#you are as much a victim!! you are as much subject to patriarchy!!

[queerbauten]

I love how people (particularly men) think they get a free pass to be misogynistic when their target is the "pick-me girl", a phrase which increasingly means nothing

#misogyny #feminism #when you're bashing a group of girls/women for wanting male approval: you yourself are doing that for male approval #because why else are you doing it? for whom are you doing it? #you're not doing it for the benefit of *women*; that's for sure #only the patriarchy benefits from this nonsense #and what's suuuper annoying is when people pit the so-called 'pick-me girl' against 'the girl who is actually one of the guys' #my sisters: if men's acceptance of you is conditional on performing gender a certain way #then men don't actually value you!! #they will discard you the moment you fail to live up to their vision of 'acceptable womanhood'!! #you could be spending your time promoting genuine sisterhood #but instead you are tearing other women down for being victims of the patriarchy!! #you are as much a victim!! you are as much subject to patriarchy!! #and again: when men do it #it's literally just misogyny #there is no feminist backing to what these men are doing #they just. hate. women. #quit wasting your time trying to get their validation #and start building relationships with other women #j'en ai marre

[eastgaysian]

Sorry this is a dumb question but can you explain why tomshiv is not abusive? Shiv seems to hit a lot of textbook behaviours of emotional abusers

thank you for your follow up clarifying this was in good faith bc i checked my inbox yesterday right after getting high and was like man come on. don't do this to me. but yeah i can talk about it, it's obviously something i have a fair amount of thoughts on

on a fundamental level, i take issue with the assertion that there are 'textbook behaviors of emotional abusers' in the first place. distilling abuse down to a set of behaviors is, imo, effectively meaningless and totally unproductive. it's not the behavior of an individual that defines abuse, it's a specific and intentionally cultivated imbalance of power and control within a relationship. victims of abuse can and do resort to survival mechanisms that could be considered in isolation as 'abusive behavior', the point is that you can't consider them in isolation. there's a gulf of difference between the same actions when they're coming from a person in a position of significant financial or physical or social power over someone else, or when they're coming from the person at a disadvantage.

i think viewing abuse as a set of behaviors also encourages you to treat interpersonal abuse as if it's discontinuous with systemic abuse, which is inaccurate and unproductive. a key part of succession's premise is that, because the family is literally the business, the familial abuse within the roy family is inextricable from the broader systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and the sexual violence and abuse endemic to them. with regards to how the show satirizes and critiques these systems, i think it's very telling that all of the characters are to some degree complicit and/or participants in abuse, but logan is the only one i'd say is unambiguously and intentionally presented as 'an abuser' (whose abuse is not an isolated product of him as a person, but integrated into/inseparable from the capitalist system which persists after his death). still, logan isn't reduced to a one-dimensional angry, abusive dad, he's given depth and complexity. his continued insistence that he loves his children isn't treated as something that's untrue, but that doesn't make it inherently good, and it certainly isn't incompatible with him abusing them.

circling back to tom and shiv. their relationship is unhealthy, it's not good for either of them to be married, shiv does fucking awful things to tom and tom does awful things right back, i'm not questioning any of that. but at my most cynical and bitchy, what it comes down to is quite simply: shiv doesn't have enough power over tom to be abusive, systemically or personally.

the thing is sometimes you see people say 'wow, if the genders were reversed people would say tom and shiv's relationship is unambiguously abusive!' which... hrm, but really the issue is that. the genders are the way they are, that's for a reason, and yes, that does make a significant difference in how we perceive their relationship and power dynamics. tom holds very real and present power over shiv as a man and as her husband, proposing to her when she was vulnerable in a way that placed huge pressure on her to accept and then trying to get her to have his baby so he can become patriarch. shiv's the heiress with the legitimacy of her family name and generational wealth but she is continuously, unavoidably subjected to gendered discrimination and violence. she's never allowed direct access to real power - she has to rely on the men around her, her husband or her brothers, and if they don't feel like humoring her she's shit out of luck.

this doesn't cancel out like a math equation, but it definitely makes things much more complicated than shiv being an Evil Bitch Wife to her Poor Pitiful Husband. when shiv finally does push tom too far, he immediately, successfully, goes over her head to her abusive father to fuck her over. maybe shiv wants to be her father in her relationships and exert the same kind of control he does. but she doesn't and she can't! she does not have that power! she cannot stop tom from kicking back and his hits are significant. as much as she might like to pretend otherwise, tom not only has always had the power to leave in a way shiv doesn't, he had and has the power to fuck her up badly, and he's used that power. that is simply not the power dynamic between abuser and victim to me.

i also have to say that abuse is not always going to be definitive black and white. in real life there are plenty of unambiguous situations but there are also plenty of complicated situations, and applying judgments to fiction is not always straightforward. i can't exactly call someone 'wrong' for personally being uncomfortable with tom and shiv's relationship or believing shiv is abusive, but i'm very skeptical of the viewpoint and the motivations or assumptions that are often contained within. if shiv is abusive, she definitely isn't uniquely so among the cast, so you had better be applying that label and any associated moral judgments equally across the board.

#mingbox #abuse mention #might self destruct this tag later but it's like. #my relationship with my ex was definitely unhealthy and fucked me up but it was not abusive because fundamentally. #he was actively worse to me than i was to him but the moment he went too far i cut him off and took all the friends in the divorce #if he had more influence in our social circle or could actually successfully emotionally manipulate me it would've been much worse #but he didn't so it wasn't. i won the idgaf wars and everyone liked me better because i am not an asshole so i peaced out. #he's a dickhead and i had to leave that relationship for my own good. still it was not abusive #chalkboard

[mintacle]

Jason Todd being girl-coded, you've opened my eyes! You are so right and suddenly a lot of things about him make sense (including why I like him so much), especially with how the narrative treats him (right down to turning a morally complex character into a straight-up card-carrying villain who eats puppies, ironically right around the time they did that to another female character, Talia). Jason is even written how I (a girl) tend to write angry victim power fantasy female characters. Like yes babygirl, scream and rage against the heavens about how unfair it all is!

I remember a post calling Jason "the Punisher for girls" except... yeah he kinda is. The Punisher is a male power fantasy with all that implies, while Jason is such a girl power fantasy and written with a lot of the usual negative narrative bias female characters usually get.

