#and some interesting discussion about whether he glorified self harm and whether some of the things he said would be considered okay today

[virtual-macchine]

As a fan of both Folie and The Holy Bible, I feel like there’s more to this line in 20 Dollar Nosebleed than I ever see people discuss, including Mr Wentz himself:

(The picture is cropped because it contains blood but you can see the full thing here.)

I think Pete Wentz related to Richey Edwards for these reasons: (tw for brief discussion of suicide/self harm/eating disorders)

1) The most glaringly obvious reason is Richey Edwards' struggles with ill mental health. Struggling with an eating disorder and depression, he was open in interviews about his self-harming. Now presumed dead, he mysteriously dissapeared in 1995, making him part of the '27 Club.' While he was alive, many people fixated on his mental health issues and he even once recieved a set of knives from a fan, along with a note saying "Look at me while you do it."

Pete Wentz also recieved both praise for being open about his struggles with mental health, especially his suicide attempt, and a weird obsession, writing on Don't You Know Who I Think I Am? "There's a world outside my front door that gets off on being down." Throughout Folie, there are many lines referring to wanting to disappear, including "sometimes I want to quit this all and become an accountant now," like in The (Shipped) Gold Standard, and pretty much all of the song 27 (a reference to the 27 Club, which Edwards is a part of).

2) Richey Edwards was the ideas man of the Manics first and rhythm guitarist second. In fact, it wasn't a secret that he would mime playing, either turned down or just unplugged, especially early on. The band famously had grand plans for their first album, claiming that they would release a debut album that would be the "greatest rock album ever," selling incredibly well, and would then be followed by them splitting up.

3) The Manics were questioned for their authenticity. During an interview with an NME writer, Richey Edwards took a razor (from where, no one's sure) and carved the phrase "4 Real" into his arm. The picture that Pete Wentz chose to include is of this incident. Richie Edwards needed many stitches afterwards and they had to cancel a show on the following day.

4) Richey Edwards and Nicky wire would write lyrics and the other half of the band, James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore, would write the music. Perhaps this reminded him of his creative relationship with Patrick Stump and the rest of Fall Out Boy? Both bands had roots in heavier punk but grew into a more distinctive rock sound.

I feel there are a fair few parrallels between the two, including one or two I didn't mention. Maybe he thought so too.

[sydtwriting]

The Romanticization of the Sad Girl Aesthetic: Why we Shouldn’t Promote Mental Illness in the Media

Here’s my theory: I think our English teachers choose the oldest, most boring books for us to read for no reason.  It’s always some classic from the 50’s that’s “supposed to be a parallel to societal issues that impact our daily lives” which occasionally may be true, but there’s just something about it that is a little bit off. How is a teenage boy dying while saving children from a burning church similar to my life? No hate to the Outsiders, great book, but the big question is; why does this matter???? 

Sure, these coming-of-age stories tell a tale quite similar to mine: an angsty teen trying their best to fit in and succeed in the real world. These books that show the true realities of the world through realistic teenagers are sometimes the most powerful, but there’s always a, catch.

Published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was meant to be like a diary that contained the chaotic energy of a paranoid and slightly psychotic 16-year-old Holden Caulfield. Holden admitted he was going mad, or going crazy, many times within the story, and talked about his life as a delinquent in a wealthy family. He hates the world around him, calling it phony as he experiences the very real consequences of his very interesting actions. 

But, with good intentions comes harmful impacts with stories like this. Whether we try to or not, we promote the idea that having mental illness is something fun, and it becomes normalized. We almost accidentally put people who struggle with mental illness into one of two boxes: those who have something we want, an excuse or something that’s aesthetic; OR as people that we believe shouldn’t be integrated with the rest of society.

So, first, let's pull a book off the shelf and break down what it really means to promote mental illness. Then we can skim the pages and: discuss the obvious harm in promoting such an impactful topic. And finally, we’ll reach that last page feeling satisfied, and learn what we can do about this growing epidemic.

Urban Dictonary user describes this aesthetic that promotes mental illness perfectly. They refer to these people as quote unquote “sad girls”; by explaining how “They glorify depression and anxiety as something quirky to have.” Generally, it’s the mentality and the behavior that gives these people a bad reputation, and for a good reason. This aesthetic has contributed to the mass of online content that glorifies mental illnesses like depression, and we have to put a stop to it before it progresses further. 

Before I get into that, I do have to admit something to you all in secret: I did read one of those painfully depressing classic novels; and not hate it. I know, I know, it feels like betrayal, especially since I’m the one who’s telling you those types of books suck. And while I did think it was a bit dated, it described intense mental illness in a way I’ve never seen before.

The Catcher in the Rye follows the handful of days after Holden Caulfield’s expulsion from his prep school, and he’s all about self-sabotage. From my understanding, Caulfield has a very impulsive personality and lets his intrusive thoughts get the best of him. But most of the time he talks about how depressed things make him feel.

Looking out the window makes him feel depressed, thinking about his little sister makes him depressed, his dead brother, the woman he dances with at a club, old people, hotels, his own room, the bad weather, a broken record; everything. 

The only thing more depressing than the things Holden Caulfield is describing is having to read the description of his depressing life. Why during this time did an author like J.D. Salinger have a fascination with making the lead character in their novel the saddest person I’ve read about?

Holden has become a headliner of this aesthetic where people only see mental illness as something glamorous; something hollywood-esque.

The Meadowglade, a rehab facility that focuses directly on mental health brings up a good point that, “Images of self-harm and ‘the beauty of mental illness’ may encourage others (teens and adults alike) to view mental illness as something of tragic beauty. It may also cause those who need help to avoid seeking treatment because they see their mental health as “part of who they are,” and therefore, they do not need or want to change.” 

When I have really struggled with my mental health in the past, the last thing I was thinking about was “This is so aesthetic! I never want things to change!” In fact, it was the exact opposite. At my lowest points, I was angry because I just wanted to get this big problem in my life to go away; I wanted nothing more than change. 

So, why would you want to suffer? The Medowglade also makes it apparent that, as the media promotes this aethetic, the impacts are irreversible. Studies show that pieces of media that bring up serious or even passive thoughts and actions directly linked to suicide have increased suicide rates.

Think of the show 13 reasons why or the storyline of the perks of being a wallflower. Both of these peices of media show the main character coping with the suicide of a friend or peer. These stories seem harmless for an outside perspective, but there has been a peak in “dark humor” or incorporation of serious topics into our everyday lives through jokes. There’s the whole “this is my 13th reason” or basically, this is my last straw, epidemic as well as an increase in teenagers using the acronym k-y-s in conversation. We have gotten so lost in what we are doing that we are seeking out and creating media that purposefully perpetuates this extremely dangerous message.  

Another major problem is it could spiral and cause deeper impacts that are reflected back to the individuals that contribute to this aesthetic. As many of you know, the boy who cried wolf is a tale about a young shepherd who thought it would be funny to cry out for help to the village and wait for everyone to show up. He only laughed at their concern and told them it was a false alarm, and was ridiculed for wasting everyone’s time. When there was a legit cry for help, nobody believed him until the damage was done. Once a liar, always a liar; that’s what the people thought about the boy. 

In this context, I fear that people will never believe those who glamorize mental illness when they are really struggling. I don’t know when to reach out to give someone immediate help when they nonchalantly say or do concerning things all the time, whether they need help or not. 

