NO BORDERS, NO NATIONS

Tumblr Has a Cutting (and an Anorexia & Bulimia) Problem -Trigger Warning: Anorexia, Bulimia, Self-Mutilation, Body Image

This is terrible, for multiple reasons:

It is horrible that our society drives people to this level of self-hate. Many of these people, mostly women, are very aware of the fact that what they are doing is dangerous and self-destructive.
I think that tumblr’s policy of deleting blogs “glorifying” these oppressions is misguided— even though these blogs are often a way to reinforce self-destructive energy, they can also be a way for these women to support each other and sometimes even work through their problems. And at what point is a blog “glorifying” a disorder versus being a resource for these women to work through their oppression? For many of these women, blogs like this are a lifeline.
Tumblr’s policy is further misguided in that deleting these blogs will do nothing to affect the underlying society causing these problems, and will instead just direct these people to another forum. This is like “tough on crime” drug policy— much like the war on drugs, the people who suffer are the ones being punished for what is a problem of our entire society.
Like all problems with the state and other forms of authoritarian power, the solution that the powerful come up with is a mask, a reform that denies reality and covers up the existence of these problems, further perpetuating this destructive society. The real solution is to dismantle the corporate media, rape culture, and patriarchy that causes this. This starts by helping and talking to the people who are most affected by the problem, not pretending that they don’t exist.