#need for a new male role model

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/a-masculine-irony/

A Masculine Irony

The young woman seated opposite me at the restaurant was an orphan. A few months earlier, her mother had died of cancer. Her father had departed this earth years earlier after a fall from a ladder. Both parents I’d known since college, a bookish pair who remained in the same four-storied house they’d purchased after they married. Over the years, the couple had managed to fill the space with books, giving each room the appearance of a cozy library. Now the daughter was tasked with clearing away their history and she felt guilty. “I’m not much of a reader,” she admitted, her eyes meeting mine as if seeking absolution.   “Who reads these days?” I shrugged as a way of satisfying her.    Oddly enough, I’d read an article that morning that said I.Q scores in the U. S. were falling.  Could a general decline in reading be at fault? To my dismay, I’d learned earlier that among the younger generation Charles Dickens, Henry James, and Thomas Mann had fallen out of favor. The reason?  Their sentences were too long.  As a teacher and a writer, I felt my brain shudder when I read that.  No better way exists to reveal the connection between disparate ideas than with long sentences. Science agrees.  For example, the Nun Study which has been underway for many years revealed that participants who wrote long, convoluted sentences in their diaries lived dementia-free lives.  Could the data also suggest that a decline in the nation’s IQ stems from a decline in verbal reasoning–the capacity to understand complex ideas in written language? If so, then abandoning James’ literary flourish for Earnest Hemingway’s grunt-like sentences has done the human brain no favors. Dictators are aware of the strong connection between the mind and language. That’s why they burn books and suppress free speech.  Mussolini’s stench rose anew, recently, when Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed banishing foreign words.     Not long after reading the I.Q story, my eyes fell upon an unrelated article reporting on a different decline. Young men are leaving the workforce in greater numbers than in the past.  One expert explained why.  Men are unhappy with their social status.  Another labeled the condition an aggrieved male psyche.  The root of the problem lies in a machismo nostalgia that is compatible with fascism. The hallmarks are homophobia, hostility to women’s rights, gun idolatry, and a wiliness to see violence as legitimate political action. Donald Trump, a candidate for President of the United States in 2018, tapped into this angst when he vowed to “Make America Great Again.” (MAGA)  The core of his platform was a promise to return manufacturing jobs to the United States, enabling men with little education to earn good wages. In response, these underclass males flipped their loyalty from the Labor movement with its Democratic leanings and voted Republican. Overnight, the party of large corporations and one-percenters became a party that feared foreigners and embraced a narrow set of religious values. Out of sync with the majority of Americans, the recruits had enough political clout to divide the country and create a cultural upheaval not seen since the 19th century.   In the 19th Century, as the economy began to transition from rural labor to urban labor, people began to worry that boys were becoming weak because women were playing a larger role in their upbringing. So they attempted to find ways to encourage young men and boys to engage in physical activity, creating things like body building and later the YMCA and Boy Scouts.   Today, a similar challenge confronts undereducated men who cling to outmoded “masculine” values. For example, they choose to drop out of the workforce rather than transition into healthcare where jobs are plentiful. Caring for others is women’s work they say and point to the poor pay as a disincentive. Sociologist Michael Kimmel admits that before these men can transition, they will need a new male role model. As a feminist, I will note that no similar generosity greeted women as they struggled to transition themselves.  But I get it. The Republican Party will be short-lived if it is dominated by men who look back in anger. In any case, a return to the past isn’t possible. Technology precludes it. What’s more, progress in that direction requires more light than falls from the discontent of disillusioned men.  But where do we look for masculine role models? Republicans like Trump and Josh Hawley may imagine they fit the bill, but as they were born to privilege and received expensive educations, can their claims be creditable?  Probably not.  Still, they will attempt to create that illusion. They have no choice. The men with whom they have little in common control the launching pad for their ambition. These politicians may mumble shibboleths to attract supporters but that doesn’t make them role models.  It makes them opportunists. For the moment, the Republican version of masculinity looks like a snake attempting to swallow its tail.  Who’s leading and whose following isn’t clear.  What’s obvious is that both ends are promoting a cultural stagnation that will imperil the future.

[misctf]

Me and my buddy get along well but I don’t have a father and for some reason I feel like I look up to him. He’s a brunette hockey player who really cares about his body and tracks all of his cals. Any way you could spike one of his beers and give me the best exjock dad ever?

“Let’s go!” Your bro throws down his game controller and looks over at you. His confident smile adorning his handsome, angular face, “I used that same move on the ice the other day.” His clear excitement is infectious and you can’t help but smile.

It was another one of your usual game nights with your bro. The two of you sitting on the couch, controllers in hand, playing some hockey videogame. And even though he always seemed to win, you just enjoy the moment. Your friendship started out when you were younger- the two of you meeting in grade school. And as the years went on, you grew closer. You’d go to his hockey games and cheer him on. He’d fill in as that male role model you needed. When you went to college, he’d continue playing hockey, while you focused on your studies. But you continued to enjoy each other’s company. But this was your last year, and he planned to move across the country. The very thought was painful. Losing him would be tough.

“Hey, you good?” He asks, “I told you I wasn’t going easy.”

You smile, “I was wondering,” You begin, “I know you don’t like beer...”

“Gotta keep these toned.” He says, running a hand down his exposed abs.

“But it’s bro night.” You continue, “I got some special beers for us.”

He seems to consider the offer. Part of him looking a bit apprehensive. After all, he spent much of his time focusing on maintaining his body. His lean muscles and thicc hockey butt were all products of his careful diet and dedicated workouts. But he could tell it would mean a lot to you. He nods slowly.

“One won’t hurt.” He says with a grin, “Cheers to another game night.”

Part of you feels relieved. Another part of you feels somewhat apprehensive. If the man you bought this beer from was telling you the truth... well, you didn’t know what to think. It was probably some prank anyway, and you probably wasted the money. You hand him a solo cup with the beer in it.

“To bro night.” He smiles and takes a sip of the beer, “You know, I’m gonna miss this.” You feel a pang of sadness in your chest, “But we’ll always be bros.”

You nod, taking in his words. Feeling a sense of impending loss. Wishing you could just enjoy these moments forever.

“I’m gonna miss this too... dad.”

He looks over at you and raises an eyebrow, “What did you just call me?” He chuckles.

And you can see it. A few hairs starting to emerge from his once clean-shaven face. A few greys appearing in his brunette locks. Was it true? Was this stuff really going to do what the man said it would?

“Nothing, dad.”

And as the words leave your lips, your buddy groans. His youthful skin starts to lose its glow. A few wrinkles appear on his forehead. And the hair on his face sprouts into a full beard. His hands rush to scratch his new facial hair and his eyes widen.

“Bro, what the hell...” He whispers, “Something’s wrong...”

“What do you mean, dad?”

You watch as his brunette locks begin to recede and his tan vanishes. All the while, small, itchy hairs start to sprout from your buddy’s chest and abs. At this point, he stands up and runs his hands down his new body hair. There’s a look of disgust and confusion on his face, and you can’t help but feel bad for him. After all, he did pride his clean-shaven look.

“You keep calling me dad.” He says, staring at you, “And now...” He catches a glimpse of his receding hairline and aged skin in the mirror, “Bro, please. Whatever you’re doing, you gotta fuckin’ stop.”

You could tell he was getting angry. But you were still marveling over the effects of this drink. You couldn’t believe it was actually working.

“Bro, are you even listening to me?” He says, “Please! You can’t...”

“Sorry dad.” You reply, putting even more emphasis on “dad.”

The effects are more dramatic. Your buddy lets out a pained moan and falls to his knees, gripping his abs. You can see tears fall from his eyes as he realizes his firm abs are feeling softer. And in only a few moments, his abs are covered by a thick layer of fat. And another. And another. And although your buddy is too busy squeezing his new flabby stomach, you can see his pecs fill with fat and sag, resting atop his new gut.

“This can’t be...” He winces at his new, gravelly voice, “Oh god, I sound so old.” He looks up at you, tears still staining his eyes, “Dude, come on... please... I can’t be this.”

A part of you feels bad, even guilty. Your friend’s anger replaced by fear. His confidence shattered. His toned physique truly replaced by that of a middle-aged dad. Part of you wants to reverse this. But you don’t even know how.

“I...” You bite your lip, “Look, I don’t even know if I can undo this, dad.”

Your buddy shuts his eyes and shakes as the short hairs erupt into longer follicles. You watch as a forest of hairs emerge from under his shorts and travel down his legs. His new gut and soft chest are covered in a forest of gray and dark hairs. And you realize now there’s nothing left of your old buddy, at least physically. His receding hairline, gray hairs, gut, and hirsute form all scream middle-aged dad. He slowly stands up, wincing at a pain in his lower back and knees, as he becomes more familiar with his new age.

“Dude...” He whispers, “What did you do?” You can hear the anger return to his voice.

