#women occupying traditionally masculine positions >>>>>>>

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

"let the world know that i am no longer married to sultan ahmed, but to the ottoman state" is such a hard line. i think about it every day. also i feel like there's something in the fact that it's a clear reference to elizabeth i's "i am married to england," safiye was known both historically and in-show to have close correspondence with her, and bulbul tells safiye that he was thinking it would be splendid if she had her own throne just like elizabeth

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Okay here I am again because the Grima brainrot is particularly intense rn and I just saw a post talking about.

Grima but as a woman. Like genderbend. Nothing changes, same looks, same personality, same behaviour, same ambiguous feelings for Eowyn. (I’d smash.)

I think it’s actually interesting considering that Grima’s flaws in the movies/books are hinted also to be rooted from his “unmanliness” (as Tolkien presents a lot of characters with honour and values considered “male”.)

But I think that even if he were to be a woman, there is a great deal of traits Grima wouldn’t possess to be considered conventionally “feminine” by Tolkien’s and many’s standards. (Such as beauty for example).

So yeah, it just occurred to me and now I’ve been thinking about this since 3am. This is the reason why I’m pansexual. We don’t care about gender. We care about silly evil pookies okay.

As always have a great day/night ! ^^

Yesssss!

Grima & Gender is a super interesting thing that I think about all the time. I love thinking about him and manliness, femininity, secret third and fourth options etc.

I know I reblogged the ask/reply that I had about Grima on Gender and Magic, so you have the gist of most of my thoughts as it relates to Grima performing gender (or not, as the case may be) within the context of masculinity.

But Grima straight up as a woman would be very interesting. Particularly because Rohan is quite gendered when it comes to the wielding of power - and quite binary in who wields what power.

(E.g., when Theoden departs Edoras to fight Saruman, he despairs over leaving the city leaderless because Eomer won't stay behind. It doesn't occur to him that Eowyn is even an option until Hama suggests it.)

Therefore, Grima being in a position of power that is traditionally masculine would be very interesting. Indeed, her entire performance of gender would likely be impacted by the uniqueness of her position. Queens, historically, were more passive in Rohan than in other countries so it's not like she would have someone to model herself on. Nor would there be a model for other people on how to receive and perceive Grima.

(Morwen, maaaaaybe, but honestly her epithet of Steelsheen is more about her appearance than anything else. Though perhaps her personality could be inferred from it... But truly, we only know her in the context of being wife and mother.)

Given the absence of models, would Grima into the more masculine aspects of how people would be reading her? Would she do the whole performance of "I may have the body of a woman but I've the head and heart of a man"? Or would she hyper-perform the femininity song and dance as a way to balance it out/make her more palatable to some?

Aside from the occupying a masculine position of power within the context of Rohan's society, Grima's other personality and physical traits would absolutely count against her being seen as appropriately feminine.

Good qualities for a Rohirrim woman to have is height, slenderness, fairness of face, and youthfulness. Grima's tall...and that's all she's got going for her.

Grima is also neither high-hearted nor noble in bearing let alone in birth (because nobility of birth is very important to one's perceived Goodness and Worth in Tolkien's world).

Grima is a sneak, a liar, a thief, and power hungry. Grima would be, fundamentally, a Woman Who Wants Something. And what she wants are things women shouldn't want.

Wanting Things in general, for both men and women, is a dangerous game to play in Middle Earth and the texts punish many of the people who do any major "unacceptable" desiring (or creating) of things outside their purview.

Grima's obvious foil, Eowyn, is a prime example. Eowyn wants to be a warrior, she wants to be queen, she wants to be part of the Gondor noble family (and assume the power and privilege that comes with that), she wants to be seen and heard and to have an impact on the fate of the world.

Some of her wanting was out of a selfless desire to save her home and her people, but a lot was also just her having dreams and desires.

Eowyn may have been named as Shieldmaiden of Rohan but it is evident that this was meant as an honorific that wasn't meant to be actually acted upon. Save, of course, in the gravest/most dire circumstances when all is lost and only women remain to defend the land because the men are dead. This is, indeed, the gist of the conversation she has with Aragorn and you can see her resentment and anger about what her expected role is to be compared to that of her brother and the other men in her life.

