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It feels like we all find ourselves on the verge of something major, life-changing and scary again. Maybe it will blow off in a week. Maybe this is how World War III will begin, and future historians will be pinpointing the first American strikes on Iran as an Archduke-Franz Ferdinand-assassination moment.

All so that the criminality of the powerful, as revealed in the Epstein files, will be hidden underneath the ruins and the corpses of God knows how many. Entire worlds will be destroyed, more American soldiers will be told they are heroes for killing, and if they don’t die themselves, until the end of their days, be thanked “for their service” (To what? would be a good question, but who’s gonna ask it?) More wreckage will be left behind when they leave. More lives will be forced to be contained in suitcases, more refugees will be created and then chased away as unwanted, as criminals, by the very ones who destroyed their homes. More women and children raped, and at the end of it, more of their rights taken away. More men reacting to the trauma of war with nationalism, extremism, religious fundamentalism, and of course, misogyny. Looking to reclaim their sense of power by disewpowering women. In short, with the usual ways. Damage that will take decades, generations possibly, to undo. All the things wars cause and leave behind. From the beginning of time.

All so that we would all shut up about the Epstein files: the corruption, the paedophilia, the black magic rituals and the cannibalism of babies (A sentence I never thought I would write, but here we are!) All for the mighty to escape accountability. For survivors’ voices to be hushed. To jack up the price of American oil. And to get hands on Iran’s large reserves of fossil fuels, of course. (Iran has the world’s second-largest natural gas supply and the third-largest proven oil reserves, let us not forget!) All of it packaged as a fight for “freedom”. (In the words of the Italian journalist Michele Serra: “Americans are very lucky, because wherever they go to bring freedom... they find oil”.) For escaping accountability. For distraction. For oil. For power. For money. More oil. More power. More money. And more and more. (Will it - can it - ever be enough?) What a serendipitous win / win / win / win deal! But let us call it “For the people of Iran”. “For Iranian Women’s Rights”. Yes, that will keep left-wing and right-wing women fighting amongst themselves for a while. Forgetting about all those girls and the men who raped them. Turning their attention elsewhere. For the poor women of Iran. All of it. Because the current American government cares so much about women! To save them from their abusers. By bombing them. Killing their children. Yes. That sounds better. It has a nicer ring to it certainly than “let’s wag the dog”, “Let’s start a war to boost the president’s failing popularity”, “Shut them up about the bloody Epstein files” “Get more oil”, “Get more money”, “Make a killing (while killing)”, “Please, our allies in the region” All in one stroke! Such luck! (Such a bottomless pit is this man’s luck! It should be studied.) The abusers of women are telling the American public they are the saviours of abused women. And many American women are buying it! Because they need to, I quess!

All so that we would turn our attention to new tragedies, new foes. And we have! According to Google, searches for the Epstein files peaked in mid-February, and then dropped dramatically by approximateky 95% in late February and March following the escalation of the US/Israel Vs Iran conflict. Top searches before the war included “Donald Trump and the Epstein Files”, “1994 Rape allegations” (in referance to Donald Trump), “Client List”, “Missing Files”, “Missing Names / Redactions”, etc. By early March, searches for anything relating to the Epstein Files were overwhelmingly replaced by searches about military developments in Iran (“Iran War”, “Iran Conflict”, etc), which, according to Google, saw a 1,000% to 1,200% spike!

Mission accomplished, in short. The Epstein Files, nicely buried under the wreckage. Silenced by the rumble caused by bombs and deafening lies. A war manufactured as an elaborate, expensive and deadly means of distraction. Because all the smaller distractions didn’t quite work as planned (the myth of the “criminal” immigrants, the ICE enforcement officers invading hardware stores, arresting gardeners and construction workers, the shooting of civilians), and people still had questions about the fucking Epstein files! Something needed to be done. Something major, bloody and Patriotic. A nice war always does the trick.

God knows how many countries will pay the price by the end of it. And how many working-class young men and women who serve in the American military will become the fodder for protecting paedophiles. Expendible pawns in the big cover-up. Their deaths additionally preparing the ground for the big payday. As if oil was not enough, Trump’s sons (Trump Jr. and Eric) have, according to Bloomberg, invested heavily in drone manufacturing companies. The Pentagon, according to the same sources, aims to spend around $1 billion on drone technology over the next two years. It might then be an indication of how long this war is going to last…

The U.S. has a long history of shadowy AND overt involvement in the region where the oil flows abundantly. (And where their most trusted ally needs an ally). The price is paid by local populations, and in the case of Iran, particularly by women. The U.S.’s participation in the series of episodes that prepared the ground for the 1979 Islamic Revolution (from the 1953 CIA-backed coup to the support of the Shah’s regime, and all that followed, leading to the 1979 events) eventually caused Iranian women to be stripped of all their rights. Becoming the cautionary tale we all fear (and the main inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale). Women went from being able to vote, study, work, travel, earn their own income, participate in Parliament, to being reduced to a slave status. Being covered from head to toe in black, dehumanised, unable to do anything without a man’s permission.

What has happened to them will forever be a reminder that women can never count on having Human Rights, as these can be taken away in a single day if a change in regimes decides it should be so. No one came to their aid. Not even when clerics and “Holy Books” declared that men had the “right” to rape a woman or a minor by signing a “Temporary Marriage” contract (Sigheh) creating a marriage that lasts as long as the raping does, allowing men to escape consequences, (and refusing women and chidlren the right to report their abuse, given that they were “married” to their abuser for how many minutes the abuse lasted, and given that rape within a marriage, even a pretend 10 minute-long one, is perfectly legit…) Or when they erased the age of consent allowing (in fact actually encouraging!) men to marry children, even babies (actual babies!), if they are so inclined… Funny how raping and paedophilia always pop up as “rights” men (regardless of ethnic/religious backgrounds) need to protect above all things.

The fight for Human Rights was long and blood-soaked for the people of Iran - and especially the women. It is believed that more than 36,500 Iranians were killed recently during the 8th and 9th of January 2026 protests, for example, in what was named the deadliest massacre of civilians during street protests in history. Many shot on the head while being hospitalised after being brutalised by the police! No help was offered by the West, the US, Unicef, the United Nations. No negotiations, no diplomacy, or mercy. Like, no help was offered when they were forced to live with extreme water scarcity for so many years. When the theocratic regime was busy silencing, imprisoning, torturing, and killing its own population. When even music was considered a fatal sin (making one’s voice“attractive”in a way that “induces merriment” is apparently particularly sinful). When women’s rights activists were sentenced to public lashings and thrown into prison like criminals. When they were being killed just for not wearing their headscarves in the “proper”way. But the Epstein files made it all possible. (What a Godsend!) Now, the bombing of their homes on top of all of that, the death of God knows how many more, will be advertised as their salvation in the West. A liberation from one regime so that a similar one - and if history is anything to go by, a far worse one - will take its place. Because, regardless of what one hopes, this is how things go in situations such as these: foreign attacks are more often than not likely to give rise to nationalism and the creation of new extremist groups that will be cracking down on the religion-inspired violence against women and girls, as it did for Afghanistan after Russians and Americans decided to “stop by”. (The United States has been involved in the Afghan war, in one way or another, for forty-two years, funding and arming the mujahideen) All of it, has caused women's rights to be rolled back. Women are now seen as non-humans, as men’s slaves and property. The kind of things that happen when men return from wars.

Back in America, men in MAGA hats (politicians, podcasters, “journalists”) who were peddling xenophobia and warmongery even before all this, and who never opened a history book (or travelled apparently), will be pontificating again about how theirs is the one “land of the free”, “the one true Democracy” (ignoring the other 88 - or the many others that crumpled because of the helpful meddling done by theirs). The beacon of “liberty”, the entire world is drooling over. They will be telling anyone willing to listen that the “troops” are defending “the American way of life”. Which is code for “American lives are worth more than anyone else’s and our need for more money, power, oil, is the only thing that matters”. And what is used in the absense of any other reasons that would warrant a war. They will be fist-bumping each other for the destruction of countries that have done nothing that can be seen as hostile. Celebrating the death of civilians living in places thousands of miles from them, which they can’t even point to on a map. And women will be typing on their phones: “This was done to help the women of Iran, and if you deny it, you hate women”. For the rest, it will be all about God of course. Religion (the fundamentalist kind) being such a key player in this war.

Radical nationalism and the eschatology of religionists and zealots, is playing a part that’s as important as the missiles. That’s how it’s done. Where would wars be without religions doing their bit for creating willing soldiers? Religion is already being shoved down the throats of soldiers of either side, easing the way to the massacre. Faith is easily weaponised if financial struggles are hitting you in the head every day. And if apocalyptic doom and gloom are presented as a possibility. If eliminating those who are opposed to your own version of God is presented to you as a way to prove your devotion and gather rewards. In this life or the next one:

Jews will be settling disputes that started in 1985, sure, but also, defending “holy” hierarchies constructed thousands of years ago, while the Iranian regime will be fighting for self-preservation, yes, but also against the “infidels”. And against dreaded gender equality, which is, according to their recently murdered leader, nothing but “a Zionist plot” with the purpose to “corrupt the role of women in society”. (I guess he never met a male Orthodox Jew in his life…) And American soldiers are actually being told this is the “Armageddon” by their superior officers! The last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgement. And they, the sacred vessels that will bring about the “Rapture” so many Evangelicals and born-again Christians are obsessed with! All of them, in short, motivated by faith of some kind. And of course, their own individual belief in their own superiority over all others. All of it, God’s will. Jews, Muslims, Christians, properly inspired.

The West and the East are colliding again. Worlds apart, people separated by culture, religion, thousands of miles and thousands of years of history. On the one side, a brand new nation. Barely a teenager if you look at things from the perspective of history (and lately, acting like one more and more) And on the other side, a country with a past spanning millennia. Literally the world’s oldest nation. Both governed by woman-haters. (What a coincidence!) Using religiosity as their more powerful weapon. Disregarding their own people’s most basic needs. Health care, the cost of living, wealth disparity, the right to know what the hell is going on, the right to know the true nature of the man who governs you, the right to have a say in your own reproductive rights if you are a woman, for Americans. Water, free speech, liberty, the right to be seen as a human being, or simply exist if you are a woman, for Iranians. Fair game all of it, if the stakes are high. So that the men who call the shots on either side will continue to do so. And at the secret centre of it all, the intention to create systems that allow the sexual control of females and girls with immunity: Trump’s well-documented past, on the one hand. The Epstein files. His government’s efforts to turn the clock back when it comes to women’s rights. Iran depriving women of every single right for decades, on the other hand. Mirrors of each other at this particular moment in time, at least: at the heart of their endeavours, the celebration of an archaic mode of masculinity. The protection of their perceived male “right” to paternalistically control women and girls. Their belief in the superiority of males. (If that’s not biblical, I don’t know what is…)

Speaking of biblical, photos have circulated on social media of giant statues of the ancient Canaanite horned bull deity Baal, being burned in the streets of Iranian cities. Given that the deity is referenced in biblical and Islamic traditions as a demonic god of male fertility and black magic who requires the sacrifice of babies, and given that it is mentioned in the Epstein files, it was assumed to be a symbolic gesture, a message sent to America, Trump and those mentioned in the files (who were pressumed by many, to be worshippers of Baal…) Because of the Internet blackout in Iran, the origins and authenticity of the posts have not been 100% confirmed. Conspiracy theorists, nevertheless, went a step further, suggesting that the photos are not only real, but they preceded the military attack and are therefore the very reason that caused it… So this is where we are.

In case religious fundamentalism doesn’t do the trick, both parties released propaganda videos: Iranian media released an A.I created video with Lego characters, depicting Donald Trump and Epstein as Lego figures, and implying how the war with Iran was initiated to divert attention from the Epstein files. The White House replied by releasing a series of “patriotic” videos – a mix of video game footage and pompous, aggressively “macho” scenes from action and comic book movies (Iron Man, Superman, Gladiator, Breaking Bad, John Wick and much more.) All mixed with clips of American missile strikes on Iranian towns. So this is all very mature and not at all juvenile. (No wonder all these guys are obsessed with little girls. Given that they have never matured past their early puberty.) The White House also released a bowling alley animation video, depicting US strikes on Iranian military targets. The war is nothing but a game, is what they are telling us, I guess. Unless you are in the middle of it, of course. Trump has even called it “a little excursion”. Such fun!

But religion is still the best card in their hands: American commanders across all the branches of the military are telling troops that Trump was “anointed by Jesus” to start the apocalypse in Iran, (which proves it: we have collectively entered some kind of alternative reality. Or a black mirror episode.) According to over 200 complaints - (too few if we consider both the size of the army and the nature of the statements) which were made to MRFF (the Military Religious Freedom Foundation that acts as a watchdog protecting the fast disappearing State and Church separation), the commanding officers are leading soldiers to prayer and assuring them that this is a “holy” war (And here we all were, thinking the Crusades ended in 1272…) Also, that the destruction of Iran is “biblically ordained” as part of God’s “divine plan”, and that the bloodshed is necessary to fulfil “Christian prophecy”. Citations from the Book of Revelation are offered as concrete “proof” of the above. Michael L. Weinstein (attorney, former Air Force officer and founder of MRFF) said that commanders are not just invoking “prophecy” but are excited about how violent the conflict must become “to align with end-times theology”. Military leaders are reportedly thrilled “at the prospect of maximum bloodshed because they think it brings Jesus back” It’s not the first time he raised the alarm about the dangers attached to the increasing influence radical White Christian nationalism has on the military.

Speaking of Crusades, Pete Hegseth the American Secretary of Defense (whose motto, “Maximum Lethality. Not Tepid Legality” tells you all you need to know) has several tattoos related to the actual Crusades, such as a Jerusalem Cross, the phrase “Deus Vult” ( which is Latin for “God Wills it”, which was the battlecry of Crusaders), and the word “Kafir” (which in Arabic means “Infidel” / “non-believer”. All are seen as symbols of a religious war and Islamophobia. He is also the author of the book “American Crusade,” in which he writes that “Americanism” is equated with opposing, among other things, movements such as globalism, progressivism, and (of course!) feminism. He also claimed that democracy is a leftist demand and that there is no such thing as War Crimes. After being accused (according to the Guardian, The New Yorker, The Political Scene podcast, and other sources), of sexist behaviour, raping women, and supporting military personel accused of War Crimes, he “found” God, by becoming a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, an arch-conservative Evangelical network that opposes to women having the right to vote… So this is where we are. It’s all on brand. It all comes full circle… (Like I said earlier: two mirrors facing each other.)

Belief systems (and misogyny) are by default grandfathered in this war in short, as this is some sort of Abrahamic religions showdown, with Christians, Muslims, and Jews facing each other, each group fighting for their corner in the region, their cut and their version of God.

This is not going to end well. Or soon.

