#but true feminism means making a better world for women *and* men *and* everyone within and outside of that binary

[genericpuff]

Do you know "Eggnoid"? It's a rather old webtoon about a girl being put into circumstances on taking care of a robot guy who hatched from an egg (hence the title) the robot guy appears to be a grown man, but he has mental capabilities of a toddler and even acts like one. So, it's like those types of "born sexy yesterday" tropes but the gender reversed. The girl also repeatedly shown crushing over the robot guy and at some point, she called him her boyfriend despite she's supposed to be his caretaker.

I haven't read it, but I can definitely attest that there's a double standard when it comes to gender roles and age gaps / situations of grooming / etc. in literature but especially in webtoons. And by that I mean I've legit seen people hold comics like Lore Olympus accountable for their gross dynamics between a young teenage girl and the much older and richer love interest, but then turn around and say it's "couple goals" for a teenage boy to hook up with a much older woman. At the end of the day there's still a power imbalance due to the age gap and the massive differences in life experiences between the two, gender doesn't really change that.

Big ole' sip of hot tea as a take, but speaking as an AFAB, a lot of women are just as capable of grooming and taking advantage of younger men in the same way as men towards young women, it's just that on the surface people tend to get skittish about addressing that because they don't want to sound like they're going "yeah well actually women though-" and dismissing the notion of toxic masculinity. Which yes, that's a fair thing to worry about, some people do use that as a way to dismiss the arguments made regarding patterns of grooming behavior in men towards young girls (among many other problems in which men and toxic masculinity are held accountable), but like any topic of this nature, it's not always a cut and dry black and white thing. Toxic masculinity and the grooming of teenage girls by adult men is a very real problem! But just like how we can understand the nuance that being a man by default doesn't immediately make you a predator, we should be able to understand the nuance that being a woman doesn't give you a free pass to do the same things we call out men for doing without consequences. It's like the double standard in LO that it's okay for Persephone to do the same things - if not worse - than what Leuce and Minthe and Thetis do, because she's the main character and she's not some scummy "mud-sucking" lower class person, she's rich and a Queen and she's wearing a giant hat so it makes it okay /s

Unfortunately the saying of "I support women's rights and women's wrongs" is being used in a completely tone deaf "literally excusing the main character of her crimes and wrongdoings against others because she happens to be a woman" kind of way, while missing the real point of the saying - supporting women's wrongs doesn't mean you celebrate their abuse towards others, it just means women shouldn't automatically be viewed as irredeemable "crazy bitches" for making mistakes like any other human does, and like any other human, they should be given the opportunity to grow and heal and learn from their wrongs.

When it comes to Persephone specifically, it can't even be chalked up to a "one time mistake" anymore, she's literally been showing patterns of abusive behavior for years now and refusing to take accountability, and now even Rachel is meme'ing on it knowing fully well it's what people are calling Persephone out for in the critical spaces. That's not "supporting women's wrongs", that's enabling the wrongs of a person because they happen to be a woman, and that's not okay. Persephone isn't a "girl boss", she's a bully.

I think the double standard in these age gap romances also speaks to the idolization and fixation on women as being nothing more than conquests for men as well. People who romanticize age gaps between a young woman and an older man think, "Wow, that woman is so mature for her age, enough that an older richer man would choose HER to be his wife! So romantic!" when in reality those who know those dynamics are unhealthy and toxic recognize it as an older man taking advantage of a young woman who's being love-bombed into believing she's "mature for her age" so that she'll sleep with him. Meanwhile, on the other side of it, those who romanticize young men getting with older women tend to come at it from the angle of "well she's so old and washed up, no man could ever love her, her chance for love and a happily ever after is gone now! it's so wonderful of that young man to give that sad and lonely old woman love and attention!" and yet fail to see it from the same perspective of an older person manipulating a young person with zero life experience, because there's still this deeply-rooted ideology that women are "used up" by age 30 and any man who gives her attention beyond that age range is a hero. Completely neglecting the fact that relationships aren't off the table at all for older single people and they don't need to involve robbing the cradle.

I blame the lack of older couple representation in media tbh, so many mainstream romance stories are basically just this:

To pull it out of the perspective of LO and webtoons for a second (sorry, I'm going on a hell of a tangent here), remember how gross it was when it was revealed in Fifty Shades Darker that Christian had been introduced to the concept of BDSM at age 15 through one of his mom's friends (i.e. an older woman!) who Anastasia calls "Mrs. Robinson"? And they had that relationship until he was 21? And they never really did anything about that, it was pretty much just there to explain why Christian was fucked up but he still got married to Anastasia, an innocent woman who he was repeating the cycle of abuse with, and lived happily ever after anyways?

Yeah. That was pretty fucked up.

#we all need to do better to hold ourselves accountable for shitty behavior #there are def societal issues at play that predispose people to have certain opinions or react differently based on concepts like gender #but true feminism means making a better world for women *and* men *and* everyone within and outside of that binary #it's not “rich and powerful women can do whatever they want because they're boss babes and deserve to be mean" #that's literally more along the lines of white feminism which we've definitely talked about here before #and just gender supremacy as a whole which isn't helpful for anyone #always remember to ask yourself: “is it feminism or is it misandry?” #because a lot of legit misandrists try to moonlight as feminists and really just hurt the cause as a whole

[whitehotharlots]

Andrea Long Chu is the sad embodiment of the contemporary left

Andrea Long Chu���s Females was published about a year ago. It was heavily hyped but landed with mostly not-so-great reviews, and while I was going to try and pitch my own review I figured there was no need. Going through my notes from that period, however, I see how much Chu’s work—and its pre-release hype—presaged the sad state of the post-Bernie, post-hope, COVID-era left. I figured they’d be worth expanding upon here, even if I’m not getting paid to do so.

Chu isn’t even 30 years old, and Females is her debut book, and yet critics were already providing her with the sort of charitable soft-handedness typically reserved for literary masters or failed female political candidates. This is striking due to the purported intensity of the book: a love letter to would-be assassin Valerie Solanas, the thesis of which is that all humans are female, and that such is true because female-ness is a sort of terminal disease stemming not from biology but from one’s inevitable subjugation in larger social contexts. Everyone is a woman because everyone suffers. Big brain shit.

But, of course, not everyone is a female. Of course. Females are females only some of the time. But, also, everyone is a female. Femaleness is just a title, see. Which means it can be selectively applied whenever and however the author chooses to apply it. The concept of “female” lies outside the realm of verifiability. Suggesting to subject it to any form of logic or other means of adjudication means you’re missing the point. Femaleness simply exists, but only sometimes, and those sometimes just so happen to be identifiable only to someone possessed with as a large a brain as Ms. Chu. We are past the need for coherence, let alone truth or honesty. And if you don’t agree that’s a sign that you are broken—fragile, illiterate, hateful, humorless.

Chu’s writing—most famously, her breakthrough essay “On Liking Women”—establishes her prose style: long, schizophrenic paragraphs crammed with unsustainable metaphors meant to prove various fuzzy theses simultaneously. Her prose seems kinda sorta provocative but only when read on a sentence-by-sentence level, with the reader disregarding any usual expectations of cohesion or connection.

This emancipation from typical writerly expectations allows Chu to wallow proudly in self-contradiction and meaninglessness. As she notes herself, explicitly, meaning isn’t the point. Meaning doesn’t even exist. It’s just, like, a feeling:

I mean, I don’t like pissing people off per se. Yes, there is a pleasure to that sometimes, sure. I think that my biggest takeaway from graduate school is that people don’t say things or believe things—they say them because it makes them feel a particular way or believing them makes them feel a particular way. I’ve become hyper aware of that, and the sense in which I’m pissing people off is more about bringing that to consciousness for the reader. The reason you’re reacting against this is not because it contradicts what you think is true, it’s because it prevents you from having the feeling that the thing you think is the truth lets you feel.

And so she can get away with saying that of course she doesn’t actually believe that everyone is a female, the same as her idol Valerie Solanas didn’t actually want to kill all men. The writers, Chu and Valerie, are just sketching out a dumb idea as a fun little larf, to see how far they can push a manifestly absurd thought. If they just so happen to shoot a gay man at point blank range and/or make broader left movements so repulsive that decent people get driven away, so be it. And if any snowflakes complain about their tactics, well that’s just proof of how right they are. Provocation is justification—the ends and the means. The fact that this makes for disastrous and harmful politics is beside the point. All that matters is that Chu gets to say what she wants to say.

This blunt rhetorical move—which is difficult to describe without sounding like I’m exaggerating or making stuff up, since it’s so insane—papers over Chu’s revanchist and violent beliefs. Her work is soaked with approving portrayals of Solanas’ eliminationist rhetoric—of course, Chu doesn’t’ actually mean it, even though she does. Men are evil, even as they don’t really fully exist since everyone is a woman, ergo eliminating men improves the world. Chu goes so far as to suggest that being a trans woman makes her a bigger feminist than Solanas or any actual woman could ever be, because the act of her transitioning led to the world containing fewer men. Again: big brain shit.

I’ll leave it to a woman to comment on the imperiousness of a trans woman insisting that she is bestest and realest kind of woman, that biological women are somehow flawed imposters. I will stress, however, that such a claim comes as a means of justifying a politically disastrous assertion that more or less fully justifies the most reactionary gender critical arguments, which regard all trans women as simply mentally ill men (this line of reasoning is so incredibly stupid that even a dullard like Rod Drehar can rebut it with ease). Trans activists have spent years establishing an understanding of transsexualism as a matter of inherent identity—whether or not you agree with that assertion, you have to admit that it has political propriety and has gone a long way in normalizing transness. Chu rejects this out of hand, embracing instead the revanchist belief that transness is attributable to taking sexual joy in finding oneself embarrassed and/or feminized—an understanding of womanhood that is simultaneously essentialist and tokenizing. When asked about the materially negative potential in expressing such a belief, Chu reacts with a usual word salad of smug self-contradiction: 

EN: You say in the book that sissy porn was formative of your coming to consciousness as a trans woman. If you hadn’t found sissy porn, do you think it’s possible that you might have just continued to suffer in the not-knowing?

ALC: That’s a really good question. It’s plausible to me that I never would have figured it out, that it would have taken longer.

EN: How does that make you feel? Is that idea scary?

ALC: It isn’t really. Maybe it should be a little bit more, but it isn’t really. One of the things about desire is that you can not want something for the first 30 years of your life and wake up one day and suddenly want it—want it as if you might as well have always wanted it. That’s the tricky thing about how desire works. When you want something, there’s a way in which you engage in a kind of revisionism, the inability to believe that you could have ever wanted anything else.

EN: People often talk about the ubiquity of online porn as a bad thing—I’ve heard from lots of girlfriends that men getting educated about sex by watching porn leads to bad sex—but there seems to me a way in which this ubiquity is helping people to understand themselves, their sexuality and their gender identity.

ALC: While I don’t have the research to back this up, I would certainly anecdotally say that sissy porn has done something in terms of modern trans identity, culture, and awareness. Of course, it’s in the long line of sexual practices like crossdressing in which cross-gender identification becomes a key factor. It’s not that all of the sudden, in 2013, there was this thing and now there are trans people. However, it is undoubted that the Internet has done something in terms of either the sudden existence of more trans people or the sudden revelation that there are more trans people than anyone knew there were. Whether it’s creation or revelation, I think everyone would agree that the internet has had an enormous impact there.

One of the things I find so fascinating about sissy porn is that it’s not just that I can hear about these trans people who live 20 states away from me and that their experiences sound like mine. There is a component of it that’s just sheer mass communication and its transformative effect, but another part of it is that the internet itself can exert a feminizing force. That is the implicit claim of sissy porn, the idea that sissy porn made me trans is also the idea that Tumblr made me trans. So, the question there is whether or not the erotic experience that became possible with the Internet actually could exert an historically unique feminizing force. I like, at least as a speculative claim, to think about how the Internet itself is feminizing.

Politics, like, don’t matter. So, like, okay, nothing I say matters? So it’s okay if I say dumb and harmful shit because, like, they’re just words, man.

Chu can’t fully embrace this sort of gradeschool nihilism, though, because if communication was truly as meaningless as she claims then any old critic could come along and tell her to shut the fuck up. Even as she claims to eschew all previously existing means of adjudicating morality and coherence, she nonetheless relies on the cheapest means of making sure she maintains a platform: validation via accreditation. This is all simple victimhood hierarchy. Anyone who does not defer all of their own perceptions to someone higher up the hierarchy is inherently incorrect, their trepidations serving to validate the beliefs of the oppressed:

I like to joke that, as someone who is always right, the last thing I want is to be agreed with. [Laughs] I think the true narcissist probably wants to be hated in order to know that she’s superior. I absolutely do court disagreement in that sense. But what I like even better are arguments that bring about a shift in terms along an axis that wasn’t previously evident. So it’s not just that other people are wrong; it’s that their wrongness exists within a system of evaluation which itself is irrelevant.

Chu has summoned the most cynical possible interpretation of Walter Ong’s suggestion that “Writing is an act of violence disguised as an act of charity.” Of course, any effective piece of communication requires some degree of persuasion, convincing a reader, listener, viewer, or user to subjugate their perceptions to those of the communicator. Chu creates—not just leans on or benefits from, but actively posits and demands fealty to—the suggestion that her voice is the only one deserving of attention by virtue of it being her own. That’s it. That’s what all her blathering and bluster amount to. Political outcomes do not matter. Honesty does not matter. What matters is her, because she is her. 

This is the inevitable result of a discourse that prizes a communicator’s embodied identity markers more than anything those communicators are attempting to communicate, and in which a statement is rendered moral or true based only upon the presence or absence of certain identity markers. Lived experience trumps all else. A large, non-passing trans woman is therefore more correct than pretty much anyone else, no matter how harmful or absurd her statements may be. She is also better than them. And smarter. And gooder.

Designating lived experience and subjective feelings of safety as the only acceptable forms of adjudication has caused the left to prize individualism to a degree that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. And this may explain the lukewarm reception of Chu’s book.

While they heaped praise upon her before the books’ release, critics backed off once they realized that Females is an embarrassingly apt reflection of intersectional leftism—a muddling, incoherent mess, utterly disconnected from any attempt toward persuasion or consensus, the product of a movement that has come to regard neurosis as insight. The deranged mewlings of a grotesque halfwit are only digestable a few pages at a time. Any more than that, and we begin to see within them far too much of the things that define our awful movement and our terrifying moment.

[comrade-meow]

The “world historical defeat” of the female sex continues apace.

Women in their tens of thousands are trafficked into sexual slavery every year. Increasing numbers of poor, black and brown women are virtually imprisoned on commercial surrogacy farms, producing babies for the benefit of rich couples. Brutalisation of women in the porn industry is feeding through into its viewers’ sex lives, with grim consequences, while teenage girls face an epidemic of sexual harassment at school and on the streets.

The frequency of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage has shot up during the Covid-19 crisis. Domestic violence has likewise rocketed. In the UK, prosecutions are so limited that rape is virtually decriminalised. Abortion rights are under attack, from the USA to Poland. And international ‘men’s rights’ networks like ‘Men Going Their Own Way’ attract millions of viewers to videos that dehumanise and pathologise women to an extreme extent.

This is a resurgent global system of exploitation and oppression targeted on women, a reaction against the many gains of feminism. The increasingly commercial nature of many of these deeply exploitative and oppressive practices - the porn industry, for one, makes billions every year, some of it from content involving rape, child abuse, non-consensual filming and the like - drives home the desperate need for a socialist analysis that exposes the roots of these ancient but enduring patriarchal oppressions. And we need an understanding and a language that enables that analysis.

But at the same time as this shocking acceleration of anti-woman attitudes, practices and policies, the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are being rapidly taken apart in response to a worldwide ‘trans rights’ movement. In a rush to embrace the new world of multiple genders, organisations and corporations as diverse as Amnesty International, Tampax, the stillbirth charity, Sands, the Harvard Medical School and many others are in a sudden rush to delete the words ‘woman’ and ‘girl’ from their vocabulary and replace them with a new, ‘inclusive’ language of ‘menstruators’, ‘gestational carriers’, ‘birthing people’, ‘cervix-havers’ and ‘people with uteruses’.

At the same time, the word ‘sex’ has progressively been replaced by the word ‘gender’, which is used to refer not only to reproductive class, but also to aspects of human life as disparate as individual psychology, personality, mannerisms, clothing choices and sexual roles. And the words ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’, are being repurposed to refer not to the sexes themselves, but to aspects of psychology, personality or clothing that are traditionally associated with one or the other sex.

Is this new language - and the renaming and breaking up of the category of people formerly known as women - the tool we need for the job of dismantling the worldwide discrimination, exploitation and abuse of women that is so often focussed on the female sexual and reproductive characteristics? I would argue not. These misguided attempts to dismantle the language used to describe women’s bodies and lives does nothing to reveal or dismantle the oppression itself.

This is because the conceptual framework that is driving the change in language - and stretching and distorting the categories of man and woman into meaninglessness - is fundamentally wrong. And badly so.

Sex as fiction

The political driver behind these linguistic changes is the ‘trans rights’ movement, which bases its arguments on the most extreme and illogical aspects of queer theory. Many trans activists insist that to even question the precepts that they advance is actively hateful, even fascistic in nature - witness the social media furore when any celebrity, such as JK Rowling, dares to say that the word ‘woman’ means a female person. But it is neither hateful nor fascistic to question arguments that have neither intellectual nor political integrity.

