#patriarchy in the ancient world

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/i-die-you-die-they-die/

I Die, You Die, They Die

“Suicide,” someone murmured after reading the announcement that a woman had died at the retirement center. “She was estranged from her family,” said another who stood beside the first speaker. Her remark rang true because the death notice asked that no condolences be left for the family. A shiver of melancholy ran through me as I read it. Being the last of my tribe, I realized that upon my death, no one would need consoling.  Headstones proliferate like autumn leaves in a graveyard but no matter how touching their inscription, the words are unreliable tributes to a life.  A generation passes and few remember. After eons come and go, archeologists may take an interest in a burial mound. And, if they find a necklace or smooth stone left beside someone they have disentombed, they are elated rather than grieved because the found object has been shorn of its memories.       Sometimes two bodies share the same grave, a discovery that raises a question.  Are these bones those of lovers? Or does a mother lie eternally with her stillborn child?  Their deathly embrace tells a story but who remembers? The desire to escape oblivion is potent. A hundred thousand years before homo sapiens walked the earth, the prehuman Homo Naledis buried their dead with mementos before carving the histories of these loved ones on cave walls.  Again, researchers rejoice because while the personal memory of these beings is erased, something about the hominin culture remains.  Patriarchy has a long presence in the affairs of humanoids, for example.  DNA studies of ancient sites suggest that females left their home community to join another– suggesting the probability that they followed their male companion to his home tribe.  Memory is a frail weapon with which to hold back the dark. Technology may come to serve us better.  In an earlier blog,  I wrote that one day we might download our stories into avatars but that would be a pale version of immortality. A combination of technology and biology is also possible, like current efforts to merge Artificial Intelligence (AI) with brain cells.  Will the result make machines smarter?  Or will humans become superhuman? Either way, will the merger help us conquer death?  We must wait to see. Some among us seek a less ambitious goal. With diet and medicinal cocktails, they hope to reverse the aging process.  Regimens like theirs are spartan, often eliminating meat and sugar.  To obtain a longer life, will humans forgo their hamburgers with cokes? Again, we must wait to see. Beyond tinkering with the human lifespan lies an existential question.  Having plundered our planet’s resources to the point of self-extinction, do we have enough time to save our species with discoveries and technological advances?  Or, is our destiny to grovel in the dust for a sip of water? To be or not to be IS  the overwhelming question.  The woman who committed suicide at my retirement center made her choice freely. Others have done the same because without love and respect what is life?  Germaine Greer, a woman near my years, ponders a related question: how to age with dignity?  Once a  professor,  feminist, and author of numerous books, The Female Eunuch most famous among them, and a person brilliant enough to disabuse William F. Buckley of his misconceptions about women’s liberation at 84 faces a growing infirmity. To maintain her independence, she moved into a retirement center.  The solution proved to be unworkable.  There, she suffered endless days of Bingo and bus outings to places that looked the same.  This she endured for ten months, being subjected all the while to abuse from  fellow residents who repeatedly told her to  “shut up.” The treatment must have come as a surprise to a person accustomed to being paid to speak. Fortunately, a brother took pity on Germaine and built a studio in his home where she could live in the bosom of her family but in solitude.  I say, “Happy is a woman with a compassionate brother.”  Happy is the individual who dies loved. Science and technology have the power to lengthen life spans but human attitudes toward aging are slow to change.  In the United States, prejudice against the elderly is the last reservoir of disdain that people feel free to express, as if growing old were a personal failure.  Teenagers may be forgiven for imagining themselves to be immortal, but tyrants who feel the same are fools.   Is it the light that falls from the swords of their armies that blind these dictators? Are they unable to see that like any pauper, they serve no higher purpose than to satisfy the appetites of worms? How greater their history might have been had they considered our common destiny and devoted themselves to acts of kindness.  In death do triumph and failure humbly meet.   (The Victory City by Salman Rushdie, Thorndike Press, 2023, pg. 531.)

[hereforthefunnyguys]

Being really passionately into your own genderbend au is all fun and games until someone has a different completely harmless headcanon about something you happened to have an extremely strong-set belief in and oh no it appears i have written a small essay in my tags on marik ishtar gender identity. How did that get there

[yzuposts]

You’re telling me that the gods moved alongside the West and their form of government NEVER evolved?

[teachanarchy]

What is hysteria, and why were so many women diagnosed with it? - Mark S...

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[headspace-hotel]

some times i look at terf blogs just curious about wtf kind of Drama is going on cause "radfem" tumblr is constantly exploding when one of their buddies turns out to be a horrible person.............in a way that affects them personally

Like last time there was a whole thing over a woman needing funds for an abortion and getting harassed by other "radfems" over it because "she chose to have sex with a man"

now some person is saying that although all men are bad, white men are inherently safer and less violent than men of color, and a bunch of people are defending them and its a total shit show

There is nothing i could say about this that would communicate more than just the posts themselves

That's Racism. You Just Described Racism. It Does Not Stop Being Racism because you believe there are real differences between how violent different ethnicities are. That Is The Racism

Miscellaneous other rancid takes within a few reblog chain links of the above

this person had another post like "why are we funding ozempic when you can just lose weight by replacing all the fast food in your diet with vegetables? it's easy!"

zero people were burned at the stake at salem.

...

okay but how do I even BEGIN to extract the infected ingrown toenail of stupid that this post nauseatingly embodies. Terfs have this whole genre of post that mourns every devastating historical evil as an atrocity "men" perpetrated, caused by "patriarchy/male violence."

Sure. Whatever. Slavery in Britain and the southeastern USA, (the only places slavery existed), the Holocaust, that was "male violence," caused by men, because men are violent and violence is male. Women are definitionally incapable of violence and have never ever ever abused power over others and the world is made of pudding.

