#You know when someone tries SO desperately to be feminist that they just loop back around into patronising misogyny?

[yesterdayiwrote]

Whilst I understand there's a certain element of meme culture and gen z tiktok humour going on on that account (which doesn't match any of George's vibe as a driver), and clearly I'm older and so they've decided they don't have to cater to fans like me, what I do take exception to is an account in the name of an F1 driver posting such embarrassingly reductive "girlie" content - the purpose of which I can't fully comprehend.

Someone decided to aim that account solely at a female base it seems (which is brave if you execute it correctly which they're.... not) and yet seems to have such a weak understanding of female motorsports fandom. It's truly baffling...

Ok hi it’s me back again with the officialgr63 acc slander!

And while I’m sadly not surprised I’m pissed, bc my comment’s been deleted 🙂

I’ve previously said how downhill that page has gone and how disappointing it is to see the direction it’s gone in - there’s no real updates, nothing really race related, nothing interactive for the fans to get involved in like competitions etc, no actual interesting behind the scenes.. the bts we’ve gotten are mostly ‘look at what admin is up to!’ And frankly.. I don’t care about what the admin’s up to. Admin should be pretty much invisible, imho. And it seems the only content we mainly get is tryhard memes that aren’t funny - some which I’ve heard are actually upsetting/offensive to some fans and many are actually quite misogynistic, fangirly ‘look how perfect they are/power couple😍’ posts about George and Carmen and then the occasional race weekend related post that’s still not really informative or interesting just ‘let’s all fawn over him!!!’ Which, yeah I get it, I love admiring how pretty George is! but I don’t feel like that should be the point of his official fan page..?!

Quite frankly his page now is giving an actual fangirls page and it’s being shoved in a direction that caters to one group of fans only.

I made a comment on their latest post today saying how disappointing it is and how great the page used to be and that it does seem to only be catering to young girls who are chronically on TikTok - and then suddenly my comment was no longer there! (I screenshotted it beforehand bc I had a feeling.. and I was right). And I get it, it must not be nice to see negative comments but guess what? I’m also a fan of George! I want to enjoy his page made for his fans to interact with! But I am not a teenage girl who thinks if they love absolutely everything about him and his gf then that’ll make them his bestie. As a George fan, I am allowed my opinion too and I’m really disappointed.

[fallowtail]

thinking about hetty again what else is new. putting it under a read more because i feel bad i keep spamming the tag with long posts about my blorbo lol

sorry if none of this makes any sense or is cohesive i'm just rambling ok but i just (clenches fist) the fact they decided to let hetty feel realistic in her place as an upper class victorian woman...(throwing her at the wall) they could have been easy and made her a rich white upper class woman who was still a feminist despite her complete lack of life experience outside the confines of her home, but instead they made her truly feel like she came from her class and stature and i LOVE it. she is so so so fundamentally and deeply flawed

she's awful to people she perceives as below her and she's manipulative and desperate for power and to feel like she's in control and she wants to boss the other ghosts around, and she wasn't a woman who was interested in the idea of feminism because she had no exposure to any other world view than the one she was entrenched in and praised and rewarded for (outside of her direct family situation...we can all agree she was not being rewarded by elias lol) so it didn't even click as an option for her, let alone really even having much awareness of the concept.

she hated how her husband treated her but didn't necessarily think it was wrong of him to be doing so (which we find out from her interaction with molly) bc why would it be, that's just the way things were! we see this "its just the way things were" mindset as well with how hetty is able to bring herself to extend the olive branch to elias despite how much she hates him, because if she is being offered a chance to learn to be good than well...doesn't he deserve that too? until he tells her to fuck off essentially and she immediately, well, we all know what she does with that information lol (i almost wish he hadnt gone down on us so soon after his introduction though, because...would she have kept trying? i think maybe she might have.)

she's managed to get to a place where she realizes how she lived her life was bad and that she's in "purgatory" for a reason, and she realizes that she wants to change and be good, but she struggles with it because she doesn't have any frame of reference to know what about her behavior was bad, and what it was she was doing that made her an awful person. she just doesn't know until someone directly tells her because she has no frame of reference to know these things, and a lot of the times the other ghosts...don't tell her. you get the idea that, up until sam showed up, the other ghosts didn't actually do much to explain things to her, they just get annoyed that she doesn't get it, they roll their eyes because that's just how hetty is, but when stuff actually gets explained to her (sam + flower + alberta, usually) she is able to digest it and we get to watch her very slowly develop empathy and sympathy for other people, even if it takes her some time to get there and if she doesn't fully connect the dots right away.

there's such an interesting plot thread with hetty of the duality of living within a place of privilege and imprisonment at the same time and how that shaped her, and now that she's being exposed to other concepts, to other worldviews, to being able to interact with people outside of her social bubble, she is interested in them, but is repeatedly dragged back down by years of social conditioning (example: the scene where she tells flower not to let pete treat her badly, that she doesn't want to spend her afterlife continuing to forgive the sins of the men in her life, but then continues to do that exact same thing over and over again) because change isn't linear and by god is hetty woodstone walking a wobbly line and looping herself around in circles while she tries to figure it out.

hetty was/is screaming about the yellow wallpaper but instead of tearing herself apart she took it out on everyone else around her, specifically her employees (#girlboss!) because she was in a position to do so with little to no consequences, it was what was expected of her, and it would be the only actual sense of control she had, and she enjoyed it. in the newest episode hetty comes to the conclusion that sam is correct and that you can't treat modern workers that way, in a showcase of how she only ever kind of gets it- the lesson there was that "hetty, treating people like that is (was) wrong period", but she always gets stuck filtering the lesson through the social expectations of her time. she's trying, and making an effort, but she struggles to fully get there, especially when it concerns her own past bad behaviors and isn't something that can bring her a sense of pleasure.

