Feminist Light (original) (raw)

Second-wave feminists fought for access to abortion and the right to not have children, and paved the way for young women like me to be Childfree!

Now we need to spread the gospel of pro-choice feminism, so those poor, stupid moos won't be shitting out crotch droppings all the time :-(

Today I woke up, looked into the mirror, and painted every last imperfection to look "right". I scrutinized my body in the mirror. Too fat, too curvy, too pale, too messy, too slutty, too small, too big. I attacked myself based off of the media's ideal of perfection- what I should be so that I feel I can be loved and so I can even begin to love myself. I am working off an unattainable model of feminine beauty that feels as if it can turn me inside out, leaving all of my guts spilling out onto the floor- metaphorically speaking of course.
Today I looked at the calender. In eight months I will be twenty. A cold sweat rushes down my face, an overwhelming fear of age took hold. Twenty feels old. I can feel my limbs start to creak with age and my skin begin to sag. It is terrifying to think that soon enough I won't be a "teen". My beauty and feelings of self worth begin to fade and I have to stop myself and ask, why?
Why do I feel this way? Why does age take beauty away so fully? Why does the idea of beauty take over so many of my thoughts and effect how I feel about who I am? I calm a bit, knowing how ridiculous I'm being, but the fear lays in wait underneath my calm.
I'm not talking about this to ask people to listen to my rants of insecurity. I'm talking about this because I know that I am not alone. So many women in America deal with thoughts similar to these every single day, so many women are constantly questioning their worth based on an unrealistic standard of beauty.
This leads to many women having self-image issues that can lead to eating disorders in an attempt to emulate the models on TV, or the women in movies that we are told are the only form of beauty. In many African and Asian cultures being overweight is considered to be more attractive because it is a sign of health. The ideal of beauty in America wants women to be unhealthy, wants them to be weak and helpless so that they cannot become anything more than a pretty face and a bone-baring body.
And while these emaciated stars leave women ready to turn off their hunger or turn on their gag reflect, the sexual objectification of women in the media leads them to the plastic surgeon for a new set of this or that and a lift here or there. It seems as if for so many women, the idea of accepting the shape they were born with is incredibly difficult. It also seems that the idea of aging gracefully has become a thing of the past as the media's obsession with youth takes over the minds of those who would still be beautiful if they allowed themselves to age as they should.
Women have to start realizing that every body type, face type, skin color, etcetera is beautiful. While many women are extremely comfortable with their bodies and are not left feeling saddened when they look through magazines or watch TV, there are too many who are. We [women] as a whole must understand what is seen in the media is not only unrealistic, but unhealthy. A size zero waist is not what it takes to be beautiful, and it is in fact, depending on height and age, extremely bad for you. Why would being emaciated be attractive?

My dear sisters, I saw this dead community and I have to revive it!!!!

I have come to realize a great truth: I'm not a woman!

Because "vagina" means "sheath for a penis!"

And I'm a lesbian so I totally don't do icky things like that!

SO I'M NOT A WOMAN AND NEITHER ARE ANY LESBIANS!

...wait

DO I HAVE MALE PRIVILEGE?????????

Okay we all know the entire point of feminism is CHOICE. But I want to hear about where we draw the line! Obviously, we don't want women who want to look like porno sluts caving to the patriarchy and getting breast implants. They're totally ugly anyway just like face lifts and all other cosmetic surgery!

There is a MTF transgender I know who told me she is getting this surgery on her face that's supposed to make her look like a real woman. It sounds disgusting and I just don't understand why she just can't be more brave and tell the people who stare at her to fuck off! Probably because she thinks being mousy makes her more of a real girl too or something. SIGH. I hate the gender binary.

And why would anyone want to get breast reduction? What could be more woman-hating than that? It's like castration of motherhood!

Come on people, do you think primitive women in other parts of the world mutilate their bodies with things like this? Well, I guess maybe some, in really patriarchal cultures. I just know that it's not natural for doctors to cut you up unless you need your appendix or wisdom teeth out or something!

This study from patriarchal science shows that real womyn are developing the perverted transsexual paraphilia of autogynophilia. While I am all for transsexuals having their right to practice their dirty perversions, they need to do it far, far away from any real womyn. Due to these alarming statistics, I believe that we must be extra vigilant to keep transsexuals away from real womyn. Not because we hate them or want anything bad to happen them, in fact we love them, as long as they do not expose us to their filthy perversions.

