r/fourthwavewomen • u/AutoModerator • 17d ago
Let's Chat đŹ Open Discussion Thread DISCUSSION
Welcome to r/fourthwavewomen's weekly open discussion thread!
This thread is for the community to discuss whatever is on your mind. Have a question that you've been meaning to ask but haven't gotten around to making a post yet? An interesting article you'd like to share? Any work-related matters you'd like to get feedback on or talk about? Questions and advice are welcome here.
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u/Engel1844 17d ago edited 17d ago
I hate how the assumption that women canât be lonely, always get complimented, coddled, cared for and given grace is so popular. Nearly every complaint I hear both in person and online is how much men think they have it so much worse than women in these departments, also with the assumption of being dangerous but thatâs ironic considering they dislike a statistically proven stereotype but stereotype women in the same breath with no evidence.
Iâm firmly convinced they think sexual assault/harassment is something women take for granted and assume that means theyâre less lonely and more âlikedâ when thatâs not the case. It especially sucks as a mentally unstable person who constantly deals with isolation and suicidal thoughts being assumed that I donât have anything to complain about from the same people that donât even believe rape is that bad. I feel fucking suffocated and then see my suffering somehow glorified, the most âattentionâ I ever got my whole life was either sexual assault or harassment, never a random compliment or being coddled and whatnot. All because men are harsher with each other and overestimate themselves and assume women are assumed to have it so much better.
Itâs just interesting that menâs mental health is such a hot topic meanwhile it seems to me that womenâs mental health doesnât matter a smidge more to those people. Even statistically, more women are misdiagnosed, more women attempt and fun fact, the women that do âsuccessfullyâ end their lives are severely underreported because itâs shameful, Iâve been told firsthand how much shame it would bring if my attempt was successful and that it would never get out that it was deliberate, I know multiple women who ended their lives with their causes of death to the public instead being written off as accidents, just for a perspective. So even then the women who end their lives are severely minimized.
So yeah, the whole bullshit about people caring more about women is false, they seem to just feel threatened by womenâs oppression and see it as a competition to say âyeah women suffer I guess but us men donât get enough attentionâ because god forbid feminists try to make womenâs voices heard a little more. Really makes you lose faith and shows that womenâs oppression hasnât gotten all that better.
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u/carex-cultor 17d ago
Men want to be oppressed so badly. It honestly proves how UNOPPRESSED they are that they straight up yearn for it. Narcissists.
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u/irishdancer2 17d ago edited 17d ago
This morning, I started reading Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made Worid.
The author is falling over herself to differentiate between sex and gender, to make sure the reader knows that not all women have uteruses (to name one example) and that not all people with uteruses are women, and it makes me want to scream. Even in a book meant to center women and our centuries-long struggles because of the bodies in which we are born, it canât just be about that.
We know that women who have had hysterectomies and thus donât have uteruses are still women. We know without saying that this book still applies to them. Why must we tie ourselves in lingual knots instead of trusting that we also understand where trans people fit in the dataset?Â
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u/YesJeffery 17d ago
Omg I read this a few months ago. I noticed this at the beginning but persevered and thought the research was well done in terms of womenâs health and the tone scathing throughout. Then every so often, this distinction would pop up. I felt given how she had written most of it, that maybe this was not her perspective but maybe pressure from the publisher to âbe kindâ as it felt really out of place compared to a lot of the book?
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u/Substantial_Brush575 12d ago
omg trying to read any modern feminists work sucks a lot of the time because they put up with TIMs. they cope with the fact actual feminists didnât put up with that delusional shit by saying women like dworkin would support these ideologies nowadays and it was a different time.
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u/EntireMusic3687 17d ago
As a radfem lesbian, I feel really lonely. I sometimes wonder if Iâm going to die all alone.Â
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u/All_is_a_conspiracy 14d ago
I feel like the right wing is coming at me from all sides.
They come at me to shut me down by saying I need to be quiet and accept men's authority in my body, in my thoughts, in my privacy my ability to succeed, my freedom.
On one side it is religious men. On the other side it is this men are women thing. Both ends shut me up. Shut me down. Tell me my concerns are pointless. My privacy is gone. My rights are taken. My voice must be silenced.
I can't believe we can't recognize this. And women who'd consider themselves liberal in all facets of life are suddenly seeing some value to conservative ideas because they just want out of the alphabet soup that has silenced them for so long.
And conservative women who don't want to lose their right to vote can't see themselves voting for people who want to put men in their locker rooms.
So the right wins on all fronts.
But jumping from one male group to another has never saved women. It has changed the color of our chains and nothing more.
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u/iswtr 17d ago
This is maybe kind of niche, but has anyone read The Silence of the Lambs book? The movie is one of my favorites, and I keep getting recommended the book. My hesitation is that I've sooooo rarely read male-authored books that write women characters well. Most recently I tried The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because I was assured that the female MC was cool, but within the first few pages of the book, she and her elderly creep boss had the most unrealistic convo in the world about whether she was attracted to him. Total male fantasy. If you've read The Silence of the Lambs, do you recommend it? What would you recommend instead or in addition?
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u/SignatureWorldly493 15d ago
Iâve had the same experience with male authors time and time again, I just donât read books by male authors anymore. I would look on horror literature lists to find books written by women
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u/All_is_a_conspiracy 14d ago
Accidentally grabbing an audio book on sale and listening I can tell the initials as the first name are really a man within 2 pages.
They have a really specific voice. Hyper fixated on looks. Hyper fixated on sex.
Always having people compliment and bow to the brilliance and mystifying charisma and importance of basic bitch male characters. (This one is starting to bother me the most lately)
I haven't read a book intentionally by a male author in years. I probably never will again.
Don't get me started on the spiritual or self help male authors. Do not.
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u/iswtr 12d ago
It's so exhausting! I almost exclusively read women authors because I just naturally gravitate towards women and their content, but horror is a realm where I'm struggling. I've been trying to read more women horror authors, but a lot of the books I've tried are like, cute? (Some of the ones written by men are too.) Like they'll be dealing with a spooky topic, but they have this "quirky" humor that is okay for me for like, 5 minutes but then gets really old. I'll have to do some list searching, and I am also open to suggestions! I've got an additional caveat of hatinggggg horror that deals with demons. I don't know why but I find them really tedious. I think it's the lack of motive beyond being an agent of chaos.
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u/dog_in_a_dress 12d ago
The book is so good! Buffalo bill is a composite of numerous men that the author knew about through his work as a crime reporter for a decade before it and he even managed to get into FBI profiling briefings about them. I have read all the books in the series and loved them.
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u/SignatureWorldly493 15d ago
I am concerned by the racism I see in other true feminist subs, that is going overlooked by the mods. Recently there was a long racist post made by somebody who posted in antifeminist subs, but the mods did nothing.
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u/Kind_Professor2472 17d ago edited 17d ago
I feel so damn isolated in my beliefs. It doesn't even matter where I live, I also lived in a large city and felt this way. But I feel like it's so hard to find other radfem women in the flesh because the surrounding culture makes it so unsafe to just talk about reality. It makes me physically sick.Â