WHEW. hetty woodstone, good lord. what a character.

[unibrowzz]

My 2020 reviews

All the cool kids were doing these so now I finally dragged my ass into doing them too lmao. 

Albania- Fall from the Sky

A song I swear cursed this whole contest from the moment it won Festivali i Këngës. Like with the shitshow this song caused I just knew the whole year was fucked. With half the fandom whining they didn’t get their first club song of the year to the other half smugly shoving it as their winner despite no other songs being around to compare it to, the whole fiasco just left me knowing that 2020 would end in tears, just hopefully not my own. As for the song, it’s lame. It’s a standard ballad with OBSCENE amounts of autotune, which is weird because the girl can actually sing pretty decently without it, so why they decided to make her sound like a damn computer is beyond me. And WHY did they translate it, haven't the past few years proven that Albania's better off leaving their songs in Albanian? 

Armenia- Chains on You

A bootleg Ariana Grande song, and a really shit one at that. The kind of song only people who think being young, gay and mean counts as having a personality would say is good.

Australia- Don’t Break Me

One of the few decent Australian entries (but that REALLY isn’t saying much coming from me, I barely care they’re in the contest by this point) but marred by a horribly untidy performance and lacklustre lyrics. At least it’s not fucking pop-opera, that’s all I can say. I’d rather listen to the sound of my face being dragged down the runway at Heathrow airport than be subjected to another Zero Gravity.

Austria- Alive

One of those pseudo-jazz dance songs, á la Olly Murs or Bruno Mars (I swear there’s a song like this in every recent contest). I mean, it’s good, but it’s just kinda meh since I’m kinda getting tired of this genre rearing its fedora-wearing head every time a new lineup rolls in.

Azerbaijan- Cleopatra

One of the “better” trashy entries this year, comprised of about five different musical genres, six ancient cultures being appropriated and absolutely zero class. Probably sounds at least 50% better when you’re absolutely steaming drunk and face down on the floor in the middle of a gay bar.

Belarus- Da Vidna

Somehow, this song sounds both very unique and original yet trite and average at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether listening to it was a new experience or if I’d heard it a million times before.

Belgium- Release Me

A song which just drones on till it ends. I would say it’s ripping off the song that won last year, but it forgot that having a chorus stops your song from being three minutes of snooze.

Bulgaria- Tears Getting Sober

A typical breathy mumble-girl song, AKA a genre I can’t fucking stand. Really don’t see the hype with this one, the melody is pretty but the vocals are out for lunch and it’s otherwise completely and utterly boring.

Croatia- Divlji Vjetre

One of the token big dramatic ballads you listen to once, enjoy, then forget about until Darius in the Discord server plays it one night whilst you’re hitting up the radio bot with requests. You’ll find that “nice, but forgettable” is a common theme for this year.

Cyprus- Running

Ironically Cyprus didn’t send a crappy Fuego knockoff for 2020, and I say ironically because a crappy Fuego knockoff would’ve actually stood out this year, and I say crappy because honestly Fuego wasn’t even all that great to begin with. "Running” itself is just one of those edgy tortured soul pop songs which, let’s be honest, would have been paired with an impressive performance which would’ve overshadowed how bland it is. Kind of like “You’re the Only One”. Or even Fuego for that matter.

Czech Republic- Kemama

Standard Afro-pop, a genre we don't often see at the contest so I'll let it pass. I feel like this is the kind of song that’s infinitely better live, and that it would’ve been one of those songs that suddenly became a frontrunner after the semi finals, but I guess we’ll never know eh?

Denmark- Yes 

The quintessential mid-10s Eurovision song. It's got guitars, happy people, Scandinavian origins… it’s just a typical radio guitar song, nothing special.

Estonia- What Love Is

I mean it's better than La Forza. Granted, the sound of someone pissing directly onto a microphone installed in the bowl of a toilet would sound better than La Forza but still. Going back to this song, it’s just... a standard Eastern-ballad with some very desperate lyrics. It feels kind of outdated, if I’m honest. Like something about this just reeks of 2011.

Finland- Looking Back

Yet another dreary, forgettable ballad. It comes to something when the best song they COULD have sent was a party song which sounded like it was from the mid 90s. At least that song was memorable. That said, this one at least has some decent lyrics. Bravo for that I guess.

