Downlo

regazzadilupo:

anedumacation:

friendlyangryfeminist:

Please, please tell me I don’t get feminism.

Tell me that what we perceive as femininity is inherently unnatural and was created merely to support the patriarchy.

C’mon.

I know some of you are dying to.

I know that some of you will ignore the androcentric bullshit that masculine = natural, whereas feminine = performance. 

I know you’ll tell me that unless I free myself from the shackles of patriarchal mandated beauty standards I’m not a good feminist all while you reblog images of attractive people with hair that they bleach and dye on a bimonthly basis. Because that’s natural, right? 

Here’s the thing - shaving your legs isn’t natural. But neither is living in a house, nor the Internet. And just like the Internet, shaving your legs doesn’t have a moral component one way or the other. How we as a culture reacts to shaved legs matters.

I’m a feminist who’s had plastic surgery (breast reduction, done partly because of neck pains but the driving force for it was that I wasn’t pleased with how it looked). I’m a feminist who wears heels around a snowy, icy, hilly college campus. I’m a feminist who dyes her hair on a bimonthly basis. I’m unnatural. 

I believe that femininity is just as valid as masculinity. It’s just as natural, it’s just as performed. 

Don’t tell me I’m unenlightened because I choose things that the patriarchy tells me I should.

Yep.

There is nothing wrong with embracing femininity as long as you understand that, like masculinity, it’s a construct, and that other people do not have to embrace it to be valid as women or men. But the reverse is also true. People who embrace femininity and masculinity are no less valid as people or as allies in feminism or any other movement.

Pretty much what Regazza said.

I’ll add that I’m getting really tired of these “am I allowed to be a feminist?” blog posts and articles floating around online. Nearly all of them, OP’s included, are jousting against a straw-woman feminism. It has been decades since radical feminism has dominated feminism (if it ever has…).

Look, I do not know the OP and am perhaps being unfair to her since I don’t follow her blog (she may be talking to a particular person or group). But I’m starting to think these kind of posts/articles can end up reinforcing the already widespread notion that feminists want to neuter or masculinize women. Which, if you think about it, means feminists are, in a way, anti-woman (since the majority of women still present as traditionally femme). Which is all kinds of fucked up.

I mean, it’s quite a neat, patriarchal trick to make feminists out to be inherently against the interests of women, isn’t it?

NB: These are just some thoughts I’ve been having recently. I used to think like the OP when I first started engaging seriously with feminism, which is why I tagged this post (perhaps/probably condescendingly) #beyond feminism 101

isabelthespy:

Aggression Not As Attractive As Men Believe

“Though women greatly preferred a non-aggressive response to an aggressive one, men thought that women would prefer an aggressive response,” the researchers write. “There was a dramatic gap between men’s guesses about the views of women and women’s actual views.”

“Though women greatly preferred a non-aggressive response to an aggressive one, men thought that women would prefer an aggressive response,” the researchers write. “There was a dramatic gap between men’s guesses about the views of women and women’s actual views.”

“Though women greatly preferred a non-aggressive response to an aggressive one, men thought that women would prefer an aggressive response,” the researchers write. “There was a dramatic gap between men’s guesses about the views of women and women’s actual views.”

they talk about other stuff too - how they think other dudes will perceive things, what they would want to do vs. what they think other dudes - but:

“Though women greatly preferred a non-aggressive response to an aggressive one, men thought that women would prefer an aggressive response,” the researchers write. “There was a dramatic gap between men’s guesses about the views of women and women’s actual views.”

I blame the media. Mainstream movies, TV, magazines, etc. all tend to suggest that a) what women say and what we mean are entirely different b) women prefer stereotypically macho men and despise femme (or gentle, nerdy, passive, etc. etc.) men.

Gotta confess that I find these kind of studies to be fairly useless (spare me arguments about funding, research restrictions, the general unenlightenment of the culture at large, etc.). They don’t really tell anyone who’s been paying attention anything new.

Just from observation, it’s clear that men worry the most about what other men think. They’ve been taught that women’s opinions are worthless (e.g. rape culture), so of course they think we prefer macho to ‘sissy’, despite whatever we might actually say or do.

Yet researchers keep conducting these kind of studies and we keep being shocked (shocked!) by the results.

What do Roger Huerta, Chuck Liddell, Chris Leben and Dave Navarro have in common? They are all alpha males and they all adorn their nails with war paint. Why? Why not! For the fighter or the guitar picker, any normal nail polish will add natural strength to the nail and prevent chipping and cracking. But it is more than that. It is a statement… a proclamation of the inner attitude of the alpha. It is about having the confidence that says ‘I am my own man, and will decide the rules for how I live my life according to how I see fit.

Designed specifically for men, Alpha Nail is technologically and biologically superior to anything on the market. Formulated with both Citral and Ginseng to strengthen and invigorate the nails down to the beds, our formula keeps nails harder and healthier. Ask Roger Huerta. He has put AlphaNail to the test for hundreds of battles in the toughest weeks of training camp.

(via)