#It is wholeheartedly concerning to feminism

[bearsbeetsbeskar]

There are no words to explain how bad I want Joel Miller to wreck me

F u c k

[dollypopup]

even more things I love about Colin Bridgerton

-his taste in waistcoats is genuinely A++

-he cares so much about the women around him. brought his mum an expensive, sentimental gift. supported Eloise's pursuits to learn about feminism. gave Fran sheet music to show he cares and listens to her passions, compliments Penelope and refuses to let her say bad things about herself

-even when he's mad he's never disparaging. the absolute worst thing he's ever called a woman in the entirety of the show was 'cruel'. he called his older brother an ass in defense of a woman, and that might be the meanest thing he's said to anyone in the show

-his swoopy curls

-how much he values and respects consent and honesty. He just wants to be his whole self with Penelope and is so incredibly vulnerable with her

-THAT HE APOLOGIZES. I was watching a comedy special and they dropped the line 'Do you know how rare it is for a powerful man to apologize when someone's not threatening to take something away from him if he doesn't?' My god, how refreshing is it that we have a man who apologizes wholeheartedly and earnestly so many times? to his mother, to his friends, to his sisters, to his ex, to his wife, and he does it with his WHOLE CHEST. I need Colin Bridgerton to run tedtalks on how to properly apologize, it is sexy as FUCK

-he feels things so deeply because he's so emotionally sensitive, and didn't want to be intimate with Penelope in anger because for him, intimacy with her is special and a positive thing and he didn't want to colour that with negative emotion

-he cries when he's upset, he's a sad crier, and he's an *angry* crier. Like how is anyone ever meant to win a fight against him? The man just has to blink his wet soppy seal eyes at me and I'm a goner

-he can't stay mad for long. he's too empathetic

-he can be awkward and silly

-his silly puns (we shall gallop along, i oiled my way right in)

-he tries to see things from other people's perspectives. He came to Cressida trying to understand and relate to her, he reads Penelope's letters and tries to understand her choices and merge her and LW in his mind

-HE ASKED FOR ELOISE'S BLESSING!!!!

-for the most part, Colin doesn't ask for emotional labour from the people around him. he tries to cope with his concerns on his own. he is not afraid to do that work on himself first

-he pushes back against the male machismo of his peers. he's not just respectful to the women in his immediate circle, but also the women who are out of it. he's nice to the debutants but maintains his distance so as not to lead them on, he defends Marina even though she broke his heart, he's just a good dude

-he holds everything. . .so gently? cups, quills, his wife

-he's a total sweetheart, how can you not love him???

[crueisummer]

𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞 | 𝓒𝓛16

pairing: charles leclerc x reader

series summary: Kika and Pierre invite you to their engagement party where you meet her and Pierre’s friends from F1, specifically, a certain handsome Monegasque driver.

chapter summary: You and Charles stay up talking about your dreams, fears, insecurities, and things that haunt your mind when you're alone.

chapter warnings: vvv emotional, feminism (oh no! jk), derogatory remarks, swearing, mental health, mentions of death (herve, jules, tonio)

playlist: ♫ gorgeous ♪ delicate ♬ i think he knows ♡ you are in love

author's note: Part 2 means we're halfway there!! For this chapter, I focused on the delicate's chorus to show the more vulnerable and "human" side of the characters. I will add the other aspects of the song to the following chapters. I also wrote this in a different style but I hope u guys like it. <333 Lastly, thank you all so much for almost 500 likes on the first chapter. ·°՞(≧□≦)՞°·. screaming! crying!

word count: 3.5k

disclaimer: All characters and events in this story, even those based on real people, are entirely fictional.

                ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞

01:57 ━━━━●───── 03:52 ⇆ㅤ ㅤ◁ㅤ ❚❚ ㅤ▷ ㅤㅤ↻ ılıılıılıılıılıılı ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮

The light beamed into your eyes from the window, intensifying the pounding in your head and increasing your thirst. As you opened your eyes, you squinted against the brightness, gradually adjusting to the sudden flash. Sensing movement beside you, you turned around to find Charles sleeping shirtless beside you. Memories of the previous night flooded back, replaying in your mind.

Before leaving the party with Charles, you looked for Kika to inform her of your departure. Seeing Charles waiting for you near the elevator, phone in hand, she expressed concern with a worried expression. Charles had recently ended a three-year relationship, and his ex happened to be the best friend of his previous ex. Kika was well aware of Charles' red flags, as she knew you, her dear friend Y/N, were known for wholeheartedly loving and falling hard for others who often failed to appreciate you as you deserved.

“Please be careful,” She smiled at you to which you nodded. She watched as you approached Charles and he smiled upon seeing you. As you waved farewell to Kika, she softly whispers to herself, “with each other’s hearts.”

You and Charles found yourselves seated on the floor of your hotel room's living room, uncomfortable party clothes off, cozy hoodies on, and legs crossed, with a spread of chips, beer, and mini alcohol bottles laid out before you. During your conversation, you discovered your shared value of family, discussing the strong relationships you both had with your loved ones.

"Are you close to your mom?" It was a question you always asked the guys you were interested in. You believed that a man who had a good relationship with his mother would treat his partner with love and respect. Although it didn't always turn out to be true, you still posed the question.

"Yeah, the first thing I do when I return to Monaco is visit her. You know, she's the only one I trust to cut my hair?" Charles smiles warmly, reminiscing about his mom. "You see, she's a professional hairdresser. So, sometimes when she watches me on TV, she'll send me a text saying I need a haircut. I just reply with her flight details to come see me, and we laugh about it, but she still comes over. That's why I've never had a bad haircut!"

"That is adorable! How often does she visit and watch your races?" You ask, eager to know more about his mother.

"Well, not as often as I'd like, that's for sure. She usually accompanies Arthur to his races."

"Races? He races too?"

"Yeah, he competes in Formula 2. Sometimes the Formula 1 and 2 races coincide on the same weekends so I get to see them both." You're momentarily taken aback. Wow, they must be RICH rich!

"Formula 2? How many Formulas are there?!" You exaggerate.

"Just three, cheri," he chuckles. "You know, my dad used to race in Formula 3 back in the '90s."

"So, it runs in the family, huh? What does your dad do now?" You inquire, looking down and grabbing a chip. The room falls into an unexpected silence, and you glance up, noticing a soft and melancholic expression on his face.

"Well, actually, I lost my dad seven years ago," he replies, offering a tight-lipped smile.

"Oh, Charles! I’m sorry, I had no idea..." Shock overtakes you, and you instinctively cover your mouth with your hand. Is that why he’s only been talking about his mom and brothers the whole night?

He interrupts, "No, it's okay. I think I’m getting used to talking about it. You know, they always interview me about their deaths. Sometimes I feel like they don't truly respect them, or me, and they just want me to talk about them for views and content."

"Deaths?" You're taken aback, struggling to comprehend the weight of his words.

"Yeah, over the past seven years, I've lost three important people in my life. My dad, my godfather Jules, and one of my best friends, Tonio."

"Charles, I'm so sorry to hear that. How have you been coping?" Rising from the floor, you move closer to him, placing a comforting hand on his thigh.

"Sometimes I find myself spiraling into these depressive episodes where I just want to close off my heart. Because if you close your heart, no new people can enter, only to leave again." He looks away, his eyes welling up with tears. Your expression softens, and he musters a small smile in your direction. He continues, his voice filled with emotion, "I've tried it before, but I realized that it doesn't make anything easier. These days, I just choose to remember them for who they were, their lives, their dreams, and the sacrifices they made for me to be where I am today."

You were taken aback at Charles’ maturity. The mere thought of losing someone dear to your heart was overwhelming, and here he was, having experienced the loss of not just one, but three significant people in his life. You couldn't help but admire him for getting through his hardships and finding happiness in the time he shared with them. Especially since he uses it as motivation to be a better person.

As your conversation continued, you decided to shift to a lighter topic in an attempt to lift Charles' spirits. You shared stories of performing in numerous countries, while Charles recounted his experiences racing in Formula 1 events across the globe. You laughed at how unfamiliar you were with his sport, just as he was with your music.

He asks if you have your phone with you.

"Um, it's somewhere around here," you respond while searching for it. Eventually, you spot it on the kitchen counter. "Why?"

