It was briefly sunny here and I sat down at a bench and thought of you. Missing you
Thank you for thinking of me <3
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Terri Strange
Ask @umlolidunno
If you could choose only one way to improve humanity for the better, what would it be?
get rid of it
Do you think you've changed in the last year? In what way?
tired
Related users
Some of this (the idiom it's written in, for starters) you will probably hate, some of it (gender abolitionism, "if nature is unjust, change nature") you might not. Anyway. What do you think? http://www.laboriacuboniks.net/qx8bq.txt
I suspect you knew already that I'd loathe more of this than I'd like. Maybe I'd have been a more cooperative reader if it hadn't been written in recently-graduated bullshit that straight up drains my will to live at all. Any politics that renders itself so inaccessible while preaching about the democratisation of elite resources is a bit fucked.
Look, I mean, it's fine. I'm fine with reinventing current technologies/landscapes to remain competently threatening to, competitive with & ultimately influential enough to undermine and repurpose a hegemonic social order. I agree that reformism that has *well-informed goals* can be important, & that the exclusion of marginalised groups like women from the architectural spheres that reproduce power structures isn't an accident. I accept that it isn't a big-hitting political solution to amplify this situation with either separatism or reinterpretation of the status quo.
But the radical rejection of nature instead of just the naturalistic fallacy strikes me as little more than tech utopianism - *especially* when it comes to the cause of women, who are oppressed precisely on the axis of biological difference. While the overall flavour of this manifesto is fine, when you try to isolate any goals it's pretty shambolic & confused. It says "Technoscientific innovation must be linked to a collective theoretical & political thinking" but fails to deliver on this last crucial point beyond the preferences of its authors. Its political goals are in some places contradictory (e.g. "equal access to reproductive tools" & "avoiding environmental cataclysm"), & unjustifiably puts the political interests of women alongside those who are "gender nonconforming".
Ultimately I think this is a result of its naive wholesale rejection of the relevance of material nature in the analysis of women's oppression. Taking Marxist class as its lead - precisely for the reason that the material landscape that reproduces economic class is 100% cultural - means that it really isn't fit for purpose when it comes to serving the emancipation of a class *who are oppressed by & because of their biology*. Our goals are not aligned with those of men, regardless of how they cut themselves up or paint their faces, & there has to be some way to isolate the needs of women as regards the mode of our oppression. It really requires us to privilege our natural state in some way.
So, the good parts aren't new, & they've been shuffled in with the usual reformist lack of perspective that confuses a good tool (law, technoscience, etc) for a wide-ranging framework. The only new bit is the rousing appeal for feminists to get their hands dirty & make use of the tools oppressors are using to build the world. It makes a pretty good case for that. But in presenting itself as anything more grand - a new organisation of principles, a new way of deriving political goals - it sets itself up for a fall.
imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3CKgkyc7Qo
Look, I mean, it's fine. I'm fine with reinventing current technologies/landscapes to remain competently threatening to, competitive with & ultimately influential enough to undermine and repurpose a hegemonic social order. I agree that reformism that has *well-informed goals* can be important, & that the exclusion of marginalised groups like women from the architectural spheres that reproduce power structures isn't an accident. I accept that it isn't a big-hitting political solution to amplify this situation with either separatism or reinterpretation of the status quo.
But the radical rejection of nature instead of just the naturalistic fallacy strikes me as little more than tech utopianism - *especially* when it comes to the cause of women, who are oppressed precisely on the axis of biological difference. While the overall flavour of this manifesto is fine, when you try to isolate any goals it's pretty shambolic & confused. It says "Technoscientific innovation must be linked to a collective theoretical & political thinking" but fails to deliver on this last crucial point beyond the preferences of its authors. Its political goals are in some places contradictory (e.g. "equal access to reproductive tools" & "avoiding environmental cataclysm"), & unjustifiably puts the political interests of women alongside those who are "gender nonconforming".
Ultimately I think this is a result of its naive wholesale rejection of the relevance of material nature in the analysis of women's oppression. Taking Marxist class as its lead - precisely for the reason that the material landscape that reproduces economic class is 100% cultural - means that it really isn't fit for purpose when it comes to serving the emancipation of a class *who are oppressed by & because of their biology*. Our goals are not aligned with those of men, regardless of how they cut themselves up or paint their faces, & there has to be some way to isolate the needs of women as regards the mode of our oppression. It really requires us to privilege our natural state in some way.