Except if we're honest and look past the superficial similarities of lethal force and guns, the narrative role of Batman is far more like the Punisher than Jason. Jason's role is the Punisher's daughter. Jason is if Lisa came back and was angry after what happened and big parent man Frank had to try to keep his (hysterical emotional angry-like-a-girl) daughter from crossing his arbitrary lines because she was going "too far" and tragically, he's unable to "save" her from herself and he must Move On while his child gets locked up or lies dying behind him (I can seriously imagine exactly how a proper Lisa-is-back plot would go down it's crazy how similar it'd be to Jason's return).

And another way Jason is girl-coded is that he's mentored by Talia, a woman. In comics you don't see male characters mentored by female ones often. Sometimes they can be taught specific skills by them for a brief time (like Tim and Shiva) but Talia's role as Jason's primary mentor and caretaker for several years is pretty unusual in comics.

True!! I'm glad my posts resonated with you so much. :)

I don't really know anything about the Punisher so I can't add my opinion to the mix, but other people will probably recognize your point.

But! On the subject of female characters mentoring male characters @benbamboozled made a great post actually about how women are seen as Having A Specific Skill or Expertise to teach whereas men are mentors For All, or For Life. And yeah Jason does break the rule absolutely! But we also don't get to see to much of that on page. He is in Talia's care for years, but other than Lost Days and utrh we just don't get to see these two interact. I either made a post or drafted and forgot about it, how DC won't publish Talia and Jason working together because it is vital to DC's agenda of keeping them marginalized that they each be alone nomatter how much reason and history they have to be in more frequent and meaningful contact.

At the same time, we really only see Talia caring for Jason in a motherly context, she isn't cast quite in the role of a mentor, rather sending him around to teachers than teaching him herself. It's a step in the right direction, but the fact of any mentoring and most interactions occuring off-screen, as well as their relationship being ignored later, or ret-conned like in the utrh movie where Talia was kind of replaced with Ra's.

For me a lot of Jason's girl-coded aspect arises from his opposition to Bruce who embodies patriarchal ideals. To some extent Jason is in the role of every person who has been let down by the patriarchy. The system we were told is for our benefit as well and which has let us down. It's about how we were let down by this world we thought was fair when we were smaller and trusted to be protected. It's about how our own father's have let us down, even if the time we last thought of them as protectors might have been many, many years ago.

None of these experiences are exclusionary to women either. I am not a woman, but I am queer. And I have been let down both by the idea that my father could ever be my protector instead of the one I needed protection from. And I have been let down by the idea I used to have of a world that would give me a voice without me having to prove myself every step of the way.

The need I have for more interaction between Talia and Jason is so much about two people villainized and victimized by the same patriarch-favoring narrative bonding and rising to challenge and upset the status quo. While I am aware that it will never happen and that DC already left Winnick a lot of leeway to have made Talia play such a type of role at all, logically it should be what follows.

Jason is girl-coded, but he also drinks his respect-women juices.

#jason todd #ask answered #I held back bc I could have gone on and on and on #thank you anon for sharing your thoughts!!

[caffeineandsociety]

Also I feel a huge reason that a lot of debates over whether trans men or trans women Have Male Privilege/Experience REAL Misogyny fall flat in a lot of regards is that they assume that misogyny is EITHER about Femaleness/Womanhood as an identity, OR the simultaneous idealization and demonization of, and possessiveness over, the presumed-"female" body, when in reality it's very much a matter of both in complex and intersecting ways.

Which ends up meaning that trans women are subjected to the body factor, especially the possessiveness thereof, in ways that are definitely unique - phallocentrism, an aspect of patriarchy and usually tied to male privilege, becomes at LEAST as much of a detriment as a benefit (on the one hand, at least medicine for the "male" reproductive system is pretty well understood and taken seriously; it's not just a matter of biological logistics that make prostate cancer one of the most treatable cancers out there, but that sure as hell doesn't take away the fact that people get fucking creepy and invasive and obsessive over women's dicks - sometimes even when they're trying to be affirming - with obsession with and terror of The Dreaded Penis being a major motive behind arguably the majority of transmisogynistic violence), and trans women are held to an even higher standard of "if you're not a flawless supermodel goddess you shouldn't be breathing my air, let alone outside in public being an eyesore" than cis women - but trans men are ALSO subjected to the possessiveness of it, as well as the neglect, in ways that trans women, save for some intersex ones, are often straight up biologically incapable of being primary victims of (see: the erosion of abortion rights, doctors prioritizing preserving one's ability to become pregnant over anything else in their care, forced pregnancy as an explicit goal of corrective rape, etc. - though notably, the sorry state of the way medically significant period distress is treated is NOT a case of this, as hormone fluctuations can cause everything but the bleeding even in the absence of a uterus!), and it's not like lacking a "natal" penis makes someone inherently immune to being harmed by phallocentrism - treating someone like a lesser person over the lack of a penis where one is expected, or a penis that doesn't function "normally", is very much a manifestation of phallocentrism! Never mind the way vaginas are treated as essentially a gaping void in the brain, or the disgust with which they're so frequently spoken of - that impacts pre- and non-op trans men, AND post-op trans women, both in similar yet slightly distinct ways!

The intersection of these factors also means there are unique ways trans men and trans women experience the identity factor. Trans men experience misogyny for moving away from a female identity being forced upon them; trans women experience it for trying to actively claim that identity for themselves. That identity is seen as lesser, as a Property role, so as far as society sees trans men of COURSE anyone would want to escape it...but you have to stop ~playing pretend~ eventually, right? Alternately, it's traitorous, it's an "I got mine so screw you", it's prolonging the pretend game with roid rage, it's any number of horrible predatory ugly things - because to society, a trans man can never be a real man; his core identity is still A Woman, whether he knows it or not; the closest he can ever come is a disfigured caricature, acting out a rough approximation of an ideal that of COURSE is all the violent parts of that ideal and nothing else. Meanwhile, as far as society is concerned about trans women, no one would EVER opt INTO such a lesser identity without ulterior motives, so it MUST be a predatory thing, right? In many cases, these have similar narratives, but very different overtones.

So, who has it worse? Who experiences more Real Misogyny? Who experiences More Transphobia? Well, that depends on way too many individual factors; there is no constant answer and, critically, there doesn't need to be! It's not about keeping score, it's about making the problems get better! We're not going to do that by denying that people other than us have unique experiences with this shit!

