Girls Matter, my new book, out now! Award-winning author for "The Grumpy Guide to Radical Feminism". Journo and sometimes comedienne.
Nov 14 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
In 2022, while visiting family, my adult younger brother told a rape joke in front of me. My older brother laughed. I said simply, "I should tie both of you in chairs with a gag mouth and read to you my book (The Grumpy Guide to Radical Feminism). Older brother took an issue. 1/
He said "I will never read your book because I'm against extremism." I tried to reply that radical feminism was not "extremism" but he kept shouting me down. Younger brother defended older brother's "right" to not read my book, mind you. They wouldn't let me speak, so I told 2/
Oct 24 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
I carried the blame for being sexually abused as a girl for 30 years, because when I disclosed it, my stepfather became furious with me for "defaming his relative" (the abuser was married to a female cousin of my stepfather). I was 8yo and insisted that this happened... 1/
... and he went into denial, saying that this man would never do such a thing because he was his relative and because he was "such a religious person - he went to church every Sunday". I insisted I was telling the truth and that he forced me to touch his penis... 2/
Sep 3 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Longer-ish thread, I hope. The case of the French woman who, for a decade, was drugged by her husband and then raped by men her husband recruited online is something I've been banging on for years now, since a 16yo girl was gang raped in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 by 33 men. 1/
These two cases are not even isolated. Off the top of head I can remember at least another one in which a 14yo girl was found drunk in a park by a man, who raped her, then send messages to other men to come and rape her, and in the end she was raped by 26 men or so. 2/
Aug 6 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Last night, I received an unexpected message sent by a man who downloaded my report "Women's Sex-Based Oppression in The 21st Century". With his permission, I'll reproduce it here:
"Hi Andreia, I have two girls and a boy who were brought up with utmost respect and love..." 1/
"... and have grown into beautiful people now having kids of their own so to read some of your articles about oppression is an eye opener to me. However in the last few years I have started employing young people in my small business and have noticed how boys are treated..." 2/
Apr 17 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The man who was challenged by a woman in the female toilets, got angry and shot her dead, has been finally arrested yesterday, I've been told. This happened in Brazil. The woman was in a restaurante with her husband and kids, he was there with his wife and kids. He went to the 1/
female toilet for "reasons", she challenged him, he "got angry", left his family in the restaurant, went home, got a gun, came back to the restaurant and shot the woman who challenged him in the female toilet. For "reasons" (like challenging his presence in the female toilet). 2/
Jul 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Would I be too far off if I said: "when a person is experiencing coercive control from a partner/relative/"friend", if they tell their abusers what coercive control is, the abusers will use their new found knowledge of coercive control to further the abuse"? It feels like it.
I want to say something very uncontroversial: abuse is very abusive. It drains the life of the abused, the abused becomes a shred of what they could become. I have no time for abusers. I cut them off my life and say "no" to them.
Jul 7, 2023 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Men can't breastfeed because men can't produce breastmilk. There's a protocol with a cocktail of drugs for nausea and schizophrenia that may lead to a condition called galactorrhea, which may produce a "milky-like" nipple discharge, but it's not breastmilk. 1/
@ChardHollis @AllieIacob @mzmysterie When is the case (milky-like nipple discharge outside pregnant/gestation in women) is not breastmilk either but women may indeed and eventually produce breastmilk when galactorrhea is induced because women's breasts have lobules, which men don't.
Jun 29, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I'd like to bring you a perspective on this from a Brazilian woman. In Portuguese, mother is "mãe", and father is "pai". We live in such a sexist society that the very rare fathers who raise their kids solo adopt for themselves the word "pãe" - a "father who is a mother". 1/
Brazilian women have criticized the term for the obvious reasons. A father is not a mother because he is raising his children solo. He is a father, who is raising his children. Kudos for them. However we must point out the millions of Brazilian children who have never even had 2/
Feb 12, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Many men tell me that being sexually abused as a child should not define me. In reflection, I realised that the abuse didn't actually define me. I did wait until I was 19 to start having sexual intercourse. However, the sexual abuse was not the main factor for waiting. 1/
I didn't wait bc I was traumatised. Or bc I became shy after abuse. I waited for the same reason I didn't go into prostitution, like at least 2 of the girls who were abused by the same men did. I waited because I was poor. I waited bc only 2 of the girls abused didn't become 2/
Oct 26, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Last night, I came home from Filia. At Brussels airport, me and a female companion took the train. Two men didn't have coins to buy the train ticket, so they asked for help. They gave money to my friend and she paid for the tickets. On train platform,they stayed away from us.
