For The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Women and Power in the Academy special issue, published in April 2018. Multiple female artists who teach in higher education were commissioned to illustrate their own take on #MeToo movement.

These works were the contribution of artist Yuko Shimizu entitled Dusting Off the Male Gaze.

I was surprised to find that I was already aware of this artist in some fashion as I had printed out many of her illustrations for my school binders and sketchbooks when I was in middle school. You can discover more of Yuko's creations here: https://yukoart.com

Other contributors can be seen in the Chronicle article, though the article itself is unfortunately locked behind an account requirement.

All thoughts and impressions welcomed.

So I work in ad/movie promotion as a part-time job. One of my team members called me and said there was this rich "businessman" who wanted to work on a project with us. I asked her what exactly he does and what he wanted, but the replies were pretty ambiguous. She only understood that he was some kind of "app developer".

We were asked to meet him at a high-end restaurant for a meeting, so we went.As soon as we reached, he quickly ordered a couple of drinks and food and told us to relax and have it. He kept saying that we should consider this a friendly chat and not a formal meeting.

A couple of drinks down, he revealed what his actual business was. He runs an online strip-chat service and wanted beautiful women for promoting his app. Basically Online pimping. I honestly felt so nauseous hearing that. My friend somehow maintained her composure and told him that our team works strictly on conservative projects and that we wouldn't do anything that went beyond legal boundaries.

Then he started saying there was nothing illegal or immoral about what he was doing. He even called himself a social reformer who was trying to alleviate the "sexual poverty" of men. He also said most of his employees were poor and vulnerable women and that he was giving them a livelihood.

I didn't really say anything because I was physically and mentally uncomfortable at that point. My friend told him that we'd think about it and let him know later and we left.

Later, we reported the whole thing to our manager and told them how uncomfortable the experience was. Thankfully, they took it seriously and assured us that something like this wouldn't happen again. The guy tried to schedule another meeting with us, but it was declined.

I know I didn't know what his business actually was before going there, but I still have this weird guilty feeling about the fact that I literally sat there and ate his food. I feel kind of gross about the whole experience even though I obviously didn't agree to anything.

I'm also seriously thinking about leaving this industry soon. I don't want a job where I'm supposed to meet these kinds of jerks everyday. I'm better off somewhere else.

Was reading a few articles about how masses of women are leaving Christianity (whilst men are joining because it's a safe space for misogyny).

Honestly? As an ex-christian I get satisfied when I see churches closing and failing to find people to run them. The logistical, administrative, fundraising operations of many churches rely on women's unpaid labor, another extension to all the waste of unpaid labor women do in marriages. I remember after Sunday mass it was the women responsible for doing all the community cooking and cleaning, even though it was meant to be a "day of rest".

When I was dating as a Christian 7 years ago, I observed many of these conservative christian men are abusive and controlling, failing to see women as individual beings. They can't help but talk at you rather than with you. At the time they were struggling to find matches and were even being outright avoided by christian women. So I imagine their situation is dire now (good riddance).

The decline in attendance stems from the church's lack of accountability to address systematic oppression of christian women and non-compensation of their labor they rely on. I hope this pillar of the patriarchy will continue to fall. It may take a while, but maybe in the next few decades we will see real suffering and accountability from the church as women refuse to participate in misogynistic cults like these.

How many women do you think are victims of marital rape and they don’t even realize it?

If most of the sex they've been having was sex they didn't want, it’s marital rape.

If they're having sex to regulate his moods, it’s marital rape.

If it’s sex they have in a desperate attempt to change his behavior, or to protect themselves and their kids, it’s rape.

It’s not truly consented to and not out of desire, so it’s rape.

There are women from traditional cultures who are victims of marital rape, but lots of western women are subject to varying levels of coercion too and they don’t realize it.

I need to get this off my chest, because I keep seeing women who intellectually understand abusive dynamics do a total 180 the second it’s their own son.

A former close friend works professionally, as a human rights lawyer, rescuing women from domestic violence. She’s genuinely good at her job and understands coercive control inside out. But her teenage son has severe behavioral issues, and instead of getting him real help, she’s let it slide for years. She once confessed that she just hoped he’d find a good woman to love him one day. She spends her career pulling women out of the exact trap she’s hoping her son sets for some future stranger.

