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>I wish I could do the rhythm method but I can't, because my periods very between 40-60, but it hurts to know there are many women like me that may love their normal cycles but never experience them or even know about them, ever.

The rhythm method is nonsense anyway, even if you had a typical length cycle. There's a joke that goes, "What do you call couples who use the rhythm method? Parents!"

But you could still look into Fertility Awareness Method, which is different. It's not based on a prediction of a typical/average cycle, it's based on tracking what your body is doing right now, in your current cycle. You'll know on a day to day basis whether you're in follicular or luteal phase, and whether unprotected PIV can or cannot result in pregnancy. And when it can, you just use condoms or think outside the box as I always say.

And as for irregular cycles it's pretty fantastic because you'll know when you ovulate and thus can predict to the day about two weeks in advance exactly when you'll get your period. And then the day of you'll get another reminder. So you can put a pad on/cup in in advance. It makes me feel like a magical wizard. I love it.

Another option thought might be the copper IUD. Personally I've heard a fair number of unfavorable anecdotes (like making periods and cramps way worse) but it clearly works for some women and it'd let you keep your cycle.

Well said, it's all very true. Choice feminism / liberal feminism / third wave feminism is basically just a wolf in sheep's clothes. It isn't actually feminism at all, in fact, I believe it's just a backlash that is extremely effective as it cleverly and deliberately coopts the language of second wave / actual feminism.

One recent example is this nauseating thread on r/Documentaries about Hot Girls Wanted. (Please do not vote, comment or otherwise participate in the linked thread or do anything that could be considered brigading). All of the misogynistic males were defending their consuming porn that clearly harms women by appealing to "agency" "choice" and " empowerment". Cooption is really the best way to suppress any movement. If you can convince women that slavery is indeed freedom, then why would they ever petition for freedom? It's downright Orwellian, really. It's truly so obvious a tactic, it's a bit surprising that so many women have fallen for it but that's the way it is.

There's a good book about the failures of choice feminism called The Freedom Fallacy

There's also this wonderful article in the Onion that predicted the sorry fucking state of "liberal feminism" today.

A few that come to mind, not sure if they are exactly what you want but very informative and interesting nonetheless!

"Taking Charge of Your Fertility" for the basics on female reproduction (most of which is not known by most women), also discusses ignorance and sexism in the medical particularly ob/gyn field. (recommend even if not interested in using Fertility Awareness Method as contraception/conception tool)

"The Egg & the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles" - discusses how stereotypes shape descriptions of physiological processes, and has some pretty interesting info on functions of the egg during fertilization (i.e. it is not just a sitting duck passively awaiting penetration by the strong brave sperm).

And I'm currently reading "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, & Society" - only about half done but so far have read sections on sexual activity and "brain sex" - generally debunking the socially constructed ideas of differences in the two and the traditional evopsych narratives. Which might be another angle to consider.

Okay ya, I don’t agree with most of what your saying. Frist off evolutionary phycology isn’t real science because it’s all just theory and can’t be backed up. So in all honesty is BS that sounds logical so people just go with it.

Secondly women don’t just “go off sex” it has more to do with attachment and “male as default” sexual desire being the standard. Please read come as you are by Dr. Emily Nagoski. It’s the most up to date science backed book on female sexuality. The truth is our society prizes male sexual desire standard of “spontaneous” desire over the female norm of “responsive” desire. It also goes into the dual control model of human sexuality, and destroys the myth of a “sex drive”.

Lastly alpha/bate is a really big lie that has been being perpetuated for the last 5 decades. The idea of the “alpha” male comes from Rudolph Schenkel an animal behaviorist in the 1940’s and David Mech in the 1970. Mech who wrote a book on his theory. People (I mean men) took this idea and started to apply it to humans. Unfortunately Mech (and Schenkel) were both wrong, and Mech spent the rest of his life trying to correct this belief. In truth when he wrote the original book he was studying wolfs in captivity. However in the wild the “pack” is actually just a single family and the “alpha’s” were actually just the parents. He discovered this discrepancy after going back to study for a follow up book.