Out of the 19 people executed at Salem, by hanging, 5 of them were men. This doesn't matter because facts don't matter, what matters is that the Salem witch trials are the example of violence prompted by alleged "witchcraft" that you can remember without googling it, and in the deeply symbolic mythology of your ass backwards brain, violence against alleged "witchcraft" is always ACTUALLY patriarchal retaliation against Women's Knowledge, which is always ACTUALLY an ancient genocide of women that transcends culture, which by the way is what you're experiencing when people are mean to you online.

Therefore the Salem witch trials, an event with fewer casualties than the Boston molasses flood, is similar in significance to the Holocaust.

Wow. Such biological reality. Very scientific facts.

[biracy]

The John Post

The thing about John Gaius is like… a lot of people refuse to recognize him as like a Bad Guy, and a lot of people criticize tlt for having him as a Bad Guy, for similar reasons. I think a lot of people have these ideas that colonialism and empire and the vague concept of "war crimes" are bad due to some kind of ontological evil within the souls of white men or something, and that misogyny and the objectification of women exist due to some kind of ontological evil within the souls of straight men. Relating to the former, I think a lot of people hold a sort of "but it's okay when we do it" approach to systems of oppressive power + imperialism, where their vision of a perfect world is not one without these things, but ones where currently marginalized people get to participate in colonial and imperialist power forces just as much as the white men ("I hear the next one will be sent by a woman!"). John Gaius is both a representation of this and a good litmus test for people's opinions on this - he was a bisexual, Māori man living in colonized Aotearoa, and when he got to remake the universe, he made one where he is the emperor. Instead of making a world where these systems no longer exist, John went "but it's okay when I do it." A lot of people in real life are like this, honestly - a lot of marginalized people choose to only understand liberation and empowerment through the lens of the power wielded by their oppressors. It's an attractive concept, at first, but it doesn't really work in the long run and it cannot provide liberation for everyone. John becoming the most powerful man in the universe, literally becoming God, gives HIM that power, but does not give EVERYONE that power. The Nine Houses are subjugated under him, the non-House planets are regularly destroyed by him, and even his Lyctors are decidedly "under" him, even after ten thousand years. In choosing to wield the weapons of his oppressors for himself, John becomes not a liberator but an oppressor in his own right.

The same thing can be said about John and gender; people tend to reduce the misogyny John expresses because he's bisexual and played with girls' toys, but bisexual men are just as capable of wielding patriarchy against women as straight men. People also find it difficult to grapple with how John, a Māori man, constructed a blonde Barbie to house the soul of the Earth in, and are hesitant to analyze him as misogynistic because of this. But John making Alecto a Barbie, the icon of white femininity, is the same as him becoming an emperor and surrounding himself with Lyctors in the ancient Roman fashion. Alecto is the idealized white woman, and she is John's. John created her, possesses her, embodies her, in what is both a patriarchal power trip and a marginalized person taking power into his own hands. Alecto being a blonde white woman, being Barbie, carries very clear colonialist AND misogynistic connotations. White supremacy and colonialism has taught John that a blonde-haired white woman is the feminine ideal, which is backed up by the white, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Barbies of his childhood. At the same time, Barbie has an extensive history of being criticized for misogyny, with the doll's design embodying a very clear feminine sexual ideal. The desire to control and contain a beautiful woman is an inherently patriarchal one, and John takes it to the extreme when he chains his Barbie in a coffin at the center of a labyrinth. Alecto is the patriarchal fantasy to wholly possess a beautiful woman, powered by hundreds of years of colonialism teaching John what a beautiful woman even is, filtered through a thin veneer of exerting power over an image of whiteness (although John's treatment of Alecto is primarily misogynistic - it's a very clear part of the text and you need to get comfortable confronting that).

John Gaius is an example of a marginalized person who wishes for the power he has been denied, yet hasn't fully deconstructed colonialism and patriarchy. The only things separating him from anyone else fitting this description is that a) he is a fictional character being written deliberately and b) he had the opportunity to become God. And when John Gaius became God, he didn't change the world; he just made a world where he was in charge. This is an extremely important part of the books! The books are very clearly making commentary on both imperialism and misogyny, and to have people so passionately ignore these themes because they can be uncomfortable to talk about is disheartening. John is a character that invites so much analysis and conversation, there are so many layers to why he is the way he is and what that contributes to the books. People are so unwilling to discuss misogyny and assault or so uncomfortable with the idea of calling a nonwhite guy an imperialist that they steamroll right over these themes, which loses a lot of what makes the books so interesting to begin with in the process.

[ihateliterature]

Not many people know what amatonormativity is and I think that's a shame because it's a very useful concept to keep in mind

So let's do a crash course

What is amatonormativity?

A term coined by Elisabeth Brake in 2011 in her book Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law, used to explain the societal assumption that all people seek romantic relationships in the form of long term monogamous relationships. Easy, right? No

Nothing in life is so easy, especially not something like an idea taken as absolute truth by most people for as long as we can remember

Let's take it from the top

Amatonormativity intersects with cisnormativity, heteronormativity and patriarchal gender norms. What amatonormativity tells us is that EVERYONE wants and needs a committed heterosexual monogamous romantic relationship that usually ends in children. The American 50's ideal is a good example of that

The reason why the other terms I mentioned are not enough to talk about these issues is that they don't target specifically the nature of relationships under patriarchy. They are obviously talked about (especially in discussions about gender norms) but they are not the focus. There is also the problem that many don't recognize the insistence of love as a measure for one's humanity as a problem at all

We live in a world where love is considered to be the very proof of humanity. This is obviously a problem because there is no universally accepted definition of love outside amatonormativity, which claims that only romantic and familial love exist. There is no acknowledgement of alternative ways to love or of humanity existing apart from this concept

What is love? This is what I want to ask you, and I want everyone to think seriously about this question. Is it the idea of a soulmate, of finding your "other half"? Because then comes the 'why?'. Why should anyone find their 'other half'? Why can't people be whole on their own? Is there any weight to this idea at all?

