#feminist consciousness

[haggishlyhagging]

Fortunately, Susan knew a brainstorming technique called "think and listen." Months later when I was explaining to Mary Daly how "think and listen" worked, she told me that Nelle Morton had described the same process in her 1972 essay, "The Rising Woman Consciousness in a Male Language Structure," only calling it instead, "hearing into speech," or "hearing into being." Finding "hearing into being" a much more felicitous description of what happens in this process, I immediately adopted that name for it.

The process itself is very simple—feminists will recognize it as having some of the best characteristics of consciousness raising (CR) as it was done early in the movement: no interruption or evaluation is allowed. With time and use I came to appreciate the very complex genius of this process. As a brainstorming measure, it has no peer, and it is the perfect mode for addressing questions such as those I posed to the women who were to meet in San Jose.

It works best in a group of three that has an hour and a half at its disposal. Everyone in the group has equal time to talk—in this case, a half hour each—uninterrupted and with out evaluation. This is a revolutionary experience for some women. Being seriously and completely listened to, being genuinely heard, hardly ever happens to women in ordinary everyday life. Many women cry the first time they try this process. Their being so avidly heard in the present causes them to realize how deeply they have been wounded by being ignored and disregarded, shut up, talked over, and found inconsequential or amusing during most of their past lives.

It is also often the first time women have ever listened to somebody else for a half hour or so without responding, without murmuring, "Oh yeah?," "I see," "Um hum," "I know how you feel," at appropriate intervals. Or laughing, or making sympathetic noises. It is often the first time they have ever listened to somebody else without allowing their facial expressions to communicate understanding, puzzlement, disagreement, or a host of other reactions. It is not easy for women to learn not to respond. We are thoroughly conditioned to respond. We always respond. That is one of our roles in patriarchy—to be the responders, the chorus. Men talk, and we nod and say breathlessly, "Then what happened?" or "Oh, yes, I'd love to hear about your childhood rock collection!" Our children have legitimate needs for our attention. They need to have us laugh when they're witty or cluck with dismay when they tell us their woes. Our faces are infinitely plastic: we are required to register admiration, servility, sympathy, concern, sorrow, and understanding all day long every day. We almost cannot not respond by this time in our lives. We almost cannot allow somebody to set forth upon this quest for their own ideas in our presence without our solicitous questions and reassurances, our reactions stamped clearly on our visages, our oohings and aahings—we are such active listeners. When we first try to listen passively to others, some of us feel like traitors; we feel as if we're doing something illegal, as if we might be arrested for it any moment.

-Sonia Johnson, Going Out of Our Minds: The Metaphysics of Liberation

#sonia johnson #brainstorming techniques #female socialization #consciousness raising #feminist consciousness #passive listening

[calilili]

#movies #avantgarde #auteur #indie #indiefilm #indie film #indiemusic #indie music #cinema #feministe #feministcinema #feministmusic #feminist cinema #feminist consciousness #feminist music #AllFemaleCrew #femaledirector #sustainablecinema #movimiento feminista #independent cinema #lgbtqia artist #lgbtqia #global democracy #surfshack #interracial love story #fantasy #calililihauser #WingsHauser #CaliLili #calililiindies

[blackpilljesus]

I saw this from the female separatism subreddit & the responses are some of the biggest reasons for separatism et al (or extinction if I'm being candid here). Moids cant be reformed they are fully aware of the hell they force women to live in. MaIe achievement & happiness is rooted in female exploitation & life. Their glory days are based on our horrific days. No amount of love, kindness or facts will change maIes and we cannot happily or even neutrally coexist with them.

Main points across answers:

Many want to experiment but not permanently be women

They dont want to be in constant danger or lose their autonomy at the hands of maIes for merely existing

They dont want to deal with childbirth (& periods)

They dont want to have to share spaces with species much stronger than them with ulterior motives

It makes me go crazy seeing people give moids benefit of doubt for their evil like "maIes just dont understand", "we need to teach maIes", or claiming that maIe violence is a result of maIes struggling with (expressing) their feelings. I get that women love maIes and it can be hard to imagine that people can intentionally be so evil but it is what it is. MaIes have no problems expressing themselves, abusing women is what maIes choose to do because they enjoy & benefit from it - that is their expression.

MaIes see the same news of women being abused, raped, and killed like we do except rather than be disheartened or alarmed they're either apathetic or satisfied. It isn't aliens that's committing GBV it's maIes & maIes have no problem reminding women of this when women anger them (such as rape threats & threatening women they'll end up on the news/true crime). The victim blaming, denial, and derailment of misogyny is part of the game to keep the system alive, they know the events occured & are a systemic occurence they just dont care. Hell not only do they not care, they rejoice in it or get off on it.

