Say It Louder For The People In The Back

Say it louder for the people in the back

As someone who loves clothing, whether thrifted, handmade, or store-bought, I will never, ever, purchase something from Shein or Temu. There is no way those clothes can be made ethically. Think about how long it takes to sew something. You could probably make a simple garment in a few hours if you know what you are doing. Multiple a livable wage (at the absolute very LEAST $15/hr if not more) by the number of hours it takes to make that garment and you will very quickly realize there is no ethical way to sell a dress for $20.

If you are buying new clothing, I would highly suggest checking out the Fashion Transparency Index from Fashion Revolution. Their website describes it at "a tool to push and incentivise the world’s largest fashion brands to be more transparent about their social and environmental efforts. Fashion Revolution believes that transparency is foundational to achieving systemic change in the global fashion industry, which is why we have been campaigning for it since 2014, and why we created this Index."

Their website and the yearly report are full of statistics about the fashion industry both as a whole and for specific brands, broken down by category.

I think more people on radblr should be talking about sweatshops, especially in the garment industry.

• Around 80% of sweatshop workers are women. Some employers force them to take birth control and pregnancy tests to avoid having to pay for maternity leave. Pregnant women are routinely denied sick leave to visit doctors, terminated from their contracts early, or left without any maternity leave when their short-term contracts are not renewed.

• Women are more likely than men to experience minimum wage violations. According to one study, "30 percent of the women workers in our sample experienced minimum wage violations, compared to 20 percent of the men". [Source: https://www.nelp.org/publication/broken-laws-unprotected-workers-violations-of-employment-and-labor-laws-in-americas-cities/ ]

• Indonesian women employees report that “girls in the factory are harassed by male managers. They come on to the girls, call them into their offices, whisper into their ears, touch them, bribe them with money and threaten them with firing if they don’t have sex with them.” [source: cleanclothes.org]

• "Toilet breaks are monitored, and some workers said they were flat out denied them, even when sick. The same goes for water and lunch breaks, both necessary to stay healthy when working 12+ hour days in a stuffy, overcrowded factory." 20% of women in sweatshops report experiencing sexual violence. [https://iwda.org.au/three-ways-garment-factories-violate-the-rights-of-women-and-how-its-allowed-to-happen/ ]

It's easy not to support this kind of abuse. Do not buy clothes first-hand. Only buy from thrift shops and second-hand apps, or find ethical brands and investigate where and how they make their clothing (hint: if a t-shirt costs $3, it's not ethical). Patch your old clothes. Consider learning basic sewing (it's not as difficult as it seems!)

I don't care how cheap Shein and Temu are. I don't care how much you think you need that specific Zara coat. Buying clothes directly harms women and avoiding it is a very easy way to help.

LGB stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bi. Why on earth would that be a tag for bigots and racists? Sexuality has nothing to do with race.

As to your question about trans people: sexuality is almost always based on a person's sex, not their gender identity. The reason for this distinction is that while sexuality and gender identity are technically both abstract concepts, sexuality is rooted in concrete physiological processes. What I mean to say is that when a human being is sexually attracted to another human being, there are concrete signs of it in their body (ranging everywhere from an increased heartrate/perspiration to an erection to the body self self lubricating).

Gender identity, on the other hand, has exactly zero concrete markers. Let me ask you this: is a trans woman still trans if she has a penis? How about facial hair? What about if she doesn't like to dress in feminine clothing and prefers short hair?

Now imagine the person I described above is an identical twin, but their twin still identifies as male. So both twins have short hair and facial hair, with looser fitting clothing, but one twin identifies as a trans woman and one does not. You cannot tell the twins apart much as their gender identity is one of the few things that is different about them. My guess is that anyone attracted to one of them on first glance would almost certainly be attracted to both of them, because they look exactly the same. So if a gay man is sexually attracted to the one who identifies as male, he is almost guaranteed to be attracted to the one who identifies as a trans woman. Does that now make the gay man straight? Bi? Why does the gender identity of one person affect the sexuality of another person?

