patriarchy Archives - Brazen She

Carrie Bradshaw Regrets

January 23, 2022 by Brazen She

Two very interesting creators sat down to have a conversation. Well over an hour long, I was prepared to settle in for a while.

But 20 minutes in, one of them takes a tangent from their discussion of male and female archetypes, “The girl who wrote ‘Sex and the City’ is now like 50, and she’s alone. And she writes that she actually regrets being alone and not having kids.”

I’ll be right back – I need to go check this out!

Naturally, I had to go find out if this were true. Reading while listening to Jungian theory being too much for me, I had to dip out of the video before it really got going.

Ms. Bushnell Regrets

Searching for ‘Candace Bushnell regrets’ took me straight to her Twitter. Dated 29 July, 2019, Candace responds, “Hahaha! The opposite is true: I’ve never regretted not having children and I’ve felt compelled to have a career since I was a child.” Not slowing down enough to examine this, she goes on to plug her latest book, Is There Still Sex in the City?

Her tweet quotes an American journalist sharing The Daily Mail, itself a description of a London Times article hidden behind a paywall. As fortune would have it, this is the only subscription I have bothered to keep up with. Lucky us, right?

So, does the woman who singlehandedly made single life aspirational regret her choices?

The Daily Mail sure thinks so. Their headline – Sex and the City Writer Regrets Choosing A Career Over Having Children, is downright blunt.

But did she really say that? The issue lies in the characterization of Bushnell’s responses in the Times interview.

London Times Fangirling

2019 feels very distant now, but even before lockdowns and mask mandates Bushnell’s attitude had aged about as well as her fictional avatar. The write-up by Laura Pullman is glowing – They sent a fan, lest the Times have to edit out any critical thought regarding Bushnell’s cultural legacy. Despite this, her negativity and entitlement leap off the page.

The evident push to make her likeable is undercut by her obvious, fairly generic Boomer privilege: “Bushnell enjoyed a comfortable, horsey upbringing in Connecticut with her two younger sisters and her rocket scientist father and travel agent mother. Aged 19, she dropped out of university and escaped to New York – More specifically Studio 54, the city’s most notorious nightclub.”

A ‘horsey’ upbringing? A literal rocket scientist? But she had to ‘escape’ to the New York party scene, because… college? How edgy!

I just know there’s a meaning for my life out here somewhere!

“Sitting on the sunny balcony sipping San Pellegrino, she talks about coming of age in a ‘free love kind of way’ before the AIDS crisis hit. ‘People were so interesting. The sex was good. The men made an effort. Why was it that in 1980 the men seemed really focused on making sure the woman had an orgasm?’”

I can’t say, but this didn’t die with disco. I have to wonder if it had anything to do with finding some success in the New York professional world. A drug-fueled fling is there in the moment with you, but a professional is probably looking for someone to further his own reputation. Different pools, different fish.

The Heroic Victim

Candace describes the environment she found herself in, but only has analysis for how it affected her: “She recalls how, when she was on the lower rungs of the career ladder, senior men would constantly try to coax her into sleeping her way to the top. ‘I don’t want to name every publication in New York, but every newspaper and publication had men who made it clear that that’s how they helped women get ahead.’

“It’s the reason why she worked for women’s magazines, such as the now defunct Condé Nast titles Mademoiselle and Self, instead. She laments that this meant that she wasn’t taken seriously as a writer ‘for a very long time’”.

It might have something to do with being known as a sex columnist, too. Sex makes people giggle, it might not be the best topic for someone wanting to be seen as a Serious Writer.

I feel so grown up right now!

But, never fear! Candace slogged through – “Her hard work and shrewd observations have afforded her a luxurious life divided between her home in the Hamptons and her apartment on the Upper East Side, a few blocks away from her boyfriend’s penthouse.

“Now 60, Bushnell has amassed a reported $22m fortune of her own.”

Because, as we all know, sex sells.

But that victim card is too valuable to let go of – “’I often think, what would my life be like if I hadn’t had to run the gauntlet of so much sexism? How much more successful would I be? Probably a lot.’”

I imagine we all ponder this once in a while but, if you’re Candace Bushnell, you can laugh remembering how you left a Carrie Bradshaw-sized dent in the end of the 20th century, and go back to sipping your vino.

Having It All

But her lack of impact on a part of culture she totally rejected and has built a career on vilifying really gets under Candace’s skin. “Does it frustrate her that when it comes to female success, society still emphasises marriage and children?

“‘Society definitely does do that, but we all have the right to think for ourselves. We don’t have to buy that value system.’”

Speaking for myself, I got the impression growing up that women who had kids were deluded losers with no ambition. I stumbled into it and am as surprised as anyone to find myself defending it.

Refusing to roll with life’s punches leaves little room to learn from them: “Just like high-flying PR executive Samantha in Sex and the City, Bushnell has always been vocal about not wanting children. ‘I don’t want to be shot down, but now I do see that people with children have an anchor in a way that people who have no kids don’t.’”

Our choice to take part in a whole aspect of life from which you abstain is not a static thing. There are ripple effects that creep into places you’d never imagine.

Holy shit, am I… happy??

“She also writes persuasively about how, for single women with no children, there’s no set life script to follow, no comfort of knowing what’s supposed to be happening and when.” So, no expiration date, when you’re expected to just fade into the background and let the young turks get on with saving the world?

Turn And Face The Strange

“’When I was in my thirties and forties, I didn’t think about it. Then when I got divorced [from ballet dancer Charles Askegard in 2012] and I was in my fifties, I started to see the impact of not having children and of truly being alone.’”

I think this is what The Daily Mail is referring to. Candace never comes right out and says, “Wow, I sure do regret my decision to not have children!” She simply expresses that regret, in the past tense. She was going through a divorce. Framing it as if she’s desperate and lonely forever is disingenuous – She’s back in New York now and dating again.

However, it’s fair to say that’s what she’s expressing here – During and after her divorce, she really felt that silence where the voices of their children would have been. Our genes don’t just color our skin and limit our wardrobe choices – Humans have instincts just as much as any creature, and it’s much harder to ignore them in times of crisis.

And I can’t be the only one who’s interacted with some ‘childfree’ women and wanted to ask them just who they were trying to convince.

Candace is as out of touch with the zeitgeist as she is with herself, and asking about it is taken personally: “In 2019, writing a book about relationship dynamics and sex with no mention of the #MeToo movement seems unusual. Was the omission a conscious decision?

“’Well, where would I put it?’ fires back Bushnell, defensively.” Ever image-conscious, Candace catches herself, “She changes tack: ‘You have to remember that [I am part of] a generation of women who’ve dealt with so much of that.'”

Oh Bob, you’re such a flirt!

And you totally bought into the idea of male sexuality as default, leaving any uniquely female needs or instincts completely unheeded. “In the book she also delves into what she calls ‘middle-aged sadness.’

“After one close friend takes her own life, she touches on the issue of suicide among women in their fifties – ‘If your life unravels in earlier decades, you can see a future. But in your fifties, if you’re suddenly single, you’ve not worked for years and your children have left home, then a crisis of identity hits.'”

Change Vs. Abandonment

This does sound like regret to me. Candace goes on to tell us how it’s passed now, that she’s back and better than ever. Admittedly, she doesn’t name the feeling she’s describing. And she has no real analysis of why she felt that way, or why she feels better after turning 60.

Running with the comparison she made, a mother knows before her children even exist that, someday, they will leave her. That’s the idea, really – You teach them how to live, then let them get on with it. A mother can plan for this inevitability, some of us even occasionally yearn for a day without interruptions.

Divorce is different – Your husband makes a vow, possibly in front of all your family and friends, to be with you through thick and thin, till the end. Marriage has become big business, but anyone who’s had one can tell you it’s impossible not to get a little swept up in the whole thing. We still do these ceremonies for a reason, after all.

Shock is understandable when a marriage ends. It’s not the same as spending a couple decades raising up children, who naturally look after themselves more and more.

Candace may not see the personal injustice in her situation but, as always, she’s more than ready to make it about sexual politics – “‘What is hardest about it is that when a woman, especially a woman over 50, has a hard time or things don’t go right for her, everyone blames her. It’s her fault. You didn’t do something right,’ she says, raising her voice.”

