#not all third wave feminists were/are like this

[transatlantic-reads]

I just think that when a famous 3rd wave feminist inevitably goes down the rabbithole of various conspiracy theories and straight into far right, white supremacist ideology, we should all stop acting so damn surprised (like, this is the exact same shit that happened with Joanne, why are we still so blindsided by what has clearly become a pattern?)

these are the people who constantly reference Gender Trouble, but refuse to gender Judith Butler correctly; who celebrate Ms Magazine and Gloria Steinem, while conveniently forgetting all about Dorothy Pitman Hughes; who insist that sex workers are inherently oppressed, that sex work is inherently demeaning, regardless of what actual sex workers have to say; who are so quick to treat racism like a hypothetical intellectual debate; who like so much to claim that anybody with a penis is inherently a wannabe rapist, a predator by nature, by birth; who say that womanhood is inextricably linked to victimhood, that heterosexual sex is (nearly) always akin to rape;

they're carceral feminists, gender essentialists, (trans-exclusionary) radical feminists, they are anti porn, anti sex work, anti sex worker.

their entire philosophy is predicated on what women deserve - yet the equality they want isn't for everybody, it is for the ever-shrinking category of what they consider a 'woman' (read: not trans, not black, not a sex worker, not muslim, etc.)

is it really so surprising then, when one of them decides to yet again move the line on what constitutes a righteous cause, on what constitutes a real 'man', an acceptable 'woman'?

[countingprimes]

sometimes i see queer people make low hanging anti straight jokes, and they'll often pre-defend themselves by saying straight people don't need defending as if the queer community isn't populated by tons of straight people, straight trans people, straight ace people, straight poly people. queerness doesnt exclude exclusively opposite sex attracted people and it bothers me to see these jokes and their subsequent defenses because normative society certainly rejects these folks because of their queerness and now you are inside the queer community rejecting them for who they desire. i think about straight trans folks the most who are out here under fire from normative society who turn to the queer community for support only to be inundated with sentiments like straight people are actually the real lesser than folks, and it's easy enough to say straightness is valorized in normative society so shitting on straight people is punching up, but i can't help but be keenly aware that the queer straight people tend to be queer in the ways which are often excluded from queer community. so actually yeah i do think straight people need our protection, not heteronormative culture, but individual people? yeah. the "coming out as straight" jokes are all haha good times fuck the straights until you think about the fact that straight trans people when they come out are functionally doing that. after all how many straight trans people used to think they were cis gay people. and we, inside the queer community, turn their experiences into a mean spirited punch line designed to reject them from queer community.

like sorry i just don't think we are gonna find queer liberation by trying to figure out which group we are allowed to make fun of for having the wrong sexuality.

[ohsalome]

love seeing people (westerners) WHO HAVE NEVER EVEN MADE A SINGLE PEEP ABOUT UKRAINE AID, EVER, reblog russian lgbt aid funds after the recent news.

i'm very anti whataboutism but holy hell. when it comes to a certain country we all agree that liberation comes before improvement of lgbt issues. *i* agree with that, at least. but then the same people would rather pay to save lgbt people from a country that's actively besieging another country, it's just... beyond words how hypocritical it is.

I have so many things to say, none of them being nice.

Ukrainian army is, so far, the only force that is presenting challenge to "putin's regime". Wouldn't it make sense for people who "want to protect russian lgbt+s" to support us then? We are conctantly being degraded for "not allying with good russians" who are supposed to be our "natural allies" because they are "anti-putin".... Funny how it doesn't work the other way around, doesn't it? And yes, I have personal experience with russian lgbt+ and feminist circles (prior to the full-scale invasion), and I remember clearly how they explicitly ignored all pleas from ukrainians to speak up on our behalf. And how can one forget the famous "women have no nationality"...

This is, from my memory, the third time russia has "banned lgbt+s", and I believe I have a good reason for being sceptical about the real consequences of russian laws which, as we all know, are worth a little more than toilet paper. It is common knowledge which people of russian elite are gay, and I sincerely doubt their life will change in any way with this new law. As a matter of fact, most of them are a part of russian propaganda machine, like the infamous Anton Krasovsky. Also, what is the point then of this law, if it functionally duplicates all the previous ones already existing and brings nothing new to the table? I will not repeat the conspiracies about "diverting attention from Ukraine", because you've probably already heard of them. My own conspiracy is that its goal is to further the international reputation of russians as innocent victims of the regime, all while ukrainians are being actively slandered and forced into fake opposition with palestinians. One example relevant to the discussion I've seen recently is a post of a russian "war refugee" who has fled from russia either when the war started, or during one of the mobilisation waves. She was complaining about how much she dislikes living in the West and how she plans to return to russia, fully knowing that it is an authoritarian hellscape, and she will have to collaborate with it, because "it is more comfortable there"... This is what I think about russian "victims of the regime" - this is all masquerade for them, which they are ready and happy to take off once they are tired of play-pretending being part of the civilized world and want to return to their comform zone swamp.

Just like pussy riot monetizing Bucha imagery for their fame and profit, russian lgbt+s jumped on the oppostunity to appropriate the suffering of ukrainian war victims to earn more $$$$$. And I blame western media which has for day one has put us on the same scale, equating ukrainian civillians to russian ones, even though only one side has to live under constant bombardment, only one side had to seek refuge due to the threat of occupation, only one side is being actively genocided... But russians are having meanie mean words said about them on the internet, and this is just as bad - nay, mayhaps even worse! Remember how during the first months of full-scale invasion westerners were claiming that russians will starve to death due to sanctions, and I was preaching to the choir trying to explain that we are literally dying due to west feeding the russian war machine that is exterminating us? Well, almost two years have passed, no russian have famished because Chanel has left the market, they are successfuly importing all the missiles components through Kazakhstan, and Ukraine cannot even count all the losses we've had because how much of our territory remains under the occupation. But westerners have already congratulated themselves about how they've "immediately gifted ukraine all the weapons they need once the war started" (hahaha!) and moved on to playing with their new palestinian toy, all while for some reason pitting us against each other (and stealing footage from Syria and Ukraine to misrepresent them as Palestine)

Oh and don't get me started on western "political activists" who go out of their way to mention every single conflict happening on planted earth, excluding Ukraine. I will never forget that.

[very bitter and pessimistic conclusion censored]

[spiderfreedom]

historical revisionism of second-wave feminism

I'm wondering where this idea that "second-wave feminism" didn't bring up race came from. It seems to be conflating liberal feminism, starting with Betty Friedan's "The Feminist Mystique", for the entire movement. But "second-wave feminism" refers to an entire era of feminist organizing, including lesbian feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminist, and numerous Black feminist works with multiple intersections. Why should Friedan and NOW's 'liberal feminism' be the representative of an entire era of feminist writing? What do we have to gain from pretending that there were no Black feminist writers during the second wave?

The US women's movement has always had ties to anti-racist movements like abolitionism and the civil rights movement, as well as the New Left and socialist/anti-war movements. White feminists tried to include racial analysis in their books - to mixed effect, e.g. Susan Brownmiller's book "Against Our Will" proved to be contentious for its treatment of interracial rape of Black men against white women (example).

