I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?
Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land.
And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand.
This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade.
So what did they do?
They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required.
So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?
So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter.
But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them.
I hope this a shit post cause that’s not even close to being true.
Please. I am very curious as to why you think I am incorrect.
I saw this spinster post and regretted not reblogging it, only to find this one that’s like ten times better with amazing sources and a hot’n’fresh moider for me ❤
When I was pro-trans, I was so initially mainly out of pity, and then as time went on I became brainwashed.
I had what Orwell called “doublethink”. On one level I knew that trans “women” weren’t really women – I knew they were capable of fathering children, not of gestating them – and I knew that what they called being a woman referred to a state of mind. On another level, I bought it all.
It’s actually really hard to explain what my thinking was at the time because these different parts were all muddled into each other. I’d been gaslit, basically, but there was a part of my mind that was still intact, still able to reason my way through all this, and that was why I eventually began to doubt it and finally, with a little help from other women’s writing, rejected it.
i went through the same exact thing and i think this quote explains it well:
“As much as cult indoctrination attempts to destroy and suppress the old identity, and empower the new one, it almost never totally succeeds. Good experiences and positive memories rarely disappear entirely. The cult identity will try to bury former reference points and submerge the person’s past. Yet, over time, the old self will eventually exert itself and seek ways to regain freedom. This process is speeded up by positive exposure to non-members and the accumulations of bad experiences the person has while in the group. The real identity deep down – the hardware(self) beneath the mind control virus – sees and records contradictions, questions, and disillusioning experiences.”
– Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, page 133.
I was amazed at how many (for lack of a better term) intrusive thoughts I had about my TRA teachings from my libfem days when I was getting into radfem things. A lot of the times I found myself repeating something I didn’t know if it was actually true, or knee jerk denying something I saw on a radfem post while I was becoming a radfem. It really is a cult like mindset, and it takes a bit to unprogram that thinking.
When I was pro-trans, I was so initially mainly out of pity, and then as time went on I became brainwashed.
I had what Orwell called “doublethink”. On one level I knew that trans “women” weren’t really women – I knew they were capable of fathering children, not of gestating them – and I knew that what they called being a woman referred to a state of mind. On another level, I bought it all.
It’s actually really hard to explain what my thinking was at the time because these different parts were all muddled into each other. I’d been gaslit, basically, but there was a part of my mind that was still intact, still able to reason my way through all this, and that was why I eventually began to doubt it and finally, with a little help from other women’s writing, rejected it.
i went through the same exact thing and i think this quote explains it well:
“As much as cult indoctrination attempts to destroy and suppress the old identity, and empower the new one, it almost never totally succeeds. Good experiences and positive memories rarely disappear entirely. The cult identity will try to bury former reference points and submerge the person’s past. Yet, over time, the old self will eventually exert itself and seek ways to regain freedom. This process is speeded up by positive exposure to non-members and the accumulations of bad experiences the person has while in the group. The real identity deep down – the hardware(self) beneath the mind control virus – sees and records contradictions, questions, and disillusioning experiences.”
– Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, page 133.
I was amazed at how many (for lack of a better term) intrusive thoughts I had about my TRA teachings from my libfem days when I was getting into radfem things. A lot of the times I found myself repeating something I didn’t know if it was actually true, or knee jerk denying something I saw on a radfem post while I was becoming a radfem. It really is a cult like mindset, and it takes a bit to unprogram that thinking.
Listen your feminism should benefit all women. And looking at 2nd wave feminism it did. It benefited the women who said they didn’t need feminism. It benefited the women who told radical feminists that they would be happier with a husband, and should shut up. Even if these women can’t understand the movement, true feminism (based on liberation) will benefit them regardless. I can’t say the same about liberal feminism… I don’t agree with their stance because it WONT benefit even those who call themselves liberal feminists…they want legalized prostitution we know that will only harm women, they’re normalizing pornography and the incorporation of physical violence in the bedroom, we know the harmful effects of this. they want to destroy female exclusive places that were fought for and we already have examples of this going terribly, they’re making it impossible to even talk about sex based oppression. I can’t see a post about fgm without people equating it to circumcision. Liberal feminists believe there’s nothing to distinguish them from their oppressor other than fucking pronouns. How the fuck it is supposed to get better???
Listen your feminism should benefit all women. And looking at 2nd wave feminism it did. It benefited the women who said they didn’t need feminism. It benefited the women who told radical feminists that they would be happier with a husband, and should shut up. Even if these women can’t understand the movement, true feminism (based on liberation) will benefit them regardless. I can’t say the same about liberal feminism… I don’t agree with their stance because it WONT benefit even those who call themselves liberal feminists…they want legalized prostitution we know that will only harm women, they’re normalizing pornography and the incorporation of physical violence in the bedroom, we know the harmful effects of this. they want to destroy female exclusive places that were fought for and we already have examples of this going terribly, they’re making it impossible to even talk about sex based oppression. I can’t see a post about fgm without people equating it to circumcision. Liberal feminists believe there’s nothing to distinguish them from their oppressor other than fucking pronouns. How the fuck it is supposed to get better???
Police in Ohio are denying that racial profiling played any part after police confronted a 12-year-old black paperboy in the latest scandal over people calling 9-1-1 to report “completely benign” behavior by people of color.
The child’s mother posted a Facebook post on Friday explaining the police response to delivering newspapers on the “first day” of the child’s paper route.
Posting photos of her son delivering the papers in shorts and a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) T-shirt, the child’s mother, Brandie Sharp, explained what happened.
“First day of paper route and we are pulled over by police,” the mother wrote. “Sad I cant even teach my son the value of working without someone whispering and looking at us out the side of their eye perhaps because we don’t ‘look like a person that belongs in their neighborhood.‘”
“Police officer pulls up and ask us questions as if we were intruding in their area,” she explained. “Totally disgusted and disturbed that this kind of behavior still exist.”
Police in Ohio are denying that racial profiling played any part after police confronted a 12-year-old black paperboy in the latest scandal over people calling 9-1-1 to report “completely benign” behavior by people of color.
The child’s mother posted a Facebook post on Friday explaining the police response to delivering newspapers on the “first day” of the child’s paper route.
Posting photos of her son delivering the papers in shorts and a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) T-shirt, the child’s mother, Brandie Sharp, explained what happened.
“First day of paper route and we are pulled over by police,” the mother wrote. “Sad I cant even teach my son the value of working without someone whispering and looking at us out the side of their eye perhaps because we don’t ‘look like a person that belongs in their neighborhood.‘”
“Police officer pulls up and ask us questions as if we were intruding in their area,” she explained. “Totally disgusted and disturbed that this kind of behavior still exist.”
Celtyradfem 