#surrogacy is reproductive prostitution

[ornitomoltorinco]

Tankies are so willing to support anything a communist state does that they will go as far as to cheer the legalization of fucking surrogacy. Do you even realize the implications for poor women???? You're not a comrade, you're just a liberal with an identity crisis. You're literally cheering for one of the most repulsive outcomes of late stage capitalism mixed with hardcore misogyny and you call yourself a communist???

#Yes this is about Cuba #They literally don't care about women's rights at all. #These are the same people who clearly never read what Marx had to say about prostitution #And so they chant things like 'sex work is work' without even bothering to listen to the marginalized women in prostitution #Reproductive slavery #Reproductive rights #Women's rights #Surrogacy #Anti surrogacy #Cuba #Female health #Women's health

[redberryterf]

"prostitution is where you sell sex without reproduction, and surrogacy is where you sell reproduction without sex, and in both cases, the woman being sold does not get to enjoy either sex or reproduction."

- kajsa ekis-ekman

#adult human female #radical feminists do interact #terfsafe #terf #i stand with jk rowling #feminism #terfblr #gender critical #radblr #radical feminism #antiporn #anti surrogacy #the handmaids tale #antikink #peak trans #gender ideology

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

“The overwhelming majority of women sign up to surrogacy because of poverty, and financial coercion is not a choice. The surrogacy industry is simply the reproductive brothel.

But what about those women that do genuinely offer their womb for use by an infertile couple or individual, an altruistic rather than commercial surrogacy? What right do I or any feminist have to say that she should not be allowed or able to do that? As with prostitution, I would never tell women that they don’t have a right to do what they wish with their bodies, but I do feel I have not just a right but an imperative to name and deter those who create the demand for surrogacy. Yes, a minority of women do enter into a surrogacy arrangement without being coerced by either poverty or an exploiter. But such women are, like the happy hooker, atypical. Laws and policy are not made for the tiny minority, and laws also send out a messages to wider society. The choice argument applied to surrogacy is a neoliberal one, in that those supporting the practice look only at the individuals who benefit directly from it, as opposed to the effect that commercialisation of women’s wombs has on wider society generally and women’s status specifically.”

- Julie Bindel, Feminism for Women

#feminism for women #julie bindel

[homosexuhauls]

Curious about what everyone's priorities and goals are. I've tried to be as general as possible and avoid intracommunity issues. Obviously we all want all/most of these things but try to choose something you feel especially passionate about, or a cause you would (or do) donate your time towards.

Please add anything I've missed (there's lots!!) in the comments.

#radfem safe #radical feminism #radfems please interact #gender critical #radblr #i suddenly ran out of poll options #but i knew i wanted to include an 'other' and a 'see results' option #bc otherwise these polls are entirely meaningless instead of mostly meaningless #i also wanted to have an option for joining supporting or founding women's land #and more specific options for homeless women and women escaping abuse #i didn't want to lump everyone under the 'vulnerable women' category but oh well #it's just a tumblr poll it's not that deep

[coochiequeens]

Time to end commercial surrogacy 

HYDERABAD: With more and more people in pop culture opting for and celebrating surrogacy, people have been growing more accepting of the practice. But very few know of all the things that go behind and into the process — right from conception to the paperwork involved — the lack of knowledge about this, leading to the rights of several people being violated, says Dr Sheela Suryanarayana, who spoke about her book A Transnational Feminist View of Surrogacy Biomarkets in India at Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad.

Surrogacy has been a curious case among many, with little to no understanding of the rules and pain that surrogates put themselves through once they agree to be a couple’s surrogate. Surrogacy is permitted in India only for altruistic purposes or for couples who suffer proven infertility or disease, while commercial surrogacy, which includes sale, prostitution or any other forms of exploitation, is banned in the country.Speaking about her research on commercial surrogacy, Dr Sheela says, “I have worked on this topic since 2009 and have spoken about it at the United Nations and Rajya Sabha and have now compiled my work into a book.

The book is about transnational surrogacy biomarket and how it functions in the global scenario. It talks about how the entire surrogacy biomarket reflects on the overall micro-level global inequality. It is largely the richer people making surrogate mothers of those from poorer countries as well as within their country. When commercial surrogacy was banned in India, Mexico and Nepal, the practice moved to other low-income countries like South Africa and other nations in South America and South East Asia.

