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out child sexuality about 50 years at this point there was little to be said on the topic between the two of us halberstam engages in the justification of child sexual abuse and calls those who object to the practice out of touch i admit that my conversations on this matter left me feeling thoroughly disgusted there s more to say about gaga feminism as an at best ineffective and at worst dangerous piece of so called feminist literature for example the book states that we don t need to have an end goal in mind with our activism so long as we focus on the process a gaga feminism does not need to know and name the political outcome of its efforts more important is to identify the form that transformative struggle should take p 137 this is obviously no help at all to those struggling with poverty sexual exploitation or even workplace discrimination to fight for abortion rights for example we must have a plan and execute it the transformative struggle so to speak is worth bollocks if it doesn t secure our rights for us this book has a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of feminism which is to liberate women from oppression halberstam s fatalism comes out in the following passage which takes as a given that feminists will lose gaga feminism is the ideology that motivates the queen in the chess match as the queen you can make big moves bold moves aggressive moves you can do damage take others out move at will you will also have everyone gunning for you coming for you following you you will go down but in the words of lady gaga don t be a drag just be a queen p 147 at this point the book seems to be seeking teenage level approval valorizing our pop music choices and framing our individual lives as feminist battlefields while ignoring structural inequalities the importance of activist movements and real solutions for women gaga feminism is a book that justifies child sexual abuse and has no conception of power relations or the purpose of political movements it is being taught in several colleges which is incredibly worrying this book is anti feminist propaganda the author judith jack halberstam filed under uncategorized tagged with 3rd wave feminism csa feminism feminist literature gaga feminism incest judith jack halberstam judith levine pedophilia prudes queer theory review of gaga feminism rhetorical questions so called feminist literature susan faludi twitter what did you think about gaga feminism redefining realness by janet mock a book review april 18 2014 1 comment my latest post on liberation collective check it out liberation collective janet mock author of redefining realness janet mock is a transwoman author who has strong opinions on gender and the sex industry shared in this memoir mock discusses many topics but this review will cover five essentialism the term cis the term fish hormone blockers for children and the sex industry view original post 3 081 more words filed under uncategorized a short word on valentine s day february 14 2014 2 comments valentine s day heteronormative bullshit is so dangerous it teaches women that love is more important than boundaries self confidence and self preservation it tells us that our intelligence our goals and our health are less important than whether we ve secured a man to manifest his value through us it tells women to stay in unfulfilling or abusive relationships because their self worth is best realized in relation to subordination to a man it tells us to ignore our partner s bad behavior his lack of attention to housekeeping or the kids his occasional use of woman hating propaganda aka pornography and his selfish sexual practices because at least we ve snagged a man i know railing against valentine s day is cliche and i actually wasn t going to but another instance of love conquering all has come to my attention and it is so sad to see women being told that giving up their safety and their values for the sake of having a dude around is a good bargain hey you women out there happy i don t need a man day filed under uncategorized tagged with anti porn anti valentine s day are you a feminist what about valentine s day can i celebrate valentine s day and still be a feminist feminism feminism and valentine s day feminists unite i hate valentine s day and i m not even single lol misandry mra bait no one needs a man patriarchy and valentine s day patriarchy hurts what should single people do on valentine s day what s wrong with valentine s day sweetening the pill january 31 2014 13 comments holly grigg spall s book sweetening the pill does an amazing job uncovering the harmful effects questionable history and medicalized misogyny of hormonal birth control hbc she points out that both the pharmaceutical industry and modern third wave feminism have downplayed the harms of hbc and have equated use of the pill with liberation as she says contemporary feminism is enamored with consumer choice and has fully accepted it as a substitute for freedom p 61 in discussion of this book i want to start by talking about my own experiences on the pill then i ll mention the book s critics and finally i ll cover a few of grigg spall s points my own experiences with hbc began in my teens when i began taking it for acne i remember that once i started taking it it took me about a month for my over the top emotional hormone swings to lessen i recall going dancing in a club once and not being able to calm the intense pendulum of joy anger depression and more that kept swinging over me under the flashing lights it was a feeling of being totally out of control once my emotions leveled out i was very good at taking the pill once per day at the same time every day my friends and i used to sing what we called the tumbleweeds song about our uteruses we d imagine our wombs to be as empty as the ok corral prior to a gunfight and sing oh e oh e oh wah wah wah as our baby free theme song we thought it was funny our bodies were not at risk of fertility they were under our control and would not rebel against us i stayed on the pill for a decade at least i discovered radical feminism in 2011 and like so many of us it changed my life my thinking was altered on many issues and continues to grow and expand the more i learn about that same time i decided to go off the pill the last straw came when doctors thought i had had a pulmonary embolism which is a condition made more likely by hbc a ct scan indicated that it was actually pneumonia but that was a very scary experience for me i decided to finish my pack and be done with the pill over the next year as my body detoxed from the pill i developed acne all along my jaw chinline that hadn t been there before large bumps protruded on my face which was embarrassing as i was well past adolescence i also experienced weight gain which i was told wasn t a real side effect of going off the pill it was frustrating not to believed when i reported my symptoms before grigg spall wrote her book she kept a blog regarding her experiences many other women came and shared what had happened to them while using the pill or getting off of it and it was a place for women to be able to discuss their reactions to the pill in a place free from pharmaceutical brainwashing and the liberal feminist gag order on women discussing our own biology now that grigg spall s book was published in november 2013 there has been a concerted effort to discredit her findings by misrepresenting her positions my belief is that the pharmaceutical