In general, understanding radical feminism for what it is and why it appeals to many people requires an understanding that the greatest strength of radical feminism as a tool for understanding misogyny and sexism is also its greatest faultline.

See, radical feminism is a second wave position in feminist thought and development. It is a reaction to what we sometimes call first wave feminism, which was so focused on specific legal freedoms that we usually refer to the activists who focused on it as suffragists or suffragettes: that is, first wave feminists were thinking about explicit laws that said "women cannot do this thing, and if they try, the law of the state and of other powerful institutions will forcibly evict them." Women of that era were very focused on explicit and obvious barriers to full participation in public and civil life, because there were a lot of them: you could not vote, you could not access education, you could not be trained in certain crucial professions, you could not earn your own pay even if you decided you wanted to.

And so these activists began to try to dig into the implicit beliefs and cultural structures that served to trap women asking designated paths, even if they did wish to do other things. Why is it that woman are pressured not to go into certain high prestige fields, even if in theory no one is stopping them? How do our ideas and attitudes about sex and gender create assumptions and patterns and constrictions that leave us trapped even when the explicit chains have been removed?

The second wave of feminism, then, is what happened when the daughters of this first wave--and their opponents--looked around and said to themselves: hold on, the explicit barriers are gone. The laws that treat us as a different and lesser class of people are gone. Why doesn't it feel like I have full access to freedoms that I see the men around me enjoying? What are the unspoken laws that keep us here?

And so these activists focused on the implicit ideas that create behavioral outcomes. They looked inward to interrogate both their own beliefs and the beliefs of other people around them. They discovered many things that were real and illuminated barriers that people hadn't thought of, especially around sexual violence and rape and trauma and harassment. In particular, these activists became known for exercises like consciousness-raising, in which everyday people were encouraged to sit down and consider the ways in which their own unspoken, implicit beliefs contributed to general societal problems of sexism and misogyny.

Introspection can be so intoxicating, though, because it allows us to place ourselves at the center of the social problems that we see around us. We are all naturally a little self centered, after all. When your work is so directly tied to digging up implications and resonances from unspoken beliefs, you start getting really into drawing lines of connection from your own point of interest to other related marginalizations--and for this generation of thinkers, often people who only experienced one major marginalization got the center of attention. Compounding this is the reality that it is easier to see the impacts of marginalization when they apply directly to you, and things that apply to you seem more important.

So some of this generation of thinkers thought to themselves, hang on. Hang on. Misogyny has its fingers in so many pies that we don't see, and I can see misogyny echoing through so many other marginalizations too--homophobia especially but also racism and ableism and classism. These echoes must be because there is one central oppression that underlies all the others, and while theoretically you could have a society with no class distinctions and no race distinctions, just biologically you always have sex and gender distinctions, right? So: perhaps misogyny is the original sin of culture, the well from which all the rest of it springs. Perhaps there's really no differences in gender, only in sex, and perhaps we can reach equality if only we can figure out how to eradicate gender entirely. Perhaps misogyny is the root from which all other oppressions stem: and this group of feminists called themselves radical feminists, after that root, because radix is the Latin word for root.

Very few of this generation of thinkers, you may be unsurprised to note, actually lived under a second marginalization that was not directly entangled with sexism and gender; queerness was pretty common, but queerness is also so very hard to distinguish from gender politics anyway. It's perhaps not surprising that at this time several Black women who were interested in gender oppression became openly annoyed and frustrated by the notion that if only we can fix gender oppression, we can fix everything: they understood racism much more clearly, they were used to considering and interrogating racism and thinking deeply about it, and they thought that collapsing racism into just a facet of misogyny cheapened both things and failed to let you understand either very well. These thinkers said: no, actually, there isn't one original sin that corrupted us all, there are a host of sins humans are prone to, and hey, isn't the concept of original sin just a little bit Christianocentric anyway?

And from these thinkers we see intersectional feminists appearing. These are the third wave, and from this point much mainstream feminist throughout moves to asking: okay, so how do the intersections of misogyny make it appear differently in all these different marginalized contexts? What does misogyny do in response to racial oppression? What does it look like against this background, or that one?

But the radical feminists remained, because seeing your own problems and your own thought processes as the center of the entire world and the answer to the entire problem of justice is very seductive indeed. And they felt left behind and got quite angry about this, and cast about for ways to feel relevant without having to decenter themselves. And, well, trans women were right there, and they made such a convenient target...

That's what a TERF is.

