#The casual sexism in the Wednesday hate

[thenightling]

The Casual sexism in the Wednesday Hate

 There is a large faction of people who react negatively the moment something appeals to teenage girls.   I'm not saying Twilight is great literature (not by a long shot) but you see it a lot with the Twilight hate.  half the things they hate about it contradict themselves.   For example:  "Edward doesn't act like a vampire!"  immediately followed by "He watches Bella sleep. It's creepy."  Yes, vampires tend to do that. Do you know how many depictions of Dracula and Barnabas Collins do that?  Angel in Buffy did that, no one made a fuss.  Or how about "Edward's too old for her!" Yeah, I will reference you back to Angel from Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Also even the romantic depictions of Dracula.  He's five hundred years old and Mina is usually depicted between the ages of seventeen to twenty-one at the oldest. Again, I'm not saying Twilight is any good. Hell, I hate that when wounded they crack or shatter like porcelain plates.  But when you start to notice the contrary complaints you start to realize it's not even really about the content.  It's because it's something popular among teenage girls so that "Must mean it's bad!"       Getting back to Wednesday, Most of the complaints are strawman at best.  Either saying things like "Wednesday wouldn't do that!" (with the Piranha). The Hell she wouldn't!    Or "Wednesday wouldn't defend Pugsley from bullies. She'd join in."  Someone ACTUALLY said that to me!  There are DECADES of depictions of Wednesday taking on bullies who go after Pugsley because "No one hurts Pugsley but me."  That's actually an old line.   It's not new.  Even Cain has said it in regard to Abel in at least one of The Sandman spin-off comics.     Or "They made it woke. Wednesday was never woke!" clearly that one has never seen Addams Family Values or the Thanksgiving Pageant.     Or "There was never anything supernatural about the Addamses."  Yeah, uh, huh.   How many times are we told Grandmama and Aunt Ophelia are witches?   And about about Thing and Lurch and Cousin it?   Or how about the fact that Uncle Fester has controlled electricity since the 60s?   Or It's from Tim Burton. He hasn't do anything good in years.  No.  He hasn't.  But this was actually really good.   This was the best thing he's done since 2005's Corpse Bride.  Or even the self-righteous "It's racist because the black characters are antagonists."  Once you point out they're really not you get a "Yeah, but it looked like they'd be antagonists and that's problematic in and of itself.  Meanwhile it's a who-done-it.  And everyone looked antagonistic in the first episodes, even Gomez!    Or the other self-righteous "It isn't queer enough!"  Eugene has two mothers and Enid's mother wanted to send her to "conversion therapy camp."   It wasn't overtly gay but it's a gay metaphor.  And there will probably be openly gay kids. There's a lot that hasn't been explored yet.   So far we've only seen two characters struggling with romances.  Give it time. Someone commented about Wednesday and how unrealistic it is for girls to fight each other for popularity or over boys.  Umm...That's not in there... At all... No one fights each other over boys in this.  There's no competing for a boy's affection.  And the only time Wednesday fights the popular girl it's a duel in the Fencing class.   The popular girl is actually nice and saves her classmates in the final episode.    And of course "It's just a rip off of Harry Potter." or "Riverdale" or "Sabrina" and pretty much the only similarity is "There's a school!  And Supernatural stuff!"   Yes, The Worst Witch beat you to it, and even Dracula made reference to Scholomance, a mythical magick school in Eastern Europe.  It's okay to dislike Wednesday.  But I think some of the hate is nothing more than "Eww, teenage girls like it so it must be bad." or you assume it's only for teenage girls, never mind that Tim Burton's work has always transcended demographics.

[jacketthief]

Wednesday night work vent post, behind a cut for length and cw for mentions of homophobia.

One of our regular Wednesday night patrons at the library is older and a veteran and like. "A character" as my coworker likes to say. He's generally a decent patron, if sometimes lacking conversational boundaries and has a solid conservative vibe.