So, what can we do to stop promoting mental illnesses as something aesthetic? The easiest thing to do is stop liking, commenting, or interacting with content that paints mental illness as something we should want. 

Or this can mean we stop putting characters in the media we consume on this pedestal of what we should ideally be like. We can’t look at characters like Holden Caulfield as the model for mental illness; he doesn't represent what we need him to. Holden calls everything in his life phony, and if anything, he himself is phony. He’s this manufactured depiction of what mental illness can look like, and without taking the time to properly understand what he truly represents, our perception of him is “phony”. 

Us alone may not make any difference, but the sum of everyone's effort can help us understand the faults; both in the media we consume; and in our reactions.

So…I will take the opportunity now to admit I was wrong earlier. You know, I think we should give our english teachers a little more credit for picking a book like Catcher in the Rye, even if half the class looked at spark notes before a reading check. 

I’m not saying we need to get rid of all media that promotes mental illness because then, there goes half of the poetry in the world. But what I am saying is that we need to know the perspective we are approaching this media from. We need to learn from authors, illustrators, movie producers, singers, and people of the past in order to put our best foot forward.

We need to see this type of media as nothing more than a differing perspective, not something we need to adopt. Just because we see our favorite characters struggling doesn't mean we need to put forth intense amounts of effort to be “twinning” with them. We need to find media that brings us joy and happiness, as opposed to things that hold us back. 

And so, without further ado; I’ll leave you with a quote I find ironically acts as a perfect summary.  

“Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”

And my source you might be asking, is none other than J.D. Salinger himself.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Answer asap (I feel bad saying that, but I'm stuck). Do you have any resources for dating/not dating non-christians? A dear friend of mine told me they care for me, and I feel the same for them, but... all the resources online warn again and again not to date non-christians lest they endanger my faith. I feel like going forward with this would be ignorant at best and would set us both up for heartbreak. And I fear my fear itself would lead to me trying to convert them. But I still care for them.

Hey, anon! Thanks for reaching out -- the rhetoric among many Christians against interfaith relationships, particularly with the argument that they’re “unequally yoked,” is something I haven’t addressed in years, and have been meaning to discuss again. 

Little disclaimer at the start that this stuff is so contextual, and it’s personal -- I don’t know your life as well as you do, or this friend of yours like you do. Maybe what i say doesn’t fit you and your situation. 

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To begin, I firmly believe that interfaith relationships can be and often are truly beautiful, holy partnerships. (This includes relationships in which one or multiple members identifies as an atheist / otherwise doesn’t ascribe to a particular religion.) 

When both (or all) members are respectful of one another’s beliefs, and find as much joy in learning as in teaching their partner(s), their unique perspectives can deeply enrich one another. You can bear good fruit together that glorifies God and nourishes others. 

This being said, you definitely want to at least begin working through your worries and fears before starting to date this person. If you enter the relationship overwhelmed with fear or guilt about dating them, it’ll bring a lot of resentment and angst. The rest of this post points out things you’ll want to reflect on and read up on before entering this or any interfaith relationship -- and offers resources that can help.

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Interfaith Partners: Always “Unequally Yoked”?

I’m sure you’ve seen a certain phrase on those websites you mentioned, drawn from 2 Corinthians 6:14 -- “unequally yoked.”  I’m going to end this post with some alternative ways of interpreting this verse, but what Christians who advise against interfaith relationships take it to mean is something like this:

Just as two animals yoked to the same plow should be of equal strength and on the same page so that one doesn’t do more of the work, or get tugged away from the work by the other one, two partners should also be of equal “spiritual” strength and on the same page when it comes to their faith...

And of course, these people will say, a person who is Christian is definitely spiritually stronger than any non-Christian -- and a non-Christian might just pull them away from The Way, getting them to skip church or prayers or even stop being Christian entirely.

But there are a lot of assumptions there that don’t hold true in every relationship, right? First off, who says every Christian is necessarily “spiritually stronger” than every non-Christian? To claim that is to assume that non-Christians don’t also have access to spirituality or to the Divine -- which I’m going to push against throughout this post. 

Furthermore, the assumption that a non-Christian partner will definitely harm your own Christian faith doesn’t have to be true, as I’ll get to in a second.

So yeah, keeping these assumptions about an interfaith relationship being inherently “unequally yoked” in mind, and with a plan on returning to this phrase at the end, let’s move on to specific things you should think about before entering an interfaith relationship. 

______________

Must a non-Christian partner “endanger” your faith -- or can they enrich it?

If being open to learning about how our fellow human beings perceive the world, humanity, and the divine “endangers one’s faith,” perhaps that kind of faith was not made to last. Perhaps it has to give way in order to birth a new, deeper faith -- a faith that is bold enough to wrestle with God as Jacob did; broad enough to survive questions and doubts and times of grief; and wise enough to perceive the Spirit blowing wherever She will (John 3:8), not only among Christians.

If your partner truly respects you and your faith even if it’s different from theirs, they’ll do what they can to help you be the best Christian you can be -- or at the very least, they will give you the space and time you need to go to church, pray, etc. And you will do the same, helping them to be the best Muslim, Buddhist, or simply person they can be.

I highly recommend asking this friend of yours before you start dating what their thoughts are on your being a Christian, and/or on Christianity in general.

Is it something that makes them happy for you? is it something that makes them deeply uncomfortable? or something that they don’t have strong feelings one way or the other on? .

How “involved” would they be open to being in your faith? Would they be interested in going to church with you, as long as they could trust you weren’t trying to force them into anything? Would they enjoy talking about your varying beliefs together and how they impact your lives? Or would they never ever want you to bring up Christianity (which I imagine for you would be a deal breaker)? .

Be open and honest with one another about what expectations you each have about things like boundaries around discussing faith, about time and space you each want for practicing your faith, etc. As you seem aware, it’s better to get all this clear before you start dating, to avoid problems later down the road! 

For an example of what such discussions might look like, I found this story from Robert Repta, a Christian man married to a Jewish man. Their union, he says, has included working out what it means not only to be gay persons of faith, but also persons of two different faiths:

“Ultimately, what happened was that in our struggles to find ourselves, we ended up growing closer together. We both supported and challenged each other. We began asking each other bigger life questions and talking about religion, God, science. Both of our lives were evolving, and what started to happen was that we started seeing the similarities in our core beliefs more than the differences. Some of those beliefs even evolved along the way.

We both believed in God. We both believed that God is love. We volunteered together. He would occasionally come with me to church, and I would occasionally go with him to the synagogue. Eventually, I could see that the common thread between us was unconditional love. The same unconditional love of God.”

_____________

On pressuring a non-Christian partner to convert -- assumptions about Christian superiority & fearing for their afterlife destination

It’s really good you recognize that it might end up being hard for you not to try to get this person to convert! Before dating them, you should keep reflecting on this and decide whether that’s something you can let go of or not. If it’s not, then you’re probably right in thinking this relationship won’t work out. 

It would be highly disrespectful to this person you care about to pressure them to become a Christian in order for you to feel okay about being with them. (And for more thoughts on how evangelism and conversion as carried out by many Christians isn’t what Jesus had in mind, see this post.) Doing so would imply a lot of things, including that you don’t think they’re a worthy or equal partner unless they make this big change, that whatever beliefs or ideologies they currently hold are inferior to yours, etc.

