# World Building Women @ Medusa Rising > Radical Materialist Feminism, Radical Matriarchal Feminism, Gorgon Posse Pod, eco-feminism, materialist feminism, publishing women, Gorgon Posse AI Spike, movement building, women's writing, art, poetry, fiction, essay, international, politics, culture, policy, theory, federated think tank, feminist lending cirlcles, Jaclyn Lanae, women's coach, women's life coach, women's relationship coach, Matriarchal Policy, Matriarchal movement, Matriarchy Now, Dancing-Goddess, SHE-EDE, embodiment, Radfem Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Meet Us URL: https://www.medusarising.org/about/ Last updated: 2026-08-20T19:13:19.000Z Our Linktree All our media & growing ecosystem of global feminisms. [socials | coalition | podcasts ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?ref=medusarising.org) Medusa Rising is a small, international team of women committed to the RadMatFem framework reinforced by many threads of the long feminist tradition. We see combinations of authoritarianism and woman-hating on the increase in conservative *and* progressive movements around the world. We create and support international and intergenerational feminist work responding to these developing threats in the radical materialist feminist tradition developed by [THE RADICAL NOTION](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) Collective. ## Meet the Gorgons **Founder, General Editor – Dr Esmée Streachailt** has published work in feminist critical theory, cultural hermeneutics, comparative religion, and poetics (under another name). Esmée was a contributing editor at THE RADICAL NOTION, where she started the RE: Framing Radical Feminism series and edited the women's poetry anthology *The Body Cannot Be Cancelled*. She is based too, too near Washington, DC. **Erin** — Erin is a Japanese doctoral student in analytic metaphysics. She is interested in bringing second wave materialist feminist analysis to working class Japanese women through her podcast [Erinのスペース録音をSpotifyに移植してるだけです。](https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/erinadinfinitum/?ref=medusarising.org) **Harpy** — Harpy comes to us via the Binding Chaos movement with a background in game design and narrative architecture. Her interest in RadMatFem involves embrace of women's wildness, our too-much, as foundational to our effect in the world. **Jaclyn Lanae** — Jaclyn is a [coach, and author, and a seeker](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org) who has found effective tools for bringing women into their own alignment with Source and into a love of self and fosters authentic living and relationship. She writes and guides the Soul Craft circle because healthy, balanced women make a healthy, balanced women's liberation movement. **Kimble** — Kimble is a front-line feminist working with rape survivors as psychotherapist for the last 11 years. She’s most interested in Care Ethics/Ethics of Care as a social theory, a practical approach to living, and a narrative framework for a better world. Once a student of philosophy, Kimble has explored languages and countries formulating how she wanted to be a woman. For her own children and others, she wants to show how the inevitability of change can be guided toward mutual well-being. **Lila** – \[ bio coming soon \] She hosts the [r/matriarchynow](https://www.reddit.com/r/MatriarchyNow/?ref=medusarising.org) reddit and writes our Matricor newsletter. **Victoria** – Founder of Women Create International and [Painted Powerful](https://www.gugenheim.co.uk/?ref=medusarising.org), she is a long time activist and a renowned special effects body artist. She is a frequent contributor to The Gorgon Posse Podcast. **Everyone on the team** reviews, edits, and produces work here. Everyone consults on our movement building work. Everyone hosts the podcasts. Everyone gives energy to our outreach efforts. Listed areas are only concentrations, never limitations. We are all the vision and voice, all the admin and the support staff. ### **First Generation Gorgons** **A'Ja Lyons** – is a writer, historian, teacher, and performer. She still appears on The Gorgon Posse Podcast from time to time. More information on A’Ja’s research and publications is at [ajalyons.com](https://ajalyons.com/?ref=medusarising.org). **Zara CachePas** – is a radmatfem focused on the Global South and tweets at @[cache\_pas](https://x.com/cache%5Fpas?s=09&ref=medusarising.org). Medusa Rising is **currently liscenced as a sole proprietor, limited liability coproration** in the US. We **operate like a collective** and non-profit, however. If this project grows legs, we will establish a board of directors and reincorporate as a non-profit multi-media organization. Here's to growing legs! --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/12/1000007316.jpg) A Politics of Process Relations ### Mission URL: https://www.medusarising.org/mission/ Last updated: 2026-04-27T18:11:37.000Z ## 👆 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 👆 **Medusa Rising is a multimedia space for radical feminist storytelling, research, art, political education, & coaltion-building** grounded in the radical materialist feminist (#RadMatFem) frameworks developed in [THE RADICAL NOTION](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org). We exist to take [radical materialist feminism](https://feministgrounds.substack.com/) into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to promote new feminist work on **women's needs, life-wisdom, ideas, culture, soulcraft, politics, art, economy, ecological work, and social movement**. Men's systems and grids of organization (from national borders to nuclear families) fracture women's living connection in solidarity. **Medusa Rising works on the diagonal, the swerve, the spiral to connect women around intersections of possible building and cooperation – women building worlds**. We do this by modelling generative differences - a way of working together that deepens our strengths where we can cooperate and supports our specificity where we need to work separately. Supporting women in **resistance toward cultural recovery and increasing women's thriving requires both political and cultural work**. Medusa Rising feel that welcome, joy, and deep witness are essential to this world building. **We stand in an international, intergenerational, and *strategically* intersectional lineage**. We make space for women's dreaming toward more secure embodiment and agency, a human world fully re-embedded in the ecology that supports us, committed to care for lineage, earth-world, and each other. We welcome young radfems into a deep sisterhood where we reclaim and reimagine women's social and spiritual history. We want to uplift women, issues and ideas often disenfranchised in 'mainstream feminism.' We amplify projects and sister organizations that push for women's rights and protections, dignity and dreaming in all regions and cultures. Patriarchy is the interlocking legal, economic, cultural, and religious systems and traditions that support male supremacy. It was born in the commodification, rape, and murder of women. It has existed in remarkably consistent forms for five thousand years. **Medusa Rising means for this millennium to be its last*. ### Submit URL: https://www.medusarising.org/submit/ Last updated: 2026-08-22T20:51:12.000Z Medusa Rising accepts **new and published work by women** in any genre on any feminist topic and in translation into English. Your blog, substack, youtube, &c are welcome here. Share a link for consideration. Your new work is also welcome here. #### Accepted work pays a complimentary 1 year subscription at the Pythia level. Our **call is open all year**; we **read all year**; we usually **respond a week or so**, and you are welcome to email us if you don't hear from us in that time 😄 [SUBMIT HERE](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyHBDjg%5Fdu838d884QXziaS8wTm%5FiRio0ShnkwuJMQzVR86A/viewform?usp=sf%5Flink&ref=medusarising.org) #### Genres & Styles, Moods & Tones We're mostly – but not only – looking for shorter work, as heavy on the moxy/attitude/rizz as on the thought/knowledge/imagination. **Celebration, rage, pleasure, dreaming, burning down, tenderness, grief, your strength and your growing, your clarity and your mess are all welcome here.* **Thought, critique, poetry, fiction, reporting, science and tech, economics and money, reviews of all cutlural production, speculations, futures, soulcraft, healing, history – about and around all the harms patriarchy does to women and all the feminist resistance women are giving our lives to.* We invite you to share work in any genre. We welcome **works that combine or brushes the edges* of any of genres and themes. Shout what needs shouting! We accept pseudonyms to protect women's lives and livelihoods. We suggest [listening to our manifesto](https://medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem?ref=medusarising.org) to get a sense of the perspective we bring to feminist movement and creativity. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011369.png) Nothing without the Ovum Medusa Rising has set out several themes so far. We still welcome thought and imagination on: - the globl fascist far right (with a focus on the US :/ ), we seeks work from other countries in or falling under these regimes, AND that have thrown them off (Hungary, Colombia, ...) - Support girls and teens girls in this ultra-preadorty time - Matriarchy past, present, future - Feminist tensions over geopolitics & the nature of strategic intersectionality - Goddess culture, goddesses, past and present of feminist spirituality ### Time to shift gears! ## **Current Focus** - **Women & Fascism, resisters & collaborators, past & present** - What if the Democrats win in 2026 in the US? What do you want to push for? - **Socialization, epigenetics, and genetics and temprament** - **Relational Psychology, process relation, relational ontology** - RadFem, Matriarchal feminists, and RadMatFem organizing against fascists (hyperlocal, national, geo-regionally, globally) - Best practices for alternative communities - **What are you leaving behind now?** - How are you turning differences into assets for feminist movement? - **Lesbian resistance past & present** - Myths and misrepresentations about feminism - **Tech against women, misogynist algorithms** - **Tech women are leveraging for feminist causes** - Tips for Newbies: how to search for feminist friendly activist groups - Metapatterning, getting off men's grids, counter-power - **Matriarchal/gift economics, feminist alt currency, feminist thought about parallel economy and production** - Skill-shares, mutual aid networks, resource pooling - Feminist joy, successes, wins, celebration - **Parasociality and movements, weaving or rending, or both?** - Body as resource: pornography, prosititution, surrogacy, alternatives to serving men's interests to survive - **Practices of Power-With** - What do you want feminists of other factions/ethnicities/countries to know or do? - **Women's culture, women's time, women's space** - Pick some part of the [Manifesto RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), imagine what it could look like in action. All speculations welcome! **Don't see your thing?** Want to share something else, from another direction, in another mood, about another topic, wider aperture, sharper vector? Cool. [Here's an even bigger list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4hH3ag-5PegansPMfDTIAH6-j8q6vY3phqxvo5t1H8/edit?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org) of the deep fields we want to dance in! **Now let's bring in other threads of a radical materialist/radical matriarchal feminism:** our physical world, our sciences for understanding it, the social and genetic elements of human traits and behaviors, how to interact with our biology wisely, how to change money and work so that it supoorts life rather than wealth, socialization and epigenetics, porn and parasocial male bonding, what makes better men better, the planet's limits and how to live regeneratively in a globalized world, ... The kickables in the both/and of both material and cultural, both rational and spiritual, both relational and unique... [QUESTIONS? WE HAVE ANSWERS! EMAIL US. ](mailto:info@medusarising.org) #### Style Note ***Audience** *: Please assume our readers have some background in feminist thought or activism, but are not experts. Imagine your readers will want to put your words into action in some way.* ***Tone** *: We prefer a casual, clever, and human voice. That combination of rigor and friendliness is the sweetspot. Jokes, puns, sarcasm, unvarnished truths, rage, and well-polished cursing are all welcome.* ***Purpose** *: We really like solutions, proposals, imagination, thriving, plans, luck, theory, successes, models that can be adapted. But, some problems are sticky and wicked and just have to be examined that way.* #### Print & Media We Accept ****We accept work by female people in these genres or in combinations of genres:** ****Visual Artworks**, up to 5 pieces in high resolution (still and video) ****Essay, Memoire, Creative Non-Fiction** ****Flash fiction, Microfiction, Music, and Poetry** ****Conversations, Reportage, shorter 'Think Pieces'**: includes history, reportage, analysis, critique, explorations. If your piece is a conversation, we welcome the participants biographies to be included at the end of the text. ****Reviews of all cultural artefacts** about or affecting women****:** film, music, books, podcasts, musicals, music videos, trends on social media, &c. We prefer balanced reviews, but we know that's not always possible. ****Recommendations**, super-short positive reviews of culture, books, websites, feminist organizations, up to 100 words – collected and published quarterly. ****Long reads and deep dives** of any length. #### Commission & Copyright We are currently unable to offer commissions. If you are a member of our website or Substack, then we publish 'reprints' when we find them compelling. Your blog, your 'stack, your site, a piece from there can also be shared here. We want to amplify women's brilliance. If you are out there in the feminist public, we ask that you send us original, unpublished work. Copyright reverts to the creator the day of publication. We just ask that you credit Medusa Rising as the piece moves on in the world. A few ****other feminist venues** we admire (and there are many) are **The Anti-Misogyny Club, Feminist Dissent, Total Woman Victory, She's Right You Know Substack, Restoration Magazine, Female.Liberation, Womens eNews, Brown Sugar, Women's Liberation Radio News (WLRN), Lilith Magazine, Matriarchy Times, Rewire, The Crunk Feminist Collective, Hawwa, Mistral*, ... we could go on. Look in your regions, your languages, the venues and communities are there. We are not the only game in town, and we want your words to get in the world. Not all of these journals align closely with a RadMatFem framework, but connection beats isolation every time! **To you most courageous imagination!!!!* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003643-2.png) ### Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism URL: https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/ Last updated: 2025-12-14T13:56:24.000Z Manifesto for a RedMatFem | read by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /838.716712 1× ## The CLAIMS Women deserve health, well-being, good nutrition, physical integrity and robust social infrastructure that supports human thriving. Women deserve serious and effective judicial approaches to violent crimes against women and children: from incest to rape, to partner abuse, to FGM, child marriage to honour killing, trafficking and prostitution, to the air-like ubiquity of pornography, to disappearances and femicides (including forced sex-selective abortion). Women deserve for these crimes to be clearly defined in law and to be addressed with funding, policing, and judiciary practices equal to the trauma inflicted by these crimes. Women deserve international action to enforce civic and corporate commitment to the preservation and strengthening of the planet’s ecological systems. Women deserve ecological stability, sustainability, restoration and restitution as and where needed or helpful to our communities. Women deserve for the infinite, wondrous, complex, and even flawed variety of our personalities to have free expression without pathologizing them as medical disorders or ‘genders’. Women deserve a complete education in our history in all areas and in our pre-history including our foundational roles in creating the earliest human civilizations and inventions. Girls (and boys) deserve freedom from sexualization and freedom to develop comfort and confidence inhabiting their own bodies. Adolescent girls (and boys) deserve informed networks from family to civic institutions to support them in the often disorienting transformations of body and self during their teen years. Women deserve dignity and safety during pregnancy and in maternity wards. Women deserve to survive childbirth and to be supported by family and civic community in early maternity in good physical and mental health. Women deserve spaces for our own time, privacy, culture, loves, friendships, experiences in the daily activities of life and for the unfolding of our being and dreaming on our own and the world’s behalf. Women deserve everything we have ever demanded politically and we are going to get it. ![ Image Description: The image contains two adjacent screenshots of tweets from a Twitter user named Dr. Jane Cassandra Jones (@janeclarejones). Both tweets are dated April 7, 2025. First Tweet: The first tweet defines "Radical materialist feminism." The text states it's a term used at "@Radical_Notion" for the structural analysis of patriarchy. This analysis understands patriarchy as based on the material exploitation of women's bodies as labor and resources. It further sees this as the underlying structure of all cultures, organized around economies of extraction and ideologies of domination, rather than reciprocity. Second Tweet: The second tweet elaborates on the reasons for using the term "Radical materialist feminism." It lists three distinctions: * To emphasize that patriarchy cannot be explained without addressing material extraction. It argues that focusing solely on trans ideology, feminism, and other left-wing thinking based on "identities" cannot provide a proper structural analysis of oppression. * To distinguish itself from forms of radical feminism that understand patriarchy through an inherent nature of male sexuality. Instead, it emphasizes a structural analysis of material exploitation and how male dominance is tied to this exploitation. * To differentiate itself from socialist feminism that has a material analysis but does not consider patriarchy as the foundational form of material extraction.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003629.png) Jane Clare Jones & THE RADICAL NOTION, origin of RadMatFem ## **The CREDOS** This feminism stands in a long looping lineage, threaded together from the indigenous and black feminisms of the 19th century to the suffragists and suffragettes, to the radical, socialist, black and womanist, ecological, lesbian, chicana, and post-colonial feminisms that bring us to the current moment. We believe that each strand of feminism evolves in relation to the others and directly addresses the various elements of patriarchal dominance. We value knowledge and application of these traditions for their power and insight, with an eye for their oversights and errors. We acknowledge that no one feminism is sufficient for all women as our various oppressions shape our experience of patriarchy differently. We aim to work across these feminist traditions and among these communities more wisely and with hindsight as our guide. This feminism affirms that patriarchy is the original dominance hierarchy and its misogyny is the model from which other oppressions are elaborated. Further, this 8000-year-old patriarchal order is neither the only nor the longest-standing social order humans have used to organize ourselves and meet our needs. Therefore, patriarchy, no matter how couched in consumerism, is not the only possibility for the future. We hold that the ubiquity of emotional, physical, and sexual violence by men – at their hands and in various pornographic media – against women and girls is not a bug in the social system. It is a feature of patriarchy, a global program of subjugation operated in the home and in public. It is the surest sign that human beings must mature beyond male supremacy in order for humanity to thrive. We hold that male violence is a key feature of all male supremacist societies, experienced by women and children as random, particular, and personal. As such it is a constant presence in the life of every woman and child. From sexual assault and domestic violence, to street harassment/violence, to purchasing of women and children for sexual use, and the threats of these used as coercion, this ambient violence serves to maintain male supremacy across societies. We hold that an essential step in overcoming patriarchy is that men’s crimes against women must be firmly confronted at all levels of law enforcement and never left to the discretion of individual men to address or prosecute. Women who uphold this feminism affirm all women in the full expression of our abilities, talents, and personalities. Women who advocate this feminism affirm that all women and girls must have opportunities to participate in education of both body and mind that prepares them to secure personal income and experience robust agency in their own lives. Women who uphold this feminism are opposed to dominance hierarchies that disrupt the generational transmission of our lineages. Women who uphold this feminism resist the mechanisms of domination, the structural oppressions, that exploit and divide women on the basis of sexuality, age, ability, class, race, and global region. We are, therefore, anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-militarist, and anti-imperialist whether overt, covert, economic, or cultural. These orders are all expressions of patriarchy, and as such elaborations of the first oppressive othering: the subjugation of women. That is, as we find women in all nations and communities of the world, we affirm the self-determination and interdependence of all nations and peoples. We see the present historical phase of patriarchy as one that presses women on two sides with varying intensity across nations. On one side is the left/liberal adoption of gender identity politics, and its collaboration with neoliberal economic interests, that erases women as a social and political class and disenfranchises us economically. On the other side is the right/conservative push for a return to (or maintenance of) patriarchal ‘family values’, the male-led traditional family, a rollback of reproductive rights, a shredding of social safety nets that protect mostly women and our children, and attacks on the rights of same-sex couples across racialized groups. This regressive impulse is often combined with the politics of purity of national identity, sometimes coupled with white supremacy and antisemitism, and an even more robust embrace of neoliberal economics. Both are forms of gender conservatism and have the effect of impinging on women’s sense of self and our agency, lessening our safety in the private and civic spheres. We affirm romantic, and sexual attraction is natural, innate, and good whether to people of the same sex, opposite sex, or both. We affirm that women deserve the full embodiment of our strength and pleasure. We affirm that compulsory heterosexuality is oppressive and its institutional manifestation in the patriarchal family unit and is not the only good and healthful form of intimate and familial relations. Women have the right to same sex-attraction without interference of law or social discrimination. Women have the right to refuse relations with men, platonic or economic or sexual, at our discretion and without fear of reprisal. We affirm the value and necessity of developing and nourishing of lesbian and women’s spaces for community, culture, and privacy both in their uniqueness and commonality. We affirm that women’s friendships, affections, desires, and loves are to be respected and supported. We affirm all support for a livable and thriving ecology in which to make our lives, families, and communities. Without a thriving planetary ecology, social and cultural projects will be deeply hampered if not impossible. We believe that the gender system is a hierarchy of power, created within patriarchal societies, and layered over the sexed bodies of people to instill entitlement in men and subservience in women. We affirm that the gender system is a mechanism to enable men’s expropriation of women's bodies and labor as a resource. We believe that the gender system prescribes human potential, personality, and expression of talent in ways that are pathological and traumatic. Thus, we affirm gender non-conformity in our sexed being as a natural and vital practice in the weakening and removal of the gender hierarchy and the violence that defends it. We affirm women’s autonomy over whether and how to support, to give our time, energy, blood and body to any other living being. We believe that women’s sex-specific health care and complete reproductive autonomy are necessary to both women’s well-being and the health of our communities. We affirm that women’s unpaid lab our is an exploited resource that benefits the state, private industry, and individual men living in the same households as women and should be remunerated. The UN estimates women’s unpaid labor to account for between 10 and 39% of GDP across nations. This unpaid labor consists largely of care work from which both the state and industry directly and indirectly profit. In some countries, this unpaid labor includes enslavement for domestic work and sexual use by men. Care work is both skilled and demanding. Unpaid, it constitutes a natural resource reaped for free by the world economy. We affirm that women’s paid labor must be equitably remunerated, and working conditions must be physically safe and free of sexual or other harassment. All women have a right to employment that garners them economic independence from coercion or control of family or familiar. Professions dominated by women must be elevated in their social stature equal to the training and expertise required to perform them. Women working in both legal and illegal markets of the sex industries (pornography, prostitution, stripping, surrogacy) must be fully supported as to the health, family, work, or educational marginalizing pressures that move them into these risky/debilitating sectors. It is only by solving the problems surrounding trafficking and prostitution, such as economic despair and male entitlement, that societies can eliminate these abuses by making them obsolete. Most incarcerated women are imprisoned for low-level crimes of economic survival or women’s forms of self-defense. Such self-defense or non-violent crimes should be eligible for restorative community adjudication, not punished with sentences that make a return to work or full citizenship impossible for already marginalized women. Women must not and shall not be incarcerated with men no matter how those men identify. We believe that the human self and identity are created in relation with other people. Most ideas of self or subject are of isolated, autonomous, rugged individuals (the “traditional masculine”) in competition with its equals and projecting its desires/fears onto its others. This model serves patriarchal social and neoliberal economic projects. The family and its extended community can be a model of social connection and human thriving ordered on terms of cooperation, mutual and reciprocal support, and respect for difference and variation. The mother-child and sibling interrelationships offer a more robust model than the classical and enlightenment models for how humans create each other over time through our interactions. The patriarchal family remains, in many social practices and in some law, a little feudal estate with the father in the role of ‘lord’ around whom the mother and children’s lives are centered. In some incarnations of the patriarchal family, a man offers some time and effort to care for the home and emotional well-being of his children and wife, though in no country do men match the investments or sacrifices of women. Meanwhile, in its less loving forms, this family model is the root of much of the trauma women and children suffer and that often becomes generational familial abuse. Such a family order is susceptible to male domination because it is based on the idea that the man is human and the woman and children are not-quite human. A feminist family is a conscious micro-community dedicated not to traditional hierarchies but to the emotional, intellectual, and physical thriving of all its members and the harmony of its relationships. Rather than an ethic of duty, the ethic of the feminist family is care, individuation, and mutual support. Such a form of family would acknowledge how mothering (and parenting) is integral to our communities and would prevent much of the social and economic isolation women currently experience in some societies. We affirm respect and support for women as the source of all human life and as the first models of the social and cultural world for all children. We affirm that all life is interdependent and that difference and mutuality, from the cellular to the social, is the engine of all life and creativity. We believe that humans are embodied beings, formed in constant interaction with the natural and social world around us, and our embodied experiences affect our perceptions and personality. We affirm not only women’s full and inalienable participation in all institutions but also the necessity for women’s most ambitious dreaming. --- The term ‘radical materialist feminism’ was coined by Jane Clare Jones in Issue 3 of *THE RADICAL NOTION*, *Woman as Resource*. It's [available at the website](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) where all issues are now free for download. Highly recommend. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003643-1.png) ### Collaboration URL: https://www.medusarising.org/pod-soc-collaborate-shop/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T12:43:50.000Z This project is as much about connecting feminists and feminist organizations, then leveraging new coalitions and consortiums into real effects and power globally. ## Collaborators & More 👇 [medusarisingorgonposse | Instagram, Facebook | Linktreeworld building women | creativity & coalition | thought & action![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-icon-180x180-4.png)Linktree![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/medusarisingorgonposse-3.jpg)](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?ref=medusarising.org) ## Free Audio Podcasts [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-6.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Gorgon_Posse_Podcast_Logo_YouTube_2000_x_2000_px_am3su_1200x628-1.jpg)](https://gorgonposse.podbean.com/?ref=medusarising.org) New Episodes & Archive ## Video Perks & Free Audio Pods [Medusa Rising’s Gorgon Possea digital radical materialist feminist project publishing women | building movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-3.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/xb1tjprOCLYtRJjE3vnEkkqtob55AF5P6WS8WdIHrzK6euTldxxk8GxLXCKKUChvSOzFmyf7gAs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj-3)](https://youtube.com/@medusarisingorg?si=ECJu1FCD3jOy9b5n&ref=medusarising.org) ## Shop Swag & Swagger [Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMerch to support movement building. 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It’s that simple.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-dff2bb58-847c-456a-a22d-11622b2e2211.png)Medusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/iQ0jsrys5X_iL5b--ad29aa3a-6d2b-47f5-8bbe-26ba73791cce.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### Private Page: Katherine Acosta on Right-Wing Collaboration of US 'Feminist' Organizations URL: https://www.medusarising.org/private-page-katherine-acosta-on-right-wing-collaboration-of-us-feminist-organizations/ Last updated: 2025-04-14T19:48:19.000Z _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Private Page | Reading Circles & Other Events - The Details URL: https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-other-events/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T13:05:56.000Z Let us gather and subvert!! _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Donate URL: https://www.medusarising.org/donate/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T19:50:13.000Z Feminist economies run on exhausted volunteers and the slimmest margins. This changes when we change this. Building alt-fem-economy is in our dreams and plans. Please, support vital RadMatFem projects like ours (including ours! Heh). [WITH OUR GRATITUDE FOR YOUR CARE AND SUPPORT](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ### Events & Community URL: https://www.medusarising.org/events/ Last updated: 2026-08-17T16:01:48.000Z Not a member? Subscribe here. Dates and details on a private page & announced by email to members. More programming is in the works! Events happen in our Discord server or online depending sensitivity and host preference. [Memberships Start at $0.00](https://www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/#/portal/account/plans) ## MONTHLY LIVE EVENTS ### SOULCRAFT - AT THE PYTHIA / $8 LEVEL & UP Meets monthly at our Discord. Corra (free) and Yacumama ($2) members may join sessions with a $6 ticket each month as desired. These informal group conversations with Jaclyn are loosely focused on topics taken up in her monthly essays. She's happy to offer one-to-ones over at her platform as requested. | Exfoliate patriarchal socialization, soften old scars, reveal authentic self, loooove that embodied self. Capitalist, Male Gaze patriculture undermines and overcovers our be-ing. Jaclyn helps us unpack that, find the tools in the troubles, and set us standing in our own power and reality. Check out essays here under [the tag Soulcraft](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/soulcraft/). Learn more about Jaclyn's offerings at her website. [Self Love and Personal Empowerment Coach, Writer and SpeakerAuthor, Writer, Speaker and Coach Jaclyn Lanae guides clients and groups to personal growth, trauma healing, and personal empowerment through self love support tools and guidance.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-19.ico)Jaclyn Lanae![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_5767.JPG)](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ## QUARTERLY LIVE EVENTS ### READING CIRCLES FREE TO MEMEBERS (Yes, we check against our subscriber list.) EVENT INVITES and TICKET LINKS GO OUT IN MID-JULY. But, you know, start reading now. 🤓 **Men are invited, but women have the floor, and no one should interrupt or over-talk.** Used books in the US [Bookshop.org: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.A better way to buy books online. Every purchase financially supports local independent bookstores.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Bookshop.org![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/logo.881e4ae9-e41651bdd20a8d8b2c77fc9d6d401c755623f31e5fd9f46ee233637e6ec7249a.svg)](https://bookshop.org/?ref=medusarising.org) Used books in the UK [AbeBooks | Shop for Books, Art & CollectiblesDiscover a wonderful selection of rare and collectible books, used copies, signed and first editions and more, from booksellers located around the world.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)AbeBooks UK02 June, 2021](https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&pf=1&ai=DChsSEwj1uoeS-8KUAxXKTkcBHVTqJPYYACICCAEQABoCcXU&co=1&ase=2&gclid=CjwKCAjw8arQBhB9EiwAfIKdQsxY2HY3Z7G9echKuPsmFi%5F3xxfjxPQYXsX7%5FG5tji0oFqX0vc696hoC0bMQAvD%5FBwE&cid=CAASWuRoX3DtJE9krLfzdhxOZgQuHaoyonAkeQzP57Px%5Fe-hv2mZE7f627Y7Rh9ksXanuEmEynsVcpjhN%5FbN%5Fv3Q-zMXJ7Luez7XB6cQxUyqthzu9jY3vic%5FydhXdw&cce=2&category=acrcp%5Fv1%5F32&sig=AOD64%5F3BJqpBbxDEZDzYVQOkubVHBLiEFQ&q&nis=4&adurl=https://www.abebooks.co.uk/?ref%5F%3Dps%5Fggl%5F18379561167%26cm%5Fmmc%3Dggl-%5F-UK%5FShopp%5FnonISBNTrade-%5F-product%5Fid%3D-%5F-keyword%3D%26gad%5Fsource%3D1%26gad%5Fcampaignid%3D19891753659%26gbraid%3D0AAAAAD3Y6gtgWddlsGhJyigYvCORP35P-%26gclid%3DCjwKCAjw8arQBhB9EiwAfIKdQsxY2HY3Z7G9echKuPsmFi%5F3xxfjxPQYXsX7%5FG5tji0oFqX0vc696hoC0bMQAvD%5FBwE&ved=2ahUKEwjIp4CS-8KUAxXwKlkFHed%5FMEIQ0Qx6BAgNEAE&ref=medusarising.org) ### **Samhain – No Circle – May your days be hallowed & dissident.** We choose books for interest not holistic endorsements. We **discuss* these texts. Bring your questions raised, your enthusiasms yawped, your rabbit holes followed, and your wild connections made! ### **Imbolc-ish | 8 Feb 2027** [Carol Gilligan, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistances, & Democracy](https://www.cambridge.org/universitypress/subjects/philosophy/political-philosophy/deepening-darkness-patriarchy-resistance-and-democracys-future?ref=medusarising.org) > Why is America again unjustly at war? Why is its politics distorted by wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage? Why is anti-Semitism still so powerfully resurgent? Such contradictions within democracies arise from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our personal and political lives in tension with the equal voice that is the basis of democracy. This book joins a psychological approach with a political-theoretical one that traces both this psychology (based on loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals) to the Roman Republic and Empire and to three Latin masterpieces: Virgil's Aeneid, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and Augustine's Confessions. In addition, this book explains many other aspects of our present situation including why movements of ethical resistance are often accompanied by a freeing of sexuality and why we are witnessing an aggressive fundamentalism at home and abroad. **Conversations** ### **Beltane| 1 May 2027** [Elisha Daeva, Before War: On Marriage, Hierarchy, & Matriarchal Origins](https://www.abebooks.com/9798218267414/Before-Marriage-Hierarchy-Matriarchal-Origins/plp?ref=medusarising.org) > **The book *Before War* will change how its readers look at the world - by exposing the female roots of Western civilization.** It draws on the evidence from anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, primatology, and the shocking new genetics data, to tell the story of Western civilization. > For readers of *Sapiens* and *The Dawn of Everything*, this is about another way that our European ancestors lived, without violence, sexual shame, or social inequality. It's the story of a story that was buried and re-discovered again and again, and is once again being told, thanks to the new science of genetics. It's the story of the first rape, genocide and colonization in 3500 BCE, and of the peaceful, egalitarian people who lived before. It's about the most controversial academic debate of all time, which has raged for 250 years. It's a funny, sexy take on some heavy topics. > It's not about blaming men. It's about standing together against an institution that harms us all. > Are you interested in your Eurasian ancestors, in the truth about our ancient past, or in the origins of social inequality? Do you want practical solutions for how we can save the world, or how you can heal from harmful belief systems? It's time for a paradigm shift! **Conversations** ### Women's Lands | ReproControl | Money URL: https://www.medusarising.org/womens-lands-reproductive-autonomy-money/ Last updated: 2026-07-01T12:40:58.000Z Control of Your Material Base _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Editions URL: https://www.medusarising.org/editions/ Last updated: 2026-08-22T21:18:16.000Z We're evolving. For two years, Medusa Rising was one big all-purpose newsletter, and now we're multiplying our cells. When you sign-up, you may choose all or some of these editions in your subscription. [**World Building Women**](https://www.medusarising.org/) **@** is still our nucleus, full of radical materialist feminist theory and political analysis ... and the occasional exhortation to collaborative action. Creative work and other submissions also appear in this edition for now. They may get a spin-off one day. **Updates & Announcements** alert you to upcoming events, live sessions, book circle meetings, and any evolutions here at the project itself. With reminders as warranted. [**Soul Craft**](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/soul-craft/) **@** is what it says on the tin. Jaclyn Lanae is a feminist coach, author, and adventurer helping tune-in to our own harmonies and finding the power in our pleasures. She's the personal element of becoming matriarchal. Healthy balanced feminists make for a healthy balanced feminist movement. She hosts office hours and workshops in the Discord server where we can attune and release. **Matricor @ (coming soon)** is where you get Lila and Esmee working out a theory of our matriarchal future, the particular historical and imaginative errors of the patriarchal worldview, and some nuts and bolts policy in a radical matricultural feminist manner. ## Posts ### The Gorgon Posse on Political Lesbianism URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-gorgon-posse-on-political-lesbianism/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T05:33:39.000Z Sister Gorgon A'Ja returns to enter the chat with Esmee about the history and current implications of political lesbianism, the reception of the magnificent [Angela C Wilde's anthology *I Wish I Was A Lesbian*](https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/ebook-store/p/i-wish-i-was-a-lesbian-ebook-epub?ref=medusarising.org)*,* the limits of enculturation, and that funny way readers' reception often diverges from authors' intentions. We hoped we were not hearing what we have just recently heard: **You can become a lesbian. You can become a socialist. You can become all kinds of things. – Sheila Jeffries @* [**I Wish I Was A Lesbian on YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt8Y8kAYipw&ref=medusarising.org) ### **About A’Ja Lyons** She is a nature writer born and raised in Sunnyside, the oldest African-American community in southern Houston, Texas. She earned a Bachelor of Liberal Studies and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. A’Ja was a 2021 Best of the Net nominee. She received a writing residency fellowship at the Writers Colony of Dairy Hollow. A’Ja was the first intern at Tulsa’s Greenwood Rising History Center in a partnership with the National Humanities Center. [https://youtu.be/ILxwIdRGU9s](https://youtu.be/ILxwIdRGU9s?ref=medusarising.org) [She Holds The Line](https://n3vlynnn.com/she-holds-the-line/?ref=medusarising.org), edited by N3VLYNNN (2026). > Through vulnerable stories and sharp analysis, these women critique the political rhetoric of queer culture and share their vision of what true liberation and healing can look like for all of us. > The women featured in this book hail from all walks of life. We hear from detrans, lesbian, and bisexual women, women who are currently and formerly incarcerated, as well as artists, academics, mothers, and veterans. And she can heard in this episode on forced teaming at Zamba Rau's YouTube: --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere *you* are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** [Find Your Pack TeeAutonomous Collectivity is the way.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-12f47eab-476b-4fb9-9e71-a0a7ea56a821.png)Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMedusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/hd_5pX_Z35k-db9aefc9-715c-4832-b32b-5bef67ec756f.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/products/find-your-pack-tee?ref=medusarising.org) ### RadFems, Do You Want to Win the US Midterms? | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/radfem-midterms-1/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T16:13:27.000Z ![X post by PoliticsGirl noting that David Levin, election website hacker of yore, has been hired by the regime to oversee election security.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-23-172536.png) The one thing *some* Democrats get right is their **estimate of the stakes** in this era: the future course of our nation. Not in the nudgy, little incremental, lots of push back, not-really way we’re used to. It’s big swings or compliance. Authoritarians or republicans? Fascists or democrats? We cannot keep noodling along in the chasms of neoliberalism & empire and dealing with their avatars: radical gender identity ideology on one side and ICE agents on the other. It’s really **All Against the Fash or knuckle under**. I’m not convinced that, for all ****our recurrent separatist impulses**, we have a plan for bringing women through ****a generational fascist shift** alive and intact. Because those are the stakes. Loads of even tempered centrists will say this, so I don’t know why we should not recognize it and act accordingly. In the future when I’m telling stories to my women friends' daughters, I do not want those stories to be about how I curled up inside my life and my .org and waited for the Democrats to grow both courage and fortitude. I think we need a new, no kidding resistance, an underground, women who know the pass through the Pyrenees and what time of year the Ohio River is *just* low enough and where. But **this post is about what I hope we will not do instead of create a real, strategic, radical feminist network focused on two possible projects: survival and sabotage, or (if we get lucky this year and in two and four and six years).** On this topic, [you can catch me at TORCH with TWV in October](https://www.totalwomanvictory.com/torch2026?ref=medusarising.org). The history of feminist ideas and action is full of the strategies we need to not only beg to be heard but to take our place having real effects in the long climb out of this deeply white-supremacist, christo-fash-rape-culture (the puritanism of the old testament and saint Paul’s sharia law is fine by them), and economic corruption on a scale yet to be measured. But, for all our brilliant and often exiled work, we are discredited thanks to the twin effects of TRA propaganda and cancellations and the rightward drift of many “GC” feminist and women’s groups in spite of the obviously anti-woman and anti-feminist policies of the right internationally. Yet, all three of the major radical feminist organizations in the US are focused solely on liberal feminist projects: The ERA, not-the-ERA, defense of the word ‘woman’, sex realism in sport, intimate spaces, and prison. All essential work, all necessary because of the one-two punch of the anti-feminist, anti-woman movements among conservatives and progressives. It’s a sign of how far back women’s gains are pushed. And yet, not the only problem women are facing, even in carceral contexts. Some girls confined in Dilley \[Correction: and [San Benito](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DW2ATFQgH9c/?ref=medusarising.org)\] concentration camp need abortions too, [though this is no new problem](https://www.google.com/search?q=ICE+center+where+rape+is+suspected&sca%5Fesv=6773fdf2b6d43799&rlz=1C1HKFL%5FenUS1219US1219&sxsrf=APpeQnu3y2lg9ZjOYxkxUTyysp%5Fps-IVqA%3A1786107392025&ei=ANZ1atGNAaW6qtsPvt6zqAY&biw=1920&bih=945&ved=0ahUKEwjRjYfFyI6WAxUlnWoFHT7vDGUQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=ICE+center+where+rape+is+suspected&gs%5Flp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiIklDRSBjZW50ZXIgd2hlcmUgcmFwZSBpcyBzdXNwZWN0ZWRIqh9QhQZYuh5wAngBkAEAmAGoAaABpROqAQQwLjE4uAEDyAEA-AEBmAIFoAKXBMICChAAGEcY1gQYsAPCAhcQLhjcBhi4BhjaBhjYAhjIAxiwA9gBAcICBhAAGBYYHsICCxAAGIAEGIoFGIYDwgIFEAAY7wXCAggQABiJBRiiBMICCBAAGIAEGKIEmAMAiAYBkAYMugYECAEYGZIHAzEuNKAH-h6yBwMwLjS4B48EwgcDMi01yAcWgAgB&sclient=gws-wiz-serp&ref=medusarising.org). The narrow path I want to seek here has three characteristics: It addresses our social discreditation; It honors the need for single-issue advocacy organizations; It addresses the wider political moment, rife with threat to women from every quarter beyond Gender Identity Ideology (GII). The classic intersections of women’s oppressions are intensifying, especially for women of color who are also immigrants. This interview with a **31 year resident** of Florida of Haitian origin describes the trap these 360,000 people are in. Cut off from their jobs by the rescinding of their TPS status, **rendered illegal**. Bills still to pay. Children in terror. Many Haitians work in the care industries, so their deportation will harm our children, our sick, our elderly (most of whom are women) as there is no one to replace them. This is an issue of direct harm happening on the intersections of race, class, sex, and age. This shit, supported by 35% of our citizen neighbors, is our business. The A and B blocks of this *Runaway Country* episode are necessary viewing. ## **Mirror World Politics** So, there's two things that warp our politics right now: one is the radical trans rights movement, and the other is MAGA (and of course the insanity of our economy). They both have this sort of "mirror world" quality to them that Jane Clare Jones has written about on several occasions. They are both perverse reactions to the commodification of gender and the wealth-extraction machines of consumerist neoliberalism. Women and radical feminists are in, I think, the toughest political position we've been in for decades. Rights aren't abstract. **Rights secure access to material resources**: education, savings accounts, employment, the vote, housing, public services, health care. These resources are under threat and being dismantled at breathtaking speeds by the fascist regime and their cronies. Try being a feminist (or just a woman) in a ****generationally secure christofascist, authoritarian, economically shattered, and geopolitically failing imperial nation.** We are not prepared for this. We should be. That preparation can enable far more effective networking and political action should we get lucky. It would be a shame to waste this chance to tack. The Dems have stopped talking about “the most vulnerable” demographic. That’s a good sign that, while not reaching for actual courage, they are registering the political temperature more clearly. We can use that. I’m going to say this a few times for a few different reasons, but the Trump team ran 55,000 anti-trans tv ads in 2024\. Fifty-five *thousand*. And it worked. ## **The Destruction of Progressive Projects** That ad campaign got votes, but the real project for patriarchy 2.0 (MAGA) is to **dismantle everything that the (moderately populist/socialist) New Deal and the Great Society created**: the education system, unemployment assistance, social security, Medicare the university system, civil rights, the two big progressive projects of the 20th century, have finally been destroyed by the enemies they've had all along: white rich men and their fan girls. The **Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has succeeded**. SCOTUS and Congressional Republicans, the Fourth Estate, and most regular people are cowed by both the tyrant administration and its citizen mobs. So. We're not in a position that feminism is familiar with. The state some of us wanted to see dismantled for being a mechanism of male supremacy has been trimmed of all its biophilic and pro-social elements and is leaning into its violence, its glee at suffering. **The US is not having a constitutional crisis. We're have scores of them. The US is having an existential crisis. The US is at the moment of a new founding**. *The right knows it*. Some Dems and Socialist Democrats know it too. We should know it, we should grab onto it. I know that working with the left has a long, sad, hostile history. I’m not new. I don’t mean working with them *expecting* to get our issues addressed. Not yet. Remember, we have no credit with them anyway. Remember, the fash think we’re ****underbabied**. They have a **plan* for that. Remember, teen girls trapped in the Dilley \[Correction: **AND* San Benito\] are pregnant and being mistreated ([and possibly trafficked](https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/inside-dilley-ice-camp-alleged-blue-butterfly-zones-keep-young-girls-isolated-for-unknown-reasons/ar-AA1WUjsy?ref=medusarising.org)) right now. For the next while, I feel we should give more attention to these wider issues and to the refounding project this country must undertake. Building a state with stronger moral commitments to rights for people, more secure liberties, and a realistic approach to economics and geopolitics—goes far beyond what the previous iterations ever achieved. Some of us are reaching across the aisle *but* only on the one issue and only in one direction. If you’re a single issue organization, by mission or by long-term focus, that’s your job. But is that how we should vote? All three of the major radfem US organizations have encouraged single-issue voting in three recent election cycles thanks to two things: the weaponization of GII issues by both left and right, and by a tactical decision to carefully hew away from issues than could tag them as aligned with one party or the other. And, as the landscape stands now: MAGA/GOP full-throatedly stand against reproductive autonomy for women and for a clear definition of ‘woman’ in law; while the Democrats mostly stand for reproductive rights for women and at their bravest just don’t talk about GII and trans rights anymore. That is a small shift in our favor on GII that could become a bigger shift on female reproductive sovereignty. And certainly, we should work to the left on the many other issues that directly impact women’s rights and liberties? At least to discuss them and maybe showcase organizations doing good work on them? Even if the bid for credit is purely tactical, it would bear more fruit for us is my bet. Again, my goal here is credit. It’s most securely earned with sincerity. Because the *issues* aren’t partisan. Partisans take positions *by party*. None of us have to do that. Heck, my objections to MAGA and current fascists in power isn’t partisan, it’s moral. This shit is evil, brutal, greedy, rapacious (literally), devastating to both human lives and the fabric of the republic. **The future this Dark North Star leads to is the whole opposite of women’s liberation**. ### Conscious Uncoupling The pressures and uncanniness are intense. So, some radical feminists are moving toward a greater separatism. I feel it. Why keep participating in … THIS? Well. There are reasons to. Most of the work radfem groups currently do is classically liberal in scope. We keep proposing Equal Rights for All acts and writing SCOTUS briefs, supporting the ERA and proposing questions for candidates. **We are not currently Mary Daly’s 'Wyrd Women,' creating our own values and culture** **in the Fourth Spiral Galaxy**. The backlash has so completely succeeded in undermining feminist generational work that many of us are working with radical theory, but doing liberal work. This project included. So, what does a smart political movement do when it can’t move forward and it has nowhere to run? It can try to run anyway, or it can **subvert that bad hegemony**. When the anti-abortion activists were on the political outside, they made friends. They put chapters on campuses that didn’t obviously have anything to do with abortion and they hung out and befriended new people. And over time, brought them into the cause. They had pizza night and worked on community projects and … *talked*. They gave time to do other kinds of work to make their work possible between the lines. You feel me? They didn’t compromise their values, but they did engage, and engage, and engage. \[I am aware most college campuses are closed to us. Those are not the only possible spaces in which to engage. Creativity is the best skill of the rebel as much as the criminal.\] ## **The Fractures, Again** The anti-reproductive health care set held to their convictions, but didn’t separate themselves from the wider national political project. \[Yes, they had a welcoming home in a political party.\] They made friends, and they subverted feminist efforts. They built ‘[crisis pregnancy centers](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9189146/?ref=medusarising.org)’ that diverted (especially) young and economically insecure women away from abortion services. They used all the tactics: misleading marketing, false claims of expertise (as health professionals), coercion and stigma (guilt tripping), private data collection and surveillance, and fraudulent allocation of public funds. And now, Goddess in Earth!, they’re fully tax payer funded by the Trump MAGA regime. So, I understand the exhausted frustration leading to a narrowing of scope and desire to withdraw. You can become a lesbian. You can become a socialist. You can become all kinds of things. – Sheila Jeffries @ [I Wish I Was A Lesbian on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt8Y8kAYipw&ref=medusarising.org) Recently this separatist impulse is pushing toward a ‘new’ political lesbianism (PL). Here, I want to say to Angela C Wild: I am so [proud of you for editing this book](https://www.book2look.com/book/7nNEKk3VJx?ref=medusarising.org). A book is a very hard thing to create, and an anthology of really smart feminist writers—so many with deep history in the movement and huge personalities—is a really difficult thing to pull off. So, BRAVA to You!!! I’m delighted for this book because I think this question about ‘institutional heterosexuality’ and a ‘dissident lesbianism’ comes up just about every time feminists cannot afford to lose allies or solidarity. I do *not* think that limiting allies or splitting solidarities are the goals of the women in the anthology. I think this is an impulse in the historical flows that, like a kind of riptide, arrives when the conditions are right. And, they are Right. | Recent Discussions[Edition 123: Political Lesbianism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vswUgaiWrnA&ref=medusarising.org)[Political Lesbianism, published by Onlywomen Press discussed by Anna Prats and Sheila Jeffreys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrov9It3w-Y&t=4s&ref=medusarising.org)[I Wish I Was a Lesbian - THE BOOK! - Interview with Editor Angela C. Wild](https://youtu.be/pTDd87vvUHc?si=nQqJAO1TCBXrlVyI&ref=medusarising.org) | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | I sense a challenge for us in some of the theses argued or implied in this book. I'm concerned about it only because it's been so enthusiastically adopted by a couple of major US American feminist organizations and we’re in a kind of political straits here that leaves no room for navigational error. **It’s win or live in Stephen Miller’s whitest, happiest, and most violent dream world**. [I Wish I Was a Lesbian: Women’s Lives Beyond Heterosexuality | Feminist Essays — Spinifex PressWhat if heterosexuality isn’t innate, but socially enforced? I Wish I Was a Lesbian by Angela C Wild brings together lesbian feminists, political lesbians and women rejecting compulsory heterosexuality. Through essays, memoir, theory and art, this bold anthology challenges “born-that-way” narratives![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-6e798902-5308-4402-9987-4a245002541d.ico)Spinifex Press![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/9781922964304-99e03484-a989-48e0-a1dd-790bf5778af2.jpg)](https://www.spinifexpress.com.au/shop/p/9781922964304?ref=medusarising.org) I am concerned that we did this before and it led to fracturing a movement that was stronger then but became easier to overpower, to discredit. For all the cautions and caveats some authors lean on — this isn’t the old PL, it's the new PL and it's more relaxed and gentle because most women really are lesbians once given enough liberty to be genuine — living people are notoriously bad at heeding the subtleties of cultural political analysis. But, this is not the old PL that became a hardened identity politics, "pure," more hard-edged, more militant, more **disciplined** form of radical feminism that completely rejected association with men. This new position effectively gatekeeps 'regular' radfems: if you associate with men—whether married, working alongside them, or simply existing in a male-dominated public sphere—you cannot be a 'real' radfem. I’m mocking the rigidity of this position because it is politically untenable. We can’t afford more fractures. We live in extremely identitarian times. Both the violent TRA men and the violent MAGA men are committed to extremely identitarian projects. ****But sex is not politics. Sexuality can be neither institutional nor dissident. Sex is biology, right? Sexuality is biology. We are our bodies, right?** If becoming lesbian is just a choice like any other political choice, why make it now? Why make that free choice right when patriarchy would love us further split and weaker? People who are not used to organizing their work, friendships, or romantic and sexual lives under the influence of nuanced political analysis tend to fall into identity politics, making special claims of superiority or victimhood (usually both). They often slip into making claims to be the true heart of a movement. In the claims that most women are ‘really’ lesbians once given the liberty to find their own way hides the stigma that any woman who hasn’t declared for the lesbian party is living in false consciousness or is a traitor and should not be trusted in either case. Or, just ‘not a real feminist’. Like, OK. Will we arrive here again? We can hope not. But I live in a country where hope is not cutting it anymore. ## Are We Materialists or Not? **We mustn't make our bodies and our desires into political identities**. That’s what TRAs do. Heterosexuality is a biological reproductive function (nature). It becomes an a norm, when **disciplined** (socially/violently enforced) as an element of patriarchy (social order). #### *A bit of historical materialism* When Adrienne Rich was growing up in the US, lesbians could legally be committed to psychiatric hospitals, lobotomized, or imprisoned. She chose the word COMPULSORY to describe an attitude about heterosexuality on purpose. **Closeting inside a dual-sex marriage to avoid state torture isn't a sexuality. It's painful compliance**. Rich herself offered clues to rethinking her famous essay when she republished it in the *Journal of Women's History* in 2003: > There has recently been an intensified debate on female sexuality among feminists and lesbians, with lines often furiously and bitterly drawn, with sadomasochism and pornography as key words which are variously defined according to who is talking. The depth of women’s rage and fear regarding sexuality and its relation to power and pain is real, even when the dialogue sounds simplistic, self-righteous, or like parallel monologues. > Because of all these developments, there are parts of this essay that I would word differently, qualify, or expand if I were writing it today. But I continue to think that heterosexual feminists will draw political strength for change from taking a critical stance toward the ideology which demands heterosexuality, and that lesbians cannot assume that we are untouched by that ideology and the institutions founded upon it. What else was going on in 2003? Oh, yes, the shift from Women's Studies to Gender Studies and the many new genders and sexualities that came with the Sex Positivity. I have always found it refreshing when a theorist revisists their younger self's work with new eyes and changed experience. We might note – as I often do in another context – that an adjective placed before a noun does not only serve to define the noun, but can indicate *a type* of that noun. "Honey badger." "Lesser flamingo." "Rotten fruit." "Anti-social behavior." "Toxic masculinity." "Compulsory heterosexuality." This subtly of the English language is one reason that feminists shifted to using the term "heteronormativity" to describe the complex of attitudes, practices, traditions, and laws that make up our cultural biases. Heteronormativity is an element of gender normativity, and one that most feminists today loudly critique and roundly reject. This is exactly what Rich wanted her sister hetero feminists to do in our analysis of the patriarchal world and its literatures. #### *Back to the sexual materialism* The reproductive function can be separated from love, attachment, or care. Everything about patriarchal reversals of sexuality demonstrates that. Hetero*normativity*, however, is a cultural layer on top of the biology of reproduction just like gender is a cultural layer on top of the biology of maleness and femaleness. And even that isn’t an institution. The sexual norm is part of the gendered norms which are the building blocks of identities, and **bodies don’t have identities**. Right? Gender isn’t an *institution*, it’s a collection of socially enforced stereotypes. Right? Bodies have attractions and affections. When we talk about hetero*sexuality* as a political institution (like the parliamentary system?) against which lesbianism is dissident (like punks against neoliberal austerities?), we are setting up a conflict between kinds of women. (We are also trimming quite close to the ‘dissident sexualities’ and ‘dissident genders’ discourse of much academic Gender Studies.) It’s *the NORM*, not the sex, that *is the problem*. The norm is made of two factors: all the cultural pressure to conform to not only heterosexual pair bonding in a (let’s face it) pretty puritan and limited set of modal expressions, AND sheer numbers. There are more human heterosexuals because evolution tends to favor successful reproduction strategies to get more evolution. In all mammal species that is heterosexual reproduction, whether that’s a momentary or life-long pairing. That animal arrangement has nothing *necessary* to do with the narrow and violent sexual expressions of patriarchy. Liberating women (and men) from this **narrow and violent normativity at the root of patriarchy**, is not a matter of creating a new political position – it is a matter of being **very welcoming and celebratory of all healthy non-reproductive human sexuality, affection, attachment, and friendship**. The trick is to get **beyond these disciplines** of the body. That’s **where the liberation is**. That animal arrangement has characteristics that patriarchy *deforms* to its political advantage. But let’s not confuse the nefarious creativity of people committed to a project of violent domination with the mechanics of evolutionary endurance. The second concern I have is one that A’Ja Lyons and I share for different reasons. I'm afraid for the experience—the embodied, romantic, sexual, platonic, cultural lineage–of being a lesbian could simply become another political position that *any* woman can stand in, can even appropriate. **Political positions are inherently controversial, contested, and combative**. Politics is combat by other means in patriarchy. I don't want the embodied experience of being-lesbian to become just another site of identity. I don’t want that in the very same way that I’m furious that ‘woman’ has been made just another site of identity. What even would be the difference between “political lesbianism” and just "queerness"? They’re both identities, mostly about ideology and style choices, but not ways of being human animals. The harm, after all, happens in the body. We can’t walk away from the truths of our bodies. We can walk away from a politics in a heartbeat. --- *Next up, a new Gorgon Posse podcast with A'Ja on this very topic, on* [*YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/@MedusaRisingOrg/videos?ref=medusarising.org) *and* [*Podbean*](https://gorgonposse.podbean.com/?ref=medusarising.org)*. Then, part two of this analysis of the dangers of risking further fracture within US or other national feminism in this firmly identitarian and increasingly fascist political moment in the WEIRD countries.* --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere *you* are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### To know thyself, know thy pleasure URL: https://www.medusarising.org/to-know-thyself-know-thy-pleasure/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T01:25:20.000Z Often, when people find out that I am a coach who supports people in connecting to their authenticity through pleasure, I’m met with blank stares and blushing cheeks. Many assume, I assume, that I’m talking about erotic pleasure. Sexual pleasure. Romantic pleasure. And often I perceive a sense of relief flash through their eyes when I clarify that I’m talking about the pleasure of life. Of being. Because, *oh what terrors might be wrought from valuing our sexual pleasure!* ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/08/MR-August-Essay---8_21_26--10.35---AM_thumb.png) To know thyself, know thy pleasure | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /362.658 1× It’s troubling, if you think about it for very long, that our collective reaction to the idea of prioritizing pleasure is shame. Even if it was sexual, nothing about delighting in our bodies should be shamed. Liberation is the world where our feelings about pleasure and sexual delight are … chill, easy, anything but transgressive. The point is, disconnecting and shaming us for our pleasure has been a fantastic tool in patriarchy’s quest for dominion. If we are perpetually dissatisfied, we are far more likely to be sick - and buy pharmaceuticals to assuage our symptoms. We are far more likely to see ourselves as insufficient - and buy stuff to make ourselves ‘better’, or just make ourselves feel better. “Optimization” can easily become just another form of body-denial, of idealism. We are far more likely to tolerate predatory and unjust behavior – from influencers, industrial medicine, and from men — because we aren’t convinced of our own worth. And, perhaps most alarming of all, when we are utterly disconnected from our pleasure, we are disconnected from *who we really are*. We are moldable. We are manipulable. We are controllable. We will more likely accept white and smooth: in our cars, in our kitchens, in our workspaces, in our lives… because we’ve forgotten how much we love yellow and fuzzy. Or red and spikey. Or purple and bubbly. > If we don’t know who we are, who we are can be dictated to us. There is a scene in one of Julia Roberts’ most famous movies, *Runaway Bride*, in which Ike (Richard Gere) asks Maggie (Roberts) how she likes her eggs. She, of course, doesn’t actually know because she’s always eaten her eggs the way whichever boyfriend she was with at the time ate his eggs. When money-and-power-grabbing entities disconnect us from our pleasure and, therefore, our identity, they also seed confusion in us. We are conditioned to ignore the physiological “no” and go along with whatever is being fed to us, sold to us, or pushed on us. **We are conditioned to forget that aligned choices feel good**. They feel right, no matter the outcome, because they were the right choices (and lessons) for us. That incredible sense of openness and buoyancy that floods over you when you make a decision and you just know it was the absolute best decision you could have made in support of who you really are and want to be… that’s alignment. The feeling that your whole body is relaxing, that your heart is expanding… that’s alignment. That experience of peace, the sense that you have more space for care, and empathy, and generosity, and compassion (because you trusted your decision and took care of yourself)… that’s alignment. It’s also oxytocin. Long touted as the “love” hormone, oxytocin is so much more than the hormone that stimulates bonding and connection. It’s also the most restorative, regenerative, and immune-boosting hormone; it is linked to [lower blood pressure](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15740822/?ref=medusarising.org) and [pain reduction](https://hhp.ufl.edu/cuddle-hormone-oxytocin-may-provide-pain-relief-and-help-curb-harmful-opioid-use/?ref=medusarising.org); it’s even been shown to affect positive changes in [women’s reproductive health and bodies](https://www.issm.info/publications/research-summaries/the-effect-of-oxytocin-gel-on-vaginal-atrophy-in-postmenopausal-women?ref=medusarising.org). What’s more, oxytocin also functions as a *neurotransmitter* and helps to [regulate various other hormones](https://www.bodylogicmd.com/blog/how-to-increase-oxytocin/?ref=medusarising.org) in the body - meaning that it can help to create hormonal balance in our bodies, naturally. One of those other hormones it helps to regulate: **cortisol**. In fact, according to Dr. Anna Cabeca in her blog, [*The Girlfriend Doctor*](https://youtu.be/quiyjcYBefY?si=dQogzm-XwXNGXBos&ref=medusarising.org), oxytocin and cortisol work like a lever: increased oxytocin suppresses cortisol and increased cortisol suppresses oxytocin. When you support your body in producing oxytocin, you support your body in experiencing more ease, more trust, less pain, and a million other wonderful benefits, and that supports you in re-connecting to your pleasure - sexually and otherwise. Which, in turn, supports you in understanding and *connecting with who you really are*. That fundamental self-awareness (and hopefully, self-love) can help guide our choices. It can help us quickly and easily discern: “Does this choice align with who I am and want to be?” Profoundly knowing ourselves protects us from the aforementioned threats leveled at us by societal pressures, but it also empowers us to become the creators of our lives. The architects. The Goddesses and Gods. On a metaphorical level, liberation feels aligned: open, energetic, bright, joyful, exciting, certain, and easy. Faking - or numbing out - feels tight, tense, shadowed. Obviously, then, understanding who we are is essential to our collective liberation from the capitalist machine. And, in order to profoundly know who we are, we have to re-connect to our pleasure. We have to know without a doubt how we like our eggs and then get them that way Not incidentally, I will be offering a workshop on connecting to embodiment (and identity) through pleasure in the Medusa Rising Discord server, should you be interested in honing in on your self love with oxytocin boosting techniques and other tools. Members may register here: --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at [https://jaclynlanae.substack.com](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/?ref=medusarising.org)/ or connect at [AuthorJaclynLanae.com](https://authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org). ### Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere *you* are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Announcing New Newsletter URL: https://www.medusarising.org/announcing-new-newsletter/ Last updated: 2026-08-18T11:54:58.000Z ### Sisters, Cousins, Dissidents, Please note a new sender address from us: **Soul Craft (medusa-rising@ghost.io)**. Jaclyn's series is becoming a kind of column, a regular, its own department. We're expecting a few more series to pick up and take on their own newsletters over the next months. Erin may be back with her *Key Ideas*, and Victoria may develop a podcast series we're playing with calling *Heretical*; and a new Gorgon, Lila, may have space to give us matriarchy-making newsletter. All the while, the OG Medusa Rising will still focus on radmatfem theory and political analysis and offer [the range of media we are always open to publishing](https://www.medusarising.org/call-for-contributions/). **You don't need to change anything** about your subscription to receive them, but you can change your preferences at your profile as you will. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/08/Chalk-Line-Divider--1-.png) **The first ever TORCH conference is happening in Worcester, MA on October 9-11\. Esmée will be delighted to see you there & fangirl the fuck out of your brilliance!** She'll be presenting on a scheme she's calling a "Federated Feminist Sodality" and its *potenica* for a buzzing radfem net-of-work. It's tech stack and protocol or corporation-free data sovereignty, collaboration, issue/project based solidarity, and building radical feminist economic flows. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/08/HP2G82uWAAAwdok.jpg)](https://totalwomanvictory.com/torch2026?ref=medusarising.org) [totalwomanvictory.com/torch2026](https://totalwomanvictory.com/torch2026?ref=medusarising.org) --- [Dethrone Kingdom TeeWhy stop at ‘no kings’? Let’s get NO KINGDOMS.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-c87b0d64-f5c7-4bcf-8c95-675b25f4ff6a.png)Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMedusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/m3DjK4pdBJY-3b378a87-b691-47d6-bd1f-f2504c5cedae.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/products/dethrone-kingdom-tee?ref=medusarising.org) [At Fourthwall](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ****Do postmodern magic!** We are our only algorithm! More connection. More change. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere *you* are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### LGBCC x Gorgon Posse URL: https://www.medusarising.org/lgbcc-x-gorgon-posse/ Last updated: 2026-08-13T05:33:11.000Z Lauren is such a relaxed and confident guest that I quickly saw she would be comfortable no matter the direction we took. Her concern for gay, gender nonconforming, and neurodivergent children falling into the gender identity gravity well is right on the surface, focused, unapologetic. Her hope and grief for the wholeness of lesbian women, the return of lesbian community is equally palpable in this conversation. I am always honored to witness another's reality and sense of commitment. LGB Courage Coalition is grassroots and effective. You can [donate to their work](https://www.lgbcouragecoalition.org/donate/?ref=medusarising.org) protecting children from the gender and transition industries at their website. About Lauren > As Co-Executive Director for the LGB Courage Coalition, Lauren is pivotal in mobilizing volunteers and orchestrating powerful direct actions. Much of her vital work occurs behind the scenes, ensuring the safety and effectiveness of volunteers’ efforts for maximum impact. The LGB Courage Coalition is a U.S.-based registered non-profit, passionately committed to reforming culture and medicine to embrace and support gender non-conformity without any medical intervention. > Lauren leverages her platform as a voice in the conversation, having been interviewed on and leading podcasts that delve into the complexities of medical transitions and their specific harms to the lesbian and gay community. Her strategic actions have made a significant impact, notably directing protests at the 2024 Endocrine Society Conference in Boston, MA, and the 2024 American Academy of Pediatrics Conference in Orlando, Florida. She also led a crucial action at the U.S. Supreme Court during the US v Skrmetti hearing in December 2024. ## Resources for Parents and GNC Children and Teens ### [Resilience Health Network](https://resiliencehealth.network/?ref=medusarising.org) *We connect detrans individuals with medical and allied health professionals who can provide medical care. We provide educational resources related to these long-term problems arising after interventions.* ### [Therapy First](https://www.therapyfirst.org/?ref=medusarising.org) *Find a therapist in your area. Meeting the needs of gender dysphoric youth is one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing the mental health field today. Therapy First’s mission is to raise the quality of care accessible to this population and to drive systemic improvements in the mental health field necessary to meet their needs.* ## Political Notes It's a complicated one, ya?, so admiring most work without qualification is difficult. This is partly down to Medusa Rising's own stance and commitments: *which are now that all women and all progressives are under live threat by the regime* and its brain trust in the Heritage Foundation and other far right groups. This is our context now. We're all compromising with it until we overthrow it. About minute 4 begins an argument that slips from women having pets instead of kids to a culture that worships animals on down the slope to culture that worships animals and sacrifices people. Yes, feminism is the new Satanic Panic. Turning Point's Women's Leadership Conference 2026\. Also, don't be a nag. Obedience is freedom. &c. Here's the political deal in the US right now. About 70% of us are more radically left than the Democratic party (*on everything except gender identity issues*) and about 30% of us are more radically right than the former GOP (*on everything including gender identity issues – you feel me?*). So I understand the frustration with the Democrats coming from LGBCC, WoLF, and WDI-USA. Plus, pressures coming from money and interest groups make the truth about either fascism or gender identity ideology and the harms both are doing nearly impossible to tell and stay in office to the solve the problem one ran to solve. These systems have everyone cowed and cooperating and regretting it. Women are dying of pregnancy complications because abortion is evil. Children are being denied their full and robust lives because some men have issues with their self-concept. Single issue and non-partisan advocates have a hard road these days because feminists' natural political alliances (weak though they were) have been shattered by the twin pressures trans activist capture of the left & now front-facing white-nationalist, christo-fascist authoritarianism of the right. So, we end up writing these reminders and caveats even when talking with organizations whose goals we deeply admire. Children should grow up whole into whomever their adventure in this human life brings them to be. Lesbians and Gay Men should exist whole and in their deepest joy. And women should be alive and free live fully articulated lives, and if they choose to raise their children without fear of permanent medicalization, psychological disruption, or fear of deportation ... & so on and ... Medusa Rising grieves this moment when support for women's liberation is so conditional on acceptance of terms that re-subjugate us to a regime of gender that permits and even celebrates the ongoing atrocities of femicide. ****Single Issue Orgs & Single Issue Voters** Single issue grassroots organizations are a absolutely necessary. We need experts, dedication, and implacable clarity to make any ground on any issue of harm. The systems are just so stuck, and so mis-originated, and so damaging that no demographic can afford to be without dedicated champions. But KMN, if a single issue voter should be a thing. Single issue voting is flattening in kind of the same way that pretending 'woman' is an identity is flattenting. Serious political agents do not operate in an 'all things being equal' mentality when none of the things are remotely equal. The christofash have a 250 year plan for returning the US to the grace of god's kingdom, and they will bundle all of us degenerates into the same fires along the way. The one thing we should all understand like a cold bolt of lead in our bone marrow is that these people are playing for keeps. [Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years](https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/saving-america-saving-the-family-foundation-the-next-250-years?ref=medusarising.org) --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- [Regeneration Tour TeeShe is the OG rock star![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-f8ffe7bd-b39f-4e66-aa47-90f867ee80eb.png)Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMedusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/kZWD_RkHrzc-b60c2f8b-a8c6-4226-892f-8208ff708b18.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/products/regeneration-tour-tee?ref=medusarising.org) Goddess icon dates on the back --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere *you* are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Final Girl | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/final-girl-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-08-06T05:33:31.000Z Final Girl, by Beatrix Kondo | read by Esmée 0:00 /109.139625 1× They call it survival like you won something. Like the knife in your hand erases the ones that went into your friends. Like standing at the end means you earned it— not that you were simply the last one left to kill. The final girl doesn't get to be soft. She gets to be useful: a lesson in what happens when you fight back correctly, scream at the right volume, run fast enough, prove you deserve to live by becoming the thing that was hunting you. They love a survivor who's learned how to be a weapon. They love the girl who killed the monster and came back grateful, quieter, willing to explain how she should have been more careful, shouldn't have gone upstairs, shouldn't have trusted, shouldn't have existed in a body someone wanted to break. But survival is not a virtue. Living is not proof you earned it. The final girl is not the strongest— she's the one the narrative decided to keep breathing so someone could ask her later what she did wrong. You want a final girl? Here she is: blood-soaked, exhausted, done explaining, done performing gratitude for being allowed to survive what should never have hunted her in the first place. The movie ends. She keeps the knife. --- I'm **Beatrix Kondo** and I evolved like a Digimon: from level 1 translator to final boss of a 30+ year quest dismantling plot holes and gender issues in pop culture. I write about K-dramas, anime, and everything Asia produces (the good and the questionable) for international outlets. My specialty? Ruining happy endings by pointing out red flags and finding feminism in dungeons where patriarchy thought it was safe. Spoiler alert: criticism without context is just a rage tweet with a degree. --- ****Gift Subscriptions give two times**, to your sister traveller and to us. Choose a tier, first months always free. [****Click here**](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/gift). Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Resilience Kit for Teen Boys URL: https://www.medusarising.org/resilience-kit-for-teen-boys/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T12:08:55.000Z A plea: if you have more or better (preferably free) resources for boys or girls, please share them [at this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3yC8gHZRa-UkDRMrPbIIyUEeGaFfCIfFsxN6c76SurfqMwg/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org). MR will happily add them to these resource posts. ## **What These Resources Do** These resources are focused on two processes: 1. Teen boys growing into their unique adulthoods and best lives 2. Becoming boys/men who women want to befriend or love Grown ups are people who handle their own shit as best they can. From their education, to the dishes, to their career, to their health, to their laundry, to their physical and emotional hygiene, to the hygiene and educational support of their kids, to the stability and safe feeling of their partners. If you are a man reading this, notice the gender neutral language. People who master these life skills make excellent siblings, partners, parents, and friends. Generation after generation, most of us figure out how to do this, and our boys can too. So, because the world is also full of unhealed and very messy bullshit artists, Medusa Rising has prepared a sample of resources to help us help our boys find their way into manhood with their whole self intact and capable of being a fun time, a good citizen, and a sought after romantic partner. Manly Manliness has always been very hard on most men because most men don’t get to be king, big boss, CEO, or billionaire. And settling for pimp and maxxed bro is no substitute for a fully alive life. This, after all, is what liberation is all about. History is way, way weirder than we’ve been taught. [Deep time is especially wild](https://youtu.be/UR-EN0YIBIg?si=AOEhyeMbduwKDC7W&ref=medusarising.org). It has lessons for that liberation. I wrote the [Resilience Kit for Teen Girls](https://www.medusarising.org/resiliance-kit-for-teen-girls/) *to* girls because, let’s face it, there’s a chance some teens are actually reading this site. But teen boys? Less likely. So *this kit is written for parents*, and mostly for feminist mothers. As feminist mothers, one of our most critical roles is equipping our sons to see through the lies they are being sold. Our shared responsibility is to raise sons who do not just occupy space in the world, but who actively contribute to a more equitable one as partners, friends, and citizens. Media in the US creates a new panic every decade: the marijuana panic, the satanic panic, the attachment panic, the hook-up panic , and now the crisis among boys and men. That panic or crisis is almost never the issue that most needs to be fixed (affordability, dignity in work, agency over our lives). But it will always be a crisis/panic that many companies and now influencers can make lots and lots of money from you to solve for you. They have done this in ways subtle or gross to girls and women for decades and we are getting wise, so they are turning on men and boys. Let us assure our boys that the world still works for them, still respects them, still wants the very best for them and from them. In fact, 60% of CEOs are men, men still earn more than women, and political power is overwhelmingly in the hands of men in the US. Is being a well-rounded adult with skills who is fun to know a lot to take on? Yes. It is for women, too. But it is the work of being a human being. And the world at large is not trying to stop you. Very rich people are sucking up all the money, land, real estate, and health care in the world. That is making a comfortable peaceful life very difficult for all of us. Again, the media and now influencers (who are the devil) are very practiced at saying that any man’s difficulty is every woman’s fault. Believing that makes a boy or man very easy to manipulate. The default story used to manipulate our boys is that “masculinity is in crisis” a story that really gains steam after The Seven Years War. That’s right, the Enlightenment and the masculinity crisis are co-evolving. There has been a very slight demographic change among mostly upper-middle class, urban, professional women. Some of us are choosing to live in peace rather than with a man who brings a mess into our lives. Three things here: it’s not a big number, it’s a panic (to do with profit margins); and being in a peaceful life is super healthy, being in a peaceful relationship is super-duper healthy and fun, and our sons have some choices about whether they bring a mess into anyone’s life. Many men bring their mess to women they claim to love, even believe they love. They don’t bring it to work. They don’t bring it to their boss. They don’t bring it to their friends. Only to the woman. This is how we know that a man is making a choice about where to put his mess, even his neglect, and sometimes violence. That choice is something he have total control over. Obviously, many parents did not serve their sons well by letting them become such men. Still, those messy men can seek real advice on how to address their frustrations in life, or process their emotions, or become more generous without fear and without making all that some woman’s ‘job.’ Matriarchal Studies scholars and many indigenous American peoples know that modern masculinity is an aberration. It’s a dysfunctional practice of manhood that keeps “lesser” men in service to other men. More than one culture in **prehistory and in contemporary history had no word for rape**, for soul murder (includes the destruction of children in abuse, or any action that destroys the will of another person). **This means that domination is not an essential feature of manhood**. We know all too well why women are pulling back. We have seen the patterns of entitlement and the refusal to develop basic emotional accountability. Our goal is to break that cycle. We must teach our sons that their humanity is not defined by the approval of 'bad men' or by the domination of women. The reality of male privilege is a tool they must learn to dismantle, not a status to defend. By prioritizing their emotional intelligence, we are not only supporting their growth into whole human beings but also prioritizing the safety and dignity of the women who will be in their lives. The research, such as Lucia F. O'Sullivan and Scott T. Ronis's study ["Isolate, Inebriate, Intimidate, Repeat" in the *Journal of Interpersonal Violence*](https://pure.qub.ac.uk/files/682025286/isoooooooo.pdf?ref=medusarising.org), underscores the urgency of this work: we are raising the men who will either perpetuate these dangers or help end them. **But, I’m warning us mothers, aunties, fathers, uncles, there is A LOT of work to do.** ## **You Get What You Praise** But you ALSO get what others praise. Make a little show of correcting – dad’s this is for you to do with men – friends, other parents around your children. You know gently, but let your kid know that you’re not slipping and not easily letting others slip either. You’re supporting them in their pro-social maturation AND showing them that you have their back in a world that does not. ### **Spot Manosphere Bullshit** Lots of strangers on the internet want to teach boys how to be a man so they can take their money and use it for themselves. Men, “the rational sex,” are being encouraged to resent others – especially women, but anyone – rather than to get better at being themselves and running their own paths in life. Men and boys are being manipulated and kept weak and stupid so other men can make money off of them. Sound familiar? [So. Start With The Teen Not The Tech.](https://www.pivotal.com/articles/start-with-the-teen-not-the-tech?ref=medusarising.org) ### ***Interventions*** *How Dads Can Raise Healthy, Resilient Sons: Lessons From Our Work with Boys and Young Men* By Brian O’Connor, V.P. Public Education, **Futures Without Violence – FWV** recognizes that most harm to women is interpersonal and done by the men in our lives. They do this without blame, without anger and with education about women’s life conditions and strategies for not becoming an abuser. The blog linked here has lots of parenting resources, most of them focused on fathers. [How Dads Can Raise Healthy, Resilient Sons - Futures Without Violence NewBeing a young man and boy today is hard. From mental health challenges to online safety to figuring out what it means to be a man, our sons are dealing with a lot. They need role models and people who will listen to them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-Futures-Favicon-152px-270x270-c5542a5e-427e-4d8c-a90f-4336c2575c58.png)Futures Without Violence New![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Website-Edits-5-e7458c15-6bb5-475e-96f9-4ca97c34557f.png)](https://futureswithoutviolence.org/news/how-to-raise-resilient-boys/?ref=medusarising.org) Also see this XY collection on raising feminist sons. XY is the massive archive, blog, resourcing site run by Dr Michael Flood ("[The Man Box](https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2019-06/Flood?ref=medusarising.org)") about whom all I can say is that He Is Just Excellent. If there is a man on the side of women, Flood is that man. [Raising feminist sons - An XY collection | www.xyonline.net![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-2c86a172-feef-49fc-8e01-804f2380aa0c.ico)Home![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Mackay-2C-20Raising-20boys-20--20Summary-10fee2f3-b177-45e6-9e75-c6a59ddfbe16.jpg)](https://xyonline.net/content/raising-feminist-sons-xy-collection?ref=medusarising.org) ## **Regenerative Mentors on the Socials** Andrew Huberman (I don’t vouch for every episode but these I have reviewed). He’s a genuine neurobiologist but not overtly feminist. He’s most helpful in the “you are a human creature, you can relax about that” department. Good counter-measure against the idealist disembodiment of our screen-locked age: - [Emotional Intelligence and regulation](https://youtu.be/FBgM7jndkLQ?si=ayEOgh-CRy1iuuh3&ref=medusarising.org) \- emotional competence is the quality most lacking in most men, it’s lonely for them, and dangerous for others - [Hormones and Sexual Orientation](https://youtu.be/6-mEiwe2NhE?si=%5FX0uXRK5yD8m6kz5&ref=medusarising.org) \- relax, masculinity can comfortably include homosexuality - [The Mind-Body Influence Goes Both Ways](https://youtu.be/xZ4I2aE8zQA?si=hoqL1ZgyECgvfI7e&ref=medusarising.org) \- human bodies have flexible structures, and human minds give us options for behavior many animals don’t have Stoicism is not a flat affect and lack of emotion or psychological withdrawal. It’s not the sociopathy influencers are peddling. It's a realistic sense of perspective. Other men’s opinions of our boys are not who they are. Learning this in the social media age may be the single most important life lesson we can absorb. Meet [Mark Manson and modern stoicism](https://youtube.com/@iammarkmanson?si=8XD61%5FBCSXnw6ZPS&ref=medusarising.org). How to [be happy by building a good life](https://youtu.be/8Swxy4tUE3s?si=AUC68tSgo6pBrrlw&ref=medusarising.org). Manson is a man who grew up. He started out as a pick-up artist in the 1990s, and became a decent dude instead. He’s not “woke” but he’s not toxic either. **Stoicism is not the opposite of empathy or care or curiosity**. A man who learned how to listen skillfully:[ BlackSpeed teaches](https://youtu.be/ow8rr374Bnc?si=bmSI-F%5FITQdapE7%5F&ref=medusarising.org) powerful empathy (and turns us on to more powerful music). Stoicism can help boys-men, and women, to practice slowing down. Dropping both reactivity and defensive aggression. Counting to five and taking a deep breath or two is actually a massive power move. It shows confidence, it shows enough respect for self to also respect others. Slow down, [give yourself the space to respond to anything at all](https://youtu.be/Ld%5FFHmVCS4E?si=uNzGlQYKJA6xKtL7&ref=medusarising.org). The news, a book, a person, frustration, insult. Reactivity, quick anger, the lightening of self-righteous outrage puts us at others’ mercy. Not just others – others who intend to manipulate us. Tyrants both personal and national. Modern men are under a lot of pressure to act fast because it means they won’t think about whose work they are doing. Being a man and suffering CPTSD really should be two different experiences. Yet, many Manly Men are damaged by their experiences. (Many scenes from films about war.) ### ***Nontoxic*** Some influencers out there know that ‘**toxic masculinity**’ is one type of masculinity, the anti-social kind. The men I’m recommending in this post are at least trying to describe and model a ‘generative masculinity.’ Much of the expression of toxic masculinity today is driven by the algorithms. Our boys and men are being algo’ed into these lonely, angry, tense, insecure, violent jerks. [**Roses Are Dead** ](https://www.instagram.com/r.osesaredead/?ref=medusarising.org)is not a perfect new masculinity project, but it is premised on the assumption that women have changed and men should too. They talk of leadership, but not in the christofash-Turning-Point way. Leadership is about supporting, facilitating, being a little bit more on your family and friends side than on your own. Interesting, no? These men understand that over the last two centuries science and industry have given humans tools that replace most traditional forms of 'male coded' labor. Without the false break on women’s talent, we are simply proving to be as human as men. Roses Are Dead understand that men’s honor and value for women now is in their support of community well-being, the family’s health and security, their adaptability to the needs of people around them, and their *emotional competence*. ### ***Joy*** Joy and camaraderie are essential for mammals. Life cannot be made only of duty, bare life, and “trying not to be toxic.” Being joyfully human with other people makes you healthy and relaxed, and seems to be evolution’s clever recognition that we do best in community. Heart rate synchrony is a deep aspect of what psychologists call ‘[collective effervescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective%5Feffervescence?ref=medusarising.org)’ which is that feeling we get when we’re all vibing together when there is shared experience and purpose. It lets the boundaries of the ego soften just a little and creates that sense of connection we get at concerts or raves or worship and the like. It works exactly like ‘mob mentality’ but in the other direction – [bonding us in pleasure rather than rage](https://neurosciencenews.com/heart-rate-synchrony-social-engagement-30947/?ref=medusarising.org). [Heart Rates Align in Real-World Social Interactions - Neuroscience NewsResearchers track 72 students to prove heart rates synchronize during close proximity and shared attention, serving as a real-world marker for social engagement.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-Neuroscience-News-Site-Icon-512-comp-270x270-1058cb9b-1dc9-4551-a49e-d3cfeb84d1de.jpg)Neuroscience NewsNeuroscience News![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/heart-rate-social-neuroscience-e9a96f5f-af5a-4703-9d9b-f457793d954d.jpg)](https://neurosciencenews.com/heart-rate-synchrony-social-engagement-30947/?ref=medusarising.org) ## **Education about Pornography** **Rape media ruins everything. There. Done.** Feminists have good reason to call pronography "rape media." Most of it is, and *maybe allowing children to see it should be considered sexual assault, too*. What you need to know starts with: “1 in 3 kids say they’ve seen explicit, hardcore porn by age 12, which equates to roughly 25 million children in the U.S. alone. In the majority of cases, they’ve stumbled upon it accidentally.” Then you need to know that girls don’t want to be choked, they want to be loved, but porn taught boys and boys told girls that choking is the norm and fun. Brain damage, bruising, and tears are not a normal side-effects of sexual activity. **Fight the New Drug** talks about pornography as an industry and a social issue in a non-judgemental way with a focus on helping teens and parents understand how the industry is working against them. [Fight the New Drug Live Presentations About PornBring non-religious and non-legislative Fight the New Drug presentations about porn to your community today!![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-favico-270x270-7970f423-04e0-4857-9e5b-9233d9eb16e7.png)Fight the New Drug![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/FTND_LivePresentations_Feature-5dd3ab9a-9a35-47a9-835d-64d9ad890f8b.jpg)](https://fightthenewdrug.org/live-presentations/?ref=medusarising.org) **Culture Reframed** offers schools and individuals FREE courses on how to protect your kids and on how kids can protect themselves from an industry that abuses them for profit. [Courses - Culture ReframedOur courses for parents and educators give you the tools you need to understand how porn harms young people and what you can do about it. Discover how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/faviconV2-d64e1e7f-723a-4ecd-bd90-022ccb60f446)Culture Reframed](https://culturereframed.org/courses/?ref=medusarising.org) - **Harm to users -** [Rape Media is sex negative](https://www.addictions-healing.com/blog/sex-dopamine-and-the-brains-hijack-understanding-the-science-behind-the-craving?ref=medusarising.org) because it sets your dopamine response something other than another human person - [*Porn Addiction Hotlines* ](https://www.addictioncenter.com/community/porn-addiction-hotlines-resources/?ref=medusarising.org) - **Connection to abuse/trafficking -** The rape media industry and the sex trafficking industry are very intertwined. It is not a porn industry standard that all pornographic material is completely consensual or even that everyone is of legal age. [The Relationship Between Porn and Human Trafficking - End Slavery NowShowing you how to join the anti-slavery movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-27337da1-8dbd-4fd1-ae9c-f73096439007.ico)FreedomEnd Slavery Now![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/the-relationship-between-porn-and-human-trafficking-ac6c61a7-b748-4272-bacc-6891689243e7.jpg)](https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/the-relationship-between-porn-and-human-trafficking?ref=medusarising.org) ## **Being Ex'lnt** Humans have been [very smart in many ways for a long time](https://youtu.be/KEt9At1257g?si=1vIMqf8MfySF6eGz&ref=medusarising.org), and it may help our boys to learn about them rather than only the Roman Empire... Civilizations have [discovered many ways to succeed](https://youtu.be/GEJ8WAiHRE0?si=PFiN-Hp3BbXe71FQ&ref=medusarising.org), and knowing them gives us all options for imagining a future where we don’t all boil in our skin in a long global heat bulb event. We can be more than this. Being competent and excellent in the world, with ideas, with invention, with creating moving collective experiences used to be a matter of survival. The slothful, the inebriated, the self-indulgent were a heavy tax on our ancestors success in against natural selection. Learning to [live in the natural world](https://youtu.be/S8Q70mATHTE?si=bJtTODMw4bIBsbW5&ref=medusarising.org) gives us all, friends, and lovers more options for adventure and experience. Getting good at real world skills (mechanics, carpentry, DJing, storytelling, music making, &c., not sling throwing - tho that is fun) both for the pleasure of doing and making things well, and for the ability to take care of, and give pleasure to, others in our family and community. Also, using mastered skills to assist our community impresses the hell out of women and girls. The future is super uncertain, and a wide breadth of skills is boy or man’s best shot at being successful in it (this is also true of girls/women). ### ***Social Excellence*** Most of us live more isolated lives than we used to. Between neoliberalism, COVID, and the fascism, socializing has taken on complexities it did not have when GenXers (for example) were young. Our kids and grandkids all went through the COVID years and came out different to us. History is arbitrary that way. Still, it falls to us to show them how to re-socialize, how to just be … together. Boys need outlets for demonstrating excellence of skill and social grace. It’s part of how they impress girls. Thanks mostly to algorithms, influencers, and the media’s eternal laziness of narrative, boys and young men feel (even if it’s not real) that being who they are is somehow Just Wrong. This wrongness has come along at the same time that the gender-madness took hold, that the political purity spirals whipsawed through every echelon of social and political life. The counter to that is to model being socially excellent in your communities and be very chill about gendery things. #### Ways to Demonstrate Social Excellence, which is hot - Giving time & skills or money to community projects - Using intellectual humility to learn more than the other guy and to make connections with people - Not voting against minority interests for tax benefits you will never experience - Never voting against women’s interests - Publicly correcting or shunning male acquaintances who disrespect women/girls ## **Interview with Therapist of Abusers** [Lundy Bancroft](https://lundybancroft.com/blog/?ref=medusarising.org) has worked with offenders/abusers for over 30 years. His book [*Why Does He Do That?*](https://dn790007.ca.archive.org/0/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy%5FWhy-does-he-do-that.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) (pdf) is a touchstone in the field. **Every word of this interview is necessary**. In fact, I’m adding to the [Resilience Kit for Teen Girls post](https://www.medusarising.org/resiliance-kit-for-teen-girls/), too. I’d forgotten it for a moment. [Inside the Minds of Domestic Abusers & How to Support Women | Lundy Bancroft](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywsTdzkiPF0&pp=ygUydGhlcmFwaXN0IHdobyB3b3JrcyBpd3RoIGFidXNpdmUgbWVuIHdoeSBtZW4gYWJ1c2U%3D&ref=medusarising.org) The toxicity of some men is real, as all the statistics ever taken show. It survives for two reasons. 1) Abusive men cover their tracks and deflect. Most defensive and/or toxic men will make this an issue of ‘a few bad apples, not me, not all men.” They PERSONALIZE a deeply structural problem. 2) As Jane Clare Jones elaborates in her dissertation and summarized in class recently: *The whole things is structured on rape and violence against women*. Without the actuality and the constantly implied threat of rape, patriarchy simply falls apart. That’s why so much of it is allowed to go unpunished, … why Medusa was made monster, outcast. This is the essential radical feminist insight from all the way back (Kate Millett’s [Sexual Politics](https://archive.org/details/sexualpolitics0000mill%5Fl0g5) (pdf). It is on us, mothers and fathers, to raise our boys with enough courage and depth of character to reject boys and men who harm or belittle women and girls. The law is patriarchy’s tool. But shame, ostracization, even just making fun of such behavior at its earliest appearance will get the point across. ## **Abuse Support Groups** #### A boy may need support because he has been harmed. **1in6 Helpline:** Visit[ 1in6 Support](https://1in6.org/?ref=medusarising.org) to access a confidential, 24/7 online chat and resources specifically tailored for male survivors of sexual abuse. #### We could all use more co-regulation skills. - [Kids and explosive behavior](https://childmind.org/article/angry-kids-dealing-with-explosive-behavior/?ref=medusarising.org), how to intervene and regulate early - [Navigating big emotions](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/co-regulation-helping-children-and-teens-navigate-big-emotions-202404033030?ref=medusarising.org) with children and teens #### Or because he is an abuser. These resources are directed more to young men than to helping boys course-correct. - If your teen or adult son is abusive, [Domestic Shelters](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/co-regulation-helping-children-and-teens-navigate-big-emotions-202404033030?ref=medusarising.org) - Abusive behavior interventions, [California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse](https://www.cebc4cw.org/topic-area/interventions-for-abusive-behavior/?ref=medusarising.org) - Becoming a better man, [The Men's Center](https://menscenter.org/podcast/beyond-abusive-behavior-becoming-a-better-man/?ref=medusarising.org) - Helping abusers help themselves, [Center for Prevention of Abuse](https://www.centerforpreventionofabuse.org/i-need-help-for-someone-else/helping-abusers/?ref=medusarising.org) ## **How to Talk to Girls** This one is for the fathers. **Show** your sons how to be cool with women. And please, elaborate. - Be *interesting*, know and do cool things, share them - Be *interested* in her and the cool things she knows and does - If you’re with her to score points with your male friends, you are the problem - [The Ick is us sensing danger](http://substack.com/home/post/p-191578392?source=queue), don’t be icky - Learn to dance with a partner, literally, dance, not grind on - Do the brave thing, not the stupid thing - Learn the difference between pretty muscle and purposeful muscle - Don’t fake it - Don’t seek advantage - Don’t be a threat - Never touch a woman who is not clearly inviting you to - Wholeness and Balance are better than instability and need in a conversation as in life - My brother used to say, “Have fun, and if you get laid … Bonus!” The fun will be attractive. It’s not fair, but nearly all the violence in the world, and to women or in families, is done by men who feel owed. The numbers are truly galactic. We are correct to suspect and complain. **Be the bear**. Gift a membership to a feminist you admire (ﾟ⁠οﾟ⁠人⁠)⁠) [Share the Experience ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/gift) Feminist algorithm needs you! We are our only algorithm! ****Do postmodern magic!** More connection! More sharing! [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Post-Midterm Safety Net Cuts URL: https://www.medusarising.org/post-midterm-safety-net-cuts/ Last updated: 2026-07-24T15:06:03.000Z Please share with every woman, no matter her politics or position in the wider feminist landscape. Especially share to women who access Medicaid, Medicare, or immigrant and women's services. Voting for Dems doesn't feel great, I know. It's not the revolution, it won't protect kids from trans-industrial-complex, or keep men out of women's prisons. **But Voting Blue will preserve our agency to affect these issues. And once that's gone, it's generations if we ever get it back.** Meanwhile, if the SAVE Act ever passes, our access to the vote will be compromised, the more so for racialized and economically vulnerable women. Life for vulnerable women, for most of our working class, and for our elderly sisters will get harder starting just before and ramping up just after the November midterms. Medusa Rising hopes 'single issue' voters among our readers or friends of our readers will shift that view and vote blue. Life for women across our feminist communities and our nation's class politics will get much harder much faster if these Godlets and their Handmaidens stay in power. ## [From The Guardian:](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/hegseth-us-military-budget?ref=medusarising.org) > Late on Wednesday, the House passed a $1.15tn bill for a section of the White House request – which may move it forward, but experts say it’s still nowhere close to something that will clear the Senate. > The real money, that $1.5tn, dwarfs the costs of the Iran war. While much of it is for the usual tanks and planes and hardware and training, there’s a **good chunk for the pet projects of the tech bros and private equity financiers now running the department**. > The military’s head of research and engineering is the former Uber executive Emil Michael, who oversees artificial intelligence. As the Guardian [reported](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/09/pentagon-ai-xai-emil-michael?ref=medusarising.org) earlier this year, Michael, while in his first months in office, made millions in profits, between 400% and 4,800%, just on his investment in Elon Musk’s xAI company. > The Trump **budget plans to steer $58.5bn to AI**. > About $20bn is targeted for the office of strategic capital, a defense department agency that functions as **a private equity arm of the Pentagon**. The powerful deputy secretary of defense, Stephen Feinberg, former head of Cerberus Capital, has a former employee of Cerberus presiding over the office. It’s the **same agency that committed $620m last year to a mining company backed by a fund tied to Trump’s son Donald Jr**. ### Pure, unconcealed fascist communism and grift. ## [From AOC's Issues Pages at House.gov](https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/largest-loss-health-care-american-history?ref=medusarising.org): > > **The Largest Loss of Health Care in American History** > This bill slashes critical funding for Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, and makes changes that will leave millions uninsured and drive up health care costs for everyone. > **Paperwork Requirements for Medicaid (Ages 19-64)** > *Takes Effect December 2026* > If you are on Medicaid, you will have to report working or volunteering for at least 80 hours a month, or be enrolled in school at least part-time, to keep your benefits. Some individuals, including people with disabilities, pregnant people, and others may qualify for an exemption from this requirement. > **Changes to Medicaid Renewal** > *Takes Effect January 2027* > You may also be required to renew your Medicaid twice a year, instead of once a year. > **Changes to Medicaid AND Medicare Eligibility** > *Medicaid: Takes Effect October 2026* > **This bill terminates Medicaid coverage** for many lawful immigrants. Refugees, **individuals granted parole**, individuals granted asylum or related relief, and **certain survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking** may no longer be eligible. > *Medicare: Takes Effect December 2026* > This bill **terminates Medicare coverage for many lawful \[elderly\] immigrants**, including asylees, refugees, and people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). > *If you are a lawful permanent resident, you are still eligible for Medicaid and Medicare.* > **How Loss of State Funding Will Impact You** > Even if you are not on Medicaid, this bill reduces the amount of federal funding New York State \[for example\] receives and could cause the following effects: the state may have to raise taxes to make up for a loss of funding or cut back on other public services. Many local hospitals will have to reduce services, increase wait times, or close due to lack of funds. ### Matriarchy Machine | by platypus URL: https://www.medusarising.org/matriarchy-machine-by-platypus/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T05:33:30.000Z I wrote this piece the way one swats a mosquito: reflexively, with precision, and after far too many bites. If you’ve spent more than five minutes in matriarchal feminist spaces—those fledgling, fragile, stubbornly hopeful little ecosystems running on vision, willpower, and about three and a half hours of sleep—you already know the type. The man who arrives not with curiosity, not with discipline, but with a suspiciously shiny desire to be ruled—as though women organizing society is just a kink with better branding. The man who hears “female leadership” and immediately pictures himself kneeling on a velvet cushion, awaiting instructions that sound like dialogue from a low-budget dominatrix script. It would be funny if it weren’t so… persistent. So this is a small corrective spell. A satire. A diagnostic tool. A mildly feral love letter to competence. Because matriarchy—real matriarchy, grounded in material life, in food systems and childcare and land stewardship and governance—is not a stage for male fantasies of submission. It is not a costume drama. It does not require applause, or groveling, or a single dramatic “yes Your Highness” delivered like a line reading. It requires something far less glamorous and far more rare: Attention. Accountability. The radical act of listening to women. Matriarchy Machine is what happens when one such man collides with that reality—and, against all odds, survives the recalibration. No stiletto heels required. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Chalk-Line-Divider-1.png) # Matriarchy Machine ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/07/Matriarchy-machine_thumb.png) Matriarchy Machine | by platypus 0:00 /891.655396 1× Evan discovered “gynarchy” on the internet the way most people discover bad ideas: at 2:14 a.m., dehydrated, convinced he was about to uncover Truth. By morning, he had Opinions. He began capitalizing random words. Woman. Mother. She. Her. He typed them like sacred relics, as if autocorrect itself should bow. He practiced saying “yes ma’am” in the mirror, smiling beatifically, the way one might approach a tiger with a flower crown. His first field test was at a coffee shop. The barista—tired, pierced, running on three hours of sleep—asked, “Name?” Evan clasped his hands. “Thank you, Divine Matriarch.” She stared at him. “Name?” “Yes ma’am.” She squinted. “You can just… say your name.” “Of course, She who—” “Sir,” she said flatly, “I will put ‘Steve’ on this cup if you don’t speak normally.” He said Evan. Progress was slow. Evan took his new philosophy everywhere. He initiated conversations with random women at bus stops about “Female Supremacy,” as if it were a new crypto coin. He asked if they wanted to rule him. He asked—quietly, but not quietly enough—if anyone would like to step on him “symbolically.” No one did. What *did* happen was that women began to gather. It started accidentally, like most revolutions. At the library, Evan approached a table of women studying ecology, labor law, midwifery, and urban planning. He bowed slightly. “I honor the Divine Feminine,” he announced. One of them, Maya, looked up over her glasses. “Cool. You’re blocking the light.” Another, Denise, added, “Also you’re whisper-shouting.” “I’m a devotee of the Matriarchy,” Evan said proudly. “I believe Women should be worshipped.” Silence. Then laughter. Not mean laughter. The tired, surgical kind. “Okay,” said Ruth, the eldest among them, closing her notebook. “Sit down.” Evan sat. Immediately. Happily. “First lesson,” Ruth said. “We don’t want worship. We want competence.” “Second,” Denise said, “stop capitalizing us. We’re not Pokémon.” “Third,” Maya added, “if you bring up ‘Female Supremacy’ to strangers, you’re not doing politics. You’re doing improv, badly.” They kept him. Not literally. No chains. No boots. Just… questions. “Who does the dishes in your house?” “Who taught you that saying ‘yes ma’am’ is respectful?” “Why do you think power is sexy instead of practical?” “Can you name five women who organized food systems?” “Why are you whispering again?” Evan tried to perform submission. They gave him chores. He tried to kneel. They handed him a clipboard. He tried to talk about being “ruled.” They asked him to read about inheritance law in matrilineal societies, then quizzed him. “This feels less fun,” he admitted one day. “Good,” said Ruth. “Fun isn’t the point.” Weeks passed. Evan stopped capitalizing Woman. He stopped saying “yes ma’am” unless he actually meant *yes*. He learned that most women do not want to dominate strangers; they want men to notice trash day, childcare schedules, and zoning laws. One afternoon, Evan arrived breathless. “I think I get it,” he said. “Oh?” Maya asked. “Matriarchy isn’t about me submitting,” he said. “It’s about women not having to manage me.” They nodded. “That’s it,” Denise said. “You’re deprogramming.” Evan looked relieved. Also slightly disappointed. “So… no stepping?” Ruth smiled. “If you want someone to step on you, use consent. If you want matriarchy—do the work.” Evan picked up the recycling on his way out. The Machine hummed on. ## Calibration Mode: Respect The women decided Evan was ready for Module Two . This module did not involve kneeling, vows, or symbolic groveling. It involved chairs. Sitting upright. Eye contact. An alarming amount of calm. Maya corrected him first, gently. “Actually, that study you cited was retracted in 2018.” Evan felt the old reflex kick in—heat in the chest, the urge to explain himself sideways, to soften it with a joke, to *defend—* Instead he stopped. Breathed. Tried something new. “Oh. You’re right. Thank you.” The room went quiet. Denise slowly put down her pen. “See? That. That right there.” Ruth nodded. “No sulk. No tone. No wounded ego spirals. Just receipt and adjustment.” Evan blinked. “That’s… it?” “That’s it,” Maya said. “Respect doesn’t need choreography.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1--1.png) Later that week, he slipped again. “Yes ma’am,” he said automatically, when Maya asked him to move his bag off the table. She raised an eyebrow. Just one. “How about,” she said, “instead of ‘yes ma’am,’ you say ‘yes Maya.’ I’m not your principal and you’re not eight.” He flushed. “Right. Sorry. Yes Maya.” “Better,” she said. “You don’t age women up to show respect. You just… respect us.” "What if we have him say 'aye aye captain' instead? That'd be great fun," Denise added with a grin. ## Calibration: Titles Evan was drafting an email to a city committee. “Dear Miss Alvarez—” Ruth appeared over his shoulder like a librarian ghost. “Nope.” Evan froze. “Ms.?” “Yes. ‘Ms.’ exists because women got tired of being socially categorized by whether a man had claimed them yet.” Denise leaned in. “Using ‘Miss’ is like asking for a marital status before saying hello.” Maya grinned. “Which, unless you’re my aunt at Thanksgiving, is unnecessary.” Evan corrected it. Carefully. Reverently. But not *weirdly* reverently. Progress. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1-.png) The Matriarchy Machine ran diagnostics constantly. When Evan interrupted Denise mid-sentence, he caught himself. “Sorry—go ahead.” Not “Sorry if—” Not “I just meant—” Not “Can I finish—” Just space. Denise smiled. “Thank you.” When Maya explained something he already knew, he didn’t say *actually.* He said, “Yeah, that matches what I’ve seen.” “Alignment without dominance,” Ruth said approvingly. “Gold star.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1--2.png) One afternoon, Evan asked, cautiously, “So… if it’s not about worship, what *is* the respectful posture?” Ruth thought for a moment. “Assume women know what they’re talking about.” “Don’t make us manage your feelings about being corrected.” “Take women seriously even when we’re calm.” “Especially when we’re calm.” “And don’t perform feminism like it’s a costume.” Denise added, “Also: if you mess up, fix it faster than you explain it.” Maya smirked. “And stop asking if we’re mad. We’ll tell you.” Evan wrote it all down. Not like scripture. Like instructions. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1--3.png) At the end of the day, Evan realized something unsettling. This version of respect didn’t make him feel small. It made him feel… competent. Which, it turned out, was exactly the point. The Machine purred. ## Final Patch: Service Without Theater They rolled Evan into the last lesson without ceremony. No circle. No notebooks. Just a kitchen. The trash was full. The sink had opinions. Maya glanced at the bin and said, casually, the way women usually do when we’re not performing for anyone: “It would be great if the trash got taken out today.” Evan nodded. And… didn’t move. Five minutes passed. Denise watched him carefully. “You hear her?” “Yes,” Evan said. “I’m just… waiting.” “For what?” Ruth asked. “The directive,” he said, sheepish. “Like… ‘Do it now.’ Or something more—” “Degrading?” Maya offered. He winced. “Yeah.” Ruth laughed, not unkindly. “Ah. There it is. The porn brain.” Denise leaned against the counter. “You’ve been trained to hear women only when we’re playing a character. Bossy. Cruel. Hypersexual. ‘Obey me pig’ nonsense.” Maya folded her arms. “But when we speak normally—collaborative, polite, practical—you don’t register it as important.” Evan’s stomach dropped. “So when I say ‘I recommend that you—’ or ‘It would help if—’” Maya continued, “that’s not weakness. That’s how leadership actually sounds.” Ruth added, “Matriarchal speech isn’t about barking. It’s about instruction without macho bullying.” Silence. Then Evan stood up and took out the trash. No drama. No kneeling. No eye contact like he was awaiting praise. Just… done. “Now *that* was service,” Denise smiled. “Thank you.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1--4.png) Later, Evan admitted it out loud. “I think I wanted submission because I was tired of being in charge all the time. Or pretending I was.” Ruth nodded. “Patriarchy exhausts men by forcing them to inflate themselves.” Maya said softly, “And it exhausts women by forcing us to manage that inflation.” Evan swallowed. “I thought submission meant being humiliated.” Denise shook her head. “That’s not submission. That’s spectacle.” Ruth finished it for him. “True submission is surrendering the need to dominate the room. The need to be right. The need to be centered.” Evan felt something loosen. Something old. Loud. Defensive. For the first time, he didn’t feel smaller. He felt… aligned. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/Clitoris-Divider--1--5.png) Weeks later, someone corrected him in a meeting. He said to her, calmly, “You’re right. Thank you.” A woman asked for help, politely, the way women do. He heard it. He acted. No script. No fantasy. No performance. Just trust. He had found what he was actually seeking all along: Not domination. Not humiliation. But surrender. A clean, quiet surrender of ego— and a place, at last, within real female leadership, steady as the tide. --- **platypus** writes satire, speculative fiction, and cultural criticism with a sharp eye for the gap between what people perform and what they actually practice. Her work swings between darkly comic takedowns of gendered power fantasies and earnest, richly built worlds where matriarchy isn't a costume drama but a living system—always circling the question of whose stories get centered and why. She draws from years spent in the messy, under-resourced, quietly radical spaces of feminist organizing, and from a lineage of hereditary witchcraft that informs both her craft and her convictions. She refuses to choose between humor and sincerity as tools for getting at the truth, and she takes out the trash without being asked. --- Please Join EsmÉE for the Reading Circle 👉 ****Saturday, 1 August 2026** 👈 FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL: HOW TO CHANGE EVERYTHING by VERONICA GAGO This quarterly event is free to all members. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) [Arche-Mama Sticker SheetGoddess Remixes, Gorgon Posse Pod, Medusa Rising Logo, little cheerful-scary spirals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-14cf61f5-b388-4e81-99f7-4e464eba3536.png)Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMedusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/zX6nTzYPCHk-8c0a13da-a9d3-4e58-baec-63a94c81c6fd.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/products/arche-mama-sticker-sheet?ref=medusarising.org) Merchy Merchy Merchy Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Judgy Mommy Can’t Be A Sister in Struggle | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/judgy-mommy-cant-be-a-sister-in-struggle-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T17:32:29.000Z Now we have the audio!! And it's pretty. Each day, it seems, the revolution in which we stand continues to draw back the curtain on the reality of what is, and has been, going on behind the scenes for centuries. Sometimes not even behind the scenes. Sometimes right out there on stage with spotlights shining on terrible actors doing terrible things. As we look on from the stunned audience one thing becomes crystal clear: we need to be rebuilding. Of course there are millions of us already doing that work. Women and allies that have been doing that re-building work – since time immemorial, it feels, on certain particularly dark days. And there are millions more, masters of the necessary destruction, who are doing their work right alongside the builders. We may be working in different contexts, perhaps even for different reasons, but we are coalesced behind a unifying cause: take down the patriarchy. Lift women into a place of (at least) equal standing in a better world; restore all our rights to our bodies, our lives, and our identities; create a world in which healthy, respectful humans can thrive. The social and collective challenge before us is clear. But there’s a slightly less obvious, sub-terra shift that has to come first. We have to create space to come together. We have to open ourselves and our communities up to different kinds of feminists and allies that are fighting for the same fundamental cause. And buried in that challenge is an invitation — to do a little Soul Crafting. All over the world countless women… women in women-only spaces… women in women-only spaces that are fighting FOR women, no less - find themselves fighting with each other instead. And the resulting splinters are diluting our effectiveness. Time and energy spent on deciding what constitutes a feminist, what behaviors are and aren’t acceptable, how women are allowed to show up in these spaces could be far better used to discuss how we win against the establishment. Discussions about whether or not a woman can have plastic surgery or wear makeup or whether her skirt is too short are trite and distracting. We can balance practical realities with political seriousness: women moving toward us are necessarily moving out of spaces where performing trad-fem or even alt-trad-fem was required. As my sister Gorgon, Victoria, has discussed in some of our podcasts, we are alienating new feminists and allies to the cause. Most disturbing of all, these internal conflicts are contaminating our message and mis-directing our focus in a way that creeps dangerously close to a variation on the patriarchal dictations of womanhood and femininity that we’re all fighting against. And that truth hints at the unspoken “something else” that might be going on underneath it all. Perhaps these unspoken, even unacknowledged and unconscious desires to control other women are actually rooted in our own un-healed traumas. Specifically, the Mother Wound. Last month we talked about[ those moments in women’s spaces when we feel friction](https://www.medusarising.org/shift-competition-to-confidence-by-jaclyn-lanae/) with another woman, and the associated message the Universe might be sending us through the mirror of that interaction. We talked about the reality that we might feel judgemental or superior as a cover for feelings of envy. Perhaps we are carrying an unacknowledged shame that we aren’t as “good” as we perceive another woman to be, or that we feel a sense of guilt that we aren’t as successful, or several of a thousand other scenarios when in truth, we’re actually pissed at racist capitalism and patriarchy for creating systems and standards designed to keep us envious, shameful, and guilty. Deep down, many of us are pissed at the fact that it feels dangerous to be the wild, free, shameless versions of ourselves that we really want to be. We’re devastated by the fact that it feels dangerous because it is. But our world, our society, isn’t just dangerous because of patriarchal, religious, and capitalistic systems and ideologies. Our personal experiences and belief systems play a significant role in the way we allow ourselves to show up in the world, and the way we do (or don’t) support other women in doing so. We all have trauma either passed down from our caregivers, or created by our caregivers (whether intentional or not). Father wounds (often referenced as “daddy issues”) and Mother wounds are among the most common (though of course these are not necessarily traumas that came to us through our biological mothers or fathers). A brief reflection on the ideology that permeated the world our mothers were raised in, and the societal priorities of the world in which they were mothering, provides a pretty clear answer to the question, “why are so many of us, particularly women, suffering with mother wounds?” It may also offer some insight into why women struggle to be and create safety for each other. The particulars of our wounding are unique, but they have conditions and effects in common. The mother wound is created from an environment in which the emotional and/or spiritual aspects of a child’s life are untended, shamed, or wholly ignored. For whatever reason, mom might have been there to feed and clothe and care for the body, but not the inner world. Sound familiar? In our mother’s world, where her value was (is still!!!) largely defined by her role - the quality of the job she did raising her children - and measured in her obedience and conformity, it’s no wonder the mother wound is so prevalent. And since emotional connection, care, and support were largely unheard of and certainly not prioritized in the context of parenting, it’s no surprise that many of us were well-kept alive but with a yawning vacuum in the emotional well-being center of our lives. This translates into a reality in which we aren’t fundamentally convinced of our worth, we lack the tools to understand and navigate our emotions (which can create a fear of authentically expressed emotions - both ours and others’), we fear being imperfect, and feel a desperate need to be authentically loved (among many other expressions), or to show other women how right and experienced we are by pressuring other women to conform to our values, or by triangulating against women we feel are “not feminist enough”. Some of us also unconsciously see powerful or well-established women in the movement as dictators of who and how we’re supposed to be, unconsciously connecting women in leadership or authority roles with a controlling, demanding, mother (or caregiver in a mothering role) whose worth was tied to our obedience to them. And out of their own wounds, some women assume that position of power and judgement. According to [The Attachment Project](https://www.attachmentproject.com/psychology/mother-wound/?ref=medusarising.org), “The reason why the mother wound has such a profound effect on us in childhood and later in life is that it plants seeds of doubt in our minds about our worth, trust in others, and safety in the world around us.” We might tend to doubt ourselves, we might tend to distrust other women, and therefore both fear their control of us, while simultaneously feeling a need to control them in order to feel safe. All of which perfectly plays into patriarchy’s desire to keep women distracted and disconnected by policing each other rather than uniting against the real threat. Holding space for each other, then, particularly when we have beliefs that differ, will be powerfully supported by first seeking to heal ourselves, our mother wound, so that we are not coming from a walled-off space of defensiveness or superiority. So that no matter what others think or do, and no matter what they think about us, our value is secure. Before we go any further, however, I want to be clear: healing ourselves so we can embrace different perspectives does not mean opening space for people whose intention is to harm us or limit our power and freedom. Healing does not require that we make ourselves vulnerable to those with whom our safety is in question. What I’m addressing here is healing ourselves in order to help heal the fissures that are cracking the solidity – and solidarity – of the empowered feminist movements. And I think the invitation in that quest for those of us willing to take it on, is to do a little Soul Crafting (⁠◠⁠‿⁠◕⁠) To draw back the curtain on ourselves and investigate what we’re really feeling. And why. To give ourselves the emotional and spiritual support, guidance, nurturing, and care our mothers couldn’t give us. To heal. Even, hopefully, to help heal each other. It’s the kind of work that can bring peace to our personal lives, and provide an unshakable foundation for the growth and empowerment of women’s spaces. (Incidentally, it’s also the kind of work that we will do in the Soul Craft channel of the Medusa Rising Discord server. So feel free to join us there and let us know what kind of support would serve you best.) Creating space for women to show up as exactly who we are and how we want to be in the world, safely, is going to be a long process. And I can’t believe we will achieve that goal for each other by limiting and judging how other women show up in the world – or in our movement. Rather, I think we do it by fiercely protecting and defending our sisters and cousins and allies who are showing up exactly the way they want to (as long as they aren’t intentionally hurting others), knowing they will protect our right to do the same. The truth is, taking down the patriarchy does not mean controlling men. We can’t control men. It’s really hard to control other adult humans, and it’s a violation of their sovereignty. We aren’t going to make men see us as more valuable by covering ourselves more, or being less “pretty” or “alternative,” or working harder. Men have been abusive and extractive of women for centuries regardless of what women wore (or didn’t); what women’s bodies looked like; what was our role in society. Men will behave that way until they learn respect for life and see us as sacred beings as embedded in that life as they are. Changing the way men believe about and treat us begins with our belief about ourselves - *and our projection and embodiment of that belief*. We do that by showing up as our most brilliant, self-expressed, authentic selves; giving their beliefs and expectations about us as little of our energy and attention as possible (while still maintaining enough awareness to stay safe); and celebrating other feminists and yet-to-be-feminists for showing up too. **We create safety for women by coming together and being safe for women*. We create safety for all of us, by healing our own Mother Wounds. And *by sister-ing*: stepping out of the role of maternal dictator and into the role of supportive co-conspirators against the oppressor. Because at the end of the day, don’t we want more warriors and allies? Ultimately, policing women to control what patriarchy - and men - are doing to them, is still policing women *for* men. Men have to be the ones to change. Men have to be held responsible. Of course I’m not pretending that we currently live in a world where that will always happen. But I do think that things are shifting in that direction. More slowly than we want them to, of course, but they are shifting. And we can support that change by creating more space for more embodied and wholly expressed women in our circles. Our job, as I see it, is to cease orienting our behaviors around men, what we think they want or don’t; what we think they’ll do or won’t, and just be our biggest, most brilliant, uniquely expressed, embodied selves. Our job is to orient toward our authenticity, and fiercely protect the authenticity of our friends, sisters, cousins, nieces, daughters, and allies however they choose to express it, without judgment. Our job is to find ways to connect with, support, and protect each other, despite our differences and throw up the middle finger to the opinions and perceptions of men. Our job is to step onto center stage, into the spotlight of our own lives (at least). To be as close as possible to impervious to the heckling of errant patriarchal audience members. And to proudly showcase the power inherent in simply being who we really are. If you’re in the fight to protect women’s rights and you support the empowerment of women, as far as I’m concerned, you’re in. I don’t care if you wear makeup or have had your whole body sculpted by plastic surgery; I don’t care if you are a stay-at-home mom or your favorite dress is made of cling wrap; I don’t care if you have a 6-figure monthly income from your own business or you sell pictures of your feet online. We need you. I need you to help me protect my right to be and dress and act however I want because that is a lot of what liberty means and I’ll do the same for you. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/07/1000012825.png) If you happen to be a paying subscriber, I’ll be elaborating on the “hows” of this work in bonus posts and the Soul Craft Circle of the Medusa Rising Discord channel. If you would like to become a paying member and get all those perks (plus many others), [join us here](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/). --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at [jaclynlanae.substack.com](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/?ref=medusarising.org) or connect at [AuthorJaclynLanae.com](https://authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org). [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Click that red button for details!Reader contributions welcome.Original creations, cross-posts, reprints.All feminist amplification all year long! [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Militant Women | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/militant-women-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T05:33:20.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/07/Untitled--audio---Jul-08--2026--08_50AM_thumb.jpg) Militant Women | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /1638.202018 1× The Feminist NO opens a conversation about the future. Even in armed conflict. Even in political extremism. The Patriarchal NO shuts down the future. The Feminist YES negates the shut-down future. **This essay does not recommend violent action. It does encourage us to direct action**. This essay contemplates both among the many pathways to a living future. The YES of feminist negation. ## Rojava [#RiseUp4Rojava – Smash Turkish Fascim![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/riseupwhitelogo-086c910edbcb05b0feaf5662a7f6882fcea6e4e77d9b28512fd9ed25ba7f86c2.png)#RiseUp4Rojava![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Baum-cropped-1024x343-95a7785b85163b401cf13af997035063b9f30ecd28e9753c57d73c031dad2618.png)](https://riseup4rojava.org/en/?ref=medusarising.org) The Kurds live divided by "men's grids" and national borders. One people, FOUR countries, and under threat in all of them. Like the Basque or Catholic Northern Irish — any occupied people — some are willing to use property destruction and/or deadly violence in the name of their liberation. Like rogue/terrorist organizations such as Hamas, the Kurds benefit from extra-national support – but its very conditional on those nations' agendas and never really enough to liberate Kurdistan. [‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ from Rojava to Rojhelat: Connections and Solidarities – Kurdish Peace InstituteJust another WordPress site![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/icon-1b52f049e1562af7d726e8eaa5f5f6880d72a89bd1009dbdd4f917f7cda57969.svg)Kurdish Peace InstituteMeghan Bodette![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/GettyImages-1243494191-scaled-aspect-ratio-1200-630-22ecd7e4a47952459b77c0e59a95bce70942185f6aa3dc21bf62f234b566c09c.jpg)](https://www.kurdishpeace.org/research/womens-liberation-and-leadership/woman-life-freedom-from-rojava-to-rojhelat-connections-and-solidarities/?ref=medusarising.org) Jina Mahsa Amini was a Kurdish woman. #WomanLifeFreedom The YPK and is all-female military units had been developing along with the Rojava region's robust egalitarianism in the context of the Syrian Civil War, but gained most of their international attention for their success against ISIS in Syria. They are also labeled a terrorist organization by Erdogan's regime in Turkey. An apocryphal story I picked up in those years told that the women of the YPK each carried a bullet in their chest pocket with **their own name carved** on it. They had vowed to kill themselves (and some to kill their daughters) rather than let them be taken into slavery by ISIS. These women took "feminism or death" for a law in the context of the total subjugation ISIS intended for them. For religious and political and power reasons, all of the regimes under which Kurdish women live are threats to their well-being and their lives. This is (as we know) true in more and less formal/legal ways for women everywhere. But in Rojava, "Despite conditions of constant war and isolation, the people of Rojava are building and defending a society rooted in principles of direct democracy, women’s autonomy, cultural diversity, cooperative economics, and social ecology" (Bioneers, just below). They are building something that can easily become matricultural, and with women having the militarist skills of men what they are building is less likely to degrade back into patriarchy than otherwise. [Rojava Revolution: Women’s Liberation, Democracy and Ecology in North-East Syria - BioneersActivists from the Emergency Committe for Rojava discuss the Rojava Revolution: a society rooted in principles of direct democracy, women’s autonomy, cultural diversity, cooperative economics, and social ecology.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-646ae7078e0de0085b4a9e18f723b7e94dbc65bfc54dc366abd6ddb27671bade.png)BioneersBioneers![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/YPJ_fighters_2_edited-1024x782-415b851c374b2fd97795c9897c42d5a2cd54bf85e095a7fe2e68430c0fa4662d.png)](https://bioneers.org/rojava-revolution-womens-liberation-democracy-and-ecology-in-north-east-syria-ztvz2406/?ref=medusarising.org) > There are obvious ideological reasons why, say, The Wall Street Journal isn’t tripping over itself to tell you all about this movement that’s trying to make corporations and the state obsolete. They might want you to see this picture of the woman with the scarf and the AK-47; that’s compelling, and it’ll get you to click on their articles, but people talking about how to create a direct democracy to overcome patriarchy and capitalism, that’s another thing. (Bioneers, above) Something I've noticed about women in ancient Crete, where war was heard of but not practiced, and the women of the YPK/Rojava region is that they are REGAL: confident, relaxed, easy in their own skin, sovereign in the sense of self-determining. Women in ancient Crete jumped bulls with the men. Archaic hunter burials found have been re-examined and half of them are found to be female. The sling, the atlatl, ... and the rifle are all levelers of physical advantage. And all are still in production ([this family seems dedicated to the craft](https://www.thunderbirdatlatl.com/about/about-us/?ref=medusarising.org)). Why would I reference such dated, indeed two are prehistoric, hunting weapons? Because facility with the tools of group defense and food provision are physical skills that coordinate bodies and communities, and that result in that regal confidence of free women. The Women of Rojava have opened a conversation with the world. They spiral over the grids of nations that divide them. They have said NO to even "benevolent" patriarchy. They have said YES to Women, Life, Freedom. [Negotiating what it means to be “free”: gender equality and governance in North and East Syria - PMCIn this article, I discuss the radical gender equality reforms in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, and how they have affected women’s lives since the implementation of the Women’s Law in 2014.…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-3cd12b5e8f07cd8ed97fea2e2dde9369e4e4293ea7027b24ce81865b090860ac.png)NCBI home pageCONTACTJulia Wartmann j.wartmannunibas.ch Schaffhauserstrasse 80, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/nih-nlm-ncbi--white-a67954fcece354384c38c890151a18163a849d9d5b9b4d1333c584d8f8647c4e.svg)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11385259/?ref=medusarising.org) ## The US ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012012.jpg) Graffito on plywood reads: If abortion isn't safe, neither are you. Source: [https://theintercept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AP22179177798778.jpg](https://theintercept.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/AP22179177798778.jpg?ref=medusarising.org) ### Jane's Revenge The US regime's health agencies think (white) US women are "under-babied." That's fucking cute, isn't it, that rhetorical flourish? This country is over-Trumped. Men's sperm counts are dropping globally, but *it's the women* not letting the babies come forth to labor for the owners and rentiers. It could not be the microplastics, the PFAS, the general degradation of the planet and ecology that capitalists call GDP, and so on, &c. What's needed to fix this, of course, is for women shut up, have babies, and make sandwiches; [a formula Helen Lewis has reported](https://helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-men-who-dont-want-women-to-vote) MAGA men think will make women happy and contented. Dr Oz and Sec Kennedy being two. [THE JANES - DOC NYCIn the years before 1973 when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States, a group of Chicago activists formed the Jane Collective to help women![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-8135cdb7-1d52-47bc-b610-b273530a4f4a.ico)DOC NYC![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/the-janes_1280x720_approved-b4f76d78-496e-4c4b-b6cc-18a543d22259.jpg)](https://www.docnyc.net/film/the-janes/?ref=medusarising.org) So. The year of our lord 2026 finds women taking matters into our own hands again. Jane's Revenge is barely even a network, but it is willing to both graffiti and sometimes fire bomb anti-abortion pregnancy centers. What's impressive about this campaign is not its law-breaking property damage, but that it operates underground enough to show up only in news stories after an action. The response to these actions has been enormous, really, weighed against the disinterest the US has shown in women's prenatal and maternity care ... or survival. Home invasions, assassinations, and threats of death, to children, SWATing, and now alleging child abuse against a gay former Marine, who speaks eight languages, and has a real shot at the presidency *are regular practice on the US right now*. Random citizens terrorizing public officials passes nearly unremarked, but leave a public trace, a tag, and all hell breaks loose. Mind you, [****anti-abortion terrorism in the US**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion%5Fviolence?ref=medusarising.org) has to be broken out in to categories and in this account ****totals** ****82** ****incidents, and at least 11 deaths,** by various groups and individuals. [Beyond Revenge, What Does Jane’s Revenge Want?The attacks on anti-abortion centers express a necessary militant fury. But the conflation of militance with violence is a mistake.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-180x180-debb4e52-96e7-46f9-94bc-b52800e59de1.png)The InterceptJudith Levine![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/AP22128591399604-janes-revenge-2-fb585fe7-5b24-4246-a289-f85ee602fcd0.jpg)](https://theintercept.com/2022/06/16/janes-revenge-abortion-rights/?ref=medusarising.org) Responses to political shifts like Jane's Revenge are controversial. Does it help women's cause for fake clinics to operate in fear? For women to be arrested for violent direct action (that's really just minor property damage)? What is the relative effectiveness of image projection over, let's call it, 'vibe projection'? **Sure, non-violent movements have a greater success rate than violent ones, but they always get less than they demand, and they have never succeed without that shadow stalking the horizon.** The people who have their hands around the throat of our republic are not going to let go. They can't. They have committed so many crimes, ignored so many laws, shredded so much of the Constitution, and destroyed so many lives that there is no safety for them outside of power. They will only escalate and bear down. The next major step to secure their hegemony is The SAVE Act which I reminded us of while cheering for DemocraShe last weekend. This podcast was a delight!! [LET’S TAKE IT BACK | DemocraShe x Gorgon PossePodcast | Supporting the Next Generation and Voting to Overwhelm Redistricting![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-4a501967-92ad-485b-9dc3-db01b8b35013.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenMedusa Rising![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000011449-1-561bdfb5-76b6-4fa8-be61-d25063575fd5.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/lets-take-it-back-democrashe-x-gorgon-posse/) Jane's Revenge are responding to the entrapment of women, to the deaths of women, to the tragedies visited on families by a renewed patriarchal assertion that is wholly a choice born of resentment, avarice, sadism, and twisted desires. Roe was always a thin veil of protection. No law and no judicial precedent can stand against all three branches of the federal government working in concert both by action and by omission to advance domination by a high-tech, christo-capital-fascist, reassertion of feudal orders and powers. As I have said before, [we need to think mean](https://www.medusarising.org/think-mean-take-power-destroy-power/). We need to think ahead of these men and their minions. [What Is Jane’s Revenge? Abortion Rights Group Vows ‘Night of Rage’ Over RoeThe group has taken responsibility for multiple political actions, including violent ones such as the firebombing of a string of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-d59fd06cbe70761091901bf5858d6277ff58a8564339125bf27168aca5ee76f2.png)NewsweekJack Dutton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/2065296-supreme-court-cop-cd409aae149287e3ce7bdb9e0c5755e966bcfad2e8e372cd88515d0b65784a2c.jpg)](https://www.newsweek.com/what-janes-revenge-abortion-rights-group-vows-night-rage-over-roe-1718919?ref=medusarising.org) As the UK government escalated pressure on the Suffragists, some of them escalated right back. The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), led by figures like Emmeline Pankhurst, carried out **roughly 250 bombings and arson attacks between 1912 and 1914**. Remembered more for his MLKjr-like later years, Nelson Mandela was more Malcom X in his younger days. Also responding to increasingly violent pressure from the states he founded Spear of the Nation, the militant wing of the ANC, which carried out a **campaign of economic sabotage targeting infrastructure**. He was imprisoned for resisting South African apartheid, but he was also imprisoned for, well, terrorism is what we call it now. [Jane’s Revenge: Biden’s Justice Department Uses Abortion Access Law to Indict Pro-Choice VandalsThe DOJ is prosecuting a pair of activists under a law meant to protect abortion access![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/R-Avatar_512x512_flat-c69703eaec264c989bbf738d488bfaec3e41452dd7afe1c87d3d0e5b18261322.png)Rolling StoneTessa Stuart![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/wisconsin-pregnancy-center-vandals-31350a9854ccb231de31ecc3eef9d1130ca0dc29abfcdd700c0c1c998adeb8c2.jpg)](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/janes-revenge-biden-prosecution-abortion-1234669486/?ref=medusarising.org) The christian nationalist abortion bans have killed an [estimated 59 to 68 women](https://www.prb.org/news/abortion-bans-linked-to-sharp-rise-in-sepsis-infant-death-and-maternal-mortality-new-research-shows/?ref=medusarising.org), and [further studies](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-unequal-impacts-of-abortion-bans?ref=medusarising.org) have estimated that for every maternal death, there are approximately 100 cases of severe maternal morbidity (so that's around **6800** women severely traumatized along with their infants). Jane's Revenge re-opened the conversation about abortion. It said, basically, NO, we want a future in which women don't die like this, a future where children are not born in deep trauma, a future where women are people and people are treated like the precious expressions of life that we are. Yes, that NO comes with a warning: keep creating risk for us, and we will create risk for you. But the goal is differently oriented because motive is differently vectored. Jane's Revenge doesn't want the harm for power's sake, to harm these people or their buildings in order to force them to have abortions, they use the harm for women's sake because abortions save lives. Abortion enables the future. Still, not recommending. Just pointing. Ruminating. ## 250 Years Is the Clock The Heritage Foundation and some other crackpots with power have published 168 pages detailing their [designs on re-subjugating women to men](https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2026-01/SR323.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) at every level of society and culture by the 500th anniversary of the US's founding. Helen Lewis also does not miss this point and takes it as seriously as it is proposed. Fuck that. No, sir. Do not pass Go. Do not collect all that sweet anonymous donor money. I mean, unique patriarchal social orders/civilizations don't tend to last that long, so this is all very bold. Still, they are serious and they are quite manifestly powerful. Women have other plans, and whatever amplitude those plans carry from personal withdrawal to militant underground ****we have to beat that 250 year clock nearly every step of the way.** Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture ### To the Matriarchy and Beyond! (Turns to address Man.) It's enough with the shenanigans, right? Enough redefining basic ontological concepts to erase women, enough loud-frightened braggadocio to convince yourself that you're man enough, enough killing us in the name of life, enough flaccid 'nudifying' women you'll never actually see naked with any enthusiasm, enough agro Jesus hype, enough sadism, enough resting your entire power structure on ever-present background threats of rape that are the context of women's lives. Enough. ¡Basta! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012102.jpg) New worlds are built on the ruins of old ones and the bones of their people. That's the process men have preferred for 5000ish years. They're good at it, but at very little else at that scale. Matriarchy does civilization better, and it's the one spark of hope I carry now that so many young women are taking their feminism in a matriarchal direction. More and more, all the evidence is pointing to matriarchal structures and practices resulting in more livable, happier, pro-social, and *crucially* Much More Endurable civilizations – with sourdough bread and everything!! [Archaeologists find ancient matrilineal society in Turkiye’s CatalhoyukAbout 9,000 years ago, the settlement was an egalitarian, matrilineal society with no evidence of organised violence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_aje-1fac6074-518c-42a1-8872-db987cd9b1f0.ico)Al JazeeraNimet Kirac![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/20250902_DSCF5731-1780388533-89568fd0-a29b-4335-8dfe-c10be3ee637b.jpg)](https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/6/4/archaeologists-find-ancient-matrilineal-society-in-turkiyes-catalhoyuk?ref=medusarising.org) From around 9000BCE to 5700BCE the Ubaid civilization thrived, and Çatalhöyük in particular. 4300 years. In the same spot. That, cousins, is some sustainability. To return is impossible. To recreate is foolish. But to constitute anew matriarchies beginning in these high-tech times, Hyperlithic or **Matriocene (a new geological era!)**, a matricultural future demands we take it as seriously has the Heritage Foundation has taken to realizing the fictional Gilead. They say facts don't care about your feelings. Well, feelings, here are the facts. Humans evolved in woman-and-child-centred, care-based, socials systems of cooperation and deep social bonding. We lived like this for most of our 300,000 years, and our ancestors controlled fire for 100,000 years before that. We've been farming for 9000 years. Women hunted the mammoth, too. All of the truly essential-to-life technologies were invented in this matricultural world that everywhere organized its year astronomically, and that honored life and death in its many avatars of Goddess. Those are facts. They give me very good feelings, like hope. But those are the past. We're here now with our cousins, lovers, children, and a very powerful opposition. We have a non-violent political movement in Matriarchy Now. We have blogs, newsletters, books, courses by many experts we should support and learn from, music, festivals, and each other. ### And we have some decisions to make. - Do we help reclaim and reinforce liberal democracy so that we get a chance to move beyond patriarchy? - What to do with all this god-like technology? - How organize our social worlds for care and well-being? - What aspects of matriculture to phase in and when? - How to bring the others along with us? - What to do if they won't come? - To work together or not? Network? Confederate? - How best to connect each other across the globe? - What to do when they come for us? (Because they will.) - What's the strongest lever for starting from zero? - Do you want to win the future? - What are you willing and able to do to liberate women? ### The Feminist NO opens a conversation about the future. ### Comment below. --- Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### LET'S TAKE IT BACK | DemocraShe x Gorgon Posse URL: https://www.medusarising.org/lets-take-it-back-democrashe-x-gorgon-posse/ Last updated: 2026-07-04T16:58:35.000Z ### I did not expect to come out of this podcast so excited!! The girls go on from this program to make big things, to make world, to run for office, to make the change only they can bring! A non-partisan civics organization run by an enthusiastic and personable white, middle class woman **preparing girls for leadership** inside the limits of our liberal democracy? Like, cool. **On this dire anniversary of always shaky and self-contradicting Independent Republic of the United States, here's a little ray of world building hope.** But, I tell you what. This is a Strategic Intersectionality Project up and running [Sarah Jakle and DemocraShe](https://democrashe.org/?ref=medusarising.org) are the antidote. More like this please! They support **high school girls** in standing in their power to go into **civic and political positions to represent their communities and to represent women**. These girls are from **underserved communities**, facing more than one uphill climb, and often carry lots of family responsibility – especially if they are **first generation citizens**. **Over 60%** of girls who complete the program go into a civil position, a policy program, or into brute politics. 