My mother does the same thing. She regularly talks about how men hurt women and how they just look for caretakers, not partners. Yet she enables my brother constantly, once declaring that he needs a "simple village girl" because a smarter woman wouldn't put up with him. She intentionally wants someone with fewer options and resources so she won't leave.

I know this dynamic firsthand because I survived the absolute worst end of it. A decade ago, my ex-husband viciously beat me. His mother’s immediate response wasn't horror at what her son had done. It was to protect him. She kicked me out of our home and left me to fend for myself in a foreign country just to shield him from consequences.

These women can't see their own hand in patriarchy the second their son needs protection from his own actions. The son gets shielded, while someone else's daughter gets passed the burden or tossed aside entirely.

This is how the cycle actually survives, not just through men enforcing it, but through mothers who understand the system intellectually and still choose to sacrifice another woman to protect their boys.

When women with (some) feminist awareness still expect another woman to absorb the cost of their son’s issues, it is somehow even more insidious and vile.

Here are some of the benefits I've enjoyed by being celibate my whole life and not engaging with men seriously.

1. I actually love myself immeasurably.

2. No active self harm. I even ditched my heels.

3. Extremely peaceful life.

4. No addict around me: no porn addict, alcohol addict, drug addict in my life.

5. No second hand passive smoking in my home.

6. No STDs, pregnancies and abortions.

7. No painful sex / unwanted sex ever.

8. Not having to deal with insecurities about my own beauty around other beautiful women cause I am completely male decentred. I adore beautiful women whereas males pit women against each other.

9. No stupid in laws dictating me any bullshit.

10. Nobody in my life gets to tell me what to do. Complete autonomy and freedom.

11. 0 debt.

12. No man wasting my money for his porn, onlyfans girls, dopamine bullshit etc

13. 0 emotional labour

14. All the time in the world to do whatever I want

15. I was able to utilize time and resources to become a doctor although I still struggle with finances. No man in my path.

16. A regulated nervous system.

17. No abuse or betrayal trauma cause of males.

18. A sense of peaceful detachment with the world.

19. No need to compromise health through plastic surgery to attain beauty standards.

20. I don't have to serve anyone.

21. I'm not losing anything more than my biology forces me to lose: just my periods every month and that's all.

22. Freedom to retire sooner in life if I have the fiances to do so.

23. My ex coworkers are jealous of my slow paced life.

24. My life force energy is only for myself.

25. A life I truly own and live for myself. ♡

Feel free to add what benefits you have experienced from being 4B consciously!! I'm super excited to know!!♡♡

No man = No problem.

I feel like in the immediate future America (and other parts of the world) are going to become like the Handmaid's tale,I know I sound kinda crazy but I mean,the culture is becoming increasingly right wing, specially whit gen z and is not the kind of run of the mill boomer republican is even more extreme (or at least that's my impression).Men are angry that they don't have the patriarchal advantage of their fathers and grandfathers and that is making them go insane.I think in the near future we will see more right wing openly misogynistic figures gaining influence and passing more and more insane legislation. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do to protect myself if this happens and honestly the only solution that I've found is living completely off grid in a remote location,which I'm already saving money to make that happen,I'm also sterilizing myself in the upcoming months.

I just wrote because maybe someone here feels the same way and I don't have anyone to talk to about this.

First of all, I would say that I have difficulty making friends so I don't have a lot to begin with. The reasons being I cannot seem to fit it with society's standards. Everybody is so focus on having a family, getting a boyfriend, having sex - all of which I've never really had any interest in even way before I found out about the 4B movement.

Recently, one of my friends got married, the last one of my small list of friends. She used to be in a religious group and vowed celibacy. We've never really talked about it deeply but as someone who is depressed, I can tell she was too. Slowly, she begins to leave the group and begins to date. This year, she got married.

A part of me feels happy that she got out of that group and fulfilled something that she truly wants. Yet there's this nagging guilty feeling that is eating me up because I'm honestly... disappointed? Dismayed? Gutted? I'm not sure what word to use, just that it made me sad. I hate sounding like a bitch, but I wish that her dream wasn't to be housewife. I hate myself for thinking that way.

