Just reading all the posts and comments here and I am struck by the sense of sisterhood, the nurturing community that FDS offers women of all ages, all races and cultures, at all stages of life and love. It’s a safe space, away from the power and dominance games being played out on every platform where men proliferate. The comments are supportive, encouraging, warm, wickedly funny and there’s a genuine recognition and acknowledgement for the real trials and challenges of being a woman/wife/mother/breadwinner/partner in today’s world. These communities are going to be a force for good .... when women get together to teach, discuss, mentor and share with other women, quite frankly men get worried. Patriarchy thrives on keeping women apart ... encouraging enmity and rivalry, playing women off against each other and against he impossible standards set for us in mainly image/based media. In an increasingly hostile misogynistic world where men are gluttons for porn, deviant sex, gaming, and free female labour ... we have to be super careful of who we gift our love, lives and fertility to. As my dad said... a woman and a wife is a treasured gift, a privilege. That didn’t stop me and my sister from both marrying LVM and getting divorced, and I’m raising three kids on no child support with the help of my excellent parents. You see I panicked in my early 30’s, was I going to be single? Was I leaving it too late to have kids? I never entertained the notion that actually, peacefully, comfortably single, with loads of gurlfriends and a few good cats was a viable life outcome of choice! I fell for that noise that society constantly blasts at women telling them they are on time’s tight budget and their value decreases exponentially. Know this ....Nothing decreases your value.... not your age, not your looks, your marital status, your past, your income, your single motherhood or no motherhood! The only place where your value can nose-dive is in your own head. And too many men seek to keep our self esteem at rock bottom, keep us feeling insecure, never enough, reaching out, trying harder to be better. Why? Because it serves them plain and simple. What they don’t want is women levelling up and finding a huge community of support, friendship and sisterhood where women can be encouraged to escape abuse, heal and set boundaries. Remember in nature it’s the boys that have to do the love dance, flash the feathers, build that nest, sing that song, not us! We are the prize! That’s what FDS is! It’s prize queens showing other prize queens love! And it’s wonderful. Don’t let anyone take it away from you! X

Edit: “The sight of women talking together has always made men uneasy; nowadays it means rank subversion." Germaine Greer