It feels like there's been a wave of historical revisionism to make the second-wave seem more limited and single-issue focused than it really was, in order to make "third-wave" feminism seem novel, exciting, and necessary. It's resulted in a whole generation of feminist writers and cultural critics who don't read or quote or engage with the feminist works of the second wave. They are dismissed out of hand as irrelevant or limited. It feels like another way to say "stop paying attention to women's history, just believe me when I say the first and second waves were irrevocably damaged and that the third wave is the only way to go."

I think this article does a good job of capturing one of the reasons why an interracial feminism failed to form, which is that white women assumed Black women also wanted an interracial feminism, when many Black women, especially at the start of the movement, were not interested in solidarity with white women. The fantasy of a racially integrated society was often much more important to white organizers than to Black organizers, who may have instead wanted Black self-determination. I disagree with some of the points of the article (can elaborate if anyone is interested) but I recommend reading it anyway for a retrospective on why white attempts to reach out to Black women failed - white feminists did attempt to reach out, but failed to focus on issues that were relevant to Black women, failed or were offensive in their racial analysis, and failed to understand the importance of racial solidarity for Black women.

Correcting the record on the racism and failures of white feminists in the second-wave is necessary work to building a strong movement. But there's a difference between correcting the record and pretending that white feminists didn't try to talk about race at all. They did! They were participants of anti-racist movements! But they failed to understand their own racism. They failed to understand the complex dynamics between white men, white women, Black men, and Black women. They failed to focus on issues that resonated with Black women. They were failures of bad attempts, not that no attempt was ever made... and that's the part I find weird.

The idea that there was no racial analysis made during the second wave, by white women or Black women, flattens a complex history. Like fun fact - the Combahee River Collective Statement which is the foundation of intersectional feminism and third wave identity politics? Is a second wave text! It was published in 1977, in the late era of second wave activism in the US!

I have more to say later, but for the moment, I'd like to present you with some examples of second-wave feminist texts written by Black women. Read them, and avail yourself of another myth - that there is One Black Feminism. Black Feminists have always had internal disagreements, which frightens white feminists, because white feminists want to know The Correct Answer On Race. I highly recommend reading these (and modern Black feminist texts too!) to understand the situation Black feminists faced in the 60s and 70s. All of these texts were published between 1960 and 1980. They are all essays or excerpts - links provided where possible.

Black Women’s Liberation group of Mt. Vernon, New York - Statement on Birth Control

Mary Ann Weathers - An argument for Black Women’s Liberation as Revolutionary Force (https://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/mary-ann-weathers-an-argument-for-black-womens-liberation-as-a-revolutionary-force/)

Frances M. Beal - Double Jeopardy: to be Black and Female

Doris Wright - Angry Notes from a Black Feminist (https://yu.instructure.com/courses/49421/files/1918241/download?wrap=1)

Margaret Sloan: Black and Blacklesbian

Alice Walker - In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

Angela Davis: Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape (https://overthrowpalacehome.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/ms.-magazine-from-the-archives.pdf)

Michele Wallace: A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood (https://www.amistadresource.org/documents/document_09_03_010_wallace.pdf)

The Combahee River Collective (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/)

Barbara Smith - Racism and Women’s Studies (https://hamtramckfreeschool.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/smith-barbara-racism-and-womens-studies.pdf)

[keytonesworld]

Hot take.

I think some Christians are opposed to feminism as a whole because a completely wrong precedent has been set with third wave feminism. So let me just say.

Man hating is not feminist. Abortion is not feminist. Sex work is not feminist. Using each other for sexual gratification without consequence is not feminist. Putting work above everything, including God, your family life or health, is not feminist. (That goes for men too, actually.) No matter what they say. All of this hurts both men and women, of course, but especially women.

Feminism at its core was to protect women and give them rights. Feminism fought for an equal vote, a right to be able to sustain ourselves in a society in which a woman's survival was only guaranteed if she was married, many times being forced and unwanted and loveless. Feminism fought for women in abusive marriages and relationships. Feminism fought for a right to be seen as a human created in the image of God with desire and aspirations and a worth and story written by God and not a sexual slave/baby making machine with no life of her own and one set path in life. A lot of women who are anti-feminist as a whole forget that we are where we are and we can say what we want to say about these topics because of the women who were beaten and women who stood up to the tyranny that unbiblically and immorally put us down.

I will wear the feminist badge still, but let it be no mistake that it is not because I support this third wave of feminism, the one that is ironically anti-feminist, but because God brings women to many different places, places like the amazing stay at home mom and wife who serves her home and husband beautifully, and the woman who wants a career or wants to own her own business and loves and follows God in his plan for her life. In my humble opinion, we shouldn't think that feminism was a mistake at its core, because it most certainly wasn't, and I believe that it still isn't, only what it's become.

But that's just me.

A suffragette in 1917. (One of my favorite pictures.)

[susansontag]

I think people who are actually serious about using the term gender-critical (especially those who make claims to using it in a merely descriptive way) need to be honest and acknowledge that broadly speaking, every wave of western feminism excluding the third wave(? which there’s still no real consensus on when that began or how it’s different from the second wave, but that’s a question for a few generations down the line) has been ‘gender-critical’, in the sense that it’s been about the advancement of female people.

the second sex should be considered a ‘gender-critical’ text, as should the suffragist movement. of course it can be argued that they were only incidentally ‘gender-critical’, because ideas about gender identity hadn’t yet the achieved the prominence it now has in the public consciousness. but regardless, if you’re going to be using the term descriptively, and many people make claims that this term is merely meant to be descriptive, then you should use it that way, and that means applying it fairly. if you really believe western feminism has had a crucial issue in not including ideas of gender identity from the beginning, even if this was solely accidental, then you should be all-encompassing in your critique of it. it’s not as though many modern feminists of all shades don’t argue past incarnations of feminism have had blindspots - most feminists probably believe it has.

I think the real reason this term isn’t applied fairly is because people who claim to use this term descriptively are, let’s be honest, using it as a pejorative. and therefore acknowledging honestly how most of the history of feminist thought has not really included a concept of gender identity, because it simply didn’t exist in people’s minds as it does now, would be a bit inconvenient, because 1. it would mean feminism had to have been based in part on a different way of recognising the difference between women and men, and 2. if ‘GC’ was applied fairly, it would look too much like a war was being waged on the foundations of feminism itself, and no one really likes the look of those optics.

but many movements and ideas in the history of humanity have been felled by later generations in the grounds that they were offensive, ill-informed, or blind to various factors later regarded as important. so why not feminism? if it really had been so incorrect about something now deemed so fundamental, why not let it burn? why not write the book about how simone de beauvoir was misled? why not the suffragettes? I would respect critics much more if they were honest and consistent. if it’s so wrong, say it with your whole chest and defend it.

