#also im sorry but bringing up lestat …. we don’t need to bring iwtv discourse into this …..

[comradekatara]

specifically asking why *zuko* is sexist is WILD because i can’t think of a single ATLA character that does not at some point say something that reveals how deeply they have gender roles ingrained into them. even aang is not exempt (see: ember island players). anyway i don’t even have a question i’m just baffled. do people think feminism is just “girls are strong like boys”

RIGHT. ive seen people say that zuko “has no frame of reference for sexism,” that zuko “doesn’t know what gender roles are/what misogyny is,” that zuko “is a feminist (????????),” that zuko “would be appalled by sokka’s sexism,” that zuko “respects katara and would do chores with her while aang and sokka lounge around like the lazy entitled dudebros they are,” that zuko “comes from a feminist society and thus wouldn’t understand sokka’s misogyny,” etc etc. like, the fire nation is literally a fascist nation. their patriarchy is overt and unsubtle. what is ozai if not the ultimate patriarch. as i’ve already established earlier today, zuko is far more sexist than sokka in far more insidious ways. zuko has never witnessed any examples of sokka’s sexism and never will, because sokka unlearned his bioessentialist logic in episode four. sokka has witnessed plenty examples of zuko’s sexism, including the time he suggested that sokka (a kyoshi warrior) was a little girl incapable of saving aang, and that time he referred to katara as “your sister” because he never even bothered to remember her name. zuko was raised in a palace and cannot even hammer a nail into a roof without breaking his thumb, while sokka hunted and provided for his entire village by himself for years and aang was raised in a communal society where everyone did their fair share of labor to maintain their temple because there was no class hierarchy. zuko internalized extremely rigid gender roles and attempted to embody the violent masculinity of fascism his entire adolescence. just because he is aware that azula and her friends could kill him doesn’t mean that he respects them as human beings. and just because he’s never called out for the way he patronizes, infantilizes, insults, demeans, belittles, and trivializes women doesn’t mean it isn’t present in his actions throughout the entire show. and yes even aang is kind of sexist. the way katara is framed through his pov sometimes is not great, and the way he objects to being feminized in the play is understandable (bc it’s a piece of colonial propaganda that is intentionally degrading him thru misogynistic logic) but also sort of betrays that he isn’t the perfectly enlightened being he makes himself out to be. i’m pretty sure the only character who doesn’t behave sexistly or accept a sexist status quo at some point is suki, and that’s only because she grew up on the isle of lesbos and also happens to only have an total of 5 seconds of screentime. zuko is one of the principal players in the show and also the most deeply flawed. so like, of course he is sexist as well as subscribing to imperialist, hierarchical logic in other ways. it’s soooo evident throughout his entire character arc. i mean, it’s the entire point of his character arc. but this is the “lestat is woman coded” website so idk why im even surprised at this point.