In order for your interfaith relationship to go well, you would need to come to understand non-Christians as being equally made in God’s image, equally worthy of dignity, equally capable of doing good in the world. You’d have to come to believe that there is much of value within their own religion / ideology that you as a Christian could learn from. 

Let’s bring in our lovely Christian/Jewish couple from before: as his relationship with David developed, Robert discovered that 

“God is not conformed to this world we live in; God does not belong solely to the Pentecostals or the Baptists, to the Jews or Gentiles, to Muslims or Zoroastrians. Two of the most profound self-identifiers God calls himself in the Bible is “love” and “I am.””

Here are a few resources that can help you explore the idea that other religions are as valid as Christianity and also have much wisdom to bring to the world:

I highly recommend you check out the book Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor to help you explore how you can be a devout Christian and learn from and form mutual relationships with persons who are not Christian. You can check out passages from the book in my tag here. .

You might also like my two podcast episodes on interfaith relationships (in general, not romantic ones, but the same material applies) -- episode 30, “No One Owns God: Readying yourself for respectful interfaith encounters” and episode 31, “It's good to have wings, but you have to have roots too": Cultivating your faith while embracing religious pluralism.” You can find links to both episodes as well as their transcripts over on this webpage. .

There might also be some helpful stuff in my #interfaith tag or #other faiths tag if you wander around. .

Simply getting to know whatever religion this friend does belong to (or what ideologies and value systems they maintain if they’re atheist / non-religious) can also be super helpful. Ask them what resources they can think of that can help get to know their religion as they experience it. Attend worship service (virtually works!), seek out folks on social media who share their religion, etc. I bet you’ll find a lot that you have in common -- and hopefully you’ll find some of the differences thought-provoking and enriching to your own understandings of Divinity!

I’m guessing a lot of your worry stems from the assumption that non-Christians don’t go to heaven. If you believe that not being a Christian leads to hell after death, it’s very hard to view non-Christians and their beliefs as equal to your own!

That Holy Envy book discusses this genuine fear many Christians have on behalf of non-Christians, and how to let it go.  .

Here’s a post with links to other posts describing the belief that many faithful and serious Christians hold that non-Christians don’t all get whisked to hell. .

And a post on the harm done by fearmongering about hell. .

Finally, a little more on the academic side but if you’re interested in some history behind Christian views of hell that can help you see that there really is no one “true” belief here, check out the links in this post.

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Reinterpreting “unequally yoked”

I said we’d get back to this, and here we are! While the easiest to find interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14′s “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” is that it argues against interfaith marriage, there are other ways to read this text.

I adore this article I found on the passage from a Christian minister who is married to a Hindu monk -- “Unequally Yoked”: How Christians Get Interfaith Marriage Wrong.” Incredibly, Rev. J. Dana Trent writes that when she and her now-husband dug into 2 Corinthians 6:14 to see what it was all about, she found that 

“An ancient scripture meant to deter us from getting involved with each other actually brought us together. Our core beliefs in God became the focus of our study and relationship, not the issues that divided us.”

She also explains that biblical scholars say this verse isn’t even specifically about interfaith marriage -- which becomes clear when you read the full chapter surrounding it! It’s more general -- about the hazards of “working with” an unbeliever.

And what exactly is an unbeliever? Paul and other “believers” of these very early days of Christianity had a different definition than we might today -- an “unbeliever” wasn’t synonymous with “non-Christian,” because Christianity hadn’t even solidified into an actual religion yet! Instead, a nonbeliever was "anyone exposed to but was not faithful to Christ’s teachings—someone not characterized by devotion, love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness.” 

In other words, if a person in those early days was told about the good news of Jesus that entailed things like liberation of the oppressed and love of neighbor, they didn’t have to “become a Christian” to accept that good news. And thus, Rev. Trent continues,

“Today, my husband’s deep Hindu faith has taught me to dig deeper into what Jesus would have me do. Perhaps Paul might have even considered me an “unbeliever,” as I claimed to be a baptized Christian, but my life did not inwardly and outwardly reflect the Gospel. Since marrying Fred, I re-attuned my life to Christian spiritual practices: spending more time in contemplative prayer, practicing non-violence through a vegetarian diet, limiting my consumption, and increasing my service to others.

Much to many Christians’ dismay, it took a person of another faith—a seemingly “unequally yoked” partner, to strengthen my Christian walk.”

Isn’t it beautiful to hear how this relationship between a Christian minister and Hindu monk has born good fruit for both of them? They help one another become the best Christian and best Hindu they can be, respectively. They are both so deeply committed to faith -- that doesn’t sound like an “unequal yoking” to me.

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Whew, this got long! But it’s a big topic, and one I hope you’ll take the time to explore. Bring God into it; bring your friend into as much as they’re comfortable. And feel free to come back and ask me more questions as you go.

If anyone knows of other articles or other resources that explore the good fruit that can come from an interfaith partnership, please share! 

[bucket-of-valvert]

Hello my loves!

This blog is for my Valvert (and sometimes other) fics! Les Mis is my special interest! Writing about it, discussing it, drawing it, etc.. really makes me happy, and I love sharing my creations!

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Some quick things about me

Pronouns: they/she/he

Religion: Pagan

I AM A MINOR

Neurodiverse

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On my main blog, I do have a post regarding things I will/will not write, but I’ll cover them once more

Things I will not write:

Inc*est

MAP

Non-Con (regarding M-Sur-M, I’ll only really do pining/crushes)

Anything that can be deemed offensive (some fics may bring up topics such as racism and homophobia, but never in a way that glorifies it)

Stolen ideas

Things I will write

Fluff

Angst

Fix-it fics

Poems

Series

⚠️Topics that could potentially be triggering that are mentioned in my fics⚠️

Racism

Poverty

Mental health

Homophobia

Transphobia-enbyphobia

Past abuse/toxic situations (usually only mentioned slightly)

Self harm

My blog is a safe space, and there will be no hate tolerated here. All races, sexualities, religions, genders, ethnicities, etc.. are welcome to share their fic ideas/prompts

DNI

TERFS

Neo-N*zis

MAPs

Racists

Homophobes

Transphobes

Anyone who has a prejudice against a group of minorities, whether it be for religion, race, etc..

Most importantly, it like to mention that this blog does take writing suggestions! My inbox is open!

I hope to share some of my fics/art here soon!

Have a great day!

[roxilalonde]

Vriska Serket and the Antihero’s Archetype

In other news, I am endlessly fascinated with the Spidertroll. So I wrote an essay about gender, social perspective, literary archetypes, stages of morality, and Vriska Serket. 

First off: I’m not here to argue that Vriska is perfect. She fucks up. In some cases, she fucks up to the point where she seriously hurts others, mentally and physically, and becomes seriously toxic company. I’m not here to excuse her behavior wrt Tavros, or to justify her treatment of others’ emotional needs, because neither is healthy or defensible. But what I am interested in is how she ended up being the Fandom Recognized “worst troll ever” in a group with (a) a murderous bigot, (b) an abusive murderclown, and (c) a racist with a penchant for bestiality and a characteristic lack of regard for consent. 

The answer: It’s a long story.

Let’s talk about Vriska.