"Just open Apple Music or Spotify, whichever you prefer," he says with a mischievous grin as you sit back down in front of him. You nod and show him that Apple Music is open.

"Now search for my name," he instructs, and you type his name, discovering that he is listed as an 'artist'. There’s no way…

"Charles Leclerc Artist? How are you an artist?" you raise an eyebrow at him and glance back at your phone. You notice that he has released two songs in the past year.

He laughs at your confusion. "Well, Ms. Grammy singer, I also play the piano. I wrote these songs last year and finished them around the time of the Australian GP and the Miami GP, which is why they're named AUS23 and MIA23."

You're shocked, your mouth hanging open dramatically as you listen to the songs. Charles laughs at your reaction. You didn't think he could become any more attractive, and now he surprises you with this. Could he be the incarnation of your dream man?

"That's amazing! I guess I know who to call when I need help with a song," you wink at him, and he chuckles.

"No, no. You're at least 100 times better than me. I don't have as much talent as you do to write lyrics for the music," he praises you.

“Okay, since you know a bit about my art and making a song and all that, I, on the other hand, have no fucking idea about Formula 1. Like, why do you have to travel all around the world and race on different tracks? Is it like some kind of world tour?" You burst into laughter at your own humorous analogy, and Charles, who was as intoxicated as you, finding it amusing as well.

“Do you really want to understand it?” You nod at his question as he sits up straight and stretches his head and hands, “warming up” to explain.

"You see, every race weekend is different. Let’s say you do Plan A for this weekend, sometimes it works, and we get podium. But sometimes despite our best efforts, it doesn’t. So, after the race, we talk about what went right and what went wrong and then we make a new plan for the next race. Do you understand so far?”

You nod at him. Though a slight confusion still lingered in your mind, you couldn't help but be captivated by the passion radiating from his every word. The way his eyes sparkled, and his voice exuded genuine excitement revealed the depth of his love for his job. In that moment, you realized that this wasn't merely a profession to him; it was a true calling, a relentless pursuit of excellence that fueled his spirit.

"I still don’t understand. Maybe being there and watching it firsthand can help me. What do you think?" you playfully suggest, winking at Charles as you extend your legs onto his lap. He responds by grabbing your leg with his left hand and dramatically clutching his heart with his right, feigning a heart attack. "Oh, amour, the thought of you in red."

As your connection deepened, you both began to open up and share parts of yourselves that were usually kept hidden. You spoke honestly about your doubts, worries, and the overwhelming thoughts that haunted you when you were alone.

"Can I ask you something?" you inquire, looking up at him.

"Go ahead," he replies, grabbing a chip and taking a bite.

"Have you read about me? Like on the internet, in articles or magazines?"

"I see the headlines, but I don’t really read them, so let's just go with a 'no,'" he says, wiping the salt and dust from his hands. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I’m sure I already know your answer, but doesn't it bother you sometimes, the things they write about you?" you question, and he nods, encouraging you to continue. "It's just that they always make comments about my personal life, especially with the people I choose to be with."

"Yeah, well, those people's lives are so miserable that they have nothing better to do than try to ruin ours," he jokes, attempting to lighten the mood, and you find yourself laughing.

You glance down at your lap, your hands fidgeting as you gather your thoughts, when Charles interrupts, taking your hand. "Hey, I know it sucks, but I think it's something that comes with success. It bothers me too when they do that to me. Look, I won't pretend to fully understand what you're going through because I know I don't."

You look up at him, puzzled. "Do you remember earlier at the party when you arrived before me? When your car pulled up at the restaurant, they went crazy. Now, I've been in front of cameras since I was a kid, and I know a thing or two about paparazzi, but I've never seen fame like yours before. They were taking so many pictures of you that it didn't even look like flashes anymore, it’s like someone had switched on a blinding light for those few seconds you walked from your car to the door."

"I couldn't really see you because of the crowd, but when I heard them shouting your name, it just made sense. Don't tell the engaged couple, but I'm 100% sure you were the best thing at the party. " he winks at you. "But still, that doesn't make it okay. The reason they act like that is because they are taking advantage of your popularity. They think that getting a good picture of you, or a story, out of you or even something they made up, is big money.”

You’ve thought of this before, the way they treat you is different from other celebrities, but you hesitated to bring them up, fearing it would make you appear arrogant. It was a nice change to discuss about your life, popularity and the challenges that come with it, and to be met with Charles' honest and genuine response. You look back at the times you talked about this with a partner, and how they dismissed your concerns, labeling you as ungrateful, overreacting, or even a drama queen. The contrast in reactions causes you to appreciate Charles' maturity, understanding and support.

Despite your seemingly different lives, his centered around sports, yours with music, your personalities and passion for your respective crafts and families made you remarkably similar. With every word exchanged, the infatuation between you grew stronger.

So, at 4 am, while leaning against the balcony of your hotel room, a comfortable silence settled between you.

“I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve never experienced this before.” Charles says softly. “Staying up at this hour and talking about my life and the shit I go through to a girl I’ve only met for 8 hours now. It makes me feel like I want to tell you my whole life. It feels…” He trails off, a loss for words.

“I get what you mean. I never thought we would have a lot in common, especially since from the outside, it looks like we’re living different lives. But it looks like we're not so different after all.”

“Y/N, I know it’s too soon because we’ve only just met but I really want to get to know you better.” He faces you and draws himself closer. His green eyes pierce your Y/E/C eyes, he smiles genuinely at you.

As you gaze at him, your heartbeat quickens. You can’t tell if this is real life because you’re experiencing emotions you’ve never felt before. Here stands a guy who is caring, grounded, and by the way, absolutely gorgeous, and he is genuinely interested in getting to know you. Your thoughts waver back and forth, questioning whether this is okay. Is it cool that I’ve shared everything in my mind with him? Is it chill that he’s in my head?

Your mind and heart go into battle. Think! After all, you've only known this person for eight hours! Eight hours, Y/N! On the other hand, what if this is actually okay? Could this be the story of you meeting "the one"? Or your soulmate?

You tried to find a compromise.

Blushing, you gazed up at him and agreed, “I feel the same way. But can we take it slow? I never like to rush things, especially relationships.”

He nods and hugs you from behind. “Is this alright?”

You hummed and you both stayed there, watching the stars and the beautiful view of Florence.

You didn’t want the night to end, and you couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to him right now. So you tried to make up excuses for him to stay. “But, you know, it’s too dangerous to drive at this hour.”

“Cheri, there is no such as thing as a time that is too dangerous to drive.” He chuckles at your cuteness. “Plus, I’m a Formula One driver, I think I can handle myself.”

“No, you can’t because we just finished doing shots like three hours ago! And what if other drunk people are driving around too?”

Charles lightly laughs at your stubbornness. He knows you’re too prideful to just tell him to stay the night, especially after you both agreed to keep things slow. He sees you avoiding his gaze, so he addresses you, “Y/N.”

As you looked up, he smiled at you and gently holds your chin and locking eyes. "Je suis folle de toi.” he uttered.

Confused, you smiled in anticipation, knowing he had likely said something sweet. Seconds later, he translated himself, the proximity between your faces nearly undoing you. "I am crazy about you.”

...

Carefully locating your phone, you closed the bedroom door behind you. Retrieving two water bottles from the mini fridge in the kitchen, you settled on the couch in the living room of your hotel suite, resting your legs on the coffee table.

You check your messages and there were some from Kika, and your management team. Kika texted you and said to meet her for brunch at 11. Though, with a Monegasque driver in your bed, you don’t know when you can leave, so you move on to the other conversations, keeping in mind that you reply to her soon.

Your management team’s group chats were asking where you are and who you were hanging with. You read their earlier messages and saw that there are articles and pictures of you and Charles leaving the party last night. You open your Twitter account and see the two of you are trending. Of course, we are.

You scrolled through the tweets and some fans were happy, some were not, some just... don't have any opinion. And you prefer the latter. Reading the tweets of the fans was one thing, but the way the media and articles talked about you was different. It's like they didn't have respect you.

The articles get to you, Why is there so much scrutiny around my dating life? They called you a serial dater, manipulator, etc., even creating "warnings" about you for Charles; saying you're just gonna break his heart and write a song about him.