This is the problem with using an abstract concept with no concrete markers as a basis of identity for who you are sexually attracted to: no one else can see the abstract concept. Which is why sexuality has always been rooted in a person's sex instead of their gender identity. Lesbian women are only attracted to other females, and they are not aroused by male genitalia. Gay men are only attracted to other males, and they are not aroused by female genitalia. And Bisexual people are attracted to men and women and can be aroused by either set of genitalia. This is something that can be scientifically tracked due to those concrete physiological markers and is in fact, the definition of sexuality.

Let me take my analogy one step farther just to prove the point: say the gay man in my scenario never actually meets these twins, just passes them in public and knows he feels sexually attracted to both of them when he sees them. By your logic, he would be considered bisexual because he was attracted to both a man and a trans woman, but his brain saw two people with short hair, facial hair, and loose fitting clothing who looked exactly the same, so he assumed they were both male. Thus, in his mind, he is still gay.

It's the idea that one person's identity should alter the sexuality of someone else that I have a problem with. Why does a random stranger's gender identity affect my sexuality? If I am dating a man who one day wakes up and feels they should identifying as trans, am I now in a lesbian relationship despite only exclusively being attracted to men my whole life? Do you see the problem with replacing sex with gender identity in the realm of sexuality? It simply doesn't work because it just becomes a tangled web of everyone having to announce their gender identity for people to know what their sexuality is. It makes a hell of a lot more sense to just use biological sex in regards to determining sexuality, don't you think?

You know those yard signs that are like "In this house we believe: climate change is science, no humans are illegal, gay rights are human rights" etc. and they basically just sum up the American liberal belief in one easy-to-read sign? I want one of those for radfem beliefs that just sums our talking points up. I'm thinking something along the lines of "In this house we know that:

-lgb rights are human rights

-feminism exists for the liberation of women

-abortion and contraception are healthcare

-hormone replacement and plastic surgery for the purpose of gender transition are NOT healthcare

-Pornography fuels the sex trafficking industry and both industries exploit women endlessly for male pleasure

Anyone else have additions?

I would rather some people feel uncomfortable and embarrassed with other people's judgements about them having an age gap relationship than I would have one more girl or young woman go through being sexually groomed in their late teens/early 20s by a man ~7+ years older than her.

Can we talk about how the term "glow-up" used to mean that someone was looking healthier and happier, like perhaps they started going on walks and eating better, or maybe they dumped their boyfriend, joined CrossFit, and got a new job. Obviously it had the potential for some negative social effects, but overall, it was a fairly harmless term and I actually liked it because I felt like it was a nice way to compliment women who were making drastic changes in their life to better their personal health without being specific. Like I noticed a coworker who had previously mentioned her journey of training for a 10K to help get back in shape and lose some excess weight, had lost 20 pounds, so instead of saying "wow you looked like you lost a bunch of weight" in the presence of other coworkers, it was nice to be able to say something like "you look so healthy and glowed up!" to acknowledge her hard work.

Now whether you agree or disagree with that term being used to acknowledge women meeting personal health goals, I think we should all be concerned with what "glow-up" has come to mean. As I scrolled thru Tik-Tok recently, I noticed an ongoing trend of people posting "can we talk about (insert celebrity name)'s glow up?!" And most of these celebrities are young, early twenties or even 19 year old women whose photos are shown of their 15 or 16 year old teenage, fully clothed, minimal to no makeup, selves followed by their "glow up" photos. The second set of photos shows a 19 to 23 year old woman with a full face of makeup, extensions or some striking haircut, a variety of revealing outfits, and most likely at least one photo of her in some sexual pose such as straddling a piece of furniture. The ideal "glow-up" celebrity is trying to shed her "good girl" persona, and follows the directions society has given her to sexualize herself in every way possible. It breaks my heart that these talented young women using their sex appeal are being hailed as an "improvement" over their innocent younger selves.

[the art is not mine! Template free on Canva, designed by National Studio; text from me]

Don't believe in sexist stereotypes.