#and that ideal man is a man who has and enacts power over women | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elianajof · 19 days

Text

Analytical Application 5 Gender and Sexuality

Rupture:

Rupture is a disruption or break in established norms, ideologies, or systems, often resulting from resistance or subversion. It creates space for new perspectives and possibilities to emerge, challenging hegemonic structures and fostering social change. Judith Butler says something is ruptured when it is “forced into a rearticulation that calls into question the monotheistic force of its own unilateral operation” (1).

Nada resists Kai’Ckul because he is too powerful for her and kills herself. She resists against what was laid out for her, this “monotheistic force.” Kai’Ckul has a lot of power over her and orders her to become his queen but when she declines, he sends her to hell. Nada’s actions are ruptured because it forces the system she is in to shift, hurting herself as a way of protest. These ruptured actions are similar to other forms of protest where people challenge the norms of the system they are a part of and sometimes put themselves in harm’s way to do so. Another aspect that adds to this rupture is the nudity of Nada in this panel, as she is subverting a classic trope of womanhood – women obeying men – but at the same time she is completely nude. Her nudity is another aspect of rupture because it is a moment of a woman resisting the power of men while also falling victim to the male gaze. The dream lord tells her that he wants nothing else from her besides her love and commitment to him, but Nada still refuses. This could make one think of the classic fairy tale trope and how The Sandman ruptures this idea of fantasy relationships. In the comics, The Sandman exposes real human issues in relationships like violence and betrayal. In the case of Nada and the dream lord, Nada knew she could not stay with him because of his rise to immense power. He then hurt her because she was not obeying him, displaying the patriarchal/male dominance in the relationship between them.

Gender performativity:

Gender performativity is the concept of gender not being a quality that is necessarily inherent but performed through reinforced actions and behaviors. Judith Butler highlights that gender identity is only maintained through social norms: “ (...)which enacts the performative and gestural

conformity to a masculinity which parallels the performative or reiterative

production of femininity in other categories” (2)

In The Sandman, gender performativity is evident between Mr. and Mrs. Sandman (pages 304 and 305). Mrs. Sandman takes the role of the obedient quiet wife, prioritizing motherhood and obedience to her husband. Mr. Sandman on the other hand is the working man of the family, portrayed as a hero when his wife sits idly by. These reiterated norms are an example of Butler’s concept of gender performativity, how it is a way we conform to the “ideal” masculine and feminine purposes in stereotypical traditions and actions. Mrs. Sandman wants to have a baby while Mr. Sandman dreams of bigger goals for his career, reinforcing a “career man” type of stereotype and a maternal feminine stereotype. On page 305 of The Sandman, the author describes Mrs. Sandman as “she has all the dresses she can wear, and a husband who has a very important job.” Mrs. Sandman is performing femininity as she adheres to certain traditional standards for a woman in the home. Additionally, the chapter is called “Playing House,” further emphasizing this idea of these roles are being played into by Mr. and Mrs. Sandman. Even in a fantasy world these characters are performing certain gender practices, adhering to a realistic societal standard.

Gender norms

Gender norms are societal expectations and standards regarding behaviors, roles, and attributes considered appropriate for individuals based on their perceived gender. These norms often reinforce traditional binary understandings of gender and may limit expressions that deviate from these norms. “Identifying with a gender under contemporary regimes of power involves identifying with a set of norms that are and are not realizable, and whose power and status precede the identifications by which they are insistently approximated. This 'being a man'

and this 'being a woman' are internally unstable affairs” (3)

In The Sandman, page 329, and in other panels around this page, women are in this fantastical world but only portrayed as the help. The women in the scene are immediately recognized as inferior in society to the men in this scene because they adhere to these norms. Their power is less because they are only there to serve the male power, asking the men in the tavern if they need help or offering themselves instead of contributing anything else to the scene. Another important factor that shows the women are adhering to gender norms is their dress, as they are in traditional medieval female dress that immediately sets them apart from the male-presenting characters in the scene. Butler points out that some norms are not realizable but that a person’s power and status precede the identifications that go along with gender - even if these women were not dressed in feminine dress or told the reader/spectator that these characters were supposed to be women, their gender norms would lead the audience to still believe that they are women.

Queer gaze is known as a perspective that challenges heteronormative conventions and offers alternative ways of seeing and interpreting visual representations, particularly in relation to gender and sexuality. It celebrates non-conformity and embraces diverse identities and desires. Halberstam ties the queer gaze to cinema as describing its “ample possibilities offered by spectatorship” specifically how showing lesbianism on screen can challenge heteronormativity in media and mainstream society (4). Halberstam 176

In “The Sandman” page 405, the queer gaze does not hone in on lesbian specifically but challenges those heteronormative conventions and offers alternative ways of representing gender and sexuality. A seemingly heterosexual cis male character is seen fantasizing about a kiss with a man - which definitely challenges and subverts expectations about the character’s sexuality/identity. One could argue that by including this moment of fantasy it is illustrating that these characters are multi-dimensional and that is reflective of life. Another important aspect of this is the dreamlike artwork in the kiss - portraying the beauty of the queer gaze and the queer community instead of highlighting the tragedy. The queer gaze in “The Sandman” is a way to appeal to queer characters and add multidimensionality to its characters.

Sex/gender binary

The sex/gender binary is known as the traditional classification system that categorizes individuals into two mutually exclusive and fixed categories based on biological sex (male/female) and gender identity (man/woman). This binary framework often overlooks and marginalizes non-binary and transgender experiences. In Halberstam, he writes that media can often challenge this binary through using sexual identity terms as adjectives instead of nouns (5)

In The Sandman page 437, the character of “Desire” subverts the sex/gender binary. It is unclear what gender identity this character aligns with. The character wears a catsuit and ears, with a short haircut and defines their eyes and lips. Desire is supposed to be “desirable” but does not use any specific gender norms to achieve that desirable look. Desire aligns with Halberstam’s writtings on the sex/gender binary because their character is not defined by their sexuality or gender identity, and it does not take away from their allure. It is purely an adjective for this character that they are looking androgynous while still owning their sexuality and their “desire.”

Works cited:

Butler, Judith. “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” in Feminist Film Theory a Reader (New York: Washington Square, 1999) page 337

Butler, Judith. “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” page 341.

Butler, Judith. “Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion” 339.

Halberstam, Jack. "Looking Butch: A Rough Guide to Butches on Film." In The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin, page 176 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Halberstam, Jack. "Looking Butch: A Rough Guide to Butches on Film." page 178

@theuncannyprofessoro

#oxyvisualanalysis #gender #sexuality

0 notes

likealittleheartbeat · 2 years

Text

Idk why, but I always thought the Love Amongst the Dragon connections to Zuko and Aang and the thing people said about the dragons making a heart shape around the two of them during “The Firebending Masters” were kind of stretches as far as arguments for the relationship being drawn between Zuko and Aang. Ran and Shah didn’t even really make a heart shape and the rainbow fire seemed more visionary than pride flaggy? They seemed tertiary compared to a lot of the other more prominent ways Aang and Zuko were connected. But honestly, this poster on the community board during “the Runaway” for the Ember Island Players performance of Love Amongst the Dragons kind of pulls it all together for me.

Specifically, the heart shape of the dragons suggests how the experiences and stories of the dragons persisted in the fire nation, albeit, as Zuko’s description of the ‘butchered’ production indicates, in a poorly understood form. We don’t get much within the show to tell us about in what way the play is butchered. I guess, though, if I were to read a into it, I’d think about how a yearly play about love centered around an extinct species, ties together love and loss, as if loving it to death or maybe only being able to love things when they seem to be gone. They’re common tropes in Romantic concepts of love, and you see it in the way character’s can idolize in the show can idolize those people who departed early from their lives while struggling to connect with those in front of them. And, on top of that, the way the heterosexual structures of gender, racist structures of empire ask some people to erase parts of themselves to be loved.

Placing Zuko and Aang in the center of this heart and the living dragons’ judgment gives us further appreciation of the show’s emphasis on Platonic ideals of love and its critique of romantic (and Romantic) love. Hayao Miyazaki has a typically gorgeous description of a similar goal in his filmography, “I want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live - if I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.” If it’s Zuko and Aang that discover love between each other, amongst the dragons, the divisions created by empire are revealed to be illusory and the clambering towards dominance and subsequent isolation presupposed by patriarchy can disintegrate.

Wherever you stand in the ships between Zuko and Aang and Katara, neither of the boys could offer her empowering love without this moment where they face the pressures that have been placed on them by imperial ideals of masculinity. If Zuko and Aang can love each other, then the love they might have for Katara (a woman from a marginalized group) no longer requires a competitive proof of dominant power, which provides the possibility for her to be free--free to enter into a heterosexual relationship with either boy without it inherently requiring her subjugation. Because they aren’t competing as man against man or between cultures, because they love each other, they don’t need to enact their power over other cultures or over women as objects to prove themselves. They are open to the Katara’s full humanity.

#atla meta #lol i did not mean for this to turn into a full meta #but it all just emerged #look up bell hooks' the will to change if these concepts are interesting to u tho!#patriarchy #colonialism #imperialism #buddhism #zukaang #kataang #zutara #zutaraang #aanglove #the rainbow flames still looks nothing like a pride flag tho #and honestly that's good cuz sexuality is so much more interesting than western concepts of identity

122 notes · View notes

darklightsworld · 3 years

Note

Hello, I remember you saying some time ago you didn't like how female characters are portrayed in (current) anime because of how annoying and, maybe, misogynistic their archetypes are. Could you maybe elaborate on this point? I feel similar but can't articulate well and always end up feeling like I'm the one being misogynistic whenever this type of subject comes up in conversation x.x Sorry if this comes up as too personal.

Sorry about the late reply, I have been busy with a conference. Also sorry, because my answer is a bit long and all over the place ^^;

This is a difficult question, especially because nowadays people like to think in black and white, and everything is so extreme, like if they don’t like something, then it must be wrong and eliminated, not to mention the policing of every content based to this – which kills diversity and dismisses personal (and gendered) preferences. What I think is really a personal preference and not exactly a general critique of female characters in anime, especially because there are many factors to consider (genre, age and gender or the target audience, cultural background, etc.), and there’s also the audience with its multiple readings.

Personally I dislike most female character types manga and anime has to give, because I’m not really a person for overly feminine and girly things. The Japanese ideal is very cutesy and it’s the standard in both media for men, women and also real life. Not just looks, there is also the behavior side of things, the cutesy, childish, girly ideal, the passivity, helplessness, pretending to be stupid, etc, and I outright hate it when female characters are treated as stupid, clumsy messes. The question is, though, is this ideal really conservative and an embodiment of the toxic patriarchal system? Actually not necessarily. They definitely originate from the oppressive system, but over the decades girls made these ideals their own, and turned them into a weapon to get what they want. Even in real life, fashion is very feminine for me, always with frills, ribbons, flitters, tons of dresses and skirts, and it’s difficult to find plain clothes without any decoration, not to mention all the cuteness in goods and stuff, but as for the behavior of girls and women, the cutesy ideal seems more like a role to be played at a certain age or for certain purposes, like getting things they want and eventually the man. A woman, who didn’t like this ideal herself defined it as “they had to play the wounded deer”. Actually women, who use this role too much and even among women, are usually hated – this is the infamous burikko.

But no matter how they were in their younger years, married women don’t use this role anymore, and they seamlessly slip into a different identity, one that rules the family and the finances with iron fist (I’m stereotyping) – nothing cutesy, helpless or stupid about that. The Japanese themselves are aware of this cutesy role, both men and women, it’s their version of cunning flirtatiousness, it’s just a very different type of flirtatiousness than in the West. For example, there is currently even a tv show enacting certain situations where this cutesy behavior is used to get the man, and the hosts rate how effective the cutesy behavior was. But while I understand intellectually that these are not necessarily misogynistic stereotypes, I have some kind of a visceral hatred for them. The above tv show makes me outright nauseous. It’s a personal preference, and I don’t think I have to like these character types. But I also don’t think they should be erased from Japanese media, and it would be a mistake trying to push my very independent Western values onto such a different culture, so I rather avoid these characters – which is not easy.

So, what does this mean for anime and manga? Both are largely determined by genres (manga more than anime), genres work with clean-cut character types, tropes, traditions and reader expectation, so there is a reason why female (and male) characters are the way they are in different genres. Male-oriented works will obviously have female characters that appeal to men even if the work doesn’t have in your face fanservice shots (though let’s face it, if it’s anime, most of them do). I don’t like these female character types, I don’t think I have to like them, they are clearly not geared toward me, but I also don’t think they shouldn’t be there in a clearly male-oriented media. Sure, there can be discussions about removing overly exploitive situations, harassment and rape or things like that, but I’m not really against letting men have their fun – because I expect to have that same freedom in media geared toward women. There are occasionally unisex anime, but usually they still serve one or the other demographic in a way, and I don’t think it’s possible to create truly unisex anime that everybody will be satisfied with – fanservice for women will always bother men, and fanservice for men will always bother women.

Shōjo manga is a more difficult question, because somewhere in the 70s romance started to focus on imperfect heroines who still got the best guy, because he loved them regardless of their imperfections (“I love you the way you are”), and since then the genre is full of the stupid, clumsy, indecisive, housewife material archetype without any dreams beyond getting the boy (or very old-school women job dreams), which does not appeal to me either, so I usually avoid most romance shōjo manga, especially the high school variant, and even most josei manga, because I don’t care for the adult version of the same with marriage as the end goal *shrug* Actually it’s not even about these things only, like, I disliked Arte too (though not shōjo manga), despite it trying (and failing) to pose as a feminist social commentary, just because the mc way annoying. Fortunately there are a lot of other types of shōjo manga as well, even with more appealing female characters or the best, without female characters (plus the whole BL scene), so it’s not all that bad, at least in manga, not so much in anime. Interestingly, I’m much more compatible with shōjo manga by fujoshi artists. If I like a shōjo manga, usually the artist ends up coming out as a fujoshi after a while by posting BL fanart on her twitter or drawing outright BL manga – it’s been a pattern XD

Anime is more difficult, but I also admit, that my tastes might be extreme. In Japan there are many female fans who love the cute female characters of male-oriented media. Many women like Love Live, for example, because the girls are, I quote, “so cuuuuuute” – while I am fighting nausea… Yeah, Japan is imbued with cute. It’s especially difficult, because I’m usually not willing to watch a series even if there are such female characters in supporting roles or as a second protagonist with male characters I would love to see (Cop Craft was a recent-ish example). And while I avoid female only casts on principle, sometimes there are surprises. For example, the Yashahime anime has terrible writing, but I don’t hate the three main female characters (even if occasionally the anime has some iffy things to say about femininity).

I also mentioned multiple readings. It is important to note that the audience does not necessarily interpret everything the same, especially if there are cultural differences. One of the most famous examples for this is Sailor Moon, which was the incarnation of girl power and emancipation in the West in the 90s, but it has the same “dumb heroine gets the dream guy” trope, and the same conservative message of getting married and giving birth to children as any average shōjo manga, and the same “so cuuuuute” packaging. It really depends on the audience what they get away with.

