Thread by @Passie_Kracht

FYI the reason Twitter silenced me again for 12 hours was calling this man - Scottish politician - a man.

He was calling women ‘cis’ which I and a good number of other women objected to. Because we do not identify as women, we are women. It’s our biological reality and it exposes us to the risk of male violence, discrimination and exclusion every day.

We don’t choose that nor does denying that physical reality - literally our skin, blood and bones - change any of these conditions. Because men. Men do this to us. They rape and kill us in huge numbers. So much so they’ve built entire societies around it.

Society would not exist on its current form if men weren’t doing this to us on a daily basis. If men didn’t express their hatred of us through violence every single day we would live in a different world.

We’re supposed to just take our mothers, sisters, daughters, neighbours, friends getting assaulted, raped, kidnapped, tortured, inprusined in their own homes and - the ultimate annihilation - murdered as a fact of life, and deny the reality that’s spitting in our face:

That it’s men doing this to us. We’re supposed to keep our mouths shut. We’re taught this from birth. The most insidious way men have made us silent about this is by making sure we’re blind to what they’re doing to us.

They’ve built their violence against us into the fabric of society. So from birth we are told it’s normal when boys hurt us: it doesn’t mean they hate us, it means they like us! We’re gaslighted from a young age to distrust our own eyes and deny our instincts.

We’re taught through every aspect of our lives that we matter less than boys and are worth less than boys. We’re told we’re less capable, less strong and less intelligent than boys. What we say is listened to less. Our potential is considered less.

*Imprisoned* jeez it’s still night

Whenever we object to this we’re told we’re imagining it. This is not really happening. Massive gaslighting of girls makes us doubt our own judgment. And as we grow up into puberty and beyond we start experiencing men’s hatred of women and of our bodies more clearly -

grown men start to remind us daily that our bodies exist only for their consumption - and we start seeing women less represented in all spheres of power, we are again told we’re imagining it. Women are asking to be objectified by the way they look.

When you feel threatened by a boy or man on the street because he shouts at you how he wants to use your body for his sexual gratification, you can’t see it’s just a compliment. It’s your fault.

When your male classmates or adult male teacher get sexually aroused by your bra straps *you* should cover up. I could go on and on. All women know this and have experienced this in dozens if not hundreds of ways.

Even when men rape us - the ultimate violation of the female body- or end our lives we are blamed for their crimes. Somehow we must have brought it on ourselves. It was our actions that brought him to it. He couldn’t help himself.

We all know these stories. If we haven’t lived then we have heard them about people close to us or read about them in the media. We’re constantly told not to trust our own eyes.

Women being persecuted and murdered for not covering their head? Hundreds of millions of girls’ genitals being destroyed before they even reach puberty? Hundreds of millions of girls sold to adult serial rapists in ‘child marriage’?

Tens of thousands of women murdered every year, most by men they know and love? A third of all women worldwide subjected male physical or sexual violence at least once during their lifetime? Nothing to see here!

When girls and women experience male violence we are told it was an incident. It was due to put own behaviour in some way, even if we were still a child. We’re told to be ashamed and stay quiet about it. This is how we are made complicit in men’s crimes against us.

And when we do stay quiet and our abuser goes on to abuse others we feel that’s our fault too. Male violence is made invisible and when it does become visible it’s women’s fault. This is the massive gaslighting we’re subjected to from birth.

Male violence doesn’t exist. “Why are you making up these lies, child? We both know he’s never touched you!”

Male violence is isolated. “Police issued a statement that the murderer was known to the victim. There is no need for the neighbourhood to be alarmed.”

Male violence is your fault. “Why did you stay after he hit you?”

Despite being told male violence doesn’t exist, is isolated and is our fault, women throughout history have fought back. Despite the pressure to stay silent women have spoken out and been punished for it.

But this past century women have made such great strides that it has become impossible to silence us. Every step women have taken to claim our rights has been met with violent backlash. Men know how dangerous it is for them when women speak out.

Not dangerous in the way they are dangerous to women of course, but dangerous to their privileged position. The patriarchy can only exist if women comply, and for that we need to be subjugated. Violence is the main tool. And violence can only thrive under silence.

This past century women all over the world have gained political rights, economic independence, legal protections... We have grown into a real threat to men’s privileges under patriarchy. And we’ve started speaking out more.

Every single stride women have taken has been met with scorn from men, followed by a massive violent backlash. And this is what we see happening today. As women take control of our own lives and our own bodies - note, no violence there - men strike back.

They up domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape and murder. It’s their desperate attempt to keep us in our place. And it’s partially working at an individual level but collectively women are no longer taking it. We’re still afraid but we’re speaking out.

And this, my friends, has men terrified. There are social media tools now where women can talk about what men have done to us. We can support each other. More important, we’re starting to connect the dots. We’re breaking the silence.

And by breaking the silence and connecting the dots we’re becoming aware of the collective gaslighting we’ve been subjected to. We’re starting to SEE. This is why we now have figures on FGM, child ‘marriage’ and sexual and physical violence against women.

Women are realising what’s being done to us is real, is not isolated and is not our fault. So women everywhere have started organising, advocating for women and collecting data and stories about male violence to make it visible.

The internet and particularly social media are an invaluable tool for connecting and spreading awareness and information. It’s made us unstoppable. But of course, the internet is brought to you by the patriarchy. Tech companies are run predominantly by men. They’re not feminist.

So all social media platforms have participated in varying degrees in supporting the backlash against their female users by condoning rape and death threats from male users, while cracking down on women speaking about their rights, their bodies and and their lives.

Violent porn is accepted yet women can’t talk about the violent threats they receive from other users. A man writing a limerick in support of women on Twitter can expect to be harassed by the police. Paedophiles are welcome but dictionary definitions are treated as a hate crime.

For the past five years my motto on Twitter has been #NotShuttingUp. And I won’t. Twitter can suspend or permanently ban me but it can’t shut me up. We women always find a way. They need to understand there’s no stopping us now. Now that we see there is no unseeing.

It means we also see what you’re doing. We see there’s men pushing buttons from a computer to suspend our accounts, just because they can. We see that it’s not just some guy but that he’s part of a system. We can’t under that. And we’ll never be silent again.

This gender bullshit is just a desperate last attempt to keep us down. Patriarchy’s last spasm. But we’re #NotShuttingUp ever again! You can tell us men are women and try to force us to say ‘TWAW’ like Winston was forced to lie about the number of fingers held up in 1984.

But we’ll keep resisting and telling the truth as we see it. When we see someone who calls himself a transwoman we know by definition he is male. Just like he has the right to lie by saying he’s a woman we demand the right to tell the truth by saying he’s a man.

If this is my Twitter obituary, so be it. See you on spinster.