“why are tv shows bad when they’re made by teams of people who trained for years to make them good” “why do social media sites keeping torpedoing themselves with blatantly bad ideas” the answer to questions like these is almost inevitably “because it’s not the people who do the work and know what they’re doing who make all the big calls, it’s the people whose job is Investing Money, because our society has somehow decided that Investing Money in a thing makes you more of an authority on that thing than the people who have spent their whole lives working on it. those people feel themselves creep closer to the grave every time you open your mouth.”
big shoutout to disabled people who smell bad. disabled people who cannot shower regularly. disabled people who sweat a lot and it causes them to smell bad. disabled people who cannot apply deodorant due to mobility restrictions. disabled people who cannot do laundry regularly or at all, and end up wearing dirty clothes for a long time. disabled people who cannot clean their living space, and thus end up smelling bad themselves. disabled people who have any condition or disability that causes body odor. and any other disabled people who smell bad for reasons i didn’t mention. i see you and i love you.
(this post is for all disabled people, including mental and physical disabilities)
Person-first language sucks for disability, because it erases how fundamental our disabilities are to our lives, but I think it’s vital when referring to other groups who are stigmatized in society, particularly in discussions about the prison industrial complex.
“prisoners/inmates” › “people who are imprisoned”
“felons” › “people charged with felonies”
“death row inmates” › “people who are going to be executed by the state”
Like a big part of the prison industrial complex is dehumanizing its victims, refusing to acknowledge their personhood. They aren’t people, they’re prisoners. They aren’t people, they’re criminals. They aren’t people, they’re felons.
We have to make an ACTIVE EFFORT to shut that shit down, remind ourselves and each other that we aren’t talking about statistics or vague “criminals”, we are talking about human beings locked up in concrete boxes or shot down by police on the street or strapped into a chair to die.
I was supposed to have yarn for a blanket delivered today but they said we were out and there were literally two five minute periods (after the window they gave me) where nobody was in the house so I call BULLSHIT
It is deeply, deeply beneficial to TERFs if the only characteristic of TERF ideology you will recognize as wrong, harmful, or problematic is “they hate trans women”.
TERF ideology is an expansive network of extremely toxic ideas, and the more of them we accept and normalize, the easier it becomes for them to fly under the radar and recruit new TERFs. The closer they get to turning the tide against all trans people, trans women included.
Case in point: In 2014-2015, I fell headlong into radical feminism. I did not know it was called radical feminism at the time, but I also didn’t know what was wrong with radical feminism in the first place. I didn’t see a problem with it.
I was a year deep into this shit when people I had been following, listening to, and looking up to finally said they didn’t think trans women were women. It was only then that I unfollowed those people, specifically; but I continued to follow other TERFs-who-didn’t-say-they-were-TERFs. I continued ingesting and spreading their ideas- for years after.
If TERFs “only target trans women” and “only want trans women gone”, if that’s the one and only problem with their ideology and if that’s the only way we’ll define them, we will inevitably miss a vast majority of the quiet beliefs that support their much louder hatred of trans women.
As another example: the trans community stood relatively united when TERFs and conservatives targeted our right to use the correct restroom, citing the “dangers” of trans women sharing space with cis women. But when they began targeting Lost Little Girls and Confused Lesbians and trotting detransitioners out to raise a panic about trans men, virtually the only people speaking up about it were other transmascs. Now we see a rash of anti-trans healthcare bills being passed in the US, and they’re hurting every single one of us.
When you refuse to call a TERF a TERF just because they didn’t specifically say they hate trans women, when you refuse to think critically about a TERF belief just because it’s not directly related to trans women, you are actively helping TERFs spread their influence and build credibility.
what is some TERF ideology we should be on the look out for?
This isn’t comprehensive, but I’ll do my best.
TERFs are, first and foremost, radical feminists. Radical feminism is essentially second-wave feminism without the intersectionality brought in by third-wave feminism. It believes that patriarchy is at fault for the oppression of women, but sees this in a very strict, binary way: women are the oppressed, and men are the oppressors.
TERFs use this to justify their specific brand of transphobia. This idea, among others, is essential in supporting that transphobia.
I’ll try to outline some of those ideas, and some of the logical thruoughlines they use:
Women are uniquely oppressed, and always in danger. Womanhood- or the experience of being a woman- is defined by oppression, misogyny, and Being In Danger.
Women are particularly in danger in the presence of, and in relationships with, men. Spaces that exclude men are essential to preserving the safety of women.
Socialization: men are raised to support patriarchy, while women are raised to be subjugated by it. Men have no motive to unlearn these lessons, so all men are inherently more corrupted by these lessons than women.
Relationships with men are therefore inherently (more likely to be) abusive, and relationships with women are inherently safe(er).
