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Clementine Ford

Clementine Ford Books

Actress

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“An inability to deal with emotions in healthy ways is what toxic masculinity is all about. And, in most cases, what this really stems from is fear. They're afraid of the world changing, because then they might have to actually work a bit harder to be seen as important within it. So they shit on women and people of colour and anyone else fighting for political equality alongside them and screech about 'SJWs' and feminism being 'cancer' and think this is enough to mask the stench of fear that rolls off them in waves. But as any true Star Wars fan can tell you, fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

FearSocietySocial JusticeGenderEquityStar WarsToxic MasculinityEmotional Regulation
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“Stop marrying men and taking their names as a matter of course. It isn't 'choice' when it's mostly going one way. Before you argue that 'it's just your father's name anyway', stop for a moment. It's your name. You were born with it, just as men were born with theirs. The difference is that our patriarchal society still treats women as if our names are on loan from one man until we find another to claim us and gift us with our new and true identity, while men get to own their names from the start and claim their destinies for themselves. I'm not saying you're wrong for doing it, I'm just saying think a bit more deeply about the fact that women are expected to do it all. And if you say it's because you wanted to have the same last name as your children, just ask yourself why women for the most part do all of the work of growing and birthing children only to turn around and give naming rights to men who did barely anything at all.”

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Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“It doesn't matter how politically progressive your household is when it comes to aspirations outside the home and the limitless capabilites of women; if it's made clear within those four walls that it is the responsiblity of women to perform the unpaid labour of domesticity, this is the value system that children will internalise: boys are born to rule the world, and girls to clean up after them.”

WomenFeminismPatriarchyGender OppressionDomestic DutiesUnpaid Labour
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“Being able to freely explore my identity through aesthetic and expressive play is a joy. Why on earth would we seek to deny that to children, the very people for whom play was not only invented but who are its most ingenious architects?”

PlayChildhoodSelf IdentityEarly ChildhoodChild DevelopmentGender ExpressionIdentity Expression
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“But this is how men like Trump and those who model themselves on him operate. Despite insisting that it is women who cannot rein in our emotions and maintain rational perspective, it's the furious guardians of power who froth and spit at anyone they perceive to be a threat, whether actual or just ideological.”

PowerAbuse Of PowerEmotional Dysregulation
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“Not all men!' isn't just a mating call for the lazy and aggrieved, it's also a diversionary tactic used to shift attention away from the substantial issues of discrimination and oppression that impact women's lives and channel it instead into men's feelings. Worse, it demands that women temper our complaints, that we frame our discussions of the violence we've experienced at men's hands in a way that doesn't implicate any of the men we know or work with or sit next to on the bus or even just casually pass by in any one of the infinite numbers of corridors on the internet. Sure, you may have been raped or beaten or grown up with a violent father or been groped by a colleague--but the important thing to remember here is that not all men are like that, and unless you acknowledge this then aren't you kind of just as bad as those men out there who hate women enough to kill them?”

HypocrisyMisogynyDouble StandardsToxic MasculinityNot All Men
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“It's not an overstatement to characterize the toxic teachings of men like Yiannopoulos as being central to the radicalisation of today's young white men, and marginalised people (which includes women, but certainly isn't limited to us) do not have to negotiate with terrorists to secure their rights to live peacefully.”

TerrorismToxic MasculinityDomestic TerrorismMilo Yiannopoulos
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“How frustrating must it have been for the most qualified candidate in US history to lose to a man so incompetent, dangerous, and cartoonish that he is living satire. That enough people in the right places preferred an ignorant, racist, misogynist, dangerous imbecile (not to mention an accused rapist) to a woman with decades of political experience is proof of how much further we have to go. Hillary Clinton has endured a lifetime of abuse about her looks (they were even blamed for her husband's infidelities), her 'shrill' personality, her mannishness, her hawkishness, her sensitivity (heaven forbid a person be seen to cry once in a while) and her general 'lack of appeal'. People still seem to be baffled by the idea that a woman could be powerful in her own right rather than have it bestowed on her by the male gaze. I'm not saying she's above critique or that none of it is fair -- I'm saying there's a flavor to it that is purely do to her being a woman that isn't found in critiques of men with similar political leanings.”

