I guess it was convenient for my mental evolution when leaving the cult that virulent misogynists are always incredibly bigoted about other things.

[artemis@dice.camp]

That gendered piece is actually another thing I'm trying to work out right now.

It's kind of funny that working so hard to deconstruct patriarchy & misogyny in my own mind has made it hard to understand people still in that trap because it all feels so meaningless now. I've nearly forgotten at this point what it actually felt like.

So I see my sister playing "innocent little white housewife" & wonder why tf she thinks she's excused from moral responsibility.

[artemis@dice.camp]

"oh, I just let the men worry about that stuff."

No, fuck you. You're a grown woman. You make your own choices. You don't get to offload the responsibility for that onto another person. Choosing to let others choose for you is no fucking excuse.

[artemis@dice.camp]

I think she resents me for expecting her to make her own moral decisions, as if I should know & be understanding of the fact that she doesn't think or decide things for herself.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis this is exactly how my sister acts.

[artemis@dice.camp]

White supremacy infantalizes women because it makes them easier to control, but ALSO as a defense mechanism.

They want their women to all go "oh, I'm just a little housewife taking care of my family! How could you think I'm racist when I'm just a homemaker who raises kids & bakes bread? I don't decide anything."

[dalias@hachyderm.io]

@artemis Staring blankly at "raises kids" which is the primary propagation vector for white supremacism.

[artemis@dice.camp]

@dalias
Right? Like "oh, how harmless, being the primary person teaching bigotry to a bunch of children."

[eldersea@expressional.social]

@artemis
There is A LOT of this out there in the world, and some of the worst ideas coast far too long on it. Momentum through family units is a huge contributor to right wing garbage harming people.

[artemis@dice.camp]

Anyway, to give you an idea of the level of garbage I'm talking about, Pete Hegseth belongs to the church denomination I was raised in.

[thetenuousorder@meow.social]

@artemis oh jesus.

• Damian

[urban_hermit@mstdn.social]

@artemis
1/2
My parents were divorced when I was young. But I had to live with my dad for a year and a half during middle school. He was both an ex-cop and a racist. He didn't talk to me much, but when he did he said racist things to try and casually indoctrinate me into his disgusting beliefs and bias. I was too old and suspicious of him for that to take, fortunately.

Here's a thing - I was adopted, and my parents had a 15 year marriage with no kids before I came along.

[artemis@dice.camp]

It's so funny: when you are a religious extremist, you don't know that you are a religious extremist. It all just seems normal.

[urban_hermit@mstdn.social]

@artemis
2/2
So my mom had lived happily with a racist husband for all her adult life, thinking the only thing they were missing was kids. She eventually got divorced, because of her outrage over an infidelity, but being married to a bigot who probably did a great deal of damage to innocent people's lives was not a deal breaker.

And I could never forgive her after knowing that.

[thejikz@infosec.exchange]

@artemis My friend. I grew this way as well, I feel in my bones your words on this subject. My heart is sad for us, my rage is white fucking hot for us. My love is somewhere in there, bleeding out where it can to help rectify it where I can.
Thank you for sharing, best to your journey.

[missladyartemis@newsie.social]

@artemis

I suddenly seriously appreciate the shit-show my childhood was. I knew very early on how really disgusting and terrible this world still is, even in America, especially within patriarchy. I had to learn to find and create the good in my world.

As an adult I've realized we all have to learn to find and create the good in our world. That didn't make me special. I think I just lucked out on never having to one day *realize* the seriously sickening reality I lived in my past.

[artemis@dice.camp]

But also, the good news is that these bigoted extremists can't keep everyone trapped, not even when they control the environment someone is in from birth onwards.

Even when children are raised strictly around people who look, believe, & act all exactly alike, all enforcing the same messages of hatred & exclusion—EVEN THEN—some of them will escape.

[artemis@dice.camp]

Sure, it helped that my parents were never all-in on the worst expressions of bigotry, but I got the Christian "education" (propaganda), the isolation of being homeschooled, while living in a very, very white town, attending church & religious conferences, & much more.

I topped it off by going to a right-wing Christian college in the South, followed by an equally extreme seminary (by the time I was in seminary, I was already on my way out).

I received the full indoctrination package.

[artemis@dice.camp]

I received the full indoctrination package, & I left. I can't even count the number of other people I know of who have the same story.

Even when they control people's entire environment, even when they get to be the ones constructing someone's mental world from childhood, even then, people still break free.

[artemis@dice.camp]

So that's worth something, I think.

Proponents of hateful, supremacist ideologies desperately strive to control people, but they can't, not even when all the cards are stacked in their favor.

[artemis@dice.camp]

It can be really scary looking at some of these extremist communities & seeing the way they indoctrinate people, but so, so, so many of us have left such spaces & such beliefs & behaviors & so many people will continue to leave.

They would like you to believe that the programming is flawless & there are no cracks in the armor, but that's propaganda too. They leak people constantly. The total control is a lie.