You furrow your brow, wondering why they single you out like this and why other women aren't subjected to the same level of scrutiny. It's frustrating because they never say these things about other people, especially men in the industry who engage in similar dating behaviors. Your male friends in the industry can date different people or even cheat and sing about it without raising any eyebrows. But when it comes to you, the accusations fly.

When they accuse you of "jumping" from one relationship to another, they label you a player or claim you cheated. If you choose to casually date without exclusivity, they call you a slut. It never ends. Where do they expect me to stand? When will it all just stop?

You start to question whether the people you want to be with have seen what has been written about you and if your reputation, which may be based on something fake, can affect the real connections you might make. You begin to ponder the significance of it all and how much weight a reputation actually carries.

It's unfair. Your personal life should be yours alone, and people should mind their own business. If this is the price you pay for sharing your music and being famous, you want no part of it anymore. It feels like they don't respect you as a human being.

Hot tears stream down your face as your thoughts consume you, overwhelming you completely. Seeking solace, you sink from the couch to the floor, resting your chin on your knees. It's a familiar position, offering some comfort when you're feeling low. The grounding sensation reminds you that you're still here.

Unbeknownst to you, Charles already woke up and was also reading messages from his team. He was about to greet you when he heard you sniffling. He slowly opens the door and sees you on the ground, knees to your chest, crying. Suddenly, he understands the pain you're going through. He felt awkward. He didn't know whether to comfort you or pretend to go back to bed.

But Charles can't resist the sight of your shattered state. He pushes the door open fully and gazes at you, broken and vulnerable. His heart shatters alongside yours. Slowly, he approaches and sits in front of you, taking in the magnitude of your pain. You're startled, having forgotten he was sleeping in the other room. You wonder if he knows what you're crying about, if he's seen the internet already, but the thought pushed back behind your head when a pair of warm, gentle hands cups your face, thumbs trying to wipe away your tears.

"What's wrong, mon ange?" he asks softly.

"Everything. The things they say about me... they're so mean. They're ruining my name, my reputation..." You manage to utter between sobs.

"Shh.. I know, cheri. But I don't care about what they write, alright? I want to know you. The real you." He comforts you. Running his hand up and down your arm as you find solace in his comforting embrace.

For the next ten minutes, you pour your heart out to him, releasing your pent-up emotions. When Charles senses that you had calmed down, he fetches the water bottle from the table and hands it to you. You finish it in one go.

"Feeling a little better now?" He offers, his considerate nature shining through. You smile and nod, appreciating his thoughtfulness.

"Have you eaten anything yet?" he asks, showing his concern for your well-being. You shake your head for a no.

“Do you feel like going downstairs, or should we order room service?" Going for a walk would be refreshing, and it might help improve your mood, but given that you've just bared your soul to him, you don't feel like going out. More importantly, you remember that you'll encounter numerous people and potentially face unwanted attention when you're seen again with Charles.

"We? You don't have to stay here with me. I feel better already." You face him, pulling away from his embrace. You instantly regret it as you start to feel cold already, missing the warmth of his body against yours.

"And I'm not leaving until you feel your best again. So, restaurant or room service?" He asks again. God, he is even more hot when he's stern... and caring about my well-being, of course.

Considering your current state, you prefer the comfort of staying within the confined space of your room, cuddled up next to him. "Room service, please."

↠ ⁿᵉˣᵗ ˢᵒⁿᵍ 𝐢 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬

[tylurrs]

I need hansumfella in way that’s extremely concerning for feminism

I understand wholeheartedly and completely

[whocookedthelastsupper]

“Among the first to force the revolution in thought that had not yet learned to call itself feminism was Mary Wollstonecraft. In outline, Mary's story was no more than might have happened to any other poor and friendles git: employment as the "companion to a lady," an unsuccessful attempt to start a school, travels in France, a love affair with a man who abandoned her with their illegitimate child. But out of this stuff of penny-dreadful romance, Mary Wollstonecraft forged in 1792 one of the most powerful and assured of feminist critiques, her Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Mary's starting point was her uncontrollable anger at the "baneful lurking gangrene" of "the tyranny of man over woman."21 From this she traced all the social evils she had suffered herself, the lack of education, the denial of fulfilling work, and the sexual double standard that rewarded a man for being "a luxurious monster or fastidious sen-sualist," while making a whore of a woman for one indiscretion. She saw existing relations between men and women as damaging and exploitive —"man taking her body, her mind is left to rust"— and scornfully rejected the conventional ideal of female behavior: "How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes!" With its trenchant demands for education, for work and for equal companionship with males, the Vindication both articulated some of the enduring concerns of feminism, and threw down the gauntlet in a way that could not be ignored: for after its dramatic exposé of the vicious stupidity and perverted childishness in which women fretfully languished, few could continue with the fiction that the "members of the fair sex" were happy with the lot enjoined on them by God and man.

The unfair sex, of course, could not be expected to be happy with this wholesale attack upon its power and prerogative, not to mention its manners, morals and mental darkness. No man is a tyrant to him-self, and when Mary Wollstonecraft lifted this stone, there was a violent, often hysterical reaction to what she found under there. To the women, there was a great deal of amusement to be had from "men who cry 'Scandal!' before even examining the question," in the dry summary of one of Wollstonecraft's French disciples, Flora Tristan.

Tristan's own life reads like a handbook of feminist struggle: precipitated into childhood poverty when her father died, she made a brief, unhappy marriage whose consequences darkened the whole of her adult life. Under the Code Napoléon she was unable to obtain a divorce, or any access to her children. When she published her autobiography, Pérégrinations d'un Paria, her husband tried to murder her.

Harassed by the police as an undesirable, she met a premature death in 1844 at only forty-one. As a socialist, Tristan wholeheartedly endorsed Wollstonecraft's demands for education and the right to work. Her additional contribution was her insistence upon "the right to juridical equality between men and women" as "the only means of achieving the unity of humanity." To man, who had always seen himself as humanity and felt himself to be perfectly unified, this suggestion was incomprehensible.”

-Rosalind Miles; Who Cooked The Last Supper? The Women’s History of the World

[1vv0h]

i need him biblically, i need him in a way that is concerning to feminism

i am literally in every sense and meaning of this fraise, wholeheartedly, truly, thoughtfully, without any doubt in love

if you disagree kys🥰

[star-anise]

I haven't been able to get this off my mind, even though I left my job years ago. As a queer woman, I got hired by a Christian organization to provide mental health counselling to a largely-Christian population. I thought I was there to help other LGBTQ+ people, but I also saw clients with other needs and concerns

and the straight cis men who were ashamed of their own desires haunt me

They bought wholeheartedly into the ideas that their sexual desires were inherently sinful and predatory and destined to doom their lives if they slipped up, in a way that forcibly reminded me of when I was trying to be a good Catholic girl and knew that the soft animal of my body absolutely could not be made to run in the correct direction of the treadmill my faith was yoked to

More than once I had to back up any specific discussion and just ask, "According to your conscience and faith, what would a healthy married relationship look like when it comes to sex? How would this desire factor into it?" Because it's totally an enormous question, but it also often produced the facial equivalent to a computer blue screen of death, because they'd been told so often that male desire was ontologically incompatible with a healthy marriage, except also, they were supposed to want sex so much they'd destroy their own marriages over it???

I have feminism and queer culture and Chappell Roan telling me that my desire is good and okay, and I'm slowly getting less ashamed about it. And I just can't help thinking: What about men? How sad would it be to be told your sexuality is inherently aggressive and predatory and exploitative? How do you feel like you're bringing something valuable to a relationship that way?

It's unfair and absolute crap.

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

Okay the current rise of mainstream TERF propaganda and bioessentialism has brought on a wave of feminists who wholeheartedly believe the "all men" shit & are agreeing with TERF dogwhistles and subtly shifting from "it isn't really all men" to "it IS all men"

and that's... concerning for a lot of reasons but the one I would like to focus on is racism.

Because when you take the "all men" shit too far, you the neglect history of violence that white women perpetuated against black men. Our white ancestors from just a few generations ago would accuse black men of sexual crimes they didn't commit for the purpose of having those men put in prison, sentenced to death, or lynched by their white community.