MisogynyHillary Clinton2016 Election
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“It's how we should start reframing the dialogue around sexual violence. Discussion that fixates on the victims and survivors only succeeds in erasing the perpetrators. If the majority of perpetrators are known to their victims, it stands to reason that they move in the same communities we do. And if university students in particular are at risk of being sexually assaulted (which they are), then the question is an essential one: Which one of you raped us?”

MisogynyRapeSexual AssaultSexual ViolenceRape SurvivorsCampus Assault
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“Rey (a young orphan plucked from her home planet of Jakku and drawn into the Rebel fight) was dismissed as a 'Mary Sue', a term used in pop culture to denote a female character who is too good at too many things and therefore functions as a kind of wish fulfillment for the girl or woman writing her. This sledge was aimed at her because Rey shows an early affinity with the Force and proves to be skilled with a lightsaber, and good lord we have never ever seen that before, no sir. #fakenews”

MisogynyStar WarsFan Culture
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“I find myself wondering how it is that men who align themselves so strongly with hero narratives can be so unaware of what side of the story they sit on. The men lashing out at women online, the ones who use misogyny and racism and abuse to fiercely protect what they see as their territory, consider themselves to be the good guys. But it's like they don't realize that racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and all the other bigoted views they uphold and gleefully reinforce are, you know, what the baddies do. They spent their youths daydreaming about being Jedi Masters, and they haven't yet realized that they've grown up to be Stormtroopers, mindlessly doing the bidding of whichever evil leader they're acting in service to. The funniest thing is that, in the real world, they would dismiss all their heroes as cucks and white knights. Ha ha Skywalker, you fucking soyboy!”

MisogynyStar WarsFan Culture
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“But anger belongs to men, and so Dr. Blasey Ford could not appear before the world and show what the rage of abuse and trauma really looks like. That was a privilege reserved for Brett Kavanaugh, like so many of the privileges he's enjoyed before it.”

AngerRageToxic MasculinityBrett KavanaughChristine Blasey Ford
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
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“Recently, I wrote that feminism was 'finding a way of being a girl that doesn't hurt' a way for girls and women to re-negotiate our understanding of the world so that we can become a full and equal part of it rather than just a means of decorating it; to move towards a place where the mere act of being a girl isn't used against us as both a threat and an obligation. Through feminism, I have found a peace of sorts from the sense that my femaleness required a constant apology so that I might be given permission to pass through these narrow corridors.”

WorldWayMeanMightMovingUsedGirlFoundGivenUnderstandingWomenHurtFeminismEqualFindingsConstantThreatMereObligationApologyPermissionCorridorsDecoratingBeing A Girl
Author:Clementine Ford
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“In our current society, it is considered a weakness to be female and a treason to protest this. Highlighting inequality results in aggressive insults and threats, all of which are propped up by the repeated narrative now that women are 'playing the gender card'. And this is the final insult. That of all the unfair things associated with women - the violence and insults, the financial oppression, the very undermining of our worth as human beings - it is the acknowledgement of these inequalities that gives us some kind of unfair advantage over the men who benefit from them.”

MenGivingHumansKindWomenHuman BeingsResultsViolenceHe ManBenefitsWeaknessAdvantageFemaleThreatFinalsFinancialCurrentsGenderOppressionCardsInequalityNarrativeInsultProtestAggressiveUnfairTreasonAcknowledgementUnderminingHighlightingUnfair Advantage
Author:Clementine Ford
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“What all this tells me is that a large proportion of the people in positions of power across Australia - politicians and media pundits included - just don't consider the beating down of women to be of any consequence. Half the time they won't even acknowledge it, let alone take a stand against it, preferring instead to gaslight women and pretend it's all in their head. Are these the kinds of people we want making decisions for us? The ones who think mockery about women's genitals is bad when it targets no one in particular, but OK when it targets the Prime Minister?”

PeopleThinkingWantKindWomenDecisionHalfMediaPositionParticularPoliticianConsequenceMinistersAcknowledgeProportionAustraliaTargetPrimePrime MinisterMockeryMaking DecisionsPunditsPosition Of Power
Author:Clementine Ford
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