France- Mon Alliée

France decides to say “fuck it” to being an underground fan-favourite and takes a leaf out of the UKs book by sending the same rent-a-Swede schlock they’ve been sending since 2015. I’m just confused as to why anyone in their right mind would choose to follow the UKs example but you do you France.

Germany- Violent Thing

A rehash of Sweden's entry from two years ago, but this time sung by Justin Bieber circa 2008. Kind of alright if you can stomach the singer's whiny voice, but otherwise pretty dull and kinda forgettable.

Greece- Superg!rl

Hello fellow kidz, we are hearing you like the girl power? The super heroes? The t3xt $p3ech? We made you song, please give us the votes *dabs*

Georgia- Take me as I Am

I mean… this sure is a choice. This feels like one of those songs that everyone memes on because the lyrics are kinda janky and the singer’s voice (and accent) take a bit of getting used to, but other than that it’s just one of those NQ songs for hipster fans to declare as their unironic winner at a later date. All in all this just feels like the male equivalent of one of those mid-10s fat acceptance women’s songs, only a lot shoutier and this time he has more flaws than not being skinny.

Iceland- Think About Things 

A bootleg George Ezra song, performed by a load of disinterested tumblr users in their pyjamas. Because if there’s one thing that sells me on a song, it’s being given the evils by a bunch of nerds who look like they’ll send me death threats for not agreeing with their Pokémon headcanons. To be fair, the song is kind of groovy since it sounds so 70s, but the performance is very off-putting to people who aren’t in the Eurovision loop. And also people who are, because I sure as Hell don’t see the appeal in this myself and this whole performance just feels like Save Your Kisses for Me without the charm. I feel like this would’ve come second or third, definitely with a lot of televotes but either the jury would’ve dragged it down or it wouldn’t have scored enough televotes to win.

Ireland- Story of my Life

A song that’s at LEAST ten years out of date by this point, think like an early Katy Perry, Jessie J or Avril Lavigne song. I’ll forgive it because even though it sounds like it should’ve been entered in 2013 (at the latest), it at least evokes some nostalgic memories of shitty school discos and holiday parks.

Israel- Feker Libi

The female equivalent of the Czech song. Unsurprisingly, people went wild for it when it was released. I guess only women are allowed to sing Afro-pop at this contest. Like with the Czech song, I’ll forgive it since Afro-pop is a cool genre anyway, and even though this is just another club song I can at least see myself dancing to it.

Italy- Fai Rumore

Well, at least my wish of “Italy sends a typical power ballad devoid of anything the mainstream fandom likes” finally came true. It was pretty refreshing to have a year where people weren’t shoving Italy’s entry up my nose left right and centre. In terms of my actual thoughts I can’t deny that the guy has a tremendous voice, but for some reason the song just doesn’t… click with me. I guess I like my male Italian singers a little more gruff and raspy, if you know what I mean. They gotta sound like they smoke at LEAST five packets of cigarettes a day for me to take notice.

Malta- All of my Love

Listen I am 100% rooting for Destiny Chukunyere to win this contest some day but man was this song a disappointment. It feels so… un-special and generic, like it gets the job done and that’s it. It’s not the stand-up-and-belt-it-out soul anthem I’d hoped for, it’s just… there.

Moldova- Prison

All I remember about this song is that it vaguely reminds me of that one Meccano song about the gypsy who makes a deal with the moon or something. And I’ve TRIED to remember more about what it sounds like, trust me.

Latvia- Still Breathing

The one horrible weird song you get every year which overuses strobe effects to the point it comes with an epilepsy warning. Would be bearable if it wasn't for the singer’s insistence that this is actually some feminist masterpiece when it's really just a self-empowerment club song about the singer fingerbanging herself over the fact she writes music.

Lithuania- On Fire

One of the songs everyone thought was going to win at one point, even though it seems like a surefire non-qualifier to me. It’s one of those weird entries, but not the kind of over the top, batshit insane, you’d-have-to-be-drunk-to-enjoy-it weird, the kind of subdued surreal weird. Like this is weed instead of LSD or cocaine weird. Granted my mom, who I consider to be a "typical" Eurofan, actually really liked this song when she saw it in the recaps, so who knows maybe this would have done well with televoters after all.

Netherlands- Grow

I appreciate this song for how artsy and clever it is with its structure, since it starts off acapella and the instrumental builds up with the song until it stops suddenly, symbolising a person’s growth from a child into an adult, and ending suddenly with their death (Geddit? The song’s called “Grow”). But it feels like the kind of song that would be lost on a Eurovision audience. The juries would have taken note, for sure, but the televote… let’s be honest, they’d have been too busy drunk voting for Russia to care about anything else.

North Macedonia- You

Well, it's better than the miserable dirge they sent last year, but given how I'd rather pleasure myself with a steak knife than listen to that song, that really isn't saying much. Going back to “You”, it really just feels like a diet version of Switzerland’s entry from last year, combined with Sweden’s song from 2018. What I’m saying is it’s your average “I’m a man in a club and I want to dance with and probably fuck this hot girl I just met” song, which I a new genre I just made up. You’re welcome.

