swampfem

[swampfem]

Read works by women. Read them unapologetically. Read only works by women, if that’s what you want to do. You don’t have to force yourself to read male writers for “balance.” I promise you that men are not doing that. I promise you.

Read women, read women, read women. Do it for your female ancestors who were not permitted to read or write. For all the women who couldn’t afford to buy a book because every coin her husband spared her went for survival. For all the women who couldn’t get published without using a male name.

Read books by women written in other languages, if you can. Read books by women from other continents. Read books by women you desperately disagree with. Expose yourself to the vastness of the female mind and the female experience.

And if a man suggests a male author to you (and of course he will), don’t be afraid to state proudly, loudly, and without hesitation: “I only read women.” And when he presses, or criticizes, or whines for a reason, don’t be afraid to tell him: “Because I want to.” You owe him no other reason. You owe him nothing at all.

#yes!!!! #I love being known as that woman who only reads female authors #my book club already knows not to recommend me books written by men

[swampfem]

For @radblrthemeweeks I am looking for fantasy novels written by women that are not about high-schooler aged kids. Also wlw novels that don't have gender ideology in them.

#ref #to read

[swampfem]

The Authority Gap: Why Women are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and what We Can Do about it (Mary Ann Sieghart, 2021)

“‘I’ve known this for a very long time, that men just aren’t interested in reading our literature,’ Bernardine Evaristo told me.

‘So what does that say about our society? Our literature is one of the ways in which we explore narrative, we explore our ideas, we develop our intellect, our imagination.

If we’re writing women’s stories, we’re talking about the experiences of women. We also talk about male experiences from a female perspective.

And so if they’re not interested in that, I think that it says a lot and it’s very damning and it’s extremely worrying.

It seems to me that we’re seen as less important and more insignificant. And that is a big problem.’  (…)

‘I feel like I have no male readers. There’s something innately very patronizing about knowing that half the population considers my thoughts on anything to be completely irrelevant to them.

I do find that quite upsetting sometimes. On low days when I think about what that dismissal of my thoughts and stories and work is, it’s wounding.

It sends you into a weird existential place to think that half the population isn’t interested in what you’ve got to say.’

It’s not just that there is an authority gap: there is a complete void if men aren’t reading books by women. (…)

‘Affinity is a joyful thing,’ writes the novelist Anne Enright. ‘I have often admired the ease with which men praise books by other men, and envied, slightly, the way they sometimes got admired in their turn.

This spiral of male affection twists up through our cultural life, lifting male confidence and reputation as it goes.

Work by men is also read and discussed by female critics; only one side of the equation is weak: the lack of engagement with women’s work by men.’”

#ref

[swampfem]

my het partnered ladies, i just think that even a guy who splits the chores and is kind and loving will still put his needs before yours when it comes down to it. So if you’re in a het relationship, make sure you put your needs before his.

He will assume any life sacrifices will come from you. He will expect you to live where is best for his life/career/happiness, even if it means sacrificing your life/career/happiness.

Just know that no matter how ‘equal’ you are, in his mind, he’s the captain and he gets to have the final say.

If you are with a man, just make sure you take the time to think about what YOU want and to ensure you get those things, because otherwise you will be swept along on his journey, always being told it’ll be your turn to choose next time, but it won’t be. It will never be.

I’ve lost count of how many het relationships i’ve seen from mine, my parents, and my grandparents generations that have this same pattern. A woman with dreams unrealised, always being told- after my promotion, after the kids start school, after retirement, then it will be your turn to choose.

I’ve seen my mum and her friends drinking in the kitchen at dinner parties time and time again, talking about how their husband has refused to consider their desire yet again, and sat around the table the husbands talking about their latest promotion, their trajectory to success.

Any man you are dating will expect you, at some point, to defer to him as the authority. I’ve had it recently in my own relationship, and it was like a slap in the face.

Just know what you’re getting into. A guy might not be abusive, but that doesn’t mean he won’t drain you of your hopes and dreams to fuel his own, slowly, insidiously, and over a lifetime. He won’t even think he’s doing anything wrong, he thinks this is his right!!

But he can only do this because you are socialised to give freely, to make sacrifices for him.

Be vigilant! Do not give in! Be the impossible difficult woman. Set your own goals and be your own captain! When you are on your deathbed what life do you want to look back on? Live it now!

You are only an accessory to his life, don’t make him the focus of yours!!!

#exactly this #however I do think ultimately the inequality in het relationships stems from having kids

[swampfem]

i fucking teared up girl....JKR secretly saved hundreds of Afghan female lawyers and their families, getting them out of the country

Well, she didn't do it all by herself from what i read, but… yep. :')

Lord Alton said that, thanks to 'spontaneous, generous and very substantial' private funding; 'Some 500 people were evacuated - 103 were women lawyers, all of whom, with their children and husbands, were on Taliban kill lists. 'I have met some of the women judges and know that the noble Lord's intervention, and that of the author JK Rowling, undoubtedly saved many lives.' […] Baroness Kennedy said: 'JK Rowling just said 'I want to help these women'. She gave me hundreds of thousands of pounds, a very significant sum, to pay for hostel accommodation and people's living expenses.'

This is how Jo uses the money TRAs ask you not to give her by paying for and having fun playing Hogwarts Legacy by the way.

