Colorism
Love videos with so much historical knowledge
This tea is fucking boiling hot
I been tellin niggas about the flipside for men on colorism but no one wanted to hear me tho lol
(via naturallysilent)
“Life is too short for shitty sex and bad relationships. So go find someone who fucks you right and treats you how you deserve to be treated.”— (via hplyrikz)
(Source: hplyrikz.com, via omog3n-deactivated20230313)
I think a big part of the separatist discourse & the main reason that both sides misunderstand each other so fundamentally can be traced back to the identity versus action way of looking at feminist activism. the conversation shouldn’t be about trying to warn people against being a “bad feminist” because there’s no such thing. Your actions either contribute to women’s liberation or they don’t. Even as a het partnered woman i can recognize that being in relationships with men does not contribute to women’s liberation. but I can do other things that support women and girls, and that is feminist action. not every single thing you do has to be for the express purpose of ending the patriarchy. it’s ok if you do things that aren’t feminist. it’s not about being a good or a bad feminist. it’s about understanding the cultural weight of your actions in a patriarchal society, and supporting women who are trying to break free from it.
As a lesbian, I support the right of straight and bi women to have satisfying het relationships without being subject to oppression.
Separatists aren’t oppressing women. 😂
@old-school-butch clearly meant oppression by the men they date…
Clearly 🙄
Sorry - did I need to spell it out more clearly? I thought the original comment I added to was rather eloquent and didn’t want to expand, but maybe I should.
Women live in a unique relationship with our oppressors when compared to most forms of oppression. Although every human relationship has elements of both cooperation and competition, women are often in intimate relationships with members of a class that directly benefits from exploiting our reproductive, sexual and emotional labor.
The only guaranteed way out of that is to kill enough men until they represent a minority of the population, and continue to kill male children to maintain only the necessary biological contribution and/or develop a technological method of reproduction that does away with sperm altogether (which, tbh, we have… but anyway). Any lesser attempts at cultural or regional separatism will be overrun by men’s superior strength and numbers. Any localized culture that enacts this will only have a small number of male defenders, and lose the inevitable war.
I’m not the first person to notice this - I’m pretty sure the Roman myth of the Amazons as baby-killing female warriors is from someone just working out the logistics involved in dealing with the question ‘why are men?’
Naturally, there are a few problems with this plan. For starters, I’m going to go ahead and say that anyone who wants to kill a few billion people is not a good person. And I don’t want to be on your side.
But I am very interested in being on the side of people who want to explore - in their own lives - the idea of separatism. True separatist action would have to be worldwide to be effective. All separatist ideas that are more personal in scope are really talking about creating a specific experience for women away from men. That’s desirable on a lot of levels. A room of one’s own in a life of one’s own in a community of sisterhood. What varies is mostly the duration, purpose and extent of that isolation.
The issue with bi and straight women in separatism is that, as we know, sexuality isn’t subject to change. Their attraction to men isn’t a symptom of inferiority, stupidity or lack of empathy toward lesbians either. It just is. And a woman’s relationship with a man may not be a feminist act, but it doesn’t need to be. In fact, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Feminism exists to liberate women from systemic oppression. Women need to be free to pursue their sexual desires, choose careers, make families, create art and live their lives free from patriarchal control. It’s quite a twist if we turn around say ‘by freedom from patriarchal control, we actually mean avoiding all men.’
Feminism has stood up for women for reproductive sovereignty, for fair wages, for freedom from violence, for wages for housework, for equal employment opportunities, and also for the right for women to exist independently from men, including the right to pursue separatism if that suits us. That’s the goal of feminism. Helping women who suffer from patriarchy is why we have feminism.
I’m grateful to live a life that is largely surrounded by women, but that’s due to the luck of being attracted to women, not because I’m some kind of superior sister soldier in the fight against patriarchy. In loving women, I’ve got a much more even playing field in my intimate relationships, and much less risk of abuse and violence. This is a personal experience that suits me, a straight women may well find that different forms of refuge are beneficial.
The idea of leaving men altogether is not new, just as the idea of changing men so they treat us better isn’t new. Neither has worked completely, neither has failed completely. We can work both paths at the same time and hope to make overall progress.
I’ve always been a bit surprised at how many straight women have been eager to go to Michigan music festival, to join the women-only retreat, to enjoy the women-only spa and sign up for the women-only collective. These institutions and spaces serve many women as a refuge from patriarchy. That refuge is needed worldwide, from China to India to Kenya. It’s a refuge we are rapidly losing in the west, in Canada and the UK and US. I think that’s why this discussion has been so heated.
There are ways I’ve enjoyed the passionate nature of this discourse on separatism, but I wish it was tempered with patience. I have plenty of privilege in other realms, and I’m keenly aware that I’d be on someone else’s kill list for ways to get rid of some global problems, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But in the end, there isn’t a single ideology or allegiance that can explain all of life’s complexities. Some nuance is necessary here, since dealing in absolutes leads us only to absurdities.
@black-diaspora this is exactly what i have been thinking. collaboration, cooperation, multiple methods to a positive outcome, and less black and white hostility. i thought you might enjoy reading this :)
i hope radfems from both sides see this and gain something positive, i want everyone to be safe and healthy and happy.
This honestly is the most thoughtful read ive on here about this. Thank you so much for tagging me. I hhonestky truly dont have a concrete opinion on whether women want to stay or leave men. I see both sides. I personally think men have never needed to be in close relationship with women, to have a bone to pick with them, but if seperating helps you feel safe then go right ahead.
(via yassss-black-diaspora)
When the Marvel logo came on the screen but the usual music wasn’t there like it always is everyone was dead silent and some guy at the back was like “Oh we’re fucked”