#racism and misogyny absolutely factor into this

[aroacegundamalex]

I mostly think this poll is hilarious (and some people are taking it way, way too seriously) but it’s starting to get really weird how often people on the opposite side are dismissing Gundam — a giant of science fiction that remade a genre in its image — and quite literally lying about Suletta and Miorine. I’ve seen people claim they were canonically married to men, people claim the show’s ending was rewritten by interns, claim they never hugged, and other claims regarding them not being canon.

While Bandai and Kadokawa did censor one interview, and Bandai released an “open to interpretation” statement, these no longer hold true. Official material has henceforth referred to them as married. One instance of censorship and a statement they’ve clearly walked back on does not erase the fact that the show itself heavily emphasizes their wedding rings, refers to Miorine as Eri’s sister-in-law, and makes it abundantly clear that they are married.

“I knew I was going to make an epilogue, but it was a while before I decided upon the exact number of years that should pass in-between. The ending itself follows “The Tempest,” and depicts Suletta and Miorine getting married and becoming partners.”

- Hiroshi Kobayashi

They are completely and unambiguously canon, and arguably were never decanonized to begin with given the literal text of the show.

An addendum to this: I’ve also seen a strange dismissal of the history that G-Witch pulls from.

The original Gundam inspired Revolutionary Girl Utena, with Lalah Sune in particular (the creator of an iconic Gundam archetype) serving as the inspiration for Anthy Himemiya. Gundam has had a queer fanbase for decades, and has had gay characters (with Yoshiyuki Tomino himself confirming this) since the 1990s.

G-Witch draws from Gundam’s extensive, genre-shaking history, classics like Utena and Rose of Versailles, and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It brings Gundam and Utena’s connection full circle, and is in conversation with every Gundam series that came before it.

It’s unfair to dismiss it as just some random show, or — as I’ve seen some do — credit its open queerness to the influence of completely unrelated American media, as if Japan is utterly devoid of gay people.

[wishcamper]

loving acovav and your family systems posts, it puts into words and pulls together so many problems that exist within the ic and relationships in the book xx

though i just have to say it absolutely KILLS me that sjm somehow accidently created such interesting and complex character dynamics (even though there is still a fair amount of inconsistency)

Thank you so much! I was glad to find I wasn’t alone in being baffled/infuriated by the books lol

I think sjm does have the ability to identify the conditions for conflict, but kind of all of us do. Blending families can be hard, involved power struggles. Entering a new world creates cognitive dissonance and grief. People react to trauma differently, and don’t always understand others’ reactions. Romance inside a friend group creates tension. These are things we all know if you think for a moment. But her weakness is that she’s often bad at predicting how people would react to these conflicts, and she definitely doesn’t understand why and how people change.

On the whole, the “themes” she explores are pretty universal. That’s why her premises have so much potential but don’t go anywhere emotionally satisfying. And universal stories are satisfying, that’s why we tell them over and over a la the Hero’s Journey. ACOTAR is Beauty and the Beast. ACOSF is essentially The Taming of the Shrew with more push-ups. But where a different telling like 10 Things I Hate About You says something new about that story- that we are more than stereotypes and can find authentic connections when we transcend them - her conclusions are straight up weird. Like, ACOSF says: be who everyone wants you to be and life gets better. Uh?? In what world is that a hopeful takeaway??

That’s why even her own characters seem out of character, because the inciting events and the reactions they elicit don’t make sense half the time. I think it’s because she doesn’t have equal compassion for her characters (some none at all) so the ones she likes get every motivation for their actions upheld as worthwhile, and the ones she doesn’t like are either two dimensional or have to suck up to the characters she likes for redemption. But she doesn’t recognize that this communicates something, even if it’s unintentional. It’s like she doesn’t realize there’s a subconscious story underneath the surface one, that we can see her thought process through the choices she makes AND the ones she doesn’t.

I know she’s talked about how she puts a lot of her own experience into the books and I think that shows but mostly through her internal and external biases, unfortunately. She only ever affirms her own beliefs through the text, and ultimately says something obvious or straight up distasteful without meaning to (I hope). Other people have detailed her misogyny more thoroughly than I can here, but the disdain for her female characters is so obvious. And that’s not even starting on the racism. There’s a very clear thread of personal responsibility that ignores all the systemic, identity, and cultural factors that make us feel, think, and behave in certain ways.

All this is to say: agree, it’s so annoying because it’s like she had all the ingredients for a cake and somehow made a pizza instead because she likes it more. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how you got from there to here Sarah, and you seem happy but I still want cake!

Anyway, thank you for the ask, and letting me indulge in affronted literary criticism, which is my favorite thing to do 🤓

[grendelsmilf]

okay i finally finished rewatching s1 of the afterparty (it took me so long bc i’ve been watching it w my dad and i haven’t seen him in a while) (will respond to whoever asked me about my thoughts on s2 once i get to it) so here are my thoughts (immediate spoilers btw)

yasper literally could’ve gotten away with it AND maintained his friendship with aniq if at the very beginning he had just said “i was up there talking to him and he accidentally slipped i tried to save him but i was too far away also it’s my birthday im a little birthday boyy” . and then even if danner had pressed him further bc she suspected foul play, aniq would’ve had his back bc he would’ve known that yasper was willing to take the fall just so that aniq wouldn’t be implicated. yasper rly fumbled that huh

that said, i don’t think yasper should go to prison because killing xavier is not a crime by any moral standards. in fact he should win the nobel peace prize

also yasper should win ANOTHER nobel just for being enmeshed in not ONE but two examples of toxic yaoi. he’s crazy for that

also i just love ben schwartz. who can resist his precious little punim

and his chemistry with sam richardson is amazing they should star in like a romcom or something

aniq and zoe are still cute together. sorry

on a rewatch the brett episode might genuinely be the funniest one. and the high school episode is still genuinely devastating

as for what I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FUCKING STAND ABOUT THIS SHOW: it is a show fundamentally concerned with how the lens through which we view media shapes our perceptions of the world. it is a show about narrativization and the nature of propaganda. it is a show that continually lampshades the way in which our media is an inaccurate reflection of our material realities. it is a show that explicitly points out the harmful nature of copaganda, especially in terms of how it contradicts real-world policing…in an episode that simultaneously portrays policing in a fundamentally inaccurate way that plays into the exact same reactionary, harmful tropes it is ostensibly critiquing. and i don’t find this cute or charmingly ironic, i find this to be particularly insidious, because self-awareness without self-critique allows for the viewer (and the writer) to feel smugly satisfied while absorbing the exact same propagandistic tropes they somehow consider themselves immune to. the characters repeatedly emphasize that our perspectives are flawed as a way of gesturing to the failures of our criminal justice system, but the show ends with the same poirot-esque victory for our central cop heroine without ever actually taking into consideration the harm of presenting such a narrative. because the good cop gets to feel satisfied that she solved the case before the bad cop came and made a wrongful arrest, right? it’s especially insidious because they clearly imply that racism is a motivating factor in aniq’s status as the primary suspect as well as danner’s slower career trajectory (as well as misogyny, in her case), but acknowledging that there is racism and sexism embedded into these institutions of policing while otherwise upholding the work cops do as “solving crimes” and “serving the community” is an even more dangerous form of liberal copaganda in many respects. the way yasper’s arrest is framed angers me, but it’s not necessarily because i think ben schwartz is too cute to go to jail (although i still maintain jennifer 1 would’ve made for a better murderer if they had to go that route at all). it’s that the framing plays the assumptions of this fundamentally reactionary genre completely straight; the entire show continually lampshades many of the glaring flaws in this premise as it nevertheless upholds deeply harmful institutions. as far as s1 goes, it is an extremely entertaining piece of comedy with a great cast (although john early and tiya sircar were underutilized so what’s even the point), with an interesting premise and framing device, but completely ideologically abhorrent in a way that genuinely sickens me.

anyway watch gosford park

[bedlamsbard]

ooo tea on your no-go tropes if ur comfortable sharing

oh sure they're nothing so weird or specific that it's going to call out one specific fic writer, since it's all stuff that I've seen multiple people write and/or talk and/or speculate about. (and some are holdovers from the comics; comics are hardly immune from me not liking things in them.)

