Tag: feminism

alleiradayne:

akay4:

claudiaboleyn:

eggz1st:

meleg-vagyok:

cruxofargon:

the-critical-feminist:

cishetwhiteoppressor:

Finally, a sane celebrity who doesn’t bend the knee to feminist bullshit.

Source

My god I love her.

I know people are gonna get salty af about this but by God she’s RIGHT.

When Brad Pitt did Fight Club, he was cutting weight for every single scene to maintain his physique at 155. I’ve you’ve ever cut weight, you know how horrible that must have been. He did it because they needed a “look”.

Changing Tatum said his Magic Mike body doesn’t last for more than five days. He starved down and dehydrated his already fit physique for a “look”.

The male soldiers on Spartacus: Blood and Sand were eating pretty much chicken and veggies for every meal to maintain a “look”.

Why is this such a big deal? Because all these characters are considered physical goals for men. These are actual unobtainable physical standards for men. Male body image issues get swept under the rug so often that some people don’t even think they exist.

As a guy with an ED, it’s really nice to hear people talking about men’s body image issues, but I kinda feel like saying men are just as objectified as women misses the point somewhat. Objectification has to do with much more than just unrealistic standards of beauty, and while both men and women in the acting business endure horrifying things to maintain the desired “look,” women are forced to do so while also experiencing a number of other injustices. Like, for example, I’m sure both Chris Evans and Scarlet Johansen were submitted to really concerning shit for Avengers, but only Scarlet received highly invasive questions about her body, and only Scarlet’s character was used as an interchangeable romance prop, and only Scarlet did so just to have her character written off by male fans as nothing more than eye candy.

I’m really not trying to say that men don’t experience huge body issues, hell i’ve lived them for the past 3 years, but we need to address that there is already a thoroughly ingrained system of prejudice in place working against women, and that means that they experience objectification often invisible at first glance. Support men and help us, but remember pain is not a competition, as others are in need of urgent care.

(Also, p.s., to those using this to bitch about feminism, feminists are the people pushing the hardest for men with body issues, so don’t fucking use me as a prop because you don’t like women organizing. Fuck you.)

louder for the people in the back

I agree with the last two posters here. The look men are meant to attain is created by men. It is a power fantasy. The look women are expected to achieve has nothing to do with power or agency. It is to do with being sexy and appealing for the straight male gaze. Obviously men suffer under these ideals too, because it’s never good to make people feel under pressure to look a certain way, but as the above poster said, feeling pressure to do with body image is not the same as objectification. Men are very very rarely objectified because even when the actors bulk up for parts they are not objects in the scenario. The look is part of their character (which serves to make them more powerful and also will often make the entirety of the female characters fall at their feet). It is not their defining trait.

Whereas look at women in film and television. Even women playing superheroes can’t be too muscular in case (heaven forfend) they turn off too many male audience members. Women that are powerful and heroic have to be sexy as well. Unless a woman is a villain, (and even then look at how female villains are often sexualised because so many male writers are incapable of writing a woman with the same depth of a man, therefore they think her only possible power is sex appeal), female characters will usually be expected to be passably attractive to male viewers no matter what their role.

(There are definitely exceptions to this, but it’s a big enough problem to be a trend and get noticed).

I should also point out that the ideal for women in film and television seems to serve to make them seem more vulnerable and powerless, which is in direct opposition to the ideal men are supposed to attain.

Remember that seeing someone as sexually attractive does not always mean objectifying them. Yes, a lot of female viewers (and viewers of other genders too for that matter) drool over Chris Evans as Captain America. Many women find Evans as Cap very sexually attractive. But he is not an object in this scenario. He is a powerful, charismatic, heroic, three-dimensional character who also happens to be very hot. (I can’t deny it. He is a handsome man.)