MaIes set up environments that work in their favour which simultaneously ensures that women will lose. They know women are set up to live in damn near impossible conditions for us. It's normalised for women to defenselessly share personal & private spaces with beings much more stronger than them with ulterior motives for us, it's trap. It's interesting how these moids aren't saying that they'll just cover up and *poof* harrassment gone, or they'll just pick a nice guy & they'll be okay. MaIes know the net negative they are towards women.

MaIes know that childbirth is a painful process & what do they do? Demand it happens and make it even MORE painful for women. MaIes that impregnate women do not love or care for them. Pregnancy itself is dangerous & sometimes lethal, often comes with a range of health issues, to cause someone to be in that condition especially in a environment where abortions are illegal is reckless & unloving. Now imagine how sinister & full of hatred one has to be to impregnate someone and abuse them on top of that. Many women risk their health & lives to reproduce with a Y and they get abused by said Y instead of being taken care of. Deranged.

Realising that maIes are aware of the evil they inflict is one of the things that radicalised me. It isn't a miscommunication or ignorance issue, their violence is intended. They want control. The cruelty is the point. Instead of wasting time & energy trying to change maIes or hope that they "understand" one day, focus on yourself & other women (who prioritise women). Moids aren't oblivious to female pain they enjoy it. A lot of women treat maIe evil like it's a mistake on maIes part but it's calculated terrorism. I know that this will go over many womens heads as they refuse to hold strong negative sentiments about moids as a collective so if you're not a woman like that, take this post as a sanity check. You aren't crazy, it isn't all in your head.

#Will women listen to any of this? Nope. But I will still speak anyways. #I say all of this as an osawoman so attraction is not an excuse. The time for reconciliation & reform has long gone. #And stop fucking creating more maIes ffs #While many women are under the impression that moids are clueless about our oppression; some want to believe so bc they dont want to come #to terms with evil moids actually are. Because if you want to reproduce or have a positive relationship w/ moids theres no way you can #consciously do that bearing in mind what moids are so many women push it away. Anyways #blackpill feminism #blackpill feminist #female separatism #female separatist #males know what they're doing they just dont care #radical feminism #radical feminist #feminism #moids are terrorists #feminist

[oneofthosevilradfems]

was talking to my mum today about the fact that i literally can’t understand how someone’s beliefs dont make them change their actions. i cant process how someone with strong political beliefs doesnt then change their actions to fit those beliefs.

surely, if you call yourself an animal rights activist, or a feminist, or whatever, then you have to do the things that defend those causes. we’ve become so wrapped up in labels and identities that the word feminist doesnt even mean a woman that rejects male supremacy and fights for the liberation of women. it just means a woman whos seen a few tiktoks online and has vague thoughts every once in a while. how did we get here?

as soon as i realised beauty culture was regressive and unhelpful, both to myself personally and for women as a class politically and socially, i could no longer engage in it without feeling disgusted. the idea of shaving my legs or wearing a bra or makeup or tight clothes or having surgery to change my body is so unbelievably far fetched to me that i am unable to not feel bad if i do it. that was it for me, instantly.

feminism isnt about personal comfort. neither is any other type of activism. making sacrifices is part of activism. i think its so important to question why we do the things we do, and how our actions affect those around us. feminism didnt get anywhere without radical thought and action. our own state of being able to acquire financial independence and have sex discrimination challenged is because the women who came before us fought. there is no liberatiom without fighting for it.

#rad fem #radblr #radical feminist #terfblr #radical feminists do interact #this is not commentary on aaron bushnell’s actions #i do not think people should die for the liberation of the oppressed #feel free to challenge me on this bc its kind of just a stream of consciousness

[marzipanandminutiae]

Ship And Let Ship, etc. but primary Thomas/Alan shippers in the CPeak fandom irritate me

you're so desperate to make this very woman-centric movie all about men that you latched onto the only two young guys who share the screen for even an instant?

they exchange a total of five lines. I counted. and no signs of even really liking each other beyond "I don't want to kill you"

(arguably "because this woman I love wants you alive and for little other reason" and definitely "but not badly enough to just refuse to stab you, even when I'm the only armed person in the room as well as the tallest and possibly the strongest")

I know ships have been built on less, and this is EXTREMELY subjective, but within that extremely subjective space...I ScreamTM

#like it's just. #'how can I make this CONSCIOUSLY FEMINIST movie where the most interesting dynamic is between two women' #'all about Pretty Boys'