There is a clear global pattern of how these surrogate markets are moving, looking for countries where poorer women are willing to do it for a lower price and lesser rights on their bodies and children. The vulnerability of surrogate mothers because they belong to the poorer section, less educated women, lesser employment opportunities and lesser nutrition makes them more liable to maternal morbidity and mortality. The profits share goes to the medical professionals instead of the surrogate mothers.”

She adds that when commercial surrogacy was allowed in India, women were put in surrogate hostels where they had to remain for a complete year. “Some breastfeeding mothers came in too, so they were given injections to dry the milk up or alter the hormones that could allow them to carry a baby,” she laments.

Talking about her book, Dr Sheela shares that her study dates back to 2009 when she intensely followed 11 surrogate mothers throughout the process. “The book is a case study of these mothers and five intended parents I met. The concept I focus on is the reproductive right of individuals being violated. I have known surrogate mothers who had their uterus removed because by they ended up bearing the brunt of big consequences like brain haemorrhage!”

She says that more and more women who belong to economically weaker communities, need to be aware of their rights: “The media, especially ones in vernacular languages can change this. They can spread awareness about the dangers and risks associated with surrogacy, while also speaking about their rights.”

#Anti surrogacy #Anti exploiting women #Anti turning babies into commodities #No one is entitled to biological children #It’s another way to traffic people

[orossii]

i think trans ideology will go down as one of the most impressive victories of 21st century cointelpro, never has the very foundation of a liberation movement been systematically destroyed and vilified to the extent feminism has. you see this attitude amongst gender ideologues that feminism is inherently the domain of privileged out of touch white women, and if you accept their premise of womanhood as a neutral and potentially profoundly liberatory “feeling” rather than a description of people who share in an experience of exploitation based on sex, of course you’re going to have contempt for women who push back on the patriarchal constraints that gender ideology celebrates as authentic expressions of a true inner self. gender ideology is fundamentally entirely incompatible with feminism— you almost can’t blame the girls who have been groomed into gender ideology for rejecting it. the ones that try to hold on to feminism and trans ideology at the same time are plagued by constant dissonance and self-surveillance. the fact that most of the women who would be most drawn to feminism prior to 2010 are now being derailed by this very intense, rigid dogma that tells them their experience of oppression is something they choose to opt in or out of and that everyone who tells you otherwise is a bigot on par with the nazis is extremely startling given how quickly we saw this transformation take place

i think trans ideology took off mainly because of the medical industrial and NGO industrial complex capital interests at play, but it also is unmistakably an act of psychological warfare designed to 1) get society on board with transhumanism, the next frontier of capitalist domination and the surveillance state 2) further entrench patriarchy and defang a women’s movement that might derail the capitalist class’s deigns against women, specifically in the form of sexual and reproductive exploitation with the growing power of the prostitution, porn, and surrogacy industries in the imperial core and in the already hyperexploited global south

[womenfrommars]

I definitely don't think radical feminists want women to work long hours for little pay, if anything, it's liberal feminists that idealize hustle culture. And also, the tradwife movement has no idea what being a homemaker actually entails lmao you can't just sit at home making cutesy tiktoks all day. I think "feminine" work has been largely devalued, so ppl really don't realize just how much effort is put into these things

I think both radical and liberal feminists claim to be critical of capitalism. Whether they actually are depends on personal interpretation as well as the specific individuals you look at. Radical feminism borrows some of its analysis from Marxist feminism when it comes to issues like prostitution, surrogacy, and even the nuclear family. Liberal feminism created this #GirlBoss #SHEO culture but even the liberal feminists now are regretting this a little bit. Historically speaking at least fighting for equal pay as well as the very opportunity to work outside the home has been part of the liberal feminist agenda. Women's domestic labour and reproductive labour was and is not paid work, which even liberal feminists recognised. A liberal feminist answer to this problem would be allowing women to work outside of the home. A Marxist answer would be to have the State pay stay at home mothers a living wage. A more radical answer is to abolish the nuclear family as an institution altogether in favour of a community based approach to child raising. I think the liberal answer is the most palatable one but it didn't solve the issue of working women still doing the majority of the childcare also, so now they have a "double shift". And that's where radical feminism comes in and says, hey we need to stop pretending being female automatically makes you a better parent than a male. I think the Marxist answer is also quite interesting although another option would be to offer affordable or even free child care so both parents can work outside the home. I don't agree with abolishing the nuclear family altogether since I believe pair bonding comes natural to most people. I just don't like the idea of gendered labour. I think a family with a stay at home father can also work, or a family with gay or lesbian parents. Community based raising is something not really found in Western cultures today so it feels foreign to us Westerners. Even living in a home with more (distant) male relatives also statistically speaking increases the chances of facing child (sexual) abuse, which is one of the reasons this is more common in cultures that don't have the nuclear family model. Raising a child on your own also comes with a bunch of issues, both practically as well as more fundamentally. Children from a single parent household are more likely to have mental health issues for instance

