#mans job you call yourself a feminist and refuse to acknowledge others who are subjected to the same patriarchy because they aren't woman

[azuredrg]

some of you wouldn't know what feminism was even if it beat you over the head

[frostbite883-archive]

Well, either of your ideas that you had written was already written before (albeit differently) by someone else a while back basically (out of the fact that I made questions similar to the ones I gave you which resulted in tumblr bloggers giving me different answers to them). 

gingerly-writing: to this ask I filled out for them. I’m pretty fucking pissed off, and I’ve had my fury checked out by uninvolved parties to make sure it was righteous. It’s righteous.

Me: Not entirely so.

gingerly-writing: First off, feel free not to send people rude-ass messages after they’ve put time and effort into coming up with a response to you? 

Me: The top comment there (the “Well, either of your ideas” comment) wasn’t really the rude comment I typed out. The other one was (which I’m sorry for) which you didn’t copy paste in your third post so other bloggers can see it as that public evidence is vital for context.

gingerly-writing: Also, I thought you were going to use my idea and have me to thank you or something for it when I came up with something like my asks I gave you and something to the equivalent of your “heroes and villains school” stuff before I replied to your ask box sometime ago. Basically, wanting me to give you undeserved credit for my very own idea. I certainly didn’t know you were going to make comments like this either.

So, I actually have a hero and villain school in my own original superhero works, and I did come up with a solution to this one. If you’re writing your own original stuff, please change this up, but if you’re writing fic I don’t mind if you nick it wholesale (as long as you tag me in it! I’d love to read it).

Y’know, for me, this was just background information, but now I kind of want to write a whole book focusing on it.

gingerly-writing: It took me a good 45 minutes to get tumblr to accept my answer to your damn ask, so you’ve just made that a waste of my time.

Me: Maybe. But, from below, you were not bettering the situation.

gingerly-writing: Also, feel free to simply not respond rudely to people’s posts, at all, ever, especially if you were the one who sent the ask in the first place. I didn’t need to know how shit my ideas are, thanks.

Me: Yeah...not really sure where you’re going with this. Are you saying your ideas were horrible because they were based on my idea and how I spread more around on tumblr? Or do you think I’m saying your ideas were horrible because you think I’m somehow saying, implying or thinking that? 

Either why, that comment of yours was not helpful for anyone. Yourself included.

gingerly-writing: Also, as a more general PSA, feel free not to send identical asks to multiple bloggers. 

Me: Not happening. As I can sent any ask at any time by my own free will. As is my right.

gingerly-writing: Seeing someone else answer the same ask really disincentivizes me to answer it, even if it’s in my queue: I worry about stepping on the other responder’s feet, 

Me: Well, to be fair, I can understand the sentiment there. Still, what you say next will lower that sentiment.

and also, it’s motherfuckin rude, you absolute assclown. 

Me: Childish name calling. So...how is it you’re any better with what you had said. What would you benefit from doing that other then venting out your anger. ...Which ironically enough I didn’t even do here and wouldn’t now just so I won’t sink to your level of rudeness. 

gingerly-writing: And if you do send multiple asks and get similar responses, maybe it’s simply because it’s a good fucking idea. If you get different answers, maybe it’s because we’re all different fucking people with awesome different ideas that I’m not sure you deserve.

Me: You know what, I’ll be upfront, and say that I should have not jumped the gun and assumed the worse and could’ve worded my comments better (or just replied privately about the whole matter), you, on the other hand, didn’t do much of anything to resolve the situation as best as you should’ve. In the end, you basically became me. But a little worse.

gingerly-writing

: feel free to block me on the way out

Me: Already did. I’m hoping you don’t treat other bloggers the way you had treated me. Especially if they were nicely bringing up stuff to your attention among other things. And especially, even, in the ‘ginning once they asked you something.

gingerly-writing: #I try to be nice on this site #but I have my limits #and now I'm in rage mode #the asks and the answers #rude #ungrateful

Me: As if you were better with your own fair share of rudeness that might be on the level of hackedmotionsensors’. 

hackedmotionsensors: THIS PERSON IS SO WEIRD!! All they ever do is send these bizarre questions about the DCEU being in MCU!

Me:  Actually, that's not ALL I do. I asked other questions too. And my qs aren't as weird as any one else's either, hacked. Best to not go by assumptions and call people weird for what they say or do. Be it in front of their faces or behind their backs. Also, don't like me or my qs? Then either block me or just blacklist my name.

See ya...never, I guess.

