#liberation vs assimilation

[unforgivablengk]

I say this as a 35 year old trans queer who has been out since I was like 12. I'm desperate for y'all not to take us backwards. liberation, not assimilation.

#liberation vs assimilation #coming out #heterocentrism #heterosexism #homophobia #internalized homophobia #queerbaiting #michael sheen #david tennant #good omens #neil gaiman #parasocial behavior #parasocial #parasocial relationships #loki #ofmd #our flag #our flag means death

[vyeoh]

I have to say, as much as I love the fix-its and the spiked coffee theory, the part of me that's the queer kid living in a homophobic and sometimes manipulative household wants to watch Aziraphale make that mistake fully on his own and grow from it

#good omens #ineffible husbands #good omens spoilers #vio.txt #its the assimilation vs liberation argument again #like i love crowley because hes who i wanna grow into #but i love aziraphale because i see so much of myself in him #like. its complicated and having the coffee be spiked makes it less so #discourse #(?) #i also like the coffee theory tho because it makes for a very interesting predicament for when aziaphale realizes #but having him make that mistake is more emotionally satisfying imo

[supercantaloupe]

im not gonna link it cause im not interested in getting into shit tonight but i really hate that post thats like “as a jew i dont think jesus was divine or the messiah or anything but i think he was still a cool guy” bc i dont. i think he sucked actually

#sasha speaks #and its not just me being bitter about modern day religious xtianity & cultural xtianity pervasiveness either #dude was first of all not unique; there were a lot of messianic offshoots of judaism around the first century #(cause one of the key features of the moshiach is liberating the jewish nation from foreign powers ie rome) #(which. yknow. jesus didnt do) #but also a lot of the shit people point out that jesus supposedly did as being Good and Sticking It To The Man. kinda sucked for us actually #no the money traders in the temple courtyard were not corrupt they were performing a necessary public service in a central location. #yeah the teachings about being kind to your fellow man and the immorality of obscene wealth i vibe with but like #jesus and his cult were hellenized jews in a cultural context where hellenization (as opposed to non-assimilated judaism) #was a big and uncertain divide at the time #and jesus' cult going so far out of its way to not only accept but embrace hellenization and assimilation for the sake of proselytizing #and growth #directly and actively goes out of its way to divorce itself from the rest of judaism; declare the rest of judaism to be bad/wrong; #and eventually seek to 'replace' it in some way #(maybe other hellenized judaic cults could have survived if the jewish revolts hadnt failed in the first century and the romans hadnt #effectively forced us into diaspora 2 electric boogaloo but speculation doesnt change the fact that non-hellenized judais #m is what survived to the present day as judaism) #also talking about jesus by applying modern sociopolitical labels is just dumb. #the concepts of 'people or color vs white' or 'socialist' or 'anti-capitalist' or whatever. none of those existed in the first century #and it's disingenuous to sincerely call jesus an ancap person of color icon or whatever. #anti imperialist (anti roman empire anyway) was certainly an existing political position back then #but lets stop pretending jesus and his cult were anti rome. they were hellenized. they were hellenizers. #they actively changed their religious and cultural practices to embrace hellenic culture and make itself more attractive to hellenic culture #if jesus and his cult were really anti roman imperialism then maybe jews wouldnt STILL be harassed for being 'gd killers' today #but we are. so. guess they weren't lol #anyway. jesus sucks. hate that guy

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

@/nonnie pls dm me so i can answer to you without making drama on this acc

#i sincerely hope it was a huge misunderstanding (which. plausible since i said explicitly that bully isn't a queer game) #bc if u dont…'the way i view homosexual people'…babe. babe i AM one of the homosexual ppl. #but from the concept u try to put therr. idk i would suggest u look up the concept of assimilation vs. liberation #and if u find yourself more keen on rhe assimilation line of thought well. i don't think were gonna get along #also idk if ure queer bur surprise! being queer DOES have consequences on the way u interact with ur surroundings ESP if they are- #a particularly cisheteronormative context. such as. the time and place bully is set in. #but i feel like im already making a fuss and i dont think i have anything to #prove abt myself #so. pls dm me so i can better understand ur point. also to make sure i havent misunderstood or miswritten something too

