“Honor Killing” Needs To Leave Our Lexicon, It’s The Same As “revenge Porn”. It Should Be Called

every girl i know has had her "I'm not like other girls" phase and we all resent ourselves for it now, but we're not listening to what these little girls were saying. "im not like other girls" is a little girl's desparate cry for help to break out of the male made stereotypes and expectations that she's starting to notice, to be let out of the box that she's being closed into when she starts puberty. she misses the freedom she had when she was a child, when she was allowed to not care about her looks, when she wasn't self conscious of her body and her face, she'd rather be "one of the boys" than be forced to be a woman.

i really like the definition of “adult human female” because it says “thats all it is. its not femininity, makeup, submissiveness, softness, anything. all it is is biology. the rest is up to the individual”

Imagine that when you were born your entire family celebrated. "It's a girl! How wonderful, just like we hoped for! A perfect baby girl!"

Imagine being bounced on your mother's knee and her cooing, "what a strong girl you are! You are going to grow so big! You are so brave, your grip is so strong, and your voice so loud!"

Imagine being dressed up for practical, comfortable clothes and having your hair out of the way, and then told to run wild. Imagine being given complex toys, a tool kit, toy swords and shields, mechanical toys, building blocks, kids' science and story books. Imagine being told, "she's so creative and innovative! She knows what she wants. She's always so curious and inventive."

Imagine all your family, relatives, babysitters and teachers describing you as a leader type, a moral guardian, a responsible and promising young girl, creative, strong, opinionated, intelligent. A future leader, an organizer, someone whose voice is loud and clear as it should be.

Imagine your maturing being a source of joy. You are getting taller, bigger, stronger and sturdier. You have a healthy appetite of a growing young woman. Your body is a powerhouse of survival. You get your period and it's celebrated, you are entering womanhood and showing the power of a lifegiver. Period is a sign that you are strong and healthy, your body is amazing. You get to decide what's for dinner at home because your growing body is a priority for all and you need to care for it.

Imagine respect of your peers and security among you. Imagine relying on other women like you without insecurity. Imagine being fearless, proud, content and limitless, full of promise and possibilities.

Now, I know that none of us got to live like that. But for a moment, imagine that you did, and then try to imagine the woman you would be today. What kind of a person is she? What does she want? What are her dreams, her possibilities? What limits and fears have been completely banished from her life?

How does she see herself?

You might not be her, but once you imagine that woman in your mind, she becomes real, and you can become her.

black femininity is like femininity on steroids. like if you think it takes ages to adhere to femininity as a white woman, black women are putting in more hours (with even lower average incomes). because being feminine or womanly also means being more white. from "hair care" to "skin care" black women have to edit their appearance to not just look less "manly" but less black. endlessly paying for the sin of being a woman and a black woman on top of that.

and all that work just to get fetishized by gross jakeys at the end of the day.

Almost every day I think about how if you raised a daughter exactly, precisely like a son, it would be seen as vaguely progressive, but raising a son exactly, precisely like a daughter would be seen as sexual abuse.

a great perspective to have

Linving in this hypersexualised society is hell

I don’t think we as a society talk nearly enough about how intricately connected cats and women are. cats are associated with women so heavily, not just in English but in other languages as well. the stereotype of the ‘crazy cat lady’, the fact words to refer to cats are often also used to refer to female genitalia, ‘cat fight’, ‘catty’, etc.

Cats have suffered alongside women, too, which is not something I have seen brought up. Cats were targeted during the Witch Hunts as well, and suffered similar fates as the women they hunted. During this time, cats were nearly driven to extinction, and the mice and rat population go out of control— which is believed to have heavily contributed if not outright caused one of the most famous plagues.

To this day, I think we need to analyze if it’s truly a coincidence that cats are often portrayed as mean or uncaring because they do not behave the same way as dogs— “man’s best friend”— that their boundaries are violated for fun and then people criticize the cat for reacting, for self-defense. They will mutilate a cat so it cannot defend itself, and then abandon it when it is understandably upset, when it can no longer feel safe.

If you look at the statistics, more cats enter animal shelters than dogs, and tend to stay for longer. Personally, my local humane societies seem to have almost exclusively cats. In part, this is because cats are more effective at reproducing than dogs, and there are very little if any resources dedicated to to TNR. This is also because people will not spay/neuter their cats, and then will abandon the cat and/or just the kittens.

I do not think it is entirely coincidental that cats are so heavily associated with women, and they are villainized for not being dogs. That dogs are called “man’s best friend”, but somehow that does not mean cats are called “women’s best friend”— instead diamonds are, for whatever reason, despite women’s shared history with cats, and shared experience of being villainized for having boundaries. They are made the villain for being cats instead of dogs, they are called uncaring and “assholes” because the way they show love is not identical to the way a dog does.

I feel like there is no way it is entirely coincidental, the way cats are hated and the way they are so heavily associated with women, with females.