#not because there is any kind of white oppression. but because misogyny is shared between everyone experiencing it but there is no 'default

[nothorses]

I think these conversations would go better if we conceptualized terms like "homophobia", "transphobia", and "misogyny" not as the "basic" oppression that you start with until you sprinkle intersectionality on top, but rather as names for where more complex experiences overlap.

"Transphobia" is not the "base" we start with and build on with other experiences; it's the place where more specific experiences overlap. It's the middle of the venn diagram where "transmisogyny", "transandrophobia", and "exorsexism"/"nbphobia" all overlap with each other.

It's the thing we all have in common; not the thing that some people get extra special versions of while others do not.

[thebutchtheory]

Baeddels as a group of transmasc hating separatist are long gone, and they never were a real influence to begin with. There are some transfem users who have "baeddel" in their url, but it doesn't mean they share the views of a caricature baeddel painted by the Tumblr discourse. As it was said before, baeddel is used in the same way "feminazi" was used. And the person to whom velvet referred to using they/them pronouns was just saying that many transmasc have relationship with the male privilege similar to those relationship of other marginalized men. Which means they can have it, but it's severely limited by their transness. Which is literally correct. And that's the thing about many popular transfeminine bloggers who post about transmisogyny here, their words will be seen in the worst possible light and then be used against them. Talking about baeddels as some clique who will ban transmasc from trans spaces any moment makes someone seem like they treat any transfem who talks about her experience with caution

I wouldn't consider them 'long-gone', they're definitely still around. On 4chan, twitter, I've seen them personally and on blogs like baeddel-txt, saying honest to god gender essentialist radfem shit about how transmascs aren't oppressed. Broadly, though, this is true. Baeddels as a group are not nearly as influential as a lot of transandrobros want to make them out to be, they just can't tell the difference between an honest to god baeddel who believes that transmascs aren't oppressed in any meaningful way at all, and a trans woman with a limited view on the experiences of trans men, trying to create words for the way that she is oppressed and occasionally stepping over the line a bit with her assumptions about the transmasc experience. They can't tell the difference between an honest to god baeddel, and a trans woman who is pointing out that many trans men can get and do have access to male privilege due to registering as male consistently.

And yeah--the thing that a lot of tmascs don't want to acknowledge is that yes, you are oppressed and marginalized, and I personally don't see anything inherently wrong with creating words for your oppression, but they will refuse to believe they have any kind of privilege because that idea makes them uncomfortable. They associate the words 'male privilege' in the same way that a lot of white people view 'white privilege'; that having privilege automatically means that you don't get murdered for being marginalized, when that's not what that means. It means that even if you are somewhat of a 'failed' man or 'less' of a man in the eyes of the patriarchy, being a man--more specifically, consistently passing as a man--still means that you'll get put first before the marginalized women of your groups. Look at misogynistic black men, misogynistic gay men, misogynistic disabled men. Their misogyny gets excused because they are men, even if they are marginalized men.

I think the breakdown of communication happens when either tmascs assume someone is saying you can simply identify into male privilege when they didn't, or anti-transandrobros directly imply that, though that's far less common. No, male privilege isn't something that you can just identify into whenever you want to, not interpersonally and certainly not systemically. You don't cut your hair and bind and immediately get access to male privilege. You can't even bind and cut your hair and immediately pass in the majority of cases. But at some point, you have to recognize that the more you pass, the more your interactions both interpersonally and systemically will change because you register as a man. Many things will change in your favor. That is male privilege.

The nonsensical thought processes that a lot of transandrobros have about these discussions have absolutely caused them to turn 'baeddels' into some kind of boogeyman instead of looking at the problems in the community for what they are: gender essentialism, [trans]misogyny, and lateral transphobia.

It's easy to see where these breakdowns happen when you purposefully and actively follow people on all sides of the discussion to see what both sides are actually saying, instead of what one side makes up about the other, and it just gets so infuriating. I want to be on the side of transmascs talking about transmasc specific issues because there are issues of erasure and systemic oppression that do not get talked about by anyone but transmascs, there are criticisms of the TME/TMA binary that I really agree with as a GNC butch on HRT, despite using/liking those terms in a broad sense. But so much of the community has unchecked [trans]misogyny and really extreme mindsets regarding 'stepping out of line' or accidentally not using the most perfect and 'politically correct' (for lack of a better term) language possible. That honestly makes it really difficult to take a lot of these discussions seriously, personally, when so many transmascs are so clearly not understanding of misogyny and their ability to perpetuate it, or the unique positions they/we hold in the trans community as passing women, testo-butches, trans men/mascs who pass, etc.

Everyone in the transandrobro community wants to discuss how transmascs are victimized, but don't want to talk about the particular ways in which privilege touches us, and that's a complete death to any discussions of the oppressions of trans men. Talking about the privilege that black men have for being men doesn't somehow erase the constant, chronic marginalization of them. In fact, the ways that their manhood intersects with their marginalization gets them perceived as 'aggressive' or 'threatening' by broader society much more quickly and in more vicious ways than it may happen to black women, especially when talking about a black man's relation to a white woman, all because they're men and because the patriarchy deigns that men are aggressive, threatening, violent, protectors, stronger than women, the ones who fight, etc. There are very similar things that happen to transmascs that are worth talking about, because the patriarchy affects men negatively too, and gender essentialism is very broadly unchecked in queer communities everywhere in ways that can and do affect queer men negatively. The ways that privilege intersects with marginalization affects how a marginalized person is treated in a lot of circumstances, and failing to analyze how that applies to trans men more is kind of a huge miss.

This is what intersectionality is about, and yet I rarely if ever see a transmasc talking about these intersectionalities. It's not because they don't happen, I've personally experienced the behavior differences around me pre-T and after one year of T, even as someone who doesn't bind on purpose and regularly uses the women's restroom. I've seen it with my own mom and sister, how they've changed the way they react to me before and after T. This isn't something that doesn't happen, I just don't see it getting talked about in transandrobro spaces like at all. I only see it talked about by anti-transandrobros. For transandrophobia to be a better constructed theory, there needs to be much more discussion about the privileges of [marginalized] manhood. If you know about your privilege and where it extends to, you can weaponize it in favor of other marginalized people around you very easily, as well as helping you to approach certain situations with more caution, and to help you avoid perpetuating misogyny and becoming like the trans men discussed in the last ask I answered.

Recognizing your privilege doesn't discount your oppression, and if acknowledging that makes you uncomfortable you need to go back to intersectionality class. If you think baeddels are a genuine problem for the community in the present day you need to stop seeing every transfem that criticizes you as a baeddel and instead analyze why having to confront your privilege is so uncomfortable for you. Goodbye.

[musical-chick-13]

Barbie Movie = White feminism

I do genuinely get what this movie was going for. And I think what it was going for is genuinely admirable: the idea that, as a woman, even if you do everything """right""" according to prejudiced society, if you are thin and white and young and stereotypically pretty and personable and not intimidating, you will still suffer the effects of misogyny. No woman is immune.

However, I think that message got...muddied. This is probably going to get really long, so I'll put the rest under a cut.

The narrative focus is on how different the Real World is from Barbie Land regarding the treatment of women, but in Barbie Land, there are WOC in positions of political power. Racism and transphobia don't seem to exist (at least, not in any way that we see). These things, as we know, do exist in the real world, so if the intention is to highlight the disparity between locations, the fact that other forms of prejudice are never even MENTIONED is a little odd. I don't think this was done with malicious intent, but as you said, the discussion of feminism in this movie is...very white.

Especially since our female co-lead is a Latina woman. She gives a very vulnerable, deeply personal account of what it's like living in the world as a woman and all the angles of oppression she faces for that (something so emotionally weighty it is the key to the plot's resolution), and there is...zero discussion in any of that about what life is like for her as a woman of color, or any of the expectations that are placed on her because of that. If Gloria's experiences with misogyny are so integral to the movie's themes and to her relationship to the world at large, why not include...anything about racism or racial identity?

I also feel like there's just...a very simplistic view of how the patriarchy works. Which, no, you can't break down the intricacies of an entire oppressive social system in the space of a two hour movie. But to suggest that just...acknowledging? Misogyny? Is enough to successfully fight back against it is...the most charitable thing I can call that is "overly-optimistic."

(Like. Trust me. We're aware of the expectations placed on us as women and how much those suck. We can't "rob the patriarchy of its power" just by talking about the patriarchy.)

And the idea that...just coming into contact with patriarchal ideas will completely brainwash you? I get that everything is exaggerated in Barbie Land and that it's not a one-to-one representation of real life, but that sat...weirdly. With me. Yeah, people are absolutely going to internalize some negative or inaccurate things about women by virtue of living in a patriarchal system, but plenty of women (as well as people of other genders) go through life without falling all the way down the misogyny rabbit hole. Outside of Stereotypical Barbie and Weird Barbie (who both had plot reasons for being "immune"), this was every woman. To the most extreme degree. And, again, I just...kind of question why. What is the implication supposed to be here? Are women inherently comically-susceptible to propaganda? Is it impossible for them to de-internalize misogynistic ideas of their own accord, to the point where someone else who is miraculously free of misogyny needs to "debug" them? The optics of this confuse me a little bit.

And there's some other stuff, too, that fell flat for me. Barbie Land is supposed to be a place where the men are treated like women are treated in real life, but we don't...really see that until much later in the movie, when they talk about how the Kens don't have places to stay and have no political representation. (And, sorry, but the solution to "the Kens have no home" is not "the Barbies need to let them stay with them." It's "build the Kens their own homes and make them accessible." You are entitled to safe and secure housing by virtue of being a person. You are not entitled to sharing housing with someone you're romantically interested in.) And the way that Barbie handles her unwanted relationship with Ken is...pretty much exactly the way women try to navigate unwanted advances from men in real life: avoiding explicitly romantic activities by saying she has social obligations, keeping a physical distance in the hope that he'll give up on trying to kiss her, making her annoyance as clear as she can in the hopes that he'll take the hint and leave her to her own devices. Women in real life do these kinds of things to avoid actively rejecting men (because sometimes actively rejecting them means they hurt us, or worse) and although Barbie's behavior isn't done as a defense against potential misogynistic violence, she's still acting in exactly the same way in exactly the same context as people who do have that fear. Ken is the one instigating this relationship, and Ken is the one who keeps trying to reestablish the relationship's boundaries. So even in the face of all of this, the specific takeaway is supposed to be, "The solution to oppression is not to make men oppressed the way that women are because look how equally horrible it is." But between the way Barbie and Ken's relationship is framed and the lack of specificity in how the Kens are treated, we don't actually have a consistent depiction of men being oppressed in the way that women are, which throws that whole message off.

But mostly...maybe this is just a me thing, but I question why we need a story about how It Would Also Be Bad If There Was A Matriarchy. We can barely even get people to discuss the misogyny that currently exists and admit that it's still a problem; we are not in danger of replacing the current system with the inverse by Going Too Far In The Other Direction, not any time soon. I just don't think that discussion is valuable right now because there's no chance of that outcome--of elevating women so much they become Oppressors Of Men--even happening. (Note: I am aware that some r*df*ms/t__fs are VERY much pro-subjugating-men-because-they're-inherently-evil, they are the minority, the general population is not anywhere NEAR that point of view.)

There were some really good things in this movie. America Ferrerra's monologue about how no matter which way you live as a woman, you're "doing it wrong" was incredibly true and incredibly relevant. The Mattel executive being SO insistent that he Loves Women but has exactly zero of them on his board. The fact that the Ken Movie sold out in-universe and made a bunch of money pre-release just because it was about a man. Making fun of the "Just take a girl's glasses off, then she's Pretty™" trope. THE DEPRESSION BARBIE WITH PANIC-ATTACK BARBIE SOLD SEPARATELY. I laughed a lot and there were a lot of genuinely emotionally-resonant moments, including from the standpoint of "Oh hey, I see/suffer from this type of misogyny too!" But I don't think this movie was saying anything particularly new or profound about feminism. Which it's okay if a movie isn't profound! I like plenty of things that exist just to be fun or enjoyable! But I got the feeling this movie was trying to be profound and make some sort of grand, revolutionary statement. And even if it wasn't, a lot of people are acting like it's the key to solving sexism and I just don't think that's merited.