[jeremywhitley]

Dear Mr. Whitley,

This is a loaded subject, but it seems that aside from how you chose to address it in the Unstoppable Wasp, it seems nobody talks about Janet Van Dyne's feelings on the incidents leading up to her divorce from Hank Pym anymore. Sure, we get to see the incident itself brought up a lot. Whether seriously or just as a cheap joke, we get reminded of how Janet was a victim and Hank an aggressor. However, we don't really get Janet's input on the matter, in terms of any lingering trauma she's feeling. We do get Hank's input up until Rage of Ultron. We see his angst, his regret, his desire to atone. We see how he gets forgiven and excused and is continually in the process of moving past his mistake. After the 80s, though, we stop seeing Jan's healing process, even as she keeps drifting back into a romance with Hank.

I understand the tragedy of Janet and Hank's marriage isn't something that needs to be dwelled on too much with Janet Van Dyne. She's done so many awesome things since then, such as lead the Avengers, save the world many times over, and become a great mom for Nadia. However, she's also constantly surrounded by the legacy of a man she loves, who loved her and then hurt her. She was together with him during Rage of Ultron, and became the chief mourner at his memorial. What's more, right before she and Hank were on the Avengers together for what is currently the final time, Alex Summers in his inverted state hurt her more than Hank Pym ever did. There must have been some extremely complicated emotions going through her mind.

This is part of the reason I love the partnership she has with Bobbi in Unstoppable Wasp. Aside from the fact that they click well with each other, there's also the subtle undercurrent of how they're both women who loved and then were hurt by love.

That's part of why I loved putting her and Bobbi together. They get each other in a way that can't be taught. Whether you ship them or not (and I know people do) they're extremely important to one another.

As for why no one has written about Janet's feelings regarding being hurt by Hank...well...I think that's much bigger than comics. Society is much more interested in punishing bad people than they are in restoring injured people. Rape and abuse survivors make patriarchal society uncomfortable. Rape and abuse are symptoms of a rot within the guiding concepts of patriarchy and trying to do right by victims would mean actually reassessing their own system.

That's why I had her talk about it, because it was so messed up that we hadn't given that room.

[c0rpseductor]

i think when discussing the idea of masculinity and patriarchy hurting men it’s important to view it not as “men are subject to gendered oppression for their maleness” but “men are subject to a system that asks them to give up some portion of their humanity in exchange for privilege.” like i think in many systems like this there is a certain blowback for the oppressor group, but it isn’t oppression so much as the emptiness that results from perpetuating violence and from cannibalizing oneself to be the vector for said violence. if that makes sense?

like, the more fervently a man performs normative masculinity, the less room there is in his life for anything but violence. and conversely, a refusal to participate in this violence may subject him to violence (although a lesser violence than that exercised on those who are oppressed under patriarchy). patriarchy exists to privilege men, and therefore also to perpetuate itself.

ultimately it’s like. i think there’s a soullessness that comes with being any member of such an oppressor class, and especially with expending effort in living up to the expectations of that class. and that does not mean enacting that violence or ripping your own heart out to do it makes you a victim of oppression — but you are ripping your own heart out. do you know what i mean? systems of violence are cannibalistic. and i can’t say in good conscience “no one profits by them” knowing full well that materially speaking of course they do — this is the reason such systems exist — but on a broader level it’s like, these systems turn the world into a crab bucket.

so like, yes, i do think men as individuals are subject to harm under patriarchy, but it’s the “willingly stepping hard into a bear trap to prove a very important point” sort of harm, not any kind of broad or overarching harm, because men are still the benefited class here. misandry is actively a stupid fucking concept, and what i see labeled as “misandry” is almost invariably misogyny that just so happens to sometimes blow back on men (discussions on male SA survivorship are rife with this nonsense, for example).

i guess tl;dr: men are hurt under misogyny in a wil e coyote sort of way where they get hit in the head with their own overly complicated death traps

[soleminisanction]

I just went through most of your character rants and analysis and I love them so much!❤️ It’s so nice to find someone with a lot of the same opinions as me, especially after seeing a good bit of Tim hate in TikTok comments lately. I love the animatics and cosplays on there but it sucks that it seems like it’s seen as cool to be nasty to Tim’s character over there, or maybe it's just the comments of the videos I get? It’s usually people thinking he’s a misogynist or that his character steals from and or makes other robins look bad to hype him up. I don’t get these comments because I feel like all of the bats have been written with misogynistic dialogue at some point, even the girls! I don’t understand why people latch this on to Tim as some big character trait. Maybe it’s some joke I’m just not understanding. Also with the bringing other characters down to prop his character up, isn’t that what pretty much every character that is currently in the spotlight does at some point (like Steph’s Batgirl run infamously does to Babs and Tim)? Why do they attribute this only to Tim? Also, all the robins steal traits from each in adaptations and other comic runs, again why do they act like it’s a Tim only thing? Basically, all the other Bats do what they claim they hate Tim for?! It’s genuinely mind-boggling to me!

TikTok's algorithm is the worst thing about that app, because it's got a terrible tendency to send peoples' feeds into negativity spirals, and that in turn fosters a community of people who are either looking for rage-bait, are mad because they can't get away from the rage-bait, or try to bait other people to rage because that gets them engagement. There's no way off the merry-go-round once you get on it either, it's just miserable; it's why I eventually had to drop the app and now only watch the videos ported over to YouTube or Tumblr.

For my money, the reason Tim specifically gets blamed for this thing that is very obviously a problem with comics as an industry, not with his character specifically, comes at least in part from the drama involving Steph.

Because see, defenses of Steph tend to start from a seed of truth -- she was the subject of sexist writing in War Games, both in the fact that they chose to fridge her for Bruce's manpain and that artists during cuts away to the infamous torture sequence (which did not need to be as long as it was) drew her in a highly sexualized manner. But some people took that truth and ran with it, leaping onto this frustrating, stupid second-wave feminist idea that women are inherently innocent and can only ever be victims of The Patriarchy and therefor if anything goes wrong in the life of a woman, it MUST be the fault of A Man. And since it can be hard to pin-point which comic creators are responsible for these things, the brunt started to fall on the in-universe men.

So all the men around Steph became scapegoats, and Tim is the man she's both around the most and whom she has wronged the most. And then that attitude got amplified by her Batgirl run, which does this really manipulative bullshit where it only brings up Steph's past in terms that make her look like a helpless victim with no agency, without acknowledging or even mentioning any of the things she chose to do of her own free will. It especially went out of its way to demonize Tim and paint him as unreasonable, judgey and sexist, because the alternative would mean acknowledging that Steph had done some really fucked-up shit to him in the last days of Robin, and it was in fact perfectly reasonable for him to want her out of his life.

