silverity

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“Nguyen Thi Hien, 19, head of the militia squad in Yen Vuc in Thanh Hoa Province, survived more than 800 airstrikes and was buried alive four times in B‑52 bomber attacks. 1966. Mai Nam/Patrick Chauvel Foundation” (x)

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Liberal vs. Radical Feminism on gender, in a nutshell. In her book, “Against Our Will”, Susan Brownmiller has a chapter where she looks at what happens to men who are raped in prison. The answer: they often become “feminine” - masochistic, “soft”, delicate etc. Femininity is internalized abuse. It is the psychology and disposition of a masochist. It is ritualized submission. It is seen as clearly pathological and unhealthy when manifested in men - those human beings who matter, who are entitled to real dignity. When manifested in women, it is considered “natural” - a reflection of what women really, innately are. Abolish gender. Women and girls deserve nothing less.

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I took some screenshots of this video, about “leftover women” in China, women who are unmarried and over the age of 25. I took screenshots every time someone said something that created a picture with the subtitles that just…. resonated with me. Something women can truly understand.

These women deserve to be heard.

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I’m not the anon from the last two asks but can you explain how that means she’s probably a lesbian? I’m in a similar boat but I have experienced attraction to females. I just don’t understand the line between bisexual/febfem and lesbian. Like obviously the difference is whether you’re attracted to men or not, but like considering how much there is to gain by being attracted to men, and how much there is to lose by being attracted to women exclusively, I don’t know how to navigate the mental distortions/coping mechanisms to find out which you really are. You know? Like the answer is look inside yourself and find the truth but like how the fuck do I actually do that.

this is literally why they invented(certain strains of) political lesbianism

because the world is a fuck and all women experience sexual trauma and profound alienation from our own emotions and physical responses even if only by proximity and exposure

so therefore demanding a woman know what her sexuality would be classified as according to this world's labels but in some alternate reality where patriarchy doesn't exist and didn't traumatize her is. A Lot, and totally unreasonable from a feminist viewpoint.

I am a female homosexual but not everyone has the privilege of being able to learn that about themselves.

while the version of political lesbianism which invites bi women to reject men and embrace our label is mostly dead(there are some stubborn polilez in the radfem scene still, which depending on circumstance I'm apathetic about)there remains a need for a term that emphasizes loving women while leaving room for the inevitable ambiguity of patriarchal sexual trauma, for women who really don't know and can't tell.

I think the fact so many women carry with them this ambiguity makes both lesbian and bisexual feminists uneasy in these post-polilez times and we really need to fill that niche.

Do with that what you will.

#hope you don't mind my reblog #this is why i think there should be a form of feminist asexuality

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Setting Sail to Travel Through Space: 5 Things to Know about our New Mission

Our Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand no earlier than April 23, at 6 p.m. EDT. This mission will demonstrate the use of innovative materials and structures to deploy a next-generation solar sail from a CubeSat in low Earth orbit.

Here are five things to know about this upcoming mission:

1. Sailing on Sunshine

Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight for propulsion much like sailboats harness the wind, eliminating the need for rocket fuel after the spacecraft has launched. If all goes according to plan, this technology demonstration will help us test how the solar sail shape and design work in different orbits.

2. Small Package, Big Impact

The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft is a CubeSat the size of a microwave, but when the package inside is fully unfurled, it will measure about 860 square feet (80 square meters) which is about the size of six parking spots. Once fully deployed, it will be the biggest, functional solar sail system – capable of controlled propulsion maneuvers – to be tested in space.

3. Second NASA Solar Sail in Space

If successful, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System will be  the second NASA solar sail to deploy in space, and not only will it be much larger, but this system will also test navigation capabilities to change the spacecraft’s orbit. This will help us gather data for future missions with even larger sails.

4. BOOM: Stronger, Lighter Booms

Just like a sailboat mast supports its cloth sails, a solar sail has support beams called booms that provide structure. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System mission’s primary objective is to deploy a new type of boom. These booms are made from flexible polymer and carbon fiber materials that are stiffer and 75% lighter than previous boom designs. They can also be flattened and rolled like a tape measure. Two booms spanning the diagonal of the square (23 feet or about 7 meters in length) could be rolled up and fit into the palm of your hand!

5. It’s a bird...it’s a plane...it’s our solar sail!

About one to two months after launch, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will deploy its booms and unfurl its solar sail. Because of its large size and reflective material, the spacecraft may be visible from Earth with the naked eye if the lighting conditions and orientation are just right!

To learn more about this mission that will inform future space travel and expand our understanding of our Sun and solar system, visit https://www.nasa.gov/mission/acs3/.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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It’s really funny to me how sex, out of all the social categories, is the least ambiguous yet is treated like it is the most by TRAs. Have you ever seen a TRA explain why transracial is wrong but transgender is ok? They always yap about how gender is a social construct… as if race isn’t? They’re like well racial differences are real and it can be determined with genetics. Like. So close! That is eugenics ❤️

#it's crazy bc we understand that white people claiming Blackness for themselves would be appropriating a lived reality #that they neither experience nor understand #even tho much of what is experienced by Black folks is social... bc race is chiefly political & social #but for some reason... that gender is social is used as justification for men to adopt our social reality as women? & claim our experiences #why is it appropriation for race but not gender #even if sex were irrelevant and our categorisation as women were purely social... it still wouldn't be okay #to claim an identity you do not authentically belong to & an experience you haven't lived #i can only think that they're so misogynistic they don't think there is anything unique or particular to women & our womanhood #that might be out of reach to them #they really think they can just “put on” womanhood & live the full experience

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i want female only sports, including chess. i also want female only book clubs and female only karaoke nights and female only whatever women want to enjoy without the threat of men breathing down their necks. it's not about physical or mental superiority and more about me just wanting one place where i don't have to deal with sexists and chauvinists, especially when im doing something i love.