I will quote from Judith Butler’s book Gender trouble1 - first published in 1990, and often hailed as a foundational text of queer theory - and its 1993 follow-up, Bodies that matter2, to illustrate the thinking behind the current trans activism movement. Queer theory is an unashamedly post-modernist, anti-materialist and psychoanalytic school of philosophical thought that frames sex, sexual behaviour and sexual identity (being gay, bisexual or straight) as social constructs, and takes its arguments so far that it claims that the two sexes (not just gender, but the sexes themselves) are fictional. The phenomenon of intersex is thought to prove that sex is not ‘binary’, with only two possibilities, but exists on a spectrum between male and female (I, among many others, have debunked this notion elsewhere3). But in queer theory, gender is not just “the social significance that sex assumes within a given culture”.4 Queer theory goes much further, purporting that the two sexes themselves are social constructs, like money or marriage. Thus gender replaces sex altogether: “... if gender is the social construction of sex, then it appears not only that sex is absorbed by gender, but that ‘sex’ becomes something like a fiction, perhaps a fantasy.”5

Therefore, according to queer theory, male and female are not objective realities, but ‘identities’. Everyone is required to fit into one or other of those two ‘identities’ in order to enforce reproduction through “compulsory heterosexuality”:

The category of sex belongs to a system of compulsory heterosexuality that clearly operates through a system of compulsory sexual reproduction … ‘male’ and ‘female’ exist only within the heterosexual matrix … [and protect it] from a radical critique.6

It is therefore through the power of language, and the naming of male and female, that gender oppression is created; and it is by the power of language that it can also be defeated. In order to dismantle the oppression that has resulted from this categorisation, it will be necessary to implement an “insidious and effective strategy … a thoroughgoing appropriation and redeployment of the categories of identity themselves … in order to render that category, in whatever form, permanently problematic”.7 This feat is to be achieved specifically by “depriving the … narratives of compulsory heterosexuality of their central protagonists: ‘man’ and ‘woman’”.8 The category ‘women’ is particularly promoted as being ripe to be emptied of meaning. It should be

a permanent site of contest … There can be no closure on the category and … for politically significant reasons, there ought never to be. That the category can never be descriptive is the very condition of its political efficacy.9

It is evident that the programme of queer theory is working, in the sense that it is changing and dismantling the language. But does the whole of gender oppression across history really originate in the simple naming of male and female? Because, if it does not, then this new movement is a dead end that is ultimately doomed to failure as far as challenging the structures that bear down on women’s lives.

While it is true that human thought and culture must have developed in tandem with the particulars of our species’ sexual behaviour, reproductive biology and mating systems - such as menstruation, which, although not unique to humans, is unusual among mammals - it is futile to protest that sex did not exist prior to the emergence of the human race.

Queer theory, however, rejects any understanding of human sex or gender that involves biological sciences. Our evolutionary history simply disappears in a puff of smoke:

... to install the principle of intelligibility in the very development of a body is precisely the strategy of a natural teleology that accounts for female development through the rationale of biology. On this basis, it has been argued that women ought to perform certain social functions and not others; indeed, that women ought to be fully restricted to the reproductive domain.10

For those who believe that reproduction is the only societal contribution appropriate to the class of people that possess wombs, by virtue of the fact that they possess wombs, altering the use of the word ‘woman’ cannot change that. It is the reproductive ability itself, not the words used to describe it, that the argument is based on. Nothing materially changes - moving words around will not change the position of the uterus, or its function. It is as futile as rearranging the labels on the deckchairs on the Titanic. Or like renaming the Titanic itself after it has hit the iceberg - thus, miraculously, the Titanic will not sink after all.

Many of the abuses and exploitations that oppress women target the real sexual and reproductive aspects of women’s bodies - our materiality - so a materialist analysis is essential. Can any such analysis work, when its starting point is that sex is a fiction?

Applying Occam’s Razor - accepting the simplest explanation that can account for all the facts - queer theory’s conceptual framework does not cut the mustard. If sex is a fiction invented to enforce heterosexuality and reproduction, it leaves vast swathes of the picture unexplained. An analysis worth its salt would bring together multiple, seemingly different, inexplicable or unconnected aspects of social and cultural attitudes to sex under one schema. A materialist analysis that takes into account the reality that there are two meaningful reproductive sex classes fares far better, and explains far more of the problematic - and often bizarre - social and cultural practices and attitudes around sex.

Is it not a far better explanation that people became aware of the blindingly obvious early on in human development - that there are very clearly only two reproductive roles, and that the anatomical features associated with each are astonishingly easy to identify at birth in nearly all humans? And that the possession of those distinct anatomies resulted in them being named, in the same way that other significant natural phenomena are named - because, irrespective of any relative value placed upon them, they actually exist?

Leaving aside that blatantly obvious counterargument, there is a further problem with queer theory: homosexuality just does not need to be eradicated in order to ensure reproduction. Why? Because occasional heterosexual intercourse, at the right time, during periods of female fertility, is all that is needed. A woman could sleep with a man just once or twice a month, and have it away with another woman for 20-odd nights a month, with exactly the same reproductive outcome. While it is true that there would be no reproduction if every sexual encounter was homosexual, strict heterosexuality, or anything approaching it, is not required to ensure childbearing. Likewise, a fertile man can sleep with a woman a few times a year and be almost certain to father children. And since one man can impregnate many women, significant numbers of men could be largely or exclusively homosexual without any impact on the number of children born - so why persecute and punish homosexual behaviour so severely?

The ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ argument has no basis, once examined in this light, and thus a central plank of queer theory falls easily.

Queer theory proposes that the so-called ‘complementary’ aspects of masculine and feminine behaviour have been created by culture in order to justify the compulsory pairing of male with female. Genders, including the two sexes themselves, are understood to be performative: brought into being by repeated ‘speech acts’ that, through the appearance of authority and the power of naming, actually create that which they name.

Thus, each individual assumes - or grows into, takes on and expresses - a ‘gender’ that is encouraged, promoted, and enforced by social expectations. I broadly agree that many of the observable average differences in male and female behaviour are largely culturally created, and reinforced by oft-repeated societal expectations. The fact that the expectations have to be so often stated, and sometimes violently reinforced, is testament to the fact that those differences are in no way innate, but are driven by the requirement to conform. But the origin of the expectations of ‘complementary’ male and female behaviour is not, as queer theory suggests, to counteract homosexuality and force the pairing of male with female.

The specifics of masculine and feminine behaviour do not point towards such a conclusion. Why is feminine behaviour submissive, while masculine behaviour is dominant? Why not the other way around? Why must one be dominant and the other submissive at all? Wouldn’t a hand signal do instead? How do the particular, specific manifestations of gender serve the purpose of enforcing heterosexuality and eliminating homosexuality, when many of them, such as FGM, reduce heterosexual behaviour in heterosexual women? True, any enforcement would require bullying of some kind, but why is it that so much of the bullying related to sex focuses on (heterosexual) women, and so relatively little on heterosexual men? Why is virginity in women prized but of little account in men? Why is so much actual heterosexual behaviour, that could lead to reproduction, so viciously punished? Why are women punished, humiliated, shamed far more than men for sexual promiscuity - heterosexual promiscuity? Why is it girls, not boys, who are the primary victims of child marriage practices? Why, in so many cultures, are women traditionally not allowed to own property, and children are considered the property of the father and not the mother? What answer does queer theory have to all this? None. It is not even framed as a question that needs to be answered.

Patriarchy

All of these disparate cultural practices spring sharply into focus when we understand the simple rule formulated by Friedrich Engels, the primary and founding rule of patriarchy, which exists to enforce the rights, not of men in general, but specifically of fathers: when property is private, belonging to male individuals rather than shared communally, women must bear children only to their husbands.

Why? Because the mechanics of reproduction mean that, while a woman can be certain the children she is raising are indeed her own, a man cannot - unless he knows for sure that the children’s mother cannot have slept with any other man. Thus when private property is concerned, men have a strong motivation to ensure that the children to whom they pass on their wealth are their own offspring. Herewith the origins of monogamous marriage. And with it, as an integral part (indeed as a driving force), the origins of women’s oppression - or “the world historical defeat of the female sex”, according to Engels.11

The gender rules developed in order to ensure paternity and inheritance. This simple explanation takes us a long way to understanding the specifics of how gender oppression manifests itself globally, in the enforced submission of women to men, and specifically to their husbands, and in seemingly disparate cultural values and practices that prevent women from having heterosexual sex with multiple male partners, outside of marriage, or punish them if they do.

How do men, individually and collectively, stop - or attempt to stop - their wives from sleeping with other men? Promises are not enough, as we know. How do you stop anyone from doing something they want to, from expressing their own desires? You bully them. You humiliate, threaten, harass, attack and perhaps - occasionally - even murder them. In these multiple ways you seek to enforce compliance, through assuming social dominance and forcing social submissiveness and subordination. Society and culture evolve around these values, and develop in ways that satisfy the needs and desires of the socially dominant group. Meanwhile members of that socially submissive group are discouraged from banding together (they might mount a revolution), and learn to adapt their own behaviour to avoid harm. And, since conflict is costly, disruptive and traumatic, both groups develop strategies to signal their social position, to defuse and avoid conflict and possible injury, with social rules and expectations developing around these behaviours.

The global hallmarks of masculinity and femininity would be recognised in any other primate species as the unmistakable signs of social dominance and social subordination. Socially dominant primates (and other mammals, plus many other vertebrates) make themselves large, take up space, monopolise resources. These are the core components of masculine behaviour. Subordinate animals drop or avert the gaze, make themselves small, move out of the way, and surrender resources. These are typical feminine behaviours. In primates, attending to the needs of the dominant members of the group, by grooming, is also characteristic of social subordinates. In humans, grooming as such has been replaced by a far broader suite of behaviours that involve serving the needs of the dominant class.

Gendered behaviours and the social values attached to each sex reflect this pattern worldwide. Societies globally and throughout time promote and encourage these masculine and feminine behaviours - better understood as dominant and subordinate behaviours - as appropriate to men and women respectively. Western cultures are no exception.

The enactment of dominance (‘masculinity’) and subordinance (‘femininity’) can be understood as partly learned and partly innate. Innate, in the sense that the expression of these behavioural patterns is an instinctive response to a felt social situation, or social position - anyone will signal submissiveness in the presence of a threatening social dominant who is likely to escalate dangerously if challenged. Thus, nearly everyone signals submissiveness extremely effectively, and unconsciously, as soon as they have a gun pointed at their heads. And it is hard not to display these behaviours, when we feel ourselves to be in the presence of a socially dominant or subordinate individual or group.

So femininity is a stylised display of primate submissiveness - a behavioural strategy that reduces or avoids conflict by reliably signalling submission to social dominants. Members of either sex, when they find themselves towards the bottom of any social hierarchy, deploy different, but similarly ritualised and reliable, submissive gestures. Examples include bowing, curtseying, kneeling or prostration before monarchs; the doffing of caps with downcast eyes and slumping shoulders in the workplace; and the kneeling and bowing (in prayer) that is such a large part of patriarchal organised religions. It is easy to recognise such gestures as signals of submission to social superiors, and they should be opposed as manifestations of social hierarchies that need to be abolished as an implicit part of the project for universal liberation. Neither the bowing and scraping of the dispossessed nor the arrogance and high-handedness of the wealthy should be welcomed or celebrated. It is time to apply the same approach when it comes to gender.

Moving beyond their instinctive component, the specifics of so-called ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ behaviour are learned and then practised until they become habitual; and sometimes deployed consciously and strategically. People do what other people do; children start to mimic others around them, especially those they perceive to be like themselves, at a very young age, perfecting gestures, postures and vocal tones that may be cultural or, within each culture, gendered. Learned and practised from a young age, it is no wonder that these behaviours can feel like a natural part of a person’s core being - especially when they also incorporate an instinctive response that is deployed after rapidly gauging the level of threat posed by others. In addition, both sexes are explicitly taught to behave as expected - and so the dominance of males and the subordination of females is reinforced and perpetuated from one generation to another.

Anything that undermines the position of men as dominant and female as subordinate is a threat to the established order. Thus the second rule of patriarchy: men must not act like women, and women must not act like men.

This explains why homosexuality, cross-dressing and other forms of refusal to conform to gendered expectations are persecuted in many societies. For men to start acting ‘like women’, either sexually or socially – ie, submissively, which has come to include being penetrated sexually - would be to undermine and threaten the superior role of all men. Similarly, for a woman to act ‘like a man’ is a shocking insurrection - she must be kept down, and such behaviour has to be punished and made taboo. Since clothing and other behaviours are cultural markers that help to distinguish between the two sexes, cross-dressing breaks this law very blatantly. And further, to allow cross-dressing potentially allows the mixing of the sexes in ways that could undermine paternity rights.

On this reading, then, the persecution of homosexuality, cross-dressing and all other forms of gender non-conformity originated secondarily from the enforcement not of compulsory heterosexuality, but of compulsory monogamy for women in the interests of ensuring paternity rights. This is an important distinction, for, while it accepts that gendered behaviours and values are cultural, it acknowledges the material existence of the two sexes as a real and significant phenomenon, with powerful influences on societal development.

Combating oppression

Understanding and placing ourselves as animals with real, material, biologically sexed bodies - rather than the smoke-and-mirrors erasure of sex and materiality itself that queer theory promotes - gives us a far more powerful tool to understand and combat the oppression of women, and homosexual and transsexual or transgender people, than queer theory’s baseless speculations ever can.

It explains not only the different social and cultural values and expectations around men and women, but it also explains many of the specifics of what they are and why the expectations are so strongly hierarchical. Women must be submissive to men (‘feminine’) because they must be controlled - from the male perspective, in order to bear children fathered by the man who controls them. From their own point of view, they must allow themselves to be controlled, and teach each other to be controlled, in order to avoid injury or worse. It also explains widespread cultural practices that control the sexual lives and reproduction of women - from FGM to child marriage, to taboos around female virginity and pregnancy outside of marriage. These things happen because sex is observable, and real, and known from birth. At birth, it is in nearly all cases blatantly obvious whether a person can be reasonably expected to be capable of bearing a child, or of inseminating a woman, and it is on this basis that the two sexes exist as classes. To suggest otherwise is to enter the realm of absolute fantasy, or at least of extreme idealism, which indeed queer theory does, since “to ‘concede’ the undeniability of ‘sex’ or its ‘materiality’ is always to concede some version of ‘sex’, some formation of ‘materiality’.”12

The current queer theory-led trans movement seeks to dismantle the second law of patriarchy - men must not act like women, women must not act like men. We do indeed need a movement against sex-based oppression that acknowledges and unites against that law. We need to work towards a world where qualities like strength, assertiveness, caring and gentleness are rewarded, encouraged and promoted in both sexes rather than mocked and punished when they are exhibited by the ‘wrong’ sex; where it is impossible for men to act ‘like women’, or women to act ‘like men’, because gendered expectations attached to each sex no longer exist and anyone can, without censure or even mild surprise, be an engineer or a carer, be logical or emotional or wear a dress or make-up or high heels or a tie or cut their hair short, irrespective of their sex. But to pretend that the sexes themselves do not exist is a nonsense. And it is a dangerous nonsense, when it obscures and denies the existing power relations between men and women.

Female oppression is not an inevitable consequence of the differences between male and female bodies. Yes, the fact that men are bigger and stronger on average can make it easier for them to establish social dominance through direct physical threat; while the risk of being left literally holding the baby and having to provide for it can put women in an economically vulnerable position, where social subordination is a likely outcome. But under different material conditions - and a different value system - there is no reason why we cannot shed these destructive, dysfunctional habits of gender that oppress and limit our humanity.

There is nothing inherent in being a man that makes men oppress women - it is their position in society that allows them to do it, and rewards women who collude with them. Power is the ability to harm without being harmed yourself, and therefore, with sufficient motivation, many people when they have power will use it to cause harm. Currently, men very frequently have that power in relation to women, and so they use it, resulting in very many harms. When, within any given social grouping or class, men occupy a position of power with respect to women, it is not an inevitable effect of human biology: it is a position gifted by property, by wealth, by tradition and by law.

We must seek to rebalance power to prevent harm. That involves, among many other things, abolishing both masculinity and femininity - no progressive cause should support or perpetuate a social system in which dominance is encouraged in one group, while social submissiveness is promoted in others. It is absolutely contrary to all ideas of human dignity and liberation. How could any liberatory movement adopt a position that posits an innate, inescapable hierarchical system at the heart of human nature, with close to 50% of humanity born inescapably into a submissive role?

But in today’s gender debate, the position of queer theory-inspired trans activists is exactly that. For them, to be a ‘woman’ is not to be female, but to be ‘feminine’- in other words, to be a ‘woman’ is to be submissive. It is here that we begin to see the true social regressiveness of this supposedly liberatory movement. For, while it is understood that biology does not determine the gender of trans people, the flipside of that argument is that most people’s gender is indeed innate, as social conservatives have always thought. Why? Because, according to trans activism, most people are ‘cis’ - they ‘identify’ as the gender they were born into. If 1% are trans, then 99% are cis; perhaps being trans is more common, especially if it includes the non-binary category, but still the vast majority of people are cis. So, since most people born with female reproductive systems are ‘cis’ women, they are supposedly innately feminine, which is to say, innately submissive, subordinate, and servile. Meanwhile a similar proportion of people born with male reproductive systems are considered to be ‘cis’ men: innately masculine, and therefore born into a socially dominant role. It is likely that many activists and well-meaning people on the sidelines of this debate have not thought it through far enough to understand that this is the logical and necessary conclusion of their arguments.

While most trans activists avoid definitions like the plague, such a conclusion is borne out by the attempts of some to redefine ‘woman’ and ‘female’. Definitions of ‘woman’ include such gems as: “a person who acts in accordance with traditional gender roles assigned to the female sex” and “anyone that culturally identifies and presents as the combination of stereotypes and cultural norms we define as feminine” or “adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable and concerned with appearance”. And femaleness is “a universal sex defined by self-negation … I’ll define as female any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another … [The] barest essentials [of femaleness are] an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes.”13

This is what we are fighting. It is why we are fighting. We refuse to submit.

#Anglo.txt

[commonplaceprojkelseyh]

Reflection!

Kelsey Harper

Professor Dr. Richards

(ENG-3298-01, WGS-3298-01, GBS-3298-01)

July 30th 2021

Individual CommonPlace Book & Reflection Paper

Feminism & Gender Equality

Did you know that eight out of the top ten countries have a larger female gender population compared to the male gender yet the percentage of women within the workforce was at 28% since 1959 up until 2020? That means for every 1 male, there are 7 females to that one male, making the population higher for women. It is sad to report considering I have been a part of that percentage since 2000.  To think that an entire race of extraordinary females for more than just one reason are not on the same working tier as man, even though woman represent a great deal larger within the population compared to men is astonishing. I know what you are thinking, it is due to our past ancestors that made the corporate world, “a man’s world” however, so much has changed in today's society to encourage women that they are just as equal to man in more than one way!

