#gender roles in indian families

[its-poojagupta-shree]

India, a land of rich traditions and diverse cultures, has long been bound by rigid gender roles and stereotypes. For centuries, these societal norms have shaped the lives of individuals, restricting their choices and limiting their potential. However, in recent years, there has been a growing movement towards breaking these stereotypes and shattering gender roles in Indian society. This blog explores the evolving landscape of gender roles and stereotypes in India and highlights the importance of challenging these notions to create a more inclusive and equitable society.

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[she-is-ovarit]

Data spanning from 1995 to 2021 in India revealed a striking gender imbalance in organ transplants, with four men getting organ transplants for every woman. A total of 36,640 transplants took place in this period, out of which 29,000 were for men and 6,945 for women.

This substantial difference is attributed to a complex interplay of economic responsibilities, societal pressures, and deeply ingrained preferences. 

Dr Anil Kumar, director of the government-run National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) highlighted this significant aspect of the organ donation landscape.

While more men contribute as cadaver donors, a staggering 93 per cent of total organ donations in the country come from living donors, he told the Times of India newspaper. This hints at a trend: a majority of living organ donors are women.  Socio-economic factors a driving force for women donors? A study published in the Experimental and Clinical Transplantation Journal in 2021 delved into the intricacies of living organ transplantation in India. The findings showed that 80 per cent of living organ donors are women, predominantly wives or mothers. The socio-economic pressure on women to assume caregiving roles within the family emerges as a primary factor, compelling them to step forward as donors. Men's reluctance in surgery In many cases, men, often the primary breadwinners, hesitate to undergo surgery, contributing to the gender gap in organ recipients. The study highlights that when the recipient is a male breadwinner, family members, especially wives or parents, feel a heightened responsibility to donate organs. Emotional dynamics The emotional dynamics surrounding organ donation are intricate. Women recipients, in particular, may experience guilt when their family members, especially wives or mothers, become donors. This reluctance leads to a scenario where women recipients may find themselves on waiting lists.  Notably, Karnataka has topped the charts in organ donation in the past decade. The number of donations have risen from 102 in 2013 to 765 in the first 10 months of 2023. 

A user on Ovarit added this helpful context:

"Just a little more context to this: men produce male-specific proteins (on the Y chromosome) which often get rejected by women's bodies. Since males have an X chromosome, their bodies recognize proteins from female donors. This makes it more difficult for women to receive male tissue/organs, while still being acceptable candidates for donating to men. Even still, these ratios are very disproportionate".

"As women we absolutely need to be aware of our vulnerability of being used as spare parts in a man's world. Especially when we are being socialized into believing that we need to sacrifice our bodies and lives for others- and society has developed a sense of entitlement to this sacrifice, while downplaying the suffering of women."

[abtrusion]

Theories of the holy shit what did I just see back there on the street?

Because transmisogyny makes them so impossible to ignore, for at least the last 70 years transfeminized people have served as key material of Anglo-American gender/queer/trans theories, as laundered through anthropology, sexology, and uncited personal witnessing. The anaemic denial of this fact through snappy and surface-level distinctions between ‘queer’ and ‘trans’ and between different transfeminized groups has made it functionally impossible for these theories to seriously account for transf* life, and this failure is highly productive, because it allows for the continued use of both ‘premodern’ ‘third gender’ and ‘postmodern’ transgenderism as lobotomized material for the theories of other people. The last century of gender theoretic development has revolved around slowly refining methods of extracting transfeminized peoples’ insight, forgetting and re-introducing them to their field over and over again to frame them as perpetual novelties, leading to a pernicious form of feminist amnesia that repeats over and over again.

1 . MARGARET MEAD (1949)

The work begins with Margaret Mead, the ‘most famous anthropologist of our century’ (Behar and Gordon 1996), who made her career studying indigenous groups in Samoa and New Guinea, then joined the larger anthropological effort to inform the US Government’s genocidal re-education campaigns against Indigenous American tribes. She later enjoyed a prodigious career as a public intellectual and shifted to more explicitly feminist writing which extensively influenced the movements of the 60s and 70s. Mead argued that essentially all sex-gender roles were culturally determined, and used the specter of the transfeminized homosexual-transvestite both to make that argument and to advocate for gender abolition.

This can be seen most clearly in Mead’s 1949 book Male and Female: a Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. Mead chronologically traces individual gender development through an ethnographic-sexological narrative, beginning with ‘first learnings’ that a child receives primarily through observation. Then the family comes in, and the transvestite comes with it, existing as the primary motive (alongside Freudian sexual attachment) which motivates gendered socialization:

Too great softness, too great passivity, in the male and he will not become a man. The American Plains Indians, valuing courage in battle above all other qualities, watched their little boys with desperate intensity, and drove a fair number of them to give up the struggle and assume women’s dress. (Mead 1949)

Mead argues that “fear that boys will be feminine in behavior may drive many boys into taking refuge in explicit femininity,” but makes a distinction between this identification and what she calls ‘full transvestitism,’ the culturally-specific recognition of that status. This differential leads her to conclude that the physical traits seen as markers of ‘gender inversion’ are culturally specific, and that what is understood as physical sex (then existing on a ‘spectrum’ model) is therefore partially socially determined.

For Mead, gender must be abolished precisely because of the fact that she could even make this argument. As she says,

Only a denial of life itself makes it possible to deny the interdependence of the sexes. Once that interdependence is recognized and traced in minute detail to the infant’s first experience of the contrast between the extra roughness of a shaven cheek and a deeper voice and his mother’s softer skin and higher voice, any programme which claims that the wholeness of one sex can be advanced without considering the other is automatically disallowed.

The desperate need to reproduce these distinctions, to make sex clear and visible and obvious, leads Mead to ultimately argue for a gender abolition that rests on complementary sex-roles. The main benefit of this approach for Mead is the complete eradication of sex-gender ‘confusion’ and its incarnation in transfeminized people, so associated precisely because of their intense usefulness as a tool for undermining sex-gender distinctions. So Mead sees the construction of physical and social gender by using transfeminized people as a lens, but because of her own disgust she can only fix gender by unseeing it again, by displacing gender to ‘real’ physical sex and protecting herself by breaking the tool. This, unsurprisingly, leaves her exactly where she started.

2. BETTY FRIEDAN (1963)

The feminist theorists that came after Mead directly confronted this reversion to ‘complementary sex’ logics, most notably in Betty Friedan’s foundational work The Feminine Mystique. Friedan discusses the ‘paradox’ of Mead’s influence, the strange combination of her exposure of ‘the infinite variety of sexual patterns and the enormous plasticity of human nature’ and her ‘glorification of women in the female role – as defined by their sexual biological function.’ In the middle, Friedan cites a page-long quote describing a point of ambivalent warning in Mead’s writing:

The difference between the two sexes is one of the important conditions upon which we have built the many varieties of human culture that give human beings dignity and stature… Sometimes one quality has been assigned to one sex, sometimes to the other. Now it is boys who are thought of as infinitely vulnerable and in need of special cherishing care, now it is girls… Some people think of women as too weak to work out of doors, others regard women as the appropriate bearers of heavy burdens “because their heads are stronger than men’s” … Some religions, including our European traditional religions, have assigned women an inferior role in the religious hierarchy, others have built their whole symbolic relationship with the supernatural world upon male imitations of the biological functions of women. (emph added by me)

...Are we dealing with a must that we dare not flout because it is rooted so deep in our biological mammalian nature that to flout it means individual and social disease? Or with a must that, although not so deeply rooted, still is so very socially convenient and so well tried that it would be uneconomical to flout it…

...We must also ask: What are the potentialities of sex differences? … If little boys have to meet and assimilate the early shock of knowing that they can never create a baby with the sureness and incontrovertibility that is a woman’s birthright, how does this make them more creatively ambitious, as well as more dependent upon achievement?

