#and the misogyny...

[whydoeseveryonehavetobelesbian]

im tired of non-lesbian spaces. when am i gonna find like-minded women

[jerrycummblr]

It's really simple. If you're born with a vagina and you naturally have elevated testosterone levels, you're a man. If you have a vagina and you take testosterone, you're a woman. But also if you have a vagina, you'll never be a man. But also if you have higher testosterone then you were never a woman. Woman never yes man a vagina testosterone no was an elevated. Vagina man.

[animentality]

[lgbtlunaverse]

The world exists in such a baffling state of simultaneous sex-aversion and sex-hegemony. Every social platform on the internet is trying to banish sex workers to the shadow realm but I can't post a tweet without at least two bots replying P U S S Y I N B I O. People are self-censoring sex to seggs and $3× but every other ad you see is still filled with half-naked women. Rightwingers want queer people arrested for so much as existing in the same postal code as a child and are also drumming up a moral panic about how teenage boys aren't getting laid enough. I feel like I'm losing my mind.

[victusinveritas]

My mom decided to weigh in on this, on the side of the Italian boxer, thinking I'd allow her to repeat bullshit talking points for some reason (never have allowed that shit, especially not from someone who raised me not to tolerate racism or anything that ends with someone being put down)...I made her stay on the line until she admitted she was wrong.

[charlesoberonn]

"Lawrence it's the fucking Taliban" gives similar vibes to "Harold they're lesbians"

[zzxid]

I genuinely think Mouthwashing fandom is a good example on how real life misogyny is very wired on people brains and influenced how they engage with fictional misogyny.

You have a story about a woman being assaulted and telling a man he trusted but being dismissed because he is friends with the attacker, and people fixate on shipping her with either of those men.

You have a story about how men that downplay their male friends violence, assume neutrality is the safer option, unintentionally help create an environment that's unsafe to vulnerable people, at a risk becoming a victim themselves. And people make it about toxic yaoi.

You have a character kill herself because she didn't want birth the child of her abuser. And people make AUs where she happily keep the baby.

Misogyny isn't just "I hate this women", it's also downplaying their trauma, defending those who caused it, and reducing them to mothers or wives against their wished under this idea of what womanhood is about.

I don't think we can separate fandom misogyny from it's real world influence, not yet.

[trash-and-trash-accessories]

I do want to note that the whole "women are allowed to dress masculine and wear trousers" thing needs to be viewed in its historical context:

People fought for generations to be allowed to dress that way. They fought hard to be allowed to wear pants. Blue jeans were a symbol of feminist revolution. Women were barred from workplaces and schools for wearing them.

This is not some a natural fact that women dressing masculine is less shocking and humiliating. That normalization was fought for and hard-won.

And yet so many people erase the struggles of those people who fought to make that happen and pretend that it's just normal and natural that people don't see women "dressed like men" as ridiculous.

The Marriage of Figaro has what's called a "breeches role" which is a woman wearing men's clothes playing am ale role. This was done partly due to the vocal range requirements, but in many cases it was done comedically. It was risque and sexualized or comic relief that a woman was dressed as a man.

Anti-suffragette posters mock women wearing pants - well they were bloomers and split skirts back then - and mocking more masculine cut styles of clothes. This was meant to portray this as ridiculous.

They mocked the "new woman" in Weimar Germany, lamenting that they were too masculine.

This is a political cartoon from the 1920s depicting a woman in masculine dress deciding which bathroom to use:

Sorry but you're erasing these struggles and flattening history when you say this shit.

Women were killed and institutionalized in the struggle to make this happen. It really fucking bothers me the way it's framed as "people just don't find it as weird when women dress masculine."

Yes they fucking did. Until women and transmasculine people fought for their right to wear what they want. It's normalized because people struggled to normalize it.

And it's not normal everywhere. There are many countries where it's still illegal for women to wear pants. Afghanistan, for example.

Even in the US, it's forbidden and considered ridiculous in groups like the FLDS, the Amish, and the Hutterites.

We are flattening and erasing the struggles of women when we say these things. I know we're trying to build theory here but you can't build solid theory on a foundation of lies.

[gay-otlc]

Idk I feel like "Men are responsible for their own actions, women aren't to blame for men being misogynistic" and "You do not have to tolerate bigotry from others, call them out on that shit" and "People may be less likely to become radicalized if they receive kindness and compassion" don't have to contradict each other

[homoquartz]

this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social hierarchy system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

[taliabhattwrites]

The Third Sex

After months of research and painstakingly connecting the threads of transmisogyny theory, queer activism, and field-wide epistemic injustice, I would like to present "The Third Sex": my treatise on a third-world transfeminism.

[prokopetz]

Me: *opens Tumblr dashboard*

Tumblr dash: It's misogynistic not to acknowledge that women are more susceptible to propaganda because our brains have more goo.

Me: *closes Tumblr dashboard*

[tiredyke]

some of you guys view misogyny as simply men being mean to women and not a systemic hierarchical issue that prevents women from gaining liberation, support systems or a socioeconomic foothold and it shows every time you talk about “misandry”

[justaboutsnapped]

Why you shouldn’t support the upcoming game Black Myth: Wukong

Simply put, the creators behind Black Myth: Wukong are raging misogynists.

Founders and creatives of the studio have:

Joked about former female employees hypothetically doing prostitution

Used suggestive/objectifying/derogatory imagery & phrasing in their hiring flyers (under the cut), e.g. “In addition to hookup buddies, we promise to provide more thoughtful services” , “fatties fuck off”, etc.

Written entire think pieces on how video games don’t need female players or developers, how women are biologically inclined towards “softer” modes of gaming than men (there’s also a bit of homophobia mixed in through language such as “fuck sissies”), how some things should just be made for men, etc. “Fuck sissies, fuck tragic love stories, fuck moon-lit peach blossoms and flute-playing scholars! You don't need the reverse motivation of female players, you don't need to take care of those worms who just want to date chicks. Some things are just for men, their depression, their anger, their pain...”

Made numerous sexually explicit (& honestly incel-like) comments including ones about a female character in Black Myth: Wukong, e.g. “once you get used to this [character design] you can jerk off to it”, etc.

Boasted about how they’re losing followers, who must be women

To no one’s surprise, when people criticise the studio online, they’re met with vitriol about how they’re hypersensitive feminists, too politically correct, etc.

Chinese women have been YELLING non-stop on social media about how bad it is so it’s pretty depressing to see that a lot of non-Chinese gamers, even after reading an IGN article covering the situation, are apathetic. I get that a lot of people are excited about the novelty of a soulslike game based on Chinese mythology, but do you really want to support a studio that actively contributes towards and benefits from misogynistic gaming culture?

Talking about separating the artist from their art is bullshit if you're financially supporting them. Boycott! Pirate!

Here are some sources if you want to see detailed translations, learn more about the situation as well as the misogynistic gaming culture at large China:

[valtsv]

genuinely cannot fathom the inner lives of people who say there aren't enough well-written female characters to get into. i'm obsessed with women from shows i've never even seen.