Anonymous #3 1d

Yeah! I agree, I was tryna figure out a way to explain why I didn’t agree but I didn’t know how to vocalise it.

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Anonymous #3 1d

Like I’m not saying you have to be revolutionary and completely re-invent the wheel but at least in the area I’m from and stuff I see online I feel perpetuate a lot of harmful stuff that has to do with patriarchy and misogyny and shame women who try to be different or date men who aren’t traditional

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Anonymous OP 1d

Ah okay, that makes sense. I agree that makes sense, we absolutely should not shame and judge each other for who we date. But that’s not most people, which is what you implied. The internet has a habit of amplifying the bad stuff and harmful things we say to each other. The more radical beliefs tend to be louder and thus more visible, but most of us aren’t like it, and repeating the cycle of generalisation can be harmful.

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Anonymous #4 1d

Its a fair thing to criticize people for, i just also think that usually those women don’t really want to be in those relationships.

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Anonymous #3 1d

choice feminism has been a massive failure. because by and large when you just say “let people make choices and never criticize those choices” first and foremost with minimal focus on deconstructing patriarchal ideas, people choose to continue perpetuating their internalized misogynistic beliefs and biases which just brings us back to square one. hence the massive pendulum swing from the rise of mainstream feminism in the 2010s to a surge in fascistic rhetoric and misogyny even among women

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Anonymous #7 1d

girl what

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Anonymous #3 1d

prioritizing choice as the main method of feminist action has not worked because people choose to perpetuate patriarchy. your choice to live or behave in a certain way can not be made independently of the society you live in. which is why there needs to be an emphasis on feminist education and liberation from patriarchal thinking first and foremost or people will continue to “choose” patriarchy

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Anonymous #7 1d

What? So like… woman can’t want a more masculine leaning man? Like preference is okay as long as you don’t want anything too heterosexual? What?

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Anonymous #3 1d

such as the recent trend of tradwife influencers, sure they made that choice but that choice does not exist independently of patriarchy because it can’t in a patriarchal society. and by focusing solely on whether they should be allowed to make that choice we ignore the underlying patriarchal cultural influences and the ways in which their choice and the way they talk and act about their choice influences other young girls to willingly give up their autonomy.

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Anonymous #7 1d

But that is still their choice, you can’t just take away a person’s free will because you don’t agree with it. You’re preaching the same thing as people who say children seeing gay people will make them gay, that’s not how that works

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Anonymous #6 1d

that’s fine if you want to do that but you should be aware that something being your sexual or romantic preference doesn’t mean it exists independently of say transmisogyny. you can do that but our preferences and feelings about who we would or wouldn’t date are definitely impacted by societal attitudes and our internalized biases

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Anonymous #2 1d

that’s entirely missing the point. whether you ultimately choose to date someone is up to you but the important thing is focusing on dismantling patriarchal attitudes and patriarchal social pressures. because your choices do not exist independently of those social pressures and you should do work to examine, unpack, and do away with your internalized biases. instead of using choice as a shield to avoid examining the underlying reasons why you might or might not be making that choice.

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Anonymous #2 1d

that’s not what i’m saying. i’m saying the emphasis on choice as the most important aspect of feminist work is flawed. people should be allowed to make those choices, but if you open the gates for people to choose whatever they want WITHOUT actually dismantling patriarchal social pressures and internalized misogyny, people will choose to perpetuate those things, and to submit themselves and others to patriarchial thinking

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Anonymous #7 1d

It’s not though. I have little preference on who I date. I have dated a lot of different people, nonbinary, woman, transgender people of all kinds, and yes men. But if I choose a man, it shouldn’t automatically be assumed it’s because I’m all of a sudden pressured by the patriarchy, it’s because I love him and have a romantic connection to him. You can’t assume people always have unconscious biases, yes that happens, but it doesn’t automatically make being hetero invalid

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Anonymous #2 1d

im not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to make choices but that our focus should be on getting rid of patriarchal thinking, expectations, and social pressures so people can actually make those choices independent of patriarchy.

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Anonymous #6 1d

I’m not saying anything about dating trans women I could really care less about people’s preferences. I just see a lot of internalized stuff come out when cis women date cis men

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Anonymous #7 1d

super valid point. i like to think my preference is independent but it's hard to ever know for sure. i hope in the near future it's normalized enough to where this isn't an issue, same thing with interracial dating and homosexuality

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Anonymous #7 1d

And maybe that’s true, but we also need to be careful to not ostracise other women for said choices. The way we phrase things is very important, and if we make the assumption that every choice of a ‘traditional’ relationship is unconscious bias, we chase them away because they feel othered or unsupported.

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Anonymous OP 1d

can you give an example? i guess i don't understand because i have not experienced a straight cis relationship

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Anonymous #2 1d

i’m also not saying that either. i’m saying focusing purely on whether someone can make a choice and never examining our internalized biases and why we make a choice is a flawed way to go about feminist work and liberation from patriarchy. you can choose to date men, i don’t care. that’s not the point. we need to focus on teaching people about how patriarchy functions and how to examine and get rid of the internalized biases everybody has.

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Anonymous #6 1d

Well a huge thing I’ve been seeing a lot is like sometimes I’ll see online a woman proposing to a man and all the comments will be other cis women saying things like “girl get up” or “I could never” or something about her or the man

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Anonymous OP 1d

OH! i completely missed the point of the post entirely. i agree with this

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Anonymous #7 1d

Ahhh okay, I see where you’re coming from. Yeah when you say it like that, you’re absolutely right. I think your original sentence was said a little poorly, but no you’re right. I feel like choice should still be part of the argument, but I think you’re talking about how the main argument should be shifted? Idk

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Anonymous #2 1d

i’m not saying every choice of a traditional relationship is solely because of patriarchy. YOU brought that up and YOU want to make this about people discriminating against straight people for some reason. i do not know how many different ways i can express that focusing solely on choice and not focusing on the way we think about sex, gender, gender roles, and relationships is not a good strategy. the way you view yourself and others is not independent of patriarchy. it cannot be.

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Anonymous #7 1d

Babes, I misunderstood your point, I admitted that in a different comment 😭 I thought what you were saying was to get rid of that choice in general until the patriarchy was destroyed or something, not that we have to shift the focus of our argument.

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Anonymous #2 1d

yeah sorry if i got heated. i haven’t eaten dinner yet. but that is my point. when we focus solely on uplifting people for making whatever choice they want we forget to do the work of actually dismantling patriarchy and you can see it in the way that we’ve honestly backslid a good amount from where we were at in terms of most people’s understanding of feminism even 5 years ago

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Anonymous #2 1d

choice is obviously important, removing autonomy by force is a tool of patriarchy and it kills. but it also functions through more subtle forms of coercion, and is perpetuated, especially amongst women, by internalized biases and shaping the way we view our place in the world.

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Anonymous #2 1d

and it can be especially dangerous when we focus on making choices but not like providing support for people. because you may in fully good faith make the choice to be a stay at home mom but if society as a whole still doesn’t value that as labor you will have very little support if say your partner loses their job, and you will still be looked as a lesser contributor to the household despite your labor.

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Anonymous #2 1d

i saw that i apologize for getting frustrated you’re all good i should be a little more patient and better at talking to people who don’t have my same background in feminist and gender theory

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Anonymous #7 1d

Yeah yeah that makes more sense

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Anonymous #7 1d

Yeah no, I get it. Especially on the internet it can be harder to get a point across and it can be frustrating at times.

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