But wait! Some will say! That's not all there is to love. Love is the affection and care you hold for other people. And that is a fair answer. But now I want to ask you, why should that be the measure for someone's humanity?

This conversation goes in circles. Philosophers have tried to find a way to define humanity since Ancient Greece and probably longer, and I'm not here to attempt to answer this question

But there is another question I can answer: why is it important? Why is amatonormativity and being aware of it important? Several reasons. Not only does it affect the lives of aspecs, polyamorous people, childfree and infertile people by making them feel less human for not participating in it's rituals, it also implicitly supports cisnormativity and heteronormativity

The model proposed by amatonormativity is ripe for exploitation, manipulation and abuse. It cuts off people's support networks by devaluing all other kinds of connections, it keeps people from leaving abusive relationships by eliminating all kinds of alternatives to happiness and fulfillment, it makes people enter relationships they don't want because it makes it seem like there is no other alternative, it blinds people to potential or ongoing abuse because it makes us believe that love can only be good and pure

Amatonormativity is often talked about in aspec and polyamorous spaces, but many others are unaware of its influence, and I think this is a mistake and another example of amatonormativity (blinding people to the flaws and alternatives to the ideal it proposes is another way amatonormativity works). And this is a shame, because the queer and feminist movements (along with all the other progressive movements) can't ever attain their goals without addressing amatonormativity

[hadesoftheladies]

it's normal to be insulted by femininity as a girl or woman and it's really simple why.

the core philosophy of patriarchy is that men and women are not defined by their sex but by their sexual roles in the male sexual hierarchy (a naturalistic fallacy). the philosophy of patriarchy cannot allow for equality at any given point, because a man ceases to be a man if he is not dominant and a woman seizes to be a woman if she is not submissive. keep this in mind.

so a woman as defined by patriarchy is a complementary thing (non-human, like animals or "nature") to a man's estate. the woman identity, as construed by patriarchy, exists solely for male pleasure and estate. that means the woman is only a woman if (it/she) is an asset to a male's estate. so it/she must be a wife, a concubine, a tradeable daughter (this is opportunity for wealth), a prostitute or mother. please note, in all these roles, a woman is always meant to be subordinate or she/it is not a woman.

now remember, this is only patriarchal philosophy, but this philosophy/worldview needs to become an ideology and way of life. so patriarchs, in order to justify their made-up bullshit about the sexes and their right to exploit without consequences, must naturalize this worldview. they can create patriarchal religions (for whichever has the power over life and death defines the value and purpose of a soul) and language (whoever defines the world controls how it is perceived).

but CLOTHES are an expression of both. clothes, aside from simply being utilitarian (even in ancient times), were visual symbols denoting things like class, age, sex, nationality, and beliefs. NOW UNDERSTAND, the first class distinction in human societies was between men and women. men were higher humans hence were to be treated as a distinct upper class, and women were lower-class.

class distinction via sex was the first kind of class distinction. so it became increasingly important to the patriarchal state that women and men had to dress according to their class (the Old Testament of the Bible shows that this was indeed important to early patriarchal states in the ANE via verses like Deuteronomy 22:5 which reads, “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”) In short, clothes do not have sex (no garment can chan he your chromosomes), but they do have sex-class (which is gender).

in the development of patriarchy, the veil in the ancient near east, became a symbol of women's sexual status, publicly announcing them as married, concubines, virgins, etc. (i encourage you to read The Beginning of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner for more in-depth information on all this). clothes then, and today, have always been about determining women as a sexual class and what role they performed in that sexual class (modest, up for sale, married, low-value, lesbian/deviant).

because men get to define what women are, they get to define what our clothes mean. they get to decide if something is modest or if a woman is "asking for it."

what does this have to do with femininity?

patriarchal belief= a woman is a thing, defined explicitly by her inequality to man, that exists purely for the pleasure and purpose of the man. this means a woman can only be a sexual slave (whether as a mother/wife or a whore) and cannot live or exist outside of this male-defined sexuality (temptress/justified sexualization of underage girls) without becoming something other than a woman (a monster, a witch, ungodly, mentally ill). since it was made for man, it cannot pursue interests outside of pleasing him and still be a natural, healthy thing.

enter gender.

femininity (and gender) is how women are regulated by the patriarchal state. it is a costume, a uniform, that signifies an obedient subordinate, but it is also a performance that is constantly tested and scored. women with low scores get re-educated or removed from society (via death or ostracization). femininity is how women are policed. all you have to do is to look at the traits of femininity and it's rules.

the natural female face/body should always be palatable, pleasing and presentable to the man and what he specifically finds attractive (so it doesn't matter that you're from a different culture or of a different class, if you're dressing "modestly" or "promiscuously"--this is the only primary rule: that you please men and that you are tasteful to the man who fancies you)

this means that the woman's health is secondary and her body should be editable, adaptable, picked apart and put back together on a whim, on any and every level to appeal to any man who wants her (cosmetic surgery, corsets, trends)

nurture is paramount to the character of a woman (because a woman is meant to be an excellent breeder)

softness and smallness (signals submissiveness, passiveness, defeat, weakness--all of which are proper womanly behaviour)

martyrdom (a woman exists for the preservation of the man and his estate)

silence (this communicates mental submission which is important, women should not voice their experiences, grievances, frustrations, desires, stories because she is showing agency and none of these qualities aid her identity as a sexual servant)

i want you to look at and analyze, even within your own cultures, what femininity is defined as wherever it exists, and then see if you can find any connection to how it enforces the idea of the patriarchal woman-thing. the entire performance, clothing and behaviour, is enforced in order to justify the fictional woman-thing in patriarchal imagination.