Friedan attributes this ultimate focus on sexual difference to Mead’s Freudianism: she argues that Mead’s need to approach culture and personality through sexual difference, combined with her anthropological understanding that ‘there are no true-for-every-culture sexual differences except those involved in the act of procreation’ (Friedan and Quindlen 1963), combines to cause her to inflate the cultural importance of the reproductive role of women. Friedan intensely rebukes this reification of reproduction as another component of the ‘feminine mystique’ (very close to the modern ‘divine feminine’), advocating for programs which enable women to reject the mystique and housewife status and to seek education and employment, to combat the problem ‘which had no name’ but takes shape through spikes in female ‘sex-hunger’ and ‘overt manifestations’ of passive male homosexuality, both understood as ‘children acting out the sexual phantasies of their housewife-mothers.’ In a paradoxical return to Freudianism, Friedan characterizes husbands unwilling to let their wives work as being seduced ‘by the infantile phantasy of having an ever-present mother’ (the Freudian homosexuality-signifier), associating antifeminism with passive homosexuality with femininity which the aspiring feminist has escaped, learning to compete “not as a woman, but as a human being.”

3. THE MULTIPLICATION OF TRANSFEMINIZED SUBJECTS

As we can see, transfeminized subjects are frequently used as signs of system collapse, hypervisible enough to be easy examples and potent enough to rhetorically corrode existing sex-gender systems in preparation for the author’s own vision. Once a piece is published, these examples are usually then forgotten, assumed as scaffolding for the real theory; but the rhetorical strawmen of these transfeminized subjects still remain, trapped implicitly in the text, and they bleed into one another with every new addition to the corpus, every call to action invoking a new transfeminized archetype.

So far we have seen Mead’s anthropological-orientalist framing of ‘transvestitism’ among the anthropological Other and Friedan’s psychological framing of ‘passive homosexuality’ in the United States. The increasing visibility of adult ‘transsexuality,’ somewhat disjoint from the developmental sexology Gill-Peterson (2017) discusses because of its visibility in high-profile cases like Christine Jorgensen, was likewise framed for theory. Harold Garfinkel’s (1967) book Studies in Ethnomethodology, which described methods for observing ‘the objective reality of social facts as an ongoing accomplishment,’ used an intersex woman named Agnes as an avenue to expose how everyday social facts are constructed. Agnes was an ideal exemplar because her insistence on getting HRT and being seen as a woman was considered psychologically normal: “Such insistence was not accompanied by clinically interesting ego defects. These persons contrast in many interesting ways with transvestites, trans-sexualists, and homosexuals.” Of course, Garfinkel was later notified that Agnes did not have an intersex condition, and he then noted that ‘this news turned the article into a feature of the same circumstances it reported, i.e. into a situated report.’

Anyways, now it’s time for yet another transfeminized subject: the ‘transsexually constructed lesbian feminist.’

4. JANICE RAYMOND (1979)

As with her predecessors, Raymond sees analytical power in her particular transfeminized group, arguing that “transsexualism goes to the question of what gender is, how to challenge it, and what reinforces gender stereotypes in a role-defined society.” But she also has some concerns for ‘transsexual women,’ initially assumed heterosexual, none of which are particularly novel or interesting. Now that she’s writing in an environment dominated by Friedan’s mandate towards shedding femininity, feminist amnesia makes it novel to regurgitate Margaret Mead’s responses: that “male transsexualism may well be a graphic expression of the destruction that sex-role molding has wrought on men,” and that “men recognize the power that women have by virtue of female biology and the fact that this power, symbolized in giving birth, is not only procreative but multidimensionally creative” (Raymond 1979).

Her analysis of (new archetype) ‘transsexually-constructed lesbian feminism’ is much more interesting. While Raymond can understand heterosexual transsexual women as ‘reinforcing gender stereotyping’ by pulling primarily from medical archives already hegemonized by gatekeeping and passing requirements, the transsexual women in the lesbian-feminist movement achieved a certain degree of personal contact and visibility that undermined ‘hegemonizing’ logics. So Raymond uses three main arguments: an essentialist appeal to fundamental ‘maleness,’ a red-scare-esque appeal to transsexual lesbian feminists as ‘court eunuchs’ bent on monitoring and controlling feminist spaces, and finally, an argument that transsexual lesbian feminists are fundamentally epistemically corrosive to lesbian feminist spaces:

Whereas the lesbian-feminist crosses the boundary of her patriarchally imposed sex role, the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist is a boundary violator. This violation is also profoundly mythic, for as Norman O. Brown writes of Dionysus, he as the ‘‘mad god who breaks down boundaries.’’

Contrary to contemporary transmisogynistic discourse which frames trans lesbians as personal threats to women in lesbian-feminist spaces, this violation takes its form not in any particular act but in the act of passing, the deconstructive question this existence seemingly automatically places on lesbian-feminist spaces:

One of the most constraining questions that transsexuals, and, in particular, transsexually constructed lesbian-feminists, pose is the question of self-definition—who is a woman, who is a lesbian-feminist? But, of course, they pose the question on their terms, and we are faced with answering it.

Raymond notes with some frustration that this transsexual question has been discussed ‘out of proportion to their actual numbers,’ using up valuable feminist energy, and frames this as a symptom and crime of transsexual lesbianism itself. The trans question is transsexual women; like the theorists before her, she sees transfeminized people as a gaping hole in the gendered world, but now they’re inside her house, feeding “off woman’s true energy source, i.e., her woman-identified self,” and inherently stand to break “the boundaries of what constitutes femaleness,” to dissolve lesbian-feminism itself.

I want to stress two main points in all of this. First, Raymond understands studying transsexualism as a crucial tool for answering ‘the question of what gender is’ and ‘how to challenge it.’ Second, Raymond’s anxiety about transsexual lesbian-feminists moves away from specific actions and towards the ‘penetration’ inherent in their existence in these spaces at all, the understanding that transsexual women are inherently corrosive to lesbian-feminist movements. These two points are clearly linked. Raymond understands transsexuality as a form of epistemic gender acid, something that can be useful at arm’s length but is deadly up close. Of course, the transfeminized people she discusses were not necessarily invested in asking the Trans Question themselves; trans women attended lesbian-feminist events like Michfest before and after their trans exclusion policies, and regardless of ‘passing’ many people enjoyed a form of don’t ask don’t tell (Tagonist 1997). But within these spaces, the Trans* Question long predated the actual existence of transfeminized people – so once they arrived, the Question and person were fundamentally linked. Trans theorists have negotiated this association extensively, but that’s not the topic of this essay, so I’ll leave you with some sources (Stryker 1994; Stone 1992) and move to Butler.

5. JUDITH BUTLER (1990)

This work has been done already by Vivian Namaste (2020), who argues that “contemporary discussions of Anglo-American feminist theory, exemplified in Butler’s work, begin with the Transgender Question as a way to narrow our focus to the constitution, reproduction, and resignification of gender.” This singular focus on the ‘Transgender Question’ has made it functionally impossible for Anglo-American feminist theory to consider the outsized role of work, particularly sex work, in motivating the discrimination and violence against transfeminized people of color: “framing violence against transsexual prostitutes as ‘gender violence’ is a radical recuperation of these events and their causal nature-a violence at the level of epistemology itself.”

Namaste attributes this focus on featureless ‘gender violence’ to a crippling lack of empiricism, a lack of researcher-subject equity, and an exclusion of subject knowledges. She provides an effective power-based solution to this epistemic violence – that feminist theorists should talk with the subjects of their theory and give them some measure of power in the transaction – a sort of endpoint analysis which means she doesn’t need to consider too much of the internals of the system she’s challenging. That’s a good idea for her work, but with the benefit of history we can move differently. The next section synthesizes Butler, Friedan, Mead, and Raymond together to provide a functionalist analysis of the feminist theoretic use of transfeminized people. What are the benefits of using transfeminized people as an epistemic tool in feminist theory? What are the dangers of using this epistemic tool, and how does feminist theory manage those dangers?