[angelofdumpsterfires]

no but y’all don’t get it crowley and aziraphale are literally the queer dichotomy of assimilation vs resistance

aziraphale doesn’t like being an outcast from heaven, he doesn’t like the powers above him and knows heaven is broken but believes it to be a case of poor management, instead of being the nature of heaven itself, he believes he can change it from the inside, he wants to be holy and good and believes that doing heaven’s work is the way to do that, he wants to carve out a spot within the system for himself and crowley and fundamentally doesn’t understand that crowley does not want or believe in quietly abiding to the rules of oppressors

crowley, a demon working for neither hell nor heaven but for himself and what he sees fit, actively chooses to be an outcast, unpalatable to any power that be, he embraces it and revels in it, especially when he’s being an outcast *alone together with aziraphale* two celestial beings not built to fit into boxes or follow orders, an absolute refusal to stand down or change one’s self as to not aggravate the system, aziraphale fundamentally believes assimilation into heaven to be the ideal outcome failing to take into account the sheer insult that notion is to someone who embraces their offputting and queer nature.

crowley has long liberated himself from the notion of belonging to any system, made easier by his critical nature and literal plunge into hell, aziraphale “on the side of good and light” is so so well intentioned but has not been forced to examine his fundamental beliefs and where they come from, he still believes heaven is better than hell he still believes he’s better than a demon, he still believes in heaven. Crowley however is entirely disillusioned with those ideals and is absolutely dumbstruck that the one person he thought held similar ideals on authority, his fellow outcast, immediately buys back into the system the moment it isn’t actively hostile to him

#good omens #good omens season 2 #go s2 #go spoilers #good omens spoilers #good omens s2 #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley

[spacelazarwolf]

i once saw a tiktok and i dont remember the exact topic now, but the op (a lesbian) was responding to a comment that said something like "oh we're all queer we need to stand together" and the op said "No. What she is saying does not align with queer liberation. Queer is more than just your sexuality, it is a political ideology. Its all of us or none of us. If you are transphobic, biphobic, arophobic, or anything else like those, you aren't queer, you're just a girl that likes girls." (i believe the video the comment was left on was the op calling out another lesbian for being transphobic?)

and that stuck w/ me and thats also how i think abt lgbt+ vs queer. so very similar to your definitions i think?

that's a huge fucking mood. IN MY OPINION i think that identifying as queer is inherently political. i think if you're going to identify as queer, you should not only align with the politics of the movement but you should put the work in to further the movement. i think that with the rise of the internet came this sense of extreme individuality where calling yourself something didn't really have to mean anything. you could call yourself queer because you liked the word or because you liked to fuck with gender, because you saw it somewhere and didn't get the full context and history of the word queer and why it was chosen as the word we chose to reclaim. i've encountered a lot of people who get really upset when people say that queer is a political identity, because they identify as queer and they don't want their identity being politicized!! but like. that's literally the entire point of the word queer!!! it's bizarre to me that ppl will gatekeep the word lesbian until the last human being on earth has died despite the fact there is no set and universal definition of the word lesbian. but a word that has specific origins and an explicit connection to a liberation movement that requires rejection of binaries, assimilation, white supremacy, and patriarchy, suddenly they're like it's just a word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok that's my queer rant.

#ask avishai

[transmutationisms]

possibly too broad but do you have any thoughts on the discourse around self-pathologizing? seems like there’s weird territory there since there are so many barriers to diagnoses and people should be free to self-report, yet some pathologies are essentially capitalist inventions and it may be more harmful than helpful for people to fixate on them without some kind of external guidance (though i don’t mean to imply they need to consult medical practitioners). i also don’t really think faddishness is the big concern it’s made out to be, but what do you think?

yeah to me this is a good example of how genuinely epistemologically radical critique of psychiatry can become assimilated into pretty staid liberal discourses of self-empowerment / -care / -improvement. pathologisation, imo, is basically materially meaningless if it's not backed by the sorts of institutions and power relations that characterise the psychiatric establishment. which is to say, if we're only talking about diagnostic labels in a kind of personal-choice framework (as so much of the medium dot com industrial complex seems to be doing lately) then it robs these conversations of a lot of their urgency and impact. i don't think overreliance on the language of the dsm is particularly helpful, as a general matter of seeking to develop political consciousness as well as self-knowledge, but i also don't think it really matters one way or another if someone self-dxes or un-dxes. what makes a difference is things like: is this person being robbed of their autonomy? are these explanatory frameworks being imposed on them by credentialled experts levelling their professional status to claim epistemological authority over the psyche? what social and economic violence is being committed here? some rando online relating to a diagnostic label and using it for themself is not doing these things, and may very well be helpful to that person (it may also not. but again the harm here is p limited).