Captain America (unlike many female protagonists) is not expected to be hot at every moment he is on screen. He is allowed to experience other emotions and his appearance is not the priority. It is just an occasional bonus for those that appreciate such things. It’s like when Daniel Craig’s Bond steps out of the sea in that iconic shot. Yes, that scene definitely is pleasing to a lot of female viewers, but a) there are also plenty of scenes where Craig’s Bond is shown in a non-sexualised, completely human manner, and b) watching that scene Bond still holds the power. You couldn’t watch that scene and say Bond is lacking in power or agency, could you? It is very clear he is in control.

Check out this quote I found on the subject from everydayfeminism:

“Objectified men seem to be saying, “Come hither; look what I can give you,” while objectified women seem to be saying, “This is yours for the taking.”

Back to the objectification of women in media, even women in pain, being tortured, are sexualised. To the extent that the noises they make while in agony must sound appropriately sexual and their dead bodies must be displayed in a disturbingly ‘tantalising’ and sexual way, sometimes even in lingerie for no apparent reason. Even dead, a woman on the screen must be hot. She becomes the ultimate object. In death her being arousal achieving decoration matters more than her personhood. This is the state of affairs on tv and in film right now. A woman cannot escape objectification even when suffering immense trauma. No matter what is happening in her story (and often on tv at the moment that’s not a awful lot) she is expected to be sexy.

Another point I wanted to bring up, is that in this society men do not need to be attractive to be respected or hold power. There is pressure for men to look a certain way, absolutely, but they are still seen as full human beings no matter how they look. (This is also why so many male actors will be working past middle age and the roles for women will become very scarce indeed).

This is long, so I will end my ramble now, but to conclude, in my opinion, yes, women are capable of objectifying men on an individual level. This is bad. But it is not a societal norm which impacts the day to day lives of men or their positions in society.

To summarise: women in film = body first, personhood second, men in film = personhood first, sometimes (but not always) attractive body as a juicy bonus which also serves to fulfil a male power fantasy.

It’s not even nearly the same. 

Male “objectification”: Guys, you should try to look like this.

Female objectification: Guys, she needs to look like this for you.

So I sow the original post with only the first to additions and was going to go on a long fucking diatribe how the objectification of men and women in media is drastically different but the root of both are the same.

And then I found the previous three additions which put words to my thoughts very well and now I don’t have to spend hours of my life–which I was fully prepared to do–on typing a novel about all of this.

jackorino:

p0tbarbie:

p0tbarbie:

every single negative stereotype about women was dreamt up by men who were projecting. fight me about it.

“women can’t drive”

It is so well known that women are better and safer drivers than men that OUR CAR INSURANCE RATES ARE LOWER. Women get into fewer accidents, get fewer DUIs, and receive fewer speeding tickets than men.

“women never shut up”

Several scientific studies have shown that not only do men talk more than women, they also think that women have been talking for much longer than they actually have. Men interrupt and talk over women, dominate conversations, and still think women talk too much.

“women are shallow”

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Lol next

“my wife is my ball and chain lmao”

Multiple studies have shown that marriage between men and women:
Increases male lifespan, decreases female lifespan
Decreases male depression rates, increases female depression rates
Decreases male stress levels, increases female stress levels
Increases male health and happiness, decreases female health and happiness
Increases a man’s chance of getting a raise or promotion, decreases a woman’s chances of getting a raise or promotion

“women are too emotional”

Men love to say this about women after hurting them, in order to shift the blame and dismiss their feelings in one go. In reality, women are taught to hold our tongues and control ourselves quite literally from birth. We’re taught to put men’s needs and wants ahead of our own emotions regardless of the personal cost. Men are taught to do more or less whatever the fuck they want to women. Men take their emotions out on women while women are expected to shove theirs down.

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I could go on and on but I don’t really think I need to.

for all you pissbabies crying about sources

We’re Ready

shannonhale:

I was presenting an assembly for kids grades 3-8 while on book tour for the third PRINCESS ACADEMY book.

