Ana’s Comments (group member since Jan 08, 2016)

Ana’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

By end of this month I will be going back home for hols, which means picking up my new Kindle, which means hopefully going back to my regular reading rhythm. Also, I've been willing to read more on Roxane's work after having read her interviews over at media like The Guardian. She won't let anyone indifferent to her thoughts and statements, that's for sure!

That's a lovely thing to do, Arnaud! Just make sure you keep it reasonable on your side too, while it totally has to be a not-for-profit-thing, we also don't want you to spend too much money on this. :)

I am sure Emma browse her own forums more often than we would think. :) Still, with her agenda I imagine it's not easy for her to come hang out here freely. :(

Gerd wrote: "Not sure what you read in that sentence, so let me elaborate:
What I meant to say is that since the 80's, mostly thanks to the work of feminist fighters, our public and legal understanding of the different forms of sexual assault have changed a lot, including more instances which former did not get due recognition as forms of sexualized violence. "

This is important. It is important for us to recognise that the traditional imagery of sexual assault and rape does not always fit reality. That while there might be...you'll have to pardon me if I don't use the right term, this is a very tricky topic after all...while there might be an 'spectrum' of non-consensual acts that can be inflicted on a person, the truth is, at the end of the day it is still a non-consensual act.

Yes, certain acts leave a deeper mark than others. Which is why I (very hesitantly) talked about a 'spectrum' of sorts. However, you still mined somebody's will. You still took from their self-esteem. You still treated them like a piece of meat. And frankly, you don't get to assess the harm you cause in that person, on top of it.

Tiffany wrote: "The fact that this reality of women raping men is so widely unknown and/or disbelieved only goes to show that men are just as subjected to gender stereotypes as women are.

It's something I though..."

I am so happy everytime someone points this out. Seriously. Gender inequality isn't as deeply ingrained in our societies as it is because men are *evil*, or *dumb*, or inherently whichsoever negative quality you would like to attribute to them. It might be tempting to go for such a simple explanation, but we are doing ourselves a gross disservice if we give into that. Gender inequality is there to remain, for now, because we are all affected by it. We can all be potential victims of sexism, just not the way those who try to get us feminists a bad rap try to picture for their own interests. Sexism has its own way of harming young boys who will then grow up to be men. The sooner we all understand this, the sooner we will be able to truly advance.

As for your argument, Ross, I believe you have the best intentions in mind, but I am afraid that I have to agree with many of the people above. The author of the article bent over herself to show that they were not taking away from one problem to artificially create another. Men can and do get raped. Just the same way men can also suffer from domestic violence. It is perfectly OK to be suspicious when someone throws that at you, sadly enough may I add, because of the amount of people who will use that argument to invalidate others. But once we realise that this is pointed out in good faith and with facts and food for thought on the table, I as a woman do not feel like the focus is being taken away from me. Hurt is hurt. Abuse is abuse. If we all were vocal about what makes us feel violated, undermined, mistreated, how much better would everything be.

Emma wrote: "Ross wrote: "D.J. wrote: "So, you ask why there is an obsession with virginity in women. For an examination of the historical and economic reasons for this, see my essay 'Then and Now' posted under..."

Emma, the link that you posted was so informative and easy to follow! Thanks for that one!

Yeah, that's pretty cool and everything, Benarji, but when you drop a line like the one above without further explanation in a place like this, do expect people to ask you directly whether you endorse that thought. Because it's a pretty outdated, gross one, and it doesn't really pair well with your reply to me.

'Compassion is not a finite resource.'

I for one found this article very interesting and clearly written without the intent of taking any focus away from the abuse suffered by women -I mean, they explicitly state so at several points in the article. One does not need to stop paying deserved attention to one problem to acknowledge another, particularly when they share some grounds.

Saying 'hey, men are raped too and there's a whole issue there that needs to be discussed' is something very reasonable and, as the article pinpoints, healthy and necessary.

Saying 'oh men are raped too so see, feminazis, you were wrong, always were, always will, OMG you are fake and hate men', well now that's the issue.