[realfactsnlogic]

In which I write this because this post is *genuinely* not good for Twitter’s word count…let alone Twitter itself

‪I saw a post about a trans woman sharing her thoughts about the doomposting by newly out or closeted trans women who tend to start off being insecure about passing and essentially hinge on the perceptions of strangers.

Me, not realizing I am a trans man commenting on a trans woman, I shared my thoughts, agreeing with what she said in her thread.

Someone saw my comment and said that while the fact that I’m a man commenting on a woman’s post was initially irritating, he checked my profile and saw that I’m like a parallel universe version of him.

At first, I didn’t know what to say. It felt like a compliment. Not backhanded, but not the superficial, hugboxing, ego-boosting kind either. It just felt “good.” Now that I’ve typed this out, I’m thinking…holy moly am I a masochist getting off to this kind of thing?

Digression aside, I get this logic. Trans men are men, and trans women are women, right? (Spoilers: yes, that is true, and nobody will change my mind on that.) I saw a tweet going around one time that said “trans men are the Men of this community” — of course some of the trans guys I’d see on the For You TL got upset about this, maybe some trans girls too. But despite being a chronic grass toucher due to my job, I somehow had a basic grasp the reasoning behind the belief.

The reasoning, in short terms: men suck. Especially of the white, cisgender, heterosexual kind. Or even any of those combinations of the three. So yes, I get it. I get the so-called “man hatred” online. I talk with feminists IRL, and call myself one, for the sake of all that’s holy. Of course I’d know what the patriarchy does to an mf.

I may be a man now, but as I settle into my 20’s, I’m still getting used to This Whole Being a Man Thing — I’m new to this concept about being perceived as…well, a man. To be a little bit more personal, I can be considered a “trans kid” or “trans youth” considering I came out when I was 13, but that can entail being raised in a pretty patriarchal environment. Still, my backstory doesn’t excuse the fact that I *do* hold privilege. *Acquired* male privilege, as I like to call it.

While trans men can be oppressed for being assigned female at birth (misogyny), oppressed on the basis of being trans (transphobia), we’re still men at the end of the day. And men (can) suck.

I really don’t want to bring race to this conversation, but if we’re gonna get intersectional: I an Asian trans man, was commenting on a white trans woman’s post. I’ll put the race thing on the table. Both of us have went through gender affirming medical care.

So when it comes to this thing about gender—this reinvented Gender War between trans girls and trans guys and non binary people — what takes precedence? I wish I had the answer aside from wanting everyone to hold hands and sing Kumbayah.

Maybe I should make my own thread one day, but I want my status being an open secret kind of thing. It’s being “Stealth Lite”.‬ My trans status should be known on a case by case basis. I consciously chose this, even if it was slightly motivated by fear of being mistreated for being trans. Yeah, that’s my passing privilege showing, but hey. I’m doing my best to use it to defend the people who lack it.

To any trans guy who finds this: fellas, i know it’s tough that people are realizing that “trans men are men. and since men suck, we should be including them” or whatever. I get it. It does hurt our egos when “trans men are men” is a phrase being used to mock the shitty nature of many (cis and mainly hetero) men. But we’re men, right? We straighten up, stiffen our upper lips and move on.

I know that last sentence is problematic. And to clarify, I don’t mean it sarcastically. But I hope you can understand what I meant to say.

To put it bluntly while also softening my “tough love” language: a lot of men, especially the cis and mainly hetero ones, tend to have fragile egos. This is especially applied to the trans men I’ve seen who have lived as men since they were in their teens.

When we see the complaints by trans women online, especially those of colour, and especially if you’re a white trans man reading those tweets—listen. Don’t get defensive. Learn something from your trans sisters.

i certainly will, and will continue to do so. check your privilege, including the ones you’ve acquired.

everyone has to. even me.

*drops the mic*

[eulangelo]

Aight, I’ve got a few points I wanna make and give to you (and other people who hate transandrophobia bs):

1. People have forgotten the very useful term ‘conditional privilege’, which would clear up so much of the black and white thinking when it comes to talking about different forms of systemic oppression. Damn near ALL of us have some sort of conditional privilege, whether we want to admit it or not. This is specifically helpful when talking about social issues between different minority groups because it acknowledges both, the oppression and the privileges we have, while giving room for there to be nuance.

2. Men who are also minorities in other ways (being trans or non-white or not straight for example), will still have access to certain privileges that the women who they share these communities with will not have access to because of misogyny. The ‘conditional’ part only comes into play when it comes to those men challenging white cisheteronormative ways of thinking which will make them targets of bigotry. Since so many transmascs like to bring race into this conversation, here’s an example: while black men are definitely targets of rampant anti-black racism, they still hold privilege over black women and often are the first ones to spread misogyny within their own community, which in turn causes even more harm to black women (especially black trans women) since they already didn’t have access to same privileges given to white people and men.

3. That kid who responded to you claiming that you need to ‘listen to trans men of color’ while linking literally only 5 other transandrophobia truthers of color while I’ve seen hundreds of trans men/transmascs of color talk about how much they HATE the term gives me the same vibes when white kids try to tokenize their friends of color to prove a silly ass point 😂 And yes, they’re black but going back to my previous point: just because someone is a part of a certain community does not make them the spokesperson of that community. Being black and transmasc simply means you’re a person who has the lived experiences of being in both of those communities, not that you get to call the shots on what’s acceptable or not in either of them. Especially, if you’re only trying to use your identity to ‘prove someone wrong’ and not actually have legitimate sources or reasons behind the existence of this term.

4. My last point (I promise 😉): transandrophobia truthers want the privileges of being men while still being able to claim the victimhood of being women and it very much has it’s roots in the white victimhood mentality that they often can’t shed, even after they’ve come out and/or started to transition. This may sound mean or harsh but honestly, a lot of the white/white passing trans men and transmascs who push this term so hard still have white womanhood to fall back on. They’re still used to their voice being the one that’s taken seriously, even by cis men. That is a specific kind of privilege afforded only to white women (or those perceived as such 👀). They want the treatment that they see cis men get for being men, yet still want access into women’s spaces (particularly those where trans women are uplifted) so they can speak over women without being called out on their blatant misogyny.

Like, this is something I can attest to personally: whenever I hung out with white trans men irl, I could not feel safe around them because of the egregious amount of racism and misogyny they carried with them. They would always find a way to blame women either for not accepting their aggressive performances of cishet masculinity or for the way feminine men are treated by cishet society when they still got called out on their misogyny while they did the ‘uwu soft boy’ aesthetic.

I genuinely think the only reason so many transandrophobia truthers exist is because they want to gain a ‘monopoly’ on oppression while never taking any accountability for their own bigotry, specifically towards trans women/transfems. And to be even more honest: I don’t think trans men/transmascs have such hyper specific issues that really call for a term all their own. This is just my opinion but every single issue they have tried to bring up as ‘unique’ to trans men/transmascs…is literally something we share with other trans people or TME people. Reproductive rights and proper prenatal care (literally sharing it with cis women and nonbinary folks who aren’t transmasc). Assault based on our genitalia (literally can happen to anyone, even trans women). 😐😐😐 like…c’mon now…

yeah i p much agree with everything, and ive seen the op of that post saying that transandrophobia is the intersection of the transphobia+misogyny that trans men face (quoting word for word). to me that whole movement is literally just rebranded radical feminism with trans men being the focus instead of cis women. they will gladly play the victim whenever called out and absolutely refuse to own up to their wrongoings in a way that's typical of white cis feminism, where they believe they can do no wrong and that whoever calls them out is a predator/aggressor that wants their death or physical harm. similarly to them they revolve their activism on genitals and biological sex, saying "transandrophobia is the oppression against trans people who menstruate" or bringing up the reproductive health issue to back up why we need a term to talk about these transmasc-only issues (despite completely ignoring afab nonbinaries who arent men or masc-aligned). they will also pretend to be progressive and supportive of any and all identities yet they have no issues when misgendering a trans person they disagree with (not only has this happened to me, there's witches-of-color and visibility-of-color who were the victims of an actual harassment campaign perpetrated by transandrophobia truthers and they were repeatedly misgendered and had their gender identity invalidated multiple times by them) because deep down i think they know they don't really give a shit about making activism for transmascs, they just want to center any and all discussion of trans issue over them to discredit transfems and to not be held accountable for their tme privilege at all. it is a highly dangerous mindset and it should only be publicly condemned.

[jamlavender]

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: Mrs Coulter, misogyny and the His Dark Materials TV show

The show went hard on misogyny as a vital part of Mrs Coulter’s backstory, and I want to talk about how they did it, and why, and how it might have been done better. This is quite long (when is anything I write not, let’s be real) so it’s under the cut. Read on for thoughts on women, power and fictional villainy.

As a quick disclaimer, though: I’ve enjoyed the show a lot! I’m so glad they made it! Ruth Wilson is mesmerising as Mrs Coulter! There’s so much to appreciate about the show overall, including many aspects of Mrs Coulter’s portrayal. But the HDM team have also made gender politics and misogyny very explicit themes of the show – particularly season two, particularly season two, episode five – and I think it’s fair to critique that.

Let’s be clear: Mrs Coulter is a villain. She murders kids by tearing out their souls. She kills and tortures friends and foes alike without a second thought. She abuses her daughter. She upholds and advances a totalitarian regime. She’s a Bad Person, as confirmed by God himself with the unforgettable line: “You are a cesspit of moral filth.” She’s fucking terrible, but, in life as in art, many of us are fascinated by how such awful people are made. What drives someone to commit atrocities? I am keen to see such questions examined in fiction, because I don’t think exploring a character necessarily means excusing their actions, and because it’s interesting (I mean, of course I find her fascinating, I’ve written a novel’s worth of fic about her). However, after a few snarky comments (“What sort of woman raised Father Graves, do you think?”) and some subtler commentary on sexuality, gender and power (her unsettling MacPhail with the key in the bra in S1E2), S2E5 drew a weird line between sexism in Mrs Coulter’s professional and academic life and her vast and senseless institutionalised child murder, and the longer I’ve sat with that the more I’m like: what the fuck?

Look, Mrs Coulter doesn’t tear apart children to search for sin inside them and poison Boreal and break a witch’s fingers because she’s experienced sexism in the workplace and in her education. That’s… a very odd thing to imply. We have to remember that there are lots of women in Lyra’s world, all of whom will also have experienced sexism, misogyny and other forms of marginalisation (many in more expansive and pernicious ways than Mrs Coulter, who’s a woman, yes, but also white, wealthy, highly educated and very thin and beautiful), and none of them are running arctic torture stations. She will have experienced misogyny, absolutely, and that will have affected her in various ways that inform how she approaches her work, but to imply that being denied a doctorate is the reason she became a sadistic killer is frankly bizarre. Here are a few of the lines from that episode with my commentary:

“Do you know who I could have been in this world?” What does this mean? If she’d been roughly the same person in our world, the answer is: Margaret Thatcher, which is probably a step down for Marisa, all things considered, because the Magisterium is far more autocratic than any recent Tory government and would be a much easier institutional environment in which to enact her cruelty. What we’re supposed to think, clearly, is that she’d have been a different person: a scientist and a mother, and she’s had this realisation because she saw a woman with a baby and a laptop and had a three-minute conversation with Mary. This doesn’t make sense. We live in our world! It’s less repressive than Lyra’s world but it’s hardly a gender utopia. If Mrs Coulter had chosen the scientist-and-mother life (which, as I’ll revisit later, she could have done in her world but chose not to because of her megalomaniac tendencies), she’d still have been affected by misogyny here too. Our world is not kind to young mothers, nor young women embroiled in scandals, nor is the world teeming with female physicists. It might be a little better, sure, but it’s hardly as if those gendered challenges would have been solved.  