i have said before, a lot of what puts me personally off dsm labels is the essentialism they're in bed with. ie, it's not just a shorthand descriptor of behaviours or symptoms—these terms are pretty much always being wielded as claims to have identified a biologically based 'neurotype', eg, or some as-yet-unverifiable misery-engendering genetic complex, or whatever else. and to be clear, i think these types of claims do actually carry widespread social harm, because no matter what rhetorical games you play, you're never just saying these things about yourself. it's a claim to certain forms of bio-essentialism that both shores up professional psychiatric authority and applies to people besides yourself (this is just the nature of such universalising claims about human biology). but this is an issue that goes so far beyond use or disuse of diagnostic labels; plenty of people who have embraced superficial principles of anti-psych critique still make all manner of such essentialist claims when it comes down to it, with or without grabbing onto a specific diagnostic label. so i think the kind of panicking we see in certain left-leaning circles about self-dx is not actually about this issue at all, and is certainly not capable of addressing it productively.

without going insanely long here i would just add that this is kind of a general answer because different labels have different histories and functions (eg, compare the social and political function of pathologising a depressive episode, vs autistic traits / behaviours, vs a so-called personality disorder). and also, whenever talking about self-dx i think it's important to add that one of the most important functions of these labels from a patient perspective is they function as means of gatekeeping access to certain accessibility measures, so any kind of anti-self dx position in current political conditions will harm people who need those accommodations. and i have less than zero interest in questioning anybody who wants accessibility measures for literally any reason or uses any method to obtain them.

#psychiatry

[goodqueenaly]

What is your understanding or imagining of the nature of House Ironwood’s support for the Blackfyres? Obviously they’re old enemies of the Martells, but were they effectively betraying all of Dorne by fighting to install an anti-Dornish regime that would place them as Lords Paramount over a more oppressed and forcibly assimilated Dorne? Or could there have been an arrangement where Daemon (or his successor) would give up Dorne to Yronwood rule in order (on the Blackfyre side) to de-Dorneify the rest of Westeros, and return to the old status quo for the Marcher Lords and Reach fighting the border Dornish as their enemies; and Yronwood could position themselves as liberators vs the Martells who “gave up Dorne to the Iron Throne”?

I tend to agree with @racefortheironthrone that House Yronwood wanted, and sought, in Daemon Blackfyre was a rewriting of the political playbook in Dorne which put them, the Yronwoods, on top. To say that House Yronwood has historically resented its secondary position in Dorne under the Martells is perhaps among the greatest of all Westerosi understatements: this is a family whose patriarchs have for the better part of a millennium styled themselves "the Bloodroyal", after all, an open reminder of their illustrious past and a claim to dynastic, if not currently executive, primacy. Daemon's would-be regime attracted other vassal families posed to be rivals to their local liege lords - the Sunderlands, the Reynes and Tarbecks, the Brackens and Freys, especially the Peakes - and the Yronwoods fit squarely in this model; a new dynasty on the Iron Throne would be perfectly positioned to raise new Houses to replace those which had supported the no-good-very-bad Daeron Falseborn, including House Yronwood.

I don't think Daemon could, or would, have agreed to surrendering Dorne, even temporarily. Since the days of Aegon the Conqueror, the Targaryen kings had used the title "King of the Rhoynar", proclaiming a hereditary right to rule Dorne. Indeed, Daemon drew his support in no small part from those "[k]nights and lords of the Dornish Marches" who "began to look more and more to the old days, when Dornishmen were the enemy to fight, not rivals for the king's attention or largesse". To suggest that he would abandon the "ancestral" Targaryen (now Blackfyre) claim to Dorne might well appear, at least to these factions, even worse a betrayal than the actions of Baelor and Daeron II: this was a king who was not only not pursuing that claim, but was acknowledging the right of Dorne to exist as an independent political entity, without the Iron Throne as its suzerain. Instead, I think Daemon agreed to make the Yronwoods Lords - specifically Lords - Paramount of Dorne, in exchange for bending the knee to him as king.

The political trick, of course, would have been how Daemon could square his alliance with and promotion of House Yronwood within Dorne with his power base among those Reach and Stormlands families who advocated for war and conquest in Dorne. Daemon could not in good faith ally with the Yronwoods, then say "alright lads, now time to plunder Dorne wholesale", but nor could he ignore the desire for conquest among his supporters. Perhaps Daemon would have sold future war in Dorne as something of a First Dornish War 2.0, now with the assistance of a pro-Blackfyre family within Dorne to help the Iron Throne and its vassals carve up the holdings of the traitorous Martells and their allies. Perhaps he would have also played up the racial/xenophobic angle, specifically against the Martells and other "salty" Dornishmen, by arguing that the Yronwoods - "that house of blue-eyed blondes", in the words of Quentyn Martell, among those Dornish families who "have the most in common with those north of the mountains and are the least touched by Rhoynish custom" - were in fact true-blue First Men Westerosi unfortunately separated by geopolitical borders, and that the real enemies were those Martells with their foreign, Rhoynish blood.