But tonight it was like. He and my coworker segued into talking about Provincetown bc he spent a lot of time there growing up and her husband is from the cape. and like. He wasn't outright derogatory re: the large gay population but he was definitely talking about queer people like they were an alien species. And then he decided he should talk about the time he was in the service and on leave flirting with and getting felt up by a woman in Macau and enjoying it and it was pretty clear the story was going to end in "oh my god she had a dick" so I basically fled to the back while my coworker continued to talk to him and I legitimately don't know if I was more uncomfortable that he had literally zero boundaries re discussing a sexual situation with us or that he was being homophobic.

And I it was almost three hours ago and I still feel uncomfortable. I told my coworker I left bc I had ZERO interest in hearing about his junk and she laughed and said “he’s a character!” which is also fucking annoying. like, yeah, he’s mostly just weird with few conversational boundaries but like. “he’s a character” trivializes what just happened. 

And like. I feel like I should just get over it bc like. It's whatever just another overshare patron and I've heard worse about queer people before but like. I still feel shitty. 

And I don’t even know how to talk about it with my coworker bc she was also talking about gay people as though they were a different species. Like. Less otheringly and demeaningly but like. Ugh. and she pretty much lets anything he says roll off her so i don’t think she was uncomfortable at all and laughed when i said i had no interest in hearing about anything in the vicinity of [patron]’s pants. 

And like. of the other two people I actually work with, I hate one of them bc she’s patronizing and controlling and generally lacks empathy. the other is homophobic and I’m not sure she realizes it. (she’s a Childrens/YA librarian who actively pursues racially and ability diverse books, yay!, but is strongly against adding age appropriate books on queer topics to the children’s and young adult section bc Save the Children) and even if they weren’t, i don’t know if i would feel comfortable talking to them about it? like just in general this job has a very “that’s just [patron] being [patron], don’t let it bother you” feel.

It’s so fucking weird that the cishet male director is the most obviously accepting of queer people (he objected to the children’s librarian adding binary gender stickers to our children’s biographies for a variety of reasons but he specifically listed the lack of accounting for nonbinary genders and sexism as two of them) and possibly the most likely person to take it seriously, if only because he’s responsible. But even with him like. he’s super hard to read and I feel less than confident talking to him even when I am super confident in the stuff I’m talking about. Especially since talking to him about how uncomfortable it made me would probably end in me outing myself which like. I wouldn’t mind at job #1, where I’m not vocally out but 100% confident that all the supervisors would be totally cool with it, given that at least one of them is a queer woman and our director is as well and i’m casually out to at least a few people. But like. Job #2 is in a pretty conservative town by Massachusetts standards and I feel like my coworkers would be weird about it. The director would probably be fine but like. I don’t spend sixteen hours a week with him.

And I just don’t know what to do bc I hate that this happened and I feel like I’m overreacting but like. I also hate that I felt uncomfortable putting a stop to it given that I’ve had no problems telling patrons they’re oversharing about their deeply personal medical issues. But like. My coworker kept talking to him and the other day one of my other coworkers had a detailed and public conversation with a patron about the patrons UTI. In a social way rather than like. Okay you have a need for information that I can help you with.

I don’t even know what I want to have happen, other than for this not to have happened at all. Like, I 100% don’t want to talk to the patron about it, but I have no idea what escalating would bring to it other than the director saying “please don’t do that again” if that, and then my coworkers knowing i couldn’t deal with an oversharing patron and the patron knowing it made me uncomfortable but he’s the kind of dude that doesn’t care about making people uncomfortable so... 

i honestly don’t want anything more than for him to not ever do that again but i don’t know how to do that without making things weird. 

Ughhhhhhhhh.