but you are a human being.

you have always been able to think, feel, disagree, feel anger . . . because you are a person with a sense of dignity, history and purpose outside male-defined sexuality. so when you as a girl or woman express disdain at femininity, it is not because you think "feminine" women are beneath you. it is because you know femininity is beneath every woman and yourself.

the capitalistically driven insecurity market that pushes women to seek out the security of male validation is beneath all of us. the performance is beneath all of us. we were human before we were mothers, wives, sex workers. we were beautiful and wonderful before makeup. we were human before men looked at us and called us fuckable. we were powerful and divine before men told us we were demonic and simply angelic, servants of gods rather than goddesses ourselves. we had the capacity to create and invent the world before men told us we didn't have heads for learning.

we have always been human and always will be.

femininity is a patriarchal polemic against our humanity. it's fundamental philosophy disagrees with the reality of us. that's why there's so much anger and fear around this culture.

some of us, as girls, resented the fact that our mothers asked us to swallow the fact that they accepted (as right) their humiliation and ours. that they wanted us to show men and boys that we accepted that we were made to be humiliated. of course we got angry. of course we felt confused. didn't our mothers, sisters, aunts, friends care that this performance was never-ending humiliation as we were forced to parade ourselves in order to compete for male approval? in front of the eyes of men and boys we knew mocked us for everything? so we said, we're not like other girls. other girls want to keep up with this. maybe they like humiliation? but we can't live this way. something must be wrong with us, or with them. they're sheep, or we're disgusting lesbians. but the truth is that we're all just in a world of pain and desperation.

your (feminine) clothes are not made with you in mind, but they are also made to keep you minding yourself. checking yourself. making sure your bra doesn't show. your underwear doesn't slip. your belly isn't too prominent. it keeps you eager to perform your role. to win against a race you can't even define because you haven't ever questioned if it ends. you get approval from the state because you are trained to self-regulate, and you have been trained well. the relief you feel at the approval of other girls or boys is that they are giving you a high score. which means you are safe. you are beautiful, you are a good performer. you will be picked and not left behind.

you may say you dress for the girls, but that's part of the problem, still. you and the girls are. you are still agreeing with the political philosophy of patriarchy when you uncritically wear the uniform of the woman-thing. you think of yourself as the woman-thing. you think of your face and body as infinitely editable. delete the breasts, delete the pores, enlarge the eyes like you're a doll on a Wii avatar creator. and so other girls are scared of being themselves because you all know there's something here to fear. there's rejection and punishment waiting for pretty ladies who don't comply.

but you're a living, complete human being, darling. you are an ecosystem with mysteries as old as the universe in you. you are a person that deserves to be here fully and freely. this is your world, too. our world.

so you see why gender cannot be reclaimed by us in a meaningful sense? it is a performance that is invented, re-invented and validated by the philosophy of our dehumanization. it will never be independent of it in this system.

you are worth the freedom and strength you can give yourself. you are worth the fight out of this.

[theodysseyofhomer]

when i insist on odysseus as a rape victim i'm not trying to absolve him of patriarchy. he is, in many ways, a hero of patriarchy. even if i think some of the people who use him that way rhetorically have probably not read the odyssey, let alone understood its nuances, the cultural world of the poem and the narrative itself are patriarchal, and odysseus is both a product and perpetrator of that. but when i read about calypso forcing odysseus to have sex with her, i will still call it rape, not because i like him as a character, although i do, but because i think to not do so reveals a very troubling attitude toward rape and patriarchy in the ancient context and now.

i've tried and tried but i don't know how to have this conversation with someone who is determined not to accept the premise that, in the text of the odyssey, odysseus has no choice in the matter. if they've read the text, it's right there. from what i can read of the greek, it's there (ἀνάγκη, force, constraint). i've never read a translation where it wasn't there. if they just don't care, that pretty much kills the discussion.* but sometimes they'll try to sidestep it, bringing up that the text implies he slept with calypso willingly at some point, or arguing that she doesn't explicitly compel him on the last night they spend together before he leaves ogygia forever.** to be frank, that's not the point. i'm not trying to absolve him even of the accusation of cheating on penelope. i'm not saying he was faithful to penelope. i'm saying he was still, at the point that we meet him in the odyssey, raped. period. i'm saying that's important in some way. i'm saying that using that word is important.

odysseus has power, as a man in a patriarchal society, but that power is not absolute. power is never absolute. i've heard it suggested that in the ancient context, the rape of odysseus is comic, in the sense of affirming life even in its indignities, and in the sense that humiliation is amusing (i have a lot of disagreements with the article, but it has given me endless food for thought). i'm quoting at length here, but bear with me:

Athena leaves Odysseus lingering on Calypso’s island in what is certainly the most unheroic, most challenging of all the trials that befall him on his return home. The narrator describes Odysseus as desperately wanting to leave Ogygia, crying in homesickness, but having to stay and, more to the point, share Calypso’s bed. I mentioned much earlier that an audience of that period would not expect celibacy from a married male away from home. Yet the situation must produce, it seems to me, quite another reaction in the males in the audience when the narrator emphasizes Odysseus’ profound unhappiness with the arrangements. In a patriarchal society of that time, where marriages were arranged and wedding nights were more likely than not sanctioned rape scenes, households teemed with female slaves, the highways and byways with prostitutes, men were no doubt accustomed from puberty to have their way easily with women, and on their own terms. Nothing in their experience would prepare them for enforced sexual servitude to a woman. [...] With this episode, the narrator has introduced a comic counterpart to the ubiquitous comments on the faithful Penelope’s celibacy, that is, the image of her husband manfully performing his nightly duties in the home of the insatiable Calypso. It is comic, yes, but also every man’s deepest fear.