But see, that would mean that a good guy (gasp) didn't like her. And had a good reason not to like her. And trying to write a character who rises to become a true hero because they're fighting to make up for the shitty things they did in the past is so much harder than writing a innocent widdle victim who only has the best intentions and whose only problem is that the world is unfair to her specficially. White women with no self-awareness can project themselves on the latter, but not the former.

Amplify that by the faction of Damian stans who treat fictional rivalries as Deadly Serious Business and the fraction of Jason stans who hate him for existing as the result of Jason's death, both of whom will jump on and amplify any criticism no matter how baseless and uninformed just to score points against their perceived "enemy," and there you go. That's what I've observed unfolding since about 2007 anyway.

#fandom ramblings #dc comics asks

[ftmtftm]

Hey ty for combatting that one post saying tranandrophobia isn't real. I came to tumblr on the recommendation that this was a space transmasculine ppl can actually find each other but it STILL seems swarming with radfem rhetoric on like every app I try to use. I'm so scared bc next week I have to get a pap test done at this WOMANS clinic (I have a full beard) and every time I go something happens. Nurses get scared of me and have sabatoged my papers. Gestured me to go somewhere else for genital care. Every time I go to pick up my T I have to be so careful bc my papers have been shredded to keep me from getting it. Transmasculinity is so lonely sometimes. I've been sexually harrassed by a chaser, who is a woman. I feel unsafe whenever I go outside.

So for people like us to come to websites like these to have fun and escape reality and STILL see people including trans ppl who SHOULD be understanding us completely ignoring our experiences and talking like they have spoken to any of us, seeing bad faith takes constantly about how we're all attention seeking liars (while simultaneously being invisible bc that makes sense somehow) and MRA preachers bc we want ppl to stop ignoring when trans men get hurt and talk about their pain and how we don't actually get magical privilege and how secretly everything we complain about HAS to be about a trans woman somehow to shut us down-

It makes me feel crazy. Bc I know it's real. Lots of us do. But they still keep getting so many notes from radfems and queer ppl who want to look good. It feels so hopeless sometimes. I wish everyone who reblogged that had read your addition instead. Sorry if that was long

No worries anon! Like, seriously never be worried about leaving a long ask in my inbox.

Tumblr is a really complex place when it comes to the safety of any trans person really, because Tumblr is pretty dependent on the way the user curates their dashboard (though with the app trying to force new users onto the algorithmic dash that is becoming less of a feature - which blows bc user curation part of the whole appeal of the site!) But I digress - It's absolutely really frustrating the way even the most well meaning queer people regurgitate Radfem rhetoric because they don't actually know what Radical Feminism is because the Radfem propaganda machine unfortunately works and it has had decades of time to work well.

It's also especially frustrating because it is extremely emotionally labor intensive to try and discuss these topics and so you end up with a lot of extremely burnt out, frustrated trans mascs who want to give words to their experiences but are constantly told their experiences don't matter both on and offline. Which then ends with people expressing themselves in ways that are infinitely easy to take out of context or twist in unfavorable ways. Like, there's a reason why when I'm upset about something on here - I try to talk to my girlfriend or my best friend first to gather my thoughts. It's something I know I fail at sometimes to some degrees, but ultimately I don't want to fall victim to something like that. It's why I try to talk about my experiences clinically sometimes. Show too much vulnerability online and it can and will be weaponized against you.

There is also something to be said about how the absolutely atrocious damage actual MRAs have done to feminist discussions on manhood under Patriarchy is deeply upsetting. Like I said in that post, it is actually absolutely not anti-feminist to attempt to understand the ways in which Patriarchy reinforces harmful gendered stereotypes and roles onto men, especially marginalized men. Actual MRA's have taken that discussion and twisted it into something misogynistic, but the ways in which people shut down general feminist conversations on the subject quite literally stem from Radical Feminist thought - not general feminist belief - and it's deeply upsetting that that isn't more widely recognized.

I think, ultimately, hurt people hurt people and Tumblr is an environment full of hurting people who don't know how to cope well with their own lives. Marginalized people are canaries in the coal mine of capitalistic failure and we're all suffering in some way or another. That combined with the fact that Tumblr culture rewards feeling bigger or morally superior to others creates an awful cesspool of an environment for having real discussions on marginalization.

All of that said, I really hope your appointment goes well anon. Hopefully it all goes smoothly and without complications. 💛

#asks #anon

[they-them-that]

The Hyuna news is upsetting but also nothing new. There's a pattern of women who are upheld as feminist that turn around and date/marry shady men. It's a complex but systemic issue that I wanted to dissect to propose a productive and feminist way to approach these situations.

1. The Root Cause (Patriarchy)

I get we don't want to give these women any room for excuses when it feels like they've thrown women under the bus but we still have to recognize that although they have unique privileges and are still accountable for their actions, they're also victims of the patriarchy.

We have to recognize that these women are the subjects of a predatory industry and most of them were groomed by it. They're highly isolated and honestly, most of the men they share a career and social circle with are the Junhyung types.

Just like how misogyny and rape culture is still normalized for us common folk, it's fervent in the celebrity sphere where the men have even more power and privileges to abuse. Understanding that, it isn't surprising how shady men have access to these socially isolated women.

2. Placid Feminism

These women live in a bubble and a lot of the feminist action they've seemingly done never extended outside themselves in actuality. I don't deny the possibility they genuinely consider themselves to be feminists because at least for some of them, the issues they've talked about came from personal experience.

The issue comes in on how placid and underdeveloped their feminist values are that they don't think to look for those virtues in romantic partners. It brings into question if they even addressed their partner's past actions and social values or if they just "enjoy each other's company". It becomes even more shallow when these female celebrities revoke their feminist fanbase by doubling down rather than acknowledging the issue. That simply, feminism isn't relevant in the dating scene.

3. Rose Tinted Glasses

How much of a feminist was Hyuna really? Her song Babe was believed to be about the sexualization of minors due to the music video but when you actually read the lyrics, it's really just a love song that romanticizes youth.

Many female artists put out a consumable "girl boss" aesthetic of feminism while their music still revolves around the affection and pleasure of men. A lot of the sexual liberation these women have been praised for actually fails to challenge the status quo and ultimately caters to men and their unrealistic and predatory expectations of beauty and sex. We then have to consider what these women have done for us outside sexy girl-power beats and sadly, it's not much.

We've seen these women being beaten down by misogyny and rise from the ashes and we made it feminist. Their actions felt empowering and radical even when they were just doing it for themselves. We witness their liberation and then seek that these women are activists. The feminist iconography they market at us fulfills our confirmation bias and we hail them as a "girl's girl".

