cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/13000

My first time was right after high school. No, not THAT first time! I mean the first time I was groped.

I was in an elevator with an elderly elevator operator who was about half my size. When the doors closed, he grabbed me — as Misogynist-in-Chief Trump would say — “by the pussy.” I was too stunned to stop him. I didn’t report it.

As Fabiola Ramirez tells us, strangers transgressing women’s bodies in public places happens “everything everywhere all at once.” That movie title says it all. A guy behind me on a crowded escalator. Next to me on a bus where riders are packed like sardines. Two of us alone in the office. We women say nothing because it’s useless. Others avert their eyes: “I see nothing going on here!”

Mexico was shocked/not shocked when their president, Claudia Sheinbaum, was groped in the middle of a street, in the middle of the day, in the middle of a crowd, in the middle of cellphone cameras. No matter our position or social status, to many men, any woman is an object they are free to touch.

Feminists in Mexico and the US have been demanding for decades that the government take sexual harassment seriously. What will it require for women to simply walk to the store or ride a bus to work without the fear that their bodily autonomy will be breached at any moment? Hmm, what if women began grabbing random men by the balls in public? Would that get attention?

And we haven’t even gotten to domestic violence or femicide.

Women’s equality isn’t something to be kept waiting on the back burner. To achieve Mexico’s 4th transformation, or any social transformation, requires action. No one can be free until women are free.

Fabiola Paulina Ramírez Ortiz brings an intersectional feminist perspective to her work as a human rights defender, union organizer, grassroots educator, policy designer and advocate. She has spearheaded equality and non-discrimination campaigns in community, workplace and government settings. She’s worked with the Mexico City Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination, the National Human Rights Commission, and the National Electoral Institute. She also has provided direct support for victims of violence, and founded Mariposas Mirabal, a space for listening and shared learning for women in precarious employment.

What do you think of Claudia’s reaction after a stranger groped her in public?

Even though Claudia is Mexico’s first woman president, a stranger publicly and inappropriately touched her in the middle of a crowd in broad daylight. I found it outrageous and revictimizing when I heard some people deny what happened — despite videos and numerous witnesses — saying it was just a show, that Claudia planned it. As proof that it was staged, they noted that after it happened, she kept smiling! She took several days to file a complaint, and some said that showed her weakness, that we’re not ready for a female President.

In fact, she had a completely normal reaction to assault. Women often don’t speak up until after they’ve had time to consider the consequences for themselves, the aggressor and their own families.

An assault victim owes no one “ideal” behavior. It’s a fundamental principle to never pressure women who experience violence to file a report. For Claudia, filing an official complaint was necessary and right; as President, she didn’t want to perpetuate the normalizing of these behaviors.

The world expects women leaders to do everything perfectly — but not men. In 1848, when President Santa Anna lost the war against the United States and relinquished half of Mexico’s territory, no one said, “Enough is enough! No more male presidents!”

During the first nine months of 2025, 1,194 reports of sexual harassment were filed in Mexico City, an increase compared to 2024.

Have you ever been groped in public yourself?

Absolutely, I can assure you that we’ve all experienced it. The first time I saw it was while walking home from middle school, and a boy riding a bike touched my friend’s butt. Harassment mostly happened to me on public transportation. One time, I was on my way to high school on a packed bus. I felt something but wasn’t sure if I was being touched. A young woman was watching and called me over as if she knew me and pulled me away from him. So, I learned from a young age both that men feel free to invade our bodies and that women together can protect each other.

It’s important to distinguish between sexual violence occurring in private versus public spaces. In private spaces, the perpetrator is usually someone the victim knows, but in public spaces, he’s generally a stranger. According to a National Security survey, during the first nine months of 2025, 1,194 reports of sexual harassment were filed in Mexico City, an increase compared to the previous year. According to a parliamentary report, of those incidents, 64.8% occurred in public streets or parks and 17.8% on public transportation.

But these are only the official reports!

