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I was thinking about how so many incredibly successful or at least powerful women (e.g. Joan Baez, Karen Carpenter, Ghislaine Maxwell, to an extent Hillary Clinton etc.) had their pick-me tendencies be their downfall, despite the fact that they were literally so powerful even independent of men. Patriarchy really doesn't discriminate when it comes to encouraging women to be desperate for male validation and at no point in my life have I ever come across a resource that has us recognize and question these tendencies as rigorously as FDS.
Joan Baez is an *angel*. Her music is astoundingly beautiful and she's single handedly responsible for Bob Dylan's musical career. He played with her at concerts because she was in love with him and while she was wildly popular at the time he wasn't (seriously, fuck that hillbilly twang). Then after he became popular he publicly humiliated her, slow faded her, and left her reeling for like 10 years about whether he really loved her or not. He married some random woman the same year he dumped her. He basically complained that she was too involved in political activism and he just wanted to ~~*play music*~~ (newsflash buddy: 1960s folk needed the political backdrop to imbue it with the significance it had and even with her commitments to politics she was still a better musician than you). I just can't fathom how such a beautiful, talented, politically active and deep woman got publicly used and demeaned by a guy who looks and sounds like a sketchy homeless person. She even wrote an astoundingly beautiful song about it, which was wasted on such a scrotey muse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST9TZBb9v8&ab_channel=DaveBing). There's this line that goes "my poetry was lousy you said" and it drives me up the wall every time.
He was so fucking ugly compared to her too. Every time I listen to her I'm simultaneously awed at how talented she is and at how far she had fallen because of that loser scrote. It makes me feel better about my own shady pick-me past, since if even she was a victim of patriarchy I can't have been that much of a gullible dope myself.
Powerful women can be even more susceptible to being used by men, because they often tie their worth to their public persona. They don't want to be seen as failures, so they'll stay in unhappy or even abusive relationships and do everything they can to cover for worthless scrotes.
This is not all powerful women, of course. But this is what I've noticed of a lot of the ones I know.
I didn't know that about Bob Dylan! At this point I try to avoid looking up any man I may have once admired for their accomplishments or talent, because there will undoubtedly be some scrotery going on in their backgrounds. 🙄 Turns me off of their work from thereon.
FDS should have a higher reach. Not just this website but globally. But what also should be in the handbook is that men are incapable of love. When more women understand that then they can’t be love bombed, Women will seek out respect instead of love. .
Also H. Clinton is evil. She mocked a rape victim and even defended a rapist.
And to be even more politically specific about your post’s insights, “white feminism” is dangerous:
It’s the crossing of “feminism” with “white supremacy.” Wanting to be closer to white men for their undeniable social currency has not, as you said, made role models out of these women. It’s made them villains (or robbed them of actual personal power).
Lionizing Clinton as a champion of women has been one of the biggest crocks of shit ever sold.