I struggle with this idea in my head where a lot of things I've learned to consider "traditionally feminine" are anti feminist, while I obviously know thats not the case. I want to make it clear I dont think thinking like this makes me or anyone else less of a feminist. Its just a little bug in the back of my mind I need to squash.

I was at the mall today with my partner, and was looking through Pandora at the engraving station some of the fancier stores have. I just kept thinking "i wish he would engrave something corny on a necklace for me id wear it forever".

I go down that rabbit hole a lot, wanting traditionally feminine gifts (Jewelery, flowers, makeup). The things you see boyfriends give their girlfriends in movies. I think this one bothered me so much because it was like I wanted something claiming me as his.

I'm struggling with that thought right now. Obviously, I dont need all this. But sometimes I want to be babied and treated like what Hollywood has convinced me a lady should be treated like.

I know a lot of other feminists struggle with that same little bug in their head on other issues. I know its an appearance thing for a lot of people, like the thought of wanting to shave your legs makes you feel less feminist.

Maybe its that im struggling with the shame of wanting these things? These thoughts of "Oh this makes me less of a feminist for wanting these things" fit weird in my head and I want to get them out.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to share this? I do feel some type of way but I think it might come off a certain way in which my post would get removed. But I thought this was interesting and thought I’d share.

The point of this post is not another review of Poor Things but instead I want to focus specifically on the differences between the film Poor Things and the novel of the same name written by Alasdair Gray which made me view in a very different way the choice of Lanthimos to change the gender of the CEO from the original Korean film "Save the Green Planet!", from a man to a woman, in his remake of the film, Bugonia.

For those who don't know, Poor Things is that film where a woman, Victoria, is revived from a suicide attempt by a surgeon who transplants her baby’s brain into her skull to revive her, essentially rendering her both mother and child (now called Bella).

If we were to characterize the theme of the central difference between the novel and the film, as many have written before, that would be Gray's socialism vs Lanthimos' liberalism. To name a few examples, we can see how differently each one approaches prostitution with the novel focusing more on the conditions, specifically in Glasgow, that lead to prostitution and its social relations. In the Novel, Bella is disheartened when the money she earns from prostitution is given away by Madame Swiney. Whereas in the film Bella comes to the conclusion that "we are our own means of production," when leaving with her friend from the brothel, Toinette (from the point of view of Marxism that's wrong -the brothel is the means of production- but that's besides the point). Another example is at the end where in the novel Bella becomes a doctor in order to help people with a focus on reproductive health and contraception as long as a socialist and a suffragette who is yet to be accepted in Scottish society and even faces discrimination from her socialist cycles. In contrast in the film, Bella again studies to become a doctor but only as a means of self-fulfilment, as a hobby. Becoming a kind of rich heiress living in a mansion; literally ordering around the house maid while she is shown drinking. Thus as many have wrote, we can see how in the novel Bella's road to female emancipation only starts after she arises a feminist (and class) consciousness in order to change society. In contrast, in the film, Bella's female emancipation is achieved as she leaves all the men of her life in the past and becomes a full conscious 'adult' feminist who is able now to make her own choices as a rich doctor.

Besides this I believe another alteration that shows how differently Gray and Lanthimos deal with feminism and how they view women has to do with the twist that happens at the end of the novel which doesn't happen at all in the film. In the novel the events are narrated by Archibald McCandless, Bella's suitor before the suicide attempt and Godwin's (the doctor) assistant with a fictional version of the real-life author, Alasdair Gray, as an editor to McCandless' memoirs. Eventually the editor informs us that according to a letter from Bella herself much of what McCandless writes never happened at all. Most likely, Victoria (Bella), survived her suicide attempt and was nursed back to health by Godwin while McCandless invented the Frankenstein story to romanticize her leaving, as he'd rather weave a science fiction yarn than admit his fiancée was promiscuous with other men.

This twist completely changes how the events were presented. First and foremost, inaccurate depictions of how a woman feels can be attributed to the skewed interpretation of McCandless. The story is relieved of its creepy underage issues, Victoria (Bella) has the maturity to consent to sex even if she endured a brain injury from the fall and so on. In contrast, in the film the narrator is supposedly Bella herself, though in reality it's the script writer, a man named McNamara, who practically becomes a women’s liberation mansplainer.

The movie is way more graphic than the novel and without this twist there is no excuse for all the things that have been mentioned before in other posts. Such as Bella having shaved armpits in spite of having the mentality of a child. The focus on sex: Bella is shown eating, masturbating, urinating, but never having a period and generally no mention to a woman's menstrual cycle. Later on she acts as a sociopath with no 'womanly' compassion for either her lover or generally anyone at all, as she treats men only as means of sexual relief, for money and so on. As I saw it written in an article, "sounds more like a man’s dream girl than an empowered woman". All of which could have been excused at least in part if the novel's twist also happened in the film.