Steve getting de-serumed. This one is a huge absolute no for me, and I'm not sure what about it makes me so uncomfortable, but it just does. It makes me so uncomfortable that I don't want to poke at it to figure out why. I know there was a lot of speculation about this circa CACW, around when the title was released but before there were any details of the movie known (when it was assumed it would be closer to the comics counterpart), and then it came again around IW and Endgame both, something about the idea of like..."both the audience and the in-universe characters need to know that Steve isn't Captain America just because he has the serum!" something about the "he needs to be physically depowered in order to Prove Himself" just rubs me absolutely the wrong way. (I think this is another factor in why the Captain Carter What If timeline bothers me so much, but like. there are multiple factors there. I think I talked once about how I have set points in canon and Steve getting the serum is one of them.) (there is one fic I like where the Avengers got deaged and Steve got shrunk back to pre-serum size, but not de-serumed, that one's fine.)

post-Ragnarok (usually IW/Endgame AUs) fics that have Loki on the Raft -- no-go, makes me super uncomfortable, don't want to read it -- I've read enough of it to know that I don't want to read more and it's just not my thing. fine if people like it, just not for me; not something I want to read, not something I'm ever going to write.

anything that characterizes Loki's adoption as baby-stealing (again, What If is not immune) -- I go on fairly regular rants about this, but I (somewhat unusually) have the background of someone who's done a not-insignificant amount of academic work on infant abandonment in the pre-modern world, so it's something I know a lot about on a legal/cultural level. I sometimes say only semi-facetiously that I got into this fandom because as someone who actually knows about this stuff I have a moral responsibility to write about it in a historically-accurate-inspired manner, except as we all know I have not actually posted the chapter that deals really extensively with it. But it makes me really frustrated that people don't seem to realize this was a historical reality and something that had a lot of laws associated with it, instead of being a freak occurrence that is Obviously Bad.

there are a lot of common tropes about Asgard that just make me insane. a brief survey: feudalism, primogeniture, sexism/misogyny -- like, the standard-issue high fantasy stuff that just gets transferred over without any critical thought. which, if that's what you want to write, fine, I hate it, but that's my problem, not yours, no one's forcing me to read it. people putting racism in Valhalla, hate that one, so much.

anything that uses comics!Natasha's backstory for MCU!Natasha. I realize that ten years ago this seemed a lot more reasonable (Natasha having a version of the super soldier serum, being extremely long-lived, etc.), but really from TWS onwards it should have been obvious that that was not the backstory that the MCU was using, and if you are still using that as a writer in 2022 I am judging you. like, I try not to judge people too much in terms of like. ignoring canon, but I literally can't read anything that still uses 2012 base assumptions. (this is hypocritical for me on several levels, though it's also one of the reasons I had to get out of Star Wars, but hey, brains aren't rational. it's one of the casualties of me coming back into the fandom late. it probably would not be a problem for me if I'd stuck around. I'd probably have the same problem I have in Star Wars.)

on a related note, one of my MCU NOTPs is BuckyNat and part of that is because so much of it depends on transferring comics!Natasha's backstory over to MCU!Natasha. they have only interacted twice in canon and both times they were trying to kill each other. every other time they have been in the same scene one or the other of them was interacting with Steve, not each other. like, the heart wants what it wants, shipping is shipping, but treating it as canon-established (which many, many people do in and out of fic fandom, I'm in non-fic fandom circles and people talk about it there as if it's something onscreen) is absurd to me and I'm just ????? to the extent that now I hate it. but no one is forcing me to read it, the heart wants the heart wants, I obviously ship something else so I'm not objective there -- it's just another no-go for me.

comics transference in general. this is going to sound weird, because obviously the MCU is an adaptation of the comic books, but at fourteen years in it should be obvious that you cannot uncritically transfer things over wholesale, especially when it comes to established characters, especially if it outright contradicts canon. I can't read comics!Clint characterization in MCU fic. that ship sailed in 2015 -- honestly, it sailed in 2012, but whatever; we have established that people saw a different movie in 2012 than the one that's on the screen. by the way, the actual MCU is not immune to this; it is at its absolute weakest when it just transfers things over from the comics and expects them to work. they don't. because the MCU ain't the comics. (the worst offender is the Loki ep "Journey Into Mystery" but it is not alone.)

just various characterization tendencies that I see in fandom -- characterization is actually the number one reason I don't usually read fic in my writing fandoms, because we all see characters differently and it's one of the very few things that will make me start doubting my own writing. or just making me angry. (I actually have a very short temper, I hate so many things, I just don't talk about them on main.) I know my characterization does not fly for a lot of people (though unlike in Star Wars, MCU readers don't tell me about it, but I know it has to be true because I've been in fandom for two decades), so again, it is what it is. I know how to click a back button.

there are so many ships I either outright hate or just dislike, but I tend to OTP pretty hardcore once I get there and no one is forcing me to read them. it just gets frustrating sometimes when the ships I dislike are the most common ships for the characters I also write and/or ship with other people. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but then I also can't really read fic for my own ships because uuuuuuuhhhhhhh the characterization is Wrong. not wrong, just Wrong for me personally. which is why I by and large don't read in my writing fandoms.

Steve Rogers is all hard edges. stop softening him. what the fuck.

[captain-lovelace]

ive been on the fence about reading the dresden files bc i LOVE the author's writing style from snippets ive read but i heard it was hashtag problematic. if i promise im someone with critical thinking skills would you tell me whether or not the series is worth it

soooo... first off I cannot in good conscience say that anyone should read the Dresden Files because it's not just like, hashtag problematic, it's the kind of thing where every book requires a list of TWs as long as my arm. There's misogyny! There's repeated mishandling of sexual violence! There's homophobia! There's racism (and specifically the treatment of Native people and cultures is absolutely hair-raisingly bad)! There's antisemitism! There's the absolutely nauseating way in which Jim Butcher describes a 17-year-old girl! It's the series that has it all!