Do I think feminine work is devalued? Sounds more like a cultural feminist analysis to me. I think in a capitalistic society all work is devalued if it doesn't create products to be sold on the market. The reason why women are supposed to do this very work is to ensure their economic dependence on men

[vyachki]

I don't believe in surrogacy either, but you gotta admit it's pretty homophobic how radfems ALWAYS focus on gay men when opposing it. The vast majority of surrogate users are straight couples, so if they really wanted to fight back against surrogacy, they would target the hets. That would make more of an actual difference in the world. It seems like an excuse to hate on gays sometimes.

Thank you sweet anon for your insight/statement!! I haven't been very active on tumblr these past few months (due to an ongoing family/life situation ugh) so allow me to vent some opinions I have had brewing in my brain during this interim, which may or may not correlate to this topic...

I have seen on this website that there are some radfem accounts that are very virulent & 'homophobic' to gay men, but not to gay women, under claims that gay men are still men, misogynistic & don't have a place in radfem ideology/separatist futures. Which can be 100% true, I won't deny it because some gay men are horrible people & horrible misogynists. BUT there are always horrible people in every single demographic that can exist, so judging an entire group of people based on loud, inappropriate actions of some requires more nuance, imo. And at the same time, most (if not all) radfems accounts I've interacted with on this site have been so kind & accepting (if I can use that word) to/of gay men, from what I've personally witnessed. There are always those outliers in every group that keeps everyone from getting too comfortable, no?😂

More so, I feel that homosexual people—men AND women—need to be better allies to each other during this erasure of our sexuality that is being propagated by the TQ+, in the West. Or even, just being able to stand up for our fellow homosexual/bisexual, no matter our biological sex? Pardon my gay ignorance, but I did not know that heterosexual people use surrogates as much as homosexual people do... in fact, I know very little about how straight people / gay couples approach reproduction... (I learned about coitus & IVF in high school but ever since then I've blocked those types of thoughts out—hopefully that isn't misogynist to say)

To reiterate, I just think surrogacy should not be practiced regardless of sexual orientation of the "client", because in the end, it is exploitative of women. In fact, all situations where people have to give up some personal autonomy for money should be eradicated. I'm also specifically talking about prostitution, people who donate plasma/other bodily fluids/parts, just to make a living, etc. Even if you consent to it, it's still not ethical... you shouldn't have to consent to the use of your body for money regardless of anything. Since I love engaging in hypotheticals and whereas I understand everybody "has a price" (if that's the expression), if a gay/straight couple wants to pay like $50-100k USD for a woman to carry their child and everyone consents than like... so be it? But how frequent can situations like that exist? And should we even create non-real situations to talk about this issue?

#At the end of the day - like I said in a previous post (I think?) - I really don't have any authority about talking about this #since I am a man #A beautiful effeminate man but still a man mind you #apologies if I went off topic... this is what my cognitive state is like right now

[internationalwomenday]

Holy See Statement During The 67th Commission On The Status Of Women.

The Holy See is pleased to participate in this Sixty-Seventh Session of the Commission on the Status of Women and welcomes the opportunity to examine both the opportunities and challenges of technology and innovation for women and girls. 

As Pope Francis has observed, “even today, in many countries, women are considered second-class citizens… [and] are denied the opportunity to study, work, [and] employ their talents.” Education is essential for fostering societies which treat women and men equally. This begins within the family, the “fundamental group unit of society.” Parents can model healthy respectful relations between the sexes and positive models of socialization, including teaching digital safety skills. Protecting children online, particularly girls, requires providing parents with digital knowledge and online safety tools. 

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can create lifelong learning opportunities for women and girls. Although not a substitute for in person schooling, remote learning has enabled girls to continue their studies during emergency situations. Online learning can also offer flexibility for women to study while balancing work and family responsibilities. This includes older women, who often lag behind in access to technology and in digital literacy. Additionally, ICTs are particularly important for engaging women and girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). 

