Houseonthemoors

Postmodernist’s Post-mortem

“You don’t have to transition you can just be an effeminate man!” is the funniest take to see constantly on tumblr because that is literally word for word what my conservative catholic parents tried to tell me to stop me from transitioning. Are you sure that’s who you want to be agreeing with?

Common Frank Bidart banger (from "In the Ruins," in Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016)

so a few hours ago I saw a woman post that she lives in a rural area and sees how tired the women in her area are and wants to know what to do to help them. and unfortunately I didn't save her post down to reply to but while I was biking thought of one answer which is, basically,

a friend of mine did a once-every 2 months barbeque, where each time she invited the usual crowd and asked them to bring sb new. She started with two coworkers (I was one of the coworkers). She made it really clear that it was okay to bring new friends, and the reason she gave was, "that keeps it from being boring!". if women wanted to bring a male friend, she would be like, "it's just more fun if it's just us girls, yanno?"

you don't use radfem language, you don't lecture, you don't explain, you don't try to do anything, you just, literally hang out with them, build connections, build relationships. women are naturally helpful to each other, and you'll start seeing women helping each other, and sometimes, late into the evening, someone might tell their story, and everyone will learn something.

now my friend did this in a city, but in a small enclave in the city, where a lot of people knew each other's business. and people would snark about the women's barbeque, but it wasn't really interfered with, it was just women having a beer.

anyways, this is how you begin. how the story goes from there depends a lot on you, on your community, the women involved etc. but at least, at the very least, you're creating a moment of lightness and solidarity in at least a few women's lives, and that is worth something you know? sometime's it's worth everything.