“I didn’t want to lose you, bro.” You say, “And I’ve always looked up to you. And truthfully, I’ve always wanted a dad and the beer promised it could do that. Just as long as I called whoever drank it dad.” Your friend looks shocked and picks up the solo cup.

“Good one dude.” He laughs, “Okay, okay you got me. Maybe if I drink the beer and you call me bro or something, I can return to normal.” He says hopefully, “I promise we can forget all about this.” The desperation starts to creep back into his voice, “Just... please I don’t want this.” He begs.

You’re not a bad person. You even feel a bit guilty. And part of you even wants to do as he suggests. But another thought enters your head. Would he be able to forget all about this? Would he forgive you? You bite your lip and sigh.

“I’m sorry,” You can see his eyes widen in terror, “Dad.”

He drops the beer in his hand, causing the beer inside to spray everywhere. His eyes glaze over and his jaw goes slack. A part of you worries for a moment, but slowly he smiles. There’s no evidence of concern on his face.

“Ah sorry, I spaced out there for a second.” He chuckles, “Looks like I made a mess.” He goes to bend over to pick up the cup, but winces, “Damn back’s been acting up.”

“Don’t worry dad.” You say as he sits back down on the couch, “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m good, I’m good.” He reassures, “Come on, we have to finish our game.” He says with a grin, grabbing the game controller, “You know, I was quite the hockey player back in my day. Well before this.” He chuckles, patting his beer gut.

“I know.” You reply, sitting next to him, “You tell me all the time.” The two of you start to play, and you immediately notice his videogame skills are not where they used to be. But you’re enjoying this moment- going on as if nothing changed.

“Look at that!” He cheers when he scores a goal, “I told you not to take it easy on me, son.”

You go to reply but you feel a warmth coarse through your body. You quickly shake your head and return to the game. And only a few minutes later, he scores another goal.

“You doing okay there, son?” He asks.

And again, you feel a warmth coarse through your body. You look down at the controller and can’t help but notice that your forearms look a bit thicker- your hands meatier. You shake your head and look up at your dad.

“Uh, I’m good dad.” Your voice even sounds deeper- somewhat dumb too, “I-I gotta go to my room.”

You stumble towards your room, feeling somewhat off balance. Entering your room, you’re immediately hit by the smell of intense BO. The same way your bro would smell after a hockey game. There’s gear on your bed and random posters of hockey players on your walls. You barely have time to comprehend what’s going on, when you hear your dad’s voice.

“Hey son, are you okay?”

You groan as your muscles begin to contract violently and your shirt tears from your growing musculature. You can see yourself in the mirror- abs, thicc ass, and lean muscles- the body of a hockey player. And you realize that you’re becoming your dad’s ideal son. Somehow, the beer that splashed on you had the same effects as drinking it.

“Wait dad!” You call out, wincing at the oafish jock-like tone that saturates your words, “Please...!”

“Son?” He asks opening the door.

And your eyes glaze over. Your jaw goes slack. And you feel your mind warping and changing. Any memories you had of your old life or self are being forced into the very back of your mind- all to make room for your new existence as a smelly, ripped, hockey jock. Your dad’s perfect son.

“God it reeks in here.” Your dad laughs, patting you on the back, “Must be workin’ hard out there.”

“You fuckin’ know it.” You reply, eyes dull, “It’s gonna be a good game tomorrow, pops.”

“You learned from the best, champ.” He smiles, “Now come on, we got a game to finish.” You smile, “I want to show you one of my favorite moves. Worked every time. Maybe you can try it out on the ice tomorrow.”

“For sure, pops.”

You follow your dad back to the couch. The two of you playing videogames late into the night, filling the air with boisterous cheers as you played. You couldn’t have asked for a better dad. And he couldn’t have asked for a better son.

[haggishlyhagging]

The New Testament scarcely mentions Mary. She is brought into the story mainly to emphasize Jesus's divine conception and birth. Her presence is noted once or twice, but little is made of it. In the centuries that followed, however, Mary was exalted to ever-higher positions of glory. She is the subject of many of our most famous and beautiful works of art. In light of what we have learned about the Goddesses of the ancient Near East, it is interesting that Mary is shown not only as the Madonna with her child, but standing on the crescent moon or with stars circling her head. She takes on many of the ancient Goddess symbols and is often painted as a larger-than-life figure. She is also shown being crowned Queen of Heaven, absorbing the title of the Goddess. It may be that the need of the people for a female deity was so great that the Christian Church might not have survived without the elevation of Mary to this exalted position. We need to look carefully, however, at just what aspects of the Goddess Mary was allowed to retain and what the results were in the lives of women.

Mary was taken up to heaven and seated with god the father and his divine son Jesus. She became the main intercessor between human beings and the divine. She was called Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, but she was not made a full-fledged member of the Godhead. The Church used her to satisfy the need for a female presence in Christianity but also to keep women in a subordinate position. Her purity as a virgin was exalted and women were taught to strive for that purity and to obey the divine (male) will. At the same time she is, of course, a mother, and women were taught to bear as many children as possible. But Mary did it while remaining a virgin; other women, in order to be mothers, must be tainted by sexuality. If they remain pure they cannot be like Mary the Mother; if they become mothers they cannot be like Mary the Virgin. No matter what they do they are guilty and inferior.

Mary's stance is: "Let it be to me according to your word." She is passive, obedient, and pure. She sits on a throne but has little power, certainly none of the power or independence of the earlier Goddesses or their free sexuality. Nevertheless, the doctrine of her virginity gave women a way out of the role of submissive wife and bearer of children. When the cult of Mary was at its height, thousands of women escaped into convents, communities of women. There they developed skills and talents in the arts and in the administration of large estates. Many abbesses wielded significant power and controlled sizable amounts of wealth.

It is interesting that, just as the veneration of Mary reached its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Protestant Reformation reasserted the dominance of the male divinities. One of Luther's major reforms was the closing of nunneries, and Mary is notably absent from all formulations of Protestant theology and ritual. Whereas Catholic women have suffered from their attempts to imitate an impossible model, Protestant women have had no exalted female model of any kind. Mary's presence has been used by the Catholic Church to reinforce the subordination of women, and her absence has been used by Protestantism to reinforce their insignificance.

-Shirley Ann Ranck, Cakes for the Queen of Heaven

[doesnotloveyou]

still on about this; the unspoken detail of ben letting willard wear his clothes because despite his own troubled upbringing he knows how to be a good parent, and the symbolism of this little guy being forced to grow faster because The Adults Are Not Alright, but also willard frequently turning to ben with questions about life and masculinity while growing into his clothes, and ben stepping into that role as soon as he sees it's needed because he also needs it. the son teaches the father as much as the father teaches the son

anyway I'll be crying into my pillow if anyone needs me

the costume dept of Paradise (1991) really felt the need to shame all millennials for not being as cute as Elijah Wood in oversized clothes

This movie is actually good so far, thank god

[zombie-eats-world]

So I’ve been thinking about the widespread belief that Luffy wouldn’t give a single fuck about a reveal of his mother. (And I’m a crocodad fanatic so I’ll be treating that like it’s canon but this all should apply to any reveal, Crocodile or not)

This isn’t me trying to hard argue against Luffy not caring about his mother, it’s a huge possibility but I just feel like people say it with a lot of unearned confidence. The belief seems to come from how Luffy reacted to the reveal of Dragon being his dad. And Luffy not caring about a father makes a lot of sense when you consider his experiences. I mean just look at the male role models in his life!

Garp comes and goes as he pleases, just showing up to knock him in the head, share a meal, and then disappears. Shanks was much the same until he left for literally the last time Luffy would ever see him to date. His male figures leave him to follow their own passions, even Ace did the second he came of age. And Luffy isn’t upset by this, he accepts this as a normal part of life. Men go off and find their adventure, that’s just what men do.

(Btw Im not trying to make this a claim that Luffy doesn’t think girls shouldn’t go off on their adventures, just that this is Luffy’s experience with his male role models and how he’d justify it)

So this is why I think it makes sense that Luffy was so uncaring about his father being revealed to him. Dragon did what Luffy would expect a father figure to do, he showed up for a minute to help, and then left unceremoniously. Luffy doesn’t need to give anymore thought to it or to Dragon.

But, this is where I begin to question the assumptions that Luffy also wouldn’t care about his mother.

Luffy has a very different relationship with the female role models in his life.

Makino was a constant in his young life, providing a safe space for him to hang around. Makino from the little we see of her was incredibly caring and maternal to a young Luffy. Even after Luffy got moved to the mountains, she’d make the effort to visit and bring him new clothes. Her kindness and motherly care extended to Luffy’s new brothers too!

Then there is Dadan who, while not proactively or overtly caring, shows how much she cares for her boys by actively protecting them when a real threat appears and always making sure to check in on them. Her contribution to raising Luffy can’t be understated.

