— Vladimir Nabokov in a letter to his wife Véra, 2 July 1926.
[Except for your eyes, / no blade can control me, / no sharpened knife.]
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Lilichka
litany in which certain things are crossed out, richard siken / i know the end, phoebe bridgers / courtney love prays to oregon, clementine von radics / matthias et maxime, xavier dolan / home, warsan shire / x / cut, catherine lacey / when god talks to your father, salma deera / garden song, phoebe bridgers
The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers, Jan de Baen (1672 - 1675) / Killing Eve 2.04 Desperate Times / The Mead of Poetry, Philip R. Obermarck (2014)
Radclub Library
Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood
Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating
Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse
Andrea Dworkin, Letters from a War Zone
Andrea Dworkin, Life and Death
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography, Men Possessing Women
Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women
Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete
Audre Lorde, Zami, Sister Outsider Undersong
Catharine A. MacKinnon et Andrea Dworkin, In Harm’s Way, the Pornography Civil Rights Hearings
Catharine A. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified, Discourses on Life and Law
Catharine A. MacKinnon, Only Words
Catharine A. MacKinnon, Points Against Postmodernism
Bell Hooks, Ain’t I a Woman?
Janice G. Raymond & Donna M. Hughes, Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States
Sheila Jeffreys, Beauty and Misogyny
I’m reblogging myself but it’s a useful post
Authors, Theorists, Ideologues:
Andrea Dworkin has a lot of gender critical and anti-porn books. Bell Hooks is also a black woman who has written a lot of books, and her book Ain’t I A Woman deals specifically with the intersections of misogyny and racism. This page (http://radfemresource.tumblr.com/resources) also has numerous sources.
Hope this helps!
On systematic male against female violence:
Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing (Anthology) , http://www.dianarussell.com/f/femicde%28small%29.pdf
THE ORIGIN AND IMPORTANCE OF THE TERM FEMICIDE
December 2011, written by Diana E.H Russell, Ph.D
Femicide – The Power of a Name
The Rise of Femicide: Can Naming a Deadly Crime Help Prevent It?, by Aaron Schulman. The New Republic. December 29, 2010
On the issues that pornography presents feminists and ways we can challenge them:
Making Violence Sexy (Anthology), http://www.dianarussell.com/f/makingviolencesexy%28smaller%29.pdf
On the psychological and behavioral consequences of pornography consumption:
Ph.D Diana E. H. Russell, “Pornography & Rape: A Causal Model”. Vol. 9, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), Published by: International Society of Political Psychology.
Exposure to Pornography As a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization
Stolen Innocence: The Damaging Effects of Child Pornography- On and Off the Internet
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/VAW02/mod2-6b.htm
The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships (2007/2008), http://www.antipornography.org/Price_of_Pleasure_doc.html (Warning: censored nudity but some of the content remains graphic and disturbing. Potentially triggering).
Pornography FAQ (http://catwa.org.au/?q=node/67 ):
How is pornography related to prostitution?
Pornography and prostitution are often thought of as completely separate entities. In many parts of the world, this is even reflected in law where pornography and prostitution hold very different positions; pornography is often privileged as a form of ‘representation’. Pornography, however, is filmed prostitution. Both pornography and prostitution involve the sexual use of women in exchange for money. Often, the only difference between the two is the presence of a camera. Pornography can also be seen to increase the legitimacy of prostitution, by depicting the commercial sexual exploitation of women as entertaining, glamorous and acceptable. In addition, pornography is frequently used by pimps to ‘season’ or train women for prostitution and in a rather cyclical relationship, women used in prostitution are often also used in pornography.
Shouldn’t pornography be protected as free speech?
It is important to note that pornography is not speech but rather filmed acts of prostitution. Pornography is not merely the representation of sex acts, but involves the filming of real sex acts, performed by real people. Arguing that pornography is speech, ignores the realities of how pornography is actually produced and also ignores the harm to women that pornography both generates and reinforces.
Read: Only Words, by Catharine MacKinnon Isn’t porn just harmless sex?