And that mindset still exists. It's why Karen's call the cops on black people over miniscule disagreements. It's why we— as white people— have to be careful of our white tears. And there's a gazillion essays on white feminism's racism that go way more in depth than I ever could. (Here's one.) But the problem with the "all men" mindset is that all white people are taught to have an inherent bias against black people. Our mothers and grandmothers are already teaching us that black men are evil, whether they outwardly say it or not.

So the idea that "people with penises are the ultimate oppressors and I, the lowly cis white woman, am going to be victimized by those creepy violators" isn't new and isn't radical, because white people can't just escape our whiteness by trying to define oppressed people into oppressors.

My braincells are shutting down at this point but I think I've said what I wanted to. All white people— white queers, white feminists, white 'radicals', all white people— need to be careful of generalizing men; because genuinely believing that "all men" are oppressing us is a slippery slope to calling the cops on innocent black men who said 'hi' to you on the street.

[princesssarisa]

I'm just about to start watching the Sony/Amazon Prime Cinderella, so I may as well share some brief thoughts about the synopsis, reviews and trailer in advance.

I actually like the idea of an ambitious fashion designer Cinderella whose goal in going to the ball is to show off her work and kickstart her career. One of my favorite YA retellings of the story, Mechanica, takes very much the same approach, except with mechanical inventions instead of fashion design. And since the beautiful ball dresses have always been a big part of the appeal of Cinderella and its adaptations, having Cinderella design dresses is fitting, and I like the idea of the gown the Godmother creates being designed by Cinderella herself, because it means that Cinderella isn't "handed" anything, just given support to realize her own potential. Nor do I mind the idea of her turning down the Prince's proposal rather than give up her business.

But based on the trailer and the reviews I've read, it does seem like the feminist message might be a little heavy-handed. Namely the idea of Cinderella's ambitions being frowned on because of her gender, when dressmaking and fashion design have been associated with women for centuries. Even Mechanica, which gives its heroine the "masculine" skill of mechanics, doesn't have her main obstacle be sexism, but just the fact that she's poor and trapped in an oppressive home, and this makes her triumph no less empowering or feminist than it would have been with a ham-fisted "glass ceiling bad" message.

Still, some of the anti-"girlboss Cinderella" reviews seem to be taking their complaints too far, as if they object to the very idea of a Cinderella who wants more than just to go to the ball or has any defining character traits beyond innocence and kindness. Their tone tends to lean toward "We don't need feminism anymore," which I most certainly don't agree with.

I also feel iffy about the concept of making the Stepmother more sympathetic. Not in theory – Bernadette Peters and Cate Blanchett's versions of the character have subtle complexity and tragic aspects, and in their cases I wholeheartedly approve. But based on the reviews, I'm a little concerned that in this version it might come across as abuse apologism. And the description of her backstory in Wikipedia's synopsis (She tried to become a musician instead of a housewife, so her first husband abandoned both her and their daughters?) sounds a little contrived and, again, ham-fisted.

Basically, I don't hate the entire concept the way some critics do, but I'm uncertain about the execution. Hopefully the movie itself will pleasantly surprise me!

[vonne-gut]

I agree wholeheartedly with the reply but the math in the ask is simply wrong.

Firstly, Rhaenyra has no daughters. Jacaerys is both her eldest son and her eldest child, and there is therefore nothing gender-specific about his designation to ascend after her.

As for Corlys, yes, he is clearly concerned only with his (nominal) house, and his name, which in Westeros is conferred patrilineally. Laena and Baela are skipped. But even so -- Rhaenyra has no control over Corlys' choice of his own heir in Laenor, and for Rhaenyra's own part in this, Lucerys, after Jace (who, for some customary reason, can't inherit both) is Laenor's next eldest child. Still the ostensible gender-blind purely cognatic primogeniture, to the extent Rhaenyra controls it, is uninterrupted; the oldest child of the chosen heir still takes. Rhaenyra's betrothal of Rhaena to Lucerys did not alter Rhaena's position except to augment her power over her ancestral seat; she would never have been Lady of the Tides in her own right, but I suppose this user thinks it would have been better had she been married off to a foreign castle and not to the boy who would allow her to remain in her home with some authority over it.

Rhaenyra's ascension isn't important so much for what she believes but the precedent it could set. You don't see Rhaenys running around ra-ra feminism either; but her loss 20-1 was a watershed moment in Westerosi customary law that Rhaenyra's later ascension could have countermanded.

And finally, blah blah mountains of evidence of Valyrian gender-blind inheritance blah blah....

Your post about how tb stans say alicent think women shouldn't rule

I wanted to add rhaenyra herself denied two eldest daughter right to rules and said " son before daughter " let her own illegitimate boys get baela and rhaena birthright and coryls choose kids that aren't even from his own blood over his own granddaughters

It's ironic how they ignore the amount of misogyny in team black

This is something that drives me a bit insane if I'm honest. Aka when people try to make this war ideological and it just isn't. Alicent thinks women can rule just fine. Rhaenyra also thinks women can rule just fine, (but most especially she believes it is her right to rule, as her father's chosen heir). But they also both recognise male primogenature, because ultimately neither of them have the individual power or need to do anything about it. On this issue their stances are pretty identical, bar Rhaenyra's one quibble with it that benefits her specifically.

Literally not one of these characters is making any of their decisions on the basis of their personal politics, its almost entirely about self-interest - who they support in their claim is only ever based in their own needs and wants and emotional attachments. Even Otto, who is so clearly using Rhaenyra's gender and the way that interacts with the laws of succession to undermine her, is not doing it for ideological reasons, or because he thinks women less capable of ruling (he does he's a raging misogynist but thats not his main incentive). He's doing it because he wants his grandson on the throne, for his own ends. If Alicent and Viserys had only had daughters, we all know Otto would still be claiming his granddaughters to be somehow more fit or entitled to rule than Rhaenyra.

Pretending like one side is pro misogyny and one side is anti misogyny makes no sense it's just an easy way to demonise the side you personally don't like when really picking a "side" in this conflict at all is so dumb for so many reasons I literally cannot begin to list them all.

[luxurybrownbarbie]

can I ask: what's the issue with a woman proposing? I'm asking bc a.) I only ever imagined getting married to a woman so inevitably there would be A woman proposing in that scenario obviously but I'm curious as to the.... hetrosexuality? take on it (if that makes sense lmao) and b.) I went to school in a...fairly whiter mid class town and a fair amount of the girls who were (white) feminists and big on the "equality! women can propose! women can pay the bills!" energy and I didn't really care to think too deeply about it at the time since I wasn't dating or getting married. so I'm just curious as to your thoughts on the topic if you wouldn't mind sharing?

Hi!

My issue with women proposing lies solely with man/woman relationships. (I don’t know if I want to call it heterosexual, because one or both people might be bi.)

Men have social and financial privilege over women that permeates every aspect of relationships with them. The pink tax, plus the standards of beauty which are placed on women means it costs money for us to even step outside (and be treated like a human.) So when white feminism, something I wholeheartedly bought into for quite a few years, came with the hard swing against traditional gender roles and inequalities, it seemed perfect.

Except equality is not equity.

So women taking in the burdens of having 50/50 relationships, paying bills, splitting rent and the like, without actually... fixing the problems at the root of why feminism was even needed, meant that women were now actually sacrificing more under the guise of being “empowered” and “strong”. I’ve spoken a bit more about this here.

So women proposing to men falls along those same lines to me. Women already have the label of being “obsessed with marriage” and the stigma of being the “ball and chain” to a man who just wants to be free to be a bachelor. It feeds into a notion that women are just desperate. They won’t even wait for a man to get down on one knee and ask, they want it so badly, they’ll ask for themselves.

The other layer of this is, “If he wants to, he will.” Men very rarely are forced to do anything they don’t want to do. Society might side eye them for not being married around 25-32, but after that, they’re just grey foxes who can’t be tied down. So if he wanted to take the time to purchase a ring, plan a proposal, and ask... he would. I have yet to see an instance of a woman who proposed to a man who wasn’t begging for a proposal from him months or years beforehand. It reeks of insecurity.