And probably the biggest influence on Luffy, Ace himself. The man who loves and deified his mother. I have zero doubts that Ace talked about his mother to Luffy at least once. I don’t think I’m crazy for believing this could have had an influence on Luffy.

This has been my long winded way of saying I think Luffy might care about a reveal of his mother. I think he’d be curious about why his mother didn’t stick around, where they’d been, and what adventure had kept them away.

Anyway, I’d love to hear any thoughts anyone else has on this subject.

[rosetowers]

I think Dev was supposed to be an easy first job for Peri.

Think about the last rich kid with a godparent we saw: Remy.

Juandissimo's job was essentially to provide companionship to Remy, as is parents were basically unaware of his existence, most of his material needs being met already.

Dev was seemingly in a similar position: he wasn't going to have to make a lot of actual wishes since he could get most of what he wanted with money easily. This was supposed to take some of the pressure off Peri. Peri was even in the unique position of having grown up on the job, with a neglected boy.

What Jorgen hadn't taken into account was that what little attention Dev had received had been in the form of morally screwed up business practices, and said attention was only given when Dev obeyed his father. As such, Dec is has learnt to make use of "assets" as much as possible. For example, asking Peri to make him a cupcake of all things, and refuse to specify what kind he wanted.

Dev also tends to latch onto anyone who gives him positive attention, and is just as willing to burn bridges when they disappoint him. Unfortunately, Peri showed up just as Dev's new friendship with Hazel hit its first problem, and he wasn't in the right state of mind to accept the comfort Peri was supposed to offer.

Dev sees Peri as something who should give him whatever he wants, rather than a companion and a positive male role model.

Peri is left exhausted and scrambling to keep up and is unable to connect with Dev as easily as he was expecting to, leaving him frustrated. While he had grown up with a human child, said child was older than him and thus had to be the mature one in the relationship. Peri is struggling to do this, which makes it difficult to connect with Dev or handle the situation in a mature manner, as he is now the older person in the situation.

[abtrusion]

Theories of the holy shit what did I just see back there on the street?

Because transmisogyny makes them so impossible to ignore, for at least the last 70 years transfeminized people have served as key material of Anglo-American gender/queer/trans theories, as laundered through anthropology, sexology, and uncited personal witnessing. The anaemic denial of this fact through snappy and surface-level distinctions between ‘queer’ and ‘trans’ and between different transfeminized groups has made it functionally impossible for these theories to seriously account for transf* life, and this failure is highly productive, because it allows for the continued use of both ‘premodern’ ‘third gender’ and ‘postmodern’ transgenderism as lobotomized material for the theories of other people. The last century of gender theoretic development has revolved around slowly refining methods of extracting transfeminized peoples’ insight, forgetting and re-introducing them to their field over and over again to frame them as perpetual novelties, leading to a pernicious form of feminist amnesia that repeats over and over again.

1 . MARGARET MEAD (1949)

The work begins with Margaret Mead, the ‘most famous anthropologist of our century’ (Behar and Gordon 1996), who made her career studying indigenous groups in Samoa and New Guinea, then joined the larger anthropological effort to inform the US Government’s genocidal re-education campaigns against Indigenous American tribes. She later enjoyed a prodigious career as a public intellectual and shifted to more explicitly feminist writing which extensively influenced the movements of the 60s and 70s. Mead argued that essentially all sex-gender roles were culturally determined, and used the specter of the transfeminized homosexual-transvestite both to make that argument and to advocate for gender abolition.

This can be seen most clearly in Mead’s 1949 book Male and Female: a Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. Mead chronologically traces individual gender development through an ethnographic-sexological narrative, beginning with ‘first learnings’ that a child receives primarily through observation. Then the family comes in, and the transvestite comes with it, existing as the primary motive (alongside Freudian sexual attachment) which motivates gendered socialization:

Too great softness, too great passivity, in the male and he will not become a man. The American Plains Indians, valuing courage in battle above all other qualities, watched their little boys with desperate intensity, and drove a fair number of them to give up the struggle and assume women’s dress. (Mead 1949)

Mead argues that “fear that boys will be feminine in behavior may drive many boys into taking refuge in explicit femininity,” but makes a distinction between this identification and what she calls ‘full transvestitism,’ the culturally-specific recognition of that status. This differential leads her to conclude that the physical traits seen as markers of ‘gender inversion’ are culturally specific, and that what is understood as physical sex (then existing on a ‘spectrum’ model) is therefore partially socially determined.

For Mead, gender must be abolished precisely because of the fact that she could even make this argument. As she says,

Only a denial of life itself makes it possible to deny the interdependence of the sexes. Once that interdependence is recognized and traced in minute detail to the infant’s first experience of the contrast between the extra roughness of a shaven cheek and a deeper voice and his mother’s softer skin and higher voice, any programme which claims that the wholeness of one sex can be advanced without considering the other is automatically disallowed.

The desperate need to reproduce these distinctions, to make sex clear and visible and obvious, leads Mead to ultimately argue for a gender abolition that rests on complementary sex-roles. The main benefit of this approach for Mead is the complete eradication of sex-gender ‘confusion’ and its incarnation in transfeminized people, so associated precisely because of their intense usefulness as a tool for undermining sex-gender distinctions. So Mead sees the construction of physical and social gender by using transfeminized people as a lens, but because of her own disgust she can only fix gender by unseeing it again, by displacing gender to ‘real’ physical sex and protecting herself by breaking the tool. This, unsurprisingly, leaves her exactly where she started.

2. BETTY FRIEDAN (1963)

The feminist theorists that came after Mead directly confronted this reversion to ‘complementary sex’ logics, most notably in Betty Friedan’s foundational work The Feminine Mystique. Friedan discusses the ‘paradox’ of Mead’s influence, the strange combination of her exposure of ‘the infinite variety of sexual patterns and the enormous plasticity of human nature’ and her ‘glorification of women in the female role – as defined by their sexual biological function.’ In the middle, Friedan cites a page-long quote describing a point of ambivalent warning in Mead’s writing:

The difference between the two sexes is one of the important conditions upon which we have built the many varieties of human culture that give human beings dignity and stature… Sometimes one quality has been assigned to one sex, sometimes to the other. Now it is boys who are thought of as infinitely vulnerable and in need of special cherishing care, now it is girls… Some people think of women as too weak to work out of doors, others regard women as the appropriate bearers of heavy burdens “because their heads are stronger than men’s” … Some religions, including our European traditional religions, have assigned women an inferior role in the religious hierarchy, others have built their whole symbolic relationship with the supernatural world upon male imitations of the biological functions of women. (emph added by me)

...Are we dealing with a must that we dare not flout because it is rooted so deep in our biological mammalian nature that to flout it means individual and social disease? Or with a must that, although not so deeply rooted, still is so very socially convenient and so well tried that it would be uneconomical to flout it…

...We must also ask: What are the potentialities of sex differences? … If little boys have to meet and assimilate the early shock of knowing that they can never create a baby with the sureness and incontrovertibility that is a woman’s birthright, how does this make them more creatively ambitious, as well as more dependent upon achievement?

Friedan attributes this ultimate focus on sexual difference to Mead’s Freudianism: she argues that Mead’s need to approach culture and personality through sexual difference, combined with her anthropological understanding that ‘there are no true-for-every-culture sexual differences except those involved in the act of procreation’ (Friedan and Quindlen 1963), combines to cause her to inflate the cultural importance of the reproductive role of women. Friedan intensely rebukes this reification of reproduction as another component of the ‘feminine mystique’ (very close to the modern ‘divine feminine’), advocating for programs which enable women to reject the mystique and housewife status and to seek education and employment, to combat the problem ‘which had no name’ but takes shape through spikes in female ‘sex-hunger’ and ‘overt manifestations’ of passive male homosexuality, both understood as ‘children acting out the sexual phantasies of their housewife-mothers.’ In a paradoxical return to Freudianism, Friedan characterizes husbands unwilling to let their wives work as being seduced ‘by the infantile phantasy of having an ever-present mother’ (the Freudian homosexuality-signifier), associating antifeminism with passive homosexuality with femininity which the aspiring feminist has escaped, learning to compete “not as a woman, but as a human being.”

3. THE MULTIPLICATION OF TRANSFEMINIZED SUBJECTS

As we can see, transfeminized subjects are frequently used as signs of system collapse, hypervisible enough to be easy examples and potent enough to rhetorically corrode existing sex-gender systems in preparation for the author’s own vision. Once a piece is published, these examples are usually then forgotten, assumed as scaffolding for the real theory; but the rhetorical strawmen of these transfeminized subjects still remain, trapped implicitly in the text, and they bleed into one another with every new addition to the corpus, every call to action invoking a new transfeminized archetype.