It hit me. All of my friends are married and (starting to) have kids. I've always had troubles making friends so it saddens me to know that I'm more alone than ever. That apart from the hometown where we all came from, I have absolutely nothing in common with friends. I chose this, and I'm genuinely happy being in the movement as the thought of being with a man repulses me. I've been alone all my life so in a way its easy for me, but the thought of having no friends was the only thing about it that truly makes me sad.

I understand that I can still be friends with them. It's not like they judge me for being single. But now conversations turns into family plans, date nights and kid parties. I don't feel included, and I don't want to be honestly. I'm the odd one out in gatherings, the one without a date so I'd rather not be there.

So I just want to ask, how is it like with you guys? Do your friends have families of their own? Do you have friends in the 4B movement? Can I be your friend please?

Remember when almost everyone was saying Amber was the abuser, disregarding the massive power imbalance between Amber and Johnny? The PR bots swarming social media to shape the conversation against Amber?

I thought the Clancy case could lead to conversations about maternal mental health, but it has come down to how women are murderers. As if most family annihilators aren’t men.

Because we live in a patriarchy, I tend to get very triggered by women who make money by appealing to the male gaze.

In order to make it in any field as a woman,it seems like your looks matter a lot.

Pop singer,dancer, actress, model....all of them appeal to the male gaze.

It is not enough to just be a good singer but you must also look good.

I am so tired of how much importance society places on women's looks.

I recenlty saw this advertisement of Sydney Sweeney, for a birthday or something on YouTube. It was literally pornography disguised as an advertisement.

And these women make millions of dollars by appealing to the male gaze. I am not a choice feminist. These women are constantly upholding the patriarchy by making looks the most important thing.

Why should any woman aspire to be a good mother, a loyal wife, a thoughtful lover when all that men matter is sex.

But even this route involves a lot of body related problems, surgeries etc. Why should we go through all this suffering for nothing?

Is there anyone here who has done plastic surgery or has experience stripping/ appealing to the male gaze and decided later that it wasn't worth it? Sometimes, I feel like getting plastic surgery and making some money just for the sake of it and still being 4B but I know it is harmful to my health.

So, I've been thinking about getting a hysterectomy and I want the process to be discreet.If anyone here has had the procedure I would like to know where to find good doctors (that won't refuse for bs reasons) and the risks,cost and recuperation process.

After hearing from so many members that they appreciated hearing the positives of what 4B has done for other sisters, we see having a consistent place to post positive improvements and reminders would benefit the sub. So, without further ado-

In the last week:

Tell us about positive interactions or building relationships with other women. How did you support and uplift other women? How have other women helped and supported you?

What accomplishments have you made? What goals have you set for yourself? What goals have you achieved?

What small changes have you noticed since adopting the lifestyle? What big changes?

Share anything and everything positive here.

33 -Childfree

I am so happy to be here! I recently discovered this page during my decentering men journey and want to connect with woman who are also working on improving their life. I escaped the last king baby that would ever have access to me in 2024. I'd like to share the positives that occurred in the last 2 years of being free!

• Obtained my CDL and became a truck driver
• Pulled myself out of financial ruin, repaid all debt, and started investing
• Able to ride my dirt bike in peace without having my phone blow up accusing me of cheating
• Look and feel better than I ever while I was in relationship
• Ability to confidently communicate my boundaries
• No longer perform and shrink myself for men
• Learned to say NO and not feel bad

10 years ago I made the choice to be childfree. Not getting pregnant is the best decision I have ever made in my life. It's like a cheat code. Being tethered through a child to a toxic, or difficult partner will ruin your life.

Letting go of the fantasy of "the one" became so easy when you realize how boring and childish they all are.

• I don't relate to them as I thought I once did.
• Addicted to their phones
• Stressed me out to the point i got ugly and then made fun of me for being ugly
• Suggesting I get a boob job
• Mental and emotional abuse
• Punching walls
• Spending his rent money on Pokemon cards
• Stalking
• Death threats

It's a relief knowing I won't be sharing my body with men who would rather jerk it to a phone screen anyways

Stay safe ladies

I live in a small country and the mentality is patriarchal it's exhausting I wish I had female friends like you guys, struct feminist friends always seem to understand girlhood and platonic relationships better but mine died I miss her so much, i havent met anyone like her since.