All in all there are preferences, genre conventions, cultural differences, so the whole thing is quite difficult. But I don’t think you need to be worried about not liking or being uncomfortable with certain character types. And it would be a stretch to consider tastes like mine, for example, misogynistic. Sure, even in real life I make a wide berth around overly girly or feminine women (among others), but it can’t be helped, you can’t like and be friends with everyone, and I guess they wouldn’t like me or wanting to be my friend either. And that’s fine, and I don’t think it’s misogynistic for me to reject certain types of femininity for myself and to interact with, as long as I don’t want to erase or invalidate them, or deem them as inferior – and I don't. Of course, this is the attitude I expect towards myself as well. Live and let live 🖖

#magnoliawaltz

9 notes · View notes

luigi-of-the-us · 3 years

Text

To all who read this,

The social injustice that is happening as of the time that I am writing this will only continue to if we don’t weed out those who wish to stop us, but we should never forget compassion, show it wherever you go, but stand your ground in you beliefs, but also be fluid enough to where if the other person’s side may affect where you are, show understanding and tolerance to the other person. We must also recognize the evils within our country and right the wrongs that have been made during this time, if we don’t, chaos will engulf this great nation. If this country is called The United States of America, then why are our people so divided? The answer is politics, social media only shows us what we want to SEE but not what we need to SEE, we, U.S. Citizens, have become so consumed by our own bias that we don’t even see the real threat in front of us, the threat of people taking away our right to choose. The right to choose our profession, to choose our religion, to choose our destinies, to choose our legacies, and the right to choose our leaders of this great country. DO NOT brandish your guns or any physical weaponry, because the only thing we need from our armory right now is our mind, voice, and morality. Let our actions speak our kindness, and show that we don’t need to enact violence to prove our point. Hate will only burn us out and kill us in the end, let love guide our actions because love will only strengthen us to make the right choices and create a bright tomorrow because in the need we’re all human, but in this awakening, people wish us harm and will attempt to corrupt us. We must stand together against this evil and use our kindness to show them their wrongdoings. Kind people are often mistaken as gullible and blind to the cruel world, when most are aware of the cruelness of the world, they just choose to show a brighter world to show that the world can and will be better. A better world would be where nations would work together to make sure that peace lasts. But first, we need to take care of our situations first and foremost before we attempt this.

The first thing that needs to be taken care of is politics, making sure that we hear ALL sides of the different parties, not just one or the other, major or minor.

Second would be education for all our children, making sure that the future is bright for the better, but also show them the ugly side of the world so that they can make things better when their time comes to lead the world we left behind.

Third would be to go back to how the Vice President is voted in, originally the Vice president would be whoever came in second in the presidential elections, that’s what we need right now, so that we can show that the political parties can work together.

Fourth would be term limits on Congress, the reason being that Congress has none, so the same people are elected over and over again and there are just stale ideas and not many new and fresh ideas are brought to the table, that and also it allows corruption to seethe within our Government.

Fifth would be better gun control laws, the person in question has to go through a psychological evaluation to get a license and/or permit.

Sixth would be to put more reliable people in the voting polls and to actually investigate voter fraud, even if rumored because something like that would be taking away the people's right to vote, it should not be taken lightly, no matter what.

Seventh would be fixing the debates, have them be more factual and not a personal attack on the other debtor.

Eighth would be to sort out the corruption within the police department, physical evaluations, prior history, motivations, better monitorization, less-lethal equal equipment.

Ninth would be to give special needs more of a focus because maybe they can give us more of a perspective on the world and maybe change it for the better if we give them a chance to do so, when people hear that someone is a special needs person, they don’t always give them a chance to prove that they can do something amazing and life-changing.

The tenth would be to make better tax laws because the second/third class are always the ones that are taken advantage of when tax day comes.

Eleventh would be to give the homeless jobs, in Puerto Rico, they put their homeless in cells and educate them enough to where they can get a job, but they stay there until they get a paying job to rent a small apartment, the reason why they do this is because some homeless are lazy and think people will take care of them.

Twelfth would be to recognize that the President doesn't have many powers, Congress has the most and it’s mostly their fault if something goes wrong within the country, that isn’t that the president doesn’t have any power at all, it’s just some if not most of the problems come from them.

Thirteen would be that we need to recognize all lives matter, not just one because if we don’t then we will forever be divided and then our country falls to the ground and shatter like glass.

Fourteenth would be to preserve the statues because they remind us of all the mistakes and victories we have made, we need them to remind us where we were and where then we are now.

Fifteenth would be to be more conservative in some places of our laws, ideals, and world, but also learn to move with the times without throwing away what makes this nation great and what makes us better than the evils in the world.

Sixteenth would be to look at the future like it’s the eighth wonder of the world because the past is fixed to where it is, but we can look to the past so that we can shape the future, I hope to shape it to where truth and justice are the reality, so that evil has no chance to even tempt the world.

Seventeenth would be to recognize that we the people are divided because of all the politics that we’ve been exposed to, choosing sides and pinning brother against brother. We need to come together in peace and in unity to fight the good fight, but not with physical violence, but with our minds and voices, to show that we are better than the rioters and looters so that we can show them there are more peaceful ways to solve a problem.

Eighteenth would be to recognize the powers of the people, we need to realize that we can shape the country that we live in, we just need to vote for those changes and tell our congressmen and senator to enact those changes, we need to realize this because they will take away those rights as soon as possible before they decide to take it away and became communist.

Nineteenth would remind us that we need to make these changes to change the world, to make sure that we can keep our freedom. We need to fight to keep our freedom, to keep our land free from tyranny, to keep the peace, to show where we stand, and to show we will not allow evil to take over our country.

Twentieth would be to remind our leaders that we are the ones who put them in power and that we can take that power away from them if we wanted to.

Twentyfirst would be to recognize that the militias are of the people and not of the government, we create them so if the government gets in over its head we have an army to fight them, and that government should not take our freedoms.

Twentysecond would be to remind ourselves that if the president fails that the country fails with them. We should always give the president support, no matter who is in the position, even if you don’t agree or like them.

Twentythird would be to remember the tragedies this country has been through, because if we forget them then other countries will step on us and take us over, we should also never go for globalism because if we do then we betray all the principles this country stands for.

Twentyfourth would be to have all states adopt the castle doctrine because you should have the right to protect your home, family, friends, and children. When someone is threatening your safety and the safety of those you have in your, home/property you should be allowed to defend it.

Twentyfifth would be able to take your gun into a restaurant and or store because if a robber or terrorist were to threaten your safety you should be able to protect yourself.

Twentysixth would be to investigate congress, how this would go is to not let the federal government do this because Congress has them wrapped around their fingers, let their state government investigate them since they would know their congressmen/women better than the federal government and there is no interference or bias from them to go off of.

Twentyseventh would be to make social media less toxic and more enjoyable for everyone.

Twentyeighth would be to establish a better government program to get our soldiers back into civilian life so that they can get better jobs and a better life after they have retired to settle down and be with family.

Twentyninth would be to help the soldiers that last their limbs with good prosthetics, so that they can at least feel like they have some normalcy and so that they can hug their children, dance with their daughters, be the best man at their friend's wedding, walk their daughter down the aisle, and to play with their grandchildren.

Thirtieth would give our soldiers/law enforcement better protection, something lightweight and strong enough to withstand hollow points and high-speed projectiles.

Thirtyfirst would be to run better security when it comes to protecting military-grade weapons, vehicles, and armor.

Thirtysecond would be to talk with the people the nation is sworn to serve, set up polls, do more press conferences when it comes to national security, allow the people to speak their mind without bias, and possibly just think about how the people think during times of peace, war, pandemics,ensure and other such things because if the government ignores the people, they will riot.

Thirtythird would be to allow prayer back into the schools, if we don’t then we have taken away the freedom of religion from our children and have taught them that we do not allow tolerance in the schools and that we as a nation have failed by taking away the simple freedom of religion.

-Captain America (Amazing Spider-Man #537)

My Name is Jeremy J. Matsumoto, I am 18 years old, I live in Phoenix Arizona, I have noticed that the nation I love is crumbling and I wish to help correct it, by doing what I have suggested that we as the people of the free nation need to do, we can make America great again, we can insure our nation's safety, prosperity and livelihood is secure and doing well. I only wish for this nation to do better, be safe for those I care for, and those around me. It’s time we take our Country back, say no more, and tell them it’s time to change into something better, not by force, but by the will in our minds, voices, and morality, the question is if you are ready to make the tough decision and change the nation for the better tomorrow.

2 notes · View notes

revlyncox · 3 years

Text

Democracy Is Not a State

Delivered to the Washington Ethical Society on January 10, 2021, by Lyn Cox

Congressman John Lewis reminds us what is possible when we join together, combining our collective action and sense of purpose to keep our country grounded in our best and highest ideals. His final instructions to us were to “walk with the wind,” to stay together and respond to the movement of our time in the spirit of peace and with the power of love.

That is what is happening in Georgia. This past week, we learned that Georgia will have two new Senators. The Rev. Raphael Warnock will be the first Black Senator from the state, of which about a third of the population is Black. The congregation Rev. Warnock leads, Ebenezer Baptist Church, is the former pulpit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is also a congregation that Rep. Lewis attended. Jon Ossoff will be the first Jewish Senator from Georgia. Ossoff interned for Rep. John Lewis as a young man, after having written him a fan letter when Ossoff was 16 years old. Relationships built over years make a difference.

Regardless of political party, we can agree that democracy depends on the ability of citizens to exercise their right to vote. True democracy rests on free and fair elections, in which obstacles to the right to vote are not placed unfairly and disproportionately in front of voters from marginalized communities. The runoff election in Georgia was historic, not only because of the outcome, but because of the momentous turnout. Overcoming voter suppression was a major task, and one that grassroots organizations in Georgia have been working on for years. Multiracial democracy is a threat to white supremacy, and white supremacy has been trying to prevent the full flowering of multiracial democracy from the beginning.

Yet there is progress. Between 2018 and the November election, 800,000 new people registered to vote in Georgia. Registering and mobilizing new voters is the big story of this election, and that was achieved one conversation at a time, one knocked-on door at a time, one phone call at a time, one relationship at a time. Stacey Abrams is a strategic genius and a focused advocate, having started the New Georgia Project seven years ago and Fair Fight two years ago.

Abrams will be the first to tell you that a wide variety of leaders and grassroots organizations share the credit for voter turnout in this election. For instance, LaTosha Brown has been fighting voter suppression since 1998, and her Black Voters Matter project helped mobilize voters across the South. In a series of tweets on Friday, Abrams named 30 different grassroots organizations that coordinated their efforts to help Georgians exercise their right to vote, noting that the runoff election was a demonstration of “decades of strategy, grit, + building.”

Between Rep. Lewis’ reminder about clasping hands and moving together, and the turnout in Georgia’s runoff election, our takeaway should not be limited to admiration for the most visible leaders, candidates, and public officials. We can and should admire their good character traits and their dedication to service. We can and should thank the movement leaders who made this possible, especially Black women. But we should not elevate these officials and movement leaders to the point where we regard them as something other than human, an example too rarified for us to follow.

The lesson here is that organizing is happening all around us. Coordinated solidarity to enact structural change for liberation is part of how we help bring the full promise of multiracial democracy into being. There may well be someone like Stacey Abrams in the movements you are part of at your workplace or in your neighborhood. Let’s listen. There are definitely organizations in our own communities being led by the people who are most impacted by marginalization. We can follow the example that has been set out for us by supporting power-building and relationship-building that is already happening locally. Grassroots organizing takes a long time. It requires a lot of one-on-one conversations, very little in the way of immediate results, and broad participation. That path is available to any of us, nobody has to be a superstar to participate in repairing the soul of our nation.

We contrast the progress in building multiracial democracy in Georgia with the violent attempt to destroy multiracial democracy that happened on January 6. Because this Platform is being recorded for posterity, I feel that I have to be very clear about the events of this week; please take care of yourself if a reminder of these events is overwhelming for you. On Wednesday, at the urging of their demagogue, white supremacist insurrectionists invaded the Capitol building, threatened the safety of elected leaders and staff, looted the building, and left chaos in their wake for others to clean up, primarily janitors and facilities staff who are People of Color. They were not merely rascals ignoring the rules of orderly protest, they were an armed mob seeking to disrupt the practice of democracy. Computers were stolen, putting our national security at risk. Five people died, including an officer from the Capitol Police.

In our community, I know we are holding intense emotions about this incident. I am particularly mindful of the impact that this has on those who work for the Federal government, for whom the area around the Capitol is an everyday environment, a place full of memories and colleagues. My heart also goes out to those who live near the Capitol, who had to deal with armed white supremacists wandering the neighborhood unimpeded. To anyone who has ever been treated roughly by the Capitol Police for non-violently exercising their first amendment rights, the lack of resistance to the mob may not have been surprising, but it was yet another insult, a reminder that the level of force with which police respond to protestors is a choice. For People of Color, Queer people, Muslim people, Jewish people, immigrants, or anyone who holds an identity targeted for violence by these insurrectionists, Wednesday’s events were a chilling show of power that was precisely intended to make us feel afraid for existing as our whole selves. We cannot let that fear stop us from living fully, nor prevent us from persevering in the work of liberation.

On Wednesday night, I invited the WES community to gather by Zoom to process the day’s events, to overcome the numbness of trauma by feeling our feelings, and to lift up our shared values in a way that only a community like ours can do. It was short notice, and I apologize if you didn’t hear about it in time. Please reach out if you would like to talk to me or to a member of the Pastoral Care Associates about how you are feeling. More than twenty of you were able to attend. Just from that sample, I know that there are feelings of rage, worry, disgust, helplessness, disappointment, and confusion. There are also feelings of readiness, of curiosity about what to do next, relief about the Georgia election, and even optimism that there are long-deferred actions for repair that can take place with the new Congress. Emotions are what they are, and they will be affected by your previous experiences with oppression, trauma, and violence. Feel your feelings. Please know you don’t have to be in those feelings alone.

The violence on January 6 was designed to reinforce white supremacy. It was a reaction to the expansion of multiracial democracy, fed by the shock of racist white people that the votes of people who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color were allowed to have an impact. White people have been told since the moment Europeans arrived on this continent that the land and its abundance and the benefits of government are for ourselves, that white people own this country, and that this is unassailable no matter what happens to the bodies, voices, and lives of those who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This worldview is gravely harmful and wrong.

The incredulity with which the insurrectionists faced the results of the 2020 election, urged on by politicians who capitalize on their racism, is rooted in the belief that only white votes are legitimate. Their invasion of the People’s House was meant to mark their territory, to show that their ownership remains primary, and that they can and will use violence to maintain that ownership. White supremacist violence as an attempt to derail multiracial democracy is not new, and it has worked before. We all have choices ahead of us to reduce the chances that this tactic will continue to work.

One avenue is to confront and dismantle white supremacy in all of the ways it shows up around us. For those who have been the targets of racism their whole lives, simply living and thriving is an act of resistance. For those of us who were socialized as white, the construction of a wall of ignorance around the machinations of white supremacy is part of how the system operates. For those of us who were raised with barriers to perceiving racism, let’s not wait another moment before removing those barriers and taking action to uproot racism.

We saw again this week how deadly white supremacy can be. It shows up in the minds and hearts of well-meaning people and in the institutional practices of well-meaning communities. It shows up in the decisions of governments from the level of homeowners associations to the U.S. Congress. It shows up in art and music and literature. We don’t have to look far to find a place to begin uprooting racism. For all of us, the outpouring of voter empowerment in Georgia reminds us that there is room for everyone in expanding multiracial democracy.

