beauty around the world: pt 6

we all already acknowledge that politicians say ridiculously ignorant (or spout dis/misinformation about) global issues but suddenly celebrities are important voices on these topics. its just another facet of the fandomisation of social issues.

The only people who are somehow obligated to mouth an opinion about geopolitical issues are politicians and members of human rights organizations. I can't stand this climate in which every person who has a modicum of public life is being pressed by armchair activists to take sides on extremely complex topics. It's so pathetic. Lame ass society.

Monica Vitti in L'AVVENTURA 1960 | Michelangelo Antonioni

"the same way a man can have a dog and slaughter a screaming chicken is the same way he can be a loving husband to his wife and still rape an underage girl."

i think its much more difficult to accept this reality than for us to see men as mindless brutes because it means that they are cruel by intention. they have the capacity to understand us, that is how they are so expert at abusing women. they simply reserve their humanity for men and, partially, for some women.

i know we joke a lot during misandry hours, but the fact of the matter is men aren't inhuman. they do have convictions and conscience. they do have love and compassion. they are capable of immense kindness, thoughtfulness and empathy. they are very often curious and intelligent.

the difference is they don't think of women as having any of those things hence don't extend the moral consideration they would extend toward "fellow human beings". they genuinely view women as animals. and how do they view animals? as primitive. infantile. not as evolved or cultivated. mostly mindless hence mostly incapable of suffering. they don't have as much mind and their "self" is weak, so there is no memory or centralized experience, no history to the individual woman.

the same way a man can have a dog and slaughter a screaming chicken is the same way he can be a loving husband to his wife and still rape an underage girl. it's how they've all lived for so long that it's not contradictory to their behavior.

so him being nice to "his women" isn't proof you're safe with him. him demonstrating any virtue to others still isn't proof you're safe with him. him being devout to a "kind loving god" is not proof you're safe with him. him humouring you on anything isn't proof you're safe with him. him being gnc is not proof you're safe with him.

his humanity does not mean he sees you as human as well. it is nowhere near a guarantee. please understand this.

Idk who needs to hear this, but that girl in high school who was mean to you is not proof that women commit the same atrocities that men do

Amrita Sher-Gil & a self portrait

I don’t think we as a society talk nearly enough about how intricately connected cats and women are. cats are associated with women so heavily, not just in English but in other languages as well. the stereotype of the ‘crazy cat lady’, the fact words to refer to cats are often also used to refer to female genitalia, ‘cat fight’, ‘catty’, etc.

Cats have suffered alongside women, too, which is not something I have seen brought up. Cats were targeted during the Witch Hunts as well, and suffered similar fates as the women they hunted. During this time, cats were nearly driven to extinction, and the mice and rat population go out of control— which is believed to have heavily contributed if not outright caused one of the most famous plagues.

To this day, I think we need to analyze if it’s truly a coincidence that cats are often portrayed as mean or uncaring because they do not behave the same way as dogs— “man’s best friend”— that their boundaries are violated for fun and then people criticize the cat for reacting, for self-defense. They will mutilate a cat so it cannot defend itself, and then abandon it when it is understandably upset, when it can no longer feel safe.

If you look at the statistics, more cats enter animal shelters than dogs, and tend to stay for longer. Personally, my local humane societies seem to have almost exclusively cats. In part, this is because cats are more effective at reproducing than dogs, and there are very little if any resources dedicated to to TNR. This is also because people will not spay/neuter their cats, and then will abandon the cat and/or just the kittens.

I do not think it is entirely coincidental that cats are so heavily associated with women, and they are villainized for not being dogs. That dogs are called “man’s best friend”, but somehow that does not mean cats are called “women’s best friend”— instead diamonds are, for whatever reason, despite women’s shared history with cats, and shared experience of being villainized for having boundaries. They are made the villain for being cats instead of dogs, they are called uncaring and “assholes” because the way they show love is not identical to the way a dog does.

I feel like there is no way it is entirely coincidental, the way cats are hated and the way they are so heavily associated with women, with females.

"I believe it to be equally crucial for us to connect with the family of womankind, to share what is is really like for us, and to learn about the experience of others. It is through this process of reconnecting and sharing- of learning firsthand how we are similar to and different from other women- that allows us to go beyond the myths that are generated by the dominant group culture, transmitted through the family, and internalized by the self. Before the second wave of feminism, many of us suffered privately with our anger and dissatisfaction, maintaining a single-minded focus on the question "What's wrong with me?" Together with other women, however, we could stop blaming ourselves and begin to bring the old roles and rules into question."

