I write for every woman who wishes to write, who has spoken truth to power that protects and perpetuates gender-based discrimination, gender-based violence, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, sexual assault, and rape. I write for every woman who wishes to write, who has been met with sexist and tired statements including and not limited to, “He’s a good guy” and “He’s talented,” as if talent (and often, statistically unsupported overconfidence), “niceness,” and bro culture that both men and women protect and perpetuate, somehow excuses the behavior and/or crime, and discomfort, anxiety, and depression that the woman endured. I write for every woman who wishes to write, who has endured gaslighting,victim blaming, shaming, stigma, and judgment.
“Being told that, categorically, he knows what he’s talking about and she doesn’t, however minor a part of any given conversation, perpetuates the ugliness of this world and holds back its light. After my book Wanderlust came out in 2000, I found myself better able to resist being bullied out of my own perceptions and interpretations. On two occasions around that time, I objected to the behavior of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn’t happened at all as I said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest—in a nutshell, female.”
Excerpted from Men Explain Things to Me, by Rebecca Solnit.
“When I sat down and wrote the essay Men Explain Things to Me, here’s what surprised me: though I began with a ridiculous example of being patronized by a man, I ended with rapes and murders. We tend to treat violence and the abuse of power as though they fit into airtight categories: harassment, intimidation, threat, battery, rape, murder. But I realize now that what I was saying is: it’s a slippery slope. That’s why we need to address that slope, rather than compartmentalizing the varieties of misogyny and dealing with each separately. Doing so has meant fragmenting the picture, seeing the parts, not the whole.
A man acts on the belief that you have no right to speak and that you don’t get to define what’s going on. That could just mean cutting you off at the dinner table or the conference. It could also mean telling you to shut up, or threatening you if you open your mouth, or beating you for speaking, or killing you to silence you forever. He could be your husband, your father, your boss or editor, or the stranger at some meeting or on the train, or the guy you’ve never seen who’s mad at someone else but thinks ‘women’ is a small enough category that you can stand in for ‘her.’ He’s there to tell you that you have no rights.
Threats often precede acts, which is why the targets of online rape and death threats take them seriously, even though the sites that allow them and the law enforcement officials that generally ignore them apparently do not. Quite a lot of women are murdered after leaving a boyfriend or husband who believes he owns her and that she has no right to self-determination.”
Rebecca Solnit on why #YesAllWomen matters, and why phrases like domestic violence, mansplaining, rape culture, and sexual entitlement help us address issues honestly and open the way to change.
Note that academic institutions and the justice system have historically protected classism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Note the published phrases used to describe Brock Turner, the man who sexually assaulted Chanel Miller: “baby-faced Stanford freshman,” “All-American swimmer,” “Stanford swimmer,” and winning swimming times were promulgated by journalists to uphold Turner’s privilege and Stanford’s reputation.
Asian women experience and intersect with racism, sexism, and misogyny in ways that are shared with women of other races and separately, unique to us. Everyone must acknowledge the dehumanization of Asian women—including hyper sexualization and fetishization—and acknowledge its unequivocal link to American colonialism, imperialism, and militarization in Asian countries. Asian women and all women of color are often asked, “Why didn’t you report it?” The obvious reasons include trauma; lack of financial resources; immigration status; mistrust of the justice system; and shame, societal- and self-stigma, and risk of alienation from families, friends, and ethnic communities.
So how do we move forward? First, we must support both cis- and transgender women, other marginalized groups, and survivors of all genders. Recognize whether there is a tendency to victim-blame, and listen to survivors of all intersecting identities whether they choose to publicly or privately disclose details of their traumas. Identify responsibilities—as a professional, as a human—and support survivors by working to eradicate systemic issues of harmful masculine idealsandrape culture. Understand that yes, all sexism is linked to rape culture; work to confront, disrupt, and eradicate issues of sexism at its rearing. Support community health centersandPlanned Parenthood centers, where low-income women and minorities will be treated with expert compassionate care.Support public libraries and access to computers, free Internet, and digital literacy tools. Know that these tools are intrinsically linked to audibility and survival.
To my support network: I love you and am grateful for your love and support these past years. You remember when I was confident, uninhibited, and assertive; when I lost that for some time; and my re-emergence, grown, growing, and resilient.
I recognize my privilege and know that many survivors are struggling with alienation from family and friends and may be unsure where to seek support. Please find verified resources below:
BetterBrave is a guide to identifying and addressing sexual harassment.
Equal Rights Advocates is a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting and expanding economic and educational access and opportunities for women.
Me Too is a movement that supports survivors of sexual violence and their allies by connecting survivors to healing resources, and offering community organizing resources, information regarding pursuing a “me too” policy platform, and sexual violence research.
