Showing posts tagged misogyny

tansheer.: you will never understandwhat it feels like to be awoman. you tell...

tansheer:

you will never understand
what it feels like to be a
woman. you tell me that
my jeans are too tight
and that my eyes linger
too long and that my 
fingers roam over things
that don’t belong to me,

but if i ever make note
of the harshness in your
words or the tobacco 
in your lungs or the 
self-interest in your eyes
you will slap me with
your self-granted authority
and say “know your place,
woman”

when i tell you that i wish
to simply feel the midnight
reflected in my eyes or have
a few riffs pulsate through
my marrow or maybe even
embrace an ideology
you have frowned upon 
in the past—

before my
requests are heard
you say: “no,
obey me”

“you will never know
how it feels to be a woman”,
and you will think i’m being
my typical womanly self,
melodramatic and wishy-
washy, teary-eyed and 
emotionally vulnerable,
the archetypes you 
fabricated, propogated
and fucked all the way
to the heaven
reserved for you.

you will never know what
it feels like to be controlled
to live in an environment
where your subservience
is expected
even

traditional.

(Reblogged from tansheer)
“

My observation has been that people who are secure in their appearance - by which I mean fully connected to and accepting of their bodies, not necessarily those society labels the most attractive - tend to find little of interest in judging others’ looks negatively. It seems an ironic but inevitable fact that the very people who pay the most lip service to how terrible it is of the patriarchy (or kyriarchy or whatever) to make demands on women’s appearance are themselves very, very invested in judging those same women.

For example, from Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs, when she says of anyone who has “their vaginas waxed … their breasts enlarged” : “I wish them many blissful and lubricious loops around the pole.”

In other words, Levy is fine with the idea that there are some women who get Brazilians – just as long as they are fine with the idea that she will judge them for that.

Brooke Magnanti, Miss World and Mary Beard
“

Jon Stewart:
So female soldiers should just expect to be sexually assaulted?


Samantha Bee:
Well… female soldiers, gal reporters, lady doctors, teacherettes, aviatrixes… That’s just the way it is when you’re a woman intruding in a man’s world. We expect to be paid slightly less and raped slightly more.

The Daily Show 

Culture or religion? I think this video more than anything else shows that the two have become so intertwined that even the muslim community seems to be incapable of discussing the hijab without resorting to cultural myths that are blatantly sexist and have nothing to do with Islam. Western feminism sometimes fails to see how, in some contexts, covering up can be liberating and empowering. But sadly our response is usually to talk about how “immodest” women are disrespected by men, have lower self esteem and appear less intelligent — countering their broken straw man with one of our own.

If a man is disrespecting you based on an arbitrary cultural line that has been drawn to separate the “good girls” from the “sluts”, then you do not use the hijab to validate and perpetuate this mentality. In other cultures, or other eras, in order to earn that same level of respect you had to cover your face, stay indoors, only interact with women, etc. This was true for many women in Egypt just over a century ago. These deluded notions of modesty are entirely cultural and are born from misogynistic traditions and customs. I’m not telling anyone why they should wear the hijab or what to believe in, but using this particular reason is incredibly harmful and misleading. 

Making fun of religious conservatives who tell women they must be veiled in order to be respected while simultaneously PROVING THEIR POINT. Sometimes I hate this culture so very much, both “liberal” and “conservative” sides of it. Ugh. View high resolution

Making fun of religious conservatives who tell women they must be veiled in order to be respected while simultaneously PROVING THEIR POINT.

Sometimes I hate this culture so very much, both “liberal” and “conservative” sides of it.

Ugh.

A mother and her son hold infant twins while visiting a clinic in India. Attention is focused on the male twin who is crying. The female twin is ignored. From birth, the male twin was nursed first and fed first.

A mother and her son hold infant twins while visiting a clinic in India. Attention is focused on the male twin who is crying. The female twin is ignored. From birth, the male twin was nursed first and fed first.

View high resolution
(Reblogged from lasluchasdelcorazon)