Although I don't blame this on fans when the celebrities literally pink wash their image, it's also important we deepen our own understanding and standards of feminism. We can feel empowered by their work but we shouldn't put these celebrities on a pedestal when they're frankly not doing as much as they actually can be. There are social activists out there who are facing the brunt of the movement, who actually make it their mission to liberate all women and marginalized people. We have to differentiate between an entertainer and an activist. We have to hold celebrities to a standard of basic human decency and activism but we mustn't be impressed by shallow gestures of feminism.

#hyuna #feminism #feminist #kpop

[limeade-l3sbian]

Why do radfems conveniently forget that female socialization, and societal pressure exist when it's convenient for them.

We make girls insecure by bombarding them with impossible standards that they will never be able to reach, we reward girls who do conform, and partake in beauty rituals and whatnot and AS A RESULT, girls see this and adapt their behavior, clothing, appearance and sometimes even interest to be treated decently and then radfems see this and have the nerve to go "why are women resorting to cosmetic procedures, just let yourself age gracefully" "stop wearing makeup to inspire other women" "stop saving don't give them your money" as if it was that fucking easy, as if we're supposed to ignore all the pressure we're subjected to and pretend it doesn't happen or doesn't affect us. Like come on we're women here we know what it's like. You know damn well if you were to go over a certain BMI you'd be treated like a monster. Like I'm not a bad person or anti feminist for not wanting to have a hard life, and it is not my responsibility to make women feel comfortable in their own skin like this is crazy I didn't subject women to males oppression why is it on me to make it stop.

We condition women and girls to put up with shitty male behavior, to take up less space, to not make a fuss etc.., so when you see a woman complaining about her shitty boyfriend/husband why is your first fucking thought "omg just leave him" as if it was that fucking easy. I've even seen a loooot of radfems say "if you partner up with a man don't be surprised about what happens to you, don't expect any help me from me, you knew what was gonna happen".

Like radfems do acknowledge that female socialization is a thing but how dare women be affected by it.

As individualistic and selfish libfems are, I've never seen them look down on or mock a woman for just trying to survive in a patriarchal world.

You can ignore this like I get it you don't owe me a reasone like im just so tired do radfems belive that women should be faultless and perfect in order for them to discuss issues or dip their toes into radfeminism. Shits already hard enough what do you want from us

No, I won't ignore. Because what you're saying is correct and reasonable. 🤷🏾‍♀️

A lot of radfems have an unfortunate disconnect, and often judge reality by the parameters of idealism.

I don't think the "age gracefully" and "stop wearing makeup" things are judgements (at least they shouldn't be) so much as they are encouraging rally cries, if that makes sense? At least by the women I follow, that's what they mean. It's certainly what I mean. I think there is a lot of judgement passed on women who, like a lot of us at one time, play our part in the patriarchy. I think radfems can be chronically online as well, and that's when you get these needlessly judgemental or "easy fix" (i.e. "just leave your boyfriend") posts.

That's why it's important to balance out your online voice with your real world one. We actively live in this society so to suggest one can be completely removed from its influences is naive. We will defend the actions of women of the past as victims of oppression yet simultaneously pass judgement on a woman making feminist points because she's wearing makeup? I hope I never come off as someone who thinks this community is perfect. But I think it's problems she fixable and redeemable. I think the biggest issues we're dealing with are ego and chronic onlineness (don't think that's a word but you get it).

I fully understand that it's not your fault that men oppress us. So why should it be your job to make it stop? Well, I think that's just a matter of community more so than shifting responsibility. Men are not going to turn their backs on a system that benefits them so much. And if men aren't going to do it, then we (not just you), have to do it ourselves.

I'm rambling now but yeah, this community ain't perfect. We've got a few leaks we need to focus on instead of babies on planes, but I've got hope. 💜

#ask

[pinkacadessays]

A Condensed Essay on Ken and the Dream Gap

As some of you were interested, I decided to edit the notes for the Ken section of my lecture into an essay unto itself. I considered giving you the whole transcript, but I have decided to put that energy into a wider array of projects instead of just one. I hope you enjoy!

Ken and the Dream Gap

The Barbie Movie is a materpiece that manages to balance the pastel pink psychological horror of Stereotypical Barbie’s journey into existentialism with Beach Ken’s Greased Lightnin’ Kenergy, and equally Ken’s destress from his journey from radicalisation to self-acceptance and Barbie’s fun, energetic adventure with her new friends.

The key conflict of the Barbie movie stems from how Ken feels upon discovering patriarchy after being subject exclusively to matriarchy for his entire existence.

If Barbie is Everything, where does that leave Ken? Well, according to Ryan Gosling, Ken is face down in the mud next to a squished lemon, which is where he found his daughters’ Ken doll. Every day is a good day for Barbie, but Ken only has a good day if Barbie looks at him. Luckily for Ken, Barbie is inclined towards looking at him, but it sets up Ken’s position from early on. Ken is just Ken. He means about as much to Barbie, and every Ken means about as much to every Barbie, as their purses or their shoes because Ken is an accessory. Jokes have been made about how his legal name is “and Ken,” because he only exists if he’s with Barbie. Barbie admits having no idea where Ken- and the Kens in general- live.

When Ken gets to the Real World and discovers the Patriarchy, he is seeing for the first time a world in which he can see people who look like him in the positions usually held by people who look like Barbie. Ken represents something greater than he would ever think he could in this movie: the Dream Gap.

The Kens

Beach Ken is not the only Ken, and we have to address the Kens because of how the hierarchy of Barbieland is revealed through them.

Simu Liu’s Ken exists as a rival to an accesory, so where does that put him in the hierarchy? Ryan Gosling’s Ken’s job is “beach,” which doesn’t mean much, but he does have something he’s good at. Simu Liu’s Ken is Ryan Gosling’s Ken’s rival for Stereotypical Barbie’s affections, but what is he aside from that? And what of the other Kens? Do they have jobs? One of them is a lifeguard at a plastic beach that it’s impossible to drown in, and is inhabited by merfolk. They exist to be looked at and admired, but Barbie admits to not being in love with her Ken.

If every night is girls’ night, do the Kens have the autonomy to have Boys’ night?

The feminism of the Barbie movie is pretty obvious from the earliest introduction of Barbieland: there’s a woman as president with a team of women behind her, and that’s just one of the positions from a female-dominated world. The feminism is intersectional too with one Barbie with a golden prosthetic to match her golden accesories, and a Barbie in a perfect pink wheelchair. Hari Nef, a trans woman, plays Doctor Barbie, and the Barbies come from a number of races and ethnicities, as well as body types. The Kens are also equally diverse in appearance.

