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mermaidsirennikita · 10 months

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In your opinion what are the best and worst novels by your favorite historical romance authors and why?

Hmmm, I've read the full backlist of only a few authors, but ones I've read a lot of....

To get her outta the way, for Kleypas--

Best: Dreaming of You. Defined an romance hero archetype and one she would draw from for some of her other well-done heroes (McKenna, Simon Hunt, Winterborne, the self-made man is her wonderland and Derek Craven didn't do it first but he did do it best).

Worst: I haven't read any of her books set in the South and I suspect those are much worse, but Stranger in My Arms is my least favorite. Does the Sommersby Plot better than Sommersby because the ending is better and they aren't Confederates, but there is some Exotic India Stuff and I felt like the hero and heroine didn't have amazing chemistry. I think that in making the hero a good contrast to the bad husband, he became boring.

Hoyt--

Best: Thief of Shadows. Duke of Midnight is probably a close second, and Scandalous Desires is right up there too. The Ghost of St. Giles arc is the best Maiden Lane arc, Winter and Isabel are amazing characters, that scene where he laughs into her pussy and is like I don't know what I'm doing but I'm gonna find out, the scene where he pulls the pins from her hair and she's overwhelmed, the scene where he tells her would've loved to have babies with her but that's not what it's about, all the Zorro vibes.

Worst: tbh I don't think I've read a book of hers that is dull or bad, but her Four Soldiers series hasn't aged the best because the heroes are veterans who fought in the American territories, and a lot of their traumatic backstories involve this like... prolonged POW torture executed by indigenous people against the British soldiers.... And like honestly, I've read some accounts of this kind of incident and I don't think it was a binary issue morally. And I don't even think Hoyt necessarily thinks that; but I don't think it was executed well, and it is very, very disturbing to read about. Especially in To Seduce a Sinner, which would honestly otherwise be a solid, entertaining book.

Lorraine Heath--

Best: Waking Up with the Duke, because it's the greatest angstfest, and Jayne making Ainsley feel the baby kick and him freezing and being like "it's not MINE, it CANNOT be mine" and having a full emotional break in a garden with dozens of people nearby is glorious, and their goodbye in the middle of the book never fails to make me cry.

Worst: I mean it's gonna be one of her Texas books because as good as they are otherwise, two of the three heroes are actually! Former Confederates! And like, yes, they were teenagers (at least one of them was a minor) when this happened, but it doesn't super matter to me. And one of them calls the Civil War the WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION!!! Which sucks, because otherwise, Dallas is a great hero with a great love story, but I can't look past that. I think Texas Destiny has a heroine whose backstory is that her plantation was attacked by Union soldiers and terrible things happened. But idk, as a Southern woman who's descended from Confederates, I'm a bit "then perish" about precious Confederate Womanhood. Don't know that she'd write that today, though.

Joanna Shupe--

Best: It's a close one between this and Prince of Broadway, but I do think The Duke Gets Even is my favorite because it's enhanced by the leadup and the scene where Lockwood bites Nellie all over her tits HARD and says "I'm going to cover you in bite marks, darling". That was good for my spirit. I also love when Lockwood is like "THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE, ELEANOR (it's a big deal when a hero is the only man to call a bitch Eleanor, btw) DON'T COME CRYING FOR ME" and leaves with great dignity but inwardly is like sobbing.

Worst: I have not ready a Shupe I really dislike, but The Gangster's Prize is probably the weakest; I think she was testing her Mila Finelli style in a historical setting. And I liked it, and I LOVE the Mila books, but the Mila tone doesn't quite fit historicals.

Sarah MacLean--

Best: A Rogue By Any Other Name. The angst, the backstory, Bourne eating Penelope up and going "well you have to marry me now MUAHAHAHAHA" directly after, the scene where her dad is like, screaming at him on the ground and Bourne leans out the window like, "OH WHAT'S THAT??? IT'S YOUR DAUGHTER'S PUSSY. WHICH WAS ALL I HAD FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT OLD MAN." What an asshole. I'd have several babies for him.

Worst: Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing A Lord. It's not bad, I just feel like Nick is not the kind of hero I have come to associate with MacLean. He's too lovely. I think that Christmas novella she wrote about Ebeneezer Scrooge if he fuuuucked is much more her.

Monica McCarty--

Best: The Recruit, because I love a good "man finds out he got a woman pregnant and she tries to hide it but then he feels her baby bump and is like EXCUSE???" And then I thought he was gonna be one of those guys who's like "I can't fuck you while you're pregnant, what if the baby feels it". But nah, he's like a " babies can't feel shit, bend over" kind of guy.

Worst: The Saint, because I was so excited for the Illicit Affairs energy, and instead there's just a lot of waiting.. for them to fuck... There is an excellent scene where it's dark and he thinks she's someone else and he fingers her from behind and then is like "SHITFUCK".

#romance novel blogging #book recs

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reorientation · 8 months

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(This is the "centering" anon - btw, such a fantastic reply, I've been shaking since I saw it.) Slightly veering into real talk, do you think it's realistic to hope for someone who sees all of me? Instead of just someone who seeks to use my lapse in judgement as weakness to control me? I'd like to be controlled but in a sexy way; even in my "I'm a woman" moments (additionally I'm definitely still genderqueer) I can't separate my feminism from that experience of womanhood. Are there men out there wanting this mess of juxtaposition? Everything about what I want feels wrong, and it's ironically resonant to how I felt as a teen. Really tired of feeling this way and hoping for advice on how to engage in a healthy way (instead of constantly feeling drawn to return to anonymous cam sites where I have the best orgasms of my life then panic that the wrong men will find me or expose me). Thanks for your time and for your skill with word-weaving! If you don't feel equipped to answer this, no worries, I know this is probably a Lot.

(Previously)

Okay, a sharp swerve into seriousness: this kind of advice is definitely beyond my personal experience as a cis man (albeit one with many non-cis friends). However, on general principles and based on my knowledge of kink, I think I can offer this:

...do you think it's realistic to hope for someone who sees all of me? ... Are there men out there wanting this mess of juxtaposition?

What you're asking is the wrong question. It's very tempting to add up all your faults and complexities and ask yourself "who's looking for this?" - but people don't fall in love with bundles of abstract attributes, and they also don't add up complexities until hitting some threshold and going "nah, this is too confusing, I'm out".

You find someone who likes you as a person - your sense of humor, your taste in books, the way you smile - and who you like in return, and then you try to make it work. Sometimes it doesn't, due to circumstances or communication problems or personality conflicts or any number of other things. But sometimes it does. And when someone cares about you as a person, they're willing to learn your nuances and contradictions, because they're part of someone who they could come to love.

And as to your situation specifically:

I'd like to be controlled but in a sexy way; even in my "I'm a woman" moments (additionally I'm definitely still genderqueer) I can't separate my feminism from my experience of womanhood.

I'm biased by my experience with disproportionately queer friend groups in a liberal city in the US - so YMMV a lot based on local demographics - but "AFAB genderqueer feminist sub" doesn't seem unusual to me in the slightest, or something that would be a barrier to finding partners! Also, in my experience, people into real-life kink are disproportionately liberal (and nerdy - if you're trying to locate people who are into BDSM without going to a munch, find a D&D group), so the feminism part really shouldn't be a problem.

Gender play specifically requires an understanding partner, but with mutual trust and a bit of explanation, I don't think it's all that taboo or hard to understand - not more than e.g. a feminist woman wanting to be treated like property in the bedroom.

