I have this working theory that a lot of progressive young women took the wrong lessons from the pivot to intersectional feminism and decided that, rather than interrogate the ways racism and sexism intersect, racism was “more important” to fight than sexism and therefore “women’s issues” weren’t as important. It might be at least partly the circles I’m in, but I’m really sick of seeing white women in this day and age insisting that white women aren’t an oppressed group because women of color have it much worse, and I think that’s a large piece of why it feels like feminism isn’t prioritized (or even considered cringe). Like it’s crucially important to recognize and center the fact that white women and women of color do not experience sexism the same way, but that doesn’t mean white women don’t experience sexism. There are, in fact, some issues that affect all women, even though they’re going to be experienced differently based on race, class, gender identity, sexuality, etc., and I just wish young white women (who are obviously well meaning) would acknowledge that white women, while we unquestionably benefit from our racial privilege which to some extent does mitigate sexism, it sure doesn’t cancel it out. It may be easier for wealthier white women to travel to access abortion, but abortion is still illegal in half the country regardless of your race, and that is the baseline issue here. It just sucks.
OOOOFFF yeah you nailed it. There is a rush, from those same women, to back men of color in the same way boss girl women cleave to more powerful white men. They don’t see how they are upholding the same system of oppression by doing this, and I hate it. Stop trying to be a “good” anything and just burn it down FFS.
Misogyny is respectable in a way racism is not. Misogyny is not worse than racism, but there isn’t a ‘benevolent’ form of racism like there is a benevolent’ sexism. No famous comedians make ‘wasn’t the Klan funny’ jokes like they make ‘women and their shopping, amirite?’ ones.
You're right. I never thought of it that way, but it is treated as a respectable way of thinking. Some men flaunt misogyny as an expression of their manhood.
Thank goodness I found your site. I thought I was the only one. I'm very weary of being told my White privilege negates the sexism and that a White woman is able to "rest" when a woman of color cannot. Of course a woman of color has it harder than me. I've never disputed that. But where does a White woman rest when she is living with her oppressor? I'm so frustrated. I'm constantly being told to sit down and be quiet because it's not my turn. Well when is my turn? We are openly discussing racism, homophobia, ableism, etc. But we cannot discuss sexism. Why is that? Thanks for listening.
"Misogyny is respectable in a way racism is not" <---- You are full of shit and you know it. Do you really need to be walked thru the last 600 years with respect to how White Women and Black/Native Men have been treated by Western Societies as a whole ? Given the raging Anti-Black Racism(Anti-Black-Misandry in particular) that has always been at the core of Feminism, I can't say I am surprised to see such self-serving bullshit in Feminist echo chambers.
Why the vitriol? This is what I don't understand. If it were me, and I were saying something with which you disagree, why not just talk to me about it? I've been educated all my life by intelligent people and I hope I never stop. Why be so aggressive? We are merely talking about our experience. And this is the aggression we are met with. You are kind of proving our point.
Do you have something to add that actual falsifies a word I have asserted ? No ? Then shut the fuck up and see yourself out of this conversation. You don't get to tell me how I should react to a White Woman who is openly spewing Anti-Black-Male-Misandry. LOL....I swear....White People like you love holding Black Men to a standard that you would never hold yourselves to.
Also....if you ever wondered by Black Men don't trust Feminists....or White Women be they self proclaimed "allies" or not.... as a whole......you and your cohort are the fucking reason why.
White feminists came together and raised 10 million for Kamala. We are pushing for her election with all our might. If you don't trust White feminists, don't take our money.
Inter personal violence in The Black Community(as well in The White Community) is bi-directional, and occurs at roughly at the same rate in both directions.....with Women more often than not being the instigators of this violence while also being the most likely of the participants to use a weapon in commission of these acts......this is according to the actual empirical data...so tell me again....how you aren't the Anti-Black-Male-Misandrist who can't be bothered to know what in the entire fuck she is talking about again ?
"I suggest you look at how men in marginalized communities treat women in those communities. Misogyny is respectable and universal among males." <--- that's odd consideriing the fact that the actual empirical and historical data points to Black Men being the most egalitarian and progressive demographic out of everyone....including Black Women.....but do go on and tell us all how you didn't just demonize, and dehumanize Black/Brown men without any data to back it up, you vile, racist, White Bitch.
But....now I think on it. Please tell me how men in marginalized communities treat their women.
Also...I happen to be one of those men...and nothing amuses me more than some fucking White Women lecturing me on the nature of Black/Brown men.
Let me guess...your "source" is one of Bell Hook's fever dreams that passes for actual scholarship despite the fact that she doesn't bother with citations and routinely engages in psycho-analyis of Black Men/Boys despite the fact she is just a fucking English Professor ?
Another one of my sources is Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice,” in which he discusses how he practiced for a career raping white women by raping Black women. Also Stokely Carmichael’s joke about the place for women in the Civil Rights movement: “Prone.” (He later used the oldest, most exhausted excuse in the male world for that, saying ‘it was a joke.’ If so, it was a really bad one.)
Yes, I’m a white woman. I call out white men constantly and will continue to do so. I’m not letting any men off for mistreating women. No one gets a pass for bigotry and abuse because he’s poor or darker skinned or otherwise.
I suggest you provide actual evidence of how Men in Marginalized communities treat women and how those women treat men as opposed to just repeating the stupid shit somebody told you.
I guarantee it isn't going to go the way you think it will.....but when have Feminists ever were held to the standard where they actually had to provide demonstrable, empiricism for their takes that are borne out of rigorous, academic research ?
Ugh I’m sorry I’m going to have to step in MDB and take you to task. First of all, I’m a black woman and I grew up in the black community so I can criticize you the way these white women can’t. On one hand, I hate the fact that I get nervous and do not want my brothers with a white woman due to my concern about false rape accusations and the power whiteness confers over blackness. That doesn’t change that the black communities gender relations are poisonous and need to change or we will keep failing each generation. I don’t know what delusions you have about the black community but what I saw growing up what that violence was the language we used to talk to each other. Violence between husband and wife. I grew up seeing this. Violence between parents and child. Even growing up, I used to hit my younger siblings as I didn’t know any better.
It was shocking how quickly the boys I grew up with defaulted to violence when they were angry. I remember I told once young age are of mine off and he slapped me. We were perhaps 16 or 17. He did this because our culture feels that there is impunity in hitting a woman, hitting your wife if she mouths off. That a man is the leader and women need to follow him.
It needs to change.
And now with Kevin Samuels(I’m glad he is dead) ; we have an out and out war in the black community between black red pillers and black female divestors. It is incredibly damaging to our community, our ability to cohere and our ability to protect each other.