Sex, in particular, is more often exploitative than not. Only some kinds of sex are not exploitative. Many kinds of sex that we think are consensual, or that people say are consensual, are either rape or proto-rape.
Exchanging money for sex is inherently rape/exploitation/non-consensual in some way.
As women who deny men access to them, lesbians are The Most Oppressed and also The Most Endangered. They must be protected at all costs.
Because so many women have been raped by men with penises, both men and penises are inherently traumatic to A Lot Of Women.
Many lesbians will naturally have an aversion to relationships with trans women because of this. Trans women who argue against this “genital preference” are potential rapists trying to infiltrate lesbian spaces to hurt and take advantage of women.
Men will always try to invade “women’s spaces” to take advantage of women, endanger them, and strip away their resources both for personal gain/pleasure, and in service of upholding the patriarchy.
If we allow men to say they are women, they will invade those spaces and hurt “real” women. Men who say they are women are dangerous, and must be excluded and punished.
Men may try to obfuscate labels and terminology to “define women out of existence” or otherwise cause confusion, which they can manipulate to further their infiltration.
Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men.
Women are all miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy.
Women will attempt to escape this misery and pressure by “becoming men”. This is cowardly, but understandable; a tragic but inevitable result of patriarchy. These women must be saved.
Some women who try to escape patriarchy are doing it out of self-interest; they are betraying women by becoming men, and contributing to their oppression. These women must be punished.
Bio-essentialism: women are oppressed specifically because of their bodies and ability to reproduce. This is an inherent and defining part of womanhood. Nobody can claim womanhood without this experience, everyone who has had this experience is a woman.
Women’s bodies are all beautiful and perfect because they are women’s bodies. If the womanliness of them is tampered with, they become less valuable. Men’s bodies are gross and undesirable symbols of patriarchy.
Testosterone makes people violent, aggressive, irrational, and angry. Estrogen makes people calm, kind, and happy.
Men can never understand women’s bodies as well as other women do.
People can be attracted to other people on the basis of “sex” alone. This is inherent, immutable, and unquestionable.
Men are sexual animals who inherently and unavoidably find lots of bad things sexually arousing. Because “youth” is attractive, many men find young girls and children attractive, and will try to take advantage of them. Misogynistic control/power over women, hurting women, and even rape are also inherently sexually appealing to men.
“Gender” is meaningless; it’s founded in misogynistic stereotypes about men and women, and when you remove the stereotypes, there’s nothing left at all. Only binary “sex” is real, because that’s what patriarchy (and biology) is based on.
Manhood is itself a toxic, oppressive, inherently corrupting concept. Anyone who participates in manhood is corrupt and immoral; who would choose to be the oppressor?
Masculinity is defined only by hating women, having power, and being aggressive, violent, and controlling (etc.)
Patriarchy doesn’t just target women, but femininity as a whole, for its association with women.
Patriarchy doesn’t just reward men, but masculinity, as it rejects femininity. People who reject femininity and embrace masculinity are rewarded by the patriarchy.
Some of these ideas are contradictory, but they lead to the same conclusions. Some of them lead to similar conclusions, many of which take very little further nudging to push into more dogmatic ideas.
This is exactly why we need to understand all of these paths into TERF ideology- and more.
In fact, the vast majority of the points on this list- particularly the beginnings of their logic- can be very easily swallowed while still holding that trans women are women, and trans men are men.
That’s what TIRFs (trans-inclusive radical feminists) are, and they’re still incredibly dangerous. TIRF ideology normalizes these points, making it far easier for TERFs to recruit; even if TIRFs themselves try to be aggressively anti-TERF.
Again, this isn’t comprehensive, and it would take a long time and a lot of words to cover every flaw and danger in every line of reasoning here.
But remember how these things work; even if some of them begin with a grain of truth, even if some of them are true- especially if you define the words they contain differently- be wary of them.
It’s important to note how sex-negative they can be, and how in some circles this leads to a belief that being a lesbian is the only way one can liberate oneself from the abuse of men. They see sexual orientation as a choice to be made for one’s safety, or a political act–not something based on genuine attraction. They also sometimes push the idea of the “gold-star lesbian”–that is, a lesbian who’s never been with a man–as the ideal. If you’re a bisexual? Disgusting, don’t interact.
It’s… sadly common to see on dating sites.
What stands out for me in that list, repeated and echoed from multiple ideologies being pushed on social media, is the idea that people are inherently victims without agency. You may *think* that as a freely consenting and informed adult you get to make your own choices about (sex/gender/identity/clothes/fiction and media/headcoverings/food/your own body), but you are so so wrong! Those ideas you have were instilled in you by Bad People and Oppressive Society and it is the duty of right-thinking people to protect everyone by shaming your bad choices and taking them away from you.
