Ses purs ongles 2016 – 2018 (I know, this looks like a tombstone) Table of contents 26.07.16 — On paternity leave ......................................................................5 30.07.16 — On fatherhood ............................................................................6 22.09.16 — On the term 'wlw' ................................................................... 12 27.09.16 — On bi vs. gay vocabulary ........................................................ 13 10.10.16 — On the two sides of homophobia ........................................ 15 14.10.16 — On liberal lesbophobia ........................................................... 16 01.11.16 — 'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' .............. 18 01.11.16 — On Simone de Beauvoir in translation ................................ 19 28.11.16 — On straight privilege, for women ......................................... 22 30.11.16 — On solidarity with gay men ................................................... 25 03.12.16 — On calling out transphobia for male approval ................... 28 04.12.16 — On recognising the need for male approval ....................... 29 07.12.16 — On respecting pronouns (1) .................................................. 31 14.12.16 — On Andrea Dworkin .............................................................. 32 30.12.16 — On patriarchal self-defence laws .......................................... 34 20.01.17 — On the rhetoric of sexual fluidity ......................................... 35 04.02.17 — On the evolution of homophobia ........................................ 37 08.02.17 — On bi women silencing lesbians ........................................... 40 09.02.17 — On comparing lesbians to Nazis .......................................... 42 19.02.17 — On why "LGBT" harms L and G ........................................ 44 22.02.17 — On lesbian socialisation ......................................................... 45 25.02.17 — On trans ideology benefiting feminists ............................... 49 28.02.17 — On homophobia predating misogyny.................................. 50 10.03.17 — On the bi community ............................................................. 53 13.03.17 — On trans children .................................................................... 55 19.03.17 — On the gay experience of gender dysphoria ....................... 59 20.03.17 — On sexual orientation and gender conformity ................... 61 24.04.17 — On compulsory heterosexuality ............................................ 64 20.05.17 — On the interpretation of lesbophobia as biphobia ............ 66 23.05.17 — On gay male privilege ............................................................. 67 27.06.17 — On "born this way" ................................................................. 70 29.06.17 — On political lesbianism ........................................................... 70 01.07.17 — On liberal resignation (1) ....................................................... 73 04.06.17 — On liberal resignation (2) ....................................................... 74 11.07.17 — On historical lesbian erasure ................................................. 76 14.07.17 — On what "TERF" means for lesbians ................................. 79 14.09.17 — On bi women calling themselves 'sapphic' ......................... 80 20.09.17 — On trans ideology and post-truth politics ........................... 81 30.09.17 — On respecting pronouns (2) .................................................. 83 21.10.17 — On lesbian literature (1) ......................................................... 85 21.10.17 — On lesbian literature (2) ......................................................... 87 24.10.17 — On gold stars............................................................................ 91 06.11.17 — On men writing women vs. women writing men .............. 92 19.11.17 — On the cause of inequality between the sexes.................... 94 20.11.17 — On the alliance of B and T .................................................... 95 02.12.17 — On socialisation vs. essentialism........................................... 98 14.12.17 — On men's public hatred of women .................................... 101 21.01.18 — On Bad Men's vs. Bad Women's opinions ....................... 102 12.02.18 — On weaponised femininity .................................................. 103 03.03.18 — On transhumanism ............................................................... 104 08.03.18 — On patriarchy fatigue (1) ...................................................... 107 17.03.18 — On robot therapists .............................................................. 109 21.03.18 — On female outcasts ............................................................... 110 03.04.18 — On transition .......................................................................... 116 16.04.18 — On men's vs. women's reported ability ............................. 118 30.04.18 — On men as consumers .......................................................... 119 17.05.18 — On het and bi radical feminists ........................................... 121 28.05.18 — On male writers' plagiarism ................................................. 124 15.06.18 — On "doing something about it" .......................................... 126 03.07.18 — On pornography.................................................................... 129 30.08.18 — On lesbian selfhood .............................................................. 131 10.09.18 — On patriarchy fatigue (2) ...................................................... 135 18.09.18 — On technology and pornography ....................................... 135 21.09.18 — On male vs. female pain ...................................................... 136 22.09.18 — On the SCUM Manifesto .................................................... 138 09.11.18 — On murder by childbirth (1)................................................ 141 11.11.18 — On murder by childbirth (2)................................................ 143 15.11.18 — On patriarchal compartmentalising ................................... 143 12.12.18 — On heterosexual overprotection......................................... 146 15.12.18 — On progressive men ............................................................. 149 29.12.18 — On separatism ........................................................................ 151 30.12.18 — On radical feminism ............................................................. 155 26.07.16 — On paternity leave An anon question: What do you think about the legislative attempts to make fathers care more about their kids by setting a mandatory paternal leave? I'm sort of conflicted - on one hand, mothers shouldn't be expected to throw their own lives away and care for the kid 24/7, on the other hand, the abuse rate and all around shittiness of fathers is just too high... I think it is another example of these either-or fallacies that men offer women, where they present us with two bad options, both of which work out in men’s favour, but one of them is slightly less bad for women, and if women don’t support it with all our heart and energy then it must mean we support the much-worse option. Because men don’t want anyone to entertain the idea that there might be a third alternative that works out much better for women but is less fun for men. When you start looking for it you find this false dichotomy everywhere; men really love telling women “your only options are X or Y” then watching women desperately scramble to figure out which one might be slightly less awful for us. I don’t even think they do it consciously; I think they are so used to being catered to and taking only their own wants and needs into consideration that they genuinely have a limited view of the world in which third alternatives that make men’s lives less fun simply do not cross their minds. You see it a lot if you try to “debate” prostitution with a man, and he keeps presenting you with scenarios that are awful for women but maintain the status quo for men (huge increase in sex trafficking on one hand, ‘sex workers’ having to ‘go underground’ on the other) because the scenario where men could just stop purchasing women and using them as sex objects does not exist for him. You also see it in politics, where our options are apparently right-wing misogyny or left-wing misogyny, and if you criticise the misogyny on “your” side it must mean you align with the other, because wanting all woman-hating to be eradicated is excessive and ridiculous. That would make the world less fun for men, which is impossible for men to consider. So, this is also the case here. Option A is women doing 90% of the dirty work of raising a kid, which generally includes sacrificing their careers, and men doing some of it sometimes if they feel like it. Option B is men being given strong societal incentives to take care of their kids, which, since men are more rigid enforcers of gender roles as well as astronomically more violent and sexually depraved than women, would definitely be bad news for the children. You’ll notice that both options are bad for women and good for (at least some categories of) men. The third option, which will never be considered because it’s good for women and less good for men, is one where children are raised by women (not necessarily only their mothers or female relatives) while men are kept on the periphery, obligated to contribute