So, the good parts aren't new, & they've been shuffled in with the usual reformist lack of perspective that confuses a good tool (law, technoscience, etc) for a wide-ranging framework. The only new bit is the rousing appeal for feminists to get their hands dirty & make use of the tools oppressors are using to build the world. It makes a pretty good case for that. But in presenting itself as anything more grand - a new organisation of principles, a new way of deriving political goals - it sets itself up for a fall.
imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3CKgkyc7Qo
Would you rather be loved or respected?
Respected I think.
Where do you meet new people?
A little-known public square called THE INTERNETWORK \(^_^)/
Liked by:
Terri Strange
How cringey is this book description? http://www.lulu.com/shop/prairie-fire/who-upholds-the-sky-first-worldism-and-gender/paperback/product-22061146.html
If by 'cringey' you mean 'don't care' then loads
WRT North Korea, do you support it as socialist resistance?
I don't know enough about North Korea to answer.
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Terri Strange
Is it possible you could do a criticism of this book? Not buying it but just the description. It would be great if you did because you are informed by both feminism and communism. http://llco.org/must-read-holding-up-the-sky-first-worldism-and-gender/
Pretty hard to critique without knowing exactly what their proposed solution is. I don't really disagree with the premise, except for the assertion that women globally don't share the same interests as females. We do; it's just that our femaleness isn't the only factor in our interests, and there are other faultlines that divide us. That's precisely why the whole point of radical feminism is to unite on the axis of sex, which requires first world women to relinquish their power ties to first world men, white women to relinquish their power ties to white men, and so on.
Are rad fem and communism compatible? It bothers me as someone who believes in liberation of ALL women to accept that the women of the capitalist class must die. Some RFs think you must choose to put women first and communism weakens your feminism.
I think you should put women first and organise with women, but that they are ideologically compatible. I also think the "liberation of ALL women" is a goal to be continually moved toward rather than something you're going to instantiate in its entirety any time soon, and that the death of the capitalist class in a communist uprising isn't really a pressing worry.
when will you come back to the twitter?
o hai <3 I reactivated, but much more than that, who knows.
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Terri Strange
Do you think Laurie Strode made the right decision in the 1978 film 'Halloween', when she fled the Wallace house with psychotic killer Michael Myers in hot pursuit, only to go BACK to the house where she was babysitting the 2 children & hide them & herself in a cupboard? What would you have done??
Dunno
Do you support North Korea?
Dunno. In what?
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Terri Strange
What do you think of Jason Unruhe and Maoist 3rd worldism and Maoism in general?
All I know about Jason Unruhe is that he used my blog in one of his videos, and I thought it was pretty good. I'm not informed about Maoism. But I think it's sort of uncontroversially true that the magnitude of first world wages, and first world use of resources, is facilitated/maintained by third world exploitation. I think the first world can't sustainably exist as such, and it will end one way or another.
What do you think of "hard polytheists", people who believe that pagan gods like Norse, Greek etc. are real beings rather than the embodiments of concepts?
I'd never heard of them, no beef
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Terri Strange
What are your thoughts on Marina and the Diamonds' new song, "Savages", written about rape culture? She has stated that her reason for writing it is to say the unsayable, that rape is natural
It's very listenable, and I agree with her. 'Rape culture' is a natural extension, codification and amplification of men's inclinations and sensibilities. I think everyone has to agree with that, given that dominant cultures are pretty much entirely the cumulative result of men's public activity.
The question is whether we think changing the culture enough can reverse-engineer men's behaviour by conditioning/indoctrinating them to be different. We're nowhere near approaching a cultural practice that could achieve this, but I assume that's an (the?) aim of feminism.
The question is whether we think changing the culture enough can reverse-engineer men's behaviour by conditioning/indoctrinating them to be different. We're nowhere near approaching a cultural practice that could achieve this, but I assume that's an (the?) aim of feminism.
Never forget Universal Ghost Theory (UGT)
Hahahah <333 I literally thought about it yesterday when I was tweeting about ghosts and all I could remember was it had something to do with pears? Don't eat pears, kids
Is it healthy or harmful to breathe in ghosts? Is there a recommended daily allowance?
If you breathe in a whole ghost in one go you get possessed, but that's hard to do so it's not a grave concern
Would you rather get rid of disease or murder?
Murder.
what's your fave planet?
Earth is a fine planet
what is your favorite feminist holiday?
None, feminists don't get holidays, get back to work
If you could travel back in time when and where would you go?
Probably about 2-2.5 million years ago to check out the early hominins
You've written extensively on the necessity of questioning whether 'small victories' push us in the direction of liberation. Is adding women to boardrooms worthwhile progress, or does it simply and undesirably shore up male supremacist capitalism? (You rock, by the way.)
