I’ve been trying this out and it’s been quite helpful 🤗
there’s a connection between the numbing sprays for your feet so you can wear high heels and the anal desensitizing lube so you can have anal sex for your boyfriend and the suppressants for your gag reflex so you can deepthroat that same boyfriend. can’t quite make it though
"The computer's processes have unwittingly advanced the cause of women and images, even though these aspects of computer operation have nothing to do with the computer's content, which is the manipulation of information. The world of cyberspace is a computer-generated extension of the human mind into another dimension. The computer has carried human communication across a threshold as significant as writing, and cyberspaces's reliance on electromagnetism and photographic reproduction will only lead to further adjustments in consciousness that favor a feminine worldview. Irrespective of content, the processes used to maneuver in cyberspace are essentially right hemispheric. The World Wide Web and the Internet are both metaphors redolent of feminine connotations."
-The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain
A pretty interesting read. It analyzes the advancement in literacy throughout time and some of its pros and cons. It also brings up how we have become predominantly left brained due to the (often forced) use of our right hands, and how this has promoted linear thinking. It may not be a common practice anymore, but I've heard stories of educators hitting left-handed kids with rulers until they learned to write with their right hand. It's a strange thing to enforce, and it really makes one think...
The advancement in technology has a dark side, but the author suggests that some good will emerge in a new "Golden Age" where both right and left brain thinking reach some sort of equilibrium with the use of the internet. This is also interesting since I've been seeing parents, educators, and whoever else talking about the decline in reading amongst children. I'm starting to wonder if there will be a larger shift from text and back to image. Picture books/graphic novels seem to be grasping the attention of adults and children alike more and more throughout the years (if they weren't already). This is an observation of the English language, of course, since there are places that utilize symbols and characters in their writing.
You have to be selfish to be selfless. When you take care of yourself you automatically improve your environment. If you're always taking care of other people you will not be able to fulfill your purpose to the best of your ability or at all.
Cosmic intelligence is the same intelligence that creates the stars, planets, trees, flowers, mammals, and man. It also operates within human consciousness. It courses through the mind to direct its development. The mature state recognizes its part in the fundamental flow of life. Existence is made up of three states or identities. The first state is at a lowest level. To be whole requires advancement from the original base state through two more states of mind. The unconscious state begins in an animal nature (ego) that is self-absorbed. It wants its needs met and uses others to meet those needs. It is characterized by three traits: insensitivity to others, ignorance of the mind’s life cycle, and indifference to its impact on the environment. The ego lacks basic awareness of interconnections among things, how each fits into the other. It fails to put things in a context where meaning is revealed through relations of one thing to another. It is unable to see parts as belonging to the interdependent wholeness of life. A universal current flows through all three states of existence to fix them on a timeline. In terms of self-awareness, the ego that is unconscious is urged to reach the second state of human nature (self). This state of mind is aware of its impact on others and on the world. It takes responsibility for its own growth. Open to mythical communication, it seeks unity. Conscious of being conscious, it is attuned to inner directives that upgrade perception until the ideal vision manifests. By assimilating the whole truth, the subject becomes the Object (divine humanity). The popular translation for the endgame is “to be made in God’s image.” Enlightened awareness manifests as human goodness.
The first mind does not know it doesn’t know. The second mind is ready to let symbols and insights teach it what there is to know. In short, the first mind does not know it. The second mind does know it. The third mind not only knows it but becomes it.
-The Winged Serpent by Marilyn Kraft
A compilation of some useful graphics and illustrations that show some of the theoretical basis of Radical Feminism, in comparison to Liberal Feminism and Conservative ideologies.
Humanity has no bounds...
Yall what the fuck
This is a fetish, nobody can convince me otherwise.
Although misogyny necessarily plays its part into the whole JKR debacle, I think the 'vitriol' as you said is mostly caused by the fact that a large portion of the haters grew up with the Harry Potter books whilst they haven't, for example, ever seen a Polanski film in their life. And JKR in a way could be a sort of parental figure to them. You know, as ~problematic~ as Freud may be, he was onto something when he spoke of one's need to symbolically kill the father; and the same people who practically worshipped the HP novels growing up had already begun dismissing them as child's play when the Rowling vs. Transactivists affair started. To quote another writer here, the issue crystallised at that point.
@helshades
It's so funny that you're bringing that up because I had this exact conversation with my man around a week ago. As I said in the tags of the post that prompted those couple of rants of mine, he's currently reading them for the first time at the rip old age of 35. A result of him giving Philosopher Stone to his pupils this year (HP so bad, primary schools use them to get kids to read, apparently) and making a point of doing everything he asks of them and that include learning all the poetry by heart, and therefore reading all the books as well. After finishing PS, he asked for the rest since he was surprised at how much funnier it was than the movie.
Anyway, I don't exactly remember how we ended up talking about JKR and the discourse currently surrounding her, but he made the exact same point as you, he mentioned how interesting it was that Freud might actually have had some interesting ideas hidden in his work somewhere in there, and that some people do need to "kill the mother / father" in order to grow up and leave childhood behind. I pointed out to him that it was rather obvious and blatantly observable all around us, but that, as per usual, people took that point way too literally, imagining that it meant killing your actual mother/father and marrying the other one so to speak; when a father or mother figure doesnt even have to be someone close to you nor someone you know at all - just a person or even a concept that shaped you enough when you were younger, that you are now feeling the need to "rebel" against in order to mature.
Which really goes back full circle to the point I constantly make when it comes to HP and how people are unable to read (just because you can decipher doesn't mean you can read, I will stand by that, always), and how really, most discourses and analysis surrounding it are people fancying themselves smart by what they believe is "deconstructing" something they loved in childhood, when in reality it's 8 grade level analysis (if I'm generous) and honestly just look like they're going through their teenage phase of explaining to mum why she actually sucks.
Still though, I'll keep believing that if Joanne Rowling had been Jonathan Rowling, there wouldn't be quite the same level of vitriol directed at her and that her being a woman plays a role in how confortable and justified people feel in robbing her of her achievement and devaluing her work.
Currently poking around radfem blogs after a trans woman on Tiktok said it was transphobic to not have sex with a post-op trans women because “their surgery makes their anatomy exactly the same as a real vagina” and so far I’m actually agreeing with what I’m reading on the radfem side of tumblr. I do have one question, though: how do radfems feel about representation of black women in media? From what I’ve seen, radfems are critical of gender roles and stereotypes, which I understand, but 1/2
as I answer this, keep in mind that I am a white woman, so my word should be taken with a grain of salt!
being inclusive of all women is vital to radical feminism, especially being inclusive of WOC. I know black women are often stereotypes as being “manly” or “aggressive”, but you and I both know that’s not true. I think it’s important to remember that masculinity for women is often just.. existing in our natural bodies. a black woman who doesn’t shave, doesn’t wear makeup, or doesn’t modify herself for others isn’t “masculine,” she’s just existing in her natural form.
the problem with how we address stereotypes is that we insist on simply defying them as opposed to abolishing them entirely. instead of saying “black women can be feminine too!”, we should say “stereotyping someone based on their race or sex is bigoted”. by defying most stereotypes, we only create new ones.
I hope this helps, any the radfems feel free to add on! (esp black radfems)