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we were little girls with messy hair who wanted to shoot lasers at the people who hurt us. we made our barbies fly, made them spies, made them as strong as we wanted to be. they could stand up to the bullies. when we were older, we would ask, “where are the female superheroes?”

“it’s just a movie,” we were assured, “and what’s wrong with being the girl next door?”

we were angry adolescents with no safe direction to lash out in. we were not allowed to be violent. those of us who turned to our playstation were embarrassed for it. many of us were bullied. many of us turned to fantasy. when we were older, we would ask, “why is there only one playable girl character in this whole game?”

“video games are art,” we were sneered at, “i’m sick of these fake gamer girls ruining our media.”

we were high school girls who were worried we weren’t being kissed fast enough, even at 15. we felt shame boil up around our ears when men leaned out of cars to sling slurs at us. we wanted to feel good about ourselves but were sent home for showing our shoulders. what were we telling people by being so in love with our bodies that we showed them off in any small way. when we were older, we would ask, “why does this advertisement for socks have a barely-18-year-old girl lying mostly-naked on a bed?” we saw our own 18-year-old self, who could barely kiss right and still trembled about sex.

“relax,” we were told, “if you don’t like it, don’t look. if you’re mad they’re selling you your clothes like this, just don’t buy from them.”

we turned into tired adults. we have our fires burnt out. we have explained and explained until our tongues turned numb why we deserve to be able to live without fear. we got sick of being teachers. any dent we made was quickly refilled. we were sick of trying to talk to people who would never change their minds about us. we were sick of it. and we still asked: “where am i? where are the people who look like me?”

i once was in a coffee shop sighing to a friend, “why don’t people get that not every girl has the same body or same metabolic system” and i was interrupted by a large man who has no idea how i eat or how much i weigh or how healthy i might be, and he loudly and briskly informed me, “Victoria’s Secret models have a more common body type than you think. If you’re so pissed about not being like the girls on tv, how about you change what you look like?” i had gone 6 days without eating. 

so we made it up. we gave barbie a cape and our spotted dog the ability to control the weather. we wrote barely-legible fanfiction about vampires who were also terribly in love with us - because we were perfect in this world, unlike the mess of what really was - we crafted entire sub-stories about how the main characters in our favorite universes were secretly girls in disguise. we made 17-year-old characters who would cut the throats of anyone who hurt them. we drew pictures of women in full, angry armor. we wrote bad poems about the girls we loved and the ones we were jealous of. we hurt ourselves often, were excellent at denying ourselves in the name of something. we only ate salad, we wouldn’t touch grease, we didn’t buy certain things, didn’t get dirty. we used things to fill the gaps. bath bombs. fussy boots. venti iced mocha half-caf.

we made it up. we flooded the market. we put up pictures of ourselves smiling, with messy hair and silly faces, with back fat, with smudged makeup. we made videos perfecting our lips. we made art of possible fashion - all with pockets. 

a few girls take selfies at a sports event. they are slandered across the news for it. 

can you imagine? can you imagine the selfishness? the audacity? the self-possession one must feel to take a picture of themselves where they control everything? 

we don’t belong. images of us have to be photoshopped. made in buildings with perfect lighting. a young girl in underwear. we don’t belong. we don’t exist. keep quiet. if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.

Newly weds Edna Knowles and Peaches Stevens. They were the first lesbian couple featured in Jet Magazine for the October 15, 1970 issue.

turning into the joker due to the tumblr brainrot that led to some coder colouring the #gay tag like turquoise and lavender to reference a 3 month old flag that no gay person who isn't terminally online will have ever seen before because Gilbert Baker's rainbow flag specifically designed for gay liberation has been around for half a century and weirdly segregating us off is literally the opposite of what we should be doing

All of the angry anti-radfem stuff that I see about periods has lately been bothering me. I’ve been in my bed today, with heating pads and ibuprofen, trying to distract myself from my uterus twisting around, and I’ve been giving it some thought.

A few days ago I saw someone say that older radfems “teach younger women to drink period blood”. I see complains about uterus artwork, about women who use period blood in their wiccan/witchcraft rituals, women being asked not to speak about their periods as women, and of course women describing vulvas as a “nightmare of flesh”. We’re accusing of reducing ourselves to genitalia, of being obsessed with our periods, told that nobody is oppressed because of their menstrual cycle (sometimes, of course, they add “in America”, as if female oppression is something else we’ve outsourced).

My mom told me that, when she was a kid, she didn’t wrap up a tampon enough when she threw it in the trash. Her dad called her in and hit her because “her brothers could have seen”. She tells me that one of the first times she fell in love with my dad was when she found out he kept tampons in his bathroom “just in case”. 

I remember being told that I couldn’t use the bathroom once in middle school, as I had already gone that class. My friend gave me a sweatshirt to tie around my waist after I bled through my pants. 

I remember in gym class, when we went out to run, trying to explain to my male teacher that I couldn’t run because I was on my period. He told me that I didn’t have a sick note and that telling him was inappropriate. I threw up on the track.

When I talk to doctors about my irregular periods, they tell me I must use hormonal birth control. We don’t have any medications that weren’t made to make women sexually available. The “period” you get on birth control is withdrawal from hormones. Nobody tells me for years that hormonal birth control doesn’t mix with mood disorders. Five doctors put me on this routine. Each time I go crazy. When I refuse with the last doctor, tell her I can’t do it again, she tells me to “grow up”.

My period hurts, hurts more than it should, with PCOS. My grandmother had it, had surgery after surgery like many women in her family, to remove ovaries bit by bit. They wouldn’t take them all out at first because, the doctors said, they might want to give birth. My grandmother calls it “her cancer”, because that’s how the doctor described it to her.

I know a woman who passed out in class. The teacher called an ambulance, and when they got there and she woke up she was mortified. She had endometriosis and she was angry that others had seen her in pain. I read later that cramps can be more painful than a heart attack. 

I ask if I can postpone a meeting at a job until the next day. My co-worker asks if I am PMSing because I’ve been so grumpy all day. I go to the restroom and vomit, because the nausea from my period is so awful. I miss days sometimes because I can’t make it out of bed.

So when I see positivity about periods, when I see people trying to make art about this thing we have in common, when I see women talking about ways to make their period more comfortable, when I see the stitched pads they make, when I see people who can view the period as somehow divine, I truly do appreciate it. It isn’t gross, or awful. What’s gross and awful is telling us to be silent, not letting us learn, not making accommodations, the idea that this is a thing that we have to actively hide.

I don’t think those things are “glorifying” periods, but so what if they are? I think that taking something that hurts and making it into something positive and beautiful is incredible. I think that accepting ourselves as we are and finding ways to love that are some of the best things we can do in life.

So, as I lay here, in a lot of pain, I just want to say thanks for all the talk about menstruation. I love your uterus art. I love the things that I’ve learned from women about menstruation–why we have periods and how that relates to our bodies avoiding pregnancy, what normal periods should look like, signs and symptoms of gynecological disorders, and how to use menstrual products that are less toxic to our bodies.

Our periods shouldn’t have a stigma, and we should remember that we aren’t alone. Cheers, and I hope all of you have a great day today :)

Sophia Tolstaya on men, 1898

Sophia Tolstaya on female genius, 1898

Sophia Tolstaya on male genius, 1902

Oh lord my cat is supporting me

some ppl on here really are making fun of the 2015 “eyeliner so sharp it can kill a man” feminist era and in the post after they will talk about how empowering the bimbo movement is

how come I have to be haunted by insensitive things I said when I was 14 while men are committing sexual assault without a second thought