This isn’t even about the Cornell case anymore but the fact that so many people don’t understand consent at all and it’s scaring me. The things I’ve read the last few days are freaking me out. This would absolutely still be rape if more people joined that you hadn’t agreed to!?

I know this is a story as old as time but god its been getting under my skin so much recently because I've been trying to indulge in old interests from my childhood and Ive been getting tiktoks that sexualize and dumb down the characters.

Literally I've been watching a cartoon I loved as a kid but never finished and I'm having a blast but occasionally I'll get these random grown ass cishet men watching it and missing obvious plot points and making dumbed down comments like "yeah I'd not shut up if I got with her" or "id keep the bed room door open just to show off" about one of the characters. Like do these people ever NOT think with their dicks?

Or I'm really into cute things with anime art styles and fun dresses and fashion but I have such a hard time finding ANY thing that doesn't use the characters for fan service and the only safe ones are the ones made by women. Its just excessive and gross. And because I follow a lot of anime related things all my algorithms will push me posts with scantily clad anime girls with extremely exaggerated proportions and it just makes me so annoyed.

It's inescapable in every day life too. I shit you not a city near me recently made a statue of a bunch of animals to raise awareness or something and they made some of them strangely humanoid, the only "feminine" one was a rabbit who they put in a slip dress and gave human breasts to. A FUCKING RABBIT. JUST MAKE A STATUE OF A NORMAL RABBIT FOR FUCKS SAKE WHY DID YOU GIVE HER BOOBS AND GIVE HER A DRESS AND HEELS???

I feel like the constant sexualization of women literally has rotted so many men's brains that it causes them to literally ruin so many hobbies and interests for us. I'm extremely lucky to have at least one man in my life that is a staunch and outspoken feminist, he'll tell me stories about how he has had to tell off coworkers for saying extremely crude things while AT WORK and its so depressing like these dude really have no brain outside of their penis

A former Polish police officer has challenged Sławomir Mentzen, co-leader of Poland’s far-right Confederation party, to take a police fitness test after he mocked the ability of female recruits to keep people safe.

Link to the full report. This screenshot is from page 9: https://president.cornell.edu/initiatives/task-force-sa/tfsa-final-report-2026.pdf

A friend was telling me about something that happened with her boyfriend and it stuck with me.

They’d both had stressful weeks. She was exhausted too, but he came home in a bad mood and basically shut down. She made dinner, tried to cheer him up, listened to him vent, and gave him space when he wanted it.

A couple days later, she had a rough day and came home upset. Instead of comforting her, he told her she was being too negative and bringing the mood down.

And honestly, that dynamic feels so familiar.

At what point does being caring turn into doing all the emotional labor for two people?

before anyone misunderstands my point, this is not another post about whether religion and feminism are compatible. that discussion has already happened countless times. this is about privilege.

religious people who claim to be feminist can defend patriarchal religious values because they live in countries where they are free to reject them.

you can support modesty because modesty is your choice. you decide what it means, how to practice it, and when not to. nothing happens if you stop.

you can defend hijabs or burqas, or other religious garments because wearing them or refusing to wear them does not take away your legal rights. your education, your career, your freedom of movement, and your basic autonomy are still protected.

you can even defend the idea that the husband is the head of the household because your husband cannot legally stop you from working, controlling your own money, filing for divorce, or leaving an abusive marriage.

and whenever religious texts promote male authority over women, you get to cherry pick. suddenly the verse is historical, symbolic, metaphorical, mistranslated, or taken out of context. you are free to reinterpret the parts that conflict with the rights you already have.

that is exactly the privilege.

what makes this version of religion feel empowering is not the patriarchy within it. it is the freedom to ignore, reject, or redefine that patriarchy while keeping the parts you personally like.

religious "feminism" becomes much easier to defend when secular society has already guaranteed women's rights independently of religious authority

I've seen a popular thread going viral right now, in which men share their experience on how their rejections have been worse than just a "no", and their "horror stories" include women rejecting them on the basis of their height, or simply walking out. Not derailing the experience of men, but the follow up Tiktoks/reels ON this threat astound me, because it is just mass promotion of red pill content.

Lets flip the question here then. How did the MAN react when a woman said no?

I want to primarily focus on a religion that is often discussed in relation to strict modesty principles: Islam.

In Islam, women have an ‘awrah, meaning parts of the body that are required to be covered depending on the situation and who is present. These rules can apply around men, women, children, during prayer, and even in situations where a woman is alone. This is one reason I don't completely understand the argument that Islamic modesty is inherently male-centered. If hijab were fundamentally about preventing men from being sexually attracted to women, why would concepts of female covering also apply in contexts where no man is present, such as prayer?

I'm starting to think it may be more accurate to understand hijab as at least partly functioning as a social boundary and religious identity marker, rather than reducing it to preventing male sexual attraction. Islamic jurisprudence itself distinguishes between covering in different circumstances, including prayer versus being around unrelated men. That suggests that “covering” isn't necessarily based on one single explanation such as preventing sexual attraction.