[lilacbreastedroller]

convo backstage with one of our sax players last night. (for the those of u keeping score he's the same one that practically collapsed after i casually accused him of sexism and he just repeated over and over again omg im so sorry, am i not checking my male privilege? was i mansplaining? am i being phallocentric???? am i discounting your experience under patriarchy??????" he's a complete nightmare) he's extremely creepy to my friend (who is also named meg. theres three of us in the band named meg and we're all super close) and asks her all the time about her tinder dates etc., if they kissed, HOW they kissed. i guess not in like a "im interested in you" way but he sees himself as her wingman (or like everyone's wingman it seems) he's very very careful to let us know he's not creepy and respects women wanting to feel safe and telling us about how he would NEVER pick up a tinder date in a car so she feels safe!!! which i don't understand anyway lmao then he's like trying to show friend meg HOW he kisses girls he says he always asks for a kiss bc consent is sooo important! and he started to press meg against the wall as like a demo and we were both like hey do NOT and he said oh meg, don't be weird about it! and other meg was like "lol why don't you demo on meg (me) instead?" and he fucking knows not to mess with me bc im very clear with him about boundaries (but won't give meg the same courtesy i guess) and he said "haha no i know meg (me meg) doesn't want me to do that to her amirite gurl" (got that right pal). so i just said you're gonna have to paint a word picture for us thanks and he proceeds to tell us about what i guess is a noncreepy first date kiss next he's asking us about makeup and he's like why isn't it a compliment when i say i like how a girl looks without makeup? and im keenly aware of all the times i've been very outwardly rude to him so i think maybe ill try and have this convo and make him less terrible of a person. so i said you know i genuinely don't give a fuck what men think about my grooming habits but that's really not a universal experience. he asks why i do it then, i say there's a lot of pressure that requires us to do it and some of us like it and some of us don't. he's like do you really do it just for yourself? and i surprised myself with my own honesty saying nah you really can't separate what you do for yourself from what you do to be accepted and he's like "well it's totally bullshit that you have that expectation!" (good analysis m8) "you should just be able to go without makeup just like i do" and i mentioned that women who don't wear makeup don't get jobs, get paid less etc. and he gets all dramatic and you can tell he knows he's gotten a lot of ally points just now bc he's like, very loudly, in front of most of the band, "THAT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT! ALL I HAVE TO DO FOR A JOB IS WEAR THE RIGHT SHOES! YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO GO IN THERE AND IMMEDIATELY EVERYONE KNOWS HOW MUCH YOU SLAY!" then he's asking me questions about the studies that show this and i don't have those details but he's still like thank you for sharing this with me meg. (other meg is pretty checked out of the convo by now) i so sincerely regret trying to have a real conversation with him he's the perfect example of men who are learning feminism and exploiting it to get laid and i hate him also he kept asking me if i wanted him to "smoke me out" after the gig when im like bruh it is 9 pm on a wednesday night and i need to drive home right after this and if u think for a second i want to get high with u u need to reevaluate our relationship

[dazedclarity]

OK, I’mma play a throw back Wednesday and be a history and Walter Elias Disney enthusiast blog again for a bit.

White men who write biographies about Walt Disney always seem offended at the idea that he was racist. The one I just read said that there is “no evidence” that he was (blatantly not true), because he treated black employees well (said the same thing about sexism, which come on). I guess it’s a response to people defining Disney by his racism or exaggerating it (I’ve heard people claim he was a Nazi sympathizer and…no). But to erase it completely is asinine, counterproductive, and a clear sign that you are letting your fanboy defensiveness cloud your historical understanding. 

Look, fam, I love Walt too. But let’s be real here. He was a white guy born in 1901, he was racist. One could argue, like I do, that in some ways he was relatively decent for his time and upbringing. Hell, take Song of the South for a case study. It is a problematic film for sure. The book I was reading argued that it wasn’t, because it depicted black characters in more significant supporting roles than most films at the time and doesn’t actually portray an amicable slave/master relationship (it’s post-Civil War, so Remus is a sharecropper, though that also means he was probably these people’s slave at some point anyway). This may be true, but the film still ignores the hard realities of black people in Reconstruction times in favor of white-washed nostalgia.

