The Case for the Sanity of Women

by Cherryblossomlife

There is nothing wrong with me–except I was born at least two thousand years too late. Ladies of Amazonian proportions and Berserker propensities have passed quite out of vogue and have no place in this too damned civilized world…here I sit—mad as a hatter—with nothing to do but either become madder and madder or else recover enough of my sanity to be allowed to go back to the life which drove me mad. [Lara Jefferson]

Early Wednesday morning, my six year old daughter was running about the house, tearful and enraged, shouting through her sobs,”No Mummy, No! I’m NOT going to school”. She refused to get dressed, hid in the closet and then eventually resorted to feigning a stomach ache. When I’d got her to calm down I managed to find out what was wrong:

Lesbian BDSM, part 1: Lesbian BDSM in Fan Fiction

Guest post by Maggie H.

This post is the first part of a series of posts based on some of the RadFem Reboot 2012 presentation talk that I gave in Oregon recently on the patriarchal takeover of women’s sexuality.

Warning: This post contains some descriptions of what happens in written pornography. Skip those parts if you feel queasy; read them if you really want to know what some lesbians are writing & reading ‘for fun’ these days.

Disclaimers: By writing this post I would like to make very clear that I am not criticising individual women for having particular sorts of fantasy. I am a former BDSMer myself. I am actually being critical of the pornographic works being published online, and of the patriarchal context within which such stories get written and read in the first place. I believe it is important to challenge the everyday political poisoning of our lesbian communities by BDSM culture. If you read or write those kinds of stories, I am not ‘attacking’ you personally; I am just trying to make a point concerning what you read or write.

*****

I feel the need to talk about fan fiction, as it has become an important part of lesbian culture nowadays in some circles. This includes stories based on the characters of Willow & Tara (from Buffy: Vampire Slayer) and Xena & Gabrielle (from Xena: Warrior Princess) –and there are also lesbian fan fiction stories based on the characters of Stargate SG-1, Rizzoli & Isles or other shows lesbians happen to be fans of.

Sisterhood in application (Part three)

Guest post by Féministe radicale francophone 

Part III: Structuring our resistance

Part I is here, Part II is here.

This is the final part of the series on sisterhood in application. After looking at the consequences of trauma induced by male violence on our groups and how masculinist abuse operates in women-only feminist spaces, in this part I will look at group structure and how certain kinds of structures may favour effective political work and healthy relations in feminist activism. By group structure, I mean not only the structure of relations between the women within a group, but also the way actions are constructed: the kind of priorities established, the way in which objectives are pursued, goals articulated, the strategies or means chosen for their implementation.

Announcing a New Blog: Gender Identity Watch

Gender Identity Watch is a new blog devoted to tracking legislation and case law that attempts to codify “gender identity” into law and to override protections based on sex. Gender Identity Watch monitors organizations that push gender identity and thus engage in the erasure of female reality, including:

Radfem 101: A radical feminist primer (Part Four)

Radical feminism, by definition, seeks to dis-cover and examine the root of women’s global oppression by men, and the sources of male power.  In our work, we have discovered that there are several key themes that appear over and over, and which transcend time and place — this is evidence that women’s oppression by men is class-based, that is, that women as a sexual class, around the world, share the experience of being oppressed by men because we are women.

In this series, republished in part from Radfem-ological Images, we present 17 themes for discussion and analysis.  Like all radical feminists previously and presently, we do this because it is the truth, and radical feminists accept the truth no matter what it is, especially the truths about women’s lives and what men do to us.

In Part Four, the final part of this series, we present the following themes: Pornify girl children/infantilize adult women; Primacy of the nuclear family; Reversal; Support patriarchal institutions (medicine/religion/law); Woman as “useful object”.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  Part Three is here.