God (choose your own and insert here), help us all!

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What the Epstein files revealed is that most men do not deserve our respect. And my God, we are mad about that one. Our rage betraying how much we need to see them as something they are not.

The heavily redacted Epstein files hide the worst details of the criminality of the mighty, but they still reveal what men do when they become thoroughly corrupted by power and find themselves beyond consequences. What they do when they have the money to buy immunity from accountability and the freedom to be who they really are, openly. What they say when no women are around. But the urge to act in the same manner exists in everyday men, too. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be so many crimes against women and girls. What statistics (and our lived experiences as women) tell us is that men with limited power are still driven by the same impulse to use women and girls, the same need to possess by force. To assault, to rape, to humiliate, to hurt, to kill.

The revelations had forced many women from across the globe to have an illusion- shattering moment of anagnorisis: they are angry by what is revealed (the horror of it, the scale of it) and how it will all be undoubtedly hushed, so that the powerful men who committed horrific crimes against women and children will be protected. But it’s more than that, of course: it is as if the scales had collectively fallen from women’s eyes as they realised that what those countless creeps whose names are mentioned in the files and what everyday men fantasise about in their porn watching and possibly try to reenact on their bodies, are not really different. This is not just about a problem that is related to rich men and how they use their power to prey on little girls and young women. This is about men. In general. It is about their violent tendencies. Their entitlement over females. How obsessed they are with teenage girls. How they will predate them - given the chance. How they feel it’s their right to hurt, use and abuse them.

What men think of us is not surprising. It is, however, surprising that it still surprises us. If you take a deep breath and dive into the comments of social media posts referring to the Epstein files, you will notice the difference between the sexes very easily. Women show empathy for the victims. They write about how angry, how shaken, and how shocked they are about the fact that these men have been raping girls and women for years, and nobody has arrested them. Their certainty that they will remain unpunished. Their disappointment that so many prominent men, whom they naively thought deserved their respect, feel free to reveal their misogyny when no woman is around. Their shock caused by seeing how men talk of them, how they act in private, among themselves, when there are no women in the room. Their nonchalant references to young women’s body parts. The dehumanising nicknames. The endless references to them as “pussy”. Their disgust when dealing with older women. And also, the absence of women in their business dealings: women and teenage girls are there as their dutiful assistants, or else as body parts to be entered.

Interestingly (and frankly predictably), the women’s anger, surprise, and sadness about the abusers and their empathy for the survivors are contrasted with men’s rage that women are enraged at all: the male commenters see things from an entirely different perspective. They are taking it personally. As men do. (Proving our point every time) How dare we say men do such things? Even when they do?! (“How dare we object to their right to do them?” Is what is implied.) They also repeatedly say that women are “doing the same thing”. That what these men were doing is actually equated with women “withholding sex” in relationships and marriages! A mind-blowingly irrelevant argument and yet one that is very popular among men these days whenever the issue of male sexual violence is raised, and in their mind, a thought-ending one, even! (It’s as if they are all taking their arguments from the same book or something. Is it the bible or some Andrew Tate-like podcaster I wonder? Either would sadly be equally possible.) Think about it for a minute: a wife not wanting to have sex on demand and somehow foolishly thinking she has a choice in the matter is seen as condemnable, as criminal as those who are trafficking vulnerable teenagers and young women, carefully grooming them, raping, torturing, and assaulting them for years, and then using their power to escape punishment! Or maybe it’s because they see a wife’s refusal to become her husband’s personal sex slave as an excuse for him to go out and rape other women and girls? Who knows? This is yet another fine example that there is nothing there, in the vast, celebrated, empty planes of manhood. Despite our collective - and let’s face it, desperate - need to see greatness.

In many of them (and we must always add the disclosure bit, lest we offend the many who think they are actually the “good guys” for which the NotAllMen hashtag was invented), there is nothing other than the blind need to fuck. No empathy towards us. No need for connection, no understanding, no recognition of our humanity, no mercy, even. From the minute we hit puberty, we are bodies that are just there for the taking. If we deviate from our prescribed role (either because we naively think we have the right to consent, or because we have aged out of the limited window of their predictable preferences or proclivities), we are nothing. An obstacle, the enemy, a nuisance at best. A constant reminder of who they really are. No wonder they want to shut us up…

Most of the male commenters also use Ghislaine Maxwell as an example that women are also deviants, saying things like “oh, you are conveniently forgetting that it was she who brought him the kids” etc. They are right, of course, but they are failing to understand that Ghislaine Maxwell was actually a paradox, and all those men were NOT. Even though women can be deprived and sexually abusive towards children, they rarely are. And when they are, it’s usually because they were victims themselves. A male victim of abuse will very likely (though of course not always) replicate what he has suffered in other children as an adult, but a female victim of child molestation will, as a rule, turn hate on herself as an adult. Hurt herself. Not others! She will suffer from depression, eating disorders, autoimmune diseases. She will self-harm, attempt to erase her painful memories with drugs, alcohol or suicide. A woman must take a LOT of wrong turns to become a predator, in short. A man simply is, statistics tell us with alarming regularity (see below before objecting). And it does matter! But both men and women are always being characterised as a whole, by the minority in their numbers: everybody focuses their attention on the few women who cause harm, and the few men who don’t. Rather than on the many women who would never, and the many men who do. (In great numbers. Often, and for thousands of years.) Women are condemned as “equally” vile as men because 6.4 % of all sexual crimes are committed by them. Men are celebrated because 6.4% of sexual crimes are not committed by them! To put it another way, 93.6% of sexual abuse offenders are men. 6.4% are women. Guess what group is being mentioned as indicative of what a particular sex is like in its entirety?

And when it comes to these statistics, the numbers may actually be askew, due to the aggressive and effective propaganda of Transactivists: male (of course they are male!) rapists and paedophiles who are victimising children and women are now being reported by the media and categorised in police reports and sex offender lists as female sexual offenders in many Western countries! Just because they wear make-up and claim to be women! In short, the 6.4 % is not even accurate when it comes to actual, real, (not pretend) women… Sexual violence is – and has always been - a heavily gendered crime, with girls and women disproportionately affected by MALE violence. But keeping our eyes on the one (or three, four, six, women) who were, (sure!) as vile as the MANY (mentioned by name!) men on that island, is making all of them look good automatically, apparently.

Men are the main source of violence against women and children, but they have somehow convinced themselves (and sadly us) that they are our protectors. Without the danger they pose to us, who would harm us as cruelly and with such predictability? We are so used to it, that we can’t even imagine being free to walk alone in an empty street at night, in a park after hours, to leave our drink unattended if men are present, to leave children alone in the care of men even if we know them, to take a solo trip anywhere without always being vigilant against the ever-present possibility of male violence. To talk freely about how we feel if we are approached by a man, to reject or leave him without the fear of violent retribution. To live in a world where there is no need for us to feel scared.

Men take offence if we point out that misogyny is the reason that so many women and children from around the globe are being abused, but we, merely talking about it, makes us misandrists. This is where we are at, still. The point is not that there are no good men out there, but that the bad ones are far too many, and that we should stop regarding them as a negligible minority. Naming the problem should not be seen as an attack on those who aren’t predators, and the argument that it’s only a few men who would do such things is no longer acceptable. These are not the same 20 guys going from country to country raping and killing women and kids. If there are millions of women and children being assaulted or killed, it’s because there are millions of men out there assaulting or killing them. (And countless others who have tried and thankfully failed, as all women’s memories can testify)

All those men who like to remind us they are the good guys should show it by at least allowing us to think about the many victims of male violence without us having to offer reassurance that when we talk of violent abusers, we don’t mean them personally. If they are so goddamn innocent, why the need for constant reassurance? Why do they need us to validate their perceptions of themselves? How come they don’t jump to announce to the world that they have never robbed a bank when a bank robbery is mentioned in the news? Is it because they know that it is wrong? Is it because it never crossed their mind to do it? Is it because they do not secretly consider it their masculine, God-given right to rob a bank? See where I’m going with that?

Can we be allowed to talk about the countless horrific things that are happening to women and children for once, without men jumping in to tell us about their own hurt feelings? Can we talk (mostly among ourselves, really) about the horrendous suffering of women and kids, without being forced to centre men all the time? Give them our attention, validation, understanding, assurance that they are great, and pity them for their hurt feelings, for just one fucking minute? Can we just be allowed to process what all those creeps mentioned in the Epstein files have done to so many girls, all those men in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, Congo, Sudan, Pakistan, are doing to women and girls, and so many others to millions who are out there, without having to stop and assure you that you personally, whoever the fuck you are, you are one of the “good” guys even though we don’t know you? Is that too much to ask? Can we stop being asked to exclude every male social media commenter individually from the misogynist category? How about you do something to prove it instead of asking us to assure you that you’re one of the “good” men? And how about you start by feeling as outraged, as devastated as we are? Not to get our bravo, but because the situation calls for it.

What the Epstein files reveal does not exist in a vacuum. It is not the oddity we all think it is. The music or podcasts men listen to, what they laugh at, what they talk about when no women are around, to what they masturbate, how they treat women in their families, in their workplace, on social media or in the street, in the Western World, in the Middle East, in Asia, Europe and in every conrer of the world, reveals a pattern that is consistent, unfluctuating, homogeneous, dependable, and commonplace. And if men who do not murder, rape, or assault women and girls need us to validate them for the fact, it’s because the murder, rape, and assault of women and girls is an acceptable reality attached to their sense of masculinity. What they are telling us is, “we could have, and yet we don’t. Which makes us heroes!” Which reveals an ingrained conviction that it is their innate right.

“You will never get a man if you continue on this path” is a common threat male commenters also aim at mouthy feminists when they mention male violence statistics, the Epstein files, the Gisèle Pelicot case, or, more commonly, pornography (an untouchable subject that is VERY close to their “heart”, as it turns out). It is supposed to scare us. Stop us in our trucks. Put some sense into us. (And stop the “male loneliness epidemic” for which we – the hateful feminists – are personally responsible, and not the way THEY treat women.) What a threat it is! They, of course, are not only overestimating the significance of their dick, their own worth and contributions in contemporary women’s lives, but also forget that we now know that being chosen by a random man (given what their criteria are) is hardly flattering: the truth is, men will fuck anything. Given the chance or the circumstance. Women. Teenagers. Children. Toddlers. Newborn babies. Their own family members. Animals. Inanimate objects. Couches, apparently. Pies. Doughnuts. Especially created for their pleasure robots. Silly-looking balloons that vaguely resemble frightened (of course, they are frightened!) naked women with gaping mouths. Or even just disembodied mechanical holes. Women in a coma. Helpless elderly women in old people’s homes. Handicapped women in their care. Unconscious, drugged-by-them women. Or dead ones. And even when it comes to self-proclaimed heterosexual men, other men, if women, children and animals are not readily available (in prison, in all-boys boarding schools, in the army, at sea etc). In short, we have all been brainwashed to collectively overestimate their importance in a woman’s life, as in all things. The significance of being “chosen” as a sexual partner by them is hardly the compliment we all think it is. And more women ought to open their eyes to this truth. Maybe the Epstein files will at least do that…

Male violence is an epidemic because men feel entitled to women’s bodies and lives. The fact that some men are not doing horrible things to women is hardly a comfort to us anymore. And if the “good guys” were as many as they claim, we wouldn’t have to live our lives in fear of becoming the victims of the few, and the countless precautions we take would be unnecessary. What statistics indicate is that violence against women and children is not just wished for by men and reenacted in music, movies, pornography or stand-up comedy. It is real life. The numbers don’t lie. They tell a different story than the one those “good” guys (and their Handmaidens) are trying to sell us:

Males commit globally roughly 90% of all violent crimes, 90% of all homicides and 93.6% of all sexual offences.

Globally, 1 in 8 girls have experience sexual abuse before the age of 18.

This means that over 370 million girls and women currently alive have experienced rape or sexual assault before turning 18,

while 650 million women alive today have experienced sexual violence during childhood!

If we take into consideration women of all ages, an estimated 840 million women – almost 1 in 3 – have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence, at least once in their life (30 per cent of all women aged 15 and older).

“Men get raped too”, men like to remind us as if it makes it all OK. Yes, they do get raped. By other men! That is the whole point! Boys and men are indeed affected by male violence, with estimates ranging from 240 to 310 million (about 1 in 11 or according to other studies, 1 in 7) experiencing sexual violence during childhood.

Newest studies indicate that 1 out of 5 women and 1 out of 7 men aged 20 and older globally faced sexual violence (by men) as children, indicating that the problem is even more widespread.

Alarmingly, 8% of female survivors and 14% of male survivors reported being first exposed to sexual violence before the age of 12.

According to UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the US alone, an American (mostly women, some men, many children – always by other men) is sexually assaulted every 68 seconds, and every 9 minutes, that victim is a child. Due to underreporting, the true number is likely higher.

1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys in the US will be sexually abused before they turn 18.

Only 5 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison!

Because of pornography, in 2025, global reports showed a sharp 83% increase in rapes of girl children in certain regions compared to the previous year.

On the same note, globally, 12 million girls, 1 in 5 young women aged 20–24 alive today was married before age 18 - roughly one girl every three seconds, making child marriage the most common form of statutory rape and state-sanctioned paedophilia in many countries around the world. These girls (some as young as seven!) are not being married to other teenagers; they are being offered – often as a form of financial exchange - to adult men (who often rape them to death. Literally!) Most will die at childbirth, since their small bodies cannot endure what only an adult woman can.

Women are daily being killed in great numbers on account of their sex, and what more, they are most commonly killed by spouses, partners, exes, or members of their family, which is to say: men they know and trust. The rapist women fear is less likely to be a stranger in a dark alley. The majority of sexual violence victims know their perpetrator, with 46.7% of female rape victims in one study having an acquaintance as a perpetrator, and 45.4% involving an intimate partner.

Roughly 60% of all female intentional homicides occur at home. This is because fathers or husbands claim ownership of their daughters or wives. Approximately 50,000 women and girls were killed by partners or family members in 2024 alone (by mostly by husbands, partners, fathers), averaging 137 victims daily (or one every 10 minutes).

Much like in the case of the abuse of adult women, the home is the most dangerous place for children and teenagers, too, and their abuser is more likely to be a family member: their own father, brother, uncle, or cousin (with stepfathers being a particularly high risk for girls!)

Additionally, there is no age limit when it comes to violence against women, as risks persist throughout a woman’s life: Adolescent girls are far more at risk than adult women, but women aged 60 and older are also victimised by intimate partner violence. In short, feeling safe in the world, or in your own home, at any age, is never a given for any of us. If we consider that women do not always report such crimes for a variety of reasons, it means that these numbers vastly underestimate the problem.

Males are also the overwhelming majority of creators of child pornography and the consumers of it.

