irreality

zuky:

This is the story of a racist myth that began with a light-hearted letter to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1968 and subsequently exploded in North American culture — in direct opposition to every shred of scientific evidence — becoming so prevalent that credulous eaters buy into it to…

clearbluelake:

hedonisticparadise:

Someone not wanting to fuck you is not oppression, and it never will be. You’re not entitled to anyone’s body except your own. Sorry not sorry.

I know this is aimed at trans woman, but for curiosity’s sake do you recognize the existence of…

Does it necessarily follow that pointing out societal standards of what bodies are considered valid targets for attraction equals demanding the right to sex with anybody you want? What functional purpose does it serve to conflate the two, except to derail legitimate cultural criticism? Is there a way for trans and fat activists to raise awareness of this issue without demanding sex?

It occurred to me that you were probably talking about Nice Guys and MRAs. I apologize for the assumption. Your post easily fed into sentiment you’ve expressed before, but I should have been more careful. 

riotdog:

ravefromthegrave:

riotdog:

livelaughawesome:

livelaughawesome:

countermand my trousers: ravefromthegrave: ileolai: »HOWEVER, they are not socialized as male,…

ravefromthegrave:

ravefromthegrave:

ileolai:

»HOWEVER, they are not socialized as male, and because of that, don’t have the same male privileges as…

shitty you didn’t keep reading because the sentence was “but i can also fucking tell you that i am capable of viewing women or feminine people as subhuman, but the fact that i’m able to view them as subhuman is because of internalized misogyny” which is actually what you wrote: “viewing women as subhuman is internalized misogyny”

and are you srsly telling me that most men don’t see women as subhuman? because the way that victim blaming occurs so much, that Nice Guy syndrome is so rampant, and the fact that governments think that they have a right to make decisions about women’s bodies and men aren’t out there pissed about that tells me that the majority of men don’t give a fuck when women are treated as less than human.

and please don’t spout your bullshit “since you have internalized misogyny you’re not allowed in feminist spaces” crap at me

i’m down for having a respectful, consensual conversation, but can you read what i write instead of making assumptions?

Jacq. as another person on the trans spectrum and as a feminist I do not agree with your shit here. masculinity and maleness are different things - you do not have male socialization, you have masculine privilege in social situations that allows you to move more freely through society that has nothing to do with upbringing. every single person on this planet deals with experiencing and expressing misogyny - internalized or not - because this world is saturated in it, and it shapes us all from the moment we’re born, one way or another. separating the influence of misogyny, and gender itself, is fucking crucial.

It is fucking oppressive as fuck of you or any other person to suggest that gender isn’t real. there is more to being a woman, to being female, in any shade of femininity or masculinity, whatever body you have, than just your biology vs. society. shit is complicated as hell. simplifying it actually hurts people in this community, and frankly, y’all should know better.

women’s only spaces *must* be available for transwomen, because they sure as shit are more vulnerable to violence and (trans)misogyny than most cis women are. transmasculine folks like myself, do not need access to this particular space. queer spaces, women + trans/intersex spaces, awesome, but women-only spaces should be for the female-identified, regardless of socialization and birth sex. because they need it more than us.

because this bullshit about “faab” people “having the right” to be in a space free from “maab” people is transmisogyny at it’s finest. there are some excellent posts all over tumblr dealing with the myth that transwomen and transfeminine people are a threat to anyone in lady-only spaces. goddammit.

my socialization is not male, and never will be, because I was raised female. my gender socialization is however, different from that of a feminine ciswoman or femme-identified lady-born person, because as a “tomboy”/unfeminine girl, I was treated differently than my feminine peers were. this is not male socialization. my current interactions with people when I am feeling extra masculine are not male-socialized either, because socialization is a developmental process.

this radfem shit is a fucking thorn in the side of this movement - gender is fucking real. if it isn’t for you, then do your thing without infringing upon the well-being and bloody identification of other people. this is such a stilted, near-sighted perception of the world that hinges largely on fearing men in really shitty and unproductive ways, and basing a fractured worldview and activist platform around it is actually hurting queers, women, and men.

sincerely calling bullshit,

Di

saying gender isn’t real is not oppressive.