industry is threatened by griggs spall s book and that discrediting her is a way to maintain the status quo i also contend that rejecting the pill goes against sex positive mainstream feminism which is why there s push back as well from its representatives liberal feminists have called her book dangerous and use name calling techniques in attempts to push griggs spall to the margins of feminist discourse as many of us know being insulted and told to keep quiet are tools used to keep us away from discovering truths and maintain the status quo grigg spall is referred to as a crank how feminist and potential readers of her book are warned that discussing female biology and women s experiences is inherently essentialist the cherry picked decontextualized quotes this critic uses to make her argument are an obvious attempt to contort perceptions of the book and grigg spall s positions there are several critiques of this book that have similar tones and i found the pro pill apologism quite transparent what these reviews leave out is the long overdue feminist analysis of the pill that grigg spall offers i was fascinated by grigg spall s discussion of the dark side of the pill apparently data collected from bayer concentration camp experiments was used in developing the pill p 31 the pill has negative side effects for women ranging from promoting bone loss p 63 to blood clots to depression etc the world health organization who has classified the pill as a class one carcinogen alongside tobacco and asbestos p 59 apparently depo provera is currently used in sex offender rehab programs to decrease sex drive p 68 these are just some of the negative aspects of hbc that third wave feminists and pharmaceutical companies routinely downplay grigg spall also critiques the way hbc is set up as a solution to worldwide population control when the real issue is global inequality and poverty the pill is a capitalist solution to this and not a feminist one we let women down when instead of seeking just societies we sell them injections or oral contraceptives she quotes betsy hartmann who calls population control a substitute for social justice that holds back the emancipation of women real reproductive choice relies on women having control over their own lives and equal power to men and this can only come with economic development developed nations are uninterested in providing aid for such countries because they are active in their exploitation via cooperation with corrupt governmnents and via the corporate power wielded over those countries the people are purposely kept poor so that developed countries or at least their corporations can become richer p 81 82 this helps make sense of the fact that the bill and melinda gates foundation s strategy for helping women in africa and south asia involves giving millions of these women the depo provera shot the gates foundation partners with pfizer who makes the depo shot p 80 this is business as usual and profits are being made in the name of population control grigg spall also emphasizes the importance of female biology in discussing these issues after all as women our experience of life is connected to our biology as she says taking the pill might be seen as an act of trying to get beyond femaleness as femaleness in our culture is understood in the negative escaping its confines is good and progressive any dislike we develop of being female and of having a female body is rooted in the history of female bodies being seen as problematic and in need of male control p 104 such claims have no doubt been the source of the liberal feminist claims that her book is essentialist i find this accusation very suspect as it asks us to stop speaking about our own experiences living within our female bodies many women are not comfortable with our bodies as they change in puberty as they alter with pregnancy or as they age it is important that we are able to recognize and discuss these changes amongst ourselves without being considered essentialist within feminism essentialism has always referred to the feminist objection to conservative claims that the male gender stereotypes are natural for men and that female gender stereotypes are natural for women for example the idea that men are better at math and women are natural caregivers these are obviously anti feminist claims that link our biology up with sexist behaviors that are expected of us these days however merely recognizing the relevance of female biology to our own lives is now castigated with the same essentialist label this is an entirely inaccurate characterization since the bodies we live in are obviously relevant to our experiences as women discussing biology was never the problem with essentialism the problem was linking our bodies up with sexist stereotypes not only is this new definition of essentialism an incorrect interpretation of the original meaning but it asks women to stop discussing our actual lives feminism is about our experiences as women so telling women they aren t permitted to discuss these experiences is anti feminism full stop i certainly believe that grigg spall is correct in her observations about hbc women are expected to have sex like a man and to believe that our biology is in no way relevant to our sexuality to me this is as removed from our actual experiences as my cartoon uterus theme song is from the workings of my body i ve covered just a few of the brilliant insights that grigg spall presents in her excellent book at the very minimum her book encourages women to see the pill from a different perspective and to become more in tune with what is happening with our own bodies i encourage all feminists interested in reproductive freedom misogyny in medicine or critiques of choice sex positive feminism to give it a read holly grigg spall filed under uncategorized tagged with blood clots and the pill contraception dangers of the pill essentialism in feminism female health feminism feminism and the pill feminist critique of the pill hbc holly grigg spall is grigg spall s book essentialist is the pill right for me should i take the pill sweetening the pill amnesty international supports the exploitation of women january 28 2014 2 comments amnesty international is a charity that ostensibly works to end violations of human rights yet this leaked document indicates that amnesty actively supports the full decriminalization of prostitution this policy flies in the face of extensive research indicating that areas where prostitution has been fully legalized have led to more violence and an increase in trafficking for example after legalization in australia the percentage of illegal brothels increased 300 in new zealand legalization expanded the illegal sector to make up 80 of the sex trade industry in germany the safety of women within the sex industry was not improved through full legalization furthermore both human trafficking and organized crime increase in areas where prostitution is decriminalized amnesty has chosen to ignore all of this information and instead decided that the rights of johns and pimps who wish to exploit and use women are more important than the human rights of women to live free from this exploitation amnesty could instead support the nordic model which decriminalizes women in prostitution but criminalizes the johns and pimps this has been shown to decrease violence against prostituted women dramatically decrease the number of prostituted persons and...
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