Category: Uncategorized

Careerist

On many occasions, I’ve been called careerist. In a way, I can’t really deny the accusation. I am a bit of a workaholic and can’t stand laziness. Some of my exes have said that they broke up with me because I work too much, and of course, I am ambitious. I don’t want to be second-best, I want to succeed, and if things work out, I’ll have my own group in a few years, and depending on where it is, even a professorship to go with it.

In a man, this would be called drive, and he would be lauded for it by society. After all, when they work eighty hours per week, they’re heroes. When a woman does it, she’s a monster. I won’t deny that there are negative aspects to how I am, I can see them all too well. After all, it has wrecked several of my relationships (although I am horrible with that anyways and would ruin everything in another way otherwise).

On other occasions, I’m called obsessed with luxury. This is one of the things that I really struggle with, to be honest. I do like having nice things, but that isn’t everything. If it were, I would have quit science a long time ago, there are plenty of options with much better salaries so I wouldn’t have to do demeaning work by the side.

Another popular one is calling me an attention-seeker. But that also can’t be the truth. Of course, I want to be seen as the best. Who doesn’t? But if attention was all that I wanted, I would have focussed on my modeling, not on science. Attention is much easier to get that way. All it would take would be stepping out in public, and then getting into an almighty flame war when being even vaguely honest.

Or perhaps I just am someone who wants nothing but as many good papers as possible. Of course, papers are something that I like. I like the feeling of getting a good publication. But that doesn’t mean that it’s my only drive. It just is a nice reward for the work that I already enjoy. And besides, I see them as a means to get further, and as a way to show what has already been done. Not as a goal onto themselves.

The truth is much simpler than any of those things. I just like my work. In a way, it is my hobby, it is my calling. I don’t mind working through the night, because it is what makes me happy.

 

And yes, I want to get further. But not just for myself. As a woman, I have faced quite a lot of discrimination already, and I think that if I get somewhere, I can help others in my position achieve their ambitions.

Of course, I think that to truly change the world we will need a revolution, to truly get rid of patriarchy. But until that can be achieved, we can at least try to make the lives of our sisters a little bit easier.

Status

As someone who is rather decadent, I was recently driving somewhere in my car when it struck me again. As soon as men see a woman driving, especially in a car that isn’t the cheapest, smallest, least flashy model there is, they get angry.

In my life, I’ve had two cars. The first was a rather cheap and crappy second-hand Nissan Micra, there would still be aggression, but after I decided to be decadent, and got myself a brand new BMW Z4 (bright red, obviously), it got much, much worse. Especially in summer when I like to make use of it being a convertible.

For some reason, that deeply angers them. I presume that one of the main reasons for it is that such cars often are seen as male status symbols, and a woman having (or just using) one of them deeply hurts their self-esteem. If they have one that is, I often think that they just have a balloon of ego to hide their lack of self-esteem.

The same happens whenever a woman has anything that men see as being a part of status. One of the most important of these of course is professional position. There is nothing that men hate as much as a woman who has more of a career than they have. This can also be seen in education, where men are deeply and intensely jealous of women with more education than they do. One thing where this can be seen is relationships. There are very, very few men who would ever want to be in a relationship with a woman with more education than they do, but for women it’s expected that they want to be with someone with more education. It’s even seen as a good thing.

Of course, this mostly has to do with the idea that is the core of how men see themselves. They are better than women. This means that every woman who outdoes them is a threat and a slap in the face. They don’t know how to just deal with this, so they turn to aggression. The woman who outdoes them has to be dragged down, her achievements and status have to be reduced.

In my initial example, this can be done by ‘proving’ to be a better driver, which means driving like an idiot, just to deal with the feeling. That this is dangerous to themselves and to those around them doesn’t matter, they have to show that they’re better than the woman.

In education, another mechanism can be seen. The women have to be dragged down, but they can’t do something showy. They can however start to complain about education being femininised, about girls just working much harder (making their lesser results actually better, for some reason. Don’t ask me how), or by just saying that those who do better don’t have a life.