Me: “So many teachers have told me the same thing. They say, ‘When I told my students we were reading a book called PRINCESS ACADEMY, the girls said—’”

I gesture to the kids and wait. They anticipate what I’m expecting, and in unison, the girls scream, “YAY!”

Me: “’And the boys said—”

I gesture and wait. The boys know just what to do. They always do, no matter their age or the state they live in.

In unison, the boys shout, “BOOOOO!”

Me: “And then the teachers tell me that after reading the book, the boys like it as much or sometimes even more than the girls do.”

Audible gasp. They weren’t expecting that.

Me: “So it’s not the story itself boys don’t like, it’s what?”
The kids shout, “The name! The title!”

Me: “And why don’t they like the title?”

As usual, kids call out, “Princess!”

But this time, a smallish 3rd grade boy on the first row, who I find out later is named Logan, shouts at me, “Because it’s GIRLY!”

The way Logan said “girly"…so much hatred from someone so small. So much distain. This is my 200-300th assembly, I’ve asked these same questions dozens of times with the same answers, but the way he says “girly” literally makes me take a step back. I am briefly speechless, chilled by his hostility.

Then I pull it together and continue as I usually do.

“Boys, I have to ask you a question. Why are you so afraid of princesses? Did a princess steal your dog? Did a princess kidnap your parents? Does a princess live under your bed and sneak out at night to try to suck your eyeballs out of your skull?”

The kids laugh and shout “No!” and laugh some more. We talk about how girls get to read any book they want but some people try to tell boys that they can only read half the books. I say that this isn’t fair. I can see that they’re thinking about it in their own way.

But little Logan is skeptical. He’s sure he knows why boys won’t read a book about a princess. Because a princess is a girl—a girl to the extreme. And girls are bad. Shameful. A boy should be embarrassed to read a book about a girl. To care about a girl. To empathize with a girl.

Where did Logan learn that? What does believing that do to him? And how will that belief affect all the girls and women he will deal with for the rest of his life?

At the end of my presentation, I read aloud the first few chapters of THE PRINCESS IN BLACK. After, Logan was the only boy who stayed behind while I signed books. He didn’t have a book for me to sign, he had a question, but he didn’t want to ask me in front of others. He waited till everyone but a couple of adults had left. Then, trembling with nervousness, he whispered in my ear, “Do you have a copy of that black princess book?”

He wanted to know what happened next in her story. But he was ashamed to want to know.

Who did this to him? How will this affect how he feels about himself? How will this affect how he treats fellow humans his entire life?

We already know that misogyny is toxic and damaging to women and girls, but often we assume it doesn’t harm boys or mens a lick. We think we’re asking them to go against their best interest in the name of fairness or love. But that hatred, that animosity, that fear in little Logan, that isn’t in his best interest. The oppressor is always damaged by believing and treating others as less than fully human. Always. Nobody wins. Everybody loses. 

We humans have a peculiar tendency to assume either/or scenarios despite all logic. Obviously it’s NOT “either men matter OR women do.” It’s NOT “we can give boys books about boys OR books about girls.” It’s NOT “men are important to this industry OR women are.“ 

It’s not either/or. It’s AND.

We can celebrate boys AND girls. We can read about boys AND girls. We can listen to women AND men. We can honor and respect women AND men. And And And. I know this seems obvious and simplistic, but how often have you assumed that a boy reader would only read a book about boys? I have. Have you preselected books for a boy and only offered him books about boys? I’ve done that in the past. And if not, I’ve caught myself and others kind of apologizing about it. “I think you’ll enjoy this book EVEN THOUGH it’s about a girl!” They hear that even though. They know what we mean. And they absorb it as truth.

I met little Logan at the same assembly where I noticed that all the 7th and 8th graders were girls. Later, a teacher told me that the administration only invited the middle school girls to my assembly. Because I’m a woman. I asked, and when they’d had a male author, all the kids were invited. Again reinforcing the falsehood that what men say is universally important but what women say only applies to girls.

