Some guidelines to help this space be a positive experience for everyone:
As always with the Avocado, don’t feel compelled to share beyond your comfort level.
Anyone who identifies as female, or who was socialized female/AFAB/otherwise has firsthand experience with the issues being discussed, is welcome to post. If you identify as cis-male, we ask that you please set your participation to “lurk” mode, unless otherwise explicitly invited to participate further (i.e. if we did an AMA kind of thread). I’m sure there’s plenty to be gleaned just by reading! (New Guideline, please take note) This includes upvotes, we ask cis-men to keep their upvotes to commenters who voluntarily add “+up” to their comments and only those comments.
Please do your best to be mindful of others’ experiences when commenting or posing questions for the group. The female identity is Legion and contains multitudes, and not everyone who has experience with being treated as female by society identifies as female. Furthermore, racial and ethnic identities, sexual orientation, and many other factors can color how one experiences their gender identity on a day-to-day basis.
Most of us can probably name a woman+, or ten, who greatly influenced how we view ourselves, who we chose to be, how we decided to position ourselves in the world. Some of them we may have lived with, or been taught by in school etc. Others, we may never have met in person but through interviews they gave, through their writing and other works, or through the historical footprints they left behind for us to step into.
Personally, I’ve had my arse kicked into gear by Black women+, most prominently and currently Michelle Obama and Brittney Cooper.
A big thank you to Pawnee Goddesses for suggesting the
Prompt: Who were the biggest female+ influences in your life, famous and non-famous?
