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I've always agreed with feminist viewpoints and would like to consider myself one; however, I feel it'd be a good idea to read up on more educational literature so that I can become more informed. I say this in hopes that I'll be able to learn more about patriarchy and it's habits that may have been embedded in me by my cultural upbringing. I notice every now and then I'll do or say something that someone will react to saying "oh, i thought you were a feminist" in a way that seems as if my recent actions go against that idea.

If i can analyze the different ways that I'm unknowingly supporting and participating, then I can correct myself and possibly inform others who would also like to unlearn. So, does anyone have any recommendations on feminist media such as books, podcasts, films, researched publications? I see older posts, which are informative, but I also would like a more recent and updated answer. I'd also appreciate any other tips to educate myself.

I work at a tattoo studio, and I recently posted a Reel on my professional social media account discussing women’s experiences in the workplace, harassment, autonomy, and the importance of respecting personal boundaries.

The video was intentionally general. I did not mention the studio, any coworkers, or any specific situation. I did not accuse anyone of anything, and I even left a comment on the post making it clear that the video was a general reflection and not a personal story.

Shortly afterward, the owner of the studio, who is also my tattoo mentor, messaged me late at night on WhatsApp saying that the video “didn’t sit well with the guys at the studio.” He specifically mentioned several of my male coworkers and said that, because the studio is a place where I am “welcomed” and the staff is mostly/all male, my post could be interpreted as me generalizing about them and creating tension within the workplace.

What bothers me is that nobody was actually named or accused. The video was about a broader social issue, and I never said that my coworkers or my workplace had done anything to me.
I now feel pressured to explain myself and, implicitly, to remove the video.

To me, that feels like an attempt to control what I can and cannot say on my own professional social media account simply because some coworkers identified themselves with a topic I was discussing in general terms.

I understand that people can feel uncomfortable with certain opinions, and I also understand that workplace relationships can be sensitive. But at what point does expressing a general opinion become “attacking your workplace”?

I don’t want to create unnecessary conflict, but I also don’t think I should have to delete a completely non-specific post just because other people assumed it was about them.

Am I in the wrong for refusing to delete the video? How would you handle this situation?

I’ve noticed a lot of younger feminists using abortion as a way to anger or provoke men, and I honestly think that makes the conversation around abortion even harder. I was recently having a disagreement with a woman about the Lindsay Clancy case, and I’m guessing she thought I was a man because, after making her point, she added, “I also love abortions.” I want to clarify that what she was saying before that had nothing to do with abortion.

I’ve noticed more women doing things like this lately, and I really don’t think it helps. Abortion is already an extremely controversial and politically divisive issue, especially with lawmakers continuing to push restrictions and bans. Turning it into something to say just to provoke men can make it easier for people to dismiss the actual argument and the serious reasons people support abortion access.

You can support abortion rights without treating abortion itself like a punchline or a way to anger men. If we want people to take this issue seriously, I think we should be mindful of how we talk about it.

Lindsey Clancy's parent have received over 1 million in their go fund me. Meanwhile Keshia Cole desperately needs public support. After 50 calls to police over DV, she stabbed her ex in the leg while pregnant. He later died.

The latter is underesourced and fighting for her life. The former is well taken care of, as her parents have afforded her expert witnesses & testimonies. Women are jokingly making choking signs in a show off solidarity. Not only is this insulting to adult survivors of childhood abuse who have lost siblings, it's disheartening to people who struggle with fertility & adoption issues, it's a spit in the face of people with behavioral health issues, and it's just sickening.

For those who argue this isn't a zero sum game, I'd ask if anyone who donated to the million to a white family who already lived comfortably could ever help a woman of colour who did everything to document her struggle with DV?

Edit: link formatting

I’ve been trying to form my own opinions about feminism, and the more I learn, the more I realise how deeply it intersects with the social, cultural, and economic structures around us. This is just one of the many areas I’m struggling to understand.

When it comes to women profiting from the sexualisation or objectification of women, I seem to be stuck between two perspectives.

One argument is that it’s inherently harmful. If you believe objectification is part of a system that reduces women to their bodies and sexual appeal, then participating in and profiting from that system seems contradictory. In a way, you’re helping reinforce the very thing you’re criticising.

