#stop female erasure in history

[doctorbunny]

The Jackalope Guide [spoilers for both novels]

I skimmed through the first manga, second novel, side S/W and my memories so hopefully I've not forgotten anything important [text version under cut]

Jackalopes of MILGRAM:

Novel 1

Female/described as having a "woman's voice"

Uses atashi/アタシ pronoun (pretty bog standard feminine pronoun)

Goes by "Jacka"

Requests Es call her a jackalope and not a rabbit [note: there is a Jp equivalent of the phrase "flying pig" 亀毛兎角 kimoutokaku "turtles with fur, rabbits with horns" referring to something impossible, this phrase may be linked to jackalopes]

Newer at her job (compared to other Jackalopes in the series)

Works from a branch office of MILGRAM HQ (reports back to her boss remotely via big TV)

Sadist who enjoys human bloodshed (at one point even giving a stressed out Nervous a box cutter to self harm with, just like the kind she used to use, so Sumi could see who )

Likes organising MILGRAMs with "aesthetic" (IE all of Sumi's prisoners being involved in her death)

In order to prevent information being spoiled too early uses powers to stop the prisoners breathing until they stop trying to talk

Accidentally allows Twoside to give away information too early, spoiling her own MILGRAM

Her and her MILGRAM considered failures (punishable by purging)

Her 'vessel' is chained up by another jackalope (probably youtube jackalope) at the end of the novel then purged but the person was able to escape (because she was in the Branch Office)

Current location/situation unknown (but said to be alive)

Novel 2

Male/described as having a "young man's voice"

Uses jibun/自分 pronoun (slightly unusual as a main pronoun feels kind of soldier-like)

Also goes by "Jacka"

Has run many successful MILGRAMs in the past (allowed to take risks like Torch being the Es of Novel 2)

Works at MILGRAM HQ

Takes smoke breaks after trials

Talks to boss during smoke breaks

Boss is probably Youtube Jackalope

Hates bloodshed and doesn't care about the aesthetics or drama of a MILGRAM

When Tatsumi tried to kill Torch, Jacka retaliates by using his powers to take control of Tatsumi's body and make him strangle himself

He stops when Tatsumi passes out/Torch says he doesn't want Tatsumi to die, but if not for Torch, Jacka would've killed him

Hates his job/boss

Relieved to hear that Jacka1 escaped purging

Despite working at milgram for many years, did not know there was a branch office

At the end of the novel he defects from MILGRAM, forming a collaboration with Torch and showing/taking him through the secret exit

Asks Torch how he'd feel if someone he loved was judged guilty by MILGRAM (possibly implied to be something that happened to him?)

Youtube

Male/"Speaks arrogantly"

Uses Ore-sama/オレ様 (comically self important)

Internal monologue in Side W/S uses watashi/私 (significantly less arrogant)

Only goes by Jackalope

Insulted if you call him a rabbit

Appears at the end of the first novel to punish Jacka/judge Sumi

Appears during second novel's post-trial smoke breaks (human form in milgram HQ)

Was the one to approve Torch being a guard even though he didn't think it was a good idea

Hates smoking and asks Jacka2 to not do it

Highly values the aesthetic/elegance of a MILGRAM

Wants a "pure" milgram with the fewest possible distractions in the judgement of sin

Used the same kind of memory erasure on Es that Jacka1 used on everyone

Believes Es needs to trust him for MILGRAM to work

Probably responsible for Es' barrier (the 'hypnosis' lines up with other jackalope's mind/body controlling)

Views end of 2nd novel as the worst event in milgram history

Cooks the food for the prisoners (sheds lots of fur)

[thenightling]

Dear newbie queer kids, We appreciate the sentiment but stop "correcting" the older LGBTQ+ community. And by "correcting" I mean trying to force them to adopt your language. "Actually, it's pansexual if you're attracted to any gender. Bisexual means only men and women." (I really was told that one today.) "Actually if they're attracted to anyone despite gender and even to non-human entities in works of fiction that's omnisexual." Guys, you may not know it but what you are doing is what we'd once call bi-erasure. A little LGBTQ+ history: The word bisexual is still relatively new for a lot of people. In 1973 when David Bowie came out as bisexual, a reporter misunderstood that to mean he had both male and female reproductive organs. Even today I've stumbled upon people who think bisexual means "nonbinary." meaning "I don't identify as a man or a woman." The only connection the words have is the "bi" part so this one is painfully stupid. In the 1990s there were older queer folk who didn't even know bisexual is what they were. When Roddy McDowall was confronted by Vincent Price's daughter and asked "Why didn't you tell me my father was bisexual?" He said "We didn't know the word." In the 90s most bisexual people used the term to mean attraction despite gender. I'm fine with the use of the word "Pansexual" but it IS actually gatekeeping to tell older bisexuals that the word bisexual means "disincluding trans and nonbinary" and "attraction to the gender instead of despite the gender." I can't think of very many people who identify as bisexual who are okay with those added restrictions that they didn't agree to. For most of the older queer community bisexual means their own gender and everything else. That's the two for bi. I am certain there are some people today who don't mind the new restrictions added to the word bisexual and use it to self-identify but those that were identifying a bisexual in the 90s and early 2000s didn't have such restrictions because the options of pansexual and omnisexual were not in use yet. Pansexual was a term invented by Freud to mean "attraction to anything" (this included furniture). It's modern meaning of "consenting adults without consideration of gender" is relatively new and frustratingly this was originally how most of us were using the word bisexual. When you "Correct" someone who self-identifies as bisexual that they are actually pansexual because you want them to use the more modern language, THAT is gatekeeping. Ironically this just happened to me and when I corrected the person that was "correcting me" by explaining that older people who identify as bisexual tend to use it with the same meaning as the modern pansexual, I was suddenly accused of "Gatekeeping." So now, ironically, they're misusing the term gatekeeping while gatekeeping. Please stop doing this. The new terms are okay but don't tell us how we can use the older terms, especially when bisexual isn't that old of a term in the grand scheme of things. I sometimes use the term pansexual just to make things easier for the younger folk since they adapted to the restrictive version of the term bisexual we never asked for. Also I like its connection to mythology. But please don't "Correct" people for using the term they had for themselves since the 90s because they never added those new restrictions to it. This is rude. And that is the gatekeeping. Them telling you what the word meant decades ago is not "gatekeeping." You telling them how they have to us it now- that is gatekeeping. Sincerely, Most queer folk over the age of thirty.