[probablyasocialecologist]

When it comes to gender theory, scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were informed by eugenics “made strong statements about the social and political role of women, claiming all the while to speak for the scientific truth.” They typically referred to women’s reproductive capacity as a natural indication of their divinely ordained social role. Social, political, and religious ideologies informed the scientific beliefs of this time period, which is not dissimilar to the widely held beliefs of current gender/sex psychologists. It can be argued that the father of modern psychology himself, Sigmund Freud, in his quest to validate psychoanalysis as a legitimate science, reproduced the social opinions of his time in his psychological theories. His theories about femininity, in particular, have been criticized by feminist thinkers for the ways in which his frameworks position femininity as fundamentally incompatible with subjectivity, thus cementing women’s passivity and subordination as a psychological disposition that explains and justifies their social position under patriarchy. Although psychology has developed considerably since Freud, his work remains foundational to the field, and informs the ongoing structural violence of psychiatric pathologization experienced by marginalized subjects. Psychoanalytic concepts have become embedded in clinical, academic, institutional, and colloquial language, influencing the epistemologies of neurosexists and feminists alike. We continue to see bioessentialist reasoning about sexual difference employed in the name of feminism. Notably, bioessentialism informs contemporary discourse about trans rights. For example, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) refers to a radical ideology that equates womanhood with biological sex, and maintains a bioessentialist stance to discriminate and incite violence against trans women, and to exclude trans women from women’s spaces.  Proponents of trans exclusionary radical feminist ideology espouse the conviction that women are a group with a singular shared experience of womanhood based on the patriarchal violence experienced by people with vaginas. It arose out of the work of anti-porn feminist writing like that of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon in the 1970s, which centered the ways in which cisgender women’s bodies are uniquely subjected to sexualized violence. The objectification and sexualization of the cisgender female body was the main concern in this discourse, and as such, postmodern perspectives that disrupt bioessentialist ideas about gender and the body have been received as an existential threat to the objectives of this radical ideology. Third wave feminist discourse and theories, like intersectional feminist theory, have disputed the idea that bodily or physical similarities are experienced in the same ways socially and culturally (e.g., at intersections of race, class, ability, nation, gender identity, and sexuality). When it comes to trans discourse, it is important to recognize the ways in which non-normatively gendered bodies with any perceived association to femininity or womanhood are subjected to patriarchal and sexualized violence. Heteronormativity and rape culture affect more than just cisgender women. To weaponize a binary understanding of gender against women with diverse experiences of womanhood is to collude with the oppressive forces of the colonial, white supremacist hetero capitalist patriarchy.

[bossymarmalade]

I generally don’t write much in the way of serious topics on tumblr because I don’t find it a useful platform for that, but I’ve seen a number of posts/talked with mutuals lately about what we’ve been noticing in the erosion of feminist theory and how it’s discussed.

To me the culprit is the nature of tumblr itself. There’s no one stationary place for a conversation; people reblog a conversation that has branched off in a bunch of directions. They argue a point that could’ve been addressed by the OP except the conversation continued without the OP. They end up in places that were never intended.

Add to that: a) the way a pithy phrase captures attention faster than a thoughtful analysis and b) the number of ppl reblogging to point out that their particular group was not specifically taken into account, and you have an attempt at discussion that’s hobbled from the start.

I wish we could have discussions here like we used to on lj/dw but we can’t. So instead any discussion of feminism has its teeth cracked out one at a time with “but men can be abused too” and “what about transmen” and “eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man” and “WOMEN!! She!! Her!!” and look. All of these things have their place in the discussion. 

But when people generally don’t even know what the core tenets of feminism are, don’t understand the kyriarchy, or multiple axes of oppression, don’t understand second- and third-wave feminism, and just choose to make everything binary all over again? Right now in tumblr discourse, either critique of Men is wrong bc it doesn’t take into account these particular men, or All Women are Right All the Time Actually. And neither of these is useful in dismantling what feminism is intended to dismantle.

Feminism is for everyone, yes. But feminism is also an ideology intended to make people uncomfortable with and outraged at the status quo, the kyriarchical messages we grow up with and live under. It’s all right if your feminism isn’t mine, but if yours doesn’t actually stand for anything and is more concerned with empty virtue signaling or pat catchphrases, then does it actually benefit the cause? Or is it just lip service in between nitpicking? Is it just window dressing for oppressive systems? Is it doing those institutional systems’ work for them?

I don’t have any concrete suggestions about this; like I said, I don’t think tumblr as a platform can provide any repair. But who knows. Maybe a bunch of like-minded feminists talking about it more (and by like-minded, I just mean “invested”; the faces of feminism are legion) will help rejuvenate something that’s been pretty good to a lot of us (or at least offered a helpful framework to build our senses of self on). Maybe I’ll go back to talking about feminist topics myself. Maybe that’s not quite a bridge called our backs but it’s more than being the second sex. Maybe maybe may be.

[haggishlyhagging]

The past cannot be recreated, but any future for lesbians depends on whether we can rebuild a mass radical feminist movement for women as a sex—one that defends past rights while challenging the myriad contemporary faces of patriarchy, capitalism, and backlash. It also requires that lesbians declare our independence from the "LGBTQIA++," which not only no longer speaks for us but that is actively challenging the very idea of a lesbian life.

The fight to preserve and extend women-only spaces and programs and our right to self-organization is key. We must create intergenerational networks of feminists where we can share this history so younger women do not have to reinvent the wheel. And we must break out of the underground nature of the resistance to transgender ideology by speaking out collectively and in solidarity with each other, i.e., having each other's back. They cannot silence all of us.

Already this is happening, with radical feminist groups forming in various countries around the globe, including groups collaborating in connection with the Women's Human Rights Campaign/ Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights. We must also separate the "L" or the "LGB" from the "T," as the activists both in the UK and Brazil have already done with the founding of LGB Alliances.

It is not enough to recognize the dangers of transgender ideology. We also have to keep our eye on all of our enemies, especially the powerful religious Right, which has been taking advantage of the absurdities of transgenderism and the betrayal of so much of the Left to woo some feminists into thinking the Right can be allies. However, their primary purpose is to pursue a misogynist agenda of rolling back the LGB, reproductive rights, and women's rights generally. And when the Right turns the tables on us, we can be sure that lesbians will feel the brunt of their attacks.

We must go beyond purely defensive battles to regain the radical edge of radical feminism and begin to envision once again what it will take to make women truly free. Because lesbians are women after all, and lesbian liberation and female liberation are deeply intertwined. Until women are free to love other women without penalty—without suffering stigma, violence, or economic privation—we cannot be free as a sex.

It's time to organize and fight back, sisters. For thousands of years men have had unimpeded access to and control over the bodies and lives, reproductive and productive work of women. Our bodies have been seen as a resource to use and abuse as they saw fit. Men defined who we are and who we could be. And lesbians were demonized and the lesbian possibility rendered invisible or impossible.

But we amazons are still here. Many of us are old Dykes, but we are not dead yet and are crucial voices in the new struggles now unfolding. We are determined to pass the torch to our younger sisters, just like we built our movement on the shoulders of the women who came before us. We were among the leaders and co-creators of the Second Wave of feminism. We are here as mid-wives to the Third (real this time). We women-loving-women did it before and we can do it again.