One 8th grade boy was a big fan of one of my books and had wanted to come, so the teacher had gotten special permission for him to attend, but by then he was too embarrassed. Ashamed to want to hear a woman speak. Ashamed to care about the thoughts of a girl.

A few days later, I tweeted about how the school didn’t invite the middle school boys. And to my surprise, twitter responded. Twitter was outraged. I was blown away. I’ve been talking about these issues for over a decade, and to be honest, after a while you feel like no one cares. 

But for whatever reason, this time people were ready. I wrote a post explaining what happened, and tens of thousands of people read it. National media outlets interviewed me. People who hadn’t thought about gendered reading before were talking, comparing notes, questioning what had seemed normal. Finally, finally, finally.

And that’s the other thing that stood out to me about Logan—he was so ready to change. Eager for it. So open that he’d started the hour expressing disgust at all things “girly” and ended it by whispering an anxious hope to be a part of that story after all. 

The girls are ready. Boy howdy, we’ve been ready for a painful long time. But the boys, they’re ready too. Are you?

I’ve spoken with many groups about gendered reading in the last few years. Here are some things that I hear:

A librarian, introducing me before my presentation: “Girls, you’re in for a real treat. You’re going to love Shannon Hale’s books. Boys, I expect you to behave anyway.”

A book festival committee member: “Last week we met to choose a keynote speaker for next year. I suggested you, but another member said, ‘What about the boys?’ so we chose a male author instead.”

A parent: “My son read your book and he ACTUALLY liked it!”

A teacher: “I never noticed before, but for read aloud I tend to choose books about boys because I assume those are the only books the boys will like.”

A mom: “My son asked me to read him The Princess in Black, and I said, ‘No, that’s for your sister,’ without even thinking about it.”

A bookseller: “I’ve stopped asking people if they’re shopping for a boy or a girl and instead asking them what kind of story the child likes.”

Like the bookseller, when I do signings, I frequently ask each kid, “What kind of books do you like?” I hear what you’d expect: funny books, adventure stories, fantasy, graphic novels. I’ve never, ever, EVER had a kid say, “I only like books about boys.” Adults are the ones with the weird bias. We’re the ones with the hangups, because we were raised to believe thinking that way is normal. And we pass it along to the kids in sometimes  overt (“Put that back! That’s a girl book!”) but usually in subtle ways we barely notice ourselves.

But we are ready now. We’re ready to notice and to analyze. We’re ready to be thoughtful. We’re ready for change. The girls are ready, the boys are ready, the non-binary kids are ready. The parents, librarians, booksellers, authors, readers are ready. Time’s up. Let’s make a change.

forgottenwomenfriday:

Forgotten Women Friday #46

Virginia Hall- 1906-1982- United States

“The Most Dangerous of All Spies”

Virginia Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but received a higher education that spanned across Europe, studying in France, Germany, Austria, and Poland. It was here that Hall landed a job as a Consular Service clerk at the American Embassy in Warsaw in 1931. She dreamed of serving in the American Foreign Service, but her hopes were crushed during a hunting trip in Turkey, when she accidentally shot herself in the leg while trying to climb a fence. Ultimately, her leg was amputated from the knee down and replaced with a wooden one. Hall resigned herself to choosing an alternate career path, but everything changed when Germany invaded France in 1940. Determined to do her part, Hall became a voluntary ambulance driver in France. When France fell to Germany however, she and a friend were forced to bike out of the country to safety (a feat she pulled off despite having a fake leg). After arriving in London, Hall attended a dinner party where she talked about what she had seen in a France under siege. Little did she know, the hostess of the dinner was a spy recruiter and Hall immediately caught her eye. Before she knew it, Hall was a spy serving with the Special Operations Executive, the most secret branch of British intelligence.