Another thing we can do is to insist that the threat of violent white supremacy is real, and that we should take it seriously. Perhaps that seems obvious after this week, but we’re already seeing efforts to humanize, sanitize, and excuse the perpetrators of destruction. News articles about insurrectionists who died emphasize their good qualities or accomplishments instead of their criminal records; an obvious departure from the media treatment of racial justice activists and those who have been murdered by police. Jokes about the perpetrators seem to imply that they are too stupid to be held responsible. Calls to understand their pain and excuse their racism rely on stereotypes that are demonstrably untrue. Exhortations to “move on” without practicing accountability reinforce the idea that harm caused by white people should be consequence-free. White supremacy is and always has been a threat to our national security and our national wellbeing, and the sooner we recognize and address that, the better.

Failing to take white supremacy seriously contributed to our vulnerability to Wednesday’s events. Racist militia groups have been allowed to grow and thrive for years when anti-racist groups have been infiltrated, sabotaged, and undermined with outrageous punishments and mysterious deaths. After the Charlottesville event where Heather Heyer was murdered, nothing happened to reduce the potential for future right-wing violence. The Capitol Police knew that the crowds planned for Wednesday were likely to be dangerous. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said:

We all were aware of the danger. Ten days ago, Maxine Waters had raised the issue of our security on a caucus call to the Speaker and asked what the plans would be. And 48 hours before, we had gotten instructions from Capitol police about all the threats: that we had to be on high alert, that we had to get to the Capitol by 9 a.m. before the protesters, that we couldn’t plan on going out, that we should have overnight bags. It was very clear, and everyone understood what the threats were.

Rep. Jayapal points out the discrepancy between what the Members of Congress were told about impending events and how the Capitol Police were prepared on the outside of the building. Whether failing to have adequate staff or backup or hard barriers was a result of underestimating the threat or of deliberate collusion or both, the lack of preparedness is a product of white supremacy.

When we recognize the enormity of the problem, we are led to work on systemic solutions. That means examining laws and policies, and the uneven application of those laws and policies. At a Symposium yesterday, award-winning peacemaker and spiritual care activist Najeeba Syeed spoke about the “myth of interpersonal peacemaking,” and how it can be a distraction and derailment of the systemic justice-making that provides the foundation for authentic, lasting peace. Trying to understand and relate to Nazis does not yield systemic change. Attempting to de-radicalize loved ones is another project, not the same thing as building multiracial democracy or expanding liberation. Professor Syeed reminded us that “Peace is not the absence of violence … Peace is the absence of injustice.”

In a week with so many low points, even as we notice the high points, it is understandable to feel disoriented. I have said before that hope is doing the next right thing, working toward a better world even when the outcome is not assured or even clear. Yet if your sense of reality was turned upside down this week, or you were overwhelmed with an experience or a reminder of trauma, maybe the next right thing is especially elusive right now. In that case, the next right thing is to take care of yourself. Drink water. Eat nourishing food. Maybe go outside at some point during the day. Talk to people who care about you. The movement will still be there when you have regained a sense of the ground underneath you. You are a precious being of worth.

Another next right thing is to check up on each other. Remember your federal employee friends. Follow up on a Caring News email. If you’re reaching out to someone who might be having a hard time, you might ask, “Is it OK if I ask how you are?” Let’s try not to make people feel obligated to re-live negative experiences if they aren’t ready. Just being present is often helpful. Even if we can’t fix anything, we can give people the option not to be alone in their grief.

If you have a little more energy and want to channel your feelings into positive actions, consider something that will have a material impact on your local community. R was telling me about Mutual Aid in Washington, DC, especially in Ward 5. For information about Mutual Aid throughout the District, check the website for Bread for the City or find them on Facebook. I also checked in with D, who is involved with Silver Spring/Takoma Park Mutual Aid. You can find them on their Wordpress site or on Facebook. If you’re involved in Mutual Aid, feel free to mention it during Community Sharing or post in the Facebook group later.

R tells me: “Mutual Aid is a non-hierarchical way for neighbors to help neighbors. Anyone can ask for any kind of assistance, and anyone can offer to help. Some roles require some training and learning codes of ethics/responsible service. It's not a particularly ‘formal’ or ‘organized’ thing - it's all hands on deck, and everyone is just doing their best.” R went on to say that there are short-term and long term roles, and those who are able can donate any time.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with dismantling white supremacy, building relationships with your neighbors both is and is not about a larger goal. Building relationships with neighbors is a primary good; it’s something that is valuable and satisfying to do for its own sake. Similarly, offering care when you can and giving people a chance to practice care when you need it are both good, full stop. Neighbors helping neighbors is a form of resistance to oppressive structures.

In addition, neighbors who have strong bonds with each other are in a better position to advocate for their communities. If you and your neighbors are working to overcome environmental racism where you live, or redirect funding to basic human services, or update policies in the local school that have a negative impact on students of color, you will have a head start if you already know each other. This could be its whole own Platform, so I’ll pause there and just say that strong, connected, diverse local communities can be a manifestation of multiracial democracy and a home base for even more positive change.

Forming authentic relationships with our neighbors, community organizing, building power, paying attention to local issues, caring for ourselves and each other: these are some of the tools with which we will resist white supremacy and build multiracial democracy. This way is slow, and it is often hard, and it works. Growing multiracial democracy is a constant practice; Rep. Lewis reminded us that “democracy is not a state.”

When white supremacy attempts to use violence to enforce a warped and harmful vision of who we should be and how we should be together, one of our avenues for resistance is renewing our commitments to communities living into a vision of wholeness. That can mean your local mutual aid society, it can mean a project like the Food Justice Initiative, it can mean a coalition like the Washington Interfaith Network or the Congregation Action Network, it can mean a voting rights organization like Fair Fight, it can mean a community like WES. A better world is possible. There are pockets of it already living and moving among us and around us and within us. Clasping hands (figuratively, for now), traveling together with the winds of our time, let us gather our collective strength to stay grounded in a vision of the world that is possible.

May it be so.

7 notes · View notes

disembodiedapparition · 3 years

Text

The Political and Religious Nexus in India

In 1976, the Forty-second Amendment of India’s Constitution rendered it a secular nation. Although the most commonly accepted definition of “secular” is the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state, India’s version of it is a little different – here, the constitution has explicitly allowed for state interference in religious affairs and vice versa.

India’s version of secularism:

So what does India’s definition of secularism mean? With a country as religiously, culturally, and linguistically diverse as India, religion is a huge part of many constituents’ identities. Like most developed nations, India has no official state religion, and all government educational institutions are prohibited from imparting religious instruction. However, what sets it apart is the fact that many of India’s laws vary depending on an individual’s religion. This means that the laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and alimony could literally be different, depending on whether a person follows Hinduism or Islam. Although this may sound bizarre, it’s important to remember that separate laws on the basis of religion have been accepted in India for centuries – even the British Raj, in an attempt to honor their non-interference policy with respect to religion, permitted Muslims and Hindus to govern themselves differently for certain matters. After independence, the Muslim community in particular insisted that India keep the policy intact as it was significant to their Muslim identity and religion. Historic precedent won over.

The impacts of religious influence in legislation:

This system creates a myriad of problems – first, the country does not have a uniform civil code. Under this system, equality before the law does not exist because individuals are held to different standards depending on the religion they follow. Second, for citizens who don’t follow the same religion as their families, it’s unclear which set of laws they will be held to. Forcing people to prove that they follow a particular faith is a slippery slope, because even within a religion, everyone practices differently and there’s no real way to test faith. The entire process of having to prove religious belief inherently infringes on the right to religion.

However, proponents of the system in place argue that since Hinduism is by far the most dominant religion in the country, by enacting one set of laws for everyone, it’s likely that non-Hindus will have Hindu sensibilities and ideals imposed onto them. There are many differences between India’s religions, which makes legislation difficult.

How has religion bled into legislation?

For example, while Hindus, Christians, and most other religions view marriage as both a legal and civil contract between two individuals, Muslim marriage is seen as a purely civil contract. Under their laws, if a man wants to annul his marriage, all he has to do is say the word “talaq” three times, while if a woman wants to divorce her husband, she must go to the court and prove that he’s violated one or more of the marital duties outlined in the Quran. The triple-talaq system was outlawed in 2019, intended to improve circumstances for Muslim women who would suffer as a result of these meager divorce proceedings. However, the Muslim community viewed it as another attack on their beliefs.

Hinduism, too, is capable of extremism. The Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu-majority party currently holding office in India, made one of their first moves in power implementing an all India ban on beef. Beef is a rich source of protein that’s widely consumed by Muslims and Christians, especially in the South, so the ban was obviously met with a lot of resistance and protest. Although the official reasoning behind the ban was to prevent animal cruelty, most cattle given up for slaughter are old and have reached the end of their productive lives. By selling old cows, farmers are able to recover a crucial part of the value of their cattle – a study from India’s National Dairy Development Board reported that 47% of dairy farmers’ profits come from selling old cows. Cows are considered sacred in Hindu culture, so it’s likely the law was only intended to further Hindu ideals in the country, as called for by the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of which Prime Minister Modi was once a member.

What’s the solution?

This perspective poses a new question – what place do religious morals have in legislation? Since Hindus and Muslims believe in different values, the idea that a uniform civil code would impose on Muslims is conceivable, considering the fact that Hindus make up about 80% of the population. But the concept of having separate laws based on (loosely-defined) religions is unethical too. The honest answer is that India’s definition of secularism doesn’t work. We need a uniform civil code, but we also need to hold it to certain standards and keep it free of religious influence. The right to religion already protects the interests of each group in India as long as nobody is imposing their religious views on anyone else. In the case of the beef ban, there’s no reason to ban cattle slaughter when the slaughter of chickens and fish is still legal, and just because the cow is holy to Hindus, doesn’t mean everyone needs to refrain from eating beef. Similarly, when you look at Islam’s marriage, property, and alimony laws, it’s evident that they are discriminatory towards women. Practices like child marriage, unequal inheritance rights, and unequal divorce rights constitute gender discrimination, which is unconstitutional. They could never be passed under a uniform civil code. Although a Muslim parent may choose to abide by Islam law and award their son twice of what they award their daughter anyway, this doesn’t necessarily need to be enforced via the law. Similarly, if a Muslim husband wants to get a divorce, he can always just go to the courts and get it done legally.

Religious conflict has been prevalent in India for centuries. It serves to be the greatest divider even in the most educated of societies, and one of the first steps towards eliminating religious conflict is by ensuring equal treatment for everybody in the eyes of the law. Unfortunately, political parties still try to ignite these tensions in attempts to win elections (M.K. Stalin controversially criticized the BJP in an open letter for using the brute majority to pass laws). The only way to even begin the process of restoring peace is to redefine secularism in India. When you allow religious laws to supersede state laws, you set the stage for conflict and inequality.

#religion and politics #religion #hinduism #islam #muslim #triple talaq #hindu #hindutva #india #politics #narendra modi #divorce #women's rights #beef ban #article #writing #analysis #extremism #secular

1 note · View note

sleepymarmot · 4 years

Text

“One or two of the 3zun are women, and it still takes place in the canon-ish patriarchal setting” variations

Meng Yao is a woman:

This is only one step away from canon, just dragging the subtext into the text; this is a story that I wouldn’t be surprised to see in any period show. Instead of a prostitute’s child, she is a former prostitute seeking better life. (How she managed to leave when her mother couldn’t is another question that requires research into how medieval Chinese brothels worked.)

I can see two paths: as a cultivator (and it seems like there aren’t many female cultivators in the show) or as a courtesan. If she’s a cultivator, she may or may not be cross-dressing for more safety and respect. In addition of the canonical accident of birth that disadvantaged Meng Yao, being born in a brothel, she also laments the other one that made her life so much harder. Everyone openly mocks her on screen for making a career via sect leaders’ beds (which she may or may not be doing). Nie Mingjue’s victim-blaming and the swings he takes at her are made even more uncomfortable to watch; does the narrative side with him even in this case?

Jin Guangshan doesn’t care for Jin Guangyao not only because she’s illegitimate, but because he has no need for a daughter. But she can be employed to organize parties, manage the home budget, smile and look pretty, as is expected of a woman. Meng Shi must have foreseen that the daughter would be unwanted by the father -- so her reasons for keeping the child were probably different than in canon. Was it pity and love, could she not bring herself to harm this tiny defenseless human being? Was the sunk cost of pregnancy too high? Did the superiors tell her the brothel could use another girl?

Would Guangshan’s death go differently, because Guangyao would feel more solidarity with her former sisters in the trade -- or would she hand-pick the women who made her life hell? In the Rusong situation, she is more sympathetic than in canon: it is Guangyao who becomes pregnant and still enacts agency to carry the child to term and raise him; perhaps she is still hoping to find a way for him to live until the very end. When m!Qin Su finds out, he becomes violent because his wife deprived him of his heir. Or maybe this marriage doesn’t happen at all: if Lady Qin’s son is the husband, she can go directly to him... Except, if we go by the novel’s timeline, this is even worse: she already bears the child of incest. She can get rid of it, but Qin Su knows, and that means he can make the knowledge public whenever he wants. Could Guangyao silence him by death without arousing suspicion? Or would he have an immense amount of power over her from that moment on?

She has even less physical power than in canon and probably doesn’t even carry a soft sword -- maybe a small dagger but mostly just cunning, poison, a couple of strings -- a woman’s weapons. In the end, she is killed by her male lovers in gendered ways -- one pierces her with a sword, the other wrings her neck. Her name remains forever etched into history as another great beauty who bewitched a powerful man and brought the country to near ruin.

Nie Mingjue is a woman:

Mingjue is the first female leader the Nie sect has ever had. Normally the position would go to her younger brother, but she has a commanding personality and is good with a blade, and Huaisang is still a child. She is met with distrust: how can this girl handle a saber, let alone rule a sect? So she overcompensates. She trains tirelessly, determined not to be inferior to her male ancestors. Her manner and judgements are harsh -- she cannot allow herself to be seen as weak. She barks at Huaisang so that nobody could call her “motherly”.

When she meets Meng Yao, she thinks “This one must understand what it means to be seen as inferior”. But taking him as her confidant was a mistake. In the Nightless City, this nice man talks about how much less she and her saber are than her father and his. He makes her cry in front of everyone -- nobody was ever allowed to see her cry. She is the only woman in the room, and the nice man she used to trust kicks her to the ground. An hour later, he makes an innocent face and complains to his best friend how irrational and hysterical she is to blame him. Nobody has seen how he hurt her, and nobody will care -- because he is so smart and talented and a hero of the war, he must have had his reasons, don't be a bitch about it.

She is loved, feared, respected by many -- but still, she knows about the joke that it's particularly dangerous to anger her at a certain time of the month. As years pass, people talk more and more behind her back: this behavior is not proper for a woman and a woman is not suited for this position, she is unstable, she is too violent, it's just wrong for a woman not to have a husband and a child at this age. Her early onset of qi deviation only confirms the public opinion. Nobody would dare say that, you're just imagining things, Jin Guangyao says; why do you still distrust me, your emotions are blinding you, Jin Guangyao chides; you’re just unwell, and I can help you, I know you better than anyone else, Jin Guangyao insists. When she finds out it was him driving her mad and then using it to undermine his reputation, it is too late, and he silences her even in her final moments, and then her body is a trophy in this Bluebeard’s secret chamber. But at least, when she comes back as vengeful undead, like many women wronged by men before and after her, he is finally truly afraid.