-Ann E. Menasche, “We Were Once Amazons: Mourning and Rebuilding Our Lost Lesbian-Feminist Communities” in Spinning And Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century

[colorpickinglesbian]

History of the Lesbian Flag

Since I run a blog that's all about appreciation for lesbians and our current flag, I thought it'd be fitting to make a post about lesbian flags of the past and how we (more or less) settled on this design!

The first lesbian flag was designed by Sean Campbell in 1999, who was working as a graphic designer for the Greater Palm Springs Gay and Lesbian Times [1]. It has a solid violet background in reference to the tradition of violets as a symbol of sapphic love. The inverted black triangle is used to represent remembrance and reclamation for the lesbians who were marked "asocial" during the Holocaust, much like how the pink triangle was a common symbol in the gay men's community [2]. The labrys was already an established lesbian-feminist symbol of women's strength and self-sufficiency due to its association with the Amazons.

This flag was more of a niche success than the versions that would follow, for a number of changing reasons. The first is that this flag was created at a time when it was just starting to become commonplace for individual identities to have their own flags as opposed to everyone being under the rainbow; the bisexual and transgender flags were both only around a year old. The second reason this flag hasn't seen widespread use is the controversial use of the black triangle. To an uninformed viewer, the inclusion of a Nazi symbol on a flag can be alarming. There is also debate on if lesbians should reclaim the black triangle, as it was most commonly applied to Romani people. The third and most contemporary criticism of this flag centers around its adoption by transphobic radical feminists, due to the lesbian-feminist history of the flag.

There is a current movement to revive or slightly redesign (by removing the black triangle or adding trans-positive imagery) this flag, as some people connect with the empowering and historically significant symbolism or simply think that the most widespread design doesn't reflect their aesthetic or connection with lesbianism.

The second flag wasn't meant for the whole lesbian community, but it became pretty widespread: the Lipstick Lesbian flag. This flag was created in 2010 by lesbian lifestyle blogger Natalie McCray to represent the hyperfeminine sub-community of "lipstick lesbians" [3]. The shades of pink and red, fittingly, represent common shades of lipstick, and the kiss mark is in the upper left corner in the tradition of the bear and leather flags.

In 2013, a version of the flag cropped to exclude the kiss mark was posted on Tumblr, where it was described as a general lesbian flag representing the whole community [4]. In 2015, a DeviantArt account dedicated to uploading high-resolution versions of pride flags posted the version without the lipstick mark, mentioning that it is a variation of the lipstick lesbian flag but still framing it as a flag for the whole community [5]. The admin later revealed that the omission of the lipstick mark was simply due to the difficulty of upscaling the image to a higher quality without the original vector.

This design was moderately successful until racist, biphobic, anti-butch, and cissexist comments from the creator were uncovered c. 2018. The flag was already facing replacement efforts due to its "lipstick lesbian" association making it uninclusive of butch lesbians.

2017-18 was a very fortuitous time for lesbians to be in search of a new flag. Social media use was reaching new peaks and the microidentity boom came with a huge wave of new flags for the queer community at large. Concurrently, there was a big push for inclusivity in the queer community that birthed the Philadelphia Pride flag to explicitly include people of color, the first time the LGBT rainbow flag had seen a revision since it was cut to six stripes in 1979.

It was not difficult to find lesbians willing to try their hand at making The New Lesbian Flag. There were so many interested parties, in fact, that multiple community surveys were conducted to pick a design! (I had the joy of participating in some of those surveys in favor of the 7-stripe flag that this blog is dedicated to.) On the DeviantArt account that posted the lipstick lesbian flag with the kiss mark removed, there are 212 variations under the "Lesbian WLW" category.

Pictured above are three of the most successful variations that came out of this lesbian flag explosion. The design on the left was created by Jace (AKA anurtransyl), with 5 shades of blue and purple representing community values like trust, freedom, and pride. The design on the right won the which-lesbian-flag survey; it was created by Marion (AKA apersnicketylemon), and the four stripes represent different subsets — trans, femme, aspec, and butch — of the lesbian community. The center flag was created by Lydia, the same woman who brought Natalie McCray's bigoted comments to light. It is commonly referred to as the Sappho flag because its violet shade is a direct reference to Sappho's poetry, while its other shades represent the community values of strength, fragility, and healing.

Separate from the evolution of the community lesbian flag, some lesbians were making flags for subsets of the lesbian community. While I won't cover these in detail, the one relevant to this story is the butch flag created by Mod Q of butchspace.

People were naturally attracted to the idea of smashing the butch and lipstick flags together to create one representing the whole community. Olivia (AKA shapeshifter-of-constellation) created a very familiar design (alongside some proposed variations) in July 2017 to little fanfare [6]. No meanings were provided for the stripes, but Olivia mused back and forth with some other community members about meanings that could be ascribed beyond 'butch, femme, and other'. She proposed a couple more variations, but ultimately seemed to abandon the design.

The current design originated in June 2018 and was designed by Emily Gwen [7].¹ By the end of the week, the meanings for the stripes were finalized: gender non-conformity, independence, community, unique relationships to womanhood, serenity & peace, love & sex, and femininity.

There are many reasons why this flag was successful.

The retained stripes from the lipstick lesbian flag allowed it to retain recognizability; someone who has only seen the previous iteration can see those stripes and infer that the flag has something to do with lesbianism.

The stripe meanings were decided with input from the community, resulting in associations that include lesbians of all kinds in a respectful way. Olivia's design faced criticism for implying that all lesbians exist on a continuum from butch to femme, so Emily Gwen's uses "gender non-conformity" and "femininity" to include butches and femmes while including all lesbians on every stripe. Trans lesbians provided feedback in the replies of the original post as well as sadlesbiandisaster's ask box stating that they felt having trans and nonbinary lesbians on their own stripe separated them from the rest of the community, so the white stripe was changed to "unique relationships to womanhood."

Marketability. Emily Gwen allows people and corporations to make and sell merchandise with her flag design on it. Despite the community's attitudes towards rainbow capitalism and the unfortunate financial impact on Emily Gwen personally, this allowed the flag to proliferate.

The color combination is pleasing to the eye. This is obviously a matter of opinion, but it seems to be a widely shared one! This design received its "sunset flag" nickname very early on, which tends to be a positive indicator for longevity of a pride flag.

Catherine Becker created a five-stripe derivative of this flag to facilitate printing [8]. Oversized flags have been a historical issue for the LGBT community, most notably with Gilbert Baker's original rainbow flag which had the pink stripe removed due to poor availability of pink fabric and the turquoise stripe removed to allow for it to be split in half on each side of the San Francisco pride parade route. The simplification turned out to be a good move, as it is the most popular design used by corporations like Disney and Spencer's Gifts.

Anecdotally, Emily Gwen's design is still the most popular at pride parades and online. It's the one we see handed to celebrities like Lucy Dacus and LOONA. It's the one we see proudly displayed in the icons of lesbians online. It's recognized by governmental organizations, universities, news and entertainment publications, and gay heritage organizations.

To close out this recounting of lesbian flag history, I leave you with two of my favorite memes about lesbian flags.