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i think the reason (aside from misogyny) gender dysphoric men react so violently to radfems is we cannot be so easily dismissed. our objections to gender ideology are not rooted in conservatism or religious doctrine, though of course they do try to smear us as such. the problem for them is that gender abolitionist radical feminism is a competing perspective within leftism with the potential to unseat the dominant ideology. conservatism and religion won't sway the TRAs strongly committed to anti-capitalist social justice politics, but coherent radical analysis of patriarchal oppression & its sex-based gender hierarchy might. we can see for ourselves that it is gradually swaying leftist women (myself being one example).

#thoughts #radblr #gender ideology #transgender

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Males love to talk about men and women being "biologically hard-wired" for certain behaviors until you bring up the fact that they seem to be biologically predisposed towards violence and sexual depravity.

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Saturn and its rings in visible/ultraviolet

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i can't fucking stand usamericans and their obsession with individual choice. oh my god the neoliberal brainrot is real.

i can't physically stand any type of analysis or critique about social issues coming from usamericans because they'll legit be like "the sexualization of women is a big problem and we shouldn't pressure young women into presenting themselves sexually for the benefit of men. HOWEVER if a woman CHOOSES out of her FREE WILL to use her sex appeal and be sexy BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO, it is completely fine!! slay 💅" there is no way you are this dumb. you have never thought about anything ever. you don't understand how society and human behavior work.

actually, basically nothing that you choose is completely out of free will. free will doesn't really exist in the sense that we are a social species and we are constantly influenced by our environment and our past experiences. your choices are inherently tied to your environment. there is no such thing as a completely individual choice.

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when men try to talk about the physiology of the female body they make it abundantly clear that they think the vagina is just a hole. the vagina is it’s own complex ecosystem but men never bothered to actually learn the intricacies of female physiology because they think their bodies are the default

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When you engage in discourse denial of the treatment of trans people in Hitler's Germany and lose George Takei.

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Old Misogyny: “She was asking for it”

New Misogyny: “We need to critically examine the notion that all women are victims under a monolithic patriarchy and stop assuming that women need to be protected from sex and that they can’t make their own choices and be empowered by [prostitution/porn/surrogacy/statutory rape/bdsm], women who consider themselves victims need to take accountability for the choices they had.”

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I was hesitant to write this post, but I want to talk about why so many women and teenage girls are getting double mastectomies.

The justification a lot of trans people use for elective double mastectomies is that "top surgery" helps people feel comfortable in their bodies. Traditionally, this surgery was restricted to transmen. In the recent decade, however, nonbinary identified and even non-trans identified women have been getting mastectomies. I remember clear as day when my coworker (who identified as a "cis" woman) told me that at 18 she was planning on saving for top surgery. I myself got my breasts removed when I identified as nonbinary, having been on testosterone for 2 years.

It's important to remember that no person is born wanting surgery. Society creates conditions that are hostile to women, GNC, and gay people, and this hostility encourages a dissociated state. The body is removed from the mind - instead of the body being an intrinsic part of your personhood, a mechanism through which we experience the world, it instead becomes ornamental. This is perfectly represented by all forms of non-reconstructive cosmetic surgery, which risk people's health for entirely aesthetic reasons.

So, why do teen girls want to remove their breasts? For those of who experienced unwanted sexual advances from a young age, the answer is intuitive. Breasts are inherently sexualized. They are not seen as a vital organ that contributes to bodily function and health, but as a decoration, the only purpose of which is to attract men and feed babies. In this way, a woman's breasts do not even belong to her. When men openly gawk at a woman without a bra, when relatives grope at her as a pubescent girl, when we are exposed to an endless stream of hyper-sexualized images of women with their cleavage out, a message is sent loud and clear: existing in a female body is unsafe.

I want to make it very clear that an elective mastectomy and the practices of breast ironing are very different, but there are commonalities in the attitudes behind both. Breast ironing is done to pubescent girls in order to "prevent" her being sexually assaulted or harassed by men, sometimes including male relatives. When I hear stories of girls in the West starving themselves and binding to hide their chests, I can't help but see similarities. When I was binding and restricting calories as a 15 year old, I would have said I was doing it so that I could pass as a man. But I would have been lying to you. I was lying to myself. I didn't hate my breasts because I was "born in the wrong body." I hated my breasts because they were used to justify my sexualization. From my perspective they put me in danger.

We often hear that women's rights in the West have been secured, but you need only look at the war on women's bodies to see that that is a fantasy. When young girls constantly receive the messaging that your curves and boobs WILL attract men and that you will be objectified for it, many will try to opt out.

Take Liv Hewson, for example.

She says herself that her anorexia was a manifestation of "gender dysphoria," but the question remains - where did this dysphoria come from? Why would anorexia develop as an outlet for it? What makes more sense: a young woman was born hating her body and her breasts because she has a gendered, non-female soul, or that same woman hates her body because she has been conditioned as such by a patriarchal society, the same society that encourages extreme self harm and body modification through a multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry?

Gender dysphoria in young women needs to be demystified. It's not special, it's not unique. It is NOT evidence that she needs invasive surgery or steroids to feel comfortable in her body. It is evidence that she is in pain. In order to address the rising rate of transition in young women, we must first acknowledge the conditions that nurture this form of self-hatred.

Transition IS a feminist issue. It is just as relevant in Western feminism as tackling the beauty industry, female sexualization, and violence perpetrated against women through porn. All of these issues are deeply interconnected. When we approach dysphoric women with compassion and encourage them to perceive their bodies as a part of themselves that deserves to remain intact and whole, rather than as their enemy, we take a necessary step towards female liberation.

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