The other argument is: objectification already exists, so why shouldn’t women have the agency to profit from it? If society is going to sexualise women regardless of what they wear or how they behave, some people feel that women should at least be able to control that image and benefit financially from it rather than allowing men or corporations to profit from it exclusively.

I find myself somewhere in the middle. I do believe that women are sexualised regardless of what they do, and that this is ultimately connected to much larger social and economic structures. At the same time, I’m not convinced that participating in the system necessarily dismantles it. Sometimes I wonder whether it actually makes the system stronger by making objectification more profitable and therefore more sustainable.

But perhaps change isn’t always immediate. Maybe women taking control of something that was historically imposed on them can gradually change the power dynamics over generations maybe that’s simply a comforting assumption.

So I’m genuinely curious: how do you see this? Can women profit from their own sexualisation while still opposing the broader system of objectification, or is participating in it inherently reinforcing the problem?

I’d especially love perspectives that go beyond the usual “it’s empowering” vs. “it’s degrading” debate.

I completely understand that the larger responsibility lies with the system and the men who have historically created and profited from the sexualisation of women. I’m not trying to place that responsibility on women. My question is specifically about women profiting from that same system, does that give women agency over something historically used against them, or does it ultimately help sustain the system itself?

That’s the nuance I’m trying to understand.

a little bit questionable but is supporting her considered feminism ?

Hi, I am trying to access Welcome to Cancerland by Barbara Ehrenreich. Does anyone have a link where it can be accessed or is happy to share a pdf?

I'm not very familiar with literature, so bear with me. I try to stay open-minded, especially on topics like this.

Misogyny technically means hatred, contempt, or prejudice against women. I made a post criticizing people for using the word too loosely, applying it to anything sexist or discriminatory, and someone told me to research it, since misogyny apparently shows up in forms beyond the strict definition.

So I looked into how misogyny manifests in writing, but I'm still not clear on what that actually looks like. My confusion is that whenever an author writes a female character poorly, people often call the writing or the author misogynistic. That seems like a stretch to me. How do you judge someone's whole worldview from one piece of work?

Specifically, I've seen this a lot with mangaka. People call Japanese manga writers misogynistic just because they dislike how female characters are portrayed. I'm not saying writers can't be flawed or narrow-minded, but that's a serious accusation. I get the criticism when female characters are boxed into certain roles, but plenty of manga break that pattern; I'd say a solid 4/5 female characters in some series don't fit that mold. I see the same thing in Western media — Avatar, despite being praised for strong female characters, gets called misogynistic too, often over how Azula was handled. People criticize characters for having a motherly role as if there is something wrong with a woman wanting to be a mother.

So I guess my real question is: what does actual misogyny in writing look like, versus people misusing the word, turning it into a buzzword because they don't fully understand it?

I think a lot of women assume feminism is about hating men because men have hated women simply for existing for centuries. It’s easy to misunderstand where that anger comes from, because it isn’t coming out of nowhere. There’s a history behind it, a reason women are angry, and a context that explains why that anger exists. I find it baffling when men say, “Women hate men.” I mean, yes, of course women do. What do you expect when women have lived under systems of male dominance and oppression for thousands of years? Even saying “6,000 years” sounds absurd because it is such an unimaginably long stretch of human history, and yet the consequences of those systems are still visible today.

You cannot spend generations denying women autonomy, controlling their bodies, restricting their education and property rights, excluding them from political power, and treating them as inferior, and then act shocked when some women develop anger, distrust, or even hatred toward men. That anger didn't materialize out of nowhere. It has a history.

And I'm not saying every man today is personally responsible for what men did centuries ago. Obviously, individual men aren't guilty for crimes they didn't commit. But expecting women to have unconditional trust, affection, or respect for men as a group while simultaneously dismissing the historical reasons for women's distrust is incredibly simplistic.

The more interesting question isn't “Why do women hate men?” It's “Why are you more offended by women's anger than by the conditions that produced it?”