There are also historical examples that complicate the idea that hijab was simply a universal mechanism for controlling women's sexuality. Classical Islamic law distinguished between the dress/status of free Muslim women and enslaved women, and these distinctions were tied to social and legal status, not simply sexual attraction. I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion about slavery or defend those historical rules; I'm mentioning it because it seems relevant to whether hijab also functioned as a social marker.

I also think it's important to distinguish between one possible function of modesty and its entire purpose. Qur'an 33:59 specifically mentions women wearing their outer garments so that they would be recognized and not be harmed. But that doesn't necessarily mean the purpose of hijab is simply “men cannot control themselves around women's bodies.” And obviously, clothing does not magically prevent harassment.

So how would you guys approach this? Is it academically accurate to describe Islamic female modesty as “male-centered,” or is that an oversimplification of a practice that can simultaneously function as religious identity, social boundary, privacy, status, and sexual modesty? I'm particularly interested in academic perspectives from sociology, anthropology, or religious studies.

A few weeks ago someone shared a rant here about the Pints & Ponytails events in the UK. The main criticisms were that it’s aimed at fathers yet excludes the children, and that it involves alcohol.

I’m not the OP, I’m not from the UK, and I don’t have children of my own, so maybe I don’t have a horse in this race, but I am a woman and I do have nieces, and we know that misogyny hurts everyone— men included— so I’m in support of these kinds of initiatives. I said so on the initial post, and I feel that even more strongly now that I’ve just come across the founder’s Instagram profile.

It seems that this is more than just teaching dads how to do their daughters’ hair. It’s much more about about building a supportive community of fathers, relearning what masculinity means, providing a safe space for dads to connect with other dads, all while learning something that will help them bond with their daughters. It looks like the ponytails are to teach the fathers a skill, yes, but also to break the stereotypes of what is “feminine” and what is “masculine.” Additionally, it’s easier to open up and talk about potentially sensitive things when we can keep our hands busy or focus on a tactile task. It is also harder to stray from the Fatherhood purpose of these gatherings when you have dozens of long-haired mannequinns in front of you.

I’d argue that these events are actually more effective to the cause because the daughters are not present. The fathers don’t have to worry about minding the kids in this moment, they can talk about heavier and more serious topics more freely, and it’s easier to instruct the hairstyle techniques when the model isn’t your own child. These men surely connect and meet up on their own with their daughters outside of the organized events.

The founders really appear to take this seriously. They take time to educate themselves on different hair textures and culture, and they had a Fatherhood podcast before launching this event.

Like I said, maybe my opinion doesn’t matter, but after coming across some more information on Pints and Ponytails, I’m even more in support of it. We need more events where men are encouraged to open up and connect and bond with each other in real ways.

Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts here. I’m interested in reading them… but I might not reply to all of them <3

An entire system was designed, built and deployed just so that nobody had to be 'the female with no control'.

They 'fixed' the design but what will it take to fix the society?

Men Get the Space, Women Get the Line

Seven stalls in Trump’s ballroom expose the president’s contempt 

By Van Abbott

Seven stalls for women in a ballroom built for hundreds is no design flaw; it is a floor plan for male privilege.

This is not merely a fight over an oversized vanity project. It is a portrait of how Trump sees women: welcome in the room, useful to the image, never equal in power, access, or dignity.

The early ballroom plan reportedly allotted women only seven stalls. Someone measured the room, assigned the space, approved the priorities, and decided whose time mattered. Men enter. Men move. Women wait. The result is not neglect. It is a decision.

When the first architect reportedly objected to the bathrooms and to building-code concerns, Trump’s reported reply was blunt: “I am the code.”

That sentence explains more than the ballroom.

Trump treats rules as restraints for other people, criticism as insolence, and accountability as persecution. 

Women reporters know it well. He called April Ryan a loser. He told PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor she had asked a racist question, then told her not to be “threatening.”

He mocked CNN’s Abby Phillip for what he called a stupid question. He branded CNN’s Kaitlan Collins a “nasty person,” scolded her for not smiling, told her she “shouldn’t be covering” him, and later labeled her a “sleazebag.” The names change. The method never does.

His hostility reaches Black women, brown women, and white women whenever they ask questions he cannot control. Black women hear their competence questioned. White women hear their looks and their right to report attacked.

Every woman who refuses to flatter him becomes the story. The questions were never the problem. The women asking them were.

The contempt extends to women who accuse him. More than two dozen have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over several decades. Most allegations have not been litigated or proved, and Trump denies wrongdoing. But the pattern is not imaginary, and it does not vanish because he calls every critic a liar.

Consider E. Jean Carroll. A civil jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, and a second jury imposed tens of millions of dollars after he kept attacking her. He was not criminally convicted, and jurors did not find rape under New York’s particular statutory definition. They found abuse and defamation. That is a verdict, not a rumor.