At these difficult times, when our men should be building our community and protecting us, a good portion of our wealthier men take all their money and spend in on white women, buying their way into white wealthy spaces.
Our black men are eating red pill slip garbage and it is scaring away girls. Now black girls are being encouraged to sell themselves away from the community as well.
Our community has issues. And he gender issues, the entitlement that black Boys are taught to have to girls bodies and the lack of value black women feel about themselves is just so toxic.
Please stop being angry at this nice white women for telling the truth. We are in crisis!
There is a book from the early 90’s called ‘Promises I Can Keep’ It discusses why women in lower class communities of all ethnicities had babies out of wedlock. One thing all of the women said was that the men treated them horribly: beatings, drug use, general criminality, at best merely refusing to ANY housework including putting their dirty clothes in a hamper. Other evidence is the work of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Misogyny is UNIVERSAL among men.
I feel like a lot of it really started right after the 2016 election when the “52% of white women voted for Trump” became a meme of sorts and so progressive white women wanted to disassociate from that, which isn’t unfair - there are so many terrible white women who are most certainly not feminists, and I would not like to be associated with them. But for some reason that turned into downplaying our association with our gender rather than our race, which I don’t understand at all.
I had this whole conversation yesterday, comparing a local situation to the Bill Cosby situation (I advocate for SA/IPV survivors), and the woman I was talking to, it’s like her brain froze. “It gets complicated when race becomes a factor…” she says, and I said, “NOPE when a Black female victim speaks out through a Black organization against a Black man, and then a white woman steps up to corroborate the claims- the presence of one white woman no matter who she is doesn’t cancel out everyone who came before.” And she repeated herself!!!!! “It’s too complicated when race is involved”. This woman is progressive, she is an activist, she is anything but stupid…but this was so ignorant it was frightening to me. And this is what I see happening all around me yet no one thinks of it as white fragility. There is something about that intersection of identities that happen around SA/IPV that shows me how far this conversation has to go and that the point of #metoo was lost once it entered the zeitgeist.
I am very very hopeful that abortion is the issue most white women will be thinking about in this next election. It’s not in the media and pundits aren’t talking about it but it’s real. Am hoping that can be harnessed in the future.
Yes! Progressive white people are SO hesitant to call out awful people of color, especially white women against Black men. Which I understand to some extent since there is a terrible history there, but staying out of the conversation only hurts Black women. Black women should take the lead, but it’s our responsibility to back their play. The same is true for any cross cultural feminism - I used to teach a gender studies class, and whenever we talked about gender inequality (which is worst among predominantly Muslim countries), I always made a point to reference the feminist movements in those countries in which women were fighting back. Students got real uncomfortable when I’d say that things were famously bad for women in Arab countries, but ignoring that certainly doesn’t help Saudi women fighting guardianship laws or Iranian women protesting against compulsory veiling or Afghan women seeking education, so I always made sure to center them in those conversations.
100%!!!! I keep reminding people to reexamine what a white savior is and question any person of color asking you to be one for them (again, back to Bill Cosby, if he asks for your help does he need it? He has way more money and power than you), and how even Jemele has spoken about how Black female community protectionism has hurt Black women so badly (“we want to protect our men from the system saying let community handle it, but then community doesn’t do anything.”). We should all be able to call grifters and abusers who hijack the language of social justice to shield themselves from accountability. A 25-yo Black Man accused of SA who invokes the name of Emmett Till- you gotta question that (ET was 12 FFS! 25 is an adult!) Making excuses for grown men’s behavior is gross, don’t infantalize a 25yo and say he is a child and didn’t know better. All of this hurts Black women and erases them from the story they brought to light, which works for the perp.
See Moira? Emily gets it and is teaching it! I get it and am living it! You aren’t alone!!!!! We need you!
“A 25-yo Black Man accused of SA who invokes the name of Emmett Till- you gotta question that (ET was 12 FFS! 25 is an adult!)“. ← Because your dumb White ass is completely unaware that false accusations regarding Black Men/Boys has been a regular thing for the past 600 years that often ended in their imprisonment, maiming, and death ? Maybe you should shut the your fucking mouth about what you “know” about Black Men or the Black Community as a whole.
Also...Jemel is a fucking grifter and makes her money assuring White Feminists that their Anti-Black-Male-Misandry is justified....hence the reason she regularly gets dragged on Twitter for her dumb-fuck takes by The Black Community as a whole.
Given the history of White Women and the demonstrable racism that often manifested itself as Anti-Black-Male Misandry that has been at the core of Feminism form it's beginning...maybe you simply need to jus shut the entire fuck up about what the Black Community needs to do. Also....LOL at some White Woman running her mouth about how Black Men should not be infantilized and how Black Men being accused of SA should not evoke parallels to Emmet Till. Jesus Christ.....do you have any fucking self-awareness ?
Hi White Woman. You don’t know anything about Black Men…and the irony here is that you were engaging in that “terrible history” when you posted this fuck-shit. Maybe you should shut the entire fuck about Black Men and The Black Community as a whole because you are not helping.
I do not think white women have the authority to understand/deeply criticize black men or the black community as a whole.
However we need self reflection. What kind of hope are we giving our boys and girls? We have some of the highest out of wedlock births, three or four generations with no dad in the house, murders of young boys on the streets of Chicago and then to watch these you tube videos of black men talking about black women. It is horrible. Things need to change. And if black men want to be the leaders they claim, they would be better off not fighting about feminism with random white people; but changing things for us.
I'm seeing a lot of men voting for Harris stating they are doing so because they have wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters and they fear for their safety.
"our association with our gender rather than our race". <--- that's because Feminism has been racist as fuck from it's very beginning. Susan Brown-Miller to this day refuses to take responsibility and admitting she is a vile, piss stain of a person for blaming Emmet Till for his own murder because her racist, gender essentialism bullshit will not allow her to and 19th century racist bullshit is still being used in The Academy as core Feminist literature.
I agree that many women who identify as feminists have had a hard time with intersectionality — what it is, and how it works in practice. As a white ciswoman committed to intersectional feminism, I know how hard it is for us to listen to feminists in marginalized communities. It’s hard for us to understand women’s struggle for voting rights, for example, or for one fair wage, or for the ability to use public bathrooms or play sports as *feminist* struggles. But they are! We need to work in true—practical, on-the-ground—solidarity with women who don’t look like us or share our life experience, it who do share our longing to transform the white patriarchal structures that keep us trapped
Exactly! I think with trans-specific issues in particular we tend to just sort that into “trans rights” but anything regarding gender is inherently a feminist issue. If a certain class of women is being discriminated against based on their gender, feminists should be upset as feminists, not just as trans allies.
