#when the books are marketed & frankly pandered to people who are not conservative!

[cuntylittlesalmon]

I came across one of your posts criticising Delilah Green, and the radfem-esque rhetoric of Ashley Herring Blake's works. I agree, I completely despised her works. But every time one of my friends or I spoke about it, we were criticised on bookstagram and book twt. I was curious to know your thoughts on these books, if you are okay with it.

i am aaaaaaalways down to talk shit about bad books! i’ve felt completely isolated in the larger sapphic bookish spheres because i hated AHB’s work, i’m glad to have found another one of us 🫶

this’ll be under a cut because it’ll be incredibly long, as every instance of me criticizing these books has been

DGDC - delilah green doesn’t care

APDF - astrid parker doesn’t fail

AHB - ashley herring blake

SO!

these books suck. lmao. i don't think they're particularly interesting on the character-level, or the world-level, or the prose-level, or really anything at all. there are scenes here and there where i can see what AHB can do but she's too busy trying to seem like the funniest and the most progressive white cis woman out there--of course, without doing any of the actual work that comes with deconstructing the racist, transphobic, and homophobic ideology she grew up with as a person from the united states.

which leads me into my first complaint: everything to do with emery and their pronouns. every single thing in that scene felt like pandering, and the pronoun sharing aspect felt like word salad that needed to be edited down to a single sentence of "And then everyone else shared their pronouns". we're already deeply aware that every single person in this book sans emery is cis, i don't need that shoved into my face further with a cis woman expounding upon how she's terrified that she's going to fuck up somehow in sharing her own pronouns. unnecessary bullshit, since i'm guessing the point was to show that astrid is insecure, particularly around industry professionals, but with a slightly funny slant to it. this was not the place to show that, especially when there are so many other instances both before and after this part that show her anxieties better.

and frankly, in sharing this part with a friend, they thought it was astrid being insecure about getting emery's pronouns correct which....if your cute lil romcom protag can be see as an annoying and borderline transphobic cissie when they come face to face with a nonbinary person for the first time because your prose just sucks ass......maybe you shouldn't include that lol

and i think that leans in a lot to the "humor" of these books. at one point in ADPF, delilah makes a joke about fighting someone "like a lesbian", which in her eyes (and somewhat therefore AHB's eyes) means gazing disapprovingly at someone and making her mouth "look like a butthole" (paraphrasing, but not the butthole part. she really says butthole). i'm assuming this was supposed to be funny, but it fell so fucking flat with me. like, these books are supposed to be romcoms. romantic fucking comedies. but most of the humor is so deeply steeped in white millennialisms that it's actually unfunny unless you're like my gen x mother who spends 90% of her time on facebook.

which, i suppose that's my biggest gripe with the books, and with AHB herself. it's a lot of self-serving nonsense, with little to no introspection about why certain things are included versus not. i mean, i can say that about a lot of popular romance novels, but thats beside the point. there is no reckoning with institutions, despite all of the call backs to how rich people suck, or how white people suck, or how men suck. it's all so very wink-wink-nudge-nudge, "im in the know, can't you tell?", correct terminology wrong ideology kinda of stuff. ok yeah, white people as the institution suck. i think we all know that. but also, ashley, every single important character, every single side character (save a couple), and every single background character (save a couple), are all white. you are actively participating in the "white is default" ideology that you seemingly dislike and make fun of in your book. so which is it?

this disconnect between AHB's story choices (all white main cast, etc) and the prose-level choices is so fucking obvious throughout the entire body of both books:

the lesbian main characters cannot call themselves lesbians, but one will call themself dyke without a second thought.

the trans-positive lesbian main characters will talk about dating/being attracted to nonbinary people, but do not have any nonbinary friends, do not talk to any nonbinary people, and the one nonbinary character included thus far speaks one (maybe twice) just to give their pronouns.

the lesbian main characters call themselves butch (or are called so by other wlw (but not lesbian) characters) and yet are still conventionally feminine in their presentations.

men are the worst people in the world, and yet josh (an ex of claire from DGDC) is consistently trying to atone for his past harm, and within the story we're given, is like, an actually alright guy.

men are the worst people in the world, and yet the worst actions taken against iris was not by her ex-boyfriend, but by her butch girlfriend (which. i have a lot of thoughts on this).

the books say they believe one thing, but are never backed up with actually evidence that this is the case.

and so, when i say the books have some radfem-y bullshit in them, this is largely what im talking about. i have no clue if AHB herself is a radfem, or exactly what she believes in. im not combing through her twitter account because she as a person annoys me, and anyone promoting her work annoys me. but she is participating in some fucked up shit, and the fact that they are so beloved just makes my ass itch and i feel like i need to speak on it more than i already do now 💀

anyway. the radfem-y stuff.

