#axes of oppression

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

Regarding "pretty privilege", I think the person who took it apart regarding axes of oppression put it perfectly. Yes, people can receive better treatment from those who think they're good-looking than those they don't think are good-looking. But for looks to be a proper axis of oppression, conventionally attractive people would need to wield power over conventionally unattractive people, and this would need to be true for both sexes, all racial categories, etc.. And they don't. Jeff Bezzos? Elon Musk? Mark Zuckerberg? Bill Gates? Ugly as shit--but they are rich, white, heterosexual, and male. In other words, they're on several actual axes of oppression, on the oppressor side, and have benefitted immensely.

How about Fox News? Most of the women hired on that network were gorgeous and blonde. Certainly that got them the benefit of a job from Roger Ailes and Bill O' Reilly (both also ugly as hell, but rich and white and heterosexual and male!), but those women then had to contend with sexual harassment from the both of them. So where is the power of pretty people if there are a number of ugly people who can just hire them for decoration and then sexually harass them or worse?

Beauty can come with some benefits, sure, but those benefits are conferred by the beholder of beauty regardless of the beholder's own looks, not by beautiful people. And those benefits often come with a catch. So if we want to argue pretty privilege as a thing, we have to be using a complete different framing of privilege than we use for white privilege (conferred by white people), male privilege (conferred by men), straight privilege (conferred by straight people), rich privilege (conferred by the wealthy), etc..

And before someone yells at me, yes, I'm aware that conventionally unattractive women are sexually harassed by men who expect them to be grateful for it. I was the outcast in elementary school and the early part of high school. The way boys treated me then was different than later, when their opinion of my looks changed. I've experienced both the "you should be happy for my attention because you're ugly" and the "you're lucky to be beautiful, you should give me a chance" from men and boys. The point is, whether you're sexually victimized by a man who expects gratitude because he deigned to touch you or by a man who hired you because you fit his type, who has the power? Not the conventionally attractive woman. The man does.

That's privilege. Male privilege. This is literally an oppressor sorting the oppressed out like toys and selecting his favourites. And some of you think the favourite toys make up a separate oppressor class. I'm sorry, that's not how it works.

[bluehawkdustorm]

Is the place this comes from the idea that the axis of privilege is "cis man" > "everyone else"?

Because focussing on the "everyone else" as a singular package makes sense IFF the point of the grouping is "everyone who is harmed by cis male privilege", or "everyone who is denied cis male privilege", but even confusing the needs of THOSE TWO THINGS leads to massive problems, and it sounds like they're confusing a lot more things than that!

I've been seeing a disturbing number of "queer safe spaces" describe themselves as things like "femme & them" and even worse "she+," conflating femininity & nonbinaryhood. cease this immediately. say it with me: nonbinary people are NOT women-lite and it is extremely violent and straight up incorrect to imply that all they/thems are fem adjacent. this is erasure and this verbiage does nothing but make gnc and nonbinary spaces unsafe for masc and male nonbinary people. nonbinary, genderqueer and other third gender people can be and are masculine and men, we can be hes as well as shes and theys, stop allowing yourself and your peers to view nonbinary as woman/femme-lite, signed a butch nonbinary person.

[utilitycaster]

I’ve long noticed and previously commented on the odd fandom antipathy towards characters like Suvi of Worlds Beyond Number and Jonas Spahr from Midst; and simultaneously a far, far more generous approach to outright villains like Will Gallows, many of the witches, and Moc Weepe.

I’ve also commented on the favor and endless forgiveness shown villains before, and to get it out of the way, yes, a lot of this is due to horny reasons, and as someone who does not identify personally as a monsterfucker this might be part of my lack of interest. But I think it would be unwise to chalk this up entirely to people wanting to fuck the villains, and given that Suvi and Jonas are both extremely attractive as well it’s certainly not the whole picture.

Suvi and Jonas are born into and achieve positions of privilege - military/political no less - in imperial societies. They are both explicitly indoctrinated. They are not, in my opinion, brainwashed; but they are driven into who they become through competition.

I think a lot of people are really uncomfortable with characters shown to be complicit in and favored within this kind of society. I think Spahr and Suvi occupy a space that they find too close to home; too close to what they themselves are. A villain validates one’s beliefs: Weepe is ruthlessly self-interested, driven by profit, and terribly violent, and so it’s easier to be comfortable with him, ironically enough, because the story tells you he’s a bastard and you can feel good about clocking him as a bastard, and even like that this character is on a meta level telling you that you’re right in your beliefs.