6. PATTERNS OF EXTRACTION AND DEFENSE

Looking past Butler and further into the past reveals that transfeminized people have been crucial not just to the feminist theory of the past 20 years, but have served as exemplars as far back as the 1940s. The ‘Trans* Question,’ which frames transfeminized people as the most visible signifier and most horrifying symptom of social gender, has been cyclically used in a form of feminist cultural amnesia:

A transfeminized group serves as a hypervisible example to 'deconstruct' social gender

Transfeminized deconstruction bloats beyond itself, undermining 'sex traits' or 'femaleness' or some other foundational category of feminist analysis.

Reconstruction of gender as 'biological sex,' alliance between feminist theorists and men of all stripes by arguing that post-gender eradication of transfeminized people will (a) allow men to be feminine without becoming women or (b) destroy femininity entirely.

New-generation feminist theorists realize their predecessors have reinvented social gender. Return to (1).

As Margaret Mead’s work shows, the use of transfeminized groups to deconstruct both physical and social gender has been observed regardless of transmedicalization. This helical pattern has a few general properties:

Each cycle introduces a distinct transfeminized group, positioning it against prior groups as uniquely suitable for analysis, but simultaneously blurs the new group into the existing melange.

This "Trans* Queston" is almost entirely devoid of group-specific context and rooted in transmisogyny, which positions them as horrifying and visible symptoms of social gender.

Each "Trans* Question" initially exposes social gender, but constantly threatens to dissolve other categories or even the theorist's own writing as socially constructed, against the theorist's will.

Each new cycle demonstrates near-complete historical amnesia as to the relevance of transfeminized people in the prior theoretical move.

So the “Trans* Question” allows for the basic feminist move, asserting that gender is socially constructed, but if improperly controlled it stands to dissolve virtually any definition feminist theorists try to build. To be clear, I do not believe in the total deconstruction of categories – you need definitions, even ones you acknowledge as imprecise, to say anything at all. But transfeminized people probably have pretty solid ideas about gender, having to, you know, live with it. The alienated ‘Trans Question*’ has none of this insight, appearing instead as a gaping epistemic hole in the world, and so feminist theorists are forced to come up with complicated quarantining measures to keep the Question from spilling over.

What jeopardizes feminist theory’s use of the Question? One answer (among many) comes by looking at Mead, who concluded that physical characteristics seen as ‘sex traits’ were socially constructed by looking at the culture-specific construction of what she called ‘full transvestitism.’ In this case, the Question undermined sex when the social position of transfeminized subjects were seen as simultaneously normative and anti-normative, existing in some normative ‘social’ role while being understood as distinct from non-transfeminized subjects via another ‘natural’ axis. The fact that these splits were made differently across different transfeminized groups undermined the distinction between social and ‘natural/biological’ aspects of gender, and because the alienated Question provides no means of making anything solid out of any of this, Mead retreated to the womb.

So understanding that the Question allows for the deconstruction of gender, and that it overgrows when multiple (studied as) semi-normative transfeminized groups are cross-compared with one another, we can consider aspects of contemporary feministqueertrans theory that enforce the epistemic isolation and normativization/antinormativization of transfeminized groups. The knots this ties in feminist theories seem relevant both to the ‘why does trans theory exist’ question posed by Chu & Drager (2019) and to the challenges and limitations of applying queer/trans theory to groups outside the anglosphere (Chiang 2021, Savci 2021). I’ll discuss that more in another essay.

SOURCES

Behar, Ruth, and Deborah A. Gordon. 1996. Women Writing Culture. First Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chiang, Howard. 2021. Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific. Columbia University Press.

Chu, Andrea Long, and Emmett Harsin Drager. 2019. “After Trans Studies.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 6 (1): 103–16. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-7253524.

Friedan, Betty, and Anna Quindlen. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. Reprint edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. 1st edition. Cambridge Oxford Malden,MA: Polity.

Gill-Peterson, Jules. 2017. “Implanting Plasticity into Sex and Trans/Gender.” Angelaki 22 (2): 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2017.1322818.

Mead, Margaret. 1949. Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. First Edition. William Morrow.

Namaste, Viviane. 2020. “Undoing Theory: The ‘Transgender Question’ and the Epistemic Violence of Anglo-American Feminist Theory.” In Feminist Theory Reader, edited by Carole McCann, Seung-kyung Kim, and Emek Ergun, 5th edition. New York, NY London: Routledge.

Raymond, Janice G. 1979. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. New York: Teachers College Press.

Savci, Evren. 2021. Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics Under Neoliberal Islam. Durham (N.C.): Duke University Press Books.

Stone, Sandy. 1992. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 10 (2 (29)): 150–76. https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10-2_29-150.

Stryker, Susan. 1994. “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1 (3): 237–54. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1-3-237.

Tagonist, Anne. 1997. “Sister Subverter Diary August ’97.” Unapologetic: The Journal of Irresponsible Gender.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Imma try to chill so that instead of raging,i can just explain this politely:If you're in the Batfam fandom or are interested in joining,please be respectful of the Batkids' canon characterization and stories with exception of the offensive bits because that way,you will be able to fully appreciate and enjoy them as characters and get along with long time fans too as they'll appreciate you for it since Batfanon is so overwhelmingly popular and you'll be helping combat it

You want a ray of sunshine optimist who's actually realistic instead of a cornball and has depth and layers and is beloved by everyone in the DC world?Read for Dick but avoid Tom Taylor and Devin Grayson as their writing of him is extremely ableist,misogynistic(see Babs' character regression for his sake and the 'disposable black love interest' trope times 10x towards Kory)and anti-romani with Taylor being a whole ass zionist and Devin only made Dick romani to fetishize him and wrote canon Batcest and even other pedo ships.She has since apologized for the latter so Batcels can't use her as validation

You want a goth boyloser who's a lone wolf and has an awful relathionship with Bruce where both feelings are completely justified but he himself is morally gray and treated as such rather than coddled?Read for Jason but avoid og Rhato because it's a shitfest that screws over everybody involved including Jason himself and nobody who likes it cares about him at all since it's the worst thing to ever happen to him,INCLUDING The Joker.He was also textually miserable the whole time and is way happier with his new cast on top of being better written

You want a relatable teenage boy who's a positive role model for irl ones and is canonically into dudes and can be the token normie that reacts to the weirdness of his family for jokes?Read for Tim and please don't believe anyone who tries to tell you he's a bad person or a raging misogynist because they're the same niggas who stan Jason the ex-serial killer and Slade the pedophile who's child abuse even of the non-sexual kind is his defining character trait as stated by Marv Wolfman,who MADE him.He's literally just a 17 year old boy who's not perfect and people are just ageist and generally hateful.Everybody should care about Tim Drake /ref

You want a strong female character who's genuinely super weird and real and does justice for the girls that don't fit in and are abused by men but is also really funny and feminine?Read for Stephanie and don't buy into the bullshit propaganda DC keeps trying to keep selling since her debut that she's 'just a girl' or somehow less hardcore than the Batboys or ESPECIALLY the fandom's emphasization of her blondeness when she got it from her abusive dad and has never shown pride in it and was never an 'It Girl',she was the school outcast at ALL her schools,including college.Just because Stephanie Brown is a white girl that dosen't mean she's a white feminist or a prop or basic-She's literally a pastel punk who has a Metalica poster in her room ffs

You want a wasian with gender fuckery who was raised to be a weapon and had no parents until Bruce adopted her and became super human through crazy ass means and is a mega cool edgecase?Read for Cass and keep in mind she was created with the intention of defying easian woman stereotypes,including existing for white men and nothing else and that includes not forcing her to like Jason or steal her Shiva origin to give it to him and as an afro-dominicana,Jason feels more afro-dominican than he does anything else and we HAVE an asian Jason Variant but he was south asian,specifically indian and not easian/chinese so it's even more orientalist than before with Sanjay Tawde's canonicity in mind(He is from The Doom That Came To Gotham for anyone interested)