Lan Xichen is a woman:

Ah, aren’t both the Jiang and the Lan blessed with their eldest daughters? Beautiful, hardworking, kind, selfless, so caring towards their younger brothers. What a shame that marriage to sons of Jin Guangshan became their doom.

Is Xichen even a sect leader in this one? If we go by the novel timeline, when the previous sect leader dies Wangji is already adult enough to fight a war and Xichen goes missing, so it would make sense for Wangji to inherit the position due to the f!Xichen’s combination of gender and absence. Can you marry a man and remain a head of your own clan instead of entering his? In any case, Xichen becomes Jin Guangshan’s daughter-in-law and therefore is expected to respect and obey him.

She married for love, breaking off the betrothal with Nie Mingjue that had existed for years. That must be, of course, the sole reason Nie Mingjue holds a grudge against her husband, and she is always ready to console her beloved. His life has been so hard already -- to support him with all her might is not only her duty as a wife, but her calling as a believer in justice. Her husband is everything her education told a perfect gentleman should be. Oh, poor, naive girl. Everyone feels pity tinged with admiration for this heartbroken yet still loyal widow who will never marry again.

Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen are women:

A combination of the above. Jin Guangyao is a career man, facing great adversity during his climb; he needs to be adored at least in private. Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, Qin Su... The string of noblewomen he used on the way to the top is remarkable. After discarding Mingjue, he takes Xichen as a lover, too enamored with him to ask for more, and then marries Qin Su to solidify his position in the Jin sect. Nie Mingjue knows what he's really like, and can do nothing; this Fiona Apple song is more or less her perspective as she looks at her successors.

Meng Yao and Lan Xichen are women:

This is about Sisterhood and Female Solidarity. Lan Xichen is an educated and virtuous woman, she knows talent, humility and hard work when she sees them, and will not let them remain underappreciated. She cannot argue openly with her betters, of course, she will keep her head down more often than not. But what Xichen can do is to always offer a warm embrace to a sister in need. Xichen has respect for her background -- it is only admirable for a woman to sacrifice her body to feed her mother. And oh, how A-Yao has suffered! Nobody else would understand, Xichen is the only one in the world for her. When other point fingers at A-Yao, Xichen knows it's their own wickedness talking. It will end one day; true merit will be seen and rewarded, just like Xichen has seen it. I assume Xichen has been betrothed since childhood to Nie Mingjue; Xichen loves her husband dearly, but protecting A-Yao from his anger is always a priority to her. Especially when her poor husband’s health gets worse and worse, and only A-Yao’s kind words can serve as any consolation.

...When, at the end, Xichen learns how A-Yao used her most passionate ideals against her, she is crushed. Maybe the world was right after all. When a servant or a disciple comes to her for protection against some man who scares her, Lan Xichen closes her eyes.

Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are women:

This is a competition. They approach gender in opposite ways: Nie Mingjue must not be seen as weak, Meng Yao uses perceived weakness to her advantage. They cannot exist in the same social circle without undermining the efforts of each other. Lan Xichen is nice, he’s trying to make peace between them -- he is a man, he has never faced this, he will never understand. It is a fight to the death, and Jin Guangyao prevails -- or at least she would have, if this story didn’t have fierce corpses.

#the untamed #blah blah blah #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #i tried to write a long disclaimer in the tags #but it ended up long and pretentious so i deleted it #but to be short this is about common narratives about misogyny #and not about 'women good men bad' but about the qualities they already have in canon looking different from different angles #underneath it all they're the same in every version; jgy is always desperate and ruthless; lxc is always idealistic #it's only the context that changes #and yes i am not sure it is appropriate to link a song about real-life abuse in fandom context #but it prompted this entire post #i'm very self-conscious about this post but also feel too proud of these scenarios not to share #so please be kind #and i would like to avoid a theoretical discussion about gender here #whoops i accidentally hit 'publish' instead of 'save'#i guess after 2 days in my drafts this post wanted out #oh well!

6 notes · View notes

nerdygaymormon · 5 years

Note

On twitter you mentioned you were making a song list for Pride. What's on your playlist?

Everyone has their own list of songs, but here’s my Pride playlist. This includes songs by LGBT performers, gay anthems, songs that are about LGBT topics & people, and songs that if you squint they speak to the queer experience. And many of these are great songs for dancing, which makes sense as even today most of the specifically-queer spaces are bars and dance clubs.

1939 - Over the Rainbow : Judy Garland - “the dreams that you dream of […] really do come true.” When homosexual acts were illegal – the term “friend of Dorothy” was underground slang for a gay man.

1964 - Don’t Rain on my Parade - Barbra Streisand - We do like great big colorful parades, don’t we. Please don’t rain on those parades. The song is about how we got one life and so live it with gusto, do the things you most want to do. I’m holding my own parade and nobody is going to rain on it.

1966 - You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me : Dusty Springfield - The singer proclaims she’ll take whatever she can get from the object of her love. Generations of closeted women & men could identify with that. “You don’t have to say you love me, just be close at hand. You don’t have to stay forever, I will understand”

1969 - Make Your Own Kind of Music : Mama Cass - The message is about taking pride in your uniqueness and individualism

1975 - Dancing Queen : ABBA - This is a story of a 17-year-old girl on a nightclub dance floor, lost in the music and the moment. Of course, “queen” has a different meaning in the queer community and so this is often sung tongue-in-cheek. Over the years, queer acts like Erasure covered ABBA’s songs, and their songs were featured in several movies that appealed to gay audiences, making ABBA icons in the community.

1977 - I Feel Love : Donna Summer - A song about loving your body and your desires, a powerful sentiment for people whose attractions were once seen as deviant. Try to listen to this song and not feel like dancing.

1977 - I Will Survive : Gloria Gaynor - You can imagine marginalized people asking the same questions in the song: “Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?” The gay community has embraced lyrics that are a declaration of pride “I used to cry / But now I hold my head up high.” Even after decades of progress, many LGBTQ+ people still have to deal with daily assaults on their personhood & “I Will Survive” remains relevant.

1978 - Don’t Stop Me Now : Queen - Essentially the song is just a man intent on having a wild night out and inviting the rest of us to come along for the ride or else get out of his way. The love interests flip between male & female and back again, which makes sense since Freddie Mercury was bisexual.

1978 - Y.M.C.A. : Village People - Very fun song. The lyrics make me think of young gay teens being kicked out of their homes by their parents, many of whom migrated to big cities like New York. The YMCA’s provided shelter for them. “Young man, there’s no need to feel down. I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, ‘cause you’re in a new town. There’s no need to be unhappy.” And of course, the lyrics hint at all the gay activity, too. “You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find many ways to have a good time. It’s fun to stay at the YMCA. They have everything for you men to enjoy. You can hang out with all the boys.��

1978 - You Make Me Fee (Mighty Real) : Sylvester - The singer is black, gay and some form of gender queer and sings the song in falsetto. The words about feeling real, those mean something to people who had to come to terms with who they are.

1979 - Go West : Village People - This song imagines a utopia free of homophobia and discrimination. It’s a song of queer community & spirit, and we’ll do it “Together!”

1979 - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) : ABBA - is about a woman alone in an apartment watching television late at night as the wind howls outside. She says, “Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight.” A sentiment many a gay man could sing along with.

1979 - We are Family : Sister Sledge - The song has a message of unity, and gay people often have to build a chosen family, and this song fits that.

1980 - I’m Coming Out : Diana Ross - Yes, this song is about that kind of “coming out.” The lyrics also are about being your truest self and throwing aside shame’s shackles.

1981 - Tainted Love : Soft Cell - The gay experience is not all about empowerment & acceptance. Sometimes it’s about a narcissist who breaks your heart. This song coming at the start of the AIDS crisis came to represent some of the angst that was part of gay life. “Once I ran to you, now I’ll run from you.”

1982 - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me : Culture Club - Boy George wrote the lyrics about his relationship with the drummer Jon Moss. They had an affair for about six years that was kept hidden from the public, and George often felt hurt and emotional. The concept of the video is about being gay and victimized for your sexuality. It shows Boy George getting kicked out of different places in various historical settings. In the courtroom, the jurors are in blackface to show the bigotry and hypocrisy of the many gay judges and politicians in the UK who’d enacted anti-gay legislation.

1982 - It’s Raining Men : The Weather Girls - Super campy song, ridiculous words, but it’s sung fearlessly with vocal pyrotechnics that take the song over the top in the best possible sense. Yes, what gay boy didn’t wish it was raining men?

1983 - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun : Cyndi Lauper - This song is about breaking the rules, letting go, being free and being visible. And yeah, lesbians wanna have fun.

1983 - Relax : Frankie goes to Hollywood - At a time when gay sexuality was still mostly communicated via clever allusions and nonsexual portrayals of gay people, “Relax” was a song about sex—and despite the video being banned by the BBC and MTV—was the biggest pop song in the world.

1984 - I Want to Break Free : Queen - He’s complaining about the person he’s with, wants to break free from the person’s lies. And when he is free, “life still goes on,” only now he can’t get used to living without this person. The video is a parody of U.K. soap opera Coronation Street, which has the entire band in drag, Freddie Mercury as a housewife. Seeing them in drag, of course, gives it a queer vibe. The video was banned in the U.S. 🙄

1985 - You Spin Me Round : Dead or Alive - The singer is queer and singing a love song, the New Wave music is hot, and this is an iconic classic of the 1980’s

1986 - True Colors : Cyndi Lauper - The song is about seeing who someone really is and loving them for it. And it doesn’t hurt that your “true colors are beautiful like a rainbow”

1987 - Faith : George Michael - The song, about declining hookups and patiently waiting for a more meaningful connection, portrays a balancing act with which gay culture has long wrestled. “Well I need someone to hold me but I’ll wait for something more. Yes, I’ve gotta have faith” is just as meaningful today in a culture searching for love while swiping left.

1987 - It’s a Sin : Pet Shop Boys - This song is about a person’s lifelong shame and guilt, presumably for being gay. “For everything I long to do, no matter when or where or who, has one thing in common, too. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a sin”

1987 - Always on my Mind : Pet Shop Boys - This is a remake of an Elvis song, but they dropped the references to a girl, making it ambiguous the gender they’re singing about.

1988 - A Little Respect : Erasure - Singer Andy Bell was one of the first openly gay pop stars to actually sing about queer romance. In this song he’s calling to a lover not to leave and asks the question, “What religion or reason could drive a man to forsake his lover?“

1989 - Express Yourself : Madonna - It’s basically about standing up for yourself in a relationship. Don’t go for “second-best” just because he treats you nicely in bed, but then is never there when you need him. So why is this in my Pride playlist? The music video!

1989 - Part of Your World : Jodi Benson - This song is from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Ariel rejected traditional marriage partners and wants to marry a human against her father’s wishes. She dreams of being a part of the human world. For a long time the LGBT community has wanted to pursue romance & marriage with whom we want and belong to & be welcomed by society.

1990 - Vogue : Madonna - “Look around: Everywhere you turn is heartache.” That’s not exactly a fluffy opening for a dance-pop song—and that’s the point. This is still the time of America’s AIDS crisis, and this song is inspired by New York’s gay ball scene. This song wants you to put away the heavy stuff for a little while and get on the dance floor.

1990 - Freedom! ‘90 : George Michael - This song is cleverly about 2 things. One is about his career–the breakup of Wham! and then the success of Faith, and how he’s tired of being pushed around by his label so he’s taking control of his career and telling people to disregard the pop imagery of his past. It’s also about him wanting to come out of the closet regarding his homosexuality, “There’s something deep inside of me, there’s someone else I’ve got to be.” It would be almost another ten years before he was publicly out.

1990 - Being Boring : Pet Shop Boys - “When you’re young you find inspiration in anyone who’s ever gone and opened up a closing door,” I believe this is talking about being in the closet and the hope that comes from people who’ve come out. The final verse, “Some are here and some are missing in the 1990’s,” AIDS wiped out much of a generation of gay people in the 1980’s. Now he’s grown up and out of the closet as “the creature I was always meant to be.”

1990 - Gonna Make You Sweat : C+C Music Factory - Fun dance song. In a 1997 episode of the The Simpsons, a steel mill turns into a flamboyant gay club when this song comes over the loudspeaker

1992 - Constant Craving : k.d. lang - She had been a country singer, but came out as gay and released this song. Every lesbian knew exactly what k.d. was craving. There weren’t really any other lesbian pop stars who had come out.

1992 - This Used to be my Playground : Madonna - This song is about losing childhood innocence and gaining responsibilities. The song came to be seen as an ode to gay friends who died during the AIDS crisis, and the loss of innocence that epidemic caused.

1992 - The Last Song : Elton John - A young gay man dying of AIDS. The young man’s father “disowned” his son when he learned of his homosexuality only to overcome his homophobia when he learns that his son is dying and he has little time to spend with him. This one makes me cry.

1993 - Go West : Pet Shop Boys (a remake of the song by the Village People) - This song imagines a utopia free of homophobia and discrimination. It’s a song of queer community & spirit, and we’ll do it “Together!”

1993 - Come to my Window : Melissa Etheridge - Melissa put the rumors to rest by publicly coming out and then released an album titled “Yes, I Am.” This song from the album is about a love that’s steeped in secrecy “come to my window, crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon.” Certainly many gay people know about keeping a love on the down low. The song’s bridge really voices what a lot of queer people feel: “I don’t care what they think, I don’t care what they say. What do they know about this love, anyway?”

1993 - Supermodel : Rupaul - His debut single introduced much of America to “sashay/shantay.” RuPaul used this breakthrough hit to become the first mainstream-approved drag queen.

1995 - I Kissed a Girl : Jill Sobule - An honest song of yearning, confusion, and freedom

1996 - Fastlove : George Michael - A guy was in a committed relationship, didn’t work out and now he just wants to not worry about love. “Had some bad love, so fast love is all that’s on my mind.” But even as he’s saying he’s seeking a casual hookup, keeps saying he misses his baby, being with someone he loves would be his preference.

1997 - Together Again : Janet Jackson - The album notes included: “I dedicate the song ‘Together Again’ to the friends I’ve lost to AIDS.” It’s a sweet song with hopeful words. “Everywhere I go, every smile I see, I know you are there smilin’ back at me”

1997 - Man! I Feel Like a Woman : Shania Twain - This is about going out, letting down your hair and having a good time. Message is she loves being a woman. “The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun.” My queer friends who identify as women love feeling like a woman.

1998 - Believe : Cher - Whatever happens, you’ve gotta believe there’s something better coming. It’s about strength and power and hope. And the fact that it’s not always easy to be who you are.

1998 - Reflection : Christina Aguilera - This song is from the Disney movie Mulan. It’s about others not know the real you, which means the lyrics can also fit the experience of being in the closet. “Look at me. You may think you see who I really am, but you’ll never know me. Every day it’s as if I play a part.” The song also was adopted by a lot of trans people to say how they feel on the inside doesn’t match how they look on the outside. “Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don’t know?”