“What do you mean she runs a department?” This is just the show forgetting its own canon. Marisa, you ran a massive government organisation (the GOB), including a huge murder science research initiative in the Arctic. That’s a much bigger undertaking and much more impressive than running a university department in our world. Pull yourself together.

“But because I was a woman, I was denied a doctorate by the Magisterium.” This is the show flagrantly ignoring the source material to make a clumsy political point. In the books, there are women with doctorates (notably Hannah Relf, also a major player in the new Book of Dust trilogy) and at least one women’s college full of female scholars. Now, would that women’s college likely be underfunded and disrespected compared to the men’s colleges? Almost certainly. But saying that is different than saying “I couldn’t get my doctorate!” when women in Lyra’s world can. The show knew what point they wanted to make, and were willing to ignore canon to do so, which is frustrating. Also, given that there are female academics and scientists in Lyra’s world, and that Mrs Coulter is a member of St Sophia’s college, it’s clear that she could have lived that life if she so desired. But she didn’t want that, because being a scientist and academic at St Sophia’s imbues her with no real power, and that’s what she craves.

I’m not opposed, in theory, to exploring Mrs Coulter and misogyny in more depth, but I think doing so through an examination of the sexual politics of her life would have made a lot more narrative sense and been much more powerful. It’s better evidenced in the text – her using her sexuality to manipulate people and taking lovers for political sway is entirely canon, as is her backstory where genuine love and lust blew up her life – and it links much more closely with the most shocking of her villainy, which involves cutting out children’s dæmons to stop them developing “troublesome thoughts and feelings,” referencing sexual and romantic desire (and what Lyra and Will do to save Dust is clearly a big ‘fuck you’ to those aims). She even says this to MacPhail in TAS, “If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care - the care! - of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches - if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.” Don’t get me wrong, she’d have been a villain regardless, but I do believe that there’s a much stronger link between her sexual and romantic experiences and her murder work than between professional and academic stifling and child murder. It would have been a lot more interesting and a lot less tenuous.

However, the show is trying to be family-friendly, and digging into why this terrible, cruel woman might want to cut the ability for desire and love (and other non-sexual adult feelings, I’m sure) out of people could get dark. We know that the show doesn’t want to go there, because they’ve actively toned down her weaponising her sexuality: in the books, she has an established sexual relationship with Boreal, whereas the show made it seem like she’s been stringing him along all this time, and made it about potentially ‘sharing a life’ together rather than fucking, which was clearly the arrangement in the books. Also, I think Ruth Wilson said she and Ariyon Bakare filmed a “steamy scene” together, and given that only a single chaste kiss between them aired it must have been cut. I think they deliberately minimised the sexual elements of the text, particularly regarding Mrs Coulter (the mountain scene with Asriel, which I did still love, was also a lot less horny than in the book) and replaced that with another gender issue, that of professional sexism, as if the two are interchangeable, which they are not. This is a shame, both for Mrs Coulter’s character and also for the story as a whole, because the characters’ relationships with sex and desire are an important part of the books! (If this minimised sexuality approach means that they don’t use the TAS scene where Asriel threatens to gag her and she tries to goad him into doing it, I’ll scream). Overall, I think they missed the mark here, which is a shame because I also think it could have been done well, if they’d been bolder and darker and more thoughtful.

Why might this happen? Why might the show take this approach? Why might it be latched onto by viewers? Personally, I think the conversations we have about women and power are very simplistic, which leaves us in a tight spot when we see women seizing power for themselves (even in fiction) and weaponising that against others, not just other women but people of all genders, because we struggle to move past ‘women have overall been denied power, so them taking it ‘back’ is good,’ even if that immediately becomes a hot mess of white, corporate feminism and results in the ongoing oppression of many people. I think we are so hungry for representations of powerful women that we – producers and viewers alike – struggle to see them as bad, because it’s uncomfortable to be so intoxicated by Mrs Coulter effortlessly dominating the men around her, subverting systems designed to marginalise her for her own benefit, and generally being aggressive and intelligent and ruthless, and then realise that you are entranced by someone who is, objectively, a terrible, terrible person. It can be hard to realise that if you channelled the energy of someone who mesmerises you, you’d be the villain. So instead of sitting with that (more on this below), a lot of legwork goes into reworking her villainy into, somehow, a just act, a result of oppression, as her taking back power that has been denied to her, rather than grappling with the fact that for anyone to desire power in such a merciless way, even if they have to overcome marginalisation to get it, is really, really dangerous.

The joy, of course, is that Mrs Coulter is not real! She’s not real! Adoring fictional characters does not mean condoning their (imaginary) decisions, nor do stories exist for each person in them to fit neatly into a good or bad box so you know who you’re allowed to love. Furthermore, fiction can be a fabulous tool for exploring and interrogating the parts of yourself that, if left to bloom unexamined, might perpetuate beliefs or behaviour that cause harm to others. Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be a feminist or taking down the patriarchy or a righteous powerful woman to illuminate things about gender, power and feminism for those reading and watching. In fact, it’s important that we explore what happens when women (most commonly white, wealthy women, as she is) continue to perpetuate brutal systems under the guise of sticking it to ‘men,’ because it happens all the time in the real world, and it’s a serious issue. Finding characters like Mrs Coulter so cool and compelling doesn’t make you a bad person, but it might tell you something about yourself – not that you want to be a villain or kill kids or whatever, but something about how you relate to your gender or women or men or power – and that knowledge can be useful! We all have better and worse impulses, and finding art that helps us make sense of ourselves, both the good and bad parts, is a gift that we should relish.

Anyway, tl;dr, Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be sympathetic or understandable or redeemable to be brilliant – but you wouldn’t know that from how she’s been portrayed in the new adaptation.

[arislary]

I love Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen

I love everything about her character. What antis claim as mad or evil, is actually just pure power. It’s almost breathtaking to see. I hated the ending of Game of Thrones, I hate D&D for what they did to my Queen, but what she did wasn’t even half as bad as what other male characters have done. Obviously innocent people died and I am not defending that, but why is everything leading up to that moment ignored? Why is that the only thing antis will choose to focus on?

She is made out to be some crazy woman who can’t control her anger, but that isn’t who she is. Why is she brutalized for grieving? Her sons, her closest friend, her people were brutally murdered as she pledged her armies and dragons to fight for people who hated her and discriminated against her. The way I see the North and King’s Landing is the way I see America. Xenophobic, racist, and oppressive. The North hated Daenerys just by knowing her name, as did King’s Landing. You can’t tell me the people of King’s Landing would have treated her or her people any different. A group of people may realize that their past actions were wrong and yet rather than work to solve the issue, they pass the buck and blame someone else. 

I am tired of antis villainizing every single thing she does. It’s as if they think that as Queen she should bend and fold to every request or command her advisers or counsellors give her. If she were to do that, they would see her as weak and unfit for the crown, unable to make difficult decisions. It’s a double edged sword for her. She is the queen they don’t deserve. Westeros should burn for the damage it has done. They labeled her as a foreign whore from the start. They labeled the Dothraki, the Unsullied as foreign invaders when they SAVED all of their lives from the Dead. 

Am I surprised? No, how can I be when it was white directors writing this show for white people (excuse me if you find offense to this, but if you deny it, well I hate to break it to you, but you probably have some prejudices that you need to get over). Everything about this show is racist. And people will try to argue that well Dany is white, fucking obviously she’s white. There is a large difference here between Daenerys though and let’s say someone like Sansa or literally anyone from the North or King’s Landing. Daenerys freed people who were slaves their entire life and she didn’t do it in a way like White Saviors do, she did it because it was the right thing to do, because she was a slave and understood just how deep chains go, not just physical, but emotionally and mentally. She didn’t guilt trip people into following her, she didn’t use her name because in Essos, her name didn’t matter. She worked her way up, clawed her way to give people a better life. She could have taken the Iron Throne early on, but she made the choice to help people. She put aside her personal goals and desire because she knew what was happening in Slavers Bay was wrong. How many other characters can we name that would have made the same choice? How many would have put aside their selfish ambitions to free people? 

Why must heroes be seen as good inside and out? That’s not what a hero is, it’s what has been shoved down throats, and that’s not what Daenerys is. She’s a Queen who understands what it means to bring justice. What is justice, if not serving it the way it should be? No one showed Daenerys mercy when she was raped and sold. No one showed her mercy as she was chained and almost killed all throughout her life. She shows mercy when it’s due and brings justice when it is needed. Treason against a king or queen is penalty of death, so why when she brings death, is it suddenly so wrong? Why is it that women who are leaders are held to a higher moral standard, as if they must be gentle and kind at all times. I can’t help but compare her to Avatar Kyoshi. Are we going to villainize Kyoshi now for her actions as Avatar? She understood that there would be no peace without justice. Avatar Kyoshi didn’t use pretty words or hidden tactics to obtain that justice. She used her power and she didn’t regret nor take back her actions. She held strong to them, she was overall a strong, fierce Avatar. Daenerys Targaryen is an overall strong, fierce Queen. 

All those that hate on Daenerys and her actions all have underlying tones of misogyny and you can’t tell me otherwise. Sansa released dogs on her rapist, and people applauded her. Arya killed an entire House in the name of her family, and people applauded her. Sansa purposefully used her brother as bait and would have let her other brother die so that she could be queen. Sansa used knowledge that she swore not to share to not only kill Daenerys, but secure her power as Queen of the North. Must I even begin to list the things that Cersei Lannister has down? How many children, women, men have she killed to maintain her power? 

I know this post is all over the place, I can’t help, but defend this character who completely changed my way of thinking and looking at our own systems of government in this world. How we treat certain people, always seeing them as second class citizens. She legitimized Gendry because she knew he was not at fault for the actions of his usurper father. She made a dwarf her hand. A slave her closest adviser and translator. She earned everything, every title given to her, without using her name. She would have just been Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen, first of her name. The blood of Old Valryia and the Blood of the Dragon. 

Daenerys is not mad, nor evil. She’s not the villain of Game of Thrones. She was a queen who brought justice using Fire and Blood. Similar to every other king or lord, except they used Steel and Blood. They feared the change she was bringing. What would breaking the wheel mean for all of them? They wouldn’t get to continue to live their lives the way they wanted to. Doesn’t that familiar? A country not wanting to change their actions, so they kill the people crying out and working to bring justice. 

So I love Daenerys Targaryen. Unapologetically, I love her. She will forever be the true Queen, the only one worthy of such a title. 

[aion-rsa]

The Silence of the Lambs and Clarice’s Lifelong Battle Against the Male Gaze

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Special agent Clarice Starling is breathing heavily as she forces herself to turn the next tight corner. Between deep breaths, she knows somewhere in the back of her mind that she’s being watched. And she can assume those invisible, cold male eyes are making a judgement of her five-foot and three-inch frame: She’s in over her head. Yet she pushes past any condescending skepticism, and she perseveres  through the proverbial dark.

At a glance, this could apply to the climax of The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme’s masterful psychological thriller which finishes with a cat and mouse game of Starling (a peerless Jodie Foster) crawling through the dungeon created by Ted Levine’s Buffalo Bill. In that blackness, serial killer Bill most certainly watches her, playfully (mis)judging her aptitude for handling his house of horrors. Yet all of these elements are also evident in Silence of the Lambs’ very first scene.

On a sleepy late wintry morning in Virginia, we’re introduced to Starling already overcoming another manmade trap meant to exclude her. At the FBI’s Quantico obstacle course, we witness the quiet and earnest determination which defines Clarice as she ascends up a rope line and when she flips over a cargo net. She’s acutely aware that the deck is probably being stacked against her behind her back, but she remains unfatigued and undaunted. She doesn’t even wince when the FBI instructor who emerges from the shadows to summon her down to the office mispronounces her name: He calls her “Sterling.”

It’s only a few minutes at the top of Silence of the Lambs, but it’s shot with Demme’s signature attentiveness and subtlety. While the director never draws direct attention to his filmmaking and blocking techniques, his visual language is pristine and unmistakable.