You want a brown boy raised by a bad organization he has complex ties to because his connection comes from his family who is very much a little shit and anger filled but also a sweetheart who's truly trying his best?Read for Damian but keep in mind he's a victim of anti-arab writers,he's not a demon or a villain or an animal-He's just a hurt little boy who's almost never known anything but pain and being seen as a monster compared to white boys and that's why so many Damian stans are so grateful for Flatline/Nika because she loves him as much as we do and gives him the TLC we wish we could(platonically in our case but still)

You want a troubled but good kid who has god-like superpowers and loves to run his mouth,gives Bruce's headaches with his shenanigans and is not only an unconventional Robin but Jason's Robin and vice versa?Read for Duke and don't even look in the general direction of runs that leave him out-Which do the other Batboys dirty too every time anyway!!Duke has refered to Bruce as his dad and Bruce has refered to Duke as his son and ALL the Batkids see him as their brother and the poor guy feels left out of them because DC are a bunch of antiblack pieces of shit who baited us with the first ever black Robin just to exclude him for his blackness and act like they were being 'careful'.Nah,FUCK that-If Cass can be respectfully written as Bruce's kid,so can Duke!He don't got parents either,the ogs got Jokerized and Gnomom is emotionally abusive and he's literally a minor!

And they're just the core Batkids!!!If you're looking for another type of character,then they definitely exist and i'd be happy to tell you who fits it so i can tell you what to read/watch/play for them!Trying to switch the Batkids CAN be good depending on how you do it but 99% of the time it's just bigotry!REAL bigotry minorities can't stop dealing with just by logging off and fandom is supposed to be a safe space for weirdos-Not 'nerds',WEIRDOS.Black people and woc and mentally ill people and autistics and abusive survivors and EVERYONE,not just stupid ass kinksters that think kink is inherently anti-establishment and white people who had 'hateful ideology phases' and think it's universal and play victim when told otherwise

'All Batboys are trans and autistic!'but then they leave out the most autistic-coded and tboy swag filled Batboy just because he's black and use the 'mains' excuse when they've never read enough comics to know that became a thing,that it wasn't always a thing and that it dosen't make SENSE for it to be a thing.'All Batkids are/do [x]' but they leave out the girls even though 'Batkids' is the gender neutral term as it's meant to refer to the whole gang.Do not fall for it.They're about as gooth faith as 'Allmighty God Superman who fucks all the women' dudebros.Please be kind and be a real superhero fan by reading the comics so you can join us in dunking on them.Please,you'll be doing the comics fandom a lot of good and you might even help influence the comics industry itself because it responds to mass fan appeal way far back and that's how we got a fair amount of runs and adaptions we do today and yesterday and tommorow.I promise it'll be infinitely more fun than fanon too

[creatorsawoman]

my 2s repost the links should lead to archive links <3

Hi I want to apologize for taking so long to respond, I wanted to get my thoughts together, to answer this properly. This’ll be long.

First, it is important that I define to you what exactly I know and see two-spirit as/to be. I’ll start with the definition from wikipedia: “Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial and social role in their cultures.”

What I know the usage of the term two-spirit to be, yes, it is quite an umbrella term. I find it used all over Canada and America by Indigenous youth who identify as trans, AND by those who are LGB. As it is in usage now, it seems to just be the catch-all for any GNC or LGB indigenous kid. A label. And although I do think it’s wonderful for any LGB or T-identified or gender non-conforming Indigenous child to find a label that makes themselves comfortable and makes it easier to find others who have the same life experiences, I also think it’s wrong.

The intention of Two-spirit is meant, as we see in the wiki definition, as a catch-all describer of “traditional third-gender, ceremonial and social role in their cultures” for anybody who is North American indigenous. Anon I’m sure you know already but for those that don’t, our roles, typically, are heavily appointed by Elders. You don’t just identify yourself into performing traditions, you are appointed it by elders, or else you ask for their, for lack of better word, blessing. But… you’d be hard pressed to find much of our culture that does this for a “third gender” or “two spirit”.

I can’t speak for every indigenous culture as I was raised mainly into the Cree part of my family and not the Saulteaux/Oji-Cree, but in Cree culture the word of our Elders is sacred. Oral history is how we learn of our culture, in part because we were hit hard in the Canadian genocide of First Nations. I can very safely say, out of all the things I learned from my elders, the only thing I ever had to “teach” them was what Two-spirit meant and what a third-gender is. Because they didn’t know. They could tell me what life was like before they were taken away from the reservation, they could tell me tales of creatures, of Wendigo and Little People, they could tell me and teach me what is sacred to us, what our roles as male and female are, but they couldn’t tell me what Two-spirit is. I had to learn that from the white man. Why is that? Well… possibly because it’s not a thing. It’s not sacred. It isn’t part of the history.

And even if it is in any subset of our cultures, all these kids and indigenous youth who use 2S to identify themselves? They were not appointed the term by elders, they label it themselves.

I think it is important to note here that “Two-spirit” itself was a term first (as we know so far according to Wikipedia, so take that as you will) founded and pushed out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, which is Treaty 1 territory, home to Anishinaabe. I am not a part of this territory (although I have Elder family members who are from Sandy Bay, who I can confirm also do not know of two-spirit) but one quick search of “anishinaabe third gender” will even only bring up modern day Two-spirit ideas, and the coining of the term in 1990. Same with any search for “(nation) third gender.” I have had a very lovely Anishinaabe anon in the past, and she has also vented her frustration at the use of the term, especially as an umbrella term for any Indigenous kid who is LGB or T, so I do take some assumption there from her that it is also not much of a thing in Ojibwe culture or any of the other Anishinaabe cultures.

What’s most important, and why I oppose it so much (other than the fact that it’s just, as I see, straight up a white man-made concept) is that the term “two-spirit” was created to replace other, more offensive words.

It’s main replacement is for “berdache”, a white (French) word, used against male Indigenous men, particularly homosexual Indigenous men. It is a slur. “Male berdaches did women’s work, cross-dressed or combined male and female clothing, and formed relationships with non-berdache men.”

It is, also, meant sometimes to replace the word, Winkte, or winyanktehca. Lakota meaning ‘wants to be like a woman’. Particularly used against, again, homosexual Lakota men.

It is, also, sometimes used as a replacement for Nádleehi, which was/is used in Diné culture as a word for effeminate males. Particularly used against, you guessed it, homosexual Diné men.

Now, to me, I think it is pretty plain to see that this is a term meant to replace some of our more homophobic terms used in Indigenous communities. But replacing homophobic terms with new ones doesn’t make it any less homophobic. These terms were meant to other homosexual indigenous men, and they were also used by white people. For us to, in this day and age when our culture is shifting to a less homophobic one, use the term two-spirit to continue to other LGB indigenous people? That’s not right to me. There was no reclamation of any of these terms, there was just a white replacement word that doesn’t sound as bad. But it still means the same thing. It’s still as white as a Frenchman calling a gay Indigenous man berdache.

I could keep going on and on, especially about how it is used in current day culture by indigenous youth as a special label, and how none of the people using it seem to actually have talked to their elders about it, but really my biggest problem with it is just how extremely homophobic it is. And how white people use it as “proof” that transgenderism has “always existed” when those same white people don’t even bother to fucking listen when some of us scream at them how wrong they are. And then I could keep going on screaming about how it’s been shoehorned as an acronym onto Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women which is so fucking disrespectful.

[kookies2000]

The Amazing Indie Toons!!!

⭐️Actor AU⭐️

Age:25

Born: America with Indian inheritance.

Family: Do friends and their fiancé count?

Relationship status: Engaged to Gangel. She used to be arranged in marriages until she got kicked out one day by their family for being gender fluid and liking girls.