Benarji, I seem to remember previous posts of yours and so I will choose to think that you are referring to your words above as what you can often hear out there, rather than something you endorse, hopefully. If I am, indeed, correct, I would say maybe elaborate a bit more, or else people here might misunderstand you! ;)

'Feminism is against family'

I take you mean the imposition of the one traditional family unit over all of us, irregardless of whether we deem it appropriate to ourselves or not. In which case, yes, we are against that imposition. Otherwise, your argument is grossly mistaken. Feminism is very much for family -family as a concept to be challenged, redefined and given all deserved consideration, so that it can truly serve society as the inclusive, nurturing, crucial atmosphere it's supposed to be. This means that family has to accommodate many different realities and individuals. It also has to be firmly rooted in equality. Only when children are raised in a critical, equality oriented, open-minded family can they grow up feeling loved and accepted, which will influence their foundations immensely. Family is indeed the land where an individual is planted -what kind of land shall their roots draw strength from? One that can effectively help the seed to become a tree? Or one that you should find yourself longing to tear away from?

You think feminism is against family? I beg to differ. We advocate firmly for family planning, women and girls empowerment and the end of gender violence. We defend the end of harmful roles that actually hinder families from finding the structure that works best for them because it does not fit the idea of the man as the breadwinner and pater familia, he who provides vs she who nurtures. We defend that the rights of mother and child do not actually end once said child is out of the womb -they actually become even more sacred after that moment. We defend that adults have freedom to decide whether they want to become parents to a human being or not, so that, among other reasons, they go into parenthood being aware of the huge, life-changing commitment that such a decision irrevocably entails.

I could continue enlisting reasons why feminism is actually very much for family. In many of our claims, moreover, we are deeply concerned about social justice. Say what you will about each wave of feminism. With their flaws and their strengths, they are all part of one sea, if you'll let me continue with the imagery.

Of course, it takes some critical thinking skills to even be willing to consider this instead of filling your discourse with terms such as left wing, destruction of the Western civilisation, which was doing fine and dandy before us feminists appeared obvs, and destruction of the family.

Hi! Fairly busy here lately, with an agonising laptop and my usual VPN crappiness to deal with to boot...for now I can only use my iPad. Still, I wanted to say that as a mod but also just as a longtime OSS member, this thread makes me happy. People simply doing their best to learn about something so wildly unknown up until a few years ago. No passy-assy stuff, no thread hijacking, no nothing. Only, as that famous print goes, warm feelings and fuzzies. And then there's you, Meerder. The only thing I can say is, I am humbled that you deemed OSS safe enough of a place to share something as private as you did. We can only hope to continue deserving such a privilege from our members.

You people make this worthwhile. Know that while, due to our own personal circumstances, sometimes we go silent for a bit, we are still very much involved with this community and immensely proud to see what it has become, for some even more than for others. Myself I can say I've been looking forward to the moment where I could get a somewhat stable connection and five mins, so that I could come here and say that I think it is extremely important to have you all here, that I learn from the exchange with you even more than from the books sometimes. That I am grateful for the impact that this community has had in my life. My only spot of inequality comes from being a woman -the rest of my experience is largely marked by privilege. I really am not the same person that I was when I joined these forums, and I am glad to see that it serves the same purpose for some of you.

I've been reading many of the links provided here and will try to come up with questions once I know how to adequately pose them. Carry on meanwhile! :D

Wow, Erin. I don't really wish to elaborate much on it, but the "find yourself a partner, pronto" pressure is something that hits close home, here. I am grateful that I never got that kind of comments from my family...quite the opposite. It'd have been so, so damaging for me.

At work currently so I cannot elaborate much on my thoughts.

in which it feels like these beliefs are being shoved down my throat lately and the very obvious passive aggressive nature, that doesn't allow for opposition to, or debate with the movement,

I don't think we are getting anything shoved down our throats, in the sense that we cisgendered people are just as welcome as ever to keep our gender identity and pronouns and so far not a single one of our rights and freedoms have been doubted, and are very unlikely to be in the future.