There is no such thing as harmless pornography. Many people believe pornography to simply be sex between ‘consenting adults’ rather than understanding pornography as a multi-billion dollar industry. Pornography is not ‘just sex’, it is a particular construction of sex which involves the commercial sexual exploitation of women for the purpose of men’s sexual pleasure. Pornography harms both the women who are directly abused in the making of it, and also women as a group more generally. It promotes a model of sexuality which is incompatible with women’s equality.“[P]ornography plays an important part in contributing to sexual violence against women and to sex discrimination and sex inequality” - Catherine Itzin Pornography: Women violence and civil liberties. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 (p. 1).
Isn’t pornography a good sexual outlet for men?
The idea that pornography creates a useful sexual release for men, assumes that men have uncontrollable sexual ‘urges’ which require an outlet. It also assumes that pornography use is acceptable and healthy. Neither is the case. Pornography use is harmful to the women used in creating it, and pornography creates and reinforces harmful ideas about women, sex and sexuality; for example, that women enjoy or welcome unwanted sexual contact and sexual assault. Rather than reducing the likelihood that men will act out, it creates a culture in which women are increasingly objectified and viewed as commodities. Such a culture helps to fuel, rather than prevent, acts of sexual violence.
Doesn’t opposing pornography make you a prude?
Many people assume that the only reason to oppose pornography is because you find it personally ‘offensive’ or are ‘anti-sex’. Opposing pornography means that you oppose abusive sexual practices that harm women, not that you must oppose all sex. Nor does opposing pornography have to be about arguing that its content personally offends you. From a feminist perspective, it is not necessarily explicitness or the depiction of sex which is the problem with pornography. It is not about offence and decency, but about harm. “What is objectionable about pornography…is its abusive and degrading portrayal of females and female sexuality, not its sexual content or explicitness” – Diana Russell Dangerous relationships: Pornography, misogyny, and rape. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998 (p. 5).
What is pornification?
Pornification, sometimes referred to as pornographication or ‘raunch culture’ is the increasing distribution and acceptance of pornography as well as the fragmenting and blurring of pornography and pornographic imagery into popular culture. Pornography and pornographic imagery are infiltrating popular music videos, outdoor advertising, fashion and art to name but a few. While pornographication is sometimes viewed as simply the increasing acceptance of sexual themes in media, it is actually the promotion of a particular model of sex which is harmful to women. The mainstreaming of this type of pornographic sexuality which fundamentally objectifies women, is already harming the development of young women and girls. The American Psychological Association, for example, has linked the rise of this unhealthy model of sexuality to increases in mental health problems such as eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. See: Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls (2007). Available from:http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.
Legalisation of Prostitution
Brothels without Walls: The Escort Sector as a Problem for the Legalization of Prostitution, bySheila Jeffreys 2010
What Happens When Prostitution Becomes Work? An Update on Legalisation of Prostitution in Australia. A paper by Mary Sullivan, 2005 (CATWA)
Submission to New Zealand Parliament, CATWA 2003
Prostitution Culture: Legalised Brothel Prostitution in Victoria, Australia Sheila Jeffreys 2002. Talk given at Swedish Ministry of Gender Equality Seminar on the Effect of Legalisation of Prostitution. Stockholm, 6 November 2002.
The Legalisation of Prostitution: A failed social experiment, by Sheila Jeffreys
Legalising Prostitution is not the Answer: The example of Victoria, Australia by Mary Sullivan and Sheila Jeffreys
Trafficking
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (2000) (Known as the Palermo Protocol)
A Guide to the UN Trafficking Protocol (2001)
Sex Trafficking and Human Rights
Marriage Trafficking
Pornography and Pornification
The global industry of pornography is growing rapidly. The business of pornography is now worth in excess of $57 billion worldwide. More than $10 billion is generated in the United States alone. Pornography is an industry which, like prostitution, makes its ever increasing profits from the sexual exploitation of women and girls. Women in both the pornography and prostitution industries suffer abuse and violence. Despite this grim reality, tolerance for pornography is increasing in Australia and many other Western nations. Through the ‘mainstreaming of pornography’ or ‘pornification,’ pornographic imagery and even pornography itself are gaining legitimacy and a degree of glamour and cultural chic. Porn stars are becoming household names, advertising mimics pornographic conventions and poses, and Playboy is not just a magazine but a global brand that markets everything from clothing to stationery. The mainstreaming of pornography is also changing our conceptions of sexuality. Women are increasingly becoming required to perform sex acts straight from pornography in their everyday heterosexual relationships, and the pornographic model of sexuality is harming girls’ and women’s concepts of self. As pornography continues to become more prominent and pornographic imagery becomes more ‘mainstreamed’ we become accustomed to living in a pornified world in which it is acceptable that women and girls can be bought and sold.