¹ Despite its visual similarity to Olivia's flag from the previous year, both designers attribute this to convergent evolution and deny any claims of plagiarism.

[itsallmadonnasfault]

Eighteen years ago, Madonna observed: “Once you pass 35, your age becomes part of the first sentence of anything written. It’s a form of limiting your options and almost putting you in your place. For women, naturally.” She was 47 when she said that and intent on challenging the cultural script that suggested women, especially female performers, had a use-by date.

“Why is that acceptable?” she asked the music writer Brian Hiatt nearly 10 years later, still battling critics who told her to dress her age, act her age — in short, pack it in and retreat from the spotlight because she was past her prime. “Women, generally, when they reach a certain age, have accepted that they’re not allowed to behave a certain way. But I don’t follow the rules.”

To the question “Is she still relevant?” her Celebration Tour, which concluded this month, is proof that she is. Madonna performed before the largest audience ever gathered to watch a female artist and mounted the single biggest free stand-alone concert in history: 1.6 million people turned Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach into a dance floor on May 4. According to Billboard, her six-month, 80-show tour grossed $225.4 million, making her the only woman in history to gross more than $100 million during six concert tours. (The only solo male in that category is Bruce Springsteen.)

But there’s so much more to her triumph than numbers. That a 65-year-old female pop star pulled off this tour and, despite our increasingly intolerant times, the performance was her most relentlessly and delightfully queer since 1990’s groundbreaking Blond Ambition Tour would be unimaginable, except that it was Madonna. The Celebration Tour proved that Madonna wasn’t afraid of drawing attention to her long career; she owned it proudly.

All of her past selves showed up, in role and in costume, to help celebrate the many ways she has evolved and the many ways she and her collaborators have explored and expressed gender throughout the years. It was a beautifully inclusive, encouraging spectacle. If history is a guide, the social and artistic ramifications of her performance will extend well beyond the numbers and long after her tour.

Madonna’s 1985 Virgin Tour, her debut, included only 40 shows in North America and grossed about $5 million. But its impact on young lives is immeasurable. The young women and girls in her audience were on the cusp of unleashing their sexual selves and embracing their independence, which is what made them so terrifying to a broader society intent on keeping them polite, passive and manageable.

Madonna’s message to her young audience was: Embrace your power, dream big and dare to be your own damned self. That message would resonate through a generation and across the globe, as aspiring Madonnas grew up to be politicians, lawyers, doctors, teachers, members of the armed forces, Third Wave feminists, Riot Grrrls and pop stars themselves.

Madonna was, in fact, the lead author of the female pop star playbook, and she continues to write the unexplored and perilous back end of it while artists like Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish adapt the front end and more established stars like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift refine what’s possible in the middle. Madonna’s continuous career represents a universe of possibility for their own, despite the entertainment industry’s willingness to jettison midcareer women in favor of artists with younger faces and bodies.

But for women not named Madonna (or Beyoncé or Taylor Swift), growing older and maturing in public is much more fraught. Older men are considered wise, but older women are often ignored or discounted. Thanks to the intervention of the pharmaceutical industry, men are encouraged to have an active sex life into their 80s. The idea of older women having sex remains, for many, repellent.

Madonna has challenged our notions of what a woman should do and be on all those counts: She chooses to age as she sees fit, she says what she believes loudly and forcefully, and she is as proudly sexual as she was in 1985.

With her Celebration Tour, Madonna demonstrated night after night for six months that an older woman can exhibit power and strength — joyfully, generously and defiantly. Her glorious performance was perhaps even sweeter when we recall that hip and knee injuries disrupted her Madame X tour four years ago and a bacterial infection threatened not only the Celebration Tour but also Madonna’s life.

Forty years ago, Madonna showed audiences, particularly girls and women, that they could mute the killjoy chorus keeping them from self-realization. On the Celebration Tour, Madonna doubled down on this idea, encouraging fans to follow their hearts, minds and inner freaks by both being herself onstage and employing diverse and talented dancers to carry that message in their own convincing and resonant ways.

If this were the last tour of Madonna’s career — and we sincerely hope it is not — she would retire as the most influential female pop star of all time, a legitimate legend who wowed audiences, defied expectations and broke records. Having served more than 40 years in the public eye, she could take a holiday, take some time to celebrate. It would be, it would be so nice.

NY Times

[ladyamanda123]

Whoa! Okay look at this….

When I google “tortured poet” one name keeps popping up….Sylvia Plath.

I must woefully admit I didn’t know much of anything about her so I started reading. Going over this I can see some major parallels to Taylor that I’m sure could make her feel a strong connection to this woman. Both poets, both feminists, both with mental health struggles, both with the deep need to write and create. Insomnia. The idea that depression and poetry go hand in hand. This whole bio reads like Anti-Hero in a lot of ways.

So definitely wondering if Sylvia Plath is a poet muse of sorts for this album. Could there be a mental health theme thread to this new album?

“While Plath’s work expertly dissects her personal pain, part of her powerful legacy is that she spoke for every woman by undercutting gender norms in society. Plath perfectly articulated the tension between personal artistry and domesticity. She began a dialogue which rejected the notion of a mother and an artist as being mutually exclusive. “There was a lot of banality and absurdity about women’s lives in the mid-20th century,” confirms feminist poet Jeanne Marie Beaumont. “There were a lot of women ready to break out of a world that would have them considering nothing but the menu for the bridge luncheon next week. Plath explodes out of all of that. She resists it, although not without paying some psychological price.” American poet Emily Bobo describes Plath as a third-wave feminist: “She wasn’t just writing about herself,” Bobo argues. “She wrote about what it was like to be a woman and a poet. She wrote like a man, with all the entitlement of the title ‘poet’, but she did it without apology and fully, as a woman. That remains extremely powerful.”

[inarizakibabe]

hi! can I ask for inarizaki manager headcanons where she’s a raging feminist? I don’t know why but the idea is on my mind lol, she’s very open to have debates and be political about it, and kind of scares some boys off for that, pls and thank u!

Now this sounds like fun 😎 let’s get to it cause I’ve been curious why I haven’t seen coed practices in the anime.

🦊 So our darling y/n is the hardworking manager of the Inarizaki boy’s volleyball club. She tried to be a player on the girls team but things didn’t work out so she settled for being the managers for the boys.

🦊 One day during practice she saw Akagi miraculously save a hard to reach to ball and decided to ask about it. Akagi was more than happy to explain how his mind basically shuts down and the only thing he can focus on is saving the ball. Poor Riseki in passing noticed Akagi explaining with visual aid and jokingly comments that y/n wouldn’t be able to do that because their physiques were too different.

🦊 Cue manager-chan sitting Riseki on his knees and explaining that it’s not completely impossible for her to do anything that any of the boys do. She gives examples of posing like Aram does when he’s spiking and imitating Kita’s stance when he serves. The lecture ends with Riseki on his knees apologizing and promising never to make that mistake again.

🦊 Fast forward a few days later and during a break in practice y/n is asking Atsumu for setting tips. Atsumu remembering Riseki’s lesson a few days back is correcting flaws in her form and choosing his words carefully for once.