Absolutely necessary in any constructive discussion of Vriska’s character is an examination of her upbringing. Her lusus, a.k.a “Spidermom,” is demonstrably the worst parent of any of the trolls. Keeping her alive requires Vriska to routinely kill or be killed, and it obviously strains her; the psychological effects of having such a huge burden placed on her at a young age are demonstrated here; she voices a strong dislike for her lusus here. Further, Spidermom fails to care for Vriska to any extent you would expect from a parent, and Vriska seems delighted to be rid of her once the game starts. When confronted with the task of killing her parent, she is neither frightened nor even unhappy about it - her only concern is whether she’ll be able to do the job.

Your surroundings as a child define how you view the world and relate to it. Changing that perspective is difficult, and takes years of work and support. People in fandom like to characterize Vriska as a suave manipulator, cruel and unfeeling to the plight of others unless it benefits her to be concerned. But reading her pesterlogs, you would only believe that if you took everything she said at face value, which is a thin reading. A face-value reading implies that Dave likes puppets, Rose hates her mother, and Caliborn is a tactical genius. The impression Vriska gives is that of a person with a fundamental inability to connect with other people, who struggles with empathy in particular. She experiences sympathy - feeling bad that others are suffering - just fine. (Terezi and Kanaya, for example, are both recipients of her sympathy, after she does them harm.) But empathy, or the emotional understanding of others’ emotions as they experience them, she lacks, which evidences that her emotional intelligence never developed as a child (or she can’t do empathy, generally; neither is a character deficit so much as a product of circumstances outside of her control). Passages I think are useful reading here: these pesterlogs with Aradia and John, and the famous pirate cave monologue.

Now, let’s throw in Mindfang. From the onset, Vriska has two clearly established models in her life: a neglectful (arguably abusive) lusus, and an inaccessible, deified ancestor who glorifies violence and unlawfulness. Her value of Mindfang seems to come from Mindfang’s “coolness,” i.e., the fact that Mindfang is never awkward or incompetent. Of course a socially inept child is going to deify someone who’s always in control of their self-presentation. Especially since the Mindfang narrative that Vriska reads is entirely written by Mindfang, so there’s probably some severe manipulation of the facts going down to make her seem cooler than she is. 

And then Doc Scratch. An omniscient deity meddling in the affairs of a prepubescent girl from a young age, informing her that she has no choice in most of her critical decisions, and pushing her towards the decisions that will make possible the Alpha Timeline. He humors her desire for attention and importance by predicating his attention to her on her obedience; when she rebels, tries to develop an independent conscience, he criticizes her. From a young age, Vriska is being told that morality is impossible because everything in the universe is predetermined. That her choice doesn’t matter. Her life is a series of desperate grasps at free will, which has been denied her since birth. So she exerts her control over others to mimic the ways of her role models, Mindfang and Scratch. This is where Tavros comes in. 

That said: Vriska’s treatment of Tavros is inexcusable. It’s degrading, physically harmful, and toxic. Again, I’m not trying to defend it. But I want to point out that it comes from her trying to “improve” him, to change what she perceives as a flaw - his cowardice and indecisiveness. Already, Vriska is an improvement on her predecessors in that when she exerts control over others, she does it out of a misguided belief that she’s improving society - not solely for selfish reasons. And she points what she perceives as flaws with Tavros’ character. (Her comments about his disability, notably, which are ableist and inexcusable, do not fall under this category.) In trying to play Mindfang, and make him into her Summoner, the inept Vriska ends up hurting him. It doesn’t stem from malignancy; it stems from instability, and a lack of emotional intelligence. That’s where virtually all of her problems come from.

Additionally, her egotism in thinking she can “fix” Tavros can be traced to Spidermom and Mindfang, too. Her need to step out of her idols’ shadow leads to a desperate search for recognition, first and foremost a positive one. She’s a neglected child who desperately wants attention. What she does to get that attention is coached in the norms of a brutally violent society, but is a cry for help nonetheless.

Let’s talk about antiheroes.

Contrary to popular belief, an antihero is not just “an imperfect hero” or “a hero who doesn’t always do the right thing.” The antihero, specifically, is a person with ethical principles designed to contrast the protagonist - whom you root for even if they make the wrong choices. The AH has the same goals as the Protag, but a different set of ethics from whence they derive those goals. From TV Tropes:

“An Archetypal Character who is almost as common in modern fiction as the Ideal Hero, an antihero is a protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero . . . often an antihero is just an amoral misfit. While heroes are typically conventional, anti-heroes, depending on the circumstances, may be preconventional (in a "good" society), postconventional (if the government is "evil") or even unconventional. Not to be confused with the Villain or the Big Bad, who is the opponent of Heroes (and Anti-Heroes, for that matter).”

Aranea is a villain. She directly opposes the goals of our protagonists (winning the session, and/or bodily autonomy). Gamzee is a villain: he directly opposes the goals of our protagonists (staying alive, not dying). The Condesce is a villain: she directly opposes the goals of our protagonists (staying alive, winning the session). Vriska is not a villain, archetypally: she does not oppose the goals of our protagonists, most of the time, and in fact helps in achieving them. Putting aside the question of whether she’s a bad person, she’s not a Bad Guy.

Her code of ethics most closely aligns with an Antihero - in this case, a preconventional one. There’s a neat article to be written about Vriska’s advancement along the Kohlberg stages of moral development, but for our purposes, “preconventional” just means “I do things for me, and to the extent that doing things for others will do things for me.” Her main goal: fame and glory. Subsidiary goals: help her teammates to win the game, and create a new universe. Unlike traditional preconventional actors, she doesn’t care about her own life and wellbeing, or if she does, only insofar as they can aid her ultimate goal, which is attention and acclaim.

AG: I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don't need a magic ring to do that.

Let’s talk about gender.

Take a moment and tally up all the male antiheroes in popular media you can remember. (Count them twice if they get a redemption arc.) Off the top of my head: Zuko, Lestat, Derek Hale, Nico di Angelo, Severus Snape, Jason Todd, Captain Jack Sparrow, Han Solo, Spike, Tyrion Lannister. That’s without a single glance at the TV Tropes page, either. Those are all from some of the most popular media of the past twenty years: ATLA, IWAV, Teen Wolf, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Batman, PoTC, Star Wars, Buffy, Game of Thrones. 

Now count the women. (Count them as half if their “alternative code of ethics” is “I sleep with and lie to men to get what I want, which is almost exclusively money, until I met Protagonist, who changed my evil ways.”) Personally, I’ve got a decently sized list, but at least half are from Homestuck, with others being characters I go out of my way to explore: Arya Stark, Princess Bubblegum, Marcelline, most women from House. I’d give it to Furiosa, too, although that’s arguable. Maybe you have a long list; if so, please tell me what you’ve been reading/watching lately, because these women are either sidelined in the popular media they appear in, or aren’t depicted in popular media to the same level that their male counterparts are at all. (Note: the one-off female antihero, on the other hand, is incredibly popular, perhaps because the writer doesn’t need to develop her character or give her a substantive arc: see Jyn from ATLA, Calypso from PoTC, Narcissa Malfoy from HP.) 

Here’s why: people are much more inclined to forgive a man for doing bad things than they are to forgive a woman. You can chalk this up to any number of stereotypes about women in media: that they have to be nurturers, or that their “purity” is an important aspect of their being. Regardless, if you look over the TV Tropes page for the antihero (even with the obvious miscategorizations), and you’ll find the vast majority are men. Writers have realized that audiences are far more interested in a morally grey, badass, complex, tragic-backstoried man of action than a woman of the same persuasion. 