Norway- Attention 

One of those songs you appreciate because it sounds nice and the singer has a good voice, but instantly forget because it’s really not all that interesting. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, welcome to Eurovision 2020.

Poland- Empires

“Rise Like a Phoenix” but sung by a wannabe Adele and not a mascara-wearing Jesus in a dress. Like a lot of other songs on this list, it’s just average across the board, likeable when it’s on, but instantly forgettable as soon as the next song comes on.

Portugal: Medo de Sentir

Pretty, but also similar to their ill-fated 2018 entry, only with a bit more energy and less pink hair. What I’m saying is this would have been another NQ unless the crowd who enjoy subtle ambience music come in to save it like they did with Slovenia's entry last year.

Romania- Alcohol You

See Bulgaria, because this is practically the same song. It’s just as dreary, just as badly sung (if not worse because holy shit this girl sounds like she’s being suffocated), and I suppose you COULD excuse that by saying she’s drunk or hungover… but I don’t want to listen to someone ungracefully mumble into a microphone for three minutes.

Russia- Uno

A classic big camp party song, the kind of song people who haven’t watched Eurovision since 2003 think wins on the regular. I can see why people would like it (especially in this boring year lmao, I applaud Russia for taking the opportunity to loosen their corset and just send a complete mess instead of their usual clinical vote grabs), but it’s just not something I enjoy. It's the song that plays into the misconception that Eurovision is just a clown show for drunk people, like this is just here to be that one flash-in-the-pan meme song that only entertains people who don’t really care about Eurovision until the day before it airs. Kind of like the old ladies they sent in 2012 (remember them?).

San Marino- Freaky!

San Marino, in true Sammarinese fashion, have yet again sent a decade-ambiguous song which sounds like it was either released in 1978 or 2003. I feel like this would have been one of those songs which could have surprised us if it had a really wacky, creative performance (think like Moldova in 2018), but this is San Marino so you know that would never happen.

Serbia- Hasta la Vista

Insert unoriginal joke about a decade wanting their shitty trend back right here. Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh, especially considering how this song is actually, yanno, unique in comparison to the rest of this year. But it still feels weirdly dated, in a way where I can’t decide whether it sounds like it belongs in 1998 or 2018. I suppose girl power ages a song regardless of when it was released.

Slovenia- Voda

Yet another standard Balkan-European power ballad which you appreciate because it’s well sung, but forget the moment it ends because it’s kinda boring. … Does anyone else have a bit of deja vu?

Spain- Universo

For some reason I feel like this song is shilling itself out to someone but I have no idea who. Aside from the horny people voting solely because the singer is moderately attractive even with that wretched Jedward haircut.

Sweden- Move

Imagine soul but… boring.

Switzerland- Répondez Moi

Imagine Arcade but… in French.

United Kingdom- My last Breath

Not the best the UK could have done, but it’s at least a modern offering unlike the residual dregs of the mid-90s that we sent throughout the 2010s. It’s definitely a bit too generic to have done any better than maybe 15th, but hey at least the cancellation means we won’t have to see it not do as well as the BBC thinks it’s entitled to do, prompting a billion clickbait articles about how Brexit somehow affected our performance.

Ukraine- Solovey

At long last we come to something you probably weren't expecting: a song I actually really like. Which is weird because I usually don't care for or don't like whatever Ukraine vomits into the contest, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a song I liked from them in such a weak year. This song isn’t for everyone, it’s white noise singing which is a very acquired taste, but this is honestly the only 2020 song I find myself coming back to over and over. And it’s in Ukrainian too, so you don’t have to put up with their usual mangled English offerings.

[fightmeyeats]

Wrath Month: Probably Not Gonna Calm Down

I feel very frustrated by @taylorswift​’s “You Need to Calm Down” (currently “#3 On Trending” on youtube). This is not a particularly hot take.

Corporate pride tends to be highly contested in general: on the one hand, some argue that it's helpful to LGBT+ youth to see themselves represented in the hegemony and suggest that maybe it’s better that corporations are courting LGBT+ dollars over the money of homophobes; on the other, normalization (especially normalization through capitalist/corporate interests) has historically been complicit in the further marginalization of many queer folks--especially trans women of color. To some, “You Need to Calm Down” is simply one example of corporate pride, and therefore represents the same potential for an ambiguous reading. Personally, I have tried to imagine whether this song would have meant anything useful to me as a closeted queer teen; I remember looking desperately for queer themes in “straight” music, and I remember being slightly older (18, maybe?) watching Hayley Kiyoko’s “Girls like Girls” on a loop and how much my first exposure to actually queer music produced by actually queer artists meant to me, and I don’t think even that version of me would have felt connected to Taylor Swift’s attempt to reconcile her experience as a celebrity who has literally capitalized off of internet drama to the harassment queer folks experience daily for existing as themselves.

The Onion’s article “Taylor Swift Inspires Teen To Come Out As Straight Woman Needing To Be At Center Of Gay Rights Narrative” does a great job of simplifying why exactly this video and song is so exhausting to me and many other LGBTQ+ folks: the author argues that Taylor Swift uses “LGBTQ iconography to advance her career” and that, rather than letting people speak for themselves and control their own narratives, she’s making Pride Month about herself. The Atlantic and Vox both have run more in-depth articles breaking down the multitude of reasons why this song is deservedly coming under fire, which I highly recommend reading.