Susan Brownmiller's book Femininity was an important text for me in terms of figuring out how to negotiate the requirements of cultural femininity in the context of being a radical feminist.

https://www.amazon.com/Femininity-Susan-Brownmiller/dp/0449901424/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

From a review:

"Insecurity about whether we are sufficiently feminine runs deep in girls and women, particularly as we break the stereotypical values of our culture that still honors motherhood at the top of the heap of what a female should want most in life. At a time when women are breaking through traditional barriers at work, in sports, in politics, etc. we are also tying ourselves in knots in order to present a nonthreatening appearance-- be it via ridiculous shoes, thigh-high skirts, long blonde hair, a show of bosom, or a soft reticence and wide-eyed attitude that hides efficiency and assertiveness when in the company of men.

"This book acknowledges that some aspects of femininity are based on biological femaleness, while other entrenched aspects are merely restrictive cultural impositions that allow men to feel more comfortable in their masculinity without having to leap through hoops or tie themselves in knots. It also acknowledges that "the feminine esthetic" can be beautiful and fun. But when it works against accomplishment and achievement, call it the handicap that it rightly is."

It's not even in print anymore! OMG that is so sad.

You are so welcome and I am grateful for your response as well. It is hard to find likeminded women who are women centered. I am only in my mid 30s and was raised by a father who gaslit me constantly for my entire development so I fell for it really hard when it came back around in the form of transactivism. It took me five years of floundering around, miserable and hating myself to the point of being 'nonbinary' then reading older feminist works and talking to some other women online who shared the other political beliefs I had (which now fall under the umbrella of radical feminism, apparently wanting to live your life free from male violence is radical) for me to wake up. That was only a year ago.

​

I just finished reading the book Female Erasure edited by Ruth Barrett (which I guess I mentioned in the original post but literally spent all day reading the last third so it's fresh in my mind) and it gave me the kind of true understanding of all this in a cohesive and compassionate way that galvanized me to keep speaking up and out about it all. It truly is a war on women and girls paralleled only by the Right's continual version of the war on women and girls they have been perpetuating for generations. Unfortunately, both are being ignored or wrongly defined by the only people who've ever historically done anything at all for us, and it will take a lot to resist this. I found this book to be an excellent starting point. I wish I could hand out copies to everyone I know. You may find some solidarity there. It covers a lot of history I was not around to experience, as well as a lot of what is going on today from the very lives of the women who are the victims of this religion.

​

Totally agree about the climate change thing. I've started using that as my go to comparison. It pisses people off but it's perfect.

Theres a concept that Nancy Friday mentioned in Women On Top. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07XG31Y2S

>When a boy enters our lives and wants to touch us there, of course it is unthinkable. We couldn’t do such a thing. Why should he? Why does he want to? That a man dreams of parting our lips with his fingers, looking at it, putting his mouth there, is so upsetting to some women that no honey-tongued lover could convince us otherwise. The clitoris, urethra, vagina, and anus have come to be thought of as one filthy, indistinguishable mass “down there.” This kind of thinking is called the Cloaca Concept. Cloaca is Latin for sewer.
>
>I can’t remember the name of the doctor or analyst who first used the term Cloaca Concept, but I remember my own emotional jolt of recognition. I was gathering material for My Secret Garden, and I could imagine the women who were contributing, oh so hesitantly, to my research twenty years ago feeling just that way about their genitals—a “sewer,” something to be touched with the utmost hesitation.

Friday, Nancy. Women on Top (p. 56). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

Al lot of men are still at that stage, I'm sure this has a lot to do with the trend for shaving.

Of course having a hairy bum crack is far more common in men. I'm told...

Thanks everyone for the feedback and support! I now have a much clearer picture on how to proceed if / when I do get around to writing ("thinking about starting" is the key phrase in the topic title, ha). I think I want to read a few more books (such as Unpacking Queer Politics and Gender Hurts ) before diving in, though, so it might be a while. But I will post a link when I start. It will be interesting to get feedback from this community. :)

WELL DONE FOR GETTING THE JOB! And WELL DONE for making it through the first days: a new job is always difficult as you adjust, but you have more adjustment than 'normal'. Remember: you're doing brilliantly! You've come through addiction & escaped the sex trade: give yourself the credit you deserve.