After being trained and given a fake identity as a journalist, Hall was smuggled back into Vichy France. For fifteen months, Hall coordinated the actions of the French Underground. One of her main tasks was Project Corsica, a mission to rescue captured agents from a brutal prison. In order to do this, Hall smuggled metal and pliers to one of the agents, who was a skilled metalworker, and he made copies of the guard’s keys from observation alone. The success of this mission led the Gestapo to dub her “the most dangerous of all spies” and her image was posted on every wall in France. It also caught the eye of the “Butcher of Lyon,” Klaus Barbie, an SS official. But before he could get his hands on her, Hall fled to Spain across the Pyrenees Mountains, a 30 mile hike through snow so deep that she was forced to use her fake leg as a plow. Hall eventually made it safely to London but the SOE refused to put her back in the field. Undeterred, Hall joined the OSS, the American precursor to the CIA, and was sent back in France. Using a radio, Hall relayed any intel she gathered back to America and also made contact with local Resistance cells. In addition to intel gathering, Hall coordinated air drops of weapons and cash, recruited and trained guerrilla fighters, blew up bridges and trains, and sabotaged German troops. During a span of three months, rebels and spies under Virginia’s command killed 170 Nazis and captured 800 more.

But Hall’s time as a spy wasn’t all violence and subterfuge– She actually ended up meeting her future husband, Paul Goillot, when he arrived in France as reinforcement for her. After the war, when the OSS became the CIA, Hall became their first female staffer in 1951. Although most of the details of her work at the CIA are still classified, we do know that her work focused on intel gathering behind the Iron Curtain. She retired to a farm in Maryland in 1966 and died nearby in 1982 at age 76. For her efforts in France, Hall was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, making her the only civilian woman to receive one in World War II. In 2017, the CIA named a training facility after Hall, cementing her decades of service and her legacy as one of the greatest spies in American history, male or female.

fandomshatepeopleofcolor:

White people really complain about non western men oppressing women by “forcing” “oppressive” dress codes like sarees and hijab/burqa over women when it is literally MANDATORY for women to wear high heels in MANY MANY workplaces in western countries n they can be sent back home if they arent wearing them. It is shown how employers still prefer women who wear makeup on jobs than bare faced women in the west lol. Like maybe its just me but at least those “oppressive” hijabs and sarees are much better than footware which make it harder for women to move around and causes damage to women’s feet if they wear them regularly and makeup which adds more burden on alot of women’s budget lol – mod ro

thepinkjinx:

cathcer1984:

starry-whispers:

blairdiggory:

Hey, I’m honestly trying to comprehend the US Open final, so can someone please explain to me why we’re defending Serena? Because:

1) Her coach admitted he was coaching her. That’s a valid violation.

2) She broke her racket in anger. “Racket abuse” is a valid violation.

3) The only violation I’m not sure of is verbal abuse, but she was calling him a liar and a theif, even though all he did was call her on the above two violations, which were valid. Like, you can’t deny she did both.

I don’t get how racism plays in because Osaka is also not white or how misogyny plays in because we weren’t comparing Serena to a man, we were comparing her to Osaka, who’s a woman.

If anyone could explain these points, I’d appreciate it! Not trying to start a fight, I’d just like some insight.

Because, 1) Almost all coaches do that while their players are on the court and no one really considers it sending signals or cheating. Serena’s coach admits to coaching her but he also said that NEVER in his life has he received a code violation for doing exactly what he did today and that he does this for ALL of his players. None of which received violations.

2)The umpire accused her of cheating, bringing into question her character when she’s at where she is due to her own hard work and skill, so he was pretty much discrediting her reputation and talent, to believe that she’d be willing to cheat just to win. She was extremely offended by this because she’s SERENA WILLIAMS, a legend who’s worked incredibly hard this past year after nearly D Y I N G in childbirth to be at the top of her game. Serena said, “I don’t cheat to win, I’d rather lose.”