Career: Tattoo artist and owns their own shop. That's all they really want in life. Something steady and calm. They didn't even audition for TADC. They drove their fiancé Gangel to the auditions, and the director saw them and thought they looked perfect for the circus theme. So they created a role just for them. All in all, Zoobel just puts on whatever for fancy events like the red carpet.

Favorite role: They do enjoy their role in the Boxer au directed by Burro. Simply because they have a lot of pent-up frustration, they can release when the cameras turn on.

[youremyheaven]

this might be a kinda niche observation but i have noticed women who are venusian plus saturnian are Not very nice 😭 i know two women who's entire chart is basically 50/50 venusian naks and saturn naks and one thing i've noticed they both do is try to remix traditional gender roles into some sort of female empowerment thing

for example, one of them is constantly going on dates with older rich men which by itself is like fine whatever but she tries to act like she's this genius feminist for doing it. like no babe.... you're still conforming to gender roles by essentially selling yourself to rich men to eventually become their spoiled housewife, if anything she's putting a capitalistic spin on it. i think this is because of the saturnian urge to conform to traditions meshing with the venusian urge to date lots and surround yourself with money and beauty

the second girl is obsessed with traditional beauty standards for im assuming the same reason. she literally often says things like "i love entering a room and knowing i'm the prettiest one there" and "walking down the street watching people gawk because i'm the most beautiful one here". it's so cringe and low vibrational, not to mention misogynistic yet just like the other girl she tries to put a feminist spin on it. she has a whole twitter account dedicated to unlocking your "divine feminine", which is a real thing but she does it in such an incorrect way like telling people what plastic surgery they need to be "perfect" and of course, how to attract a rich man. it's a combo of venusian vanity and saturnian rule following (the beauty standards being the rules)

also, they both HATE eachother 😭

that sounds about right ngl

I feel like Venusian women who are not drawn to the arts and are somehow unable to channel their creativity make it their sole purpose in life to pursue romance and 😬it kind of messes them up?? My grandma is Purvaphalguni Moon and she was a very talented singer back in the day and wanted to study Music in college but her family was against it and made her study to be a teacher and then she ended up marrying my grandad and also cheating on him and ngl it ruined her life,,, anywayyss I feel like Venusians were meant to pursue all of the themes of Venus, ESPECIALLY its creativity because art will fulfil you in ways no man or relationship can and in the absence of it, all this excessive materialistic pursuit of relationships brings out the corrosiveness of Venus.

Venus is capable of immense devotional spirituality, its not a shallow planet or influence by any means but to get to the spirituality (of any planet tbh) one has to transcend its more superficial material manifestations. I think Venusian fixation on romance, relationships etc can be very damning. I know a Purvaphalguni Moon girl who cannot be single for even a second and she said she can't get married because she will cheat on him 😭

I know several Venusians who are like you mentioned but damn that Venus and Saturn combination you talked about is lethal,, they can lead themselves to such a shallow hollow and empty life. Ngl I feel like all those "dating coaches" online who talk about "10 ways to marry a rich man" are all Venusian/Saturnian women and sorry to break it but I promise it never works out. If a man knows that you're with him for his money, I promise you no amount of money he throws at you will be worth the mind games and psychological abuse that will ensue.

I have a friend, Bharani stellium who is from a well to do family but she dreams of marrying someone filthy rich and being a housewife. She's also Saturnian lmao but I feel like her idealized visions of being someone's trophy wife will lead to some bitter experiences. Bc first of all Indian men are trash, second of all, rich people are trash and a rich Indian man and his family are probably capable of god knows what insanity. I think about that video of Shah Rukh Khan, aka the biggest actor the country has ever seen at Isha Ambani's (billionaire's daughter) twins birthday party where they'd brought out snakes??? (rich ppl things bc who tf would bring snakes to a toddler's bday party??) and Isha's brother picks up a snake and puts it on SRK's shoulder from behind, catching him off guard. Like ik its obviously not poisonous but like ??? thats so rude??? imagine just putting a snake on someone without their consent??? its that asshole's entitlement that makes him believe he can get away with anything. any video of the Ambani kids is a testament to them being rich assholes but anyways point is, rich people are fucked up and its insane to me that women want to sign away their autonomy by marrying into these families??? like are they dumb??? how naive do you have to be to believe that they'll be rich AND nice to you?? lol?? and you cannot raise a finger against them bc money will silence everyone, even the courts. look at what happened to amber heard and what's happening to angelina jolie. these are powerful, influential women, not housewives to rich douchebags but even then, they suffer. now what would happen to a regular woman???

anybody who dreams of being a trophy wife feels absolutely delusional to me. its so important to maintain your independence. like by all means i want to marry rich but i dont ever want to be in a position where im financially dependent on a man. THATS DANGEROUS. quite literally.

[vesarcanus-if]

Demo: 9/6/23

Your parents are the biggest Vampire mobsters in Vas Arcanus and are the heads of the notorious Florentia Family. On your 25th birthday, your parents gift you with an important role in the family: running Blood Bank, their nightclub and base of operations. Unfortunately, a few years ago your first love, a burlesque dancer at Blood Bank, was murdered. The culprit was never found …supposedly. With your new position within the Ves Arcanus Underground, maybe you can finally find answers and serve justice or revenge.

In the city of Ves Arcanus, you’ll encounter Supernaturals of several different species and work alongside the most powerful families in organized crime: the Arcanus Six. The Six includes the Florentia Family, the Lombardi Family, the Seth Family, the De Mevius Family, the Sundale Family, and the Vatura Family.

Demo Features:

Play as male, female, nonbinary, or transgender; gay, straight, or bisexual.

Navigate organized crime within the Ves Arcanus Underground, and maintain the Florentia’s infamous reputation or run it into the ground.

Work to solve the “cold case” murder of your first love and choose to be judge, jury, or executioner.

Run a popular Vampire nightclub and keep the cops, and your rivals, from sniffing around.

Play as a Vampire in a city inhabited by Faeries, Selkies, Witches, Demons, and humans.

Romance or befriend one of the six gender-selectable RO’s and choose to hook up* with seven of the many side characters

Content Warnings (18+): drug and alcohol use, violence, blood, strong language, optional explicit sexual content, death/murder

Lisa/Leon Whitlock, 27- Faerie

A young director who got lucky and stayed lucky, Whitlock could be your way into important Faerie circles. They’re fun, sweet, and adventurous enough to sneak around with you given the right motivation. Like all artists, they’re unpredictable and don’t seem quite ready to settle down yet.

Alessia/Alessandro “Ale” Lombardi, 30- Vampire

The eldest child and former heir of the Lombardi Family, Ale is no stranger to crime, intimidation, and violence. They’ve used their family’s influence to fund a political career and leave mob life behind, supposedly. They take some time to warm up but are a loyal friend and lover once they do.

Charlotte/Charles “Charlie” Cole, 35- Cambion

After a rough childhood, Charlie became a cop to help troubled youth like them. They don’t love being a cop, but they feel it’s the best way they can help kids. Charlie has turned their life around, but maybe you can persuade them to break the rules for you.

Serafina/Sero De Mevius, 24- Witch

A spoiled rich kid with an Ivy league education, De Mevius isn’t like most mobsters you know. They have an air of mystery and don’t really seem to care about upholding their family’s name. They love to spend their dads’ money on parties, charities, and maybe on you too.

Dion Parker, 25- Dragonkin (half dragon/half human)

Your friend since high school, Dion is just along for the ride as you look for answers. Whether they agree with your methods, Dion sticks around to hopefully keep you out of trouble. Your parents trust them to keep books at the club so they’re always nearby.

Eliana/Elio “El” Rivera, 28- Unknown

El will do most anything for a story, especially when it keeps them alive and out of jail. They are fearless and stubborn as a bull, but that may be a front to hide how alone they feel in Ves Arcanus. El has eyes and ears everywhere in Ves Arcanus, but can you get close enough to learn their secrets?