Suvi and Jonas and those like them don’t permit you that validation. They participate in these harmful systems while believing it to be the right thing to do. They are also young people who grew up knowing little else, with unfathomably high expectations placed upon them. They are flawed, with no shortage of harsh edges, but they are also frequently kind and generous people who are incredibly important, as they currently are, to characters one might find more sympathetic. They are deeply human. And they are both the beneficiaries and the victims of a vast and complicated system. You cannot fit them into the box of a “stripped of choice” victim even though both have found themselves backed against a wall by their respective societies. You cannot avoid that the dissolution of their society would have devastating consequences, even if it might be right (which Midst directly explores; I suspect the Citadel might not be a thing to be dissolved). And while many people do so, one cannot in good faith and intelligent analysis treat them as nothing more than a shipping doll who needs to be programmed to become a mirror of the “correct” character of one’s choosing without ignoring who they are and what they bring to the table: a political savvy, a great deal of talent and intelligence, and a desire to embody the best parts of their respective flawed societies.

As Midst reaches its denouement, one of the core messages is that a harmful society is still one comprised of people: some upholding it, some actively furthering it, and some just living within it. While Worlds Beyond Number is nowhere near its end, Brennan Lee Mulligan’s body of work upholds a similar message; that one cannot lose sight of the personhood of people, even those involved in messy and damaging systems, and that people must be judged with that in mind. Suvi and Spahr are not cogs to be wrenched free and corrected, but characters to appreciate in their complexity. It is a shame that so many reject them in favor of those who consistently choose to do harm because it is less difficult and challenging to think in terms of Good Guy/Bad Guy.

[dykesynthezoid]

I do think it’s really funny seeing people on tiktok have the whole “there’s a difference between being GAY and being QUEER” in that some gay people aren’t politically invested and can’t be counted as “queer” for that, like it’s literally always funny to see people rediscover discourse from the 70s. I know it’s a very tempting argument to make but queer desire is itself always going to be a non-normative radical action, actually.

And it’s fine to feel disappointed when other queer people aren’t as politically invested as you are or haven’t done the work to unpack or deconstruct certain things, but you cannot just decide that they’re an inherently separate group from you despite being affected by the same politics of ‘difference.’ It actually doesn’t work that way. You are a part of the same group. And you just have to deal w that, even when it’s frustrating. Assigning these hard boundaries on what a term like “queer” can mean in practice is actually antithetical to like. Everything the ambiguity and malleability of the term stands for. There’s no arguing that “queer” is a deeply politicized term, but individual queer people don’t have to be active in politics to be politicized. They are going to be politicized regardless, whether they like it or not.

[auressea]

here's your reminder that the Gov of Canada has the power to name activists, protesters and Land Defenders: TERRORISTS.

https://open.library.ubc.ca/media/stream/pdf/24/1.0394048/4

Canada is attempting to deport an SFU student to Pakistan for organizing and peacefully protesting old growth logging in BC. I'd appreciate if your blog would help spread the word and the website set up to help people contact their MPs, sign the petition and/or donate to supporting him with legal fees. Stopzainsdeportation.ca

Stopzainsdeportation.ca

[blood-orange-juice]

Spicy take: I'm starting to think that the concept of "trickster" is about just as meaningful as the concept of Hero's Journey.

Sure, you can fit a lot of stories into it and some were written with that specific archetype in mind but also it conflates Joker, Odysseus, Br'er Rabit and Slavic folktales protagonists and I don't think these should belong in the same category.

Boundary crossing can be done for many reasons and in many ways. The need to lump all such characters into a single category says more about our over-reliance on rigid structures, the lack of play in our culture and a desperate need for something else.

[problemnyatic]

I generallly believe in being nice and respectful and accomodating when educating others and trying to course correct folks. I am also deeply, soul-suckingly tired and not particularly interested in playing complement sandwitch four billion times with people for promising to consider treating me like a fully realized human being someday.

Sometimes I'm gonna take the easy, bitter route and make sure that if people are gonna be all up in their guilt to feel better, they're at least feeling guilty about the right shit. I'm not above holding people aginst their purported morals and dressing down each of their failures to practice them.

The most important thing I ever, ever taught myself, by far, was learning how to be the fuckup without collapsing emotionally, getting defensive, or internalizing it as an inherent flaw I can never escape. I did this, because I knew that it's impossible to be perfect, and that if I want people to tell me when I need to correct myself, I need to be someone who is easy to correct. A breakdown isn't "being easy," getting defensive, starting an argument, bickering, hair-splitting, none of that constitutes being easy to approach or correct.

And also, for god's bleeding sake, we're tired. Trans folks, poor folks, the neurodiverse, black folks, brown folks, palestinians, the chronically ill, every marginalized person is fucking exhausted. Cut us a fucking break if we don't always have it in us to be the nicest about our outrage, about our lack of human rights. Sometimes we'll be bitter, and mean, and disrespectful about our oppression.