1998 - Outside : George Michael - George Michael was entrapped by police committing a lewd act in a public men’s bathroom in Los Angeles under suspicious circumstances. The video mocks the way queer men are held to different standards about sex. Straight rock stars screw groupies in bathrooms all the time without police interference.

1998 - It’s Not Right But It’s Okay : Whitney Houston - “I’m gonna be okay/ I’m gonna be alright” shows a certain defiance & determination to go on that strikes a chord with LGBT people

1999 - When She Loved Me : Sarah McLachlan - This is from Toy Story 2, if you remove the idea this is about a toy, the lyrics are about a woman reminiscing a past female lover.

2001 - Androgyny : Garbage - I think this song has two messages. First, don’t dismiss people who don’t fit traditional gender roles. The other message is about trans individuals who “can’t see the point in going on,” they’re reminded that “nothing in life is set in stone, there’s nothing that can’t be turned around.” “Boys in the girls room, Girls in the men’s room, You free your mind in your androgyny” Trans individuals who were assigned female at birth may consider themselves “boys in the girls room.” Then when they decide to present themselves as male, others may consider them to be “girls in the men’s room.”

2002 - Beautiful : Christina Aguilera - This song affirms those who feel they don’t fit in. The video includes young people with body issues, a goth punk, a (biological) man putting on women’s clothes and two guys kissing in public. “I am beautiful no matter what they say. Words can’t bring me down.” But songs can lift you up, and this one does.

2005 - Hung Up : Madonna - It’s about living your best life and not wasting anymore time on men who wont call you. And it has that synthesizer riff from ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)

2005 - Proud of Your Boy : Clay Aiken - This song was written for Aladdin. The words make me think of coming out and wondering what your parents are going to think and can you make your parents proud.

2006 - And I’m Telling You : Jennifer Hudson - This song is about an underdog, and being LGBT makes us underdogs in our heteronormative society. “And I am telling you that I’m not going.” I’m going to be here and I’m going to thrive, I’m going to be me and you’re going to see me and “You’re Gonna Love Me.” Those lyrics remind me about coming out and getting to be who you want to be, no matter what anybody tells you.

2006 - I Am What I Am : Ginger Minj - this song is from a broadway show about drag queens. The message is you only get one life so take your shots, whether or not they succeed, it’s better to live your life as who you are

2007 - I Don’t Dance : Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel - This song from High School Musical 2 is a where Chad, co-president of the drama club, is trying to get Ryan, co-president of the basketball team, to “swing” to the other side, if you know what I mean. The scene in the movie is about playing baseball, and at the end of that shot, the two of them are sitting together wearing the other’s clothes. Guess Chad got Ryan to swing.

2009 - Bad Romance : Lady Gaga - First, it’s gender neutral so any of us can sing without translating pronouns. Second, it’s about loving someone completely, including the “bad” parts, “I want your ugly, i want your disease.” Third, Lady Gaga showed up to the 2010 MTV Music Awards w/ four members of the U.S. military who had been discharged or resigned because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. When she went on stage to receive the Video of the Year award for “Bad Romance,” Gaga had changed into the now-infamous “meat dress,” as a way to show her anger about the military’s anti-LGBTQ policy. “If we don’t stand up for what we believe in and if we don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones,” she later explained to Ellen DeGeneres.

2009 - If I Had You : Adam Lambert - I love how the beginning sounds like the singer is going out to a gay club “So I got my boots on, got the right amount of leather, and I’m doing me up with a black color liner, and I’m working my strut.” Not the way we usually hear about a guy getting ready for a night out

2009 - Whataya Want From Me : Adam Lambert - I wonder if this song references when he was figuring out his sexuality with words like “Yeah, it’s plain to see, baby you’re beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s me, I’m a freak.”

2010 - All the Lovers : Kylie Minogue - A feel-good dance track about love. The video has people strip down to their underwear, form a pyramid and begin kissing. All sorts of people kissing, very pansexual.

2010 - Raise Your Glass : P!nk - The song is a call to the underdogs of the world, the “loud and nitty-gritty dirty little freaks,” to ignore convention and just let loose.

2010 - Firework : Katy Perry - She’s saying everyone is a firework–an ordinary, ugly, or insignificant wrapping but when the right situation arises, like a flame to a fuse, they ignite and show how amazing, extraordinary, and beautiful each one of us is. No wonder it’s loved by the queer community, once we let out what’s inside us, others will see we’re bright and beautiful. I will always think of being at Pride and a preacher guy spewing hate had entered the grounds and people formed a circle around him and sang this song, and many others joined in until security removed him, it was beautiful.

2010 - Dancing on my Own : Robyn - It’s a break up song. “Somebody said you got a new friend. Does she love you better than I can? There’s a big black sky over my town.” But with a great dance beat like this, it’s a sure bet Robyn won’t be dancing on her own for long.

2010 - F**kin’ Perfect : P!nk - With all the negative messages we grow up hearing about our gender identity or sexual orientation, it’s so affirming to hear “Don’t you ever ever feel like your less than, less than perfect”

2010 - Grace Kelly : MIKA - While there aren’t any direct mentions of sexuality, this song is very much about how people have judged MIKA for being flamboyantly himself

2010 - Teenage Dream : Glee Cast - This song sung by one boy for another was a big moment on a big TV show.

2011 - We Found Love : Rihanna - Finding love in a hopeless place, for many queer people can mean what it’s like to be in a heteronormative society. Or also that hard transition to accept & love yourself, and imagining going from that to someone finding and loving you.

2011 - Americano : Lady Gaga - The song is about the unjust laws that exist in America, particularly regarding immigration and gay rights. She sings of a scenario in which she meets a girl from east L.A. (heavily Hispanic population) and falls in love with her but can’t marry due to the laws prohibiting gay marriage, “we fell in love but not in court.” As to the “I don’t speak your Americano/Languageono/Jesus Cristo” I think that’s refusing to use the type of rhetoric that is used to justify the laws.

2011 - Born This Way : Lady Gaga - Many songs hint at queer identities and acceptance by using metaphors, but not this one, it is direct. “No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life, I’m on the right track, baby, I was born to survive.”

2012 - Let’s have a Kiki : Scissor Sisters - A drag performer heading to put on a show but when she arrives at the club it’s been shut down by the police. Instead she calls up a friend and announces we’re coming over and having a kiki.

2012 - For All : Far East Movement - As the fight for marriage equality was taking place, this song’s lyrics meant a lot. “Love is for all. Life is for all. Dreams are for all. Hope is for all. Feel the love from everybody in the crowd now, this is for y’all, this is for all.” The video intersperses some uplifting words from President Obama.

2012 - People Like Us : Kelly Clarkson - the song is about all the people who are brave enough to challenge the social norms to bring about changes in the world. These words in particular strike me: “this is the life that we choose” and “come out, come out if you dare,”

2012 - They Don’t Know About Us : One Direction - The song is about how people tell a couple they shouldn’t be together, that their love isn’t real. Sound like something a queer couple might hear? In the song, no one can stop them, they’re together for life. And people thought this song might have been hinting about Larry Stylinson.

2013 - Closer : Tegan and Sara - Not many bands are made up of twin lesbian sisters. This song is really cute. The lyrics are about the anticipation before the kiss, before anything gets physical. It’s a love song that conjures adolescent longing, And it’s cherishing that gap between anticipation and release—asking to be closer, not touching. And it seems to speak to that particularly queer feeling of wanting someone you know you may never get.

2013 - Brave : Sara Bareilles - she wrote this catchy song of courage as a love letter to a friend who was struggling to come out as an adult.

2013 - Follow Your Arrow : Kacey Musgraves - “kiss lots of boys – or kiss lots of girls, if that’s something you’re into,” pretty remarkable to be included in a Country song

2013 - Same Love : Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - I have a nephew who got called gay for wearing stylish clothes, being neat, and interested in art & music. He had a hard time accepting that his uncle (me) is gay because of his experience, and it made me think of this song.

2013 - She Keeps Me Warm : Mary Lambert - A beautiful song about how women can love each other, protect each other and want each other. And the lyrics “not crying on Sundays” I think means not believing the damning words preached by religion about being gay

2013 - Really Don’t Care : Demi Levato - The video starts off with Lovato expressing her support for the LGBT community and saying that “Jesus loves all.” After that, the music starts and Levato is seen singing at a Pride parade.

2013 - Q.U.E.E.N. : Janelle Monáe - The title is an acronym for Queer, Untouchables, Emigrants, Excommunicated, and Negroid. The song is about the empowerment of oppressed people. Monáe uses a question-answer format to explain stereotypes, misconceptions, and oppression.

2013 - Girls/Girls/Boys : Panic! At the Disco - This song describes a love triangle between a boy and two girls, and the boy is being played off against a girl for the other girl’s attention.

2014 - Break Free : Ariana Grande - Her older brother is gay and she grew up around his friends, she’s an ally. And the words of this song, “I��m stronger than I’ve been before. This is the part when I break free ’cause I can’t resist it no more” has the theme often found in gay anthems, that things are tough, but I’m tougher and going to make it.

2014 - Sleeping with a Friend : Neon Trees - Glenn Tyler says he was thinking of a straight friend when he wrote this (but used female pronouns in the song). It’s an unusual love song because it’s a cautionary tale of hooking up with someone you’re close with.

2014 - Sissy that Walk : Rupaul - a perfect walkway song for all those drag queens and any of the rest of us who want to flaunt it

2014 - Put ‘Em Up : Priory - The song begins with a religious mom saying her queer kid has some kind of sickness. But who gives anyone the right to judge another’s lover?

2014 - Rise Like a Phoenix - Conchita Wurst - This song is about combating prejudice and the judgement of others in modern society. Conchita won Eurovision wearing a gown, makeup and a beard.

2015 - Cool for the Summer : Demi Levato - She is curious and has a woman she’s gonna spend the summer exploring with. “Got a taste for the cherry and I just need to take a bite.”

2015 - Heaven : Troye Sivan - Troye sings candidly about what it’s like for a religious teenager to come out as gay, about the struggles coming to terms with your sexuality. “Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven? Without changing a part of me, how do I get to heaven? All my time is wasted, feeling like my heart’s mistaken, oh, so if I’m losing a piece of me, maybe I don’t want heaven?” The video features footage from LGBTQ protests throughout history.

2015 - Youth : Troye Sivan - It’s a really beautiful song about giving the best years of yourself to someone you love.

2016 - Alive : Sia - The song is about someone who had a tough life, but is like, “I’m still breathing.” It is the personification of power.

2016 - Boyfriend : Tegan and Sara - This song tells the exhausting story of someone you’re basically dating, but they won’t come out in the open and admit it because they’re scared, confused, and insecure about their sexuality.

2016 - G.D.M.M.L. Grls : Tyler Glenn - Despite his best efforts to make church work, it didn’t work out because God Didn’t Make Me Like Girls.

2016 - Genghis Khan : Mike Snow - This video surprised me the first time I watched. It’s a James Bond-type hero & villain who fall for each other.

2016 - The Greatest : Sia - Dedicated to the LGBT community in the wake of the Pulse shooting, Sia begs us to not give up and to follow our dreams.

2017 - Bad Liar : Selena Gomez - the video portrays a love triangle (with each character played by Selena)–a curious high school student, seductive gym coach and male teacher. Towards the end of the video, the high school student sings the line, “With my feelings on fire, guess I’m a bad liar,” as she looks at a photo of the gym teacher. It’s a scene that shows the fear of acknowledging and declaring our sexuality—a moment of many a queer experience.

2017- If You Were Gay : San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus - This song is from the musical Avenue Q. This choir’s performance of the song is delightful.

2017 - This is Me : Keala Settle - The song from The Greatest Showman sings of resilience in the face of hardship — which, after all, is what Pride is all about. “Another round of bullets hits my skin. Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in”

2017 - You Will Be Found : Ben Platt - This song from Dear Evan Hansen means a lot to me. There’s a gay teen who posted a question on Tumblr, I responded, and together we’ve been through a lot, suicidality, helped him with coming out and nerves about a first love. He says this is our song because I found him. But for everyone, this song is hopeful that when you need it, someone will be there for you.

2017 - 1-800-273-8255 : Logic - This is a song about a closeted guy who is suicidal and calls a help line. The operator wants him to be alive and helps save him in that moment.

2017 - Bad at Love : Halsey - Halsey flips through all the guys and girls she’s dated in an attempt to understand why she hasn’t yet found love. Queen of bisexual relatability!

2018 - A Million Dream : P!nk - this song from The Greatest Showman is about the power of positive thinking, faith and believing in your dreams. For queer people, it’s a reminder that we are building a better world.

2018 - All the Things : Betty Who - This is the theme song for the wildly popular Netflix show Queer Eye.

2018 - Never Been In Love : Will Jay - It’s such a great bop and I have loved Will Jay since his IM5 days, and this seems perfect for my ace/aro friends. “I’m not missing out so don’t ask me again. Thanks for your concern, but here’s the thing, I’ve never been in love and it’s all good”

2018 - Make Me Feel : Janelle Monáe - Sexuality is simply how a person makes you feel, regardless of gender. The music video for ”Make Me Feel” features Janelle crawling between women’s legs and grinding up on both a male and female love interest under bisexual lighting.

2018 - Promises : Calvin Harris, Sam Smith - a glittery homage to vogueing and drag ballroom culture in the music video.

2019 - You Need to Calm Down : Taylor Swift - an entire verse that’s literally about going to a Pride parade.

#Pride #Pride Playlist

89 notes · View notes

fightmeyeats · 4 years

Text

Skin Care as Self-Care: The Appropriation of Self Care by the Beauty Industrial Complex

Because we live in a society where our worth is heavily framed in terms of our production/capitalist exploitability as workers, emphasizing the importance of taking care of ourselves is absolutely important and can even be radical. However, “self care” as a framework has increasingly become individualizing and part of the larger neoliberalization of health/wellness in the U.S.. One place where this becomes especially clear is in the way self care has become deeply intertwined with the beauty industrial complex in contemporary practices and ideologies of “skin care”.

More below the cut.

Self care, at its root, is not the problem. As Audre Lorde’s famously said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare”. We are frequently made to feel that our only value is in how much we are able to do, how busy we are, how convenient we are; in this context, taking care of ourselves can feel selfish, and reframing the way we value ourselves and our needs becomes particularly important. However, increasingly we can see the ways in which self care serves to make contemporary capitalism (appear) tenable.

This becomes clear first and foremost through the way self care is positioned as a response to the harm which occurs through late stage capitalism; we only need self care because of neoliberalism/capitalism, and yet by imagining self care as a practice of healing and revaluing the individual over the corporation, self care implicitly naturalizes the system which produces the need for self care. Essentially, self care operates through a neoliberal framework, individualizing care, healing, and wellness, in ways which disrupt or obscure communal networks of care. Through this framework, care not only becomes something which is enacted by and for the individual, but also constructed as the responsibility of the individual--typically in addition to regular obligations.One of the central problems exploiting workers causes corporations (assuming workers do not strike) is the problem of selling products--if no one can afford to purchase items, the system starts to fall apart. Because of this, mobilizing self care to encourage consumption helps support the entire system. “Self care” has increasingly become appropriated and intertwined with consumption; not only has he phrase itself becomes a kind of marketing, used in ads to sell products (for example, targeted instagram ads by a companies with the handle such as “selfcareisforeveryone” offering t-shirts with catchy slogans like “GOING TO THERAPY IS COOL!”), but “self care” as a practice is frequently associated with buying the things you want (#treatyoself) or, more and more often, buying items specifically marketed as being specifically necessary to produce relaxation, namely bath bombs, facemasks, and other skin care products.