There’s no such thing as “trans” rights because there’s no such thing as “trans.”
If you think making excuses for mentally ill male rapists who want to be placed in women’s prisons and failed male athletes who destroy women’s sports, then you are wasting your time.
Okay, sure! What IS a woman? Is it someone with the ability to bear children? If so, better drop all post-menopausal and infertile cisgender women. Is it someone with two X chromosomes? Welcome to womanhood, cis men with Down’s syndrome! Is it someone with a vagina? Better throw in intersex folks with androgen insensitivity! Is it someone who likes to wear dresses and makeup and who played with Barbies as a kid? Goodbye, tomboys!
How about this: how do YOU know that you are a woman? For me, it’s because I know in my soul that I am a woman. I’ve tried experimenting with gender, acting and presenting more masculine, and it just felt wrong. Innately, I know I am a woman. Not because I like stereotypically feminine things (I generally don’t), or because I have long hair, or because I have curves and big boobs, or because I’ve had children (I haven’t and don’t intend to), etc. I just know I’m a woman. Ask yourself this: what if you knew innately that you were a woman, but everyone acted like you were a man, and you had to pretend to be one? That’s what trans women are dealing with, and it takes immense courage to have to tell everyone you know and love that they’re wrong about who you are.
Trans women are women. I have met and known so many trans women and, while they face specific issues due to being TRANS women, they still face garden variety sexism as well. If anyone is a “man in a dress,” as you say, it’s trans men who aren’t yet out. What is there to gain for cis men to pretend to be trans women? A wage gap? Being better at sports but not receiving any material benefit from that (look at the discrepancy between the best paid female professional athletes and the most mediocre male professional athletes), AND having to pretend to be someone you’re not in all other areas of life? Being able to walk into a women’s bathroom to assault women? (Fun fact: if a man wants to assault women, they will not be stopped by a sign on a door.) Please, tell me where trans women (or, as you say, “delusional men in dresses”) are taking precedence over cis women. As a cis woman living in a blue state, every trans woman I know enjoys the same rights as I do at a maximum - sometimes less, but never more. Curious as to where you’re seeing trans rights prioritized over the rights of cis women, because it’s certainly not anywhere I’m familiar with.
So, to answer your question: if you’re looking for a “biological” definition of women, you will not find one. There is no definition of “woman” that includes every person who identifies as and is understood to be a cis woman, while excluding everyone who is not. Guess you’ll just have to believe people when they tell you who they are, and fight sexism regardless of who the target is. Because THAT is what feminism is all about.
Because you can't even define what a woman is. This is why you cannot even defend women's rights.
A fucked up tranny with a wig on his head isn't a woman. If it were, you wouldn't have to type such a word salad.
There's no such thing as "trans." There's no such thing as "cis." A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male, including males who cross-dress due to autogynephilia.
We're a sex class, no matter how much you lie to yourself. Until you recognize that, your bullshit means nothing. Feminism is not about making excuses for mentally ill trannies who think womanhood is a costume. Feminism is for females.
Only females get pregnant, only females need or get abortions, only females give birth. I didn't say all; I said only. That is the point of women's reproductive reality. Men don't do any of those things. Until you realize that, your word salad means nothing.
And that is why you're a failure.
Thank you. Good job proving my point.
And btw, two X chromosomes is what females have, not males with Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome is trisomy 21, a third copy of chromosome 21.
You recognize genetics exist. Imagine if a physically healthy person said he "identified" as having Down Syndrome because he felt like he had the syndrome, even though he didn't have trisomy 21. Would anybody defend that type of stupidity?
No. Then don't defend mentally ill males who claim they feel like females. They can't know what that is.
You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
This is exactly what I've been experiencing. I thought it was just me. They've introduced the concept of "rest" and say that people of color can never rest. They seem to think that White women can. When a person of color experiences racism, they go home. And the people in that home understand the racism, validate their feelings, comfort and soothe them. White women, on the other hand, are "sleeping with the enemy". We live with our oppressor. So where are we able to rest? I also don't think women of color understand that when a White woman stands up to her White male husband the first threat is always, "I'll leave and take the kids." And he will. And he can.
Exactly. One of my pet peeves is being told that my privilege protects me from misogyny. That women of color have no place to "rest" and White women do. I would argue we all have no place to rest. A White woman is "sleeping with the enemy". She can't even find peace in her own home. And if she tries to leave she risks losing her children. I have a friend right now who is divorcing her husband because he won't talk to her daughter because she voted for Biden.
I'm in mental health and in 2016 the psychological field did a lot of research on what just happened. They found White women who voted for Trump did so due to pressure from their husbands and family. They didn't feel they could vote like they wanted to for fear of losing their children.
I'm still here, too, and I'm 71, so I'll probably stay a feminist until I die. But I think we've made a difference: my sons are much more respectful of women than most of the guys I went to high school with, and that means a lot to me. I admit these are not good times, but I have hope this is a temporary setback. Everything seems to be cyclical, and all things will pass. Too bad our lives are so short if we don't read history, we don't see the larger patterns. One thing I have learned, you have to keep trying.
I've been reading Lyz Lenz' newsletter and started reading her book, This American Ex Wife. She writes about women waking up to the patriarchy in their own homes and refusing to stay in unequal partnerships and beginning new independent lives on their own.
This is a personal feminism on an individual scale, but it gives me hope. The knowledge and awareness and injury that women in America know cannot be taken away from them, and I think feminism lives on within many of us, in spite of a lack of organized movement.
You're one of my favorite contemporary writers and thinkers and I'm grateful to you for staying true to the feminist cause!
I was thinking something similar--I see a lot of young women simply refusing to put up with shit from men, personally and professionally, that I grew up encouraged and expected to overlook.
You aren’t alone. You are correct in that we are not well-organized and the funding sucks, but all across the country you will find witches being burned in town squares, refusing to back down. You will find moms like me making sure their kids understand and see the oppression all around us, that our sons understand their role in all of this. Feminism isn’t dead it is licking its wounds while we wait for the Second Wave Boomers to let go of the institutions that claim to represent us publicly. Look underground and you will see massive chains of practical support biding our time, getting work done until it is safe to rise again.
I completely understand how you feel, because out in the world I feel it too. I think of 2012 and of all the racism we didn’t want to admit still existed, how shocked we were once we realized how widespread it actually was. I truly believe Feminism will have a moment like this in my lifetime, a shift so stunning and palpable we will wonder where it came from and why it didn’t happen sooner. The data that supports this theory comes from all the tiny elections across the country, tiny ones that aren’t covered by the NYT and aren’t important enough to be on CNN’s radar. Post-Dobbs, Women are showing up to the ballot box more consistently and more fully than in any other period in history.
