A few years ago, I had neighbors (they lived in the mobile home where my neighbor chickens live, now), they were a young couple, the woman was in her mid 30s and her live in XY was in his mid 20s.
The majority of people that live around me live in poverty, just as I do, this couple was no exception. They had one car, which had broken down, and while I didn’t know them very well, I sympathize with how difficult rural living can be when your one mode of transportation breaks down, it’s straight up fucking frightening, especially when there’s no public transportation available, at all, not even taxis.
To exacerbate the transportation issue, the lockdowns had just started, separating people even further and making poverty infinitely harder.
I had initially met her the previous year when one of her cats went missing, she had left a note in my mailbox asking if I had seen it, and to please call her. She had saved my number, and she called me when their one car broke down to ask if I would take her to the store. I was making a weekly trip to Walmart, at the time, and I told her that she was welcome to ride with me the next time that I went.
When we went to Walmart, she showed up dressed as a cat.
A literal cat costume. With the nose, whiskers, the ears, the entire fucking cat deal.
I don’t judge stuff like that. I mean, it was summer, and her feline attire seemed like it would be extra hot in the south Carolina summer, but whatever.
So we were getting to know each other on the 15 minute ride to Walmart, I learned that she lived in New Zealand for a bit, that when she left her birthplace here in the states, she met some guy online from there and he ended up raping her and pimping her out to his friends, but she had forgiven him and now they are the best of friends.
She met her current boyfriend online, too, he brought her over from New Zealand, and they moved to South Carolina to be near his family, who they no longer talk to.
So we get to Walmart and we do our shopping and while we are waiting in line to pay, the subject of abortion came up. And that’s when she told me that women should not be allowed to make their own reproductive decisions, that the male state was better informed, better qualified, to make the Healthcare decisions of each individual woman.
Those are not the words that she used.
She might have said something about innocent babies, or life being precious, or abortion being murder, I am not sure because that was the moment I began judging her, and it wasn’t entirely because she looked a complete fucking idiot dressed as a fucking cat.
I asked her why she needed anyone else, much less a male, making such a personal decision for her, and while I know that she answered me, I didn’t hear it because I didn’t care what her response was because there is no legitimate response to that question.
But I did tell her that the next time that she needed a ride to the store, that perhaps she should find an XY to give her a fucking ride, because if she didn’t trust women to make personal decisions, then she couldn’t possibly trust me, a woman, to drive a fucking car.
And that was it.
This hill is the one that I will fucking die on.
This is my line.
As I am aging, I am finding my boundaries, and I have new lines emerging, and while reproductive rights have always been a pretty hard line with me, even when I was a Christian, this is the line that ultimately defines my relationship with and to other women. If you think that our bodies are state property, if you think that women need another person to make their personal decisions, if you think that you should be able to force any woman (or girl) anywhere to give birth, than you are a hater of women and I will treat you accordingly.
In the 70s, feminists were divided between women who would hand out blank pieces of paper, saying that the blank paper should be the new abortion legislation, meaning that our bodies should not be legislated, for any reason,* and the 2nd group who catered to male feelings and wanted to center male feelings in female bodily autonomy.
We all know which group of feminists won.
And look where we are, now.
Males had the opportunity to get rid of legislating our bodies, but of course, they didn’t. Males have always been able to allow us bodily autonomy, they make a big show of how it’s all so coMpLicAteD, as if this is some weird external issue that they are fighting, as if this is not the devil that the males, themselves, created for their own benefit and enjoyment.
Don’t tell me that a lot of women are against abortion, too, because why am I going to give a shit? Lots of women side with XY, lots of women hate other women, and themselves, too, and so fucking what? They are welcome to love being owned by males, either a single one or a group, but they don’t have the right to make decisions for all of us. I am against erectile dysfunction drugs, like, bro, nature killed your boner, she knows what she is doing, leave your dick alone, get a hobby, read your first book, do something interesting for once in your pathetic lives. But I don’t see my opinion of viagra welcome anywhere on any ballot, do I?
Isn’t it interesting, how XY bodies are never legislated.
I don’t care if you are male or female, if you hate women this badly, just stay the fuck away from me. You don’t make decisions for me. I am not your fucking property.
*this information is in multiple 2nd wave books.
