Anonymous asked: I was wondering how you got into feminism and things related to patriarchy and so on. I really want to learn more. I'm not a woman's study major. Where can I get zines/what are the best blogs/books? I'm super afraid of voicing any opinions. People can be really mean when it comes to these things! Sorry for being anonymous. You're so beautiful and educated. I think you're wonderful.

Oh, it’s no problem! This kind of thing can be super intimidating to get into, and yes, a lot of people tend to be not so nice. My introduction to feminism/social justice/acitivism/whatever you want to call it came pretty naturally, and was guided a lot by the people in my life. I’ve been lucky to have a lot of activist friends who have introduced me to some really great things. If your looking for zines, there are two really good free online resources: Zine Library and the Queer Zine Archive Project. They both have full PDF versions of some of the best zines (also some of the worst, but who am I to judge). In terms of blogs and books, it really depends on what your specific interests are! There are various directories on Tumblr that you can search for that list blogs by/about queer folks, women of color, fat folks, differently abled people, etc. I don’t have the energy right this second to list all of my favorite blogs, but if you want to send me another message with some of your specific interests, I can definitely help you out there!

The biggest thing to be wary of when you’re navigating these zines/blogs/books/organizations is a lack of intersectional analysis. Super great blog about women’s rights that totally disregards trans women and women of color? Not a good resource. Super rad zine about queer anti-assimilation that doesn’t take issues of class and ability to be publicly out into account? Best to look elsewhere. 

Also, thank you for asking me this! I’m always more than happy to help people out. I know I didn’t actually list a lot of resources here aside from the zine archives, but again - if you have specific areas of interest that you want to learn about, please send me another message and I can put some lists together for you! “Feminism” is a really broad topic, and I am hesitant to list any books that are “just” about feminism because they tend to be really white, middle class, and cisgender. A good place to start might be Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks. It’s short, but it’s intersectional and it’s the first book we read in our Intro to Women’s Studies classes at VCU. Here’s a link to a PDF!

•  27 May 2012  •  8 notes

talldarkbishoujo:

I’m cis, but I’m a rape survivor. And let me make one thing abundantly clear.

You fuck with trans* women survivors, you are fucking with my sisters. And nobody fucks with my family on my watch.

If you are a cis woman that believes cis women are incapable of rape and abuse, and believes that trans* women don’t experience rape and abuse at our hands, take a fucking seat and look in a goddamn mirror (if you can even see your own reflection). Because that rape culture you’re always decrying?

You are part and parcel of it. You create it and you perpetuate it with every hateful and sociopathic attack on trans* women and dismissal of their pain. You can not purport to love and support women yet abuse trans* women. This is abuse, what’s going on. It is abuse of the deepest and most heinous magnitude. You are re-victimizing these women every time you do this.

And I do not have the words to express my contempt for you. I rebuke you with everything I have. You are soulless and you do not have a place in this world.

(via iuwaehfoaiuwhefoiaulfjqn)

•  18 April 2012  •  334 notes

girl-non-grata:

fuckyeahitchywitch:

“The blackest chapter in the history of Witchcraft lies not in the malevolence of Witches but in the deliberate, gloating cruelty of their prosecutors.” — Theda Kenyon

It should also be noted that that cruelty was most often directed at women, midwives, and the perceived threat of female power.

•  17 April 2012  •  191 notes

deluxvivens:

by Sally Roesch Wagner

I had been haunted by a question to the past, a mystery of feminist history: How did the radical suffragists come to their vision, a vision not of Band-Aid reform but of a reconstituted world completely transformed?

For 20 years I had immersed myself in the writings of early United States women’s rights activists — Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) — yet I could not fathom how they dared to dream their revolutionary dream. Living under the ideological hegemony of nineteenth-century United States, they had no say in government, religion, economics, or social life (“the four-fold oppression” of their lives, Gage and Stanton called it.) Whatever made them think that human harmony — based on the perfect equality of all people, with women absolute sovereigns of their lives — was an achievable goal?

Surely these white women, living under conditions of virtual slavery, did not get their vision in a vacuum. Somehow they were able to see from point A, where they stood — corseted, ornamental, legally nonpersons — to point C, the “regenerated” world Gage predicted, in which all repressive institutions would be destroyed. What was point B in their lives, the earthly alternative that drove their feminist spirit — not a utopian pipe dream but a sensible, do-able paradigm?

Then I realized I had been skimming over the source of their inspiration without noticing it. My own unconscious white supremacy had kept me from recognizing what these prototypical feminists kept insisting in their writings: They caught a glimpse of the possibility of freedom because they knew women who lived liberated lives, women who had always possessed rights beyond their wildest imagination — Iroquois women.

The more evidence I uncovered of this indelible Native American influence on the vision of early United States feminists, the more certain I became that this story must be told.

