Welcome to Gynergy Notebook

The Blog

I probably won't name it "Gynergy". I just had the URL. But maybe I will?

Target Reader

The target blog reader is a college-educated, middle-class Millennial woman. She wants to spend some of her time enjoying the good life with other women who "get her", and some of her time getting information and theory on the root causes of problems that are bugging her.

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She has had experiences with entitled and manipulative men, including sexual harassment, potentially coercion and manipulation in relationships. She may be at various stages of "waking up" about this: recognizing that what happened was wrong, recognizing that it didn't happen in a vacuum, getting out of the "benefit of the doubt" mentality with an abuser, etc.

She is missing a coherent theory of male entitlement and manipulation that would explain her life experiences. Or, she remembers when it was missing, and she understands its importance.

She may be a recovering people-pleaser.

She is uncomfortable with the oversexualization of women in culture, but isn't sure how to address it. She is also uncomfortable with "purity culture" and concerned about being shamed or controlled in relation to her clothing and sexual behavior.

She may or may not be sexually active, have sex outside of committed relationships, etc. She's not looking for a hardcore ideology on this. She's a fairly sexually normal woman who wants to understand how to avoid gross or traumatic experiences with men.

She wants to talk about these things with other women like her, but not as part of an "exploited woman / helper organization" structure. She also doesn't want it to devolve into bitterness or obsession. She may be concerned about "going too far" and becoming unhappy.

She wants information and theory on the root causes of problems.

She is interested in information, theory, and strategy for all aspects of male entitlement and coercion: in her sex life, dating life, marriage, family life, and potential court issues in the case of divorce and custody battles.

She is concerned about the well-being of children because of issues like online porn and gender ideology, and also because of abuse of the family court system. If she has children, this is probably a primary driver for her. If she doesn't have children, it is probably a secondary driver.

Politics and Faith

She cares a lot about politics, but may not have found her feet for becoming politically engaged. She considers herself a bridge-builder and values respectful dialogue. She may identify as progressive because of their reputation for promoting gender equality and freedoms for women. She may identify as conservative due to their reputation for promoting family life, sex-based rights, and protections for children. She has reservations about the behavior of both parties. There may be one side that she considers to be the real enemy, and the other side that she considers to be basically good but in need of reform.

She may or may not have a religious faith. If she does, she may have a complicated relationship with her church because of women's issues. She is interested in discussing women's takes on church life, faith, and theology, including with women who are members of other religions.

The Splitter Issues (See section below)

She may consider herself pro-choice or pro-life. If she supports some restrictions on abortion, she is still concerned about "extreme", highly restrictive abortion laws. She may also be concerned about women being pressured into abortion. She is willing to befriend and ally with women who disagree with her on abortion.

She supports gay people and people who don't fit into gender norms, but she is troubled by the push for inclusion of trans-identified males in women's sports, changing rooms, etc. She desires an understanding of "what's going on" with the LGBT movement, and a way to feel a positive connection with gay people as a group while acknowledging the problems with the movement.

Miscellaneous

She likes learning about women's power, intellect, and creative achievement across time and culture. Women's history, philosophy, literature, art.

She has had at least one significant experience with creepy leftist capture in her intellectual, professional, or values-based networks. This could be in a political group, at church, at a university, at work, in social justice advocacy, an arts community, etc. She may have also had experiences with conservative capture or "anti-woke left" capture.

She strives to not spend her life on the Internet, and prefers face-to-face connection.

The Capture Problem

The magazine is an experiment in how to run a successful project that openly criticizes two things: conservative Christian pressures on abortion law, and secular progressive pressures on gender ideology law.

I want to open up a niche for women who are currently less engaged with women's issues than they could be because of the capture problem.

Our openness in critiquing both these things will determine how we relate to other organizations.

We don't criticize other organizations for choosing neutrality on abortion or gender ideology. It's often the right choice. We are just in a different niche.

We encourage diversity of thought on abortion and gender ideology within our readership.

One reason is because of the culture of silence that's caused by organizations choosing to stay quiet on these issues to more effectively network with power bases.

Both of these result in a feeling of "capture", which includes a feeling that a position commonly held by women is unspeakable. This can create an atmosphere of walking on eggshells.

Running a successful project requires donors, alliances, and a protection network.

Oh...I remember when this was fun! This will be really fun once I get the core issue worked out.