The National Women’s Law Center works to protect and advance the progress of women and girls at work and in school, with special attention given to the needs of low-income women and families.
Rise is a multi-sector coalition of sexual assault survivors and allies working to empower all survivors with civil rights and in 2016, drafted and passed the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights unanimously through Congress.
The TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund supports the brave individuals who have come forward, at great risk to themselves, to seek the justice they deserve and to protect others from similar behavior. It is administered by the National Women’s Law Center.
I wear clothing from the men’s section of the clothing store. My leg hairs are longer than most of the hair in my head. I never wear any makeup, no matter if I’m going out to buy bread in the morning or if I’m going to a party. People often call me “sir”. Others hurl slurs at me, sometimes calling me a “dyke”, sometimes calling me a “faggot”, both showing their disapproval of my physical presentation. I see little kids asking their mothers, in whispers, if I am a boy or a girl. And people ask me all the time, why do I want to look like a man?
The answer is simple. I don’t.
And I do not look like a man.
I look like a woman who refuses to perform femininity.
My unshaven legs do not make me like a man, they’re MY legs, and MY hair, and I am a woman. My “boy’s” clothes are worn on my body, the body of a woman. My naked, unpainted face is the face of a woman. I am a woman, and this is not defined by a haircut or a choice of attire, or by lipstick or high heels, or boxer briefs and men’s deodorant worn over fuzzy unshaven armpits. There’s nothing manly about me.
I am a woman, not by choice, but by fact. Because “woman” is a reality imposed to me, from the day I was born and given a woman’s name, to the day I was six and I was told I couldn’t take off my shirt in a blazing hot summer day because one day I would have breasts, to last night when I walked home in a state of hyper-awareness, my house keys tightly clutched between my fingers, tracking the movements of every man in the dark streets.
I am a woman because, since before my own birth, when an ultrasonography picture informed my parents that I would be born with a vulva, I have been groomed to be a member of the woman class, the breeding stock class, the sex class, the lower class. I was taught to be accomodating and speak softly, to not bring attention to myself and to spare men’s feelings. I was taught that the boy who pulled my hair and threw his toy train at me, aiming for my head, probably did it because he liked me, and boys will be boys anyway. I learned that, if I did the same to him, I was a troublemaker. That my assertiveness is unladylike. That one day I would bear some man’s children, and this was pretty much destiny. That my worth was in my looks, more than in my brain. I am a woman because I was taught all these things, and I am a woman because people expect me to know these lessons by heart, and follow every one of them.
When people ask me why do I want to look like a man, what they’re actually asking is why am I not marking myself as a woman. They’re asking why do I fail to perform the role of femininity, to make myself pleasing and unthreatening to the eyes of the upper class, the man class. My mother once voiced her concerns to me, that my looks would make me a target for male violence, and she is right to be concerned. I am perceived as a member of the lower class who refuses to bear the marks and play the role imposed to me. I refuse to shave my legs to look like a pre-pubescent girl, innocent and vulnerable, or to wear shoes that force me to walk on the tips of my toes, slow and precariously balanced, and this makes men angry, because this is a counscious act of rebellion. This is me saying I am not theirs. I will not please them. I do not desire their approval or their attention. And men often get violent when we refuse to cater to them.
My choices of visual presentation make me a cautionary tale. I am the hairy, ugly, lesbian feminist, the one they warn other women about. “Don’t be like her”, they say, “or no man will ever want you”. But I don’t want them either, and I do not want to look like them, or be like them, or have anything to do with them. I want to be free from men and their bullshit standards. I want to strut around proudly, shamelessly unladylike, looking like a woman looks when she’s not covered in face paint and restrictive clothing, when she doesn’t care about pleasing men.
I do not look like a man, and nothing will ever make me look like one. I am pure, unadulterated woman. I choose myself over them, I choose women over them. If that makes them hate me, so be it. Because I am a woman, they would hate me no matter what I did.
This is so purely golden and real scaldering hot tea
do men have resting bitch faces as well or do they not have negative characteristics ascribed to them for putting on a neutral rather than a deliriously happy facial expression
Yes, Black men in majority white spaces do. If I don’t smile every single second of the day my coworkers become in intimidated and start asking me what’s wrong, telling me to smile, make jokes about how I’m trying to be a thug/act hard, why am I angry, etc. And it’s not just white men at my job God FORBID I my large Black ass makes a white girl feel threaten because I’m sitting down with a neutral expression.
I’m not trying to take this post away from women and make it about Black men but I want to point out that wether it’s patriarchy or white supremacy; those who feel as if they have power over you HATE to see you not smile. They are so used to people like you smiling to gain their approval that when you don’t there’s a cognitive dissonance that makes them extremely uncomfortable.