Read More

(Source: feminist.com, via guerrillamamamedicine)

•  13 April 2012  •  719 notes

“

The basic plot, which cannot be ignored even in the films, is that Harry, Hermione and Ron give up everything for their political struggle. They drop out of high school, they go illegal, defy the government, belong to an underground organization [The Order of the Phoenix], operate out of safe houses and forests and even raid offices of the government and banking offices. This is all done in principled opposition to the Dark Wizard Voldemort and a corrupt bureaucratized government that has been heavily infiltrated with his evil minions. This is revolutionary activity. But the movie version does not present it as such or emphasize these radical aspects of the plot, thereby entirely missing the dramatic sweep and action present in the first half of the last novel.

The novels recognize the importance of alternative media for political struggle. The mainstream press [The Daily Prophet] is shown as unreliable and unprincipled, eventually deteriorating into a fear-mongering propaganda machine for the Voldemort-controlled bureaucracy. For a while the alternative but above ground media [The Quibbler] publishes the real news, but it ceases to print after the daughter of the publisher is kidnapped. In the book, friends of Harry [Lee Jordan, with Fred and George Weasley as frequent guests] start broadcasting the real news from an underground radio station, encrypted with a password. This radio station becomes a critical link for the resistance, which is scattered and weak. Although we are treated to some radio broadcast updates in the movie, they are delivered by a disembodied and professional sounding voice, not our friends the Weasleys. This undermines the important message - a guiding principle behind the media coop - that in a serious situation it becomes necessary to produce your own media and not to rely on ‘professionals’.

The novel makes it clear that in this phase of the struggle the characters romantic lives take a backseat to their political activity, as Harry breaks up with the love of his life [Ginny Weasley] so as to avoid making her a target for Voldemort’s forces, who are known to use torture and kidnapping as tactics. The ‘love triangle’ that becomes the focus of the movie isn’t even really present in the books. In the books, the relationship between Harry and Hermione is totally platonic - Ron is shown as jealous, but the feeling is entirely without foundation. In the book Harry says to Ron: “I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It’s always been like that. I thought you knew” (pg 378, DH US Hardback). This conveys that men and women can be close comrades and friends without being involved romantically. But in the film, Harry and Hermione are shown dancing romantically, and Harry’s line to Ron about his brotherly feeling towards Hermione does not even make it into the film. This completely undermines the important message that jealousy is counter-productive and has toxic effects, which is an important feminist message for young people.

”

— How Hollywood Defanged Potter’s Radical Politics 

(Source: girl-germs)

•  6 April 2012  •  30 notes

(via undercoverterrorist)

•  28 March 2012  •  6,422 notes

fudgemaster:

Things parents forget to tell their children

• Bodies are hairy. No matter the gender, your face will have hair and that is more than okay.
• Your butthole is going to have some hair too. And maybe your nipples. And your tummy. And where ever else.
• Stretch marks. Those are a thing. Everyone gets ‘em. If you don’t, you probably don’t have skin.
• Vaginas smell. Every vagina has a scent. Don’t worry about it! (Unless something seems wrong, then go get it checked out! No need to feel embarrassed or ashamed.)
• Vaginas come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, flavors. All are beautiful.
• Penises come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, flavors. All are beautiful.
• You don’t need to shave anything if you don’t want to. It’s tooootally not mandatory. 
• Sometimes people get butt acne. 
• You can have a vagina and want short hair and think dresses are just the worst.
• You can have a penis and want long hair and think dresses are just the best. 
• You can wear whatever you want and style your hair however you want.
• You can even think whatever the hell you want.
• People might tell you that you are a girl because you have a vagina. People might tell you that you are a boy because you have a penis. People will tell you what your gender is. But in reality, you don’t have to be that gender. You don’t have to be either of those genders. 
• You are what you are and it’s just the worst thing if you try and hide that.

(Source: romantickissingporn, via franco-ontarienne)

•  16 March 2012  •  27,252 notes

sexgenderbody:

inherhipstheresrevolutions:

dailymurf:

jadelyn:

maevele:

rainstormostars:

awesomefuckyeahmotherfucker:

qwopette:

Okay so I found a porn blog ran by a woman claiming to be a feminist submissive. You are submitting to a man, having him call you a slut, slap you, tie you up, and possibly tell him that you are nothing compared to him. 

Yet….

You get mad at slut shaming, women being demeaned, and you think that all women should always be equalto men.

Well, here’s what I don’t get;

You don’t like women to be called sluts, but it’s okay if your partner calls you a slut? And you think you’retruly equal to him in the moment where he slaps your face and calls you a whore and makes you beg?

ALRIGHTY THEN.

Women will try to play both sides like that. That’s not really all that surprising. They wan’t their fuckin’ cake and to eat it too without being called out about it.