We aren’t done, any more than you are done with this Substack. 😉 Our work is popping up in different places right now, but it’s happening.
"I think of 2012 and of all the racism we didn’t want to admit still existed". <--- Your lack of self-awareness is stunning; and I find it mildly amusing how you and every other White Feminist missed the racist as fuck primary campaign that Hillary Clinton....a so called "liberal" ran against Barrack Obama and all White Feminists who cosigned that fuck-shit.
Thank you for this, Moira, I deeply relate. A few years ago I tried (and failed) to sell a book about this — more specifically, about the grief of having to let go of the feminism that had sustained me for so long and the political possibilities that might spring from such grief now that the feminism of Big Hope is clearly over. Editors thought it was too sad! (I’m writing it anyway.)
For feminism to succeed, it's quite specifically men who need to change. This probably mostly happens from generational churn. So we have to watch the boys and young men. Will they skew (relatively) kind, empathetic, and enlightened, or will they be swayed by the incels and the fascists? Men ultimately resist change only through violence. It can be, and often is, explicit, but more often it is implicit. The 'rule of law' that protects the wealth distribution and all the other elements of the status quo favoring men is in the end always ultimately backed up by armed law enforcement.
This one can be hard to express without appearing transphobic. But because such a larger percentage of the youngest generations identify as at least somewhat gender fluid, it suggests to me that it can't all be biological and is cultural too. What concerns me is it seems younger generations may have implicitly decided that it will be easier to eliminate the concept of gender altogether, than to ever see women treated equally and fairly. I find that deeply saddening.
If (and unfortunately right now it's looking more likely when) Republicans win the election and install their planned religious fascist regime (per all their policy documents), we will see how the country reacts to the exponential increase in the assault on women, and what kind of resistance, if any, is sparked. Massive civil action will be necessary because we won't be able to remove this regime through normal democratic means like voting or petitioning courts.
There it is. A male has come to a post about feminism to explain that men need to change (that's not going to be happen because men are the problem, you are nothing but another example), and then he proceeds to be afraid to tell trannies that they're not women.
What's a woman, Zach? Explain.
What's "gender," Zach? What is being eliminated here? Explain.
Feminism social engeneering experiment went wrong, really wrong. You cannot decide to destroy family unit to empower women. This was the big mistake of criminal feminism. Feminism raped Mother Nature. It is time we start to call feminism for what It is. Feminism is an international criminal organization. Feminists are criminal.
Everything feels like the end of the world right now, but I think this is another huge paradigm shift (to bring back old lingo). If you subscribe to the Waves, I think there was a huge lack of connection between 1st and 2nd wave feminists. This is true for sure between 2nd and 3rd wavers. I watched some real nastiness play out with that on at a college in the early 2000s. And fast forward to now - the same tool that was supposed to democratize information is also used to shut down any social movements with algorithms and fake bot onslaughts. Our lives are so inundated with digital chaos that it is hard to sift through the sound and fury. And what wave are we on?
You need to find other feminists to hang out with - not people who will agree that you are the last feminist left on earth. Seek out that community. I feel like there is so much going on - particularly with young women - and we don't hear about it as we're stuck in our ghettos hearing all the news from the Right who seem to have conquered our media (including the so-called left wing Guardian who platforms TERFS all the time). Times are tough right now but you are not the last feminist on earth. In fact there are feminist communities all over the world continuing to nurture each other and push for change. Feminists in Poland got Abortion re-instated, feminists in latin american are moving their right wing governments out. THe pendulum is swinging to doom in the USA but you need to look internationally.
There is SO MUCH going on here! And we are laying low while we work for the moment. Look for practical support groups in your area. We don’t usually have websites but we exist.
The queer and feminist movements have to remain united! The hatred and persecution of trans and gay people is much like the racist's hatred for race-mixing. It dissolves their obsessively maintained categories of master and slave, and so they froth at the mouth to destroy it. The queer liberation movement and the emancipation of women are not just parallel aims, but intractably entangled ones. We need to be working arm in arm with our feminist sisters! <3
I’m a knee-jerk optimist, so maybe I’m being unrealistically hopeful, but I do see strong feminist action and collaboration here in my home state of Florida around our upcoming pro-choice ballot measure this November.
If you're looking to donate to travel and medical expenses for folks who will need to travel to obtain an abortion once the six-week ban goes into effect in Florida, check out https://abortionfunds.org/ for a comprehensive national listing.
If you know anyone who is seeking abortion care, this website offers links to legitimate abortion providers: https://www.abortionfinder.org/ . Anti-choice organizations in Florida and elsewhere often pose as abortion clinics to entice people in crisis. Many of these are pipelines to the baby-trafficking adoption industry.
I cried reading this. My grief runs the gamut, from sadness to rage to despair to thoughts of revenge. How can a woman have any allegiance to this country? What gives me hope are women of other nations, especially the radical 4B movement in South Korea: no, no, no, and no. That's revolutionary. I'm starting to think that's the only path to a more egalitarian society for women and girls. I also think women should empty every religious institution in this nation and abandon Messiah Mikey's archaic marital contract between him and his state. (Guess I'm in revenge mode again.)
I have this working theory that a lot of progressive young women took the wrong lessons from the pivot to intersectional feminism and decided that, rather than interrogate the ways racism and sexism intersect, racism was “more important” to fight than sexism and therefore “women’s issues” weren’t as important. It might be at least partly the circles I’m in, but I’m really sick of seeing white women in this day and age insisting that white women aren’t an oppressed group because women of color have it much worse, and I think that’s a large piece of why it feels like feminism isn’t prioritized (or even considered cringe). Like it’s crucially important to recognize and center the fact that white women and women of color do not experience sexism the same way, but that doesn’t mean white women don’t experience sexism. There are, in fact, some issues that affect all women, even though they’re going to be experienced differently based on race, class, gender identity, sexuality, etc., and I just wish young white women (who are obviously well meaning) would acknowledge that white women, while we unquestionably benefit from our racial privilege which to some extent does mitigate sexism, it sure doesn’t cancel it out. It may be easier for wealthier white women to travel to access abortion, but abortion is still illegal in half the country regardless of your race, and that is the baseline issue here. It just sucks.
OOOOFFF yeah you nailed it. There is a rush, from those same women, to back men of color in the same way boss girl women cleave to more powerful white men. They don’t see how they are upholding the same system of oppression by doing this, and I hate it. Stop trying to be a “good” anything and just burn it down FFS.
