Punning Through The Dark

We need to bring back the term “benevolent sexism” into widespread use for real. It’s a major mechanism in how bioessentialist Girlboss Radfems can be turned into bioessentialist conservative Tradwives.

I’m not actually interested in the bad faith radfem readings of this post where I get called an incel pervert (????). But I will be donating a lot of money to trans organizations and blocking all the radfems in the notes, because I don’t think it’s worth speaking to people whose position is that their politics are incorruptible and anyone who critiques them is wrong (and having incel fantasies???? What???)

I do want to talk about how there’s a lot of radical feminists in the notes acting like men doing small nice things for women like opening doors is what benevolent sexism is. It’s not, and I don’t want anyone who’s new to the term getting confused.

“Benevolent sexism” refers to sexism that masks itself as complimentary and beneficial to women. That might include holding open doors, but that’s a tiny and useless example. The bigger part is putting women on a pedestal as kind, innocent, safe, pure, etc, often in contrast to the roughness and violence of men. That used to be a major argument against women voting and engaging in politics, that they needed to be protected from something so rough, dirty, and corrupt. That’s where the similarities to radical feminism comes in.

Let me expand on my original thought:

Gender/sex essentialist radical feminists/TERFs and traditional sexism conservatives share many of the same basic beliefs about the world. Men are inherently rough, violent, and sexually aggressive where women are kinder, gentler, and inherently safer to be around. That’s benevolent sexism. Traditional sexists turn this into a belief that women must be protected by men from the world, so women must have husbands to shelter them from the world (ie control them). There’s also strands of outright misogyny that come with traditional sexism, but this post is long enough. Radfems turn this into a belief of separatism from men, which is interesting because many sexist and misogynistic societies do practice many kinds of separation between men and women.

Any radfem who’s insecure or unsure in her beliefs, who’s attracted to men, or who thinks she knows a good man is vulnerable to traditional sexist beliefs because she’s already accepted the same base premise. She just needs to change her mind about rejecting men entirely (which can be a struggle when you’re attracted to men or have men close to you in your life) to the idea that she can pick a Good Man(tm) to protect her. A person who jumps out of one set of radical beliefs can easily overcorrect in the other direction, as well. This is what sets up radfems who do become tradfems.

It’s a lot easier for benevolent sexism to slip into queer and feminist spaces in general, which is part of why it’s important to talk about it. The traditional sexist role for women is posed as subservient to that of men, but it’s still often posed as good, honorable, necessary, etc. If you’re willing to accept anything that paints women in a positive light into your feminist spaces, then it becomes easy to let benevolent sexism slip in.

The fundamental belief of feminism about women should be the women are human beings, people, not that women are inherently good. Any type of feminism that rejects that (as transphobic and separatist strands tend to) becomes vulnerable to benevolent sexism.

Bringing back this post in the context of 52% of white women who voted doing so for Trump. Benevolent sexism, the promises and pedestals patriarchy offers as its bait, is definitely a part of some of that.

In my area, I only heard "benevolent sexism" as "if you are a special kind of woman, you'll be able to to join the lower ranks of men, who are required to trample upon other men and women. E.g. upper-middle class women trampling on the poor men and women and the minorities.", so your part is absolutely going to be my new usage of the term! Thank you.

Good to know! I first ran into it while learning about the suffrage movement and the paternalistic framing of keeping women from voting as protecting their “goodness” by keeping them away from dirty politics, so it’s interesting to hear about other contexts.

I do think that benevolent sexism tends to come into the Madonna-Whore complex where there are good, wonderful, perfect, pure women and then tainted, fallen women, so it certainly can enable certain women to become enforcers of sexism and other -isms from their pedestal of being seen as Pure, Angelic creatures. But to get pedestal treatment, they still do have to be middle class, white, cishet, etc, and perform feminine gender roles that put them as subservient to men.

This also goes for things like 'divine femininity' and 'women are mystical creatures that need herbs based on their menstruation and not western medicine' etc etc.