[uncharismatic-fauna]

heya, in regards to that ask requesting intersex/hermaphroditic animals for pride month to weed out ter.fs:

when you make those posts, please acknowledge that the animals in question are intersex (hermaphrodism is a different thing, species-wide instead of individuals like intersex (at least thats how i was taught)), and not trans.

intersex people have asked us trans folks so many times to stop calling intersex animals trans, because it just further contributes to the erasure and alienation of intersex people. we as a group have a history of using intersex people as a convenient "gotcha" or as proof that trans people are natural, without actually supporting or considering the intersex people were making use of, and ignoring that an animal is intersex to say that its trans instead, even if its just to be silly or just as a joke, does contribute to that. (im not saying you, personally, have done this, but that us trans people as a whole need to do better)

if its an animal that goes female to male or vice versa, ive not seen anyone have a problem with calling them trans, but if they are intersex (like the lionesses that start growing manes & roaring like males), i feel its important to respect and acknowledge them as such. i very much understand the desire to say an animal is trans or gay or queer, to show that we are not unnatural, but lets include our intersex siblings and allies in this as well, and call intersex animals what they are.

🩷🩵🤍🩵🩷 🫶 💛💜💛 trans-intersex solidarity forever

Hey! Thanks for sending this.

In the posts specifically about one species in particular, I do try to avoid calling them trans-- and please let me know if I've misworded anything. I am aware that gender is very much a human construct, and labeling hermaphrodite species as trans is inaccurate and can be seriously harmful for intersex people. Frankly, when I first started making posts about those species, I was hesitant to label them as hermaphrodite at all because I know how much weight that term carries in the intersex community. That goes double for species that are not traditionally intersex, like the lionesses with male characteristics.

That said, and as you've pointed out, I do include them in my queer pride collection because A: queer-intersex solidarity forever

And B: the existence of these species, along with those that display homosexual behavior, was denied for a very long time specifically because it legitimized both the queer and intersex communities. Even today there are plenty of people that don't want to acknowledge those parts of nature because it goes against what they believe is the "correct" way to be.

So yes, trans-intersex solidarity forever! 🩵🩷🤍💜💛💜 and again, I'm only human so if I get something wrong please let me know!

[olderthannetfic]

I don't even think this is the type of thing you would normally get Asks about, but at this point I genuinely can't think of anyone better to come to and ask for their opinion.

I don't know if any of your followers have seen this situation as it's been occurring, but this massively popular mobile game that's been blowing up recently (called Love and Deep Space) has incurred a lot of drama and discourse as of a few days ago.

So LADS is an otome game, with a visibly femme/female protagonist who romances the male love interests. And a few days ago, the dev team behind LADS introduced this rule to all of their official groups and servers like Facebook and Discord: "Absolutely no BL materials are allowed to be posted or discussed in official spaces"

So, naturally, quite a few people are upset about what is basically a "no gays allowed" rule being forced onto the fandom. Because the "no BL" rules includes the posting of ANY queer content with "official" #LADS tags. Which for platforms like Twitter is absolutely unreasonable. They're stating that fanart of M/M ships can't be posted with any tags for the source material? It's ridiculous.

There's been people trying to defend it, saying things like "oh it's because of CN censorship laws" despite the fact that LADS isn't a CN game and the company isn't a CN company. Or "they only banned queer stuff in their official Discord and official Facebook group and for the official LADS tags on socmed!" even though that is still censorship and erasure of queer content (and somehow the fact that it's officially sanctioned makes it okay?)

But the worst part is the fact that there’s been an EXPLOSION of aggressive homophobia within the fanbase. It's as if all the cishet women who play the game were just waiting for their chance to go mask off, because the second those "no BL" rules were put in place the rampant harrassment and bullying started. People are getting attacked for M/M ship fanart, people are getting attacked for having male self-inserts or male MC or OC designs, and several artists have already been harrassed into deleting all of their artwork and leaving the fandom.

There's now a LOUD number of fans screeching that otome games "are only for girls" and that anyone even slightly queer or masc-leaning "doesn't belong in otome fandoms" and "needs to go play something else"

I've seen baseless accusations that "men want to force us to play as a gay male MC!" and "gay men are demanding that LADS turn the female MC male!" when absolutely no one anywhere has ever said anything close to that.

