let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2013-04-08 09:14 am
alexseanchai) wrote2013-04-08 09:14 am
Entry tags:
things I have learned from #onlinefeminism: an inexhaustive list
(April 8: Future of #OnlineFeminism Day.)
Gender correlates pretty strongly with reproductive organs and with the twenty-third chromosome. Correlation is not causation.
There are two basic templates for reproductive organs. There's a whole lot of ways to vary those templates. There is nothing wrong with this.
There are more than two genders. There is nothing wrong with this.
People have one gender, more or less. There is nothing wrong with this.
Attraction to people other than the societal default of 'someone whose gender matches their birth gender assignment, which is neither your gender nor your birth gender assignment' is a thing. There is nothing wrong with this.
One's body is one's own.
One's body remains one's own even when others try to stake a claim on it, whether by rape, by pregnancy, by imprisonment, by enslavement.
Exploitation in sex work is a massive problem. Many sex workers are severely enough exploited that it is fair to call their situation 'sex slavery'.
Penalizing sex workers for being sex workers is a form of exploitation in sex work. Endangering sex workers, knowing no one will care because they're only whores, is a form of exploitation in sex work.
Sex workers of all genders exist. Sex workers whose gender does not match their birth gender assignment exist. Sex workers who are not exploited exist. There is nothing wrong with any of these.
Referring to oneself as 'abolitionist' for wanting to eradicate sex slavery is wrong. Especially if what one actually wants is to eradicate sex work in the name of eradicating sex slavery. It is an insult to sex workers who are not exploited, to chattel slaves and their descendants, and to wage slaves.
There are situations that it is fair to call 'wage slavery'. Parameters of the term vary, but ensuring that every job is a living-wage job will eradicate all those situations.
There are very powerful people who benefit from the existence of wage slavery.
There are very powerful people who benefit from any aspect of kyriarchy.
There are many, many aspects of kyriarchy. Sex. Gender. Sexuality. Race. Class. Ethnicity. Size. Appearance. National origin. Religion. Physical disability. Cognitive disability. Mental illness. Neurodiversity. Even height and skin color—a light-skinned black person typically gets better treatment than a dark-skinned black person, all else equal, and height correlates with income.
#onlinefeminism has taught me most everything I know about the kyriarchy in all its forms. The rest I learned on my own, but didn't understand without the tools online feminism gave me. I thought, for example, that all the times I suggested a thing and nobody listened and a guy suggested that thing and everybody listened, those resulted from some personal fault of my own. Turns out it's a sexist pattern, not my fault at all. Without online feminism, I would never have figured that out.
Online feminism has changed my life. At this point it would be entirely fair to say that online feminism (and fandom, but there's heavy overlap) IS my life.
My heart's still beating. Feminism must not be dead.
Gender correlates pretty strongly with reproductive organs and with the twenty-third chromosome. Correlation is not causation.
There are two basic templates for reproductive organs. There's a whole lot of ways to vary those templates. There is nothing wrong with this.
There are more than two genders. There is nothing wrong with this.
People have one gender, more or less. There is nothing wrong with this.
Attraction to people other than the societal default of 'someone whose gender matches their birth gender assignment, which is neither your gender nor your birth gender assignment' is a thing. There is nothing wrong with this.
One's body is one's own.
One's body remains one's own even when others try to stake a claim on it, whether by rape, by pregnancy, by imprisonment, by enslavement.
Exploitation in sex work is a massive problem. Many sex workers are severely enough exploited that it is fair to call their situation 'sex slavery'.
Penalizing sex workers for being sex workers is a form of exploitation in sex work. Endangering sex workers, knowing no one will care because they're only whores, is a form of exploitation in sex work.
Sex workers of all genders exist. Sex workers whose gender does not match their birth gender assignment exist. Sex workers who are not exploited exist. There is nothing wrong with any of these.
Referring to oneself as 'abolitionist' for wanting to eradicate sex slavery is wrong. Especially if what one actually wants is to eradicate sex work in the name of eradicating sex slavery. It is an insult to sex workers who are not exploited, to chattel slaves and their descendants, and to wage slaves.
There are situations that it is fair to call 'wage slavery'. Parameters of the term vary, but ensuring that every job is a living-wage job will eradicate all those situations.
There are very powerful people who benefit from the existence of wage slavery.
There are very powerful people who benefit from any aspect of kyriarchy.
There are many, many aspects of kyriarchy. Sex. Gender. Sexuality. Race. Class. Ethnicity. Size. Appearance. National origin. Religion. Physical disability. Cognitive disability. Mental illness. Neurodiversity. Even height and skin color—a light-skinned black person typically gets better treatment than a dark-skinned black person, all else equal, and height correlates with income.
#onlinefeminism has taught me most everything I know about the kyriarchy in all its forms. The rest I learned on my own, but didn't understand without the tools online feminism gave me. I thought, for example, that all the times I suggested a thing and nobody listened and a guy suggested that thing and everybody listened, those resulted from some personal fault of my own. Turns out it's a sexist pattern, not my fault at all. Without online feminism, I would never have figured that out.
Online feminism has changed my life. At this point it would be entirely fair to say that online feminism (and fandom, but there's heavy overlap) IS my life.
My heart's still beating. Feminism must not be dead.