That’s why “angry Black women” is a thing. They have to put on a smile for everyone (yes even feminist white women) or we all get uncomfortable.
the fuck is up with the assholes on this site believing that someone can’t be discriminated against if they aren’t an oppressed group. You can discriminate cis people, white people, straight people, etc. and it’s still an issue. Sure they arent getting lynched or murdered for being like that but that doesn’t mean cisphobia, racism against white people (reverse racism isn’t a fucking thing), sexism against men, and heterophobia aren’t real. Y’all just stupid and need to learn how to read the definition of discrimination. You don’t get to pick and choose who gets included in the definition of discrimination because you’re some whiny asshole on the internet who has been taught that being a straight white male is the worst thing in the world. Fuck y'all.
like 99% of “men and women are soooo different!!!” comedy is literally just describing the experience of not understanding other people. like it’s not that women never say what they mean talking to other people is just like that. it can be hard to understand what other people are thinking. bioessentialism really rots the brain
“women will say I’m fine and then not mean it” yeah that’s something literally everybody does. is this your first time interacting with another human being my guy
this is one of the only funny responses on this hell of a post
Story time!
My dad showed me some older stand up from this one middle-aged white dude, and that was his whole routine.
“Women ask men what they’re thinking, and we men, we’re not thinking anything!” type shit.
My dad got angry at me for not laughing. Like, yelling angry. So I scream back “You know why this shit isn’t funny?? Because this is the same shit as ‘Isn’t it funny because Jews?’ and 'Isn’t it funny because Mexicans?’.”
Zayn Malik can pay to leave in the middle of a world tour, the middle of a contract, and make his own music because he didn’t like One Direction’s music, but Kesha is being forced to stay in a contract with her mental abuser, sexual assaulter, and rapist and Sony won’t let her out without repercussions
Sam Pepper goes around with sick and horrible pranks and nobody bats an eye, and when people do, they get shit because the girls who got their ass grabbed should have liked it.
Chris Brown can beat women and get away with it WITH a career and female fans still worshiping this woman beater.
Hillary Clinton will get asked about her wardrobe in interviews instead of political topics, unlike her other male runners.
Tampons and pads are taxed as luxury items, but male shaving items are not.
When I get catcalled at the mall, the guys yell at me about how I should take it as a compliment and only stop when my boyfriend shows up and tells them to stop.
Nobody bats an eye at a shirtless male, but the moment a woman doesn’t have a shirt on and her breasts are out, people are in outrage.
Men can’t go out in public wearing ‘feminine’ items without being ridiculed.
I got detention for wearing shorts over my leggings because my shorts were not fingertip length and was distracting to my male students learning environment, despite having full length leggings on and my shorts covering my butt.
5SOS can have a completely bare naked magazine cover, only cover their junk with their hands, and be praised, but Selena Gomez releases an album cover of her naked, but at the same time quite covered, and gets called a slut on social media.
When Justin Bieber posts a naked photo of him on a boat (with his back facing the camera) he is praised and drooled over, but a woman can’t post a bikini photo without being attention seeking.
Tyler Joseph can’t wear a dress on stage during a performance without being called out on the media, and in person, but a female can.
When a female says she’s a feminist, people think that women want to be better than men.
When a male says he’s a feminist, people think he is lying to get women’s attention.
When a gay man says he is raped by another man, he is told he should have liked it because he was gay.
When a boy says he was raped by a female, his friends say he should have liked it because he got laid by an older woman.
When a lesbian is raped by a man, he gets away free because he claims to try and turn her straight so her family would accept her.
Because ‘there are only two genders’.
Because pansexuality, demisexuality, asexuality, agender, genderfluidity, and other sexualities and genders are seen as ‘fake’ and ‘jokes’ because people use them as jokes.
I need fucking feminism because we all deserve to be treated equally.
So, today in “the cis haven’t been ok in the past either”:
My grandmother gave me a pile of old tissue handkerchiefs to look through, because I told her that I started using them (they really are much better than paper), and they are just sitting there anyway, so. Cue to:
Me: “These are all so much bigger than mine!”
She: “That’s because these are men’s.”
* proceeds to pull out another pile of women’s tissue handkerchiefs, which were the same size as mine, namely MUCH smaller *
“Think of misogyny, then, as the law enforcement branch of a patriarchal order. This makes for a useful if rough contrast between misogyny and sexism. Whereas misogyny upholds the social norms of patriarchies by patrolling and policing them, sexism serves to justify these norms, largely via an ideology of supposedly natural differences between men and women with respect to their talents, interests, proclivities, and appetites.
Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism is complacent; misogyny is anxious. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.” Read the full forum.