The denial of science

One thing that I keep encountering, both with the left and with the right, is the denial of physical reality. One of the main causes of this seems to be some kind of paranoia about science. One of the big examples of this is vaccination.

Of course, there are people who are opposed to it for other reasons, such as my family. I wasn’t vaccinated as a child because they saw it as imposing on God’s authority. But that’s something that I won’t go into now.

What I do want to talk about are all the people who seem to hold some pretty crazy beliefs about vaccination. One of the most popular of these is the idea that being vaccinated would cause autism. People have noted an increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism, and have looked for a cause. One thing that really caught on was blaming vaccines. But, not only was this one study fraudulent, there is no actual correlation between the two things. These vaccines were already being used before the rise of autism, that for some reason also is much more gradual than you would expect from a few injections given to masses of children.

The actual reason probably is a combination of people looking more for it, and for lessening lower limits before someone is called autistic. But, when people who are opposed to vaccination hear this, they protest. They know better than the experts.

It’s however not a problem that’s mostly part of the political left. The political left also has its issues, although they tend to be different ones, such as climate change.

Why is this the case? Why do people think that they know better? That’s something that I have been thinking a lot about. One of the potential reasons is what Michael Gove famously said, that people have had it with experts. But there has to be a reason for this.

One of the reasons for this is the lack of understanding of science and the process behind it that many people, even people who studied the sciences, show. People don’t understand what it means when something is a mostly self-correcting system. Every day, countless scientific papers are published. Many people see these as end-points, but instead, all of them are just in-betweens. Of course, some findings might actually be true, but as a body, science is aimed at approaching truth more and more. Not at being the absolute truth right away. That is the big distinction from traditional systems that don’t allow for improvement.

Some people take this idea, that the current scientific body isn’t the absolute truth, as a reason to just deny things. There however is no point in denying anything, unless there are good reasons for it, in the form of arguments and evidence.

Another reason I think lies with the media. They often report all kinds of findings as being revolutionary. This especially is an issue with reporting on health and the like, where every week has new breakthroughs telling you about new ways to stay healthy, or ways that make you sick. Unfortunately, these tend to not be very good studies and almost always, the results tend to be massively overstated.

And then there is the worst for science’s reputation. Fraud. It is estimated that quite a large part of all published studies are at least partially fraudulent. Of course, this is a lot easier in some fields than in others, but every case that becomes public does enormous damage. And it is an issue, a very big one even. But, it shouldn’t be overstated, because of the self-correcting part of science. After all, lots of fraudulent studies have been found out and many more might not be seen as fraudulent, but they are still improved on.

This might be harder in some fields than in others, but it is important to keep in mind. And there is a massive difference between a single person committing fraud and a whole field. One person has a good reason to do it, a whole field however doesn’t.

People also like to cite the influence of certain industries. Especially the pharmaceutic industry is a popular target. But think of it this way. There are thousands of people working on vaccines, the climate, and things like that. If it all is just one conspiracy, it takes just one person to get out. And these people often don’t have vast non-disclosure agreements or the like. Their jobs might be threatened, yes, but there are enough people who do not believe in what supposedly is being faked that it would still make them rich if they came out with the actual real evidence.

So, in summary, people should try not to be dismissive of the work that is done by scientists. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t doubt and think. We should always do that. But we should try not to fall for simplistic explanations for complex issues, especially if there are much better explanations supported by a large body of evidence.

Male stupidity

One of the things that I hate most of all in the world is how people have to insist that a woman isn’t capable of understanding abstract thinking. This has always hurt me, if only because I am someone who has always been deeply interested in science. I also like to think that I am at least decently capable of understanding it, not only because I studied chemistry, but also because I am a human being.

Today, I had another such experience, when a male student decided that he had to explain things in the most basic way possible to me, as though I was just a child. Funnily enough, I work in that institution, and not as a student. I’m doing my Postdoc there, and if I can be this arrogant, I have some achievements in science to my name by now (including some papers in top journals like Cell). Which certainly is more than some silly student.

