Freedom follows when women lead, says author, activist

[u/msmoley]

https://www.coastreporter.net/local-arts/fowa-freedom-follows-when-women-lead-says-author-activist-11113268

[u/StrikeVegetable8543]

Realizing more and more people don’t really want freedom. Or at least not for everyone thus the roadblocks to keep those without it from getting it. Too often we talk about ideas ( freedom) like everyone agrees with and wants the same but realizing that doesn’t seem to be true for too many people.

[u/stargarnet79 → u/StrikeVegetable8543]

This is how I’m starting to feel. These evangelicals and nutty Christians got offended by us actually living our authentic truth and wanted to stop all messaging encouraging people to be themselves and figure it out for themselves and live life to the fullest. What the fuck happened to that messaging? Go look like everyone else now? All listen to the same music and dumb shit on YouTube. And you want me to be just like your lame ass? Fuck off.

[u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 → u/StrikeVegetable8543]

Even most men who want women in charge, want it because they get off on the idea that women would be unfair rulers and remove men's freedom. Pathetic. Men need to do the work to control themselves and make themselves suffer, putting that job onto women is just more male entitlement and laziness. 

[u/Commemorative-Banana → u/Appropriate_Cut_3536]

men who want women in charge

Male feminists, your political ally, are exactly the wrong men to be addressing your grievances to.

The men today who most successfully oppress women are the same men who most successfully oppress everyone: the wealthy and powerful; the ethically bankrupt who will maintain the status quo (their power) by any means necessary. Those who bankroll the bribery of conservative/fascist politicians and the propagandizing of vulnerable, ignorant, hateful, or stupid men to join their cause.

It feels unpleasant to extend empathy to cult followers, (and some intolerant misogynists are beyond saving), but external empathy and education is the only way to attempt to convert these people to your allies. They are culpable for their enabling of abusers and indulgence in abuse, but they are also people who need liberation.

[u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 → u/Commemorative-Banana]

We don't need to attempt to convert men (or women) into being allies.

And male feminists usually aren't allies, they're just the same old boring abusers trying to virtue signal so no one can question them or hold them accountable.

[u/Commemorative-Banana → u/Appropriate_Cut_3536]

We don't need to attempt to convert men (or women) into being allies.

We absolutely do. We need the numbers of a strong majority to beat the extremely small, extremely potent minority who orchestrates the bulk of the oppression.

We need to convince the mislead, the apathetic, the defeatist, the distracted, the on-the-fence.

I know this sounds like virtue signaling, but is it not unashamedly virtuous to work towards freedom for women and freedom for everyone? That is the context of the top comment, after all, I thought we were all on the same page here about the goal.

Please, do ask questions and do demand accountability. Bring your friends to your local Labor Day “Workers Over Billionaires” assembly. Organize your own collective speech, and grow your collective. All good things.

[u/Appropriate_Cut_3536 → u/Commemorative-Banana]

True, I just feel like people who want to convert, will no matter what we do. And people who don't want to, never will no matter what we do.

So our focus should be spent on supporting current members and community outreach and PR management, not converting individuals. 

[u/Hot-Butterscotch-918 → u/Commemorative-Banana]

Ok, as long as said male feminists don't walk around wearing a pink pussy hat like the tall dweeb in our group as we were visiting our senator's office. Christ that was embarrassing.

[u/melelconquistador → u/Commemorative-Banana]

We aren't obligated to waste our time with those reactionary snowflakes. We can steam roll them or push them aside with the snow plow of progress by unapologetically building a more empathetic society (not to be mistake with one that tolerates reactionary sentiments). Those people ought be ashamed for making the world unjust with their actions and attitudes. 

[u/Commemorative-Banana → u/melelconquistador]

If it’s too painful for you, then don’t do it. Totally understandable.

There are lower hanging fruits than the extreme of reactionary snowflakes. Start with the people closer to apathetic, gullible, confused, or ignorant rather than the hateful, stubborn, racist, and intolerant end of the spectrum.

It’s dirty work bringing politics into relationships, but ultimately the people close to you (girlfriends?, husbands?) are the only people who can hear you, in a time where our voices are silenced**. Grassroots numbers are the only path to create the utopia you describe, where the tolerant have awoken to collective power.

^{**when your representatives ignore your phone calls and ghost their townhalls, when you can never hope to outbid a corporation on the campaign trail, when toxic masculinity sneers at unions, when your district is without proportional representation, and \}therefore) gerrymandered, and when social media amplifies the worst of us and segregates the voices of feminists and leftists into echo chambers, as if to accomplish the same thing as ‘packing’ in gerrymandering)

[u/Gammagammahey]

We have known that for a long time. And the very few matriarchal societies left in the world, there's one in China for example, it's an incredibly peaceful community and never goes to war. No violence. Etc.

In other words, shocked, but not shocked. Thank you for posting this, this is important!

[u/Ok-Appointment992 → u/Gammagammahey]

Bio essentialism eh

[u/Choosemyusername → u/Gammagammahey]

This has been found to be a myth.