Women don't owe men affection simply because they're women. Respect should be reciprocal, and trust should be earned, the fact that equal opportunity is still a discussion in 2026 is a very reason women don't like men anymore.

it’s a war on women. I’m sick of it. Should we revolt? The patriarchy is absolutely destroying the planet. I’m a feminist that’s had prophetic dreams by following the Eightfold Path ever since idolizing Kurt Cobain during high school as he was able to face his demons by becoming a Buddhist. As a woman of eastern culture, that has seen both sides of poverty and greed (my mother grew up very poor in an abusive household while my dad was a spoiled brat mama’s boy because his dad was an addict and alcoholic while being a sleazy lawyer) It is easier for me to psychoanalyze the issue of capitalism and how socialism was a utopia of government that could be the only way it could save us now.

History tends to repeat itself and I am honestly so excited for this country to burn. We’re done burning witches. That was so long ago but of course. The consequences of mens actions will always end in bloodshed and revolution. How do we go to war you guys?

I feel the spirit of the suffering women staying still in this earth. It doesn’t help that I reside in West Texas, the soil of slaveowners and Christian nationalists. Hm. Sound familiar? It’s happening again.

The future is female.

How do I navigate places where there is blatant misogyny and get myself heard and respected?

39F here. 7 years ago, along with 3 other people, we founded a non-profit association in order to help people suffering from isolation due to mental illness, estrangement, and disabilities. I was the only woman in the team.

I was the secretary, but I also did social networking and did my best to create connections between the members of the association. I always tried to make them feel welcome, heard, and seen. I made them smile or laugh, always having a cheerful mindset, even though I wasn't always feeling my best (I have my issues as well, but they are manageable). I organized workshops, board games, meet-ups, coffee shop or restaurant outings, and picnics. When I was in charge, there could be almost 25 people at one outing. We almost suffered from our success (not easy to convince a coffee shop to accept 20+ people at once).

Things went slowly sour with the rest of the team. The accountant was an ass to everybody, always in a bad mood, belittling people, and being a major fatphobic towards everyone, but especially towards myself. The president was afraid of conflict, so he always avoided any difficult conversation. The disrespectful accountant started to scare people away, so we would have fewer and fewer members.

I tried my best to explain how his behavior could be improved for the sake of the association. Then, I realized I was being put aside. They would meet in private without telling me and take administrative decisions in my back.

I left the association, not a thank you from them, not even a word. Regular members missed me, but I couldn't bear the lack of respect anymore.

Last month, I learned that the president died, so the secretary in charge called me in order to talk about the future of the association. She later confessed that the late president and the accountant told her not to reach me because I was lazy, incompetent, fat, had mobility issues (I am a size L and in good shape, a complete lie) and what hurt me the most, I was asocial and deeply lack social skills. After talking to me, she realized all of this was untrue and that in the last few months, she was also getting that treatment of not being considered.

Now, I have been asked to consider joining the association again in order to save it. We managed to build a team of three women and a man and get rid of that bigot of accountant. We agreed to have an open mind and to focus on having good communication, not be afraid of engaging in difficult topics or disagreeing. I believe it will be much healthier

Now my question : I realized that during the first time with the two men in charge, I did my best to assert my ideas, give new perspectives, and always in a respectful way. Maybe I did it in a way that wouldn't hurt their egos because I have this idea that women asserting themselves can put off some men. But it didn't help that even when walking on eggshells, I still faced discrimination. And the association slowly went downhill after I left.

Now, I have the opportunity to do things right. Still, I would like some advice so I am better prepared to handle similar situations in the future.

So, how does a woman navigate in such territories, where there is misogyny and discrimination? How are communication skills different in that case? I do not have these issues at work.

I know very few things about socialism, but I saw a page on Instagram that was talking about socialism and how feminism it's harmful to socialism. For me it was just a crazy thing to say, does anyone know something about this topic?
I thought feminism was indeed leaning to socialism, but maybe I'm wrong.

I don't even know where to look at to learn something about it.