But that’s something that I just keep encountering. Male colleagues tend to assume that I don’t really understand things, or they think that I will just be there to help them, even though I’m there for myself, for my own career. Funnily enough, this is a weakness that is incredibly easy to exploit. And then they start calling me all sorts of unpleasant things again. But that’s another issue.

The problem with being assumed to be stupid is not something that I really suffer from anymore. Of course, I still have to be better than anyone else to get anywhere, but I no longer am in the position to internalise it. That part of the social indoctrination failed rather miserably.

Unfortunately, it does work on many. How many girls suffer from not believing that they are actually capable of doing math for instance? How many parents decide to not let their daughters take scientific subjects in school? How many girls aren’t offered as much support as boys are for these things? There are far too many. I dare say that almost all of us have suffered from it to some extent.

After all, just looking at toys tells you this. For girls, there are dolls, toy vacuum cleaners, and worst of all, those make-up kits. For boys, there are technical toys as well. I’m not saying that many of their toys are incredibly silly as well, if I had a daughter I would never give her an Action Man figure for instance. But that immediately is a big difference. Boys get active toys, toys aimed at the wider world. At achieving and doing things. Toys for girls are focused inwards, and perhaps even worse, at mindlessness.

This thinking goes all the way through society. All over the world, the idea that we are unintelligent, that we are irrational, and that we are just silly, is present. And more than present. It’s fostered all the time. In our culture, and in many cultures. Of course, this makes a lot of sense. If you want to have an underclass, you always say that they are less intelligent. Intelligence is the defining human trait, so, you say that they are less human.

At the same time, it gives another strong argument to keep this system in place. After all, if a group of people is less intellectually capable, the only reasonable thing is to keep them under control, so you can guide them. Naturally, this is made a lot easier by their stupidity.

This thinking is the thing that we have to fight tooth and nail, because it is one of the roots of our oppression. I would even go as far as saying that it is the root of all oppression.

Of course, the idea that we are stupid isn’t just believed because it’s helpful. They also believe that they are superior. They are convinced that they are more intelligent, while most evidence that I have seen in my life is quite the contrary. In general, men tend to be overly emotional and stupid. So, perhaps some things should be changed in the world?

The Curse of Being Beautiful

One of the foremost things that patriarchy uses to judge women is their appearance, held against an arbitrary standard. Every culture has its own standards of beauty, and they primarily are about women and how they should look. This is used as a way to rate women, like we’re just animals. There are no such standards for men. They may say that there are, but you will not see men attacked and vilified for not meeting certain standards, while women are.

The problems with beauty standards are often seen from the perspective of those who don’t meet them. They indeed suffer, they are constantly judged and are always told that they should be different, that they should change. Someone, who by sheer chance, happens to meet the standards set by our society, is seen as lucky. I personally am one of these ‘lucky’ women. I am thin (okay, skinny, but that for some reason is seen as good. I personally would rather have a healthier weight), I have long hair, large eyes, and what seems to be most important, my breasts are relatively large (prompting questions about how much they cost. In terms of surgery, nothing, because I didn’t have any. In terms of things like bras and the like, I don’t even want to make a count, but it’s a lot).

There are benefits to it. Of course, there always are benefits to meeting expectations. Unlike many girls, I was able to pay for at least part of my studies by just standing around, having pictures taken of me in different outfits, walking over a stage, or just standing around at a stand. Yes, I did (and occasionally still do) modelling work and have been a so-called booth-babe. Especially the standard modelling, so to say, was incredibly silly. I put on some clothes, had a few pictures taken, and got paid for it. Basically. Funnily enough, these things often wouldn’t fit me, because I’m too thin to just get them from a store. They want to show beauty standards, but it can’t eat into their profits of course.

But there also are disadvantages. I know that this sounds an awful lot like the complaining of the privileged. I know that I am immensely privileged, I am white, I’m well-educated, and I even have decent looks. But I think that it’s important to be aware of these things, also to have a better understanding about how the patriarchy uses these things to divide us and to eat up our time.