Most women don’t report incidents, some due to lack of awareness, others out of fear, but always because it’s unlikely any action will betaken. Unfortunately, sexual harassment, including verbal abuse and groping, has become normalized.

Sexual violence against women, including street harassment, isn’t based on sexual desire. It’s based on control — the exercise of power over women and feminized bodies. As is often said, “If there is someone more oppressed than the worker, it’s the worker’s wife.”

What are some demands that feminists have made to the Mexican government for the protection of women?

First and foremost, we demand that the government take attacks against women and girls seriously. Crimes committed against women simply because they are women or non-binary must be investigated diligently, and the perpetrators must be prosecuted. No more impunity.

We demand investigations with a gender perspective by public servants sensitive to the special circumstances women face in gender-based violence. Investigators should be trained to address crimes against women, with the professionalization of workers in this sector.

Current investigative methods re-victimize women because they often start with the premise that “she asked for it,” with questions like “What were you wearing?” Investigators must understand that daring to report abuse is difficult — even after filing a report, the victim may return to an abuser. This does not invalidate the report!

Instead, they must ask: Why did she return? What other options did she have? Was she offered a safe space? Was there economic and psychological violence that prevented the victim from leaving?

Care should be comprehensive with multidisciplinary teams that include mental health professionals, legal counsel and financial support.

For example, women of Andalusia, Spain, passed a law requiring employers to hold women’s jobs while they are in women’s shelters following incidents of abuse. Here in Mexico, a feminist group, Pan y Rosas (Bread and Roses), is demanding that the government implement a similar law nationwide.

I’ve always maintained that human rights are not mere declarations of goodwill — they demand concrete actions, and actions require funding. We demand that the government impose no budget cuts for women’s centers, shelters, or investigations of crimes against women.

Have measures been implemented to improve women’s safety?

Initiatives to combat violence against women range from very useful to mere charades. For as long as I can remember, Mexico City has had women-only subway cars — and similar “pink seats” on other transit — to reduce sexual harassment on public transportation. And personally, I feel much safer traveling in these spaces.

Women’s Day in Guanajuato, 2024. Photo: Bruce Hobson

These affirmative measures should be temporary though, and disappear after the inequality has been addressed. But they’ve been in place so many years, it suggests they aren’t seriously reducing sexual harassment on public transportation.

The Alert of Gender Violence Against Women, or AVGMs, are triggered when femicides and disappearances of women exceed “normal” rates and an area is designated as high-risk. Currently, 24 AVGMs are active in 22 of the 32 Mexican states; however, monitoring them is complex, and authorities don’t always report true emergencies. The program only highlights their inaction!

In Iztapalapa, Clara Brugada, as mayor, implemented Walk Safely, a program that included installing streetlights, visible road signs, improvements to parks and creating murals about women’s safety. These definitely improved the neighborhoods’ appearance and increased a sense of security, but these are measures the government should already have been taking simply to improve neighborhoods. These weren’t specifically for the safety of women.

Would men lose if women achieved equality?

The gender binary and sexual violence don’t only repress and oppress women but also LGBTQ+ people and men who don’t conform to masculine stereotypes. If they express tenderness or show tears, heterosexual men are often ridiculed — or worse — usually by other men.

We feminists imagine a world where all people, regardless of gender identity, can live a life more fully than we do currently.

The Mirabal Sisters, known as Las Mariposas. The sisters were opponents of Dominican Republic dictator General Rafael Trujillo, and inspired by Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution organised an underground movement to topple Trujillo’s dictatorship.

• 

  Analysis | Interviews

  Because Women’s Bodies Belong to Women

  December 11, 2025December 11, 2025

  An interview with human rights defender, union organizer, & educator Fabiola Paulina Ramírez Ortiz, founder of Mariposas Mirabal.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera December 10

  December 10, 2025December 10, 2025

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Michoacán peace, migrant mistreatment in US, water law, water dispute with US, UN recognition for Iztapalapa, and Indigenous artisans.