I was in an abusive realtionship for about 6 years. Escaped. Into another one where I nearly got killed. Never got any help. Mental health services don't really focus on trauma in the UK. They want to talk about my patterns of behaviour in relationships instead of healing the wounds. I'm done talking about how I feel, I want to fix myself & be able to have a life, instead of this half life I now have.

I can't afford private therapy, & there's virtually no local MH provision on the NHS. I spoke to a psychologist who's a feminist & specialises in trauma focused care - she reccomended the following 3 texts to help me:

8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery (Rothschild, 2010)

Trauma and Recovery (Herman, 2015)

Complex PTSD (Walker, 2013)

They might be useful for you too?

Take care of yourself - you deserve it.

I don't know if there will be a next time for you, but if there is, these 2 books might be helpful for that next guy:
Come as You Are,
She Comes First.

Some men can learn to do better.

Anyone who enjoyed this talk will be delighted to hear that Cordelia has a book out called Delusions of Gender, which is excellent and, redundantly, has made a lot of men very upset.

Yes! On Amazon in both Kindle and paperback.
https://www.amazon.com/Female-Erasure-Gender-Politics-Rights/dp/0997146702/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

edit: I forgot you are in Australia. Check and see, I hope they have it!

Susan Brownmiller's book "Femininity" is a great read. It's a personal meditation as well as a more general discussion of the question of 'feminine' grooming standards - and how she, as a feminist, navigated these issues for herself.
https://www.amazon.com/Femininity-Susan-Brownmiller/dp/0449901424/ref=la_B000APM7NS_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520437581&sr=1-3

Ok, the idea that you give up on your career and stay home watering the plants while he works even though you don't plan to have kids is rather strange by itself, but coupled with what you found... there's really very little chance these things are unrelated. Whatever you do, don't become financially dependent on him ever. He sounds kinda gaslighty and manipulative to me, I recommend you read this book as I'm worried there might be a lot more there that you're not seeing, you should be able to find a pdf online

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling-ebook/dp/B000Q9J0RO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1545798686&sr=1-1&keywords=lundy+bancroft

+1

Would recommend the book this book as a starter to the not giving a fuck lifestyle.

I recommend you read [this book for a convincing argument about how the rise of capitalism and the subjugation of women are directly related] (https://www.amazon.com/Caliban-Witch-Women-Primitive-Accumulation/dp/1570270597)

Given my username this is probably not a surprise, but I speak freely about brain sex, no matter how libfem the company. I'm a scientist and I have no patience for ladybrain garbage. I've found that even the libfemmy-est of libfems can't really get offended when I say there is no ladybrain -- or at least they can't get offended aloud without betraying their internalized misogyny.

Here are a couple of book you could read about the subject to bring up and discuss: Pink Brain, Blue Brain is by Dr. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist, and Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine.

Exactly on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Free-Letty-Cottin-Pogrebin/dp/0070503702

Here is the mobile version of your link

Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism is an anthology that came out last year.

Paid For: My Journey through Prostitution by Rachel Moran is a memoir plus radical feminist analysis of the sex industry. This book came out in the US but was also published a few years before.

Misogyny Reloaded by Abigail Bray came out in 2014.

https://www.amazon.com/Female-Erasure-Gender-Politics-Rights/dp/0997146702 The kindle edition is only $10

https://www.amazon.com/Female-Erasure-Gender-Politics-Rights/dp/0997146702

Gender Hurts.

Bikini Kill are awesome. There's an amazing book called Girls to the front about the history of riot grrrl. Nostalgic for those days.

Those kinds of societies are also described in this book

Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Women's Archive and has spent the last 40 years putting together women's history based on archeological objects and manuscripts. This is the first of the planned 15 volumes. She dug through old letters written by priests which described the pagan practices that they were trying to quash and convert to Christianity. It took hundreds of years for the old religion to die out. Most of it was the way women did things. For example, the 3 fates were given offerings when a woman gave birth. There are still some cultural practices and sayings that can be traced back to pre-christian religion.