They’ll say “sex is different”, or “it’s ok as long as it’s with my partner”, because that’s the easy and lame way to sneak out of the real argument, which is that they wanna feel respected only when they want to, and they want to be demeaned only when they want to, and when those two conflict, they scream bloody murder.

Can’t tell if sarcasm or just plain stupid…

WOW. Let me try and break this down for these two, because I really feel like someone needs to address this shit.

I personally don’t have a fetish for things like this, so I may get some things wrong while expaining, but it just feels wrong to me to let this get any farther.

If she has stated she is submissive, then I’m going to assume that she in part of the BDSM community.  Here’s the thing, often in the BDSM community, the submissives are the people who “obey”, and often have someone to yell at/hit them.  That is their fetish.  However, in NO WAY does it mean they would acccept someone, who is not their partner, coming up to them, slapping them, or calling them a slut. 

That is NOT okay.  The partner she is with understands her, limits, understands what she wants, and knows how far he is allowed to go.  To both of them, this is not real life, this is ROLEPLAY.  You know… Fantasy?  Not real?  As in, has no connection to real life?

Trying to say that she’s hypocritical because she does that in her sex life, but is angry at slut shamers and sexists is like trying to say because in my dreams I see a penis, I can’t be a lesbian.  Or, even more misogynistic, it’s like saying because I like to use dildos, that I must like penis, and thus can not be a lesbian.  The point is:  you are missing a very fundamental part of this argument.

If a BDSM submissive has a rape fantasy, that doesn’t mean she wants to be raped.  In BDSM, it’s all about being SAFE.  Obviously, this women feels safe being called slut by this partner.  And the partner  has NO conviction behind their thoughts or actions.  He does NOT think she’s a slut, and he doesn’t hit her “Because she’s a slut”, but because that’s what she wants him (in that roleplay, in that instance) to do.

Here’s where these two really piss me off.  The difference between a dominant in BDSM and a sexist asshole in real life is that the sexist asshole is doing it because he deep down, or even near the surface, believes she IS A slut, and she DOES deserve to be hit, because she’s a woman and they’re below men.  That is what they ACTUALLY THINK.  Meanwhile her partner is playing a character who thinks that, and respects her enough to stop when she needs him to.

The people who don’t respect women are the ones complaining about this imaginary double standard.

Why is it okay for her to accept her partner calling her a slut and slapping her face, and not okay for YOU to call her a slut, to call other women a slut, or slap their faces?

Because, darling, her partner respects her.  You, on the other hand, two OPs, you don’t respect women.  You don’t take time to think about how different the BDSM culture is ccompared to real life.  You don’t think about fetishes.  You don’t think about why you think it’s okay to slut shame and demean women.  You just wanted to slut shame a woman who thinks all men should respect women, but has a fetish for a fantasy roleplay where her partner (who respects her), treats her as a submissive. 

You didn’t want to destroy an injustice, you wanted to insult, shame, and guilt a woman just to feel superior.

Someone, please, add to this.  Say something scathing, I’m so angry at the OPs I don’t even know how to be rude anymore.

Here is the commentary I would have liked to have written if I were more coherent.

Some people (*cough*OPs*cough*) apparently have never heard of the word “context”.

[Mild TMI warning for my family members who read this blog, I’m gonna vaguely mention kinky stuff here, don’t read if you don’t want to know, I am not responsible if you read and feel like you can’t look me in the eye later on, okay?]

My partner calling me something filthy in the bedroom because it gets us off?  Not even remotely the same thing as some asshole on the street calling me something filthy in order to intimidate, silence, or shame me.  Because CONTEXT.  

What two or more consenting adults - note, CONSENTING being the key word here - do together for happy tingly fun times has NO FUCKING BEARING on who they are and what they do in other contexts.  Hell, not even within the scene with people who aren’t your partner/haven’t negotiated anything - I once spoke (briefly) with some ass on collarme who, after a couple of idle messages discussing our various preferences, started calling me the aforementioned filthy things without asking if it was okay or setting up any kind of context for it.  I called him on it and asked him why he’d done that, he said, basically, “because I’m into that and so are you”, I replied “yes but just because we’re into some of the same things doesn’t mean you can just start doing them to me without my consent,” and blocked him.  CONTEXT FUCKING MATTERS, people.  In the context of a loving relationship, where I feel safe and valued even as he’s doing things to me that, from an outside perspective, do not look like loving, valuing acts in the slightest, I can enjoy things that from anyone else would earn a swift kick in the delicate bits.  BECAUSE CONTEXT.