Basic stance on abortion:

• Right now in the US, a passionate minority of people with outlier views on abortion work to get abortion restrictions passed. These restrictions go against popular opinion and, some cases, threaten women's physical safety.
• It's important to understand how ideological capture works in this context.
• Women should be able to get abortions in the first trimester.
• Women should be able to get abortions when their health is at stake, or in cases of rape or incest. The process should not be made overly complex or difficult because of a burden of legal proof.
• Beyond that, we support diverse and nuanced beliefs on abortion.
• Having passionate beliefs about abortion is healthy, because it's an important moral issue. It's also a complex moral issue, which is why other women will have passionate beliefs about abortion that are different from yours.
• It's good to have compassionate discussions on abortion with women who disagree with you.
• Abortion is an important issue for women, and the issue itself should be treated with respect.

Basic stance on gender ideology:

• Right now in the US, a passionate minority of people with outlier views on gender identity work to get gender ID laws passed. These laws go against popular opinion and, some cases, threaten women's physical safety.
• It's important to understand how ideological capture works in this context.
• Males should not be in women's sports or private spaces.
• Lesbians should not be pressured to have sex with lesbian-identified males.
• Gender-nonconforming kids should not be encouraged to see themselves as being a "girl in a boy's body", or the reverse.
• Beyond that, we support diverse and nuanced beliefs on gender identity.

The magazine will present a fair, non-dramatic, strategic understanding of two political groups in the US: Intense Christian conservative activists and intense secular progressive activists. Neither group will be characterized simplistically as an enemy, but we won't be shy about criticizing some of their actions.

I would like to help my target reader understand the history of these two groups, their motivations and emotional lives, and their current role in American politics. The goal is to help my target reader:

1. Navigate "captured" spaces in her personal life.
2. Vet information coming from both these sources, including information embedded as default beliefs in familiar spaces.
3. Explore ideas about how to effectively organize for her own interests, which includes making decisions about how to relate to both of these groups.

What We Do

The magazine provides a vision for the life our reader wants.

The overall tone should not be "dark and urgent". It should be "bright and promising".

We strategize about to solve problems. However, we do this from a base vision of a life that is already pretty good.

Topics We Cover on the Blog

Dating, Sex, and Relationships

• Strategies for meeting and vetting good guys for dating, sex, and/or marriage
• Strategies for avoiding street harassment and assault, and your options if it happens to you
• Avoiding Pornsick Men
• You're getting bad information from hookup culture
• You're also getting bad information from purity culture
• Stuff you might not know about sex (focus on both pleasure and safety)
• The power dynamics and information dynamics of male entitlement in your life
• The "Manosphere"
• What to think about before moving in
• It's wrong to shame women for this being hard. It's hard for a reason.
• Some guys make it hard to figure this out on purpose
• There's a gradual ascension from shitty date tactics to actual abuse tactics

Culture and Lifestyle Tags

Women's Culture

• Women's power, intellect, and resistance through history
• Women's power, intellect, and resistance today

Mental Health

• Crappy Childhood Fairy
• Baggage Reclaim
• Therapy: What's working for us, what's not
• Strategy Therapy, aka Winning Therapy (hat tip to FDS)

LGB & T

• History of gay culture and gay politics
• Gender-nonconformity
• What's going on with the trans movement
• Lesbian agency
• LGB & T people speaking up for women's spaces

Faith

• Women's experiences in the church
• Awesome people doing great stuff for women in the church
• Rad women of the Bible, Torah, and Quran
• Awesome people doing interfaith alliances

Career and Money

• Successfully jumping over sexism in your career
• Women's Financial Power

Fashion

• How women's fashion reflects what's going on with us and the wider world
• Edgy or avant-garde feminist fashion
• Science of Makeup: Is it going to kill you?

Media

• Stuff

Science

• Watch out for bad science journalism about brain sex

Global

• Women's rights globally

Advocacy

Male Entitlement, Deception, and Exploitation: The Political

• Ending Sexual Exploitation
• How pimp organizations trick people with "friendly" messaging and deceptive tactics
• Questioning "sex work is work"
• Investigating the Porn Industry
• Public Health Effects of Porn
• Heroes and hero organizations working on important women's issues
• The "Manosphere"

The Capture Problem

• Nonpartisan feminism and the "capture problem"
• Abortion and Sex-Based Rights

How To

Express Yourself

• How to Write a Guest Blog Post or Be a Podcast Guest
• How to Start a Blog or Podcast

Politics 101

• How to Volunteer for a Political Candidate
• How to Organize with Others to Support Your Values
• How to Run for Office

Advocacy 101

• How to Volunteer for a Nonprofit
• How to Start a Nonprofit

Strategy for Avoiding Street Harassment Vetting Men Top 10 Cool Guys in Hollywood Right Now Lead In Lipstick: The Science Liberating Women from Commercial Sexual Exploitation OnlyFans' Deceptive Marketing Practices PornHub's Deceptive Messaging Messaging about porn and prostitution is largely based on men lying to you 10 Hero Cops and 10 Shitty Cops

Our Network

Maintain OUR OWN center of gravity.

