#the show is literally about the effects misogyny/the patriarchy has on women and men | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

idreamtofmanderleyagain · 3 years

Text

This post is a response to a reply I got on this post about Hades and Persephone HERE. It involves a LOT of discussion of rape as it applies to the myth, so massive Trigger Warning for Rape.

princess-nazario:

I'm not directly against modern retellings where Hades and Persephones relationship is consensual and could be about escaping toxic motherhood. Many people suffer overprotective/narcissistic mothers today, I think it has a good message- and besides, nobody really wants to hear a story about a girl being kidnapped and raped against her will.

But I hate when people try to say that this consensual version was actually the original myth all along and is ~cool~ and ~feminist~. I hate when people say Hades and Persephone are the most healthy, loving couple in all greek mythology when there are plenty of other underrated couples and figures out there.

I hate it when people try to write off Persephone trauma and allegory for the horrible things young girls had to go through in ancient Greece as "weak" or "unfeminist" labeling female solidarity of trauma and misogyny as "weak" is the exact opposite of feminist.

Like there are plenty of abuse victims out there there are also rape victims, victims of abduction, victims of misogyny all throughout history and today in the modern world. By writing off the pain and suffering of a protagonist who is a victim of rape you are disrespecting and victim-blaming all of these people.

Persephone meant something for all of these victims and survivors knowing that even the goddesses had to go through the things they went through. That even a victim of rape and abduction can still rise as a queen and a goddess, that even after she was raped her story was not done, and although she now has to spend half of the year with her rapist she also gets to see her mother.

In most greek weddings young girls are now apart of their husbands family and never get to see their mothers again. I'd love to see a Persephone retelling that maybe doesn't woobify Hades for once, or show Demeter's perspective and truly explore Persephones experiences in her point of view and shows her rise to power other than just "she was scared at first but now she loves hades and its okay!!"

Was she homesick? How did she adapt to her situation? Did she resent Hades for what he did to her even though he thinks he didnt do anything wrong? Did Hecate help her even though she was scared? How did she feel about being treated like a object or trophy? At what point did she go from a scared little girl to the Dread Queen of the Underworld?

I'm not saying the original versions of the myth where Persephone was kidnapped and raped are peak feminist and great for women, after all this was a culture that gave little voice to women- but what I am saying is that we shouldn't erase or ignore women's trauma and female solidarity for some dull romance story.

You can write a story about Demeter being a toxic mother and Hades/Persephone as consensual, Persephone perhaps being an idea of women's self discovery and independence and agency- but do not forget or refuse to acknowledge the misogynistic and non-consensual traumas of women this tale is allegorical too as well. Do not label THEIR traumas as weak or feminist.

@princess-nazario I’m not sure why you sent me this in a reply, I thought maybe you might be new to tumblr so just so you know, when you have a large response like this typically you start a conversation through reblogging rather than replying. If you had other reasons for it being reply-specific, I’m making the decision to respond as a post because this subject is really important to me and you’ve touched on something that I felt needed an open response.

So, to start with, I have to tell you that I believe you did not actually understand the context I was coming from with the original post. To be fair to you, I think this is a topic that has a lot of missing context, especially for younger people who A) may not have the same educational background (formal or otherwise) or familiarity with the subject or B) have not been around literary circles or fandom long enough to be familiar with what these kinds of archetypes have meant to women in those spaces. When I wrote the original post, I was kind of speaking specifically to an audience that I know is already familiar with these things.

So, while I think it’s perfectly valid for you as an individual to view Hades and Persephone through the very specific lens you’ve painted it, It is probably not completely accurate to what the original myth was about and is in fact in my opinion it’s own form of feminist revision of an ancient tale. Personally, I view this kind of take as part of the problem I was expressing in the original post, just from the opposite perspective. If that upsets you I hope you’ll please at least bear with me to get where I’m coming from with this.

Hades and Persephone comes from a culture in which rape was extremely normalized in comparison to ours. According to my historian partner, when soldiers conquered people/sacked a city they would rape en masse and this was not considered a war crime. Marriage involved rape via social coercion and likely via physical violence anyway. Whether or not rape was considered wrong had a lot to do with the status of the perpetrator and the victim, i.e. if a highborn woman was raped by a poor man, he was a criminal. But if a highborn man raped a poor woman, it would be fine. A serial rapist in a small community would probably get his head chopped off. While it’s not impossible that women told this story to process their trauma, it should be noted that this myth existed in a society where men were the dominant voices and they were pretty much cool with rape.

What happens in the myth is more representative of what marriage actually looked like for girls (and their mothers) of that time period, and was meant as a way to explain the changing of the seasons. When you hear the phrase “The Rape of Persephone,” it’s relevant to mention that the phrasing of “rape” is both a more modern interpretation of the story than the ancients (as in it’s a phrase from the last few hundred years, to my knowledge), and by today’s standards an older use of the term. “Rape” does not always refer to sexual rape, and in this case was specifically referring to the kidnapping aspect. Could literal sexual rape have happened? Maybe, in the context of how arranged marriages like this often involved coercive rape. But it’s worth noting that when Zeus rapes women, it’s never ambiguous like this, it just is a thing that happens and there are no euphemisms about it, no “fade to black”.

Either way it’s kind of a moot point. To say that Hades and Persephone specifically was intended as a tale about an evil man raping a young girl and was intended for girls to process that trauma ultimately isolates it from it’s context within all the other stories of the greek pantheon, in which rape happens all of the time and is normalized - let alone the actual culture it came from. It’s honestly viewing an ancient culture through a modern Christian framework, where the “god of the underworld” is akin to the monstrous devil.

Could women of the time have used it to process their trauma regardless? It’s possible, but I digress.

My point is, there are two extremes on the table here. Either a revisionist tale of Perspehone in which she willingly chooses hades and they have a tumblr approved sweet and pure relationship, or a revisionist tale in which Hades is the quintessential representation of a rapist and Persephone’s story is entirely about overcoming her rape trauma.

Neither of which are true, and neither of which appeal to me. Again, if either appeal to you or anyone else is fine, but my original post was rooted in my frustrations with girls on tumblr who are unfamiliar with the very complex contexts of both the myths and of feminist reimagining that came before the time of tumblr.

It would be more accurate to say that what I was speaking of in the original post is how girls on tumblr have erased the complex power struggle inherent to the literary trope of the Demon Lover (think “Phantom of the Opera”). You can see this trope in many subgenres, including Gothic Romance and the current Monster Boyfriend trend.

Again, it’s very important here to understand that I am talking about allegories. Not literal people perpetrating literal power struggles or violence or having literal relationships, toxic or otherwise.

The trope of the Demon Lover in women’s fiction is often a framework about a woman struggling between the precipice of her own desires vs the patriarchy. He is often framed as an outsider to the normal patriarchy but a being who has the power to move within it, often more so than the average man. He embodies both the allure and danger of masculinity simultaniously. Often there is a solidarity between the heroine and the Demon Lover, because they have something spiritual/emotional which binds them. They exist in solidarity above the social expectations of women’s lives. And yet there is often a power struggle in that narrative, where the heroine must find her own power in balance with the Demon Lover.

In a lot of cases where the Demon Lover is written by men (aka many of the pop culturally significant iterations that women in fandom tend to love), he is indeed portrayed as purely a monster, or whatever temptation he represented is treated as something the woman must ultimately reject and return to social expectations of how she should behave and what she should desire. (Hence why you have so many women in fandom who like to reimagine these dynamics ending with romance).

In effect, the Demon Lover takes on a role for the heroines exploration of her own power in contrast to patriarchal expectations about her role in society and what her sexual and romantic desires should look like.

For a long time, this is how a lot of feminists viewed Hades and Persephone, the Demon Lover trope, and created art based on it. This too is a modern feminist reimagining of the tale.

However, what I see happening on tumblr is a refusal to engage with anything that complex. Instead, what a lot of girls are doing is forcing both Hades/Persephone and any other story which falls under the “Demon Lover” trope (Phantom, Labyrinth, etc.) to be categorized in boxes that fit “purity” sensibilities and are ultimately often embody an unwillingness to engage in challenging, complicated material that doesn’t appeal to black and white thinking. Either Persephone was never in danger because Hades was an uwu soft boy, or Persephone was always threatened by this terrible monstrous abuser and exploration of her reciprocation is wrong.

Personally, I feel this kind of compartmentalizing robs the Demon Lover trope of what makes it compelling and valuable in the first place. It enforces this idea that all depictions of relationships in fiction have to adhere to one specific sensibility of what real world relationships should look like or else be condemned as morally inferior, which is absolutely not the point of the Demon Lover trope and is unfair to the rich history, feminist and less so, that still lives within it. We can do better.

As far as how this story impacts rape survivors, I want to point out that you have absolutely no clue what the people who enjoy Persephone’s tale as a romantic one have endured. Many of them whom I know are indeed rape survivors. Many of them, including myself, are victims of male on female abuse, or otherwise have trauma around the subject of male/female relationships. There are multitudes of ways that women with trauma have long since used the Demon Lover trope to process trauma, and I’m honestly quite tired of the way people on tumblr compartmentalize things in such a way that there is a built-in shame surrounding this subject that many women, including myself, have been trained over the past several years to feel about it. There’s a whole aspect to this that is connected with Twilight and 50 Shades (which are very poor renditions of the Demon Lover trope) and how we as a culture responded to these stories, and how much that has poisoned the ~discourse~.

#Hades and Persephone #Demon Lover #Villain/Heroine #rape tw

53 notes · View notes

azrielsbxtch · 4 years

Text

RHYSAND’S FEMINISM

1. Are we praising Rhys for doing the bare minimum?

It depends. On what standards are you judging him. If we judge rhys based on our real world and it’s stance on Feminism then yes we’re praising him for the bare minimum. The real world is much more progressive than Prythian.However if we’re judging him based on Prythian’s standards,then based on how they treat women and lesser faeries,Rhys is the exception. I also feel like a lot of people praise Rhys because they’ve experienced Tamlin’s views on women and it’s like saying “I’m so happy you’re not a tamlin”. Most times the praise for Rhysand comes from comparison to Tamlin and when compared to Tamlin, Rhys obviously wins.

2. Rhysand and the patriarchy in the Court of Nightmares.

The Court of Nightmares was given to the people who opposed and hated Rhys when he became High Lord to RULE themselves and do as they please with Keir as their leader. However they have very backward traditions like selling their daughters to men (Mor) and treating a girl horribly when her virginity is gone. Seeing that they rule themselves there’s laws that prevent Rhys from intervening in some situations. Like the war,when he couldn’t order Keir to join but had to convince him. However I feel like as High Lord,Rhys definitely has a responsibility to those women. And I feel like if he decided to pay more attention to that misogyny,he could stop it.

However, I also feel like it’s not just up to Rhys. Mor is the Queen of The Court of Nightmares and she reports to Rhys while he’s busy with Velaris and the Illyrians. While yes,he is their ruler he can not spread himself thin with responsibilities. So I think at the end of the day,Mor will be the one to bring about that change. She was the one affected personally by those misogynistic laws and I think if we get her her book,she’ll overthrow her family. That’s why Sarah didn’t write Rhys to address that. She wants to use it as a plot point for Mor. Just like she’s going to use the Illyrians for Cassian.

3. Rhysand and the female Illyrians.

I’ve spoken about this before. You can scroll down my page to find the post but basically what I said was that yes,while Rhys does have a responsibility to the female Illyrians,as High Lord he can only do 2 things. 1) Lay down laws. He did that and wingclipping is banned officially. However after his capture by Amarantha,some deeper camps started doing it again. 2) He can slaughter the Lords of the illyrians but he’s not a tyrant and he doesn’t want to kill his own people and start a civil war. And now my major point is....the revolution of the Illyrians women has to come from the illyrian women. Not Rhys. Not the camp lords. The women.

No matter what rhys does if the women don’t acknowledge their own worth and show the men that they don’t care about “laws that deem them unmarraigeable” and they don’t care about the stupid consequences the men have created out of their own fear,then there’s literally nothing Rhys can do. He cannot force them to abandon a thousand year old tradition. We’ve seen firsthand how despite the magnitude of his and his brothers power,the Illyrians still hate them and consider them outsiders. Forcing the situation won’t help anybody. He’s laid down laws that are effective. Now it’s up to the women to rise and take their power back.

4. Is Rhysand a good representation of Feminism?

In our world,NO. Rhys is not the standard of Feminism.

In Prythian, he’s not as backward as the rest and I think that’s why he’s being praised for feminism. When the world he is set in has little to no feminism,when he commits small acts they are praised by us the readers. I love Rhysand as a character and I wish he was developed as more than just the good guy in the end. There are some aspects of his life that SJM neglected to develop. But I also understand that she did this to use those plot points in other characters stories. Like how she’s using the Illyrians for the Nessian book.We know female training is personal to Cassian so it makes sense to use that plot device in his book.I think she will also let Mor address the patriarchy because it’s something personal to her. So basically she’s created issues and some will be addressed by Rhys,some will be addressed by other characters.