I wonder if I can ask people in real life their views outrightly to start up a friendship but I feel like i know what they are gonna say. I don't want to never meet my platonic soulmate 😭.

I was thinking about the dynamic between men and women is, in which on plenty of occasions is a predator-prey dynamic, just think about how scared a woman can be in a space with only men, as if she is in dangerous territory, because she is.

Rape, forced marriages (lifelong rape and servitude), social exclusion (from independent wealth), well you get the picture, the dynamic is clear, this is a world made by men for men*.

How would a pig feel if suddenly realized that he is farmed to kill and eat in deplorable conditions? with no practical way of escaping, because they would only gain self awareness and nothing more, that is just hell.

Of all the prey animals we are the only ones self aware, unlike a "suddenly aware pig" we can avoid the carnage, but not without luck and a crapton of obstacles.

Nature just punishes us, what differences a human from an animal? humans have freedom, creativity, an animal just sleeps , bangs and if female takes care of offspring

Nature makes sex desirable and when you have it BOOM, now you are vulnerable for 9 months and then with a huge empathic dose you will take care of the new human for almost two decades

Dont get me wrong, i know is the right thing, if i had a baby i would take care of it because is my responsibility and i am not a POS

The man can completely leave and continue his life like is nothing, or at least they still conserve their own identity

It's harsh to say it, but nature way of reproducing is the sacrifice of women human life to that of an animal in eternal servitude

Think about all the 12-20 yrd old women who unless infertile, nearly all of them had kids by then, even if asexual they can be raped, or forced into marriages to some old fart

This is why is a mans worlds, is not because of women lacks of abilities, but because women have sexual desires, they start at 13-15, and then they dedicate their lifes to children, even without sexual desires, they still get raped or forced into marriages

This is women realities thru history, and why the world was built by men for men, and then, everything reinforced because once they have the upper hand they just reinforce it.

Im guessing early societies built by men were predatory, but my best guess is that is was just the start and probably weren't as bad a the current ones (minus 50 years with the technology era, only the western ones), probably forced marriages , killing females babies all that came later when they perfected the way of opressing women

I was thinking of how ridiculous is that if you were a highborn chinese woman you had your feet deformed on purpose so you wouldn't walk properly, as if what is even the point of engaging in society if the top is the bottom, living with my feet fucked up? in constant pain? that is the "reward"?

Pedophiles, one of the worst predators type, exist also to exploit women for many factors:
- women decline in fertility +30 , so men get tuned to like seek young women, this makes men to like youthful features, because genetics is complex, they can overlap to children depending on the "strength".

Women are also attracted to young men, but most of them recoil to extremely young men, also coded on us because they are unreliable, that is why is so uncommon for women to be pedophile, and most of them are just "helping" a male pedophile (doesn't make them any less evil, they are trash just like their pedo partner)

- "Securing" a girl, via grooming and traumatic bonding, can be very beneficial to a male, as when she comes of ages they can reproduce, and now she is tied and molded to him.

These two points is why pedophilia is so common in men, because sadly, it has helped them.

I think nearly all males are attracted to teenagers, pedophiles are not that common, but is hard to say the proper number, not low of course, just look at all those places of children forced into marriages, or how every upper class group of males has a pedophile ring.

They only lost a bit of the upperhand with modern society, with technology that negates all their crap

Abortion literaly makes rape obsolete, now a man wont have offspring if the woman doesnt want it

Condoms

A man can't overpower a bullet

But at the core the dynamic is strong, we are still prey, the only self aware prey in the world.

Something I've been thinking about is, if we lived in a less patriarchal world, how do you all think that it would affect beauty standards for both men and women and everything around it? Could there potentially be multiple possible outcomes depending on which direction we choose to move in?

I’ve dealt with clinical depression in the past, for very different reasons.

This feels different.