why is it comic? because it's a reversal of expectation, of roles, of fortune. why is it unexpected? because it exploits the fear that a man could be treated by a woman the way he treats a woman; because a woman becomes monstrous by acting like a man. these are misogynistic ideas and fears, and they sound strikingly modern.

which means that: i understand the impulse to salvage calypso's image. i understand how it could be interesting or productive or empowering maybe, for some women, because homer is so concerned with any fault in penelope's sex life (reinforced by clytemnestra’s, and those of the slave women that odysseus and penelope own) and seemingly not at all with odysseus’. but calypso is arguing for the right of female gods to treat human beings however they want to, not for the rights of human women.

it also means that: the rape of odysseus becomes remarkable, when the rape of countless others is not, because of who he is. it's humiliating for him to be treated like a sex slave because he's a man and a king; other slaves are just slaves. similar logic is found elsewhere in the odyssey (it's humiliating for him to be treated like a beggar, but the other beggar in the house is just a beggar). this is not a text that believes in equal rights of any kind. but i think we have to ask the question, is it not rape because of that? should we not call it rape because he's a man, because he's a man who perpetrates specific evils, because other people have it worse? and why do i keep arguing that his situation is important to remark on?

god. i don't know. sometimes? just because we don't.

i've lost count of posts like this, comments like this, attitudes like this, of how many times i mention the odyssey and immediately hear about calypso, of how at best odysseus weeping on ogygia becomes the butt of the joke. and i'm not sorry that i don't find it more progressive than treating calypso as a shrill misogynistic stereotype. i do not find it interesting or original to take a man who is not in the position of power in a sexual encounter and say that he's being either disingenuous, ungrateful, or mystifying.

when we refuse to name what calypso does to odysseus as rape, absolutely regardless of what we feel for him, just that it happened, that that's what's going on, i think we do something sinister, potentially to real people. especially because this exists in a text where slavery is also often unnamed in translation and discussion, and other forms of rape and captivity and human suffering, and i think we need to name them all, without being afraid that naming one will take away from the others. saying odysseus was raped doesn't mean we excuse the intense misogyny penelope is subjected to, the enslaved lives of melantho and the other hanged women. it all matters. it's all important.

*as does the suggestion that odysseus could be lying and actually had a great time. but odysseus isn't the one telling us what's going down on ogygia; the narrator is. when given the opportunity, odysseus himself says very little, only maintaining that his heart wasn't in it. of course odysseus could be lying. he could always be lying. but calypso is the most relevant counter-perspective we have, and even she doesn't claim that odysseus wants her, just that she thinks he ought to be happy with her. it's to her obvious frustration that he isn't. without another authority in the text, saying "it could be straight lies" is a conversational dead-end.

and if, by the way, there's a lost version of the odyssey in which odysseus was philandering, and the version we have was written to clear him of those charges... it's still the version we have. how we deal with it says something about us.

**if i say "calypso raped odysseus" and a hypothetical person (actually several real people i have encountered) makes this counterargument, that implies that the threat of force is, then, what? not real? if 'at some point' being willing means that the harm of whatever came after that point is negated, it casts him as someone who mopes around out of boredom with an equal partner, when the text seems much clearer on the point that he's in this position against his will than under what circumstances and for how long he might have slept with her willingly. they are clearly not equals by the mere fact that she is a goddess; his mortality is, in calypso's eyes, the barrier between them. rip to everyone who finds the decision to leave ogygia a "surprising choice" but i am never less surprised by odysseus than when he's handling calypso as delicately as possible, in order to leave her as fast as he can.

[haggishlyhagging]

It has been said that female separatism is radical feminism's natural and logical conclusion. Most radical feminists have chosen not to follow their politics all the way to that end and do what they can to avoid, ignore, or deny it. Anti-separatist feminists engage in what has been called "thought termination," meaning the act of refusing to follow one's own thoughts to their logical conclusions, in order to justify their decision to stay connected to males. They also encourage this thought termination in other women, wanting to undermine female separatism as a legitimate political and personal choice for their own selfish reasons.

When making political and feminist analysis or when attempting to determine in your own life if a particular decision is feminist or anti-feminist, it is useful to ask the ancient Roman legal question: "Cui bono?" or "Who benefits?" Of course, women do stand to gain certain rewards and privileges from engaging in male loyalism, misogyny, and anti-feminist actions, but whatever the matter at hand, an anti-feminist and anti-female decision will ultimately benefit males the most. When we ask "Who benefits the most?" from women and girls choosing to lead male-inclusive and male-centric lives, the answer is clear: males do.

The most recent studies have found that heterosexual marriage makes men happier and women more unhappy overall. The overwhelming majority of domestic labor and childcare continue to fall on the wife's shoulders in heterosexual marriage throughout the developed world, and this is true even while most married heterosexual women in developed countries work full-time throughout adulthood. Heterosexual and bisexual women openly admit to experiencing sex in their heterosexual relationships that ranges from inorgasmic and boring to violent, humiliating, and painful. Outside of heterosexual relationships, women and girls often find themselves on the losing side of unequal relationships with male family members and friends who take advantage of their labor, emotional and otherwise, and do not reciprocate or bother suppressing their sexism.