Now you know.

i feel like it bears clarifying it’s not that trans women were a convenient target, it’s from what you said before, that they believe biological sex is the number one reality underpinning everyone, and gender expression is fake, which immediately leads to the conclusion that transgender people are misogynistic for (supposedly) reinforcing the existence of gender, which is inherently oppressive to women. this then takes a variety of forms from there on, but i just think it’s important to stress that the transphobia and transmisogyny of terfs isn’t incidental, it’s intentional

Yeah, so I wrote this a few years back with the goal of trying to get folks to understand why radfem ideology isn't actually driven purely by transmisogyny, and in fact why it's very possible to have what's called a "trans-inclusive radical feminist" (TIRF) or radfems that focus on other targets altogether, like sex workers (SWERF), intersex and asexual people, transmasculine folks anywhere along the spectrum, and anyone who can be spun as "letting the side down" against the real enemy, which is men.

So if it sounds like I'm downplaying the centrality of transmisogyny to modern, post-intersectionality radical feminism in this post, it's very much because I am. I want to teach people what radical feminism looks like in terms of its ideological roots, not in terms of common targets, because radfem groups often switch their targets based on who can be attacked without incurring too much censure right off the bat. I want people to be able to recognize what has essentially become a fascist ideological understanding of gender before it targets a community that they personally recognize as an ally who needs defending. And that means divorcing your understanding of what a community is from its targets.

That being said, you are also right that transmisogyny has never been precisely accidental, and trans women have been a favorite target within feminist and queer feminist groups for going on fifty years now. They really love that whole secretly infiltrating narrative shit.

This is because as far as radical feminism is concerned, gender relations are an ongoing zero-sum, binaristic struggle between men and women in which one side must triumph, and that side better be women. People who complicate this narrative by embracing uncertainty about the dividing line between these two eternally struggling categories become targets because they question whether men and women are actually mutually exclusive and all encompassing categories, whether you can move from one category to another, whether conflicts have to be zero-sum, whether it's not all our responsibility to ally with and support men trying to build a better world for themselves along with women. That's why sex workers are such a common target: the Pornography Wars were driven by arguments about whether it was women's sexual interaction with men that was inherently degrading or whether the actual problem was the poor worker protections and pay scales within the porn industry.

I'm a butch ace woman, okay? Radfems spent at least a decade mobilizing hatred against my community as a radicalization pipeline for feminists, especially queer feminists, in this exact space on Tumblr. I have never been shy about defending trans women when I see them under fire, but I am also not shy about defending other targets, either. So I want (collective) you to be able to see what I'm talking about in terms of a shitty ideology that is tuned to capture people like us, and that means talking about how post-intersectionality radical feminism has a distinct shape of its own that isn't purely a function of transmisogyny.

feeding you mizuena again to help you cope <3

this feels like one of those cutaways from the office

Cobalt.

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Being an Adult is a Scam. In fact, it's at least six different scams all stacked under a trench coat.

Well, at least the image has the proper number of fingers, and in the proper shape, sort of

do you love the color of the sky: abridged version

musk is going to die in a Tesla explosion in 6 months after sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and we will never get a conclusive answer on whether it was a CIA car bomb or just a normal Tesla malfunction

Like to charge, reblog to cast

Just use a rocket launcher like a normal person

"we want to protect the kids!!"

— in a way that will also protect them from their parents & guardians right?

"what"

— if a parent or guardian wanted to abuse their child, would what you're trying to do make it harder for them?

"..."

— *pulls out a chart that shows 76% of abused children were victimized by a parent or legal guardian* will what you're advocating for make it easier for the majority child abusers, which is overwhelmingly parents & guardians, to get away with abuse?

"idk what this has to do with anything we just want to restrict children's freedoms more & give parents more control over them. you know. to protect them from adults who want to abuse them"

Every. Single. Time.

red dwarf was wild

A bus may have only a couple of passengers, especially at the beginning or end of its route. But let's also take fuel efficiency into account.

If there's one person on a bus because that person cannot or doesn't want to drive, the bus is succeeding.

Study says you’re more likely to live if you have a female doctor

follow @the-future-now​

Not shocked. 

Both my mother and I left our family doctor more than 10 years ago because of substandard care.  The doctor, a man, consistently ignored or belittled issues that my mother and I had, and in doing so, failed to diagnose a massive heart defect and two major diseases.

My mother and I moved to a female physician.  In the 10 years we’ve been with her, she’s diagnosed and successful treated everything this past doctor missed, and saved my life a few years ago by not ignoring symptoms of a major infection.  I’ve had to go to the hospital from her office a few times, and each time she’s called me from her home multiple times as late as midnight to see how I’m doing, what the doctors are saying, and to see if she can help/intervene as she has privileges at the hospital.