This is not a failure of those who are using self care to survive, but something directly produced by and through neoliberalism/capitalism; the necessity of self care starts to feel like

[image id:Seth Rogan putting duct tape over huge crack in the wall]

but the central issue isn’t the people using the duct tape, it’s the way the late stage capitalism and neoliberalism intentionally frame band-aid solutions as meaningful responses to the damage capitalism produces--and then sell the band-aids for a profit.

The connection between specifically skin care related products and broader “self care” discourse is certainly nothing new or surprising; in the last few years skin care has increasingly become a central focus in the marketing of U.S. beauty practices, with the concept of “self care” often being mobilized in these discourses. As Constance Grady argues in her 2018 Vox article “The skin care wars, explained,” contemporary ideas about skin care have not been hijacked by corporations “because skin care in its modern form has always been corporate” (emphasis added).

While there are many ways in which one might critique this--for example, the way someone’s “natural” face comes to mean a face without makeup, subsequently naturalizing the artificial, expensive, and extensive routines which are required to achieve “clear” “moisturized” “healthy” “glowing” “natural” skin --what I am interested in exploring here is the shift in language from the beauty industry’s heavily “choice feminism” flavored branding of make up to the current branding of skin care. Whereas the branding of make up was (and still is) typically linked to discourses of creativity, freedom, and power (ie “winged eyeliner sharp enough to cut a man”), skin care is dominantly a neoliberal disciplining discourse, centered on the notion of individual responsibility to clean/purify skin through strict regimens of “care”. This is absolutely not to imply that make-up is better than skin care, merely to point to the various ways the beauty industrial complex deploys certain positive associations, often appropriated from or in conversation with the language of various feminisms, in order to increase marketability.

One of the things which Jia Tolentino points out in her 2017 New Yorker article “The Year That Skin Care Became a Coping Mechanism,” is the way that while beauty standards have remained largely the same, the framing of these ideals shifts as feminism becomes more common in society--for example, rather than emphasizing looking young/anti-aging, there is an increase in the use of words like “radiance.” While her overall argument suggests that anti-aging skin care is an act of resistance because of the way it insists that there will be a future during a moment where the future feels increasingly unstable, the “coping mechanism” actually seems to be a response to agency panic, a way of controlling one’s self as a response to general instability. Again, like self care it imagines that individualized practices resist structural violence, while simultaneously increasing the marketability of misogynists beauty ideals.

Feminist aesthetics and language are frequently appropriated by corporations to sell products to “conscientious” consumers (obligatory reminder that there’s no ethical consumption under late stage capitalism), or to profit off of the increasing visibility of various feminist activism. Just as we can see with the way the broader category of “self care” is increasingly mobilized by corporations to sell products, in the last few years we’ve seen “skin care” culture come into vogue as the “positive” new version of make-up culture. The idea here is that skin care allows people to be “natural” and “healthy,” simultaneously justifying the time and expense associated with these updated beauty regimes, while also imaging that a) “healthy” skin is clear/even/looks “perfect” without the need for makeup and b) this skin is attainable by anyone who puts in the effort to achieve it. At best, skin care culture is a kind of capitalist ambivalence: regardless of whether prioritizing skin care is better than prioritizing cosmetic routines, the beauty industry only cares about selling product. As Tolentino argues, “when my skin feels good, I feel happy...at the same time, it’s impossible to ignore that the animating idea of the beauty industry is that women should always be working to look better”. Grady similarly points to this ambivalence, pointing out that “while it’s true that some forms of acne and dry skin are physically painful, the drive for “perfect” poreless skin is primarily an aesthetic one”.

At worst, skin care is insidious and damaging because despite the rhetoric of “care,” skin care is, at its base, a discourse of neoliberal bodily discipline--skin “defects” cannot simply be covered up but must be addressed through intensive routines which center a personal responsibility in fixing them. It is these same logics which produce the idea of a “glow up” (or “glo up”) which frequently compare an “ugly” picture of an individual--typically during their early teens (while they were going through puberty)--next to a “glowed up” version of the individual as a young adult. While these pictures do frequently involve makeup as part of the “glow up”, weight loss and clear skin are often associated with a glow up, and one of the central ideas being conveyed through this practice is that beauty is something “achieved”.

Ultimately, my point is not to critique those who engage in skin care as self care, but rather the beauty industrial complex itself and the way that corporations intentionally appropriate and mobilize discourses of resistance in order to sell products. We know that physical appearance is associated with inner qualities and value; having “bad” skin often becomes a social signal for poor moral qualities (uncleanliness, laziness, unhappiness, lack of self care, etc); as many have come to realize, “choice feminism” is useless because while we do of course have agency, our choices are in part produced by the contexts we find ourselves in; the problem is not the individual people who engage in extensive skin care regimes, but rather the way that this is produced as a necessary and/or desirable choice. What we need to do is de-corporatize self care, and expand self care into practices of mutual/communal care. What we need is to create a world where self-care is more compatible with community organizing/striking/protesting than it is with the consumption of serums, lotions, face masks, face oils, exfoliators, toners, and eye creams.

#skin care #self care #neoliberal capitalism #neoliberalism #beauty industrial complex #essay #long post #also to be clear again im not attacking anyone for participating in self care/skin care practices even when they're mediated thru capitalism #it can be hard to avoid & there are various benefits associated #my point is just that we need to be critical of corporate appropriation/control of self care/skin care/skin care as self care #and that we should think about ways we can take these things away from corporations and recenter the radical potentials of self care #as always i'll fix typos as i find them & encourage responses from anyone w thoughts on this topic!

8 notes · View notes

freckliedan · 4 years

Note

People can have traumatic experiences with cats as a child that causes them to dislike and be scared of them. To compare that to homophobia is wrong

(context)

SLSBDKIDV did i SAY disliking cats at all is homophobia? no! i said that people hate cats for having boundaries! i get that cats aren't for everyone and that some people have cat trauma; dogs aren't for everyone either and some people have dog trauma. i wasn't talking about that, and i'm really sorry if my ask/post was worded in a hurtful way.

i was trying to point out that there's a difference between dog people who are like "yeah i like dogs more than cats but that's just because i don't really get along well with cats" and the prevalent cultural "dog people" mindsets that 1) all dogs are good dogs/you have to love dogs and 2) that cats are all evil, mean, coldhearted, & not capable of affection. i'm only bothered by people who hate cats for no reason.

and that's obviously not at all the same thing as lesbophobia, because lesbophobia is a specific form of gendered violence enacted institutionally and individually upon lesbians.

i'm currently reading a book focused on the historical connection between cats and lesbians that talks about why so many queer women identify heavily with cats & love them very deeply! that's why i brought it up at all.

many views of institutional homophobia, transphobia & sexism see them all as different forms of the same type of oppression: gendered violence. men who are appropriately masculine and gender conforming are considered the ideal & are the main oppressors in the axis of gender; there's a lot more interactions between gendered violence and racism that i absolutely am not qualified to speak on but that do result in white gender-conforming cis men benifitting from gendered violence in a way that no other groups do.

more on gendered violence: women are socially punished / face barriers when they deviate from gendered expectations; this is sexism. feminine/gnc men are also targeted by this, but in different ways than women are.

being heterosexual is a part of society's gendered expectations, so everyone that is not heterosexual is deviating from the expectations for their assigned gender and the social punishment/institutional oppression that targets this specific transgression from gender norms is called homophobia.

trans people, especially bipoc who are trans, face the harshest institutional and interpersonal violence for existing in a way that deviates from white cishet patriarchal society's gendered expectations. we call that transphobia.

lesbophobia in specific is what i was talking about: the dominant societal attitude towards lesbians is hatred because we are not availible to men. my lesbianism is about my love for women, trans women and cis women, as well as my love for non-binary folks! but because that means i don't fucking center my life around men, it's seen as inherently political. i am bad at being a woman because i have boundaries in my life that include a refusal to be an object / posession to men.

the book i'm reading is literally an anthology with a focus on the ways in which lesbians, due to the gendered violence we face and the similarities between that and the irrational prevelent hatred of cats in society, often deeply love and relate to cats in our lives.

i've also been watching a bit of jackson galaxy's "my cat from hell" on youtube and every single episode has like.. a terrible man who hates cats because he cannot control them and exert power over them it sucks and i can't watch a lot of it! people are shitty to cats in a really specific way that reminds me of my own oppression!

it's not homophobic or shitty to individuals with trauma for me to talk about that in a nuanced matter, and i know i wasn't very detailed in my first post/ask but i did say that i was talking specifically about people who hate cats for bs reasons?

#i really don't understand why you sent me this ask?#bc i thought i made it clear enough in my first post that i was talking abt a specific group of ppl who hate cats for no reason #i'm sorry to be so defensive and i'm like deeply sorry if i hurt you but that's not at all the tone i got from ur ask #transphobia m/#racism m/#homophobia m/#den replies #anon

6 notes · View notes

thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 years

Text

@dykeofwellington

#he’s no better than any other politician

#and is indeed actively worse than quite a few

#politics

#us politics I am curious as to why you think he’s actively worse than someone like Steyer, or Tulsi Gabbard, or simply in general. Why do you feel he’s actively worse than the rest? I would also love to know who you think is the best choice out of the lot? and you’re reasoning behind that?

Hey for some reason I can’t reblog the post where you asked the above about Bernie. I’m going to give a very brief rundown of thoughts.

First, let’s clear up some rather broad, assumptions made:

am curious as to why you think he’s actively worse than someone like Steyer, or Tulsi Gabbard, or simply in general. / Why do you feel he’s actively worse than the rest?

I never said any politician’s name. Just a general indication that he’s worse than a few. I think it’s interesting you assumed I meant those two and not that he’s worse than, let’s say, Julian Castro.

I clearly said “no better than any other politician” which puts him on equal footing with Warren etc. so this assumption: Why do you feel he’s actively worse than the rest? is unwarranted.

What I was saying was basically - no better than e.g. Warren and worse than quite a few e.g. Castro, Clinton (I know, come fight me leftists who drank the almost 30 years of GOP koolaid on her) etc.

A quick rundown of issues I have with Bernie include, but are not limited to:

Inability to deal with sexual harassment in his campaign in a meaningful way (he apologized and such, but there’s not to my eyes been a significant change)

General sexism in his campaign as well as sexism displayed by followers. He’s just got a sexism issue overall.

Lack of meaningful, recent civil rights record

Unwilling to coalition build with colleagues in government (a profoundly necessary skill if you want to get anything done as president). Basically, he’s not a team player. We need team players. Team players is how DC works. (e.g. “Ms. Clinton, pointing out that Mr. Obama had to fight tooth-and-nail even for relatively centrist solutions such as the Affordable Care Act, draws the lesson that the next president must have a strong sense of practicality and realism; big rallies cannot wish away the complex politics of Congress. Mr. Sanders, by contrast, claims that Mr. Obama had insufficient revolutionary zeal.” Sanders’ view is not helpful nor realistic.)

Lack of passing meaningful policy/legislation in his 25 years as senator which indicates an overall inability to solve issues within the existing system as well as a manifestation of the above mentioned inability to coalition build. While many senators propose many bills and pass few (that’s kind of par for the course) Sanders’ are particularly lack lustre. Of the seven enacted of which he was primary sponsor, three were designations (S. 885, H.J.Res. 231, S. 893) and one was a national park boundary movement (H.R. 1353).

Bernie Sanders was the primary sponsor of seven bills that were enacted:

S. 885 (113th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 35 Park Street in Danville, Vermont, as the “Thaddeus Stevens Post Office”.

S. 2782 (113th): A bill to amend title 36, United States Code, to improve the Federal charter for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and for other purposes

S. 893 (113th): Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2013H.R. 5245 (109th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1 Marble Street in Fair Haven, Vermont, as the “Matthew Lyon Post Office Building”.

H.J.Res. 129 (104th): Granting the consent of Congress to the Vermont-New Hampshire Interstate Public Water Supply Compact.

H.R. 1353 (102nd): Entitled the “Taconic Mountains Protection Act of 1991”.

H.J.Res. 132 (102nd): To designate March 4, 1991, as “Vermont Bicentennial Day”.

Medicare for All: it’s an incredibly complicated thing to implement and I’m personally not convinced Sanders’ plan is the right approach, nor that it would pass congress when introduced.

Weak stance on gun control and relationship with the NRA

Tendency to shout over and shut people down, especially those asking questions he doesn’t want to answer

His lack of attempting to control his supporters - their misogyny and racism - are indicative of the kind of person running the campaign. These things rot from top down.

How powerfully his ego influences his actions, especially in 2016 when it took Obama hauling him into the white house before he finally stepped down and stopped running

That whole Russia murkiness

His continued view that the primaries are rigged when they aren’t, he just lost, is actively harmful

He has, or has benefited from, super PACs (he has some direct PAC contributions, but it’s not a large amount. Most of his benefits from PACs come in other forms than direct contributions).

So, this is not something I particularly care about overall, because running for president is expensive (which is a Problem), and it’s a current reality to campaign financing. But he made such a big deal out of it I take vindictive pleasure in him having them/benefitting from them because I can now corner Luke Savage at a mutual friend’s annual Christmas party and tell him to shove it up his arse.

Support of Gabbard who is a bit of a Russian plant (not to mention a terrible candidate overall)

He is old, he is white, he is straight, he is cis, he is male - we have the most diverse range of potential nominees and if we think he’s the Answer or Saviour there’s a lot of unpacking of internalized stuff that needs to happen.

A personal thing, but I really, really dislike his shoutiness. He reminds me of every socialist bro who has shouted down women and other marginalized people at parties I’ve been to (I know quite a few Jacobin/Socialist hacks e.g. aforementioned Luke Savage who uses the Sanders Certified approach If You Shout Enough They Can’t Get A Word In Therefore You Win to conversations and debates) and it leaves my skin crawling.

No policy to address the needs and interests of First Nations/Native Americans including living standards, water access, education, treaty rights, any sort of reconciliation and addressing the issue of colonialism and genocide etc. (I think Castro is the only one with anything addressing Native American needs)

Breach of Clinton’s campaign voter data. Super. Shady.

Ultimately, I’m not an idealist because idealism doesn’t make for good policy. While I dislike the term leftist because it invokes, to my mind, the blind, unthinking frothing wrath of Bernie Bros(tm), I do have leftist goals.

However, I am practical about the approach, which will almost always be incremental. It’s like building a house: you lay foundations before you start on the walls, roof and insulation. Bernie wants an instant house to appear out of no where. That’s not how life nor government, works.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t push to improve things and make for a better world, a more just society. But the reality is: we have a system we must work within and so we need people who can do that effectively. That said, we can and should try to improve the system on the way, as well. But burning it down and starting from scratch is a pipe dream. Best lay it to the side and fight for things that can actually improve lives today. In the here and now.

in the end, I don’t like Bernie Sanders because he is an old, shouty white man driven by ego who is crude, mean, and isn’t a real democrat. I think we can do better.