Oh, my, yes. My first encounter with someone who called themselves a feminist (or, at least, the first one that was about feminism and gender) was back in the mid-90s when I was an adolescent, and she was a radical feminist. Now, I lived in a fairly liberal town in a fairly liberal part of the US. We went to a fairly liberal church which ordained women (though I had not yet had a woman pastor). At home, my parents split the chores evenly, and when deciding which parent should stay home with my baby brother and which one should work outside the home, my parents decided that Mom would work and Dad would stay home with the baby. My parents had always supported and encouraged everything I wanted to do with my life, same as they did my brothers. I had encountered sexism, but only in the sense that society is still sexist and every woman in America has to deal with it. I’d never personally experienced anything where my gender was obviously a reason that others treated me unfairly, and neither had most of my friends.
That radfem assured me that obviously, I was oppressed, and my father was abusive (because all men are abusive), I was just too brainwashed to see it, and if I would just listen to her and accept what she told me, I would be liberated from the lies of the patriarchy. Which was gaslighting–she wanted me to believe her interpretation of my life instead of my own experiences. And she’d only known me for five minutes.
My response was a) to tell her that I didn’t let anybody tell me how to think, man or woman, and what was the difference between her trying to control my thoughts and ‘the patriarchy’ trying to control my thoughts? and b) decide that obviously feminists were horrible people. Took years before I’d met enough other feminists to realize that, no, most feminists are great and in fact I was a feminist myself, it was just her particular brand of feminists were pretty shitty. But if my experiences had been different–if I had been abused by my dad, for example–I probably would have fallen for it.
Now, she was right about a few things. For example, the patriarchy did still exist, and there was a lot about gender relations in the US that I hadn’t noticed, and our society does try to manipulate people (men and women both) into not seeing this for what it is. But her being right about some things didn’t mean she was right about everything … and to her, anybody who didn’t agree with her was ‘brainwashed by the patriarchy.’ Those were the two options: either you agreed with her, or you were brainwashed.
On a different note, I would like to emphasize something nothorses said, because it illustrates what some of the root problems with radical feminism are:
Radical feminism is essentially second-wave feminism without the intersectionality brought in by third-wave feminism.
Intersectionality means talking about all the different types of power and oppression. It means talking about racism, about queerphobia, about classism, about ableism, about all the different societal problems that aren’t about gender. It means recognizing that women can and do oppress other women, and sometimes, women can oppress men! A rich woman absolutely can oppress poor people of any gender. A white woman (especially a middle or upper class woman) can oppress people of color of any gender. A Nice White Lady therapist or social worker or home health aide absolutely can oppress people with disabilities, and in fact, many women with disabilities have never had a serious problem with male helpers, but have been seriously traumatized by women.
And one of the most attractive and most poisonousthings about radical feminism (which has nothing to do with what they think about trans people or sex workers) is that it absolves its true believers of all sins. Men are the root cause of all evil in society, and women are always oppressed. Therefore, they are always innocent. Therefore, nothing they do can possibly be bad or wrong or hurt others. Therefore, they can be as horrible and abusive to other people as they want, and if a man objects it’s proof that all men are evil abusers who try to control women, and if a woman objects it’s because she’s not a good enough feminist because if she was she would know that women can only be oppressed victims, never the villain (unless she’s opposing radical feminism). There is no possibility for true accountability within that ideology. Men must be blamed for everything, women can be blamed for nothing.
So here’s a helpful list of things to think about, which will keep
you from falling into much of radical feminism’s patterns of thought:
Does
this idea have room in it to deal with racism? Classism? Ableism? or
does it flatten everything in to one single issue of gender?
Does
this idea encourage binary thinking, where things are either perfectly
GOOD or perfectly BAD with no room for shades of gray? Is there room for situations to be complicated?
Does this space or way of thinking have room for people to screw up, acknowledge they’ve screwed up, and then learn and grow from it? Or is there a sense that once you’ve screwed up, you’re Evil, (and therefore nobody can ever admit fault)?
Does this space or way of thinking have room for little boys in it? Is there any hope for men or boys who don’t want to be evil oppressors?
Look I know radically accepting rest and a lack of productivity is the only way to fix our broken ass society, but as a physically disabled person with a chronic illness, i hate you rest. I hate you recovery. I hate you ten hours of sleep a night. I hate you sitting in bed. I hate you never having time to do anything because I’m always resting. I hate you always being tired. I hate you not being able to sleep if I overdo it. I hate you having to rest after literally just walking to the bathroom. I hate you chronic illness and I hate you medical neglect and I hate you inaccessible society and I hate you ableism and I hate hate hate it all
ALT