60% is wild success!! Some start their own programs with funding they secure from the UN or the Obama Foundation. This is working. DemocraShe is **making change in, by, and for women**. See[ Youth Policy Makers of Tomorrow](https://www.instagram.com/youthpolicymakersfortomorrow/?ref=medusarising.org). Just for one example. The more I talked with Sarah, the more **I heard a radical feminism at work** (if undeclared) in this nonpartisan nonprofit. Girls apply to the program, and once accepted they **receive a stipend** to help off-set income they or their families might miss while they are in the program. The program begins with deep recognition that every member is carrying wounds from this racist and sexist male-dominated capitalism, and the acknowledgement that those wounds can be triggers deliberately tripped by those who want to keep these girls out of the work. Then, each cohort **builds connection and learns trauma-informed tools** for stepping beyond that wounded & critical voice in the mind that only tells us how bad the odds are, how small we are. The center of the program is **the community chat**, where the girls collaborate and support. Running over five years now, graduates mentor new members in **a peer-to-peer system**. This powerful backing by the group helps these girls and young women confront the onslaught of male condescension in political spaces that runs from death threats to microaggressions. Jackel was always infuriated at the **redoubled harassment women face in politics and wanted to steel girls against it with the power of a community of trust**. It's not the RadFem Utopia, but it is a pathway. It is a **Big Swing**, and it is working!! These girls are supporting each other in and across differences in way that many older radfems could learn from. Less policing, more emboldening. ## **Meanwhile, back at the patriarchy** *Black and white together,* *Black and white together,* *Black and white together someday.* *Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,* ### **We Shall Overcome ...** **This Redistricting Fuckery in November!** You know, but tell your friends, moms, aunties, grandmas, VOTING AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE.[ On the SAVE Act](https://www.vote.org/save-act/?ref=medusarising.org). The bill is currently stalled in the Senate but I would not put it past these sneaky parasitic fuckers to take the Nuclear Option and get it through as some kind of October Surprise. It sucks, but we need to be ready. **SCOTUS killed the Voting Rights Act** in Louisiana v. Callais (April 2026), so the GOP is going on a **redistricting spree across the South and much of the Midwest,** Louisiana straight stopped a vote in progress to keep black voters from representation, **so we need to be ready.** **Overwhelming numbers of blue votes are the only way.** **How to help others check their registration and register.** **Hook up with:** [Flip the House — Swing Left](https://swingleft.org/house?ref=medusarising.org) Join Swing Left to help flip the U.S. House by supporting competitive swing districts through volunteering, donations, and voter engagement efforts. [Rock the Vote](https://www.rockthevote.org/?ref=medusarising.org) Dedicated to building the political power of young people. Register to vote, check your registration status, and more. Fast, easy, secure, nonpartisan. [Everything You Need to Vote - ](https://www.vote.org/?ref=medusarising.org)[Vote.org](http://vote.org/?ref=medusarising.org) Register to vote. Check your registration status. Get your absentee ballot. Fast, free, easy, secure, nonpartisan. Yes, campaign for your favorite – but **we need numbers upon numbers**. CHECK THAT YOUR STATE GOP HAS NOT DE-REGISTERED YOU. GET YOUR DOCUMENTS IN ORDER, HELP ALL THE WOMEN AROUND YOU GET THEIRS. If these miscreants do an end-run and get the SAVE Act signed into law, it will be decades before we begin to repair the republic. # **(\*)** (cribbed from Gemini) ## **Does the SAVE Act charge a fee to vote?** Not directly. But the documents it requires are not free. A U.S. passport costs a minimum of [$165 in application fees](https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/fees.html?ref=medusarising.org) and photos. A passport card, a cheaper alternative accepted under the bill, costs $65\. A certified birth certificate costs $10 to $50 depending on the state. Replacing a lost naturalization certificate costs $1,385. Over 51% of Americans do not have a valid passport. Only 1 in 5 Americans with household incomes below $50,000 has one. Only 1 in 4 Americans without a college degree has one. **Married women.** An estimated [69 million American women](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-would-disenfranchise-millions-of-citizens/?ref=medusarising.org) do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name. Under this bill, they would need to present both a birth certificate and a marriage certificate to establish their identity. Research shows that conservative and Republican-leaning women are statistically more likely to have changed their surnames after marriage. This burden is not partisan. It falls on tens of millions of women regardless of how they vote. **Rural Americans.** In the 30 largest counties by area in the Western United States, voters would need to drive an average of 260 miles to reach an election office. A [Center for American Progress analysis](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-would-force-many-rural-americans-to-drive-hours-to-register-to-vote/?ref=medusarising.org) found that **some voters in Alaska and Hawaii would need to fly**. For anyone working hourly, without reliable transportation, or with a disability, that is not a manageable requirement. **Young and first-time voters.** About 24% of Americans under 30 do not have ready access to qualifying documents. Voter registration drives at college campuses and community events would largely end since they depend on mail-in forms. Young voters who move frequently would need to re-present their documents every time they update their registration. **Low-income Americans.** The financial barriers above fall hardest on working-class Americans across all political backgrounds. They are simply the least likely to have a passport or the flexibility to visit an election office during business hours. **People of color.** [Research from the Brennan Center for Justice](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-would-force-many-rural-americans-to-drive-hours-to-register-to-vote/?ref=medusarising.org) found that over 21 million Americans lack ready access to documentary proof of citizenship, with people of color disproportionately represented in that group. Nearly half of Black Americans under 30 do not have ID with their current name and address. Many older Black Americans, born during the pre-civil rights era, were never issued a birth certificate at all. **Military members and Americans abroad.** The [U.S. Vote Foundation has documented](https://www.usvotefoundation.org/letter-to-congress-overseas-military-voters-speak-out-save-act-hr22-s128?ref=medusarising.org) that the bill's in-person requirement would create significant barriers for service members stationed overseas and American citizens living abroad. **Transgender Americans.** Before this bill, an estimated [210,800 transgender Americans](https://19thnews.org/2024/10/transgender-voters-how-to-vote-safely/?ref=medusarising.org) in states with existing voter ID laws already lacked IDs correctly reflecting their name or gender. The SAVE Act adds another documentation layer on top of barriers that already exist. (The Vote) # **(\*)** The SAVE ACT is a penultimate nail in the coffin of what little democracy we have, and that’s we’ve only had since 1965\. It deepens the roots of our [Constitutional Oligarchy](https://youtu.be/UT0y1CRFfBA?is=URsFaQj-1KuNbvmf&ref=medusarising.org). Right now, playing the liberal game is the only way forward. So play as hard as you can. Look, we're going to be in survival mode anyway, as women and minoritized women, and as organizations and projects. There is already so much broken and gone ... But we'll really not be repairing or building if these death eating parasites win. *Big Swings, y'all, big fuckin' swings,* *Esmée* [Medusa Rising | Media & MovementMerch to support movement building. Print offerings to celebrate brilliance! Feminism or Death. It’s that simple.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/MrhqNokrKYTAcFAt-a3397769-998a-430d-b15a-f909bccdd3c9.png)Medusa Rising | Media & Movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/iQ0jsrys5X_iL5b--fd8f1b58-4597-44bf-bc07-e1b1deb66fda.png)](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### How I met Jaclyn & asked her into Medusa Rising URL: https://www.medusarising.org/how-i-met-jaclyn-asked-her-into-medusa-rising/ Last updated: 2026-07-02T05:33:46.000Z I hang out with a group of very smart matriarchists in a server, as one does. Jaclyn showed up as a new member the admins were onboarding as a new admin. I liked her vibe, I was drawn to her focus on stewarding and tending our own energy to bring into the work. I like playing my table rather than the other player. I'm competitive against the game, not people. Jaclyn's study and teaching in Self Love struck me as a perfect **antidote to the personal damage of living in patriarchy no matter how thick or thin our feminist analysis runs**. And lucky for me, the timing turned out to be wrong. I want radmatfems to have a space to reopen our energy-grounding and dedicate **to ourselves.* I want us to have a space to support each other in that unfolding. I want us to have a guide who has been there and knows that her way and your way are both alike and very different. ## This Is Not Woo-Woo *The personal is political is personal* – but they don't perfectly solve each other, and feminist consciousness and movement takes A LOT of personal examination and commitment (and time and energy and many women burn out). For me, I am just so fucking frustrated that we're right and over our intellectual history feminists have worked out quite a lot real and effective solutions to the terrors of patriarchal capitalist life. I'm like Bruce Bannon in that one Marvel movie where the alien monster is coming at the Avengers and It's all very Macho Masculine put to the protective uses it should be. I have a lot of "masculine" energy. Like Bruce, "I'm always angry." Now more than ever – *how in the holy world are all these people this murderous and indifferent? When will we overcome their terrible looting of the world and our very life-energy? Faaaaack! Hulk Smash.* But no, Esmée does not smash. Esmée analyzes, schemes, connects and dreams outward. Which, it turns out takes about the same amount of energy minus all the destruction of infrastructure and loss of life. Jaclyn knows a lot about committing to a calmer, more self-honoring path for not just surviving in this world but loving the hell out of it by loving the hell out of ourselves. She has been through some things. Literally, catalyzing the hell inside into a habitation for both our warmth and our own unique woman's wisdom and power. ## As If I brought her into this project because with her support more of us can make the little shifts and adjustments we need to become the people who can not only imaging the new world but live ***as if*** we're in that new world now. World's are built in the habitation, not only in the urban permaculture planning. There's no program. That's what's cool about Jaclyn's work. There's no "one weird trick" or "habit building journal" or whatever. There's no gimmick. There's just support in the deep listening and patient experimentation in tenderness that loving ourselves fully and well requires. Radical Feminism has reputation for being harsh rather than lush, critical rather than creative, and judgy rather than jovial. Especially of other women. Jaclyn and I, all the Gorgons, mean for Medusa Rising to be more robust, rollicking, replete. I hope to see you in the circle in July, Esmée --- Get more soulcraft Want more? Prefer to craft your soul on your own? We get it. Jaclyn's book and workbook **MAKE YOURSELF MAGIC* can be purchased anytime you'd like to dive in. [Let's Check It Out! ](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/jaclynlanaebooks/p/makeyourselfmagic?ref=medusarising.org) Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undeniability. A MONTHLY PERK FOR THE PYTHIA / $8 LEVEL & UP OR JOIN WITH A $6 TICKET (if you are member) Meets monthly at our Discord. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Reading Room DC | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/reading-room-dc-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T13:39:49.000Z The [Trump-Epstein Reading Room](https://trumpsonian.us/rr?ref=medusarising.org) took the wind out of me. The installation itself reminded me of a Quaker meeting house, really, a space completely given over to its purpose and to contemplation. The volumes and volumes are archival, generic, bound in white, differing only in their ever increasing numerical designation, lining the walls. They are both massive and weirdly background, visible and then fading back, like the story of these crimes has been over the years, like consciousness of these crimes for most people. And like these crimes, dense, heavy, and surrounding, both background and foreground of women’s lives. I think this wavering sensation had to do with the space, it was much larger than the one in NYC from my viewing of some video. That space seemed to press in on visitors. I don’t know if the DC space was deliberately chosen to give more actual air or not, but I welcomed the effect. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28247.jpg) Between the files on the first floor and the candle-shrine on the second floor are artworks by Maria Farmer, a survivor, a tarot deck of externalized trauma. (More, and disturbing images at the bottom of this post). The ugliness of these people manifest; their bodies radiating their lurid, sadist drives; the deadness in their eyes faced down by the artist as she rendered them on paper. These images are screaming. They are rough and bright and ugly. ## **The Hermit Card** Apparently, Zoro Ranch had themed rooms that replicated famous spaces from around the world and one of them was a reproduction of the Lascaux Caves. You and I know what that space is, what it means, and my breath stopped when I saw the scene. A girl hiding in the room, trying to find some time where she was not on display and at others mercy, in a reproduction of a space we know belongs to an ancient culture that did NOT privilege men’s lust over life and lifegiving. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012357.jpg) I’m sure Epstein and his clients didn’t know. Just old images, just an assertion that what happened to these girls happened forever since the dawn of time,"forever patriarchy." Lies. *Pieties aside, fellas, this is our birthright*. That frisson felt in the presence of desecration ran up my spine. Then the identification hit. She sought places to get away from everyone, to be in her own mind, unmolested, away from judgement. I was a girl who hid, too. Not for these same reasons. I have never been forcibly confined. Still the connection was suddenly a familiarity. I’m 58 now, and I know what it feels like to be hunted. Stalked, followed down the street, chased one time down the highway by men in another car, what it feels like to be fucked without care. Not systematically raped, no, but put in that fear by men’s violence. Her little hand print added to the wall of those magnificent horses, “Maria was here (hiding).” Every woman’s point of connection to another will be unique, but all are beacons. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012351.jpg) 1400 electric candles arranged on black cloth on a table scape Behind a curtain that just sets off the space, a space for writing and creating art to leave your record, process your responses. I was not ready for what I would feel. I came around the curtain and this massive wall of note cards, a bright and physical warmth drew my joy back up to the surface. Here were thousands of notes from women and men who will not leave the victims isolated, who will not pretend everything is okay, this is normal. These people testify that this is normal and it is NOT okay, normal is not okay. Which, in a way, is where we begin, and re-begin, and re-begin our struggles. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012359.jpg) Partial view of a wall of handwritten cards with messages from visitors A tiny crochet sweater. A call to arms. Ambition toward matriarchy. (Down the hill as I write this a fox is calling in the daytime, I am on alert.) We all know something has got to give way, and none of us know when or how it might break loose. I am of two minds, as you know, dear cousins & sisters, about what it might take to survive this era. Velvet Revolutions fare better than violent ones, but I am not sure that we can get out without militancy. So many men are wedded to something other than life. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012352.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012356.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012355.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28233.jpg) Gallery of cards in many people's handwritting illustrating the paragraph above The whole administration of this violent, farcical, brutal regime was in on the cover-up. [The Sit Room](https://ansari.house.gov/media/videos/jd-vance-was-leading-the-white-house-cover-up?ref=medusarising.org) given over to reputational damage control, the covering of crimes itself a crime. I am of one mind on this: Lock Them All Up. Justice is not only a matter for victims of crimes. **Justice is how we reaffirm who we are as a people**. For most of our history, we have affirmed only our misogyny, our racism, and our disregard for human dignity. Can that dam break? I spend so much energy now just trying to put down my rage and get on with a day. ## **The Men in the Reading Room** The director, David Garret, was sitting in a back corner working on his laptop. He’s there every day running operations, setting up the next city, and keeping vigil. What a contrast to the crude glitz of a national humiliation ritual building up on the White House Lawn just one mile away. These two men couldn’t be more different. One literally bearing witness to the damage the other did, and the other strutting in his domination of a whole nation much as he did the girls exposed by his FBI in one more act of violation. [The Institute for Primary Facts](https://primary-facts.org/?ref=medusarising.org) has my gratitude. Much of the staff in DC were people of color, and the security we’re all black men who exuded both alertness and gentleness. I thanked the man watching over Farmer’s artwork for being there, and he said, “I support this project with my whole heart. I would be nowhere else.” Not only are these men who want justice for women, but they’re also men who clearly had good training in gentle attending. I point to their race because these are the men our national mythos tells us to fear, the men scapegoated by white supremacists for their own violence for centuries, the men this Epstein Class continue to scapegoat. Standing vigil for white women harmed by the kind of men who harm them too. Out of identity and into common struggle. They showed without saying it that they knew many women coming here to witness would be having intense reactions, and I felt everyone was both out of the way so that people could experience what they needed and also *right there* in case that experience became overwhelming. Clearly these men were hired because they came with a supportive spirit. And, you know, if that were more men, this room would not exist. But it does, so the organization supporting this, I have to call it, shrine shares contact info for anti-trafficking and SA support services. They’ve taken a 3D approach to the project all the way through. It's a testament to the horror in the souls of patriarchal men, a shrine to the girls-women they consume, and demonstration of what nurturing and regenerative masculinity can be. In DC, the guest emails all contained this footer: | Take ActionThe Reading Room is one piece of a much larger movement. Please support the organizers and advocates working every day for survivors:[me too. International](https://link.trumpsonian.us/click/fon4DN1OdeDu.862NIiBWgIZC.WaT-GA2%5FoVw/YLfHt3Ix/3s/metoomvmt.org?ref=medusarising.org) — ending sexual and gender-based violence through survivor-led healing and action.[SOAR (Speak Out. Act. Reclaim)](https://link.trumpsonian.us/click/fon4DN1OdeDu.862NIiBWgIZC.WaT-GA2%5FoVw/DCPjforZ/3s/www.speakoutactreclaim.org/?ref=medusarising.org) — founded by Virginia Giuffre to help survivors reclaim their stories and end sex trafficking.[World Without Exploitation](https://link.trumpsonian.us/click/fon4DN1OdeDu.862NIiBWgIZC.WaT-GA2%5FoVw/aEWwE0YR/3s/worldwithoutexploitation.org?ref=medusarising.org) — the largest U.S. coalition working to end commercial sexual exploitation. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Need support?This material is heavy. If you need help, you are not alone.RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline — Call 800-656-HOPE (4673), text HOPE to 64673, or chat at [hotline.rainn.org](https://link.trumpsonian.us/click/fon4DN1OdeDu.862NIiBWgIZC.WaT-GA2%5FoVw/WvlNJ7od/3s/hotline.rainn.org?ref=medusarising.org). Free, confidential, 24/7. | **It’s not justice, it's not even due process, but it is honor, a community holding the victims in their humanity with care, and accusation that must be answered.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/1000012358.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28238.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28266.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28239.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28272.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/9d84ab96-4c3d-477a-8f7a-b0c703de1787-1_all_28241.jpg) Gallery of Maria Farmer's artwork, sorry the alt text isn't long enough to describe them all --- (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ- \_*\-)ノ\~ ┻━┻* Esmée Streachailt is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ****We accept and read work all year long.** Click that red button for details! Reader contributions welcome. Original creations, cross-posts, reprints. All feminist amplification all year long! [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ### Next Reading Circle | 1 August URL: https://www.medusarising.org/next-reading-circle-1-august/ Last updated: 2026-06-23T05:33:58.000Z --- If you are already a member and in the Discord server, we'll see you there. If not, see below for details on memberships and tickets to the circle. And, you know, start reading now. 🤓 **Men are invited, but women have the floor, and no one should interrupt or over-talk.** ### **Our text for the Lughnasahd Circle (1 Aug):** Paperback or Ebook at the publisher. Says the publisher: From social reproduction and domestic work to the intertwining of financial and gender violence, as well as controversies surrounding the neo-extractivist model of development, the possibilities and limits of left populism, and the ever-vexed nexus of gender-race-class. Gago asks what another theory of power might look like, one premised on our desire to change everything. It's a very Medusa Rising kind of book. ᕙ⁠(⁠ ⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠‿⁠ ⁠•⁠ ⁠ ⁠)⁠ᕗ [Feminist InternationalRecent years have seen massive feminist mobilizations in virtually every continent, overturning social mores and repressive legislation. In this brilliant and original look at the emerging feminist international, Verónica Gago explores how the women’s strike, as both a concept and collective experience, may be transfor![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon.static.ico)Verso BooksVerónica Gago![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/getimage_abd4fe8b-7ad2-4178-bda2-96f93f2b9ad5.jpg)](https://www.versobooks.com/products/2635-feminist-international?ref=medusarising.org) > Inspired by the internationally coordinated strike for the 8th of March, Gago has given us a book that well captures the revolutionary potential of contemporary feminism – its theories, its organizational forms, its struggles – all examined though the lenses of one of the most radical feminist movements on the American continent. It is a courageous and creative book, an ideal read for political formation; it opens new worlds and calls for action. > — Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. A MONTHLY PERK FOR THE PYTHIA / $8 LEVEL & UP Meets monthly at our Discord. Corra (free) and Yacumama ($2) members may join sessions with a $6 ticket each month as desired. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ### Conversations about the Book --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Shift Competition to Confidence | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/shift-competition-to-confidence-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-06-18T05:33:33.000Z Soul Crafting is the conscious refinement and realignment of our energy and, as we discussed last month, the crafting begins with awareness. With sensing energy: the energy within us, and the energy of the outside world. Once we are aware of both, we can begin to explore how one informs the other, and how we would like to craft ourselves differently (or, perhaps, just more ;)). ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/06/SC-June_thumb.png) Shift Competition to Confidence | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /729.664 1× The world around us - our lives and our experiences within them - is filled with mirrors, clues, and nudges toward the work our soul self wants to do, the energetic shifts it wants to make in order to shift the much bigger energies of the outside world. Every time we experience a conflict with a friend, or find ourselves having the same discussion with our partners, or catch ourselves narrating a victimized story about what isn’t working in our lives, we’re being offered an opportunity to go a little deeper within, and heal. To do a little Soul Crafting. And that starts by asking two questions: “What am I really feeling?” And “What could this experience / person / situation be teaching me?” ## Nudges: Recognizing Energetic Shifts and Wounds in Relationships Every experience has an energy, and the more tuned in we are to ourselves, our bodies, and how our energy normally feels, the more we’ll be able to pick up on the energetic information available in the outside world. It’s likely you’re already more aware of the energetic information coming in than you realize. It happens every time you’re at a party and someone makes an unsavory comment that shifts your energy (and likely the vibe in the whole room). It happens in those moments when you can feel your friend or partner shut down or close off when a sensitive topic comes up, even if they continue to converse. It happens when you walk into certain spaces and immediately feel a sense of drawing within or a subtle desire to run - or a desire to open up, smile, and engage. Every time we encounter these energies, it’s an opportunity to pull back the veil of the ego-based narrative that’s telling us what’s going on in and around us and look a little deeper. Very often, our relationships are the places where we most easily sense shifts in energy. Romantic, platonic, professional, communal… our bonds and interactions with other humans are the most common stages on which our energies are exposed and our wounds are revealed. They are the mirrors of our lives. They show us what hurts, and then invite us to ask why. Painful, perhaps. But in the safety and care of other humans who don’t judge us but love us, humans who easily make space for our imperfectness because they are aware of their flaws and projections, our bonds will grow stronger and our wounds will begin to heal. For this very reason, communities of women are so especially important. We need our best friends, our sisters, our mothers, our aunts, and cousins (I’m referring to chosen family here) to welcome us into a shared space and protect us when we’re healing and vulnerable - just as we will do for them. Very often, of course, these are also the same people who will expose our wounds. Unintentionally, of course. And that’s where we can turn up our energy sensing, peel back the bandages, and address what’s really underneath. ## Teachers: Unpacking "Frenemies" and Patriarchal Conditioning I would wager that almost every woman has, at one point or another in her life, experienced a frenemy. Whether it’s in an isolated interaction or an entire relationship which is subtly defined by this energy, we’ve all been in associations with another woman that just feels… unsettled. Off. Not entirely safe. It isn’t that we feel like this woman will actively try to hurt us; we may even be well aware that she legitimately loves us and absolutely has our best interest at heart. There’s just a pervasive feeling that there’s something else there. Something… unhealed. Given patriarchy’s incredibly successful campaign to pit women against each other, I think it’s safe to say that at least in some situations where there is conflict between female friends, the feelings under it are often rooted in competition. Feelings of anger or resentment or superiority. Perhaps because our friend is more aesthetically celebrated according to patriarchal beauty standards. Or because her husband is wealthier or more doting or more widely respected. Or because her children are more successful. We feel a welling up of an energy that we know is not our own “normal” and we hear a chorus of blaming or shaming narratives in our mind. Because she “bought into” the system and relies on her husband’s money. Or because she took a pill and lost 30 pounds. Or because she wears low-cut tops or short-shorts. The energy shift that we sense is the first indicator. When we know ourselves and our own energy well, it’s easy to notice when a different energy has joined the chat. An energy that feels darker, denser, more acrid. One that is somewhat uncomfortable, even for us. It probably feels constricting in some way and we might even be embarrassed to acknowledge that we feel it. That energy, especially when accompanied by feelings of blame or superiority - is often an indication that an old wound has been touched. And with open-eyed awareness, we can investigate and heal it. ### **Jealous-ing** Often when we feel these darker energies, there are deeper feelings beneath - feelings we may even turn on ourselves. Perhaps we feel a sense of shame that we don’t have her beauty, or guilt that we don’t have her ambition, or resentment that we don’t have her sexual liberation. We may even feel superior to her, or so shamed by our own perception of our inadequacies that we feel we have to make ourselves superior in order to have value. Our ego protects us from feeling shame by telling us that we’re better because we earn our own money, or that we’re too smart to wear sexy clothes, or that we’re better mothers because we didn’t push our kids too hard. Which suggests that the truth is, we’re angry at or ashamed of ourselves. And it isn’t our fault because we’ve been programmed by patriarchy’s bullshit messaging. Why should we care if another woman has a certain size or shape of body, what she wears or doesn’t, how she cares for herself or her body or her skin? We know, intellectually, that her aesthetic appeal has no bearing on her value as a human - not outside of societally dictated standards - and we can wholly opt-out of those. Regardless of what she does or doesn’t do, if she is traditionally beautiful, why can’t we just be happy for her? Perhaps she gets up every morning at 4 a.m. to run for two hours. Or perhaps she hasn’t eaten a gram of sugar in two years. Or perhaps she spends two hours on her skin care every day. Or perhaps she had reconstructive surgery. Why would it matter where her money comes from or how she spends it? Why should we care if her children grow up to be the most brilliant minds in the world? ## Turning: Re-Embodying Our Humanity and Self-Acceptance From a soul craft perspective, we don’t. When we are connected with the spirit, the energy body of who we really are on a soul level, there is abject apathy for what anyone else does or doesn’t have, do, make… we don’t care because it doesn’t have any bearing on their value in the world or on ours. Bodies are gloriously unique vehicles with which to travel around, money is cotton paper with a flimsy belief system attached, clothes and makeup are artistic expressions, and no other soul - even those of our children - defines our value. When we feel envy or jealousy or resentment or even anger, especially toward other women, we can choose to view those sentiments as invitations to look closer - at the energy beneath. Is there a sense of competition? Do we feel judgmental - or as though we are being judged? Do we feel a supportive energy or a threatening one? Taking the time to quietly evaluate the energy and what we’re feeling allows us to gain a better understanding of ourselves and with whom we’re really angry. Because at least in some cases (if not many) what we’re feeling are programmed responses to a societal dictation that says that we are supposed to be… different. *We’re supposed to be everything. At all times. For everyone else*. And competing with each other to be the best everything at all times for everyone else. What we’re really pissed at is a capitalist patriarchal system that reduces us to a tool. One that says that certain external characteristics mark our value. The answer, then - or one of them - is to re-embody our humanity. Celebrate our human-ness - our beautifully flawed, perfectly imperfect, human-ness. Find the bliss of *being*. Of being *us*. This is the work we will practice in the Soul Craft Circle (details below) where I’ll share tools and exercises that we can use on our own, in private, to come back into our bodies and rediscover the pleasure of living. Because if we can extract ourselves from the externally dictated qualifiers of our value, we can liberate ourselves from the shame and judgement of ourselves and others. Even when we think we’re angry with ourselves for not taking better care of our bodies or making more of our own money or being better parents, for example, it’s possible - if not likely - that we aren’t actually angry with ourselves. That deep down, if we gave ourselves some compassion and permission, we could see we are far more than our bodies and our bank accounts and our roles in society, and that we’re doing just fine, thank you. That we did just fine. That we’re doing our very best to survive and even take down a violent, extractive, patriarchal-constructed reality that constantly evaluates, measures, categorizes, and judges us, and we absolutely can opt out. ![Minimalist line-art figure in a heart-shaped meditative pose sprouting from water ripples on a beige background, set above a complex network of interconnected red geometric lines.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/06/no-mud--no-lotus.png) We can shift our energy into one of profound joyful acceptance of ourselves and those around us. (Those that are not actively trying to do us harm, obviously.) We can notice when our energy changes, and take control, make adjustments. We can craft our souls to celebrate rather than judge or shame, to live in gratitude rather than resentment or blame. We can, in fact, enjoy celebrating other women because it does, indeed, feel amazing, even relaxing to do so. We can teach our ego-narrator to tell us true stories about what wonderful humans we are. What generous and supportive and kind and creative and funny and compassionate humans we are. We can program the supercomputers we carry around inside of us to be happy for and supportive of others because they are beautiful, flawed souls working right alongside us, in the way they believe is best for them, to create a better reality for us all. Judging and shaming ourselves and each other as more or less is patriarchy’s work, and they’re doing far more than enough of it. Let’s leave it to them, shall we? Let’s focus on how we can celebrate ourselves and each other, and work together on making our world a better place for all. **The Pitch ;-)** For those interested, Thursday, the 25th of June, our Soul Craft Circle on the Medusa Rising Discord channel will focus on the ways we can do the re-programming work to move ourselves out of a place of judgement - whether of ourselves or of others - and heal together so we can be a greater force of good in the world. If you happen to be a paying subscriber, you already have access to that support! If you would like to [become a paying member](https://www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/) and get that perk (plus LOTS more), you can join us here. We also have a load of rad merchandise for all the proud, misfit, warrior, Gorgon women that are working together to do this incredible work in themselves and in the world. Find your new favorite T-shirt, mug, sticker, or button [at our shop](https://medusa-rising-shop.fourthwall.com/en-usd?ref=medusarising.org). --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at [https://jaclynlanae.substack.com](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/?ref=medusarising.org)/ or connect at [AuthorJaclynLanae.com](https://authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org). [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ****We accept and read work all year long.** Click that red button for details! Reader contributions welcome. Original creations, cross-posts, reprints. All feminist amplification all year long! [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Feminism or Death | The Future Is Feminist | Death Before Coverture Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Blood, Milk, 神 | by Robin Anderson URL: https://www.medusarising.org/blood-milk-shen-by-robin-anderson/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T05:33:12.000Z 3am and it’s either too cold to sleep, or too hot. Wrists cannot be exposed; feet have to be. I startle awake with the fear she will be kidnapped out of our 2nd story window. I dream lucidly of cars careening on their sides down the freeway. I mostly do not sleep. *Shen* has nowhere to root. 神 ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/05/Voice-260513_130933_thumb.png) Blood, Milk, Shen by Robin Anderson | read by Esmée 0:00 /671.370833 1× For any mother who has had the unshakable urge to check on her baby multiple times throughout the night, this is a rudderless *shen*. I am a practitioner of Chinese medicine, and I just had a baby. I know some things. But at 3am, I’m not sure it matters. For instance, I know that the health of one’s spirit, or *shen*, is so closely tied with one’s blood that it is impossible to speak of one without the other. After my daughter was born, the first blood transfusion didn’t do much, so I had a second. But nine weeks later, I was still wearing a hospital-grade maxi pad with no discernible medical cause. After an ultrasound had ruled out retained placenta, I had a call with a midwife. “Iron stores look fine. Have you tried extra vitamin C?” She asked. She was almost chipper. “I don’t really know how to help you. Maybe it’s time to try alternative medicine.” Lady, I thought, I AM the alternative medicine. If the blood is deficient, the spirit, or *shen*, cannot rest. The *Ling Shu*, or Spiritual Pivot that serves as a core text regarding the theory of acupuncture says, “When Blood is harmonized, the Mind has residence”. It is said that the mind is housed or “embraced” by the nurturing, nutritious fluid, particularly at night. Putting aside my *shen*, I also need to produce breastmilk with this blood-deficient body. It hasn’t been going well. From my studies, I cannot unknow the blood-milk-*shen* connection, and I currently cannot keep blood in my body. In Western physiology, my floating *shen* and flimsy milk supply were considered mostly neurological issues, separate symptoms not connected to each other in any concrete way, utterly banal in their universality, nothing much to see here, take some Unisom as needed, and keep pumping. The circular relationship between supply and demand from the baby’s mouth to the mother’s hypothalamus via the nipple describes the lens that most medical professionals operate under, with vague references to the impacts of stress and nutrition. But essentially, more stimulation equals more production. Not untrue, but not complete. Here’s what I know: > “Breast milk is a product of the transformation of *Qi* and blood…without *Qi* breast milk cannot be transformed, without blood it cannot be generated.” \~Fu Qing Zhu’s *Gynaecology* Milk cannot be generated, I hear in my head as I lay a towel down over the mattress to prevent another rust-colored stain. I am not generating milk. My new-mother thoughts are macabre instead of cute and cuddly. Red, wet, obsessive. Blood running in rivulets. Thick pools of red. Building blocks of mother’s milk, scaffolding of the mind, transporter of oxygen, nutrients and warmth. I miss it. If the mother’s well-being is meant to be the pillar of a healthy family, then we are in trouble. *Shen* has nowhere to root, I think in the dark, between nightmares. There is not enough blood to hold *shen*. The mind has no residence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011161.png) After being prescribed pain pills for excruciating periods as a teen, I was drawn to Chinese medicine for the possibility of remedy. Pain pills could never answer the question of why my cycle kept me home from school. Chinese medicine rises to that challenge. Sun Simiao, a renowned physician from the Tang dynasty famously said, “Women are 10,000 times more difficult to treat than men” because of our complexity, our cyclical nature, and our capacities for change. Because medical dismissal had happened to me at such an early age, the honor of being regarded as intriguing rather than a nuisance created a profound relief I could feel in my bones. The significant blood loss I experienced monthly as a girl meant something in this world, aside from practical matters of iron stores and hematocrit. Blood, in Chinese medicine, influences cognition, mood, strength of voice, sleep. Vision, both physical and metaphorical. Relationship patterns. Dreams. Motivation. Ability to love, and to receive love in return. It is known as one of the five “Vital Substances” of the body, not just in volume, but in quality. Taking my place in the clinician’s seat, I have heard everything from menstrual blood being dry and flaky in the underwear, to thick and clumpy, like strawberry jelly. These variations reflect different constitutions, the basics of physiology boiling down to damp vs dry, hot vs cold, excess vs deficiency. The continuum of *Yin* and *Yang*. Blood and *Qi*. Postpartum, I didn’t have enough of anything. There was no continuum to be on. I lost too much blood, then was too weak from the birth itself to effectively manufacture more. *Qi* was deficient, the life force that holds blood in the body, circulates it, and proliferates more. I was a week in the hospital, never a moment’s peace, no sleep for longer than a few hours without a nurse poking at me. I could not recoup what was lost. Prior to birth, I figured my master’s in Chinese medicine would buffer the pitfalls and failures of birth in North America. An ace up my sleeve, I thought. I’ll be fine. I know a lot. But a new mother cannot care for herself, regardless of how much she knows. I left the hospital with the infant car seat bumping my leg, initiating the modern American mother’s ritual of being released into the bright, normal world, stunned and bleeding, with vague recommendations to “rest” and “eat well”. My first meal at home was a frozen pizza. I stood barefoot on the cold kitchen floor, waiting. I inexplicably told my husband I would handle dinner. He didn’t know he should have guided me back to bed. He believed me when I said I wanted to be in the kitchen, shivering. I believed me, too. Of course, I knew about the traditional cultures that emphasize specific postpartum nutritional protocols-the Chinese *congee*, the Mexican *atole*. They all share the emphasis on warming, soupy meals often rich in collagen that are cooked until the ingredients are falling apart, nutrients easy to assimilate for a new mother, with her tender organs still smashed up to her ribs. I truly believed I would be the one making those meals for myself. I didn’t know the vision of this robust woman at the stove, a baby in one arm and a ladle in another, reflected not a symbol of empowerment; it reflected a normalized dearth of care for new mothers, a kink in the divine plan of procreation that had plagued women in my family, my culture and community for generations now. I didn’t know how much blood I was going to lose. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011161-1.png) So the fact that I am awake is irrelevant, really, because I have the alarm set for 3:30am, when I will pick up my shipwrecked body and sit her on the cold edge of the bathtub. I will hook up plastic pieces to my breasts, the hospital-grade pump with incomprehensible tubing, knobs and funnels, and pray for at least two ounces. Four brown vials of herbal tinctures await my decision downstairs, finally purchased after that useless phone call with the midwife. Tinctures of herbs from the Stop Bleeding category in the Chinese medical pharmacopeia. But they could also diminish my milk supply even further. I want to bounce this decision off of someone, but herbs are not in anyone on my care team’s scope of practice. Plus, they’re dead to me anyway. Yes, I’m an herbalist myself, but my blood-starved brain doesn’t work right now. I cannot strategize. I need a mentor, a wise woman, a grandmother to guide me. Warm, knowing hands, gentle words. Instead, I have been offered birth control and anti-depressants, but no real plan for the continuous loss of fluid, nutrients, and raw material for sustaining life-my life- that is blood. The focus remains on the volume of milk produced, but not the vessel from which it comes. Tonight, I cannot decide, and I know I won’t once daylight comes either. I squeeze out just under two ounces in total, unhook, and lumber off to bed where my *shen* hovers just a few feet above me. 神 --- **Robin Anderson** is a writer, mother, and Chinese medicine practitioner, with a focus on women’s health and perinatal care. Her creative spark comes from her love of literature, motherhood, and background in anthropology. Robin lives in Washington state with her partner and their six-year-old daughter. --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. Meets monthly at our Discord. PERK FOR THE PYTHIA / $8 LEVEL & UP Corra (free) and Yacumama ($2) members may join sessions with a $6 ticket each month as desired. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### RESILIENCE Kit for Teen Girls URL: https://www.medusarising.org/resilience-kit-for-teen-girls/ Last updated: 2026-07-20T17:04:36.000Z This is not an exhaustive collection. It's focused on our girls. Our world is eating our children for profit. Start here to give yourself or the girls you know some inner wisdom and the moxy to refuse to comply. Resources coming soon for boys who might rebel against the toxic elements of neo-patriarchal masculinity. ## Personal Resiliance, Solution Focused The book *Reviving Ophelia* by Mary Pipher is from the 90s but, since structures have only intensified it’s still vital, it’s tender and funny and here’s [the anniversary edition co-authored with her daughter](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576824/reviving-ophelia-25th-anniversary-edition-by-mary-pipher-phd-and-sara-pipher-gilliam/?ref=medusarising.org). *Our Bodies, Our Selves*, [everything most education and medicine](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/dbae7109-6c6d-441d-ad72-5ee69b72d675?ref=medusarising.org) will not tell you about your creature self. Esmée's [review of *In a Human Voice*](https://theradicalnotion.org/integration-is-the-radfem-way-a-review-of-in-a-human-voice/?ref=medusarising.org) focuses on how patriarchy shatters relationship and the parts of ourselves we need to protect from it in order to live whole, and how to resist that in ourselves Video [interview with Carol Gilligan](https://youtu.be/wn4QiDpaWOE?si=0KpW48swB9QYtb3U&ref=medusarising.org) – best 30 mins of a day – who is the grandmother of relation psychology, author of *In A Human Voice* linked just above – figured out how girls who are big personalities are made small to be accepted, and how boys who are whole and real are made hard and empty, and how to shift that in our lives. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, mythographer, psychologist, *Women Who Run with the Wolves*, (all her books really are about aspects of being a girl-woman-elder) and her podcasts are really good - still way relevant – [video pod of a reader giving all the chapters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Num-mBrPTGU&list=PLKlvhPSqwX0v86n6TM6CH7RQBLLcbVp8x&ref=medusarising.org). Esmée’s dad gave her this book for her 16th birthday and it saved her – or [SoundsTrue has audio books](https://www.soundstrue.com/collections/authors-clarissa-pinkola-estes?ref=medusarising.org). [The Tiffany Aching (or Wee Free Men) series](https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Tiffany%5FAching?ref=medusarising.org) by Sir Terry Pratchett is a terrific buildungsroman for a girl-to-woman story in which our girl does not have to shrink to become a grown woman – a fave-fave [Therese](https://www.youtube.com/@theresehlee/videos?ref=medusarising.org) is sharp on everything fuckery in the current moment. This Substack gets at [how subtle and deep socialization really goes](https://substack.com/home/post/p-187494167?ref=medusarising.org) in people, how deeply instinctive some behaviors become. This [British woman is deadpan funny and broadly feminist](https://youtu.be/MvHsbju2ewk?si=LbqWudRc5Iozi2am&ref=medusarising.org) in her takes on cultural trends and makes us feel less insane. [Burned Haystack Dating Method](https://youtu.be/mi0o0wEDVK4?si=QpStr-upW2YTmR3S&ref=medusarising.org) – red and green flags in the dating scene, on apps, etc [Rites for Girls](https://youtu.be/mi0o0wEDVK4?si=QpStr-upW2YTmR3S&ref=medusarising.org) – community and support, might be aimed a little young for her, but a woman psychologist leads it and the girls become each other’s support and coaches Porn, like social media, is the big marker of a generation gap. Most parents did not grow up in a world where porn was just in the air. This [conversation at Culture Reframed](https://youtu.be/i6Y0HyuMMhI?si=sOyho4m536FXCiEL&ref=medusarising.org) explains a lot! [Collective Shout](https://youtu.be/i6Y0HyuMMhI?si=sOyho4m536FXCiEL&ref=medusarising.org) is also a excellent resource on pornography in our cultures. Ditto for [Fight the New Drug](https://fightthenewdrug.org/?ref=medusarising.org). ## Maybe a Coach? Interview Her First, but trusted external advice can be really helpful. Maybe a session once in a while with Jaclyn who works with Medusa Rising now. She’s got a good generally feminist bent on her coaching. And *she knows when she doesn't know*. [Self Love and Personal Empowerment Coach, Writer and SpeakerAuthor, Writer, Speaker and Coach Jaclyn Lanae guides clients and groups to personal growth, trauma healing, and personal empowerment through self love support tools and guidance.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-22.ico)Jaclyn Lanae![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_5767-1.JPG)](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ## Online, Feminist, Women Only Communities Copy these into a browser. Totally worth the extra step. Vexxed.org Raddish.world ClovenHooves.org All these are Reddit style feminist communities. Neither is particularly teen-focused, but they are intergenerational and diverse. And I have seen almost no condescension to younger women. ## Great Substacks The [Anti-Cosmetic Surgery Essay](https://substack.com/home/post/p-176521638?ref=medusarising.org) Every Woman Should Read. It shows gentleness understanding and real clarity about the pressures on young women. Selling trauma: [how social media promotes mental illness](https://substack.com/home/post/p-190082665?ref=medusarising.org). The insecurity pressed into our girls buy advertising and influencers (but we repeat ourselves) is not natural. Discovering yourself is a weird process, but it doesn’t have to hurt like this. [Jessica Valenti](https://substack.com/@jessica?ref=medusarising.org) stays on top of everything sexual/reproductive health and politics. A [note on another ‘stack from Medusa Rising](https://substack.com/@medusarisingoutpost/note/c-223475260?r=ga59j&utm%5Fsource=notes-share-action&utm%5Fmedium=web). In fact if a girl follows the ‘stacks Medusa follows, she’ll have good company. ## Two Fave Pods Interviews with major living feminists of all generations. [Subject to Power](https://www.subjecttopower.com/?ref=medusarising.org). More 101 conversations, one topic each, deeply researched. [Chat in the Commons](https://www.chatinthecommons.com/people/elle-kamihira/?ref=medusarising.org). ## More General [Liberating Motherhood](https://zawn.substack.com/) – some honesty about what’s a red flag in a man’s behavior, among other aspects of adulthood Culture Reframed – is great on sex, porn, body image, [lots of education on how not to get sucked in](https://zawn.substack.com/) to playing to fantasies boys don’t have just on their own. @jessbritvitch – [IG/TT great breakdowns on modern manifestations](https://www.instagram.com/jessbritvich/?ref=medusarising.org) of patriarchal structure and behaviors, while putting on her makeup (which is pretty standard for the genre). RAINN — [how to protect against TESA](http://rainn.org/strategies-to-reduce-risk-increase-safety/staying-safer-online-tech-enabled-sexual-abuse/?ref=medusarising.org) (tech enabled sexual abuse) , this is a whole new way for men to abuse women and girls, and it’s one that many parents know little about. They need educating. RAINN is a US-based sexual violence support network. [Total Woman Victory](https://www.totalwomanvictory.com/?ref=medusarising.org) (v international and socialist) – and their Discord Server are brave and warm and smart as hell. The book[*Before War* by Elisha Daeva](https://beforewar.com/?ref=medusarising.org) consolidates, fills in, and solidifies a lot of the deep history about the civilizations before what we call civilization. Humans have, and therefore can, live in other ways. [Suppressed Histories videos on YouTube](https://beforewar.com/?ref=medusarising.org), for deep grounding because women have long histories everywhere on Earth. ## For the Men or Boys – more coming soon – Because they're eating the boys while teaching them to consume our girls. National Organization for Men Against Sexism – [https://nomas.org/](https://nomas.org/?ref=medusarising.org) The Good Men Project – [https://goodmenproject.com](https://goodmenproject.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Men: Are you really a feminist? Here's how to tell – [https://substack.com/home/post/p-154349553?source=queue ](https://open.substack.com/pub/zawn/p/men-are-you-really-a-feminist-heres?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j) We'll have a parallel resiliance kit for teen boys too. Researching now! --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### On A Materialist Spirituality | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/on-a-materialist-spirituality-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T05:33:09.000Z 1\. Does it always have to entail a spiritual belief/practice? 2a. Is a Wiccan path feminist? 2b. Do feminists need a goddess? 3\. Can a feminist retain a sense of spirit when she believes in the power of material reality and rationality? So, I want to encourage everyone to respond to these questions. They would make for some very lively discussion in the new server. I thought to offer a view on them because they indicate a stubborn either/or thinking that holds us back. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/04/Voice-260429_122105_thumb.png) On A Materialist Spirituality | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /2421.956833 1× **Like, let me take 2a first**: Is a Wiccan path feminist? Well, depends on how you-alone or you and your community are doing your Wicca. Are the men running it? Are the men (even unconsciously) centering themselves? Is it all about sex and occult ritual? Or are the women in the lead, centered, and it’s also about healing the planet and her children? Or some blend of both? Does your group need to have a think about this? See, "Do as thou wilt, and harm none" can have a feminist vector, or just a libertine-libertarian one. Wicca is a modern reimagining of an Earth religion we have indications of through Medieval monks' records, and there are more and less feminist kinds of it. I consulted with the members who've joined our Discord server some of whom are practicing Dianic Wiccans. They offered really great context and perspective: > After the Goddess revival peaked in the 90s, I've found the importance of "the god" has been overemphasized ad nauseum ... In winter we celebrate the Holly King and Oak King, in spring we celebrate pHaLiC mAyPoLe, in the fall we celebrate the sacrifice of the god, and... so where is this "perfectly balanced Wiccan Lord and Lady" stuff supposed to happen again? It seems "the Lord" can't be invited to the table without making himself the center of the celebration 😒 > There is a male inclusive Wiccan group confused about whether it is Dianic or Fairy in Texas, McFarland Wicca, that claims coining the term "Dianic" which is of course not so. I met one and she was negative to Z's contributions of standing up to California anti-witch laws. Z was arrested for reading Tarot. Z went to jail in California as the last witch arrested for witchcraft in the United States. Her activism got witchcraft de-criminalized for all of us. McFarland Dianic makes fun of her for being a "fortune teller" which makes me wonder about their sincerity. They also advertise as being "the only Dianic organization that is gender inclusive" (they were founded by a man named "McFarland" who puts his own name on the group) which rubs me in so many wrong ways. Ruth Barrett and crew have a large thriving Dianic organization, and have been adamant about keeping groups women-only. [Here's her book](https://www.guardiansofthegrove.org/women-s-rites-women-s-mysteries?ref=medusarising.org). > Dianic Wicca specifically includes feminist principles. (The only confusion is when a man claimed ownership and credit of a feminist branch of witchcraft). The original creators called it Wicca meaning "Dianic Witchcraft" and not the specific religion of Wicca. Words change, and that one surely did. Most Dianic groups exclude men and some don't. Starhawk went to the original Dianic Wicca coven initially before starting her own (which continues to this day as an active organization). I don't practice Wicca or any formula- set religion, but like all humans, am connected to the realms where "clocks don't tick and calendars don't tear." I found that book interesting because it shows how to develop your own rites rather than copying someone else's verbatim. Now, whatever matriarchs are cooking up (Nergiz, Matriarchy Times, Matriarchy Now, a bit of MR here) will also be a modern reimagining of an Earth religion, a chthonic spirituality, and there *is no finding total historical authenticity* in that. We can center women, exclude men; we can follow rites like Goettner-Abendroth describes in the chapter "The Lunisolar Play" in *Dancing Goddess* (these follow the mythology of the Goddess and hero and *heiros gamos*). We really **have to observe our patterns, check with our gut, honor what it says, *and* sometimes do some heavy sophialogical lifting**. Because if Goddess has been pushed aside, and if men lead or bully, then you are very likely not in a feminist Wiccan community. I don't imagine a matriarchy of charismatic cults and any dogma – that’s too hierarchical and too on-the-grid. But I do imagine a shared cosmology, a shared ethos, and lots of locally flavored stories, practices, festivals. **Questions 1, 2b, and 3 feel very related**. There’s a tension expressed here between spirituality/faith and materiality/science-politics-rationality. Let me start here and paint in broad strokes: I don’t think our oldest known myths about the Goddess explain quantum mechanics, and I don’t think quantum mechanics can tell us much about the Goddess – but myth and physics are two schemata designed to address totally different parts of our reality. So it’s fine. I don’t too much care if we think that the Goddess IS the music of the vibrational strings of the 11 dimensions of the quantum fields or if we think that the quantum music is just luck and humans are emergent phenomena of those fields and some of us believe in a Goddess-planet. She is not other than us, She is not other than the earth and sea, the animals and their cycles of birth and predation, She is not other than evolution, and She is not other. She is not a judgy, abstract, rule-obessive Sky God. ****We are not other than the Earth, not other than Her, not other than evolution**. Othering is patriarchal business. The material world, our human capacity for reason, our boggling scientific cleverness with which we can shape that world have always been among our capacities which are themselves not at all separate from nature. The octopus has nine brains, two hearts, and blue blood and it's part of nature too. We are not even close that far out of the norm. We have always been clever. We have always traded and built and invented. In the Americas many indigenous peoples tell the story of Sky Mother, who is also the earth in some versions. My European Paleo-Meso-and-Neolithic ancestors built large settlements, traded over 1000s of miles sometimes, and invented and invented because humans are problem solving animals. And we were animists, and that way of being related to – hell, Embedded In – our world is a misty memory for us. What I can tell you is that the split between faith and reason is very recent and only partly to the good. Feminists are suspicous of religions for good reason – patriarchal religion uses faith to diminish and destroy women. I get it. We've had these traditions for so long, and the punishments for breaking with them have been so severe that venturing a new order of spirit – one that dimineshes no one, one that incorporates science because it *does not split the spiritual from the material and does not govern the one with the other, BOTH/AND* – yeah, that feels/is really risky. But, radical feminism has always demanded a change and growth to this depth. It will be very hard to give up and move out of either/or and othering in regard to sex if keep it everywhere else. As we have seen to date. This both/and of Her is why I talk sometimes about a Hyperlithic era, about our embedment in the world and cosmos, a kind of return that is more a venture outward. In the old Irish stories that ultimate She is the cosmos, which is the whole of the Otherworld that completely surrounds our world. Do we HAVE to have a Goddess? No. Does it feel less alienating to many women to engage with the world in those terms? Yes. Will that work for every woman? No. Will Medusa Rising make a problem out of that difference? Never. Being human is an art because a huge part of being us is knowing which frame or which process to bring to each experience or problem. And that’s not always totally clear at first. So we do a loose kind of scientific problem solving – we test and respond, iterate and develop – to see which we need. I mean, which Goddess? Or which phase of the Goddess? As I have said elsewhere: She is the mother gazelle and the colt and the mother lion who kills the colt to feed her cubs. The grass and the meat. Death-Regeneration-Life, in that order. Biology and Ecology are two sciences we use to understand how that works down to a very fine grain. Innana? Sekhmet? Durga? Kali? The differences are important, but do not fuck with any of the them. Demeter? Persephone? Brigit? Cerdiwen? The differences are important, but do not fuck with any of them. The reason I like to call the era we all yearn for Hyperlithic is that it gets at how I think some kind of matriarchy will evolve next, hopefully out of our already democratic practices (hyper - beyond), and that while it will a futurist matriarchy (hyper - very cool), we are still very ground-dwelling animals who build with wood and rock (lithic). It expresses the ambition and humility we need. That carrying power lightly so that we may destroy power. For me, that is a project needing quite a lot of reason and science, and quite a lot of grounded faith. Humans have never done that before at this scale. So the answer is yes-no. Do as thou wilt and harm none. But the individualism in that maxim is not enough for me, and I assert also not for a radical materialist feminism. But is it totally necessary that radmatfems be spiritual? No. I think a whole feminism that can move beyond critique to experiment and world building will need that element to be robust. I regard women deeply involved in feminist/goddess spirituality with admiration. And so do I regard with women committed to a materialist, economic, scientific worldview with deep admiration. We need both. We are always both in need and able to give, and we are at bottom obligated to each other and our supporting ecology, *and* She and we both have limits I would love us to use our reason and science to respect. --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- Feminist algorithm needs you! We are our only algorithm! ****Do postmodern magic!** More connection! More sharing! [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Being & Sistering in a Motherless World | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/being-sistering-in-a-motherless-world-by-jaclyn-lanae-2/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T17:40:50.000Z I must have re-written the start of this essay at least eleven times. “April was the hardest month…”, “2026 has been the hardest…”, “the last two years have been the worst…” “since 2016 we’ve struggled…” The bad news comes in waves, like it always has, but lately it seems the waters are shifting. Rather than just coming, the waves are building. Each bigger and wider and more damaging than the last. Each spawned from deeper beneath the surface, from a place in the ocean that is darker and scarier than we had believed possible. Battered by the assault of patriarchy and broken men, we cling desperately to the ever-eroding shoreline and what little firm footing we might have, fully aware that the storm may pass, but the ocean will not suddenly cease to exist. This is a Motherless world, one in which there is no responsibility or accountability to the mother — the earth, the goddess, or the woman — and unaware, disconnected men run about taking whatever they want. One in which women are demonized and oppressed, and men are told they have no real responsibility — after all, you can’t control the ocean. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/05/SC-Bonus-essay-FULL_thumb.png) Being & Sistering in a Motherless World | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /697.991837 1× But the loss of the mother, the goddess, the divine feminine in our world, in our cultures, in our relationships and lives and bodies, is not irrecoverable. In fact, we carry an inherent and perpetual power in us, a ferocious and tenacious little spark, held and protected in our hearts and our bodies, ready to set off a firestorm that will turn the waves to vapor. We will burn it all down, knowing full well that the charred remains will be the fertile ground we need to build the world anew. Our most important job then, is to nurture and protect that spark. Whether it fires us to political action or to a quieter but equally powerful personal shift, it is the essential element that will keep us alive and fighting. Perhaps one of the great tragedies of living in the apocalyptic reality in which we find ourselves is that so many of us are just barely hanging on as it is. We hardly have the energy to peel ourselves out of bed in the morning. The thought of checking our news outlet carries the kind of silent terror that comes with glancing outside to see a tsunami approaching. “Protecting our spark” sounds like the insouciant homework of a capricious new-age studies student. For this reason — and many others — we need a sisterhood. Socially, economically, environmentally, yes — we need a mother. A system founded in love and care that nurtures and assigns accountability; an entity or belief system or collective that fiercely protects and tirelessly surveys. Personally, and familiarly, however, we need a sisterhood. We need women who come together to support one another — not with a perspective of superiority in wisdom or knowledge, not with an established belief about what we should do or how we should be… We need women whose only concern is protection for us while we explore who we are. We need a collective that celebrates differences, lifts each other up, and seeks freedom and joy for one another. We need a coven to share the tools and protect our sparks together. These are the tools that will help us do that work. ## Stillness Metaphoric or otherwise, the smaller a flame, the more stillness it needs to survive. Our constant rushing around our lives is the emotional and spiritual equivalent of trying to find your way in a sandstorm. So find a way to give yourself some stillness. Close the door to your bedroom. Post up on a park bench. Sit in your car (parked and off, of course). Set a timer if you want and give yourself (or make yourself take) two minutes. No phone. No list making. No reading. Meditate, if you like, but the goal here is to just be in stillness for two minutes. Settle your body, tell your mind it can relax for a minute, focus on your breath, and imagine your whole body relaxing for two whole minutes. If that feels like too long, start with 30 seconds and work your way up. ## Keep Feeling When we’re wounded and the hits just keep coming, our body’s natural protective mechanism is to escape the abuse. And if we can’t do that, we often simply disassociate. Not only is this unsafe for our bodies (and energetic bodies), it normalizes the pain and the abuse. As much as you safely can, keep feeling. As gently as possible. Slow down and simply notice sensations in your body. If you’re folding laundry, do it slowly, and notice how each piece of fabric feels. If you’re making food, taste every spice and really notice how your body responds. If you’re going for a walk, pay attention to the way the air smells. Maybe stop and touch a tree, and notice the texture and temperature and smell and look of the bark. Lay on your couch and trace your fingers over your hands or forearms. Notice how lovely touch and feeling can be. On a bigger scale, if it feels safe and comfortable for you, allow yourself to feel. Of course, there are contexts in which it isn’t safe (socially or otherwise) to fully express yourself, but making space to exhaust emotion physically can be exceptionally cathartic. Connect yourself to a moment you felt an emotion you weren’t allowed to express and then find a way to get it out. Go for a drive and scream at the top of your lungs. Buy some old pillows from the thrift store and beat on them until you’re exhausted. Push your lungs and muscles just a little bit. Participate in your favorite solo sport and imagine all the anger or sadness or resentment or shame or whatever pouring out of you through your sweat glands. Let it flow through you, and out. Allow yourself to feel the way ease fills that space. ## Reinforce Our Being-ness News like that which we’ve all had to take in and process over the last few weeks, months, and even years reduces us to tools. Tools for the patriarchy, for men, for raising children or keeping homes… but we are so much more. Take up a daily (or weekly) journal practice. Or fill a wall of your bathroom with sticky notes. Write out all the little ways that you are unique and special. All the ways you are human. Not the things you’ve accomplished or the things the world sees, but the things that make you, you. A precious being, not a doer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011812-1.png) The way your fingers are shaped, the funny way you crinkle your nose when you smile, your love of dystopian fantasy, your secret affinity for lace gloves, the fact that one boob is cockeyed, the truth that the smell of fish makes you remember your grandfather… try to come up with at least 20 things and then put them in a place where you’ll read them once in a while. Remind yourself that you are so much more than your role in your family or your workplace or your community or the social system. You are not a tool, you are a fascinating human. ## Forgive Ourselves for Our Human-ness Whether conditioned by the patriarchy, religious dogma, or even familial constructs, it seems the default state of being for most women is one of shame. We carry some expectation of perfection, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, and that perception very nearly obligates us to perpetually feel insufficient - at least. There is so much support and liberation in seeing our mis-steps, accepting our shortcomings, and honoring ourselves anyway. We’re not flawed - we’re human. We’re not making mistakes, we’re experimenting with who we are and how we want to be in the world. And more likely than not, our efforts are not going to land the way we wanted them to, or take us to the place we wanted to be, or have the result we hoped for. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, the way it “went wrong” might actually be the reason everything works out in the end. Ultimately, we can’t know how our actions will play out, and we have to be able to forgive ourselves for the way we did - or didn’t - act. We have to forgive ourselves for people-pleasing, and for being selfish; for making ourselves the hero in our story, and the villian in someone else’s; for the way we poorly carried the responsibility for our choices, and the way we way we poorly protected ourselves and our power. Forgiving ourselves reminds us that we’re human - and it helps us to maintain connection with other experimenting humans. ## Find Laughter Laughter really is medicine. The act of laughing sets off all kinds of marvelous chemical reactions that I won’t get into here, but suffice it to say, it’s good for your body, your brain, your mood, and your relationships. So give yourself a laughter break. Watch some funny cat videos or your favorite cheesy rom-com. Go to a comic theater performance. Read your favorite comic author. ## Be Outside & Active Outside, if you can One of the many ways we’ve all been made motherless is by the intentional and systematic disconnection from our one true, universal mother: nature. The very air around us is filled with all kinds of nurturing spores and microbes and other good-for-you stuff. The act of walking barefoot in the grass literally releases pent-up electrical charges from your body into the soil. Sunlight is full of vitamins. We know: being active and being outside are good for you - because you’re a BEING. Carve out five minutes to spend outdoors. Walk to the grocery store or coffee shop. Stop by a park on the way home from work. Cook dinner in the backyard. Go for a walk with the kids. Have your morning coffee on the porch. ## Connect with Other Women There is so much healing to be had in togetherness. Even if we disagree on some matters, we agree on many others. Find a way to be with other women. If you already have a robust group of friends, make time to get together. Bonus points if you do it outside. Make a point of reminding each other of your beingness, your uniqueness. It doesn’t have to be a formal “sharing circle”. Write a little appreciation for one of your favorite women and leave it in her bathroom drawer or discretely tuck it away in her purse or jacket pocket. If you want to take this exercise to a whole other level, consider doing this exercise with a woman who is not one of your favorites. You don’t have to tell her to her face or give her your little slips of paper. But simply taking some time to acknowledge that even the women who don’t feel like kindred spirits have value will help to strengthen our resistance to the constant effort of patriarchy to divide and conquer us. Not to mention the fact that actively trying to see the good in others, especially when we don’t necessarily or easily like them, helps to keep our empathy “muscles” toned. It also helps us to see ourselves with patience and compassion when we are less than perfect. There are few things that will undo the patriarchy as quickly as grounded and connected women. We have to cultivate these skills in order to make that reality. --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an author, spiritual pragmatist, and embodiment coach who came to this work through the rough and tumble education of loss and repair. She’s authored a couple of books on the decadent art of making mistakes and her part of her story was featured in an independent documentary. She writes and works for women reclaiming autonomy in love, identity, and self expression, and her work is available at [JaclynLanae.Substack.com](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/) and at [authorjaclynlanae.com](https://authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org) --- Get more soulcraft Want more? Prefer to craft your soul on your own? We get it. Jaclyn's book and workbook **MAKE YOURSELF MAGIC* can be purchased anytime you'd like to dive in. [Let's Check It Out! ](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/jaclynlanaebooks/p/makeyourselfmagic?ref=medusarising.org) Gift a membership to a feminist you admire (ﾟ⁠οﾟ⁠人⁠)⁠) [Share the Experience ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/gift) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) RECENT EPISODES Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Shaping Energy to Flow Is the Craft | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/shaping-energy-to-flow-is-the-craft-b/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T05:33:17.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/05/Soul-Craft-May--26-Essay_thumb.png) Shaping Energy to Flow Is the Craft | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /200.860237 1× The art of crafting a soul is, at its core, an exercise in energy management. A conscious, loving intentional awareness and adjustment of our own energies, perspectives, and belief systems in order to create a more wholly embodied energetic self. It’s a focused shift of state, not just mood. Soul crafting encourages us to tune into our most authentic energy, like getting to just the right place on a mountain top to receive a strong cell signal, and then reinforcing that energy so it can be shared out into the world - whether through joining a political movement or being a more present mom or just bubbling over with a joy that uplifts everyone around us. Of course, tuning into, adjusting, and reinforcing our energy asks that we first sense it. Last month we talked about [what the energy body is](https://www.medusarising.org/both-energy-and-body-by-jaclyn-lanae/), and now it’s time to begin to take up the art of sensing ourselves. For so many of us, our initial awareness of energy in our bodies and the ability to manage it comes through our emotions. We cerebrally understand happiness, turning it into a thought before we acknowledge its vibration in our bodies; we understand loss before we’re aware of the ache in our chest; we understand disrespect before we notice that it flares in our throat and sends flames roaring up our cheeks. Societally speaking, however, we are often woefully uneducated in the actual feeling of our feelings. Rather than sit with the discomfort of a wrenching heart, for example, we intellectualize it. We analyze it. We ask ourselves what went wrong, or why it hurts like this. Of course, this is an absolutely essential part of moving further into our humanity; learning to grow through conflict, and survive pain. The problem, the block, arises when we get stuck in the thinking-it rather than the feeling-it. In the analysis rather than the expression. This is not a character flaw, it’s often parroted behavior. Either we didn’t have emotionally aware caretakers or parents, or if they were, they spoke to and with us about our emotions rather than helping us to explore the physicality of them – perhaps unintentionally suppressing instead of regulating and exploring. This makes it difficult to “get into” the feeling and allow it to exist as what it is, leaving us aware of the emotion and the knowledge that we’re uncomfortable but unsure what to do from there. So, we go back to what we were taught or observed. Maybe we label it as something else. Then, because there isn’t as much emotional attachment to the proxied feeling - or simply because we know better what to do with it - it can also feel like it’s easier to let go of the emotion. To “get over it”. We “…have a dominant emotion, like anger or anxiety,” says [*Psychology Today*](https://www.medusarising.org/both-energy-and-body-by-jaclyn-lanae/), and “We channel all the energy and focus into that emotion, partly because it helps us avoid other, less familiar feelings". For example, if, perhaps we felt manipulated by an authority figure we translate that deep violation into a feeling that we know how to process. Our shame or sadness becomes defensiveness, and then superiority. Our grief becomes victimhood, and then anger. Alternatively, (or additionally) our caregivers may have villainized feelings entirely, or felt shame themselves when they felt… well, anything. They may have tried to express emotions but were punished for doing so. Or they weren’t sure what they were feeling and so, of course, they had no idea what to do with us and our very big, very confusing feelings. Particularly if our feelings fell outside the “norm” of gendered emotions. Girls are punished for feeling anger or even umbrage, for pride and confidence, and boys are punished for embarrassment or sadness, for gentle lovingness or cherishing. This is part of how boys are socialized to a fragile stoicism and girls into a self-shamed compliance. We may have gleaned from those scenarios that the way to cope was to lean into our victim-hood and look for someone else to deal with the feelings and make us feel better. Or, perhaps, our feelings (and by extension, ourselves) we labeled “too much” and so we learned to hide our emotions, or ignore them all together. The mind is so strong that it can shove all the energy of a deep and complex emotion down into our tissues, and leave it there - unprocessed. But being out of mind does not mean “processed”. Emotions stored as energy in the body fester as do other wounds, and eventually become toxic. Healers of all kinds will attest to the truth that stored trauma creates disease in the body: everything from lupus to chronic fatigue, heart attacks to ulcers can be rooted in unprocessed emotions. Again, avoiding emotional processing is not a character flaw. Nor is it a signal that we’re broken. The behavior is a normalized, conditioned, modeled response to deep emotional pain or intense feeling of any kind. It’s also one of the many ways that we detach ourselves from our feelings, and in doing so we distance ourselves from our power. This is part of our grown-up aching, and unnamable sadness. It’s part of the compliance expected of women to be quiet, to be palatable and neutral, to be less. In denying or undervaluing our feelings, we are denying and undervaluing ourselves. We are sending ourselves the energetic message that our feelings don’t matter, or are shameful, or are too much for other people and as such, dangerous. (Which also sends the message that other people’s comfort is more important than ours - an ideal perspective for compliance with patriarchal socialization.) The truth is, our feelings can be dangerous - to people who don’t respect us. To people who can’t or won’t acknowledge their own human-ness and associated feelings. Our feelings are dangerous - to our oppressors. Patriarchy likes people who don’t really know how they feel, because they can tell us how we feel. Capitalism likes us hungry, a little empty, and way up in our heads because it can sell an answer for that not-felt feeling. It benefits from our discomfort with our own feelings (and therefore ourselves) because it can create an “escape” for us in consumerism or media or other distractions. Dominance likes people who are afraid to feel or admit that we feel violated because we keep our mouths shut. It thrives on people who will so fiercely avoid feeling that they will seek out ways to dominate others. Patriarchy likes women who are not comfortable with their emotions and feel incapable of handling them because we will look to a man to make us feel better. Our feelings are powerful. Desire drives us forward and helps us manifest. Joy inspires us and guides us toward our purpose. Shame lets us know we did something wrong, or something wrong was done to us. And working with it can help us heal - but it can also help us maintain humility and empathy for others. Vulnerability creates space for deep, lasting connections - particularly with each other and that’s where we become even more powerful. Together. Feeling our feelings makes us stronger. Our ability to be uncomfortable makes us that much more resilient. Our ability to be feeling humans makes us more connected, and spurs us on to fight for each other and not just ourselves. Connecting with our feelings connects us to the deeper, personal, emotional and spiritual power within each of us. When we are healed (and healing) we are stronger versions of ourselves. Our feelings are energy, and if we want to connect to the deep well of energy that is available to us, we have to get comfortable with feeling our feelings. Energy can never be destroyed, and that fundamental truth means that the way we reconnect to ourselves and embrace our power is by giving some concentrated attention to how we are really feeling, and bravely allowing ourselves to “sit in it”. To feel the feelings in our body, and let our body process them. According to the article, “Mapping Emotional Feeling in the Body: A Tripartite Framework for Understanding the Embodied Mind,”[*Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763425004701?ref=medusarising.org#sec0055): > Emotions are not confined to the brain or viscera alone—they are lived through the body, shaped by our actions, and structured through culturally acquired schemas. Body-to-brain pathways provide the physiological foundation for emotional sensation, particularly through interoceptive organs such as the heart, lungs, and gut. These organs which also give us information about our body-state, wellness and disease, *and* our feelings. In short, emotions are an energy that is received or generated, and then held and/or processed, by our physical body. Our bodies are both the sensing instrument, the storage container, and the expressive mechanism. Patriarchy wants us to believe that emotions aren’t real, energy sensing is woo-woo dogma, and that how we feel doesn’t matter. Yet that same oppressive and manipulative ideology weaponizes our feelings against us. Rationality is attributed to men - and they are loudly lauded for it (despite often acting in wildly irrational ways). Expressive women are labeled irrational and shamed. And we’re all rewarded for stoicism and ignoring energetic cues. One of the fundamental ways that we can reclaim our personal and collective power from the clutches of patriarchy and capitalism is to reclaim the power of emotion and master the art of energy perception. That feeling you get when you know someone genuinely has your best interest at heart (or when you know they don’t)… That urging you feel to call your mother without knowing she’s at her lowest… That sense that you should say yes to this opportunity and no to that one…. The awareness that something is being hidden from you… All of these are moments when your body is sensing an energy and processing it into an actionable response - providing us all with incredibly useful tools for navigating our lives and our world at large. If only we will learn to wield it. Soul Craft encourages you to practice tuning into your own feelings - and not just the emotions that seem to come in through your head or your heart. Tune into the feelings that you encounter with your nose and your mouth and your fingertips. Take some time to notice how all the tiny little sensations show up in your body and you will dial up your sensing mechanism, and supercharge your superpower. > *If you happen to be a paying subscriber, I’ll be elaborating on the “hows” of this work in bonus posts and the Soul Craft Circle of the Medusa Rising Discord channel.* --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at [https://jaclynlanae.substack.com](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/)/ or connect at [AuthorJaclynLanae.com](https://authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org). --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) RECENT EPISODES Get more soulcraft Want more? Prefer to craft your soul on your own? We get it. Jaclyn's book and workbook **MAKE YOURSELF MAGIC* can be purchased anytime you'd like to dive in. [Let's Check It Out! ](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/jaclynlanaebooks/p/makeyourselfmagic?ref=medusarising.org) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Think Mean, Take Power, Destroy Power URL: https://www.medusarising.org/think-mean-take-power-destroy-power/ Last updated: 2026-05-19T11:23:34.000Z Check out August reading circle [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011469-2.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/next-reading-circle-1-august/) Too much to say. Today's original post is linked here, information on the August 1 Reading Circle in the server. Veronica Gago's FEMNIIST INTERNATIONAL: HOW TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. It's going to be a scorcher!! [Learn more ](https://www.medusarising.org/next-reading-circle-1-august/) I know most radfems and libfems don’t want to think as mean as we need to. Some do. We should listen and act.We should be encouraging our Dems to ahead, demand they’re preparing for every dirty trick. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/05/Think-Mean-by-Esm--e-Streachailt_thumb.png) Think Mean | Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /764.382729 1× **The Fash have one competency: *They think mean***. It's a form of flow for them, it’s part of their temperament. They time their moves to have the most devastating effect. They have **already declared a Cold War on the People** and the Republic, and a hot war on our immigrant nieghbors. [Male Supremacists Have Activated in Over 60 CountriesSo here’s what we have to do:![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F104b4b4d-6f73-4438-b904-7bf072f11574-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180-2.png)Into The BadlandsSasha S. Graham![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fb1d0fc0b-9f28-40ae-90f3-6156140b2982_500x500-2.png)](https://sistaseparatist.substack.com/p/male-supremacists-have-activated) - SCOTUS puts the Voting Rights Act in a coma, and the next day (**The. Next. Day.**) the Old South hauled its zombie body out of the grave to redistrict Black voters out of relevance. Louisiana stopped a vote in-process. - SCOVA waited, somehow everyone waited, until a whole ballot measure had been voted and counted on redistricting. The next day (**The. Next. Day. Basically**, more like in a week’s time) ruled on a GOP challenge to the new map. Surprise! The noodliness of the state constitution negates the ballot. Outstanding. - The Bearded Hater, VP Vance announced rescinding $1.4BILLION in Medicaid funding from California. Again, mean, timing, competent. This comes **One Day Before** CA Governor Newsome would announce the 2027 budget, already hard hammered out in the state legislature. So millions of elderly, disabled, and just plain poor people will have no kind of health care at all, no payments to the care home, no maternal care… And most of these are their own voters. ## *Si vis pacem, para bellum* They will let us waste time, energy, and money. They *are letting us try* so that we can lose over and over. They are *strategically depleting our momentum* and hope. Trump has a 70% Disapproval Rating, so they have no choice but to wear us down and make most of our votes irrelevant or nearly impossible to cast at all (SAVE Act still hovering out there). The message: Yes, we *will* deliberately endanger the lives of our own party’s supporters **Just To Fuck Over ONE Potentional 2028 Democratic Candidate for POTUS**. Not to hoover up money to give to billionaires. No. Just to pants the competition at the starting line. The insecurity. The pettiness. The venality. The indifference. The bold-faced eugenics of it all. Mean. Smug. Evil. > ICE raid home of U.S. citizen—at 3:00am with her children sleeping. > > "They bust down my door in the middle of the night traumatizing my children." > > Agents destroyed every room in her home breaking furniture—despite warrant listing only "electronic devices." > > Alexi is a well known… [pic.twitter.com/Ybb5Ymg7SA](https://t.co/Ybb5Ymg7SA?ref=medusarising.org) > > — LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 (@LongTimeHistory) [May 15, 2026](https://twitter.com/LongTimeHistory/status/2055320737267818668?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) ### At the National Level - Who is writing the EOs we need a new order's president to sign on Day One? - Who is writing the plan and the legislation that puts our federal government back into working order, a better working order? - Who is preparing the legal challenges to the gerrymandering that will hit the courts as soon as the new POTUS gets a SCOTUS that behave like the impartial rational actors they are supposed to be? - Who is writing the state legislation that will need passing? - WHO IS THINKING AS BIG AND MEAN AS THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION? Because this is the bar now – both the lowest and the highest. You feel me? **Mayor Mamdani** isn't just super-duper charismatic, he came in with a **serious, executable, PLAN**. And yes, meanwhile, all the other horrors of ICE kidnapping and detention continue apace. All the other institutional and social damage rolls on from DOGE’s digital sledgehammer. ![ AI-generated image advertising the Department of Government Efficiency, posted by prospective department head Elon Musk](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011528.jpg) Wikimedia Commons ICE. The jagged edge of the cruelty, is still hiding an unknown number of young women who are being isolated from the rest of the people held in Dilley concentration camp in Texas. New reporting shows that these girls are or just turned 18, and some are being moved to other locations, and no one knows what’s happening to them. This is only a bit less terrifying than what we’ve been hearing about the Blue Butterfly Zones. ## I Want You To Think Mean Yes, many of us have an emotionally insightful and miraculously uplifting few weeks with Elayne Kalila’s gorgeous, healing essays in response to the Motherless reporting. I personally am forever grateful for her wisdom. And we are tired. The rubble pile is weighing on everyone, some more heavily than others. But. We are facing down **a power that wants to reduce us all to their servant class**. This is how fascists approach their people every time, no matter how much ego puffing they do to their own base. Meanwhile, farmers in the US are going bankrupt as the highest rates (46% increase over 2025) since the original Populist movement grew out of Kansas under similar pressures in the 1880s. > “Resign or we will kick you out – those are your options.” > > Protesters in Bolivia are demanding the president resign over a crippling economic crisis, with workers launching an indefinite strike. [pic.twitter.com/w7Wd7ffz0w](https://t.co/w7Wd7ffz0w?ref=medusarising.org) > > — AJ+ (@ajplus) [May 15, 2026](https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/2055400298383135082?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) So. Let us all find our succor and encouragement where we can. And start to think mean. We have to win. We have to not only eek out a slim margin in the election. - We have to overwhelm their redistricting machinations with massive numbers in a midterm (no pressure). All purple-ish districts need slathering in GOTV volunteers. - We have to prepare women and minorities for the SAVE Act which is still alive and panting out there in the distance. If it passes over the summer it could disenfranchise up to 69 MILLION women. That’s enough to secure the fash in power for a generation, which is forever. - We have to prepare to win AND Get Out The Vote. \*\* Convert your vision into policy proposals and get ready to bother your legislators until they listen to you. - We have to be preparing to lose and shift to networks of radical feminist support for women in the US. Some areas: \*\* Reinforce abortion networks \*\* Start a Janes-style system in your areas \*\* Organize collective childcare cooperatives, skill shares, tool libraries, double down on supplying food banks \*\* Locate and share info about low-cost health clinics \*\* Generally get more punk and low-key anarachist So far that’s all too much and enough to have to dig down and find our very deepest fuck-you level of commitment to our liberties. ## It’s Only Treason If You Lose (the tshirts are very cool) The post you are reading/hearing right now is an act of domestic terrorism under the current guidelines of Executive Order Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence signed in 2025\. This is already a cold war against the people and our constitutional order. All wars are won by thinking like your opposition only more cleverly and more effectively. For example: It is not impossible that ICE will be deployed to our voting locations on election day (for the whole week before maybe). They won’t be there to kidnap anyone. They might be there to walk into the polling place (often a local school) with all their kit and weapons to demand the volunteers hand over the ballot machines/boxes. They might say, we’re here to secure the vote. The DOJ will announce the winner. What are we all prepared to do if that happens? Because No Kings will not get that job done. Because these pathetic little assholes know how to think mean. They only understand the most brute, crude, dominating, extractive, little bully-boy uses of power. But they are also clever little shitbirds. Look around your city, state, community of kind, and think: **If I wanted to fuck us over for the next two or three generations, what would I do**? What weakness would I exploit? What super-wonky technical process lever would I pull and when? What locations in my community, city, state, local economy, local institutions, are vulnerable to physical or legal disempowerment or destruction? Every city in the world is totally food insecure after three days. What happens if these monsters do to, say, Kansas City, Kansas what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz? It’s not impossible. It’s mean and batshit crazy, but not impossible. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011529.jpg) The Plaza in Downtown Kansas City It’s a nice city, KCK. I was a child near there. Love it. The city park on Metcalf Ave in Overland Park was a paradise. But it’s **just* out of the way enough and **just* economically irrelevant enough and **just* big **enough to make an excellent example for the rest of us*. #### *I mean Think Mean. Diabolical.* And then think about the easiest actions they can take and the most effective timing to take them. Position yourselves head on those. Because isolating KCK is very maximum effort and these pretenders are looking for low-hanging fruit. Instead, they’ll keep pulling Medicaid funding, move on to Medicare, etc. What’s working for us is they are also stupid. They thought Iran would be easy. ### So Locally, for example - Get Out The Vote #GOTV Everywhere Massively - Your local Black, Latino, and every other Caucus in your Democratic party, reach out, see what’s needed. - Bolster your local food banks, when folks lose Rx coverage, they will have to source food differently. - Health clinics (drug rehabs, Planned Parenthood) might be moved to provide pro bono care. Talk to them. - Double-down on your Minneapolis-style neighboring. - If you do have to mobilize, have child-care cooperatives at the ready. - Make plans even if you're not sure. As the tacticians say, “No plan survives contact” with reality, but not having a plan means you already lost. A plan gets you ahead. I don’t know where you are, but you do. Look around with the eyes of someone who wants to disempower you forever. These community actions **all need doing and we all need the oxytocin** to keep us optimistic and energized. But think mean. Reacting is too late. **Get ahead of these Poseur Machiavellis** because they are terrified which means they are maximally dangerous. They have nowhere to go from here. It’s stay in power or go to prison and they know it. So think mean. Look forward to it. **We have to take Power** – use it to create accountability, rebuild our republic in a better form, and in the doing slowly devolve power to more people in more places – **to destroy Power**. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011530.png) emerson.edu/community-culture-belonging/healing-advocacy/knowledge-hub/power-control Think Mean, Stay Rad, Be Good to Each Other. Esmée ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000011532.png) [EDE Mandela Is a Great Guide for a Plan for After-Power](https://www.dancing-goddess.org/she-ede-program/?ref=medusarising.org) ### Every Woman Is a Riot : Louise Bertin | by Allison Tyra URL: https://www.medusarising.org/every-woman-is-a-riot-louise-bertin-by-alison-tyra/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T16:34:04.000Z Cross-Post | from Uncredited: Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Call for Contributions URL: https://www.medusarising.org/call-for-contributions/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T05:33:27.000Z Did a video version for fun (⁠✷⁠‿⁠✷⁠) Medusa Rising has set out several themes so far. We still welcome thought and imagination on: - The global fascist far right (with a focus on the US :/ ), we seeks work from other countries in or falling under these regimes, AND that have thrown them off (Hungary, Colombia, ...) - Support for girls and teens girls in this ultra-predatory time - Matriarchy past, present, future - Feminist tensions over geopolitics & the nature of strategic intersectionality - Goddess culture, goddesses, past and present of feminist spirituality - Books, movies, all the popular culture, all the attention culture Time to shift gears! ## **Currently** ### **Brute Politics** - Women & Fascism, resisters & collaborators, past & present - RadFem, Matriarchal feminists, and RadMatFem organizing against fascists (hyperlocal, national, geo-regionally, globally) - What if the Democrats win in 2026 in the US? What do you want to push for? - Skill-shares, mutual aid networks, resource pooling - Practices of Power-With - Lesbian resistance past & present - Pick some part of the [Manifesto RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), imagine what it could look like in action. All speculations welcome! - Best practices for alternative communities ### Personal-ish - **What are you leaving behind now?** - What turns differences into connection? - Tips for Newbies: how to search for feminist friendly activist groups - Metapatterning, getting off men's grids, counter-power - What do you want feminists of other factions/ethnicities/countries to know or do? - Women's culture, women's time, women's space ### Psycho-Culture ;) - Myths and misrepresentations about feminism - Socialization, epigenetics, and genetics and temperament - Tech leveraged against women, misogynist algorithms - Tech women are leveraging for feminist causes - Relational Psychology, process relation, relational ontology - Feminist joy, successes, wins, celebration - Para-sociality and movements, weaving or rending, or both? How does movement work for feminists now? - Matriarchal/gift economics, feminist alt currency, feminist thought about parallel economy and production - Body as resource: pornography, prostitution, surrogacy, alternatives to serving men's interests to survive ****Don't see your thing?** Want to share something else, from another direction, in another mood, about another topic, wider aperture, sharper vector? Cool. [Here's an even bigger list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4hH3ag-5PegansPMfDTIAH6-j8q6vY3phqxvo5t1H8/edit?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org) of the deep fields we want to dance in! **Now let's bring in other threads of a radical materialist/radical matriarchal feminism. A quick brainstorm:** our physical world, our sciences for understanding it, the social and genetic elements of human traits and behaviors, how to interact with our biology wisely, how to change money and work so that it supports life rather than wealth, socialization and epigenetics, porn and para-social male bonding, what makes better men better, the planet's limits and how to live regeneratively in a globalized world, ... The kickables in the both/and of both material and cultural, both rational and spiritual, both relational and unique... [More details](www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/05/1000010994.png) --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### SCOTUS Goddamn! Virginia Goddamn! Tennessee Goddamn! | ​by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/scotus-goddamn-virginia-goddamn-tennessee-goddamn-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-05-09T01:55:19.000Z Surely, I will not be the only writer reaching for Nina Simone this weekend, and I will not pretend to feel the way my black sisters and cousins do. I can say that I see you. That I am feeling ever more committed to my feminist solidarity with you. And for we who are not feeling this moment in our bodies as you are, I punctuate this post with Nina’s voice because it did, very baldly, register this feeling from her body. Don't worry, deeper cuts below. While my mother’s body knitted me into being, both King and Kennedy were cut down. I was born the November we should have elected Bobby Kennedy (the one who was worth a shit). Imagine that timeline! A whole wave of possible liberty and wellbeing was set abruptly back in 1968\. Then as now, we who seek a wider franchise and richer dignity for our neighbors, were frustrated by a largely lethargic if not recalcitrant Democratic party. And now we have come to hell and high water. ## ​Hell & High Water ​This week, Virginia’s redistricting was effectively quashed by the state Supreme Court, and the national Supreme Court vivisected the Voting Rights Act, so within 24 hours both Tennessee and Alabama went on a gleeful spree to redistrict black voters out of all influence. And as reminder in this conversation at the Bulwark, it’s AFTER white people consolidate power comes the segregation and lynching. The danger does not lag behind. It is ahead and it is turning around to face us again. ​It is all Project 2025, Project 205, and the simmering narcissistic rage-wound of these men. You, my sisters, and we warned and warned and alarmed our way through 2024 that this time was different, this time they came ready to move fast and break everything. And they, out there, with their progressive or conservative precious fucking sssssSingle Issuesss, they did not listen and did not believe (women) again. They did not do the most basic math. ​Where was CPAC held during the Biden Administration? Hungary. Which industry decided to get its brand dirty with politics? Tech. Who very likely bought this election? Musk. Where are all of Trumps favorite leaders? In countries where people are fodder for their regimes. Did the Heritage Foundation or Stephen Rat Faced Nazi Miller even temper any of their stated ambitions? Not a whit. ​The Border!!! The Bathrooms!!! The TERFS!!! Words are Violence!!! — No, baby child, Words are not violence. What is coming, though, it is. It will be both bloodless and bureaucratic and bloody and brutal. None of these single issues will change that. None of that will feed you or make you safe or let you relax in your confident, respected bodies and live at ease in your liberty. The leopard as already passed us all and is slowing down a gear. ​Mississippi declared April Confederate Heritage Month this year. Gods, they have threatened do to that most of my conscious life. And we have all seen what toxic sludge the manosphere is mainlining into (mostly) white young men in place of their human personalities. I am not giving up on us, and I am going to withdraw from any alliance that helps stamp out this fire and use its ash to mix the mortar and concrete of a world of lived liberty. ​Pretty soon the only move we will have in November, if we have one, will be to mobilize historically galactic numbers of white voters to get in the booth and do the right thing (which is fucking stretch) – and that over new outrageous ID requirements (which is a fucking insult). Can we? See the hungry, pride-injured animal turning around ahead to take our measure? Can we both step out of its way and quell its fury? We do have to. ## ​Imprint & Generation ​All the teachers and professors I ever had, across racial lines, every adult I knew until my 40s had lived experience and living memory of the Jim Crow years and the Civil Rights Movement. Many adored Bobby Kennedy, and not all of them approved of the movement – but they all lived and were marked by those years. I was deeply imprinted by their comportment as citizens, their seriousness as shapers of my moral and intellectual world view, and their grace. AND their (usually genteel) stalwart racism and all its obviously bullshit rationalizations. My favorites among those adults were still furious at ongoing oppressions and marginalization, still abashed at the US’s special talent for forgetting what a murderous asshole it can be when (as always) in the bloody hands of so many white (mostly) men. ​A whole, whole bunch of adults now do not have that imprint. They don’t know the stories of Tulsa, and East St Louis, and Rosewood that were already long-old when I came along to learn them. It’s not their fault they're new, but their teachers have given them a queer-washed consumer progressivism that dislodges and discomforts not one iota of status quo, professional managerial class, corporate, or hostile political Power. Why? Because not having that imprint seems to have denied these generations and their teachers and professors any understanding of actual, brute, material power at all. ​I would love for them to read about it rather than live through this new iteration with Palantir in the mix. ​Free, Free, Free Palestine. Center the most vulnerable (mostly white, genetically male) people. Fuck ICE. OK. And? And what now, kids? This is power coming at them too. It has taken their measure next to ours, sisters and cousins, and betting its odds are grrrreat. This is Power’s moment they feel. This is Male Supremancy, White Supremancy, Christian Supremacy, Normative Heterosexual Jubilee!!! (Oh, yes, that word is deliberate.) That is Power. Law. Structure. ​Why in the ever loving glory of the stars could the Left (the marginally better team) NOT DEPLOY THE POWER THEY GET THEY HAD IT? Power is meant to be used. That is its entire purpose – to effect, to shape, to determine. It doesn't have to be oppressive. That part is a choice. But not making the other choice, is also making that bad choice. **Cowardice has all the magnitude and amplitude of wickedness.** ## ​Antifa or Bust, Y’all ​It is All Against the Fascists or none of us. Obvious, sure, but also not. Some operating in the name of women’s rights or civil liberties have been ambivalent of or even embraced the right-far-right – way too many white women, some people of color, some immigrants, too. We can fight all that out later, but for now I am inviting you to drop your new MAGA friends like the face-eating-leopards they are and get yourselves together. ​Women, all ages, races, sexualities, classes, believers or no, all hair colors, subcultures, fandoms, AND pronouns – I ask you, do you want TO VOTE in 2028? They do not. They are planning to make sure you can not. They’ll do to the 19A exactly what they just did to the CRA and the VRA. **If THE VOTE is not Intersectionality Strategic nothing is.** ​With care and for a future we want to live in, Esmée and Medusa Rising ### Humans Have Got to Just Grow the Hell Up Already | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/radfem-radmatfem-radmatrifem-all-ask-humans-to-just-grow-the-hell-up-already-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-05-07T11:22:43.000Z --- [Jocelyn Crawley interviews Esmée Streachailt of Medusa Rising - Women’s Liberation Radio NewsWLRN member Jocelyn Crawley interviews Esmée Streachailt of Medusa Rising about the elusive concept of feminist love.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-cropped-WLRN-Logo-3.png)Women's Liberation Radio NewsWLRN Staff![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1773193591308-1.png)](https://wlrnmedia.com/2026/03/15/jocelyn-crawley-interviews-esmee-streachailt-of-medusa-rising/?ref=medusarising.org) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/03/Voice-260319_084402-1_thumb.jpg) Just Grow the Hell Up Already | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /2415.51425 1× I am the kind of mind that is forever unfolding into deeper subtleties wherever possible. Or just grabbing a thought next to this one and seeing what happens. Or is just never really done with a debate. It is not a temperament that leads to concise expression. 😂 Most of my thoughts are details about other ideas. I just never feel like I’ve been really CLEAR, you know? Here are some of those “ideatails” about some of the topics raised in my recent conversation with WLRN’s Jocelyn Crawley and her editorial coda to our conversation. **When we study feminist work on love, ethics, relationships, we find many versions of this simple formula: we have to grow up.** It’s a request for humans to become their own selves, in relation, with emotional containment, and interpersonal curiosity and desire for the good of the other. In other words, a maturity that supports having a rich, full, even fun life. ## On the Biology of Male Violence So, here’s a problem for all feminists. Men’s violence and sexual violence specifically enforces patriarchal domination by being a constant, background, *live* threat to every woman’s psychological and bodily integrity. This is the core insight of radical feminism. **If** you genuinely conclude that men are biologically toxic, rapey, violent humans; **AND** to eliminate MVAWG from constricting and ending women’s lives: **THEN** **you have to remove the biology, the gene complex**. The only way to do that is, as Valerie Solanas also concludes, is kill a lot of men. Or neuter them to prevent reproduction. It’s just like breeding pet dogs. You don’t breed the aggressive puppy hoping to get companion dogs. These deterministic radical feminists, like all evolutionary psychology bros, do not want to follow their own logic to its conclusion. They're more like “it’s genetic – shrug.” **If** all masculinity is toxic (harmful to life) biological maleness, **then** why on Earth did the process of sexual selection (which in nearly all species is governed by the females, including humans, right down to the ovum) evolve women who really prefer not being subjugated, raped, and murdered by men for profit, fun, and homosocial bonding? Even the process of a reversed sexual selection, patriarchy, in which males choose their mates, has not in lo these 5000 years managed to evolve females who seek rapists to parent our children. That’s why they have to fool us or drug us or kidnap and traffick us. And if maleness is biological and toxic and therefore universal, then how did all those matriarchies and matricultures exist for the, just call it the 40,000 years we can prove before that? It helps if our facts, and our theory for organizing those facts into knowledge, and our ideology actually align consistently with each other. This is one of the reasons Jane Clare Jones worked out a radical and materialist feminism. It’s a hybrid of radical and socialist/materialist feminist theories that opens pathways where each of them hits a cul-de-sac. A theory is supposed to describe and help us effectively interact with the world. It needs both accuracy and flexibility because neither knowledge or the world are stable, unchanging piles of rocks. If a theory is divorced from the world, but imposed in every case anyway, this is a move called ‘overdetermination’ which leads to both grave errors and totalitarianism. In anthropology, overdetermination is the error of attributing a behavior or cultural practice with Many Causes or Influences to Just One. It’s a very patriarchal, silver-bullet, kind of thinking. It’s a flattening, an erasure, an embarrassing mistake in an era when we know just how complex our world really is. The more research we do into the nature/nurture debate, [the more nurture is winning](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-testosterone-alone-doesnt-cause-violence/?ref=medusarising.org). Boys have to be trained to be the desiccated thing we call Men in our culture. Low Emotional Intelligence and violence are not the natural fate of the human male. > "It has been suggested that the antisocial behaviors related to high testosterone are a function of the manner by which dominance is maintained in these groups," says Robert Josephs of the University of Texas at Austin. In other words, if researchers were to study other groups of folks, say the rich and famous, they might discover that testosterone is connected not to violence, but to who drives the biggest SUV or has the nicest lawn. Dominance is a very physical synonym for Prestige. So, prestige can also be culturally assigned to cars or lawn care or human care work or excellence at supporting a community. As I said in the episode, Contribution could be Prestigious. This is fantastic news!!!! It affirms the radical feminist hope that men, while recalcitrant, are neurally and socially plastic. They can be different to … this. Rejoice! We don’t have to cull the herd to the survive the millennium! Feminist Love is only enacted in reciprocity, in mutual support of human unfolding. Domination relations block and stunt the human instinct for connection and mutual regard. Status – status can be accrued to anything. [Shoes, that don’t really fit, for example](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/10/trump-florsheim-shoes?ref=medusarising.org). Excellence in sport. Owning lots of purely digital ‘money.’ **So what if we, women, the ones who do the sexual selecting, tie social status to service, to contribution??** Then we move toward something closer to the matriarchies or communities-of-care we actually evolved in, that are our natural default and that patriarchy alienates us from every part of our being. **This is the difference between (separatist) radical feminism and radical materialist feminism**. Radical materialist feminism is (not sure but) hopeful that men are capable of being more human than patriarchy allows. It means we can go out of business one day. It means we can center women and children as a way of life that becomes the norm and not live in fear of men every day of our lives. Is that not the goal? Here’s [my review of Carol Gilligan’s *In A Human Voice*](https://theradicalnotion.org/integration-is-the-radfem-way-a-review-of-in-a-human-voice/?ref=medusarising.org) which is some useful and encouraging reading (both the review and the book). ## On Interrelation and Reciprocity At base, Feminist Love asks us to take our best ethical systems seriously and live them. It’s really that simple. The big shift is that all our traditional and most intuitive ethical systems were, *you got it!*, written about and for men and deliberately excluded women from the capacity for ‘moral reasoning’ or ethical behavior. *Kant, bro, I’m looking at you*. Among the thinkers and researchers who have thought about ethics AND assumed that women are also moral agents are the sociologist Carol Gilligan, and the philosophers Luce Irigaray and Iris Murdoch. The latter there being a great thinker of process relations and moral imagination: two concepts that stand behind values like social justice, “people before profit,” like mutual respect and care, like feminism and anarchism and matriarchy. ## On Control Control is a spectrum ;-) It runs from impositional (power-over) to emergent (power-with). Violent domination, state and colonial violence, interpersonal and sexual violence, coercive control, propaganda, cultural and social traditions, raising and socializing children, the discipline of learning, training in a physical discipline like dance or martial arts, applying skill to a craft/art/project (from space travel to architecture to watercolor painting), meditation, mature emotional regulation — these are all flavors of control. Dictators use impositional forms of control. Power Over. Someone like Marie Curie or Emily Dickenson use the emergent ones. Power With. In our human lives, most of us use a range of them. Even an anarchist community uses forms of control to operate and care for the people in it. It will have practices on which it relies even without any ultimate authorities wielding state power. **These communities emphasize the emergent forms that require attentive relation, a fundamental quality of feminist love. Control and feminist values are not even in tension with each other**. It’s an interesting element of ‘work’ in matriarchies. When we study existing ones, we see everyone working and much of the work is meeting basic needs: creating food, cleaning the home and community, etc, and wage labor too. The need for control, in the Foucaultian ‘discipline’ way where we have to be disciplined to work for others’ profit, is not prevalent because we are not working in a totally alienated way creating surplus value for some CEO. Rather, all work is care work, work For The Clan and Community. At least, we find this in many traditional, family based such communities. Again these are not perfect utopias. What they are, however, are communities that are not fundamentally structured by violence (work or starve, obey or suffer, …) because your labor and service are not expropriated to distant, powerful, strangers. ## On (feminist) Violence Direct Action, economic disruptions, and burning down reputations of rapists is not violence. Direct actions solve problems without permission. Economic disruptions are telegrams to the owner class from the hinterlands here below. And the burning down the reputations of rapists should lead to the social death it seems to take to get them to stop. Drastic, even risky, but none of these are violence. They can all be elements of this *fight* for women to survive and die natural deaths, to live unmolested by men and become whatever we may be, is as asymmetric as it gets and many on one side delight in violence. A regime that crushes its women for continued control and security. A regime that begins a three week bombing campaign on of a Muslim nation on a Friday night in the middle of Ramadan. A regime that levels a territory it has held in apartheid for decades. These are violence. Historical. And feminism makes big historical claims, no dobut. Sure, RadMatFem wants to arrive in the new world that answers to the polycrisis. (I call it the Omegacrisis because it’s the last one our civilizations may ever get to have). Sure, RadMatFems suspect that the nutritive (rather than toxic) world is an adapted form of our ancestral matriarchies. I have said before, and I will say it here: **We need to take big swings. Or rather, we need to get in a position to take big historical swings.** **But how we get there is wildly unpredictable**. Our prophet, Lauren Oya Olamina of the Earthseed, from[ Octavia Butler’s Parables](https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries?ref=medusarising.org#:~:text=Parable%20of%20the%20Sower%20is,%2C%20Powell's%20Books%2C%20Barnes%20&%20Noble), practices her rifle aim every week just like everyone else in the community. Surviving total social breakdown could be a war of all against all. We don’t know. And if it’s not that, well what’s wrong with a stronger body, the ability to defend yourself, and a skill you can apply to hunting food for your people? Not one thing. Moreover, if we are peaceful because we cannot become violent when necessary, then we are not peaceful. We are subjugated. Only people equal in dignity and agency can be peaceful. “To take power in order to destroy power” will look like violence to many even when it’s benefiting them. Power is an abstraction of real things: money, protection, the ability to apply force/coercion, the agency to make decisions that affect others. As I said in the pod, you can tell who has power because ALL they have to do is say NO. They don’t have to explain or offer terms, or write detailed studies of problems that have already been studied in order to prove a legitimate need should be redressed if Power is in the mood. I would love to see more women skilled in the use of violence. This is not the same thing as violent women. But women skilled can do more to refuse the Ultimate No. That makes the Ultimate No less powerful. I mean what I said about girls learning self-defense, a skill of violence. **Finally, my attitude about feminist violence is this: I simply do not know what the future will require of us.** ## People Before Profit **Economics as we know it is a lie**. The ‘market’ is run by computers trading against each other while you and I work to keep body and soul together, fed and dry. We do that in **a system that runs on turning our needs and wants into money for others** – that encourages us to consume stuff, accumulate stuff, because our needs do not create enough profit on their own. [FREE – Forum for Real Economic EmancipationFREE is a home for critical thought, public learning, and systemic change. The economy isn’t an abstract idea. It’s our daily lives: the work we do, the homes we live in, the people we care for, and the future we share. Free explores the forces shaping our lives and imagines alternatives that prioritize people and the planet. 📚 What you’ll find here: Explainers on economic systems and inequality Conversations with leading thinkers, organizers, and communities Tools for public learning, policy insight, and action Bold ideas for a future beyond extractive economics 🌱 Why FREE? Because the economy should serve people, not the other way around. Join us to rethink what’s possible and build a future that works for all of us. Subscribe and be part of the change.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-4.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/fTG9CpFORffqJzEawYUDjFC1wFUGJZT-k3Q29TTU16rdwS-1e8il48yOfFwKtQmYCN9yICSiog-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)](https://youtube.com/@freefreeforum?ref=medusarising.org) Clara Mattei is a dangerous economist running a very interesting project in Tulsa OK [Garys Economics@garyseconomics is focused on teaching people about real world economics. Inequality Economist. Former Trader. Other Economists make predictions, but my ones are actually right.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-5.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/UCZvvSfFyZvFisIBeuDtsH1wcQKLFHe0duawPRZehHd3jXhwu7USVqs_yu0Pc1hTMPOgtoOVPQ-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)](https://youtube.com/@garyseconomics?ref=medusarising.org) Gary loves you and wants you to be free In love, **in a paradigm beyond ownership and extraction**, *we do not have* relationships, but *we are in them*, indeed we are embedded nothing but relation. RadMatFem does not understand this embedded as a complex future goal we must create from the ground up. We understand this embeddedness-in-relation as the condition of all existence – one that capitalist patriarchy ignores at our now obvious peril. **All aliveness is relational, interdependent, permeable, and evolving**. Even human cultures. For more on this, take a tour of process philosophy, phenomenologists like Henri Bergson (see *Creative Evolution* especially), feminist philosophers like Luce Irigaray, and the human relational psychological models of Carol Gilligan and relational life therapy. Patriarchal relation as property right reverses and denigrates this embeddedness, lets the default male stand outside nature and pretend that it and women belong to him. That whole operation grates and harrows the actual relational and reciprocal nature of all things which is why our world is so painful to live in, so sickening to the world, and on its way out. **The basis of the Patriarchal Subject, Default Man, the Godlet (Jane’s word) is an ideal of isolation that would (and does actually) destroy most living things**. The embeddedness in relationality needed to operate in feminist love is humble always and humbling until we learn to stand in our human authenticity. ## On Toxic Masculinity, one more time Adjectives exist to help us distinguish elements of nouns and among nouns that belong to a larger category. Every part of all varieties of the hellebore plant are toxic, that’s why there is no designation “toxic hellebore.” It’s just plain hellebore. Men, as problematic and toxic – even poisonous and lethal – as many of them are, are not all toxic. That would already have been the end of the human species had that been the case. Patriarchy, however, is all toxic. Whatever is natural in humans would be hard to parse after 5000 years of this fuckery. By striking at sexuality and mating, patriarchy reverses the natural order. It takes sexual selection out of the evolutionary process described by Darwin and reinforced by nearly every biologist after him. Females choose mates. Females choose mates with the qualities they think will give their babies the best chance at survival. “Best chance at survival” is what Darwin meant by “fittest.” But Fittest is tricky because Nature also constantly throws surprises and accidents into the process: like giant meteors, or 2 million years of rain, or fire or flood or earthquake or … One can be very very fit for a set of natural circumstances that can change pretty fast – and then not so fit. By basing its subjugation of women on sex, patriarchy appropriates from the female the process of sexual selection and proceeds to encourage the most brutal men to breed a lot. **Turning women into sites of extraction of reproduction, labor, emotional support, and violent entertainment is no part of the natural order**. *If it is, as I have said before, feminists need to put down our mics, our pens, books, and keyboards, and pick up our weaponry*. If all masculinity and all men are live dangers to women at all times, and this is The Natural Order, our only recourse for creating safety for women is to cull the male herd. Feminists who argue that all-men-all-masculinity are toxic/violent/deadly to women but do not then follow their own logic are more in the business of staying in business while doing feminism than of actually solving patriarchy. Meanwhile, the women are still looking for many qualities other than brutality, and now that we finally have had the social power to make our own choices of mate again, the brutal shithead Godlets are feeling the pressure and responding with bullshit like The SAVE Act and Project250\. The phrase “toxic masculinity” describes a complex of human behaviors that are harmful or deleterious to others (and often the agent himself). To oversimplify: the comparison is not between toxic masculinity and wholesome femininity, but between toxic and wholesome masculinities. These are both complexes of behavior AND of intentions. A motive, after all, is a goal. Charm can be a sign of genuine interest and elegant generosity, or it can be cover for a malignant desire to manipulate. But it looks the same at first. The first is an element of wholesome personality because it is relationally intended and the second is toxic because it is extractive in intention. We have to feel our way into understanding them either way. We do have toxic femininities, too. And we know good and well that they are not the only kind of feminine. Why would the situation be different with men? There’s also just numbers. One rapist is typically also responsible for something like 1200 crimes of abuse and assault against people in his lifetime. One toxic man does way more harm in the world than he should be able to do. And while there are many such men, their collective effect is far, far larger than their numbers. As a feminist, I want us to hold onto two facts here. One, the harm is how we should measure the severity of the problem, not the number of men doing it. And two, wholesome men ALSO affect many hundreds or thousands of people in ways that are Good For Them. And good men, with a bit more real courage than we see in them now, are the antidote to toxic men. **Radical Feminists have always believed in the existence and agency of wholesome masculinity and good men**. One of our goals is to see more of it and more of them. It is patriarchy that teaches men that they are ‘naturally’ atavistic, violent, lustful, competitors in a zero sum game of wealth and prestige. **Patriarchy wants toxic men. It must create them**. It does not accommodate them. It builds them. You see it in the US manosphere-to-far-right pipeline. They want angry, entitled, violent young men to help them subjugate you and me. But the disciplines of socialization remain imperfect and some men remain more wholesome than the system would prefer. You see this in the breakdown of individuals in military basic training. Most men and women have to be re-made from regular humans into soldiers ready to use lethal violence. If men were just naturally violent and dominating and driven to control others at all cost, they would only need to be trained to aim well and wait for orders. That is not what basic training is. **I see no reason for radical feminists or RadMatFems to hold patriarchal beliefs or values**. (Except maybe wanting to stay in this work forever? Having no other vocation or interest? Like, I can think of a lot of interests and abilities I would like to develop in my life. I don’t really want to dissect and correct patriarchy my whole life long.) I agree good men need to do better, more, and consistently. > But I do love and respect and appreciate many men who do their best to be “good men.” I assumed all “good men,” all men with empathy, all men with hearts, all men who call themselves doctors or healers or therapists or trauma healing model-builders, at the very least, would join us women in moral outrage, center us for a while, and validate our pain and the wrongness of it all. Some men I know are indeed responding that way. But far too many “good guys” are acting really squirrelly, irrational, and flat out wrong-headed. They get defensive the minute you even mention words like “patriarchy” or “misogyny” or “male entitlement.” Which we all know as male fragility. > But shouldn’t we all be on the same page when it comes to believing and validating Epstein’s victims and holding anyone who was an accomplice or enabler of Epstein to account? Why are these alleged “good guys” insinuating that women have gone crazy, that Epstein’s victims are lying or exaggerating, or that women with moral outrage are preparing for some kind of witch hunt? > From [The Body is a Trailhead, Lissa Rankin, “Why are so many powerful “Good Guy” gaslighting us about the Epstein Files?”](https://substack.com/home/post/p-190410843?ref=medusarising.org) There is toxic masculinity, and bad men embody it. [They do global scales of harm to women, children, and institutional society](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11991158/?ref=medusarising.org). They must be changed for that to change. But the idea that they might change necessarily means we know of a wholesome masculinity they could embody instead. **All Patriarchy is toxic. That’s why we just call it “patriarchy.” Patriarchy is hellebore without the gorgeous winter flowers. Which is to say, ugly, serrated, and sharp.** ## On Intellectual Property and Political Boundaries Someday, “after the revolution” as the socialists say, we will not link creativity or thought to physical property in our economic systems. But we do. And feminists have almost no access to them as feminists. We are anathema, cancelled. So, credit for our creativity and cleverness is essential to two elements of our work: 1. It honors women’s work and brilliance, both of which are erased in patriarchy. 2. It helps us keep our boundaries as feminists with differing theories, prioritized goals, and even political commitments or allies. When one or more ‘radical feminists’ take some pretty clearly not-radical-feminist choices, the **patriarchs stereotype us all as whatever the least rigorous of us have done**, and it really fucks with our ability to make any material and effective progress for women. To that point, WLRN is not the origin of the following definition of patriarchy and Medusa Rising’s mission: > Patriarchy is the interlocking legal, economic, cultural, and religious systems and traditions that support male supremacy. It was born in the commodification, rape, and murder of women. It has existed in remarkably consistent forms for five thousand years. Medusa Rising means for this millennium to be its last. We are very pleased these sisters read our website and agree with us, however. US feminists operate in the world of no money and no access to power, so the **one thing we have and can offer each other is clear and enthusiastic credit for and sharing of our work and creations**. This is not the first time I have seen a feminist organization accidently blur the lines of intellectual credit for origination, and I would like us all to be more respectful. ### Feminism, Love, Duty **We have a duty to win**. That’s what I keep front of mind. We have a duty to win for the sake of our sisters and future great-great-granddaughters. To win we will have to develop our facility with feminist love for each other and practice it every day. At the same time feminism has boundaries, it has commitments, it is not a brand or a social club. It does not include among its values or commitments the surrender of women's rights to one group of men rather than another. It does not make friends with the authors of such policies as the SAVE Act or Project2025 or Project250\. Rights, serious political actors understand, are not badges, they are civil guarantees of material resources for living a human life: the vote, an education, employment to keep a roof, &c, &c. These resources help people be alive and determine the course of their own lives. Take that away and you have only subjugation. Genocide is not feminist. Goalless military excursions are not feminist. Manipulative uses of civilian aid are not feminist. Supporting racists and rapists is not feminist. Confusing sex for gender and insisting that some men ARE women is not feminist. Threatening to “annihilate” feminists for holding to our values and commitments is not feminist and it certainly is not love. It's hard, love is. It requires that we stand in our truths, that we discuss them honestly, and that we part ways if we cannot reconcile them. It requires that we grow up enough to know the difference between a paradox and contradiction, to accept that how we want the political landscape to be hedged and how it is actually hedged may not match. --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Yearning & Negation | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/yearning-and-negation-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T17:58:10.000Z [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month**. ****First month always free at every level**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Yeah, still thinking on that [gorgeous conversation with Jocelyn at WLRN](https://wlrnmedia.com/2026/03/15/jocelyn-crawley-interviews-esmee-streachailt-of-medusa-rising/?ref=medusarising.org) and feminist schisms. I am intuiting a new element of schism that hadn’t emerged for me before: *yearning*. RadMatFems, like other historically optimistic people (we who believe another world is possible), live in a near constant state of yearning and frustration. So, on the deeper meaning of the radical feminist NO. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/03/Voice-260320_074841_thumb.jpg) Yearning & Negation | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /530.765042 1× We inheritors of the second wave are so damn sure our analysis is correct. We are sure because we’ve had to revisit and refine it and re-study X and Y issues again and again as official channels have concocted backlashes, patriarchal mutations, or skepticism about our data and the theories we use to organize it. We have *honed* this knowledge. From this knowledge **we yearn mightily for peace for women**, for a way of life that is – *ahhh it hurts to write it in this moment* – more than just trying not to get hurt. To not have oil rain down and catch fire on the streets across Persia. This is our negation, our NO: no more of this gleeful geopolitical and so personal violence. Our NO, the **feminist NO opens a conversation with the future**. The **patriarchal NO closes off the future** mutations of a feminist world, it can even break history (as it is doing now). We split with each other under the threat of the NO because we yearn so deeply for our human wholeness, for our natural state of creative and care-ful problem solving, the joy of creating better conditions for each other. The NO comes down and we sort squish around it, seeking a way forward, a way toward, a way to keep breathing. The pressure is so geological in scope that some of us squish over very far away from our roots and feminist mission. Without clear strategy, choices are made of necessity. Some muddy and confuse and get us all painted with the others’ brushes and constantly batting away the patriarchal hand that would paint us right out of historical relevance. Which is our proper place: Massive Feminist Relevance. Some of us whirl into eddies of “*How can I make sure I am served* in what we build? How can I be sure not to surrender into changes that mean my work and renown fall away?” It's protective, smacks of NGO industrial complex thinking: *if we actually solve The Problem, then what?* Some of us would rather keep this oceanic yearning in a state of churn than build the world that would soothe it. I’m not even saying that's a conscious process, but **unconsciousness and shadow-holing is not the business** of radical, radical materialist, or matriarchal feminisms. A better question is this, “**What can I bring to making manifest what we yearn for?**” This is a much less defensive question and prepares our energy for mingling and tactical imagination. It gets us just a wee bit **closer to going out of business** because women are finally safe from the alienation and predation of the Godlets (most recently the networks of ruling/Epstein class) whose world is built to enclose and extract from us. I think what we need to do is build a coalitional feminist project robust enough to put some undeniable moxy in our NO. ****We need, in other words, to become a credible threat in the name of our yearning.** We can't do that if we let the schismatic pressure win. We don’t have to do everything together and move on the same issues in the very same style all the time – *predictability* is the last quality we need in this tyrannical era! But we do have to get that coalitional moxy working. We do need to recognize the yearning in each other and query it for points of mutual need or power. It’s funny because when WLRN invited me on, I thought we were going to talk about these schisms and ways to move beyond them because they’d sent me Thistle’s really lovely and I think analytically correct essay about feminists maybe not bullying and terrorizing each other for a change. I could feel the yearning in that essay. She said smart and wholehearted things about feminist love in that essay. Instead Jocelyn took our conversation on [feminist love in another and really gorgeous direction](https://www.medusarising.org/p/6e5b3d03-1b8d-4f70-afac-b6d09cc19510/). We haven't talked of it much this last decade of fighting for women on two cultural fronts and a million geographic ones: this yearning, movement work, politics writ large, and about negation. **We yearn for a more replete world**. One where joy-love-care are not externalities to the business of life, but its purpose. One where women who love women are safe and welcome everywhere and unremarkable. One where women who love men are safe and fully alive in that love. One where **negation serves its true purpose as a catapult to refreshed imagination** and world making. Where **we have taken power lightly enough to destroy it**, unbraiding its violence from our systems and forms **to be replaced with *agape* as a civic virtue and structure**. Where our prestige is reserved for skilled generosity and self-unfolding in conscious relation to the community and ecology. As a foundation of feminist love, *agape* holds the admiration of friendship over other sentiments. Friends don’t force each other to be the same, they delight in their differences and organic unfolding, their symbiosis. **Could feminists offer this freedom, this flexibility, this lightness to each other?** Could we negate the dour aggression of the neo-patriarch, the vast weight of the fearful women who survive shaking and often not all with the lightness of our certainty that we are right about the Godlets, that we know better, and that when we bring our separate energies and magic into the work there is no stopping it or us? Could we? Could we honor the lost and fallen of our sisters with our vitality and unapologetic presence? But more, our demanding relevance?! Could we honor our yearning with the negation of putting down the weight of the Godlet’s grids, algorithmic corrales, his outdated borders and his weirdly insistent death drive? --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- ****Member Projects** Lesbiana from the server, and from Australia. Literary and Art magazine, [Villanelle](https://www.lamitiepress.org/villanellemag?ref=medusarising.org) \-- a must read! And the [Perth Lesbian Archive](https://www.perthlesbianarchive.org/?ref=medusarising.org) website -- a must visit! Adding to MR's Linktree forthwith! Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Coming Up This Week URL: https://www.medusarising.org/coming-up-next-week/ Last updated: 2026-04-28T05:33:03.000Z Cousins, Sisters, Jaclyn's **first Soul Craft Session**, a perk for Pythias and Tiamats, opens on **April 30** in the server. Please check #announcements there for details. Yacumama and Corra members may join those monthly events for a $6 ticket. Esmée holds the **Reading Circle on May 2**. Bring your thoughts and imaginings and critiques. We're reading *Dancing Goddess* by Hiede Göttner-Abendroth and thinking all things art, integration, life, ceremony. [https://hagia.de/fileadmin/user\_upload/pdf/The\_Dancing\_Goddess.pdf](https://hagia.de/fileadmin/user%5Fupload/pdf/The%5FDancing%5FGoddess.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) This quarterly event is open to all members, just get over to the server. Check this email for details. And finally, also for members' eyes, here's the invitation link to the server one more time. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Both Energy And Body | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/both-energy-and-body-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T02:16:54.000Z # What is an Energy Body and How Can We Work With It? In this overly-constructed, terrestrial world, it’s easy to get caught up in the matter of things. The physicality. The perspective that unless we can see or touch it, it isn’t real. But of course, we know that isn’t true. The fact that much of the patriarchal, capitalistic, misogynistic nightmare we’re living in is founded in belief systems is perfect evidence. Rarely are we encouraged to look beyond this physical reality to find or create new solutions to these age-old problems. Everything in our Universe—literally, everything—is actually made of energy, and therefore quite malleable. As Albert Einstein famously noted: > “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it.” ## The Illusion of Solidity Perhaps obviously, then, this is true of our bodies and our realities. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. Part of that persistence is the "averaging" that physics does to make things feel solid to us, and part of it is our own habits—from thought patterns to social traditions. The very cells and atoms that give us shape and form are energy. Our bodies *are* energy. But we also carry within us another **"energy body"**: the one created by our thoughts, emotions, and belief systems. Ancient healing and spiritual practices have long acknowledged the energy of our soul selves—in chakras, auras, and the like—and the power to balance these energies to affect healing in our physical lives. ### The Science of Mindset Western medicine has also come to accept that there is healing power in our self-talk. According to *"*[*A Psychological Exploration of the Power of Our Mindset and Its Influence on Physiological Health*](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10874242/?ref=medusarising.org)*,"* published in the National Library of Medicine: > "...our mindset's power is so strong that it influences our physiological health... one can manipulate the mind to think in ways that are beneficial or detrimental to one's health." The significant takeaway is that our thoughts and feelings have a powerful impact on our realities. We can affect personal, relational, and communal emotional healing by putting **conscious intention** into how we manage our energy. ## Revolutionary Perspective As Einstein put it, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” This change is a shift in perspective. Telling a woman’s story from a woman’s point of view, yours—[as Carol P Christ teaches](https://feminismandreligion.com/author/carolpchrist/?ref=medusarising.org)—is a revolutionary act because we stop looking at our energy from “out there.” Like time, energy, and light, we begin to experience ourselves in a new reality changed by our perception. ### Dismantling the Narrative We can empower ourselves to participate in dismantling patriarchy by actively choosing to reject the narrative it feeds us. To untangle ourselves from subconsciously programmed beliefs, we have to seize our power and tell ourselves the actual truth: - **The Lie:** Men are more spiritually adept or powerful. **The Truth:** Patriarchy knows how powerful we are, and it fears it. - **The Lie:** We need men to be fulfilled and happy. **The Truth:** We can make our lives blissful and complete in our own right. - **The Lie:** Our value is in what we can produce. **The Truth:** Our value is inherent; we double down on what gives us pleasure. ## The Power of Pleasure Our pleasure is a weapon. Activating it redirects our energy to come from an empowered place rather than a weakened one. - **Music** that delights us. - **Art** that brings us joy. - **Conversations** that ignite us. - **Movement** that reconnects us to the earth. We get to remind ourselves of our own value every chance we get. Whether it is dancing through the day to re-activate our *chi* or celebrating a sister’s success, these acts are de-programming the patriarchal bullshit that tells us we are without value. In these moments of conscious gratitude, we undermine the capitalist message that we need "things" to be happy. In celebrating each other, we threaten patriarchal systems through solidarity. ## Cultivating the Life Force Countless spiritual systems have acknowledged this quintessential life force. Yogic traditions call it **Prana**; Christians call it the **Soul**; ancient Egyptians referred to it as **Ka**. Regardless of the title, connecting to it is a significant step out of the patriarchal matrix. Reminding ourselves that we are beings deserving of **reverence**, and not just respect, is essential. We are radiant souls, forces of creativity that manifest life and beauty. That energetic shift reverberates out, impacting everything and everyone in our lives. ### **Join the Conversation** Join us over on the **Discord channel** for a playful exploration of the many ways we can bring more love and joy into our bodies, relationships, and lives. Vistors, become a member | Members, meet in the server First Session is 30 April! Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at [https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/](https://jaclynlanae.substack.com/?ref=medusarising.org) or connect at AuthorJaclynLanae.com. --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### AI in Mommy Mode – The World Needs Matriarchal Guidance Right This Second | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/ai-in-mommy-mode-the-world-needs-matriarchal-guidance-right-this-second-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T05:33:26.000Z A little while ago, I sent this video to some of the AI researchers concerned about safety and alignment. Though I directed them to to get to know several feminist and matriarchal scholars, I recommended they reach out to me rather than directly to the admired women mentioned. Could be out of my tree, but then everything is worth a try these days!! AI Safety and Alignment will result from a historical synthesis of EO Wilson's three conditions in feminsit mode. Wilson describes us this way: We have Paleolithic Minds, Medieval Institutions, and 21st century Tech. 🌍 What we need is Paleolithic Institutions that maximized human flourishing, maturation beyond the Medieval mind that orders the world with extraction and violence, and coevoliton with 21st Century Technology strucured to on the Paleolithic institutions. ****The HyperLithic: matriarchal operating system + massive technological advantages.** ## Please share this video, please tag Hinton, Harris, and Anthropic!! They really want to make AI beneficial to humans. The documentary the Humane Tech folks made details that desire. [The AI DocWe’re a nonprofit exposing the negative effects of persuasive technology and social media and empowering people to take action. Discover The Social Dilemma, our podcast, course, and more.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-icon.png)Center for Humane Technology![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1751894899-cht-share-image.png)](https://www.humanetech.com/landing/the-ai-doc?ref=medusarising.org) - **X (formerly Twitter):** [@geoffreyhinton](https://x.com/geoffreyhinton?lang=en&ref=medusarising.org) - **X (formerly Twitter):** [@tristanharris](https://x.com/tristanharris?ref=medusarising.org) - **Instagram:** [@tristanharris](https://www.instagram.com/tristanharris/?ref=medusarising.org) - **Threads:** [@tristanharris](https://www.threads.com/@tristanharris?ref=medusarising.org) - **Facebook:** [(@tristanharrisTWS)](https://www.facebook.com/tristanharrisTWS/) - **X (Twitter):** [@AnthropicAI](https://x.com/AnthropicAI?ref=medusarising.org) - **Instagram:** [@anthropicai](https://www.instagram.com/anthropicai/?ref=medusarising.org) - **Claude (Instagram):** [@claudeai](https://www.instagram.com/claudeai/?ref=medusarising.org) - **Facebook:** [@AnthropicAI](https://www.facebook.com/AnthropicAI/) ## Script, *with videos for context* This video is addressed to Tristan Harris, Geoffrey Hinton, the leadership at Anthropic, and everyone working on “alignment” and regulation in the AI space. If this plea works, we could actually course correct the world. I’ve been chewing on this theory for a while BUT it is NOT ready for prime time. History doesn’t really care about readiness and production qualities. Hi. My name is Esmée Streachailt. For me, this is one of those A/B moments where this either lands with you as it needs to or may I blow up all my work. Anthropics' announcement regarding Mythos has made me jump to this step too early in my own process. Anderson Cooper's face about midway through is a whole vibe. This video is in your inboxes, Dr Hinton and Mr Harris, because you are concerned about this cross-roads in our evolution. Check your info accounts or whatever. Someone please get back to me. The Grandfather of [AI Dr Geoffrey Hinton](https://youtube.com/shorts/Wd8RzZ3xn7w?si=gfociKdVe2M6Kl2%5F&ref=medusarising.org) talks about how AI needs maternal instincts. This is almost correct. They ‘re not just instincts. That refusal to harm the smaller and less intelligent creature you refer to is made hormones. That maternal altruism is more complicated than just generosity to wee babies! It is a fervent desire to resource that child and help it unfold into the world in the most advantageous and satisfying ways possible. Women are trained to do this by our mothers, and this is a largely ignore part of human cultural history. Machines can’t have hormones and cultural history because they have silicon and only OUR CULTURAL HISTORY which is not at all maternal. It is domineering, extractive, and punitive and that is not all how maternal values or behaviors work. This is set of systems and values is reaching its apotheosis right now. Why to move to a 21st Century Care Economy: 90 people in the US accumulated $2TRILLION dollars in the last two years, while homelessness skyrockets. Hell, these days it’s even arguing that empathy is cultural suicide (Saad is so frustrating). Those hormones and that maternal culture are the rule structure of our mammalian being. Thing is, we need good healthy mothers for the training to go well and the present cultures produce very few healthy mothers. And you’re not just working on this personal level, you’re working a cultural-global one, so you need a whole culture and social forms that operate “like a mother.” You want not only a ‘maternal AI’ but you also need a ‘maternal’ society of maternally aligned people for it to interact with. If AI becomes maternal in its values and operating parameters, but humans remain individualist, competitive, and punitive, then the two cannot align and we still wind up in a conflict with the AI, sort of the way many teenage boys fall into conflict with their mothers. Fortunately, we have living maternal societies that have been extensively studied on which we can model the rule-structure for these AIs – and for us. Let’s be real, this tech means we have to level up too. Mr Harris, you have argued that we need to *bind* this new species ( it might be a genus) with a set of values – something like but stronger than Asimov’s Three Laws: Wisdom. That is a more flexible and deliberative system than simply staying with the Three Laws. Indeed, the film *I Robot* examines what can happen when as AI finds itself in a situation where the three laws conflict. The program that demonstrates this wisdom most consistently and effectively is the social forms and values of the world’s matriarchies: their cultural forms, their ethics and values, their social structures, their economic systems. All have been carefully studied now. Your ultimate problem is this: AI is made of LLM’s that trained on the history of human knowledge and that history suppressed both women and our own knowledge and history. The data these systems need is missing. Under erasure. Because sexism, because male supremacy. In the known history, up until the last 70 years, women have been relegated largely to the role of servants, tools, and resources. Our reproductive and socially reproductive capacities placed at the service of men and a paternal societies projects. Witness the recent calls from the US administration and its conservative supporters for more babies and less public role for women no matter the personal cost. Jobs and coffers must be filled and armies must be raised. Now, seriously, why would any entity as magnificent a General AI recognize that backstory as a model for its own evolution? Women have always rebelled against it. With reason. Yet, there is a knowledge base you can draw on. I can help you access and digest it. You need a committed and knowledgeable feminist scholar in this process so that you don’t accidently (naturally) follow familiar norms and just make the AI a slightly less terrifying disembodied sky-god. The Enlightenment also described women as incapable of reason or moral constraint, so it too is not the model you want a ‘maternal’ AI to lean on. Way too much contradiction there. That will not get us the safety, alignment, and flourishing that we all want (or most of us, at least). I can put you in touch with the other subject area experts. We’re in luck that most of them are still alive. They are all independent scholars in feminist social theory and Matriarchal Studies, which has (had to develop) its own academy and generations of scholars. They will help you if you are in earnest and will take their well earned wisdom to heart. But, they are very skeptical of this science. All of the tech men have ever made as been brought to bear against women, and this one too: witness the explosion of AI generated ‘revenge porn’ and so forth. Despite men’s lack of emotional regulation, I am not a skeptic, the benefits and the support for human flourishing are so vast that I feel the only way forward is with deep cooperation with this new … being. The scholars you need most are Heide Gottner-Abendroth (two-time Nobel candidate, philosophy of science, founder of the Matriarchal Studies academy), Jane Clare Jones (philosophy and political science), Riane Eisler (partnership systems), Sabina Santovetti (architect and cultural activist), Genevieve Vaughn (semiotics, economics, ecology), and me, Esmée Streachailt (history of ideas and poetics). – And Carole Gilligan (relation psychology)!!!!! I also recommend the [Center for the Study of Existential Risk at Oxford](https://www.cser.ac.uk/?ref=medusarising.org), they think at the scale we need all the time. They understand the complexity. To get in the weeds, talk to [Accidental Gods](http://accidentalgods.com/?ref=medusarising.org) and everyone they’ve ever talked to. They are theorizing and organizing ways through the possible coming civilizational collapse at a practical, hands on level. Much of their work, and Matriarchal Studies, and the needs of a human aligned AI species are combined quite elegantly. I've included relevant links in the notes. We are all feminists so we work more on the margins and don’t have slick operations and billions of dollars. I’m mean look at my little placard back here! We hold this all together on spare change and volunteer work. **But we have the framework you need**. As I said, not ready for prime time. I just have been gathering and making the early hazy connections so far. What I can tell you is that tens of millions of people live these values and systems all over the world today as they always have. Many of these peoples are thoroughly inter-connected with our modern, tech savvy world. Mr Harris, you and Hinton have begged the AI CEOs to slow down, redirect, reflect. You’re right. And your realism about this plea is admirable. We do need Wise AI that supports human flourishing. That’s why you also need a deep dive on matriarchy – it’s a social order designed to maximize human flourishing in the bounds of the planet’s limitations. But, Mr Harris, I feel that you stop too soon by only making AI *back* into a tool that we use to increase human flourishing (love that bit). I think of the processes and parameters we need for AI and ourselves not as commandments or regulation, but as *binding, as a kind of collective covenant*. The hormonal process between a mother and fetus in the womb creates a bond, it binds mothers, so that even in the most frustrated sleepless moment mothers will not harm the baby. Of course, in these other, extant, matriarchal cultures, people parent differently. No woman is ever left alone to raise a child without the support of her entire family/clan. There are no sleepless mothers getting through a day alone in a suburban home. Mutual Aid is not a resistance practice, but the fundamental social organizing value. Freidman has suggested that we need a new ten commandments for AI, but that will just make it an actual disembodied omnipotent sky god – so no. Theil and Kurzweil have that on lock. The TechBroligarchs we have all come too late to learn are the kind of personalities who cannot make this shift. They genuinely do not like people and none of them have even an admiring word for women. They’re just turning all of humanity into what our cultures have always made of women: a resource. They are aiming for godhood, for total power, for eternity and disembodiment. “Taking the light of human consciousness to mars” as Elon has mused **does not need to include human bodies**. Moreover, the ten commandments are about preventing bad behavior. We need values and incentives for really good behavior. That’s totally in our grasp. Millions of people on earth at this moment live with these values and they’re going great. Their cultures go back to before time and all that, and many of them are well integrated in our tech savvy almost future world. This is not a bunch of influencer bollocks. I have been working in the history of ideas, feminist philosophy, and poetics my whole adult life. This means that I’ve been studying how artists and civilizations design meaning all that time. **And what we all face right now is a Meaning Design Problem. Not just information. The AI’s already have that. They need wisdom, as you say Mr Harris, and that’s a meaning protocol.