Misogyny is respectable in a way racism is not. Misogyny is not worse than racism, but there isn’t a ‘benevolent’ form of racism like there is a benevolent’ sexism. No famous comedians make ‘wasn’t the Klan funny’ jokes like they make ‘women and their shopping, amirite?’ ones.
You're right. I never thought of it that way, but it is treated as a respectable way of thinking. Some men flaunt misogyny as an expression of their manhood.
Thank goodness I found your site. I thought I was the only one. I'm very weary of being told my White privilege negates the sexism and that a White woman is able to "rest" when a woman of color cannot. Of course a woman of color has it harder than me. I've never disputed that. But where does a White woman rest when she is living with her oppressor? I'm so frustrated. I'm constantly being told to sit down and be quiet because it's not my turn. Well when is my turn? We are openly discussing racism, homophobia, ableism, etc. But we cannot discuss sexism. Why is that? Thanks for listening.
"Misogyny is respectable in a way racism is not" <---- You are full of shit and you know it. Do you really need to be walked thru the last 600 years with respect to how White Women and Black/Native Men have been treated by Western Societies as a whole ? Given the raging Anti-Black Racism(Anti-Black-Misandry in particular) that has always been at the core of Feminism, I can't say I am surprised to see such self-serving bullshit in Feminist echo chambers.
Why the vitriol? This is what I don't understand. If it were me, and I were saying something with which you disagree, why not just talk to me about it? I've been educated all my life by intelligent people and I hope I never stop. Why be so aggressive? We are merely talking about our experience. And this is the aggression we are met with. You are kind of proving our point.
LOL "why all the vitriol" <---- White Feminists doing shit that White Feminists do I suppose.
Do you have something to add that actual falsifies a word I have asserted ? No ? Then shut the fuck up and see yourself out of this conversation. You don't get to tell me how I should react to a White Woman who is openly spewing Anti-Black-Male-Misandry. LOL....I swear....White People like you love holding Black Men to a standard that you would never hold yourselves to.
I have no idea what your race is. I only responded to your hostility.
I suggest you look at how men in marginalized communities treat women in those communities. Misogyny is respectable and universal among males.
Also....if you ever wondered by Black Men don't trust Feminists....or White Women be they self proclaimed "allies" or not.... as a whole......you and your cohort are the fucking reason why.
White feminists came together and raised 10 million for Kamala. We are pushing for her election with all our might. If you don't trust White feminists, don't take our money.
Inter personal violence in The Black Community(as well in The White Community) is bi-directional, and occurs at roughly at the same rate in both directions.....with Women more often than not being the instigators of this violence while also being the most likely of the participants to use a weapon in commission of these acts......this is according to the actual empirical data...so tell me again....how you aren't the Anti-Black-Male-Misandrist who can't be bothered to know what in the entire fuck she is talking about again ?
"I suggest you look at how men in marginalized communities treat women in those communities. Misogyny is respectable and universal among males." <--- that's odd consideriing the fact that the actual empirical and historical data points to Black Men being the most egalitarian and progressive demographic out of everyone....including Black Women.....but do go on and tell us all how you didn't just demonize, and dehumanize Black/Brown men without any data to back it up, you vile, racist, White Bitch.
But....now I think on it. Please tell me how men in marginalized communities treat their women.
Also...I happen to be one of those men...and nothing amuses me more than some fucking White Women lecturing me on the nature of Black/Brown men.
Let me guess...your "source" is one of Bell Hook's fever dreams that passes for actual scholarship despite the fact that she doesn't bother with citations and routinely engages in psycho-analyis of Black Men/Boys despite the fact she is just a fucking English Professor ?
See below for one of my sources, available here: https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520241134
Another one of my sources is Eldridge Cleaver’s “Soul on Ice,” in which he discusses how he practiced for a career raping white women by raping Black women. Also Stokely Carmichael’s joke about the place for women in the Civil Rights movement: “Prone.” (He later used the oldest, most exhausted excuse in the male world for that, saying ‘it was a joke.’ If so, it was a really bad one.)
Yes, I’m a white woman. I call out white men constantly and will continue to do so. I’m not letting any men off for mistreating women. No one gets a pass for bigotry and abuse because he’s poor or darker skinned or otherwise.
I suggest you provide actual evidence of how Men in Marginalized communities treat women and how those women treat men as opposed to just repeating the stupid shit somebody told you.
I guarantee it isn't going to go the way you think it will.....but when have Feminists ever were held to the standard where they actually had to provide demonstrable, empiricism for their takes that are borne out of rigorous, academic research ?
Ugh I’m sorry I’m going to have to step in MDB and take you to task. First of all, I’m a black woman and I grew up in the black community so I can criticize you the way these white women can’t. On one hand, I hate the fact that I get nervous and do not want my brothers with a white woman due to my concern about false rape accusations and the power whiteness confers over blackness. That doesn’t change that the black communities gender relations are poisonous and need to change or we will keep failing each generation. I don’t know what delusions you have about the black community but what I saw growing up what that violence was the language we used to talk to each other. Violence between husband and wife. I grew up seeing this. Violence between parents and child. Even growing up, I used to hit my younger siblings as I didn’t know any better.
It was shocking how quickly the boys I grew up with defaulted to violence when they were angry. I remember I told once young age are of mine off and he slapped me. We were perhaps 16 or 17. He did this because our culture feels that there is impunity in hitting a woman, hitting your wife if she mouths off. That a man is the leader and women need to follow him.
It needs to change.
And now with Kevin Samuels(I’m glad he is dead) ; we have an out and out war in the black community between black red pillers and black female divestors. It is incredibly damaging to our community, our ability to cohere and our ability to protect each other.
At these difficult times, when our men should be building our community and protecting us, a good portion of our wealthier men take all their money and spend in on white women, buying their way into white wealthy spaces.
Our black men are eating red pill slip garbage and it is scaring away girls. Now black girls are being encouraged to sell themselves away from the community as well.
Our community has issues. And he gender issues, the entitlement that black Boys are taught to have to girls bodies and the lack of value black women feel about themselves is just so toxic.
Please stop being angry at this nice white women for telling the truth. We are in crisis!
There is a book from the early 90’s called ‘Promises I Can Keep’ It discusses why women in lower class communities of all ethnicities had babies out of wedlock. One thing all of the women said was that the men treated them horribly: beatings, drug use, general criminality, at best merely refusing to ANY housework including putting their dirty clothes in a hamper. Other evidence is the work of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Misogyny is UNIVERSAL among men.
I feel like a lot of it really started right after the 2016 election when the “52% of white women voted for Trump” became a meme of sorts and so progressive white women wanted to disassociate from that, which isn’t unfair - there are so many terrible white women who are most certainly not feminists, and I would not like to be associated with them. But for some reason that turned into downplaying our association with our gender rather than our race, which I don’t understand at all.
