actualcanadiansherlockholmes:

Sending love to trans* women today, especially those for whom women’s day is not safe space. You matter and you’re welcome here.

(via femmesaxifrage)

•  8 March 2013  •  17,192 notes

“[Trigger Warning: Medical abuse]
A woman from the audience asks: ‘Why were there so few women among the Beat writers?’ and [Gregory] Corso, suddenly utterly serious, leans forward and says: “There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions, they were given electric shock. In the ’50s if you were male you could be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up.”

—

Stephen Scobie, on the Naropa Institute’s 1994 tribute to Allen Ginsberg  

Yes yes YES. Psychiatry has a terrible history of being used to silence subversive figures: particularly outspoken women.

(via mindovermatterzine)

(Source: fuckyeahbeatniks, via martaunderthesea)

•  10 February 2013  •  20,548 notes

“Femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity is so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it.”

— (via theblacksophisticate)

(via witchygrrrl-deactivated20130129)

•  13 January 2013  •  11,178 notes

feministharrypotter:

via Molly Infante.

(via newanddifferentsun)

•  13 January 2013  •  274 notes

“In the nineteenth century, a woman who owned property, made high wages, had sex outside of marriage, performed or received oral sex, used birth control, consorted with men of other races, danced, drank, or walked alone in public, wore makeup, perfume, or stylish clothes — and was not ashamed — was probably a whore.

In fact, prostitutes won virtually all the freedoms that were denied to women but are now taken for granted. Prostitutes were especially successful in the wild, lawless, thoroughly renegade boomtowns of the West. When women were barred from most jobs and wives had no legal right to own property, madams in the West owned large tracts of land and prized real estate. Prostitutes made, by far, the highest wages of all American women. Several madams were so wealthy that they funded irrigation and road-building projects that laid the foundation for the New West. Decades before American employers offered health insurance to their workers, madams across the West provided their employees with free health care. While women were told that they could not and should not protect themselves from violence, and wives had no legal recourse against being raped by their husbands, police officers were employed by madams to protect the women who worked for them, and many madams owned and knew how to use guns.

While feminists were seeking to free women from the “slavery” of patriarchal marriage, prostitutes married later in life and divorced more frequently than other American women. At a time when birth control was effectively banned, prostitutes provided a market for contraceptives that made possible their production and distribution. While women were taught that they belonged in the “private sphere,” prostitutes traveled extensively, often by themselves, and were brazenly “public women.” Long before social dancing in public was considered acceptable for women, prostitutes invented many of the steps that would become all the rage during the dance craze of the 1910s and 1920s. When gambling and public drinking were forbidden for most women, prostitutes were fixtures in western saloons, and they became some of the most successful gamblers in the nation. Most ironically, the makeup, clothing, and hairstyles of prostitutes, which were maligned for their overt sexuality (lipstick was “the scarlet shame of streetwalkers”), became widely fashionable among American women and are now so respectable that even First Ladies wear them.

Women who wished to escape the restrictions of Victorian America had no better place to go than the so-called frontier, where a particular combination of economic and demographic forces gave renegade women many unusual advantages.”

—

from _A Renegade History of the United States_ by Thaddeus Russell, quoted extensively on alternet (via marginalutilite)

As an extension it’d also be interesting to look at the ways in which these women contributed to and normalized certain aspects of colonial femininity in the “wild West”.

(via shakeitupbebe)

(Source: alternet.org, via lips-richmond)

•  11 January 2013  •  3,563 notes

What is my favorite part about doula work and why I’m becoming a doula. Sorry for the shaky camera/it’s the middle of the night and I’m lookin’ sleepy.

•  24 August 2012  •  10 notes

bdsmproblems:

Being a feminist but also wanting to be humiliated and subservient.

THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM UGH

My belt bruises are an essential part of my feminist identity y’all ~

•  16 August 2012  •  292 notes

cuntheart:

they objectify me

then they insult my appearance

then they insult my intelligence

then they cross my physical boundaries

then they deliberately cross my physical boundaries

they feel entitled to my body

they feel entitled to my company

they feel entitled to my kindness

they invalidate my feelings yet they want me to constantly validate theirs

they criticize everything I do

they call me names

they holler out their cars

follow me

stalk me

pull knives out on me

sexually assault me

sexually molest me

punch me

break my nose

then mock me when I say I’m afraid

they say I can never have a successful relationship because I’ve been abused

and tell me not to talk about my childhood because it’s not happy enough for them

then they abuse me some more

and tell me I have a “victim’s complex”

they say I attract abuse because I’m not pleasant enough and abusers can “sense” me

and if they don’t beat or rape me they want a gold star and a fucking seal of approval