But the point is that the feminism is imperfect, because just as there are issues with gender equality in the real world, the highest ranking Ken seems to be Lifeguard Ken.

Is it any wonder that they fall so quickly victim to the patriarchal mindset, seeing what it could represent for them?

The Dream Gap

The key conflict of the Barbie movie involves the Barbies taking Barbieland back before the Kens can complete their coup d’etat. What spurns Beach Ken towards the coup in the first place is his discovery of the patriarchy within the Real World, a place in which he sees men- like him- in positions of power, something that he recognises as different and unusual compared to Barbieland.

This is not Ken trying to create the toxicity of patriarchy; as made clear by his belief that horses are such a big part of patriarchy, he doesn’t fully understand it and just wants the same level of respect that he perceives the men of the real world to have, and that the women of Barbieland have.

Ken has never before seen a man in any of these positions. His job is to stand on the beach and look pretty. Ken is the embodiment of the Dream Gap.

The Dream Gap stems from girls seeing the breakdown of society, and how that works against their progression. Seeing women in positions of power encourages girls to seek and desire positions of power, and Ken has never witnessed that.

Lesson 5 of the Dream Gap curriculum is The Career Compass which “encourages kids to believe that they can be anything and explains why exploring lots of careers is important!”

If the Kens had that lesson, would Beach Ken have seen the men of the Real World as powerful or as overpowered compared to their female counterparts.

If little girls had this message generations ago, would The Dream Gap Project be needed today?

Don't Pit Kens Against Each Other

Part of the Barbies’ plot to take back Barbieland involves them working on the Kens’ jealousy towards the other Kens based on certain Barbies’ affections. This pitting of the Kens against each other did work in the Barbies’ favour, but it speaks to a wider societal problem of women being pitted against against each other- for positions in society and jobs, or worse, for male affection.

This isn’t about sports or games, or even about going for the same promotion; this is about desiring for another person to fail where you succeed.

The blog the un-edit says: It’s been ingrained into our society that girls should be jealous of other girls. We should always be unhappy about a girl who is more popular than us. We flip through magazines, or scroll through social media, feeling bitter about any girl’s figure we rank above our own.

Why does it seem so bold to say that, we should not only stop with the comparisons, but we should actually feel good about other peoples’ successes?

Going back to the film, what happens to the Kens? The Barbies pit them against each other in order to regain their positions, and have them compete for female attention. We learn by the end that Stereotypical Barbie is not interested romantically in Beach Ken, and seemingly not in any Ken, and yet the Kens’ feelings for the Barbies’ were so crucial to saving Barbieland.

In Conclusion

Ultimately, the Kens are a metaphor for how women feel in the Real World: failed by a societal system designed to work against them. We need to feel seen in important societal roles frm bin collector to president, to astronaut to ballerina, to mermaid; Ken had never seen a man do any of those things just as women are so rarely part of those real-life conversations. It is magnified by other issues such as race and ethnicity, class and economic status, ability, and gender and orientation, and ultimately is the point is, we need to see ourselves to feel seen. Ken is as much the victim of the Dream Gap as a little girl in the Real World might be, and its up to everyone together, on equal footing, to close it.

#essay #pink academia #pinkacademic #barbie 2023 #barbie movie #barbie #ken

[fromevertonow]

Edit: before people choose to call me a bitch again, this was written after ep5 came out. Any inhuman act of ADULT Alicent’s is not taken into consideration here. I know what she’s gonna do. Just open your fucking eyes to the backstory she’s given IN THE SHOW and shut up. Thanks.

Why are people hating on Alicent for marrying Viserys like it was her choice and then use that as a baseless foundation to hate on her? Is she the picture of perfection in this story? No, absolutely not, but literally no one is. Alicent is as much a victim in all of this as Rhaenyra is. They’re two different women in two different situations who both try to break out of the wheel of patriarchy. How can you sit there and defend Rhaenyra for her completely whacky choices while Alicent makes due with her LACK of choices?

I was on team black when reading the book, but I have a feeling the show is gonna make me a green precisely bc Alicent is so much more fleshed out. We get to see so many things from her perspective and I think it takes incredible bravery to face all of these issues and actually deal with them. Being subjected to a loveless marriage where she’s only used as breeding stock, losing her best friend bc of it, trying to placate her father despite all her unvoiced objections…

Alicent’s animosity towards Rhaenyra is valid in ep 5. She’s tried to make amends with Rhaenyra and it backfired. From the moment Viserys announced his marriage to Alicent, Alicent has been alone. Rhaenyra wanted nothing to do with her bc she felt betrayed and Viserys… well, it doesn’t need much explaining why Alicent doesn’t want to talk to him. The only person she had left was her father, and despite all his flaws, he is still her father whom she loves and cares for. Perhaps also the only person she could confide in, to some degree. Now she’s truly alone. And it is Rhaenyra’s fault, partly.

So far, all Alicent’s done is obey her father. She married Viserys, she gave him heirs, she semi-cooperated with voicing Aegon’s rightful claim to the throne. The one time she directly goes against Otto is when she defends Rhaenyra’s virtue, losing her father in the process. But in the light of rekindling her friendship with Rhaenyra, this was a worthy sacrifice, one she didn’t make lightly. It clearly hurt her to see him go, but she at least had Rhaenyra.

When it turns out that Alicent defended Rhaenyra over a lie, that Alicent lost her father over a lie, that Alicent has been played a fool, it makes perfect sense that she turns bitter. With her friendship with Rhaenyra now officially broken and her father gone, Alicent doesn’t have any internal allies at court anymore, no one to confide in, hence why she strikes an alliance with Ser Criston. He’s hurt too by Rhaenyra’s actions. It makes perfect sense why he’d join Alicent in her plans. In the books it always kind of seemed like backstabbing Rhaenyra, but even a princess has to deal with the consequences of her actions.

I don’t think Alicent is in the wrong to cut Rhaenyra off as a friend. Do I agree with all that she’s about to do? No, but with, again, her lack of choices, Alicent can’t and doesn’t want to do much more than secure her own position and that of her children. Not only does this explanation justify Alicent’s actions, but it also adds much more complexities to the conflict between two former best friends. Neither of them wants to fight the other, but to protect themselves, both have to do the unthinkable. It makes it actually kind of hard to pick a side in the war to come.