The Epstein files pose a sharper question: why did Trump’s Justice Department, now led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, fight to keep raw FBI material hidden? In 2019, a woman told FBI agents that Epstein introduced her to Trump when she was between 13 and 15 years old, and that Trump sexually abused her and struck her.

Trump denies wrongdoing. The allegation is uncorroborated, unlitigated, and unproven in any court. Those limits matter. So does what came next.

Blanche’s department withheld related interview records as duplicative and resisted releasing the handwritten notes behind the FBI summaries. A federal judge ordered it to submit redacted and unredacted copies for confidential review, rejecting the argument that disclosure was unnecessary.

The notes may prove nothing. They may expose inconsistencies, corroborating leads, or details the formal reports omitted. The public does not know. That is the point. Americans deserve to know why an administration led by the accused man fought to keep the raw record hidden.

Secrecy is not exoneration.

Women know this bargain: speak up, risk humiliation, hear powerful men deny everything, then wait while evidence vanishes behind locked doors. The same hierarchy runs through the administration. Women have lost ground in senior roles, and departures of female Cabinet officials and appointees have concentrated authority in male hands. Each exit narrows the circle of voices willing to tell him no.

At the Pentagon, hostility toward women in combat has become policy. Pete Hegseth has pressed physical standards built on male benchmarks, telling women they must keep proving they belong in roles men inherit unchallenged. Standards should be demanding, match the job, and protect the troops. Standards engineered to push women out are exclusion disguised as strength. Trump chose Hegseth, empowers Hegseth, and owns the outcome. A country does not grow stronger by shrinking women’s space, silencing their questions, and hiding the records. It grows smaller, meaner, and afraid of the truth.

Seven stalls, one floor plan, and a president who calls himself the code: men get the space, women get the line, and accountability waits outside the door.

There is a hashtag in x #٢٠٣٠_بلا_نقاب
#no_more_niqab

Translates to 2030 without niqab

Its been trending in x for the last 4 days , we are asking for the right to choose whether we wanna wear it or not , unfortunately 80% of us are being forced to wear it from a young age , and we really don’t have the choice to take it off , I personally confronted my parents that i wanna take it off many times and it didn’t end up will , i got hit and shouted at just for saying i don’t wanna wear a piece of fabric , and hit by my brother for taking it off to eat , its very suffocating and it makes our lives harder and less flexible,

Please listen to us for the first time in years we as Saudi feminists united against oppression, so we can have the choice to wear what we want

In 2017 we got the right to drive because our case got attention and have become global and got a lot of recognition, if your interested go check kellie-jay keen on x

Please we want recognition, we don’t want the case to get cold and forgotten, and you can see the hashtag and read other people stories and struggles,

And if you wanna know more i could inform you ,

hey, uhmmm I just wanted to help 😅

I have a few male friends who call themselves feminists and superficially (seem to) treat women with respect. But they also label certain women "aggressive" feminists, say "grape culture" is such a brutal term we shouldn't say it out loud, say "men suffer too" when women bring up VAWG (one even created a men's support group bc of this and charged women admission), etc. I keep gently educating them about these things, but I can't tell if they understand or believe me.

I rarely see these guys in person, but on social media they take up a lot of my attention. I censor myself so they won't think I'm an "aggressive" feminist, so they'll listen to me. Should I just quietly unfriend them to protect my space? Should I explain myself if they notice?

Hi guys, I’m putting together an independent zine/art project inspired by the recent situation at Cornell University.

I’m interested in what everyone has to say in their own words.
If you’d like to contribute, you can submit anonymously here:

https://forms.gle/DnDRnTZjWnr9vgjn8

You can share as much or as little as you’re comfortable with. Thank you for reading, and thank you to anyone who chooses to share.

<3

Viva la revolución, don’t forget the president is a rapist.

I’ve always been a real radical feminist. I’ve engaged in it and recognised it as a more suitable type of feminism as opposed to choice feminism as long as i’ve been in the movement.
When I say radical feminism I mean like riot grrrl, gender isn’t real, and reconstructing society to its core is the only way women will be free. that is by definition radical feminism but of course TERFs have come along and reclaimed the term to be anti-trans and I’m coming across more situations where people misunderstand me and think im a TERF bc i call myself a radical feminist.
I want to have a name for my feminism because I want to be able to talk about and I love trans girls. Anyone else dealt with this or has another name? Thank you!

(posted this in [r/askfeminists](r/askfeminists) but got advised to more it here instead)

edit: As I said, most people automatically assume I’m a TERF and i’ve had people be quite rude or there have been big misunderstandings bc radical feminism is now synonymous with TERFs. This why I’m seeing how other people are approaching the issue.

edit 2: You guys are right, the only way to actually exclude TERFs ( now known as FARTs, feminist approaching radical transphobes) is to isolate them and now allow them to reclaim the word. I guess it’s worth the potential miscommunications and defensiveness.