The power struggle between males and females has always been sexual, both in the carnal and reproductive sense. Even the word patriarchy rests on the sexual, social, and familial arrangements that exist in a predominantly heterosexual, mixed society where men and women live in constant contact with each other: rule of the father assumes that women and girls are in a position to be ruled, both socially and physically. It assumes the presence of a man.

Female separatism is the unavoidable, ultimate conclusion of radical feminist politics for the simple reason that separatism alone prevents the male objective driving men's oppression and domination of the female sex: using women and girls as sexual, domestic, social, and economic resources. If this is the point of patriarchy, how can anything other than female separatism be the solution to it? In a system where males already have all the power and control, women and girls will never be able to change their own status or achieve liberation from oppression through cooperating with males and granting them everything they demand.

Males want sexual access to female bodies above all else, and furthermore, they rely on women and girls to perform the domestic labor, social labor, and professional labor that keep men comfortable physically, emotionally, and psychologically. For thousands of years, men universally made sure that women and girls could not survive independently of them by locking us out of education, paid work, and the political arena and refusing to give us basic rights to own money and property. They knew and feared that if women had the option to survive and thrive apart from men, most of us would choose to do exactly that.

The only reason women now have the legal rights and protections that allow us to reject heterosexual marriage and motherhood is because we fought hard for those rights and protections over the course of at least a hundred years in developed countries, and we are still fighting all over the world, not only to gain what we lack but to protect what we have. Men have never yielded any political concessions to women willingly, easily, or readily. They have resisted us every step of the way, and they will never cease their attempts to take back the progress we've made.

If female separatism was of no consequence to the male sex, they wouldn't have spent all of recorded history making it virtually impossible. They wouldn't now be going out of their way to destroy any and all female-only spaces, both physical and digital, in the name of transgenderism. They would not have lorded physical and sexual violence over us since the beginning of time as punishment for our resistance and disobedience.

-Sekhmet She-Owl, “Female Separatism: The Feminist Solution” in Spinning And Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century

[aroaessidhe]

okay I was asked about fey books I’ve read that Do stick to folklore a bit more than certain popular books - and actually looking at what fey books I’ve read  it’s a bit like.... books that stick to folklore closely I sometimes Don’t Love, and there are others that don’t stick to it as much but I like the overall narrative more? or some mix of that. 

so here’s a list of a few - a range of how much they stick to folklore (which of course is an amorphous thing) and how much I like them, but it’s something!

YA

That Self-Same Metal - literally just read this, it’s about a Black girl who’s the stage blade expert for shakespeare’s company and can see fey, and they’re appearing more and more in the city. explores a bit of the midsummer night’s dream fey but also like “shakespeare was wrong” and general folklore. definitely the start of a series and has a lot going on but I thought it has some cool ideas!

all Holly Black’s books deal with them well! the Modern Faerie Tales companion/trilogy has maybe aged a bit by now, and I hate way the romance ended up together in The Folk of the Air (and the way the fandom is about it) but otherwise I do really like how it deals with fey and politics! also enjoyed The Darkest Part of the Forest. these are all intertwined/same world

The Buried And The Bound - a hedgewitch girl keeps fey away from her town, and gets caught up with two boys who are cursed. mostly deals with minor fey and a powerful hag

An Enchantment of Ravens - it’s been quite a few years since I read this, but I do remember enjoying it. It is a bit more of a romance focused story also, an artist stolen into the fey realm for painting a fey prince as if he was human(iirc?)

The Bone Houses - not directly dealing with fey, but like the aftermath of the ancient fey’s curses? welsh myth inspired. which I think is cool.

At The Edge of The Woods - about a girl in a religious/patriarchial village who starts to have strange dreams about a fey boy luring her into the woods. it’s not super focused on them, but they’re very much the classic ‘dangerous fey stealing people away for entertainment’ kind of thing

Adult

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries - I sort of have mixed feelings about this - I really enjoy how it dealt with fey and the creepier folklore creatures side of it! the handling of the changeling was a bit iffy and not sure about the romance

The Wolf Among the Wild Hunt - dark fantasy novella about a wolf-shifter made to join the wild hunt to save his qpr. focused on the unseelie/wild hunt area

Silver in the Wood - gaslamp fantasy novella about the keeper of a magical forest, dryads and dangerous fey

The Wind City - a bit of a mashup of fey folklore and Māori atua in a modern NZ setting

Sinners/Veiled - very classic but also with the element of a modern setting where human pollution is like a drug to fey (and the MC is a drug lord.) (so kind of dark but also not dark in the sexy way bc the MC is aroace)

Under The Pendulum Sun - this is a gothic fantasy that has a bit of a new take on a fey world, but also definitely has some of those creepy folklore vibes.

Siren Queen - this only partly involves fey but I thought the way that it mashed up old hollywood and fey (aka shady deals for fame themes) was interesting!

Sorcerer to the Crown/The True Queen - my memory on this is hazy, but I believe it’s regency fantasy, with its own take on a fey world/magic (moreso the 2nd book)

Malice/Misrule - adult high fantasy lesbian sleeping beauty reimagining, this is kind of doing it’s own thing I guess (I don’t remember if they’re even called fey?) but definitely has a bit of the creepy creature/court vibes in book 2 especially

In The Jaded Grove - I was just looking up books to see if there was anything I missed and found this, which seems interesting to me!

I also haven’t read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (but I watched the show ages ago) and I believe that has the vibe too

[blond-jerk-tourney]

Brackets + Participants Masterlist

Have you ever thought who is the JERKIEST and MOST LOVEABLE MEAN BLOND ASSHOLE?? Well then this is the tournament for you!

read this if you're new

complete list under cut. the order of images does not reflect matchups.