gender is oppressive.

if gender is oppressive then how the hell do people, esp. queers, find so much strength in it? my gender isn’t some canned socially-enforced shit  - it’s something I’ve worked hard to grow and nurture IN SPITE of violent external forces seeking to shut my shit down. I spend a lot of my time with femmes whose gender could be read from the outside as aping social norms, but again, is something they’ve fought to cultivate in a shitty, femmephobic, misogynistic society, and yes it does give them strength. if the discovery of our genders is something we (as butch/femme ID’d people, though I am sure this applies to many others) have to fight to identify and come out and explain, because of how liberating that act in and of itself is, then how on fucking earth is it oppressing us?

serious case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater when you conflate viciously socially-enforced trad. gender roles with gender in and of itself.

I call your shit out for being essentialist and near-sighted. as a butch-ID’d person, I have worked my ass off to convince some of the queers around me that gender isn’t this amorphous socially-driven thing we would all do better without - but that it is the source of so much of my confidence and strength and drive to push through when everything around me is telling me that I cannot exist the way I am.

Di, you’re amazing. <3

Problems happen when, instead of treating theory as an inevitably imperfect way of making sense of the world one perceives, a framework that is constantly adapted and changed in response to new data and perspectives, one views theory first as truth and the perceived world around it as a consequence to be derived from the theory. The fundamentalist mode of thought is based on fundamentals though which all of reality is interpreted in a one-way direction. Once this train of thought is established it can’t be moved by new experience since all experience is rationalized to flow logically from the unquestionable principles. 

In physics when students are taught the basic equations of classical mechanics it’s easy to note that the math is always at best a representation and not reality. Take, for example, the equations for figuring out the trajectory of an object being thrown. We have beautiful equations to work out almost precisely the trajectory and final location of the object being thrown given enough initial data. But in real life, there are always complications. As any physicist notices, the data will never perfectly match the theory because theory cannot ever take into account everything. There is no way to simulate the entire complexity of existence  without using all of existence to simulate it. The most accurate map will be laid inch to inch over top of the land that it is supposed to map; in other words, useless. Abstract representation is always limited and this is the most important aspect of representative theory to recognize.

Fundamentalism steps in when the physics student says that reality must be wrong because it contradicts the beautiful theory. Though it seems absurd in relation to basic high school-level physics, this occurs everywhere there is theory. You can see fundamentalism not just in religion, but in Atheism, feminism, philosophy, every social science, marxism, etc. It’s understandable to fall in love, in a sense, with the beauty of a theory that purports to explain everything. We have this wonderful theory, it helps us understand this confusing thing so well, this must be the answer, so goes the line of thinking. The key, though, is to recognize the limitations of theory, what it can represent well and what it can’t, and where it contradicts real life. 

The view gets muddled further when individual social psychology comes into play. I think most people come to embrace movements and philosophies for profoundly personal reasons. Feminism is both personal and political, we all know that. Feminist theory can lift us out of darkness and show us a different way of seeing the world, a way in which we have power, a way that makes sense of our trauma; this is understandable as I’ve been there myself. However, this also makes it all too easy to attach to the theory we love that gave us so much. This makes any challenge to the theory a personal blow. 

Entwined with the personal significance of a theory is the problem of categorical rigidity. In fundamentalist thought, since theory is regarded as the baseline of reality, it is vitally important to maintain categorical rigidity in order to keep the world making sense.

In intersectional thought we’ve recognized that the world is far more complicated than simply “Men oppress women,” and we’ve expanded theory to encompass a whole range of social positions and oppressions. We also know, however, that these categories and theories are simply a representation that is used only to help make coherent sense of the messy world we’re in. Everybody has a different story and a unique lived experience and theory will never, cannot ever, encompass all of it. Intersectional theory is an imprecise, messy tool to help communicate the mere gist of what’s going on. It would be unwise to imagine that the categories we’ve identified are in fact basic reality and not simply tools to help us understand reality. 