I, for one, grew up in a “both my parents work” home situation, which ultimately left my brother and I with a lot of babysitters. For many other people like me, that can be normal right? Well, what I didn’t know for the longest, was that my mom was working as a Merrill Lynch Financial Advisor managing over 500 million dollars in assets which ranks her in the top one half percent of all females and more importantly males in her industry. Ironically she has been doing this for over 34 years and the percentage of women who are at her level in the investment business has never moved past 15%. Making her one of only 200 other women in the entire industry at her level(which made her job an everyday event to consistently prove herself to the men around her.) She picked a career that was based on meritocracy, so there was very little subjectivity to her advancement. Basically, she was responsible for her own success, the harder she worked, the better she did. This inspired me at an early age because my mom never seemed to think that whatever she was searching for, shooting for or hoping for was unreachable. If anything it never even crossed her mind to not work as hard as she could to be within her industry and have the reputation she has built up to today. She has made it her mission to bring up other women to follow in her path. Okay, so you may ask well how does this even relate to our class? Well, part of the reason I was so interested in taking the class in the first place was the title, which is, “Woman’s Writing Worldwide”, which stood out to me because of the first word. It stood out because of that five letter & two syllable word that can make or break a human coming into the world. For others, within third world countries, like the ones we have been reading about, that word defined one from the jump and almost pre-decided that female's destiny. As much as I would like to say it is different in the United States, it is similar in the way that being a woman in today’s culture is a huge ever-growing adjustment because men are only making it harder for us to speak our truths and claim our spots within the working class. Trust me, I may sound like a hater on the male race, but I am eternally grateful to a lot of them for making me the person I am today, however if men truly understood woman, like we do them, the world would be a much fairer place because it is not a competition all the time like men tend to make it to be.

One person that spoke volumes to this exact subject was Meghan Markle, in her speech that specifically dealt with her first encounter with being a woman’s right advocate at the early age of 11. In that speech, she essentially told the audience that she was watching a TV show in grade school, when a commercial came on for a dish liquid with the tagline, “woman all around America are fighting greasy pots and pans,” when two boys in her class quickly said after that commercial, “yeah that is where women belong, in the kitchen.” She was so bothered with this that she wrote to the first lady, then Hilary Clinton, Linder Elerby, Gloria Albred and the soap manufacturer, Proctor and Gamble to change the tagline to, “people all over America are fighting pots and pans.” When in fact, a month later they in fact did change the tagline and opened the doorways for Markle to really understand the magnitude of her actions within this topic. She then goes on to even say that, “women need a seat at the table, they need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases when a seat is unavailable then they have to make their own. It is said that girls with dreams become women with vision. May we empower each other to carry out such a vision because it is not enough to simply talk about equality and it is not enough to simply believe in it, one must work at it. Let us work at it together, starting now.” I absolutely loved her entire story because it really hit home for me who was mesmerized by her willingness to stand up and say something. Without that willingness from women such as her, women as an entire race will never have a seat at the table. I am thankful to her and for the blessed opportunity to come across that story which inspired me to start a club chapter of CHAARG(changing health, attitude, actions to recreate girls) to encourage women to speak their truths, focus on themselves and be inspired by the powerful woman around them to step up and not only prioritize their mental health & wellness but their eating, their exercise, their self care, their mental health and overall happiness.

Another important factor to add, is that it has been observed in women's fight for equality in the workforce,  that there are a lot of women that fall into the category of being a part of the “sandwich generation.” This generation of professional working women have been tasked with both caregiving for their children and their aging parents. This has caused breaks within their career paths and deferred promotions. This is particularly felt within the wealth gap of income disparity between men and women. Recently, I have noticed a corporate trend towards improving this disparity. Corporations are offering more flexible work hours to accommodate these “sandwich generation” working mothers.

One speaker that really spoke volumes to this exact subject was the Msimang TED talk, where she described a time in her life where she had something taken from her by the opposite gender and felt for the first time the extreme difference between a boy’s perspective and a girl’s perspective. A great quote from our actual syllabus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was, “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete. They make one story be the only story.” I enjoyed this quote because both the story by Msimang and the quote by Adichie, touch upon a common goal, equality in every form. Another element that really moved me within Msimang’s TED Talk was her inner passion for storytelling and really trying to capture what makes a good story. I also was really inspired by the TED Talk by Dalia Mogahed, a religious muslim that spoke heavily on the idea of Muslims within America. Although her topic wasn’t exactly about gender equality but more so about racism in general, she spoke about a time in her life when she felt embarrassed to not only be a muslim but also a female muslim. Her story about being scared for her life after the 9/11 attacks, was the first time in her life, she said, that she was afraid to be her true self. I felt for her in this way that I too, felt similar when walking down a city street by myself as a young adult female. Although the two are still very different, in the moment while watching her speak about her story, this was the first image that popped into my mind.

Most importantly, I enjoyed the TED Talk by Kavita Ramdas, with her extraordinary opener, which was: “ Given my TED profile, you might be expecting that I'm going to speak to you about the latest philanthropic trends -- the one that's currently got Wall Street and the World Bank buzzing -- how to invest in women, how to empower them, how to save them. Not me. I am interested in how women are saving us. They're saving us by redefining and re-imagining a future that defies and blurs accepted polarities, polarities we've taken for granted for a long time, like the ones between modernity and tradition, First World and Third World, oppression and opportunity.” This got me thinking more and more about gender equality as a whole and just how important and influential women are in society. Countries such as China, took a very long time to find this out, as many of new born baby girls were sold to the States for money because in their culture, “boys were the only ones that could work to bring the family up, girls are an embarrassment and are only here for one thing, reproduction.” However, after several years, they grew to know that they ended up needing more women because they were running out of women to bear children, hence the population drop in 2019 into 2020.

To combat that however, it has been proven through the last century that intellectually women are naturally more nurturing & emotionally smarter than men, just like the saying that “women develop maturity faster than men do”. So women tend to outshine men in industries such nursing.  However, men tend to rely more heavily on their physical strength in order to obtain certain jobs that are not typically where women fit into the picture such as construction and engineering. I, for one, have never viewed it like that because I have always believed that no matter the race or ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexuality or financial standing, everyone deserves to work a job they love in any industry and that all judgement should be shoved out the window without reason.

In conclusion, I believe in the strength of women as a whole race to be able to one day never have to speak of women's rights. I envision a time within my life that women will have a seat at the table, they will be heard, understood and most importantly treated equal to men. I believe it starts with women empowering other women first and then men following that trend.

#gender equality #womansrights #womansadvocate

[lightaroundthecorner]

TROS - What did I even watch? Or how I lived to see the day Disney murdered a prince, left Cinderella alone in the desert, and hoped for the world to rejoice because it was “fun”?

Dear friends, I’ve been here for the spoilers and I’ve even talked with some of you. I went to watch the movie today, with 0 hope of anything except of seeing my baby Ben Solo and Adam’s fenomenal acting (and listening to some good John Williams). 

I knew it would be horrible, but as @nevernerdenoughblog said seeing it makes it even more. Like @clairen45 it felt so wrong. Should I rejoice with a Reylo kiss that Rey gave but seconds later didn’t even cry over Ben’s dead body? I refuse to acknowledge this characterization of Rey. She was the only one that ever believed in Ben Solo, she shipped herself to make him know he was loved and wanted and to help him. Where was this Rey in this movie?

I am sorry guys (especially for the tagging) but I need to write this out or it will eat me and you guys are the few ones that relate to my pain. You know what really hurt me the most in all this? Toxic masculinity disguised as feminism.

1) FAREWELL HEROINE’S JOURNEY

They trashed the Heroine’s Journey. They murdered it and spit in its face. JJ Abrams simply decided that the Heroine’s Journey (done in act 1/ep. VII and act 2/ep. VIII) was not cutting anymore and decided to send Rey on a Hero’s Journey (ep. IX only, new 1st, 2nd and 3rd act altogether), where she has become this almost toxic masculine fighter under Leia’s training  — Badass girl? Yes. Full of anger? Yes. Logical? Yes. Connected to anything? No, not even herself, she kept on the run, afraid. In search of the Jedi detachment? Yes. —, only to send her happilly off to a desert planet in the end of her journey and finishing with her alone talking with an old lady.

Which remind us of the start of TFA, meaning she has comeback to what? Luke didn’t even comeback to that “home” in Tatooine the end of his Hero’s Journey? So she went to a place of death to what? This is a slap on the face of the Heroine’s Journey. This is how toxic masculinity corrupts and interrupts the most uncomfortable (to psychologically unhealthy bystanders) and fundamental (to the woman herself) phase of Heroine’s Journey: You want love, family, a partnership, connection, nurturing or progeny? That is weak, it is foolish. You need to fight, to conquer, to take, take and take. Otherwise you won’t be strong or independent.

REALLY???????????

I AM CRYING! WHY? WHY? WHY? Daisy, are you really seriously satisfied with this ending? Because REY DESERVED BETTER. 

BTW, BEN SOLO DESERVED BETTER! The true feminist of this story DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER! ADAM DRIVER DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER! He always respect the director’s view, does his best to accomplish it and brings his best acting to the table. The only saving grace in the whole movie to me was Ben’s arc because 1) Adam was doing it and 2) He honored his character. Man he deserved so much better!!!!!

I’m not even going to repeat what everyone already said about where is George Lucas’ Fairytale Story, because you guys said it all. But I have a beef with Disney executive decisions:

2) WALT DISNEY - HOW I WISH WALT WAS ALIVE

Walt Disney. Much have been criticized concerning his choices to make HEA in fairytales. But what now? We find balance by wanting our children to grow up to be cynic and seeing the feminine as weak? Unhelpful? Bad? 

“Yo independent women! You need no prince even if you have one. He can compassionately and selfelessly die to save you because he loves you and you can go off, happily, to celebrate with your friends! You don’t mourn his body, oh no. You don’t tell him you love him. You forget him. You go be that cool lonely warrior.”

Excuse me but I can kick ass and have the romantic love life and children I want! I can have both! Because I am a human being and I deserve it. This is not a matter of being a men or women. This is a matter of balancing the feminine and masculine within.

But that is not just it. BEN SOLO DESERVED BETTER! WALT WOULD NEVER, EVER LET A CHARACTER THAT WENT THROUGH ABUSE AND SO MUCH PAIN DIE THE WAY BEN SOLO DID! Is that a Disney movie??????? I mean, what did I just watch????

Walt Disney, the man who promised P.L. Travers, upon knowing who Mr. Banks was to her (her deceased alcoholic father) and what Mary Poppins, her work, meant to her, said:

“George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that is what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.”

THAT IS WHAT STORYTELLERS DO! Like so many fanfic writers in this fandom @nite0wl29, @stargazer1116, @intp-slytherin97, @eleanor-writes-stuff, @postedbygaslight, @raven-maiden, and so many others!! Btw, thank you all!! My vacation starts tomorrow and I’m going to read again all your amazing fics to regain exactly that: HOPE!

What was TROS? Leia and Luke believing in the good in Rey? The whole Jedi Order believing in her? I have nothing against that but why didn’t they believe or help Ben too? Ben didn’t receive any of that love, WHY? What was wrong with him? What did he do?! He was the most selfless of souls, just like his Father and Grandmother. Is this vicntim blaming??? WHY DISNEY, LUCAS FILM and JJ ABRAMS, WHY?!

I used to think people were wrong when they said Disney was only doing SW for money. Because Walt Disney also said and lived by this rule:

“The important thing is the family. If you can keep the family together — and that’s the backbone of our whole business, catering to families — that is what we hope to do.”

SW is about family and I refuse to accept ep. IX as SW. It has all the make up of SW, but it lacks the heart and very essence of it.

As dear @eleanor-writes-stuff said, so much for criticizing Rian Johnson, only to consagrate his work. That man honored the storytelling art and I’ll be forever grateful to him for his touch in SW and for how his writing touched and changed my life. And I know Waltz would have approved too because he also said:

“I prefer to entertain people in the hope that they learn, rather than teach people in the hope they are entertained.”

3) PLOT? WHAT PLOT?

Leia’s feelings for Ben have remained ambiguous, you can both read her as someone who wants her baby boy dead (because her death allows Rey to stab Ben to death if she wants to, when Ben was never going to harm Rey) or not. Actions speak louder than words, and this was the movie when Leia would have the chance to assume the responsability for her mistakes and take action, instead of only claiming she believed her son was alive.

If she clearly wanted to reach Ben, was Maz’s words needed? No, they weren’t. It was exactly because Maz needed to voice it that proved Leia’s actions could be read as ambiguous. Again, actions speak louder than words. Her body only disappeared after Ben’s did too because what? She was expecting him to die so she could collect his soul?

I dearly love Leia’s character but LEIA DESERVED BETTER! CARRIE DESERVED BETTER! In the end I’m not sure what to make of the ST Leia. She could have helped Ben but clearly sent him away to Luke because? What?

Ben Solo get his redemption from his own 2 hands + his father’s memory (not force ghost) + Rey’s confession. In the end he becomes the bride of the monster, only to die right after, in a what? Plot twist?

Finn, who? That was so messed up! Rose? Poor Rose!!! Hux? Oh Hux deserved better too. I was glad to see that Poe matured though and grew in his arc.

I’m also mad and confused about other plot points:

Ben throws his bleeded kyber krystal away because of his father. Okay. Why did no one help him when he cried on the Force to crack his kyber and soul, but Luke Force Ghost appears to catch Rey throwing a lightsaber in an on fire tie fighter?

Rey would turn to the Dark side if she killed Palpatine, right? 5 minutes later she won’t turn to the Dark Side anymore even if she still kills him in anger? Just because the self righteous jedi chose to let Ben get thrown down the abysm by himself but Rey was the Chosen One?

Still on this topic, so she choses to give up her soul so Palpatine uses her body as the vessel of his soul and the legion of siths, in order to save her friends, but she won’t take Ben Solo’s hand, even if she claims she wants to + retaining her body, to do the same?

I think force bonds don’t make much of a difference anymore when one of the parts dies. Ben can die and Rey seems pretty okay?

INTERESTING FACT: Beside me there was a father with his 6 or 7 year old son. The child kept asking what was going on everytime the movie introduced any plot twists or too much information too quickly. When the Reylo kiss came on screen, you know what the kid said? “I told ya!” I wanted to cry when seconds later the boy was claiming now was Rey’s turn to bring Ben back. Children understand the Heroine’s Journey and it doesn’t scare them. It is beautiful like that. The father then had to try and explain to the boy that other things were going on and that no, “that guy was gone”. What have you done people?

4) EPISODE X

I must have a clown face. They lied to us about this movie being “The Rise of Skywalker”. Maybe they lied to us about this being the end of the saga? Considering JJ claims this is fun, happy and hopeful, yeah, I doubt they are making an episode X or ressurecting Ben Solo after throwing in the garbage the Heroine’s Journey. I vaguely remember Adam also said he wasn’t going to appear in another SW.

IF they do announce an ep. X, I’m not watching it unless Ryan or someone like him directs the movie.

I loved to see Han Solo’s memory helping his son. That man trully loved him and it is tragic that he screwed up as a father only because he thought he wasn’t enough to be a good one and that Leia and Luke would know better.

I also loved to see Ben Solo as his father son and grandchild to his grandmother and great grandmother. He was beautiful and I love him and he’ll be forever with me.

I liked the Reylo kiss... but Rey’s actions in this movie have affected me so that it doesn’t feel like they scrapped the surface of making justice to this that could have been the happiest and most balanced of all SW couples.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN EPIC. IT COULD HAVE BEEN GRAND. But it wasn’t.

I’ll forget TROS. YBTOTT is now canon to me, because it is a perfect 3rd act in this trilogy, and @postedbygaslight honors the Heroine’s Journey like few writers have the gut and courage to do. Thank you so much Wayne!

And if anyone had the patience to read this to the end, thank you. I feel it too guys, this was awful and horrible.

#star wars #sequel trilogy #heroine's journey #tros spoilers #ep. ix spoilers #the rise of skywalker spoilers #spoilers #I extremelly rarelly consider a movie horrible #but this I can't deal with

[deamabilisworld]

The first thing a gay person should do is find a community.

So blue is the warmest colour.

First things first, Emma's outfits make me fall in love.

We oftentimes understand genres from superficial features. Horror for instance by threatening situations, death, etc.

But once in a while a radical author arrives into the scene and triggers all the emotions related with the genre, without actually repeating any of its tropes.

It is easy to classify lesbianism as girl on girl relationship. And the relationship with sex, and so lesbianism with a girl on girl sexual relation.

It is more difficult for a trans lesbian such as myself to understand what it means and why was I not satisfied with relationships with women who saw me as male, even disregarding penetration and the assumption that I should be the dominant partner.

So when I try to realize what it means, I try, like many of us, to reflect on lesbianism in media. And throughout the past few months it helped me understand what I was missing, even though I'm yet to theorize or put it into words.

The first hour and a half of the movie was all that for me. I connected what was going through Adele. Especially when she sees Emma for the first time. Having a confident butch wrap her hands around you as you walk in the streets, seeing it from afar and longing.

As for her sex with men compared to the sexual fantasy, that's also interesting.

Men tend to be very focused on penetration. What's more interesting is that they almost have no discussion about their own personal enjoyment in sex.

Think about it: the market for male sex toys is very poor, and men freak when you discuss penetrating them, even though the anal region is filled with nerve endings which guarantee enjoyment.

This leads to their sexual interaction begging technique-driven. Very linear and centred on specific tasks in an almost mechanical way.

I obviously also talk from my own personal experience.

Maybe I'm not the right person to speak about it, but I couldn't find much pleasure when having sex as a guy. The experience was stale, repetitive and motionless. I was not driven by my sensations, rather by my imagination and the need to please the other. It reached to situations where I used to throw my used condoms as fast as possible since I didn't really climax in these interactions.

Which obviously also limits the other's capacity to enjoy the interaction.

The most affirming first experience in my transition was when I was treated as a woman in sex, and I actually reached orgasm for the first time in my life.

Having said that, the first actual sex scene with Emma also bothered me.

When I think of lesbianism and sapphic, I think of things I can actually do as a woman, and to what I relate. Which is obviously very gay scenarios, but rarely penetrative sex.

I imagine cuddling in the middle of the night, a dildo pulled out, we both climax and low key going to bed as if nothing.

I imagine looking her in the eyes as she plays with her fingers inside of me, her dominant eyes give me comfort.

Eating her up.

But having said all of that, vaginas gross me out.

I mean penises gross me much more.

I love breasts and buttocks.

But I really find it difficult being attracted to the vagina, playing with it, kissing it.

One time in the army, I sat with someone as she guarded the base entrance and she told me she usually finds the penis appalling, but when she has sex, it becomes the most beautiful thing in the world.