Yes medicine has large gaps regarding qualitative treatment of bodily systems generally associated with women. No that doesn't make women ~mystical aliens~ that need completely different things than regular humans (men).

we personally were thrown by the ambiguity of the "benevolent" part until we realised we can read it as "sexism with artificial sweetener" or maybe "sexism zero" is more catchy

#oooo sexism with artificial sweetener #i like that #it seems fine at first but then you get that nasty aftertaste

(@thegirlnoonetexts)

exactly - zero nourishment and potentially carcinogenic, but in the moment you can't drink your misogyny without it, too bitter

more pretty ladies 🌸

any of yall hear about black project 2025

it started up on tiktok by a black woman but essentially its creating black-owned spaces (like grocery stores, doctor offices, etc) in order to stop supporting the white supremacist power structure that brought us to this point

black project 2025 update: they have raised 20k in 2 hours. unclear as to what (i wasnt in the zoom meeting when they were talking about) but something is definitely happening

they have raised 50k! this money is going toward creating and maintaining an online platform, including domain name, servers, an extremely long mailing list (something like 50k people signed up including me) which tbh does sound right because when you have so many people checking for you and so many people to send emails to, the bill runs up FAST, especially over the course of a year

they are also looking for software engineers, cybersecurity specialists, recruiters, social media managers, etc to help with building this platform

even though I have worked in tech before, I haven't coded in years and probably wouldn't be effective so I've passed on applying, godspeed to everyone else tho!

heres the link for anyone who wants to help: https://linktr.ee/blackproject2025

reblogging with clickable link for easier access

awesome story. black doctors and nurses are the best.

We need more of this

I'm not a PoC but this is just incredible, *exceptional*, culturally sensitive patient care, period. Absolutely should be shared with every healthcare professional I know.

We should always keep in mind that we are treating an entire person, not simply their condition, and the effects seemingly minor kindnesses can have on them long after they leave our care.

If you want to support black doctors who are just starting out, Farrah-Amoy Fullerton, a fourth-year med student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham just set up a way for people to help black fourth year med students transition to their residencie. This often means moving to a new city where they won't get a paycheck for weeks. Black students are also less likely to have access to generational wealth to keep them afloat during school. So if you have a few bucks and want to buy a graduation gift for a future black doctor, check out this article or search #medgradwishlist on twitter.

We need more black doctors to because doctors are often untrained on how to diagnose conditions in black peoples vs white people and are taught black have a higher pain tolerance and just a whole bunch of other ridiculous things........ black people need black doctors

are we sure the only way out is through? like. are we sure we can't just. go around

gentle warning: if you won't go through, you often end up going under

oh u can have this post i don’t want it

Gee, thanks mista! Oi Avent had a post to me own since and mum n pop died of influenza! I'll be certain to cherish it as if it were me little brutha who died from influenza also

Woss-all this then? You cheeky li’uhl buggah, wheh’d you get that post? Didn’t I tell you wha’ ‘appens to li’uhl boys that steal posts, hm? If your dear old mum knew she’d catch influenza with shame.

Oh no, Officer! I know ‘im, and ‘e’s a good lad; ‘e ‘elped me find daddy when I was lost in th market! I’m sure my father would be happy to let me pay for th’ post! Father is just around the corner getting influenza

'Ere offisah, dahn't truss that littuw giwl, orrite? She's the one wot stole foive bob from me larse week she did, when i was recovering in St. Urchin's 'Ome For Those With Influenza. And I sorer shewwin 'er ankles to some poor gent dahn the pub yesserday arfernoon while 'er ol' dad stole the poor bugger's influenza roight aht the man's pokkit. She's a baddun orrite. Fling 'er dahn the nick.

if i knew they were gonna make my post british i never would’ve gave it away

trump and his damn tariffs

I wish my dad had an interest so I could get him a Christmas present based on it

Get him a sword

I'm a scifi writer what makes you think I have sword money

Hey, we didn't say "Cold Steel," get him a wall hanger. They're still not CHEAP cheap (usually under $150) but he'll get a kick out of it.

My budget is AU$25, which is about US$16. I bought him and my stepmum a seasonal cocoa sample pack from kmart and some very cheap candles (she likes candles).

My dad absolutely would not get a kick out of a sword. He's not cool. When my brother got into Warhammer as a teen they had a huge argument because my dad thought liking Warhammer meant my brother must be gay. When I talk about my old larp group he gets confused and weirded out by the concept of larp. He doesn't like awesome things.

My stepmother is... I don't think she's technically a hoarder, she buys stuff and resells a lot of it on ebay, but their house is a "rooms are just passageways to other rooms between huge piles of boxes" kind of situation. They wouldn't have anywhere to hang a sword. The walls are either hidden or already covered in ebay stuff.

you could get them a gordian knot one year and then they'd have a use for the sword you get them the next year

this is absolutely sending me

What a way to find out that you’re a vampire

*slowly reaches for the popcorn*