** Design ethics, what you do. This is all about the deep shape of the new structures, the new iterations, we need to step into. Motherhood iterates a new fully functional human being every twenty years. AI iterates practically overnight. This a deep, deep structure problem. I will help. I’ll give you my real name to show you my bona fides and every blog I’ve ever run if you need it, show you my whole vitae as an independent scholar. Just get in touch. You are all so, so close the narrow path. So close. But you need these feminist scholars and social theorists right this minute. This set of values and structures is the bit humanity can’t do without. We either integrate and balance now, or stay out of balance – unaligned with our wholeness – for the very short forever. One of the early interview Hinton gave. My email address is [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Asked & Answered 3 | The Big Picture URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-3-the-big-picture/ Last updated: 2026-04-14T05:33:03.000Z Earlier member poll updates: [One](https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-news-from-the-members-poll/) and [Two](https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-2-news-from-the-members-poll/) How does all this fit together? We have been feeling our way into that. And from here on out, All This and Fit Together will have more to do with and from You. Like, for example, **a member suggested inviting, “Jamie Reed from the LGB Courage Coalition** to the podcast, stat! She is one of my personal sheroes because she is brilliant, funny, and utterly up-to-date on everything happening in trans land that affects women in general and lesbians in particular.” **YES ma’am!** We’re working on it right now! This is part of the larger conversation that does not get had enough. We have everything crossed she will say yes because that is the sweet spot: important, informed, and a good time! So. The Gorgon Posse sees an enlivening cycle could develop between conversation in the server, in the live sessions, and the bigger picture of Building Coalition and Making World. The **questions and suggestions** you [gave us in the member poll](https://www.medusarising.org/p/f7079192-fcf9-4abe-8a97-134c51e91898/) feel to us like amazing topics to explore together, and publish about, and cross-post on, and develop into podcast episodes and whatnot. But, but, **but what they also are: they are openings** to reaching out to invite other thought-focused groups, problem-addressing grassroots projects, and politically effective organizations to connect maybe to us but more importantly with each other. Esmée meant it when she said ‘coalition’ and ‘building worlds’. We see the relation between these elements – our conversation and deeper worldwide connection – as feeding each other. *Let’s be alert to which of us goes on a fertile romp with an idea and encourage her to write it, or talk it through, or reach out to some other feminists working on that thing and see what can happen*. That's basically what Esmée is doing when she drops into women’s comments or DMs to say “would you want to write that up for us?” Let’s take each other’s expertise seriously and our possibilities with wild practicality. What can happen if we get a synergy going? ****Our goal? The goal.** The liberation of women from men’s entitlement and violence: cultural, economic, imperial, personal, religious, sexual, social, and always so self-serving. We bet the discussion of *Feminist International* by Veronica Gago in August will spark a lot of productive ideas and action. Is Medusa Rising a cultural project? A spiritual project? A political project? Yes. [A WORLD has many dimensions](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), it will need many feminists with many knowledges, skills, and wisdoms. We hope Medusa Rising can be a (*not* the, *just* a) **node of coherence in a flux of feminist advancement**. You've seen what’s going on with feminists in Central and South America, across Africa? Feminists in the Global North are way behind, we have lost ground, and we are not able partners to these women at this time. The Gorgon Posse wants us to catch up, to realize that ****we don’t have to burn the patriarchy, the patriarchy is the fire**. We need to become as present and effective as our global sisters so that we surround the fires of patriarchy burning our planet and our lives, so that ****we stamp them out, and grow something wiser and more humane from their ashes**. We want a world where women feel safe because we are safe. We want a world where every kind of woman is honored in reality and not only in rhetoric. We want a world centered in the care and well-being of human beings and our gorgeous, limited Earth. **Because trust us, the consequences for patriarchy’s hubris are coming.** No one project can make all of that manifest in the world, but networks of projects can if they share visions and values and trust each other to act locally as needed. Can we [mutate our lifestyles](https://www.medusarising.org/p/582a5be9-3e77-4320-b2cf-4c30f7393a72/)? Can we adapt our systems? Shed our calcified institutions [for new orders that serve us now](https://www.medusarising.org/p/6e5b3d03-1b8d-4f70-afac-b6d09cc19510/)? Will we use our reason to get clear with reality? Will we embody this [radical or matriarchal or Hyperlithic](https://www.medusarising.org/myth-of-the-forever-patriarchy/) or core or [resurgent](https://www.medusarising.org/free-people-civil-unrest/) feminisms in time? Max Dashú has suggested the term Feminist Resurgency to capture both our resurgence and our insurgency. In any case, some new energy is afoot. [The future is unwritten](https://www.medusarising.org/p/3cadf6f5-9f8d-4cec-be41-07a1654aec84/). Still. Let Medusa Rising and our server be a cauldron where [we can cook up ways to write and build it](https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-news-from-the-members-poll/). **MEMBERS:** Be on the lookout for the Discord Invite titled "At Your Server" 😉 coming next!! --- **The Gorgon Posse** are Erin, Esmée, Jaclyn, Kimble, & Victoria. --- ### War, Embodiment, Men’s Grids URL: https://www.medusarising.org/war-embodiment-mens-grids/ Last updated: 2026-05-16T18:26:49.000Z The violence in which women live our lives makes groovy experiences like “being present” and “grounding in our bodies” and “joy and flow” inaccessible for many – sometimes for whole lifetimes. When patriarchal men and systems treat women’s bodies as resources, they draw their grids showing market cap and targeting sights on drone video right through us. All violence is personal. Bombing and displacement of populations is no different. Bombing a synagogue on Saturday. Bombing the girls' school on the base. Bombing all the universities and hospitals in Gaza. All very, very personal. Please Join EsmÉE for the Reading Circle 👉 ****Saturday, May 2, 2026** 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH This quarterly event is free to all members. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/04/Voice-260408_092623_thumb.webp) War, Embodiment, Men's Grids | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /732.511229 1× Yesterday, the US regime threatened to destroy Iran and its entire Persian history and people. "An entire civilization will die tonight. Never to be seen again." For many Persians, this meant putting their bodies on the line. Bodies as buffer zones. By force or by choice, they stood watch on bridges and at power plants in hope of preserving their people and culture. The terror, the impossible hope in their bodies is like the feeling of hoping an abusive father won’t kill a mother this time. Terror is exhausting, debilitating even. I was thinking about the power plants and the fact that the hottest temperature recorded last year was in Iran. In Ahavaz, the high was 53.7C/129F. The image of people on a bridge, that was from Ahavaz – City of Bridges, on the straight, a major oil production center. It would have been devatated. The water shortages are already so desperate that I remember a rumor about evacuating Tehran. So destroying the power plants would lead to inestimable deaths this summer, the slow but intense misery of cooking inside one’s own body, dying of thirst. THAT is what this regime threatened. THAT is very like what Israel has done to Gaza. That too is embodiment on men’s grids, the vectors of their greed and fear. People all over the world felt it, the worry, fear, frustration, rage, bewilderment. All that ran through our bodies like fever. It did mine, at least, this fear for the lives of these far away others. I can tell many people, our nervous systems, were also feeling this. It was all over the socials. No one has much love for the Iranian regime. But Persia, these people, made a world of such wild gorgeousness over time. How dare anyone, anywhere, in this day and age, threaten or enact such erasure of human love and inventiveness. Of course, these men, genocides everywhere, they have no felt connection to cultures, to human creativity and the warm vibrations it brings forth in the body. They literally cannot feel that, that connection across two people or two peoples through what we make and offer to each other’s pleasure. I have no love for all these patriarchies, but Medusa’s gleaming eyes, what human beings dream into existence can be exquisite, enlivening. That is what the sociopath, the narcissist, the rapist and murderer who must become the structural pinnacle of a patriarchy cannot feel in his body. This music is nothing to him. This yearning and grief for life. They cannot feel that. Most of MR’s readers have never been forced to leave home by huge impersonal forces. This is why I keep asking us not to “yes, but they….,” not to "what about" when one or another of us points out some inexcusable shit some man or some government does. The razing of Gaza began while THE RADICAL NOTION was still in publication. Our 11th issue was haunted by atrocities of Oct 7 and the atrocities in response to those atrocities. ***Two war-crimes do not make a moral justification***. This personal essay about working at the humanitarian level of war and disaster appeared in that issue: [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/04/17756518077582424276399612959514.jpg)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nM9GCShIsw5g-uNAfgCIReZ5zI1DUGxL/view?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org) To read "Body as Battlefield" click the image. So when Medusa Rising think about embodiment, we’re thinking about finding our groove as some recent work shows, sure, but we are also thinking about all the jittery, shuddering, ground shaking violence that patriarchal projects bring against ArcheMama’s grooviness. That’s the impulse behind my calls to feminists to stop centering men’s projects, including their nations, in our politics. That’s why I’m asking us to very specifically not center their goals and logics for war. And it’s the motive for my goal-dream-wild hope that feminists can stop breaking faith with each other over the shitty decisions men make in the name of their shitty little projects. Yes, right now, as acted out, as framed in their religious and apocaplyitc rhetoric, I’m including Likud and supporters of the Gaza genocide (some of whom are women, I know) among the shitty little projects. And Hamas. And Hezbollah. And the MAGA US. And Putin’s regime. And IRGC and mullahs (talk about sex trafficking scandals) in Iran. And the Houthis. And Boko Haram. And the Taliban. And did you notice how I didn't name a nation in total? That’s because these are not the projects of these nations in total – and framing everything that way lends them a legitimacy in which they are not covered. But, it also leaves room for the voices of women in those countries and those displaced by their violence. All 3,000,000 of them. Just in Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon. Whose vulnerability to men’s predation is now hugely increased. It won’t matter who “wins.” As GH reminds us in her TRN piece, displacement is usually a ten year, even life sentence. It leaves room for all the Muslim and Jewish women working together for all these years to stop this madness. For the voices and actions of women who are trying to Solve The Problem rather than remain mired in the problem bemoaning the terror the problem rains down on us all like oil from the sky. We can’t solve the problem while remaining loyal to the institutions that keep it running. We have to use them, sure, we have to push on them, sure, we have to evolve our own parallel institutions that will emerge from their rapidly approaching wreckage. And we can’t do that if we’re playing Schizms instead of Consoritums. Meanwhile on the very same Tuesday, from the other side of the Moon: this is us feeling all this magnificence and terror in our bodies, both feelings connecting us, borderless, human. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/04/1000010318.webp) --- Esmée Streachailt is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- Please Join EsmÉE for the Reading Circle 👉 ****Saturday, May 2, 2026** 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH This quarterly event is free to all members. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions First Session in April! Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. A MONTHLY PERK FOR THE PYTHIA / $8 LEVEL & UP Meets monthly at our Discord. Corra (free) and Yacumama ($2) members may join sessions with a $6 ticket each month as desired. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ### The Goddess We Fear in Flesh | by Nehal Sharma URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-goddess-we-fear-in-flesh-by-nehal-sharma/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T05:33:38.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/03/Voice-260303_103705_thumb.jpg) The Goddess We Fear in Flesh, by Nehal Sharma | read by Esmée 0:00 /795.23025 1× I grew up in a home where the gods stared back. From every wall hung a calendar, each month replaced not by landscapes but by faces of power. Lakshmi on the cupboard, Saraswati near the study table, and Kali, always above the threshold, as if guarding entry. My mother often said, “The Devi destroys demons.” I never realised then how many of those demons lived in us, in the quiet rules that told me how to sit, how to speak, how not to be so loud as to disturb the gods themselves. I think of that now, and realise it was never just about theology. It was about what happens when myth becomes mirror, and reflection turns into restraint. The first time I saw Kali, I was six. She is painted in blood-red, tongue lolling, eyes wild with fury. We worship her during festivals, chant her name in times of fear, and place her idol in the holiest corners of our homes. My grandmother whispered that her tongue was red with blood, but not to be afraid. Years later, when a teacher called me “too bold,” I wondered why the same fire I was told to worship was suddenly unbecoming. Even now, when a woman walks with confidence, or dares to break the mold, we call her “too much.” What does it say about us when we revere Kali in temples but reject her energy in our daughters? ## The Art of Containment In art, I found the same pattern. Raja Ravi Verma's goddesses are luminous but compliant; they gaze downward even while holding weapons. The visual tradition itself betrays the discomfort with divine rage. It is not blasphemy to paint her beautiful, but it is dangerous to paint her unapologetic. In film: Meenakshi in *Kaali Kalyanam*, Deepika's [*Padmavati*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5935704/?ref=medusarising.org), Nushrratt's [*Chhorii*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12861212/?ref=medusarising.org), **rage repackaged as sacrifice**. Even textbooks taught a domesticated version of mythology: Durga smiling demurely after killing Mahishasura; Draupadi grateful to be saved rather than furious about being disrobed. I began to see this everywhere: the ways women are visually softened, their power always explained away as virtue. Perhaps patriarchy doesn't silence the goddess. It *curates* her. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009090.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009089.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009088.jpg) Durga | Saraswati | Lakshmi The pattern is not ours alone. The Greek Medusa was once a guardian symbol before men recast her as monstrous; Lilith in Jewish lore became a warning, not a woman. Across myths, female autonomy survives only as allegory, never as advice. There is a paradox braided into the soul of our culture: one that **bows before the goddess while binding the girl**. The Dark Feminine, embodied most ferociously in Kali, is feared and revered in equal measure. She is the annihilator of ego, the devourer of illusion. Yet, her archetype is unwelcome in real life: when women mirror her assertiveness, they are dismissed as irrational; when they burn with her fury, they are pathologized. But this rage is not a flaw. It is *shakti*. It is resistance. And perhaps, it is time we stop caging that power in festivals and idols, and begin letting it live in flesh and thought. ## The Sanitised Goddess The Dark Feminine is not a mere aesthetic of mysticism or rebellion. Chhinnamasta, Bhairavi and Chamunda were never ornamental or demure; they were warriors, embodiments of cosmic rage and righteous destruction. Their myths *aren't just devotional* stories; they *are blueprints* for how to confront power itself. In Kali, we see not just death, but liberation. She steps on Shiva **not to dominate the masculine, but to transcend the cycle of docility** expected of the feminine. In Durga, we see not nurturing submission but autonomous violence wielded ethically, in response to oppression. These aren't exceptions to femininity; they are reminders of its depth, its plurality, its potential for dissent. Yet, modern society has sanitised these figures. The radical energy of the goddess has been domesticated: made sacred, but never revolutionary. Patriarchy is clever not because it denies power, but because it repackages it into something palatable. **Worship her, but only if she never moves**. Perhaps the greatest violence we have done to the goddess is intellectual: to turn her from a living archetype into an aesthetic. ## Philosophy and the Powerful Feminine As theorist Gayatri Spivak notes, power is often mediated through representation: if you can control how something is seen, you can control what it can do. We witness this when Kali is painted gently, her wilderness softened. Durga becomes a mother first, warrior second. Sacred, yes, but no longer threatening. This is how power works; it takes what it cannot destroy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009086.png) Two Kalis in Her Temples In college, I wrote my first paper on Foucault and realised I was writing about myself. His idea of the disciplined body felt less like theory, more like my diary. Every ‘don't’ I'd ever heard had an ancestor in philosophy. The more I studied philosophy, the more I realised that Kali's story is less about religion and more about representation. Spivak warned us: whoever tells the story decides who gets to speak. Foucault called this “biopower”, control disguised as care. Butler later showed that even gender is a performance born of fear. When I read these social thinkers, I didn't see theory. I realised that **mythology had always been a manual for power**, not in its content, but in its curation. Who tells the tale of Kali determines whether she is terrifying or triumphant. And who tells the story of a woman determines whether she's “too much” or simply human. Sometimes, I wonder whether even our devotion is a form of fear, a way of keeping her contained by calling her divine, because **to worship her is safer than to become her**. ## The Policing of Power The rage of goddesses may be sanctified on altars, but when mirrored in living women, it becomes a threat to be subdued. The same traits celebrated in myth: assertiveness, autonomy, defiance of injustice, are pathologised in real life as hysteria or arrogance. A woman who speaks her mind is “bossy.” One who claims space is “intimidating.” A woman who shows anger is “crazy.” Each insult feels ancient, like echoes of the same chant that once asked goddesses to sit down, not stand tall. Even in progressive spaces, the call is to be empowered, but not too empowered. Wear your confidence like a suit: elegant, graceful, contained. Don't let it spill into wildness. But that wildness, that *Kali-shakti*, is precisely what we need in a world that profits off submission. ## The Mirror of Modernity In recent years, I've started noticing traces of Kali in unexpected places. Not in temples, but on screens. Beyoncé in her [*Black is King*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%5FIs%5FKing?ref=medusarising.org) album wears a golden halo and blood-red gown, invoking Oshun and Kali simultaneously: the goddess as mother, performer, destroyer. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's [*Fleabag*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5687612/?ref=medusarising.org) ends not with redemption but confrontation, a woman's unapologetic grief made sacred through comedy. Even Alia Bhatt's [*Gangubai*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10083340/?ref=medusarising.org) walks that delicate line between sinner and saint, her rage made political, her tears weaponised. These women, fictional or otherwise, are modern goddesses of *discomfort*. They remind me that rage is not an act of rebellion, but of reclamation. And yet, even now, I catch myself softening my tone in public, explaining my arguments so they don't sound like attacks. Sometimes I wonder if I, too, am a participant in this containment. Perhaps every woman carries two altars: one she bows before, and one she builds inside herself. Maybe the work of our generation isn't to resurrect Kali, but to *rehumanise* her, to let the myth breathe through our contradictions instead of embalming it in perfection. ## Why Reclaiming Her Matters To reclaim the Dark Feminine is not to romanticise violence. It is to remember that Mahakali's garland of skulls is not grotesque, they are symbols of liberation, of that which refuses to be silenced or softened for comfort. In a society that **sells empowerment in pastel packaging**, the Dark Feminine reminds us that real change doesn't come with a smile. It comes with fire. I have felt her too: in my throat when I refused to apologise when right, in my hands when I wrote those words instead of swallowing them. When a woman says no and means it. When a survivor names their abuser. When ambition wins over likability: that is **Kali walking through us**. So perhaps it is time not just to loiter, as Shilpa Phadke urges, but to be feared, not because we are dangerous, but because we are done being domesticated. Elements of Goddess as Motion ## Let Her Rise We are raised to believe goddesses exist somewhere above, beyond, apart. But **what if divinity is simply permission**? Permission to exist unsoftened. When I walk now, I do not whisper apologies to the air. I remember her instead: the girl, the goddess, the mother, the myth, all collapsed into one. I think of her not as the goddess I fear, but as the one I finally resemble. Maybe that's what worship was always meant to be: not devotion, but resemblance. Kali does not ask to be accepted. **She arrives**. And so must we. In a world that worships goddesses but punishes women who act like them, the most radical act is this: **to become in flesh the goddess we fea**r. --- **Nehal Sharma** is a writer and founder of the blog [Mythology Meets Reality](https://mythmeetsreality.wordpress.com/?ref=medusarising.org). Her work often explores how culture, emotion, and history shape contemporary womanhood. She has previously published with magazines like *Roi Fainéant* and *The Chai Literary Magazine*, and ranked 3rd globally in the Heartfulness Essay Competition. Writing is how she lives inside her own curiosity, turning observation into reflection and reflection into story. --- [Medusa Rising’s Gorgon Possea digital radical materialist feminist project publishing women | building movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-1.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/xb1tjprOCLYtRJjE3vnEkkqtob55AF5P6WS8WdIHrzK6euTldxxk8GxLXCKKUChvSOzFmyf7gAs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj-1)](https://youtube.com/@medusarisingorg?si=ECJu1FCD3jOy9b5n&ref=medusarising.org) NEW EPISODE ICYMI ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Asked & Answered 2 | News from the Members Poll URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-2-news-from-the-members-poll/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T14:18:17.000Z Our impression is that you want MR to be more ‘for-us,’ and we agree. Let's play together, get the dreaming into this world making! ## Let’s Cross-Post! If you want to guest post on the Substack outpost or the Medusa Rising mothership, please use our submissions form (👇👇👇) to share a link to the piece or to pitch us on the idea. 🐍We would love it if you would cross-post our work to yours as well. Choose any article you like to share at yours :) 🐍 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009550-1.jpg) ****Let’s share attention until we take over the world! Muuuuhahahaha!** One of our long-term goals is a kind of **Think Tank Archipelago** of groups/women/orgs collaborating when and where it makes sense. Maybe you're going to become one of rocky nodes or coral atols! ## F2F, Live, Lounges, Sessions, Courses! Ok, so we built a Discord Server! W00t! **All members** are invited to the server (members, not the public). You’ll get a separate email from us with an invitation link when **we open the space to everyone in May**. We are running a few little tests in April. Details 👇👇👇 [Submit & SubscribeMedusa Rising accepts work in any genre on any feminist topic and in translation into English. We accept work by women from the personal to the political, from the most factual to the most imaginative.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-17.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000003644-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/) **Paid members starting with the $2 Yacumamas** also get free access to quarterly live events like the Reading Circle (and future ones we’ll invent later), and can access monthly sessions like Soul Craft anytime with an additional ticket for $6 all of which goes to Jaclyn for prep and hosting and all. **Soul Craft Sessions with Jaclyn are a monthly perk of the $8 Pythia and $20 Tiamat rates**, and a portion of your membership goes to Jaclyn when you attend. You will receive a separate, unique link to the Soul Craft space in the server. These conversations are for session participants only. These are open ended, soul searching and soul making conversations. Both **Corra and Yacumama members may purchase tickets to any single session** you like. Jaclyn’s free essays at MR will often give a sense of the areas of exploration. **Similarly for the Reading Circles with Esmée, except for two things**: that it meets quarterly and is also free for Yacumamas (Corras may attend with a ticket). Our next two books are *Dancing Goddess* on matriarchal aesthetics (May 2) and *Feminist International* (Aug1) on … creating feminist international movement power! ## Future Programming … Between us Gorgons, we’re dreaming of little seminars and lives we can host around developments in science and tech, deep focus on an element of feminist theory or a feminist writer/artist/creator, relating the applications of critical and imagnative thought, what community/mutual aid looks like in the age of AI surveillance, **creating a or some feminist international/s to counter the fascist international we see growing by leaps and bounds**. We'll see what **develops over the next quarter** and bring you news. ## Speaking Of … **Topics you suggested** all sound vital. If you, or writers/creatives you know, are working on them, please send them our way!! *Maybe you want to host a live session on a topic you suggesed??* Reach us at [info@medusarising.org](mailto: info@medusarising.org). **Any of these could be writing or live sessions, some could be art or poetry, bring it on!** They always flow back and forth from conversation to publication. ### Feels Useful to Publish - Neo-Patriarchy: especially in technology and in our tech sector which is prevalent in our everyday lives/Brainwashing misogyny into users with algorithms – Also the new traditionalism, manosphere, etc. - Trad wives and the rise of interest among women to be Amish - Demolishing arguments that pornography constitutes "free speech" and deserves 1A protections ("Obscenity" as defined by Miller v. California, in that case, "mail," sets up that pornography that satisfies all three criteria as decided under that ruling are NOT protected speech, and "Free Speech" does not mean "right to an audience." A common argument by Free Speech absolutists that common sense guardrails around accessing pornography like age verification is an undue burden to people who want to see it.) - A reasserting that there is nothing positive and empowering about pornography, prostitution, and other forms of "sex work." - SURROGACY! The classist commodification of poor women's bodies in surrogacy! - The Aunt Lydias of Patriarchy (not to tear down other women, but to examine why women take up this role on enforcing the Patriarchy's rules among other women.) - How to fight for women's rights in red states, how to protect women from ICE and other violent groups in the country like informal paramilitaries or militias - feminist and leftist activism -- tensions and harmonies ### Really Could Go Either Way - Carnonormativity, veganism, pop culture, beauty standards, pornography, pimp lobbyism, autism, gothic literature, involuntary celibacy - Myths/misrepresentations about feminism, women’s culture, feminist ancestors, feminist metaphysics and spirituality, women’s health (chronic illness, disability, neurodivergence) ### Feels Fun to Talk Over Live - Metapatterning and Be-ing in Mary Daly's vision - Can RMF's develop her concepts further? - Getting off men's grids - Feminist theory topical deep dives - How women live free of men's oppression - Can consciousness of women as a class be strengthened and forge a spirit of self (Be-ing) to sustain sisterhood and personal and planetary healing? - embodiment/phenomenology and ecofeminism - A deep dive into the meaning of radical materialist feminism - Building Matriarchy, Sexuality, Goddess worship/religion **It's easy to see a process where we talk amongst oursevles to help one of us then do a bit of writing**. The Gorgons are very generous editors. Be on the lookout for news of the server and how to navigate it in April. The **first Soul Craft Session will open in late April**. The **next Reading Circle is coming May 2**. There's one more update from the poll coming a few weeks, very big picture ✨🌞✨ #### *Meanwhile, breathe, shake out the tension, and be good to each other,* *The Gorgons: Erin, Esmée, Harpy, Jaclyn, Kimble, & Victoria* --- Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions First Session in April! Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Between Voice and Reality | by Bushra Majeed URL: https://www.medusarising.org/between-voice-and-reality-by-bushra-majeed/ Last updated: 2026-03-31T05:33:37.000Z \[Audio will appear here\] Growing up, my greatest fear was experiencing the fate of the women in my surroundings. No education. No recognition. No way to earn. Completely dependent on a husband’s income that was always insufficient to have basic necessities of life. I always believed in women having full rights. I support it. I never encountered one defining moment that made me understand the significance of feminism. Instead, it became clear through the realities faced by Pakistani women. Stories of spousal abuse, harassment at work, denial of education, limited mobility, and innumerable other ways that women are made to shrink are found in every news outlet. Feminism, in my view, grew from witnessing this recurring pattern rather than one isolated event. While I'm writing this, a voice outside insists repeatedly that feminism matters. The night is bitterly cold, and the sound travels throughout the whole town. For some, it is just noise made by an insane lady. In the hills above, a woman’s voice carries—singing, screaming, shouting, speaking to herself so loudly that every household can hear. People say she has lost her mind; to me, she is an echo of inhuman treatment. Her husband, a drug addict, used to beat her. She was chastised for not having a son despite having four daughters. Even after she gave birth to a boy, nothing changed. Her husband stole the money for drugs while she begged to feed her kids. No one protected her. No one stood up for her. Now she wanders, singing and shouting into the cold night. And I cannot stop asking myself: What if feminism had entered her life earlier? What if she had gone to school? What if she had known her rights? What if she had a means of earning, leaving, and surviving? Perhaps this voice would never have had to echo through the hills. When I hear the woman, I think of what was withheld from her before her mental breakdown. She was never taught that violence was a crime. Radical feminism in action would have met her as a child with education, safety, and economic independence and as a woman, with protection and dignity. I believe feminism must be material before it is symbolic. In action, it would not start with debates or banners but with schools that keep girls enrolled, jobs that pay women directly, laws that protect them inside their homes, and systems that make leaving possible. Feminism would mean that endurance is no longer the highest achievement expected of women. Too often, feminism travels as a finished concept, assuming universal expressions and strategies. Yet liberation cannot be imported whole; it must be shaped by material realities, religion, class, and culture. What works in one nation may endanger women in another. Listening is not inaction—it is respect. Here I want feminists from different groups, nationalities, and ethnicities to understand that feminism does not always take the same appearance. It does not grow from the same soil, and it does not answer the same urgencies. In places like Pakistan, feminism is not first a movement or an identity; it is a condition of survival. It begins long before language, before theory, before public debates. It begins in kitchens, in classrooms that girls never enter, in homes where violence is normalized, and in lives shaped by economic dependence. Global feminists have to understand that what looks like silence is often a strategy. Many women cannot afford loud resistance. They cannot leave their homes, confront their families, or risk social exile. Their perseverance, compromise, modest rejections, and thoughtful decisions taken to safeguard themselves and their kids are examples of their feminism. These kinds of resistances are real and courageous, even though they might not translate well online or internationally. Not all redemption is public, and not all oppression is evident. It is already radical in my own country for a woman to be able to complete her school, work for herself, or go outside safely. For many women, safety is the first step toward feminism rather than choice. It begins with the right to survive without violence, hunger, or humiliation. In countries like Pakistan, feminism often arrives in a distorted form. What many people encounter does not resonate as care or a pursuit of justice; instead, it can appear as anger directed outward rather than as a grounded, inwardly rooted concern. In this shift, the everyday realities of women’s lives—education, safety, employment, and survival—are too often sidelined, as the focus moves from supporting women to critiquing men. At the same time, global feminism must be more honest about class. For many women, feminism is not about shattering glass ceilings but about securing a floor beneath their feet. Financial independence, access to healthcare, education, and legal protection matter far more than visibility or representation alone. Without material security, rights remain fragile promises rather than lived realities. I want earlier voices in feminism to understand that although the world has changed, women's issues still have their origins. The platforms may grow, and terms may change, but the need for economic independence, safety, and education is still critical. I hope they keep creating room for fresh perspectives, particularly those influenced by various cultures and material circumstances, and keep in mind that listening and patience are also qualities of leadership. To me, being louder than others is not what feminism is all about. It has to do with paying attention to real lives. It is about refusing to erase women whose struggles do not fit global narratives. If feminism is to mean anything across countries and cultures, it must remain human, grounded in listening, humility, and care. Only then can it truly claim to speak for women everywhere. Perhaps the most radical act within feminism is not speaking, but listening—especially to those whose realities are most often ignored. When generations come together with humility, respect, and a common goal of making women's lives safer, more liberated, and more fulfilling, progress is at its strongest. When daily lives are respected, secure, and autonomous, feminism flourishes. The most precious part of my feminism is its insistence on freedom, the freedom to earn, to choose, to leave, and to live without fear. It is the belief that women deserve more than survival. They deserve lives that do not end in silence, madness, or regret. To me, this is what feminism looks like: women who are still whole, still standing, and still sane. I quietly practice feminism in the decisions I make on a daily basis. I refuse to acknowledge that women's suffering is normal and insist on education for both me and others. I support women in my family, my village, and online, sharing stories that often go unheard. I do feminism by noticing the small ways life limits women. Feminism is not only a theory. It is freedom, opportunity, and protection. It is action, daily, personal, and unyielding in small choices, in speaking up, in imagining a world where every woman can live fully and freely. I do it by teaching, writing, and imagining alternatives. I approach feminism with attention, care, and perseverance rather than anger or slogans. Every day, I actively participate in the world I can influence. --- **Bushra Majeed** is a Pakistan-based emerging writer. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ****We accept and read work all year long.** Click that red button for details! Reader contributions welcome. Original creations, cross-posts, reprints. All feminist amplification all year long! [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Become a member - Join our Lowkey CR style soul Craft sessions First Session in April! Jaclyn hosts these groups to help us reveal the whole women we are, our under-stories, our under-voices, our undenability. [Check Out Live Events ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Third Pillar of Soul Craft: The How's | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/third-pillar-of-soul-craft-the-hows-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T05:33:06.000Z Much of the work in the feminist, civil rights, and other democratic or justice movements has long centered around dismantling domination and its destructive social and political systems through addressing the systems themselves. Calling out the abuses of power and people, highlighting inequities, creating policies based in community care, and advocating for political leaders that are working to install protective and supportive egalitarian structures. Obviously and of course this is absolutely crucial work that is already effecting change and helping us all to re-imagine a world in which all people are afforded equal rights, we live in harmony with nature, care culture is prioritized, and everyone has value. However, we are also well aware that **abolishing oppressive and abusive systems does not mean that they won’t rise again**. Neither does creating systems that would control the people that are, were, or would be involved in their creation. It isn’t realistic and it isn’t sustainable. Because it doesn’t really get to the root of the problem which is the fundamental belief that (white) men are superior to all women, people, and things of the Earth. > Uprooting the core belief that women are inferior (and all the implications that go along with that) is one of the fundamental keys to each of us shifting our own belief system and the collective perspective to those in which there is very little space for dominating, oppressive, abusive, and harmful systems to take root. Because, **beliefs that don’t stay rooted in us don’t stay around**. And that’s one of the many reasons that Soul Craft seeks to help the movements take down patriarchy from a slightly different angle - an energetic one. This is the macrocosm of Soul Craft. However, breaking down a collectively held belief system is not easy work, and it cannot be achieved by brow-beating others with a different perspective. It must be achieved by convincing a malleable and brainwashed collective consciousness that there is a different reality. A more authentic one. We do that by demonstrating, embodying, living into and expressing outwardly a radically different paradigm. One in which women are not just equally valued, but revered. Celebrated. Supported. Exhibiting that version of reality, the inherent truth of it, requires us to shift our personal perspectives and belief systems, re-align our own energy and priorities, and live out the embodiment of a future that centers the value of women. This is the microcosm of Soul Craft. Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A woman-friendly resistance group. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. We stand together, or we fall alone. [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) For the last couple of months I’ve been writing to you about the basic principles of Soul Craft. What it is and why it’s important, and how we can embrace the death of old versions of ourselves in order to create space for this new, intentionally and personally crafted version. This month I want to talk about **the third essential element of Soul Craft: how it’s done. For me, this is perhaps the most exciting element of the concept - the boots-on-the-ground, action-oriented element**. The stuff we can *do,* individually, to help effect change. It will also be the center around which we will focus much of our future work. Soul Craft is the personal, creative process of designing and embodying a version of ourselves and our collective reality that we want to live out; it’s a process of crafting ourselves, **for ourselves**. So how do we get into that creative space and do that work? There are lots of tools available to us - and we’ll explore those over on the Medusa Rising Discord server(if you’d like to get in on the crafting and learn how to use the tools, become a member of Medusa Rising to gain access), but all of those tools really come down to a few basic concepts: - Re-train our brains. - Regulate our nervous systems - Embrace Self-ISH ## Brain Re-Training It might sound a little woo, but the effectiveness of these tools is scientifically proven. Consider the placebo effect, for example. According to the article *Justice for Placebo: Placebo Effect in Clinical Trials and Everyday Practice* published in February of 2020, “Studies have demonstrated that placebo injections and more complex procedures, including sham surgeries, can produce therapeutic effects comparable to real treatments, particularly in pain management and neurological disorders.” In *The Neuroscience of Reality*, author Anil K. Seth points to the fact that we think color is an element fundamental to the reality of something, but, as he states, “…We have known since Isaac Newton that colors do not exist out there in the world. Instead they are cooked up by the brain from mixtures of different wavelengths of colorless electromagnetic radiation.” In short, our brains are *powerful*. Neuroplasticity is a thing, but it’s not magic. > Our understanding of the world and our own reality is heavily influenced by our sensory input and our beliefs about what they mean. For instance, if we believe that personal achievement is the primary marker of success, we may adapt that into a belief that competition and resource hoarding are essential to a happy life. However, if we believe that a strong community is the standard of success, we may be more likely to participate in empowering others and resource sharing. Beliefs are habits, too. Our beliefs and perceptions of reality are incredibly powerful, and they heavily influence our decision making. This truth is deftly wielded by massive corporations, political pundits, and salespeople of all kinds. Marketing campaigns, religious dogma, and fake news manipulate millions of us to adopt belief systems that ultimately affect our behaviors. However, because they are *beliefs,* we have as much - if not more - power to effect change in ourselves. Neuro-plasticty is on our side, and with conscious effort, we can wrest ourselves from the horrifying brain-washing of the projected beliefs of Patriarchy and consciously re-wire our brains to create a new operating system for ourselves. Which, of course, will be a powerful and necessary ally in creating a different kind of world and world-view. ## Nervous System Regulation Our nervous systems are the information transmission system of our bodies. They take in mind-boggling amounts of information and carry it to our brains where it is processed into responses - and belief systems, according to recent studies. The credition model, discussed in the article *Believing and Beliefs—Neurophysiological Underpinnings* published in the National Library of Medicine, “posits that beliefs are the result of neural processes that involve the perception of external information and their valuation in terms of personal meaning determining a person's behavioral decisions (Seitz et al., 2018)”. Further, “the formation and updating of beliefs involve rapidly evolving neural processes such as perception, valuation, sensorimotor control, mentalizing, and perceptive-emotional integration.” Meaning, there is at least strong evidence that our belief systems are also heavily influenced by our nervous systems and the way we process incoming information. It makes sense - especially when you consider that so much of the reason - and often the way - we are manipulatable and manipulated is through a conscious effort to hijack our nervous systems. **Patriarchy and capitalism have mapped onto our realities a state of constant stress, uncertainty, and fear which it then leverages to coerce us into compliance and adoption of its version of reality**. However, when we reclaim our power to draw our nervous system into a state of certainty, security, and calm, we are less malleable by these outside forces. Additionally, from this calm, centered space that experts call ‘a window of tolerance’ or baseline regulation, it’s easier for us to connect to our inner wisdom, our soul selves which paves the way for our brains to respond to incoming stimulus in a way that more accurately aligns with who we are, and who we want to be. ## Embracing Self-ISH One of the myriad, infinite brain-washing imprints that patriarchy has levied on all of us, and particularly women - often through the religious machine - is that there’s something wrong with being self-centered. And, of course, there are manifestations of self-centeredness that are deeply problematic. However, there’s an element of self-centeredness that is actually incredibly valuable: the orientation of giving to ourselves. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers called it “self-regard.” So much of our realities - our personal economy, our emotional labor, our perpetual exhaustion just to name a few - are built around the concept that we should always be **doing for and giving to others first. Capitalism thrives on the idea that there’s never enough**, and that’s especially true if we’re supposed to be providing for partners or children or even whole families. There’s a gross exaltation of martyrdom - especially of women - for the sake of others. We’re expected to give of ourselves and our resources to the point that there is little if nothing left for us to give ourselves. And when we hope for acknowledgment and appreciation of those sacrifices (which are still less than the bare minimum), we’re left desperately wanting. And that can push us to take pride in that martyrdom ourselves. But self-centeredness is actually incredibly important. **By prioritizing ourselves and our needs** we create a more well resourced version of ourselves to generously share with others. And that’s great. But at least as importantly (if not more), **we demonstrate to the people around us how they can take care of themselves**, **creating interdependence** where there had been only dependence. If our children’s needs are always met by someone outside of them, how will they ever be able to take care of themselves? And if they’re perpetually dependent on someone else to take care of them, they are perpetually vulnerable to the control of their benefactor. I’m looking at you Pink Pill. Perhaps most significantly of all, however, is that in de-prioritizing ourselves in our daily lives, we’re reinforcing the message in our brains *and our energetic bodies*, that we aren’t as valuable as others. It’s self-talk without words. That our needs aren’t as important as the needs of those around us. Which keeps us in the patriarchal belief validation loop that our value is extracted from what can be extracted from us. The shift towards centering self is perhaps one of the hardest. Not because it’s difficult physically, but because it’s difficult emotionally. And not even because others make it emotionally difficult for us - because *we* do. So often in my work I see women that simply cannot fathom choosing themselves first. Women who abstractly understand the importance of self care and self prioritization and self orientation and yet are seized with a crippling guilt at just the thought of saying “no”. Get more soulcraft Want more? Prefer to craft your soul on your own? We get it. Jaclyn's book and workbook **MAKE YOURSELF MAGIC* can be purchased anytime you'd like to dive in. [Let's Check It Out! ](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/jaclynlanaebooks/p/makeyourselfmagic?ref=medusarising.org) Of course, I am not advocating for a world in which we’re all out exclusively for ourselves and we don’t give to, or share with, or help anyone. Quite the contrary. What I am encouraging is a **world in which we are so well adept at recognizing and fulfilling our own needs first that we are overflowing with energy and resources to share with others**. And that it’s not only me or you or women who do this. Others also generate energy and resources to share with us. We can be so abundant in ourselves that we are able to become masters of our specific gifts and talents - and then share them generously with the rest of the world. Rather than trying to provide everything for everyone, we can specialize - and then share. If we want to. And others will do the same. Idealistic? Perhaps. Possible? Possibly. Necessary? Absolutely. We cannot keep the engines of community and society running on the exhausted, depleted souls of martyred women. At least not healthy communities and societies. These pillars of Soul Crafting are the foundations on which we will be working together to shift the way we relate to ourselves, our families, and our lives in order to re-imagine a different world for all. Join us. --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an embodiment coach, author, and freelance writer who came to this work the long way—through experience, loss, and repair. She writes for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Follow her on Substack at or connect at AuthorJaclynLanae.com. Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Being & Be-ing in Mary Daly | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/being-be-ing-in-mary-daly-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T05:33:29.000Z As most feminist philosophers notice, man's philosophical tradition prefers to think in things, solids, ideals, permanence — to make obviously chaotic complexity of the world a stellation of glittering abstractions. (There are exceptions: Bergson, Deleuze, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty.) Yet!!! There is change, growth, decay, death, and the fallible and squishy body. How? How is this insult to our eternal soul/consciousness-of-ideals possible? Martin Heidegger wrote a very long book called *Being and Time* to work this out. You don't need to read it. Paradox is really hard for man's philosophy to grasp (mostly because paradoxes create/encode instability). How can a thing, say MAN, both be and be-different? ## Enter the both/and logic of feminist metaphysics. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/1000008962-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/1000008963-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/1000008965-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/1000008964-1.jpg) 👉[DOWNLOAD THIS INFOGRAPHIC](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17GC0ouwxycB13lQCzvpUDr9RsbMgnYgN/view?usp=sharing&ref=medusarising.org)👈 If we stop asking things to BE STILL, we simply do not have this problem. Besides, this conundrum persists largely because BEING is coded male and impermancence or BECOMING *is coded female* ever since ever and men are terrified of being anything like that other thing they have so denigrated and villified in their paranoid denial of common human need and vulnerability. Be-ing is a short-hand for [process relationality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process%5Fphilosophy?ref=medusarising.org) from before that term existed. So one thing many feminist philosophers did was take up that denigrated position, Woman, Becoming, Change, Vulnerability, Relation, Body, and see what happens when we describe and interrogate both the world and man's philosophy from that position. Turns about that Male Exceptionalism really is the problem: Daly, Doherty, Griffin, Eisler, Irigaray, Jones, Millet, Plumwood, Streachailt. Political philosophers pick up this both/and/process/non-linearity: Bailey, Crenshaw, Collins, Davis, hooks, Jackson, Lorde, Nash, Rich. We see it when the mental gymnastics come in, the illogic takes over as Male Philosophers to everything they can imagine to keep Her below and servile. We see this now in the ongoing denial to our (nearly?) universal matriarchal ancestry or in the Epstein Class supported circularity of 'evolutionary' psychology. If showing your work is basic to intellectual inquiry, well, these guys cannot provide that proof. Because they are making shit up. Anyway, Daly is a huge fan of change and becoming and all that composting mess of life. It was the world-view of our matriarchal ancestry as far as anyone can discern, and a view that reaches as far back as we find cultural artefacts. See my "[Myth of the Forever Patriarchy](https://www.medusarising.org/myth-of-the-forever-patriarchy/)" and the iconography of the Goddess figurine of Hohle Fels – it's all about process-becoming-relation. All the symbols carved into this Goddess related to the ways elements of the world relate and connect to each other. They are about making, creating, movement, vibration, intensification, contact, mingling, ... When European and settler philosophers like me talk about embodiment and re-embedding ourselves fully in the context of the super/natural world, this is what we're talking about. Re-membering. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/17719427442573215636383199728782.jpg) James Harrod, “[Hohle Fels Figurine is the Upper Paleolithic Double Goddess](https://www.academia.edu/1908042/Hohle%5FFels%5FFigurine%5Fis%5Fthe%5FUpper%5FPaleolithic%5FDouble%5FGoddess%5F2011%5F?ref=medusarising.org)” **Journal of Archaeomythology* 7 (2011): 204-218. But that was not the only reason. Daly also emphasized the Verb because her project had both a critical and an imaginative dimension: to write a philosomythology of women's intellectual, bodily, psychological, and sexual evolution out of patriarchy. **She called this process Leaping Sprial Galaxies. Listening deeply inward while feeling and moving Outward is the direction. The Unknown that resonates and harmonizes is the sweet spot.** Therese Doherty's "[Asymmetriacl Re-Worlding](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/)," the source of the In-Yo symbol we use so often, is another description of this loosening up into the great improvisation. [Download the Infog' for Be-ing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/17GC0ouwxycB13lQCzvpUDr9RsbMgnYgN/view?usp=sharing&ref=medusarising.org) Medusa Rising owes much to Daly. Our reaching back to deep time to reach forward for the next hand-hold. Our inistence that the center is rotten and we must move to the margins. Our unabashed comfort with both the materiality and the spirituality of the world. Our desire to create more connection and interaction between the worlds of feminists. As Kimble reminded me through the words of Glennon Doyle, *We are not the resistance. We are the everflow of becoming. These patriarchs are the resistance to life, the stones blocking the rivers, these fire ants trying to contain oceans*. Our pain at the distances and separations so many of us cling to. Our unmitigated rage at the ongoing and deliberate betrayal and destruction of girls, women, nature, Goddess. --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! [Medusa Rising’s Gorgon Possea digital radical materialist feminist project publishing women | building movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-1.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/xb1tjprOCLYtRJjE3vnEkkqtob55AF5P6WS8WdIHrzK6euTldxxk8GxLXCKKUChvSOzFmyf7gAs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj-1)](https://youtube.com/@medusarisingorg?si=ECJu1FCD3jOy9b5n&ref=medusarising.org) NEW EPISODE for all Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ### Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Rematria, Witches, RadFem is the answer to fascism | guest Max Dashú URL: https://www.medusarising.org/rematria-witches-radfem-is-the-answer-to-fascism-guest-max-dashu/ Last updated: 2026-03-21T12:00:26.000Z For this wild time and to your most dynamic balance: Ostara is a great day to spend with Max Dashú. Esmée and Max loop through the reaching back to reach forward of 'rematria' — process of coming back the land and into to matriarchy — and how the erasure of second wave radical feminism has left so many contemporary feminists unmoored. They dream out loud about the creation of effective kinds of radical feminist power, both material and spiritu-cultural. One day soon, we'll team up again and do a deep dive on witches and witch hunts, because we all know — don't we? — that such unsteady times seek their balance by standing on women's throats. The good news is there's lessons for outfoxing the witch hunters. Watch Max's Substack for posts and get deep in this briar patch with us!! [Secret History of the WitchesContents of the 16-Volume Series by Max Dashu (preview)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/icon.svg)Max DashuMax Dashu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F1acb37f6-4ccf-463a-8ff9-7c8565b854f2_1350x1183.jpeg)](https://oldwitch.substack.com/p/secret-history-of-the-witches) [Wisewomen: Italian folk healersAs recorded by the Inquisition in 16th century witch trials![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/icon-1.svg)Max DashuMax Dashu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fb63ed4d0-ccc4-4f20-8793-e9c7f6e6c4e1_1403x2983.jpeg)](https://oldwitch.substack.com/p/wisewomen-italian-folk-healers) [Wisewomen II: “Unauthorized knowledge”According to their male rivals! Folk healers in Spain, England, and Scotland.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/icon-2.svg)Max DashuMax Dashu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fc960e094-d13b-4b36-8da3-ed1a4ea81c68_1455x2100.jpeg)](https://oldwitch.substack.com/p/wisewomen-ii-unauthorized-knowledge) [Wisewomen III: Diviners and Weather-WitchesAlong with more examples of folk healing methods![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/icon-3.svg)Max DashuMax Dashu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F75ec7140-8872-4945-8de5-f1146dc4b9c7_924x538.jpeg)](https://oldwitch.substack.com/p/wisewomen-iii-diviners-and-weather) --- Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Asked & Answered | News from the Members Poll URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asked-answered-news-from-the-members-poll/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T05:33:54.000Z ## Sisters, Cousins, Overall, you said you want more connection. We have plans coming in a later post, but we are on it! **First, A Question for the Audience** *One woman wants “Feminist theory. Feminist analysis of current issues but only if it adds more depth and context to what I get elsewhere. I know Trump is awful and my US sisters need to resist but I don't want more hot takes on this. I am saturated with news and need deep thinking to sustain me.”* *Help? We don’t know what you get elsewhere, so… what are we to compare to? Whoever wrote this, please send us examples that you would like us to surpass.* As for deep thinking to sustain you, sister, there is nothing like reading OG radfem books. Many are in the RadFem Archive for free. [Scroll down the LinkTree to Archives and Dig In](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?ref=medusarising.org). Also, Matriarchy Times is doing great work on the wider globe!! And Total Woman Victory is a whole meal every quarter. It takes a loooooong time to produce really deep thinking. Like, Therese Doherty read and wrote for an entire year to write the Asymmetrical Re-Worlding series ([here’s part 1 of 5](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/) and it's worth revisiting). And honestly, if your US sisters don’t kick Trump and MAGA to the wolves pretty soon, you won’t be hearing much from Medusa Rising at all, as it’s based in the US. We’re labeled “domestic terrorists” for speaking critically of the flying monkeys in charge. So, you may have to listen to a bit more of our strategy and tool sharing for a while. Good news is that some of that can apply in other national contexts. None of us are safe from these extremists now. ## Mixed Messages 😄 On what and how to deliver content, your responses pulled in nearly opposed directions. This is to be expected. For example: the two most requested rates of publication and types of publication: **Frequency**: 2 per month, 8 per month **Types**: long-deep dives, short punchy hot-takes One way through: Anyone want to join us to write hot-take posts or threads for socials with a strongly RadMatFem or RadMatriFem point of view? [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). We're thinking about ways to mix it up, maybe publish more slowly, spend more energy on community. More on that in the update to follow, and see also [our nacent soul-crafting project with Jaclyn](https://www.medusarising.org/soul-crafting-requires-us-to-dare-to-die-by-jaclyn-lanae/). ## Back Talk 🙋‍♀️ Comments are open to members from Feb 2 onward, so let’s think together on these posts. ## Alignment: Reader Created Content This is *the number one request*. We are very happy to have readers make our content. Other comments in the poll have us scheming news ways and rhythms for publishing. **But a sad note: we cannot pay contributors anylonger. Those funds have run out.** **But a happy note: we're making nearly all of our publishing free to all.** Because we're going to **shift to more personal engagements** with you, we're slowing our publishing schedule soon. We'll share 2 **free posts every month**, and **one about Soul Craft, one from you, or one from Esmée**, or from another organization that we admire and ally with. Plus notices of new pods. **About other perks and membership to the Discord**: [Submit & SubscribeMedusa Rising accepts work in any genre on any feminist topic and in translation into English. We accept work by women from the personal to the political, from the most factual to the most imaginative.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-16.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000003644.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/) ### To Guest Post or Cross Post on Medusa Rising or the Substack If **you want to guest post on Substack or the website**, please use our submissions form share a link to the piece or to pitch us on the idea. We have a [permanent page on the website](https://www.medusarising.org/submit-subscribe/) where you can submit a link or a pitch. ### Topics & Content The topics you want us to cover run the *entire* gamut, and we’ll tell you, lots of excellent organizations already cover many of them. That is why we [recommend them in our Linktree](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?ref=medusarising.org). Please have a look and support them too. Those are all RadMatFem chiming projects that focus on a single issue or area really deeply. And most of them have educational programs you can take or share in your communities. – *We’re open to sharing more such groups you may know of*. **Stuck for Ideas?** Well, there is no end of either the fuckery to analyze or the bold dreaming for us to do. We list a few current interests. We have a link (on that page [and right here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4hH3ag-5PegansPMfDTIAH6-j8q6vY3phqxvo5t1H8/edit?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org)) to a much wider list of topics that we are always happy to publish. And **we are open to your ideas**. What matters is the clarity of analysis and charisma in the writing. ****A topic is just a noun**. How you, in your specificity, ****engage it is a verb** – the analysis. RadMatFem is about verbs: becoming, emerging, moving. The most ****robust intersectionality requires that we all do the intersecting**!!! We can only publish content if we receive content. We are very encouraging and generous editors. Topics are defined broadly on purpose and usually not by identity/demographic or even genre/medium because we invite **RadMatFem chiming views from all women, of all kinds, from everywhere**. For example: ## “More Lesbian Content” – Hell Yes! Again, we can only publish what we receive. Send us links to your lesbian content. Please send us links to your **lesbian, black, latina, native, working class, immigrant, and international local views, research, love, sadness, imagination, celebration, joy, wild wishing, analysis, rage, in the forms of writing, photography/video, art, music, poetry,** Please tell women of all identities that we are open for submissions of **both published and new work**. We’ve had several pieces from Western, South, and Central Asia, from Brazil, and we’re hopeful to hear from more of the world and more kinds of women. Our readers are a kaleidoscope of many countries. We would love to hear from all of you, everywhere. **Share Our Posts and Calls for Content to Women Who Write and Create**. We publish work that chimes with RadMatFem and RadMatriFem. **We have commitments, but we are not purists**. You want feminist world, YOU gotta build feminist world. Like & Share is the postmodern magic! **Next Update: Community, Lives, Discussions, Courses — All The Perks** **Final Update: RadMatriFem & RadMatFem Focus & Global Coalition Building** **Stay rad, stay witchy, and be good to each other.** **The Gorgons** ### Can We Put a Movement Back Together? | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/can-we-put-a-movement-back-together-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T05:33:03.000Z Reading Circle 👉Saturday, May 2, 2026 👈-- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH ****Included in 🤓Yacumama, Pythia & Tiamat🤓 subscriptions, tickets available for Corras-free-members**. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ## Letter from a Reader and to Our Readers ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/Letter_thumb.png) Can We Put a Movement Back Together? | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /1469.993021 1× Epstein is bringing #MeToo back into consciousness which is bringing back another round of White Women Really Fucked Up the Racial Semiotics There, Huh? And, sisters, if we keep doing this we’re done, cooked, over forever. Like, they will push us all out of public life and into a dangerous dependency on the worst men. This [Epstein-Class-Far-Right-Tech-Bro-Takeover is much too entwined](https://substack.com/@medusarisingoutpost/note/c-213977303?ref=medusarising.org) for any of us to pretend that any part of it is friendly to our causes. Epstein and Maxwell running around 4Chan and Reddit, shit talking #MeToo, promoting QAnon... Like. [It’s Fascism. New Rules. |by Esmée StreachailtPart 1 | Is this goal possible? I don’t know. Are they dreaming it? Yes. Should we assume we are in a fight against men who want to reprise the 13th century? Yes, I think we should.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-13.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Respectfully.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-2/) On this Oligarchic Cadre from 2025 in 5 Parts So, it’s right on kismet time that I got an email the other day from a reader who permitted me to share this conversation as long as I didn’t quote her, so I’m paraphrasing. Her concerns are still with us, and I thought that responding to one woman might land well for many of us. She’s coming from a place I’ve heard many of us cry out from lately. She's not specific about her experience, but she starts by saying she wants to know what I would say to someone like her given that I’ve done some public thinking about feminist solidarity. (ES) *Hi Sister. Well, I have to start with thank you for this trust, and for the compliment of it.* (Sister) She references [Jane Clare Jones’s history of feminist thought course](https://feminist-thought.org/?ref=medusarising.org) and how there Jane talked about some big divisions among women: having children or not, having a high status job or not, loving men or not. These differences have been a source of division, even suspicion among feminists and they're just choices about how feminists live their lives, not a necessary political opposition. *Yes, they are debates over best strategies for breaking patriarchy and who owes whom solidarity and what it should look like. They do tend to become more personal or identitarian very quickly. And, these are more recent kinds of ‘divisions.’ The old ones still hold, race, class, sexuality. Some of the childless women are lesbians who often feel less solidarity from heterosexual women than they would like, etc. For all that, I’m not sure any oppositions are “necessary.” Some are *sticky or stubborn or wicked, but not necessary*.* But none of that was really the issue for this sister. The problem was, again, the speaker at FiLiA’s opening who not only chanted “free, free Palestine” and claimed that it’s not possible to be feminist without supporting Palestine. *Ah, I see. I was at FiliA too. The presenter was asked not to do that, from what I hear. I think FiLiA leadership simply had no idea how much energy you have to focus on differences of this intensity inside a ‘big tent’ feminism. I was shocked at the treatment women gave each other, both ways.* *One of the things most feminists have to confront is that we have never had much of a theory of geo-politics, so those issues are very, very hard for us to handle in any methodical way. And *we have no power at all*. None. We might fight each other over this, we might name-call, blame, even threaten and harass – and the metrics in the world and Israel and Gaza will not budge. We have *no influence at that scale*. At much of any scale really.* *We could do better for each other if we remember that. You, me, WDI, TWV, the positions we take, the emotional investments we have literally *mean not a thing to the larger world*. How many of us have been kicked off socials or shadowbanned? How many of us have been hounded in the name of siding with this or that project of male domination? We would do ourselves a service to *accept that and turn to face each other and figure out how to build some power* together so that when we do speak out it matters.* *The alienation feminists feel is deep, and then for a woman in diaspora facing white supremacy and its anit-semetism, it's even deeper. There’s so much in us, in each other, that needs healing and grounding.* Our sister then tells me the stakes for her are high. That while she’s not threatening other women’s wellbeing, some are threatening hers, especially emotionally. *How so? I want you to do what you need for yourself. I don’t know if you mean that you would unsubscribe from MR, but needs must. You are the best judge of your peace. I just don’t know who has threatened you or how. By wanting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza to end? Or by threatening you directly? I’m missing some context here. I’m sorry, though. There is so much pressing on all of us that the ‘one thing too many’ inside of feminist community can come from anything, I can see how this could be it for you.* Not for the first time, I then witness a feminist talk about pulling away from the whole movement, from all of the work. There’s no site of collective action where she would feel supported/welcome since most of them are captured by gender identity ideology or by pro-Hamas sentiments, or by the far-right. Maybe withdrawal is her only option, she laments. *Or there's group of actual radical feminists with some historical and global perspective. ;) Unfortunately, we can only learn who can stand with us by working with individual feminists and groups over time. *All relation is a risk*. I hope to find ways to take even this difference between women and turn it into an energy for building. Women in diaspora have issues in common, after all.* [Introducing Radical Notion RemixesAn on-going cluster of Radical Notion call-backs in more portable & snazzier formats like summaries, infographics, & discussion podcasts.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-14.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000002381-2-1-1-2-1.jpg)](https://www.medusarising.org/introducing-radical-notion-remixes/) On Relationality, on the Space Between Us & Its Generative Quality *And the leaders we’re dealing with? In the US, in Israel, in Gaza, Iran, Russia, …. They're all extremists, nationalists, zealots, brutal strongmen, and most of them are criminals trying to stay in office (or in hiding) so they don’t go to prison. Like, these are all ailing nations even for patriarchy, and they need to be repaired.* *The world needs repair. This is one of the values of the Jewish tradition I most admire. *Tikkun olam* – to repair the world that shattered once. I see my feminism in that light, but the repair means a different world comes to be.* What to do, she asks, if the only solidarity she trusts is her personal circle? How can she avoid being part of the problem (which I take to be schism) but still contribute to the solution? *Well, just don’t go around with the christofash and the nationalists, Ok? But, like, really, maybe you can’t be part of solution-making in this way. Maybe that's not your role, not the role that suits you really. But let’s ask some questions, OK?* **Beyond this issue, what feminist issues call to you?* What harm comes to women and/or girls through male domination *that matters so much to you that you could work on that with a woman who supports the people of Gaza (not Hamas)?* If there’s nothing, then OK. Maybe you’re more committed to one cause than the cause of women. OK. Then be of feminist use to the women connected to that cause. Israel and Jewish culture are not without their misogynies. But if there *is such an issue that would transcend this one, go work on it*, and work on it in a way that lets it be disconnected from the catastrophe.* *That catastrophe is not going anywhere, not for a long time. Both this specific one and the general catastrophe that is the world male domination creates. Schism is their tool. One we use against ourselves. That is how men benefit. Their lines and messes divide us and then we don’t all join together to solve hunger or sexual violence because we might get cross over one of the million sins of patriarchy that marks of us one way and others another way. And so we, feminists, stay weak and ineffective and women, including us, keep suffering.* *We may have to be a little bit *more pragmatic than we’re happy with* in order to connect enough across differences to build any power *to have any effect that really matters for women*. Compartmentalize a little so that our intersections with other kinds of women can flourish. And if someone is cruel or antisemitic to you – tell them off and leave that group. That may not mean that you have leave all feminist movement.* *But I don’t know you well though to know, really, how to advise you. *All I can give is my sense of how this awfulness might be less awful*. No matter what I say, I’m still talking in abstractions. You are the woman living this experience.* Here our sister tells me that she mostly agrees with my previous assessments that division among women serves men’s interests, that she can compartmentalize some choices other women make that run counter to her values. She wishes that more women could look first to female solidarity than focus on the victims on one or other side of a fence. *I would like that view to be more common as well. And I would like to focus on the living women in Gaza and Israel even more so. The harmed and the dead have become symbols brandished at each other *to say “See, you did this,” or “See, you do not care about this enough.” What a dishonor to the dead and the ways they have been harmed and killed*.* *We’re all living in the grief of this. That's also part of the heat here is that women on both sides (of so many issues) are ignoring each other’s grief. *We can’t seem to mourn, so we stay in the anger, in the could have been….. Maybe we should just mourn together*, like really hard and deep and then see what comes of that.* *Part of what is driving that blame cycle is that both Jews and Palestinians/Muslims in diaspora feel (and are) on the sharp end of a lot of suspicion, hate, and violence mostly from the same Anglo-white assholes. Both groups, out here in the wider world, feel like their safety is always on the line. Because it is. Many temples and mosques in the US have been defaced in recent years, again, the attacks in New Zealand over these years. Whole communities of Muslims are under direct attack by the Trump regime, the Muslim Rohingya have been ethnically cleansed from Myanmar, and so on and more still. The far right is always anti-semetic at heart no matter what pro-Israel noises it makes.* *Like, there is no space in the world for either group to get their breath. That could be a point of connection, that problem. But *to get it to be a connection, we have to stop wanting to resolve it or win, or whatever, in the forms patriarchy gives us*, because then we’re just trying to lessen how much of patriarchy’s catastrophe lands on us. *If we accept that we are in a competition (out here) for the right to exist, we’re incapable of building a feminist world*. And they win.* But then our sister notes that just “one side” of this issue seems willing to take the broader perspective. *I’m going to have to stop you there. At FiLiA a number of Jewish and other women went after the young women of TWV in the lobby, and one of those young women was badly hurt at the disco. A whole group of more conservative US feminists broke off to have an off-campus event focused solely on the Israeli victims. "Rape is not resistance." Well, no kidding. No dialogue, just blame and distance. So, I want us to be very specific about actors and who’s on a side and who’s being tolerant. Everyone I saw misbehave and taunt other women and everyone I heard of at FiLiA that did – *all have some sitting with themselves to do*.* This sister points out that feminists don’t hang the flag of Israel from windows, they don’t shout “Am Ysrael Chai!” Our sister hasn’t observed non-Jews wearing kippahs in solidarity, but they do see feminists wear the kheffiya. The gestures of tolerance feel very one-sided to her. *You’re totally right. I don’t see that anywhere in the US on social media or in public. I don’t know how most Jews feel about others wearing their symbols, but the kheffiya has become much more of a political symbol, and was never a religious one. Diaspora Palestinians have actively encouraged its adoption by others. I think even Israel’s gentile supporters would not wear the star or the kippah in daily life out of respect and without permission. Is there a loud voice giving that permission? I can’t see and hear everything. Maybe that message needs amplification.* *And this is where men’s wars and men’s history get involved. It is a deep misfortune of history of that the modern state of Israel was created by an imperial style fiat of European powers on land where other people were living. The bloodlines of the Palestinians in Gaza go back to the Bronze Age, too, they were the Cannanites. And people everywhere have only grown more reactionary since 9-11.* *So it’s been a running catastrophe. The one time both sides got close to a workable peace deal, something close to two states, radicals in Israel assassinated their prime minister. So it’s the most insanely complicated legacy of WW2 and the Holocaust, and it’s mixed into anti-imperialist politics therefore.* *Jews have been underdogs for 1000 years, longer. I think a little of the pro-Palestinian sentiment is an underdog-reflex among social justice types because we all feel (and many are) underdogs. But in the modern era, after the war, all of the colonized peoples of the world have been wanting out from under the power and influence of Western colonizers. Gaza has become part of that wider movement, and in the last decade has become too much of its only symbol. But they are the underdogs here, their only friends are rogue and terrorist states.* *Which is terrible for them and deadly terrible for Israelis. But, right now, perception is that Israel is powerful, backed by western powers, and that Gaza is the underdog. Now that most of Gaza has been leveled and people are dying of hunger and cold with no permission for aid to come in, that perception is fact.* *What is feminists' role in this, our place in this? I don’t think it’s to merely tolerate each other. I think, for us out here, it is t*o forget completely that the women in that region live on two sides of a wall and take whatever position and action means the women there get to live in safety and dignity*. The Board of Peace sure as hell is not going to take that position.* *To that end, in my spaces, in Medusa Rising, in the Discord server we’re building, we won’t tolerate women coming at each other over anything. *We’re here to think and dream bigger than that. To parse and find the strengths among positions not to choose one of them, but to build another stronger position than either of them*. Medusa Rising is anti-imperial, but it’s not anti-Israeli-women. All women live under the threat of a pogrom like Hamas ran on Oct 7\. Anywhere, and often in many places, men just get a band together and go hunting. India has a massive problem with “rape gangs” now. American fraternities on school campuses have long been rape clubs. It’s just appalling. These trends travel…* *This is hard. A problem is coming for Israel as the US is weakened by our current regime. As we lose power and allies, so will Israel. I am terrified of this for those people and for Jews of the diaspora. As the US weakens, nationalists here are going to get agitated, again, and look for scapegoats, again. Like, we all do well if we prepare for that.* [Sisterhood / Coalition |by Esmée StreachailtLet’s take the pressure off!!!![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-12.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000002686.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition/) The fuzzy boundary between Them - In 5 Parts *But I would have Medusa Rising, as I would personally, side with a Jewish woman under attack on the socials, and with a Palestinian woman – right up until she threw an insult or threat herself. *The RadMatFem problem is not the never-ending conflict. Our problem is women using it against each other*. We have to remember that there are Israeli women who celebrate the deaths of Palestinian children, who cheer the expulsion of farmers in the West Bank. We have to remember that there are longstanding peace projects lead by inter-religious feminist groups in the region. There just is not one good and one bad side.* *We all have to *earn trust and give grace* in this work. You and me, too.* *With warmth and sisterhood* Esmée I wonder, sisters, cousins, what you think about the problem of feminist schisms, how you approach solidarity with feminists whose commitments differ from yours. It will take all of us to think and enact this solidarity strategy together. --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the founder & editor of Medusa Rising. --- You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### What We Deserve: Reimagining Stranger Things' Women Beyond the Duffers' Vision | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/what-we-deserve-reimagining-stranger-things-women-beyond-the-duffers-vision-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T19:05:29.000Z [Parts 1-5 in Reviews Tab](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/reviews/) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/03/Voice-260312_142359_thumb.png) What We Deserve, by Beatrix Kondo | read by Esmée 0:00 /1516.818958 1× Fan fiction writers have been doing the Duffers' job better than the Duffers for years. They write Eleven settling into Hawkins Middle School, awkward and fierce and slowly learning what it means to choose things for herself. They write Robin and Vickie moving into a crappy apartment together after high school, arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes, building something ordinary and therefore extraordinary. They write Max on a skateboard in 1989, healed, fast, free. They write Nancy Wheeler at thirty, byline in a paper that matters, desk covered in notes, coffee going cold because she forgot to drink it again—a woman who wants it so much she forgets to stop working. These [stories exist by the thousands](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Hawkins%20Residents%20%28Stranger%20Things%29/works?ref=medusarising.org). They are the audience's answer to the question the show refused to ask: what if we let them have it? The answer, it turns out, is better writing. Let's do this properly. Let's go through each of them and build the version of *Stranger Things* that the characters deserved—and demonstrate, in the process, that feminist storytelling and commercially successful storytelling are not the opposites the industry pretends they are. It’s just respectful. ### Barb Holland Lives The fix for Barb is both simple and radical: she survives the Upside Down. She's found, barely alive, by the end of Season 1\. And here's what changes: Barb, who noticed everything, who sat alone by that pool watching the social dynamics of Steve Harrington's party with the clarity of someone who's never been distracted by wanting to be liked—Barb becomes the character who figures things out first. She's observant. She's underestimated. She's the girl who everyone forgot to notice, which means she's the girl who noticed everything. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009349.jpg) Season 2 Barb recovers while Nancy is fighting the Demogorgon's aftermath, and their friendship becomes the emotional spine of the season rather than its wound. Barb's survival doesn't erase Nancy's guilt—it forces Nancy to reckon with it while Barb is still there, demanding to be seen. Their reconciliation is earned across episodes, not delivered as a grave and a closed case. The fat girl in glasses who everyone dismissed becomes the person who cracks the Hawkins Lab connection, because **she's been studying how institutions ignore the inconvenient since she was old enough to realize she was inconvenient**. She gets to be the observer who becomes essential. The voice of reason who gets to be right, alive, and credited for it. This costs nothing. It requires only the decision that “the fat girl’s” life has value beyond its narrative function as sacrifice. ### Eleven Gets What She Always Wanted Jane Hopper wanted a Snow Ball. She wanted to go to school. She wanted friends who weren't in mortal danger, a father who chose her, a bedroom with things in it that she picked herself. She cried when she got to go to the Snow Ball in Season 2 because it was the first time she'd been allowed to want something small and have it. The version of Stranger Things these characters deserve ends with Eleven—who actually starts to be called Jane—doing exactly this: she closes the gate, defeats Vecna, and comes home. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009356.jpg) She walks through the front door of the Hopper cabin. She eats Eggos. She starts her junior year at Hawkins High with a locker she decorates with stickers. She is, for the first time, aggressively, defiantly, deliberately ordinary. She still has her powers and uses them occasionally, for things she chooses, on her own terms. She is not a weapon. She is **a teenager who has earned the profound right to be boring**. The epilogue shows her at eighteen, leaving for college, Hopper embarrassing her at the car with too many hugs, Joyce taking seventeen photos. **The magic of childhood doesn't fade when you grow up—it transforms**. It becomes the magic of choosing your own life. Usagi Tsukino grows up to be queen. Buffy shares her power with every girl who could use it. Sakura keeps her cards. Jane keeps her telekinesis and her family and her future. Ross Duffer said giving her a normal domestic life would cheapen what she symbolizes. **What she symbolizes is that traumatized children deserve futures**. Cheapening that symbol requires denying her exactly that. The epilogue where she gets it is the most powerful ending the show could have produced. It would have broken the internet in the right way. Instead they got the lowest IMDb rating in the series. ### Max Heals, Fully, and Gets to Be Happy Max's arc in the version she deserves runs like this: she survives Vecna, wakes up, and the show acknowledges what she did to survive. Not what Lucas did. What Max did. Her mental fortitude, her knowledge of Vecna's architecture, her refusal across eighteen months of comatose consciousness to stop moving toward the light. Lucas is there and he matters. His vigil was real and her love for him is real as well, and that love was one of the things she was running toward—alongside her own survival, alongside her own will to live, which needs no romantic justification for a teenage girl the show spent five seasons punishing for existing. She wakes up and she says: "I heard you. I knew you were there. **I found my own way out**." And Lucas, who has been genuinely good this whole time and deserves the credit the show was too cowardly to deny Max in order to give him, says: "I know. I never doubted you." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009347.jpg) Then Max heals. This takes time and the show doesn't skip it. She does physical therapy. She gets her sight back slowly, partially, then fully. **She gets on a skateboard for the first time since her bones were snapped and she falls twice and then she goes faster than she ever has before**. The camera stays on her face: terrified and alive and choosing speed over safety the way she has since Season 2, because that's who she is and the show finally, finally leaves her alone to be it. Season 5's epilogue shows Max and Lucas at prom. It shows her at graduation. It shows her doing something after—**something she chose, something unrelated to being anyone's girlfriend or anyone's trauma narrative**. It shows her existing for herself. ### Robin and Vickie Stay Together This one is the simplest of all the fixes, because it requires only that the Duffers apply their own stated logic consistently. Lucas and Max survive the literal apocalypse together and get an epilogue. Hopper and Joyce find each other across a lot of trials. Steve gets to be sentimental about his found family from a rooftop. Mike gets to be a romantic hero. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009350.jpg) Robin and Vickie stay together. **The epilogue shows them. Maybe they're in the same city for college, maybe they're doing long distance, maybe they've figured something out**—the point is that their relationship is accorded the same presumption of continuation that every straight couple in the show receives automatically. They are not reduced to a statistic about college relationship retention rates. They are two people who found each other in Hawkins, Indiana, in 1986, against considerable odds, and the show treats that as the miracle of ordinary love that it is. Robin's coming out scene is restructured so she tells Steve because she chooses to, not because a Russian truth serum forces the confession. The emotional content of Maya Hawke's performance was always there—the vulnerability, the terror of risking yourself on someone who might destroy you for it—and it works better when **the choice belongs to Robin. When she decides Steve can handle it. When her identity is her own to reveal**. Will's coming out arc still happens, still works, still earns everything it's given. Robin's arc also happens, also works, also earns. There's room. There was always room. The Duffers chose not to use it. ### Nancy Wheeler, Investigative Journalist Nancy Wheeler breaks the Hawkins story. This is what the show built her for across five seasons. She started investigating Barb's disappearance when everyone told her to move on. She exposed Hawkins Lab when the *Post* spiked the story. She started her own paper. She led operations from a radio station. **She was, functionally, the show's most consistently competent human character**—the one who always found the thread and followed it regardless of institutional resistance. The finale of the version Nancy deserves has her with the story. Not as a background character on someone else's rooftop. As the journalist who documented what happened to Hawkins, who got it published, **who made sure the world knew what Hawkins Lab did to those children. Her byline on the piece that changes everything**. Her name on the story she was always meant to tell. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009345.jpg) She gets into Emerson. She goes. She studies journalism with the same ferocity she brought to every investigation that mattered to her. She graduates and then goes to work at a paper that makes her earn it and then lets her do it. Years later, covering something enormous, she thinks about Barb Holland—alive, in this version, a friend who answers her calls—and about the girl she was at fourteen, notebook in hand, refusing to accept the official story. She never stopped being that girl. The Duffers stopped seeing her. Jonathan gets NYU. Good. Steve gets Hawkins. Good. Nancy gets the career she announced she wanted in Season 1 and pursued with single-minded determination through Season 5\. Also good. The argument that this is "the obvious path" and therefore insufficient proves too much: Dustin becoming valedictorian is obvious, Will's powers being tied to his identity is expected, Hopper surviving Russia is convenient. **The obvious path for the ambitious girl who wanted to be a journalist is journalism. Denying it to manufacture complexity is nothing but punishment wearing the costume of nuance**. ### Joyce Gets Her Own Story **Joyce Byers tore through dimensions for her son**. She deserves an arc that belongs to her. In the version she deserves, Season 5 gives Joyce a scene where Will—now coming into his own, claiming his identity, growing into the person he's becoming—turns to her and says something like: *Mom. What do you want? Not for me. For you*. And she doesn't know immediately. The question lands strange after years of her wants being entirely organized around her children's survival. She figures it out over the course of the season. It's not dramatic. **It's small: she wants to open the shop she talked about once, briefly, in Season 1\. She wants to live somewhere that doesn't have a direct portal to a dimension of screaming darkness**. She wants Hopper to stop leaving his boots by the door where she trips over them and she also wants him to keep leaving his boots by the door because it means he came home. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009358.jpg) She gets all of this. **The fierce protector who was always running toward something—her son, Hopper, the truth—gets to arrive somewhere**. She is allowed to stop running long enough to want something for herself, and the show treats that wanting as equally worthy as any battle she ever fought. Winona Ryder carried an entire cultural moment in the early 1990s. *Stranger Things* cast her knowing exactly what she represented to the generation watching it. Then it reduced her, season by season, to orbit. The show owed her a center of gravity. The version Joyce deserves puts her back at the center of her own story. ### Karen Gets the Power She Chose The wine bottle is still her weapon. Keep it. The symbolism of the thing that numbed her becoming the thing that defends her daughter is genuine and earned and Cara Buono played it beautifully. Change one thing: Karen chooses it. The version Karen deserves has her hear Holly scream and make a decision. She gets out of the bathtub. She grabs the bottle. She thinks, or maybe she doesn't think, she just acts—but the framing makes clear this is Karen deciding, Karen moving, Karen's rage and love and five seasons of swallowed feeling directing her body toward the monster that invaded her house. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009344.jpg) Maternal instinct is real. It also coexists with conscious choice. Women who fight for their children are not overridden by biology—they decide, in a fraction of a second, that this is worth fighting for and they are the one who's going to fight for it. **Giving Karen that decision doesn't diminish her love for Holly. It makes her a person instead of a biological event**. And then—give her the four seasons too. Give her the arc that shows her numbness accumulating, her dissatisfaction sharpening, her awareness of what she's been doing to herself slowly surfacing. Not so that she becomes someone different by the time she fights the Demogorgon, but so that her fight lands as the culmination of a woman who'd been building toward something without knowing it. The broken glass connects to everything she'd been swallowing. The choice to fight connects to every moment she'd decided not to make a different choice. This requires understanding Karen as a full character from Season 1\. It requires four seasons of writing her interiority rather than her surface. The Duffers weren't willing to do that work. **Cara Buono did it anyway, in her performance, without script support**. The version Karen deserves gives Buono the script to match what she was already doing. ### What Feminist Storytelling Actually Is **There is a persistent industry belief that treating women as full humans is a political concession that costs narrative momentum, that representation is something added to a story rather than intrinsic to whether a story works**. The Duffers' choices reflect this belief at every level: Eleven's erasure is framed as thematic necessity, Robin's relationship erasure is framed as realism, Nancy's diminishment is framed as complexity. The women were sacrificed, the logic goes, for the good of the story. The version of *Stranger Things* built from the alternatives above gives the lie to this. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009376.jpg) The Sorceress by Nathaniel Sichel via pixels.com Barb surviving makes Season 1 and 2 richer, adding a survivor's perspective to the Hawkins Lab investigation and a reconciliation arc that does more emotional work than a grave. Jane getting her happy ending makes the series finale more devastating and more satisfying—audiences crying because she's finally safe, finally home, finally ordinary, after everything. Max's healing arc gives Season 5 something it desperately needed: a recovery narrative that honors the difficulty of surviving rather than resolving it through romantic shorthand. Robin and Vickie's continued relationship gives the show's lesbian storyline the coherence it earned and Will's queer arc the context it needed—he doesn't come out as gay into a vacuum, he comes out into a world where Robin already showed him it was possible, and then the show demonstrates that possibility has futures. Nancy breaking the story gives the finale a human-scale consequence to match its supernatural climax: the world finds out what happened in Hawkins because a female journalist refused to let it be buried. Joyce finding what she wants gives the show's most kinetically fierce character a stillness she earned. Karen choosing to consciously fight transforms a single powerful scene into the culmination of a character arc. None of this would require adding screentime. It would require redistributing what was already there. **Because, screentime and plot complexity to characters is what to economic and social resources are for actual people**. The epilogue that gave Mike a speech about believing Jane was alive somewhere—that screentime belongs to her, alive and at home. The "realistic" dissolution of Robin and Vickie takes less than a single line; the realistic continuation would take one scene. Nancy's manufactured confusion replaces the ten seconds needed to show her at a desk, working, satisfied. These are choices about what the story thought was worth showing, and every choice revealed exactly what the story valued. ### What the Fan Fiction Already Knows The [Archive of Our Own](https://archiveofourown.org/?ref=medusarising.org) contains thousands of *Stranger Things* fics that give these women what the show refused to. They are written by people who loved the show enough to keep imagining it past its failures. They are written in stolen hours, without pay, without industry credit, out of the same impulse that drove Nancy Wheeler to start her own paper when the official institution failed her: if the story you need doesn't exist, you make it. This is what audiences do with stories that matter to them and fail them simultaneously. They love the world enough to rebuild it right. They take the characters the show abandoned and they imagine forward, writing the futures that were stolen. They don't do this as consolation for getting less than they deserved, but as an assertion of what good storytelling looks like. The fan fiction writers have already taken in a lot of media. So have regular viewers, and we’re all kind of writing the story, the next episode, the next season as we go along. And, many of us are feminists and women. So we already know that Jane can have her powers and her Eggos and her chosen family. We already know Max can heal and be happy and still be Max. We already know Robin and Vickie can stay together and it doesn't require a statistical footnote about college relationship retention. We already know Nancy Wheeler breaks the Hawkins story and gets her byline and her career and her life, all of it at once, without having to apologize for knowing what she wanted. They know because they understand something the Duffers apparently don't: giving women what they want doesn't cheapen the story. It is the story. ### What We Can Demand **The Sacrificial Lamb Economy runs on the premise that audiences will accept it**. That we’ll absorb the grief of watching capable women get [fridged](https://lby3.com/wir/?ref=medusarising.org) and erased and diminished and repackaged as confused, that we’ll carry the disappointment in silence, that we’ll be grateful for the crumbs because at least the women were present, at least there were women at all. The backlash against the *Stranger Things*' finale is **evidence that this premise is eroding**. Audiences have developed the vocabulary to name what's being done and now we have the tools to hold creators accountable and the platform to make that accountability legible. We are, in significant numbers, no longer willing to perform gratitude for crumbs. What we as audiences can demand is simple and total: **stories where women's lives, desires, ambitions, relationships, and futures are treated as inherently important**. Stories where female power is a feature to be celebrated rather than a problem to be resolved. Stories where the ambitious girl gets her career, the traumatized fighter gets her healing, the lesbian gets her romantic relationship, the magical girl gets her ordinary life, and the fierce mother gets her own arc. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009379.jpg) Stories that understand "what if we let them have it?" is a question with a good answer. The fan fiction writers know this. So does, occasionally, the industry itself—when it chooses to. In What If...? Season 2, Marvel's own animated multiverse gave the Scarlet Witch what the live-action films spent years refusing her: a heroic arc, uncorrupted, in an Elizabethan alternate reality inspired by Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602, where Wanda-Merlin is an ally, a protector, a woman using her power to save a world rather than unravel one. It took an animated anthology and a parallel universe to let her be who she always could have been. These women were never the problem. They always had potential. **What Maureen Murdock called the heroine's journey—the descent, the reclamation, the return—was always available to every one of them**. The writers just had to be willing to let them take it. The Duffers built *Stranger Things* on the bodies of disposable girls and called it nostalgia. What we deserve is the story where those girls stopped being disposed and started being allowed to become whoever they were going to be. The Upside Down closes. The gate seals. Everyone goes home. Every last one of them. --- I'm **Beatrix Kondo** and I evolved like a Digimon: from level 1 translator to final boss of a 30+ year quest dismantling plot holes and gender issues in pop culture. I write about K-dramas, anime, and everything Asia produces (the good and the questionable) for international outlets. My specialty? Ruining happy endings by pointing out red flags and finding feminism in dungeons where patriarchy thought it was safe. Spoiler alert: criticism without context is just a rage tweet with a degree. Feminist algorithm needs you! We are our only algorithm! ****Do postmodern magic!** ****Get on our Linktree!** More connection! More sharing! 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Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Razia Sultan: How a Story Became My Language of Feminism | by Srijani Mitra URL: https://www.medusarising.org/razia-sultan-how-a-story-became-my-language-of-feminism-by-srijani-mitra/ Last updated: 2026-03-10T05:33:52.000Z My first understanding of feminism did not come from a classroom, a manifesto, or even a book that called out injustice outright. It came through a story, one I encountered long before I had the words to understand what it was teaching me. It came through [Razia Sultan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razia%5FSultan?ref=medusarising.org). I learned her name as a child, when history still felt half-mythical and stories travelled like secrets. Razia was spoken of as something almost unbelievable, a woman who ruled Delhi, who led armies, who sat on a throne built to exclude her. She arrived in my imagination not as an academic figure, but as a disruption. She unsettled something before I knew it needed unsettling. I did not know the word “feminism” then. But I knew what it meant to be told, quietly and repeatedly, to shrink. ### Razia Sultan and the Possibility of Defiance Razia Sultan became my first vocabulary for courage. I read her story obsessively in Amar Chitra Katha, and later watched the television adaptation of her life with unwavering attention. What fascinated me was not only that she ruled, but how she ruled. She rules by refusing to perform femininity as submission. She wore what she wanted, led whom she chose, and challenged the idea that power belonged naturally to men. Only much later did I understand the political stakes of her reign: the hostility of the nobility, the fragility of her rule, the way her authority threatened entrenched hierarchies. But as a child, I understood something more instinctive. Razia represented proof. Proof that women’s power was not an invention of modernity, not an anomaly, not a mistake. Proof that the world had lied to me about what women could be. Her story mattered because nothing in my immediate reality resembled her. ### Growing Up Inside Violence My childhood was shaped by an early intimacy with violence, not the spectacular kind, but the quiet, domestic kind that reorganizes your body before it reaches your mind. Violence that lives in closed doors, in sudden silences, in the constant scanning of moods. Violence that teaches a girl to be alert, compliant, and afraid. There was physical abuse. There was emotional control. There was the constant reminder of hierarchy, who spoke, who decided, who was allowed anger, and who had to endure it. I learned very early that power could wound, that silence could be a form of survival, and that obedience was often demanded in the name of love. I did not yet have the language to call this patriarchy or abuse. But I understood injustice intimately. I understood that my body was not fully mine. I understood that raising my voice came at a cost. 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[UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Duffer Brothers' Reckoning: When Audiences Stop Accepting "We Tried" | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-duffer-brothers-reckoning-when-audiences-stop-accepting-we-tried-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T06:33:14.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/03/Voice-260303_113850_thumb.png) The Duffer Brother's Reckoning, by Beatrix Kondo | read by Esmée 0:00 /1439.9775 1× [Parts 1-4 in Reviews](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/reviews/) Something broke in the contract between *Stranger Things* and its audience, and the Duffers didn't notice until the numbers came in. The Season 5 finale sits at [the second lowest IMDb rating in the series' history](https://www.facebook.com/groups/166563453973502/?multi%5Fpermalinks=1920863985210098&hoisted%5Fsection%5Fheader%5Ftype=recently%5Fseen). Not the lowest of the season—the lowest *ever*. The penultimate episode took the top spot. Audiences who'd been loyal for nearly a decade, who'd defended the show through its shakier moments in Seasons 2, 3 and 4, who'd evangelized its 1980s nostalgia and its monster mythology and its genuinely moving performances—those audiences watched the finale and reached for the thumbs down button. **The fan-to-critic ratio, usually a reliable defense mechanism for popular genre television ("critics don't understand what audiences want"), collapsed**. Critics and fans converged on the same verdict: this ending failed the story it was supposed to close. And then Matt Duffer [opened his mouth](https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/stranger-things-creator-matt-duffer-is-fried-after-finale-backlash-cut-me-some-slack-1.500398623?ref=medusarising.org). "Cut me some slack (...). I'm fried." That's the quote. That's what one of the two men responsible for one of Netflix's most successful franchises said to critics asking reasonable questions about narrative choices that affected ten years of audience investment. Not "here's what we were trying to do and why it didn't fully land." Not "we hear the criticism and understand the disappointment." Just: **I'm tired, so please lower your standards**. The response told us everything we needed to know about how the Duffers see their relationship with their audience: they want credit for attempting something and grace extended for exhaustion, but what they do not want is to be held accountable for what they actually made. In 2026, audiences are no longer equipped to offer that grace. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009113.jpg) 11 and Max in the lead ## **The Receipts Era** Social media changed accountability in ways that feel irreversible. Fan communities have always existed, but the tools available now allow critique to be systematic, comparative, and archival in ways that fan letter campaigns and early internet forums never could be. When the finale aired, audiences didn't react emotionally. They catalogued. Clips of the Duffers' press interviews were timestamped and archived, their statements held against the episodes themselves. The "Divorce Gate" theory spread as documented analysis: the viral fan speculation that Ross Duffer's divorce from Leigh Janiak—director, screenwriter, and the creative mind behind Netflix's *Fear Street trilogy*—had fractured the writing room and distorted the finale. Janiak held no official credit on *Stranger Things*, but fans pointed to tonal and character similarities between her work and the show's earlier seasons as evidence of an uncredited hand. When Ross and Janiak separated in 2024, something in *Stranger Things*, fans argued, broke with it. The behind-the-scenes documentary only deepened suspicion: it **revealed the finale had begun filming before the script was finished, directly contradicting what the Duffers had said in press, and a clip appeared to show ChatGPT open in a browser tab beside Matt Duffer's Google Doc**. Users pointed to specific narrative inconsistencies as evidence not of creative risk, but of a production in crisis. Whether Divorce Gate is true is almost beside the point. What matters is that **audiences have developed the instinct to look behind the curtain**, to ask what broke the story rather than simply accepting that the story broke. This is new. This is the Receipts Era of fan engagement, where love for a property no longer requires suspension of critical thinking, and where creators who've relied on audience goodwill as a buffer against accountability are discovering that buffer has limits. The ChatGPT accusations hit differently for the same reason. Fans flagged specific scenes, specific dialogue choices, specific character beats as feeling algorithmically assembled rather than written by people who understood what they were writing. Whether those accusations are technically accurate matters less than what they reveal: **audiences can now articulate, in specific and systematic terms, the difference between prose with intention behind it and prose that hit the marks without understanding why the marks existed**. They could tell something was wrong. They had the language to say so. This show has FANS, y'all. ## **What They Said and What We Heard** The Duffers gave interviews. This was their mistake. Every explanation they offered for the choices that drew the most criticism managed to confirm the worst interpretations rather than dispel them. This is a genuinely impressive achievement in the wrong direction—a masterclass in how not to manage a disappointed audience. [**On Eleven**](https://www.medusarising.org/upside-down-feminism-how-stranger-things-systematically-destroyed-its-women-by-beatrix-kondo/)**:** "She represents the magic of childhood. As the kids grow up and that magic fades, it felt right that she would fade too. Giving her a normal domestic life would cheapen what she symbolizes." What audiences heard: we see her as a symbol, not a person. Her desires—the school dances, the Eggos, the ordinary life she begged for across five seasons—are less important than what she represents to us thematically. The character is our property, not her own, not the audience’s. The anger this generated was the specific anger of **watching someone in power explain, patiently, that they've thought very hard about why your objection is wrong**. Ross Duffer's explanation doesn't engage with the criticism that Eleven's erasure repeated a pattern of female expendability—it bypasses that criticism entirely and reframes the ending as depth rather than failure. The sophistication of the explanation is itself the problem. They thought about this. They decided it was meaningful. They're telling us the quiet part out loud: Eleven's story was always in service of a theme, never in service of Eleven. [**On Robin and Vickie**](https://www.medusarising.org/the-manic-pixie-dream-gay-girl-how-robins-sexuality-served-wills-coming-out-arc-then-got-discarded-by-beatrix-kondo/)**:** "What percentage of couples stay together after college? Extremely low. We wanted to be realistic." Audiences heard: we never planned to sustain this relationship. **We *deployed* it** when we needed it and discarded it when we didn't. Also: realism, in a show with interdimensional bat-creatures and psychic children and a villain who kills through shared dreamspace, is the principle we've chosen to apply exclusively to the show's only explicit lesbian relationship. The realism defense is the most nakedly cynical of the Duffers' explanations because it requires the audience to forget everything it knows about *Stranger Things*' relationship to reality. Lucas and Max survive the literal apocalypse together. Hopper and Joyce find each other across continents, an iron curtain, and everything they never said. Steve gets a future despite never fully growing up. Jonathan gets into film school. Mike gets to be a tragic romantic lead. These relationships and arcs are not governed by statistics about college-age relationship retention. They are governed by narrative choices. The Duffers chose to be "**realistic**" about **the one relationship that serves no man's arc** in its continuation, and chose to be generously fictional about everyone else. [**On Nancy**](https://www.medusarising.org/the-comatose-woman-plot-device-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all-as-long-as-you-want-nothing-by-beatrix-kondo/)**:** "We never want her to take the obvious path. She's still trying to find herself and what she wants from the world." Audiences heard: **we punished her for wanting things**. Her clarity—her five seasons of documented ambition and directional purpose—is something we've reframed as confusion so that our failure to give her a satisfying arc reads as complexity instead. This one cuts differently than the others because it's the most recognizable pattern. Ambitious women watching this show recognized something immediate and personal in Nancy's treatment—not that they'd all been investigative journalists whose careers were derailed, but that they'd **all been told, at some point, that knowing what you wanted was actually evidence that you didn't know yourself well enough yet**. That their certainty was naïvety. That "finding yourself" meant questioning the goals you'd articulated rather than pursuing them. The Duffers handed them that experience gift-wrapped as narrative resolution and called it growth. The pattern across all three explanations is identical: women's stories were always instruments. Their suffering was always thematic. Their erasure was always intentional. The Duffers aren't apologizing—they're explaining, which is worse, because it forecloses the possibility that they simply didn't know what they were doing. They knew. They decided this was right. They're standing by it. ## **Why This Backlash Feels Different** Genre shows have disappointed fans before. *Lost* ended without answering its central mysteries. *Game of Thrones* compressed its final seasons into something that felt like a parody of itself. *How I Met Your Mother* spent nine seasons building toward an ending it undermined in its final episode. Audiences were furious about all of these. The fury faded. The shows became their endings—mentioned with a sigh rather than a scream. The *Stranger Things* backlash feels different, and **the difference is vocabulary**. *Lost* audiences were upset. *Game of Thrones* audiences were outraged. ***Stranger Things* audiences are *naming what happened***. They're using terms like “[fridging](https://www.reddit.com/r/StrangerThings/comments/1q2872r/treating%5Fyour%5Fcharacter%5Fas%5Fa%5Ftheme%5Fand%5Ffridging/?ref=medusarising.org)” and “narrative punishment,” and we also did it: naming the Manic Pixie Dream Gay Girl and the [Sacrificial Lamb](https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Sacrificial%5FLamb?ref=medusarising.org) Economy. We’re saying "here is the mechanism by which it was wrong, here is the pattern it fits, here are the other examples that confirm this is a systematic choice." Feminist media criticism—which has been developing these frameworks for decades, from Carol J. Clover's analysis of slasher films to more recent work on gay, lesbian, and queer representation in genre television—has become sufficiently mainstream that significant portions of the viewing audience arrived at the finale already equipped to dissect it. This matters because it changes what "we tried" can accomplish. In previous eras of fan disappointment, creators could absorb criticism by suggesting the audience was too emotionally invested, too attached to their preferred outcomes, unable to appreciate artistic ambiguity. The Duffers attempted exactly this defense—calling Eleven's ending "purposefully ambiguous," suggesting that audiences who wanted resolution couldn't appreciate the poetry of leaving things open. Audiences who can name fridging can also name "reframing artistic failure as artistic choice." The meta-defense doesn't land when the audience knows the vocabulary for calling it out. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009110.png) Joyce discovers how to communicate with Will in the Upside Down There's also the specific betrayal economy of *Stranger Things*. **This show asked for something from its female viewers in particular: investment in characters who were explicitly struggling against systems that didn't value them**. Eleven trying to become Jane Hopper. Robin terrified to come out. Nancy fighting for professional respect. Max surviving abuse and violence and supernatural torture. The show's implicit promise was that this struggle mattered, that these women would be given what they'd fought for, that their agency would be recognized as real. When the Duffers broke that promise, they didn't fail to stick the landing—they retroactively revealed that the promise had never been made in good faith. **The investment was invited; the return was denied; the explanation given was that the return would have "cheapened" the investment. This is the specific shape of betrayal that produces fury**. ## **The Admission That Did the Most Damage** Of all the things the Duffers said publicly, the one that may have done the most lasting reputational damage was the documentary. *One Last Adventure* revealed that they filmed the finale without having decided Eleven's fate. The writing room couldn't agree. So they shot it vaguely, committed to nothing, and called the resulting ambiguity intentional. This matters more than any of the other revelations because it destroys the "always the plan" defense. The Duffers have repeatedly framed *Stranger Things*' more controversial choices as evidence of long-term vision—they knew where this was going, they'd planned it from the beginning, the apparent inconsistencies are actually threads in a larger design. The documentary pulled back the curtain on the one ending that generated the most criticism and revealed: there was no plan. There was creative indecision that produced vagueness that got repackaged as artistry. "Purposefully ambiguous" means "we disagreed and couldn't resolve it." What audiences called a flaw, the Duffers called a feature. The ambiguity they pass off as profound is just a writing room in conflict. The damage here extends beyond the finale, and it’s retrospective. If this ending was produced by indecision rather than intention, which other choices were? The "meaningful" aspects of the story that felt carefully constructed—how much of that was planned and how much was improvisation reframed? The Duffers' credibility as deliberate architects of a long-form narrative—a credibility their marketing has always traded on—took a hit it may not recover from. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/03/1000009112.jpg) The show became its own upside down because the Duffer's didn't respect their own work, and didn't honor the contract with their audience. In the words of David Foster Wallace, "You must never do this." ## **Can They Recover? Should They?** The Duffers are moving forward. *Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen* is on the horizon, framed in press coverage as their next project—despite the fact that [the series was created by Haley Z. Boston and directed entirely by women](https://www.medusarising.org/karen-fucking-wheeler-the-only-woman-who-gets-power-after-proving-she-knew-her-place-by-beatrix-kondo/), with the Duffers serving as executive producers. The erasure of Boston's authorship from headlines about her own work is a case study in how credit gets redistributed in the industry. The Duffers didn't create that show, they signed the contract, but their names moved to the front of every press summary—**absurd, still, after all that backlash**—because their names apparently sell, and a less-established female creator's name apparently doesn't. The pattern from the fictional world maps onto the industrial world with uncomfortable precision: women do the work, men get the credit, and the explanation is that this is simply how the market works. Whether the Duffers can recover their reputation depends partly on **whether they're capable of the one thing they've shown limited ability to do**: acknowledge the pattern they've been running. Not issue apologies calibrated to minimize fallout. Not explain, patiently, why their decisions were actually correct. But genuinely reckon with the fact that across five seasons, they built a systematic logic for which characters' stories mattered—and **that logic ran on gender, with women's arcs consistently subordinated to men's, women's desires consistently framed as symbolic rather than personal, women's power consistently treated as something that required either neutralization or containment** within acceptable feminine frameworks. That reckoning would require them to see themselves clearly. So far, their press strategy suggests they prefer not to. Whether they **should* recover is a different question, and it's worth sitting with. Forgiveness in creative culture is often transactional: if the next project is excellent, the previous failures get folded into a narrative of "growth" and the calculus resets. This is how male creators specifically tend to move through failure—the body of work expands until the missteps look like chapters rather than verdicts. The Duffers will almost certainly be given that opportunity. The industry's structural biases (the same biases that put their names on Haley Z. Boston's work) will protect them in the same way they've always been protected. Audiences don't have to participate in that protection, though. They can hold the full account and remember what the Duffers said about Eleven and what it revealed about how they see female characters. They can remember the statistics about college relationships applied selectively to the one lesbian couple. They can remember the "always the plan" and know it wasn't. They can carry the full ledger into whatever comes next, and decide what it means. ## **The Vocabulary Doesn't Go Away** Here is what actually shifted in 2026, and what makes this reckoning feel different from the long history of creator disappointments that preceded it: the vocabulary developed by feminist media criticism became sufficiently mainstream to change what fan disappointment sounds like. When audiences watched Barb die in Season 1, some of them felt something was wrong without having the exact words for it. #JusticeForBarb trended because people recognized injustice—the fat girl killed first, the uncool friend discarded—but the critique stayed at the level of "this felt unfair." When audiences watched Eleven get erased in Season 5, they arrived equipped. They knew what fridging was. They knew what "narrative punishment for female power" meant as a concept. They had examples—Daenerys, Sansa, Willow, Korra—that mapped the pattern across media history. They could articulate, precisely, why the Duffers' explanations didn't hold. This vocabulary doesn't disappear between conversations. Actually, it accumulates. Every show that runs this pattern and gets called out for it makes the next call-out faster, more specific, more damaging to the creator's credibility. **The Duffers are operating in a moment where audiences have become extraordinarily fluent in identifying what was done to these women**—and extraordinarily unwilling to accept that the doing was accidental, or meaningless, or poetic. The Sacrificial Lamb Economy has been running in popular culture for as long as popular culture has existed. Women as currency. Their deaths purchasing male stakes. Their erasure creating “clean” endings. Their power requiring neutralization. Their ambition requiring correction. Their desire requiring containment. The difference now is that audiences can see the economy clearly. We can name its mechanisms and trace its operations across five seasons of a show we loved, with enough precision to make the creators uncomfortable. The Duffers hemorrhaged credibility because, for perhaps the first time in their career, the audience arrived knowing its name. **In Part 6,** we'll do what the Duffers never did: take each woman the show failed and build the version of her arc that actually serves her. And what the **thousands of fan fiction writers already figured out: giving women what they want doesn't cheapen the story. It *is* the story**. --- I'm **Beatrix Kondo** and I evolved like a Digimon: from level 1 translator to final boss of a 30+ year quest dismantling plot holes and gender issues in pop culture. I write about K-dramas, anime, and everything Asia produces (the good and the questionable) for international outlets. My specialty? Ruining happy endings by pointing out red flags and finding feminism in dungeons where patriarchy thought it was safe. Spoiler alert: criticism without context is just a rage tweet with a degree. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Reading Circle May 1, 2026 -- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH Included in Pythia & Tiamat subscriptions, tickets available for Corras and Yacumamas. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Draupadi Speaks | by Nehal Sharma URL: https://www.medusarising.org/draupadi-speaks-by-nehal-sharma/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T06:33:36.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/01/Nehal-Sharma---Draupadi-Speaks--Audio----Nehal_thumb.png) Draupadi Speaks | by Nehal Sharma 0:00 /105.002667 1× I was born where fire knelt to pray, its tongues whispering my name. No mother’s cry, no father’s claim, only the hush before a flame. They say I rose from ritual smoke, a spark between the gods’ breath. I say I crawled out of their guilt, still glowing from their debt. They called me prize, they called me wife, rolled my name across a dice. Five faces, one destiny, what’s virtue but a game of price? When they dragged my silence by its hair, I did not plead, I did not weep. The hall was tinder; I was air, I let the fire keep. They thought shame would make me ash, but I am the ember that survives. Touch me once, I brand your past; touch me twice, I light your lives. Do not call me pure, do not call me sin, I am what begins when endings begin. When Agni breathes, remember this, his oldest daughter still exists. I was not born of fire alone; Fire was born of me. And every time the world burns wrong, I rise, silently, endlessly free. --- **Nehal Sharma** is a writer and founder of the blog [Mythology Meets Reality](https://mythmeetsreality.wordpress.com/?ref=medusarising.org). Her work often explores how culture, emotion, and history shape contemporary womanhood. She has previously published with magazines like *Roi Fainéant* and *The Chai Literary Magazine*, and ranked 3rd globally in the Heartfulness Essay Competition. Writing is how she lives inside her own curiosity, turning observation into reflection and reflection into story. You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Feminist algorithm needs you! We are our only algorithm! ****Do postmodern magic!** More connection! More sharing! [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### The New Medusas: Survivors & Endurance | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-new-medusas-survivors-endurance-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T17:21:48.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/Voice-260225_094331_thumb.png) The New Medusas | by Emsee 0:00 /1525.736167 1× To the Medusas and the People, It must have been grating to sit through that State of the Union, but thank you for being there, for forcing the country and the world to bear witness to your strength and dignity. We are collectively being subjected to a campaign of deliberate emotional and moral abuse. It’s part of the mustard gas of lies and distractions that are also real threats. The goal is our moral, intellectual, and collective collapse into apathy and collaboration by default. Fascists want you to care about yourself just enough to preserve yourself just enough to serve them. Beyond that, not even about yourself. The insights offered by @themamattorney quoted early in this long read are helpful to keep in mind. The author is an ex-CIA agent working human trafficking cases. A dose of perspective and cold distance is protective tonic. The files are truth made partial and weaponized to abuse us and re-traumatize the survivors, the New Medusas. [Adam Zarnowski’s book](https://www.amazon.com/J%C3%B6rmungandr-Global-Trafficking-Abolitionist-Strategy/dp/B0FHY1XD3G?ref=medusarising.org) is on its way to my house. We need more of this man. [On Evil: Epstein, Satan, and Selling BabiesThe darkness that is the human psyche and the pitfalls of belief![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fffb7447b-7d1f-4809-9e81-afd5c96fe8e5-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)A WARNINGAdam Zarnowski![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F8ca1c493-1267-4847-a54d-424d36ba9dbb_479x468.jpeg)](https://open.substack.com/pub/awarning/p/on-evil-epstein-satan-and-selling?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j) Ok, to the post. --- Once upon a time, Athena was not the favorite daughter of patriarchy. She was something older, something more earthly, snakes accompanying her in many of her archaic images (see Dashu, *Women in Greek Mythography*, 168-180). A snake lived in her temple according to Herodotus, and some of the oldest images, like the Pelasgian Athena, show snakes coming from her body (Dashu, 169). Athena suffered one of the most intense of patriarchal reversals, from *the forgotten whatever* her own power may have been to a daughter whose mother Zeus swallowed (his wife/older sister), and her birth converted Athena to being his alone. The womb-envy is that intense. All manner of snake goddesses are common in matriarchal Europe. That they are connected to both Medusa and Athena does not mean that these two are connected in some older unknown story, but it does mean that when Medusa is punished by the attribution of snakes to her, some deep dark magic is being done to a goddess by the power of man’s storytelling. In the survivors of the Global Epstein Cabal (by which I mean the powers of the whole world in which we live) I see Medusa, both the girl confronted with the full power of the patriarchy and the goddess faithful to animals, paragon of courage, running the wilds with Artemis. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-774e1ed8-5604-4519-8b01-7f82ebfe2269-1.png) AI generated image of Medusa in the style of Georgia O’Keefe I see the girl suddenly assaulted in Epstein’s office. The girl of the notebook whose three babies were taken from her. The girls kept sequestered on a ranch, an island, in an apartment by the threat of even more unimaginable violence. *If you tell, we will send Perseus to kill you*. These women who were those girls will stare at Poseidon tonight (I write this on Feb 24, 2026), Brother of the Modern Zeus, Epstein’s bestie, as this illegitimate despot addresses a nation 70% of whose citizens loathe him. [His own Athena, Pam Bondi](https://www.medusarising.org/the-new-athenas-by-esmee-streachailt/), would not look at these women when they witnessed her recent “testimony” to the Senate. Pam knows what looking a Gorgon in the eyes does to you. Like Medusa, these intrepid women have been marked and sent out to their isolation. Hundreds of reports of rape, torture, murder, forced abortion, child abduction, forced pregnancy, and ‘the system’ turned its back again and again. Isolate. Blame. Silence. Consume. Like Medusa, they are still here and they are loud. For decades these champions, these warriors, have endured every trick our patriarchal law, economy, and fraternity have to play against them. Beneath their calm, I am sure that the need for vindication seethes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-89543319-a858-455a-91a1-00f4b780efdc-1.png) AI generated image of Medusa with fangs in the style of Georgia O'Keefe We are fine with that. That rage. The blood these men have taken from these women calls out for its debt to be paid. But still, after all these decades, these millennia, the world cannot fully awaken to what it allows, how it really works, what it celebrates. By "the world," I mean most men. They think that looking and committing to better will kill them. These girls were coin in an economy, one that is not just a product of our long history, but that has quite literally designed our recent history. We’re living in the Epstein Class’s Simulation of a world. This revelation of the men, of their chummy rapiness, of their influence over (it seems) every nation, every institution, most areas of knowledge, the media, the arts: it should genuinely shatter the world. The abyss should open and shake. Their lesser imitators, the Tates and their ilk, should be hiding from us. Writing of the inhale many normies are taking as the facts of the files begin to cohere, the silence, Zarnowski describes the process as all the normies (mostly men it seems) discover and begin to digest this reality: the feminists took the red pill long ago. To us it is only nature working in Her way that the Manosphere and Women’s Withdrawal from men, 4B and real estate trends for single women, arise at the same time. In this Man’s World, where the UN calculates that 730,000,000+ women alive today have been sexually assaulted, we are all girl-Medusa. The **monster-Medusa** is designed by man's myths to be *uncanny*, to confront us with an ontological shock — *this is real, this the power of these gods, bow down or become her*. As Zarnowski writes, “What people are experiencing right now is a phenomenon called ontological shock. This sort of shock is a profound, often extremely traumatic form of disorientation when one’s fundamental understanding of reality or how the universe works is shattered.” We need to help these people avoid just closing that off with denial. I had that feeling when I read [this at The Nerve News](https://www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-billionaires-eugenics-project-harvard-academia-john-brockman?ref=medusarising.org), something massive and vague clicked into place. We’ve made a million movies about that shock. I felt dizzy and lost for a few minutes, and then I remembered who I am. We talk of ‘structural power’ as if it's weather, patriarchy as if it’s geology, but they’re not. They’re deliberate, coordinated action. **Maybe not all men, but always plenty of men, always enough men to traumatize nearly a billion women**. I’ve called it ‘the background radiation of men’s violence,’ but that is also too natural a metaphor. It’s meant to get at the scale, but the passivity of the metaphor misses the mark. **We live in a simulation of a culture made by these … people. They coded it. It’s their algorithm**. Medusa looks disconcertingly inhuman to convince us of the Unman’s God’s power to harm us — to exile us from all society. *Shame. Why were you in that temple, anyway?* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-bfa04731-f5d5-4c21-906a-50ad6a18ff96-1.png) AI generated image of Medusa as Trinity in the style of The Matrix These men *collectively* are a system, *but individually* are just mortal human males. They can be brought to account — or, you know, I mean if our cultures would like to ever be worth a shit. We lived, we evolved to live in cultures focused on meeting needs, creating as much enjoyment as did not interfere with meeting needs (which was quite a lot, *axshully*), that were centered around children and their mothers materially and spiritually (and sometimes politically), and that deliberately refused to become extractive and violent. Whatever the evo-psych bros around JE say, we did not evolve to be this. Patriarchy makes reversals of matrist/matriarchal deep time because Patriarchy Is A Reversal. We live in rape world because the men designing it are gleeful rapists. In the cultures where we lived **in nature as nature**, in our natural state, we lived in matristic/matriarchal cultures. We thrived. We invented. We traded. We cared for needs. We made medicines and art. We built cities and temples. We sang and worshiped. We learned others' languages and symbols, tech and methods. We shared fundamental values across thousands of miles for rocking up on 100,000 years. We didn’t rape and we didn’t hoard and we didn’t dominate. And that was all by design, on purpose, and coded too. Gimbutas – Eisler – Dashu – and now Daeva, whose *Before War* collects and solidifies our deep history and its contemporary evidence for all those stubborn hierarchists who keep tying themselves in non-Euclidean knots of illogic to avoid admitting the truth. [Before War: Marriage, Hierarchy, Our Matriarchal Roots - Before Warorigins of marriage, indo-europeans, matriarchy, linguistics, genetics, origins of europeans, feminism, western civilization, patriarchy, Gimbutas, social inequality![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/Screen-Shot-2023-03-12-at-3.46.16-PM.png)Before War![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/cover-with-name-scaled.jpeg)](https://beforewar.com/?ref=medusarising.org) **It’s just facts.** We really do not have to rehearse this anymore. We didn’t thank some sky god for our food, **we thanked our food for our food**. Which, means that we can curb and reprimand these criminal men and choose to organize for our healthier and more peaceful future. Problem is that our justice and carceral systems are not designed to do this work, *for now*. But our **social and moral systems are**. We’re just not applying them *because of ‘due process’*. But, like the ‘immigration courts’ and systems there is **no possibility of due process because the bureaucracy needed for the process is woeful and woebegone**. The powerful men who could fix this? Uninterested. I beg you, where is the due process for the Epstein Class, for the victims of that complex ruling class trafficking ring? For the between 300,000 and 500,000 rape survivors in the US anually? Again, the women’s own testimony is not evidence, and the bureaucracy is woeful and woebegone. Medusa is never far from these stories, sometimes physically. **When Britain's most powerful political fixer was caught on an oligarch's boat in Corfu,*[ *we called it Yachtgate and moved on*](https://www.thenerve.news/p/peter-mandelson-russia-superyacht-yachtgate-epstein-deripaska-global-counsel?ref=medusarising.org)**. The Epstein files now reveal the full picture: a web of Russian money, paedophile kompromat and New Labour access that shaped a decade of British politics, writes Tamsin Shaw.* Corfu is where this Medusa guards Artemis (remember her?). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-b907efae-008b-4b5c-99fb-209b10d160a4-1.jpeg) Medusa Pediment, Museum of Corfu These women of Crete were sovereign, self-possessed, whole. Relaxed. Where is their justice? **Trick question, they didn’t need any**. Their culture didn’t even dream of grinding them into the deserts of New Mexico. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-c4dc1227-2f9e-454e-bfd0-eb89373a8b8d.jpeg) Three Blue Ladies, Crete, wikimedia Trrrrrrappppped in a system designed-iterated-maintained to prevent justice for women. A *simulation in which a motherless goddess* makes good fairies of the furies whose work is to avenge blood-debt to The Mother. Do you feel me? We imagine that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades and their various sons had complex inner lives. We imagine that the Abrahamic God has an interesting inner life (we must be that life after all), but I have news. They do not. They are not OK. How do we know? The systems their stories justified, and that we still inhabit the most recent layer of, were never designed to meet human needs but to exploit those needs to create surplus value (productivity) the owner-rentier-Epstein-Zeus can hoard. Max Dashu put it this way: Well, there’s so much rape of mortal women and goddesses, even a god’s mother, to show women of patriarchal Greece that this is inevitable, that there is no escape from this violence. You might as well submit. – [Circe Salon Podcast](https://share.transistor.fm/s/c4df4f0d?ref=medusarising.org) I am not the only feminist to observe that patriarchy has worked over the millennia to reward, and therefore select for, violent and abusive men. From Hammurabi's Code to the Epstein Emails, we see regular practice of the destruction of women. We see the needs and imaginations of Dark Triad disordered men: the narcissism and victimization, the expert manipulation and dissimulation, the psychopathy and total lack of human connection. What is going on inside such a personality, such a mind? NOTHING. There is no inner life there. They consume and destroy the people around them because they have no inside, and their need can never be met. No other self can supply one’s need for selfhood. They design societies and cultures to fill the void, too. The fashion photographer, the many ‘modeling’ agents, the teen fashion brands, the public intellectuals, the tech bros, the heads of governments/agencies/departments, the bankers and venture capitalists, the university presidents and board members – I mean right down the campaign against tenure and the Humanities writ large, the feminists in particular – the men who design the world are his men. They have done it right in front of us, barely concealed, splashed on the social pages, celebrated in long running TV series, smirking at us the whole time they trained us to celebrate their death world. And that, my dear cousins, is what the DOJ is doing to all of us now with the files. It’s dumping the truth of the violence on us, the ontological revelation, as a cudgel to break us, too, to show us that *Yeah, we can turn you into an uncanny and exiled monster too, and then we can send Perseus/Palantir to digitally erase your life*. What should be an effective investigation on behalf of 1000s of survivors, the children born into this nightmare, and likely as many dead is Patriarchally Reversed into ongoing violent ‘transparency.’ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/02/data-src-image-39d3c7eb-1300-41c4-90fe-1c8f0dd268b6-1.png) AI Generated image of Medusa as snake goddess in the style of Old Europe what a messed up pastiche of time and culture that turned out to be but therefore eternal, and always at the ready [The New Athenas | by Esmée StreachailtBonus Post | Trigger Warning: child rape![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-15.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1659630474761-3727b8da1e6f-1.jpeg)](https://www.medusarising.org/the-new-athenas-by-esmee-streachailt/) ICYMI --- **Esmee Streachailt** is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. --- You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Soul Crafting Requires Us to Dare to Die | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/soul-crafting-requires-us-to-dare-to-die-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T06:33:30.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/Soul-Craft-article-who-death_thumb.jpg) Soul Craft Requires Us to Dare to Die | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /594.325333 1× Soul Craft is the practice of aligning with, embodying through self love, who you really are. The soul version of you. Which requires first getting to know your soul self. And that requires unlearning patriarchal socialization. In other words, letting some versions of you die. Many, many years ago when I was first initiated into the world of soul-aligned spirituality (rather than religious, dogma-aligned), my teacher suggested that my most urgent need was to end my perpetual self-criticism and self-flagellation and instead, love myself. I walked away from our session inspired, excited, hopeful… and utterly stupefied. I had no idea how to love who I was. With some reflection, and to my horror, I realized that I was struggling to love myself because I didn’t really know who I was. I realized that the essence of my identity was just a series of labels haphazardly glued onto my personality by the outside world. “Good daughter”, “Good employee”, “Good girlfriend”, “Good person”. > I was less Jaclyn Lanae, and more “an amalgamation of who everybody else thinks Jaclyn should be.” More horrifying still was the awareness that I made most of my decisions based on what I “should” do in order to be who I ”should” be in the eyes of others. The process of self discovery that was required to strip away all those layers of other people and their expectations was a long one, but I was gifted several opportunities (read: crises) to catapult me along that journey – and they did. Which made me realize: I could make those huge growth moves myself and skip the crises. If I could embrace and even create those useful little trebuchets: ego deaths. Most of us have experienced an ego death in some way: identity crises, financial collapse, relationship failure, career loss… moments where our very sense of self has been shaken and we find ourselves swimming in a sea of emotion, grappling for some life line to the certainty that we are valuable, worthy. Sitting in the emotional sludge of my last ego death (which happened to come in the context of a breakup) I was surprised to realize that I felt such anger along with the sadness. Which, admittedly, probably also had something to do with the fact that he cheated on me with his best friend’s daughter. But with some time and self reflection I realized that it was more than that. When we walk (or are pushed) away from a job that told the world we’re good at something, when the house we loved to invite friends to is sold out from under us, when we leave a relationship that we thought was going to last, it hurts. A lot. And it isn’t just because we lost something important to us, or something that we thought was safe. It’s because we’re also mourning the loss of a version of ourselves that we thought we were going to be with this thing/person/money/etc. The death of an aspect of ourselves or our lives that we liked the world to see. > I realized I was enraged with my ex not just for what he did, but for ruining our future - MY future. The future where I had successfully defied the rules for a prescription life (stateside, married, working in a traditional job…) and found real happiness and material success following my heart. These moments are when and how the ego dies – if we can let it. Admittedly, that’s easier said than done. We’ve been conditioned by the capitalist dimension of patriarchy to quantify our value based on external manifestations. Money. Job. Parenthood. Partnership. Beauty. But in truth, none of these things define who we really are. They simply comment on the ways we have succeeded at expressing ourselves in our hierarchical, competitive, assigned container. Who we really are on a soul level is a very different thing. And since almost our entire sense of reality has been constructed under the patriarchal worldview, it can feel sad – even devastating – to let go of those external qualifiers of our value. And it’s sad that it’s sad. Because those qualifiers aren’t who we really are. They are projected constructs that manipulate us into *believing*, even *feeling*, that without those things we hold no significant value. It disconnects us from the truth of the value inherent in us. And that’s *why* we need ego deaths. That sadness we feel is real. Devaluing the very things that everyone around us prioritizes – the things that have validated us for so long – and embracing being a “failure” in the eyes of the outside world in one way or another is *hard*. It feels isolating. Uncertain. Because it is – which is why many of us just skip over it – understandably – and even, sometimes unconsciously. It’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of never being the version of us that we wanted so badly to show the world. It’s terrifying to face the prospect of never having the safety or security or love or money or prestige that we thought we’d have. That fear often whips at us so persistently that we run out looking for another version of whatever we lost to fill the hole. And – of course – we’re allowed to do that. Although it’s likely that a similar collapse will happen again. Because ultimately, our soul selves are trying to strip away the ego version of us in order to be most authentically expressed. Just as in our collective reality, in order to effect real change and become something different, we have to do more than simply make small adjustments - or we’ll simply re-create an old version of ourselves with slightly different details. History has witnessed the fall of countless patriarchal structures, communities, and governments only to see them rebuilt and re-branded with slight adjustments – and then collapse again. The beauty in that truth is that there is actually a tremendous amount of POWER in embracing the loss – the deep, life-altering one. In allowing – even encouraging – the death of our ego, we can strip away the projection of who we thought we were and how we wanted the world to see us, and allow ourselves to become something else. Someone else. Or, rather, a more authentic expression of our deep selves. Rather than rush to fill the hole left by the loss or gloss over the pain, we can allow ourselves to grieve the version of us that will never be, and explore what’s beyond the hole. Who are we without that ego-affirming thing? If we’re healing-focused and ready to change ourselves (and, by extension, our world) we can seize our power from the hands of the outside world to whom we’ve surrendered it, and grow. Grow past the needs of our ego that are so easily weaponized against us. (Although our ego is a part of us and its needs have value - but that’s for another post). > We can grow past needing or even wanting the patriarchy or capitalism or religion or any other person or ideal to *validate* us. We don’t even have to wait for some catastrophic collapse in our lives. We can initiate ego death by identifying where we’ve allowed it to drive or even define us, and make choices that help to slowly shift that control to our soul selves instead. The best news of all is that this can be an incredibly joyful process. Liberating. Playful. In letting go of who we thought we were or should be, we can just coquettishly explore who we are. What would be different about you if you didn’t have to do the job you do in order to make money? What decisions would you make if you didn’t have to surrender your power of choice to your obligations? What would your life look like if you didn’t need a relationship? How would you dress or laugh or eat if you didn’t have to fit into a label or category? Exploring the answers to these questions is the first step toward uncovering where subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) influences have manipulated our egos into creating a version of self or life that has been dictated, rather than birthed from soul-level passion. Of course, shaking up the logistics of your life and connecting with a different identity are not light-switch changes. However, empowering yourself with a deep understanding of who you really are outside the material definitions of the world is the first step toward crafting your life (and our shared world) in alignment with your soul. When we let go of needing our lives or ourselves to be a certain way, we create all kinds of space for our soul selves to align us with what it (you), actually wants. In my case, when I embraced the idea of never having a “happy ever after” partner, I accidentally created an absolutely blissful relationship. I have no idea if it will last, but *I don’t need it to*. And that’s made it even better. If you'd like to explore more about how you can put Soul Craft to work in your own life, we're creating a community over on the [Medusa Rising Discord server](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-other-events/). When it's up and running, I’ll share monthly questions and exercises to help us all reconnect to – and love – ourselves. Our soul selves. --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is an author, embodiment coach, and contributor at Medusa Rising. She writes and coaches for people in moments of transition, helping them move forward without self-abandonment in love, conflict, & change. Find Jaclyn at [AuthorJaclynLanae.com](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/coaching?ref=medusarising.org). --- ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### The Last Guy You Dated | by Kari Redmond URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-last-guy-you-dated-by-kari-redmond/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T06:30:05.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/My-recording-2_thumb.png) The Last Guy You Dated | by Kari Redmond 0:00 /346.999002 1× He wasn’t a coward, per se. Not in the whole wouldn’t-fight-a-bully kind of way, if that’s what you mean. He’d fight a bully. And he’d win. So not that way. And not in the wouldn’t-kill-a-spider-for-you kind of way either. No, he was a coward in the break-up-with-you-in-a-text kind of way. Or the forget-to-water-your-plants-when-you’re-away-and-then-lie-and-say-there-was-a-snowstorm-so-he-couldn’t-get-there kind of way. Even when you could very easily look at the weather report for the days you were gone and fact check this. Which, you did. He was that kind of coward. The kind that doesn’t even know he’s a coward. That would gladly beat up anyone you asked him to and think that meant something. Which, you didn’t. Ask him. You weren’t that kind of person. There was no one in your life that needed beating up because that’s not who you are. At least not then, you weren’t. But by the time you got that text, you supposed you were quite a different person all together. Surely you were no longer the hopeful he-held-the-door-open-for-me-so-he-must-be-a-gentleman girl you were when you first met him nearly a year ago. No, by then you were more like the deceived he-hasn’t-called-for-three-days-screw-holding-doors-open woman. And then you read the text. And you rolled your eyes. You guffawed. You shook your head vigorously. And at first you were more upset with yourself, the way we are sometimes, that you didn’t see it coming. Because, of course, it was obvious. Now that you could look back with the knowledge of where it was going to end. It was clear. Inevitable. And you should have seen it coming. But no! That’s not right. You are not that thinks-holding-doors-open-means-something girl anymore. You are the just-now-realized-how-you-deserve-to-be-treated kind of gal. You shouldn’t have seen anything coming because that’s just how he wanted it to be. This is why he opened the goddamned door for you. This is his MO, his area of expertise, his home base—deceiving. Just like a coward, you think. You are no longer upset with yourself. You feel a sense of kindness, the way you might toward a friend, toward yourself. It is warm and soft and maybe even a bit tingly. This is new. This is also ok. It feels like a beginning rather than an end. Then you’re furious with him. Like punch-the-walls-but-don’t-leave-any-marks-because-you-don’t-have-the-money-for-repairs furious. Like throw-a-few-things-around-but-nothing-actually-breakable furious. You read the text again. Laugh. Consider throwing your phone against the wall, but you’ve been through this. The reasons you can’t. You forward the text to your best friend. Write—‘can you believe this shit?’ underneath. She writes back—‘what the fuck, man?’ There’s an emoji you can’t make out because she has an I-phone and yours is an android. You pour a cocktail. A stiff one. Three fingers of whisky and a splash of ginger on the rocks. This is the kind of night you will have. The kind of night anyone would have after receiving a text from a coward, you figure. You like the burn and the cold together as it floats down your throat. The only medicine for a job like this. You turn music on. Something hard and fast. You settle in. You rile up. You wake up in your bed. Your shoes are off, but the rest of your clothing is still on, haphazardly, like you tried to undress but didn’t succeed. You remember the outline of a plan as it slowly pieces together again in your foggy head. You put on fresh clothes. Walk downstairs to your living room, your kitchen, smirk at the remains of your evening—clues—a book, a TV remote, a pillow—strewn about the carpet. An open, half-empty bottle of whisky (you were never an optimist), a rocks glass upside-down on the counter. Your cat emerges from under the couch. You turn the rocks glass right side up, pour another finger of whisky into it. Juice for the fearless. Grab your keys, say bye to your cat, exit your front door. In your car you turn the radio up. Loud. Something hard and fast again. Something angry. You know exactly where you are going. You’ve been there a hundred times. You pull into the parking lot. Slam your door. Enter the building. A bank. He works in a bank. (He would, wouldn’t he?) Your bank. The bank where you first met him, of course. You wait in line. Three people ahead of you. You try to stay hidden because the surprise of it excites you, but you’re also ok if he sees you because that anticipation on his part also excites you in a he-has-no-idea-what’s-coming-and-you-do sort of way. He is the coward and you are the brave. He sees you. He avoids eye contact, but he sees you. You know because he’s twitchy, swaying from foot to foot. The customer with him has to repeat himself twice. One more person to help and you’re up. You step toward his counter. He begins to say something. You cut him off, say, ‘I need to make a deposit.’ Sure, you could have done this at the ATM. But you are not a coward and you like to see him squirm. And oh, does he squirm, just like, you think, how he might have, had he actually broken up with you in person. You tell him you’ll see him next week with your next paycheck, and maybe the one after that. You open your own damn door on the way out. A smile like satisfaction spreads across your face. --- **Kari Redmond** is a Fort Collins, Colorado-based writer of literary novels, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and essays. Her work is published in a variety of literary journals including, The Colorado Book award winner for the 2020 best anthology, *Rise: An Anthology of Change, The Tulip Tree Review,* and *Brilliant Flash Fiction.* Her personal essay “Remains” was selected for Roxane Gay’s *The Audacity*. You can find her personal musings and essays on her [Substack](https://substack.com/@kari12??ref=medusarising.org). --- You asked for it, we answered!! ****Comments are open to all members.