Dejana once made me insert my fingers to her in the shower, but I couldn't find joy in it.

Let's talk about Dejana for a second.

While she saw me as a hetero and despised lesbians, BITWC was one of her favourite movies. And I could see a reflection of our dynamic in that relationship.

I was stronger in that dynamic. I came from abroad, I had more money, I was her boss's daughter.

I read more, especially and of course philosophy.

Our relationship was a form of escapism.

She wanted the classical type of romance, that which doesn't exist in the rural parts of Serbja. Love, warmth, real human affection deeper than sexual lust.

I was looking for a simple relationship. Cooking together, travelling, I didn't want to think about the fact that I was a lonely outcast in an unfamiliar country.

We laid in bed. She was playing some game on her phone, I was reading for a philosophy essay. In truth, I was avoiding the need to interact with her. Because when we didn't do recreational activities, we didn't have a connection.

For someone who often speaks about the need to hear as many narratives as possible, to understand and relate to the earth, and to understand emotions rather than thoughts, I failed miserably connecting with her.

Dejana would have probably been content with such a relationship. She is used to male detachment, and she is very willing to deny issues in a dynamic, but I couldn't go on with it.

I didn't feel guilty when I broke it up. I felt relief.

Emma tried to change Adele, to educate her. But in so doing she clearly doesn't understand her.

Which comes to an analysis of the movie itself.

It is a classical rich-poor romance story. But instead of the American-dream infumed version of the story, we get a cynical, french depiction.

Emma tries to connect with the rural schick. Her last exhibit is presented in very oriental streets, that almost remind me of Jaffa.

Emma uses Adele to relate with this simpleton lifestyle. In all of her relationships, she is strong, in control, and she uses her girlfriends to tell her story.

Emma is open with her sexuality because her family is embracing, Adele hides her true identity because in her society she would be isolated and categorized.

Emma can study whatever she wishes, Adele needs to be practical.

She has the time to educate herself and discuss many worlds, Adele cannot, she has only her own experience to reflect upon.

And Emma doesn't understand why is she content with these lives, how can she live like that.

But is it better for Adele to dream big and see it get crushed?

Well sorta yes.

After all, when they break up, Emma bounces back but Adele is lost. Without anywhere to sleep, no one to love her or to understand her.

And yea, it is partially because of circumstances. Emma is far richer. But with these circumstances came the fact that Emma is groomed to live free.

And let's talk about grooming and praying in the gay community and why Emma is an awful person.

When I started to come out, I immediately joined the BDSM community.

When I had to move and lost my family, I digressed a lot.

I returned to my horse only when I met my rugby community.

A gay community gives you power, a place to discuss, to understand yourself better, friends to relate with and gossip who is dangerous within the community.

Two days ago I woke up a mess after 5h sleep and a lot of packing to do for my new flat.

Right in that morning, I received a message.

I met that girl in the philosophy common room.

She was an economics student. Like many other Bulgarians, she knew her way and got the code for the room from a friend to steal coffee, tea and food.

We became friends. She was always a powerful person, one of those Nietzchiens who understand everything as a power dynamic.

I told her my radical feminist theories and she was dazzled.

She graduated, moved to London, found a boyfriend and started dating.

It wasn't a common relationship.

That person was her feminized slave. I suggested to her that perhaps he was actually a she, but the person denied it. Until recently.

But she messaged me not to ask for help with her transitioning. The opposite, she was overwhelmed by the fact that her bae wants to transition and she wanted confirmation that her transitioning is wrong. I was horrified. That day, the Bulgarian convinced her bae not to go on hormones so she won't hurt her, and so the Bulgarian won't leave her.

In a society where people discover their sexuality and gender only in sexual surroundings, natural predators would abuse them as a means of gratification.

Adele could only discover her homosexuality in gay pick up bars. Emma naturally picked her up and raised her.

Adele, who didn't know anything gay other than Emma, relied on what Emma was willing to teach her.

Becoming Emma's toy, she was dependent upon her.

The first thing a gay person should do is find a community.

Although Emma tried to pamper Adele, pushing her to express herself in writing, she never introduced Adele to friends or to the community.

The only way Emma knew how to pamper Adele, was to try and make her a copy of herself. Which failed.

While the film attempts to escape the male gaze upon lesbians, it flirts very directly with the burgeois-gaze upon the poor and oriental.

Can that power dynamic be non-abusive? and if so, how?

We want to say that Emma should understand Adele's culture and embrace it as much as Adele needs to embrace Emma's.

But Adele's culture has unavoidable ugly aspects. It is grotesque, not refined, narrow-minded and closed. And it is a central aspect to her cultural as much as the other, beautiful, aspects are.

Do gays have any choice? Can you be gay and poor, gay and be part of the ethnic 'simpleton' culture? or are these aspects inherently negating?

My answer was to escape. I lived in poverty in the streets, away from my home, where I could define my own culture as a mix of orientalism, punk and classical beauty.

But not everyone is as lucky to do that.

When I write that 'hetero culture is boring' I fully say that I find it difficult to relate to Dejana. And part of me is sad because there are some morals and beauty in her world which I couldn't connect to.

For while I was attracted to my representation of her culture, I was not attracted to her, she was just a canvas for me, a cynical tool beyond my comprehension.

I could have found beauty in her only when I painted her in my own likening.

#blue is the warmest color #lesbianism #sapphic #blog #analysis #social critique #marxism

[batfamfucker]

I have never understood the argument that trans people literally just living their lives and transitioning to become who they've always truly been is sexist. "It takes us back 100 years" NO IT FUCKING DOESN'T!!! TRANS PEOPLE MERELY FUCKING EXISTING DOES NOT ENDANGER FEMINISM!!! Stop making it about you. Women who were assigned male at birth are not fucking misogynistic for fucking transitioning and stating so is transphobic. You are not brave, you are not raising awareness of a 'terrible issue', and you are not a true feminist if you agree with JKR on any of this. JKR is not a hero, she is not some God send who's 'finally standing up for women during this misogyny', she is a transpbobe who is being protected by bigots, wealth, and childhood nostalgia because some people don't want to believe that the books they grew up reading were written by someone with a moral compass made of such cheap fucking plastic it could break with even the slightest of insecurity.

The term "People who menstrate" is not sexist, it is not taking anything away from cis women, it's just inclusive to trans men and non-binary people. Stop saying shit like 'if you menstrate you're a WOMAN' or 'only women menstrate' because, not only is that trans erasure, but it proves that you do not believe trans men to be real men, or trans women to be real women, or even some fucking cis women to be real women because guess fucking what!!! Some cis women don't menstrate!!! For a variety of reasons!!! That doesn't fucking mean they ain't women though does it???

Stop hiding behind fake feminism to support your transphobia the way that fake 'Christians' hide behind religion to support racism, homophobia, etc. That trick is getting old.

Feminism was created to allow women to be equal to men, but, like every movement, it had evolved and adapted to become more inclusive due to the needs within society through different time periods. Modern feminism is not just about women being equal, it's about everyone being equal and no one being discriminated against due to gender inequality, that includes women, non binary folk, and men. And before some of you @ me by saying men are not oppressed, I understand they have significant privilege, but can you look me in the eye and tell me that men don't also have unrealistic standards placed on them, that toxic masculinity is not a thing, and that society does not expect things from men that are unfair and unjust just because they are men? Hell, me even having to make a post about this issue proves my point because ya'll won't even keep your mind open for two fucking seconds to realise that trans men are real men, and having gender neutral terms for menstruation is vital to ensure that they feel safe and accepted within our society, it is not women erasure to support trans people, but claiming it is is fake feminism.

And if you're so opposed to fighting for men too, as this suggests you may be, then go ahead and fight for just women. But if you're going to do that, fight for ALL women. INCLUDING trans women. Not just white, cis, straight women. If you clearly care about all women, as you claim to from the glass pedestal you've put yourself on, show it by actually fucking supporting ALL women. That means trans women, that means queer women, that means women of colour, and women who have other religions beliefs than your own. I better see you supporting black lives matter and black women, I better see you standing up against the dangerous stereotypes that Muslim women face, I better see you fighting against homophobic dealth penalties in countries where being gay is still illegal and punishable by death for queer women, ect. Fight for these women the way they have fought for you, for the way trans women have fought for you, even as you still fight against them. We're on the same side so why the fuck are you fighting them? You've got the wrong target.

If you want equality, then fucking prove it by fighting for equality for all women, not just equality for you. Because let's be honest, you don't actually care about people's rights unless they're your own, that's what this is really about.

So to JKR, and anyone who 'stands with JKR', with all due respect, of which you are due none, fuck off. Just fuck off. Take your 'subtle' transphobia and your fake ass 'feminism' and keep it away from me. Stop making this about you, I know some of you are bored during quarantine but you can't seriously be desperate enough to start the pettiest beef for even an ounce of the putiful attention you crave. Grow the fuck up, mind your own business, and stop dragging trans people when you have literally nothing to do with their lives, because, shockingly, their lives do not revolve around you. Find something actually meaningful to do with your life, travel the world, follow your dream career, maybe even write a book. Or, maybe, don't, because if you're supprting JKR, I can only imagine how it'd turn out. Don't want to let another generation of kids down when they realise the author's a terf now, do we?

#this is the second time I'm writing this #the first one was better but I lost it cause it wouldn't upload #anyway #JKR #terf #feminism #trans rights #transphobia #islamphobia #support muslim women #racism #black lives matter #support black women and other women of colour #support women regardless of their religious beliefs #fuck the patriarchy but also fuck toxic masculinity #homophobia #supprt gay rights #lgbt+ #the ignorance of some people is bewildered #if you claim to be a feminist but dont fight for women unless they're cis and white and straight etc #you're not actually a feminist #you just want 'equality' for yourself #rant #harry potter #I came to drag JKR and her supporters and I hope that it delivers as much as the original post was going to #this doesnt even cover that cho chang bullshit or the goblins or slavery soooo #DRAG JKR PLEASE #PLEASE

[freedom-of-fanfic]

radfem lite(tm) and tumblr discourse

identifying radfem dog whistles: that is, radfem ideology when it’s not obviously and blatantly transphobic or anti-sex worker

--

nobody likes TERFs or SWERFs - or so we like to think, even if we don’t entirely know it means to be a terf or swerf. but the truth is that radical feminism - the overarching worldview that contains within it both TERF and SWERF ideology - is fairly widespread and even popular here on tumblr. it’s just that most of the time it’s not identified as being radfem/terf/swerf rhetoric unless the transphobia (or anti-sex-worker sentiment) is blatant and open.

this is the first of a series of posts intended to help fellow people on tumblr identify and understand what I call ‘radfem lite’ - radfem rhetoric that is not obviously transphobic or anti-sex-work, but naturally points one towards becoming a radical feminist (that is, abandoning intersectional feminism, eroding belief in free will (particularly in regards to consent), embracing binarist thinking & gender essentialism, and denying or belittling all forms of societal oppression that are not directly related to misogyny.) 

radfem lite rhetoric is frequently a ‘dog whistle’ as well - a phrase or word that has more than one meaning depending on who hears or reads it. non-radfems hear one thing; radfems and their targets hear another. those who become radfems or radfem targets eventually become familiar with the true meaning of the dog whistle word or phrase, but the majority of those who spread it have no idea what they’re really ‘saying’. 

some of the things I’ll post about will have overlap with other types of exclusionist thinking, or will have been adopted by those who aren’t radfems so widely that it might seem absurd that it has radfem roots. I’ll try to be clear about why I am attributing a concept to radical feminism when I introduce it. 

some things will also have some grain of ‘truth’ to it - the reason why the radfem lite concept seems reasonable to non-radfems. I’ll try to identify that grain of truth, and dismantle or demystify why the reasoning built around it is faulty.

Why am I doing this?

the first and most obvious reason is the number of ‘OP was a terf so I stole this post’ headers i’ve seen that are followed by a post loaded with radfem lite rhetoric. many, many people on tumblr know that terfs (and swerfs) are bad, but don’t know why or can’t identify terf rhetoric if it isn’t labeled ‘terf rhetoric’. 

but also: because radical feminist thinking - particularly the anti-porn branch, which bends into SWERF thinking - is highly appealing to fannish tumblr, and forms the basis for a lot of fandom anti-shipper thinking and arguments. I hope that seeing the radfem roots of these arguments will help those leaning into fandom anti-shipper thinking avoid falling victim to radical feminist outreach. 

--

post 1 / some basics

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism - which encompasses, among others, subgroups such as trans-(women) exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs/TWERFs), and sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) - is an ideology that holds that the most important and severe axis on which oppression occurs is patriarchal social structure and its inevitable product, misogyny.

By discounting all other forms of oppression and marginalization as being of lesser or no importance, radical feminists (aka ‘radfems’) naturally conclude that those they perceive as men are unable to experience meaningful societal oppression and those they perceive as women are unable to experience meaningful societal privilege. As such:

it is impossible for a (perceived) woman to have a mutually beneficial friendship, business partnership, romance, or sexual relationship with a (perceived) man.  

Further, their perception of how oppression works is frequently concerned only with the binary sex organs one is born with (or ‘closest to’/that which was surgically created for intersex people).

The belief that a (radfem-perceived) woman cannot have a good or beneficial interaction - especially sexual interaction - with a (radfem-perceived) man, which (like misogyny) belittles and degrades the ability of women to make decisions for themselves, encourages activists to focus on modifying and correcting the behavior of perceived women rather than focusing on modifying and correcting societal inequalities caused by gender/perception of gender. This misplaced focus disproportionately harms sex workers* and/or any (perceived) woman having sex or in a line of business that radfems consider ‘degrading’ to women**.

The reduction of gender identity and experiences to sex organs alone leads to inclusion and/or exclusion of people from ‘womenhood’ based on whether radfems perceive a person as ‘born male’ or ‘born female’. This causes disproportionate harm to trans people (trans women particularly), leading not only to misgendering, but accusations of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, (mostly directed at trans women), exclusion from gendered spaces to which they belong, and erasure.** It also harms anyone who does not identify with a binary gender by reducing their experiences to their agab, and anyone who does identify on the gender binary but does not ‘look’ sufficiently like the gender they identify with (which may include those who identify with their agab.)

(*this is because radfems believe that only people they see as women are sex workers and their only clients are people they see as men.)

(**all this potentially leading to even more severe consequences, such as being assaulted, attempting/committing suicide, or being murdered, among others. the consequences of radical feminist ideology are severe.)

Why is all radfem ideology so dangerous?

if you’re wondering ‘what’s the problem with radical feminism when a radfem isn’t a TERF or SWERF’, this is why radfem ideology as a whole is damaging and harmful to embrace:

because its ideology is, at heart, transphobic, and leads to trans people being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, anti-sex work, and leads to sex workers being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, based on the existence of a gender binary created by sexual dimorphism, and leads to erasure and harm of anyone who does not identify on the gender binary

because its ideology is non-intersectional and therefore belittles or ignores many axes of oppression and marginalization that can have as much as/greater effect on any given person’s quality of life

because it flattens societal structures to a single dimension (sexism), encouraging black and white thinking: namely, all (perceived) women are inherently good and all (perceived) men are inherently bad

this harms (perceived) women by putting them on a pedestal, expecting them to be ‘better’ than other genders in every way, only to be knocked off if they don’t appease radfem standards of female behavior

it erases the harm that women with axes of privilege over other women can do to those other women

it erases the harm that women with equal privilege can cause to one another (abuse in a relationship between two lesbian women), and the harm that women can do to those who are not women (predatory women who prey on men/children are erased, for example)

dismisses the victimhood of victims/survivors of oppression or harm who are not seen as women

because its aggregate societal effect is to reinforce patriarchal social structure, misogynistic dismissal of (perceived) women, and magnify sexism, primarily by putting pressure on (perceived) women to perform womanhood to radfem standards while ignoring (perceived) men as being beyond hope of reform.

because all of this hurts everyone, regardless of their gender, and disproportionately harms those marginalized by additional axes of oppression (such as race, sexual orientation, etc). 

Further reading: 

Below the cut, there are (or will be, depending on when you’re reading this) links to posts talking about specific ‘radfem lite’ concepts or dog whistles.

this will never be exhaustive, and my hope is that by illustrating how radfems perceive the world, it will be easier for others to identify radfem rhetoric that isn’t explicitly mentioned.

It’s also important to remember that radical feminism does not exist in a vacuum. it gets its power (ironically) by aiding and reinforcing bigger, much more powerful societal engines: gender essentialism, misogyny, sexism, and patriarchy. (this doesn’t mean that radfems don’t do serious harm as a group or as individuals, but rather that radical feminist ideology and its offshoots should be seen as only part of a whole, widespread societal problem.)

Thanks for reading this far.

Why ‘gender critical’ feminism leads directly to a transphobic worldview

a refresher on why radfem rhetoric is so dangerous and harmful

How radfem lite rhetoric reinforces the effects of misogyny

the radical feminist influence behind ‘enthusiastic consent is the only consent that counts’ 

some stuff i had on my blog before starting this series:

critical thinking is critical b/c radfem lite is not uncommon

‘x-critical’ is a radfem dog whistle

‘kink-critical’ is the shallow end of the swerf pool

‘queer is a slur’, lesbian separatists, and radfems

how radical feminism sneaks misogyny in the back door of fandom spaces

please also take a look at @radicalfeminismisacult, @xenoqueer, and @rfidblocking for some excellent deconstruction and/or illustrations of radfem thinking and rhetoric.

PS - please note that ‘(perceived) [gender]’ refers to ‘those who radfems and/or society perceives as [gender]’. this perception could be for any number of reasons, not limited to agab, and does not mean that a person does or does not identify with how they are perceived. the interaction, especially on an individual basis, between perception and experience is very complicated, and the model from which I’m speaking cannot possibly be exhaustive or illustrative of every experience possible.

#radfems again #transphobia #anti sex work #gender essentialism #web 2.0 is the worst thing to happen to fandom #transmisogyny #misogyny #sexism in fandom #Misogyny in fandom #radfem lite series

[buzzdixonwriter]

Not With A Boom But A Whimper

"I’ve always seen the boomers as a generational trust-fund baby: They inherited a country they had no part in building, failed to appreciate it, and seized on all the benefits while leaving nothing behind." -- Sean Illing

I think Illing’s core thesis is correct. The boomers (and I'm in that age group) tended to be societal conformists except when it came to protecting their own self interests. They supported the counter culture in the 1960s and early 70s because they didn't want to go to Vietnam, and at that time that meant supporting civil rights and feminism and gay rights because it was all one big struggle against the establishment but as soon as the threat of war ended, those allies were by and large abandoned as the focus shifted to making money. Hippies to yippies to yuppies. 