The thing about the Dresden Files is that it frustrates the hell out of me, because it's so often bad, but when it's good there's nothing else quite like it. I have never felt the same level of sheer joy that I felt watching Harry ride SUE the T. rex through downtown Chicago for the first time with anything else, ever. I'd say that it was worth it for me, with a bunch of caveats (there are some books and short stories I just avoid rereading because they make me feel so sick, I know that certain factors like the racism and antisemitism don't affect me as bad as they might affect others and that's a mark of privilege in and of itself, I don't interact with other facets of the fandom outside of tumblr due to some incredibly negative backlash I got when I chose to portray Harry as bisexual in a fanfiction, and depending on what happens in upcoming books I'm very much prepared to jump ship).

My view on the series basically boils down to... I can't stop you from reading it but I also really can't recommend it with a clear conscience. That said, if you do decide that you want to read it, I'm willing to answer further questions/provide said TW lists via DMs. I hope this helps, anon!

[awitchofthewoods]

(Just a preface to this ask, I'm an Atheopagan, not a Christian, but I'm well versed in the bible due to my upbringing)

I mean absolutely no disrespect to you, so I'm very sorry if this comes across as condescending or accusatory as that is absolutely not my intention; but I do not understand how one can be both Christian and a witch at the same time. The bible expressly condemns witchcraft - For example, Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27 - and from a historical perspective, witches were heavily persecuted in biblical times (and basically all of history after that including today) in the name of Christ. I'm not saying you need to choose one or the other, but I don't see these belief systems as compatible with each other in any way. Could you possibly tell me your thoughts/feelings/beliefs on this?

Absolutely! Let's address these verses and some historical context. Since both verses are from the Old Testament, I'm going to use my interlinear Hebrew/English Bible. So, the verse in Leviticus you're talking about is this one:

In this verse, what's being forbidden is necromancy and the summoning of "familiar spirits". In context, the familiar spirits likely refers to A) tutelary/household spirits or B) pagan/foreign deities. Since Judaism is a monotheistic faith, and Leviticus is a book of Jewish law it makes sense that it wouldn't look kindly on summoning or venerating other spirits/deities. The first commandment is about not worshipping other gods:

I don't summon any spirits or venerate any other deities in my practice, so I don't consider myself to be in violation of this law.

Now let's look at the verse in Exodus:

This one seems pretty straightforward. The question to ask here is what is meant by sorcery? This is part of a set of laws given to the Jewish people after Moses led them out of Egypt, meant to mark them as God's chosen people. The sorcery being referred to here is likely the magic done by Egyptians in worship of/with power from their deities. In Biblical times "sorcery" is heavily, almost intrinsically associated with worship of foreign gods. Also, it has been suggested that the Hebrew word for sorceress used here may mean something closer to "poisoner" rather than "witch". It was translated as "pharmakeia" in the Septuagint, which would refer to an apothecary or herbalist. Keep in mind that many ancient medicines were poisonous or harmful.

Our modern definition of magic/witchcraft is wider than the Biblical one. In fact, there are many instances where Biblical figures do what we would consider magic (particularly divination) as part of worship or in service of God, and this is not forbidden or looked negatively upon.

As for your second point about persecution: the history of persecution of magic-users/witches is long and complex. Witch-hunts happened in many different places at many different times and were motivated by different things over the centuries. Often, they were used to erase people's traditions or to punish those they perceived as a threat to social norms. Generally, it was fuelled by misogyny, xenophobia, and racism. In many cases it had more to do with those factors than the practice of magic itself.

Fear and intolerance from Christians has caused massive amounts of harm to countless people over the years. As a lesbian, I'm all too aware of that, having experienced it firsthand. That's why I do my best to advocate for marginalized people in my community, especially those groups that have been harmed by hegemonic Christianity in the past. I try to be aware of the privilege being a Christian in America gives me, and to use the power that that privilege gives me to uplift people who need it.

I hope this answers your questions!

-Ailith

[bisluthq]

i hate harry fangirls w a passion lol. like most recently somebody made a tiktok of 10 similarities between songs on harry's house to past songs and they were like oh i have more i dont want to post any of them, and harries descended into the comments section and qrts to be all like THERES ONLY A CERTAIN NUMBER OF CHORD PROGRESSIONS IN MUSIC STOP ATTACKING HARRY HES SO ORIGINAL AND TALENTED but when sour came out they were the first ones to descend on olivia and call her fake and a plagiarizer for some guitar riffs. on a slightly different note, i despise the hate olivia (rodrigo) gets. i think a lot of it is bc shes a yr older than me and we're both woc, so shes j super relatable and i rly project onto her but oml. the fact that ppl started hate trains for her on tiktok on twitter for her music having some similarities to her idols' (tbf it did), but like. she was literally a 17 yr old disney star/professional fangirl when she was writing sour. ofc it wasnt going to be revolutionary? she makes good, relatable, teenage music and thats what matters. she obvi wasnt going to be the next kanye west in revolutionary production w her debut. meanwhile, harry is a grown ass, nearly-30 yr old man, and all his albums still sound like david bowie ripoffs. he truly has not had one original song that sounds like HIM. his lyrics are good, but i wouldnt say theyre incredible (olivias lyricism is on par w his and again shes j 18). his production is j a variation of some song or another (he deadass copied the antfarm theme song on music for a sushi restaurant). and yet people will praise harry but drag olivia through the mud. its so fucking annoying. idk sm of the olivia hate reminds me of the early taylor hate bc they were both so dumb.and ofc w olivia theres the added factor of racism which is always fun, bc ppl love to deny that shes a woc bc shes half white.

Olivia absolutely faces tired ass misogyny and blandly racist takes, yeah.

[hey-haven]

Speaking as a victim that does not like vivienne, I think it's a bit unfair to say that episode 4 is a poor depiction while not having watched it yourself. I'm not saying you have to watch it of course, absolutely do not subject yourself to things you know will hurt you. Though as someone who greatly sees himself in angel dust regrettably, I genuinely felt like the episode was a very good portrayal, elaborating on why Angel constantly sexualizes himself, the actual depictions of abuse being harrowing enough I had to pause to prevent a panic attack, and more importantly, the scene everyone claimed was sexualizing Angel's abuse in Poison was. Well. A series of flashbacks and showing what is currently happening. Showing that the whole "look at how sexy I am!" thing is a front. There are many many many issues with Vivienne that Should be addressed like how fucking vile she is for using voodou as "scary magic" and appropriaring native folklore for the "scary factor", but being real I think episode 4 wasn't something that warranted calling her an abuse apologist over like many people did. I think in the end people are focusing on the wrong stuff and pitting victims against each other based on how they cope or react to their trauma rather than focusing on Vivienne's blatant racism and misogyny

I have addressed that I am biased in my opinion and considering the subject matter, I think that is okay. All it took is the quick second of seeing Angel’s expression shift to fear as these hell hounds tower over him to make me feel sick. I knew in that moment that this specific portrayal of assault would only upset me and it has already upset many other people.

I have also said that it’s fine if you weren’t bothered by the scenes. If you saw yourself in Angel then good for you…I think. Idk if that’s good but if you felt seen then good for you. I have also said to try not to say “it’s not that bad” but that also extends to posts and asks like this who try to explain why they personally thought the episode was a good portrayal. Good for you, genuinely, but it will not change my own thoughts because the post was not made for those people. It was made for the people who were hurt by the scenes. Who were upset and who felt that same sickening feeling I felt. It was me telling them that the way they feel is justified and that it was okay to not be okay with this portrayal.

