I can’t believe how much I have been living in a false economy. Not wanting to buy from local business because its just so much cheaper to buy from the supermarkets. Thinking there is no way i want an extra fiver on my bill or to have to go without a couple of things. Making excuses – I would love to shop local but its just too expensive.
Now having felt the absolute terror of more and more power being in the hands of corporations and more money in the hands of billionaires. Struggling to be able to buy food and the things I need and only being able to talk to a chat robot I realised just how important local businesses are. I have realised that paying that extra fiver and having to go without a few things is actually a bargain.
That extra fiver is buying me the following things:
. Extra security that if the shit hits the fan i will be able to depend on real people i can speak to because i will have supported their business and they will be more likely to still be trading
. Peace of mind that my money isnt going to fund some billionaire’s lavish lifestyle where he could be doing anything including buying prostituted women
. Peace of mind that my money isnt going to people who seek to remove my human rights
. Peace of mind that my money is circulating freely among real people not just sat in some bank account with another billion pounds
That extra fiver is not wasted it is buying me everything. You cant put a price on freedom, security, integrity and peace of mind. Yes it will be a bit of a struggle but lets be realistic here, We live in a western society. Going without a few things hardly means we will starve. its not like I really need that extra chocolate bar. i am so, so commited to this. this is my wake up call. We cant put any more money into the hands of these corporations and billionaires. WE have done this. WE have chosen to hand over our money to them and its time to stop
Queer and trans politics has turned being an oppressed person into a fashionable free for all. Allowing not only non-oppressed people to join but prioritising the least oppressed.
This is because firstly they are able to just ‘identify’ as an oppressed person without having experienced any of the real oppression that those people face.
Secondly due to the nature of allowing the people with the most time and money on their hands to spend that time and money appropriating and commodifying oppression. We all know that commodities are most available to super rich white males.
Not only are oppressed people drowned in a sea of non-oppressed people identifying as us but this also makes us less able to vocalise our oppression.
I want to speak about the extra pressure on disabled women having trans identified males in our spaces. My main experience is of chronic illness and autism.
As a disabled woman with a chronic illness it can be difficult to get out the house to womens space’s already. Some of us can only manage to access women’s spaces once or twice a year if we are lucky. This is after months of isolation and being stuck in the house.
To access these spaces it can be very expensive. We have to get taxis that can amount to even hundreds of pounds if we become ill whilst out of the house. We have to make huge sacrifices of large amounts of money and being ill for days or even weeks just to get out the house to a women’s space for a couple of hours or spend hours and hours doing administrative tasks to get disability assistance on public transport and ensuring we have enough food and water – possibly hire of a mobility scooter, arranging carers which also cost money that can amount to hundreds of pounds. This preparation can take weeks when you have little energy. All this for what is often just a couple of hours before we become too tired to stay and have to leave. That or we push ourselves and make ourselves ill for weeks. Having an invisible disability also brings the added pressure of experiencing hostility from women in women’s spaces because they think we are being lazy, rude or selfish when we are unable to contribute to manual labour. Things that we need carers for at home and if we were to attempt to do would make us unable to access the event at all.
We have no choice but to make to make these sacrifices because this tiny amount of access to women’s space gives us the strength and courage to keep going. It gives us a bit of hope and respite. Imagine how it feels to do all of this and then be encountered with a trans identifying male and having to leave after 5 minutes or then becoming traumatised and having nightmares and panic attacks. This in the tiny amount of time and space that you have been looking forward to and preparing for for weeks – sometimes months or even years. It is this kind of thing that causes womens to become suicidal and have severe mental health issues. This is not ok.