I have tried telling these fans that queer people, including queer men, have ALWAYS played otome games, that gay men and queer people have ALWAYS been a part of the otome community from the very beginning, but anyone who deviates even slightly from the new majority of "no gay shit allowed, otome is for straight women only and everyone else kys" gets immediately shouted down and harrassed/attacked. I know a lot of people have deleted the game and have stopped playing because of both the official "no gays" rule and also the extremely toxic and homophobic fanbase.

I was wondering if you knew about any resources (blogs, articles, anything) talking about the history of queer people playing otome/dating sim games, or even if you happen to know anything anecdotal about it yourself. Because we've ALWAYS been here, otome games have never been JUST for cishet women. I'm also just wondering what your/your followers' thoughts are about this whole mess in general.

--

Oof. I don't play many games of that sort, so I don't know a ton about their history, but there has often been pointless beef between the more self inserty types and the more m/m shipping types.

I don't think you need evidence that people besides cishet women consume media X. It should be self-evident from being a human who lives in the world. These people are denying it because they don't want it to be true, not because they do or don't have evidence.

"LOL, you're a homophobe in 2024? Criiiinge!" is the only appropriate type of response to these idiots. Facts won't help.

[ceilidhtransing]

Oh for fuck's sake. They're talking about Dr James Barry, because of course they are.

It's worse than I was expecting! And somehow it doesn't stop there.

This is what we mean when we talk about the erasure and denial of historical transmasculinity. Obviously we can't go back in time and ask Dr Barry exactly how he would define himself using twenty-first-century queer community lingo. But he lived his entire adult life, both public and private, as a man, and I would call that damn good evidence of transmasculine identity, or at the very least reason to exercise extreme caution in calling him a woman.

For the love of god can we stop treating historical figures who were almost certainly trans men as “pioneering women” who “faked” an identity in order to bypass the sexism of the time. It's not progressive and feminist; it just erases transmasculinity from history. And the use of language like “duped” - are you serious? In our current trans-hostile climate, you're seriously going to further the idea that we're “tricking” or “fooling” people by living as who we are? “He disguised his real identity as a woman” - this language, genuinely, sickens me.

I'm also just staggered that anyone in this day and age comes across a historical figure who essentially transitioned to a male identity and it doesn't seem to even cross their mind that transness comes into play here. I suppose this is the extent to which transmasculinity is just erased from people's awareness - unless it's to fearmonger about “helpless little girls” having their bodies “irrevocably ruined” by the Trans Lobby. Transmasculinity is a Risk, it's something that Happens To Vulnerable Females, it's something we need to tightly regulate and control lest any Sweet Little Girls Destroy Their Bodies; it's never just... a natural way for some human beings to be. Transmasc erasure gets talked about as the “lesser” transphobia because “well at least you're just being ignored”. No. Transmasc erasure and deeply oppressive transphobic ideology go hand in hand.

Trans men aren't some hypothetical concept to be thrown around as a political football. Trans men are real people and we've always been real people and we've existed throughout history. And you can't respect trans men while also leaping to define James Barry and those like him as “brave pioneering women who cleverly tricked everyone into thinking they were a man!” Whether or not these figures would all have chosen to identify as trans if born today, they are fascinating and nuanced cases of historical trans-gendering. They do not exist to be claimed as your “feminist icons” by imposing onto them an uncomplicated cis female identity they may well not have had.

Stop believing, through arrogance or ignorance or both, that a cis female perspective that utterly refuses to even engage with transness is sufficient to tell the stories of these individuals. I can't even begin to explain how insulting and dismissive it is towards trans men. And it's how we end up with the notion that trans people, especially trans men, are some “new phenomenon” that only cropped up in the last fifteen years - because all the trans men of history have been cruelly and oppressively flattened into ��cis women who wanted to escape sexism”.

Stop ignoring historical transmasculinity. Stop erasing historical transmasculinity. Stop denying historical transmasculinity.

[heedra]

listen i GET that there can be a real problem in media where writers will write their 'strong female characters' deliberately as kind of a sneering contrast to every negative, misogynist bias they have built up in their mind about women.

but also the way some people are talking about the 'erasure of femininity' on screen and some of the examples i've seen used make me feel like said ppl couldn't handle being shown like an average working class woman from any time or place in history. like do you stop to look around you in the supermarket ever.

[autistic-alexithymic-female]

"Playwrights are allowed to have a bit of poetic license but I think what is interesting about the play is that it very much falls in with the idea of rewriting history. [...] For French patriots Joan of Arc is someone very special. Her role was all the more heroic because she was a woman." - Frank Furedi

Furedi is right.

They ARE "rewriting history", and I'm glad to see how many people are protesting against this FEMALE ERASURE.

"We are not the first to present Joan in this way, and we will not be the last. To respond specifically to the use of pronouns, the use of 'they' to refer to a singular person has been traced by the Oxford English Dictionary to as early as 1375, years before Joan was even born. But theatres do not deal with ‘historical reality’. Theatres produce plays, and in plays, anything can be possible. History has provided countless and wonderful examples of Joan portrayed as a woman. This production is simply offering the possibility of another point of view." - Michelle Terry

Of course they had a woman say this bullshit.

Female erasure is an act of violence. Men truly despise female presence. Men abhor women having any validation. This is why men want to "rewrite history". They want to erase these aspects.