In fundamentalist thought, in contrast with the above, categories become rigid and unable to flex to accommodate the variety of reality. Since one’s personal understanding of the world in fundamentalism is not a back-and-forth process between observation and theory but rather a one-way trip from theory to reality, it becomes vital to maintain categories as absolute and unchanging. The threat of a category expanding to take on the messiness of reality is an existential threat to the person with a fundamentalist view. The idea that the categories of woman and man might be less rigid and more accommodating of the professed reality of those around us is unthinkable because it will bring the entire chain of fundamentalist feminist thought down. 

The combination of a personal motivation and the existential threat of changing categories is very powerful for a fundamentalist anti-trans feminist. The danger of opening up the category of woman to trans women is very real to such a person and we need to recognize this fear when trying to deal with fundamentalist thought. Accepting trans women into woman-only spaces does not have to mean the dissolution of most feminist principles simply because a category has changed. It doesn’t radically alter our understanding of Patriarchy, but rather helps us see it clearer. Trans women have valuable experiences to contribute to the feminist movement; we’re not trying to hijack it, we’re not trying to infiltrate it, we’re trying to join it. Let us in, please?

marginalutilite:

 So, they teach them whorephobia young these days. Notice how the newspaper didn’t even attempt to contact the dancers themselves for an opposing viewpoint to balance the piece? The student head of the project says this is about women being treated as “equals and not objects”, yet the women who dance at the club are not allowed a voice in the article, nor is there any indicator that the students have asked them how they feel about working there. What’s more objectifying than being silenced and spoken for?

There’s a petition going around asking the students to stop demonstrating at the club, which suggests, ” If you wish to protest a club such as this do some research and choose one that is unfair and allows it’s employees to be treated inappropriately.” Indeed, I’m sure many unions attempting to get a start at clubs could use students as allies in protesting for better working conditions—why aren’t the students expending their energy that way? (If you’re interested in signing the petition, which has 83 signatures so far, mostly from dancers and clients of the club, click the source link here.) 

(Oh, and “for safety reasons, the students decided not to set up in front of the club during its nighttime business hours”—because we all know that sex workers and clients of sex workers turn into deadly vampires once the sun sets.)

For years, the Paramount Gentlemen’s Club in New Westminster has been offering adult entertainment without much attention.

But a group of Coquitlam high school students is about to change that, using the power of the pen.

As part of a social justice class project, a group of Dr. Charles Best Secondary students will be heading to the Royal City in order to gather signatures for a petition calling on politicians to shut the strip club down.

About 50 students from the school are set to meet Saturday at Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue in New West, where they will set up information tables and break into groups to try and get signatures from residents.

Teacher Ken Ipe said the Grade 12s decided to focus on the Paramount because some of them have friends who frequent the club.

The club is open to 18 year olds because it does not have a liquor licence or serve alcohol.

Ipe suggested the club is catering to a younger clientele, including university students and even high school students.

“We think that sexism is not a healthy part of society and I think that strip clubs are a reminder that blatant sexism is alive and well in the culture,” he told The NOW.

Specifically, the petition is asking New Westminster city council to reconsider the Paramount’s licence and instead consider the effect strip clubs have on the culture of a community.

Ipe said the students aren’t expecting to transform society with their efforts, but rather see the petition as a small step in recognizing women as equals and not objects.

He noted the class has garnered support from some Coquitlam politicians, including Coun. Selina Robinson and Trustee Gail Alty.

The club’s website bills the Paramount as “Metro Vancouver’s premiere gentleman’s [sic] club and the cities [sic] ultimate experience in adult entertainment.”

The website also boasts the Paramount has more dancers working than any other club in the city.

Ryan Lepper is one of the students taking part in the class project.

He argued strip clubs objectify woman because they give the men visiting the impression women are just objects meant to be bought and sold.

“It sexualizes them by saying that they are only objects meant to pleasure men, and we don’t want girls growing up in a world where they are viewed that way,” he wrote in an e-mail.

He said the plan is to take the petition to an upcoming city council meeting for a presentation.

Lepper also noted the class did not contact the club in regards to the petition.

For safety reasons, the students decided not to set up in front of the club during its nighttime business hours.

Calls to the Paramount for comment were not returned by The NOW’s press deadline.

(Source: change.org)