This is the last time I’ll be talking about this topic because I only wanted to extend a hand and tell the people who were upset that they are not alone and that they are not wrong for being upset. That is all

[caffeineandsociety]

I feel it's long past time to put "if you're not X, you benefit from people hating X" on the shelf and not bring it back down for ANYTHING except discussions of racism specifically as it was meant for, because...it's just straight up not true about most anything else.

Sure, in zero-sum games like hiring pools or classrooms full of raised hands, where one person being knocked out of the running increases your odds, then not being part of the immediately dismissed outgroup is an unearned benefit, but-

1: Other axes of marginalization are not as visible nor as permanent as race and its related factors. Racism was convenient to invent because it's about hereditary markers that are usually VERY visible. You are the same race from birth to death, no matter what you do (though Jewishness as an ethnicity carries some exceptions to that point, but that's a can of worms WAY too big for this post). Your kids will not be a different race from their parents, so their roles will not change along family lines (hence why interracial relationships were - and to many assholes still are - a big deal hot button issue). Racism is as clean-cut as an axis of oppression gets (which is STILL extremely messy) about who's in the in-group and who's in the out-group.

Other axes are not so simple.

Race is the main thing people are oppressed on that is pretty strictly hereditary - it's in your genes, no way in, no way out, and the odds of surprise discovery that you're not the race you thought you were are very low (though importantly, not nonexistent). On the other hand, anyone's kid can turn out to be queer or disabled, and in fact, anyone can become disabled at any given moment. Both of these factors are often invisible. Women can be born to anyone by the basic nature of how human reproduction works; roughly half the population at any given moment will be women whether by birth designation or transition - which ties back to the previous "anyone in the in-group can become the out-group" factor again. As such, these things are enforced differently. A racist will ignore and/or abuse people who are visibly, or invisibly but known to be, not white. A misogynist will also ignore and/or abuse people who appear to be women...but they will also abuse people who appear to be men who present too feminine, because they're failing to live up to their assigned gender role and, especially now in the midst of a moral panic, they may be on the verge of Joining The Enemy. In fact, they may already BE The Enemy - no willful misogynist thinks of trans men as men! They see a man who's a bit short, maybe a bit wide-hipped, a little baby-faced, and they'll start bullying him relentlessly and trying to ~revoke his man card~. If they find out he IS trans, he's at risk for corrective rape and other violence to ~teach him his place~. The systemic restriction and ignorance and underdevelopment of gynecological healthcare is a construct of misogyny, but bigots consider it a BENEFIT when it can be used against trans and intersex men as well for Being Men Wrong, because anyone with a vagina or a uterus or ovaries or fallopian tubes or whatever is Lesser to them, and they HATE that they can't always tell who that is; someone who has them "in secret" is typically considered by a bigot to be even MORE deserving of abuse than a cis woman. A queerphobe isn't JUST going to attack people with pride gear, people who are openly affectionate toward their same-gender partner(s), non-passing trans people, or whoever else is well and truly openly, visibly queer - no, they're going to go after ANYONE whose behavior overlaps even a LITTLE with common things in queer subcultures, flip absolute shit over platonic displays of affection, and invent new hand-based phrenology to try and figure out Who The Enemy Is. Disability? Society hates disabled people so much that it built itself around systemic denial of human limitations - it demands too much of even abled people; it's just WORSE to disabled people, because it wants to filter out the ~unworthy~, whether they have a diagnosable disability or not.

No one benefits from these systems, not even the enforcers who are holding themselves and each other to an unreasonable standard of conformity because they think they're playing a huge high-stakes game of Among Us. No shortage of people who, nominally, are not part of the intended out-group are STILL attacked as such because you just can't tell. Any random person is at risk of sexist and queerphobic violence. Anyone is at risk of ableist bullshit. Even the most benign nonconformity with no links whatsoever to any kind of formally recognized marginalized status can be attacked, because it's about stupid, pointless, reactionary fear of the unfamiliar, AND about trying to suss out visible markers of who The Enemy really is. Absolutely no one, save for the grifters stoking the fear of People Being Different so they can sell scared people a solution, sees what I would consider a true net benefit from this!

2: "If you are white, you benefit from racism" is only about 10% at most about ANY of that; it's more about how much of American and white European cultures are BUILT on the exploitation of POC. In America specifically, it was mostly enslaved Black people who built the south and a good chunk of the north. This isn't something we can keep sweeping under the rug. If it weren't for chattel slavery, one of the absolute worst atrocities humanity has ever invented, this entire country would look EXTREMELY different. Thanks to a history of Jim Crow laws, an "it's only illegal if you get caught" attitude toward modern nondiscrimination laws (which is not exclusive to racism), and the nepotistic nature of racism, the benefits are STILL mostly concentrated in the hands and control of white people. America is built on stolen land; very little would change for the average American if we remedied this today and what WOULD change would be a gentle transition for most, but the infrastructure we have now wouldn't look the same had it been built cooperatively as the myth states, and in fact it might not be as "impressive" according to our current cultural values - not because indigenous people are stupid savages, but because the construction was so obscenely exploitative; white colonizers valued unsustainable, artificially accelerated growth and "modernization" as a marker of Civilization(TM). Many of the necessary, life-sustaining functions of society that are hidden from the average white American, from manufacturing of medication to the food supply chain, that labor is STILL largely performed by exploited, underpaid POC immigrants and enslaved prisoners (i.e., largely Black men).

While other oppressed groups are frequently exploited for labor (see: Goodwill paying subminimum wages to disabled people and claiming it to be charity because they're so graciously LETTING them work), NONE of these things can be said of any other axis of oppression.

This is ESPECIALLY pertinent - and the abuse of the language especially insulting - when it's used for infighting amongst queer subgroups. No, Becky, ace girls DO NOT benefit from lesbophobia; they are exploited by it, they're constantly scrutinized to make sure they're Feminine Enough but not in like a gay femme way and pressured into relationships with men they don't even like to "prove" they're not lesbians. Cis lesbians are not exempt, let alone benefitting, from transmisogyny; have you not heard of how many cis butches have been assaulted in bathrooms because someone thought they were trans? In fact, sexuality be damned, do you think sexually violating children for playing sports too well not only doesn't hurt them but BENEFITS them if the genital inspector says "congratulations, your pussy passes the vibe check, welcome back to the team!"? Trans medical gatekeeping laws may have transandrophobic justifications, but I don't exactly see them NOT getting used against trans women, and they make life for intersex people even more complicated when a medical team isn't sure what framework to use to violate our bodily autonomy and force us to conform. Hell, even straight men do not benefit from homophobia against gay men; they're just forced deeper and deeper into an ever-shrinking box that demands they break and numb themselves out of feeling anything but anger, greed, and WOOOO SPORTSBALL AND EXPLOSIONS!! and neglect their basic living needs, because if they clean their asses and learn to feed themselves and do their own laundry that's ~GAAAAaaAAaaAaAY~.

The only people who benefit from any form of queerphobia are far-right grifters and their benefactors. End of.

"But, hold on, they still do benefit from not being part of the intended target group! They may not be exempt, but they are at LOWER risk of being hurt by these things! That counts for something!"