This is history of male oppression of women.

Men have always discriminated against women.

Men have always ways to make themselves look good while enacting mass violence against women.

Men have always wanted women to be passive, submissive, obedient, and hyper-feminine.

Men have always wanted women to marry men and have children with men; men have always wanted women to take a man's surname.

Men have always wanted women to be polite.

Men have always wanted women to believe they are hysterical.

Men have always wanted women to not have a say (still no female President)!

Men have always told women our anger is too aggressive. Men made women wear scold's bridles in the 1800s-1900s, and claimed this instrument of torture was to stop women from "gossiping".

There has always been some form of drag culture, womanface, and gendering. In Shakespearean times, male actors played female characters as men did not allow women to act in plays.

Men have always found ways to torture and demean women, to have women do a walk of shame; men have always forced women to walk through streets and squares to make us look as though we are dogs, we are objects of scorn, we are vessels.

Men have always found ways to berate and ridicule women. Men have always made slurs. Men have always seen women as shrill and whiny. Men have always wanted women to pretend that being in pain is somehow good for us, beneficial for us. Men have always nit-picked women.

Women need to keep in mind that incels/MRAs are everywhere.

Male extremism against women is everywhere.

Male extremism is believing that being biologically female is somehow a privilege, or an act of violence in itself.

'Women are more responsible than men'

We AREN'T, though. Men force women to deal with a ridiculous level of responsibility that we did not sign up for. Men want women to go out of their way.

Men genuinely do not believe that women feel pain -- or they DO, and they WANT us to feel this way.

Women should not have to do shit we don't want to do.

Male dominion is male extremism.

[archivyrep]

Creating Your Own History: Archival Themes in "The Watermelon Woman" [Part 3]

Continued from part 2

At the same time, the archivist treats the records dismissively, dumping a box of records on a table. As Alyx Vesey, founder of Feminist Music Geek, argues, the archivist appears to care little about the fragility of audiovisual materials even as she defends the lack of filing and indexing, saying that volunteers run the archives. [10] This may suggest that there is little interest in the materials and that the volunteers who work at the archives privilege material that they believe others will be interested in or that will be more heavily used. Although the archivist tells Cheryl about lesbian history in the 1930s and lets Cheryl look at the materials, she talks about the former in racially charged language.

Reprinted from The American Archivist Reviews Portal. Thanks to Rose and Stephanie for their editing of this article! It was also posted on my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog on Jul. 5, 2022. This review contains some spoilers for the film The Watermelon Woman.

Even worse, the archivist says the records are “confidential” and demands that Cheryl leave after Cheryl’s White female friend, Annie, films specific records; the archivist declares that researchers can’t do so in the so-called “safe space” without the consensus of the entire collective. Cheryl and her friend do not let these impediments stop them from subverting the archives itself. Cheryl predictably bucks these rules and her friend surreptitiously films what Cheryl needs before they leave. Furthermore, the film suggests that there is not a “right” way to archive materials, as Kostka argues in his post about postmodern relativism and archivists. [11]

The disorganization of the C.L.I.T. archives and the barriers Cheryl must overcome to access the materials demonstrate the power that archives hold over information. The archivist uses her power to select and control what records researchers can use; because of this, AfterEllen, a feminist pop culture site, called the archivist “humorless” and a “borderline fascist.” [12] The records on Black lesbians are excluded from the main collection of materials, resulting in those with privilege and power, particularly White individuals, comprising the primary cultural memory of the archives. This creates a “void in the collective memory” and contributes to archival silences. [13]

As archival scholar Rodney G. S. Carter has written, silences are often manifestations of those with power to deny “marginal access to archives,” which significantly harms efforts by marginalized people to form their own histories and social identities. [14] The Watermelon Woman asserts that archives can be challenged even though they are “spaces of power” haunted by silences. Although Cheryl is not physically denied entry into the archive, the archivist exerts power over her by enforcing institutional rules. She ensures that Cheryl, and her Black female friend Tamara, are marginalized within the C.L.I.T. archive, even though both are lesbians.

Archival erasure and fabrication are major themes in the film. For one, Cheryl makes a living off videos that either exclude or misrepresent those who share her identity, while she simultaneously exploits those videos to create counternarratives about Black women. She uses these films to supplant traditional images of Black women and articulates an alternate structure of Black lesbian relations grounded in “kin and multiracial queer community.” [15] The Watermelon Woman uniquely interrogates and exposes the scarcity of Black lesbians in film history, illuminating how queer people suffer historical erasure when they are made invisible in the present.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[10] Alyx Vesey, “Bechdel Test Canon: The Watermelon Woman,” Bitch Media, December 12, 2011, https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/bechdel-test-canon-the-watermelon-woman-feminist-film-review.

[11] Kostka, “Toward Transgression”.

[12] Shauna Swartz, “Review of The Watermelon Woman,” AfterEllen, March 15, 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20071008204613/http:/www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/Movies/2006/3/watermelon2.html.

[13] Kostka, “Toward Transgression”; “The Great and Powerful…,” LIS Theory, October 23, 2014, http://listheory.prattsils.org/the-great-and-powerful/; “Archival silence,” Dictionary of Archives Terminology, 2022, https://dictionary.archivists.org/entry/archival-silence.html; Bessette, “Composing Historical Activism,” 183–4.