Really tired of feeling this way and hoping for advice on how to engage in a healthy way

As with most things in life, the healthy approach involves spending less time on the internet. If you want a romantic partner, find hobby groups or other social venues. If you want to explore kink specifically, you can visit some munches (non-sexual regular meetups for people involved with kink) to dip your toe in. Pursue things you're interested in by forming personal connections with people who you can trust, and you'll probably find things a lot easier.

#reor: anon reality ask #reor: reality

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overtlydinosaurian · 2 months

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Watching "The Incel to Trans Pipeline And Inside Mori" as a Radfem

Saw this video and I had heard about it but never really sat down to watch it, and I finally did.

youtube

I have... mixed feelings, to say the least. And the next wall of text is going to be a bit jumbled and I jump around a bit on things I felt.

Overall, I think the video is a really fascinating perspective and is worth a watch. It can be very frustrating at times though, and covers some heavy topics so be warned. Ok now onto my mess:

I'll start with what I liked. I appreciated the deeper dive into territory I think people are too afraid to discuss: the incel (or sometimes just "conservative") > trans pipeline. I think the author did a wonderful explanation and deep analysis of Inside Mari. I was grateful for the author to be able to bear their soul and trauma in a way that was understandable (in a sense) from someone who doesn't have that same background or socialization. I appreciate the final message (more on that below).

I feel for the author and I understand their plight (as much as I am capable of as a woman), but the video rubbed me the wrong way in some parts. It talks so deeply and empathetically about male struggles with masculinity and expectations, but not once was it mentioned that women don't actually have it easier. It isn't "easy mode," I as a woman am not actually rewarded for being emotional and feeling things like the book and the youtuber/author suggest at times. I am not treated better (in fact, when I've pretended to be a man people were less sexual and rude to me although I can recognize it's anecdotal). The comments are even worse, with people completely skipping over a lot of the misogyny of the assumption that women have it easier, that we can be reduced to just a few things. That the worst thing that happens to women is just men being creepy towards us. While the video, the author, and apparently the book mention that the main character was a creep and stalker, it immediately glosses over how horrifying that would be for a woman to experience and instead favors the perspective of the man, who is lonely and seeking to be understood and seen for something else and then decides that his behavior is okay because of this internal struggle (I understand the "twist" later but this still goes unquestioned and unchallenged before the twist was acknowledged!!). I am glad the author did not try to speak of their perspective being the female perspective, but it feels so upsetting to have a video that's supposed to be about how uncomfortable you are with yourself and how cruel the world can be towards expectations vs how you see yourself/want for yourself, only for a woman's perspective to be completely ignored and worse, that the idea that women have it better/easier/etc. is completely accepted and almost defended at times.

Again, the comments really kinda point out the problems I had with the video and the takeaway. Some of the most contested comments are (presumably) women mentioning how they don't "feel" like women, they just are. One of the comments is a woman who argues "it's not easier to be a woman" and she has so many responses arguing the opposite.

btw, the other top comments before this one on the video have less than 100 replies.

I also find it completely frustating that "billiam" can acknowledge that this woman might not have a fair perspective of men because she is a woman (fair enough) but yet he is still able to determine the perspective of women, which he mentions he is not! Why do men get to define and explain and relate to femininity and womanhood, but women couldn't possibly understand the complexity and loneliness of manhood? Reason: Misogyny.

This comment too irritates me. I appreciate the attempt to connect and relate to women but look what he says are the downsides of womanhood: assault, fear, discrimination. Problems with men? Expected to be respected. Expected to be strong. And somehow this is the same as the gendered issues that women face?

The only reason I'm even bringing up the comments when typically I feel that the comments aren't necessarily reflective of the video or the author's intended takeaway is because I feel that this instance, people ARE understanding some of what is argued by both the author of the video and Inside Mori. Men have it bad, and these men having it bad means they might have it easier as women depending on circumstances, without account for that female perspective from other women. That whatever struggles you feel as a man make it okay how you view and treat women because of the inner turmoil they feel. Just because they feel bad about how they feel or their actions doesn't mean their actions cannot be criticized. And I don't feel anyone but some women in the comments are even trying to criticize what was done by the character in the book and what the author was suggesting.

All that said, I do really love what I believe was the intended message of the video, that just because you dislike labels and feel uncomfortable with gendered expectations you are you. Just you. I appreciate that people aren't pushing for transition as a way to reflect on how society treats the genders and their expectations. I am glad there wasn't more of the suggestion of "wow if you hate being a man so much obviously you must be a woman!" that I sometimes see in these "interpreting media as a trans person".

I just wanted to write out my feelings, and I am curious to see the perspective of other radfems or actually, from trans men or other AFAB trans people. I'm not so sure some trans men would relate to this video beyond the descriptions of sex and gender dysphoria.. but I could be wrong! I feel my own form of gender discomfort but it's not a discomfort with my sex, it's the expectations that society puts on my sex, and even I found it hard to relate to some aspects when the author describes literally that. Maybe because I'm just more sensitive to the dismissal of actual female experiences and points of view, maybe I'm just the one who can't relate. Idk.

Not that it's our style (I'd hope) to harass, but I am not calling for harassment or to shit-talk the author.

#feminism #radical feminism #rambling #Youtube

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solemnrosary · 1 year

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tag 9 people you want to get to know better!

I was tagged by: The Grand Chicken @lakanakana

Currently reading: I'm not actually reading anything right now! But I'll tell you that the last one was Caitlyn Doughty's "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death". It was delightful, as are all of Caitlyn's books. I recommend her youtube channel too, ask a mortician. Before that I read "Working Girls: Trixie and Katya's Guide to Professional Womanhood " and before that, "I'm glad my mom died" by Jennette McCurdy.

Much like any movies, I tend to watch and read what I'm recommended. Young me had a school library right on my fingertips and read everything and everything, but adult me has work and is pressed for time and motivation to begin a new series.

Favorite color: Uh, I like dark blue, light green, yellow and orange? Greys and muted purples? currently.

Last song: Hozier - Almost (Sweet Music)

Last movie: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022). Very enjoyable, nice animation.

Currently working on: uh- what counts as 'working' on something?

Technically, I started on drafting a very rough bedsheet mockup for the vest that I'm gonna make for my Rölli and Metsänhenki cosplays. My own rölli and menninkäinen designs, btw. For funsies (I love the movie).

I'm working on myself, building some physique by hitting the gym once a week, 'cause I need some exercise and it's good prep for top surgery, whenever that rolls around. (waiting on ultrasound so I can get on the surgery waiting list)

I'm working on collecting some ideas for tattoos for post-surgery me. watercoloury/ink paintingy style.

I'm working up courage to draw and write again? I feel like I've mostly abandoned that due to work, but I'm trying not to pressure myself too hard.

