Firstly I’d like to say I’m pretty ignorant about this issue. Firstly because I’ve not been on tumblr in weeks and secondly because I’m not very involved in the trans community (another apology if I use the wrong terminology)

Guys! Seriously!

1. I get why radfems are angry, but here’s the thing, radfems get angry at me too, because I wear make up, fake eye lashes, bleach the fuck out of my hair and wear way too much red lipstick.

I know that this oppresses me. I know that they way I choose to dress reflects badly on the women who are empowered enough to dress in the morning without being P compliant.

And that’s the thing. In amongst all the yelling, discourse and Internet rage we seem to have forgotten a few things. All feminism is about being oppressed. You dont think a man who feels more like a woman is oppressed in our society? Naturally born women are dehumanized from birth, and men who feel they are women are taken from the privilege of the P only to be seen as traitors to their gender.

I don’t think anyone should be excluded from feminist events, but this rage has got to stop.

All outward displays of P endorsed femininity dehuminise us, oppresses us, removes our voices and respect. That doesn’t change no matter what gentials you were born with.

Much love to everyone,
This global radfem.
X

Lengthy title I know.
But a significant question in our increasingly globalised world.
One of the challenges I face regularly is the dichotomy between my western radfem beliefs and my daily life that involves women from cultures, religions and countries that are not my own. I don’t feel any guilt or concern about voicing my views to other white western women, even when they disagree I’ll tell them why abortion is a basic human right, why equal pay is essential to equality and how the role of the ‘wife’ in our society is simply a social construct designed to dehumanize women and keep them is a position of secondary importance.
I’ll tell these same facts to men who are not of my own culture, country or religion. I’ve fought with men in pubs, university, dinner parties, online and over coffee.
But I find it difficult to broach these subjects with other women. Perhaps it’s because I feel as though all women are intelligent enough to come to these conclusions themselves, maybe it’s because some of those women are institutionalised in lifestyles that are oppressive. Or maybe it’s just because I can’t be sure how they feel.
It’s probably also because I feel like these women have enough concerns without some western white woman telling them what they should and should not be doing.
Ultimately I feel the right to criticize my own culture, country and religion because it’s something I live, and I feel inappropriate doing the same to another.

So what to from here?

Globalization has made is easier to be one world, and the truth is the world is a patriachy. whatever society you live in. But white western women should not feel the need to make uninformed criticisms of other women.

You know why?

Because there are women in every country fighting for political, economic and social rights. We have a responsibility to be supportive and informed. As a global feminist we should recognize that the feminists in these places are fighting the big fight. The first fight. The fight that the sufferagettes struggled for. Recognition as human beings, with intelligent minds and political will.

Before you discuss the plight of women overseas, from the comfort of your western armchair with your television tuned to the local news, get to know the movements that exist all over the world.

poverty is an issue. everywhere. its an issue in africa, asia, europe, north america and south america, its a problem in australia and a problem in new zealand. we all know this. right?

i mean we should. we should all be aware of poverty and its implications for the world. 

but im not sure we are. 

this time im talking about poverty in a western country. its not something we discuss. we talk about the working classes, the working poor and those who’ve lost work. what about those who have never worked? about the people who cant work? and the people who will never work?

there are people in this country and others like it, who cant afford to eat every day. cant afford education, cant afford basic life needs. and we blame them. our society ignores them, kicks them while their down and pushes them to the side, because they obviously arent real representations of our society right? i mean, we arent a poor nation, so of course they’re doing something wrong. 

but what if they’re not. what if they are just a part of a cycle. a cycle that started a long time ago, with minimal education and its eventual devaluation. a suspicion of authority because of a history of trauma. no access to a first job, because the instabilities of an unstable life never gave them the chance to have a job at macdonalds when they were 14. with the final part of the cycle always being the disrespect of our society and their need to escape our judgment. 

so how do women fit into this cycle? women who experience poverty are most likely to experience violence. women without education are more likely to be controlled by the patriarchy. women without a job are less valued and women who cant feed their child are called bad mothers. the daughters they have, will often experience the world in the same way as their mothers, because without a small miracle the cycle will continue. 

i have no answers today. i cant fix this. but we can. women with education, with money, with advantages can make a difference. we can make it clear that no one deserves the ramifications of poverty. that women without the vocabulary to voice their distress can trust someone to remember them. 

poverty is the real enemy. dont ignore it.  

so ive noticed that in among some of the replies to my world without children post, there are lots of replies talking about men being forced to rape in order to reproduce. lets get something straight, i wrote that as a purely idealistic hypothesis. but then this came from it. 

at what point did people start to think, “well, men will just have to rape”. 

the idea that even women have commented that the rape rate would increase is a poor indication of the state of the world. why is it that we expect rape even in a hypothetical hypothesis? men i would expect this from. could it be that this reaction points to a fundamental and sub-conscious awareness that a woman is never really an autonomous being in our current society? was the premise that all women would refuse to have children so confronting that rape became the most prominent reaction? i feel like this points to a basic female instinct, which has been cultivated from centuries of patriachy, that women who attempt total autonomy will inevitably be coerced back into line. 

lets talk female genital mutilation. an uncomfortable subject for all. does this fall under the label of judgment of the other, or is it a human rights issue? Geoffrey Robertson pointed out in his book ‘crimes against humanity’ that the argument of cultural values and differences is all very well and good until it infringes on a basic and fundamental human right. 

8bitfidgit:

People sicken me.

i wish people would stop turning a blind eye. 

politics is, was and always will be controversial. thats ok. im ok with people not liking what i have to say. im ok with people thinking, whatever they want to think about my opinions and concerns. i wont be attempting to justify myself every 5 minutes. if you like what i have to say, lovely. if you dont, thats ok too. i hope you all, have a lovely day :)

How women could reclaim the world if they all refused to reproduce for 10 years. 

so, this is perhaps my most radical manifesto. women are always being told that they hold some sort of power within their wombs, because they can reproduce. some feminist earth mother types would like us to see birth and children as empowering. i dont. i see the space in your womb as the only space that as an individual you have complete autonomous power over. so lets posit this shall we? imagine a world where no child is born for 10 years. the patriarchy relies on us to reproduce it. it relies on us to carry the boy children who will eventually become the jailers and wardens. it relies on us to produce the girls who will one day be the jailed and abused. so what if we didnt? what if none of this cycle was perpetuated? if women reclaimed their rights, used their bodies as a weapon, altered the course of politics, economics, sociology and human interaction by refusing to reproduce. imagine the world we could create if intelligent women stopped being stay at home mums, stopped dying in childbirth, stopped fearing to be political because it could hurt their children. i know this is a pipe dream. an unrealistic ideal. but wouldnt it be nice?