Left train, took subway. Friend left 2 stops before me, but I got out with her. We waited together for the next one. But when I got in for 2 more stations only, a homeless man came in. He saw me and stopped in front of me. He asked for money, but I didn't have any. He got angry!
Oct 24, 2022 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
I believe it's high time to put some pictures from @FiLiA_charity 2022 here, what do you say? @iseult (I lost track of the amount of "omg, it's you" I've done this year lol) @RosieKayK2CO
Oct 18, 2022 • 333 tweets • >60 min read
Woman misses out work opportunity because a prospective client thought that she, the CEO, was an admin for her male colleague
You will not believe what I'm about to tell you. I was in a private group with @endhostile until yesterday. When I heard of the overturning of Roe vs Wade, I shared the link. A man wrote "Phew." I asked if he wrote this as a sign of relief for Roe vs Wade being overturned.
He said it wasn't and clarified. I then said "my apologies, I asked this because I have been sexually harassed in the streets just yesterday" and talked a bit more about women's rights in general - and so I thought.
Jun 4, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This is absolutely messed up. A woman was violently attacked by her male partner and the police believed in the man. Why? Bc the woman says she's a man and the man says she's a woman. There's a law in Brazil, Maria da Penha, to protect women from DV. Recently the justice system
Decided to include men who say they are trans in this law. The law was mentioned in the case above, bc the male aggressor told the police that he was the victim of DV. And the law is to protect women from male domestic violence. Now a woman attacked by a man can't be protected
Jun 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Yesterday I was called a "piece of shit" for asking "is there a list of books that are considered transphobic by a group of Amazon employees?"
Jun 3, 2022 • 45 tweets • 8 min read
Some commentary on What is a Woman doc:
The first woman Matt Walsh interviews says shea was "assigned female at birth." Then Walsh asks "what is a woman" and she says: "I'm not a woman so I can really answer that."
Then a male surgeon says that a vaginoplasty is the "creation of a female vagina and vulva" with a penis. Then he says that someone who wishes to have a limb cut off to be disabled has a mental diagnostics, or as he put it, "cookie" (I'm paraphrasing it to a loonie, for clarity).
Reminder that abortion bans endanger women's lives. And not only for unwanted pregnancies. In 2011, I was denied medical assistance because I miscarried and medical staff chose to believe that I had an abortion. I was 16wks pregnant and had not started yet antenatal care.
I hadn't started antenatal care bc I was DENIED antenatal care. I sought antenatal care and was denied antenatal care. I fought hard for antenatal care and was only given my 1st appointment with a midwifery team at 16wks. I started miscarriage 3 days before this appointment.
May 12, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Scary times. My 13yo tells me that today a man tried to get into the little patch of woods their school uses (which is protected by fence and gate). When this failed, the man simply pulled down his trousers in front of the kids. Kids called the police and the man was arrested.
Kids also told me that this was not the first time that they have seen this man lurking around their school. Of course it wasn't. This man was given the benefit of doubt, learned that he could get away with it and today he "upped" his game by pulling down his trousers.
Apr 1, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
#RespectMySex I'm a Brazilian woman. Humble background (didn't starve, just enough food to not starve). Sexually abused at 8yo. Told I wasn't meant to be good at Maths. Forbidden from climbing trees and playing sports. Cross your legs when you sit, you don't want to be raped!
#RespectMySex Can't wear trousers, it's skirts and dresses for you. Beaten up at 16yo by a man who saw me wearing trousers. Told I was never going to be a Journalist because I was female. Groped in the streets, kisses stolen on a night out, it was only a kiss, it's not rape.
Mar 3, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
When I think of what's going on about women's rights, I can't stop comparing it with rape culture, which has assumed new meaning after the popularisation of porn (and society's widespread pornfication). I just saw a thread on sport orgs admitting that they didn't have enough data
To allow males to compete in female categories. It seems that Scotland police is reviewing guidance that allowed male prisoners into the female state.
Men are always trying to break women's boundaries, since we seemed to have regained some last century by organising.