I'll tag the first 9 taggables from my activity feed (woe to you, friend!): @perkeleensimpura @linesca @sienikartta @anaalikristus @hamyhamyhakki @viinapulloposti @kirsikkatequila @idontwannabeinhelsinkigayscene @gallifreyancoffeecat

..how are you all finns have I been a suomitumppu blogi all this time

why did no one tell me

#ask solemn #thanks for asking!#was a fun surprise

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frenchifries · 8 months

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ummm sorry but these uwu bimbo girliepop hyperfemininity patriarchy princess influencers are just the grown up versions of the girls who complained that “i’m not like other girls” was the ultimate statement of internalized misogyny, nevermind that they were the ones reifying cisheteropatriarchal hegemonies by violently rejecting & ostracizing the girls who failed to conform to those narrow parameters of acceptable female existence, especially if said failure was related to being gay or trans or non-white or disabled or neurodivergent or or or—

now they turn around and complain about how femininity is under attack—and obviously femininity is synonymous with womanhood, so rejecting the bullshit oppressive standards associated with it is a rejection of womanhood itself—and talk shit about how these insufficiently feminine women actually have “written by a man” energy (lol barf 🤮 don’t they realize submitting to what patriarchal society demands of you is actually the most progressive and subversive 4D chess of all??)

and go on about how their divine feminine energy and natural hormonal cycles mean they’ll be happier staying home while a man takes care of them, but until they can achieve their dream of being a trophy wife (btw ladies did you know about these top five items in your home that give men major squick??) they’ll come home from their #lazygirljob and do some #girlmath to figure out if they can afford their #girldinner, teehee 😜

and insist they’re too pretty to read boring books or watch intellectually challenging films, but it’s okay because somebody made a video explaining it in a way us stupid girls can understand! and, um, actually, i noticed you said something critical of sexist (micro)aggressions, which is pretty problematic of you because #notallmen and also what if a man had a good reason for doing that or what if a man saw you saying that and got sad? it sounds like you have some toxic misandry and internalized misogyny to unpack 🙄

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the-feminist-philosopher · 1 year

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You just doubled down on your argument that believing transgenderism is misogynistic automatically aligns you with conservatives.

I could give you a big list of horrible atrocities being committed by right wing men with access to guns, the mass shootings because of a lack of gun control, would that convince you that we need to disarm the proletariat? Does wanting an armed proletariat mean that you support right wing violence, because you agree with conservatives that people should have the right to own guns, even when those guns are being used to kill innocent children?

Maybe if feminists weren't being attacked by the misogynistic male left, and could actually have a voice in the left, desperate women with no resources trying to find support for our human rights wouldn't feel like the right wing is the lesser of two evils.

I mean, when trans activists are nailing dead rats to rape shelters, deplatforming feminists who speak out about misogyny, shutting down and controlling any conversations about women's rights to make sure that men are being centered, and witch hunting any lesbian who refuses to take penis, and sometimes even going so far as to rape and murder women, it's not like feminists are going to get any solidarity with so-called left wing movements, who prioritize males over women. Your movement is literally cannibalizing feminists and then wondering why these desperate women are going, "Hmmm, well left wing men want to get rid of all women's rights forever in one fell swoop by controlling the legal definition of woman, and conservatives want to chip away at my rights slowly over time one by one... I have no resources, who can help me?"

Idk, maybe let women speak about our oppression freely in left wing spaces, provide resources to feminists, allow women to have female only spaces and organize around our class consciousness rather than trying to maintain male control and male hegemony and male definitions of womanhood? And then women will come back to the left, where we used to be, until this trans movement (which btw has all the same goals of the Men's Rights Movement: destroy female class consciousness, destroy female only space, etc...) took over.

You just doubled down on your argument that believing transgenderism is misogynistic automatically aligns you with conservatives.

Because it does. The only people who believe this are on the right, often the far-right, of the political spectrum. You must not like to read?

So I am going to lay it out for you again (because copy-paste is easy for those who refuse to read):

Politically, TERFs have put their eggs in the same basket as people passing anti-abortion policies, people trying to pass girl's genital inspection policies for sports, people trying to ban LGB books, people who want to repeal the right to gay marriage, and people who believe that a woman's "place" is in the home- serving a husband and children all to score a political point against trans people.

Literal white supremacists and white supremacist organizations (See: Richard Spencer’s Radix) are trying to turn TERFs into “race realists.” And they're actually having a lot of success because 1.) the movement is chronically white, 2.) the movement is built a lot on social fears, and 3.) the movement often uses crime statistics as a recruitment and justification point. Literal white supremacists are using the TERF's social grievances and crime statistics to "enlighten" these supposed feminists about what they call the "race question." Over-policing and capitalistic deprivation of resources have devastated black and brown communities, making members of those communities the disproportionate victims of incarceration. Simply pointing out crime and incarceration stats without nuance, which TERFs like to do with their "trans women are all sexual predators" crime argument, has actually helped the bottom line of white supremacists.

They're also using the standard TERF's belief in the divine feminine-- the idea that natal women have a unique biology which should be protected and venerated-- to convince them that there are "masculine" and "feminine" energies and turn them onto the trad life. And they're tapping into the TERF's unaddressed "benevolent" sexism-- a type of sexism that positively rewards people assigned female at birth for observing their sex-assigned social prescriptions from presentation to roles to a cis identity, and which holds that women should be protected (by the [masculinist] state) and revered, most especially for their unique biology-- to convince them that "modern society" and "modern feminism" is diseased and the antithesis to their liberty. And it's working. It's working precisely because TERFs are so eager to separate people into "biological" castes so that men are men and women are women (and never the twain shall meet), define women as "the sex that can bear offspring or produce ova," and reify gendered associations, specifically the association that men are Aggressors and women are passive Recipients of said aggression. This ideology actually does quite a bit to uphold patriarchal ideas that define women as a discrete biological category and it also encourages a system whereby men act on behalf of and choose for women (the Aggressor v. Recipient social prescription does a lot to justify rape culture, or men acting aggressively on behalf of and choose for women).

^This is why notorious misogynists like Matt Walsh have shown open support for high-profile TERFs and have taken the "Adult Human Female" slogan and run with it. There's a reason these men on the "right" of the political spectrum can't stand the existence of trans people, but will voice support for TERFs and their ideology and use their language. The TERF ideology is sexist and they're sexists, so it follows.

Additionally, over the last several years, many rad fem leaders and organizations have come to ally with LGB &T hate groups and the Christian right because they, "know who real women are." It is these christian right groups like the FRC and ADF who are behind many of the anti-abortion, anti-women movements through the U.S. and Europe. They're also behind a lot of anti-trans policies and legislation.

You can read a bit about who is behind funding these policy initiatives, and how much money goes into these campaigns below:

European Parliamentary Forum

Southern Poverty Law Center on the ADF

Southern Poverty Law Center on the FRC

And you can read about the connection between these groups and trans-exclusionaries and radical feminists below:

Southern Poverty Law Center on the Far-Right Anti-Trans Laws

Southern Poverty Law Center on the Anti LGBT Campaigns

Political Research Associates on Partners with the Christian Right

An "Unlikely" Ally

The Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) even accepted a $15,000 donation from the religious freedom giant, the Alliance Defending Freedom. They've also co-authored anti-trans parenting guides with the Family Policy Alliance and the Heritage Foundation. They've held conferences and panels with Christian-right organizing groups too

We've also seen countless radical feminists appear on Tucker Carlson Tonight and the Ingraham Angle, two Fox hosts well-known for whipping up anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiment in America's Christian Nationalist movement. Speakers included: Meg Kilgannon, Kara Dansky, Tammy Bruce, and Julia Beck.

The term "gender ideology" even has it's origins in conservative Christian circles. And don't even get me started on their use of "hygiene" to describe cis people and the fact they co-opted the idea that certain people (in this case, trans people) have "contaminating" genes. Plus, TERF complaints about the supposed existence of "cancel culture" and "woke culture" echo conservative and right-wing rhetoric.

would that convince you that we need to disarm the proletariat

Some of your favorite pseudo-feminist anti-trans leaders are billionaires and business owners who run sweatshops to bring you the pussy hats and "Adult Human Female" shirts and pins that say transitioning is conversion therapy and rape culture.

You don't give a shit about the proletariat. Otherwise, you'd care about impoverished and prostituted trans workers. If you cared about the proletariat, you'd care about the trans workers packing your Amazon shipments and making your Starbucks and building your smart phone and striking alongside other factory workers and subduing exactly those mass shooters you like to mention again and again. And if you cared about the proletariat, you'd listen to prostituted trans women on the sex industry.