My current list of choices for the Democratic nominee (which is open to change. It will depend on how debates play out and further policy details put forward by candidates):

Julian Castro (I like his platform the most; he has experience in DC from the Obama administration; knows how to be a team player; he’s young, intelligent and well spoken; has that “presidential” look that many voters like to see, which you know. Makes sense. Mostly I like his platform and everything I’ve heard and read about him has been positive. He also runs a (mostly) positive campaign! Unlike Some Old White Shouty Men. I can go on.)

Kamala Harris (She has a good platform with sound policy plans; she has grit and stamina needed to run against Trump; She runs a positive campaign - even using her funding to support other democrats currently primarying republicans/are just up for general re-election; she’s a senator so has experience and allies in DC with whom she can coalition build; she’s a team player; she will give us a good shot in Florida and N. Carolina; she has strong support from Black Americans who are the base of the democratic party; as DA she fought against prop 22 and prop 8 [yes, she’s not perfect as DA or AG but point to someone with a perfect track record. I’ll wait. I’m not here for perfection or purity politics, I’m here for someone who can win and will implement descent policy while in power], she pioneered one of the first open data initiative to expose racism in the legal system, lol she’s not a millionaire unlike Some Old White Shouty Man - which is neither here nor there for me personally, because again I’m realistic, just a refreshing thing. I can go on.)

Elizabeth Warren (I’m rather luke-warm on her but she’s better than the other options.)

My ideal ticket, currently, is: Harris/Castro.

Again - this is open to change. And, at the end of the day, I will vote for the democratic nominee in 2020 no matter what because we can’t have another four years of Trump.

#politics #us politics #i have voiced spicy opinions about Sanders I am prepared for the potential fallout

5 notes · View notes

cquinnxi-blog · 5 years

Text

Literacy Standards Are Always on the Rise.

The only constant we have in this world is ironically, change. If you go back in time, you can note the shifts and changes that took place throughout the world, with the concept that the quality of life is enhanced through each new generation of people withNew modern buildings, technological advances, and extending forms of transportation. Although we can see the tangible things that in fact did change right in front of us, we can sometimes fail to note the intangibles that are changing as well. Literacy is an example of these intangible ideas and its’ standards are constantly shifting as time progresses. These shifts come in many different forms and as we go on, we will discover the difficulties individuals go through to develop their literacy to create these shifts. As humanity continues to develop, new generations of learners are faced with new standards and expectations of literacy and these new standards impact the world as a paradigm shift.

We take this idea that as we accomplish more we are then expected to do more. The “bar” is constantly moving with no room for complacency. We see this when college educated workers infiltrated work places until the standard was to have a college education. A man named Dwayne Lowery was someone who suffered from this shift in education. He never attended college, but he received adequate training from his workplace to be a field staff representative, dealing with contracts and workers grievances. In the 1970s, when the union started to gain a more influential role, he found himself starting to negotiate contracts with lawyers instead of people like him. In all efforts to keep up with writing extremely time consuming briefs, attending sponsored workshops, and learning from pre-written contract templates, there was no way for him to keep up with the stature of the others in his field. He was in fact behind the bar and Deborah Brandt concludes, “Lowery saw his value to the union bureaucracy subside, as power shifted to younger, university-trained staffers whose literacy credentials better matched the specialized forms of escalating pressure coming from the other side” (Brandt 86). Eventually incurring the bite of this shift in worker qualifications, he no longer could keep up with those who had the advantage of a college education. This example portrays some of the unintended consequences that can happen when the standards are evolving, and people are simply unable to keep up with expectations.

We can mimic this scheme as we look at the life of Malcolm X. Growing up as a kid in the 1930’s, he never had much interest in academics, but when he was sent to jail in 1946, what triggered him to start caring about learning, and literature? Upon entering prison, Malcolm exemplifies how much he began to read and even exemplified “No university would ask any student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand”(Malcolm X, 109). This jump to start reading books focused on black history and this new found passion of his didn’t just happen because there was nothing better to do. It was because, in America at this point in time, there was an uproar in the demand for civil rights; Standards and rituals of a segregated society needed to be obliterated. For Malcolm X, his literacy in Black History gave him the advantage in creating this shift in equality and for once in his life he had felt that the world demanded something from him. He answered this call, and the change enacted by individuals such as himself were viewed as radical, but looking back we see the great impact his drive had the world.

Dwayne lowery, and Malcolm X pose large world examples of these shifting expectations, but as we discover for Sandra Cisneros, a much more personal narrative. She shows how in an average setting, individuals still encounter these ever changing demands of literacy. Coming up in a stable Chicano household, her father's expectations of his only daughter, was for her to get a college education, but primarily to find a husband. With a passion for writing, she understood clearly that her reason for going to college and her life after would not live up to her father's expectations. She knew he really didn’t understand the idea that Cisneros had for her life. She continued to make strides in writing so she could eventually prove herself to her father and even writes, “My father represents, then, the public majority. A public who is interested in reading, and yet one whom I am writing about and for, and privately trying to woo”(Cisneros, 103). Eventually the persistent push to gain the approval of this “public majority” resulted in a successful book, which was printed in Spanish and english, and many other major accomplishments. Sandra Cisneros could’ve easily conformed to what her family expected her to do, but she refused and challenged their ideas of what they see as a successful woman. She proved it to herself also that what you want is out there and has been an inspiration to young Chicano women and women around the world. Being held to societal standards that women are, that is, finding a man and having a family, not really engaging in intellectual activities or careers. This standard however, has drastically changed over the past generation, and it is the responsibility of women like Cisneros who challenge the ideas that society holds for them and following their dreams that create the change in society and start empowering other women to do the same.

Overall, we can point out the shifts over time that are happening and literacy comes into play so much because it has to do with how one understands the world around them. Whether it happens in the workplace due to education, someone trying to learn where they came from to understand what is happening today because of their ancestors history, or maybe just trying to prove themselves to the world. Education, social, and self standards are going to continue to change and as the newest generations of learners, how will you respond when these paradigms approach you? Will you adapt and challenge the new expectations, or will you conform to doing things how they have always been done? With every new generation of learners, there must be individuals willing to stand up and question the world, as well as improve the standards of life, making expectations higher and changing formal ideals to push the envelope further. You can’t predict when or where these standards and expectations will appear. Will you be ready to push them back when they do?

1 note · View note

mmmmalo · 5 years

Note

the king/father creates/births things while the queen serves only to impregnate (him with the idea for what he will create, like a muse, if you will)? idk i hate women being reduced to their reproductive function but this also seems misogynistic somehow. also does this make roxy's ability to create objects from nothing another "she's trans" joke?

I think the discomfort you’re apprehending is discussed somewhat when Crockertier!Jane tells Jake he will only exist to sire her children? Sexual objectification is probably a more familiar experience for women, but the unease in being subsumed by some sexual function isn’t necessarily gender exclusive… (the existence of domination play attests to that probably)

This subject is probably out of my depth, but I’m going to meander a bit and hopefully say a couple useful things.

First, some clarification: “birth” is the principle of separation and “pregnancy” is the principle of union. Thus birth-as-we-know-it is rendered equivalent to ejaculation, Breathing out, pooping – all of which involve separation from that which was once part of you. Likewise the image of a gestating fetus is equivalent to taut testicles, lungs full of air, a constipated colon – states in which the union is maintained. On this level, it’s apparent that any given body can participate in both halves of the dichotomy.

But as elaborated back in the Roxy-and-Dirk post, Sburb’s queens and kings are aligned with birth and pregnancy, respectively. As per Caliborn’s enchantment, this is treated a hat-switch, a reversal of expectations on who ejaculates and who gestates. “Birth” (which Caliborn likes) is coded as masculine, so that assigning this function to the queen is met as a reversal. While “pregnancy” (for which Caliborn fetishes his disgust) is coded as feminine, so that assigning this function to the king is met as a reversal.

The problem I’m facing is evaluating whether the birth/pregnancy dichotomy (aka separation/union, aka Breath/Blood) contains an intrinsic (ie inescapable?) gendered hierarchy, or if the gendered hierarchy is imported by characters (or us) onto what is actually a gender-neutral distinction. Though there could also be a broader point that binary systems are easily co-opted as mapping to the gender binary…? So that even if a distinction “ought to be” neutral, the matter remains that it has been /rendered/ gendered?

To avoid speaking too much in terms of generalities, I’m going to reorient this discussion around John Egbert via an ask concerning the ARG:

you gotta talk about it man come on

I read the ARG as a conspiracy theory that falls in line with the kids’ paranoid fantasies. In the same way that the very real trolls function as manifestations from the psyches of those around them, the world of Homestuck is, in general, shaped by the psychological profiles of its inhabitants.

I gather this partly from the nods to an irl conspiracy (eg declaring Obama to be a cross-dimensional immigrant), but mainly because the overwhelming paranoia that defines the narrative, the conviction that the world has degenerated and that every known authority is but a feeble puppet of a nebulous overlord. Comedians Laurel and Hardy are slowly corrupted and eventually infused with Evil, resulting in the birth of the Insane Clown Posse, which is to say ICP’s low-class status translates into degenerate art within the confines of the conspiracy. Albert Einstein is renounced as a fake, whose “insights” are mere scraps cast off from a feast of truth available to some unseen master. It’s all insurmountably stupid, but there is a unifying thread:

The idea is that the world is “fallen”, in two of the senses explored via John Egbert’s fear of heights (or rather, his fear of descent).

1. John is literally afraid of heights, having fallen from the slime pogo. But John’s entry item is an apple because he experiences a pervasive sense that there is a perfect world of ideals from which he has been thrown down – a sort of intersection between the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden and the heavenly Platonic Forms. This manifests partly in an obsession with authenticity, a subject that pervades Act 1 (x)(x). The Obama birth-certificate conspiracy attempts to frame Obama as “inauthentic”, and framing Einstein as a feeble peddler of inherited slivers of truth relies on the idea that there is a Godly figure with access to ALL the truth, a master presiding over the Pleroma. John is susceptible to this kind of thinking; after all, the paranoid idea of Betty Crocker as an Illuminati-tier omnipotent antagonist began as one of John’s funny delusions.

2. The biblical Fall is at times phrased as the corruption of humanity, and that sense carries into Homestuck. The other Heir, Equius, is revolted and titillated by that which he regards as base. His fetishization being lower class and other modes of degradation receives a visual complement in images of a falling ideal: the death-by-fall of man-horse Arthour, and Equius’s own descent through the caves of LOCAS (the circumstances of a lusus’s death and the features of a planet both bear relation to a player’s fantasies). John complicates the picture a little bit: he specifically has a fascination with “bad movies” (low status art), but also he regards the other side of the silver screen as a Pleroma of sorts, which simultaneously elevates the art.

But my goal is to demonstrate that all of this intersects with the original topic: the division of high/low is also projected onto masculine/feminine.

John wishes to undo his traumatic fall from the slime pogo, an event that has come to represent John’s fantasy of his own birth. As hinted at the start, the birth he imagines for himself is ejaculatory: Ghostbusters is “manbro bukkake theatre”, and John fancies himself a ghost busted directly from the loins of his heavenly Father. John seeks to re-merge with his image of God, a goal implicit in John’s attempts to reunite with Dad in a more familiar sense.

But implicit in John’s quest to give up the ghost and ascend to the Father is a rejection of the implicitly feminized earth and flesh, to which the self/soul is umbilically bound. This gendering is often shown via robots:

Jake jokingly says that Dirk is “more machine than man” – this is a jab at Dirk’s terse demeanor, but placing machines in opposition to manhood potentially feminizes the machines, compromising Dirk’s desiring to be a paragon of dudeliness. The simultaneous masculinization of reason and dehuminizing jabs like Jake’s confuse and frustrate Dirk for a variety of reasons

The ghost of Aradia enters robotic husk to be reborn, imitating the insertion of the spirit into the body. She then finds that Equius has inserted something into her body against her will, and violently removes it and destroys it. “It” was a chip that controlled her feelings, but the intimate violation has tones of assault, and Aradia’s heart is effectively aborted.

There’s more examples, but this is just an aside to push the notion that the Fall (from high to low) entails the entry of spirit into body, which via the analogous entry of sperm into womb would seem to gender hierarchy itself. Masculine/feminine is entrenched as high/low by the metaphysics.

(Here’s a nice post that notes a gendering of the hemocaste system in Zebruh’s Friendsim route)

This leads me into thinking that John’s desire to merge with the image of the Father is connected to his love of pranking people, insofar as it becomes a assertion of domination/power (which is presumed to be the masculine position). The prankster’s gambit, at its purest, is a measure of Who’s On Top.

At the end of the Chaos Dunk scene (in which John symbolically enacts Rose’s rape fantasies), John pranks Rose by dumping a bucket full of gushers on her head. Buckets are receptacles, and thus occupy the balls/womb half of the divide. Evacuating the bucket all over Rose is a repetition of earlier symbolic assault, and the moment is embellished with a prankster’s gambit to emphasize the notion that there is an element of domination to the encounter.

The bucket prank is echoed in a later conversation between John and Rose, beginning at page 2922. John asks repeatedly whether Rose “knows everything” now, says the beta kids “were in this adventure together” but with Rose’s occult knowledge, she is now “getting away from us”. John is not anxious that Rose is separating in a neutral way – his anxiety stems from the idea that she is rising above them. “Knowing everything” is a property of mastery, and John is confused by Rose being above him. At the end of 2922, John attempts to mock Rose’s words, but she tells him he’s being mean and he apologizes.

Rose herself expresses some anxieties about her position, saying elements of her wizard shtick have made her feel “ridiculous” or “embarrassed”. Her choice of words invokes the manifestation of Eridan, who mocks Rose’s “ludicrous poppycock” – she has an ongoing worry that her phallus (masculinized symbol of power) is fake.

This is why the scene culminates in an play scenario, in which John promises to sweep in like a noble knight and banish Rose’s encroaching grimdarkness, and Rose in turn pretends to swoon. The joke is an ironic acquiescence to the (gendered) hierarchy that is implicitly being challenged by Rose’s rise to power (or rather, that the kids perceive to have challenged). Past this, the conversation goes on to the subject of the Tumor, in a way that I have difficult tying into some sort of conclusion for the gendered aspects of the conversation.

This probably bears some relation to Rose’s insistence that John is the group’s leader…? But again, I’m at a loss. Let’s wrap this up.

On your last point: Roxy creating items from nothing actually throws a small wrench into things: in another essay on Gnosticism I was reading (Schuyler Brown’s “Begotten, Not Created”), “emanation” suggested that the creation was originally part of something (God, the One, etc), and emanation was thus framed as being in opposition to creation-from-nothing.

This brings me back to the problem of not knowing which portions of Homestuck’s metaphysics are particular to a given character’s psyche, which portions are universal, and which portions are loaded with both personal and universal meaning, or personal meaning that are /rendered/ universal. The motif of Roxy throwing a dead cat out of bucket seems to carry multiple meanings at once… in the sense we’ve noted, it would relate to the terror of stillbirth and miscarriage that follows Mom and Condy around. But reading “birth” as ejaculation, the cat could also be read as a disappointed acknowledgement that she cannot create life on her own…?