So far we have seen Mead’s anthropological-orientalist framing of ‘transvestitism’ among the anthropological Other and Friedan’s psychological framing of ‘passive homosexuality’ in the United States. The increasing visibility of adult ‘transsexuality,’ somewhat disjoint from the developmental sexology Gill-Peterson (2017) discusses because of its visibility in high-profile cases like Christine Jorgensen, was likewise framed for theory. Harold Garfinkel’s (1967) book Studies in Ethnomethodology, which described methods for observing ‘the objective reality of social facts as an ongoing accomplishment,’ used an intersex woman named Agnes as an avenue to expose how everyday social facts are constructed. Agnes was an ideal exemplar because her insistence on getting HRT and being seen as a woman was considered psychologically normal: “Such insistence was not accompanied by clinically interesting ego defects. These persons contrast in many interesting ways with transvestites, trans-sexualists, and homosexuals.” Of course, Garfinkel was later notified that Agnes did not have an intersex condition, and he then noted that ‘this news turned the article into a feature of the same circumstances it reported, i.e. into a situated report.’

Anyways, now it’s time for yet another transfeminized subject: the ‘transsexually constructed lesbian feminist.’

4. JANICE RAYMOND (1979)

As with her predecessors, Raymond sees analytical power in her particular transfeminized group, arguing that “transsexualism goes to the question of what gender is, how to challenge it, and what reinforces gender stereotypes in a role-defined society.” But she also has some concerns for ‘transsexual women,’ initially assumed heterosexual, none of which are particularly novel or interesting. Now that she’s writing in an environment dominated by Friedan’s mandate towards shedding femininity, feminist amnesia makes it novel to regurgitate Margaret Mead’s responses: that “male transsexualism may well be a graphic expression of the destruction that sex-role molding has wrought on men,” and that “men recognize the power that women have by virtue of female biology and the fact that this power, symbolized in giving birth, is not only procreative but multidimensionally creative” (Raymond 1979).

Her analysis of (new archetype) ‘transsexually-constructed lesbian feminism’ is much more interesting. While Raymond can understand heterosexual transsexual women as ‘reinforcing gender stereotyping’ by pulling primarily from medical archives already hegemonized by gatekeeping and passing requirements, the transsexual women in the lesbian-feminist movement achieved a certain degree of personal contact and visibility that undermined ‘hegemonizing’ logics. So Raymond uses three main arguments: an essentialist appeal to fundamental ‘maleness,’ a red-scare-esque appeal to transsexual lesbian feminists as ‘court eunuchs’ bent on monitoring and controlling feminist spaces, and finally, an argument that transsexual lesbian feminists are fundamentally epistemically corrosive to lesbian feminist spaces:

Whereas the lesbian-feminist crosses the boundary of her patriarchally imposed sex role, the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist is a boundary violator. This violation is also profoundly mythic, for as Norman O. Brown writes of Dionysus, he as the ‘‘mad god who breaks down boundaries.’’

Contrary to contemporary transmisogynistic discourse which frames trans lesbians as personal threats to women in lesbian-feminist spaces, this violation takes its form not in any particular act but in the act of passing, the deconstructive question this existence seemingly automatically places on lesbian-feminist spaces:

One of the most constraining questions that transsexuals, and, in particular, transsexually constructed lesbian-feminists, pose is the question of self-definition—who is a woman, who is a lesbian-feminist? But, of course, they pose the question on their terms, and we are faced with answering it.

Raymond notes with some frustration that this transsexual question has been discussed ‘out of proportion to their actual numbers,’ using up valuable feminist energy, and frames this as a symptom and crime of transsexual lesbianism itself. The trans question is transsexual women; like the theorists before her, she sees transfeminized people as a gaping hole in the gendered world, but now they’re inside her house, feeding “off woman’s true energy source, i.e., her woman-identified self,” and inherently stand to break “the boundaries of what constitutes femaleness,” to dissolve lesbian-feminism itself.

I want to stress two main points in all of this. First, Raymond understands studying transsexualism as a crucial tool for answering ‘the question of what gender is’ and ‘how to challenge it.’ Second, Raymond’s anxiety about transsexual lesbian-feminists moves away from specific actions and towards the ‘penetration’ inherent in their existence in these spaces at all, the understanding that transsexual women are inherently corrosive to lesbian-feminist movements. These two points are clearly linked. Raymond understands transsexuality as a form of epistemic gender acid, something that can be useful at arm’s length but is deadly up close. Of course, the transfeminized people she discusses were not necessarily invested in asking the Trans Question themselves; trans women attended lesbian-feminist events like Michfest before and after their trans exclusion policies, and regardless of ‘passing’ many people enjoyed a form of don’t ask don’t tell (Tagonist 1997). But within these spaces, the Trans* Question long predated the actual existence of transfeminized people – so once they arrived, the Question and person were fundamentally linked. Trans theorists have negotiated this association extensively, but that’s not the topic of this essay, so I’ll leave you with some sources (Stryker 1994; Stone 1992) and move to Butler.

5. JUDITH BUTLER (1990)

This work has been done already by Vivian Namaste (2020), who argues that “contemporary discussions of Anglo-American feminist theory, exemplified in Butler’s work, begin with the Transgender Question as a way to narrow our focus to the constitution, reproduction, and resignification of gender.” This singular focus on the ‘Transgender Question’ has made it functionally impossible for Anglo-American feminist theory to consider the outsized role of work, particularly sex work, in motivating the discrimination and violence against transfeminized people of color: “framing violence against transsexual prostitutes as ‘gender violence’ is a radical recuperation of these events and their causal nature-a violence at the level of epistemology itself.”

Namaste attributes this focus on featureless ‘gender violence’ to a crippling lack of empiricism, a lack of researcher-subject equity, and an exclusion of subject knowledges. She provides an effective power-based solution to this epistemic violence – that feminist theorists should talk with the subjects of their theory and give them some measure of power in the transaction – a sort of endpoint analysis which means she doesn’t need to consider too much of the internals of the system she’s challenging. That’s a good idea for her work, but with the benefit of history we can move differently. The next section synthesizes Butler, Friedan, Mead, and Raymond together to provide a functionalist analysis of the feminist theoretic use of transfeminized people. What are the benefits of using transfeminized people as an epistemic tool in feminist theory? What are the dangers of using this epistemic tool, and how does feminist theory manage those dangers?

6. PATTERNS OF EXTRACTION AND DEFENSE

Looking past Butler and further into the past reveals that transfeminized people have been crucial not just to the feminist theory of the past 20 years, but have served as exemplars as far back as the 1940s. The ‘Trans* Question,’ which frames transfeminized people as the most visible signifier and most horrifying symptom of social gender, has been cyclically used in a form of feminist cultural amnesia:

A transfeminized group serves as a hypervisible example to 'deconstruct' social gender

Transfeminized deconstruction bloats beyond itself, undermining 'sex traits' or 'femaleness' or some other foundational category of feminist analysis.

Reconstruction of gender as 'biological sex,' alliance between feminist theorists and men of all stripes by arguing that post-gender eradication of transfeminized people will (a) allow men to be feminine without becoming women or (b) destroy femininity entirely.

New-generation feminist theorists realize their predecessors have reinvented social gender. Return to (1).

As Margaret Mead’s work shows, the use of transfeminized groups to deconstruct both physical and social gender has been observed regardless of transmedicalization. This helical pattern has a few general properties:

Each cycle introduces a distinct transfeminized group, positioning it against prior groups as uniquely suitable for analysis, but simultaneously blurs the new group into the existing melange.

This "Trans* Queston" is almost entirely devoid of group-specific context and rooted in transmisogyny, which positions them as horrifying and visible symptoms of social gender.

Each "Trans* Question" initially exposes social gender, but constantly threatens to dissolve other categories or even the theorist's own writing as socially constructed, against the theorist's will.

Each new cycle demonstrates near-complete historical amnesia as to the relevance of transfeminized people in the prior theoretical move.

So the “Trans* Question” allows for the basic feminist move, asserting that gender is socially constructed, but if improperly controlled it stands to dissolve virtually any definition feminist theorists try to build. To be clear, I do not believe in the total deconstruction of categories – you need definitions, even ones you acknowledge as imprecise, to say anything at all. But transfeminized people probably have pretty solid ideas about gender, having to, you know, live with it. The alienated ‘Trans Question*’ has none of this insight, appearing instead as a gaping epistemic hole in the world, and so feminist theorists are forced to come up with complicated quarantining measures to keep the Question from spilling over.

What jeopardizes feminist theory’s use of the Question? One answer (among many) comes by looking at Mead, who concluded that physical characteristics seen as ‘sex traits’ were socially constructed by looking at the culture-specific construction of what she called ‘full transvestitism.’ In this case, the Question undermined sex when the social position of transfeminized subjects were seen as simultaneously normative and anti-normative, existing in some normative ‘social’ role while being understood as distinct from non-transfeminized subjects via another ‘natural’ axis. The fact that these splits were made differently across different transfeminized groups undermined the distinction between social and ‘natural/biological’ aspects of gender, and because the alienated Question provides no means of making anything solid out of any of this, Mead retreated to the womb.