Champagne Bracket (alphabetized by media)

Sakyo Furuichi from A3! Act! Addict! Actors! Kristoph Gavin from Ace Attorney Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (musical) Clotted Cream Cookie from Cookie Run Yoshiki Kishinuma from Corpse Party Jiwoo from Dandelion - Wishes Brought To You - Byakuya Togami from Danganronpa Hiyoko Saionji from Danganronpa Eichi Tenshouin from Ensemble Stars Nazuna Nito from Ensemble Stars Karin Sauer from Fear and Hunger Rufus Shinra from Final Fantasy Zenos yae Galvus from Final Fantasy XIV Sharpay Evans from High School Musical Vace from I Was a Teenage Exocolonist Natsume Minami from Idolish7 Cindy from Kindergarten Felix from Kindergarten Larxene from Kingdom Hearts Kromer from Limbus Company Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat Mikhael / THE MAVERICK from OMORI Ryuji Sakamoto from Persona 5 Bede from Pokémon Sword and Shield Oleana from Pokémon Sword and Shield Babette from Raggedy Ann and Andy A Musical Adventure Haley from Stardew Valley Joshua Kiryu from The World Ends With You Clownpiece from Touhou Project: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom Vil Shoenheit from Twisted Wonderland Camus from Uta no Prince-sama Ryuji Goda from Yakuza Honey Bracket (alphabetized by media)

Andrew Minyard from All for the Game Mean Generic Golden Retriever from Anon Ask (link) War from Bonus Links AU by @bonus-links Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes Richard Lazarus from Doctor Who MacKenzie Hollister from Dork Diaries Ryusui Nanami from Dr. Stone The Blond "weird sister"/"bride of dracula" from Dracula Arte Ente Conchita from Evillious Chronicles Dave Strider from Homestuck Dirk Strider from Homestuck Trophy from Inanimate Insanity Emma Frost from Marvel Comics (usually X-men titles) Brittnay Matthews from Most Popular Girls in School Ambrosius Goldenloin from Nimona (comic) Danburite “Danny” Skinner the OC of @porcelain-animatronic Rose Thorburn Jr. from Pact (art by @wraith_ly on twitter) Brandish/Carol Dallon from Parahumans (art by @cpericardium Glory Girl/Victoria Dallon from Parahumans (art by @cpericardium) Goddess/Bianca from Parahumans (art by raikiri on reddit) Tattletale/Lisa Wilbourn from Parahumans (art by monkeyjay on reddit) Shaka from Saint Seiya  Thranduil from The Hobbit Achilles from The Illiad (art by ancient greek polychromatic pottery painter c. 300BC) Ianthe Tridentarius from The Locked Tomb (art by @starcanist) Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray Adam Parrish from The Raven Cycle Rachel from Tower of God Arlo from Unordinary Mathis Quigley Sr. from Unsounded Benedict from Violet Evergarden Linton Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights

Platinum Bracket (alphabetized by media) Brad Morton from American Dragon: Jake Long Biff Tannen from the Back to the Future Trilogy Patriarchy!Ken from Barbie Howard Hamlin from Better Call Saul Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer  Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai/Karate Kid Daring Charming from Ever After High Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off Zap Brannigan from Futurama Joffrey from Game of Thrones Gideon from Gravity Falls Heather Chandler from Heathers Helga Pataki from Hey Arnold Simon from Infinity Train Dee Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Cindy from Jimmy Neutron Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO Villanelle from Killing Eve Regina George from Mean Girls Arthur Pendragon from Merlin Skwisgaar Skwigelf from Metalocalypse Chloé Bourgeois from Miraculous Ladybug Steff McKee from Pretty in Pink Angelica Pickles from Rugrats Gunther and Tinka Hessenheffer from Shake It Up Prince Charming from Shrek Bartleby Montclair from Sonic Underground Illya Kuryakin from The Man From UNCLE (2015) Lyle Lanley from The Simpsons Tom "Iceman" Kazansky from Top Gun Julia from Total Drama / Total Takes Flash Thompson from Ultimate Spider-Man Strawberry Bracket (alphabetized by media) Lilith Bristol from Absolute Duo Rio from Assassination Classroom  Mello from Death Note Beelzebumon from Digimon Tamers Laxus Dreyar from Fairy Tail Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist Char Aznable from Gundam Kei Tsukishima from Haikyuu!! Shaiapouf from Hunter x Hunter Anzu Futaba from Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Isobe from Kamisama Kiss Nozomu Nanashima from Kiss Him Not Me Hanazawa Teruki from Mob Psycho 100  Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia Neito Monoma from My Hero Academia Arcangelo Corelli from Neo Yokio Cavendish from One Piece Donquixote Doflamingo from One Piece Sanji from One Piece Panty Anarchy from Panty and Stocking Nanami Kiryuu from Revolutionary Girl Utena Jadeite from Sailor Moon Zoisite from Sailor Moon Akagi Ritsuko from Shin Seiki Evangelion Sofia from Space Dandy Kuusuke Saiki from The Disastrous Life of Saiki K Ryou Shirogane from Tokyo Mew Mew Sylvio Sawatari from Yugioh Arc V Malik/Marik Ishtar from Yugioh Duel Monsters  Mizael from Yugioh Zexal Yuri Plisetsky from Yuri on Ice The brackets are based on the type of media they are from. It isn't perfect but I think that is okay. I was thinking of posting all the initial matchups, but I've decided I don't want to change them as they are now and I also want them to be surprises.

[princesssarisa]

Character ask: Queen Esther

Favorite thing about them: Her courage and selflessness when she risks her life to save her people, and her cleverness in the way she uses flattery, entertainment, and well-chosen wording to maneuver the villainous Haman into a vulnerable position and turn her royal husband against him.