5 notes · View notes

escapekissed · 4 years

Note

Lucky do you have any favorite pieces of media from the psychological horror genre? Feels like its a genre that matches ur interests very well 👉🏽👈🏽

there are a couple that really speak to me!

first is rule of rose, which is a game that is incredibly formative to me. in a time where i was looking for representation as a young gay person and REALLY into looking up wiki pages for horror games, rule of rose showed me the symbolic trauma of puberty and toxic ‘love’ between girl children and the violence of patriarchal figures that i was looking for. it showed such cruelty but also such strength in its main character, and the symbolism? exquisite.... it also just has such a creepy atmosphere and the fact that the game is near impossible to play along with its shitty graphics for the enemies makes it so. peculiar and creepy in a very special way to me.

catherine is another atlus game near and dear to my heart, tho i dont think i’m ever going to be playing full body for that exact reason. it’s a game basically about eugenics and misogyny, about gods&devils thinking of women as only reproductive objects and the men in their lives that ‘waste their reproductive time’ being tortured and killed for it, taking away a woman’s choice. i always thought it would be so interesting to do trans and lesbian takes on this game, and i have never really? stopped thinking about how this game is so thrilling in its themes of entitlement and stopping people’s freedom to love as they wish. this is also one of the only horror games in which the ‘human element’ actually interests me. so many horror games give u terrible people and i dont give a FUCK ABOUT THEM. but the way this game shows u just snippets of his life as a ‘break’ from the excruciatingly scary (to me, because time limits scare me LOL), stressful as hell puzzles. and u get to figure out the mystery of what is going on in people who would otherwise be boring to you, but in this game are shrouded in just enough mystery that ur actually interested in their boring day-to-day lives. its so satisfying just to drink with ur buds. its like really great gameplay to me tbh. i also just love katherine and catherine and they frusturate me so much and that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do which i LOVE. extremely effective atmosphere setting and worldbuilding, basically.

the lighthouse is my favorite horror movie tbh because it does suspense so well. the movie is literally themed around suspense, the suspense of not getting sexual satisfaction to completion, of being touch starved and lonely and repressed, of being able to hold ur boss but never kiss him, of being fed lobster but it tastes flavorless and bland and u can smell ur boss’s farts the whole time while he prattles on with disturbing sailor’s tales and barks out orders until he’s lulled into his drink. i honestly love this movie. and the acting is brilliant and unhinged

there’s a few indie games i really like that have been either formative to me or i just??? really like their vibe and i can basically tell from them i would like every game in the ‘genre.’

pocket mirror to me is like, this beautiful game about your own inner toxicity and escaping from yourself. i love indie 64-bit games like this, the background art is so beautiful, and while i’ve never played all the way through it because it scares me too much---i love ib and all the games in the ‘ib’ genre LOL.

doki doki literature club i know is a very strange game to like, but i enjoy it for letting the women be actual characters with their own thoughts and feelings. the pychological horror movie ‘i’m thinking of ending things’ is the exact opposite of this game.'i’m thinking of ending things’ is a backwards approach to feminist horror in my opinion. it’s from a male’s perspective of his hallucinations of a girl that once didn’t give him a second glance and his violence towards her in these fantasies. it takes itself painfully seriously. it pretends to deconstruct something that the director helped soldify (the manic pixie dream girl trope) in the public eye. doki doki literature club on the other hand, the passive character who ‘things happen to’ is the man. the active roles all go to the women in the game and what they do to themselves in order to be loved by not just a man, but the player, and in doing so they often become the all-knowing god of their own prison. like tell me that’s not the dopest thing u’ve ever heard of!

twilight zone is a big one for me but 5 episodes in particular have shaped how i view horror forever. ‘to serve man’---where the greatest, scariest thing in the world is not being able to understand the language another person is actually using and for them to manipulate u using ur own, actually wishing u harm as they placate you with your own interpretations. the episode where a rich man’s last will and testament is for his vain, selfish relatives to wear a mask until midnight that reveals symbolically how ugly they are to him. they bicker all night with petty squabbles, and then at midnight he reveals the mask has permeanantly shaped their faces to reveal who they really are and the abuse he suffered under them. the cornfield episode still scares the shit out of me as someone with an entitled younger brother whose entitlement and anger is often enabled by those around us, and i’ve always thought that it was such a good show of like, how patriarchy enables little boy’s violence. the episode ‘all the time in the world’ where an abused man with a shitty life is finally the last man on earth and he can do anything he’d like to do and all he wants to do is read but then he breaks his glasses. and finally! the episode where toys in a box come to life and bemoan their fate as they realize they will be trapped there forever in clothes and identities they do not recognize. these episodes always scare the shit out of me LOL.

besides that i really like. low-budget passion project indie games. the first that comes to mind is ‘the path’ which is about a family of four sisters of various ages all inspired by little red riding hood who stray from the path and are hunted by the woodsman. and then the game that YOU my dear myers! showed me! that haunts me to this day. basically a tape talks to you about the areas of a house and then starts to talk about the house as a living creature. and the living creature is hungry, without you inside it. the living creature is tired of being alone, it’s tired of being abandoned, it’s tired, and it’s eyes are empty with no one in the windows, and it’s mind is blank with no one in the bedroom, and it’s hangry there’s no one in its basement to feast on, to torment as it has been tormented by disuse.

last but not least, i really enjoy the book ‘sharp objects.’ which is not technically a horror novel. but it is about a serial killer, and about women and abuse and it has some of the best writing ever. so i highly recommend it AND the miniseries (watch the miniseries first then read the book bc the miniseries is like. directed better? but the novel is written and characterized better. it’s also very short u can finish it in like a day and a half).

honorable mentions for horror In General (not necessarily psychological horror) are: 1) the birdcage. i honestly consider this movie entirely unsettling. robin williams failing to portray a man that is actually attracted to nathan lane, which could be because they have simply been married so long but also is just awful to me in general bc it makes me feel like even our outwardly gay but still more masc gay men can’t love and be attracted to femme camp gays even when they’re married to them. the fact that both these men that could be so in love, that were so in love at one time, you can at the very least imagine, are told by their only son that they need to go back in the closet to impress some old ass republicans, giving the message that no matter how succesful you are in the gay community, no matter how bright and wonderful a presence you are, no matter how loving you are, no matter how much you love, no matter how interwoven you are in lgbt-ness, the straight people you love most will still try to change you to impress the wold. horrifying.

2) coraline. its children’s horror but that’s still horror baby! i think lately about how much the movie talks about mothers and birth. coraline calls whybie ‘why born’ and i just think about how much she thinks about creating a new life with a new mother, and how going through that small door into a long tube... it’s like crawling into a new womb and being reborn to a new mother that loves you. and that’s horrific from a feminist perspective in and of itself---that your child would feel so unloved and unimportant to you that she would literally... rather die in this life, technically, rather be ‘unborn’ to you and born anew to someone, someone just like you but better, someone just like you but what SHE wants a mother to be, feminine and skirted and smiling. and then there’s the fact that coraline only gives this up when she realizes her other mother basically wants to change her more to suit her liking in ways that would cause her pain, at which point she realizes this whole fantasy is a lie, not real, something meant to entice her and control her and make her ‘perfect’---the same way she wants her mother & father to be ‘perfect’ in a way that causes her to act out and hurt them. it’s psychological horror that’s technically not psychological horror in the best way, something you can really dig your teeth into, something that has so many layers to it. and the animation! gorgeous!

3) finally i have recently watched annihilation. and it kind of changed my life a little bit.... so often we’re used to viewing monsters as either 1) malicious or 2) romantic/sad/sexy. but the monster in this movie is literally a metaphor for cervical cancer.

to me, the monsters and the corpses and all the beautiful scenery in this movie, in every color u can think of, a muted rainbow of flowers and nature at its best and most bizarre and sprawling. i often say that monsters are beautiful, but tbh, i feel like... somehow i always mean that in a way that is near-fetishitic, somehow self-depcrating way, where i want to consider what other people think is ‘ugly’ is ‘beautiful to me’ because what i am also ugly to other people as a monster to the cishet white patriarchy. there are things i consider beautiful, certainly, purely beautiful. but when i talk about monsters being beautiful, it is in the way the sublime is beautiful. it scares me, it haunts me, i love it, i want to possess it as part of me, a totem to carry in my back pocket to make the strength in my own ugliness stronger.

when i saw the monster in this movie (SPOILERS) i was immediately unnerved at this bad cgi abomination that bloomed from the most beautiul cgi cancer death cosmos imaginable. it scared me and i had to sleep with a light on for 2 days after LOL. but i was also moved by its gentleness. by the fact that the cervical cancer alien, when it tried to hurt you, wasn’t trying to hurt you at all. it was simply copying your movements. in the movie, it says that the creature wants nothing. it was simply copying. it was simply changing. it’s a prism of nature---and it corrupts yes, and it can hurt people and things and turn them into scary but still terribly unique and beautiful things that also kill---but the movie says that it wants nothing. it simply exists. it’s a part of nature, same as us, a part of the same universe and cosmos, despite being alien to us and stange and hurting us sometimes in ways that it doesn’t understand.

i don’t know. if i quite believe the movie when it says that, though. because i think if you copy someone, like a child would, you are trying to understand them. you are trying to understand yourself. you are trying to form yourself in another’s image when you have none, and you are failing at that, and hurting people and creating monsters in the process, but you are trying as best as you can to be whole and beautiful and sane like the lovely creatures you’ve met on this earth, or this body. to be part of something great and beautiful. to be part of another world.

maybe it doesn’t want anything. but do WE want anything as children, when we copy adults? why did the bear and the alligator try to eat our heroes if they were not hungry? did the bear and the alligator not WANT to eat? i think everything wants to live, and everything wants to grow, and if it can learn to live better and grow better it Will learn even if that is not its explicit intention. does the alien have feelings? does nature? do we have to personify things to understand them? no. does personifying things make us understand them less? no, yes, sometimes. we ask animals and nature to copy us, follow us, so that we can understand them better. the relationship in between----from the hurt, from the pain, from the droughts and the food shortages and the hurricanes and the fireworks---forms from our kindness and understanding. that our crops are useful, and the man-made mutation of our crops and the help of the ran and the sun is also useful. that our animals may not love us, but they need us, and we love them for putting their paw on our thighs to be pet, for following us into the bathroom even when we just wanted a moment alone.

regardless of its intentions, the alien, cancer, every creature, every human, they simply want to grow. in copying others---in trying to touch, to change, to understand, and be close---we learn to live in the same body, learn to live in the same world. the togetherness--the new sight the prism brings---it’s beautiful. it is beautiful to copy, however poorly. it is beautiful to try. we all shape others to our own standards---we sometimes forget we too, were made in own own perception of others’ image.

#ooc: replies #this took me all day to answer because i had to go to COSTCO in the middle. LOL #destructiveglitch

5 notes · View notes

bidean-byedean · 3 years

Note

Drop the essay 🥺 it sounds so interesting

omg I’m so flattered! ❤️ I’ll put it under the cut here (it’s 3600 words lol), just a few things:

Anon is referring to this post

I wrote this for my Gothic Lit + Film module during my BA - 3ish years ago. This clearly isn’t the final version (uncited works, missing bib, etc.) and there’s a lot I would change now. God, I might rewrite it for Victorian Gothic or just for kicks... I got so close to making some really great points lol so forgive Undergraduate me for being almost smart.

And yes, I looked at Interview with The Vampire so #tw: Anne Rice lol

‘Love Never Dies’ (tagline from Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

Explore the Treatment of Homoerotic Desire in Gothic Fiction and/or Film

The Gothic genre is one of transgressions and transformations. It crosses the boundaries of everyday societal norms to explore and express cultural anxieties by reforming psychological worries as physical monsters. Influxes of immigrants from around the Empire and the publication of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution created a huge social shift, undermining religious beliefs of creation and human’s superiority over the natural world. However, it also gave rise to more ‘scientific’ moral categorisations, being twisted to suit the needs of the white colonialists and justify the prejudices of the time by “grounding them in “truth.”” This new Scientia Sexualis, the bringing of sexuality into the psychoanalytic, political and scientific discourse, created new categorisations for sexuality and encouraged identification with these new categorisations.[1] This, for the first time, linked sexuality and identity and now meant one’s sexual practices and preferences came with a “truth” about the person. Homosexuality, as it was now known, was pathologised and seen as a new “species”[2] entirely, one that was a defective, lesser evolution than that of the traditional heterosexuality. Using the Gothic monster meant that authors could explore the ‘queer’ space in society, which means to blur boundaries of sexuality and gender[3] to explore repressed desires and curiosities raised by cultural anxieties over sexuality and gender. In Victorian Gothic, Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two of examples of using the genre’s transgressive nature and monstrous metaphors to express veiled desires and vicariously act upon them. Although the Gothic gives a home to all that is abhorrent and unacceptable in everyday society, Rice’s Interview with The Vampire explores how the Gothic can treat something on the edge of acceptability. Writing in a time sexual liberation and progressive thinking, Rice’s treatment of homosexuality and non-conventional relationships could be seen to threaten the traditional allegorical use of the genre.

The vampire has long been a sexual being often representing foreign or ‘monstrous’ sex desires and appetites, and Carmilla’s portrayal of aggressive, homoerotic female desire is one the earliest and most complex of these examples. Although one cannot be certain about how progressive Le Fanu wished his novel to be, it can definitely be used to argue against the misogynistic and repressive Victorian gender roles. By using the Gothic genre, Le Fanu explores the ideas of transgressing boundaries, most prominently between life and death, but also using the boundaries of the domestic space being transgressed by Carmilla as a metaphor for the structure of society. The Victorians saw the woman as the ‘angel in the house’, ethereal and asexual, therefore Carmilla’s demonic invasion of the house and her inherently seductive nature is directly antithetical to the socially acceptable version of femininity. However, Carmilla’s “perfidious and beautiful” appearance is confusing for both the other characters, in particular Laura, and the reader themselves. Le Fanu’s expression of female sexuality and gender identity through vampirism conforms to the fact that the “monstrous is transgressive and unnatural because it blends those categories that should be classified as distinct.”[4] Carmilla represents a blurring of the gender boundaries set for women by Victorian society, with vampires being traditionally fluid characters as they “straddle the borders of the living and the dead,” it is natural for Carmilla’s vampirism to give her a freedom akin to that of masculinity. Carmilla excites and threatens the heterosexual male audience with her aggressive sexuality and choice of female victims. On the one hand, she is full of the voracious libidinal energy that is viewed as desirable in sexual objects, but on the other, because of her sexual power and freedom she can be read as a “potential castrator” by becoming a superior sexual predator. Crossing the boundaries of homosocial to homoerotic, Carmilla provides Laura with a relationship separate from her father, one that allows to grow outside of the parameters of the submissive, obedient and asexual daughter. The relationship between Laura and Carmilla means that they have, as Irigaray describes it, “refused to go to market.”[5] The queerness of Carmilla and Laura means that they no longer have to be commodities in the patriarchal market, passed from man to man, but created their own exchange between each other. By engaging in relationship with another woman Carmilla and Laura have “become masculine,”[6] they no longer need to seek masculine assurance outside of themselves or each other.