• 

  News Briefs

  Mexico City Congress Creates Commission to Investigate “Gen-Z” March Violence

  December 10, 2025December 10, 2025

  The overwhelming opinion on Mexico’s left is that shock groups in the November 15th confrontation were paid for, and orchestrated by the right wing opposition.

The post Because Women’s Bodies Belong to Women appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/9727

From Common Dreams via this RSS feed

Yet another horrible case involving violent SA that has been ongoing for a long time. Content warning for descriptions of what he had done to the victims.

The part where it states how this monster re-enacted his victims trauma is something I can relate to from my own experience of SA.

At a time of a historic militarist shifts by imperialist powers, we propose in this article to re-appropriate some of the debates between Marxism and revolutionary feminism before the First World War. Although the situation is not the same, these theoretical and political struggles offer a valuable lesson for articulating a class-independent and revolutionary position today.

In August 1910, the International Conference of Socialist Women, organized by Clara Zetkin, met in Copenhagen. During this conference, more than 100 delegates from 17 countries voted in favor of establishing an international day to celebrate women’s struggles. The congress debated various issues related to women workers’ rights, women’s education, and the fight against the impending war. On March 19, 1911, a demonstration for International Women’s Day was held for the first time in Berlin, with more than 30,000 demonstrators. A few years later, it was moved to March 8, a date we still commemorate today.

The next International Women’s Conference was scheduled for 1914, but it could not take place due to the war that shattered Europe. Clara Zetkin was at the forefront alongside Rosa Luxemburg in the fight against imperialist war. Both belonged to the left wing of German Social Democracy and rejected the SPD’s (Social Democratic Party of Germany) support for the war. When the SPD parliamentary bloc approved war credits on August 4, 1914, they formed the “Spartacus League” with others and published the magazine ” Die Internationale.” In the second vote in the German parliament in December of that year, Karl Liebknecht was the only Social Democratic MP to refuse to support the war machine with his vote.

In March 1915, despite enormous difficulties, Clara Zetkin and the Russian revolutionaries organized the first International Women’s Anti-War Conference, attended by 29 delegates from the belligerent countries. This meeting was of particular historical importance because it was the first international gathering where socialist women activists were able to come together against the world war. The Berne Conference adopted a manifesto, printed by the thousands for clandestine distribution in several countries. Upon her return to Germany, Clara Zetkin was accused of treason and imprisoned.

Full Article

Alexandra Kollontai, born on this day in 1872, was a Marxist feminist revolutionary who served as People's Commissar for Social Welfare in the Soviet Union and, later in life, as a diplomat for the USSR abroad.

Alexandra was born into a wealthy family of Ukrainian, Russian, and Finnish background, acquiring a fluency in both Russian and Finnish early on. This experience would later assist her in her career as a Soviet diplomat.

In 1895, Kollontai read August Bebel's "Woman and Socialism", which was a major influence on her thinking. In 1896, she helped fundraise in support of a mass textile strike in St. Petersburg, retaining connections with the women textile workers of St. Petersburg for the rest of her career.

In the years leading up to 1917, Kollontai was active as a Marxist theoretician, educator, and anti-war activist (opposing World War I, specifically). During this time, she established contact with Vladimir Lenin and gave a lengthy speaking tour in the U.S., sharing a stage with Eugene V. Debs and giving 123 speeches in 4 languages.

Following the 1917 February Revolution, Kollontai returned to Russia. Later that year, she voted in favor of the decision to launch an armed uprising against the government, also participating in the revolt. At the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, she was elected Commissar of Social Welfare in the new Soviet government.

The Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography describes her efforts within the Soviet government: "The changes that Kollontai tried to bring about were enormous, involving the complete destruction of the old system and the creation of a new one...Kollontai authorized decrees that committed the Soviet State to full funding of maternity care from conception through the first year of a child's life - an unheard of measure for the beginning of the 20th century. She attempted to establish full legal, political, and sexual equality for women and to redress the entire marriage code."