Another author is Marija Gimbutas. I very much liked this book who paints a picture of the prehistoric European goddess culture based on neolithic symbols found carved into stones and other objects.

men created patriarchal structures to freely use womens' reproductive labor power


I can't recommend Lerner's Creation of the Patriarchy enough for this. An amazon reviewer sums up her thesis well:


>The struggle to control nature through agriculture created a shift toward patriarchy. Lerner reveals that it was women's reproductive capacity that men wanted to control for economic reasons. Children became an asset. Their labor was needed to till the soil and shepherd the herds. Certain "ecological conditions and biological irregularities" that threatened the survival of the tribe also contributed to viewing women's bodies as a commodity that could be exchanged with tribes, and acquired through tribal warfare leading to female slavery, concubinage, wives being subordinate to their husbands, and class formation. Lerner traces the rise of male power, the reification of women as the private property of men with the eventual subordination of women (and some men) through the codes and laws of the state, which dehumanized women in order to institutionalize male dominated hierarchies.


it all boils down to biology I think

David Reimer -- and it was far more than just being raised as a girl. There was a significant amount of child abuse involved, iirc, and emotional trauma.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-may-13-me-reimer13-story.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer#CITEREFColapinto2001b
https://www.amazon.com/As-Nature-Made-Him-Raised/dp/0061120561

Someone in this subreddit recommended these books to me when I was looking for advice on recovery from abuse, and they said that a feminist psychologist told them about these. I haven't gotten the chance to check them out, but I figured I'd pass it along:

8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

Why Does He Do That? is also really good. It's straightforward and has a pretty good feminist analysis of where abuse comes from - the book doesn't try to claim that men abuse because they have mental health problems or any other bullshit, but makes it clear that men abuse women because of misogyny and feeling like they "own" women.

>I still don't know if he's hurting me on purpose or because he doesn't know better.

No, you are not crazy. This is textbook abusive behavior, including the way your family has been roped into supporting your abuser. I suggest you contact your local domestic violence shelter -- they may have therapy groups for women in your situation; if not they will be able to direct you to resources. Meanwhile, read ["Why Does He Do That" by Lundy Bancroft] (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling-ebook/dp/B000Q9J0RO/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1). Recognizing what's going on is half of the battle. This book will make things clearer.

>I guess this is my kinda of my issue. How do you explain transwomen who date and marry ciswomen? If what you were saying is true all transwomen would be dating cismen and exclusively cismen. Right?


They’re heterosexual males with a sexual fetish.


Anne Lawrence


Blanchard


No. I said that they tell homosexual children (a small subset of trans) that they are the wrong sex and then sterilise them using cross-sex hormones after puberty suppression.


Then, we have transwomen telling lesbians (homosexuals) that they are bigoted for not liking penis or wanting to have sex with people that maintain or have previously maintained those organs.


There is a big hint in the word homoSEXual that would lead you to understand that sexual orientation for heteroSEXuals and homoSEXuals is based around the SEX of the person.

Telling lesbians (or gay men) that they must like people of the opposite SEX based on their “GENDER identity” is creepy and disgusting.


People are not obligated to re-evaluate their attractions because of someone else’s “identity”.


Years ago, psychologists and psychiatrists used to try and force homosexuals into liking people of the opposite sex. This is no different.


--------------------

>I think gender is a set of ideas on how someone acts and looks that is typically based on sex. That is to say that usually female people act and look in a certain way as a woman.



What.the.fuck? Act and look as a woman based on sex? That right there, straight up fucking misogyny.


What does a woman “act” like? You realise that is the antithesis of feminism. That women “act” and “look” a certain
way.


How does sex, one’s reproductive capability, have anything to do with how someone acts?



>I don't know if gender roles are innate, I really don't think they are.


Good. Because they aren’t.



>I don't know if its more real or less real. I think sex is pretty complicated in general and can't be decided by one characteristic but by using multiple different criteria simply because theres no real one defining characteristic that says you're either male or female. for this kind of stuff I typically look to places like the Olympics

Production of gametes. Bam. Simple.

Failing that? Structures for the production of gametes.

Failing that? Genetics.

Failing that? Organs.

Reproduction is real. Human biology is real.

How do you propose we classify people then? How is gender real? How does the way a person "acts" affect anything about their physiology? Things like rape shelters, bathrooms, prisons are all based around people's physiological needs.

Women can get pregnant to males, menstruate and pee sitting down. We have different cancers and different levels of medication tolerance (and alcohol tolerance) because of our physiology.