I personally have not been able to access a women only space for well over a year. It had already taken me years to arrange access to a women only festival I used to go to. I had managed to stay in a bungalow whilst the other women camped and there was an access team to assist. It cost me a lot of money but it gave me sustenance for the year and now it has closed down after a trans identified male came and sabotaged it and made women like me feel unsafe. Today as a lesbian I am feeling triggered by feeling left out of Pride, that lesbians are no longer welcome there. As a survivor of abuse being triggered by how Pride has been infiltrated by things like porn, S and M and paedophilia. Yet I cannot access the one small lesbian space I am aware of either. Spaces that took the women’s movement years to build up and get on top of things like disability access have all been dismantled and women are having to start again from the beginning. Disabled access was the first thing to go and is now more or less non existent in the very few truly women only spaces. Not only am I excluded from Pride and from radical feminist spaces but I have also been excluded from the only disabled feminist group – Sisters of Frida for being a ‘terf’. The only place I could have gone to for support as a disabled women. I was blocked from their group for objecting to a very offensive post about ‘queering’ autism that promoted the transing of autistic children and young people. I want recognition of not only the extra pressures we face having TIMs in women’s spaces but the extra sacrifices disabled women have to make to speak out about this issue.
I have a friend who is visually impaired who has given me permission to anonymously share her story. She may add more herself at a later date. Can you imagine being in a women’s bathroom alone at night and you can sense another person there but you firstly cannot see if they are a woman or a trans identified male and secondly cannot move fast enough to get out of there if it turns out they are a male?
“For me it breaks down all the little bit of help I rely on. For example, if I come out of the cubicle, women often assist me by taking my arm and directing me to the sinks, hand drier etc. At the moment I am fine with that because it’s another woman but if we start seeing more males than it will make it very hard for me because I would be worried about being bundled into a cubicle. It just adds another layer of difficulty to me going out alone, which is already very difficult and requires a lot of concentration”
These are the hidden issues that disabled women have to worry about when just leaving the house which as I mentioned earlier is already difficult. As someone who doesn’t have this disability I had never even thought about this and it alerts me to just how many other hidden issues women with varying disabilities may have. I would love to hear from disabled women about your issues. Please comment.
Some of us become disabled because of rape and sexual violence and those of us who were disabled before are at higher risk of rape and sexual assault. As an autistic woman I was sexually exploited because of my vulnerability. Disabled women need women only spaces even more than able-bodied women and our already very limited access to them is being further removed.
The co-option of intersectionality by the trans. movement has all but completely drowned out the voices and struggles of genuinely further oppressed groups of women.
Can I ask radical feminists sharing this to please not just use disabled women’s voices to strengthen your own campaign but also to think about what you are doing to allow disabled women to access events you are organising? We desperately need access to radical feminist spaces which are the few spaces we feel safe in.
They plucked me down from the sky. They thought I was a pure angel that could come to heal them, to solve their problems. To finally give them the love they needed.
But I wasn’t an angel. I was just a child that needed love and they couldnt love me. They put too much responsibility on me as a small child.
I even tried so hard to build wings for myself so I could be the angel they needed but it didnt work and I broke for I didnt even have the love a small child needs let alone to be an angel.
My wings they broke and I fell from the highest height imaginable and I shattered like glass and cut them all and they cast me out like a demon
I am writing this because as a survivor of abuse I have had bullshit ‘forgiveness’ culture shoved down my throat all week. This bullshit plagues abuse survivors 24/7. We are told if we don’t forgive we will never heal, we will hold bitterness within us etc etc. We are hounded with these emotionally abusive guilt trips everywhere we go when we have barely even found a voice to vocalise what happen to us. Before we even properly remember what happened to us and have only just started to question that we may have been abused we are already having forgiveness culture shoved down our throats and being threatened with never healing if we dont do it.
FUCK FORGIVENESS
We are made to think forgiveness is some kind of fait accomplis that we will have to submit to eventually. We are emotionally manipulated that we ‘do it for ourselves’ implying that we will suffer if we dont.