Femicide (the murder of women based on their sex) continues to plague the world, and it is actually increasing, despite sporadic attempts to implement femicide laws. Men usually kill women because they feel they rejected, tried to leave, “dishonoured” or disobeyed them, and often after they rape them (as a form of sexual “gratification” or as a way of permanently silencing them: 81.7% of all homicides in the U.S. alone are sex-related). It is of course, a global phenomenon, yet like all other forms of gender-based crimes, they are not seen as important in the male-dominated political sphere or the media: they are just women. They are just girls. They are insignificant. Disposable. Their lives are unworthy, and so their violent deaths do not matter… According to the UNIFEM report “Not a Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women”: “Violence against women has become as much a pandemic as HIV/AIDS or malaria. But still it is downplayed by the public at large and policymakers who fail to create and fund programmes to eradicate it.” (In the meantime, men are seeking our pity for finding themselves in the midst of a “loneliness epidemic”. Poor dears!)

Police-recorded sexual violence offences, including rape, have increased significantly in the EU as well, between 2013 and 2023, presumably because of the impact pornography has on men’s propensity to abuse women. From 2013 to 2023 the number of sexual violence offences, including rape, as recorded by police in the EU, has shown a steady increase, reaching a 79.2% increase in 2023 as compared with 2013. The number of rape offences, as a part of sexual violence offences, more than doubled during this period (a 141% increase!)

Women with disabilities are also as much as 10 times more likely to experience sexual violence than women without disabilities! (Think about that for a moment!)

Finally, toddlers and very young children are greatly at risk, with 1 in 5 survivors of sexual violence now being between 0 and 6 years old! We all need to take a minute to ponder this number, to fix this information in our heads. I know I need to. To finally face that there is something seriously wrong with men that we need to address collectively. The question is: how big do these numbers need to get before we finally see that something is going on with men? Before we are finally alerted to the danger they pose to women and children?

The 4B (“Four Nos”) South Korean feminist movement is a response to all that. Its advocates encourage women to stop dating men, marrying men, having sex with men, or having children with men as a reaction to patriarchal pressures within marriage, intense dating violence, economic inequality and the devaluation of women in Korean society. As fewer women are seeking relationships with men, marriage and fertility rates saw a significant decline in South Korea, displaying how much power women hold in their hands, once they let go of the need to be validated by men.

Maybe we’ve reached the tipping point. Maybe men need to be forced to face the mirror. In the fiery, devastating, heart-wrenching words of the 4B movement:

“If the world born from my body oppresses me, I will not let that world exist”

Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou.

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Statistics / Further Reading:

https://www.unicef.org/

https://www.who.int/

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Crime_statistics

https://plan-international.org

https://www.dw.com/en/a-woman-or-girl-killed-every-10-minutes-un-report-finds/a-74877050#

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/femicides-2024-global-estimates-intimate-partnerfamily-member-femicides#:~:text=Women%20and%20girls%20are%20subjected,)%20and%20Europe%20(0.5

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/femicides-2024-global-estimates-intimate-partnerfamily-member-femicides

https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2025/11/femicides-in-2024-global-estimates-of-intimate-partner-family-member-femicides#:~:text=This%20latest%20UNODC–UN%20Women,calls%20for%20urgent%2C%20coordinated%20prevention:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-ending-violence-against-women

https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-56365412#

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2025/November/137-women-and-girls-killed-every-day-by-intimate-partners-or-family-members-in-2024.html

https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/facts-and-figures/facts-and-figures-ending-violence-against-women

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2025/08/afghanistan-ten-facts-about-the-worlds-most-severe-womens-rights-crisis

https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/economies/afghanistan

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/shocking-facts-gender-inequality-international-wom/#:~:text=The%20worst%20countries%20for%20gender,Gender%20Gap%20report%20in%202023.

This is how men get away with it. The rich bastards, the broke creeps, the men you know and love, the whole lot of them. Because women are scared. Desperate. For love, for safety, for attention, for approval, for their kids, for a home to call their own.Because Patriarchy has taught them, they are bodies. Walking wombs. A collection of orifices men own. And it has taught them obedience and dependency above all things. A fear of ageing, fat, change. Things (scary things!) that happen to adult women. (Look good, stay thin, don’t age and shut up.) And it taught men entitlement over their bodies, their lives and ultimately their sense of self!

Women remain the most consistently oppressed group in the world, and yet, despite mounting evidence, despite their own experiences, despite of the many precautions they take every day of their lives since they were 12 to avoid the possibility of male violence, (which shows they recognize the necessity, and therefore deep down know who they are dealing with), are still unwilling to see men as predators, because they were groomed to think that it would be a betrayal…

The Epstein Files are not just about those deviants who made the abuse of children and young women their entertainment. They revealed a sinister truth about the male nature. About all the things men who are not powerful learn to hide. But sadly, also all the things women pretend they don’t know, so that relationships, families, and marriages will not crumble at their feet. That’s the female sin, isn’t it? The need to protect husbands - and men in general - at all costs. (Religions were lethally effective in their thousands of years of meticulous grooming).

All the things women would rather not know about their spouse, they lock away. And they starve themselves, hoping to achieve the waif-like figure of a pubescent girl. They shave themselves raw to get rid of pubes. Because little girls don’t have them. Because porn stars are following the same syllogism. And they are in the business of pleasing, aren’t they? They know better what men want. And men want them. So there you are.

Yes, this is what you do. You see his “good side”. You assure anyone who will listen that he is one of the “good ones”, thank God! And you, one of the “luckiest women on Earth”. When your heart stops and then grows inside your chest as if it might explode because you came across what he watches on his phone, you lock that feeling away. That knowledge of what he is underneath it all. The self he hides. The self you know because you’ve met it in your own bed. The monster that wakes up and chokes your throat one inch from your life. And then tells you that he loves you because you allowed it. You Lamaze-breath your fear away, and pretend. And get on with your day. You lock that knowledge away, because if you don’t, you need to leave your home. Become a refugee from your own life. Scattered to the wind. And by that, announce to the world that you’ve been lying for all those years. And then carry the blame, of course…

When faced with news reports about femicide, statistics about sexual violence against women, the gruesome details of the Gisèle Pelicot case, The Puff Diddy sex ring, Bill Cosby’s years of drugging women to rape them, the sex trafficking grooming gangs of the Pakistani men in the UK, or what all those rich creeps were doing to women and girls on that Epstein sex cult island, you mention the one good thing that one man did years ago and use it as an example to pardon an entire sex. You mention Ghislaine Maxwell, the one woman who was as vile as men. The secretaries, the cleaners. (“Now see, women are horrible too”) Using them as an example to condemn an entire sex. You add your voice to those of men who say such things to excuse the many (my God! So many!) men. You type #notallmen every chance you get. You tell the world that your own husband is “good”. Yes, that will shut them up. Make it all go away. Prove that men are not monsters. Because this is what you ought to do. You support your husband - and all men - no matter what. In case he takes offence. You think of the kids. You save your marriage. You police other women. You show lenience to all men. You survive. Even when you come face-to-face with the reality of it, you still see it as a random act. Not part of a systemic pattern. Even when the violence reaches your home. Because if you are a woman, this is what you do. You pretend. You shut your mouth, you gloss things over and get a new haircut, a new diet, a new plastic surgery, new underwear. You sign up for a Pilates class or a self-help seminar. You start an affirmations journal, or if you are religious, you turn to church (and do some pretty nifty mental gymnastics to avoid seeing how you are being regarded as a woman by priests, scriptures, and “holy’ men). You need to change. That will fix his behaviour, you tell yourself. Because it’s your fault. Look younger. Thinner. Because this is what he wants. What he deserves. What men need. Deserve! A teenage girl’s body. Starve yourself. Shave your pubes. Stop looking like an adult woman for-god’s sake! Get with the program. He needs a girl. A tiny, innocent, pube-free prepubescent girl. Who doesn’t talk back. Not on the big stuff. Not when it comes to what he expects of you in bed, certainly! You join the vast number of women who now claim to enjoy pain in bed. All the humiliating things you must do and have done to you so that he won’t leave you. You hide your tears and your bruises. You smile. You pretend. You accept. You get your accolades for being sexually “adventurous”. One hell of a wife! You get a present. Sometimes, you even get a hint of remorse from him that you will jump to see as a sign that he loves you. That the man you once thought he was, is still there. The one your own hope has conjured out of thin air, because you needed it. You post photos of your utter happiness on social media. The next time you see the monster in his eyes, you buy a “romance” trashy novel with some sadomasochistic, sick shit. You want to know. Is it just you? You wonder. Are all women pretending as you do? What am I missing? What’s wrong with me? Am I losing my mind? Are all of them collectively blind to what it means? What it reveals about what he feels about you? About all of us? Others do the same. The book gets in the best-selling list. Proving to men that this is what women want. Instead of looking for answers. Healing. A reaction to their trauma. Or a pain-free escape from reality. From the real pain. This is what women want, they will be told again, by journalists, movies, TV shows, priests, stand-up comics. They like it “rough”. They want a “bad” guy. A man to smack them about. To be controlled. See? We’ve told you. All that feminist shit is bullshit. What you need is a monster. Thankfully, I’m here.

This is how men get away with it. The rich bastards, the broke creeps, the men you know and love, the whole lot of them. Because women are scared. Desperate. For love, for safety, for attention, for approval, for their kids, for a home to call their own. For their friends to see they are as happy as they are (which is probably true… EXACTLY as much). Because Patriarchy has taught them, they are bodies. Walking wombs. A collection of orifices men own. And it has taught them obedience and dependency above all things. A fear of ageing, fat, change. Things (scary things!) that happen to adult women. (Look good, stay thin, don’t age and shut up.) And it taught men entitlement over their bodies, their lives and ultimately their sense of self!

This is how monsters are made. That’s how men decided to take the private jet to that island. Thinking it to be their “right”. Not a thought spared on the victims. (Why should there be?) That’s how all those men decided to rape a drugged French woman in her own bedroom, and the next day, when she came over by their shop they greeted her, made small talk with her as if nothing had happened. For years and years! That’s how millions and millions watch women being tortured in porn and not blink an eye. In fact, find it arousing. Natural. That’s how they sing along to rap songs that celebrate gang rape, domestic violence, femicide, incest, paedophilia. How they laugh at stand-up comedians’ bits about how women are less than animals.

This is how it’s done. Religions telling men they are superior to us. Telling us we are nothing. Laws protecting them. Laws being prejudiced against us. Culture telling us we are disposable if we age beyond our early 20s. Telling them they can choose. Telling us we must be chosen. Making us scared, desperate, lenient and forgiving to a criminal degree. Pornography following in the steps of religions, enabling men’s need to abuse. Helping them create new needs, new fetishes. Endless varieties that would bring shame to the court of Caligula. And then selling them to us as tokens that prove we are progressive, open-minded, hot stuff, if we accept them. Deserving of their love. Not prudes. Not uptight. Not someone who kink-shames! (That’s the new sin, isn’t it? To shame the creeps and the preverbs. To be seen as “uptight”. Not “game”) So that we will allow them to reenact the disturbing, sick shit they watched on their phones, on our bodies. And if we don’t, there is always someone who will. Because we are expendable, disposable, interchangeable. Non-human. (That’s the point!) Or there’s always “molly”, right? Who cares if a woman enjoys it? Who cares if she is even conscious? Hell, who cares if she’s alive? All you need is a body. Holes to enter. If anything, a pulse may come in the way.

Those ladies who got into the lucrative business of women’s degradation, the female rappers who sing about how fun their sexual abuse is, the “authors” who write all those “romance” novels about the men who are “romantic” heroes because they have serial killer dungeons in their basements for the specific purpose of torturing women for fun, are joining the ranks of the Handmaidens, proving the point that yes, we ARE groomed. Emerald Fennell, the latest addition, butchering Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (a true masterpiece of English literature, a multilayered, complex proto-feminist work of tremendous significance) and turning it into vacuous, voyaristic sillineess to get her accolades for playing nice with the new patriarchy’s expectations, is a fine example of the trend. Doing her bit for Patriarchy. Turning the character of Isabella, from a victim of horrifying psychological and physical domestic abuse, into (surprise! surprise!) a woman who “likes it rough”: when she is discovered in the movie chained like a dog on all fours (a scene that was not in the book, needless to say), instead of being presented as scared, desperate to be freed, she seems to enjoy it. She is actually depicted crawling on all four, growling and barking like a dog on demand. (Because, you know degratation and pain. This is what women want. Someone to reduce them to animals. Because you know, it’s sexy.) The character’s trauma and survivor story, her bravery to leave her abusive husband (and the author’s bravery for naming it all as she did) are reduced to nothing. Her suffering as a victim of domestic abuse twisted into cheap, sleazy S&M roleplay she “wanted”. The blame for what she suffered being nicely put on her, instead of on her abuser. “It was her fault”, “She liked it “rough”, “She asked for it…” You know the drill. A tale as old as Time…

For the celebrated philosopher Nietzsche (and countless others) we are animals. In his words:“women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows”. Now, we’ve reached a point when we, as women are in agreement with those who have been devaluating us for centuries, seeing us as less than human. But apparently, we don’t see ourselves as cows but as chained, happy-to-be-chained in fact, dogs. Now that’s what I call progress!

Young women who have been forced-fed the same shit from a thousand different sources (rap music, trashy novels, music videos with dance routines that emulate violence, casual jokes in sitcoms that have women telling us how much they enjoy spanking, chocking and the like, S&M inspired fashion, and above all else, having to deal with porn-addict sadist boyfriends and husbands daily, and now these kind of pseudo-progressive mainstream movies) who have no one to tell them “this is actually the opposite of empowering, and here’s why” will fall into the trap. They will be desensitised to violence in ways that would be inconceivable for the rest of us. Normalise it, and eventually seek it. (This is what trauma does.) They will dutifully replicate what they see, accept what they ought not to, in order (much like the director of this movie) to get their accolades for being “progressive”, “sex positive” and feel (God help us all) “empowered” by their degradation.

This is what 3,000 years of Patriarchal grooming has done to us. How it fucked us up. This is where we are at. And this is how the new porn-soaked Patriarchy is grooming the younger generations of women to be complicit in their own devaluation. Because this is all they know, all they see around them. Telling them that if you play along, if you accept violence as your destiny, it must mean that you are uber progressive. So they DO play along. Protesting for male violence by parading in their underwear in “slut marches”. Telling us that prostitution is a job like any other. Parroting the spiel of trans-identifying heterosexual men telling us they are women because they say so. Telling us they should be allowed to see us naked in changing rooms. Be allowed in rape shelters, in women’s prisons, to cheat in women’s sports, to fake-breastfeed actual living babies to satisfy their fetishes! Being congratulated for attacking us if we speak the truth. Because this is what feminism looks like now. And being crowned as “liberals”, “sex-positive”, “refreshingly provocative”, “queens of kink” for all of it.