Yep, it’s called being a woman in a male-centric social system. Making a small fortune reinforcing it all these years gives her complaints a ring of petulance, and it’s easy to see why people jumped on that Mail headline.

Glamourous Passivity

Candace Bushnell has lead a generation of women down the primrose path to loneliness, and she has not learned a damn thing.

This must be where all those cocktails figure in!

She obviously absorbed some poisonous ideas in her youth, unwittingly demonstrating why her approach is a mistake: “Plus, she adds, youth and attractiveness can often get you what you want, and now those tools are waning – ‘So you feel like you no longer have agency in the world and can no longer be effective.'”

Candace literally measures her effectiveness in life by the response of men! Filtering it through Personal Empowerment branding only creates a Trojan Horse for patriarchy.

“‘But the interesting thing is almost everybody seems to get out of [the middle-aged sadness stage].”

‘I was sad and lonely – But it’s not because of my choices! And anyway, I’m fine now, also for no apparent reason!’ Her interpretation is very passive, especially for someone claiming to represent female liberation.

But she’s still so glamourous! “While in town she still goes out five nights a week – to parties, dinners, premieres.”

And maybe hipper, even – Get ready for Hipster Candace! “But New York is not what it was: ‘It’s a thousand times less fun.’ At the parties hardly anyone drinks, no one smokes, the people are no longer outrageous and everything has become corporate, she complains. ‘Everybody’s being watched.'”

Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Can we stop and address this apparent mass surveillance? Didn’t think so.

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Far more urgent to mourn the loss of Boomer idealism for the thousandth time, “‘Manhattan was a place where you came to be free,’ she says. ‘Everybody who did not fit in was here. People with dreams. And it wasn’t about money, it was about passion.'”

We’d all like make our passion our job, but most of us can’t pretend making a living isn’t about money, honey.

I feel this weight pressing down on me!

But rather than bite into any of the these meaty offerings, Ms. Pullman brings us the juicy deets of Candace’s new love life – “So what makes it work with her and Coleman?

“‘At this age you want someone to be nice, you don’t want someone who’s critical or demeaning.'” I have felt this way at every age!

But to avoid reflecting on whether this approach has anything to do with finding herself middle-aged and alone, these toxic ideas are framed as just the natural order of things: “‘It feels like when one is younger there can be this competition between partners. Maybe that’s part of the sexual attraction, but that kind of stuff just doesn’t work when you get older.’”

When does this stuff ever work?? Maturity brings the understanding that competing for dominance is not how you build a lasting relationship. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about.

Second Verse, Same As The First

The Times is no help here, that preppy aesthetic is just so shiny and distracting! “He has a home near hers in the Hamptons, where they spend their days playing tennis and going on long walks.” Sounds pretty good to me, but I’m sure Candace will find a way to reframe this to her disadvantage someday.

“’I think romance is something where you’re not in a rush to get to the end. It’s just about enjoying each other’s company. It’s doing things together.’” This may be the most constructive thing I’ve ever encountered from Candace. For the first and probably only time, I completely agree.

“Would she get married again? ‘I haven’t ruled it out. It’s funny that it’s somewhere in the back of your brain. It never goes away,’ says Bushnell, basking in the sunshine.”

It’s the simple things in life, don’t you think, Pussy?

It’s very like the urge to bask in the sunlight, to pause as we go about our lives and steal a moment of simple warmth. We can laugh at ourselves, remind ourselves of our dawn jog and regimen of vitamins, and go back inside. But the instinct remains, and the simple joy of a sunny day is so elemental it doubles as a universal artistic symbol.

Parenthood is similar. Existing independent of the sexual politics we pile on top of it, creating the next generation evokes deep instincts that our culture has no notion of. It’s safe to assume that not doing so eventually does, too.

Female Conditioning, Rebranded

I do feel a little sorry for Candace. Not only is there no social network to support her in anything other than enthusiastic rejection of maternity, there’s really no cultural framework in which to understand her struggle. If she did come right out and name her feelings, the shame would rain down from all sides.

Regret in general is frowned upon – We’re all living our best lives! Unless you’re caught up in a public shaming, expressing regret is seen as admitting defeat.

And Candace Bushnell admitting defeat would be news. It would be red meat for the culture vultures who circle feminism, plucking off the weak-minded. Because we have no way to understand the complex lives of older women other than to judge them.

Candace painted herself into a corner, but she’s made it so glamourous that other women still want to follow. She could be a strong voice for the truth about women’s lives, but she’s too dependent on her brand to ever admit she might have been wrong.

Candace’s shame reflects her female conditioning, and we must be unashamed. She will never learn anything, but we can begin the work of narrative-building. The current climate of clamping down only makes this more urgent!

Defy Your Conditioning

We’ve all used the anonymity of the online world to disguise our most distinguishing feature sometime, but one great thing we could do for ourselves is to just lay it out there. When participating in the public forum, don’t downplay your experience as a woman.

You mean I shouldn’t hide this??

Not to make everything about our sex, but the impulse is to downplay, disguise, disregard our thoughts or experience when they mark us out explicitly as female. There used to be an exception for Lady Things – Women’s Issues were thoroughly cordoned off from Serious Culture – And we don’t even get that anymore!

But maybe we could turn this to our advantage – Lacking any specialized spaces or resources doesn’t mean we don’t need to take care of business. We’re just gonna have to do it out in the open. And we’re gonna have to support each other.

I’m afraid Candace Bushnell can’t be helped. But women like her can serve as a good example of a bad approach. What I learned from this Times article is that it’s more important than ever not to let them dominate the conversation.

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Everyday Misogyny, Fight Despair Together Tagged With: Candace Bushnell, Capitalism, Carrie Bradshaw, Culture, Feminism, Motherhood, Parenting, patriarchy, Relationships, Self Care, Sex in the City, Women, Women's liberation, women's oppression

Gender Dysphoria Is Normal

December 11, 2021 by Brazen She

“Being a girl and hitting puberty is so traumatic.”

Can I just de-blume the blossom?

An anonymous Tumblr post expressed a common shame in simple words. It rippled through Gender Critical social media in the form of screenshots after the original post was quickly deleted.

Her spurt of stifled frustration struck a chord, breathlessly relating a firsthand account of female suppression: “You go from being a genderless little free thing to being hit with shaving and makeup and growing breasts and skincare and menstruation and suddenly being sexualized,

“When like a few years ago you could take your shirt off to play in the stream and trade cards with the boys and come home covered in mud and not even think about it.”

But eventually you realize everyone around you is thinking about it. Compliments focus on appearance or social skills, while questions often get uncomfortably personal. The sudden societal burden can combine with newly dawning self-awareness to create a perception of generalized critical observation.

Others have expectations you can’t meet, and a young person might not consider that those expectations are unreasonable. Especially when most people they know seem to be doing fine. Suppressing stories like this one furthers the myth that most girls are just fine with ‘femininity.’

“And then you spend years hating being a girl and hating everything puberty did to you and wishing you could be a boy or be completely genderless again and it takes you many years to come to terms with yourself,

“Or you simply try to Lean In to everything and do makeup tutorials on YouTube and claim it’s for fun. How can this be treated as normal?” This hatred-denial continuum seems to mimic the classic whore/virgin dichotomy, doesn’t it?

We’ve been over this a thousand times!

The bitter invocation of Cheryl Sandberg taps a deep well of bile from digesting many betrayals. Powerful women often become so by learning the boys’ game, which many of us are just not very good at. They join in the elite chorus of supposed meritocracy, clinging to their ego-driven narrative as tightly as any man.

Naturally, the framing of this as a Women’s Issue had to be squashed: “To be honest, this sounds like the kind of thing a transgender or non-binary person who is AFAB might feel once puberty hits. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that, but it’s just what comes to mind.”

This person admits to not knowing what they’re talking about, but feels free to weigh in on this young woman’s life. And irony and misogyny continue their slugfest for supremacy.

But there were some responses claiming more authority: “100% this. I am trans, and this is what dysphoria feels like.”

“This is gender dysphoria.”

Let’s assume, for a moment, that this is true. If gender is a social construct that’s imposed on us, it makes sense that a one-size-fits-all approach will cause some people issues.

