If It’s Humiliating For A Man To Do Then It’s Humiliating For A Woman To Do, You’re Just Used To

asexual sex workers are braver than any US marine

when people say that women in the entertainment industry who are sexualised are expressing their own sexuality, i often think of these youtube videos that came out when i was a teenager from the buzzfeed try guys of all people

in the first one, they get styled and photoshopped the way male celebrities do, and in the second they are styled, posed and photoshopped like female celebrities

their comments are surprisingly insightful

"there was nothing human about that, i was just an object"

"in an effort to photoshop you more to female standards, your look has gone from 'i will either murder or fuck you' to 'wont you please come fuck me?'"

when women are styled this way, they aren't expressing their own desire, they're embodying cultural stereotypes that say women don't have their own sexuality, they are objects for men to project their own sexuality onto. and when male sexuality is caught up in ideas of dominance and conquest, performing for the male gaze becomes consistently degrading

reading about working class korean women who moved to america with their american husbands during the korean war

umm do you have any good gateway books into second wave feminism 😓

So if you want to read some of the defining books of the era I'd say

Sexual Politics, Kate Millett

Ob/Gyn, Mary Daly

Dialectics of Sex, Shulamith Firestone

Intercourse; Right-Wing Women; Woman Hating; Pornography; all four by Andrea Dworkin

Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller

Ain't I a Woman, bell hooks

Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde

I haven't read it but I've also seen The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer recommended a lot.

These are all good starts for second-wave feminism imo. upon reading them you'll also find some recommendations to other books as second-wave feminists referenced each other pretty often.

I would also advise reading history books written about the second-wave on the side. For example, Jewish Radical Feminism by Joyce Antler shades some light on Firestone's, Brownmiller's and Dworkin's life and political perspectives that helps put their work in context. Another really good one is Battling Pornography by Carolyn Bronstein, you can read this in a series with Pornography by Andrea Dworkin and Against Our Will by Susan Brownmiller. And then you also have The Trouble Between Us by Winifred Breines, about the tensions between white and black, straight and lesbian, upper and lower class second wave feminists. Also a very interesting read that puts some works in context and still has strong relevance nowadays

One part of the abortion question people kind of need to just accept is thag there is no equivalent situation to having someone entirely encased inside and dependent on your own body. It's a unique situation unlike anything else. So the person whose body is used like that must be the ultimate authority in the situation.

i fucking hate how western countries say “sex work is work” and then legalise prostitution. but what happens when, for example, in germany there are not enough german women who want to become prostitutes? are they advertising prostitution to women? do they start marketing campaigns to show how cool it is to be a sex worker? do they introduce more different people (men, old, kids) to prostitution? do they open SCHOOLS to teach more people how to be a sex worker? you know, just like they do with other jobs?

NO THEY FUCKING DON’T. THEY KIDNAP PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES AND MAKE THEM SEX SLAVES!!!!!

i find it genuinely absurd that forced-birthers expect us to treat the fetus as an individual. “what about the baby’s body and choice?” that is literally something attached to her organs the fetus is literally part of the woman’s body and OF the woman’s body like god did not put it there for safekeeping her body is fucking constructing it. it cannot be legally or physically independent from her—the fetus IS still her you goddamn fucking morons.

I keep saying over and over "read Robin Wall Kimmerer, Julia Steinberger, and Kate Raworth." And then everyone's like "okay whatever." And everyone goes back to reading Dworkin and Simone de Beauvoir and whatnot.

That's fine I guess. But there's some important time sensitive information and knowledge tools that every woman needs. Put Robin Wall Kimmerer, Julia Steinberger, and Kate Raworth at the top of your reading list. Read through their work and make sure you understand it. And then you can go back to reading whatever it is you were reading before.

We need women to take power and lead. So we need women to understand how the future is going to work. Unsustainable male systems are collapsing all around us. Men want to fill post-collapse power vacuums with progressively more desperate, violent, and unsustainable systems. To prevent that from happening, women need to fill power vacuums with sustainable systems. And if you want to understand sustainable systems, you need to read Robin Wall Kimmerer, Julia Steinberger, and Kate Raworth.

"The liberal attempts to use moral exhortation to stop the oppressor and oppressed from fighting with each other. If everybody could just do things right, love everybody, talk to each other, communicate, she exclaims. The trouble is, personal, moral attack works much better against the oppressed than the oppressor. When one side owns and controls the crucial resources and has an army behind it, moral exhortation does not have an equal effect and, in fact, can only intimidate the side without organized power behind it. The oppressor wants to preserve the status quo and keep the lid on the liberation movement without showing his hand. Since it is the essence of liberalism to sit on the fence, avoid taking sides, to denounce polarization, confrontation and the use of force, it is the perfect tool for the oppressor’s use."

-Kathie Sarchild, 'Psychological Terrorism', Feminist Revolution

I highly recommend that girls and women read

'Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office' by Lois P Frankel

'The Myth of the Nice Girl' by Fran Hauser

if they want to try to undo their female socialisation. I think like a whole new person after taking the advice in those books to heart.