In 1920, Kollontai joined the left "Workers' Opposition", an opposition tendency in the Bolshevik Party opposed to what they saw as the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet state. In March 1921, the Workers' Opposition was banned along with all other factions at the 10th party congress in March 1921, but its members continued to be active as leaders of both the Bolshevik Party and the Soviets.

In 1922, Kollontai was one of the signers of the "Letter of the 22" to the Communist International, protesting the banning of factions in Russia.

Following this incident, Kollontai began to serve as a Soviet diplomat, becoming one of the first women to work in international diplomacy. As ambassador to Norway and Sweden, as a trade delegate to Mexico, as a delegate to the League of Nations, and as negotiator of the Finno-Soviet peace treaty of 1940, she served the USSR with what was generally regarded as great finesse. From 1946 until her death in 1952, she was an advisor to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"Class instinct...always shows itself to be more powerful than the noble enthusiasms of 'above-class' politics. So long as the bourgeois women and their [proletarian] 'younger sisters' are equal in their inequality, the former can, with complete sincerity, make great efforts to defend the general interests of women.

But once the barrier is down and the bourgeois women have received access to political activity, the recent defenders of the 'rights of all women' become enthusiastic defenders of the privileges of their class, content to leave the younger sisters with no rights at all. Thus, when the feminists talk to working women about the need for a common struggle to realise some 'general women's' principle, women of the working class are naturally distrustful."

• Alexandra Kollontai

Alexandra Kollontai Archive

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I really appreciate every contribution you have made towards my wellbeing. I really need urgent support because my sister needs to get her daily medication that she’s has to take almost her life but meanwhile we need your support to survive. Also is also happening here in the camp that literally every one needed help. Please consider contributing to our cause . Here in Gorom South Sudan, it’s hot about 40 degrees. Schools are closed and people are losing lives we really don’t want to lose lives either. Our conditions are really terrible some are really sick and we are lacking medication in the hospitals it’s through your supportive system that we survive. We really need your help anything will mean a lot thank you so much

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Portrait of Messali Hadj & Émilie Busquant, by François Lachastre. From the Centre for the Study and Research of International Revolutionary and Trotskyist Movements [historyworkshop.org.uk/]

Émilie Busquant, born on this day in 1901, was a French feminist, anarcho-syndicalist, and anti-colonial activist who helped design the Algerian flag. Busquant fought for Algerian independence alongside her husband, Messali Hadj.

Émilie Busquant was born to a working class, anarchist family in Neuves-Maisons, France. While working in Paris, Busquant met and began dating Messali Hadj, then a young Algerian migrant. Their partnership was marked by a shared commitment to progressive and anti-colonial causes.

During Messali's long spells in prison, Émilie often spoke on his behalf and used her position as a French woman to criticize France's commitment to "civilising" Algeria. She is sometimes credited with creating the first Algerian flag, however this story is considered apocryphal or exaggerated by some historians.

Busquant died in Algiers in 1953 while her husband was in exile in France. Hadj was refused permission to visit her on her death bed. A cortege of 10,000 followed her coffin, draped in the Algerian flag, through the streets of the Algerian capital on its way to the port.

Émilie's funeral in Neuves-Maisons was attended by delegations from many socialist parties. Under police surveillance, Hadj gave a eulogy recalling her activism, declaring her "the symbol of the union of the Algerian and French peoples in their shared struggle".

In 1962, nine years after Émilie's death, Algeria achieved independence from France. In 2015, journalist Rabah Zanoun produced a film about Busquant's life.

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Unfortunately, this problem she is talking about represents a major problem on the left that my intersectional ass is noticing way too damn much.

It really seems like, for many leftists, justice is either:

1. supported for the sake of selfishness (people only care about supporting pro-justice causes that they'd personally benefit from, but they'll gladly be oppressive in other contexts)
2. taken as a performative gesture to make someone look noble, righteous, inclusive, and "woke" without any genuine care or concern for marginalized people

I feel this is seldom ever addressed because, like I said, it seems like this issue is so common that many leftists aren't even realizing that it's an issue. If you just drown out the voices of intersectional people, why would someone even have to care?