🦊 At a training camp at another school she busied herself with regular manager duties when a few players from the opposing team decided to literally drop off their training bibs since they were done practicing for the day. All hell broke loose when she had three third years on their knees apologizing to not only her but also to their manager she suspected was undergoing the same treatment.

🦊 Regular protests to combine girls and boys practice were had in the coach’s office because y/n believe there shouldn’t be a separation in a game everyone can participate in. A few girls agreed and even helped with the cause because let’s face it who doesn’t want to practice with the boys but they were always denied. She tried getting Kita to help once but he ended up getting flustered by the captain of the girls team and waved the white flag.

🦊 Once outside of regular practice time Osamu had to save y/n from starting a school wide war with the entire male student body when she overheard the ending of a conversation of a new magical girls show and assumed the focus was about “ditzy” girls running around in bright colored shirts. Safe to say the only guys she is now friendly with are the boys in the club.

🦊 In conclusion manager-chan of Inarizaki high is busy helping her boys be better versions of themselves and ensuring women Inarizaki wide are treated with respect.

This was a lot of fun to do thanks for the brain rot my darling😌 I shall now be thinking of a way to elaborate on flustered Kita trying to flirt with captain of the girls volleyball team

[spiderfreedom]

About this post, out of curiosity, when do you think it all started? Is there research on like how far back it goes? It obviously isn't inherent to human nature; I know it's not. Is it just one of those toxic things that started from the beginning of organized religion :( ?

There's research, but there's a lot of controversy on when/how patriarchy developed. The most important thing to note is that Greek/Roman/Chinese/Japanese style misogyny is not universal and has not always been the norm. Societies differed a lot in how much power and autonomy women had. At the same time, we must be conscious even the 'best' societies of the past still had faults surrounding women.

Some places to start are:

Alice Evans: Ten Thousand Years of Patriarchy: This article looks at it from an economic and cultural perspective. I strongly recommend reading her Substack, where she travels around the world interviewing Third World Women and Feminists to see why their women's liberation movements have succeeded or failed! From the linked article:

Our world is marked by the Great Gender Divergence. Objective data on employment, governance, laws, and violence shows that all societies are gender unequal, some more than others. In South Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, it is men who provide for their families and organise politically. Chinese women work but are still locked out of politics. Latin America has undergone radical transformation, staging massive rallies against male violence and nearly achieving gender parity in political representation. Scandinavia still comes closest to a feminist utopia, but for most of history Europe was far more patriarchal than matrilineal South East Asia and Southern Africa. [...] Why do some societies have a stronger preference for female cloistering? To answer that question, we must go back ten thousand years. Over the longue durée, there have been three major waves of patriarchy: the Neolithic Revolution, conquests, and Islam. These ancient ‘waves’ helped determine how gender relations in each region of the world would be transformed by the onset of modern economic growth.

Another thing to remember/consider when it comes to studying the past is how few resources we have. We only know so much about how pre-historical humans organized their societies. Colonialism destroyed evidence of other societies with different ways of approaching gender. Many of the great apes we study are endangered. And literate societies happened to be patriarchal societies (likely related to literacy going hand in hand with bureaucracy and agriculture and the development of a state?) so we don't know as much as we could about women in literate regions.

Organized religion definitely codified a lot about patriarchy, but the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) arose in regions of the world that were already patriarchal. So it's kind of a chicken and the egg problem when it comes to patriarchy and religion. We know that religions that worshipped goddesses, like Greek and Roman paganism and Hinduism, can still coexist with sexist societies.

These aren't great answers, but it's a big question and there are a lot of people working on answering it! It ties back into the bigger question of what our human ancestors were like, and whether we're kind of doomed to violence and xenophobia or whether there are alternatives. Some other books I've read that may be useful reading on this front are:

The Dawn of Everything. A long book, but it's a tour of human history and different societies and ways of organizing society. One of the chapters is on women, if I recall correctly.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. Women have been working with cloth for a very long time. In some societies, this allowed women a high degree of status (see the Minoans!) and in others, women were worked to the bone producing textiles (Ancient Egypt).

The book "Demonic Males" looks at the birth of patriarchy from a primatology perspective. Our ape ancestors show male-dominant behaviors and societies. It's controversial the extent this is directly responsible for misogyny and male violence, but I think it's likely that our ape inheritance influenced the structure of early humans - so we basically have a lot of baggage.

Broadly speaking, reading books on feminist anthropology will help you, because a lot of what we know about patriarchy is based on highly literate societies, which as we established, are also agricultural societies with bureaucracies and a hierarchical culture. That's hardly representative of the human condition. As an example, look at Inuit society - on the one hand, there is arranged marriage and all that it implies; on the other, we do not have the same ideals of silent women who stay at home - women are valued members of the society and their skills are explicitly recognized as necessary for survival. Compare Western cultures that view domestic tasks as "support" tasks while the "real" work is done by men.

Finally, this one is a bit old (1974), but it may give you a starting point for understanding feminist anthropology and the search for the origins of patriarchy: "Is Female to Nature as Male is to Culture". It can help us understand how female subordination manifests itself in different cultures, and to know what to look for.

I hope this has been helpful. If anyone can recommend good books on the origin of patriarchy/female subordination (especially for non-Western cultures), please feel free to add in the replies or reblogs!

[moon-witchs-world]

Growing Pains - Remus J. Lupin part seven

Growing Pains – part seven

A Hogwarts Tale

Remus Lupin x Fem!WitchReader

2,2 k words

This is part seven of a multiple part series. You can find part six here

a/n: I’m so sorry for the delay with this part but MAJOR life stuff happened. Like MAJOR life events. Yes, multiple. But anyway I found some time to write this and I loved it. It’s fluffy and cute and I just wanted to write this. Hope you’ll love it as well, please leave a comment or reblog if you do!

Masterlist

Even with your busy schedule, time seemed to be slowing down. You kept counting down the days and then the hours and then the minutes until Remus came to pick you up for your date. You had said it was stupid for him to walk all the way to the seventh floor, where your office was, only to walk all the way down again, but he had insisted. 

'I'm picking you up, Y/N. Don't argue,' he had said after the third time you had brought it up. It was absolutely ridiculous, but apparently, Remus Lupin was old-fashioned in the sense that he truly believed he should pick you up. Even a self-proclaimed feminist like yourself had to admit it was charming. You liked that he was willing to go the extra mile to pick you up.

You made sure to be ready on time. Wearing a deep purple dress that might leave you a bit overdressed for the occasion, but you loved wearing it. Ever since you started teaching you hadn't gotten a chance to wear something fancy, so you took it and tried not to be insecure about it. The look on Remus’ face when he picked you up and saw you in the dress had been well worth it. 

‘You look stunning, Y/N,’ he said genuinely.

‘You look very handsome yourself, Remus,’ you replied. He wore dark green dressing robes, ones that he seemingly hadn’t worn a lot. The clothes made the man in question even more attractive. 