I had this whole conversation yesterday, comparing a local situation to the Bill Cosby situation (I advocate for SA/IPV survivors), and the woman I was talking to, it’s like her brain froze. “It gets complicated when race becomes a factor…” she says, and I said, “NOPE when a Black female victim speaks out through a Black organization against a Black man, and then a white woman steps up to corroborate the claims- the presence of one white woman no matter who she is doesn’t cancel out everyone who came before.” And she repeated herself!!!!! “It’s too complicated when race is involved”. This woman is progressive, she is an activist, she is anything but stupid…but this was so ignorant it was frightening to me. And this is what I see happening all around me yet no one thinks of it as white fragility. There is something about that intersection of identities that happen around SA/IPV that shows me how far this conversation has to go and that the point of #metoo was lost once it entered the zeitgeist.
I am very very hopeful that abortion is the issue most white women will be thinking about in this next election. It’s not in the media and pundits aren’t talking about it but it’s real. Am hoping that can be harnessed in the future.
Yes! Progressive white people are SO hesitant to call out awful people of color, especially white women against Black men. Which I understand to some extent since there is a terrible history there, but staying out of the conversation only hurts Black women. Black women should take the lead, but it’s our responsibility to back their play. The same is true for any cross cultural feminism - I used to teach a gender studies class, and whenever we talked about gender inequality (which is worst among predominantly Muslim countries), I always made a point to reference the feminist movements in those countries in which women were fighting back. Students got real uncomfortable when I’d say that things were famously bad for women in Arab countries, but ignoring that certainly doesn’t help Saudi women fighting guardianship laws or Iranian women protesting against compulsory veiling or Afghan women seeking education, so I always made sure to center them in those conversations.
100%!!!! I keep reminding people to reexamine what a white savior is and question any person of color asking you to be one for them (again, back to Bill Cosby, if he asks for your help does he need it? He has way more money and power than you), and how even Jemele has spoken about how Black female community protectionism has hurt Black women so badly (“we want to protect our men from the system saying let community handle it, but then community doesn’t do anything.”). We should all be able to call grifters and abusers who hijack the language of social justice to shield themselves from accountability. A 25-yo Black Man accused of SA who invokes the name of Emmett Till- you gotta question that (ET was 12 FFS! 25 is an adult!) Making excuses for grown men’s behavior is gross, don’t infantalize a 25yo and say he is a child and didn’t know better. All of this hurts Black women and erases them from the story they brought to light, which works for the perp.
See Moira? Emily gets it and is teaching it! I get it and am living it! You aren’t alone!!!!! We need you!
“A 25-yo Black Man accused of SA who invokes the name of Emmett Till- you gotta question that (ET was 12 FFS! 25 is an adult!)“. ← Because your dumb White ass is completely unaware that false accusations regarding Black Men/Boys has been a regular thing for the past 600 years that often ended in their imprisonment, maiming, and death ? Maybe you should shut the your fucking mouth about what you “know” about Black Men or the Black Community as a whole.
Also...Jemel is a fucking grifter and makes her money assuring White Feminists that their Anti-Black-Male-Misandry is justified....hence the reason she regularly gets dragged on Twitter for her dumb-fuck takes by The Black Community as a whole.
Given the history of White Women and the demonstrable racism that often manifested itself as Anti-Black-Male Misandry that has been at the core of Feminism form it's beginning...maybe you simply need to jus shut the entire fuck up about what the Black Community needs to do. Also....LOL at some White Woman running her mouth about how Black Men should not be infantilized and how Black Men being accused of SA should not evoke parallels to Emmet Till. Jesus Christ.....do you have any fucking self-awareness ?
Hi White Woman. You don’t know anything about Black Men…and the irony here is that you were engaging in that “terrible history” when you posted this fuck-shit. Maybe you should shut the entire fuck about Black Men and The Black Community as a whole because you are not helping.
I do not think white women have the authority to understand/deeply criticize black men or the black community as a whole.
However we need self reflection. What kind of hope are we giving our boys and girls? We have some of the highest out of wedlock births, three or four generations with no dad in the house, murders of young boys on the streets of Chicago and then to watch these you tube videos of black men talking about black women. It is horrible. Things need to change. And if black men want to be the leaders they claim, they would be better off not fighting about feminism with random white people; but changing things for us.
I'm seeing a lot of men voting for Harris stating they are doing so because they have wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters and they fear for their safety.
"our association with our gender rather than our race". <--- that's because Feminism has been racist as fuck from it's very beginning. Susan Brown-Miller to this day refuses to take responsibility and admitting she is a vile, piss stain of a person for blaming Emmet Till for his own murder because her racist, gender essentialism bullshit will not allow her to and 19th century racist bullshit is still being used in The Academy as core Feminist literature.
I agree that many women who identify as feminists have had a hard time with intersectionality — what it is, and how it works in practice. As a white ciswoman committed to intersectional feminism, I know how hard it is for us to listen to feminists in marginalized communities. It’s hard for us to understand women’s struggle for voting rights, for example, or for one fair wage, or for the ability to use public bathrooms or play sports as *feminist* struggles. But they are! We need to work in true—practical, on-the-ground—solidarity with women who don’t look like us or share our life experience, it who do share our longing to transform the white patriarchal structures that keep us trapped
Exactly! I think with trans-specific issues in particular we tend to just sort that into “trans rights” but anything regarding gender is inherently a feminist issue. If a certain class of women is being discriminated against based on their gender, feminists should be upset as feminists, not just as trans allies.
There’s no such thing as “trans” rights because there’s no such thing as “trans.”
If you think making excuses for mentally ill male rapists who want to be placed in women’s prisons and failed male athletes who destroy women’s sports, then you are wasting your time.
Continue on with your failures.
There is no such thing as “cis.”
Stop using these stupid made-up terms.
A mentally ill man in a dress isn’t a woman.
And this is why you’re a failure.
The first thing that has to be done here is to define women. Women's rights? What is a woman? Whose rights are being referred to here?
Who are we talking about? If something cannot be defined, then those rights cannot be defended.
That is what we're seeing here. That is why delusional men in dresses are taking precedence over actual adult human females and their rights.
Until that is confronted, nothing will change.
Okay, sure! What IS a woman? Is it someone with the ability to bear children? If so, better drop all post-menopausal and infertile cisgender women. Is it someone with two X chromosomes? Welcome to womanhood, cis men with Down’s syndrome! Is it someone with a vagina? Better throw in intersex folks with androgen insensitivity! Is it someone who likes to wear dresses and makeup and who played with Barbies as a kid? Goodbye, tomboys!