[incandenzardour]

one way reading feminist literature changed my life for the better is it unironically helped my relationship with my mother so much. i was going to go into more detail but it’s probably a bit too personal for a public tumblr account lol but it really put a lot of things in perspective for me, and also gave me things i could bond with my mum over. some of the things she’s done can never be undone and our relationship is still very strained at times, but now i can approach it with a lot more understanding and maturity. and while part of this can just be credited to me growing up, i truly believe that without reading feminist literature that i would not have made this much progresss

#this is why im like super enthusiastic about the idea of feminist lit being used in therapy #or at least like. consciousness raising techniques #i think its useful for reconciliation (if desired) and useful for situating ur struggles in context #so that you arent left feeling like theres something fundamentally wrong with you

[dame-nostalgique]

'Girls in white dresses', 2023

Our vicious fantasies of revenge 🥀⚰️

#poetry #poem #my poetry #original poetry #female rage #poems on tumblr #original poem #feminist poetry #spilled ink #spilled writing #spilled poetry #spilled words #spilled thoughts #feminist poem #patriarchy #female poets #poets of tumblr #poets on tumblr #words #stream of consciousness #poetry prose #feminine urge #female hysteria

[dykemind]

it's just sad to me because you're all smarter than this. you can put two and two together. you can be honest with yourself. you can stop acting like it's cool or funny.

#I know because I did it #without any help #without feminist consciousness #so you radblr orbiter can definitely also do it #it's less of a moral failure to me and more just. disappointing

[feministdragon]

I'm looking for a pdf of Gerda Lerner's "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness"

here's a summary of the book

If you have a pdf and are willing to share, or if you know where to download, please let me know!!

edited to add: I've found the book on Open Library, thanks to everyone.

#gerda Lerner #creation of feminist consciousness

[haggishlyhagging]

The first women are fleeing the massacre, and, shaking and tottering, are beginning to find each other. Their first move is a careful joint observation, to resensitize a fractured consciousness. This is painful: No matter how many levels of consciousness one reaches, the problem always goes deeper. It is everywhere. The division Yin and Yang pervades all culture, history, economics, nature itself; modern Western versions of sex discrimination are only the most recent layer. To so heighten one's sensitivity to sexism presents problems far worse than the black militant's new awareness of racism: Feminists have to question, not just all of Western culture, but the organization of culture itself, and further, even the very organization of nature. Many women give up in despair: if that's how deep it goes they don't want to know. Others continue strengthening and enlarging the movement, their painful sensitivity to female oppression existing for a purpose: eventually to eliminate it.

-Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution

#shulamith firestone #feminist consciousness #yin yang #western civilization #radical feminism

[nero-neptune]

maybe i’m just easily annoyed (and the news is depressing), but i feel like people on here (or the internet in general lbr) are more willing to criticize/dismiss (even label unrelated things as) “white feminism” (even if it’s bringing up important/relevant issues) than talk about feminism at all. sexism exists in every community you can think of, within every race, ethnicity, social class, religion, nationality, sexuality, what-have-you. it’s easier and more entertaining ig to point out how feminism is lacking or who’s doing feminism “wrong” then attempt to bridge/fill the gaps and actually, Seriously Talk about sexism in detail (and not like it’s some sort of 2nd tier, we’ll circle back to this much later, type of oppression which i Really get the impression of, even within supposedly-progressive spheres) on the regular and not as a series of gotcha posts that get enthusiastically reblogged for a blip in time and then. crickets. like as far as the patriarchy’s concerned (like if i’m looking at this from their perspective), this nitpicking appears very divide-and-conquer. nothing goes anywhere. and things just keep slipping backwards. maybe i’m crazy (maybe i’m way off base), but isn’t feminism meant to help All women, even the ones you dislike? even the ones you hate? like what’s going on here? am i missing something?

#like i definitely was one of those people who dismissed certain issues as 'white feminist' but honestly #i feel like in the long run that's done a lot more harm than good #opening up different websites gives me whiplash sometimes like. oh you HATE women here. ok. #and then watching the news like. oh so EVERYONE hates women. that's crazy! #or maybe i'm just a debbie downer #i'm black btw if it needs to be said. like this isn't me necessarily defending white feminism but honestly #even the most privileged silver spoon conventionally attractive white bread women deal with horrific sexism #we saw that with amber heard (for a very recent example) #just bc 'white feminism' has a lot of blind spots doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about feminism at all #and at least on tumblr that's what it feels like has happened. i could be living in a bubble tho. we all have our blind spots #rambles #feminism #this is very stream of consciousness i just had shit to say.