I think the fact that Eowyn reflects, in many ways, the ideal of womanhood is what saves her from being punished too hard. Eowyn is tall, fair, slender, young, high-hearted, daughter of kings, and has selfless and noble motives (alongside the more human ones).

She is allowed her transgression. She gets her great moment of battle against the witch-king. She gets to make her mark, to save people, to change history.

But, she also receives a bit of a personality transplant as a result of it. She gets to be a wife - but not a queen. She gets to be a mother who heals people. She gets to be a Proper Noble Woman and live, once again, in a gilded cage. The very thing she was so furious about initially.

I know there is the idea that she is healed and she has overcome her anger and has changed - but it still feels like the text punished her and robbed her. Of course, a huge part of the problem is that Eowyn is the only women we spend any real time with - if we had more women with diverse journeys and endings, it would be different.

It's subconscious to a certain degree, I think, also heavily informed by Tolkien's Catholicism alongside the culture of the time. The importance of the Marian archetype of womanhood etc. And we know Tolkien loved Eowyn's character and thought about her a lot, wanted to write a good story for her, but some of that stuff sneaks in regardless.

But all of this to say - if that is Eowyn's ending...what would happen to Grima? One who would be committing greater transgressions against gender performance let alone the whole Light Soupçon of Treason.

Because aside from wanting material wealth and power, we know that Grima potentially desires Eowyn. In the movie it's explicit but the books are more ambiguous. We are told, via Gandalf, that Eomer was concerned about Grima ogling his sister and threatened to kill him over it. Crucially, we never hear from Grima about this specific item and we certainly never hear from Eowyn.

Indeed, Gandalf's line to Eomer about how his sister is "safe now" says far more about Eomer's fears and concerns than it does about the reality of the situation. We know in ROTK that Eomer didn't know his sister's heart or mind - he didn't know she was unhappy with her position in the household and broader society, he didn't know she wa so angry and resentful, he didn't know she was in emotional pain, he didn't know what she wanted, he didn't know jack. Therefore can we think him reliable when it comes to being a fountain of knowledge about his sister's desires?

I mean...considering no one was paying much attention to her, and when they did they were reading their own things onto her (coughEomercough), perhaps Eowyn liked having Grima pay attention to her? Like, who knows. Someone who may have seen her and may have known what her fears and desires were might have been novel/nice (before she realized he's selling everyone out for a corn chip). Heck, Gandalf implies that Grima had a pretty good handle on Eowyn's innermost dreams and wishes, so take that as you will.

(I now have this image in my head of Eowyn and Grima getting wine drunk out back of Meduseld and bitching about people.)

All pure idle speculation for the sake of pot-stirring. Anyway, I keep getting distracted.

Grima as a woman feeling lust, though - that would be another strike against her. Honourable love and the implied desire that might exist because of it is fine. But in the text overt desire of a clearly sexual nature is presented in a mostly negative light. Let alone, in this speculation, Grima is lusting after another woman! That's even more unnatural and contrary! What a freak /sarcasm.

Then there's the cowardice - which is shown as a negative no matter who is displaying it. Though, I think of all the aspects of Grima, this is the one that would get more of a pass as a woman than as a man.

So yeah - given that Grima's entire personality is one that is contrary to what is modeled as Good Femininity it would be very interesting to see how it played out over the course of the text.

Everything from the banishment, which was predicated on Grima being expected to do battle alongside Theoden in order to prove that he is still loyal - what test of loyalty would Grima as a woman be expected to perform and then fail because she's too chickenshit?

The relationship with Saruman would be construed in a different way, also the hold Grima had over Theoden - that would take on different implications. And those implications would also change how Theoden is perceived, too, which is interesting.

That Theoden is leaning on a woman for support in ruling would make him seem even weaker and more foolish. It would be so interesting to see it unfold!

Then there's the rivalry with Gandalf - the positioning of them as two sides of the Odinnic coin.

Also the being tortured and tormented by Saruman after Helm's Deep. Not to mention the Scouring of the Shire and Grima's ultimate end. If Grima is a woman, in this, I think Tolkien would have had her ending be different.

----

Alright, I've banged on for way, way too long about this and went no where in particular, and all has been said before in different ways so I'm not landing on anything new or insightful.