the books use some pretty covert gender essentialism when it comes to the lesbian characters vs the bisexual woman characters. every single lesbian is said to be masculine (specifically butch) while every single bisexual woman (and every single ostensibly straight woman) is, while not called out as feminine, exclusively present femininely. which....is weird. i don't think i have to say why saving masculinity for lesbians (and men) is stereotypical, and kind of gross, especially coming from someone who isn't a lesbian.

but wait! its worse! masculinity (regardless of how prescriptive vs. descriptive it is) in these books are very much associated with emotionally unavailability and callousness toward the feminine (emotional) counterpart. and really, its even worse when you compare difference within the lesbian characters (delilah, jordan, and iris' girlfriend).

delilah and jordan, when you actually examine them, are feminine presenting. they both wear red lipstick, eyeliner "sharp enough to kill a man", and in delilah's case, heels. the most masculine aspects about them is that they don't wear skirts or dresses. literally. whereas, iris's girlfriend in APDF, who only wears suits, has short cropped hair, never wears makeup, and has a stereotypically masculine job. jordan and delilah are love interests. they're allowed to grow into emotionally available people by their love for their feminine partners. the butch girlfriend, however, is a cheating piece of shit who's entire point is to set up iris' storyline for the third book in the series (a role that could've been done just as well by her ex boyfriend, who she dated in DGDC, instead of what feels like a very pointed and spiteful subplot).

so, it becomes very clear to me that masculinity is the worst thing you can have in these books. none of the men are given grace either, and i touched on it a bit earlier talking about josh. he was flaky as hell with claire and their daughter before the events of DGDC, and so claire (and by extension, her friends iris and astrid) are wary of him when he comes back into her and her daughter's lives. but, for all of that, josh isn't flaky in the book. like he very much steps up to be a good dad to his daughter. is the best? no, obviously. i dont think AHB is capable of writing a "good" character. but he literally doesn't abandon anyone, despite us being constantly told that thats what he does, to the point that when he ends up being unreachable for a couple of days, every single character freaks out and treats him like a monster. iris fucking punches him for this, even though he actually had a good reason. and im not one to defend men like 💀 i am very much a manhater, but like. cmon. it feels entirely unearned. and its that disconnect again. AHB wants you to believe that josh deserves this because he's a man, so of course he's going to be terrible, its what men do, despite him, like, not being terrible.

(and its even worse in APDF, where astrid is literally disgusted to be in his presence point blank, period, even though hes been like. consistently a decent guy.)

and my last piece in this, is natasha rojas. the otherworldly sexy and gorgeous latina host of the reality show in APDF, who literally wears a clitoris necklace. like not only is it leaning on racist stereotyping, but she's the ultimate feminine who wears a literal piece of the vagina. yonic imagery is cool and everything (genuinely, there should be more!) but this is not only extremely heavy handed in a brick-to-the-face kind of way, but also as the Ultimate Feminine, she's this deeply warm and caring and nurturing person, who is never posited as a antagonist or anything despite her positioning as a literal corporate player for HGTV (the hallmark of home renovation. every fucking person on that network is some flavor of conservative). she very much could've been a stand in for the capitalist homogenization of the housing market that HGTV absolutely caters toward, especially when you take into consideration astrid original plan for the house that she's renovating (taking it from very classically victorian to white and grey contemporary), but instead she's positioned as a mouthpiece for the glory of the clit and female sexuality only. which is fucking frustrating. and so fucking weird.

but yeah. AHB has a very white millennial liberal queer view of gender and presentation and sexuality, which in and of itself is very essentialist. but she tries to play out of her biases as a white and cis woman by making in-narrative jokes about it, but they fall completely flat because she has no idea what she's doing, and thus perpetuates the exact same shit she's trying to make fun of. she's got a lot of unchecked bigotry rattling around in that empty brain of hers, which when you're trying to write a feminist book, leans itself to radfem & white feminist ideology (which. lbr. are the fucking same but whatever).

ik this was long as hell but ty everyone who made it to the end for reading 😤🙏💓

[ieatyourhatelikelovezine-blog]

Fuck Hunt and Fuck Neoliberalism

Well, blog #2 wrote itself and this one is directed at you, Beat. I know that charities are desperate for funding, and thus have to pander to whomever they can, but I felt that Beat ("The UK's leading Eating Disorder Charity") having Jez Hunt come to their Eating Disorders Awareness Week event was unforgivable. Tweeting quotes from him such as, "Improved mental health treatment can make a real difference..." with an accompanying picture to add to his photo op collection was frankly embarrassing.