The group murder of Carmilla by the dominant men in Laura’s life is seen almost identically in Stoker’s Dracula. Lucy is staked by the three men from which she has had blood transfusions in a heavily sexually violent scene where the rebellious female is ‘penetrated’ and subdued by the heterosexual patriarchy. Once Carmilla has been destroyed, Laura is placed safely back under the dominance of the men around her and relies on them to relay Carmilla’s true identity. The confusion between whether they have killed the vampire or the queer woman becomes blurred by Le Fanu here. Laura is told that vampires stalk their victims with the “passion of love” and the use of “artful courtship,”[7]implying that she is not only being warned against vampires, but monstrous queer women. The men in her life invert her homosexual desire into warning signs of a vampire; that she must listen more carefully to the “abhorrence” she feels and ignore the “pleasure” that is akin to the “ardour of a lover.”[8] The novel seemingly ends with the message that many works in the genre embody:

“The Gothic may kill off the monster in such a way as to effect catharsis for the viewer or reader, who sees his or her unacceptable desires enacted vicariously and then safely ‘repressed’ again.”

Carmilla is no exception when it comes to reinstating the status quo after destroying the monstrous queer body it used to be able to safely blur and cross boundaries of societal norms.[9] However, this can also be argued. The novella ends with Laura reminiscing on the time since Carmilla’s destruction, and while she says: “it was long before the terror … subsided”, she also admits there is an “ambiguous” nature to her memories. The male authorities in Laura’s life could see Carmilla’s vampiric nature long before Laura could and despite insisting to Laura that Carmilla was nothing but a “demon”, making it clear that Carmilla’s desire was solely to kill Laura, she still feels affection for her lost friend. The very last sentence of the novella clearly shows her conflicting, but continued desire for Carmilla:

“sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla.”

Though the novella is, on the surface, wrapped up neatly with the white, patriarchy dominating over the queer female body, Fanu’s parting sentence emphasises the idea that it might not be a happy ending. Although Carmilla was literallya monster and would have killed Laura had she not been caught, she has clearly had a profound and positive emotional effect on Laura, who was briefly allowed to experience both same-sex support and desire.

Much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were “shadowed by the growing focus on the dangers of … close male friendships and signifiers of homosexuality,”[10] causing a repressed and paranoid time of ‘homosexual panic’. Men of the upper classes moved in almost exclusively male circles; all of their significant relationships outside of marriage would have been homosocial and therefore, plagued with worries about being seen as taking these relationships too far.[11] This paranoia manifested itself in the Gothic literature of the time as frantic and often contradictory.[12] Socially acceptable misogyny allowed male writers to praise homosocial relationships above those with women, who were seen as weak and hysterical, as seen in Stoker’s Dracula when Mina Harker is described as remarkable because she has “the brain of a man.”[13] However, the more insistent and heated misogyny only serves to emphasis what the writers are trying to avoid: being read as homosexual. Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde exemplifies the idea ‘homosexual panic’ manifesting closer to homosexual repression. The invisibility of women, apart from being placed near or as victims of Hyde’s violence, not only speaks to Stevenson’s feelings about women, but also his feelings about men. Hyde’s aggression is often triggered by being faced with female sexuality: he is angered by the prostitute that offers her “venereal box”[14] and the saleswomen that exude “lurid charms” and “coquetry.”[15] While this could be a product of his evilness or lack of moral development, Jekyll retells the former story as the woman offerings a “box of lights,” even though it is clear to both the characters and the readers what really happened. This reluctance to admit to Hyde’s anger towards female sexuality implies an awareness and an anxiety around profound misogyny, particularly if it is female sexuality that repulses Hyde, which leads the reader immediately to ideas of homosexual desire. Through the Gothic genre, Stevenson is able to explore man as “truly two” by creating a physical outlet for this anxiety and repression felt around homosocial relationships that dominated men’s lives. Gothic literature is often full of mystery and secrecy, and like the vampire, which has been linked to the plight of homosexuality because they are forced to live in the shadows, hiding their abhorrent desires and constantly plagued with the fear of being caught and destroyed - Jekyll goes through the same fears with Hyde. Although homosexuality was no long a capital crime (the last men executed for it in the UK being in 1835, the law was changed in 1861, before the publication of both Carmilla (1872) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886)), it was still punishable by law. Jekyll creates Hyde as a criminal outlet for his “concealed pleasures” that he saw as incompatible with his high social status and unworthy of a man respected so greatly by his peers.

Like with the vampire, the Gothic allows for Hyde to be an example of the “monstrous queer” with his “evil” actions reflected in his “deformed” “ape-like” body. In the eighteenth century, ‘monstrous’ was synonymous with queer, linking same-sex desire with the demonic.[16] Similarly, Stevenson’s use of language to describe Hyde is full of natural and evolutionary imagery. He constantly emphasises the fact that Hyde is animalistic, beast-like or, specifically, ape-like to distance Hyde from the respectable and civilised Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is presented as a step down on the evolutionary chain, he is a lesser creature and incapable of higher reasoning and moral thinking. Due to this lack of moral and reasoning capabilities, homosexuals were also seen as inherently selfish and indulgent. The purpose of their sexuality was solely to satisfy personal pleasure rather than transcendental values and contribute to the wider society.[17] This is linked to thinking that Edelman coined as “reproductive futurism,”[18] which is the idea that capitalism’s hold on cultural thinking pervades even to police sexual practices that it deems “unproductive” and therefore, “unnatural.” However, through the Gothic monstrous body, Stevenson can apply natural imagery to Hyde’s impulses and desires while still concealing them under the guise of a “deformity” or a lesser developed being. Through the paradox of his closeness to nature making him ‘abnormal’, Stevenson can tap into the language of the culture and exploit the reader’s psychological justifications for how they view these ‘social disgraces’ (homosexuals), but he can also challenge them.[19] By presenting Hyde as a grotesque Gothic monster the contradictions in viewing homosexuality as both closer to nature and a “deformity” are subtly, but clearly, there for the reader to understand, should they look into the coded meanings of the text.

Anne Rice’s Interview with The Vampire (1976) signalled a new kind a Gothic queer, one living in the age where to identify with homosexuality, personally and socially, was becoming more and more acceptable. One review by Jerry Douglas states that Rice’s series “constitutes as one of the most extended metaphors in modern literature”[20]because it made clear to the mainstream audience the deeply embedded parallel between queerness and the vampire. However, Douglas seems to have missed that almost a century has passed from the first uses of Gothic as an ‘extended metaphor’ for being queer, and it is not the homosexuality that is now hidden in subtext. The homoerotic content of Rice’s novels was so explicitly clear that despite buying the film rights in 1976, impressively the same year as publication, Paramount Pictures did not manage to successfully market the film for production for another twenty years and it was finally released in 1994. Although this proves that society’s view on homosexuality was still decidedly cold and the mainstream audience lacked a palate for viewing homoerotic desire in the cinemas, it also emphasises the leap that Rice was making through her Gothic novels. While homosexuality no longer needed to be coded and staked in a scene reminiscent of gang-rape by white men, the presentation of homoerotic desire and non-conventional relationships still needed the Gothic monstrous body to encourage the audience into a world of blurred boundaries concerning sexuality and gender. One of the revisions for the potential film was to make Louis female, apparently Rice herself offered up this change because she saw it as “consistent with his passivity.”[21] This compromise flags as one of the first indications that Rice’s works may not be the epitome of queer representation in modern Gothic literature, but in fact, she consistently seems afraid to truly obscure and distort societal boundaries of sexuality and gender because of internalised misogyny and homophobia. The film adaptation of Interview with The Vampire, although also written by Rice, downplays the homoerotic content to playful subtext and tension, refusing to risk alienating the mainstream, heterosexual audience by being too transgressive of norms. Coupled with the casting of blockbuster favourites Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas, whose appeal was deeply entwined with their heterosexuality and masculinity,[22] the novel that was too explicitly queer for the 70s became a cautiously heterosexual-aligned film in the 90s. Perhaps one of the most significant dampeners on the Gothic novel’s queerness and transgression of boundaries was the AIDs crisis, which took hold of western media and created general panic in the 80s. This made the triad of homosexuality, blood, and multiplicity of victims, which appears in the novel, a direct and unavoidable link to the negative misconceptions about and unsympathetic feelings towards AIDs and its victims.

One of the ways in which Rice succeeds with transgressing boundaries is in her portrayal of the vampire and the way in which the reader is encouraged to relate to and sympathise with the monster. Carmilla and Hyde, though metaphorically complex, are essentially blood-thirsty killers, lacking in capabilities of higher moral thinking and reasoning compared to Louis’ very human existential suffering. The vampiric predecessors subscribe to an explicit separation between vampires and humans, but this opposition between fiend and man has ceased to exist within Rice’s Gothic world. Louis and Lestat, though monstrous and, at times, deeply unlikeable, are never presented as inherently evil. By making the previously monstrous relatable and understandable, Rice inadvertently played a progressive role in attitudes towards those with AIDs, by blurring the lines between the monstrous “them” and the moral “us.” The vampires, particularly Lestat and Claudia, do not try to be ‘good’ victims, they are ruthless and constantly hungry for their next hunt, which they deeply enjoy. Lestat describes his ability to transform others into vampires as a “gift,” encouraging Louis to ingest his contaminated blood and make the transformation from human to out-casted other. The AIDs allegory fits neatly into the traditionally sexualised moments of feeding and initiation, which are also the moments in which the physical boundaries between the vampiric-other and the human-us is most blurred. Much like Jekyll towards the end of Jekyll and Hyde when he loses control over which physicality manifests, the sharing of blood fuses the Gothic monstrous body and the normal, human body, rendering explicit physical boundaries ineffective. Along with Louis deep suffering with guilt and self-loathing, the ‘us’ reader is drawn into a sympathetic corner in this metaphor, even if they do not hold one for the real-life counterpart. The monstrous ‘other’ manifests only in the literal sense of being a vampire, he is no longer a physical embodiment of immoral desire, less evolutionarily developed and repulsive, but deeply emotional and craving acceptance and familial support. The unorthodox family unit of Louis, Lestat and Claudia is in many ways a comical parody of the bourgeois family, with estranged, asexual parents and a spoilt child, created in hopes of strengthening the marriage bond.[23] Unfortunately, Rice perpetuates the harmful ideas that homosexual units mirror heterosexual ones, therefore prioritising heteronormativity by remaining within its boundaries. Rather than choosing to portray a positive queer family unit or completely distort the norms of the family unit, the trio are a demonic, abhorrent “deformed” version of the conventional heterosexual family. This links to Rice’s suggestion of Louis’ gender transformation: she, whether consciously or unconsciously, projects the idea that even in a homosexual couple there must be a submissive ‘female’ and an aggressive ‘male’. The creation of this dysfunctional family also serves to later emphasis beliefs that were explored in Jekyll and Hyde, that homosexuality is inherently selfish and purely to satisfy personal pleasure. When Louis meets Armand, he is infatuated with a “longing … so strong it took all of [his] strength to control it,”[24] and Claudia is immediately jealous, she knows he is attracted to him and is threatened by Louis’ homoerotic desire. Claudia cannot fulfil her role as a child or a lover to Louis, and her death by the hands of his new lover is indicative of the conservative fears that sexually immoral people, like homosexuals, cannot be trusted to have a family for they are not bound to the reproductive process or inclined to sexual monogamy.

While homosexuality and homoerotic desire remain politically and socially contested, there has always been a space for the manifestations of non-conventional sexual practices and relationships in Gothic. The monstrous body is deeply metaphorical and without that sense of transgression, it lacks the conviction of otherness, which is used to frighten or morally awaken the reader. Although in all three novels explored homosexual desire is treated as a social taboo and something to be morally condemned, by using the Gothic genre the authors can sub-textually create an argument against the status quo. In both Carmilla and Jekyll and Hyde, the destruction of the monster does not mean that the text has a ‘happy ending’. Laura is left feeling melancholia and lonely without Carmilla, often dreaming that she has come back to her as the “beautiful” friend that challenged her male dominated life. Similarly, while Dr. Jekyll may be overpowered by his monster, Hyde ultimately chooses to take his own life, implying that he feels a sense of shame and comprehends the moral consequences for the indulgences in his desires. On the surface Stevenson is saying that allowing the darker side of oneself to surface can only end in losing one’s civilised self, but underneath that he does not seem to condone repression either. The last sentence of Dr. Jekyll’s final note is: “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”[25] Stevenson employing the same literary tactic as Le Fanu, by ending the novel on an ambiguous note that queer readers could understand differently to heterosexual. Even in Rice’s novel, the source of much of Louis’ pain is his lack of self-acceptance and desperation to find a family in which he can belong to. The monster that haunts all of the characters in these novels is conformity and the expectation of repression of self to suit societal conventions. Through the monstrous body authors are given a channel through which to transgress boundaries and vicariously act out repressed desires, providing two moral lessons: confirmation for those wishes to conform, and reassurance of kinship for those who have found they cannot.