The US has a white supremacy problem. And there's a reason many of it's terrorists mass attack bars and events full of trans people.

You don't give a single damn about the proletariat.

So, let me get this straight. The people stripping others of abortion rights, forcing children into genital inspections, who want to ban gay marriage, who are burning books, who want a Christo-fascist empire are the "lesser of two evils."

"[T]he progressive and conservative elements of Fascism [are] bound together: the 'progressive' cause... is but a means to a 'reactionary' end, the destruction of the parliamentary form of government. Women thus [have] key social and political roles to play in the battering ram fascism [takes] to liberal democracy."

They literally believe in creating a white-supremacist, christo-fascist nation and you think "Yah, these are the guys to side with. But only temporarily until we can destroy those libs!"

You'd rather choose white supremacy over advocating for trans people even though advocating for trans people in no way attacks women. And then had the audacity to suggest I am misguided in saying you're motivated by hatred:

You cannot claim to have a genuine desire to free women from oppression while thinking white supremacy is the lesser of two evils.

deplatforming feminists who speak out about misogyny, shutting down and controlling any conversations about women's rights to make sure that men are being centered, and witch hunting any lesbian who refuses to take penis, and sometimes even going so far as to rape and murder women,

Only people being deplatformed are misogynists and sexists.

Men are not being centered in any trans-positive discussion of human rights or misogyny or sexism. You're just a bigot who cannot see trans women for who they are.

"How one becomes a woman is not, I think, our job to police, even as everything about that process is worth inquiry and detailed understanding. Having been surrounded by born women who do not identify as women particularly, and reject feminism as having nothing to do with them, it has been inspiring to encounter transwomen who do identify as women, actively oppose violence against women including prostitution (in which those who engage have little choice), and are strong feminists. “Woman” can be, in part, a political identification. To be a woman, one does have to live women’s status. Transwomen are living it, and in my experience bring a valuable perspective on it as well." -Catharine Mackinnon

Trans women are women.

No one is hunting down lesbians who don't want to suck dick. This is an outrageous outrage-buzz point. No one is forcing this. This is not a thing. There is no observable pattern of behavior among all trans women that suggests lesbians are systematically pressured into taking dick. The trans community- the community, the whole- recognizes that it is okay to not want to have sex with someone. You can say no or yes to anyone you want and literally do not need to justify it.

(But, please, for the love of fuck, do come up to someone- even a trans person- and, unprompted, talk about how you don't want to have sex with them and think their genitalia is disgusting and thay are just *so* unattractive. That is sexual harassment. Rule of thumb: if you'd slap a man for saying it, don't repeat it to a trans woman.)

it's not like feminists are going to get any solidarity with so-called left wing movements, who prioritize males over women

And the right-wing prioritizes women? They find solidarity there? I'm sure they certainly don't prioritize traditional gender roles or anti-abortion, or marital rape (/sarcasm).

THESE are literally the people who are trying to deny you your rights in "one fell swoop." They are hardly the lesser of two evils. In the US, most of the most prominent anti-abortionists are being investigated for child sex trafficking. They want to murder all Jewish people and start a race war. They believe we should be ruled by biblical law; that we should put people to death for being gay, trans, or an adulterer. They literally support child-marriage. They're dismantling voting rights, dismantling Title IX, dismantling bodily autonomy rights, and dismantling non-discrimination laws and you think they're the "lesser of two evils?"

Your movement is literally cannibalizing feminists and then wondering why these desperate women are going, "Hmmm, well left wing men want to get rid of all women's rights forever in one fell swoop by controlling the legal definition of woman ...allow women to have female only spaces and organize around our class consciousness rather than trying to maintain male control and male hegemony and male definitions of womanhood

Okay, so, again, feminists- true feminists- reject the attempt define womanhood because it is inherently subjective. They understand that defining a woman and one experience of women ("womanhood") 1.) will leave a lot of women out, and 2.) is ultimately about power.

We can no longer ignore how biology, biological discourse, and the terms and words we use to refer to our material reality are structured by historic and current social and political views. A biological reality becomes cognitively significant through this discourse and these terms we use and concepts we engage with. So, defining “women” as “females” -- and thus emphasizing a label that is ascribed to all at birth along patriarchal standards of "correct" genitalia and "best" fertility -- is itself a political choice influenced by one’s socialization rather than one that can claim to neutrally reflect what the world is “really” and "materially" like.

The reliance upon one standard definition not just for the women's-experience, but also for the female-experience, is laughable, at best. And not just because definitions are inherently imprecise and inadequately encompass the entirety of our lived experienced and the material world. But also because the definitions of words are literally socially constructed. They were created and have since been defined and influenced by oppressive structures like the patriarchy and white supremacy and colonialism. This defining of our experiences is influenced by cissexism, intersexism, heterosexism, and sexism.

There isn't a single property that makes "womanhood" or "femaleness." And that's pretty widely accepted. There's no single thing that single-handedly makes for "womanhood." It's not like after a certain number or configuration of properties converging at a particular time, you get "womanhood." There should never be some one standard against which all bodies are compared or measured for the correct amount of "femaleness" or "womanhood."

So, when people want to create a standard measure for "femaleness" or "womanhood," we need to ask WHO gets to set these standards or properties of "femaleness" or "womanhood" and WHY they're the authority. In any claim about which measures or properties are adequately "woman-enough" are assumptions about power and authority. Who has the power and authority in our society to decide who is "woman-enough?"

The fact society defines "women" as ova producers and child bearers (i.e. the very definition of human female; the sex that has the ability or potential to bear offspring or produce eggs) or even as vagina havers and uterus havers (i.e. the insistence that, "only someone with a uterus or vagina is a woman") is a result of socialization in a male dominant society that has striven to define "woman" as a discrete biological class, female.

Even radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon (an actual radical feminist, and she supports trans women) understood that to be defined as female is to be an object. You do not get to consent to yourself; to your femaleness. It has been defined and ascribed to you and for you. Because male dominant society must see to it that female is a woman and "clearly" a woman, opposite that of "man." It must see to it that women are women and men are men and that the two ought be separate because this allows said society to prescribe certain bounds to each group.

Certain bounds of behavior. Certain bounds of public life. Certain bounds of private life. Certain bounds of presentation.

And this all helps foster the reification of gendered associations that decrease the perception of women as empowered agents and even human. These bounds of behavior assign to men the role of Aggressor and to women the role of passive Recipient, helping to reproduce sexual violence against women by decreasing their agency. These social prescriptions encourage men to act on behalf of women from making financial or relationship decisions, to deciding when and where and how a woman has sex, to the definition and social prescription of "female," and to the reproductive alienation of those assigned female.

Thus, "female" is far from a neutral scientific observation and "woman" is far from a scientific category.

“Any attempt to catalog the commonalities among women … has the inescapable result that there is some correct way to be a woman. This will inevitably encourage and legitimize certain experiences of gender and discourage and delegitimize others, subtly reinforcing and entrenching precisely those forces of socialization of which feminists claim to be critical.” -Carol Hay

And then women will come back to the left, where we used to be, until this trans movement (which btw has all the same goals of the Men's Rights Movement: destroy female class consciousness, destroy female only space, etc…) took over.

AKA... restrict trans people's bodily autonomy and existence for my own comfort because you don't have any actual ideas for how to advance a woman's life unless your work is tied to suppressing the rights of some other group. You don't want to liberate women, you want to throw trans women under the bus and use their backs as a stepping stone or ladder so your skirt doesn't get dragged through the mud.