I also blame leather dykes for exposing real womyn to perversion. Also, one can tell the study is one of patriarchal science as there is no true, womyn-loving political lesbian option. However, it does confirm what I have long suspected -- that exposure to transsexuals is harmful to womyn -- and may also be why none of them identified as womyn-identified-womyn -- and that we cannot risk them being in our spaces for our own sake.

Hi, since this comm is a bit lacking in good anti-oppression non-patriarchal sisterly sharing I thought I'd talk a bit about non-patriarchal cultures and languages and how they relate to my being a Honorary Deaf Lesbian.

When I became a lesbian, I decided I needed to be a separatist, and I figured that foreign countries didn't have patriarchy, so I learned beautiful and non-patriarchal languages like french, spanish and italian. Then I decided to take some asl classes too because it seemed like a beautiful non-patriarchal language too, and while I slowly learned more and more, I also realized hearing was man oppress act.

Deaf Lesbian friend ask me become interpreter where hospital, but I not think I ready. I interpret for my friend more and more Deaf Lesbians want me interpret. I take classes to interpret and graduate with best grades. First I not expert what Deaf culture but I learn and become. And I find culture free what man oppress. So I become interpreter why work and become expert what Deaf culture. Friends think me Honorary Deaf Lesbian.

(ooc edit: lol, I realize the piece mocked is old and obscure, but while obscure, the sentiment mocked is not, i.e. the idea that somehow asl is a less patriarchal language than english. In this case the inspiration is, however, a piece by a radical separatist lesbian terp in a '94 book... >.>)

In the 1980s, as lesbians lost confidence in their own visions, strengths, and possibilities -- as feminism came under attack and the sex industry went from strength to strength -- many turned to gay men as their models and began to define themselves as "sexual deviants." They developed an identity in total contradiction to that of lesbian-feminism. Lesbian-feminists celebrate lesbianism as the apogee of woman-loving, as a form of resistance to all the practices and values of male-supremacist culture, including pornography and prostitution. The libertarian lesbians who rose up to decry feminism in the '80s attacked lesbian-feminists for "desexualizing" lesbianism and chose to see themselves as "pro-sex." But the practices of this "pro-sex" stand turned out to replicate the version of lesbianism that had traditionally been offered by the sex industry. The brave new "transgressive" lesbians were the very sadomasochistic, butch/femme constructions that had long been staples of heterosexual men's pornography.

~ Sheila Jeffreys, How Orgasm Politics Has Hijacked the Women's Movement

I wasn't aware that "leatherdyke" butch/femme porn has been made for straight men but I am not surprised.

Discuss please.

well, recently on the news. There is a pregnant transexual man( he originally is a woman) who want an appeal on court, for the law makes him to be the child's 'mother' instead of 'father', he wants to be the child's 'father'.
becuase of different gender roles, there are man who wants to become woman and woman who wants to become man.
what do you think about the whole transexual thing? I'm a bit confused about what gender roles really mean to us.

I am so split on the issue of Thomas Beattie.

On one hand, it is wonderful to see a wombyn using her womb to create new life from the moon...

But he's being patriarchal by shooting up male hormones, cutting off his boobs, and growing a beard! And having SEX WITH HIS WIFE.

Thoughts?

Have you gyns ever heard of Carol Adams? I am so glad I heard of her! You see, she has fully explained how eating meat is part of the patriarchy and must therefore be outlawed, because men use the phrase "piece of meat" to describe wombyn. Isn't it interesting how use of language can show us how the patriarchy has even invaded our dietary habits?

It's also good to know that she knows all about the transpeople trying to invade our wombyns-only spaces. I'm glad someone else is standing up for us against all those men who are pretending to be women (note that they even spell it patriarchally!) to try and get in our spaces so they can patronize us and sneak into our bathrooms. We have an ally in the fight against the patriarchal trannies! (I'm sorry if the word "fight" is too male and patriarchal. I will change it to something like "wombynly community's goal of helping our fellow wombyn by opposing the patriarchy" if my original wording is too violent.)

Does anyone else have any exceptional heroes to the wombyn's movement? I'm trying to learn about more modern wombyn heroes of fymynysm.

(Edited to make the spelling of "fymynysm" less patriarchal than the original, "feminism")