Clearly "not all" boomers did this, just as "not all" cops are white supremacists, and "not all" men are rapists, but there sure is a problem in those respective cultures that needs addressing and boomers have a problem in theirs. 

The good news is that while they keep recruiting more cops and breeding more males, boomers will eventually die out.

Let me go a little further on the topic of baby boomers, in particular what is meant by that term.

The broadest definition is anyone born between 1946 and 1964; '64 being the year when (a few young teen outliers excepted) the first baby boomers began marrying and starting families of their own.

While I agree all boomers were born within that 18 year period, I don't think everyone born between 1946-64 is a boomer, certainly not what I consider the core of the boomer generation.

To me, a boomer is a person -- 

Born between 1946-64 

In a family started after WWII

By a returning vet or someone who lost family & friends 

And were members of the white majority (by "white" I include Jewish American citizens, European refugees resettling in the US, and Hispanic / Latin citizens who lived in portions of the country where they were not discriminated against but accepted into the mainstream)

I include (2) because it seems to me kids born after 1946 into families with older siblings who remembered WWII had a reality check classic boomers lacked.

(4) is particularly important because these people did not see the end of WWII as a continuation of a struggle the way African-Americans, non-European refugees, and Hispanic / Latin citizens who faced discrimination did.

To white America, the end of the war was the end of the troubles, and having gone through the horror of WWII they didn't want to visit anything like it upon their children...which in and of itself is a worthy objective.

Non-white America, on the other hand, still had Jim Crow and hatred and prejudice to deal with on a daily basis, and while millions of children were born to them between 1946 and 1964, they were never spiritually part of the classic boomer generation.

The classic boomer was a white kid with a lot of toys. They were a generation raised with the implicit knowledge that they were the best people in the best country on Earth and as such entitled to all the nice things they enjoyed.

Their status was judged in no small part by their possessions, in particular name brands be they clothes or toys or cars or fast food restaurants.

As I posted elsewhere, boomers were strict conformists >until< conformity threatened to march them off into a futile jungle war in Asia. At that point (again, 1964 as the oldest boomers became eligible for the draft) they resisted the war and, in order to do so, also aligned or at least tacitly supported civil rights for African-Americans & other minorities, women's rights, and gay rights.

While each of those movements couldn't stand up to the establishment by themselves, united they could bring a lot of pressure to bear, serving as a force multiplier.

But the moment the Vietnam War ended, the boomers pretty much turned their backs on their former allies. 

Hunter S. Thompson summed up boomers perfectly in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .

”History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

“My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

“And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

”So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” 

Look how boomers tacitly accepted segregation by fighting against "forced busing" then abandoning public schools for private "Christian academies" where non-whites were routinely excluded (until the feds stepped in an put a stop to that). Look how the ERA stalled out. Look how they let the AIDS crisis roar out of control instead of acting swiftly and compassionately.

Look how their love of money in the 1980s led to the destruction of labor unions (one of the chief reasons their childhoods were so pleasant) and the dismantling of American manufacturing just so they could save a few pennies on their plastic trinkets.

They gobbled up the pro-capitalist / anti-communist jingoism because the capitalists told them those gawdammed commies were going to take away their guns and God and make 'em share with "them" (whichever oppressed minority a particular boomer despised at the moment).

It's not that communism was better or worse, but thinking seriously about communism also meant thinking seriously about capitalism, and boomers by and large didn't want to think about anything but their toys.

Later generations learned / are learning the lessons the boomers as a whole so studiously avoided. I have a great deal of hope for this country as the millennials move into power, and as the white majority continues to decrease to the point where they will be one minority among many.

It'll be too late for the boomers, but hopefully their grandchildren will learn the true meaning of "e pluribus unum".

 © Buzz Dixon

#baby boomers #boomers #morals #ethics #American values #Hunter S- Thompson

[oneloveforpalestine-blog]

The Politics of Feminism

Feminism is a difficult term to describe and to define within set limits. Feminists can literally be anyone advocating for equal rights or promoting intersectional identities in all aspects of life. Whether it be Beyoncé or your high school teacher, everyone can be technically labeled a feminist. But who really is and is not a feminist is a question that continues to be debated within the discussion of feminism. Feminists are supposed to not judge others, let alone other feminists, or bash them for being too feminist or not feminist enough. Some feminists have even excluded certain identities from entering the conversation at all which violates the main ideology of equality for all. This does not go to say though that the one and overarching ideology of feminism is equality for all because there are many. 

Let’s talk Beyoncé for a moment. One of the biggest and iconic pop-stars of our time who labels herself as a feminist. Her lyrics are known for empowering women as well as highlighting topics such as, women’s independence from men, healthy sexuality. Janell Hobson writes in “Feminists Debate Beyoncé,” the controversy whether Beyoncé’s values are truly feminist or otherwise. She explains, “Some see her as too commercial and part of a neoliberal corporate structure that undermines feminist agendas. Still, others view her women’s empowerment memes as too simplistic to advance political perspectives…” (Trier-Bieniek 11). Even though Beyoncé uses her level of stardom to advocate for female empowerment, it is seen as hypocritical since she plays into the capitalistic world that is historically oppressive for many identities. Beyoncé is a part of the 1% who is privileged in more than one way that also makes it difficult to realize if her role in feminism is meaningful or not. For example, her cover on Ms. magazine was more than controversial. Representational politics is one of the underlying roots of discussing the cover because if you are white you may see something different than a person of color would criticize the image for. A person of color may see Beyoncé as fitting closer to the white ideals of beauty as with her lighter toned skin as a white person may think that Beyoncé’s beauty and feminism are oppressive compared to white womanhood and sexuality.  

As Beyoncé plays into capitalism with her stardom, her feminist lyrics impede the process for further progress to be made within feminism. Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” confirms the point being made by proving that “oppressors keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns” (Lorde 3). As Hobson and others have critiqued, Beyoncé is more than just a performer and a songwriter, she is an iconic figure that has successfully been able to make capital off of her identity and use feminism to make herself and the movement more attractive. Kristin Lieb describes Beyoncé to be not just a pop-star, but her name “Beyoncé” has become an evolving brand that has transformed through each stage of her life. Lieb writes in “I’m Not Myself Lately: The Erosion of the Beyoncé Brand,” the way Beyoncé has transformed her image from being “independent and elegant” to a sexy wife and mother that has more than one meaning. An example in the way that Beyoncé uses the “master’s tools,” is the person she keeps trying to keep up with being compared to her brand. In 2013 Beyoncé transformed her image many times from being anything between the “good girl” to the “provocateur” (Trier-Bieniek 77). She goes on to say that the change in brand, especially on a long term scale was “reckless.” (Trier-Bieniek 77). By Beyoncé trying to change herself to fit into the pop culture arena and still remain relevant meant that she was playing to the standards of society, which ultimately is using the “master’s tools.”

So finally, what is it going to be? Is Beyoncé a feminist or a capitalist?! Personally, I don’t think she is a feminist. This similar opinion has been shared by L. Ashley who wrote a blog post specifically titled, “Beyoncé, A Feminist or Capitalist?” It is true that Beyoncé has been a positive role model for many women in all stages of life, however, some of the messages she gives off are contradictory. For example, Beyoncé shows that an angry black woman can smash things and have just as much power as a man does in that type of situation. However, that does not mean that smashing things gives you power, and “does not bring exploitation and domination to an end” (Ashley). This is the same point that Lorde was making in that systems of oppression do not go away by playing into them. There are two types of feminists; liberal feminists try to use the “master’s tools” to get into the “master’s house,” radical feminists completely reject the idea of a “master’s house” with the desire to destroy it. With that being said it is easy to identify Beyoncé maybe more like a liberal feminist if one at all. Her messages are better than nothing, but when having the type of platform that she has, it would be more valuable to feminists if Beyoncé did not participate in entering the “master’s house.” 

Someone that proves to possibly be a radical feminist is Michelle Obama. Throughout her career, she has always stayed true to herself and never lost the values and morals she shares in her personal and public life. Ever since the beginning, she yearned to inspire young people and give acts of community service. As she transformed from being a mother, to the FLOTUS, to a retired FLOTUS, she has maintained her image and morals just as she once yearned. Obama is a figure that has not let motherhood nor her job to have contradicting morality or branding. 

Citations:

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110- 114. 2007. Print. 

Trier-Bieniek, Adrienne M. The Beyoncé Effect: Essays on Sexuality, Race and Feminism. , 2016. Print.

[pamphletstoinspire]

Understanding The Bible - A Practical Guide To Each Book In The Bible - Part 40

Written by: PETER KREEFT

SEVENTEEN

________

Letters to Paul’s Helpers: First Timothy, Second Timothy, and Titus

First Timothy: “How to Be a Bishop”

Timothy was a young convert via Paul’s preaching. He became the bishop of the important city of Ephesus while still young. Paul wrote this letter to him personally for encouragement and advice on how to administer this great responsibility. The title could be “How to Be a Bishop”.

There were problems in the Church at Ephesus (where aren’t there?). Some members needed discipline, widows and old people were being neglected, and there was false teaching. Timothy was apparently having a difficult time dealing with these problems because he was young (4:12), sickly (5:23), and timid (2 Tim 1:7). Paul encourages him to “fight the good fight of the faith” (6:12).

The qualifications for a bishop mentioned in this letter are not worldly administrative or organizational skills, but personal piety and spiritual strength (3:1-13). The same is true also for the more practical office of deacon.

Ten notable passages are the following:

1. First Timothy 2:9-15 is perhaps the most hated passage in Scripture to feminists. Women are forbidden to have authority over men in the Church. They are commanded to be silent, submissive, and modest in dress. That seems pretty clear, however unpopular. Less clear is the assertion that woman will be “saved through bearing children” (2:15). The one thing that should be clear is that Paul exalts the uniquely feminine work rather than demeaning it. Those who interpret Paul in the latter way reveal nothing about him but much about themselves.

2. The passage of 3:4-5 makes clear that it was normal for bishops at this time to be married. That is not a matter of unchangeable doctrine but of changeable discipline, like fasting rules.

3. First Timothy 3:16 seems to be an early creed: “. . . the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

4. The passage of 4:1 speaks of the middle of the first century as already “the last days”, and already full of heresies, especially Gnosticism (4:3-4), with its attack on nature, especially marriage. Radical feminism corresponds exactly to ancient Gnosticism in every way (except Gnosticism’s disapproval of sexual promiscuity).

5. First Timothy 4:8 should prove an embarrassing verse to modern health fanatics.

6. The passage of 4:14 speaks of the sacrament of Holy Orders.

7. First Timothy 5:8 is a stronger version of “charity begins at home”: “If anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

8. The passage of 5:23 threatens the principle of teetotalling for everyone. Note, however, that Paul recommends only a little wine.

9. First Timothy 6:6-8 is a famous and beloved “contentment” passage: “There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content. . . . For the love of money is the root of all evils.” Jesus said the same thing many times and surprised His disciples then as He surprises us now.

10. The passage of 6:16 reveals two things about God that may be surprising. First, He alone is immortal by nature. (We are immortal not by nature, as Plato thought, but by grace, through the miracle of resurrection.) Second, He “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see.” God is I AM, pure Subject, not the object of our knowing. He is “the I who can never become an It” (Buber). We know Him only because He has revealed Himself (see Jn 1:18).

Second Timothy: A Letter of Encouragement

Paul wrote this second letter to Timothy from prison, awaiting execution. Christianity had become illegal in the Roman Empire since the sadistic and insane Nero had blamed the Christians for the great fire that burned half of Rome in A.D. 64—a fire he probably caused himself. The persecutions and martyrdoms had begun. Paul’s enemies used this opportunity to get him arrested.

When he wrote this letter, Paul had no hope of being rescued (4:6-8, 18). He asked Timothy to visit him before he was killed (4:9-21). He complains that everyone had abandoned him, except for Luke (4:10-11).

The first time Paul had been arrested, it had been only a house arrest. He had hope of release or trial, and he was free to preach to friends who visited him (Acts 28:16-31). Now he had only death to look forward to—or rather, something much better than death, and better than this life (4:6-8).

From his prison Paul writes not complaints but encouragements to Timothy and warns him that he will have to endure hardships and persecutions too, not only from Roman authorities but also from false teachers within the Church. He encourages Timothy to overcome his timidity and youth (1:5-9). Paul’s language is very strong (as I think it would be today if he were writing to certain contemporary bishops who are over-timid and try to be popular): “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead . . . preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season” (4:1-2)—when convenient and inconvenient, when popular and unpopular. “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2:3).

Christianity has always flourished under persecution. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” because the Cross is the strongest force in the world. Spilt blood has more power than split atoms. The strongest churches today are still found in countries where it costs something to be a Christian.

Timothy’s weapon that guarantees him success is truth, found in God’s Word (see Jn 17:17). Second Timothy 3:14-17 is Scripture’s classic passage about itself.

Other memorable passages include the following:

1. Second Timothy 1:12 is a great expression of Christian confidence and boldness: “I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.”

2. The passage of 2:15 is the Christian teacher’s job description: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

3. Second Timothy 3:1-7 sounds like a prophecy of modern moral and intellectual decadence.

4. The passage of 3:12 is a universal promise of persecution: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Therefore, if we are not being persecuted, we can deduce what logically follows from that fact.

5. Second Timothy 4:7-8 is Paul’s own self-composed epitaph: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

May every reader be able honestly to engrave that on his or her gravestone.

Titus: A Letter of Advice

Like Timothy, Titus was a young pastor with a difficult responsibility: the Church in Crete. The inhabitants of this Mediterranean island were famous for immorality; in fact, Paul quotes Epimenides the Cretan poet who had written six centuries earlier, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons” (1:12). “To act like a Cretan” was a saying in the ancient world that means “to be a liar”.

Titus has to organize the Christian Church in Crete. Paul writes some good advice to him. First, as a bishop himself, Titus should appoint other bishops who are of strong moral character, who practice what they preach. Then Paul advises Titus to exercise his authority firmly (perhaps Titus, like Timothy, tended to be timid), refuting false teachers and forbidding evil deeds. For the Church, as we have seen, needs both orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice), and the two are always connected.

The strong note of authority in Paul, here as in his other letters, should not be misunderstood. It is not sheer power or bullying, but speaking in the name of Christ, who Himself spoke “with authority” (Mt 7:29) and who commissioned His followers to preach in His name and His authority (Mt 28:18-20). It is not might but right, “with firmness in the right”. Paul’s attitude to false teaching and practice is neither “burn the heretics” nor “anything goes”, but “what does Jesus say?”

#understanding the bible

[mordacitatis]

Moonlit Bargains and Hungry Woods

So only read this if you enjoy research papers on The Language of Thorns by @lbardugo...I thought she might want to see it!

           The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo is a collection of literary fairy tales set within the fictional world of the Grishaverse. Each page is illustrated in a continuing development that mirrors the written tale, culminating in a beautiful two-page full color illustration. Working much like a flip book, the illustrations by Sarah Kipin build and flow into each other flawlessly. The author’s inspiration stems from “that note of trouble that [she thinks] many of us hear in familiar tales” and the dissatisfaction that sits with us at the end of our favorite stories (Bardugo 278). Rooted in her strong sense of feminism, all of Bardugo’s stories epitomize female empowerment. She seeks to “tell the true stories instead of the easy ones,” demonstrating important lessons in virtue, relationships, and love through a twisting of well-known motifs (Bardugo 48).

Laura Tosi examines the various ways that rewritings of fairy tales dialogue with the traditional tales. In her essay “Did They Live Happily Ever After? Rewriting Fairy Tales for a Contemporary Audience,” she discusses the three categories of modern literary fairy tales that she has found through analysis. The first classification is “morally correct” rewritings that overlay “a new ethics of justice and human compassion on traditional tales” (Tosi 372). The second classification is postmodern/metaphysical rewritings that include critical self-reflection of the conventions of traditional tales. Many of these tales are from the perspective of the villain or purposefully make fun of fairy tale patterns. The third classification is feminist tales. Tosi agrees that there is overlap in many retellings that places a story into all three categories. Bardugo’s tales are all primarily feminist but include elements of the other classifications to further the lessons of a feminist tale.

 Ayama and the Thorn Wood

The first of Bardugo’s tales draws inspiration largely from “Beauty and the Beast,” though elements of “Arabian Nights,” and “Cinderella” are also apparent. Ayama and the Thorn Wood begins with a classical fairy tale opening, setting us in a time and place that is not quite exact. Two boys born to a royal family; one is branded a monster and locked in a great labyrinth under the castle, the other is lauded as the perfect prince. Simultaneously, two girls are born to paupers; one a kind and graceful beauty, the other failing by comparison and sent to serve in the kitchen.

When the Beast escapes to the woods, and the slaughter of livestock commences, the King’s hired mercenaries fail to subdue him. Ayama’s family sacrificially volunteers her to confront the monster on three separate occasions. She finds him in a magical thorn wood and he challenges her to spin stories that will not anger him. In return, he agrees not to kill her and to leave the townspeople alone. She succeeds each time by telling a story filled with harsh details and realistic endings and returns twice to servitude as her family enjoys rewards for her bravery. The third time, she realizes the Beast has been set up by the King and she agrees to join him by drinking from a magical stream and becoming a monster herself.  

Together, Ayama and the Beast confront the King, and learn it was him killing the livestock and destroying the crops to scare his constituents into forgetting the losing war and riches that he had amassed in its name. The king is locked in the labyrinth that he built for his son. Ayama marries her monster prince, her sister marries his beautiful brother, and the people of the kingdom hope “that their children will be brave and clever and strong” and pray for “sons with red eyes and daughters with horns” (Bardugo 47).

There are a few important differences between Bardugo’s tale and the tales that we know. A big one is the characterization of Beauty’s family. Ayama’s sister is loving and tries her best to take care of her younger sister while the original tale has a cast of petty, jealous, deplorable sisters. Beauty volunteered to go to the Beast to save her father while Ayama was volunteered by her family to face the monster for their benefit. The largest difference, and arguably most potent, is that the monster doesn’t transform into a handsome prince. There is nothing wrong with who he is and no need for a transformation. In fact, it is Ayama who makes a transformation into a monster of equal power to the Beast.