Sam (they/them) early 20s, Witch*

Tall, lean with some muscle, very short curly brown hair, warm brown skin with vitiligo | A Kitchen Witch from a civilian family on the outskirts of Ves Arcanus.

Jewels (she/her) mid 20s, Fastus (Pride Demon)*

Short, curvaceous, waist length straight black hair, honey brown skin (Indian) | One of Lamia’s top spies.

Tisa (he/him) early 30s, Faerie*

Moderate height, muscular, buzzcut black hair and stubble, light tan skin (Korean) | Lives in Neráida Forest, a friend of Alvina Sundale.

Vance (he/him) late 20s, Vampire*

Somewhat tall, some muscles, short black hair usually slicked back, olive skin | A regular at Blood Bank, he’s had a crush on you for years.

Lamia (she/her) mid 50s, Succubus*

Short, slim, shoulder length blonde hair, pale skin | Former head of the Seth Family, now the most infamous spymistress in Ves Arcanus.

Honey (she/they, transfem) late 30s, Faerie*

Tall, lithe but curvy, long brown hair, tan skin (Brazilian) | Lives in an apartment not far from Neráida Forest.

Jennifer/Jensen Albright (gender selectable) 25, Dhampir*

Long/short black hair, fair skin, septum piercing | Your Right Hand as the Florentia Family heir.

Jeanette Heart, mid 40’s, Vampire

Moderate height, fair skin, shoulder length blonde hair, brown eyes | Your therapist last for the 3 years.

Sebastian De Mevius, 24, Witch

Tall, curly dark brown hair, light brown skin, brown eyes | S. De Mevius’ twin brother and De Mevius Family heir.

Billy Marston, early 50’s, Demon

Tall, brown hair, brown eyes, stubble | El’s editor.

Georgina, mid 20’s, Vampire

Average height, blonde hair, grey eyes | Bartender at Blood Bank.

[451redirect]

𝙼𝚈     𝙳𝙴𝚂𝙸𝚁𝙴     𝚆𝙰𝚂     𝙰     𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶     𝙸     𝚂𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙾𝚆𝙴𝙳     𝚄𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙻     𝙼𝚈     𝚃𝙴𝙴𝚃𝙷     𝙲𝙾𝚁𝚁𝙾𝙳𝙴𝙳 .

𝘈𝘉𝘖𝘜𝘛

FULL NAME:     aadhya dasari 

NICKNAME(S):   yaya  

AGE:    thirty-one 

OCCUPATION:      cowboys (co-host @ big fish) / the honeybee club (head entertainer)

GENDER: cis woman.   

PRONOUNS: she/her.   

SEXUALITY:   bisexual.   

BIRTHPLACE:   tamil nadu, india.    

RESIDENCE:  a luxury one bedroom apartment in the city. 

RELATIONSHIP STATUS:   single. 

EDUCATION:           high school diploma, college degree.   

CHILDREN:    zero.    

FAMILY:    neisha dasari (mother), yajat dasari (father)

PETS:   none.   

LANGUAGES:  telugu, bengali, hindi, japanese, english, spanish

POSITIVES:  magnetic, clever, resourceful, observant, charismatic, persuasive

NEGATIVES:  self-destructive, cruel, selfish, volatile, short-tempered, materialistic, calculating

HEIGHT:   5′9.     

INFLUENCES FOR THIS CHARACTER:   charlotte hale (westworld), gabrielle solis (desperate housewives), satine (moulin rogue), lilico (helter skelter), scarlett o’hara (gone with the wind), ramona vega (hustlers)

𝘉𝘐𝘖𝘎𝘙𝘈𝘗𝘏𝘠

    YOU ARE AADHYA DASARI— daughter of the formidable businessman, iham dasari. before this becomes your truth, you are the daughter of one india’s most wanted criminal’s, the de facto king of the indian criminal underworld. the japanese expatriate act introduces iham to newfound opportunities— the chance to remake himself anew, securing his position in a more stable and legitimate industry. 

    you step into the role of the perfect heiress, shedding the skin of a mafia princess. still, it is impossible to fully eradicate yourself from the bloodshed you’re baptized in— forever marred by the lifestyle you’re born into. you’ve always found delight in the wielding power over others— fine tuning your propensity for manipulation and control from a young age. any of your darker impulses are disguised beneath a veneer of sophistication and charm. 

    your father’s rise occurs almost as quickly as his fall from grace— several bad dealings and a debilitating gambling addiction is enough to squander the majority of the family’s fortunes, something that wouldn’t fully be realized until he’s on his deathbed. your job as a co-host at big fish is not one earned out of merit. still, entertaining the viewers with your dazzling looks and wit— secretly relishing in the chaos that immediately followed the announcement of a new bounty. it’s a cozy gig, but certainly not enough to supplement the luxurious lifestyle you’d grown accustomed to since childhood. 

    which is why— when you’re not gliding across the big fish screens— you can be found entertaining at the honeybee club. beneath the glamour and grandeur, you’re almost able to forget that it is you who is left to erase the debt left in your father’s wake. after all, what service was more valuable than your presence and esteemed company? (your promotion to head entertainer certainly only strengthens how highly you regard yourself.) 

    your life was never meant to be like this— you were never meant to bear the burden of your father’s failure. it leaves you increasingly temperamental— your penchant for cruelty only festers over time. something has to give— before you destroy yourself and those surrounding you.

[phuljari]

incoming rant: the robotification of women

teri baaton mein aisa uljha jiya (2024) is among the latest movies in the genre of science fiction romance. it reminded me of an old itv show bahu hamari rajnikant (2016) , while i wasn't an avid watcher of the latter, i knew of it's existence. why did it remind of that particular sitcom? well, mainly because of the comedy. but it also reminded me of similar themes in english movies like ex machina (2015), wifelike (2022), archive (2020) and her (2013), which is surely a bit far fetched considering that in her, the ai never had a body. only a voice.

here, i think it's impertinent to also acknowledge male robots in indian cinema, like chitti from robot/enthiran (2010) and g.one from ra.one (2011) even though he wasn't an actual robot? i don't know if he classifies as one. so let's say, non-human, programming-based male entity (nhpbme). similar to samantha in her, a non-human, programming-based female entity (nhpbfe).

so yes, while male robots and nhpbme do exist in the sci-fi romance genre, it's the comparatively larger robotification of women that feeds the male gaze, and the patriarchy by an extention— which is ultimately problematic.

coming to the movie that i actually want to discuss, kriti sanon's sifra, in tbmauj, is the perfect lover, perfect bahu. why? she knows everything aaru (shahid kapoor) likes and wants. she has no chik-chik or tantrums like other girls. she can make cuisines from all around the world, can access everything on the internet quickly. she has perfect skin, perfect hair. probably doesn't age too. she is the dream girl of a typical man. she doesn't have her own opinions or problems, she serves him and him alone. no family of hers to care about, she can care about his family and their needs. the female gendering here acts like objectification.

the worst part of this movie was that it didn't do anything? since it was a comedy, it didn't delve deeper into the nuances of increasing technological reliance that humans have. i think it was probably meant as a warning— when sifra malfunctions and starts executing tasks that were deleted. but even at that, it fails because urmila's (dimple kapadia) company (so intelligently named) e-robots/robotex (something stupid like that), ends up launching her along with few other robots. only adds a dialogue which meant that you need to handle these robots responsibly. then, what was the point of all the testing they tried to do? placing her in different environments like india, when they don't really end up rethinking the whole idea or putting in more safety features? of course, there's no deeper meaning here. indian comedies don't really have subtext.

but it's perpetuates the same old concept of subservient women. rule-followers and caregivers. an image etched in stone. why do women ask– what do men want? men want this, an ideal version. have always wanted. fuelled by the unrealistic p*rn depictions. do they ever think what women want? aaru so casually tells off his friend who has a wife to look at how pathetic his own life is. he defends sifra's un-emotional response to a situation by attacking his friend's relationship asking if human women are any better?

