#this is peak white western feminism | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

womenfrommars · 1 year ago

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Hey, Juno, how you're doing? If you don't mind, I'd like to know your opinion on a trans issue. I had my peak trans moment almost two weeks ago and I've been in contact with gender critical rhetoric ever since. Recently, I came across a reflection about how weirdly powerful the Trans movent is, changing laws (even the legal definition of sex), conquering spaces in politics, media and uni programs... Something other social movements, like feminism and the black movement never did (not like the trans movement at least). And I do agree in a way, but I can't help being skeptical about the strength of this idea when we witness trans folks being murdered, suffering because of lack of opportunities, being kicked away from home... In a way, I do believe the Trans movement is uncommonly powerful and that's sus, but at the same time I accept trans folks still face a lot of hardships because of their gender identity. Is it wrong to assume both things at the same time?

Hi anon, I don't think these ideas are necessarily inherently contradictory. The fact a political movement (in this case, the transgender movement) is gaining momentum doesn't necessarily translate into the idea that the average transsexual has a wonderful life. The transgender movement claims to advocate for transgenders but personally I find it doubtful to what degree they succeed in doing so. They mostly advocate for legal changes which are supposed to benefit the social and mental well-being of transgenders. Think making it easy to legally alter your gender, or make cross-sex hormones more financially affordable. But studies indicate the overall quality of life of transgenders is not tremendously improved post-ex reassignment surgery. Most notably the rate of suicidality is just as high as pre-surgery.

I find that the transgender movement can be very manipulative with statistics. It is claimed that only 3% of transgenders have regrets about their transition. This figure is based on a Dutch follow-up study that exclude roughly 30% of the initial patients from the follow-up. Either they refused to cooperate with the study or they couldn't be reached. So we have no idea what happened to this group. Lots of detransitioners feel resentful to the point they cut off all contact with their doctors so many are not included in follow-up trials. And it is sad to say but it is definitely a possibility some died of suicide

Another example is the homocide rate of transgenders. Most figures being thrown around are based on studies in South America that mostly follow transsexual prostitutes. Those people are not representative of Western, middle-class transgenders at all. Even when you take a look at the homocide rate for US-based transgenders, it is significantly higher than the US national average yes, but that actually disappears when you account for racial background. The vast majority of the victims are Afro-American and to a lesser degree Latino American. The homocide rate for white American transgenders is lower than the US national average (and also lower than that for white Americans specifically). It is hard to find statistics that account for other factors such as sexual orientation and socio-economic background. I think most of the hardships that some transgenders face can be best explained by them being homosexual and/or of being of an ethnic minority, usually combined with lower income. I bet you have heard various stories in the media about the suffering of transsexuals, and 9 out of 10 times, they showcase a homosexual transsexual rather than a heterosexual one, despite the fact that in clinics today, most male-to-female patients are heterosexual. The ones who are kicked out of their parental home, who end up in prostitution, get involved with drugs, etc etc are from what I can tell almost always MTF homosexual

I really implore you to look more into these matters as statistics can be very easily manipulated to fit a certain political narrative. That is not to say we should not also have compassion for those who do suffer and look for social and political solutions. But fast-tracking pre-pubescent children into a transition process is very unlikely to increase well-being for the transgender population, which is the usual answer coming from the transgender movement

#juno speaks #gender critical

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papirouge · 2 years ago

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I cannot take abortion supporters seriously on this website... save for a few pro-choicers who are intellectually honest it seems like the vast majority of people who want abortion legal, especially Americans, are conspiracy theorists who believe every pro-lifer is a man, or that every pro-lifer is conservative, or that every pro-lifer wants women to die during botched abortions. really just don't understand this mindset lol. they know nothing about their ideological opponents, sad!

What is about to say might come off shocking, but the only morally consistent pro choicers are those advocating for abortion until birtn. Everyone else bending backwards to argue about MuH nOt vIabLe outsIde of tHe wOmB uwu" are just coping bc premies survival rates are quite variable. Thankfully, science is pushing forward to improve healthier early delivery of babies - youngest one was as young as 21 weeks

But yeah, it's pretty annoying to see pro choicers paint every pro lifers as a White Conservative man who's only reason to be against abortion is bc they hate women. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just saying we're not just that. It's funny how these Western pro choicers consistently forget the rest of the world is mostly pro life.

That's something radfem especially seem pretty uncomfortable with since they always brag about how much of better allies they are to women oversea and embody true feminism™, when their brand of pro abortion feminism actually goes against the mindset of women anywhere else in the world... Linking abortion access to freedom and trying to shove it to every other women oversea is peak white savior complex. Those women's children isn't the reason their life condition are so bad : men are. Children are actually a formidable support system for women in many places where social insurance or healthcare aren't a thing. I am 100% confident my grandma wouldn't live that long is she didn't keep living with my uncles and grandchildren, playing with them and being so happy and spoiled by my whole family lol The "happy single old lady" model pulled out by radfem isn't the only one through what old women can thrive. Happy old woman surrounded by her grandchildren who will love her until she dies can also be a thing.

#answered #pro life

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meteorherd · 2 years ago

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What's 2010 feminism? What did I miss?

umm i mean maybe i also am biased about this because 2010s feminism is essentially the first era of feminism i grew up with but a lot of the jokes about infantilizing women would not have slid back then. 2010s feminism had its own awful issues (namely how white feminism was so rampant; that's obviously still an issue, but i feel it was at its peak in the 2010s) but i will give it some credit for putting some focus on misogyny (and also actually acknowledging that women in nonwestern countries face violent, life-threatening misogyny rather than reducing it all to the glass ceiling of a cis white woman in a wealthy western setting). i think the place we're in right now suffers a lot from us being in a very irony-poisoned era of the internet. things that have bad implications and even spout right wing propaganda are fine so long as they're in Meme Format, because nowadays if anything Is a joke then it's not supposed to have any further meaning behind it. and there is also the fact that people have completely warped what "reclaiming" something means, so now it's just an excuse to not think about how you can internalize your oppression and harm both yourself and others by not acknowledging it.

#nebasks

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audreydoeskaren · 4 years ago

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Abridged history of early 20th century Chinese womenswear (part 1: 1890s & 1900s) *improved version

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*I’m fixing and reposting the first two posts of this series because back then I had no idea how Tumblr formatting functioned and they deserve better. I’m keeping the shoddy original versions for archival purposes.

*After some thought I think it makes more sense to group the 1890s and 1900s together.

Other posts in the series:

Part 1: 1890s (original)

Part 2: 1900s & 1910s (original)

Part 3.1: 1920s-silhouette

Part 3.2: 1920s-design details

Part 3.3: 1920s-accessories, hair & makeup

Part 4.1: 1930s-silhouette & design

Part 4.2: 1930s-hair, makeup & accessories

Part 5: 1940s

Part 6.1: 1950s-Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan & friends

Part 6.2: 1950s-mainland China

Intro & context

In order to understand early 20th century Chinese fashion we have to go back a bit into the past to have some clue about the context. When the Manchus conquered China and established the Qing Dynasty in the mid 17th century, Han Chinese men adopted Manchu style clothing but Han Chinese womenswear remained independent and separate from Manchu womenswear. Han Chinese women retained the habit of wearing a two piece ensemble as the outermost layer, unlike Manchu women, who wore a single floor length robe. I will be only discussing Han Chinese women’s fashion in this series.

In the 19th century, Han Chinese women wore 袄裙 aoqun, a two piece ensemble consisting of a robe and a skirt. The robe had a very low 立领, standing collar. In the second half of the 19th century, the robe in aoqun had a very generous and roomy cut and huge sleeves, a look which reached its peak in the 1860s and 70s. The hem of the robe hit the knees, the length in vogue since the 1870s. The collar of the robe is very low, only providing enough space for one button, likewise in fashion since the 1870s. The robe is closed with 盘扣 pankou, which in this era were always plain with either a bead or fabric knot tip. The robe closes at the side, usually at the right side at the 大襟 dajin, the side closure, however examples of robes with closures on the left also existed. Robes with closures on both the right and left were also a thing, a style called 双襟 shuangjin, double closure. Shuangjin robes were derived from a men’s riding vest, the 巴图鲁坎肩 batulu vest (batulu is Manchu for “warrior”), that could be opened from both sides, and would experience a revival in the 1920s.

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1870s/80s photograph of a group of women in aoqun, the two skirts on the left are the elaborate mamian style, the one on the right is plain.

In aoqun, the skirt was usually of a style called 马面 mamian, made of two long horizontal pieces of pleated fabric with two flat sections each sewn to a waistband with one flat section overlapping, creating a wrap skirt that once worn around the wearer’s waist, appears to have two unpleated sections, one at the front and one at the back. This skirt was very decorative in the 19th century, full of embroidery, tassels and elaborate trim, sometimes giving the illusion of a separate apron being attached (I’ve seen this weird stereotype that traditional Chinese womenswear has a separate apron at the front this is complete bogus). The robes were likewise heavily decorated around the seams, ceremonial outfits like wedding gowns could be so full of embroidery that the original fabric is hardly to be seen.

The combination of robe and pants, 袄裤 aoku, was also a common way of dressing since approximately the 1800s or 1810s. This combination would become the norm in the 1890s.

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1870s/80s photograph of a woman in a ginormous ao, roomy pants and with bound feet.

Another noteworthy fad was bound feet. The middle of the 19th century was the pinnacle of foot binding and fashionable women had incredibly small feet, dubbed “lotus feet”. This was achieved by wrapping tight foot binding cloth around the feet since childhood and restricting the growth of the feet, I think also breaking a couple bones in the process. Women wore foot binding cloth and baggy stockings underneath their shoes, tied up with garters below the knees. Foot binding is said to severely restrict mobility and cause intense pain; I don’t doubt the pain part but I’m not sure about mobility since I’ve seen plenty of photographs of women with bound feet roaming about the streets.

Not every woman did foot binding though, it depended heavily on region, class and the individual family. For one, Manchu women all had natural feet. For Han women, an account from the 1850s said that in Beijing, every five or six out of ten women did not have bound feet, and that probability is three or four out of ten in the countryside. In the provinces along the southern coast, most women did not bind their feet (this probably has to do with the influence of indigenous cultures in the south, since foot binding was primarily a Han fashion), whereas in the northwest almost every woman had bound feet. By the way, I really don’t like how articles on foot binding describe it in the most sensational way possible, why is it so hard to approach history with peace of mind? And it pisses me off that all the articles containing 1890s photographs only talk about the foot binding as if there is nothing more of value in portraits of whole ass women.

Anyway, if you are interested in learning more about foot binding, check out Cinderella‘s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding by Dorothy Ko, recommended by @thefeastandthefast . Or just anything written by Dorothy Ko tbh.