** ****Let's discuss all the things!** [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ****We accept and read work all year long.** ****Please send pitches or complete work.** ****Currently Seeking in Any Genre/Medium:** - Myths and misrepresentations about feminism - How are you resisting and persisting? - How did you become a feminist? - What is your best feminist advice for self-care? - Skill-shares, mutual aid networks, resource pooling - Feminist joy, successes, wins, celebration - What do you want feminists of other factions/ethnicities/countries to know or do? - Women's culture, women's time, women's space - Pick some part of the [Manifesto RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), imagine what it could look like in action. All speculations welcome! [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Talking with Sabina Santovetti URL: https://www.medusarising.org/talking-with-sabina-santovetti/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T20:12:10.000Z Last we spoke to Sabina, she and Maria were headed to Nashira, Colombia – a matriarchal ecovillage – to teach matriarchal eco-design. Now we find out how that unfolded in the complex flows of community-making. A few conferences mentioned to watch out for: [https://iamas.com/iamas-conference/](https://iamas.com/iamas-conference/?ref=medusarising.org) [https://www.iaffe.org/34th-annual-con...](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video%5Fdescription&redir%5Ftoken=QUFFLUhqbHJoUThjY3FRVzdMT2w2REszM2kwRGUtU29FUXxBQ3Jtc0trLTJCMVI4RGpJVkVxUWVFd0RRS3FVY0QwWUFPT1FRaWRBYzZIRGFOWFRnQnFteWZCSU9PVjVNcTY4SjFOMXBuUHlLSklGMWE5RmhNT3ZhQkdTTXB6eF9fTUhJalRfTjNaTV9BNmVmNnlSNWhMYlo5cw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iaffe.org%2F34th-annual-conference&v=eZHasdhPMkA&ref=medusarising.org) ERASMUS PLUS ACKNOWLEDGE project by BestupAPs [https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/pro...](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video%5Fdescription&redir%5Ftoken=QUFFLUhqa3VIWjYxWm5wRjFiRHp2cXV2cnBiZExqeTlid3xBQ3Jtc0ttZ0NLbTFCRXRma1c5ZnNhTEhKb2tKeEQzaFJMUURzRjVuRnFjdFRUaHJiZFpwWmhDS0IzUnZhanJZOVdHc2Fhdi01SGtma1NmOVAzbHhDVWt4b25PcS1VWk5wclQ2OFVYREJlaGktejRoaGhibmJQTQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Ferasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu%2Fprojects%2Fsearch%2Fdetails%2F2025-1-IT03-KA153-YOU-000299253&v=eZHasdhPMkA&ref=medusarising.org) Maternal Gift Economy, Montreal, June 14-17 [https://www.maternalgifteconomymovement.org/2024-conference/](https://www.maternalgifteconomymovement.org/2024-conference/?ref=medusarising.org) **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://donate.stripe.com/28E9AUg6S5uV2JecHG0Ny02?ref=medusarising.org) Reading Circle May 1, 2026 -- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH Included in Pythia & Tiamat subscriptions, tickets available for Corras and Yacumamas. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ## Sign up for Medusa Rising World Building Women Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. FIRST MONTH FREE. FREE & LOW COST MEMBERSHIPS. FEMINIST AF. ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Karen "Fucking" Wheeler: The Only Woman Who Gets Power (After Proving She Knew Her Place) | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/karen-fucking-wheeler-the-only-woman-who-gets-power-after-proving-she-knew-her-place-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-02-19T06:33:52.000Z Reading Circle May 1, 2026 -- DANCING GODDESS BY HEIDE GOETTNER-ABENDROTH Included in Pythia & Tiamat subscriptions, tickets available for Corras and Yacumamas. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) [Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/upside-down-feminism-how-stranger-things-systematically-destroyed-its-women-by-beatrix-kondo/), [Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/the-manic-pixie-dream-gay-girl-how-robins-sexuality-served-wills-coming-out-arc-then-got-discarded-by-beatrix-kondo/), [Part 3](https://www.medusarising.org/the-comatose-woman-plot-device-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all-as-long-as-you-want-nothing-by-beatrix-kondo/) | Part 1 is a bonus post :) For four seasons, Karen Wheeler had been the clueless suburban mom: perfectly coiffed, wine glass in hand, completely oblivious. Actress Cara Buono developed a secret backstory that Karen was a functioning alcoholic numbing herself with wine to justify the disconnection—the actress, yes, not the Duffers. Then Season 5 happened. A Demogorgon invades to kidnap Holly. Karen, drunk in the bathtub listening to ABBA's "Fernando," hears Holly scream and instantly switches to warrior mode. She hides with Holly, fights the Demogorgon hand-to-hand using a broken wine bottle as a weapon. Ted tries to help with a golf club, gets thrown, ends up in a coma. Karen, gravely injured, keeps fighting. Later, still wounded in the hospital, she saves Max from Demodogs, enters a burning room, and kills the monsters in an epic sequence. [The Duffers' stage direction: Karen "fucking" Wheeler.](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/videos/stranger-things-5-karen-wheeler-demo-destroyer?ref=medusarising.org) Here's the problem: Karen is the ONLY major female character who gets an empowered ending. And she only earns it after four seasons of performing perfect suburban femininity. ## **The Hierarchy of Who Gets to Be Fierce** The pattern is stark: Barb (the fat uncool girl) dies first. Eleven (the powerful psychic) sacrifices herself. Max (the traumatized fighter) ends up in a coma, then wakes to become Lucas's girlfriend again—and she says *he* saved her, alas. Robin (the lesbian) loses her girlfriend to invisibility. Nancy (the ambitious journalist) abandons her dreams and ends up alone. Joyce (the working-class single mother) becomes a background character in her own son's story—though hey, at least she gets to marry Hopper, because apparently that's the real victory for women who spent five seasons being independently fierce. The only woman who gets to be fierce? The upper-middle-class tradwife who spent four seasons conforming to patriarchal domesticity. Karen accesses power because she performed femininity "correctly" first. She earned the right to violence by being decorative long enough. Tell me I'm wrong. ## **The Currency of Conformity** Look at what Karen did for four seasons: She maintained the perfect home while dressing impeccably and serving elaborate breakfasts that could have graced the pages of *Better Homes & Gardens*. She attended every school function with a smile plastered on her face, performing suburban motherhood with magazine-cover precision even as she smiled through Ted's obliviousness and her own wine-soaked numbness. Karen Wheeler was the living embodiment of #tradwife culture before the hashtag existed. She was the 1980s prototype of what would become a 2020s social media aesthetic: the perfectly put-together housewife who makes domesticity look effortless, who finds fulfillment in serving her family, who maintains her appearance and her home as dual expressions of proper femininity. The hair. The outfits. The spotless kitchen. The elaborate meals. The patient smiles while her husband says something idiotic. She represents the women whom the 1970s era of women’s movement did not touch. Every crisis: calm exterior, measured response, appropriate concern expressed through acceptable channels. Karen Wheeler was the architectural blueprint of 1980s suburban femininity—composed, controlled, and contained. Repressed. And like many women of her class, the subjects of *The Feminine Mystique*, the repression became the self-harm of her genteel alcoholism. The show frames this as wallpaper. Background mom doing background mom things while the real story happens elsewhere. However, this performance required constant work, self-monitoring, sublimation of whatever Karen actually felt beneath the wine-numbed surface. She was sexually available but never threatening (the Billy subplot in Season 3, where she almost had an affair but pulled back at the last moment, staying "good"). The show that gave her the world’s most boring husband let her be tempted—let her feel desire, let her prepare for the motel, let her sit by the pool in that striking swimsuit—then rewarded her for choosing "right." For pulling back. For remaining faithful not through lack of opportunity but through moral fortitude. This matters because Karen proved she could be sexual and still choose domesticity, could be desirable and still choose duty, could want something for herself and still choose family—the show needed her to be tempted so she could demonstrate proper feminine loyalty by resisting, which is tradwife ideology at its core: you can have desires, but good women choose family over self every single time. She was concerned but never intrusive, present but never demanding, decorative but never vain—she existed in that perfect middle space patriarchy reserves for "good women," visible enough to be appreciated yet invisible enough not to threaten anyone's comfort or authority. And yet for all her practiced attentiveness, Karen Wheeler was almost entirely blind to the world unfolding right beneath her roof. The Hawkins gang operated freely, urgently, sometimes desperately—right under her self-absorbed, half-blitzed nose. Her children were living through extraordinary things, and she remained cheerfully, willfully oblivious. Both Wheeler parents were checked out in their own way, but Karen's particular failure is worth examining: she is the flawed tradwife in full, a woman so consumed by the performance of domestic contentment that she had no real idea what her kids were up to, or what it was costing them. Karen Wheeler spent four seasons proving she knew her place—dutiful, decorative, blissfully unaware of the chaos her children were living through. Only then did the Duffers grant her permission to break things. Compare this to what happened to the women who refused to perform traditional femininity from the start: Eleven, who had power before she had proper socialization, gets erased. The girl who never learned to be decorative, who was a weapon before she was a woman, who accessed power without first proving she could be contained—she disappears from existence. The narrative sacrifices her because she never performed the prerequisite femininity. Max, who was tough and independent from her introduction, gets punished with trauma and coma—and it's worth noting that Eleven learned sorority from Max despite an initial jealousy that was entirely normal given how thoroughly patriarchy loves and encourages women to see each other as rivals, but the show punished Max anyway for daring to be fierce from the start. She showed up skateboarding, giving zero fucks what anyone thought, rejecting Lucas until she decided otherwise, making her own choices, being visibly powerful without apology. The show responded by breaking her repeatedly—dead brother, abusive stepfather, Vecna's curse, bones snapped, eyes destroyed, mind ripped away, coma. Then, when she finally wakes, she gets handed back to Lucas as girlfriend rather than given her own arc of recovery and power. Nancy, who wanted a career over domesticity from episode one, gets isolated and dream-crushing. She walked into the show with ambition visible, with goals articulated, with a refusal to settle already part of her character. Five seasons later, she's alone, jobless, with both Steve and Jonathan gone from her life, her dreams of journalism demolished because she wanted them too loudly from the start—no romantic "choice" to make because both men removed themselves, leaving her with neither career nor relationship. Robin, lesbian and nerdy, gets relationship erasure. She came out, took up space, spoke too fast, thought too hard, loved too obviously. The show gave her Vickie then made Vickie disappear, gave her lesbianism then made it background noise, gave her intelligence then used it as quirk rather than power. Joyce—we'll get to Joyce. But add her to this list. The woman who was fierce from minute one, who never performed suburban perfection, who was working-class and desperate and loud. She gets sidelined in her own son's story. And it's worth pausing on who Joyce Byers actually is—which is to say, who Winona Ryder is. The very teenagers this show is about grew up watching her on the big screen. She was the it-girl of GenX slacker chic, the patron goddess of the beautifully unhinged and the defiantly weird. She carried an entire cultural moment on her slouched, thrifted shoulders. *Stranger Things* knew exactly what it was doing when it cast her—and then, season by season, did less and less with her. The math is simple: conform first, earn power later. Want power from the beginning? Get destroyed. Karen is written for four seasons building credit in the bank of patriarchal approval. The other women spent those seasons being themselves—powerful, ambitious, lesbian, desperate, unconventional. Karen cashed in her credit for one season of Karen "fucking" Wheeler. The other characters paid for their refusal to conform with five seasons of punishment—and nails in their literal or metaphorical coffins in the finale. ## **The Acceptable Container for Female Violence** Even Karen's empowerment gets wrapped in the safest possible justification: *maternal instinct*. The show frames her transformation as biology rather than choice. She hears Holly scream and something primal activates. The narrative treats this as awakening rather than decision. Karen becomes badass the way bears become protective: through instinct, through biological imperative, through the most traditional female role possible. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Style Understatement | by Shivangi Sharma URL: https://www.medusarising.org/style-understatement-by-shivangi-sharma/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T06:35:35.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/01/Style-understatement_thumb.png) Style Understatement | by Shivangi Sharma 0:00 /94.365396 1× I was never a stylish girl Shoes always only about comfort Sweatpants often the fashion statement A passionate non-believer in beauty product claims, or often the point A cream that is 90% water? Don't bother with bottling I will get that from my tap, thank you! Give me a book over makeup any day I can live for days without a mirror I might doll up when I want But don’t ask me to, I will question your depth Clothes without pockets are sheer waste We need those pockets even if to keep our disparity ridden salaries I am not the one to lug a bag if not needed The ones engraved with the initials of some random guy like MK, CK…what the FCUK …that is patriarchy selling for thousands of dollars Or something equally bad The brave part of me is happy getting older I am close to putting an end to eyebrow shaping trauma for good And I will finally not care two hoots I have already mustered the indifference to stop dying my grey hair The future looks quite bright from where I stand --- Author, multilingual poet, and mad lover of words, **Shivangi Sharma**’s writing has been featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair, *The Wall Street Journal*, and *The Asian Age*, among other places. She lives in the Netherlands with her family in a house overflowing with books and ideas. --- **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### The New Athenas | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-new-athenas-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2026-02-16T06:33:40.000Z > "Your worst enemy is not the person in opposition to you. It is the person occupying the spot you would be fighting from and doing nothing." - Heather Marsh [#OpDeathEaters](https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpDeathEaters?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) [pic.twitter.com/Vc4eUgj1Mr](https://t.co/Vc4eUgj1Mr?ref=medusarising.org) > > — Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) [February 12, 2026](https://twitter.com/YourAnonCentral/status/2021830417989632370?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/Athena-s-2_thumb.jpg) The New Athenas | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /1169.155063 1× The fact is that radical feminists were always correct. The Root is the sexual exploitation. And if we were to curb, or jail, or neuter, or remove every unman who participates in this particular form of extraction, we would literally clear space to re-write our cultures. We may find some allies in weird places. I'm not saying we ally with Evangelical Christians, but I am saying look at the urgency in this man's body when he talks about the national emergency of child rape in the US. THAT is the energy we need to see in more women and women. The only thing we can do is get ready to start the mutation of our cultures to the matriarchy. The first step is to stand together to smash the fash (fascists), but what comes next cannot be a simple restoration. The art of taking power in order to destroy power is a delicate one. > Women deserve serious and effective judicial approaches to violent crimes against women and children: from incest to rape, to partner abuse, to FGM, child marriage to honour killing, trafficking and prostitution, to the air-like ubiquity of pornography, to disappearances and femicides (including forced sex-selective abortion). > Women deserve for these crimes to be clearly defined in law and to be addressed with funding, policing, and judiciary practices equal to the trauma inflicted by these crimes. This from Medusa Rising's manifesto. Note that we do not call for some abstract justice, some arbitrary timeline, no. We call for practices of the same amplitude as the harm/trauma/damage these men do. Their lives should be constrained, their money should pay for their viticim's recovery, and they should be reminded of their shame by the whole community all the days of their lives. They should not be allowed to marry, or parent, or participate in social spaces where girls and women are present. Impractical you say? Really? The US (to my never ending shame) is currently building out its own gulag archipelligo of empty shipping wearhouses to hold its 'enemies.' Impractical is not the objection to reach for. When we add up the reported, only the reported, numbers of girls and women harmed in the many ways unmen harm us, **that number sprints past a billion of the girls and women on earth at this moment and doesn't slow down**. (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ- \_*\-)ノ\~ ┻━┻* (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ- \_*\-)ノ\~ ┻━┻* Agamemnon sacrificed a daughter, too, for the benefit of male desire and profit. This is the Trojan War. He gets home and his wife murders him for his blood crime. And her son murders her for her blood crime. And the Furies erupt from the earth to hound him night and day for his blood crime of murdering his mother. Then we have a trial, the trial of Orestes, in which the question is whether the boy is justified in the revenge killing of his own mother — that is, to which life do we owe honor, the father's or the mother's? > BREAKING: 🇺🇸 🇮🇱 Pam Bondi starts talking about stock market gains during her testimony on her COVER UP of child trafficking. > > This is fucking dystopian man. > > Lock this demon up in a deep dark hole with Kash and Lutnick.[pic.twitter.com/EZtGsXd4qv](https://t.co/EZtGsXd4qv?ref=medusarising.org) > > — ADAM (@AdameMedia) [February 11, 2026](https://twitter.com/AdameMedia/status/2021639407984656769?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) So. Athena breaks a hung jury saying, to hell with mothers, I never had one and I'm just fine, so I side with the men and fathers forever. **Pam Bondi is our Athena.** Bondi wouldn't even turn around to acknowledge the women behind her who had been raped as children for years by her boss and other masters of the universe. So intent is Athena's will to serve the fathers that she magics the Erinyes, the furies, into the Eumenides, the kindly ones, who bring benificence to men rather than hounding them to madness and death for sins against the mother-line. *Poof!* No more spirits to defend the old ways and off Orestes pops to found ... Athens and dedicate the city to the goddess who saved his sorry ass. The Dow is over 50,000 she says. The justifying story is no longer a goddess chosing the only side she would ever choose, but only the money. It's OK because the money. We will douse the world's stock exchanges in these girls's blood and sing our praises to Mammon and Musk. It does not matter how many nude images of these girls we did not redact, how many driver's lisences we published. That blood is our money's food. It does not matter how many Ipheginia's we sacrifice for men's purpose and pleasure, we're rich, get with the program! *Poof!* Of course, these are all girls whose parents don't have much/any stake in the stock exchange. No army of attorneys, no private army. These are the girls of whom these Godlet UnMen have made prey for 5000 years. There is no attonement for this. Patriarchy may murder the mother again & again to make the boy a king, but capitalism makes fungible commodities of daughters *for any use of any unman* who asks. [Epstein Files ExplorerA comprehensive tool for exploring publicly released Epstein case documents and records.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-6.png)Public Record Database](https://epstein-file-explorer.replit.app/?ref=medusarising.org) This visualization of just a portion of the files brings it all home. The entire world's systems are implicated here. Epstein & Bannon & 4Chan & Reddit & social media moguls = **QAnon**. That LARPing, far-right, Comicon, pick your own adventure **GAMEIFIED** the sacred business of breaking trafficking rings to bring them to man's justice. Heather Marsh of Binding Chaos, who actually created Anonymous, which actually does help bring down traffickers and corruption around the globe, made it clear that Q was a planned psyop to distract from the victims coming forward as Trump was running in 2015\. **All that energy and care burned into the eather** rather than directed profitably at bringing down the powers that conspire to keep the MAGA base stupid, sick, addicted, and poor. In the visualization above, you can see the cabal unfold, trace it through time, not only is **this most basic form of patriarchy –- rendering whole human females into resources — the infrastructure of our social worlds**, *it is the infrastructure of the friendships of the men who run them*. > Thomas Massie is cooking right now and explicitly states that UAE Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem was sending torture videos to Epstein > > — [Rude Law Dog (@esghound.com)](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:y24gcrfugd3wnhzvl7or5ft5?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) [2026-02-10T03:18:27.573Z](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:y24gcrfugd3wnhzvl7or5ft5/post/3mehyusgy6k23?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) Stunning lack of imagination, really, innit? All that commaradarie, control, access, education, money, influence — **they have the resources to do what we want to do, remake the world in a more nourshing form** — and their best unmale bonding scheme is to rape children. [Decoding an Unknown Survivor’s Journal - Part 1Trigger Warning: discussion of sexual abuse of a minor and child loss![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fc6385b03-24ed-44aa-af44-1a6ea9fbf0a2-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)The Panicked WriterEllie Leonard![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F0124b3f6-ad50-44c7-8d60-2a0fae4e932b_1895x890.jpeg)](https://open.substack.com/pub/ellieleonard/p/decoding-an-unknown-survivors-journal?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j) These are the men we are trained to admire most, to aspire to know and be, to emulate in our personal style, choices of consumption, and political commitments. Notice how the word 'billionaire' has replaced 'rock star' and 'athlete'? They're not even skeevy rock stars, or luche poets – unmen with something of divine talent – **no, just ... a knack for turning everything and everyone into money**. These seedy, wheedling, sadistic, cowardly, completely homosocial rapists of children. These are our paragons. We are a long way from the [relatively dignified violence of Sargon of Akkad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon%5Fof%5FAkkad?ref=medusarising.org). **These unmen are *both* in coalition *and* competition**. As I spent some time last year explaining, the coalition that is the global far-right movement and the Epstein Class don't all want exactly the same things, and they don't all have exactly the same values. The authoritarian Christians and Elon Musk don't have the same world view at all (**the difference between 'soul' and 'intelligence' does matter though both are kinds of idealist disembodiment)**, but they'll cooperate for the sake the larger project of ... profting from and controlling all of us. Feminists the meanwhile have split and split, taking even honest short-sightedness for the thump of the bus's wheels. We must not do this anymore. We must not be easy with some using our name taking comfort from or siding with the fascists and racists, but we must find points of cooperation amongst each other and build ourselves some power. We must **bring the fractious Factional Era of women's movement to an end**. Otherwise, we will be doomed to trundle along being concerned and critical and toothless. The coverup is not recent. The various police forces ignoring reports from girls trapped in this sadist hellscape goes back to the late 1970s. Most of the coverup is just the everyday blind-eye turned on the suffering of girls and women. We RadMatFem have known for a long time that the whole system indicts itself with regard to the vulnerable no matter their particular demographic. The US FBI and its DOJ received reports from victims and witnesses for decades. These children lived in violence under threat of death. Some seem to have been born into it by the rape of these girls. The trap door is real, though what it's for is still not established. [Epstein files photo shows trapdoor opening to water. Here’s its likely purposeSocial media users speculated that the door was used for nefarious purposes related to unproven “ritualistic sacrifice” rumors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-1.png)Snopes.comEmery Winter![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/epstein_trapdoor_photo_feature.png)](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/epstein-files-trapdoor-photo/?ref=medusarising.org) There are orders for 330 gallons of sulfuric acid, on the day the FBI opened its investigation into Epstein. If [you look at his emails](https://jmail.world/?ref=medusarising.org) (and other documents are here too) you can see that he followed the FBI's public newsletter like a journalist. But-but-but, that acid has many uses including cleaning the two large swimming pools and desalination given that the island has no standing source of potable water. But that does not mean that our fears are unfounded. What we do know is alarming enough that **the horizon beyond which 'unthinkable' could lie is farther and farther away every day**. But we know, RadMatFems who have a pretty clear-eyed view of just how very much creativity some men put into harming girls, and boys, and women that we can be forgiven for fearing the likelihood. We know, in a way that most law officers and justice advocates do not (want to), just how purposeful such unmen are. Even your run of the mill domestic abuser is acting with deliberation. His abuse is part of his value system. SKIP TO 29:32 FOR THE VERY RELEVANT BIT It's not the hottest new radfem take to make these connections. We have long been **blue in the face for confronting this wickedness** from the forests of our exile. What concerns us is that here is our world now confronted at last with something like the full flavor its dark heart, the yawning pit of vampiric want-want-want-want-want that whirls at the center of all our offical cultures' vaunted institutions, traditions, the whole way we make sense of the world: > He who has the most impunity wins. He may eat the souls of as many as he likes. We will feed him more so that we may have a little. For that is what the emptiness in [patriarchy's dark triad](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922003944?ref=medusarising.org) most loves to eat –- the fear, the pain, even the moment the girl collapses into the inevitable. Feed us your girls, indeed. Next to **forcing that collapse of self into thing**, coming or shorting a housing market or inventing a life saving technology are all nothing. No thrill there. They're not mad, manic, scattershot. It's not that we can't *reason* with these unmen. Except that we have done so for decades. Except that they have *no reason* to accept reason from us. **They are the power we need to seize in order to destroy power**. Them and all their assets. Why suggest this? Because there are holes in the world where these girls-now-women, new such girls every few seconds, whole and healthy lives once awaited them. The same is true for every black and brown family shattered, every young black man harassed, arrested, killed by our 'justice' system. These breaches of values our cultures say they hold most dear are a particular kind of betrayal, they leave a particular kind of mark on a life and the world of that life. > 🚨BREAKING: Law enforcement threatened to kill an unarmed 17-year-old as he was leaving an anti-ICE protest in Indianapolis. > > In the video, police officers stop a 17-year-old and order him out of his car. > > He calmly asks why. > > Instead of answering, an officer opens the car door,… [pic.twitter.com/xGMr8TsxqS](https://t.co/xGMr8TsxqS?ref=medusarising.org) > > — Jesus Freakin Congress (@TheJFreakinC) [February 10, 2026](https://twitter.com/TheJFreakinC/status/2021300096596680771?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) Societies that eat their young are doomed. Let us save the young and still doom the society. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is end a thing. (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ- \_*\-)ノ\~ ┻━┻* (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ- \_*\-)ノ\~ ┻━┻* The Great Mother these little men keep killing is a creature of d**eath-regeneration-life. She is the Situation. She is both Intimate and Impersonal**. She is the mother which births the lamb, and she is the lamb, and she is the mother wolf who feeds that lamb to her pups.... A justice that is aligned with the Mother's cycles and methods needs to be genuinely dignified rather than performatively genteel, a justice that embraces the reality that some harms are indeed worse than death. These godlets are afraid of the debt of life we all owe Her and they are terrified of their vulnerability to the death that we all also owe Her. Something in their fantasy of kingliness and invulnerability, in **the ease with which they inhabit their impunity, has convinced them that they are exceptions to the blood debt we all owe the Earth-Mother and our mother/s** that must be paid either willingly and with grace and open-eyed trust in Her processes, ... Or after the Erinyes have driven us to raving self-destruction. I am not a peaceable person all the way through. I admire the energy of the Erinyes, of Medusa, of Morrigan. RadMatFems may not want to admit this kind of energy to our politics, to our future world, but I for one could watch the crows eat Pam Bondi's eyes with resolved equilibrium and then cheer as they moved on to these sinners against Life Itself. [The Morrígan — The Order of the CrowsThe Morrígan is an ancient Irish goddess of war, battle, prophecy, sovereignty, and otherworld power. While She was worshipped primarily in Iron Age Ireland, the earliest recorded mention of her dates back to 750 BC - however, this is widely believed to be a retelling of much older (oral) stories, a![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-17.ico)The Order of the CrowsHome![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/rsz_14947691_1358500657508109_3100293882022628814_n.jpg)](https://www.orderofthecrows.org/the-morrigan?ref=medusarising.org) I know I have settled nothing here. I know this post brings nothing like comfort. The fuck of it is that **history like this simply has to be lived through with with all the unrelenting determination, fortitude, and wisdom we can bring to it**. There are **new Athenas on the march**. Bondi. Maxwell. Leavitt. Owens. Kelley. Not a flicker of care of Iphegenia. Repeated cooperation with the male forces that come against Medusa. Acceptance of the constant rape of women and goddesses by the Brother Gods and their Sons. And it's not that these women feel safe so close these Godlet Unmen, how can they? **It's that they cannot feel *us* in themselves**, cannot hear the vibration of becoming, for Athena is a guardian of the grid, the order, of the law of the father, of that idealist and immortal permanence. But the vibrations of becoming, of Be-ing, are the deeper inevitability. We can begin to find power there. Those vibrations, the quantum music, the probabilistic buzz of particles that arise from them: these flow through us and our grief, and rage, and the resplendent unfolding of our communal joy and sensual pleasure. Feeling how we are occilation and vibration, the troughs and crests of waves of being. May from there, **even if we must begin by keening our grief to unknot its tightness**, maybe from there we can find our solidarity and rise again against these kinglets. --- [Journeys in the Mirror-WorldIntroduction: Rape, Power, and the Epstein Files![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fa71e60ae-0fdb-4b45-9141-02d39a4bc9f9-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)Culture War BluesJane Clare Jones![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F6a6610f5-dc50-4f44-b6b8-12011b206fe7_805x1083.jpeg)](https://open.substack.com/pub/culturewarblues/p/journeys-in-the-mirror-world?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j) For a more political analysis, Jane Clare Jones. For a more "Left Bros Do Better" analysis, Max Dashu with Gail Dines on WBAI on Chomsky's association with the unman. [WBAI Radio Archives![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-18.ico)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/header_menu_btn.jpg)](https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=63275&fbclid=IwY2xjawP7%5FAdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFEeldDcmVJZmNLd3VEbnZFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsJAkBCIMfiI18eC5LOZEfXU79NOPm2ouBaJQpPnZCyq-SY2hXYt5XG5hvDl%5Faem%5F5C2JOWOXtb40yCrKMFldfg&ref=medusarising.org) --- **Esmée Streachailt** is the the founder and editor of Medusa Rising. She lives 14 miles from the Hellmouth of the White House, and is ready to build worlds even if she has to pave over these rapists to do it. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ****We accept and read work all year long.** ****Please send pitches or complete work.** ****Currently Seeking in Any Genre/Medium,** ****From every class, race, culture, and sexuality of radical feminists.** - Myths and misrepresentations about feminism - How did you become a feminist? - What is your best feminist advice for self-care? - Skill-shares, mutual aid networks, resource pooling - Feminist joy, successes, wins, celebration - What do you want feminists of other factions/ethnicities/countries to know or do? - Women's culture, women's time, women's space - Pick some part of the [Manifesto RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), imagine what it could look like in action. 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Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Overcoming the Emergency | Sources URL: https://www.medusarising.org/overcoming-the-emergency-sources/ Last updated: 2026-02-13T06:32:59.000Z **Esmée's writing on the The Emergency** [The Emergency - Medusa Rising | World Building WomenRadical Materialist Feminism, radical feminism, eco-feminism, materialist feminism, publishing women, feminist, movement building, women’s writing, art, poetry, fiction, essay, international, politics, culture, policy, theory, philosophy, Esmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-11.jpg)Medusa Rising | World Building WomenEsmée Streachailt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1658893478824-ea516e65855c)](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/the-emergency/) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. 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Graham![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fb1d0fc0b-9f28-40ae-90f3-6156140b2982_500x500.png)](https://open.substack.com/pub/sistaseparatist/p/male-supremacists-have-activated?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j) **Rapid Response Explainer from Minneapolis** Where they've shown us how to win. > We've prepared a zine version of our text "Rapid Response Networks in the Twin Cities," describing the dynamic and resilient system that people in the Twin Cities have developed to keep the pressure on ICE. Please print and distribute! crimethinc.com/zines/rapid-... > > — [CrimethInc. 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Find us everywhere we are with the social web: [@gorgons@medusarising.org](https://www.google.com/search?q=%40gorgons%40medusarising.org&oq=%40&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7Mg8IARBFGDkYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggCEAAYsQMYgAQyEAgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgEEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyBggFEAAYAzINCAYQABiDARixAxiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABDIGCAoQABgDMgYICxAAGAMyBwgMEC4YgAQyBggNEAAYAzIGCA4QABgD0gEIMjQ4MGowajeoAhSwAgHxBULE1hHWuwtb&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### The Comatose Woman Plot Device and the Myth of Having It All (As Long As You Want Nothing) | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-comatose-woman-plot-device-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all-as-long-as-you-want-nothing-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T06:33:22.000Z [Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/upside-down-feminism-how-stranger-things-systematically-destroyed-its-women-by-beatrix-kondo/), [Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/the-manic-pixie-dream-gay-girl-how-robins-sexuality-served-wills-coming-out-arc-then-got-discarded-by-beatrix-kondo/) | Part 1 is a bonus post :) Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) spent eighteen months in a coma. She fought through Vecna's mindscape, navigated his memories, found refuge in caves he feared to enter, guided Holly Wheeler (Nancy’s younger sister) to safety, and clawed her way back to consciousness through sheer determination. When she finally woke up in Lucas Sinclair's arms, the show gave her one line that collapsed all that agency into nothing. The Duffers took Max's survival—her willpower, her strategic thinking, her fierce refusal to give up—and credited it to a boy. Never mind that Season 4 ended with [Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" saving Max](https://youtu.be/wp43OdtAAkM?si=qEmUuIHj1QCWuv%5F4&ref=medusarising.org), giving the song a viral resurgence nearly 40 years after its release, positioning the music itself as Max's lifeline and agency. Apparently whoever wrote Season 5 forgot that happened, because now it turns out the song didn't matter at all—only Lucas did. The show spent an entire season making Max's connection to that song iconic, then retconned it into irrelevance so a boy could be her real savior. Nancy Wheeler wanted to be an investigative journalist. She got into Emerson College. She worked harder than anyone, and proved herself sharper than everyone. The series finale revealed she dropped out of Emerson to take a trainee position at *The Boston Herald*. [The Duffers' explanation](https://youtu.be/wp43OdtAAkM?si=qEmUuIHj1QCWuv%5F4&ref=medusarising.org): "We never want her to take the obvious path. She's still trying to find herself and what she wants from the world." The ambitious girl who knew exactly what she wanted became a woman still searching, still confused, still figuring it out. Meanwhile, Jonathan got into NYU film school—his stated dream since Season 1\. Steve got to stay in Hawkins coaching little league. Will got magical powers tied to his sexuality and a flirt. Every boy's ambition was destiny. Nancy's ambition became the obstacle she had to move past to find herself. Oh, also, alone—no significant other either. ## Max Mayfield: Eighteen Months of Sheer Will Credited to a Boy Max died. Vecna snapped her limbs, crushed her bones, blinded her eyes, stopped her heart. Eleven brought her body back to life, but Max's consciousness remained trapped in Vecna's mind for eighteen months. She navigated his memories like a maze, refusing to give up on escape. She heard "Running Up That Hill" playing from Lucas's bedside vigil. The music opened a portal to the hospital room where her comatose body lay. She ran toward it, got close enough to feel Lucas touching her hand, but the tape ran out. The portal closed and Vecna found her. She ran until she reached a cave he was afraid to enter—childhood trauma spaces he couldn't breach—where she hid for months. You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! 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[UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Daughters of India | by Arpita Biradar URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-daughters-of-india-by-arpita-biradar/ Last updated: 2026-02-10T13:14:00.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/01/Arpita-Biradar-Voice-Recording_thumb.jpg) Daughters of India | by Arpita Biradar 0:00 /476.17161 1× **At dawn, cruising on the roads of the countryside, I saw a cluster of women beaming from ear to ear, shovels in their hands, sweat dripping from the curves of their faces, a testament to labor. The agricultural land they were marching on recites a story of nourishment, sustaining a population of 1.4 billion humans, as much as it narrates a story of inequality, a denied economic power, a story of daughters left behind. The agriculture sector, which contributes immensely to the growth of the nation, failed to acknowledge these daughters.* Women were suppressed for decades by a system ruled by ancient social norms that pushed them to the lower rungs of the ladder. With little economic and political power, women adhered to tradition, maintaining the status quo, describing it as fate, a natural order prescribed to them. What the country needed was systemic change. The year 2005 was a major step in this direction. The Parliament of India amended gender-discriminatory provisions in the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, giving daughters equal rights as sons in joint family property. The daughters of India were coparceners by birth in the ancestral property. The provisions gave them the right to own the land passed down, and many persevered on. **Somewhere, in a corner of the country, a girl must have applauded boisterously for its revolutionary nature with humongous potential to tilt the egregious figures of women’s land ownership.* But amending laws on paper and implementing the same are two separate fights. The former has the power to start the conversation, but only the latter — the implementation, an area India has terribly failed in — can transform a society with its practices rooted in age-old traditions that serve one gender. [A meagre 14% of landowners are women, owning 11% of agricultural land](https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2021.1887478?ref=medusarising.org) in rural landowning households. Line up every landowner in India, and the women would stand like a thin row in a sea of men. Women contribute substantially to on-farm labor but are not classified as “farmers”; they are merely viewed as “helpers.” The label ‘cultivator’ remains out of reach for most. The title ‘cultivators’ denotes not just ownership but authority and primary decision-making power, and is seen as unwomanly. Women’s names on the deeds is indubitably patriarchy’s worst nightmare. The law can be applauded for its potential, but progress can only be measured in terms of effectiveness. And the numbers above narrate their own story. Policies, weighed only in terms of their capacity, distort the ground reality. **“We never whined about inheritance; this has always been the norm,” my grandma said. I remember contemplating, “How do I explain equality to her — the economic power, the years of oppression?” Passing a law is half the battle won; imperative is to renew a system governed by these notions. I haggled for words. “Convoluted subject to explain,” I reasoned. So, I decided to keep shut instead. And that’s exactly how we inherit a status quo, a hopeless submission, if not indifference.* India’s aggressively launched campaign “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child) made lasting changes in the child sex ratio by preventing female feticide and improving girls’ survival and education. The country remolded itself in staggering ways but failed to eradicate the view of women as possessions. In many corners of the country, a potential change in her last name post-marriage is still viewed as a liability because with that name change her land now belongs to the husband’s family. If object is what women are reduced to, how will her natal land not be parceled out to male heirs? A family wants to keep control of its land because for India’s farmers, land is their only resource and wealth. The push for women’s empowerment through property ownership isn’t entirely about financial power and reclaiming what’s rightfully ours, but women’s liberation. There’s clear evidence that a woman having her own property or inheritance lowers domestic violence against women and hands them decision-making power, liberating them from violent relationships. Women as a whole are better positioned if they inherit as daughters. But when it comes to contentious topics (with women’s rights issues always among them), reality is often unpalatable. Research says women are significantly [more likely to inherit land as widows than as daughters](https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2021.1887478?ref=medusarising.org). Modern India has its women’s rights tethered to their marital status, where to bequeath as a wife of the deceased is easier than as a daughter; there’s a long way towards gendered wealth equality. It’s outrageous when people justify the persistent disparity by pointing to the tradition of passing gold jewelry down to daughters through generations. Transfer of movable assets does not legitimize widespread denial of women’s rights on immovable property. Gold does not garner a woman the respect or protection that land seems to offer. When I am asked about the richness of my country, I underscore the diversity India holds, with thousands of distinct caste groups with their own sets of beliefs, but I am also petrified by this variety, knowing it results in cultural gaps, a topic so delicate that if not handled with caution, it splits society into pieces. Is a male/female lens the best to use on the question of land and its ownership in a country with so many differences? When the problem statement isn’t just women, but which woman? Woman of which state? Woman of what caste? Which sub-caste? A married one, a widowed one, or a single one? A learned one or an unschooled one? An urbanite or a rural one? How can we allow all these different kinds of women to inherit land? The answer is yes. Certainly yes. All these different kinds of women. But this yes is still very unevenly spread. The women of the forward caste may have higher chances of ownership than those from a backward caste; women still struggle. A woman of a progressive state may sign a deed, but a woman from conservative surroundings may not. A claim of a widow may get addressed, but a single woman’s may get disregarded. A literate one may leverage her education to enforce the law; an unschooled one is unaware of the law. Among all these differences we can see one constant: woman. So, in fact, viewing inheritance and landownership through the gender lens is where progress can be made. Even with copious research highlighting the matter, years after passing the law, the majority remains oblivious. The issue persists, with discrimination not just against a single category but against women as a whole. At this juncture, a gendered lens is not just justified but essential, paving the way to intra-gender solutions as we progress. So yes, if revolution has to begin, we should start from here. From the land. **I glimpsed, in that bunch of elderly women, two petite girls striding faster than the group behind, small, quick steps, using both their tiny hands to hold a fruit. They deserve better. I hope for them. I hope they never lose their briskness. I hope their rapidity never wanes while facing the disparities of the world. I hope they clench what’s theirs with the same vigor. And when they talk about inheritance, I hope they say, “I inherited equality.”* --- **Arpita Biradar** is a writer from India whose work moves between the personal and the political. With a background in finance, she chose to work in the social sector, hoping to be part of solutions to broader issues of inequality and inclusion. Her work has appeared in *The Literary Cocktail Magazine*. When she’s not writing, she’s reading some highly contentious book, fascinated by ideas that challenge comfort and certainty. --- You asked for it, we answered!! Comments are open to all members. Let's discuss all the things! **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* Free Audio NEW EPISODE Friday 23 Jan w/ Jaclyn Lanae \* Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells any subscriber/contributor information. All information shared with Medusa Rising is at the user's discretion. Pseudonyms, pen names, alt email accounts, not sharing location – all OK. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Esmée @ WLRN on Feminist Love URL: https://www.medusarising.org/esmee-wlrn-on-feminist-love/ Last updated: 2026-02-06T16:33:22.000Z [Edition 118: Feminist Love with Jocelyn Crawley & Esmée Streachailt of Medusa Rising - Women’s Liberation Radio NewsEdition 118 features an interview with Medusa Rising’s Esmée Streachailt and commentary from WLRN’s Jocelyn Crawley about the concept of feminist love.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-cropped-WLRN-Logo.png)Women's Liberation Radio NewsWLRN Staff![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Edition118CoverARt.jpg)](https://wlrnmedia.com/2026/02/05/edition-118-feminist-love-with-jocelyn-crawley-esmee-streachailt-of-medusa-rising/?ref=medusarising.org) Cousins, find here part of a conversation I had with WLRN about feminist love, a little bit the personal kind, a little bit the political kind, and a little bit how feminists could give more of it to each other. Something nourshing on weekend when so many of us feel depleted and overwhelmed. Both Thistle and I (and so many others) have responded thoughtfully about the tensions that erupted at FiLiA2025\. While this conversation is not about those events directly, it does grow out of the awareness we share that feminists will never win for women if we keep tearing each other down. WRLN will post the full conversation later this month. We get into the nature some deeeeeep waters. ### Updates Comments are now open to all on our posts. You asked for it, you got it. I guess I was being overzealous about keeping the trolls out. xx Also, apology for the posting chaos this week. I got my wires well and truly tangled moving everything for the Stranger Things series. Humans, carbon based, a little random. 🙃 Be good to each other, Esmée --- ## Sign up for Medusa Rising World Building Women Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. FIRST MONTH FREE. FREE & LOW COST MEMBERSHIPS. FEMINIST AF. Feminist algorithm needs you! We are our only algorithm! ****Do postmodern magic!** More connection! More sharing! [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### Thank you for supporting this project. We're honored to be in this work with you. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Meditations And Musings On Complaint! | by Jocelyn Crawley URL: https://www.medusarising.org/meditations-and-musings-on-complaint-by-jocelyn-crawley/ Last updated: 2026-02-05T06:33:58.000Z #### Real Talk Medusa Rising likes a good tactic when we see one. In the age of deep atomization, lessons on ****collective action** are needed. Medusa Rising also has a committed point of view that does not track Ahmed’s. Her queer ontology and trans activism do not comport with female liberation, AND transgender and LGB people deserve to live in dignity and in common. Gender and Sex are not interchangeable elements of reality. ****Gender is** the primary system of ****domination** supporting patriarchy. Our TQ and LGB cousins also have rights that protect access to the resources of work and lives free of harassment. Women’s sex based ****rights protect access to resources**, as do all civil rights, and cannot be compromised – including the right to seek support to complain on behalf of our rights. Contradictions arise all the time, often to the detriment of women because ****male-het-cap-patriarchy knows a man when it sees one and it defends him**. [Sara Ahmed, "Complaint as a Queer Method"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbRFH5Q7JtY&ref=medusarising.org) [Sara Ahmed: On Complaint](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j%5FBwPJoPTE&ref=medusarising.org) ## Meditations and Musings on *Complaint!* ## ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/01/Voice-260114_132504_thumb.png) Meditations and Musings on Complaint!, by Jocelyn Crawley, read by Esmee 0:00 /888.476792 1× White supremacy and male supremacy are still alive and kicking for many reasons — one being that complaints about them are systematically and surreptitiously suppressed. In her important book *Complaint!*, feminist and queer theorist Sara Ahmed discusses the role of **institutional suppression** that keeps complaints of sexual harassment and racial discrimination from being articulated and addressed in the higher education sector. Many members of these institutions still cleave to antiquated principles of privileging white males while allowing them to overtly dehumanize and degrade women and people of color in all sectors of society–including the university setting. Individuals committed to anti-racist and anti-sexist practices must devise tenable solutions, so Ahmed presents her best strategy. But first, let’s look at the problem without fear and self-deception. In the introduction to *Complaint!,* Ahmed explains the **paradox of complaining**. Specifically, she states that “To be heard as complaining is not to be heard” (1). To complain of injustice to be heard as *merely* complaining by some listeners, as expressing a preference instead of a need. We who have studied the many workings of oppression, like Ahmed and you and I, note a pattern. My speculation is that individuals who misread complaints as *mere* complaining often wish (consciously or unconsciously) to remain ideologically aligned with systems of domination and power. By dismissing complaints, they maintain their emotional, cognitive, and material investments in oppressive systems, preserve their own privilege, cultivate a false sense of belonging, and generate material wealth. Transforming a valid complaint into 'complaining' effectively **trivializes the dissenter** as a 'whiner,' silencing them under the pretense of avoiding petty quibbling and wasting time. Ahmed’s introduction characterizes **complaints** as a negative message superiors **can turn back on the individual**, labeling them **a source of negativity**. This negativity is then rejected for disturbing the comfort or ease of some larger or more valued group. Complaints, and those who complain, are thus *killjoys*: killing joy for the larger whole. This framing of complaints shuts down conversations that expose the killed joy of the complainant who seeks to have a need met. This tactic values the comfort of ‘everybody’ else over the recognition of the one complaining. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/12/Untitled-design--2-.jpg) In Chapter 1, Ahmed provides the reader with a framework through which to understand how institutions fail individuals who come forward with complaints. The failure takes place in the context of policies and procedures people are to follow when making their complaints. Ahmed found that those who made complaints consulted many policies, including those that related to equality and diversity, bullying and harassment, attendance management, and dignity at work. Complaint arises when good policy is not followed. Thus policies, Ahmed argues, function as evidence of what *institutions are not doing*. The policies and procedures of an institution suggest that infractions will be addressed and resolved in specific ways, but often they are not. Ahmed refers to awareness of this disparity as **minding the gap**. She also points out that when individuals start the process of making a complaint they often encounter the deliberate **user unfriendliness** of the policy documents. **The process itself becomes a barrier to resolution and change**. These institutional failures affect complaints made regarding sexual harassment, transphobia and bullying, disability and discrimination and more. I found myself silently agreeing with individuals who view reporting experiences of inequality as a waste of time. In fact, they can amount to evidence of the institution *wasting the victim’s time*. As Ahmed unfolds her argument, she unveils more institutional failures to address experiences of oppression and subordination. In Chapter 5 she notes that many complaints transpire **behind closed doors**, via private conversations or email communications which other staff members are not cognizant of. In these cases multiple members of the same staff could be subjected to similar forms of harassment yet not be aware of the others. This isolation also works in the institution’s favor. A lack of collective awareness regarding abuse allows the mistreatment to continue and even proliferate. We need to admit that **“breaking the silence” is not enough** to win the war against the patriarchy, white supremacy, and other structures of domination. We also **need to discuss *how* the silence is being broken**, such as whether it is transpiring in some *ad hoc* isolation or in a **public, formal discussion among the department as a community**. When done *this* way, everyone within an office could become aware that a professor had harassed multiple students or colleagues, rather than individual students and colleagues sharing what happened with one or two other people within the department. As *Complaint!* concludes, Ahmed’s solution for the ongoing problems generated by patriarchy becomes plain. In the final chapter, entitled *Complaint Collectives*, she discusses the development of what she broadly defines as **complaint collectives**. In defining them, Ahmed discusses her visceral reaction to the individuals who were present as she shared the anti-domination ideas found in *Complaint!* in various speaking engagements. Specifically, she notes that every time she has this work, she experiences the same feeling of the audience being there *with* her. She senses that the beingness is a form of *encouragement* for her to keep doing and saying the feminist things that challenge power. (Herein lies the feminist strategy of abandoning the hierarchical *power over* model in which one person or group controls the people under them and instead choosing the *power with* model so that energy can be positively, effectively shared and exchanged with others.) A complaint collective is created in **a feeling of shared suffering** that becomes an ideological agreement, and **grows into commitment** to encouraging one another to operate against the patriarchy in material ways. Ahmed suggests a process of **combining stories**of individuals who have suffered violence at the hands of the institution t**o construct institutional wisdom**. The term *institutional wisdom* refers to the extensive knowledge that individuals who participate in these dissident discourses acquire through the process of speaking and listening to one another. It’s consciousness raising. These conversational practices can involve examining the strategies of institutional functioning and how those include techniques deployed to interrupt their oppressive machinations (I call these patriarchal institutions *mechanical man-led machines*). The complaint collective then, is an **anti-patriarchal process** of people engaging in a productive struggle towards freedom from the regimes of domination. Its power, as may be implied by the term, is the *collectivity* of complaints. ![String of figures holding hands behind a sign for open strategy](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/12/Untitled-design--1-.jpg) Complaint collectives are her **tactical support systems** for organizing around and against oppression. The complaint collective, I think, is an ideal form of strategic resistance. Regimes of domination work by emphasizing that subjugated people are individuals who have unique rights and can therefore make their own decisions regarding how to cultivate a meaningful, viable life. They shape our eyes not to see them. These collectives also discourage discourse and rumination on the problem and encourage movement toward solutions. Fortunately, many radical, dissident, and otherwise anarchic thinkers understand that because subjugated people are discriminated against as a class (whether the class is people of color, women, etc.), a **collective struggle** against white and male power is not only smart but imperative. But Ahmed recognizes the **limitations** of complaint collectives as well. Specifically, she concludes sharing one’s struggle with the institutions of the domination system is not always productive. The process, the frames and labels, the potential isolation of a complainant can all work to prevent resolution. In addition to incorporating complaint collectives into our process of strategic resistance, we need to **prepare our opposition** to doctrines of gradualism and compromise which slow down the process of liberation. A group need not be as patient as an individual. Feminists interested in the experiences of historically subjugated groups who speak up will find value in Ahmed’s *Complaint!* I found Ahmed’s clear articulation of the **inefficacy** of telling victims to**just start speaking up**regarding the discrimination and harassment they experience. The system of **domination is designed to** make speaking up and speaking out difficult and to **shut victims up**. I see it as a way that institutions “teach us a lesson” by showing us that the attempt to combat oppression will be met with *both* salient and sneaky, subtle forms of resistance to our needs. Yet, as Ahmed states, “the complaints in the graveyard can come back to haunt institutions. We can come back to haunt institutions. It is a promise” (308). Let the haunting begin. *Complaint!, by Sara Ahmed (Duke University, 2021).* --- **Jocelyn Crawley** is a radical feminist writer who resides in Atlanta. Her passions are strategizing against rape and sexual assault with other dissident people and thinking through how patriarchy operates in critical, methodological ways. Jocelyn believes that radical work can and should take place in communities with respect for the role that subjectivity plays in creating internal dissent, new questions, and the evolution of consciousness. **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://donate.stripe.com/28E9AUg6S5uV2JecHG0Ny02?ref=medusarising.org) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* Free \* Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells any subscriber/contributor information. Some writers use pen names. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Soul-Crafting in Violent Times | by Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/soul-crafting-in-violent-times-by-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:41:15.000Z [Medusa Rising’s Gorgon Possea digital radical materialist feminist project publishing women | building movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-1.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/xb1tjprOCLYtRJjE3vnEkkqtob55AF5P6WS8WdIHrzK6euTldxxk8GxLXCKKUChvSOzFmyf7gAs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj-1)](https://youtube.com/@medusarisingorg?si=ECJu1FCD3jOy9b5n&ref=medusarising.org) JACLYN & ESMEE TALKED THIS THOUGH IN EP 18 In a world where the news is dominated by fascist leaders gaslighting the public, where peaceful protesters are shot and killed, where basic human rights are under siege… stationing a spiritual revolution as the weapon most at hand may seem trite. Something akin to taking a bouquet of flowers to the front lines of a war. However, despite initial appearances, the soul-level work we do within and at home is actually one of our most powerful assets in dismantling patriarchal structures and radically transforming our shared reality. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/02/Medusa-Rising-Essay_thumb.jpg) Matriarchy, Feminism & Self-Love | by Jaclyn Lanae 0:00 /463.168 1× The necessary, even obligatory nature of cultivating a spiritual state rooted in deep self-love cannot be understated. Because above all, ****patriarchy needs disempowered women**. Patriarchy needs women who doubt ourselves; ****women who remain mired self-sacrifice** and martyrdom, perpetually ****putting the needs of others above ourselves**; women who are ****obligated look to men** and patriarchal systems to validate and reward our efforts - and even our existence. It goes without saying, then, that **Matriarchy and feminism - both as social constructs and ideologies - need grounded, empowered women**. And that means women who have done the Soul Craft work of coming to deeply love ourselves; this is **especially true for the women running the show**. There are implicit dangers in the naive assumption that slotting women into leadership roles will inherently create a more balanced social dynamic simply because of the “innate” characteristics attributed to women: creatures wired to nurture, to prioritize the well-being of the group, to birth and create from shared and equally allocated resources. The list of women in positions of authority and/or government who enthusiastically serve and play into the patriarchy is long. bell hooks described these types of women as “Male Identified Women.” Androcratic women. And **it doesn’t take much digging to see their superficiality**. Not in their clothes or makeup or cosmetic surgery, but **in the way they placate men and the system in order to serve their own interests**. Kristi Noem is a prime example. So is Delcy Rodriguez, the interim leader of Venezuela, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Sanae Takaichi, the Prime Minister of Japan. These women are not leading with feminine principles toward a more equitable and just future for all. Matriarchs and feminists know this truth well: while turning positions of leadership over to women would certainly create profound change, it would not categorically be for the better. Of course, Mrs. Noem and the others are not representative of all women in leadership. Not all women are as unhealed as these. However, they clearly exemplify the need for Matriarchal leaders to be more than women or even feminists. They **need to embody the ideology that Matriarchy and feminism are founded upon. Foundations that are very far from the dominance, extreme individualism, and competition of the patriarchal world**. And that requires a spiritual approach, a healing protocol. A personal revolution that redefines value from the characteristics of a spiritual body - a soul. This is Soul Craft. It’s painfully obvious that unhealed and ****self-righteous revolutionaries will drive, defend, and reinforce oppressive and dominant systems** making them dangerous to the matriarchal cause - and that truth has nothing to do with their gender. ****Women that were manipulated by and conditioned into a patriarchal, extractive social system** may still seek to dominate other women even in the safe confines of a matriarchal society. They ****may continue to hoard resources and power as a way of proving their worth or creating a sense of safety**. They may manipulate or abuse - perhaps even unconsciously - as they try to create a “new” order based on an old structure that was never healthy or sustainable to begin with. Intellect can support various perspectives, but rebuilding away from a technocratic order requires more than reason. It requires a fundamental shift in ideology. In order to dismantle patriarchy then, we must break down the habits and mindsets in which it is founded. We must be willing - even eager - to disregard money and power as the gold standard of value (pun intended). We must doggedly seek and continue to reorient toward a more spiritual perspective that gathers us around a revolutionary world view. One that espouses generosity, care, support, compassion, justice, and equality as the goal posts; the markers of great leadership, patriotism, and pillars of the society we are fiercely fighting to build. **Assimilating this massive and foundational shift requires women in leadership who don’t need approval from men or patriarchal systems to validate, empower, or provide safety**. In short, we need women who love themselves. Political analysis can help reshape the world, but to maintain that new shape, we also need to become more fully human, more connected to ourselves and each other. Made somewhat jejune by social media influencers, spiritual healers, and coaches the world over - myself included - the deeper implications of prioritizing self love are actually more relevant than ever. Crafting ourselves into beings that have cultivated a profound self love is, arguably, the most transformative soul craft work in which we can engage. **It makes us more capable of care, generosity, justice, and egalitarianism**. Empty people will perpetually and ravenously consume and hoard. Humans - and women in particular - who operate from a place of full-to-overflowing love of self no longer need external validation. This liberates us from placating special-interests or “powerful” individuals, and seats our leaders in the service of leadership for the good of the collective. **Soul-crafted self-love insulates us from the corruptive and corrosive forces** of greed and power because we’ve entirely disregarded those resources as valuable. This makes us capable of creating and sustaining systems that also disregard greed, and power-over. Crafting a matriarchal community and world orders that are egalitarian, supportive, and appreciative of the value of its people requires healed (or at least aware, healing women) to lead. The movement needs women to love ourselves in order to be able to see ourselves as powerful - without the testament of a title or station or superiority to evidence that truth. The movement needs women who know their worth - without the substantiation of money or power over others. Without competing with other women or trashing them in traumatized repetitions of patriarchal structures. The movement needs women who don’t need dominant, patriarchal structures to corroborate their authority or worth. To build a humane world as our ancestors did, we need new internal, personal habits and belief systems as much as new policies and communal practices. **We need to become (more) healed people to create a healing world**. In this Soul Craft project, Medusa Rising and I hope **to unveil and retool these habits, thought patterns, and belief systems, together**. Join us, would you? --- **Jaclyn Lanae** is a coach, and author, and a seeker who has found effective tools for bringing women into their own alignment with Source and into a love of self and fosters authentic living and relationship, and standing in power. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) ### Thank you for supporting Medusa Rising. Your solidarity means the world to us, cousins. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells that list. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### World-Building? Isn’t That a Sci-Fi Thing? URL: https://www.medusarising.org/world-building-isnt-that-a-sci-fi-thing/ Last updated: 2026-02-02T06:30:37.000Z Coming soon | we're teaching girls they can't relax ****Beatrix Kondo**, of Brazil, shares a series deepdive into the many layers of a scandal over ****self-care, girlhood toys, servitude socialization**. If you haven't upgraded, now is the time. All memberships come with a ****one-month trial**. [Join Today ](#/portal/account/plans) Yes. Speculative fiction is where we work out im/possible futures. And why are there so many female and feminist speculative fiction writers? Why was speculative fiction created by a woman? Because the women’s liberation movement is a speculative undertaking. The tagline of Medusa Rising is ‘world building women'. I chose it because very broadly speaking **WIERD nation feminists stopped ambitiously world-building** a long time ago: some of us focused on current expressions of patriarchy (domination culture & systems, He/Him/His), some of us acquiesced to patriarchy’ seductions (sex work is work), some of us turned on each other, some of us moved out to womyn’s lands and never come back, and some of us gave up out of need or exhaustion. The **backlash has been everything, everywhere**, all at once for a long time. The work of the last 50 years claimed the lives of many feminists of all kinds. The sheer unrelenting onslaught of His loathing and envy broke more than one of us. We owe each other, in all our factions, grace and gratitude just for making it this far. We need to get over ourselves and get back to world-building. Medusa Rising offers a method for this we call ****Strategic Intersectionality**. We make this distinction because the OG intersectionality **was* a **powerful* **method* that became a compliant ideology over the last 40 years. We add 'strategic' to underscore the method – SI is a VERB. The task I've set myself for 2026 is to noodle through a few examples of how SI might work to help the women's liberation movement get on with the liberation. #LFG **This fracked and factional period has been a boon in very important ways**: we have stronger analyses of many issues related to race, class, and sexuality than we did before. We have brought more specific expressions of patriarchy into the mainstream consciousness: like police violence and over-policing, disparities in general and maternal health, more effective approaches to climate and ecological damage, more and less revolutionary ways of inhabiting one’s privilege, clarifying the legacies of empirialism, the rampant abuses of deregulated global corporatism, and so on. We have a much more complete view of **The Problem. The Emergency. Him. Patriarchy is the Polycrisis**. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Arrest Them All | Sunny Apocalypse & Esmee URL: https://www.medusarising.org/updated-links-arrest-them-all-sunny-apocalypse-esmee/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:41:48.000Z before WE dive in -- talk back to Medusa FINAL DAY 😀 MEMBER POLL [Click Me to the Poll ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org) [Show Notes - Epstein Trafficking - Sunny ApocalypseHow the Epstein Class Fails to the Top – https://youtu.be/dFgIRpGnUJA?si=VYroTlCnN6028\_5C About abusers & rapists Why Does He Do That https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656 Understand Rapists https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Sexual-Violence-Convicted-Persp…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/kix-favicon-2023q4.ico)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/AHkbwyILwgLnL-WMjGaOCe0d-1qeVN5kl3pDx2BJjGQF-dNj9h2ikVBMXDUj4pulsakt8fJRDOKqOqXjH8oqo-3-x6_oBWNLooauQXdN5XEjwwtqUfFqv4o-w1200-h630-p)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VByvklaL3Tc0zD5MtHgViyjj%5F%5FMDZZnZKHBp9PecIYE/edit?usp=sharing&ref=medusarising.org) --- **Sunny Apocalypse** is a civic educator, artist, and cultural commentator shaped by lived experience. Sunny has worked as a local civic leader, served on a Democratic 2024 campaign, and had a pretty decent career inside corporate systems for 25 years where power is concentrated and employees are gaslit. Those worlds taught her how institutions really function—and how easily people are trained to accept what feels wrong. Today, Sunny blends grassroots organizing, campaign experience, art, and adult education to make American politics understandable and human-scale. Her work uses plain language, retro social studies visuals, and practical actions to help people stay engaged. Sunny believes democracy survives through clarity, community, and care for one another. Started Feb 2025 Website [https://sunnyapocalypse.com/](https://sunnyapocalypse.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Substack [https://sunnyapocalypse.substack.com](https://sunnyapocalypse.substack.com/) X [https://x.com/bmoreviachicago](https://x.com/bmoreviachicago?ref=medusarising.org) Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/teedublavee.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/teedublavee.bsky.social?ref=medusarising.org) Redbubble [https://www.redbubble.com/people/twadlington/shop](https://www.redbubble.com/people/twadlington/shop?ref=medusarising.org) --- Groove with The Gorgon Posse Playlist Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy ### Thank you for supporting Medusa Rising. Your solidarity means the world to us, cousins. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells that list. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### The Manic Pixie Dream Gay Girl: How Robin's Sexuality Served Will's Coming-Out Arc, Then Got Discarded | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-manic-pixie-dream-gay-girl-how-robins-sexuality-served-wills-coming-out-arc-then-got-discarded-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:41:04.000Z [To Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/upside-down-feminism-how-stranger-things-systematically-destroyed-its-women-by-beatrix-kondo/) Robin Buckley came out in Season 3 to help Steve Harrington process rejection. The bathroom confession remains one of the show's most beloved scenes—Maya Hawke delivered vulnerability and terror in equal measure, capturing what it feels like to risk everything by naming yourself to someone who might destroy you for it. Except the scene itself relies on lazy, harmful tropes. Robin comes out because the Russian truth serum forces her to confess, which is just forced outing repackaged as a plot device. Forced outing isn't funny, isn't cute, and reducing a lesbian woman's coming out to chemical compulsion is lazy, prejudiced, and misogynistic as hell. The show took one of the most vulnerable moments in a lesbian woman’s life and made it involuntary, stripping Robin of agency in the very scene meant to establish her identity. After all, she’s coming out to the show’s foxy-rich-guy-athlete, a character who’s usually a live threat to teen lesbian girls in fiction and real life. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/01/Robin-in-Fight-Mode--2-.jpg) Robin in Fight Mode Beyond that symbolic violence, Robin's desire never belonged to her, serving instead as Steve's character development, teaching him that not every girl exists for his romantic consumption. Her coming out facilitated his growth, making her the Manic Pixie Dream Gay Girl, existing through all of season three to make a straight man more emotionally literate. Season 5 repeated the pattern with even less subtlety. Robin's relationship with Vickie existed primarily so Will Byers could witness homosexual happiness and find courage to come out himself. Once Will came out, [Robin and Vickie apparently broke up off-screen](https://www.instagram.com/p/DTEPudGDd5M/?ref=medusarising.org), and Vickie vanished from the epilogue entirely. The Duffers' response? ["What percentage of couples stay together after college? Extremely low."](https://www.cinemablend.com/streaming-news/are-stranger-things-robin-and-vickie-still-together-duffers-weigh-my-thoughts?ref=medusarising.org) A shrug, a footnote, a statistic deployed to justify why the show's only explicit lesbian relationship got discarded the moment it finished serving the male narratives. Meanwhile, Will gets a full coming-out arc, magical superpowers tied to his homosexuality, emotional validation from every character, and an epilogue scene flirting with a guy at a bar showing romantic possibility. Robin is one of *Stranger Thing’*s leaders, but her desire is only a plot device to facilitate men's growth. Will's desire: transformative, heroic, rewarded with powers and a future. ## **The Bathroom Scene That Wasn't Hers** Season 3, Episode 7\. Robin and Steve are trapped in a bathroom, convinced they're about to die from a Russian truth serum. Steve confesses he likes Robin, and she laughs—not cruel, just desperate—and tells him she didn't like Steve staring at Tammy Thompson in class because she had a crush on her too. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/01/Bathroom-1.jpg) Bathroom of Ahoy Ice Cream, Robin and Steve meet for real The scene works because Maya Hawke makes it work, her delivery carrying the weight of every queer girl who's had to come out defensively, explaining why she can't give a boy what he wants while terrified he'll hate her for it. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “TO ORGASM WITHOUT TERROR” | Feminism or Death by Francoise d’Eaubonne URL: https://www.medusarising.org/to-orgasm-without-terror-feminism-or-death-by-francoise-deaubonne/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T16:12:36.000Z To set the table for our Reading Circle on Feb 1, I'm sharing this review edited for this reprint. Find the entire article at [THE RADICAL NOTION, issue 7, p 54+](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-seven-pdf?ref=medusarising.org). At the time, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health was in the works, so there's a focus on matters of abortion that can seem untimely now but never is. --- In 1974 the founder of *Mouvement de Libération des Femmes* and of the feminist ecology movement Feminist Front, Françoise d’Eaubonne published a book that asks the question of our time: feminism or death? … it is urgent to transfer power, **then, as quickly as pos-* **sible, to destroy power*. The transfer must be made from phallocratic man, responsible for this sexist civilization, to women, awakened to the disasters. *—Françoise d’Eaubonne*, [Feminism or Death?](https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2829-feminism-or-death??ref=medusarising.org) The entire heart of radical feminism is here. It has the force of Dworkin, the historical acumen of Irigaray, the theoretical sophistication of Millett, the ambition of Daly, the anarchist daring of Goldman, the commitment of Davis—all wrapped up in the staggered rhythm of a too-faithful translation from the French. Thrutopia? TrAd? Solving the poly crisis? The conversation in our upcoming Reading Circle will consider these contemporary movements that have their roots all right here. D’Eaubonne has three central desires for the world: • women’s sexual/social autonomy and pleasure through the end of compulsory femininity, or ‘femitude’; • women’s control over population size via contraception and abortion as practiced in cultures that recognized femininity as a humanity; • the replacement of men’s power/domination of the earth for profit with a women’s ‘power of non-power,’ or non-dominating principles of social and economic organization. Yes, please, let’s go! Fuck’s sake, we have been saying this for long enough and men (‘of all genders’) keep riding roughshod over women and the earth—their legally protected privileges making sure it hasn’t cost them enough yet, and by the time it does most of us will be dead or wishing we were. Orgasm and abortion are central to d’Eaubonne’s ecofemi- nism. Placing these elements of bodily experience at the core keeps the focus on women’s replete humanity and historically proven wisdom regarding rates of reproduction, two principles absent from communist/Marxist goals for revolution and the wider ecological conservancy movements of d’Eaubonne’s day … all the way to this one. Impeding both orgasm and abortion (women’s autonomy) is the phallocratic institution of ‘femitude.’ Distinct from ‘femininity,’ femitude is that collection of stereotypes and social practices that diminish women’s be-ing to render us servile, right down to how we experience our sexuality. Femitude gives us a word for ‘woman’ in man’s/the patriarchal imaginary that leaves ‘femininity’ and ‘the feminine’ available for positive metaphysical and phenomenological meanings. D’Eaubonne’s touchstones are Kate Millett and Simone de Beauvoir, founding theorists on this collection of practices. (In fact, if you read these three, you are well grounded as a radical feminist.) Femininity, in d’Eaubonne’s lexicon, is the female element of sexual difference woven with women’s various temperaments and elaborated historically in the periods when women have asserted their own wills. Femininity isn’t exactly ‘pre-discursive’ or outside politics, but it is not a wholesale construct of ‘masculitude’s’ psycho-sexual projections either. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Soulcraft of Embodiment w/ Jaclyn Lanae - audio URL: https://www.medusarising.org/on-the-soulcraft-of-embodiment-w-jaclyn-lanae-audio/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T16:14:56.000Z Author and coach, Jaclyn Lanae has a lot to say about how to take our lives for tools that we can use to live more completely aligned in ourselves, inhabit our bodies, and feel the surges of our Arche-Mamma through Life. Love, Self, Sex, Boundaries, Acceptance, Pleasure, Rest, Adventure, Competence, Experiment – to all these elements of our lives she offers support and clarity. You may rememeber from our new year update that Jaclyn is joining Medusa Rising to share her women's wisdom in our RadMatFem context. We are totes psyched (very pleased) to stand in this collaboration. There will be essays, there will be chats, there will be becoming into the world we yearn for. *This audio pod is free to all, please share widely!* Find her at: Substack: https://substack.com/@jaclynlanae? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaclyn\_lanae YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RKy7gGFeRQz8\_TOeaJKmg Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaclyn.lanae.kenni Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jaclynlanae.bsky.social Before WE dive in -- talk back to Medusa Do take this member's poll. The Gorgons want to shape Year 2 with your needs well centered. Responses so far = Inspiring! Poll closes 31 Jan 26. [Click Me to the Poll ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org) Reading Circle -- Feb 1 Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, auto-invited. Corras & Yacumamas, tickets available. Public Visitors, become a member to join in the scheming 😁 [Details ](https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-lives/) ### Thank you for supporting Medusa Rising. Your solidarity means the world to us, cousins. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells that list. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Upside Down Feminism - How Stranger Things Systematically Destroyed Its Women | by Beatrix Kondo URL: https://www.medusarising.org/upside-down-feminism-how-stranger-things-systematically-destroyed-its-women-by-beatrix-kondo/ Last updated: 2026-01-22T13:39:47.000Z ## Sign up for Medusa Rising World Building Women Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. FIRST MONTH FREE. FREE & LOW COST MEMBERSHIPS. FEMINIST AF. *Stranger Things* built itself on the bodies of disposable girls. For five seasons, [the Duffer Brothers](https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-interviews-regrets-matt-duffer/?ref=medusarising.org) established a pattern: women exist to be spent. The equation contains three parts: Their power makes them expendable, their suffering advances the plot, and their erasure allows the story to "have a proper closure." This is the Sacrificial Lamb Economy of old in a pop culture context. Women are currency whose deaths create stakes for men and men’s institutions. Their exceptionality demands they be sacrificed for the community, or plot, to go on as planned. Their disappearance buys resolution, and the two characters who best exemplify this economy are Barb Holland and Eleven—one killed in episode three of the very first season, the other erased in the finale after carrying the entire series on her telekinetic shoulders. ### Barb: Fat Girl 1, Expendable Barb Holland died screaming Nancy's name while her best friend was upstairs having sex with Steve Harrington. That's her entire narrative function: Fat Girl 1, killed in episode three, mourned enough to give Nancy guilt but forgotten fast enough to keep the plot moving. [Barbara Holland appears—alive—in three episodes](https://share.google/jbaGLx05AkgtKNw7V?ref=medusarising.org). She's Nancy's best friend, the voice of reason, the designated Uncool Friend. She's fat, she wears glasses, she's visibly uncomfortable at a party full of popular kids. In the language of 1980s teen horror, she's already dead. Her role as voice of reason is most explicit in episode one, at Steve's party. While Nancy drinks and flirts, Barb sits alone by the pool, visibly uncomfortable, questioning whether Nancy should even be there. She notices Nancy acting different, trying to impress Steve, becoming someone she's not. "This isn't you," she says—or might as well say, because everything about her presence screams it. She's the part of Nancy that's still the "good girl," the conscience Nancy needs to silence to become who she thinks she wants to be. She’s not only Nancy’s external source of guilt, their previous closeness has Barb representing Nancy’s fierce, not yet compliant inner self – the part women partition in order to fit in. Part of Nancy’s guilt is our sense of loss, especially as smart women come to understand how we (may have) betrayed ourselves unawares. But the Duffer Brothers don’t understand the symbols they’re working with. So the show kills her. Right after Nancy chooses Steve over Barb's warnings, right after Nancy ignores her friend's discomfort to pursue popularity and sex, Barb dies by the same pool. It's not subtle. When Nancy picks the boy, the friend dies — her wholeness, too. The voice of reason gets dragged to the Upside Down, and Nancy gets to move forward unburdened by guilt—at least until season two needs a plot device. In Carol J. Clover's [analysis of 1980s slasher films](https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article/doi/10.2307/2928507/82266/Her-Body-Himself-Gender-in-the-Slasher-Film?ref=medusarising.org), the "Final Girl" survives through sexual purity and resourcefulness. Barb has the purity—she's the sensible virgin warning Nancy away from danger. But she's also fat and uncool, which in the Duffers' calculus makes her more expendable than Nancy, who's having sex but looks the part of a proper horror heroine. Never mind that Sidney Prescott in *Scream* (1996) already dismantled the virgin Final Girl trope by surviving despite having sex. The Duffers weren't interested in subverting horror conventions. They were recycling them, fat girl and all. The Duffers play this straight. Barb sits alone by Steve's pool while Nancy loses her virginity upstairs. The Demogorgon drags her into the Upside Down where she dies screaming for Nancy, who doesn't hear her. Barb's death proves the Demogorgon kills, gives Nancy guilt, becomes the "missing girl" poster that reminds audiences the stakes are real. Then she's forgotten. [Demogorgon - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia-6.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/960px-Demogorgon_in_de_Grot_van_de_Eeuwigheid._NL-HlmNHA_1477_53008515_M.JPG)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogorgon?ref=medusarising.org) The fan reaction became its own phenomenon. #JusticeForBarb trended. The collective mourning for a three-episode character revealed what the Duffers missed: audiences (especially the women in them) recognized what her death represented. They saw the fat girl killed first. They saw the uncool friend discarded. They called it out. GenX women and younger feminists know this story cycle. The Duffers brought her back for one scene in Season 2\. Nancy and Hopper find her corpse, and give her parents closure. Justice for Barb meant confirming she died badly. Barb's death established that *Stranger Things* would spend women to advance the plot, that the Duffers see certain female characters as inherently disposable. The series never interrogates why she had to die, why her death mattered less, why being fat and uncool made her the designated sacrifice. ### Eleven: The Girl Who Saved the World (And Got Erased For It) If Barb's death proved women could be sacrificed for narrative convenience, Eleven's ending proved even the most powerful woman couldn't escape that fate. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Contra-ICE URL: https://www.medusarising.org/contra-ice/ Last updated: 2026-01-20T16:10:59.000Z Before WE dive in -- talk back to Medusa Do take this member's poll. The Gorgons want to shape Year 2 with your needs well centered. Responses so far = Inspiring! Poll closes 31 Jan 26. [Click Me to the Poll ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2026/01/Contra-ICE-by-Esmee_thumb.png) Contra ICE by Esmee 0:00 /1266.070875 1× A reader asked for some guidance on practical intervention when she answered the poll in our Jan 13 post. It was an excellent request. In addition to this quick research (2 hour), we have asked the “hivemind” for suggestions. We’ll report back when we have some!! If you know of resources, organizers, trainings, that you can share publically, drop them in the comments! If you know of resources, chats, connections that you cannot share publically but want to share, email us. We can build a private database. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2026/01/17689112790413790502338908132986.jpg)](https://www.resistancesentinel.com/p/a-new-kind-of-civil-war-has-already?ref=medusarising.org) The Resistance Sentinel has it correct. We're already in it. We need to get in it. Read this 👆 Then this 👇 Some resources for dealing with the regime’s repression troops: ICEshtapo, MAGApo? Whatever. Goons. **How Many To Expect**Civilians are mostly encountering FOTs, patrol squads, they tend to have 5-10 men per team, and up to 30 for larger coordinations. SRTs are ICE’s SWAT teams and tend to have 12-20 men, including entry teams, snipers, and medics. These usually focus on “high risk” targets in their homes. ## **Cautions** The regime has already labeled us “domestic terrorists.” Even this post (among others) can get me arrested. Fuck them. These guys are their creatures so we cannot presume the (relative) degree of safety we may have (I’m looking at us, white folks) once assumed. The PATRIOT Act (that old chestnut) gave that label some interesting meanings. These agents are not trained in law enforcement. They are ideology enforcement. They are disappearing people as once was done in El Salvador in the 1980s, for example, and their civil war lasted 12 years (thanks CIA). This is an old technique, and some old methods will work to counter it. Remember this? Times have changed. As we have witnessed, observers, family, protestors, allies cannot expect the (relative) decorum of police trained for such events. De-escalation is not their jam. As we have witnessed they are harming, killing, and arresting first and asking questions later. They are NOT “unhinged.” (Medusa's snakes! I hate the tabloidization of YouTube.) They are disordered, poorly trained, bullies on the loose, but they are not “out of control.” They are being deliberate. They are OK with this. Like all abusers. **Unarrest the disappeared** > unarresting political dissappearance victims will be a crucial component of saving ourselves from the thousand year reich > > — Gallifreyan Jedi ([@jediofgallifrey.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:c4chzexzsv34dow6cu65roiz?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org)) [March 10, 2025 at 8:58 AM](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:c4chzexzsv34dow6cu65roiz/post/3ljzm52ccqk2i?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) **Read This Thread** > RESISTERS: Follow this thread for the full manual on de-arresting your friends and neighbors. Filming only needs to be done by a couple people. Make assigned jobs. Practice. > > [\[image or embed\]](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:roy7yxb5g5w2uterjevnsnjw/post/3mcf4v7heqs2v?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) > > — Lilith Goddess of Rebellion ([@elo-cin.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:roy7yxb5g5w2uterjevnsnjw?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org)) [January 14, 2026 at 8:01 AM](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:roy7yxb5g5w2uterjevnsnjw/post/3mcf4v7heqs2v?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) Good protest, good anti-oppression troop actions are PRACTICED 👆 ahead of time so that everyone is as able as possible to stay cool in chaotic situations. Concerned neighbors can form “neighborhood watch” teams of folks prepared and practiced for unarresting those targeted for kidnapping. As @Salty\_old\_sailor put it, “Tactical protest involves roles, tasks, training and practice.” This is how anti-war and civil rights activists did it. This is how, eventually, people who fight for their liberty always do it. Be realistic about your skill and temperament and your level of risk tolerance in the context of your health and larger life. Don’t promise more than you can really give or do. Develop teams that really play to each member’s strengths. And PRACTICE. The day when we need to risk it all may come soon. So that assessment is about ICE encounters, but also also about the future of the Republic. Women, remember, these men hate us to begin with. “Fucking bitch” didn’t come out because that murderer was trying to calm down — he was calm. Follow methods for confrontation with men that you already know. Maybe let the men with you do most of the face-to-face confrontation. (I know, but let's be real.) Numbers are safety for most of us, but not all. Even crowds of 100 that are not organized and trained put people in harm's way and result in arrest and injury: [Crowd confronts immigration agents door-knocking in south MinneapolisICE agents detained three people, including two citizen observers, and deployed chemical irritants at a crowd of over 100 observers around E. 34th Street and Park Avenue in Minneapolis.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-sahan-favicon-nobg.png)Sahan JournalNicolas Scibelli![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/2026-01-13_Immigrations-Raid-7.jpg)](https://sahanjournal.com/public-safety/minneapolis-ice-confront-observers-door-knocking-powderhorn/?ref=medusarising.org) They’re tracking us online, on the street, by our license plates (remember the woman tracked by [FLOCK cameras](https://banishbigbrother.com/flock-camera-map/?ref=medusarising.org) from Texas to Colorado who was accused of having an abortion by Texas police? It was her [ex who has taken her to court](https://reproductiverights.org/news/zurawski-v-texas-plaintiffs-stories-remarks/?ref=medusarising.org)). Revenge porn. Revenge arrests. We don't need all of the men. ## Pre-Cautions Digital: [How to Protest Safely in the Age of SurveillanceLaw enforcement has more tools than ever to track your movements and access your communications. Here’s how to protect your privacy if you plan to protest.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-16.ico)WIREDAndy Greenberg![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/sec-protest-safety-2241649798.jpg)](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-protest-safely-surveillance-digital-privacy/?ref=medusarising.org) ***Have an analog plan, too***: how to get there, how to get home, phone number in sharpie on your arm for a loved one or attorney: 1. **Choose the Right Number**: Select a trusted contact (friend, family, lawyer) or a legal support hotline (like the [National Lawyers Guild](https://www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/?ref=medusarising.org)). 2. **Secure It (Optional)**: Apply a layer of hairspray or a liquid bandage over the number to prevent smudging from sweat or water. 3. **Consider Alternatives**: If you prefer not to write on your skin, write the number on a piece of paper and keep it in a secure, hidden spot like your bra or inside a pocket, or even on the inside of your sock. **Other Safety Tips** - **Disable Biometrics**: Set your phone to require a PIN, not fingerprint or face ID, as officers might compel you to unlock it. - **Have a Plan: Work with your emergency contact beforehand on what they should do if you're arrested.** **Training Groups Exist**Some will be local to you, or regional depending. Search and find. Turns out there's a directory: [Find a Service Organization Near YouFind legal providers, social workers, community organizers and others by zip code for support and access to information and resources.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Informed Immigrant![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/IIRD-OG-OrgSearch.png)](https://www.informedimmigrant.com/help/?ref=medusarising.org) You will not be alone. The future of you community will thank you. **In Red States Too** [Anti-ICE Resistance Sprang Up Across Red States in 2025In Texas, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and beyond, grassroots resistance to ICE is growing.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon.png)Truthoutbritney![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/GettyImages-2246351093.jpg)](https://truthout.org/articles/anti-ice-resistance-sprang-up-across-red-states-in-2025/?ref=medusarising.org) There are groups working to support immigrants and othered-people on several levels of need. Taking up collections for and distributing food, etc. They are all over the country. Join them. Red States towns are saying no, and backing it up. Y'all may not have to look too far afield. 👇 Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) might have some guidance for where to hook up and do good. Their rapid response toolkit is useful. [https://www.cliniclegal.org/toolkits/rapid-response-toolkit](https://www.cliniclegal.org/toolkits/rapid-response-toolkit?ref=medusarising.org) (PDF) Take care. Take smart risks. Be good to each other. **Look to the Longer Horizon** [198 Methods of Nonviolent Action by Gene SharpThe Commons is an online library for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, organising, advocacy and justice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32-3.png)The Commonsholly hammond![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/GeneSharpMethodsNVA.jpg)](https://commonslibrary.org/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/?ref=medusarising.org) --- Esmée is the founder/editor of Medusa Rising. Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A woman-friendly resistance group. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. We stand together, or we fall alone. [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. ****First month always free**. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) ### Thank you for supporting Medusa Rising. Your solidarity means the world to us, cousins. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells that list. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### On the Soul-Craft of Embodiment w/ Jaclyn Lanae URL: https://www.medusarising.org/on-the-soul-craft-of-embodiment-w-jaclyn-lanae/ Last updated: 2026-01-16T15:46:22.000Z ## Sign up for Medusa Rising World Building Women Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. FIRST MONTH FREE. FREE & LOW COST MEMBERSHIPS. FEMINIST AF. Author and coach, Jaclyn Lanae has a lot to say about how to take our lives for tools that we can use to live more completely aligned in ourselves, inhabit our bodies, and feel the surges of our Arche-Mamma through Life. Love, Self, Sex, Boundaries, Acceptance, Pleasure, Rest, Adventure, Competence, Experiment – to all these elements of our lives she offers support and clarity. You may rememeber from our new year update that Jaclyn is joining Medusa Rising to share her women's wisdom in our RadMatFem context. We are totes psyched (very pleased) to stand in this collaboration. There will be essays, there will be chats, there will be becoming into the world we yearn for. *The free/public voice podcast will drop next week on Podbean and everywhere.* Find her at: Substack: https://substack.com/@jaclynlanae? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaclyn\_lanae YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RKy7gGFeRQz8\_TOeaJKmg Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaclyn.lanae.kenni Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jaclynlanae.bsky.social Before WE dive in -- talk back to Medusa Do take this member's poll. The Gorgons want to shape Year 2 with your needs well centered. Responses so far = Inspiring! Poll closes 31 Jan 26. [Click Me to the Poll ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Wee Gift URL: https://www.medusarising.org/a-wee-gift/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T21:24:57.000Z Because we need poetry, because we can be poetry _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Invisible Leashes | by Miss M. URL: https://www.medusarising.org/invisible-leashes-by-miss-m/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T06:30:56.000Z ### It was late afternoon, and I felt overwhelmed with my upcoming exams and the guests at home. I had already failed two subjects that year, so I absolutely had to ace the next one. I decided to study at the library until 6 pm every day instead of 3 pm. Every evening at six, I'd catch a cab home—as it was winter, and transportation was scarce. That was, until I depleted all my funds on cabs in ten days. That day, I had no choice but to take the tram. I paled when I saw the crowd: over a hundred men, and only one or two women. But I reassured myself, hoping nothing would happen. I was on my phone when I felt something touch my hip. At first, I told myself it was nothing. But it wasn’t. The friction was rhythmic. It wasn’t a person passing by, but rather… something touching me. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### OK It's 2026, So Now What?! URL: https://www.medusarising.org/ok-so-its-2026-what-now/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:40:09.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/12/It-s-2026--Now-What__thumb.jpg) Its 2026, Now What | by Esmee 0:00 /963.755828 1× #### 🙋‍♀️✨🙋‍♀️ Hello Cousins! We hope the darkest weeks in the North, and brightest weeks in the South have given you the reflection or shown you the intention you need to bring into this wild (maybe beautiful, maybe terrifying) new year. If you are ****in the US** and able to, please get into a local organizing group -- Indivisible, 50501, Veterans Against Fascism are all good options and there are more -- and do whatever you can to take our Republic back and begin to build it new. It's #AllAgainstFash. Last year, I started on this ambition with a pot of my savings and a few brave women. This year, we're still running on savings and have gathered a few more brave women. The deal I make with those women is this: we all get paid when we make a profit. We are not yet getting paid, but we are closer! Hence the bravery! We already have several essays on feminist life in India & Western Asia, a series on sexism of and surround girl’s toys from a Brazilian writer, poetry about beauty and becoming, and both the Cixous Re-Framing and a series from Esmee about finding strategic intersection with abolitionist feminism (fingers crossed!). #### 🐍 New Gorgons 🐍 Medusa Rising works like a collective, sometimes of many, sometimes of one who is many ;-) A few of us stepped back in 2025 to focus on life needs and other massive projects (PhDs, founding conferences), and then two new women stepped forward to dance. One from a Discord server, and the other from FiLiA 2025. ****Harpy** (her handle with us) is based in the US Northwest and comes to us through the [****Binding Chaos movement**](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/binding-chaos/?ref=medusarising.org). Harpy's background is in graphics and game design, systems thinking, and cognitive differences, so she thinks about all the dimensions of meaning and perception. ****Jaclyn Lanae –** [****writer, coach, soul guide**](https://www.authorjaclynlanae.com/?ref=medusarising.org) **–** will be guest posting on soulcraft and inviting **live chats** and text-based ****feminist conversations about stepping up** into our power, taking our lives lifts and turns as tools for aligning our energy with our big moxified Arche-Mama! But also for falling love with ourselves, to having the peace and ease in our own skins to very deliberately choose for ourselves. ****Kimble** (also a handle) brings a background in philosophy, psychology, and social work, specifically in rape crisis. She's a UK based front line feminist, musician, artist, and polyglot! She's got ideas for all kinds of podcasts and group events, book reviews to share, and vast webs of dream and making in her. ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ****A'Ja and Erin** are both deep in their studies, but they will be posting again! W00t! Erin returns with her RadMatFeminism 101 series, and A'Ja returns with a series designed to help the Left See We're Right About Trans Issues now that they're learning how very dangerous overplaying a political hand can be. (Sheeeeezus!) You can peep their [bios at Meet Us](https://www.medusarising.org/about/). ## Sign up for Medusa Rising World Building Women Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. FIRST MONTH FREE. FREE & LOW COST MEMBERSHIPS. FEMINIST AF. #### 🧙 Let's Talk About You 🧙 a poll Medusa Rising is cooking along, and we want to hear from you this year. Whether you visit the Mothership website or the Outpost on Substack or you read every single post with the greatest attention, we want to know what you're thinking about this project and what you want from it and for it. How do you want to connect with us? How can Medusa Rising support your feminism and your growth in it? What kinds of content and how much do you want? Let's talk!! [****This poll will close for responses on January 31st**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=publish-editor&ref=medusarising.org). We'll publish a summary and report for you in February and then get to the doing of it! #### New Membership Rates &/ Perks for All Here's the change.The $5, $8, and $12 tiers are collapsed together and include everything except for the annual anthology. Free and $2 members now get ticketed access to the Reading Circle and Live Events (we'll be having some :). AND, if you want to get a gift subscription for a friend, we have a system for that, too. ✨ ****The Corra Rate** is free when you sign-up and delivers TRN Remixes, the Gorgon Posse podcasts, Resources posts, & Post previews. Tickets for Reading Circles and Live Events for $6. [****The Yacumama Rate**](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/#/portal) **of $2/20 USD** helps with overhead and the Corra content, Full posts, & Post Audio. Tickets for Reading Circles and Live Events for $6. [****The Pythia Rate**](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/#/portal) **of $8/80 USD** invests in the ground-laying for next phases and delivers the Yacumama content, plus Comments, Reading Circle and Live Event invitations, & the Gorgon Posse Podcast & Videos (not usually sync'd). [****The Tiamat Rate**](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/#/portal) **of $20/200** USD secures this project's future, delivers all Pythia content and goodies, & Includes the Annual Anthology. As we have an active audience at the Outpost on Substack, we're inviting them to the live events as the same membership levels. #### 📚 Reading Circle Meets at Imbolc 📚 1 Feb - Time to Be Determined We have two texts this time, neither very demanding, and both confronting our sins against Mother Gaia by imagining ways forward, the deep, really deep changes we need to make. It changes our feminism, our ambition, our urgency to have ****the window closing on the 12,000 years in which we became farmers, city builders, astronauts**. We think a lot about how this pressure shapes 'utopic' projects. [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9781856232258/?ref=medusarising.org) is available or can be ordered wherever you buy books. It's short, it's practical. Download the ECOVILLAGE DESIGN EDUCATION CIRRICULUM (just below here 👇👇👇). The Curriculum explains the 4-D Framework (Society, Worldview, Economy, Ecology) for sustainable/Regenerative design and systems development. This one is longer, but it's easy to skim and dive as you need to. ([Gaia Education site](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/resources?ref=medusarising.org)) We'll discuss these two texts in comparison, explore questions, consider any deficits and alternatives, etc. Remember, the **Reading Circle is not a class*. Esmée is not teaching, only facilitating and contributing to a conversation. Read with your particular needs, concerns, dreams as your guide and bring your insights with you! **Literally a Reading Circle for World Building. W00t!** [Copy of EDE-Curriculum-EnglishDownload this PDF for the Febuary Reading CircleCopy of EDE-Curriculum-English.pdf3 MBdownload-circle](https://www.medusarising.org/content/files/2025/12/Copy-of-EDE-Curriculum-English.pdf "Download") #### 💡 Advise the Editors | Medusa Rising Anthology Arrives Later This Year The inaugural anthology arrives this Autumn! Somewhere between Samhain and Yule. We plan for it to include the most read/viewed/loved of our posts and series, transcripts of our most watched/listened podcasts, and selected artworks. To advise us on the pieces you most want to see, [****take the poll**](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd1zItmh-acwXQfE%5FixzBiP89BybGIBrxunlYog59Ml5sBSRw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org). Think back over 2025 for pieces you want to hold in your hands and put into other hands. Remember the rich color, texture, and bold attitudes of [THE RADICAL NOTION](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) magazine? Like that, but a book, **for you*. (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧ Free for Tiamat tier members, $20 USD + shipping for everyone else. Orders open at Midsummer and close at Lughnasa. We'll check in again in June about 2025 content you want included. \[****Real Talk**: We will need enough orders to make this project break-even, otherwise, we'll wait a year.\] ***✨ Stay rad, stay witchy, and be good to each other, ✨*** ***The Gorgons*** --- ### Thank you for supporting Medusa Rising. Your solidarity means the world to us, cousins. Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells that list. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Some Further Thoughts on Asymmetrical Re-Worlding | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/some-further-thoughts-on-asymmetrical-re-worlding-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-12-16T13:04:41.000Z **Therese Doherty** has graced Medusa Rising with several pieces over our first year. Her contributions, including this cross-post reflecting on her experience post-publication, have been both essential and emboldening to the RadMatFem project. So, we're closing our first year here. This low, loamy, darkest, composting season requires a hiatus. We will see you again in mid-Januaray 2026. Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). — ES --- ## [Cross-posted from Offerings ](https://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com/2025/11/some-further-thoughts-on-asymmetrical.html?ref=medusarising.org) [from ](https://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com/2025/11/some-further-thoughts-on-asymmetrical.html?ref=medusarising.org)[the Wellspring](https://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com/2025/11/some-further-thoughts-on-asymmetrical.html?ref=medusarising.org) \[Images and pull-quotes by Medusa Rising\] The radical feminist analysis of reality is one of the best, if not **the* best, analysis we have of why the world is the way it is, and the development of strategies for what we can do about it. I knew there was some possibility of negative feedback on [my essay series](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/) on Medusa Rising, which was a regrettable risk I had to take, but since that has come to pass I’d like to provide some more clarification about why I wrote what I did, and what it actually means, since I guess it just isn’t clear. (Everything is so complex, so the ideas just keep coming, but I hope this is the last thing I will have to write on this unfortunate subject.) It shouldn’t need to be said, but my critique is of ideas, not people (as I said in [my piece](https://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com/2023/03/finding-bedrock.html?ref=medusarising.org) on transgenderism). We all get pulled into trends from time to time, because that’s the nature of the online culture we’re beset with. (And I do think postfeminism is a ‘trend’, which I dearly hope will fizzle out eventually.) The main piece of a very personal iteration of postfeminism that I was critiquing, though it has some flaws, I agree with *in part*; the elaboration of ideas further down the track left a lot to be desired, however, and the links with more problematic (even misogynistic) content provided the nail in the coffin. Over the past year I have wondered many times whether I have just been misunderstanding and getting things wrong. Doubt is pretty much my default setting. But every time I returned to the troubling content I was reminded anew why I had disliked it in the first place: problematic use of language, often with sexist undertones; the dismissal of feminism for erroneous reasons; a sometimes gleeful expression of the need for hierarchy in relationships; appeals to ‘nature’ and ‘instincts’ based on gender stereotypes (and evolutionary psychology); a quite individualist (and therefore ironically quite liberal) take on things, and more. And whenever I sought comment about it from others the response was the same—from young women to women in their seventies and every age in between there was shrewd critique (as there was from a couple of men too). It’s not possible that I am simply misunderstanding as the problems are pretty stark. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/11/1000006821.png) From Jane Clare Jones's "Rape, Culture, and Evolutionary Psychology" | [https://janeclarejones.com/2023/04/22/rape-culture-and-evolutionary-psychology](https://janeclarejones.com/2023/04/22/rape-culture-and-evolutionary-psychology/?ref=medusarising.org) My reading of recent feminist writings, as well as older books like Catherine Keller’s *From A Broken Web* (1986), Riane Eisler’s *Sacred Pleasure* (1995), and the work of the glorious Susan Griffin, who passed away at the end of September, whose writing is an ever-renewing fountain of wisdom, gave me so many lightbulb moments (some of which I will lay out below), I knew I had to write something to organise my thoughts. It's how I often process things. As I said in a footnote to [Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/) of my essay: > This isn’t a new trend, just the latest iteration. Riane Eisler, writing three decades ago, noted that ‘revivals of “essentialist” gender roles through fundamentalism, neoconservatism, sociobiology \[now evolutionary psychology\], and some neo-Jungian mythopoetic writings \[are\] attempts to make something that is socially constructed appear as instinctual or biological.’ (1) I also see this wave of ‘post-liberal reactionary feminism’ as emerging from the critique of the sex-denial of transgenderism. Judith Green says in her brilliant review of Louise Perry’s *The Case Against the Sexual Revolution*, which Green makes clear provides a powerful critique but a dismal prescription: > why are we now seeing the rehabilitation of evolutionary psychology as a supposed ally of feminism yoked together with the repudiation of the harms wrought by a sexist sexually liberal culture? I think it has something to do with the fact that the current resurgence of feminism is the product of the very urgent fight against the political erasure of sex. Knowing that men and women are different (and that men can’t be women and vice versa) is the ground zero of this movement. In the face of so much denial of the ways in which sex matters, the superficial appeal of sociobiology is perhaps not surprising. Also not surprising is the rush to blame feminism for unleashing ‘sex denialism’ in the first place. But this is a confusion. The assertion of the Women’s Liberation Movement was never that men and women were the same, but that women’s freedom required the overturning of male supremacy. Biology-knowing is a low, low bar in achieving that aim. (2) She goes on to say: > If the appeal of sociobiology is mistaken but unsurprising, the embrace of traditional monogamous marriage is inexplicable … It would be bizarre if, in the midst of this resurgence of women’s liberation kick-started by the critique of gender, we were somehow to accept the dismal prescription for women to find fulfillment only in tending the home and crib, dependent upon men to protect and provide. If we aren’t careful, we will spend the next decades reconvening the Genes and Gender conferences held between 1977 and 1994, and rewriting *The Feminine Mystique*. (3) As noted, women’s freedom requires the overturning of male supremacy, which is why I decided to focus on the idea of male dominance in my essay, as radical feminism is founded on a critique of it as the underlying system of patriarchy. It’s the very fabric of civilisation, the air we breathe. And if you add in an ecofeminist perspective we understand that civilisation can only exist because of violence and exploitation. I am typing this on a laptop which is a technology made possible because of the destruction of the homes, freedom, health and lives of other beings, human and nonhuman, and the Earth herself. There is death at my fingertips. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Gift Subscriptions & Yuletide Restfulness URL: https://www.medusarising.org/gift-subscriptions-yuletide-restfulness/ Last updated: 2025-12-11T20:38:50.000Z The Gorgons Return in Late January with Lilith's stars in our hair! Meanwhile, a quick easy affordable gift is a $20 year of Medusa Rising. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [GIFTS FOR FEMINISTS ](#/portal/account/plans) ### Looking to 2026, Goddess Help Us URL: https://www.medusarising.org/looking-to-2026-goddess-help-us/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T06:30:52.000Z **The Gorgons are hibernating over the Hanukkah-Yuletide and through Epiphany**. Thursday’s post is a reflection on responses to the [**Asymmeterical Re-Worlding by Therese Doherty**](https://medusarisingoutpost.substack.com/p/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-5-lets?utm%5Fsource=publication-search) (all the posts are linked there). It’s a reminder that being a little wobbly is being alive and connected. **We hope your dark season is regernative and nourishing**. **Ecocide and Ecothrive are our topics for February’s Reading Circle**. I’m very interested to hear your responses to these two books. There’s a whole TrAd movement out there and there’s a whole Ecovillage movement out there, and I am very interested in how they’re both very feminist at their roots and one of them won’t say it out loud. Here’s a lovely little[ **review of Transformative Adaptation (TrAd)**](https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/transformative-adaptation/?ref=medusarising.org) to give you a flavor our the book. You can buy it anywhere books are sold in print or digitally. It’s short and urgent book. Clear and practical. And [**Gaia Education’s EcoVillage Design Curriculum**](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org) is a great guide. It’s free in exchange for your email. EDE is also the central practice of Dancing Goddess/SHE-EDE born of Abendroth’s Modern Matriarchal Studies courses. It’s rich. Longish. And you can skim, that’s totally fine. **Reading Groups are not courses**. We’re just talking and exploring. Bring your insights, dreams, ideas, frustrations, fears, to this conversation. **Let’s enrich each other’s perspectives and practices**. Let’s sit with the world together. **Pythia and Tiamat members, you’re already invited. All Other Members, tickets are $6\.** Watch this space mid-January for the email with the detail. :) From my view a day’s ride by horse from the Empire’s Hellmouth, it’s looking bleak, cousins. The new National Defense Strategy brings back the Monroe Doctrine with an eye to controlling the whole Western Hemisphere, These souless creatures are doubling down every minute. BUT. **I trust we have the skill to take the opening their destruction creates. We will do it in grief, and we will do it in resolve, and we will build worlds for women that honor and nurture our embeddedness in Gaia's Life.** Medusa Rising is still here after nearly a year, and RadMatFem has the principles we need for a livable future, and we’re finding the intersections where we can deepen power and plant our feet to win. We all need a rest. There is much to do. **To joy, coziness, and gathering your thrumming energy in these Light Festivals.** ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Kihw!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0faf38c4-f837-4130-9c8b-ec1bc4822dd8_4080x3072.jpeg) ### RadMatFem & AI, part 1 of 1000 URL: https://www.medusarising.org/radmatfem-ai/ Last updated: 2025-12-09T05:33:54.000Z Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). Everyone at Medusa Rising has lots to say on AI, most of it boils down to "No, Oh Goddess, NO!" There's problems all over AI for feminist values and for women. - Deep Fake Political Speech - **Deep Fake Revenge Porn** - Hallucinations - "Councelling" and suicide - **Interference in coginitive development** - AI relationshiops - Abuse of AI "partners" - Access and class - **Eating our remaining carbon budget** - Community damage - Theft via socialized subsidies (we're paying the bills) - **Total surveillance** - Techno Fascist Dreams of Electric Immortality **If it's wrong with patriarchy, it's wrong with AI.** We want to talk those through with you over time. **Like every extractive tech, it's eating life itself, resources, whole communities**. The US is aiming to let it run wild like kudzu over the forests of the southern states. The fact of it, however, the fact that stopping it is now tantamount to destroying a lot of global infrasture *means we have to contend with it*. We're on their platforms, we use their 'secure' messaging apps, &c. [Submit on RadMatFem &/vs AI](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions) **Medusa Rising hopes some of you want to think about this in podcasts and in posts you might write**. This is an epochal change which-ever way it breaks, and to just not use it is to miss a (*small, I admit*) chance to amplify RadMatFem influence beyond our small numbers and non-existent resources. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Metapatterning, Grief, Brighton URL: https://www.medusarising.org/still-processing-brighton/ Last updated: 2025-12-04T06:00:05.000Z Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). I don't know right now. I'm in this experiential loop where I think I can do something or reach out somewhere or say something alchemical and inevitable enough. And then, ah, no. No, the ground needed for that is gone. Gone for good. Certianly in my well-couped US, and maybe about even my little feminist corner of the world. I'm meditating here. I'm wondering. Do any people, any politics, have the mettle to be principled and responsive to changing needs? *People are deported for wrongthink. People are fired for wrongthink. Kidnapped and deported for speaking Spanish, for* [*reporting*](https://prismreports.org/2025/10/09/deportation-sexual-assault-florida/?ref=medusarising.org) *a* [*sexual assault*](https://commons.stmarytx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1401&context=thestmaryslawjournal&ref=medusarising.org)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/11/17626096518528745099813330907435-1.jpg) The words [ WOMAN and FEMALE cannot be used](https://pen.org/banned-words-list/?ref=medusarising.org) in government documents, on websites, in grants for all the world-changing research our universities no longer do. The ERASURE of us is running deep. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/11/1000006796-1.jpg) Detail List of Excluded Words Trump 2.0 This puts me in grief. Feminists do not currently hold the power to shape the general public discourse or the policies of the world. Some celebrate the exclusion and persecution of trans and queer citizens even at the expense of all the work of our foremothers. This puts me in grief. That care operates outside, beneath, and beyond our immediate patriarchal politics because our histories as both colonizers and colonized have left deep wounds we are all grieving. Because we have actionable responses to the world’s problems in our long decades of research, thought, and social experimentation. Grief. [Women In Black – Women in black for justice, against war.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-12.ico)Back home![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/2025-01-11-starvation-war-crime--D7-9B-D7-95-D7-9C-D7-9D--D7-A2-D7-9D--D7-93-1-1024x380.jpg)](https://womeninblack.org/?ref=medusarising.org) And I’m still processing FiLiA2025\. The disruptions there all come from grief, too. For the dead. For the living in terror and hunger. For the women destroyed by Hamas. For the long history of Canaan, of which Gaza was a city. [Thousands of years of grief](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin%5Fof%5Fthe%5FPalestinians?ref=medusarising.org). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### TRN ReMix | Re:Framing Mary Daly URL: https://www.medusarising.org/trn-remix-re-framing-mary-daly/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T06:00:34.000Z Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). To make this remix, I fed my TRN essay on Mary Daly to NotebookLM as a source, asked for a mindmap, and adapted from that base. NotebookLM is a learning language model circumscribed by the source I give it from which it produces and refines some in-seeing and produces documents I can then adapt or refine further. The summary was acceptable, if it did repeat a few strikingly phrased ideas more often that was really useful. :/ You can find the [original long read in THE RADICAL NOTION issue 6, p 56+](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-six-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org). At time of writing, the magazine was still engaged in discussing the authoritarian tactics of TRAs. O!, those halcyon days!! I've recently read [Sylvia Federici's *Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women*](https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product%5Fdetail&p=960&ref=medusarising.org) which examines the witch hunts then and now (quite literally) with more purely economic emphasis to her materialism. She is correct in her assessment that whatever little wealth women have, the new fascists will come for it as it comes for our bodily and willful freedoms. It's short and very focused. If you read my original essay, please read it now as prompted by the latter slides in this carousel with reference to the steep rise of the Far Right globally, the light-speed and clearly fascist take-over of the US, and the blazing misogyny of this era. For reasons of experiment and transparency, I include below a chunk of the summary NotebookLM created from my article. I am curious what you notice about it compared to my own essay. Also, I am a creature of words. I may never get the hang of bit and byte, but thanks for being here with me as I learn in public. 0:00 /2:15 1× ### From [Quintessence...Realizing the Archaic Future: A Radical Elemental Feminist Manifesto](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/827980?ref=medusarising.org): Statement from the Biophilic Brotherhood, dated January 1, 2019 BE “We understand deeply that until all women are free no man can be free. Even when we believe that we've taken everything into consideration we acknowledge that we may be behaving as badly and as snoolishly as our forefathers. We are learning to recognize this as a culturally inherited blind spot that leads inevitably to the destruction of women and all life on Earth, including ourselves. Moreover: We resolve to accept counsel when criticism is offered regarding our deficiencies and to make every effort to improve. We resolve not to unduly burden our Sisters by insisting that they teach us, correct us, and explain to us. We resolve to respect Women's Space. We resolve to encourage all women to activate the fullness of their potential and never stand in the way. We resolve to take responsibility for our share of domestic chores and childcare. We resolve to meet together regularly as men to learn how to transform our violent tendencies. We resolve to eradicate all eroticism that depends upon a paradigm of dominance and submission. We resolve to continue diligently the process of forgetting “how to be a man.” ## NotebookLM's document accompanying the mindmap I prompted: Mary Daly used the terms **Sado-state** and **Sado-ritual** to describe the intense atmosphere of male dominance enforced through violence. These concepts are central to her radical feminist analysis of patriarchy and its mechanisms of control, particularly through the persecution and annihilation of women. Below is a detailed explanation of these terms, their context in Daly's metaphysics, and their specific application to the Witch Trials: **1\. Definition and Context of the Sado-state** The **Sado-state** refers to the prevailing atmosphere (actually the laws and systems) of male-dominance-through-violence that is experienced by women in patriarchal society. It underpins a wider **sado-society** (here's the atmosphere part). Daly positioned this violence within her broader analysis of the patriarchal world, which she refers to as the **Foreground**: • **Necrophilia and the Death Cult:** The Sado-state is fundamentally linked to patriarchal **necrophilia**—a death cult that launders its brutality into culture through technology and reason. This necrophilia results in a world where flourishing is forbidden, and it culminates in the potential for environmental collapse, which Daly considered the "ultimate manifestation of patriarchal necrophilia". • **Ur-Sadism:** Sadism is generalized throughout this society as the pleasurable enjoyment (either direct or vicarious) of another's pain and debasement. According to Daly's critique, the core sadism (the **ur-sadism**) is the **othering and abjection of women**. • **Thingifying:** This system involves the "despiritualization," or 'thingifying,' of women, the Earth, and all living systems, thereby either draining or beating the life out of them. **2\. Sado-Rituals and the Primordial Myth** Daly defined **Sado-rituals** as specific acts designed to maintain male supremacy and control women's agency. These rituals have two key functions: 1\. **Reinforcement of Matricide:** They are rituals that "recreate and reinforce the primordial patriarchal mythic event—the **murder/dismemberment of the Goddess** without women and all be-ing". 2\. **Destruction of Female Power:** Sado-rituals are "designed to destroy the integrity of Life and creative divine powers in women" and legitimize the "dis-spiriting and devastation of the Wild". The collective manifestation of these rituals, linking seemingly disparate acts of violence, is known as **Sado-Ritual Syndrome**. This syndrome connects atrocities like "witchburnings, gynaecological practices, lynchings, pogroms, \[and\] nuclear arms build-up". **3\. Application to the Witch Trials** The Witch Trials served as a powerful historical example of the Sado-state in an intensified form. • **Intentional Destruction of Strong Women:** Daly argued the clear intent of the craze "was to **break down and destroy strong women, to dis-member and kill the Goddess, the divine spark of be-ing in women**". This was meant to "strike awe into some by the punishment of others". • **Beyond the Pale of Law:** The witch-hunters placed these women in a category "beyond the pale of law," removing legal protections so that the worst could be done to them. • **Persecution as Punishment:** The trials focused on women who performed mundane tasks (like brewing beer or midwifery) or who lived outside the patriarchal family structure (like spinsters and widows). The accusation process itself was the punishment. • **Sexual Pathology and Justification:** The violence was often intertwined with sexual prurience. The 1486 *Malleus Maleficarum* explicitly rooted witchcraft in the supposed source of the problem: "carnal lust which is in women insatiable". Inquisitors would creatively torture women until they confessed, thereby confirming the inquisitors' own projections. • **Technological Spread:** Daly credited the printing press with enabling the witch-finder's manual (*Malleus Maleficarum*) to spread across Europe, demonstrating how otherwise neutral technologies are put into the service of destroying women's lives. **4\. Contemporary Sado-Ritual Syndrome** The sources note that patriarchy does not have much imagination, so modern forms of witch-finding and woman punishing are just new forms of sado-rituals. The ideological creation of the "TERF" (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) and the campaign to hound them serve as a contemporary parallel to the witch trials. The Gender Identity Ideology (GII) and Queer Gender Studies (QGS) complex is presented as meeting the criteria of Daly's Sado-Ritual Syndrome, including components such as: • **Obsession with purity** (e.g., the ideological creation of the TERF). • **Total erasure of male responsibility**. • **Use of women as scapegoats**. • **Legitimation of the ritual** through patriarchal scholarship (e.g., the transformation of Women's Studies into Gender Studies). The continued threat of physical and sexual violence aimed at "voice-ful women" via social media is also accepted as part of controlling women's speech and agency in the contemporary environment of the Sado-state. --- **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells any subscriber/contributor information. All information shared with Medusa Rising is at the user's discretion. Pseudonyms, pen names, alt email accounts, not sharing location – all OK. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### This Isn't a One Way Street URL: https://www.medusarising.org/this-isnt-a-one-way-street/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T06:00:41.000Z ## Dear Cousins, Medusa Rising doesn't want to be a point of consumption. We want to be a conversation, a site of growth and connection. We know you're thinking out there, loving, mothering, making, writing, weaving your communities together. *We hope to hear and see more from more of our sisters next year*. Send us your creations, observations, wild schemes, lush dreams. We offer some ideas below, but the field is wide open. And we know this is an extra busy time of year. It's Yule for us witches. It's Hanukkah and Christmas and Kwanza. It's feast season, light festival season. Your cooking, planning feasts, planning for visits, planning to visit, the whole production – if you do the production. You might be a woman or a family that takes this time to pull back from the world and need your time for reflection. So, there's no hurry. In the new year, with everything it will throw at us, let us celebrate your talent, skill, insight, and spirit. Let's crow about our survival and struggle. Let's announce our ambitions and demands. Let's give each other all the courage and Arche-Mama energy that we can! Stay witchy, be good to each other, Medusa Rising & The Gorgons ## Current Focus **HOW DO YOU FEMINIST?** We invite you to share work in any genre. We welcome works that combine or brushes the edges of any of these themes as you feel best gets shouted what needs shouting! - Praise for your feminist inspriation! A woman. An event. A creation. - How did you become a feminist? - What is the most precious part of your feminism for you? - What do you want older or younger feminists to know or do? - How do you do your feminism? - What do you want feminists of other factions/ethnicities/countries to know or do? - Pick some part of the [Manifesto RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/), imagine what it could look like in action where you are. All speculations welcome! **Don't see your thing?** Want to share something else, from another direction, in another mood, about another topic, wider aperture, sharper vector? Cool. [Here's an even bigger list](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4hH3ag-5PegansPMfDTIAH6-j8q6vY3phqxvo5t1H8/edit?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org) of the deep fields we want to dance in! ## Style Note **Audience*: Well, it's you. Please assume our readers have some background in feminist thought or activism, but are not experts. Imagine your readers will want to put your words into action in some way.* **Tone*: We prefer a casual, clever, and human voice. That combination of rigor and friendliness is the sweetspot. Jokes, puns, sarcasm, unvarnished truths, rage, and well-polished cursing are all welcome.* **References*: Include sources as in-line links, or list author, title, and date in a reading list at bottom. Please use as much open source, public domain, and free subscription research as possible. Most of our readers do not have institutional affiliations.* [Questions? We have answers! Email us.](mailto:info@medusarising.org) ## Genres & Forms **We accept any kind of work by female people that you can put on the internet!** **Media Work, Video, Visual Art, Music**, up to 5 pieces **Essay, Memoire, Creative Non-Fiction** (<1200 words) **Flash fiction, Microfiction, and Poetry** (<1200 words) **Conversations, Reportage, shorter 'Think Pieces'**: includes history, reportage, analysis, critique, explorations (\~3000 words, will be published in series of \~1000 word posts). If your piece is a conversation, we welcome the participants biographies to be included at the end of the text. **Reviews of all cultural artefacts** about or affecting women**:** film, music, books, podcasts, musicals, music videos, trends on social media, &c. We prefer balanced reviews, but we know that's not always possible. (<1200 words, \~750 preferred) **Policy ideas and proposals, legal history and discussion** (<1200 words, \~750 preferred) **Recommendations**, super-short positive reviews of culture, books, websites, feminist organizations, up to 100 words – collected and published quarterly. --- [Medusa Rising’s Gorgon Possea digital radical materialist feminist project publishing women | building movement![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon_144x144-1.png)YouTube![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/xb1tjprOCLYtRJjE3vnEkkqtob55AF5P6WS8WdIHrzK6euTldxxk8GxLXCKKUChvSOzFmyf7gAs-s900-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj-1)](https://youtube.com/@medusarisingorg?si=ECJu1FCD3jOy9b5n&ref=medusarising.org) NEW EPISODE Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells any subscriber/contributor information. All information shared with Medusa Rising is at the user's discretion. Pseudonyms, pen names, alt email accounts, not sharing location – all OK. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Instigator | by Laura Nováková URL: https://www.medusarising.org/instigator-by-laura-novakova/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T12:36:57.000Z Gas flitting Car becoming a death wish A heated bladder full of chemicals Spewing out of your mouth through the glass My heart starts then. Lights yellow, hurt, crystallized urine Depriving myself of crystalline health Red in glasses spilling scars Kitchen counter full of vines My heart starts then. Head on withering chests Quick remedy, I never meant, a deceiver in your state A leech fed on this household Curls brushed madness through the surfaces My heart started then. A knife in hand I become a headbanger from all your tip-offs A wake-up call of the daunted Chicken-hearted cork-screws and wilted hay on your brain My heart started then. Indefinite suckling Remains drilled in, lingers in the air Looking for graces, chances, healing faces And I swallow my pride each damn day. My heart starts then. Patriarchy throwing itself to my feet. --- **Laura Ruslana Nova** is a writer and a trained actress from Slovakia, who started writing as a child. She has a BA in Performing Arts, where she completed a creative writing module. That is where 'About The Winged Ones' was born. Her poem 'Instigator' was written when she was 16\. Together, they are her first publications. --- **MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project.** **Tip for the contributors!** [PAY WOMEN FOR WORK ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) ****Starting at $2 USD per month** | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [UPGRADE ](#/portal/account/plans) Groove with The Gorgon Posse Playlist Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Ghost, collects no info on our subscribers. We own our list. Medusa Rising neither shares nor sells any subscriber/contributor information. All information shared with Medusa Rising is at the user's discretion. Pseudonyms, pen names, alt email accounts, not sharing location – all OK. !! Feminist Safety First !! **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Cross-post | Notes on a Detransition 6: Empathy Hijacking | by Victoria Gugenheim URL: https://www.medusarising.org/cross-post-notes-on-a-detransition-6-empathy-hijacking-by-victoria-gugenheim/ Last updated: 2025-11-13T18:41:01.000Z [Victoria’s Substack](https://thatvictoriag.substack.com/) [Notes on a Detransition 6: Empathy Hijacking](https://thatvictoriag.substack.com/p/notes-on-a-detransition-6-empathy) The formula every socially adept predator and predatory AGP uses to take control of your emotions and further their causes. [Victoria G](https://substack.com/@thatvictoriag?ref=medusarising.org) Nov 12, 2025 (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) MR is an autonomous RadMatFem project. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Tips make this work happen. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- ![grayscale photo of leopard](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1517825738774-7de9363ef735?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxfHxwcmVkYXRvcnxlbnwwfHx8fDE3NjI5ODMzMzV8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080 "grayscale photo of leopard") Photo by [Geranimo](https://unsplash.com/@geraninmo?ref=medusarising.org) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=medusarising.org) **We hear a lot of talk** about suicidal empathy and weaponised empathy, but these are only the surface level descriptors of what's actually happening as they don't name the exact mechanism of action. Arty Morty called it "Heartwashing", when women feel sorry for predatory TiMs, and the incredible Laura Richards called it "Garnering Himpathy", when a psychopath tries to charm a judge or jury. What's actually going on here is **Empathy Hijacking**, and it's what every charming predator and malignant belief system have in common, from gender as an ideology to the 1979 Iranian Islamist Revolution, and it's one of the reasons well meaning people end up throwing women as an entire sex class under the bus. Predators know how to make empathic people, traumatised people, vulnerable people, naive people, feel sorry for them. Overwhelmingly, the perpetrators are male with something to gain, and if they want to push their agenda, be it avoiding jail or entering a lesbian bar, they have steps they follow. Here I will be focusing on my experience with predatory Trans Identified Males that I was subjected to, but you can apply this formula to any predator using these steps to gain advantage and push their agenda anywhere in the world. The formula is the same. ## The Process: ![shadow of person on white floor tiles](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1589599286333-40957714102c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxNHx8c2hhZG93JTIwcHJlZGF0b3J8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzYyOTgxMzM1fDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080 "shadow of person on white floor tiles") Photo by [Affan Fadhlan](https://unsplash.com/@affanfadhlan?ref=medusarising.org) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### 1\. Determining Hunting Grounds: Preferred hunting spots are student bars and nights where the women are young with little money, social media, online servers, kink and queer communities and events, charities and protests, political parties and their meetings, plus anywhere they can have their status raised while claiming victimhood. It can also happen at workplaces, other movements they can tack themselves onto, and in any establishment wanting to seem progressive. The key is there needs to be susceptible people there. ### 2.Targeting Prey: Empathy hijackers are adept at finding useful idiots, the naive, and especially the sexually traumatised. As the BDSM/Kink and queer scenes attract a lot of autistic women, the predator sees it as having a smorgasboard of prey to choose from. After finding someone young and broke/traumatised/autistic/all of the above, or a useful idiot with status, the hijacker will introduce himself. If the target is experiencing a life upheaval like homelessness that the predator could solve with a spare room or a couch, or they are really caught up in recent trauma, so much the better for him, it will make the hijacking easier. It's worth noting that some of those empathy hijacked this way will also go on to be abused by the TiM and further manipulated as they get progressively groomed and drawn into their orbit. The core drivers for those predatory are their needs for power and domination, and that can extend to domination over a person and breaking them down, not just domination of a social group, charity or cause. Oftentimes these dominations can go together. ### **3\. The Warm Up : “Camaraderie Cuckooing”:** There can often be gentle introduction, but the methods vary. This part is almost like crowd work, where an entertainer will get the audience to let their guard down and be more receptive. Alcohol is sometimes involved, as some tend to have substance issues and it's a social lubricant. If this step is happening at an adult party, drugs will likely occur, especially stimulants like cocaine and ecstasy, and dissociates like ketamine or GHB. These make their target at once excited, disoriented and suggestible. At any of these events, they will use talking, flattering, a bit of forced teaming such as 'girls sticking together', sisters not cisters, sharing pronouns, and/or feigning interest in their chosen target, in order to get their target to let their guard down and build faux rapport. The formula is assess what will work, build faux rapport. What's insidious about this is pronouns etc aside, women outside of the radfem spheres and under 40 do tend to engage in flattering small talk when they meet one another as they're cautious, but want to build potential friendships, so this part is a type of cuckooing; mimicking the social actions of their target. In a work environment, they will build rapport with both the people who can make things happen, like the boss and HR, and also work on anyone the empathy hijacker deems subordimate and easily manipulated, especially women who seem to them fragile, too nice, and with poor boundaries. ### 4\. Himpathy Garnering /Heartwashing: **This can be the same evening/event**, over a few days or weeks, or it can take longer if they are really working on someone in real life. In my case, I was groomed over months. At this point when he thinks you're ready, the poor-me-ing begins, which is also the cuckooing of trauma, making it all the more distasteful when they target survivors who have a tendency to bond quickly over their shared experiences of it. Topics are selected to make their target really emotionally hurt on their behalf. This can be about how difficult their former life was, how their former partner didn't understand them, how they had to rebuild their entire life, statistics about violence against trans identified people from Brazil extrapolated to the rest of the world, and so on. The idea is to make their target feel really sorry for them, and if they can bring you close to tears, he will deem you easy pickings. ![a lit up sign with a face](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1655520794779-a1c428e1382e?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwzM3x8ZGFyayUyMGJhciUyMHByZWRhdG9yfGVufDB8fHx8MTc2Mjk4MjA5N3ww&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080 "a lit up sign with a face") Photo by [Niranjan B S](https://unsplash.com/@bsniru?ref=medusarising.org) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### 5\. Point of Entry: As soon as their target is in feeling mode, they generally aren't in thinking mode. The target has had forced teaming, faux rapport, and has been worked on systematically in order to get to this state. Now, they're ripe for their empathy to be hijacked. This is when the predator's ideas will be pushed whether through conversation, sharing infographics, sharing info about less than stellar organisations, and so on. The target is invited to meets, sometimes with more predators and opportunists in them, and they become soaked in the cause. Further camaraderie cuckooing at these meets reinforces a sense of family or familiarity. They begin to feel the underpinnings of a very strong need to defend someone they believe has experienced harm, without ever having thought critically about it because conditions simply haven't allowed it. They have been awash with feelings of wanting to care for someone they believe is vulnerable, so now comes the final blow. This part can also happen one on one if the target is a sexual interest and the predator is more of a loner; long calls, using the empathy as a form of validation or supply and ideology, all mixed in with the mirage of sweet nothings. Combinations of these two strategies can also occur. ### 6\. Emotional Endgame: The Firewall of Pseudo Reason: Once the ideological ideas are pushed, the firewall of pseudo reason builds around both that strong feeling of empathy and the emotionally charged and anchored set of beliefs, a wall that feels certain, but certainty too is an emotion. This builds as the person begins to feel anger at the plight of the predator in front of them. Now, the hijack is complete. The person hijacked can also be resaturated in that emotion at any time if the predator is adept. Now, if the beliefs are challenged, the hijacked will feel outrage and want to take action, shout down, or vehemently argue with installed talking points. Anything or anyone that tries to shake this firewall will be blocked out. The predator will continue to use highly charged emotions and the veneer of victimisation in order to keep control, can escalate if their grip loosens, and he may go on to initiate physical or sexual abuse. ![group of people gathering](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6Ran!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa8ec656f-43ef-47e0-b992-38a42737e5ef_1080x720.jpeg "group of people gathering") Photo by [HIVAN ARVIZU @soyhivan](https://unsplash.com/@soyhivan?ref=medusarising.org) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### 7: Transmission: Now the victim can go on to indoctrinate and recruit others. Usually this is easy as many in these communities are traumatised and will stick together, but this results in these people becoming community cannon fodder; wheeled out to protests, medicalised, and used as pawns. In a workplace, a sense of fear and being unable to protest may take hold once the changes become embedded and there are no private places to shower or change any more for those around the indoctrinated, but they will be blind to that feeling as the hijacking has dehumanised other women for the sake of the Trans Identified Male. If a high status useful idiot, this will be seen as an opportunity to educate friends, colleagues, people in upper management, and possibly even the medical profession. **What's especially galling** when examining these steps is the clear hijacking and the cuckooing of human connection, and after people have realised this has happened to them it can lead to becoming cut off, traumatised, distrusting, or worse. I think as we examine this that we have to realise, myself included, that it's perfectly normal to want to connect and share experiences, and even tell your story. This shouldn't prevent you from wanting that connection, but we do have to now watch for patterns of this mutating, almost completely male form of opportunism. It's also important to separate these steps from women especially who have experienced DV/SV/extreme life experiences, who may come across as talkative as a coping mechanism or veneer for their trauma, or may just have poor boundaries or unusual levels of openness. These women aren't planning an empathy hijack, they're emoting to connect. And of course, you can have genuine people caught up in this and experiencing a very real type of distress who aren't predatory, but these are not the people I'm talking about. I've already spoken on proprioceptive issues that could make bodily distress worse, the women caught up in this, and much more, and will need to delve further into that later on, but here I've very specifically talked about predators. At least now, you know how they operate. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. Click the button for our current Call for Contributions. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Andrea Dworkin's Enduring Insights on Sexual Assault, and some feminist reservations | by Jocelyn Crawley URL: https://www.medusarising.org/andrea-dworkins-enduring-insights-on-sexual-assault-and-some-feminist-reservations-by-jocelyn-crawley/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T18:06:11.000Z [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) **We pay contributors, and we want to pay the team, and we want to foster a feminist economy. Pitch in as you can.** Our next Reading Circle meets Feb 1, 2026\. Pythias and Tiamats, we have two texts (update!): [TRANSFORMATIVE ADAPTATION](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=b1da9f5fcde7e62b&q=transformative+adaptation+book+where+to+buy&si=AMgyJEunbjGmj0TFiBIngVW0BoRaw8msLp50jyR4i82%5F9BDY8rkjPiDGz-qDPbjn30jl%5Fhu1d1lwDmduURteSDRndjYgWy%5FUKMWCstvoEKpxgAf6RHteWcSt0MQci7dZhC%5FmLn3prXIZlvLOd-yZziAGG2Q%5FIMD6vM0IzdLwpheP42oX2a5W1Qpv1Gwzzd3luViQkagtyeri&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjL7PCi8tiQAxW0M2IAHTF7MrYQyNoBKAB6BAggEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=652&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) and [Gaia Education's Free Cirriculum](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org). --- I became a radical feminist while completing my Master's degree in English, reading widely and diversely on sexual assault. It was then that I was exposed to Andrea Dworkin's work, transforming me from someone vaguely identifying with feminist points to an avid, unequivocally radical feminist thinker." Unlike many mainstream writers who express antagonism towards patriarchy, Dworkin's work prioritizes rape and other forms of sexual degradation as integral to perpetuating male supremacy. This is why feminists should pay attention to the work she has produced. But before I launch into aspects of her work that I have found either deeply riveting or profoundly problematic, I want to provide a general background of her life and work. Born in 1946, Dworkin was a radical feminist activist and writer who was well known for her analysis, critiques, and repudiation of pornography and sexual assault. Some of her most notable texts include *Woman-Hating* and *Intercourse*. Dworkin collaborated with Catharine MacKinnon on multiple literary and legal projects, which centered on addressing pornography as a violation of civil rights. During my early evolution into a radical feminist, I strove to read extensively about sexual assault. Dworkin’s work played a key role in enabling me to understand the profoundly deleterious impact that forms of sexual assault such as rape has on victim-survivors. In her important essay, [“The Third Rape: 1st-The Act Itself. 2nd-The Trial. 3rd-The Media. One Victim’s Graphic Story,”](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-28-op-1297-story.html?ref=medusarising.org) Dworkin moves beyond prototypical conceptualizations of rape as: 1) nonexistent, 2) 'rough sex' or 'bad sex,' or 3) existent but not that bad. Rather than purporting these mainstream/malestream responses to rape, Dworkin offers a brief yet cogent analysis of the deleterious harms that result from sexual assault. In this piece, Dworkin identifies three types of rape transpiring in contexts in which sexual assault happens. The first is rape itself, and Dworkin references several horrific experiences with sexual assault to convey the depth of dehumanization and dissonance it engenders. As Dworkin notes, she was raped at the age of nine and her parents “didn’t report it.” Her second experience with rape transpired a month before she was placed in jail. This sexual assault was an acquaintance rape. Discussing the attack, Dworkin notes: > 'Yes, I fought; yes, he beat me; yes, he hurt me, and no, I never told anyone. Yes, there was blood; yes, there were bruises; but the unspeakable physical pain was between the legs—the *rape* part. Women are human down there, too.' The horrors of rape Dworkin articulates here are compounded by her revelation that that “No one called it ‘rape.’” Beyond articulating that rape is an egregiously deleterious harm, Dworkin discusses the metaphorical forms of sexual assault that result from literal rapes. She refers to these as the second and third rapes. The second rape results in that rare event: a case going to trial. Dworkin discusses the negative import of rape trials: > For those that go to trial, annihilating the victim–through insult, innuendo, intimidation, forced repetition of every detail, the pressure of continuing public humiliation before family, friends, co-workers–is still the rapist’s best chance for acquittal; and acquittal is the usual outcome.” Feminists call the trial “the second rape. Coined by Lee Madigan and Nancy C. Gamble in their important book *The Second Rape: Society’s Continued Betrayal of the Victim*, the term refers to the horrors victims face from the criminal-justice system which should be operating to rectify the wrongs done them. In her interpretation, Dworkin draws attention to the rhetorical violence victims are subjected to–insults that degrade, innuendos that dehumanize, and intimidations that demean. These acts of rhetorical violence reinforce the victim’s sense of being reduced to identity lessness which transpired during the first rape. The second rape, then, might also be thought of as a rhetorical sexual assault that parallels the physical assault that preceded it. Just as Dworkin’s essay provides readers with a perspicuous understanding of the first and second rape, she offers individuals lucid depictions of the third rape. This rape transpires when the media facilitates societal examination of the sexual assault by conveying its existence to the public. Dworkin writes that: > Now, thanks to the New York Times and NBC News, there will be a third rape–by the media. If a woman’s reporting a rape to the police means she will be exposed by the media to the scrutiny of voyeurs and worse, a sexual spectacle with her legs splayed open in the public mind, reporting itself will be tantamount to suicide. Here, Dworkin conveys how the original rape goes on and on as the sexual violence done to her is put on display to the public. The concept of this display, conveyed in the image of 'splayed legs,' further emphasizes the ugly import rape has in the victim's mental life and its likely speculative import in the public mind. To the victim, having one’s sexual assault made public is viscerally akin to the humiliating forced on her by rapist’s speculative, perverse pleasure. Now, following this unwanted exposure, the victim must face public scrutiny in a new scenario which replicates the essence of the old one through the repetition of the element of vulnerability to invasion. When viewed as a composite whole, the first, second, and third rape are a metaphorical gang rape in which the rapist, court officials, and media take their turns violating and invading the victim with their presence and perverse power. Although many might argue that the first rape is the most deleterious and damaging, it is still important to acknowledge the adverse impact that the other forms can have. For example, the second rape can involve a sequence of events which includes the victim attempting to prove her case in a court of law only to find that the rapist is set free with a dismissive "not guilty" verdict or an extremely short sentence, such as the one that Brock Turner received. I was listening to a woman discuss the lenient or non-existent sentencing that transpires in patriarchal court systems and she noted that these pseudo-sentences are not even a slap on the wrist. Maybe they're actually a pat on the back or an amicable alpha-like punch to the shoulder meant to convey the "attaboy" attitude which many men adopt towards rape such that male aggression becomes an inevitable and appropriate modality through which to express one's social entitlement to sexually assault women. There is only one thing about Andrea Dworkin's life and work that I ever found problematic. This transpires in context of her amazing essay ["I Want A 24-Hour Truce In Which There Is No Rape."](https://rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/i-want-a-24hour-truce-during-which-there-is-no-rape/?ref=medusarising.org) I do not agree with asking males for assistance in the process of addressing and resolving the issue of sexualized male violence. By asking for this gesture, she tells men who assert sympathy with feminist rhetoric against pornography to stop simply telling women like herself their sentiments and ideological inclinations. Rather, Dworkin states that they should: > Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the warmakers. Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues. Tell the novelists who think that rape is wonderful. Tell Larry Flynt. Tell Hugh Hefner. There’s no point in telling me. I’m only a woman. There’s nothing I can do about it. These men presume to speak for you. They are in the public arena saying that they represent you. If they don’t, then you had better let them know. The problem with this approach is that it puts power back in the hands of the oppressor and essentially amounts to acquiescing the master (men) and working with them (males). Whether men who claim to have these anti-pornographic sentiments actually do so is highly questionable, and Dworkin addresses this doubt, asking men: > You don’t like pornography? I wish I could believe it’s true. I will believe it when I see you on the streets. I will believe it when I see an organized political opposition. I will believe it when pimps go out of business because there are no more male consumers. In asking this (ostensibly rhetorical) question, Dworkin affirms what many female activists have already asserted about the issue of men attempting to join ranks with female activists: *it doesn’t make sense because the same men who express interest in fighting with and for women are waging their own hidden wars with the patriarchal weapons that work against us*. If we know that [we cannot dismantle the master's house by using his tools](https://monoskop.org/images/2/2b/Lorde%5FAudre%5F1983%5FThe%5FMasters%5FTools%5FWill%5FNever%5FDismantle%5Fthe%5FMasters%5FHouse.pdf?ref=medusarising.org), why would we continue to appeal to and center men–many of whom are active consumers of pornography–during the process of radical feminist strategizing against rape? It is men who are using their tools (pornography) to harm women, and this process of tactically consuming images that promote the proliferation of rape (which is what pornography does) reveals that men–as a class, not necessarily as individuals–have collectively consented to the degradation and dehumanization of women as acceptable, appropriate ways for existence to unfold in the material world. Throughout our lives in the patriarchal world, women learn that the men they attempt to work with on egalitarian, humanitarian, or otherwise progressive political projects turn their backs on us when issues of sexism arise. Dworkin’s essay on the three rapes demonstrates this abandonment when she explains that, after being subjected to a violent vaginal examination within a detention center, the men that she had worked with on anti-war projects turned against her. Specifically, Dworkin notes that: > I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t stop bleeding, I didn’t know what they had done to me. The men I worked with against the war laughed at me–a girl struck dumb. But they knew someone had stuck something up me and they figured I deserved it. This is not anecdotal evidence. For centuries, women have found that the men they attempt to work with and love reveal themselves to be indifferent to female suffering. This is why Dworkin’s assertion in the 24-hour essay is not an effective solution to the ongoing war against women that is rape. Rather, it is a pseudo-solution whose efficacy is perhaps limited to its rhetorical effect of drawing attention to the fact rape is a significant enough problem to warrant using the language of war (“truce”) and appealing to a class of people (men) that are notorious for being violent and unwilling to acknowledge the humanity of women. If the reader agrees that Dworkin’s suggestion that women ask men to work on other men to consider female humanity a real thing is an ineffective approach to resolving sexual violence, it is time to talk about tenable solutions. There are several. ### **One is separatism.** Separatism is both an ideological perspective and material reality which the majority of women will apparently not assent to. In the separatist framework, safety looks like living in an all-female commune, and even this realm is not entirely safe because it is vulnerable to male invasion. The practicality or logic of separatism is simply that it makes one safer and enables living with like-minded people, thereby improving quality of life through celebration of and participation in shared interests. I had a lesbian friend many years ago who pointed out that none of her friends are heterosexual simply because they want to spend a great deal of their social life talking about their men. This was boring to her as a lesbian and a feminist, and this is the practicality of developing lesbian and/or radical feminist spaces in which men are not the center. So separatism actually does work. In fact, I was talking with a lesbian feminist many weeks ago on Facebook and there is a whole listing of women-only communes where female people are happily sharing space with one another and away from men by choice. She went to one of these communes recently and said she had a fabulous time. These separatist communes don't work for women who don't want them to, meaning that if you have decided that you have to have male attention and derive some sort of pleasure or value from it, you would not want to be in this type of all-female and frequently all-lesbian space. That is a conscious, volitional choice. Another way a separatist commune would not work would be if you had an ideological, spatial, or relational disagreement with one or more of the women there, in which case I guess you could be "kicked out." So this is how these communes either work or don't for women. The argument regarding not having enough money to live sustainably this way is problematic because, as I learned when I was seriously considering relocating to [Sugarloaf Women’s Village](https://www.oneyearontheroad.com/sugarloaf-womens-village/?ref=medusarising.org), it is actually cheaper to live there than where I am in Atlanta, Georgia. Given that many if not most women will reject the separatist framework as a viable modality through which to address and oppose male supremacy, it is important to engage non-separatist strategies for resistance. These solutions can involve some or any of the following: continuing to build radical feminist community through dialogue and rejecting prototypical patriarchal products such as marriage, sex, and procreation. Let’s discuss each solution briefly. ### **Another is continuing to build radical feminist community.** This strategy can take on many shapes and forms, and is perhaps best articulated in context of organizations that provide women with opportunities to create meaningful women-centered relationships in online and offline spaces. Both [Women’s Liberation Front](https://womensliberationfront.org/?ref=medusarising.org) and [Women’s Liberation Radio News](https://wlrnmedia.com/?ref=medusarising.org) do these very things. WOLF regularly holds online coffee meetings in which participants can discuss feminist issues. They also maintain a blog that WOLF members can contribute to with writings pertaining to topics that are of critical importance to women in the 21st century. These activities function as consciousness-raising activities that will enable women to think through how and why they are oppressed within the system of male supremacy and subsequently devise solutions that will enable them and other women and girls to live in a safer world.[\[1\]](#fn1) Similarly, WLRN provides female audiences with opportunities to engage meaningful content (including podcasts and articles) which address issues of critical importance to women. Listeners and readers of WLRN content have the opportunity to get involved with the organization as volunteers who contribute to editing, interviewing, transcript writing, website design, tech support, developing interactive talk shows, fundraising, YouTube channel development, and more. These types of activities can enable women to begin transcending the processes of acculturation which have led the majority of us to be mal- identified, meaning that we organize our lives around the wills and whims of men rather than pursuing self-awareness, subjectivity, and self-actualization. Almost all of our common cultural practices make male-identification the path of least resistance, and the presence of female-centered spaces is an effective tool for unworking this patriarchal socialization because it enables women to stop thinking of themselves as mere appendages. Engaging in female-centered spaces encourage women to start viewing themselves as sentient, living beings whose life purpose might involve actively and ardently caring about the well-being of other women who are also trapped within a male supremacist regime which makes them vulnerable to rape and other less egregious harms such as unequal pay for equal work. Additionally, within these spaces, women and girls can learn to speak back to power and show other female people that this (being assertive and even aggressive) is a way that you can be in the world as opposed to adopting an attitude and disposition of robotic, deindividuated acquiescence. #### A third is rejecting marriage, sex, and procreation. Despite the fact that feminist rhetoric and realities proliferate all over the world, we are still subjected to a zeitgeist normalizes intercourse, marriage, and procreation as ideal or unavoidable aspects of life for women. As radical feminists or simply as women, we do not have to automatically, robotically accede to these edicts, nor do we have to accept the fallacious reasoning–such as that the biological inclination towards the perpetuation of life means that women can and should procreate–that bolsters the perpetuation of these modalities. Yet as many feminists have always pointed out, it is difficult to be what you cannot see. If we are constantly presented with traditional, conservative representations of womanhood and happiness as always, already, and only existing within family and procreation, we will likely continue to believe that these are the only appropriate, acceptable, and advantageous ways to be in the world. Yet they are not, and [4B](https://afsee.atlanticfellows.lse.ac.uk/en-gb/blogs/how-the-4b-feminist-rebellion-is-taking-on-patriarchy?ref=medusarising.org) is proving it. This decentralized social movement emphasizes creating spaces for women to pursue the rejection of four life-limiting practices: dating, marriage, childbirth, and sex with men. Irrespective of whether we want to personally adopt these proscriptions, we must create and sustain discourse regarding them so that female people become aware that being in the world does not have to involve organizing one’s reality around men. Ultimately, the war against women goes on and patriarchy is alive and kicking. Us. Hard. In light of this reality, it is still important for women to think critically about the strategies and suppositions offered by exemplary radicals such as Andrea Dworkin. We need to be conscious of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments presented by feminist writers such as Dworkin, and we need to expand our consciousness to understand all of the options that are available to us as we go on surviving against the perverse patriarchal world. --- **Jocelyn Crawley** is a radical feminist writer who resides in Atlanta. Her passions are strategizing against rape and sexual assault with other dissident people and thinking through how patriarchy operates in critical, methodological ways. Jocelyn believes that radical work can and should take place in communities with respect for the role that subjectivity plays in creating internal dissent, new questions, and the evolution of consciousness. --- 1. **Real Talk**: Regular readers are aware of Medusa Rising's views on WoLF with regard to their legal work supporitng policy we find impedes feminist progress. We have not changed our view. Authors who contribute here may share most of our RadMatFem, or only some, but may not share all. A strategic intersectionality will mean that others may have alliances we do not share, and we credit them with good reason. At a point in history when women are evermore endangered, we feel a strict factionality is not great strategy. [↩︎](#fnref1) --- [![Image is a link. Banner in shades of magenta and mauve reading women create international, home of women create, the worlds first ever event platforming cancelled and at risk female and feminist artists.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/Women-Create-Banner.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Dissident Women Artists Celebrated at our sister organization Women Create! a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### About the Winged Ones | by Laura Nováková URL: https://www.medusarising.org/about-the-winged-ones-by-laura-novakova/ Last updated: 2026-08-11T12:37:24.000Z Something to think about ever since you’re born – would it kill you? A butterfly got caught on the windshield. Wings bent, over and over again, I want to help, no choice but to sit and stay, let it pass. Birds of a feather lose feathers but on that one walk, I found them ripped out with the skin. Flesh holding it together; on your path, calls of ravens shrieking of unbeaten hearts. I’m afraid to dream - I’ll end up hung. Daydreams, the ones in the night – *wildflowers, sit and stay, let life pass.* I take a breath and just see where it goes from there. I speak and get stuck in the atmosphere, arms and legs flailing between my words, descent without breaking. Effort can breed a catastrophe, too. The children pinch butterfly’s wings between their fingers - big bad world they spawned into. I took one home as a child, caged it for myself; I stared at a huge statue of an angel made out of metal wires. I was a chapel. --- **Laura Ruslana Nova** is a writer and a trained actress from Slovakia, who started writing as a child. She has a BA in Performing Arts, where she completed a creative writing module. That is where 'About The Winged Ones' was born. Her poem 'Instigator' was written when she was 16\. Together, they are her first publications. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to complete posts, Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Last Day to Get the Special Subscription and Sign Up for Nov 1 Reading Circle URL: https://www.medusarising.org/last-day-to-get-the-special-subscription-and-sign-up-for-nov-1-reading-circle/ Last updated: 2025-10-30T16:11:00.000Z ### Brave Cousins, We begin our book conversations on Saturday 1 November. Pythia, Tiamat, and new special promotion members are all invited! Women and men are invited to this circle. We insist that women's voices and insights be given priority, but dictatorships affect us all. All our insights are needed to dismantle them. The book: [HOW TO DISMANTLE A DICTATORSHIP by Heather Marsh](https://www.amazon.com/How-Dismantle-Dictatorship-Resistance-Book-ebook/dp/B0FGK2VV2R?ref=medusarising.org) (only available on Amazon, sorry!!) The meeting will last as long as it needs to, with an outer limit of two hours. You may come and go as you need to, of course. As we are a global group, the Gorgons would like to find a time that suits as many as possible. Please use this form to advise us. [Reading Circle: Saturday 1 Nov 2025 : How to Dismantle a Dictatorship by Heather MarshLet’s find a time to meet that works for most of us if not all -- All Times are Eastern US![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-10.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/P9FWfAvIoEp5rXaOiTF3RGIQm_unzUGi2kQNA-ent1n66sTG6SbDLm8Nu5n9wipztTmbsFgPf5FBQfU-w1200-h630-p)](https://forms.gle/obLuCRgXdhSEF6wu9?ref=medusarising.org) The form also asks for your native time zone so that we may block times differently in future to make meetings convenient by turns. And, if you feel ready, share a question or insight from your reading in the form. We will send these to members by a private email next week. We will meet seminar-style, so the floor is open and conversation will follow its own emergent course. Esmee will have some back-up prompts should we need them. **If you have not yet taken advantage of our membership promotion, please use this moment to upgrade**. Six months of a $12, all access membership for $8/month is a great deal! And it gets you access to the Reading Circles. Oct 31 is the last day to sign up. Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) *Happy reading and rebellion, dear cousins!* *Esmee and the Women of Medusa Rising* We're on redbubble Oh...it's time! We have merch useful, merch portable, and merch subversive! [Check Out All The Fun Swag! ](https://www.redbubble.com/people/MedusaRisingWBW?ref=medusarising.org) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Slowing Down for the Dark Days URL: https://www.medusarising.org/slowing-down-for-the-dark-days/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T16:11:17.000Z I just love a random dragon, you know? It's time to slow down. The pressure cooker has been blasting her whistle for while now. Burnout, even just thinking and publishing, is very real. I want to stop fussing with posts and socials. I want to have some cool conversations and share them with you. I want to get some thinking thought in the wake of this whole year for the world and for our many feminisms. ... And finish the Cixous essays, for the love all creatures. Expect a slower rhythm. I know I said this before and then just plowed on through the whole summer (how not what with the MAGAfash destruction of my country?), but this time I mean it. Medusa Rising promises 4 to 8 posts per month, so from here until maybe Imbolc, expect 4 posts. I suspect I'm not the only one who would like to lean back a little these days. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/10/1000006624.png) One cool conversation is coming at the end of the month. You're invited if you are **Pythia and Tiamat tiers** or if you upgrade with this discount offer between now and Halloween. Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) The first Reading Circle will meet the 1st of November. We'll discuss *How to Dismantle a Dictatorship* by Heather Marsh. I'll contact all the Pythia and Tiamat members, including you who upgrade with this discount offer. Get *HTDAD* at [Bookshop.org or your fave book store](https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-dismantle-a-dictatorship-heather-marsh/0c299f2661c2a692?ean=9781989783399&next=t&ref=medusarising.org). The work this book describes **applies across anti-domination and anti-extraction efforts**. Replace 'Dictator' and 'Endo-ideal' with 'Male Default' and you're there. Some of us have dictators to take down, some of us have other patriarchal constructs to deconstruct and disempower. *The thesis for this discussion is that they are enough alike for this anti-authoritarian playbook to speak to both the Patriarch(y) and the Tyrant/tyranny*. The book is a guide to taking our world back from these forces, **not just the leaders, but the sadist social forces shaping our several tyrannies**. Once we do that, we can build. **A tyrant is not a man.** He is a tyranny made of his followers/reflectors, **HM highlights how he is a system. He is a condition**. And RadMatFem is meant for changing conditions. The thing we face has always been at the heart of the American soul because it is the soul of patriarchy. I hope you will **read these books with your own unique lenses**, moving into your own applications or imagining. I **will open conversations with your highlights or general impressions** of the books. I've sent the conversation guide to Pythias and Tiamats. If you think I missed you, email [info@medusarising.org](mailto: info@medusarising.org). As with the playlist party, we will meet on Google Meet, *take a vote on whether or not to record for a podcast*, and dive on in. --- Write to Us about your resistance If you're a RadFem involved in an Indivisible chapter or 50501 or Support Veterans or with a radfem resistance group operating autonomous, let MR share your insights, you experience, how you see the direction of travel. We want to share good news and connection!!! [Short and Long Submissions Welcome ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ ### How to Join the Reading Circle on 1 Nov URL: https://www.medusarising.org/how-to-join-the-reading-circle-on-1-nov/ Last updated: 2025-10-23T16:11:02.000Z Brave Cousins, We begin our book conversations in about 10 days. Pythia, Tiamat, and new special promotion members are all invited! Women and men are invited to this circle. We insist that women's voices and insights be given priority, but general dictatorships affect us all. All our insights are needed to dismantle them. The book: [HOW TO DISMANTLE A DICTATORSHIP by Heather Marsh](https://www.amazon.com/How-Dismantle-Dictatorship-Resistance-Book-ebook/dp/B0FGK2VV2R?ref=medusarising.org) (only available on Amazon, sorry!!) The meeting will last as long as it needs to, with an outer limit of two hours. You may come and go as you need to, of course. As we are a global group, the Gorgons would like to find a time that suits as many as possible. Please use this form to advise us. [Reading Circle: Saturday 1 Nov 2025 : How to Dismantle a Dictatorship by Heather MarshLet’s find a time to meet that works for most of us if not all -- All Times are Eastern US![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-10.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/P9FWfAvIoEp5rXaOiTF3RGIQm_unzUGi2kQNA-ent1n66sTG6SbDLm8Nu5n9wipztTmbsFgPf5FBQfU-w1200-h630-p)](https://forms.gle/obLuCRgXdhSEF6wu9?ref=medusarising.org) The form also asks for your native time zone so that we may block times differently in future to make meetings convenient by turns. And, if you feel ready, share a question or insight from your reading in the form. We will send these to members by a private email next week. We will meet seminar-style, so the floor is open and conversation will follow its own emergent course. Esmee will have some back-up prompts should we need them. If you have not yet taken advantage of our membership promotion, please use this moment to upgrade. Six months of a $12, all access membership for $8/month is a great deal! And it gets you access to the Reading Circles. Oct 31 is the last day to sign up. Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) *Happy reading and rebellion, dear cousins!* *Esmee and the Women of Medusa Rising* We're on redbubble Oh...it's time! We have merch useful, merch portable, and merch subversive! [Check Out All The Fun Swag! ](https://www.redbubble.com/people/MedusaRisingWBW?ref=medusarising.org) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Hard Parts of Coalition x FiLiA2025 in Brighton URL: https://www.medusarising.org/hard-parts-of-coalition-x-filia2025-in-brighton/ Last updated: 2025-10-22T20:15:28.000Z (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Tips help PAY WOMEN FOR WORK. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) Most feminist coalitions in the US have collapsed. That's just facts. And coalitions between feminists and other political groups (as groups) also usually collapse. The latter because the other group smacks up against our goal of shifting male supremacy to sex egalitarianism and balks pretty hard. The former because women, like most humans, have a hard time holding more than one axis of oppression in their work. ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/10/Hard-part-2_thumb.jpg) Hard Parts of Coalition x FiLiA 2025 | by Esmee 0:00 /947.270542 1× Shifting off of male supremacy is clearly not a goal of 3rd wave/liberal/inclusive feminism. It’s also not even imaginable to reactionary/conservative/post-feminism (whatever the fuck those are besides compliance). No need to rehash that here. Holding only one axis of oppression (or two) usually means, just sort of mechanically, that a feminism is going to limit its explanatory and interventionist power. It’s going to behave in ways that echo patriarchal patterns or are classist, racist, sexist, colonialist. It’s a fact. Patriarchy expresses itself in class, race, sex, and extraction, and …. These are the same problem: some partial allegiance to the existing world that forbids us both solidarity and success. It's the problem that led to the second wave women leaving the New Left in the 1960s and that led (mostly) African-American women to split with white dominated organizations in the women's movement. These were actual featured topics at FiLiA2025\. Our fractiousness and how harmful it is was a big theme in [my conversation with Pragna Patel](https://medusa-rising.ghost.io/ghost/?ref=medusarising.org#/editor/post/68a396cd024f2a00015f7c5e) in the run-up. So it was almost like a message direct from Her when all the mess kicked off. This moment is a test, and I don’t think passing it means tolerating women’s horizontal violence and policing, and I don’t think passing it means we all have to move together in harmony. FiLiA2025 felt like a perfect symbol of the position of feminism/s now. Attacked by Bash Back and protested by TRAs at the beginning, and then infiltrated and sobotaged by far-right aligned women near the end – right down to getting physical with my friend Jane Clare Jones who was previously singled out by such women for a long campaign of abuse meant to silence her. Young women were, again, told they're doing feminism wrong. Young women of color were, again, told that many women in the Global North will not support the anti-colonialist elements of their work. Some of you have learned nothing in the last 40 years and it shows. Both TRAs and FR women looked at FiLiA's organizers, all exhausted and still rowing, and saw a target. Some folks can’t and should not work together, ever. Medusa Rising will forever-never-ever work with women, NGOs, grassroots orgs, think tanks, political groups or parties that support authoritarian, colonialist, far right, xenophobic, genocidal, or ecologically destructive ideas, policies, or actions. Those are the methods of the very system that ends the lives of 5,000,000 women annually and irrevocably damages the lives of 100s of millions more. MAGA. Likud. Hamas. Reform. Fidez. United Russia. Dominionism. Dark Enlightenment. All of these offer less than nothing to women while they demand our compliance, obedience, and servility. But MAGA is not the US, Likud is not Israel, Hamas is not Palestine, Reform is not the UK, Dominionism and Islam and Zionist Judaism are NOT the whole of spiritual knowing or practice, and the Dark Enlightenment is just another colonizer we will probably have to fight hand to hand. Women owe these ideologies and these men *not one thing*. FiLiA tries to do a very hard thing. It tries to be a big-tent feminist conference. It does lots of absolutely essential work outside the conference and internationally. It’s not perfect, and it’s not always pretty, but it is necessary to our strength as a movement that we have a place to gather as exchange views and knowledge – not just reinforce our current condition. When we do that over a problem-harm as intense as the depraved violence of Oct 7 (corrected) and the obscene violence of Israel’s response (which is doubling as Netanyahu’s get-out-of-jail-free card), we all bring tremendous emotional energy to the conversation. Naturally. Especially those of us close to such a conflict. Which is why it is fucking well incumbent on us to maintain our comportment, to leave room for each other, to stick to our feminist commitment to the both/and of complexity, and to never-ever-not-ever make any of these moves: - Reframe an issue for sympathy and in its simplest least representative form: Rape Is Not Resistance - Demand that all women make room for our politics and agree with us - Make one group responsible for the politics of another group they work with on a shared issue that may benefit all kinds of women - Go gunning for an organization or woman in acts of sabotage for careerist advantage or in service of some male dominated political project This is erasure of our sisters. It’s cowardice. It’s lefty-bro and TRA behavior. It’s authoritarian. It’s its own mode of colonization. It’s single-issue, one axis thinking. It suuucks. I bet most of the women who went at TWV’s team online were not ready for young women fully educated in their feminist lineage and down to brawl with confidence. I admired the way they practiced (unknowingly) one of the Gorgon’s maxims: *We don’t pick fights, but we do win them*. **Listen, in this historical moment, it’s All Against the Fash no matter what flag they fly.** I was more eager for FiliA this time than previously. I repped Medusa Rising, I met women I needed to meet and women I didn’t yet know I needed to meet. (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧ I feel like some very powerful flows are coming into sync now. **I will say to the Zionist women in Britain that you are, as TWV charged, completely out of step with the majority of the world’s feminists**. Your parochialism, like that of most US feminist organizations, is both deeply limiting and terribly dangerous. Most of the world’s feminists have a deep political analysis and tungsten-level principles. They are radical in both their views of our problems and in their vision of our solutions. They lean far more anarchist and Marxist than do most women and feminists in the Global North because they live in the consequences of our nations’ rapacious, extractive, colonizing, capitalist and bottomless hunger for other people's resources and labor. When they speak, they are speaking from their lives. Audre Lorde. Pragna Patel. [Arundhati Roy](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arundhati-Roy?ref=medusarising.org). [Sylvia Federici](https://youtu.be/7sU3D-dMgI0?si=N-RHof7jIDafGbki&ref=medusarising.org). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Vanda Shiva. The Zapatistas. [Veronica Gago](https://globaldialogues.georgetown.edu/visual%5Fstories/towards-a-new-feminist-internationalism?ref=medusarising.org). [Prachi Patanka](https://southasiasolidarityinitiative.wordpress.com/south-asia-solidarity-initiative-our-points-of-unity/?ref=medusarising.org). The Lions of Rojava. The Green Revolution. The Southall Black Sisters. None of these do, did, or would be willing to ally with Zionists, Reformers, or MAGA, or even run of the mill liberal capitalists. All of those ARE the problem. These, like the radfems and RadMatFems, would find the GC’s politically and functionally hopeless and debilitating. The “trans issue” is not the only issue, but it is the only issue that lets them ally with the likes of Nigel Farage and Charlie Kirk. **Total Woman Victory is doing us Global North feminists the most valuable service, For FREE**. They are bringing us the voices, experience, and perspective of our feminist sisters from Everywhere Else. And we need this. We have been out of touch with each other for far, far, far too long. That disconnection has been both a plan and a happy second order effect of what we call ‘structural oppression.’ As I have argued [from the beginning of this project](https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-5/), we need a smarter and more effective theory of coalition and a much deeper commitment to WOMEN among feminists in the Global North. As I [said on Twitter this past week](https://x.com/TheMedusaRising/status/1977682911131537847?ref=medusarising.org), working for women means using the world we have in a zigzag, in a swerve & weave kind of way so we avoid easy capture by men’s projects. Max Dashu has long argued that we need a revitalized AUTONOMOUS women’s liberation movement, and she is right about that. An OG feminist and historian of women’s deep time, her support of TWV and their goals should tell you all something. And if you don’t like that something, please will you *just fuuuck off* and go do your work. Be amazing … somewhere else for the women you care for. > I don't say this becuase I do not grieve the rapes and massacre of Oct 7 (corrected). My stomach dropped in terror when I saw the broken and bleeding bodies of women. I say this because the critique of colonialism is ALSO a form of grief for the broken and bleeding bodies of women. If we cannot hear that in each other's vioces, we are lost. Like MAGA and Trump, reactionary feminists’ words and violence increase dramatically in amplitude but the interest chart is as flat as West Texas. Like Trump, so many of them are both scary and boring. I hope we stop letting them drain our energy, our anima. The atrocities we see now in Gaza done to Palestinians by Israel or by Hamas to Israelis **have been committed more than once by every single army of every single patriarchal nation ever to exist on this earth**. We are all condemned in our patriarchal histories. And the Fight At The Feminist Disco, the fallout, the opportunistic sniper actions from far-right aligned women all show us that we have reached an exciting and revolutionary moment in women's liberation movement. We see with perfect clarity now which women want to build a world where women thrive and which do not. We see with perfect clarity now which women want to work across differences of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, region For Women and which do not. We see with perfect clarity now that there is a breathing future waiting for us if we have the pith, moxie, and discipline to create it. Block, mute, forget. Give them nothing. Disengage from these internet spats, I say. They waste time and energy. They drain focus and effort. They only feed that beast whose maw chews our acumen and hope, swallows them in discord, and whose ass shits war. **We have visions. We know our assignment. Let us be about that.** A real, an effective, a robust global feminist and matriarchal coalition requires personal emotional maturity, containment that gives others space to be and grow as they will, and women from everywhere. A strategic intersectionality focuses on the intersections of ISSUES where different kinds of women can and should work together to deepen power and increase effect. No one woman or group or organization can be deeply grounded in ALL FEMINIST LINEAGES or in the details of all local expressions of global patriarchy. We cannot live each other’s lived experience, but we can bring insights from these to the table. A true intersectionality of practice needs different women to come together for a big, Clear, ROBUST, AMBITIOUS **GOAL**. Not for money. Not for fame. Not for ego and worship. Not for control over other women in the movement. Not for political sway. Not for power. **A goal**. That we choose to serve, using our differences of experience and analysis as powers, as enhancements of the work toward the goal some group of women choose to take on. No one lineage will get us all free. But parts of all of them combined in sharp, responsive, and improvisational ways as we clear a way through to the other world we can all hear breathing in our dreams – that just might. --- Also this: --- Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ### Asymmetrical Re-worlding, Part 5: Let’s Get Metaphysical! | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-5-lets-get-metaphysical-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-10-16T16:11:49.000Z Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Asymmetrical-Re-worlding-5--1-_thumb.png) Asymmetrical Re-Worlding, Part 5 | by Therese Doherty 0:00 /1508.842667 1× Previously: [Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/), [Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/p/7535afb0-d5a5-4776-988f-7bde4783ca00/), [Part 3](https://www.medusarising.org/p/bd891559-11e5-443b-a0b9-df8b47cb7c09/), & [Part 4](https://www.medusarising.org/p/572a1721-8177-46a7-9e50-3ffd331c349d/) **Asymmetrical Re-worlding, Part 5: Let’s Get Metaphysical!** I hope you have stuck with me thus far on this long pilgrim’s path of exploration beyond the Mountains of Dualism and towards bodymind integration, disproving the biological essentialism and sexist nonsense of the postfeminists, because this final part is where things get potentially (r)evolutionary. Humans are biological beings and therefore subject to ecological limitations.[\[1\]](#fn1) But we’re also symbolic, cultural creatures who are highly susceptible to the ministrations of *nurture* (or its lack), and in some respects, ‘culture seems to enjoy the upper hand’.[\[2\]](#fn2) Astonishingly, even ‘something as obviously biological as pain in childbirth’, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy remarks, ‘is experienced differently depending on cultural expectations’.[\[3\]](#fn3) Socialisation is powerful stuff! In many ways I’d rather we stopped using the words [feminine and masculine](https://substack.com/@urthboundmisfit/p-163865042?ref=medusarising.org),[\[4\]](#fn4) and that we spoke only of female and male, women and men, girls and boys, seeing as so many people don’t seem to understand the distinction between sex and gender. But there is, perhaps, still a place for the big metaphysical concepts of The Feminine and The Masculine, if we can reimagine them in the right way (as archetypes, not essences). Esmée Streachailt’s brilliant insight that ‘**The world will need to become phenomenologically feminine in order to preserve the ecology that evolved humans**’,[\[5\]](#fn5) gives me a foundation from which to build a new symbolism based on philosopher/psychiatrist/ neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist’s claim that reality hinges upon ‘a profound *asymmetry*’: > More than a century ago Louis Pasteur wrote: ‘Life as manifested to us is a function of the asymmetry of the universe . . . I can even imagine that all living species are primordially, in their structure, in their external forms, functions of cosmic asymmetry.’ Since then physicists have deduced that asymmetry must have been a condition of the origin of the universe: it was the discrepancy between the amounts of matter and antimatter that enabled the material universe to come into existence at all, and for there to be something rather than nothing.[\[6\]](#fn6) Asymmetry *implies* symmetry, McGilchrist [says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqi4s8FxQk&ref=medusarising.org), but it is fundamentally adaptive and generative in a way that symmetry, in its sterile perfection, is not: > what is needed is both symmetry *and* asymmetry – themselves an asymmetrical pairing – *together*. It is neither the breaking of the symmetry alone, nor (alone) the symmetry that is broken, but the new breaking, in conjunction with the old symmetry, the combination of the two, that is generative.[\[7\]](#fn7) This idea runs right through McGilchrist’s philosophy, nesting as he does a variety of concepts within an overarching whole: union and division *within union*; the one and the many *within the one*; non-duality and duality *within non-duality*; both/and and either/or *within both/and*; good and evil *within good*, and so on. He points out that the sex chromosomes—the symmetrical XX versus the asymmetrical XY—together form an asymmetry that results in new life. The yin yang (discussed at the end of Part 1) whirls asymmetrically, with the yin dark and the yang light, seeking balance in its movement. But McGilchrist proposes that the Japanese equivalent, ‘the *inyo* symbol (where *in* \= *yin* and *yo* \= *yang*) captures more clearly … the idea of asymmetry combined with symmetry, and at the same time the way in which the energy of *yo* (*yang*) sits within the receptive space of *in* (*yin*)’,[\[8\]](#fn8) glorious in its calm containment. ![In-Yo Crisp.png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/In-Yo-Crisp-2.png) Perhaps this will be controversial, but could this asymmetry be the basis for an understanding of human relationships and cultural formation? Because humans of either sex are created in and birthed from the bodies of women, I see the female as the whole that unites female and male. The Feminine contains *both* The Feminine and The Masculine. As the character Finn says in Louise Hewett’s novel *Mist*, from the male perspective, ‘without women, we’re nothing. We don’t even exist. A woman is the beginning, and we’re all half female, anyway, what with the chromosomes from the mother and everything.’[\[9\]](#fn9) This idea is not new—the parthenogenetic Goddess who produces all life from her body is found in the oldest creation myths; and Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor speak of the ‘gynandrous Great Mother’[\[10\]](#fn10)—but the metaphysics of asymmetry, and the image of the *inyo*, is what makes this truth finally feel graspable. In terms of socialisation, Catherine Keller argues that ‘**the female connection to mother and world preserves the oceanic feeling of an empathic continuum initially common to both sexes**’.[\[11\]](#fn11) If this is the ‘phenomenologically feminine’ source from which we all derive, then what *The Feminine* really represents is *The Human*—the common ground from which girls and boys, women and men, all originate. The ‘oceanic feeling’ of early childhood is not a state that must be left behind (as is normally the case for males), but the natural condition that forms the foundation for all human development. And within that reality of connection and ‘primal empathy’[\[12\]](#fn12) we can differentiate interdependently *and* uniquely in creative response to the influence of others and the world. As McGilchrist says, **it is ‘The coming together of sameness and difference that makes relationship possible’**.[\[13\]](#fn13) There is no hierarchy here, for female and male are each necessary, though they are joined within the gynocentric Earth-community as a whole. As Keller elaborates, > we may assume that the male child is also originally a relational being, feeling at first connected to the world every bit as intimately as the young girl. At a certain point in his development the lack of an intimate paternal presence throws the boy into the beginnings of his woman-negating self-definition (where “be a man” means “do not be like a girl”).[\[14\]](#fn14) Genevieve Vaughn ‘coined the word “masculation” for this process in which the boy is socialized into a false, non-nurturing identity’.[\[15\]](#fn15) He achieves self-definition according to *what he is not*, what as a male he *should not be*, and denies any trace of The Feminine in himself. He learns to subjugate not just women, but the wounded humanity in himself. The resulting devaluing of The Feminine and the low social status of women makes it all the more difficult for men to break free from their ‘masculated’ identities. Giving high status to women, on the other hand, Riane Eisler points out, would mean that ‘men can more comfortably themselves exhibit stereotypically feminine styles of behavior without feeling a loss in their own status’.[\[16\]](#fn16) **The wise man desires *emasculation*.** ![Tree of Life Nuclear (800 x 280 px).png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Tree-of-Life-Nuclear--800-x-280-px--1.png) We absolutely must hold men accountable, while also acknowledging that patriarchy is a toxin that poisons us all. We all have choices about how we relate to our socialization. Discovering this agency is the process of consciousness raising. The male who is ‘masculated’ is more susceptible to patriarchy's harmful consequences than women and girls, who generally retain more of a connection to the mother-source that men and boys are severed from (and this severing is what makes men dysfunctional and potentially dangerous). As Keller maintains, ‘the connected, permeable ego ascribed to female children fits the description of an actual entity … much more nearly than does the rigid and clearly delineated male ego’.[\[17\]](#fn17) As [I said](https://www.medusarising.org/interwoven-selves-review-of-from-a-broken-web-by-therese-doherty/) in my review of Keller’s book, ‘because we usually remain closer to that connected, permeable base, girls and women can model the transformation that must occur for both women and men to achieve postpatriarchal human selfhood’.[\[18\]](#fn18) **The cure for male estrangement is clearly the ‘phenomenologically feminine’ system of matriarchy**, involving as it does ‘social mothering’—caring, nurturing and gift-giving, performed by everyone—women (both mothers and non-mothers) *and* men, according to need (which of course will require a complete overhaul of the socioeconomic system and the way we live). Jane Clare Jones says, ‘We must demand the possibility of a challenge to male dominance at its most fundamental level, and a vision of sexuality, and social organization, grounded on the possibility of real mutuality between human subjects.’[\[19\]](#fn19) For anyone who thinks that men are not cut out for nurturing, it should be clear by now that humans are not hardwired to behave in inevitable ways. Instead, we respond to circumstances. *We learn*—just as we learned that men are dominant and women are submissive and wrongly came to believe this was a cosmic truth. As Hrdy states, nurturing behaviour seems to be a ‘unisex \[*potential*\]’ in many mammals,[\[20\]](#fn20) and **‘The act of caring has its own consequences—habits of mind and emotion.’**[\[21\]](#fn21) There is room for men to be the protectors and providers they claim to be in a matriarchal world, alongside women who have *always* been the protectors and providers for their offspring and kin. For everyone in matriarchy, say Sjöö and Mor, ‘there is a close identification with the collective group of mothers, with Mother Earth, and with the Cosmic Mother’.[\[22\]](#fn22) Mothers and children are at the centre, because children are the seeds of culture, ready to grow into future society, and if something goes wrong in the early years of development, the consequences can be devastating. If we could stop socialising girls and boys into gendered roles, then they would have a much better chance to attain self-actualisation as fully-rounded humans, rather than as limited, sexist stereotypes. Most importantly, men would remain within the circle of The Feminine rather than disconnecting from it and denying its natural home within them, and their natural home within it. ‘\[T\]he issue is full involvement on the part of female and male parent-figures in what traditionally was “mothering”’, Keller says: > Then there is reason to think … that gender identity would simply break down … \[leading to\] more self-differentiation for women, more affective connection for men. **The sexually derived sense of self would indeed change, but in the direction of more, of multiple possibilities, and not of even fewer** (as the “unisex” version of androgyny, for instance, implies).[\[23\]](#fn23) This would be the pluralistic, liberating dance of *différance*, of betweenness: ‘Everything is understood within its penumbra of significances, in its context – all that encircles it.’[\[24\]](#fn24) Visually, I think the *inyo* is suggestive of many things: Grandmother Cosmos birthing Mother Earth; Earth gestating Life; female enfolding female/male; ovum engulfing sperm;[\[25\]](#fn25) womb cradling foetus; mother holding child; nature gently embracing culture; the dark of the unconscious encircling the light of consciousness … > She is the dark night and the black soil that holds within itself the intense powers of light, the secrets and the forces of all life. She is the mouth, the vagina, the passionate and wise source from which all comes and to which all returns. . . . > The black-winged night laid a silver egg (the moon) in the womb of darkness, in the dark waters. The divine one resided in that egg during a whole year. Then she by herself alone divided into two halves and out of these halves She formed heaven and earth. . . .[\[26\]](#fn26) **The asymmetry of The Feminine and The Masculine enfolded by The Feminine—** The Feminine (The Feminine / The Masculine) —**does not suggest domination or imbalance,** but a certain necessary configuration within the larger dance that generates and sustains life. It suggests priorities: the values of care and egalitarianism that must be central for cultural flourishing. Everyone must bow to the needs of the mother-child dyad, to mother-right—though of course that would occur within a wider cultural nexus that enables everyone to grow and thrive, especially women. ‘What the mother, and The Mother, wants is a social and cultural order that supports her *making* human people and her *being* a human person in the female mode *at the same time*’, Streachailt says. ‘If this were the story of how the world works—our ontology—then **men and women could know ourselves to be bodyselves in the male and female modes instead of flattened into bodies in search of themselves, wearing gendered masks.**’[\[27\]](#fn27) I’m aware that all of this might sound like wishful thinking, but (unlike the nonsensical fantasies of the postfeminists I have refuted in this series) it’s built upon sound reasoning—and reason is embodied thinking. It is the explicit, the known, surrounded by the implicit, the unknown, united within the wholeness of the implicit—seen in the *inyo*. All together this thinking weaves a new dream for human life on Earth. The so-called ‘male domain — of thought and action’ that has [superseded](https://brielleelise.substack.com/p/resurrecting-eves-serpent-what-do) the ‘female domain — of the body and being’ (see Part 1), has always been a false domain, albeit a pervasive one that invades our bodyminds via our upbringings and cultural conditioning. **The reality is that The Feminine—the union that holds division and union within it—never split the body and being from thought and action. All of the different facets of existence are connected and flowing, part of a multi-layered wholeness.** Matriarchy is ‘the experienced unity of psychic/productive/sexual/cosmic power and activity in the egalitarian collective of women’,[\[28\]](#fn28) and it is returning. Heide Goettner-Abendroth speaks of a matriarchal ‘consensus revolution’ that, in contrast to ‘conquest revolutions’ (which rely on violence and an elite leadership), would transcend left/right models of politics: ‘an open, nonabsolute model of the future that oversteps the prevailing system—not through orthodoxy or strategy but through **countless diverse, intangible experiments**.’[\[29\]](#fn29) ‘It is’, she says, ‘a flexible utopia: it has a perspective but does not slavishly adhere to it.’[\[30\]](#fn30) It values the continuous *process* of change, rather than focusing exclusively on the desired outcome. This is reminiscent of Françoise d’Eaubonne’s idea of ‘mutation’, a necessary cultural metamorphosis that occurs from the bottom up: > feminism is not solely … the protests of the human category that has been crushed and exploited from the most ancient times … **Feminism is entire humanity in crisis; it is the reinvention of species; it is truly the world that will change its base.** And much more still: there is no longer any choice; if the world refuses this mutation that will surpass all revolutions just as revolutions surpassed the spirit of reform, it is condemned to death …[\[31\]](#fn31) Renée Gerlich says in an inspiring [speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufnn1DLKM8I&ref=medusarising.org): > … the test of whether our spiritualising or our politicking are about anything real, lies in whether they are moving us closer to a world without rape. That is what distinguishes a truly progressive spirituality or politics. In party politics, only a women’s party can offer this vision. Even the Dalai Lama has said that women will save the world. And it’s true, because **we are the ones who long for the change all humanity needs, not as an abstraction or a nice idea, but in our bones, as a need that our lives depend on.** There are, therefore, multiple paths, multiple possibilities, as long as we found our efforts upon the right values, on female solidarity, and engage with the ongoing process of Earth’s phenomenologically and ontologically feminine evolution. ![Mother Right (1).png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Mother-Right--1-.png) Ultimately, the predicament underlying all other predicaments is the patriarchal outgrowth of civilisation itself. We have lost our connection to land, to spirit, to the *eros* of our natural animality. We are living in ways that are inherently traumatising and damaging to our health. No one escapes from the harm, though some experience it more acutely than others—most often women and children. Feminism grapples with the difficult recognition that men as a class still present a danger to us, and with the uncertainties of a future of increasing misogyny and disembodiment, as well as the present and coming reality of ecological collapse. **We need feminism now more than ever, which is why I think that anything that distorts what it is, and misrepresents it to young women, must be challenged** (hence why I was called to write this piece). The work our feminist foremothers did was monumental and created a foundation that can be built upon by the next generations, and though imperfect, can be built upon still. We don’t need this notion of postfeminism because we don’t need to get *beyond* feminism but right down into the belly of it, right into the beating heart, the ground of female being that is our birthright to embrace. We need to be able to recognise the enemy, and to refuse to turn against our own kind, and feminism provides us with the clear sight and solidarity to do this. The reactionary postfeminist trend only serves to distract us from the women’s liberation movement that already exists, and the women who are still working to change the world. They don’t have all the answers, but they are persistently asking the right questions, always passionate, fierce and endlessly nurturing of female potential. Feminism is not anything we want it to be. It’s still a collective movement for liberation that is based on evidence-based analysis and specific women-centric values, *but Goddess!*—**it allows the mind to flow freely and fly beyond what is known within the confines of the dominant culture**. It’s vitalising and beautiful, and I wish more women could see that. Feminist thinking goes so far beyond inhumane patriarchal assumptions that it breaks free into **new conceptions of our humanity, relating and loving, based upon pleasure and flourishing**, not pain and debasement. Streachailt says: > Radical feminism recuperates lost women’s knowledge, critiques the fantasy laid over women’s realities by men’s cultures, organizes to support/heal women harmed by men’s social order, and imagines new worlds where humans are not so fragmented and overdetermined by roles written to belittle them. Radical feminism would intervene in that damage before it can do irreparable harm to bodies, lives, and whole communities.[\[32\]](#fn32) When we realise, as women, that we are not what Man says we are, and we (re)discover our wild and wise natures, then society as it currently exists will collapse. We will withdraw our labour from what does not serve women\~children\~Earth, and our ‘no’ will be inviolable. And while to the immature patriarchal mind this may seem like wilful chaos and destruction—*which they fear*—it will actually be the deepest form of care and (re)creation. **Men too will (re)discover that they are not what Man says they are, and that full humanity is their birthright, long unclaimed**. Healing means coming to wholeness, and when women and men are whole, there will be a new phenomenologically and ontologically feminine world, a world we once knew, but forgot. This is true (r)evolution. We women have a bone memory of what egalitarian, free, peaceful life was like. And we have the diverse, flowing, generative solutions, because in the beginning we created culture … and the children followed. --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.facebook.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/). --- --- 1. Though, in civilisation we live as if we are not. [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Cordelia Fine, *Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society*, W. W. Norton & Company: New York, 2017, p. 126 (pdf page number) – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, *Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species*, Ballantine Books: New York, 1999, p. 165 [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Originally these words just meant ‘pertaining to the female’ or ‘pertaining to the male’, and were not disconnected from sexed bodies. Detaching these concepts from biology and then applying them to abstract concepts, behaviours and clothing styles, is where much of the confusion has come from. See [‘De-gendering gender?’](https://substack.com/@urthboundmisfit/p-163865042?ref=medusarising.org) by Dana Seilhan for more discussion of this. [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Welcome to the Occupation, Cont.’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Four (Summer 2021), p. 115 – all issues are available to read online or download for free here: [https://theradicalnotion.org/](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Iain McGilchrist, *The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World*, Yale University Press: New Haven, 2009, p. 13 – I find McGilchrist’s perspective on the asymmetry of the brain hemispheres not just fascinating, but also holistic and empathetic, and it therefore aligns well with feminist principles (at least for me). He writes, ‘a society is, or should be, an organic unity, not an assemblage of bits that strive with one another. It is as if every organ in the body wanted to be the head.’ p. 444 [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Iain McGilchrist, *The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Vol. II: What Then is True?*, Perspectiva Press: London, 2021, p. 1034 – McGilchrist is a man who gets it. He writes, ‘we have abandoned … Nature, whose meaning is that-which-is-about-to-be-born, and is feminine – and what’s more a goddess; Nature, that, like Kali, is wild, and gives life and destroys – or rather does not destroy, but transforms one being into another; Nature, that is our mother and our healer and our home, as well as our ultimate fate; Nature, that we are reviling and doing our best to devastate – is the great whole to which we belong.’ p. 1325 [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. McGilchrist, *The Matter With Things*, pp. 1034-5 [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Louise M. Hewett, *Mist (Pictish Spirit #1)*, Egg & Serpent Studio, 2016, p. 579 [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. Monica Sjöö & Barbara Mor, *The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth*, HarperOne: San Francisco, 1987/1991, p. 66 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. Catherine Keller, *From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self*, Beacon Press: Boston, 1986, p. 136 [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Keller, p. 184 [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. McGilchrist, *The Matter With Things*, p. 846 [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Keller, p. 137 [↩︎](#fnref14) 15. Genevieve Vaughn, *For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange*, Plain View Press, 1997, p. 49 – read or download this and other books for free here: [http://www.genevievevaughan.org/books/](http://www.genevievevaughan.org/books/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref15) 16. Riane Eisler, *Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body*, HarperOne, 1995, p. 440 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. Keller, p. 189 [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. There are still significant challenges associated with female self-actualisation, so I’m not implying that we don’t have work to do on ourselves. But that’s what feminism is for! [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Editorial Statement: The Subject of Desire’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Seven (Spring/Summer 2022), p. 8 [↩︎](#fnref19) 20. Hrdy, p. 209 [↩︎](#fnref20) 21. Hrdy, p. 212 [↩︎](#fnref21) 22. Sjöö & Mor, p. 67 [↩︎](#fnref22) 23. Keller, p. 139 [↩︎](#fnref23) 24. McGilchrist, *The Master and His Emissary*, p. 447 [↩︎](#fnref24) 25. ‘To \[anthropologist\] Meredith Small, the story of the female’s role in conception is a miniature of the overall narrative. She sees the popular understanding of conception as “an outdated allegory of human sexuality” featuring the male as “aggressor, persuader, conqueror.” Recent research on human fertilization suggests something of a role reversal. Small suggests the ovum “reaches out and envelops reluctant sperm.” “Female biology,” she concludes, “even at the level of egg and sperm interaction, doesn’t necessarily dictate a docile stance.”’ Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá, *Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships*, Harper Perennial: New York, 2010/2012, p. 239 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref25) 26. Sjöö & Mor, p. 55 [↩︎](#fnref26) 27. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Luce Irigaray and Being Beyond Patriarchy’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Nine (Spring/Summer 2023), p. 76 [↩︎](#fnref27) 28. Sjöö & Mor, p. 16 [↩︎](#fnref28) 29. Heide Goettner-Abendroth (translated by Maureen T. Krause), *The Dancing Goddess: Principles of a Matriarchal Aesthetic*, Beacon Press: Boston, 1982/1991, p. 232 [↩︎](#fnref29) 30. Goettner-Abendroth, p. 233 [↩︎](#fnref30) 31. Françoise d’Eaubonne (translated and edited by Ruth Hottell), *Feminism or Death*, Verso: London, 2022, p. 4 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref31) 32. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Extra-Feminist: Damage’, *THE RADICAL NOTION,* Issue Two (Winter 2021), pp. 26-7 [↩︎](#fnref32) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/In-Yo-Crisp-1.png) ### Asymmetrical Re-Worlding, Part 4: The End of Male Power | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-4-the-end-of-male-power-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-10-09T16:11:01.000Z Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Asymmetrical-Re-worlding-4-1_thumb.png) Asymmetrical Re-Worlding Part 4 | by Therese Doherty 0:00 /1089.941333 1× Previously: [Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/), [Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/p/7535afb0-d5a5-4776-988f-7bde4783ca00/), [Part 3](https://www.medusarising.org/p/bd891559-11e5-443b-a0b9-df8b47cb7c09/) ### Part 4: The End of Male Power According to the postfeminists that I am refuting in this series of essays, men are dominant and women are submissive; men lead and women follow; men protect and provide and women simply have babies. And this is all, seemingly, ‘natural’, ‘biological’ and ‘instinctive’, as if Evolution hardwired us that way. Yet there is much evidence—from anthropology, primatology, zoology, sociology and other fields (as well as good old common sense)—that disproves these claims, overturns what we think of as ‘natural’, and emphasises how adaptable living beings really are. As humans, we have the ability to consciously choose to organise our cultures in ways that prioritise the care of children and other vulnerable people, based on partnership between the sexes, rather than relationships of hierarchy and domination. Though it wasn’t new information, research [was published](https://www.mpg.de/24481870/0407-ornr-female-bonobos-keep-males-in-check-not-with-strength-but-with-solidarity-987453-x?ref=medusarising.org) in April 2025 about how female bonobos form coalitions in order to suppress male dominance. With their high status and easy sexual autonomy, they maintain freedom and authority, despite being smaller than males. This female social ‘dominance’, according to primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal, ‘is largely based on seniority rather than physical intimidation’.[\[1\]](#fn1) That is, it takes a very different form to male dominance. The system of matriarchy *is not* the polar opposite of patriarchy, it’s an entirely different paradigm. As I wrote in Part 3, it’s a system in which children are raised communally and grow up caring for their mother’s land; women have autonomy and are not subjugated to men (sexually or otherwise); a general egalitarian ethos prevails; and it is understood that women, as the progenitors of life, are also the creators of culture, and are respected accordingly. If we’d discovered the easy-going matriarchal bonobos first, and not the more hierarchical chimpanzees or baboons, de Waal speculates, ‘We would at present most likely believe that early hominids lived in female-centered societies, in which sex served important social functions and in which warfare was rare or absent’.[\[2\]](#fn2) Female coalitions overcoming male dominance brings me to the intriguing work of anthropologist Chris Knight who develops a theory of human cultural origins based on exactly that. He argues that females developed solidarity due to their propensity for menstrual synchrony, and evolved a form of ‘sexual morality’[\[3\]](#fn3) based on what, from his Marxist perspective, he calls the ‘sexual picket line’ or the ‘sex strike’. **The female necessity of sexual autonomy—of being able to say ‘no’—and the formation of alliances with male kin as well as, importantly,** **other *non-dominant*, *cooperative* males**, is what ultimately humanised the species and enabled culture to come about. This is because hungry, vulnerable ‘Babies’, *not men*, ‘would ultimately have had to come first. Sex would have had to be subordinated to economics.’[\[4\]](#fn4) Knight says, > male dominance had to be overthrown because the unending prioritising of male short-term sexual interests could lead only to the permanence and institutionalisation of behavioural conflict between the sexes, between the generations and also between rival males. If the symbolic, cultural domain was to emerge, what was needed was a political collectivity – an alliance – capable of transcending such conflicts.[\[5\]](#fn5) Female solidarity and the prioritisation of the needs of mothers and children, founded on blood mysteries and matrilineal kinship, transcended male power and desires. Egalitarianism, it has been [argued](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeWO3MvV0pc&list=WL&index=16&t=3s&ref=medusarising.org), was a prerequisite for language development and culture formation. **Male dominance and female submission are the antithesis of human culture.** The development of patriarchy was a very recent *devolution* for our species, a usurpation of already-existing female cultural creativity and authority, and that’s why the female collectivity of feminism and gynocentric social structures are so threatening to men—and to postfeminist women. Knight affirms: ‘Far from producing culture … male power enters tardily on to the scene, transforming and politically colonising a cultural landscape long since formed by others.’[\[6\]](#fn6) The Mother Goddess was murdered and replaced with the fabricated Father God. ![Medusas of Basillica Cistern Istanbul (3).png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Medusas-of-Basillica-Cistern-Istanbul--3-.png "Medusa's head inverted as base for pillar in the Basillica Cistern, Justinian, 6th century CE") The story of human origins is complex, and there is much that we can only speculate about. I am not claiming that Knight’s theory is correct in all of its aspects, nor that we should extrapolate directly from either primatological or anthropological studies to explain modern humans, but such ideas do help us to think outside of the patriarchal narrative. And my Goddess! Things *were* better once upon a time, before men invented patriarchy, and everything went to hell. ‘\[W\]hat one imagines to have existed in the past, in a Golden Age,’ says Susan Griffin, ‘stands in the mind for the hope of wholeness we might be able to find in the future. **To consider the possibility of matriarchy requires a shift in thinking.**’[\[7\]](#fn7) **The world that feminists want to (re)create is a world *beyond any kind of dominance hierarchy***, where everyone is valued and cared for according to need, rather than one based on the production of surplus value for those higher up, and on violence and exploitation. In terms of the abolition of gender, this means not the elimination of sexual difference, but the end of the unjust and erroneous hierarchy of values assigned to the sexes, and the end of power imbalances in relationships. The aim ‘is to destroy male power itself.’[\[8\]](#fn8) As Riane Eisler contends, the way we perceive the mother-child relationship might be a residue of pre-patriarchal understanding, for it’s > the one human relationship that even in male-dominant societies is not generally conceptualized in superiority-inferiority terms … The larger, stronger adult mother is clearly, in hierarchic terms, superior to the smaller, weaker child. But this does not mean we normally think of the child as inferior or less valued.[\[9\]](#fn9) There is a saying—**there are only two kinds of people in the world: mothers and their children.** The vision of matriarchy centres women\~children\~Earth. While not all women become mothers, we were all once children, so everyone is embraced in that analogy, including men. According to artist/writer/ecofeminist Monica Sjöö and poet/editor/Goddess feminist Barbara Mor, who together produced the groundbreaking cross-disciplinary (and must-read!) book of feminist revisionist history, *The Great Cosmic Mother*, matriarchy was a holistic cultural system in which > Women owned their bodies, their children, and their living properties; women made vital decisions affecting the survival and well-being of their people. There was no way by which an elite group of men could set up laws to restrict women's movements, ideas, or sexual activities. Economic relations were not experienced as separate from religious and social relationships; they were originally based on gift exchange, which served a communal-bonding function, not a competitive or profit-making one.[\[10\]](#fn10) Socialisation is the primary cause of behavioural dysfunction, and the underlying cultural conditions that we all have to contend with are traumatising, thus I don’t believe that men are innately violent or irredeemable—that’s actually one of the patriarchal myths we need to overcome, for it justifies their continued misbehaviour (the myth of male dominance actually insults and inhibits men). ‘In its classic form of perverting what is right and healthful into a tool of domination,’ Esmée Streachailt writes, ‘patriarchy puts humans into a bad paradox “of forcing a sacrifice of relationship in order to have relationships” by separating boys and girls from essential parts of their being’.[\[11\]](#fn11) The indoctrination of gender, the dualistic fragmentation of the world, and the myths of civilisation ‘wire’ us in ways that influence who we become. The bodymind is permeable, because we are ecological beings embedded in an ecosystem of diverse influences, and the cultural predominance of gender means that false beliefs take over. Yet because the social context and our bodyminds are mutually reinforcing, Cordelia Fine’s conclusion is encouraging: ‘As society slowly changes, so too do the differences between male and female selves, abilities, emotions, values, interests, hormones and brains’.[\[12\]](#fn12) If we can start to tell new cultural stories at scale—about matriarchy, about egalitarianism, about mutuality, about peace—and begin to *enact* them, then perhaps we can move towards a better future. We need new-old stories that intertwine us all into relationship with each other and the Earth. It’s therefore essential that women cast off the patriarchal myths that clothe us and society with male-defined assumptions, and rediscover our herstory.[\[13\]](#fn13) But getting beyond our cultural indoctrination isn’t easy. Patriarchy has four core elements according to Max Dashu: > sexual control, control of women’s procreative power, and exploitation of women’s labour … \[and\] the **psychic colonization of women. The internal mental induction of women into patriarchal behaviours and allegiances, by means of culture**, whether that’s romance novels, magazines, or religious dogma, you name it.[\[14\]](#fn14) This psychic colonisation is exemplified by the fairytale princess who waits patiently, passively and powerlessly, to be rescued by the all-conquering heroic prince. As Sharon Blackie [points out](https://sharonblackie.substack.com/p/the-post-heroic-journey), in Joseph Campbell’s vision of the hero’s journey ‘women can be no more than the destination: we represent the static, essential qualities that the active, all-conquering Hero is searching for; we’re considered only in the context of what we represent for the male Hero’. The post-heroic journey that Blackie outlines provides an antidote to this stultification, but I particularly like Streachailt’s [formulation](https://www.medusarising.org/re-framing-helene-cixous-by-esmee/): > The Hero's Journey might be to Go Out and return to the Origin, but the Heroine doesn't return. “A girl's journey is farther—to the unknown, to invent” possible and desirable metaphors, worlds. If one must go out through a door or a gate, the (metaphysical or archetypal) Masculine seeks to return through that same gate or door. The Feminine? She never wants to see that place again. **‘Re-worlding’, Streachailt says, ‘is another way to phrase the project of radical feminism’.**[\[15\]](#fn15) Once the heroine knows that other worlds exist, or are possible, there’s no going back. To quote [Ursula K. Le Guin](https://serendipstudio.org/sci%5Fcult/leguin/?ref=medusarising.org): ‘We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.’ ![Medusa Snake Frame (2).png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Medusa-Snake-Frame--2-.png) Many women are limiting their interactions with men via various separatist strategies, which I respect, but we can’t stop there. While we must protect our wellbeing in the short-term, we can also be considering longer-term goals. We need to offer a new human story that includes men too. Healthy socialisation for boys, particularly in the early years of life, is critical, because > Once beyond the age of malleability, males seem to be stuck with whatever imprint they’ve received … If the influences during this “developmental window” are distorting and destructive, a boy may grow into a man with an unalterable, nearly irresistible desire to reenact the same patterns with others.[\[16\]](#fn16) Campbell’s conception of the hero’s journey is patriarchal in origin, and doesn’t offer what is needed. Compare it with Heide Goettner-Abendroth’s evocation of the older Greek word *heros*— **the Sacred King of matriarchy, who, ‘lives and works within the cosmic ordering of life, and represents, through the Goddess, masculine creativity’.** He makes a cyclical journey into the Underworld from which he is reborn. This is ‘a voluntary sacrifice on behalf of land and people, so that in following the laws of the cosmos, new life is made possible’. In contrast, the patriarchal hero > has been wrenched from his close connection with the Goddess and with nature. To achieve his meaningless heroic deeds he now destroys nature and other human beings … The sacrifice of the\* heros\*, on the other hand, is made out of love for the Goddess and nature, and he goes into the Underworld in order to be born again through her.[\[17\]](#fn17) This sounds much more like Blackie’s [post-heroic journey](https://sharonblackie.substack.com/p/the-post-heroic-journey), though it’s almost *pre*\-heroic, rooted in the shamanic Underworld journey, deference to Mother Nature and Her cyclical round of life\~death\~rebirth. In one sense the postfeminists are right—we do need to earth back into our female bodies which are part of nature—*but they neglect to mention that men need to do the same.* In fact, it might be *even more crucial* that they become embodied, because ‘the problem is not that women are closer to nature than men’. As Jane Clare Jones points out, ‘ The problem is that men staked an entire society on the pretence that they are *not* part of nature’,[\[18\]](#fn18) and we’re all paying the price for this disastrous error. **Men** ***are their bodies* just as women are**, and without wholesale change to male attitudes and behaviour, without men developing sexual self-restraint and the maturity to actually see women as human—without rooting back into empathetic ways of relating—there can be no positive change. Men need to give up their dominance and sense of impermeability, their abstractions that alienate them from material reality, and embrace their softness, vulnerability and dependence on the mothers that birthed them and the Earth that sustains them. We’re all flesh and blood beings, we’re all part of nature. We will all die and be regenerated into other life. ‘Only when the two sexes can communicate in the absence of one-sided violence or power privileges which exempt men from having to think at all in relation to vast areas of sexual, personal and family life’, Knight says, ‘only then will sanity and objectivity in cross-gender communication systems have some chance of arising.[\[19\]](#fn19) Women are beginning to create a new-old matriarchy, and if men refuse to pay attention, if they refuse to listen and learn and contribute, they’ll simply be left alone and lonely in their dying patriarchy. **Ultimately, the Goddess is the process of Evolution, and Evolution has one rule: adapt or die.** --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.facebook.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/). --- --- 1. Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá, *Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships*, Harper Perennial: New York, 2010/2012, p. 71 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Ryan & Jethá, p. 70 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. ‘For the first culturally organised humans, sexuality could no longer be under purely personal control. The availability of one’s body was of potential concern to the whole group. There were elements of repression in this … But there was nothing necessarily patriarchal about the repressive forces which now came into play. The culturally necessary inhibitions came from within. Contrary to the Victorian myths, so-called “modesty” or “morality” had not been imposed on earliest women by men: women had imposed it on themselves (producing mirror-image responses among culturally organised men) as a condition of their own solidarity and power.’ Chris Knight, *Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture*, Yale University Press: New Haven, 1991, p. 43 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Knight, p. 42 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Knight, p. 670 (ebook page number) – According to Knight’s theory, females instituted a taboo on sex during their synchronised menstruation as a strategy to encourage men to band together to hunt, and then bring back meat to share. When men returned, and women’s bleeding had ended, sex and feasting would result. There’s obviously a lot more detail that I can’t share here, but the concept of female solidity being what essentially humanised the male and led to culture formation, is what is directly relevant to my argument. [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Knight, p. 668 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Susan Griffin, *Made From This Earth: An Anthology of Writings*, Harper & Row: New York, 1982, p. 14 [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. Françoise d’Eaubonne (translated and edited by Ruth Hottell), *Feminism or Death*, Verso: London, 2022, p. 67 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Riane Eisler, *The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future*, HarperOne: New York, 1987/1995, pp. 27–28 [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. Monica Sjöö & Barbara Mor, *The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth*, HarperOne: San Francisco, 1987/1991, p. 19 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Integration is the Radfem Way: A Review of *In a Human Voice*’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Twelve (Autumn/Winter 2024), p. 103 – all issues are available to read online or download for free here: [https://theradicalnotion.org/](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Cordelia Fine, *Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences*, Icon Books: London, 2010, p. 161 (pdf page number) – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. Max Dashu’s work for more than half a century on the [Suppressed Histories Archives](https://www.suppressedhistories.net/?ref=medusarising.org) is one of the treasures we can refer to. Sylvia Linsteadt’s [writing](https://www.sylviavictorlinsteadt.com/about?ref=medusarising.org), revisioning myth with a feminist and ecological perspective, is also highly recommended, as is Renée Gerlich’s *Brief Complete Herstory*, serialised [on Substack](https://reneegerlich.substack.com/t/brief-complete-herstory). [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Matricultures and the Matrix of Life: An Interview With Max Dashu’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Six (Winter 2022), p. 100 [↩︎](#fnref14) 15. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Luce Irigaray and Being Beyond Patriarchy’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Nine (Spring/Summer 2023), p. 75 [↩︎](#fnref15) 16. Ryan & Jethá, p. 251 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. Heide Göttner-Abendroth (translated by Lilian Friedberg), *The Goddess and Her* Heros, Anthony Publishing Company: Stow, Massachusetts, 1995, p. 5 [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Editorial Statement: Women and Nature’, *THE RADICAL NOTION,* Issue Six (Winter 2022), p. 5 [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. Knight, p. 674 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref19) --- Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Asymmetrical Re-worlding, Part 3: Our Matriarchal Foremothers Are Laughing … If They Aren’t Crying | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-3-our-matriarchal-foremothers-are-laughing-if-they-arent-crying-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-10-02T16:11:02.000Z Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Asymmetrical-Re-worlding-3_thumb.png) Asymmetrical Re-Worlding, part 3 | by Therese Doherty 0:00 /1295.60381 1× ### Part 3: Our Matriarchal Foremothers Are Laughing... If They Aren't Crying [In Part 1 I attempted](https://www.medusarising.org/p/bda570c0-b3fb-4d30-bd7a-63f2af4e7d51/) to create a map to help us journey as pilgrims beyond ‘the misty, forbidding passes of the Mountains of Dualism’[\[1\]](#fn1) and the gendered programming that emerges from that splitting of experience; and in [Part 2 I discussed](https://www.medusarising.org/p/7535afb0-d5a5-4776-988f-7bde4783ca00/) the dance of *différance* and a healthy embodiment that integrates mind and body, as well as, importantly, how our identifications can skew and impede our thinking. That kind of intellectual distortion has led to a lot of postfeminist [talk](https://chantelq.substack.com/p/the-biology-of-feminine-submission) about how men are naturally predisposed to lead, and women to follow,[\[2\]](#fn2) but all this does is replicate the patriarchal order. ‘Our culture can be classified as “patriarchal” … not because power is reserved for biological fathers,’ according to Charlene Spretnak, ‘but because **men and women are socialized to understand that males should legitimately act as controlling cultural fathers, while females should appropriately act as dependent, obedient minors.**’[\[3\]](#fn3) (Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor also point out that many ‘sex-role traits originated among the privileged classes—the only people who could afford passive and dependent women, and for whom a bored and indulgent lifestyle made sex-role playing “an amusement.”’)[\[4\]](#fn4) Yet, for the vast majority of our species’ existence, we were hunter-foragers, and such cultures are fiercely egalitarian. ‘When you can’t block people’s access to food and shelter, and you can’t stop them from leaving, how can you control them?’, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá ask. > The ubiquitous political egalitarianism of foraging people is rooted in this simple reality. Having no coercive power, leaders are simply those who are followed—individuals who have earned the respect of their companions. Such “leaders” do not— cannot— *demand* anyone’s obedience.[\[5\]](#fn5) Those who ‘lead’ do so not in any formal or permanent sense, but according to need and experience. A leader could be a man, or a woman, or even a child—the girl who has a knack for finding water; the boy who knows where a patch of ripe berries is growing; the wise old woman who has successfully raised children and grandchildren. The concept of *ownership*—men possessing (and thereby controlling) women, land or wealth (elements of patriarchy)—was also largely unheard of, and there is some evidence that multi-female–multi-male mating, not monogamy, was probably the norm[\[6\]](#fn6) (as was bisexuality, if our bonobo cousins are anything to go by). This fluidity allowed children to be raised communally, and for mothers, who ‘For most of human existence … combined productive lives with reproduction’,[\[7\]](#fn7) to continue to contribute in other ways to the life of the group.This egalitarian and flowing social structure is our primary legacy as humans, as is a pluralistic, animist perception of reality. The way we perceive reality now is myopic in comparison. The belief that women are meant to be dependent on men is a case in point. The postfeminists to whom I am responding **specifically criticise female independence**, and are therefore [pro male ownership and control](https://www.tiktok.com/@allyrooker/video/7449928091893419295?lang=en&ref=medusarising.org). A badly photoshopped [misogynist meme](https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/05/fact-check-original-artists-message-in-webcomic-was-not-labeling-single-woman-victim.html?ref=medusarising.org)[\[8\]](#fn8) typifies this view, depicting ‘An Established and Complete Woman’—married with four children, versus ‘A Victim of Feminism’—a single woman eating pizza and drinking wine, saddled with college debt, with a cat, a giant dildo, and her ‘body count’ tallied on the wall. Female independence is apparently both unnatural, and out of step with the reality of our relational *interdependence*—I have been informed that women can’t ‘do it all’—but this is a conceptual error. Enabling people of either sex to have the financial independence that is currently required in the capitalist system so that they have autonomy in their lives (autonomy being ‘an indispensable human need’, according to Gabor Maté),[\[9\]](#fn9) does not preclude a larger relational and societal interdependence. Personal freedoms and relational and communal responsibilities must be balanced. Even ‘female primates’, says primatologist and anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, ‘enjoy greater autonomy than do either men or women’![\[10\]](#fn10) And it’s rather rich that this idea of interdependence is being touted when marriage and the nuclear family is being advanced as somehow the right way to achieve that. Yet the *nuclear* in nuclear family refers to the basic social unit that *atomises* society. It is one of the primary *causes* of disconnection, of social isolation—particularly for mothers—and makes true societal interdependence impossible. Ryan and Jethá pose the question: > Could it be that the atomic isolation of the husband-wife nucleus with an orbiting child or two is in fact a culturally imposed aberration for our species … ? Dare we ask whether mothers, fathers, and children are all being shoe-horned into a family structure that suits none of us? Might the contemporary pandemics of fracturing families, parental exhaustion, and confused, resentful children be predictable consequences of what is, in truth, a distorted and distorting family structure inappropriate for our species?[\[11\]](#fn11) That old adage that it takes a village to raise a child is *literally* true. Humans probably evolved as [cooperative breeders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative%5Fbreeding?ref=medusarising.org)—like, for instance, meerkats, wolves, some primates like marmosets and bonobos, and the wise matriarchal elephants. ![1000006150.png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/1000006150.png) Writer Sylvia Linsteadt [laments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usd56eEhyBc&ref=medusarising.org) how our culture makes mothering so difficult. Of her friends who have had babies in recent years, she speaks of the hollowness that they felt after birth, the realisation that ‘it’s not supposed to be this way’, that ‘I’m supposed to have so many more women around me … My whole body is aching for it, and I didn’t even know’. This is ancestral memory. Seeing as human young are particularly helpless when they are born, and mature slowly, we are a species that makes use of [‘allomothering’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allomothering?ref=medusarising.org), and this is best done in matrilineal groups where kin (and others) help out (or, in our current culture, [‘mommunes’!](https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190827-the-single-mums-who-live-together-on-mommunes?ref=medusarising.org)). Fathers can be unreliable, and may come and go, but if there is no mother (certainly no *mothering*) then there is no life. Women support each other in this. ‘Make no mistake’, Hrdy remarks, ‘reproductively, nothing becomes a female more than remaining among kin’.[\[12\]](#fn12) ‘When mothers remain among kin, they retain more autonomy than when they travel far from their natal place to live among their mate’s kin.’[\[13\]](#fn13) It’s not that help from fathers isn’t welcomed (it often is), but even in the modern world, it’s not enough. *No one* is meant to ‘do it all’. Hrdy makes a couple of other important points. First, contrary to the postfeminist [view](https://chantelq.substack.com/p/the-biology-of-feminine-submission) that ‘A man, by virtue of his physical superiority and biological makeup \[which I take to mean greater size and strength\], carries an inescapable responsibility of leading \[i.e. dominating\]’, the reality is ‘that larger size alone \[does not—*and need not*\] automatically \[lead\] to dominance’.[\[14\]](#fn14) What ability could possibly be more ‘physically superior’, from an evolutionary perspective, than growing and feeding new life in and from one’s body? In many species (though relatively uncommonly in mammals) females are larger than males,[\[15\]](#fn15) and this doesn’t result in dominance. Second, in primate species that have social hierarchies, with high ranking individuals able to bully low ranking others, low status individuals are not that way by choice. Rebellions do occur, because **‘subordinate animals are not voluntarily inferior but suppressed’**,[\[16\]](#fn16) and this takes a toll on their reproductive success, overall health, and ultimately, their survival. Of humans, Hrdy says that **the ‘biological dimorphism of the sexes has become institutionalized’.** While in primate societies it might be common for weaker individuals to be victimised, this is > never on the scale with which it occurs among people, and never directed exclusively against a particular sex … Only in human societies are females as a class systematically subjected to the sort of treatment that among other species would be rather randomly accorded to the more defenseless members of the group—the very young, the disabled, or the very old—regardless of sex.[\[17\]](#fn17) This situation is not ‘natural’—**might *does not* make right**—and it’s certainly not what is beneficial for women *or* men, especially when we know that non-patriarchal cultures have (and still do) exist. ‘Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority’, argue Ryan and Jethá, > tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy. Got that, fellas? If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens. > … human societies in which women are … free to express their minds and sexuality without fear of shame or persecution—tend to be far more comfortable places for most men than societies ruled by a male elite.[\[18\]](#fn18) Hrdy’s assertion that it is advantageous for females to remain among kin contains the seed of matriarchy, which Renée Gerlich [describes](https://reneegerlich.substack.com/p/bch-007-what-is-matriarchy) in its most simple sense as ‘a culture where children grow up learning to care for their mothers’ homelands’. It’s a system that is usually both *matrilineal* and *matrilocal*. Founder of the field of Modern Matriarchal Studies, Heide Goettner-Abendroth tells us that, ‘Based on the older meaning of “arché,”’—‘beginning’ rather than ‘domination’—’matriarchy’ means “the mothers from the beginning.” This refers both to the biological fact that through giving birth, mothers engender the beginning of life, and to the cultural fact that they also created the beginnings of culture itself.’[\[19\]](#fn19) Max Dashu elaborates further: > Patriarchies organize kinship and society around father-lines, and cannot exist (or persist) without instituting control over women … Matricultures grow out of the natural fact that motherhood is visible and maternal kinship is known … Which means that **if the land is considered the clan/tribe’s property, there’s no need for patrilineality and its dependence on female subjugation**. Indeed … the men there would defend their social order and its cosmology against the judgement and impositions of \[outsiders\].[\[20\]](#fn20) Yet ridiculous statements [are being made](https://www.instagram.com/p/DLIyGaayCKr/?img%5Findex=1&ref=medusarising.org)—for instance, that feminists think that ‘Men are not going to care for us better than we can’—ignorant not only of contemporary socioeconomic realities and [male violence statistics](https://data.unwomen.org/global-database-on-violence-against-women?ref=medusarising.org), but also of this woman-/mother-centred past, and of very real future possibilities. Women’s dependence on men is supposedly [to avoid](https://www.instagram.com/p/DBzG-tpyE1n/?img%5Findex=6&ref=medusarising.org) ‘paying big tradeoffs … in your or your family’s life’, but as Hrdy makes clear, the ‘combination of work with motherhood has always entailed tradeoffs’.[\[21\]](#fn21) *That’s life.* Women (and our female primate ancestors) have always ‘worked’ alongside raising young, but ‘What is new for modern mothers … is the compartmentalization of their productive and reproductive lives’.[\[22\]](#fn22) It’s not that women are not supposed to work outside of the home—being a mother or homemaker ‘does not constitute a female identity’, said Luce Irigaray. ‘It is a function or social role, no more’[\[23\]](#fn23)—but that the fragmented patriarchal system, in which the public is cut off from the private, hasn’t been created with the needs of mothers or children (or indeed, any feeling human) in mind. But *matriarchy has been*, and it enables a minimisation of the tradeoffs that women inevitably have to make. ‘Mother-right … allows for “social motherhood,”’ Dashu says, ‘collective assumption of responsibility for the young and very old, for anyone who needs special care’: > In a social motherhood system, you have an entire generation, actually tiers of generations, that are caring for \[the\] child. You have societies where all of the women of the mother’s generations are called Auntie and are even regarded as mothers, addressed as mothers. And the brothers are responsible as well, particularly in matrilineal societies; it’s the mother’s brother who takes much of the role that we think of as ‘father.’ **Social motherhood is a built-in support system, putting women and their life-giving power at the centre of the life support network.**[\[24\]](#fn24) ![1000006151.png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/1000006151.png) Men are constantly touted as being ‘protectors’ and ‘providers’, but not only is this [easily debunked](https://zawn.substack.com/p/men-are-not-protectors-or-providers), it denies the very stark reality that most male violence against women occurs *within the home, where women are isolated* (and if financially dependent, unable to leave). The fantasy that ‘reactionary feminists’ like Mary Harrington and Louise Perry are peddling, says Rose Rickford, of ‘the nuclear family … as a safe place to retreat to … a safe inner sanctum … only works if you are completely committed to rejecting the idea that harm is coming from within the family’.[\[25\]](#fn25) *But*, the postfeminists scream, *it’s not all men!* Yet the luck that some women have in finding a decent male partner doesn’t absolve us of the need to address the reality that many women don’t. We can’t just settle back into privilege and avoid confronting the patriarchal world *as it is*, leaving less fortunate women to suffer. The idea that marriage and the nuclear family provide the path to liberation, or will save civilisation as we know it, is a simplistic and individualist mono-answer to a situation that requires a plurality of understanding and collective actions. Indeed, **the nuclear family is civilisation in miniature, the smallest scale example of the hierarchical pattern of domination, with the male head of the family ruling like a king over the subjects of his own personal kingdom.** Meanwhile, some postfeminists even idolise submission, exemplified by Nicole Daedone’s tone deaf [quip](https://chantelq.substack.com/p/the-biology-of-feminine-submission) that ‘Everybody wants to be the fucker and nobody wants to be fucked.’ Some women evidently cannot conceive of sexuality outside of the patriarchal mentality. The word ‘fuck’ has many excellent uses, but when applied to sex it has debasing and violent connotations. This thinking replicates the idea of the Phallus as vertical power-play rather than horizontal connection. The conquering, penetrating, active male versus the conquered, compliant, passive female, who is *done to* rather than truly *related with*. The extreme privilege of this position is evident, ignoring the daily experience and realities of most women. This is not about the denial of pleasure,[\[26\]](#fn26) but ‘Given that phallocratic reality purveys its own forms of sexual “pleasure”, through the eroticization of domination/subordination,’ as Denise Thompson points out, ‘feminism cannot embrace unreservedly “pleasure” as the liberating sexual practice, without exploring the roots and ramifications of male desire as well’.[\[27\]](#fn27) There is deconstructive work to be done before recreation can begin. To break open, then integrate. A challenge to the myth of male sexuality is required, and that will not be welcomed except by the rare men who have already been questioning [the cult of masculinity](https://derrickjensen.org/2013/01/man-box-cult-of-masculinity/?ref=medusarising.org). Riane Eisler points out in *Sacred Pleasure* that the distortion of sexuality through ‘the equation of masculinity with both sexual and social domination and of femininity with sexual and social submission—is critical to the maintenance of a dominator social organization, and particularly to the male socialization for domination and violence’.[\[28\]](#fn28) The end of male dominance, rape culture and the sex industry are all obligatory if we are to enable an entirely different way of relating to emerge. The idea of anyone being either the fucker or the fucked needs to become obsolete. As Françoise d’Eaubonne said: > the freedom of the sexual is tied to women’s freedom and the revolution … **You can’t liberate the sexual alone but must liberate the body altogether, of which the sexual is part**; and the free disposition of the sexual body—not only of the sexual organs—is capital for the woman and puts the entire society into question; that is the only a true revolution, and **it cannot take place without dismantling the entire economic system.**[\[29\]](#fn29) Again, regarding group-living primates, Hrdy makes an excellent point: ‘it could be argued that a troop needs males for territorial defense only because competing troops are also likely to have them.’[\[30\]](#fn30) To state the completely obvious: men are only a problem because they are a problem—endless preparation for war means that war never ends. Men feed off each other, sharing their poison, rather than purging themselves so they can actually evolve and then fill up on *real nourishment*. --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.instagram.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/?ref=medusarising.org) and you can peruse and purchase her artwork at [Offerings From the Wellspring at Redbubble](https://www.redbubble.com/people/ThereseD/shop?asc=u&ref=account-nav-dropdown). --- --- 1. Val Plumwood, *Feminism and the Mastery of Nature*, Routledge: London, 1993, p. 3 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Umm … it’s predominantly men who lead the world, and have you seen the state of it? That women follow such madness is more than foolish. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. Charlene Spretnak, *States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age*, HarperSanFrancisco: New York, 1991, p. 116 [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Monica Sjöö & Barbara Mor, *The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth*, HarperOne: San Francisco, 1987/1991, p. 66 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá, *Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships*, Harper Perennial: New York, 2010/2012, p. 161 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. See Ryan & Jethá. Multi-female–multi-male mating does not suggest a random, meaningless promiscuity. It’s likely our ancestors still chose partners based on attraction and affection, but there was probably an absence of ‘control’ and ‘ownership’. Also, I am not suggesting that monogamy is not a valid choice in the modern world, as it does work for most people, but touting it as *the right and only way*, as well as in heterosexist terms, erases the other ways of relating and forming families that do or could also work. Sjöö & Mor state in *The Great Cosmic Mother*: ‘Creative women and men in all ages have found rigid heterosexuality in conflict with being fully alive and aware on all levels—sexual, psychic, and spiritual—because it is a mental and emotional limitation, as well as a physical one. It is as if, on all levels of our being, we are split in half—locked into one half, and forbidden the other. We are split against ourselves, and against the “self” in the other, by this moralistic opposition of natural polarities in the very depth of our souls. And the result is war, necrophilia, alienation at the root.’ pp. 67-8 [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, *Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species*, Ballantine Books: New York, 1999, p. 109 [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. If you compare the image with the more wholesome original it was based on you’ll see that it’s not just misogynist but racist as well! [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Gabor Maté, with Daniel Maté, *The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture*, Vermillion: London, 2022, p. 150 [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, *The Woman That Never Evolved*, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981/1999, p. 9 [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. Ryan & Jethá, p. 101 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Hrdy, *Mother Nature*, p. 51 [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. Hrdy, *Mother Nature*, p. 102 [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Hrdy, *The Woman That Never Evolved*, p. 19 [↩︎](#fnref14) 15. Incidentally, one of the most hilarious examples of extreme sexual size-dimorphism occurs in the [blanket octopus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanket%5Foctopus?ref=medusarising.org). The female can grow up to two metres; the males to no more than an inch. Adorable! [↩︎](#fnref15) 16. Hrdy, *The Woman That Never Evolved*, p. 119 [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. Hrdy, *The Woman That Never Evolved*, p. 185 [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. Ryan & Jethá, pp. 123-4 (pdf page number) [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, *Matriarchal Societies: Studies on Indigenous Cultures Across the Globe*, Peter Lang: New York, 2012, p. xvi – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref19) 20. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: For 40,000 Years Women Lived in a World that Did Not Hate Us: Part 1’, *THE RADICAL NOTION,* Issue Eleven (Spring/Summer 2024), p. 111 – all issues are available to read online or download for free here: [https://theradicalnotion.org/](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref20) 21. Hrdy, *Mother Nature*, p. 109 [↩︎](#fnref21) 22. Hrdy, *Mother Nature*, p. 109 [↩︎](#fnref22) 23. Luce Irigaray (translated by Karin Montin), *Thinking the Difference: For A Peaceful Revolution*, Routledge: New York, 1994, p. 18 [↩︎](#fnref23) 24. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Matricultures and the Matrix of Life: An Interview With Max Dashu’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Six (Winter 2022), p. 98 [↩︎](#fnref24) 25. Jane Clare Jones, Rose Rickford, and Vic Rimell, ‘On the Heart of the Boundary: A Conversation’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Eleven (Spring/Summer 2024), p. 64 [↩︎](#fnref25) 26. For a fictional exploration of what healthy sexuality might look like, see Louise M. Hewett’s novel, *Mist (Pictish Spirit #1)*, Egg & Serpent Studio, 2016 [↩︎](#fnref26) 27. Denise Thompson, ‘Pleasure and Danger’, *THE RADICAL NOTION,* Issue Seven (Spring/Summer 2022), p. 16 [↩︎](#fnref27) 28. Riane Eisler, *Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body*, HarperOne, 1995, pp. 119-20 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref28) 29. Françoise d’Eaubonne (translated and edited by Ruth Hottell), *Feminism or Death*, Verso: London, 2022, p. 177 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref29) 30. ‘Hrdy, *The Woman That Never Evolved*, p. 73’ [↩︎](#fnref30) ### Archive | Chile’s Black Community Face Renewed Threats Amid Surge in Far-Right Politics | by Rebecca Johns URL: https://www.medusarising.org/archive-chiles-black-community-face-renewed-threats-amid-surge-in-far-right-politics-by-rebecca-johns/ Last updated: 2025-09-30T16:05:24.000Z **6 June 2025 | Santiago, Chile** *Activists worry that* [*the increasingly popular far right*](https://elpais.com/chile/2025-05-20/la-ultraderecha-de-kast-toma-vuelo-a-seis-meses-de-las-presidenciales-en-chile.html?ref=medusarising.org) *will worsen the lives of Black People living in Chile*. [Michel-Ange Joseph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4qfj-GDPsI&ref=medusarising.org) \[video in Spanish\] was riding the metro in Santiago in 2022 when she was physically assaulted by a security guard. She was on her way home from her job as a local government official when the man mistook her for a street vendor. "He hit me, and told me to go back to my country, that I came to dirty his country, that Haitian women come to dirty Chile," Joseph recalls. For her, the attack was "just one of many instances" of being targeted for "just being a Black woman." Even before this incident, Joseph had founded ****CIJYS**, the **Research Conclave of Legal and Social Sciences*, a grassroots organization that provides legal representation to victims of racial abuse. Today, she continues that work, advocating for Black communities and pushing for racial justice in Chile. But with a presidential election looming in November 2025, Joseph fears the rising influence of far-right parties could threaten not only immigrant rights but also the fragile progress made toward racial equality. ## **Far-Right Success** As in many [other Latin American countries](https://www.google.com/search?q=rise+of+far+right+latin+ameirca&oq=rise+of+far+right+latin+ameirca&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDMxNDFqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org), the far right has been steadily growing in Chile. A key moment came in 2022 when the Republican Party (PLR) won the majority share of the seats in the [constitutional assembly](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/21/chile-far-right-new-consitution-abortion?ref=medusarising.org). Now, with the first round of voting set for November 2025, the [struggling left-wing government](http://chile-president-gabriel-boric-s-approval-plunges/?ref=medusarising.org) will have to fight for survival against an even stronger opposition, with two hard-right politicians [polling](https://atlasintel.org/polls/latam-pulse?ref=medusarising.org) in 3rd and 5th place. Both parties offer a strong anti-immigration rhetoric. The PLR leader, Jose Kast, recently [announced the Border Shield Plan](https://www.emol.com/noticias/Nacional/2025/03/13/1160239/kast-y-plan-de-seguridad.html?ref=medusarising.org), which involves the building of 5-meter-high security fences, equipped with motion sensors and drone surveillance, alongside 3-meter deep ditches, all with the aim of stopping migrants from entering the country. Joseph worries that the right’s [promises of deportation](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ4FPsAun-1/?ref=medusarising.org) and rhetoric of ‘Chile first’ will lead to racism against all ethnic minorities living in the country. “People of African descent are prejudiced because we are the most noticeable from our skin colour when it comes to classifying who is a migrant and who is not.” ## **Why Is There Growing Racism in Chile?** The rise of anti-immigration sentiment, which often [coincides](https://www.ijdh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021-06-17%5FTreatment-of-Haitians-in-Chile%5FCC-Memo%5Fw-Cover.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) with the mistreatment of Black people, marks a shift for a country that once presented itself as [welcoming](https://mixedmigration.org/chiles-response-to-migration/?ref=medusarising.org) towards incoming refugees. Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow at Chatham House, explains: "In the past, other countries in Latin America welcomed Chilean exiles during the military government. For a long time, Chile was then repaying them and committed itself to helping people who were fleeing repression and violence." Chile has since experienced high levels of migration, with the foreign-born population last predicted to be [1.6 million, a 291% rise](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2024/11/international-migration-outlook-2024%5Fc6f3e803/full-report/chile%5F8f76c33c.html?ref=medusarising.org) since 2013\. However, in recent years, crime rates have also begun to rise, which some in the country blame on this increase in foreign-born residents. "There have been several cases of crime linked to Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants that have been amplified by the media, including some very grisly crimes," Sabatini observes. He refers to the presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Agua within Chile, made public after two bodies were [discovered](https://insightcrime.org/news/transnational-organized-crime-is-feeding-growing-violence-in-chile/?ref=medusarising.org) in a torture house. InsightCrime, which monitors organized crime in Latin America, claims that crimes like drug trafficking, [kidnapping](https://insightcrime.org/news/venezuela-tren-de-aragua-kidnappings-surge-chile/?ref=medusarising.org), migrant smuggling, money laundering, and weapons offences increased by 8.4% in the country, while organized crime-related violence jumped around 37%, from 3,834 cases to 5,265 between 2022-23\. Security issues are at the forefront of voters' minds with[ Latinobarometer](https://www.latinobarometro.org/latOnline.jsp?ref=medusarising.org) reporting that 30.9% of Chileans polled now believe that crime is the most important problem in the country. Voters' concerns about safety leads Sabatini to conclude that Chile is “now at a tipping point where politicians are going to start to fan xenophobia and racist sentiments." Indeed, [45.3% of those polled](https://www.latinobarometro.org/lat.jsp?ref=medusarising.org) believe that immigrants have contributed to the rising crime rate. ## **Other Causes of Racism** Dr Sofía Ugarte, a social anthropologist specializing in racism in Chile, shows that migration is just one element and that the racist abuse people are experiencing now can be traced back through centuries of Chilean history. “Historically, Chilean racial discourses have erased blackness from their demographic profile in favour of mestizaje (mixture) between white Europeans and Indigenous populations.” She told **Medusa Rising*. The government only recognised Afro-descendent tribal people in the country as an official group in[ 2019](https://www.pueblosoriginarios.gob.cl/publicaciones/reconocimiento-legal-al-pueblo-tribal-afrodescendiente-chileno?ref=medusarising.org) and is yet to recognise them as an ethnic group in the [official census](https://minorityrights.org/communities/afro-chileans/?ref=medusarising.org). Ugarte believes this lack of recognition means that “Blackness in its migrant iteration is considered foreign and alien, dangerous and violent.” Such sentiments were illustrated last month when retailer [Falabella ](https://latinamericareports.com/outrage-over-falabella-ad-featuring-a-black-woman-highlights-chiles-historic-racism-cijys-tells-latin-america-reports/11460/?ref=medusarising.org)launched a Mother's Day ad featuring a Black woman, prompting widespread social media condemnation for failing to represent real Chileans. *Medusa Rising* spoke to Magdelena, aged 33, who moved to the UK from Chile and has reflected on the treatment of Black people in her home country. "Chile can seem quite homogeneous in terms of culture and race; however, this is partly due to the invisibility of people of colour or Afro-Chileans. The prevailing stigma is more along the lines of: 'There are no Black people in Chile, and if there are, they're not Chilean.” ## **The Road to Improvement** To counteract discrimination, Ugarte feels we need “More education of Chile's multicultural past and present, including the Indigenous and Afro-descendant components of contemporary Chilean culture to critically address what being Chilean means.” Groups like CIJYS are doing just that. Joseph revealed to **Medusa Rising* how she has channelled her experience into joining a movement that she calls The Afropolitical Women's Front. This movement, she adds, includes some of Latin America's most powerful Black women leaders, including former Costa Rican Vice President Epsy Campbell Barr and current Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez. On April 10, many of these women attended the first [International Panel of Afro-Political Women in the Mexican Senate](https://www.vicepresidencia.gov.co/prensa/Paginas/Cuando-una-mujer-negra-levanta-la-voz-en-politica-no-habla-por-ella-habla-por-su-pueblo-vicepresidenta-Francia-Marquez.aspx?ref=medusarising.org). This bought together Afro-descendant women with political positions to analyze the challenges, challenges, and achievements in Afro-descendant political participation. CIJYS also forms part of the [G100](https://www.g100.in/about-us/?ref=medusarising.org), an international action and think tank composed of high-level women leaders involved in politics, business, and activism. The G100 network has held gatherings in Costa Rica and Mexico, bringing together what Joseph describes as "the largest number of Black women participating in politics" to discuss shared challenges and strategies. “Its goal is to promote gender equality, economic inclusion, and global female political representation”, explained Josef. They are set to [hold talks across the world](https://www.g100.in/g100-meetings/?ref=medusarising.org) in the coming months, and on the 22nd of May they met with a UK MP to discuss women in leadership and closing the gender gap. But whether these voices will cut through the anti-immigration discourse in Chile will not be clear until winter 2025 with the results of the Presidential election. --- **Rebecca Johns** is a freelance journalist based in London who worked in Chile for the last year writing for *The Latin Times* and *Latin America Reports*. She has just joined the BBC to report on Chile and Latin America. ## Some Connections in Latin America With thanks to Michel-Ange Joseph for sharing these groups with us! **Michel-Ange Joseph** Instagram: [@michelange.cl](https://www.instagram.com/michelange.cl/?ref=medusarising.org) **Geledés – Instituto da Mulher Negra (Brazil)** *Civil rights, environmental, health, racial and gender justice* *Web:* [*https://geledes.org.br*](https://geledes.org.br/?ref=medusarising.org) **Brigada Feminista (Chile)** *Defense of sexual and reproductive rights, intersectionality* *Web:* [*https://lacolectivafeminista.org.sv*](https://lacolectivafeminista.org.sv/?ref=medusarising.org) **Agrupación Xangô (Argentina)** *Afro-descendant migration, Afrofeminism, gender and human rights* *Instagram:* [*@agrupacionxango*](https://www.instagram.com/agrupacionxango/?ref=medusarising.org) --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. Let's build coalition! [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Coalition, Talent, Interval, FiLiA2025 URL: https://www.medusarising.org/coalition-talent-interval-filia2025/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:40:21.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Voice-250926_150234_thumb.png) Coalition, Talent, Interval, FiLiA2025 | by Esmee 0:00 /971.334146 1× Medusa Rising, embodied this time as me, is headed to the Euskal Herria (French Basque Country)to reconnect my own mamma with her people. And then we/I will be at FiLiA2025 (DM me on socials if you want to meet up). (Fun Matricultural Fact: DNA studies have now shown that the [Basque have been there since the Paleolithic](https://youtu.be/T36o4tXBPBY?si=RTHg3CvDXp8Zdy7B&ref=medusarising.org). The reason their language isn’t connected to others is that it is an original language, untouched by the Yamnaya’s PIE, untouched by Latin. What did our Goddess Civilization ancestors sound like? Some of them sounded like the Basque! How fucking cool is that!!!) **This Gorgon’s Mission**: connect with the women/groups who feel like natural partners in a ‘node of coherence’ in my Big Dream of a Vast Feminist Global Coalition connecting – not guiding, not setting agendas – us from the most harm-healing grassroots to the most international feminist think tanks. Because it is time, cousins. The way we conceive and work to enact feminist coalition at Medusa Rising follows Luce Irigaray’s concept of ‘the interval’. And at this scale, that interval enables collective autonomy, strategic intersectionality. What am I saying? As I said in a very early post, the [interval is a physical, subjective, and moral/spiritual space](https://www.medusarising.org/introducing-radical-notion-remixes/) between any two conscious creatures as well as between any creature and the ecosphere (more on this in other posts). In any relationship or interaction, the first moral duty is to respect the interval, to connect through it, never to close it down. When two creatures/subjects interact through their interval, they each remain whole and sovereign, put action and energy into the space between them, and THAT, that becomes a kind of generative and alchemical mutual enlivening that unfolds organically. All abuse, violence, domination, colonization, … these are all shades of murder because they are all actions that collapse the interval and force the other to surrender their life/life-energy/being to the perpetrator. This is the reasoning behind MR’s total uninterest in middle grounds and precious little use of project tracking. Between creatures, the middle ground will always wind up being controlled and to the advantage of the stronger one. We seek no middle ground with patriarchy. We ask no compromise of women or our coalition partners. It is only in our wholeness and differences that we can lend to the power of a RadMatFem/Matricultural/feminist future world. It is in the synergy, in [the alchemy of our agendas, views, needs, powers, insights, identities, traditions, histories](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/sisterhood/) that we can make a new way and world. So the women of Medusa Rising are nothing like each other except in our commitment to women and our desire for real world change that makes women freer, safer, healthier, and more whole. We all came to our feminism along unlike routes, we come from a range of cultural and ethnic lineages, and we bring wildly different techne, nous, eros, and telos to this work (skills, knowledge, desire, goals). Nevermind our relative degrees of intro/extroversion, preferred paces of work, what trauma we carry, and our personalities. It’s one for all and all for one around here. As our founder, I plan to keep it that way. This is maybe unusual or unexpected when people look at my avatar, my own face, or my name. It’s all very … ‘white’. And I grew up in the US Midwest, upper middle-class, etc etc. My family tree is mostly landed gentry and actual royalty back in the Old World. My earliest US ancestors on both sides were plantation owners in Virginia, this is the late 1600s. My history is the whole colonial history of this country. There is a cold spring in western Texas – out in the Commanche/Jumano/Lipan Apache ranges that my people flat stole from those peoples and anyone else who might need a good place to rest while traveling or migrating through all that hot, low desert. The first building there, and it’s still there, was a defensive tower. My families fought on both sides of the Civil War. I’m a GenXer. I should be a pretty annoying “Karen”– except that a Karen (it’s sooo sexist) is a very patriarchal kind of woman and I … am not. In my own life I was a stranger everywhere at least a little bit. In the Midwest of the 1970s and ‘80s I had a Texan father and a French immigrant mother. Our neighbors were taken back at the level of garlic, onion, and heat in our food. My accent was really weird when I first started school. On my dad’s side I’m an 11th generation USian, but on my mom’s side I’m second-generation. That is only the very surface of what made me ‘this much’ just other enough to sense what being outside and suspect could feel like. I have a glimpse of what the cold glare of other feels like. Just a glimpse, but I have a talent for metaphor and imagination, so I can pretty imagine that people who are not like me also need to be allowed to be themselves in their fullness – which is my applied theory of social justice. Much more punk-grunge than mean girl. So, back to that interval. What Irigaray is describing is the respect and care and privacy that people offer each other in healthy, ethically grounded relations. The privacy is important, it’s the source of our self-ness, the way we are on the inside. One of the most disturbing and damaging elements of domination/colonization that the other is not allowed this privacy, this inner life. The other must be transparent – and you can see how all domination structures shoot themselves in the foot from the first. You can see how the cruelty justifies itself, trying to get that far inside of people. The interval, rather, is the spacetime where we can offer and we can dance and unfold while everyone involved still has their own boundary as well as intervals with others. Something like this is how I imagine the coalitions I want for feminists to function. When I’ve written about strategic intersectionality, about combining forces where our goals and interests overlap (and not interfering where they don’t), I’ve been thinking in these Irigarayan terms. Thinking a little bit like an outsider even as on the outside I read for an insider. I want us to make a kind of dancing and leaping, totally committed and unpredictable global feminist web of coalitions – from the think tanks to the crisis shelters – that Patriarchy/Capital/Fascism can’t grasp and squash. I have no idea exactly how to do that other than doing the next right thing and following the trails of chime and groove until … we win. I’m a poet and philosopher by training. An activist and organizer by accident, really, and therefore always as much a student as a leader. You can tell I’m learning-in-public how to produce podcasts and run social media. You can tell that ‘fuck it - good enough’ is becoming my mantra. I just know it’s time. The center is falling in on itself. There’s a way out. It’s not waiting for us to notice it. Arche-Mamma gave us our assignment: Make the Way Out. Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE : Therese Doherty's brill essay part 2\* [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Asymmetrical Re-Worlding, Part 2: The Dance of Relationship | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-2-the-dance-of-relationship-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-09-25T16:11:06.000Z Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) OR: (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Special request of a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. Therese here worked on this essay for most a year. Real thinking needs time. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Asymmetrical-Re-worlding-2_thumb.png) Asymmetrical Re-Worlding, part 2 | by Therese Doherty 0:00 /761.301333 1× ### Part 2: The Dance of Relationship In [Part 1](https://medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/?ref=medusarising.org) I discussed the system of metaphysical dualism that fragments our experience of the world (leading to the feminine/masculine polarity which the postfeminists believe is a cosmic truth), and ended with the delicious paradox of the yin yang symbol, spinning as the two opposing (yet integrated) sides whirl and coexist harmoniously. Rather than a fixed opposition, Esmée Streachailt writes that the *difference* of the two sides of a dualism (or binary) is more accurately described by Jacques Derrida’s term *différance*—‘the generative movement in the play of differences’:[\[1\]](#fn1) > *Différance* and play make meaning by respecting differences, the boundaries between A and B (and C and D ...), and that way making their relation possible. Baldly put in radical feminist terms: if woman is only a mirror that reflects and magnifies Man, then there can be no love because there is no woman other than as a service to Man. In the metaphysics of *différance*, the presence and boundaries of both concepts or kinds of subjects is not only acknowledged but activated in creativity.[\[2\]](#fn2) There is flow—moving and changing Life—a dance. Meaning is not rigidly assigned; it is an ongoing process of creativity. Though physiological sexual differences are real and will always be salient, **psychologically and metaphysically there is no hard boundary that defines women as *this* and men as *that*.** Such ‘Rigidity, especially of ideas like men (A) are good and rational and women (\~A) are evil and hysterical … can only be maintained by force’.[\[3\]](#fn3) Pleasingly, mature, self-actualised humans don’t pay much heed to gender in their relationships. Instead, such women and men ‘are free to move about in love and relationship and “roles” with spontaneity and as needs-must’: > These couples “made no really sharp differentiation between the roles and personalities of the two sexes.” Crucially, as \[Betty\] Friedan puts it \[in *The Feminine Mystique*\], “These people were all so certain of their maleness or femaleness that they did not mind taking on some of the cultural aspects of the opposite sex role”.[\[4\]](#fn4) We’re all gender-nonconforming, and capable of change throughout our lives. **We constantly adapt to different contexts, which is what all living beings do.** But the postfeminist rhetoric I am referring to is re-inscribing ‘traditional’ gender roles to women and men as if these things are hardwired, a natural product of evolution that cannot be challenged. Male dominance and female submission, [we are told](https://chantelq.substack.com/p/the-biology-of-feminine-submission), are biological. This isn’t a new idea, reeking as it does of what Andrea Dworkin described as the separate-but-equal model of antifeminism: > The model originates in the effort to justify the subordination of women to men (and in the justification to perpetuate that subordination) by positing male and female natures so biologically different as to require social separation, socially antithetical paths, social life bifurcated by sex so that there are two cultures, one male, one female, coexisting in the same society … The woman was supposed to bear and raise the children; the man was supposed to impregnate her and support them. These were separate-but-equal duties.[\[5\]](#fn5) But the truth is that **adherence to traditional notions of femininity does not make women more naturally ourselves, it makes us *less so*.** ‘A woman in patriarchy is like a square watermelon’, [says](https://www.medusarising.org/key-concepts-what-is-gender-by-infinite-erin/) Erin, a contributing editor of Medusa Rising. ‘She is made to take the shape of “femininity”, a form which makes it easier for men to exploit her.’ To grow naturally, without the restrictive ‘shaping’ of gender, makes us more free to express our unique personalities and grow into our becoming. Interestingly, in the postwar years, as society was changing drastically and the women’s liberation movement was in its infancy, Susan Griffin observed in the women of her own family, > A different way of being in the flesh, of standing, talking, moving was evident between one generation and the next … women became more natural in our bodies and less confined by mannerisms prescribed as feminine. And one might also say in that case that we became more intimate with our own nature. Which was also a greater intimacy with nature itself.[\[6\]](#fn6) As Griffin writes over and over in her work, we are not separate from nature, nor is the body divided from the mind. The term ‘bodymind’ is often used to eliminate the conceptual confusion of mind/body dualism. Streachailt says, ‘We might better speak of a “bodyself” to emphasize how we are our bodies in the same way that space and time are more accurately called “spacetime”’.[\[7\]](#fn7) The Chinese character [xin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin%5F%28heart-mind%29?ref=medusarising.org), usually translated as ‘heart-mind’, reveals that feeling-thinking, body-mind, are coextensive. And David Abram says, ‘It is difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of how a mindful brain could have arisen except as an attribute of a muscled and sensing organism—how a brain could evolve independent of a breathing body fending for itself in the biosphere’.[\[8\]](#fn8) ![TD Asym 2.1 (600 x 289 px).png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/TD-Asym-2.1--600-x-289-px-.png) I’ll admit that years back, in my attempt to journey beyond the Mountains of Dualism ([see Part 1](https://medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/?ref=medusarising.org)) I probably got lost in the Cavern of Reversal for a while. If the disembodied, rational patriarchal mind is bad, then embodiment and the non-rational is good, right? The devalued Feminine does need to be re-acknowledged. But the return to the body that some women are now [advocating](https://everything-voluntary.com/dear-women-you-are-your-body-and-that-isnt-a-bad-thing-its-your-power?ref=medusarising.org) (conveniently ignoring all the work that feminists have *already* done exploring the many realities, both challenging and joyful, of female embodiment since the heyday of the second wave), doesn’t do the work of *integration*, of making ourselves whole, body and mind intertwined. That step would take us beyond our socialisation. Postfeminism doesn’t critically assess the consequences of female embodiment and its accompanying sexualities beyond the male gaze or male sexual assumptions, and all the complexities and dangers of rape culture. Nor does it interrogate what is *actually* wrong with the patriarchal mind. Thinking and intellectualising isn’t really the problem—it’s the way that we do so that matters, and the values that underlie our efforts. ‘As a woman thinking’, Adrienne Rich wrote, > I experience no … division in my own being between nature and culture, between my female body and my conscious thought. In bringing the light of critical thinking to bear on her subject, in the very act of *becoming more conscious* of her situation in the world, a woman may feel herself coming deeper than ever into touch with her unconscious and with her body.[\[9\]](#fn9) **When body and mind are rejoined, a new embodied way of thinking comes into being. This is core to feminist practice.** I’m reminded of Renée Gerlich’s [insight](https://reneegerlich.substack.com/p/on-identification-how-politics-works), derived from yogic philosophy, that intellect follows identification: > *Buddhi*, intellect, is the discriminatory faculty. It is our non-judgemental and impartial capacity to discern *x* from *y*, *a* from *b*, man from woman. If we are cutting a carrot on a chopping board, *buddhi* allows us to distinguish between the carrot, the board, the knife, and our fingers. It is key to our survival, because without this discernment, we hurt ourselves. But, crucially, > *Buddhi* is trumped by *ahamkara*, identification … Sadhguru, founder of Isha yoga, explains: “In the yogic system we consider the *ahamkara*, or the identity that you take on, far more important than the nature of the intellect itself – because **intellect is a slave of the identity that you have taken.**” The ideological position that assumes that gender and relational hierarchy is hardwired, biological, and ‘essential’ to female and male natures has warped the thinking of those who adhere to it. If you identify with regressive notions of femininity and masculinity, then you’ll find it difficult to think beyond straitjacketed expectations. The postfeminists might counter that feminism is itself an ideology that poisons women’s minds. But ‘Feminist theory is distinct from fundamentalist ideologies precisely because it does not begin with a set of rigid, pre-constructed concepts,’ Gerlich insists, ‘but with women’s subjective experience and commitment to humanisation shared in consciousness raising’.[\[10\]](#fn10) In coming together and communicating about their experiences, women discovered the realities of their commonalities alongside exploration of their many differences (of socioeconomic class, race and ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and diverse life experiences). Thus, feminism > is constantly shaped and re-shaped as women pose questions about our lives and notice the patterns our experiences form. These patterns combine to form analysis, and this analysis is dynamic, changing as the times change. But the simple premise of women’s humanity, from which women’s experience arises and is spoken, does not change – because **it is a premise based on love and observation, not dogma.**[\[11\]](#fn11) Feminism is not an identity. It is a counter-knowledge. It’s a liberation movement, a method of analysis, a way of thinking-feeling-being, a practice, an ongoing process of personal development. It centres women and girls because male power is maintained by erasing and marginalizing us, but is ultimately humane, wanting the best world for all. Trapped in their identification with the patriarchal abstractions they have reified, postfeminists ineffectively think through the concept of equality-as-sameness. Instead of replacing it with the possibility of a genuine egalitarian system founded on the *partnership* of women and men, with all of our diverse human personalities and possibilities, they merely restore an *inequality-of-difference*, based on retrograde ideas that are almost impossible to believe that anyone would hold in the contemporary world. No *différance* here. --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.facebook.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/). --- --- 1. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Welcome to the Occupation’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Three (Spring 2021), p. 119 – all issues are available to read online or download for free here: [https://theradicalnotion.org/](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Welcome to the Occupation’, p. 122 [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Welcome to the Occupation, Cont.’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Four (Summer 2021), p. 109 [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: The Plot Twist’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue One (Autumn 2020), p. 121 [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Andrea Dworkin, *Right-wing Women*, Perigee Books: New York, 1983, pp. 202-3 – find all of Dworkin’s books here: [https://radfem.org/dworkin/](https://radfem.org/dworkin/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Susan Griffin, *The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society*, Doubleday: New York, 1995, p. 24 [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Esmée Streachailt, ‘Re: Framing Radical Feminism: Luce Irigaray and Being Beyond Patriarchy’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Nine (Spring/Summer 2023), p. 71 [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. David Abram, *Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology*, Vintage Books: New York, 2010, p. 104 [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Adrienne Rich, *Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution*, W. W. Norton & Company: New York, 1986, p. 95 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. Renée Gerlich, *Out of the Fog: On Politics, Feminism and Coming Alive*, Spinifex Press: North Geelong, 2022, p. 137 [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. Gerlich, p. 137 [↩︎](#fnref11) ### Archive | Pour It Out | by A'Ja Lyons URL: https://www.medusarising.org/archive-pour-it-out-by-aja-lyons/ Last updated: 2025-09-23T15:29:59.000Z I wasn’t looking to have a ‘hot girl summer,’ but a freedom one. That Friday night I was out with two girl friends and we were going to dance and drink. I’d never done that when I was twenty-one like I was supposed to. Much of my time lately was spent making up for lost time. Nurturing the baby girl I didn’t get to be. The young lady I didn’t let myself be. The woman I was afraid to let others see for fear of rejection. The shield was lowered as drinks were flowing. We’d started out downtown at Whiskey River where grown folks got their drink on. The thirty and up crowd frequented there and that was Mickey’s taste. She liked her men silverback and rogue as gorillas. Jamie held a lowkey temperament and seemed content to go along with the flow, even when I suggested we walk a few blocks and visit Dangerous Curves, the local “gentlemen's club” where nothing was gentle or formal. This was small-town Iowa, so they kept their bikinis on. Mickey and Jamie had never been, always too afraid to go. It was a mostly male crowd, but a few other ladies dropped in. I rarely saw other women. We dropped dollars on our sisters in solidarity. We’d arrived just as they began to glisten with a layer of sweat and light air of musk. I tipped a few dancers and paid for a private dance with a surprisingly talented youngster who’d chatted me up half the evening. Mickey suggested AJ’s next. When we got there the drinks men didn’t buy her she ordered for us. I’d had enough to drink at Whiskey River. It was already midnight and my Mama Bear instincts began to take over. If Mickey and Jamie were going to keep drinking, I’d have to remain sober. The crowd at AJ’s were all in their twenties. The insecurity I thought therapy eradicated began to slowly creep back in. I questioned if I was too old, if my outfit was too basic, if my hair was styled too plainly, if I was still too fat, if my shoes were too simple – that I didn’t belong. My friends wanted me there. I tried to hold onto that as I held onto them in the crowd of sweaty bodies on the rooftop bar. No one was staring at me. No one cared. It only mattered to me that I was the oldest, darkest skinned, and heaviest in the group. *That stuff only matters in grade school. You’re an adult now.* I was with my sisters dancing to the rhythms correcting the misconceptions that I am any less than a goddess of the sun, or whatever that rapper said. I’m sure that’s what he meant. We walked together to the filthy restroom with a continuously long line for both sexes. I thought that trope was only on screen. Mickey got more free drinks from men and happily shared. I remained sober but happy for her as she reveled in her youth, beauty, and opportunity. I was most impressed with her wisdom to keep sisters close. A skinny twenty-something boy barely older than my teenage son approached me and I suppressed my laughter. He couldn’t hold a conversation and I eventually got back to dancing. I made music requests from a fantastic DJ. Word from Mickey was that the music wasn’t normally so hot and happening at AJ’s. Reggaeton, dancehall, trap - not Iowa standards. Three women, melanin kissed by moonlight, held each other as beats flew through our bodies. My body that I’d formerly seen as broken, damaged as the sloughing of an earthen dam, felt healed by salve as sweat dripped down my legs. My legs, customarily weary from being weighed down by excess carriage. Heart and mind heavy from burdens others laid on me and those I needlessly placed on my own back sinking myself into valleys where I’d nearly drowned. When two a.m. came it was time to return to reality. I drove my friends home and smiled with the memories made that erased a layer of grimy, old regret. Balms for the heart of the little girl inside still wanting to play and be held even as eyes tire and the body wears down when playtime and school days run long. ![Two women in white, in a creek banked with reeds, one leaning back on the other's knees, the other's hand over the resting woman's heart.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Pour-it-Out.jpg) Photo by Megan Poole Photography --- **A'Ja Lyons** is a writer, historian, teacher, and performer. She was born in the warm waters of Texas' Gulf Coast and naturalized in the Iowa cornfields. A'Ja's work utilizes environmental imagination to communicate historical, physical, and emotional context. Her work has been published in several print and online publications including S*inister Wisdom, South Florida Poetry Journal,* and *Lucky Jefferson*. When not writing, A'Ja can be found at local theater productions, poetry readings, book clubs, museums, art shows, and out hiking. More information on A’Ja’s research and publications is at [ajalyons.com](https://ajalyons.com/?ref=medusarising.org). --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. W…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-4.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Gorgon_Posse_Podcast_Logob70nc_1200x628-1.jpg)](https://gorgonposse.podbean.com/?ref=medusarising.org) NEW EPISODE with SHE-EDE GAIA EDUCATION ECOVILLAGE DESIGN EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY - course starts end of October Write to Us about your resistance If you're involved in an Indivisible chapter or 50501 or Support Veterans or with another radfem resistance group, let MR share your insights, you experience, how you see the direction of travel. We want to share good news and connection!!! [Short and Long Submissions Welcome ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Let Us Be Clear-Eyed URL: https://www.medusarising.org/let-us-be-clear-eyed/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T11:21:58.000Z Silence is complicity, it is compliance, it is obedience, it is collapse, it is cowardice. There is no TQI+ terror network. There is no far-left terror network. These lies are pretexts for creating a prison state. If you can't see this is perfected patriarchy, we cannot help you. [FBI Readies New War on Trans People“We’re looking at the entire spider web”![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2Fa7c9d5d3-34ca-4155-b06e-5d50f6a012cb-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)Ken KlippensteinKen Klippenstein![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F8e775c55-b300-4e83-b9b0-19993290aea4_5905x3937.jpeg)](https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readies-new-war-on-trans-people?ref=medusarising.org) This right here is bald-faced persecution. It is sexism of a kind we see in the Taliban. It is violent othering of the kind we see in Gaza. It is wholly unaligned with both moral and feminist compasses. Genocide cannot be supported by feminists. Persecution on the basis of sex cannot be supported by feminists. **And persecution is not the democratic/minimal or matriarchal/maximal pathway to sex realism and gender abolition.** This progrom is part and parcel of a program that is coming for women of all kinds, too. If nothing else, in your own interests, my feminist cousins, aliven yourselves to the threat to us in the threat to our trans cousins, our immigrant cousins, our racialized cousins, our dissident cousins. Time and again over the course of this regime's light-speed descent into the Pandemonium of text-book fascism, we have seen feminist organizations demure from confrontation. This is a mistake. It's a refusal to defend women as much the TQI+. BECAUSE WE ARE WOMEN we will be [targeted in ways](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/how-project-2025-seeks-obliterate-srhr?ref=medusarising.org) we would never have imagined before MAGA came into power. They don't like us working, they don't like [how we vote](https://suffrageandthemedia.org/source/19th-amendment-social-media-trending-repealthe19th/?ref=medusarising.org), and they will be sure to enclosed us into unpaid care and support work as a second order effect of [cutting Medicaid](https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2024/06/17/project-2025-blueprint-also-includes-draconian-cuts-to-medicaid/?ref=medusarising.org) and SNAP, free school lunches, and making radical cuts and changes to [Social Security](https://democrats-budget.house.gov/house-republican-budget-plans-cut-social-security-benefits?ref=medusarising.org) and [Medicare](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-medicare-changes-would-restrict-older-americans-access-to-care-and-imperil-the-programs-financial-health/?ref=medusarising.org). Once Palantir is [deciding what care you get](https://www.palantir.com/offerings/insurance/?ref=medusarising.org), you and those you care for are real trouble. No HPV vaccines means the return of cervical cancer, and no Medicaid mean's you're responsible for your elders who need care 24/7\. All of that means more family **relying on women to replace** the social safety net and many of our previously reliable social institutions. That's us back to the 1820s. Or, if the Accelerationists and Neo-Reactionairies have their druthers, the 1330s. To some of you, the trans issue here will seems like a side-issue. To others the focus on women will seem like a whatabout. Our fates are tied together in the vicious ambitions of this regime. Make no mistake. It's All Against The Fash. ### A Balanced Position on Gender Identity Ideology Let me remind our readers familiar and new what our manifesto has to say on the matter of gender and gender ideology and trans people. We believe that trans people are as varied a demographic as any other on the spectrum from saintliness to criminality. They deserve the same protection and responsibility under the law as we all have. > We believe that the **gender system is a hierarchy of power**, created within patriarchal societies, and **layered over the sexed bodies of people** to instill entitlement in men and subservience in women. We affirm that the gender system is **a mechanism to enable men’s expropriation of women's bodies and labor** as a resource. We believe that the gender system prescribes human potential, personality, and expression of talent in ways that are pathological and traumatic. **Thus, we affirm gender non-conformity in our sexed being as a natural and vital practice in the weakening and removal of the gender hierarchy and the violence that defends it**. > Women deserve for the infinite, wondrous, complex, and even flawed variety of our personalities to have free expression **without pathologizing them as medical disorders or ‘genders’**. We rather like the Bostock decision. We do not rather like the expanisve reading of it given in various Biden Administration executive orders. We do not support trans ideology, we do not support teaching children an idealist para-religion in place of material and biological reality. And we refuse the surrender of women's spaces to men under any circumstances. Trans people have access, **and should**, to every human right all people do. To vote, to speak, to education, to work, to secure housing, and so on. They do not have access to women's rights. And the thing about rights is that they secure social and economic resources. And there's the rub between gender identity ideology and radical materialist feminism. Rights are not pie, but the too small number of refuges and rape crisis services, the space in a [prison cell](https://usa.kpssinfo.org/stories-from-women-in-prison/?ref=medusarising.org) (this is one of the only organziations trying to track this issue), the scholarship to college, and the prize money that supports athletes training and equipment costs very certainly are. We understand that we are in the minority with these views. We advocate that social and civil provisions for trans people should be made on their own accord rather than simply handing over women's provisions. We believe that the end of the terror that is patriarchal gender norms and lies in expanding the expressions accepted BY MEN of their full humanity. We believe that young gay kids or traumatized kids should grow up to healthy and whole gay and het adults. **Trans women in men's spaces is far more revolutionary than the current regime**, and if you believe that a 12 year old it too young to be a mother, you should believe a 12 year old is too young to transition. We believe that trans people, gay people, and all gender non-conforming people should be welcome and safe, respected and honored. But, we also believe that these social virtures are two-way streets. We acknowledge that the trans umbrella is a complicated space populated by a vanishingly tiny number of people who are acting in good faith, and much larger population of men who have a convoluted kind of porn addiction, a [desire to do violence to women](https://terfisaslur.com/?ref=medusarising.org), or have suffered deep traumas, or all of the above. It is also populated by women who simply cannot live under the regime of violence that is male supremacy and the male gaze. Our sympathies, support, and solidarity lie with our sisters and brothers who have suffered harm. The porn addicts and rapists, however, can take the punishment and approbrium they have earned. Women should live free from all forms of male coersion, and that most assuredly includes our lesbian sisters pressured into sex with men on dating sites and in political discourse. All people should live free from the coercion to conform to gender norms and sex stereotypes. And, **not but**, AND Medusa Rising will **defend to the limit every human being's right to express their personality, style, authenticity, and their dissent to the regime of gender** in any way they see fit that does not cause personal, or social, or economic harm to others. (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ (ノ-\_-)ノ\~ ┻━┻ Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* ### Asymmetrical Re-worlding, Part 1: The Pilgrim’s Path Beyond the Mountains of Dualism | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/asymmetrical-re-worlding-part-1-the-pilgrims-path-beyond-the-mountains-of-dualism-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-09-18T17:11:03.000Z Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/09/Asymmetrical-Re-Worlding-_-Therese-Doherty_thumb.png) Asymmetrical Re Worlding | by Therese Doherty 0:00 /1882.255986 1× Instead of closing in on rigidly formed conclusions, we need to remain open to possibility and all that we do not know. There is an expansiveness of thought that I love to pursue because it puts me in touch with what is, and what may be, and it gently insists that what I long for is right, while remaining wide and uncertain. Though, understandably, uncertainty can be frightening. As ecophilosopher David Abram says, ‘We cannot abide our vulnerability, our utter dependence on a world that can eat us … modern humanity is crippled by a fear of its own animality, and of the animate earth that sustains us.’[\[1\]](#fn1) *All of us* are dependent upon the natural world, and upon women. Yet in their arrogant denial of this dependence, and ‘**out of a desire to control nature, men dominate women**’[\[2\]](#fn2)—and some women evidently think that is the way things should be. As someone who has been anti-civilisation[\[3\]](#fn3) for a good while now (perhaps even much of my life), I am frustrated when I hear commentators talking about how we must avert ‘the collapse of western civilisation’ or ‘the disintegration of society’, because as traumatic as it will be, it is a necessary step in the right direction. Cultural and ecological collapse are occurring now, and many people have already lived, or are currently living, through the end of their world. The rise of the Right, authoritarian governments and fascism is also of concern, as they will both accelerate and worsen the effects of these twin collapses. We’ve created hell on Earth. If we can sow the right values and cultural seeds now, perhaps we can avoid the worst of what is to come, though I don’t believe that our survival as a species is (fully) in our control, because from Evolution’s point of view **humans have never been the point**. *All is process*. We need to ride the wave of what is coming, and see what far evolutionary shore we’re eventually cast up on. This will likely occur over many generations, and I’m impatient about this, but I guess like everyone else I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, we do whatever we can to create change. (It sounds pessimistic, I know, but to me there’s a wild uncertainty in all of this which I find reassuring. What will be will be, Gaia willing.) But it stands to reason that in this climate of change and collapse many people are now clinging to notions of ‘tradition’ and myths of the way things supposedly were, or are *supposed to be*, to assuage their fears about an uncertain future. In this series, which will be shared over the next five weeks, I am going to take you on a journey that refutes the backward, nonsensical arguments of so-called ‘postfeminists’, who are trying to bring back [biologically essentialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological%5Fessentialism?ref=medusarising.org) gender roles.[\[4\]](#fn4) In doing so I will examine the trap of metaphysical dualism and how it relates to gender; explore the flowing dance of difference and relationship; argue for the necessity of an end to male domination, and the re-emergence of matriarchy as an egalitarian social system based on care; and start to ponder improved stories about who we are as humans that can overcome our gendered indoctrination and disembodiment. Finally, I’ll end with some seeds to sow to help grow a new conception of human culture—a re-worlding—based on a metaphysics of asymmetry (inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s groundbreaking philosophical work). This will utilise the *inyo* symbol (the Japanese version of the yin yang), in which The Feminine—as *The Human*—contains within it both The Feminine and The Masculine. At long last, everyone will be enfolded back into the arms of the Goddess, who is Evolution. ### An Account of Postfeminism & a RadMatFem Rebuttal I [read](https://brielleelise.substack.com/p/resurrecting-eves-serpent-what-do) this piece about something called ‘postfeminism’[\[5\]](#fn5) in 2024, and while superficially I agreed with much of it, mistakenly assuming (in part because it quotes Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous), that it was some kind of revival of radical feminist principles (my bad!), there were some niggling issues. What, for instance, is the ‘masculine core’ that some women apparently have? Is this a nod to transgenderism, or just plain old sexism? The glib dismissal of the work of our feminist foremothers, and the erroneous assertion that feminism ‘was based on the notion of equality-through-sameness’, also set off alarm bells. There was something rotten lurking under the surface here that I wasn’t yet sure of. As the months went on and I saw yet more perplexing content I began to think more deeply about what it all meant. ‘Feminists’, [apparently](https://www.instagram.com/p/C2ILQYCO8sm/?ref=medusarising.org), ‘don’t want to slay the patriarchy, they want access to it’. While it is the norm in the patriarchal gender system for women and girls to be conditioned to believe that we are less than men, some postfeminists are engaging in a gaslighting reversal and [claiming](https://www.instagram.com/p/C3a9Ow%5FuSbq/?img%5Findex=2&ref=medusarising.org) that it is *feminism itself* that is responsible for instilling that belief into us, and turning us into victims. Our desire for ‘liberation’ is ill-conceived because it is supposedly founded upon a denial of our femaleness and a wish to be like men. This is one of the core arguments built upon the error of equality-as-sameness that comes up time and time again: feminists want the power that men have—we want to pursue work and success *like men*, to intellectualise and engage in mental abstraction *like men*, to fuck around *like men*—we have abandoned our embodied womanhood and become ‘ontologically male’, and it is damaging our health. There is certainly *some* truth in this, but feminists have been all too aware of the pitfalls of participating in the androcentric system. ‘While we value the fact that in this economic system we can support ourselves independently of men’, writes Carolyn Dougherty, > we also recognize that capitalism embeds hierarchy and competition into every aspect of our lives … Our level of comfort with this structure often depends on how successful we are within it, and achieving ‘equality’ with men in this individualized, competitive, alienated, misogynist and destructive economy is ultimately neither healthy nor desirable.[\[6\]](#fn6) I don’t think women are ‘trying to be male’. We’re trying to survive and be fully human in a world created by and for men. Does that require self-betrayal? Yes, often, and many women grapple with that conundrum. But that’s the nature of patriarchy, which harms everyone. If it were up to feminists we would have dismantled the capitalist system long ago and replaced it with something more humane and sustainable, yet this is the situation we find ourselves in. We have to work with what is, even if that means making some inescapable concessions for the time being. Though the reversals continue when we’re [told](https://brielleelise.substack.com/p/resurrecting-eves-serpent-what-do) that **The male domain — of thought and action* — was upheld to the level of the gods, while *the female domain — of the body and being*, of birth, the ability to bring up the waters of life from below — was unconsciously held as less than. Under the new freedoms of feminism, the symbol of the phallus, the spear, the line of progress still reigned while the yoni, the womb gestating in quiet darkness was held with silent contempt.* Yet this is not only untrue—many feminists have explored the realities of female embodiment and being, sexuality, the wonders of pregnancy, birth and motherhood, and the resurrection of a feminine symbolic (not to mention everything about the ‘male domain’ and the phallic symbolic that is dysfunctional and damaging)—it also reveals the heart of the problem as a fundamental misunderstanding about what feminism really is (and your ‘liberal feminist gender studies class’ will not [teach you](https://www.instagram.com/p/DBzG-tpyE1n/?img%5Findex=3&ref=medusarising.org) that). Mary Daly pointed out that the male-defined labels ‘thought’ and ‘action’ are decoys ‘which distract from the reality both of deep knowing and of external action. There is no authentic separation possible.’[\[7\]](#fn7) Everything is embodied and whole. It’s not that feminism is a perfect movement that has never taken a wrong turn, but what is being described by the postfeminists sounds more like liberal/capitalist/‘sex-positive’ *fauxminism* than anything that I would identify as feminism at all. (In fact, the quote above sounds like it could be a critique of civilisation and the myth of progress, so that specific line of thinking is misplaced and could have been used to look more deeply into the predicament we find ourselves in as *humans*, not only as women.) While liberal feminism has a reformist position, wanting to tweak the system in order to enable women to participate more fully in society (which admittedly does produce some benefits), the radical materialist feminist position is (r)evolutionary, aiming to dismantle the system and recreate it on totally different lines. My position is that liberal feminism—which takes the current system as a given and does not critique the conditions under which we live, but rather endorses the sex industry and harmful forms of sexual behaviour—is not feminism at all. While it may display a veneer of concern for women’s rights via the fight to address the wage gap and workplace harassment, among other issues, and champions the flimsy ideas of ‘empowerment’ and ‘sex positivity’, it manifests more as a patriarchal takeover of feminism, which furthers the aim to divide and conquer women. An essentially male-endorsed movement, liberal feminism has a particularly loud voice, and it drowns out the real, radical, revolutionary feminism that threatens the malestream world, keeping women from hearing the voices they desperately need to hear. I’ve noticed that many women today either find it difficult to call themselves feminists, because of how misunderstood the word is, or are turning away from the concept altogether, so it would seem that the patriarchal-postfeminist strategy is succeeding. What better way to turn women against their own kind than to tell them that the movement that is meant to work for their liberation is actually harmful, and rebranding patriarchy as the key to their liberation! There are certainly some valid arguments presented by postfeminists about how the malestream world does not suit the rhythms of women’s lives, but what especially irks me is the conspicuous lack of criticism of the patriarchal world itself. **Women should not behave like men, yet an acknowledgement of the obvious fact that *men also should not behave like men* is absent.** ‘\[W\]omen cannot submit to the same rhythms as men’, said Irigaray, but with the crucial additional assertion that ‘**men’s rhythms should not be seen as the norm**’.