Just wittering...I love wittering about Grima so thank you for giving me the opportunity to lol

<3 <3

[dharshareddy189]

DIGITAL MEDIA: SOURCES AND SIGNIFICANCE

BLOG POST 2

Unveiling the Gender Struggles, Female Representation in the World of Video Games -

In the ever-expanding realm of video games, where cutting-edge graphics and immersive gameplay reign supreme, it is imperative that we delve into the profound impact these digital experiences have on players and the intricate interplay they have with gender dynamics within our society.

Representation of females that are sexualized and objectified - The issue of sexualized and objectified portrayal of women in video games is still widespread, marked by the ubiquitous utilization of exaggerated physical attributes, impractical wardrobe options, and provocative stances. Female characters frequently exhibit unrealistic physical proportions, including exaggerated curves and revealing clothing, which perpetuate detrimental stereotypes and objectify women. These depictions diminish female characters to mere objects of attraction, placing more importance on their outward attractiveness rather than their depth of storytelling or capabilities. The influence of such portrayal extends beyond the digital realm, leading to unattainable ideals of beauty and potentially shaping players' views on gender roles. This problem gives rise to a situation where female gamers are excluded, leading to an environment where women may feel marginalized and perpetuating a society that accepts the objectification of women as normal. In response to this issue, there is an increasing need for the adoption of more inclusive development methods, the inclusion of different individuals in game design teams, and a heightened consciousness within the gaming community to actively question and modify these problematic portrayals.

Subordinate and Insignificant Subplots for Female Characters- Women are significantly underrepresented in video games, and their narratives are severely constrained. Female characters are generally relegated to supporting roles in video games. Dietz's study revealed a prevalent portrayal of women in video games as frequently being portrayed as victims or damsels in distress. These female characters possess inconsequential positions as secondary characters; they lack the capability to actively engage in the game and necessitate the intervention of a male character for their rescue. The narrative of a helpless woman in video games also dehumanizes women by depicting them as things that the male protagonist must acquire.

Certain video games have female protagonists who occupy a paradoxical role, serving as both symbols of female emancipation and objectified sexual objects designed solely for the male perspective. Grimes asserts that female protagonists conform to Western beauty ideals, characterized by being Caucasian, slender, attractive, and possessing symmetrical facial characteristics. Although the clothing worn by female characters may not be explicitly exposed, they typically possess a well-endowed and shapely physique. While female characters may enter a traditionally male domain by wielding weapons and participating in violence and aggression, assuming masculine roles does not diminish the influence of the male gaze.   As an illustration, in the Tomb Raider series, Lara Croft assumes the role of a formidable female heroine. Nevertheless, her physical form continues to be objectified and presented as an item of interest from a masculine perspective. The current edition of Tomb Raider not only portrays Lara Croft with heightened femininity and sexual allure but also sexualizes her through the perspective of the game camera. The camera's perspective accentuates the prominently displayed body parts of Lara Croft as she executes various movements. Players have the ability to view her body from a rear perspective or examine her physique by adjusting the camera angle.

Effects on Women Players - Video games can have a detrimental impact on women's self-perception. Behm-Morawitz and Mastro found that being exposed to sexualized video game characters can lead to the development of gender stereotypes and have an impact on how females perceive themselves. During the study, the participants were instructed to assume the roles of a "sexualized" female protagonist and a "non-sexualized" female protagonist. Subsequently, both groups were required to fill out an online questionnaire. The study suggests that women who engaged in a video game featuring a sexualized female character reported diminished levels of self-efficacy in comparison to women who did not partake in a game with a sexualized female character. Furthermore, women who engaged in a game featuring a sexualized female character expressed "less positive opinions about women's physical abilities" compared to women who did not participate in a video game with a sexualized female character. These findings indicate that being exposed to sexualized female characters can potentially heighten feelings of self-doubt in women.

Addressing the normalization of violence against women - The hypersexualization and objectification of women, along with the depiction of violence against women in video games, can foster attitudes that endorse real-life violent behaviour towards women. Beck and their colleagues contend that the widespread occurrence of violence against women in video games can promote the acceptance of rape myths. The rape myth refers to biased, stereotypical, or inaccurate ideas of rape, its victims, and perpetrators. Various rape myths exist, including the notions that "only immoral women are raped" or "women provoke it." In essence, they transfer responsibility for the sexual attack from the culprits to the victims.

