#struggled a lot bc i don't do bgs often

[roobylavender]

HI i really enjoy your blog and the wide variety of interests and topics you talk about :') i'm also desi diaspora btw and i like hearing your perspective on diaspora issues too! i have a personal question if it's alright - pls ignore this ask if you don't wanna answer it, i would totally understand but - lately i've been hearing a lot abt making more private spaces unisex like public bathrooms etc, and i was wondering how u feel about this also considering your ethnic/religious background? like personally whether it's in past school sports teams or currently sharing my space with fellow med students where we often have to rapidly change scrubs and stuff i've never felt comfortable changing in front of male strangers etc, and while i know i'm naturally a reserved/introverted person i also know that the way i was raised and my family's traditions/culture has a lot to do with it lol... for this reason and also in general bc of all the stories i hear from back home abt femicide, r*pe, etc in south asia and west asia, i don't think i'd ever be completely comfortable with a man unless i knew him v well. but also i think most women even outside our ethnic bg feel similarly (like idk if u saw but recently there was this viral series of tweets where women said they'd rather encounter a bear in a forest than a man while they were isolated)... considering the number of stories of everyone from sports coaches to male doctors to male prison wardens assaulting their female patients, or how so many countries have epidemics of bathroom stall cameras and peeping toms, i can't help but feel that this wariness is justified. also the risk of hate crimes/violent assault is like a million times greater from men than women so idk if it would even be wise for gay, gnc, trans-identified ppl etc to share private spaces with them... so i'm struggling to unpack my feelings abt this and also i feel like girls and women shouldn't have to put aside our discomfort (that's been well-validated for so many millennia) idk... i was wondering if you felt similarly since from what i've seen u also come from a similar background as me? thank you!!

i don't mind answering! personally i'm also pretty self conscious about changing and used the bathroom stalls in school when it was time for gym class lol. but i think what we need to understand about an ideology or movement like this is that it's necessary to engage with it faithfully and materially. i think a lot of the reactionary attitude towards gender abolition tends to stem from the idea that abolition is an immediate conclusion and not a process that will take time and several steps to achieve. so it's not a movement that persists in ignorance of all of the issues you listed above but actually with an acute awareness of and desire to address them individually and collectively so that we can make it to a point where the conclusions of gender abolition become a reality. obv that will take a lot of time! but the point is to believe in and help curate that outcome no matter how long it takes to do so. and a lot of that will come down to deconstructing and restructuring how we as people are socialized from birth. men aren't born into misogyny, they're nurtured into it. and if we want women to be safer in the long term we need to invest in a future where we purge misogyny at the outset. which again! will certainly take a lot of time and an extensive effort from all walks of people (as well as require addressing multiple aspects and sectors of society beyond those immediately related to gender). but it's very important not to give into bioessentialism and believe that men are fundamentally incapable of co-existing safely with women. they very much can provided deliberate and extensive structural upheaval of gender politics as it exists today and that is what we need to focus on!

[professorchaos]

What were your thoughts on the episodes of this season?

pajama day was an ok start, not very memorable but had a kinda promising plotline that kept it afloat and seeing everyone in pjs was cute! the second ep was enjoyable too, nothing special but the tolkien gag was made stronger by the commitment to the bit (changing online links etc) and my sp parents-loving heart was warmed by steve black being a massive lotr nerd (i wish that he'd done his lotr-themed weed idea in the end tbh)...

still, despite some strong ideas, the writing this season was shockingly bad and at many points it was pretty obvious to me that the season was a low priority for m&t. i have a strong suspicion that it was primarily written by ghost writers, which isn't necessarily a bad thing! i'd love if sp brought in fresh talent to the writing team, but whoever handled these 6 eps seemed to be struggling to find their feet.

city people and back to the cold war were probably the worst eps of the season, with city people being absolutely lacklustre and back to the cold war relying far too heavily on jokes completely empty of substance. it was disappointing and surprising, bc eps with either cartman or butters as a central character are usually really good and i think it's hard to go wrong when playing liane and eric off against each other (or indeed butters and his parents), but they ended up neglecting to properly utilise their strongest characters here. the plot with mr mackey did feel like a suitable commentary on current events and definitely reminiscent of the attitude i have noticed in american adults around me, and was the saving grace of the horse riding episode, which otherwise would have honestly been one of the worst sp episodes in a very long time. i would have liked to have shown in to certain american family members who have been treating the war in ukraine like a personal issue. still, as a european i didn't find it to be anything revolutionary.

the last two eps were the strongest, with the last possibly being my favorite for the season. help, my teenager hates me! was a nice, wholesome main 4 ep, though i thought it felt odd that both eric and randy barely spoke (this has been happening a lot this season though, with certain characters just fading into the bg almost as badly as, historically, kenny has done). eric was forgivable, due to the continuity gag (him being depressed about living in a hot dog), but randy could have had a couple more lines, at least - it's weird to have him there and not talking these days. still, i was really happy to see stuart (!!!) and gerald used, and even jimbo got to make a cool little cameo as eric's stand-in dad. the take on teenagers was pretty funny (them with their heads on the trolleys in the supermarket made me laugh especially - i was totally like that when i was a teenager myself, oh my god, the agony of being taken places you asked to go, the agony of doing literally anything etc etc. also the kid burning himself with the naruto poster behind him... classic).

the "st patrick's day special" was the closest to being "classic sp" levels of enjoyable; it was great to see butters and randy both used well (as a butters fan i hate to say this, but butters is funniest when he's suffering for no reason, and they don't make him suffer enough these days). playing them off each other was a good choice, and something i wish they'd leaned into a bit heavier - they're two of the show's best and most popular characters, but how often do we get to see them interact? the take on st patrick's day itself was kinda unintelligible and the episode wasn't really saying anything that i liked (making light of sexual assault accusations with no clear punchline just felt a bit weird coming from people who hold a lot of power in a notoriously abusive industry... but hey). i have noticed since being in america that americans take to this holiday with a bizarre amount of enthusiasm for people who by and large are about as irish as i am (which is to say: not irish) so the idea that it's secretly a way to celebrate being white felt pretty on the nose to what i've been thinking every time i see all the green shit in stores lol. i liked the thing they did with splicing artstyles at the end for st patrick! i've definitely missed that aspect of the show in recent years.

all in all it was just ok, with some strong moments and a lot more shockingly terrible ones (seriously... some of the writing was just so awful this year that i almost gave up watching halfway through the season). in some ways i do feel like aspects of the show are headed in the right direction, so i'm still excited to see what next season is like, but if it isn't significantly better than this one was, i'm not sure how much longer i'm gonna be bothered to keep watching -_-;;