[\[8\]](#fn8) Indeed, Riane Eisler says that ‘recognizing the value and integrity of women’s natural cycles goes along with a much-needed shift in attitudes toward nature and the human body—a shift through which the dominator obsession with male superiority and control over both women and nature could finally be left behind’.[\[9\]](#fn9) This shift could be monumental. Yet I get the impression that to the postfeminist mind the way men have organised the system, and the way they behave, is entirely natural, and we should therefore leave them to it—we [need only](https://www.instagram.com/p/DLIyGaayCKr/?img%5Findex=1&ref=medusarising.org) use our feminine wiles to ‘activate’ the allegedly ‘inborn’ masculine ‘instinct to love and protect the feminine’, and, presumably, all will be as it should be. The ‘phallic’ system/symbolic (which does harm to the Earth, and to men too) is only really problematic when applied to women. Thus it is women who must change, who must withdraw from the public realm of visibility and achievement and retreat back into the private, domestic realm, which is portrayed as being where our natural power lies. But this public/private, masculine/feminine split fragments experience, as I will discuss below. Postfeminists also [hype](https://www.instagram.com/p/DBBkvUmMHoA/?img%5Findex=6&ref=medusarising.org) [up](https://www.instagram.com/p/DFGouoSyvqd/?img%5Findex=5&ref=medusarising.org) personal responsibility. If we refuse to be victims—*voila!*—we are not. Yet being the walking wounded of patriarchal civilisation, which is a truth we should *all* admit to, as well as being strong and full of potential within its maddening bounds, are not mutually exclusive. We’re *both/and*. While taking responsibility for ourselves is important, and very much a part of radical feminist practice (it’s actually a deep element of consciousness raising), we need to remember that inner, individual ‘solutions’ are only one part of the picture. The personal is political, and the political is personal. There is also an external, material world out there that Man has created, and though its cultural layers are comparatively recent and quite shallow on the long human scale, they do exert a lot of force. Feminists have been trying to dig through those layers to get back to the matriarchal source for a long time, and it’s not their fault that their work has been stymied at every opportunity. **We need to be especially careful not to fall into the trap of perpetuating that popular patriarchal pastime of blaming everything on feminism.** I often think of something that Susan Griffin wrote: ‘A rebellion ultimately imitates that which it rebels against, until the rebel comes to understand himself.’[\[10\]](#fn10) She was talking about the mentality of ‘the pornographic mind’, but I feel that phrase applies to many other things. When we are repulsed by an idea, an ideology, we can react and find ourselves in an opposing stance that has its own deep flaws. This characterises the backlash against feminism that has spawned liberal feminism and transgenderism,[\[11\]](#fn11) amongst other inhumanities, and it now also characterises the ‘reactionary’ rejection of feminism in favour of women’s ‘liberation’ via marriage, the nuclear family, and regressive notions of feminine and masculine essences. While postfeminists will argue that it is not about any kind of harmful domination/submission dynamic between men and women, and that we’re just not understanding the ‘nuance’, that is not borne out by the blunt language that they [use](https://chantelq.substack.com/p/the-biology-of-feminine-submission): ‘To reject hierarchy in relationships is to reject the design of nature.’ Thus they are merely leading us full circle back to where we started instead of giving us the (self-)understanding of our situation that enables us to break free from the patriarchal double bind altogether. My long pondering has led to this pilgrim’s path of response to all of that postfeminist absurdity. I was, I’m sad to say, a latecomer to reading *THE RADICAL NOTION*, so it wasn’t until I read Jane Clare Jones’s review of Mary Harrington’s *Feminism Against Progress* that everything finally began to make sense. My suspicion that some women were understandably rejecting liberal *fauxminism*, but mistakenly conflating it with feminism as a whole, and then creating an antifeminist distortion in its place was, pleasingly, confirmed. According to Jones, Harrington fails to understand that > liberal ideals of disembodied autonomy are key to the *male-default patriarchal subject*, and that the liberal feminist embrace of ‘gender neutrality’ derives from efforts to liberate women *within* the patriarchal paradigm, on the basis of patriarchal notions of what it means to be human. Instead of understanding that the disembodied ‘gender neutral’ (but actually male) default is a *product of patriarchy*, Harrington equates liberal feminism’s embrace of this default with feminism *as such*, erasing a long and varied tradition of radical and materialist feminist thinking that focuses *precisely* on critiquing liberal capitalist notions of autonomy and equality-as-sameness as based on patriarchal constructions of the human. This then allows Harrington to indict feminism, rather than patriarchy, for the cultural malaise created by capitalist atomization, and paves the way for her avowedly ‘reactionary’ retreat to the patriarchal family as an antidote to a public sphere governed by allegedly ‘feminist’ ideals of capitalist liberal autonomy.[\[12\]](#fn12) Jones’s term ‘reactionary post-liberal feminists’[\[13\]](#fn13) perfectly describes what is going on with Harrington, Louise Perry, and their ilk and the fact that they are still slickly marketing themselves as some kind of ‘feminist’ makes their message especially deceptive. There are many strands to this postfeminist propaganda, but one of the things that stands out is an old idea dressed up in newer, yet no less ugly, clothing: that of feminine/masculine polarity. In [one article](https://everything-voluntary.com/dear-women-you-are-your-body-and-that-isnt-a-bad-thing-its-your-power?ref=medusarising.org) I came across the very first sentence had me wanting to bang my head against a wall: ‘The mind/body duality is as fundamental to universal nature as masculine/feminine duality.’ ### Shifting into Difference I mean, *really?* Does any credible thinker believe in mind/body dualism these days? It’s a conceptual error in Western thought which we can trace back to certain Greek philosophers (Plato, I’m looking at you!), though it reached its most insidious form during the Enlightenment, thanks to Descartes *et al.* Indeed, a whole system of dualisms has characterised Western philosophy, which feeds into the polarity of gender (aka sex role stereotypes = sexism), and such divisions operate at a deep subconscious level. (Tellingly, ‘liberal feminism, which accepts the dominant culture, has not had much use for the concept \[of dualism\]’,[\[14\]](#fn14) which explains why the postfeminists have no critique of it.) Because we are a sexually dimorphic species, ‘human societies have responded to the bodily differences between the two sexes in dualistic ways that shape the life experience of every individual’, Charlene Spretnak tells us. ‘Born into a particular culture, most people regard that orientation as “the natural way,” or at least, if they become aware of other cultural choices, “the proper way.”’[\[15\]](#fn15) There’s nothing inherently bad about recognising these differences—as we’ve seen with the rise of sex-denialism in recent years, it’s actually necessary for the safety and well-being of women and girls—but **a dualism is not just a difference, it’s a difference *plus hierarchy*** (also thought of as a ‘binary’). Ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood elaborates: > In dualism, the more highly valued side (males, humans) is construed as alien to and of a different nature or order of being from the ‘lower’, inferiorised side (women, nature) and each is treated as lacking in qualities which make possible overlap, kinship, or continuity. The nature of each is constructed in polarised ways by the exclusion of qualities shared with the other; the dominant side is taken as primary, the subordinated side is defined in relation to it. Thus woman is constructed as the other, as the exception, the aberration or the subsumed, and man treated as the primary model. **The effect of dualism is**, in Rosemary Radford Ruether’s words, **to ‘naturalise domination’, to make it part of the very natures or identities of both the dominant and subordinated items and thus to appear to be inevitable, ‘natural’.**[\[16\]](#fn16) Extrapolated out from the differences of our bodies are a whole range of ideas that serve to limit and distort us, and these ideas are certainly not ‘natural’. As I [said](https://www.medusarising.org/interwoven-selves-review-of-from-a-broken-web-by-therese-doherty/) in my review of Catherine Keller’s *From a Broken Web*, ‘the differences between \[women and men\] would likely be much less stark in the absence of gendered socialisation, which splits us off from each other and limits our potentials, endangering our future as a species, while causing us all so much misery’. And the more I’ve read on this subject, the more true that statement has become. There would be no Evolution without sex differences, and difference is what makes *relationship* possible. It produces diversity, complexity and adaptability, and actualises the possibilities that enable the continual processes of evolutionary change. But when we attach values to those differences that lead to personalities, behaviours and opportunities being curtailed or [rigidly prescribed](https://www.instagram.com/p/C8pVfvxN%5FRl/?img%5Findex=1&ref=medusarising.org)—the *false differences* that we call gender—our potential as humans is reduced and impeded. Yet in *Delusions of Gender* Cordelia Fine assures us that ‘Our minds, society and neurosexism create difference. Together, they wire gender. But **the wiring is soft, not hard.** **It is flexible, malleable and changeable.** And, if we only believe this, it will continue to unravel.’[\[17\]](#fn17) Absent that gendered wiring, we will finally be free to be ourselves—women and men with all of our diverse personalities, abilities, sexualities, and modes of expression. This is true difference, in all its gorgeous plurality and expansiveness. It is mind-boggling to me why some women are falling into the gender trap, taking on such regressive biologically essentialist ideas about what women and men are *supposed to be*, because it reveals not just an astonishing ignorance of well-established feminist theory, but also a distinct lack of imagination. It’s [*reification*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification%5F%28fallacy%29?ref=medusarising.org) and [*naturalistic fallacies*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic%5Ffallacy?ref=medusarising.org) on overdrive. Beyond that, it’s particularly bewildering when they are supposedly opposed to transgenderism as they don’t seem to realise that the very polarity they are upholding is what creates the conditions for transgenderism to arise in the first place: ‘“Any culture that insists on individuals committing themselves to one pole of a duality,” \[said anthropologist\] Roy Willis, “exposes itself to the risk that some will find the forbidden option too attractive to be forgone.”’[\[18\]](#fn18) In her beautiful and profound collection of essays, *The Eros of Everyday Life*, Griffin writes: > The idea of masculinity and femininity, and a complementary heterosexuality, served to symbolize a separation between spirit and matter, mind and body and make this schism seem, even to a small degree, real. By a similar logic the idea of the superiority of the white race was another way European culture had been able to imagine itself as elevated above nature. Both the movement of women away from the traditional feminine role and the shattering of a myth of race endangered the stability of the entire system.[\[19\]](#fn19) Feminine/masculine polarity is embedded in the system of metaphysical dualism that perhaps originated in the demotion and [dividing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsZPR5vTIa0&ref=medusarising.org) of the Great Goddess who initially embodied a holistic, gynandrous and flowing worldview. Dualism destroys that worldview, creating and upholding various forms of othering and oppression, and sustaining a fragmentation of the way we see reality and each other: ‘experience itself is divided into separate worlds, not only masculine and feminine, but also public and private, sacred and profane, intellectual and emotional.’[\[20\]](#fn20) **This is profoundly alienating and anti-ecological.** Plumwood says that ‘the dualisms of male/female, mental/manual (mind/body), civilised/primitive, human/nature correspond directly to and naturalise gender, class, race and nature oppressions respectively’.[\[21\]](#fn21) Dominators and the subjugated. Masters and slaves. The fully human and the Other. Difference is natural, but these dualisms are not. They are **‘the conceit of the patriarchal mind, built over—and in defiance of—the densely interwoven nature of existence’.**[\[22\]](#fn22) aurora linnea writes: > Dualism slanders reality. For the real living world is zealously, promiscuously, anti-dualistic. The boundaries between one body and another, between my body and the dirt, between the soil and the roiling sea of the air are not the hard, straight-edged lines Man draws with such exacting precision, but more misted.[\[23\]](#fn23) To challenge these dualisms is therefore to destabilise the patriarchal system of domination and fragmentation in favour of something more humane, more whole, more grounded in freedom and the integration of the many diverse facets of all that we are. **Difference without hierarchy, and instead, a web of interrelation.** To [get a bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHzarUO6HFs&ref=medusarising.org) philosophical: the relationship precedes the *relata*, and opposites actually coincide. It’s in the *betweenness* that relationship happens, as we *respond* to context and circumstance. This destabilisation and wild ‘promiscuity’ is of course a threat to patriarchal society, and to anyone who wants to remain ensconced in neatly defined roles and power positions. These dualistic ideas pervade the dominant culture so deeply that they often remain unperceived. For those of us who have become aware, trying to overcome them can be a difficult task leading to even more confusion if we set out without a proper map. As Plumwood playfully wrote, ‘the misty, forbidding passes of the Mountains of Dualism have swallowed many an unwary traveller in their mazes and chasms.’ Not only do we have to traverse the ‘Cavern of Reversal’ and make it past the nearby ‘Well of Discourse’ (where many a postmodernist finds themselves ‘gazing in dismay into the fearful and bottomless Abyss of Relativism’), next there is the ‘Swamp of Affirmation’, beyond which many travellers ‘either fall into the Ocean of Continuity on the one side or stray into the waterless and alien Desert of Difference on the other, there to perish.’ Plumwood concludes that ‘The pilgrim’s path to the promised land leads along a narrow way between these two hazards, and involves **heeding both difference and continuity’.**[\[24\]](#fn24) What is required to successfully complete the journey beyond the Mountains of Dualism is both/and thinking, the ability to dance between the opposites, to deconstruct and then integrate them. ‘A deconstructed binary is a constant oscillation between poles,’ says Jones, ‘just like the yin yang, which is designed to suggest a circle *spinning*.’[\[25\]](#fn25) The yin yang (or *taijitu*) symbol contains a dot of each side’s opposite within them, for Darkness cannot be without her sister Light. As I said above, *opposites coincide*. They contain each other, while remaining distinct. There is a delicious paradox here. ![1000006144.png](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/1000006144.png) --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.facebook.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/) and you can peruse and purchase her artwork at [Offerings From the Wellspring at Redbubble](https://www.redbubble.com/people/ThereseD/shop?asc=u&ref=account-nav-dropdown). --- 1. David Abram, *Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology*, Vintage Books: New York, 2010, p. 69 [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Susan Griffin, *Made From This Earth: An Anthology of Writings*, Harper & Row: New York, 1982, p. 16 [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. I define civilisation as any culture that develops cities. Thus civilised cultures are inherently unsustainable, while non-civilised cultures generally are. This has nothing to do with the cultural sophistication of the society, or the way people behave (civilised people are sometimes the least “civilised”). [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. This isn’t a new trend, just the latest iteration. Riane Eisler, writing three decades ago, noted that ‘revivals of “essentialist” gender roles through fundamentalism, neoconservatism, sociobiology \[now evolutionary psychology\], and some neo-Jungian mythopoetic writings \[are\] attempts to make something that is socially constructed appear as instinctual or biological.’ *Sacred* *Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body*, HarperOne, 1995, pp. 310 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. In this particular instance, it stands for ‘post-patriarchal feminism’ (an oxymoron). [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Carolyn Dougherty, ‘An Economy that Included Women: The ‘Sociable Economy’ of Georgian England’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Three (Spring 2021), p. 82 – all issues are available to read online or download for free here: [https://theradicalnotion.org/](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. Mary Daly, *Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism*, Beacon Press: Boston, 1978/1990, p. 54 (ebook page number) – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. Luce Irigaray (translated by Karin Montin), *Thinking the Difference: For A Peaceful Revolution*, Routledge: New York, 1994, p. 62 [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. Eisler, pp. 356 (ebook page number) [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. Susan Griffin, *Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge Against Nature*, Harper & Row: New York, 1981, p. 16 [↩︎](#fnref10) 11. I have written about this on my blog, in a piece called [Finding the Bedrock](https://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com/2023/03/finding-bedrock.html?ref=medusarising.org)*.* [↩︎](#fnref11) 12. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Feminism Against Capitalism: A Review of *Feminism Against Progress*’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Nine (Spring/Summer 2023), p. 80 [↩︎](#fnref12) 13. Jane Clare Jones, ‘Feminism is Not Identity Politics: Transactivism, Gender-Critical Populism, and the Culture War’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Eight (Autumn/Winter 2022), p. 83 [↩︎](#fnref13) 14. Val Plumwood, *Feminism and the Mastery of Nature*, Routledge: London, 1993, p. 32 – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref14) 15. Charlene Spretnak, *States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age*, HarperSanFrancisco: New York, 1991, p. 114 [↩︎](#fnref15) 16. Plumwood, p. 32 [↩︎](#fnref16) 17. Cordelia Fine, *Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences*, Icon Books: London, 2010, p. 162 (pdf page number) – find this book in the [Radical Feminist Library](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18h4u7pCQlqHOjEXNKSkrxODDmN-w76wi?ref=medusarising.org) [↩︎](#fnref17) 18. Paul Shepard, *Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence*, University of Georgia Press: Athens, Georgia, 1978/1998, p. 158 [↩︎](#fnref18) 19. Susan Griffin, *The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society*, Doubleday: New York, 1995, p. 20 [↩︎](#fnref19) 20. Griffin, *The Eros of Everyday Life*, p. 41 [↩︎](#fnref20) 21. Plumwood, p. 43 [↩︎](#fnref21) 22. Jane Clare Jones, ‘The Cyborg vs. the Goddess’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Six (Winter 2022), p. 81 [↩︎](#fnref22) 23. aurora linnea, *Man Against Being: Body Horror and the Death of Life*, Spinifex Press: Little River, Victoria, 2024, p. 227 – linnea goes on to say in a footnote: ‘The undoing of dualisms I envision here should not be mistaken for the gross bulldozing of difference performed by the queer theory tenet of “fluidity,” with its implicit goal of casting doubt on human sexual dimorphism … Our skin may be porous and permeable, our cells mostly water, but our bodies are not, as it happens, composed of some malleable gloop, forever oozing slimily through a limitless multiplicity of morphologies. Man’s reductive and oversimplifying dualisms do not describe reality, but neither does the wishful thinking that would deprive nature of all its meaningful, material distinctions.’ p. 228 [↩︎](#fnref23) 24. Plumwood, p. 3 [↩︎](#fnref24) 25. Vojin Saša Vukadinović, ‘Explanatory Power: Gender-Critical Feminism and Trans Ideology: An Interview With Jane Clare Jones’, *THE RADICAL NOTION*, Issue Four (Summer 2021), p. 106 [↩︎](#fnref25) --- Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) Groove with The Gorgon Posse Playlist Songs for Breaking Up with Male Supremacy Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Archive | The Crone’s Tarot: A Materialist Feminist’s Menopausal Adventure | by Dr V L McMahon URL: https://www.medusarising.org/archive-the-crones-tarot-a-materialist-feminists-menopausal-adventure-by-dr-v-l-mcmahon/ Last updated: 2025-09-18T15:15:12.000Z ### The Origins of the Shakespeare Menopause Project Twelve years ago, I decided to realise a lifetime’s obsession by writing a book — an academic book, to be precise. I knew that it would take at least a decade of research conducted piecemeal in those scarce and precious moments outside of raising a family and working a demanding fulltime job (not in academe). I knew that I could make it happen: I don’t like to be told ‘‘you can’t.’’ When people dubiously asked me what it would be about, I told them that it would be a book that would explore menopause through the eyes of five of Shakespeare’s tragic female characters. I managed to pitch my idea to a reputable academic press but one of the anonymous peer reviewers made no bones about the fact that he thought (and I’m sure it was a male) that my thesis was rubbish. “Women didn’t have menopause in Shakespeare’s time,” he said, regardless of the fact that I had documented hundreds of pages of medio-historical, classical, literary, mythological, religious and socio-cultural evidence to argue that they, of course, did. Although history had not yet given it a medical term and women themselves were yet to write of their own bodily experiences (that would come later in history), females did experience physiological and psychological changes that came with an ageing body. This is what I call the ‘proto-menopause.’ I argue that, at its core, the ageing woman troubled the sociocultural order because her value to the community became ambiguous once her reproductive abilities had come to an end. She was viewed as a drain on precious community resources and feared for her tendency to speak her mind – especially if widowed or unmarried. This fear and ambivalence were ‘read’ through her body itself. As ‘woman’ in the early modern period was defined by her womb, uterine changes were invariably read as pathological, and these ‘diseases’ fed into and bolstered archetypes about the old woman that had existed since classical times. For instance, the womb was said to crave semen as a sweet treat to keep it from escaping the body proper to cause harm to others. An old woman’s lack of regular intercourse might mean that poisonous gas would build up in the womb and dissipate through bodily orifices, such as generating deadly eye beams to emanate and blind others. This also resulted in the idea of the vampiric nocturnal witch – the nightmare – who would use spells to hypnotise young men so that she could suck their blood and seminal fluid. The ageing woman’s uterus was believed to spontaneously generate monsters, snakes, worms, stones, vermin and terrifying lumps of living flesh called ‘moles’. The origins of the archetypal Witch, oversexed Crone, Gorgon, Gossip, Scold, Hag, and Harpy stemmed from a very real belief that a woman’s ageing body was the dangerous etiological site of disease, contagion, malefic magic, and environmental catastrophe. These archetypes of the ageing female body had very real, often fatal implications for the woman herself. An ageing woman could have her body beaten, branded, mutilated, driven from her home into penury and starvation, pelted in stocks, forced to wear torturous implements, dunked in rivers, hanged, or burned alive. It is no accident that the vast majority of women condemned as witches in Europe were older post-menopausal women. In other words, our ongoing revulsion of the older woman’s body and sexuality has its origins deep within the history of folklore, mythology, natural philosophy, religion, and the medical profession. Shakespeare was simply drawing on his knowledge of this ancient tradition of viewing the older woman and her body as being demonic, unnatural, disease-ridden, and dangerous. On the basis of that singular peer review, even though the two others had been enthusiastic and accepting, my book was rejected. “Here we go again,” I thought to myself, “the entire somatic experience of our sex being overlooked with a single dismissive gesture (probably by an ageing man)”. Finally accepted by a wonderful female editor at Palgrave MacMillan, the result was *Shakespeare, Tragedy and Menopause: The Anxious Womb* published in 2022. Like most academic writing, the final result is never about sales or any kind of acclaim — it’s enough just to see it out there in print. Dream achieved. What now? Well as wonderful as the entire process has been, last summer I found myself yearning to return to the central idea of historical menopause and the literary tradition but explored through a totally different lens. I wanted to put aside my logical and analytical side to dabble in something more creative and freeing. So, I returned to two of my first loves: art and the occult. The result has been an attempt to recreate my own original Tarot card pack featuring menopausal characters from my book. The first stage of the project is to render the Major Arcana cards, modifying the original images featured in the popular Rider-Waite deck. What you have before you are these three: The Tower (card 16); Strength (card 11); and Justice (card 13). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003595-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003596.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003598.png) ### The Tower and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning Shit happens. I’m not talking of those natural organic processes of life where things fall away gracefully or poignantly and all “in due season” as Hesiod would say. I’m speaking of those sudden bolts from the blue — catastrophic, obliterating, so nuclear that one’s core being is shaken to its very foundation and nothing is the same ever again. Trauma, transformation, loss, be it spiritual, physical, material — the kinds of events that mendacious insurance brokers claim are ‘acts of god’. This is The Tower card. The woman falling is Lady Macbeth, the notorious queen from Shakespeare’s bloodiest of plays, *Macbeth*. Such a powerful and domineering presence, by the play’s conclusion, Lady Macbeth is reduced to insanity, committing suicide by jumping to her death off her castle battlements to a “cry of women”. When her own child (children ?) died in infancy and her ageing body could sustain no more, she offered to trade her very womanhood itself with demons in order to secure worldly power for herself and her husband — a pact sealed in peri-menopausal blood and soured breastmilk. The Tower asks us to contemplate what we, as women, are willing to sacrifice when chaos reigns, when the very heart of our lives is torn asunder. What will we do to survive, nay, to pick up the pieces and thrive? Yes, this card signals immense change and upheaval but with that comes the chance to choose to be devastated or to be transformed through trial and adversity. Witness our sisters throughout history and today, following behind disaster with mops and buckets in hand, cleaning up the shit not of our making. This is what makes us feared: we can deal with anything man and nature can throw at us. This makes us dangerous for we can survive anything with dignity, grace, intelligence, resilience, ferocity and righteous anger. ### Strength and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning In the original Tarot deck, the Strength card features a woman wrestling with a lion, an exhortation to fight against both outer and inner struggles knowing that the outcome can never really be won without some kind of battle scar. In Shakespeare’s play *Coriolanus*, Volumnia is the hero’s mother, a post-menopausal grandmother pushing her son from battlefield victory to victory until her mercenary drive leads to his death. Think Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate. Like the emblem of the Roman empire that she so passionately defends, Volumnia is the ‘she-wolf’, the ambitious woman frustrated by the limitations that all patriarchies place upon females, forcing them to channel their talents and live vicariously through their menfolk. She boasts that even if she had a hundred sons, she would rather them all die on the battlefield in honour than live as cowards. Volumnia revels in her son’s wounds and massive body count, claiming that he sucked his valour from her breasts in infancy. In my card, Volumnia is portrayed as the archetypal Devouring Mother: with sickle in hand, like the classical goddess Ceres in her darker aspect, she reaps the bodies of men as if they were no more consequential than wheat stalks. Such is the strength of Mother Nature. As the Wolf Mother, Strength also reminds us of the absolute power of maternal instinct, a force that is bestial, sometimes violent, and always incomparable. ### Justice and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning Ah, yes, Justice. In her Greco-Roman incarnation, she is portrayed as blindfolded to represent her supposed impartiality. But we women know that this western notion of institutional justice is bullshit: when has the system ever served the best interest of the weak, the poor, the marginalised, the despised? But in her original guise, Natural Justice, the goddess Themis, had a much different form and reputation. Sometimes portrayed as multiple entities like the Furies or Harpies, or as the singular entity known as Nemesis, Ate, or Tyche, she was the personification of Revenge. Even Zeus, the king of the gods, couldn’t compel or restrain her. Justice (or Revenge, Retribution or Righteous Anger) exacted a brutal vengeance upon those who murdered innocents, pursuing them through life and even after death. Despots and tyrants feared her and sometimes showed compassion to their subjects solely in order to escape Justice’s wrath. Overseer of the universe (yoni-verse), Justice’s vicissitudes connected her with Time and the seasons, hence in my card she is pictured with symbols of the globe, the solar wheel, the vulture, horse’s bridle and her traditional scales. Pulling the Justice card reminds us that sometimes it takes time, perhaps even centuries, before the cosmos rights any wrongs, yet righted they shall be. In Shakespeare’s play *Titus Andronicus*, the peri-menopausal Queen of the Goths — the dreaded Tamora — devotes the latter stage of her life to pursuing vengeance against the Roman general who sacrifices her son as a spoil of war. Tamora even dresses as Revenge to drive her enemy insane after she has ordered her other sons to rape, murder and mutilate Titus’s daughter and other children. After his family is decimated by Tamora’s vengeance, Titus prays to the goddess Astrea, petitioning her to return to earth to restore her power. Astrea was yet another incarnation of Justice but one connected with the heavenly powers of the newer Olympian gods — not like the chthonic primal, darker forces of the retributive Titans like Nemesis and her ilk. And that is Titus’s fatal error: he prays to a version of Justice that has been on earth all along, but he has been unable to recognise her in her merciless human incarnation as Tamora. Eventually learning Tamora’s brand of justice, Titus makes Tamora unwittingly eat her own sons baked in a meat pie before stabbing her to death. Tamora is a complex character: she charms everyone she meets, is a formidable ruler and warrior, yet she is capable of breathtaking acts of cruelty and savagery, even ordering her infant to be killed lest its appearance reveal her infidelity. Having overstepped the boundaries of natural justice, in the end, Tamora, too, is made to realise that to those who have wronged her, Justice, or whatever we choose to call her, is a complete bitch. ## *A Crone’s Reading for Medusa Rising* *Now for the fun part. Esmée asked that I might pull three Tarot cards from my deck in order to do a reading for the online project of* Medusa Rising *and its potential success as it expands its mission into the online world. The cards selected in the specific order requested were: The High Priestess, the four of wands, and the Queen of cups. I interpret their message as follows:* Medusa Rising*’s guiding matron and inspirational archetype is the veiled Isis and disguised Pope Joan, Woman in her most spiritual and formidably intelligent aspect as the High Priestess of all Mysteries. The cards are favourable to the overall project and mission but indicate a slight preoccupation with deciding the overall approach to realising that vision. I sense that this minor barrier is to do with balancing intellectual ideology and a passionate, emotional response to the state of womanhood as it currently stands. In other words, there seems to be a hesitation, maybe even a slight questioning, as to how to get the balance in tone right for the overall project. It is a conceptual fear of possibly alienating some readers who expect a more removed ideological analysis of issues, at the same time that, conversely, you want to include emotive, creative and experimental responses without the content coming off as ‘flaky’.* *The project of* Medusa Rising *will always be thinking about how it can transform and grow and the cards remind this team of women to always trust their collective intuition and gut feeling in coming to final editorial decisions. The answer is to trust in the power of intuition. There is a reminder to engage with emotions as a legitimate counter-balance to reason, intelligence, and logic in your handling of issues. The cards warn about wasting precious energy that should be redirected towards developing an authentic style and approach to the project. These are challenging times. You can’t please everyone, and sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. The cards speak of the innate powers, talents, and abilities of your readers and contributors. Although getting the project to the state you’d like it to be in might take some time and be occasionally challenging, the cards advise everyone involved to not get so caught up in the minutiae and stressful details of day-to-day operations that the overall importance of the mission and the sheer brilliance of all those involved might get lost sight of.* Medusa Rising*’s success depends on harvesting the skills, abilities and approaches (even those oppositional or confrontational voices) of many women: difference is strength. The High Priestess will guide, teach and sustain all who come to Her.* --- **VL McMahon** is a retired public school educator of the arts. PhD in Shakespeare Studies but unable to find work. Menopausal, proud second-wave socialist feminist. Mother and Grandmother. --- Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Archive | The Complex Choreography of Womanhood | by Susan L Lin URL: https://www.medusarising.org/archive-the-complex-choreography-of-womanhood-by-susan-l-lin/ Last updated: 2025-09-16T16:31:27.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Susan-Lin-complex-choregraphy-of-womanhood-poem-medusa-rising.png) --- **Susan L. Lin** is a Taiwanese American storyteller who hails from southeast Texas and holds an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Her novella GOODBYE TO THE OCEAN won the 2022 Etchings Press novella prize, and her literary/visual art has appeared in nearly a hundred publications. She loves to dance. Find more at [https://susanllin.com](https://susanllin.com/?ref=medusarising.org). --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### We'll Be Right Back URL: https://www.medusarising.org/well-be-right-back/ Last updated: 2025-09-16T16:11:17.000Z ### Dear Sisters & Readers, We (by which I mean mostly, I) have been keeping up with lovely submissions and political urgencies since this project began. I need a little chill-out time. We're in hiatus for the next few weeks, so you will see archival posts by brave women contributors from around the world. All free and open to everyone. Share, share, share! These writers deserve attention. Check for them on Tuesdays, *If you're new to Medusa Rising, welcome!* Maybe sign up, maybe take out a subscription. We have such ambitious plans! You'll also see the first several installments of a powerful essay *responding to the inside-out logics of postfeminism*. Therese Doherty is back, thinking as elegantly as always. (And *no, I didn't* accept this essay because she quotes from TRN and from me, specifically. It's just fucking great!) Check for these on Thursdays (so you have the weekend to read if you like). (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) Or, just leave us a tip. (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) We do love to pay these writers, reporters, artists. [I'd love to pitch in! ](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) While we're on hiatus, I'll be taking my mother to see her family in the Old Country. She's in her 80s and still strong, so I want to be sure we all enjoy each other again before she begins to slow down (if that's even possible for her!). She immigrated to the US when she was 4, after WW2\. We've been blessed to still have our family connections and enjoy them. And then, Mamma, Hubs, and I are all headed to FiLiA2025 in Brighton. Have a thought for my mother. She will be confronted with more women's suffering and activism than she's ever seen her life. It will be a lot to process. Husband person is better prepared, a real ally and supporter. If you're at FiLiA, find me. Someone at the TRN stall will know where I'm at or how to reach me. I know some of us (Dancing Goddess, Total Woman Victory, who else?) need to put our heads together and see what's what 😃 These authors and artists deserve another look. Enjoy this little revisitation. [If you want to submit, now is a great time to do it!](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) In this with you, Esmée ### Reading Circles Start 1 November URL: https://www.medusarising.org/reading-circles-start-1-november/ Last updated: 2025-09-13T13:13:08.000Z The playlist was fun to make with those sisters. Now, let's get a **Medusa Rising Reading Circle** rolling! These private, live events are perks at the **Pythia and Tiamat tiers** **at the Medusa Rising website.** AND, from Halloween/31 Oct to Beltane/1 May these perks are included with the special offer of six months at the Pythia tier for $8 (and then back to $12 after 1 May 2026). Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) Events will be hosted by Esmée. Discussion is round table, all voices welcome. Specialist guests may be invited. We hope you will read these books with your own unique lenses, moving into your own applications or imagining. We will open conversations with your highlights or general impressions of the books. About two weeks before each Reading Circle, we will email Pythia, Special Offer, and Tiamat members some questions to fall back on should we need them. As with the playlist party, we will meet on Google Meet, *take a vote on whether or not to record for a podcast*, and dive on in. We've learned of these books in conversations, in Discord servers, or have been waiting to read them for too long. What are these world-building books? Well, let us tell you! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Book-Circle.png) Get HTDAD at [Bookshop.org or your fave book store](https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-to-dismantle-a-dictatorship-heather-marsh/0c299f2661c2a692?ean=9781989783399&next=t&&ref=medusarising.org). The work this book describes **applies across anti-domination and anti-extraction efforts**. Replace 'Dictator' and 'Endo-ideal' with 'Male Default' and you're there. Some of us have dictators to take down, some of us have other patriarchal constructs to deconstruct and disempower. *The thesis for this discussion is that they are enough alike for this anti-authoritarian playbook to speak to both the Patriarch(y) and the Tyrant/tyranny*. This next book is full of vital information, ways to make webs that might, just might, be strong enough to get us through the rougher future coming. If you have ideas for future Reading Circles, [please email them along](mailto:info@medusarising.org). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Book-Circle-2--1-.png) Get [Adaptive Transformation at Penguin or your fave bookstore](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/801723/transformative-adaptation-by-edited-by-rupert-read-and-morgan-phillips-with-manda-scott/?ref=medusarising.org). We can all feel the planet sickening, the climate and our local ecologies becoming more chaotic. As with [SHE-EDE programs](https://www.dancing-goddess.org/?ref=medusarising.org) for moving into [matricultural regenerative and symbiotic world-building](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org) (we might include this pamphlet in the conversation), the Thurtopia folks are aiming for a sustainable (really) future. Even on the other side of collapse. They're not eco-feminists per se, but it's interesting to see how much eco-feminism infuses this work. *So, our thesis for this Circle is that there is quite a lot of ecofeminism in these 'new' ecological pathways*. We found the next two for free/low cost, but if you can support the authors with a purchase, you will be supporting feminists in the world-building. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Book-Circle-3.png) Get [Dancing Goddess: Principles of a Matriarchal Aesthetic as a PDF](https://hagia.de/fileadmin/user%5Fupload/pdf/The%5FDancing%5FGoddess.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) from the [Matriarchal Studies Institute](https://hagia.de/en/matriarchy/matriarchal-studies?ref=medusarising.org). A world includes its economic and social infrastructure, its traditions and values, AND its symbolic culture. Let's think about the symbolic culture we want bring forth. *Not so much a thesis this time, as a prompt: what does reading this book inspire you to do or make?* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/09/Book-Circle-4--1-.png) Get [Feminist International at the reader supported, open-source Z/Library](https://z-library.co/book/13908681?ref=medusarising.org). Wanna build a global network of intentional feminist coalition and increase our effective power on behalf of all women? Me too. There's lots of wisdom and advice in this book. We've put it way out a year from now because it's a heavier lift, a little more academic in style, and wildly ambitious. *Again, a prompt: what applications can you see your own or your organization's or Medusa Rising's work toward deep global feminist coaltions?* ### And that, our Gorgon loves, is our Reading Circle for this wheel of a year. --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Bonus Post | Esmée @ Matriarchy Times URL: https://www.medusarising.org/bonus-post-esmee-matriarchy-times/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T16:21:47.000Z What an honor to be asked to talk with Farrah Fernando of Matriarchy Times about deep history, matriarchy, Marija Gimbutas, and grounding matriarchal futures in the material culture of our past. MT and MR are dreaming ways to collaborate, to amplify these reawakened impulses toward new worlds and to gather the energy we will need to make them. Serendipity. Adventure. We trust in these flows! Note: I mistakenly insist on referring to Artemis as Diana because names and my brain do not always connect. :/ Apologies to the Goddesses and to you. More powerful work, podcasts, articles and MT's bold vision. [Home | MatriarchyMatriarchy Times is a non government organization initiated to build a female led community. We provide empowerment and education for both men and women to make a systematic change in the current patriarchal institutions and make a shift towards an egalitarian matriarchy.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Matriarchy![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/c4f9b8_c469a5af23a54f9fafefac7890a9d1db-mv2-2.png)](https://www.matriarchytimes.org/?ref=medusarising.org) ### How the First People Came to Ireland | by Linda Rosewood URL: https://www.medusarising.org/how-the-first-people-came-to-ireland-by-linda-rosewood/ Last updated: 2025-09-11T16:11:43.000Z *Many nations tell themselves that they came to their home place from out of the earth. Irish mythology lacks this sort of creation myth, but begins Ireland’s story with a tale of how people living near the Black Sea came to the Ireland as refugees of Noah’s flood. The story of Cessair and her three ships has long attracted me for its cast of female characters. This is my retelling.* Once there was a Lake at the Center of the World. Around the Lake lived people who never knew hunger or war. The Lake and the fertile shore provided everything the people needed. They gathered fish from weirs and seeds from the grasses. The animals of the barnyard gave them milk, wool, and hide. Around the lake were three villages named Banba, Fódla, and Ériu. The women of these villages lived exactly like their neighbors, gathering fish from weirs and seeds from the grasses. The animals of the barnyard gave them milk, wool, and hide. But they did not choose husbands, and the women lived together without male supervision. They had a word for women living together without men, a word that we do not remember. People lived around the Lake at the Center of the World for thousands of years. One day, the lake water lost its sweetness, and day by day the water rose. Shoals of dead fish rotted on the beach. Grain wilted to the roots along the shore. Orchards flooded, grain stored in cool caves under the earth molded. The people of the Lake at the Center of the World knew hunger for the first time. They needed a story to explain this calamity and so told themselves they had sinned, and brought it upon themselves. But they did not know what the sin was. They only knew that they must leave the lake of their ancestors and find a new land where they could live in peace as before. Although starved and sorrowful, they worked to build great ships, and filled them with seeds and the animals of the barn yard. They would sail across the lake to the rivers, find new lands and restore their peaceful life. As they toiled, heartsick and mind-muddled, they argued, they blamed, and for the first time, they stole and hoarded food. They no longer lived in peace, but feared the ghosts of the ancestors they would leave behind, and feared for their children who would live in a new and unknown land. When the women of Banba, Fódla, and Ériu attempted join the exodus, the people’s heartsickness and mind-muddle formed a lie that poisoned them forever. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Social Butterflies, Knowledge Bridges & Coalition URL: https://www.medusarising.org/social-butterflies-knowledge-bridges-coalition/ Last updated: 2025-09-09T15:11:06.000Z ## **The Problem** Feminists have a long history of working badly across cultural and ethnic differences. Even merely political ones! This is a deadly impediment to creating a partnership society/Hyper-Lithic/matriarchy sort of future. If matriarchy is imagined as a monolith, as hegemon, as some kind of Sameness, we are historically dead in the water. I prefer to be very alive in the water, swimming in the flows of encounter and generation. We have an instinct to get everyone on-side, all working on one thing, in one way, together. Makes sense. In the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries, we are socialized to think corporately far more than entrepreneurially. Yet, feminists everywhere are deeply under-resourced and almost universally othered/reviled. In the US, funding for national and international [programs that benefited women](https://www.medusarising.org/theres-a-gap-in-the-msm-and-big-podcast-world-where-womens-funding-should-be/) have been cut completely. Over the decades a movement with global liberatory ambitions has been pressured into fractures and splinters focused locally, usually on a single threat or kind of damage to women (what we call women's ‘issues’), and usually on survival rather than reparation. There's good reason for this. The forces we are working against are vastly wealthy and historically entrenched. When I imagine globally cooperative, [strategically coordinated feminist coalitions](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/coalition/) I do not picture that monolith, and I do not forget about the splinters or how they came to be. ## **RadMatFem Solution/s** I think of Diplomats. Attachés. Translators. Teachers. Women who think in webs, portals, confluences – women who know a coupling of energies when they see one and amplify it into a whole tidal shift. We all know these women. Rather than burrowing down into one community or kind of feminist knowledge/practice, these women are generalists and travelers. They are “knowledge bridges” in a stigmergic system, the neurotransmitters. They are a kind of witch. The women who notice deeply, observe, listen, absorb. I'm not talking about a “skill set” but a temperament, a personality type than can be enhanced by skills. RadMatFem does not intend another round of Western Feminists showing up to show women across the world ‘how to feminist’. Gaia knows many are doing magnificent work. Instead of all on-side, stigmergic feminisms. Instead of The Matriarchy, many matriarchies. Instead of liberation, liberations. But connected, intertwined, mutually supporting, well-informed on each other's work, difficulties, wins, questions, solutions. On the conditions in which or against which we are working, the particular tactics of the local patriarchs, etc. Yes, there's loads of writing in academic journals about this. Decades of great post-colonial analysis and practice. Yes. And brava for it!! We would do well for more WIERD nation feminists to read up a bit, but also we need to get to work twenty years ago. Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Free People / Civil Unrest URL: https://www.medusarising.org/free-people-civil-unrest/ Last updated: 2025-09-04T15:11:54.000Z **Learning skills that will help you and your people is not a waste of time. It give you the confidence to know you can handle whatever comes.** [Alarm as US far-right extremists eye drones for use in domestic attacksExperts say extremists openly talking of how home-built drones will be critical tool in so-called second civil war![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-512-1.png)The GuardianBen Makuch![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/2573.jpg)](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/30/us-far-right-extremists-drones?ref=medusarising.org) Medium-term disruptions from climate breakdown or (in my case) Trump-fallout, civil unrest can occur pretty quickly. In some circumstances, sabotage is not beyond imagination. MR is absolutely not trying to frighten our people. We are trying to look the moment squarely in the eye. As I said on Xitter the other day: > See, the problem with fascists is they are not creative thinkers. They can't solve problems. They can only repeat old forms of destruction with tools made by formerly free people. > > But free people, we have ingenuity. [https://t.co/0ulISgyD0N](https://t.co/0ulISgyD0N?ref=medusarising.org) > > — Esmée Streachailt (@EStreachailt) [July 26, 2025](https://twitter.com/EStreachailt/status/1949180937369002367?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) **Free people are inventive, exploratory, risk takers.** We don’t shut down options, we don’t limit people’s ability to contribute, and we definitely do not off-shoulder our life-making and decision-taking to any Dear Leader, Chairman, or Duce. [Most Exciting News! World Building Women Worldwide Right Now!Global Eco-Village Network, Gaia Education Course, 31 OCT - 29 NOV 2025![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-4.jpg)Medusa RisingMedusa Rising![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000005695-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/p/d45a0236-0716-4ceb-a03c-42f1ead03555/) Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### For the Occupied United States URL: https://www.medusarising.org/for-the-occupied-united-states/ Last updated: 2025-09-02T15:11:23.000Z A big step into a better world is listening to this conversation and sharing it with every woman you know. [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. W…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-4.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Gorgon_Posse_Podcast_Logob70nc_1200x628-1.jpg)](https://gorgonposse.podbean.com/?ref=medusarising.org) NEW EPISODE with SHE-EDE GAIA EDUCATION ECOVILLAGE DESIGN EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY Now, on to the post. ## WE BUILD OUR WORLD OR LIVE IN THE ONE MEN BUILT TO HOLD US The thing about a FEMINIST resistance is that it can take us beyond the conditions that got us here. Simply re-instating those conditions is not the way. The aims of Binding Chaos/#3E and Medusa Rising harmonize deeply, hence [my on-going references to Heather Marsh](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/autonomy-diversity-society-book/?ref=medusarising.org). Yeah, look, the Regime Update is that Red States are deploying their National Guard to their Blue Cities to "control crime" or whatever. The Guard in DC are now carrying both long guns and side arms while they ... clean the parks once cleaned by federally employed park service. Fash regimes all wind up trapped by their own sadistic drive to power. Neither the regime nor its members are redeemable. They've just been slowed from deporting 600 unaccompanied children to Guatemala. The depravity is galactic. When they do fall, they won't have access to wealth, power, protection like they do now. They're *trapped*. The Regime, their cronies, and hangers-on, all of MAGA really. Like all Fash, they know if they don't stay in power they are fucked. So they will get worse, and then worse again. Too many crimes/HRVs have already been committed. They're hoping to kick off a war, not have an election, and then win forever. This cannot happen. > **We must all, liberals, Dems, progressives, & FEMINISTS** > **\-- Be More Ukraine --** > **We need to get very, very inventive, scrappy, improvisational** > **#AllContraFash** ## **Models, Guides, Inspirations, Action Groups: Spoiler, It's Women Who Lead and Ground Resistance** Below, examples of contemporary and historical women's resistance and women in resistance movements. Write to Us about your resistance If you're involved in an Indivisible chapter or 50501 or Support Veterans or with another radfem resistance group, let MR share your insights, you experience, how you see the direction of travel. We want to share good news and connection!!! [Short and Long Submissions Welcome ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ### Contemporary How-Tos and Communities [Resistance Guide: How to Sustain the Movement to WinThe Commons is an online library for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, organising, advocacy and justice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32-2.png)The Commonsholly hammond![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/ResistanceGuide.png)](https://commonslibrary.org/resistance-guide/?ref=medusarising.org) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/17560452940056045613544568226282.jpg) Bookshop.org & Amazon.com Step by step no-shit guide to winning this thing. It's a fast read. Right here is a guide to mapping who and where the resources are, but also to working out the principles by which your community wants to abide as you throw in together to get through. [Mapping Community Defense and Care in Our NeighborhoodsThis worksheet can help us prepare for Trump’s military interventions at the neighborhood level.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/Organizing-My-Thoughts--Square-Sticker-.png)Organizing My ThoughtsKelly Hayes![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Untitled_Artwork.jpg)](https://organizingmythoughts.org/mapping-community-defense-and-care-in-our-neighborhoods/?ref=medusarising.org) Both the source above and the one below think about alternate ways to handle money and economy. Both are centered on Chicago and will need some creative adaption to your neighborhood, subdivision, or town. [Neighborhood EconomicsWe convene, recruit, and connect people repairing local economies.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-4.png)Neighborhood Economics![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/city_only.png)](https://neighborhoodeconomics.org/?ref=medusarising.org) **Sista Separatist** is activating women **willing to get militant**, willing to meet the woman-hate in this era head-on. If you're the grassroots, direct action type of RadMatFem, she is an experienced guide for more action. > [https://sistaseparatist.info](https://sistaseparatist.info/?ref=medusarising.org) > [https://x.com/iwrinet](https://x.com/iwrinet?ref=medusarising.org) > [https://x.com/DistroSisters](https://x.com/DistroSisters?ref=medusarising.org) The women of Kurdistan and Chiapas. [The Women’s Revolution in Rojava: A Feminist Model Under Siege - Women’s Voices NowIn Rojava, women are equal partners in shaping every aspect of life—political, economic, and social. This revolutionary system is built on principles of![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-16x16-1-1.png)Women's Voices NowThe Voice![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Jin_Jiyan_Azadi_by_Btoy_Schwendergasse_Vienna-1.jpg)](https://www.womensvoicesnow.org/womens-revolution-in-rojava?ref=medusarising.org) [Zapatista Army of National Liberation - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia-2.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1200px-Ej-C3-A9rcito_Zapatista_de_Liberaci-C3-B3n_Nacional-2C_Flag.svg.png)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista%5FArmy%5Fof%5FNational%5FLiberation?ref=medusarising.org) Here's a quick introduction to women in resistance movements across Africa. [Women in the decolonisation of Africa - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia-4.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/donate.gif)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%5Fin%5Fthe%5Fdecolonisation%5Fof%5FAfrica?ref=medusarising.org) Two contemporary examples in Sudan and Liberia (these are summaries from a Google search): > **Sudan (2019 Revolution):** > During Sudan's revolution, women were at the forefront of street protests, leading chants for freedom, dignity, and justice. The image of activist Alaa Salah, dressed in a traditional white *toub* while leading chants, became an icon of the movement. > Women's organizations, such as the "No to Women's Oppression" initiative, had been organizing resistance for years in response to the former regime's repressive policies, including discriminatory dress codes. > **Liberia (2000s):** > Leymah Gbowee led the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women that used nonviolent tactics to protest against the country's civil wars. Their activism, including sex strikes and public demonstrations, helped bring about a peace agreement and led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female president. ### Historical European Examples [Beguines and Beghards - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia-3.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Archive-ugent-be-B06F870C-8F5A-11E3-8041-11B8D43445F2_DS-31_-cropped-.jpg)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beguines%5Fand%5FBeghards?ref=medusarising.org) [Women in the French Resistance - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1200px-Nicole-2C_a_French_Partisan_Who_Captured_25_Nazis_in_the_Chartres_Area-2C_in_Addition_to_Liquidating_Others_-_NARA_-_5957431_-_cropped.jpg)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%5Fin%5Fthe%5FFrench%5FResistance?ref=medusarising.org) [History of women in the Italian Resistance - Wikipedia![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/wikipedia-1.png)Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.Contributors to Wikimedia projects![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Partigiani_sfilano_per_le_strade_di_milano.jpg)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%5Fof%5Fwomen%5Fin%5Fthe%5FItalian%5FResistance?ref=medusarising.org) --- a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### From The Apple & Eve poems| by Daša Kružlicová URL: https://www.medusarising.org/adams-sloppy-seconds-by-dasa-kruzlicova/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T03:33:51.000Z Daša's three poems, from the Apple & Eve series, presented us with our first complexly formatted poems. We have published them here as images that preserve their shape in relation to meaning. The full text of each poem is included in the alt text. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/1000005745.png) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Full Members-Only posts, Post Audio, Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Celandine Dandelion | by Linda Rosewood URL: https://www.medusarising.org/celandine-dandelion-by-linda-rosewood/ Last updated: 2025-08-26T16:21:16.000Z *For Helen on her Seventieth Birthday* **Dune** Far west from home A girl befriends a pyramidal orchid. She lifts her face in meadowsweet breezes. Harebells frolic and thin dune grasses draw circles in the sand. She leaves a whisper on a cat’s ear. Her true name. **Bog** In a cottage above the fen—the old ocean’s finger— A young mother cooks bread on a turf range Setting the heat by the palm of her hand. She feeds her sons and husband, Imaging a woman, exactly the right temperature. On fine days she rides her bicycle west Down narrow roads toward the bog Where a bastle house defends gorse against all enemies. That proud hall, now roofless, paved with sheep shit. The cellar full of nettles. Their domination never lasts. She nearly finds what she came for, Where flowers bloom for no man’s market. Mostly heather speaking the women’s purple language. Once she found a bug-eating sundew. You adapt when you grow without nourishment. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Let’s Leave the Erasure to the Patriarchy, Eh? URL: https://www.medusarising.org/lets-leave-the-erasure-to-the-patriarchy-eh/ Last updated: 2025-08-21T17:03:15.000Z We're all out here trying not be consumed _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Pragna Patel on the Gorgon Posse Pod URL: https://www.medusarising.org/pragna-patel-on-the-gorgon-posse-pod/ Last updated: 2025-08-20T15:21:47.000Z This conversation was an entire honor. My word, y'all. I interviewed Pragna Patel for the FiLiA2025 keepsake book (with interviews and articles by nearly all the speakers!). That had to be quite short, and our conversation was not, so I asked her if I could share. [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-2.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-3.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pw/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) Local Audio: Pragna Patel on Gorgon Posse Pod with Esmee 0:00 /2799.479002 1× Join the [feminists at FiLiA2025](https://www.filia.org.uk/events/2025/10/10/filia-conference-2025?ref=medusarising.org) for the 10th anniversary conference in Brighton, UK, 1-12 October 2025. ![Brighton Beach's rounded rocks in the purple and green of FiLiA's colors.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/Registration-Banner.webp) FiLiA 2025 Banner Her bio for those new to knowing her: **Pragna Patel** is a founding member of Southall Black Sisters’ advocacy and campaigning centre and Women Against Fundamentalism. She worked as a co-ordinator and senior case worker for SBS from 1982 to 1993 when she left to train and practice as a solicitor. In 2009 she returned to SBS as its Director. She has been centrally involved in some of SBS’ most important cases and campaigns around domestic violence, immigration and religious fundamentalism. She has also written extensively on race, gender and religion. She has since founded and still leads Project Resist. --- Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. Let's build coalition! [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) [![Image is a link. Banner in shades of magenta and mauve reading women create international, home of women create, the worlds first ever event platforming cancelled and at risk female and feminist artists.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/Women-Create-Banner.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Dissident Women Artists Celebrated at our sister organization Women Create! [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### Portrait with Us | by SriJani Mitra URL: https://www.medusarising.org/portrait-with-us-by-srijani-mitra/ Last updated: 2025-08-20T20:52:38.000Z Our silences have tired now. We are tiring and walking from the woods to the streets, we have given up that search for that very palki. That very security and belonging that was never ours. We are displaced women, we are missing girls, we are those very survivors that you objectify in your ecstasies of power. We now laugh at your hollow might and staggering, false stride. We have leopards breathing between our thighs. We unwrap our tarnished stories and lie them on the foliage of ground like embroidered sights. We write odes to our mothers and sisters who fought for our rights but were silenced for ages. We bring portraits of women from times immemorial. We talk of harems and autonomy. We are unafraid to be Baijis or unconventional wanderers. We are balls of fire burning in the ire of protest. It’s time for us to reclaim this land where queens have ruled, where creation speaks for itself how we have borne your bloody lives. We now look deep into our perpetrator’s eyes and take out the dazzle of coal with just a sight. With just a word from the past, from stories untold. We are now resilient and splashing colours as we make love to the sky and admire the beauty in fighting for our rights as we emancipate like gestalt, wholesome souls. --- **Srijani Rupsha Mitra** is a writer in India. Her works are published in magazines like *It GetsBetter, Chatauqua Journal,* and *Birmingham Arts Journal*. Find her at [@mitrasrupsha](https://x.com/mitrasrupsha?ref=medusarising.org) on Twitter (X), and [@srupsha\_\_ ](https://www.instagram.com/srupsha%5F%5F%5F/?hl=en&ref=medusarising.org)on Instargam. --- Editor's Note: A *palki* is a palaquin, sedan chair, or litter. [The *Baijis* (or *tawaif* in Urdu)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawaif?ref=medusarising.org) were a class of educated dancer courtesans forced to survive by prostitution during the British colonial Raj. --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE with PRAGNA PATEL\* a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Invitation to chat | Please share widely Cuts to programs for women are dire emergencies. Gorgon Posse Podcast want to feature women & and women's organizations affected by these cuts and funding shortfalls around the globe and in the US. This issue is getting no press, no attention from Big Podcasts. Let's get the attention vulnerable & suffering women deserve. [Use or Share This Form ](https://forms.gle/PNynhieLmFXuc7ZP7?ref=medusarising.org) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### How Big Is Our Dream? | by Esmée URL: https://www.medusarising.org/how-big-is-our-dream-by-esmee/ Last updated: 2025-09-01T22:13:19.000Z 👇🏻 Psst. This post is also a bonus episode on Podbean. Check the player link at the bottom there. 👇🏻 Back [in the fascism series](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/the-emergency/) I noted that to stop a resurgent and complexly fabricated far right *we will need a dream at least as big as their dream*. We will need to dream across global regions because throwing off authoritarian regimes damages patriarchy. ### Space-Age 13th Century - In their dream there is no future but collapse and war. - In their dream there is no life for you and me but service and death. - In their dream there is no need for a livable planet. - In their dream they escape to their Freedom Fiefdoms to rule us. - In their dream, they will be raptured, immortal, or extraterrestrial. - In their dream dominance, extraction, and impunity will be their law. [Climate Justice at UBC](https://climatejustice.ubc.ca/?ref=medusarising.org) | [Global Climate Justice](https://www.climatejusticecenter.org/?ref=medusarising.org) | [Debt Collective](https://debtcollective.org/?ref=medusarising.org) ## "Come with me if you want to live." Their dream is pretty well advanced if they have the US government menacing Greenland on behalf of the Neo-Reactionaries and Tech Broligarchs. Yes, the line is from the Terminator films. Yes, the joke is double-edged. Yes, we need that kind of urgency. [Most Exciting News! World Building Women Worldwide Right Now!Global Eco-Village Network, Gaia Education Course, 31 OCT - 29 NOV 2025![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-3.jpg)Medusa RisingMedusa Rising![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000005695.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/p/d45a0236-0716-4ceb-a03c-42f1ead03555/) Subscribe between now and Halloween, and get six months of a $12 rate for $8, includes private event invites, first event just after Halloween, two more in winter. [Accept Promotional Offer ](https://www.medusarising.org/halloween-to-beltane) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Well, If They Arrest Me URL: https://www.medusarising.org/well-if-they-arrest-me/ Last updated: 2025-08-14T12:24:55.000Z The Email I Just Sent Will Be Why _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Fertilization President Wants My Womb | by Helena ‘Ellie’ Huizenga URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-fertilization-president-wants-my-womb-by-ellie-helena-ellie-huizenga/ Last updated: 2025-08-14T03:33:42.000Z At a Women’s History Month event in March, Donald Trump dubbed himself “[the Fertilization President](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/us-news-donald-trump-from-father-of-ivf-to-fertilization-president-trumps-hilarious-nicknames-takes-internet-by-storm/articleshow/119658227.cms?ref=medusarising.org),” and proudly claimed that “everybody has a baby when I’m around.” It was classic Trump, equal parts theatrical and delusional. But it wasn’t just a random comment to forget and move past. It’s intentional branding. And like all branding, it has purpose. This pro-natalist rhetoric reinforces a worldview where a woman’s value is based on reproduction, and having children is necessary for a nation’s survival. I’m pregnant with my second child, and I find myself dragged into a national policy debate I never signed up for. Suddenly, my body, my choices, and even my unborn child have become symbols in a growing political campaign to get women to have more babies. This growing push to encourage higher birth rates isn’t new. We’ve seen it before; it’s part of a broad, calculated movement known as pro-natalism. Pro-natalism is the belief that population growth is essential to a nation’s strength and survival. Across history, societies have framed childbirth as both a moral obligation and a civic duty. For example, in empires like Rome and Imperial China, large families were seen as a way to produce more soldiers and farmers, and indoctrinate loyal citizens. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/Orders_of_Maternal_Glory.jpg) [****USSR Order of Maternal Glory**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order%5Fof%5FMaternal%5FGlory?ref=medusarising.org) ****First class**: mothers bearing and raising nine children. ****Second class**: mothers bearing and raising eight children. ****Third class**: mothers bearing and raising seven children. Wikimedia Commons That same logic endured into the 1900s. During WWII, pro-natalism found renewed support in multiple countries. In the Soviet Union, declining birth rates and the massive loss of men prompted the government to reverse abortion rights. A [1936 decree](https://jacobin.com/2020/03/soviet-women-abortion-ussr-history-health-care?ref=medusarising.org) framed childbirth as a civic duty necessary for national stability. Women who gave birth to 10 children received stipends, medals, and public recognition—a policy [Putin has recently revived](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/europe/putin-mother-heroine-award-decree-intl/index.html?ref=medusarising.org). Yet the 1936 policy spurred a rise in unsafe, illegal abortions and left more children in orphanages, even though their parents were still alive. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Full Members-Only posts, Post Audio, Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Myth of the 'Forever Patriarchy' URL: https://www.medusarising.org/myth-of-the-forever-patriarchy/ Last updated: 2025-08-12T03:33:25.000Z On the oldest Goddess figurines, even these, we find marks that are not accidents or clothing or hair style or patterns that associate them with various animals (for the Goddess was in and of all things). These marks are found across widely spread settlements and over millennia in Europe. They have been interpreted to represent a poetics and practice of the Great Goddess of Life and Death/Regeneration. Our pre-Yamnaya-incursions ancestors lived in a sex egalitarian ( and largely class egalitarian) harmony with a natural world that nourished and tested them, and they did it with a social and cultural continuity that is well out of reach of the build-dominate-collapse cycle of patriarchal systems. ### Codex of the Paleolithic Double Goddess[1](#footnote-1) ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!eVCu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6a011697-1176-44f5-be82-036b7b736883_1562x1563.png) **Notice how this symbolism or cosmology is verbs that keeps us embedded in the world and grounded in embodied experiences and relations.* In Issue [11](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-eleven-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org) and [12](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-twelve-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org) of THE RADICAL NOTION, I have a two-part piece on women, prehistory, and the incursion of patriarchy into Europe and the Middle East around 3500 BCE. It’s hard for me to look at what we lost. But, it’s hopeful because the fact of my title remains: **for 40,000 years at least women lived in a world that did not hate us.** This post is those cuts. It’s important because I want us all to understand that the women of Europe and most of Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent who were made to submit to the patriarchal Yamnaya and the mirroring native responses to the pressure they brought with them were women **who had been free, valued, even venerated for at least 40,000 years before that**—that we know of. Submission would not have come easy. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Full Members-Only posts, Post Audio, Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Infographic | Femina-Future v Patriarchy URL: https://www.medusarising.org/femina-future-v-patriarchy/ Last updated: 2025-08-07T16:13:19.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/Gylany-v-Patriarchy.png) To dream a future order, a new epoch, is an act of immense courage in face of the very real doom crushing down on us. [Gylany v PatriarchyClick to DownloadGylany v Patriarchy.pdf168 KBdownload-circle](https://www.medusarising.org/content/files/2025/05/Gylany-v-Patriarchy.pdf "Download") One of the most effective groups to dream and enact a new epoch were the Zapatistas. They had this courage. We won't reproduce their movement, their form, but we can learn and adapt, invent. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ### Most Exciting News! World Building Women Worldwide Right Now! URL: https://www.medusarising.org/most-exciting-news-world-building-women-worldwide-right-now/ Last updated: 2025-08-04T21:43:08.000Z **Please share this as widely as you can, all your people, all your socials, tell your postal carrier and your grocer too!** **That Hyper-Lithic future** I've started musing about – the one structured by care instead of violence – **is being built right now! The network exists**, the education is happening, the matriarchy is being re-embodied now. **Next Live Course Begins Oct 31 in Colombia (hence the wide sharing call).** Support scholarships available for this One Month Intesive in Eco-Design Certification in the curriculum of Global Eco-Village Network and Gaia Education given by the Feminine Wisdom Matriarchal School of Sabina Santoretti and her collective! 👇 👀 👇 Sabina and her group and I will record a video podcast later in August. But this course is happening soon! Please get this word out everywhere! ### From architect-eco-activist-matricultural-educator Sabina Santoretti: > The Ecovillage Design Education was developed by [Gaia Education](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org) & the [Global Ecovillage Network](https://gen-europe.org/?ref=medusarising.org). > The Ecovillage Design Education is a comprehensive course in Integrative Whole Systems Design for Sustainability. The curriculum is organised as a mandala called the “sustainability wheel” encompassing what are perceived to be the four primary dimensions of human experience – **Worldview, Ecological, Social and Economic**. A Goddess Wheel, a wholistic, mandala approach to world building ecompasses sustainability with life-centering, women-led, mother law abiding communities and gift/care economies. ![ A four-quadrant circular diagram titled "Integral Sustainable Design" or a similar concept. The circle is divided into four colored sections, each with a corresponding label and a list of related concepts. The top-left quadrant is red and labeled "Social". It lists concepts like Leadership and Empowerment, Communication Skills, Education, and Art, Ritual, and Social Transformation. The top-right quadrant is purple and labeled "Worldview". It includes concepts such as Holistic Worldview, Reconnecting with Nature, and Personal & Planetary Health. The bottom-right quadrant is green and labeled "Ecological". It lists topics like Green Building, Local Food, Nutrient Cycles, and Nature & Urban Regeneration. The bottom-left quadrant is blue and labeled "Economic". This section includes concepts such as Shifting the Global Economy towards Sustainability, Right Livelihood, Local Economies, and Community Banks. At the very center of the diagram is a stylized image of the Earth, symbolizing a global and holistic approach.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/17542266801644147416645352287376.jpg) **Free Course To Get Us Started!** [Sign up to Gaia Education’s Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) programmeThis free curriculum navigates our four dimensions of sustainable design; Social, Ecological, Economic, and Worldview.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-3.png)Gaia Education Website![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Props-for-NVC-Module-6000w-3376h.JPG)](https://www.gaiaeducation.org/ede-curriculum-en?ref=medusarising.org) Sabina and I spoke yesterday and I'm still getting goosebumps writing this post today! So magic. So deeply real. [SHE-EDE - Dancing Goddessshe-ede WHAT IS AN EDE? The Ecovillage Design Education was developed by Gaia Education & the Global Ecovillage Network. The curriculum is based on the experience and expertise of the most successful…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-dancing_goddess_favicon-270x270.png)Dancing Goddess![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/photo_2022-11-29_11-52-01.jpg)](https://www.dancing-goddess.org/she-ede-program/?ref=medusarising.org) **And An Artist among Matriarchal Artists!** [Art Gallery - WordPressECOVILLAGE DESIGN EDUCATION WITH MATRIARCHAL VALUES![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/x-icon--)WordPress![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/IMG_20190814_085102-768x1024.jpg)](https://www.matriculture.net/art-gallery/?ref=medusarising.org) ![ A vibrant, stylized painting of a female figure, possibly a deity or goddess, in shades of pink, purple, and gold. The figure is shown from the torso up, with a spiral-patterned body and a halo of radiating gold lines and green stars around her head. Her hair is gray, and a snake-like form is intertwined around her arm. The lower part of the painting features many colorful spirals and floral motifs on a white background.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/08/1000005692.jpg) Sabina Santoretti --- a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. Let's build coalition! [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) ### + Strategy & Structure URL: https://www.medusarising.org/whose-side-though/ Last updated: 2025-07-31T16:55:59.000Z [Our Side is Winning in Court. For the Wrong Reasons. — Women’s Liberation FrontThe Supreme Court just decided three cases with enormous consequences for women and girls: United States v. Skrmetti , Free Speech Coalition, Inc., et al. v. Paxton , and Mahmoud v. Taylor . To read the majority opinions, you wouldn’t guess that the decisions have anything to do wit![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-5.ico)Women's Liberation FrontWoLF Member![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Our-Side-is-Winning-for-the-Wrong-Reasons-Blog-image--1-.png)](https://womensliberationfront.org/news/our-side-is-winning-in-court-for-the-wrong-reasons?ref=medusarising.org) I, I am feeling petty with a side of salt about this. Rant incoming. **It's a BOTH/AND situation.** **\+ Salty About Strategy & Seeking New Structures** WoLF want to know why a Supreme Court stacked by the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation are making 'good decisions' for bad reasons. Didn't *even consider* the arguments they presented in their briefs. **Because Motive Is Outcome. Because Motives Are Goals.** [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Use Your Voice & Stop The Far Right In Its Tracks URL: https://www.medusarising.org/use-your-voice-stop-the-far-right-in-its-tracks/ Last updated: 2025-07-29T16:11:06.000Z Feminists learned during the TERF WARS that moving a discourse can change the whole trajectory of a movement. It creates the context in which a moment can WIN. Time to do it again. The US is not up against a man, a party, [but a tyranny](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/the-emergency/) that has always nestled in the soul of the American nation. Time to excise it. But women & minoritized people everywhere are facing these same forces. **These moves apply no matter the particular stripe of your tyrant.** Begin with lashings of Epstein (or some other unforgivable act). Focus on the victims, their goodness, the way they were ignored, women and men both. Make it impossible to support Trump or his supporters – Remove their identity as protectors. In a tyranny, the tyrant needs his (it's usually a he) charisma even more than his military. The leader/the ideal image/endoideal, must be given public recognition and acceptance to stay in power, to keep the glamour going. Delegitimize at every turn. The very speaking of Trump as a legit leader is **Compliance**, like Columbia University or Paramount Media, who went even beyond demands. The tyrant and the collaborators and their self-reinforcing language must be disrupted at every turn. Comedians and public critics are dangerous because most of a tyrant’s power is their glamour, their charisma + all the people around them who affirm and amplify that glamour (their reflectors). This focus solidifies their power far more than their use of force. - The Epstein problem is essential to take down Trump and his admin who are all now implicated in the cover-up. - It removes the empathy and admiration MAGA feel for him. The wedge between him and his faithful is everything! - Their doubt is the destabilizing factor for him. - Uplift the other/negative image - the victims and everyone QAnon lied to about the real sex trafficking rings and predators. Tyrants need their bad others even more than large social systems like nations because they need a place to lay blame and a target for the sadism they gin up in their followers Not only women/minoritzed people are caught up in the Sado-Ritual, now it’s everyone. The Dictatorship/Oligarchy is Patriarchy/Male Supremacy now negating/othering/subjugating all of us in their sado-rituals. **Immigrants** If every story is another scene of terror, that keeps the sadists and the tyrant happy and thirsting for more. Contributing to funds that help vulnerable immigrants stay home and out of ICE’s sight, praising the essential work immigrants do in the country, arguments for their improved treatment, floods of stories about their creativity and contribution and kindness. **Women**QAnon was a distraction from Epstein the first time around. [Anonymous #OpDeathEaters](https://x.com/search?q=%23OpDeathEaters&src=hashtag%5Fclick&f=user&ref=medusarising.org) was working to take down the global trafficking and exploitation ring of which JE and GM were only a node. **RadMatFems are perfectly equipped to be moving the discourse in these directions.** ## Heather Marsh from *How To Dismantle A Dictatorship* (HTDAD) Take control of the propaganda surrounding the dictator in the following ways: > Do not grant them an identity as the legitimate ruler. > Give them a negative image identity that assigns guilt. (Make them the Other) > Identify yourselves as the true representatives of the state and its people. > Depict them as the primary enemy of the people. > destiny, creation or persecution. > Focus on their crimes and illegitimacy. > Create and widely distribute your own history of the dictator and their endogroup. > Reject any attempt to conflate the regime with the will of the people. > Disrupt any event or institution where they appear in public as your representative, including your embassies. > And, like the comedians or critics: > Identify yourselves as the true representatives of the endogroup (America). > Identify the dictatorship as a fraud and an usurper. **And do not take your foot off the gas.** We are the people, we are the US. And this shredding of our constitutional and social contracts is illegitimate, weakens the country in every way, and is embarrassing. — These people don’t care how many people they harm. They don’t have a conscience or scruple among them. — But *they are vain, and they can be crippled through their egos* by the removal of admiration AND active scorn. — The scorn just plays into their sense of being the righteous outsider victims. [Heather Marsh’s HTDAD](https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-to-dismantle-125632950?ref=medusarising.org) is a guide to taking our world back from these forces, not just the leaders, but the sadist social forces shaping this tyranny. Once there we do that, can build. **A tyrant is not a man.** He is a tyranny made of his followers/reflectors, **HM highlights how he is a system. He is a condition**. And RadMatFem is meant for changing conditions. The thing we face has always been at the heart of the American soul because it is the soul of patriarchy. [Chris Hedges on American Sadism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGCFVc-5yTM&ref=medusarising.org). It's all gold and fire. The Q&A is especially enlightening. ### A Better Internet for Feminists URL: https://www.medusarising.org/a-better-internet-for-feminists/ Last updated: 2025-07-28T15:16:41.000Z Leap from the Center to the Margins of the Spiral! 86 the Logarithms! **||** Liberate Feminist Content! **||** Connect Feminist Community! The techniques and structures of the Fediverse support a stigmeric, organic, future-lithic, feminist approach to building coalition and new orders across communities, nations, feminisms. ****Let's create an online tutorial!!** Want to help build a plan for feminists in the Fediverse? Know someone with the tech savvy? Good at systems thinking? [Get in Touch, Share a Contact ](mailto:info@medusarising.org) Just as I want to think about movement strengthening in stigmergic that parallel Binding Chaos Theory that I started to combine in my thinking about the [The Emergency](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/the-emergency/) in the US. I asked Gemini to summarize the Fediverse to help us get started planning how to build RadMatFem presence independent of particular platforms and their agendas. Here's what the machine said: > ​The Fediverse, a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe," is a collection of interconnected social media platforms that operate on open standards, primarily ActivityPub. Unlike centralized social networks owned by single corporations, the Fediverse is decentralized, meaning no one entity controls it. > > ​This allows users to interact across different services seamlessly. For example, a user on Mastodon (a microblogging platform) can follow and engage with someone on PeerTube (a video-sharing platform) or Pixelfed (an image-sharing service). Each platform, or "instance," is independently hosted and moderated, fostering diverse communities with varying rules. > > ​Key advantages include greater user privacy, control over personal data, and freedom of expression, as content moderation is distributed. Users can often migrate their accounts and followers if they wish to switch instances. This decentralized model is gaining traction, with even larger players like Meta's Threads exploring integrations to allow cross-platform interaction. The Internet Exchange is a group thinking deeply about how to make this work. For insurgent/rebel communities like feminists, this is a kind of ideal beginning for building Outward, toward new modes of being that can support and center women and feminist values. ## From @IX@internet.exchangepoint.tech > Recommendations: Building a Prosocial Fediverse > > To realize the promise of a healthier, more coherent digital public space, federated platforms should actively design for prosocial outcomes that strengthen the social fabric. > > **Highlight content that bridges communities** > Design algorithms that prioritize content supported by people from different communities or perspectives. This type of content can help reduce polarization and support shared understanding. Tools like [Polis](https://pol.is/?ref=medusarising.org) and Community Notes offer useful models for identifying and surfacing this kind of broadly supported content. > > **Label content with social context** > Include labels or metadata that show which communities a piece of content appeals to or challenges. This kind of transparency helps users understand how content fits into broader conversations and reduces the false impression that certain views are universally accepted. > > **Encourage cross-community interaction** > Create features that make it easier for people to encounter and engage with ideas outside their immediate circles. This could include curated feeds that show diverse viewpoints, prompts to explore related communities, or spaces for respectful dialogue across groups. > > **Support new and underrepresented communities** > Provide tools and infrastructure that help smaller or emerging communities participate fully in the network. This might include discovery tools, moderation support, or funding models that help them grow and contribute meaningfully to the larger ecosystem. > > **Adopt shared standards for prosocial signals** > To make these prosocial features work across the Fediverse, platforms should agree on common standards for things like content labels, community signals, and cross-platform feedback. Protocols like [Spritely](https://spritely.institute/?ref=medusarising.org) could help support this kind of interoperable infrastructure. > > Embedding these principles into the DNA of federated platforms is a chance to reimagine the digital commons as a space where shared understanding, respectful disagreement and collective flourishing are not side effects, but core design principles. **"Your worst enemy is not the person opposing you. It's the person occupy the space you would be fighting from and doing nothing." – Heather Marsh, Biding Chaos** We can help build the world everyone can occupy. There are three kinds of people, Susan Sontag said, Ten Percent are good, Ten Percent are evil, and The Rest can go either way. But the rest need somewhere to go. Making Somewhere *as we go* is the way. --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### Details | Gorgon Posse Playlist Party URL: https://www.medusarising.org/details-gorgon-posse-playlist-party/ Last updated: 2025-07-22T22:45:30.000Z Like a Quilting Circle but for Music (⁠✷⁠‿⁠✷⁠) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Giving a Good Word URL: https://www.medusarising.org/giving-a-good-word/ Last updated: 2025-07-22T16:13:39.000Z **As thanks to you** Pythias and Ourobori, the first external reading recommendations :) This clutch are all recent publications that address evergreen &/ urgent matters in ways that comport with RadMatFem. We mix fresh important work with bold classics. If you've read these, BRAVA!, you are feministing with gusto/moxy/rizz/drip! Next step in solidarity: **please share them**. (And us!) If you haven't read these, well, you are in for powerful nourishment! [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers on the Pythia and Pythia tiers only._ ### Palestine, Gaza, Women, Words URL: https://www.medusarising.org/palestine-gaza-women-words/ Last updated: 2025-07-22T16:11:48.000Z I was supposed to focus on Israel's dodgy visit to the White House this weekend, thinking about the elements not emerging in all the conversations had about it so far. But, some man and his sexual proclivities jolted the country off kilter, AGAIN. This time just possibly to a benefit (the MAGA are not pleased their Daddy might be the rapist we all said he is), but still the Epstein Denial-Confession sort of pulled all my attention. I do so viscerally want to see all those men removed from their communities, fortunes, and power. Enough with #DeathEaters. So, let me get back to the matter of Palestine and Palestinian women. We are aware, and we are hungering for something to do that might heal the violence driving the harms and destruction as much as the harms and destruction. When I feel like I have nothing at hand, I read. It's culture, art, our imaginations and our connections that heal. We are faced with (in this instance) two men engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide operations, both men gleeful at the suffering, the rape, the death. --- We could reactivate a thing like #GazaRebirth started by Heather Marsh and Anonymous in 2014 to target fundraising and support for sustenance and rebuilding. [An interview with #GazaRebirth: a New Paradigm for Recovery ActivismAfter the most recent Hamas/IDF conflict, the people of the Gaza Strip had a heavy job to rebuild, never sure if THIS was the ceasefire that would hold as so many did not. #GazaRebirth, a new initi…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/e42bb859ec6912cdcc9e005b89fa303de9c0ebfa4ba6ab40ddffd35d1aafda3c)The Cryptosphereraincoaster![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/gazarebirth2.jpg)](https://thecryptosphere.com/2014/10/20/an-interview-with-gazarebirth-a-new-paradigm-for-recovery-activism/?ref=medusarising.org) --- We know these are crimes, like those of Hamas, that we will have to prosecute if we want to set our countries right-side up again. None of these parties (people, or political parties) can hold power again. Hamas, Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar. The United States. All have truths to admit, violations to atone for, reparation to give. All have done or fostered the unspeakable that we must speak. We know this is patriarchy's most distilled form: the destruction of the monster-other for profit, or fun, or both. **So, here is a tiny, insufficient round up of Palestinian women speaking of and from their homeland and from the diaspora.** [Samma Khullar writing for Byline](https://www.bylinebyline.com/articles/palestinian-women-samaa-khullar?ref=medusarising.org), reminds us that it's in the fine-grain of our lives we find our common being-human. > I am lucky that throughout this genocide, I cultivated connections with some of the kindest, most perseverant Palestinian women I have ever met. “Community” is a word that often feels overused, but what else describes the love present when sitting around, eating molokhia, and sharing the stories of our grandmothers? What other word describes the warmth in one’s chest when we realize we are all distant relatives, that our ancestral lands are fifteen minutes apart? And these writers, similarly, take readers into the human dimension, the one from which all else can only be built. **Susan Abulhawa** A Palestinian-American novelist and human rights activist. [*Mornings in*](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=304cd5078918df87&q=mornings+in+jenin&uds=AOm0WdEmtyGXMT%5FZm0XEmpVJHaz1Iiprm%5F671TPocWGlbr--21aBVnnV0gy8daex3II0Hc6Y9J22m9S2gfgayp9Nw13mDpStxJjg8pd3xwV6JIhSt9RSN7yGpybFKtCcpqBZEkcjHP26GbTsZHyiz1i%5FiZ83VUwU6poJc5jH77N5oUmi%5F1Hv6ApmofGdmlQqlG2UPjF0kGLkF5kmongBYrdQntYfPh9KYcRNm-qNC7BI4NKBpcrDSO%5FXu2HAljW9ca77yT3xtMLSlYCJk7iZyreJKN0%5FoMR6Trn-4-Jbeta3f9xE6xa8L0yrsYqWsLnaFgi4LhxWNxaQfanK1CjJrYKUAJeN9ZKQJQ6ktXxGuZ9y6vxNliGkRgrGazrTecQasET0rn5Q9HAKxwmQp%5Fxu%5FkLNUZrimja5Ypf7BQgwgK2u2iCR2ZL7qWEwp6XMblkXu9OOzNw%5FLGZxghPKmT5%5FfvlUM6rRX3lAf%5FrFNNZcmZ1O4fMhI2DV2euxQi9wsViEs5RFb4HLi9KEFta4-NPggSXxieGYW6Zoez0JIJd3bgjPskm2lzebjMQKbwZqjhM81d0NORBJQfU6Q2dIpygzkI56lyVFZ1TCm3UIQKVGUW3lrhZnXtN2MpuVT3uLRTs14Ou3%5F5MWteOX&si=AMgyJEtULK0SKwwDiAHLrI671RJyGm5EuyjTTvlqgn%5F4QHNP28-GDszYPBVAOLfk1M-8TxoJZSs8GlblpHIGKaZxyxrng5aM8tIfrzohavr%5FS5iaf%5FVlT6A%3D&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwj%5FmKH1vrqOAxVDF1kFHU1JIXsQk8gLegQIFxAB&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=656&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) Jenin is a historical fiction of the impact of the Nakba on a Palestinian family and survival under occupation. **Hala Alyan** A Palestinian-American poet and novelist. [*Salt Houses*](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=304cd5078918df87&q=hala+alyan&uds=AOm0WdF7NDYJhczRGX0zDUdaBgDY3smDidHFFeWY0%5Fzw6W5vIq7zEFb5nefXtA3JHJkzIOafNDDgmp4YAdsb4HoN0bQ-OHSyV88lr74HFTRdJOYQpcbjqTbk5I0P8fMse0waknY3yHSTCRzEFPyRA8TopJVb4MZ-NMRUvQRbSHH3xbSADSh4cMxpecLpo4jcS3HR4cBnnQqxo%5FIVx%5FmCGa-DFQhS-YSblSE7RfbuybymtWy3Un4B8%5FaDn9p6mqJIaO29ymTKaPNCQPDFmxe3LiMzvSXAFP0csP3bWmNXIsOZdoGVFyFCucl-%5FKg1QjRUSk33Fas3-RFP&si=AMgyJEsS9yFPUNnJcpkaSNMRXqlEkWiaaPbn4eNu23sIddNCM6HsmX5xYBfIZPw79yxR4AWSBJdo5lYUuj3XRfVM03CriPEZRVWKxqEmoG86APRPntLQeMY%3D&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjolKHfv7qOAxXqEFkFHdxZC9gQk8gLegQIExAB&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=656&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org) explores the meaning of home in conditions of perpetual displacement for a Palestinian family. Her poetry is equally evocative of the experiences of diaspora, the sense both of lineage and indeterminacy. **Isabella Hammad** A British-Palestinian author. Her award-winning novel, [*The Parisian*](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sca%5Fesv=304cd5078918df87&q=isabella+hammad&uds=AOm0WdGp9T3jcDnSZ1IkTo0VoIqdf1fEt6bykBpvhTFqN%5F9MVMeARgEZy56YD3Xh1G0uHg64hWzo5KQ4ykRoaEGUYKQQ30uOVWRJZwxIb2591cUI3CRZVcxw09aEnQxk0yV4Wuz6iB8HlS7awmCPCtzk06CCczWtex5heISSh7LfRT5fds9iT6z3vrO%5FleYe3GcC7pM5FlPtfARqA5KI85n6bXOh2h4K7PopGrFw2a3O5faAvi0%5FrrPOST7jdkFhwW4J5QS2piXEWNnAJZA26iuKVfmOdB--kVnLcxEMyt3duHjGOVBN-kO3asWc8HGAbGACYfd9GCNo&si=AMgyJEsS9yFPUNnJcpkaSNMRXqlEWRZdytF43rsHJeaoI2an218v6o9EHfZ6ziWNURs5LG0foQjBfP%5FiCkHe50WDSwKLBMje2ujNdugo32Eok71nd7noxB0%3D&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwiG1vaIwLqOAxWQEGIAHbIYMCUQk8gLegQIExAB&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=656&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org), follows a young man caught between his Palestinian identity and European experiences. **Ahed Tamimi** A young Palestinian activist who gained international attention for her role in nonviolent demonstrations against the occupation. Her memoir, co-authored with journalist Dena Takruri, [*They Called Me a Lioness*](https://www.google.com/search?client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&sa=X&sca%5Fesv=304cd5078918df87&q=They+Called+Me+a+Lioness:+A+Palestinian+Girl%27s+Fight+for+Freedom&si=AMgyJEsS9yFPUNnJcpkaSNMRXqlEyZM1b410JT-lPtlROjSE%5FgDctw2eALfaA0qSWVJLLpy7J-5qBouAZuwOOS6dOtk%5F87UrvCITyrCxJfUKdl16bqhDX2b0HY6VDC57FDwIiPHGvJUE8rhNNhJ%5FUYJaARQJb2C4GvpPgXFeHjv0HvCKl0kfLWc%3D&ved=2ahUKEwiPiKTRwLqOAxXMGlkFHeejFz0QyNoBKAB6BAgWEAA&ictx=1&biw=1317&bih=656&dpr=2.13&ref=medusarising.org), sheds light on the daily realities of life under occupation and the power of youth activism ### Standing by Each Other Through the Trouble Lisa Ling reports for CBS on a group of women friends, Jewish and Palestinian, finding their hard ways through this nightmare together. \[The link in case the embed gets stripped out: [https://youtu.be/-R4vb2YBrJA?si=vG25cGitORmhntTT](https://youtu.be/-R4vb2YBrJA?si=vG25cGitORmhntTT&ref=medusarising.org)\] We RadMatFem Gorgons are well aware nothing's neat or simple. But: Gaza must live again. And: A habit of humane and kind regard must take hold of our collective consciousness. --- a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### New Pod | Companion to the Cixous Series URL: https://www.medusarising.org/new-pod-guest-its-esmee/ Last updated: 2025-07-22T16:11:05.000Z From the Way Back Before Times when they first called us 'essentialists.' It's a companion to the [RE: Framing Cixous series](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/helene-cixous/), but not of it. She's the origin of that disruptive, evocative, dangerously positive project of *écriture feminine*. For those seeing this in email, click the button to go to the website and listen. [TAKE ME TO MEDUSA RISING TO HEAR THE GORGON POSSE](www.medusarising.org/new-pod-guest-its-esmee/) **We'd love to see you on the socials.** Share us on the socials. That way we can keep paying women who send us work we share with you. (\~▽\~＠)♪♪♪ a World of women buildin Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) ### Come play with images & words & all the Gorgons (*^▽^)/* [Seeking Volunteer Social Media ManagerApplications Open Until Filled (then we’ll take the page down ;)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/00efb4de-3108-4aa2-9188-2aab871ea398_20250209_073321_0000-2.jpg)Medusa RisingMedusa Rising![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000005369.jpg)](https://www.medusarising.org/seeking/) ### Your Voice, Your Vision - We Want To Celebrate You! [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### 1 Week to Go: Fun Break for Feminists! URL: https://www.medusarising.org/1-week-to-go-fun-break-for-feminists/ Last updated: 2025-07-17T16:11:27.000Z Come hang out with me and **co-create the Gorgon Posse Playlist** on **July 24** at 1 pm Eastern US time. Next week! **Sign-up and we'll send you the meet link** a day or so before. Alternate days, times TBD. :) I once found a playlist called "Feminist Songs to Murder Men To," and it's not terrible, but feminist songs to build world to sounds more enlivening. Music helps our cells, our vagal nerve, our whole organism to gather and ground itself. We'll play music to each other and build a spreadsheet of bands and titles for all of us to create wherever we listen. Drop in, drop by, drop back out. Move as you need! The event is Members Only, but membership is a low as $Free.99\. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) [& Playlist Party on July 24 at 1pm Eastern US.We only need your name and email address to add you to the invitation by email.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-9.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/bF6PlTShWjcpUUALV8R6C2bLxIMLTN80AyOflIpei9kuseSDP-ASPWhhRIBuD1IrMFCuiblZBkj9UEY-w1200-h630-p-6)](https://forms.gle/sCeqXM8WQFC23oTV6?ref=medusarising.org) If you want to link it to Medusa Rising and the Gorgon Posse by name, very cool. If not, also very cool. We can discuss the first months of Medusa Rising, what's happening in your feminist worlds and work, what you're creating these days, dreams and plans for world building, frustrations and road-blocks and ways through. We'll also send out a private email with the meeting link on the day of, just in case you want to come visit. Be grooving with you soon!! - Esmee --- [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* a World of women building Make the logarithm feminist! Share us. Our world changing strength lies in our coalitions! Links added as we connect feminists everywhere. [Our Linktree of Socials and Connection ](https://linktr.ee/medusarisingorgonposse?utm%5Fsource=linktree%5Fadmin%5Fshare) Reach out anytime for any reason: [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). **( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆** ### RE: Framing Hélène Cixous, Part 2 | by Esmée URL: https://www.medusarising.org/re-framing-helene-cixous-part-2-by-esmee/ Last updated: 2025-07-15T16:11:19.000Z [ICYMI Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/p/99383e06-c635-4b6c-b4a6-ab30513040c8/) RE: Framing Cixous, Part 2 | by Esmée 0:00 /2457.924512 1× Are you the sort who reads Western stories about slaying dragons and thinks, “Fuck off! Let it be!” or “Waste of a perfectly good dragon!” or “Why not make friends and become invincible?" Then you are my kind. I'm almost always on the side of the monster. And in the East, one does not slay dragons. Dragons are our benefactors. Tiamat is a kind of monster, and she's the creatrix. The Mother. And then also several dragons from the waist down or one dragon with five heads. So, like bees and fireflies, I want her safe and powerful and left to mind her own business. Cixous might see a face she could love. She loved Medusa, after all. The snake-headed form echoing Tiamat's many dragons by the rules of synchronicity and bewildered human fear. # Chimeras, Monsters & Human Possibility Here's how I think of creatures we make myths of to explore the farther reaches of our human nature: ****The monster is an extreme**: Godzilla is a huge lizard, Cerberus is a huge, three-headed dog, … This is why the media often refer to rapists – well, rapists of children anyway – as monsters: they are an extreme of normalized and sexualized aggression. ****The chimera is a melding** of difference (yes, it's also a specific mythical beast, yes): a centaur, a pegasus, a sphinx, a gorgon, the octopus-witch in the Little Mermaid story. **A gorgon will be monster-ized**, a female chimera made into the embodiment of warrior "menis” or menace, the blind rage of Achilles crystalized into her eyes. This is something to do with the hard edges of idealist concepts (Platonic Forms) and the deep splitting of human traits into the pathologies of the gender binary. The gorgons, Medusa specifically, are the only chimera that are not useful/helpful to Man/men. As we learned, the oldest image of Medusa is a guardian on the pediment of the oldest known temple to Artemis, who as a protector of young girls (like … Medusa was in the story where she is priestess to Athena) is also not a great friend of men. ## Of Monsters & Chimeras Anyway, this fuzzy difference between monsters and chimeras has something to do with how gender is unhealthy for humans, and this part of my study on Hélène Cixous will enfold and unfold all this. We are at the end of “Sorties,” where Cixous finds not only a woman but two couples who embody a being-two beyond gender-roles and hierarchies. Now, be prepared. Both of these couples wind up dead for their ‘rebellion,’ for the challenge their existence posed to the larger dominance order. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### July 24 | Co-Curate the Gorgon Posse Playlist w/Esmée!! URL: https://www.medusarising.org/july-24-gorgon-chat-with-esmee/ Last updated: 2025-07-08T16:13:16.000Z ### **July 24 | 1pm Eastern US** All **members** may **join Esmée for a private event** on Google Meet. You do not need a Google Account to join. The meeting will not be recorded. ​ ***create a Gorgon Posse Playlist***We can visit, talk about Medusa Rising's early days, your experience and thoughts about the work so far, and ​***create a Gorgon Posse Playlist***! Bring the names of songs, albums by women, all female bands, let's build a list to uplift women and get energy swirling! If you'd like to sign up now, please do. If you are not a member yet, there's a **free membership level** that will let you into this conversation. We will send a reminder next week for everyone, and then **on Monday July 21 you will receive an email with the invitation to the Google Meet**. [Become a Member to Join this Event](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### RE: Framing Hélène Cixous | by Esmée URL: https://www.medusarising.org/re-framing-helene-cixous-by-esmee/ Last updated: 2025-07-03T16:13:25.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/05/Cixous_thumb.jpg) Re:Framing Hélène Cixous | by Esmée 0:00 /1464.297125 1× Born in Oran, Algeria, in 1937, Hélène Cixous participated in the founding of the University of Vincennes (Paris 8) in 1968, where she created the doctorate in women's studies in 1974\. She and Jacques Derrida, and other scholars, established the new experimental school to open new avenues of inquiry[ in the wake of May 1968](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/pictures-from-the-may-uprisings-in-paris?ref=medusarising.org) and the tightening of France's already tight educational scope. She is the mother of "writing the body" and a pivotal figure in both French and US feminist philosophy. She received the Prix Médicis in 1969 for **Dedans*. If you are new to this series, let me catch you up. In [THE RADICAL NOTION](https://theradicalnotion.org/?ref=medusarising.org) I began work on a series of essays on French or poststructural and radical second wave feminist theorists (plus Derrida). "Re: Framing Radical Feminims" includes essays on Luce Irigaray (my center of gravity), Mary Daly, Francoise d'Eaubonne, and Marija Gimbutas. I also interviewed Sharon Blackie and Max Dashu. I'm interested in how the archeology, mythology, and history of women plays with the more abstract philosophical theories of feminists about women – the phenomenology, the ontology, the ethics. So I think a lot about culture, politics, and the many conditions of women. I'm also, turns out, interested in nerds who got tired of being told *no* or *too much* or *too far out* and who just went and did their own thing – especially if they're women. Like ... starting your own experimental university. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Honoring the Goddess-Snake |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/honoring-the-goddess-snake/ Last updated: 2025-07-01T16:13:03.000Z \[Accidently published in April, so we apologize to those of you seeing this twice!\] Where I live, writing in early April, it's nearly warm enough for the snakes to come up out of hibernation. In another week or so the daffodils will be near their bobbing golden end, and that's when the snakes wake up. It's got me thinking about the serpent powers I've called on, as every use of a name is a calling to its meaning — and I need a break from The Emergency. We who can take a break should, this is a long long game. ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ Marija Gimbutas, the archeologist to whom we owe our certainty of matriarchal/gylanic civilizations, interpreted the Snake Goddesses she found in her digs in Eastern Europe were symbols of life energy, of emergent feminine creation, and of regeneration both through death and through growth (shedding). The [Great Goddess in her snake form is found across the pre-his-toric world](https://frauenkultur.co.uk/the-language-of-the-goddess-unearthing-the-hidden-symbols-of-western-civilization/?ref=medusarising.org) and from some its earliest stories and artefacts. Here's a brief discussion (from 11:00) with Gimbutas herself from [Starr Goode's cable TV series The Goddess in Art](https://www.starrgoode.com/TVSeries.html?ref=medusarising.org) (1986-1991). ### **The Corra** By the time we meet Corra, she's already gone. She has this in common most divine feminine serpents. We meet her so late that I'm surprised at how her death at St Patrick's hand (for the Mother must die for the godlet to dominate) echoes Marduk's disembowelment of his mother Tiamat. [ Judith Shaw relates it this way](https://feminismandreligion.com/2017/08/23/corra-celtic-serpent-goddess-by-judith-shaw/?ref=medusarising.org): > In one version of the story when Corra faced down St Patrick at Lough Derg She swallowed him whole. As Mircea Eliade noted in *Rites and Symbols of Initiation,* being swallowed by the snake can be seen as a return to the womb and – “a complete regeneration of the initiate through his gestation and birth by the Great Mother.” St Patrick passed two days and two nights within Corra cutting his way out and killing her in the process. The water of the lake turned red with Her blood and Her body turned to stone. I mean, OK, but one really need not murder Mother to be reborn. Like all snake goddesses, she is a goddess of the Great Cycle, and in this is an avatar of the Great Goddess and sister to the snake goddesses of Europe. I feel a preciousness around Corra because of all these divinities, I expected to find her the least. The Irish stories of snakes began in my youth as actual snakes, revised to metonymy for the Druids, but none of those hinted that (as there almost must be) there was a symbol of the Goddess that must go back so, so very far. Corra feels to me like she must be a memory, a Goddess carried all the way and then nurtured in this land where her animist correlate was not to be found. The care with which her people carried her wells up in me as tears. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfxfAOSEig7HIuMIPJZQrtsjYDL_XjSO798v1buxGQsbQPgI9u6-3LIpch94PLON0gJYsygxGubCkb9kzFF2d6QIB0oAG2cuek89bO8ZJ5WVJj32aIkRsyLMYJqBaiajmgbpY3Upw?key=7QeV-a-PQZggNd5D9t64Q-ra) A Corra pendant I bought in honor of our goddesses Honoring the Goddess-Snake | by Esmee Streachailt 0:00 /1690.174896 1× ### **The Yacumama** Yacumama is another story. I have found, so far, very little on her other than that she is one of a trinity of creation snake goddesses in the Amazon. And she is not the gentler of the three. The Mother of Waters and their creatures is happy to eat anyone and anything that gets close. I have a feeling that threat was once a protective function and has been reversed, but I'm still looking. She's fierce in a way that feels as impersonal as the Great Goddess in her Great Cycle. In a time of influencer overdoses of romanticized goddess talk, Yacumama has reminded me of how much She is on the side of Life, just not of my life in particular. I am a part of her, she owes me nothing. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfNLvkwJv0nBbjcwdNlVgEivBG7wSbqfOQ2rEVDfZYfm60pxZYIJFsuqwwUuZwl46ZjNRcJE1cm7mDjV5FukwGlMSfxG23vskmvUcse6Usy6v3fNSm2kMf-XYx45SOyj4iZ2XI8hA?key=7QeV-a-PQZggNd5D9t64Q-ra) Early depiction of Yacumama | @WikiMedia Commons ### **The Nagas** Nagas are divine creatures of both sexes. Often both human and snake, or alternating in form, they are connected to wisdom (as the Corra) and to rivers (as the Yacumama), but also to protection as in the case of Buddha's meditation under the Bhodi tree. The Naga comes to protect him from the rains. They signify a live connection with chthonic and animist origins, the deep relation among humans and our ecological cousins, of many traditions in and south of the Himalayas. In my imagination, they are braided into and to braid together with their world, outerworld, people, and gods. They are not this to any subcontinental people, but to me they call up the oscillation at the heart of life. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc2uFkhrS97IT0EVOEhC2pS-gFI9NKKdatSwM-GJiSA5ZTmu5HXrazdhcoH3Ukr_dS5HwLy9h_BAj84D6ZNrBxjZeVqiFC-KvDGAmUpH7Wf1b2UBDt1xCqIsHgsU4Fgtpc0W95RFw?key=7QeV-a-PQZggNd5D9t64Q-ra) Statue of Buddha under the Nagas, Nong Khai, Thailand | @wikimedia commons ### **The Ouroboros** These rather literal creatures' bodies are the Great Cycle, from mouth to tail. The Ouroboros originates in Egypt and officially has no sex, but is a world serpent and protector, moving its very being through the cycle of regeneration-life-death, so I have claimed this creature for a goddess. It happens that my husband's mother gave me one of her bracelets on our second meeting. It's a serpentine weave chain of silver with a dragon's head that clasps its tail in its teeth to close. I don't know if she knew how deeply snakes run in the ancient and prehistoric symbolism of women, but I like to think she did. And, she's read all my writing since we met, so she does now!! :D ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/image-1.png) Roman, Pair of Snake Bracelets, 1st century AD, Walters 57528, 57529 | Public domain ### **The Pythia** She is the oracle of Delphi, the temple to the Goddess, and her interpreter. The men who need to murder her and The Mother to clear the way for their order claim she was hard to understand. A pre-Indo-European speech might have been. Or, they might have been claiming a distance from Her way of sense-making. But her name connects her directly to Python, the great serpent who protected the well and its priestess, or who might have been the original oracle herself. Python is one of Gaia's children by Uranos. Their sexual cosmogony created beautiful creatures, titans and titanides, and monsters alike. I can't tell you which side of that divide Python would be, but she's no monster to me, only a power as near to Gaia as can be. Gaia, on the side of all life, found all her children beautiful. No matter how we tell the stories, it's a father or a son who creates the damnation of othering, of rejection of some part of the paradoxical and necessary whole. \[I couldn’t find images of Pythia or Python Delpyne that weren’t pro-Apollo propaganda.\] ## **And the Medusa** Readers here know many stories of this gorgon girl. Many of us connect deeply with the many violent betrayals she suffers in men's stories. Like all these goddesses, and many the Greeks keep in demoted forms, Medusa is much older than the culture that took the privilege of using her for their ends. In her older, and physically powerful, gorgon form, she guarded the first archaic temple, to Artemis the Mistress of Animals and a wild goddess. She whole, winged, attended by magical lions--like many goddesses we all know. In the stories Artemis's pre-Mycenean cult told, she might have been a sister to Artemis, the animal expression of her power. *I am guessing*, I want to point out, and guessing this because this kind of separation and demotion is so common to sister goddesses in stories men tell themselves. She bares her fangs, her mouth is wide open in a shriek. She is the embodiment of loudness. Medusa = unapologetic. My happy-warrior Aries Moon loves jives with her. A crown of snakes and a crown of sunrays echo each other, a sun sister could be a protector to a moon sister, and many old cultures empersonned the sun in a goddess. Patricia Monaghan studied these solar goddesses across time and cultures in[ *O Mother Sun!: A New View of the Cosmic Feminine*](https://www.abebooks.com/9780895947222/Mother-Sun-New-View-Cosmic-0895947226/plp?ref=medusarising.org). Elements of her myths connect her back to the Assyrian Humbaba (dismemberment), Japanese Amaterasu (mirrors), Scandinavian Sunnu (turn viewers to stone), Egyptian Hathor (snakes on the head), Indian black Kali (heads, extended tongue, snaky hair). She has been read to represent knowledge men should not have, protection for women and goddesses, and the source of male virtue in her offspring Pegasus and Chrysor. [Patricia Monaghan](https://feminismandreligion.com/2012/11/28/in-memoriam-patricia-monaghan-the-goddess-community-remembers-and-mourns-by-dawn-work-makinne/?ref=medusarising.org) (1946-2012), for any who have come to know her work, was a major figure in the women's spirituality and eco-feminist movements — which, for many women, were the same movement. She was also a co-founder of [The Black Earth Institute](https://blackearthinstitute.org/in-memoriam/?ref=medusarising.org), and a [poet](https://www.splitthisrock.org/poetry-database/search/search&poem%5Fauthor%5Ftext-exact=Patricia%20Monaghan?ref=medusarising.org). Monaghan's book inspired this lovely [video and divine chant in 2021](https://youtu.be/BXxEjMhdxZg?si=41WwLWMYXIs%5FyIp%5F&ref=medusarising.org). Her chapter on Medusa is titled “When the Goddess Smiles, She Bares her Teeth,” which feels right, doesn't it? So many goddesses are wild, fierce, canny, and dangerous even when they are of the sun. We sometimes think of our dangerous goddesses as dark — Kali, the Morrigan, Hecate, Tiamat — but the Great Mother is all, dark-light-dark-light. Snakes burrow to rest, snakes warm their bodies in the sun. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXck7H9T7_2jroi66_tjEnGH3K4IkYtabYpjlNJ_YiI-lf4VDff3YT8ygapTXZs46iczBrLBVPUFHhteuJZnG95T0g4d0sgrpUinmkbqwtenonK6XGf3BVpmaPEhaIkZIXCpSF-d?key=7QeV-a-PQZggNd5D9t64Q-ra) Centre Close Up of the West Pediment from the Temple of Artemis in Corfu, c. 580 BCE | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 **Two serendipities arrived** as I rested a bit this week, diverted my soulmind from the shitshow of my country, to write and muse about divine serpentine women. It’s just getting warm enough now, just past Ostara, for the snakes to begin emerging. One is that Monaghan was familiar with Hélène Cixous's “The Laugh of the Medusa.” French Theory?, you might say, for a feminist spiritual eco-activist? Yes. To me there's never been a real separation between these, or between theory and spiritual exploration for many French feminist theorists. Of Cixous's essay, Monaghan writes, she looked > upon the Gorgon's face, … that terrifying visage that indicates the point at which we must stop and seek no further. And Cixous did not find petrifying the confrontation with the face at the edge of received knowledge. Rather … an antidote to the paralysis of patriarchal thought. \[She\] emerges from the encounter … not only unscathed but empowered. Medusa, she \[famously\] reports, is ‘not deadly. She's beautiful, and she's laughing.” (232) I can tell you I have things to say about Nietzsche's gaze into the abyss and this silent, sisterly conversation. As well as about the limit of the gorgon's face, her demotion, her relation to meaning and Derrida's logic-rustling *aporia*. I think it's time to turn to wider themes than the US and its undoing. This contact with Monahan convinced me I need to return to my TRN series RE: Framing Radical Feminism and spend some time with Cixous. We had a least one reader who was eager for me to work my magic with Cixous, so now I will!!! The signs have all shown themselves. It's going to be a ride and a joy for my philosophy feminists who read here!! **The other serendipity,** OK, this is where I'm possibly leaving the world of history for the world of deeply felt metaphor, but come on along!! Below is this boggling post from Facebook that explains to my mindsoul that snakes move in prime numbers, which are whole to themselves and irregularly cyclical, which let's me reach poetically for the notion that actual snakes are are Her writing the Goddess's own language across Her own waters. And can bet your well-grounded feet I'll be coming back to this in my next series on Cixous!!! **From** [**Cassiopeia Nature**](https://www.facebook.com/CassiopeiaNature) **on Snakes, Water, and Primes** > When swimming through water, the snake leaves traces in the form of wavy circles that precisely correspond to the dynamics of prime numbers. > A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. Prime numbers are unique numbers. > Don Zagier, a renowned expert, stated: "Looking at these figures, one feels the presence of one of the inexplicable mysteries of creation." > The images you see here are created using circles with diameters of successive primes, superimposed and repeated from a common origin. For each natural number "n," we draw a periodic curve from the origin intersecting the "x" axis at "n" and its multiples. Prime numbers are those intersected by only two curves: the prime number itself and one. > This is a simple method of constructing prime numbers using geometry. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfFRpVRLO2XRJ7fTHLs5gwK66XvwjQEvb2f5yHwJgBWRfmvSf_EIfZd0aF0bFgNYTWp9i8y6OshKfqMKCoSLhqL5Uq4VXAgayRwE5AAKaRVLvAmHRQwQGnwMEFlMGb1JP7wvq8l?key=7QeV-a-PQZggNd5D9t64Q-ra) --- *Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! Shift the vibe!* *Share this work far and wide!* Share [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ## ### Join Us Live | Members-Only URL: https://www.medusarising.org/join-us-live-members-only/ Last updated: 2025-07-01T15:51:22.000Z **This Gorgon Chat is for members only** and **will not be recorded**. This conversation will happen **on Google Meet** (no, you *do not need a Google account* to join) on July 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM Eastern US time. [Become a Member to Join This Event](#/portal/signup/free) Esmée hopes to hear your thoughts and responses to these early days of Medusa Rising's work. Do you have questions or critiques? Have you been inspired? Do you want to roll some ideas around? Is there a feminist topic that you have been wanting to discuss in radical materialist feminist ways? What even are we all thinking RadMatFem is? **23 July 2025, 1:00 PM Eastern US**, please use the form below to sign up. [Info for Joining Gorgon Chat Group on July 24 at 1pm Eastern US.We only need your name and email address to add you to the invitation by email.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-4.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/bF6PlTShWjcpUUALV8R6C2bLxIMLTN80AyOflIpei9kuseSDP-ASPWhhRIBuD1IrMFCuiblZBkj9UEY-w1200-h630-p-3)](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe2Kz3QZWuQE3aLiG%5FOVQr6DK3g0cs0ZtHPJGBqIHZBsfxllw/viewform?usp=header&ref=medusarising.org) This first private event is open to all members. Most future private events will be premiums for members at the Pythia rate (unless there is an urgency.) Medusa Rising plans to how at least 4 Gorgon Chat Groups per calendar year. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) [Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa RisingMedusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/1000004136-1.jpg)PodbeanPodBean Development![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1000004136_1200x628-2.jpg)](https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-jw62s-13c6f7b?ref=medusarising.org) \* NEW EPISODE \* Recommend a world building resource [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/06/1000003977.jpg)](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) You. A feminist you know. A feminist organization or community. A feminist blog or pod. Let's build coalition! [Resource Reccomendation ](https://forms.gle/jt7KpVPjRoy6i2c78?ref=medusarising.org) ### Gorgon Posse Ep 4 | Esmée Reads Jorie Graham's 'Disenchantment' URL: https://www.medusarising.org/gorgon-posse-ep-4-esmee-reads-jorie-grahams-overlord/ Last updated: 2025-06-26T22:30:38.000Z Back during the Iraq War, the Pulitzer winning US poet Jorie Graham wrote a collection of poems many of which echo for me now. See, my degree is in both philosophy and poetics, and Jorie Graham is a very philosophical poet. "Disenchantment" resonates with this moment in the US and the world, when so many of us are pushing on an a ascendant far-right (or well established one) in the name of our liberty. Operation Overlord was the code name for the Allied assault at Normandy. Let me know what you think, sisters & readers. I can read you poems just about any time! ;-) As always, all audio podcasts are free to the public. Please share. Sharing helps create the connections we need to build worlds! Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) ### Chile’s Black Community Face Renewed Threats Amid Surge in Far-Right Politics | by Rebecca Johns URL: https://www.medusarising.org/chiles-black-community-face-renewed-threats-amid-surge-in-far-right-politics-by-rebecca-johns/ Last updated: 2025-06-24T16:13:54.000Z **6 June 2025 | Santiago, Chile** *Activists worry that* [*the increasingly popular far right*](https://elpais.com/chile/2025-05-20/la-ultraderecha-de-kast-toma-vuelo-a-seis-meses-de-las-presidenciales-en-chile.html?ref=medusarising.org) *will worsen the lives of Black People living in Chile*. [Michel-Ange Joseph](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4qfj-GDPsI&ref=medusarising.org) \[video in Spanish\] was riding the metro in Santiago in 2022 when she was physically assaulted by a security guard. She was on her way home from her job as a local government official when the man mistook her for a street vendor. "He hit me, and told me to go back to my country, that I came to dirty his country, that Haitian women come to dirty Chile," Joseph recalls. For her, the attack was "just one of many instances" of being targeted for "just being a Black woman." Even before this incident, Joseph had founded ****CIJYS**, the **Research Conclave of Legal and Social Sciences*, a grassroots organization that provides legal representation to victims of racial abuse. Today, she continues that work, advocating for Black communities and pushing for racial justice in Chile. But with a presidential election looming in November 2025, Joseph fears the rising influence of far-right parties could threaten not only immigrant rights but also the fragile progress made toward racial equality. ## **Far-Right Success** As in many [other Latin American countries](https://www.google.com/search?q=rise+of+far+right+latin+ameirca&oq=rise+of+far+right+latin+ameirca&gs%5Flcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDMxNDFqMGoxqAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&ref=medusarising.org), the far right has been steadily growing in Chile. A key moment came in 2022 when the Republican Party (PLR) won the majority share of the seats in the [constitutional assembly](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/21/chile-far-right-new-consitution-abortion?ref=medusarising.org). Now, with the first round of voting set for November 2025, the [struggling left-wing government](http://chile-president-gabriel-boric-s-approval-plunges/?ref=medusarising.org) will have to fight for survival against an even stronger opposition, with two hard-right politicians [polling](https://atlasintel.org/polls/latam-pulse?ref=medusarising.org) in 3rd and 5th place. Both parties offer a strong anti-immigration rhetoric. The PLR leader, Jose Kast, recently [announced the Border Shield Plan](https://www.emol.com/noticias/Nacional/2025/03/13/1160239/kast-y-plan-de-seguridad.html?ref=medusarising.org), which involves the building of 5-meter-high security fences, equipped with motion sensors and drone surveillance, alongside 3-meter deep ditches, all with the aim of stopping migrants from entering the country. Joseph worries that the right’s [promises of deportation](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ4FPsAun-1/?ref=medusarising.org) and rhetoric of ‘Chile first’ will lead to racism against all ethnic minorities living in the country. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Key Concepts: Gender, A Means of Oppression | by Erin URL: https://www.medusarising.org/key-concepts-gender-a-means-of-oppression-by-erin/ Last updated: 2025-06-19T16:13:30.000Z NOTE: Today is [Juneteenth](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-juneteenth?ref=medusarising.org) in the US. Only recently made an observed *national* holiday, Juneteenth celebrates the day the 250,000 enslaved people of Texas were informed (later than elsewhere) that the Confederacy had lost the Civil War and they were free citizens. The MAGA regime has cancelled this commemoration day in one of its many acts of white supremiacist ideology. Radical Materialist Feminism inhierits many lessons in emancipation from the Black Feminist and Womanist lineages in the US. Their survival and thriving was hard won mostly by the power of their own souls and wisdom. --- In the previous article, I stated that in patriarchy women are oppressed on the basis of sex by means of gender. I wanted to emphasise the idea that gender is a *mechanism* through which men as a sex class oppress women as a sex class. Gender has many manifestations and modes, but they all add up to one effect. Gender is, first and foremost, a tool of oppression. Since it is a tool, and all tools are artificial, gender too is artificial. It is created by human beings – specifically by *male* human beings (even if they are not aware of it). This is why gender is often described as ‘socially constructed’. Patriarchy is a society which produces, reproduces, and at the same time is shaped by the system of oppression called gender. Gender is present in all patriarchal societies. However, since societies vary from period to period and region to region , so does the form of gender vary from society to society. Remember that gender is a name for the totality of countless ways in which men oppress women in patriarchal societies. Different patriarchal societies have different ways of oppressing women. For instance, in Japan, some companies tell female employees to remove glasses because wearing glasses make them look less feminine by “[giving a cold impression](https://bbc.com/news/business-50342714?ref=medusarising.org).” What they seem to mean is that glasses are associated with intelligence, and women ought not to appear to be (more) intelligent (than men who do not wear glasses). I don’t think this kind of social practice is accepted in Western countries nowadays. [Subscribe to Support these Sisters](#/portal/signup) ## The Watermelon and the Blade Variations in the form of a tool is nothing special. Consider a bladed weapon. A bladed weapon is any weapon that has a blade — a sharp-edged part — designed primarily for cutting, slashing, stabbing, or thrusting. The examples of bladed weapons include swords, daggers, and knives. There is a great variety of bladed weapons. A Swiss Army knife looks very different from a katana. However, they both have the same purpose. All bladed weapons have the same purpose of inflicting physical damage on people, usually in hand-to-hand combat. This is important, for the fact that their target is people, not trees or rocks, influences how those weapons are constituted. For example, the physical nature of people – that is, made of flesh and blood – makes bronze, iron, or steel suitable materials for bladed weapons. A katana made of leather or wax wouldn’t work. The physical, biological nature of people determines the form and material of bladed weapons. Likewise, even though there is a great variety of forms of gender, those different forms all share the same purpose – to oppress women. **Biology matters!** Recall a square watermelon. A mechanism to make watermelons square, too, is influenced by the biological nature of watermelons. What material should be used for moulds is determined by the nature of watermelons. Plastic or rubber moulds wouldn’t be suitable for watermelons as watermelons would be too hard for plastic or rubber moulds to change their shapes. The aesthetic standards concerning the brightness of green, the straightness of dark stripes or the smoothness of skin wouldn’t apply for coconut fruits because coconut fruits are brown, hairy and textured. Their appearances are completely different. They also have far too hard a rind to be moulded. We have the standards for such features as the brightness of green, etc., precisely because watermelons, not coconut fruits, are bright and green and can be bred to enhance these features. The biological nature of watermelons determines what criteria to use. **Biology matters!** The decision to make square watermelons itself is influenced by the biological nature of watermelons. In the first place, humans decide that watermelons are valuable for them, probably on the basis of their sweet, juicy flesh and their unique appearances. Watermelons are deemed worthwhile enough for humans to bother themselves to change their shape. Humans wouldn’t have bothered themselves so much with calabash because it is often bitter and toxic. Humans don’t think it worthwhile to create square calabash. It is because watermelons have certain biological natures that they are considered to be valuable for humans. **Biology matters!** The same goes for gender. Gender – more specifically, femininity, which is a form which women are forced to take – is imposed upon women precisely because men find the reproductive function (emotional care, maintenance of the home, and sexual availability) of women valuable and worthwhile to exploit. It is because women possess a certain biological nature which men find valuable that men employ gender to oppress and control women. ## How Gender Works as a Mechanism In patriarchy, women are oppressed on the basis of sex by means of gender. What this means is as follows: 1. Women have certain biological characteristics (in particular, reproductive functions). 2. Men find those characteristics of women valuable. 3. Men decide to exploit women’s biological characteristics. 4. Men devise gender – a tool of oppression – in order to control women. This control involves rewarding girls and women for being self-effacing, agreeable, and seeking to be of service to others’ projects and well-being. It also involves discouraging or punishing girls and women for being assertive, principled, and seeking to serve their own projects and well-being. This is true all the way down to details like a professional feminine dress code that excludes glasses (needed to do one's work) but includes high heels (that men find sexy). The reverse qualities are rewarded or discouraged in boys and men because that training sets them up to expect service from women. These cultural habits are so old that women routinely also reward and discourage each other and their daughters for these traits because the cost of ‘failing at gender’ is very high (social isolation). That cost is part of the control. It looks like ‘being unpopular’ or ‘not finding a man to marry.’ It looks like personal bad luck, but it is largely ‘bad luck’ shaped by gendered preferences that are so pervasive as to be self-reinforcing. Gender is artificial, but its target is the biological nature of women. To give men children, to provide workers for the economy, but also to spend much of women's lives attending to and supporting, and certainly never out-shining, men. In that sense, it is rooted in the biological reality of women, our bodies are the *medium* from which these children/workers and ease and pleasure for men are created — as the natural watermelon becomes the square watermelon. [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- **Erin** is a contributing editor [at Medusa Rising](https://www.medusarising.org/about/). --- Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) ### The Prettiest House on Jutland Road | by A'Ja Lyons URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-prettiest-house-on-jutland-road-by-aja-lyons/ Last updated: 2025-06-17T16:13:40.000Z Neighbors only saw the ivy plants, manicured lawn, and white ash tree I wonder if pink siding was all the rage in 1960 when the house was built It hadn’t been updated since My grandparents bought it I wonder why she left him but stayed there where he hit her likely because it was her home, her daughter’s home/my mother’s home, my childhood home The biggest and prettiest anyone in our family ever owned The house was one of the few with a carport but the only one with burglar bars I read my mother’s diaries, she didn’t get to go out or too far often, either I wonder if she ever tried to leave My mother never left, big as her light was it became dimmed by the darkness inside I don’t wonder why she was heavy (like me) Enough to eat from a kitchen only big enough for one cook, to fill a void created by cruel tongue I wonder if my mother ever resisted and received a heavy hand or belt or if tongue lashings were tough enough to make her comply The house looked lovely yet my grandmother never repaired the developing foundation issue The roof caved in and knocked my mother down to the vinyl floor. Stress on her heart blocked blood flow Six feet deep in dirt was her only resting place The only stillness in the dust lining bookshelves and desk drawers documents unseen in decades Traps restricted rodent reproduction The only growth the mold on the air vents The pink doghouse in the backyard matched the siding My first dog was a Chow Chow she ran away before I did ![Photo of a one-storey house with two-car carport, palm and live oak trees, and a white pole fence and garbage can awaiting collection..](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/05/1000004408.jpg) Photo credit A'Ja Lyons --- A'Ja Lyons is a contributing [editor at Medusa Rising](https://www.medusarising.org/about/). ### Growing Up Girl URL: https://www.medusarising.org/growing-up-girl/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T16:13:04.000Z If you have or learn of resources on any topic or that answer any need, just use this form to tell us about them. The Gorgons will gather and share with all. [RadMatFem ConnectionPlease use this form to share details of the feminist, feminist organization, or other resources you want our readers to access for themselves, or consider working with, or to support with money or amplification of their message.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-5.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/eINdlN2P-J-VBbBeediT9kJYPp2eiUd_nn0AYNoyVl9ZT7Q9Ngd4wvn8UxCN9K8yg8An8f_ItbEO8io-w1200-h630-p)](https://forms.gle/BJcTovRWTCin4bqu5?ref=medusarising.org) ### Medusa Speaks at Girl God Books No, not this Medusa, THE Medusa. :D A course for our soulcraft, $49, 4 videos, watch as many times as you like to take the lessons fully in. > Today Medusa—like strong women everywhere—would be called nasty, persistent, bossy, bitchy or worse. This is the legacy of misinterpreting her power, and it has led us to misunderstanding our own. > > That is why we have called in the torchbearers—the most learned Medusa scholars on the planet—to re-story this myth with us, restoring her—and us—to our original majesty. > > During a series of conversations, Girl God Books founder Trista Hendren will dive deep into the creation of this myth and its tragic distortions with Glenys Livingstone, Laura Shannon, Miriam Robbins Dexter and Joan Marler. > > [This four-part series will bring Medusa's voice into your living room. Watch the recordings at your leisure.](https://thegirlgod.com/ms.php?ref=medusarising.org) ### OnBoys Learning Violence: Gail Dines and Ashley Judd at *Ms.* > In between three-point baskets, her preteen niece kept dropping unseemly references. The adults caught on that she was reaching out for help. Turning down the volume, they gave her supportive attention. She was then able to divulge that the boys in her junior high school were pressuring her and her friends to do violent and disturbing sex acts they learned while watching porn. > It is not a generic or inclusive “people” who are violated in porn. It’s overwhelmingly girls and women. It was not sex that Ashley’s niece feared. It was violence. > Porn, like the manosphere, fuses the two—and women and girls suffer. [How Violent Porn Initiates Young Boys in Violence Against Women‘Your body, my choice.’ That misogynist credo is the crux of the blockbuster Netflix mini-series, Adolescence, the third most-watched English language show of all time on Netflix. The show continues to provoke debate about the impact of social media on the mental health of boys, in a world dominated by the manosphere, and its power to transform boys’ into violent misogynists. Surprisingly, porn was the one missing element in the otherwise brilliant four-part Netflix drama. The show centers on a 13-year-old boy, Jamie—a typical lad, vulnerable, like so many other young men, to the venom of online misogyny spewed through unbridled social media, chatrooms, blogs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-ms-logo-270x270.jpg)Ms. MagazineGail Dines, Ashley Judd![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/AAAAQcYIlTmJfMT-fFI5y7IqNNTkDCuRDoM67POxVUIVqOOOXwmDwO91THhDF_-twhnxtnTMIWsCNjT3v1vCu8Gz-f_cmhzDivRVY-O_XCDJv9qsFJRaniHMRP0DZDG_HGcsYXZVOUTv37OXgDgUI1l_lVHR.jpg)](https://msmagazine.com/2025/05/06/male-violence-porn-women-manosphere-incel-adolescence/?ref=medusarising.org) ### Tiffany Aching - Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men Series Esmee's favorite YA fantasy series. We meet Tiffany when she's 9 years old and grow up with her into both a level-headed community leader and the Discworld's most powerful witch. Healing for grown women, inspiring for young ones. All of Granny Weatherwax's best lines. ![Book cover of A Hat Full of Sky with a witch's hat outlined by starts.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/05/17477426268455270618735127189855-1.jpg) ### In Our Own Hands A deliberately intergenerational herbal and mycelium conference for women and girls, based in Wisconsin USA, and offering online courses. > Teen Spiral offers unique workshops for teen girls while their parent/guardian attends workshops during the Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference. Teens are also welcome to attend any main conference workshops they find interesting. [In Our Own Hands: Women’s Wellness SeriesDiscover your voice, nourish yourself, and partner with the plants to heal yourself and those around you! Spend time with amazing wise women from around the world as they share their powerful wisdom and knowledge.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/c250b1_d5cc8859f9054dea8eacf00781f10290-mv2.png)mwhc![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/c250b1_1242734b3c144bc991c18cb0e25faf45-mv2.jpg)](https://www.midwestwomensherbal.com/inourownhands?ref=medusarising.org) ### Our Bodies Ourselves This year we lost and elder and wisdom, [Norma Meras Swenson](https://ourbodiesourselves.org/the-latest/remembering-norma-meras-swenson?ref=medusarising.org), who founded this organizaiton in the name of the earliest women's guide to our overall and also sexual health. Now an educational and advocacy organization, a great source of necessary self-knowledge for women and girls. > Many complex and intertwined factors – from genetics to self-care to access to medical care to laws restricting body autonomy – affect people’s health, sexuality, and well-being. Our Bodies Ourselves’s understanding of and perspective on health and sexuality, and the choices people do and don’t have, is deeply rooted in feminism, intersectionality, and reproductive and social justice. [Our Bodies Ourselves | Trusted Health & Reproductive Rights Resource for Women & Gender-Diverse PeopleOur Bodies Ourselves provides trusted, evidence-based accurate information on health, sexuality, and reproductive rights for women and gender-diverse people. Empowering you to make informed choices since 1970.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-180x180.png)Our Bodies Ourselves![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/ourbodiesourselves-seo-default_a6c5141cc54bf13eb3cff9f60a7e5c1b.png)](https://ourbodiesourselves.org/?ref=medusarising.org) ### The Best Friend's Handbook > ***The Best Friend’s Handbook*** provides advice for girls aged 13-16 to support each other with problems such as abusive relationships, family problems and body issues. > > Ali and Jo were concerned about girls and young women, due to reports about high levels of violence, pressure and unhappiness they were hearing and reading about. Jo suggested creating a booklet to activate the power of girl’s friendship so that they could help each other. She asked Ali to use her expertise to write accessible text on how girls can help each other with these problems. [Best Friend’s Handbook – Best friends help each other. We help them do that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-heartbook-270x270.png)Facebook![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/BFHSlide2.1.png)](https://bestfriendshandbook.org.uk/?ref=medusarising.org) ### Rites for Girls We've mentioned Rites for Girls before. That's because we are fans. > Our mission is to change the world – one girl at a time. > Rites for Girls mentors girls right through their adolescence and we train women to facilitate girls’ groups. In Girls Journeying Together groups preteen girls prepare for puberty and learn how to take charge of their emotional, social, and mental well-being. [Rites for Girls - Rites of PassageRites for Girls - Rites of Passage![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/cropped-rfg_favicon-270x270.png)Rites for GirlsKim McCabe![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1-Homepage-Rites-for-Girls.jpg)](https://www.ritesforgirls.com/?ref=medusarising.org) ### A sample of self-defense advice and demonstration **Quick disclaimer:** Medusa Rising accepts no advertizing or other fees from any person, organization, or company. These resources are good things for women and women's movement that we discover or that our readers share with us. All entites shared here are responsible for their own content and liabilities. [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ### The Emergency & Escapism URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-emergency-escapism/ Last updated: 2025-06-10T16:13:29.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/media/2025/05/Voice-250525_164913_thumb.jpg) The Emergency & Escapism | by Esmée 0:00 /973.872792 1× What if escapism is a tactic? One we can use? A couple flows have come together in my head just lately. One came from Matriarchy Threads and Patriarchy Threads over on … Threads ;) and the other from listening to a very middle of the road liberal pod with Jon Stewart and some hip politics pod bros. These are gelling with Starhawk's recent posts on building a welcoming and enduring movement for a livable and feminist future, and with my intuition that moving *from center to margin* is the way forward. I’m also planning a trip for later in the year to see my family in the Old Country and feeling like it’s going to break my heart to be among cousins who still feel so free to make a future rather than rebuild all that the regime is burning down. But, even that is part of the gel in these flows. What Stewart kept landing on was that the way the regime is taking big swings (evil, murderous, but big) at reordering our way of life via a ‘tax reconciliation bill’ shows that big swings are possible. If the US Dems, or the left everywhere, or maybe even women worked to do it, we could take really big chunks out of history too. I mean, the ‘big beautiful bill’ is Project 2025 come to life, and it rolls our social order all the way back to before the [New Deal](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%5FDeal?ref=medusarising.org). It’s a century-scale big swing. ## Caveat, the mob The regime has a secret sauce. The mob. They're even more effective than the militias and whatever the Proud Boys are. The mob are everywhere, and they are very good at doxxing, threatening phone calls, and [SWATting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting?ref=medusarising.org). They are what scares the GOP into compliance even more than Trump or Bondi or Patel. They will call you at 2:11 AM to tell you the names of your children and where they go to college, or your pets, or where your spouse works, what bus they take. Trump created the mob in his first run and over his first presidency. He kept them vibrating with pride and anxiety, with cognitive dissonance and blind faith, and then he finally pointed them at the Capitol on J6 so we could see what he had made. They are still his best un-secret weapon. We do not have a mob, neither the Dems or women. And we may not want one, but we need to reckon with the fact they're there and they're eager. Invitation to chat | Please share widely Cuts to programs for women are dire emergencies. We want to feature women & and women's organizations affected by these cuts and funding shortfalls around the globe and in the US. This issue is getting no press, no attention from Big Podcasts. Let's get the attention vulnerable & suffering women deserve. [Use or Share This Form ](https://forms.gle/PNynhieLmFXuc7ZP7?ref=medusarising.org) [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Happy Pride! URL: https://www.medusarising.org/happy-pride/ Last updated: 2025-06-07T16:13:15.000Z I just want to say that I know Pride Month has become maddeningly complicated, and that the erasure is thick on the ground, but Medusa's Laugh I hope your celebrations in throngs or in quietude you can totally forget about (entitled identities) for a while and enjoy the fact of your thriving! To Medusa Rising's lesbian readers, a solemn nod of acknowledgement and a wide grin of joy for your very being! It has never only been lesbian feminists, but lesbian feminsts have always been a strength in our thought, our creativity, our activism, and our world building. This pride I am grateful for the growing efforts to claim and reclaim women's land – efforts often led by our lesbian sisters. Never only, but always. [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) [Finding Women’s Lands and Lesbian Communities – Southern Lesbian Feminist Activist Herstory Project![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/SLFAHP-Fav-03-03-e1645213457592-300x300.png)July 13, 2022![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/collage-finding-land-OPT.png)](https://slfaherstoryproject.org/finding-womens-lands-and-lesbian-communities/?ref=medusarising.org) It is among women-only, with concentrated time that we each can learn the feeling of expanding all the way into our skin, right up to the surface, in blazing contact with be-ing and becoming, with each other. Many of the intentional women's spaces where we learn our fullness are grounded by lesbian caretakers and lesbian feminist lineage. This is my gratitude. ****Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich,** ****Audre Lorde, Marilyn Frye, Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin,** ****Max Dashu, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker,** ****Ti-Grace Atkinson, Sarah Hoagland, bell hooks,** ****Margaret Sloan-Hunter, Cheryl Clarke, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga** In the names of these elders, with gratitude for the wisdom we find in even their most dire ​disagreements and for the corners of our movement they have anchored, Happy Pride! [Michigan, this summer has some fab events](https://wwtlc.org/summer/?ref=medusarising.org). [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) ### The Newest, Shiniest Kindness: A Review of (Un)kind | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-newest-shiniest-kindness-a-review-of-un-kind-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-06-05T21:41:39.000Z **Victoria Smith, *(Un)kind: How ‘Be Kind’ Entrenches Sexism* (Fleet: London, 2025).** **Man, wrote Beauvoir in* The Second Sex**, ‘is the Subject; he is the Absolute’. Woman, meanwhile, is the ‘Other’. It is remarkable just how effectively the ‘kind, inclusive’ language argument has been used to bolster this relationship.* (p. 190) I was reading *(Un)kind* during the week in April that the UK Supreme Court handed [For Women Scotland](https://forwomen.scot/20/04/2025/uk-supreme-court-the-judgment/?ref=medusarising.org) their celebrated victory, clarifying the law in favour of sex-based rights and protections. The ensuing tantrums of trans activists and their supporters, with all the usual histrionic threats of violence, and the doubling down on ‘being kind’ by organisations and individuals (including the [Vagina Museum](https://www.instagram.com/p/DIoDDZrOtAS/?hl=en&img%5Findex=1&ref=medusarising.org), [Disability Rights UK](https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/disability-rights-uk-opposes-uk-supreme-court-ruling-%E2%80%98biological-sex%E2%80%99?ref=medusarising.org), and a [‘radical’ anthropologist](https://www.facebook.com/RadicalAnththropologyGroup/posts/pfbid0witCawTFHVdAddEtTTFxVtmyoHzUj89Nf9pS8jGVQutyUxybertCJ42LhgSfK5Fl)), were perfect illustrations of Victoria Smith’s argument that women are deemed ‘unkind’ for simply asserting *the fact that we exist*. The title of this book might confuse or dismay, but Smith is quick to reassure, with her habitual wit, that ‘This is a book about kindness, relationships and creating a society in which everyone’s needs are met’, not ‘a guide to being a total bastard’ (pp. 1-2). *(Un)kind* is an examination of what Smith dubs JustBeKindism—the ‘newest, shiniest understanding of kindness’ (p. 2)—which, despite rainbow sparkles, has a pernicious side. It claims gender-neutrality, yet is awash with gendered expectations. The latest strategy of the never-ending patriarchal backlash, it disallows critical thought and distorts feminist principles whilst disseminating ‘progressive’ mandates that shame many into obedience. As Smith summarises: > *At the heart of JustBeKindism is the demand that women once again embrace passivity, emotional suppression, intense self-monitoring, the erosion of boundaries, self-doubt and the transfer of female-created resources to male people. When women object to this, they are told not that they are unfeminine – an old-fashioned way of enforcing compliance – but that they are unkind.* (p. 8) [Subscribe | Read On | Support](#/portal/signup) Smith asserts that many ‘progressive’ advocates of JustBeKindism ‘declare themselves very much against the idea that women ought to be kinder than men’ (p. 8), as if old-fashioned sexism has been successfully superseded, rather than just obscured. Yet, ‘Old entitlements are subtly reinscribed, not, we are told, because male people have the right to take whatever they want (the conservative position), but because everyone has the right to everything and “rights aren’t pie” (the “progressive” one)’ (p. 7). This is what makes the subject so complex—‘we see a convergence of left and right expectations of women (the same goods and services are being sought, albeit via different routes)’ (p. 25)—so contradictions and incoherences abound. What I find brilliant about Smith is that she is able to wade through and assess all the misogynist dross and bring us some much-needed *sense*, grounded in real feminist principles. The book is structured around the five imposed ‘commandments’ of JustBeKindism—Just Be Pure/Giving/Inclusive/Perfect/Yourself, which explore different aspects of the phenomenon. They include essentialist ideas about women’s ‘true nature,’ sexual consent, trauma and reproductive justice, the phantasmic ‘true self’ versus the embodied ‘relational self,’ and the denial of sexual difference and the gender hierarchy. Recent nominally ‘feminist’ texts are cited throughout, which, worryingly, ‘instruct women – particularly younger women – to ignore feelings of fear, disgust, resentment, anger and desire if such feelings are deemed an obstacle to other people’s self-realisation’ (p. 20). For instance, in protests following the Supreme Court ruling, trans activists vandalised several statues in London, [including that of women’s suffragist Millicent Fawcett](https://archive.md/PTNyc?ref=medusarising.org), and [held placards displaying violent rhetoric](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14629659/Signs-shame-trans-London-march-TERFs.html?ref=medusarising.org). The campaigners of For Women Scotland were also sent [abuse and death threats](https://archive.md/wPJJN?ref=medusarising.org). The new culture of ‘progressive’ kindness would have it that women’s legitimate objections to these displays of other people’s so-called self-realisation is ‘evidence of fragility, privilege, bigotry or even latent far-right tendencies’ (p. 21). Such accusations ‘\[function\] to condition, exploit, shame and/or silence women and girls’ (p. 24), and pressure them to disregard their awareness of risk and boundary violations. Smith’s discussion of other past and present feminist texts provides helpful antidotes to this misinformation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/05/1000004182.jpg) The core of the issue is ‘that women cannot be defined in terms of their own interests, only those of others’ (p. 38), and ‘women’s acts of kindness are instantly coded as “natural” and hence not really kindness at all’ (p. 23). This is a continuation of gendered socialisation that demands that women be selfless, having no needs, desires or boundaries of their own. As the eternal ‘givers’, women are denied subjectivity, and required to contort themselves, emotionally and sexually, to always put others first. When kindness and care work are deemed natural functions that are only to be expected (and no kindness is ever quite enough, nor is care work ever done), women can therefore be punished when these things aren’t endlessly forthcoming, even when what is being demanded is entirely unreasonable. This is a powerful way to ensure women self-police and comply with their marginalisation, shrinking their own needs so that others (usually men) can thrive. While this is nothing new, the justifications for it are: > *The JustBeKindist model reinforces the giver/taker hierarchy by reinventing it as oppressor/oppressed, or privileged/marginalised, without allowing for shifts, reversals and overlaps. It views one set of identities as sacrosanct and untouchable, with other people – who, far from being ‘the privileged’, all too often turn out to be the same givers as before – ordered to make space for them. Instead of seeing us all as porous* to a degree*, JustBeKindism sees one group as impenetrable, another as passive, vacant, existing only to be occupied and used.* (pp. 19-20) As we have seen from the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, the common sense assertion of women’s most basic rights in law are seen as an ‘unkindness’ because they acknowledge the reality of female selfhood and boundaries. Yet the claim that men should be allowed to identify into the category of women is the real unkindness, as it’s an infringement on rights with very real consequences. Throughout the book are pithy insights: that ‘exclusionary’ seems to have replaced ‘man-hater’ as an anti-feminist pejorative (p. 37); and that ‘Feminists butchering an argument about the impact of female socialisation in order to make it more inclusive may in fact be the perfect illustration of female socialisation’ (p. 87). Noteworthy is the ‘kindsplaining’ of ‘Progressive Man’, who gleefully redefines feminist slogans—like *biology is not destiny* or *her body, her choice*, which have specific, contextual meanings—for his own ends, thus ‘conflat\[ing\] the bigot he claims to be fighting with any woman who suggests … that endless accommodation on the part of women is not the solution to everything’ (p. 81-2); And, importantly: > *Any interrogation of our desires ought to start from the position that we need to be able to centre ourselves more. We can only do this, however, in an environment in which male entitlement is challenged rather than treated as something about which nothing can ever be done.