#asoiaf meta #daemon blackfyre #house yronwood #first Blackfyre rebellion

[sytokun]

Art by Mikkusushi on Twitter.

I've been sort of entertaining this idea for a while now. Knowing all the unfortunate baggage and mishandling involved with the White Fang, why not just. Make them the good guys?

Say an official rewrite or reboot of RWBY exists in the future - if those two words rub you the wrong way then whatever, basically a clean slate or re-adaptation of RWBY - the fact stands that the White Fang need a heavy revision.

People are smart enough at this point to know that you shouldn't be villainising the oppressed group trying to fight back against a world that is actively pushing them out - if anything the SDC should be more of a antagonistic faction, kind of like the Shinra corporation from Final Fantasy 7 which RWBY is clearly heavily based on, what with Dust and Materia and all that. But that still leaves you with the White Fang and Blake's arc to write.

This has been a large headache point for anyone trying to figure out how to revise RWBY's more fundamental writing flaws, because the WF are such a prominent antagonist faction throughout the Beacon arc and they were such a problem that CRWBY had no choice but to sweep them under the rug entirely after Adam's death. But hear me out here. Do we really need to latch onto that idea so hard? That the White Fang need to be villains?

Like, imagine a RWBY where the White Fang are shown as terrorists on TV and in newspapers throughout Vale, but when you actually meet them, they're a ragtag band of freedom fighters. They're like Avalanche from FF7; the freedom fighters from Sonic SatAM; you start to realise that they're the good guys. They're the embodiment of Chaotic Good or at worst, Chaotic Neutral.

In any other show they'd be the Resistance, the Rebels against an evil corporate empire - they're just not in the main point of view of the story. Going off this change in perception, one would then rewrite everything else based off that foundation.

Putting aside Adam, Ilia and others simply because they're all supplemental to Blake's arc, where does Miss Belladonna herself fit into this?

If we want to keep her backstory as a person atoning for a dark past, then the WF would be more grey in response, but still not outright evil. Revolution is not without sacrifice, and when you're fighting for drastic societal change, conflict is inevitable. While they may fight for a good cause, not everyone has the will or strength to fight, to endure the monumental societal backlash and opposition. Perhaps Blake was one of those people - jaded and burnt out by the never-ending struggle to be heard, losing hope that change would ever be possible - so she runs away in hopes of finding herself, only to be scooped up into Beacon instead.

What would she feel, fighting for the side that, while may not have oppressed the Faunus directly, have remained ambivalent and blind to their struggles? Hunters who claim to fight for human and Faunus alike, but who clearly have more humans in their ranks and would choose to rather save a prosperous human city over a struggling Faunus slum? Would living among humans change her outlook on the fight, where she's torn between reclaiming the hard fight to preserve her own heritage, vs. a relatively comfortable new identity, but one that forces her to assimilate with humankind and live on their terms? Is there a way for her to reconcile these two sides of herself, these two families she's now a part of?

But let's not exclude other possibilities too. Assuming we have a Chaotic Good WF, what if Blake was actually proud to be part of the Fang, and enrolls into Beacon as an unashamed member? Her conflicts would then come from the people around her struggling to accept that - how would Weiss work with someone whose group keeps sabotaging their trains? How would Beacon deal with a public member of the Faunus liberation movement? Would some staunchly oppose her enrolment, while others see it as a possible bridge to better relations with the Faunus? How many Faunus would be inspired by Blake and look up to her as a Faunus-born Hunter, while others would decry and dismiss her as just a hollow figurehead and Remnant's equivalent of a diversity hire?

When seeing other rewrites or revisions of RWBY, I still mainly see people trying to work with the WF as given in canon. They still keep the activism turned to violence and extremism. The WF and thus a majority of Faunus are still portrayed as terrorists and cannon fodder for fights. But what if there's a better way of going about all this?

In the end, this is just an interesting thought exercise, but I leave you with this:

As Blake has said in the manga: "Fangs of pure white need not shed blood." Those words and the imagery they evoke have always stuck with me when I think about the White Fang and how Blake could have been written, and gives such a valuable insight to why the group was named the way it was.

What if they had never strayed from that name? What if they had not been treated by the story as just faceless enemies to mow down by the dozens... but as people from the very beginning?