Certain video games enable players to engage in violent conduct towards women by simulating acts of violence and sexual assault, portraying the abuse, torture, and rape of women as a kind of enjoyment. For instance, in the game RapeLay, players assume the character of a perpetrator of sexual assault with the objective of committing acts of rape on women. RapeLay features explicit depictions of sexual assault perpetrated against females of various ages, including incidents occurring within a train set, the act of forcibly removing their clothing, digitally fondling them, compelling their compliance through the use of specific items like handcuffs, and the ability to select the method of rape.

CONCLUSION - Video games significantly contribute to the reinforcement of unfavourable beliefs and behaviours toward women. Therefore, it is crucial to examine the portrayal of women in video games to raise awareness about the prevalence of violence and objectification in many games. This examination will also help shape legislation and regulations surrounding the sale of video games. The mere augmentation of female characters in video games does not effectively address gender representation issues. Promoting favourable and empowering representations of women in video games has the potential to foster a more equal and varied gaming culture as well as instigate a beneficial transformation in the game industry.

REFERENCES -

Old School to Modern Day: The Best Nintendo Games Ever. https://thegameroof.com/old-school-to-modern-day-the-best-nintendo-games-ever/ (Accessed on 5th December 2023)

Celina Smith Leaked Nudes: Shocking Scandal Unveiled! https://theweeklyspoon.com/general/general-news/celina-smith-leaked-nudes-shocking-scandal-unveiled/ (Accessed on 5th December 2023)

Are Violent Video Games Bad For Teens? | HugATeen.com. https://hugateen.com/articles/tech/are-violent-video-games-bad-for-teens/ (Accessed on 5th December 2023)

Lucas Manhaes de Souza, Tamyres. "You Could Have Saved Her: Representations of Violence Against Women in Choice-based Games." 2021, https://core.ac.uk/download/483413498.pdf.(Accessed on 5th December 2023)

[gatheringbones]

["MEN, EXPERIENCE AND FEMINISM

Why has it taken so long for men to explore their experience of masculinity? In part, the workings of masculinity within modernity have remained invisible as dominant men have learned to speak in the impartial voice of reason. This has been part of an Enlightenment tradition and is deeply embodied in western inherited forms of philosophy and social theory. So a man's voice assumes a pitch of objectivity and impartiality as it becomes an impersonalised voice, a voice that has 'authority' because it belongs to no one in particular while claiming at the same time to respect all.

Thus it is hard to judge men's accounts of their own experience because often these personal accounts are not forthcoming. Traditionally, men have relied on women to provide them with an account and understanding of what they are experiencing in their emotional lives. It is as if men do not have to learn to take responsibility for their relationships, since this can traditionally be left to women within heterosexual relationships. Often men learn to put up with things since they have to learn to identify themselves with an absence of emotional needs, and so to centre their lives around the demands of work where male identity is supposedly constructed. But it also that feminism has sought to account for men's experience in particular ways, most sharply in the radical feminist idea that all men are 'potentially rapists.' This is a challenging but also a damaging notion, for it works to discount differences between men as 'illusory', for as the story goes, all men are fundamentally the same. They 'have to be' because they all occupy the same position in the hierarchy of power. They are not to be trusted.

This creates a difficult and tense silence, for it means that women often stay silent about their relationships with men. They can constantly feel critical, as if assuming blame is a way of assuaging an underlying sense that relationships with men can only be a sign of weakness. For men it creates a silence because it makes them feel that they do not know their own natures, that there is something to fear in them, and that their emotional lives and sexualities are full of danger. This reinforces, rather than challenges, a traditional Kantian conception of masculinity as somehow dominated by an animal nature and as something that can only be curbed by the strong hand of reason. It also reinforces an idea that women somehow know what men are like better than they can know themselves. It does not encourage men to build a different, possibly more trusting relationship, to their own experience. It tends to encourage men to hide further, feeling that somehow they have to be guilty of all the issues and problems emerging in their relationships with women. It can make it easier for women to take the morally high ground and thereby refuse to recognize their own collusions and responsibilities for the way the relationship is going.