Be that as it may, consider the linguistic implications here. People may be less DISadvantaged by their non-marginalized identities, but they do NOT inherently BENEFIT from the bigotries - saying "you benefit from [BIGOTRY]" to mean "you are at lower risk of direct violence based on [BIGOTRY]" implies that being at high risk for violence is what we should accept as a baseline, and low but extant risk is a luxury.

Which.

Uh.

No.

This language does not work for anything but racism. Applying it to anything else is not only naively racist but also actively detrimental to whatever cause you're applying it to.

[cosmicoryx]

i feel like the shabnak thing can be more directly tied into racism than misogyny since iirc most of the women being persecuted with the steppe girls. misogyny is definitely a factor but that specific thing was a racism issue

oh yeah I totally agree that its more tied to racism than anything else in that instance. I probably should have acknowledged that in my original post. While I still think its reasonable to discuss it as an issue of general misogyny given that both kin and non-kin women were targeted, I absolutely agree that kin women would have been disproportionately persecuted.

[tailsrevane]

[movie review] predator 2 (1990)

there is not a single movie in either of these franchises that is as bad as predator 2. there just isn’t. this is the absolute worst. but it ends this first (of three) part of my avp megareview for one very simple reason: there’s a visual easter egg (a xenomorph skull in the predator’s trophy room) that demonstrated that dark horse comics wasn’t the only entity considering bringing these two franchises together for an explosive confrontation.

while we’re on the topic of connections between these two franchises, it’s pretty damn weird that bill paxton is a major supporing character in the second installment of both franchises, right?

let’s see. positive things. say something positive. uh. well, to reiterate, there isn’t a single movie in either of these franchises that is as bad as predator 2. oh, also, the predator uses a net gun! twice! a thing they should really do more often in these movies imo! thank you for that.

oh yeah, also also the whole time danny glover’s character, uh, protagonist mccopaganda? whatever. the whole time he’s on the predator’s ship this suddenly morphs into a much better movie for a few minutes? and if you’re like me, you’re just so mad because it could have been this at any time? and instead it was… predator 2???

yeah, sorry, we’re ending on a downer note. i just don’t even get how a movie can be this mind-numbingly boring and this loudly, offensively bad at the same time. usually you have to pick one or the other! everything is just so meandering and unmotivated, but it’s so loud and dumb, and not fun loud and dumb.

this is trash before you even factor in the staggering amounts of racism, misogyny, and copaganda. when you factor those in, it’s mega trash. what a just genuinely unpleasant viewing experience.

i re-reiterate: there isn’t a single other movie in either of these franchises that is as bad as predator 2. it’s okay. we made it. d-rank

[mariacallous]

Might be a shot in the dark here but I'm pretty sure I've seen you posting (when called out for following @/kendallroy back then) about oppression based on sex and how abortion is an issue of misogyny instead of something that affects "all genders" so by admitting that as a trans woman you clearly acknowledge there's a physical difference between trans and cis women and that misogyny affects people according to what sex (as opposed to gender) they are or are perceived as. So, I ask you, how is your stance in any way different from that of a terf or what jkr and similar types have been saying? Why is acknowledging sexed reality sometimes apparently "dangerous" for trans women but then okay with you when talking about abortion? Because that same stance on abortion has been considered a terf dogwhistle, you know that right?

I have never denied that abortion is an issue that affects "all genders", first of all.

What I have said is that it is an issue that primarily affects women, and I've spoken before about proportionality of impact and equality of harm.

Cis women are the primary group targeted and affected by abortion restrictions. Individuals other than cis women are just as affected but they are not what the anti-abortion crowd are thinking about or focusing on.

Because of that, restricting abortion is primarily but not exclusively an issue of misogyny.

The issue is when you remove or minimize that aspect, because while yes, abortion restriction absolutely affects people of color and poor people and disabled people, racism and classism and ableism are not the primary motivators behind it. They are all factors, obviously, but they exacerbate the main one.

Additionally, I've pointed out that restricting abortion goes hand-in-hand with restricting trans-affirming care, and that it's the same people doing both.

I'd also point out that a lot of the issues trans individuals, both men and women, face is due to transmisogyny and the relationship they both have to how they identify.

I've been pretty consistent about all of this, or at least I would like to think I have been.

[sapropel]

If we wanna have a serious conversation about desirability and attraction. Let's. As you know I'm a fat gay man and I've written quite a bit about my experience being fat, both on and off Tumblr.

When fat people say you should be attracted to fat people, we aren't saying you have to find every fat person attractive. Frankly thats ridiculous. I don't find every fat person attractive. I don't find every skinny person attractive either. And I joke about hating twinks or being unattracted to hairless people, but that's just that--a joke. I'm attracted to twinks and hairless people that I think are attractive. The serpent consumes its own tail. It doesn't mean I don't have preferences, but it does mean that I actively challenge my unfounded biases that might prevent me from being attracted to certain kinds of men. And that's an incredibly, terribly mundane and normal approach to attraction.

We are saying that someone being fat shouldn't suddenly make them attractive or unattractive to you. It shouldn't be a major factor when we are talking about DESIRABILITY IN A VACUUM. Of course, how are we ever going to have desirability politics in a vacuum? We won't. But it is to say that fat people "artificially" inflating their attraction to other fat people (that is, actively breaking down internalized fatphobia and allowing fat people to be attractive to you despite systematic fatphobia) and skinny people "naturally" being unattracted to fat people are falsehoods. We are falsely taught that fat people are unattractive as a default and that skinny people are attractive as a default. This is untrue, just as it is untrue that trans people, people of color, and disabled people are inherently less attractive than their systematically normalized counterparts.

Outside of jokes, punching up, and radical self love etc, we all really need to understand that body type is utterly neutral. It has no moral weight to it. And it really has far less to do with attraction, actual real "biological attraction" than we think it does. It's about 90% completely socially constructed (statistic unverifiable). Outside of jokes meant to highlight my relationship to fatness and fatphobia, I do not actually think fat people are more attractive than skinny people. I might choose to be with someone who understands and has experienced fatphobia rather than someone who hasn't, but that's a different phenomenom entirely.

Another aspect of fatphobia that makes it so difficult to tackle wrt desirability is how deeply entrenched it is in other marginalized identities, in ways that might not be obvious.

Fatness is absolutely racialized, and it is absolutely gendered. Systematic racism and classism mean that in America, poor people and people of color are more likely to be fat than their well-off or white counterparts. Don't think that this has nothing to do with how you experience attraction to people based on body types. Black and brown women have been talking for YEARS about the white mainstream appropriation of racialized body types and the racialization of features associated with fatness, e.g. big butts and breasts, curves, etc...

And when we talk about fatness affecting gender, skinny people tend to view fat women as heavily masculinized and fat men as heavily feminized--unless it's convenient otherwise, in which case it's the complete opposite. So in your attraction to fat people, you also have to grapple with gender forces that turn you off to women that are "too manly" and men that are "too feminine." I've spoken about this before but being fat has impacted my relationship to gender just as much as being gay has.