-p.223 of "the Dance of Anger: a Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships" (Lerner, Harriet) (1985)

Joan E. Biren – Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians (1979)

the motive for rape being sexual gratification is so fucking pathetic. you are enough of a brute to forego any humanity just to satisfy yourself. you take sex and turn it into something meaningless, something only concerned with wetting that limp string of meat between your legs.

SARAH WINNENUCCA // WRITER

“She was a Northern Paiute writer, activist (lecturer) and educator (school organizer). At 27, Sarah began working in the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Fort McDermitt in 1871 as an interpreter. Subsequently, Winnemucca became an advocate for the rights of Native Americans, traveling across the U.S. to tell Anglo- Americans about the plight of her people. When the Paiute were interned in a concentration camp at Yakima, Washington after the Bannock War, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress and the executive branch for their release. She also served U.S. forces as a messenger, interpreter, and guide, and as a teacher for imprisoned Native Americans. Winnemucca published Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), a book that is both a memoir and history of her people during their first 40 years of contact with European Americans. It is considered the "first known autobiography written by a Native American woman."”

love that before reading the tags on this i was fully convinced it was about tras on twitter-

Dear God, what will it take for me to develop the patience of jkr lmao.

Men hate feminism because they hate women. As a result, both right-wing and left-wing men tend to associate feminism with ideologies that they regard as detestable.

For right-wing men, feminists are Marxists, witches, anti-religious, anti-'family values', pro-lesbianism, 'feminazis' etc.

For left-wing men, feminists are conservative, racist, white supremacists, islamophobes, Nazis, fascists, colonialists, etc.

Either way, it's always about silencing women. It's always misogyny.

i dont recall any radical feminist saying anything of the sort, let alone a trans exclusionary one (which the original post did not discuss)

tragically, you seem to have missed that the original post was about not buying anything and embracing/strengthening your natural body. oh well!

very tired of the plethora of posts/videos/ads/compaigns telling men that they can be feminine (obviously through buying consumer goods such as makeup or nail polish) while women are only encouraged to be more sickeningly 'feminine' in ways which destroy our bodies and lives. where are the posts encouraging women not to shave? or not wear makeup? or go out and strengthen their body (not just building glutes and slimming down to appear sexy).

Miss Suzie Porter, James Van Der Zee, 1915

it is also worrying that the group of people most affected by this is black women.

We need to talk about how men weaponize their marginalized identities to harass and manipulate women.

I recently was talking with a friend (for context she is biracial and black but often white passing) who was being harassed by the guy in the seat next to her on a long train ride. He was trying to get her number and get her to agree to go out with him and she kept refusing. Eventually he asked if it was because he was black and if she was being racist. He told her if he was a white man she would have no problem giving her his number. I’ve experienced pretty similar situations a few times. The first time this happened I was maybe 14 (for context I am white) and came home bawling that I had been racist against some man for turning down his advances. My mom was like, first of all you’re literally a child and second of all someone’s identity doesn’t entitle them to you. Ever. As progressive/left-leaning people who care deeply about issues of racism it can be hard to acknowledge the fact that SOME men of color or men of other marginalized identities knowingly use that fact against women. And to be clear this is not to diminish the history of racism and the ways white women have historically harmed (and still can) black men. But stuff like this needs to be talked about even though it is uncomfortable. Victims shouldn’t be expected to stay quiet because it might hurt marginalized men. Some activists condemned Alice Walker for publishing The Color Purple and writing about (black) male violence because they said it would hurt black men. Many of us know about the unrealistic standard of the “perfect victim” but what about the “perfect perpetrator.” You might have seen the recent case where a woman came forward after being assaulted by a black trans identified man and thousands of people were telling her she shouldn’t have called the police because he’s marginalized and at risk. As if her actual experience as a victim matters less than his potential for being victimized. Obviously other groups of men can do this as well (I know a woman who was coerced into sex by a disabled man who used that to manipulate her) but this is just the example I’ve experienced recently. My post about trans identified men weaponizing their transness to sleep with women has gotten a lot of attention and I just wanted to address other ways male entitlement plays out.