[1] Michael Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 54

[2] ibid, p. 43

[3] Max Fincher, Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age: The Penetrating Eye, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 69

[4] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 68

[5] Lucy Irigaray, ‘Commodities Among Themselves’ in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. By Catherine Porter, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 196

[6] ibid, p. 194

[7] Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla, (iBook Ed.: Public domain, 1872), p. 102

[8] ibid, p. 34-35

[9] Eric Savoy, ‘The Rise of American Gothic’ in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 198

[10] Jarlath Killeen, History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1825-1914, (Online: University of Wales Press, 2009), [accessed: 11 Jan 17]

[11] Savoy, Rise of American Gothic, p. 199

[12] Killeen, History of Gothic

[13] Bram Stoker, Dracula

[14] William Veeder, Children of The Night, p. 141

[15] Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (1886), ed. by Martin Danahay, (Claremont: Broadview Press, 2015), p. 34

[16] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 69

[17] Carolyn Laubender, "The Baser Urge: Homosexual Desire In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", 17, (2009), Paper 12, <h p://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-17/12> [accessed: 11 Jan 17], p. 25

[18] Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 2

[19] Laubender,”The Base Urge”, p. 23

[20] James R. Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2000), p. 13

[21] Ramsland Prism pp. 268-69

[22] Tony Magistrale, Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2005), p. 44

[23] Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics, p. 15-16

[24] Anne Rice, Interview with The Vampire, (London: Random House Publishing, 2010), p. 256

[25] Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde, p. 83

#let's talk gay monsters #im buzzzzzing #anon asks #personal #my asks #a literal essay #queer lit #gothic lit #lottie does a masters

3 notes · View notes

charliejrogers · 4 years

Text

Birds of Prey (Or, Men Suck: An Action Movie!)

Before 2019’s Captain Marvel or 2017’s Wonder Woman had the opportunity to be smash successes, Margot Robbie’s turn as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad, a character that was equal parts bad-assery, sadism, and unabashed sexuality, was the closest the comic book movie world had to a genuine female star. And, yes, that’s a direct knock on ScarJo’s Black Widow. Given the character’s popularity, Robbie’s interest in playing the character, the Me Too movement, and the subsequent success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, a Harley Quinn movie was somewhat inevitable. The marketing for the film made it quite clear that Quinn’s new movie, Birds of Prey, aimed to rise far above the ashes of its predecessor. The previews advertised Quinn literally killing off the Joker (and symbolically cutting ties with one of the most complained-about aspects of Suicide Squad) by blowing up an ACE Chemicals building with Joker presumably inside. It was the location in the previous film where the Quinn and Joker’s relationship was born. This seemed like a bold, exciting jumping-off point for the film. Combined with its striking art design and lengthy sub-title (Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) the movie had me excited to watch a spirited indictment of the patriarchy under the guise of a comic book movie. That’s mostly what I got.

The movie indeed starts with an effectively brief animation detailing Harley’s life up to that point: haunted by her abandonment by her father and raised by harsh nuns, Harley’s need for male approval and hate of the establishment were finally realized when she met the Joker, a man for whom she cast aside her MD/PhD in psychology for a life of crime. But she gets tired of doing all the work and planning for Mr. J., but receiving none of the credit. It’s here you’d expect some big fight between Joker and Harley culminating in the explosion from the trailer. But the trailer was deceiving. We don’t see the fight. We just see Quinn’s reaction to being dumped by the Joker in a manner similar to how break-ups are portrayed in thousands of other pieces of fiction: crying hysterically, getting belligerently drunk, getting a pet, and denying that the break-up even happened. All this onscreen activity is accompanied by constant narration from Quinn who, instead of telling the truth about her pain and insecurities, lies and brags about her strength and maturity in dealing with the situation. When she ultimately decides to blow up ACE Chemicals, it is not an attempt to fight back against her abuser, but is instead her response to hearing other women talk shit about how she will likely go running back to the Joker. Blowing up the building doesn’t kill Joker (he’s not even present); it was just an immature, symbolic gesture to let the Joker know that she wasn’t coming back to him (like he would even care).

This rather weak portrayal of Quinn stands in stark contrast to the character as portrayed in the pilot of the recent animated show Harley Quinn. Interestingly, the show has Harley, who has recently been left for dead by the Joker, empower herself to leave the Joker. Yet, the portrayal at the start of Birds of Prey is intentional. It paves the way for eventual growth. It wouldn’t be much of a movie if she achieved her emancipation in the first five minutes. Plus, it perfectly falls in line with the relationship and characters established in Suicide Squad. There, Quinn and Joker were a couple madly in love, always desperately trying to get back to one another. Still, by shying away from the truth and horrors of the abuse Quinn suffered from the Joker and instead choosing to couch her abuse as “not getting credit/appreciation,” the movie weakens her power, strength, and growth in character. Her emancipation becomes less an empowered victory over abuse and misogyny and more just escaping the shadow of her arrogant boyfriend. This is unfortunate as symbolically it is satisfying that even Quinn’s first step towards independence, blowing up the ACE chemical building, is met with punishment and the assumption by male society that she can no longer defend herself. Seemingly every other bad guy in Gotham City knew to interpret the explosion exactly as Harley intended, and now they all seek vengeance for Miss Quinn’s many misdeeds, now that she lacks the protection of Mr. J.

The actual plot for the movie focuses on its villain, Ramon “Black Mask” Sionis, the epitome of white male privilege but without the confidence, a wealthy billionaire man-child so insecure he lashes out violently in response to the smallest insult. Sionis is trying to acquire the film’s MacGuffin, a diamond, on the exact same day all of Gotham’s underbelly, including Sionis, is out for Quinn’s head. The diamond is inadvertently pickpocketed by Cassandra Cain, a teenaged, female ne’er-do-well (Ella Jay Basco) who, like Quinn, is the victim of abuse and abandonment and has now turned to thievery to get by. For reasons I won’t spoil, Cassandra is unable to part ways with the diamond, so the hunt for the diamond becomes the hunt for Cassandra. It’s a hunt that involves multiple female protagonists. There’s Detective Montoya (Rosie Perez), a veteran detective trying to make a criminal case against Sionis. There’s Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a singer in Sionis’s nightclub whom he forces to be his personal driver and errand-girl. And then there’s the Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a cross-bow-wielding bad-ass who actually isn’t after Sionis at all but is just kinda there on her own, separate revenge scheme. And, of course, Quinn inevitably gets involved in the hunt as well.

But for as much as the plot is about acquiring the diamond and escaping Sionis and his goons, it really is a film about female empowerment. The patriarchy, its inherent misogyny and perpetuation of rape culture, is the true villain. And emancipation from the grips of patriarchy is ultimately desired by all its female protagonists, not just Quinn. Detective Montoya is constantly passed up for promotions at work for decades even though she’s the brain by many successful operations. Black Canary, a Black woman, has an arc that combines misogyny with racism as she is forced into near slavery by Sionis (a white male who refers to her as “his little bird” and, not so subtly, “owns” an extensive collection of shrunken African heads). Her arc is my favorite in the film. And then there’s Huntress who… well, she’s just doing her own revenge thing, man. Like she’s killing dudes and stuff, but it’s hard to really link her with the deep anti-patriarchy themes the other three protagonists have. But where the movie really elevates itself beyond the sort of surface-level “girl power!” (that the Huntress unfortunately sorta represents) is in its willingness to be honest and nuanced about the brutality of sexual assault, even in the small degree it does address it.

Twice, Quinn finds herself incapacitated while being directly threatened by a man. The first occurs after her post-break-up binge-drinking night out where on the verge on consciousness, she is being caressed and fondled by a man in an alley and nearly kidnapped (and presumably raped) by two men. In the second instance, she’s hit with a paralytic agent. Her assailant crouches down next to her, puts her arm around his neck. “You’re still conscious,” he says to himself, as if reassuring himself like a man about to rape a drunk girl on the drink of consciousness. It’s rather disturbing and powerful to see our protagonist who is, in every sense of the phrase, a bad-ass be just as susceptible to be raped and taken advantage of as any other woman in society. No one is safe, and she’s not alone. There’s another rather difficult scene where the movie’s villain, Ramon Sionis, forces an innocent female patron at his night club, under the threat of death, to strip and dance on top of a table in front of the whole club. These are powerful and scary scenes that generally aren’t a part of superhero movies. No doubt, the success and nuance of the scenes is due to the fact that the movie is directed by a woman, Cathy Yan, written by a woman, Christina Hodson, and produced mainly by women (including the star Margot Robbie herself). If allowed to explore these issues more deeply, it would have been a fantastic film.

Still, this movie is not intended to be a deep, serious dive against real issues women face; I recognize its an action-focused comic book movie. And to that degree, the movie is mostly a success. It’s a fun movie with clever, visually-stunning action sequences. I was floored by its use of color (of purples, reds, and blues particularly) throughout all the fight scenes. There’s an extremely satisfying scene where Quinn infiltrates a police station with a gun that shoots out what looks like bean bags that release colorful dust/confetti upon impact. And the final battle scene in an abandoned boardwalk’s funhouse featured one of the most creative set pieces for an action movie this side of Temple of Doom, replete of trampolines, mirrors, and gripping melee combat (with mallets, bats, and kicks to the groin, instead of the often-more boring-shoot-outs.)

I really cannot say enough good things about the visual style of the film or its tightly choreographed fight scenes. Less good things can be said about scenes that do no feature fighting/action. McGregor as Sionis is fine, but Sionis is an uninteresting villain, and his over-the-top childish nature is boring to watch. The movie would have been better served by a villain like Jason Schwartzman’s Gideon from Scott Pilgrim vs the World, a well-respected, successful, confident, misogynistic tool, rather than the insecure mess seen here. Also, Ella Jay Basco as the teenaged pickpocket Cassandra is not a great actress and there was little chemistry between her and Robbie. This is unfortunate since the movie aims to cast Harley as Cassandra’s new foster-mother to highlight Quinn’s growth and this sequence takes up a good chunk of the middle of the film. I did like how the film explored the idea that Harley Quinn, though a “super villain,” is a normal person who needs to get groceries like the rest of us. Scenes like these helped to make Quinn more sympathetic but were largely hampered by bad dialogue.

Furthermore, are we just going to ignore that Harley handed Cassandra a bomb with a lit fuse, giving Cassandra no choice but to throw the bomb out a car window thereby killing one of their assailants?! Cassandra cannot be more than 15 years old, but the movie does nothing to explore what this obviously traumatic situation does to Cassandra. I’ll buy the film’s excuse that she has a penchant for pickpocketing as a consequence of her social circumstances… but you can’t tell me that she would have no second thoughts/trauma about killing another human being! Sorry, that’s the pediatrician in me getting out.

So yeah, I liked the movie. It’s not great, but it ain’t bad. Its weak dialogue and weak villain are made up for by the film’s great visuals and its absolute commitment to doing right by its themes, even approaching serious issues with nuance and grace, something that would never have happened if a bunch of dudes crafted this picture. And even if the first hour isn’t great, most of my complaints washed away in the last half hour when all the female protagonists finally join together and that awesome funhouse battle takes place. Further, it is satisfying to see that Harley Quinn really does change throughout the film. In defeating Sionis, she is able to finally free herself from the Joker, but also from all the men who assumed she was nothing more than the Joker’s bitch. The movie doesn’t leave much room for a sequel which in itself is refreshing. It tells a complete tale. Still, I’d happily seek to watch more of these birds of prey having been let out of their cages, free to take on more of patriarchy.

**/ (Two and a half stars out of four)

#birds of prey #margot robbie #harley quinn

5 notes · View notes

siryouarebeingmocked · 4 years

Text

haggardwoman

Being born male literally confers privileges and benefits upon you from birth. That is an extremely well documented, proven, and objective fact. Your personal feelings about that don't change the material reality of your experiences. Grow up.

durkin62

Only if you live like in the Middle East or something. Chicks in first world countries are the most privileged people on the planet

shatteredangel123

Op is a vile cunt with penis envy

haggardwoman

are u triggered 🥺

"Grow up" and "Are you triggered?" said haggardwoman, who blocked all of the people who disagreed with her and didn't have any real counterargument.

Which is odd, because it should’ve been really easy to just provide some of this alleged proof.

And of course our a bunch of radfems agreed, because why not?

Except for the part where most assault victims are men, men are also discouraged from many career paths, there’s strong evidence sexual assault, even rape, isn’t nearly as gendered as most people think, and there are plenty of areas where women are often taken seriously when men are not.

Such as reporting rape and abuse.

FGM is estimated at 10,000 or so, worldwide, IIRC. Male Circumcision is somewhere in the millions, and it often has no religious basis.

Said the person who blocked @gurrenbuster after, no doubt, only responding to a single point, and is hiding in the notes of their own post.

This does contradict my claim, except it includes women and girls ‘at risk’.

Leaving aside the part where circ was also used to decrease sexual pleasure in men, kettlekatdraws is saying circ isn’t necessary, but it wasn’t a big deal anyway. And like these folks always do, doesn’t realize there’s types of FGM that are less damaging than circ.

The person who just refused to admit male circumcision has any damaging effects at all is accusing other people of lacking empathy.

And completely fails to realize the “Empathy Gap” refers to the relative way society treats these two things.

Do I have to get the video of feminist showing up to disrupt talks about men’s rights which MRAs supported?

Also, MRAs call all that stuff sexism, and decry it all the time. You’re about to try and paint female privilege as misogyny, and I’d bet money you still won’t admit sexism against men is a thing.

See what I mean? “Consequences of toxic masculinity”. Not “sexism against men”, even by implication.

Also, most college graduates don’t become professors, and your personal experience tells us nothing about the overall trend. Even if it did, that wouldn’t automatically indicate misogyny.

Pointing out that feminist claims about male privilege are wrong is not the same as blaming feminists. But that tells us quite a lot about how you think of men and “the Patriarchy”, I think.

Heck, I don’t think you ever admit it’s possible for a woman to harm a man in any way, in this entire post.

Medicine has been catering to women and men for longer than either of us have been alive. Female crash dummies are regularly used. I’ve never heard the road plowing thing.

https://www.thelocal.se/20161112/stockholm-transport-heads-defends-gender-equal-snow-clearing

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/24/why-sweden-clears-walkways-before-roads/

https://econlife.com/2019/06/policy-and-product-gender-inequity/

Oh wow. So Sweden tried to create gender-equal snow-plowing...and just ended up with chaos. Apparently that women are more likely to take walkways, public transit, and cycle paths, but the plowing prioritized highways and surface streets first.

If you want that to go on in the US, far more people use the roads for driving, male or female.

Good luck finding a study of breast cancer done with men. Except men can actually get breast cancer, while precious few women have prostates.

Oh, and which type of cancer gets more funding and public attention? Why, it’s breast cancer!

Personally, I find it ironic how you lot say men and women should be treated the same way...right up until it starts to be an actual, physical problem.