Let’s go back to talking about Vriska.

Contrast the fandom’s reception of Vriska with its reception of Eridan. To clarify: Eridan, ultimately, isn’t an antihero. He’s a villain. He murders people. He wants to commit genocide. Furthermore, he has no discernible motivation for this except being a bigoted asshat. But you don’t see 2,000-word callouts for Eridan, despite there being a large portion of fandom that wholeheartedly stans him. This doesn’t mean you can’t be interested in Eridan as a character, or even that you can’t like him, although I don’t understand the appeal, personally. But it means that condemning Vriska, all of whose mistakes are clearly motivated and regretted, probably isn’t the hill you want to die on.

I envision a hypothetical world where Vriska is written a boy. And I guarantee you, in that world, there’s a dedicated group of fans who - unironically - call him “a perfect sinnamon roll” and “my innocent son.” His trauma is openly discussed and sympathized with in fandom. Vrisrezi is in the top 5 most popular Homestuck ships on AO3. The Scourge Bros are the most popular troll ship, period. 

We forgive Terezi for manipulating Dave. We forgive Terezi for manipulating and murdering John. Because hey, narratively speaking, they end up fine, right? (Just like Tavros does.) But Vriska is where we draw the line in the sand. Because she’s an antihero, whereas Terezi has always been a nice, comfortable female protagonist. She doesn’t conflict with John & Co. She is clearly motivated by the Greater Good. Vriska is not.

Conclusion

Vriska isn’t simple. Female characters who aren’t simple inevitably cause controversy, to a much lesser degree than male characters of the same nature. Furthermore, the fact that she isn’t a protagonist in the classical sense - whereas most of her group, in contrast, are clearly written as protagonists - makes her appear “worse” than the others, or even, at an extreme “the worst.” Disliking her is perfectly understandable. Thinking she’s a bad person is reasonable. But please don’t do either without considering why she does what she does, and evaluating for yourself whether she deserves the reputation she has. 

[biofunmy]

Europe Is Reining In Tech Giants. But Some Say It’s Going Too Far.

LONDON — In Spain, activists were convicted for social media posts that violated an expanded antiterrorism law. The Twitter accounts of German citizens were blocked because of rules enacted last year that prohibit hate speech. And a Dutch court determined Google must remove search results about a doctor punished for poor performance, in compliance with a privacy law.

Heralded as the world’s toughest watchdog of Silicon Valley technology giants, Europe has clamped down on violent content, hate speech and misinformation online through a thicket of new laws and regulations over the past five years. Now there are questions about whether the region is going too far, with the rules leading to accusations of censorship and potentially providing cover to some governments to stifle dissent.

The unintended consequences may be compounded as European governments pursue more laws and policies to restrict what communication can be shared online. Last month, Britain proposed appointing an internet regulator who would be empowered to block websites it considers harmful. The European Union is separately debating a law that would require tech companies to quickly remove terrorist-related content online.

With the growing body of European legislation, “there will be a lower standard for protection of freedom of expression,” said David Kaye, a University of California, Irvine, law professor who the United Nations appointed to spotlight government efforts to restrict free speech. He added that Europe’s rules erode what had been a shared belief among the United States and other Western democracies to avoid censoring social media posts, YouTube videos, discussion forums and other internet content.

The debate in Europe illustrates the difficulties that governments face as they try to regulate the most corrosive material on the internet without choking off individual expression. That is set to flare up elsewhere as other countries also move to pass new laws or impose restrictions on online material.

In Sri Lanka, authorities shut off access to social media sites after coordinated terrorist attacks last month left hundreds dead. New Zealand and Australia have put forward restrictions on tech companies after the March massacre of 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, where the accused gunman used social media to amplify his message. Singapore has also proposed a law to curtail false or misleading information, which critics warned could be used to silence dissent. And India is considering giving itself new powers to suppress digital content.

Tech companies themselves are asking for more regulation, rather than delegating enforcement responsibility to their platforms. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive officer, invited Congress in March to set rules for the social network, adding it “would be useful to spell out clearly what the responsibilities that we want companies and people and governments to have.” On Thursday, Facebook added to the censorship debate when it proactively barred several extremists, including the Infowars founder Alex Jones, from its platform.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, a European Commissioner pushing for stricter oversight of the internet, said government intervention was an appropriate response to how social media was being used to glorify terrorism, manipulate elections and spread hateful ideologies. “The new battleground is the internet,” he said.

Ian Russell, who has criticized Instagram and other internet companies for not doing enough to remove self-harm material that he says contributed to his teenage daughter’s 2017 suicide, said most people will accept reasonable restrictions of the internet if it means cleaning up what’s most toxic.

“We would not consider ourselves to be living in a dictatorship and happily abide by rules and laws,” said Mr. Russell, a Briton who now runs the suicide prevention charity, Molly Rose Foundation.

But some Europeans are grappling with the fallout.

Jörg Rupp, 53, a social worker and political activist in the eastern German town of Malsch, said he was swept up in Europe’s new laws. In January 2018, he posted a tweet with altered lyrics to a German song called “The Anarchist Pig,” adding derisive words about asylum seekers and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Within three hours, his Twitter account was banned. Germany has one of the world’s strictest hate-speech laws, the Network Enforcement Act, which had recently taken effect when Mr. Rupp tweeted. The law mandates that internet companies remove offensive material within 24 hours or face fines of up to 50 million euros, or about $56 million.

Mr. Rupp said the tweet was satire, an attempt to use the language of right-wing groups to show their cruelty. “It’s dangerous at the moment to be ironic,” he said. “That’s not good for free speech.”

Mr. Rupp, who has more than 2,000 followers on Twitter, said he sent several emails to Twitter’s help line and pointed to his other tweets in which he voiced support for immigrants. The company rejected his pleas, he said. He then spent 450 euros, about $500, to hire a lawyer to reactivate his account. Now, he said, he is careful about what he shares online.

Twitter said Mr. Rupp’s account was blocked for violating its terms of service. After a post like Mr. Rupp’s is flagged by a user, Twitter considers whether it violates internal policies before going through the procedures of the Network Enforcement Act. Last year, the company received more than 500,000 complaints about posts under the German law. It took down about 10 percent; it doesn’t specify how many of the removals were classified as violating Twitter’s policies versus breaking the law.

Wolfgang Schulz, the research director at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin, said the German law hasn’t led to widespread blocking of online content as some initially feared. But it raises questions about requiring internet companies to moderate speech, rather than courts or other public institutions. In the face of political pressure to clean up their platforms, “the easier option is to take content down,” he said.

In a statement, Twitter said “freedom of expression is our fundamental guiding principle.” It added, “regulation needs to strike an appropriate balance between keeping people safe online and preserving their inalienable human rights, and protecting the nature of a free, open internet.” Google and Facebook declined to comment.

Mr. Rupp’s experience has been echoed elsewhere, according to watchdog groups. Amnesty International said more than 60 people had been convicted in Spain for what they posted online under an antiterrorism law that was expanded in 2015 to include social media content.