#house of the dragon #hotd #alicent hightower #rhaenyra targaryen #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #otto hightower #viserys targaryen #ser criston cole

[livgr3]

Panel 1: Gender, Genre, and Excess

CONTENT WARNING: blood, gore

Raw (2017) written and directed by Julia Ducournau

"I’m fed up with the way young women and their discovery of sexuality is portrayed on screens ... For me, sexuality is in the body. And you should certainly not be a victim. It’s not something that you go through, it’s something that you are active in, and it’s perfectly okay. Your main aim should be to climax, because if it’s not your main aim, you’re never gonna climax. So, that’s what I wanted to show you: a sexuality that is not apologetic, shameless, in the body, in the now and aiming at climax." - Julia Ducournau, British film Institute, 2017 "Masochistic pleasure for women has paradoxically seemed either too normal - too much normal yet intolerable condition of women - or too perverse to be taken seriously as pleasure." - Linda Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess," (1991)

Synopsis

Ducournau's Raw follows the demure, innocent young adult Justine as she begins her first year at a prestigious veterinary school, previously attended by her parents and currently attended by her older sister Alexia.

It is the school's tradition that all new students undergo a bizarre, humiliating hazing ritual. During this week-long ritual, Justine and her cohorts are forced to each eat a rabbit kidney. Justine, forcibly raised to be a strict vegetarian by her parents, refuses to eat the kidney until she is urged by her older sister.

After her first taste of meat, Justine begins to change. She develops a full-body rash and an insatiable taste for raw meat, which soon devolves into cannibalism.

What is particularly interesting about her newfound hunger, though, is its direct correlation to her sexual awakening.

Genre

Despite its highly graphic content and horrific themes, I personally categorize Raw as a film in the coming-of-age genre that simply uses elements of horror as a visual and multi-sensorial tool through which to further explore themes of sexual discovery.

This brings me back to the two quotes at the top. Ducournau argues that the prototypical narratives of the feminine sexual awakening in the coming-of-age film far too often simplify the true complexity of young women's desires. These stories often conflate sexual attraction (to men) to the desire to be sexually attracted to (by men), crafting the woman as an inherent victim and object of male desire even if she is allegedly the protagonist of a narrative. In Ducournau's cinematic vision, to portray the woman as the active subject of her sexual desire is to separate her desire from man's desire completely. In order to achieve this exploration of the distinct and uncomfortable realities of female sexuality, Ducournau chooses to represent sexual hunger through cannibalistic hunger.

Much of Williams' musings on the horror genre reflect most feminist film theorists' consensus that horror sees women as its common victims. While Williams offers a few retorts on the state of female agency in horror, she ultimately concedes that horror caters deeply to men's psychosexual pleasures, whether they be sadistic or masochistic. In the quote above, Williams addresses the improbability of women's sadomasochistic pleasures guiding the cinematic gaze. She very interestingly describes women's desires as "too normal" or "too perverse;" women's sexuality is, deep down, known by the patriarchy to exist, but is far too big a taboo to openly talk about.

In Raw, Ducournau brings these unspoken desires to the surface in the most disgusting, unavoidable way possible.

Gendered Bodies and Excess

Another content warning (sorry Prof!!!)

Rather than rely solely upon the male/female gaze to address the viewer within the narrative, Ducournau uses various bodily sensations to suture the viewer to the protagonist's perspective. This is referred to multi-sensory spectatorship, in which the on-screen body evokes a sensation in the body of the viewer.

For example:

This mirrors Williams' texts, in which she writes that "the body of the spectator is caught up in an almost involuntary mimicry of the emotion or sensation of the body on the screen along with the fact that the body displayed is female" (26). However, Justine in Raw does not just evoke feelings of fear, as Williams suggest women in horror typically do. Through a multi-sensory experience, Justine's sexual awakening addresses women viewers and invites them to welcome their sexual desires which have been deemed "too perverse."

She even addresses us by looking directly at the camera when the culminations of her cannibalism and sexual awakening meet:

Racialized Bodies and Excess

The film does not see Justine sexually engage with men until later into its narrative, when her sexual awakening has already been realized within her own terms. Here, Ducournau flips the hegemonic gaze and poses an objectification of men, with a particular scene of Justine gawking at men's topless, active bodies.

The most notable object of her sexual gaze is Adrien, her roommate. Adrien is ethnically ambiguous and the only non-white person in the main cast of the film. He identifies as gay early in the film, though he has sex with Justine and has an implied flirtation with her sister, causing his sexuality to also be ambiguous. As he is assigned Justine's roommate despite his being a male, their gender roles in relation to one another can also be considered ambiguous. This ambiguity deconstructs any binaries that would have helped us eaily define Justine's sexuality or sexual desire, but this results in the objectification of Adrien and his body.

It is also notable that Adrien is murdered for cannibalistic consumption, with his mutilated body one of the most graphic displays of the film. (not showing that here, you're welcome :D). This detail, along with Adrien's place as the film's only POC, still falls back on tropes of racial exploitation and excess as relating to the "Othered" body on screen.

Though Ducournau's film is quite remarkable in its methods of reversing and deconstructing the male gaze, its ironic objectification of men can get pretty hairy when the implications of racial objectification are not carefully considered.

Discussion Questions

(I hope the GIFs weren't too gross. Here's this:)

Do you agree with Ducournau's claim that young women's sexual awakenings in coming-of-age films are victimizing? What films can be described this way? Which ones can't?

Is the objectification of men the "solution"/rebuttal to the objectifying male gaze? Why or why not?

Why do you think cannibalism and sexual desire are often connected in horror films? Do you think this aspect of Raw is necessary to tell its story of female sexuality?

#oxyfilmidentity #@theuncannyprofessoro #oxyfilmidentity-fa23 #Youtube

[chinesegal]

I realized a long time ago that there's a correlation between how the patriarchy hates women who are "vain", portraying them as vapid and shallow yet at the same time detests any woman who doesn't spend enough effort on her appearance as "slobs" and how terfs (FARTs) hate trans women regardless if they're feminine or masculine. Trans women who present femininely are accused of reducing womanhood to stereotypes while those who are masculine are accused of "not even trying".

I was inspired to write this because some days ago I saw a terf post on tumblr where the OP starts with expressing anger towards trans women who beg for money to help with their transition, saying that many women would love cute clothing, high end cosmetics and lasering off body hair, conforming to femininity is painful and time-consuming, that women face horrible treatment for not conforming and accusing trans women of "wanting to opt into that oppression".

The post ends with them claiming trans women "don't wanna be a 'normal' ugly woman" but "top 1% of “hot” women who get special treatment for being good decorative objects."