Unaware that while they are doing all that, their Handmaidens’ bonnets are being fastened tightly on their heads.

Praise be, Emerald Fennell. (And all the rest of you.)

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Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my essays and believe they have value, please consider becoming a free subscriber, share and hit the like button.

I offer my work for free (even though it is neither free nor effortless to create it), but if you can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, so that I can continue this effort.

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Conspiracy theorists have been warning us for years about the existence of a global “élite” of the ultra-rich. An undercover Illuminati-like, secret club of powerful men who protect each other from the consequences of their paedophilic activities and criminality. What the “Epstein files” - which were recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice - reveal, is that they were right all along. (Who knew?) It may not – as far as we know – involve secret handshakes and silly hats, but it definitely exists. Its banal, pedestrian tool, being the constant, relentless exchange of emails where favours are being asked and returned, philanthropy is used as a way to expand the net of influence, meetings are arranged, dinner parties, fundraisings, “seminars” and sex parties with girls and prostitutes are planned. These men send each other “funds” and donations to “causes”, offering legitimacy to possibly dubious exchanges and advice on seemingly ever-present tax problems, promise introduction to celebrities and island vacations, and by that earn access to girls’ bodies. If one of them speaks, they all fall. It’s a system that works as it makes them intrinsically bonded to each other by their mutual need to protect each other’s depravity and corruption. A net of secrecy, mutual guilt, favours and endless sycophantic emails.

Their shared knowledge of a code further implies a structure with common parameters and known rules. For example, “Message” allegedly stands for sexual acts, “Snow White” or “Disney Princess” for a young woman, while a “Present” for a new girl. There are thousands of mentions to “Baby/Babies”, “Designer Babies”, and one hopes that’s another code and not references to actual babies! But who’s to say? (“Cream Cheese and Baby” and “Jerky” stand for something trully horrific apparently, but I didn’t have the stomach to go too deep in that particular rabbit hole. Those who did, came out changed…) On the same note, witnesses have reported seeing “ritual sacrifices”, babies being taken away from teenage mothers, child murder, torture, babies being dismembered and other horrors. The official investigators “found no concrete evidence confirming such claims”. Even though child deaths are not verified, the files do track the deaths of over two dozen adults linked to the Epstein case. The list includes investigators, witnesses, and associates who died under suspicious circumstances. So there’s that.

What we do know from the sordid sifting of documents is that tech billionaires, politicians, bankers, royals, and academics are bound together by their pursuit of money, connections, and pleasure. And judging by the quantity of the blackened parts, eventually immunity. Even though not all those mentioned in the files are necessarily implicated in the sex trafficking ring, they still are guilty of the morally suspect act of associating themselves with a registered sex offender, a known paedophile, even after the 2008 revelations. Of course, the fact that Epstein managed to cut a lenient deal with South Florida federal prosecutors in 2008 that allowed him to escape severe federal charges must have endeared him to them: unchecked privilege and unaccountability are the catnip of the mighty. So they stayed in his orbit, seeking a chair at his table, asking him favours, and invitations, offering or taking money from him, asking or providing preferential treatment and so on. Sticking together. Avoiding accountability. Protecting each other in their shared guilt.

The whole thing offers a scary peek into the rarified world of the few, and what it reveals is in equal measures, expected, scary and a little sad: rich men are childishly desperate for the approval of other rich men. (That’s how you become rich after all: not by having a sharper mind or better skills than the average person, but by possessing a bigger appetite, an antagonistic streak, an unchecked by morality gigantic hunger for approval, status, power. This is what leads to wealth.) Starting each email with a brief mention of their travels. (Where they are, where they are coming from, where they are going). Little smug reminders that they are busy, important, doing big things. And then going directly into the asking of the favour. Introductions, tax issues, financial advice on this and that, a ticket, an invitation to a dinner or one of the “special” parties. With brief mentions of “girls”. Making casual comments or complaints about their degree of attractiveness. (Does any of these men own a mirror?) Referring to them as “pussy”, in hundreds and hundreds of messages! (What are they to them if not just that after all?) Wishing each other “Lots of P” again and again and again. Exchanging “funny” remarks about female body parts and the health “benefits” of sex. (Paedophilia and raping as a vitamin for the rich.) Women and girls being asked about nonchalantly. Not by name, but by kind. Mentioned collectively as “lists” (one of them being “victoria secret models”) Being promised and offered by and to powerful men. Being categorised by them as “pro or civilian”. Described as “harem”. Reduced to body parts and sex acts. Turned into the butt of crude jokes that they exchange among themselves ad nauseam.

Class solidarity (class being defined by money of course, the ultimate privilege), back-scratching, favouritism, bragging, and reminding each other what is owned. Hedonism, narcissism, by-passing of the rules that apply to the rest of us, and, of course, seeing women and girls as disposable objects. Being busy doing what these types of men do, in order to become and then stay rich: travelling constantly, making connections and moving vast sums of money around. And while on vacation, having some fun by raping girls. These men who run the planet, who affect the global economy, who pass laws, who teach at ivy leque universities, who create culture, and who have at times seduced us into believeing they deserve our admiration, our vote, our respect, our money, who decide the future of World economies, and the Environment, and by that, everyone’s future, are bound together by something horrific and also, laughably predictable: their hunger for money and recognition, and their common desire to abuse women and girls with immunity. This is the big mystery, the sleazy, common denominator. The clandestine secret that binds them to each other, and which they have spent years protecting. The reason their special clubs and secret societies were created, and the reason why these alliances were kept secret, and held together, airtight for so many years.

The women in Epstein’s world seem to fall into two categories: the helpers and the prey. Both exist to please and serve the men. The first are secretaries, personal assistants, organisers of their life, sometimes recruiters of more victims. Sorting the logistics, keeping their diary, making bookings and travel arrangements, reminding them of appointments, and smoothing over the mundane aspects of life, the everyday details they are too important to deal with. Taking care of the dietary requirements of guests. Wine lists, snacks, sugar-free desserts. There is nothing rich men fear more than sugar. And the inevitability of death, of course, which they believe they can somehow escape by never eating sugar. (The raping of teenagers is perfectly acceptable, but cake?!) The other category is the underage girls and young women who are there in order to be bought, possessed, used, abused, and discarded. They are ordered by Epstein to do “STD checks”, to lose weight, attend “tantric sex classes”, have plastic surgery “before they turn 23” (In short: do it NOW before you reach your expiration date and it won’t matter either way) Older than 23 is apparently the cut off point before a woman turns “disgusting”, and therefore unqualified to be included in the “harem” of the mighty.

Similarly, when hiring helpers or considering women for roles at the table, the key requirement is their perceived beauty and lack of ambition. Occasionally, their celebrity status. Older women are seen and described as “useless” and, behind closed doors, talked about with disgust. “Wrinkly old hag. Just because she is rich, she thinks she can talk down to everyone,” the rich predator says of an unnamed woman. Yes, it must have been unbearable to him to face a woman who is powerful, who has agency, and the guts to tell him off. Any female who was over 14 must have scared him shitless, I bet.

The US Department of Justice has identified over 1,200 survivors (many as young as 14) of Epstein’s abuse, the majority of whom are female. The newly unsealed documents have implicated high-profile men from at least 12 different countries. (USA, UK, Israel, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Norway, Russia, United Arab Emirates, India, Slovakia) The list includes businessmen, royals, authors, prominent academics, “spirituality” gurus, health influencers, tech billionaires, ministers, at least three former Prime Ministers of European countries, and two US presidents. In the lists, there are name of both liberal “progressives” and uber-conservatives. Both Left-wing and Right winged politicians (greed, lust and the need to abuse girls being the one, the true equaliser among men!)

Some of the names included are anything but shocking, and some are every bit that. Among countless others, Woody Allen, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump (no surprises there…), Bill Gates, Deepak Chopra (who wrote to Epstein: “God is a construct. Cute girls are real. Bring your girls”), playfully adding a pseudo-spirituality angle to his depravity, why not? Richard Branson (“Bring your harem”), Elon Musk (”What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”), and prominent intellectual Noam Chomsky! He, who famously criticised capitalism and class dynamics, is seen in multiple emails cosying up to power, ingratiating himself with Epstein, seeking guidance about his money, and offering sage advice about how this convicted sex offender/paedophile should navigate the new accusations against him. He is seen in the files as being very sympathetic towards Epstein regarding the media scrutiny about his sex trafficking allegations and showing empathy about the “horrible way” Epstein was being treated in the press (9 and months before his final arrest on federal sex trafficking charges), and expressing hope that the current “mood” would fade away. He also privately displayed his dismay about “hysteria that has developed about abuse of women,” (what a guy!), and for the fact that questioning an abuse charge had become treated “as a crime worse than murder”, revealing what “good” men do when in the company of other men. What they really think of women. (These comments were made in early 2019 by the way. Briefly after the #MeToo avalanche and 11 whole years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction about the abuse of 14-year-olds.)

The powerful men’s names in the three million pages released by the US Department of Justice are mostly redacted. Their wrongdoings are well hidden. Because these men deserve to be protected, obviously. Many of the girls’own names are not, however, as they are seen as not deserving the same. In the photos included in the files they are nothing but body parts: their faces are blackened. Not because they deserve protection, but so that the men who are with them will be protected. The girls are nothing but bodies after all. Disposable, expendable, interchangeable. Worthless.

This is what money and power has afforted them: the right to rape! They have created what millions and millions of everyday men only fantasise about but can’t afford, and so look for (obsessively, relentlessly) in porn: a place where all is allowed. A “club” where they are free from the limitations imposed by morality, humanity, decency, law - and the existence of radical feminism. Free from the societal requirements to publicly pretend women are human beings. A world in which they are free to pick female bodies like you pick apples at the grocery store, and just assault them without having to suffer any consequences. Even now that these documents have been released, they are still certain that they are not in danger. And they are of course, right. Nothing can touch them. For as long as those who should, are also complicit, what would?

All those men mentioned in the Epstein files are simply being (to borrow a word from the Transactivist vocabulary) their “true authentic selves”: predators. Aided by their billions and their status, they simply follow the apparently predominant male impulse: to prioritise their erections. To prey on the vulnerable and the helpless. To be finally completely free to be who they really are. Free from the need to pretend that women and girls have any other function than to be fucked. Free from the need to pretend women and girls have the right to consent, to not deny access to their bodies on demand. Free from the need to keep up the appearances of decency, or from the limitations forced upon them by laws, (and in the case of everyday men, lack of resources to buy the right to also ignore such laws.) Free from the need to pretend that women and children are anything other than disposable sexual props. Free to centre their own pleasure, their need to rape, humiliate, torture. This is the shared characteristic between the ultra-rich men and the rest. In porn sites, the most popular search is “teens”. And if you go into details, into the specifics of those searches, into what so many, MANY men from around the world, possibly from you life, want these teens to do, to have done to them, you’re probably going to lose your lunch, and your sleep for days. (If you are a woman, that is)

#NotAllMen is hardly comforting anymore, (it frankly, never was) because the devastating truth is that the predators are just #TooMany. And because those who aren’t, they want you to be impressed that they are not. Even though they could…

Isn’t it interesting that the most common thing that everyday men fantasise about, and rich men buy, is a girl’s body? A lack of agency, an inability to say “No!”?

My God! How stupid, how literally groomed are we all, that we ever thought they deserve our respect?

Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. Stock photos: https://www.pexels.com

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We see their maleness. Even if we were to (somehow miraculously) fail to see their male bodies, we see their male privilege, their male misogyny, their male propensity to use violence – or at the very least the threat of it - against us. To prioritise their own needs, to elbow us aside, to speak over us, to violate our rights, to simulate our suffering, to plagiarise our struggles, to grab our accolades, to mansplained our very nature, to invade our hard-won safe spaces, to vilify our motives, to use our biology as a weapon against us, to even appropriate our very definition. And (same as always) to create theories, ideologies that justify their reasons, canonise their desires, hallow their need to keep us in our place. To colonise an entire sex. We recognise it. We’ve seen it before. It is unmistakably familiar. And it’s so old, it’s practically archaic…

This is a real social media post: A man in women’s clothes is posing provocatively. The caption is saying: “...then I got misgendered twice at work, and later while walking my dog, a kid yelled “that’s a dude”! to his friends. Welcome back massive dysphoria”.

This one post is representative of so many, MANY out there. This guy’s supposedly sexy selfie is – in his mind - enough to have us think that all this doesn’t make sense. The part that’s missing (and is represented by the three dots) implies that we ought to agree with him that, despite looking so damn sexy as a woman, he got “misgendered”, and that’s just outrageous. And cruel! The thing is, the only way we could mistake this guy for a woman is if we were both blind and suffering from massive brain damage, or, of course, if we were pretty desperate to prove to the world how “progressive” we are. And this is where the problem with the trans movement lies: it’s being empowered by the need so many people have to play along. To be judged as “progressive”, “inclusive”, by pandering to anything this supposedly persecuted group is presenting as truth. And get their proper accolades for the fact.

The kid yelling “that’s a dude” was not transphobic, of course (any more than any of us are), but was simply FREE from the contemporary obligatory social convention to appear “kind”, by going along with a grown man’s self-fantasy. The kid was free to point out the ridiculous, not because he was out to get the trans culture and bring it to its knees, but because he was not bound by the moronic, self-congratulatory etiquette of the woke, who will religiously pretend that any man in a dress is, in fact, a woman, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. And declare “her” “beautiful”, “stunning” and let us not forget “brave!” on the spot too. And when this “dude’s” self-delusion is not acknowledged as a fact causing him distress, that’s not “gender dysphoria” either. That’s just reality knocking on his door.