One was Cassandra Vera. She was 21 when she was convicted by the Spanish authorities in 2017 over tweets in which she said she was joking about the assassination of a member of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. “I hadn’t done anything bad and yet I was still detained when I was an innocent person,” said Ms. Vera, whose one-year sentence was ultimately suspended after her case became a flash point in Spain’s free speech debate

A European privacy standard from 2014, known as the Right to Be Forgotten and which lets people petition Google to remove search results about themselves, has also been criticized for blocking legitimate material. Since 2016, newspapers in Belgium and Italy have removed articles from their archives under the law. Google was also ordered last year to stop listing some search results, including information from 2014 about a Dutch doctor who The Guardian reported was suspended for poor care of a patient.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, said the incidents represented a warning. Europe’s regulatory efforts may Balkanize the internet, in which the content available online changes based on where a person is, he said.

“Unlike a global resource where we’re sharing information and knowledge, we end up with something severely crippled,” he said.

The move to regulate internet platforms in Europe has been gathering momentum. Last month, the European Parliament passed a law requiring companies to remove terrorist-related content within one hour or risk fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue. The measure must go through several more legislative steps before being enacted.

Critics said the proposed law doesn’t clearly define what constitutes objectionable content and delegates too much responsibility to tech companies. In December, United Nations representatives warned the proposed rule “may lead to infringements to the right to access to information, freedom of opinion, expression, and association, and impact interlinked political and public interest processes.”

And in Britain, the government last month proposed sweeping new powers to remove “harmful” content from the internet, including material supporting terrorism, inciting violence, encouraging suicide, disinformation, cyberbullying and inappropriate material accessible to children.

Human rights groups warn the public backlash against tech companies is being used as a pretext to censor speech. At least 17 countries including Malaysia, Egypt and Kenya have cited the spread of “fake news” when adopting or proposing new internet restrictions, according to Freedom House, a pro-democracy group tracking government internet policies.

Julie Owono, executive director of Internet Without Borders, a group tracking internet freedom globally, said Europe’s activities normalize the removal of content.

“Freedom of expression,” she said, “relies solely on the possibility your content won’t be suppressed arbitrarily.”

Sahred From Source link World News

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

Go Ahead, Take This Opportunity To Say You Always Hated A Creep's Art

http://fashion-trendin.com/go-ahead-take-this-opportunity-to-say-you-always-hated-a-creeps-art/

Go Ahead, Take This Opportunity To Say You Always Hated A Creep's Art

Have you always believed that Quentin Tarantino makes dreadful movies? Have you always wondered how a director could be so celebrated for work that luridly depicts the abuse and degradation of women and black people, and that offers little more than exploitative ’70s pastiche?

Maybe your belief that Tarantino sucked spoke in a small, niggling voice, something you pushed down because you felt embarrassed that you couldn’t appreciate the auteur’s work. Or maybe it was louder. Maybe you even got into arguments with your film school classmates or your boyfriend about it.

Either way, this past week has likely brought a sense of grim vindication.

First, in an interview with The New York Times’s Maureen Dowd, Uma Thurman revealed details about Tarantino’s direction of “Kill Bill,” including his role in pressuring her to perform a car stunt that went awry and left her severely injured, as well as scenes in which he personally choked and spat on her in place of her acting partners.

With the spotlight now on Tarantino, news outlets are digging up other disturbing moments from his career. Thurman wasn’t the only actor he’d choked during filming ― he’d also choked Diane Kruger for a scene in “Inglourious Basterds.” Perhaps most damning, audio surfaced from a Howard Stern interview in 2003 in which Tarantino not only defended director Roman Polanski against his notorious rape charge, but insisted that his 13-year-old victim “wanted to have it.”

Though Tarantino defended his on-set behavior in a lengthy interview with Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr., and both Thurman and Kruger went on to praise his direction on Instagram, the public reckoning with his oeuvre had already begun; plenty of naysayers jumped on the opportunity to admit that they’d always hated his movies. 

Like Louis C.K. and Woody Allen before him, Tarantino had become, almost instantly, the new cool entertainment dude to have always hated.

I’ve never understood the allure of Tarantino or his films. I’ve never seen Kill Bill (1 or 2), DJango, or the rest of them, except Pulp Fiction. Once. After reading that NYT article about Uma Thurman, I know I made the right call. He is unmitigated trash.

— April (@ReignOfApril) February 3, 2018

I’m glad that my once unpopular opinion that Tarantino films are rubbish because it’s like watching the worst thoughts of the annoying lad you don’t fancy but he bothers you anyway playing out in hypercolour, is finally getting it’s moment.

— Jess Phillips (@jessphillips) February 4, 2018

You know, I thought by this point there would be at least one of these Hollywood dudes where I’d be like, “that’s a shame, I want to like his work.”

But….all of them are of mediocre talent

— Kelly Ellis (@justkelly_ok) February 6, 2018

But is this … bad? Should we resist the urge to distance ourselves from the fandom surrounding a detestable creator, to declare to the masses, “I always hated that creep”?

This week, that declaration was met with the usual pushback, as critics accused Tarantino cynics of turning a serious conversation about misogyny and assault into a conversation about superior film taste:

Revelations that Tarantino is a piece of shit (not new) doesn’t suddenly require you to tell the world how much you have always hated his films (which suck incidentally).

— Richard Whittall (@RWhittall) February 3, 2018

Ah, we’re in the “I always knew he was shifty…” phase of Tarantino discourse, then.

It tends to overlap with the “I was always an outlier in the court of public opinion and now I’ve been vindicated!” phase.https://t.co/V7Xxt62pyo

— Darren Mooney (@Darren_Mooney) February 6, 2018

All the people that never liked Tarantino films are feeling somehow vindicated and that’s fucking awful. You’re profiting off the sadness and hurt of another human being to feel morally superior to the rest because you feel that your critical opinion feels somehow accurate??

— Jaime Grijalba (@jaimegrijalba) February 6, 2018

The initial urge does seem self-serving, a way to retroactively claim credit for knowing better than everyone else. The #MeToo moment should not be viewed primarily as a plum opportunity to hipsterize disliking Louis C.K., to smugly claim, “I hated him before it was cool.”

Nor should we reflexively vilify people who loved the work of people like Louis C.K. and Tarantino. We all have problematic faves; the hardest and most vital part of changing a toxic culture is holding those faves to the same standards as artists we dislike.

But you know what? Go ahead and take this moment to tell the world you always hated a creepy dude’s art. Feel extremely free to unload on all the troubling hints in his work that he thinks of women as objects. Why shouldn’t you? We should have that conversation, too.

The #MeToo movement emerged as an urgent reckoning around sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace, but it’s churned up discussions of issues beyond that ― not only sexual abuse outside the workplace, but also a broader culture of misogyny. Those discussions have revolved around the art of abusive and chauvinistic men, and how their visions have defined our culture, often in ways that harmed women. They’ve also included talk of how white critics have long taken up the air in the room; how they’ve been empowered to curate an artistic canon by and about them, while people of color, women and other marginalized groups have not.

We’re now grappling with how admiration of these problematic men became de rigueur, and how frustrating this enforced consensus was for the many people who felt exploited or forgotten by the canon. 