The foremost is attention from men. They refuse to leave me alone for even a moment. When I’m alone somewhere, they immediately try to join me, to talk to me, and they get angry when I don’t immediately respond with my full attention. Even when I’m waiting for a friend for lunch, they want to sit down next to me. I know that this is an issue that affects all women, we are all constantly harassed, but sometimes, I have the feeling that women who do meet the right standards in appearance are harassed even more, because they are what they want to control most of all. I’m still sickened by the constant stares, remarks, and worse, and I often wish that I could just give up. I wish that I could just cut off my hair, that I could gain weight, and that I could perhaps even have my face changed.

Added to that, there is the pervasive idea that I have to be stupid. I can’t really put it in a nicer way. When you look like they want you to, they expect you to also have the brain that they want women to have. None at all. Perhaps the size of a pea so I can still smile and do the dishes, but that’s about it. Again, this is something that all women suffer from, but I have noticed the difference. At lectures for instance, when a male student asks a male professor, there aren’t any issues and his question is just answered. When it’s a female student who would be average on the patriarchal scale of beauty, she often also gets an answer, although there already are a few who refuse to take it seriously. When I ask a question, it generally gets treated like a child asking something stupid.

This is something that I internalised to an extent. Whatever I do, I have the idea that I’m being silly or stupid. That whatever I do, it’s just a folly. When I say something, I expect people to laugh at me. Especially men. From women, the reactions tend to be different, but I’ll get to that later. After years and years of this, I began to learn that I’m not as stupid as people think I am. I’m not extremely intelligent either, but at least I wasn’t too stupid to do my PhD or to learn a few languages. But despite that, the reactions haven’t changed. I’m still being treated as though I have the mental capacities of a child.

Another big issue is what happens among women. The arbitrary standards of beauty enforced on women are used not only for men to control our appearance, but more importantly, it serves to divide us. Because beauty is one of the few things that matter for women under patriarchy, it serves to do so in multiple ways. First of all, we are taught to look down on those less beautiful than we are. This goes all the way from the very top to the bottom. The other way around this creates a deep jealousy, a desire to change to be more like that.

That in turn has several awful effects. The first is that many women mutilate themselves in order to be closer to the arbitrary standards. Of course, there are more reasons for this, which I plan on talking more about in a later post, but this jealousy that is fostered also plays a part in the decision to go under the knife.

But this jealousy also has different effects which are less directly visible. The foremost is that it divides women. We are made jealous of each other, directing our energy towards fighting each other instead of our oppression and the system of gender that causes all the problems. And worse than that, it divides us, strengthening our oppression.

This can be seen time and time again. As someone who is closer to the top in this regard, I am used to countless remarks by other women, aimed at tearing me down. It’s always there, a never-ending attack. And I can’t really blame them. They after all have suffered far worse and they are used to seeing women like me as the ones looking down on them, kicking down with high heels (and let me tell you, that really hurts, for both the person wearing those awful things and the one getting kicked).

Added to this, many of the stereotypes have been taken over from men. Many women also assume that I’m stupid. And it’s not just me who has suffered from it, but also several friends. Just to make clear that it’s not all just because I’m a terrible human being. Which I am, of course, but that’s besides the point.

I even am arrogant enough to blame it in part for the failure of some of my relationships. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an absolutely awful girlfriend and have as many exes as I’ve had birthdays, and far more shorter things. This is because many women also are indoctrinated with the beauty norms, and that makes me desirable. At first, this works very well, they like my body, they fall in love with how I look. Usually to such an extent that they can overlook my rotten personality. After a while, it however surfaces, causing issues and frequently, a breakup.

But I’ll be honest, with the way the world is now, I wouldn’t switch. Beauty might have its disadvantages, but there also are the advantages that help in our patriarchal society.

This all sounds awful, but still, I have hope, a fair lot of it even. I think that it’s important to see that first and foremost, we all are women. We all are sisters striving for a better world. We should try to not let ourselves be divided by jealousy and arrogance. We shouldn’t look down one each other, but we should see each other as equals.