It’s a world gone mad. Social media platforms are crowded with selfies of middle-aged men in heavy make-up, posing coyly and proudly listing their complicated, hours-long beauty regimes that are supposed to hide their male nature, asking the world to validate them by telling them they are “stunning”. And of course, “brave”! And asking us all to be “supportive” of them during their imaginary “periods”; calling their male genitalia “girl dick” (even as they are threatening to rape women with it); demanding to be included in gynaecological tests!; demanding that Genealogy / DNA test companies don’t mention to them that they have only one X chromosome and of course, “outing” these companies as “trans-phobic’ when they don’t falsify scientific documents to tailor their personal fantasies; giving each other tips on how to achieve their goal of becoming exaggerated caricatures of womanhood (as this is defined in Patriarchal terms) by pilling on the make-up and the layers of self-deception. How to speak in a deliberately high voice to sound feminine - each word a theatrical play they’ve rehearsed. Each word, a lie they are asking us to validate. How to swing the hips they don’t have. How to make “girl-talk” (what is that I wonder in their male mind? Talking about nail polish and arranging pillow fights?) How to carry themselves with the unmistakable, deliberate intention of someone who is playing a role. And how to sit in a more “lady-like” manner, crossing their legs without crushing their balls. (One tip is to practice crossing their legs for a few minutes per day, working up to a few hours, until their “lady nuts” as they call them, get used to being flat…)

We empathise with the struggle. We understand that it must be exhausting! All this effort, all the lies, all the effects and affectations, all that deliberate crashing of balls. And the world is still not bursting into spontaneous applause the minute they enter any room. (Unless it is on social media, that is.) Of course, they are angry. Of course, they are desperate. Of course, they are going to turn all that self-hate onto us, who are effortlessly and by Nature, what they are trying to pretend to be and fail. Of course, it is maddening when they are told that they are a “dude” even by children. Of course, it is exhausting when the world doesn’t conspire on their behalf, even though, I’m sure, as men, they have come to expect it. When not all of us are willing to play along and cater to their self-delusions. But the thing is, the truth is effortless. And stark. It does not require manipulation, interpretation, or anyone’s participation in order to exist. It just exists whether you conspire against it or not. When any of us enter a room, we don’t shout; we are women. It is self-evident. It’s done. It’s the lies that need all that screaming, all the theatre, all that effort, all that convincing and drama. All the emotional blackmailing. It’s the bullshit that requires noise, threats, manipulation and propaganda tactics in order to be accepted as a reality.

When the popular argument of sex being a “spectrum” is raised, we are often reminded of intersex individuals (namely, those who possess anatomy characteristic of both sexes, such as a combination of vulvar and testicular tissue). The fact that this phenomenon statistically refers to the 0.02%–0.05% of the Earth’s population, renders this argument and these cases, hardly “typical”, which makes them completely irrelevant to what trans identifying males are: gay men who suffer from an internalised homophobia (as in, they have convinced themselves they are not gay men, they are women, which explains why they are attracted to other men), and straight men suffering from the psychosexual disorder Autogynaephilia - feeling sexually aroused from wearing women’s clothes, having fantasies of doing something regarded feminine, fetishing breast feeding, etc. (Or a combination of the two) The question is: WHY are we being asked as women, and as a society at large, to recognise and enable anyone’s complexes, self delusions, mental illness, and sexual fetishes as an actual reality - at the same time as we are being denied the right to be acknowledged as actual women and are deprived of the right to fight for our rights?

None of us has anything against the men who enjoy cross-dressing. And certainly none of us wants these men to be in harm’s way in any shape or form. (Which is, let’s face it, more than we can say about them in regards to the dangers we continually face as REAL women, often by them) Harm comes to them from other men, not women after all. And it NEEDS to be said: more often than not, from other TRANS men in fact! A bit of info they conveniently leave out when they are playing the victim, talking about the dangers they face. They never had and still don’t have anything to fear from us, the actual women. We don’t care about anyone’s fashion choices. But when we, as women, are reduced to nothing but that (namely, a fashion choice), then yes, we do mind. When we are told we are nothing but cosplay for men, a costume to be worn, then we do object. It was only when the TRAs (Trans Radical Activists) demanded that we betray language, truth, science, reality, basic common sense, our very safety and our own identity as a sex and as a class, on the altar of their newly formed movement, and were threaten that if we objected we would be silenced, publicly shamed, professionally destroyed, and of course, raped and killed, that we finally began to see the light.

What trans activists fail to understand is that we were ALL naively on their side not so long ago. No woman minded ever, if what used to be called “transvestites”, “trannies”, “cross dressers”, “drag queens”, and the most accurate term of all: “female impersonators” (ALL acceptable terms and even a source of pride for them, just a few years ago by the way) existed in this world. No woman objected EVER to these men’s love of extravagant fashion, and glittery things and show tunes, who would call each other “fierce”, “queen” and “divas”. It was always men who rejected them, not women. (It takes a LOT for women to reject men of any persuasion - after all…) It was only when we were told that we are supposed to call these men “women”, and then were bullied to do just that, that we finally realised what we are dealing with. It was when we were told that it was expected of us to give up on our rights for their sake. To jeopardise our safety. To pretend we don’t mind that athletic girls who would rather climb trees than play with dolls, and who would probably grow up to be gay (or not) are told that they are boys and they ought to have double mastectomies, and hysterectomies, and take testosterone, and be deprived of the right to ever have kids, (or orgasms!) when they grow up. Or that teen boys who love theatre and poetry are being cruelly castrated, because they’ve been convinced that they are not boys because of that. That gay teens are being sterilised, and forced to be subjected to the conversion therapy that is the “medical transitioning” in its essence, so that the gay in them will be reversed! That little children are being experimented on. That neither they nor their parents are being informed about the life-long and often life-threatening health problems they will face because of the experimental (and costly) surgeries they were coerced into undergoing so that the medical establishment will get the great financial rewards and the TRAs their pound of flesh. That women’s sports are being taken over by men who are being given medals for being cheaters! That women and girls are being harassed and raped in newly established “gender neutral” bathrooms, women’s prisons, hospital wards and changing rooms. That lesbians are being attacked for not being willing to have sex with men in drag. That gay men are actually being called homophobic (!) and are attacked when they don’t blindly obey and follow the TRAs’ agenda. It was when we saw that every inch we offer willingly is stepped on, and acres are demanded. (And when not offered, then taken by force) It was only when we finally understood that there was a sinister side to this movement. And it was also only when we saw the kind of narcissists and sexual offenders were hiding underneath the cakey make-up. It was only then that the scales finally fell from our eyes. It’s neither hate nor any kind of phobia that stops us from becoming their allies again. It’s the lifting of the veil that has shocked us and shaken us to our core. The realisation that these are NOT harmless drag queens and hurt, lost “boys” who never grew up. Obsessed with their mums. Starving for attention. Playing the victim. These are fetishists whose mind was fucked by “sissy” porn. These are actual predators who are out to get us.

Indicatively, the website Terf is a Slur, has documented the real face of gender ideology. What it’s really about. This is a site that publishes unedited screenshots from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other publicly accessible social media apps that target feminists. All of them deeply disturbing, all of them describing how those “virtuous” trans “women” who “deserve our kindness” and who are just “like us”, really feel about us. The moderators who handle the content have done nothing but simply repost what’s out there on the Internet. The numberless expressions of hate that are directed towards us. For no other reason than being a woman and daring to say so. There is even an entire section dedicated to the threats sent to J. K. Rowling, for bravely defending women’s rights, becoming the heroine we all needed in this moment in time, when all the female cultural icons have turned their backs on us in an effort to avoid the backlash, protect their millions, AND be bathed in the light of the “kind” ones.

The trans “women” (biological males who regardless of sexual preference or proclivity – gay, straight, bisexual, and pedophiles – and yes of course, not all trans-identifying men are pedophiles, but the reality is there are many pedophiles hidden in women’s clothes) are using the trans identity to hide their misogyny – and as it turns out, their violent tendencies and criminality) and are threatening to use violence against anyone who challenges their preferred “gender identity”. The descriptions on Terf is a Slur of assaulting, raping, mutilating, and murdering women; the seething rage that is aimed against anyone who was born a woman are pretty disturbing to read. The many (Oh, SO MANY!!!) trans “women”, making references to their “girl dick” and the ways with which they want to use it, to choke us to shut us up or rape us (yeah, the classics never go out of style). And the “advice” given to other trans “women” on how to mutilate us, kill us, what weapons to use, and how enjoyable it would be when they do it. And the photos of them kicking and hitting the hell out of women at feminist protests.

We shouldn’t be surprised. All these guys with the girls’ names and the bad wigs are just being their true selves: men who hate women and are trying to shut them up by threatening to rape and/or kill them. Misogyny by the numbers. This is what men have been doing for thousands of years: creating support groups, bespoke theories, ideologies, political movements, made-in-their-image religions that support a very basic, a very common and well-documented masculine need to shut us up by the use of violence. And then recruiting us to fight against our own interests, convincing us that this is actually noble, God’s wish, our “rightful” place, our role as females, a proof of our “kindness”, etc. In this case, a matter of Human rights. Convincing us that calling them men is hate speech, but them threatening to assault us, is “human rights”. It’s quite the trick. And being men, they are allowed to play it on us.

The men who create these memes, these posts, these written threats and send them out there, are sadly (despite what we once all thought) not the exceptions to the rule. These are not random, rare exceptions of violence sent by a handful of bad apples. This is the norm now. This is the Pavlovian response of the TRANs movement. Any woman who points out the obvious, who supports other women, who advocates for the safeguarding of children and the protection of women in female-only spaces, will receive a litany of similar “anti-terf” threats of violence. She will be publicly shamed, lose her job, her reputation, her livelihood, her peace of mind, and her safety. This is what happens when you are dealing with a fascist movement. When you openly talk about your oppressors.

Transactivists are trying to shut down Terf is a Slur, and other similar websites that reveal the truth about their movement and others that report the many crimes perpetrated against women and children by trans identifying men who are paedophiles and sexual predadors, whose crimes are not being reported by mainstream media for obvious to us all reasons, (like the Reduxxinfo, Transcribe UK, Decide For Yourself: Transgender Crimes, womenarehuman, ThisNeverHappens, etc). Instead of taking measures so that no more women and children will be victimised, they are focusing on silencing anyone who reports their crimes. In a typical MALE move, they are in short, concerned with silencing the victims of male violence instead of taking responsibility for their actions.

Yet, there is something magnificently stubborn about the truth. It just wants to come out, no matter how many measures human beings take to disguise it: criminals bursting into voluntary confessions in the middle of interrogations, our inability to fool polygraphs, our quickened pulse, our altered breathing and heart rates, our blushing skins, our faces that bend into a multitude of micro-expressions that reveal our lying, etc, etc. We see it in trans identifying men, calling themselves “women” too. The truth that wants to come out. We see their maleness. Even if we were to (somehow miraculously) fail to see their male bodies, we see their male privilege, their male misogyny, their male propensity to use violence – or at the very least the threat of it - against us. To prioritise their own needs, to hide their fetishes inside carefully constructed theories, to elbow us aside, to speak over us, to violate our rights, to simulate our suffering, to plagiarise our struggles, to grab our accolades, to mansplained our very nature, to invade our hard-won safe spaces, to vilify our motives, to use our biology as a weapon against us, to even appropriate our very definition. And (same as always) to create theories, ideologies that justify their reasons, canonise their desires, hallow their need to keep us in our place. To colonise an entire sex. We recognise it. We’ve seen it before. It is unmistakably familiar. And it’s so old, it’s practically archaic…

That is why we know that there is a man underneath the loud layers of feminine disguise. There is good old-fashioned seething misogyny hidden underneath the language of inclusivity, diversity, equality, kindness, acceptance, liberalism, intersectionality, progressive thinking, and tolerance. Because only a man could hate us with such intensity for simply speaking the truth. Only a man would threaten us with such ease, with such a degree of vehemence and desire to silence us. Only a man would work for our downfall with such a zealotic fervour. Simply for defending our place in the world. Because only a man would choose to attack a woman who uses words to defend herself, instead of other men who use actual violence against him! And sadly, because only a man could fool so many (MANY!) of us to defend him to our own detriment…

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Emma Watson (the actor who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies), who openly sided with those who harassed JK Rowling with threats of rape, torture, and assassination for defending Women’s Rights in the Gender Wars insanity, has offered her assurances in a recent interview on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast that she “loves and treasures” her. That is despite their different opinions on the trans issue. She obviously has timed her “magnanimous” extension of an olive branch to coincide with the shifting of the sands. And she did it with the flair and the self-importance of a former child star who desperately attempts to grasp onto relevance by siding with popular causes. Getting her kudos for being bathed in the light of the “kind ones” by standing up for the “oppressed”, but also at the same time, for being forgiving towards those who lack the “kindness” to do the same! That’s some trick! All this theatre and bombast, all this pointless fanfare is nothing but attention-seeking nonsense, of course.

Rowling, needs to be said, had remained silent all these years when any of the three Harry Potter overgrown brats (Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint) would attack her directly or indirectly for saying what we all know to be true: that Men are Not Women, and that pretending they are has far-reaching consequences that cause irreversible harm to women and children. Watson’s recent comments, not to mention her nauseating sanctimonious manner and her use of generic, meaningless self-help jargon (that “holding-space for her” alone!) were obviously made now, to cushion her from the possibility of backlash, given that more people are siding with reality lately. But it was so pointless a gesture that it had finally forced Rowling to reply. And what a reply it was! Her words (calm, collected, cutting, true, and empathic all at once) reveal a woman who’s had enough of the childish games Watson and Co. play, using her name to gratify their need for attention. Her timely takedown was not done by concocting lies to pass her message, or using hyperbole, but simply by stating facts: how abominably Watson has treated her, and by patiently explaining (as to a child, ironically) how the Trans ideology is harming women in specific ways.

Rowling reveals in her 600-word X post that while she was protecting Watson by refusing to comment on her, Watson’s 2022 “all witches’ speech” at the 2022 Baftas (an attack on Rowling at a time when she was being threatened daily by those who wished her death) made things clear. And yet this was not the worst. To quote Rowling: “But it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re going through’ (she has my phone number)”

Think about it for a minute. Watson took the side of her attackers publicly - the side of the people who were sending rape and death threats to her and her family, so that she would be accepted as an icon in the cult of moral poseurs, and then, like the spoiled child - that she still is despite her age - turned and wrote a note of sympathy to her, thinking that would make it all OK between them. Not to mention she had her phone number and she could have called and spoken to her in person, you know, like adults do. But that would require guts, integrity, and to use a word that the trans ideologues love: bravery. The real kind!

Rowling continues her eloquent take-down that cuts to the point of it all, showing that Watson talks from a place of privilege and mind-blowing ignorance: “…Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is. She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who’s identified into the women’s prison? I wasn’t a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women’s rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.…”

This is the gist of it, why all these movie stars and celebrities (not just Watson), all these sheltered poseurs and attention seekers are merrily siding with the Trans movement, and adopting such luxury beliefs: they personally won’t ever be affected – like the rest of women - by what it means. They do it from a place of privilege, protected by their money and fame, and to protect their money and fame! Either because they became rich and famous as children (like these three) and basically lived most of their lives under the sheltering umbrella of celebrity status, or else because they became so famous in adulthood that they have actually forgotten what it means to live unprotected by their millions. And that is what is exceptional about Rowling. That, despite being a multimillionaire (no longer a billionaire because of her charity work, let us not forget!) herself, she is still able to remember what it felt like. And is still fighting for a class of women who are unprotected and forced to give up their safety, dignity and intimacy so that men who watched so much “sissy porn” that they have developed the particular fetish of Autogynephilia are allowed to “live their truth” (translation: their paraphilia) by invading their spaces and often, making them their prey.