You guys hate femininity, so have no solution to the arbitrary gendering of clothes and clothing standards beyond shaming women for wearing them as "not feminist enough." And then when they walk into a bathroom looking a little too "male" for your liking, they're harassed, forcing women into a double bind where they aren't feminist enough for you if they are feminine, but also aren't "female" enough for you if they are not feminine.

You don't want to do anything to attack the gender binary or the idea that if female->woman->feminine, if male->man->masculine. You simply don't. You don't want to challenge the idea that certain types of dress and behavior and standards *must* apply to people on the basis of the sex caste they were assigned into. I mean, the transphobe go-to insult for trans women is "men in dresses," which makes no sense as an insult unless you think that dressers are inherently lesser because society deemed them "feminine" and because you think men "shouldn't" wear dresses.

You don't want to tackle gender differentiation- of the idea that men are men and women are women and they fundamentally must be two separate and impermeable castes.

You don't want to tackle benevolent sexism and the deification of (certain) women (as long as they follow certain behaviors). You're group will claim that having a period is materially neutral in one breath and then in the next say that people should be celebrated for their fertility. Without any consideration for how the necessity of (white) female fertility is a patriarchal and white supremacist construct.

You're all unwilling to use epicenic language, like person-first language (person with the capacity for pregnancy), second-person language (if you can get pregnant...), or gender-neutral language (chair/chairperson, camera operator, parent, child, etc...).

You all literally do not want to abolish gender or the gender-sex binary. You don't want to create a society of gender-non/existent/neutral children. You all think that's indoctrinating them into "transness." All you want to do is legislate trans people out of existence. You want to make their identities non-existent. You don't want to abolish gender, you want to abolish the chance for permeable gender expression in favor of a gender that is acceptable to you.

You want to silence trans voices, not uplift women. You want to use trans bodies as your platform from which to preach and evangelize your ideal binary and the standard for which you believe all women should meet to qualify for "womanhood."

Modern feminism holds that social categories intersect at the individual level to reflect multiple interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the social-structural level. Intersectionality is about overlapping systems of oppression and privilege, and how inequalities operate together and exacerbate each other.

The TERF's insistence that cis women (“females” as you’d put it) are a culturally subordinate caste while trans women are members of the oppressor caste entirely discounts the ways in which sex, gender, and cis/trans status intersect. “These intersections produce more complex, shifting, and context- dependent power relationships than are captured by [a simple, binary] M > F formula.” This M > F formula also leads to an over-emphasis of sex subordination in TERF circles to the point that many believe that the patriarchy is the most pivotal and consequential axis of oppression. Too many completely write-off or ignore the intersection of privileges and marginalizations, from racism to cissexism to homophobia to intersexism to classism.

This has led the rad fem movement to fail to address how these systems are reproduced within their organizations, which is why the movement remains chronically white and middle class and predominately straight. This also lead them to ignore the way women play a part in the reproduction of oppressive systems (and even the degradation of democracy), making it easy for anti-pluralistic ideologies which deny these oppressions to spread among TERF ranks.

This is also how we get reductive takes like, "It's empowering to deny a homeless man socks when you're a woman, because he's a man." And this take is all over TERF twitter, calling them "moids."

Trans women do not have systemic power over cis women. They do not have access to the patriarchal power structure and are unable to wield it in their favor. The patriarchy literally hates their existence. All the misogynistic men who rush to the defense of white women like JK are all well known for despising trans people. There isn't a single "MRA" who doesn't want trans people dead.

The fight for bodily autonomy and freedom to live and let live; to identify however one sees fit is hardly "cannibalizing" the left. Transphobes will not be accepted in feminist and liberation movements, period. That isn't cannibalizing our own, that's letting reductive and reactionary movements know they aren't invited and we will not tolerate them. You've made your bed with literal Nazis. We don't want you among our ranks. You are not a feminist. And now you feel put out because you have to sleep in the bed you made.

Amazing. Everything you just said is wrong.

The only reason that femininity (defined as: the attributes or characteristics of a woman) is considered "weak" is because the patriarchy has convinced you that women are "weak" and that anything feminine is inherently "lesser." Nothing about femininity is inherently about being weak or pretty or demure or delicate or graceful. Even "feminine," the adjective that oft refers to those traditional standards has more than one application. As a noun, it literally just refers to a gender or the female sex.

It's literally just the characteristics you use to define your own femaleness. There's nothing capitalist in self-identity and forging your own path of "womanhood."

But the patriarchy has convinced you that anything and everything the female sex does is "lesser;" that any attribute a woman characterizes herself with becomes "weaker."

"Online alt-right corners have demonized feminist paradigms in an incredibly effective way. They saw the disaffection women felt toward the idea of convenient incrementalism and how it failed to liberate women. So, they made feminism synonymous with stagnation.

They saw women's legitimate grievances against systemic violence and oppressive structures and how addressing them would challenge male-dominance in society. So, they used those grievances to convince some women that other women with less social capitol and power are a threat and the reason for their insecurity.

Suddenly, liberal feminism no longer referred to a paradigm; to a type of feminist theory that held that laws are the primary barrier to civil emancipation. It was a boogeyman. And its existence was a threat to women. So it must be destroyed.

Women have key social and political roles to play in the battering ram that fascism takes to liberal democracy. The white man needs the white women. He cannot hope to uphold white supremacy and the hierarchy of race and sex without her.

Convincing women that feminism is really just their oppression repackaged in pink sparkles was one of the smartest things the alt-right could have done. They've been convinced that feminism has become 'girlbossing' and denying your material reality and the exploitation of your labor and alienation from your reproductive functions and the destruction of happiness and family and community and inherently capitalist. It isn't your liberation. Its your prison; the place of eternal double-binds where you aren't "woman-enough" if you can't have kids but you aren't "feminist enough" if you chose to be a mother." X

#long post

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imethirdperson · 2 months

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I like Zhu because she's very sadistic but also like very measured and polite.

Zhu isn't like self-conscious or bashful, she's ultra confident and self-assured but still she's very understated because she's a politician. And l like this tension in her where she has this very cruel/cold/unempathetic streak that she loves to indulge in sometimes but is also constantly balancing out with her gentle respectful know-how. BUT the respectful front is just as genuine, it's not a lie. And when the two parts of her just bleed into each other, and she manages to be violent with respect or respectful with violence *chef's kiss*(I would have liked if she had a bit more of an inner conflict over this tbh. Especially since these books are so obsessed with villainy and victimhood on other characters. I think Zhu could have been the perfect posterchild for the dichotomy. But oh well. This is partly why the ending felt unearned. It stripped Zhu of power as a dark event horizon, but that doesn't align with her previous character arc. It would have been more interesting to see her manage immense power. I honestly think giving her a big loss was a mistake

Also Zhu reads as very agender. And I think she's attractive in an agender way. Like if she was cis I don't think I would find her as interesting. She's a blank slate that just takes on whatever role is most convenient. And whatever she *feels* about it just gets subsumed in her exhilarating race to the throne. Gender is a cumbersome obligation she can take advantage of by staying mentally one step ahead (because she's good at that due to being a bit of trickster entity by genre requirement). Or is that only what she tells herself? She seems to derive a lot of joy from like that type of performative gentlemanliness especially in group dynamics. Even in private with Ma she takes on that playful silly husband-nagging wife dynamic which has like so many layers of ironic theatricality it's hard to decode (which is the point). I'd say Zhu reads more as a man to me. But her inner adherence to womanhood makes her agender. Somehow (and I'm totally separating her actual gender from her grammatical gender btw no correlation). Maybe it is because I make a bit of a monk-androgyne equivalence in my head.