[14] Rodney G. S. Carter, “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence,” Archivaria 61 (Spring 2006): 215–221.

[15] Frann Michel, "Eating the (M)Other: Cheryl Dunye's Feature Films and Black Matrilineage," Rhizomes, 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20210506021330/http://www.rhizomes.net/issue14/michel/michel.html.

[thecurioustale]

When I was younger I used to accept things like this as true, because deep down I have a hard time imagining that people would be deceptive or sloppy. But, having long since learned better, I went and looked to see how much of this meme is real.

First of all, I am happy to report that the poem being excerpted here is indeed real! There really was a poem about (and I paraphrase) "a butt that oppresses us both, me because I can't stop thinking about it and she because it tires her out to to lug around." Which makes me happy, because the only reason I bothered to fact-check this meme or am bothering now to write about it is that this kind of poetry absolutely sizzles! 🥵🥰

Yet this is the only part about this meme that's true. Everything else in that picture—everything else—is either a deliberate lie or negligently false.

First things first: The opening line, "She has an ass below a slender waist," isn't real. Fact-checking this specific line was a key secondary goal of mine because it triggered my "thinwashing" senses. There was a strong vein of fat admiration in Arab culture for many centuries, largely coincident with its era of enlightenment. (The cultural fat admiration arguably still survives in pockets of the Middle East today even though the Arab enlightenment has long since descended into a dark age.) I was suspicious of this line because "big butt, small waist" a very popular Western fad at this moment in time whereas the Arabs of a thousand years ago didn't tend to be that self-deceiving and more so just celebrated fatness openly when they saw fit to celebrate it at all. So I suspected that whomever translated this poem into English as was thinwashing it.

The true opening line of the poem makes a metaphor with a tree. A very literal translation from Google reads:

She walked like a branch bent by the breeze The breeze blows and it straightens up

I checked out the vocabulary word by word and, literally at least, I am confident that this is what the text actually says. What I can't attest to is the figurative depth of the text. I tried mightily to picture this metaphor in a way that might shed light on whether the poet had any deeper meaning in the line (which he almost certainly did). So I can't categorically rule out that there is something in this text that implies a slender waist. But it seems very unlikely, as evidenced by the following line:

She has a buttock that hangs in a gentle way That buttock us unjust to me and to her

My best effort to visualize this metaphor on the human body is that what the poet is saying is that this lady's butt is so fat that it bounces and sways as she walks, like a droopy tree (e.g. a willow) in the breeze.

If that reading is correct, it still doesn't categorically rule out a "slender waist," but it does make it exceedingly unlikely.

If I am honest, my single biggest purpose in writing this little essay is to call out the thinwashing that is likely occurring here: the perhaps-unintentional but nevertheless malicious erasure of one of history's relatively fewer examples of art that glorifies fatness and fat bodies. Big butts are hot in Western culture right now, but fatphobia is concomitantly so incredibly strong that most people fall over backwards to ensure that everyone knows they only like "big butts" and not "fat bodies"; they perform all kinds of horrible contortions to depict exaggerated, almost caricaturized female bodies that are completely thin except for a large butt (not "fat"; just "large" i.e. like a thin butt that is drawn physically bigger but with none of the characteristics that actually accompany a big butt). (And they usually add big breasts too). I say "almost" caricaturized because these bodies do naturally exist, and are valid; but they are very rare and the cultural celebration of big butts merely exploits this body type to celebrate fatness while simultaneously denying and erasing fatness.

Whomever did the translation that appears in this meme—assuming it was all done at the same time by one person; it's also possible the thinwashing was added later by somebody else—clearly decided that the poem would be better if it started by saying that the subject is thin. Maybe they didn't know what to make of the tree metaphor, or didn't believe that it landed effectively or upheld the core image of the poem. Maybe the tree metaphor does contain some insinuation of thinness that I am missing. Maybe they were just being horny on main and decided to intensify the sexual appeal by altering it to fit their own ideal of a skinny waist and a big butt. But in any case, I tend to frown on this kind of translation, translation that erases the original text (in this case the tree metaphor) and replaces it with something else. Even if there were no further harm caused, I think this does an injury to readers, because it obscures the original imagery. That's bad enough in general, but especially glaring in poetry. And of course in this case there is additional harm, the aforementioned thinwashing that occurs because of this alteration. And I would caution anyone who may find themselves translating stuff in the future to be better than the person who translated this.

If you're curious about the other lines, the literal translation from Google reads:

It tortures me when I think about it It tires her out when she gets up

So the meme is fundamentally correct that this is a poem about celebrating somebody who was some degree of fat, particularly in the butt.

We don't know how much or how little. Supersized people have always existed, albeit for most of history as a much smaller percentage of the population than today. But there were absolutely folks living a thousand years ago who weighed a quarter of a ton or more.

It isn't clear to me how literal versus how hyperbolic the poet was being. Maybe this beautiful lady of his was merely chubby, and the bit about her butt tiring her out when she stood up was purely a sexual exclamation point. Or maybe she was five hundred pounds and literally did struggle to stand up. Or anywhere in between.

Either way, the text is absolutely electric—both the literal Google translation of the original Arabic, and the edgier translated version in the meme. "An ass that oppresses us both" is an excellent translation, conveying the original artistic intent to our modern sensibilities much better than the original text does, without obscuring or erasing the original text whatsoever.