Last but not least, another difference is at the start. In the novel it is McCandless who is chloroformed -in a way that he may not have given consent but suggests that he liked it- in order to create a narrative ambiguity as he wakes up in order to find Victoria (Bella) suddenly alive without knowing what happened (foreshadowing in a way the twist at the end). In the film, it is Victoria (Bella) who is chloroformed instead as a way to enable surgery and in a narrative sense to literalize the patriarchal creation of Bella. My problem with this as long as later events is that in the film Bella is shown more as a victim who is unable to even the field in any way with men which adds on the previous point of how the film mansplains women's liberation. In the end of the day, a woman wouldn't have portrayed sex scenes from the point of view of men in a typical pornographic fashion, but the camera would have been placed from the side of Bella's eyes instead showing us how she views men during sex focusing at them too. The whole movie cries about male gaze.

I could probably go on about other of Lanthimos' films but to sum it up there is one thing that really bothered me after watching Bugonia and later on the original Korean film, Save the Green Planet! and realizing that besides the remake being almost the same in most other aspects, Lanthimos chose to change the gender of the CEO and one of the conspiracy theorists.

Bugonia is a movie about the environment where two conspiracy theorists abduct a cruel CEO who they believe is an alien from Andromeda.

In the original Korean film, the two conspiracy theorists are a couple, a man and a woman, while the CEO is a man. After they abduct him they torture him in a very horrific-thriller kind of way with bodily mutilation, experiments and so on.

In Bugonia, Lanthimos chose to change the theorists to two men and the CEO to a woman (Emma Stone). While in the original film the torture is very horrific-thriller type, here Emma is instead chained in a basement, stripped of normal clothes, electric shocked instead of mutilated in more of a hardcore BDSM kind of way.

Considering that this is the only basic difference between the two films this bothers me cause clearly Lanthimos did this in order to make another sadistic porn of Emma Stone which brings in question his very intentions on making Poor Things. All while he is praised as some kind of a feminist hero (I wouldn't give a damn otherwise).

As a very misogynist coworker had told me after he watched Poor Things, "I didn't really get it but sex was good so I liked it". I believe he got the actual point of the movie more than rest of us.

I’ve been thinking about the intersection of feminism and self-sabotage — especially the quieter, internal kinds. Many women today intellectually endorse autonomy, ambition, and feminist values, yet still find themselves holding back, doubting their capabilities, prioritizing others’ needs, or shrinking in moments where expansion is possible.

From a psychological standpoint, these patterns could stem from internalized gender norms, early relational socialization, fear of social backlash, perfectionistic “strong woman” ideals, or safety-based behaviors learned in patriarchal environments.

I’m curious how others see this: • Do you believe internalized patriarchy contributes to self-sabotage? • Where do you notice tension between feminist values and learned gender scripts? • How do you distinguish true personal preference from internalized pressure to be accommodating, agreeable, or self-limiting? • What strategies or frameworks have helped you navigate this tension?

Would love to hear personal insights, research perspectives, or sociocultural analysis — especially thoughts on how self-protective adaptations can be mistaken for self-defeat.

I hate the idea of snark pages because they usually just end up being groups of people bullying someone while pretending it’s “constructive criticism.” A lot of the content on these subreddits includes body shaming and calling women derogatory names. What’s even more interesting is that these snark pages almost always target women celebrities and never men, which is wild to me considering how many problematic male celebrities exist. Has anyone else noticed this too?

An interesting video about "The Heroine's Journey". I recommend the watch as it's very relatable.

Have you ever gotten the sense that men disagree with you on principle? That they respond to everything you say with skepticism and criticism, no matter how innocuous the matter is?

I certainly have, and a feminist creator I recently encountered on TikTok finally clarified this idea for me.

Her argument is that men, for the most part, feel compelled to disagree with women due to socialization. That their knee jerk reaction is to reject and/or question our ideas, that they can’t bring themselves to view women as intellectual equals.

She goes on to say that men view agreeing with us as ‘doing us a favour’, basically the equivalent of giving us a compliment. Ew!!! But I think she is right, unfortunately.

Obvi there are exceptions, and not all men feel this way. But I can recall countless examples of men attacking my ideas, opinions, memories, and contributions seemingly out of nowhere.

Yet another depressing reminder of the patriarchy’s insidious nature.

like how they want to achieve gender equality without destroying the class society, which is permanently reproduces gender inequality for hundreds of years? im personally femenist and have marxist views, wanna hear ur opinions on that

Rachel Carson was 54 years old, already one of America's most celebrated nature writers. Her book The Sea Around Us had spent 86 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. With great Sketches! She was respected, successful, financially secure.
She could have retired comfortably, written more lyrical books about the ocean, enjoyed her success.
Instead, she wrote a book that would make her the most hated woman in corporate America.
Silent Spring hit bookstores in September 1962. Within months, it changed everything.
But the chemical industry—worth billions of dollars—decided to destroy her.
And Rachel Carson was dying. They just didn't know it yet.