they believe the men who abused me and then shun me because I’m supposedly abusive

they scream at me

scream over me when I stand up for myself

when they realize nothing has shut me up they call me bitch, wh*re, or cunt

they say I’m selfish when I take care of myself

they say I complain too much

they tell me to focus on the good instead of the bad while I endure the abuse

they infantilize me

tell me what to do

tell me how to feel

lie to me

make outrageous accusations

treat me like a sexual conquest

they don’t give a shit whether or not I get off

and when they do it’s only to stroke their own ego

they tell me I’m gross for having bodily functions

they slut shame

they ask if they can have a bite of my food and eat half of it in one bite

they smell like shit

they’re ugly and then expect us to be flawless

they don’t do housework

and when they do they want another gold star, but it’s just expected from me

they make “make me a sandwich” “jokes” and laugh at them EVERY time

they derail

they mansplain

they  make me cry

then they laugh when I cry

they call me things like “emotional” as if it’s a bad thing

they like me because I’m hilarious and then feel threatened because I’m funnier than they are

they’re boring

they try to coerce me into things I don’t want

they ignore me when I say “no”

they won’t shut. the fuck. up. until I give in or scream at them

then they tell me I’m emotionally unhealthy. Sexist and abelist in one ignorant ball of shitbag :D

they gaslight

they (white men) make tons more money than me for the same amount of work and then disapprove of me for getting an education

they act like my shaved head is there to either turn them on or upset them

they expect me to consistently shave my body hair but they would never shave their’s

either that or they fetishize my body hair

they say I’m scary because I assert myself but it’s nbd when men do the same thing

they only want to discuss men being raped when women bring up women’s rape

then they say things like “men are just as discriminated as women”

they cry about it when I say I hate men (usually after one of them has recently done one of the above)

and then they expect me to put up with it all politely with a fucking smile

…just off the top of my head

(Source: manhating-babyeater, via daisyfuck)

•  22 July 2012  •  211 notes

“The anger of rural women, Native Indian women, nomad or peasant or village women — the unheard of of the earth — is a feminist anger, which might surprise some readers who ethnocentrically may have thought some women untouched by feminism. Feminism has been invented, and continuously reinvented, precisely by such women.”

—

from the introduction of Sisterhood is Global: The International Women’s Movement Anthology (pg.19)

Fellow white feminists - fucking take note of this, pls. Thanks.

(via dirtywhrrrl)

(Source: medusasseveredhead, via cunthulhu)

•  3 June 2012  •  648 notes

“As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep…feel it all – look around you- all of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.”

— Amelia Olson (via shakethecobwebs)

(Source: sassyfeminist, via doulaness)

•  29 May 2012  •  2,090 notes

sugaredvenom:

inautumn-inkashmir:

and the words ‘feminists don’t really hate all men’ come up because of course we have to separate ourselves from any of the ‘crazies’ that might be around that really DO hate men, for whatever reason.

i dont hate men, but i view most men with a lot of suspicion until otherwise notified. its a fucking survival mechanism. its a survival mechanism when men tell me that i ‘obsess’ over street harassment and rape and yet i EXPECT to be harassed when i step out of doors because it happens 8 out of 10 times in some form or another, whether being solicited for prostitution while walking to the bus station or screamed at about my weight on the way back from a meal i deprived myself of food for. when men try to explain to me what i can and cannot care about, write about, think about, process.

its a survival mechanism when i’m a rape survivor, an abuse survivor, a survivor of psychological manipulation, when i read magazine after magazine about how to make myself more appealing, more malleable, more tractable, more soft-spoken, less opinionated about ‘unwomanly’ things like politics art and literature, more toned, more lean and sexually available so that i can score myself my very own Dude for everlasting love. when my sexuality and gender identification/presentation become fetishized and/or denigrated.

because people think that a woman or a person perceived as a woman (as your humble author is) expressing a thought of anger to all the men in this society who have imposed themselves on her body and time and attention and mind in acts of violence or manipulation or entitlement is the same as a man who does these things and feels justified in doing them. because saying out of frustration and anger and fear and exhaustion and sadness that you hate men makes you a crazy to be distanced from and put aside into your own very special label as to not ruin the rest of Good Feminism.

i dont give a shit about Good Feminism when i am literally expecting to be harassed the minute i walk outside. today it was a car full of young men screaming at me from their car driving behind me which caused me to panic and burst into tears. there is nothing i can do. there is nothing i can salvage from that experience. and i’m supposed to let it go, to move on, to keep forgiving and forgetting.

because even as feminists, we have to make sure the men think positively of us. no hatred. no anger. no exhaustion. no fear.

Truth all over this post.

•  29 May 2012  •  150 notes

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