One counter argument I’ve seen here and there is that Taylor Swift is actually not a straight woman centering a gay rights narrative around herself--now that she’s said the word “gay” in a non-negative way in a song, its only a matter of time before she comes out! So one of the things I want to emphasize here is that while I personally don’t believe she’s queer (and per Swift’s own tumblr post explaining why she didn’t kiss Katy Perry in the music video where she says “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn’t needs to calm down. It costs zero dollars to not step on our gowns.” she doesn’t seem to anticipate coming out either), regardless of whether or not she turns out not to be straight, this song and its lyrics are appropriating LGBTQ iconography to advance her career, and Swift is using queer folks as accessories to perform “wokeness” and draw parallels between herself and actual marginalized communities for her own gain. She may end the music video with directions to sign her petition for Senate support of the Equality Act, but the links in the song description are all promotion for her song, her merch, and her social media accounts. She does not even follow through on the optics of social justice.

The main way I want to trace this argument is through her fundamental misunderstanding and, more significantly, misrepresentation of what homophobia is.Throughout the song/music video Swift is consistently trying to render compatible her own supposed experiences with being bullied/criticized on the internet to the violence of homophobia which is, quite frankly, fucking wild. She sings: “Say it in the street, that's a knock-out / But you say it in a Tweet, that's a cop-out.” What seems to be the intended interpretation of this line is that negative interactions online are cowardly, because people are “hiding” behind usernames and icons, rather than being “brave” enough to offer direct criticism and publicly/visibly own their words; I am not going to go into the potentials of this line of conversation, because I do think in another context (and said by other people) real conversations about the potentials and pitfalls of online culture in regards to purity/call-out culture, social activism/organizing, and bullying can be and are already being had. What I want to point out here is the cognitive dissonance: who can say anything in the street to someone as rich, privileged, and insulated as Taylor Swift? If Swift only accepts criticism delivered in person, she doesn’t accept criticism and she might as well own up to that. And when she is trying to tie this into a commentary on homophobia, maybe she should have considered for two seconds the kind of actual danger queer folks (especially trans and gender non-conforming) are actually in on the streets every day while she’s in a mansion/penthouse apartment (and to that extent, the gentrified trailer park imagery didn’t sit to well with me either, but I’ll get into the discussion of class later on). Queer folks really are getting knocked-out in the streets (1, 2, 3). Furthermore, in her desperate attempt to center her psuedo-discourse on homophobia and queer liberation around herself, she sings the lines: “But I've learned a lesson that stressin' and obsessin' / 'bout somebody else is no fun / And snakes and stones never broke my bones”. I’m not really surprised that it doesn’t “break her bones,” given how successfully she has marketed and monetized her feuds and her own victimhood; this is just a newnother rebranding of said victimized persona, and even though she may not be bothered, there are real stakes to it beyond the “lack of fun”.

So let’s get into it. As I said before, Swift is dangerously misrepresenting what homophobia is and what it looks like, namely through the use of a progress “wrong side of history” narrative. The lines run “Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?...Sunshine on the street at the parade / But you would rather be in the dark ages” and the music video shows what Kornhaber, writing for The Atlantic, aptly describes as “an unwashed-looking mob” holding childish signs with misspellings and the all-time classic “Adam + Eve Not Adam + Steve.” Korhnaber points out the more common use of “God Hates Fags” signs; personally, I’ve also seen a lot of the “HolyBible” “After Death, the Judgement” signs. In Swift’s narrative, homophobia looks like the obvious, regressive, primitive villain; the already defeated. Perhaps worse, it looks like the rural poor, against the backdrop of rich queer celebrities. This narrative works to render invisible the poor-and-queer, and it undermines the real dangers homophobic violence poses by imagining homophobia has already lost. Imagining homophobia as thirteen unwashed rural poor people who can’t spell the word “moron” obscures the reality that there are also the Mike Pences and the Philip Anschutzs and the laundry list of other rich and connected anti-LGBT politicians, activists, and donors who have very real effects on the lives of the disabled, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ folks, the poor, immigrants, and all the intersections thereof. This also ties into the way Swift puts forward the solution “You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace / And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate.” As meaningless as these lines are overall, the insinuation that there is a “peace” that we can be “restored” to that would benefit the marginalized and oppressed is ridiculous and harmful, and again misrepresents the problem. Moreover, it suggests the problem could be understood as one of bodily discipline: if homophobes “controlled” themselves better, didn’t scream so much, there wouldn’t be a problem--this gets us back to the problematics of representing homophobia as exclusively the undisciplined poor, rather than the rich and connected. It also leaves room for the potential insinuation that everybody who is angry on the internet needs to calm down; I’ve seen a lot of jokes that this Pride Month, the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, we’re returning to our rebel roots and also celebrating Wrath. I certainly don’t plan to calm down, thanks anyway, Taylor. 