In the original “Beauty and the Beast” tale, the heroine’s looks are such an integral part of who she is as a person that she has no name other than Beauty. Her virtues of kindness and intelligence are placed at the same level as her gorgeousness. Bardugo writes her Beauty in a way that corrects the perverted moral lesson that the original tale espouses. Ayama is not beautiful. She is brave, kind, smart, and witty; she teaches the Beast and the people mercy, not because she is a perfect virtuous lady who forgives everyone, but because it is the right thing to do. Ayama shows us that beauty isn’t the only virtue to be lauded and removes the “traditional equation between beauty and goodness,” between beauty and royalty (Tosi 381).

This ideal is exemplified through the postmodernist twist in the tale when Amaya’s grandmother tells her that “interesting things only happen to pretty girls” (Bardugo 9). The grandmother seems to step outside of the story and has a knowledge of fairy tale convention that she exploits. Terry Pratchett explores a similar idea in the Tiffany Aching series, positing that the blond-haired blue-eyed girls get stories of becoming princesses but brown-haired brown-eyed girls don’t get adventures (35). Because Tiffany knows this, she makes the decision to be a witch since she won’t see adventure any other way. The heroine of the next fairy tale makes a similar decision, for slightly different reasons.

The Witch of Duva

The “Hansel and Gretel” inspired tale by Bardugo is set in Ravka, a country based upon Russia and Eastern European cultures. “The Witch of Duva” starts by introducing the reader to Maxim, a well-respected carpenter and father to Havel and Nadya. When their mother dies, Maxim marries Karina, the neighbor who cooked for his ailing wife. Meanwhile, the list of young women who have disappeared into the mysterious woods and never returned grows longer every day.

Havel joins the army, but not before laying white stones in the woods so Nadya can find her way to check traps and return home. Karina plots to rid herself of competition for Maxim’s affection by sending Nadya to check traps in the snow. Nadya gets lost and ends up finding Magda, the Witch of Duva, who teaches her many things both practical and magical. She comes to respect and love Magda. When winter ends and Nadya can return home, Magda sends a magical replica of Nadya made of gingerbread and has her watch through the eyes of the crow.

The gingerbread girl arrives back home and Nadya’s father is overjoyed. Karina leaves the house and bids the crow to leave because “some things are better left unseen” (Bardugo 110). Nadya watches through the window anyway as her father devours the gingerbread girl. Realizing that her father was responsible for the missing girls, a child molester who killed his victims to escape detection, and that Karina knew all along, Nadya returns to Magda to learn witchcraft from the one person who loved her unconditionally.

This story is one of abandonment and separation anxiety. Bruno Bettelheim states that “Hansel and Gretel” has much to “offer to the young child ready to make his first steps out into the world” (“The Struggle for Meaning” 332). This particular adaptation has even more to offer, specifically for female readers. “The Witch of Duva” suggests to girls that their mothers will leave them, brothers meant to protect them will walk away with only a cryptic warning to “be careful,” and that the people you should most fear may not be the evil witches or stepmothers but the men closest to you.

The woods were never hungry for little girls, Nadya’s father was. Karina was never the evil stepmother, Magda was never the evil witch. Havel leaves his sister alone with no one to protect her. Nadya is strong in the home and saves herself in the woods. In these ways, it is quite obvious that this tale differs from “Hansel and Gretel.” However, there are more subtle differences as well. The gluttony that Bettelheim sees so deeply ingrained in “Hansel and Gretel” is no longer attributed to the children in Bardugo’s adaptation, though food continues to be the driving force of the story.

The story explicitly states that the mother’s sickness is undeniably connected to the father being unable to travel and work. There is an implication that she has somehow connected the dots on the mysterious disappearances of the young women in surrounding towns who always went missing when her husband was there. She likely told Karina of her suspicions and will only eat the cakes that Karina brings for her. Unable to prove anything, she wastes away from the secret. The father is then wrapped up in Karina, who brings food and sweets and whispers in his ear. Karina sends Nadya into the woods to check the traps for food. Nadya follows the scent of food in the forest. Her entire sojourn in the witch’s house is detailed by the food that she ate, each moment is steeped in flavor. But it is the father that demonstrates the “destructive aspects of orality” and the “dangers of unrestrained oral greed and dependence” (“Hansel and Gretel” 162). He has regressed psychosexually and has the control of a small child. He devours his daughter in his gluttonous greed, sobbing like a child and begging her to believe that he “tried to stop,” indicating his continued uncontrollable urges (Bardugo 111). While this example of a greedy father is most horrifying, he is not the only one found within the pages of The Language of Thorns.

 Little Knife

There are many tales that could have inspired Little Knife, which falls quite heavily into the motif of ‘trials for the hand of the princess.’ This tale is also from Ravka and features a character reminiscent of Russia’s Baba Yaga, a greedy duke with a painfully beautiful daughter, a con man, and personified nature that prevails in the end.

Yeva, the duke’s daughter, is so beautiful that many men tried to steal her away and the sight of her caused riots. She is eventually confined to the castle for her safety and required to wear a veil so as not to distract the servants. Ignoring the objections of his daughter, the duke devises a series of tasks to win her hand that he is certain only a rich suitor can accomplish. What he isn’t expecting is Semyon, a magic wielder who commands the water and air, to complete the tasks by using the river to his own ends, something Semyon is warned against by the wise Baba Anezka.

To complete the last task, Semyon breaks the dam that is weakening the river and sets it free. Semyon and Yeva are to be married on the bank of the river, but before the ceremony can commence, the river takes the form of a great female spirit of the sea who had been trapped by the dam. The river explains that she completed all of the tasks for Yeva’s hand and invites her to go with the river and be “bride to nothing but the shore” (Bardugo 136). Yeva chooses freedom. Freedom from the desire of men and women; freedom from the role as a bargaining chip for more money. The river leaves the town, taking its source of industrial power and leaving it destitute. Yeva grows old and “never worried when her beauty faded, for in her reflection she always saw a free woman” (Bardugo 138).

The duke’s greed destroys his city but ignoring his daughter’s concerns is what truly causes him to lose everything. Yeva asks her father “what way is this to choose a husband” each time he creates another scheme, and each time Yeva finds that she “doubted that her father had answered her question” when he finishes extemporizing about the riches she will receive (Bardugo 122-3). She knows that random tasks are not the way to find a partner. Her father continues to perpetuate the idea that “female subordination [is] a romantically desirable [and] inescapable fate” (Rowe 342).

Karen Rowe discusses the issues that arise in fairy tales in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales.” She sees that classical tales “glorify passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” as the important virtues for a woman to have (Rowe 344). But in the realm of rewritings, Bardugo transforms those ideals. Yeva is expected to sacrifice her happiness and safety to bring riches to her father. She asks her father why “[she] must be the one to hide” because she wants to be able to go outside again (Bardugo 120). He tells her that she should relish the power that she has over men while it is here, but Yeva knows that she should be free. She knows that it is not her job to control the gaze of others.

Yeva shows “an unusual degree of knowledge…of [her] own fictional status,” in that she knows that the way that things are going in this tale are not right (Tosi 378). She knows that creating tasks in the hope that the richest man will prevail is not the way to find a good husband. With the very real fears upon women to find a man with which one will be safe, it isn’t a surprise that she worries about the duke’s scheming. She is a part of a “new generation of smart princesses” that question the roles they have been placed in (Tosi 381). Her father on the other hand continues to ride the plot wave and Yeva eventually leaves him to reap the troubles that he sowed in greed.

This isn’t the only feminist perspective within the story. The river is shamelessly used by a man for his own ends and he berates her when she doesn’t immediately solve his problems for him. Semyon takes credit for the river’s ingenuity and hard work but the river does not allow passivity to keep her from claiming her due. In fact, the river seems to have manipulated Semyon into freeing her from the dam. The river frees herself and offers Yeva the same option. “The Little Knife” is a tale of freedom from the patriarchal society that controls women and keeps them from fulfilling their potential.

Conclusion

Every tale in Bardugo’s collection challenges the stereotypical depictions of women in fairy tales, giving her audience more options for how to shape their perceptions. Bruno Bettelheim believes that fairy tales “foster [children’s] personality development” (“The Struggle for Meaning” 331). If this is true, then the selection of tales that young women have been given to create their personality are lacking. There are few classical tales that demonstrate any kind of independent, self-sufficient woman. This is why modern feminist tales are so incredibly important for the development of children in our society. They make use of the “imaginative and subversive potential of fairy tales” to shape our youth (Tosi 384). They give women the inspiration to become their own heroes; free from the need to wait on a prince. With The Language of Thorns, Leigh Bardugo joins the ranks of feminist fairy tale authors such as Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, and Mary DeMorgan and fulfills her goal to fix the issues found in traditional tales.

Work Cited

Bardugo, Leigh. The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic. Imprint, 2017.

Bettelheim, Bruno. “The Struggle for Meaning.” Hallett and Karasek, pp.323-34.

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1976, pp. 159-66.

de Beaumont, Leprince, Mme. “Beauty and the Beast.” Hallett and Karasek, pp. 171-81.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. “Hansel and Gretel.” Hallett and Karasek, pp. 142-7.

Hallett, Martin, and Barbara Karasek, editors. Folk & Fairy Tales. 4th ed., Broadview Press, 2009.

Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men. HarperTempest, 2003.

Rowe, Karen. “Feminism and Fairy Tales.” Hallett and Karasek, pp. 342-58.

Tosi, Laura. “Did They Live Happily Ever After? Rewriting Fairy Tales for a Contemporary Audience.” Hallett and Karasek, pp. 367-86.

#language of thorns #the language of thorns #midnight tales and dangerous magic #bardugo #lbardugo #angela carter #tanith lee #research paper #see below the cut #long ass post #grishaverse #soc #hansel and gretel #beauty and the beast #the witch of duva #ayama and the thorn wood #little knife #i hope you like it #if its horrible i will delete #please love me #i couldnt exceed a certain length #which is why i only did three stories #woulda done more #but it was too long #lol also wrote it at the last minute sooo #that also plays a role #i included pictures in the official draft #but this thing is already long #and bardugo knows what the pictures look like #sorry for my mobile users the cut isnt working!

[comrade-meow]

The “world historical defeat” of the female sex continues apace.

Women in their tens of thousands are trafficked into sexual slavery every year. Increasing numbers of poor, black and brown women are virtually imprisoned on commercial surrogacy farms, producing babies for the benefit of rich couples. Brutalisation of women in the porn industry is feeding through into its viewers’ sex lives, with grim consequences, while teenage girls face an epidemic of sexual harassment at school and on the streets.

The frequency of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage has shot up during the Covid-19 crisis. Domestic violence has likewise rocketed. In the UK, prosecutions are so limited that rape is virtually decriminalised. Abortion rights are under attack, from the USA to Poland. And international ‘men’s rights’ networks like ‘Men Going Their Own Way’ attract millions of viewers to videos that dehumanise and pathologise women to an extreme extent.

This is a resurgent global system of exploitation and oppression targeted on women, a reaction against the many gains of feminism. The increasingly commercial nature of many of these deeply exploitative and oppressive practices - the porn industry, for one, makes billions every year, some of it from content involving rape, child abuse, non-consensual filming and the like - drives home the desperate need for a socialist analysis that exposes the roots of these ancient but enduring patriarchal oppressions. And we need an understanding and a language that enables that analysis.

But at the same time as this shocking acceleration of anti-woman attitudes, practices and policies, the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are being rapidly taken apart in response to a worldwide ‘trans rights’ movement. In a rush to embrace the new world of multiple genders, organisations and corporations as diverse as Amnesty International, Tampax, the stillbirth charity, Sands, the Harvard Medical School and many others are in a sudden rush to delete the words ‘woman’ and ‘girl’ from their vocabulary and replace them with a new, ‘inclusive’ language of ‘menstruators’, ‘gestational carriers’, ‘birthing people’, ‘cervix-havers’ and ‘people with uteruses’.

At the same time, the word ‘sex’ has progressively been replaced by the word ‘gender’, which is used to refer not only to reproductive class, but also to aspects of human life as disparate as individual psychology, personality, mannerisms, clothing choices and sexual roles. And the words ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’, are being repurposed to refer not to the sexes themselves, but to aspects of psychology, personality or clothing that are traditionally associated with one or the other sex.

Is this new language - and the renaming and breaking up of the category of people formerly known as women - the tool we need for the job of dismantling the worldwide discrimination, exploitation and abuse of women that is so often focussed on the female sexual and reproductive characteristics? I would argue not. These misguided attempts to dismantle the language used to describe women’s bodies and lives does nothing to reveal or dismantle the oppression itself.

This is because the conceptual framework that is driving the change in language - and stretching and distorting the categories of man and woman into meaninglessness - is fundamentally wrong. And badly so.

Sex as fiction

The political driver behind these linguistic changes is the ‘trans rights’ movement, which bases its arguments on the most extreme and illogical aspects of queer theory. Many trans activists insist that to even question the precepts that they advance is actively hateful, even fascistic in nature - witness the social media furore when any celebrity, such as JK Rowling, dares to say that the word ‘woman’ means a female person. But it is neither hateful nor fascistic to question arguments that have neither intellectual nor political integrity.

I will quote from Judith Butler’s book Gender trouble1 - first published in 1990, and often hailed as a foundational text of queer theory - and its 1993 follow-up, Bodies that matter2, to illustrate the thinking behind the current trans activism movement. Queer theory is an unashamedly post-modernist, anti-materialist and psychoanalytic school of philosophical thought that frames sex, sexual behaviour and sexual identity (being gay, bisexual or straight) as social constructs, and takes its arguments so far that it claims that the two sexes (not just gender, but the sexes themselves) are fictional. The phenomenon of intersex is thought to prove that sex is not ‘binary’, with only two possibilities, but exists on a spectrum between male and female (I, among many others, have debunked this notion elsewhere3). But in queer theory, gender is not just “the social significance that sex assumes within a given culture”.4 Queer theory goes much further, purporting that the two sexes themselves are social constructs, like money or marriage. Thus gender replaces sex altogether: “... if gender is the social construction of sex, then it appears not only that sex is absorbed by gender, but that ‘sex’ becomes something like a fiction, perhaps a fantasy.”5

Therefore, according to queer theory, male and female are not objective realities, but ‘identities’. Everyone is required to fit into one or other of those two ‘identities’ in order to enforce reproduction through “compulsory heterosexuality”:

The category of sex belongs to a system of compulsory heterosexuality that clearly operates through a system of compulsory sexual reproduction … ‘male’ and ‘female’ exist only within the heterosexual matrix … [and protect it] from a radical critique.6

It is therefore through the power of language, and the naming of male and female, that gender oppression is created; and it is by the power of language that it can also be defeated. In order to dismantle the oppression that has resulted from this categorisation, it will be necessary to implement an “insidious and effective strategy … a thoroughgoing appropriation and redeployment of the categories of identity themselves … in order to render that category, in whatever form, permanently problematic”.7 This feat is to be achieved specifically by “depriving the … narratives of compulsory heterosexuality of their central protagonists: ‘man’ and ‘woman’”.8 The category ‘women’ is particularly promoted as being ripe to be emptied of meaning. It should be

a permanent site of contest … There can be no closure on the category and … for politically significant reasons, there ought never to be. That the category can never be descriptive is the very condition of its political efficacy.9

It is evident that the programme of queer theory is working, in the sense that it is changing and dismantling the language. But does the whole of gender oppression across history really originate in the simple naming of male and female? Because, if it does not, then this new movement is a dead end that is ultimately doomed to failure as far as challenging the structures that bear down on women’s lives.

While it is true that human thought and culture must have developed in tandem with the particulars of our species’ sexual behaviour, reproductive biology and mating systems - such as menstruation, which, although not unique to humans, is unusual among mammals - it is futile to protest that sex did not exist prior to the emergence of the human race.

Queer theory, however, rejects any understanding of human sex or gender that involves biological sciences. Our evolutionary history simply disappears in a puff of smoke:

... to install the principle of intelligibility in the very development of a body is precisely the strategy of a natural teleology that accounts for female development through the rationale of biology. On this basis, it has been argued that women ought to perform certain social functions and not others; indeed, that women ought to be fully restricted to the reproductive domain.10

For those who believe that reproduction is the only societal contribution appropriate to the class of people that possess wombs, by virtue of the fact that they possess wombs, altering the use of the word ‘woman’ cannot change that. It is the reproductive ability itself, not the words used to describe it, that the argument is based on. Nothing materially changes - moving words around will not change the position of the uterus, or its function. It is as futile as rearranging the labels on the deckchairs on the Titanic. Or like renaming the Titanic itself after it has hit the iceberg - thus, miraculously, the Titanic will not sink after all.

Many of the abuses and exploitations that oppress women target the real sexual and reproductive aspects of women’s bodies - our materiality - so a materialist analysis is essential. Can any such analysis work, when its starting point is that sex is a fiction?

Applying Occam’s Razor - accepting the simplest explanation that can account for all the facts - queer theory’s conceptual framework does not cut the mustard. If sex is a fiction invented to enforce heterosexuality and reproduction, it leaves vast swathes of the picture unexplained. An analysis worth its salt would bring together multiple, seemingly different, inexplicable or unconnected aspects of social and cultural attitudes to sex under one schema. A materialist analysis that takes into account the reality that there are two meaningful reproductive sex classes fares far better, and explains far more of the problematic - and often bizarre - social and cultural practices and attitudes around sex.

Is it not a far better explanation that people became aware of the blindingly obvious early on in human development - that there are very clearly only two reproductive roles, and that the anatomical features associated with each are astonishingly easy to identify at birth in nearly all humans? And that the possession of those distinct anatomies resulted in them being named, in the same way that other significant natural phenomena are named - because, irrespective of any relative value placed upon them, they actually exist?

Leaving aside that blatantly obvious counterargument, there is a further problem with queer theory: homosexuality just does not need to be eradicated in order to ensure reproduction. Why? Because occasional heterosexual intercourse, at the right time, during periods of female fertility, is all that is needed. A woman could sleep with a man just once or twice a month, and have it away with another woman for 20-odd nights a month, with exactly the same reproductive outcome. While it is true that there would be no reproduction if every sexual encounter was homosexual, strict heterosexuality, or anything approaching it, is not required to ensure childbearing. Likewise, a fertile man can sleep with a woman a few times a year and be almost certain to father children. And since one man can impregnate many women, significant numbers of men could be largely or exclusively homosexual without any impact on the number of children born - so why persecute and punish homosexual behaviour so severely?

The ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ argument has no basis, once examined in this light, and thus a central plank of queer theory falls easily.

Queer theory proposes that the so-called ‘complementary’ aspects of masculine and feminine behaviour have been created by culture in order to justify the compulsory pairing of male with female. Genders, including the two sexes themselves, are understood to be performative: brought into being by repeated ‘speech acts’ that, through the appearance of authority and the power of naming, actually create that which they name.

Thus, each individual assumes - or grows into, takes on and expresses - a ‘gender’ that is encouraged, promoted, and enforced by social expectations. I broadly agree that many of the observable average differences in male and female behaviour are largely culturally created, and reinforced by oft-repeated societal expectations. The fact that the expectations have to be so often stated, and sometimes violently reinforced, is testament to the fact that those differences are in no way innate, but are driven by the requirement to conform. But the origin of the expectations of ‘complementary’ male and female behaviour is not, as queer theory suggests, to counteract homosexuality and force the pairing of male with female.

The specifics of masculine and feminine behaviour do not point towards such a conclusion. Why is feminine behaviour submissive, while masculine behaviour is dominant? Why not the other way around? Why must one be dominant and the other submissive at all? Wouldn’t a hand signal do instead? How do the particular, specific manifestations of gender serve the purpose of enforcing heterosexuality and eliminating homosexuality, when many of them, such as FGM, reduce heterosexual behaviour in heterosexual women? True, any enforcement would require bullying of some kind, but why is it that so much of the bullying related to sex focuses on (heterosexual) women, and so relatively little on heterosexual men? Why is virginity in women prized but of little account in men? Why is so much actual heterosexual behaviour, that could lead to reproduction, so viciously punished? Why are women punished, humiliated, shamed far more than men for sexual promiscuity - heterosexual promiscuity? Why is it girls, not boys, who are the primary victims of child marriage practices? Why, in so many cultures, are women traditionally not allowed to own property, and children are considered the property of the father and not the mother? What answer does queer theory have to all this? None. It is not even framed as a question that needs to be answered.

Patriarchy

All of these disparate cultural practices spring sharply into focus when we understand the simple rule formulated by Friedrich Engels, the primary and founding rule of patriarchy, which exists to enforce the rights, not of men in general, but specifically of fathers: when property is private, belonging to male individuals rather than shared communally, women must bear children only to their husbands.

Why? Because the mechanics of reproduction mean that, while a woman can be certain the children she is raising are indeed her own, a man cannot - unless he knows for sure that the children’s mother cannot have slept with any other man. Thus when private property is concerned, men have a strong motivation to ensure that the children to whom they pass on their wealth are their own offspring. Herewith the origins of monogamous marriage. And with it, as an integral part (indeed as a driving force), the origins of women’s oppression - or “the world historical defeat of the female sex”, according to Engels.11

The gender rules developed in order to ensure paternity and inheritance. This simple explanation takes us a long way to understanding the specifics of how gender oppression manifests itself globally, in the enforced submission of women to men, and specifically to their husbands, and in seemingly disparate cultural values and practices that prevent women from having heterosexual sex with multiple male partners, outside of marriage, or punish them if they do.

How do men, individually and collectively, stop - or attempt to stop - their wives from sleeping with other men? Promises are not enough, as we know. How do you stop anyone from doing something they want to, from expressing their own desires? You bully them. You humiliate, threaten, harass, attack and perhaps - occasionally - even murder them. In these multiple ways you seek to enforce compliance, through assuming social dominance and forcing social submissiveness and subordination. Society and culture evolve around these values, and develop in ways that satisfy the needs and desires of the socially dominant group. Meanwhile members of that socially submissive group are discouraged from banding together (they might mount a revolution), and learn to adapt their own behaviour to avoid harm. And, since conflict is costly, disruptive and traumatic, both groups develop strategies to signal their social position, to defuse and avoid conflict and possible injury, with social rules and expectations developing around these behaviours.

The global hallmarks of masculinity and femininity would be recognised in any other primate species as the unmistakable signs of social dominance and social subordination. Socially dominant primates (and other mammals, plus many other vertebrates) make themselves large, take up space, monopolise resources. These are the core components of masculine behaviour. Subordinate animals drop or avert the gaze, make themselves small, move out of the way, and surrender resources. These are typical feminine behaviours. In primates, attending to the needs of the dominant members of the group, by grooming, is also characteristic of social subordinates. In humans, grooming as such has been replaced by a far broader suite of behaviours that involve serving the needs of the dominant class.

Gendered behaviours and the social values attached to each sex reflect this pattern worldwide. Societies globally and throughout time promote and encourage these masculine and feminine behaviours - better understood as dominant and subordinate behaviours - as appropriate to men and women respectively. Western cultures are no exception.

The enactment of dominance (‘masculinity’) and subordinance (‘femininity’) can be understood as partly learned and partly innate. Innate, in the sense that the expression of these behavioural patterns is an instinctive response to a felt social situation, or social position - anyone will signal submissiveness in the presence of a threatening social dominant who is likely to escalate dangerously if challenged. Thus, nearly everyone signals submissiveness extremely effectively, and unconsciously, as soon as they have a gun pointed at their heads. And it is hard not to display these behaviours, when we feel ourselves to be in the presence of a socially dominant or subordinate individual or group.

So femininity is a stylised display of primate submissiveness - a behavioural strategy that reduces or avoids conflict by reliably signalling submission to social dominants. Members of either sex, when they find themselves towards the bottom of any social hierarchy, deploy different, but similarly ritualised and reliable, submissive gestures. Examples include bowing, curtseying, kneeling or prostration before monarchs; the doffing of caps with downcast eyes and slumping shoulders in the workplace; and the kneeling and bowing (in prayer) that is such a large part of patriarchal organised religions. It is easy to recognise such gestures as signals of submission to social superiors, and they should be opposed as manifestations of social hierarchies that need to be abolished as an implicit part of the project for universal liberation. Neither the bowing and scraping of the dispossessed nor the arrogance and high-handedness of the wealthy should be welcomed or celebrated. It is time to apply the same approach when it comes to gender.

Moving beyond their instinctive component, the specifics of so-called ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ behaviour are learned and then practised until they become habitual; and sometimes deployed consciously and strategically. People do what other people do; children start to mimic others around them, especially those they perceive to be like themselves, at a very young age, perfecting gestures, postures and vocal tones that may be cultural or, within each culture, gendered. Learned and practised from a young age, it is no wonder that these behaviours can feel like a natural part of a person’s core being - especially when they also incorporate an instinctive response that is deployed after rapidly gauging the level of threat posed by others. In addition, both sexes are explicitly taught to behave as expected - and so the dominance of males and the subordination of females is reinforced and perpetuated from one generation to another.

Anything that undermines the position of men as dominant and female as subordinate is a threat to the established order. Thus the second rule of patriarchy: men must not act like women, and women must not act like men.

This explains why homosexuality, cross-dressing and other forms of refusal to conform to gendered expectations are persecuted in many societies. For men to start acting ‘like women’, either sexually or socially – ie, submissively, which has come to include being penetrated sexually - would be to undermine and threaten the superior role of all men. Similarly, for a woman to act ‘like a man’ is a shocking insurrection - she must be kept down, and such behaviour has to be punished and made taboo. Since clothing and other behaviours are cultural markers that help to distinguish between the two sexes, cross-dressing breaks this law very blatantly. And further, to allow cross-dressing potentially allows the mixing of the sexes in ways that could undermine paternity rights.

On this reading, then, the persecution of homosexuality, cross-dressing and all other forms of gender non-conformity originated secondarily from the enforcement not of compulsory heterosexuality, but of compulsory monogamy for women in the interests of ensuring paternity rights. This is an important distinction, for, while it accepts that gendered behaviours and values are cultural, it acknowledges the material existence of the two sexes as a real and significant phenomenon, with powerful influences on societal development.

Combating oppression

Understanding and placing ourselves as animals with real, material, biologically sexed bodies - rather than the smoke-and-mirrors erasure of sex and materiality itself that queer theory promotes - gives us a far more powerful tool to understand and combat the oppression of women, and homosexual and transsexual or transgender people, than queer theory’s baseless speculations ever can.

It explains not only the different social and cultural values and expectations around men and women, but it also explains many of the specifics of what they are and why the expectations are so strongly hierarchical. Women must be submissive to men (‘feminine’) because they must be controlled - from the male perspective, in order to bear children fathered by the man who controls them. From their own point of view, they must allow themselves to be controlled, and teach each other to be controlled, in order to avoid injury or worse. It also explains widespread cultural practices that control the sexual lives and reproduction of women - from FGM to child marriage, to taboos around female virginity and pregnancy outside of marriage. These things happen because sex is observable, and real, and known from birth. At birth, it is in nearly all cases blatantly obvious whether a person can be reasonably expected to be capable of bearing a child, or of inseminating a woman, and it is on this basis that the two sexes exist as classes. To suggest otherwise is to enter the realm of absolute fantasy, or at least of extreme idealism, which indeed queer theory does, since “to ‘concede’ the undeniability of ‘sex’ or its ‘materiality’ is always to concede some version of ‘sex’, some formation of ‘materiality’.”12

The current queer theory-led trans movement seeks to dismantle the second law of patriarchy - men must not act like women, women must not act like men. We do indeed need a movement against sex-based oppression that acknowledges and unites against that law. We need to work towards a world where qualities like strength, assertiveness, caring and gentleness are rewarded, encouraged and promoted in both sexes rather than mocked and punished when they are exhibited by the ‘wrong’ sex; where it is impossible for men to act ‘like women’, or women to act ‘like men’, because gendered expectations attached to each sex no longer exist and anyone can, without censure or even mild surprise, be an engineer or a carer, be logical or emotional or wear a dress or make-up or high heels or a tie or cut their hair short, irrespective of their sex. But to pretend that the sexes themselves do not exist is a nonsense. And it is a dangerous nonsense, when it obscures and denies the existing power relations between men and women.

Female oppression is not an inevitable consequence of the differences between male and female bodies. Yes, the fact that men are bigger and stronger on average can make it easier for them to establish social dominance through direct physical threat; while the risk of being left literally holding the baby and having to provide for it can put women in an economically vulnerable position, where social subordination is a likely outcome. But under different material conditions - and a different value system - there is no reason why we cannot shed these destructive, dysfunctional habits of gender that oppress and limit our humanity.

There is nothing inherent in being a man that makes men oppress women - it is their position in society that allows them to do it, and rewards women who collude with them. Power is the ability to harm without being harmed yourself, and therefore, with sufficient motivation, many people when they have power will use it to cause harm. Currently, men very frequently have that power in relation to women, and so they use it, resulting in very many harms. When, within any given social grouping or class, men occupy a position of power with respect to women, it is not an inevitable effect of human biology: it is a position gifted by property, by wealth, by tradition and by law.

We must seek to rebalance power to prevent harm. That involves, among many other things, abolishing both masculinity and femininity - no progressive cause should support or perpetuate a social system in which dominance is encouraged in one group, while social submissiveness is promoted in others. It is absolutely contrary to all ideas of human dignity and liberation. How could any liberatory movement adopt a position that posits an innate, inescapable hierarchical system at the heart of human nature, with close to 50% of humanity born inescapably into a submissive role?

But in today’s gender debate, the position of queer theory-inspired trans activists is exactly that. For them, to be a ‘woman’ is not to be female, but to be ‘feminine’- in other words, to be a ‘woman’ is to be submissive. It is here that we begin to see the true social regressiveness of this supposedly liberatory movement. For, while it is understood that biology does not determine the gender of trans people, the flipside of that argument is that most people’s gender is indeed innate, as social conservatives have always thought. Why? Because, according to trans activism, most people are ‘cis’ - they ‘identify’ as the gender they were born into. If 1% are trans, then 99% are cis; perhaps being trans is more common, especially if it includes the non-binary category, but still the vast majority of people are cis. So, since most people born with female reproductive systems are ‘cis’ women, they are supposedly innately feminine, which is to say, innately submissive, subordinate, and servile. Meanwhile a similar proportion of people born with male reproductive systems are considered to be ‘cis’ men: innately masculine, and therefore born into a socially dominant role. It is likely that many activists and well-meaning people on the sidelines of this debate have not thought it through far enough to understand that this is the logical and necessary conclusion of their arguments.

While most trans activists avoid definitions like the plague, such a conclusion is borne out by the attempts of some to redefine ‘woman’ and ‘female’. Definitions of ‘woman’ include such gems as: “a person who acts in accordance with traditional gender roles assigned to the female sex” and “anyone that culturally identifies and presents as the combination of stereotypes and cultural norms we define as feminine” or “adhering to social norms of femininity, such as being nurturing, caring, social, emotional, vulnerable and concerned with appearance”. And femaleness is “a universal sex defined by self-negation … I’ll define as female any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another … [The] barest essentials [of femaleness are] an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes.”13

This is what we are fighting. It is why we are fighting. We refuse to submit.

#Anglo.txt

[eirian-houpe]

Shadow Blue: Do you have a darker side to you that most people are unaware of? | Razzle Dazzle Rose: Describe an ideal date. | Eggplant: Explain your url and avatar. | Mystic Maroon: What confuses you, and why? | Asparagus: What’s an unpopular opinion you have? | Tiny Toad Brown: Do you find beauty in something that people consider to be ugly or undesirable? I might have had a reasoning behind my color picks, yes. ;)

Wow, a great big bunch of questions :)  Okay, here we go...

Shadow Blue: I do have a darker side... doesn’t everyone, even if they don’t admit it. I’m assuming I’m supposed to reveal my darker side.  Well, I have a horrible terrible temper. Most people think I’m the most patient person ever, but not so. I quite often lose my temper, I just don’t do it outwardly. I turn everything inwards. It’s made me quite the cynic over the years, which I don’t particularly like, but...  It’s probably not healthy to turn everything inward, but it is what it is.

Razzle Dazzle Rose: Can you hear me groaning from here? That’s a question that’s very difficult for me to answer, because where I’m concerned, I don’t really know what the ideal date would be, but I’ll do my best.  It would be somewhere quiet, perhaps with a hand in hand walk on a warm evening (or bundled up on a cooler one). After the walk we’d go inside and snuggle down with a nice warm drink - I prefer tea, but maybe cocoa would be better if it were a little chilly - with maybe a movie to watch, or else a game to play while we talk, share thoughts and feelings.- soft lighting, and some ambient sounds (assuming we’re not watching a movie). Does that make me boring?

Eggplant: my URL is simply my name. The title of my blog though, and my avatar, are the interesting part. My blog is Cedar_home, and my avatar is is a cedar branch. This is because I have an inner meditative space. This space is a grove of cedar trees, with a natural spring-fed pool in the center. I call this space the Cedar Grove.

Mystic Maroon: math and logic confuse me - which is a kind of flippant answer, but also true. I’m a far more emotional than logical person. However, the less flippant answer, based in emotion is that I am confused as to how people can be so cruel to each other. I mean, not all the time, but I’m talking the whole ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ kind of idea. I don’t understand why it is necessary for one group of people or a person to have ‘power over’ others, and exercise that in a detrimental and selfish manner. It makes no sense to me, when we would all be better if we just existed as a community raising each other up, rather than pulling each other down.

Asparagus: Oh goodness, where do I start? No, I’ll tell you what, let’s get /really/ unpopular.  I do not believe that men and women should be treated the same way; they are /not/ the same, and their differences should be honored. Some kinds of ‘modern feminism’ really piss me off.  That is not to say that either sex is better or worse than the other, nor should either be valued (or rewarded, monetarily or otherwise) more than the other, simply that they are just different, and each is a reflection of the divinity within each, of god and goddess. I believe we should be treated as such. I believe that in trying to ‘level the playing field’ so to speak, we have lost sight of that, and that’s one of the reasons why there’s so little respect in the world. *jumps off soap box*

Tiny Toad Brown: There’s beauty in a storm. I love a good storm, but most folk think they’re generally undesirable, I would imagine. This is a hard one... because there’s a certain degree of beauty in just about everything, so it’s hard to say what would otherwise be considered ugly, if that makes any sense. Vulnerability and emotional honesty are beautiful, though I suspect that most people would say that’s undesirable except between people who share some kind of intimacy, but truly, what could be more beautiful than being true to yourself.  No, I don’t necessarily practice what I preach either.

Thank you for the ask, I dove deeply...  I hope I have honored your questions with the answers they deserved.

#TMI Tuesday #color asks #asks answered #peacehopeandrats

[akelyokikagu]

The Cursed II

The Cursed - Chapter II

A Sukonbu a day keeps a nightmare at bay

Kagura hated nightmares.

They always reminded her of the past, of the cold and never-ending rain drumming like a pitiful melody to accompany her own loneliness. Her mother had just died in front of her eyes, and she could only grasp the weakening hand, listen to the weak voice one last time before she was gone like the rest the farce of a family she had. Her kind older brother had forever changed to a monster and didn't even spare a glance back as he left the weakling burdening his quest to strength. Her father became even more absent than he already was— within a day he had lost both his wife and his son, and even for the strongest man in the universe there was only this much he could cope with.

Suddenly she became a reminiscent of the past and the family on this planet, everyone else had already gone to different path. The bond she thought strong was so easily broken in so much pieces that ten little fingers weren't enough to catch and glue them back, clumsily. The rain felt even lonelier, the house felt colder and the dinner was too much of a hassle to bear.

The silence gave her all the time to think, think and re-think: why didn't her family work out? Was it because they were Yatos? She decided to never, ever lose to her blood and instinct. Was it because she was weak? She strived to grow stronger. Or was it because…

Sometimes, Kagura thought with a bitter smile, there were questions better left unanswered.

Shinpachi's face was barely some inches away from the screen when Kagura forcefully grasped him by the collar before throwing him in the couch with Gintoki. While they were used to the teenager's antics, shadowing the TV was strictly forbidden within the Yorozuya: it was already small enough for them to need to squint their eyes in order to watch a show and there wasn't enough space for his head. "We're watching your stupid show already, stop being so annoying Patsuan."

"But this is the Otsu-chan special interview! As the chief of the fanclub I cannot miss it—"

"— no one is going to change of channel. Sit down and shut up, Patsuan."

"SHUT UP you two, I can't hear what she's saying!" Kagura elbowed both of them in their stomach, instantly calming the argument taking place.