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Here’s some context on what I was talking about on this post:

TumblrFrostbite: How would you want schools for villains' kids (for Marvel villains' kids, for DC villains' kids, etc) to be ran? And who would you want to run those schools?

gingerly-writing: This is one of those things that I’ve put way too much thought into after you sent this, because I love stuff like this. The question is, are the villains running this school for their kids, or is this something the heroes are putting on to try and rehabilitate the kids while their parents are in prison? I’ll assume the former, but the latter is also super interesting to me.

Disclaimer: this will have a strong DC bent because I have little to no interest in most Marvel villains, whereas I could yack on about DC villains for month. In fact, I might just stick to DC in its entirety because other than Loki (who would be the worst teacher ever, he would encourage so much shenanigans) most of the Marvel villains I know are Nazis or space monsters. Second disclaimer: I’ve watched a lot more animated DC movies and read a lot more fic than I ever have comics, soooooo these depictions might not be comic book accurate. Fanboys, please don’t come for me…but I also don’t really care that much tbh. I like the incarnations that I like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actual answer under the cut because this got hella long. Hope you like it!

Sponsor: Lex Luthor. Funds the school, shows up to speech day to give speeches and hand out prizes, gives the brightest and most stable kids scholarships to work at Lex Corp in the holidays. Absolutely 100% has his own ends, no one knows what they are. Chucks buckets of money at every problem. Likes to bring the school up at fancy soirees in front of Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen just to piss them off.

Headmaster: Deathstroke (or rather, Slade from Teen Titans). Has no idea how he wound up with this job, complains about the pay 24/7 even though it’s in the range of millions of dollars a term paid in untraceable cash from 50 different countries. Basically ends up like Gordon Ramsey: threatens to assassinate the teachers and parents all the time, has actually taken out some abusive parents, but is weirdly, gruffly nice to the younger kids. Teachers self-defence to all the non-powered kids and weapons to anyone who’s interested and has the discipline for it. Grudgingly tolerates old man jokes.

Deputy Headmistress: Talia al Ghul. Absolutely terrifies all the older kids, mothers the younger ones. In charge of who graduates and who doesn’t; will only let kids graduate if their villainy won’t critically endanger their own life. Sometimes shows up in the backs of random classes and lurks there for ‘assessments’; shows up in more than 50% of Deathstroke’s classes to harass him about his technique. Keeps a photo of Damien on her desk, refuses to acknowledge it’s there if someone asks about it.

Biology: Poison Ivy. Excellent teacher, surprises both herself and her students at how brilliant she is. Everyone wants to take biology with her even if they have no villainous interest in the subject. Litters her lectures with feminist rants, eco-warrior tirades and talks about LGBT+ rights, will gently but forcefully correct anyone who disagrees with her. Runs a vegetable outside the school and encourages the kids to get closer to nature. Just enough passing knowledge of memes to make her older students roll about with laughter: ‘Batman’s homophobic because he inconveniences me and I’m gay’. PDAs with her girlfriend in the corridors.

Women and gender studies: Harley Quinn Ivy’s girlfriend, part time teacher. Wanted to take up the psychology post, but after she seriously suggested sharing it with Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) no one wanted to let her anywhere near it. Knows every meme. Gives great relationship advice, will kill anyone’s abusive boyfriend with no questions asked. Brings her hyenas to school in a ridiculously massive handbag. Has her own locker.

Thievery, sneaking around, Gotham safety: Catwoman. Definitely brings in her cats to act as therapy/comfort animals for the kids. Unofficial therapist; absolutely mothers anyone from Gotham, no exceptions. Brings the kids super expensive (stolen) jewellery to wear on prom night and for big dances, charges in secrets about their parents.

Business and Economics, with a side in mind control: Maxwell Lord (in the more business-orientated editions). Keeps to himself, is one of those teachers who doesn’t actually seem to like kids. Always wears a freshly pressed suit. Bit of an asshole. Selina tripped him down the stairs once.

Magic: supposedly taught by Felix Faust, but Klarion enrolled as a student just to show up in his lectures and argue. Every. Single. Point. Magic classes have turned into a magical war several times. They can only get along when someone else turns up claiming magic isn’t real. Faust has a lecture prepared for the non-believers, Klarion has a fireball. Circe often shows up in these classes, ‘borrows’ all the female students for private lessons and turns all the boys into pigs. Pig-Klarion does not appreciate this.

Physics and advanced thermodynamics: Killer Frost. Gets on really well with the Gotham City Sirens; they have cocktail parties in the staff lounge every second Thursday. Is paid by other villains kidnapping Firestorm so she can feed. Absolutely has favourite students and students she hates with a passion; has been known to freeze some students to their chairs in lieu of detention.