From the jump, Clarice is in a maze, a labyrinth of manmade systems and challenges that appear to reject her very presence. And she never once steps away from their course. They’re with her at the finale in Buffalo Bill’s portal to hell, but they also manifest in the bureaucratic cages and then literal holding pens Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heard) ushers Clarice through as a power move—a brusque display of authority and arrogance after Clarice rebuffed Chilton’s sleazy pick-up line a moment earlier in the film. “See what an important man you missed the chance of getting to know?” he projects through a curdled sneer.

Chilton is, of course, taking Clarice to meet the man he calls “the Monster:” Dr. Hannibal Lecter (a mighty Anthony Hopkins who demonstrates the eviscerating power of stillness). And one doubts Dr. Lecter would disagree with that title. It’s easy to imagine the disgraced cannibal psychiatrist musing that if Clarice’s life is a series of mazes and evaded dead ends, then her lifetime amounts to a single, titanic struggle against a minotaur—the ultimate monster of Greek mythology who devoured young men and women fed into his maze.

Yet in Silence of the Lambs, the all-consuming Dr. Lecter is hardly the only monster in Clarice’s life, even if he is the creature at the center of Chilton’s labyrinth. Rather the real Monster (with a capital “M”) pursuing Clarice is just about every man she meets. Among them, Dr. Lecter is but an urbane drop in the ocean.

This is again foreshadowed during the film’s opening moments when, after coming down from the obstacle course, Clarice loads onto an elevator with a half-dozen other FBI trainees, each towering over her by at least a foot. Once more, Demme’s simple but eloquent framing of Clarice’s universe is devastating. In a snapshot, we can understand the white bread, buttoned up skepticism of the patriarchal institutions she’s attempting to join and improve. After all, in the next scene, her new boss Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) admits she caught his attention when she grilled him in a classroom over the FBI’s sordid history in the civil rights era.

Crawford welcomes Clarice’s earnestness and repudiation of the good ol’ boys’ club in law enforcement. Still, he only picks her for this assignment because he sees her as a proverbial honey pot meant to entice Dr. Lecter—a pretty face meant to appeal to the lonely and incarcerated cannibal. Hannibal takes it a step farther too when he asks if Clarice has considered that the kindly Jack Crawford is attracted to her? Dr. Lecter relishes planting the idea of Clarice’s boss fantasizing about her in the young agent’s mind. How else would Crawford think to pick her to interview the monster?

But these taunts, which are intended to embarrass, are rooted in Lecter’s two most powerful weapons: acute observational skills and the ability to speak uncomfortable truths. He uses them again during their final encounter before his escape, when Hannibal asks Clarice, “Don’t you feel eyes moving over your body?” Don’t you feel the male gaze objectifying and defiling?

One of the most remarkable things about Silence of the Lambs 30 years later is its intelligent and (much like Clarice) frank way of addressing the overt sexism and misogyny in society. This is not done in the sometimes ham-handed way of modern media, with didactic speeches and easily defeated abusers who get their deserved comeuppance. Instead this problem is shown to be the uncomfortable truth of our reality, and a truth that’s sadly changed little in three decades.

Even before Dr. Lecter verbalizes the oppressiveness of the male gaze, Clarice and the audience know it’s there in the elevator, and perhaps also with Crawford’s more smiling friendliness. It’s sometimes not even unwelcome, as when Clarice flirts with the gawky bug specialist at the Smithsonian (he even gets to attend her Quantico graduation later); but it’s constant, and mostly insulting if not outright predatory. Whether in the gaze of all those criminally insane patients whom Hannibal shares a cell block with or in a dozen hard stares from a West Virginian sheriff’s department, it is always menacing Clarice.

It’s fair to wonder whether it was harder for special agent Starling to draw a gun on Buffalo Bill or for Clarice to tell all those country bumpkin deputies to take a hike earlier in the movie so she and Crawford can examine the body of one of Bill’s victims. When she entered the funeral home with her boss, once again all these other law enforcement types had a foot above her in height, and their eyes closed that distance to cover her body. No one says an outwardly sexist or sleazy remark; they don’t have to. In fact, the only cruel word comes from her own boss when Crawford preemptively bends to the local prejudices by marking Starling as soft and lesser by virtue of her gender while chatting up the sheriff.

Later Crawford offers a halfhearted apology, saying he only did that to ingratiate himself with the regressive rube he needed information from. But Clarice is never one to let the right thing go unsaid.

“Cops look at you to learn how to act,” Clarice respectfully but assertively pushes back. “It matters.” Crawford smiles and shrugs, “Point taken,” before dozing off. But obviously the point is not taken, and the patronizing tone of even a decent man like Crawford belies his kindness. It demonstrates why the insidiousness of patriarchal double standards persists. Hence how at the end of the movie Crawford gets to go on the ill-fated raid of where the FBI thinks Buffalo Bill is living—leaving Clarice behind to actually crack the case on her own.

Even from his cage, Dr. Lecter can see this perpetual struggle within the moment Clarice steps before his plexiglass. She is, after all, a woman trying to advance in the FBI. Not that Hannibal is immune from this nastiness or is some kind of “ally.” In the same scene that Lecter asks about men’s eyes, his own stare attempts to consume Clarice whole. Long before Demme’s camera puts Foster in an extreme close-up, Hopkins’ baby blues are dominating the whole screen as Hannibal demands to know about the screaming of the lambs. Unblinking, they’re like the eyes of a deity. Or a devil.

And yet, Clarice can at least appreciate Hannibal’s bluntness and honesty about it, as well as the fact he always shoots straight with her, even when he lies or obscures the truth beneath word games. He’s the only man who admits to the double standards, and he points her in the right direction to capture Bill, albeit by leaving Clarice to put the clues together herself.

At the end of the day, Silence of the Lambs is Clarice’s story. Sure, Hopkins is spectacular as Hannibal, but even with her Oscar win for the role, Foster is often overlooked for her contributions as Starling. It’s a role that’s been imitated a thousand times since 1991—including with several other actresses playing Clarice—but it’s never been duplicated. There is a steadfast resilience here, sure, but also a quiet awareness that’s just as observant as Hopkins’ supervillain. She sees everything, including her own insecurities. Dr. Lecter brings them to the surface when he extracts the story of the screaming lambs from her memory, but she already knows what the crying lamb sounds like. She hears it almost every night.

Read more

Movies

Hannibal: Did Author Thomas Harris Try to Destroy Dr. Lecter?

By Don Kaye

TV

Clarice Review (Spoiler Free): No Hannibal, No Problem

By Tony Sokol

It’s all there in Foster’s own eyes, which is what gives her steely determination to overcome staying power in our minds. By the movie’s end, subtexts become text inside Buffalo Bill’s dungeon. For here is a basement that a man retrofitted into a torture chamber for women, members of the gender he covets and despises. As with the obstacle course, Clarice enters this space brazenly and defiantly, finding its labyrinthine center where Bill has turned off the lights.

Hidden behind his night vision goggles, the killer thinks he’s master, and Clarice is his next victim. One more sacrifice to feed upon. Finally, the male gaze we’ve spent the whole movie dreading from Clarice’s vantage is flipped, and we watch her through Bill’s green tinted voyeurism. This is the metaphor taken to its most extreme, with the camera sharing headspace with a serial killer. Yet it’s not too far removed from the Monster that’s stalked Clarice all her life. The grossness of Bill’s hesitant attempt to touch her hair, to take possession of Clarice’s body and personal space, is a reach every male in the film, save for Clarice’s father (the only other male the camera shares eyes with in a flashback), has made.

When Clarice once again turns the tables on this assumed authority and shoots Bill dead, she’s slayed one version of the minotaur and earned her perch in a system that’s resisted her. We see her triumph via the graduation at Quantico. Now she is a celebrity among the FBI. We also see it in Crawford’s genuine affection and admiration for the young woman.

Nevertheless, the maze he helped maintain persists, and the Monster takes another form. Thus even in her success, Clarice ends the film still framed in tight shadows, hanging onto the words of Dr. Lecter, who’s just put down the phone. She has the respectability and authority Hannibal lost long ago, but he can still move through this world in a way more liberated than any path Clarice has ever known.

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[lavendulaconminatio]

Years ago I ran a blog on ace discourse: @asleepingwindow As a lesbian raised in the Catholic Church, where you can be gay just don’t act on it, I knew asexual activism had nothing to do with being gay. I know an asexual gay person is the church’s fucking wet dream. I always insisted I don’t care whether people identify that way but stop trying to say you suffer as I do as a lesbian. Stop fucking invading lgbt spaces too and making them unsafe for us! But that was a losing battle. I wonder how this time period will be seen 20-30 years from an lgbt history perspective.

Anyway, besides knowing asexual gay people are the kind of gay people straight people want, I also hated this idea that seemed to be gaining popularity about people being more oppressed simply because they weren’t seen as valid. Validity didn’t mean laws meant to protect their population, or having police see your body as human and worthy of life; they merely meant existing in popular media so people see them. There was never anything deeper than that to so called asexual oppression, which I will never think is a thing. I mean asexuality is a thing but people don’t actively hate you for not having sex, that’s a fact of fucking life. My people died by the thousands in the 80s, sometimes with only lesbians to give a shit, and some straight person says their totes oppressed because they don’t want to fuck? Yeah ok. Or if there was a basis in oppression, it was often just blatant sexism and homophobia. All men say you’re a prude for not having sex, this is nothing special, Jan.

Now years later after arguing my heart out, making a master post and closing up shop, I find myself with another side blog to combat an issue that I once again feel harms lesbians and women. Instead of being more concerned about the men that berate, beat, and kill trans women, activists are literally attacking women, especially lesbians, for not validating trans people. The level of vitriol leveled at a woman for talking about her vagina is so above and beyond any hatred for the men who have murdered trans women.

Then in some perveted irony, those same deaths are propped up as reasons to shut down women talking about sexism. Meanwhile, more women than anyone can count die every day because they are female. We don’t get the luxury of our deaths being marked a hate crime. Instead it’s domestic violence, or maybe FGM gone wrong amoung the countless other things that needlessly and horrifically kill women. And I haven’t even talked about rape.

I knew the ridiculous activism of the asexual movement would have lasting consequences but I honestly never thought the concept of validity would be taken and warped so far to try and pretend biological sex doesn’t exist and that women aren’t female just to make trans women feel better about their dysphoria. I feel immense compassion for anyone with dysphoria, I have it and struggled for a long time to figure out if I was trans or a butch lesbian. There is such an immense disconnect here about the importance of validity and what real oppression looks like. Especially when you refuse to even discuss detrans people for fear it will make you seem less valid. So their struggles don’t exist to make you feel better. Once again, all about erasing females to stroke the egos of males.

This is not the biggest issue on my plate, but it’s a recent small example of tangible consequences to prejudice. The other day I was trying to refill an opioid I have a legal prescription for but the pharmacist refused because they couldn’t find it. Despite having going through this before this woman refused to look where I suggested, and I suffered in pain for 3 days before my doctor’s office was able to tell them they had it for sure. I mean this isn’t about sexism and more about ableism (though women’s pain is often discounted more, black pain even more) In that moment, I didn’t want to be validated. I didn’t want the pharmacist to know who I am, my identity, my disabilities, I wanted her to stop judging pain patients as a whole and give me my fucking legal prescription. Every single legislation and guideline that limits opioid prescriptions are born of a prejudice against addicts and a indifference to people in pain. That pharmacist didn’t give a shit about my pain, to bother even looking, because the rules made her right and I was probably an addict anyway. That is a real tangible feeling of oppression, and like I said it’s nothing compared to other examples I just didn’t want to dig up anything more upsetting.

That is how I feel about oppression. Validity matters, representation matters, but it is not the nitty gritty of what oppression is. It’s screaming at the walls, throwing your phone, because someone with the power to judge and fuck up your life, did exactly that. And worse they feel righteous for what they did because to them you’re just a “insert slur here”. And that’s just a small nonviolent and nonlethal example.