#female privilege #misandry #radfems #long #circumcision #major feminist issues #sweden

34 notes · View notes

zionangel · 5 years

Text

So I’m sitting here at work, my office mates are gone for the rest of the afternoon, and I’m still flailing over Captain Marvel, so instead of working I’m gonna throw back to my college days as a women’s studies major and Analyze This Shit.

At its core, Captain Marvel is the story of a woman breaking free of the opression and control others have used against her, and reaching her full potential. It’s one big metaphor for a woman smashing through misogyny and patriarchy and opression. That is both amazing, and also the reason the film has faced so much backlash. But let’s start with the in-universe analysis.

From the very beginning of her life as Vers, other people have oppressed her, controlled her her choices and beliefs, and prevented her from reaching her full potential.

Yon-Rogg and the Kree took her to Hala and kept her there for their own purposes, rather than letting her stay on Earth, or taking her for medical care and then sending her back home. They intentionally hid her past from her. It’s unclear if her memory loss was a side effect of the blast and getting her powers, or if its something the Kree did to her intentionally. Either way, lied and told her she was a Kree who survived a Skrull attack. They lie to control her perception of the Kree as noble heroes and the Skrulls as terrorists. They lie to make sure her powers stay on their side, and under their control.

Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) knows she has dreams of her past, and keeps tabs on them to see if she remembers anything new that would be bad for him. He repeatedly encourages her to let go of her past and stop trying to remember it, all to prevent her from finding out she has been lied to and manipulated.

Yon-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence tell her that she has poor control over her emotions and powers. They put the inhibitor on the back of her neck to keep her from using her powers at full strength, even though we see no evidence that she could accidentally hurt herself or others without it. They let her believe they intentionally gave her those powers, and threaten to take them away if she doesn’t obey their expectations and rules. They tell her to suppress her emotions and not over do it with her powers to keep her from realizing her true strength. They present themselves as helping her, when really they are hindering her. They know if she harnesses the full strength of her emotions and powers, they won’t be able to control her, and they probably know she might be able to destroy the inhibitor if she really tried. So they manipulate her into obeying them.

When Yon-Rogg discovers she is back on Earth, he tells her to stay put until he gets there. He wants her to think it’s because she could get hurt or captured again, but really he doesn’t want to risk anything triggering her memories.

Finally at the end, Yon-Rogg tries to goad her into fighting him without using her powers, just martial arts, because he knows that’s the only way he has the slightest chance of winning. But moreso than that, it’s a desperate, last-ditch attempt to stay in control of her, to keep her subservient to him.

But also from the very beginning of her life as Vers, she does what she can to resist their control and opression, maybe even without realizing she’s doing it.

She maintains her sassy, snarky, funny personality and uses it to her advantage, even when they discourage it.

She continues to want to know about her past, even when she is told over and over to let it go, and even when she can’t do anything about it. As far as she knows, she may never learn anything new, but she holds onto that wish and hope anyway, and won’t give up on what she wants.

When Talos comes to Maria’s house, she makes her own decision to gather information from a different source so she can develop her own assessment and opinion of the situation. Once she does, she makes her own decision to act based on what her own morals are telling her, and throws away the influence of Yon-Rogg and the Kree. She turns on her former team because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s what she wants to do. She changes her uniform to show that she is no longer allied with them.

She confronts the Supreme Intelligence and tells her off, even when it seems like it won’t change the outcome of the battle. She does it solely as an act of defiance, to show her opressor that even if she can’t do anything about it, she knows the truth and she is angry about it. Except she can do something about it, as she proves when she destroys the inhibitor and breaks free of the Supreme Intelligence through sheer force of will. She unleashes her emotions and uses her power to its fullest extent, precisely what she has been told not to do.

At the very end, she refuses to play Yon-Rogg’s game and blasts him, not falling for his desperate attempt to manipulate her. But the most powerful way she breaks free of the opression and control is what she says after that: “I have nothing to prove to you.”

Even when women are strong, powerful, smart, successful, or anything else, they are often still expected to prove themselves, to go out of their way to demonstrate to others (men) that they’re really as good as they say they are. It’s just another way to keep women opressed, by making them waste time proving themselves to people who will never accept the proof anyway. It’s a way of making men’s expectations and opinions more important than women’s abilities and accomplishments.

But Carol refuses to play that game. Yon-Rogg’s opinion of her is of no importance whatsoever. That phrasing, “I have nothing to prove to you” is important, too. She could have said “I don’t have to prove anything to you.” But that wording would imply that there is something that could be proven, that she may want to prove herself, but simply isn’t required to. But by using that wording, it takes the very idea of proving anything to him off the table. It’s not that she doesn’t have to prove anything to him, it’s that she doesn’t want or need to. The very idea of proving herself is completely irrelevant and off the table.

Carol Danvers takes every single thing the Kree have ever done to try to control and opress her and destroys it. She becomes a woman completely and totally in control of herself, her abilities, her actions, and her place in the universe.

I almost don’t want to talk about how that is the true reason haters have been trashing the movie, because it’s such a huge and powerful thing and you just want to bask in it, but it’s important that I do anyway.

Carol at the end of the movie is literally a glowing example of a woman who is not just completely free of misogyny and opression, but revels in that fact. Imagine how that looks to people in real life. To a misogynist who puts so much effort into supporting and upholding the dominance and opression fo men over women, nothing could possibly be more terrifying. Even to average men, who are neither raging misogynists nor outspoken feminists, but are still used to and benefit from the status quo, that example is probably at least unnerving. Those men don’t want a movie like this, an example like this, to exist. The status quo benefits them, and if women start to believe they can have something better, if men start to believe that women are just as capable as they are, the status quo changes, and they lose.

#captain marvel #carol danvers #feminism #marvel #captain marvel spoilers

27 notes · View notes

thevividgreenmoss · 5 years

Text

Men, compounded by straightness and whiteness as applicable, are the worst theorists of loneliness. They operate from the mind-boggling assumption that there must be something structurally wrong with the world if they are faced with any indication that it does not wish to keep company with them. They can fathom no structural reasons as to why they might be deemed unwanted. Even the U.K.-based Campaign to End Loneliness (which does useful work focused on the demographic of aged people of all genders) claims that “nobody who wants company should be without it.” If you try, however, to apply this logic to childcare, health care, a minimum wage, or housing, you’ll be told that there are structural reasons why your needs are impractical. And pointing out that sex workers, like massage- and psychotherapists, are also in the business of treating loneliness and should therefore be able to negotiate for ethical recompense just leads to morality lectures. Companionship for men, as patriarchy tells us, is the natural order of things, and there must be something terribly wrong if a Regular Nice Guy has to pay for it.

Because straight white men refuse to recognize their own unpalatability, they come up with solutions to loneliness that appropriate the rhetoric of justice- and freedom-based ideologies without actually engaging in any rigorous structural analyses of their culpability in oppression. They don’t want revolutionary change but merely a polite tolerance that would make them more bearable. And this selfishness renders them incompetent to address the structures of loneliness as a social ill.

There are, broadly, two kinds of structural lonelinesses. One is the benign loneliness of the socially alienated, the other the malignant melancholy of the erstwhile master.

The loneliness of the oppressed is the condition of being exiled, being shunned, or having to flee relationship and community structures that have become abusive. All support structures can warp under toxicity, and family and community are especially vulnerable to the impositions of structural oppressions because of the unrelenting intimacy they demand from their constituents. The violence that patriarchy, casteism, racism, capitalism, and cisheterocentrism enact is multifaceted, but all of these structural oppressions remove the nourishment of companionship from the spaces they operate in. To be oppressed by any of these is to encounter loneliness.

Domestic-abuse survivors, migrant laborers, queer young people, religious minorities, ethnic transplants, non-men in organized workforces, people living with disabilities either physical or mental: These are some of the people who have loneliness thrust upon them. They are punished, as an identity, for existing, because prejudiced people with structural power around them reject them. That they face multiple kinds of bigotries, violences, and dehumanizations does not detract from the severity of the loneliness imposed on them, and to not notice that amidst all their other problems and griefs that they are also lonely, as soul-churningly lonely as any sad white boy with an MFA, is part of the crime humanity commits against itself.

Another social pattern of loneliness is particularly wretched because it is deemed a self-imposed choice by an indifferent observer. This is the loneliness we have to choose in order to protect our bodily needs: sexual safety, privacy, self-identity, self-worth, freedom, integrity. An epidemic that no surgeon general seems to have thought to talk about is that of domestic violence and partner rape. Men are often in the habit of asking why women choose to stay in abusive relationships. It does not occur to them that the oft cited “prolonged loneliness being equivalent to 15 cigarettes a day” might be a factor, in addition to every other indirect isolating consequence like financial vulnerability and societal disapproval. There is some—albeit scarce—visibility given to the loneliness of women surrounded by men—outliers in white-collar jobs, visitors to segregated spaces, travelers on the street, migrants in phallic territory. But there is almost no structural cognizance taken of the loneliness of women trapped inside family spaces. Public policy takes note of the elderly who live on their own and who are lonely because they have no caregivers. But what about the loneliness of those deemed caretakers? What structural analysis of loneliness accounts for mothers trapped in a space where their predominant relationship is with an immature individual who provides no reciprocal caretaking? What public cost calculation is made regarding the loneliness of children across the world whose biological families have to leave them without adequate care in pursuit of subsistence-level employment? What health care is being provided to treat the loneliness on both sides of international remittance economies across the globe?

The other kind of structural loneliness—that of the erstwhile master—is a side effect of resistance and victory. Which is not to say that MRAs are justified in blaming their loneliness on feminists but rather that their alienation is a symptom of the malignant misogyny that feminism has finally been able to diagnose and quarantine for. The modern male urgency to calculate the economic burden of their loneliness is appropriated from the struggle to ensure men pay a fair price for the care work they need to alleviate it.

...It is imperative to resist the disproportionate foregrounding of cishet male loneliness because the structurally oppressed manifest their benign loneliness symptoms differently from those who suffer from the malignant disease of thwarted entitlement. Buried inside the lonely-men essays is the threat disguised as suggestion that we feel concern for Lonely Men because Lonely Men can turn violent. This is a red herring in much the same way that alcoholism is used as an excuse for male violence; the problem isn’t alcohol or loneliness but patriarchal masculinity. Meanwhile no surgeon general is declaring racism or misogyny to be an epidemic despite the increasing number of people literally being killed by men “suffering” from these states of mind. It takes a special kind of self-centeredness to be able to cite stats that show that marriage hurts women’s life expectancy and continue to advocate it as a solution to save lonely men instead of trying to fix the toxic husband syndrome that is killing women. Men who demand that women concern themselves with the problem of lonely men in order to ensure their own safety are issuing the same hackneyed threats that patriarchy entrenches—a disguised demand that women invest their energy in socializing boys, in dating men, in doing even more care work than we already do.

Looking at some of the funded programs tackling the “epidemic” it becomes clear that creating spaces where men can feel free to be misogynists is one of the effects of how men warp community responses to loneliness. The first Men’s Shed—a community space where mostly older men could get together to work with their hands and socialize—was set up in Australia in 1998 and by 2010 was receiving funding from the Australian government under its National Male Health Policy. (There are no Men’s Sheds for any of the men trapped in Australia’s detention centers for the crime of being refugees on a boat.) According to the U.K. Men’s Shed Association the rate of growth of Men’s Sheds is between six and nine new sheds a month. (The U.K. government is planning to remove domestic-abuse shelters from housing benefits. On average in England men kill two women a week.) Public policy approves of self-segregating spaces with “old-fashioned mateship and . . . no pressure” (a liability-free way to say “No Homo No Feminist Cooties”) where men can be cajoled and lured into being cared for. Meanwhile sex workers, drug users, and transgender people are more likely to be harassed and jailed by police than be provided with spaces where they can be gently encouraged to talk about their loneliness.

The Malignant Melancholy

#*#essays

96 notes · View notes

feminist-hot-takes · 5 years

Text

Why “Pop Feminism” sucks

Feminism as popularized by the likes of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, or Miley Cyrus can be defined simply as “believing in equality of women and men” or “loving yourself as a woman”. I’m positing that this “pop feminism” is interpreted to be the practice of encouraging female autonomy. Women should be able to do anything and everything they want to, free of outside coercion. While much of the earliest feminist conversations have been centered around proving that women are able to do X Y or Z as well as men can, current mainstream concerns are more about encouraging women to actually do those X Y or Z things, and granting them the access and power to do so more easily, without judgement. Women should be CEO’s, presidents, senators, police chiefs, principals, professors... women should share equally in the power men hold over our society, culture, and economy. It’s a numbers game. Women should be able to lead free, autonomous lives. Be a sex worker! Be a housewife! Be a teacher! Be a CEO! Be an instagram model! Be an oppressor! Do whatever you want. Any decision a woman makes “freely” is then feminist praxis. You want to quit your job, leave the demands of the workplace, and focus on raising your children in a household, despite some fake “feminists” telling you not to? Do it! You want to be an escort and live off of rich men? Do it! A woman who tries to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, or who criticizes your actions to be actually ‘anti-feminist’ is NOT a real feminist, but rather a cranky old lady stuck in the second wave who needs to be fully liberated. Our biggest female celebrities are able to make millions of dollars off their sex appeal, participating in the “sex sells” scheme that has made women famous since the likes of Marilyn Monroe, and still be a feminist. This pop feminism is easy, accessible, fun, and profitable. Forever 21 will sell you “feminist” merchandise. Teen Vogue regularly publishes articles about “feminist” celebrities. Young girls can grow up watching scantily clad Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus shaking their asses in music videos, and realize their autonomous ability to “subjectify” their bodies in an empowering way, despite the fact that almost no male pop stars engage in the same supposedly “empowering” behavior. Ariel Levy discusses this rise in “Raunch” feminist culture of the 90s into the 2000s in Female Chauvinist Pigs to be highly influenced by neo-liberalism and the commodification of sexuality.

