Transform Your Life Through Feminism
Thinspiration — images created and used to inspire its consumers to be thin — is now plastered all over every social media website. It isn’t confined to the realm of eating disorders anymore. It’s mainstream. And yet we’re not talking to consumers about it. But how do we talk to our friends, children, and students about it without being at war with them? Here’s a place to start.
When someone wants to tear apart my writing, they often bring up my presumed gender to do so. My presumed femaleness is never mentioned with respect. They say, “Stop being so easily offended, b*tch.” Femaleness is used to discredit me in a way that maleness is not. When I’m presumed male, my maleness never comes up at all. Because maleness is our societal default setting, it’s never mentioned.
Infertility is not a battle of the worst off or a race to the bottom of despair. Whether men or women hurt more is irrelevant. But men have a cultural narrative that says kids are fun but optional, and “real men” have aggressive, uber-sperm so potent it makes babies from across the room. And this makes infertility issues a place where men find little support. It’s time we change the narrative.
Everyone is entitled to a relationship with their body that is based in care and respect. It’s time to stop thinking of your body as a hostile encasing in which you are imprisoned. So, in search of answers about self-love, I asked eight of the most fabulous curvy women that I know one question: What is the big secret of your relationship to your body? And here’s what they said.
Trans women are a component of queer women’s communities, so a lack of respect amongst us just means more devaluing of women, when society dishes out plenty of that for all of us already. So with that in mind, I have put together some suggestions for cis women on thinking through some basic trans issues, including ideas on approaching trans women in a romantic or intimate context.
Most articles about being a good lover begin with “How to Please Your Man” directives. Not this one. The heart of being a good lover starts with communication and self-awareness, making sure that you always carry a self-awareness and communication tool-kit. So here are a few pointers on how to be a good lover. This is a start to a feminist approach to good — and hopefully great — loving.
Humanism and feminism are not mutually exclusive and can coexist. A vested interest in general human welfare is an implicit goal of feminism. If you’re helping women, you’re helping people. Some might prefer to call this humanitarianism, humanism, or being-a-decent-human-being-ism, but many of us are content to call it feminism. And there’s nothing exclusionary about that.
Steubenville is a horrific example of the bystander effect. But what if your kid is a bystander to teasing, to name calling, to social ostracizing – behaviors that some refer to as “kids being kids?” Have you addressed that? Are you sure you’ve modeled the proper way not to stand by? Let’s look at some ways parents might inadvertently be supporting bystanders.
If feminism becomes synonymous with anti-religion, we risk alienating the women we seek to uplift and support. Because while modern religions are all very male-centric, they simply mimic the world that we live in. That is, religion isn’t the problem – the patriarchy with them is. Let us show support and solidarity with feminists of faith, especially as they fight from within for greater equality.
With this time of year comes an increase in street harassment. So let me say it plainly to my male-identified people out there: Street harassment and leering are never okay. It’s all harassment. It’s all misogyny. And it all needs to stop. And since men are the primary perpetrators of street harassment, men bear the responsibility for ending it.