It was only a short walk to Hogsmeade and you listened to Remus tell you about his day. You loved to listen to him, he always enjoyed telling you about the classes he taught and how well the students did. When you arrived at the Three Broomsticks, Remus gallantly opened the door for you. As soon as you stepped inside the warm cafe, you got overwhelmed by the noise. There was music, chatter, the sound of glass shattering and so much more you couldn’t even comprehend. When you felt Remus’ hand on the small of your back, it reminded you to keep walking. 

‘I’ll get us drinks,’ he said after he took your cloak from your shoulders to put it away for you. Before you could say anything, he had left, leaving you to stand by yourself. It wasn’t long before you saw a familiar face in the crowd. Pomona Sprout, the little plump Herbology professor waved at you and then walked up to you. 

‘Y/N? I had no idea you were coming tonight as well? We could have walked together!’ Pomona said excitedly. 

‘I didn’t know you were going as well, Pomona,’ you replied, which was in fact a lie. You had overheard her and Minerva talk about it, but had pretended not to have heard to avoid any awkward questions. 

‘I love a good party. Remus! What are you doing here?,’ she asked with a great smile. Remus had appeared again, carrying two glasses. 

‘I asked Y/N to come to this party with me, you know, trying to do something fun from time to time,’ he replied with an awkward smile. It was obvious what he really wanted to say was: leave us alone, we’re on a date, but he was simply too polite to say just that. Luckily she seemed to understand anyway. 

‘Yes, of course, Remus. Nice to see you both, I’ll leave you to it, then,’ the Herbology professor quickly said and she disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. 

‘So much for secretly going here together,’ you said with a sigh. Remus looked at you with a confused look in his eyes.

‘Who said it was a secret? I told Minnie and Rubeus about it. Oh, and Dumbledore.’

You almost started laughing, convinced he was joking, but the look on his face remained serious.

‘You told the headmaster we were going out?’ you said, wonder-struck. 

‘Is that a bad thing? He overheard me when I told Minerva and seemed excited so I just told him about it,’ Remus explained. 

‘I don't know. I'm just afraid he'll think of it as unprofessional,’ you said quietly. When said out loud, it sounded harsh, but it was a genuine concern you had. Of course you had felt excited and proud when Remus asked you out, but you intended to keep it a secret to prevent rumors spreading amongst your colleagues or worse, the students. 

‘It's Dumbledore, he won't mind.. Anyway, I got you a glass of sparkling water. Which is boring but I forgot to ask you what you liked and I noticed you drink a lot of sparkling water,’ he continued. And there he was again, insecure, nervous Remus. 

‘Thank you Remus, that's perfect,’ you said after taking the glass from him. 

‘But I can get you something stronger if you’d like,’ he said, still unsure. 

‘No thanks, I don’t drink alcohol.’  He looked up at you in surprise. 

‘Me neither. Glad that’s not a buzzkill for you,’ he said, obviously relieved. You nodded and then sipped from your drink. The story of why you decided not to drink was one you would tell him another time, but it was a relief he didn’t drink as well. 

It was getting busier inside the Three Broomsticks and what you remembered to be a spacious cafe, seemed to become smaller by the minute. 

‘Do you want to dance?’  he asked after a minute. Your first instinct was to decline. You always felt awkward when you had to dance, never sure about the right moves or timing or the way your body moved. But this was Remus Bloody Lupin asking. There was only one right answer. 

‘I would love to.’

And so you let him take you by the hand and walked over to the dancefloor. The song that was playing was unfamiliar to you, but it was perfectly up-beat for dancing. 

Remus made sure to lead you and for the first time in your life you actually felt confident while dancing. He made you spin and lifted you and pulled you closer to his body as the music intensified. You giggled when he decided to use the entire dance floor and made dance moves that would be considered very old-fashioned. It was charming. And then it just stopped. The song ended and when the music started again, it was a slow ballad that didn’t match the mood you and Remus were in so you stopped in unison. All around you couples started to slow dance. 

‘Do you want to go outside? I could use some fresh air and… space,’ you said, right after someone stepped on your toes. Remus nodded and you both walked towards the door. 

‘I’ll get our cloaks,’ Remus said and so he did. Somehow he also managed to get new drinks and he handed you one, along with your cloak. The chilly breeze was pleasant on your skin and the faded sound of music and chatter made you feel a bit more at ease. You had liked to dance, but escaping the noise was even better. 

‘I never knew you could dance this well, Remus,’ you said. It wasn’t even supposed to sound this flirty, but it did. He grinned.

‘I never dance nowadays. But this felt like a great occasion to do it again. You’re a very fun dance partner,’ he answered, equally flirtatious. You walked for a bit in silence, leaving the crowded party further and further behind you. After a short walk you saw a wooden bench. 

‘Do you want to sit down?’ you asked and Remus nodded. 

‘It’s a pity you were in Ravenclaw when we were in school,’ he suddenly said after you had sat down. 

‘Excuse me? Ravenclaw is a very respectable house, thank you very much. Some may argue it’s the best house,’ you answered teasingly. 

‘I never said Ravenclaw is a bad house. I just wish you were in Gryffindor back then, because then I got to spend so much more time with you,’ he explained. Not knowing what to say, you took a sip of your sparkling water. You hoped Remus wouldn’t notice your flushed cheeks in the dark. 

‘But then again, you probably would have fallen for James Potter even harder,’ he continued. His words surprised you so badly you almost choked on your sparkling water. It took a while, coughing, eyes filled with tears, for you to finally catch your breath again. Remus had taken the glass from you and had put it, along with his own, on the bench beside him. 

‘Excuse me? James Potter? What are you talking about?’

Remus looked at you for a moment, as if he was trying to figure out if you were being truthful. 

‘I always thought you fancied James Potter when we were in school,’ he said matter-of-factly. 

‘James Potter? You're kidding. Never.’

‘Everyone liked James Potter,’ Remus simply said. 

‘True. He liked himself best probably. Not to say anything bad about the dead, but the guy was quite full of himself. I liked him all right, but he was too loud and superficial for me,’ you explained. 

‘He was the only Griffindor I ever saw in your company,’ Remus pressed on, as if he was presenting evidence in court, trying to prove something. You rolled your eyes. He was right. You and James had spent some time together, but it was not for the reasons Remus was thinking of. 

‘Well, he liked to shower me with compliments so I would help him with his spell work. He was always kind to me and I liked teaching others back then as much as I do now so I helped him when he asked me to. But no, I never fancied him. James Potter was definitely not my type,’ you explained. 

‘Then what is your type?’ Remus asked bluntly and it took everything in you to keep yourself from screaming:  you, you idiot, you're my type! You decided to go for a more subtle approach.   

‘Well. I like kind, hard working, sensitive people who are also very funny,’ you said, almost sure he would get the hint. But he didn’t. Not in the slightest.

‘You just described every Hufflepuff ever. Your late husband was a Hufflepuff, right?’

You rolled your eyes. This was not going too well. The mention of your late husband stung. You were finally moving on, actually really liking someone else. To be reminded of the tragedy of your life was not what you wanted at that moment. 