Christmas

Currently, I’m staying with my family in the Netherlands which means that I don’t have a lot of time to myself or much in the way of freedom for that matter. It’s always very difficult for me, I really love my mother for instance, but our lives are completely different. For her, I play this role a few times per year, it would destroy her to know the truth. The same goes for my father.

My days now are spent in church and in contemplation (and visiting more family. My siblings have almost too many children now to keep track of and with some, I can feel the disapproval. I’m a spinster after all, not following my duty to have children. And added to that, I have a career. That makes me the wrong example.

Naturally, in the few days that I stay after Christmas, there will be men being introduced to me, in the faint hope that I’ll finally get married. Nowadays they’re mostly widowers and the like 😉

Where I’m from, we don’t have many of the Christmas trappings that many see as unavoidable. There are no decorations, no trees, no nativity scenes, no movies, no impossibly rich meals, and certainly no presents. So, my Christmas is a little bit different from most. 

That however leads to one of the great conflicts that I experience in my life, and that many others experience to some extent as well. This is the clash between the people in my surroundings and my beliefs. 

The people who surround me see any kind of feminism as an invention of the devil, or worse. Being a lesbian also isn’t even an option, if that part of me became known I would be cut out and instantaneously bring shame to my whole family. I don’t want to do this to them, if only because I still enjoy being in touch with them. It however means having to lie about a fair few things. Many who still see their families will experience this to some extent, but it always hurts. Basically, it’s an act of balancing multiple pains, which isn’t something to enjoy.

There however are bright sides. Because no one knows the truth, I’ve been able to reach out to several girls in these circles and to help them cope with the situation until they’re old enough to be able to move out. I don’t want them to suffer the fate of my first love.

So, I hope that you all enjoy or at least survive your Christmas. 

A Note on Religion

As some of you may know, I was raised in orthodox-Calvinist circles. This probably helped shape my views on religion, but then again, I’ve never seen anything else, no matter which religion I looked at. This is something that I’m always reminded of in this time of the year, if only because I always have to pretend to be all that I’m not.

As a girl, everything was decided for me. What I could read, what I could wear, how I could play. I wasn’t allowed to listen to modern music, television was banned (one of the few good things), I wasn’t vaccinated. I was supposed to get married when I was eighteen and to have about a dozen children and serve my husband. You can imagine the whole story.

Only, I didn’t believe it. Luckily, I would say. Unlike in many other cases, this didn’t cost me my family, but I still can’t tell them the truth. I like to think that there is some pride, but whenever I return, they always have men they try to get me to marry. By now, being in my late twenties, I obviously am an old spinster, so they have actually moved to widowers and the like.

But, whenever I would say that I think that religion is bad, I would be told that I shouldn’t extrapolate my experiences. That what I knew wasn’t real religion, because real religion is all about love. This very clearly is nonsense. The religions that we have in our world are the tools of patriarchy as can be seen in many different cases.

Let’s start with Christianity, which is based on the Bible. I can bring up dozens of passages that very clearly say that women aren’t to be held in high regard (I’m sorry, I know large parts by heart, especially those concerning women). Both in the Old and the New Testament you will find them, going from the moment where Eve is the one responsible for everything bad happening afterwards, including Original Sin which means that everyone basically goes to Hell. All over the other books you will find similar sentiments.

Of course, you tend to find the same ideas in everything written by a patriarchal society, and the thinking still persists in modern media. There isn’t anything unique about religions in that regard. They just express the values of the society that they formed in.

Unfortunately, the values of a patriarchal society tend to be, well, patriarchal. Religion often serves to strengthen the internal structure of a group, and will generally serve the dominant class within that group.

People might use early Christianity as a counterexample, claiming that it was revolutionary. But that isn’t a contradiction at all and the level at which it was revolutionary is deeply overstated. Yes, when it started out it appealed to the downtrodden, but it never changed the fabric of society. The leadership still belonged to the ruling classes and there might have been a role for women, but even at the very earliest it is quite clear that they were second-class members. And for this, we don’t just have to look at Paul (still going strong for Greatest Misogynist of All Times), but just looking at the Gospels shows that. Jesus wasn’t accompanied by an equal fellowship. His disciples were men after all. I know that there is some talk about Mary Magdalene, but she’s only one person, who nowadays is often depicted as a lover. Aside from that, there is his mother, Mary.