Her reply to Emma Watson’s anodyne views on feminism and her astonishingly myopic and vacuous declarations is another evidence of JK Rowling’s brilliance, empathy, humanity and ability to cut through the bullshit with surgical precision. Yet infuriatingly, her words were twisted to feed the gaping mouth of the ravenous propaganda machine of the trans cult, which is still busy painting hagiographies of itself, demonising anyone who dares to point towards facts.

And the realisation finally hits us: if her calm, articulate, empathetic, reality-based reply was seen as “ranting” and “vindictive”, then there is possibly very little any of us can say, do, explain, that can make any one of these people accept the basic facts, because what they are fighting for is their OWN recognition as “progressives”. (How could they give that up?) Plus, they have spent so much effort and time investing in this, in supporting fetishists (not persecuted victims as they like to think) that if they retract, if they say “sorry, we got this wrong”, they will also have to admit that their choices have encouraged the hysterectomies and mastectomies of healthy girls, the castration of boys, the sterilisation and life-long medicalisation of children who are traumatised or autistic, or simply facing the turmoil that is puberty. That gay teenagers are being told they should be medicalised for life to become straight. That because of who they have supported and encouraged to become a global all-powerful movement, women and girls were put in danger, and irreparable harm was caused to the feminism movement in general. All that so that the adult deviants would be mainstreamed. The supporters of the trans issue will also be forced to admit that trans identity is nothing but a porn trend that was allowed to grasp on legitimacy by masquerading as a human rights movement, because it cleverly took advantage of the need so many people have to identify with a cause (any cause really) that would denote them the precious gifts of virtue (and followers) on social media, and a protection from the backlash that destroys lives, livelihoods, reputations and your peace of mind if you speak the truth. And that is just a hard pill to swallow…

We are not surprised of course by Emma Watson’s recent behaviour who despite her expensive education she seems to lack the basic awareness of the world around her. Wasn’t she the one who informed women that having orgasms is their right? Thinking such ideas to be both her invention (bless her little heart) and the very thing that stamped and sealed her calling card, as the quintessential free-thinking liberal feminist of a new era? And didn’t she make a public announcement recently that she’s “self-partnered”? (Because we were all holding our collective breath to know that. And because saying you are single just doesn’t have the same “I belong-in-the-generation-that-believes-there-are-72-different-genders-which-makes-me superior-to -you-all ” ring to it)

And more to the point, didn’t she declare in that 2014 UN speech that “fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating”, and that now that she is on the job, she would “smash the stereotypes” of the “unattractive man-hating feminists” because hello? She is neither, and therefore “the movement” is saved. A heroine for the ages indeed! (All of you ugly, ageing feminists, who are not inclined to placate men no matter what, run along now. No place for you here. This is the good, the man-loving feminist movement for pretty girls and movie stars with egos the size of a continent and a lack of self-awareness the size of a planet).

In that same speech, Watson educated us that gender inequality is a problem for men too, who are suffering as much as we do, since they are “constrained by harmful stereotypes of masculinity” (those poor, poor all-suffering darlings!). Maybe one of those UN officials who handed her the microphone and invited her to speak on our behalf should guide her to read some UN statistics about a different kind of suffering women experience in the hands of these poor, “harmed”, victimised by gender stereotypes, men. Maybe they could mention to her that globally, Morethan 640 million women aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence, or that on average, one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by their intimate partner or family member (a partner, a husband, a father, a brother) who consider them their property (a belief that is of course supported by law in most cases, and religious doctrines in ALL cases) Or that 736 million women—almost one in three— alive today have been subjected to domestic violence and rape. Or that over 230 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation for the specific reason of rendering them unable to experience an orgasm and by that offering the reassurance to the husbands they will be given to, like cattle, that they won’t be tempted to cheat on them. Or that, 9 million girls will marry in childhood in the year 2030 to ADULT men who will earn the right to rape and assault them with immunity (marriage being a perfectly kosher free pass for paedophiles and abusers). You know, any of that.

But these are uncomfortable truths that don’t go well with designer gowns, that don’t make nice sharable memes, that are hard to turn into saccharine platitudes about female “empowerment” and “sex-positivity”. And they wouldn’t make her a beloved “feminist icon” for this new age, for this new generation of liberal feminists who, while being busy congratulating themselves about their ideas of “inclusivity” and their “kindness” and their magnanimity towards men (of any persuasion), are – one suspects unknowingly - dismantling what 200 years of feminism has achieved. Besides, who cares about all that when there is the pending issue of ugly feminists and ill-treated men to be considered? “If not me, who?” Watson concluded at the end of her speech with the self-confidence of the deluded and the overprivileged. Who indeed?

It is astonishing to me that so many people fail to see all that. Or that so many of them claim that Rowling “owes” (!) her reputation and money to the three actors who were cast to play the characters she created in her (already successful) books. The reality – obvious to anyone who is not blinded by the Trans ideological propaganda and their hate towards Rowing - is that if anyone else was cast in the same roles, Rowling’s path, which was forged by her once-in-many-generations talent, would still be the same. (And not the other way around). And the reason they are being given the spotlight today or being loved by so many still, is 100% because they have participated in her projects all those years ago. Yet, the - not so young anymore that they would deserve our lenience – three actors of the Harry Potter movies all seem to agree they have the right to speak on Rowling’s behalf and pass judgment on her opinions because they happened to be cast in the movies that were based on her books as kids. In her reply to Emma Watson, Rowling pointed out that she and Daniel Radcliffe continue “to assume the role of de facto spokespeople” for the world she created. How could they ever be convinced that they have no such right, though? Watson’s “I’m here for ALL the witches” is further proof that it is not possible. It was not just an act of self-preservation, arrogance, remarkable ingratitude and phenomenal lack of self-knowledge, but also the worst sort of crime according to her own generation: appropriation! What gives her the right to “appropriate” someone else’s work? To speak on behalf of the “witches”? She was, let us face it, a mediocre at best actor who played a witch because JK Rowling wrote about a witch. How is she assigned the role to speak on behalf of the character this writer created in perpetuity, and even use that character to attack the writer herself? And how is that “kindness”? And more to the point, why was she applauded for doing it?

And on the same note: how dare all of them create an entire documentary in 2022 (Harry Potter 20^thAnniversary / Return to Hogwarts), about the world Rowling created and exclude her?! All of the actors, producers, directors, etc. were being given their moment but her. Talking about the wondrous things that took place at Hogwarts and beyond, about the blessing that the experience has been and the wonderful world she created, praising each aspect of it, as if it came into being on its own. With tears in their eyes, being moved, but not enough, mind you, as to forget that she shouldn’t ever be mentioned in relation to her own work! You almost have to give it to them for talking for one hour and 42 minutes about her work, and somehow being able to collectively pretend she never existed! (And then going back to being champions of “inclusivity” of course…) In order to avoid being accused of doing what they WERE doing, namely erasing her, they included a brief part of an interview of hers taken in 2019, (before she revealed herself to be a full-on hateful Terf). In a documentary dedicated to her work, she was given 7 seconds! A nice way to exonerate them from both accusations: that they included her, and that they didn’t. Much like Watson, who wants to have both sides covered by siding with those who threaten to kill her and also sending her “love”, they wanted their cake and ate it too. All that because she didn’t - as a Twitter user said yesterday in reference to the Emma Watson incident – stfu (Shut the Fuck Up) when she ought to have. And this is the heart of the gender “wars”: some women refuse to shut the fuck up when their rights are being taken away from them, and so they must pay! THIS is what all is all about.

This brings to mind that other young fool who is destroying Harry Potter books by tearing the cover, adding his own, so that JK Rowling’s name (the woman who wrote the books and created that entire world he is so obviously obsessed with) is not mentioned anywhere. (Another warrior of inclusion!) This trans book binder, who is calling himself an “artist” (of course!), is destroying a REAL artist’s creations; this supposed victim of “erasure” is busy literally erasing the name of the creator out of a copyrighted work, and nobody bats an eye! He also fails to spot the irony: that no matter how much effort he puts into changing the outside, the inside stays the same… (Funny how these things work!) In his mind, (much like all those involved in the previously mentioned documentary), he thinks he has found a loophole that allows him to continue openly loving Harry Potter, without having to sacrifice his right to hate the writer. He also gets to be seen as a hero fighting for trans rights, and on top of that, asks for $140 for each book he destroyed! He actually posts videos of himself ceremoniously tearing up the copyright pages and glueing his makeshift covers with the holier-than-thou piety of a thousand Inquisition priests. Waiting for his bravo. Hoping that people online will give him that warm, fuzzy feeling he craves by offering the assurance that he is: 1) A social justice warrior, 2) One of the “brave” and “kind” ones who is fighting the “evil” queen, and 3) (what else?) An “artist!” himself (the best kind out there in fact: a “trans artist!”). Blissfully ignoring that what he is doing is 1) Stupid, 2) Mean-spirited, and 3) Illegal. (And let’s face it, a little sad)

Similarly, all those indignant fools who are attacking JK Rowling on social media (who I bet consider themselves to also be “writers” because they’ve written a bunch of Tweets) actually think they can outwit her, dismantle what she created with that brilliant mind of hers, by calling her names and sending her threats… (Their viciousness disguised as progressive thinking. Their cult-y beliefs camouflaged as “social justice”. Their questionable grasp on reality hiding behind a veil of imaginary victimhood. Their cowardice masquerading as “kindness”. Their porn-inspired fetishes disguised as their “truth”). And yet she replies to every one of them. Keeping her cool. Patiently explaining the obvious. Bravely speaking for the good of all of us, (even for those of us who still fail to see it). Using common sense, they’ve lost the ability to follow; universally acknowledged (until 5 minutes ago) scientific facts they have chosen to disregard; sarcasm they don’t get; humour they fail to grasp; humanity they’ve lost on the altar of self-righteousness.

But that’s the thing about social media: it robs people of the ability to see themselves for what they are, and makes them think that accessibility to an accomplished writer, an artist, a thinker, signals equality with them on what makes them an accomplished writer, an artist, a thinker… Take, for example, that other mean-spirited guy who goes by a female name I won’t mention, because frankly, I lack the patience to have to deal with him, who insists he is a “biological woman” because he paid a doctor to assure him that it is doable. (Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he recognised himself in this description, though?) My God! How obsessed is he with her? How vicious! How sick? How deluded - if he thinks he could ever be measured up against her! Poor sod. (Or convince any of us that he is not a man…) He is allowed to continue harassing her because he is supported by those who believe that whatever they think is incontrovertibly true (Damn science and reality). After all, they are so fucking special and “brave”. (Don’t dare tell me this is not a cult!)

So yes, we are grateful for JK Rowling. Because she is putting a spotlight on the madness. And she does it with such wit that you can’t help but almost feel sorry for all these hordes of internet accusers who’ve decided that they can harm her by their ill-constructed sentences and their seemingly endless ammunition of cheap shots. They obviously lack self-awareness to such a ridiculous degree that not only do they think they destroy her by writing a half-baked, snarky tweet in bad grammar, but they actually think they can outsmart her!

I, for one, want to say “Thank you” to her. For all the books, for all the stories, for all the characters she created (from the Harry Potter Universe to the Strike book series). For all the joy she gave us. But also, for turning herself into a target on our behalf. For taking it upon herself to jeopardise her reputation, her income, her legacy by bravely carrying on her shoulders the burden of standing up for women’s Rights and for the safeguarding of vulnerable kids, now that these things are again put in jeopardy by virtue signallers, disguised misogynists, porn-inspired fetishists and cowards (so many, MANY cowards!) who would choose to avoid the personal cost, rather than face reality and speak up, like she did. For doing it despite the cost. In these times, when reality is stepping into fiction.

Here’s to you, brave lady!

***

Posted on the 6th of October, 2025. Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to share on social media by using the link.

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JK Rowling deserves our respect for these brief but important references in her books, and of course, for bravely placing herself in the middle of the gender critical online wars as well, becoming an advocate for sanity and because of that, sadly, the high-profile scapegoat the trans warriors needed to play the martyrs they are not.

Inspired by a reference in the 8th Cormoran Strike novel, The Hallmarked Man, this essay examines how women are often encouraged to choose marriage and motherhood by prioritising men’s needs.

In the latest Cormoran Strike novel, The Hallmarked Man, written by JK Rowling (under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith), there is a brief scene in which the female heroine, Robin, suffers a miscarriage (due to the infection caused by the man who raped her years ago). When her doctor suggests that she needs to freeze her eggs if she wants to become a mother, she can’t make up her mind.

The realisation that she will probably have to sacrifice the job that gives profound meaning to her life, so that she will do what everyone around her expects from her —her mother, her family, her partner —makes her unable to decide. The “either Motherhood or a demanding, time-consuming career that you love” dilemma is a tough one for many contemporary women. Yet, it is actually uncommon to see a literary, TV or movie heroine who is resistant to her ticking clock, and to the urgency to be “like other women”. Even though 45% of women in the US alone (ages 25 to 44) are estimated to be single and childless by 2030, according to statistics, our culture seems to ignore this fact and continues to centre marriage and motherhood, selling it to us as the ultimate life goal for women. This is a fact that is not unrelated to the renewed efforts by many governments to control women’s reproductive rights, so that they will be guided back to a life of financial dependence on men, gratefully offering life-long emotional and physical labour to them.

JK Rowling’s brief mention of spinsters who are decomposing surrounded by their art collections in the first book of the series (The Cuckoo’s Calling) is part of the same universal and ageless stereotype that sees women’s lives as significant, meaningful and enjoyable only in reference to their marital status. But statistics tell a different story, of course: Single women are happier, have less anxiety, a lower risk of depression and drug use, and a greater job satisfaction. They also live longer, healthier lives than married women, while when it comes to men, the opposite happens: married men live longer, healthier lives than single ones. (Because in a wife, a man gets a lifelong carer). Is it any wonder that Patriarchy glorifies marriage and parenthood only in reference to women? Because it JUSTIFIES the sacrifice that is required of them in both.

We all live in the same world where the old gender patriarchal archetypes have a hold on us and are hard to be rid of, as they are still being perpetuated by the denigration of “spinsterhood” in pop culture. Yet, in real life, more and more heterosexual women make the conscious choice to remain single and childless, because they dream of a different kind of existence than the one their mothers and grandmothers had, or because they are not willing to sacrifice their dreams. Or maybe because they reject the idea of sharing a life and a child with a porn addict (which is what most men are these days)

In the 8^th book of the Strike series, Robin (refreshingly) reacts when her partner Ryan Murphy, in his efforts to steer her towards the decision he has made for both of them (namely that they ought to start the process necessary to have kids at once) assures her that if she wants to freeze her eggs, he will “support” her! The absurdity of such statements, which men casually make to convince a woman to have their kids when she doesn’t want to, and of course, to seem empathetic with no cost whatsoever to them, is, at the very least, annoying. As JK Rowling says through the character of Robin, he is not going to be “probed, poked and fiddled about with, and have things inserted inside” him. She is, of course, right. The long, painful, messy, humiliating, invasive, bloody business of reproduction is a woman’s burden.