Not only the way it looks, but the purchasing of the ring? Especially since women are often overly generous where the people they love are concerned. Then the planning, which is most likely incredibly extravagant, doing all of that when there’s a wage gap? Imagine taking double losses just because the guy they love won’t get down on one knee. It’s horrible.

Look at Bling Empire. Cherie is a beautiful, accomplished heiress who already had two children with her boyfriend. They have all of the privileges in the world, but she kept begging and begging him for a proposal. Society was judging her, she felt uncomfortable even without outside judgement, it was something she needed. Eventually, she proposed to her boyfriend at their baby’s 100 day party. It was awkward and uncomfortable because he felt embarrassed (as he should).

Overall, I think it’s one of those things where there’s so many factors. I think it’s reductive to just say women should now do all of the things men do, without actually taking stock of the systems in play and changing them first. So I’ll never be okay with women proposing if they’re in a relationship with a man, because societally, the scales are so unbalanced, there’s no benefit for the woman whatsoever.

[alines7777]

i guess today i feel a bit like doing something kind of like ADoseofBuckley’s “Advice Nobody Asked For”, but, you know, kinder.

today i’d like to respond to a comment sent to one Libertarian Communist Platform in his youtube video “RadFems and Liberals: Why Feminism Needs Anarchism”. this comment was sent four years ago. the comment reads as thus:

“I've got a statement and a question for folks here regarding trans policy: Conservatives tend to bring up people abusing trans-friendly laws to commit vile acts. Trans Rights advocates tend to refute this concern with "Trans people just want to be accepted as the gender they are, not commit vile acts. Oftentimes conservatives actually mean "People [who may or may not be trans] will be able to abuse these laws to get away with terrible things. I am concerned with this unintended consequence."

What refutation or solution do trans rights advocates have to alleviate this concern (Bad people, trans or not, can and presumably will abuse laws which are intended to accommodate)? Why is the general response to talk past the concern rather than address it directly?”

my dear friend, if you are hoping we might tell you that we have some kind of silver bullet against any transgender sexual predators, or any impersonators masquerading as trans people to commit rape …

( i think i should note here that kathleen stock seems to think the latter more likely, and i think you do too )

… then i fear that no realistic answer may ever satisfy you. clairvoyant vigilantism is impossible, and trans-only facilities may never be likely to be built in all places within our lifetime. there is no solution, and i think you must already be aware of that.

i’m not sure if this will count as a refutation, but i know what that talking point is about, and i don’t think any legislation can or will strip facilities of their right to keep out trans women, but the factual and logical stance one would have to take to agree wholeheartedly is that because we don’t want one group of people being targets of rape and murder that means we must let another group be the targets instead ( https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/trans-teens-face-higher-sexual-assault-risk-when-schools-restrict-n1002601 ), but this is yet another fallacy, a false dilemma. both women and trans people are already being raped and murdered at rates that are quite dreadful, whether trans women are welcome in some mixed-sex-women’s spaces and have exclusive access to spaces designated for trans women only, or whether no concessions are given at all, both women and trans women are still going to be systematically targeted as victims of rape and murder.

if you believe that rape and murder against women is far worse, if you’re okay with the rape and murder of trans women instead, fine, i hate it here anyway, but i can’t think of any good reason to believe that bringing an end to trans inclusion would yield the outcome you’re expecting.

an infamous rapist, known today as karen white, had been a registered sex offender with multiple acts of sexual violence on record for nearly two decades before choosing to identify as trans, and white had undergone effort for some time that followed to dress for the part ( which still didn’t convince a judge, but that’s neither here nor there ), but for that time before which spanned almost two decades, while presenting fully as male, white had access to such targets and means to perpetrate acts of violence as public parks, alcohol, and steak knives.

does this mean all individuals who are born male should be banned from accessing parks, alcohol, and steak knives? ( though i admit, male responses to that would be entertaining, but then males called misandry on twitter over bans against catcalling in public , oa fii! maybe we should also ban twitter, what do you people think? )

we all know what’s being thought here. i know it, you know it, and stock knows it.

i may not look like it, but i’m old enough to remember all kinds of rhetoric in high school during the fight for gay marriage, where conservatives were spewing paranoid bigotry about how the gays and lesbians were prowling after children in the bathrooms too.

as i’ve gathered so far, this is attributable a psychologist by the name of paul cameron, founder of an organization called the family research institute, which released intensely homophobic and lesbophobic propaganda as described below

cameron’s work is described depicting an LGB menace threatening the safety and dignity of children with 1995 illustrations described as depicting gay men prowling after young boys in public restrooms, and a young girl “cowering beneath an arm wielding an axe”, obviously a reference to the labrys as one insignia of the lesbian community, intended to depict lesbians as a threat to young girls as well, and in 1996 they indicated a belief in a social contagion fearing that gay and lesbian teachers may be teaching children to become “homosexual”, these were the exact attitudes toward the gay and lesbian communities we fought against from the mid-2000’s to the mid-2010’s, in case we’ve forgotten.

and taking another example, lily cade was a serial rapist, and a lesbian. is she proof that lesbians need social and legal barriers protecting them from other cis women who identify as lesbians? are we going to take her as proof that all women need special protection from lesbians? please, let’s not be so absurd.

i heard on the grapevine once that an organization called “get the L out” ran a survey about sexual coercion against lesbians including a story about a lesbian couple who got in a heated quarrel over whether to welcome a trans woman over for a threesome when the trans woman in question wasn’t present, then they pass all blame for that onto the tR*#nS. is there something we need to bring to this discussion? all comments are by all means welcome.

we’ve seen all of this before. we’ve even seen this being used to target other groups whom are now believed as among those it is protects. we can’t possibly be so foolish for nearly thirty years, with everything that happened still in living memory.

but it’s not as if there aren’t any other ways for us to be vigilant.

if we are so willing, we may be able to encourage more people to stay updated on sex offender registries, and to monitor the known activities of registered sex offenders to keep communities safe, rather than spreading fear

[scr4pyard]

Hey if you blacklist radfem and terf and gender critical, several posts on your blog get censored because the op used those tags. You should try blacklisting them, easy way to find out if op of something is a terf

radfem isn’t the same thing as TERF. i wholeheartedly support radical feminism and will not be blacklisting anything, sorry. 

the posts themselves are agreeable and make very important points. you should read them and acknowledge the valid concerns they raise regardless of who says it.

[eelsfeelgross]

Conclusions: Trans Activism v. Radical Feminism, a first-hand account

This is current stance after a lot of direct investigation on both radfems online and trans activists online. No group is judged based on the observations, rhetoric, or propaganda of any outside group, but from my own first-hand observations in combination with objective knowable facts such as actions known to be committed in public record by the likes of criminals or celebrities. However, the bulk of this is based on what I have seen, what I know to be true because it’s been done before my own eyes. While my conclusion may lack information on the more nitpicked aspects of things, I believe their overall impressions still hold true with the amount of experience I’ve had. Keep in mind: this is not my only account. I have dipped into the radfem community before, each time from a different perspective, at a different time, and with open eyes ready to receive whatever I was given. The same is true of the trans community.

Trans Activism

I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the trans community from within. I am not relying on critics of the trans ideology to tell me any of this, though they often echo the same concerns and observations.

The trans community has a serious problem with misogyny, homophobia, and sex denial. They employ magical thinking and emotional pleas to justify their conclusions and commit to arguments of definition that are ultimately lacking substance. However, while lacking rational, they are abundant with emotional reasoning and can be incredibly powerful rhetorical tools in convincing others to believe them without the necessary evidence of anything claimed.

This is especially prevalent when discussing sexual biology and sexual orientation. They consider self-harm to be the fault of other people, even in adults, and use this as a manipulation tactic to make it seem as if they’re being killed at higher rates than their general demographics. This plays hand in hand with the appropriation of statistics around things like racial violence or violence against sex workers to make it appear trans people, particularly white heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex) trans women from the middle class of Amerca who aren’t victims of prostitution, are under much more persecution than their lived experiences actually reflects.