Attraction to fat people is not a low-stakes game. You are not a robot. You cannot compartmentalize your sexual and romantic attraction to marginalized bodies (or lack thereof) and think that it will not bleed over into the rest of your life. If you are committed to dismantling racism, misogyny, transphobia, fatphobia, etc, you have to understand that these systems rely on each other in subtle ways and that you can't treat them as isolated phenomena. You cannot dedicate yourself to dismantling racism and decide that you're going to put fatphobia on the backburner. Racism and fatphobia support each other, in all aspects of life, not just in desirability and attraction.

Does this mean that you have to go out and fuck a fat person right now? No. Does it mean you have to completely eradicate all your preferences? No. Does it mean I want to hear about how fuckable you find fat people? No. It means I want you to be NORMAL about fat people and treat us as you would anyone else. It means I want you to confront your fatphobic thoughts and behaviors. It means I want you to stop treating it as an anomaly when you ~actually~ find a fat person attractive.

[lais-a-ramos]

ok, this one is kind of a hard topic, and i appologize in advance for any mistakes i make or not being articulate enough

all the concearns over ppl in fandom hyping the only prominent white character, christina, in lovecraft country instead of the black characters are valid and the critique is definitely important, once it's common for ppl in fandom to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces.

but i also think we can't dismiss the entirety of the ship only bc the same LGBTQ+ fans are back at it again with their problematic behaviour, especially bc of its significance for black women and feminine-aligned nb folks who feel attraction to woman/feminine-aligned nbs -- lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, biromantic, panromantic etc.

for what i've seen so far, this ship is very important for black women and female-aligned nbs bc finally we have a dark-skinned black woman, who is also fat, to be treated with absolute respect and consideration and be passionately desired in a way that is not some kind of secret fetish or played for laughs, treated as being as worthy of being courted and romanced as her light-skinned and skinny half-sister.

christina respects ruby's choice and agency for most of the time -- i think the exception may be that first time ruby transformed into hillary;

she immediately explains to ruby her plans and intentions whenever ruby questions her behaviour and demands answers, including ruby in her plans when even ruby's loved ones keep secrets from her; she gives her all these baths and caresses her so softly, literally bathing her with affection and desire; she woos her with vows of devotion; and even tried to understand what ruby said when she asked her to try to understand her pain -- albeit in a fucked up way that only a privileged and sheltered girl raised in an enviroment in which magic is real and present in ppl's daily lives possibly could.

christina overall acknowledges that ruby is a woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires, and that's something y'all should keep in mind because i'll return to that later.

overall, these things i described are actually the basic that a person should do for the one they call their lover, and in no way erase the fact that christina is willing to kill innocent ppl to accomplish her goals of self-protection, nor turn these things acceptable from a moral standpoint.

but it's not the kind of treatment black women and feminine-aligned nbs receive, neither in fiction or in real life, by the way.

there are specific forms of misogyny that black women and female-aligned nbs face in which we are read as aggressive or animalistic, oversezualized or stripped from our sexuality and have our femininity denied if we don't check the boxes of what society deems acceptable.

there's this interview wumni mosaku gave for elle magazine U.S. in which she discusses her personal experiences with this problem, and how these eurocentric standards of femininity forced her to act in an overtly nice manner as a way to make sure ppl will treat her kindly instead of with suspicion and assuming she is aggressive.

that is because of the ways race and gender intersect creating a very complex scenario when it comes to definitions, experiences and stereotypes of femininity.

white women are overall treated with an authomatic presumption of innocence, as delicate and frail flowers who must be protected at all costs, especially if they are from upper classes -- that is something that is actually held against low-income white women, who are expected to adhere to certain standards to have their femininity acknowledged.

but, as we can see by that moment in episode 1x05, "strange case", when ruby as hillary is escorted by the policemen to her supposed husband who is actually christina shapeshifted , and, actually, by christina's entire motivations and characterization, that very same presumption of innocence is one of the sources of their oppression, because they are infantilized and stripped of their agency in favor of the men in their lives -- husbands, brothers, fathers etc --, being stopped and/or forbidden to do things cis het men usually get to and are expected to do.

in spite of this paradox, white women still have a privilege when compared to black women, because they're are still seen as ppl that belong to the world of affections and are worthy of receiving love, care and concearn for their wellbeing.

but that is not the case with black women.

usually, we are reserved two roles: one that revolves around being hypersexualized for men's consumption, both white and black alike; and the other, in which we are seen as "beasts of burden", carrying the weight in terms of work, emotions and so on, being expected to be desensitized to experiences and problems that no human would be expected to. sometimes, these two roles actually cross paths.

here in brazil, black activism and academics have been calling it "solidão da mulher negra", "the loneliness of black woman", and i think it's a very pertinent and powerful way to describe it.

and, that is the thing, when you're a black woman or feminine-aligned nb that doesn't fit into this role of being sexualized, you can feel this loneliness go a step further, because all that is left for you is that beast of burden part.

you end up not only being cast aside and abandoned by cis het white men and black men alike if you're attracted to men, but, overall, everyone in your social circle, including family, relatives and friends, expect you to be this source of strength and carry weights and resist to things ALL. THE. TIME.

and, guess what type of women and feminine-aligned nbs usually don't fit into this role of being sexualized????

the ones that are dark-skinned, fat, bulky, or any combination of these.

it's a combination of colorism, fatphobia, misogynoir and other factors that come to play, really.

one can check a few boxes, or check them all.

i myself don't check the "dark-skinned" box because, as a biracial women, i have light-skin privilege -- even though my skin is not as light as jurnee smollett's, who plays ruby's half-sister letitia "leti" lewis. but i sure have dealt with the consequences of not having the right body type for my whole life. i've been one of the "fat kids" for all my teen years, and, even now that i lost weight because of health issues, i'm still bulky and with large shoulders, feet and hands bigger than what is expected for women, and for most of my life i've felt in a similar way than what wumni mosaku describes on that elle magazine interview i mentioned earlier.

now, ruby literally checks ALL. THE. FUCKING. BOXES.

while we haven't seen much of her past, for the tidbits we got we can imagine that she had to be the responsible one in her family, being the older child, and basically raise her two siblings while their mom neglected them.

and we can see that, while the producers and writers changed a lot of her characterization from the source material -- in the part of the book i am right now, she has yet to show up, but the way she's described she seems more domestic and the shrinking violet type like show!hippolyta at the begining -- she is still seen as someone respected in her community and a source of strength -- e.g. being trusted to take care of dee.

and that clearly takes a toll on her, because everyone in-universe seems to expect her to be this mammy type or a role model, "a credit to the race" -- which is kind of ironic, given that it seems the audience seem to expect this of her as well.

and she puts all this pressure on herself because of it, and, while she is a woman with a very active sexual life, she seems overall very unsatisfied and repressed.

interrupted, as ruby herself perfectly put.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

and that is where christina comes in.

now, it's true that the character that's pointed by many as a representation of white feminism surely is problematic in many ways, including her "colorblind" approach to racial issues, which is a particular form of racism that comes from an indifference towards social issues that steem from the privilege of not having to worry about said racial issues because one's not affected by them.

but, inspite of this colorblindness, or precisely because of it, christina sees ruby not for the roles she plays in other ppl's lives, but as the woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires that she is (see??? i told y'all to keep that in mind because it would be useful later).

some of these things might not be politically correct, like wondering what would it be like to be white and not have to deal with all the bullshit she has to.