Least favorite thing about them: I suppose the fact that at first she's reluctant to approach the king without being summoned and come out as Jewish to him. Of course it's natural that she's afraid to risk her life, but still, thousands of other people's lives are on the line and she almost chooses to protect herself rather than them.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I'm part Jewish.

*I'm often afraid to reveal my Jewish heritage in public.

*I often wear purple – most mass-produced Queen Esther costumes for Purim seem to dress her in purple, since it was associated with royalty in the ancient world.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I'm not married to a king.

*I'm not an orphan.

*I've never been to the Middle East.

Favorite line:

Her instructions to Mordecai when she agrees to speak to the king on the Jews' behalf:

"Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

Her reveal of her Jewish heritage to her husband, with its clever rhetoric of saying that she and her people are threatened, arousing her husband's protective outrage, before she reveals that by this she means Haman's planned genocide of the Jews that her husband had blindly agreed to:

“If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated."

brOTP: Her cousin and foster father Mordecai.

OTP: Well, I have to say her husband King Ahasuerus, though it's hardly a modern love match, and though there are plenty of valid reasons to loathe him and wish Esther could leave him. If not for their marriage, she couldn't have saved her people.

nOTP: Haman.

Random headcanon: I accept the Talmudic tradition that she was a vegetarian rather than eat non-kosher meat in her husband's palace, but not the tradition that she lived on only legumes and seeds. While I understand the appeal of saying "Out of virtue and piety she turned down the most tempting dishes in favor of plain, simple food," that's not a balanced diet, and Persian cuisine has so many wonderful vegetable dishes she could have chosen from!

Unpopular opinion: I don't think she and Queen Vashti need to be pitted against each other. While I don't like the tradition of vilifying Vashti in order to glorify Esther as the superior, deserving replacement, neither do I think admiring Vashti's courage and defiance means we should look down on Esther for being "docile and submissive" or "complicit with the patriarchy." After all, it's by finally breaking the rules that Esther saves her people, and ironically, despite having banished Vashti for her disobedience and chosen Esther as a suitably docile replacement, Ahasuerus obeys Esther's will in the end. I admire and sympathize with both women and see Vashti as ultimately vindicated by Esther.

Song I associate with them: Well, it's mainly a song about Haman, not Esther, but I have to choose this popular silly children's song for Purim, "A Wicked, Wicked Man." It's the song I most associate with the holiday.

Favorite picture of them:

These various paintings.

[radioactivewisdom]

hello, you said that you used to watch Black Obsidian. I used to watch her as well and she had an interesting theory about the "patriarchy". Since we know that Women ruled back in ancient times (there are lots of archeological evidence of this, nobody can deny this even the fiercest patriarchs lol), she said that "patriarchy" came to existence because women started prioritizing their sons over their daughters. She even said that it started because women started lusting after and "fucking" their sons. What do you think about that ? Also, how would you explain that 99% of women in this world reproduce their own oppression ? How can we explain the fact that women are the ones reproducing the patriarchy and encouraging its existence ? Thanks

I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of her work, so I hadn’t heard that yet. She’s correct though, and I agree that women birthing sons in mass was the final nail in the coffin. There’s no woman more dangerous than a boy mom, even wives are easier to handle. If a woman has a son, avoid her at all cost. Mothers will do their sons bidding themselves in order to cover for them. Unfortunately, she’s also correct about the prevalence of incest. Emotionally, it’s everywhere, especially between mothers and sons. I’ve been told, completely unprompted the most vile things by both mothers and sons. It’s also very common for mothers to use their sons as stand ins for an absent or would be partner. Women are just as blinded by sexual attraction as men. Actually it’s quite funny, both sexes project so heavily because they can’t control what’s in their pants. Women want to have sex without fear of abandonment, and eventually have babies. That desire outweighs all of the negative consequences of paring up with their supposed oppressors. They’re blinded by “love” and that will always outweigh any cons, so the shit show continues.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’ve been thinking about whether or not to cut out most of the sexual assault from my personal retellings and reimagining a of Greek myths and I think I’ve decided that I will cut out most of it but not all of it.

My reason behind this is that there are characters in Greek myth that you’re generally meant to root for. I think cutting all the patriarchy out and ignoring the problematic parts entirely for retellings meant for teens and adults gives a false impression that the ancient Greeks and Romans were cool and progressive actually. But, no. They were patriarchal societies.

At the same time though, if a character is a rapist, generally modern audiences will not like them. Understandably so. But if they’re meant to be the main character and it’s important that they succeed or if they’re meant to be a good man brought down, you see the writers dilemma when it comes to using mythology in their stories.

So what do I do? My personal approach is to make it complicated. Every writer will have their own approach though and I’m not gonna call any of them wrong outright. Turning the Olympian gods and their demogod children into cheaters is an understandable leap to make. And ancient authors did this too. In some versions of the abduction of Helen by Theseus he doesn’t touch her because she’s not of legal marrying age yet, but in other versions he straight up rapes a 14 year old.

Both of these versions make him look like an awful person but one of them at least makes him look like he has at least a skeleton of some morals. I imagine that many in Ancient Greece and Rome were also uncomfortable with certain aspects of their stories. Like how Pindar was obviously uncomfortable with Tantalus cooking up his son and instead was like no guys Poseidon just fell in love with him and swept him off to Olympus and that started a rumor that he was killed.

So yeah I’m working on a long line of guys going no actually that’s where I draw the line I don’t like that it’s actually this instead. And you may disagree where I or other people draw those lines.

Well. Make your own retelling then. Actually. Do it. The world can’t have too many in my opinion.