#rwby #rwde #white fang #rwby au #rwby rewrite #blake belladonna

[girlbosstourney]

GIRLBOSS TOURNEY ROUND ONE: THESE COLLEGE GIRLS HAVE RELIGIOUS TRAUMA

Select which one you think is GIRLBOSSIER, i.e., which one is the better girlboss

Propaganda

Edelgard von Hresvelg:

Started a religious war to dismantle the church and kill the pope (who is also a woman. girlboss vs girlboss) Asked her dad to abdicate as emperor to give her the crown and he just did it. Vitriolic discourse continues about if her actions were moral or not.; Led a revolution against corruption in her kingdom and continent, waging war against a church led by immortal dragons who were deliberately holding back humanity in a bid to maintain their control over the people of Fodlan. Depending on the game’s route she’s either a victorious liberator or a treacherous conqueror blinded by her ideals. You know. Girlboss shit.; She is literally a girlboss (emperor) building her empire (started a continent wide war to conquer and assimilate two other countries into her empire). She has committed 15+ war crimes including abuse of corpse, using biological weapons in warfare, and forced conscription.; https://www.tumblr.com/cygnus-rose/657166895331655680/fe3h-war-crimes-with-receipts-this-time-part, https://www.tumblr.com/cygnus-rose/657166968319852544/fe3h-war-crimes-with-receipts-this-time-part

Allison (Kill Six Billion Demons):

Bequeathed the title Kill Six Billion Demons. Reformed basic white girl. Lesbian. On a quest to kill god. Missing an arm and a leg and also an eye but she stays silly

#edelgard von hresvelg #fire emblem three houses #allison #kill six billion demons #girlboss tourney #round one

[mamawasatesttube]

I’m lost in the sauce thinking about the Superfam now, and it’s entirely your fault. Kon and Clark’s complicated but ultimately loving relationship. A similar case being with Kara. Kon and Kara who are almost, two sides of a coin in regards to their relationships with Clark and their heritage. Kara who can’t assimilate among humans, but is no longer welcome among Kryptonians. Kon who’s treatment by Kryptonians would come down to conservatives vs liberals.

I’m thinking things…

they got you in the sauce huh. call that the SOUPerfam 😎👉👉 eyyyyyy

#sorry i had to #but also YEAH!!!! YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!!!! its the immigrant story of it all #and kon's mixed kid metaphors!!!!!! #i need to read more kara though. bc this makes me want a ''cousins? are we cousins lets just call it cousins yeah'' kara and kon story #about kara teaching kon more about krypton + kon teaching kara more about earth #but first i need to read more supergirl. #soupergirl even. if you will #answers #superfam

[weirdcat1213]

GOOD OMENS SPOILERS PLS RUN IM SORRY IM SORRY

RUN

its just so fucking sad an umbearable

im sick

despite accepting crowley, azi still reached and always wants to reach towards a total good. he says deep inside crowley is more complex than total evil but FUCKING REFUSES to see the same complexity in himself. im fucking sick i hate this man (i love him tho)

alex avila introduced me to interesting terms in his luca video: liberation vs assimilation. basically azi wants to make heaven better. The system, which sucks ass due to the core thing it represents and wants to spread, heaven (the system) cant be changed. but he wants to. he wants to assimilate his way of thinking into the system.

BUT CROWLEY MY BABY MY POOR ANGST MF lost faith in the system and goes towards liberation. no wars no sides just them. he wanted to run away and be free from everything. if the world ends to hell with it

BUT NO THEY HAD TO WISH FOR FUCKING DIFFERENT THINGS

and the end was just so fucking devastating. in a final attempt to show azi liberation crowley fucking grabs him for his fucking dear life. because azi is the only thing that matters. he might fucking as well accept that he needs azi BUT NO. aziraphale is just surprised. startled. his dumbass mind is filled with "wth, are angels even allowed to do this? to just give in to such human feelings"

IM SICK TO MY STOMACH WHERES SEASON 3

#im sick #im in pain #EVERYTHING HURTS #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #good omens #THE SYSTEM TAKING GAYS AWAY FROM ME I CANT STAND IT

[forabeatofadrum]

It’s bloody Sunday. Hewwo everyone and thank you @you-remind-me-of-the-babe​, @thnxforknowingme​, @martsonmars​ and @larkral​ for the tags, hi back @cutestkilla​ and yes @caramelcoffeeaddict​ I am indeed tagging you!