The fact that leftists lacking intersectionality is the norm and not the exception has been one of the scariest things for me when it comes to interacting with much of the left.

Hiratsuka Raichō, born on this day in 1886, was an anarchist writer, journalist, political activist, and pioneering Japanese feminist. Her efforts helped legalize Japanese women joining political organizations in 1922.

Upon graduating from university, Hiratsuka founded Japan's first all-women literary magazine, Seitō (青鞜, literally "Bluestocking"), in 1911.

Hiratsuka began the first issue with the words, "In the beginning, woman was the sun", a reference to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, and to the spiritual independence which women had lost. Adopting the pen name "Raichō" ("Thunderbird"), she began to call for a women's spiritual revolution.

Hiratsuka also founded the New Women's Association with fellow women's rights activist Ichikawa Fusae. It was largely through this group's efforts that the Article 5 of the Police Security Regulations, which barred women from joining political organizations and holding or attending political meetings, was overturned in 1922.

• Hiratsuka Raicho: The Japanese Feminist’s Life and Work

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This is a terrible story so please proceed with caution in reading it.

I don't really even know what to say about this, but think it is important it is discussed and circulated. SA culture is a pervasive as ever and just now online groups on Telegram have been exposed that circle fully around how to SA women.

It's all men because this is cultural.

I was personally sexually assaulted as a teenager by an adult man who drugged me and then I was blamed for it. Almost everybody I know has these stories, we are never safe.

i said 'move shortstack', shoved him, and left

tall women = 1. short incels = -∞

How is everyone today, life good?

(This isn't like specifically theory posting comm is it? If so I can turn this into theory just watch me 💪)

I was chatting with a friend today about how a lot of peeps in our group are exploring their bisexual arc because they are just DONE with men.

That or just vibing on their own which is so powerful.

Everyone be chatting about the 4B movement. I know this isn't considered revolutionary here but irl it's nice to see people who just existed suddenly talking about their empowerment. It's great. It's not the same but also kinda is; when we got financial suffrage in the UK in the 70s and bank accounts without our dad or husbands permission and we just dumped them and divorce rates shot up. I dunno, women taking agency and/or divesting from traditional sex/gender/relationship/societal roles is always based, shame it feels like a reaction to tate, incels etc.

But it's cool that even when we are all dooming about the state of it all there's agency and positivity to be found in self love and care I guess!!

On the 24th of october in 1975, approximately 90% of Icelandic women struck for equality, not attending jobs or doing any domestic work. Iceland passed an equal pay law the following year, but the strike has been repeated on its anniversary several times since, such as in the years 2005, 2010, and 2016.

The strike was planned by "The Women's Congress", which had met on June 20th and 21st earlier that year. Among the reasons given for going on strike were pay inequality, lack of women in union leadership, and a general lack of recognition for the value and skill of domestic labor.

During the work stoppage, also known as "Women's Day Off", 25,000 people gathered in Reykjavik, Iceland's capital city, for a rally. There, women listened to speakers, sang, and talked to each other about what could be done to achieve gender equality in Iceland.

Women from many different backgrounds spoke, including a housewife, two members of parliament, and a worker. The last speech of the day was by Aðalheiður Bjarnfreðsdóttir, who "represented Sókn, the trade union for the lowest paid women in Iceland", according to The Guardian.

In 1976, the Icelandic government passed an equal pay law, and the country elected its first female President, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, five years later in 1980.

The 1975 Women's Strike also helped inspire the 2016 "Black Monday" anti-abortion ban protests in Poland, as well as the "International Women's Strike", single day work stoppages on March 8th, 2017 and 2018.