I also like it when a character is so peaceful it loops back into threatening.

#there is probably a delicious problematic correlation between her gender ambivalence and her moral ambivalence #but I won't get into it #hwdtw

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dayjdontwakeme · 7 months

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Rebranding of Independent Womanhood & Anti-agreeability as a status symbol

I once (actually twice) read a book that stated “Six-Figure women MUST have and maintain audacity”

Just enough pure audacity to think that they can; to think they deserve; & to get under the right peoples skin by asking the right questions. The kind of questions that identify problems and bring about solutions.

The term independent woman has really gotten a bad rep in the last decade… I think it’s time I reclaim it.

To be independent means to stand without a crutch. Our crutches come in many shapes and forms.

For me, my mother has been a crutch. I’ve used my social circle has a crutch (learning to be alone) I’ve allowed smoking weed to be a crutch. I’ve even justified laziness and it’s been a crutch. It’s time for me to take back my independent state of mind.

It requires wisdom to change btw!

And being successful is ALWAYS a blessing- even as a black women- therefore let’s refuse to let twitter tell us any different.

It’s true enough; I’ve been known to be disagreeable. Fortunately I’m twice as reliable and three times as capable. I’ve been called demanding before- but I’ve never once been fired by a job, a friend, or a man.

Some could say I’m a bit of a “know it all”. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a time where I settled for less, or accepted the minimum at face value.

I’ll admit I don’t leave a lot of room of error (don’t be late!)… but when they need a favor, who do they call?

I’ve been know to rant once or twice; yet my reputation says I’m a peacemaker, a support, a voice of reason, and a true friend.

Saying all this to say: contrary to popular belief… having a strong mind is a blessing from Yah. Those who can simply do (everybody ain’t able). Don’t ever dim your light so you can fit in a shadow. Good judgement helps us pick the right battles. Super sorry, making 6Figs by 28 is a measure of success regardless of gender. Stop apologizing for actually living out the vision.

Prayer:

Most High Yah! Thank you that you’re a rock in my life. Forgive me for times where I lacked self control. Forgive me if ever my words caused harm to another person. Help me to use discernment in all my relationships. Give me continued focus and strength as I navigate my career. I pray that when i knock, doors will start to open. I thank you that it’s already mine. You’ve renewed me, kept me, placed me on my feet so I praise you! Thank you that you’ve allowed me to mature into an independent mindset, and that I know I can only rely on you. Be with my friends and family; you know what’s on their mind. Provide peace, strength, health, and increase. In Yahusha’s name I pray! Amen!

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brainrot-yumm · 10 months

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PR ep 3 play-by-play

hellow I’m back and this time I’m here at the slightly more reasonable hour of 2:30 am. I’m taking my ton now and hopefully by the time this is over I’ll be ready to sleep

oh but first I gotta set up an artfight character. It takes such a long time to load and this is the super good laptop that can handle VRchat without exploding

alright that was 20 minutes of my time letsa go

alright oh boy uhm. Where does the junk you guys put in the dumpsite gonna go when you close the dumpsite?

alright now I genuinely think Rita’s lines are voiced over because she lives with people in suits and it was easier/cheaper to just record all of the lines perfectly off-site and then just have the human act like a person in a suit along with everyone else

alright the last one was a definite lie but the first two I would trust even if they were excuses. You threw this on them today, no schedule preparation. Don’t feel bad they don’t go with yall

I’m getting terrible flashbacks to my favorite YA book ever about the environment (The Crazy Things Girls Do For Love by Dyan Sheldon) with all this “throwing litter and generally physically assaulting random people” stuff

also it kind of sucks that the girls aren’t allowed to really Power Rangers the heck out of these definitely deserving bullies besides “Gymnastics them into kissing(?)” but I’ll accept all I can get

wait who the hell is this woman?? Didn’t see her name next to Bulk and Skull??!?!?!?

when was it stated that Rita knew the Rangers by name. Like it’s one thing to have beef with a superhero but entirely another to have beef with 16 year olds completely knowingly and willingly. Tell their parents. Tell the school. Make them praised socially but demolish their live as rangers

“This is the grossest place ever” and there’s just one plank of wood on the ground

god it would actually be terrifying to be a 16 year old girl attacked by multiple weird porcelain things. Like they grabbed her hair and everything. The true horror of womanhood (/jk if this happened to me I would break down bawling and the putties would have no choice but to stop fighting but sit down and console me)

oh dang the alpha one wasn’t a lie

two monsters holy shit

the cut from “oh so big” to “normal minotaur guy walking towards us”

THE TOY OBVIOUSLY ON A LINE JUST WOOSHING PAST I CANT

wait they just dipped?!?!

oh the power weapons are so definitely foam

oh the power weapons are so COOL

btw it was so nice for the minotaur to go back to normal just so they could kick his ass

Alpha is Tinpan’s child. If you don’t understand what that means you do not know the lore that is the Youtubers I’m way too invested in

kay gniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

#Blumi's PRPBP

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roosterbruiser · 10 months

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oh my gods i think you might love cherry, then?? i mean this in the most complimentary way possible but like — if you told me voulez vous was, like, a chapter in karr’s life that she’s releasing under a pen name on tumblr, i wouldn’t bat an eye, i’d just say cool and devour it. which is not to say that the writing’s super similar or anything — as a writer i sometimes get in my head when people make comparisons, i wouldn’t want to do that to you — but there’s something about the way you write about girlhood as this raw cloying wild thing that has me feeling the same way, i guess? and these characters feel so real to you whilst also a bit removed, like your cool older sister or your neighbour who’s exploits keep the rumour mill running - whom you love the way you love older versions of yourself, with uncertainty and hope and a sense of pride but also sadness? excuse me if none of this makes sense, i’d try and explain better but i’m trying very hard to contain the urge to beg you to be my best friend lol so i’ll send this now to save you from that haha

okay why did this ask literally make me tear up??? wtf??? the way Cherry just moved like alllll the way up in my tbr pile!

it truly delights / amazes / mystifies me when ppl compare my amateur work to real life published novels. it is truly my dream to have a book published and to even be slightly compared? damn.

young womanhood is something that is a raw and animalistic. it's pretty and so, so ugly. I really love writing it and it amazes me that people enjoy reading it!

all of this makes sense and I'm gonna frame this and reread it every single day bc it makes me wanna cry

btw we're literally besties now and message me / send me an ask ANY TIME EVER!!! MWAH!!!

#m answers #cherry #book rec #que me up scotty #crying #love love love

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silveda · 1 year

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Can we stop with the performative feminism in YA hi-fi?

I've recently read a number of YA hi-fi books like Stalking Jack the Ripper (Kerri Maniscalo) and Anatomy: A Love Story (Dana Schwartz) and noticed that they both had a similar dealio with a #girlboss science-obsessed protag, however the feminism in them was really performative because the protags were exceptional - every other female character was frivolous, and the protags were only accepted because they were 'better' than other women.

This is a plea that if you're going to write fiction portraying strong female characters in historical settings (which you definitely should, btw) - don't just write one strong female character, write many. Make it crystal clear that your protagonist isn't exceptional because other women are incapable, give her female friends, mentors, and acquaintances who push the boundaries in their own ways. And that's my TED talk on how to write good feminist hi-fi!

PS: Let's also talk about expanding what counts as 'womanhood' in historical fiction... people who push the gender binary have always existed and deserve to be represented in literature.