Anyway, this - They’ll say “sex is different”, or “it’s ok as long as it’s with my partner”, because that’s the easy and lame way to sneak out of the real argument, which is that they wanna feel respected only when they want to, and they want to be demeaned only when they want to, and when those two conflict, they scream bloody murder. - is such laughable bullshit it’s like you’ve never even heard of logic.  Yes, I do want to be respected in most contexts (hey look there’s that word again!), and yes I also do want to be demeaned in certain contexts, and that’s fucking okay, because women are people and people are allowed to have boundaries and those boundaries are allowed to be different for different people at different times in different situations.  There’s nothing logically inconsistent about wanting different treatment from different people at different times.  Do you let a coworker talk shit at you the same way you let family members or close friends talk shit at you?  Why not?  That’s so inconsistent, you just want to be respected only when you want to and you want to be (playfully) disrespected only when you want to, what the fuck is wrong with you, don’t you see how inconsistent you’re being?

Yeah, that’s what you sound like to us.  q.q harder, kitten.  Now go away, learn to logic, study the concept of “context”, and grow the fuck up.

So first I read this post and cringed and my blood boiled at how apparently consenting to BDSM is “feminists having their cake and eating it” (well hot daaaamn if I want to explore my sexuality in the ways I desire! That’s just a step too far!) but then by the time i’d read the commentary my faith was restored in humanity.

Has nobody heard of feminism and people not into feminism reclaiming words that have been used against them to empower themselves? Hm? To use those words or have them used knowing they can’t hurt you in that context? Ugh. And is submission in BDSM an inherently unequal way of being? No. No it’s not.

TMI below for people who know me and don’t wanna see things about my sex life and TW for choking

Also, submission in BDSM isn’t just about sex and getting off, it can be used for people to overcome traumas and establish a really trusting bond between two (or more) partners. Seeing people choked/having anything tightened round their necks used to induce panic attacks in me that lasted hours, and my gf was there to help me through the process of getting through that period of my life. Eventually I wanted to try out the choking kink not because I thought it’d get me off, but because it was about pushing my boundaries with someone I knew I could rely on and someone who rarely failed to let me down when I needed emotional support. It was about overcoming that fear and trigger with someone who was safe. The kink of choking became something that emotionally and mentally engaged me and if i’m not mentally stimulated by someone, I can’t be with them and I certainly can’t have sex with them. The fact I can engage in that kink says so much about my own strength after mental health issues and about the strength in my relationship, and has nothing to do with double standards or “having my cake and eating it” which is such a fucking ridiculous thing to say about people’s sexualities. Which is why sort of why this quote:

To both of them, this is not real life, this is ROLEPLAY.  You know… Fantasy?  Not real?  As in, has no connection to real life?

is something I disagree with. Submission isn’t just roleplay or fantasy. It’s a real life way of being and exploring for many people. Some people are naturally submissive in all areas of their relationships and that’s okay, it doesn’t have to be called a fantasy in order for it to be accepted. I don’t like the “well it’s just pretend, so it’s okay!” mentality when people try to defend BDSM. It’s real and it’s raw and that’s why it’s safe.

^^^^ Everything my kinky-ass galfrannn said.

Oh noez, de poor widdle menz bwainz and all dere hurt fee-fees. Soooooooooooo unfair dat de wimminz want to be hoomanz too.

Read every last word of this.

•  9 March 2012  •  242 notes

wanderblog:

rameysaurus:

Cunt Care Packages- now available for sale for the Flying Brick Library’s Bowl-A-Thon team for the Richmond Reproductive Freedom Project! Each kit includes a plastic speculum (small, medium, and large sizes available), a pamphlet on DIY Gynecology exams, a hand-sewn menstrual pad, a pattern for making more menstrual pads, and an RRFP patch! Available for a donation of $10 or more! If you make a donation and want a kit, email me at rameysaurus@gmail.com. Please specify which size speculum you would like (limited numbers available, so let me know ASAP!)

A donation of ANY kind will get you a patch! (It just might take a little extra time to get them made). If you’ve already made a donation and you want a patch, just lemme know!

Donate via this link: http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/nnafbowl/teampage.asp?fundid=714

XD

Ahh! Dang it, I need my tax return money! What a fantastic assortment of things for a ten dollar donation to a great cause.

•  5 March 2012  •  21 notes

borninflames82:

what’s with all that riot gear??  we don’t have no riot here!!

video by kontra

Proud of Richmond folks, super duper ashamed of Richmond police. 

(via lipsbetweenthehips)

•  5 March 2012  •  121 notes

dreameradrift:

(via Women’s Rights Protest at the State Capitol | Richmond Times-Dispatch)

I am very ashamed of my state right now. I am very proud of all of the protestors AND disappointed with Richmond Police. Why do you need a riot team with a peaceful protest? Since when are the steps of our state capitol private property? Seriously. Hundreds of people protested and 30 were arrested. Women’s rights are THAT important and people need to start listening.

(via unheardofsongs)

•  4 March 2012  •  9 notes