Women and girls are ready to seize these opportunities, but they must be given the tools to do so. In this regard, we cannot overlook the importance of eradicating poverty in order to achieve equality for women and girls. Women and children are more likely to live in poverty than men, increasing the risk of violence and exploitation. Social protection programmes play a pivotal role in reducing inequality, which increases access to technology. Without a strong international commitment to ensuring that the benefits of technological advancement are shared by all, women and girls in particular will fall further behind in our increasingly digital world.

Innovation must be directed toward the good of the person, or it risks harming those it should benefit, with women and girls the most frequent victims. The purchase of women and girls for sexual use in sex trafficking and prostitution increasingly relies on ICTs. Technology has also increased pornography consumption, including by children, with algorithms feeding perverse appetites for violence against women. The abuse of children, most of whom are girls, to create such materials, is particularly heinous, but all pornography is immoral and harmful; accepting it is incompatible with respect for women and girls. 

Equality for women also requires accepting women fully, including their unique capacity for childbearing. Rather than employers accommodating family life, women are expected to accommodate their employers, often through the use of contraception. The offer by some companies of risky “egg freezing” benefits for future (and often unsuccessful) fertility procedures similarly places the burden on women rather than their employers. Women who do become pregnant often face financial and social pressures, including son preference and disability prejudice, to abort their children. On the other hand, practices such as surrogacy reduce women, many of whom are poor and vulnerable, to their reproductive capacities, commodifying both them and the children they bear. All these practices undermine the value of women and the respect that they deserve.

Madam Chair,

The Holy See encourages “the progress of science and technology at the service of the dignity of the person and for an ‘integral and integrating’ human development.” Women and girls’ gifts and capabilities should be cherished and nourished, including in the areas of innovation and technology. The Holy See and the many institutions of the Catholic Church will continue to contribute to efforts to ensure that technological developments include and benefit women and girls and ensure respect for their dignity.

By H. E. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, 67th Commission on the Status of Women “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”

New York, 9/13 March 2023

#Women and girls #Holy see U.N. #Statements #Permanent Observer #education in the digital age #technological developments #gender equality #technological change #innovation #digital inclusion

[haggishlyhagging]

Another fundamental principle operating in the defense of technological reproduction is that persons have a biological need to reproduce. Terms like genetic continuity, biological fulfillment, reproductive imperative, and maternal instinct mystify motherhood and fatherhood, detracting from our ability to recognize them as personal and social relationships. When male claims to children are asserted, as in surrogacy disputes, we hear about men's right to genetic "fulfillment." When new technological procedures are launched for public acceptance, we hear about "women's natural need" to reproduce. Patrick Steptoe, lab parent of the world's first IVF baby, asserted, "It is a fact that there is a biological drive to reproduce. Women who deny this drive, or in whom it is frustrated, show disturbances in other ways."

What defenders of new reproductive techniques regard as natural, feminists challenge as political. As feminists have attacked the false essentialism that the male sexual urge is uncontrollable and therefore men need prostitutes to satisfy their sexual needs, so too feminists oppose the idea that reproduction is a biological imperative. Feminists challenge men's need for so-called surrogates in order to fulfill their supposed genetic destiny of fathering children. Technological reproduction has also been grounded in women's need for children, thus providing the excuse for many invasive and mutilating procedures. It is rationalized that women who submit to such techniques are fulfilling their basic mothering instinct. In both examples, anything a man or woman does to procreate is a natural urge, an instinctual force, that must have an outlet. The difference is that men do not usually consent to their own exploitation but to the exploitation of a woman, whereas a woman undergoing invasive reproductive medicine must submit to a violation of her own bodily integrity, even if she consents to the procedure.

Since the nineteenth century especially, the so-called laws of nature have come to be understood more and more in scientific terms. Scientists analyze, dissect, and categorize what were formerly natural or divine dictums such as racial and gender differences. Procreation is perceived as a law of nature that, in the context of new reproductive technologies, acquires an expanded scientific mandate. Scientific legitimacy makes it more difficult to challenge the medical model of procreation as a natural law demanding fulfillment.

At this historical point when feminists have de-essentialized motherhood—politicizing the natural definition of women as mothers and distinguishing between motherhood as experience and motherhood as institution—along come the reproductive medical fundamentalists to put mothering back into the sphere of women's natural destiny. The new reproductive technologies represent an appropriation by male scientific experts of the female body, depoliticizing reproduction and motherhood by recasting these roles as fundamental instincts that must be satisfied.