So understanding that the Question allows for the deconstruction of gender, and that it overgrows when multiple (studied as) semi-normative transfeminized groups are cross-compared with one another, we can consider aspects of contemporary feministqueertrans theory that enforce the epistemic isolation and normativization/antinormativization of transfeminized groups. The knots this ties in feminist theories seem relevant both to the ‘why does trans theory exist’ question posed by Chu & Drager (2019) and to the challenges and limitations of applying queer/trans theory to groups outside the anglosphere (Chiang 2021, Savci 2021). I’ll discuss that more in another essay.

SOURCES

Behar, Ruth, and Deborah A. Gordon. 1996. Women Writing Culture. First Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chiang, Howard. 2021. Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific. Columbia University Press.

Chu, Andrea Long, and Emmett Harsin Drager. 2019. “After Trans Studies.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 6 (1): 103–16. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-7253524.

Friedan, Betty, and Anna Quindlen. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. Reprint edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. 1st edition. Cambridge Oxford Malden,MA: Polity.

Gill-Peterson, Jules. 2017. “Implanting Plasticity into Sex and Trans/Gender.” Angelaki 22 (2): 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2017.1322818.

Mead, Margaret. 1949. Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World. First Edition. William Morrow.

Namaste, Viviane. 2020. “Undoing Theory: The ‘Transgender Question’ and the Epistemic Violence of Anglo-American Feminist Theory.” In Feminist Theory Reader, edited by Carole McCann, Seung-kyung Kim, and Emek Ergun, 5th edition. New York, NY London: Routledge.

Raymond, Janice G. 1979. The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. New York: Teachers College Press.

Savci, Evren. 2021. Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics Under Neoliberal Islam. Durham (N.C.): Duke University Press Books.

Stone, Sandy. 1992. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 10 (2 (29)): 150–76. https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346-10-2_29-150.

Stryker, Susan. 1994. “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1 (3): 237–54. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1-3-237.

Tagonist, Anne. 1997. “Sister Subverter Diary August ’97.” Unapologetic: The Journal of Irresponsible Gender.

[suchathrilltobeagirl]

I have lost count the times I have been asked when, or how I first recognised my need to be a girl. The following is a relevant excerpt from my first book, 'Night and Day' ...

___________________________________

I was five years old when my dad left my mum for another woman.

She was left to look after my sister and me. It was not easy for her, and my asthma did not help; whenever I was having an asthma attack, it meant she could not work and could not earn money. With her being on her own, things were really tight in those days. I was only little, but what I was seeing and hearing told me that my mummy did not like me much when I was ill. She seemed so stressed; she was impatient—angry even—and I felt she did not want to be with me.

             She did not like men that much either, because of my dad, and I remember watching her brush my sister’s hair night after night, telling her that men were not to be trusted and that men were no good. She would always dress her up in pretty clothes whenever we went out, but I never got that sort of attention. I started to feel that I was no good.

             Because of my asthma, I could not play games, so I did not have many friends, although I did have a few—mostly children of other mums that my mum knew from work or from school. These women were always around my mum, supporting her as best they could, and they would bring their children with them. However, if I was ill, I could not play with their boys, but my sister would; I was always missing out.

             I had only a five-year-old frame of reference and very little experience of life, but I was not happy during this time; I was quite sad, in fact. I felt my mum did not love me but did love my sister. My mum did not like men, and I was a “man”. Even my friends were spending more time with my sister than with me. I hated being me. And it was around this time that I started to think that if I were a girl, my mum would love me. She would care for me and not be stressed about it, and she would make me look nice. I would have friends, and I would not be ill. Although it sounds ridiculous now, that was my reality—my “truth” at that time

            My dad came back after a few months. Many years later, he told me he felt very guilty, and he spent the rest of his life, to his dying day, trying to pay back my mum for his infidelity. He focused on her so much that we never bonded as father and son. I grew up with no male role model, not knowing how to become a man and wishing I could be a girl. To cap it all, their reunion resulted in a new baby sister.

             A year or so later, we were at a wedding. I was six years old, and I will never forget what happened that day. When the bride came to our table, everyone was complimenting her on how she looked. My big sister said how nice her dress was. The bride replied, “Really? You should try wearing it!” This had a profound effect on me. That was it! I could be a girl—I could be loved—if I were to dress as a girl.

             I do not know how long it was after the wedding, but I remember it was a Sunday. I was in bed, recovering from an asthma attack. My big sister was out playing, my new baby sister was asleep, and Mum and Dad were in the lounge, dozing on the sofa after a heavy Sunday lunch.

I shared a room with my big sister. Her wardrobe seemed to be calling to me. I crept out of bed, opened her wardrobe, grabbed some of her things, and then got back into bed. Under the covers, I took off my pyjama bottoms and my pants. I pulled her frilly pants on, and then her pleated white tennis skirt and white ankle socks. It felt so good, and while I knew I had not turned into a girl—a recurrent dream of mine—I was now dressed like a girl. I was wearing what my sister wore; I was sharing and experiencing what it was like for her when she was wearing these clothes. I loved the feel of her things. When I dared to get out of bed only for a few minutes and stood in front of the mirror, I loved how I looked wearing her skirt. I loved the freedom between my legs; it felt so different, so special...

             As I stood there, I suddenly became aware of how vulnerable I was. What if my mum or dad were to come into the room? What would they think? What would they do? I decided right there and then that if I ever did this again, it would need to remain my secret, although I do not know why I thought this!

             I had considered walking into the lounge dressed in my sister’s things to tell Mum and Dad that I wanted to be a girl, but I was too scared. They did not love me; they did not even like me. Dressed as a girl, I was in my secret world—my dream world. I wanted to go there again, and I was scared that if I were to tell my parents, they would somehow stop me from doing it ever again. I could not risk that, so it was my secret, and it remained my secret for the next twelve years.

___________________________________

Katie xxx

[hendersister]

dancing in the dark

summary: you run into steve while he's picking up dustin to drive to the snow ball.

pairing: steve harrington x henderson!sister reader

title 🎵: dancing in the dark by bruce springsteen

a/n: this is my first ever steve fic! i hope it doesn't suck 🫣

“Mom! Where did you leave the car keys?” 

You walk into the living room to find your mother watching TV. Her new kitten, Tews, sits comfortably on her lap. Christmas music is playing loudly in the background.

It’s a busy night in the Henderson household. Your little brother, Dustin, is getting ready to go to the Snow Ball at Hawkins Middle. He’s a little anxious but you can tell he’s excited. 

While Dustin is at the dance, you plan on going to the movies with a couple of your friends. Your mom is even letting you borrow her car under one condition - you have to pick up Dustin from the Snow Ball. Luckily, you don’t need to worry about giving Dustin a ride to the dance. He’s already got that covered… 

“In my purse,” she answers, nodding to her bag on the coffee table.

“Thanks!” you smile.

You reach for your mom’s purse and pull out her car keys.

“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”

Dustin frantically enters the living room in search of something.

“Where did you see it last?” your mom questions Dustin.

“Right here, where I put it,” he tells her.

“What’s in there that’s so important anyway? You look fabulous, baby,” your mom tries.

“Yeah listen to mom, dork! You look great,” you tease your little brother, ruffling his hair.

“Stop!” Dustin shrieks.

Dustin backs away from you and makes a b-line for the kitchen. You head towards the front door. Before walking out, you grab your coat hanging nearby.

“Don’t forget to pick Dusty up on your way home from the movies,” your mom reminds you.

You shrug, nodding your head. As if you needed the reminder. You’ve been looking after your little brother since the day he was born. After your father left, you took on a lot more responsibilities at home. You practically helped raise Dustin. You two are latch key kids. You used to babysit for Dustin everyday while your mom was working late. You and your brother became really close during that time. Sure, you and Dustin bicker occasionally, like all siblings do, but there’s a special bond between you two. 

“When have I ever forgotten to pick him?”

You put on your jacket, then call out to your brother.

“Hey Dustin! I’ll pick you up around ten.”

“Mhmm,” Dustin mumbles.

He’s so focused on looking for whatever he’s looking for, you don’t think he actually comprehend what you just said.

You roll your eyes and open the door.

“Got it!” you hear your little brother announce.

He grabs a paper bag off the kitchen counter. The last thing you see as you walk out the door is Dustin rushing off to his bedroom.

“Later mom! Have fun tonight, Dusty!” 

You close the door behind you on your way out. Just as you step outside, a red BMW pulls up in the driveway. You recognize the car and the driver immediately. It’s Steve Harrington.