The screen buzzed for second before a purple-haired girl appeared on screen, her cheeks visibly red after another concert. She had been getting popular lately, these days a lot of idols were scared to appear on scene because of the rumours, of the Sleeping Beauties but Otsu never abandoned her career and worked even harder to complete all the schedules other idols left. Kagura didn't understand why Shinpachi liked her songs about corn and poop so much, but she could at the very least for his admiration towards her.

"Our favorite Otsuu-chan is here, despite her tight schedule!" The female host grinned with all of her pearly teeth, "fans are worried about you, you do look tired!"

"I need to work harder— corn poop!— because that's an idol's job, right?" Otsu laughed and sat down, smiling at her fans that she knew, were all squealing for her. Like Shinpachi was, before Kagura jabbed him again for being too noisy.

"Let's start the interview then! Aren't you scared of the Sleeping Beauties?"

"Of course I am, but my fans are way more important! I don't feel tired or scared at all!"

"That's some energy you have," the MC patted her on the shoulders gently, like a good friend. "Otsu-chan, you have gotten shows with lot of male idols because of that, did you get a crush on someone?" She gave her a glance, something like a gossiping friend would do.

"Ehh?" The idol faked surprise, "I don't really like anyone, I put my fans before my love life."

"But surely you have a favorite?"

"Oh, yes, I do. My favorite is of course Ryuu-kun, I love his album Darling Darjeeli—"

Shinpachi's eyes widened as his whole body plunged forward to the poor machine, his glasses almost falling out when his hand reached the unanimated object.

Suddenly, the usual bubbling eyes of the idol turned dull and dark, before she fell straight onto the table of the host, who was screaming for help to the crew. The same words repeated like a mantra.

"She's a Sleeping Beauty! Otsuu-chan, wake up, wake up!" The emcee shook her shoulders but the idol wouldn't rouse from her sleep. "Call the ambulance! The police! You, cut this!"

The screen turned black, with some apologise scribbled by the production but it was too late.

"Otsu-chan!" Shinpachi cried out in front of the TV. "No, why did it happen to her, why did she have to be one of the victim?! She worked so hard to get here," a river of tears fell out of his eyes, "why did it happen?"

"Oi, oi, she's not dead."

"But we don't know if she'll ever wake up! They never woke up, Gin-san!" The silver perm sighed deeply before trotting to the boy, a calloused hand felling on top of Shinpachi's head, before messing up his dark hair.

"We'll find a way before you flood Edo, okay?"

"Gin-san…"

Kagura yawned, "this mood is too boy's love for me. We should go to the tax-robbers instead, maybe they know something after all the tax they've robbed from the good citizens."

"Wow, you're acting mature Kagura-chan, daddy is proud of you. Aren't you too, mommy?" Gintoki wiped a fake tear, a little smile stretched on his lips when the teenager had stopped sobbing like a mess and instead showed his usual, bright self. "That's better, I'll buy you some sukonbu today."

"Really? Kya—hoo, thank you Gin-chan!" The little girl in red jumped at Gintoki, climbing up the man like a koala would with an eucalyptus tree.

The Shinsengumi were solemnly silent, despite not caring for the idol in particular. They have failed their duties yet again as another victim had been announced to the already too long list.

"So, you look even shittier today, China." Okita decided to break the ice, but perhaps not in the good way. Kagura was already fuming at him, and would have probably broken a few ribs and his nose if it wasn't for her foster father grasping her.

"I promised you sukonbu today so don't try to fight with Souichiro-kun, Gin-chan already needs to buy us a new door."

"He started first!"

"I only stated the truth, you look like a panda with your dark circles, but without the cuteness." Sougo grinned, "what, you haven't been able to forget my beautiful face?"

"I'm having nightmares, maybe I do see your ugly face in my dreams! I need my beauty sleep!"

"Even if you became a Sleeping Beauty, you'd still be ugly. More like a piggy, do you drool too?"

Hijikata made a jab to Okita, praying the boy would stop infuriating further the very much dangerous Yato on the other side of the table. "That's not how you flirt," he coughed, "and we're not here to do that, anyway."

"Flirt? Have you gone mad Hijikata—"

"We've gone to the priestesses sisters and asked them about the incubus, and we have an idea but we'll need your help. We're making a trap."

"A trap?"

"Since ancient times, incubus liked to tempt the priestesses to mock them, so they managed to find a way to exorcize them. They drew sacred circles on the floor, and then gathered the fairest maidens of the villages, once the incubus was lured they would start the exorcism right away to expel it."

"I'm not lending you Kagura to lure out some blind lolicon—" Kagura blushed.

"No, not for that. We need her to guard the maidens."

"Ah, I thought so."

Okita laughed at Kagura's expression that went from blushing, almost cute face to one disintegrating into pure, unhinged anger towards the two men who so easily discarded her 'feminity', well, as much a geroine like her could manage in this area. He knew she was prideful, but had never seen her being feminine of all things.

"I'm a beautiful girl, you guys are just too old to see this."

"Yes, yes, and I pay Granny's rents every month."

"Is that true?" Hijikata asked, hopeful.

"Of course not, that's the point. Kagura attracts either lolicons or giants, maybe both."

"It's not true, I have mami's genes. Papi says I'm a pretty girl, too!"

"Parents always lie to their kids, you know? One day you'll become bald and there's only Gin-san in this world to accept this," he picked his nose casually even if his foster daughter was about to commit a crime far bloodier than the Sleeping Beauties. He glanced at Okita, and grinned a little.

"…"

"You're a pretty girl, okay? But you have yet to bloom," he ruffled her hair affectionally and made her sit down besides him.

That silver perm is pretty good, Hijikata thought. It was obvious to anyone but the concerned that the Yorozuya Boss was warning a certain someone from getting closer to his daughter. He heard the perm got worse after a story of a giant trying to marry the China girl.

"Anyway, we're going to make a war with all possible victims. Of course, we'll say it's for protection but they'll be the baits, the sisters are going to perform the exorcism but we need to make sure all goes well. Since there are only women, China girl is more suited to this. You need to make sure the circles work."

"What does it mean?"

"Verify if their body is intact and doesn't have any marks," Hijikata decided not to pursue further the subject. "Stuff that looks like a bite."

"Oh, I see. Like a vampire's?"

"Kinda, yes."

"Oogushi-kun?"

"My name is Hijikata."

"You'd make a good mother," Gintoki cackled and hardly smothered his mocking laugh at the sight of the demon Vice-Chief trying to explain, as candidly as possible, what a love-bite was to a little girl. Truly, it was amusing.

Kagura only tilted her head in confusion, while Shinpachi contained his imminent nosebleed the best a cherry boy like him would— which, to be honest, was just holding his hand close to his nose.

"Anyway, if you work for us you'll be better feed than the silver perm would ever do, and you'll get paid for it in extra. We're counting you, China girl," Hijikata explained quickly before the girl had the time to be in awe. "You'll need to be on your guard and alert at night, and sleep during the day. Your eyes, they're better than ours right?"

"Yato have sharper senses overall," Kagura nodded.

"That's perfect, then."

Okita had shut down his mouth at his superior who seemed to know how to sweet-talk China girl, in a matter of seconds. Perhaps he wasn't popular in Yoshiwara just for his looks, after all. He wondered how Hijikata did— sometimes he haven't said anything mean that there was already a fist blown to his face. It wasn't his fault if she did have huge dark circles marring her usually perfect and white skin.

"Hijikata-san, die."

And the bomb exploded.

Kagura walked in circle alone. Walking in circle over circles, her mind going in circles— everything was circle, round like the moon, its light being her only source to the sight. The Shinsengumi were surprisingly efficient in organising a ward fathering all the beauties Edo possessed within, and Yoshiwara had been chosen as the area of protection because of its wide area and its proximity to the headquarters. Temporarily, they changed an extravagant and onerous brothel to an area strictly guarded, a gilded castle for the princesses.

But Kagura wasn't admiring the lavish bedroom she stood in, nor the crimson carpet secretly covering sacred marks the priestesses had hand-drawn to the floor.

She closed her eyes and listened to the pounding of the rain outside, a summer's rain.

The nightmares gave her headaches and hear stings she didn't ask for, reminded of a question she had yet to confront. Deep in her heart she knew the cowardice got the best of her, but she also acknowledge that the answer might simply break everything she had tried to build until now.

Strength. Smile. Kindness.

"You," the silky curtains danced into the air, wind engulfed in the room in a strong blast, but not enough to wake the women inside. "You're scared."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I can finally read your soul," the beautiful voice echoed in her ears, "you're asking yourself if you're the cause of everything."

"That's not true."

"If I had not been born, if I hadn't existed, would they still be a family? Would they be happier without me? Was I burden? Was my birth only a curse?"

Blue eyes flashed towards the stranger, "it's not true. They love me, you don't know anything at all."

"I am loved, so I am not hurting. I'm not lonely, I'm not scared, I'm not abandoned," the man stepped swiftly, like feathers, to her. "You're hurting, you want to be numb."

"Pain makes me alive, because I have a heart," Kagura didn't question the mysterious being. Part of her didn't want to— as if drawn to him.

"Poor kid, your mother's body didn't take your birth well, has she? You're scared of the answer, you wish you could just stay numb, you think that just smiling and forgetting the past will change that, but it's not. Not anymore."

"It's not true! You're lying! I'm not hurt, I'm going to fight, I'm going to hold my promise to mami and I'll bring this idiot Kamui and Baldy together, again! I won't cry ever again," Kagura shook her head. "I didn't bring Mami's death. It's not true."

The room was filled with silence, yet the stranger's hand gently drew Kagura's face towards him. "You worked hard, haven't you? But it's fine now, you just need to trust me, I'll make the pain go away."

"I'm not in pain, I have Gin-chan, Shinpachi, and even Sadist. I'm not lonely."

"You are, you're scared to bring misfortune again— you can forget all these things for a moment, but it keeps coming back." The man leant down, the space between their lips scarce, "did you know? Kisses can make the pain go away."

"They do?"

"Yes, close your eyes."

A devilish smile stretched, "Good night."

#Okikagu #Gintama #Fanfic #English #Okita Sougo #Kagura #Dadtoki #Hijimom

[124globalsociology]

Sci-Fi Feminists

By Becky and Claire 

Background

   Science Fiction is all about imagining a different reality. Whether that be spaceships, laser beams, or rights for women. 

   A common misperception is that sci-fi has always been a genre dominated by men and male protagonists; however, this is not the case. There is some speculation in regards to when the science fiction genre was born, yet many consider the creator of the first sci-fi/horror novel to be Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein in 1816, though even before this Margaret Cavendish wrote The Blazing World in 1666. 

   Although not necessarily the first sci-fi writer, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has experienced great acclaim for centuries–and for good reason. Shelley openly explored themes of death, isolation, and moral ambiguity. She has since inspired countless authors, including Ursula Le Guin–whose writing challenges the constrictive social norms of binary gender. Also, like those of her time and before, Octavia E. Butler has succeeded in using gender and race as a means of exploration as well as a call to action. These women’s lives influenced their writing in a multitude of ways, which is why many scholars throughout history have analyzed their personal journeys of growth, inspiration, and loss that led them to new and alternate realities. 

   Here is a good start to the timeline of major science-fiction authors, and here is a list of exclusively female writers.  

Prominent Authors: Mary Shelley

   When Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus in 1816, she wrote it in response to a challenge. Her father was the famous philosopher William Godwin and it was at a dinner party her father had hosted, with guests such as Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, where the challenge was posed for each esteemed writer to come up with the best ghost story. In the end, Mary Shelley (then known as Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin) won, as her early draft of Frankenstein captivated its first audience. 

   Yet for such a young woman–only eighteen at the time– the themes she wrote about were incredibly complex and macabre. Her life began tragically, as her famous feminist mother died only a month after her birth, a death she would mourn for the rest of her days. When she met and fell in love with the great poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, their romance was only accepted after the tragic suicide of his estranged wife. She continued to experience the loss of three of her four children as well as her half sister. 

   Plagued by death and grief, Shelley’s dark themes were a cathartic release; the juxtapositions of the living and the dead within her work, as well as the question of morality continue to spark debate to this day. The character of Frankenstein’s monster begs the question: what does it mean to be human, to be alive? Moreover, are humans fundamentally good beings? These questions appear again in Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler’s brilliant contributions to science fiction, where similarly complex topics are asked, such as: what are gender and race? Why do they exist? [Mary Shelley-Source] [Mary Shelley-Source 2]

Ursula Le Guin

   Usula Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969 during the second wave feminist movement in the United States, where gender was a heated topic for almost everyone. 

   Facing her fair share of rejection of publishers refusing to take a woman seriously, let alone a woman writing in the genre of science fiction, LeGuin was determined to share her game-changing novels. As a daughter of a female writer herself, Le Guin knew the value of a good story, and had been inspired from a young age to create her own nonconventional worlds. The Left Hand of Darkness, in addition to the Earthsea Chronicles, are Ursula Le Guin’s best known works. The Left Hand of Darkness and other books in the Hainish Cycle take place in a solar system with many planets whose different environmental factors led to the androgyny and nonbinary nature of the race named the Gethenians. 

   Her mainstream challenging of social norms opened doors previously percieved as closed for other feminist and nonbinary authors to began grappling with questions of identity, morality, social hierarchy, and even religion. By the end of her life, Ursula LeGuin had written dozens of award-winning novels, poems, and children’s books that had changed the science fiction world forever. These issues brought alien distopias down to earth, as it were. [Ursula Le Guin-Source]

Octavia E. Butler

   A facet of science-fiction is the exploration of dystopian worlds that provide insight into the future of our own–no author was more talented at predicting these all-too-real conditions than Octavia Butler. Before her death in 2006, Butler wrote over two dozen novels and short stories that illustrated many scenarios unsettlingly similar to our current political and social climate. From a young age, Butler was surrounded by books brought home from her mother who worked as a maid during the era of segregation in California–books that would transport her to worlds beyond what was possible, at least for now. 

   These books drove her to create stories of her own that imagined protagonists as empowered black women, as gender fluid shape-shifters, and so on. These works, though fantastical, were also rooted in the struggles of society during her lifetime, and provided essential insight into the Civil Rights Movement and second-wave feminism. 

   Of course, life was never easy for Butler, who had to balance many jobs at once, and was often underestimated due to her sex and race. Yet after the modest success of her 1975 novel Patternmaster, which envisioned a dystopian world that brought together themes of hierarchy and unity, she traveled across the country to Maryland, and found even more fame and recognition after she published her next work, Kindred. 

   Butler envisioned worlds that validated and brought to the forefront the struggles of everyday black people, while using fantastical backdrops to tell their complex stories. Today she is known for her afrofuristic themes, with many of her novels being read in university classes regarding queer theory, Black feminism, and disability studies. [Octavia E. Butler-Source 1] [Afrofuturism]

Use of Utopias and Dystopias

   These women, and countless other authors, have used their writing to develop the idea of utopian and dystopian worlds. By imagining a world with true, universal human rights, or a society without gender and racism, these women strove to prove that anything was possible. 

   A utopian world is one that is perfect in every way–but in the process of creating those perfect worlds, dystopias are often born instead. For all the fantastical characters and settings they describe, they are ultimately commenting on our current world and it’s ugly realities hidden beneath the surface. They further present the question, is a utopian world possible? What makes our current world dystopic? As Ursula Le Guin says in her interview with “The Nation’’, “The future in science fiction is just a metaphor for now.” For More information on utopias, check out this TedEd video.  

Sci-Fi in Politics

   As women and authors, Shelley, LeGuin, and Butler along with countless more feminists work not just for entertainment, they write for the larger community of activism. Activism is a way to gain support for a cause but rarely is it done alone. Margaret Kick and Kathryn Sikkink elaborate in “Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics” (from Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998). 

   Authors in sci-fi are like the transnational networks that Keck and Sikkink discuss, in that they also use the four typologies of persuasion: 1) information politics, 2) symbolic politics, 3) leverage politics, 4) accountability politics. When authors like Shelley, Le Guin, and Butler present the issues most prominent in their lives, they present the information “where it will have the most impact” (p. 281). That space is the public who has the power to influence society. 

   Furthermore, they use symbols in their writing to make the point that utopias or dystopias really aren’t that different from where we are today. When using leverage politics in writing, authors tend to “call out” major actors such as state regimes, as Margaret Atwood does in her “Handmaid’s Tale”. This can be done explicitly as Atwood does or implicitly as seen in some of LeGuin’s work. Similarly for accountability politics, authors don’t have the power to hold states to their policies; however, they are able to conjure public support behind an issue. For example, if a government claims to have eliminated all racist and sexist language from its governing documents but has not, then an author may use that in a novel to push the government for change.    

Sci-Fi for the Real World

   When imagining a better world, a world where governments and organizations are held accountable for their actions towards people of color and female-identifying people, we can look to these feminist writers for inspiration. These women paved the way for visionaries from all walks of life to have hope for a better future. Science fiction is an instrument of societal rebuilding, and it can have enormous impact on the way people choose to engage in the world. 

   Science fiction also has the capacity to challenge racist, sexist, and heteronormative norms that hold our society back from unity and prosperity. In promoting feminism, authors like Le Guin and Butler normalize equality of the sexes, and even allow future generations to take the reins, as it were, and normalize gender fluidity, androgyny, and non-binary people. 

   As we grow in awareness and knowledge throughout our transformative years at college, we can harken back to these trailblazers and the messages they left in their books. These messages tell us we are powerful in our femininity, that humans are infinitely complex and changing, and that change is necessary for a better future. We can build many aspects of the better worlds laid out before us–and we can learn from the dystopias as well. Our story as humans is far from over, it is not too late for us to embark on a new chapter.  

Links used above:

https://www.bl.uk/people/mary-shelley#

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-wollstonecraft-shelley 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_vzSgkjBEI 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a6kbU88wu0 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/writing-the-future-a-timeline-of-science-fiction-literature/zjfv6v4

https://library.sdsu.edu/scua/new-notable/early-female-authors-science-fictionfantasy-0

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20200317-why-octavia-e-butlers-novels-are-so-relevant-today 

https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/afrofuturism/

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/biography

Bibliography: 

Keck, Margaret E., Sikkink, Katheryn. “Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics”, Activists Beyond Borders:Advocacy Networks in International Politics, 1998. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.  

#submission #publicscholarship #global sociology #art #activism #octaviabutler #feminism #racism #scifi #afrofuturism #ursula le guin #mary wollstonecraft #margaret atwood #queer