• The day the women went on strike, the guardian

• Women's Day Off 1975

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3121683

piped: https://piped.video/watch?v=qkNP2KveLVE

nice video on an enby's experience with being queer and neurodivergent through their gender expressions and problems with holding conversations and social anxiety. they use a text-to-speech system to talk as they prefer using it over their actual voice

Activist and writer Ida B. Wells-Barnett first became prominent in the 1890s because she brought international attention to the lynching of African Americans in the South. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. At the age of sixteen, she became primary caregiver to her six brothers and sisters, when both of her parents succumbed to yellow fever. After completing her studies at Rust College, where her father had sat on the board of trustees before his death, Wells divided her time between caring for her siblings and teaching school. She moved to Memphis, Tennessee in the 1880s.

Wells first began protesting the treatment of black Southerners on a train ride between Memphis and her job at a rural school; the conductor told her that she must move to the train’s smoking car. Wells refused, arguing that she had purchased a first-class ticket. The conductor and other passengers then physically removed her from the train. Wells returned to Memphis, hired a lawyer, and sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. The court decided in her favor, awarding Wells $500. The railroad company appealed, and in 1887, the Supreme Court of Tennessee reversed the previous decision and ordered Wells to pay court fees. Using the pseudonym “Iola,” Wells began to write editorials in black newspapers that challenged Jim Crow laws in the South. She bought a share of a Memphis newspaper, the Free Speech and Headlight, and used it to further the cause of African American civil rights.

After the lynching of three of her friends in 1892, Wells became one of the nation’s most vocal anti-lynching activists. Calvin McDowell, Thomas Moss, and Henry Stewart owned the People’s Grocery in Memphis, but their economic success angered the white owners of a store across the street. On March 9, a group of white men gathered to confront McDowell, Moss, and Stewart. During the ensuing scuffle, several of the white men received injuries, and authorities arrested the three black business owners. A white mob subsequently broke into the jail, captured McDowell, Moss, and Stewart, and lynched them.

Incensed by the murder of her friends, Wells launched an extensive investigation of lynching. In 1892, she published a pamphlet, “Southern Horrors,” which detailed her findings. Through her lectures and books such as A Red Record (1895), Wells countered the “rape myth” used by lynch mobs to justify the murder of African Americans. Through her research she found that lynch victims had challenged white authority or had successfully competed with whites in business or politics. As a result of her outspokenness, a mob destroyed the offices of the Free Speech and threatened to kill Wells. She fled Memphis determined to continue her campaign to raise awareness of southern lynching. Wells took her movement to England, and established the British Anti-Lynching Society in 1894. She returned to the U.S. and settled in Chicago, Illinois, where she married attorney and newspaper editor Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895.

Wells-Barnett also worked to advance other political causes. She protested the exclusion of African Americans from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and three years later, she helped launch the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). In 1909, Wells was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Wells was also active in the women's suffrage movement, however her unrelenting advocacy for racial justice clashed with contemporary, predominantly white suffrage organizations.

Ida Wells-Barnett died in Chicago in 1931 at the age of 69.

• blackpast

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• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays

June Jordan, born on this day in 1936, was a queer Jamaican-American author, feminist, and educator whose works include Some of Us Did Not Die and Report From the Bahamas. "Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth."

In her writing, Jordan explores issues of gender, race, capitalism, privilege, immigration, and representation. Jordan was passionate about using Black English in both her writing and her classroom, teaching her students to treat Black English as its own language and as an important outlet for expressing Black culture.

As a professor at Berkeley, Jordan founded the "Poetry for the People" program in 1991. Its aim was to inspire and empower students to use poetry as a means of artistic expression.

Although not widely recognized when first published in 1982, Jordan's essay "Report from the Bahamas", has since become an important work in gender studies, sociology, and anthropology.

"Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth."

• June Jordan

June Jordan - Poetry foundation

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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

• 🌈 LGBTQ+ Resource Post
• 🍉 Resources for Palestine
• 🐌☕ Zapatista Coffee

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays

One subject within feminism that I, unfortunately, decided to take a look at common discourse for is whether men can be feminists or not.