I am full of rage that this christian concept is being forced onto survivors like this as if it is a given. The only thing that made me feel better was watching Sinead O Connors video
This woman is a tonic for my anger. Thank goddess for women like this who are angry at abuse and dont try and brush it under the carpet. I truly believe that forgiveness culture is to blame for the christian and catholic church allowing abuse to happen. They forgave the abusers instead of stopping them
No justice no forgiveness – its as simple as that
Forgiveness culture. It is not helpful to those of us who dont want to/ cant forgive our abusers. To pressure us by making out we will have less peace if we dont forgive or that we are somehow inferior or somehow undeserving of healing. This is just not true. I will not be pressured to forgive or be made to feel less than for not forgiving. Sometimes people who forgive are just sacrificing themselves and they will have much less inner peace than someone who prioritises their own wellbeing by not forgiving. I really dont like how it pressures people who are already going through enough with something that is just not true.
Forgiveness culture puts extra pressure on survivors that we just dont need. Focus on healing yourself. FUCK forgiveness. Anger is healthy. Never repress your anger. Anger is a million times more healing than forgiveness in a world where there is already way too much forgiveness for abusers and survivors are blamed. Stop blaming survivors. Now it is our own fault if we dont have inner peace because we didnt forgive FUCK THAT.
We need a world where more people get angry at abuse. Forgiveness culture is why rapists get such low sentences. Everyone is so compassionate to them but have very little compassion for survivors. As a society we are so nowhere near ready for forgiveness. Before forgiveness we need outrage, we need justice, we need penance, we need reparations.
How about we get proper sentences for perpetrators.
How about we get an end to victim blaming and proper services for survivors to heal.
How about we get an end to all violence against women and girls maybe after all that we can talk about forgiveness.
You tell me my rape was my own fault for wearing a shirt skirt but that I must forgive my rapist. Why so little compassion for me and so much for him?
You tell me there is no funding for me to have therapy. That I must go on a 2 year waiting list and then only get therapy for 12 weeks but that I must forgive my rapist.
You tell me maybe I am imagining it when I say I cant fully remember but still you tell me I must forgive my abuser.
Telling me to forgive before I have even fully remembered what happened to me let alone grieved for it or sought justice. Telling me to forgive when I cant even get back into my body and am experiencing a billion kinds of pain all day that I have to endure.
No one tells robbery victims to forgive. Imagine your house got robbed. What is the first thing people say to you: hey you should forgive your robbers – is it hell. People tell you to call the police to get justice but when our bodies and souls are violated in a way that destroys our whole world we are expected to forgive. This is the first words out of peoples mouths.
“Oh but but but you forgive for yourself” Repeat x a million in different patronising ways – FUCK OFF. Swallow down my anger so I almost choke to death on it. Paint my smile back on and be all sweetness and light when I only just found my feelings. My anger is not bad. It is not wrong. I will not apologise for it.
There is nothing more beautiful, powerful and healing than anger in an abuse survivor.
Anger says: I am fighting back, anger says what happened to me was wrong, anger says I will not stand by whilst this happens to another woman. Anger says I am putting myself first despite everyone elses attempts to keep me down and make me small. Anger says I shall fight for all women even those unable to fight for themselves. Anger says the abuse was the perpetrators fault and no one elses. Anger says my being unable to heal is the perpetrators fault, no one elses. Anger says I will never be silent about sexual abuse whilst it is still happening to women and girls
Forgiveness culture says: I am submitting. Forgiveness culture says I am a good survivor who is accommodating everyone else and making their lives easier by not causing a fuss, Forgiveness culture says I will paint my smile back on. Forgiveness culture says I am above other women who haven’t forgiven. Forgiveness culture says I will ignore that this is happening to lots of other women 24 hours a day so I can have an easier life. Forgiveness culture says what happened to me wasn’t really that bad. Forgiveness culture says abused women are the ones to blame for being mentally unwell as if the act of forgiving or not forgiving was to blame rather than the abuser and the abuse and not forgetting the patriarchal system that leaves us with no means to heal. Forgiveness culture shifts the blame from the abuser to the victim. Forgiveness culture says I will uphold the status quo by going back to business as usual and brushing rape and sexual violence under the carpet.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not criticising women who chose to forgive or saying that it doesn’t work for anyone. I am just speaking out against this culture where forgiveness is seen as a must or the only option for real healing. It is just one option among many and for some women it may be much more damaging than healing and this should be spoken about. It should not be taking up so much space in survivors groups, especially not as a Christian/ Catholic concept when these churches have such a bad track record when it comes to child abuse. Why is their ideology still the main narrative given the recent disclosures of mass abuse of children in these churches? It certainly shouldn’t be shoved down our throats 24 hours a day. I want to get across that women can fully heal without forgiveness.