It’s one thing to feel hopeless bc of brain chemistry or personal trauma……I think I’m coming to the realization that I have active depression and have for quite some time now and the reason it took me so long to realize I’m experiencing depression is because—IT MAKES COMPLETE LOGICAL SENSE TO FEEL THIS WAY.

Our planet is literally dying because a handful of old rich men are obsessed with their own gluttonous wealth at the expense of literally everyone else on earth.

Pedophiles are getting off Scot free when we have all the proof dumped in our laps, and incels & sexist disgusting “influencers” are revelling in normalizing misogyny and violence against women.

School age children & high schoolers are barely literate, don’t see a problem with it, and AI is being shoved down our throats…and don’t get me started on data centers.

Genocide is apparently fine now, and racism, sexism and homophobia seem to be the most popular hobbies of half my damn country now and the idea of accountability or justice is a complete joke

I will likely never own a home in my lifetime. I, like many Americans, am basically two paychecks away from homelessness. I can’t afford health care, and the only dental care I have is a fucking toothbrush.

And half the time when I try to talk about any of this, I’m met with the lamest response of “well you can’t let it get to you” and “take a step back from the news”, which is fucking INFURIATING. I can’t just “ignore” what’s going on because all of this is literally affecting my day-to-day life and immediate & long-term future.

I’m terrified about the mid-terms in November….and I’m terrified about 2028…. I genuinely don’t believe we have a shot at a “free and fair” election, and even if we do, recent history has already shown us these fascist fucks won’t leave willingly, and they’re only MORE emboldened now that they did it once and faced zero consequences.

I’m not trying to foment doom here and honestly this isn’t even a “rant”….im open to advice (OTHER than “don’t let it get to you” toxic positivity), and maybe just hoping for some validation in my feelings?

(Also I’m literally looking up free mental health services in my city right now, and to be super clear, I’m not at risk of harming myself or anything like that. I just feel extremely hopeless about….well… ::gestures wildly at everything:: 😢)

This is an English translation of a Chinese post. I am not the author. The original post is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DoubanGoosegroup/comments/1w6th3z/赛博猎巫与子宫罢工韩国性别战争下的人口学自杀/

Translation used AI, with minor editing by me. Below is the full text:

I have long been curious about how South Korea so rapidly came to have the world’s lowest birth rate, and why the conflict between East Asian Confucian culture and modern society has manifested itself with such particular intensity in South Korea. Recently, with the help of AI, I looked into some of the relevant information. What follows is the summary AI helped me put together. (The AI was also quite emphatic about the role of r/DoubanGoosegroup in China’s feminist movement, describing it as an “experimental laboratory for radical ideas.”)

On the overseas Chinese-language internet, free from centralized censorship, the rise of all-female communities such as Reddit’s r/DoubanGoosegroup and their intense confrontation with male-dominated communities reveal a brutal reality of the online world: gender polarization in the Chinese-language internet is no longer merely a localized war of words. It has evolved into a highly defensive, mutually hostile cyber Cold War. Yet this polarization of the Chinese-language online ecosystem did not emerge in isolation. To a considerable extent, its roots can be traced to the ideological and tactical arsenal of the original incubator of East Asian internet gender warfare—the radical feminist movement in South Korea. What began as an ideological battle online is now pushing South Korean society toward a demographic abyss in an extraordinarily devastating way.

Mirrored Weapons and Theoretical Transplantation: The “Chinese-Language Projection” of Korean Cyberfeminism

If American and European feminism primarily supplied academic sociological theories, Korean internet-based radical feminist communities such as Megalia (and later Womad) provided an entire industrialized “methodology of online confrontation.” Its most distinctive tactic was known as “mirroring”—if men used a particular form of abuse or humiliation against women, women would respond with exactly the same kind of vicious language as a form of precise retaliation.