In this same vein lets consider the much quoted line: “'Cause shade never made anybody less gay”. This was the first line I heard from the song, and my immediate problem with it was, as Korhnaber also points out, that throwing shade comes from queer communities of color, and “there are many ways to describe a parent who disowns a trans kid, or a lawmaker who tries to nullify same-sex marriages, or a church member who crashes a gay soldier’s funeral. Shady isn’t one.”

Swift hides from potential criticism/backlash behind a psuedo-feminist “female solidarity” with lines such as: “And we see you over there on the internet / Comparing all the girls who are killing it / But we figured you out / We all know now we all got crowns.” While there certainly are people who try to pit women against each other on the internet, again this is something which Taylor Swift has directly utilized multiple times to make herself money. I’m glad celebrities know they’ve all got crowns, but in what world does this benefit the non-rich and famous?

[rachelclewis]

The Birds and the Beasts

               I like running in Sugarhouse park for a number of reasons.  I know that two laps plus the interior driveway into the parking lot equals one 5k.  I also appreciate the difficulty.  There are two good hills in the circuit – four total.  It hurts but it is a good workout.  I love it.  Especially in spring when the baby ducks are out.  The cuteness is a good distraction from the burning calves.  Usually.

               Recently, however, as I approached the first hill I noticed a… what? A cluck of ducks? That’s probably not right.  But there were five mallards off to the right on the grassy hill, which is the wrong side of the road.  The pond is in the center of the park, off to my left as I run counter-clockwise around the loop.

               Something about their behavior seemed strange and I turned to watch them.  There were four males and one female.  If you are wondering how I know a male mallard from a female mallard, they are easy to differentiate.  They are similar in shape but the males have bright green heads and with white collars where the throat starts to widen into the body.  Females are slightly smaller and are mostly spotty brown but with bright blue patches on their wings.

               One of the males had a splotch of white on his mostly green neck and another white blob on his body, like someone had thrown bleach on him.  Or like a watercolor painting that is nearly complete but not quite. This means he is a mixed species duck – part mallard and part white duck.  There is a duck like this that lives in my boyfriend’s neighborhood.  We saw him one morning and I said, “We should call mutt ducks ‘mucks.’”  He didn’t laugh.  I reminded him that it was still early and I hadn’t had any coffee yet.  “I mean I’m not saying it’s an A plus joke,” I pressed him at the time.  “Clearly it’s B work.  But seriously… nothing?”

               I was rethinking my evaluation as I ran in the park and decide he was right.  I was downgrading the joke to a C plus – B minus at best – but before I could finish the thought, the one female in the cluck made a sudden turn and darted out into the road with the three males chasing closely behind.

               There was a car but it was able to stop just in time.  The female kept running and crossed the road in front of me with the males closing in on her.  The fastest one caught up with her as she stumbled over the curb on the pond side of the road. Before she could pull herself up onto the grass, he clamped his beak on her thin neck and twisted it awkwardly to the side as he scaled her back. The muck and the other two males gathered around, waiting their turn.

               I can’t claim to have had a clear impulse to do anything in the moment.  And yet I had many impulses – layers and layers of considerations that lodged in my gut like an onion swallowed whole.  I spent the rest of the run peeling it and contemplating the pungent concerns as I carved deeper into it.

               It certainly occurred to me – maybe a few paces down the path – that I should go back and rescue her.  I could chase the males off, couldn’t I?  Or would I just scatter them temporarily?  Then they would resume as soon as I got back on my way, with that female or the next one they saw.

               I remembered what I’ve read about duck copulation before.  Specifically, I recall reading about the roughness of the males. Witnessing it was certainly more brutal than I imagined while reading about it.  Still… this was “natural,” right?

               Then I remembered my friend Meg telling a story about a pair of ducks rogering around the grass on the day of her wedding.  I remember she was disturbed by it, but her sister had said, “no, ducks fucking are good luck!”

               “Duck fuck, good luck, duck fuck, good luck…” I repeated to the rhythm of my running pace as I fought my way up hill number one.  This helped for a moment, but I kept picturing the awkward angle of the ducks neck as the drake held her down, pushing her throat into the grass.  And then I remembered something else that I read about ducks as I crested the hill.  “What was it?”  I asked my brain.  “Something about the fact that the penis is corkscrew shaped?  For some gawdawful reason?”

               As my shoes slapped down the declining side of the hill the shock wore off and I suddenly realized that I had witnessed something intense and violent.  “What is wrong with me!?  Why didn’t I help her?” I yelled at myself. “What about SISTERHOOD?”

               With a pang I remembered that one of the reasons I run in this park was the baby ducks.  “Is there anything cuter than a baby mallard? Now I know where they come from. I guess it’s evolved that way for a reason?  Corkscrew cocks and all?  Otherwise, no more mallards.”

               The trail was leveling out and I realized that I was justifying my inaction using the old ‘means to an ends’ trope.  “Who am I? I sound like Rick Santorum, telling rape victims to ‘make the best of a bad situation.’”  

