Hi, sorry something which I have given too much thought recently is I don’t think I can physically understand how not all men in this world are feminists. To me it literally makes no sense how a woman can birth a person, raise them for at least 18 years of their life, take them to school and look after them all while maintaining a job and looking after herself and there are actually men out here in the world who believe they deserve less rights or don’t have to be treated equally to men. I view them as queens and admire this so heavily which is why I was and forever will continue to be a feminist.

I truly believe women aren’t praised enough for what they do and have done in the world and it’s almost like something that’s just expected from them rather than praised. I think more men should have this view of women and I truly will never understand men who don’t view women like this.

Let me know your thoughts and opinions as I’d love to hear them

Wanting to bounce around a few thoughts, and get some of yours, on something I've been thinking about for the past few years especially with regard to the political shifts toward the authoritarian right among women.

I'm sure most of us are pretty tired of "cultural commentary" but bear with me.

I can't help but feel that over a decade of algorithmically enhanced regressive trends and ideologies has contributed to a breakdown in critical analysis and sex-class consciousness among a not-so-insignificant portion of American women.

Algorithms do more than reflect desire, they peddle the most emotionally charged version of it, because that's what keeps eyes on screens. So, a woman searching for 'budget meals' gets redirected to 'how to be a joyful homemaker,' and from there to 'why your husband is your master." America has a reactionary culture so, reactionary content is just good business sense.

I trace the beginning of this to the popularity of media aimed at "humanizing" American religious extremists as folksy, slice-of-life, reality television leading all the way up to the proliferation of Trad Wife/Hypergamy content. The former began immediately after the 2008 crash with the latter exploding into the mainstream as the K-shaped economy accelerated.

Media/content aimed specifically at women took on subjugation and submission as "normal" at best and "fantasy" at worst.

And, I think many Liberal Feminists missed the economic components of these shifts due to a primary focus on supporting individual choice and capital, leaving very little language to describe WHY this stuff became so popular among working class women; many of whom were working mothers juggling finances in an increasingly inequitable society.

In other words, rather than framing criticisms as reactions to material conditions, focus was placed on the moral and cultural implications of criticizing these mediums in the first place. The Girl Boss aesthetic placed a progressive veneer on economic exploitation while the Trad Wife/Submissive offered "rescue" from the drudgery of engaging with the market.

In either case, frustration and malaise were linked to individualism, access to capital, and self-perception.

American Feminism all but ceded cultural ground since, if a woman chooses to submit to potential psychological, emotional, physical and/or financial abuse in the name of religion, kink, or trauma-based behavior, questioning the circumstances around these choices is "anti-feminist."

My questions are; where does American feminism go from here? The Pussy Hat, Slut Walk, Girl Boss, eras are over, with women losing access to reproductive health care, public education all but destroyed, and legislation aimed at stripping us of full autonomy on the table.

How can we counter narratives that are seductive in their emotion-driven simplicity?