How about this: how do YOU know that you are a woman? For me, it’s because I know in my soul that I am a woman. I’ve tried experimenting with gender, acting and presenting more masculine, and it just felt wrong. Innately, I know I am a woman. Not because I like stereotypically feminine things (I generally don’t), or because I have long hair, or because I have curves and big boobs, or because I’ve had children (I haven’t and don’t intend to), etc. I just know I’m a woman. Ask yourself this: what if you knew innately that you were a woman, but everyone acted like you were a man, and you had to pretend to be one? That’s what trans women are dealing with, and it takes immense courage to have to tell everyone you know and love that they’re wrong about who you are.
Trans women are women. I have met and known so many trans women and, while they face specific issues due to being TRANS women, they still face garden variety sexism as well. If anyone is a “man in a dress,” as you say, it’s trans men who aren’t yet out. What is there to gain for cis men to pretend to be trans women? A wage gap? Being better at sports but not receiving any material benefit from that (look at the discrepancy between the best paid female professional athletes and the most mediocre male professional athletes), AND having to pretend to be someone you’re not in all other areas of life? Being able to walk into a women’s bathroom to assault women? (Fun fact: if a man wants to assault women, they will not be stopped by a sign on a door.) Please, tell me where trans women (or, as you say, “delusional men in dresses”) are taking precedence over cis women. As a cis woman living in a blue state, every trans woman I know enjoys the same rights as I do at a maximum - sometimes less, but never more. Curious as to where you’re seeing trans rights prioritized over the rights of cis women, because it’s certainly not anywhere I’m familiar with.
So, to answer your question: if you’re looking for a “biological” definition of women, you will not find one. There is no definition of “woman” that includes every person who identifies as and is understood to be a cis woman, while excluding everyone who is not. Guess you’ll just have to believe people when they tell you who they are, and fight sexism regardless of who the target is. Because THAT is what feminism is all about.
It is time we start to call feminism for what It is.
Feminism is an international criminal organization.
Feminists are criminal.
And this is why stupid lib-feminism has failed.
Because you can't even define what a woman is. This is why you cannot even defend women's rights.
A fucked up tranny with a wig on his head isn't a woman. If it were, you wouldn't have to type such a word salad.
There's no such thing as "trans." There's no such thing as "cis." A woman is an adult human female. A man is an adult human male, including males who cross-dress due to autogynephilia.
We're a sex class, no matter how much you lie to yourself. Until you recognize that, your bullshit means nothing. Feminism is not about making excuses for mentally ill trannies who think womanhood is a costume. Feminism is for females.
Only females get pregnant, only females need or get abortions, only females give birth. I didn't say all; I said only. That is the point of women's reproductive reality. Men don't do any of those things. Until you realize that, your word salad means nothing.
And that is why you're a failure.
Thank you. Good job proving my point.
And btw, two X chromosomes is what females have, not males with Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome is trisomy 21, a third copy of chromosome 21.
You recognize genetics exist. Imagine if a physically healthy person said he "identified" as having Down Syndrome because he felt like he had the syndrome, even though he didn't have trisomy 21. Would anybody defend that type of stupidity?
No. Then don't defend mentally ill males who claim they feel like females. They can't know what that is.
You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
This is exactly what I've been experiencing. I thought it was just me. They've introduced the concept of "rest" and say that people of color can never rest. They seem to think that White women can. When a person of color experiences racism, they go home. And the people in that home understand the racism, validate their feelings, comfort and soothe them. White women, on the other hand, are "sleeping with the enemy". We live with our oppressor. So where are we able to rest? I also don't think women of color understand that when a White woman stands up to her White male husband the first threat is always, "I'll leave and take the kids." And he will. And he can.
Exactly. One of my pet peeves is being told that my privilege protects me from misogyny. That women of color have no place to "rest" and White women do. I would argue we all have no place to rest. A White woman is "sleeping with the enemy". She can't even find peace in her own home. And if she tries to leave she risks losing her children. I have a friend right now who is divorcing her husband because he won't talk to her daughter because she voted for Biden.
I'm in mental health and in 2016 the psychological field did a lot of research on what just happened. They found White women who voted for Trump did so due to pressure from their husbands and family. They didn't feel they could vote like they wanted to for fear of losing their children.
I'm still here, too, and I'm 71, so I'll probably stay a feminist until I die. But I think we've made a difference: my sons are much more respectful of women than most of the guys I went to high school with, and that means a lot to me. I admit these are not good times, but I have hope this is a temporary setback. Everything seems to be cyclical, and all things will pass. Too bad our lives are so short if we don't read history, we don't see the larger patterns. One thing I have learned, you have to keep trying.
Wise words ❤️
I've been reading Lyz Lenz' newsletter and started reading her book, This American Ex Wife. She writes about women waking up to the patriarchy in their own homes and refusing to stay in unequal partnerships and beginning new independent lives on their own.
This is a personal feminism on an individual scale, but it gives me hope. The knowledge and awareness and injury that women in America know cannot be taken away from them, and I think feminism lives on within many of us, in spite of a lack of organized movement.
You're one of my favorite contemporary writers and thinkers and I'm grateful to you for staying true to the feminist cause!
I was thinking something similar--I see a lot of young women simply refusing to put up with shit from men, personally and professionally, that I grew up encouraged and expected to overlook.
You aren’t alone. You are correct in that we are not well-organized and the funding sucks, but all across the country you will find witches being burned in town squares, refusing to back down. You will find moms like me making sure their kids understand and see the oppression all around us, that our sons understand their role in all of this. Feminism isn’t dead it is licking its wounds while we wait for the Second Wave Boomers to let go of the institutions that claim to represent us publicly. Look underground and you will see massive chains of practical support biding our time, getting work done until it is safe to rise again.
I completely understand how you feel, because out in the world I feel it too. I think of 2012 and of all the racism we didn’t want to admit still existed, how shocked we were once we realized how widespread it actually was. I truly believe Feminism will have a moment like this in my lifetime, a shift so stunning and palpable we will wonder where it came from and why it didn’t happen sooner. The data that supports this theory comes from all the tiny elections across the country, tiny ones that aren’t covered by the NYT and aren’t important enough to be on CNN’s radar. Post-Dobbs, Women are showing up to the ballot box more consistently and more fully than in any other period in history.
We aren’t done, any more than you are done with this Substack. 😉 Our work is popping up in different places right now, but it’s happening.
"I think of 2012 and of all the racism we didn’t want to admit still existed". <--- Your lack of self-awareness is stunning; and I find it mildly amusing how you and every other White Feminist missed the racist as fuck primary campaign that Hillary Clinton....a so called "liberal" ran against Barrack Obama and all White Feminists who cosigned that fuck-shit.