Silhouette

In the 1890s, the cut of the aoqun began to become more slender and form fitting, commonly believed to be a result of westernization. But I think it’s also because the wide sleeve look has also been in fashion for quite a while now (some 80 years or so) and people were getting tired of it. The robe inherited the knee length hem from the 1880s but was less baggy and took on a more straight cut silhouette. The collar remained quite low until the end of the decade. Pants were overwhelmingly more popular than skirts in the 1890s, I speculate this may be due to a rising interest in feminism and women wanting more mobility, but aoku was also very popular in the 1870s and 80s in general so it may have also just carried over. The pants were still ankle length and straight cut but less roomy than earlier 19th century models. Overall the 1890s just looks like a shrunken and simplified version of the 1880s.

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The aoku as of the 1890s.

By the second half of the 1900s, the collar began to rise, becoming medium height. This was kind of reminiscent of late 18th century Han women’s collars I mentioned in this post on Chinese standing collars. The robe and pants shrunk further, becoming quite tight fitting. The robe was still around knee length. The pants were especially tight and could be considered skinny. Foot binding became less common and many women had natural sized feet. However, since foot binding is something that begins in the childhood, the fact that many women without bound feet appeared in the 1900s meant that many parents started to reject food binding in the 1880s and 90s.

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Ca. 1907 photograph of a group of women, possibly students, in tight fitting aoku.

Design details

The 1890s saw the mass disappearing of wide, embroidered trims around the seams, popular throughout the 19th century. The use of multiple rows of binding/trim from the 1870s and 80s was continued, albeit in a much more minimalistic and geometric way. I’ve seen a lot of plain white ao finished with multiple rows of black binding of different widths, it’s mighty avant-garde and elegant. Because clothes of the era were still constructed in the older Chinese method, they had a seam down the middle of the sleeves used to extend the length of the sleeves; this seam could be bound and decorated but it was not compulsory. Actual embroidery on the robe and skirt/pants was rare, if not non-existent; completely plain fabric was the norm. The ao of this era commonly had a 厂字襟 (厂 shaped closure), where the front placket is held up by one or two buttons and then closed by more buttons down the side seam. This style of closure was first popularized for Han women’s clothing in the 1800s and 1810s, before that Han women’s clothing closures were a straight line from the collar to the armpit. The pankou used to close the ao of this period became a lot more elaborate and the main source of decoration; I have a whole ass post on them here. A general air of simplicity, comfort and proportionality dominated the fashion of this era. In the mid 18th century, Han women’s robes started having folded cuffs (possibly borrowed from Manchu court dress), called 挽袖 wanxiu, and these became fake and represented by a piece of trimming in the 1850s. By the 1890s this design feature largely disappeared, leaving the sleeve edges either plain or simply bound.

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Three women in aoku, late 1890s. I looooove the look on the far left, I will probably make it some day.

Going into the 1900s, the geometric trims became more simplified and austere, while the pankou became increasingly ornamental.

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Late 1900s photograph. The robe is trimmed with fur and thin, geometric binding, and closed by very ornamental pankou.

Hair & Makeup

There were no significant changes in hairstyling in the 1890s, fashionable women would wear existing 1880s hairstyles but style them with bangs. A common style I’ve seen in photographs was long hair pulled back into either one big bun at the back or two smaller ones at the sides. The short bangs were usually very neat, precisely cut and sat closely to the forehead. Elastics did not exist, so Chinese women used strings and hairpins to tie their hair together. Hairpins of this era were usually very thick and sturdy, a single one was enough to hold all your hair into a bun. It was popular to use flowers and/or pearls to form a ring of decorations around a bun.

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Common 1890s hairstyle, for most people the decorations weren’t so elaborate.

A popular headpiece was this thin headband adorned with pearls worn at the place where bangs should be, although that has been around since the 1870s as well.

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Ca. late 1890s. Some women wearing the pearl headband.

Around 1905 the bangs began to grow in length but still weren’t long enough to cover the eyebrows. They were longer at the sides and shorter in the middle, creating this volume and curve at the forehead.

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Photograph ca. 1905. Long bangs.

By the end of the decade these evolved into a being with a will of its own. Long hair tied into braids or low buns became fashionable instead of tight, high buns.

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Calendar painting from 1911.

Fashionable women in the 1890s wore little to no makeup, because of the influence of female university students who were usually without makeup. In the 1870s and 80s, thick makeup was more common and was a trend popularized by sex workers in Shanghai, thus becoming increasingly considered indecent in the 1890s. I find this quite problematic cause respectability politics suck and there’s nothing wrong with wearing fashion trends invented by sex workers. All the straight male writers of the 1890s and 1900s praising female students for being “pure” and ”hygienic” in contrast to the supposedly nasty sex workers make me cringe to my core, it’s just pitting women against each other and setting us up for “I’m not like other girls” in my opinion.

The common makeup look includes white power, lipstick and blush. The lipstick shape was usually a tad smaller to the actual lips and blush was applied in large areas toward the outside of the face.

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Standard 1890s and 1900s hair and makeup look. This drawing is probably from around 1902, it’s a bit more festive folk art than fashion plate so take the patterns with a dash of salt.

Undergarments

Unfortunately I don’t have many pictures for undergarments of the era but I can describe them to you. Since women commonly wore pants, they would usually wear another layer of pants (could be considered drawers) underneath that was of a similar construction but plain and easy to launder. Panties and such didn’t exist so drawers were the innermost layer, enough to protect women’s private parts. Likewise for the robe, another plainer, sturdier version would be worn underneath. In the mid 1900s, as the sleeves of the outer robe began to shorten, the undershirt became more form fitting at the wrists and could serve a decorative function.

Chinese women in the 19th century bound their breasts with long strips of fabric to achieve the flat look. I’m not exactly sure how this is done but basically you wrap fabric tightly around your chest until the boobies are concealed. A famous undergarment of the Qing Dynasty was the 肚兜 dudou, which was actually unisex. The female only version was called 抹胸 moxiong, 袜肚 wadu or 袜腹 wafu, the latter two are etymologically similar to earlier words for “corset” or “a pair of bodies”. However, unlike what many later 20th century artists would like you to believe, wearing only dudou on the upper body was not legit underwear for grown up women, as it was usually worn in conjunction with breast binders as an extra layer of warmth. It was also worn very tightly around the breasts and waist, not tied loosely like in paintings or period dramas nowadays.

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Dudou diagram.

Shoes

Women began campaigning against bound feet in this period and many drawings depicted women with natural feet. However, if a woman had her feet bound since childhood it’s difficult for them to return to their natural size, so some women who were born in previous decades would still have very small feet, even if they began to reject it at this time. Women’s shoes of Western construction weren’t yet so common so most women wore Chinese style shoes, which were commonly made of fabric and had a slightly upward pointing toe. Women with bound feet would use a long piece of ribbon/cloth to wrap their feet (to maintain the shape) and wear small fabric pumps with a white sole. These could be flat or have a teeny tiny bit of wedge heel, called 弓鞋 gong xie, bow shoes. Women without bound feet would wear normal sized pumps, likewise of fabric, with slightly upward pointing toes and a thick white sole. Embroidery on shoes was a huge thing in the 19th century and before but by the 1890s it started to disappear as well, and shoes in the 1890s were commonly plain. In the 1900s, Western leather shoes were increasingly popularized, but it wasn’t until the early 1910s that this popularity reached its height.

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Foot binding cloth.

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Shoes for bound feet.

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Woman with natural feet wearing Chinese style pumps. Western style knit stockings were becoming popularized in the 1880s for women with natural feet as well.

Some editing afterthoughts

I’ve been looking more into 18th and 19th century Chinese fashion lately and I realized I held some deep rooted misconceptions about the Qing Dynasty. For some reason I always considered the 1870s and 80s look with the elaborate, big robes conservative or backwards, which is really not fair. Chinese women’s fashion was revolutionized in the beginning of the 19th century, going from the flowy, slender robes of the 18th century to stiffer, more structured robes with flared sleeves. Styles also differed dramatically from decade to decade, it’s just not very well studied and there’s a stigma around Qing Dynasty fashion so people don’t get into it as much. Because Han women were allowed to continue wearing Han style clothing into the Qing Dynasty, a lot of 18th century reproduction ensembles nowadays get mistakenly labelled as Ming style hanfu, which really isn’t helping... I was definitely not alone in this though, the perception of Qing Dynasty Han women’s fashion most people nowadays have is: in the first couple years Han women were allowed to wear Ming style hanfu, but then bam the late 19th century look was forced upon everyone. This view is super not nuanced and false on almost every level, but it is extremely widespread and I don’t blame you at all if you also think like this, this was me just two months ago too... A wise woman (I mean Karolina Zebrowska) once said that everything in fashion history happens gradually, which is also extremely true for Chinese fashion history.

I’ve really started to question what modernity in fashion means because the elaborate 19th century Chinese look that white people back then considered the epitome of conservative Chinese clothing was actually new and exciting in the beginning of the 19th century. I can’t help but wonder if this view that Chinese clothing as of the 1870s and 80s was symbolic of Chinese culture’s “backwardness” and “stagnation” was a product of colonization and white imperialists’ efforts to demonize Chinese society and take things out of context. I would prefer to say that Chinese fashion westernized a lot during the 1890s and 1900s but not necessarily modernized because what is modernity. Fashions change and that is the most normal thing on the planet.

If you read what white historians or politicians wrote in the late 19th/early 20th century about Chinese fashion or culture (which I highly recommend you don’t, that shit is detrimental to your mental health), it becomes obvious that the majority of them have no clue what Chinese fashion looked like before the 19th century and how we got to what we had in the 19th century in the first place, so they just assumed that Chinese fashion always looked like that and that we haven’t progressed as a culture in hundreds of years lmao. Bullshit pseudo-Darwinism at its finest. Oh or if you look up 18th century European Orientalist paintings depicting imaginary Chinese characters, the clothes they wore and the hairstyles they had were so far off from what actual 18th century Chinese fashion looked like to the point they felt racist and were uncomfortable to look at. I stumbled across so many of them when looking for 18th century Chinese painting and every time I see one it almost gives me a stroke. So I think it’s really important to acknowledge that Han Chinese fashion of the 18th century is a valid field of study.

In my original 1890s post I said that the elaborate embroidery and trimmings started to appear on Han women’s fashion around this time because of Manchu influence, I take that back because I’ve realized it’s a whack claim. I’ll explain it more when I make some posts on the 19th century later.

Reworked part 2 is coming soon as well :)))

#1890s #1900s #19th century #historic fashion #qing dynasty #vintage fashion #vintage hair #vintage shoes #chinese fashion #chinese history #abridged history of early 20th century chinese womenswear #清汉女装 #edwardian fashion

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papenathys · 4 years ago

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Bengali Academia

Last time I made a compilation of some Indian Academia picks, most of which were works written in English. So I thought I'll put together a book rec list but this time the works are in Bengali as we have a very rich heritage and it's high time I promoted my own culture :) this list is subjective and contains entries compiled with the help of my family and friends. Please keep in mind that the Bengali literary canon is VAST and encompasses works from India and Bangladesh and I cannot possibly represent every single author I have ever read and loved.

Political:

Pather Dabi [transl: The Way of The Road] by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay: revolutionary secret society in colonial india!! an actually likeable hero!! splendid anti establishment bengali youths!! themes like untouchability, decolonisation and female empowerment!! I will rec this book until my absolute dying breathe, especially because the whites™ banned it.