However, Walt and Roy had actually asked the NAACP to consult on the film, as they had wanted to do this movie (which centered around black folktales that Walt had loved as a kid) correctly. The NAACP was going to send someone, but it fell through at the last minute. Walt and Roy tried to make the movie anyway. For the 1940s, it might be pretty impressive that they actually thought to say “Hey, maybe we should ask black people how we should portray black people.” But that doesn’t change that when they made the film, the primary black characters are still supporting roles, their motivations are still centered around helping white children, and the realities of the time period are glossed over. The NAACP did not like the final film. Walt and Roy may have had good intentions, or at least not bad ones, but racism is not always “intentional.” Even if the caricatures of black people that can be seen in their other animations is the kind of thing that was rampant at the time (see Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves, Warner Bro’s answer to Snow White), or Roy’s recorded use of racial slurs in his younger years was a product of their environment rather than hateful sentiment, or Walt was part of the MPA for anti-communist reasons rather than anti-Semitic reasons, it’s still significant. Being the norm of the time period doesn’t mean they weren’t racist themselves, it just means that they were shaped by a racist society, and then were compliant participants.

Part of the problem is that the author views racism as someone parading around in a KKK hood and publishing newspapers saying that Jews are ruining America (*cough* Henry Ford *cough*), which at least wasn’t Walt. These authors usually cite how he was reported to treat individuals as evidence against his racism, like a black animator saying he was treated with respect,and his daughter saying that he had no problem with her Jewish boyfriend. It’s great that he was respectful of these people. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t racist. 

The Walt Disney Company made their founder a part of their product in a way that Warner Bros or Ford did not and portray him as a symbol of American ingenuity and innocence, which is why his skeletons get dug up so much more. He was a product of his time, and that time was racist. It would be a disservice to deny that. Disney themselves seem to be growing more comfortable with acknowledging this, as Saving Mr. Banks showed him as a bit of a casual sexist (the movie doesn’t lend itself to exploring racism). It would be great if fanboy biographers could do the same. 

[argotmagazine-blog]

Still Standing: Celebrating Pride When You Don’t Feel Like It

I’ve been giving a lot of thought about what I want to say about Pride this year, or whether or not I need to say anything at all. The truth is that I’ve been wallowing a bit lately, specifically about what my life would look like if the current state of our world didn’t feel so bleak. With climate change, impending war, reproductive rights restrictions, it can feel like every day comes with a new wound, a new barrage of thoughtless comments, and injustices to deal with.

As someone who cares a lot about my writing, this often means thinking about how much more I could accomplish if I didn’t have to deal with the daily awfulness that comes from witnessing the rise of public acts of homophobia, racism, and sexism.  

Of course I recognize how privileged I am. I can pass as straight, and I am lucky enough to call     two really special cities home. New York and Los Angeles can be more inclusive than most places in the United States. However, over the past four years, it doesn’t always feel that way. This year has been particularly tough with random moments of aggression. As I was leaving the local grocery store in my normally very warm neighborhood, a passerby called me something incredibly racist and sexist. Recently, a Pride flag was burned outside of a gay bar near where I live. 

While moments like these are rough, what stuck out this time was the fact that, when I got home, it was difficult for me to focus on anything else. I was exhausted from the experience. An encounter which only took about 30 seconds ended up wiping me out for the rest of the day. 

And I’m one of the lucky ones! There are people who are dealing with oppression based on class, education, gender identity, and disability who have to deal with so much more than I do. 

One of the things that people tend not to factor into their understanding of the reality of inequality is the amount of emotional energy it takes just to get through the day. That moment of racism (even a casual one) takes time to process and move past. Living as someone different in this world means having a lot of baggage to carry, whether I am carrying the weight of something that happened to me, something that happened to a friend, or something I have heard happen on the news.

 As reports of hate crimes are rising in New York and the Trump administration is rolling back Obama era legislation, just getting through each day seems to be the best thing we can do. But I’m still stuck on the question of what we could be capable of if we didn’t have to bear the staggering weight of injustices that most everyone else refuses to acknowledge? 

There’s been a lot of talk about what Stonewall 50- World Pride is supposed to be on the anniversary of a riot led by brave trans women of color putting their lives on the line, specifically on whether or not it is appropriate for the leather community to attend or for there to be so much corporate commercialization of the event. These are really important conversations to be having, and I’m glad that they’re being had. But my mind hasn’t really been there. Instead, I’ve been thinking about what Pride represents for me.