Hello! I’m not a native English speaker so I find it very hard to read feminist literature without googling and translating every word or term. Is there any literature you can suggest me for more intermediate level to read, because in my language most of the feminist literature is a brainwashed white propaganda. Thank you

https://www.reddit.com/user/AdreanaInLB/comments/1vjvb23/the_grift_economy_a_report_on_the_manosphere_that/

If you are interested in doing a group read of the research report "The Grift Economy" please visit the original reddit post and leave a comment indicating your book club interest.

The original reddit post also contains a comment giving an overview of exactly who the Equimundo organization is and exactly who the Reset Tech organization is.

My boyfriend (24M) and I (23F) have been seeing one another since February and officially together since May so this is still a pretty new relationship. We get along really really well and in so many ways it feels like we compliment one another in all the right ways. He is very thoughtful, kind, and makes me laugh like no man ever has before.

However, we have had a few conversations that make me seriously questions if our beliefs are completely aligned. Nothing in his treatment of me has made me questions this, but more so off-handed comments about women/feminism on a grand scale (if that makes sense).

Like last night—we were talking about the Barbie movie and he felt like for the first half of the movie it was really about hating all men and that he shouldn’t be in the theater watching that movie because everyone is gonna come after him with pitch forks (very dramatic). He also consumes content from male podcasters that are not manosphere influencers but to me promote a very traditional conception of masculinity (Andrew Huberman, Chris Williamson, etc.). He seems to be very sensitive to the idea that men get a lot of undeserved hatred today. There is one podcaster he listens to that I am more open minded to, I believe his name is Scott Galloway.

I tend to get very quiet whenever he makes one of these comments because I want to avoid a back and forth that gets us nowhere (I am learning more about my people leasing tendencies and anxious attachment style). He has also shown that he can be quite open minded to me pushing back on some of his comments regarding other relevant political topics.

Overall, I truly believe in giving people an opportunity to learn and grow and I personally belive that there is a space to properly address issues men are facing today (isolation, loneliness, etc.) without blaming women or feminism. I think I’m struggling to find this space with him and my apprehension to address this head on is probably not helping. If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the divide in feminist spaces regarding women who date or are attracted to men. I consider myself a radical feminist, I’m deeply critical of patriarchy, how men are socialized under it, and the systemic harms men as a class perpetuate.

However, I frequently see arguments claiming you "can't be a real radfem" if you date men, or that being attracted to men inherently upholds patriarchy. Some people go so far as to shame heterosexual women for their natural attraction and desires.

To me, this feels counterproductive for a few reasons:

Sexual orientation isn't a political choice. You can’t just turn off basic attraction. Recognizing that men profit from and uphold patriarchy is a conscious political analysis; physical/sexual attraction is an involuntary trait.

It shifts hostility onto women instead of the system. Bashing heterosexual women for navigating relationships in a patriarchal world just polices women’s bodies and choices all over again.

It alienates the exact women who need feminism most. Straight women are the ones directly navigating intimate relationships with men under patriarchy. Excluding or shaming them strips away solidarity where it's needed most.

Maybe I’m missing a fundamental piece of logic here or misunderstanding the core radfem perspective on this. If I’m looking at this wrong, I’d love for someone to break it down for me.

Good Afternoon everyone.

I want to ask what resources, books, teachings etc can help me become a better man, in terms of understanding my role, and the broader role of men in patriarchy.

For some context to who I am and where i’m at in life:

I’m 27, straight He/Him pronouns. I live in the US, and since I think it matters, I am a leftist/socialist. I consider myself an intersectional feminist, although I’ll admit I haven’t done a lot of research/readings on it. I have a baseline understanding of what the patriarchy is, and its role in our society. I understand its destructive nature.

I would say my main motivation for wanting to have a deeper understanding of it is to better understand where not only myself, but other men in my life fit into things. I’ve already begun reading The Will To Change, since it had come very highly recommended.

I’m seeking any other kinds of understanding of where I sit with things. I want to be the best man I can, for myself, my family, the men and women around me, and for hopefully a future partner and future kids.

Thank you all so much, and have a lovely day!

I’ve been reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and one of her quotes got me thinking a lot and encouraged me to do some research. She wrote: “Women work hard—twice as hard as men. All over the world, and for longer than records have been kept, that has been true.”