Now unlike asexuality, I know to be trans is to be oppressed and to suffer. But you cannot lift yourself up by putting others down, you will be on a tower of dominos that can fall the moment some other group does it to you. I always said trans people obviously belonged with LGB groups because obviously bigots didn’t care if a couple was two gay men or a man and non-passing trans woman. To me it spoke to a shared history and understanding. But maybe I was wrong, maybe that doesn’t exist. I think at least the one major difference now that I can definitely see is it’s ridiculous to infer female privilege by calling us cis. One thing is for sure, LGB and trans history are not as simple as I had ignorantly assumed in the past.

I don’t want to dictate what trans life is like, I don’t want deny any adult the right to transition, I don’t have any interest in misgendering, I believe there is a difference between sex and gender. But by fucking god I will not let anyone trample on my rights, call me bitch, cunt, terf, cum dumpster, deny my oppression as a female, deny my suffering, deny my reality as a female, just so You can feel better about your body. I will not sacrifice my body at the alter of your perceptions of your body.

Society loves to say otherwise, but women don’t exist to make you feel better. We don’t exist to make men feel more like a man or for trans women to feel more like a woman. We exist for our fucking selves, leave us alone! I’m not sorry if it makes you feel less of a woman because you need to address the misogyny you have been socialized into as a male. You all reek of sexism and think being trans means you magically cannot be affected by male socialization. That is some first class Bullshit. I’m a poor disabled lesbian, and none of that erases the racial bias I was taught and raised in as a white person. I always need to be willing to confront that, and it’s no different with males. Trans or cis, all of you were raised to hate women. Own it so we can fucking get past it.

Furthermore, our society only does better when we foster discourse. Disagreeing can be enraging but it’s how you learn if your own beliefs are worth keeping or discarding. It’s how you grow. Only insecure bullies feel the need to demand loyalty, stamp out dissent, and mock their opponents than actually argue. Don’t give into this intellectual dishonesty that might be easy, feel good, gain you a moment of praise, but ultimately throws women’s liberation and equality under the bus and into a raging inferno. How dare you think your right to feel valid is more important than my right to live freely and without shame as a female.

I’m very much open to good faith discourse on this topic, but do not mistake me. I have suffered for being born with a vagina, and no male will ever get to shut me up. So the next time you want to say choke on a dick, choke on your own.

[vaultofqueenorion]

Review of The Handmaid’s Tale

This book hit me like a ton of bricks. I get a sick feeling every time I think seriously of it, and it chilled me all the way to the bone. And yet, it is such an incredible book, in all its psychological horror. I think the worst part is that I see attributes and slivers of the book in everyday life. There’s a truth to it, and it doesn’t ring hollow. 

Read the book. But read the book only if you can stomach it, because it is truly gruelling. I would never call this a good book. Interesting, observant, thought-provoking, yes. But it is not one that has ever or ever will bring me entertainment.

Trigger warnings / TW / Content warnings: the book goes into detached detail with rape, forced pregnancy, murder, hanging, angry mobs tearing apart living people, shootings, killings, massacres and total oppression. Do not read if you are sensitive to any of these subjects. 

The Title

The title befits the book in two ways; first, it is the tale of Offred (as we know her only), a handmaiden to the Commander. The Commander is likely Frederick R. Waterford, as is discussed in the epilogue of the book, but that is never confirmed. 

What is a handmaiden, you ask, if you have never seen the popular Hulu series or heard of the book. A handmaiden is a woman (girl in the book to remove agency) that is ‘bound’ to a married couple who are unable to conceive children - in the book, we hear only of the whereabouts of the handmaidens of the Commanders and their Wives. 

The handmaiden is stripped of her name, her family, her identity, and she has to serve the couple - she is forced to give them children in a twisted ritual that apparently has root in biblical texts. Basically, she is raped in the presence of the couple in order to bear children for barren women who could otherwise not do so. 

The title also refers to the name of the ‘item’ which is a series of cassettes written into a manuscript discussed at the conference of the ‘Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies’ in the year 2195. 

It is a has-been; a recollection of the events recorded by the same woman from whom we read the story, and the speaker at the conference makes several jokes throughout his speech to keep the mood light and the audience entertained. 

It is a detached study in the history of America when it crumbled to a totalitarian patriarchal society that oppressed women in drastical terms and through drastic means. 

The Characters

Offred is meek yet strong-willed. Outspoken yet scared. It is as if she lives as a chameleon, never quite touching the ground of who she really is, but instead latching on to the world and society around her. 

The most remarkable thing about her is, in fact, her normality. She wonders, she becomes angry and yet she doesn’t do anything. Because what can one person do against overwhelming odds? When the other option is death, do you choose to live in submission?

The quote is one that I feel sums up her character. Instead of raging at the world like the heroes we see in stories, she tries to change the very core of her being to align with the wishes of new society. 

She does what many ordinary people would do, simply because fear is one damn powerful motivator. She feels she has no other choice. And she holds on to hope, throughout it all. Hope that she might - just might - see her daughter or her husband again. Hope that she might break free. 

We never do find out whether she finds absolution for that hope or not. 

The Commander lives a parallel life to the handmaidens. In all actuality it seems he lives a parallel life to the women of the dystopian world. He says that he wants Offred to have a pleasant or at least bearable existence, but what he does is that he gets her to indulge in things that he wants to do. He dresses her up and parades her around in secret bars where other girls are ‘working’ as if he owns her - which shows us that he kind of believes that he does. 

Even when he gives Offred something - a magazine - he doesn’t really think of how it is for her.

It is not only ignorance - it is also a lack of wanting to know. He simply doesn’t care enough about her existence to know that she cannot do so. Or he pretends to, playing the ‘good guy’ who doesn’t have anything to do with the hellscape Offred lives in. 

The thing is, this kind of ignorance is commonly participated in throughout society - just take a look at the men who say that they suddenly ‘understand how women feel’ when they pose as women online. Or the white people who ‘never knew how bad POC had it’ because they simply never bothered to look. 

It just hits a little too close to home, that’s all.

Serena Joy / the Commander’s wife is a chilling person. To be a woman, to see what is being done to other women, and yet still somehow hating them for it, as if it isn’t the higher up around her - including her own husband - who have orchestrated this. 

And then there’s this quote:

It does have several meanings to it. To Joy it means that she longs for children, that she wants them so badly that she will do anything in her power to get them. To Offred it means that if she cannot provide a strange family with children through rape, she will be shipped off to a faraway place where she will likely starve to death

Perspective, indeed.

Offred wants so desperately for her friend and the personification of the rebellion in her mind, Moira, to go out in a ball of fire. To burn the whole damn thing to the ground and either walk away, a cigarette in hand, or die trying. 

It seems that there is something in her that longs to be near her, as if Moira is the ideal that she strives towards, and when she never hears from her or sees her again, there is a melancholy and yet an emptiness to her words. 

She talks about their relationship once, before it all went to hell, and this quote is from that:

Luke. Luke, Luke, Luke. Offred misses Luke, and of course she does. He was her husband, the man she was waiting on while he cheated on his then partner, and the father of Offred’s daughter. And yet. 

I hated him so much. 

Just the mention of him sent spiders crawling down my spine, and really, the cheating was bad enough. Even worse was the small signs of misogyny - him saying that Offred losing her job was no big deal, that they would get through it together. Him joking with her about it - about how she could stay at home now, how he would have the power. 

No, I really didn’t like that casual display of superiority. 

Offred’s daughter is part of the next generation of Wives. Sent off to some lucky childless family, this eight year old girl will be groomed and bred into the oppression around her, and at some point, she will stop questioning the world. 

After all, as Aunt Lydia said to Offred:

Offred’s mother is a full-blooded feminist, which causes her to be shipped off to die early on. She’s an abortion advocate, and one of her most telling quotes is:

As a reply to when Offred in the past says that Luke’s teasings are nothing. But the mother understands. Understands the work that it has taken to get this far, and the work that needs to be done, lest they slip back into oppression.

And you know what? People languished in their complacency at the time of the coup, and the totalitarian society crept into the shadows, settling more and more and consuming the light as time passed by.

The Plot

The plot is really not the remarkable part of this story. Yes, Offred goes to town, befriends a fellow handmaid (this one is part of the resistance, peeps!), attends the ceremony, is taken to the Commander’s office, then later to the forbidden bar. 

The places aren’t so much important as what Offred observes. The small injustices, the doctors and scientists handing from the Wall, the Particicution in which the handmaids tear a man apart because he has allegedly raped someone (which is then told to be untrue; he is part of the resistance group, and handmaids murdering him with their bare hands is a good way for the totalitarian government to get rid of him). 

In truth, the handmaids have no real chance of getting themselves out, if they do not collaborate with Mayday, the resistance group. In truth, they are stuck in their miserable places, and that is why one of the earliest quotes from Offred is so chilling:

This is also why the handmaids live with the bare minimum of utilities - they are watched as they bathe, no light fixtures are present, matches are forbidden, knives unsupervised are forbidden. 

Because so many have killed themselves in desperation to get out of the hell that they have found themselves in. 

The Language

Margaret Atwood especially puts focus on the horror of the world that Offred lives in through two means; the conference / historical notes at the end of the story which brings a light and humorous view on the totalitarian society, and the on-the-verge-but-not-quite tone of hopelessness that Offred uses to describe her tales through. 

Aunt Lydia is often the catalyst for this kind of hopelessness. In the times where Offred tried to convince herself that this really is better. That the world is not quite as bleak, and that she actually has it better now than before.

It is a form of brainwashing that is already beginning to form. And what else can she do, one might think. She has to survive somehow. 

And yet, she brings herself to rekindle a fire once in a while. To open the lid on the anger, the resentment, the fierce cruelty of the world that she is faced with. It is something that she does internally, and one of the more prominent moments of this is when she is faced with the Commander in his office. 

The butter in this scenario refers to a tiny rebellion - an act of survival in a way that goes against the schemes and oppression of the world around the handmaidens. The most telling thing is that he laughs at her - as if the way of coping, the secret tips that are being shared between the handmaidens is nothing more than child’s play.

And it probably is to him. 

With a good standing, a good life and a sweet deal compared to the majority of this society that he helped create, he would never think to ‘stoop’ to such methods. 

The oppression is strong in this one, is all I have to say. 

Notes and worthy mentions

The Ceremony. Ooooh, the Ceremony. Of the most convoluted, terrible scenes I have ever had the displeasure of reading, this detached form of rape, explained as the rape is occuring, was terrifying and horrifying and I really, truly never want to read anything like it again.

Also, Offred calls it something else. She doesn’t want to call it rape, because she feels as if she had a choice - not much choice, but still choice. 

One thing that ticked me off was the mention of Mayday and the Underground Femaleroad - the latter a smuggling ring made to get the women out of their horrible positions. 

And the person at the historical conference calls it a Frailroad. Yes, it’s a shortening of female and road, but dang. And the worst thing is? It is totally realistic as to how it would probably be called - just look at how we treat the witch trials or say feminazi if a feminist speaks up about something that’s a ‘little too radical’. I call BS, is all, even if it just goes to show that Margaret Atwood knows what she’s doing when she writes. 

In conclusion

It is not a good book. It is magnificent in the way it portrays something that many women feel at least slivers of and amplifies them in a way that pierces your heart and leaves you dangling at its mercy. 

Books are meant to entertain, yes, but they are also meant to challenge, to inquire, and to make you think. Rarely has a book stayed with me for this long after I have read it, and rarely have I seen more parallels from the world we live in capable of being drawn to this hellscape that Margaret Atwood has created.

There is truth in this horrifically fantastic book. And this means that I cannot help but give it five paws out of five. The alternative would have been to have given it zero, but the thing is that I have seen society in such a new light after reading this that it wouldn’t have been fair. 

[nothorses]

do you have advice/starting points for learning about radfem ideology & how to spot it in the wild? maybe a weird question, but i'm a trans guy and i've noticed i'm getting kinda hypervigilant about terf/transandrophobic red flags & seeing them in innocuous stuff (idk if you're on twitter but rn there's lots of posts about how all women live in constant fear of male violence and I flinch every time I see that sentiment bc it pings my transphobe radar which I feel rly shitty about!) (1/2 sorry)

(2/2)  I feel like knowing concretely what radfems believe and how that manifests might help me be a bit more chill. However, I’m wary of just googling bc I don’t want to expose myself to a bunch of openly transphobic scholars, so if you have any pointers that would be great! 