some of these things might be dowright immoral and unethical, like the revenge fantasy she made come true against that abusive, sexual harasser and possibily rapist that was the guy from the department store that appeared in episode 1x05.

but, they are what makes ruby, well, ruby.

they are what makes her human, what humanizes her.

and christina accepts all of it, all that makes ruby who she is.

like the av club review for episode 9 pointed out, the two women are actually not that different when it comes to motivations: the stakes might be different for them because christina is protected by her whiteness and wealth, but both of them want the same thing in the end -- to not feel interrupted by the social restraints that bind them.

and that is what draws them to each other and feel attracted to each other, even though they might not understand quite well what to be queer means to them, or even avoided/repressed the question altogether as they grew up.

they are two points that seem opposite, and might as well be in some ways, but belong to the same axis that is gender and sexuality.

their relationship is incredibly complex and layered because of all these intersecctions.

ruby and christina's relationship is all about revealing different parts of yourself to the other and peeling each other's layers (sorry for the pun, but, it was just there lol), and, because of this, it's no wonder that it's seen as more romantic than, say, tic and leti's relationship, that seems to be playing out like plenty of cis heterosexual relationships, moving too fast because of the passion involved and what society expects, without the two of them being able to truly proccess and decide what they want, something that will defintely get more complicated now there's a baby on the way.

everything is so raw between ruby and christina, quite literally (it's one ot the things i love the most about all the gory scenes between them, it's a very clever way of using a fantastical setting to highlight these metaphors and symbolism).

with all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise that many sapphic black women and feminine-aligned nbs relate so much to ruby and got so attached to this relationship.

it's not because they endorse the problematic stuff christina or ruby have done -- although, well, to be fair, in a show that draws inspiration from pulp fiction magazines, particularly horror and detective/mystery stories, all characters are expected to be problematic and do fucked up things.

it's because queer black women and feminine-aligned nbs, regardless of whether they check only a few of the boxes i mentioned before or check all of them, can relate to this feeling of loneliness that the producers and writers portrayed so well with ruby -- but also with hippolyta, and dee too.

and for relating to these feelings, they relate to this relationship between ruby and christina.

and it's kind of hard to know what's gonna happen next in the show and the future of this ship

hell, even know whether the show is gonna be renewed or not.

but this should be a lesson for the future, on this fandom and others, to try and consider the perspectives of LGBTQ+ black ppl in these spaces, because, when you don't do that, you're basically reproducing, in a space we should be safe to have fun, the same oppression and silencing we deal on a daily basis

[sometimes-men-need-help-too]

What does modern feminism do that you don't agree with? This is genuine btw

A couple things before I start: 

- This is not meant to bash all the feminists out there unless they fit into what I’m saying. I know there are good feminists out there 

- When I say ‘you’ I’m not meaning you, I’m saying it in a general way 

-I hope I get my point across and it’s clear. I sometimes struggle with that 

Also I’m sorry this is so long and it’s in no particular order and I hope none of this comes across as being aggressive or anything

~~ 

A lot of my issues with the movement boils down to attitudes. To me, that is very telling of its true colors. And I do try not to necessarily judge an entire movement from just the bad people because I know that isn’t fair, although I do feel like the bad feminists have taken over the movement and end up drowning out the good voices and that’s why we hear more negativity than positivity. 

One thing that I have issue with the lack of respect towards those that disagree whether it’s with the movement itself or it’s a particular thing. For a movement that preaches about a woman’s choice, I don’t feel that really happens like it should. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong here but depending on what the topic is I get a general impression like you’re not really supposed to disagree with what’s being side. You do and you might have someone lash out at you (that’s another point I have). Or if you say you’re anti feminist, you have people coming up with these reasons why they think you are; one being internalized misogyny  and you get called a pick-me which I find a bit insulting.  I should be able to have an opinion without someone assuming I’m trying to get a man’s attention or I can’t think for myself or I hate other girls. That isn’t it! Wouldn’t you think that is misogynistic? 

And if it’s not  internalized misogyny, then there are other factors; her being white (which usually then goes on to sound racist)  or it’s because she has money or  internalized racism or whatever they come up with. And it sounds condescending and that just bugs me. Hey, maybe instead of some underlying reason, we just don’t agree. 

or you have people try to stick the label on anyway. 

‘If you believe in equality you’re a feminist’

The label means nothing. I don’t understand why some will focus on this so much. I don’t want to be called a feminist. I don’t need to. In the same way, it’s not necessary for me to refer to myself as an MRA (men’s rights activist). And yeah, I know this says it’s an “MRA blog” that’s what I had when I started. But ultimately, the label isn’t important. I’m all for equality. It’s cool, it’s great. But I see this sort of thing (online that is) being forced on people and the thing is, with that wording it makes it sound like the movement is all inclusive when it’s not. You have to have certain politics and for the most part (unless you’re a religious feminist) you have to be pro choice otherwise you’re not a ‘real’ feminist. 

My next issue is all the aggression. You can just tell sometimes with how people respond online or if you catch a video that someone posted. And not only that, but how quickly people fall into name-calling or just all around acting like a child. And for the most it seems pretty acceptable to some because it keeps happening. It’s not hard to find on this site or otherwise. If you can’t communicate your opinions about something without having a fit or blocking someone (excluding if they just keep harassing you) then you’re not mature enough. That shows me you don’t really care about having a real discussion. And some can say that it happening on here is probably done by teenagers and to an extent they’re probably right. But it happens on other sites and in real life as well and it’s more than just teens. It’s people my age and older and that’s not cool. 

And then we have  how some like to ignore the differences between men and women. Sure, yes, there are many things a woman can do just like a man but we also have to acknowledge our differences.  I don’t see a lot of that with some forms of feminism. STEM, for example, is something I would attribute the differences more to just how men and women tend to be rather than sexism. Could there be certain circumstances where it is sexism? Sure, I suppose you can’t rule it out entirely. Otherwise I would say it’s just what they’re happy doing. I know girls who are doing science stuff or business things but I also know girls who are going to be teachers or psychologists or nurses. It’s not that they're actively being told by everyone that they can’t do it(I suppose unless they live in some other country like that). That’s just what they want to do, you know, their choice. Just like how some men go towards a job like with computers or farming or they’re pre-school teachers or gynecologists.

 I found an interesting fact (source will be posted below) that said women are actually preferred over men two-to-one for faculty positions. The study was done by psychologists from Cornell University with professors from 371 colleges/universities in the US. It also noted that: “recent national census-type studies showing that female Ph.D.s are disproportionately less likely to apply for tenure-track positions, yet when they do they are more likely to be hired, in some science fields approaching the two-to-one ratio revealed by Williams and Ceci.” 

Yet, we need to ask ourselves honestly, how often do facts like these get passed around vs the idea that women are suffering from misogyny and therefore are unable to fully represent in STEM jobs? 

The next thing I want to address is misandry. Now there are a good portion of people who don't think it exists or if it does, it's really not much of an issue because of the "power" and the "privilege" men have within society. And to me, I have a problem with that. If feminism is supposed to be for men as well, I would think they would want to combat misandry as well as misogyny. If someone really doesn't think it exists, I would suggest that the person really take a look at what goes on in real life and online that's directed towards men.