Jayne
RadFemSpiraling 
What is it with all the weirdos in the world? We had a listing with Maine Farmlink — it’s supposed to bring together people wanting to sell their place and people looking to buy, but ALSO people looking to share. Let’s see: some trans dude who had nothing to do called up; a guy who desperately needed a bath, a shave and a haircut showed up; a guy who had burned down his own house wanted to move in; and last but not least a woman who declared she was a radical feminist because she is a part-time female dominatrix came to visit. Are all people in the U.S. mentally unhinged?
My boundaries have gotten better and better with age needless to say! Still would love to have someone live here, but they need two feet planted on Mother Earth.
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I think we have 2 groups in the states. One that is completely unhinged, in one way or another, and the rest of us, who are exhausted in trying to avoid them or generally deal with them.
How does that conversation go? “I am a radical feminist because I perform the dominant XY role in sexual encounters, therefore avoiding the submissive role assigned to women by males in sex, so radical, much feminist, let me tell you about how I fuck!”
How does she work this into conversation? She must be a HOOT at parties.
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I LOVE your two groups!
We had a pleasant conversation on the phone, but I realized I forgot to tell her I am a radical feminist. We talked for a bit after she got here — there were some other weird things, such as her telling me she was working on a farm, but she had an incredibly unhealthy pallor, not the look of someone who works outdoors, more like someone who spends her time in darkened rooms — and then I said I was a radical feminist, and she said, “Me, too! I’m a part-time female dominatrix!” She left quite annoyed — she was in a desperate situation, looking for someplace to live — because I didn’t accept this as the definition of radical feminism. I think a woman such as this thinks that catering to men’s sexual fetishes is fine as long as you’ve got them on a leash; to me it’s just catering to men’s sexual fetishes.
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Good heavens!! What sort of weirdos are hanging out around your place dear..?
I thought that that manicurist who was still cleaning toilets (and/or cooking food?) for her gay ex-husband was nuts.
Then came along a 20 something airhead who laughs and rolls when her useless, stingy, deadbeat “dad” calls her dedicated, sacrificing mom a whore – claiming his daughter is another man’s child – and who also joins him & taunts the poor mom. This madcap was worse than the manicurist. I thought I had seen the worst..
And now this…
Dressing like a cat – while going to walmart at that – is certainly off…. But since you had promised her, it would have been awkward to turn her down at the last minute. I’m sorry you were put into that position. I was hoping she parted at the parking lot and didn’t embarrass you (embarrass is an understatement) by sticking to you after that. But just read the comment thread, and saw that the creature had clung to you through the aisles as well.. I’m so sorry. Did you try asking her to carry on with her shopping (while you went about yours in another direction), and then come and wait near your car when she was done? You might have felt that doing so was rude, but there are times when we just have to be tough – and this was not going to harm her in any way. Or did she refuse to part? (ugh). Hope she didn’t go and repeat the conversation to her owner/partner. Stay safe & take care dear.
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Oh, and I forgot to add:
>> “..read your first book”
Lolll.. this cracked me up:)
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Lol, I KNOW, lol.
I feel like I can’t relate to anyone. But you know, maybe it’s them, maybe it isn’t me.
And I don’t mind going out in public with someone dressed as a cat. On the scale of things that are a deal breaker for me, dressing as a cat isn’t it. To be clear, she was dressed as a MODEST cat, lol.
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Not “maybe”. It *definitely is them, not you! No wonder you feel you can’t relate to anyone!
Lol, modest cat – phew.. In any case, I wouldn’t trust her to not go further down if her master/boyfriend ordered her to. Good that you cut her off now.
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I guess one has to be grateful she was DRESSED, even as a cat!
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My line is the same as yours.
I wonder if her cat costume was part of a furry cosplay that her owner….sorry “partner” insisted she wear to facilitate his fetish.
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I look around while I am in public, at the XY, and I am appalled that these unhygienic, hairy, mouth breathing, dick dragging apes have any say over any personal decision that I or any woman would make.
I don’t have to tolerate that bullshit. I guess that I will literally die on this line. I don’t see us ever fighting it.
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Straight up, that costume would have immediate had be suspecting she’s a furry or just fucked in the head. Used to be I liked it when people dressed differently, now I’m just suspicious that they’re a fucking fetishist weirdo.