               I tried to banish the image of the other drakes – the slower ones – forming a jumbled and impatient line as I approached the steep raise of hill number two.  That article I read didn’t say anything about gang rape. I was not prepared for that.

               “I’m not heartless,” I told myself as I fought the gravity asserting its full force on my calves. “I am impartial.  Like a documentary film maker.  I am here to observe and learn, not to judge or intervene.” On the steepest part of the hill, my pace slowed to a run just slower than a walk and I started to lose track of where my legs ended and where the sidewalk began.  “I am Sigournie Weaver,” I declared.  “Narrating with my soft as suede voice as an arctic wolf gnaws on the leg of a still struggling baby caribou.”

               I crested the hill but continue walking, trying to catch my breath.  “Except Sigournie Weaver wasn’t actually there,” I remembered. “I am the dude who keeps filming when the shit goes down.  The one I always scream at.  ‘Put the camera down and throw the polar bear a damned fish!  Don’t you know what climate change is doing to them?!’”  I picked up speed and made my way toward the downward slope on the West side of the park.

               I told myself that if the ducks were still there when I made it back to the scene of the crime I would intervene.  I rounded the corner and searched the grass and the shore of the pond, but they were gone. “Maybe she got away?”  I thought about her waddling at full speed out in front of the car.  Was that intentional?  Escape through frantic suicide?

               Slogging up hill number three it occurred to me that she ran, but she didn’t fly.  “Why didn’t she fly?  Maybe it is all part of the mating ritual. Play hard to get but not too hard to get.”  I was starting to feel better and I repeated the mantra from the previous trudge up this hill.  “Duck fuck, good luck, duck fuck, good luck…”  I played through the scene in my head again.  “She certainly looked like she was desperate to get away, but it must not have been with a full heart, or she would have flown.  Right?”

               “Oh Christ,” I thought as I crested the hill.  “Did I just make the duck equivalent of the ‘look what she’s wearing’ argument?”  I was flying down the back of the hill, hating myself with every step.

               I remembered then that I had been driving passed this same park the week before when all the traffic came to a stop for no apparent reason.  Once I was close enough I saw that there was a pair of mallards in the center of the six lane street, herding a half dozen babies up the median with the female leading the parade and the male bringing up the rear.  This is one of the things I love about mallards. They always seem to make such cute couples.  

               Another time, years ago, I was driving through another part of Sugarhouse and I saw the carcass of a female mallard to the side of the road and a male standing watch over her lifeless body.  You will see this from time to time.  They seem to be very devoted.  I used to think monogamous, “or at least they stay partnered for the mating season?”  Suddenly I wasn’t sure.  “I’ll have to look that up, I guess.”

               It was the last hill and I could see where this was going.  I told myself to skip the scene which was obviously coming.  The one where I berate myself for letting the male off the hook” because they make such cute dads, after all.”  

               Utah was in the news that same week because a judge had praised a former LDS bishop as a “good man” as he sentenced him to life in prison while his victims sat in the courtroom.   “Great men do bad things,” he said.  I was outraged when I read it in the paper.  

               “Not going there,” I thought.  “Just, not even going to do it.”  But it was too late.  I felt no better – no more ‘woke’ – than that judge.  I used my self-loathing as fuel to get me up the last hill and onto the flat stretch along the north side of the park.  Just one more downhill and then the turn into the center of the park where my car was parked.

               I finished the last stretch and I asked myself if my real problem is that I’m too disconnected from the natural world.  The real one, not the artificial landscaped park meant to look something like nature that I conveniently touch base with on my lunch breaks.  It isn’t the same thing, despite the occasional wild encounter.  “Has urban living made me so soft that I cannot bear witness the brutality of the real world?  Or has it made me too hard in some way? Has my voracious consumption of liberal punditry turned me into a habitual moralizer, constantly monitoring of my thoughts for traces of ignorance, and leaving me unable to make sense of what is around me without anthropomorphizing?”

               I dug the key to my Toyota out of my sweaty sports bra and I flopped down into the driver’s seat. It was the most exhausting three miles I have ever run.

               “I am a bad person, a bad feminist, and I will never look at a baby duck the same way again. Fuzzy little fuckers.”

               I turned the key and steered my car onto the park road.  There was one thing I did feel I understood as I worked my way back around the loop toward the exit.  “The next time I am yelling at a nature show because the photographer is so cold hearted as to just stand there and film while the wild dogs surround the limpy gazelle, I will remember this outing in the park and I will tell myself to go to hell.”

#�\�Nwr

[myinazeaanazazi]

My mom is not the biggest fan of feminism. She’s 67, so she ought to have a different view of the world than her children, sure, but not liking feminism? If you ask her, she tells you “feminists have told me that it is wrong, un-feminist, of me to want to be a stay-at-home mom.” which I find interesting. Feminism, as I understand it, means affording every person the same opportunities, regardless of gender. So, being told that people who call themselves feminist actively tried to discourage someone from living their life the way they want to, throws me for a loop. Then I realize, those are the same people who declare that you need a certain quota of females in leading positions in a company, by law.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for women making it in the business world, being in a leading position, CEO, CIO, CFO, whatever of any company, but this quota, which is a thing in Germany, feels like a bad thing. Because when you don’t have a quota and female leadership, someone will assume that a) the female person used sex to get where they are or b) the female is a ruthless bitch. Add to that a quota and you have the least favorable of all: “she got the position because she doesn’t have a Y-chromosome”. If I were in a leadership position and only had these three options of being perceived, I would want people to think I’m a ruthless bitch. Because being ruthless bitch doesn’t diminish my accomplishments half as much as the quota or option a). Although having slept myself to the top implies that I am skilled at having sex, which is way better than just fulfilling a quota.