Ghare Baire [transl: The Home and the World] by Rabindranath Tagore: explores complex paradoxes in the early phase of the national independence movement, like western "progressive" theory vs western imperialism, patriotism vs aggressive nationalism, and the double alienation of desi women by Britishers + their own society. raises very pertinent questions about forceful "emancipation" of women, very layered characters and gorgeous prose.

Char Adhyay [transl: Four Chapters] by Rabindranath Tagore: you can read this as either the star-crossed love story of revolutionaries Ela and Atin, or a scathing critique of militant nationalism, embodied by the brilliant, ruthless, manipulative rebel leader Indranath. or both. either way, a great portrayal of systematic brainwashing by extremist groups, though does get a tad bit angsty at times.

Kaalbela [transl: Doomsday] by Samaresh Majumdar: you know the drill. Naxalite movement. Bengal burning. Love in the times of communism and revolution and police raids. Fun stuff. If you loved Udayan and Gauri from The Lowland pls read this.

Hajar Churashir Maa [transl: 1084's Mother] by Mahasweta Devi: a harrowing exploration of 70s Naxalite Bengal, state brutality, and the cost of resistance as seen through the eyes of Sujata, a mother battling to piece together the events leading to the murder of her son, rebel Brati. this one is particularly devastating and can be triggering in the current political climate. but god, what a read.

Social:

Pather Panchali [transl: Song of the Road] by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay: if you haven't read the book, you have probably heard of the equally gorgeous movie. It's about a village on the far precincts of rural Bengal, it's about a brother and a sister and a family whose destinies keep pulling them apart and together, and it's about other things too, a field after a rainstorm, fresh mangoes, the gnaw of hunger and the kind of love that suffers.

Padma Nadir Majhi [transl: The Boatman on the River Padma] by Manik Bandopadhyay: an epistolary story about the lives of the impoverished fishermen community living in the Padma delta strip in Bangladesh, and a man ferrying relocated settlers to a utopian riverine island named Moynadip. The river acts almost as a sentient presence through this novel about class conflicts. I remember reading this in middle school, the prose is to die for. Also, Kuber, the main character is v.v. good I kind of love him.

Satyabati trilogy by Ashapurna Debi: *slams hands on table* INTERGENERATIONAL FEMALE RAGE!! mother and daughter and granddaughter battling the same oppressive fate!!! Feminist and anti brahmanical academia!! Women writing about women!!

Chokher Bali [transl: Eyesore] by Rabindranath Tagore: it's about two women- beautiful briliant widow Binodini and her sweet naive friend asha, and the way their stories spill into each other. sometimes privileged men write surprisingly good stories about women who are flawed, women who want things, women with ambition and love and tenderness and lust and regret and jealousy.

Srikanto by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (#1): bisexual himbo spends entire adolescence pining after hot male best friend before growing up, doing drugs and getting reunited with a former flame who now works as a courtesan. Involved: a snake charmer, baggy pants, feverish dreams, ghosts on the river's edge, and this one line that keeps me awake all night and which I totally lost in translation: "sometimes the best kind of love bewitches. Other times, it simply dethrones you."

Devdas by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay: or as I like to call it childhood sweethearts Dev and Paro battles The Bengali Class Hierarchy and Third Degree Alcoholism while the courtesan Chandramukhi is busy being an unproblematic angel whom I love :) also pls don't watch the film it is kind of cringe idk

Aranyak [transl: Of the Forest] by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay: read the memo it's about forests. it's about a man enamoured by forests and it's about people whose lives are inextricably bound to the trees, for better and for worse. actually pretty sad, but the journey through that sadness is lovely.

Non fiction

Pakdondi by Leela Majumdar: whimsical, gentle memoir/travelogue about the author's childhood in Shillong and Calcutta. Think hill stations and winter flowers and soft sunshine. Has the wistful nostalgia of a Ghibli film. I love her writing sm.

Any work by Nabaneeta Deb Sen, particularly Truck Bahone McMahon [transl: On a Truck Alone to McMahon], which details her road trip to the North East Indian states in the humorous precision only she can bring. Her writing style blends factual and funny in the same vein as Ruskin Bond and I had a good time with this.

Deshe Bideshe [transl: In a Land Far from Home] by Syed Mujtaba Ali: an account of the author's two year stay in Kabul between 1927-29 when the country was going through sweeping reforms under the controversial reign of King Amanullah. It's a little glimpse into a system and a time not often documented in literature, and Ali's writing is a gem. you'll enjoy this is you enjoy Ruskin Bond and William Dalrymple.

Mythology/Retellings

Rajkahini [transl: Stories of Kings] by Abanindranath Tagore: another favourite, lyrical, descriptive, half magical half historical goodness, this collection of short stories centres around ancient Rajput dynasty folklore and mythical histories. The accompanying illustrations are equally beautiful.

Tagore's Nritya Natya (dance drama) series of plays which centre around folklore. Think royal intrigue, warrior princesses falling in love with gods and the plight of benevolent monks and "untouchable girls". I adore nritya natya because most bengali girls learn these plays and the leitmotif songs and stories growing up.

Shei Shomoye [transl: Those Days] by Sunil Gangopadhyay: written in Sunil's typical wistful lilt, it is a retelling of the life of Bengali satirist and playwright Hutum Pacha (aka kaliprasanna sinha) as well as several historical figures like Michael Madhusudan, Tagore etc. Recommended by my mutuals and followers alike.

Tungabhadrar Tire [transl: By the Tungabhadra] by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay: a fleet carries two princesses to vijaynagar where one of them is to wed the king as part of a political alliance. but of course things fall apart (as they always do) and you get a whole cocktail of torrid affairs and 14th century politics albeit the joy is tempered considerably by the author's very Quirky Misogyny and a certain degree of SLB-esque Islamophobia ://

Poetry

Shakti Chattopadhyay (themes: restlessness, nature, modernism, translated verses)

Kalyani Thakur Charal (social commentary, dalit representation, feminism)

Rabindranath Tagore (mysticism, pastoralism, time)

Jibanananda Das (speculative, modernism, existentialism)

Michael Madhusudan Dutta (epic poetry, nature, sonnets)

Kazi Nazrul Islam (patriotic, anti colonial, social commentary......an icon ahead of his time.....king™)

Self indulgent recs

Abol Tabol by Sukumar Ray is one of those priceless books of nonsense/satire poetry rendered second grade in translation, I'm afraid. If you can, read the Bengali version. In fact, read any of Sukumar Ray's works, it's like taking an acid trip with Hayao Miyazaki and Louis Caroll, icon really created That Rich A Bibliography™ in his unfairly short life :') it's funny, it's unsettling, it's ridiculous, it's savage.

Professor Shonku series by Satyajit Ray: this sci-fi/thriller collection is written in the format of a long-lost journal, detailing the colourful and sometimes genuinely creepy adventures of whimsical old scientist Trilokeshwar Shonku. The professor is aided on his trips by faithful and benevolently dumb attendant Prohlad and his cat Newton. This series is so ridiculous and inventive and good, Ray's writing is so readable and the accompanying illustrations are charming AF. A nostalgic fave.

Feluda series by Satyajit Ray: you've partaken of bengali culture, you have studied museums and archives and watched documentaries. But did you read feluda? No? Not a very successful cultural integration then, was it?

Podi Pishir Bormi Baksho (transl: The Burmese Box of Aunt Podi) by Leela Majumdar: one eventful night, the Burmese treasure chest of a formidable bengali matriarch is stolen, spawning generations of hatred, bloodshed and betrayal. PEAK comedy gold. every time I reread this book it leaves me in hysterics.

Byomkesh series by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay: rounding off this list with my favourite dark academia detective boy, byomkesh is very well written and very likeable and very aesthetiqué if you are looking for crimes and felony and the seven deadly sins in the heart of colonial and post-partition calcutta. if you like Poirot, you will love this series, particularly the earlier stories.

This list is definitely not comprehensive! For logistical purposes, I was unable to add Tagore's entire Body of Work©, or ALL of Nazrul's poems....else we'd be here a few days. There are many, many names and titles missing. My list is limited by my own reading experience and the books I know from recommendations. However, I just wanted to make this list for a long time as I rarely see Bengali literature hyped on tumblr. Feel free to add more!

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svynakee · 5 years ago

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mulan (2020) and chi, a mystical misrepresentation

Disney’s research on chi (气) suggests that early on they fang qi (放弃). Mulan live action makes me want to fang pi (放屁). Long explanation on my gripes with this cultural 'representation’ which ends up backfiring into making Chinese culture look bad, plus why including the ~exotic Asian mysticism~ of qi ruins Mulan (2020).

*Translations of the words below cut

Part 1: Crouching Representation, Hidden Insult

Firstly, the accepted pinyin is qi, so I have no idea why they’re using chi. I’m no expert on Chinese medicine or spirituality, but I did grow up watching wuxia and having a mother who insisted I change my diet to balance the heat/cold/dry. The concept of qi is not a mystical one to me. I associate it with action movies and aunties who believe in alternative medicine – superstitious, but in that familiar, domestic way. Part of my tradition. Part of my culture. Part of my life.

Qi is not a magical outside force. Qi is your own personal energy. In stories, while you can seal other people’s qi or damage it, it’s not like some life force in nature where you can tap into a flower’s qi to gain plant powers. Mastery of qi is akin to an Olympic athlete who hones their body and self-control to peak physical performance. While their abilities may seem superhuman, they are not divine or innately magical.

In a wuxia setting, people can train until they get enhanced reflexes, strength, senses, motor skills and possibly healing abilities. These are all ‘normal’ human abilities that have simply been pushed to unrealistic levels. Even walking/running on water, running up vertical slopes and ‘flying’ can be explained as being really fast or…jumping really, really far. Outrageous? Yes. But importantly, not magical. This is why a wuxia hero can still be freaked out by the supernatural. In a wuxia setting, using qi is normal and anyone can become the strongest qi user. Some use it for fighting, others to be doctors (enhanced senses + acupressure), or solve crime (there’s quite a few wuxia detective stories out there).

In xianxia, there are more fantasy elements. Those who hone qi are usually cultivators, who do so with the end goal of becoming immortal. This is not a unique trait; the setting often has several (sometimes even hundreds) of flying, super strong, immortal people who have some degree of fame. There can even be establishments that teach cultivation. Or multiple sects full of cultivators who have honed their skills in qi. Entire armies of people who can cast spells and telepathically control their sword. One could argue that immortality is just the mundane ability to remain healthy pushed to the extreme, but xianxia is where monsters and demons and gods roam about.

There are further differences between the genre, but I only want to point out their similarities concerning the concept of qi.

Everyone is born with qi. Nobody is born with the skills to utilise their qi. Qi must be honed through training, usually in a balanced manner (both physical strength and mental acuity, along with some spiritual growth). Even heroes who have parents with strong qi start off weak, because if you can’t use you qi then you’re just a normal person, because everyone has qi. Being born with unusually long legs and large lung capacity might make you a good sprinter, but you won’t go to the Olympics without training, even if both your parents are gold medallists. It takes self-discipline, a good coach and a mastery of your body to reach that potential.