Anyway! Now that that gyatt's out of my system, let's continue the fact-checking. I mentioned that, other than the core premise of the poem, everything about this meme is false.

Let's start with the fact that the poem doesn't end there. This was hard to track down, but luckily there was some redditor a month ago who posted a link to the original poem in the comments. This is a website of Arab-language poetry:

Using Google Translate on that works a charm, and that's what I've been doing here.

The part of the poem we saw is just the beginning; the full poem actually goes on quite a bit longer: The speaker states that his love for this person is a torment, and compares her to gazelle, and apparently she killed some dude and is on the lam or otherwise fleeing (I'm not entirely clear), and there's lots of flowery language about love toward the end that I would classify as downright boring. Honestly, the poem kind of loses the thread of the plot; I can see why only the beginning part made it into the meme. The rest of the poem is just not memorable. Art is often like this, with moments of brilliance interspersed amid mundanity like diamonds in ore.

Finally, the last two ways in which the poem is false are that the author and the time period are both misstated. I'm a little more tenuous on this one, but it does seem that Ibn Amr Al-Aghmati—with "Amr" sometimes written in English as "Omar," and his full name being Abu Hafs Amr ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Amr al-Sulami al-Aghmati—is the true author, not Abu Hasan al-Sari. Going by the artist's lifetime, then, this poem must have been composed in the 12th century, not the 10th. In my efforts to find out more, I discovered a comment on Reddit from just a few weeks ago. (I imagine the newness of all this discourse is because the meme is presently going viral.) This Redditor states that the person wrongly named in the meme, Abu Hasan al-Sari, actually compiled an anthology of poetry at some later point in the timeline, and his anthology included this poem. A pretty honest mistake!

I also found another Reddit comment in the same thread by someone who had bothered to track down the original and offer a translation, as well as a link to the Arab Wikipedia page for the poet.

Indeed, except for the thinwashing (which there is a sliver of a possibility that the tree metaphor actually somehow accommodates), there seems to be no bad faith in this meme. It looks to be more likely that it was just poorly researched.

One last thing before I go! Over on Twitter, someone got upset at the crassness of the English translation, and, in a rather unflatteringly gatekeepy way, nevertheless wrote his own, flowery translation.

Upon her slender frame doth rest a form ⠀⠀⠀most ample, fair yet bold, This sight beheld from aft doth prove a burden ⠀⠀⠀joint we both must hold, It haunts my thoughts with fervent fire, While she, to stand, doth strain and tire.

On one hand, his translation is pretty underwhelming. But on the other hand, and the reason I mention it, is that, 25 years ago, I would totally have been that person too. So I get it, and I do think the contrast between "an ass that oppresses us both" and "this sight beheld from aft doth prove a burden" offers a reminder that so much of poetry lies in the infinite possibilities of expressing the same ideas in different ways, thus fundamentally transforming our relationships with those ideas.

[myemoreligion]

Discussing Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory by Virginia Held: A trans non-binary perspective

<Name Redacted>, 2022

In Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory, Virginia Held (1990) lays out a feminist overview on moral theory until the modern day. She explains where traditional moral theory has been lacking in discussing areas of morality which were female-dominated or strongly associated with the feminine, such as the interpersonal realm of morality. Not only does she discuss philosophical ethical history, she also discusses different theories and perspectives from the modern day, including that of psychologists and legal experts.

However, one thing becomes clear while reading the paper: the trans, and broader queer perspective, is lacking. Many of the discussed findings still rely on some sort of gender essentialism, although it is noted by Held that “One should not equate tendencies women in fact display with feminist views, since the former may well be the result of the sexist, oppressive conditions in which women’s lives have been lived” (Held, 1990, p. 331). Although this quote acknowledges that tendencies in women as a whole could be conditioned, the paper does associate certain types of behaviour with women and femininity. This often assumes a heterosexual monogamous role for women, one where they are nurturing children. Like the paper states, just including the “female” experience in moral theory is not enough. Morality as merely a public, rational matter should be thought out completely differently. However, where the paper stops here, I wish it then deconstructed the gendered assumptions to begin with. Certain realms have been excluded, and it is correct to assume that this is because of their association with femininity. To just include them but keep the gendered association is merely levelling the playing field, but still forcing people in their roles, which is still oppressive. It is not enough to call female experience just as worthy as male experiences of being seen as ethical.

As a non-binary person, the association of traits with the feminine or masculine makes certain feminist critique lacking. Gender-neutrality, as opposed to gender abolition, does nothing for trans and gender-noncomforming people, because it still assumes experiences based on gender, or worse, assigned sex at birth. Where is my position in this whole story? Do I simply exist outside of gendered issues? Am I taken to be a woman based on my assigned sex at birth? Neither of those are great, which is why a non-binary perspective on feminism within ethics is necessary.

For one: there is no one “female” experience. Although Held does mention that different feminist think differently about this, including nurturing children as part of the “female” experience can come across as generalizing this across all women. There are many women whose experiences don’t include nurturing children, and many non-women who nurture children as well. Associating this with a “female” experience reinforces the idea that these things are inherent to being a woman- they are not. Although it is a matter of fact that many women are, whether forcefully or by their own account, primary caretakers of their children, many are also not. Besides this, some women are queer, and date and marry other women. Those experiences are also relevant within moral theory, but are probably very different from your average heterosexual woman. Not mentioning that the “female” experience she is talking about is a largely heterosexual, alloromantic and allosexual, cisgender experience, is queer erasure.