She fought with a very well known surgeon and specialist at the hospital after he discharged me (treating me like SHIT in the process and belittling the distress I was in).  This specialist - a guy, of course - told my family doctor that I was drug seeking and that my problem would pass.

My doctor knew that I wasn’t drug seeking because 1) I wasn’t asking for any pain meds and 2) I was only asking for them additional tests because the symptoms this specialist said would be getting better were worsening to a degree where I could no longer function.  Oh, and because PAIN MEDS DON’T WORK ON ME AND I CANNOT GET HIGH.

When I was later readmitted and rushed into emergency surgery (6 hours after he told my doctor I was drug seeking, AMAZING), he attempted to throw my family doctor under the bus to other hospital staff/my family because of his won fuck up.  Meanwhile, his bullshit had caused serious damage to one of my major organs, and I had to take leave from work because I was violently ill and needed additional surgery.  This specialist also failed to make any follow up appointments with me after the surgeries, and when my family doctor followed up with the surgical resident on call at the hospital during a subsequent visit with her (because of lingering problems), I could hear the guy on the other end of the line go silent… then tell her he couldn’t believe that this specialist hadn’t set up ANY aftercare following my surgeries.  Then tell her to refer me to another specialist immediately.

So yep.  I’m not surprised that female doctors are on whole better at keeping their patients alive.  I have two FANTASTIC doctors right now - one female, one male - and I’ve had shitty doctors of both genders, but on the whole, I’ve found that most male doctors I’ve dealt with are more likely to dismiss or belittle patient problems/complaints.

ESPECIALLY if that patient is a woman.

My bro had issues with sinus infections for years. When he was 16 my mom wasn’t able to take him in so my dad did instead. The diagnosis from the family doc went from brushing it off to diagnosing him with a broken nasal septum. Treatment for him suddenly increased like whoa-including eventual surgery plans to fix it. All because my dad went instead of my mom. 

I also totally understand that many docs and nurses get drug seekers and that drug seekers are a legitimate concern, but at the same time it’s amazing how many  start with assumptions along those lines, no matter what you are being seen for. Whenever I go in for anything, I can always, physically SEE when a new doc/nurse/med practitioner reads on my chart that I’m allergic to Oxycontin. No matter how subtle, no matter how nice and wonderful they were when they first met me, there is always a reaction to it. Like you can see them put away any kind of doubt that I might be drug seeking. 

I’ve been a nurse for over 16 years, I’ve worked with many male and female doctors both as an assistant and as a patient, and let me tell you this right fucking now:

GET. YOURSELF. A. FEMALE. DOCTOR.

this is 10,000% true. would you like to know what I’ve seen firsthand? female physicians LISTEN BETTER and they FOLLOW UP MORE AGGRESSIVELY than male doctors do, especially for their female patients. and if you’re a female patient, especially if you’re being seen for menstrual problems, migraines, or depression, female physicians don’t belittle your symptoms the way that male doctors so often do. (and honestly I’ve seen nurse practitioners [advanced practice nurses] and they are my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE in terms of proper patient care and bedside manner, so don’t shy away from NPs or APNs either! they can do damn near everything an MD or DO can!)

of course there are exceptions to every rule. in fact right now my primary care doctor is a man, because he’s amazing. but in my experience I’d say that about 75% of the time, a female doctor is going to care for you better than a male one, and if you had those kind of odds for anything else–75% chance that this car insurance company would pay out better than that car insurance company if your car was totaled, 75% chance that this restaurant is less likely to give you explosive burning diarrhea than that restaurant, etc–you’d sure as hell change. and here’s one last reminder:

IF YOUR DOCTOR SUCKS, IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO REQUEST A DIFFERENT ONE. IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE A DOCTOR YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO SEEK A SECOND OPINION, OR A THIRD ONE, OR MORE, IF THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES TO GET PROPER CARE.

IT IS YOUR RIGHT TO SEE A DOCTOR WHO TREATS YOU AS A HUMAN BEING AND TAKES YOUR SYMPTOMS SERIOUSLY.

I read this article about autistic grieving and it was very relatable. He talks about how after his father died he couldn't process information correctly anymore. That's me. My brain can see the pieces but not how they fit together. He also talks about the increase in meltdowns, shut downs, and social isolation in autistic people who are grieving.

He says the way to get through grief as an autistic is to wander, learn, and be a part of your community. We process emotions in the background and being properly engrossed in your surroundings and helping people is the best way for autistic people to go through the process of feeling our feelings. That explains why I felt my best during fall when I had the energy to go outside and play in the woods everyday.