This is one of my gripes against Disney’s idea of ‘chi’ in Mulan. The other one is-

Qi is not gender restricted. In fact, feminine qi is associated with yin, the black part of the yinyang symbol. Not a new concept. There have been female martial artists and heroes in Chinese works for a long time. I hate how Disney is taking a gender-neutral concept, one which already has a degree of progressiveness in Chinese culture and deciding that “chi is not for women” just to push their girl power moral. For a long time, wuxia has had women warriors. Women MASTERS. Yeah, not every kung fu master is an old man with a long white beard. There are female-only sects. There are badass female warriors who participate in hand-to-hand combat and rack up kills. They’re not regulated to being healers and archers and that one ‘Amazon warrior princess’ using a whip. Growing up, I saw more strong, heroic female warriors in Chinese media than Western when I watched action films.

This is my main problem with Disney’s horrendous cultural appropriation. Instead of properly representing the culture, instead of doing research, instead of just NOT GOING FOR EXOTIC ASIAN MYSTICISM, they actually make Chinese culture look worse than it is. To. Support. Feminism.

Part 2: The Chi-asy Way Out

In addition to butchering the core concept of the thing they’re appropriating, Mulan (2020)’s baffling inclusion of qi, whoops, chi makes the story worse overall. Mulan being born with strong chi makes her a master warrior from childhood. However, society doesn’t like it when women have chi, so she is shunned and her parents worry for her. As a soldier, though, chi powers make her an asset to the army, so she becomes respected. In the end she is a hero.

Oh, and remember when Disney said removing Mushu was because they wanted a more accurate adaptation of the original poem?

MULAN WAS A NORMAL PERSON AND NEVER FOUGHT ANY BIRD WITCHES.

The problem is that this means nothing Mulan accomplishes is due to her own actions. How is this an uplifting feminist story? This is the message: “If you’re a girl who fails to conform, you will be ostracized. Don’t worry though – so long as you’re born super special and strong, make the right heroic choices and use your strength for good, you will find acceptance!”

WHO. IS. THIS. EMPOWERING.

Isn’t this just another ‘not like other girls’ story? Mulan likes something that only boys are allowed to do, so men don’t like her, until she proves she’s better than them at that thing, so they accept her? That’s not feminism! Women don’t need to prove anything to be allowed to pursue their passions or feel proud of their identity. And they don’t need to be the best at something to be allowed to do it!

In Mulan (1998), she lacks the raw physical strength of the men. This actually makes sense – she’s the daughter of a wealthy family (hence the marriage arrangement, the nice estate) – so she’s weaker. This weakness leads to her getting bullied. Mulan realises she can’t succeed if she tries to match them in brute strength. She then uses her brains to succeed. There’s a brief training montage where she becomes stronger which admittedly doesn’t explain why she suddenly gets swole, but it’s reasonable that she was always capable to being as strong as the men and merely lacked their background of physical labour (even Po, as monks are expected to maintain their temple).

In Mulan (2020), she just stops hiding her superpowers. After a personal pep talk from her commander, which she gets…because he knew her war veteran father.

Ah yes, magic and nepotism, the inspiration that little girls need! Feminism!

It gets worse. Mulan’s chi not only allows her to excel in the army, but it leads to the main villainess/anti-villain to fixate on her. Xian is a witch, a woman who used chi but fell to darkness. Her goal is to make a world where, uh, women born with strong chi aren’t oppressed. She immediately recognises Mulan as a woman with chi and inexplicably gives her chi tips while in battle. She then repeatedly leads Mulan to each plot point, culminating in her sacrificing herself to save Mulan because she sees Mulan as the kind of person she wanted to be, but couldn’t due to oppression.

Chi is the reason why Mulan is a hero. Chi is how Mulan arrived on time to save the Emperor. Chi is why she is respected. Chi makes her special. Chi makes her a hero.

The addition of chi takes away so much of Mulan’s character growth, her struggles and subsequently her triumphs. Did she join the army for her father’s sake, or because she knew her only chance to succeed was on the battlefield, where chi is a powerful weapon? Is the emperor offering her a position on his staff out of respect for her abilities, or fear that shunning her will turn her into another Xian (who almost singlehandedly gave Bori Khan victory and ALSO was responsible for foiling his plans because her abuse led to her betrayal)? Even the love interest doesn’t befriend Mulan until she shows off her chi and beats him in combat.

Chi gave Mulan everything. And with this poor addition of ‘chi’, Disney took everything from Mulan.

气 - qi, ‘air’ 放弃 - give up 放屁 - fart

#mulan #mulan 2020 #mulan film 2020 #mulan live action #disney #fuck off the west already thinks china is backwards and needs enlightenment #mulan rant

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queendom25 · 4 years ago

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Black Liberation in the Black Church

Brace yourselves Southern Oregon because the Why We Can’t Wait challenge is but an appetizer to the cause! Yours truly is working with Black Alliance & Social Empowerment (B.A.S.E) on the project of reading the book Why We Can’t Wait written by Dr. King and comparing the civil rights movement to what we see today. Change starts with action and I encourage everyone to read the book as a stepping stone in their research of other America. With that being said let's talk about the role of the Black church from enslavement to liberation movements because have you seen what’s happened in the Georgia Senate race? We can’t just overlook the historical significance of a pastor from the spiritual home of Dr. King competing with a Senator that confidently poses in pictures with known white supremacists.

It’s no accident that the key players from Reconstruction to Black Power have been men of faith. In 1865, Reverend J.W. Wood of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church introduced a series of reforms considered “radical” including the right to vote for Black people, “Without exaggeration, it can be stated that almost every Black minister was something of a politician, and that every aspiring Black politician had to be something of a minister.”(Marable, 2015) The foundation of modern Black politics rests with the Black church and in 1910 there was a decrease in clergy. It was W.E.B Dubois that stated the Black church was an expression of the “Negro’s soul” and organizational ability but he along with other key figures had choice criticisms of the church.(Marable, 2015) Historians and sociologists alike that specialize in 20th century Black liberationist ideologies, have traced the ambivalences that set Black Christianity apart from the mainstream and debate on whether it’s been an obstacle or a blessing in the struggle for liberation. V.F. Calverton for example, declared in 1927 that the Judeo-Christian ethics of submissive behavior and tolerance towards Earthly oppressors only sustained white racism and exploitation of labor power from the Black proletariat. An unsettling number of ministers were silent as Dubois, Paul Robeson, and other socialists and progressives were arrested with tarnished reputations but the buy out of other Black ministers was the most despicable! If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to follow the money which always pays corporate interests instead of the laborer. Henry Ford was among many capitalists of his time to pay off Black ministers for their influence to convince the Black working-class to accept low pay and reject unionism. Tokenism is no stranger to the pulpit so the real question is when will the general population focus on the politics of the person instead of their color?

In the early stages of my personal involvement with the cause, I came across a unique Christian bigot with the sexist, transphobic, and homophobic attitude to match. Interacting with him on social media made me realize my own intersectionality and how this bigot’s melanated skin is more detrimental than a Black Trump supporter. He boasted that he rejects Western Christian doctrine because the Ethiopian bible was the true path as he “corrects me on my learned self-hatred.” The doctrine that he’s referring to dates back to when the “Ethiops” joined the Crusaders in the war against Islam and just like a toxic breakup, the Europeans ghosted the Africans after the fact as the slave traders made their big debut. As a Black woman in America I realize that my heroes will contrast dramatically from that of male counterparts both Black and white. While W.E.B Dubois could labeled as the feminist of his time, he still talked about the emancipation of women in his essays as he invited Margaret Sanger to contribute to the pages of his periodicals. Margaret Sanger was the peak of white feminism that’s responsible for the Negro Project. This “ally” used Black stereotypes in order to reduce fertility in African American women. Religious Black separatists often referred to her work in later years to sway my melanated sisters from participating and who could blame them? But as Dubois noted, “The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.” (Washington, 2006) Thanks to Dubois’ advice Sanger recruited ministers like Dr. King to promote such a project.

The liberation of Black people has never been so cut and dry but the deliberate lack of knowledge within American textbooks ought to be incriminating. Replacing representation with tokenism should’ve been clear to us from Kamala Harris to Kelly Loeffler and from ministers on capitalist payroll to Ben Carson. We are still met with indifference as women of color and members of the LGBT+ community on the topic of basic human rights including adequate access to medical care. We may have avoided the full cancelation of “democracy” by voting out Donald Trump but the Black caucus has not forgotten the “jungle” that Joe Biden thinks we belong in.

Sources:

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America Manning Marable 2015.

Medical Apartheid Harriet A. Washington 2006.

Black Liberation George M. Fredrickson 1995.

#mlk #medfordoregon #no justice no peace #black lives matter #southernoregon #w.e.b. du bois #human rights #kelly loeffler #kamala harris

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poetlcs · 5 years ago

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books I’ve read in 2020 (so far) + their ratings

non-fiction

crossing the line: australia’s secret history in the timor sea by kim mcgrath: important research into australia’s theft of oil in timor leste. didn’t rate

hood feminism: notes from the women that a movement forgot by mikki kendall: essay collection dissecting modern feminism, pointing out the exclusionary practices of mainstream feminism and offering new frameworks through which feminism should operate. really recommend. didn’t rate

the uninhabitable earth: life after warming by david wallace-wells: good introduction to environmentalism and the climate disaster. a little too introductory for me but good for those new to the topic. ★★★

homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow by yuval noah harari: it is simply not Sapiens nor as good as Sapiens. Looks at potentials for our future but, thought it was a little poorly researched. Some parts were still interesting though. ★★★

SPQR: a history of ancient rome by mary beard: a little dense at times, but super interesting and detailed look at ancient rome. enjoyed it a lot. ★★★★

sister outsider by audre lorde: collection of audre lorde’s essays and speeches, about feminism, lesbianism, the queer community, being Black and a lesbian ect ect. outstanding, important collection anyone interested in intersectional feminism must read. ★★★★★

all boys aren’t blue by george m. johnson: memoir about johnson’s experiences growing up as a Black gay boy in a poor neighbourhood. Very poignant memoir, written in such accessible language which I liked. guarenteed to get you emotional, another one everyone should read. didn’t rate because it’s so highly personal that felt wrong but highly recommend.