“I suppose it could be. Is it also possible that cis kids could struggle with puberty?” A reasonable suggestion! Let’s see how they disregard it –

“Sure it is, and plenty of cis girls complain about how society’s perception of them changes and the pressure put on them to act a certain way increases. They don’t, however, spend years hating their bodies and never fully recover,” Thanks for the heads-up that you have absolutely no firsthand experience with this topic. Women’s body issues are their own cottage industry!

Ugh, I’m hideous!

“…looking back and wishing they had never gone through puberty and that they still looked genderless. OP is trans/nb, 99%.” Oh, right, I forgot gender is innate and springs forth from deep-seated personal essence. It’s so easy to get confused when they oscillate more than Brian Eno.

And, of course, someone stepped in to tell her what a weirdo she is: “Look, I agree puberty isn’t fun but this is not a normal reaction to it. The person who wrote this seems like they are probably trans or nonbinary. Most people (regardless of gender) struggle with some aspects of puberty but it doesn’t make the majority of us hate who we are/our gender.”

Struggling with sexual stereotypes is the basis for a lot of friction and static in women’s lives. Far from demonstrating a lack of womanhood, it may be the most common shared experience. It speaks to the shame surrounding it that this sensation was only recently named.

But someone else came right out and said what they were all thinking: Fresh meat! “Maybe you are just a boy/genderless? Plenty of cis women can probably relate to not liking gender stereotypes or oversexualization but cis women don’t hate being women lol”

Plenty of women hate sex stereotypes and still find joy in womanhood because we’ve learned not to take them personally. We understand that stereotypes are like Bigfoot – Lots of sightings but very little proof. We understand that our culture’s idea of what women are is generic and shallow, disconnected from the reality of our lives.

I hope the young woman who wrote this has found a more understanding audience, but I was glad to see it floating around. The more stories like this are shared, the more obvious it will become that ‘gender dysphoria’ is a normal part of growing up.

Leave me alone – Today I identify as wallpaper!

Individuality is our strength, but conformity makes us disposable. This is exactly how Patriarchy wants to see us, and normal mental development plays right into its hands.

Part of it is the shock of sudden self-awareness that strikes with puberty. Younger children are less conscious of how they are seen by others, dwelling blissfully in the warm glow of their own ego. Around the age of 12 or so, neurological development reaches the conceptualization of those same passions in everyone else. Suddenly the world is looking back at you, and just when you’re least prepared!

In the cataclysmic shifts of body and mind, chunks of once-established reality come into question. Social pressure can be one of few beacons of certainty.

The gender industry relies on these stories remaining shameful secrets. This young woman’s experience may be more extreme than some, but these commenters used women’s isolation in suffering to tell her she was alone. Divide and conquer. Rinse, repeat.

It’s normal and rational to get jetlag on the trip from subject to object. It’s painful to squeeze an entire human being into a shallow stereotype. If this is gender dysphoria, we all have it.

Sometimes all these layers feel so stifling!

Embracing this would defang it, robbing this discomfort of the power to overtake our psyches. Rejecting the stigma of failing to adhere to ‘feminine’ ideals is an important step on the road to liberation, and it would show young women that we all carry this burden.

Struggling as most women do doesn’t make you less of a woman, and we are stronger together.

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Found In The Wild, Queer Ideology Tagged With: Anxiety, children, Culture, Dysphoria, Feminism, Free speech, Gender dysphoria, Gender Ideology, Mental Health, patriarchy, Women, Women's liberation

Witches: The Heroine’s Journey

October 9, 2021 by Brazen She

“Magic is a female fantasy and a male nightmare.”

Did you know witches are human Rorschach tests??

The Witch has endured for millennia as a symbolic challenge to male supremacy. She represents our innate understanding of the power structure we live in, her different forms expressing our shifting feelings about Woman regaining her place on even footing with Man.

Magic was traditionally Woman’s purview – Our friends the Ancient Greeks, founders of Western civilization, worshipped a Goddess of Magic called Hecate. Hecate’s three faces are reminiscent of the traditional phases of a woman’s life – Maiden, Mother and Crone.

Kristen Leo rambles pleasantly for over 15 minutes before making the interesting observation that men and women tend to portray magic differently. She says of magical stories written by women, “magic is a medium through which characters can empower themselves and help others.”

Kristen points out that men’s depictions of magic focus on revenge and curses – “It’s really fascinating how often we see female empowerment, when it’s expressed symbolically through witchcraft, being perceived as a threat by the male psyche.” The evil witches of so many fairy tales show us men’s perception of women’s challenge to their authority.

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

Joseph Campbell famously distilled all of Myth and Legend into one storyline: The Hero’s Journey. In collating so many ancient tales, he managed to leave the female perspective out of his sweeping synopsis of symbolism entirely.

He did eventually realize he’d forgotten half of humanity, describing Her importance, “If the male is on top, and the female subordinate all the way, you have a totally different system from that when the two are facing each other.”

He wades into some pretty deep mystical waters, describing how we made sense of ourselves in the early days through symbolism: “Everything in the field of Time is dual – Past and future, dead and alive. They always come in pairs.

“Most of us put our minds on the side of the ‘good’ against what we think of as ‘evil.’ Put your mind in the middle. That’s to say, ‘I know the center, and I know that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are temporal apparitions.'”

It’s all relative, darling!

That is to say, on a deep level, we understand that our perception is not reality. But our perception is all we have to go on, so we struggle to express concepts that lay beyond it. Larger patterns and systems are described in broad strokes, the meaning lost as cultural understandings shift.

This is the crack that allowed male supremacy to creep in. Traditional philosophy tainted the ancient symbol of Woman as Lifegiver by declaring all Life sinful. You make life? Who wants that?? If I weren’t alive I’d be with God right now!

Woman’s embodiment of natural forces, her evident closeness to the life-giving Earth, was defanged for the purpose of harnessing and taming it.

“When A Woman Thinks Alone, She Thinks Evil.”

During the surge of development known as The Enlightenment, the infamous Witch Trials were a violent but symbolic reinforcement of Patriarchy. The power structure resorted to blood sacrifice to reestablish itself amid the chaos.

But that overcorrection was itself an admission of insecurity.

It took them quite a lot of effort to push us down, you see. Brutality is the classic method, but progressive civilization demands increasing decorum. Violent coercion is so barbaric! The assault became psychological – Every idea must be made consumable by Patriarchy or snuffed out.

Wit And Folly uses Star Wars as the standard modern telling of The Hero’s Journey. We’re reminded that Luke’s final act against his enemy is not revenge, but compassion for his dying father.

Joseph Campbell tries, in his own way, to impart that the two Journeys need each other, because their balance is the resolution of the human story.

But lately, most prominent women display a single-minded assertiveness traditionally used as shorthand for masculine greatness. We are told this is progress – The Witches are all good now, nothing to see here!

The Hero’s Journey wears a feminine mask, but the destination of the Hero’s Journey is compassion and deference – For Woman, this is a road to nowhere.

Finding Woman’s Road

Building on Campbell’s work, Maureen Murdock gave us The Heroine’s Journey – “Today’s heroine must utilize the sword of discernment to cut away the ego bonds that hold her to the past, and to find out what services her soul’s purpose.

“She must realize resentment toward the mother, put aside blame and idolization of the father, and find courage to face her own darkness.

“Her shadow is hers to name and embrace”

I just gotta be me!

In rejecting the passive role of subordinate, she learns to be assertive. Suppression of the Witch is to deny Woman her own Journey.

With And Folly also pulls from Navajo legend, where Woman (the Earth) speaks to the Sun, her lover: “Remember – as different as we are, you and I, we are of one spirit.

“As dissimilar as we are, you and I, we are of equal worth. As unlike as you and I are, there must always be solidarity between us. Unlike each other as you and I are, there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us.“

Our society is in a death spiral because, in his lust for power, Man villainized Woman and all she stands for – Even Life itself.

Dr. Campbell tells the story, “Whenever one moves out of the Transcendent, one comes into a field of opposites.” Woman, giver of Life, brings us into this world of duality, where we experience isolation and suffering.

But Old Joe is optimistic, “I think it’s a really childish attitude to say ‘No’ to life, with all its pain. To say, ‘this is something that should not have been.'”

Man remains a petulant child so long as he refuses to accept his own suffering. For most of history, he’s been determined to distract himself instead, through conquest or inebriation. Whatever he couldn’t forget, he blamed on Mommy.