Other random villains that show up from time to time: - Flash’s Rogues Gallery. Created the infamous ‘Rogues week’ at the end of the year where every single one of them shows up and helps the students wreak absolute chaos across the school. Can never be stopped from showing up and starting this. Captain Cold comes grudgingly, sits in Slade’s office and has a drink with him; the rest of the Rogues join in with the chaos a bit too enthusiastically. Best week for the seniors. The younger rogues would totally be students and help to smuggle the older ones in for Rogues week.

- Black Manta: shows up sometimes, teaches a few lectures, leaves. Always on super random topics, often tangentially related to his latest evil scheme. The students have a betting pool that reawakens after each visit on how his talk will relate to his next scheme. Literally no one understands why he shows up. Doesn’t get paid, doesn’t seem to enjoy it. ?????? Has great on-land fashion sense though. A lot of the older students have lowkey crushes on him

- Cheetah takes advanced genetics and many other complex of aspects of science. Only shows up to teach special classes for the seniors. High fives Ivy in the corridors.

- Deadshot. Sometimes shows up and interrupts Deathstroke’s guns lessons (poor guy can never teach a lesson in peace), always gets chased out of the school. Gets teary eyed over the young female students kicking ass. Doesn’t seem to do anything useful but somehow gets paid a salary. Sleeps in the gym when he’s on the run from Amanda Wakker/Batman.

- Hugo Strange keeps showing up in disguises and trying to get the psychology job. Last time it was just a fake moustache. What is he even hoping to achieve.

- Merlyn shows up when he’s bored to host archery competitions on the front lawn. Mostly does this when Oliver Queen is in town. Keeps saying he’s going to pick a protégé out of the best archers and never does because the Arrow Clan kids annoy him so much he’s wound up thinking he hates kids. Actually loves kids, pretends to be snooty and above them though. 100% has to prove he’s still the best archer at every competition, even the one for 12 year olds.

TumblrFrostbite: If the super villain academy children, by the time they hit twenty, had to do some VERY impressive villainous in order to graduate, what type of villainous stuff would you have the rookies villains do to not only graduate, but also to be considered as full fledged villains?

gingerly-writing: So, I actually have a hero and villain school in my own original superhero works, and I did come up with a solution to this one. If you’re writing your own original stuff, please change this up, but if you’re writing fic I don’t mind if you nick it wholesale (as long as you tag me in it! I’d love to read it).

My thought was: all villains are going to be different, with different strengths and gifts. Sending them all to, I don’t know, infiltrate an island or fight Black Canary (which no one would win, let’s be honest) doesn’t seem fair on those it doesn’t suit. I was really struggling to come up with something that could work for everyone that didn’t force them to work in a team, because, well…villainous teams never work so well. Too many egos and whatnot.

My solution was: have the kids pick their own challenges. Make it their end of final year project. They submit a fully researched plan, all the way from the developmental stages to the final polished article. Plans like ‘killing Batman’ or ‘blowing up the planet’ are swiftly vetoed, but as long as they’re convincing enough the plan can get as elaborate and dangerous as they like. Half the marks come from the plan itself, and half for execution. Sometimes, my particularly vindictive kiddos make their plan to screw over their nemesis’ plan; I particularly enjoy when their plans are both to screw over each others’ plans. That gets entertaining.

They’re assigned a teacher whose knowledge base best fits with the plan the kid wants to execute, and they submit and resubmit and re-resubmit it to improve and refine their scheme until it’s as perfect as it’s going to get. Then, with no further outside help, they have to execute it.

This method lets you titivate the grand finale to best suit your plot needs. Your character has a serious nemesis? Pitch them against each other. Parental grudge? Make their aim to foil their parent’s plans. Hero that they hate? Plan to ruin their day. Plus, you can shove in bureaucratic nightmares and whatever other problems you can dream up (sabotage, indecision, dreams too grand to execute) into the planning stages.

I’m not sure you could do anything in a school situation to make the outside world consider them ‘real villains’: that would take time, money, and a body count, all things a school probably can’t afford to have on their books, villainous or not. But a huge, large-scale, dramatic graduating plan probably wouldn’t hurt any young villain’s rep!

Y’know, for me, this was just background information, but now I kind of want to write a whole book focusing on it. xx

[toongrrl-blog]

“The Mommy Myth”: Revolt against the MRS (Part One)

MRS: As explained, “Today we acknowledge that women inhabit many identities throughout the day, and they can be in conflict with each other, so we are constantly negotiating among them. But what the feminine mystique exposed was that all women, each and every one of them, were supposed to inhabit one and only one seamless subject position: that of the selfless, never complaining, always happy wife and mother who cheerfully eradicated whatever other identities she might have had and instead put her husband, her children, and the cleanliness of her house first. Once you grew up, you were supposed to encase yourself in this subject position as if it were a wetsuit, and never take it off. This asphyxiating and disciplining subject position might best be called Moms ‘R’ Us, or MRS, the wife/mother...”