This has grown into a political ideology not dissimilar to a religion, but without the usual trappings we associate with a religious group. It requires blind faith in the concept of gender and the “life saving” virtues of expensive hormone treatments and plastic surgeries without proper regard for the risks and consequences of these procedures. Challenging the dogma or asking critical questions is considered a sin itself, even when done with excessive caution for other’s feelings. Violence towards known dissenting groups is considered not just ok, but admirable. Expressions of this desire for violence against the out-group is seen as virtuous to the point that doing it too much will be taken as virtue signalling rather than a sign of deep-seeded anger issues as it would for any other situation. Self-identity is their belief system, and public shame are their tools of punishment to control those within the belief system. Due to sex denial, females suffer especially in this paradigm no matter how they identify or what presentations they choose.

However,

Radical Feminism

Once again, I want to make clear that these conclusions were mainly drawn from my direct experience with the radfem community from within. I am not relying on critics of the radical feminist ideology to tell me any of this, though they may echo similar observations.

Radical feminism, as it exists today in action and not in theories from the 1990s, has a huge problem with transphobia, homophobia, and racism. The focus has shifted almost entirely from protecting women to attacking trans women, understandable on some level but counter-productive to all but the individual ego. There is a preoccupation with what women are “allowed” to do, rather than whether their actions and the consequences of those actions actually benefit the cause of anti-sexism. People feel entitled to be nasty, hurtful and even downright transphobic and homophobic if it means hurting their “enemies” somehow. I’m not sure if they fail to see the big picture or have just given up on caring, but it makes all their pleas for compassion and an end to the trans community’s homophobia seem pretty disingenuous.

This focus on “women deserve more as reparations”, when self-applied to the individual, does nothing to combat sexism as these self serving actions often do little to stop sexism and everything to benefit the individual currently existing within a sexist system. It totally ignores the vital role women play in perpetrating sexism through the generations, from mother to daughter or sister or sister or peer to peer through an intricate web of social pressures.Its not totally ignored mind you, but it is conveniently unaddressed whenever addressing it would prevent them from acting aggressive and toxic toward someone else. However others in the community who aren’t personally benefitting from this at the time will notice, thus leading to endless pointless arguments as the egos clash.

This hypocrisy undermines all attempts at broadening their reach to a new generation of women. Similarly, this toxic attitude undermines all opportunity for organization and real activism which requires a certain level of tolerance and the ability to give basic respect to those you don’t like or agree with. All those who do not tolerate such behavior will simply assume radical feminism must be a hate movement because all they see is vitriol and toxicity, no matter how justified the perpetrator feels about it or the underlying motivators. They will not take the time to read theory because they’ve already seen the practice and they have the sense to know it’s bad. Then when these newcomers see this bad behavior for what it is, they’re belittled or deprived of their agency for their decision to turn away from your movement, called things like “handmaidens” and accused of being either selfishly misogynistic or plainly brainwashed, driving them ever further away. The refusal to take responsibility for your own image and the consequences of your behavior under some false impression of ideological purity justifying it only further cements this takeaway outsiders have.

The most egregious example that comes to mind is the “queers” issue. Radfems are adamant about queer being slur, and they’re right. I myself grew up having queer flung at me by violent straight men and I’m not even that old. I feel no joy in the sanitation and generalization of the term. That is not reclamation, that is erasure and appropriation of pain. Most radfems agree on this wholeheartedly. That is, until you decide to spell it “kweer” and start flinging it at trans people who fit a particular homophobic stereotype: strange appearances, unorthodox body modifications like piercing and colored hair, unwashed, perverted to the point of being predatory, self important children who are just playing pretend to be different. All these qualities call back to the stereotype of queers, gays, and it is deeply intrenched in homophobia going back generations. And yet, while radfems would condemn the trans community for the appropriation of queer and its homophobic implications, they have no problem employing it as a slur when it suits their own toxic impulses.

Some even seem to believe that misspelling the word or being homosexual themselves absolves this. It does not. Anybody without the blinders of radfem internal rhetoric will quickly see past this nonsense. If the trans community came back and started calling radfems “diques” and associating the term with severely lesbophobic stereotypes like being unwashed or too ugly to get a man or any of the other countless stereotypes around the slur “dyke”, radfems would be rightly livid. Making a point to only target straight radfems with this insult would not make it any different. But addressing these kinds of hypocritical positions has become a taboo within the radfem community, yet another spark to relight the fires of senseless infighting.

This is the worst example I’ve personally seen, but it is not the only one. There’s also the tendency for radfems, desperate for others who are gender critical to connect with, to make alliances with right wing conservatives despite their racism and homophobia simply because they’re also transphobic but for completely different reasons. And also a tendency to be much more forgiving of misogyny coming from these new “allies” that will glady destroy you too once trans people are out of the way. But I will not labor my point any further by bringing up everything all at once. Regardless, for those who harp on and on about getting to the root of the problem, the moment anyone suggests you try getting to the root of your own problems, taking accountability and making changes, all that self-righteous posturing seems to go out the window just like it does in the trans community. You’ve become a reflection of what you hate in an attempt to combat it, and it will be the death of your movement if you don’t make a serious effort to reform these behaviors and distance yourself from those who employ these forms of rhetoric.

It’s a harsh fact, but the world at large does not care what you deserve, just like sexual biology doesn’t care about your personal feelings about your sex. It just doesn’t. That’s why patriarchy exists in the first place. It is your job as a social movement to use your words and actions to convince them to care. That is what the trans community has managed to do successfully, in my opinion often for the wrong reasons but successfully nonetheless, but such things do not stroke the ego of the individual radfem and therefore simply doesn’t happen in an organized, ideology-wide manner. Small islands of rational stand isolated in a sea of this pointless vitriol, and alone they are hopeless against the attacks against radical feminism born from the trans community and their sex denial that leads to egregious misogyny.

Conclusion

When it comes to the underlying theory, the ideological core, I find that radical feminism has the best chance of growing to become a social movement for genuinely good change in the world, particularly for women and women-loving-women specifically. Trans ideology, in my opinion, is inherently flawed as its core tenants require faith in what one cannot prove and a rejection of science that doesn’t support said faith.

Trans ideology as it exists in 2020 is more akin to religion than science, and has proven its capability to do harm through its use of magical thinking and distorted points of view that constantly shift and change to make space for the core trans ideology to be “correct”. Core ideas such as: sex is either fake or less relevant than gender, that gender is an objective fact of the human psyche, that others failing to fix your own poor mental health are responsible for your harm or death, that transition is always a good idea if someone wants it and no gatekeeping should be performed regarding using plastic surgery to treat mental discomforts, and so on. Remove all these ideas, and the whole thing falls apart.

Meanwhile, removing the toxicity of the radfem community as it exists now will not destroy its underlying core beliefs. Its just that the current people who advertise themselves as radfems and take up that mantle do not actually follow the core ideology of their own movement when it doesn’t benefit them. It has been infiltrated and run amok with bad faith actors who abuse the movement for personal gain, whether they are aware of it or not. And with their combination of being excessively vocal and lacking any shame for their misdeeds, more and more are drawn into their toxic games to the point that the ones who actually speak to the spirit of the core theory get drowned out or attacked to the point none will associate with them openly. The ones who actually know the theory and practice it end up effectively shunned from a community that widely hasn’t even read the theory and thinks hating trans people and thinking pussy = superior makes them a radfem. And thus, by allowing this, that is what radical feminism has become in practice. No amount of appealing to that core philosophy will matter if the actual people don’t apply that theory properly.

So my conclusion? Radical feminism has the greatest potential for good, but it is grossly unrealized and will remain that way without radical internal changes. However, if anyone is equipped to get to the root of the problem and make a radical change it should be radfems. Or at least, the good faith radfems who aren’t abusing the movement, of which I’m convinced have become the minority of radfems in the present day. Perhaps it is time for feminism to once again branch off, not to try returning to the 2nd wave but to set the stage for a true 4th wave as many have talked about. A 4th wave that is based on the foundations set by 2nd wave feminist thinkers, but forward thinking, self-critiquing, and not limited by the hangups of the last wave. I guess only time will tell what radfems value more: their egos in attachment to the idea of identifying as a radfem, or the effective dis-empowerment of patriarchy through organized effort at the expense of satisfying your personal vendettas against all men.

[mucky-puddler]

Race and Gender in “Paris is Burning”

I’m going to preface this blog with a little disclaimer – below I discuss the topics of race, gender, and sexuality, of which I know very little about. This is merely an exploration of what I do know and how times have changed. I do not intend to offend anyone, and if I do then please send me a message and I will attempt to rectify the blog. Thanks!