‘I'm not as superficial as you might think. I don't care about the house someone was sorted into or I wouldn’t even be sitting here with you. You can’t honestly think I’m that shallow,’ you snapped. 

‘I know, I'm sorry. I was hoping for a different answer I guess,’ he mumbled. It annoyed you that he didn't even look at you. 

‘What were you hoping for ?’ you heard yourself ask, much braver than you felt on the inside. This time, Remus did look at you. His green eyes staring into yours, melting your heart. 

‘Listen, Y/N. I really tried to stop it. To keep things professional. To keep my distance because you know, I'm dangerous. I'm out of your league. We work together. But I must admit I've fallen for you. You are making my time at Hogwarts the most magical of my life. I’m not a morning person but now I’m forcing myself to wake up early so I can sit next to you at the breakfast table. When something good happens, I only think about how much fun it’ll be to tell you. I guess I want to know if you feel the same.’

It felt like you were frozen in time. Unable to think or speak or move. This was all you wanted to hear, but now you didn’t know how to respond.  And then all at once, a million little things are happening. One of his hands on your arm, the other cupping your cheek. His eyes gazing into yours, desperately trying to find an answer in them. You opened your mouth to speak, but were unable to find the words. And then it just happened. You’re not even sure who moved first but suddenly you’re both moving towards each other. You feel his breath against your face as you slowly closed your eyes and leaned into him a bit more until your lips touch. His lips are soft against yours and it’s this kiss that wakes the butterflies in your stomach. The kiss gets more passionate as he pressed his lips harder on yours, desperate almost, like your lips were the oxygen he needed to survive. Your hands traveled over his arms and into his hair. His hands find a spot on your waist where they stay, pulling you closer. 

When you finally broke apart for air, you smiled at him. You bend forward again, almost letting your lips touch again when you realize you still owe him an answer. 

‘I do feel the same, Rem. I really do,’ you whispered against his lips.

tags: @turvi @carlito55ainzbae @spidermansolosurfav ily

Part eight

[itsawritblr]

"‘Barbie’ is bad. There, I said it." Thank god, someone I can agree with!

Opinion by Pamela Paul for the NYT, January 24, 2024.

We can all agree 2023 was a good year for the movies. Critically and commercially, several movies did well, and only one of those successes took place within the Marvel cinematic universe. Even the 10 Oscar nominees for best picture, announced Tuesday, included nine actually good films.

Is it safe now to call “Barbie” the outlier? Can I say that, despite winsome leads and likable elements, it didn’t cohere or accomplish anything interesting, without being written off as a) mean, b) old, c) hateful or d) humorless?

Every once in a while, a movie is so broadly anticipated, so welcomed, so celebrated that to disparage it felt like a deliberate provocation. After “Barbie” so buoyantly lifted box office figures, it also felt like a willful dismissal of the need to make Hollywood solvent after a season of hell. And it felt like a political statement. Disliking “Barbie” meant either dismissing the power of The Patriarchy or dismissing Modern Feminism. You were either anti-feminist or too feminist or just not the right kind.

Few dared rain on Barbie’s hot pink parade.

Those who openly hated it mostly did so for reasons having to do with what it “stood for.” They abhorred its (oddly anachronistic) third-wave feminist politics. They despised its commercialism and dreaded the prospect of future films about Mattel properties such as Barney and American Girl dolls. They hated the idea of a movie about a sexualized pinup-shaped doll whose toy laptop or Working Woman (“I really talk!”) packaging couldn’t hide the stereotypes under the outfit.

For those who hailed it, there was a manic quality to the “Barbie” enthusiasm, less an “I enjoyed” and more of an “I endorse.” How fabulous its consumer-friendly politics, its I-can’t-believe-they-let-us-do-this micro-subversions, its prepackaged combo of gentle satire and you-go-girl gumption. They loved it for reclaiming dolls and Bazooka-gum pink, its Rainbow Magic diversity, its smug assurance that everything contained within was legitimately feminist/female/fine. They approved of the fact that Weird Barbie’s quirks could X out Stereotypical Barbie’s perfection on some unspoken political balance sheet. That by being everything to everyone, a plastic doll could validate every child’s own unique and irrepressible individuality. To each her own Barbie!

And now there is a new Barbie cause to rally around: the Great Oscar Snub and what it all means — and why it is wrong. Neither Margot Robbie nor Greta Gerwig was nominated for best actress or best director, respectively. “How is that even possible?” one TV host exclaimed.

“To many, the snubbing of the pair further validated the film’s message about how difficult it can be for women to succeed in —<em> and be recognized for </em>— their contributions in a society saturated by sexism,” CNN explained. Ryan Gosling, nominated as best supporting actor for his role as Ken, issued a statement denouncing the snubs and hailing his colleagues.

But hold on. Didn’t another woman, Justine Triet, get nominated for best director (for “Anatomy of a Fall”)? As for “Barbie,” didn’t Gerwig herself get nominated for best adapted screenplay and the always sublime America Ferrera get nominated for best supporting actress? A record three of the best picture nominees were directed by women. It’s not as if women were shut out.

Every time a woman fails to win an accolade doesn’t mean failure for womanhood. Surely women aren’t so pitiable as to need a participation certificate every time we try. We’re well beyond the point where a female artist can’t be criticized on the merits and can’t be expected to handle it as well as any man. (Which means it still hurts like hell for either sex — but not because of their sex.)

Robbie had far less to do in “Barbie” than she did in “I, Tonya,” for which she justifiably got an Oscar nod. In this movie, she was charming and utterly fine, but that doesn’t make it a rare dramatic achievement.

With “Barbie,” Gerwig upped her commercial game from acclaimed art house to bona fide blockbuster. She was demonstrably ambitious in her conception of what could have been an all-out disaster. She got people to go back to the movies. All of these are successes worthy of celebration. But they are not the same as directing a good film.

Surely it is possible to criticize “Barbie” as a creative endeavor. To state that despite its overstuffed playroom aesthetic and musical glaze, the movie was boring. There were no recognizable human characters, something four “Toy Story” movies have shown can be done in a movie populated by toys.

There were no actual stakes, no plot to follow in any real or pretend world that remotely made sense. In lieu of genuine laughs, there were only winking ha-has at a single joke improbably stretched into a feature-length movie. The result produced the forced jollity of a room in which the audience is strenuously urged to “sing along now!”

A few reviewers had the gall to call it. The New York Post described it as “exhausting” and a “self-absorbed and overwrought disappointment,” a judgment for which the reviewer was likely shunned as a houseguest for the remaining summer season.

In our culture of fandoms, hashtags, TikTok sensations, semi-ironic Instagrammable cosplay, embedded anonymous reviews, sponsored endorsements and online grassroots marketing campaigns, not every critical opinion is a deliberate commentary on the culture or the virtue-signaling of an open letter. Sometimes an opinion isn’t some kind of performance or signifier.

There’s a crucial difference between liking the idea of a movie and liking the movie itself. Just as you could like “Jaws” without wanting to instigate a decadeslong paranoia about shark attacks, you can dislike “Barbie” without hating on women. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. And sometimes, alas, not a good one.