#booklr #writing #book #feminism #young adult #ya books #books #book blog #literature

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shiftingshiftingshifting · 3 years

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“It comes through the written and the spoken word; sometimes a word, a sentence or a poem or a story, is so resonant, so right, it causes us to remember, at least for an instant, what substance we are really made from, and where is our true home.”

Singing Over the Bones, Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés

made me think of shifting

#this book is about womanhood btw #so like this is mainly directed at female oriented shifters but everyone is welcome #shifting #shiftblr #reality shifting #women who run with the wolves #clarissa pinkola estés #txt. In this light she could almost be a knight.#txt. Let him know sixteen ‚ and twenty ‚ and fifty.#txt. Lady Melisandre wore no crown ‚ but every man there knew she was Stannis Baratheon’s real Queen.#txt. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies ‚ said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.

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usergrantaire · 2 years

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just a heads up ahead of s2 dropping that this blog will become utterly inhospitable to anyone who likes daphne bridgerton. (even more so than usual, anyway. lol.) feel free to blacklist “anti daphne bridgerton” if you’d rather not see my hot takes on the cunty wee rapist. yes, my enjoyment of s2 will be directly impacted by how much or how little she is in the show. why she would be a major player again in this new season is fucking beyond me, honestly. if they sideline francesca again in favour of the rapey little duchess i will have words.

i know i bitched about her rather thoroughly in my bridgerton rant a while back, but lo and behold, i STILL have Thoughts™!

ironically, i probably would have liked her more if the narrative hadn’t tried so damn hard to make her out to be so fucking perfect and likeable. cvd claimed that keeping the rape scene in (more on that later) was to show her as flawed and imperfect, but that argument falls fucking flat when she never shows remorse over what she did and never gets any sort of comeuppance whatsoever, instead being rewarded for further piling on to her husband’s preexisting trauma. basically, bridgerton s1 is the story of a rich, sheltered white girl being told “no” for the first time in her life and, predictably, she doesn’t handle it well. and the narrative rewards her for it.

i know a lot of my blorbos have done some heinous shit and fictional stories aren’t required to explicitly spell out why every bad thing they’ve ever done is Bad™, but nuance is still a fucking thing. bridgerton s1 never offers us simon’s perspective after daphne rapes him, instead focusing on her feelings of betrayal. and from the way the show was written and the scene was shot, it felt like they were trying to manipulate us into rooting for her.

yeah, fuck that.

while simon was wrong to take advantage of her cluelessness, it wasn’t like he hadn’t told her that their marriage would be childless. she’s the one who lures him into the garden and manipulates him into marrying her, and when he tells her he can’t give her children, she ostensibly accepts this and goes through with the marriage anyway. (btw, he says he can’t give her children, not that he can’t have children. in the show, anyway.)

besides, a lie by omission doesn’t mean he fucking deserved to get raped, holy shit. one bad moment of uninformed consent doesn’t justify outright sexual assault. he’s so traumatised his stutter comes back. but of course, daphne’s white womanhood receives priority over simon’s feelings as an abuse survivor.

i’ve spent way too much time thinking of how to fix this part and i have come up with a couple of suggestions. everyone knows the pullout method isn’t foolproof, so they could have had her go through a pregnancy scare and confront him about it. same drama, no glossing over rape!

or, if you’re an edgelord like me, they could still keep the rape scene, but then actually properly deal with the fallout afterwards. she doesn’t understand why he’s so upset and is then firmly and sternly told, perhaps by her lady’s maid, that what she did was a massive, serious violation of his boundaries and consent. she’d then beg him for forgiveness and it’s uncertain whether or not he’ll grant it to her, since he’d be well within his rights to not want anything to do with her anymore after she assaulted him. just think about it, her confrontation with her mother could have been so much more impactful this way. because violet was too chickenshit to tell her of marital relations, daphne ended up seriously hurting someone she loves. the story would then end with her telling simon that they can have children when he’s ready, and if he’s never ready, then that’s fine too.

anyway.

from what i’ve seen of the s2 promos, daphne and her son feature prominently. (which, why?) (also, i find it so curious how the show changed her first child to a boy when in the books she has three girls before having two boys. i’m going to think they changed it so she and simon could get divorced sooner. i’m not accepting whatever reasons they’ll inevitably come up with for regé-jean page’s absence in s2, their divorce is canon in my heart. fuck her, simon deserves better.) it’s fucking disgusting what this show lets her get away with. she straight up rapes her husband and still ends s1 with everything: riches, a title that’s just one step below princess, land, and now a baby boy. the privilege is fucking choking.

tl;dr: i fucking despise daphne bridgerton. truly, deeply loathe her. i will never change my mind, no matter how many scenes of her and her son that s2 will likely shove down my throat in a half-assed attempt to make the audience still root for her. she’s a cunt and a rapist and i hate her fucking guts. have a good day <3

#kei watches bridgerton #anti daphne bridgerton

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alicenttully · 3 years

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This edit on Arya Tv Tropes is something else lol -

Cersei sends informers to spy on Margaery to get any dirt on her. What she found out was a woman who enjoyed horse-riding, hawking, talking to and befriending smallfolk, not caring about getting dirty to fit in with them, collecting things she found in nature, a sea-lover and an all-around fun person. That's exactly like Arya as Sansa described her, which makes it all the more ironic since she wanted a sister like Margaery. Margaery is what Arya could have become if her tragedy never happened to her, but also shows Sansa is a very inconsistent judge of character, because the things she disliked in Arya she adored in Margaery. Margaery is also what Arya could have become had her interests and willpower been accepted and made the most of, rather than being told she was inferior to her older sister's type of proper lady.

And whoever made this edit has poor reading comprehension, because those aren’t the reasons (hawking, horse-riding- which btw, is a common activity for all noblewomen. Arya is hardly unique in this regard.) why Sansa enjoys the company of Margaery and the Tyrells. Sansa explains why-

Margaery's kindness had been unfailing, and her presence changed everything. Her ladies welcomed Sansa as well. It had been so long since she had enjoyed the company of other women, she had almost forgotten how pleasant it could be. Lady Leonette gave her lessons on the high harp, and Lady Janna shared all the choice gossip. Merry Crane always had an amusing story, and little Lady Bulwer reminded her of Arya, though not so fierce.

Closest to Sansa's own age were the cousins Elinor, Alla, and Megga, Tyrells from junior branches of the House. "Roses from lower on the bush," quipped Elinor, who was witty and willowy. Megga was round and loud, Alla shy and pretty, but Elinor ruled the three by right of womanhood; she was a maiden flowered, whereas Megga and Alla were mere girls.

The cousins took Sansa into their company as if they had known her all their lives. They spent long afternoons doing needlework and talking over lemon cakes and honeyed wine, played at tiles of an evening, sang together in the castle sept . . . and often one or two of them would be chosen to share Margaery's bed, where they would whisper half the night away.

She enjoys doing needlework, playing games, singing with them. You know, simply being able to interact with her girls her own age.

Regarding Margaery and the smallfolk, I’ve addressed this before- I cannot speak for Margaery because we don’t have her POV, but the thing is with the Tyrells- they’re all about PR. Keep in mind they were complicit in the famine. Now is Margaery responsible for that? No. But, if Margaery really did inherit some things from her grandmother & the implication that Olenna was mentoring her (seeing her as her chance to do things right, considering the way she looks down on Mace.) I think its very likely that she was advised by Olenna or someone in the Tyrell circle to do this. Unlike Olenna, I don’t think Loras is entirely stupid. I think he could have seen the way the commons loved Renly, and therefore told his sister about what she needed to do to emulate that.