Okay, so, I have some questions here from Judith Butler, a gender theorist who has written books on books about gender. I didn’t realise there was that much to say about gender, but apparently there is? I don’t know, but anyway.

For my Race and Gender module we are analysing “Paris is Burning”, a documentary style film by Livingston about gay and trans black men in lower classes in the 80s expressing themselves in a likeminded community (I’ll be putting up an analysis of the film later). Livingston received some backlash from Bell Hook, who is another gender theorist who felt that the film was making something that should be normal appear exotic to the middle class straight white people that ran the world (and arguably still do). Butler has taken it upon herself to almost defend Livingston and argued against Hooks.

But that is all besides the point for the moment, because today we are focusing on Butler. One of the questions she poses in her book “Gender Trouble” is as follows;

“If gender is constructed, could it be constructed differently, or does its constructedness imply some form of social determinism, foreclosing the possibility of agency and transformation?”

I think, in layman’s terms, she is challenging the gender constructs concerning the binary, and suggesting that if something is constructed then it removes the opportunity for change and choice to occur. This idea is still being discussed today, even 40 years later – the idea that gender and gender roles have been constructed by straight white cis men is nothing new to us today, but back in the 80’s it was still a point of “radical feminism” (I’m not sure if that is the right term, feel free to let me know if there is a more suitable phrase I can use), and those who don’t fit into the constructs are ridiculed and abused for something that is out of their control. When I was watching the film, I felt very glad to be living in potentially the most forward-thinking era to date (that is not to say that there isn’t anything else we can do).

Anyway, back to the point – out current understanding of gender has developed over time with science and brave people who have come forward to make a difference. We know that gender is not binary – not just male and female – and we also know that there is a fluidity to gender; people can be in between. To link back to Butler’s question – Could it be constructed differently – yes, it can, and we have. We have started to deconstruct the gender roles and boundaries that have been set for as long as we can all remember and re-aligned our thinking to be more inclusive. This leads on to the second part of Butler’s question about social determinism; with the gender roles that were set in place, there was nowhere for people who did not fit into them to express themselves – the constructs DID remove the possibility of agency and transformation because if a person was not a woman or a man, they did not belong and would have to force themselves into a binary that does not suit them.

To briefly summarise all that waffle, binary gender constructs prevented change and development, so they had to go. And, thankfully, they have started to be deconstructed.

Next, I have two quotes, one from Hooks and one from Butler;

“[Paris is burning] is a documentary affirming that colonised, victimised, exploited, black folks are all to willing to be complicit in perpetuating the fantasy that ruling-class white culture is the quintessential site of unrestricted joy, freedom, power, and pleasure.” – Bell Hooks

“Paris is burning documents neither an efficacious insurrection nor painful re-subordination, but an unstable coexistence of both” – Judith Butler

Clearly there are a lot of differences between these two theorists, and I think I can see the argument on both sides. Hooks, as a black woman herself, can see the potential harm that the film can, and probably did, do. She wants to protect people like her from a repeat of history. Butler, on the other hand, sees the good that the film can do in making the “ruling-class” aware of other cultures. This is where it gets a bit sticky though – Hooks, as seen in the quote, sees the film as a form of exploitation of the queer black community to give the straight white community a sense of enjoyment and ties into the prevailing idea that anyone who isn’t white is considered ‘exotic’ simply because they are not what was considered normal. In my opinion, I think Hooks has a point; Livingston, and by extension Butler, are more concerned about the good that the film could do for the queer community alone, and have not considered how it will affect the black community – both Livingston and Butler are white queer women, so racial discourse may not have been as much of a concern of theirs as queer discourse is.

It’s very difficult to agree with just one theorist because they both want what is best for the community that they identify with, and I wholeheartedly support that. It’s getting to the point where I just want everyone to leave everyone else alone – if it’s not hurting anyone, then let them get on with it. If it’s not for you, then mind your own business. Just let people be happy.

[woman-loving]

some thoughts on femininity

I start off with a long quote, so the whole thing is going under a cut.

There is a scene in the film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, where the heroine’s mentor Effie Trinket is learning to adapt to her new life in the revolutionary compound of District 13. Previously an inhabitant of the wealthy Capitol area, Trinket has been forced to leave behind her old excessive style in favour of a grey jumpsuit, a uniform worn throughout the District. Cleaned of makeup and without her frilly dresses, Trinket retains only a set of bangles which she still wears and often touches wistfully. Her fellow District 13 comrades find Trinket’s attachment to these objects absurd, and she is met with derision. This response from her revolutionary companions calls to mind Germaine Greer’s assertion that “the women who dare not go outside without their fake eyelashes are in serious psychic trouble” (1970, 325). That Trinket’s affection for feminine accoutrements makes her the focus of ridicule illustrates an important conundrum. It begs the question: should we laugh and pity the Trinkets of the world “who dare not go outside” without their feminine accessories? Are Trinket’s bracelets symbolic manacles? Or should we sit awhile, and wonder why these attachments might remain in the face of strong suggestions from others that liberation can be found in throwing such objects away? This leads to the central question: how can we consider femininity in a way that best attends to people’s experiences of, and attachment to, feminine styles?

Looking to both popular and scholarly feminist commentary over history we see that feminine styles of the body are often not merely understood as the effect of an oppressive gender system, but rather are seen to perpetuate and maintain this system. So the dominant theory goes: if a woman fails to reject those bodily expectations of the gender regime, she is part of the problem. I do not wish to deny that there are norms and expectations that shape the way that we are expected to appear and present ourselves in the world. Indeed, at times this regime is a punishing one. Women are expected to put an enormous amount of energy and money into their appearance, in order to be understood as “respectable”, “beautiful”, and “sexy”. The effort required to produce feminine aesthetics is increasingly being discussed in terms of labour (Baker 2016, 52). Furthermore,successfully achieving various looks for different contexts is no easy task. To wholeheartedly celebrate the various aspects of appearance which often constitute what is recognised as “feminine” – including makeup, clothing, hairstyling, and so on – would be to deny the daily experiences of women who are compelled to conform to particular styles in both the private and the public sphere.

For these reasons, I do not wish to celebrate femininity as something that should be seen as necessarily empowering nor inherently “good”. However, I do seek to intervene in the idea that political transformation can or should be affected at the level of appearance and identity. That is to say, I argue that femininity is not necessarily disempowering, nor inherently “bad”. Those aspects of feminine styling that may for some people feel cruel or laboursome may at other times or for other people be a source of pleasure or, indeed, may be central to their sense of identity and belonging. [...]

That gender expectations are contextual and change over history and location also reveals that it is not the specific elements of what we designate as “feminine” in appearance that are innately problematic, but rather what is arduous is being compelled to conform to expectations. While women of one era might define long dresses as oppressive, another might see miniskirts in the same way depending on the specifics of the disciplinary regime at the time. Another clear example of this is currently the colour pink, which is discussed in some detail in chapter two : pink is not inherently bad, but functions today as a symbol of girlhood. While many reject pink for the gender normativity it represents, at times the debate gets mired in making pink the problem rather than seeing the real issue as the system that merely encourages the use of pink as a signifier. [...]

--Hannah McCann, Queering Femininity: Sexuality, Feminism, and the Politics of Presentation, 2018

This is an excerpt from the introduction of a book that I was looking through, just because I was hoping it would annoy me into writing something. I have a bit of a bias against using "femininity" as a category of analysis; I fear that people are going to use this concept imprecisely, leaving it vague and relying on unspoken, preexisting connections between femininity, womanhood, and female to suggest its meaning. However, I haven't actually read much theorization on femininity or femme-ness, so I don't know for sure what this book is going to argue; I read another theoretical article on femme just before this and it seemed to be going in some interesting directions (building off other queer and feminist theorizing). But still I want to share some of the thoughts and concerns I have going into this topic, acknowledging that other people may very well be saying the same sort of thing, and that this isn't original to me.