There's the whole "male tears" thing which is on coffee mugs and t-shirts. There's the kill all men/yes all men thing. All of which are supposed to be jokes and if a man says something about it he gets mocked for his "fragile masculinity"

That's just not okay. They're being immature and a bully which they usually try to justify (men have done this and that throughout history to women) but you just can't.

I found this article, this really really atrocious article. It's one of those open letter things and found on this feminist website (feminisminindia) and I almost believed it to be satire with how.... stereotypically Tumblr it was. I did research and looked at the info regarding the site and nope, it's a serious site. I'll post the article below but I'll also summarize it:

Basically this woman is telling the men in her life that she will not stop saying "men are trash or other radical feminist opinions." She's saying it because women and others have suffered so much at the hands of the patriarchy because they're not straight white men. She goes on to say:

So let’s establish: misandry isn’t real. Just like unicorns and heterophobia, misandry is a myth because it isn’t systematic or systemic. Unlike misogyny, cis men don’t face oppression purely based on their gender. While they may encounter instances of racism, homophobia and ableism, they are not dehumanised as a function of their gender identity (read: cis privilege).

That is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Misandry is real. "Cis" people do face oppression purely based on their gender. Anyone can. To deny that lacks understanding.

And the rest is just saying that: It is time to start hating on men-as-a-whole and starting celebrating the men that you are.

And: Because at the end of the day, feminists need men. Whether it’s because you wield structural power or because we genuinely value your existence, we need to band together to destroy ‘men’ because men are trash, but you, if you made it to the end of this, are probably not. Prove me right.

I would imagine this is a common viewpoint. And it's not a good one. If you genuinely think a whole group as a whole is bad you need to reexamine your thoughts. It's not "men" that are bad, it's the sexist people.

To wrap this up (I'm sure you might be tired of reading this lol); like I said, the attitudes play a huge part of it. Modern feminism, in my opinion, is just not good enough for me to say I agree with it and want to identify as one. I just can't

Here is the link to the feminist article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/feminisminindia.com/2020/09/23/men-are-trash-and-other-radical-feminist-opinions/%3famp

And here is the link for the STEM thing: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-preferred-21-over-men-stem-faculty-positions

[scarlet--wiccan]

X-Men Senior Editor just responded to criticisms about the Wanda/Pretender plot point: aiptcomicsDOTcom/2021/05/03/x-men-monday-104-jordan-d-white-election

 Jordan: Well, I think that your question is a good question, but it’s a question that’s coming from a place of — well, I think it’s coming from a place of love for Wanda, which is a sensible thing to feel. And it’s coming from a place as a reader of comic books. The people on Krakoa, they’re not fans of Wanda. They don’t know her continuity. They don’t know all the details. They know what they know. Are there some folks who know that? Absolutely. But that’s not necessarily the function of it. 

Her being called pretender has more to do with the formation of a mutant society than it does with the people who know all of the details telling what really happened. I mean, who’s the person we see talking about her in that way the most? Exodus, right? He wasn’t there for any of that. He doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of what happened with her in any capacity. And again, I don’t know how much the bulk of mutants do know that. What they know is there was this person who said she was a mutant. Turns out she wasn’t. She said she was Magneto’s daughter. It turns out she wasn’t. And at one point, she took the mutant powers from millions of people.

“Yeah, but she did it because Doctor Doom made her do it.” Again, I think most of them don’t know that. And I think that that doesn’t have the impact culturally. I mean, I think you can look around us today and see that there are lots of things that lots of people believe [...] that are not as simple as they seem to those people or in the way that they talk about them that are not 100% true. Or even if they are 100% true, it’s more complicated than that. There are mitigating factors. [...]

And I think that the nation had a need for a boogeyman. And I don’t even necessarily mean somebody sat down and went, “Who’s going to be the boogeyman. I know, I’ll demonize Wanda.” But I think it’s a thing that probably evolved naturally in the formation of kind of mutant fables and myths, you know? It’s grown, it exists and we are aware of it. It’s not a thing that’s just passively happening and we’re like, “How did that happen in our comics? I didn’t even realize it was going on.” There’s thought put into it. And there is intent being put into it, let’s say. [source: AiPT]

So, here’s the thing. Jordan is glossing over all of the most prescient concerns.

Exodus might be the one driving these rumors and fables about Wanda, and he may be primarily appealing to people who weren’t around or don’t have first-hand knowledge of what happened. That explains the growing tide of misconceptions about, and hatred towards, Wanda, but it doesn’t explain the nation’s political stance against her, and it doesn’t explain why the rest of the Quiet Council has cosigned this propaganda campaign. Erik, Emma, and Scott do know what happened, and they do have first hand knowledge-- not only of the truth behind M-Day, but Wanda’s actions during AvX, as does Hope. Kurt, a fellow Council member, has also defended her in the past. That’s why it reads as arbitrary, and that’s why it feels like character assassination all over again. It defies prior characterization, and it just ignores facts. If any characters had been given space to acknowledge the truth, or contest the Council’s actions, this scenario would be more well-realized. Du Paris’s false version of events is being treated, universally, as truth, with no explanation. That’s not a retcon, it’s revisionism. 

Speaking of character assassination, White has conveniently ignored the fact that Hickman, et al’s treatment of Wanda extends beyond du Paris and the Council. In X-Men, Way of X, and S.W.O.R.D. her characterization is indirect-- we only see other people talking about her. In Empyre: X-Men, however, she is characterized directly, as she appears on-page alongside Doctor Strange. Wanda’s actions, appearance, and demeanor fall in line with her treatment in X-Men, but directly contradict her continuity of the last eight years and treatment in present Avengers titles. Strange also addresses her and describes the events of M-Day in a manner very similar to du Paris’s proclamations. The Pretender scenario cannot only be about “mutant society” or “mutant fables and myths,” because it has extended beyond mutant dialogue. 

Speaking of fables and myths, I’ll remind you that Powers of X established a condensed timeline in which the history of the X-Men, from Xaviers’ first meeting with Moira Kinross to the formation of Krakoa, takes place over only ten years. Judging by this scale, M-Day is much more recent than we might otherwise assume. I realize that misinformation doesn’t take long to spread, but fables don’t form in the span of, what, two years? Three? Krakoa itself can’t be more than a year old. I’m usually very forgiving with the fluidity of Marvel time, but this was a thoroughly orchestrated relaunch. This cannot have evolved organically. Even though Krakoan society is developing an accelerated pace, the cultural benchmarks are being set by that society’s architects-- Crucible and resurrection are perfect illustrations of that. 

I believe that White has earnestly explained the narrative rational behind the Pretender scenario, flawed as that rational may be. That doesn’t account for the fact that this treatment of Wanda, and the lens with which we are now looking back on House of M, is a blunt refusal to acknowledge how harmful and offensive that story actually was. Wanda only gets written this way if nobody in the room will stop and say “actually, vilifying Wanda while simultaneously denying the character any agency or control is kind of poor writing, and, you know, in hindsight, everything that was projected onto this character reads as ableism, misogyny and a good dash of racism. Maybe we should take responsibility for the impression this made on our readership and work to counteract that messaging, instead of doubling down on it.”