I don't want the people in St Pete to feel like this "came from the internet", or is Internetty. But I do need to tell them about FDS and Nina Paley.

Maintain just enough of a presence in online spaces that the women who are there can find us. Argue with them on Twitter; converse with them on Substack; be a guest on their podcast. But, maintain OUR OWN center of gravity that is elsewhere.

There are wonderful, brilliant, politically informed women who are socially isolated because of creepy leftist capture in intellectual and political networks.

Conservative and "anti-woke liberal" spaces are also captured in different ways. All of these spaces are fundamentally captured by male interests.

Places to maintain a presence: - Anti-woke networks - Feminist networks - Conservative women's networks - Arts and literature networks - Religious networks?

Purpose of the Project

I had several friends and authors who helped me see politics and culture in a new way, when I was making the journey from non-politically-active progressive loyalist to sort-of-politically-active nonpartisan feminist. I'd like to do a knowledge dump of all of that, plus other topics that I think will be relevant for that audience.

I love history, and would like to include a lot of content on the history of women and our political projects.

I'm also including mental health, mindfulness, and physical health as a topic, because a lot of women involved in this stuff need that.

When I write naturally, it comes out a little bit silly, so I want to lean into that when it's appropriate (ie not on highly emotional or dark topics).

History: How Does Change Happen? What's Happening Next?

A History of Women, Gay People, and Gender-Diverse People in American Politics

Politics: Who's Doing What, and How You Can Help Them

Civics, Institutional Power, and Social Change

https://xkcd.com/1028/

Nonpartisan Feminism

Most of the ideas in here come from / were heavily inspired by Natasha Chart's book, Practical Politics for Bold Women. Buy it here! - https://chartconsulting.samcart.com/products/practical-politics-for-bold-women

What is the solution to capture of feminism by the left, and the possibility of future capture of women's organizations by the right? I think the best defense is small, fiercely independent women's organizations that know how to collaborate across ideological lines, but also are structured so that they can withdraw support, without incurring damage, when their needs are no longer being met by an old coalition.

Whatever network you are part of, they should feel like they have to be on their toes a little bit, because if they no longer hold up their end of the bargain, women's groups can walk away.

This also goes for organizing for LGB people and gender-diverse people.

Social Issues

Child Safeguarding

Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence

Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Women's Status:

In Public Spaces

In the Workplace

Financial Status

Public Leadership

Church

Compassion Topics

Abortion

Saving Democracy

How Are Women And Men The Same, And How Are We Different?

Personal Strength

Behavioral Health and Good Habits

THESE - Temperature, Hydration, Eating, Sleeping, Exercise

I made up this acronym during a time when I was *not* doing well, and I'm still proud of it.

Originally I used THESE BFUP, where THESE is physical stuff and BFUP is higher-level stuff. BFUP is Belonging, Fun, Unwinding, and Purpose. It's supposed to be pronounced "beef up", as in "These beef up your health and wellness!" I decided it was more memorable just as THESE.

My checklist

First, I go through the THESE checklist:

Temperature: Is it too warm or cold where I am?

Hydration: Do I need a glass of water, other beverage, or watery food?

I like water, but if you don't, you don't have to drink water. There's nothing magical about water that exists in a glass by itself. The water in diet root beer is the same water. Just watch out for sugar and caffeine.

You can also get water from eating fruit, but that's a slippery slope, because the water in the fruit is also used by your body to help digest the fruit, so you're getting less for hydration.

There is a melon that contains a lot of water. I'll leave it to you to guess which melon it is.

Eating: Have I eaten a moderate amount of healthy food today?

Sleeping: Have I slept enough?

Exercise: Have I gone on a nice walk, done some yoga, gone on a fun bike ride?

Physical Health

Healthy Skincare: Sunscreen, Makeup, Soap

Health Tips For Fat Ladies

Social Health

How To Meet Friends Who Share Your Values

How To Navigate Friendships Across Ideological Lines

Spiritual Health

Temp Link

Faith and Theology

Women and the Major World Religions

Commentary on the Divine Feminine from the Major World Religions

Perennialism

Prehistoric Religion

Deanism and Filianism

An Atheist Lesbian Desister's Favorite Catholic Takes on Gender Ideology