[swampfem]

#she’s so amazing fr

[swampfem]

I actually really like the honeypot tampons and pads they help my period cramps soo much

[swampfem]

#ref #boost

[swampfem]

none of us will ever ever know what it’s like to be one of the other 3 sexual orientations, no matter how much we read and digest and try to understand what it’s like, experiencing patriarchy as a lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual woman is each it’s own unique experience. we can try and empathise but at the end of the day we will never *know*, you have to experience it to fully understand it, so why can’t we accept that fact? why compare experiences as if any of us knows another person’s experience w their sexuality better than they do. it just seems pointless to me, bc no matter how many times lesbians explain themselves and their reasonings, osa women won’t get it. no matter how many times osa women explain themselves and their reasonings, lesbians will just not get it. and that’s fine. what isn’t fine is being homophobic/lesophobic obviously, or taking everything anyone says in bad faith, or exaggerating their words/misconstruing what they say.

half of the time you’re all right in your own way (bc two things can be true at the same time) but you either express it exaggeratedly and disrespectfully which is just .. why? or it’s expressed with any amount of room for interpretation and then taken in the worst possible faith. and idk why ppl refuse to accept that sometimes two things can be true, and take such a hard line. bc like i said none of us will ever experience what women of other sexualities have experienced, so can’t we just meet in the fucking middle

what’s so upsetting is when i joined radblr i thought bisexual women bridged the gap between lesbians and het women, like we had intrinsic links to both sides and that link would strengthen class consciousness- but now it’s becoming more and more and clear that isn’t true. that actually all 3 sexualities are distinct and at times at odds with the other two for various reasons - ignorance of the others’ experiences, mostly.

#period

[swampfem]

everyone on here is so cringe

#deleting tumblr again because no one is normal

[swampfem]

Ladies. There is no inconsistency with men when it comes to sex. You simply have a different view and are using that, to rationalize his. But it doesn’t work like that. “How can you beg for sex and then shame me for having sex” well you’re viewing sex as something that’s mutually enjoyed. These men view sex as something for THEM to enjoy. That’s why they lie for it. If someone is manipulating you, you falling for it, can never earn you respect. When someone is attempting to manipulate you, they have a level of arrogance, they have a sense of superiority where they feel your naïveté can be exploited. There is a reason why men view “sex work” as exploitation but tell you it’s empowering. There is a reason why they’re begging, and then afterwards they laugh, they shame. They never believed their bullshit. It was a lie for YOU to lower you standards/guard. Don’t fall for it. Have high standards. I don’t understand how some people can think men are these powerful oppressors, but simply refuse to believe they can lie…

#great great post #ref

[swampfem]

#ref

[swampfem]

Abuser Alert: Jordan Levi

This guy mostly travels on radtwt (where he was prominent), but he has a tumblr (@jordanlevilv) (https://jordanlevilv.tumblr.com/), so I'm warning you all about him. He's a self-admitted and convicted woman beater. Proof:

Take note he has a felony DV charge which has pretty high standards where he lives. To be convicted of this someone must be proven guilty to According to NRS 0.060, “substantial bodily harm” means (1) bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ; or (2) prolonged physical pain.

#wtf I remember this dude

[swampfem]

Genuinely... @ all the radfem/gender critical people who are concerned about protecting female single-sex sports competition.

You want to help women's sports, right? And there's a few hundred thousand of you across all social media platforms. That's a pretty big number.

Guess what? I have great news. There's actually an extremely effective way for you to protect women's sports competition. And it's extremely easy.

Choose a favorite pro women's sports team.

That's it! That's all it takes. Pick a favorite team. Any sport. Any pro league. Take an extra step beyond supporting your national team and pick a favorite professional team. There are hundreds of women's pro sport teams. So it shouldn't be hard to find one you like. You don't even have to be interested in sports to do this. Maybe you like the star player because she's fun to follow outside of her athletic career. That's fine. Just pick her team then.

So once you pick your team, find out how many games they play in a season. If they play 40 games, you need to at least watch 20. Since this is your favorite team, it's reasonable that you would watch at least half the games, right? And feel free to post about the team, too. Enjoy all the trials and tribulations and fan content that they produce for you throughout the season.

Men's sports is based on the whims of billionaire investors. So men's sport leagues are whatever billionaire investors want them to be.

Women's sports is based on fans. So women's sports leagues are whatever fans want them to be.

Right now, the women's sports fanbase wants trans-inclusive leagues. So, female athletes, who are 100% financially reliant on fans, have no choice but to go along with it. The trans-inclusive queer+++ community makes up most of the women's sports fan market.

That's right. The kids with 8 different neo pronouns are doing a better job than you are. They're doing a way better job showing up for professional female athletes. Ultimately, their ideas are backwards and terrible for women's sports. But that doesn't really matter. Fans come first.

If you actually cared about fair female sports competition, you would join the fanbase. You would show female athletes that they have gender critical fans who will support them. If you don't even attempt to balance out the fanbase, nothing else that you do or say even matters. Your input on women's sports has zero impact if you're not a fan with a favorite team.

#so true!!! #ref

[swampfem]

how the fuck is it legal to drive with blue lights that’s all I wanna know

[swampfem]

tbh lots of younger women are so disconnected from irl activism they don't know that mothers and grandmothers have actually been on the vanguard of important social changes.

The grandmothers of the plaza de mayo are older women who fought for the acknowledgment and information about the forced disappearances that took place in Argentina's dictatorship of 1976-1983. Backed up by the USA, btw. They fought to find missing children who were forcibly given to dictatorship's sympathizers but they also fought to find their adult children, leftist activists, scientists, journalist; people who were considered an enemy to the dictatorship.

In Mexico, the mothers of the disappeared also are an active group who often dig in mass graves, go to dangerous towns in the countryside ravaged by drug cartels, to search for their missing children.

The mothers of the women murdered by male violence in Cd. Juárez are also an active political group who is often sidelined.

Like, ik this is not place but i wish more women knew that mothers and grandmothers are actually a vital part in activism. Especially in Latinoamérica where our countries' governments dont give a shit about women's concerns.

[swampfem]

The brutal murder of a prostituted woman in Argentina is no longer being reported as a “femicide” after it was discovered that her killers did not identify as male.