Besides this, many people grow up to realise that they don’t identify with the gender that they were forced into from birth. Some of these people end up being women. Trans women have wildly different experiences from cis women. Pregnancy and child-birth are not experiences trans women usually can go through for example, but that does not make them any less women. Including these experiences as female ethical experiences, for example, would be almost defeminizing to those women, cis and trans, who cannot get pregnant. The other side of that is when trans men get pregnant- their experiences often get associated with being female, and this is transphobic. When talking about gendered issues, also within ethics, you cannot omit the trans perspective. 

It gets even more complicated when including non-binary people, such as myself. Non-binary people don’t identify with either of the gender binary, which makes discussing their experiences from a cis feminist point of view almost impossible. The nuances it takes to understand that some will experience female oppression regardless of identity, while not minimising this identity as a whole, is something not a lot of cis people are capable of, because they lack the lived experience. Just how many cis men are not great at discussing (cis) women’s experiences at all, the same can be said for cis feminists on trans and non-binary experiences.

Not only does the paper miss the trans and non-binary perspective, it also does not include any other intersections. Women are such a vast group, which such vast histories, that you cannot approach feminism without going into its intersections. Focussing on a “female” experience that you perceive as the most common, will always include your biases as someone from a white supremacist, cisheterosexist, ableist society. Although the paper does mention that some feminists believe there is no “female” experience, it then concludes that there are still important focal points that are shared among feminist theorists. Leaving out the complicated differences between intersections however makes this seem not as a universal feminist critique, but a specific white allocishet one.

Another important addition to Held’s piece is that traits associated with the feminine are not just things that women experience, but go beyond them. It is easy to argue that a queer man or masculine person, cis or trans, also gets excluded when the typical “female” experience is seen as inherently not relevant for morality, as queer men are more likely than cishet men to internalize femininity and its associated traits from society. Therefore, the moral exclusion of “female” experiences seems to exclude many more people than just women. 

References

Held, V. (1990). Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50(1, supplement Fall). 321-344

[annastrxng]

This blog supports my homegirls- aka the historical wives of the Culper ring.

Martha Washington, Anna Strong, Mary Woodhull, Ann Lewis, Mary Floyd Tallmadge, Mary Hilton Tallmadge, and ladies like Abigail, and Eliza Hamilton, Abigail Adams

[hailmaryfullofgrace55675]

i don’t think this is a coherent objection to queer people redefining labels out of meaning anything in particular.

is “devaluing labels” an attempt to appeal to cishets? clearly that’s not what these people want or intend, so no. does it appeal to cishets? i’ve seen no evidence that any cishets are even aware of these intracommunity arguments, much less that they’re on any side, so i would say no.

is “saying that anyone can be queer” an attempt to appeals to cishets? no. does it appeal to cishets? no. cisheteronormativity demands that queerness be marginal and outcast, it does not value queerness and it does not motivate people to seek to be included in queerness.

in re: bigoted cishets and annoying queer people saying that lesbians can sleep with men, i don’t think that these people are meaningfully saying the same thing. “lesbians can sleep with men” can mean a lot of things. on the most literal level, it is simply true: lesbians are capable of having sex with men, there is nothing making it impossible for them to do so. if she wanted to earn money through sex work, or if it was the only way to stop a meteor hurtling toward earth, a lesbian could fuck a guy.

implicitly, when a lesbophobic straight person says “but lesbians can have sex with men”, what they mean is “a woman may say she’s exclusively attracted to other women, but maybe with enough time and/or badgering she will have sex with a guy, which is what i think she should do”. here, “lesbians can sleep with men” stands for “nobody is really exclusively f4f”.

when an advocate for bisexuals identifying as lesbian says “but lesbians can have sex with men”, what they mean is “a woman who has sex with men can legitimately and meaningfully identify as a lesbian”. this does not contradict exclusively-into-women lesbians being really exclusively into women or calling themselves lesbians, it just makes it harder for them to communicate that sexual orientation through the word lesbian. here, “lesbians can sleep with men” stands for “exclusive f4f orientation is not necessary for lesbian identity”

these are, in intended meaning and in community building-related impact, completely different statements. worth considering, also, is the long, shitty history of lesbian community including bi women and trans men, often in manners of bi and trans erasure. “lesbians can sleep with men” has also meant “lesbians can fuck trans men because they don’t count, if he has a pussy he’s female in the only way that matters”, “lesbians can fuck men as long as they keep it on the down low, you can have male lovers if they’re casual and you don’t bring them around”, and “lesbians can fuck men as long as they don’t admit they’re bisexual, it’s calling yourself the wrong name that will get you kicked out of the consciousness raising circle”.

just because something is annoying doesn’t make it heteronormative. it can be disruptive to useful queer dialogue in different ways. homegrown ways.

Hey isn't it crazy how radqueers who think labels don't mean anything call other lgbtq people cishet bootlickers when I've heard both them and bigoted cishets agree that lesbians can sleep with men? Isn't that the literal definition of trying to appeal to cishets, by devaluing labels and saying that anyone can be queer? Funny how that works.

[feministhetic]

Stormé DeLarverie was a Black/mixed butch lesbian whose struggle with the police was the spark that ignited the Stonewall riots on June 28th, 1969.