  For those unfamiliar with Jeremy Hunt, he is the Conservative Secretary of State for Health, who has sustained horrendous attacks on our National Health Service since 2012TM . So far, he is the man who has overseen a "humanitarian crisis" in the NHS and not one, but multiple strikes in the wake of his ghastly contract negotiations for junior doctors. Bolstered by media who continually demonise NHS staff and the people who access it, Hunt and the rest of his Tory mates, have managed to successfully create and sell a narrative around the oversubscription to the NHS and it’s lack of funds, which has seen him er, further under-fund the NHS. This is having a horrific effect on mental health trusts, which have seen annual cuts of £598 million (£598 million each year) between 2010 and 2015, so 8.25% in real terms. Last year, The Guardian reported waiting lists of up to three years in eating disorder services, all of which is Hunt’s doing. Here’s some more lovely stats:

 -         Rates of depression and anxiety among teenagers have increased by 70 per cent in the last 25 years.

-         Almost 19,000 teenagers were admitted to hospital for self-harm in 2015/16, an increase of 14 per cent since 2013/4 and 68 per cent across the last decade

-         The number of young people admitted to hospital with eating disorders has risen by almost the same amount in the past three years

-         In 2016, 19.7 per cent of British people reported experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, up from 18.3 per cent the previous year.

-         40% of NHS trusts saw cuts to mental health services across 2015-2016.

-         More than half (56%) of school leaders say it is difficult to find mental health services for pupils, and more than one in five (22%) who attempt to find support are unsuccessful. 93% say that pupils bring more worries into school than they did five years ago.

-         The most common barriers to finding appropriate support described by respondents were a lack of capacity in services (36%), lack of local services (31%) and budget constraints (28%).

-          A recent government report found: - Only ¼ of people who require MH services have access to them - Services themselves are not designed for people who are distressed, as navigating them is difficult

  Yes, see, this is a man who literally wrote the book on the privatisation of the NHS (you can purchase this here), and is currently attempting to under-fund the NHS in tandem with whipping up a furor about the pressure on our services that is rooted in xenophobia and out and out racism. It is through this method he can discredit our health workers and services and thus bolster support for selling off private contracts who are 'more able' to support us through competition. This is classic neoliberalism, and in very, very basic (oversimplified) terms, this is an economic system which seeks to shrink the state and create deregulated global markets for private companies to trade accompanied with massive tax cuts (basically, it’s real bad for the working classes).

  There are many reasons why eating disorders and poor mental health as a whole is political and I will continue to shout about this. But I know that Jeremy Hunt and his brand of conservatism is at best dangerous and at worst deadly for people with eating disorders. This problem is cyclical, for the exploitation his political framework relies on create and uphold the oppressive conditions for eating disorders and poor mental health to flourish (shit working conditions, gender roles, racism etc see last blog and my zine), they also manage to tear away all the support systems that previous (even conservative governments) had been forced to put in place and keep. The tory government as we speak is sneaking through legislation to prevent 150,000 people with mental health problems accessing the disability benefits they need to live.

 Beat's campaign is one that wants to "Ensure all GPs are able to refer eating disorders sufferers to treatment without delay" (Beat Petition, 2017), but pray tell, how are GPs going to refer people for treatment when:

1. GP appointments are so hard to get because they’re underfunded and overworked

2. Eating disorder services barely exist because of cuts and the demand for them has risen over the last three years

Now, it's not that I'm unable to see what's going on here. I know that charities need funding and thus they have to appeal to everyone and anyone to get the support that they do, but this is too far and is in direct contention with the aims of the campaign. It's not that I put my faith in charities; after all, I believe it is working class solidarity and not charity that gets the goods. But I DO expect more from an awareness campaign, especially from a charity that claims to lead in the UK. I feel like I shouldn't be putting my energy into tearing down a charity, but I think this demonstrates the catch 22 that we get into when we refuse to see and accept the politics in mental health. The effects of neoliberalism on mental health can be seen across society, in job centers, in workplaces, in universities and even the utterly ‘apolitical’ BPS (and other associations) have been forced to release a statement begging the government to stop their welfare sanctions.

  Thing is, a-political campaigns are utterly fruitless because what they do is assimilate into the cultures that are the architects of what they're campaigning against. I mean, it's clever really, isn't it? Charities create an illusion of democracy, a warm fuzzy feeling, stick on some socks and make a difference. But I'm asking you to think critically about what you support, and how you support it because an organization's failings won't always be as obvious as a public figure like Hunt walking on stage at an event.