You’ll always be my little boy…

The Witch Within

I recently asserted that the female mind does, in fact, exist. We tend to be caring, but sad. To me, this looks like the legacy of civilization strapping us to the birthing bed. But life in a female body creates a different perspective that’s sorely missed. Universal rejection of that perspective makes civilization into a death cult.

We need to recognize that Woman is not lesser. Women are not weak, and feminine traits don’t indicate weakness. The Hero’s Journey demonstrates over and over and over that compassion demands strength.

But he will never reach his destination until he accepts that the Heroine waiting there can’t be his subordinate. She is the Witch in all her liberated glory, enduring her own adventure to face him. She is the giver of Life, the inspiration of all his striving. And no amount of sky scrapers or oil rigs will change that.

The Witch is just Woman, the real one outside of Man’s head. If we are brave enough to sharpen our sword of discernment – our critical thinking – we can begin adding the Heroine’s Journey back into the human story. If each of us embarks on her own adventure, we can begin to regain some collective balance.

Summon your inner Witch – The world is counting on it!

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Feminism In Action, Women’s World Tagged With: Culture, history, Joseph Campbell, Kristrn Le, patriarchy, Personal Growth, Relationships, Wit And Folly, womanhood, Women, Women's liberation, women's oppression

Not Like Other Feminists

August 28, 2021 by Brazen She

The Internet can be a dangerous place, but the rabbit hole I fell down this week goes much deeper than I anticipated.

It all started with Abby Cox. She’s one of my favorite YouTubers, and she put the brakes on her whole video concept this week to address a glaring issue she found in her research.

You won’t believe this – Women are being undermined in media!

Girlhood As Internalized Misogyny

Abby is an historical costumer with several years in a living history museum under her belt. In comparing recent remakes of classic historical fiction to older productions, she noticed an uncomfortable trend: “I’m frustrated,” she tells us, “by the reliance on ‘Girly-Bad, Boy-Good’ clothing defaults that our feminist characters are shoved into!”

Abby focuses on Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, showing clips illustrating the recent masculinization of Jo and Anne. “In the 2019 version, we have Jo looking like she slept in a barn! And [she] is wearing distinctly masculine clothing on top, with just a skirt on the bottom.”

At first glance, this looks like historical costumers in film have lost the thread. 2019 Jo wouldn’t look out of place on a modern college campus, which a real Victorian lady certainly would!

But Abby’s impassioned pleas rang in my ears for days after I watched her video, bringing me back to a fight I’ve had with myself as long as I can remember.

I think we do a disservice to ourselves and everyone else who grows up female if we write off the Othered Girl without taking a long, hard look at her, and why she has been with us for long.

I’m Not Like The Other Girls

There’s something thrilling about boldly doing things women were forbidden from for centuries. For too many during Jo’s time, being Not Like The Other Girls got you committed. In later decades, there was a good chance you’d be lobotomized, too. The infamous case of Rosemary Kennedy is a late entry in a long tradition of ruthlessly crushing women who were just a little too smart.

It all starts to add up when you learn that ‘schizophrenia’ was once a catch-all for difficult patients.

This history may not play a direct role, but I think most young women go through this to some degree – The urge to hide your ‘girly’ hobbies or inclinations in order to be taken seriously. And, later, just to avoid being seen as an object.

I don’t think that we have come out on the other side of this yet, collectively. That we are still using masculine as shorthand for intelligent after 200 years shows just how suppressed women truly still are. And it’s also kind of embarrassing.

Can you still respect me, now that you know my shameful secret??

Other Girls Are Dumb

All things feminine are still routinely rejected and put down in our culture. Powerful female politicians cut their hair short and wear boxy pant suits – Like they’re admitting they don’t belong, and are trying to blend in!

Visual media has been flirting with pornography for ages, only recently making some self-conscious adjustments. So, instead of the Damsel In Distress, we see her reciting the Hero’s lines. As if there are only two options.

Music and fashion are even worse, the role of sex icon is assumed for women there. To challenge this is to play Russian Roulette with your career.

The overall message is very clear: Girly = Bad, Boyish = Good. The term ‘girly’ often just means ‘frivolous.’ ‘Girly girls’ are seen as shallow and vain, sometimes even evil!

If this tainted messaging were limited to high heels and tight skirts, there’d be nothing to talk about. But the ‘girly’ label extends to lots of things, many of them skills with roots in women’s history. Certain personality traits, even entire categories of emotion, have all been tagged ‘feminine’ and shunted to the margins of our culture.

Basically, anything patriarchy can’t use to generate wealth for itself is classified as a potential threat and squashed.

Even the lovely Miss Abby Cox – Who devotes the first three minutes of this video to Woke disclaimers – can feel the cringe: “As much as I love and appreciate the resurgence of historic costume dramas, I just want to beg the writers and designers to stop playing into this ‘Not Like Other Girls’ trope for the progressive female protagonist.

“It’s lazy! And harmful storytelling, with its implication that other girls are inherently not feminist.”

Here, Abby names the first problem with not being like other girls – It’s putting down others to lift yourself up.

What can I say? I learned from the best!

Women Are Men, And We’ve Always Been At War With Femininity

Little Women is about 40 years older than Anne of Green Gables, Louisa May Alcott publishing its first edition in 1868. In Alcott’s depiction of her era, Jo’s pursuit of an education and career made her Not Like Other Girls. We tend to see this as positive, because education is the great leveler.

Education enables you to see yourself as an authority in the world, and to question that of others. Male-oriented establishments of all stripes resist the education of girls to this day, sometimes with lethal force.

Abby tells us how the historical costume dramas she is upset about actually create many of our ideas about the past. Redressing the female heroines of the period as butches (Transmen??) projects our rejection of girly things backward onto them, creating the illusion of tradition. A false history.

And clothes are a really great example of how the subversion of women plays out. Fiber Arts Expert is a role women share across many times and places. We have often used this necessary, practical skill to our advantage. Our clothes are a means of self-expression, communication and advertisement. Even a lucrative career!

The advent of machine manufacturing in the 19th century enabled the male-oriented establishment to take this from us. More than that, we were enticed to give it up willingly with the promise of free time and effortless chic. The shift of mentality to the ‘modern’ lifestyle clinched the deal.

Sewing is frivolous now, too – Why spend time making something when you can just go to the store? Time is money, you know. Don’t you wanna get you some??

And another corner of women’s culture dies.

Just One Of The Guys

The second problem with Not Like Other Girls is that, yes, inevitably you are like other girls in some ways. Instead of just rejecting what we recognize as bullshit, we project these negative stereotypes onto other women.

It’s another indirect admission – Sure, women are shit. But I’m the exception!

Do you love me yet, Daddy??

Competition for men’s attention gets a lot of ink, but we ignore that men have the Home Court Advantage! Kissing their collective ass gets us access to the status they hoard. Taking on masculine social signals is the tip of the hat that says, ‘No challenge here!’

Everyone behaves as if it’s assumed that Woman Bad. This consistent drip-drip-drip demonization of the feminine plants a feeling of alienation in us when we engage in anything inherently female-oriented, sending us crawling out of our skins to avoid guilt-by-association. We feel relief when our femaleness is less highlighted, and powerful in men’s clothes.

But we can’t be men, and their methods don’t always work for us. And just as we began to ask, ‘What were our methods again?’, it became transphobic to talk about.

The stress seems to be getting to us, every forum I frequent is rife with paranoia. Rigidity is setting in, and factions are forming. Which is a damn shame, because I know I’m still working on my own self-loathing and internalized misogyny. Dealing with this shit alone is getting really old.

Occasionally, someone – Usually someone on her way out – will proclaim exasperation with the whole situation. She will marvel at how women turn on each other, ‘It’s almost like they don’t want to be liberated!’

But not me, I’m not like the other feminists!

Woops! Internalized misogyny strikes again. It’s really a pity no one is keeping score, because we’re gunning for the all-time record.

Holy shit Karen, I just wanted to borrow them!

It’s the ultimate divide-&-conquer strategy – Implanted in our own worldview, Woman Bad keeps us in line from within by keeping us insecure in ourselves and isolated from one another.

Life Finds A Way

There’s some life left in us – Our survival instinct has drawn us to gather, chipping at the edges with things like Believe All Women! But it’s going to take time to undo centuries of self-loathing. Small, stable communities are forming here and there, but we need a rallying point.