I think you need to look at why is it you need me to forgive? Is it so you don’t have to look at me – so you can remain in denial about abuse happening, tell yourself that your daughters are safe in the world? Is it so you don’t have to support me or feel guilty for not supporting me? Is it so you don’t have to face your own abuse? Swallow it down women nothing to see here. Is it so you wont have to do the real work of challenging perpetrators? If you cant stand up to abusers the least you can do is get out of the way of those of us who are and stop telling us to forgive so you can feel better about yourself
“A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.”
A privilege is something handed to you on a plate.
Its not a privilege if I have to fuck men to get it
Its not a privilege if I have to spend gruelling hours conforming to fascist beauty standards to get it
Its not a privilege if I have to develop bulimia or starve myself to get it
Its not a privilege if I have to be mutilated by FGM or foot binding to get it
Its not a privilege if I have to put up with being harassed on the street to get it
Its not a privilege if I have to spend a months wages on beauty products to get it
Its not a privilege if I will be severely abused and called fat and ugly if I dont do the things I need to do to get it.
Any benefits women get from conforming to or aligning with femininity cannot be classed as privileges because of the sheer damage done to women by them. These benefits come at a huge cost to both our physical and mental health and can in no way be classed as privileges
Lets not lie to ourselves – We all know that the only reason women get so called privileges by aligning with feminine gender is because they are pretty enough for men to want to have sex with them and that they dont get those ‘privileges’ without doing so. This is not a privilege.
Women are a people with a shared culture and history.
A shared culture and history that predates all other cultures and dates back to prehistoric times. Goddess figurines depicting a female body are evidence of this.
A shared culture and history of which our biology is just one small part but a part nonetheless.
When our bodies have been made into men’s property this is part of our history.
When we honour our bodies and reclaim spiritualities that worship our bodies this is part of our culture.
When we see our bodies as part of our humanness, as women, not men’s property this is part of our culture.
When we reclaim our bodies rather than have men define them this is a part of our culture and it is part of our healing from the violence inflicted upon our female bodies by patriarchy.
For males to redefine our bodies or ban us from speaking about them, or acknowledging them as a part of us, is cultural genocide. It could also be called cultural femicide or cultural gendercide.
To call female only spaces, rituals and religions, that date back centuries, transphobic is cultural genocide.
To call female elders who have worked for decades protecting women from male violence and who created the women’s spirituality movement, transphobic, and no platform them is cultural genocide.
To cause womens spaces and festivals to close down is cultural genocide.
Lesbians are a people with a culture and a history of which our female bodies are just a small part but a part nonetheless.
To rebrand lesbians throughout history as transgender is cultural genocide.
To say someone with a penis can be a lesbian is cultural genocide.
For males to redefine ‘lesbian’ is cultural genocide
To call lesbian Anne Lister ‘gender non conforming’ instead of a lesbian is cultural genocide
I am a human being first and foremost with a female reproductive system.
I will not separate myself from my body. My female reproductive system is just a part of me.
I will not separate myself or my culture and history from my reproductive system.
Stop trying to separate me from parts of myself or trying to make out that by simply acknowledging them as parts of myself I am reducing myself to them, thats ridiculous.
I am a whole woman, even if I have my uterus removed, I still have female biology, my body is a part of my womanness and a woman is a human being first and foremost.
My mind and heart are not separate from my reproductive system. Stop separating my humanness and my human rights from my biology. Stop cutting me into little pieces!
RADLESFEM Survivor 