For years, when I’d balk at watching Tarantino films because the content made me uneasy, I was told I was being too sensitive. Between this and Uma Thurman’s devastating stories, it’s all coming together. https://t.co/X0G0kv9F4K

— marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) February 6, 2018

Since I was around 12, the dudes in my life constantly told me I was being too sensitive when I questioned the misogyny and racism in Tarantino’s work. I was often told I “didn’t get it.” Well… I think maybe… YOU guys didn’t get it, actually? #quentintarantino https://t.co/K4dXjvEJxM

— Brigit Young (@BrigitYoung) February 6, 2018

This is not to say that only white dudes (or all white dudes) are fans of unsavory artists like Tarantino or Louis C.K. Plenty of men have been happy to note that they never liked Tarantino anyway, and plenty of women loved “Louie” and “Manhattan” and “Pulp Fiction” and have been struggling, in the aftermath of unsavory allegations, to resolve their admiration of the art with the personal crimes of the artists. (Personally, I never had the stomach for Tarantino films ― blood makes me queasy ― but I grew up on Allen’s daffy early films and liked a decent amount of Louis C.K.’s comedy.)

Still, it’s impossible to disregard the fact that an almost entirely white and male set of tastemakers (not to mention creators and investors) elevated certain male artists to the level of demigods, so above criticism that one’s dislike signaled one’s own inferior taste rather than the artists’ failings. Most critics with major platforms have long been white men; the lack of diversity in the ranks has not only stunted the breadth of conversation, but fostered the false sense that white men’s concerns are the most pressing, their opinions the most objective, and their viewpoints the most conducive to great art. Even when women or people of color dissented, their voices did little or nothing to alter the perceived consensus.

Take Allen: Pauline Kael and Joan Didion, both prominent female critics, savaged his opus “Manhattan,” which revolves around a 42-year-old man who is romancing a 17-year-old student, for, respectively, “pass[ing] off a predilection for teen-agers as a quest for true values” and telegraphing that “adolescence can now extend to middle age.”

Then-Columbia professor John Romano quickly rebutted Didion in a letter to the editor, describing her review as a result of “pique”; the letter twice describes Didion as “complaining.” Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert had a startling take on the artistry surrounding Allen’s character’s sexual predation, writing, “It wouldn’t do, you see, for the love scenes between Woody and Mariel [Hemingway] to feel awkward or to hint at cradle-snatching or an unhealthy interest on Woody’s part in innocent young girls. But they don’t feel that way.” 

As the years passed, “Manhattan,” beloved by male critics who were unbothered by or eager to explain away the movie’s troubling sexual undertones, became cemented in film canon. If Kael and Didion couldn’t get us to openly acknowledge the flaws in Allen’s work, who could? At least now it seems right to go back and examine the catastrophic failures of some critics to tease out these threads. Many critics, including the New York Times’ A.O. Scott, are now openly reckoning with the insufficiency of their past criticism of Allen’s work, and they’re right to do so.

It’s also fair to point out that some people wanted to have this conversation before the #MeToo moment, but that a patriarchal hegemony of taste served as a bulwark against it. The cultural change didn’t just begin in October. For example, when Tarantino released “The Hateful Eight” in 2016, critics explicitly called out his dicey use of extreme violence toward women in the film, questioning whether it was artistically essential or even justifiable. 

#MeToo was possible in part because women in Hollywood, and elsewhere, have spent years advocating for more respect and representation.

This is exactly my problem with Tarantino. He glorifies violence against women and people of color, makes an industry out of movies centered on violence towards minority groups, and gets called a “genius” for it. That’s the kind of regressive junk we need to cut out. https://t.co/RDKt9rhBu9

— Heidi N Moore (@moorehn) February 4, 2018

The central connecting thread between all of the aforementioned morally ambiguous or nihilistic art and so much more in that vein: it was all primarily by and for white men and wistfully imagined worlds where white men were never held to account for anything.

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) February 6, 2018

But despite these rising questions, the classic films ― “Pulp Fiction,” “Kill Bill” ― seemed untouchable, and disliking them remained taboo. If you’ve ever told a date, a classmate, a mentor or a friend that you can’t watch Tarantino because you find his work to be exploitative of women, only to be informed that you simply don’t understand his art, the indisputable revelation this month that he’s a bona fide creep is, in a small but real way, liberating. It’s something solid to cling to, at last, evidence that you’re not overreacting or too obtuse to appreciate the aesthetic perfection of his tobacco-spit trajectories. Distaste for his work, often cast as a mental flaw or tragic unhipness, has become, in an instant, a mark of discernment.

In a tit-for-tat sense, it does seem just that artists like Louis C.K. and Tarantino ― whose reputations were long bolstered by the plaudits of critics and the reflexive hipster posturing of fans ― have now slid to the wrong end of the “my taste is better than yours” hierarchy. That’s not the point of this moment, nor should the goal of this reassessment be to simply unseat one set of white male icons, to turn the same smugly superior judgment on their fans that their detractors have experienced. It’s only human, though, to feel vindicated.

And yet, vindication isn’t the only feeling at play. There’s something about this sudden shift that’s wildly infuriating as well. Oh, NOW you’re listening? I thought recently when a writer I’d criticized as sexist ― only to have my critique neatly brushed aside by male colleagues and friends ― faced career consequences after being accused of personal misbehavior toward women. Why couldn’t you take me seriously when I broke down all the none-too-subtle misogyny in his writing?

Saying “I always hated his work” might be a cheap hipster pose, but it also might be bitterness born of long-suppressed, impotent anger. If you’ve grown used to being shamed or condescended to for caring about an ugly thread that everyone else seemed to be overlooking, the sudden shift is gratifying, but also exhausting. All the years of churn and self-doubt suddenly feel like a cruel, unnecessary burden forced on you by the people who insisted you were wrong.

So go ahead; vent your spleen. Give yourself the tiny shred of comfort that comes from claiming your long-simmering, now-validated disdain. Take the opportunity to try, once again, to have a real debate about the artistic merit of works like “Kill Bill” and “Manhattan.” It’s a first step to envisioning a world that isn’t just rid of monsters, but that actually offers everyone an equal place in constructing our culture.

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[genderstudiesclass-blog]

Analytical Reflection

After taking GS 100, I firmly believe it is important to learn more about gender and the ideas we have about gender in our culture as well as others. We all understand gender based on societal and cultural influences, so it is useful to take a step back and examine our beliefs. However, theory and class discussions are so much better understood when we explore class concepts as they appear in our contemporary media. Gender is discussed every day in the news, on blogs, in videos, and in conversations. Issues of gender versus sex, differences between men and women, intersections between gender and other personal characteristics, inequalities, and sexualities continually appear in the media and are debated amongst the public. Through a careful examination of what these different sources are saying about the different aspects of gender, I have developed a new understanding of how both society and I myself view gender.

In America, we function under a clear gender binary, defined in class as the idea that there are only two types of people that are fundamentally different opposites; in this case, these two opposites are male and female. We like to distinguish our own group from others and do not like when something might fall in between the two groups or go over into the “wrong” group. This idea is seen clearly in the Ulta advertisement I posted; makeup and skincare are meant for women, while the men get a small section that states “Hot Buys for Guys.” This ad insinuates that men should not wear makeup. Similarly, when Covergirl's first male makeup model, James Charles, was announced, he received a lot of backlash from the public due to the enforced idea of how men should be different than women. Oftentimes, these ideas imply that men should be seen as different from women because it is “less than” to be like a woman.