Does that mean Margaery is heartless & doesn’t care at all for the smallfolk? Of course not. But I don’t think you can compare her and Arya because its very clear in Aryas POV that she doesnt have an ulterior motive that the Tyrells likely do. 9 year old Arya was just interested in seeing the world and meeting new people.

Margaery is also what Arya could have become had her interests and willpower been accepted and made the most of, rather than being told she was inferior to her older sister’s type of proper lady.

Well first off, Arya would hate being Margaery. Being married off three times.

Furthermore, like Margaery and Sansa are very similar in terms of ladylike behavior so really... you’re just arguing that if Arya is like Sansa, then her life would be better. Arya can never be Margaery & have her interests (ie swordplay) because they’re two conflicting things. Margaery Tyrell didn’t have a sword made for her. Margaery Tyrell didn’t wonder about what it would be like to be Wenda the White Fawn, an outlaw. Margaery Tyrell didn’t ask her Dad if she could sit on a council one day. And maybe she did. But book Margaery is really an underdeveloped character IMO, and show Margaery makes it clear exactly the thing she wants- being queen.

#sansa stark #anti arya stans #asoiaf #game of thrones #got #my eyes rolled so far back #a song of ice and fire

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bookofmirth · 3 years

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Can you please elaborate why it is considered problematic that SJM wrote that elain is uncomfortable around lucien? You mentioned in a previous response that it was not a good move for her to write elain being uncomfortable by a disabled POC but I’m not quite sure why that is a problem because she is not uncomfortable because of his disability or race- her discomfort has nothing to do with that.

Also, racism is not an issue in prythian the way it is in real life. You have high lords such as helion and tarquin (among others) that are explicitly POC and there has never been mention of any hostility towards them because of the color of their skin. The only discrimination I can recall is between high and lesser fae which is classist not racist.

I’m just confused why it is considered ableist or racist when SJM decided to write how elain is uncomfortable around lucien when it has nothing to do with his skin color or disability.

On another note- would it have been racist if amarantha (a known rapist) was written as a WOC rather than white? I’m just trying to understand your point of view and I’m a little lost. To me, acotar is a diverse world with characters of all races and some are good, some are evil but pretty much every character has done something morally grey at at least one point in the series. And none of that is not specific to one race vs another. There are white characters that are good, morally grey and downright evil. And the same can be said for other races.

I appreciate any further elaboration you can supply!

Hello! I will try my best. I don't mind answering questions like this! I recognize that I have had a lot of education about these topics and I have learned A Lot from Black women on Twitter over the years. I hope to share it in a way that is useful. I can maybe make a reading list if anyone is interested, but people should definitely ask around so that it's not getting filtered through just one person (aka me).

So the whole thing with talking about race in the fandom is that race does not function the same way in the acotar world as it does in ours. You are correct about that. You may have seen my post that attempted to break down various ways that characters access privilege in Prythian? Either way, yes. It is not a one-to-one correspondence with our world and the book world.

However, there are issues within the acotar world that mirror issues in ours, and the way that fans engage with those issues can reveal underlying prejudices. I mentioned in this post that we don't have to intend to do these things. (Also, intent versus impact is like diversity, inclusivity, and equity training 101. It's one of the first, and most important things you will learn. Even if you didn't mean to harm someone, they still feel hurt, and it's important to acknowledge that.)

The issue with the way people talk about Lucien - and I mentioned in another post that this is perhaps just as much on Sarah for creating this scenario as it is on the fandom for hopping on that horse and riding - is that there is a history of white women being painted as the victims of Black men specifically.

I'm going to put the rest of this under the cut because I want to show you some examples.

I hope that I don't have to explain why this is disgusting. There is a real-life example of this ^^^ if you google Emmett Till and read his story. This is by far not the only example of a white woman claiming that a Black man (or boy, in his case) was harassing her in some way, and often, that has resulted in lynching.

These are clearly older examples, and also really good examples of how people of color can be dehumanized, but these problems persist. The methods are just more subtle. More recently, it could result in police brutality. When that women called the police on a Black man in NYC last summer, it played into the long history of a woman claiming that she was being threatened or victimized by a Black man. As @gimme-mor explained in her post, the concept of white womanhood is often used as a way to uphold racism and white supremacy because it shows people of color as being violent threats, giving white men (and white women) a reason to retain their privilege.

You're probably wondering now what the fuckity fuck this has to do with Acotar and Lucien. I am getting there!

Because of this historical context, there are many slurs and stereotypes used against POC that on the surface, seem innocent. However, they have a deep, dark history of oppression and violence. It's not about the "one time" that someone said one racist thing, but generational trauma. I can't speak to what this is like as a lived experience, and so I would really appreciate anyone who does want to add on!!!

For example, just to take us away from acotar for a minute, there is a problematic, sexist and often racist trope in which characters get fridged. This is a term used to refer to the way that women, women of color, or characters of color (this could include queer and disabled people as well) are killed off to further a white person's story. This happens SO OFTEN. Nehemia was killed in ToG to motivate Aelin. Sorscha was killed in HoF to hurt Dorian. In a multitude of super hero and action movies, the wife or girlfriend of the main character is killed off in order to provide either pain or motivation to the white male hero.

Individually, these events are whatever. Taken as a whole, though... it shows a trend that the girlfriend of the hero is disposable. It shows that people who are not white, straight, able-bodied males are worthless, and only function to further someone else’s plot.

So that's what is sort-of happening here. After a long, long history of white women positioning themselves (or being positioned) as the innocent victims of brutish, violent, barely-even-human men of color, there are some disturbing parallels when people try to say that Elain is a shrinking violet next to Lucien's insistent attentions.

The context is everything. It's not about this one event, but that there is a history in the real world of this trope playing out over and over, and it has even been an explicit tactic used to perpetuate white supremacy.

This context influences the way that we interact with one another in fandom. The point of that post was not to critique the acotar series itself, but to expose some problematic aspects of the fandom.

I am not going to speak for anyone else, but I think that the original intent of pointing out this parallel between Elain/Lucien and white feminism was not that we want people to stop saying that Elain feels this, or Elain feels that, or Lucien is doing this or that, etc. The reason why this has been mentioned in the past is because there are some very uncomfortable, violent historical precedents set, and while people may not realize that those exist, they may be unintentionally furthering that stereotype.

There were many, many other points made in that post that I think bear repeating and further attention. I hope that this made sense. It's hard to condense literal centuries of racism like this, and of course I am only talking about the context in the U.S. I'm sure it's different elsewhere.

The main takeaway from that post, though, is that it wasn't about the world itself. It was about the way that the fandom engages with the world, and how they utilize some problematic tools to do so. Critiquing the world itself is a completely different issue, which... I will sorta touch on now!

One last point, since you brought up Amarantha and the potential of her being a WOC and a rapist - it could be viewed as problematic and racist, due to the oversexualization of Black women in particular (again, the context throughout history supports this). However, that would not be a fandom problem! That would be an sjm problem.

BTW - I do have serious problems with the way that Illyrians are portrayed in acotar, again because of the history of POC being portrayed as uncivilized, brutish, violent, and... that word that means someone isn't religious. I am getting tired and forgot the word. When sjm says that Illyrians are that way, and when she emphasizes the fact that they are a race... yikes. It's not racist of us to point that out, but it was highly questionable that she created them to be that way in the first place.

Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense, please! To anyone reading this to the end, first off RIP! But also let me know if I've gotten something wrong or if you see something differently.

#acotar #acosf #acotar fandom #cw racism #cw racist images #ask #anon

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