They are all there because of a personal relationship to the leader, giving them prominence. They’re not allowed to have any kind of leadership or relevance in their own right.

And it’s not just Christianity, although it may sometimes seem like that. My focus has been there because it is what I’m most intimately familiar with; I just don’t know other religions that well.

But I do not see anything unique about Christianity in that regard, if only because the fundamental mechanisms are the same all over the world.

One example is Buddhism. It’s frequently brought up as being purely good, which of course fits very well with a kind of orientalism. If you look at for instance the monastic rules that were laid down by Buddha, there are many more for the nuns, because they shouldn’t tempt men (one of the great classics right there). Women are also described as the embodiment of everything that’s bad in several places. This however is frequently ignored, because of a Western desire for a clean hippie-like religion that isn’t at all connected to reality.

One of the main benefits of religion and similar systems of thinking is that it makes life a lot easier in a way. Essentially, the thinking about morality to left to something external, which not only makes it easier to accept oppression, but also to inflict violence on others. Patriarchy isn’t just there because it’s a part of society; it’s there because a being much greater than us decided that it is the right and moral way to live. And we can’t doubt that, can we?

No more periods

Sometimes, when I say that I decided to stop having my periods people are shocked. Lots of women think that it’s necessary to have them to be healthy, or that it is a vital part of being a woman. I don’t really agree with those things.

The reason why I made this decision is really simple. I don’t like menstruating. This probably isn’t a very shocking statement, I don’t know many women who enjoy it for some rather obvious reasons. I don’t like pain, I don’t like feeling sick, I don’t like having to use all sorts of products and of course, I don’t like how restricting it is.

As a person, I would say that I am rather ambitious and perhaps a bit of a workaholic (not too extreme though, I try to sleep and I keep something approaching a rhythm. I also have a social life and have other things to do than work. But I do like my work, and I want to be the best. That means working a little more than most people do and always being as close as I can to my peak performance.

When I menstruate, I’m not at my peak. I feel worse than I generally do and always have the feeling that I’m filthy. Part of this comes from the social side. Always being told that it’s unclean doesn’t help, that’s true. But there also is the fact that I tend to be more sweaty, and of course, there is all sorts of crap coming out of me (calling it blood is a bit of a misnomer I think. Blood tends to not be clumpy or slimy or all those fun things).

When my thoughts are drawn to those things they’re not drawn to what it important. It makes it harder to focus on my work, or on my date, or on whatever is important at that time. In a way, menstruation is a distraction. Added to that, I generally don’t sleep as well as I normally do (which means, very poorly indeed) which also doesn’t really help.

So, I decided to stop with all of that. To free myself from all that unpleasantness. Fortunately, there is a very simple way to do this, one of the greatest inventions of the last century. Hormonal contraception. I don’t use the pill for any kind of contraception (no intention to ever be with a man whatsoever, and if I had been forced, there are direct solutions for the issue). But there is another benefit to the pill that’s often overlooked. It allows us to take control over our menstruation.

Yes, there are the stop weeks, but they were originally introduced by men who thought that women would not like no longer having their periods. But it’s very important to note that there is no serious evidence for any adverse effects to just skipping periods.

I started by doing this to move it to more convenient moments, but soon figured that there was no need for any menstruations at all. Since then, I have been feeling much more effective, and perhaps more importantly, I am actually saving money (a month on the pill is cheaper than a week on the rag).

Unfortunately, my earlier statements have been a bit too black and white. I still keep a lot of secrets from my family, and when I visit them, such as for the Christmas days, I can only take things that wouldn’t arouse suspicions (so I’ll have to leave my iPhone X here, along with other contraband such as pants, or anything expensive really). That also includes my stash of pills. So, generally, I tend to bleed there.