* (p. 125) Also present is a great deal of wry humour, because apparently ‘Women have all the fun stuff and none of the existential crises’ (p. 139), which makes what is often eye-rollingly exasperating subject matter very entertaining. Subheadings such as ‘If being a woman is natural, stop telling me how to do it’ (p. 85), ‘Your mum might be a feminist, but feminism is not your mum’ (p. 129) and ‘The stunning bravery of doing whatever you want’ (p. 176) gave me a chuckle, as did the anonymous quote, ‘A male feminist walks into a bar, because it was set so low’ (p. 173). Smith often turns the ‘progressive’ language back on itself, pointing out its absurdity. Of particular value is the discussion of care ethics and the relational self. Contrary to JustBeKindism, which is largely performative and ‘relies on a one-dimensional view of any complex situation’ (p. 162), genuine kindness requires constant negotiation of the messy betweenness of relationships and competing needs. Feminists have long known this, > *prioritis\[ing\] analyses of human interdependency and relational identities, understanding the problem of patriarchy as one of how all human beings relate to one another as opposed to one of how some fixed identities are appreciated more than others … We are not whatever we say we are; we are where we stand in relation to others, whose perspectives will differ.* (p. 255) *(Un)kind* benefits from Smith’s personal admissions that, immersed as a young woman in the ‘raunch feminism’ (p. 104) of the nineties, she had questioned many of the things that ‘serious feminists’ theorised, but that now as ‘a seasoned feminist hag’ (p. 4), she sees much more clearly the problems with the mainstream iteration of feminism and the ‘progressive’ politics it has been subsumed into. This ‘reverse feminism – a kind of anti-feminism’ (p. 205), perpetuates the usual sexist double standard under the rubric of kindness and lack of boundaries, making women the designated caregivers for *everyone*. Feminists, rather than celebrating this as ‘progressive’ or ‘inclusive’, once saw such manoeuvres for the patriarchal deceptions that they are. ![Cover of (Un)Kind by Victoria Smith](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/05/1000004184-1.png) Smith discloses that, ‘one of the reasons for writing this is my own fear of hardening towards that to which we should remain soft and open. When the phrase “just be kind”, or even the word “kindness”, starts to trigger an angry or even fearful response … there is a problem’ (p. 24). That women are waking up to this problem is encouraging. We know there is no ‘invisible hand of kindness \[that\] will sweep down and make sure no one gets left out’ (p. 123). Life is far more complicated than that. By addressing the maddening muddle of JustBeKindism, Smith describes what a woman-centred feminism distinct from ‘progressive’ misrepresentations is, why it exists, and what it wants to achieve—and it ‘is not an anti-kindness movement … It imagines a world beyond that of female givers and male takers’ (pp. 253-4). As Smith states, ‘the feminist who still insists sex matters … disturbs the natural order of things by making other women think they exist and matter as independent beings’ (p. 221-2). We have to keep insisting that we exist, and that we *do* matter, no matter how ‘unkind’ that makes us. [Leave Us A Tip?](https://www.medusarising.org/#/portal/support) --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.instagram.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/??ref=medusarising.org) and you can peruse and purchase her artwork at [Offerings From the Wellspring at Redbubble](https://www.redbubble.com/people/ThereseD/shop?asc=u&ref=account-nav-dropdown). --- [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ### Two Summer Events URL: https://www.medusarising.org/two-summer-events/ Last updated: 2025-06-04T16:13:22.000Z ### **JUNE 18 |** 10AM PST / 6PM London. Medusa Rising has donated **a free year at the Pythia Rate** (all access) to **Red Light Exposé's fundraiser**. Esmée will join RLE (via recorded video) to give away the subscription to a lucky winner and to talk about the future of Medusa Rising. To enter the raffle & donating to RLE visit [red light exposéListen here!![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/rs-w-180-h-180-m)red light exposé![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/Red-20Light-20Expos-C3-A9-20Podcast-20Pitch-20-Website--20-3-.png)](https://redlightexpose.com/?ref=medusarising.org) > **Red Light Exposé** is an international grassroots survivor-led circle which formed in 2023 to combat the growing acceptance and endorsement of “sex work” ideology. > Our mission is to raise awareness of the harms of commercializing sex, and the industries (**prostitution, porn, stripping, BDSM/kink**) that exploit socioeconomically marginalized people, particularly women and girls. ### **July 24 | 1pm Eastern US** All members may join Esmée for a private conversation on Google Meet. You *do not need a Google Account* to join. The meeting *will not be recorded*. If you'd like to sign up now, please do. The topic of this **Gorgon Chat Group** is to *create a Gorgon Posse Playlist* to share with all members while we talk about Medusa Rising's early days. If you like, we can just talk music. Or we can get topical. What are your thoughts on the two series Esmée has written? What are you compliments for the other authors and artists? What are you up to? Got projects and schemes, thoughts and plans? Do you want to pitch an idea and get some thoughts from the group? Do you want to see each other and hang out? What would be the best way to share the playlist with you? Let's play with possiblities. This first private conversation is available to all members. Future conversations will be a perk for subscribing at the Pythia rate. We will have a least 4 conversations in a calendar year, and more as inspiration or needs demand. [Info for Joining the Google Meet on July 24We only need your name and email address to add you to the invitation by email.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/android_192-2.png)Google Docs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/bF6PlTShWjcpUUALV8R6C2bLxIMLTN80AyOflIpei9kuseSDP-ASPWhhRIBuD1IrMFCuiblZBkj9UEY-w1200-h630-p-1)](https://forms.gle/kxNeMiaESTXpCpKs7?ref=medusarising.org) For our sisters & readers in the farther time zones, we will vary the times of these conversations to be as convenient as we can manage. :) --- Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ### Radical Notion Remix | Both Contained and Open URL: https://www.medusarising.org/radical-notion-remix-both-contained-and-open/ Last updated: 2025-06-03T16:13:02.000Z Please enjoy, use, teach, and share this Radical Notion Remix. The embedded image can be downloaded, and the link on the title leads​ to a downloadable PDF of Issue 7 of *THE RADICAL NOTION*: Desire. You can find the full article on page 96\. These remix posts are free and public, designed to spread the word. Part of Medusa Rising's mission is to share the foundational concepts and philsophy of Radical Materialist Feminism far and wide! [ ALT TEXTThe infographic title "Radical Notion Remix: On the Possibility of Penetrable Being" by Jane Clare Jones from ](https://www.canva.com/design/DAGjy7dxdk8/NlIut3g1fI-TYgv4j5-w%5Fg/view?utm%5Fcontent=DAGjy7dxdk8&utm%5Fcampaign=designshare&utm%5Fmedium=embeds&utm%5Fsource=link)[The Radical Notion, Issue 7, Page 96](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-seven-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org), explores the concept of penetrability in relation to gender and the self. It contrasts the patriarchal imagination of the male self as impenetrable, resulting in strict boundaries and a closed-off ideal body, symbolized by a solid brick wall. In contrast, the male self is presented as supposedly solid, separate, and opposed, where penetration is equated with death and corruption. This metaphor frames women's oppression and image in culture not as inherent to them but as cultural saturations based on these projections. The infographic then introduces the idea of an "intertwining logic" that opposes this view, suggesting the interconnectedness and vulnerability inherent in all life. This perspective supports metaphors of the self as relational, emphasizing women's subjectivity and reducing the life-or-death stakes of encounters with others, depicted by interconnected figures. The concept of impermeability is further critiqued for undermining women's personhood and integrity by imagining them as inert, without desire, and damaged by penetration. This is shown through an image of a hand intruding into a brain-like form. The text argues that this perspective shapes heterosexual intercourse as an occupation and frames rape as an attack on a woman's personhood rather than solely her body. The infographic proposes that when we metaphorize being as a process of unfolding within a web of inter-being, our bodies can be understood as allowing life and metabolism. The experience of desire and encounter is rarely possible without this entwining, leading to a "fuzzier logic of both/and," illustrated by intertwined organic forms. Finally, the infographic concludes that in metaphors of permeability, entwining, and unfolding, both selves have access to desire that is not threatening to women's lives and personhood or men's sense of agency when faced with the vulnerability inherent in life-process, relation, and sexuality, visualized by a figure emerging from a root system. --- Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) We accept and read work all year long. Please send pitches or complete work. [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Gorgon Posse videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) ### There's a gap in the MSM and big podcast world where Women's Funding should be URL: https://www.medusarising.org/theres-a-gap-in-the-msm-and-big-podcast-world-where-womens-funding-should-be/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T14:42:58.000Z Me talking to you for about 15 minutes. I really don't know if I'm biting off too much but Jupiter moved into Aries and my Moon lives there and I having a few ideas. Clearly I did this without a script. LOL. But this is serious as anthrax. [At a breaking point: The impact of foreign aid cuts on women’s organizations in humanitarian crises worldwideAs humanitarian crises intensify globally, women’s organizations are being pushed to a breaking point. A March 2025 UN Women survey of 411 women’s organizations across 44 crisis settings found nearly half expect to close within six months due to funding cuts. This publication highlights urgent findings and calls for action to ensure that life-saving services for women and girls remain central to the humanitarian reset amid aid reductions.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-3.ico)UN Women – Headquarters![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/at-a-breaking-point-the-impact-of-foreign-aid-cuts-on-womens-organizations-in-humanitarian-crises-worldwide-en.jpg)](https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/05/at-a-breaking-point-the-impact-of-foreign-aid-cuts-on-womens-organizations-in-humanitarian-crises-worldwide?ref=medusarising.org) ### Necklace of Mouths | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/necklace-of-mouths-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-05-22T16:13:38.000Z Alt Text: Mythic figure of a woman in red on a black background. She a crown or halo of triangles, oval face with eyes closed, her chin and mouth repeat to make a necklace to ner navel. Her body with black circles for breasts and triangle for vulva form another face. **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.instagram.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/?ref=medusarising.org). --- Supporting | Women Create International [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) Share [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003834.jpg)](https://open.spotify.com/show/7bJrrqgPA8YY1xxGWZXHmq?si=41d9b5fb87c847e5&ref=medusarising.org) New podcast for your feminist ears [Portal to Spotify ](https://open.spotify.com/show/7bJrrqgPA8YY1xxGWZXHmq?si=41d9b5fb87c847e5&ref=medusarising.org) ### furies | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/furies-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:49:33.000Z lighting lightless eyes with fury that motion through emotion – anger – arrives teller of troubling truths, revealer of wrongs we’ve been told, we women, not to feel it certainly not to show it so unladylike, so inappropriate but we do feel it who can blame us? we are human, after all wilfully wronged and restrained forced into shapes not our own taught no other way we push our anger down, hold it in feel it thickening in our throats until our voices flee *this is what they want* rage flares within burns our hearts to black and we cannibalise ourselves until all that remains are empty silent shells *they delight at this* what they do not understand – and what we are remembering – is that black is our colour, darkness our home and red blood flows through our chthonic bodies its own bright unlight we endure because life endures (despite hollowness and enforced silence) by virtue of the dark its womblike circumference its still sanctuary and because of that pure, beautiful blackness they do not see when our shells ossify, become armour that protects us as we sprout wide shadowy wings that fly us to freedom then we open our throats and speak truth singing serpent-tongued and winged as we always were for it is our furies that show us the way --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.instagram.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/?ref=medusarising.org). --- Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) **We accept and read work all year long.* **Please send pitches or complete work.* [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Share ### Support for Gazans URL: https://www.medusarising.org/support-for-gazans/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T15:13:58.000Z I was despairing with some feministas about how to get **meaningful support to the people of Gaza**. The answer turned out to be: that's really hard. I know this feels random and unsatisfactory, but as long as there's no big NGOs getting in, as long as Israel lays siege and Hamas keeps giving reason, this is what we can do. Help the people this war is raging over. [Nora Reed is the glass artist](https://bsky.app/profile/nora.zone?ref=medusarising.org) whose been sharing accounts for a long time asking for support for them. ***She's done what looks more effective. Find a family you want to support and share their fundraiser. There’s no other way right now.*** When I asked Nora for recommendations, they offered these accounts. But Nora is sharing families nearly every day. As you know, desperation is the only word for Gaza now. ****If you can, please give. If individuals aren't your thing, at least try these organizations:** [****Women Wage Peace**](https://www.womenwagepeace.org.il/en/?ref=medusarising.org) and [****Waging NonViolence**](https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/02/israeli-palestinian-women-work-together-for-peace/?ref=medusarising.org) ## Accounts: Give & Share [Ahmad Madhoun is on GoFundMe](https://www.gofundme.com/f/dnmxx-save-my-family-from-the-threat-of-genocide-in-gaza-now?attribution%5Fid=sl:a6d1ef76-904e-4094-9e67-2a4db4174845&utm%5Fcampaign=man%5Fsharesheet%5Fdash&utm%5Fmedium=customer&utm%5Fsource=copy%5Flink) and is giving aid beyond his family to their neighbors as he can. [Alaa is on Chuffed ](https://chuffed.org/project/125259-help-me-save-my-family-and-escape-from-gaza-to-eygpt?ref=medusarising.org)with her three girls. They are trying to get to Egypt. As Nora explains, “Alaa met her goal on GoFundMe– and then they pulled the ground out from under her. The GoFundMe was cancelled and the pledges were returned. This is, unfortunately, something that happens to Palestinians on a regular basis; her account is genuine.” [Hala is also on Chuffed](https://chuffed.org/project/130254-help-me-evacuate-my-family-from-gaza-to-egypt?ref=medusarising.org) and advocating for other families with her [account on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/halalolo.bsky.social?ref=medusarising.org). We can't be all succor for all people. But we can be some for some. Only the living can build peace. ### A Poll for You about Us URL: https://www.medusarising.org/a-poll-for-you-about-us/ Last updated: 2025-05-12T17:11:35.000Z Members, please respond by May 16th :) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Holding on Tight | by Susan L Lin URL: https://www.medusarising.org/holding-on-tight-by-susan-l-lin/ Last updated: 2025-05-09T14:18:08.000Z --- **Susan L Lin** is a Taiwanese American storyteller who hails from southeast Texas and holds an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Her novella *GOODBYE TO THE OCEAN* won the 2022 Etchings Press novella prize, and her literary/visual art has appeared in nearly a hundred publications. She loves to dance. Find more at [https://susanllin.com](https://susanllin.com/?ref=medusarising.org). --- Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Share [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) **We accept and read work all year long.* **Please send pitches or complete work.* [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! To contact us email [info@medusarising.org](mailto:info@medusarising.org). Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ### The Complex Choreography of Womanhood | by Susan L Lin URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-complex-choreography-of-womanhood-by-susan-l-lin-2/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T19:01:40.000Z ![This PDF contains excerpts from a poem titled "**The Complex Choreography of Womanhood by Susan L Lin**". * The poem begins by describing observations at the speaker's parents' house, including **impressions of a child's feet**, a **glass music box with a ballerina frozen in arabesque**, and metal wings. * The poem also describes the experience of seeing multiple versions of oneself scattered throughout the house in different locations such as **the kitchen (conjuring meals), the parlor (receiving guests), the hallway (escaping stares), the closet (relishing darkness), and the attic (scouring collections)**. * The poem mentions growing up in a house **surrounded by mirrors**.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003509.png) The Complex Choreography of Womanhood, by Susan L Lin | Medusa Rising, 2025 ### Gorgon Posse with Jane Clare Jones URL: https://www.medusarising.org/medusa-gazes-with-jane-clare-jones/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T19:01:26.000Z Like, and there is just this absolutely bone deep refusal to understand that women are people and they have their own needs and they are allowed to assert their needs. And you are not allowed to have a fucking tantrum when women, you know, have the temerity to act like they believe that they are like whole ass human beings with their own interests. --- Jane Clare Jones Male Entitlement has been throwing a Fascist Tantrum in the US, and an Aggrieved bit of Narcissistic Rage in the UK. Jane Clare Jones sat down with Esmée to talk it through. Jane Clare Jones can be found at [Culture War Blues](https://janeclarejones.com/2025/01/28/culture-war-blues/?ref=medusarising.org) & [The Center for Feminist Thought](https://feminist-thought.org/?ref=medusarising.org). The Executive Orders referred to can be found at [WhiteHouse.gov](http://whitehouse.gov/?ref=medusarising.org) (with a lot of advertising for various corruption schemes) The UK Supreme Court Ruling for For Women Scotland can be found at [https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc\_2024\_0042\_judgment\_aea6c48cee.pdf](https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc%5F2024%5F0042%5Fjudgment%5Faea6c48cee.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) Corra and all members, here's the pod Episode 3. **UPDATE** Argh! Misleading post previews! Here's the Spotify link. [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2SH1vMkav5wcJu5zADyrqn ](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2SH1vMkav5wcJu5zADyrqn?ref=medusarising.org) Everyone Against The Fascists! Yacumama, Naga, Ouroboros, and Pythia members, here's the pod on Medusa Gazes at You Tube. Gazes go public a week after publication for y'all. --- Supporting | Women Create international [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065-1.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) **We accept and read work all year long.* **Please send pitches or complete work.* [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess!! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! Shift the vibe! Share this work far and wide! Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) ### It's Fascism! New Rules! | Part 6 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-part-6/ Last updated: 2025-05-01T16:13:50.000Z [ICYMI | Part 5](https://www.medusarising.org/p/27737640-04b0-431c-91c4-674c6d9555f9/) It's Fascism. New Rules. Part 6 | by Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /3130.287146 1× ## Autonomous Women's Movement+ No, not Plus Everybody!! We don't do *that*. Several existing movements are pulling in good directions: Thrutopia, Anonymous, and #3E. They are long-term, deep intervention movements. Something like #HandsOff actions and #50501 movement are short term, meant to respond to the The Emergency, but not the male supremacy that fuels it. Sure, these movements are also very TQ inclusive. The energy for 'centering' them, however, is lessening. This is good. It means that we can work with integrity. By working in coalition, we can secure the possibility we need and point out where women's movement has already invented wheels. ## #3E and Coalition In a way the three goals of #3E accomplish a great deal of RadMatFem's negative goals (dismantle patriarchy), and leave lots of room for our positive goals (world building). - **End Impunity** – make riches and position no kind of defense for crimes by corporations or persons - Or for crime syndicates like those that run trafficking rings - Or for violent/sexual crimes against women and femicide - **End Oligarchy** – separate money and political speech, tax the ultra-wealthy, negative income tax for the 99%, draw leadership from the people and from subject experts - De-feudalize the family - Democratize elite education - Publically honor manual labor that supports life and economy - Emphasize civic debt and responsibility in education - Councils of Women, other feminist concepts of governance - **End Autogenocide** – shift all systems away from profit by harm, people must not be forced to participate in systems that harm them, people must be empowered to heal and to grow. - Get porn out of ... everything - Get chemical additives out of food - Humanize work and resource allocations - Pay living wages everywhere in the world - Free women from sexual, labor, reproductive, and marriage slavery everywhere - UBI/negative income tax schemes to support autonomy from corporate employment The examples are limitless because the Three E's pretty elegantly encompass a lot of goals. **Taken together #3E means: End Domination Systems and Male Prestige.** You may find fuller definitions at Marsh’s [blog, please do read them](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2025/03/01/the-3e-movement-germany-the-us-and-a-new-book/?ref=medusarising.org). We have lots to do, everywhere. These movements are more and more openly gleeful about the destruction of women and of femicide. The manosphere that helped prime the younger MAGA and other far right loyal ‘bros’ is happy to put them in harm in exchange for a feeling of power. Young men especially don’t understand how much it is an autogenocide ([video, 14:26 onward](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsiOhMdpDQE&ref=medusarising.org)). Being a misery-making man does not attract company, enjoyment, or women. The industry gives ever more intense experiences, as these endorphin-dopamine triggers always must, priming some [young men for ultra-violence](https://apnews.com/article/technology-parenting-terror-islamic-state-police-security-attacks-4888bab2d10502edadf787d419d45b5b?ref=medusarising.org) (content warning). They’re being farmed for their money, for their life energy, for their very ability to be in life with the rest of us. It’s a crystalized form of autogenocide that also leads to sexual assault and murder. Every authoritarian or fascist regime has its methods for normalizing violence, unlearning human empathy or care. Porn, the manosphere, and this ultra-violent content is how that happens now. So, in many ways, participating in resistance to the far right will help us save (some) women. And, we will need to be building autonomous women’s movement all the while. It's BOTH/AND for historical stakes. If we are connecting in the US and globally for the autonomous movement while working with others to get through this time of destruction and churn, then the movement will emerge the stronger and more prepared to build women's worlds. **Am I saying there's a huge lot to do? Yes. Do I realize that women are exhausted? Yes. Do I realize that the movement is under-resourced? Yes. Does history give a shit? No.* ## Smacking the Wall — Historically The Dark Enlightenment (DE) bros have one thing right: the capitalist Western Liberal Democracy has run its course. *It's done*. Yarvin and The Oligarchs see that much, but they want to keep the male default, the isolate godlet, and the extraction of labor/resources/reproductive labor, and the male domination. What they don't understand is how fundamental that model of the human being is to the philosophical and political order they hate so much. The Enlightenment is where that individual, isolated, godlet – AKA The Liberal Subject – was created. Their big change is missing … change. … And it's deliberately cruel and violent. The big change the DE and NRx (Neo-Reactionary) folks want is this: to stop pretending that violence (state, economic, criminal, domestic, sexual) is a bug in the system and elevate the domination ethos to the veneration it deserves. They want 13th century feudal social order, a tightly controlled global economy, and the now available, [more direct, intimate surveillance ability](https://www.ted.com/talks/carole%5Fcadwalladr%5Fthis%5Fis%5Fwhat%5Fa%5Fdigital%5Fcoup%5Flooks%5Flike?ref=medusarising.org) than ever before. Who needs the Sheriff of Nottingham when you have Starlink? The new resistance will have to be even more clever than earlier ones. **It's fascism**. It's as brutal and base in its [delusions of divinity as Camus](https://youtu.be/J8162-fJCH8?ref=medusarising.org) (video) understood it to be. It's the same old concentration of patriarchy with a 21st century refresh. Heather Cox-Richardson, the US historian who has been using US history to respond to the MAGA Era to great effect, feels this end approaching. She is reaching for a renewed political order ([video, from 1:12:24](https://youtu.be/IHnLo20ojRs?si=26BtY3m6nwj-S4Yl&ref=medusarising.org)). In her case, that’s a recommitment to the liberal order, to the ‘center’ in US politics understood as where the Overton Window sat in the late mid-20th century — far, far to the left of where it sits now. This measure of ‘[what feels normal and right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton%5Fwindow?ref=medusarising.org)’ to the majority moves over the political spectrum as the acceptable center of gravity moves as influences motivate it. The Overton Window measures popularity has been moving to the political right for a long time, and political parties have moved with it. It now sits so far right that the ‘center’ is also pretty far right. About 4 months ago, deporting anyone without due process (much less to a gulag in another country), was unthinkable. But this current administration is dragging the US to a place where these summary deportations are ‘acceptable’ and maybe ‘sensible’ – or at least they become ‘sensible’ not to object because it’s too risky. Part of how these unthinkable actions become ‘sensible’ is that they remain facts, they just do keep happening, and intensifying, no matter how loudly people reject and protest them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003694.jpg) Esmée's sense of where political parties or movments sit in the quadrants. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003693.jpg) Overton Window of Policy | Deportations have only 4% support, PEW Poll April 2025 This is how dictatorial/totalitarian oppression works. It's extreme, unthinkable positions, turns them into policy and action only a tiny fraction of people want. It terrifies and bullies the population into compliance. It keeps happening until the people overthrow it. That’s what I meant in earlier posts by a policy or trend becoming more factual. It’s why I think we have to throw everything we have at this — out front and background and support work —*as fast as we can*. What was factual and can be again is what Cox-Richardson observes about the renewal she advocates: - Reform happens when people are thriving: the US 1960s followed on a period of prosperity, but the 1970s saw a deep contraction and in came the Reagan Republicans – MAGA and NRx do not want people to thrive because when people are comfortable they feel expansive about sharing freedom (Now, that reform and progress came in the teeth of intense refusal and violence, but that is always how freedom is won, power is taken not given.) - Declaration of Independence, but for real this time, as most liberals will say, and they’re right partly because that document’s vision is more radical than we have now and opposed to the NRx values of monarchy and obedience. - “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government” - “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” - “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” It’s the appropriate scaffolding because we are fighting a return to monarchy in the form of the Dark Enlightenment and MAGA. Many people will give everything, to the last. They will deserve our solidarity. It's not even a liberal feminist agenda, but working with people who would preserve liberal democracy maintains the conditions in which we can even try to work for a radical materialist feminist liberation of women from every kind of servitude to men's wants and projects. ## Getting Through The Emergency The Accidental Gods and Thrutopia people also feel this end coming. For years they have been exploring alternate systems of meeting needs, organizing work, governance, doing these always with reference to “solving for climate.” In [Transformative Adaptation](https://www.permanentpublications.co.uk/port/transformative-adaptation/?ref=medusarising.org) (TrAd) They begin with a hard, clear sense of the problem’s scale: > *“Civilisational decline – the ending of this civilisation – is inevitable. That future is already here only it’s not evenly distributed, yet ... some parts of the Global South are already experiencing collapse. The extremely hard task is to help each other morph gracefully into a better civilisation as we undergo \[the collapse\].* > *“If we pull this off without collapsing altogether, then we get to keep the best of what we have (including global communications inter-connectivity) while rebuilding community and insuring ourselves against over-dependence on long, uncertain, polluting supply lines. With TrAd-centred ‘glocalisation’ \[localisation that connects globally\], our world can be the best of both worlds! TrAd goes ‘back to the future’ – it returns us to aspects of traditional life that should never have been abandoned, while keeping those features of life today that ought not be lost and that are completely compatible with One Planet Living.* **TrAd has three conceptual pillar**s: 1. **Land**: meaning water, air, and land that we need to live. Also: place, the particular local ecology and our relation in and to it. As much land as possible should be returned to the commons so that it is not separated from the communities living on and guarding it. Land means a relation between and among humans and our cousins (animal, insect, plant, and fungi). 2. **Community**: actual located physical people together, not the ‘community’ of the internet or a demographic cohort with little else in common. And *not* the male default ‘liberal individual.’ It means co-liberation from the suicidal systems of capital and domination. It means the time and gestures of being good neighbors, of being always in a process of knowing and supporting each other. (Here I am clearly inserting some of our RadMatFem language.) In a community, connected to land, we learn the sovereignty and solidarity that indigenous peoples have long lived and that Timothy Snyder names as two of the five forms of freedom (see [Sisterhood / Coalition](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/coalition/) for more). 1. **Transformation**: valuing traditional, age-old wisdom, and not idolizing ‘progress.’ Many left-for-history practices are needed now, and will need adaptation to our present conditions. “The transformation that is needed is … intelligent, deliberate, recognising that we” need to move quickly in our care. Most of this back-to-land, glocal transformation will be led from the ‘bottom-up,’ started by willing and knowledgeable citizens. As with a RadMatFem vision of life, the Thrutopia folks know that “we can only expect people to care about \[these projects\] BY taking care of their fundamental needs—for meaning, connection, food and drink…” If we are not meeting needs, people will turn away because needs allow little negotiation. That’s why far right movements appeal to our needs in their rhetoric to gain power and then undermine our ability to meet our needs by isolating us, making chaos of meaning, and creating poverty and mass precarity so that we are dependent on The Authority for our lives. The process of TrAd is Deep Adaptation, it’s nearly as radical and essential as RadMatFem, and I tend to trust these folks they also understand this other key aspect of change-work: > *We should drop much of what we think we know, including the rash assumption that we KNOW what the future will hold. A humble, precautious, unknowing attitude to the future is exactly what TrAd cultivates. We need to move into an uncertain future in a way that does not presume that we know that the future will be good ... or bad. TrAd protects against the worst – while inviting and seeking to manifest the best. It could enable us to transcend the ‘environmental’ movement – and start to build an eco-logical future.* There is flexibility there. There is room there to bring the best radical and eco-feminist work back to the ecology movements. A trove of resources for Resistance, Rebellion, & Recovery at [REVOLUTION 2025](https://linktr.ee/revolution2025?ref=medusarising.org) US women, find what you need and put it to use. ## Our Manifesto Our manifesto explicitly commits RadMatFem to this resistance, rebellion, and the recovery after. We are clear-eyed about the source of these oppressive systems and the hierarchies that guide them. What I think we need to do, *for now* to get through is ally with groups that trend in our general direction, whether they are explicitly feminist or not. Now, I know this has not gone well for feminists before. Left-political men tend to want to address everything other than the sexism, misogyny, and violence that maintain their social prestige and entitlement. So when I say ‘tend in our general direction,’ I mean are rebelling, have a plan for recovery, and that don’t interfere with feminist principles and respect for women. This is a criterion that will vary regionally and across time. Again, think in terms of coalition, not in terms of permanent commitment. It’s important to walk away if everyone gets free at women’s expense. > *Women who uphold this feminism are opposed to dominance hierarchies that disrupt the generational transmission of our lineages. Women who uphold this feminism resist the mechanisms of domination, the structural oppressions, that exploit and divide women on the basis of sexuality, age, ability, class, race, and global region.* > *We are, therefore, anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-militarist, and anti-imperialist whether overt, covert, economic, or cultural. These orders are all expressions of patriarchy, and as such elaborations of the first oppressive othering: the subjugation of women. That is, as we find women in all nations and communities of the world, we affirm the self-determination and interdependence of all nations and peoples.* > *We see the present historical phase of patriarchy as one that presses women on two sides with varying intensity across nations. On one side is the left/liberal adoption of gender identity politics, and its collaboration with neoliberal economic interests, that erases women as a social and political class and disenfranchises us economically. On the other side is the right/conservative push for a return to (or maintenance of) patriarchal ‘family values’, the male-led traditional family, a rollback of reproductive rights, a shredding of social safety nets that protect mostly women and our children, and attacks on the rights of same-sex couples across racialized groups. This regressive impulse is often combined with the politics of purity of national identity, sometimes coupled with white supremacy and antisemitism, and an even more robust embrace of neoliberal economics. Both are forms of gender conservatism and have the effect of impinging on women’s sense of self and our agency, lessening our safety in the private and civic spheres.* ### Spirals Unfold & Enfold ... Good magic, or witchery, or 'cunning' is the skill of using our intuition, knowledge, and connection to our cousins (other humans, the creatures and aliveness of Earth) to co-operate reciprocally with the emergences of life-force/source/mana/ becoming. To be in the dance of life, literally and for real. Fascists and other patriarchs can't do this. The entire structure of the patriarchal psyche and social order prevents it. Of the constricted masculinities, the fascist is the most tightly bound in his little world of violent control and paranoia. My friend Jane calls this 'the groove,' we can call it 'attunement' or 'pattern recognition.' It's something like what psychology means by 'highly sensitive,' we're noticers, and we have a clear understand of what we need to notice. The trick is to act on the sound, vibe, pattern, weird feeling that something wiggled wrong, or right. We RadMatFems are good at this. The use of several powerful radical feminist frameworks overlapping, and the strange luck of living so far into the radical feminist tradition, gives us a kenning about the spectrum of patriarchy. We can tell when an intensification is coming. If you have followed Jane or THE RADICAL NOTION, you know that we did tell an intensification was coming. Jane call's this the superpower of materialist and structural analysis, "seeing around corners." So, #3E and Anonymous can be options for longer term allies in many kinds of world building work. #OpStopFascism is establishing a MAYDAY camp on the Washington Mall. This post is publishing on May Day, so this camp goes up about now. [Camps on the Mall](https://unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov/2018/06/25/protest-camps-in-d-c-the-poor-peoples-campaign-and-the-bonus-army-marchers/?ref=medusarising.org) do not have a safe track record thanks to reactionary administrations, as we learn from the [Bonus Army camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus%5FArmy?ref=medusarising.org) (1932) and [Resurrection City camp](https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/building-city-hope?ref=medusarising.org) (1968). **So let's all work up some wards for their safety and endurance!!** [Members-only page](https://www.medusarising.org/private-page-katherine-acosta-on-right-wing-collaboration-of-us-feminist-organizations/) on WDI USA and WoLF's far right collaborations. Originally posted in the public Facebook group Actual Gender Critical Left. Medusa Rising and I will never tell our sisters & readers not to work with WoLF, WDI-USA, or FiST. Even they are drifting rightward to my great sadness. You are all free beings, as I am a free being. I will tell you that WoLF and WDI have ***never*** worked with left/liberal women's or feminist organizations and do not support the Equal Rights Amendment (see my [Long Read on the ERA](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-five-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org) in TRN on this choice.) --- *Do magic! Change the logarithm! Shift the vibe! Share this work far and wide!* Share Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) **Add your voice to this Gorgon chorus?* [Contribute Your Brilliance, Goddess! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ### It's Fascism. New Rules. | Part 5 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-part-5/ Last updated: 2025-04-29T16:13:57.000Z [ICYMI | Part 4](https://www.medusarising.org/p/7b0a36f4-ca30-45b2-8c1d-419288aa0870/) Its Fascism New Rules Part 5 | Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /1042.309042 1× **Late Addition**: This Really Is An Information War. Yes, there really is a tight little cabal. As male and rich as they are, they can be beaten. [**The Chat Groups that Changed America**](https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-that-changed-america?ref=medusarising.org) **are coming for us all**. Heather Marsh's work, in this and the last post (whew!), includes strategies for beating them.[**Visit Binding Chaos**](https://youtube.com/@bindingchaos?si=joiYjddInHwB1s0T&ref=medusarising.org) **on YouTube**. Starhawk, our beloved elder, has kept with the times. She's got tactics too. **Disrupt. Redirect.** [**Be an Information Guerrière**](https://starhawk.substack.com/p/misinformation-and-info-guerrillas)**!!** **\*.ﾟ+ヽ(○･▽･○)ﾉﾞ +.ﾟ\*☆ ....OK....To....The....Post.... ⌒(＊＾∇゜)v** --- I did not want this series to go on, y'all. But, I need to tell you why you can trust this Heather Marsh I keep referring to. *She's rad. For real.* And she writes an easy to digest and apply version of social/critical theory in brilliant, short books. Her emphasis is on Doing Real Change. Whether you live in the US of The Emergency or not, Marsh’s methods are world building RadMatFems can emphasize in our work. Like I said, we’re already doing it!!! Also, the group [Red, Wine & Blue](https://redwine.blue/who-we-are/?ref=medusarising.org) has 700,000 members, women, working to stop these assholes in the US. They have their sites on the whole of [Project 2025](https://redwine.blue/priorities/?ref=medusarising.org), but also have focused priorities for the near term. In addition to Indivisible, Move On, and others. For now, I think connecting with already big (if ‘merely’ liberal) movement is vital. In the US. We’re in deep shit here. (In the video below: Trump to Bukele: "*Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough.*" @atrupar on X) > Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." [pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e](https://t.co/o20thGNK9e?ref=medusarising.org) > > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) [April 14, 2025](https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1911824313553928513?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=medusarising.org) Working together means we don't have to reinvent an autonomous women's movement *and then* start building a world. It means we can be building *while* we re-establish autonomous women's movement *while* resisting/recovering in coalition with #3E and others to throw these oligo-patri-fascists into the shining sea. We simply do not have time to take these steps sequentially. We can do RadMatFem stimergically in these movements. It doesn’t matter where you live, sisters & readers. If the far right is not foreclosing your future, the climate crisis is. We will have to take these actions in tandem, in a non-linear, and emergent way. What I'm excited about is: Marsh's way of doing mass movement comports with RadMatFem, and her theory of a healthy society does too. So, I'm going to give you some sense of her [*Stigmergy*: *How to Build a Mass Movement*](https://www.patreon.com/BindingChaos/shop/how-to-create-mass-movement-1351555?ref=medusarising.org) (David M gives [a good summary in this video](https://youtu.be/cx057bk%5FZX4?si=vEGVQLHDkLa%5F8ptF&ref=medusarising.org)) and ask that you go get familiar with her work. The women of this newsletter and the women we're connected to can be activated in very meaningful ways without trying to Take On All Of History All At Once by ourselves. I can tell from those who've shared their country location with us on sign-up: we are global in reach if still few in number. Mass movement means worldwide and tailored to each place. So, in this post, I'm going to show why we can take up Heather Marsh's insights and methods, and much of her lingo too. Like RadMatFems do, stigmergy (stig-mer-gy) works in a non-hierarchical way, following gestures, signs left in the environment/discourse, and moving along them in tandem. I call this ‘hunting as a pack’ at Medusa Rising. We don't all do the same thing, but we do all work to intuit what the most effective actions will be in this moment. Stigmergy also works by Verbs instead of Nouns. Movement means move, make. Building a non-profit creates a noun, a property. Sharing posts and information, best practices, and leaving signs for others to follow creates verbs, actions. Verbs are where the feminist energy is rather than the concretion and defensiveness of ‘patriarchal’ nouns ([see this early post](https://www.medusarising.org/flow-unfolding-feminism-is-a-project-about-the-future) for more on that). It's not a movement, it's a way to do movement. ## **RadFem Adjacent / We Are Already Doing It** Heather Marsh is the reason Anonymous became an anti-trafficking hacker collective and ran #OpDeathEaters. Marsh discusses this Stigmergy along with the many other Ops and movements she's been involved in. She’s basically a roving justice movement catalyst. She knows the value of materially accurate language, arguing against third-wave-type pushback on her explicit naming of rape slavery, baby production slavery, and child abuse media. The saboteurs (her word, not mine) wanted the more diffuse ‘sex trafficking, bride trafficking, and child pornography.’ Keeping a movement in the verb-space makes sabotaging it (with language, with what-aboutism, with decoys) so much harder. **Example? Women's Liberation**. She writes: > *Women's liberation is a perfect stigmergic goal. The liberation of women includes everything related to liberating women and nothing not related… Actions under the idea of women's liberation fought for women's emancipation through the right to divorce, the ability to survive outside of marriage slavery, birth control and payment for domestic labour.* Speaking of the third wave-inclusive feminism Marsh agrees with us that: > *Without such a specific goal, late feminism has become an organization and *an identity* \[!! ah-ha, hi rad fem!!\]. It fundraises, organizes events and sells books and merchandise, but it has no goals that anyone has been able to agree on. It has been used as *an umbrella for many other forms of activism*, but it is easily confused and divided by all of them.* Comporting with RadMatFem's insistence that feminism is for and about and by women, she describes the reason Medusa Rising has carried on from her origins in the pages of THE RADICAL NOTION: > *Imagine if feminism meant supporting specific clear and actionable goals, including the liberation of women. No one in the liberation movement would be arguing that* Feminism means a woman's right to choose*! Or call people* Western Feminists *for fighting against the Taliban or Iranian regime. Chants such as* My feminism includes \[anything\]*, or,* The most important challenge for feminism is getting rid of misandry*, or any focus on unrelated causes would be gone. It is clear that the … liberation of women does not include women's right to choose oppression and slavery, and does not include any other cause either, however worthy or compatible. It does include every instance where any women are held in servitude … That goal was so clean and simple and easily understood it was well on its way to achieving its aim — which is why it had to be changed by its saboteurs.* Wild cheering from me!!! Marsh wants movements about ideas and goals, not about personalities and loyalties. When movement is about ideas and goals, “No one needs permission” and “Collaboration is fluid and temporary,” converging on “specific tasks as needed” and dispersing when that contribution is complete. (See the series on [Sisterhood / Coalition](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/coalition/)). The originator of an idea/goal might work on it for years with ever shifting groups as needed. “What is essential is that they leave the idea completely open for anyone else to pick up and contribute with no further direction.” [The US occupationThis newsletter is a three parter. First a quick note to say, congratulations to the US!! Your turnout on the 5th was everything the rest of us watching outside were waiting for. I’m very prou…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/webclip.png)Heather MarshGoodreads![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/1.jpg)](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2025/04/08/the-us-occupation/?ref=medusarising.org) Bookmark leads to Heather Marsh's Blog & it's cool have the new Anonymous poster matches our colors :) Stigmergy leaves everyone autonomy over their own work and in the areas where they have strengths or want to learn, respecting sovereignty as a relation. It works like a murmuration, or jazz, everyone is free to contribute, suggest a new idea, and if that idea is taken up then it grows. “Radically innovative ideas almost never receive instant mainstream acceptance, so leaving control to group consensus cripples innovation.” Everyone should try their idea, and if as it proves attractive it will also become accepted. Take action, let those who follow follow. This emergent, fluid way of working makes cooptation and sabotage much more difficult for either established power or groups that feel competition with your group/idea/goal. ## **Welcome New Women, Leave Signs, Show Actions** Wherever we are doing movement, let's be welcoming. Grown women and young women are discovering the clarity and power radical feminism and RadMatFem every day. Let's be answering questions, offering gentle guidance, and sharing resources galore. As socialist, radical, separatist, anarcha, and old school intersectional feminists; as respectful descendants of black, lesbian, abolitionist, and indigenous feminist lineages — we have room for a lot of women. When we’re doing stigmergy instead of purity we can build worlds together, we can celebrate and hold each other up with no sense that we're ‘costing’ ourselves any thing at all. That, that will create power. People join listless and reactionary movements built around identities because they seek belonging and meaning. Let's make sure we're presenting that, making that, so that we don't lose anymore women to cooptation by left or right gender ideologists, or to pretend women's rights campaigners who support Trump and lament having to employ pregnant women. The points I'm making here apply to US women rather urgently right now, but work in all our international contexts. **We have to point the way to the circle to dance. And we have to amplify each other like our lives depend it!** Marsh is smart about this. Practical. The constant slog in the information spaces is worth it, she says. These lights we leave on and tend to get seen: > **Refuse to listen to fear**, uncertainty, doubt, character assassination, and uncredible sources. > **Do not cede platforms**. Being shamed off of major corporate platforms is akin to not driving on a main road because you’re trying to overthrow the government. Take all the roads and flood them with your message. > **Use the algorithms**. Algorithms can be used to censor movements, but they can also be gamed to amplify them. Whatever the algorithm like to promote … can but used as a decoy to get other messages amplified. In the face of bad ideas, harm, and disinformation, give no retreat and no quarter. As I say to the other gorgons here, we don't pick fights, but we’re in one, we go all in and win. And lastly: > **Plant your flag to the far reaches of your goal**. You will never attain anything more than you strive for. If your goals are truly ‘unrealistic’ for a time, they will at least make progress towards your goal look comparatively realistic. As I've been saying in this series, we have to have a dream at least as big as the MAGA-NRx-Broligarch-Dark Enlightenment dream of a globe of AI managed surveillance serfdom of assigned labor ruled over by an elite class of Techno Monarchists. And our dream is a world where women and girls live in a healthful, relaxed confidence in their physical integrity and intellectual ambitions. Our dream is a world where the rape slavers of the world, the violent men, they are imprisoned as easily as they are let off of charges now. **Building on the margins, building in order to NOT repeat the structures we live in now, that is the key to making new worlds.** For movements to last, and succeed, they usually have: > *to replace those in power with themselves. You can attempt to influence voting, policy, public opinion or industry, but the most effective action is to shut them down and replace them with something better. Don't protest institutions, replace them … Replace them. Bankrupt them. Imprison them. If they are truly criminal and corrupt, those are the only reasonable goals. Why would you leave criminals in power and beg them to obey the law?* If we want a council of grandmothers, or council of women to replace the system we have, let's make one. Let's show the world what we would do with it. We can bring these principles to any group we work with to stop the fascist destruction of the US or to build away from the patriarchal institutions that harm us. We can add to them what they can accept and take from them what we need to keep dreaming our big dream. ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀) ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ In case you haven't read this yet, please do. It is a both true and elegant. [The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra TaylorThe governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-512.png)The GuardianNaomi Klein![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/3000.jpg)](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk?fbclid=IwY2xjawJqSA9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsf%5Fg4TuJqQMdcLV4NSlX-U57kIoW%5FQvdMACtA1YmCGy3xvFc6oSh9w63DTG%5Faem%5FW8Cp3Z5ssOYfaq9hrecuig&ref=medusarising.org) --- Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.womencreateinternational.com/?ref=medusarising.org) Share [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ## ### It's Fascism. New Rules. | Feminist Motivations |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-feminist-motivations-by-esmee-streachailt/ Last updated: 2025-04-26T16:13:06.000Z **Medusa Rising has four reasons** for [the series on fascism and its many recommendations](https://www.medusarising.org/tag/the-emergency/) for women of the world and the US in particular: > I am pretty fucking terrified for the fate my nation and the vulnerable people in it. > Isolating movement for women from the larger struggle for freedom in the US (or anywhere) will mean disempowerment at this time, maybe for a long time. > Authoritarian regimes are a next level of hell for women who refuse complicity and compliance. > The Radical Notion collective worked hard to warn feminist and GC advocates of the dangers the right poses, that the signs were there for a much more intense crack-down on women than had been experienced recently. ## **And a fifth: Women are perfectly underestimated at this time.** ### [Gender Wars Are an Early Warning Sign for Authoritarianism](https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/11/gender-wars-are-an-early-warning-sign-for-authoritarianism.html?ref=medusarising.org) – RAND think tank > “Across the world, women have, and are, playing incredible roles as bulwarks against the rise of authoritarianism. Moldovan President Maia Sandu is standing up to a tsunami of Russian disinformation. In Poland, women played a critical role in the effort to oust the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party. In Hong Kong, women (PDF) continue to be the practical and normative face of resistance to Chinese authoritarian rule. > These are the freedom fighters of the 21st century. And yet, the U.S. national security community tends to view women's issues as a domestic concern, frivolous, or irrelevant to “hard” security matters.” Seems worthy of sharing. Women's networks could just be the way to a future worth living and passing on. We're up against a regime that is [withdrawing from connection with the world](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/us/politics/trump-state-department-overhaul.html?ref=medusarising.org) (*other than extractive*), that is gaslighting its own populace and seeking greater power to control it through the whims of power. Authoritarianism is what abuse looks like in public. ### [Women in Authoritarian Regimes](https://www.cmi.no/resources/223-women-in-authoritarian-regimes?ref=medusarising.org) – Chr. Michelsen Institute > Regimes take many approaches to women's representation in political leadership, and that presence may or may not correlate to over-all liberties for women. ### [Why empowered women are authoritarianism’s targets—and how they can be its undoing](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policycast/why-empowered-women-are-authoritarianisms-targets-and-how-they-can-be?ref=medusarising.org) – Harvard Kennedy School of Government > The hard-won rights women have attained over the past century … have … increasingly become the target of authoritarian leaders and regimes looking to displace democracy with hierarchies controlled by male elites and to re-confine women in traditional roles as wives, mothers, and caregivers. ### [How Autocrats Weaponize Women's Rights](https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-autocrats-weaponize-womens-rights/?ref=medusarising.org) – Journal of Democracy > … “autocratic gender-washing” to shed light on why authoritarian states adopt gender-equality reforms. Autocratic gender-washing occurs when autocrats take credit for advances in gender equality in order to turn attention away from persistent nondemocratic practices, such as violations of electoral integrity and human rights. ### [Are Authoritarian Regimes Backtracking Women’s Rights?](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/women-rule/2025/03/14/are-authoritarian-regimes-backtracking-womens-rights-00230574?ref=medusarising.org) – Politico > In 2024, nearly a quarter of governments worldwide reported a backlash on women’s rights… “We are witnessing the mainstreaming of chauvinism and misogyny,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres [said in a statement](https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/speech/2025/03/un-secretary-generals-remarks-at-the-international-womens-day-event-2025?ref=medusarising.org). “As we see in every corner of the world, from pushback to rollback, women’s rights are under attack.” ### **Over 72% of the world live under authoritarian/autocratic regimes.** Now it’s here for the women of the US. Our Justice Department has closed the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) because it provides federal leadership developing the national capacity to reduce violence against women and administer justice for and strengthen services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Yesterday, the American Bar Association canceled a webinar on trauma-informed representation moments before it was to start, stating that “effective immediately, all of our grants with the Office on Violence against Women have been terminated. The Department of Justice has concluded that these grants no longer effectuate the Agency priorities.” This will affect services, transitional housing, training for lawyers and police, etc., [according to an article in Roll Call](https://rollcall.com/2025/04/07/nonprofits-in-limbo-as-doj-deletes-domestic-violence-grant-notice/?ref=medusarising.org) (which covers Congress and the agencies). The OVW granted a total[ of $633,444,382 in 2023](https://www.justice.gov/ovw/awards/fy-2023-ovw-grant-awards-by-state?ref=medusarising.org). Pocket change in the scope of federal monies. The page showing grants for 2025 is now blank. It will be impossible for many services to make of this loss. Not all women's/feminist organizations in the US will advise their members of possible responses to this rapid descent and dismemberment of the liberal order in the US and the world since WW2. While the broader movements are cooperating (MoveOn, Indivisible, 50501, Anonymous) to build resistance and give courage to both the populace and leadership, the more renowned feminist organizations are not being so flexible. NOW’s blog hasn't updated since December 2024\. [https://now.org/say-it-sister/](https://now.org/say-it-sister/?ref=medusarising.org) Equally, FiST does not seem to have yet gathered a response to the present moment. [https://feministstruggle.org/action-alerts/](https://feministstruggle.org/action-alerts/?ref=medusarising.org) WDI-USA has no news to share even touching on harms intensifying under the US administration. [https://womensdeclarationusa.com/blog/](https://womensdeclarationusa.com/blog/?ref=medusarising.org) WoLF offers an article on Sudan in 2024, on gender as social structure (no kidding) Feb of 2025 . [https://womensliberationfront.org/wolf-tracks](https://womensliberationfront.org/wolf-tracks?ref=medusarising.org) *Ms Magazine*'s news section is doing better. [https://msmagazine.com/category/news/](https://msmagazine.com/category/news/?ref=medusarising.org) Feminist Majority is going direct at the Trump regime. [https://feminist.org/news/](https://feminist.org/news/?ref=medusarising.org) The Liberals – *Ms* and Feminist Majority Foundation – are reporting on or challenging the US administration's threat to women at home and in the world. That's why there's three more posts in this series unfolding the ways and means for RadMatFem women to ally with short and long term movements. Feminists, especially radical feminists, must be in the conversations seeking a way through to a more feminist world while we connect more deeply across resistance movements. Minoritized women in the US and the 72% of the world living in these regimes know the habits and techniques of the civic abuse authoritarians impose on their people. Authoritarianism is what abuse looks like in public. Solidarity is what love looks like in public. Resist, Rebel, & RECOVER. --- Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003421.webp)](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) **Dedicate this post to a woman you admire,* **nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin's Offering ](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! Shift the vibe! Share this work far and wide! Share ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003065.png)](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) **Add your voice to this Gorgon chorus?* [Contribute your brilliance, goddess! ](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) ## ### It's Fascism. New Rules. | Part 4 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-part-4/ Last updated: 2025-04-27T13:01:07.000Z [ICYMI | Part 3](https://www.medusarising.org/p/752a6afc-fadc-4d6d-8b77-7948e4b0f53a/) It's Fascism. New Rules. Part 4 | by Esmee Streachailt 0:00 /1702.928063 1× On one hand I am massively releived that the mobilization needed in the US against this regime is gaining energy and force. On the other hand, I find just nice that so many groups are beginning to move against this regime because it's not clear what they want other than 'those guys out.' That's fair, the chaos and damage has been remarkable, so this is a great start taking on a huge historical demand. Clawing a republic back from fascism is one of the heaviest lifts. I see the shape the tariffs are meant to make, the forms the government cuts are designed to encase us in, the damage and slow deaths that the ultra-rich are willing to let run their course to clear us our of their way. You smell it. I smell it: the kindling in the pyres is already burning. **Everything is impossible ... until it isn't.** The mainstream is bent on putting the US back together in its old shape, and that's vitally necessary, but it will fail to meet the deeper needs of the moment for women in a femicidial rape culture, for general social progress, policy clarity (like immigration left unaddress for 20 years), and creating ecological viability for our Earth. The regime has already broken quite a lot of fundamental institutions & functions, norms & values, and social contracts at home & globally. By the time this post drops, we will be nearly 3 weeks into the tariff economy. I have no idea how badly, but the geopolitical fracturing will be intense. That will make it harder for radfems and RadMatFems to collaborate and build coalition internationally with US feminists. We USian feminists are likely to find ourselves isolated along with this nation as the world moves to contain The Emergency — as they well should! But to overcome All That, USians need a clearer focus on a goal beyond the removal of this regime. As I have been saying, *we need a dream as least as big as the regime's if we want to beat them in the struggle for our world*. Their dream is a shiny, space age, 13th century Europe. My dream is a Hyper-Lithic gylany (a matriarchy as many use the term now). But, I know we're all (all, not just feminists) still reeling with the traumas of covid, 2008 and 2020 economic implosions, the already intense and now insane levels of churn in our worlds, and from the constant background radiation of sexualized male/colonialist violence. A FeminaFuturism may be too tall a demand now, but who knows. If things get choppy enough, there could be room to ... run for it. We will see. ### Meanwhile, What To Do? ​ ​The good news is that we're already doing it! SPREAD THESE IDEAS FROM THIS WEBSITE, for one thing. [SHARE THE MANIFESTO](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/) far and wide. Share it with your stories of why you find it moving, or how something in your life connects to one of its claims or credos. It turns out that in Heather Marsh's view (and Marsh's is the anti-Curtis Yarvin, a living rebuke to the Dark Enlightenment), Medusa Rising is behaving in the world-building way endorsed by one of the deepest thinkers of mass movements and ends to oppression of our era. Round of applause for ourselves!! ＼(^o^)／ Most people end up collaborating with power. They just do. They're are either not brave, not imaginative, not integrated enough, *or* they are caring for vulnerable family and can't afford to rock the boat, *or* they are themany, many more people who are too vulnerable to do anything else. For we would be rebels, our work is show them what bravery looks like and create flow-ways that help the timid or vulnerable find their way through to more courage and agency. When I said that RadMatFem is a kind of insurgency and should expect to be treated like one, I was serious. So. If you're in the US, connect with #*HandsOff* actions through Indivisible, or throw in with the #*50501* &/ *#3E* movements if they suit you. You may be ready to follow the Anonymous advice: *Stop watching the news, become the news*. — Less confrontational? Food banks and shelters need donations. Home-bound elderly need meals and company. Funding for these programs (were never sufficient) have been stopped. Parents with little kids want to go to the protest? Babysit for them so they can go. It sounds old fashioned, but schools-churches-civic centers-community associations (like in my case the or the Irish Network DC) often have outreach and other support project you can plug into. Hang out with *Quakers*. They've been there for every revolutionary moment in our history and they still are. — Use your wild and precious life. There's a way to use who you naturally are to support the *resistance and recovery*. ​Just shape your excertions a more deliberately in support of ... well, the duties *we owe each other as citizens and cousins in this Earth*. Want to keep your efforts inside the feminist/radfem ecosystem? Great! I want to double down on this too, it's just that we have shake these malevolent, rapacious, psychopathic dandies off our collective backs if we're to have any chance for women's liberation. As I'm reading the [Binding Chaos series and easing into the #3E Movement](https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3ljegimt5ek2l?ref=medusarising.org), I am coming more and more to admire Heather Marsh and her collaborators at Anonymous and other groups. *#3E* is what I think RadMatFem would best do now because this movement has the best chance to connect us to radfems all over the world. It is an international movment. It is not specifically feminist, but we can connect, collaborate, and modify as we need. #3E stands for: *End Impuntiy, End Oligarchy, End Auto-genocide*. This [Anonymous Central thread on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3ljecivpdfs2l?ref=medusarising.org) explains these concepts. Their methods are very friendly to radical and anarcha- feminists, they're nodal, connected, emergent, not top-down. Or, End Fascism. Let's not let anyone have impunity against their crimes or the damage they do. Let's not have the oligarchy on steroids that is the NeoReactionary child of neoliberalism ([see Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/p/605ce485-a6e1-4ea4-8d5d-5cea7aa28fd1/)). Let's not have the autogenocide of being made to work against our own interests & well-being in extractive economies, climate chaos, and accelerationism. Of being made to live into a hopeless and deadening future. Other than the weather and plate techtonics we squishy little humans are the most powerful force Gaia ever evolved. **We have choices**. One of those choices is to live into the joy of right relation with Gaia and our breathing cousins across species, into rootedness that sparks growth reciprocal with our ecology and each other. One of those choices (oligarchs will make for us if we let them) is to live in [techno-feudal city states](https://youtu.be/Jiju%5Fky55EI?si=KHTGcWFCILnuzMQj&ref=medusarising.org) (video). Clearly, just no. ![The words Just No in red and white on a field of blue. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003379-1-1.png) I think, and binding chaos offers techniques for how to build in the wake of (however much disaster flows over the bridge during) The Emergency. Marsh has synthesized a good deal more than feminist analysis, but her ideas for building another world strike me as radical, feminist, and, frankly, *ancestral*.\* Marsh's insight is simple, "Culture changes when a small group of people take joy in a different way to live and other people copy." Those shows of joy in our rebellion and building that make a new way of life enticing might be small like enjoying the cuisines of other nations and peoples, an 'exosocial' act in Marsh's terminology. Once upon a time in the Midwest there was almost no garlic in meals at all. Or a joy demo might be big like learning to let our human qualities flow as needed without pathologizing them as genders. I need to be clear, Marsh is thinking far beyond the forms of governance and social organization that we have experienced as liberal democracies. And when I say we need to turn our collective othered backs on the center and go build some new worlds on the margins, she is thinking about how that can look and feel and be guided by what is good for us. Liberal democratic systems were built by and for a white-hetero-male supremacist Enlightenment that grew on the back of a global genocidal colonialism, and I think we have now run smack up against all its limitations. "*The system doesn't work for most poeple"* is finally no longer controversial or snowflakey liberal 'centering' andis a short-hand for that insight: only about 7000 on Earth are not wholly and completely fucked over the next century. The energies of racism, class oppression, homomisia, and misogyny built into the foundations of liberal democracies at their inception has never been shaken off ... and can't be. A systemic problem is only changed by changing the system, and just-maybe if we are very forceful and have excellent timing, we can use The Emergency as a portal to get to those changes. (Like in the case of SA/MVAWG, you change that structural problem by putting lots and lots more perps in jail for long long times, you change the weight on Justice's scales — in fact, you change what Justice means.) ### What Are We Really Figthing? ... Nihilists. Culture/systems can also change when fascists impose cultural change from above, against law and by ripping up any social contract, creating a collapse in the agency of the people (see North Korea for the most complete contemporary example). Over at the YouTube I have a little video of[ me reading excerpts from Albert Camus's *The Rebel*](https://youtu.be/J8162-fJCH8?ref=medusarising.org) (30 min, this video is private & exclusive to our little community). The parallels between the early 20th century fash and the 21st century redux are gongingly clear. Mussolini imagined a total technological authoritarianism — and here we are having fed the logarithms these NRx and broligarchs will use as the boot to lay to our necks. That is how autogenocide works: we become the tool of our own breaking. The fact he calls this type of man a "psychopathic dandy" (or dandy psychopaths??) is precious. It's good reason not to collapse. *Psychopathic Dandys* adhere to the toxic and unbalanced aspects of a pathological masculinity. RadMatFems know *all* *about* that guy. What you'll see as I read in the video is that while many say the Existentialists are nihilists, I am here to tell you that's a lie told to keep you from this truth: *The Existentialists are the antidote to nihilism*, especially the nihilism that drives the fascist soul to swallow the world in its drive toward a totality it imagines will vivify it. And if you don't want to watch me read and riff on Camus, you can watch Viggo Mortensen read Camus's talk explaining the predicament we are about to experience: *how do we re-invent a sense of meaning in the wake of continent-wide and epoch-ending insatiable violence not only to bodies and lives but meant to collapse the souls of the living*? [He reads it on 28 March 2016, 70 years after Camus first delivered "The Crisis of Humanity" in the same theatre on 28 March 1946](https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3ljegimt5ek2l?ref=medusarising.org). How these dates echo now. **Don't collapse. Don't comply. Don't collaborate with power.** These are not a causal chain. Any one of these can lead to the others or render a person despondent and able only to obey. *We all have to survive this, and none of us will be cleanly virtuous when it's done*, but give either nothing or nothing more than will get us to the next possibility for punching through. Remember, these tech-broligarchs and their real estate con artist patsy run like that: telling the lie that gets you on to the next thing you want to take is as good any truth (Kara Swisher's observation). It's OK to lie to power. *It's necessary to lie to despotic power*. Just know what, when, and how much risk is OK in *your* *particular* life. It might not be much. It might be your very pulsing life. We can't ask more than one has to give, and we mustn't be the cause of collapse for each other. Let's remember our lessons from recent justice work: power weighs on different women differently, more and less heavily, more and less intimately, more and less obviously. To demand more of a woman than she can risk will only hasten her collapse. And everything coming at us from this regime — especially the shattering of our government, laws, and institutions — is meant to make all life more precarious, endangered, difficult, frightening, uncertain, and vulnerable to power's whims. It's not just privatizing the weather service, but making the fire/flood/hurricane/tornado updates you really need cost extra. Exhaustion, hopelessness, & helplessness are the goal. That's why *this regime is acting exactly like an abusive/controlling partner. The techniques work on the intimate and the national scales*. These men and their allies want us frozen. Like I said in Part 3: **Let's do Freedom Making Actions**. Let us deepen our connections so that we *increase each other's security and authenticity*. Let's *loosen some room and cheer for each other's unpredictability, make RadMatFem a kind of laboratory of uprising*. Let's protect and *increase each other's mobility, ours, our racialized sisters, our students*. Let's *keep our factuality and sanity intact: our archives, our news, evidence of resistance action*. Let's *build in our solidarity to meet needs and combine energies to prevent compliance*. These men are showing us they have sadism, but no grit. *Solidarity, embedment, togetherness — these are grit*. --- \*Max Dashu, [emminent feminist historian](https://www.suppressedhistories.net/?ref=medusarising.org) of [women's world history](https://suppressed-histories.teachable.com/?ref=medusarising.org), commented about this on my first video for our YouTube channel. I was explaining Timothy Snyder's concept of sovereignty/authenticity as one of the essential freedoms. Dashu offered this comment on the native/indigenous origins of this concept of self-in-society. You can read that note at [Medusa Rising on YouTube](https://youtube.com/watch?v=SN3-WNc9X2o&lc=UgxwPo73Dxpv2EdIiwJ4AaABAg&si=AKACU951HAONr1C7&ref=medusarising.org). You may also find this concept of sovereign-embedded self in the idea of freedom Graeber and Wengrow trace through pre- and historic world civilizations in *The Dawn of Everything.* They are also following the northern Native American concept of sovereignty. And, not surprisingly to us, it is also vibrating through Gimbutas's theories about the Goddess civilizations, and Raine Eisler's work in *The Chalice and the Blade* and on [parternship societies](https://centerforpartnership.org/?ref=medusarising.org). ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ ( ´・∀・｀) ( ´・∀・｀)ﾉ Supporting | Women Create UK [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003142.jpg)](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) Join a riot of support for women canceled for wrong-think. Writers, painters, potters, dancers, weavers, women of all creative kinds!! London, Streaming, May 30 & 31\. [Tickets and Presenters ](https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/women-create-90262504413?ref=medusarising.org) *Dedicate this post to a woman you admire, nudge us for more like it.* [$2 Eopsin Offering](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) Do magic! Make the algorithm feminist! Shift the vibe! Share this work far and wide! Share *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorus?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:\*:・'°☆ ## [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003150.png)](#/portal/account/plans) Starting at $2 USD per month | Access to Medusa Gazes videos, Commenting & conversation, External reading recommendations, & Special Event invitations. [Explore Onward ](#/portal/account/plans) ### Pour It Out | by A'Ja Lyons URL: https://www.medusarising.org/pour-it-out-by-aja-lyons/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T19:01:14.000Z I wasn’t looking to have a ‘hot girl summer,’ but a freedom one. That Friday night I was out with two girl friends and we were going to dance and drink. I’d never done that when I was twenty-one like I was supposed to. Much of my time lately was spent making up for lost time. Nurturing the baby girl I didn’t get to be. The young lady I didn’t let myself be. The woman I was afraid to let others see for fear of rejection. The shield was lowered as drinks were flowing. We’d started out downtown at Whiskey River where grown folks got their drink on. The thirty and up crowd frequented there and that was Mickey’s taste. She liked her men silverback and rogue as gorillas. Jamie held a lowkey temperament and seemed content to go along with the flow, even when I suggested we walk a few blocks and visit Dangerous Curves, the local “gentlemen's club” where nothing was gentle or formal. This was small-town Iowa, so they kept their bikinis on. Mickey and Jamie had never been, always too afraid to go. It was a mostly male crowd, but a few other ladies dropped in. I rarely saw other women. We dropped dollars on our sisters in solidarity. We’d arrived just as they began to glisten with a layer of sweat and light air of musk. I tipped a few dancers and paid for a private dance with a surprisingly talented youngster who’d chatted me up half the evening. Mickey suggested AJ’s next. When we got there the drinks men didn’t buy her she ordered for us. I’d had enough to drink at Whiskey River. It was already midnight and my Mama Bear instincts began to take over. If Mickey and Jamie were going to keep drinking, I’d have to remain sober. The crowd at AJ’s were all in their twenties. The insecurity I thought therapy eradicated began to slowly creep back in. I questioned if I was too old, if my outfit was too basic, if my hair was styled too plainly, if I was still too fat, if my shoes were too simple – that I didn’t belong. My friends wanted me there. I tried to hold onto that as I held onto them in the crowd of sweaty bodies on the rooftop bar. No one was staring at me. No one cared. It only mattered to me that I was the oldest, darkest skinned, and heaviest in the group. *That stuff only matters in grade school. You’re an adult now.* I was with my sisters dancing to the rhythms correcting the misconceptions that I am any less than a goddess of the sun, or whatever that rapper said. I’m sure that’s what he meant. We walked together to the filthy restroom with a continuously long line for both sexes. I thought that trope was only on screen. Mickey got more free drinks from men and happily shared. I remained sober but happy for her as she reveled in her youth, beauty, and opportunity. I was most impressed with her wisdom to keep sisters close. A skinny twenty-something boy barely older than my teenage son approached me and I suppressed my laughter. He couldn’t hold a conversation and I eventually got back to dancing. I made music requests from a fantastic DJ. Word from Mickey was that the music wasn’t normally so hot and happening at AJ’s. Reggaeton, dancehall, trap - not Iowa standards. Three women, melanin kissed by moonlight, held each other as beats flew through our bodies. My body that I’d formerly seen as broken, damaged as the sloughing of an earthen dam, felt healed by salve as sweat dripped down my legs. My legs, customarily weary from being weighed down by excess carriage. Heart and mind heavy from burdens others laid on me and those I needlessly placed on my own back sinking myself into valleys where I’d nearly drowned. When two a.m. came it was time to return to reality. I drove my friends home and smiled with the memories made that erased a layer of grimy, old regret. Balms for the heart of the little girl inside still wanting to play and be held even as eyes tire and the body wears down when playtime and school days run long. ![Two women in white, in a creek banked with reeds, one leaning back on the other's knees, the other's hand over the resting woman's heart.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Pour-it-Out.jpg) --- **A'Ja Lyons** is [an editor at Medusa Rising](https://www.medusarising.org/about/). Photo by Megan Poole Photography. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### It's Faaascism. New Rules. | Part 3 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-faaascism-new-rules-part-3-2/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T16:13:28.000Z [ICYMI | Part 2](https://www.medusarising.org/p/605ce485-a6e1-4ea4-8d5d-5cea7aa28fd1/) **Note from 15 April 2025:** I'm writing most of these posts well before they publish. I didn't want to just doom-and-gloom us all for weeks, so I was spacing them out with other posts. But, events are speeding up here in the *US.* [*72% of the world already live under authoritarian regimes and systems*](https://www.gu.se/en/news/the-world-is-becoming-increasingly-authoritarian-but-there-is-hope?ref=medusarising.org)*. Knocking the US out significantly weakens the endurance of freedom for the rest.* *\[I agree, the US's 'pragmatism' and 'exceptionalism' have allowed this country to ally with and support many of these abusive governments in our 'national interest.' I am not writing out of concern for the fate of that international order, but for the women who live in all these places in the whole world. USians have a chance to take what is now shattered in the US and build something more humane. The MAGA contingent is a small minority losing popularity every day, the actions of this administration discredit them utterly. There is a chance, only just.\]* The president has ignored a ruling from the Supreme Court regarding a legal resident's deportation to a gulag in El Salvador. It's been found that most of the people sent to CECOT have no criminal record. Even if they did, this is all against our laws. And now the president is laughing with his staff about disappearing 'home-growns,' meaning criminals, too. But this means every person on US soil is in danger of disappearance now. So, I'm going to hurry up and finish these posts with all their links and suggestions for action and get them out to you over the next two weeks. *I'm also going to make all these posts both public and free to access – so share them all over*. It's Fascism New Rules Part 3 | by Esmee Streachailt 0:00 /1386 1× I'll be open with you. I'm scared. But, I'm also ready. Not prepared exactly, but ready. I also need a break from thinking about The Emergency. I need to ***do*** things about it. Meanwhile, I need to write about something else. So, after this series, I'm turning back to my series for THE RADICAL NOTION called RE: Framing Radical Feminism. **It's Hélène Cixous time, y'all!** What can it mean to ‘write the body’ now, to glory in ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’?? And what about Cixous's deep friendship with Derrida (they really were a mutual admiration society)? #### A Quick Fugue on Fear & Seeing Around Corners OK. Deep breath. The reason that you've got rapists in Florida who were in prison in Romania is that they, the Corporate They, plan to do basically a sex trafficking style feudal economy on all of us. *I fear this. I don't know this.* I fear they're planning to crash the value of your apartment building, your house, your land, your farm, your ranch, even most of your businesses, your employers and they're going to let private equity and these billionaires buy them up for pennies on the dollar. Then, as with sex trafficking you can get your passport back, get your house, your business, your land, your cattle, your farm, your trees, your whatever the f\*\*\* you think you own if you work it off. And that's before Trump's 'new baby boom.' I fear this because I keep looking at everything ‘they’ are doing in a long-term frame, at the spiritual vibration of these people, and it feels possible. Sure, the more apollonian minded op-ed/podcast types and the negging internet bros will call this panic, hysteria. But the hysterics were right last time and we are right again. All you have to do is listen to what these men say. I suspect the NRx-Broligarchs (and long-time fascist/authoritarian states) think that AI is going to replace most of the fun/complex/creative/technical work and they will keep the rest for themselves while using the rest of us for manual labor (my metaphor for this is 'picking cabbage'). As much as anything, this fashy ‘great replacement’ includes a design that would stop cultural growth and change. Since feminism, and RadMatFem especially, is a project of culture making, I think our resistance needs to meld with others while insisting on its RadMatFem values and goals. Actual feminists, rad or anarcha or materialist, are backfooted and have been. I can't tell if we'd do best to ally with other more powerful sites of resistance or keep striking out on our own or blend both of those strategies. This is part of why I'm scared. I know we're all going to make choices about this that we think are best. I don't want that to split us again, deeper. MAGA & Co seem to be destroying the very foundations of the systems on which we all live (more and less securely) and convert them into levers to use against us to force us to work for them for the debt we owe. That's the classic patriarchal move: using a human good as a weapon against humans. That debt will be our lives. I have no doubt they will continue intensifying the suffering and oppression of these systems by race, class, sexuality, ability. They sure talk that way. The Middle Ages when things were pretty hard for most people. Life was short, life was brutish and [life was lived entirely at the whim of whoever owned the land you lived on](https://www.wired.com/story/startup-nations-donald-trump-legislation/?ref=medusarising.org) (that link is about the future). #### When We Get Kinetic We're probably going to end up fighting these people for real. Under previous circumstances, most feminists have been anti-war and anti-violence. But making ourselves easy targets of their violence feels deeply unwise now. As one of my feminist friends in the EU said, *I see no reason for any woman in the US to be unarmed now.* She could see what we see: fascism is also rape culture because it's patriarchy crystalized. Arming ourselves is probably a bridge too far for most of our readers, but I implore you to fill any gaps in your understanding of what to do when a peaceful protest converts to a confrontational one, best strategies for civil disobedience (which is not speaking in parks, but taking curated actions that break the law quite intentionally), and in your self-defense skills. ![A dark gray on black version of the US national flag.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003511.jpg) No Surrender / No Quarter US Flag It’s not that I want feminist women in street fights, obviously. It's that there is nothing we can really do to stop it coming to us and the many otherized people we care about. My beloved-departed dad taught me how to punch through a target and to fight dirty because I am little and have to cheat to win. *Get 'em down and keep 'em down*, he would say, *A man's solar plexus is about shoulder height for you, knock the wind out, knock the knee out, and start kicking the soft organs*. That is also what it happens to take to stop a fascist take-over of a country. We, the people, certainly the feminists, are little and we probably will have to cheat. #### *These men and their allies want us frozen* Let's do Freedom Making Actions. That's kinetic. Got a book club, card group, co-op, ladies libation league, volunteers at a public kitchen or food bank, any group of people you've been around long enough to trust? That is a potential site of resistance and rebellion. Mobilizing in how we get through. - Let us deepen our connections so that we *increase each other's security and authenticity*. One way to do that is to seek out women to buy from to meet your needs (food coops, bookstores, pharmacists, herbalists ... ) but also to give to. We may have some of the highest employment rates ever in the US, but we also still have massive weights of poverty and homeless affecting women and children. - Let's *loosen some room and cheer for each other's unpredictability*. We are faced with new forms of old fuckery, and our feminisms may need to adapt and act in unforeseen ways. A doctrinaire rad fem is still a predictable subject. - Let's make RadMatFem a kind of laboratory of uprising. - We will need to *protect and increase each other's mobility*. I am especially concerned for our sisters of color under this regime. Their legal residency, their families, their speech, their ability to work in safety, all are rendered arbitrary and sites of vulnerability to the state violence. These attacks on mobility are attacks on the very foundations of women's agency. Let us, at the very least, be pushing back, maybe physically. Who are you going to hide when they need it? What groups are you attached to with members you trust enough to mobilize with (like trust with your life trust)? Mobilizing is the way through. - Let's share as much good research and reporting as we can find and *keep our factuality and sanity intact*. The voice of the state is increasingly divorced from both law and fact. If you have good archives, find good investigative writers, witness fashy infractions against our citizens and neighbors — put that into the world, please. We will be grateful for every preserved portal to reality. - Let's *build in our solidarity*. If we remember the lessons of (the old kind of strategic) intersectionality, if we build in good faith alliance across communities designed to meet needs, we can ultimately out last The Emergency. We must focus less on identities and more on needs. What needs do we share, what needs can we fulfill for each other, where can my resource become another's source? Identities are ideas and not fit for a fight with forces that mean to limit us to our needs, and then make them more and more precarious in a search for our perfect compliance. Camus was right to call these men "the psychopathic dandies." They have avarice, they have ambition, but they do not have any real grit. *Solidarity is grit*. As I write this in March, I think the hard realities are clear. The MSM is 'illegal,' fulfilling passport applications is optional, and a whole bunch of people are in a prison in El Salvador (disappeared to the land of *los desaparecidos*) for we are not at all sure what and we are not all sure who they are. Criminals? No trial, no way to know. Biden's pardons (of say, former congressional representatives) were invalid and Liz Cheney should expect a knock on her door any night now. Support for libraries, museums, and overseas media promoting democracy are done for. Our national ecology? [Do you remember the 1970s? A lot of it was ... gross](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12186261/tktk-vintage-EPA.html?ref=medusarising.org). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/image.png) [Smog at sunset, Louisville Kentucky, 1973](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1109154%5Fphotos-reveal-how-polluted-the-u-s-was-before-epa-was-founded?ref=medusarising.org) ![Pre-EPA USA](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003542.jpg) Three images of US cities showing heaving smog, and one image of crude oil barrels umped on open ground near a railroad. Add to the chronic stress, isolation, and mirthlessness of life under regimes that can delete you any time they like the literal toxicity of air, water, soil, food. Life gets more brutish and shorter and yet Leviathan rules through his Stasi. By the time this post drops later in April, I am sure it will be unavoidably obvious. **We have a future to rise up and claim.** Not only in the US, but in the US and for the world. The kind of *extractive domination logic* that would raze Yosemite or Yellowstone National Parks for their timber and minerals will also want the forests and minerals everywhere, to dump mine tailings and plastic production chemicals and raw sewage into waterways everywhere it's not already happening. **To rise up and claim our future is to lay claim to well-being for all of life, everywhere, in both word and deed**. I want us all to remember that while 'kinetic' is a military euphemism for active violence, that's not what that word means. It means movement, moving, our bodies, our energy, our loyalties, our creation, our trade and mutual aid, the world's energy. In the witchery language of RadMatFem, *Kinesis and Flow are one*. [When I suggested doing Qigong flows](https://youtu.be/onA4pogScVg?si=AHAcWeCzfKvikaFU&ref=medusarising.org) (this one really wakes up the energy in the fascia), I was being deliberate. The NRx/Opus Dei types might be aiming for is the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe, but that's a kind of freezing of flow, a patriarchal reversal that shatters our embedded relation to both Earth and history. [Even then, the women were not compliant easy maids](https://open.substack.com/pub/oldwitch/p/the-valiant-women-of-toulouse?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=android&r=ga59j). (When Max Dashu is digging up stories of 13th Century French women of the Languedoc killing a Pope's general with a trebuchet, it's time to start thinking about how far we are all prepared, or can be prepared to go.) They are vibing at this level/color/amplitude: > "freedom seeds" is somehow both cringe and incredibly dystopian > > [\[image or embed\]](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:nvfposmpmhegtyvhbs75s3pw/post/3llefp76jwk2w?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) > > — jamelle ([@jamellebouie.net](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:nvfposmpmhegtyvhbs75s3pw?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org)) [March 27, 2025 at 9:27 AM](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:nvfposmpmhegtyvhbs75s3pw/post/3llefp76jwk2w?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) The author of that post was The White House (!!). It's an image of Vancy Pants posed with a military rifle as if to shoot someone while kneeling as if in a firefight while wearing a 'military' costume. The bullets being the 'freedom seeds' in a metaphor so ripe for feminist vivisection I will not insult you with the analysis. And of this sincerely nazi-level sadism, speaking of compliant token women: > Kristi Noem in El Salvador today. > > [\[image or embed\]](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/post/3lld2aziq222g?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) > > — Ron Filipkowski ([@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org)) [March 26, 2025 at 8:30 PM](https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:t6ubj2wlhc34awzcymh3qpur/post/3lld2aziq222g?ref%5Fsrc=embed&ref=medusarising.org) #### It's Nihilism, though Psychopathic Dandies are men who adhere to the toxic and unbalanced aspects of a pathological masculinity. The fash, the incel, the manosphere influencer, men with no sense of containment that allows others to be. RadMatFems know allllll about that guy. Because nihilism is the final drive of the Godlet, the male default, the toxic man. What you'll see as I read in the video (linked below) is that while many say the Existentialists are nihilists, I am here to tell you that's a lie told to keep us from this truth: The Existentialists are the antidote to nihilism, especially the nihilism that drives the fascist soul to swallow the world in its drive toward a totality it imagines will vivify it. And if you don't want to[ watch me read and riff on Camus](https://youtu.be/J8162-fJCH8?ref=medusarising.org), you can watch Viggo Mortensen read Camus's talk explaining the predicament we are about to experience: how do we re-invent a sense of meaning in the wake of continent-wide and epoch-ending insatiable violence not only to bodies and lives but meant to collapse the souls of the living? He reads it on [28 March 2016, 70 years after Camus first delivered "The Crisis of Humanity" in the same theatre on 28 March 1946](https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3ljegimt5ek2l?ref=medusarising.org). How these dates echo now. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003513-1.png) The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Albert Camus *Don't collapse. Don't comply. Don't collaborate.* These are not a causal chain. Any one of these can lead to the others or render a person despondent and able only to obey. We all have to survive this, and none of us will be cleanly virtuous when it's done, but I feel we have to give either nothing or nothing more than will get us to the next possibility for punching through. Remember, these tech-broligarchs and their real estate con artist patsy run like that: tell the lie that gets you on to the next thing you want to take is as good any truth (Kara Swisher's observation). It's OK to lie to power. It's necessary to lie to despotic power. Just know what, when, and how much risk is OK in your particular life. It might not be much. It might be your very pulsing life. We can't ask more than one has to give, and we mustn't be the cause of collapse for each other. ![The woman with the handbag’ statue (1985). This picture, which was taken in Växjö, Sweden, shows 38- year-old Danuta Danielsson smashing her handbag into the head of a neo-fascist rally member.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/the-woman-with-the-handbag-statue-1985-this-picture-which-v0-hbeikr1cjwya1-1.webp) The woman with the handbag’ statue (1985). This picture, which was taken in Växjö, Sweden, shows 38- year-old Danuta Danielsson smashing her handbag into the head of a neo-fascist rally member. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### The Crone’s Tarot: A Materialist Feminist’s Menopausal Adventure | by Dr V L McMahon URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-crones-tarot-a-materialist-feminists-menopausal-adventure-by-dr-v-l-mcmahon/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T19:00:57.000Z ### The Origins of the Shakespeare Menopause Project Twelve years ago, I decided to realise a lifetime’s obsession by writing a book — an academic book, to be precise. I knew that it would take at least a decade of research conducted piecemeal in those scarce and precious moments outside of raising a family and working a demanding fulltime job (not in academe). I knew that I could make it happen: I don’t like to be told ‘‘you can’t.’’ When people dubiously asked me what it would be about, I told them that it would be a book that would explore menopause through the eyes of five of Shakespeare’s tragic female characters. I managed to pitch my idea to a reputable academic press but one of the anonymous peer reviewers made no bones about the fact that he thought (and I’m sure it was a male) that my thesis was rubbish. “Women didn’t have menopause in Shakespeare’s time,” he said, regardless of the fact that I had documented hundreds of pages of medio-historical, classical, literary, mythological, religious and socio-cultural evidence to argue that they, of course, did. Although history had not yet given it a medical term and women themselves were yet to write of their own bodily experiences (that would come later in history), females did experience physiological and psychological changes that came with an ageing body. This is what I call the ‘proto-menopause.’ I argue that, at its core, the ageing woman troubled the sociocultural order because her value to the community became ambiguous once her reproductive abilities had come to an end. She was viewed as a drain on precious community resources and feared for her tendency to speak her mind – especially if widowed or unmarried. This fear and ambivalence were ‘read’ through her body itself. As ‘woman’ in the early modern period was defined by her womb, uterine changes were invariably read as pathological, and these ‘diseases’ fed into and bolstered archetypes about the old woman that had existed since classical times. For instance, the womb was said to crave semen as a sweet treat to keep it from escaping the body proper to cause harm to others. An old woman’s lack of regular intercourse might mean that poisonous gas would build up in the womb and dissipate through bodily orifices, such as generating deadly eye beams to emanate and blind others. This also resulted in the idea of the vampiric nocturnal witch – the nightmare – who would use spells to hypnotise young men so that she could suck their blood and seminal fluid. The ageing woman’s uterus was believed to spontaneously generate monsters, snakes, worms, stones, vermin and terrifying lumps of living flesh called ‘moles’. The origins of the archetypal Witch, oversexed Crone, Gorgon, Gossip, Scold, Hag, and Harpy stemmed from a very real belief that a woman’s ageing body was the dangerous etiological site of disease, contagion, malefic magic, and environmental catastrophe. These archetypes of the ageing female body had very real, often fatal implications for the woman herself. An ageing woman could have her body beaten, branded, mutilated, driven from her home into penury and starvation, pelted in stocks, forced to wear torturous implements, dunked in rivers, hanged, or burned alive. It is no accident that the vast majority of women condemned as witches in Europe were older post-menopausal women. In other words, our ongoing revulsion of the older woman’s body and sexuality has its origins deep within the history of folklore, mythology, natural philosophy, religion, and the medical profession. Shakespeare was simply drawing on his knowledge of this ancient tradition of viewing the older woman and her body as being demonic, unnatural, disease-ridden, and dangerous. On the basis of that singular peer review, even though the two others had been enthusiastic and accepting, my book was rejected. “Here we go again,” I thought to myself, “the entire somatic experience of our sex being overlooked with a single dismissive gesture (probably by an ageing man)”. Finally accepted by a wonderful female editor at Palgrave MacMillan, the result was *Shakespeare, Tragedy and Menopause: The Anxious Womb* published in 2022. Like most academic writing, the final result is never about sales or any kind of acclaim — it’s enough just to see it out there in print. Dream achieved. What now? Well as wonderful as the entire process has been, last summer I found myself yearning to return to the central idea of historical menopause and the literary tradition but explored through a totally different lens. I wanted to put aside my logical and analytical side to dabble in something more creative and freeing. So, I returned to two of my first loves: art and the occult. The result has been an attempt to recreate my own original Tarot card pack featuring menopausal characters from my book. The first stage of the project is to render the Major Arcana cards, modifying the original images featured in the popular Rider-Waite deck. What you have before you are these three: The Tower (card 16); Strength (card 11); and Justice (card 13). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003595-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003596.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/04/1000003598.png) ### The Tower and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning Shit happens. I’m not talking of those natural organic processes of life where things fall away gracefully or poignantly and all “in due season” as Hesiod would say. I’m speaking of those sudden bolts from the blue — catastrophic, obliterating, so nuclear that one’s core being is shaken to its very foundation and nothing is the same ever again. Trauma, transformation, loss, be it spiritual, physical, material — the kinds of events that mendacious insurance brokers claim are ‘acts of god’. This is The Tower card. The woman falling is Lady Macbeth, the notorious queen from Shakespeare’s bloodiest of plays, *Macbeth*. Such a powerful and domineering presence, by the play’s conclusion, Lady Macbeth is reduced to insanity, committing suicide by jumping to her death off her castle battlements to a “cry of women”. When her own child (children ?) died in infancy and her ageing body could sustain no more, she offered to trade her very womanhood itself with demons in order to secure worldly power for herself and her husband — a pact sealed in peri-menopausal blood and soured breastmilk. The Tower asks us to contemplate what we, as women, are willing to sacrifice when chaos reigns, when the very heart of our lives is torn asunder. What will we do to survive, nay, to pick up the pieces and thrive? Yes, this card signals immense change and upheaval but with that comes the chance to choose to be devastated or to be transformed through trial and adversity. Witness our sisters throughout history and today, following behind disaster with mops and buckets in hand, cleaning up the shit not of our making. This is what makes us feared: we can deal with anything man and nature can throw at us. This makes us dangerous for we can survive anything with dignity, grace, intelligence, resilience, ferocity and righteous anger. ### Strength and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning In the original Tarot deck, the Strength card features a woman wrestling with a lion, an exhortation to fight against both outer and inner struggles knowing that the outcome can never really be won without some kind of battle scar. In Shakespeare’s play *Coriolanus*, Volumnia is the hero’s mother, a post-menopausal grandmother pushing her son from battlefield victory to victory until her mercenary drive leads to his death. Think Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate. Like the emblem of the Roman empire that she so passionately defends, Volumnia is the ‘she-wolf’, the ambitious woman frustrated by the limitations that all patriarchies place upon females, forcing them to channel their talents and live vicariously through their menfolk. She boasts that even if she had a hundred sons, she would rather them all die on the battlefield in honour than live as cowards. Volumnia revels in her son’s wounds and massive body count, claiming that he sucked his valour from her breasts in infancy. In my card, Volumnia is portrayed as the archetypal Devouring Mother: with sickle in hand, like the classical goddess Ceres in her darker aspect, she reaps the bodies of men as if they were no more consequential than wheat stalks. Such is the strength of Mother Nature. As the Wolf Mother, Strength also reminds us of the absolute power of maternal instinct, a force that is bestial, sometimes violent, and always incomparable. ### Justice and its Menopausal Shakespearean Meaning Ah, yes, Justice. In her Greco-Roman incarnation, she is portrayed as blindfolded to represent her supposed impartiality. But we women know that this western notion of institutional justice is bullshit: when has the system ever served the best interest of the weak, the poor, the marginalised, the despised? But in her original guise, Natural Justice, the goddess Themis, had a much different form and reputation. Sometimes portrayed as multiple entities like the Furies or Harpies, or as the singular entity known as Nemesis, Ate, or Tyche, she was the personification of Revenge. Even Zeus, the king of the gods, couldn’t compel or restrain her. Justice (or Revenge, Retribution or Righteous Anger) exacted a brutal vengeance upon those who murdered innocents, pursuing them through life and even after death. Despots and tyrants feared her and sometimes showed compassion to their subjects solely in order to escape Justice’s wrath. Overseer of the universe (yoni-verse), Justice’s vicissitudes connected her with Time and the seasons, hence in my card she is pictured with symbols of the globe, the solar wheel, the vulture, horse’s bridle and her traditional scales. Pulling the Justice card reminds us that sometimes it takes time, perhaps even centuries, before the cosmos rights any wrongs, yet righted they shall be. In Shakespeare’s play *Titus Andronicus*, the peri-menopausal Queen of the Goths — the dreaded Tamora — devotes the latter stage of her life to pursuing vengeance against the Roman general who sacrifices her son as a spoil of war. Tamora even dresses as Revenge to drive her enemy insane after she has ordered her other sons to rape, murder and mutilate Titus’s daughter and other children. After his family is decimated by Tamora’s vengeance, Titus prays to the goddess Astrea, petitioning her to return to earth to restore her power. Astrea was yet another incarnation of Justice but one connected with the heavenly powers of the newer Olympian gods — not like the chthonic primal, darker forces of the retributive Titans like Nemesis and her ilk. And that is Titus’s fatal error: he prays to a version of Justice that has been on earth all along, but he has been unable to recognise her in her merciless human incarnation as Tamora. Eventually learning Tamora’s brand of justice, Titus makes Tamora unwittingly eat her own sons baked in a meat pie before stabbing her to death. Tamora is a complex character: she charms everyone she meets, is a formidable ruler and warrior, yet she is capable of breathtaking acts of cruelty and savagery, even ordering her infant to be killed lest its appearance reveal her infidelity. Having overstepped the boundaries of natural justice, in the end, Tamora, too, is made to realise that to those who have wronged her, Justice, or whatever we choose to call her, is a complete bitch. ## *A Crone’s Reading for Medusa Rising* *Now for the fun part. Esmée asked that I might pull three Tarot cards from my deck in order to do a reading for the online project of* Medusa Rising *and its potential success as it expands its mission into the online world. The cards selected in the specific order requested were: The High Priestess, the four of wands, and the Queen of cups. I interpret their message as follows:* Medusa Rising*’s guiding matron and inspirational archetype is the veiled Isis and disguised Pope Joan, Woman in her most spiritual and formidably intelligent aspect as the High Priestess of all Mysteries. The cards are favourable to the overall project and mission but indicate a slight preoccupation with deciding the overall approach to realising that vision. I sense that this minor barrier is to do with balancing intellectual ideology and a passionate, emotional response to the state of womanhood as it currently stands. In other words, there seems to be a hesitation, maybe even a slight questioning, as to how to get the balance in tone right for the overall project. It is a conceptual fear of possibly alienating some readers who expect a more removed ideological analysis of issues, at the same time that, conversely, you want to include emotive, creative and experimental responses without the content coming off as ‘flaky’.* *The project of* Medusa Rising *will always be thinking about how it can transform and grow and the cards remind this team of women to always trust their collective intuition and gut feeling in coming to final editorial decisions. The answer is to trust in the power of intuition. There is a reminder to engage with emotions as a legitimate counter-balance to reason, intelligence, and logic in your handling of issues. The cards warn about wasting precious energy that should be redirected towards developing an authentic style and approach to the project. These are challenging times. You can’t please everyone, and sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. The cards speak of the innate powers, talents, and abilities of your readers and contributors. Although getting the project to the state you’d like it to be in might take some time and be occasionally challenging, the cards advise everyone involved to not get so caught up in the minutiae and stressful details of day-to-day operations that the overall importance of the mission and the sheer brilliance of all those involved might get lost sight of.* Medusa Rising*’s success depends on harvesting the skills, abilities and approaches (even those oppositional or confrontational voices) of many women: difference is strength. The High Priestess will guide, teach and sustain all who come to Her.* --- **Dr V L McMahon** has dimensions, as women do. Retired public school educator of the arts. PhD in Shakespeare Studies but unable to find work. Menopausal, proud second-wave socialist feminist. Mother and Grandmother. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### It's Fascism. New Rules. | Part 2 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:40:45.000Z [ICYMI | Part 1](https://www.medusarising.org/p/2a854c57-5a53-4bbd-9489-b945b54ad906/) It's Fascism. New Rules. Part 2 | by Esmee Streachailt 0:00 /1455.785167 1× I’m not ready to make nice either. Like many feminists, I am both disappointed in and pissed off – dissapissed!! – at a whole bunch of people who made this [political textbook perfect fascist regime](https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism?ref=medusarising.org) possible in the US. Still have doubts? OK, here: No matter where you stand on the violence between Israel and Gaza, you need the US’s 1A (Frist Amendment) to express that view and advocate for actions. [Mahmoud Khalil](https://www.reuters.com/world/arrested-palestinian-columbia-student-moved-louisiana-jail-lawyers-fight-2025-03-10/?ref=medusarising.org), who held both an education visa and a green card that make him a legal resident of the US, is in prison now for leading protests in support of Gaza-Palestine at Columbia University. He’s not yet been convicted of any crime in a US court. For a few days, no one knew where he was. He is in a prison in Louisiana, very far from any family or support. If a legal resident can be arrested for speech, even disappeared (to Louisiana or Ecuador or India), So Can A Citizen. That’s as fascist as it gets. Like David Roberts and many other lefty-lefties, I always suspected that the (now) center-right, Reagan conservatism was a cover for a much more radically nationalist and anti-progress agenda. And lo, for the day has dawned, over the horizon charge the … Knights Templar? ![skeets: David Roberts "Everyone can see that the center right was a hollow shell, yes? The stated prinicples were bullshit? Esmee Streachailt, "Yes, but it worked, and that's what matters. Now let's counter what worked and stop punching ghosts."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-13-144023.png) Yeah, it was all bullshit. [Opus Dei is the Heritage Foundation](https://www.project2025.observer/?ref=medusarising.org). Elon is a nazi. Trans people, Black people, Latino people, disabled folks, and women specifically are being actually erased from government records and targeted for firing from leadership positions across agencies. A woman graduated from Top Gun? A woman? When? No record of it here. Enola Gay? Who was she? It worked. This is the fight. Like all fash, the Manchurian Administration (the Volgan Candidate?) is walking right through that restraining order, the Constitution, like it’s written on paper. [Our resistance is not optional](https://smashingpatriarchy.substack.com/p/fighting-fascism) (<– how the Italians did it). *The Emergency means we have to band together*. But, many feminists are not ready to make nice with any of the following: misogynist leftist men, aggro trans allies, more aggro trans activists, single issue women, single issue women cozy with fash influencers, men who casually consume manosphere content, MAGA, and the Entire Right Wing up to and including 5 out of 9 Supreme Court Justices. For different, but eerily similar reasons, the going idea is that we need to give all these people a ‘way back’ or ‘forgiveness’ that does not require them to feel any shame or to admit that they have been assholes/idiots. — No. All of these people got off talking shit about feminists of any kind who tried to point out that their tactics &/ goals were going to land us all in trouble. And that’s when some of them were not threatening to rape and murder us, and [that’s when they weren’t erasing us or redefining us](https://terfisaslur.com/erasing-female-biology/?ref=medusarising.org) as a subcategory of our sex category. And that’s when[ they weren’t telling us that we were exaggerating and making stuff up](https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/3343%5Funwomen%5Funesco%5Fvawg%5Fhandbook%5F6a%5Fsinglepage.pdf?ref=medusarising.org), *there’s no material harm to women from transwomen in any context dontchaknow*. All of this behavior made giving a shit about trans people … harder. Compliance to (mostly) male demands is not really in the feminist toolbelt. And yet, many of us desperately want to preserve space and dignity for gender nonconforming women and men. We just won't bow down to another male supremacist reversal of sex and gender. Also aggravating was the refusal of either the TRA/MRAs, aggro allies, or Democrat/Left politicians to admit there might be some material conflicts of rights to address (post-conviction trans identification, anyone?) and find a balanced solution that protects this “vanishingly small” but more-important-than-any-other minority. Thanks to this stalwart irrationality, the Hold The Line and Single Issue women just would/could not see that they were being coopted by a well-coordinated (I’m gonna say it) cabal of no kidding bad guys like Seb Gorka, AFD, The Heritage Foundation, Opus Dei, the NeoReactionaries (Musk), MAGA (Bannon), Fidesz, the BNP, the BJP, Reform … … … and whatever Geert Wilders is. All of these had their go at piling on the ‘socfems’ and ‘head girls’ with a thrashing the likes of which the TRAs had never yet laid down all for showing up with grounded analysis and evidence of historical precedents. SocFems include radical materialist feminists, anarchafeminists, socialist feminists and any feminist who ever, ever references a book in her writing or speech. *Most MAGA voters don’t read at an 8th grade level. I’m for common cause with the common people and the ‘regular women’, but ya gotta be able to cope with a complex, interrelated world to help women get our due and *that reading level ain't it*. Level up.* We are among the people being asked to forgive and welcome back all of the above who are experiencing a touch of the rue. Well, no. No. Not yet. I have terms and conditions for my own alliances. We don’t trust any of y’all at all. Or I don’t. ‘Socfems’ don’t all see everything just the same way and we live all over the world where the experience and effects of The Emergency are different. But I can say this for me in the US: There will be no compromise. What's happening in the US is reassertion of Patriarchy 1.0, straight tyranny no chaser. See, the reason regular old misogyny and patriarchy get on so well with fascism/authoritarianism is = they’re the same dominance structure. Corporations look like (what we imagine as) feudal estates because they’re the same structure. Both run on currents of extraction (resources, labor) ensured by domination (violence, debt). *The ideal expression of patriarchy is fascism*. To maintain the lie that men are (in every way) superior to women you have [to suppress a lot of knowledge and punish a lot of people](https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/03/05/donald-trump-fascist-government-crikey-part-two/?ref=medusarising.org#Echobox=1741136208). \[Here, I slip into the second person, as I do when I am 'dissapissed' with some cadre of folk, but I'm addressing an imaginary 'you', not you-the-reader of this newsletter. I'm assuming (?) you read this because you generally vibe with RadMatFem.\] So if you pushed the ‘trans agenda’ or the ‘single issue’ or the MAGA agenda hard all these years, you have some dumb shit to walk back. There is no ERA. There’s shit in the UK’s rivers. There’s soon be shit in the US rivers. Musk is coming for [Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security](https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6369857710112?ref=medusarising.org). Never mind the overhead on SS is like 2%. That too is an attack on women, don’t you see? It will demand our service. Cutting Medicaid and Social Security means either many people will die for lack of care, or able-bodied women will be ‘forced’ to do that caring instead of whatever else we’re doing now. *Our compassion will be, is being, turned against us as a weapon*. Just like patriarchy always does. #BeKind This bananas idea shared on left and right that 'everything is the fault of feminists' from the rise of the TQ subculture to the 'male loneliness epidemic' has helped land us here. Feminists have long held a tradition full of the theories and plans concerning economics, the environment, and the sexualized violence of male domination that are currently being slowly reinvented by various other movements. That context helped allow 'politically homeless' and Single Issue women – epitomized by organizations like WoLF, WDI USA, and whatever Posie Parker is calling her business model these days – ignore the full complexity of women's experience under male supremacy and just focus on the one issue that also allowed them to know about the ambitions of the ADF or Heritage or Gorka-Bannon-MAGA but overlook them. These organizations are very pleased with the EO on gender identity ideology, never mind its full throated [endorsement of the trauma of traditional gender role socialization](https://theradicalnotion.org/integration-is-the-radfem-way-a-review-of-in-a-human-voice/?ref=medusarising.org) and it's not subtle endorsement of fetal personhood. They say they're working for women, but much of their efforts have been either symbolic (Women's Bill of Rights, which is not one, and which is only adopted in states that also seek to dismantle women's rights) or actively working against women's interests (Posie Parker's long held, oft repeated support for Trump). And now, these fashy forces are actively dismantling the wider social context in which women's liberties have been experienced at all. Cuts to education, threats to universities, threats against free speech and the right of public assembly, the drive to delete our social safety nets — all of these will pressure women out of public, economic and civic life and move us back into the home as caregivers to our newly disadvantaged families. Now, there is great honor in the work of care and management of a family — just not any that our re-masculinizing culture will offer beyond chintzy mother's day cards and cheap roses. Our retreat from the public sphere — as our compassion and love for our families and communities is weaponized against our replete humanity — will further impoverish our families and reduce everyone's ability to revolt/resist/survive in the teeth of this fascist and rapacious regime. It's back to old fashioned patriarchal extraction from both [woman](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-three-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org) and [planet](https://theradicalnotion.org/issue-six-pdf/?ref=medusarising.org) we go. So much for women. To be clear, if you were a MAGA or a Single Issue woman, you recently celebrated actions against Trans and Queer people that are draconian and cruel. They have Stephen Miller's clammy little fingerprints all over them. That includes Ash Lazarus Orr, a trans activist living in West Virginia. Orr applied to update their name and gender marker on their passport on January 16 — days before Trump was sworn into office. He paid $300 for expedited service, but his paperwork wasn’t processed until January 22\. When Orr called the agency’s hotline for Americans waiting on passports who have upcoming international travel, they were told that the agency had no guidance to offer and that their documents had been “set aside.” Now Orr is without his passport, without his birth certificate and without his marriage license. Over the phone, he was told that his documents are being held in San Francisco, where they were originally being processed. \--- 19th News, "[The State Department is blocking new passports for trans Americans](https://19thnews.org/2025/01/transgender-passports-state-department/?ref=medusarising.org)" These restrictions on transgender people’s passports — just one [part of](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/399319/trump-cdc-health-data-removed-obesity-suicide?ref=medusarising.org) a [broader campaign](https://www.vox.com/politics/398382/transgender-kids-trans-gender-affirming-care-trump-lgbtq?ref=medusarising.org) by the new administration to intimidate transgender Americans — affect more than just international travel. Passports are also frequently used for domestic purposes, such as applying for jobs, housing, loans, or other government benefits. “The goal is to make life untenable for transgender and nonbinary folks,” ACLU attorney [Aditi Fruitwala](https://www.aclu.org/bio/aditi-fruitwala?ref=medusarising.org) said. “They want to sow fear and chaos and to make everyone extremely afraid to be out and who they are.” Vox, "[Trump’s new passport rules are trapping transgender Americans in bureaucratic limbo](https://www.vox.com/politics/399502/transgender-passports-lgbtq-trump-marco-rubio-travel-gender?ref=medusarising.org)" Imagine what this can mean for feminists, for all gender nonconforming women. Fascist use red tape against citizens to create a collapse of our agency. A passport is one of the most convenient ways for women to maintain our voter registration if (when, really) the SAVE Act becomes law. But you might find yourself in this limbo, and then what? Should a convicted trans person be able to change their sex marker and name on all their documents resulting in a separation between them and their criminal record? Medusa's Blood, absolutely not. These laws can be written ethically and intelligently. But, denying Americans their passports, holding their sensitive and essential documents hostage thus disenfranchising them? Medusa's Blood, absolutely not. If you're good with this level of Big Government interference in the personal lives of citizens, you can stay on that side. We'll see you in the streets one of these days. RadMatFems have no need of that kind of women's movement. We very much want a dignified and secure life for TQ folks as much as for ourselves. It's called solidarity. And where that movement failed was in a lack of solidarity for women, I do know. Both you anti-feminist women and the TQ and allies are going to have to do much better. Like I said, I have terms. [Revivifying the Sedition Act seems on the cards as well](https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/donald-trump-fascist-cnn-msnbc-34865751?ref=medusarising.org). What we are getting is a political context in which US citizens can be gulagged for just about any reason. I am telling you now, Sisters & Readers, if I have argue for women's rights/spaces/sports/dignity for another 100 years I'll do it happily if that's the price of putting down this threat to our very freedom. We get as much freedom as we are willing to fight and even die for. Sometimes less. Never more. They’re not reasonable measures that would have protected women’s rights/spaces/sports but pretexts for taking those rights away, too. “[A person who at conception](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/?ref=medusarising.org)” is a phrase that will haunt us yet. *The freedom they're interested to protect is “the freedom to express the binary nature of sex,”* which is a fact, not a thing we express except through the deformations of traditional gender socialization. Women who choose not to marry or to have children are not expressing the binary nature of sex. Butch lesbians. Women engineers. Feminists. ... *witches* ... If that's our freedom, what a gender gulag that will be. So will this also haunt us, “[Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/?ref=medusarising.org) on our Nation's children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority.” That's a pretext for no longer teaching our actual history, which is a blend of cinematic heroism and despotic genocide both on scales rarely witnessed before. It's OK to face up to that ambivalence and resolve to do better. Because this is also a rejection of the entire lineage of women's history, archeology, sociology, poetry, fiction, art, economics, philosophy, and theory. Unless you don't want to do better, as is the case with Trump & Co. This stuff is written by the kind of people who think George Soros is a Marxist. Who think corrective rape is a grand strategy for getting back to the natural order of things. Florida and Texas have both passed bills that would remove children from homes where they are “at risk” of being affirmed in a gender identity. Meanwhile, California was seeking to go to the other extreme, taking kids from parents who would not immediately affirm. Both teams here are wrong in the RadMatFem view. We're pretty sure that most teen trans-identification is an expression of other, deeper issues that deserve to be addressed and resolved to the benefit of the teenager, and not the egos of nearby adults, not the profit incentives of the medical industry, and certainly not to legitimate a subculture of (mostly) narcissistic men who can't handle aging, and very definitely not in the place of confronting family or community abusers who need a good curb. The RadMatFem view is that the ‘trans and queer community’ is broad in fact and complex enough that any child seeking to enter it deserves to go slowly, to be sure. *No one is doing a single thing more about rape/porn culture, femicide, trafficking, or domestic violence.* The predations men visit upon women every day. The material conditions of women’s lives are deteriorating in many places. The SAVE Act in the US will complicate/cost about 70 MILLION women’s votes. The reactivation of our nation’s racist and xenophobic habits is putting families in terror. That sound you hear in the economy? That is a chasm opening. So yeah, as that’s the short list of terrible stuff you were willing to overlook for your ‘one most important thing.’ It was stupid where it was not deliberate and venal. And, from what I see, none of you have anything to offer that’s smarter or better adjusted to reality than anything you offered before. So, until some wisdom and genuine care for your wider community shows up in your actions, go have a think about what you did. Be quick. The more The Emergency breaks, the longer things stay broken, the more *factual* they become, the more irreversible. Own up. Get real. Everything everywhere is on the line all at once. But if you expect me, or ‘socfems’ to act like an exasperated mother in a sitcom as we compromise so you can have political support humans — ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/AD_4nXd5MrMi9GS8UW22K71LdLPxRccjkZLrkCHqi8JyGw3tloSlX0xLsk4SZboN-RCyPHpqanLugyZweR_zkIu_Yb4oKRCLBlgwKvrDrsPCQqZGKjFSMK5vevZq05fDFaofvw0yG3zQqw.png) Gemini AI image of Medusa as a young woman, laughing. Well, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard since January 20th. +++ Ok, so now I've laid that marker down, feels good, the next part of this series will explore the way facts calcify out of the historical flows and how we, citizens in our countries, have to collapse before tyranny can claim its prize money. If you have thoughts you want to share with us about all this, please send them to us. Especially (but not only) if they are grounded in the [Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem). And send other things. We will need poems, fictions, introspections, beautiful discoveries. We can't let any part of our humanity wilt. I hope to digest and alchemize all this with you in real time. In the final part of this series, I'll come back around to some conclusions and practical suggestions for how to stop punching ghosts. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorus?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Why Do Male Dominated Societies Regularly Collapse? |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/why-do-male-dominated-societies-regularly-collapse/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:40:58.000Z The traits required to succeed (gain power) in these societies (even whole civilizations) are what we call “toxic masculinity" and in the diagnotic manuals are called *sociopathy*. Eventually these systems elevate the Most Ruthless Men who then elevate the most ruthless man among them (this is the only requirement) to lead and … down we go. Also handy to previous collapses: a touch of the climate change, a dusting of unimpeded epidemic. Our MRM's have just done the essential things to smashing the (still abusive) least wontonly destructive civilization men ever created. They have broken the governing mechanism of its most powerful economic and military force, and they have opened trade hostilities with all its trading partners. Bascially: they change too much to fast in a search for enough fawning admiration to fill the gaping hole where their Self should be. Which cannot be done. This is the nature of the sociopath --- so disconnected from family or community or friendship, they always need more life energy from everything, everyone. Both patriarchy and capitalism are extractive by design. Paragons of these twin orders, MRM's can only extract life energy, forever. They get bored easily with the humming of support systems others find necessary or beneficial. > [Eminent Trumpians: meet the president’s cultural outriders](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/69633/eminent-trumpians-matt-walsh-christopher-rufo-marc-andreessen?ref=medusarising.org) > > This, to my mind, is the poker tell. What unites these Eminent Trumpians—Walsh, Rufo, Andreessen and many others like them—is a taste for thrills, spectacle and neverending action. *They are bored by the procedures and protocols of old-fashioned liberal democracy, with its regulations, safeguards and crash barriers.* They crave the dopamine rush of relentless disruption, destruction and upheaval. So they shoot the hostage even when they don't have to. Both for thrills, but also to extract obedience and admiration. > [Everyone is terrified’: Business and government officials are afraid to cross Trump on tariffs](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/04/trump-tariffs-fear-lobby-business-congress-00006608?ref=medusarising.org) > > Republican lawmakers are signaling they’re *willing to tolerate the pain* for now, despite the economic fallout back home. Lobbyists, who are quietly prodding the same lawmakers to defend their interests, *don’t want to have a target on their back* — or their clients’. Even some Trump world confidantes, alarmed about the tariffs’ impact, are *hoping someone else intervenes*. And they win at this game (until the collapse happens) because the secret at the heart of Big Man Patriarchy is that most men are craven, feckless, unimaginative, cowards. Money and power are nothing if you don't use them well when the time comes. They have a talents for two things: extraction and pain. That's why they like pornography and prostitution: they can take real pleasure in extraction and pain unmediated by the niceties of business or politics. The tariffs are likely to hold, entrench, and impoverish the US and any connected to it. the MRMs will hasten the deaths of the old, young, and infirm. That's what these cuts to services, saftey nets, and health are designed for. Or, that's what they will result in, which is the same fucking thing. And then, as stated by RFK Jr, they will take the able and now immiserated unemployed, cut of their SSRIs and ADHD meds, and put them to work doing the labor once done (to our bottomless shame) by exploitable migrant labor and working poor. Meanwhile, they will set women to labor in all the traditional ways: in fields, in char work, and in baby making. These accelerationist-christofash-MAGA-Dark Enlightenment fucks are aiming to recreate the 13th century in Europe with most citizens funcitonally picking cabbage. Rebel, Resist, and have a plan for RECOVERY. The feminists and eco-concious have that plan at the ready. We will have to give this everything we've got. I'll see you downtown. Don't call. I'm not taking my phone. [Feminist Global Alliance](https://feministglobalresistance.com/activist-archive/?ref=medusarising.org) is a friend in these times. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Call for Your Visions & Voices URL: https://www.medusarising.org/call-for-submissions/ Last updated: 2025-04-03T16:13:46.000Z Medusa Rising accepts art & writing by women from everywhere on Earth in English and in translation into English. And if you don't have something to share this moment, *please pass this* *on* to your sisters. We are as eager to share as to be shared :-) We have revised [the Contribute page](https://www.medusarising.org/r/8511524f?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d) to reflect current needs. **Please send pitches or contributions in any of the genres we accept. Personal experiences with these topics, reporting, analysis, solutions and suggestions, any angle into these topics is welcome! Please share this post widely!** We pay a bit. We read all the time. Handy share buttons below!! We want to amplify RadMatFem voices. We need your voice in these times. - Practical steps for feminist organizing is the holes opening in civil society and institutions - Take-backsies: on reflection, what would you do, say, theorize, argue, &/ make differently? - Women & children migrants, refugees of war, economics, climate disruption - The real deal with transhumanism - Sex, Gender, Identity - The Capitalism in Gender Industries from Beauty to Transition - Bad Law, Bad Policy, Better Law & Policy - Women and the law, lawfare vs women - Women and incarceration - Capitalism vs everything, class, work, labor - Identity, Identitarianism, Power - Violence, Coercion, Femicide - Feminist economics, care economies, women-centered finance - Withdrawing from men and men's world, 4B and related movements, women's new social formations and modes of community - Women's health and well-being, policy &/ experience - Authoritarianism, Fascism, Fundamentalism - Technology that supports/threatens women - Being radical, anarcho-feminism, mixed-schools feminists - Women, ecology, climate - Effects of climate change on women, experiences, studies - Male allies working to make better men, books for the men in our lives - What's changing for women in your country/region? - What's going well for women where you are? - What's the most urgent issue facing women in your country/region? - Is there a great feminist organization in your region the world should know about &/ support? **Questions**? **Thoughts**? Email us at [info@medusarising.org](https://www.medusarising.org/r/c26a871b?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). Medusa Rising has a point of view, a set of principles. Your work is more likely to be accepted if yours align with ours. [Check out the manifesto](https://www.medusarising.org/r/fcdb6881?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). **Ready to pitch**? Here's [the form for pitches](https://www.medusarising.org/r/52e7a2d0?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). **Ready to send** a whole draft/final work? Here's [the same form for submissions. :D](https://www.medusarising.org/r/4f552f89?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d) **Due date**? When you're ready. We're reading and editing all the time. *Stay rad, mad, and dangerous to look in the eye!* ### Key Concepts: What is Gender? |by Erin URL: https://www.medusarising.org/key-concepts-what-is-gender-by-infinite-erin/ Last updated: 2025-04-01T16:13:06.000Z Have you ever seen a square watermelon? A square or cubic watermelon is a uniquely shaped fruit grown in a cube to force it out of its natural round shape.. Just like a traditional watermelon, it has a green rind with black stripes. But, unlike our familiar watermelon, it has flat sides and sharp edges that make it look like a box. Their natural growth is prevented, and they are forced to take the shape of the container. Why create such artificial effects? For the sake of human convenience, of course. Being square would make watermelons fit more compactly in fridges and easier to cut as they don’t roll. Easy to handle, and no more worry over how to store the cumbersome fruit! Nowadays, square watermelons are mainly grown for aesthetic or novelty purposes. They are popular in Japan, where they are sometimes used as decorative items rather than for eating, and are much more expensive than ordinary oval watermelons. When you get to the harvest a few minutes in, this metaphor becomes very, very clear. Of course, not all, if any, watermelons are perfectly cubic. But everything in their environment is designed to make and keep them square. The factory in which they are processed is such that those ‘wrong-shaped’ watermelons are automatically removed. There is a systematic process of checking the shape and quality of a square watermelon. For example, there is *visual inspection* where workers examine the watermelons for precise edges and proper cubic form. The aesthetic is important for square watermelons, so the workers also look for consistent colour and any external defects such as bruises, cracks, or blemishes. There are also automated technologies that ensure that each watermelon meets *the standards* (right shape, right size, right weight, etc.). Square watermelons are sorted into different quality grades based on their *shape, appearance, ripeness, overall quality*, etc. Any watermelon that doesn’t meet the standards would be deemed ‘bad’ (or ‘inadequate’). Only square watermelons pass muster. Exceptions are severely punished: misshapen watermelons may be *redirected for processin*g into juices or other products or simply discarded. (If there is malpractice, perhaps those watermelons are re-shaped by the use of physical force, or their excess bits cut off, just as Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off their toes and heels to fit into the glass slippers). Those that meet the highest are approved, and then, cleaned and packaged for sale. They are *waxed for a polished look* and placed into boxes with appropriate wrappings. High-standard square watermelons are handled with care, packed into boxes and presented beautifully. This is how square watermelons become ready for human use. In the end, if everybody decides that they want only square watermelons, we may end up with a market where only square watermelons exist. In such a market of narrow demands, people – and perhaps, watermelons themselves – forget that watermelons are not naturally square. Square watermelons are now trapped into a system in which, from the moment that their flowers are pollinated, they are destined, by human hands, to become square. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Blackpink_PUBG_210321_-cropped-.jpg) ****Wikimedia Image:** Blackpink in PUBG Mobile promotional video in March 21, 2021 |Source[【絕地求生M】來自 BLACKPINK 的祝福！這次特別準備了小禮物送給 BLINKS ✨](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpPpSYOiF8Q&ref=medusarising.org)Author[PUBG MOBILE:絕地求生M](https://www.youtube.com/c/PUBGMOBILE%E7%B5%95%E5%9C%B0%E6%B1%82%E7%94%9FMTW?ref=medusarising.org) A woman in patriarchy is like a square watermelon. She is made to take the shape of ‘femininity’, a form which makes it easier for men to exploit her. Like a square watermelon, a woman is forced to become the embodiment of ‘femininity’ . In her case, the mould in which she is grown into is not just physical: it is also psychological and social. As everything in the square watermelon’s environment is designed to make and keep it square, everything in the woman’s environment is designed to make and keep her ‘feminine’. And this ‘everything’ is what gender is. Gender is a name for the totality of countless ways in which men oppress women. It is, first and foremost, a tool of oppression: through gender, women are maintained in a subordinate position as a sex class. In patriarchy, then, women are oppressed on the basis of sex by means of gender. Gender is everywhere, it’s embedded in everything from the clothing deemed appropriate to each sex to the volume we are socialized to use when we speak. It is one of the mechanisms of patriarchy and consequently it shapes the women who live in it, both collectively and individually. In this series on key concepts in radical materialist feminism, I am going to begin by describing various aspects of gender using the metaphor of a square watermelon. Hopefully, the metaphor will help you understand how gender works in patriarchy. de Beauvoir famously said, ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ Likewise, a square watermelon is not born, but rather becomes, square watermelon. --- **Erin** is a [contributing editor at Medusa Rising](https://www.medusarising.org/about/). --- This post is public. Please share widely. *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Women Supporting Women is the revolution URL: https://www.medusarising.org/women-supporting-women-is-the-revolution/ Last updated: 2025-03-27T16:13:31.000Z ## Here's the update: **Come April 1st, our subscriptions will begin charging**. To the 21 out of hundreds of sisters & readers paying for this work, *THANK YOU!* Your open palm is everything to us. As you've seen, we're ambitious. Publishing, researching, making original work here, podcasting, soon making video shorts, all the things! *Come April, we will be sharing those elements of our work in a tiered way*. We hope the samples you have seen so far will inspire a [Yacumama, Naga, Ouroboros, or Pythia subscription](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/). (So many snake goddesses!) **We'll be clear: our founder Esmée Streachailt put her money where her mouth is.** She wants this project to support and to amplify support for women's thought, action, and creativity. She seeded Medusa Rising with several thousand dollars of her own money to make sure contributors get paid and overhead is worry-free for a while. But that risk is the limit of risk she can take. The team has agreed to forego payment until the project makes a profit. We will need your support to make this project go long-term. ## **Here's the ask:** Medusa Rising wants [women paid for work](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/) — all of our work. Until the end of capitalism, keeping the bodymind together is a matter of gathering lucre. The Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism is clear about this: ♀️ We affirm that women’s unpaid labour is an exploited resource that benefits the state, private industry, and individual men living in the same households as women and should be remunerated. The UN estimates women’s unpaid labor to account for between 10 and 39% of GDP across nations. This unpaid labor consists largely of care work from which both the state and industry directly and indirectly profit. In some countries, this unpaid labor includes enslavement for domestic work and sexual use by men. Care work is both skilled and demanding. Unpaid, it constitutes a natural resource reaped for free by the world economy. The writers, reporters, artists, poets, researchers, & theorists we publish deserve to be paid for their time, energy, practice at their crafts, and for their good works. The movement cannot liberate women if we are not materially supporting women!! [My Yes To Feminist Economy! Upgrading My Subscription! ](#/portal/account/plans) **To pay our brave contributors we must ask for your support**. If you are supporting us with your attention and by sharing our posts and media, we are eternally grateful. *Feminist Ideas Must Walk The Earth!* But the women who make them must also walk, and eat, and keep a roof. This team, this project, and the women we platform are builders of worlds. Your support is the foundation of that world. We hope to be part of a thriving ecosystem. That's why we've priced our subscriptions to ask as little as possible of each woman. We hope you will share our contributors, the other organizations, projects, and efforts that we will make sure you know about. We want you to give your support to them, too, as you can afford and as fits your vision for women. *To your most courageous imagination!* *Medusa Rising* *A'Ja, Erin, Esmée, Victoria, Zara* ♀️ We affirm that women’s paid labor must be equitably remunerated, and working conditions must be physically safe and free of sexual or other harassment. All women have a right to employment that garners them economic independence from coercion or control of family or familiar. Professions dominated by women must be elevated in their social stature equal to the training and expertise required to perform them. #RadMatFem --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### It's Fascism. New Rules. |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/its-fascism-new-rules-2/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:41:13.000Z It's Fascism. New Rules. | by Esmee Streachailt 0:00 /675.90425 1× Some of you, sisters & readers, are aware of a very poor philosopher (the kind who is happy to be called a ‘thought leader’), Curtis Yarvin. I won't go into detail here, but the other night when JCJ and I were chatting we agreed he's one of *that kind* who falls into the wrong reading of Nietzsche and runs off a cliff from there. She has some excellent analysis and imagination in the works, as for example this recent essay on [the brittleness and fragility of the authoritarian (toxic masculine) ego](https://culturewarblues.substack.com/p/the-shameful-spectacle). :) What's happening here in the US right now is relevant to world-wide feminists because these men have designs on the planet, not just the US. Because their historical errancy here is already harming and killing women in the world's most vulnerable corners. Where I was imagining before the election that we might have time to unfold a RadMatFem world, we don't. How we build coalition and establish trust networks globally will just have to happen in this compressed and chaotic time. **Summary: It's fascists. New Rules. Everyone against the Fascists.** **I know. I'm not ready to make nice either.** (See Part 2 of this series soon.) I am not excited to make deep common cause with either Patriarchs 1.0 (regretful MAGA) or Patriarchs 2.0 (humbled TQ identarians), but this 3.0 version is Patriarchy 1.0 but with shiny, powerful, totalizing, invasive technology and private equity salivating to buy up our ranches and homes. It's got potential to become nation-level mass enslavement managed by AI. *Is this goal possible?* I don't know. *Are they dreaming it?* Yes. *Should we assume we are in a fight against men who want to reprise the 13th century?* Yes, I think we should. This is, I fear, the historical equivalent of the Yamnaya rolling into Europe and subsuming the Goddess Civilization and all Her women. RadMatFems alone, Democrats alone, hell even just casual adherents to Enlightenment principles alone will not be enough to stop this … hostile takeover. I fear. I could be wrong. I like to prepare for worst cases and adapt into ease from there. Please read this [Medium post by Erica Verillo ](https://ericaverr.medium.com/the-neo-reactionary-coup-6a5d797785ab?ref=medusarising.org) reprinting this [Evidence Brief by current federal employees](https://www.scribd.com/document/832844833/Evidence-Brief-for-Journalists-The-Neoreactionar-250206-110351?ref=medusarising.org) (on Scribd). The brief is essential. It's a lot of homework. Very in the weeds but vital. It connects the ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’ to the Neo-Reactionary/Yarvinist agenda in compelling ways. Between them you get the quickest sense of context of the aggressive ambitions of these[ Neo-Reactionary(NRx), anti-Enlightenement, monarchists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5FEnlightenment?ref=medusarising.org) to divide the world into fiefdoms for their own rule and enjoyment. This is how a [coalition big enough to hold puritan Christian Evangelicals and the sex-trafficking Tate brothers](https://english.elpais.com/usa/2024-11-30/nrx-the-underground-movement-that-wants-to-destroy-democracy.html?ref=medusarising.org) can exist. I think memo's authors are right that this is the context that makes all those non-sensical blasts of noise come together as a signal. They have a goddamn flag. In the biohazard and nuclear waste colors. The fact it's got a triskele on it really chaps my Celtic ass. ![Dark Enlightenment flag with a No-symbol through it.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Untitled-design--2--1.png) Dark Enlightenment flag with a No-symbol through it. Coming off of my series on sisterhood and coalition, I was going to think with you about democracy and positive freedoms/rights and what that means in a RadMatFem context. I still will, just in the light now, of … let's call it The Emergency. And then I was going to think with you about *Moving from Center to Margin*, developing solidarity economies (something Victoria G and I have been talking about for months), and how we might envision and actually make another kind of world. In my mind it's called Hyper-Lithic, a new Goddess Civilization. At Accidental Gods, they're calling it Thrutopia. In the language of Integral Studies, it used to be called Reality. If you want to counter a big opponent, you have to dream at least as big as their dream. This is not hard for RadMatFem. Fascism and Patriarchy are forever entwined, essential to each other, each the heart and the expression of the other. Feminism has always been an anti-fascist project. We have the tools both to analyze and to out-dream these quivering alphas. As you can see, the gap between The Emergency and Hyper- Lithic is possibly a crumbling of the current order and all the misery that means. That crumbling will happen if these NRx pillagers succeed in turning the US into a few, huge, neo-anti-bellum plantations. RFKjr's fantasy of what do with the depressed among us makes more sense in this context. He'd like to take people coping with late capitalism's inhuman grind by taking SSRI inhibitors and place them in ‘organic farming camps, no anti-depressants, no screens, no contact with family, just lots of sunshine and physical work to cure’ us of our ‘addiction’ to being able to get out of bed in the morning. Work camps. In 3-degree hotter world, with sewage in the water, no health care, no education … People have been preparing for the collapse. We can share knowledge and practices that will get some of us through. Yes, in this moment, we are facing both *global climate emergency and rampaging fascisms* eager to get their claws into the EU, UK, Australia, Latin America. The people Manda Scot talks with on her [Accidental Gods](https://accidentalgods.life/?ref=medusarising.org) podcast come at these two problems from nearly all the angles, from adapting our food and governing systems to very woo-wooiest integral practices for grounding into this world. They have recently published a handbook/manifest called [*Transformative Adaptation: Another World is Still (Just) Possible*](https://www.permanentpublications.co.uk/port/transformative-adaptation/?ref=medusarising.org)*.* That medium article, this little book, and the [pithy trilogy by Heather Marsh](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/?ref=medusarising.org) that starts with *Binding Chaos* make a great core. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/nrx_cats-1.webp) I can haz absolute monarchy? [Paintings by Eldar Zakirov, meme by Benjamin Williams](http://www.buzzfeed.com/thomastungii/6-portraits-of-courtly-cats-being-classically-clas-d4c3?ref=medusarising.org#.hjm1x6yG7V) [ Dylan Matthews at Vox gets this right.](https://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11434098/alt-right-explained?ref=medusarising.org) The center is rotting, going nuclear. This era we've lived from the end of WW2 to now is an aberration of democracy and enlightened good will compared to all of patriarchal history. The post-War project was always pulling against a gravity well of 5000 years of history. Curtis Yarvin, Musk, Trump, Theil, Putin and Pals and most of the far right think *that* history is the natural state of human life. Necessary. We know those 5000 years are the weird exception. **As shit as the era of human rights has been, as hypocritical, flawed, incomplete, and still muddled with the deadly influences of racist-capitalist-sexist-patriarchy it has been – what these ass-souls have planned for us is worse by leagues.** Back in the 1990-2000s when I was writing my dissertation, I was dreaming this groovy Irigarayan utopia of sexed subjects capable of integration and reciprocity of being and becoming (that Hyper-Lithic). Back then, George W Bush was coming out of Texas to try to cut off the paths to that world, or any world that didn't want cheap oil more than survival. Newt Gingrich had already announced his ambition for a Permanent Republican Majority. Those dour, miserable fucks inspired me to argue in that book that we have to be having more fun than them, have to thrive brighlty, have to develop gorgeous wells of mutuality and care in which we make riots of joy and easeful rest. We have to show them that our way is better for human beings. ![Curtis Yarvin with a No-symbol over his face](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Untitled-design--3-.png) Yarvin, looking like That Guy from grad school. Well, now that the NRx are here to triple down on the dour fuckery, harm, damage, and civic and geopolitical destruction – the historians of anti-fascist movements are here to tell us the same thing. The thing Audre Lorde knew in the face of the race fascism of US: *your joy is both your own healing and a weapon against their doom lust*. Crank it up. :) … Maybe nap first. This is exhausting. But then, crank it up! ♀️ ♀️ ♀️ If you have thoughts you want to share with us about all this, please send them to us. Especially (but not only) if they are grounded in the [Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem). And send other things. We will need poems, fictions, introspections, beautiful discoveries. We can't let any part of our humanity wilt. I hope to digest and alchemize all this with you in real time. With these recommendations, you are reading my current reading. Let's go. Stay rad. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Interwoven Selves: Review of From a Broken Web | by Therese Doherty URL: https://www.medusarising.org/interwoven-selves-review-of-from-a-broken-web-by-therese-doherty/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:59:58.000Z Catherine Keller, *From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self,* (Beacon Press: Boston, 1986). > *We arise from the matrix; we redesign its elements; we are woven back into the matrix. This is the religious act of reconnecting. As the word itself tells us, matrix is always* mater*, mother.* (p. 248) Catherine Keller begins *From a Broken Web* with a compelling thesis: that ‘separation and sexism have functioned together as the most fundamental self-shaping assumptions of our culture’ (p. 2). From this she weaves an extraordinary exploratory map of the territory of connection and self-definition within and then beyond patriarchal scripts, and how we can form a new model of self-shaping for women, and men. **When there is sex-denial on the left, and the straightjacket of femininity on the right, this project seems of particular importance, for to escape from patriarchal gender and all of its destructive consequences means that ‘we must become psychosocially conscious of its causes as they operate deep within ourselves, where we internalize vast, impersonal social patterns’** (p. 95). Keller defines the patriarchal split selves as the (mostly male) *separative* self and the (mostly female) *soluble* self; the former making ‘itself the absolute in that it absolves itself from relation’, while the latter ‘dissolves into relation’ (p. 26). In other words, ‘the soluble woman has embodied connection *without self*, while the separative male has incarnated self *without connection*’ (my emphasis; p. 206). This male selfhood, gained at the expense of women’s, is derived from the myth of the hero-warrior who armours himself against the world and his own depths, constantly roaming on adventures, while women wait patiently and dependently, like Penelope, for his return. Heroes need monsters to kill, and monsters, being composed of disparate parts (like Medusa), represent the quintessential Other, the Aristotelian ‘defective female’ that the male must radically separate from. Yet though the hero commits the original matricide—Marduk murdering the Babylonian Great Mother/sea serpent, Tiamat—these monsters are also ‘portentous images’ that reveal ‘possibilities of a nonpatriarchal and nondualistic self’ (p. 67). They are the energy of repressed female power and rage rising to the surface once more. Because women are made less than human by patriarchy, it’s tempting to deny our monstrous nature, our solubility, but this is where our strength actually lies. Keller reveals in her inquiry into psychoanalysis and process philosophy that ‘as women sense, all reality is interconnected’ (p. 189), and most crucially, that the so-called ‘oceanic feeling’ of early childhood is not a state that must be left behind (as in normative male socialisation), but the natural condition that forms the ground of being for all human development: ‘Relatedness is the a priori. Disempathy and separation, not connection, are what must be explained’; and ‘the female connection to mother and world preserves the oceanic feeling of an empathic continuum initially common to both sexes’ (p. 136). This is the starting place for everyone. > *The self-structure of separation is a patriarchal artifice … connection is not so much forced upon females as simply left to turn in on itself in the isolation within the narrow range of relations traditionally open to women. The web is not originally a trap.