Frankly, I felt devastated when I fully understood it. Have women been really discriminated against for centuries? However, this post is not about my feelings and personal thoughts, but about real statistics that are relevant nowadays (since The Beauty Myth was published in 1990).

According to World Inequality Report 2026 (Gender Inequality chapter), men appear to work longer when only market hours are considered, but women consistently surpass them in total working hours once unpaid activities are taken into account. When you add paid+unpaid work together, women typically work more total hours (e.g. 51 hours per week vs 44 for men)

In OECD countries, males still work for pay 100 minutes – or around an hour and 40 minutes – more than women on the average day. It is women, however, who put in a lot of the unpaid work, exceeding that of men by an average of more than two hours each day, therefore officially working more than men do.

So the answer, at least on the basis of current large-scale data, appears to be… yes. Even in relatively egalitarian societies the disparity remains relevant. And if anyone ever tells you that feminism is no longer needed you can show this post and use it as an argument.

But I wonder how can we overcome it? What do you think?

sources: https://wir2026.wid.world/insight/gender-inequality/
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/13940/women-work-more-than-men/

Hello,

We have so many magazines, podcasts, newsletters, and platforms created for women today. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Do you feel the same? If you do, what do you think is missing? I’d really love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you all for your feedback!

Growing up in the nineties, I heard boys/men say stuff like: "You [pick any task] like a girl."..."That's g*y."...and "I'm no p*nk.". I didn't like these vitriolic responses from them to negate the possible "stain" of homosexuality to their reputation. I figured if you're gay, your gay; if you're not, then you're not. There's no need to come to blows over it. TBH, sometimes I had the thought methinks doth protest too much if they kept on about it. LOL

When I got older, I realized that these comments on the surface addresses homosexuality but at it's root, it's at expense of women. The worst thing that could happen to a man is to be treated like a woman. What they're really saying is that they don't want to be seen as subservient or weak. Hence, calling a guy a bitch or, nowadays, beta, can also cause a fight.

Those that have adopted the manosphere ideology are currently, and in some instances have succeeded, infringing women's rights. Roe v Wade being overturned as an example and now even talk of taking our right to vote.

I started to think how fickle these men are. When you hold a mirror to them showing their behavior, they want to Hulk smash anything that holds them to account. Our mothers and grandmothers marched and lobbied to have the rights that we have and within 1-2 generations seeing them trying to be removed. Then I hear some men say women only have what we have because they allow it. The undertone of that is they were amusing us women but now it's become inconvenient for them, so they'll just take their toys back and if we resist, they'll literally Hulk smash us.

This got me fantasizing. If I allowed three wishes that would help all women on this Earth, what would they be? I came up with one but I'm asking your indulgence in this fantasy in what the other two wishes could be.

Wish One: Men and women have the same physical strength when interacting. If male gym rat tries to overpower a petit woman, his strength would be attenuated by the woman. It doesn't matter the size of the woman or the man (a woman can be as big as a body builder and a man can be a lithe as a ballerina), what matters is that when there is a physical reaction between the sexes, one can't overpower the other. This means the only way one can be dominated is by fighting skill.

Wish Two: ?

Wish Three: ?

What do you think of this wish? Is it any good? What fault(s) do you see in it? What other wishes would benefit women all over the world?

Hi, from the beginning I’ll say gender wars aren’t real, or at least what they call gender wars (us speaking up) isn’t that.

I’d like to propose a creation of a site where we debunk all the lies and the replies to what we speak about on socials. I keep seeing so many videos of women pointing out how deep rooted patriarchy is in our society, and men in these comments sections saying “not all men” “where is the bear now” “I didn’t do anything” “can’t we just all get along?”

I see them everywhere, and inrl too as I speak to my male friends or family members.

I’ve been thinking, what if there was a website, an easy link that offers reply to all of these arguments at once. Sections, with those typical comments where we not only dig into why it isn’t the place to say that, why they’re missing the point, what’s the relevance, but also the consequences of them saying it, and even an understanding of why they may come up with those comments in the first place.

We could interview men about their feelings with a completely neutral tone, and keep asking questions to see where they come up with those stuff and what inside them makes them so defensive. I’d think smth connected to patriarchy brainwashing prob.