3) Almost all tennis players at some point break their rackets in anger or frustration, some do not get penalized for racket abuse, some do. What Serena did was pretty minor in comparison to other racket abuse examples, some players break multiple rackets in one match. Dominic Thiem, an Austrian player, was applauded for breaking his racket then giving it to a young fan as a souvenir a week ago….at the US open.

4)The above racket abuse violation resulted in a POINT penalty. Taking a point away from Serena and giving it to Naomi. He didn’t have to give her a point penalty but his reasoning was that the earlier “warning” and now the racket abuse should result in taking a point from her. In some tennis matches they do not take a point a way for such a violation.

5) Since he called her a cheater earlier in the match she said she could call him a thief for taking that point away from her. He counted this as verbal abuse of an official and gave her a GAME penalty. Changing the second set score to 4-3 to 5-3, in Naomi’s favor. Naomi won the last game and then the match.

People are talking about race and misogyny probably because a lot of other white male players will do exactly what Serena and her coach did today and get zero to little violations for them, even though in some cases they act more extremely than she did today. Some men have said wayyyyy worse to umpires and don’t receive that heavy of a penalty. Serena said, “To lose a game for saying that, it’s not fair, I mean it’s really not,” Williams said. “There’s a lot of men out here who’ve said a lot of things, and because they are men, it doesn’t happen to them. Because I’m a woman, you’re going to take [a game] away from me? I know you can’t change it but it’s not right.”

Also, there was some shady stuff that happened at the US open with Serena a couple of years ago so there’s some history there.

Overall, Naomi Osaka played amazing today and didn’t deserve her first Glam Slam to be marred with such hate. The crowd was very pro Serena so there was a lot of booing at the umpire, which may have been deserved, but downplayed Naomi’s win. Serena several times tried to gesture to the crowd to quit booing and in her speech after the match told everyone to stop booing and consoled and congratulated a crying Naomi on her win.

Neither of them deserved such an awful US Open final but Naomi Osaka is definitely a legend in the making and should be celebrated for her amazing playing today and making history as the first US Open winner from Japan. She had said before this match that it was her dream to play against her idol Serena in a grand slam.

And Serena Williams is without a doubt the best athlete of our time and it’s despicable that this Grand Slam season has seemed to have it out for her, with the recent “catsuit ban” at the Roland-Garros. There’s been no one like her in sports history and she’ll continue to make history without a doubt.

Serena Williams has been battling misogyny, racism and so much hatred for her entire career. She handles it with grace and dignity.

Today, she got emotional because the very nature of her character was called into question by someone who should have been completely neutral. He is considered one of the best umpires of the sport and generally does men’s matches.

To address the Thiem comment, he was warned in his match for smashing his racket, the media are the ones applauding it. The umpire was consistent with the rules there.

This is a sport that still celebrates the antics of John McEnroe while criticizing a woman for doing something so much more controlled than that…

Serena Williams has one more Grand Slam titles than anyone in the Open Era of Tennis (that began in 1968). Roger Federer has been called the Greatest Of All Time for winning 20 Grand Slam titles, more than any man in the Open Era. Serena has won 23.

I have always admired Serena as an athlete, a woman,a feminist and recently as a mother. I wish her all the best, I hope this is something she can overcome and I honestly believe the US Open needs to sort out its umpires. You can’t have one umpire coach a player mid match. You can’t have one rule applies to one, and another rule for another player. Novak Djokovic had an entire conversation with his box... and a hand gesture that Serena couldn’t possibly have seen all of it, is unacceptable and penalised? Consistency is the key for an official in any sport.

It’s a shame the final is being remembered for such negativity. Naomi Osaka has had the joy of her victory taken away from her. Serena Williams had her character attacked and a celebration of her achievement taken away. Carlos Ramos has created a dark day for Serena, Naomi, the fans and tennis itself.

Carlos Ramos should publicly APOLOGIZE to Serena and promptly announced his retirement.

betterbemeta:

Recently, youtuber Natalie Wynn brought up a great concept in her breakdown of why Incels believe the things they do– “masochistic epistemology.” She put it simply, “what hurts, is true.”

