Anonymous asked: What are “radscum?”
Radscum are a particularly nasty breed of radical feminist (i.e., those that are scum.) There’s a common misconception that “radical feminism” just means … well, any feminism that is radical. However, it refers to a specific kind of feminism that, in my experience, is characterized by rampant transmisogyny and a fuckton of internalized misogyny.
(To be fair, I’m sure there exist some radical feminists that aren’t scum. I just … haven’t met any.)
Most, if not all (actually probably all) radscum identify with some form of the “Womyn Born Womyn” movement, also known as the “If You Don’t Have a Vagina I Will Never Give Any Shits About You Ever” movement. They actively attack, belittle, and oppress trans women, and treat trans men as disappointments at best, traitors at worst. In short, they are scum.
They also seem to believe that any woman who is not a radical feminist is not smart enough to make decisions for herself. Most of them are anti-pornography, anti-burlesque, anti-femme, anti-heterosexuality, anti- … okay, they’re just anti-women-claiming-their-sexuality. Interactions with radscum in this context usually go like this:
Me: *wears makeup/wears a dress/shaves legs/etc.*
Radscum: HEY! DON’T DO THAT! STOP THAT! YOU’RE SUPPORTING THE PATRIARCHY! YOU’RE COOPERATING WITH THE ENEMY!
Me: Uhm, actually, even though I understand that mainstream beauty standards originated from the patriarchy to oppress and sexualize women, I’m actually doing this as a femme reclamation and a refusal to allow them to dictate my appearance. Also, outside of a feminist context, I just really like how this looks and it makes me happy.
Radscum: NO! WRONG! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! IT WILL ALWAYS BELONG TO THE PATRIARCHY! YOU DON’T REALLY WANT THAT, YOU’RE BRAINWASHED!
So basically what they’re saying is that a woman cannot make her own choices because her opinion will never outweigh a man’s opinion (not using inclusive language here because I’m referring to THEIR bullshit definition of “woman”), and that female-presenting people can never reclaim anything because anything that we attempt to reclaim belongs to men and always will.
Which, uh. Doesn’t sound very feminist to me.
And for people who screech so much about how gender/sex divisions are harmful and evil, they seem very very very concerned with policing who’s a “REAL WOMYN!!!!!!!!” and who isn’t.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Long story short is that they are very very unpleasant people and I don’t like them.
((rebloggable by request!))
Jenna TalackovaAfter being rebuked from groups like GLAAD, the Miss Universe Organization will allow Jenna Talackova, a transgender woman, to compete in the Miss Universe Canada pageant.
“The Miss Universe Organization will allow Jenna Talackova to compete in the 2012 Miss Universe Canada pageant provided she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions,” according to a statement released by the organization late Monday night.
GLAAD contacted the pageant organization after Talackova was disqualified for her transgender status; the group urged Miss Universe to change their policies. GLAAD is hoping to change the policy for all transgender competitors.
“The Miss Universe Organization made the right decision and has taken an important first step,” GLAAD’s Herndon Graddick said in a statement. “Now, GLAAD urges the Organization to include all women and use this incident to speak out in support of the transgender community.”This really surprised me.
FUCK YEAH
I am not a woman trapped in a man’s body. This body is no man’s; it is mine, it is me, and there is no man in that equation. And I am not trapped in it. There are a million and one ways out of this body, and I have clung to it, tooth and claw, despite an endless line of people and institutions who would rather I vacate the premises, and have sometimes been willing to make me bleed to convince me they’re right.
This body is mine, and I claim it and its bruises, and it is not a man’s, and I am not trapped here. I have looked leaving my body in the eye and I have said, in the end, hell no. There is too much to do, too much to love, too many who need one more of us to say hell no and help them say the same.
"(Source: kiriamaya)