The Women’s International Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH), Mother’s Day, Cleveland, 1969. Broadsides were posted on telephone poles reading:

Today, one day of the year, America is celebrating Motherhood, in home...church...restaurant...candy shop...flower store. The other 364 days she preserves the apple pie of family life and togetherness, and protects the sanctity of the male ego and profit. She lives through her husband and children. She is sacrificed on the alter of reproduction...she is damned to the dreary world of domesticity by day, and legal rape by night...She is convinced that happiness and her lost identity can be recovered by buying--more and more and more and more.

“Wages for Housework”

We clean your homes and your factories. We raise the next generation of workers for you. Whatever else we may do, we are the housewives of the world. In return for our work, you have only asked us to work harder...we are serving notice to you that we intend to be paid for the work we do. We want wages for every dirty toilet, every painful childbirth, every indecent assault, every cup of coffee, and every smile. And if we don’t get what we want, then we will simply refuse to work any longer. Now you will rot in your own garbage. We want it in cash, retroactive and immediately. And we want all of it.

Gloria Steinem’s hopes for the future in U.S. News and World Report, 1975

Responsibility for children won’t be exclusively the woman’s anymore, but shared equally by men--and shared by the community, too. That means that work patterns will change for both women and men, and women can enter all fields just as men can.

The late 1960s for women:

Men got paid more than women for the same exact job.

Women could get credit cards in their husband’s name but not their own.

Many divorced, single, and separated women found it hard to get credit cards at all.

Women could not get mortgages on their own and if a couple applied for one, only the husband’s income was considered.

Women faced discrimination in education, scholarship awards, and on the job.

The collective marriage property was legally the husband’s.

Women kept out of various jobs, like: doctor, college professor, bus driver, business manager.

Knocked out in the delivery room.

Birth Control options were limited (and abortion was illegal).

1960 statistics (it’s not all Leave It To Beaver)

40% of the work force were women, even with young children.

It was not reflected in the law or the media.

“Yeah flirting is fun. A man opens a door for me, I thank him, he smiles---and electricity ripples through us both. A year later I’m flushing out a diaper and he’s opening other doors.” Carold Hanish and Elizabeth Sutherland, Women of the World Unite--We Have Nothing to Lose But Our Men!

In March 18, 1970. Several feminists came into the offices of Ladies Home Journal to stage what would be an 11 hour sit-in to suggest changes to it (and after that, all women’s magazines) where they asserted as the magazine was a magazine for mothers and wives, they needed to establish an on-site childcare center for employees with young children and it’d be run entirely by women and that “the magazine seek out nonwhite women for its staff in proportion to the population”, then added minimum wage and worker participation in editorial decisions. The Editor in Chief, John Mack Carter agreed to an eight-page insert in the August 1970 issue.

The insert contained articles and sidebars entitled “Housewives’ Bill of Rights” (demands for paid maternity leave, paid vacations, free 24 hour childcare centers, social security benefits for years of labor in the home, health insurance”. “Help Wanted: Female. 99.6 Hours a Week. No Pay. Bed and Bored. Must Be Good with Children” talked about the inequities of homemaking and the less glamorous parts of homemaking and with all the work to make the home comfy they are greeted by smirking husbands asking what they have done all day. 

“Babies Are Born, Not Delivered”, the writer/new mom documented what happened in the maternity ward (to Susan Mayfield, Karen Wheeler, Mrs. Sinclair, Claudia Henderson): pubic hair shaved off, being wheeled into a room on her lonesome, being told by a resident when she would actually have the baby, being told her pains weren’t real and she’d have to wait for the doctor, when about to deliver an anesthesiologist appeared and gave her a spinal despite her protests, doctor pulled baby out with forceps.

The articles spoke to the readers like they are comrades together rather than “I am the expert and you’re not” tone. 

In 1972 (first appearing as an insert in the NYT in 1971), Ms. Magazine was born. Letters to the Editor had women of all ages and backgrounds flooding the section with letters about their grind with sexism. Jane O’Rielly wrote her famous essay “The Housewife’s Moment of Truth” with her “click” moments where she writes that:

I thought that most of my clicks were behind me, but tonight, as I cleared the table, I had a new one. I was complimenting myself (since no one else had) on a meal I’d gone to some trouble to prepare. I began to wonder why so many of us wait trembling for “the verdict” at every meal; why my mother and so many others risk antagonizing their families by asking outright if everything is okay.

