who see no value in their own daughters. If you raise girls to undervalue themselves, you raise boys to overvalue themselves and to push down their fellow sisters - you raise a generation of hate and misogyny. 

Empowerment makes you want to puke? Your ignorance makes me want to puke as well.  

Can someone please post, or message me a full list of the 30 Day Feminist Challenge, because I really want to do it but I cant find a full list of the 30 days. Does someone know where to find it, or can you message it to me? 

Thanks everyone