The project would resolve around men, yes, and some may say “well, isn’t this supposed to be for women? Why are we making this so men centered and dig into their feelings and motives?”

That’s because sadly it seems that we need to do that. To really make them understand us, we need to understand them to debunk their false beliefs.

This may be controversial, for why are we to act like the mothers and teachers to them? But honestly someone is to take the responsibility, and men aren’t and no one is teaching them to. They don’t listen, they’re taught to only value male opinions.

But I feel that if we laid it all clearly, with understanding of their feelings WITH clear dozens of reasoning for those, or at least offering questions for them they could ask themselves to reconsider, that it could really help them be more questioning of themselves, therefor open to what we have to say.

If we show them it’s not an attack on them, but on the system that lives through them, and even in us, that harms both of our genders, I’m inclined it mah help the world a bit at least. And what r we here for if not to do that?

We could specifically aim to show how it hurts us and them, we could get books, studies, we could pull up a lot of things that are verified. We could share our own experience. Maybe we could fill the gap in between what’s happening on socials rn.

Many men get anti women stuff on their fyp, my own brother who doesn’t use socials much, avoids them because that’s what’s he gets once he marks his gender to be a man. I wonder if we could test if the socials are built to make us be against one another in that sense, to also admit that ‘gender wars’ may exist in some sense, but not in the one they imagine them to exist.

I’m honestly like, no profesional or something. I’m just a woman who’s tired of seeing this hate and lack of unity. People with good hearts get brainwashed and maybe we could help men and even brainwashed women to see why we are indeed not a Human B type, but a human. Why we all are mankind united, why our biological differences aren’t our vices, why we’re all the same on the most important level, and why the roles they’ve given us aren’t bad if they aren’t forced.

That it’s not all universal.

To get to real equality we must work with what we have, and what we have rn is a situation in which to get a world where women don’t have to ‘mother’ men to make them understand what feminism is, we have to do it in a healthy, equal way to create that world. We aren’t talking to children but grown up adults who deserve to know, and be talked to from us assuming they come with good intentions. Anything else gains us enemies.

Now I’m young, you may not agree on all I say and you’re welcome to educate me, to tell me where you think I’m wrong etc, but utterly most importantly, please comment on the idea of this project. Could this help? Could this work? Could we together make a change? Lmk.

Edit::
Just to make sure, I yap a whole lot, but the website would not just focus on debunking those idiotic comments, but also on real education about historical facts, about biological facts, about all of that.

Being so "woke" or progressive... that you end up circling back to misogyny.
This is something I've been noticing more and more. And I know I'm not the only one, because I've seen other people talking about it on social media. But after looking into its history, I realized it's actually been around for a veery long time.

Anyways,

I'm curious to hear your examples and thoughts. Have you ever seen someone advocate for progressive ideas (or what they thought were progressive ideas) in a way that ultimately reinforces sexist or misogynistic attitudes, harms women and girls, or throws a wrench into the feminist movement? I'd love to read different stories about it.
Personally, here are a few examples where I've noticed this:

• Prison abolitionist movements, when they advocate for abolishing prisons without considering the physical and psychological safety of victims (who are disproportionately women and children, after all). Unfortunately, this happens veery quite often.
• Defending painful or degrading gynecological procedures simply because they're considered "a step forward for women's health," instead of asking how they could be made less painful, less humiliating, how gynecology itself could be reformed, or why we're still using instruments and practices that date back to the 19th century. Shutting woman who talk about their bad experiences.
• Arguing that women shouldn't report men from marginalized communities to the police in cases of rape, domestic violence, street harassment, etc., because it would "increase discrimination against that group." Besides being a hierarchy of struggles, where one cause is treated as more important than another, it once again tells women to stay silent and just put up with it.
• Refusing to even think about the side effects of hormonal contraception, which are more serious than what we would usually accept for any other medication prescribed to such a large number of people, especially at such a young age, because it is attacked by the political right. Refusing to advocate for healthier ones bc it can be instrumentalized by anti feminists. Shutting woman who talk about their bad experiences.