Guilt can help explain why it is not uncommon for men to take to heard and identify with this radical feminist vision of themselves. But it is still in many ways a surprising fact that needs explanation. It tends to reinforce a negative vision of masculinity as a form of self-denial, even self-hatred, which is deeply embedded within a Protestant culture, as Nietzsche recognised. It also allows men to talk about masculinity as a relationship of power in relation to women and so it gives men a kind of security in being able to uphold this analysis. It gives men an overarching rationalistic analysis of the situation and somehow allows them to render their own experience invisible.

But this path hardly helps men to reflect upon their own masculinities, and it blocks any vision that men can really change their lives. It resonates with a feeling that men inherit, within a Protestant culture, that they really are not trustworthy themselves, that they do not know what they are feeling, and that what they come to feel cannot really be trusted. It can become a version of 'mother knows best'. But at the same time it allows men to feel that they are 'right' because they have thereby been able to identify with radical feminism. But it is a strange way to identify for it discounts men's own experience of themselves and their relationships, and it often says them men's accounts of their own experiences are never to be trusted. Paradoxically it means that men do not learn to take responsibility for themselves.

Men can assure themselves that they have the 'right analysis' of 'patriarchy' but at some level this then helps produce a form of self-rejection and self-hatred. There might be a feeling of tension between what men feel about themselves from their own experiences, namely that they are not 'potential rapists', and the pull of the culture notion of masculinity which says that men 'should always have a go', that their masculinity is somehow being compromised if they do not make a move sexually. It reinforces a notion that men cannot help themselves and that sexuality is somehow some kind of irresistible animal urge.

If we are to deny this position and argue that sexuality is not 'given' but is socially and historically constructed, then we still have to think clearly about imposing a sharp modernist duality between 'nature' and 'culture' and about the nature and character of this 'construction'. We have to think about the ways men can come to know themselves and develop a different relationship to their emotions, feelings, and sexual desires. We have to recognise the ground opened up by different forms of therapy which make it possible for men to work on their sexualities and so to change. All this is denied if we insist on automatically discounting men's own accounts of their experience and saying that 'in reality' men are always 'potentially rapists'.

This does not men that men will always know best, for we have to acknowledge real differences between men and in the level of self-awareness and in the work men have been ready to do on themselves. But it does mean that we cannot automatically discount their accounts of their experience. We have to recognise this as part of a process, for men's perceptions of themselves, at least in personal and sexual relationships, are likely to be on the skew, defensive, superficial and many other things, because of the disconnections which often exist between inherited forms of masculinity and men's relationships with their emotions, feelings, and desires. Men have for so long within modernity learned to discount the impulses of their emotional lives that it is difficult to forge this relationship simply as a matter of will and determination."]

victor j. seidler, from unreasonable men: masculinity and social theory, 1994

[lyblogs]

ON POLITICS AND TAKEAWAYS

The State of the Filipino Women: Facilitating and Hindering Factors

The current status of women in the Philippines is both a cause for optimism and a reason to accelerate efforts for promoting women empowerment. In the latest Global Gender Gap report, the Philippines occupies the 17th place, with 78.4% of its overall gender gap closed to date. This performance is the second best in the EAP region, after New Zealand. A key driver behind the progress has been the Philippine Magna Carta for Women, a landmark law signed nearly 13 years ago seeking to eliminate discrimination against women.

However, despite the impressive performance in closing key gender gaps, I still believe in the striking fact that women empowerment in the country remains persistently low. Among the possible reasons are: heavy (unpaid) responsibilities, wage gap, illiteracy, and limited participation due to traditional views.

Heavy (unpaid) responsibilities

Women continue to carry the load when it comes to unpaid work like indoor housework, cooking, supervision of children, groceries, which makes it hard for them to pursue their careers. A large proportion of women are held back from productive opportunities by their family responsibilities and the concentration of women in high-skill positions declines considerably when they have young children.

Wage gap

According to World Bank, working women in the Philippines earn just 76% of what Filipino men do. It is actually rampant in the agriculture sector; the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that men working in the agriculture sector were paid P335 per day, higher than the average wage rate of female farm workers at P304.60 a day.