under a biliari tree i born by alice biari smith: memoir by an Aboriginal Australian detailing her life growing up learning traditional Aboriginal ways and how the lives of Indigenous Australian’s have been impacted through the years, specifically in Western Australia. Probably more aimed at school age people but still a 101 I think many Australian’s (and non Australian’s) can benefit from. didn’t rate

classics

maurice by e.m forster: gay man coming of age story in college + themes around class and sexuality. forster’s end note saying he thought it imperative to write a happy ending because we need that in fiction, i love him. ★★★★★

emma by jane austen: read before seeing the movie. loved emma as a character but thought this was okay compared to other Austen I’ve read. ★★★½

perfume by patrick suskind: a man with an incredible sense of smell starts murdering young women to try and bottle their scent for a perfume. weirdest shit I ever read still don’t know how to feel about it. ★★★

the color purple by alice walker: follows the life of Celie, an Black woman living in rural Georgia. deals with her relationship with her sister Nettie, her lover Shug Avery, and with God. this tore my heart to shreds absolutely everyone must read it, like even just for the beautiful writing ALONE. ★★★★

a study in scarlet by arthur conan doyle: its sherlock holmes #1 no further explanation required. not my fave sherlock story, was the weird morman subplot needed? ★★½

dracula by bram stoker: yeah vampires!! this was way easier to read and also way funnier than I expected. we STAN gothic aesthetics and Miss Mina Harker here. ★★★★

fantasy

the diviners by libba bray: teens with magical powers/abilities solving mysteries in 1920′s new york. reread. ★★★★★

lair of dreams by libba bray: the diviners #2. reread. ★★★★½

before the devil breaks you by libba bray: the diviners #3. reread. best one in the series hands down. ★★★★★

the king of crows by libba bray: waited so long for this series ender and it let me down lol. ★★★

clockwork princess by cassandra clare: the infernal devices #3. dont @ me this is my comfort reread series and I was travelling. ★★★★★

we unleash the merciless storm by tehlor kay mejia: we set the dark on fire #2. latinx inspired fantasy about overthrowing a corrupt government with an f/f romance. didn’t like as much as book one but still good, BEST girlfriends ever. ★★★½

wolfsong by t.j klune: basically feral gay werewolves and witches living in a town together. feels like a teen wolf episode but way more gayer. despite that hated the writing style and I don’t like age gap romances so yay the concept no the execution. ★★

the fate of the tearling by erika johansan: the tearling #3. finally finished this series, dunno why everyone loathes the ending so much I thought it was cool. underrated fantasy because it’s very unique. ★★★★

girl, serpent, thorn by melissa bashardoust: persian inspired fantasy about a girl who is cursed by a div to kill anyone she touches. has an f/f romance. bashardoust writes the most aesthetically rich settings I love her. ★★★★

crier’s war by nina varela: reread. f/f enemies to lovers where the main character poses as a handmaiden in order to try and murder the princess whose father killed her family. PEAK gay content literally a modern classic. ★★★★★

we hunt the flame by hafsah faizal: I was so disinterested in this book I barely can describe the plot but basically it’s a prince and a hunter who are enemies but are forced to go looking for this magical artifact together anyway it was boring. ★

ghosts of the shadow market by cassandra clare + others: short story collection set in the shadowhunter world. probably the strongest of her collections but they just don’t hit the same as her full length books. didn’t rate.

a storm of swords: part two by george r.r martin: a song of ice and fire #3. I WILL finish reading these books eventually i swear !! probably the best one yet though. ★★★★

amarah by l.l mcneil: world of linaria #3. high fantasy with politics, dragons, warring races. tolkein/asoiaf vibes if they had more women with agency. didn’t rate because I haven’t decided my feelings on the end yet.

science fiction

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: f/f enemies to lovers between spies on rival sides of a time war. good book but writing style wasn’t for me (others love this so eh take my opinion with a grain os salt: ★★★

not your sidekick by c.b lee: main character is from a superhero family but has no powers herself, so she takes an internship working with a superhero corp. has an f/f romance with a villain character. so much fun and super cute

speculative fiction:

the deep by rivers solomon: speculative fiction wherein pregnant African women thrown overboard by slave ships gave birth to babies that became mermaids. main character holds all the memories of her people’s past but runs away after being unable to deal with the burden. about self discovery, intergenerational trauma and the burden of remembering. a little short imo but still all round excellent book ★★★★

how long ‘til black future month? by n.k jemisin: short story collection, many with an afro-futurism focus. hard to explain because there is such a wide variety of stories but this is an AMAZING collection. didn’t rate because I don’t like rating short story collections but wish more people would read it.

mystery

the family upstairs by lisa jewell: woman inherits an english house and starts to unravel the secrets of a mass cult suicide that happened there years ago. loved it because it was wild. ★★★★★

the hand on the wall by maureen johnson: truly devious #3. boarding school mystery where the main character has to solve a murder that happened in the 1920s at her school while another mystery is happening in present time. my least favourite of the series but satisfying conclusion nonetheless. ★★★½

contemporary fiction

maybe in another life by taylor jenkins reid: dual timeline book showing the two outcomes of a decision the main character makes. cool concept but ultimately boring book because I didn’t care about the main character at all. didn’t rate because I didn’t finish it.

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo: vignette stories of various women whose lives are vaguely interconnected. incredibly well written with such vivid characters. deserves the hype. ★★★★

tin heart by shivan plozza: australian YA, the recipient of a heart transplant wishes to connect with the family of her donor, after she discovers the identity of her donor. good story but didn’t like the writing style. ★★★

a little life by hanya yanigahara: follows the life of a group of friends living in life, especially that of jude, a closed off and damaged man with a troubling past. a little too torture-porny/Tragic Gays but I cannot deny the author has a beautiful writing style and I went through all the emotions. didn’t rate

a girl like that by tanaz bhathena: explores the events leading up to the main character dying in a car crash. set in Jeddah, saudi arabia and explores expectations on women, feminism and expressions of sexuality and relationships between women during teenage years. kinda no good characters but I loved it for it’s messy depiction of teen girls (whilst not condemning them for this). underrated. ★★★★

little fires everywhere by celeste ng: drama in white american suburbs when a new family moves in and the neighbours start investigating their past. eh, I heard a lot about this and thought it was just okay. ★★★

stay gold by tobly mcsmith: trans boy decides to go stealth at his new school and falls for a cheerleader, georgia. about navigating being trans and definitely felt like it was written to educate cis people. it was okay but ultimately not my thing and not really the story I was looking for, even though I respect it being written by a trans author and still would recommend to certain people. ★★½

everything leads to you by nina lacour: main character and her best friend have to unravel a hollywood mystery, all while the main character is trying to get over her ex-girlfriend and find work as a set designer. f/f romance and loved the focus on movie making and the power of stories. ★★★½

the falling in love montage by ciara smyth: a girl meets another girl at a party, but she’s not looking to date due to the amount of family issues she has going on. so her and the girl decide to spend the summer having fun, renacting scenes from rom-coms, but never dating. awesome family dynamics and the relationship between the two girls was sweet also set in ireland which is fun.

normal people by sally rooney: explores the relationship between connell and marianne, who meet in school, date secretly, and then are inexplicably drawn to each other for the rest of their lives. explores power dynamics, relationships, love and trust, and what we owe to eachother. great book, great mini-series, love it to bits. ★★★★★

the glass hotel by emily st john mandel: impossible to explain this book, but there’s a mystery about grafitti, a ponzi scheme and a character falling to their death on a boat under suspicious circumstances. honestly idk what happened in this book but I liked it. ★★★½

historical fiction

half of a yellow sun by chimamanda ngozi adichie: historical fiction about the biafran war loosely based on adichie’s family experiences. incredibly well written with an ending that punches you in the gut. ★★★★

hamnet by maggie o’farrell: explores the shakespeare family after the death of their child, Hamnet, from the plague, and how this leads to Shakespeare writing Hamlet. cool as fuck concept and boring as fuck book with such tropey female characters. ★★

all the light we cannot see by anthony doerr: WW2 fiction, dual perspective between a blind girl living in france and a german boy forced into nazi youth. I cannot believe this book is award winning it’s so boring and predictable and i reget the time i wasted on it. ★

poetry:

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong: poetry memoir. vuong writes a letter to his illiterate mother, knowing she’ll never read it, exploring their relationship, his experiences growing up as second generation Vietnamese-American, and hers during the Vietnam War. My favorite book I’ve read so far this year, just too good to explain, genuinely just feel like everyone is better off for having read this. ★★★★★

currrently reading:

girls of storm and shadow by natasha ngan

meet me at the intersection: edited by rebecca lim & ambelin kwaymullina

stamped from the beginning: the definitive history of racist ideas in america by ibram x. kendi

get a life, chloe brown by talia hibbert

#books #reading #booklr #book #book recommendation #mine #reading update #did anyone ask for this #no #did i do it anyway yes #its my continuing agenda to get book tumblr to read books that aren't soc and aftg aaldkskska #ok bye #after making this its become apparent to me I need to balance out how much fantasy I let myself read akdksks #i lov fantasy but im TRYING to read more uhh non fiction and lit fic

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR: THE FIRST | ARTICLE

Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Changed the Supreme Court, and the Country

Despite their differences, the first and second female Supreme Court justices found common ground on women’s equality.

— July 30, 2021 | Linda Hirshman | PBS

Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg pose for a portrait in Statuary Hall surrounded by statues of men at the U.S. Capitol, March 28, 2001, David Hume Kennerly via Getty Images

By the time the nation celebrates the birth of its democracy each Fourth of July, the nine justices of the Supreme Court have mostly left town. But before departing the capital for their summer recess, they must first decide all the cases they have heard since their current term began the previous October. The hardest, most controversial cases, where the unelected Court orders the society to change in a big way, are often left to the end. As the days for decision tick away in late June, the tension in the courtroom is as hot and heavy as the Washington summer air.

On the morning of June 26, 1996, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman appointed to the high court since its founding, slipped through the red velvet curtain behind the bench and took her seat at the end. Five places along the majestic curve sat Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, since 1981 the first woman on the Supreme Court, or the FWOTSC as she slyly called herself. Each woman justice sported an ornamental white collar on her somber black robe, but otherwise there was no obvious link between the First and Second, any more than between any of the other justices. On that day, however, the public got a rare glimpse at the ties that bound the two most powerful women in the land.

Speaking from the depths of the high-backed chair that towered over her tiny frame, Justice Ginsburg delivered the decision of the Court in United States v. Virginia. From that morning in June 1996, Virginia’s state-run Virginia Military Institute, which had trained young men since before the Civil War, would have to take females into its ranks. The Constitution of the United States, which required the equal protection of the laws for all persons, including women, demanded it.

Women in the barracks at VMI. Women rolling in the mud during the traditional hazing, women with cropped heads and stiff gray uniforms looking uncannily like the Confederate soldiers VMI had sent to the Civil War a century before. Six of Ginsburg’s “brethren” on the Court agreed with her that VMI had to admit women, but the case was much more contentious—and momentous—than that robust majority of seven reflects. Until that day, VMI had been the shining symbol of a world divided between men’s and women’s proper roles. Before the case got to the Supremes, the lower federal courts had supported VMI’s sex-segregated ways. For years, opponents of feminism used the prospect of women in military settings as the prime example of how ridiculous the world would become if women were truly treated as equal to men. VMI was one of the last redoubts. And now Justice Ginsburg, who, years ago as Lawyer Ginsburg, had been the premier advocate for women’s equality—the “Thurgood Marshall of the women’s movement”—was going to order the nation to live in that brave new sex-equal world.