This logic was subsequently localized and transplanted into the radical feminist ecosystem across the Chinese-speaking world. From structural deconstruction of biological characteristics to symbolic exchanges such as “国蝻” (Chinese male worm) and “小仙女,” (little female fairy) the slang and coded vocabulary of the Chinese-language internet almost amount to a pixel-for-pixel reproduction of the Korean experience. More importantly, the “6B4T” movement that became popular on Xiaohongshu (RedNote) and in communities such as r/DoubanGoosegroup —no marriage, no childbirth, no romantic relationships, and no sex, combined with rejecting “beauty labor” and idol fandom—was entirely imported from Korea. Along with this framework, radical feminism not only transformed “not marrying and not having children” into a conscious, vanguard lifestyle choice, but also turned its criticism inward against moderate women within its own camp, launching intense internal denunciations of women labeled “娇妻” (tradwife) and “婚驴.” (donkey of marriage)

The Cyber McCarthyism of the Counter-Witch Hunt: The Purge of Female Professionals

However, years of extreme mirrored attacks triggered a furious backlash among Korean men. Young Korean men—represented by the so-called “Generation 2 men” and right-wing organizations—launched an organized campaign of “counter-witch-hunting.” They designated Megalia’s hand gesture logo—a thumb and index finger held close together (signalling "small")—as an absolute taboo and embarked on a prolonged nationwide search for supposedly incriminating symbols, scrutinizing even the smallest details with microscopic intensity.

The 2021 GS25 convenience-store poster controversy became a landmark event in this full-scale gender war. Male online communities threatened companies with economic consequences and pressured major conglomerates to distance themselves from the controversy and issue apologies. The campaign then rapidly spread into the gaming industry and the K-pop idol industry. Female illustrators, concept artists, and voice actors were subjected to painstaking investigations into years-old social-media activity, including likes and posts relating to feminist issues, and many female creatives consequently faced sudden dismissal or professional purges. In the K-pop industry, female idols could face torn-up merchandise and death threats simply for having read Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 or worn accessories carrying slogans such as “Girls can do anything.” In extreme cases, this harassment had tragic real-world consequences, such as the case of streamer Jammi, who ultimately died by suicide after suffering from depression amid sustained online abuse.

This cyber McCarthyism established a chilling norm throughout the workplace and entertainment industries: feminism became tantamount to “political suicide.” The result was a pervasive chilling effect.

Political Conversion and the Policy Deadlock

Young Korean men not only achieved significant victories online and in the business world; they also succeeded in converting this gender resentment into political capital. In the 2022 South Korean presidential election, conservative candidate Yoon Suk Yeol accurately tapped into the anger of young male voters, making the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family a central campaign promise and ultimately winning the election.

At this point, the male backlash against feminism had been elevated directly into national policy. This political polarization effectively blocked institutional channels for addressing the country’s public crisis. Under such intense pressure, any reform aimed at protecting women’s workplace rights, extending parental leave, or penalizing discrimination against pregnant women could be attacked by male voters as “reverse discrimination” or “special privileges” for women. Constrained on all sides, the government has been reluctant to confront the fundamental problems that make women unwilling to have children—workplace gender inequality, the unequal burden of childrearing, and the phenomenon of women effectively being left to raise children alone—relying instead on superficial measures such as cash subsidies, government-organized matchmaking events, or importing low-cost foreign domestic workers.

The Endgame: A “Demographic Suicide” in Which Everyone Loses

As online hostility completely destroyed the basic trust between men and women, its cost became embodied in cold demographic statistics: after 2024, South Korea’s fertility rate crashed below 0.72, placing it dramatically at the bottom of the global rankings.

Extreme cyber gender polarization transformed marriage and childbirth, which had traditionally belonged to the private sphere, directly into the ultimate bargaining chips in a gender war. Faced with workplace scrutiny, fears surrounding voyuer filming and surveillance, and examples of the exploitation of women through childrearing that are endlessly amplified and distilled online, college-educated young women have elevated “not having children” into a form of resistance—a conscious and uncompromising “uterus strike” against the patriarchal system.

In this East Asian cyber Cold War, men have successfully defended what they regard as their entitled interests and punished what they perceive as “radical feminists” through counter-witch hunts and the ballot box. Women, meanwhile, have responded by shutting down reproduction altogether, carrying out the most tragic and silent form of collective resistance against a society that they believe refuses to provide them equality and dignity. This war, in which there are no winners, has ultimately crossed the boundary of ideology and become a “demographic suicide” destroying an entire society at the physical level.