Right from the get-go, I noticed that this discourse is insanely binarist, cisheteronormative, and non-intersectional. It's typically a separatist tendency to put forth that men cannot be feminists due to them lacking the experience of life as a woman, but this has many flaws:

1. It's a matter of semantics: This is just a convoluted effort for feminists who do not actually understand feminist theory and ideology to tie support for a tendency to being personally impacted by that tendency. If a man supports woman's liberation, whether or not you call him a "feminist" is just within a label, but his ideas are in the direction of such a tendency, just like how one can oppose something like sinophobia without being Chinese. Feminism is often defined by an ideological stance that supports women's liberation, regardless of one's experience (or lack thereof) with womanhood.

2. It's grossly essentialist: This idea that men have to distance themselves from having sympathy to feminism as a movement pushes for this bitter idea that men are inherently to be oppressive or repulsed by women's rights. Aside from the fact that this isn't true, it's also very unhelpful and even dangerous, as it doesn't encourage privileged men to reexamine how they can be better. Essentialism is inherently anti-feminist because it turns patriarchy from a systemic concern into a personal concern, which has no capacity to advance women's liberation, and speaking of this, another issue it has?

3. It's binarist, cisheteronormative, and inconsiderate of intersectionality. As I've hinted at already, this is a deep concern for me. Queer cis men, such as gay and bisexual cis men, are negatively impacted by patriarchy directly, even though they are not women. Patriarchy is a structure that works hand-in-hand with queerphobia to keep heteronormative ideas in place, and feminists, especially if they are queer themselves, should know this. Of course, this also starts being a very fuzzy area for trans men and trans women.

Trans men are undeniably men who go through an experience where patriarchy is hindering them more than it does your typical cis man. Of course, trans women do not benefit from this either, as essentialism is a tool of patriarchy, not a tool against it as I stated in the last point. Essentialism is why patriarchy hates trans people. Whether you are a trans man, trans woman, or non-binary (✋🏿), you are defying this essentialist standard that the sex you were assigned at birth tells you where you sit in this crudely constructed gender hierarchy.

That gender hierarchy vanishing would benefit all of these aforementioned queer people, including the ones that are men. Hell, dismantling patriarchy would even benefit many cishet men because of the toxic standards that it sets up. Even if you are a cishet man, for instance, if you are emotional and sensitive, you are being put down for being that way because of patriarchy.

Ultimately, I'm not really surprised that the privileged white feminist types would be the kind of people to think that feminism is only a movement that can be supported by people like them. After all, these are the same people who neglect factoring in intersections of things like race, class, and queer identity simply because it doesn't bother them personally. Oftentimes, it seems like these kinds of shortsighted and non-intersectional feminists do not want patriarchy to end; they want how they are personally inconvenienced by patriarchy to end.

As a black, non-binary transfeminine person, a lot of feminist talk scares me because it leaves me in this weird question mark zone, where I'm saying to myself "Where exactly do you all think I factor into this discourse because you seem to be only focused on binarist cisheteronormative ideas without a single hint of intersectionality in your feminism?"

Unfortunately, I just so happen to realize that, regardless if me or someone else, people outside of the typical lens of a non-intersectional feminist are erased, and on the rare one-off occasions in which we are directly brought up, intersectionality will, ironically enough, be called a "divisive distraction," and in some instances, people like me are met with mask-off bigotry.

Obviously, I'm not saying you shouldn't be wary of cishet men from a systemic standpoint. The privilege that patriarchy grants them can corrupt their behavior and thought patterns just like how white supremacy and settler mindset does the same for cracKKKers. However, this type of shortsighted stuff I'm worried about isn't from a systemic standpoint; it's from an essentialist one, and it's getting to be so damn essentialist that it's unhelpful.

To close out with an analogy, as a black person, I will hiss at cracKKKers all day because of how white supremacy has systemically poisoned their mind and their own view of their privilege, but in this process, I will never start supporting "scientific racism but for black people" (black supremacy). This is because I know that essentialism is a part of the problem, not a tool to be used against it.