People take issue with the pronouns individuals pick to acknowledge themselves because of the, in your face do it or be attacked nature in which it is delivered. One cannot asked to be acknowledged as a plural or an obect like "them" or "it" and become upset when another individual says no because that person does not agree.

someone may be offended and yet they offend the people their offended by. personally I would just ask someone to use my name to solve the problem.

The thing is, if I ask to be addressed by a certain set of pronouns, nobody is actually entitled to disagree on that. Like, my identity should not need your agreement. My identity is. Now of course, you are free to think whatever you want, but if I told you that my name is Matthew and I am a he, well, the mature thing to do is to do so, particularly since it won't hurt you or affect you in any way. Then maybe, when we are good friends, you can perhaps ask me, hey Matthew, so I'm interested in this topic, would you please help me understand a bit more?
Deadnaming people and misusing their pronouns just because 'I don't agree with you!' can be, at best, hurtful and damaging to those people. At worst, it can be dangerous for them. There are plenty of things that as a cisgender woman I cannot possibly know from experience. Moreover, some I still don't really get. But I go by the golden rule of thumb -let people be.

The original name of this thread is Make-up - Feminist or Not?

In my opinion, this thread would do much better with a renaming. Make up, in and of itself, is neither feminist nor unfeminist. It's a product. Now, certain motivations behind wearing make-up, the extent to which one does and the style do admit a greater discussion. But using make-up does not make you less of a feminist, and viceversa.

Thibaud wrote: "I think the reason comes from many ways which some have been already said by all of you people and the fact that men have priviledges and aren't the target of the discrimination is one of them. But..."

This is an interesting point. Then again...isn't the media to blame by such portrayal, at the very least partially? ;)

MeerderWörter wrote: "Very interesting comments.
I've seen men say they can't be feminists because they say they have privilege and aren't women. I understand their point, but I still think anyone can be a feminist. It..."

That's so wrong, haha. That's just as if I said, oops, I can't be a trans ally because I am a cisgender woman and therefore I have privileges. Uhhhh, I very much can. Now of course, I will do much more listening than talking, because I am cisgender and therefore I don't personally know what it feels like to be trans.

But to be honest, it's way easier with feminism, men need feminism too. What about toxic masculinity that has hurt so many men in past and present times? What about the many lies that they, too, have been fed by this patriarchal society as unquestionable truths? Come on. Yeah, obviously they'll have to do their fair share of listening. But it's not like they cannot benefit from this too. It's a ramification of social justice. Everyone is meant to benefit from feminism, when rightly understood of course.

Keith wrote: "Is the first claim joyfully refuted by some and/or quietly refuted by many? I believe this is not the case on OSS, but elsewhere.... "

Elsewhere, elsewhere indeed. :)

I think part of the problem here is that many people, and I say people intentionally because I want to include some women in this unfortunate group, still haven't quite grasped the memo that I am literally copypasting from this article:

Feminism welcomes men. Feminism needs men.

The first claim will be joyfully refuted by some. The second, of course, will spark quite the animated conversation as to how exactly it is that feminism needs men. Then again, we humans like to make simple things complicated, and this we do loudly.

So loudly, that to this day many otherwise perfectly reasonable, charming people state that feminism is a radical ideology that seeks to revert male dominance to female dominance. We, of course, know that this is not true, but in a way we keep the remains of this old mindframe when we think, 'ugh that's what they think and it seems like I always have to justify my ideology' So what would you expect when one of the 'enemies' joins the cult? ;)

I know I can count with one hand my male friends who openly identify as feminists. One hand. I know I've been pleasantly surprised when I've heard them do so. I am used to my (again, very modern, open-minded) male acquaintances to either show some polite, marginal interest and then immediately change the topic, or else just laugh it off with a joke.

So I say, we need more and more men to join. To realise that most mainstream feminists are happy to have them join the club, but that we don't give badges to anyone. We simply are happy to mutually acknowledge us as part of a tribe, and then we get to business.

Hey, Rachel! Thanks for suggesting Magda Szabo to us (BTW, I would swearrrrr I've read something of hers already, a while ago), but this kind of stuff doesn't really belong to this folder! O//O

Please head to this thread instead. :)

Hello! I've seen a couple of name-calling here and there. I've also seen so far it hasn't escalated so that's OK, but let's not have it again! :) Not because I would bring the scissors (I wouldn't, unless it got really out of hand!) Just because we're all adults here and we don't need to resort to such practices. That being said, of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, irregardless of whether it's in the minority or not.