My first Pride took place on the morning after the Pulse shooting in Orlando. I had only been out for a couple years at that point, and it was the first year that I felt ready to reach out and be a part of the community. In a lot of ways, it ended up being a funeral march, and I realized that being a part of this community means feeling and facing adversity together.      

Over the past fifty years, New York Pride has grown to become something celebratory, which I think is wonderful. In world that flattens our difference, I think it is important to have a time to celebrate our complexity in the varied lives we lead. But I haven’t been feeling very celebratory. I’ve been feeling tired. 

I was pretty conflicted when deciding whether or not I should go to the big Stonewall 50- World Pride event this year. I could just picture the amount of difficulty it would be to get downtown, to brave the heat and the inevitable Bad Experience that always seems to happen when so many people gather in one place (DC Pride’s recent active shooter scare for example). More importantly, I wasn’t quite sure what the point of my attending would be. I normally do tabling work for a non-profit I volunteer for, but this year there isn’t going to be a table. And I don’t      want to go with friends and end up being a dampener their celebration because I don’t feel like wearing glitter this year. 

 Yet, after remembering my first Pride and the importance of experiencing things together, I’ve decided to go anyway. I’m still not sure how I will feel when I attend, but I ended up realizing that it’s okay to have mixed feelings.  

Our lives are going to be filled with good and bad days. We can’t sit around waiting for the bad days to end before we begin our lives because of the possibility the bad days will never really go away. Addressing those bad days together with our community will always be better than addressing them alone. 

It’s important to take time to mourn the parts of ourselves that are lost because of what we sacrifice to survive. However, it is equally important to recognize in the face of violence, societal inequality, homophobia (both external and internalized), racism, and sexism, we’ve created our chosen families. We’re resilient and we exist despite all the people who want us to go away. 

We’re still breathing and singing and writing and living. And whether or not it feels like a win in the moment—it is, and we should take the time to acknowledge that and celebrate it.      

So that’s my theme for Pride month this year.

And since I just went to see the truly splendid Rocketman, this is going to be my theme song.

Tiffany Babb is a New York based writer. Her poetry has been published in Argot Magazine, Third Wednesday, and is forthcoming in Cardiff Review. Her comics criticism has been published in PanelxPanel, The MNT, and Women Write About Comics. You can find more of her work at www.tiffanybabb.com

[brujeraja]

A Rant About Casual Sexism

Last Sunday was a fantastic day for so many reasons, but it was also extremely eye-opening for one reason in particular. I had the pleasure of going to see Zara Larsson in Leeds and it was such a a good show! I also waited for an hour after the concert to meet her and bless her heart she’s one of the sweetest people ever! But praising Zara and talking about the concert wasn’t the point of this post. The point of this post occurred before the concert had even started; before I even got into the venue.

I was queueing up outside the O2 Academy, stood in front of this guy, maybe 40 odd and this couple who were perhaps in their 20s. The guy was talking to the couple about the concerts he’d recently been to. Turns out he’d already seen Zara on the Wednesday and came to see her again on Sunday. He praised her and talked about what a good show it was. But then came something that shocked me. He talked about how apparently at the show he went to Zara made a speech about (and I quote) ‘girl power and ‘I hate Donald Trump’’ and said (and I quote, again) ‘and I thought ‘we don’t need to hear about that, just shake it a bit and get on with it’’ and chuckled after. The way he said this so casually, without a care in the world for quite how sexist and demeaning that statement was genuinely made me so upset that I stiffened up, trying to will myself to not turn around and give him a piece of my mind. The couple said nothing to oppose his statement, which further riled me up and saddened me at the same time.

A few hours before the concert I’d scrolled through Zara’s Instagram and read her #MeToo post (which I highly recommend reading), amazed by how open and inspiring she was in the statement she made to support the cause. This guy and his flippant, disgusting, sexist comment made me realise how important it still is to speak up about these issues that we have in this world. It made me realise just how brave people like Zara and countless others are to speak out and inform others of what still goes on in this world and how important it is that we stand up to it.

Anyone who denies that sexism still exists is wrong. No sugar-coating it. This NEEDS to end.