Two feminist collectives - made up of Iranians, Hazaras and Kurds (one is Iranians only I think, the other all three) - have released important statements about this Israel/USA vs Iran war, that you should read and share. Feminist Liberation Group: shorter.me/l5cPo Roja: rb.gy/udstk1

Crenshaw "different marginalisations can combine in constructive ways to produce oppressions greater than the sum of their parts" Every idiot who wants a nice word for being an antifeminist: "This means that almost no men hold patriarchal power".

Making your “feminism” about hating men is still…centering men.

Calling rape “non consensual sex” is like calling stealing “non authorized borrowing”. Call it what it is. Expose the harm.

“…across the world, there is a woman just like me. with the same abilities and the same desires, same work ethic and love for her family, who would most likely make better films and better speeches. only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice.” Angelina Jolie

Calling rape “non consensual sex” is like calling stealing “non authorized borrowing”. Call it what it is. Use language that exposes the harm, not sugarcoats it.

“Lying is done with words, and also with silence.” ― Adrienne Rich

"Is BDSM an abusive, patriarchal, misogynistic practice or is it an enlightened sacrament resting on an incorruptible foundation of communication and consent?" Well, neither. It's Sex LARP.

What are your thoughts on sexuality — hetero, bi/pan, lesbian/gay, and everything else? Are these choices? Are they innate? Are they a combination, something in between?

iF tHe StOnEwAlL rIoTs HaPpEnEd ToDaY.

I should like to remind the women present here that no group, no community, no country, has ever got rid of its disability by the generosity of the oppressor. — Jawaharlal Nehru …as quoted in my essay ‘Beyond the West: The Centuries-Old Feminisms of India’

I should like to remind the women present here that no group, no community, no country, has ever got rid of its disability by the generosity of the oppressor. — Jawaharlal Nehru …as quoted in my essay ‘Beyond the West: The Centuries-Old Feminisms of India’

“I don't think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it's only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.” ― Angela Y. Davis

“…Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings." — Ursula K. Le Guin

Maybe at some point we ought to examine how uncritical consumption of corporate IPs tuned to mass-market appeals and childhood nostalgia forms the core of a reactionary politics, because people would rather be cozy and cute and inoffensive than disturb the 'peace' of an unjust status quo.

About white women teaching antiracism exclusively to other white women.

In what can only be described as a protest against accountability, Pornhub just shut down entirely in France, refusing to implement safeguards required by law. The laws are age verification laws, to protect children and underaged minors. 🤮

A few days ago, seventeen year old Sana Yousef was killed by a man who wouldn’t take her ‘no’ for answer.

On the second day of pride month, American gay, indigenous actor Jonathan Joss was murdered. He was shot dead, in what his husband called a homophobic hate crime. Joss’ newlywed husband said Joss' alleged killer called him & his husband "jotos," a Spanish slur for gay people. This is a tragedy.

"lesbian is my gender"

I am so over the "Western binary". I am so over how people consistently, ignorantly, and frankly embarrassingly insist that the "gender binary" is so particularly Western and colonial and recent. It's a complete failure to juxtapose rhetoric on gender with how it actually, materially operates.

This is a favorite essay of my own. Link in comment

Members of the Kitchen Table Press, an active feminist press. The women who started the press - Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Barbara & Beverly Smith, did so because "as feminist and lesbian of color writers, we knew that we had no options for getting published..."

Feminism requires precisely what the patriarchy destroys in women: unimpeachable bravery in confronting male power. — Andrea Dworkin

White billionaire from her yacht cites Audre Lorde in defence of a white writer for a Far Right newspaper complaining about the criticism she got for her bigoted attack on a woman of colour. What times!

The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. - James Baldwin

A case of competing needs (or are they?) and a synthesis of dominance transfeminism and disability justice. (FYI I finished this before the fucking court case, I hate to be relevant 😭) tinyurl.com/35t37utt

" Over seven in 10 mothers in the workforce work full time and year-round, and in 2023 those hardworking mothers were paid only 74 cents for every dollar paid to full-time, year-round working fathers. "

Andrea Dworkin

Audre Lorde

No matter the ideology, whether it's Nazism or Stalinism or Maoism or Trumpism, authoritarians are all the same at the core. My post below went viral on Substack because people are seeing the real-life parallels to the path we're descending on in the US. And the window to stop it is closing fast.

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.” ― bell hooks

“Women have another option. They can aspire to be wise, not merely nice; to be competent, not merely helpful; to be strong, not merely graceful; to be ambitious for themselves, not merely for themselves in relation to men and children..." -Susan Sontag

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.” ― Rabindranath Tagore

Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama,” 1956

“But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.” ― Audre Lorde

"For twenty-five years, I was contracted to produce three articles a year, long ones, typically ten thousand words. For this, my peak salary was $498,141. That’s not a misprint—$498,141, or more than $166,000 per story." ahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahah yalereview.org/article/burr...

“i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live” ― Nikki Giovanni

“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.” ― bell hooks

A deeply personal, deeply philosophical review of Constance Debre's Playboy: booksbeforemidnight.substack.com/p/playboy-co... #lesbianliterature #book #bookreview #bookreviewer

Wound: Oksana Vasyakina Lesbian autofiction that's not for the faint of heart... booksbeforemidnight.substack.com/p/wound-oksa...