You and Steve didn’t really know each other until a few weeks ago. Of course you knew of him, everybody did. He’s one of the most popular guys at Hawkins High. But Steve had no idea who you were. You never had a real conversation with Steve until the world almost came to an end….

It all started when Dustin had inadvertently adopted a creature from another dimension. Your little brother recruited you and Steve to help him handle the situation after the Demodog ate your mom’s cat, Mews. And, much to your surprise, Steve “The Hair'' Harrington actually stepped up to help. Until then, you had thought of him as douchebag King Steve. The experience made you see him in an entirely different light. Outside of school and away from all the petty teen drama, Steve Harrington is a good guy.

Steve bonded with both you and your little brother. What made you really grow to respect Steve was how he became close friends with Dustin. Your brother had been lacking a male role model since your dad left. Now Steve was starting to fill that role in Dustin’s life. You really appreciate Steve for everything he’s done for Dustin.

Steve parks his car right next to your mom’s. You’re walking towards your mom’s car when Steve gets out of his.

“Hey Steve,” you wave politely.

“Hey! Is he almost ready?” Steve asks.

You nod.

“Thanks for giving Dustin a ride. You saved me a trip…”

If Steve wasn’t driving Dustin then your mom probably would’ve made you take him.

“Yeah no problem. I think I’m basically one of his chauffeurs now anyways,” Steve nods.

“Welcome to the club, Harrington! We meet every Thursday to go over the driving schedule,” you joke.

Steve laughs, “Oh really? Well, I’ll make sure to bring the snacks for the next meeting.”

You quietly chuckle. You give Steve a small smile before you continue walking to your mom’s car. When you reach the car, you stop yourself from getting in. You turn back to Steve.

“I, uh, I think it’s really cool that you're driving Dustin to the dance,” you tell him sincerely. 

Steve nods, unsure what to say. You two lock eyes. There’s a spark there. You feel some sort of electricity between you and Steve. You’re having a quiet little moment. Well, at least you think so. You have no idea if Steve feels the same and you’re way too shy to make the first move. 

You take a deep breath and then break the silence.

“You’re a good guy, Steve Harrington.”

Before Steve has a chance to respond, you get in your mom’s car and drive off into the night. Steve watches you go, mentally kicking himself. He wishes he said something. When he was with you, he felt the spark too. But he's still getting over Nancy. Steve is just not ready for you yet. He'll get there... someday.

[coochiequeens]

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.“ - Lü Pin

To find evidence that China’s feminist movement is gaining momentum – despite strict government censorship and repression – check bookshelves, nightstands and digital libraries. There, you might find a copy of one of Chizuko Ueno’s books. The 74-year-old Japanese feminist and author of Feminism from Scratch and Patriarchy and Capitalism has sold more than a million books in China, according to Beijing Open Book, which tracks sales. Of these, 200,000 were sold in January and February alone.

Ueno, a professor of sociology at the University of Tokyo, was little known outside in China outside academia until she delivered a 2019 matriculation speech at the university in which she railed against its sexist admissions policies, sexual “abuse” by male students against their female peers, and the pressure women felt to downplay their academic achievements.

The speech went viral in Japan, then China.

“Feminist thought does not insist that women should behave like men or the weak should become the powerful,” she said. “Rather, feminism asks that the weak be treated with dignity as they are.”

In the past two years, 11 of her books have been translated into simplified Chinese and four more will be published this year. In December, two of her books were among the top 20 foreign nonfiction bestsellers in China. While activism and protests have been stifled by the government, the rapid rise in Ueno’s popularity shows that women are still looking for ways to learn more about feminist thought, albeit at a private, individual level.

Talk to young Chinese academics, writers and podcasters about what women are reading and Ueno’s name often comes up. “We like-like her,” says Shiye Fu, the host of popular feminist podcast Stochastic Volatility.

“In China we need some sort of feminist role model to lead us and enable us to see how far women can go,” she says. “She taught us that as a woman, you have to fight every day, and to fight is to survive.”

When asked by the Guardian about her popularity in China, Ueno says her message resonates with this generation of Chinese women because, while they have grown up with adequate resources and been taught to believe they will have more opportunities, “patriarchy and sexism put the burden to be feminine on them as a wife and mother”.

Ueno, who found her voice during the student power movements of the 1960s, has long argued that marriage restricts women’s autonomy, something she learned watching her own parents. She described her father as “a complete sexist”. It’s stance that resonates with women in China, who are rebelling against the expectation that they take a husband.

Ueno’s most popular book, with 65,000 reviews on Douban, is simply titled Misogyny. One review reads: “It still takes a little courage to type this. I have always been shy about discussing gender issues in a Chinese environment, because if I am not careful, I will easily attract the label of … ‘feminist cancer’.”

“Now it’s a hard time,” says Lü Pin, a prominent Chinese feminist who now lives in the US. In 2015 she happened to be in New York when Chinese authorities arrested five of her peers – who were detained for 37 days and became known as the “Feminist Five” – and came to Lü’s apartment in Beijing. She narrowly avoided arrest. “Our movement is increasingly being regarded as illegal, even criminal, in China.”

China’s feminist movement has grown enormously in the past few years, especially among young women online, says Lü, where it was stoked by the #MeToo movements around the world and given oxygen on social media. “But that’s just part of the story,” she says. Feminism is also facing much stricter censorship – the word “feminism” is among those censored online, as is China’s #MeToo hashtag, #WoYeShi.

“When we already have so many people joining our community, the government regards that as a threat to its rule,” Lü says. “So the question is: what is the future of the movement?”

Because large-scale organising is “almost impossible” in China, women are turning to “all kinds of alternative ways to maintain feminism in their daily lives and even develop and transfer feminism to others,” she says. These may take the form of book clubs or exercise meet-ups. Some of her friends in China organise hikes. “They say that we are feminists, we are hiking together, so when we are hiking we talk about feminism.

“Nobody can change the micro level.”

‘The first step’

In 2001, when Lü was a journalist starting out on her journey into feminism, she founded a book club with a group of friends. She was struggling to find books on the subject, so she and her friends pooled their resources. “We were feminists, journalists, scholars, so we decided let’s organise a group and read, talk, discuss monthly,” she says. They met in people’s homes, or the park, or their offices. It lasted eight years and the members are still among her best friends.

Before the book club, “I felt lonely when I was pursuing feminism. So I need friends, I need a community. And that was the first community I had.” “I got friendship, I deepened my understanding of feminism,” Lü says. “It’s interesting, perhaps the first step of feminist movements is always literature in many countries, especially in China.”

Lü first read Ueno’s academic work as a young scholar, when few people in China knew her name. Ueno’s books are for people who are starting out on their pursuit of feminism, Lü says, and the author is good at explaining feminist issues in ways that are easy to understand.

Like many Ting Guo discovered Ueno after the Tokyo University speech. Guo, an assistant professor in the department of cultural and religious studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, still uses it in lectures.

Ueno’s popularity is part of a larger phenomenon, Guo says. “We cannot really directly describe what we want to say, using the word that we want to use, because of the censorship, because of the larger atmosphere. So people need to try to borrow words, mirror that experience in other social situations, in other political situations, in other contexts, in order to precisely describe their own experience, their own feelings and their own thoughts.”

There are so many people who are new to the feminist movement, says Lü, “and they are all looking for resources, but due to censorship, it’s so hard for Chinese scholars, for Chinese feminists, to publish their work.”

Ueno “is a foreigner, that is one of her advantages, and she also comes from [an] east Asian context”, which means that the patriarchal system she describes is similar to China’s. Lü says the reason books by Chinese feminists aren’t on bestseller lists is because of censorship.

Na Zhong, a novelist who translated Sally Rooney’s novels into simplified Chinese, feels that Chinese feminism is, at least when it comes to literature, gaining momentum. The biggest sign of this, both despite and because of censorship, is “the sheer number of women writers that are being translated into Chinese” – among whom Ueno is the “biggest star”.

“Young women are discovering their voices, and I’m really happy for my generation,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”

By Helen R Sullivan

This is the third story in a three-part series on feminism and literature in China.

[crymeariveronceagain]

epic the musical theory: telemachus acts so immaturely because trauma. people have been complaining about how the character is portrayed for a minute or two on the internet and these are my thoughts.

his mom needs something constant in her life. of course that's her one reminder of when her life was better, her kid. Telemachus acts childish because his mother has been protecting him for his entire life, and needs the way he reminds her of a young and innocent Odysseus.

Has. Has this man ever left the palace. Do we know. Like in The Odyssey, Telemachus leaves and goes places. But Telemachus in the Odyssey is also much more mature. Part of me wonders if perhaps Telemachus is way more sheltered in Epic. That does a ton to ruin a person's maturity level.

no dad! really bad adult male role models! why would you want to grow up when a grown man looks like "When's your tramp of a mother gonna choose a new husband? Why don't you open your room so we can have fun with her?"

Does. Does this man have friends. His own age?