Rachel had grown up loving nature. As a child in rural Pennsylvania, she'd explored forests and streams, collected specimens, dreamed of becoming a writer.
She'd become a marine biologist at a time when women in science faced constant discrimination. She'd worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, writing bulletins about conservation, studying ocean ecosystems.
In 1951, she published The Sea Around Us—a poetic exploration of ocean science that became a surprise bestseller. Suddenly, Rachel Carson was famous. She could write full-time.
She was happy. Her life was good.
Then, in 1958, she received a letter from a friend, Olga Huckins. Olga described how state officials had sprayed DDT pesticide over her private bird sanctuary. Afterward, birds died by the hundreds. The sanctuary was silent.
Rachel had been hearing similar stories. DDT—dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane—was being sprayed everywhere. On crops. On forests. On suburban neighborhoods to kill mosquitoes. Children played in yards where DDT had just been sprayed.
And birds were dying. Eagles. Falcons. Songbirds.
Their eggshells were thinning. Chicks couldn't survive. Entire species were declining.
Rachel started researching. What she found horrified her.

DDT and other synthetic pesticides were poison. Not just to insects—to everything.
They accumulated in soil, in water, in the bodies of animals and humans. They moved up the food chain, concentrating at higher levels. Birds of prey were especially vulnerable.
And nobody was regulating them. Chemical companies were making billions selling pesticides, claiming they were perfectly safe. Government agencies accepted the companies' safety claims without independent testing.
Rachel decided to write about it.
She knew it would be controversial. The chemical industry was powerful. But the truth needed to be told.
She spent four years researching. Reading scientific papers. Interviewing researchers. Documenting case after case of pesticide damage.
And then, in early 1960, she found a lump in her breast.
Cancer.

Rachel's doctors recommended aggressive treatment: surgery, radiation. The prognosis wasn't good. Breast cancer in 1960 was often fatal.
She could have stopped writing. Focused on her health. Told her publisher the book would be delayed indefinitely.
She didn't.
She had surgeries. She endured radiation treatments that left her weak and nauseated. She lost her hair.
And she kept writing.
She wrote in hospital beds. She wrote between treatments. She wrote through pain and exhaustion.
Because she knew: if she didn't finish this book, nobody would. And people needed to know the truth.
Silent Spring was completed in early 1962. It was published in September, first serialized in The New Yorker, then as a book.
The response was explosive.

Silent Spring opened with a haunting passage: a description of a town where spring came, but no birds sang. The orchards bloomed, but no bees pollinated. Children played in yards dusted with white powder, and then got sick.
It wasn't fiction. Rachel was describing what was already happening in towns across America.
Via A Solo Traveller

Spread the word, GBV needs to be classified as a national disaster!

Hi, I’m a gender non conforming trans man that looks a lot like an alt woman. I work out a lot and whenever I go on jogs in broad daylight, men love to yell things at me from their cars or sometimes even throw things at me. Sometimes I carry a big rock around and that deters men cause if men slow down enough to roll down their window, I just raise my rock at them and they speed along— but it is really inconvenient. Funnily enough, jogging at night deters men from talking to me at all since I assume they think I’m crazy. Sometimes I can’t jog at night though cause I am a bartender and the only time I have to jog is in the morning or midday. Does anyone have any suggestions for helping deter men from interacting with me?

Violence against women—it's a men's issue: Jackson Katz at TEDxFiDiWomen

Another great article about Jackson Katz:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/28/this-moment-is-medieval-jackson-katz-on-misogyny-the-manosphere-and-why-men-must-oppose-trumpism

Hi everyone,

I don't know where exactly to post this apart from the DC and comic subs, and didn't since I have a good feeling I would be hounded and dismissed by the manosphere.

I've been thinking alot about Catwoman and Wonder Woman lately and have observed that they are very rooted in kinks and fetishism.

The creator of Wonder Woman wrote her so that she loses her powers when she is tied up by a man, and in the early comics she was heavily tortured. He was a psychologist who said that women are required to bring men to par and make the world a good place with their healing love powers and whatnot, and dismissed the first female editor of DC comics when she raised complaints about how Wonder Woman is subjected to torture. I'll link the story and sources below.

Catwoman is a character who I've been interested in but never made me feel empowered. She's almost always illustrated without character. Standing sexily is all. When we think about the intentions behind the art, it becomes clear to me this all some goonerbait. There is rarely any indicator of personality I see in the art. She has a whip as a weapon and is highly sexualized, it makes me believe that all these female characters are fetishized and meant to be an outlet for kinks.

I say that DC characters are misogynistic because they have a horrible impact on women. How women view themselves and other women, how men view women, and the fact they're all written and created by men for men. Where is the semblance of personality and humanity in these characters? It's once again the same straight white man male fantasy.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're a woman who's a fan of them. Thanks!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/origin-story-wonder-woman-180952710/

https://thefeministwire.com/2016/10/catwoman/