What is this brand of feminism trying to prove? That women can do *literally* anything they want to and still be a feminist? Then what’s the point? Pop feminism places the sole defining factor of what is or isn’t feminist into the conscious intentions of the feminist actor, rather than the effects or results of their actions on themselves or others. There isn’t even any strong ethical framework in place to judge what those conscious intentions should be aiming at. For example, pop feminism doesn’t ask feminists to make decisions with the intentions of say, increasing one’s day-to-day happiness, or dismantling patriarchy. Women should just be able to do whatever they want, free of disruption or critique. Without a concrete goal or mission with which to monitor one’s conscious intentions of actions, this feminism falls flat. A progressive movement whose label can be stamped onto seemingly any woman’s actions as “feminist” does not change or better the conditions for women in any way. If we as feminists are not expected to change or monitor our own actions, make sacrifices, or even cater our actions to be intended to accomplish some sort of unified goal, how are we to change anything? Where is the sense in performing the same actions and behaviors for decades and expecting some different, better outcome each time?

I would argue that this feminism even permits women to co-exist and excuse blatant misogyny in a cool “liberating” way. For example, young women may date or have sex with misogynist dirt-bags who see women as objects in order to gain security, housing, food, money, or “woke” clout, even when these women are not in desperate situations where this is their only way of survival. These men are powerful, and use women to maintain this power and status. This logic is troubling. If a slave consciously decides to remain a slave and maintain their perceived existence as an object or commodity to be owned in an effort to secure stability, housing, food... is this liberating? Perhaps in some cases, the risks of revolution or escape are great enough that remaining a slave is indeed a more safe choice. But I doubt anyone would say this is “liberating” in any sense. How is consciously intending the fulfillment of your own oppression liberating?

This pop feminism is rampant in the mainstream music industry. Besides the celebrities already mentioned, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Ke$ha are additional spokesmen of this philosophy. Ironically, Ke$ha’s situation with her producer, Dr. Luke, is proof of the phony nature of pop feminism.

When Ke$ha came onto the scene, she was the embodiment of the drunk, stupid, party girl character who puked glitter, had sex in public, and lived life as a “free spirit”. This caricature was framed as feminist, liberating, and re-appropriating the “slut” stereotype. Ke$ha is a liberated feminist! Who can do whatever she wants! Years after her premiere on the scene with the party anthem “Tik Tok”, Ke$ha quietly left the pop world to focus on her lawsuit against her abusive and manipulative producer, Dr. Luke, who held complete control over her financially and professionally. After years of public struggle, weak support from fellow celebrities (ex. Taylor Swift sent over Ke$ha $250,000 in show of “support”, but didn’t do much else) and a stint in rehab for eating disorders and mental health issues, Ke$ha lost.

Pop music is a machine. While Katy Perry shoots whipped cream out of her bra against an army of Snoop Doggs in a music video, she may be claiming self-objectification and empowerment. But on the other side of the screen are a whole slew of men, directing, monitoring, and profiting off of all things Katy Perry. Just as Marilyn Monroe’s sexualized image was directed and encouraged by the professional world of men around her in order to profit, the same goes for pop stars today. Only now, these pop stars tell us they’re intending to sexualize themselves. So it’s feminist...? Men in the music industry are now benefiting from the feminist branding, sometimes even more than the women they brand. They can continue to produce and control sexualized female celebrities as they’ve always done, but now, feminism is on their side. On the surface, Ke$ha may preach liberation and autonomy and intended sexualization, while behind the scenes, she’s suffering from the same mental health issues as notable sex symbols of the past (Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland...) and subjected to major abuse.

Why do we describe the identity of a “feminist” purely by a belief in equality for women and men? Feminists are defined only by sharing a belief, rather than sharing a commitment to action or goals. Feminism is then made apolitical, requiring almost no change in actions or behavior. You can be a republican and a feminist! You can be catholic and a feminist! While this apolitical nature helps the idea of feminism reach farther stretches of the population than say, the Black Lives Matter movement what’s the point in a movement that carries no firm ethical framework or goal or mission?

I would argue that this feminism of autonomy is touted mainly by women who don’t experience the more tangible and oppressive effects of patriarchy. Or at least, by women who are unable to truly acknowledge how patriarchy effects themselves. If women were no longer raped, abused, silenced, and murdered, then of course, women could do anything. If we didn’t live in a patriarchy, a woman choosing to be a housewife wouldn’t have the same implications it does now. Rid of the link between objectification and abuse, self-sexualizing wouldn’t be such a big deal. But we don’t exist in a vacuum. For the women who are daily confronted with the uglies of patriarchy right in their faces, total autonomy isn’t going to do them much good. Autonomy, of course, should be the result of the feminist project. However, depending on it this early in the fight against patriarchy is putting the cart before the horse. Autonomy cannot be both the means and ends of feminism.

What I’m arguing may lead to some conservative conclusions about women participating in sex work, pornography, etc and whether or not these actions can truly be enacted in liberating manners. As a woman who has freely participated in sex work in the past, I recognize the complexities of the issue on a personal level, and how confusing it can be to navigate as a young female within a capitalist state. It’s a matter of balancing the idealism of a feminist ethics and mission with the realistic situation women find themselves in while living in capitalism. Feminists have been arguing over the ‘sex wars’ for decades, and it seems sex-positive feminism has won. I’d like to dissect this problem more in a separate essay.

#feminism #essay #feminist

2 notes · View notes

wellthatwasaletdown · 5 years

Text

'They weren't shitting on Louis'. Nope not trying to shit on Louis OR Harry really. Its just a waking up... from a sort of fantasy version of them BOTH. Its a huge part of why alot of people felt 'let down' by HS1. Because those fantasy versions of them did spread further than larries. For the record I LOVE and feel affectionate toward all the inbetweener characters. Even when they're being dickhead misogynists its easier to overlook because you're expecting it kinda. They're young.

1D mid twenties now so I would be expecting more - they should at least have graduated to Peep Show levels lol. (I won't make excuses for the same level of misogyny from HS2). But good intentions, a desire to care, is generally enough for me. I don't write men off because they have stripped out every last vestige of patriarchy from their psyches. Just the desire to be better, the humility to grow, is ok for me.

I think HS1 was such a shock because a combination of 1D sales angle (think lyrics to WMYB, Little Things), magnified x 100 by larrie editing of facts, created this amazing fantasy of these soulful, beautiful men who were passionate and romantic BUT resolutely weren't looking at women and rating them 1-10 on a hotness scale. We live in a culture hugely shaped by a man who leveraged his gigantic world dominating fortune off a site that did just that.

In that context 1D, but most especially Larry, and especially the soft, endlessly woke and compassionate version of Harry, were an incredibly tempting escape. Once Jef came on the scene that image began a slow unravelling because as HS1 confirmed he didn't understand the breadth of Harry's appeal at all (he clearly only knows LA women). BUT regardless the fantasy was too much to maintain.

There's comments like these from Harry, there's a vid of Louis I only saw recently where he can clearly be seen turning to say 'Ooh she's fit!' about a girl in the audience, all excited like. They're just not the gay Saints larrie paints them as. Its not shitting on them to acknowledge that, but it would feel shitty to only acknowledge for Harry while carrying on pretending Louis is some sort of Gay Che. Or is this blog just meant as a tit for tat against Harrie insults?

To be clear I am NOT calling the larrie fantasy as sex fantasy (fic aside) I think the 1D fantasy, but most especially Larry was of guy - mates, who could look at you as a person not a point on a scale of 'fuckability' or a rating of 'style/fierceness' blah blah. And part of Harrys stand out appeal I think was that even now, even after HS1, if you could get him away from Jefe et al, my gut feeling is if you were to lay all this out in a discussion with any of 1D, that you'd get four variations of huffing, sighing and defensiveness, but Harry would listen. Maybe after the defensiveness the others would listen a bit too. But Harry would listen from the start, would be interested and care.

That's possibly just some more lingering fantasy but that it can still remain shows just how much Holo squandered, literally squandered on what I believe was Team Azoff wanting to use Harry and the 1D effect to relive their 70s glory days.

I think the others (apart from maybe now Niall) would react with an instinctive 'ew icky girls feels that aren't about MY feels? Do Not Want!' But Harry would want to hear. That is NOT an accusation - that is just my totally subjective opinion but I think its shared by many (including the nicer) Harries, that Harry was/is interested in Your feelings. Even now, even after the navel gazing misogyny of HS1.

Thats some powerful shit no? And alot of it has to do with how they all treated the sensitive subject of larrie, over the years, but other controversies too. Harry did just enough to let people write in their preferred reaction maybe? Like I saw someone say Obsma was the last 'horoscope' politician ie: he was always just vague enough he could never be proven false, allowing people to write their own versions of what he meant to suit however things turned out, and I thought ooh thats what Harry does/did. Its undeniably effective, whether its likeable in the end?

1Ds real USP was allowimg millions of females to enjoy male company, male banter, but with a special guarantee of safety : a little haven from the space where all young male company comes at the price of being rated, being graded pn attractiveness. It all started with the lyrics to that first hit. With Harry crying and being vulnerable to public ribbing - because thats so often us right? Larrie can be seen as a fight to maintain that as it inevitably eroded in the face of us just getting to know these very standard issue lads better - as they plumped for the modelesque size zero gfs, and as little comments, moments chipped away at that fantasy they'd be your mate too, no probs. There are no avg looking women in the friend groups, Plenty of v v avg looking men tho. So it was always going to crumble maybe, that fantasy, but Harry by playing it v v safe with Larry let ppl hold onto it the most. And then flushed it all down the shitter in order to fall into with Azoff ideas!

Probably we're not being let down or otherwise by any of our inbetweeners, we're being let down by a move from mgt team, which contrary to popular belief, really, really knew what they were doing with their modern female fanbase (where girls are caught between a desire for sexual empowerment ala Nicki, Rihanna, and a desire for a retreat to less pronified times - see twilight, tswift).

1D, then Larry was an escape where you could just be a person, not have to think about anything like Even lyrically they generally walked a very careful line between cookie cutter romance and raunch. Perfect for tweens, but alovely break for every age really. As a marketing strategy it was sheer genius. And it is no surprise that Niall, who has stayed with Modest has actually continued on that line to the best effect. The Azoffs onth have not one clue. Just tragically behind the times. Zayn is still with Columbia and Sony which shows why he still has that '1D 4 America' feel. Lilo? Twt.

***

I am going to disagree with you regarding Harry listening. I think you are still assigning that fantasy view of him being a caring cupcake to him if you think that’s the case because his comments, including the one that inspired you to write these posts (flat stomachs) and his lyrics say something very different. They paint a picture of a very insensitive and misogynistic average guy who has managed to master making people think he’s listening when he’s not. The others would likely be defensive, like anyone would be but I think they are more likely to listen and alter course than Harry. I don’t get the impression he’s open to constructive criticism. And that’s not just on Jeff or the Azoffs, that’s who Harry is.

9 notes · View notes

qqueenofhades · 7 years

Text

Medieval cosmetics: The history of looking good

So, I recently saw a post on my dash with someone lamenting the fact that in the medieval era, they would have been considered ugly as there was no makeup, and someone else offering a well-meant attempt to reassure them: that since they’d have no pox scars, rotten teeth, filthy hair, etc, all medieval men would think they were amazingly hot. While I appreciate the sentiment, there’s.... more than a little mythology on both sides of this idea, and frankly, our medieval foremothers would be surprised and insulted to hear that they were apparently the stereotyped bunch of unwashed, snaggle-toothed crones who put no care or effort into their appearance, and had no tools with which to do so.

(Or: Yep. Hilary Has More Things To Say. You probably know where this is going.)

I answered an ask a couple weeks ago that was mostly about medieval gynecological care and the accuracy of the “mother dying in childbirth” stereotype, but which also touched on some of the somehow still-widely-believed myths about medieval personal care and cleanliness. Let’s start with bathing. Medieval people bathed, full stop. Not as frequently as we do, and not in the same ways, but the “people never washed in Ye Olde Dark Ages” chestnut needs to be decidedly consigned to the historical dustbin where it belongs. “A Short History of Bathing Before 1601″ is a good place to start, as it follows the development of bathing culture from ancient Rome (where bathhouses were known for their use as gathering places and influential centers of political debate) through to the modern era. Yes, common people as well as the nobility washed fairly frequently. Bathing was a favored social and leisure activity and a central part of hospitality for guests. Hey, look at all these images in medieval manuscripts of people bathing. Or De balneis Puteolanis, which is basically a thirteenth-century travel guide to the best baths in Italy. Or these medieval Spanish civic codes about when men, women, and Jews were allowed to use the public bath house. There was also, as referenced in the above ask, the practice of washing faces, hands, etc daily, and sometimes more than once. Feasts involved elaborate protocol about who was allowed to perform certain tasks, including bringing in the bowls of scented water to wash between courses. They associated filth with disease (logically). Anyway. Let’s move on.

Combs are some of the oldest (and most common) objects found in medieval graves -- i.e. they were a standard part of the “grave goods” for the deceased, and were highly valued possessions. Look, it’s a young woman combing her hair (that article also discusses the history of medieval makeup for men, which was totally a thing and likewise also suspected of being “unmanly.”) The Luttrell Psalter, now in the British Library, includes among its many illuminations one of a young woman having her hair elaborately combed and styled by an attendant. There were extensive discourses on what constituted an ideally attractive medieval woman, and the study of aesthetics and the nature of beauty is one of the oldest and most central philosophical enquiries in the world (as were beauty standards in antiquity). Having a pale complexion was a sign of wealth (you didn’t have to work outdoors in the sun) and women used all kinds of pastes and powders to achieve that effect. Remember the Trotula, the medieval gynecological textbook we talked about in the childbirth ask? Well, it is actually three texts, and the entire third text, De ornatu mulierum (On Women’s Cosmetics) is dedicated to makeup and cosmetics. What weird and gross sort of things do they advocate, cry editors of “7 Horrifying Medieval Beauty Tips You Won’t Believe!”-style articles? Well...

