First post on feminist pages, such relief to read all these lovely threads, and help! how does a woman survive the 21st century with hateful pornographic images dripping from every???

[masuki]

phew! i could rant for along time, but i really would love some feedback, on how you right-on women really do survive this crazy patriarchal society?

thankyou xxxx

by making sure I have lots of feminist spaces for recuperation, I think! I read feminist blogs and watch female presenters of lefty news, and I start with the things closest to me - division of labour in my house, parenting my child, and work outwards from there.

sometimes I think of the patriarchy as like being hundreds of metres underwater. All that pressure pushes in on every inch of your skin, trying to collapse you, and what you do is construct yourself a diving bell of the right attitudes, self-love and self-forgiveness, righteous anger and zeal for justice... and some fun stuff and lots of recreational confectinary - and you protect yourself with that, and that's how you can navigate it safely. It doesn't make the environment any less toxic or threatening but it does mean you can survive in it. And from there, you start to make the larger changes.

I really like that metaphor blackcurrants

I think it helps if you have real-life feminist friends to connect up with to reassure you you're not alone. Obviously MN is brilliant (and after a few meet-ups people on here become RL friends too) but having people you can hang out and laugh with helps no end. I love it when I meet up with my local group and we have all been burning to talk about a particular issue on the news and we are all coming from the same place on it.

You can find your local group on UK Feminista here and if you haven't got one it is surprisingly easy to start one.