Women who have been indoctrinated by Patriarchal notions about the all-important “magical” qualities of sperm, indulge men by pretending that their contribution to the whole thing is the most invaluable part of it all, their “support” a Godsend, and that the world would stop turning without them, but it is but a kind lie. The fact that women are at the centre of the creation of human beings is, of course, what has historically caused their abasement and the creation of Patriarchy. That is why religions were invented, namely to create new hierarchies that pushed women, the creators of life, to the bottom. Securing their obedience and sexual availability through their disempowerment. And that is why governments still try to control women’s reproductive rights, taking away their choices, steering them away from their dreams (if these are not related to wedding gowns and a life of servitude), putting them nicely in their husbands’ hands. And this is why the trend of “Trad” wives is resurfacing. Glamourising domestic labour and obedience. Reselling us disfranchisement as a choice.

Men’s appropriation of the female experience in terms of human reproduction (their verbal “support” during IVF, during childbirth, breastfeeding, child-rearing, et), will of course, be considered by most women out there as an expression of love and compassion and fatherly excellence, instead of what it often is: a cost-free and lame shot at the spotlight, disguised as empathy... Like every other man in a similar situation, Robin’s partner won’t be “poked and fiddled”. He won’t go through the horrors of IVF, pregnancy and child birth, and, chances are, he won’t raise his kid mostly on his own, and neither will he be forced to give up his work, his dreams, his financial independence, his bodily autonomy, his health, his sleep, his time, and that precious part of his self that comes alive when he does a job he loves, unencumbered, AND guilty-free. And yet, he – like most men out there - feels like he has the same right as her, to have an equal say in such a choice. And to emotionally blackmail her to take it.

The fictional character of Ryan Murphy may be kind of a dick in general, but when it comes to these matters, who isn’t, I ask you (if he is in possession of one)? Not that many of them realise the biological burden we carry from the age of 11 (which makes the whole “transwomen (aka MEN) are women because they announce it” or “because they wear a dress”, or “because they FEEL they are”, utterly ridiculous). Not that many of them understand the pain and sacrifices that are required. Not many men possess the basic degree of self-awareness, either, that would inform them that they are largely redundant when it comes to what it actually takes for a human being to enter this world, and their “support” is largely theoretical. Let alone offered for purely self-congratulatory reasons anyway. Just another thing invented to make them feel as important as they think they are. Because not that many women take the risk of saying things as they are, and helping them gain self-awareness. Actually, not that many women even allow themselves to think such things, lest the fragile balance of their relationships and marriages be examined, and by that questioned, undermined, and put at risk. This is how you survive in Patriarchy after all: by placating men. Thanking them for being “there”. Because they might not even do that…

If Robin (any “Robin”) were to go ahead and freeze her eggs, and go through the hell that is the IVF / Artificial insemination processes, her partner’s own contribution would, of course, be a five-minute wank while watching his favourite nasty porn… That’s it. Job done. But women tend not to tell it like it is, right? They protect men’s fragile feelings and illusions of superiority, and pretend their contributions to the whole process are oh-so precious, and the choice about having kids or not, equally theirs (if not wholly…) Women at the same time as they are going through a hell of having daily injections, having invasive procedures and hormone therapies that cause all kinds of physical and emotional turmoil, might even be forced to comfort THEM when they complain (and they will) that ejaculating in a cup is not “fun”, or that masturbating on demand is not “ideal”. (Poor babies!)

So, Robin saying it like it is, is important. As was that scene in Troubled Blood, (one of the other Strike novels), where we hear Strike put that young student in her place, when she uses the popular among liberal feminists argument, that prostitution and pornography are “empowering” for women, a job like any other, and related to a woman’s “bodily autonomy”, instead of what they really are: vehicles for the degradation and dehumanisation of women. The “place” where men go to buy the right to abuse and rape women (or fantasise that they do), thinking it to be their prerogative.

It is in short for these reasons why JK Rowling deserves our respect! For these brief but important references in her books, and of course for bravely placing herself in the middle of the gender critical online wars as well, becoming an advocate for sanity and because of that, sadly, the high-profile scapegoat the trans warriors needed to play the martyrs they are not.

*********

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Denying that biology is a reality, believing that being a woman is something you can put on like a costume, is not just a naïve and idiotic argument, it is also a scornfully abusive and dangerous one, as it robes all women of their hard-won sex-based rights, that were put in place in order to protect their safety, privacy and dignity. It is also erasing the unmistakably central role biology plays in women’s lives, and conviniently ignores the numberless ways with which it was historically used as a tool to exculpate their abuse for thousands of years. Entire religions were created for example, to assure men that they matter more than us, because their own biology was “superior” to ours, which gave them the “right” to have unquestionable access to our bodies!

What is happening now, is in many respects, NOT new. Men have been trying to redefine the female biology in ways that would rob women of their power, and so make their subjugation easier (and by that, guarantee their sexual availaility) for thousands of years. The celebrated Greek philosopher Aristotle for example, came up with the notion that men are the sole “life givers”, and women are merely the “incubators”, the “potting soil” for the precious male “live seed”. Aristotle, (like I’ve written before) also claimed that mothers have no actual relation to their own children, since they are merely the “hosts” for as long as the pregnancy lasts. (That is why in ancient Greece, matricide was not considered a crime, while patricide was a very severe one…) A notion that was also a popular ancient Hebrew belief. In Aristotelian terms, (much like in the dystopian world of Margaret Adwood’s The Handmaid’ s Tale), mothers were merely the wombs that brought children into the world, and fathers had the reproductive ownership of those children (a tradition that survives to this day, in many places around the world of course). His theory has influenced Western thinking for centuries, and has left a lasting mark on Muslim and Judeo-Christian traditions (as evident in the utterly misogynistic writings of the Church Fathers - see below), and is finding new believers in present-day Christian religious fundamentalists and US Right Wingers: a good example is Rep. Justin Humphrey had claimed back in 2017 (in his efforts to pass one of the many American anti-abortion Bills) that a woman is merely a “host”, and once she decides to be “irresponsible” by having sex (the guy with whom she is having this sex, is of course blameless, just like in the Bible...) her body “is no longer her own” because she will always be a potential “host”!

Pythagoras may be known for his mathematical theorem, but he also came up with the theory of “spermism”, which claimed that fathers contribute the essential characteristics of their offspring, while mothers are just the “passive vessels” and contribute only a material substrate (the “surface” on which life given by the father, is “deposited”). A theory that in turn influenced 18th-century Christianity, as expressed in “preformationism” (or preformism), which was only one of the many similar theories that attempted to offer “evidence” that women are just “nurturers” and not actual parents to their kids! This particular theory, claims that there is a ‘homunculus”, (an actual miniature man!) inside every sperm, whom scientists actually claimed to be able to see through their microscopes (or should I say magic spheres?) and that of course offered a so-called “scientific” proof that only men give life…

Not so long ago, the Church of England has announced, that “There is no official definition of a woman”! Considering they knew who and what Eve was, and claimed that everything was her fault, and that every woman was “carrying her Original Sin” that caused the Fall of the entire humanity and all that, and considering they’ve embraced the misogyny of the bible (a book written in the Iron Age) to keep women out of any roles in the Church for hundreds of years specifically on account of their “inferior sex”, we can’t help but find it surprising they now say they don’t know what one is.

The Church Fathers, (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Evangelical, and everything in-between) certainly knew what a woman was when they were demanding that she accepts man as her rightful “master” - as all slaves ought to do... In their many “Holy” writings, they ordered her again and again to "be silent" (St Paul was particularly keen on that one), they called her “inferior in nature and law”, wrote that she is “evil above all other evil, snakes and venom against which no medicine is good” and assured men that her life’s purpose is to “serve and satisfy their libido” and that she is “a temple built on a sewer”, a “bag of excrement” and of course “the devil’s door”... They wrote that anyone who touches her during “her filthiness” (period) would also be “filthy”, and urged men to stone virgin girls for “allowing” men to rape them. And they had their own twisted views on how the sexes are formed (“The male seed gives birth to perfect shapes, that is, masculine, but if for some adversity it fails, then it gives birth to females, because in coitus with a woman there’s only deformities, turpitude, filth, filth.”) The list of misogynistic utterings which were described as “sacred” and the “Word of God”, is long and deeply disturbing. All of it written by “great” theologians, “holy” men and actual “Saints”, who were venerated for their virtue through the centuries (St. John Chrysostom, St Paul, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, Tertullian, St Ireneus, St Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Saint Albert the Great, et. et.) These examples are nice reminders that men have been saying nasty things about women for thousands of years without anyone questioning them, and without that having ANY consequences on them. On the contrary - and much like present day trans identifying men - they were revered because of it. (And women were asked to partake in their own devaluation. Which they did.)

We shouldn’t kid ourselves that this archaic nonsense is gone. All of it had survived through the centuries shaping men’s view of what we are. And women's views of what we can't be. (And how much bullshit we ought to accept unquestionably) All of it, is still happening somewhere in some form or other, giving men license to silence, intimidate, oppress, assault, kill us. It has survived equally in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions. And in the “new”, mostly American, “born-again” Churches that merrily revive misogyny, and in the fundamentalism of the Far Right political parties, that strive to ban abortion and place back in the hands of men the full control of Women’s Reproductive Rights, in the US and elsewhere. And in the hypocrisy of the Leftist parties that are destroying women’s Rights for the sake of virtue signaling. And it has gloriously survived in the entitlement of (trans identifying) MEN who even today, still believe they are the only ones who can define what a woman is, and are allowed to say whatever they want about women with immunity. And sadly, it has also survived in the internalized misogyny of women as well, who would rather stand by a man who lies, rather than by a woman who fights for them.

God is a male entity, a Father we were told, and HE created the world. Not a female one. Not a primordial Mother. (Which would make 100% more sense, if symbolism AND reality are anything to go by) Eve came from Adam’s rib we were told. One of the many myths created so that women’s creative powers would appear as insignificant. So that men would appear as the sole source of life. If Adam existed, it was he who came out of a woman of course, not the other way round. How interesting is it, that it was (and is) easier to believe that a man had a pregnant rib, rather than a woman gave birth to a man!And yet, it was a notion that survived through the centuries and spread the word that we are biologically inferior, with no life-giving abilities! Despite the blatant daily evidence of the opposite, that takes place since the Dawn of Time.A notion that is common in many patriarchal religions and traditions. In Greek mythology, for example, it was believed the mighty goddess Athena, the most powerful of them all, was born not out of a mother, but from her father Zeus's forehead... Which would explain why she was powerful and wise... And now we retrograde again: simply saying that women give birth to children, or that women have wombs or periods, is actually considered hate speech!

This is hardly new of course. Everything about our biology was always seen within Patriarchy, as “sub-par”. Our periods would brand us as filthy, mad, lunar witches. Our menopause which was coincident with maturity and an increased bravery, was believed to turn us into “crazy” dangerous bitches with “wandering wombs” that needed to be fixed with unnecessary cruel surgeries, isolation, or with confinement in mental institutions. Our sexuality was seen as an abomination and a threat. Our female bodies that triggered lustful thoughts in religious leaders of any persuasion of any century, were for this reason, branded as shameful in every religion (men created in their OWN image), and every woman was seen as the source of all sin, for simply existing in the same world as them, causing them to question their ability to walk on the path of "self-righteousness" they, themselves had curved on stones. And their own male biology, (their aggression, their propensity for violence, their lack of discipline and respect for our boundaries, their own state of perpetual horniness they couldn’t tame, and which dominated their thoughts), informed their perception of us (rather than cause any degree of self-awareness in THEM) and became the building blocks with which their ideologies, religious doctrines, holy books, legal theories, philosophies, artistic creations, “sciences” about our OWN “inferior” and “sinful” natures, were constructed!

Our ability to birth every single person that had ever walked on this planet was downplayed, and then used against us, in order to keep us homebound, confined, powerless. It was trivialized instead of appreciated, so that men’s own minuscule one-second long contribution would be glorified! A woman bleeds monthly for as many as 45 years, the equivalent of the blood that runs through the bodies of 52 males in her lifetime, so that she can have the possibility to bring life into this world. (Imagine what men would do with that fact, if it were THEM doing the bleeding - or God help us all, the actual birthing of human beings! The theories and religions, and laws they would come up with, to justify their “superiority” over us, based on that alone! The nonsense about the "sacredness" of their male blood that would be formed into complex religious doctrines) And then a woman goes through the horrors of pregnancy and labor, and feeds her baby from her very body, but since the dawn of Time, it is a man’s sperm that was seen as the great magical ingredient in the creation of human beings. And his second-long "contribution", the most important part of it all. And therefore, the child a woman births will (even to this day, more often than not!) take the patronymic of the father, and because of that, sons (not daughters! NEVER daughters!) will be considered the continuation of HIS precious blood line (Never hers. Never the Mother’s own!) Much like the wife gladly takes the name of her husband (in fact she is indoctrinated to consider it even now, an honour!) as if her own family name - and blood line - never existed (or meant a thing!)

Which is why, when we are being asked, “Why is biology important when it comes to calling yourself a woman?” by the many allies of the Trans movement, we are appalled. Because we see that in their eagerness to appear “progressive” and “kind” , they become blinded to the fact that they are not only violating women’s Rights, but are also placing themselves in the service of an utterly misogynistic Men’s Rights movement, whose sole purpose is the mainstreaming of male sexual fetishes. Which is not only the very antithesis of “progressive”, but is as archaic as Patriarchy itself.

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Womanhood is not the wearing of dresses, the painting of the nails, the make-up, the high heels, the long hair. The gender specific characteristics, in short, that Patriarchy has decided are the definition of femininity. Womanhood is not a matter of perception, interpretation, preference, choice, or a feeling. It’s tough, it’s painful, it’s dangerous, it comes with heavy costs. That is why when we are being told that men “experience life as a woman” we have to laugh. Because we know for a fact that they don’t.

As long as they don’t know what it means to have periods, menstruation cramps, pregnancies, labour pains, a child birth, a miscarriage, an abortion, a hot flash, an episiotomy, the unpleasantness of pap smears, mammograms, IVF. As long as they don’t know the endless variation of dangers we face: obstructed labour, postpartum bleeding, eclampsia, postpartum infection, birth asphyxia, neonatal hypothermia, postpartum depression, maternal mortality and the many female related, painful gynecological disorders: Endometriosis, Fibroids, Polycystic ovary syndrome, Menstrual disorders, Ovarian cysts, Uterine prolapse, Infertility, Irregular bleeding, Pelvic inflammatory disease, Vaginitis, Cervical disorders, Dysmenorrhea, Female Genital herpes, Urinary Tract Infections, Heavy menstrual bleeding, Infections, and the different types of gynecologic cancer.