Boyle, Karen (ed). (2010). Everyday Pornography. Oxford: Routledge.
Dines, Gail. (2010). Pornland: How Porn has Highjacked our Sexuality. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Dines, Gail & Jensen, Robert & Russo, Ann. (1998). Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. New York: Routledge.
Dworkin, Andrea. (1979) Men Possessing Women. New York: Pedigree Books.
Long, Julia. (2012). Anti-Porn: The resurgence of Anti-Pornography Feminism. Zed Books.
Tankard Reist, Melinda & Bray, Abigail (eds) (2011). Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Tyler, Meagan (2011). Selling Sex Short: The Pornographic and Sexological Construction of Women’s Sexuality in the West. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Strip Clubs
Read CATWA’s indepth report on strip clubs in Victoria (2010).
The sex industry and business practice: An obstacle to women’s equality, by Sheila Jeffreys 2010
Jul 2014: Business women suffer discrimination because of the male executive culture of strip club visits.
Jul 2014: Executive director of UN Women Australia calls for zero tolerance of strip club visits
Dec 2010: ABC radio interview with Sheila Jeffreys on ’Why strip clubs are harmful to women and the community’. Includes transcript
Dec 2010: Corporate functions and Christmas parties at strip clubs
On the feminist activist struggles against woman-battering, rape, misogyny (Right Wing and Left Wing), gendered oppression, hatred of lesbians, prostitution, pornography, societal stockholm syndrome, female-only spaces and more.:
Letters from a War Zone, by Andrea Dworkin
Our Blood, by Andrea Dworkin
Right-Wing Women, by Andrea Dworkin
Pornography: Andrea Dworkin (1991) - Documentary
Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by Andrea Dworkin
http://radfem.org/dworkin/
Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller
Femininity, by Susan Brownmiller
Rape In Marriage, Diana Russell
Women-Only Spaces: An Alternative To Patriarchy, by Jennie Ruby
Exploring the Value of Women-Only Space, by Kya Ogyn
Women, Health and the Politics of Fat, Amy Winter, in Rain And Thunder, Autumn Equinox 2003, No. 20
Free Space: A Perspective on the Small Group in Women’s Liberation by Pamela Allen 1970 Download PDF
Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives by Dee Graham, Roberta Rigsby, Edna Rawlings 1995 Download PDF
Nothing Mat(t)ers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism by Somer Brodribb 1992 Download PDF
A deafening silence: Hidden violence against women and children by Patrizia Romito (translation by Janet Eastwood) 2008 Download PDF
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis 2003 Download PDF
Refusing to be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice by John Stoltenberg 2000 2nd Ed. Download PDF
I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde ed by Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall 2011 Download PDF
Beyond the Frame: Women of Color and Visual Representation ed by Neferti X. M. Tadiar, Angela Davis 2005 Download PDF
Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West by Sheila Jeffreys 2005 Download PDF
The Spinster and Her Enemies by Sheila Jeffreys 1997 Download PDF
The Lesbian Heresy by Sheila Jeffreys 1993 Download PDF
The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade by Sheila Jeffreys 2008 Download PDF
The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism Edited by Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond. 1990 Download Full PDF (5MB)
Liberalism and the Death of Feminism, Catharine A. MacKinnon (PDF)
Sexology and Antifeminism, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)
Woman-Hating Right and Left, Andrea Dworkin (PDF)
Taking Our Eyes Off the Guys, Sonia Johnson (PDF)
Family Matters, Ann Jones (PDF)