To achieve the liberation of women, we have to know who we’re talking about. Some women excel in the kind of achievements men are so fond of, but many of our talents lie elsewhere. Progress for feminism will begin with an honest re-assessment of who and what we are.

We are different from men. Denial of this simple fact has cost us dearly – So much that the male-oriented organizations of the world have finally deemed us irrelevant. Outdated. Woman Classic is out of production, and Woman 2.0 is already rolling off the assembly line.

We have enabled all of this by refusing to take ownership of own definition. If none of us is like the other girls, then who are girls, anyway? Patriarchy has lots of ideas.

Only we can speak up for us. If we’re not sure what to say, approaching each other with forgiveness would be a good place to start.

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Feminism In Action, Women’s World Tagged With: Culture, Feminism, Friendly Fire, history, Not Like Other Girls, patriarchy, Women's liberation, women's oppression

“If Cis Women Stop Wearing Makeup, I Will Never Pass”

July 24, 2021 by Brazen She

A powerful tool in our fight to preserve women’s rights may be staring us right in the face.

The answer was inside me all along!

It’s easy to take the obvious for granted, and confronting this social norm is a flashpoint for many of us.

But why is makeup mandatory? It’s obviously a holdover from older, stricter ideas of what women should be. What a corset does for the waist, contouring does for the face. And we all know it’s at least as bad for us.

I’m not going to lecture anyone about harmful chemicals or animal testing. There are plenty of other people more qualified to take on these very important issues.

I want to talk about Womanface, and how we begin taking back our identity.

In one of her many excellent videos, Vanessa Vokey spotlights an episide of a Jubilee video series called Middle Ground. Her featured episode showcases a diverse panel discussing makeup, the pressures, practices and their personal feelings.

Vanessa points out the clear double standard: “Both of the males, even though one is presenting as a man and one has altered his body to appear more like a woman, they still have basically the same attitude toward wearing makeup.

“And it’s almost a childlike attitude, this idea that putting on makeup is sort of like dress-up, putting on a costume, putting on a cape like a superhero would.”

Vanessa cuts to a woman who says she felt sorry for people having to see her bare face. Her cognitive dissonance is clear: “Makeup makes me feel very empowered and beautiful, but then I resent myself more when I take it off.”

Radical feminists in South Korea have it right: “I realized that the makeup and outfits [were] not my decision and I do not actually like it, so I choose to take off the corset.”

Their Take Off The Corset movement rebels against a culture of unattainable goals so intense, it’s driven some to take their own lives. Western culture is trending in similar directions, but circumstances have given us a moment to step back and ask ourselves if this is what we really want.

Hey, this wasn’t part of our agreement!

2020 brought many lessons, like how lipstick is completely pointless behind a mask. Foundation is invisible over Zoom and contouring looks heavy in bad light.

Masks aside, no one should be ashamed to show her natural face. We are pushed to conform and given short-term rewards if we do, but it’s time to coordinate for the long game.

Everyone everywhere has been forced to reevaluate our priorities at the same time, and we should take advantage of the chaos.

Through the new tears in the social fabric, we can glimpse strange new possibilities that were unthinkable even a few years ago. Maybe we can bring back cloaks. Maybe we can be more self-sufficient. Maybe the consumerism we were raised with is toxic bullshit.

Makeup is a multi-billion dollar industry that supports child labor, which Vanessa also covers. If we all abandon it together, we can hit capitalism and the trans movement at the same time!

It would be so simple to demonstrate that women are whole individuals. Female impersonators of all shades rely on us perpetuating the impersonal stereotypes that they steal.

If enough of us stop adhering to the standard, it’s no longer standard. Normalize your real face. Peoples’ perceptions will adjust. Challenge them to see you as you are.

The Bareface Challenge is especially harrowing for those of us who like our War Paint, but you only feel naked until life distracts you. You don’t need the Painted Veil to be presentable.

Let your presence as a woman in the world speak for itself. It’s something no man can imitate or own.

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Feminism In Action, Queer Ideology Tagged With: Culture, Feminism, Gender Ideology, Makeup, patriarchy, radical feminism, trans rights, women's rights

Tempest In The Wi Spa: A Case Study In Mass-Gaslighting

July 17, 2021 by Brazen She

“If you are concerned with other people’s genitals, that is a *you* problem.”

As if we could have one conversation that doesn’t somehow come back to your dick!

So concludes a response to women’s discomfort with men in our spaces. This was the first justification I saw trotted out in the aftermath of the Wi Spa viral video. Since then, the narrative has hopped from victim-blaming to saying the incident was staged, and finally to insisting OP made the whole thing up!

The latest coverage in the Los Angeles Blade wants to be conclusive: “Anonymous sources within the LAPD tell the Blade they have been unable to find any corroborating evidence that there was a transgender person present on that day.”

“Treatment at the Spa is by appointment only, and a source at the Spa told the Blade there’s no record of any of its usual transgender clients on its appointments guest list on the day in question.”

But I hear so many of them pass so well! Maybe no one noticed, right?

“Cubaangel’s Instagram account is almost exclusively Christian memes, which begs the question why she chose to go to a spa well known for being LGBTQ friendly.” This doesn’t neccessarily follow. Some people cite their Christian faith as their motivation for being more tolerant – imagine, following Jesus’ example! And this woman lives in LA, not exactly a conservative town.

But her religion and her failure to film inside a nude sauna means we can disregard the whole thing. “No transgender person can be seen, and no other witnesses have come forward to confirm the allegations made.”

To obscure the very similar and more detailed story another woman wrote in 2018, the Blade throws the link to her complaint in here: “It’s also not the first time Wi Spa has been targeted for catering to transgender people.”

Let’s see what ‘catering to trans people’ meant in 2018.

“I would give this place five stars a week ago but…. Last night I had the most disturbing experience in the women’s locker room.

“Upon checking in, the clerk advised us that “there was a transgender male in the women’s locker room” … Ok… No problem, I’m not the type to discriminate people, but once in the women’s area, I saw the mentioned “transgender” individual naked in all his glory, and he still had a male organ hanging there…ok…no fuzz… That surgery is very expensive

“Anyways, so I go on my routine and I get to the shower room, he was almost next to me showering too when I start to overhear hearing the conversation that he is having with a lady that was also in the shower area.

“I clearly heard him say that he has had sex with probably one hundred women and that he was looking for a female girlfriend to share his time with…. He also mentioned that he uses cocaine and LSD to “relax” … Ok…not my business what he uses to relax…”

This woman wrote this in a Tripadvisor review, and doesn’t mention informing the police. The man in her story acts totally inappropriately, but his behavior just triggers the No True Trans subroutine in her programming.

I feel a presence watching me!

“But hey, a transgender person does not act like a guy around women nor they state how much they like women nor how much they like having sex with them! This guy is Not transgender, he seems to be just a “pervie” and given his accent he is from another country, Europe I believe.”

Oh yeah, those dirty Europeans, amirite? American snobbery aside, this man’s bad manners are what qualifies him as male in her eyes.

“I heard from other ladies there that he goes there quite often.” They must feel like the luckiest ladies in LA!

“I have nothing against gay people or transgender etc. but every gay guy I know uses the men’s locker rooms when in the spa.” Most female impersonators are straight, just twisted.

“Management said that according to the Law there was nothing they could do.” And this is where we find ourselves in 2021. “Yes, they can reserve their right to provide services to anyone, that’s not against the law. They can deny entrance to this person based on his behavior, not on his gender.”

How exactly this Picasso portrait of the Marquis du Sade doesn’t get him the boot I can’t quite wrap my head around. Our intrepid author has a hard time with it, too.

“I enjoy going to the Wi Spa and it is not fair to me or other women to be put in this position where you basically have to leave the Spa because you feel uncomfortable in such situation. I wouldn’t have minded the situation at all if that guy was really transgender, but obviously he is not.” Because transgender people are all delicate flowers!

But isn’t gatekeeping transphobic?

“I’m concerned about my safety and the safety of other women in the spa.” TERF! “Like I said, I wouldn’t have minded if he was really truly transgender, and preferably without that wig he took off to wash…

Oh for fuck’s sake. That man had no right to make those women watch that.

