#gender and media

[thecagedsong]

I know it’s such a jezebel move, but there’s something to the moment in a story where a man is professing his eternal and undying love for a woman, and the woman turns around and says “prove it” and asks for something the man doesn’t want to do. 

Like, not to condone murder, but just watched Much Ado About Nothing again and like, Beatrice going “Someone who really loved me would challenge Cladio to a duel for besmirching my innocent cousin’s name in a public spectacle.” Was so good.

And Benedict was like, “Murder? My friend? Really? That’s what you want?”

Beatrice is all “Look, I’d do it myself. I would eat his heart if I could, but the limits of culture and society say only a man can do that. If only someone actually loved me enough to do it for me!”

On the one hand, asking someone to prove they love you doesn’t really indicated you love them, only what they can do for you. 

On the other hand, love is easy to talk about, and the kind of commitment it demands really should be based on something more than whispered words.

The protagonist of A Doll’s House is showered with love until her husband finds out she took out a loan in his name (I think that’s her sin) and he immediately turns on her and is ready to throw her to the law to clear his own name. That wouldn’t have happened if she asked him to prove his love when he first proclaimed it.  

It’s Victoria in Stardust asking Tristan to prove he loved her enough to bring her back a star after flattering her. The story shows that her request was ultimately unreasonable and a sign she didn’t love him at all, but don’t forget that it also showed the Tristian didn’t love her! Tristan found a girl just as pretty along the way, took time to actually get to know Yvonne, and ultimately realized he didn’t love Victoria.

The story frames it as him going back to Victoria in a moment of triumph, having realized she didn’t love him and found something better while becoming a better person, leaving her to be small and selfish with her subpar lover. 

But like. It’s Tristan who was the liar. He came back, having gotten out of the village, and he didn’t love her? He claimed he loved her so much he would get a star for her, but he only made the last leg of the journey to rub his improvement in her face. What would have happened if she had believed in him? HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY LOVE HER DESPITE SWEARING HE DID. He just loved the prettiest girl in the village, when his world became bigger, Victoria wasn’t important anymore. 

When he gave her the star, Victoria was ready to believe that he loved her, to get to know him now, just like she said she would. Marry him even.  But the narrative punishes her for not believing pretty words in the first place and asking him, while tipsy, to prove they were more than pretty words. He literally drops her in the dirt. Victoria was true to her words. Tristan wasn’t. Victoria’s crime is not believing in Tristian’s self-proclaimed potential enough to trust her whole future to it. 

While stardust punishes Victoria for asking for proof, when Benedict challenges Cladio’s honor with a duel, the narrative rewards him for it. Beatrice knows that his words aren’t empty, that she isn’t just the first woman that he realized liked him back. Cladio realizes the gravity of PUIBLICLY HUMILIATING the woman he loved instead of talking to her and asking about it or simply postponing the wedding until it was resolved. And for the first time the noble character of Benedict that everyone has been talking about the entire play is shown as he stands up to his friend for harming a good woman. That’s when you actually start to love this disaster of a man.

I’ve been rambling, but I guess I’m tired of women being portrayed as false and faithless for not taking a man’s word that she’s important. Don’t writers know how devastating to the soul it is when the man proves faithless? Women should be counted wise by requiring proof. (though I would not, as a general rule, advocate women require men to kill people to prove their love.)

What does the woman have left in a story when a man proves faithless? 

Does she become the vengeful, wrathful “woman scorned” as Medea? 

A pitiful charity project for the actual hero?

Let women demand proof of a man’s love. Because I hate that media has trained me to put faith in pretty words and convinced me that I’m the one in the wrong when I ask for proof. 

Punish men when their words of love prove false and let the story show their nature is that of a coward and a liar.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[shinyasahalo]

Have you ever noticed how in the media only men and boys are the ones to talk about how lonely they? And of course it's usually tied to being unable to have sex, which is falsely implied to be something only men and teen boys experience.

There's a difference between being lonely and being horny, however I of all people know that both can be experienced at the same time.

The assumption is that being a woman means you can have sex whenever you want to, which is false because 1. anyone who's not a cis man has to consider their safety, and 2. prostitution is criminalized and centered around men as clients.

Being an incel is not about a lack of sex, because those with the means will hire a sex worker and then hate her for it, because being an incel is about entitlement and misogyny.

In media, a woman or girl is only showed as wanting a romantic relationship.

It's very allonormative to think that a romantic/sexual relationship is the only way to not be lonely, and unfortunately I had that kind of thinking when I was a teen and adult.

[zvaigzdelasas]

I mean. I literally do???

[theeretblr]

Hey Tumblr, I have some big things planned for next year that I can't wait to share! Until then, Merry Christmas! 🎉🎄🎅

[sugarmouchie]

໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -｡꒱ྀི১ !! SYPNOSIS — TEXTING THEM “do you ever just” THEN NOTHING ELSE

— lyney, xiao, zhongli, alhaitham, wriothesley, childe

@sugarmouchie do not copy/translate/repost on other platforms 🪽

[celluloidrainbow]

GENDER TROUBLEMAKERS (1993) dir. Mirha-Soleil Ross & Xanthra Mackay What happens when two Transdykes get sick of non-transsexual's uninformed representation of their sexualities and their lives? They grab their 8 millimeter home video camera, their last 200 bucks, and come up with an uncompromising in-your-face flick about their shitty relationships with gay men and their unabashed attraction to other trans women. (link in title)

[humunanunga]

when transmascs and transfems come out:

[sparklemaia]

another page from my top surgery recovery sketchbook, scanned & hastily colored digitally 4u. this is an incomplete list because I ran out of space 😅

more top surgery recovery sketchbook pages here

[otaku553]

Haha

[mightyflamethrower]

[prokopetz]

Anime where the protagonist undergoes frequent magical gender changes (as one does), except it refuses ever to unambiguously specify what the protagonist's original gender was and constantly provides wildly contradictory circumstantial evidence.

[forcedhesitation]

huge ew at all the people who erase the bisexuality of the bg3 companions. they aren't "playersexual," they aren't "gay coded" or "lesbian coded," there are MANY instances of them expressing romantic and/or sexual interest in other characters of varying genders. and not just your tav. it's not a suggestion, it's part of who they are no matter who your tav is.

[cepheusgalaxy]

(You don't know for how long I've been thinking on doing this)

LGBTQIA+ representation on media be like:

(Edit: id by @aromanticsky)

[barbthebuilder]

What do y'all want to see more of in genderfluid media?

Like, let's say there will be a new character in your favorite show who just happens to be genderfluid. How do you want them to represent themselves? In what ways you want them to show their genderfluidity?

This is question mainly to genderfluid folks but if you're not genderfluid you can speak up too! Just make sure to state that you're not genderfluid first.

[soonyoungblr]

♡— enhypen!boyfriend calls you clingy — hyung line only

pairing: enhypen hyung line (ot4) x gender neutral reader | genre: angst | warnings: name calling, hurt, curse words

a/n: time to switch up these reactions and give you some good ol' angst. i also will only write for heeseung, jay, jake and sunghoon because that's what i'm comfortable with :)

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networks: @kflixnet