SUITORS! IN HIS HOUSE! KICKING THE CRAP OUT OF HIM! CONSTANTLY! The younger he is, the smaller he acts, the less they want him dead! Bro can't fight! Bro was never taught! He's young and dumb and these bigger, stronger, more dangerous men are threatening to assault his mom and are actively beating him up! There's a certain level where Telemachus needs to make himself younger and smaller so as to appear less threatening, lest the suitors turn on him and hurt him and his mom because now he's the threat, not the returning king.

Anyways. Those are my thoughts.

[bulbagarden]

Opinion: Scarlet and Violet are Pokémon's Queerest Games Yet (Bulbanews)

Hi it's Lisia here!! The following is an opinion piece from one of our staff members, Torchic W. Pip!! Blanc and I both loved this and like... we had to share it here LOL.

Pokémon was my queer awakening. I had silly little crushes on male and female characters alike, and I resonated with many of the designs of the series’s more gender nonconforming designs. Pokémon has always had a wink and a nod to queerness: Jessie and James’s genderbending antics, Beauty Nova in X and Y, Blanche from Pokémon GO… the list goes on. But with Scarlet and Violet, queerness shines bright as celestial stars.

“But wait!” you might say. “Scarlet and Violet has no canonical gay or trans characters! How can this thesis make sense?” Well, queer representation need not be explicit to be impactful. Sometimes, the stories queer people resonate with most are told through metaphor, from the misfits in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to X-Men to Luca and Gwen Stacy. The roots of this trace back to a history of censorship. LGBTQ+ stories have been historically censored, such as with the Hays Code. Queer people have long been unable to see stories with explicitly queer characters, so they instead turned to metaphors and symbolism. Gender nonconformity is also nothing new to the scene of video games. Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Guilty Gear are just some of the games that play with our expectations of gender. It’s also nothing new to Pokémon. East Asian media tends to depict transness and gender nonconformity differently from the West, but for more on that, I'll direct you to this video.

Even before the release of Scarlet and Violet, gender nonconformity shined through. Take a character like Grusha, for example, who many mistook for a girl when he was first introduced. It goes a little deeper than that, though. “Grusha” is Russian for “pear”, but it’s also a diminutive for the name “Agrafena”... a female Russian name. Whether or not it was intentional, it does add an extra layer of nonconformity to Grusha. Another character with some queercoded elements is Iono: Her color palette evokes the colours of the trans flag, and her Magnemite headpieces evoke an explicitly genderless Pokémon. Baggy clothes are common among many transgender people. Her friend Bellibolt is a frog, and many frogs in real life can change their sex. In Japanese, she speaks with a Bokukko speech pattern (a girl using the masculine “boku”), which is often used for plucky characters, but also nonconforming characters. All of Iono’s names across translations evoke themes of questions. On top of all that… well, the Vtubing scene is, from personal experience, very queer. All of my friends who watch VTubers are queer in some way. More seriously, creating a persona where you can let your true self shine in a way that regular society won't allow you to... that's pretty queer.

With the release of the games, we’ve seen a wide array of characters—Rika, Saguaro, Penny, and all of the leaders of Team Star, among others—showcase a wide range of gender expressions, either in their appearances, their personalities, or their hobbies. And all of these characters are seen as heroes, as role models.

As with games before, there are two characters with queer subtext in their relationship. Hassel and Brassius have been seen by many as being in a gay relationship, bonding over a love of art, supporting each other in dark times, and giving each other pet names. Even if it's not outright stated that they're in a romantic relationship, their care for each other is a beautiful thing. Many gay coded relationships are often of younger men or women, and while these relationships are important, it's also important for older gay couples to receive some of the spotlight. After all, queer people have always existed, and it's important to remember our past and honor those who came before us, who helped paved the path to acceptance.

For the first time in a mainline game, the player character can choose any clothes, hair style, and so on regardless of gender. While the player can still only choose between being referred to by masculine or feminine terms, this is a step in the right direction, and it opens the door for many opportunities never seen before. Boys can be feminine, girls can be masculine, and both can be anywhere in between. The world of gender expression is as big as the open world of Paldea.

But back to Team Star. The whole Team Star path is one big, queer metaphor. Think about it: kids are bullied for how they dress or act, these misfits band together and retaliate against their bullies, finding a sort of family in each other, villains who turn out to be just the opposite… It’s a story that, in some way or form, can resonate with many kids who have, sadly, dealt with homophobia or transphobia in school. The path is a story about righting what’s wrong, about making the world a more accepting place.

Scarlet and Violet is a game about shining bright in the sky with other stars, about being your true self. Its themes are deeply resonant with the queer experience. At the end of the Team Star path, you battle Penny, whose ace Pokémon is trans flag-coloured Sylveon, and as she Terastilizes her partner, she says, “Shine bright like the starry sky and become who you really want to be!” So shine bright, trainers, and be your true self.

Oh, and of course, Quaquaval is the queer icon of all time.

[Torchic W. Pip is a Bulbanews writer with a focus on music, merchandise, and spin-off games. They're also a fanfiction author and moderator of the Writer's Workshop subforum. Outside of writing, Torchic is studying music theory and linguistics, and his favorite games are X/Y and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire.]

[prettysweetprettysweet]

So I was thinking further about the issue at the heart of this post regarding how a lot of the audience is put off or puzzled by Achi's way of conducting himself in relation to Karan, how he seems too reserved, low-energy, or minimally invested in their relationship. I've been thinking on another circumstance that I think influences it beyond the issues I had talked about in my post.

At the beginning of our story, Achi seems to be completely adjusted to a life without romantic love or sexual relationships. When reminded of cultural expectations about all the necessary milestones for men his age, he does feel insecure and unhappy about falling short, but beyond that he probably doesn't spend an awful lot of time in a headspace where he would contemplate romance and sex at a deeper more emotion-based level. I think support for this idea is that he only made an attempt at instigating a romantic relationship (bringing coffee to a colleague) when he was feeling insecure about turning 30. When he overheard her saying essentially that he was undateable, his sadness came more from what he saw as confirmation that he was too boring to be loved rather than the loss of a potential relationship.

Achi's baseline seems to be that he doesn't spend significant time thinking about romance in relation to himself, not with good emotions - he thinks about romance mostly in terms of being a measure of failure and a gauge of character (no person has wanted to even kiss me, so I must really be an unappealing and unremarkable person) - completely detached from what makes love what it is, an incredible feeling of adoration, comfort, safety, etc. At the beginning of the story, Karan's role in his life is solely as a model of what he should be and a daily reminder that, from Achi's point of view, he is not talented, smart, unique, driven, handsome, or likable enough to reach the milestones that Karan has.

Because Achi doesn't invest much in romance, and because the idea of being in a relationship with someone as perfect as Karan is so ludicrous as to be inconceivable to him, there is absolutely zero connection in his mind between the idea of Karan and the idea of romance at the point in time when he discovers that Karan thinks about him in romantic terms near constantly. At the heart of the struggle is Achi needing to transform his view of his worth as a human being, so that he can truly give credence to the concept of he and Karan genuinely being in love with each other.

But something that I think is being overlooked is that Achi has a huge mental and emotional task in transforming how he views Karan. He needs to dismantle the idea of Karan being an idol - a model to aspire to, envy, and resent for his effortless perfection - and reposition this new, real Karan into a romantic and sexual context. That is a very layered, intricate task that can only be worked on by spending more and more time with Karan.

It is funny, though, how often idol worship bleeds into romantic yearning. We've heard Achi say some spin on Karan being the most perfect, most handsome, most prized, most kind and considerate man in the world over a dozen times. The root feelings are there - he just needs to weed out the negative thoughts and emotions that he's associated with Karan for seven long years, and try to view him as a real person with love and desire for him instead of some abstract ideological concept of male perfection.

That would be an arduous process for anyone, but especially for Achi, who thinks he has no instinct for love and desire, and zero experience to draw from. This fact coupled with his abysmal view of himself means that Achi is receiving and synthesizing Karan's overtures at a glacial pace, slow to react and completely unsure about what's right and wrong or what's normal and strange. And, really, he's just getting used to being a person who talks to another person with no masks or airs. He's realizing that he actually can offer words and thoughts from his inner self, out loud -- and that he has an avid, invested, passionate listener in Karan.

Randomly - one of my favorite illustrations of this whole thing is Achi sitting audience to Karan as he's soaking himself in water, and Achi is just...completely silent, hypnotized, deeply studious but also smiling unconsciously from some good feeling he's getting from seeing Karan like this. I was so proud of him for that moment, like yesssss the flames of physical desire are being fanned! You gawk at that boy, Achi!

Anyways I sort of think of it like one of those pictures that changes depending on the angle and distance you're viewing it from. From far away and a profoundly unhappy angle, Karan is the perfect man that Achi will never be. when he moves in close and tilts his head back upright, Karan is now a beautiful, complex, flawed man that is deeply in love with him and inspires those same feelings in return. Achi just has to get himself to that place.