-Janice G. Raymond, Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle Over Women’s Freedom

#janice raymond #surrogacy #ivf #motherhood #biological imperative #human reproduction #scientific exploitation #womb envy #male entitlement

[kitchenalia]

treating women as products to consume or services rendered is always bad, no matter what political camp it comes from. this applies to surrogacy, prostitution, pornography, cosmetic surgery culture, any industry treating women as visual products (e.g., modeling or breastaurants), free love, sexual mutual aid, the idea of government-subsidized sex for men who can't get a woman to agree to it consensually, widespread advocacy for housewifery, women being forced to supply babies for the adoption racket, egg donation, treating women as reproductive resources, massage parlors doubling as 'soft' brothels, onlyfans/similar websites, forced pregnancy to fix declining birth rates which aren't in male interests, 'mail-order brides,' and the list just goes on and on. women aren't treated as fully human, but instead special resources to be framed or farmed.

and yes, i can confidently say that these are bad, even when people point out their supposedly positive sides. why is that? because they harm women, and i don't consider that to be an acceptable price. we aren't here to make omelas for you. "because it harms women" is a complete justification for opposing something, and if that's questionable to you, maybe you're not as pro-woman as you think.

[lilacsupernova]

Choice resonates as a quintessential U.S. value, set in the context of a social history that has gradually allowed all sorts of oppressive so-called options, such as prostitution, pornography, and breast implants, to be defended in the name of women's right to choose. The language of choice is compelling because it highlights a freedom that many women seldom have and a cafeteria of options disguised as self-determination. Viewing reproductive technologies and contracts mainly as a woman's choice results from a Western ideology that emphasizes individual freedom and value neutrality. At the same time, this ideology prevents us from examining technological and contractual reproduction as an institution and leads us to neglect the conditions that create industrialized breeding and the role that it plays in society. Choice so dominates the discussion that when critics of technological reproduction denounce the ways in which women are abused by these procedures, we are accused of making women victims, and, supposedly, of denying these women are capable of choice. To expose the victimization of women is to be blamed for creating women as victims.

Whose interests are served by representing technological reproduction as a women's private choice while rendering invisible the force of institutionalized male-dominant interests? Furthermore, is choice the real issue, or is the issue what those choices are and in what context selective women's choices (surrogacy or IVF) are fostered? At the very least, choice implies awareness of possible consequences—what women lack in the reproductive technological and contractual context. At the very most, choice implies that women's health. autonomy, integrity, and basic social justice are served.

– Janice G. Raymond (1993; 2019 ed.) Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle over Women's Freedom, pp. xviii-vi.

#janice raymond #women as wombs #feminism #surrogacy #ivf #motherhood #choice feminism #lilac posts

[letters-from-x]

A radical feminist’s reading list-

Classic

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Sexual Politics by Kate Millett

On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966-1978 by Adrienne Rich

The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Fiction

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

The Gate to Woman’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper

History

Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici

The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas

The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner

Who Cooked the Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World by Rosalind Miles

Women of Ideas: And What Men Have Done to Them by Dale Spender

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World by Rachel Swaby

Intersectional

Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis

Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks

It’s Not About the Burqa by Mariam Khan (editor)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga (editor) and Gloria Anzaldúa (editor)

Lesbian

Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective by Sheila Jeffreys

The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture by Bonnie J. Morris

Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism by Suzanne Pharr

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence by Adrienne Rich

Liberal vs. radical

Female Erasure: What You Need to Know about Gender Politics’ War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights by Ruth Barrett (editor)

End of Equality by Beatrix Campbell

Feminisms: A Global History by Lucy Delap

Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 by Alice Echols

Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Sheila Jeffreys

Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism by Miranda Kiraly (editor) and Meagan Tyler (editor)

The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism by Dorchen Leidholdt (editor) and Janice G. Raymond (editor)

The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male by Janice G. Raymond

We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler

Pornography, prostitution, surrogacy & rape

Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

Slavery Inc.: The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking by Lydia Cacho

Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines

Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self by Kajsa Ekis Ekman

The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade by Sheila Jeffreys

Only Words by Catharine A. Mackinnon

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade by Janice G. Raymond

Women as Wombs: Reproductive Technologies and the Battle Over Women’s Freedom by Janice G. Raymond

Psychology & trauma

Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman

Toward a New Psychology of Women by Jean Baker Miller

Theory

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism by Mary Daly

Last Days at Hot Slit: The Radical Feminism of Andrea Dworkin by Andrea Dworkin, Johanna Fateman (editor) and Amy Scholder (editor

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone

Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics by bell hooks

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks

Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis by Robin Ruth Linden (editor), Darlene R. Pagano (editor), Diana E. H. Russell (editor) and Susan Leigh Star (editor)