First come general depilatories for overall care of the skin. Then there are recipes for care of the hair: for making it long and dark, thick and lovely, or soft and fine. For care of the face, there are recipes for removing unwanted hair, whitening the skin, removing blemishes or abscesses, and exfoliating the skin, plus general facial creams. For the lips, there is a special unguent of honey to soften them, plus colorants to dye the lips and gums. For the care of teeth and prevention of bad breath, there are five different recipes. The final chapter is on hygiene of the genitalia. [...] A prescription said to be used by Muslim women then follows.[...] The author gives detailed instructions on how to apply the water just prior to intercourse, together with a powder that the woman is supposed to rub on her chest, breasts, and genitalia. She is also to wash her partner’s genitals with a cloth sprinkled with the same sweet-smelling powder.

Wait so... hair care, skin and facial creams, toothpaste, lipstick, and sexual hygiene?? With the latter based on that used by Muslim women??? Zounds! How strange and unthinkable!

L’ornement des Dames, an Anglo-Norman text of the thirteenth century, offers more tips and tricks, and explicitly references the authority of both the Trotula and Muslim women: “I shall not forget either what I learnt at Messina from a Saracen woman. She was a doctor for the people of her faith [...] according to what I heard from Trotula of Salerno, a woman who does not trust her is a fool.” So yes. The beauty regimes of Muslim women were transmitted to and shared by Christian women, especially in diverse places like medieval Sicily, and this was valuable and trusted advice. Gee. It’s almost like women have always a) cared about their appearance, and b) united to flip one giant middle finger at the patriarchy. (You can also read more about skincare and cosmetics.) Speaking of female health authorities, you have definitely (or you should have) heard of Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century abbess and towering genius who was the trusted advisor of kings and popes and wrote treatises on everything from music to medicine to natural science (she is regarded as the founder of the discipline in Germany). This included the vast Physica, a handbook on health and medicine, and Causae et curae, another medical textbook.

Did the church grumble and gripe about women putting on excessive adornments and being too fixated by makeup and the dangers of vanity and etc etc? You bet they did. Did women ignore the hell out of this and wear makeup and fancy clothes anyway? You bet they damn well did. Also, medieval society was fuckin’ obsessed with fashion (especially in the fourteenth century.) The sumptuary laws, which appeared for the first time in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, regulated which classes of society were allowed to wear what (so that fancy furs and silks and jewels were reserved for the nobility, and less expensive cloth and trimming were the province of the lower classes -- the idea was that you could know someone’s station in life just by looking at them). These were insanely detailed, and went down to regulating the height of someone’s high heels. So yes, theoretically, the stiletto police could stop you in fourteenth-century England, whip out a measuring tape, and see if you were literally too big for your britches.

(”But, but,” you stammer. “Surely they had rotten teeth?” Well, this is probably a bad time to note that in addition to the five toothpaste remedies mentioned in the Trotula, there are even more. Jewish and Muslim natural philosophers and herbalists had all kinds of recommendations -- see Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean. Also, since there was no processed sugar in their diet, their dentistry was far better than, say, the Elizabethans, and white and regular teeth were highly prized. There would be wear and tear from grist, but since fine-milled white bread was a status symbol, the wealthy could afford to have bread that did not contain it, and thus good teeth.)

Of course, everyone wasn’t just getting dressed up with, so to speak, nowhere to go. What about sex? It never happened unless it was marital rape, right? (/side-eyes a certain unnamed quasi-medieval television show). Oh no. Medieval people loved the shit out of sex. Pastourelles were an immensely popular poetic genre which almost always included the protagonist having a romp with a pretty shepherdess, and anyone who’s read any Chaucer knows how bawdy it can get. Even Chaucer, however, is put to shame by the fabliaux, which are a vast collection of Old French poems that have titles so ribald that I could not say them aloud to an undergraduate class. (”The Ring That Controlled Erections” and “The Peekaboo Priest” are about the tamest that I can think of, but I gotta say I’m fond of “Long Butthole Berengier” and the one called simply “The Fucker,” because literally people are people everywhere and always. And yes, you perverted person, you can read the lot of them here.) This was incredibly explicit and bawdy popular literature that was pretty much exactly medieval porn (and like usual porn, did not exactly serve as any kind of precursor of feminist media or positive female representation, but Misogyny, Take a Shot.)

So yes. Once more (surprise!) the history of cosmetics goes back at least six thousand years, and is one of the oldest aspects of documented social history in the world. It existed broadly and accessibly in the medieval world, where women had other women writing books on it for them, and was just as much as a concern as it is now. People have always liked to look good, smell good, accessorize, dress fashionably, try weird beauty trends, and so forth. So if by some accident you do stumble into a time machine and end up in medieval Europe, you’ll have plenty of choices. Our medieval foremothers, and the men who loved them and thought they were beautiful, thank you for your time.

#history #medieval history #history of cosmetics #history of makeup #women in history #history of medicine

6K notes · View notes

lunarecord · 6 years

Note

I saw you added your commentary that misogyny and patriarchy are to blame for male rape. Can we also kill feminism and misandry while we're at it to combat female on male rape? That's how ridiculous it sounds. I'm not attacking you so don't bother crying, just telling you how it is. Very shortsighted to victim blame male rape on males.

you have to understand though, im not blaming it on the individuals. im blaming it on the entire system that is clearly also hurting the group people who perpetuate it. misogyny/toxic masculinity is not the sole cause of rape on guys, but it definitely is what gave people the idea that men are always up for sex, the idea that men who are abused by women are weak or lesser, the idea that men must always be strong and never show weakness, the idea that a woman cant abuse a man/that a man cant be abused at all, ect. which makes things harder for many victims. please understand that im not saying “its men’s fault that they got raped!!”, that not an ideology id ever ever ever support. i am saying that this system of patriarchy and misogyny does not only harm women, its hurts men too and this is a huge way that it does. itd be in literally everyone’s best interest to continue to dismantle this system of oppression bc it aint REALLY good for anyone involved. this is why the issue of male rape is a feminist issue.

also just sayin as a side note, the equivalency between misogyny/patriarchy and misandry is a false one; one is an actual system currently in place that has resulted in the abuse, mistreatment, rapes, and deaths of millions upon millions of people, and one is a vague idea that some shitty people who sometimes attempt to call themselves feminists or trolls try to perpetuate but is really never going to actually come into fruition. mostly people jsut tote that word around to excuse themselves being assholes, its not an actual societal structure in place.

lastly why would i cry over u sharing a different opinion than me? u literally have 0 effect over my life i dont really give a single shit about a random strangers opinion abt me/my opinions on the internet lmao. i really answered this to get my ideas out clearly bc i struggle with that sometimes and its useful to have a bank of my thoughts written out clearly on my blog that i can refer back to later. this ask is a good excuse to do that tbh. i would assume youd say that bc u assume that i am a sjw? i wouldnt call myself a sjw but even if i were sjws arent just a hivemind entity of crybabies yknow. they are a loosely categorized group of people with usually much more cool people than there are shitty ones, the shitty ones is just what opposing groups like to focus on the most. its like that with like, most communities.

#in case ur curious i dont really identify with the word feminist either #i just am myself and have my own thoughts and feelings about things #i do identify as sleep as fuck tho #washing my hair takes alot outta me #luna.txt #rape #misogyny #misandy #sexism #abuse #dont expect me to post much more about this #this isnt a discourse blog #discourse gets very stressful very fast for me and im not into it lmao #heressummera

2 notes · View notes

lejacquelope · 7 years

Text

Read this and see to destroy Toxic Masculinity Theory right at its roots.

Toxic Masculinity theory fails on its first premise: masculinity. Masculinity is a construct. It is nothing more than a set of stereotypes associated with males, usually negative ones like domestic violence, rape and harassment. In an age where femininity is recognized as something to be defined by the individual, feminists are eager to define masculinity for men, and assign it all the worst contexts.

Full stop. The entire toxic masculinity narrative gets beheaded by that fact alone.

But the toxic masculinity narrative fails in countless other ways, too. For instance

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Toxic_masculinity

"The pervasive idea of male-female interactions as competition, not cooperation" is listed as one example of toxic masculinity. Feminists fail spectacularly here in that male-female interactions are competitive across almost the entirety of the animal kingdom, and have been competitive since humans came down from grace or trees (depending on your theory of our origin), long before Patriarchy ever happened.

"The expectation that Real Men are strong, and that showing emotion is incompatible with being strong." - again, failure to understand the nature of animals and animal sexual reproduction. Very few animal species decline to dispose of weak males.

"the idea that a Real Man cannot be a victim of abuse"

https://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have

https://www.xojane.com/issues/domestic-violence-shelters-for-men

Are Jezebel or XoJane in any way an icon of Toxic Masculinity? Nope, they are feminist websites. And they mock or outright dismiss male victims of abuse.

"The myth that men are not interested in parenting" - apparently they've never heard of Caroline Norton and the "Tender Years" doctrine... ironically: Caroline Norton's complaint was women were losing custody to fathers as a result of divorce. Fathers who, feminists charge, have now, somehow, been "told by men" that they're not interested in parenting.

https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tender+Years+Doctrine

These are all myths that power the Toxic Masculinity narrative, myths that are easily debunked by reality, often by feminists' own words and behavior.

But there are many other failings of Toxic Masculinity Theory to address.

Toxic Masculinity theory denies the existence of Toxic Femininity.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Toxic_femininity

(Let us clarify here: Toxic Masculinity and Toxic Femininity are equally bogus concepts, but where one is asserted to exist, the other must also necessarily exist.)

For instance feminism says that women who abuse children, for instance, are not an example of "toxic femininity", they're somehow just trying to participate in supporting "the patriarchal structure". This ignores the fact that child abuse and murder by males and females alike happen throughout the animal kingdom and among male and female humans even before Patriarchy ever happened - namely, long before the Dawn of Agriculture.

Here's a fact that bears repeating, and that feminists try to downplay: females also commit heinous crimes. When a woman commits rape, domestic violence or harassment against a man, even murder, feminists don't attribute this to toxic anything. Women committing crimes against men are "one bad apple" (see the Geek Feminism Wikia above) rather than an example of "toxic femininity".

Women cheering domestic violence against men

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUna51rI_eQ

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2741047

is entirely ignored or downplayed by feminism, and certainly not referred to as toxic femininity. There is no guilt by group association at all that is leveled at women who openly cheer women's abuse of men.

The reality is, neither Toxic Masculinity nor Toxic Femininity exist. Masculinity is no more toxic than femininity.

But it gets worse. Women who are victims of violence by other women get no sympathy, either. This is a big problem for women victims because when females are interacting with females:

1. Females constitute the majority of cyberbullies, their victims mainly being other females.

http://www.guardchild.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/female-bullying.html

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2010/09/02/girls-cyberbully-more-than-boys/

2. Rape is reported in at least one out of three lesbian relationships:

http://pandys.org/articles/lesbiandomesticviolence.html

https://www.autostraddle.com/when-women-rape-everything-were-not-talking-about-185931/

(According to the CDC, 43 percent of lesbians have experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner compared to 35 percent of heterosexual women)

http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a19495/women-raped-by-women/

3. Domestic violence between women partners is also proportionally high:

https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/myths-ipv-lesbian-relationships/

https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a37015/intimate-partner-violence-in-lesbian-relationships/

Many articles that talk about lesbian partner violence state that it's hard for women to seek help when they're a victim of this. This is because of toxic masculinity theory: feminism has framed domestic violence and harassment as a male thing, using the toxic masculinity narrative. Feminism is completely lost when trying to address women-on-women violence, which in the context of relationships happens more, proportionally speaking, than male-on-female violence. As a result there is no significant campaign to save women from violent women partners. Of course the feminist-dominated mainstream media will not speak of it at all. Again, toxic masculinity has nothing to do with this, nor does patriarchy, when feminists themselves are exerting such little effort to raise public awareness of women who are violent toward each other. There are no marches about it, no ribbons, no protests. Why? Because that would interrupt the toxic masculinity narrative, that would lead people to start wondering, is femininity any less toxic than masculinity? Feminists can't have that kind of discussion catching fire.

Toxic masculinity also does not explain the rise in crimes by women - something England has talked about, but not America:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6402187/Violent-crime-by-women-on-the-increase.html

http://www.podology.org.uk/#/increasing-female-crime/4556339412

But there is something that does explain it: the pressures of life are weighing down on women more than ever before, making things more equal. And as a result women are losing their gourd the same way that men are, but to lesser numbers. As the society-wide "women are wonderful" effect wears off and women are treated the same way as men, their crimes will increase: which is not to say women are awful - far from it, it is to say women and men are pretty much the same. Under the same pressures they will behave the same way.

Going back to Patriarchy, we can see how equally corrupt women are to men if we look at Patriarchy's mirror twin: Matriarchy. Ancient matriarchal societies were notorious for paternity fraud. It was so rampant that no one really even cared who a child's father was, because no one even knew. This is part of why those societies collapsed.

But a few have persisted.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31274/6-modern-societies-where-women-literally-rule

http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/05/where-women-rule-the-world-matriarchal-communities-from-albania-to-china-3525234/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/11065364/Inside-the-Brazilian-all-woman-village-desperate-for-men.html

Here are some common things you'll find in modern existing matriarchies:

1. Women own property, not men.

2. Children are known by their mother's lineage, not the father's.

3. Women decide who holds power.

4. The Chinese Mosuo have no word for "father" or "husband" and women take as many lovers as they want.

5. Pornography is on the verge of being banned in Iceland, where feminism prevails.

6. The presence of men is forbidden entirely in Alapine, Alabama and in Noiva do Cordeiro, Brazil, although the latter has begun to invite men due to the burning desire for sexual companionship. (Proof that misandry hurts women, just as misogyny hurts men.)

7. Men cannot vote in the matriarchal society of Meghalaya, India, nor can they own property.

Sound familiar? Yup, this sounds just like the male power system in its most stereotypical form, aka Patriarchy, but for women, so it's a Matriarchy.