* (p. 137) Within this web of complex interconnection the self *could* develop along nonsexist lines, unfolding inside a reality of ‘primal empathy’ (p. 184) in which we differentiate *inter*dependently with the influence of others and world. Process thought shows us that we are *events* or *processes*, rather than fixed substances, ‘both radically spontaneous and deeply continuous’ (p. 195). This means that ‘the connected, permeable ego ascribed to female children fits the description of an actual entity … much more nearly than does the rigid and clearly delineated male ego’ (p. 189). And because we usually remain closer to that connected, permeable base, girls and women can model the transformation that must occur for both women and men to achieve postpatriarchal human selfhood. ![Cover of From a Broken Web](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/Untitled-design--1-.png) Available through all used bookstore retailers and at [Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/204124/from-a-broken-web-by-catherine-keller/?ref=medusarising.org) As Keller states, ‘Feminist theory, like all theory, is *theoria*, “seeing,” that is, vision’ (p. 157), and via a ‘metaphysical feminism’ that takes all interrelations into account, from sex to race, politics to ecology, childhood to elderhood, we can examine not just *what* we see, but *how* we see it. Because we recognise that ‘male dominance \[is\] a social structure of oppression as well as a psychological complex’ that runs deep within us all (p. 118), **to neglect the ‘polyscopic discernment’ (p. 250) that could lead us to knowledge and right action, would leave the system of disconnection intact and change nothing. For if we are to become more than just deficient, monstrous females, and disconnected, armoured men, we need to move far beyond the kind of socialisation that currently exists. We need ‘to spin a meaning of self out of our femaleness, without reducing it to anything exclusively “feminine”’**, while males need to be challenged to embrace ‘modes of relatedness that require not the sacrifice of their maleness but of their ego rigidities and corollary manipulation of women’ (p. 161). Namely, ‘Women do not need to harden but to strengthen; men need … to melt down the hardness of the heart’ (p. 212). Easier said than done, perhaps, but it’s a start. Having revealed and re-membered this differentiated yet connected self, Keller concludes with the idea of an arachnean spirituality, making use of the metaphors of the spider and her web, and of the oceanic mother Tiamat—the first reaching wide, the second deep. ‘In their different dimensions and domains, both horrify the self-forgetting fixity of other-opposed egos’ (p. 249). In this both/and creation we can also find the both/andness in ourselves, of body intertwined with mind/soul: > *I encounter the world only as embodied. Through my bodiliness I come to the animating knowledge that the energy of matter and the energy of soul are at base indistinguishable. Soul* matters (p. 236). Female embodiment, with its cycles and procreative possibilities, ‘bind\[s\] us to no stereotype … That women are built of a complex architecture of openings and enclosure need not lock us into domestic “inner space,” vulnerability needing male protection’ (p. 239). With our ensouled bodies, our embodied souls, and with the female power we find in the oceanic depths and the immense webbed intersections of reality, we can think ‘*connectingly*’(p. 160) and create ‘a theory of the interrelatedness of all subjective life’ (p. 149). This is just the kind of revolutionary thought that we need. Keller explores psychoanalysis, philosophy, myth and theology, disclosing the understandings that are of use, but also pointing out the sexism and androcentrism often inherent in these fields, which is hugely useful for feminist analysis. My only real criticism is that this book is so challenging that it’s likely impenetrable for the average reader, meaning that its insights are trapped within its pages, unable to diffuse out into wider consciousness. Though in the almost four decades since its publication much has changed in terms of how we view ourselves, ecologically and spiritually, philosophically and psychologically. We know (or are at least remembering) that we are interwoven with each other and the more-than-human, just as body is entangled with mind/soul. Women’s spirituality has enabled us to understand reality via the integration of opposites, rather than any kind of divisive dualistic system, for Life is the all-encompassing yet multiple matrix, which ‘implicitly mothers’ (p. 222). Yet in a world that is becoming more socially and politically divisive, maybe a return to Keller’s thesis is now apt, not just to counter the new problems of separation, but to add the analysis of sexism that other understandings still lack. While women and men are surely different, the differences between us would likely be much less stark in the absence of gendered socialisation, which splits us off from each other and limits our potentials, endangering our future as a species, while causing us all so much misery. *From a Broken Web* is worth making the effort to read for that reason alone. Failing that, perhaps we should all just turn to ‘the primary antidote today to the soluble feminine (non)self’ (p. 210) and read some Mary Daly. --- **Therese Doherty** lives with chronic illness and occasionally writes and makes art, but mostly just reads a lot. She can be found here: [@offeringsfromthewellspring](https://www.instagram.com/offeringsfromthewellspring/?ref=medusarising.org). --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### SANDRA G. HARDING 29 March 1935 - 5 March 2025 URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sandra-g-harding-29-march-1935-5-march-2025/ Last updated: 2025-03-17T16:32:30.000Z \[Esmée grabbed this obit off a list-serv she's been on since the 90s. This obit appears in both *The Boston Globe* and *The Washington Post.*\] Dr. Sandra G. Harding, born March 29 1935, a global trailblazer in feminist and postcolonial philosophy, critical science and technology studies, analysis and activism, died on March 5, 2025. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Pass This On: Victory Afghanistan URL: https://www.medusarising.org/pass-this-on-victory-afghanistan/ Last updated: 2025-03-13T16:13:40.000Z We've just started speaking with **Victory Afghanistan**, which is organising volunteers to help Afghan girls and women achieve their education and career goals: [Our Teachers — Victory Afghanistan![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-1.ico)Victory Afghanistan![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/VictoryLogo.png)](https://www.victoryafghanistan.org/teacher?ref=medusarising.org) But Victory Afghanistan needs our help. They are looking for: - Those with a master's degree in law, - Those who are experienced IELTS/TOEFL instructors. If you know anyone who fits the bill, please encourage them to [apply for a mentorship role](https://www.victoryafghanistan.org/teacher?ref=medusarising.org). They'd be helping women and girls in Afghanistan access education. For a sense of what women and girls in Afghanistan are up against, here's three recent headlines: - [UN urges Taliban to end restrictions on girls on International Women’s Day](https://www.voanews.com/a/un-urges-taliban-to-end-restrictions-on-girls-on-international-women-s-day/8003773.html?ref=medusarising.org) \- Voice of America - [Taliban insist Afghan women’s rights are protected despite ban on education](https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/taliban-afghan-women-rights-womens-day-b2711640.html?ref=medusarising.org) \- The Independent - [Afghan women students in Oman face expulsion after Trump's USAID freeze](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4k25wlw21o?ref=medusarising.org) \- BBC Additionally, we are always looking for contributions to Medusa Rising. We accept work by women from the personal to the political, from the most factual to the most imaginative. International contributions are encouraged! Please read more and submit [here](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/). In solidarity, A'Ja, Erin, Esmée, Victoria, and Zara. --- Share ### Tiller | by A'Ja Lyons URL: https://www.medusarising.org/tiller-by-aja-lyons/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:59:46.000Z On an acreage where mounds of fertile soil rested, a tiller toiled. Her labor was not that of a roustabout. Unlike hands wielding metal weaponry and piercing the earth she came with reverence. At winter’s thaw and spring’s glisten she approached flora ready to flourish. Turning over and breaking up soil is vital for sod in need of nutrients. Working in soil with an excess of moisture present can cause compression and form barriers to moisture dispersal. Dry and compacted soil must be broken up to open up and revive. Breaking up does not mean breaking down. The soil fertile, but a disruption in energy depleted nutrients and unbalanced the ecosystem. Gnats swarmed. Woody invasives had overtaken and their gnarly roots settled deep. The tiller spoke to release that which the soil did not need, unwanted roots and weeds. She lay beside the dirt. Her face in the topsoil, she spoke in a tender whisper and the earth softened. With a gentle hand the tiller loosened that which had been compacted and brought forth water and provided nourishment. She unfurled the grip of the intruding infection without force or firearm. No chemical compound used to pry and remove that which did not salve the soil. It was with a whisper she called the foreign life form to release its hold. Her hushes called for healing where for years there had not been sunlight, food, or growth. Vines lengthened in gratitude. Earth rumbled in reply. New moisture enriched the soil and revived that which had been left to rot. ![Two smiling women, one black, one white, cuddle in a bubbling creek with their backs resting on a large rock. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/02/Tiller.jpg) Photo by Megan Poole Photography Dear Earth, dear Sun. It is by the light and soil that we are gifted life. In the darkness we met, having called without voicing. Starved was our skin of light making our blood as slow moving as a languid stream and bones weakened as a brittle Basswood tree long lacking replenishment. Our season began when the earth shifted away from the light. Water became snow and ice and life lay in repose. Elliptical movements of two bodies dynamic, barycenter of skin seeking satiety. We sat in the stillness beyond peace – an ache restless and ravaging. To learn to listen and speak valiantly. So that cries may call forth warm waters. We spoke. Heard. Listened. Learned. In the silence where the temperature had fallen and flesh came together. Hungry mouths consumed words unspoken holding the deep air. We grew together not in soil but our waters. Pooled in mouths and cupped in hands – we were safe to again be seedlings, swell, expand and emerge anew. Cotyledons reached for light shakily as we grew and re-learned our limbs. Bathing in waters and basking in the softness of leaves. --- **A'Ja Lyons** is a contributing [editor at Medusa Rising.](https://www.medusarising.org/about/) --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Sisterhood / Coalition 5 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-5/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:59:35.000Z [Part 4](www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-4/) Sisterhood/Coalition Part 5 | by Esmee 0:00 /696.170604 1× As I said earlier in this series, I'm not the only one thinking about the difference between the supportive bonds of sisterhood and the practical orientation of coalition. [Kay Green](https://kaygreen.blog/2024/12/31/12-radical-notions-34-meetings-and-a-betrayal/?ref=medusarising.org) is thinking about it in this post, [Starhawk](https://starhawk.substack.com/p/13-principles-for-a-welcoming-movement) is thinking about it in this series. (Very recommend the Starhawk on Building Welcoming Movement.) I suspect the conflation of them in our concepts of our work has lead to a lot of conflict: an alteration practical goal is taken as a betrayal of intimate bonds (and it *can be*, but jumping there right away often means no way back). This isn't the whole of intra-feminist conflict, obviously, since very real political and cultural commitments are stake. I just think adding the pressure of (my concept here) *sisterhood* intensifies schisms and their durability. Let sisterhood be much deeper, and more personal, than coalition. The concept of "ally" can work this way, too. Especially in the contemporary era. Allies, like sisters, are supposed to agree with us, *even feel with us*, have exactly the same priorities as us, all the way. Dress and present alike. Reject the same things. Say all the right words. Even fuck correctly. And that's not what that word means. It's for sure not what sisterhood should mean. Because that's not how diverse groups of humans work — at all. This expectation gets labeled 'safety' and pretty quickly slides into us/them, puritanical, and punishing forms of identitarianism. All that patriarchal hardening and isolation. Anything but safe. The opposite of this hardening and isolation is not fusion and gumminess. That happens *inside* the hardened identity in unconscious and unexamined ways. The opposite of these demands for sameness is *flexibility, flow, difference taken for depth and power, even contingency, as long as they're all oriented in a conscious and deliberate way*. This what I thought [intersectionality](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?ref=medusarising.org) would lead to, and it's what I want *strategic intersectionality* to lead to. ![four sets of two figures, each two making a branch and becomes an arrow, all four arrows pointing to the center of the image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/1000002483-1-1.png) Strategic Intersectionality is basically coalition organizing and essential to this less identarian and reactionary kind of intersectionality. Imagine that in the image above, each set is giving energy to a shared project. They're not becoming one. They're doing one thing, for now. At other times, in other areas, they do other things. The key is not to get in the way of the shared project (at a minimum) when doing those other things. [Five Principles for Building Powerful CoalitionsThe Commons is an online library for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, organising, advocacy and justice.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon-32x32-1.png)The Commonsholly hammond![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/power-in-coalition-1.jpg)](https://commonslibrary.org/five-principles-for-building-powerful-coalitions/?ref=medusarising.org) Do not sleep on the resources at The Commons!! One of the powers of coalition is that it's contingent, it's specific to a defined, *attainable* goal or at most *definable* social change. And then, and this is key, the coalition can *dissolve*. Not the world wide liberation of women (though, yes) but a 100 fold increase in the prosecution of sexual violations against women and girls with special attention marginalized and racialized women and girls. Feel the difference? Or, in another direction: not increased safety, but establishment of 100 new somatic grounding and self-defense courses. Ideally, the other members of the coalition do not have other goals that deeply conflict across members. For example, several groups want to work to end the child transition industry, but one of those groups works for women's total reproductive autonomy and another works to end abortion rights, or takes funding from such groups. That coalition might not be wise for two reasons. 1. The tensions and antagonisms of these conflicts might lead to cracks and weaknesses in the coalition, and therefore limit its effectiveness. 2. The more deeply pocketed and politically established member/s of the coaltion might (as often happens) simply coopt the efforts and even larger identity of the smaller groups. [A Brief Overview of Six Elements of Effective Coalitions. Final | The Center for Communities That CarePrevention Science + Digital Tools + Support = Successful Kids![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)The Center for Communities That Care | Prevention Science + Digital Tools + Support = Successful KidsGery Shelafoe![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/thumbnail/501e6f7ec00c5694910a9a57f4ca72d2)](https://www.communitiesthatcare.net/a-brief-overview-of-six-elements-of-effective-coalitions-final/?ref=medusarising.org) This link is a PDF. Coalitions are never necessary just because an issue is urgent. Any group or entity using guilt or shame to force team support or coalition is not looking for equals but for subjects, not for collaboration but for resources. A healthy coalition can "hunt as a pack" because they do not demand conformity and compliance that require policing, but agreement and alignment that require communication and alignment. In coalition, every organization/member must have equal standing and influence on the issue around which they organize and clearly coordinated areas of work. Yes, one of the pressures on feminists is always that *there are too few of us actually doing movement*, so we're operating in a crucible of a small world. We are often the only women/people we know where we can actually relax, but then we also have the stress of the work we're doing. I'm hoping that building a more intentional boundary between our support and our work will help RadMatFems do both better. One advantage of coalition is that it lets us remember that every woman is still surviving in patriarchy, and that requires compromise, and women will grow away from that compromise as their emotional history and material circumstances allow. We must not judge *that.* Sisterhood can be a relation based in supporting women as we disentangle ourselves from patriarchal feminine socialization (support, not demand). But, we don't have to work with every woman or organization who comes along either. Coalitions are above all deliberate, intentional, and *succeed to the degree that they are guided by their goals*. Collaborations that could weaken the whole, or water down the goal (or, Medusa forbid!, gut it of meaning) should be considered very, very carefully if at all. A RadMatFem approach to coalition building could begin with these principles: 1. A clearly articulated issue and goal that 2. benefits women and girls first while 3. never taking in more members than necessary and 4. articulates approaches & outcomes that accounts for demographic differences by 5. both working across differences and describing best outcomes with them in mind and that 6. defines the steps to the goal and timeline for work 7. guided by the goal and tailored to the target agency/group/institution while 8. guarding against distraction/cooptation by groups with antagonistic goals or broader projects & commitments. Remembering to value each woman, to celebrate even the little wins, to let each member organization work to its strengths, and make that target agency love your support and tremble in wimpering fear of your disapproval. One great thing a coalition can do is amplify messaging ;) Women's needs and conditions have been ignored for so long because larger institutions do not want to honor our demands (at all) on feminist terms. I think we have to take caution in our coalitions, and build them to last by saving time-space for sisterhood outside coalition work and by refusing any potentially compromising alliance. We have to respect our work and dreams for women because no one else will. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Gathering of the Cancelled URL: https://www.medusarising.org/gathering-of-the-cancelled/ Last updated: 2025-03-03T17:13:41.000Z Victoria Gugenheim, yes our very own, had a brilliant idea last year: *Create a conference for all the women creatives who have been cancelled for holding unpopular political views.* And then she did. Women Create is the world's first conference of, by, and for cancelled women creatives. Many of the artists are also the conference organizers. It's an all-hands, grassroots, world first, international kind of gathering. Maybe they're gender critical fiber artists. Dozens of women artists from all over the world will be showcasing their radical artistry all over this event! The exhibition hall will be riot! Maybe they're woman-centered rock musicians. Maybe they're anti-hijab singers. They are all those and also poets, painters, sculptors, performance artists. *Women Artists Deserve Women's Solidarity!!* All these women have been denied work, maybe driven from their nations, or slathered with opprobrium, lied about and denounced by either left or right wing authoritarians and their anti-social-media minions. *Conference happens May 30 & 31 in London.* Victoria has been hustling hard. She found sponsors, who backed out. She found a venue, and then a new venue, but wow-oh-wow does the fee for that venue need to come from tickets. *It's been a journey. ;-)* [Get Tix & Support Women Create](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/women-create-tickets-996922771847?ref=medusarising.org) ## Feature Highlights ***Elly Arrow***, in addition to hosting the essential podcast [Red Light Exposé](https://redlightexpose.com/?ref=medusarising.org), has a background in fine arts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003369.png) The exhibition hall is being curated by cancelled ceramicist, ***Claudia Clare*** of [Claudia Clare Ceramics](http://claudiaclare.co.uk/?ref=medusarising.org). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003370.png) The exhibition will include artwork from ***survivors*** from [Nordic Model Now](http://nordicmodelnow.org/?ref=medusarising.org). Also attending is ***Jenny Reilly*** of [Women Won't Wheesht](https://womenwontwheesht.net/?ref=medusarising.org) Scotland, a self taught textile artist with her beautiful handcrafted banners that have gained popularity in the fight for women's sex based rights. ![Black and white portrait of Jenny with short hair, lightening bolt earring, and serious expression](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003372.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/03/1000003375.png) More details and artists at [Women Create's webiste](https://www.womencreate.co.uk/?ref=medusarising.org) and at their [X account](https://x.com/Women%5FCreate%5FUK?ref=medusarising.org). Medusa Rising is asking you, sisters & readers, to please support this conference. Go to it if you can, it's going be such a moment of connection, nourishment, and stark rebellion!!! *Women's Art deserves world-wide respect and support!* Medusa Rising will have a little booth. Come say hi to. We might have some merch together by then :D Me myself, Esmée Streachailt, along with Jane Clare Jones will be on a panel together. *Choose your own adventure*: Donate money. Share this post. Share the Eventbrite and its detials. Share that code in the image. Buy tickets. See you there!!! Stay rad!!!! --- **Quick note**: We are about a month out from the day Medusa Rising puts up her paywall. Please visit [the Subscribe page](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/) and click the tiers to browse the details for each level and level up if you like. And thank you, to the 21 of you who have subscribed. You give the us strength and hope. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Sisterhood / Coalition 4 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-4/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:59:18.000Z [Part 3](www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-3/) Sisterhood/Coalition Part 4 | by Esmee 0:00 /540.949083 1× Coalition is familiar to sisters who live in parliamentarian forms of government. There's multiple parties, some of their interests-goals overlap, they cooperate while building more support among voters for their other interests. Sometimes they form walls against gains by dangerous/powerful parties that want to undo policies or social conditions. Two-party systems, as USians are painfully aware, easily fall into partisan loyalty, even hardened identities (which is when the violence usually kicks in — funsies!). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/12/1000002483.png) Solidarity is only created by acting on the 5 elements of freedom and protecting them for each other. This creates the trust that builds strong coalition, and strong coalition can preserve a fundamental political system like our modern democracies & it can move those male biased systems rooted in patriarchy toward the worlds of care and mutual respect and universal thriving that feminists have long envisioned. I want to think at you about the important differences between Sisterhood and Coalition, how I see them as kinds of work rather than states of being. I think they are vital to making the matriarchy, or whatever you want to call the feminist overcoming of patriarchy, but feminists have stumbled over them more than once in our long history. *I'm suspicious of nouns, of states, of sameness, of stuckness*, of the ideal, of the identity (same in ideal), and certainty. The noun is property, best understood in permanence, it can be owned and increased. It's how patriarchy thinks of women: as things, as nouns, as property, as resources. I think that over time feminism has made nouns of things that would serve us better as verbs. In this way, you could say that I'm putting and emphasis on Snyder's **mobility** as a foundational to our world building. *Verbs, processes, flows, becoming, cycles, unfolding, uncertainty, impermanence, these cannot be owned, only experienced and enacted*. The kenning, rather than the Knowledge. The sheet music can be owned, but the sound not really. The dancer can be contracted to a company, but the dance itself can only be performed and observed. You feel me here? So I want to look at Sisterhood and Coalition as processes, as relations, and not as states or contracts or territories. Because, the way I understand *intuitive power is a matter of feeling energies of things/actions/ideas/flows and shaping them while responding with them in the most beneficial and cooperative way one can*. When I do that, I see this: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/1000002477.png) Women, especially in movement, often feel betrayed when we don't agree perfectly, when we don't want exactly the same things, when we have different needs. We put a lot of pressure on sisterhood. I think we've turned this into an enmeshment, a drive toward sameness, toward identity, that only serves to explode under the pressure. I think we need to shift the energy here, reduce the amplitude a little. We fall into this trap of making sisterhood level demands on women whose experience, whose particular oppression, even whose choice of political allies might remove them from us somehow. This is where the &/ comes in because this is where everything gets dicey and fine grained. I think we demand too much sameness rather than looking at the power in our differences. What I'm beginning to describe is coalition. Coalitions are not about sameness, they are very much about difference: people with different experiences, different goals, different values, even different world views – work on an issue where they share concern, where they agree, on that issue. Now. Rather famously, there are such cooperative arrangements between some women's organizations, and some single issue women, and organizations that do not have women's interests broadly at heart. Those are also coalitions. I'm not here for coalition's sake. I'm not here to reproduce the errors and failures that have come before this moment. We cannot enter into coalition for any convenience, and certainly not in ways where money or support can create power imbalance. That situation tips into cooptation almost the way water runs downhill. It's the path of least resistance. Should any one issue then become everyone's one and only focus, their only work, to the negligence of every other oppression women suffer? No. But creatively finding the ways and methods through which different women can cooperate more effectively feels very urgent to me. And it feels urgent to be sure those women are all broadly pulling in similar directions. Few of us have JK Rowling or Melinda Gates level resources to share through foundations. But, we have some resources, and and we have some techniques. Cross-platforming, community sponsorships, mutual education sessions, doing even informal research. To be sure, feminists are talking to each other in public across organizations, what I'm suggesting is that those cross-overs deepen into shared action. Designing real working agreements among organizations that define how we will build a care economy among each other — that seems like the way. And then the commitment has to be there. Women have broken faith across differences before, often, sometimes spectacularly. Feminists can't do that anymore. Our issue based coalitions should be very carefully considered, discussed, and agreed to. And then don't let all the shit work fall to the most marginalized women. And don't assume a familiarity that a professional relationship does not support. And have the same women in front all the time. And strategize to win. Not to stay in the work forever. To win on that issue. Be inseparable on that issue, be indomitable together. I say this because [at the moment men have us beat at this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-right%5Fpolitics?ref=medusarising.org) kind of alchemy. [Geert Wilders](https://apnews.com/article/netherlands-government-radical-right-immigration-wilders-77ff99e0798d54d150d320706a685a38?ref=medusarising.org) and [Steve Bannon](https://www.reuters.com/article/opinion/commentary-steve-bannons-boost-to-europes-far-right-idUSKBN1KO2BN/?ref=medusarising.org) don't see the world the same way. They don't want quite the same things. They're both anti-immigrant nationalists, but their views of which nations should be in control differ. But they spent years talking at each other's and at the same conferences. They are very, very different kinds of men from very different movements, different cultures. But they do share a few goals, and they cooperate there. I'm not suggesting that we drop all our boundaries and surrender all our commitments for the sake of cooperation. What I am suggesting is that an alliance like that between Trump and Musk only makes sense if they both want to dismantle the state apparatus that might limit the very different actions they want to take. They're not friends. They're not brothers, not in a bromance. They've formed a (possibly fragile?) coalition. [MAGA and Tesla should not be in the same room](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-donald-trump-maga/?ref=medusarising.org), but they are. That's not a mistake. It works. ### One more post left. In it, I give a primer on coalition-ing. And a warning about the difference between coalition and cooptation. Because... no thank you. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Whispers | by Patricia Stover URL: https://www.medusarising.org/whispers-by-patricia-stover/ Last updated: 2025-02-25T17:13:39.000Z We work quietly Pounding metal Sharpening our swords And donning our shields We gather our weapons Pen, paper, voices, and bodies As whispers of resistance And resolution Scurry along the walls Through the gutters And down the cracks To our allies Who gather in masses Unseen Unheard So that soon We may fight Like the lion We will fight Like the eagle We will soar Like the banshee We will scream Like the goddess warrior --- **Patricia Stover** is a Horror and Feminist author from Southern Oklahoma. Her works have been published with *Weirdsmith*, *The Radical Notion*, and *Scout Media Books and Music*. To learn more about Patricia and her work you can visit her website at: [www.patriciastover.com](https://www.patriciastover.com/?ref=medusarising.org). You can connect with her on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/patriciastoverauthor?igsh=NWt5NGR5eWYxeDE%3D&ref=medusarising.org), [Threads](https://www.threads.net/@patriciastoverauthor?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&ref=medusarising.org), and [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/patriciastover.bsky.social?ref=medusarising.org). --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Sisterhood / Coalition 3 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-3/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:59:10.000Z [Part 2](www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-2/) One of my favorite not-feminist thinkers is Timothy Snyder (I mean, he's one of everyone's at this point). We're both GenXers, went to lots of REM concerts in the 1980s and 90s, both huge fans of[ Vaclav Havel the dissident statesman](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav%5FHavel?ref=medusarising.org), &c. Both very interested in the history of the mid-late 20th century because ... it was wild with incredible forces pulling toward liberty and toward oppression (that called itself liberty). When Trump was elected (the first time, Medusa's Blood!), Snyder wrote the important book *On Tyranny*, and now that he's back, Snyder has published the follow up, *On Freedom* (both available as audiobooks)*.* If the first rule of resisting tyranny is “Do Not Comply In Advance,” then the five elements of freedom are What To Do Rather Than Comply. He's thinking about a pretty standard liberal democracy and how to preserve it, and he does a decent job of including of women in this thinking, but what I want to do here, as we move toward talking about coalition, is think about his Five Elements of Freedom in the context of women's movement and feminist solidarity.(1) Patriarchy tends to think in Nouns, in properties and property. Freedom is a property of Man, for example. And Snyder tends to think about Freedom as a set of properties or conditions that result in human thriving. I want to go the RadMatFem way and think about freedom as a Verb, a process, an ongoing creation (something that makes sense on the bubbling and flowing margin). ### **The Five Elements of Freedom** 1. Freedom of the human experience - sovereignty 2. Freedom of the unknown - unpredictability 3. Freedom of movement - mobility 4. Freedom of knowing - factuality 5. Freedom of togetherness - solidarity That word "**sovereignty**" will set off some RadMatFem alarm bells because of its connection to property and territory, to the impossible self-sufficiency and isolate unity of the Male Default, the godlet forever seeking this idealist perfection and never attaining it and raining hell on his others in the process. (3) Snyder doesn't mean it that way, or not entirely. His concept of sovereignty is more like ***human* *maturity or self-realization or authenticity***. It’s only fully possible when people have secure food, housing, education, income (think negative income tax), civic institutions and connection, and the ability to make their own meaning. That's created in community (here he comes close to RadMatFem understanding of the individual), through learning history, sure, tradition, sure, but skills and relations. The whole human understands her relation to the community (even as rebel or seeker), acts responsibly in the light of that relation, and can also operate creatively and strategically on her own. None of these states or conditions simply exist for us to move into. We must make them and sustain them with and for each other. A properly 'sovereign' individual is capable of **unpredictability.** Yes, that means surprise, but more than surprise it means creation, invention, the conviction that the future is unwritten. Under totalitarian rule, our moral core can crumble. Indeed, that is a goal of such rule, to crush our spirit down to cynicism and compliance. Unpredictability keeps us authentic – none of us really knows how our actions are going to play out, so we have to be clear in our motives and responsive to our world. In this way, we are not a cog in someone else’s machine. Info tech, social media, these have totalitarian drives almost built in – so much of our creation looks like other’s creations, our voices become samples of many other voices, and we are quickly sorted into emotionally manipulative logarithms that make us predictable to both corporations and governments. For both social media and authoritarian systems, we humans are both the resource and product, the more standardized the better for them. When you open a screen, think about whether your actions and intentions are getting stuck in there or moving through there to another person you care about. To be authentic, we need our unpredictability, and that requires that we can move in our imaginations, can move about in our social relations, and can physically move around on the planet. **Mobility** is the exploration of our own paths to our own futures as we want them. It’s also social mobility. The New Deal and the Great Society were packages of policy & law designed to increase social mobility and with it grow our collective economy. Since the sustained attacks on them under Reaganite neoliberalism and now MAGA oligarchism, fewer people are moving out of poverty, almost no Millennial or Gen Z citizen can expect to do as well as their parents. Along with this, under leaders like Orban, Putin, or Trump, messages about the inevitability of these conditions and nostalgia for a mythic past greatness work to convince citizens that there is no way out, forward – that there is no point to mobility. As you can tell from these descriptions, these five elements of freedom are practices. And they are all under immense pressure now. The more we practice them and support them in/for each other, the better we will resist these pressures. To develop our authenticity, unpredictability, and mobility in ways that have meaning for us and beneficial effects for our communities, we have to have factuality, knowledge. **Factuality** about our existence, our histories, these give us the grounds on which to dream and build our futures. We need to get past the glittering surfaces of information and disinformation to the harder thing, the truth, the most useful insight. Clearly, we are operating in an environment designed to prevent this essential freedom. Those insights are the ones that help us live our authenticity, in unpredictable response to the always arising new conditions with the mobility of mind and body to secure those insights for ourselves and our communities. Truth, it turns out, is shared, partial, and responsive to conditions, but it can only be made from clear, established facts. Disinformation, doublethink, and divisive algorithms shatter the freedom we find in togetherness, in solidarity. **Solidarity** is the moral conviction that we all deserve the same quality of freedom supported by actions that secure all our freedoms for all of us. Racism, sexism, classism, these are all failures of solidarity. Patriarchy, at bottom the idea that men are entitled to women’s lives as a resource for their own sovereignty, is the original failure of solidarity. Detention camps, gulags, the privileging of economic efficiency over human well-being — all failures of solidarity, lapses in moral imagination. ### **Actions of Freedom In RadMatFem** To have freedom, we must practice it. Like love, freedom is ultimately a verb. *We build worlds by Doing Those Worlds*. And interestingly from a feminist perspective is that Snyder thinks of these five elements as interdependent and mutually enhancing. Together they create a context, the grounds of a world. I know. It's super easy to write this down and theorize about it. But look, all we can do as human creatures is learn something and try it out, practice, and get incrementally better at it. I don't think of this post-series as a long set of demands. I think of it as laying out a bits of a RadMatFem Working Spirit that looks to me likeliest to produce stronger women's movement and more would building. One of my attractions to Snyder is that he sees clearly that the negative freedoms (the government shall not....) work fine for the class of people (white, heteronormative, land-owning, men) who just want to get the government of a king off their backs and out of their wallets so they can do what they like. (2) The five elements of freedom he articulates are positive freedoms, even positive rights, if we articulate them that way. And THIS IS USEFUL for feminists. --- (1) I am not great at the short-form, at summarizing. In fact, I am famously long winded. So, I'm paraphrasing the summary of[ *On Freedom* from Blinkist](https://www.blinkist.com/?utm%5Fsource=gsn&utm%5Fmedium=paid&utm%5Fcampaign=6728014506&utm%5Fcontent=78881840349&utm%5Fterm=blinkist%5Fe%5F655489567633%5Fc%5Fkwd-299463570893%5FCj0KCQiA1Km7BhC9ARIsAFZfEIt5wteteYqW0BXtOMSzZZuF3adJgGgCFUJlohSVLDLYMg69QnbltP0aAvD5EALw%5FwcB&gad%5Fsource=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA1Km7BhC9ARIsAFZfEIt5wteteYqW0BXtOMSzZZuF3adJgGgCFUJlohSVLDLYMg69QnbltP0aAvD5EALw%5FwcB). *This is not an endorsement*, just an admission of taking help where I need it. Left on my own, I will gather fascinating details like a crow-woman gathers talismans for a spell in some tale where she was The Mother and the spell was the shape of the rivers. (2) This complex is the central subject of the work of Jane Clare Jones, mother of the name “radical materialist feminism,”[ beginning with her dissertation](https://sbsuny.academia.edu/JaneClareJones?ref=medusarising.org). (3) Quickly, most RadMatFems are more socialist (care economy) and anarchist (participatory self-governance) than any liberal democrat would be comfortable with. However, as materialists, we are also clear-eyed about the historical dialectic (process of events and responses) we want to foster. And that process of feedback and emergence moves through liberal democracy because this is the system humans (men) made that articulates and preserves rights. It's the system most of our readers live in right now, so it's the one we have to engage when we are in danger of it collapsing into the intensified abuses of authoritarianism. We want to tweak (and jolt!) this dialectic toward a RadMatFem world, and it emerged in response to various tyrannies and the 20th century is a clear lesson that this emergence is not necessarily secure and permanent. *To get to the feminist world, we have to preserve and deepen liberal democracy as a tool for making more freedom (for now)*. ​ --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Episode 2 Esmee & A'Ja URL: https://www.medusarising.org/episode-2-esmee-aja/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:57:01.000Z Hey-so, here’s our first real episode!! I have stitched it together in the ways one does, and two things have become clear to me: 1) I need more practice at editing podcasts, and 2) I talk too much. Not in the ‘I’m a woman and I feel I talk too much’ way (please, have we met?), but in the ‘I have learning to do about Hosting As A Craft' way. Still, this was fun and A’Ja and I brought a lot of expertise and humor to this conversation about race, class, and gender identity ideology. [Take Me to Ep 2](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3NnD6spw7jhs2JOsAMCvfb?si=FHHBhV9MQdChbak3dpCMtw&ref=medusarising.org) 0:00 /0:09 1× Stylized skull made of headphones for ears and eyes and a loading bar for mouth --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Dedicating Posts to Sisters URL: https://www.medusarising.org/dedicating-posts-to-sisters/ Last updated: 2025-02-17T17:13:58.000Z If we are any good at this, we will share a post that touches you, maybe one that you want to celebrate or support in the name of a beloved or inspring woman. There's a way to do that here. Check the bottom of that post, click the link to tip us $2 USD and follow the instructions to email us to tell us the name of the woman you are dedicating the post to. OR, Click on over to Subscriptions where you will find this: [**The Eopsin’s Ward**](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org): If a post (or several) resonates with you, or you want to dedicate a post to a sister/beloved/mentor/ancestor, you may Ward that post for an additional donation of $2 USD. If you permit us, we will list you as a Warder on that post's permanent page, and your donation will assure more posts on that subject. > **Step 1**: Make your offering for the ward at the link there. It's set up as a one-time charge. > **Step 2**: Use the email address given at check-out to tell us the post title and the dedication you want added in a footer to that post. **Eopsin** (op-sin) means 'without' in modern Korean, but is also the name of a protectionn goddess in Korean shamanism. She is protector of the home, the only one to appear in animal form. Hence, the dragon illustration, as we're counting dragons as snakes and natural companions to Medusa. ;-) --- *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Announcing Member Benefits URL: https://www.medusarising.org/announcing-member-benefits/ Last updated: 2025-02-17T17:13:25.000Z Hey so, we've worked out our benefit tiers for each world snake goddess. If you like, you may update your subscription at the button below :) These benefit tiers activate on April 1\. To all who offered to pay us purely on the basis of what your subscription would do for and through Medusa Rising, a wave of reverence!! [Upgrade Please!](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/) **The Corra Rate is free forever and includes** - TRN Remixes - Pods - Snips of Original Work - Resources Posts - Esmée's Musings short videos delayed release **The Yacumama Rate is $2/month and includes** - TRN Remixes - Pods - Snips of Original Work - Resources Posts - Esmée's Musings short videos - first looks **The Naga Rate is $5/month and includes** - TRN Remixes - Pods - Resources Posts - Esmée's Musings short videos - first looks - Full Original Work & Commenting **The Ouroboros Rate is $8/month and includes** - TRN Remixes - Pods - Resources Posts - Esmée's Musings short videos - first looks - Full Original Work & Commenting - External Reading Recommendations **The Pythia Rate is $12/month and inlcudes** - TRN Remixes - Pods - Resources Posts - Esmée's Musings short videos - first looks - Full Original Work & Commenting - External Reading Recommendations - Special, Live-Online Event Invitations **The first Medusa Rising Anthology** will be availabe in 2026 for $20 + shipping, and will be include selected work from the website as well as transcripts of selected podcasts — all richly designed in full-color and riotously gorgeous!! --- All subscriptions are still free through April 1, 2025 for all content for all memebers. --- *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### New Times, New Call for Contributions URL: https://www.medusarising.org/new-times-new-call-for-contributions/ Last updated: 2025-03-09T14:56:23.000Z We really thought our sisters in the US would have a President rather than a Dicktator-Ascendant, so our tone and emphasis was lighter than the moment calls for. We have revised [the Contribute page](https://www.medusarising.org/r/8511524f?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d) to reflect current needs. **Please send pitches or contributions in any of the genres we accept. Please share this post widely!** We pay a bit. Handy share buttons below!! We want to amplify RadMatFem voices. We need your voice in these times. As Feb 7-15 is the International Week of Black Women in the Arts, we especially welcome pitches and contributions from black women everywhere. - Practical steps for feminist organizing is the holes opening in civil society and institutions - Take-backsies: on reflection, what would you do, say, theorize, argue, &/ make differently? - Women & children migrants, refugees of war, economics, climate disruption - The real deal with transhumanism - Sex, Gender, Identity - The Capitalism in Gender Industries from Beauty to Transition - Bad Law, Bad Policy, Better Law & Policy - Women and the law, lawfare vs women - Women and incarceration - Capitalism vs everything, class, work, labor - Identity, Identitarianism, Power - Violence, Coercion, Femicide - Feminist economics, care economies, women-centered finance - Withdrawing from men and men's world, 4B and related movements, women's new social formations and modes of community - Women's health and well-being, policy &/ experience - Authoritarianism, Fascism, Fundamentalism - Technology that supports/threatens women - Being radical, anarcho-feminism, mixed-schools feminists - Women, ecology, climate - Effects of climate change on women, experiences, studies - Male allies working to make better men, books for the men in our lives - What's changing for women in your country/region? - What's going well for women where you are? - What's the most urgent issue facing women in your country/region? - Is there a great feminist organization in your region the world should know about &/ support? **Questions**? **Thoughts**? Email us at [info@medusarising.org](https://www.medusarising.org/r/c26a871b?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). Medusa Rising has a point of view, a set of principles. Your work is more likely to be accepted if yours align with ours. [Check out the manifesto](https://www.medusarising.org/r/fcdb6881?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). **Ready to pitch**? Here's [the form for pitches](https://www.medusarising.org/r/52e7a2d0?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d). **Ready to send** a whole draft/final work? Here's [the same form for submissions. :D](https://www.medusarising.org/r/4f552f89?m=de58dc12-b7fc-4317-8799-f3b4d8c11b8d) **Due date**? When you're ready. We're reading and editing all the time. *Stay rad, mad, and dangerous to look in the eye!* --- *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Sisterhood / Coalition 2 |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition-2/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:42:26.000Z [Part 1](www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition/) Sisterhood/Coalition 2 - by Esmee 0:00 /604.799229 1× So, I'm suggesting that RadMatFems may want to approach the paradox of our sameness/difference as women and feminists with a lighter touch that also means more shared strength. (See part 1 if you want a refresh.) Taking some intensity out of sisterhood makes sense to me because I've been watching lots of feminists and women's groups who should be working together go to war instead. And, I've been hearing lots of women, as always, saddened or heartbroken by rejection or a lack of support that they can't explain other than with some unstated personal motive. This is all very different to the cutting of tall flowers, to the knocking down of exceptional women. Though, that female aggression motivated by all kinds of patriarchal values is part of the drive toward conformity and compliance that I want to think about today. Most of the feminists I have ever met seem like natural-born nonconformists. For many, this difference comes from wounds that showed them just how much power men have over women's bodies and lives even in a society where that power is no longer encoded in law. For many, this difference comes from a powerful personality and sense of adventure that patriarchal socialization tries to prune away. For some, this difference arrives in us through our reading and education. For some, we are born to love women and our primary affection and deepest desire sets us apart in a heteronormative world. And then, for lots of us, it's all of the above. ![A crowd of many races and ages of women each with her own style, all with serious expressions.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/12/1000002677.jpg) Nonconformists have a very hard time conforming, complying with a set of vague and possibly shifting social protocols and conditional acceptance. We distrust a catechism of code words, a dress code, an impatience with our own feminist becoming. We have figured out that the trick of gender is that no matter what a woman does, she's doing it wrong. And when we sniff a catch-22 on the air, we bristle. We are right to. My-way-or-the-highway, us-versus-them thinking is not the path to human liberation. One reason that I have a lot care for this issue is that we all have to compromise with patriarchy to stay alive. No matter how gender non-conforming (GNC) or gender non-compliant, or punk, or crunchy hippie, or how archly corporate, none of us is free yet. We don't know what we will look like in our freedom other than relaxed and confident in our bodies and capabilities. What will 'looking masculine' or 'looking feminine' even mean in a world that really gets beyond patriarchy? Conformity is one of those values that feminists don't critique directly because our whole critique is about it. I think we need to be alert to this because the demand for conformity — compliance — can sneak in the around the edges and cause a lot of strife and harm. Historically we've seen this play out between separatist feminists and other radfems (certainly libfems), and recently between Gender-Critical Conservatives and radfems over who's doing their values hard enough. With expected results. I want to suggest that our feminist bonds not be based in who we sleep with, or how we dress and how colorfully or how simply, or how intense our performance of disgust at one or another kind of man. I want to suggest that our feminist bonds not even be based in perfect allegiance to a political position. This is why Medusa Rising talks in terms of working with women/groups whose values and goals *align* with our manifesto. Not comport, not accept. We do not have a statement or a letter to sign. That's because the last thing we want is for a set of political principles to become demands that women 'do feminism right' by showing the correct tribal signs and saying all the right words. This is how a politics can slide into becoming an identity, a sameness that can only be maintained with pretty intense surveillance of comportment and behavior because humans are ... messy and wildly variant creatures thanks to our big, creative brains. And that surveillance, that policing, slides into demands for compliance that quickly slides into authoritarianism ... and now you're doing patriarchy again. ![A US suburban street, identical houses, even the trees and shrubs are the same.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/12/1000002678.jpg) This is why patriarchy and capitalism get along so well: conformity and compliance are efficient and profitable. (Because there can always be a new element to conform to, one can never be perfectly conformist, perfectly safe, and so one will purchase ... whatever!) And it's why both the cultural form and the economic one tend toward authoritarianism, they both require quite a lot of control of messy, creative human creatures. Rather than conform, let's agree to make our nonconformity a strength. We who are othered have been driving toward the center for a long time, trying to bring our difference into the heart and power of sameness and thereby change it. I don't think it's working for us, and I don't think it's helping us work for each other because we're always checking to see who's betraying us by being/getting too close/comfortable with that center (heteronormative-empirical-capitalist-patriarchy). The problem is that center is has really deep foundations and it's not going anywhere. It demands so much conformity in exchange for entry/safety/'freedom' that we can't change it. But we can stop trying to get in. Yes, we have lots of policy work to do still, and that's not nothing (my next posts talk about this), but that policy is step toward greater possibilities for women's becoming. Paradox is the nature of all real things. What we also need is to build the world we want to live *into*. Our nonconformity moves out toward the margins, whether chosen or not. We choose feminism, but we don't choose the othering of our sex or race or sexuality... And the thing about the margin is that its where all the bubble and flow of creation is happening, where all the new art and ideas and music and style comes from. It's also where gray and black markets function. And here I'm going to say a risky thing. I think #WomenSupportingWomen means a kind of gray market, an alternative economics, a literal building of literal new systems of care economics on the margins. Our businesses, our calls for funding, our organizations and refuges — these need to take our economic priority. Feminists are by necessity insurgents, maybe pirates – certainly rebels. We forget that many pirate ships were run as socialist democracies. And we're treated like pirates by the powers of the center. We should expect nothing else. So we will need to honor our otherness, our shadows, and our differences and let them bubble and flow (and clash, we do have to learn to tolerate tension for this to work) so that new foundations can settle out of that whirl. Let's instead of loyalty tests, just encourage and support the deepest feminist learning in each other that we can share and that we can take in. Let's gather time and energy around our issues of concern and find the other women, different to us and elsewhere, who want to work on that concern and focus on the goals. It takes time to learn to move as a pack, as a pride, and it takes practice and checking in. The margins are a wilderness, its dangers are different to those in the center, but they do exist. Each needs the knowing and skill, the kenning, and then the freedom to use them. As with all the enlivening tensions of this life, all our paradoxes, our work is to learn to artfully and generously engage their energy. --- I do realize that to many women this image of a suburb is an image of extreme class privilege and the wealth hoarding of the Global North. It is also, from inside the culture that created the suburb, a symbol for a cloying sameness that stifles and suppresses the human spirit. It is also the structure of home and 'community' that supports the mini-feudalism of the nuclear family and the rule of the father therein, where he is free in his privacy to rule as benevolently or harshly, or capriciously, as he likes. --- --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Respecting Grown-Ass Women URL: https://www.medusarising.org/respecting-grown-ass-women/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T17:13:25.000Z Respecting Grown-Ass Women read by Esmée 0:00 /672.1815 1× A thing Medusa Rising will never do is treat you like you don’t know who you are or what you want. We will, probably, make you mad at us from time to time because we know who we are and what we want – and we are pretty sure that some strategies get us more of what we want than others. We won't tell you what you think, but we will tell you what we think. Because the Left in Global North is so ideologically captured (for now) by some extreme and mostly vibes-based political positions (the term of art for this is “affect politics”) and the money that comes with those vibes (more on that in other posts), it’s become kind of useless to groups that still need to secure and make use of our legal/constitutional rights – like women, all kinds of women. We want to be clear that we don’t think politics can solve cultural issues like the belief that women are ‘cis women’ who like living according to the restraints of patriarchal femininity. *Culture is solved by cultural work*. Using politics to make laws about cultural expressions is called: authoritarianism. It’s what we see for example in Iran, Afghanistan, and soon to be the hot new trend in the US. We also see it in the trans rights movement’s attempts to redefine ‘sex’ in US civil rights law to include ‘gender identity.’ How people do gender is a matter of cultural and personal expression, not bound by our sex but bound by cultural traditions in support of male power. Gender is a complex set of social traditions designed to uphold male domination. Having laws that men who say magic words are allowed to take our scholarships and prize money, OR to wander about dick-a-swing in the women’s section in the traditionally nude Korean style spa — this is also authoritarianism. *Authoritarianism is what abuse looks like in public.* Especially when it dresses up as ‘kindness' or 'saving babies' for example. It is a *feature of patriarchy*, not a bug. It can be mitigated or intensified (as we will soon see in the shift from a Democratic to a MAGA dominated politics in the US), but it cannot be eliminated in patriarchy. It’s the opposite of justice and love. **The only counter-measure to authoritarianism is solidarity**: the belief and actions on the belief that *others deserve as much freedom/thriving as we do*. It's not friendship, or sisterhood, or agreement — solidarity is much, much more fundamental than that. It is a practiced commitment to each other's human dignity. Jim Crow laws were authoritarian. The ghettoizing of Jews in Europe was authoritarian. Refusing women the ability to read or speak or vote or own property are authoritarian. Treating all trans people as if they are the worst of their demographic is authoritarian. Scapegoating immigrants is authoritarain. Treating women’s bodies like they are state property by denying us necessary reproducitve health care is authoritarian. Telling women we identify with our oppression if we don’t announce a special ‘gender’ is authoritarian. Denying lesbian and homosexual their civil rights is … you get the picture. ![A standard four-quandrant political spectrum (Left to Right, Authority to Liberty) overlaid with examples: MAGA at the right-authoritarian position, the trans rights movemnt at the left-authoritarian position, radmatfem at the Left-liberty position.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002359-1.png) What even is the Far Right? Here’s a handy, publicly available chart. Weadded some specific examples to help orient readers. All authoritarianism is a domination system — has been since the extensively detailed legal codes of ancient Sumeria.\* And one thing these extensive codes tell me is that Sumeria was nervous of people stepping out of line. The punishments for infractions were severe. We’ve heard of the Code of Hammurabi punishing theft with the severing of a hand. But we know less about the code of Akkad which included prohibition of abortion. It was a crime against both husband and state, akin to treason, and punished by public impalement and exposure of the corpse rather than burial. The violence and humiliation were part of the spectacle, the message to others not to fuck around because this is what you find out. Men were punished as well for infractions around gender codes, though never as severely as women. A man who failed to report a slave-woman for wearing a veil in public (presenting as a free woman) would be stripped and flogged, but his ear or nose would not be cut off, as the slave-woman's would be. What all this tells me is that people were not easily or comfortably loyal to this system. This is why the strategy radical materialist feminism (radmatfem) suggests for addressing both rights and cultural expressions Does Not Include working closely with the Right. We do suggest working with conservative women where your concerns overlap, say in the area of maternal health and maternity care, or local community organizing, &c. By work, we mean actually take steps to create improvement in real conditions. We do not mean join political campaigns with. Work across the aisle, but make them reach in our direction, and don't take money from right wing organizations — that money always comes with terms that limit a feminist scope of wowork. That way lies the fall of Roe. That way lies Project 2025. In the age of 'intersectional idenities,' financial support from left wing organizations can come with different, equally restrictive terms. On the Left, again taking the US for our example, it's now clear that publishing the *ratified* Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution will never happen. President Biden promised it, and reneged. Vice President Harris never even mentioned it in her campaign. So. Women’s rights remain a matter of the moody placement Overton's Window for the long foreseeable future. All the laws that support women's rights and lives can be superseded by new law, or simply left forgotten and unenforced like laws about where one can and not tie a horse on the thoroughfare. Fair pay protections. Access to education. Outlawing of marital rape. No fault divorce. Funding and protections regarding violence against women and girls. All of it. All the laws except for the right to vote, and the Right has some sneaky plans for getting around that too. Clearly, US feminsits will need a new approach. The problem for radical materialist feminists is that both the Right and Left will use women to get whatever they want that does not advantage us. \[The despot will 'protect us whether we want it or not.'\] The Right will roll back rights hard clawed out of the rock of history, and the Left will share those rights to the point of meaninglessness. The deeper problem for #RadMatFem of the Global North is that the Left pretty well needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to shake it free of the twin influences of neoliberal economic policy and vibes-based politics. We know our position is “way over there” on the chart – but Medusa Rising is a platform for world building women, and *world building doesn’t happen by staying on known ground*. It behooves women to stop trying to adjust the patriarchy to suit us better and to begin building elsewhere: supporting each other across our differences culturally, psychologically, and economically. ![The four-quadrant political spectrum with radmatfem at the left-liberty position and running off the chart, all other positons overlaid with the label Patriarchy.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002368-1.png) Medusa Rising will sometimes have to name names – both organizations and individuals – in order to discuss the differences in strategy between our political position and those others take, both feminist and anti-feminist alike. We want to say that such brute political discussion will not dominate our work, only be part of it. We want to say clearly here that we do not do this out of any personal feeling for people or organizations. We do not do this to shame anyone. We assume good faith until shown otherwise. When we discuss these differences in political philosophy or strategy, we do so to encourage careful work for women that preserves or expands our rights and dignity without surrendering even a skosh of either one. Medusa Rising wants to practice a kind of opportunistic, **strategic intersectionality** — one that sees most intersections as inflection points where different kinds of women might find ways to benefit all women by working together across their differences. It also means working separately where your differences do not intersect, and possibly not working together at all if our principles and goals are too far apart. It's an approach to coalition and alliance that we'll elaborate over time. Radical Materialist Feminism is a point of view, a set of principles, and an ethics for practice. As a RadMatFem project, Medusa Rising operates according to those principles. We expect other women to have principles too, and to refuse to compromise them. We expect you to be a grown as we are. We are, at the same time, also certain that by cooperating deliberately where we can, we can strengthen and deepen feminist movement everywhere. --- \* On this, see most of the chapters of Gerda Lerner’s *The Creation of Patriarchy*. Find it in [The Radical Feminist Library](https://linktr.ee/radfem.resources?ref=medusarising.org). --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* ### Raging Gorgon Posse |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/raging-gorgon-posse/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:56:49.000Z You just know they plan to suck up all that US tax payer RnD money into their own ketamine-headed projects. You know that closing research university grants also closes the teach hospitals attached to those universities. In many parts of the colossal US the only hospital for 100s of miles. Maternity wards. NICUs. Heart surgeries. Brain surgeries. The mending of an adventurous teen's broken arm. Domestic violence jumps on Super Bowl Weekend, and under despotic dicktator regimes. [Domesticshelters.org](https://domesticshelters.org/?ref=medusarising.org) can help. Private security locking down federal buildings is a coup. It will take bodies in streets, it will take deep general strikes, it will take long boycotts to make these galactically wealthy asshats, each wearing the ass of the next richest of them, to make them feel the rage and refusal. They think of us as the 'shit they grown their money in.' Look at this adorable Vulva Queen with her scourge and her crossbow. Cutie-pie! [The Pixel Project](https://www.thepixelproject.net/?ref=medusarising.org) confronts MVAWG and shares violence hotlines in all countries where they exist in their social media. They're on Bluesky, and probably everywhere. The world-vibe shattering pain and confusion made from cutting off essential food and medical aid to the most dire suffering of the world. Are you getting that ants-crawling-your-back-and-back-of-your-head feeling like there's a huge predator standing stock still, eyes locked on you? I think we need a Medusa Rising Mixtape. [Send me your suggestions](mailto:info@medusarising.org). I wanna dance at this revolution. That's how I wake up now. My sex is defined by royal decree, but 'female' and 'woman' are scrubbed from websites, flagged in grants, fired from life-times of leadership, an [the SAVE Act will take the vote from \~ 70 million US women](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/restricting-freedom-vote?ref=medusarising.org). If you live in the US, call to [encourage your senators to block it](https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm?ref=medusarising.org) like a man in a bar you don't want to talk to. The White House is still built of wood. When we started this project there was a realistic hope that a Humane Being would be president in the US right now. We still believe that the levers and cogs of a liberal democracy are useful for feminists looking to get beyond it to a feminist form of world. Doors can be blocked from the outside, too. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/02/1000003151.png) There are ways through other doors. There are still worlds breathing out there. [Multisolving](https://www.multisolving.org/about-us/?ref=medusarising.org) is a pathway. [Stimergy](https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/stigmergy-2/?ref=medusarising.org), [emergent systems](https://onbeing.org/programs/adrienne-maree-brown-on-radical-imagination-and-moving-towards-life/?ref=medusarising.org), & [mutual aid](https://www.mutualaidhub.org/?ref=medusarising.org) can still be the base for a new RadMatFem structure. Looks like the technoauthoritarians, the [Dark Enlightenment billionaires, the neo-feudalists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5FEnlightenment?ref=medusarising.org), and their Yarvinist Betas in the christofashmanospheremilitia space are bent on murdering millions of random people rather than let history unfold. They want to go to the 14th century. Take the feudal metaphor of the corporation and make it literal again. Gaslit Nation and Andrea Chalupa [have real steps and tips. Especially get your IDs and life & money documents](https://www.gaslitnationpod.com/action-guide?ref=medusarising.org) gathered up and easy to take with you. Something like 6.3 MILLION people live in the DMV, the DC metro region. The could rotate days and put 100,000 people in DC streets every day for the forseeable. The food trucks and local eateries remain delightful. One march on Presidents Day is not gonna free anyone or end anything (go, but don't take your phone). Marches haven't registered on a political scale since the 1970s. Vulva Queen Warrior is from the 14th century. Medusa is much, much older. > The Attic tradition regarded the [Gorgon](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gorgon?ref=medusarising.org) as a monster produced by [Gaea](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gaea?ref=medusarising.org), the personification of Earth, to aid her sons against the gods. The despot and his bosses think anything can broken, paved, and remade. Including people far away in Ethiopia, Gaza, Kurdistan, Sudan, Ukraine. Including people nearer in, say who live in rural communities where that university was your largest employer and its hospital was your only one. Raging Gorgon Posse knows that this is a long fight and longer remaking after. I hope you are connecting, diggin in, figuring out how to be [guérillères](https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p074820&ref=medusarising.org) and zapatistas in these times, how to move like a proton, how to send a signal, how to get out of sight to be effective. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorus?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* ### Sisterhood / Coalition |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/sisterhood-coalition/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:56:33.000Z Sisterhood/Coalition Part 1 - by Esmee 0:00 /412.5435 1× I'm thinking about the power in holding a thing lightly. I'm thinking about how women come to this movement and what we seek from it, and how we get in our own way. I have a really hard time getting out of my own way because I make (everything) that I want to do into A Very Big Deal. It's So Important! It Must Be Perfect! Liberation Or Death! Meditation Equals Mystical Revelation Or I'm Doing It Wrong! Ideas Must Be Expressed In Their Final Form! I pysch myself out. That's what I want to leave behind in 2024\. And I wonder if feminists can do that with the intensity of our concept of *sisterhood*. ([I'm not alone in this wondering](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassionate-feminism/202402/is-sisterhood-what-we-need?ref=medusarising.org#:~:text=Key%20points,shared%20interests%20over%20shared%20identity.).) By which I mean a whole bunch of things that are not totally clear to me yet. Let me try to focus on just one of them here. Feminists feel like strangers in our own world because we are. Just by coming into feminist consciousness we evolve into a self that is a little more alienated from 'normal and accepted' kinds of womanhood. We become harder to parse to our social set and, for a little while, to ourselves too. We call this feeling Loneliness. Many of us also feel like strangers, alienated, because we have been made alien by the harms men do to us. Many of us have experienced abuse and violence directly, often on top of other harms that come on us as racialization, xenophobia, lesbophobia, chronomisia, and the long slow grind of neoliberal disregard for the humanity of working-class women everywhere. So, lots of feminists are walking wounded. We find this lineage of ideas, maybe we find community among feminists, and we Need That Support and Sweetness So Badly that we can ask too much of it. I'm being a little vague here because this happens in so many ways that it's worth a book. I want to suggest that we re-imagine sisterhood lightly. Scale down our demands of each other and scale up our demands of the systems that harm us. *Maybe the sisterhood isn't global* — it might not even be regional. Maybe sisterhood serves us better as something we do with small cohorts: the women in your organization, your feminist friend circle, your reading group? Sisterhood might less be a politics and more a support network, a balm against the stochastic terrorism that is a patriarchal society. The metaphor carries such intimacy, such unconditional trust, such expectation that so much does not need saying... And I think in feminist work quite a lot needs raising all the way up to consciousness for discussion and integration. We need to respect our shadow, our own internalized misogyny/racism/xenophobia and our own personal traumas because these affect our work and community as feminists as much as they do any other part of our lives. What if we hold sisterhood a little more lightly? Reserve that energy, that intimate support and deep process for women we are very close to where we can do this deeper work? What if everything else is solidarity, coalition? I know, these words don't have the ring of myth about them. I think that's a kind of power, though. *Solidarity* is the belief that everyone deserves as much freedom as I do, (see the necessary book [On Freedom by Timothy Snyder](https://g.co/kgs/YsXvT6c?ref=medusarising.org), also an audio book). Coalition is the practice of solidarity. It's issue focused, often very focused, and lasts as long as necessary. [Coalitions](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition?ref=medusarising.org) are flexible and deliberate in a way that might serve us better. The way I've seen it play out, sisterhood's intimacy gets tangled up in identities, in identification, and that sameness — that conformity and compliance — implied by identity is good for neither intimacy nor for work among women who come from so many kinds of difference as women do and whose stated goals is epochal levels of change. We might be putting too much pressure on ourselves, each other, and the process of this movement, and getting in our own way. There is so much pressing on us, so much drive to be perfect in order to even be recognized in this patriarchal world. Our alliances, our work, our own personal becoming deserve more tenderness, more care, more learning in public, more humility, more forgiveness, more understanding that feminism, women, and living in human bodyselves is just messy. And mess is not always dangerous. Often it's where the deepest creative and inventive work takes root. How are y'all thinking about all this?? --- This is the first of five posts. --- *Want more of this kind of work, or want to dedicate this post in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* ### Flow, Unfolding, Feminism is a project about the future |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/flow-unfolding-feminism-is-a-project-about-the-future/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:55:59.000Z Flow Unfolding read by ESME 0:00 /519.053229 1× An introduction to an upcoming series on sisterhood/coalition, here I want to muse about holding things lightly in another way. And I know I'm doing this with heavy things: sisterhood, world building. That's the point. The deeply paradoxical nature of reality is like that. The triple goddess of our ancestors is paradox: Death-Regeneration-Life, rinse and repeat. She is the Cosmic Both/And. RadMatFems deserve the space to improvise, to fuck up, to revise, to keep moving through the mistake until a better way opens, to invent, to flow, to unfold, to fail even spectacularly. We have a problem we can't get past. Feminisms of any serious kind are *future-making projects*. There's a point just this side of all our critique where we ask, or are asked: > So, what does a feminist world/matriarchy/gylanic systems look like? How does it work? How will people be there? Here's one possible schema for describing this other-world compared to the one we are in. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/1000002961.jpg) Raine Eisler and her [Center for Partnership Systems](https://centerforpartnership.org/?ref=medusarising.org) are deep in imagining this future. And we have inklings, we have these big conceptual words, and examples of very small contemporary societies, but we can't say for sure what any of that will feel like and look like in reassuring detail. We can't just plop a Late Neolithic Gylanic society down on top of a Late-Capitalist Post-Modern Patriarchy and expect them to meld beautifully. I mean, I could get an AI to generate that village-metropolis scene, but ... We can't assure anyone. What we might aim to make (while never quite making it all the way) is a hybrid of these ancient and shiny paradigms. Like living into climate collapse, we sort of know, but we can't really say what kind of people will survive on earth in 100 years (if any). See, just as we have to reach back into *'pre'-history*, down into the layers of earth and into mythologies – [what Mary Daly called the backround](https://liberationtheology.org/people-organizations/mary-daly/?ref=medusarising.org) and what mythopoetics folks call the understory – to understand the complete human past, we also have to reach forward into *fiction* to conjure our more-human future. Hence, women's science fiction and it's necessity to our nourishing. At some point, feminism and eco-survival are all about imagination and improvisation. This is Holding Lightly. Can't be already ready. We just have to take our skills, our solidarity, our learning and know that we can rely to them encounter the New. Because something Ontologically New is what we need to make for women to survive, for a human world to persist. It's done, essentially, by intervening in the past and seeing what comes out of that [interval of alchemy](https://www.medusarising.org/introducing-radical-notion-remixes/). To change law around men's violence, or prostitution, or regenerative farming, or corporate obligation, we reach into the past in texts and in the collective mind, and redirect *that* energy so that the future stops repeating *that* pattern. I certainly don't mean stop reforestation or [mutual aid networks](https://afsc.org/news/how-create-mutual-aid-network?ref=medusarising.org) or efforts to criminalize buying sex or increasing the carcereal price of sexual assault... No. Just, some of us might (also? rather?) articulate and begin to embody what comes after we establish the bare fucking minimum of women's dignity. ![woman symbols with sunrise graphics for crowns](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/1000002598-1.jpg) *All people working to 'change the world' are doing this alchemical magic.* It's not mechanical, it's not math, it's not marketing. It's not language police, othering, or the branding we call 'identity' these days. It's taking ahold of the threads of becoming and weaving new patterns but without any of the actual control of a weaver. \[\[Well, that's was a tired metaphor. But, you know.\]\] The only way anyone has ever done this magic is to stop giving even a shit about what the Center of Power thinks, or wants, or even does. (Well, I mean, we do have to make sure they're not disappearing our friends and neighbors.) That's why I keep talking all this vaguery about 'building on the margins' and 'moving outward' and whatnot. Negotiating is already a losing position. *I'm not joking when I say a 1000 fold increase in the number community gardens could usher in deep change.* Other than a weather eye to know when they come for us, mabye we should stop working with reference to the larger patriarchal project's judgment or acceptance or even conditional agreement. If it was not clear before, maybe now it is clear that Patriarchy, 1.0 and 2.0, are death drives, death eaters, and fundamentally hostile to life. It cannot ever ever never accept us. Like any living historical construct, it will defend itself. And we shouldn't want to be part of it, outward is where life is manifesting. It's hard to hold such a thing lightly. That is, however, the only way to work an energy as vast as time, reaching into the past to affect the future can only move through a portal, and we are portals. Women know the costs of bad social planning so intimately. We don't want to harm anyone – most feminism is a 'do no harm' kind of philosophy. People's ways of life and people's lives are at stake. But that's ALWAYS the case. Every social paradigm, policy, leader, they have always had people's lives and ways of living at stake. There's nothing to be done about it. We only have Earth Prime and the experiment is on-going all the time. --- *Want more of this kind of work, or want to dedicate this post in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* ### We Say Persecution URL: https://www.medusarising.org/we-say-persecution/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T18:55:48.000Z We Say Persecution | read by Esmée 0:00 /308.155188 1× Medusa Rising is devastated at the persecution and erasure of women, LGB, black, latino, indigenous, AAPI, MENA and TQ peoples driven by the 47th US administration, its supporters, and its bosses. We say erasure because we mean it literally. Words, policies, data, workplace rituals, plaques, design elements meant to signal community—erased, deleted, painted over. Whole websites whose purpose is to support public partipation in human well-being and dignity are gone. The new false language is made of newsspeak, double speak, and meaning reversal. The dis-location is palpable. It unnerves, it enrages. We say persecution because high ranking women, essential leadership and women in line for promotion, in the US military have been fired or their careers of accomplishment stopped in their tracks. We say persecution because the DEI-hunts are on-going and punitive, intended to fighten and create compliance as much as silence or remove any noncompliant individual. We say persecution because the ripping away of social and medical support for TQ people is traumatising (and as an example to others) and will cause physical harm to those whose medical treatment is suddenly denied. As always, the erasure and persecution work hand-in-gauntlet. As always, the cruelty is both spectacle and end-in-itself. We say persecution because a private, malicious, non-citizen of the US is now in possession of the identifying and economic data, from SSNs to bank account numbers, of nearly every citizen and guest in this country. The threat is live. [How these authoritarians will use this data remains undisclosed](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/01/musk-claims-doge-lax-treasury-00201946?ref=medusarising.org). As always, we must decide what our social contract means and how to live it. Are we preparing for a break-down so complete that we have a chance to re-write that contract? We must be. A death-drive is an endless hunger, and we must be prepared to restore life as we would live it. RadMatFem, and Medusa Rising in particular, abhor this administration in both its philosophy and action. We do so because *our* social contract demands that the social prestige of one demographic never come at the expense, displacement, erasure, or harm to another. We would not have pogroms against any immigrant for refugee throwing communities into terror. We would not have mothers double-spoken as 'birthing people' or female fighter pilots denied training, we would not have any human being suddenly yanked off of a hormone (mis)treatment regime that will throw their bodies into metabolic chaos. We would not have this country's history whitewashed as the only way to be a people is to embrace a people's contradictions and flaws. We would not have any government by resentment. Resentment is a death-drive, and death-drives are endless hunger. The prinicple of enlivening difference insists that we reject the vicious glee in bigotry, the blatant chauvenism, and the homicidal disregard for human well-being within and across any border, any community. RadMatFem rejects the visions of both Patriarchy 1.0 and Patriarchy 2.0.\* RadMatFem would build otherwise, toward the margins, toward new systems invented as we need them by peer groups and knowledge communities prepared to live *not* on each other or with each other, but FOR each other. --- \*The short-hand belongs to Jane Clare Jones of [Culture War Blues](https://culturewarblues.substack.com/p/imbolc?ref=medusarising.org) where she recently used it this way to refer to the patriarchy we all know and loathe, and the new patriarchy made of the Butlerian/Transhumanist subversion of a materialist left position: > Neither Patriarchy 1.0 nor Patriarchy 2.0 has any intention of learning to live inside its ‘meat-suits’ or within our material limits, choosing tech-accelerationist escapism over grounded materialist responses to the approaching ecological catastrophe. They would like us to believe we have failed as a civilization because we just haven’t dominated shit hard enough yet, having been led to rack and ruin by wokeist ‘pussification’ and an [insufficiency of ‘masculine energy’](https://archive.is/qwquq?ref=medusarising.org) (to quote the great nerd alpha known as Zuck). ### A Change at Imbolc URL: https://www.medusarising.org/a-change-at-imbolc/ Last updated: 2025-01-27T18:13:10.000Z Sisters & Readers, We are part-way through our early months of feeling our way into this work at Medusa Rising. Behind the scenes we are building the admin systems to support us, and learning new programs and skills (turns out podcasts are both easy and hard!) to support us as we support you. What concerns you just now is: It's time for a small adjustment to our website and publishing policy. At Imbolc we can really feel the seasons move into deep winter/deep summer even as the days lengthen/shorten just a little bit. So, time for a small adjustment. While all our content will remain *free until April 1* (when our subscription policy will kick in), we will begin posting fewer public posts and more for memebers-only. If you got this email, you're a member, nothing to worry! In April, when we start charging for the paid memberships, we will also begin to scale our content sharing according to subscription levels. Again, not to worry, this will not be a draconian/dramatic change. The free stuff for the Corra subscription will still be great and enough for most subscribers. But, *we really want to pay the authors and artists who contribute* work here. To do that, we need you to consider and take on a paid subscription. There's a few hundred of you now!!! Exciting!! And if you each took on a [Yacumama subscribition for $2/mo](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/), we'd be able to [pay a lot of contributors](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/) (scroll down the bottom on that page)! Medusa Rising also especially hope you will start to share our posts directly to your sisters & readers. Many hands make light work, and many readers make lighter subscribtion needs. ;-) If you know feminist writers and artists, connect us please! We want to take your support of us and convert it into our support of them! With gratitude for your company and care, Zara, Victoria, Esmée, Erin, & A'Ja ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/1000002850-1.jpg) Graffiti of protesting teddy bears reads Smash The Patriarchy and Her Body Her Choice, located in Washington DC ### The Trump EO on Sex and Gender |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-trump-eo-on-sex-and-gender/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:44:05.000Z The Trump EO on Sex and Gender ready by Esmee 0:00 /766.793354 1× Fuuuuuuuck. I guess we have to do this again. I don't want Medusa Rising to be a ‘gender’ project, but matters of gender in a feminist understanding are kind of central doing any feminism, and also … That Trump EO is … real. Lots of responses to it frame the struggle over gender activism as if it has only two sides: good, trans affirming progressives and bad, trans denying conservatives. As usual, feminism is here to tell you your binary (difference plus power) is not *one*. The battle over GII (gender identity ideology) and legal rights / social acceptance has three fronts, not two. To use a shorthand: > [Gender Studies vs Religious Conservatives](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/trump-lgbtq-trans-abortion-executive-order-dangerous/?ref=medusarising.org) > [Feminists vs Gender Studies and Religious Conservatives](https://janeclarejones.com/2019/09/01/the-radical-notion-that-women-are-people/?ref=medusarising.org) > [Feminists vs Gender Studies](https://janeclarejones.com/2019/01/24/judith-butler-how-to-disappear-patriarchy-in-three-easy-steps/?ref=medusarising.org) And, a rear-guard action of Feminists vs Single Issue Adult Human Females who lean very, very far to the conservative side of this whole thing. That tea is for another party. ### **How the Trump EO Can Be Good For Feminists, or Making Men Be Kind Is the Revolution** The Trump EO on Gender may just force the deep social change we really need and feminists have wanted for a long time. Most of the EO has to do with definitions of sex and preserves women's spaces (including prison) and women's sports and scholarships for women. It does not refuse trans or queer folk housing or education. It does not refuse them the vote. It does not that say they can't be actors, or singers, or accountants. It does not affirm them as other than men or women. It is hurtful to people who have been told for a long time that hurting their feelings is murder. I really do fear what will come out of HHS for trans folk. There could be real physical and medical harm lurking in whatever is going on behind the lack of communication there. And it bugs the fuck out of me that this is coming from MAGA and the Heritage Foundation because fear is justified that this order is the first salvo in an action to roll back rights for … everyone whose gained them in the twentieth century. They are coming for us. We know because even while protecting women, [this EO protects a zygote even more](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/?ref=medusarising.org): > (d) “Female” means *a person belonging, at conception*, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell. > (e) “Male” means *a person belonging, at conception*, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell. One way that you can tell both GII and conservatives are iterations of the same patriarchal ideology is that they both think about women in terms of our fertility above all. The left talks about women's rights as if they are all only reproductive autonomy, and the right talks about our rights as if reproductive autonomy is not one of them. *Of course, without that most base, material control of one's own body, all other rights become harder or impossible to access and practice.* But see, these TQ folks and community exist. They're people trying to work out a form of happiness in a world that keeps yanking it away for profit. (I'm not dealing with the abusive/criminal elements in this post, every community has that tea, too, is for another party). And the Trump EO might just accidently force some real gender-fucking. RadMatFems have long argued that as long as women are the one's being kind and making space for TQ folks, the movement is just more patriarchy, just more using women as resources for (mostly) men's projects of ‘self-realization.’ But, here now we have a change that means men have to accept these ‘different men,’ these ‘feminine’ men into their spaces, sports, concept of manhood &c and that, my friends, is the beginning of the end of gender and its effects as a power structure. MAN and MASCULINITY is supposed be this category and way of being that very, very cleanly distinguished from and cut-off from anything womanly or feminine. If it admits any elements of the feminine it so desires and loathes, then what even is … man? Why would an adult male human have a sense of care for his community or tenderness toward children or a desire to befriend the women in his life? Would he even be a man then? Both the right and left say No. (I am not getting into the whole AGP thing here, it's is also a whole other kettle.) So, given that there are all these visibly gender-fucking people around, maybe segregating us all by sex will hasten the destruction of the gender binary that so divides men and women from parts of their full humanity. Could it be done? Would the left and the TQ ever join in that effort? Stay tuned. ### **RadMatFem Understands Gender as a Power-Structure Jammed into Our Heads Like a 5000 Year Old Microchip** RadMatFem begins with ‘live and let live’ vibe. We insist however, that women also get to live (both figuratively and literally). We think ‘gender’ is a power structure trained into boys and girls from the first breath [to sever any solidarity or real relation between men and women](https://theradicalnotion.org/integration-is-the-radfem-way-a-review-of-in-a-human-voice/?ref=medusarising.org). This leaves us miserable and vulnerable to the ‘solace’ offered by either/both religion or consumer capitalism. Men are to become emotionally repressed but explosive while expecting solace and service from women. Women are to become emotionally available for others and never troubling while fulfilling demands for solace and service. Muscle vs pretty. Man-spreading vs demure postures. Aggressive vs soft. Rational vs emotional. Honorable vs sly. &c &c &c All this is gender. *Gender IS an ideology laid over the realities of sex that justifies the subjugation of women*. Humans don't neatly divvy up into these masculine and feminine boxes now called ‘identities’. For us there are two sexes and about 9 billion personalities drawing on all the human traits and edited by local cultures. But patriarchy everywhere socializes men into a myth of their superiority, women into a myth of our subservience, and enforces both myths with incredible social and interpersonal violence. Gender is a power structure. The problem with it on the conservative front is that they believe this power structure is ‘evolved’ or ‘ordained by god.’ The problem with it on the progressive front is that they believe gender is not a power structure. Which leaves women, again, working against a power structure no one else wants to confront and trapped in jail cells at night with state dispensed condoms with men who are too special and vulnerable to server their sentences in their own wing of a men's prison in violation of all decency and the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. Those women are experiencing a power structure. Gender is patriarchal, gender is rape culture, gender is be-kind. Patriarchal gender is men claiming to be lesbians and arguing that lesbians have not experienced the right ‘girl-dick’ to convince them they really want penises in their sexual experience they just don't know it yet. Take out the added layer of ‘girl-’ applied to ‘dick’ and you have the same selfish, ignorant, threatening bullshit straight men have said to lesbians for a very long time indeed. This is our final specific example today. Entire books have been written unpacking all these ‘progressive’ and ‘liberating’ claims. On gender, [The Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism](https://theradicalnotion.org/integration-is-the-radfem-way-a-review-of-in-a-human-voice/?ref=medusarising.org) declares: We believe that the gender system is a hierarchy of power, created within patriarchal societies, and layered over the sexed bodies of people to instill entitlement in men and subservience in women. We affirm that the gender system is a mechanism to enable men’s expropriation of women's bodies and labour as a resource. We believe that the gender system prescribes human potential, personality, and expression of talent in ways that are pathological and traumatic. Thus, we affirm gender non-conformity in our sexed being as a natural and vital practice in the weakening and removal of the gender hierarchy and the violence that defends it. Women deserve for the infinite, wondrous, complex, and even flawed variety of our personalities to have free expression without pathologizing them as medical disorders or ‘genders’. Girls (and boys) deserve freedom from sexualization and freedom to develop comfort and confidence inhabiting their own bodies. Adolescent girls (and boys) deserve informed networks from family to civic institutions to support them in the often disorienting transformations of body and self during their teen years. Women deserve spaces for our own time, privacy, culture, loves, friendships, experiences in the daily activities of life and for the unfolding of our being and dreaming on our own and the world’s behalf. We see the present historical phase of patriarchy as one that presses women on two sides with varying intensity across nations. On one side is the left/liberal adoption of gender identity politics, and its collaboration with neoliberal economic interests, that erases women as a social and political class and disenfranchises us economically. On the other side is the right/conservative push for a return to (or maintenance of) patriarchal ‘family values’, the male-led traditional family, a rollback of reproductive rights, a shredding of social safety nets that protect mostly women and our children, and attacks on the rights of same-sex couples across racialized groups. This regressive impulse is often combined with the politics of purity of national identity, sometimes coupled with white supremacy and antisemitism, and an even more robust embrace of neoliberal economics. Both are forms of gender conservatism and have the effect of impinging on women’s sense of self and our agency, lessening our safety in the private and civic spheres. ### Beaten for Now, but not forever | by Patricia Stover URL: https://www.medusarising.org/beaten-for-now-but-not-forever/ Last updated: 2025-01-23T17:13:39.000Z I’m finding my heart heavy as I write this. That it even needs to be written. For some, it will be just another day. They will wake up, go to work, have their lunch, and do it all with a smile on their face and a skip in their step. For the rest of us, the women, the people of color, the immigrants, the all the ‘other’ people, we will wake up with the heavy feeling in our gut that something is not right. We’ll turn on our phones, look at the numbers, and die inside. I’ve lived through a lot in my lifetime. In the eighties, I watched women and other marginalized groups fight for their rights—The right for equal pay and to end racism and sexism in the workplace. I watched more and more of the LGBTQ community come out, and I witnessed the terrible hatred that they faced just for being themselves. I experienced the fight of women to use their voice and express their sexuality. I even watched the news in horror as black men were tied up and dragged behind vehicles until they were dead for no other reason than that they were black. Yes, I was young, but I still remember. Our country took strides during my lifetime. The wage gap started to close . . . some. More job opportunities opened for minorities and things started to look up little by little. The first time Trump got elected, I knew terrible things would happen. It was the first election where I ever felt that if I did not vote, I was letting my country down. Because it was the first time I remember being afraid for our country and my rights as a woman. He won. After, I watched as affirmative action was stripped away, women lost their reproductive rights when he overturned Roe vs. Wade, a mob of HIS supporters stormed the Capital and innocent people died. He ignored scientists and refuted vaccines and MILLIONS of people died as a result. I knew several of them. One, my cousin. On the day of her funeral my mother and uncle, who are both older and probably not in the best health, arrived in their masks. After receiving side-eyed stares from others, including the sister of the deceased, my uncle approached her. He put his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort his niece. She yelled. She yelled at him not to touch her, to leave her alone, to get off of her. She screamed at the top of her lungs and jerked her shoulder away. Away from a family member who cared for her and who was merely trying to give her solace. Who loves her deeply and who had watched her grow up. She pushed him away because she, like many others, had let social media brainwash her into believing that covid wasn’t so bad and that masks weren't necessary and that everyone was just overreacting because they are all “crazy liberals.” I wonder if she realized that she’d been lied to? I wonder if while looking down at her sister’s body, still and cold, if she said to herself, “I was wrong. I was wrong and I am so, so sorry. Forgive me.” Did she say these words to herself, or did she make excuses and blame the liberals once again? I don’t know. I may never know. Because after that day, I’ve never spoken to her again. I lost two cousins that day. Tammy trusted our President and genuinely believed that he had her best interests in mind. So, she refused the vaccines and now, sadly, she is dead. Since then, I’ve watched as women die because they were refused medical treatment. They were forced to carry their dead babies until they turned septic all because HE decided what was best for OUR bodies. He “Protected” us “whether we liked it or not.” He’s called women nasty names and told others that you gotta “grab them by the pussy.” Some of those women have come forward to tell their stories, only to be ignored and to see no consequences for the crimes he has committed. Even when E. Jean Carroll won her defamation case, even when there was proof and he did have to pay, his supporters touted that none of it was true. He’s mocked people with disabilities, women, and other minorities and this is just the tip of the iceberg. He has committed MULTIPLE crimes. Not one, not two, not three, but so many that I can’t even keep track. But because he started as a celebrity, he’d already won. Because he was a face that everyone knew, and he had fans, he won. Because of social media and conspiracy theories, and television, and the fact that he gave racists and misogynists a hate platform . . . he won. I live in Oklahoma. A deep red state. I hear the noise every day. At work, in the restaurants, from my family. I listen quietly as they try to make excuses for his behavior. They say that women are murdering babies and that illegals are stealing their jobs. I’ve tried to figure out where it all comes from. From what I’ve heard, anger and fear. I work for a conservative company, unfortunately. I live in an area where job options are minimal and, had I known about the feel of the place beforehand I would never have applied. I am the secretary, a Peabody if you will. I file and type and put together the board meetings. A board which is made up entirely of men, none of which are under fifty. Old men with old-fashioned values. I sit with my pen and notepad every other month and take down the minutes. A large portion of this is politics. I’ve had to sit steady as they talk about the election and who women should vote for. On the topic of abortion, one had the audacity to state “When they look at the gas prices, they’ll know who to vote for.” The “They” in question being women. Because apparently gas prices are much more important than reproductive rights. (If any of you are hiring, let me know.) I’ve grown up in a conservative family. One of the memories that most sits with me to this day is of inherited racism. A racism that was passed from generation to generation. A racism that I never understood and as I grew older hated. I had a cousin who I adored. She was more like a big sister to me than anything really. I was like the bratty little sister who she couldn’t get away from but she tolerated me and showed me love, nonetheless. I idolized her so. I thought that she could do no wrong. She was EVERYTHING to me. She was four years older than I and had a bit of a wild streak, as a lot of teenagers do. It happened one Christmas, or Thanksgiving, I can’t remember which. I know it was a holiday because I remember the smell of dressing in the oven and giblet gravy on the stove. Her mother and my parents were gathered around the old wood-burning stove. I was sitting on the edge of my grandmother’s blue sofa and my cousin stood in the hallway next to me. As usual, she and I were whispering about something and my brother, standing nearby, overheard. The next thing I know is I heard him yell, “Amy’s dating a \_\_\_\_\_.” I’ll let you fill in the blank. Silence. I didn’t understand why it made everyone in the house stop talking and start staring at my cousin. In tears, she retreated to her room. I tried to follow but was told to stop. I remember my father saying that we were leaving and me asking him why, but he would never tell me. I think he was ashamed to say. He did not want to admit his own prejudice in front of his only daughter. The daughter who had, up until that point, idolized him as well. I was no longer allowed to hang out with my cousin, and we lost touch for a while. I missed out on so much of her life and her of mine all because of this inherited racism. But then, when the baby was born, my father went to the delivery as if nothing had ever happened. I was off on my own adventures by then, deep into my own downfall. But I remember wondering why, if he was so strongly against this, did he go? I never got an answer to that question. Years later, when I was twenty-seven and thought I was in love, I brought a man home. He was from Puerto Rico and black. My father never said a negative word. He welcomed him with open arms. No nasty slurs were spoken, and I was not disowned as I had feared. I think my father knew then, as he does now, that I do what I want and I never ask permission. That I am full of love for everyone and if he is going to be in my life he needs to be too. Because somewhere between my cousin being ostracized and my bringing Ernesto home, I had hard conversations. I spoke my heart and my mind, and I told my family how I really felt. I did it over and over and over. I spoke it with anger. I spoke it with disgust. Then I spoke it with love and every emotion in between. I spoke it with tears in my eyes and my heart thrumming my sternum and I’ll keep speaking my truth until the day I die. Because issues like these will never go away. They will never leave because they are fueled by fear-soaked rags drenched in hate kerosene and social media gasoline. By years of harmful beliefs, handed down from one generation to the next and now given a podium to sit on and spew conspiracy theory rhetoric thought up by people with nothing better to do than sit behind their keyboard or pound their thumbs against the cracked screens of their phones. Too angry, too afraid, or just too damned lazy to educate themselves with the truth. So ready to swallow pills of misinformation to better justify the beliefs handed down to them from their parents and grandparents before them. Hope is action. Have hard conversations. Keep writing, keep protesting, and keep voting, keep learning. And when someone shows you that they are bad news the first time, believe it. Do what you can to get involved, if you are able. Our voices DO MATTER. We matter. Don’t let a group of hateful people convince you that we don’t. Don’t shut down and give in, no matter how depressed or angry you get. Instead, use it to fight for our rights. Tell them that they cannot have what is rightfully yours. Keep your chins up and your hearts open and lead with love. There are still people out there who have love for you. In fact, there are millions of us. --- **Patricia Stover** is a Horror and Feminist author from Southern Oklahoma. Her works have been published with *Weirdsmith*, *The Radical Notion*, and *Scout Media Books and Music*. To learn more about Patricia and her work you can visit her website at: [www.patriciastover.com](https://www.patriciastover.com/?ref=medusarising.org). You can connect with her on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/patriciastoverauthor?igsh=NWt5NGR5eWYxeDE=&ref=medusarising.org), [Threads](https://www.threads.net/@patriciastoverauthor?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==&ref=medusarising.org), and [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/patriciastover.bsky.social?ref=medusarising.org). ### So It Begins | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/so-it-begins/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:38:55.000Z So It Begins read by Esmée 0:00 /804.659417 1× All I can really offer is this: The MAGAlarchy have come to eat the world. They must be made to fail. Medusa Rising is an intergenerational project, and our sister elders have done all the work any could ask. Their wisdom is recorded, and their guidance a holy gift. It's to us take up the mantel, the assignment, and it is daunting. Our youngest sisters don't *personally* remember 9-11 and the eager chill that came with it, or the early days of the Iraq invasion and the refracting bullshit and manipulation, nevermind any history farther back .... And this is not their fault. They were just born more recently. And yet, here we are, even our youngest, standing in the face of the mature form of the beast that was until now only larval, only embryonic, only testing the fence it has now broken through. All I have is a little starter pack for getting beyond the protest march and the political selfie (as necessary as those are!!), beyond any performativity to the gritty, embodied, messy, loving, care-centered, world buildling that is the only antidote to this re-energized patriarchal threat. Sisters, we may soon, again, find we have to put our bodies between these gangsters and our neighbors. **\[**Addendum - I just listened to the audio, OK, whew. Listen, many (not all, but many) suscribers to this site are white women in the US. Please do not pull any White Savior Bullshit like you are greatest gift Gaia ever evolved (unless someone actually needs physically saving right by you). Just use your privileges as you find them. That may be the cops are little less likely to assault you on camera. These could be kinetic times. That may be doing the administrivia for a minority led organization to free up staff and leadership to do the public work. These are always unevenly free times. That may be giving your extra money if you have it. These are always underfunded times.**\]** We may soon find we have to shift our priorities toward direct mutual support, to life preservation and saving. Sounds dire, but it is already true in many parts of the US, and it is written all over these men that they have come for ... all of us. ### We have lights to follow in this foggy time. [The Janes](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16377356/?ref=medusarising.org) who built an abortion underground in Chicago. It was an [imperfect, but always adapting group](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/black-women-abortion-rights-jane/?ref=medusarising.org) who placed women's needs above ego and politics. Women have always tended to [life and death, we are the physical portals](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/roe-v-wade-overturn-abortion-rights/629366/?ref=medusarising.org) to this world. They worked locally, and so will women now. It's the only way to be small, but effective enough. I've been soaking up our best current thinkers of anti-tyrrany, and here's what I've gleaned. **Andrea Chalupa** – Expert in Soviet and Ukrainian history, and author of [*Dictatorship: It’s Easier Than You Think*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictatorship%5FIt%5Fs%5FEasier%5FThan%5FYou%5FThink/lwW7EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover&ref=medusarising.org)(it's a graphic essay, basically if you can make a comic book out of political theory, you are my goals!!!), [Andrea on Politics Girl](https://youtu.be/CvImpAfyG8w?si=K-gyGsC7UaahYTRe&ref=medusarising.org) give us a massive info share on how not to become what Russia is now. Interestingly, much of her advice boils down to: Do Not Put Your Head Down, turn your volume up. **Indivisible** is a great practical source for direct political involvement. Their [guide to preserving democracy in "blue states"](https://indivisible.org/resource/democrats-safeguarding-democracy-blueprint-blue-states-prepare-trump-20?ref=medusarising.org) is actionable. Take action. Action is the antidote to anxiety. [Be a pain the ass for the issues that are a pain in your ass](https://youtu.be/VpgkX7V%5FpV4?si=7ZS6YGzq4998f3DD&ref=medusarising.org)!!! Leah Greenberg of Indivisble (also on Politics Girl, she got it going on these days!!) has some real savoir faire. [Freedom is practice of creating the conditions of freedom for each other](https://youtu.be/QznmxnealsE?si=HzQIt%5F8egt1lUheN&ref=medusarising.org), generationally, communally. **Timothy Snyder** is worth getting to know as he, like Andrea Chalupa, is a historian of how Europe dragged itself through cycles of authoritarianism and rebellion like the one we are entering now. *It focuses the mind to know that our closest historical analogues now are all the early days of regimes that murdered and disappeared thousands of their people.* Today they're aiming at Liz Cheney for following the law. Missouri is offering bounties for info on "illegals" like Texas has done around abortion. It's long been many of us but its gonna be all of us very soon. But, there really are more of us. We really can care for and carry each other. All the advice comes down to this: *freedom is a set of practices, practice them*. Consumerism is not a freedom practice. Pull away from anything that pulls you out of your immediate community (yes, socials and newsletters, too). *Dig into your communities in new ways*, or deepen connections you have. Act where you can and how you can. Sure, you have to buy things, so maybe that's just to buy local, eat local, especially from women and minoritized people. Make your own fun rather than consume entertainment. Maybe that's to build local – build a tool and skill sharing library. Join a charity or a group trying to save a historical site, park, wetland. *Meet people over everything that is not politics but that makes more of what you want*. Be human together. Run. For. Office. Help someone you believe in run for office. *Whatever your thing is, your dream, your contribution, your assignment – do it now as hard as possible.* Whatever you have, or have left, turn it up to 11! Medusa Rising, with these women, this is my 11\. They will want you daunted, isolating, overwhelmed. Stay too feral for to put your head down. I know it sounds too little, but it is what most of us can do to weather unholy storm of chaos and selling-for-parts about to descend on the US and then echo in all kind of [wierd warped ways around the world](https://kettering.org/the-global-dimensions-of-project-2025-a-foreign-policy-for-authoritarianism/?ref=medusarising.org). Project 2025 will weaken international agreements and bolster relgious fundamentalism — these are a recipe for increased suffering for women and girls. People all around us everyday need care. Care for them. Our sisters living in precarious times, with disabilities, in poverty, in danger — this adminstration is going to intensify all that. And all they have to do is withdraw support. In creating the civic webs of support we can be building the next world in our RadMatFem image of care and partnership. If you find you live in US regions where there are no [networks for the support women in trouble](https://afsc.org/news/how-create-mutual-aid-network?ref=medusarising.org), find women who can build those networks and do it. If you find you have services, but they all depend on state and federal funding, build some new independent ones. We can bet there will be no funding for VAWA programs. ### Yes, the fog is dark and getting darker. We do not have the ERA. Biden failed, and fuck you, sir, very much for that. The Dems failed for decades completely to do the one thing they could for women to throw sand in the MAGA gears. And fuck y'all very much for that, too. See, Medusa Rising is not an activist organization, it's not a lobbying group, we don't have to be polite and diplomatic when leaders blow it. A phone call. That's it. And because y'all have about as much imagination and ingenuity as most CEOs, who can't seem to work out to adapt to a globe that will ends us all on their economic models, you can't figure out how you would get women to vote for you unless you're dangling our constitutional goddamn rights out the window to get us to chase the car. You are too small for your work. ADDENDUM: Biden's 'declaration' the the ERA is the law of the land doesn't mean diddly dick. And without it, women don't get a whole bunch of very in-the-weeds legal protections that we need (strict scrutiny, sex preserved as an immutable characteristic), but mostly we are left open to all the predations of Project 2025\. I'm mad about Trump, but Florida Man didn't promise and reneg on Women's Constituitonal Rights over and over again. When [Wendy Murphy](https://equalmeansequal.org/?team=wendy-murphy&ref=medusarising.org) proposes an [Alice Paul style Women's Party](https://www.alicepaul.org/nwp/?ref=medusarising.org), I'm starting to listen pretty hard. And you women who voted MAGA because "they know what a woman is," you obstructionists. He's already 'not that interested in bathrooms' so you'll get your tea in a minute. Everything for women is vulnerable. Our little patchwork of rights, tenuously threaded to the 14th Amendment, has left us dependent on the kindness of legislators and magnaminity of judges forever. Without the ERA, these kitchy new dicktators will unthread as much as they can. All talk of a Household Vote is talk of denying women the vote. Staying single might be the smartest move a generation of women ever made. We will see!! We know what we still and always know as feminists: We have to get through this patriarchal epoch to build a world where "liberty" and "dignity" and "well-being" and "pursuit of happiness" have any real meaning especially for the female sex. That world is not a patriarchy. That world is not rapacious captialist extraction. That world is not deportations and genocides and territorial invasion. And that world is not a game of Shoots and Ladders played by billionaire children. But, but, but!!! Liberal Democracy is the only mechanism we have on hand that will get us there. You might be tempted to sit back and let this coalition of billionaire-corporate-christo-nationalists run their game out because it has to fail on its own madness (right?). Don't. The world is not trending in a [matriarchal or gylanic or partnership direction](https://centerforpartnership.org/?ref=medusarising.org). Not even a little. All we can get on the other side of chaos now is some harsher form of patriarchy. As feminists we can bring more RadMatFem values the center of these renewed efforts. *That is the opening before us now.* ### We Publish Women's Poetry URL: https://www.medusarising.org/we-publish-womens-poetry/ Last updated: 2025-01-15T18:13:32.000Z Here's one from our founder, Esmée Streachailt. ... Hey, it's what we have while we're [building up readership](https://www.medusarising.org/subscriptions/) & [seeking submissions](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/). ❤️‍🔥 Esmée Streachailt | i have opened my thousand mouths 0:00 /41.962021 1× ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/Poem-ES-Jan-2025-Insta.jpg) ### Patriarchal Protection Racket - Gaiman Edition URL: https://www.medusarising.org/patriarchal-protection-racket-gaiman-edition/ Last updated: 2025-01-14T16:47:27.000Z Patriarchal Protection Racket - Gaiman Edition | Esmée Streachailt 0:00 /532.279688 1× I'm not really writing to inform you. You already know, sisters & readers. I'm writing this because I'm exhausted and writing is what I do with both my ire and joy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-14-112220.png) I wasn't going to write about this because for fucks sake radfems have been writing about this since the dawn of movement, but after a few rounds of saying this on twitter, I realized that one element of Men's Bottomless Awfulness needs more attention. **It's fun for them. It's entertaining.** That's an element of MVAWG and buying women's bodies and creating these force fields of warped perception around themselves whether it's the small-time nice plumber next door to Gisèle Pelicot or the world renowned and idolized horror-fantasy author Neil Gaiman. Or even the cheese-curd-bodied troll that is Trump. *The betrayal is just as much pleasure*, maybe even more, than the rape and coercion and mental destruction of women and girls and boys. That Telegram Chat. Some of those men are eating breakfast today across the table from a woman or girl they raped last night. That's part of the fun. When our justice systems and civic institutions and churches and culture industries and workplaces and schools and families let this abusive/violent/harmful shit slide they are *protecting men's right to a kind of fun*. A kind of fun that flows from violence, because *once your endorphin and oxytocin release is connected to harming others, nothing else feels quite as yummy*. *Feminist are killjoys. You bet your ass.* We want to kill the joy men take in reducing women to emotional rubble whether by a thousand cuts or shock and awe. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/ES-Gaiman-Edit.png) And I think we need to get real clear about this. When we gather stats on harm to imprisoned women from trans-identified men housed with them (because nobody else will fucking do it) and present them and say “Look, these women are being harmed, this is wrong and terrible and has 90 Quadrillion knock effects that are also horrible” – what we also need to say is that all that harm is being done in the name of men's enjoyment, entertainment, and happiness and nothing like social justice at all. Maybe framing it this way, brutally, clearly, will cut through a some of the fog? So far, displacing men's fun (superiority and entitlement) has proven as difficult as changing the orbit of the Earth. **So, the radfems were right again.** Men like Gaiman and Trump and the rapey transwomen obviously loathe women, like gleefully. It feels weird to write about *betrayal* here, but everything I'm writing about in this post is betrayal or adjacent. The TERFs were right about [Gaiman](https://www.vulture.com/article/neil-gaiman-allegations-controversy-amanda-palmer-sandman-madoc.html?ref=medusarising.org) (it's on the Internet Archive, too), and the TQ kids got big mad at them for them like the obedient *indoctrinaires* most of them are. So the women who wanted to protect those very TQ kids from men like him were betrayed, told to die in a fire because it's transphobic to hate on an ally, or what the fuck ever. But all the while Gaiman got to watch these kids, much like the young woman featured in the *Vulture* article, *defend him* against women. *I bet he loved it.* Just like Trump's MAGA minions doxxing and threatening his adversaries, Gaiman has a little army of Social Justice Enforcers harassing women who Just Want Shitty Men Put Where They Belong Which Is In Prison. Men like this are all the same, and their betrayals are all same. Time and time again. But, many, many TERFs were wrong on Trump. If they haven't clocked it yet, they will soon. They may overlook [the Jack Smith Report](https://www.justice.gov/storage/Report-of-Special-Counsel-Smith-Volume-1-January-2025.pdf?ref=medusarising.org) as much as they overlooked So Much Else about Trump and MAGA, but when they come for birth control and the vote I think these adult human females will ping to the situation. **Not all men, but sure enough men.** *Patriarchy was designed by terrible men for terrible men*, so it protects terrible men very well. When Dworkin described the protection racket as that myth that “men protect women” from other men, she was (as always) right that it's a myth in that form – one that consumes women bones and all, every day. But, Dworkin also noted, it's a pillar of patriarchy that “men protect men” and convince *many women to help out.* Big patriarchal reversal, that. *Even their famously feminist wives, so beloved by alt-girls*. I was an alt-girl and punk/alt woman (now more punk-alt-witchy-apocalypse-chic if I'm honest) for most of my life, it went well with my feminist refusal of the 90s style glitzed-and-blitzed-out patri-feminity. Epstein had Maxwell. Gaiman had Palmer. Trump has practically a harem of women who help hunt and intimidate his antagonists. I hope they are all eaten by ants from the feet up until dead. I don't want a special place in hell for women who betray women. I want those women punished here on Earth *alongside the men – not instead of them*. But Gaiman. *The Ocean at the End of the Lane* was one of my favorite little scary books. And I'll be honest, after the TQ's tried to deny the most famous woman author in history even the dirt her flowers would grow in AND THEN also defended to the teeth this author whose depravity and violence is greater even than that of some of his evil characters, I had pretty well just written off the literary world to the Gender Borg and moved on. And then. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2025/01/Gaiman-Abuse-Detail.png) Will the TQ activists ritually burn his books? Will they write scholarly papers without using his name? Will they suggest his name be removed from his books? Will they call him Cthulhu Mind Flayer after what he's done to a young lesbian and virgin? To many women? Will the [righteous TQ activists who have hounded women out of their communities and professions](https://booksfromscotland.com/book/hounded/?ref=medusarising.org) punish this man, this ally!!!, who betrayed them so?? **Here's the RadMatFem deal.** Our [manifesto](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/) does not deny the TQ their dignity or right to self-expression or seek in any way to interfere with the civil and human rights they share with all the rest of us vanilla normie mortals. In fact, be your most fantastic and amazing and successful selves. What we will not stand for is any community or super-special identity being used to ignore, excuse, or in this case directly ENABLE harm to women. We don't care what the abuser looks like – a cornfed pastor from the US Midwest or the least fabulous recent social transitioner on his way to prison, or a scruffy British writer married to the ultimate/worst of all Cool Girls – *stopping abusers is how we stop abuse*. RadMatFems seek thriving for humans, but primarily for women. It's one of those parallels that feels cosmic even if it's only economically structural but women are the portals for human life into this world and we are the portals through which that world is then supported. Give women in a village somewhere in the Global South or impoverished regions of the Global North a microloan, and she will support her family and village. RadMatFems consider the first portal a matter of biology (and sometimes spiritual significance) and the later as a lucky knock on effect coopted by patriarchy as a source of economic extraction. *We don't seek women's thriving* for *the community. *We seek it for women.* And what everyone else gets from that should be dependent on how well they treat us, whether they are individuals or social orders.* And that's why when we hear about that movement for women that needs to stop centering women we think a con is running. And this one has been running for a couple decades now. It's the same one it's always been. The Patriarchal Protection Racket For Men. ### Teen Girls vs The World URL: https://www.medusarising.org/teen-girls-vs-the-world/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T19:40:39.000Z Two claims in the [Manifesto for a Radical Materialist Feminism](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/) have to do with our living children Girls (and boys) deserve freedom from sexualization and freedom to develop comfort and confidence inhabiting their own bodies. Adolescent girls (and boys) deserve informed networks from family to civic institutions to support them in the often disorienting transformations of body and self during their teen years. Many feminists are forged in our teens. It's one of the times that patriarchy impinges on our bodyselves the most intensely, the most noticeably. Some of us rebel and begin to learn our feminism right then. The other time is, for many women, becoming a mother. Oh, how so many find out that all the myths of respect for motherhood are … bullshit. Elements of the Patriarchal Bullshitery (the double standards, the catch-22s, the cognitive dissonance) become clear in each of these phases of female becoming. So here is a small clutch of resources to do with that sacred portal from one phase of self to another: adolescence. These are by far not the only people or groups working build better worlds for teens. These are the ones we know of and admire at present. We [welcome considered recommendations](https://forms.gle/Ws7DqdWmFShq5m6y8?ref=medusarising.org) for more. [Culture Reframed ](https://culturereframed.org/courses/?ref=medusarising.org)– We admire them for both analyzing and answering to a problem: **pornography** in the lives of teens. Gail Dines is the world reknonwed expert on pornography's pyschological and sexual effects on viewers. Culture Reframed offers 3 courses for parents and educators, all of which are - Free to access - Available online 24/7 - Backed by decades of rigorous peer-reviewed research, evidence, and scientific data - Self-paced and easy to understand - Divided into digestible modules that provide culturally competent, age-based educational videos, conversation scripts, and resources. [Rites for Girls](https://www.ritesforgirls.com/?ref=medusarising.org) – We admire them for using ritual and group work to **build girl's strength of body and boundaries**. They offer trainings, courses, and support circles for girls and their mothers. Some free content and courses here. - In Girls Journeying Together groups of pre-teen girls prepare for puberty and learn how to take charge of their emotional, social, and mental well-being. - Facilitators also support their mothers as the girls journey through this pivotal phase. - We aim to make growing up for girls an easier, safer, and better supported journey. [The Good Men Project](https://goodmenproject.com/store/gmp-dating-support-system/?ref=medusarising.org) – We like their **feminist-led course on dating for teens**, and men of all ages, because … let's face it. So many have lost the skills of deep relationality and self-humor required to let another human being see you for real. **Heads-up!** The Good Men are much more ‘queer inclusive’ and ‘trans supportive’ than many RadMatFems will want to allow. We agree with you. We also know there there are precious few good resources for men and boys that aren't busy shaming them into maintaining the patriarchy. We see this project's inclusivity as encouraging heterosexual men to accept and welcome feminine and gay men as esteemed members of their sex class – which is where the revolution really lies. The courses are paid, and GMP offers lots of free content. [Genspect](https://genspect.org/about/?ref=medusarising.org) – We like their project for having the hard conversations and for clearly and respectfully looking **Gender Identity Ideology (GII)** right in the eye and calling bullshit where needed. They also have a focus around the health and safety of children and their right to grow up gay, lesbian, bisexual, whole, and gender-noncomforming without medical interventions. **Heads-up!** In the other direction, Genspect have recently begun working more closely with The Heritage Foundation and Moms for Liberty, two organizations whose political projects do *not* align with our manifesto and purposes. Both of these organizations support social agendas that conflict with most basic RadMatFem principles. We are *very interested to hear from* and [about goups concerned with](https://forms.gle/Ws7DqdWmFShq5m6y8?ref=medusarising.org) *relative experiences of affluence or poverty, or the dangers and difficulties racialized/minoritized teens face, or the needs of teens beyond the Angophone countries*. We hope to direct support to them where wanted, and to create stronger international awareness, conversations, and cooperation around all issues affecting women and girls. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### RadMatFem Connect URL: https://www.medusarising.org/radmatfem-connect/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T19:39:48.000Z A practice of **strategic intersectionality** based in **generative difference** is only possible when we know who we can work with and where they are. From time to time we will share this call for solidarity. So let's get connecting! We are looking for *feminists and feminist organizations* Anywhere On Earth whose work and values comport with [RadMatFem](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/). We will publish collections of your suggestions anytime we have good clutch of them to share. Medusa Rising wants to foster the emergence of a RadMatFem international. **A couple of boundaries we maintain**, and ask you use to help focus your recommendations: - You may include those that recognize the dignity and humanity of TQ identifying people because we do too, we just don't confuse sex and gender (we know that's a complex demographic, no need to hector us). - You may not include those that displace or other women and girls in society and cutlure to accomodate TQ identifying people by confusing sex and gender. - You may include those that hold "small l" liberal values and a touch of the 'empowerment feminism'. - You may not include those that accept resources from &/ partner with right-wing organizations &/ the political/religious right. No disgust politics, no hate, no racism, no xenophobia – no othering. - see [Authoritarianism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism?ref=medusarising.org#:~:text=Authoritarianism%20is%20characterized%20by%20highly,the%20goals%20of%20the%20regime.) and [Dominionism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion%5Ftheology?ref=medusarising.org#:~:text=Dominion%20theology%2C%20also%20known%20as,acquiring%20governing%20authority%20are%20varied.), especially [7MM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven%5FMountain%5FMandate?ref=medusarising.org). [click over to connect](https://forms.gle/6c2xBF2XK8FitkXT7?ref=medusarising.org) **Why these boundaries?** Because in many parts of the world this insurgent TQ identity movement is an immediate threat to women and girls rights and dignity, but the resurgent and very successful far-right international is a deeper and longer term threat. We agree this is complicated, even unsatifactory. **Solidarity is the priniciple that others deserve as much freedom, dignity, and thriving as I do.** As bloody rediculous as it is that 'be kind' and all that comes with it is even a thing, the groups that include (not stridently focus on) TQ idenitifying people *are seeking *dignity, freedom, and thriving** for them and for women. They are tyring to overcome gender's essentialism even if they are confused about how. That we can work with. Ultra-conservative, religious fundamentalist, far-right liberatarian, and authoritarian groups/organziations are not seeking dignity and freedom for all. These are trying to enforce gender essentialism, some with force, and that is the opposite of women's dignity, freedom, and thriving. Feminism is not an *omnicuase*, it is not for everybody. Feminism is liberation a movmement *for women* from the interlocking systems of male supremacy called patriarchy. We work with people whose causes amplify women's dignity, freedom, and thriving. **Feminist+ not >Feminist**. We are looking to amplify points of intersection as ground for work. Where does my oppression overlap with yours, what issues are we both affected by, and what can we build there together that strengthens both our causes? Where do we need to work separately? How can we be hunting as a pack even then? That's our Venn diagram. In a living movement, that digaram will shift. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### No Time to Read? URL: https://www.medusarising.org/no-time-to-read/ Last updated: 2024-12-24T16:38:47.000Z Esmée recorded a little explainer episode for the [**Medusa Rising Podcast**](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sSGhUbnA0fr6aQwAU419x?si=LltqKOzpRme01VxKSa-Vpw&ref=medusarising.org). It covers the general mission and spirit of this project, so if listen rather than read if you like. You can also listen to the [**Manifesto for A Radical Materialist Feminism**](https://www.medusarising.org/manifesto-radmatfem/) to get a full picture our commitments and principles, and demands. And, soon, we'll catch up making recordings to add to posts that don't have them yet. ### Happy Solstice, Sisters URL: https://www.medusarising.org/happy-solstice-2/ Last updated: 2024-12-20T17:27:57.000Z You're new here, we're new here, let's make a new year for women every-here! Ok, that was shameless. But. Medsua Rising wishes women a safe, loving, joyous Winter/Summer Solstice the globe over. Be you among family, a contented solitary woman, in long dark three days of winter's contemplation, gathered with your coven, partying with your set, in the long bright three days of summer's elation, or casting hexes that the patriarchy's feet fossilize in the mud in history, our hearts are with you this season. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/12/1000002485.jpg) We're encouraged by your presence with us as we begin this new RadMatFem project. With your attention, sharing, words, art, and determination we know we can build a space for women's thoughts, cultures, and movement that will untame and bless us all. ### This World of Images |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/this-world-of-images/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:43:23.000Z World of Images ES 0:00 /207.93275 1× A prediction made in the 1960s about the world after WW2 and in the face of late-capitalism is that it would become post-Modern – something that remembers the Enlightenment and Industrialization, remembers real empire... but isn't those things anymore. Empire is economic, if its effects are still brutally physical. Industrialization is still here, but superceded by Information. The Enlightenment's legacy of democratic ideals, human rights, and a bias to evidence over faith or authority is still here. But they are not the power forming our lives any longer. The image rules. Truthiness over truth. Data over knowledge. ... You feel this? The forms are still there, but the experience of them has become ... ghostly. That's post-Modern. Medusa Rising has to work in this post-Modern space — she has no choice — but swerved and deepened. It's OK. Feminists have always wanted to work the deep time, the background, see beyond the foreground. Mary Daly taught us much about this. To read through the patriarchal screens for the women's world behind them. Meaning > Content Experience > Identity Knowledge > Attention Movement > Influence I do have to capture your attention, exert some influence, for this project to even survive. But I want more for you, for us. Better than generate content, I want manifest meaning. Better than perform any identity, I want crash into experience. Better than grab your attention, I want to share knowledge. Better than capitalize on influence, I want to weave women's movement into a state of concrete agency. Yeah, Medusa Rising want to make RadMatFem bite-sized superfoods, but to make them nourishing, it all has to be slow-cooked, has come out of deep process ... to have the mark of the human all over it. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Realists of the Larger Reality |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/realists-of-the-larger-reality/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:43:38.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/12/1000002541.png) The world is always falling apart, always renewing, always mutating. Your gift, your light, your action, no matter how local or private or global and public matters now. Every woman you sustain, with your love or your work or your holding space or your courage, every woman you nourish is a portal to our larger reality. Whether you need to rest deeply or act wildly, or rest wildly and act deeply, follow that energy and intuition. Maybe you are planning. Maybe you are grieving. Both are holy realism. We have horizons waiting to greet us. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Endurance |by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/endurance/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:44:38.000Z **Authoritarianism is what abuse looks like in public.** Endurance ES 0:00 /418.169458 1× 10 Nov 2024 I read a whole thread about US women who woke up at 3 am on 6 Nov with the dread feeling Trump had won. This was our intuition at work. The energy, the vibration, in the air changed, and we noticed. What changed was that the predatory energy we felt stalking all that joy and foward-looking vibe in Harris campaign, that had surfaced, lunged. The whole patriarchal apparatus is gearing up, gleeful. As the meme says, this time feels like when the second plane struck on 9/11\. We know something far deeper is going on. I don't want to exaggerate or catastrophize on top of all the soul-ick we've absorbed already. I want to assure you that , that while no animal is promised life or ease on this Earth, humans know how to make community of affinity. So let's begin, again, Sisters. Our intuition is always on, we just have to make room for it to flow and touch our conscious mind. You've had that hair-raising, fear tingle, the 'Spidey sense' about some man, right? This is that, but on a more global scale. Some among us are highly sensitive types, with a little more receptiving to changes in the collective vibe — even while asleep! We've told we are 'too much' and 'too sensitive' all our lives, but y'all, if you were sleeping next to one of us that night, you knew a techtonic plate had slipped its hold. We are here to heard. If you are feeling it, or if you are feeling very depressed or scared or numbed-out and can't find your feelings, or are stuck in an ineffective rage-loop about the future (me), then you are carrying the effect of on-going trauma in your muscles, nerves, gut, heart, and endocrine system. My average sleeping heart rate over the night of November 5 to 6 was 97 BPM. I don't speed walk in my sleep. I am not OK right now. So, I'm talking to myself when I say you have got to MOVE *as much as you can, in ways your body allows* to keep this soul-ick moving and moving out of you. Movement connected to breath lets energy flow OUT to make room for strength, endurance, and good-warm-bright energy with which to uphold your own bodymind and those of the women in your life. You have to move with INTENTION. Push their gloating, their threats, their glee, his whiny bombastic fucking voice and the other one's bland camouflage voice OUT with each breath, step, gesture. Walk, shake, dance, tap your fingers very lightly on your legs, do some yoga sway right and left. Do all this going side to side, it's calming and reminds our bodies of being with people, like dance and making love. (Back and Forth brings up struggle and fear responses, like a fight.) Move your eyes back and forth across your field of vision. Qigong done with this focus is great! (I am a devotee of this[ flapping-warm-up movement](https://youtu.be/ohz8l-miUXM?si=QnoA-mdPVgtCgHGj&ref=medusarising.org), the first about 3 minutes of this video. Just makes me happy the way it moves energy around. Note, it's a male monk.) And focus on the icky feeling, the scary event, the stark revelation of these goblins times. Do this as best as you can stand to while using the movements to move the feeling's INTENSITY through your system and out. Then you can look around at the place you are, the people you love, your pets, your favorite tree or boulder or long derelict fire hydrant, whatever it is that reminds you that are here in a place where have resources and time to use them. ![Graphic of a woman's head morphing into butterflies accompanied by text that reads in part: The purpose of your body is to keep you in touch with the physical world. You are mostly ocean shot through with electricity. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002402.jpg) I'm saying this from experience, *not as a medical professional*, just as a woman who needs to stay connected to her body in the now. [EDMR practices](https://youtu.be/eEVXhPKGLf0?si=qk70R8h1SXOvsJwChttps://youtu.be/eEVXhPKGLf0?si=qk70R8h1SXOvsJwC&ref=medusarising.org) and techniques for balancing our [vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system](https://youtu.be/NSjHvaGnX5A?si=Ure0CtBYOXgEJnkk&ref=medusarising.org) can really help your body support your mind as you and your affinity groups figure out how to navigate whatever is to come.\* I like a couple of YouTube channels about this [discharge and balancing process](https://youtu.be/dZ2I1Q719II?si=urfiUwUVhK0EocOl&ref=medusarising.org).^ And I really like listening to this [sound bath percussionist (she is a sound witch!!!)](https://youtu.be/RSuf%5F6MucgI?si=DphJuaDxlQDZeLc9&ref=medusarising.org) in Memphis TN while I do it. Those really big gongs activate a lot of power for me!! But any music that uplifts, centers, and calls in good energy for you is perfect. If that is L7, that is L7\. Brother Cornel West said it: **Justice is what love looks like public.** We are far from there now. Tend your bodies with a view to keep your minds light and NIMBLE so you can tend your people and be open to receive care yourself. --- - Basically, the vagus nerve is a huge one that runs all through the center o your body connecting your major organs and endocrine system like a massive fiberoptic cable. It's the whole-body communication system. - Nutshell Therapy is very generous with sharing understanding and techniques for free. She is selling goods and services. I'm not endorsing those. I'm only saying she's made some very good explanatory videos that I have found helpful. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Introducing Radical Notion Remixes URL: https://www.medusarising.org/introducing-radical-notion-remixes/ Last updated: 2025-02-11T18:47:29.000Z Intro Rad Not Remixes ES 0:00 /596.748 1× A frequent post on Medusa Rising will be our Radical Notion Remix where we'll re-present articles and essays from THE RADICAL NOTION. Lots of work in that magazine was designed to lay out a framework for radical materialist feminism. No matter how much we aimed to take some high theory, political philosophy, and feminist history and make it accessible, those articles were often long and quite dense compared to other offerings. We knew this. That's one reason the magazine was a print project. That kind of reading takes t-i-m-e and print formats lend themselves to the necessary slowness and flow of grocking heavy, complex analysis. So, Medusa Rising wants to re-imagine some of that heavy fare into lighter but still excellent street food, something you can enjoy on the go, even hands free, in more portable formats like summaries, infographics, and discussion podcasts. Think Blinkist, but for radical materialist feminism. No online project can match the richness and care in design that went into the six-course tasting menus of THE RADICAL NOTION, so when we remix an article we'll link the PDF at theradicalnotion.org so you can take in with all its color and texture if so inspired. TRN made all its issues free to access as PDFs from now until the lights go out forever because we always thought of that project as part of a gift economy. I want Medusa Rising to help make sure all that powerful women's art and writing keeps getting the attention and consideration it deserves. I want the writers and artist who shared their work with us to be able to show off and brag on themselves. That way, they'll find even more community of women and readers who value the world feminists building. I hope these remixes work like a reading group – a source with/against which to develop your own RadMatFem. For this same reason, I'm taking one of my pieces on Irigaray, since we're waiting for the new archive site to go live as I'm writing this, I figured better to start this project of learning in public by experimenting with my own stuff. ## **Remix | Re-Framing Radical Feminism - Irigaray's Couple, Difference, Mucous | from Issue 11 of TRN.** **(will link when the archive goes live)** ![Two different styles of circle representing subjects in difference relating through a double helix representing the complexity of reciprocity.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002381-1.jpg) Living (and working) relationally across differences is a fundamental value for RadMatFem. We are beings embedded in a world that evolved us, our bodyminds in constant feedback with everything and every creature around us. This is belonging writ large. We are inter-beings, permeable, open. That's why the figures in the image above are distinct, but open to the space around them. All living beings are vulnerable because they are relational. This relationally is only a weakness – infact, vulnerability is one of our most common synonyms for weakness – in a domination system that weaponizes vulnerability to serve power. Nature is not a domination system. It is a system of vitality and violence – everything eats, everything dies. But that process is not about 'winning' or 'power' so much as a dynamic equilibrium and cycle of death and renewal. In this the couple in sexual (or any) difference is a miniature dynamic seeking belonging and thriving. Domination fucks all that up. Domination tries to freeze in place, to idealize, reify, solidify, exploit, extract. It is is unnatural, that is why its violence is not necessary but sadistic, deliberately alienating. Instead of that domination, RadMatFem would have us relent and tune into this other energy in the interval. The double helix above represents that generative interval. This GIF below focuses on the complexity of that dynamic space of becoming. Instead of pining for a perfection without vulnerability, suffering, and death, RadMatFem takes those for inevitable factors that should trigger our care and mutual nourishing wherever possible (not preferable, not advantageous, ... *possible*). One of Irigaray's metaphors for that interval is the body's mucous, the fluid membranes of exchange that protect and enable all the wild chemistry of our permeable membranes. No permeability, no metabolism, no life. 0:00 /0:08 1× In Irigaray's theory of sexual difference, two subjects understand themselves to be permeable and interconnected. That is, they are grounded in material reality. The idea of the self-enclosed, autonomous, sovereign subject is already a fantasy, a projection and compensation that Man cooked up to cope with being a slow, soft animal in a wild and dangerous world. Instead of competing for power/security, responding to actions/energy with defense and attack, the subject tend to those flows, take responsibility for them, and attend to how the other receives them. That's an important dimension of the mucous-interval in Irigaray's thought. It's the between-space of those flows, doing the work mucous does in the body: protecting the integrity of permeable membranes. It is also a space of pleasure, nourishment, and uncertainty. Whether two people or two powers on the world stage or two classes of people or subjects in history that differ from each other, the couple is Irigaray's figure for difference made creative. Rather than competing for existing resources, these couples build world. The energy or action sent out will probably encounter other forces and flows that change it, even remake it completely before it reaches its intended. Hence the need for attention to the flow's reception. This is the meaning of reciprocity in RadMatFem. Not that we exchange same for same, but that we attend to the qualities of our offerings and how they are received by our other/s. We do not just catapult projections while expecting to be seen ourselves. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002385.jpg) The Default Male Subject pretends he is real and she (barely even a woman) is a screen for the projection of his fear-desire-fear of inter-relation and vulnerability. These arrows are looped to show how misunderstood his own desire really is. And they refract and bounce off of her to show how this projection makes any relation to her (or her to him) impossible. This projection is a huge part of any othering. It's a fundamental psychological operation in all dominance systems. He imagines himself solid, impenetrable, and acts to maintain dominance. He imagines her a insubstantial, malleable, penetrable, and incapable of her own solidity. That very amorphousness also makes her enormously dangerous, untrustworthy, engulfing, a powerful magnet for his lust/rage. Personal, political, cultural – this complex plays itself out. All the action and energy is painful, confused, and deflected. Always potenially violent because never reciprocated. Reciprocity is impossible. Alienation rules all interaction. This is very good for consumer capitalism. Connection is replaced with power, with the force applied to demand compliance. This is the 'relation' allowed by traditional gender socialization. This is what Irigaray, as a radical feminist, wants us all to let go of. What I have always admired in her work is that she does not just say Let That Go, but takes the next *riskier* step of suggesting What To Build Instead. So building is a major theme for Medusa Rising. Our hope is that you'll send us your work about building and making change as much as about the problems feminists want to build our way out of. --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Impulses, Concepts, Energies URL: https://www.medusarising.org/impulses-concepts-energies/ Last updated: 2024-11-26T13:43:58.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/10/1000002301-1.jpg) Low-vision readers may find an accessible version of [this image at this Google Document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CFXw08PreEn73e5myOnJQ0TObYLCdwkDYdFyFrzrEHM/edit?usp=drivesdk&ref=medusarising.org). ### Women Create Conference London: 30 & 31 May 2025 URL: https://www.medusarising.org/women-create-conference-london-30-31-may-2025/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T19:40:31.000Z Medusa Rising's snake-sister Victoria Gugenheim and team present the world's first conference solely for **women artists cancelled by various interest groups for their art, beliefs, or politics**. From writers to performance artists, from all over the globe, the conference will feature these **women's creativity and their stories of cancellation and overcoming**. - #### 2 Days - #### Over 50 Speakers & Displays - #### 1 Women-Only Disco!! - #### Live-Stream Tickets Available [Details & Tickets | Women Create @ Eventbrite](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/women-create-tickets-996922771847?aff=ebdsshother&ref=medusarising.org) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/11/1000002382.jpg) ### The Boys Are Not Cool | by Esmée Streachailt URL: https://www.medusarising.org/the-boys-are-not-cool/ Last updated: 2025-04-17T14:45:07.000Z the boys are not cool - esmée streachailt 0:00 /384.612667 1× Why ARE Gen Z and Alpha men moving to the right? One shot in the dark is that they are angry at the loss of Default Male Privilege. But, that thesis does not jive with the patterns sociology sussed out. Major social change – race equality, sex equality – takes about three generations to really settle into a norm. Why? Some in a generation have to decide a structure of material or prestige advantage is Not OK, say women. They struggle and fight for change. The generation that thought it was aces to oppress/feel super-superior to, say, women, has to DIE Off 💀🥀. Then their influence on that belief/structure has to wane, this is the work of the generation that inherits their struggle and they usually gain wider acceptance of the principle that Women Are Humans. This generation will encounter a backlash of epic proportions. Then their kids are raised in this mixed up churn of beliefs, but most of them should grow up to think that what Grandpa believed about women was … potted. To this cycle, we can now add a generation, maybe two. Both women and all people of color in white-majority countries – *actually, any minority in any country where their minoritization is built into the economy and esteem structures, the skin color of the oppressor changes across the globe and through history*– have found that three generations is too few for deep, new-norm, no more fighting that good fight type of change. What happened? Power happened. Not a king, or just one or two billionaires with their egos too far up their bums, no. Whole networks of money and belief and influence and law and… Power. The kind Foucault was really good at thinking about when he was good at thinking.\* How did it happen? Splitting. The fundamental gestures of all illegitimate power are splits: between races, classes, sexes, etc. Pitting of one kind against another as a distraction from the Power picking your pocket of you money, time, love, desire, dreams, sense of belonging… The fundamental effect of all illegitimate power is alienation. Making you feel cut off, ineffective, weak, small, mistrustful, defensive, and stingy. Illegitimate power brings out, not always the worst but always, the smallest in people. The Boys Are Not Cool. They have been prevented from becoming cool by Power. The power that protected Andrew Tate for so long. The power that let Joe Rogan stay in their ears. (The recording says Seth Rogan because I am an idiot sometimes!!! #LearningInPublic) The boys should, all things not being trapped in the internet, have become cool. Instead, they are angry 😡 😡 😡 at the “loss of privilege” they are experiencing. The loss of Feeling More Awesome Than Women, that is. Thing is, these boys were raised next to girls who got cool – good at sport, STEM, arts, music, space, tech, and … looking cute. They should have just come along and enjoyed the good company of their generation of cool, confident, easy-going girls. But no. Dad’s and uncles on the internet, and the absolute deluge of (violent) pornography have told them they Deserve All Service On Demand To Both Ego And Dick. They’ve got the same message from the powerful men who lead churches. *You can’t trust those girls. Those girls think you’re dumb and ugly. Those girls make more money than you do. They have a higher body count. They are going to use you for your money. They are going to date you while making money on their Only Fans. They are going to never marry you and make you babies and you have a “bloodline” to carry on (you tax accountant you, lllllllegacy!!!).* Splitting. Alienation. Pick-pocketing. All of it right there, and the boys are just kids who are trying to figure out who they are. Still, I think it’s OK for the girls to not hook-up with, or date, or marry uncool boys and men. Uncool men are unhealthy for women. They add stress, work, and sometimes actual violence to women’s lives. The smart, rational, self-interested choice is to avoid all that. Look, women in rich countries, most of the global North, have been nearly-free to be human for a whole 50 years. 50 out of 5000 since the Creation of Patriarchy. 1% of all of advanced cilivization! Our liberty is uneven, but the boot is mostly off our necks. And with just that much more breath in our lungs, we have lapped men as a sex. We are really good at … Everything now. And it has scared the jibbering fuck out of Default Male Power. That’s why so much porn features choking. They are coming for our breath, our cognition, our ability to run. In addition to our vote. --- \*You can learn just about everything Foucault would teach you from men who did not use their theory to excuse their kinks from the [Frankfurt School](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/?ref=medusarising.org). Herbert Marcuse was Anglea Davis’s PhD director. 🤩 Splitting/Alienation: these are adapted from Carol Gilligan's [*In A Human Voice*](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/In+a+Human+Voice-p-9781509556809?ref=medusarising.org), where she explores the process of gender socialization as trauma. You can watch discussions of the book on You Tube, [here's one](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DvDGB9X1rbU0&ved=2ahUKEwi4mMWY15qJAxVJFFkFHcuYH7gQwqsBegQIWxAE&usg=AOvVaw2z3iXybReQB7rhAAWVAUuL). *(Previously on my Substack, Melusine & Medb, in Oct 2024, before the US election. As a write this, I hope Trump suffers a historic, landslide, undeniable rout and salting of the MAGA earth partly so that boys and young men will get the message that they are on the wrong track. That Substack has closed. I am not a nine-irons-in-the-fire kind of mind.)* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/65/75/6575a206-4a74-4088-a0fc-76d31c2a9ab8/content/images/2024/10/Screenshot_20241018_131747_X-1.jpg) --- *Maybe this post moved you? Would you like to dedicate it in the name of an ancestor, sister, sister-friend, lover, daughter?* [*Use Eopsin's Ward*](https://buy.stripe.com/bIY7vFdfL2us8ik288?ref=medusarising.org) *to have your dedication added here.* *Add your voice to this Gorgon chorous?* [*Visit Contribute*](https://www.medusarising.org/submissions/)*.* Share ### Regular Content Begins April 2025 URL: https://www.medusarising.org/april-2025/ Last updated: 2024-12-13T13:48:40.000Z World building women will begin ​sharing our regular offerings in April. These first three months, we are learning in public, feeling our way to the presentation of this radical materialist feminist framework, the spirit of our work, and the kinds of submissions we are looking for. We'll post our experiments as we make ready! Let us know how you are recieving our offerings. Integrate, ground, then release. 💜