To no one’s surprise, I have written nothing apart from my thesis. On Thursday I basically went “into the zone” (my teacher would apply the flow theory here) and I wrote for 3.5 hours and ever since Thursday I have been adding stuff, but it is mostly done. Mostly. I only need to do the more general theory on representation, but since it isn’t specifically queer, I care less lol. Basically right now my theoretical background is “Representation” (basic stuff), “Queer representation” (the consequences of queer rep, the history of queer rep, gay assimilation vs. queer liberation, queerbaiting, heteroflexibility, Bury Your Gays, intersectionality) and lastly “the queer gaze” (queer reading of texts, positive queercoding, queer female fandom).

But uhm, I am actually super duper proud of my work, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ have some stuff about why there might be more queer men in media than queer women:

First, gender is generally still portrayed in a skewed way: there are more men in the media than women (Daalmans et al., 2017; Gallagher, 2014). Second, intimate relationships between two female characters are more often seen as something platonic (Russo, 2014). As an extension of this, women who sometimes enter into relationships with other women are not portrayed as queer, but as heteroflexible (Annati & Ramsey, 2022; DeCeuninck & Dhoest, 2016; Diamond, 2005; Jackson & Gilbertson, 2009). This means that relationships between two women are portrayed as a joke, a phase, a party trick, or as a way to attract male viewers (Diamond, 2005). This heteroflexible portrayal is not necessarily a bad thing, as it can also promote the beginning of a discovery of a queer identity (Symes, 2017), but most often a heteroflexible storyline ends with a woman being affirmed that she is straight and therefore she is not a threat to the heterosexual order (Jackson & Gilbertson, 2009). This is also consistent with the 1990s “lesbian chic” movement, in which sexual relations between straight women were presented as a fun, provocative trend (Dow, 2001; McNicholas Smith, 2020).

These are actually six sentences. Original is under the cut.

Will y’all ever be able to read this? Who knows. People, both online and offline, have expressed interest, which delights me. There is a thesis repository at my university, but a) my thesis is unfortunately in Dutch and b) I am using a copyrighted cartoon. I actually have permission to use it from the cartoonist (fuck yeah), but I obviously only asked permission for the use within my faculty so I’ll have to e-mail her again.

And now, the weather: @quizasvivamos @blurglesmurfklaine @coffeegleek @esperantoauthor @otherworldsivelivedin @sillyunicorn @bazzybelle @dragoneggos @raenestee @tectonicduck @nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @captain-aralias @takitalks @justgleekout @cerriddwenluna @tea-brigade @ivelovedhimthroughworse @moodandmist @whogaveyoupermission @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @ionlydrinkhotwater @1908jmd @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @chen-chen-chen-again-chen @nausikaaa/@wellbelesbian @artsyunderstudy @facewithoutheart @shrekgogurt @boyinjeans​

 The Dutch one:

#i also got super ill over the weekend #yesterday was painful but today was fine and i decided to relax by playing stardew valley and reading #i finally finished magnus chase!! #also re: thesis i am sharing the shit out of this but obvs for *gestures around* privacy reason i assume i cannot easily share the results #and snippets of the interviews #actually.... i do not know the rules about sharing this kind of stuff #cause i do know that if you are a respondent you can always leave your e-mail address #so that i can send the final results #hmmmmmmm #six sentence sunday #tagged in #thesis lol

[alycremie]

conservatives: if you let biden get elected, the US will turn into an authoritarian state and life as we know it will be over, a new era of darkness will be ushered in. Millions will be forced to assimilate to the new world order. Personal rights will vanish and political dissent will be forcefully suppressed by secret state police.

liberals: if you let trump get elected, the US will turn into an authoritarian state and life as we know it will be over, a new era of darkness will be ushered in. Millions will be forced to assimilate to the new world order. Personal rights will vanish and political dissent will be forcefully suppressed by state police.

Gonna be honest guys I think corporate mass media and its rampant promotion of Us vs. Them mentalities means its kinda joever for nuanced discussions of U.S. politics.

(no, im not pro-trump, hes one of the worst presidents in US history in my opinion, but attacking conservative voters and treating them as pure evil is actively hurting your cause...)

#my silly little posts #us politics #american politics #2024 elections

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

I’m enjoying The Last Generation of the Roman Republic so far. I’m only one chapter in, but I can see why it was so radical in 1974:

Gruen argues that Sulla’s constitution was not strictly conservative, or even very partisan. Although Sulla sought to increase the power of the Senate and aristocracy, he did so in part by assimilating groups and individuals that might have posed a threat to it. After the proscriptions ended, Sulla brought in new senators of equestrian or Italian background. Not only did this pave the road for new men like Cicero, it destroyed Marian opposition by co-opting their potential support.