Confronting the Liberal Lies About Prostitution, Evelina Giobbe (PDF)
The New Reproductive Technologies, Gena Corea (PDF)
Mothers on Trial: Custody and the “Baby M” Case, Phyllis Chesler (PDF)
Sexual and Reproductive Liberalism, Janice G. Raymond (PDF)
In the Best Interest of the Sperm: The Pregnancy of Judge Sorkow, Pauline B. Bart (PDF)
Abortion and Pornography: The Sexual Liberals’ “Gotcha” Against Women’s Equality, Twiss Butler (PDF)
When Women Defend Pornography, Dorchen Leidholdt (PDF)
Eroticizing Women’s Subordination, Sheila Jeffreys (PDF)
Resistance, Andrea Dworkin (PDF)
Sex Resistance in Heterosexual Arrangements, A Southern Women’s Writing Collective (PDF)
Toward a Feminist Praxis of Sexuality, Wendy Stock (PDF)
Sexual Liberalism and Survivors of Sexual Abuse, Valerie Heller (PDF)
The Many Faces of Backlash, Florence Rush (PDF)
Liberals, Libertarianism, and the Liberal Arts Establishment, Susanne Kappeler (PDF)
You Can’t Fight Homophobia and Protect the Pornographers at the Same Time—An Analysis of What Went Wrong in Hardwick, John Stoltenberg (PDF)
A View from Another Country, Susan G. Cole (PDF)
Women and Civil Liberties, Kathleen A. Lahey (PDF)
Be-Witching: Re-Calling the Archimagical Powers of Women, Mary Daly (PDF)
Not a Sentimental Journey: Women’s Friendships, Janice G. Raymond (PDF)
Femicide Fetishize female vulnerability Handmaidens of the patriarchy Harm reduction/refusal to name the agent Joke’s on women Male bonding over misogyny Male entitlement Mansplaining/women’s perspective is wrong Necrophilia Normalize abuse/neglect Normalize porn/prostitution PIV-centric narrative — Goal is to “land a man” — Normalize exaggerated/simulated female pleasure — Normalize reproductive stress and pain — Pathologize menstruation — Pathologize older women and menopause/fetishize female youth — Rape and rape culture Pornify girl children/infantilize adult women Primacy of the nuclear family Reversal Support patriarchal institutions (medicine/religion/law) Woman as “useful object”
Crimes Against Women: The Proceedings of the International Tribunal
On the feminist analysis of beauty standards and oppressive femininity: Beauty & Misogyny, by Sheila Jeffreys
On the feminist analysis of queer theory:
Gender Hurts, by Sheila Jeffreys
Unpacking Queer Politics Download PDF,
On the feminist analysis of the sex industrial complex:
The Industrial Vagina Download PDF,
Accounting for Pornography, Prostitution, and Patriarchy. by Pala Molisa, PhD student,
Women, Lesbians, and Prostitution: A Workingclass Dyke Speaks Out Against Buying Women for Sex, by Toby Summer, in Lesbian Culture: An Anthology, Julia Penelope and Susan Wolfe, eds
Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, Christine Stark and Rebecca Whisnant, eds.
Sex critical & Kink critical text:
Against Sadomasochism (Anthology)
Unleashing Feminism: Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties, by Irene Reti, ed.
How Orgasm Politics Has Hijacked the Women’s Movement, by Sheila Jeffreys
Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin
Theological feminist criticism:
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Mary Daly
The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, Marija Gimbutas
Woman, Church and State, Matilda Joslyn Gage
The Women’s Bible, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Pure Lust, Mary Daly
On the feminist criticism of sexual liberalism:
“The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism” Anthology, (1987, edited 1990), http://radfem.org/the-sexual-liberals/
Making an Issue of Incest, Louise Armstrong (PDF)
Activism:
Bin the Bunny. This is an anti-pornography campaign from London. It began in response the opening of a Playboy shop in 2007.
Object. A UK group committed to challenging the objectification of women.