You’re right, totally attention-seeking too. And I’d have done the same thing, ignored her stupid outfit and taken her to the shop. And you’re spot on, if she wants to be an Aunt Lydia she can beg a man for a ride next time.
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I, too, used to enjoy people dressing out of the norm, but sadly, I now just assume that it’s some weird sex thing and I am not interested in participating in anyone else’s fetishes. I have had a lifetime of that. No, thanks.
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I don’t have any time or patience whatsoever for women (or xys) who wish to make decisions about other women’s uteruses. I think of them as enforcers of patriarchal controls on women. Utterly broken. Though I too well understand how we get broken, I still have enormous resentment for women who choose to be complicit. I have zero respect for those who use their so-called Xtian values to cudgel other women into getting in line with male imperatives about their own bodies. For FFS, to have or not to have a child/children is a highly personal decision that NOBODY ELSE can make for us. Period. XYs will never stop trying to control us, and if women keep in lockstep with their efforts we will be fucked forever.
It may be difficult to wake up from the dreamy myth women are fed from day one concerning, males, marriage, children and family. The messages are contradictory and confusing by design as in all abusive situations. Critical thinking or questioning is discouraged at every turn. Our economic systems are founded on these myths. The culture is abusive anyway you look at it–that is if you truly look at it and see the reality rather than the fiction and fantasy added like glitter on a turd. But once you wake up to all of the social conditioning, truly see how we are led and manipulated at home, in school, in church, in the media, and in our social circles; once you see the connected web of lies planted in your own head, then you have a choice to make. Either you begin dismantling, disengaging, and destroying their hold over you, or you make yourself a complicit enabler and enforcer.
Almost no one questions if it is necessary or good for xys to continue to get erections into their fifties, sixties, seventies or nineties. Or if they should have them at all anymore given the size of the global population on an already collapsing planet. The same goes for women having children. All other species limit their reproduction in accordance with available resources except for crazy humans. If we sense declining fertility rates, then we will move mountains literally to increase fertility by artificial means. “Abortion is muRDeR,” but not a peep out of these same self-righteous, sanctimonious shits about how just every single aspect of how we live in the Western world depends upon killing, destroying or using up living beings and destroying the very land bases upon which life depends. I could go on, but I think I made my position clear enough. Some of us know who the real murderers are and they’re not women seeking to terminate pregnancies.
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Excellent analysis.
I remember RBG talking about Supreme Court discussion on gay marriage and how part of that discussion centering on how marriage was largely about having children, and that there’s no reason for people who aren’t interested in having children getting married, that even the OLDEST XY COULD MARRY AND FATHER CHILDREN, to which RBG said that women past childbearing age sometimes want to marry, too.
The lawmaking XY are literally incapable of seeing us as anything other than baby makers or potential baby makers.
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That’s right. Our bodies ARE state property, as are everyone’s under bourgeois states. That’s how the state legislates two antithetical pieces of legislature at the same time, though one will dictate policy over the other, they don’t negate each other. This would be the outlawing “conversion therapy”. The fact that gay/lesbian and STRAIGHT children will be transed and the “conversion therapy” outlawed will be that to materially CONVERT the bodies of ANY children demonstrates who owns us all. Parents’ right to their own children has never been a “right” because rights are idealist nonsense under capitalist (private property) states. That’s just one example of many. The state owns us all utilizing different methods, but to the same owning ends.
R v Wade was never upheld by the states to begin with. It is completely ignored that the fed. overrides the state legislatures when the same “interests” are “compelling”. 14th amendment after all is just another idealist fake “right” under our form of government. Mine was violated repeatedly in my case I mentioned and the FEDERAL COURT upheld those violations ANYWAY. Because they do what they want whenever they want and the state exists simply as the violent, repressive apparatus when regular economic coercion doesn’t quite work well enough.
R v Wade was quite simply only ever a restriction on restrictions to abortion and never a right. I see all sorts of histrionics being displayed about this and the shows the depth of belief in fairy-tales about ever having any “rights”. They are made up—in the words of George Carlin, like Pinocchio, Mother Goose, the boogey man and shit like that…..