Men can impregnate and pee standing up. They do not need access to abortions or gynaecological medicine. They may need access to medicine based on their prostates and testicles. They have difference levels of tolerance to medicine and alcohol based on their physiology.

Why would you look to the Olympics? Why not ask a biologist?


>I think this would fall under gender roles again. I don't think a woman is really any one thing. Gender isn't based in your body and how it looks but rather in how you act.

Wrong. A woman is an adult female human.

How is gender then more important than a biological reality again? How is the way someone “acts” overriding this?

Am I no longer a woman because I don’t “act” like one?

The fuck?

Who governs these rules for how someone should act?

Why can't people act however they want? Just because you have certain bits doesn't mean you act any particular way.

Your physiology is just a fact of nature and your ability to produce offspring through the exchange of genetic material.

>If you mean a woman again I don't know if that's a biological reality meaning that you can definitely say that you identify with and are more comfortable with that set of gender roles.

And what of the millions (billions?) of women who aren’t happy with the gender roles place upon us? What if we’re not happy with ANY gender roles for anyone?

What is a gender role and why is it even important?

>If you mean female, I think that's more of a thing that happens as you transition rather than something you just become.

Nope. Males cannot become females. We are not gastropods or fish.

How does a male born become female? That makes absolutely no sense.

>It gets a little worrisome because this kind of thinking can lead to transwomen being excluded from places that most other females are allowed to be. Bathrooms, locker rooms, etc and I'm not sure if that's ok to do, although I'm a proponent of non-segregated bathrooms and changing rooms, I think its a little silly that we separate by sex.

WHAT?

NO! Males cannot become female.

You DO NOT produce oocytes, have menses or gestate and birth young. (Yes, I am aware that not all females can either)

Males disproportionately attack females for violence and sexual assault.

Look at the FBI or WHO statistics if you don’t believe me.

And “transwomen” maintain MALE levels of criminality which makes them just as likely as any other male person to cause us harm.

Males and females are separated because SEX is the only thing that is different between us. We can get pregnant and get “gender” bullshit because of that. We are somehow "weaker" and "less capable". We're also vulnerable because of our ability to get pregnant.

Males and females have different physiology, different medical needs.

You propose what? We separate on “gender”?

How is gender real?

IT FUCKING ISN’T. It was created by society. Biology wasn’t.

Here’s some links to transwomen violence:

One


Two

Three

Four
(This is a person who gained access to a women’s rape shelter by claiming to be a woman and then SEXUALLY assaulted women)


And I have more.

> would that teenagers are typically below the age of consent, IE below 16 and thus can't legally make a decision to have sex no matter what age the other person is.

But teenagers and children are able to consent to hormones and puberty blockers?

And yes, the brain develops as it gets older. Atrophy and damage can halt and stop the development.

So, how is "brain-age" less real than "brain-sex"? How is it any different to "negro-brains" or "jugglers-brains"?

If I scanned my brain and it had the same volume in certain parts as a medical professional does that make me a medical doctor?

>I think the only difference is the fact that there is some actual research done on the brains of transwomen vs ciswomen which shows some of the same structures not present in cismen.

Yes. We’ve all seen those.

First off, NONE of those studies have been reproduced which makes for bad science.

NONE of those studies identify why they are able to determine what a “woman’s brain looks like”

Actually, here’s a really succinct link that breaks it down

And I’m more than happy to refer you to read Sheila Jefferies new book Gender Hurts, Cordelia Fine’s Delusion of Gender and Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen


>I tend to defer to medical organizations for things like this and typically take them at their word if they say that the cause of transgenderism is due to different brain structures.

Medical organisations used to advocate for lobotomies of the mentally ill, the castration of gay men, and the “hysteria” of women.

You also can see examples of bad pharmaceutical practice in Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science

I’m not saying I agree 100% with any of the above texts. It pays to be well informed and to complete your own research.

Do not “take them at their word” about things like “brain” sex when the methodology for their premise is so unbelievable flawed.


>Does that make sense?

It didn’t make any sense, even a little.

I mean seriously? Fucking gender roles in 2014? We’ve come a long way baby from Suzie-Homemaker and Captain America.