Of course, it is a completely personal choice, but it’s an option to be aware of, if only for the moments where having a period is just too inconvenient. It’s part of being free to talk about our biology, which is something that has been forbidden for far too long.

Transgenderist strategies

Whenever I bring up that I’m a radical feminist online, meaning that I’m opposed to gender, there is one thing that’s brought out. Transgenderism. For some reason, that alone proofs that I am irredeemably evil. But honestly, it’s not such an important topic to me. It’s just a part of the greater whole. Naturally, I am opposed to transgenderism, for a variety of reasons, but it is always claimed that it’s the core of my thinking.

Funnily enough, it’s quite different offline. When speaking to women who can speak freely, in private, almost everyone is appalled by the whole doctrine. The thing is, we are being silenced. Whenever anyone says anything, she is barraged by a brigade of woman-hating men, many of whom call themselves women. It’s never women who attack like that, who threaten all kinds of violence, and who delight in the idea. Whoever speaks up is almost drowned in the sea of hatred. Those who haven’t yet said anything learn one thing from this: it’s better to not talk at all, to only nod and go along. At least, in public.

This is a strong example of silencing tactics. It’s an attempt to make an example of those who do speak up. The same can be seen with the tribunals against those who dare to say something, even as small as what the pronoun soup means for grammar, as in the case of Lindsay Shepherd. Immediately, she was dragged before a tribunal and people (read: men) were falling over each other to condemn her and how very good they were for saying so.

No one sane wants that to happen. No one wants her name dragged through the mud and to receive countless threats and rather unpleasant messages. So, they are silenced instead.

Of course, the whole trans movement has to silence any and all critics, they don’t have a choice. Their arguments areas full of holes as a VERGIET. If critics are allowed to speak, more and more people will see that. And worse, they themselves will see it. They can’t risk that, so, as a defensive strategy, they shut out any and all criticism.

This also is why they are so motivated to always pain themselves as victims and everyone who disagrees on even the most minor point a wannabe mass murderer. By diving headlong into the attack, they also push their own doubts away, saving themselves from having to think while they can say that they’re good.

And it’s not just the hard core of transgenderists, the ones who have gone as far as to have themselves surgically mutilated and poisoned to change their appearance, but it also is the vast base supporting them. There are two groups amongst them, the believers, and the intimidated.

The believers are people (mostly men, funnily enough) who have bought into transgenderist ideology but who do not personally identify as being of the other sex (which is an altogether silly idea). They have managed to convince themselves that there is a truth to it, often because they have never really thought about the matter at all. The strong media presence does the rest. They however have some doubts, which have to be silenced because there is nothing that they fear more than admitting that they could have been wrong.

The other category consists of the large majority that doesn’t buy into the whole transgenderist set of beliefs. These people however are afraid. They don’t know that there are so many people who agree with them, so they stay silent or even voice their support for something they don’t even believe in. Many of them also take part in the abuse towards those who voice their disagreement, if only out of fear for the consequences if they don’t.

But more importantly than that, they are kept from speaking out, especially in public. I also don’t do that, I like my career and don’t want to torpedo it and turn myself into just another punching bag who is vilified all over the online and offline world. I wish that I had the courage for it, and I strongly admire those who do speak out in public. They are true heroes for standing up to the madness.

And that’s the heart of the matter. Few people are truly brave, especially in the face of the force that is even more potent than mere physical violence. Social exclusion. Transgenderism has shown the effectiveness of an essentially vanguardist strategy that offers benefits to a group of supporters who can then shout down everyone else. It is especially effective in the modern world, where our interconnectedness makes it much easier to attack people.

This kind of organisation, even if there was no need to have meetings or anything to set it up, is something that is hard to fight. One of the ways in which I think that it can be done is by making use of the tool of anonymity. It is much easier to at least say what you think when it won’t mean having your life torn down. And what’s even more important is knowing that you aren’t alone, that none of us is.

That’s what can give the strength to seriously fight this, the idea that we’re not alone, that we have sisters who stand with us against this madness.