She said this in the context of how incels basically form parasocial death cults when they are ‘blackpilled.’ They come to believe that because they feel terrible about themselves right now, that feeling is objectively true and forever, and even the reality of how the ‘world really works’ and there’s no hope to change it, only to “LDR”. Which is, ‘lie down and rot’, a form of suicide baiting. What’s happened here is that otherwise genuine feelings of pain or insecurity have been validated maybe too much and have evolved into an entire worldview centered around affirmation of pain. And once pain-as-truth becomes social capital, the way people behave changes to maximize its growth and spread.

But I have to say? I feel like I have encountered versions of the very same behavior in my own spaces, on tumblr, on facebook, etc.:

  • There’s definitely forms of love-bombing that surround mental illness or depression support connections that shower you with confirmation and praise only as long as you reject any steps of managing mental illness, so long as it unstoppably dominates your life. Once you question someone else’s behavior or declare that you’re seeing a therapist or something all your new parasocial friends turn against you.
  • I’ve seen it in supposedly feminist spaces where women that are otherwise strangers to each other talk each other into hopelessness and heightened fear of sex and fear of other people in their life, especially male figures. Sometimes not even based in a specific personal experience, but instead just this collective ‘dark truth’ of womanhood. TERFs love to do this, and segue younger people into fear of trans women this way.
  • I’ve seen it happen a lot within lgbt+ spaces where someone’s personal despair about dysphoria, homophobia they face, not being able to find a partner or being judged by family or strangers, or even fear of violence, enters a feedback loop with other people they don’t actually know and don’t have any interests but their own consumption in mind amplifying it, forming these insular enclaves where fear is truth and everyone else is wrong because they don’t feel as terrible about being attracted to the same sex or for being trans as they should. Meanwhile no one struggling within this structure is actually getting the support or help they need, they’re just arguing about it and building cases for, when the mythical support does fall from the sky,  why they should get it first.
  • There’s mounds of discourse where people argue over how because that group couldn’t possibly live as terrible a reality as this group, their lived experience isn’t the order of the universe and therefore doesn’t deserve validity or attention at all. And to argue, inexperienced people fall into the trap of trying to artificially match the despair levels of their critics, or try to counter one black pill with their own black pill which will never be credible to outsiders, resulting in cringy disaster at all vectors. In the red-hot radioactive mess troll accounts prosper.

Which is not to say that all these situations are full of people as baseless as incels– some of them are living very difficult lives, but are using “masochistic epistemology“ as the internal logic of their world. And the effect of such an internal logic is extremely dark self-confirming biases in excess of what is necessary to communicate the dangers of their lives, or cope with hardship. And any similar person who goes off seeking friends who acknowledge their pain is going to find a black hole of people who’d otherwise be peers escalating that very pain in themselves and others in order to confirm it’s all real.

Natalie Wynn herself, a trans woman, struggled with the urge to go to 4chan’s /lgbt/ and wait for the most toxic and hopeless crowds there to rip her appearance apart even though it made very little logical sense. The people there shared the same insecurities as her, that they don’t pass, that people will despise them, and in some way hearing those insecurities confirmed rather than denied to her felt more like ‘the real truth’ or ‘what people really think’ than it did to hear praise and encouragement. Even if what they had to say wasn’t anywhere near an objective truth. 