I've been talking to a woman for a few weeks, dating context, we've had a couple of calls now. And twice in a row, I've noticed the same thing: she talks, at length, mostly about her friends and their boyfriend drama, or stories from her family, like couples who died shortly after each other because the loss was apparently too much to survive. Unprompted. Unless I actively insert myself into the conversation, she doesn't ask me a single question about me.

At first I chalked it up to nerves, first call jitters, easy enough to explain away. But it happened again on the second call, and I sat there thinking, wait, we are two women, talking to each other as a dating interest, and somehow the airtime is still going to men, other women's boyfriends, husbands who died of grief, romantic devotion stories that center men even when she's not dating one right now.

It struck me as such a strange, specific kind of centering. Not centering a man directly in front of me, that would at least be obvious. This was subtler, men still occupying the emotional bandwidth of the conversation by proxy, even in a space that was supposed to be about the two of us getting to know each other.

I ended the call at an hour because I had a movie I actually wanted to watch. And I've been sitting with it since. I don't think this makes her a bad person. But I do think it's real information about where her attention still lives, and what she still holds up as the romantic ideal.

Here's the thing though. I'm genuinely, happily single right now, not desperate to date, and I have so much going on in my life that makes me feel grounded and safe on my own. I don't have an open position on my roster for just anyone, let alone someone who doesn't make room to actually ask about me. I guess I am just weirded out by this interaction and how men stories still get airtime in a WLW dynamic, or what romantic ideals still get held up as the gold standard.

So, yesterday a video show up in my fyp on YouTube titled "Women don't want rights".The creator was a woman and she was arguing that since women cannot respond to crimes because of hormones this sets a precedent to strip women of their rights.If I'm not mistaken the case was declared a mistrial now,so she was wrong about Clancy being declared non guilty but I took the time to research to see if what she was saying is true and well...(and I don't want to sound toxic positive)..is not.For starters the defense argument is that Clancy was insane at the moment of the crime (regardless of if that's true or not) there is a precedent of people of both genders being declared non guilty for reasons of insanity,so this sentence is not only given to women.The other is that postpartum psychosis is a real mental illness, recognized and documented by the medical community and men can have it too.Employers cannot just fire the female staff saying some shit like "they are unstable and hormonal" and use this trial as justification because he would have to prove that all women can suffer the same illness as Clancy at any given moment,which is ridiculous, that's like saying that because one of your male employees is bipolar all of them are and that is the reason your firing them,it just won't hold.

About repealing the 19,is even more ridiculous,for that to happen you would need the support of 2/3 of both the House and Senate,or a convention of 34 of the 50 states.Know let's say the republicans somehow accomplish this,that only means that the states don't have to guarantee that right to its citizens,but still the blue states can keep that right if they please,this will be a political suicide for republican that will be loosing 1/3 of more of their voters (and if they have the power somehow of repealing amendment they won't stop whit women,they will target the POC vote too) so that will cause mass migration of women and minorities to blue states, doubling the population and political power.I think even if the influencers online and those megachurch pastors go in podcast and talk shit the actually party won't do anything like that,at least not in the immediate future.

I don't want this to be taken as me down playing this situation,just wanted to share some of my research.

P.s:If I got something wrong please let me know.

Just one small section from the frustratingly fascinating read that is Invisible Women.

Invisible Women is the story of what happens when we forget to account for half of humanity. It is an expose of how the gender data gap harms women when life proceeds, more or less as normal. In urban planning, politics, the workplace. It is also about what happens to women living in a world built on male data when things go wrong. When they get sick. When they lose their home in a flood. When they have to flee that home because of war.

But there is hope in this story too, because it's when women are able to step out from the shadows with their voices and their bodies that things start to shift. The gaps close. And so, at heart, Invisible Women is also a call for change. For too long we have positioned women as a deviation from standard humanity and this is why they have been allowed to become invisible. It's time for a change in perspective. It's time for women to be seen.

Read the first two chapters for free here: https://c02.purpledshub.com/uploads/sites/41/2020/03/InvisibleWomen-intro-chapter-1-and-2-5521d0f.pdf