What are you talking about? That is how primaries have always been run. The candidates compete against each other until one comes out ahead.
Wow -- such a deeply thoughtful and emotional piece. Thank you for identifying the feeling I've been afraid to name. I'm still here, too!
Thank you for this, Moira, I deeply relate. A few years ago I tried (and failed) to sell a book about this — more specifically, about the grief of having to let go of the feminism that had sustained me for so long and the political possibilities that might spring from such grief now that the feminism of Big Hope is clearly over. Editors thought it was too sad! (I’m writing it anyway.)
I'm still here. There are lots of feminists, Moira, you are not alone. Feminist ideas have never been so mainstream. And think of all the women in the repro rights and justice world--running abortion funds and clinics, helping women get abortion pills etc. Those state bills and referenda preserving abortion rights -- who do you think won those battles if not feminists organizing on the ground? The movement may not be very sisterly -- even to use the word opens one to accusations of racism and transphobia and privilege. but actual real-life women are probably more feminist than ever. Also, the job losses of Covid have been made up -- more women are working now than ever. https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/record-number-of-working-women-reshaping-the-economy-workplace-bureau-labor-statistics-data-jobs-employees-skills-technology-college-degree-motherhood-pandemic-remote-hybrid-full-part-time-childcare-costs
Such an important feminist writer you are. This is heartbreaking. I am with you. You are not alone.
Three (or so) thoughts -
For feminism to succeed, it's quite specifically men who need to change. This probably mostly happens from generational churn. So we have to watch the boys and young men. Will they skew (relatively) kind, empathetic, and enlightened, or will they be swayed by the incels and the fascists? Men ultimately resist change only through violence. It can be, and often is, explicit, but more often it is implicit. The 'rule of law' that protects the wealth distribution and all the other elements of the status quo favoring men is in the end always ultimately backed up by armed law enforcement.
This one can be hard to express without appearing transphobic. But because such a larger percentage of the youngest generations identify as at least somewhat gender fluid, it suggests to me that it can't all be biological and is cultural too. What concerns me is it seems younger generations may have implicitly decided that it will be easier to eliminate the concept of gender altogether, than to ever see women treated equally and fairly. I find that deeply saddening.
If (and unfortunately right now it's looking more likely when) Republicans win the election and install their planned religious fascist regime (per all their policy documents), we will see how the country reacts to the exponential increase in the assault on women, and what kind of resistance, if any, is sparked. Massive civil action will be necessary because we won't be able to remove this regime through normal democratic means like voting or petitioning courts.
LOL "transphobic"
There it is. A male has come to a post about feminism to explain that men need to change (that's not going to be happen because men are the problem, you are nothing but another example), and then he proceeds to be afraid to tell trannies that they're not women.
What's a woman, Zach? Explain.
What's "gender," Zach? What is being eliminated here? Explain.
Feminism social engeneering experiment went wrong, really wrong. You cannot decide to destroy family unit to empower women. This was the big mistake of criminal feminism. Feminism raped Mother Nature. It is time we start to call feminism for what It is. Feminism is an international criminal organization. Feminists are criminal.
Go talk to the married men on Tinder and tell them how important their families are.
Stop crying because you can’t get laid. To idiots like you, it’s a crime that women don’t want you.
Get a job. Shut up.
Everything feels like the end of the world right now, but I think this is another huge paradigm shift (to bring back old lingo). If you subscribe to the Waves, I think there was a huge lack of connection between 1st and 2nd wave feminists. This is true for sure between 2nd and 3rd wavers. I watched some real nastiness play out with that on at a college in the early 2000s. And fast forward to now - the same tool that was supposed to democratize information is also used to shut down any social movements with algorithms and fake bot onslaughts. Our lives are so inundated with digital chaos that it is hard to sift through the sound and fury. And what wave are we on?
You need to find other feminists to hang out with - not people who will agree that you are the last feminist left on earth. Seek out that community. I feel like there is so much going on - particularly with young women - and we don't hear about it as we're stuck in our ghettos hearing all the news from the Right who seem to have conquered our media (including the so-called left wing Guardian who platforms TERFS all the time). Times are tough right now but you are not the last feminist on earth. In fact there are feminist communities all over the world continuing to nurture each other and push for change. Feminists in Poland got Abortion re-instated, feminists in latin american are moving their right wing governments out. THe pendulum is swinging to doom in the USA but you need to look internationally.
There is SO MUCH going on here! And we are laying low while we work for the moment. Look for practical support groups in your area. We don’t usually have websites but we exist.
If you read the article you would see that she writes about Poland, LATAM, etc. She is talking specifically about the United States.
The queer and feminist movements have to remain united! The hatred and persecution of trans and gay people is much like the racist's hatred for race-mixing. It dissolves their obsessively maintained categories of master and slave, and so they froth at the mouth to destroy it. The queer liberation movement and the emancipation of women are not just parallel aims, but intractably entangled ones. We need to be working arm in arm with our feminist sisters! <3
There's no such thing as "trans." It doesn't exist.
And you claim be a "they/them" I won't waste my time on low-IQ narcissists desperate for attention.
Nobody cares about your stupid pronouns.
You are not alone, as others have said here.
I’m a knee-jerk optimist, so maybe I’m being unrealistically hopeful, but I do see strong feminist action and collaboration here in my home state of Florida around our upcoming pro-choice ballot measure this November.
Anything you can share about how those of us outside of Fl can help the most?
Thank you for asking, Kimberly.
The Florida ballot measure, Yes On 4, is supported by https://floridiansprotectingfreedom.com/
If you're looking to donate to travel and medical expenses for folks who will need to travel to obtain an abortion once the six-week ban goes into effect in Florida, check out https://abortionfunds.org/ for a comprehensive national listing.
If you know anyone who is seeking abortion care, this website offers links to legitimate abortion providers: https://www.abortionfinder.org/ . Anti-choice organizations in Florida and elsewhere often pose as abortion clinics to entice people in crisis. Many of these are pipelines to the baby-trafficking adoption industry.
I cried reading this. My grief runs the gamut, from sadness to rage to despair to thoughts of revenge. How can a woman have any allegiance to this country? What gives me hope are women of other nations, especially the radical 4B movement in South Korea: no, no, no, and no. That's revolutionary. I'm starting to think that's the only path to a more egalitarian society for women and girls. I also think women should empty every religious institution in this nation and abandon Messiah Mikey's archaic marital contract between him and his state. (Guess I'm in revenge mode again.)
This is so good, Moira. ❤️
I just got here. Thanks for still being here ❤️