[heart-of-dunbroch]

"Oh, will do. They might need it, eh? Not sure how two teenage boys are gonna fair with three toddlers," commented Merida with a wry smile.

Opal wasn't actually a toddler anymore, but in Mer's head, she'd always be that sweet, wide-eyed baby who had smiled at damn near everyone she met. She was going to drive Harris and Hamish up a wall, wasn't she? Poor Hamish would probably love to have somewhere else to escape to-- and despite being the most artistic of the three triplets, he did like a work-out. That might help his anxieties about a new environment, stuffed to the brim with... well, people.

"But yeah, I'll... text ye. Keep you updated," confirmed Merida. They couldn't get into specifics, but they could at least let Herc know they were still alive, eh?

@kouros-herc

A-Travelin' On || Merc

[felassan]

Email from Modiphius:

"MASS EFFECT NEWS! Mass Effect The Board Game and Mass Effect Miniatures are almost here! Commander Shepard, it’s time to suit up—the galaxy needs you again! Mass Effect The Board Game - Priority: Hagalaz is coming very soon! But here’s some top secret data just for you: we’re also releasing a range of high quality resin Mass Effect Miniatures! You can use these miniatures to upgrade the plastic miniatures and tokens in the base game, or field them in any miniatures skirmish game (like Five Parsecs from Home), and they’re great for for miniatures collectors and Mass Effect fans everywhere! Find out more on our Mass Effect blog and get a tease of the miniatures representing the crew of the Normandy, including both male and female Shepard minis (with optional helmets) and Wrex and Tali (with detachable drone)! If you haven’t already, sign up for Mass Effect news here, so you can be among the first to find out when pre-orders for Mass Effect The Board Game - Priority: Hagalaz and our Mass Effect Miniatures launch VERY soon! Until then, stay vigilant. The galaxy is counting on you."

[source: email from Modiphius]

Images of the miniatures (Sheps, Garrus, Liara, Tali, Wrex)

[source]

Info from the associated blogpost:

"Mass Effect Miniatures By Gavin Dady Art by David Benzal October sees the launch of Mass Effect The Boardgame - Priority: Hagalaz. In it, Commander Shepard and their band of loyal squadmates take on a new mission to explore a crashed Cerberus Cruiser on the storm-wracked world of Hagalaz. Within the cruiser they will face many dangerous enemies, from the survivors of the Cerberus crew, native life and even the dangerous captives and experiments that Cerberus were keeping aboard the ship. The enemies are represented by thick, full colour, illustrated card tokens in the game, but Modiphius are also producing a range of 32mm, multipart miniatures to compliment them. As with our previous Fallout and The Elder Scrolls miniatures, these are highly detailed resin collectors miniatures.    In this first phase of miniatures, we are concentrating on the core sets required to build up the forces for the board game. The first of these is The Heroes of the Normandy Alpha. It includes six miniatures in alternative poses for the PVC sculpts from the board game.  Commander Shepard is represented in both male and female versions. Armed with the M-8 Assault Rifle or her M-3 pistol and Omni-blade, Shepard is ready to take the fight to their enemies. Shepard also comes with optional parts to depict them with either bare head or their iconic helmet from their N7 armour. The former C-Sec officer, Garrus Vakarian, has been by Shepard’s side from their earliest days as a SPECTRE and is depicted in his role as one of the galaxy’s premier snipers (arguments about who is the better shot between Shepard and Garrus aside). Garrus is depicted with his signature M-92 Mantis rifle, repaired armour and the scars he gained as The Archangel. Next amongst Shepard’s staunch allies is Dr. Liara T’soni. A powerful Asari biotic, expert on the ancient Prothean race and, secretly, the powerful underworld figure The Shadowbroker. Liara  is depicted initiating one of her powerful biotic abilities, energy crackling around her hand. Tali’Zhora Nar Rayya is the young Quarian that Shepard first met whilst pursuing the rogue SPECTRE Saren. Tali is a gifted engineer and staunch advocate for the Quarian people. She is depicted with her drone, Chatika, who can be modelled attached to Tali’s Omni-tool, or kept separate to act as a marker during gameplay. Rounding out the squad is Urdnot Wrex, the veteran mercenary and leader of Clan Urdnot. Wrex is a powerhouse in battle, utilising biotic abilities, a powerful M-300 Claymore shotgun and, more than once, a well placed head-butt. As well as these miniatures, we are also producing further sets to compliment the boardgame, including Reaper Forces, Cerberus Troops and some of the Priority Threats that you will face as you make your way through the crashed cruiser. These sets are ideal for upgrading the tokens in the base game, or for use in any miniatures skirmish game (like Five Parsecs from Home) or for miniatures collectors everywhere. Look out for special collectors and gameplay bundles available exclusively from Modiphius  when the Mass Effect Board Game pre-orders go live soon! In the meantime, you can sign-up for more Mass Effect news here."

[source]

[anxiousnerdwritings]

Damn... if we go back to au, where Demian's twin reader becomes Harley's child, how much will Talia be jealous.

She's like, yes, I didn't put my child in anything, he's an unworthy brat, but I hate even more that she found another mother and thinks I'm worse😡😡

And Ra, outraged at the conditions in which his grandson is being brought up (and angry that Talia allowed the child to escape with these people, and full of hatred because now his role as the main male role model has been replaced by some crazy clown)

Talia would be incredibly jealous and irate but it wouldn’t stem from her own maternal instincts, it’s all about principle. That child, even though she despises them and thinks their nothing but a defective spawn, is her child. It all comes down to possessiveness. And she especially wouldn’t take well to the situation if her child was absolutely thriving with Harley as their mother.

Ra’s would be incredibly enraged, mainly at Talia. Whether the twin!Reader left of their own accord (before Talia could do anything to them) or Talia got rid of them herself and sent them to their demise, Ra’s would blame Talia for the Reader ending up in the hands of Harley. In his eyes it was her fault, if only she had opened her eyes and saw what he saw in them then she would have tried so much harder with them. But seeing that his favorite grandchild was flourishing with Harley (and the fact that when he first visited them the Reader had a sword to his neck in protection of their new mother), Ra’s would be more inclined to allow the a reader to stay right where they were. The only thing he’d want in return would be for them to keep in contact with him. Even if they weren’t to do so he’d have his people watching over them and keeping him updated.

Meanwhile, Harley would have no problem kicking Talia’s ass and even going as far as killing her for how she treated Harley’s bby. When she learned of the Reader’s upbringing and how Talia Ned Damian treated them, Harley would be out for blood. She wouldn’t be able to wrap her head around how a mother can be so cruel to her own child. If Harley ever catches sight of Talia, it’s on sight and she’s aiming to maim. But I could see Harley and Ra’s coming to some kind of agreement regarding the Reader. The two aren’t exactly allies but when it comes to the Reader they’ll keep in contact with each other and if they need to they’ll work together for their precious darling.

In the case of the jokerized!twin!Reader then that would be a completely different situation. If Harley had taken the Reader in on her own, with no Joker in the picture, then things would be alright, but if Joker’s playing ‘daddy’ and especially if twin!Reader has already had a visit to the chemical vats then shit is hitting the fan (mainly in regards to Ra’s’ reaction).

Talia’s reaction to Jokerized!twin!Reader isn’t going to be anything positive. If anything she’ll only double down on her terrible treatment of the Reader, becoming even more disgusted by them and what they move become. She’ll accuse them of having finally sunk so low that there’s no coming back and that she was right to want to get rid of them. But once the Reader starts attacking her and is using their training from their upbringing among the League of Assassins and the unhinged, uncontrollable, unpredictable rawness they’re coming at her with has her shook. It’s probably Harley who goes at her first in retaliation for what Talia is saying about her bby and the Reader only jumps in to protect and fight for their new mother.

Fleeing, Talia would plan to come back or have some members of the League come and retrieve her faulty child so that she can train and forge them into what they should have been all this time ago, maybe even making them into something even better than that.

Ra’s would be outraged and plain disgusted with both the clowns and Talia. Again, if it weren’t for her his beloved grandchild wouldn’t have been desecrated and ruined by them. He would take matters into his own hands and save his grandchild from their ‘new family’. And he won’t let anyone stop him. He may even team up with Bruce but there’s no guarantee that Ra’s will allow anyone to have anything to do with the Reader when he gets them back. Not Talia, not Damian, not Bruce, no one would be allowed to come anywhere near them. They’ve been failed and ruined enough, he won’t let it happen again. It’s safe to say that Joker would surely meet his demise and there’s nothing Bruce could do to keep Ra’s from going through with his eradication of the Clown Prince.

And if getting the Reader back means having to kill them to do so then Ra’s will, but they won’t stay dead for long. He can promise that.