#this also contains the gist of what I gleamed from the ARG #rape cw #homestuck reread 3 #john #rose #roxy

46 notes · View notes

dialpforpauli · 5 years

Text

Democracy in America Book Notes

‘uThis book is a classic of political literature. I suspect that any American political science course taught at the university level would at least examine excerpts of this book, which aims to understand the peculiarities of democracy as a new method of governing. Tocqueville has to rationalize some of the benefits of democracy to himself, but generally he understands that it is the way of the future and superior to aristocracy in many ways. This book provides the greatest utility to the reader in its analysis of the many flaws and externalities of democracy, which lets us consider the problems of democracy seriously instead of simply taking for granted that our current political system is unquestionably the best one.

Introduction:

- Tocqueville foresaw the rise of the industrial aristocracy (think robber barons) - but deviates from Marxists in his conclusion that American aristocracy is the least dangerous, compared to the rest of the world, because their wealth creation doesn’t necessitate the creation of a parallel ultra-poor.

- The middle class is a democratic byproduct and its existence defines the balance of democracy once lacking in aristocracy.

- An especially excellent chapter is “Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare” > because less blatant inequalities.

- Religion will become less rigid in form

- Race war is probable

- Russia vs. USA comparison

- Frightening one-ness of American thinking (and we though socialists were the most conformist in thought?)

Part I

- “Unless fortunes are territorial there is no true aristocracy” = LAND

- Why slavery made the south weaker than the north: “Slavery dishonors labor, introduces idleness into society, with that, also ignorance and pride, luxury and distress.. it benumbs the activity of man”.

- The founders of American were consensually Puritanical, and originally religion was the only road to education and gave a rare reason for abstraction in thoughts and goals.

- Powerful combo of the ‘ideal’ of religion + liberty, and it is odd that the materialist impulses of early settlers found no conflict with the moral goals and necessities to get into heaven.

- The closest America came to establishing aristocracy was in the South because rich slaveowners had land but since the “cultivation of their estates” was done by slaves, “they had no tenants depending on them, and consequently no patronage”. (eventually the pseudoaristocracy came crashing down).

- on the law of inheritance: “I am surprised that scholars have not attributed to this law a greater influence on human affairs” - b/c these laws have a sure manner of operating on generations not yet born by giving people a “kind of preternatural power over the future lot of his fellow creatures”.

if this inheritance passing on is limited - the creation of aristocracy is dealt a huge blow because it creates a rapid division and distribution of money and power (no more primogeniture, which means the divisions fail to cultivate attachment to the land since the family name and the estate are no longer interchangeable).

An important structural change of the American Revolution was that English laws of transmission of property were abolished as to “not interrupt the free circulation of property”.. sons of landed proprietors were, within 60 years, intermingled with the general mass as merchants/lawyers/physicians.

- Americans don’t value pure intellectualism much because the taste for that isn’t passed down in a hereditary class and people who become rich in old age had to work too hard in younger times to study and consequently aren’t inclined to enjoy learning for its own sake.

** Democracy “reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality in freedom”

Part II: Book 1 - Influence of Democracy upon the Intellect in the USA

- Americans view theory as useless and inconvenient veils between them and the truth

Religion is believed without discussion, and separation of church and state was enacted by the church to keep itself clean.

17. Influence of Democracy on Religion:

“Of all the kinds of dogmatic beliefs to hold, religion is the best because it’s so fundamental to where humans take their view of the world and coexistence from. Without faith, men abandon their actions to chance, get paralyzed from over-abundance of choice, and don’t have certainty behind their beliefs (dangers of ‘unbounded independence’)

If it takes a deep contemplation to think about god and other necessary truths - only a few can reach ‘legitimate’ insights on spiritual matters and therefore religion is one of the fields in which there is the most respect for authority (compared to other fields in American life).

- Tocqueville equates faithfulness with political freedom and notes how religion is a distinct sphere in the US that doesn’t leak into other fields as much as in Europe.

“The chief concern of religion is to purify, regulate, and restrain the excessive and exclusive taste men feel at periods of equality but it would be an error to attempt to overcome it completely - Men cannot be cured of the love of riches; but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by none but honest means”

25. Democratic historians are much less likely to attribute movements/events to individual decisions/actions/decrees. Democratic history sounds more deterministic.

27. Individualism as a new concept in democracies as opposed to the old notion of selfishness. The former is a mature and calm desire to take care of one’s own business and the latter is a passionate and unwarranted love of self.

“Men seldom think of sacrificing themselves for mankind; but they often sacrifice themselves for other men.”

32. Democracy breeds materialism as a game of oneupsmanship. Also, aristocrats find it much easier to part with their possessions since they have been taken for granted and unearned.

34. The relationship between a manufacturer and workman is the new aristocracy because they have no loyalty to each other, one is dependent on the other for employment and protection, and manufacturer sees the workman as a replaceable cog in the machine

** USA’s manufacturing aristocracy is one of the harshest but also one of the most confined and least dangerous because its type of social contract only applies to specific industries, not society as a whole (containment), there are no definite classes in general (the rich can go broke and vice versa), the poor are dependent on the masters but not on any particular master - there are no deeper obligations so since the manufacturer uses workers but doesn’t govern them, the worker maintains enough mobility for their employer not to own them.

Meaning - the new labor divide is harsh, but isn’t as binding as traditional aristocracy

39. On women - they are more pragmatic in democracies and get enough education to defend their own virtues and morals. However, “In America, a woman’s independence is irrecoverably lost in the bonds of matrimony” so marriage is taken more seriously than in Europe.

**48. Why great revolutions will become more rare - (the middle class is the enemy of violent commotions because they want to protect property.

Tocqueville thinks that if there would be a revolution in the US, it’d be a race war.

49. Why democratic nations want peace and democratic armies want war - meritocratic promotions in armies favors higher turnover and displaying valor through combat or commabd.

Book 4: Democracies lean towards centralization of power as people/regions concede to central authority.

4 notes · View notes

gigslifetimeofstudentdebt-blog · 6 years

Text

Comparative analysis of Homer and Atwood’s Penelope

When discussing Homer’s, The Odyssey and Margaret Atwood’s novella The Penelopiad, a retelling of Homer’s myth, it is easy to fall into the trap of giving more thought to the considerable differences, of which there are undoubtedly many, than to what may be similar. There are thousands of years seperating Homer’s epic and Atwood’s retelling. The Odyssey is written in verse while The Penelopiad is mostly written in prose. Further, there is also much to examine when considering the feminist undertones of The Penelopiad compared to The Odyssey. This paper will explore the concepts of feminism within these texts by investigating differences and continuities between the texts. This paper will first examine the differences between the characterisation of Odysseus and the dichotomies of luck - which this paper will interpret as divine intervention - and skill, between the depictions of Odysseus’s journey back to Ithaca within The Odyssey and The Penelopiad. This paper will then explore the characterisation of Penelope and argue that the Penelope of The Odyssey can be read as a feminist figure and is as wily and cunning as her characterisation in Atwood’s The Penelopiad. However, this paper will ultimately argue that Homer’s Penelope is constructed to be “a stick used to beat other women with” (Atwood 2). Finally, this paper will examine the largest difference between the texts, Atwood’s increased focus upon the hanged maids, exploring how Atwood uses the maids as a metaphor for female power, while providing the closest stylistic connection to the tradition of Homer’s myth. Much discussion has taken place around Atwood’s shift of the narrative focus away from the male perspective of Odysseus and onto the female voices and perspectives within the narrative, namely Penelope. While it is irrefutable that The Odyssey is a male-centric and dominated narrative, there are female figures who play a pivotal role within the story. Namely, one of the most recognised figures of female power in western cannon, the goddess Athena. Having the literal goddess of wisdom and crafts, arguably the strongest representation of feminine power, function as a guiding hand ensuring the safety of Odysseus for merely admiring his wits (Sommor et al. 2) can certainly be read as a feminist portrayal. However, there are elements within The Odyssey that diminish Athena’s feminine power. Most tellingly Athena only presents herself to the male characters of Odysseus and Telemachus, making a strong female presence a bystander in a man’s narrative. Another example of Athena’s femininity being reduced is when she is needed as an integral agent in the plot to return Odysseus to his home in Ithaca. In order to be taken seriously by Odysseus’s son Telemachus she must appear to him as a man (Sommor et al. 5). It could also be argued that when acting as mentor to Telemachus, Athena imparts lessons and virtues that are traditionally viewed as ‘feminine’ such as, hope, sense and adeptness (Sommor et al. 5). In one instance, it can be read that Athena acts as the societal archetype of the female nag when she dissuades Telemachus’ from nonsensical activities, reminding him to be mindful of what truly matters (Sommor et al. 8). In Atwood’s The Penelopiad, no such power is given to divinity, rather divinity is given little mention at all within the narrative. By shifting the narrative focus away from Odysseus and onto Penelope, Atwood removes many of fantastical elements of Odysseus’s journey and elevates the mundane. By sapping the recognisable supernatural mythic elements – cyclopes and sirens amongst other examples – Atwood is also able to reduce Odysseus’s mythic status, diminishing Odysseus’s exploits with monsters and gods to mere rumor and gossip (Howells 9) “Odysseus had been in a fight with a giant one-eyed Cyclops, said some; no it was a one-eyed tavern keeper, said another” (Atwood 83). As Atwood shifted the perspective of the narrative to Penelope she has also played a role in shifting how the character Penelope is perceived. In her novella, Atwood characterises Penelope as shrewd, cunning and caustically self-aware of her own canonised image as the perfect, virtuous woman. This characterisation is in part created through Penelope’s reaction to Odysseus’s return and her relationship to Helen. A widely-cited difference between Atwood’s and Homer’s Penelope is the notion of when Penelope is aware of Odysseus’s return. The Penelopiad makes it clear that Penelope is not fooled by Odysseus’s ruse “His disguise was well enough done…but as soon as I saw the barrel chest and those short legs I had a deep suspicion, which became a certainty when I heard he’d broken the neck of a belligerent fellow panhandler.” (Atwood 136). This early recognition is often held up as an example of Atwood’s Penelope being a more cunning figure then the Penelope of The Odyssey, however, it should be acknowledged that Homer’s Penelope is also cited for her cleverness due to her shroud deception. There are some academics however, who argue that due to early scholar’s misinterpretation of the word ‘stranger’ in the scene where Penelope encounters a disguised Odysseus (Vlahous 2) led to a wide-spread belief that Penelope does not recognise her husband; when there is evidence of Penelope’s early recognition. A common understanding of Penelope’s early recognition comes in book 19 as the disguised Odysseus is able to answer Penelope’s questions about the clothes and jewelry Odysseus was wearing when he first departed Ithaca in great detail (Vlahous 6). It is argued that from this exchange Penelope is able to devise a test that only Odysseus could complete, leading to the ‘bed test’ of book 23 that cements Penelope’s certainty that Odysseus has returned (Vlahous 6). This shows that that Homer’s Penelope displays a cleverness and shrewdness that goes beyond her shroud trick. Another argument made for a more sophisticated reading of Homer’s Penelope is her relationship to her cousin Helen. Though a relatively minor character in The Odyssey, Helen looms large in The Penelopiad. Throughout the novella, Penelope is unabashedly unkind towards Helen, titling a chapter “Helen Ruins My Life” (Atwood 71) and expressing dismay that Helen never faced any punishment over her transgressions when others face death by drowning, sea serpent and arrow for what Penelope considers to be lesser crimes (Atwood 22). Academic Gabrielle Neethling asserts that Atwood has constructed this antagonistic relationship between the cousins for Helen to serve as a shadow figure to Penelope, a mirror reflecting the things that Penelope knows, yet dislikes about herself and the injustice of being held up as a paradigm of the perfect woman when she knows she is guilty of transgressing in similar ways to Helen (Neethling 119-122). As mentioned throughout this paper Homer’s Penelope has been used as a high watermark for the archetype of an idealised faithful wife, however, there are readings of the character that are in keeping with Atwood’s portrait of a far more complicated woman. Academic Keri Ames posits that Homer’s Penelope is also concerned with the concept of transgression, as evidenced through her avid support of Helen, her adultery and abandonment of home (136). Ames goes on to contend that this defense of Helen is a reaction to Penelope being fearful that she to is likely to commit the same transgression and that it is only through the mercy of the gods that she has been able to remain faithful to her own marriage (136). In The Penelopiad, Atwood makes it clear that Penelope has a deeply complicated relationship to her own image as an ideal, faithful wife who is perceived to be rewarded for duplicitous acts because they enacted for the good of her family, “Why couldn’t they be as considerate, as trustworthy, as all-suffering as I had been?” (Atwood 2). This self-awareness and serious consideration of her perception is where these two versions of Penelope diverge. Academic Sarah Bolmarcich provides an interesting reading, suggesting that perhaps by elevating her status Homer has knowingly created a strong female character, similar to Atwood’s. Bolmarcich suggests that Odysseus’s speech Nausicaa “there is nothing better or finer then when two people of one heart and mind keep house as man and wife, a grief to their enemies and a joy to their friends” (Homer 80) situates Penelope into a position of power afforded to no other woman in The Odyssey (Bolmarcich 205). Bolmarcich highlights Homer’s use of a Greek word within the passage above describing Odysseus’s marriage to Penelope that translates to a relationship between male comrades (211). This passage acts as a treatise into what Homer considers to be an ideal marriage and more importantly how a woman should act within her marriage (Bolmarcich 206-207). It could be argued that Penelope’s elevation to a position that is the same as a man’s, in tandem with the high regard that such relationships were held during the time of Homer’s writing shows that Penelope is intended to be held up as a strong woman (Bolmarcich 211). However, it is the view of this paper that for Penelope to be seen as a good and trustworthy partner she must have her femininity diminished and act in more masculine ways; whereas women, such as Helen who act in traditionally feminine ways are relegated to the archetype of bad wife (Bolmarcich 213) proves that Homer’s Penelope is constructed to be the “stick to beat other woman with” (Atwood 2) that Atwood’s Penelope understands her image to be. As discussed above two of greatest differences between The Odyssey and The Penelopiad is Atwood’s increased focus on the murdered maids and the vast differences in form. The Penelopiad is largely written in modern prose, from the perspective of Penelope, from the underworld, where she uses anachronistic language. All of these elements serve to distance Atwood’s Penelope from the male dominated narrative of The Odyssey. However, sprinkled throughout The Penelopiad are short asides, including sea shanties, laments and a anthropology lecture are given by the maids; who are given no voice in The Odyssey. Interestingly Atwood’s use of the maids provides the closest stylistic relationship to Homer’s narrative. Academic Hilde Staels argues that Atwood’s use of the maids ‘chorus line’ asides serve as the Greek chorus, commenting upon the story from an outside perspective (Staels 104). Staels goes on to argue that Atwood’s use of the maids provides her narrative with the mythic elements that she strips from Odysseus’s story. By having Odysseus murder the maids, maids that Staels believes act as twelve manifestations of the moon goddess Artemis, a goddess associated with womanhood, that Atwood is enacting a vegetation myth (104). As the maids, figures of female power die, the rebirth of Penelope can occur, allowing for the narrative to be taken from the men of The Odyssey and become the story of and the reclamation of the power of the women of The Penelopiad (Staels 104). There are many clear differences between The Odyssey and The Penelopiad, however, there are also many continuities between the texts. By engaging with close readings of these texts the reader is able to find a more feminist understanding of the male-centric Odyssey and a more traditional mythic understanding of the radically modern Penelopiad; such readings are only a matter of interpretation.

2 notes · View notes