No Porn Northampton. This site, based in USA, contains information about campaigns and many papers and resources relating to pornography.
Routes Out. This is a Glasgow based organisation founded to help women exit prostitution.
Turn Off the Red Light An Irish organisation working for an end to prostitution and sex trafficking in Ireland. It advocates the adoption of the Nordic Model.
Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution A UK coalition who believe that prostitution is male violence against women and are working to achieve Swedish style legislation. The site contains many useful links and resources.
Abolicion de la Prostitucion. This web site, in Spanish, was set up by a group of 77 women’s organisations to fight prostitution in that country.
Centre for Women’s Human Rights. This Korean feminist organistion was established in 2005.
The Polaris Project. Anti Trafficking organisation with a focus in Japan and USA
Websites with other resources (video clips, documentaries, quotes, articles, essays, interviews, graphics, etc): http://www.antipornography.org http://www.stoppatriarchy.org/ https://radicalhubarchives.wordpress.com/radfem-101/ http://www.feminist-reprise.org/fembib.html
rad-butch-woman
Ever wanted to read a feminist text that you’ve heard about online but not known where to find a copy? I know I have! I obviously don’t agree with everything here or endorse the positions of every woman here, but this is a great masterpost imo because of how many links to free PDFs it has! Read and form your own opinions! Access to women’s education for all women!
This is the most offensive evil bullshit goddamn I loathe these men with my entire being how fucking dare you good grief!!!
FGM? Breast ironing? Foot binding? Femicide? Incest? Rape? Legally enforced gender roles???
Pornography, plastic surgery, the sexualization of girl children, illiteracy, the wage gap, fashion, makeup, being barred from education, being barred from holding a job, being barred from spending money, being barred from controlling your own body, being barred from medical care, being taught that your only purpose in life is to serve men all of it that is all female oppression it happens to females in order to keep them oppressed and controlled by men and it works.
Has nothing to do with the fact that infertile women exist and everything to do with the fact that we live in a misogynistic patriarchal world. Women are seen as inherently inferior to men and have been subjugated for men’s pleasure and desire for thousands of years all based on their extremely obvious anatomical differences
Men punish women for being unable to get pregnant, which is still related to women being female.
I’d like that person to sit quietly and read Invisible Women, and then reconsider their stance.
The whole damn world is designed for males.
lesbian-lizards
This is exactly why radfems say trans women activists are just MRAs in makeup.
bodenor
"i want". what an entitled little ass. i want males to shut the fuck up forever but we can't always have what we want now can we
April 15, 2015
The Jodi Arias Saga: A Tragic Drama
Department of Sociology & Gender & Women’s Studies, California State University Northridge, USA
Introduction
In June of 2013, Jodi Arias was convicted of killing her lover, Travis Alexander. Because the jury deadlocked on whether she should be executed or sentenced to life in prison on two separate occasions, it was lef t to judge Sherry Stephens to decide her sentence. Consequently, on April 13, 2015 judge Stephens handed Arias the prison term of life without parole. To say that this case has been sensational would be an understatement. Both trials garnered wide spread media coverage and four separate books have been written about the murder.
According to popular opinion, Jodi Arias is a jealous, crazy, angry sociopath who had a fatal attraction toward Alexander. Yet when one looks at the case from a feminist perspective, the story reads like a tragic drama. With that being said, I am not excusing Arias for the murder of Travis Alexander. What I hope to do instead is shed light on the gendered social and psychological forces that may have induced a woman with no previous criminal history to engage in a brutal act of violence.
“After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have been hidden from one’s tears.”
— Oscar Wilde
Paul Dano and John Cusack as Brian Wilson in Love & Mercy (2014) Dir. Bill Pohlad
concept: Paul Dano Riddler except he inexplicably dresses the exact same as he did when he played Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace
Every day I am forced to think things about David Saw. These thoughts are beamed into my brain by God, and I am forced to endure the Visions. You guys should thank me, really, for taking the brunt of these psychic attacks. They are horrific and never ending, but I endure them so that I might shield my loved ones from some of the pains of David Saw Derangement Syndrome.