I decided it’s not just neurosis. We really know they’re judging even when they don’t say so. Housewifing is an occupation in which every single waking act is judged by the persons who mean the most to you in the world. Is the house clean? Is the food good? Are the children well-behaved? 

A thousand times a day our contracts come up for renewal. No wonder our nerves are shot.

Here are some following article titles from actual Ms. articles:

1973 had “Job Advice for ‘Just a Housewife’” in the November issue and it’s May issue devoted to motherhood with Letty Cottin Pogrebin writing “We care deeply about children whether we have our own or not. We work to improve educational curricula, child-care facilities, health services, and the childbirth experience. We are saying that men are parents too; that fatherhood need be no less important or time-consuming than motherhood...Truly, feminists are talking about choice: about making the decision to become pregnant and choosing a motherly role that is right for ourselves and our children.”

1974 had articles titled “New Help for Mothers Alone” (February), “How the Economy Uses Housewives” (May), and “Surviving Widowhood” and “Must We Be Childless to be Free?” (October). 

1975 had “Kids in the Office, and What-Else-Is-New with Child Care” in March, “How Hospitals Complicate Childbirth” (June), and a special section on mothers and daughters in June. 

Earlier that decade, writer Alix Kates Shulman (of works like Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, the ultimate Karen Wheeler book, and planned the 1968 demonstrations outside of the Miss America contest) wrote about that her previously equal companionship with her husband deteriorated when they had children. 

Now I was restricted to the company of two demanding preschoolers and to the four walls of an apartment. It seemed unfair that while my husband’s life had changed little when the children were born, domestic life had become the only life I had”

His work demanded more travel and late nights, so they wrote a marriage agreement where they asserted that “each member of the family has an equal right to his/her own time, work, values, and choices...The ability to earn more money is already a privilege which must not be compounded by enabling the larger earner to buy out of his/her duties and put the burden on the one who earns less, or on someone hired from outside” and that domestic jobs be shared 50/50 and any “overtime in any domestic job, she/he must be compensated by equal extra work by the other” and had a job breakdown that included childcare duties like: waking, getting clothes ready, making lunches, seeing notes and homework and money and passes and books must be collected, getting babysitters (hours of phoning), calling doctors and checking symptoms and filling prescriptions, staying home with sick kids, providing activities. Shulman and her husband became happier, she wrote more books for adults and children, and her husband after 4 months of the agreement heard their daughter say “You know Daddy, I used to love Mommy more than you, but now I love you both the same.”

Soon magazines started writing sample marriage contracts with even Glamour magazine featuring an article how to write your own contract. There were also men staying home as househusbands with one telling Time magazine in 1974: “I love my son Adam, but I can see how taking care of a kid can drive a woman up the wall.” Dr. Spock (and other childcare experts) were taken to task for assuming that whatever happened with kids was Mom’s fault and her responsibility. Gloria Steinem cited Department of Labor stats that put the value of a housewife’s work value to be around $8000-$9000 a year because that is what would cost her husband to pay for the services of a housewife, including prostitution (see Marital Rape and faking orgasms). Naturally people cried “Communism!” or “offensive to middle-class sensibilities”. McCall’s magazine citing a study from Chase Manhattan Bank economist noted that for a man to hire a cook, laundress, nursemaid, chauffeur, and gardener he’d be paying $10 grand a year back then and nuns did about the same work as housewives but were entitled to Social Security. Clare Booth Luce, in 1977 for The Saturday Evening Post, wrote that the work of housewives and mothers was now worth $20,000 a year. 

Childcare became a hot topic, even though President Nixon claimed there was no need for national child development programs and such a program was anti-family. Also the idea of artificial pregnancies became attractive sounding to some (hey think about it, maintaining dress size and drinking booze and eating whatever and riding roller coasters?). Shulamith Firestone, author of The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, argued women will always be kept down until they were freed from “reproductive biology by every means available” and until artificial wombs were created, moms should be compensated for labor and dads be involved, Ted.......Also that children would benefit by being cut loose from dependency on parents who’d pass their issues on to their children and more kibbutz style households over the nuclear family model. In contrast, Jane Alpert, wrote “Mother Right” where she insisted motherhood was a source of female power and be harnessed in service for liberation and that mothers can pass on the values of empathy, pacifism, cooperation, intuition, protective feelings towards others to counter competition, individualism, and aggression.