“This is a call to the owners of the Spa to protect their valued customers, thank you.” They have apparently less than zero interest in doing this.

And the Blade has no interest in objectivity: “After the alleged, unconfirmed incident, Wi Spa was deluged with 1-star Yelp! and Trip Advisor reviews.” Oh, the humanity! This writer takes great pains to downplay any possibility of such a thing having ever happened, anywhere, ever.

But if this is what qualifies as ‘catering to transgender people,’ it’s obvious why women are upset!

Unfortunately for us, since white nationalists are also angry about the trans movement for their own reasons, no woman has any reasonable objection, ever. “The video quickly made the rounds in far-right, and Trans-Exclusionary Feminist (TERF) sites. Anti-trans ‘feminist’ websites like Mumsnet, Ovarit, and Spinster were sharing content by far-right provocateurs known for disinformation, like Ian Miles Cheong, by June 27^th.”

The shoutout is nice (complete with links!) but I spend probably too much time on Ovarit and ‘TERF’ Twitter and have no idea who this person is.

However, a few prominent feminists have been getting chummy with the right, home to fundamentalists of every flavor. In a game with only two teams, falling out with liberals doesn’t make flirting with conservatives suddenly a good idea.

He says he’ll keep me warm!

Because those people are still nuts! When a suspect in the latest incident was floated, the worst elements took aim: “She received multiple death threats and harassment, including a picture of a masked man brandishing an assault weapon threatening to shoot her.”

And this is where hanging with conservatives comes back haunt us. The picture and accompanying caption are terrifying, a lot like things I have received from self-appointed TERF-hunters. The line between Mainline Republican and Conservative Nutjob has been washed away in wave after wave of corruption and pandering. Is this who we want to be seen with??

“All of this fits into an emerging pattern of the alt-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists,” Woa, where did this come from? I have dug into how they connect the dots from radical feminists to white supremacists, but the logic is strained and this reference comes out of nowhere.

And our Blade writer runs with it. “Violent far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the religious right, and anti-trans ‘feminists’ are collaborating and coordinating as they share the same media streams.”

As evidence for this, the Blade links to a Dame Magazine article, The Far-Right And Anti-Trans Movements: An Unholy Alliance. This in-no-way-clickbait title heads a pile of interesting data points, such as, “violent white nationalists are separate from, but adjacent to, the Christian right.” I think we’ve all seen enough evidence in the past year’s news cycles that they are two sides of the same coin. They’ve been pretty blatant about it for a while now.

Then there’s this chestnut: “At the 2017 Values Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council, Meg Kilgannon outlined the religious right’s plan to co-opt anti-trans feminist groups, and use their feminist-sounding language to seem more secular while hiding the true motivation behind their animus.”

This is an unflattering paraphrase of a mutual agreement. But has it ever occurred to us that the religious right are not coming into this blind? Those who tend the flame of Colonialism are not the simple folk they present themselves as.

Considering how anti-religion radical feminism is, and its absence from pretty much all radfem spaces, it doesn’t seem like this has had much internal, practical effect. But when the opposition stubbornly refuses to look into things, optics become vital to communication.

Back to the LA Blade: “Rhetoric against transgender people in popular right-wing media like Fox News has grown both more frequent, and more extreme. In April, Tucker Carlson (who serves as a gateway to the far right) declared that transgender people are a threat to the “perpetuation of the species.”

Tucker Carlson’s populist gibberish is only a gateway to anything if you pretend he’s not heir to the Swanson’s Frozen Foods fortune. And it’s recently come out that he’s a well-known source for dirt on his colleagues, apparently an open secret among reporters.

Snitches get stitches, right Tucker?

Most of the radfems I know are leftists, and not the kind of person who watches Fox News.

But the LA Blade quotes Dr. Joe Mulhall, head of research at the UK’s anti-extremist watchdog group Hope Not Hate, “If you talk about trans issues it opens the doors to the mainstream.”

Who knew you could run a watchdog group from under a rock? Fox may have the best ratings in cable news, but that’s the penthouse of a burning building.

Feminists appearing on right-wing platforms to defend women’s existence only to be undermined and reinterpreted shows how the left has abandoned us. These days, speaking up against anything Trans is the fastest way to lose your job, your friends and even family members.

Still, Dr. Joe insists, “The far-right are saying things they know will be echoed in the comment pages of the right-wing press.”

Plenty of things in this situation are still confusing, not least of which is this comment. Since when is there a right-wing press? What happened to the liberal media??

Rich governments, Amazon, The New York Times, The LA Blade, the World Health Organization, The Olympics, GLAAD, libraries and school boards and the stuffy old BBC are all behind this. Still, they see enemies everywhere.

Regardless of right or left, things are moving forward quickly: “Flyers are circulating online advertising a second protest against Wi Spa on July 17^th. “

Hey, that’s today! Police are mobilizing to prevent a repeat of last time, and I’m still not convinced that the first protest wasn’t a TERF trap.

But we can all look forward to continuing unbiased coverage in the LA Blade: “Robert Lansing is a pseudonym for a long-time investigative trans researcher and writer-journalist.”

I have my own biases, of course, but sharing a sex phenotype with half the planet is not a mental illness. Biases born of material reality are stubborn things. They don’t stop being true just because you don’t like them.

Such as women’s objection to males in our private spaces.

“It does not matter AT ALL if the person peeing next to you is doing so with a penis. If you are concerned with other people’s genitals, that is a *you* problem.” How we wish this were true! Right ladies?

If only the world were perfect!

It would be wonderful not to worry whether any men were around. To just go about our business and pay them no mind. What bliss!

But of course, we’d have to be ignorant of all of human history. How men decided their penis was a weapon and wielded it to terrible effect. How they systematically raped us, locked us up as broodmares, and killed many who disobeyed.

Ignorant of how, to this day, night jogging is not a good idea. How the leading cause of death for pregnant women is murder. How ‘rough sex’ is a common defense for it.

To suddenly insist that an uninvited penis is not a flashing neon warning sign is to deny the entire history of civilization. And the most ambitious gaslighting play of all time.

Filed Under: Politics, Queer Ideology, Women’s World Tagged With: Culture, Feminism, Gender Ideology, misinformation, patriarchy, Politics, right-wingers, trans rights, Wi Spa, women's rights

Feminism Really Does Need Moms, Though

March 13, 2021 by Brazen She

The pandemic has demonstrated how little has actually changed for women.

I think I might be lost!

We spent the past year getting used to being at home. Many lost their jobs, or quit to take care of the kids. Many more soldiered on, playing Mom, Wife and Worker on a single, ramshackle set. Meanwhile, Joe Biden executive-ordered us out of legal existence.

Adding insult to injury, #NotAllMen refuses to go away.

The response #TooManyWomen was pretty satisfying, but it exposed some confusion in the feminist conversation.

How Many Men?

“No one is saying that it’s all men,“ wrote one commenter, “so we don’t need to say ‘not all men.’“

But I have seen plenty of women saying this. Some of them are pretty casual about it, even labeling themselves misandrist in so many words. How exactly one side is unaware of the other I’m really not sure.

Out of one side of our mouths, we bitch about all the handmaidens and how brainwashed they must be. Then we meet suggestions for broad action with disdain and male-bashing out the other.

I get it, of course. It’s not hard to understand how rage pickles into bitterness. It would be so easy to hate men, the mind reeling from trauma lurches for easy categorization. I’ve been screwed with and over by my fair share.

But cultivating personal agency isn’t victim-blaming.

Maybe you’re familiar, but I recently heard that when you’re pointing the finger at someone, three fingers point right back at you. Women have our own role in things. When we own that is when things begin to change.

#TooManyPeople Have Victim Complexes

If you carry that common female bitterness, what happens if you do have a son? How many disinterested moms sow fertile ground for anger towards women? Sad to say I have known a few.

I’ve seen it said that all violence is committed by men, who are soulless, callous beasts. Really. And there’s no point in trying to get through to beasts.

But you love an eye for an eye, remember? Don’t be so dramatic!

And they will play into it – Imagine having a Get Out of Jail Free card, and the temptation to use it! Patriarchy’s pandering has made men weak-willed.

But let’s remember how they love to brag about their accomplishments! With all their crowing, they don’t get to turn around and pretend to be stupid.