Cut us some slack, accept that you feel bad, and pull the best-faith, most critically-thought-through interpretation you can out of our words. You cannot prioritize your comfort in conversations about human rights. If you do, you have already lost. You have already chosen complacency, you have chosen yourself to the exclusion of the opressed.

[astralazuli]

So there's that D&D class quiz going around, & I took it & was so deeply offended I got Paladin.

& so I have had conversations with both Bestie & Birdfriend about this grave insult & they both were like, "Well... They have a point?" & informed me that my desire to absorb hits meant for others & deep drive to help whenever I actually can & strong convictions make me a bit Paladin-coded.

& I am just so... Idk. It's just interesting to get glimpses of yourself from other people's POVs. To be told that my defining characteristics are protecting & healing others & being incredibly fighty about the things I care about... Especially as someone whose brain specifically fixates on whether I care enough, do enough, give enough... Yeah. It's just kinda wild.

Anyway, I'm now adjusting my self-perception to include the fact that if I were a D&D character, I would be an Oath of the Ancients Paladin & not a wizard & that actually that's okay.

[angelsaxis]

"since I don't experience sexual attraction I just have a better read on people and I'm free from that Curse, so I can think straight" not how that works in the slightest lmao

[eclipsecrowned]

should i be as mean to da as i am on discord just bc gb3 came out and told a different story? i mean. yeah. yeah it really is showing how bad their gb fanfic got tbh.

[orchres]

of all books in the world idt Heaven is the one to be using like that. that specific quote comes from a moment when one of the main characters has decided to surrender to the horrors happening to her and imagine that because she is being abused and nobody seems to care or intervene she's somehow more holy and saintly than her abusers so it's actually fine 🥲🥲

[superwhosecock]

what cis people see as "politics" is actually an ongoing civil rights struggle

[vgmremixtape]

OCR04751: Dynasty Warriors 3: Anachronistic Axes - minusworld feat. Development of Avoid, Biggoron

[Oppression Ver. 2, Jump into the Battlefield Ver. 2, Opening (Emergency Mix)]

from OverClocked ReMix; more by the artists linked below.

minusworld - arrangement, production, guitars, bass, VSTs

Development of Avoid - guitar solo at 2:59, additional rhythm guitars

Biggoron - keytar solo at 3:27, keytar leads

[apas-95]

I do think it's a little silly to say transmisogyny is 'rooted in' or 'comes from' white supremacy. Just causally, white supremacy is a social force that emerged as a result of the creation of the concept of a 'white race' in service of the European colonial empires of the last few centuries. The social system of gender developed many millennia ago; while the labeling and understanding of this oppression is contemporary, transmisogyny is certainly no more recent a phenomenon than misogyny itself. White supremacy has certainly characterised the axes of oppression within its domain, but, saying that transmisogyny is 'rooted in' white supremacy, due to the specific characteristics of the transmisogyny employed by white supremacist societies, is as valid as saying misogyny is 'rooted in' white supremacy due to its specific incarnation.

[jinzouacting]

smth smth that kink post i reblogged earlier

[canideformed]

This is a false equivalency.

The term for somebody who is transfem and who is oppressed for being transfem—is transfem. Intersex people are intersex. Transfem people are transfem. Perisex people are not intersex. Non-transfem people are not transfem.

TMA/TME is more closely equivalent to if I said IA/IE (intersexism applicable/intersexism exempt).

The reason TMA/TME is problematic is because it fails to acknowledge that non-transfem people can be impacted my transmisogyny—the same way perisex transfems can be impacted by intersexism. And also because it completely ignores the existence of the oppression transmascs experience, categorising them in with their oppressors. The TMA/TME binary is problematic because it collapses complex interplays of oppression into one binary system.

If you want a word for somebody who is transfem and impacted by transfem oppression in the way somebody who is transfem would be? The term is transfem.

“Transfems really are the only people who can’t have terms for their own oppression” I have a question. How do you feel about the term “transandrophobia?” How would you feel about the terms “TAA” and “TAE” (transandrophobia applicable and transandrophobia exempt)? If you’re okay with those terms, I’ll eat my words (somehwhat, it’s still weird, but at least you’re okay with it across the board). If you’re not—why? Do you think trans men don’t experience specific oppression? Is your issue just with who coined it? How do you feel about the term transemasculinisation? Anti-transmasculinity? Please consider why you think it’s okay to restrict the language transmascs use to describe their oppression.

Further, why not make it TMNA/TMNE (transmisogynoir applicable and transmisogynoir exempt)? Black trans women absolutely face the highest rates of assault (assuming black trans men aren’t being erased in the statistics, which is a big assumption). If you’re talking about systems of oppression… why not consider the most impactful axes? Why only consider the axis of man/woman? Consider what this says about the proximity of your theory to radical feminism.