First of all, I want to give my own, very rough working explanation of "femininity" (or at least one angle of it), which would go something like this: femininity names the quality of womanliness, or the range of physical characteristics, styles, mannerisms, interests, work, etc that are imagined to be the natural expression of womanhood. In other words, "femininity" and womanhood are tied together through an essentialist logic, one which also locates womanhood and its expression (femininity) in "the female body." (I will use "the female body" here to indicate another construction.) The reference point for all this that I'm thinking about here is specifically Western European constructions of womanhood, femininity, and the female body, and how these are constructed through race, class, ability, sexuality, and other factors.

While we've come to speak about femininity as something independent from being woman or "female"--as that which has simply been "traditionally associated" with women--I think this is the logic behind that "association." To be feminine is to be "womanly." One concern I have with using "femininity" as a analytic category is that... so long as the reference point for understanding the meaning of "feminine" is an essentialist logic of womanhood, we risk carrying over this logic uncritically, and reproducing it even where we claim to have severed it off. How can we talk about both "womanliness" as an independent expression that can be found in people of any gender and also "women" as a group that can have a full range of possible expressions? 

Going back to my explanation of femininity and the broader gender logic of which its a part, another point that needs to be made is that... while ideal (meaning: white, middle-class, able-bodied, cis) women and womanliness are seen as fundamentally distinct from men and manliness, these categories are not as separate in this scheme as would appear. These values of male-man-manly and female-woman-womanly interpenetrate one another and can be quite mobile. Womanly characteristics can be found in a man; male traits identified on the female body. This mobility actually helps preserve the underlying essentialist logic. For example, we might understand a brave woman as expressing a manly characteristic, rather than questioning the notion that bravery is fundamentally male (and therefore an aberration in women) or that the real, essential man is brave. (This is touched on a little bit here, too.)

Moving on.

So, we have this introduction that starts out with considering the reception of Effie in The Hunger Games, and what Effie misses when she's in District 13, and what she's sneered at for being attached to, is identified as "femininity."

It's been a lot time since I read or watched The Hunger Games, but surely it would be accurate to say that what Effie is missing is a particular style, particular accouterments, a fashion; these are what the author here identifies as "femininity." And that's not wrong, exactly, but there are other ways of naming this. Lemme turn to a quote I saved from another book I read:

In spite of their differences in education, wealth, and social standing, most of the [Victorian] bourgeoisie resembled one another in dress, habits of speech, and deportment. Bourgeois men dressed somberly, in dark colors, avoiding any outward signs of luxury. Their clothing fit closely and lacked decoration—a symbolic adjustment to the machine age, in which elaborate dress hampered activity. It also reflected a conscious attempt to emphasize achievement-oriented attitudes, and new standards for what constituted honorable manhood. Through dress and other fashionable tastes, middle classes distinguished themselves from what they viewed as a decadent and effeminate nobility.

Bourgeois conventions regarding women’s dress were the opposite of men’s, further reinforcing gender distinctions—women’s clothing became the material symbol of male success. Extravagant amounts of colorful fabrics used to fashion huge, beribboned hoop dresses reflected the newfound wealth of the middle classes and confirmed their view of women as ornaments whose lives were to be limited to the home and made easier by servants.

--Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries, Thomas F. X. Noble, et al., 6th ed., 2010

Ok, now this is where all my thoughts start to get scrambled together. Let's see in what order all my points will wind up.

So what appears to be happening here is the emergence of two fashion genres (to use a term from the previous femme article I read) within the white Victorian bourgeoisie. (Is that the same thing as middle class?) And these are shaped to express one of two sets of contradictory values held by the bourgeoisie. And while it's reasonable to assume that bourgeois women would also hold and reproduce these values, I expect that these social trends were largely shaped by white bourgeois men, and that both sets of values reflected their own interests. In other words, it's not that bourgeois men held one set of values and bourgeois women the other, and each were allowed to develop fashions as suited their own (singular) preferences. Rather, bourgeois men valued both somberness and display of wealth through luxury, and wished to express both, and resolved this contradiction by externalizing one of these value sets onto women. They were able to have their cake and eat it too: they could express esteemed middle-class values as a part of their manhood, while also getting the benefits of the values they decried: extravagance, excess, luxury, ornamentation--all foisted onto women, whose fashions were imagined as deriving from an essential womanly disposition that naturally gravitated to such qualities. I.e. women's femininity.

AND LEAST THAT'S HOW I'M READING THIS. I haven't looked into the development of these fashions beyond the quote from the book. So, if that's correct.

The use of The Hunger Games to illustrate the reception to women's attachment to "feminine" styles is odd, because the fashions of the Capitol must also be sharped by class values. Popular fashion in the Capitol appears to be characterized by exaggeration, excess, and flamboyance, a display of luxury which resonates with what the Capitol represents in the series.

HOWEVER. The Capitol does not seem to have markedly distinct genres of fashion for men and women. Let me qualify that. Just looking at these pictures, the few men who appear are less... excessive, but still notably flamboyant. (Two more examples.) It's been quite a while since I read the books or watched the movies, so I don't remember exactly how gender appeared to be constructed in the Capitol. But I'd posit that the difference in degree of excess between men and women here results from the fact that these fashions are built on the base of real-world fashions, where those for men and women have had different trajectories. Perhaps we could say, though, that the same basic concept lies behind all fashion in the Capitol, and imagine that the spirit behind Suzanne Collins' vision of the Capitol might be more "ideally" represented by a world where the forms of Capitol fashion were not gender-specific.

In that case, extravagant fashion is not specifically womanly. It might make more sense to speak of Effie not as missing the accouterments of "femininity," but more specifically the accouterments of a fashion characterized by exaggeration, excessive ornamentation, or however we might describe it. These fashions might be intimately tied to her identity and sense of embodiment, without primarily being understood as an expression of a uniquely womanly quality. Where, then, does the concept of "femininity" fit into it?

Moving on from The Hunger Games, the suggestion I'd like to make is that, rather than using a vague notion of "femininity," we attempt to be more precise in naming the contents of "femininity." By utilizing categories like "extravagance" or "flamboyance" (or perhaps other, better terms), we can uproot the characteristics that make up "femininity" from their presumed location in womanly nature. We can connect them as well to “manly” expressions of these same qualities, and perhaps note a range of similarities and differences in how they are socially received depending on the gender, race, class, etc of the subject in which they appear. This is not to say that we should ignore how certain things are gendered, or how people do in fact adopt certain styles as a way to express or embody their gender. This can/should still be part of the analysis. But expanding the repertoire of categories used to name what we mean by "femininity" might help us avoid over-determining the significance of gender, which can be a pitfall when the subjects under consideration are viewed as markedly gendered. (I complained about an example of this.)

(I suppose I'm basically describing a method of analysis that evacuates the category of femininity. I remember once, in a discussion of Buddhism, the concept of non-self (anatta) was illustrated by saying "a flower is made up entirely of non-flower parts." In this case, "femininity" or womanliness is made up entirely non-woman(ly) parts. So what are those parts?)

I also want to comment on something McCann said in the last paragraph of that first quote. She said that the elements designated as "feminine" are not innately problematic, but become so when they are compelled to be adopted. I’d agree that it’s a problem when these elements are compulsory (especially if they tend to require greater time, labor, expense, and self-monitoring to embody). However, the contents of "femininity" may in fact be problematic within the social context in which they are developed. Returning to that second quote, the ornateness of bourgeois women's fashion was problematic in its own right because it contradicted another, more centrally affirmed set of bourgeois values.

Now, I'm not sure what is the best way to name the characteristics that are identified as "feminine," but one common complaint against certain "feminine" clothing or processes is that they are impractical and unnecessary. And when women specifically are compelled to adopt styles that are impractical for a wider range of situations, it makes sense to complain about that. However, what may be needed to defuse tensions around "femininity" is not just a rethinking of the meaning or value of womanhood (e.g. what women "should" look like), but also a rethinking of the value of “impracticality.” A rethinking of forms of expression (and the labor they entail) that serve no purpose other than meeting an aesthetic or bodily goal, one which may be attained at the expense of practicality, efficiency, or frugality.

At the same time, even here we can't look at this question outside the interlocking context of sexism, misogyny, racism, classism, et al, since these determine which forms of expression that might in fact be impractical (toward a certain goal) actually get identified as impractical or unnecessary. It just goes to show how multiple approaches are needed, since these phenomena are complex.

Fin.