Toward a Feminist Theory of the State by Catharine A. Mackinnon

The Sexual Contract by Carole Pateman

Other

Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now by Jenny Brown

Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression by Christine Delphy

Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery

Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West by Sheila Jeffreys

Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues by Catharine A. Mackinnon

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection by Janice G. Raymond

How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ

Man Made Language by Dale Spender

Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth by Marilyn Waring

#radical feminist #radical feminism #radfem #radfem safe #terf #terf safe #radfems please interact #terfs please interact #feminist literature

[inqilabi]

interesting that women were the first form of private property for the earliest mode of production in a class society: slavery. It was the ability to exploit for profit women's sexual and reproductive capacities, ie, women controlled & sold out for reproductive abilities, is what gave rise to the first slave society - the first exploitative society. But now, under the capitalist mode of production, women are also the final/last/highest stage of commodity. Expansion of prostitution & surrogacy through imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, is an example of expansion into women as a fully commodified sector.

#here i mean that prostitution before capitalism was different in the same way commodity or money or any other social relation was different #feminism 101 #communist feminism

[marrowdaughter]

user profile: i’m uncomfortable with sharing my name on social media, but you can call me “marrow” or “mar” if you’d like. i’m a white febfem in my midtwenties. safe for cryptos and the questioning. you can find tags under the cut, but this blog exists almost exclusively on mobile, so they may not be updated with any regularity (note: last updated on february fourth, 2023).

a: ableism, abortion rights, anti-pornography, anti-prostitution, anti-surrogacy, articles and studies, autogynephilia (information about and instances of)

b: beauty culture, bisexual history, bisexual positivity, black history, black positivity, bodily autonomy

c: capitalism and consumerism, child safeguarding (from marriage, medical malpractice, pedophilia, etc.), community (actions and words from the radical feminist community), cosmetic surgery

d: desisting and detransitioning, domestic violence, dysphoria and dysmorphia

e: environmentalism

f: female excellence, female exclusive spaces, female separatism, female socialization, female solidarity, femicide, feminist action, feminist art, femininity

g: gender ideology

h: homophobia

i: indigenous history, indigenous issues (land rights, racism, violence, etc.), intersex conditions (the health of and issues surrounding)

k: kink culture

l: lesbian history, lesbian positivity, lgb history, liberal feminism (criticisms of and information about)

m: male violence, menstruation, misogynistic language, misogynistic media, misogynoir

o: objectification and sexualization

p: peaking (from both gender ideology and liberal feminism), pedophilia (instances of and intersections with)

q: quotes (excerpts from published works)

r: racism, radical feminism (basics of and introduction to), recommendations (listening, reading, and watching), references and resources, reproductive rights

s: sex positivity (concerns and criticisms), sex segregation, sexual assault

t: testimonials (posts by women documenting their experiences)

v: violence against women

w: women’s health, women’s history, women’s sports

[rf-times]

Hello, I had a question about surrogacy. Like I mentioned in my previous ask, I'm still learning a lot about radical feminism, so please know that if I say something derogatory, it's purely unintentional.

Regarding surrogacy, I feel it's just another, better disguised version of systematic oppression? The issue isn't just about "buying" a woman's body, but also about class. Like, of course, only the rich can afford surrogacy.

Ik a few people might point out that if a woman chooses to become a surrogate, it's their free will. However, I believe most women agree to this because their financial situation isnt the best: this makes be think that of course women dont have enough money, and that's because of patrirachy (capitalism seems to branch out of it, of course). So yeah, I'd love to know what you think about surrogacy.

Surrogacy is human trafficking, reproductive prostitution and massive exploitation of women and children. In commercial surrogacy it's the idea that a class of women should exist to provide the more affluent with children and to take on the massive emotional and physical burden of pregnancy, childbirth and mother-child separation. In "altruistic surrogacy" it's the idea that women have a duty to their families and communities to do this.

Much like pro-prostitution advocates, pro-surrogacy advocates like to pretend that these industries emerge from mutual, equal desire and benefit: it's not that men want to exploit women for children and sex and have created a massive system to extort women socially and financially into prostitution and surrogacy, oh no no it's simply that a significant population of women just so happen to love having sex with strangers or being pregnant and they've happily been able to monetise this. Capitalism is formed on the back of exploiting women for labour.

The choice argument is a fallacy on two counts: firstly being that it rarely is a choice and secondly it doesn't address why such a choice exists or the factors behind it.