Cadets marching at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress

Few people listening knew that Ginsburg got to speak for the Court that morning, because her sister in law, O’Connor, had decided she should. After the justices voted to admit women to VMI at their regular conference, the most senior member of the majority had the right to assign the opinion to any justice who agreed. He assigned it to the senior woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, but she would not take it. She knew who had labored as a Supreme Court lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union from 1970 to 1980 to get the Court to call women equal. And now the job was done. “This should be Ruth’s,” she said.

On decision day, justices do not read their whole opinions, which can often run to scores of pages. That morning, Ginsburg chose to include in her summary reading a reference to Justice O’Connor’s 1982 opinion in Hogan v. Mississippi, which had prohibited Mississippi from segregating the sexes in the state’s public nursing schools. O’Connor’s opinion for the closely divided court in Hogan, Ginsburg reminded the listeners, had laid down the rule that states may not “close entrance gates based on fixed notions concerning the roles and abilities of males and females.” And then Ginsburg, the legendarily undemonstrative justice, paused and, lifting her eyes from her text, met the glance of her predecessor across the bench. She thought of the legacy the two were building together, and nodded. Justice Ginsburg resumed reading the opinion.

Every woman in America was in the courtroom that June day in 1996. Whether you were a Supreme Court lawyer or a stay-at-home mom, pro-choice or pro-life, single or married, having sex in the city or getting ready for a purity ball, in their journey to that day, and on that day, these women changed your life. And so of course changed the lives of men as well. Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg have a stunning history of achievement in a wide range of legal decisions. They argued for equality, they were the living manifestations of equality, and, because they took power before the revolution was over, they were in the unprecedented position of ordering equality.

Starting with the admission of serious numbers of women to law school in 1967 and certainly by the time of the Supreme Court decision in Reed v. Reed in 1971, which was decided thanks in part to Ginsburg’s work at the ACLU, the world had begun to change. Laws saying that women were not equal to men (or that men were not as worthy as women) were struck from the statute books, and part of the stereotyped thinking about women’s lives went down the drain with them. In 1981, 10 years after Ginsburg began her crusade at the ACLU, President Ronald Reagan appointed an obscure Arizona appellate judge, Sandra Day O’Connor, to the Court, and the campaign for women’s equality picked up a doughty and determined role model. It was okay to be first, said O’Connor when the word of her appointment came. But you don’t want to be the last.

All movements have heroes. Who gets to the pantheon is often in dispute. But not in this case. Neither of them is perfect, of course, but Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor are unambiguous heroines of the modern feminist movement. And everyone needs heroes. Each had a long, hard journey to the place where their stories peaked. Forty-plus years before the announcement of the decision in the VMI case, Justice O’Connor, then a new law school graduate, had been offered a position as a legal secretary. When Justice Ginsburg arrived at Harvard in 1956, the Law School’s dean asked all nine women students in her class to explain how they justified taking up a place that would otherwise have gone to a man. In the intervening 40 years, O’Connor and Ginsburg traversed that hostile world to the highest point in the profession. To observe how they did it, is to view two very different—and surprisingly similar—journeys to a flourishing life.

Nine empty seats await the justices in the Supreme Court’s inner sanctum. Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress

O’Connor was appointed in 1981 by a Republican president swept in by a landslide; Ginsburg was put on the Court by a centrist Democrat who had not even won a majority of the popular vote. They came from completely different backgrounds: Republican/Democrat, Goldwater Girl/liberal, Arizona/Brooklyn. Ginsburg, the brunette, opera-loving New Yorker, used to call her blond colleague the Girl of the Golden West. When O’Connor was appointed, Ginsburg, after 10 years in feminist activism, did not even know who she was.

They were not soul sisters. O’Connor, the uncomplaining, open-faced, cheerful, and energetic westerner, was easy for her brethren to accept in 1981. As Justice John Paul Stevens said four decades later, “she never complained or asked for special treatment. And she got her work in on time; she never held us up.” Ginsburg, the brilliant, solitary alumna of the feminist movement, brought an unwavering vision of the Constitution and a lifetime of experience in movement politics when she arrived. She chose chambers on a different floor than all the other justices, in order to get nicer digs. If she didn’t get what she wanted from the Court, she openly pitched an appeal to Congress or, using the media, to public opinion.

But they were sisters in law. Ginsburg has said a thousand times how glad she was that O’Connor was there to greet her in 1993. And how lonely she was after her colleague retired 12 years later. It was an unlikely pair that came to nod at each other from the highest tribunal in America, as they continued the work of transforming the legal status of American women.

PBS explore how, despite their differences, the first and second female Supreme Court justices found common ground on women's equality in this excerpt from Sisters in Law by Linda Hirshman. An excerpt from Sisters in Law. Copyright © 2015 by Linda Hirshman, reprinted with permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

— Linda Hirshman, J.D. and PhD (philosophy), is the author of Sisters In Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, as well as many other books about American social movements, including, Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment. Her new book, The Color of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet and a Contessa Changed America, will be published in February 2022. She is the author of many opinion pieces, including articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

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cavitymagazine · 5 years ago

Text

Chiara had spent the hot day sending him racist memes and naked pictures of herself smoking weed with captions like “use me” and “punish me Daddy”, so when he finished work he walked through the evening heat to her apartment on Sussex Road. They had sex in the degrading style favoured by many of the fascist women he’s slept with. He spanked her and called her “my Italian slut” and she growled “hit me” with strands of hair stuck to her face from the heat and afterwards they slept until the fingers of late-evening chill reached in the open window and woke them up to the twilight sounds of eating and drinking in the outdoor seating of the restaurants on the street below her apartment. He put back on his work clothes. She pulled a Sea Shepherd t-shirt down over the nordic tattoos on her ribs. They went out into the last light to smoke weed.

They sat side by side on the fire escape, six floors up. She lit a joint and they passed it between them. They inhaled the weed and the smell of the spring evening and the promise of summer you get in April that’s always better than the summer that comes. Two Chinese lanterns drifted like UFOs across the sunset.

“These things kill birds.”, she said, stretching her t-shirt over her knees.

The smoke from the joint rose into the pre-night sky. He thought he could hear the sea from miles away where the scattered lights of the skyline stopped. A breeze ruffled through the trees in the car park below. The waving leaves fanned up the sounds of the city again—a car starting, a gate closing, a dog spooked by something in the almost-dark, the offbeat steps of someone walking with keys their pocket, a barge lapping down the canal, words drifting back and forth between a drawn out group of dawdling friends, the lonely drumming of another office block being built overnight.

He was a journalist. He was investigating the investment funds who were taking over the Dublin property market—Blackstone, Cerberus, IRES Reit, Kennedy Wilson. He thought of them as an invasive, subspecies of money. He looked down from the fire escape at that crime scene of a city and imagined dark movements of money running along in the streets like eels along the bottom of a lake. He smoked and watched the dark sway as the funds moved more blocks of apartments onto their balance sheets. He watched as rent left silently from drowsy family kitchens and passed through walls and borders and oceans and into the bank accounts of corporate landlords. He imagined houses being repossessed by shadowy security firms. He thought of homes being turned into AirBnBs and of tourists appearing in them overnight like ghosts.

He could see money more clearly in the daytime when it took its human form, as accountants, property managers, bankers, surveyors, solicitors, former politicians. Or as men in balaclavas—sabotaging protests, infiltrating movements, breaking down desperately barricaded doors, putting families into the street with their lives in black bags on the ground beside them, and disappearing again into the white vans he thinks might be following him.

They finished the joint as the spring night fell over Dublin like the shade from a tree. A man stood alone in the car park below, staring up at them. They went back inside.

She changed into her pyjamas: a hoodie which had “don’t need sex because capitalism fucks me every day” written on it. She was on big money though. She worked for a cyber security company. She said she would rather be a housewife and be “paid by a man to lounge around in lingerie”. She rejected as “girl-boss feminism” and “peak neoliberalism” any attempt people made to praise her for being a Woman in STEM. She refused all invitations to speak at conferences with names like ‘The Women Disrupting Tech’, ‘Girls Who Code’, ‘Hacking the Patriarchy’ and ‘Queering the Algorithm’. Her Tinder bio read: “dominate me in the bedroom, not in the workplace”.

For a man like him, a Marxist-Leninist and occasional Maoist Third Worldist, there was something so appealing about a woman who so angrily rejected liberal feminism. She was a tech fascist who believed in the utopian vision of the early internet. She was a tech fascist who believed that Europe was diverse enough a hundred years ago. She had moved to Ireland because the tech industry here pays so much. She had moved to Ireland because it was the whitest place left in Western Europe. She had access to sensitive information and she was passing it on to him because she believed all information should be free. She had access to sensitive information and she was passing it on to him because it would hurt the “Jewish conspiracy of global finance”.

She took a USB from her weed box and handed it to him as he got ready to leave. She pulled the curtains across the open window and wrote on a post-it note:

“This is big”

“What is it?” He wrote back.

“Check on this when you get home.” She wrote.

The post-it notes fell around her feet. She put a new laptop into his bag.

“It hasn’t been contaminated by the internet, don’t connect it.” She wrote.

“Thanks.” He wrote.

“Imagine you’re being watched.” She wrote.

“Am I?” He said aloud.

She underlined ‘imagine’ with three lines.

He left her place. The night was so beautifully laundered by the spring air that he started walking back to Cabra under the smell of the new-born leaves. There are always a few nights like that in April, when the first heat intoxicates the city and the streets sway with that first drink feeling of a good thing beginning.

He turned onto a quiet, cooling street. A white van was driving behind him. He walked. He listened. Everything sounded pre-recorded on a soundstage like in a film noir from the fifties: a bike ticking by; a curtain beating against an open window; his footsteps; his breathing; his heartbeat. He was sure it was the same white van that had been following him for weeks. He watched it as it passed. He checked for alleyways or driveways he could disappear into. He turned around and walked back towards the busy safety of Mespil Road. The van went by again. His heart panicked as it passed. On Mespil Road he put his hand out for a taxi. He sat into the backseat and closed the door.

It’s interesting, psychologically speaking, the driver said eventually, the way you tried to open your door so soon after you got in.

Don’t you think?

I had a chap in the car last week. Drove him all the way and he never tried that door once.

Do you know why?

Control.

He didn’t want to admit to himself that he couldn’t get out. He could’ve tried the door. He could have been on his way. But he let me take him without even trying to escape. Just sat back there chatting. Playing it cool, you know.

Interesting isn’t it? Psychology.

I’m interested in that kind of thing.

The mind.

Now you’ve got the opposite problem. You took one look at me in me sunglasses and thought to yourself fuck this I’m away. Sunglasses at night, you says to yourself, what’s with this fella?

But now.

You know the door is locked.

I know you know the door is locked.

You know I know you know the door is locked.

I know you know I know the door is locked.

Interesting isn’t it?

Psychology.

Hear that? Last train going over the river. Anyone on that train, coming into town Thursday midnight, they’ve a story to tell. More interesting than the stuff you’re writing now.

We’ve a few journalists with us. They do well. Decent money, a few stories when you need it.

Someone your age, in all seriousness, needs to start thinking about the future.