The core of radfem ideology, from what I understand, is the belief that it’s men who are responsible for the oppression of all women.

Other forms of feminism will generally point the finger at patriarchy as a system, and often acknowledge that patriarchy negatively impacts all genders in different ways- and, of course, to different extents (this really varies between movements, though, and some are better than others.)

That “men are the oppressor class” belief is rooted in gender essentialism; the idea that genders have essential qualities to them that are, if not shared 100% of the time, at least common enough to justify this kind of stereotyping. There are differing beliefs about why genders share those qualities: classic misogyny will usually say it’s biological, as will TERFs and other bio-essentialists, while “trans-inclusive” gender essentialists might say it’s about socialization. Whatever the case, it’s fundamentally hostile to trans experiences, as well as intersectionality with other oppressed groups- particularly people of color.

If you’re seeing “men don’t realize that a loud male voice is the scariest thing in the world for a woman” posts, or “it doesn’t matter how safe a man actually is if you’re a woman walking alone at night” posts, that’s generally coming from radical feminism to some extent.

That doesn’t make the feelings expressed in that post wrong, and it doesn’t make the person posting it transphobic. Oftentimes, those things are posted or shared by people who may be grappling with a trauma they’ve leveled at men as a gender, and who feel justified in never challenging it. They tend not to think about the implications those feelings have for trans people, or men of color, who suffer the most for a white cis woman’s fear of Scary Dangerous Men. 

Sometimes those things are shared without much thought, because it’s everywhere, it’s easily digestible tidbits of “feminism”, and they feel like they’re helping.

And sometimes it’s a TERF, a transphobe, and/or a racist trying to gain a platform and pull more people into their ideology.

It’s understandable to be wary, and I think it’s less about memorizing a list of red flags/dogwhistles, and more about learning how they think. If you understand their ideology, you can avoid it even as they change tactics to go unnoticed again.

A lot of the people posting and sharing these things have just memorized some red flags and done none of the work to challenge radfem ideas on a fundamental level, and that’s why you see them around so much in the first place.

[gayagendaofficial]

Wait, what’s gay lingo? Like, what does twink, bear, etc. mean?

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Before I get into actually defining these terms, I’d like to write about a few things:

So this is probably in reference to this post I made. Not to explain the joke to death, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. I wanted to make fun of how people who aren’t mlm think they know what mlm terms like “twink” and “bear” mean and how they blatantly use them incorrectly everywhere, because they think they’re funny (bc gay men are a joke, right? //sarcasm), or because it makes them look “woke”. It’s an idea I had for the longest time when I saw something a str8 woman wrote about Zac Efron being a twink, in the present. Like yes, Zac Efron was a twink, past tense, but he is absolutely not a twink anymore (if you can even call a str8 man a twink). And she also implied that being a twink is something you can’t outgrow, which is laughable, because it’s kind of a meme among gay men that being a twink is something you grow out of whether you like it or not.

This mostly seems to be a problem among cishet women, since cishet men tend to be too concerned with their “masculinity” to touch gay culture. But since this is tumblr and virtually none of you are cishet, a lot of the times I’ve seen people misuse these terms on this site were LGBT+ people who weren’t themselves mlm. In those cases, the reasons seem more that these people are just misinformed, and they use these terms because mlm use these terms, and we share a community. Part of it comes from the fact that wlw might see the terms “twink” and “bear” as analogous to “femme” and “butch” respectively, which is not true in the slightest (Butch and femme are their own complex thing. What they actually have in common with twink and bear is that few outside their communities actually know what they mean lol).  Another reason might be that other LGBT people see mlm using these terms sarcastically and think they’re being used in earnest; if an actual gay man calls a bodybuilder a twink, he’s probably being sarcastic, and also probably trying to insult him (which is a whole can of worms I’ll open up in a bit).

I’m gonna try to define what “twink”, “bear”, and a couple of other terms actually mean, as well as give a little bit of context to how they’re used and controversy surrounding these identities within gay spaces, partially based on my experience as a gay man and partially based on casual research. I’m just one gay man, and I’m not an expert in queer studies or anything, so take from that what you will. I hope this will be useful to mlm who are just discovering their identities and exploring their sexuality/gender, who are new to the community, and I also hope to inform our siblings elsewhere in the LGBT community. This info could also be useful to cishet allies, although please be mindful of your intentions in using these terms.

Anywho, lets get to the definitions:

A twink is a young, smooth, slim mlm. The definition here is generally seen as being pretty strict on those 3 criteria, although “twink” is sometimes used for older mlm who are skinny and don’t have much body hair. Those last two criteria are the most important, because there are other categories for mlm that fit one of the criteria; an otter is essentially twink + bodyhair, and there’s a whole host of other words for other body types.

The definition of “bear” is a little more flexible than “twink”, although it generally comes down to the inverses of those same 3 criteria. The most important of these is the bodyhair requirement; any definition you find of bear includes something about being hairy. Almost as important as bodyhair is body type, although “bear” covers a slightly larger range than twink in that regard. Usually, “bear” indicates that someone is large or plus-sized, although it can also sometimes be used to describe someone who is muscular in the sense that they are beefy (if you can see a 6 pack, he’s probably not a bear). It’s also sometimes associated with being slightly older, but that’s not nearly as important, and “bear” can refer to any age. The term “cub” refers to mlm with the same body type as a bear, but who are smooth and young.

Now, let’s get into some misconceptions/controversies surrounding these terms. The first of these is that twink and bear are the only two options, and that all mlm fall into one of these two categories, or that other terms are simply variations on those two main terms. This misconception is really only one held by people who aren’t mlm themselves (or are, but are only just learning the terminology). These terms are extremely specific, and the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of mlm don’t fit into either of these categories. And that’s ok! There are a ton of other words mlm use to describe themselves. I’ve already mentioned “otter” and “cub”; there’s also “jock”, which refers to muscular mlm; “wolf”, which also refers to muscular mlm, but specifically hairy ones (with a bit of overlap with the “beefier bears” I mentioned earlier); the relatively new term “twunk” which you may know from this video as “a combination twink and hunk”; and many many more. In addition, all of these categories are really just physical descriptions of your body, and don’t have any bearing on anything else. You don’t need to fit into any of them.

That being said, there are a number of stereotypes associated with these terms, and it is important to address them.

Our next misconception is one that’s as common among mlm as as it is among everyone else: that twinks are by definition fem, and bears are by definition masc. “Masc” and “fem”, short for masculine and feminine respectively, come with their own host of problems, and that is a can of worms that I am not going to open up right now. This post is long enough as it is. If you want the sparknotes version of the controversy surrounding the masc-fem dichotomy, it basically boils down to misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia. But back to twinks and bears: I would like to assume that it’s obvious that your body type or bodyhair has absolutely no impact  on your personal presentation of gender. There are plenty of fem bears and masc twinks. But unfortunately, most people don’t seem to get this. And this super important, because the gendered way we think of these terms affects everything else I’ll be talking about in the remainder of this post.

My next point, which is really and observation based on my experience in the gay community, is that bear as a term seems to be much less… loaded. However, being a twink myself, there might be a gap in my personal experience, so any bears feel free to correct me. However, from what I’ve seen, “bear” isn’t really used as an insult in the way “twink” is. Which is a bit of a miracle, considering how prevalent fat-shaming is in the gay community. From what I’ve seen, bear isn’t a term that’s forced on you, it’s a term that bears choose for themselves, almost always in a positive way. It’s a term associated with body positivity, and bear communities seem to be much less toxic than the gay community as a whole. Even when it’s used to describe someone else, it’s always a neutral statement of fact. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it used as an insult, or even sarcastically. The worst I’ve seen of it is that it’s used as a porn category, which contributes to the fetishization of fat people; but then again, twink and jock are also porn categories, so it would be weird for bear not to be. This isn’t to suggest that bears are treated better than anyone else in the gay community, if anything they’re treated worse; just that the word “bear” itself has neutral to positive connotations. (Again, any bears correct me on this if you’ve seen it used negatively!)

Twink, on the other hand, is absolutely used as an insult, and frequently. And while this may sometimes be harmless, more often than not it’s really problematic. If you’re plus-sized and you use twink as an insult in the same vein that Nicki Minaj said “fuck the skinny bitches”, that’s completely fine. Twinks are seen as being desirable (if they behave a certain way; more on that later), so effectively it’s punching up instead of punching down. However, a good 95% of the time that “twink” is used as an insult, it really comes from one of the many stereotypes that all essentially boil down to the idea that twinks are fem. And the idea that being fem is inherently bad and insult worthy is, once again, rooted in misogyny, transphobia, and internalized homophobia. 

This association between twinks and femininity also has a lot of scary implications on the beauty standards twinks are held to. I’ve noticed that twinks fill a niche in the gay community that is similar to the role cis women are supposed to fill in western culture as large, and that we’re only seen as sexually valuable if we perform the same behaviors and meet the same beauty standards that are typically reserved for women. We’re bottoms by default, submissive both in and out of the bedroom (yes I actually am a sub bottom, but that’s beside the point). We’re supposed to maintain a completely smooth, hairless appearance; a shaved ass is the bare minimum of hygiene. I once met a guy on grindr who demanded that I be completely hairless everywhere beneath my eyelashes, and while that’s a bit extreme, he was by no means an outlier. Just today I talked to a guy who wanted me hairless between my neck and knees. We’re often seen as vapid and stupid, and infantilization of twinks is rampant (some guys put way too much emphasis on the young part of the definition). And, to cap it all off, there’s the racism! Who’d’a thunk that all forms of oppression are connected? (sarcasm). Twinks can of course be any race, but the ones you’ll see men on grindr going after the most are white or light-skinned Asian twinks. Combine that with stereotypes of Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern men as dominant and aggressive, and you have a whole slew of white supremacist ideas painted over with a thin coat of gay porn.  (mlm of color who’d like to add or correct me on anything, please do so!)

I’ll end this already long post with a comparatively brief discussion on who these terms apply to. Basically, if you’re an mlm and you fit the definition of “twink” or “bear”, congratulations! You’re a twink/bear! “Can bi men use these terms?” Of course! “What about trans men?” Are you attracted to men and male-aligned people? Then of course! That last one might be controversial to some cis gays, and to that I say fuck right off. However, it does get a bit muddier with trans women and transfem nonbinary people and the word twink. Trans women are absolutely not mlm, but many of them have been a part of mlm communities for a long time, often before they even realized they were trans, and some may be reluctant to give up the word twink (I haven’t seen this for bear, although again, lmk if you’ve seen evidence to the contrary). And on top of that, a lot of cis men looking to have sex with trans women conflate trans women and cis twinks. Because remember what I said about twinks filling the niche of women? It’s often a niche they share with trans women, except trans women have it even worse, because they are actually women. My two cents is, if a trans woman wants to refer to herself as a twink, she’s more than welcome to. Just don’t go around calling trans women “twinks” unless they specifically say you can; it’s a gendered term, you are misgendering them, and, once again, you can fuck right off. (trans women also please comment if you want!)

Well, anon, I bet you weren’t expecting a post this long. At least I hope y’all learned something! Be gay do crimes!

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Hi, I have a question! What exactly would intersectional feminism look like? I ask because I see a lot of lip service but not a lot of action, and I'd like to know what I can actually do to help out.

good question.

first I want to point you to the roots of intersectional feminism as an idea, theory, and practice: a theory of feminism specifically about the experiences of Black women in the US. 