A couple of replies on ask.fm is only extensive in twitterland..! If you're after an in-depth exploration of the issues around negotiated and limited allowances afforded to women under male power you maybe oughta read something like Going Out Of Our Minds by Sonia Johnson, Right Wing Women by Andrea Dworkin, or even Primo Levi's essay on the "grey zone" in The Drowned and the Saved.
Better a woman than a man in all things, I suppose. Having women in positions of power is a necessary but nowhere near sufficient condition for the advance of women's interests. I think we also need to be explicit that this issue is contentious precisely because it entails two different axes of power. So, it's perfectly possible to say women in boardrooms means more women have power relative to men than before (because it obviously does), but that it also preserves the need for a poverty class which will inevitably entail more women than there could ever be at the top of the pyramid.
Adding women to boardrooms does give some women access to some power, but whether that benefits women in general depends on those women making decisions that are in women's interests. In order to ultimately benefit all women, those decisions would have to work against the capitalist class. When you look at whether that's possible in a position like the board of a company, it does seem a bit pointless; a CEO of a petroleum company - male or female - probably won't last long as CEO if they start making changes that devalue petrol in favour of clean energy, for example. I know almost nothing about the corporate world, but boardrooms in particular seem like areas where there really just isn't as much potential for actuating feminist change as in, say, politics or law. Because it's *literally their job* to ensure the future, growth and profit of the company by exploiting people in some capacity.
In general, it's certainly more likely that women will make more feminist decisions than men by virtue of their perspective alone, but this obviously isn't always the case because unscrupulous male-identified handmaidens. I think a lot of people do pursue powerful positions with the intention of making important and just changes when they get there, but the amount of concession and conformity to men's ideals necessary to actually 'make it' more often than not erodes someone's principles and perspective before they do anything worthwhile. Then once you're in such a position you're incentivised to maintain the order of things. So yes, this obviously shores up capitalism. But I also don't think it'd be any less shored up by having men in the same roles, and I think that's the relevant comparison to make when considering the sexual distribution of power alone. What women also desperately need, though, is to take small steps that push us in the direction of liberation from capitalism, which this does not do.
Thank you, by the way.
Better a woman than a man in all things, I suppose. Having women in positions of power is a necessary but nowhere near sufficient condition for the advance of women's interests. I think we also need to be explicit that this issue is contentious precisely because it entails two different axes of power. So, it's perfectly possible to say women in boardrooms means more women have power relative to men than before (because it obviously does), but that it also preserves the need for a poverty class which will inevitably entail more women than there could ever be at the top of the pyramid.
Adding women to boardrooms does give some women access to some power, but whether that benefits women in general depends on those women making decisions that are in women's interests. In order to ultimately benefit all women, those decisions would have to work against the capitalist class. When you look at whether that's possible in a position like the board of a company, it does seem a bit pointless; a CEO of a petroleum company - male or female - probably won't last long as CEO if they start making changes that devalue petrol in favour of clean energy, for example. I know almost nothing about the corporate world, but boardrooms in particular seem like areas where there really just isn't as much potential for actuating feminist change as in, say, politics or law. Because it's *literally their job* to ensure the future, growth and profit of the company by exploiting people in some capacity.
In general, it's certainly more likely that women will make more feminist decisions than men by virtue of their perspective alone, but this obviously isn't always the case because unscrupulous male-identified handmaidens. I think a lot of people do pursue powerful positions with the intention of making important and just changes when they get there, but the amount of concession and conformity to men's ideals necessary to actually 'make it' more often than not erodes someone's principles and perspective before they do anything worthwhile. Then once you're in such a position you're incentivised to maintain the order of things. So yes, this obviously shores up capitalism. But I also don't think it'd be any less shored up by having men in the same roles, and I think that's the relevant comparison to make when considering the sexual distribution of power alone. What women also desperately need, though, is to take small steps that push us in the direction of liberation from capitalism, which this does not do.
Thank you, by the way.
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Adam
Scousey
Lex Talionis
M.K. Hajdin
After a video of two teenage Pakistani sisters singing the Justin Bieber song 'Baby' went viral, does it surprise you that even the more culturally conservative societies like Pakistan has so many dedicated Bieber fans, and what do you think his popularity said's about humankind as a whole??
Justin Bieber is a very conservative phenomenon and his popularity tells us that humans will eat whatever shit they're fed without stopping to wonder if they even really like it
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M.K. Hajdin
Do you think Mcdonalds is being unreasonable by banning customers on horseback from using their drive through services, prompting one customer to ride her horse into the restaurant itself, pooping all over the floor in the process??
Yes, yes I do
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