The “pain is real” mindset is that hard to shake! It doesn’t matter if you’re smart, prepared to identify the phenomenon with philosophy education, intellectually aware that it’s bad for you. There is a self-harm impulse to ‘face reality’, but a very specific reality that confirms the bias of your pain or insecurity. The comfort zone of discomfort, in a way! It just wants you to not feel crazy for feeling those things and is willing to hurt you even more to prove you’re right about your environment or your life.

forgottenwomenfriday:

Forgotten Women Friday #45

Wu Zetian- 624-705- China

“The Sole Female Emperor of China”

Wu Zetian’s life and legacy is surrounded by rumors and speculation, but one thing is for certain: Wu Zetian is the only female Emperor in the history of China. Wu was born into a wealthy family in China during the Tang dynasty, a time of relative freedom for women. Due to her noble birth, Wu was allowed to learn to play instruments, read, and write, and by the age of 14, she was whisked off to serve in Emperor Taizong’s court. Although Wu soon became the Emperor’s favorite concubine, she secretly had her eyes on the Emperor’s son, Gaozong. Wu got her wish when Taizong died and his son, Gaozong, took the throne. Wu birthed him sons and subsequently became his favorite concubine too, and she was gradually able to seize power as the mother of the future emperor. She even managed to get Gaozong’s wife, Empress Wang, out of the picture by accusing her of killing one of her children, who Wu is actually said to have strangled to death herself. Kao believed Wu over his wife, and chose to depose Wang and elevate Wu to Empress.

Gaozong allowed Wu to share mostly equal power with him, and the two largely ruled as one, even being referred to as the Two Sages. Those that thought Wu was a greedy power grabber still admitted that she was a good ruler, especially in her efforts to root out corruption. Five years into their marriage, Gaozong suffered a stroke and eventually passed away. After some minor succession scuffles with her sons, Wu managed to seize power by claiming that the heir to the throne had a speech impediment and would need her to speak for him. However, her uphill battle was not done. Although women enjoyed freedom during the Tang dynasty, Confucians believed that having a woman rule would be unnatural, like having a “hen crow like a rooster at daybreak.” So, Wu created a reign of terror to protect her dynasty. She immediately implemented a secret police force and in one year alone, her forces wiped out fifteen family lines through executions. Her police force enjoyed torture so much that two members wrote a guide called the “Manual of Entrapment,” which described things like “piercing the hundred veins,” “dying swine’s melancholy,”and “begging for the slaughter of my entire family.”

After three years of terror, Wu declared a new dynasty, the Zhou dynasty, thereby making herself Emperor of China. Wu got away with this because, although she inflicted horror upon the ruling class who threatened her reign, she was largely merciful and even kind to the masses of China. Wu implemented numerous reforms including requiring exams for those seeking government positions in order to attract scholars, not military men, lowering oppressive taxes on peasants, and raising agricultural production. Wu Zetian continued to rule as Emperor of China until her death of old age in 705. What we know about her today, especially the more malicious aspects, should be taken with a grain of salt. As we have seen, vicious rumors tend to fly around women who go where no women have gone before. And in that sense, Wu Zetian was a true trailblazer who unapologetically sought power and wasn’t afraid to use her femininity to get it. According to one historian, “Though [Wu] was ruthless towards her enemies, the period of her ascendency was a good one for China. Government was sound, no rebellions occurred, abuses in the army and administration were stamped out and Korea was annexed, an achievement no previous Chinese had ever managed.“ Despite over 1,300 years passing since her death, no woman in China has been able to obtain the power once held by Wu.  

slut-for-fandoms:

therobotmonster:

chaosinacoffeecup:

bairnsidhe:

stinson-png:

“Girls want a Superman, but they walk past a Clark Kent every day”

You fuckin CLOWNS think you’re a CLARK KENT? Not on my fuckin watch. You dumb, headass motherfuckers are barely a Guy Gardner and you think you’re a CLARK KENT? The amount of disrespect is unreal.

Listen here, wannabes: My boi Clark is 240 lbs of PURE KANSAS BEEF trained from a young age by Ma Kent to Love and Respect women as the Intelligent, Independent beings they are.  He is shy rambling about tractors and casually moving the copy machine when my pen falls behind it and he would NEVER demand I be sexually or romantically interested just because he’s nice.

Y’all ain’t Clark Kent.

I have never hit the reblog button so damn fast.

“barely a Guy Gardner” is the sickest comics related burn I’ve heard to date.