Seems to me most men are pretty badly mentally ill. Suppressing 90% of your emotions will do that to a person. I don’t see how we can just demand that every individual get better. One thing about mental illness is you often don’t realize you have it. And when so much of your world is similar, it’s easy to miss just how fucked up it all is.

Which is not to excuse them, but are we actually trying to solve anything? Or are we just riffing here?

This is important because, lest we forget, most women are straight! And most of us will have kids.

Mommy Blogs Or Marx?

Regardless, I’m pretty tired of this fantasy of a woman-only world. Women-only groups? Camps? Businesses? Hell yeah!

But a woman-only world would be unsustainable. It would make our lives easier and solve nothing.

As a straight woman, I have dealt with this stuff for years. The only workable solution I have come up with is to insist they behave like human beings.

I’ll call them out, and if they don’t get with the program they will be without my company. Simple as that.

On the other hand, I’m American and kind of a bitch. I understand this approach may not work for everyone.

I have worked hard to teach my sons empathy since they were little. Empathy and boundaries. This includes helping them establish their own. I have a theory they go hand-in-hand. Reaching out to others requires a place to reach from.

Don’t make me go in there, it’s a disgusting mess!

But it’s easy to preach parenting generalities. I have seen so many mothers either deep in patriarchy, too stressed to think straight, or both. Feminism has left mothers unsupported for ages, leaving it to conservatives to indoctrinate the next generation.

That sure is going well!

This seems to be an unpopular opinion. Marxists are the only ones talking about how childbearing is still a huge burden on us. Their solution, however, is to take our children from us. The ‘nuclear family’ is just a prison! You should be free… to work for the State!

I support separatists, but it’s just not feasible for all of us. And I’m not sure either option supports the future of the species.

Amazingly, I still have yet to find an alternative that isn’t brutally destructive to current structures. Replacing one form of cruelty with another isn’t progress.

I’m Tired of Complaining! What Can We Do??

It’s a high hill to climb, but I refuse to give up on my sexuality or the future of humanity. Women have to pull together and demand better. Teach our sons better.

Pick our mates better. Female Dating Strategy is so important and, frankly, revolutionary in their determination to serve women’s best interests instead of just telling us how to get men. This is exactly the kind of thing we need. A lot of those women will go on to be mothers and raise their kids with the ideas and attitudes that have succeeded for them.

Thanks for the illumination, sister!

We have to think about this on a long timescale. Your friendly neighborhood misogynist won’t live forever.

These kinds of attitudes don’t change overnight, but look at what’s already been done! Remember, just 150 years ago it was commonly accepted in our society that educating girls was a waste of time. Now we outnumber them in higher education.

The pushback is so strong because we have come so far! Our granddaughters deserve the opportunity to build on this legacy. We can’t let our leg of the relay be remembered as a giant backslide.

Mother As Leader

I think activating this quick route to real change would send feminism into overdrive. Every successful ideology in history has known you have to get them while they’re young! Why not leverage this for good for once??

While the conscious mind may rebel against what we were taught, we all know how pernicious the messages implanted during early childhood are. The man may build the house, but his mother is responsible for the foundation. Certain attitudes ingrained in childhood never leave us.

Men need to care. We like to forget that we can’t really do this Humanity thing without them.

But I keep being told mothers aren’t that important. A mental block seems to stop us from seeing Mother and Child clearly.

Everyone has a mother, even men. She is almost everyone’s first teacher and has an opportunity to shape the mind of a child like no one else. How exactly this isn’t a potential operative over every male born I just don’t understand.

Science keeps telling us how vital early experiences are. Viewed through a feminist lens, this is an amazing opportunity. We should do everything we can to give them empathy and boundaries. It might not be all men, but it could definitely be fewer!

And I’m gonna keep poking at this, because I think it’s inevitable – Feminism can only ignore the keystone of women’s oppression for so long.

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Family, Feminism In Action, Marriage, Millennial Women Rising, Motherhood, Parenting, Relationships, Self Care, Unpopular Opinion, Women’s World Tagged With: Culture, Feminism, Motherhood, Parenting, patriarchy

Moms and Feminism Need Each Other

January 29, 2021 by Brazen She

I think men convinced themselves women were just a little too stupid for all those centuries, so they wouldn’t have to face what they had done to us.

Thanks for bringing me to this swell movie, Gary!

Exploiting a natural weakness to strip an intelligent, self-aware person of their individuality, and put them to work for the benefit of others – Well, that would be pretty evil. One might be tempted to empathize with such a person, to imagine what it’s like to let go of any thought of personal achievement.

To have no dreams, plans, or hobbies of your own. That’s a miserable existence for any mildly intelligent person, without some serious brainwashing.

But, then, those women were always told they’d never amount to much. Women’s Liberation came about after Enlightenment thinkers (Read: Men) decided an educated mother was a better mother. Suddenly young women got to dream, but only for a few years. Marriage was still the only serious goal.

My generation? We were told we could Have It All – A kickass career, a loving husband, smart kids, a beautiful home and a tight ass – We just had to work a little harder. Never mind that at least two of these are full-time jobs. You’re gonna need at least two jobs to keep that house, anyway…

My daughters are being told that womanhood is a feeling.

The dirty truth, of course, is that a woman birthed every person on Earth. Many of them died in the process. Most of them bear physical scars, and psychological ones are common. All of them were extremely uncomfortable or seriously inconvenienced at least once.

All so humanity could carry on. A job so vital, no able-bodied woman is truly eligible for anything else!

Sorry, I can’t learn to fly today, I have too much work to do!

But to keep us all there, we had to be held down. Mothers are simultaneously the most important and the least important people in the world. Both a precious resource and totally ordinary, whichever undermines us more effectively.

And it doesn’t really matter, because we don’t have much to say. We’re too busy juggling hats. When women do speak, it’s seldom as A Mother – We have been taught not to identify with that aspect of ourselves, or risk being disqualified from life.

Ironic, since mothers give life.

This is our biggest mistake – Motherhood is both our greatest power and our moment of weakness. The modern, rational mind isn’t interested in mystical contradictions, but we ignore this at our peril.

And children are not just babies. That moment of weakness is followed by at least a decade of preoccupation. Of living two lives simultaneously. Of knowing that, when that cry goes up, your feet better hit the floor because you’re the one on-call 24/7.

Of missed deadlines and internal conflict. Of dumping energy into running two minds – Mommy and Boss Bitch. There’s not as much overlap as you might think.

And moms will never unite and rise up, because we don’t see ourselves as a group. To stand up and be counted is to admit we ought to be at home. And women will never be free.

We may be freed from motherhood, as artificial wombs become a reality. But if freedom hinges on giving up mothering, we will have paid with a precious piece of ourselves. We will have admitted that being free means being like men.

With the majority of women isolated, the only route to liberation will continue to be rejection of men altogether. Straight women cast as sleeping with the enemy, rather than those with the most at stake in the battle of the sexes.

Each of us sits in a corner of her kitchen wiping lonely tears, because she doesn’t know she is legion. We struggle to be Secretary and Cheerleader and Sex Goddess and Boss Bitch and Housekeeper and Cook, never mind who we are!

When does my vacation start?

We grope for the support no one can give us. The support that should be there – The network of mothers that raised our ancestors for thousands of years.

The network that has been destroyed by centuries of putting women In Our Place – A case of slander so intense, the insecurity driving it is obvious.

Men of influence fear women’s power because their precious dominance depends on installing a worthy heir. We are the doorway to the future. We are the biggest, most influential group in the world.

But not if we don’t know it.

Motherhood is the doorway all of us pass through, in one direction or the other. We don’t need to agree on parenting styles, we just need to stand up and be counted. The strength in our numbers will shake the world.

Filed Under: Family, Feminism In Action, Fight Despair Together, Women’s World Tagged With: Feminism, Motherhood, mothers, Networking, patriarchy, radical feminism, women's oppression

Jesus Is Not Your Friend

December 17, 2020 by Brazen She

There has been some confusion lately regarding radical feminism and Christian conservatives.

It dawned on me recently why it’s all so hard to clear up on our end. But, once in a while, I meet a liberal Christian.

Sure, he’s a sweet talker, but wait till you hear what he’s done!

Liberal Christians are the ones who try to square believing what Jesus said – About the meek inheriting the earth and all that – with what their religion actually teaches.