Many people argue that the gender binary is justified or informed by the inherent differences observed between men and women’s bodies. This brings us to the idea of sexual dimorphism: “differences between males and females in appearance and behavior” (Wade & Ferree, 2014, p. 35). One of my links, a video titled “25 Biological Differences Between Men and Women That Aren’t Commonly Known,” discusses some of the biological differences between men and women. Many viewers commented that these differences prove that men and women really are very different; therefore, the gender binary is justified. However, many of these differences are small things such as vein size or eyelash length, which really do not equate to men and women being entirely different in every way. Another of one my links, titled “What the Science Actually Says About Gender Gaps in the Workplace,” tackles the issue of gender gaps in leadership roles and STEM careers (men leading in both categories). Rather than biology acting as the main factor behind differences in men and women’s abilities, this author shows how our culture’s gender bias and sexism against women explains much more about why women have less success or leadership than men.

Men and women might not be inherently different, but they are socialized and gender policed into performing in certain defined ways. Gender norms exist everywhere in our culture: boys like blue, girls like pink; men are strong, women are docile; men eat steak, women eat salads. We learn these ideas from a very young age and are reminded of them in memes or graphs on the Internet (see link “16 Differences Between Men and Women in Infographics”). However, many people are working to break stereotypes and tell others to be whoever they want to be. For example, in South Korea, Korean pop idols are leading the effort to break traditional, conservative ideas about gender. Several idols dress more like the other gender, redefining what it means to be either masculine or feminine. Through these examples, popular icons are helping to end negative and potentially violent gender policing or discrimination in society.

Gender is not the only aspect that can lead to discrimination. In fact, the intersection of race and gender strongly affects how people are viewed within their culture. Due to racial discrimination, black men face many challenges and negative stereotypes when interested in the field of nursing, while black female lawyers find themselves facing double the discrimination in the workplace due to sexism and racism. As the NowThis video I shared explains, black women have also been left out of the conversation about sexual assault and harassment. Our book echoes this idea, stating that the characterization of black women as masculine has “served the strategic purpose of defining only white women as vulnerable to rape, ignoring assaults that black women faced from both white and black men” (Wade & Ferree, 2014, p. 91-92). The opposite stereotype gets applied to Asian women, as Anna Akana discusses in the video “Why Guys Like Asian Girls.” White men sometimes view Asian women as overly feminine and give them blanket terms such as “submissive” or “weak” based simply on their skin color.

Both stereotypes attributed to men and to women hurt each and every one of us. These stereotypes perpetuate a state of inequality between men and women. For men, their manhood is defined as the antithesis of womanhood; men must be strong and “wear the pants,” like we saw in the Dockers ad in class. It is seen as weak to be like a woman, which circles back to that idea in Part II of the inequality found in the distinction between genders. When men do not fit into this narrow idea of masculinity, their “manhood” comes into question. On the other hand, since women are viewed as less than men, they are hurt from gender inequality due to things such as unequal pay or sexual harassment and assault. As we’ve seen recently from the #MeToo movement of women bringing forward allegations of sexual assault, women in the film industry experience sexism and harassment due to the abuse of powerful men above them. This inequality is perpetuated by both blatant and benevolent sexism, which the link “Women are Kind and Men are Strong: How Benevolent Sexism Hurts Us All” defines as a sexism that views men and women in stereotypical roles in a seemingly positive way. When men and women believe these ideas reinforced through the gender binary, gender policing, and a system of inequality, they start to believe these stereotypes define who they should be.

Gender also informs how we view ourselves and others sexually. When we sexually objectify a man or woman, we reduce their value to simply their looks. While objectification most commonly happens to women, the link “Body Insecure” by BuzzFeed shows how objectification can hurt men as well, leading to body image issues and/or actions that harm the self. However, women tend to be the main victims of “rape culture,” “an environment that justifies, naturalizes, and even glorifies sexual pressure, coercion, and violence” (Wade & Ferree, 2014, p. 234). In one of my links, Ben Shapiro argues that we do not have a rape culture because no one is “pro-rape.” However, I disagree with his claim since there are many ideas or practices in our culture that imply that rape or sexual violence is permissible. For example, the link “25 Everyday Examples of Rape Culture” explains how memes, jokes, or our refusal to take rape victims seriously perpetuate a rape culture.

Looking at each section of links and the connections between them, we might ask, “Why is it really important that we understand and study these ideas about gender?” Overall, these links show how long-held ideas about gender can be harmful on an individual or widespread basis. The way we view the gender binary, for example, affects the toys we choose for babies: girls get dolls and boys get cars. However, the video I posted for “Part II: Ideas” shows how the toys we choose for kids can actually impact their brain development and skills in spatial awareness. In essence, we are creating an aspect of inequality between genders at a very young age. Similarly, the link from “Part VI: Inequalities” discussing gender violence in Jakarta shows how gender inequality starts from the household. Parents also influence their kids through the language they use to describe them. The link “We’ve Been Misled on the Difference Between Genders” explains how research has shown that parents with sons more often Google “whether their sons were ‘gifted’ or ‘stupid’ compared to their daughters” (Gebelhoff, 2017). On the other hand, parents with daughters were more likely to Google whether their daughters were “overweight,” “beautiful,” or “ugly.” This shows that women’s value is found in looks, whereas men are praised more for ability. Lastly, harmful ways of thinking about gender lead to issues of sexism, sexual harassment and assault, and rape culture. Many women, encouraged by the examples of women in the media such as Emma Stone or Salma Hayek (as I’ve shared in my scrapbook), have come forward with their experiences of countless instances of abuse due to how women are viewed within the gender binary.

Going forward, it is important to examine the ways that can we can help redefine gender within our culture. I understand that gender is a lot more complicated than people make it out to be, and I have realized that people’s simplistic ways of viewing gender and the gender binary are harming those in it as well as those who might not conform. The links I have examined provide some great ways for us to reshape how we view gender and help others see harms in some of society’s longheld views. One main approach is to reshape gender ideas and roles in our own families. For example, Johanna Tantria T. Wardham, the gender equality advocate in the link on gender equality in Jakarta, believes that better relations and equal gender roles in the family will help reduce sexual violence. She states, “There should not be the standardized gender role strictly applied in the family. They [men and women] should work together in the household because that is the key to prevent sexual violence in the family” (Wardham, 2017). Singer Pink also shows us a way to redefine how we view gender in our families. In the link under “Part IV: Performances,” Pink explains how she is raising her daughter “gender-neutral,” letting her daughter make her own choices about who she wants to be. This allows the child to understand his/her own gender and sexuality without being forced into one category if they express they are not comfortable in that category.

Lastly, we can take strides to promote gender equality and the importance of allowing deviations from gender norms. In the article on benevolent sexism in “Part VII: Sexualities,” the author provides many examples of how we can stand up for others (or for ourselves) when benevolent sexist comments are made by others in the workplace. Similarly, we can take stands against blatant sexist or racist comments made in any sector. While ideas about gender and the binary are still deeply held and reinforced (and seen in many of the comments on the videos or articles I posted), we can enact change through organized effort and even just small efforts to stand up for others. However, the first step may be to examine our own underlying beliefs about gender and what might not be accurate about them. Overall, I am glad I examined my own thoughts and have taken a step toward reshaping how our culture views gender.