While the theory of being intersectional with your feminism is practicable/applicable in terms of any intersection of negative effects of patriarchy & other types of marginalization, the specific conceptualization of intersectional feminism was developed by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in response to observing & experiencing the intersection of anti-black racism and misogyny and how that changed the experience with both. In her words: “The basic term came out of a case where I was looking at black women who were being discriminated against, not just as black people and not just as women, but as black women.” (x) That is: it’s not as simple as experiencing both anti-black racism and misogyny: where they intersect, anti-black racism & misogyny compound, forming a new, specific type of oppression that’s unique from each of its parts. a form of oppression only experienced by/inflicted on black women (and sometimes inflicted on those incorrectly perceived as black women).

so I’d check out what she has to say on it before anything I have to say on it. And on that note:

Here’s Professor Crenshaw giving a TED talk about intersectional feminism

Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color by Professor Crenshaw

An interview with Professor Crenshaw contextualizing violence against Black communities (women particularly) & defending against that violence

In building her theory of intersections of oppression, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’ as a holistic look at how a form of systemic marginalization hurts any one person. and in this way, intersectionality in our feminism is applicable to other intersections of hurt. For example: a burka-wearing person in a wheelchair experiences marginalization in a way that only another burka-wearing person in a wheelchair could, and demanding/advocating better treatment, respect, and recognition for people who wear burkas and people who use wheelchairs at the same time is going to do good for all burka-wearing people who regularly use wheelchairs.

What that ‘looks like’ is going to really depend on the situation, imho, and I think it’s different on a personal vs macro level. my (very rough, very simplified) take on how to practice intersectionality in your feminism is:

on an individual level: 

setting aside your assumptions or judgement about a person’s* situation, lifestyle, and experiences - particularly in places where they are ‘less’ accommodated or consideredat a societal scale than you (or also unaccommodated/unconsidered at a societal scale, but in a different way than you are.

listening closely to what a person says about themselves: what they experience, what they already have, and what (if anything) they request from you.

acting in accordance with what that person’s wants & requests rather than in accordance with what you think that person wants or needs.

respecting others as individuals by drawing on experience and education to inform your responses to them, but always remembering that previous information is a guideline, not a rulebook. 

This example by @star-anise of how intersectionality would have made the work at a women’s shelter much more effective is, imho, a good example of what intersectional feminism would target if put into practice at an individual level.

on a broad level:

particularly in areas where society treats you as ‘default’**, and therefore ‘normal’, consistently make an effort to be aware of your trained, subconscious assumptions about other people who deviate from the ‘default’.

particularly in situations where society treats you as ‘default’, and therefore you rarely encounter difficulties or discrimination in your daily life, consistently make an effort to be sensitive to how you may not notice inconveniences or outright harm other people experience in the same situations.

make a specific effort to broaden your sources of information by drawing on work from people of many demographics, experiences, and educational backgrounds. listen with particular care to people whose voices are usually ignored or drowned out - frequently people who are marginalized / marginalized in more than one way.

make a specific, ongoing effort to promote and signal boost the voices of people who have traditionally been ignored, pushed to the side, or ‘spoken over’ - frequently people who are marginalized / marginalized in more than one way.

(at the same time: don’t expect any one marginalized person to be a ‘spokesperson’ for all other similarly marginalized people. treat individuals as individuals. recognize that the experiences and opinions of any two people can be wildly different, even if their demographics are the same.)

take appropriate action on behalf of people in the ways you are asked to by those people, as opposed to taking action based on what you think is best for them.

when it’s appropriate***, help teach others. it can be hard to balance this, imho, between not speaking over other people who have disadvantages you don’t and also not demanding that disadvantaged people constantly educate everyone else about their difficulties, but I think it’s important.

recognize that inaction benefits/perpetuates the status quo, which is in favor of the current ‘default’ and hurts anyone who isn’t ‘default’. 

on a political level: 

where you can, use your privilege (or the intersection of privilege & lack thereof!) to protect others who don’t share your privilege. take action you’re safe to take on behalf of people who wouldn’t be safe to take that same action.

vote for people who pledge to protect & improve life for people in all kinds of disadvantaged situations. Make voting for those people a priority.

attend or support protests on behalf of people who have disadvantages you don’t have.

make donations to advocacy groups made up of the people they represent.

volunteer in fundraising, helping, supporting, etc people who have different disadvantages than you.

I’m sure there’s lots of stuff I didn’t mention that people can think of. but the long and short of it is: respect other people. listen to them. act in their best interest - not your assumption of what would be their best interest.

here’s some more links to stuff I’ve read about this & that might give you more food for thought:

what is intersectional feminism? in USAToday

academic study of intersectional feminism from a student of Denison

video about intersectional feminism on Braless

intersectional feminism vs white feminism in the Chicago Tribune

notes below the cut.

I used a lot of vague language about ‘marginalization other people have that you don’t’ in this post because that goes a lot of ways, and none of those experiences are necessarily comparable as ‘better’ or ‘worse’. they are each unique, though, and each person experiences them uniquely. that’s why the emphasis of intersectional feminism falls on listening to marginalized people, promoting their voices to others, and acting according to what they are saying rather than according to your own wishes or beliefs.

*I used ‘person’ instead of ‘woman’ because there’s a huge variety of people who might be in a situation where they are perceived as a woman or treated as a woman while not being a woman, or treated or perceived as a man while being a woman, and there’s nonbinary people and intersex people and just … a lot being covered here. I feel ‘person’ is insufficient to the meaning but I don’t know what else would be appropriately inclusive and quick.

**in america, some examples of the ‘default’, where deviation (especially in more than one way) creates disadvantages, oppression, and violence: white, male, cissex, perisex, straight & heteronormative, able-bodied, mentally healthy, of average intelligence, neurotypical, monogamous, protestant Christian/agnostic/’rationalist’, English as first/only language, etc.

***’where appropriate’ - imho: this is wherever the marginalized person speaking on their own behalf a) asks you to do it, b) the marginalized person would be endangered (but someone else - you - aren’t), or c) a place where the marginalized person isn’t and/or won’t be respected in speaking for themselves. 

for instance: a member of my family voted for Trump. He wouldn’t listen to me about Trump being a rapist & why that’s a reason to distrust him: as a perceived woman, he thought I was speaking based on my own biases.  but another cis male member of the family was able to make that family member understand the seriousness and horror I feel about Trump’s treatment of women. (Trump voter has since apologized to me, but it first needed to come from someone he respected already before he could start to respect me.)

and meanwhile, cis white women overwhelmingly voted for Trump - despite all the evidence he never respected women, white or not, and without any regard for - perhaps even because of - his xenophobic and racist platform. (that’s what you get when ‘feminism’ isn’t intersectional.)

[jeanjauthor]

...As a child, I enjoyed reading the Belgarian because it was easy to read, it did have good banter, the pacing was good...but I did recognize some of the racism, etc, inherent in it.  In that vague way that children have, the kind that acknowledges a problem exists but doesn’t really do something about it.  So I enjoyed them anyway.

As an adult...I’ll agree, all the things the OP lists in their thread are indeed some kind of awful.  As are the many things listed in the comments at the end of this thread about other series.

Hell, I probably have problems in my own books I can’t even see...but that is typical.  We regurgitate what we absorb.  Readers do this.  We read things, and if we like it, we absorb it, contemplated it conscious or subconsciously, and then we either emulate it in our own lives or we regurtitate it to share with others in discussions or presentations...feeding the people around us like momma birds regurgitating worms for baby chicks without stopping to think about what kind of food we’re feeding them...and then they grow up thinking that’s how their food, their lives, should be flavored: worm-flavored instead of mosquito, or grasshopper, or whatever.

This is why I keep harping on being careful about what you write into a story.  It really can have a serious impact on others, and not a good one.

Don’t believe me?

That first post is hella woke, “...and being taught in school that racism was largedly solved by the civil rights movement...”  That right there was what I went through in school...and you know what?  IT WAS NOT SOLVED. IT IS STILL A MAJOR PROBLEM.  (*gestures to all the openly racist, facist, oppressive shit going on in politics today for all the evidence/proof that could ever be needed*)

The second post is absolutely true...though round about 3rd edition, D&D started to get woke about some of that, putting in a lot more positive representations of various races, skintones, career opportunities, gender presentations, etc, so props to them for that.

Which makes that third post super important.

“Why are we still talking about racism?” stems straight from the “whites solved the civil rights problem, so whites don’t have to worry about it any more” attitude in that first of those three posts.  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

That first comment is basically how Young Me treated the obsessively repetitive levels of racism in the series.  An annoyance, like how you treat your racist grandpa, he’s annoying, but you don’t have to live with him, so surely he’s harmless...except grandpa is voting in every election, and grandpa is part of the patriarchy, grandpa has the retirement money to burn, so if you want an inheritance that will be desperately needed in this shitty economy, you’ll have to toe grandpa’s line, further down the road...but I digress.

He really was easy to read.  The others weren’t. And his writing went down smoothly, like the difference between drying to eat half-cooked, chewy-crunchy-gloopy oatmeal, and slurping down a well-blended fruit smoothie, one that has all your favorite fruit in it, but which has been sugared with Nutrasweet. 

As a child, you just know that it’s sweet and tasty as it goes down smoothly...but did you know that Nutrasweet turns to formaldehyde above 76F (25C)...and that the human body is warmer than that?  And did you know that artificial sweeteners wreak havoc on your digestive tract’s normal balance of microflora, the things that break down our food so that we get full nutritional value?  And that if your gut microflora are out of whack, you can start having various health issues? 

(It certainly doesn’t help diabetics.  In fact, artificial sweeteners has been deemed by studies to actually make diabetes worse.  Go for things sweetened with xylitol or stevia, which are natural sweeteners that humans can digest safetly.)

Anyway, the easier the writing is to read, the easier it is to digest, and the faster it’ll get absorbed into your mental and/or emotional system, folks.  I was annoyed by the racism in the books... annoyed by the blatant patriarchy, etc, etc, etc... but they were fun and engaging to read in terms of personal interactions, they went down smoothly, and now I have cultural bigotry diabetes running through my gut instincts, something that I have to work to get out of my system every single day.

You do, too.  Yes, even those who are discriminated against.  People of Color can experience bigotry.  Not just internalized, but reflected onto others: “Yes, I’m black and people are trying to stop me from voting, but at least I’m paid better than a Latino!“ or “Yes I’m a Latino and my pay is crap, but at least I’m not a Muslim!”  “Yes, I’m a Latino, but at least I’m a man, and get to be in charge! (bigotry based on misogyny)”

Now, are we legally responsible for what we write?  I’d say no.  We simply present information and/or entertainment.  (I’m not talking about the people who write detailed instructions on how to build a nuclear bomb or a nerve gas handgrenade or whatever. I’m talking the average genre fiction writer.)  But are we morally responsible for what we write?  ...I’d say yes, to some degree.

Now that you know better...write better.

That’s where our moral responsibility to all of this kicks in.

You know better, now.

Write Better.

[trickstarbrave]

I see some of my old posts abt this getting likes still so I did feel the need for whatever reason to post an update or rather restatement to my views on the topic

I know this is a horribly tired topic that was discoursed to hell and then left behind and for good reason so as a warning: ace discourse below

First and foremost I’m not in the business of telling ppl wholesale they don’t belong in the community. The vast majority of ace ppl are also other various lgbt identies and trying to “remove” people from the community is not a thing I’d ever advocate for nor have I really ever as far as I can remember. If I have in bad faith I would like to extend an apology bc I have bad memories problems and think those actions are wrong and harmful. If the consensus is ace ppl are lgbt then I’m not here to say everyone else is wrong and I’m the authority on lgbt identities. We are a coalition group, a mashing of communities w sometimes shared histories and experiences. Even if I think ace and aro ppl don’t have as many of those in common I don’t get to decide if they are or not. They are now and I’m more focused on making that work

Still though since it’s inception the ace community has not been a very healthy one. As at best a newer addition to the lgbt community being brought to light and given a label and community, the community has been toxic. Much of the foundational moments for identity were from the AVEN forums and a lot of harmful misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, and ableist things were said on their and supported. This kind of behavior has continued well into the community even today.