They’re the ones who will slip into a loud whisper while reminding you that Jesus hung out with lepers, prostitutes and losers. The huddled masses yearning to breathe free were kinda his thing, really, and if someone tried to convince me the US was a Christian nation on those grounds, I might listen.

Regardless how you feel about him, Jesus was still a man. The faith has always been run by men and they have not wasted words letting us know how they feel about us, BC or AD.

“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man, she must be quiet.” – 1 Timothy 2:11-12

When exactly should I stop giving my son advice? His first chin hair? Graduation? High school, or college? When exactly does someone become an adult these days? I’m 37 and still waiting.

It doesn’t matter anyway, this religion is not interested in anything we have to say: “If they will learn anything,” Oh, I see what you did there, “let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” – 1 Corinthians 14:35

I sure hope the bathroom is easy to find…

Despite low expectations, I was surprised how much material I found. There’s even BiblicalGenderRoles.com, a fascinating blog by a lay preacher that’s the most informative train wreck imaginable. Just in case there’s still any confusion after all these years about what they expect of us.

He would never hurt me, he’s such a pussy cat!

It’s more of the same. Jesus is not our friend.

Testifying for bills we support, or accepting media slots when no one else will let us speak, is as far as any of us should go. Ongoing alliances give energy to one group of people it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to call oppressive.

If we align ourselves with them in any material way, we will regret it. Jesus is not our friend, and most people don’t actually listen to him, anyway. I appreciate the few who do, y’all should get a different name for yourselves.

Call it whatever you want, modern religion was founded on controlling women and only pays lip service to making amends. So a female priest can recite for me the ultimate princess fantasy – All I really need is the right man, and his name is Jesus.

I believe what we need doesn’t exist yet, in so many ways. We’re not going to get there by running back into the waiting arms of the most famous patriarch in the world.

Filed Under: Inner Growth, Self Care, Unpopular Opinion, Women’s World Tagged With: christianity, Feminism, jesus, patriarchy

Why Do Men Run the World?

July 11, 2019 by Brazen She

The film begins with a man in a kitchen. It’s the scene of a revolution, he says, where men and women are renegotiating the human power balance.

This isn’t what I meant by ‘holding hands’!

When you don’t get much time to sit and read, a good documentary can be the greatest thing.

I found one that really pulls it all together. And it’s over 25 years old!

Dr. Gwynne Dyer is another new name to me. He’s getting up there these days but still maintains an active publishing and speaking career. He even has a Twitter.

He’s a journalist and historian who’s taken his education and experience and synthesized a unique perspective. He uses it to spell out the origins of Patriarchy.

He explains why it first emerged and how it’s become an outdated handicap.

Filmed in 1992, the backdrop of the inaugural festivities of President Bill Clinton provides its starting example of The State. Militarized, hierarchical.

Then he takes us all the way back to the cave times. Hunter-gatherer societies were different depending on their circumstances. Some were warlike boys’ clubs, but others were egalitarian.

Dr. Dyer tells us that, before agriculture, there is little evidence of one sex being considered superior. Then with the advent of farming – “probably invented by a woman” – men suddenly lost their role.

A Men’s Revolution

During the village time, the members of the village discussed things and came to a consensus of how things would be. But women oversaw the homestead.

What can I say? I make things grow!

Fertility goddesses reigned supreme. Hunting was no longer necessary, and men took a back seat. He tells us archeologists find 100 female fertility figures for every one male figure from this period.

But perhaps most gut-wrenching of all was that, at the birth of the concept of Wealth, a man’s property was passed to his sister’s child when he died, not his own.

You might not know who a child’s father is, but you always know who the mother is.

Dr. Dyer tells us about “the makings of a revolution, ….so old it’s not in the history books.” Men took over and spent thousands of years taming the power of female sexuality.

As agricultural villages coalesced into nation-states, a full quarter of the early Mesopotamian laws were restricting what women could do.

Huda Lutfi taught history at the American University of Cairo in 1992. She had many amazing things to say in this film. She was studying women in Medieval Islam, which meant reading between the lines.

Women in Medieval Islam are invisible. They wrote nothing and left no records. She says she knows what they were doing by what the scholars wanted them to stop doing.

Why Would Our Men Do This to Us?

Why did men, who basically cared about their mothers and wives and sisters and daughters, cooperate in such a scheme?

As civilization became bigger and more complex, tyranny was the only way to keep everyone together. Ruling by terror was the only way to communicate to the masses.

Dr. Dyer shows us how the great pharaohs’ tombs are surrounded by hundreds of other graves belonging to servants and slaves. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Welcome to civilization.”

How could you do this to me, Babe??

Defending Their Country Gave Men Status.

These men who stepped up to fight other aggressive men offered men in general a much-needed status boost.

“Sure,” says Dr. Dyer, “you’ll have to obey us but you’ll have control over your women. And your property will go to your sons when you die.”

And Patriarchal religions tied it all together, the Universe a perfect hierarchy with God at the top. Then man, then woman.

The tyranny necessary to create and defend a nation is fueled by soldiers. If women have freedom, the birth rate drops because babies are a lot of work. And women develop other interests.

Reducing women so our only place in society is childbearing is how you get enough soldiers to win.

“Men Were Never Oppressed.”

Dr. Dyer tells us how global mass communication is chipping away at “the old ways.” Global culture is, by its very nature, more cooperative. More feminine, I suppose, if only by virtue of women participating at all.

One thing that hits me that Dr. Dyer doesn’t really dwell on is, “men were never oppressed.” When women have freedom we don’t use it to lock men away. A woman-lead society is a more equal society.

I believe part of this is because of innate differences in perspective. The interconnectedness of people can be a brutal force in your life when you make people with your body.

And when that body and the world remind you of this possibility incessantly.

Patriarchy Will Fall

A record number of women were elected to Congress in 1992. One of them was Elizabeth Furse from Oregon. She tells the story of taking the group picture on the steps, she was at the top, in the back.

Just in time, two white men stepped in front of her. “There’s no me, it’s almost like I’m not there.”

Above the pageantry of the 1992 inaugural parades, Dr. Dyer tells us that Patriarchy is slowly collapsing.

“After 5,000 years, Patriarchy is not just in our institutions, it’s in our heads. But it is not in our genes.

“The problem is not ‘human nature,’ it’s that mass societies are still trapped inside the ancient machine they built thousands of years ago, to deal with the problems of thousands of years ago.

Just stay right there, okay, cutie? You know, forever.

“The machine called Patriarchy was the only way to run an early mass society. It was refined into both a killing machine and a breeding machine as the early mass civilizations started fighting one another. And we conquered the whole planet with it.

“But now, our weapons have become so destructive that we can no longer afford to fight major wars. And we don’t actually have to live in patriarchal dictatorships anymore. Mass communication means that we can be democratic.

“Patriarchy no longer makes sense as an institution.”

From Soldier To… Daddy?

As a white man and military historian, he has no ax to grind here. I think this makes his words that much more insightful.

He leaves us in the kitchen where we began, saying men and women are renegotiating the most fundamental human partnership. He offers this as reason for hope.

He doesn’t specify what partnership he means but, as he shares a bite with a little girl in the final shot, the meaning is clear.

Reproduction and raising the next generation is both the biggest burden and the biggest opportunity we have to impact the future. In modern times, women have asserted our rightful place of power in the system.

We don’t want to enslave men. We want our reproductive capacity to not be weaponized against us.

Dr. Dyer’s hopeful tone stands out to me because many of us are good at pointing out where Patriarchy fails us, but so few have an inkling where we are going from here.

He leans into snark a few times, making his own feelings clear: Patriarchy is on the way out, and everyone will benefit. Just as a natural result of the evolution of society.

This information should be everywhere. It should be in children’s books and kitchen conversations.

Understanding our past will enable us to consciously create a better future. So few of us have any real understanding of the causes or the effects of the societal structure we live in. We tend to take it for granted (or even claim it doesn’t exist!)

We can’t afford to go stumbling into the future without a strong understanding of ourselves.

Watch the movie, it’s less than an hour long. It explains everything.

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Fun Facts, Marriage, Women’s World Tagged With: Culture, Feminism, Gwynne Dyer, history, Parenting, patriarchy, Relationships, Women, women's oppression

Brazen She