Of course, this is nowhere close to reality, it's making generalizations of an entire diverse demographic for the purpose of bigoted propaganda, but what catches my eye is how ignorant this is. Because trans women never get shit for not being conventionally attractive/cis-passing, and wouldn't the trans women they complain about be well-aware of the costs of performing feminity since that's what they set themselves up for?

Basically, its a form of victim-blaming where it is literally impossible to fulfill the standards you are subjected to. And the way terfs can't recognize trans women as people who struggle and suffer as much as they do is incredibly vile and ignorant of reality.

#anti-terf #transphobia #transmisogyny #feminism #sexism #violence against trans women

[foesofthefemme]

Patriarchy and the "Kill All Men" Feminist-Mentality.

It is quite obvious that patriarchy has imposed an excruciating number of disadvantages on women. Feminist scholars and activists have dedicated decades of research, literature, and activism to illustrate the ways in which this occurs. Traditional gender roles place women in small boxes that require them to be submissive, petite, passive, and insatiably obsessed with male validation. This is only the tip of the patriarchy-induced-downfalls iceberg. 

As previously mentioned, patriarchy is a well-covered subject, there is certainly no shortage of literature and commentary on the construct. However, people often want to oversimplify patriarchy so intensely that some of its most important aspects are lost or forgotten. I don’t blame them, it’s a disgustingly complex topic to cover. This is especially true when the blame game enters the conversation. Who do we blame for patriarchy and why? The given answer is almost always men, of course. Furthermore, I think that giving this answer is a way of taking the easy way out. To oversimplify patriarchy and play the blame game is to deny its overarching impact on both women and men, exacerbating the vicious cycle. 

Author and feminist theorist, Bell Hooks, addresses this aspect of patriarchy in several of her works. It was when I first read “Understanding Patriarchy” that I realized the “kill all men” feminist-mentality that many have adopted is outright backwards. Patriarchy negatively affects women in ways that seem obvious to us because of how well it has been deconstructed, analyzed, and disseminated by talented authors like Bell Hooks. This is not a bad thing by any means. However, the ways in which patriarchy negatively affects men don’t jump out at us at first since this aspect of feminism is largely overlooked, unexamined, and not discussed often enough. 

The rise and spread of the “kill all men” feminist-mentality has set us back several years, I fear. This mentality is based on the notion that past and present-day men are the enemy and the root of all feminist problems. I am not denying that patriarchy was and still is a structure set up by men. However, the fact that men, especially young men, also fall victim to the patriarchy and have no means to escape is almost never considered. Most men go their entire adult lives not considering this either. Hooks provides a thorough analysis of this, “Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples. Since it is a system that denies men full access to their freedom of will, it is difficult for any man of any class to rebel against patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, be that parent female or male,” (Hooks, 2004, p. 5). 

Both women and men are socialized into adhering to strict gender roles. This often begins with the “patriarchal parent,” as Bell Hooks calls it. Associate professor Michele Ramsey says, “Children learn their communication patterns and gender roles from a variety of people and institutions, but their parents are the ones that they, in theory, interact with the most” (Hartley, 2017). Why do you think Chad from gym class is the epitome of toxic masculinity? He was most likely raised to be that way by parents who imposed strict gender roles onto him, creating a horribly misconstrued and toxic perception of what it means to be a man. Having sympathy for men like Chad is inherently difficult, but once it is realized that their actions reflect their upbringing and the mold they were taught to fit in, it becomes much easier. 

Fathers teach their sons to suppress emotions, provide for the women in their lives, be aggressive and violent, and look “masculine,” as society defines it. The men who don’t conform are labeled “pussies” or “pansies,” and are socially ostracized. Men’s mental health is often overlooked, and the suicide rates among young men reflect this. Men are placed into small boxes, just as women are. To solely blame men for the patriarchy and all its implications is to ignore some of the most imperative values of feminism. It is my opinion that we cannot dismantle patriarchy until society understands how it is present in all walks of life, especially men’s lives. It is not until we acknowledge that patriarchy has historically affected both men and women negatively that we can deconstruct it. 

"To truly address male pain and male crisis we must as a nation be willing to expose the harsh reality that patriarchy has damaged men in the past and continues to damage them in the present. If patriarchy were truly rewarding to men, the violence and addiction in family life that is so all-pervasive would not exist." - Bell Hooks

References

Women Aren't Nags- We're Just Fed Up. (Hartley, 2017).

Understanding Patriarchy. (Hooks, 2004).

#feminist #feminism #gender #radical feminist

[dhaaruni]

Do you have any good books/sources for combating marxist arguments? I'm in a course where we have to contrast capitalism and freedom and our professor has assigned all marxist writers (except for one essay from a Neoliberal) who critique all private property/capitalism and I feel exceptionally unprepared because I am NOT knowledgeable on politics or economics.

On one hand I feel for the case marxists make but I'm just so suspicious that it would ever work out in real life much less applied to our modern society? If communism is so great why has literally every communist country train-wrecked yknow? I come from an immigrant fam and this country has honestly transformed us in 3 generations top and I 100% understand the inequality but also there seems to be a lot of good opportunity compared with former USSR countries. I'm not saying things are perfect just that I'm skeptical of the proposed "solution".

(I'm a lost stem girl and they're making me take this for English)

I sort of get what you mean.

One of the main arguments against Marxism is that capitalism is the worst economic system for women other than every other economic system. The patriarchy is universal, there's no society in the world that isn't patriarchal (and no I'm not making exceptions on this statement for tiny 100-person communities in Papua New Guinea that for the record, are still patriarchal because it's only the WOMEN who are forced to carry babies, and pregnancy is and always has been dangerous for the mother even though it's obviously way better than 200 years ago).

Look at it like this: in India, I am not the victim of racism but I'm still victimized by misogyny, this isn't a complicated statement! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said this same thing about Nigeria, that in Nigeria, she wasn't perceived as African-American but she was still subject to cultural misogyny since that didn't go away.

Like also, sure, a communist utopia sounds great in theory for everybody is equal economically but who's going to enforce that? Won't they be in positions of power if they have the ability to enforce that? Also, in a communist utopia, who's going to make sure that people don't commit violent crime? Like, are people really claiming that rape is caused by poverty because think long and hard about what that statement implies. Rape is the oldest crime known to humanity, there are accounts of it in ancient times! And for the record, rapists WERE censured even before the modern era, even if obviously, there were varying definitions of rape, marital rape wasn't a crime like it is today etc.

But yeah, I don't fully understand the economic arguments for and against it, but those are just off the top of my head.

#answered #anonymous #politics