Planning.

Your rent is what…€700 a month?

Rent is money down the drain.

Down the drain.

Stoneybatter. Some lovely pubs around here.

Look at that lad. Not from Mayo is he.

I was over in Jamaica for a while but. Working for himself. Great country. Lovely beaches. Good weather. Great place to do business. That’s why he’s there of course. Lot easier to deal with people such as yourself out there. No messing around. You want something done—bang—you just pay the right man and it’s done.

Get in the way of progress and—bang.

No messing.

You know who runs this country? You know who you should be investigating?

The unions. The people who contribute nothing. The bloated public sector.

This thing you’re looking into. For example, classic example. The government sold the properties at such a low price because the fund had businessmen working for them, and they were negotiating, think about it, with who? With civil servants and politicians. That’s the whole story. Write it if you want. Public sector versus private sector. Private sector wins every time. There were no bribes or anything.

Just pure business acumen.

Free market. Winners and losers. Simple as that.

Roads are quiet out here.

Dark houses.

You’re probably hoping your roommates are home. Housemates I suppose, should be called.

You’re 36 yeah?

If you don’t mind me saying, you should be putting down roots. Should be saving.

You must spend, what, 50 quid a week on weed. Cut that out and you’d have what…52 weeks in a year…5x5 is 25 that’s…you’d have about €2,600 extra in your pocket. You’d be surprised how quickly it adds up.

Honestly.

There’s no one home tonight by the way.

The accountant is in Frankfurt.

Midwife’s at her fella’s.

Now this is you isn’t it?

You make my job interesting I’ll give you that. Lot of overtime.

160...162…164…66…68, now.

Before you go.

I was watching ‘Narcos’ last night. On Netflix. It’s a series, not a film. Very interesting. It’s about Pablo Escobar. Colombian drug lord. He gives people a choice right. “Silver or lead” he says. In spanish. Worth a watch. On Netflix.

Now, 13.90 is the damage.

Thank you sir.

And 5 is 18.90 and one is 19.90 and 10 cent is 20 and that’s yours back.

The driver reset the meter, turned on the roof light and drove away past the night-coloured houses.

His house was silent. He opened the door. He stared into the hallway. He sniffed the air. A truck dipped into a pothole on the main road. The noise of it shocked him into slamming the front door behind him. The noise of that scared him too. He turned on the light in the hallway. He turned on the light in the narrow kitchen. He turned on the light in the dusty living room. With downstairs lit up it was like the dark outside was staring in the window at him. He took a knife from the draining board. He held it in front of him like a gun and walked upstairs. He stopped after every step on the carpeted stairs to let the creaking wood underneath his foot go silent.

He went into his room knife first. The window was open. The room had been brushed clean by the bristles of spring breeze which had been blowing in since he left that morning. He turned on his desk lamp. He rolled a joint in its light. He smoked out the window. In the time he was in the taxi dew had fallen like snow and like snow it had shocked the small gardens and the empty suburban streets around his house into silence. His neighbour’s gardens were abandoned and embalmed, full of toys, bikes, paddling pools, footballs, sun loungers and kitchen chairs; like the curtain had just gone down at the end of a play.

She texted him.

“I think we should stop doing this.”

He put the USB into the laptop she had given him.

“Ok.” He replied.

He typed in the password. She had copied all of the investment fund’s emails and their slack chats and their bank accounts and their internal payments system.

“Can I come over?” She texted him.

“Ok.” He replied.

He read some of the emails. They talked about bribing politicians and government officials so they could get all those apartment blocks and offices and housing estates cheap. All that property and debt the government bought after the banks collapsed. He made notes. He wrote on post it notes and attached them to the wall. His joint went out and ashed on his notes.

He was tired but didn’t want to sleep alone. Maybe it was the shock of the taxi, or the way she completely surrendered to him during sex, or the way she quoted Lacan when they lay together afterwards, maybe it was his receding hairline which he checked every night, watching it as if it was a clock ticking towards the end, or maybe it was the sounds on the stairs he searched his brain to explain away.

She opened his bedroom door.

“How did you get in?” He asked her.

“Hi to you also.” She said, sitting on the side of the bed, taking her leather boots off.

“Your housemate let me. He always wears sunglasses at night?”

“What did he say?”

“He said you were upstairs. And then he sat on the kitchen with a glass of water.”

“One second.”

He went downstairs and into the kitchen with the knife out in front of him. A glass was on its side on the table, rolling back and forth. Water dripped from the table onto the floor. It pooled by his feet. He waited. The sky lightened as he waited. The house fell into dawn. Morning heat rose in waves from the damp garden. The joint wore off. He checked all the doors. He went back upstairs.

She was asleep. She had written ‘slut’ in lipstick across her chest. He smoked out the window. The good weather stirred outside. He heard a van parking and wondered if it was white. She woke up.

“Rape me.” She whispered, sleepily.

The sound of birds singing came in the open window. Like every haunted man, the singing reminded him of sleep.

[The Man in the Black Pyjamas is an Irish writer based in Bogotá. He has been previously published in ‘The Irish Times’, ‘The Moth Magazine’, ‘Cassandra Voices’, ‘Number Eleven Magazine’, ‘Deep Water Literary Journal’, ‘Increature Magazine’, ‘Cold Coffee Stand’ and ‘Headstuff Magazine’. He won second place in the Fish International Short Story Competition in 2016. He tweets at @pyjamas_black.]

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freedom-of-fanfic · 8 years ago

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I have been reading and reblogging some of your posts and wanted to thank you for that detailed account. I have been out of fandom for a while, and antis really baffled me at first. But now I have a question: Could you talk some more about how current antis relate back to the LJ social justice scene and when the morph from debating fanworks to dissing people happened? Thank you!

I’m glad you’ve been enjoying this blog!

I think this reddit post does a nice job of summarizing the history of fandom and how it’s led to our current point. But I’m going to go more into how tumblr’s very structure led to a ‘race to the bottom’ sort of enacting of punishment via social justice.

Almost all of this is from personal observation, having been here since late 2010.

To get more into the actual history of it: Racefail ‘09 is the name given to the big, public 2009 debates about racism in genre fiction (published fantasy and sci-fi), which happened primarily on livejournal and private websites. (Racefail was itself the result of the rising awareness of social justice in the real world thanks to the democratization of information via the internet.) Racefail raised a couple of big questions: were non-white (and non-straight/non-cis/non-male) creators being silenced and erased in published genre fiction? And were the stories being told primarily racist/sexist/homophobic and lacking in representation for non-white/Western cultures (and LGBT+/queer/female stories)?

From everything I’ve read I feel like a lot of good came out of these talks; in particular, it greatly raised the awareness of social justice in genre fiction and fandom spaces - which had been there before, but not quite so prominent. But one major bad came out of it: it revealed, via the shitty behavior of one member of the genre fiction community, how social justice could easily be used as a silencing tactic by applying arguments meant to dismantle power structures to individuals who may (or may not!) benefit from those power structures.

Fast-forward to 2010-2012 tumblr. LJ has undergone multiple journal purges and partial restorations, been bought out by a Russian company, and - final straw - changed the way anonymous threaded posts were handled, ending its value as a space for anon memes like kinkmemes. Fandom dispersed. A not-insignificant number of us eventually end up on tumblr, and those of us coming from LJ have brought with us a greater awareness of social justice, particularly lgbt/queer culture and feminism.

At the same time, Facebook has opened its doors to everyone instead of only allowing college students to use it. Facebook has almost single-handedly popularized the notion of making your offline life publicly available online. Gone are the days of keeping your age, real name, and offline identity hidden; we share everything except maybe last names and exact locations.

Tumblr democratizes the fandom experience like never before. Livejournal and forums had moderators; tumblr has none. Communities are gone - instead we have tags where people gather to talk about shared interests. People who previously felt shut out, forced to be ‘lurkers’ because they had nothing to say, could now have a blog and share the work of others via reblogging. The main way to gain social capital is by having the most followers and therefore the most widespread content.

But tumblr is a weird experience compared to other blogging sites because at the time it was the only one with a ‘reblog’ function. any one post can go absolutely viral and the people who see it beyond your immediate circle will lack the context of the rest of your blog. This means that either every single post needs to be entirely self-contained … or get wildly misunderstood. (Guess which one happens.) It also means that that the posts that spread the fastest and furthest are the short, witty ones or - you guessed it - the controversial ones. Finally, people tend to not fact-check - if something is interesting and seems believable, people reblog it uncritically. Tumblr’s dashboard structure actively encourages people to not leave their dash to look at provided external links - you’ll lose your ‘place’ on your endless-scrolling dash, and the little ‘home’ button in the corner is reminding you how many new posts have been created since you last refreshed. You don’t have time to fact-check.

Controversy without context is polarizing - without the original context, people provide their own context and agree or disagree based on a bunch of assumptions. Tumblr is a breeding ground for this. Opinions don’t get more nuanced - they get more vitriolic, more sharp and quick-witted. And with people not bothering to fact-check or click linked information, misinformation spreads like wildfire.

The early experience of fandom on tumblr is one of widespread acceptance. Possibly because FB does this, people feel safe to share their age, sexuality, and gender on their tumblr profiles - and those identities get more and more specific as people learn more about gender identities and sexual orientations that are off the gender binary. People spread educational posts about queer/LGBT+ culture, feminist theory, and racism alongside fandom posts. The importance of minority representation in the media is a hot topic and posts that criticize media for their lack of (or bad) representation get thousands of notes. Social justice theory - fighting the appropriation of colonized cultures by imperialists, promoting the voices of the oppressed over those of the privileged, the right to be angry because of the oppression and trauma you’ve experienced, not tone-policing people who have been hurt, and not erasing the experiences of others - are widely discussed.

A lot of good came out of this, too, but I believe a natural backlash resulted. Earnestly working to promote the voices of the least privileged and trying to avoid silencing or erasure, what started as an effort to even out the social strata gradually became a kind of reversed social strata. People who were oppressed on any axis could not be corrected by anybody of lesser oppression - it was considered to be silencing. People could not say their feelings had been hurt by a marginalized person’s word choice - that was tone policing.

And this led to a secondary, and probably lesser conclusion: people who identified as ‘privileged’ - that is, white, cis, straight, mentally well, able-bodied, (and male) - felt guilty for all the privilege they had. and the promotion of marginalized voices over their own - the tendency to tell people, regardless of the validity of their points, that if they were privileged their voice did not matter - to escape their privilege, at least on tumblr.

I think we hit Peak Tumblr in 2012-2013-ish. Non-human and nonbinary identities proliferated. Asexuality awareness exploded, as did other lesser-known sexualities and paraphilias. People wondered what it meant to be trans in a world with no gender binary. People self-diagnosed severe mental illnesses. And this unto itself wasn’t a bad thing! Probably many people learned a lot about themselves from the openness and acceptance.