The root argument of toxic masculinity is that sexism is based on male power structures. Benevolent sexism, another bogus narrative, also supposedly springs from this.

The obvious truth is obvious: women can and do form female power structures just as men do, and when it happens, they are just as sexist, and sometimes outright exclusionary, even if women do it more rarely because men simply leave such societies to die. The difference is that women in these matriarchal societies are not in any way looking to change, much less give up their institutionalized advantages. The Patriarchy, on the other hand, put itself out of its sad misery by giving women the right to vote (something that the knuckle-dragging neo Patriarchs of the Trump movement want to revoke).

De facto temporary matriarchies, such as all-female workplaces, can be quite harmful to women.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldviews/2012/04/30/why-women-are-the-worst-kind-of-bullies/

Of course, feminists delude themselves that this wouldn't happen if, outside of these all-female bubbles, there wasn't a male-dominated power structure to be dragged in and blamed for these women's woes.

It never occurs to feminists that they were actually right when they said women are equal to men in character (and all other things). Humans will always act poorly around each other. The truth is men and women are both vulnerable to forming gender-based power structures (due to tribalism) which are equally sexist and corrupt. And feminism doesn't have an answer or a narrative for that.

The narrative, however is simple: our problem is not Toxic Masculinity or Toxic Femininity, but rather Toxic Humanity.

4 notes · View notes

robin-hood-for-freedom · 5 years

Video

youtube

Its been a LONG time since I’v done anything regarding Anita Sarkeesian. And to be honest, I wasnt going to make a response to this. But I feel like he actually raises some interesting points that are worth discussing.

to the skeptics and anti sjw's she'sseen in all ways as a force for bad adishonest critic opportunist a scamartist and ideologue a huge dick

I guess thats fair. At this point I dont think most anti-sjws really care about her though. I will say that, I, personally never got on board with the whole idea that she was a scam artist(though I can see why some people came to that conclusion). Imo, even if its true(and I doubt it), its largely a red herring.

so what I'll call the Internet left however she was broadly understood as an all-around decent critic who was unfairly maligned harassed and abused because she was a woman who spoke about feminism and about her unfair treatment on the Internet

Since you are part of the ‘internet left’ I’ll take your word for it.

I genuinely like Anita sarkeesian I agree with lots of her points and thought she was pretty cool before I knew she was somebody who everybody hated

I’m gonna be honest: Even if I was inclined to agree with anita’s criticism(I’m not), I dont know if I would really like her as a person or say she was ‘cool.’ Her videos and public appearances to me just come across as boring and uninspired.

To be fair though, my only interaction with her has been through those videos/appearances. So its possible she’s actually really nice and funny in person.

even if I didn't like her though I still wouldn't think she deserved the ire of the public you know threats and harassment from people who hated every fiber of her being

Looking back I’m actually somewhat inclined to agree with you. Aside from the obvious that nobody deserves threats and harassment(although those were grossly exaggerated), I actually think the attention given to her was unwarranted. That said, I think most of was less hatred for Anita as a person, or even as a woman, and more concerns about her potential influence and how that might affect games(and other media) we love.

Looking back that influence turned out to be ‘basically none’ but you know what they say about hindsight.

I'm gonna be looking closely at a few people mostly Thunderfoot and sargon of akkad

I’m going to point out at this point that I’m not really that interested in defending Sargon or Thunderf00t(especially not Thunderf00t). I have my quibbles with their takes on Anita.

the first big argument that Anita sarkeesian wants to make that looking at games we can see a general tendency toward centralizing narratives of male and particularly straight male empowerment and what's more that this narrative tends to place the women of video games into some pretty weird positions women are less likely to be the protagonists of games they're more likely to be presented as sexually appealing to have their bodies put on display they're more likely to take on passive or victimized positions as damsels their to be rescued by predominantly male heroes

You cold argue that there are games that do this. I could point out loads of counter-examples of games that dont.

But, more importantly, I think, is that she doesnt really make an argument for why this is bad. And even the limited attempts she does make, you explicitly reject later in this video. In other words, we’re left with no reason to accept this as a criticism, unless we’ve bought into feminist ideology prior to clicking on Anita’s videos.

If you want to argue that these videos were meant to be specifically for a feminist audience and that its silly for non-feminists to care, I guess thats fair as far as it goes. But I dont think thats what you are getting at with this video.

not being an expert in games myself I can't really go through er work fact-checking each and everyone of those examples besides that's not really something that interests me

I guess thats fair as far as it goes. I’m actually glad you acknowledge that you dont know that much about games(unlike anita). But I think you’ll miss a lot of the criticisms of her in that case, which tended to focus on how fairly she was presenting the games she looked at(not very in most cases).

He then posts and summarizes a Thunderf00t video here, I’m only gonna respond to one point then pick up later(watch the full video for context)

Jamie's girlfriend didn't need to get beaten up we didn't need to see her panties as she was taken away

I pointed this out when I responded to Anita, but compare the amount of Marion porn, to the amount of Chung-li porn, and then tell me how much men desire weak or disempowered women(granted this isnt overly relevant to anything he said, but it was something that always bugged me about anita’s arguments).

Double Dragon might be a story about heroism in some broad sense but it's also a male power fantasy it makes you feel good because you get to play as a badass

No, it IS a story about heroism. I can agree that the game sidelines and ‘damsels’ Marion(although again I’m not sold on the idea of that being inherently a bad thing). But the fantasy isnt just about beating people up for no reason, its about being able to protect and save the people you care about. I’m seriously skeptical that Double Dragon(or most other games) would resonate as much without that aspect.

I’m skipping most of the rest of the Thunderf00t stuff, because I dont think thunderf00t made the best arguments, and dont have much desire to defend them.

here's her second and much more important position that games being like that that's a problem Anita isn't just here to make a bunch of neutral statements about what video games are like she wants to say that video games have some relationship to things like sexism misogyny the patriarchy negative and pervasive stuff she sees in our culture

And since I’m not convinced that games can cause people to become sexist or other have other negative views(and neither are you as we shall see). The only problem is that the games in question offend her feminist sensibilities.

[these youtubers] nitpick small errors in her analysis see she spoke too broadly about hitman her general observations about video games must be totally off-base

Its not just hitman. That was just one of many, many examples of her misrepresenting or deliberately using game mechanics to painting games in a worse light than reality is. Also she shows no understand of how gameplay affects player attention and focus(presumably because she doesnt know as a result of not playing them)

cultivation Theory cultivation theory is an area of research and psychology that attempts to study and demonstrate the impact that media has on people the sorts of behaviors and dispositions it cultivates and when these youtubers talk about this theory it is always to point out that the research has proven it false

Not so much that its been proven false. But that the effects shown are much more subtle than is commonly portrayed, tends to reinforce previously held beliefs rather than implanting new ones, and may not even apply to games. Liana Kerzner(funny how you dont cover her despite the fact that she got a decent amount of attention for arguing with Anita), and AydenPaladin have both discussed this extensively, so I’ll just leave links to their videos.

let's say for the sake of argument that these people are absolutely right about their science every study we've done shows that video games cause no shift in behavior or disposition our research into cultivation Theory has given us nothing but a bunch of bummed out psychologists now assuming all this let's ask a question what exactly would these findings mean to Anita sarkeesian's claim that video games can be harmful

It would mean she’s wrong. Actually she’s wrong even in the real world where cultivation is a thing, just more subtle and might not apply to games.

but to me it would mean absolutely nothing and why is that well here's one big reason I don't think that science is actually capable of disproving obvious facts about the wa ypeople work media's abilities are cultivate behaviors emotions and dispositions isn't some incidental point about it that requires further proof rather it's the entire reason why media exists in the first place

You’re conflating two very different things here. Nobody denies that media has an ‘effect’ in the sense of causing an emotional reaction or giving some new information to people. But thats a VERY different thing than saying media can alter peoples long-term attitudes, beliefs or behaviors.

I agree the former is obvious. The latter isnt. And in fact the effect media has is pretty small.

let's do a little thought experiment say a film is made that is unabashed Nazi propaganda let's call it Lubin'sLubin

You obviously dont speak German, but okay.

every moment in this film conveys an anonymous and an explicit hatred of Jews let's say that this film is so horrendously racist that nobody in society can possibly be influenced by it to become Nazis the vast majority of people watch it critically tear it apart maybe even reflect on how silly and gross Nazism is

So you’re saying this film may, unintentionally, have a net positive effect on society. Go on.

now if what's argon and Thunderfoot says is true if the only way to say a work of art is toxic is to look at its literal impact on society then we would be unable to condemn Lubin sh Lubin since the film has no tangible effect on anyone's behavior

Oh we could absolutely condemn the film, say its gross or bad or stupid or whatever. What could not do is say its harmful. Because it isnt.

everybody with a brain knows that this movie is bad politically not in a way that means we should ban it but in a way that is worthy of our scorn and disgust

Sure such a film would be disgusting. But disgust isnt harm. And to conflate the two is not only disingenuous as fuck, but potentially dangerous.

By this logic, Anita Sarkeesian’s videos are harmful, because lots of people are disgusted by them.

watching Anita sarkeesian's videos she does site cultivation Theory a few times says there's a causal relationship between video games being the way they are and people being sexist and to be honest I kinda wish she hadn't said those things

Do I even need to comment?

you can see that she means something very similar to what we described in our thought experiment we can see this whenever she talks about games it's pretty obvious

Indeed. Her main reason for condemning video games is that they offend her feminist sensibilities. So non-feminists have no reason to accept her criticism.

she didn't wait for the Double Dragon studies to come in and prove that the game causes regressive behaviors and of course she didn't do that because she doesn't have to she is a person who experienced this work of art and she's claiming here that what she saw in it

Or in other words:

it stipulates that violence against women can be understood as erotic

Again, who is the bigger sex symbol: Marion or Bayonetta? hint: its NOT the one who is passive recipient of violence.

it just doesn't make sense to reserve our judgments of media to only those things that the work is actively calling for we also have to look at subtext and coding

And the subtext here is ‘kidnapping and beating up women is bad. And real manly badasses protect and care for the ones they love.’

keeping with our Nazi propaganda theme which I guess we have here let's use let's use this boy as an example:

image posted for reference.

this image obviously sucks because in the society it was used in it conveyed terrible ideas it serves to implicitly justify racial hierarchy and to normalize the idea that Jewish people were subhuman it

The difference here is the image in question was used in explicit anti-semitic propaganda. There is a history here that directly links this imagery to Nazism and anti-semitism more broadly.

Video games dont have such a history. Even the tropes anita discusses that pre-date video games, such as the damsel in distress dont really have such a history. The story of Saint George and the dragon(one of the earliest DiD stories, and the oldest anita cites) was about faith and knightly duty, not gender relations. Hell Double Dragon isnt ABOUT how helpless your grlfriend, but about being the hero who is willing and capable to protect her.

Skipping some more, because I dont care:

what he[thunderf00t] seems to have forgotten is that you can buy cigarettes under capitalism and you can buy an apple under capitalism cigarettes kill 400,000 people every year but apples they don't do nearly that much damage it's actually said that they keep the doctors away you might think that cigarettes should remain legal and I'm sympathetic to that idea but you'd have a hard time convincing me that they're not harmful to the people who use them

The difference is that we have loads of evidence that cigarettes cause real, tangible harm. The same cannot be said for media. Even cultivation theory says that media tends to reinforce existing beliefs than implant new ones. And its not always clear that those beliefs translate into tangible actions.

And I’m gonna say it again before anybody brings it up: disgust is not harm.

you may think that you can talk about the worth of art from a political or moral perspective but in fact that's just a mirage anything you say about media is just an unverified and likely unsupportable position and you should probably forget about

I would phrase it differently: You can talk about media from a moral or political perspective all you want. However, anybody who doesnt share your perspective would then be perfectly justified in simply dismissing what you have to say.

hate Anita sarkeesian not because of what she says but because of who she is and the damage she causes

More precisely the damage we thought she might potentially cause. Which admittedly in hindsight was an overreaction.

they talk about how she sucks because she released her video slowly

Usually its less about her being slow, and more about she failed to keep her kickstarter promises. I dont really go in for that because because I frankly dont think its that big a deal.

didn't like being harassed on the Internet

Look, what she has shown as harassment is no worse than what most people(men and women) experience. The vast majority of it wasnt even harassment but responses and criticisms.

I guess you could say that online harassment shouldnt be a thing at all. But I also dont think thats very realistic.

talk about how she's a fraudulent grifter who gets her lackeys to phony bomb threats so she can make more money

I dont know about the bomb threat thing specifically. I DO know that she used the harassment she received(real or not) to get attention and money.

about how she's a fake gamer and so she shouldn't be talking about games

Thats a perfectly valid criticism though. Media criticism is best done by people who actually have knowledge of the media in question.

these guys are unapologetically anti-feminist and because of that they see no reason to change media to make it more feminist

So you DO get it!

and they don't criticize and Anita sarkeesian's work because of cultivation theory I mean where are the studies that show that these videos are causing murder rates to increase

I honestly dont know what you’re getting at here. The only reason anybody ever brought up cultivation theory is because Anita did first.

And they dont criticize Anita Sarkeesian's work because she explicitly calls for immoral actions

Nobody said she did? Although I think if you read between the lines she has some really negative views towards men.

and they don't criticize Anita sarkeesian's videos because they exist outside some benevolent capitalist structure I've got some hot news for you Anita sarkeesian's work is actually facilitated by capitalism

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. But it does make Anita a massive fucking hypocrite.

no they hate Anita sarkeesian's work mostly because she says stuff they think is bad she's a feminist who wants various things about games to change and they disagree with her vehemently about it

And more importantly, that with all the attention she was getting at the time we thought the kind of changes she wants might actually start to happen. Not that her videos would turn game developers into feminists(because lets face it, theres basically zero chance of her videos turning anybody feminist). But because they might become convinced that there is an audience for the kind of games she wants.

Like I said multiple times: We were mostly mistaken about that.

Theres not really much else here. he just repeats himself. so thats all for now.

0 notes