He also dismantles the idea of optimate vs. populare factions after Sulla’s death. Few politicians consistently advocated for liberal or conservative ideas, but hopped between them depending on external circumstances and the specific issue. There was also a difference between advocating for reform, which was normal and common, versus fomenting violent revolution. “Great men” like Pompey, Lucullus, and Crassus were also not seen as opposed to the Senate, but brought into it. (I suspect he’ll include Caesar in this group, too.) Much of Sulla’s constitutional reforms were meant to reinforce this process and enhance the stability of the state.

I think Gruen’s most surprising idea, even today, is that the republic was not breaking down, at least not in the 70s. He compares it to the previous two decades and argues the state was becoming more internally stable, despite the uprisings of Lepidus, Spartacus and Sertorius. He hasn’t yet gone into why he thinks the republic did break down, but he’s hinted a few times that individual idiosyncrasies played a bigger part than most historians believe.

#erich gruen #last generation of the roman republic #jlrrt reads #chapter 1 down! #ancient rome #lucius cornelius sulla

[f1ghts0ftly]

As the country lurches forward into what I’m predicting will be a decade long conservative reaction against LGBT people, I can’t help but feel a little defeatist about our prospects.

I do not think trans activism, the way we understand it, will last as a cultural movement. Certainly not with popular support.

That being said, this isn’t going to usher in a new era feminism but rather a conservative reaction to anything and everything LGBT as well as an accelerated return of women back to their “traditional” place. An excess of left radicalism will be blamed for the rise of transactivism leading to a banishment of these things from public life. Child transition is the major flashpoint.

This is obviously already happening but I think things will accelerate and even liberal strongholds will become affected.

While I agree with some of the immediate effects of new conservative bills limiting access to transition care, I don’t like how much power conservatives have gained around this issue and I especially don’t like how organized queer and trans organizations have been unable to fight this.

Here are some things I do believe will stick around:

-Transition as conversion therapy for GNC gays and lesbians will not only continue but may become even *more* institutionalized. As LGBT backlash gets worse, more and more gay people will see this as a preferable “alternative” to living closeted. As a more patriarchal world becomes the norm, GNC individuals from the past will be automatically assimilated into a trans friendly framework making gender and sex seem inevitably intertwined meaning that LGBT people will lose examples and a sense of themselves outside of the trans framework. As backlash grows against gay people and Queer Politics, gay people will want to escape and hide. Im considering closeting myself again at work in New York, can’t imagine other gay women can’t feel the pressure from both sides all around the country.

-the widespread idea that if women don’t like their objectification, they are not women and that, to “be” a woman is to agree with misogyny. This will be reinforced and institutionalized with extreme public pressure to have children. There is an unholy alliance brewing between pop culture “anti capitalism” and “traditional values people”. Zombie Cottagecore.

So, what can we do?

There are 4 prongs we need to have in order to effectively fight this.

1.) CHANGING THE NARRATIVE:

Propaganda works, images, slogans, stories, songs works. We wouldn’t have misogyny constantly beamed into our eyeballs if it didn’t.

One of the most important things Marxist Theory has taught me is that individual people are responsible for their own collective liberation. Deeply internalize the mindset no one is coming to save you and things will keep getting worse. We save us.

That being said. We need to be ready to get more open, to be more bold and especially to demand that the more financially comfortable and established of us declare their allegiance to this movement.

This is a fight that is won through social networks and solidarity but we can’t form those networks of support without knowing who we all are. Be smart, take care of yourself, but really take stock of where fear is holding you back vs. good sense.

There are millions of women who can feel something is wrong, who feel uncomfortable in our male dominated world.

2.) GET THE GOODS AND INSTITUTIONALIZE OURSELVES AND GET CHECKS (again) :

Look, I am a communist. Nothing makes me more exhausted then the absolute minefield that is changing laws, building orgs and getting funding for our projects by manipulating politicians and trying to convince horrible, evil people that it’s in their best interest to support us. I’ve worked in mainstream politics before and I hate it.

But we need avenues to protect ourselves as we accomplish goals three and four, two is a stepping stone. Most importantly, we need to protect women from losing their jobs if they speak out. We need to create ways to protect private political speech and protect women who refuse to go along with misogyny on the job. This means bail funds, legal action, petitions, protests, news stories, actions etc...the works.

3.) BUILD AUTONOMOUS POWER/ UNITE ALL WOMEN:

I am still a ideologically a communist and not a liberal (this DOES NOT mean I think feminists should submit to the dictates of male led radical left) . What this does mean is that I do not believe reform is enough. I do not envision a future where men treat women well by choice. I envision a world where women are so powerful a man would shit his pants before acting up. A would were women are free. We must have real and solid power bases that only we can have access too.