Now let's see. Georgios! First and most important (well, at least to me LOL), please be assured that young generations keep admiring Patti Smith for what she is -a punk goddess and a damn awesome lady. :) I should know because I revere her, haha.

Also, I will readily acknowledge that I, too, am very worried about the imagery, values and morals that we feed our children by means of inevitably having to insert them on this society where they will grow up into adults. Here, I agree with you, like 100%.

However, man oh man, if only I could worry about the songs and call it a day. Instead I have to worry about the constant, sick cult to youth, and not any kind of youth, mind you, but the skinny, conventionally beautiful, mostly white, rich one. From taking my hypothetical child to a shop where unrealistic mannequins and models photoshopped into oblivion are on blatant display, to Instagram, where 'aspirational' and 'lifestyle' accounts will give my child the final push into an eating disorder with a mere click on a hashtag. I have to worry about my child growing up with constant news of women murdered by their partners / former partners / psychos etc., and sometimes even about the headlines that say that said women 'died', as if they just happened onto a knife, over and over, or casually fell from a window, or happened to find themselves under this boot that is cracking their skull open. Should my child be a girl, I will have to worry about her going home alone and being assaulted by someone and quite possibly taken away. I have to worry about drugs. I have to worry about bullying. I have to worry about...

I better just grab my child and go live at this isolated mountain peak, shall I? ;)

Now, I'm not saying I would like my child to listen to Lalá, or Maluma & Shakira's latest hit, or Die Antwoord, for that matter, or any of the explicit musicians / performers / you name them out there. Because I would not. Children are children and I would hope that at this stage they explored their sexuality in a much more, uh...how would I say it? In a much more unconscious manner, just by growing up and, forgive me for perhaps not being fully eloquent but I am sick today, just being. If I were to listen to these adult-themed songs, or watch a certain show, it'd be in a way that my children wouldn't be exposed to them...at home.

When the days, and I name them in plural purposefully, when the days came that my children would come home from school / a party / swimming class and said a swear word, did something wrong or seemed to be troubled / influenced by matters opposed to our values, I would try not to panic and instead would sit them down and talk. Explain why they really shouldn't talk like little Timmy, or why I believe Susie is going way too fast and will be easily bored by the time she is an adult.

No matter what, your children will likely scoff and refuse to give heed to your words and will think you're the ultimate bore, haha. Hopefully, however, you'll have planted a seed in their minds and, when they're mature enough to judge by themselves, they will put that seed in a pot of their own with their own soil and stuff.

(BTW that seed includes teachings on the good cultural stuff out there, haha, I'm being very civilised here but if my child ended up adoring the 2k-whatever equivalent of, say, Twilight or 50 Shades of Garbage, boy, will I be down haha.)

We can't censor stuff, even when we would be tempted to do so - I also wholeheartedly agree with whomever said so. It gets out of hand quickly and it causes the opposite effect.

I will only chime in to say, when you're in China you test the limits of Skype et al. real fast. I cannot hold a damn conversation with my mom, that's how quickly it crashes LOL. Yes, with a VPN.

As Meelie said, hard to organise such a massive event. Perhaps try with a smaller scale thing, online, of course. See how it works. Take notes. :)

Even when you actually have the resources, it takes a lot of planning, effort and trouble to hold even the smallest of events. Prior to this year I didn't really know! Cultural management, for example. I work at a place where, despite the logical budget restrictions, we basically have the means to fly people, contact with the right folks, get venues and stuff. We still log extra hours as if they were going out of style and I've learned, sadly the hard way quite a few times, that you never know what could happen until it actually unfolds.

This is not to say the idea isn't worth of praise. Likewise, should it not take off, please don't be disencouraged. You have the will, and the attitude. Things take their time to come. The former, however, you gotta have at least a hint of them in you for them to grow inside your heart. Find your way, keep alert, and the chances you're looking for will appear. :)