it reminded me of wifelike (2022) where female robots are curated according to a person's need, a replication of their dead spouse. to love them, to serve them, to help them come out of grief. it's so funny to me how in tbmauj, sifra is shown to retain her feelings, getting jealous when aaru interacts with another woman despite getting reprogrammed; compared to how in wifelike, the robotic version of the human it was based on, always ended up leaving the husband because the human version never loved him.

isn't it interesting how female robots instantly get sexualised, and are depicted doing things that one would never ask their girlfriend or wife to do? these robots happily perform roles that are stereotypically feminine, wife-like. they're invented to put aside their feelings (if they have them) to take care of their human partners'. sifra cooks perfect food, emphasized by how many time aaru fired his maid for not cooking things the way he likes it. she probably doesn't have mood swings from periods because she's a robot. she doesn't eat, doesn't get out of shape. and most importantly, she doesn't age (cue: i'll get old but your lovers stay my age). as if the expectations from women aren't enough, that they're required to age gracefully, or best option— not age at all.

if you still don't get it, let me remind you how siri and alexa also end up on the same side of gender spectrum— female.

so the message is, guys, don't give up on your dream girl! you'll surely find a robot that satisfies all your needs! 🙄

men want perfect women, but women can't be robots. let's stop perpetuating the same image and setting unrealistic standards. real humans have real problems, deal with them.

[learntrio]

“The World’s Oldest Religion, and It’s Connection with Modern Science”

The World’s Oldest Religion: An In-Depth Exploration of Hinduism

Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion, and has been a vibrant and integral part of human history for thousands of years. Indeed, with its deep roots, rich mythology, and profound philosophical insights, Hinduism continues to influence millions of lives today. Therefore, this blog aims to explore the origins, beliefs, practices, and cultural significance of the world’s oldest religion, Hinduism, shedding light on why it remains such a vital and living tradition. After all, who is the oldest religion? That is Hinduism.

1. Origins of Hinduism

Prehistoric Roots

The world’s oldest religion, Hinduism’s origins, can be traced back to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished around 3300–1300 BCE in what is now modern-day Pakistan and northwest India. The discovery of archaeological artifacts, such as seals showing people in yoga poses and sacred animals, clearly suggests that these early religious practices may have, in fact, influenced the development of later Hinduism. These findings indicate a deep connection between humans, nature, and the divine, themes that are central to Hinduism.

The Vedic Period

The Vedic Period, spanning from approximately 1500 to 500 BCE, marks a significant era in the development of Hinduism. This period saw the migration of Indo-Aryans into the Indian subcontinent, bringing with them the sacred texts known as the Vedas. The Vedas—Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda—are the oldest known scriptures of Hinduism and are composed in Sanskrit. They contain hymns, rituals, and philosophical teachings that form the core of Vedic religion. Rigveda, in particular, is considered the oldest, with hymns dedicated to various deities, reflecting a polytheistic belief system.

Development of Major Schools

Hinduism was the world’s oldest religion when it evolved, and it gave rise to various philosophical schools, each offering unique interpretations of spiritual and existential questions. The Upanishads, composed between 800 and 500 BCE, marked a shift from ritualistic practices to introspective and philosophical inquiry. These texts explored the nature of reality, the self (Atman), and the ultimate reality (Brahman), laying the groundwork for later schools of thought like Vedanta, which emphasizes the unity of the individual soul with the universal spirit.

2. Core Beliefs and Philosophies

Dharma (Duty/Righteousness)

Dharma is a fundamental concept in Hinduism, encompassing the moral and ethical code that guides individuals’ actions and societal roles. It varies according to one’s age, caste, gender, and occupation, promoting harmony and order within society. Dharma is not only about religious duties but also about living in accordance with one’s true nature and fulfilling one’s responsibilities toward family, society, and the world.

Karma (Action and Consequence)

The concept of Karma is central to Hindu thought, emphasizing that every action has consequences. Good deeds lead to positive outcomes, while harmful actions result in suffering. This belief in cause and effect extends beyond a single lifetime, influencing one’s future incarnations. The law of Karma encourages ethical living and personal responsibility, as individuals are seen as the architects of their destinies.

Samsara (Cycle of Rebirth)

Samsara refers to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, which is a fundamental belief in Hinduism. Moreover, it is driven by Karma, meaning one’s actions determine the nature of future existences. Consequently, this cycle is often seen as a state of suffering and bondage, from which individuals seek liberation. Ultimately, the goal of Hindu spiritual practice is to break free from Samsara and attain Moksha, a state of eternal bliss and union with the divine.

Moksha (Liberation)

Moksha is the liberation from the cycle of Samsara, achieved through self-realization and an understanding of the true nature of the self and the universe. To attain Moksha, Hinduism offers various paths, each catering to different temperaments and inclinations. Firstly, there is Bhakti Yoga (the path of devotion), which focuses on love and devotion to a personal deity. Secondly, Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge) emphasizes self-inquiry and the realization of the unity between Atman and Brahman. Thirdly, Karma Yoga (the path of selfless action) involves performing one’s duties without attachment to outcomes. Lastly, Raja Yoga (the path of meditation) concentrates on controlling the mind and senses to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

FULL VERSION : https://learntrio.com/the-worlds-oldest-religion-hinduism/

[sunidhis-blog]

Dearest,

She's carrying and things wearables

An apple pencil and a half.

Two earrings .

Her desires were deep inklings of her poet.

Her shiny hair was the shy wisdom tooth enclaved in two.

She was a shy hare .

She was a nill trajectory.

A lie in deep phadmatic lie.

A lie engraved in her palm prayer.

A deep gul mitti doing in her stomach.

Familiar family animalia.

Fanned earring animals.

Fame infamous lie.

Famed suitor...

Shy stubborn Dupatta .

Her shilly shally Billy eye.

Her couplets.

Her eyes.

Her stubborn ink like haired palm dye.

Her eye stubbornized as her poet.

Her lie in half stubbornized airs.

Her haven of a hair spray.

Her cool leather jackets.

Her eyed gangster kajol.

Her Miley Cyrus photo of a nude lipstick.

Her shy hairs going la la la llama

Her baddesry eyres of an eye..

She carries mother Kate Moss padlines of an ipad .

Kate Shelly voices

Shilly shorn Sharaya Ipod.

She was wars like her shine ana and a half.

She was a spit-stub.

Indian mosses.

Dandi sticks of two chop pans.

Shy slip ups.

Sly commas of sighly shers.

She called out his poetic beauty bra in his baned out brain of her lie.

Extinguished war setters.

Sight seeing gadgets.

A godful mourful cry of an eye.

A short kurta.

A sight like seeing Karachi pans.

Gul mitta Sata.

Sight seeing mushrooms.

I sought her items.

Sight shred lives on pamola wool.

She was sherry beauty of her two faced lipgloss

Shreds of lehengas of Valli.

Amazon ear pods.

Iphone tablets.

It's not in your fate to be popular,she says.

An increment in gender-biased roles.

[pari-patel]

Wandering Son Blog Post

Similar to the other animes, this one also challenged and navigated gender identity in a society with rigid structures and norms. The anime provides an honest look in Japanese culture which traditionally upholds strict gender roles. The series delves deeply into their personal struggles by portraying their experiences of cross-dressing, dealing with bullying, and seeking acceptance from family and friends. The societal pressures and turmoil faced by Shuichi and Yoshino allow them to come to terms with their real selves. Globally, individuals, especially women, face challenges in communities that my not fully accept them or even understand the diversity in gender identities. Therefore, I can see this being a relatable narrative as it showcases the struggles against societal norms.

