So, I ask to the women who are still not sure about rape culture, patriarchy, or male supremacy, if you see the problem behind a culture in which “no” is punishable, but where failure to say “no” makes any violation of your personhood your own fault. When you sit back for a moment and think to yourself that surely you can say no to men, and that I am blowing things way out of proportion, then at least do this test within your own life: Start saying No more often when No is what you really want to say. Establish firm boundaries with men and do not let up. See if the male you are saying no to immediately stops and respects your boundary, or if his automatic response, reflexive—as though he’s been learning how to do this since he was a boy, as though he sees no other response more logical than this—is to attempt to do what you have just asked him not to do to you. Notice how you feel when telling a man “no” as well. Do you feel butterflies in your stomach? Do you feel guilty (denying him his right of access to you)? Do you feel mean? Do you feel unsure at all as to whether or not you have the right to tell him no? It is very easy to feel that men are not so bad when you are still making sure to give them what they want.

Looking Male Supremacists Dead in Their Dead Eyes (The Boner Busters Takedown)

“IT IS VERY EASY TO FEEL THAT MEN ARE NOT SO BAD WHEN YOU ARE STILL MAKING SURE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT”

(via froelich)

veryfemmeandantifascist:

gradientlair:

angryblacklady:

“Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And so, when the practices expound identity as woman or person of color as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling.” – Kimberlé Crenshaw (pictured above), Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color

She is the originator of the term “intersectionality” to describe what Black women have lived, known and experienced for centuries. It describes what Sojourner Truth spoke in 1851. It is not just a word, not a meme and even more than a concept. When it’s disregarded, so are Black women and other marginalized women of colour, globally. And before people come to critique the word, the concept, the epistemology, the experiences and the lives of Black women, it would behoove them to actually know what it is they are talking about versus trying to plagiarize, colonize or erase Black women’s work. And though the intersections of race/gender/class/sexual orientation aren’t the only ones articulated, this is its origin.

Give black feminists the credit we deserve, this woman is revolutionary.

lafemmenuit:

I’m tired of girls trying to invalidate their own feelings during times of pain, especially to their friends. Your break up meant something. That friendship you lost was a hard blow. I understand why you feel tired this semester. Sometimes this “modern woman” stereotype is patriarchy’s last attempt; patriarchy disguised as feminism. You don’t have to be “wise beyond your years”; your pain and crying does not mean you are not intelligent. If you feel your friends demand justification for your pain and ordeals, they’re not friends. You’re strong but human. Remind yourself emotional space is part of liberation.

evanescentanathema:

yencid:

ozziescribbler:

ami-angelwings:

gettingahealthybody:

redofthehood:

For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:

“You know! Boys will be boys!” 

“He’s just going through a phase!”

“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”

“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”

“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”

I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”

She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.

It was so tempting.

He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.

She had to keep her building safe.

Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.

His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- – was understandable.

Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.

I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.

Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning.  How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?

There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.

There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.

Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”

The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement

This is so brilliant. We learn things from socialization process. What our parents, friends and peers do, media and all. I think perhaps rape is because parents think boys will be boys, they bully, fight and destroy things, it’s their characteristics so they don’t bother to stop them. But it manifests in them, knowing or unknowingly, they will just think, because I’m a boy and boys tend to do these, so it doesn’t matter even if the girl hates it, says no, because I’m a boy.

Just reblog this, this message is really powerful. For parents and future parents.

What’s also interesting, is if you frame this as about spoiling your children, and about spoiled children, people tend to agree and get it. They’ll agree that children whose parents lay down no boundaries for them when they hurt others, who let them have whatever they want at the expense of others, and justify away the harm they do, will probably grow up thinking they can do this to others (usually weaker than them, or they perceive as weaker) as adults.  But if you mention the word “privilege”, “entitlement” or anything relating to gender, everybody freaks the f- out and will deny up, down, back, forth, and sideways that how you raise a child, what you allow them to get away with, or training them that their hurtful behaviour will always be justified, can affect them at all. 

ALL OF THIS.

Obligatry read FOR EVERYONE

The Problem with ‘Boys Will Be Boys’

THIS