[terfyonic]

the infighting about witchcraft on radblr thats been going on for days now is so insane. in the 70s the CIA had to pay agitators to get this kind of result...

#like gyns there is a real world outside and there are activist movements in YOUR AREA to get involved in <3 #average tumblr user when someone holds personal beliefs that they dont share 😡😡😡😡 #like be so fucking real rn nobody is suggesting replacing feminist praxis with witchcraft it's just an added consciousness raising extra #anyway vvitchscum i will defend you in the trenches

[vamptastic]

Idk it's weird because when discussing discrimination against trans men specifically, people tend to bring up like... being told men are gross or that you're betraying the feminist cause or something. And while those are shitty and mean-spirited things to say to somebody, what I would actually identify as a kind of specific systemic form of discrimination is the exclusion of transgender men from studies and surveys, and the relative ease with which people simply forget that we exist. Erasure, basically. Which honestly, seemed to be discussed more before the advent of whatever the current movement around trans men's struggles is called now, because there wasn't a metric fuckload of incomprehensible discourse surrounding it.

Most other things that seem to come up, while very real and very shitty, are not unique to us per se, though I do feel we are often left out of the conversation because it's assumed that they won't apply to us (ex domestic violence, fear of sexual assault, fear of being seen as a predator, accusation of transitioning for fetishistic purposes, assumption that we are transitioning to escape being gay, being denied access to fertility procedures without detransitioning, on and on and on). Which is also annoying.

I just find myself irritated by the current movement around trans men's experiences because there's some really pervasive problems in there that I do feel are systemic and underaddressed, mixed in with some stuff that's a problem but better addressed by putting one's energy into existing movements, mixed in with bonkers intercommunity drama that only matters if you're only friends with other queer people in an accepting area.

#if you find this stance objectionable PLEASE message me and don't block or silently seethe at me. please. #because i genuinely find this interesting and i think it's a shame that it seemed to devolve into pointless infighting so fast #like i would love it if somebody wrote an up to date book about feminism and trans men because of this. or at least made a good reading list #my investment in this is primarily because i am A. a feminist B. often perceived as a woman and C. a trans man myself #and i feel that there is a profound difference between how i experience misogyny and how cis female friends do #and has been pretty much since i got old enough for my peers to consciously express sexism #and i would very much like it if somebody smarter than me put that into words #like to be clear there's not really a ' side ' i would pick on this #other than like transmisogyny is a huge problem and most people are unwittingly transmisogynistic #and that trans men deal with a lot of bullshit wrt other people's baggage about maleness and are largely invisibles to many cis people

[rose-reads-visualnovels]

sorry for posting feminist literature and then dipping. It might happen again. good night 😴😴

#rose update #I will raise the ushiromiya’s family female class consciousness one feminist post at a time #umineko liveblog

[chandleralexsmith]

how to tame a cat

the universal respect for human life prevents us from attacking all who we hate- yet that does not stop me from fearing my own distain. it’s not anger herself that i'm afraid of, but the displacement of her. i fear that she will bite all the hands that feed me, until there are none left. i would declaw myself to remain safe in the company of rage.  anger is but a teacher, or so they say, clarity to the areas where we have been wronged- but I am an unruly student, and you are too. how often have you left your mother with tear stained cheeks, how many times have you hissed cruelties at your own blood? we are united by our capability to be feral beings, our common humanity our own volatility. in a cage is where anger must reside, a dam against the thrashing tide, a creature in a crate, a home for a bitter woman. i wish to have soft pads of pink flesh in place of the nails that left you raw don’t fear me, don’t fear me, don’t-  i am as defenseless as a cat with no claws. 

#spilled poetry #spilled thoughts #creative writing #journal #love poem #original poem #poem #writers on tumblr #feminist poetry #artists on tumblr #poetry #poems on tumblr #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #writeblr #writing #writerscommunity #flow of consciousness #stream of consciousness #brain drain #brain dump #healing #mental health awareness #anger #feelings #actually bpd

[aunt-kats-chats]

Not to start shit but you ever think about how most men will never post on International men's day but when it's international women's day they complain all the time about international men's day not getting any attention

Men's mental health month is also in June but many of them would rather complain about gay people having pride month than actually use that month to talk about men's mental health

#aunt kat's chats #Before any of you guys hit me with the not all men spiel I know #I've seen men not do this shit #But it happens enough that I want to talk about it #female class consciousness #feminist #feminism #Men would rather complain about women than lift each other up #Honestly why I hate instagram so much #swearing tw