[witchyhoursinthecity]

They’re called lesbians, Susan 🙌🏼

[exradfem]

it's fascinating to see people running their mouth about radical feminism who have clearly never actually interacted with radfem theory.

so many times I've seen randoms online try to claim that terfs don't really hate cis men, they just hate trans women. like,, see? this terf worked with a cis man to pass legislature to take away trans rights. clearly they respect men to some extent.

no, absolutely not. just because they're willing to sell out in a second to stop trans rights, does not mean that they don't fundamentally distrust/dislike "males" and want female supremacy. they think every human assigned male is entirely different from them, biologically inferior because of a lack of access to reproduction, and predisposed to anger, violence, and incapable of emotional depth.

they Other men, or rather, who they consider men.

sure, TIRFs exist and claim to have the True, Modern Radical Feminism. they use gender essentialism instead, insisting that this predisposition to abuse is tied to manhood alone, and therefore trans women are safe and trans men are not. but this does not really protect trans women, as any tie to masculinity can revoke their womanhood, and any form of gender essentialism is bad for all trans people.

not to mention that they fundamentally misunderstand radical feminism; it really isn't supposed to work based off of traits like that. the entire ideology is based off of reproductive control, which is biological in nature. TIRFs are simply trying to make this flawed ideology work for trans people, rather than recognizing that any supremacist ideology is based in fascism. (and their entire concept of biology is wrong and colonialist but that's another topic entirely)

back to my point, radical feminism is all about the idea that gender exists solely to oppress females, and that this, the patriarchy, is essentially a conspiracy between all males to maintain access to reproduction.

this is an absurdly simplistic, reductive take that ignores most of human history and an ounce of intersectionality (and don't say I'm the one who stripped the intersectionality. radfems teach themselves that misogyny is worse than all forms of oppression and that male privilege almost always supersedes racism to such an extent that all males collude to maintain systemic sexism).

regardless, it's their primary tenant. and it's the reason trans people terrify them. we blur the lines between male and female. we represent the culmination of the erasure of the female sex.

sound anything like white supremacy to you?

..

tldr; terfs have zero respect or love for cis men, they simply sell out easily. radical feminism teaches that the patriarchy exists to give males reproductive access, and this supersedes all other oppression. they also believe all males are biologically predisposed to aggression and abuse. they hate trans women because they believe this applies to them too.

[lesbianamalvada]

Gender roles were not invented to justify slavery????They existed long before them and were present in EVERY culture all over the world. People say that "Black women weren't viewed as women during slavery" and this is a half truth. They didn't considered us men or women because they considered us closer to animals. No fancy new construct of gender was required. They knew which of us were male and female and exploited us accordingly, just like they do animals. Your version of history is insulting.

It also doesn't take into fact that African tribes had their own concept of gender and most also considered male=man and female=woman. I hate when activists act like other cultures had no idea what men and women or males and females were before white people came along. It's true some cultures were more accepting of homosexuality and cross-dressing but they still had their own oppressive gender roles. Some societies were more egalitarian than western civilization when it came to gender but the ones you all point out with "third genders" (aka roles gay man were forced into because their sexuality made it so they weren't considered men and so they treated as less than just like the women in these societies.) are not the utopias white leftists paint them to be!

The truth is misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia wasn't invented by white people and this lie erases all the suffering women and lgbt people have gone through in all parts of the world in every century. "Woman" and "Man" are social constructs but female and male are not. Race is a social construct but our physical features and ancestry are not. And sexuality just down-right isn't a social construct. An example of a social construct is money, if we stop believing in money it loses its value and no longer exist. If we stopped believing in and defining sexuality everyone born would still be bisexual, or gay, or straight, etc. Taking away the words for something doesn't make it not real.

The "biological differences" between the sexes are not insignificant and SHOULD be taken into account. Ignoring those differences would be morally incorrect. Males and females have different bodies so scientists and inventors should take into account both when testing for safety in vehicles or a cure for a disease, etc. The average male is physically stronger than the average female so this should be taken into account in self-defense cases, etc. Things like strokes, autism, and cancers cause different symptoms in males and females; doctors should know those differences and consider them. Not taking into account the difference between female and male bodies has lead to the death of many women because male is the default. (The same is true for poc and white people btw.) So before you call for the erasure of our identities make sure take into account what they fully entail. They might be "bullshit" but the oppression we face is not and won't go away by us radically declaring them "insignificant".

Listen, time for wisdom:

There will never be a trans-inclusive "All-Girl" space.

Fundamentally, to define a space as "All-Female" or even "All-Women" is to define the term female or woman. Both of those things are nebulous at best, and that means they will, usually, resort to the usual take: "Woman means adult human female." And "Female means a fertile, vagina-having, motherly, She/Her cisfem." TERF shit.

The only people who would make a rule with such a premise are TERFs themselves or traumatized cis women who really do believe that the mere presence of a man is a threat to their safety. Neither of which--as you're probably already aware--are going to be very trans-inclusive.

We can talk about why people think this way another time. For now the important part is, if you want to feel safer or more socially integrated, seek out all-queer or all-trans spaces, not all-woman spaces. Queer people will understand you more than cis people ever could.

(And yes theoretically this applies to trans men as well if you replace every feminine thing with a masculine one. Gender restrictions are antithetical to trans people as a whole.)