Coming from an Indian culture and background, I can see similarities. Like Japanese culture, Indian culture also upholds some sense of hierarchical structure when it comes to genders, and I also tend to experience societal pressures whether it be academic or personal. The anime's portrayal of Shuichi and Yoshino's journeys reminds me of the importance of empathy and support in fostering an inclusive environment. This has reinforced my belief in the significance of creating safe spaces where individuals can express their true selves without fear of judgment or discrimination… it reminds me of what we learned in the Wolf Children anime actually. To compare this to the past couple animes, we see a common thread of challenging societal norms and advocating for acceptance and equality. Sailor moon broke traditional gender roles by showing strong women, Aggretsuko addresses pressures of workplace sexism, and Wandering Son emphasizes the importance of breaking free drom societal expectations and finding a sense of identity. We see Shuichi and Yoshino grapple with the roles they are expected to play versus who they truly are. This connection underscores the broader cultural shift towards recognizing and valuing diverse identities and experiences, both in Japan and globally.

[floralfantasy]

Neurodiversity in the Majority World

Online Seminar 

How do Neurodivergent Therapists Engage with Social Justice?  Anna Maria Joseph 

Anna is a public mental health researcher and writer with OCD, based in Bangalore, India. As a researcher, she is engaged with projects studying the rehospitalisation of psychiatric patients, impact of arts based interventions for gender violence prevention, and suicide prevention among young people. Through her writing, she prioritises lived experience to discuss disability, queerness, and the climate crisis. Her work has been featured on spaces like Women Enabled International, Disability Debrief, Revival Disability India, and Gaysi Family. She was awarded the SCARF (Schizophrenia Research Foundation) Media for Mental Health Award in 2022. 

Vocabularies of inclusion: How Autistic voices in India are reframing personhood. Shubha Ranganathan

Shubha is an Associate Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. Her background is eclectic and interdisciplinary, having been trained in psychology but drawing on ethnographic approaches to questions around health, gender, and disability. Her research draws on a range of disciplines such as anthropology, gender studies, disability studies, and alternate paradigms within psychology such as critical and qualitative psychology. She has been engaged in qualitative explorations of local practices of healing among marginalized groups, as well as health and disability-related projects in India. Her work is framed by critical and social justice perspectives, focusing on lived experiences and the role of advocacy for social change. Currently, she is exploring questions about parenting and care in the context of autism as part of her engagement with the neurodiversity discourse in India.

The event is free of charge however, participants must register. 

Date: Tuesday 23rd July 2024

Time: 

20.30 hours - 22.00 hours (Tokyo Time)

1700 hours - 1830 hours (Indian Standard Time)

12.30 hours - 14.00 hours (UK Time) 

13.30 hours - 15.00 hours (Johannesburg Time)

7.30 am- 9.00 am (New York Time) 

8.30 am -10.00am (Buenos AiresTime)

Registration link https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=ofZoiROsL0e4mfcxbkOfQ2R-n7SIUR9Pj2px-QrEZi1UMFkzOFVUMk5aVlY4MkxVSzNPVUxWTUhUUy4u

Link to our website https://afroasiancriticalpsychology.wordpress.com/2024/06/26/neurodiversity-in-the-majority-world/

#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodiversity #AutisticRights #Autism #ADHD #SocialJustice #MajorityWorld #Inclusion #Psychology #India

[metamatar]

February Reading Round Up! In reverse chronological order of finishing

Reinventing Revolution: New Social Movements and the Socialist Tradition in India by Gail Omvedt

Been meaning to read for a long long time, was serendiptiously a reading groups' choice and on my tumblr dash. Very good, detailed tour of movements that have complicated "class first" - caste, gender, peasant, tribal and their evolution theoretically and historically. Enjoyed how obviously socialist and critical Omvedt is of regressive trends and fair to the demands of popular organising that trouble us. I made so many notes, and intend to revist her perspective later when I've studied more. Where I was familiar with secondary literature like, caste I think she did an excellent job illustrating the limitations and need for Ambedakrite movements.

The Final Question by Chattopadhyay, Sarat Chandra

Bengali literature written in dialogue with the anti colonial movement's understanding of the new role of the Indian woman, this book is angry in the best way. Something very Dostoyevsky like in the arguments between the characters, but, instead of a religious worldview you have a deeply modern, materialist worldview being sharply advocated for against revanchist cultural trends in the novel's heroine Kamal. It holds up really well for a book in 1936, and its tenderness in handling every character's hopes and despair is deeply touching.

The Play Of Dolls Stories by Narain, Kunwar

Tumblr Mutual Book Club pick! Short Story collection by Hindi experimental poet and writer. Very evocative stories that have the best onion like layers of thematic interests. Oft satirical but never bleak, with the exception of the last story which felt like an odd addition to the set.

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Machado, Carmen Maria

Short Story collection as well, feminist and queer themes. I'd already read the Husband Stitch and was interested in what else the author could do, unfortunately not a lot more thematically. The stories are tightly written and gripping, only that they don't reveal much to me.

Dumb Luck by Vũ, Trọng Phụng

Tumblr Mutual Book Club pick as well. Relentlessly, satirically bleak, also colonial writing. This one is set in Vietnam when it was in French Indochina. Tetra said that every character is an antagonist and FR. Vicious, and a little too bleak for my taste, this is a more traditionalist critique of Vietnamese elite aping the French. The gender politics are absolutely bonkers, the translation I read does a pretty decent job of transferring the text's humor to modern idiom.

Vita & Virginia: A Double Life by Gristwood, Sarah

Biography of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackwille-West, picked up on a whim because of my interest in Woolf's 'madness' and her romantic letters. Really enjoyed reading the complicated polyamorous love lives these literati had. Virginia's struggles with her illness are quite movingly portrayed. Illustrated with pictures of the beautiful homes and gardens the subjects spent their time in so fun for me! Enjoyed how conversant the author was with their literary output and its critical reception and impact. Made me want to finish reading my Woolf books.

The Stranger by Camus, Albert

I thought I'd like this more. The distanced narrator is very poorly executed, so the protagonist's redemption? revelations? towards the end of the novel kind of fell flat. Style over substance problem I think.

The Horizon (Sumer, #2) by Gautam Bhatia

Conclusion to The Wall, also one of those I wish I'd liked a lot more than I did. Very fast paced in its third act, well plotted but weakened by its repeated revelation of this character is ACTUALLY on this SIDE. Like, its done with every family member of the protagonist. Worldbuilding remains memorable if a bit predictable. Would make a better movie.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Personally I love an old man vs a fish, even if it does not have the gay content Moby Dick promised. Excellent use of the novel for investigating the interiority of a man. It's been a short story kind of month I suppose.

Lady Chatterley's Lover by Lawrence, D.H.

I have already complained about how fascist this book is. Why does modern commentary elide on its very violent racism and sexism and homophobia? I don't think its erotic worldview offers much to not fascist post sex liberation readers lol.

The Idiot by Batuman, Elif

Sorry. Girl at Harvard was not compelling as expected, but I did get a lot from the third act where the protagonist confronts her love interest for real - honest writing that doesn't shy away from difficult conversations.

The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, Mikhail

Stalin era Soviet satire (its a month for it!) Very conversant with Faust, which I had not read so that I think diminished my understanding of the book. Absurd, very Christian and very funny about the comedic aspects of Soviet life. Loved the ending, almost Tolkein like in its hope for pretty broken characters.

The World in a Grain of Sand: Postcolonial Literature and Radical Universalism by Majumdar, Nivedita

Postcolonial Lit: The Takedown. Incisive, excellent, gave me a lot of books I want to try that the author points to as bucking the trend of compliance to particularist, oft parochial and usually defeatist understandings that dominate the genre.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

also Bookclub pick. Devastating. Very effective use of the limited POV to illustrate the way shame damns love. Every few pages wrecked me. Tight and sparing with characterisation + description, but delirious with how emotionally close you ride with the protagonist. Best book I have read in a while.