creekfiend:

gender essentialism is soooo funny bc it’s like “this is what women are like” and you’re like “I’ve met women and many of them, if not the majority, have not been like that” and it’s like “well women SHOULD be like that” and you’re like “why should women be like that” and its like “because that’s what women are like”

(via ubersaur)

ratliker1917:

Ultimately I will always vocally reject all essentialist narratives about society, even the ones that claim to support the same social causes and struggles that I do, because I believe that essentialist frameworks of analysis are actually fundamentally incapable of achieving the goals of these causes or of meaningfully winning these struggles, and their epistemological foundations will always ultimately result in either a reactionary turn, vulnerability to co-option by reactionary political forces, or simply failure in some other way.

qwertybard:

Really specifically: “all men are disgusting abusive sex-crazed monsters” was a belief used to bolster heteropatriarchy in my old church by positioning women as a necessary gatekeeping & moderating force. Women could aid men in the struggle to keep their Beastly Instincts under control by dressing modestly and eventually entering into a marriage where their love and support and constant sexual availability (and I use that term extremely deliberately here) would help keep that man a productive member of society. This kept men blameless (any abuse or sexual misconduct is just in their nature as men!) while allowing the church to constantly victim-blame women - because if you got hurt, it’s because you obviously weren’t doing Enough to keep whatever man hurt you reigned in.

This system dehumanized everyone in it, but it most specifically used the idea that men are inherently Bad to prop up patriarchy, and that’s why I can’t fucking stand to see the same base ideas crop up in supposedly feminist spaces.

(via aporetic)