We need to funnel money, womanpower and energy into both large women’s organizations and political parties as well as into autonomous women’s projects. Money, resources and labor. Money, resources, labor.

Living with men is a political choice, working for men is a political choice. Now, we all have to survive, so I don’t endorse shaming or blaming women doing the former but building roads to separatism needs to be at the front of our agendas. Supporting male dominance isn’t just “the way it is”, it’s a choice made to perpetuate the way things are now.

Many women do not see their continued support of political parties, organizations and charity organizations that endorse misogyny (both right and left) as a problem or even as a choice.

They also falsely see conservative women as the enemy when many socially conservative women can be easily flipped to our cause.

We need to be the alternative everywhere to everywoman and emphasize that we support both women in caretaking roles alongside women in other professions. What feminists do not support is male dominance.

Too often, left wing women are manipulated into supporting anti woman positions, like being pro pornography, making it easy for conservative women to distrust them. It’s important to underscore that we are for women and for moms and for female choice.

“Oh! You want to live your cottagecore dream?” Here is how you can do it without risking your safety.

“Oh! You want to go into business? Here is a whole network of industry contacts for you to work with.”

Women are not resource poor because we are stupid and don’t work hard we’re resource poor because we give all the good parts of us away to men, usually for free and this goes from women out in LA working in film, to women in education, to housewives. Men steal from all of us. Constantly.

And lots of women know that who don’t see themselves as feminists. We are protecting the fruits of our labor. Together.

I might become a mom but the tradwife life is not for me but I know there are lot’s of little Char’s growing up watching their moms try to be good little submissive wives (or rebellious wives like my mom) wondering wtf is wrong with them. Encouraging women involved in traditional roles to be autonomous can only have positive effects on the movement.

4.) CREATE SELF REINFORCING AND SELF REPLICATING SOCIAL STRUCTURES/FIGHT FOR THE FEMINIST FAMILY:

This is a neglected by necessary part of feminist vision. Not only should women control reproduction because it’s our right was women, it’s also how we can transmute our values to the next generation of young people.

How many second wave and third wave feminists ended up in a patriarchal marriage? How many others ended up in careers controlled by men and ending up adopting male supremacist ideologies? I know plenty. What do you think that taught their children.

Patriarchy is about Males controlling fertility. That’s it’s purpose. Therefore we need to ideologically capture mothers, motherhood and the childrearing process through rigorous support of female only co-living spaces, wages for childcare and dedicating ourselves to raising wages and working conditions for women in pink collar jobs. I want teachers and nurses to be respected (and paid) like Doctors and Engineers. Winning raises and increased financial autonomy for the masses of women will mean more money and ability of women. It will also mean children grow up cared for by, ensuring our success over and over for the next generations. It also means that women won’t have to seek male dominated career paths if they want cash money (and if she still does, we’ll have those sick autonomous female social structures, legal funds and orgs to help her navigate misogyny with as many resources as we can muster bc lemme tell you it’s a cruel ass world rn as a woman in a male dominated field).

Motherhood is expensive and labor intensive. Over 80% of women will become mothers in the US. Imagine if we could give 80% of women a fucking raise. Not just a raise, but the ability to completely walk away from the nuclear family model forever, without any negative financial consequences will undermine male supremacy at it’s very core. Leading not only to immediate positive impacts for women, but self replicating impacts for girls.

Even if say 30% of that 80% became serious feminists after that, it would be a huge, huge boon for the movement. In terms of reputation and power.

Boys won’t grow up seeing dominating fathers, girls won’t grow up seeing submissive mothers. Children will be neglected less, less likely to be sexually abused and cared for better across the board.

Mothers would be abused less, have more time for themselves, have stronger negotiating power at work and be more self reliant. Increased purchasing power means the market will pivot to cater to their needs and perceptions, shifting popular culture further away from misogynistic depictions of women.

This sounds like a big goal, but I think it’s more achievable then we think it might be and imo it can be pretty easy to exploit a lot of the tradwife rhetoric to convince women that our way is better. I’ve gotten A LOT of enthusiasm from conservative moms over this idea but the fun thing is, if we’re able to organize women as both unpaid care workers and paid professionals-we can undermine male power over women in the domestic sphere and in the public sphere, undercutting patriarchy and making it weaker over time.

Anyways, a bit of a long one but Tumblr won’t let me break this easily into small posts.

#radical feminism #radfem #radfems please tough #marxist feminism #socialist feminist theory #radical feminist theory #feminism #terf safe