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What ever happened to privacy? This is a private decision a woman makes. With all the gender woo talk about multiple identities and sexual proclivities as a public badge to put in the form of a flag outside your house, or through costume signals, it appears there is no longer any detail of one’s personal life to keep personal, within a certain vocal set. When my then husband started wearing ambiguous outfits and hats, the thought that he was making proclamations announcing our marital matters was excruciating for me. On my blog today, I will put up part of the affidavit written by my neighbor of several years, to whom I dedicated my memoir, In the Curated Woods, by Ute Heggen. Believe it or not, it had to do with the claim Neddy made that the children could not be startled by his change of appearance, because he’d actually been dressing “as a woman” since 1991, several years before. So dear old Rose wrote up her impressions of how his appearance was changing. You can find it at uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
PS. It appears that I will appear on mechantechatonne youtube channel, and we’ll touch on similar subjects, my name for the category is “wrongthink.”
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Women don’t have constitutional rights in the states. This includes the right to privacy. I am not certain what judge it was, I only know it was one of the white males (lol), I think it was scalia, who made reference to that in one of the decisions, that woman have no right to constitutional anything, and while I am paraphrasing, you get my meaning.
For some reason, we pretend that we have those rights, and males are going along with it, for some strange reason that I can’t understand.
But believe me when I say that males will pull that out, that they declined our ERA request, as soon as it suits them to do so. And I am beginning to think that I am going to see that bullshit in my lifetime.
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We are now at war on a different level than we have been for a while. The scariest part is most of us don’t see it. Even those of us that do are so horrified that we aren’t sure what to do.
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For women, the private is the public and the political — always, and not by our consent. Another reason why self-sufficient crones are so dangerous. As they should be. 😎
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It’s one of the most insidious aspects of male supremacy. That the ruling class has privacy by default, the subordinate class has privacy as the ruling class allows it.
As a result, we have no privacy at all. Just as XY intended.
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Until they take our ability to be self sufficient away. I’m hoping the pain in the ass factor of having to do something for the crones with no male relatives and males not wanting actual responsibility will keep us safe for a minute longer.
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We really are slaves whether it’s our bodies or our minds that are colonized.
That said, I’m still trying to get my arms around the idea that a woman wearing a cat costume (did you ever determine why) has the audacity to comment on what other women can do with their bodies.
No kidding, did you ever find out what the deal with the cat costume was? In the summer so not even Halloween? You’d think that when she hopped into the car she’d say something like:”Hi Jayne, excuse the costume but I’m due at a masked ball up at the manor house when we get done at Walmart.” Or more disturbingly to the point: “Hi Jayne. My latest owner is a pervert of rare stripe, a furry and a BDSMer and my humiliation punishment is to wear this ridiculous cat costume to the Walmart.” Or even: “Hi Jayne. I’m out of all laundry products and thus clean clothes and this cat costume is the only clean thing I have.” How on earth did you keep your questions stifled and your expression neutral?
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There is a part of me that thinks that kind of bullshitery is just attention begging. And I just refuse to acknowledge it for that reason.
The biggest part of me, though, just really does not want to know what kind of road leads you down the path that is going to Walmart in south Carolina dressed as a fucking cat. In summer. I just don’t want to know.
There simply cannot be a sane or neutral answer for that kind of behavior.
Also, I have perfected the poker face. Which served me well, walking through Walmart with a woman dressed as a cat. The reactions of the average southerner was just what you would expect.
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Sister, I’m going to need some lessons on that poker face. Looking forward to the livestream tonight.
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Good Goddess – I feel the desperate need to know the answer(s) to these questions too! 🙃
Is the woman some kind of “furry”, or did you get the impression that she was just cowed by the outlandish demands of her significant other?!?
Enquiring minds and what have you…
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The only thing that I can rule out is the laundry day theory.
Even if all of her clothes were dirty, even if she had no way to wash clothes in the 2 or 3 days between the planning of the trip and the actual going to Walmart, that doesn’t explain the cat ears and the cat nose with the cat whiskers.
I feel so far removed from other people most of the time that I just assume anything that is personal and harmless, but also weird or odd, is probably something normal that I just don’t understand because I can’t relate to almost anyone. I mean, I try. Part of trying is accepting whatever I see, so long as it isn’t hurting anyone else.
Even so, I still don’t understand anything, anymore, and a lot of people think that I am an asshole. This society is so fucking difficult. It’s exhausting.
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Definitely a moment in time of stop the world I want to get off. I don’t think you’re the crazy one Jayne.
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❤
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