#its very upsetting because it's so irrational and gross when he gets all mad about her being there

[grrrlsoverdramas]

I feel like Minwoo in this episode (and throughout the show so far) is a great example of the thin line between prejudice and more insidious supremacist belief systems. Like racism vs white supremacy or sexism vs the patriarchy.

He chooses to ignore the way ableist systems make things harder for Youngwoo and is more predisposed than others to make rude judgments or assumptions about her.  But his anger stems almost exclusively from feelings that she’s his competition or she’s taking “his” place.  He dislikes Sooyeon for her background but doesn’t spew the same vitriol about her because he feels he’s better than her, or that it’s possible for him to surpass her.  He doesn’t like how society is unfairly more biased toward the rich/elite (he complains about this consistently enough), but he’ll put up with the CEO being CEO due to nepotism because it doesn’t limit him at this point in his life. But the moments he recognizes that Youngwoo has skills he can’t compete against are the moments where he cries foul.  

It makes me think of recent American news stories where many people who don’t have “strong” anti-trans opinions are suddenly against this idea that trans women should compete in sports at the elite level because they’ll win.  Like, it’s ok if you’re different from me but only if you are less than me.  Instead of thinking about how this reveals that our way of gendering competitions is arbitrary and flawed, and trying to find solutions to how we could level competitions more fairly for everyone, there is a kneejerk reaction to simply exclude your competition and then some sort of mental gymnastics to justify why you (be that as an “abled” “cis” etc person) deserve to be prioritised.

Or, like a book I read this summer about the history of craftsmanship in America that talked about how white male labor organizations consistently argued for the exclusion of or codified low wages for black workers or foreign workers or female workers whenever they felt that these groups “threatened” their pay or employment, instead of arguing for fair pay and fair labor practices for all.  And employers would use black, foreign or female workers to pit against or undermine their white male workers, but white men rarely responded with solidarity.

Ultimately, Youngwoo deserves to have her job and the only reason she needed “nepotism” (which isn’t what happened... her dad didn’t ask for her to get her job... if anything she was hired in part because could be used against a rival lawyer, which is weird but not nepotism) was because of ableism.  And I do think Minwoo understands that on some level, but he can’t see past this idea that everyone has to compete with him with the exact same skills and background he has or it’s unfair.  Once again, he has literally no empathy.  His entire worldview is informed by how things affect him and how he feels.

We’re on this emotional journey with him, seeing how personal biases like ableism, sexism and selfishness can morph into actions and stances that exist almost purely to uphold deeply prejudiced and unfair systems of class, patriarchy and abled supremacy under the guise of “fairness” or NIMBYism.

[mermaidsirennikita]

this feels like a dumb question but was dany's downfall an example of sexism on the show? like do i just not get it, why is everyone so dead-set on calling it sexism? to be clear i absolutely do not want to give d&d very much credit cause they've made some pretty gross choices before, and i get that its f'ed up to be killed by a significant other,but is the descent into madness plot sexist or do her fans just not like it?(terrible writing/execution put aside, one thing at a time here)

Not a dumb question at all!

You’re right to be confused about why everyone is calling it sexism.  Sexism is one of those things, in my opinion, that is diminished to a degree when people use it as a catch-all.  You can’t say that something is sexist because it portrays a woman in a bad light, or in the light you don’t want.  (Because I think that if only there was a better pacing this season–if we’d had time to revel in Dany’s villain and if Emilia PLAYED it the way she should have instead of being upset about not playing the hero–Dany would have been a fantastic villain.  There’s a value in that, and a power in great female villains.  Cersei is one of the show’s greatest characters, and a huge credit to Lena Headey–she’ll be remembered over plenty of “good” women on the show.)  

Fans just don’t like it, and I think that even if the pacing and writing had been better, a considerable portion of people who are upset now would have been upset.  Some are genuinely mostly annoyed by the writing and execution, but when you focus on sexism without acknowledging or in fact actively defending the reasons why lots of critics have taken issue with the white saviorism of Dany’s character…  I’m gonna doubt that you’re really up in arms about misogyny.  People are using sexism as a way to shut down the argument.  If it’s sexist, it’s automatically bad.  I actually REALLY hate this take, because guess what–I love a good descent into villainy.  I love the tropes of the feminine descent into madness, and I don’t think that using them is inherently bad if it’s done well and if it EXAMINES what is happening.  (And Dany didn’t go mad, in my opinion–she had something of a meltdown, but she was never delusional to the extent that her father was.  Viserys was more actively mad than Dany, and his final scene, provoking Drogo in a totally irrational way, illustrates that.  For Dany, this was lashing out.  Killing innocent people was rational to her, because she did rationalize it–as collateral damage.  She was never risking herself or those she directly cared about.  She’d already won.  I don’t see anything psychotic or delusional or even irrational there, she’s just a shitty person.)

Revealing that a woman who was always set up to be entitled, to have a fanatical belief in herself–THAT SHE ATTESTS TO IN ACTUAL DIALOGUE!!!–believes so fervently in her own divine cause that she’s willing to kill for it… is not sexist.  It means that Dany is willing to go further than some of her fans wanted to believe.  Sure.   But that’s not sexist.  In fact, we saw a male character do much of the same thing; Stannis also did something incredibly horrible because of his fervent belief in himself and his right to the throne.  Dany got a faaaar more sympathetic edit than Stannis, so I don’t really see how she’s being vilified because she’s a woman.  People are trying to say that men on the show get a pass that she didn’t, and I just… don’t see it.  

I’d argue that it’s actually kind of sexist to suggest that you shouldn’t write women as tyrants, shouldn’t write them as entitled and paranoid and prone to slaughter.  Like you said, this was not a well-written or well-executed turn, but as a turn it’s not bad.

And Jon killing Dany…  Listen, whatever.  I’m not going to sit there and act like the dramatic slaying of a tyrant at the hands of their lover is akin to real-life domestic violence.  For one thing, the act of stabbing someone as you’re making out with them is literally this fantastical artistic visual trope.  For another, it had a lot less to do with Dany being killed by her love than it had to with Dany, the final great threat of the show, being killed by someone who was prophesied to Do A Big Thing.  She didn’t die to further Jon’s character development.  She didn’t die in this sexualized manner–if their chemistry was better, it would read as tragically as it should have and everyone would love it.  It’s about both of them fulfilling their destinies.  She fulfilled hers–the prophecy she saw in the House of the Undying.  So now Jon must fulfill the destiny that was prophesied for him, the reason he wasn’t allowed to die.

I wish I’d written this better, but these are my thoughts.  I mean, really–how about people focus on the actual cases of sexism and misogyny on the show, because I didn’t see this much outrage when Sansa spent an entire season getting sexually assaulted.  Nor did people seem all that concerned when Margaery was turned into a weird sexual predator because the writers wanted sex jokes and an opportunity to make the most of Natalie Dormer’s sex appeal.