We are not just our biology I hear many of you say. No, we are not. But biology is not something we can ignore. It defines how we are being treated, how we have always been treated by men (of any persuasion. Or fashion choices). And that in turn, informs who we become. It defines our place in this world. Unlike trans-identifying men, we don’t need to convince anyone of who we are, by creating ideologies and using political agendas and threats to push the message. We know we are women. Our bodies tell us. That quicksilver running through our veins at puberty, and the self we are forced to leave behind for good at that moment. The innocence that we lose forever at the end of childhood (while boys are allowed to prolong theirs, indefinitely. Often, well into old age) The understanding that hits us like a brick. The constant vigilance against the ever-present threat of male violence, that will guide our steps from then on. Making our lives smaller. Stealing our options. The endless precautions we will be taking every day of our lives. Because we are seen as nothing but bodies. Because no matter what we do, what we are, what we achieve, none of it will matter. Only our bodies. Our age. Our shape. In short, our fuckability. A man's (any man's) approval... (That will often be exchanged with violence) And it is also the blood we monthly bleed. That signal our body sends us, as it prepares us for the possibility of a pregnancy. Whether we want it or not. Whether it will ever happen, or not. The cramps that double us up in pain while we soldier on, going through our day, not letting anyone know, and which would make grown men cry (watch them do just that in videos, when they are asked to use a period pain simulation device) And it is the constant fear of pregnancy; the painful or costly, or downright unpleasant or even seriously harmful in its side-affects birth control method, that it’s been decided it is solely our OWN responsibility - because the outcome will also be our own, life-long burden to bear. Because men don't concern themselves with such things. (Only with the passing of laws to control our OWN bodies) Because men don't want (or need) to be bothered. And it is the pregnancies, the morning sicknesses, the cravings, the prayers we whisper in the dark as we feel a body growing in our belly. Elbowing our insides. As our own body expands and changes to contain it. It is that extra heartbeat in our body. And it is the darkness that covers us when we stop feeling it beating. The devastation that we will carry forever for the loss of a child we named, whose life we pictured, who was literally part of us, and who was gone before we even met it. And for most women, it is the cruelty of childbirth. That primitive and bloody business of bringing a human being into the world through excruciating pain. And it is the way the body will remember that pain it suffered, which will bond them forever with that child that came out of them, in ways that are simply alien to fathers. To men. And it is the baby’s cells that will migrate from mother to child and vice versa, healing each other (in the miracle that is called "fetal maternal microchimerism" which was not discovered until the 90s - science being slow at discovering all the wondrous mysteries the female body holds) when the baby’s DNA will leave a permanent imprint in their body for years, which remains embedded in both their tissues, becoming a permanent part of them! And it is the milk that will flow from them when their baby is hungry. Which will flow, even when someone else’s baby is crying in their vicinity. Because biology will send its primal signals. That biology that we are told is not significant to who we are. To what a woman is. And then it is the blood that will run out. That will leave us finally free from the monthly draining, but also, force us to take another evolutionary step drenched in new sufferings and new bravery, and new understandings of ourself. It is the sleeplessness caused by it, and the night sweats and the brain fog, and those moments when we will feel like our head is being shoved inside a 2,000-degree kiln, which if they lasted a second longer, they would burn us alive. And it is also our multiple orgasms, and the complexity of our thoughts and the depth of our emotions, and our ability to connect with others on levels that are just deeper... And it is our longevity too: our body and spirit’s ability to survive against ALL these odds!

And it is the body that ages and gets bigger, in a world that tells you it shouldn’t. Never. EVER! Because it is forbidden for you. Only for you. If you are a woman that is. So, for so many, it is also the life-long hunger, the deprivation they will impose on themselves. The ever present fear of rejection by men, (which they will mask as "health consciousness"of course) The need to be stuck in time in a prepubertal body, regardless of their age. Because they know that this is what their partner expects from them in order to stay. (And yet somehow managing to stop themselves from thinking about what that need of his really mean…) The relentless effort to dutifully discipline a body that naturally graves comfort and pleasure and roundness. Because approval is not willingly offered to females who actually look like ones at their respective ages. Who are not eager to self-punish and walk the line. (The struggle against ageing and fat are the ONLY truly permissible - and universally acknowledged as necessary - fights a woman is allowed to have after all). The British comedian Eddy Izzard calls himself a “girl” at 62. How hilarious is that? Can you imagine a woman of his age doing the same? Or dressing as he does while being his age, and being gloriously accepted as he is, for doing both? Or indeed looking like he does dressed as he is dressed, and not being ridiculed, judged, publicly shamed? The request for high standards of perfection and flawless beauty and eternal youthfulness is saved for the REAL females. Any man (of any age, size, and shape) in a leather mini skirt, awkwardly sashaying on his high heels will be called “beautiful”, and let us not forget,"stunning!", regardless for how he actually looks like. Because they KNOW he’s a man. Because looks still matter ONLY if you are a woman. (In this man’s world, that we all pretend that is changing…)

In short, being a woman is not about our clothes. It's about a history of objectification, prejudice, and violence, which we all carry in our collective past as an oppressed class, (a fact that justifies our need for sex-based rights that will at least, attempt to protect us). And it is about our biology, our spirit, and the dangers we still face, and the multitude of wondrous things that our female bodies can create, and endure, and enjoy, in ways that are alien to men – regardless of their fashion choices and “preferred” pronouns. That are specific to our very binary sex - not anyone’s perception of it!

That are unmistakably linked to our female nature. That are our core. That collectively spell out what a WOMAN can only be: An Adult FEMALE Human Being.

Thank you for reading. I offer my work for free, but if you enjoy my essays and believe they have value, please consider becoming a free subscriber, sharing, and hitting the like button. And if you can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, so that I can continue this effort and, at the very least, cover the costs (if not the labour and time) that go hand in hand with research and writing.

The cost of a monthly subscription is less than the cost of one latte coffee or a frappe, but if you don’t want to go for a paid subscription, please consider sending your preferred amount through PayPal

Thank you in advance.

More Art: www.fanitsa-petrou.com

The appropriation of the female experience by trans-identifying men, who while enjoying male privileges are robbing women of the fundamental right of self-determination, and at the same time are being congratulated for the fact, is admittedly, a pretty nifty Patriarchal trick!

We are being told with hammering insistence by trans-activists and their many allies, for example, that sex is “assigned at birth”. As if by whim. But of course, it is not. It is observed. Using one’s eyes. And not even at birth, since it is evident from the early stages of pregnancy. But the term “assigned at birth” is useful to the political agenda of the trans movement, as it suggests a victimisation, a violation, a restriction that is cruelly enforced on the individual at the moment of birth by close-minded parents, and phenomenally ignorant medical stuff, taking away a child’s options. Conveniently, rendering sex, a matter of option.

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When we point out the obvious: that sex is by definition binary, not a ‘spectrum”; that genetics, DNA, how many X or Y chromosomes you were born with, cannot change just because any of us says so, we are told that we are hateful transphobes. But regardless of the political agenda of trans-activists, biology matters. It can't be erased, altered or chosen. Which explains why men calling themselves trans “women” can still get prostate cancer, and why trans “men” face the same gynaecological conditions as the rest of us, including getting pregnant. No matter what they “self-identify” or what they choose to wear, their biology is irrefutable. What makes any of us male or female is anything but a choice. And even long after we die, scientists from the future will see our differently shaped skeletons and DNA remnants and will know exactly (and easily) what we were. Even if hundreds, or thousands of years go by...

Within Patriarchy, a woman is so insignificant, she is seen as nothing but a notional construction (in a man's brain), and therefore any man can “become” a woman, simply by announcing it! And he is accepted and recognized as one, simply by mirroring the patriarchal supposition of what a woman is. (If that’s not power, I don’t know what is!) All the wonderful and complex things that make us women, are reduced in one stroke into a fashion choice. (How is it, that so many of us are perfectly fine with this?) And when they take away from us the power to name ourselves, to self-determined what we are, they also take away our power to define our place in this world, to articulate our pain, to safeguard our boundaries! By accepting that trans-"women” (that is: trans-identifying men) are “Women”, we are allowing men to change the definition of what a woman is, allowing them to gain access to, and dismantle all that we have fought for, in even more pervasive ways than before! (Who knew that it was possible?)

“Biological” women are unfairly “privileged” we are now being told for example, in relation to trans “women” (that is, trans-identifying MEN), because "biological" women (or “cis women” as they now call us) have female sexual organs, which is apparently offensive as a reality, and seen as an actual threat to the rights of transgender individuals! So much so, that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest LGBT civil rights advocacy group in the United States, has suggested (back in 2017) that doctors use the term “front hole” instead of “vagina”, while the British Medical Association has suggested the term “pregnant people” as an alternative to “pregnant women” so that trans individuals are not “victimised” and “offended” by the biological realities of women... Of course, any woman who dares to point out the absurdity of that, is seen as a “TERF” (=Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist), as a deeply prejudiced individual who fails to see Trans-identifying men as “real” women. But a LOT has transpired since then. Now we are additionally being denied the right to call OURSELVES “women” because that would be “offensive” to the men who call themselves that. We can no longer say “I have the anatomy, the biology of a woman” with that not being seen as a vicious attack on trans identifying men’s “rights”.

Interestingly, men simply saying “I’m a woman because I feel like I am”, or “I’m a woman because I like wearing dresses” is perfectly - and instantly – acceptable, and not at all an insult to us all. But the thing is, calling trans-identifying males by their preferred pronouns is not “kindness” and “inclusiveness”, as we naively once thought. And it is certainly not an act without consequences, as it is daily proving to be antithetical to respecting women’s rights, and an open invitation to allowing the corrosion of our boundaries, safety and the very existence of Women as a political class (or a reality).

Yes, we can no longer say “I’m a woman” any more, without that being offensive to the men who have officially appropriated the term. When however, in order to denigrate us, they call us “bleeders”, “egg producers”, “menstruators”, “vulva owners”, “cervix havers”, “birthing bodies”, “chest feeders”, “bodies with vaginas”, “pregnant people” , “non-men” and (the most ridiculous of them all) "non trans women", because the word “woman” has been colonized by them, and it no longer belongs to us, we are denied the right to even object. How is it that so many, intelligent, well-intentioned individuals still fail to see the disrespect, the disdain, the mockery, the unmitigated contempt, the sheer misogyny that is hidden behind such words? That these terms are advertised as “inclusive”, but are the very opposite: they were crafted for the specific purpose of EXCLUDING women from their very sex, and from the very language that describes them, in order to rob them of the right to define themselves, and by that, DEFEND themselves. To trivialize their experience as actual females. To punctuate the message that the term “woman” is now taken. By them. By men!

A woman’s nature is not debatable, it is not a matter of interpretation, it cannot be undone (Or in its essence really be adopted. Only crudely masqueraded.) In a world that defines women merely by their body parts, that devaluates them BECAUSE of their biology, how interesting is it, that the essence of what they are, is so complex, and inimitable and so much more than merely that? A woman is still a woman if she has gone through hysterectomy, through mastectomy, clitoridectomy, or if she has not given birth, but a man’s masculinity is obviously a pretty fragile thing (literally as well as metaphorically). Men’s sexual organs (and mysteries…) are overt and uncomplicated. Men do not centre their sense of self around who, what they are (not really), but literally on their equipment. A knife can then un-man them, take away from them that which defines them. Diminish them, turn them into lesser beings (which is to say, “feminize” them) A concept that reveals not only what they really think of women (aka as penis-less, and therefore lesser creatures), but also of themselves as well: there’s nothing much else to them, other than their penis… Minus that, they actually think they become that which they secretly loath-and-envy: women! Which is of course where their trans self-delusions begin.

Most of the contemporary trans-identifying adult men will of course not even go to such lengths. Despite of the fact that they want the entire world to acknowledge their new “identity” and they want us to unquestionably commit to it, they, themselves, won’t commit to it fully: unlike what many of us think, the vast majority of them will not go for castration (chemical or physical). All they will do is buy a dress, a wig, some fake breasts and some nail polish, and Voilà: they are self-proclaimed women. Because that is how they see us: as nothing more than their perception of femininity as determined within Patriarchal culture. Given that women are objectified and seen as nothing but the sum of their fuckable characteristics, a man’s symbolic castration is achieved by the mere mimicking of a woman’s outward appearance: any man in a dress, a pair of high-heeled shoes, long hair and painted nails, is automatically seen as a woman...

Biology has no place in the matter we are being told by transactivists, and focusing on it, is equated with bigotry, because it has nothing to do with being a woman! But how can any of us defy our biology? It has shaped our journey, and the way it has been used against us, for thousands of years, has defined our place in this world. When man-made, self-serving religions and philosophies and theories and medical “sciences” and societal norms and laws were being constructed, bit by bit, by men, they used our very biology as a proof that we were “inferior” to them. Based on that, they proclaimed themselves as the “default” human beings in order to keep us subjugated: our smaller bodies, our lack of violent tendencies as well as our lack of muscle mass that couldn’t cause any damage to theirs when they attacked us, gave them the “authority” to rape and assault us with immunity, and on top of that, (and because of that) call us inferior to them, subhuman. And in turn, it also caused us to be in constant need of them so that we would be protected by the violence of other men who were always lurking out there. Which made us (literally, and by law, and for thousands of years) the legal property of our protectors / husbands who had the right to have sexual, economic, social authority over us. In short, our biology was always unfairly contrasted to that of males, and the differences between the two sexes were always seen as a “proof” that theirs is “superior” and our subjugation a "nessesity". Men’s power is based on NOTHING other than our own physical powerlessness, which forces us into submission. This has defined how we are being treated, and why we are still being threaten, prejudiced against, silenced, used and abused. Individually and collectively, and for thousands of years.

In short, male perceptions of what female biology is, have always been fundamental in our exploitation through the centuries, as these perceptions were used as a “proof” of a woman’ s “inferiority”, and as an excuse for her social exclusion, sexual exploitation, and economic dependency on men through marriage. And it ultimately gave men license to objectify, devaluate, dehumanize, intimidate, control, humiliate, abuse, assault, rape, kill us.

Men denying us the right to define what a woman actually is, is just the latest addition to the list

Thank you for reading. I offer my work for free, but if you enjoy my essays and believe they have value, please consider becoming a free subscriber, sharing, and hitting the like button. And if you can afford it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, so that I can continue this effort and, at the very least, cover the costs (if not the labour and time) that go hand in hand with research and writing.

The cost of a monthly subscription is less than the cost of one latte coffee or a frappe, but if you don’t want to go for a paid subscription, please consider sending your preferred amount through PayPal

Thank you in advance.

More Art: www.fanitsa-petrou.com