Mote that there is no quota for hiring men in “traditionally female jobs” and that I have never heard anyone say “Once this issue resolves itself, we’ll remove any mention of this quota”, because it is an issue that should resolve itself.

This kind of quota makes the following things happen: In a committee that is supposed to serve as a point of contact for trainees and young people in a company, there has to be at least one female person. The last time I voted in such a thing, the female candidate that earned the most votes had about a tenth of the votes the other (male) candidates had. On a list of people to include in that committee, they had to skip like 10 people who had gotten more votes than her. The problem is that I don’t know whether she was so far behind everyone else because she’s female, or because she was an asshole. I didn’t even know the girl, as far as I remember. Now, I don’t think my male colleagues in the committee would like/appreciate/respect her any less because of her gender, but there is the concern that she is the token female.

Also, because this has been bothering me for years, there was this ... thing where they organized something called “women coaching women”, which was about women teaching other women how to be better at leadership and things. This feels incredibly sexist. Nobody offered “men coaching men”, so either women need this and men don’t or men who need it are entirely useless anyway and needn’t be encouraged to better themselves anyway because they’re lost causes. This presented me with an interesting thought: if women are the only people who need instructing because they are inherently bad at being in a leadership position, why have women teach that, if you actually want women to learn those skills? The thesis is “women don’t have the skills”, so if you actually want women to learn the skills, why have exclusively women teach? If men could benefit from this teaching, why not offer the program to men?

I worked at another company for a few months. They had interesting instructional videos on how you should conduct yourself in the workplace. What stuck in my head were the dichotomy of one video telling us that everyone is to be treated equally, and in the next video, when they talked about how to be more environmentally conscious, the “main” female person developed a very obvious crush on the environment-consciousness-instructor while the male participant remained utterly professional. I remark upon this because this was not simply a recording of reality. It was a scripted short film someone hired a camera and cutting crew for. That means, either nobody noticed that the woman said “ "isn’t he-” *dreamy-eyed*, being interrupted by dude “professional?” *woman looking sheepish* “yeah…” “And thus didn’t cut that from the script, or nobody cared that

the woman is being interrupted while trying to compliment the instructor, for whatever reason

whatever she had to say wasn’t as important as what the dude said,

complimenting the guy on his dreamy-ness isn’t very professional

the whole video paints the woman in a desperate "need to impress hot guy” way. Because this “isn’t he-” utterance doesn’t come out of nowhere. No no. Girl is all nervous about him showing up for the ‘lecture’ and does everything wrong.

I take issue with all of these.

Another thing is, nobody but me noticed that the woman in the “be environmentally conscious!” video was portrayed in a less than favorable way. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I mean, not even the other new woman noticed. Is that me?

I went back to university to study something I can eventually make money with after that. The third(?) e-mail I got on my university-e-mail-account started with “This e-mail is only meant for female students.” and then went on with “please vote for your (female) equal treatment commissioner”. I looked at that e-mail for a few minutes, baffled. Yes, I want equal treatment for ... women, immigrants, LGBT+ people, people who worship differently, ... but why the fuck can’t you elect a man for that? Why can’t you vote for an equal treatment commissioner if you’re male? What if you feel mistreated as a male immigrant? Who do they go to? Who do LGBT+ people address if your professor is a chauvinist or radically against trans-people or both? The misogynist professor who thinks women belong in the kitchen will never take the female equal treatment commissioner seriously. While that in itself is a real problem and should definitely be addressed, how much more seriously would the professor who bases his grades on cleavage take the complaints of male students who feel like they can’t get a good grade, because they can’t simply open their blouse wider, if you had two commissioners? One male, one female. Suddenly, fewer people would question the credibility. Sure, we shouldn’t need such a commissioner at all, but this way, it feels a lot like someone once declared “equality commissioners are mandatory at all universities” and university administration thought “ugh. Great, now we have to humor those females. Let them vote for a commissioner, nobody will take her seriously anyway and since no man will ever stoop so low as to complain about being treated badly, they don’t need representation anyway.” And what do you know: nobody takes the woman seriously. Which is why nobody asks her for anything, which doesn’t really increase her credibility.

Do I over-interpret things? Do I sound radically stupid like this? If so, please explain where my thought process is faulty.

To me, the simple facts that someone wrote a script for an instructional film and added a vaguely romantic and female-centric undertone, someone thought that you just have to have women teaching women how to lead, instead of offering this universally, and someone thought that women are the only people who can/should vote for an equal treatment commissioner, are reasons why I need feminism.