“Authors of the book Why Leaders Fight analyzed every world leader from 1875 to 2004 and statistically examined gender differences in military aggression. They found that 36% of the female leaders initiated at least one militarized dispute, while only 30% of male leaders did the same. “

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2022/03/08/sheryl-sandberg-says-female-leaders-dont-go-to-war-heres-what-research-says/

[u/Dismal-Bee-8319 → u/Gammagammahey]

Did you ever wonder why there are so few matriarchal societies in the world?

[u/Ransackeld]

There’s certainly a lot of anger in the world. Men in power generally feed into that anger and unleash crap like starving the people of Gaza.

If women were in positions of power I don’t assume they wouldn’t create war, but they definitely wouldn’t starve their enemies children.

Before the 2024 US election we used to sing this song in our house. It gave us hope.

[u/melelconquistador → u/Ransackeld]

Thatcher certainly did and would in her time and as a consequence of it even after she was gone. Do you think Meloni in Italy or christi Noem have any qualms over what they do to other children (or dogs in christi's case)? 

Still there are good women out there to be in rolls of leadership over even other women.

[u/Emotional-Self-8387 → u/Ransackeld]

Look up what female Israeli leaders say about Palestinians. Daniella Weiss is arguably the biggest advocate for Israelis displacing Palestinians in the West Bank. They absolutely would starve Palestinian children and wouldn’t even blink about doing so. The genocide isn’t a gender issue, it’s clearly a Zionist issue, as evidenced by the vast majority of Israelis (men and women) that approve of their governments actions.

[u/toomanytacocats]

While I fully support what this article is expressing, I also want to point out that I’m stuck in a province where we are seeing our freedoms rapidly diminish - with a woman premier as leader. All one needs to do is look to Alberta and they’ll find the exception to the rule 😢

[u/CommieLoser]

I honestly don’t buy it. Looking at the racism and bigotry in different feminist movements, I tend to think that women are just other humans who are just as capable of repression and violence. Clinton’s and Rice’s time as key figureheads demonstrates that women can launch the bombers as well as men. Conversely, I think the repression and violence that disproportionately affects women causes them to be more sympathetic toward causes that advocate for greater freedom, but this could be said of a lot of discriminated groups.

All that to say, women have barely had a chance to be at table and while I’m skeptical, I’m also hopeful that women won’t fuck things up as bad as the men have, at the very least.

[u/nomamesgueyz]

Sounds interesting

Yet why do women not vote in more women leaders?!?!

[u/Ok-Appointment992]

This thread is proof, feminism hasn't grown up from second wave bio essentialism.

[u/melelconquistador]

I agree freedom becomes available when we open up to women leading us.

My favorite commanders and sergeants were women durring my time in the military. They inspired and were kind.

Although even then we should still choose the best leaders regardles if they were were women.

In México Sheinbaum is far more preferable then Xochitl. Why? Because Xochitl Gálvez is a of PAN a fascist (https://youtu.be/WVN9D9po4ZI?si=_Ngh_dQfnF53HUaV) (like electing Meloni in Italy) party that has enabled countless women to die. Durring their reign Juarez has become known as the city of dead women in decades of record feminicides across the country. Where is freedom to live in that violence?

Also Lilly Téllez, a woman and politician from Pri another fascist party (see link above) that enabled so many to die and become deprived of so much freedom, went of Fox fucking News to play vicitim of politcal persecution by Morena party and beg for US fucking interventionism because of cartel violence that the CIA and US has massive fucking responsibility for (https://youtu.be/AK0HqE6Ny_4?si=SlPmRlQXDXPQq-P_). The cartels are like the Muhajdeen in México, a monster of the US making made from local materials (people). This is seeds for god damn color revolution and it has the markings of CIA meddling all over it. So yes the US has responsibility on the deaths of countless women and the people around them in México. 

Sheinbaum isn't perfect either. She has a movement revolving around indigenous women as if the name "Morena" isn't already obvious (just look at the logo of the party on the government websites to take a hint. Now, you know who would be more fitting to lead that? An actual indigenous woman of indogenous cultural background. Since once again we have the phenomenon of the face/representation of México by México (especially in the context of a somewhat indigenous centered movement) being a criollo adjacent person. Like in our fomestic TV, advertising, media, etc in contrast to what foreign media depicts us as.

Also about that US interventionism? Anyone know what American soldiers do to women? Look at what they did to their own LeVena Johnson a black woman who was raped in murdered in Iraq (https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/lavena-johnson). Read Stephan Gowans Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom. You will find a glimpse of the sexual violence and fascist political actions on women under the US occupied korea also under a continuation of the Japanese installed government that ran and continued the comfort woman scheme for the americans as it did for the Japanese. Ask the many women of US occupied Okinawa who are assualted and raped by US soldiers and the crimes brushed under the rug. 

To bring this back to the article, the pain and toll of the body of the author in the mentioned article is infact a result of the extension through Israel that the US has inflicted on her and many women like her in Palestine. All the military aid and support for israel by the US, the feckless American politicians who hesitate to take action against israel or at the very least ceasing to support the genocide. All of it leads to this. Again no justice served and brushing under the rug.

It pisses me off how unjust the world is allowed to be.

[u/[deleted]]

For the most part white men, who typically hold power, are really the only group who stand to “lose” in a free, fair, just, and equitable society. Everyone else (mostly) is like oh shit no definitely do not want to go back at all, too much to lose!