This is not a moral judgment on asexuals or aromamtics. I’m aromantic. I was also subjected to these things. I always felt alienated from the community. Even when trying to engage behavior was half the time welcoming and understanding and half the time felt very hostile. I point this out because again: many asexuals and aromantics are other lgbt identies and this rhetoric is very harmful. It’s alienating. It makes you feel guiltier at times. Furthermore at times the community pressured ppl who did not have absolutely any desire for sex in any capacity to be okay with it, as though they were on the same level as people who liked and enjoyed sexual acts removed from sexual attraction to people. Sometimes it encouraged harassing people for saying having sex was a vital part of relationships for them and they felt incompatable with someone who was repulsed by sex and didn’t feel abstaining for a hypothetical ace partner would be healthy for either of them. Even more alarming was qpp’s, really originating from the aro community, spreading and simply being a tool for a while in many circles to coerce people into relationships who otherwise wouldn’t be okay with polyamory or were underaged. I’ve seen so much harm and been subjecting to it that I did have to (and still want to but avoid it for stress reasons) point this out. Even more alarming was during the discourse era seeing big name ace bloggers with large underaged followings bring on self admitted pedophiles to their blogs, and refusing to apologize when said pedophile admitted to sexually harassing minors. Lies were spread to demonize lesbians especially, and to a degree gay men as well, including that we steal funding we don’t need

As well (currently) the lgbt community hasn’t had the best resources to provide a good environment for ace and aro issues, and the ace community has not made it a priority in many spheres to curate those spaces either. As an aro sexual abuse victim there were many times I didn’t want to see public displays of affection or hear abt sexuality of any kind at times (despite not being ace) and I knew asking for those to cease in lgbt spaces would be harmful and come across as bigoted. Lgbt spaces are places to express your comfort in your identity and your relationships in the way cishet ppl can whenever they want to in society. Seeking out spaces without that just meant retreating and being alone. A curated space for aro and ace ppl would have removed tension I know many people have had and still do experience by providing refuge for sex and romance repulsed ace and aro ppl

I felt more boundaries would be beneficial, as while trans people are no doubt a part of the lgbt community (regardless of how many trabsphobes say we don’t belong), trans specific areas and communities still exist. Trans spaces where trans experiences are centered are a priority. The ace community regardless needs better spaces for ace people besides social media and Internet forums. It needs structure and accountability. It needs to unlearn harmful practices and bigotry that have run rampant for their own members’ sake, not for the sake of outside people to see validity in it.

And for a while, people who were otherwise cisgendered, heteroromantic and asexual would speak out in lgbt spaces about trans and gay issues because this is the “same community”. Cis gay men have no authority on lesbian, bi, or trans issues. Cis lesbians have no authority on gay men’s, bi, or trans issues. Cis heterosexual trans ppl shouldn’t talk abt lgbp issues w authority. Cishet ace and aro ppl shouldn’t talk those either. A lot of the hostility and early discourse was abt that, about those bloggers who very quickly left the discussions and website entirely in some cases, speaking about issues that shouldn’t concern them. About homophobia and how it should be treated or tolerated, using slurs they had no right using, and more. Even more alienating was ppl saying a character was ace rather than gay, and when pointed out they could be both it resulted in backlash as trying to take away ace representation, and then real human survivors of sexual abuse who were dead were framed as ace icons and ace representation while framing their discussions of their reactions to sexual abuse as “the ace experience”. Lies spread that ace conversion therapy was a thing and that doctors were going to hold you down and feed you medicine to make you want to have sex, terrifying many young bloggers on this website who genuinely believed and lived in fear of this happening until they were told it was misinformation and lies.

(Yes you can be sexually assaulted for being ace, yes victims of sexual abuse can as a result ID as ace or aro, that’s not what I’m arguing against in case somehow someone finds a way )

But from the other side I’ve seen and spoken out against people who just said bigoted things. Claiming there were too many gender and sexuality identities. I think the split attraction model is limited to ace and aro ppl to explain our identities more coherently and misapplying it to others only servers in the end to stigmatize various sexualities, but this went beyond that. For many people “grey” and “demi” modifiers are useful. I’m grey aro. My romantic feelings are complicated and inconsistent enough I think it’s not average. Sure to a degree “anyone” could be demi or aro and many ppl in the ace community have misattributed those modified identities to ppl who didn’t even fully explore how they felt, but they are not worthless. I can count to you how many times I’ve felt genuine romantic attraction, and I do not fully understand the intricacies of romantic attraction, nor the differences at time between platonic feelings in practice. I was mocked for my identity several times and saw people with identities like mine mocked. This was not a discussion of it these identities were harmful like claiming disassociating during sex was a normal sexual identity. At worst they are unnecessary.

I’ve been always more invested abt having a better community for ace and aro ppl bc that’s what I ultimately wanted. No, they didn’t have the messy intertwined history of other lgbt identities but also they didn’t have to be. Lgbt or not there wasn’t a space for ace and aro ppl I thought was really healthy. It was either they existed there in a group with other people with their issues being talked about or not at all. Ace pride colors were based on the at times toxic forum website AVEN. The aro community was often overlooked by ace ppl or at times actively thrown under the bus.

And lies and misinformation was still spread. Pieces of history incoherently being co-opted and misappropriated to seem legitimate. And to top it all off ace and aro specific oppression was incoherently discussed to. How different forms of oppression work together and often feed into each other or take new shapes was ignored. Studies were extremely limited in scope, loaded, and mostly inconclusive. Facets of misogyny and even homophobia were framed as ace exclusive and unique experiences, and people lied about real life discrimination for being ace (usually these were young people like the 15 y/o who claimed to have two gay dads who kicked her out for being ace, so I won’t dwell on those as much. Tumblr has been a weird website). Discussions of race especially were riddled w terrible behavior from white ace bloggers who resorted to lying, shaming, and guilt tripping. All this only serves to fan the flames and drive a wedge between communities even tho inclusionists claimed it was all evil exclusionists doing while refusing to call out the misinformation and bigotry they often spread. There was no purpose in harassing bloggers of color, no purpose in terrifying children so they lived in fear of medical professionals and most ppl, and no excuse.

Hopefully moving on from this it will truly die away, but I hope people learn from it. This wasn’t just as some ppl frame it cis gay and lesbian bloggers starting a harassment campaign to try and kick aces out on a large scale. This was a messy discussion that was years brewing until it exploded in even more vitriol, misinformation, and rage. It became an opportunity to critique an (albeit in comparison young) community for harmful behavior that was going unchecked and lead to even further bigotry, misinformation, and alienation. And the bigotry and misinformation didn’t serve a purpose and little understanding of what ace and aro people needed besides information and education to the public, which was already taking place before this, was had. And ultimately I expected more from the community at large.

To ace and aro followers and readers: I’ve seen some ugly parts of the community but I don’t necessarily demand you answer for that behavior, unless you’re personally guilt of it. I don’t say this because I have a mission to prove you’re bad. I think the community is toxic, but it will ultimately not get better unless ppl who are dedicated to it are willing to help find what resources ppl need, provide it, and refuse to encourage or call out shitty behavior. And ultimately that will come from a place of love and desire to create an environment future generations will feel welcomed in. I just don’t want other ace and aro kids being lied to about what they’ll experience, subjected to homophobia and transphobia of many colors, and at times groomed by adults. And I don’t want it based around just social media where anyone can lie abt credentials and act like an expert to further any of those horrible goals, even unintentionally

[leonthesemiprofessional-blog]

Leave Wes Anderson out of your woke conversations

With a smorgasbord of (very well-crafted) politically-rich films in the mainstream right now it can be easy to assume that every “masterpiece” that comes across our screens was made to appease our socially curious minds.

With the weighty addition of the #metoo movement, you could argue that it’s the duty of the filmmaker to give us a set of strong morals we can berate everyone we meet with. Because of this expectation, movies are under an unforgiving lens right now and Wes Anderson’s latest piece, Isle of Dogs, is no exception.

In his ninth feature and his second stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs follows an alpha pack of dogs try and survive a Japanese doggy dystopia, purpose-built for them by an oppressive Kobayashi regime. Their goals are recalibrated slightly from survival to rescue when a young boy, Atari, comes to their home, Trash Island, to look for his lost dog. The team lead by their new master undergoes a Great Escape-style caper.

Pretty standard Wes Anderson film right? The critics would agree so too. Only a lot of people are unhappy, even furious, with how the director has handled Japanese culture.

There are no two ways about it, this film is heavily appropriated. It cements very old, westernised ideas about Japan: playing heavily on the mispronunciation of words, Samurai ideas and culture bookending the film, skirmishes and explosions in atomic bomb-style mushroom clouds, sushi, the Yakuza are the bad guys… the list goes on.

Behind the camera, there were many native Japanese hands involved, as Kunichi Nomura namely helped develop the story and voiced Mayor Kobayashi, the authoritarian ruler of the make-believe Megasaki City. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this cultural tourism could have turned out to be actual racism. Critics and people like myself would argue Anderson should have known better, even if the seeds were sown for this film in 2007, well before this ‘woke epidemic’.

The insensitivity to race issues is even made worse with - one of my favourite problems - white saviour complex, with added sprinkles of misogyny. Although our hero this time is Tracy Walker (voiced by Greta Gerwig) a young exchange student from America, who just happens to be in the area to help overthrow an oppressive regime, our diversion from the unexpected is steered right back onto the heteronormative track with Tracy winding up with a crush on our male protagonist, Atari (yes like the console by the way). In case that wasn’t enough to embed into children the idea that women can’t do anything without a man by their side, the relationships between the doggos of the film follow a similar formula.

On top of this, the ensemble cast comes together to form a kind of whitewashing avengers, who have, interestingly, all been criticised for starring in films that are insensitive to aspects of East and South Asian culture. Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange, Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in a Shell and Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, and Fisher Stevens in Short Circuit.

To simplify things, let’s umbrella all the problems with this film and concluded that Anderson made Isle of Dogs for a white, working to middle class, straight audience, who probably haven’t been to Japan or know much about it outside of what they learned from school or popular culture - viewing the film with a “white gaze”. A rather outlandish -some would argue accurate- claim to make against a director who has done nothing the audience, now more socially conscious, deem too unjust, right? To only talk about Isle of Dogs this way is not fair on Wes Anderson.

“This is his love letter to Japan though” you might say. “How will we understand different cultures if we don’t even get to show them on screen and talk about them? Besides it’s not even real, none of Anderson’s films really adhere to reality”, “P.C. gone mad” blah blah. Wes even said the story “could happen anywhere” and he and his team (Japanese natives included) made it because of “a shared love of Japanese cinema.” Herein lies the problem: Anderson’s use of the white gaze has gone unchecked for a long time. As a white filmmaker, he has benefited from structural racism and current gender dynamics well before Isle of Dogs.

From Moonrise Kingdom to Bottle Rocket to the marvellous Grand Budapest Hotel, we follow the same white characters play out the same heist-like escapades, playing off of trends and stereotypes the white gaze has seen and consolidated time and time again. Under all the pretty pastels and fully utilised thirds, there are a lot of people (filmmakers like Anderson and audiences in general) patting themselves on the back for believing they have interpreted and appreciated a culture - say Japanese culture - extensively and not in bad taste. We’ve known for a while that a lot of Hollywood films only highlight how the majority of Westerners view the world around them. Some people are only now coming to realise this is not always the right thing to do, and even fewer are willing to elicit change. I fear Anderson falls into the latter category.

The fact that Anderson can now pretty much hand-select a cast for a film means he has access to the best Hollywood has to offer, who tend to be stars we adore for their humanity as well as their ability. I wholeheartedly believe no one in the making of this film is racist or meant wrong by anything they did but it can’t be ignored that with the release of Isle of Dogs, it’s become clear that Anderson doesn’t want to use his position to incite any meaningful social development in the film industry. He doesn’t have to or have to want to, however, it is disappointing to know that someone we consider so effective at storytelling is choosing to tune out the calls for change. We’ll have to look for our innovative films elsewhere.

As Reni Eddo-Lodge might put it: Wes Anderson is one white person you shouldn’t talk to about race or anything else woke for that matter.