However: there’s no way to know how much of this was from people self-discovering and how much was from people who realized that unless they had some axis of oppression they could point to they could be silenced. And people were extremely open about these identities as well: despite all of the talk about social awareness, interactions on tumblr suggested that most people still assumed that everyone else was white, cis, straight, able-bodied and mentally well (and therefore completely unaware of social issues and in need of education). And due to how tumblr’s reblogging system could separate posts entirely from the context of the original poster’s blog and personal details, this assumption happened a lot!

Whatever the actual numbers of people who were self-discovering versus self-deluding, this extreme acceptance got its own natural backlash. It wasn’t possible for everyone on tumblr to be oppressed, but everyone on tumblr seemed to be finding some way to be marginalized - they weren’t cis, they were ‘a demigirl’. They weren’t straight, they were ‘gray asexual’. There had to be some way to distinguish the real marginalized people from the fakers.*

Enter gatekeeping - which seems reasonable enough at first, given the sheer number of people who are claiming to be part of the marginalized club. People start making fun of ‘transtrenders’ and ‘starselves’ and say ‘heteroromantic demisexuals’ are ‘just normal’. People call one another ‘cishet’ specifically to erase their gender identity/sexual orientation.

This environment makes tumblr ripe for radfems, who greatly benefit from people putting limits on what identities other people can have. And radfems feed the gatekeeping mentality, leading to more and more policing of one another on tumblr instead of acceptance. Instead of trusting others to be honest about their gender identity, sexual orientation, race or mental health, people increasingly decide the identity and experiences of others based on whether or not they say and do the right things. Conversely, if you say or do the wrong things you are ostracized and your identity is erased using the reverse social strata of tumblr: ’cishet’ becomes shorthand for ‘ignorant asshole’ - and ignorant assholes are not to be listened to.

One no longer has to identify wrongly to have the wrong identity to be worth listening to. One only has to do the wrong thing.

So how does this tie back to debating fanworks vs dissing people? Well: tumblr isn’t just the home of social justice. It’s also the home of fandom, and these two spaces heavily overlap.

Like our genre fiction friend that I mentioned back at the beginning of this long-ass post, tumblr had already begun - with the best of intentions - to silence people for having the wrong level of marginalization. And when radfems and gatekeepers entered the scene, one’s level of marginalization became a function of how you behaved. Now you had to behave right to have the right to be listened to - and fanworks, far from being the exception, are the rule for determining if people behave ‘right’ in fandom spaces.

In other words: debating fanworks/fan opinions and dissing people have become the same thing. If a fanwork is for the wrong pairing, that makes a person a bad person. And bad people are only able to create bad fanworks.

This attitude is how you get things like ‘if you ship [x] you’re straight’ and ‘oh, you ship [x], your opinion on this unrelated social justice issue is invalid’ or ‘i’m not surprised to find that this person is [x]-phobic, they created problematic fanworks.’

And that’s where we’re at today.

Man this is much. I’m sorry for your eyes.

*And in case it isn’t obvious, I think policing sexual orientations and gender identities is nonsense - demigirls and gray-ace people count as much as everyone else.

#makamu-a-tumbling #gatekeeping #a history of tumblr

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lastsonlost · 8 years ago

Link

Feminist male-bashing has come to sound like a cliche — a misogynist caricature. Feminism, its loudest proponents vow, is about fighting for equality. The man-hating label is either a smear or a misunderstanding.

Yet a lot of feminist rhetoric today does cross the line from attacks on sexism into attacks on men, with a strong focus on personal behavior: the way they talk, the way they approach relationships, even the way they sit on public transit. Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity. Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.

This gender antagonism does nothing to advance the unfinished business of equality. If anything, the fixation on men behaving badly is a distraction from more fundamental issues, such as changes in the workplace to promote work-life balance. What’s more, male-bashing not only sours many men — and quite a few women — on feminism. It often drives them into Internet subcultures where critiques of feminism mix with hostility toward women.

* * *

To some extent, the challenge to men and male power has always been inherent in feminism, from the time the 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments catalogued the grievances of “woman” against “man.” However, these grievances were directed more at institutions than at individuals. In “The Feminine Mystique,” which sparked the great feminist revival of the 1960s, Betty Friedan saw men not as villains but as fellow victims burdened by societal pressures and by the expectations of their wives, who depended on them for both livelihood and identity.

That began to change in the 1970s with the rise of radical feminism. This movement, with its slogan, “The personal is political,” brought a wave of female anger at men’s collective and individual transgressions. Authors like Andrea Dworkin and Marilyn French depicted ordinary men as patriarchy’s brutal foot soldiers.

This tendency has reached a troubling new peak, as radical feminist theories that view modern Western civilization as a patriarchy have migrated from academic and activist fringes into mainstream conversation. One reason for this trend is social media, with its instant amplification of personal narratives and its addiction to outrage. We live in a time when jerky male attempts at cyber-flirting can be collected on a blog called Straight White Boys Texting (which carries a disclaimer that prejudice against white males is not racist or sexist, since it is not directed at the oppressed) and then deplored in an article titled “Dear Men: This Is Why Women Have Every Right To Be Disgusted With Us.”

Whatever the reasons for the current cycle of misandry — yes, that’s a word, derided but also adopted for ironic use by many feminists — its existence is quite real. Consider, for example, the number of neologisms that use “man” as a derogatory prefix and that have entered everyday media language: “mansplaining,” “manspreading” and “manterrupting.” Are these primarily male behaviors that justify the gender-specific terms? Not necessarily: The study that is cited as evidence of excessive male interruption of women actually found that the most frequent interrupting is female-on-female (“femterrupting”?).

Sitting with legs apart may be a guy thing, but there is plenty of visualdocumentation of women hogging extra space on public transit with purses, shopping bags and feet on seats. As for “mansplaining,” these days it seems to mean little more than a man making an argument a woman dislikes. Slate correspondent Dahlia Lithwick has admitted using the term to “dismiss anything said by men” in debates about Hillary Clinton. And the day after Clinton claimed the Democratic presidential nomination, political analyst David Axelrod was slammed as a “mansplainer” on Twitter for his observation that it’s a measure of our country’s “great progress” that “many younger women find the nomination of a woman unremarkable.”

Men who gripe about their ex-girlfriends and advise other men to avoid relationships with women are generally relegated to the seedy underbelly of the Internet — various forums and websites in the “manosphere,” recently chronicled by Stephen Marche in the Guardian. Yet a leading voice of the new feminist generation, British writer Laurie Penny, can use her column in the New Statesman to decry ex-boyfriends who “turned mean or walked away” and to urge straight young women to stay single instead of “wasting years in succession on lacklustre, unappreciative, boring child-men.”

Feminist commentary routinely puts the nastiest possible spin on male behavior and motives. Consider the backlash against the concept of the “friend zone,” or being relegated to “friends-only” status when seeking a romantic relationship — usually, though not exclusively, in reference to men being “friend zoned” by women. Since the term has a clear negative connotation, feminist critics say it reflects the assumption that a man is owed sex as a reward for treating a woman well. Yet it’s at least as likely that, as feminist writer Rachel Hills argued in a rare dissent in the Atlantic, the lament of the “friend zoned” is about “loneliness and romantic frustration,” not sexual entitlement.

Things have gotten to a point where casual low-level male-bashing is a constant white noise in the hip progressive online media. Take a recent pieceon Broadly, the women’s section of Vice, titled, “Men Are Creepy, New Study Confirms” — promoted with a Vice Facebook post that said: “Are you a man? You’re probably a creep.” The actual study found something very different: that both men and women overwhelmingly think someone described as “creepy” is more likely to be male. If a study had found that a negative trait was widely associated with women (or gays or Muslims), surely this would have been reported as deplorable stereotyping, not confirmation of reality.

Meanwhile, men can get raked over the (virtual) coals for voicing even the mildest unpopular opinion on something feminism-related. Just recently, YouTube film reviewer James Rolfe, who goes by “Angry Video Game Nerd,” was roundly vilified as a misogynistic “man-baby” in social media and the online press after announcing that he would not watch the female-led “Ghostbusters” remake because of what he felt was its failure to acknowledge the original franchise.

* * *

This matters, and not just because it can make men less sympathetic to the problems women face. At a time when we constantly hear that womanpower is triumphant and “the end of men” — or at least of traditional manhood — is nigh, men face some real problems of their own. Women are now earning about 60 percent of college degrees; male college enrollment after high school has stalled at 61 percent since 1994, even as female enrollment has risen from 63 percent to 71 percent. Predominantly male blue-collar jobs are on the decline, and the rise of single motherhood has left many men disconnected from family life. The old model of marriage and fatherhood has been declared obsolete, but new ideals remain elusive.

Perhaps mocking and berating men is not the way to show that the feminist revolution is about equality and that they have a stake in the new game. The message that feminism can help men, too — by placing equal value on their role as parents or by encouraging better mental health care and reducing male suicide —

is undercut by gender warriors like Australian pundit Clementine Ford, whose “ironic misandry”

often seems entirely non-ironic and who has angrily insisted that feminism stands only for women. Gibes about “male tears” — for instance, on a T-shirt sported by writer Jessica Valenti in a phototaunting her detractors — seem particularly unfortunate if feminists are serious about challenging the stereotype of the stoic, pain-suppressing male. Dismissing concerns about wrongful accusations of rape with a snarky “What about the menz” is not a great way to show that women’s liberation does not infringe on men’s civil rights. And telling men that their proper role in the movement for gender equality is to listen to women and patiently endure anti-male slams is not the best way to win support.

Valenti and others argue that man-hating cannot do any real damage because men have the power and privilege. Few would deny the historical reality of male dominance. But today, when men can lose their jobs because of sexist missteps and be expelled from college over allegations of sexual misconduct, that’s a blinkered view, particularly since the war on male sins can often target individuals’ trivial transgressions. Take the media shaming of former “Harry Potter” podcaster Benjamin Schoen, pilloried for some mildly obnoxious tweets (and then an insufficiently gracious email apology) to a woman who had blocked him on Facebook after an attempt at flirting. While sexist verbal abuse toward women online is widely deplored, there is little sympathy for men who are attacked as misogynists, mocked as “man-babies” or “angry virgins,” or even smeared as sexual predators in Internet disputes.

We are headed into an election with what is likely to be a nearly unprecedented gender gap among voters. To some extent, these numbers reflect policy differences. Yet it is not too far-fetched to see the pro-Donald Trump sentiment as fueled, at least in part, by a backlash against feminism. And while some of this backlash may be of the old-fashioned “put women in their place” variety, there is little doubt that for the younger generation, the perception of feminism as extremist and anti-male plays a role, too.

This theme emerged in Conor Friedersdorf’s recent interview in the Atlanticwith a Trump supporter, a college-educated, 22-year-old resident of San Francisco who considers himself a feminist and expects his career to take a back seat to that of his higher-earning fiancee — but who also complains about being “shamed” as a white man and voices concern about false accusations of rape.

As this campaign shows, our fractured culture is badly in need of healing — from the gender wars as well as other divisions. To be a part of this healing, feminism must include men, not just as supportive allies but as partners, with an equal voice and equal humanity.

Cathy Young is the author of two books, and a frequent contributor to Reason, Newsday, and RealClearPolitics.com. Follow @cathyyoung63

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