Illiteracy

According to World Data Atlas, adult female illiteracy for Philippines was 44.6 %. Illiteracy negatively impacts women because it excludes them from political engagement, affects their ability to earn a livelihood, and it can increase the prevalence of gender-based violence.

Limited participation due to traditional views

More Filipinas are becoming involved in public service, but they still make up just one-fifth of the government. One reason considered is that traditionally, Filipinos think that male leaders are more rational and logic-based than women. Hence, women are still underrepresented because of the lack of motivation to join a men-dominated politics.

What the government can actually do to improve women empowerment is to implement policies and programs that increase female participation in the Philippines. One, make sure to reach those who are unable to go to school instead of just encouraging them from afar. Two, provide alternatives to childcare in the home. Three, promote policies supporting flexible work arrangements, including work from home. Three, address gendered social norms that affect women’s political participation through media campaigns, behavioral and attitude change interventions that influence opinions about masculinity and gender roles. Lastly, implement a strong law that enables equal pay for equal work regardless of gender.

[short-gayy]

another OFMD post and she’s super long

there have already been a lot of takes about the really great way OFMD handles masculinity, but there is something i wanted to add. i think the thing that underscores stede’s personality and his struggles both in marriage AND as a pirate captain is the fact that he’s uncomfortable in masculine positions of authority. one of the first times we see this is in ep 1, with the flashback to stede’s home life. it shows him at the head of the table, with his wife seated all the way at the other end and the children seated right next to her. there is a literal and metaphorical gulf between them. mary and the kids are having a conversation, and stede looks both unhappy and uncomfortable when listening and trying to participate in the discussion. at first when i saw this scene i was bracing myself for another dismissal and butchering of women characters, but later in the episode, another scene changes this dynamic. it shows stede again seated at the table with his family, but he has moved down to sit by mary and the kids, and everyone is now smiling, laughing, and comfortable. by moving, stede literally and symbolically closed the gap between him and his family and removed himself from the head of the table, that place representing the authority of the man of the family. stede feels much more comfortable existing on a plane equal to mary and his family, yet his status and cultural norms prevent him from doing this. stede doesn’t feel completely uncomfortable around his family -- even though he is queer and him & mary were not a love match -- he is uncomfortable being in this traditional, patriarchal place of authority over them. this a more masculine space to occupy, and as the previous flashbacks about the dead animal and the flower picking show, stede is not very comfortable on a traditionally masculine plane. i think the fact that stede left without his family after mary rejected his idea to live out at sea shows this as well. he was the head of the household, the one with financial power, and could have easily made his family go with him whether they liked it or not, but he didn’t. he didn’t think the problem was his family, he thought it was where he was, the space he was supposed to occupy. to him, the sea represented a life of freedom and a realm outside of traditional society, where you lived by your own rules. he wanted his family to join him because he thought he would be able to be happy with them once they were freed from the confines of their restrictive aristocratic life. even though his marriage and family life was less than ideal for him, he still misses his family at the end of ep 1. and this leads into my next point. stede is pretty awful at being a pirate captain because, well, it’s another position of masculine authority! stede never felt comfortable being a mean and demanding captain – he always paid the crew, read them stories, encouraged them to talk about their feelings. he was able to be more authentically himself at sea – aka less masculine – but this made him a terrible captain in the eyes of the crew. the crew’s frustration with stede in ep 1 comes from the fact that they’re not doing traditional murderous pirate things, and buttons tells stede that they think he is weak. even though stede left for the sea to escape his masculine role at home, that masculine authority is still demanded of him but in a different way as captain. here, the masculinity he fails to perform is killing, maiming, robbing, etc. he constantly expresses discomfort at the thought of himself and others doing these things, which masculine men should have no problem with. stede equates his queasiness with killing as a pirate to his queasiness with the killing of an animal as a kid, demonstrating an overarching fear of killing that makes people perceive him as less of a man. stede has the most fun with the crew when interacting with them and being among them, just as he enjoyed sitting near his family. and one of the redeeming qualities that stede has, according to the crew, is that he reads them stories and does voices. the crew likes him best when he is closing that masculine power gap between them, just as his family looked more happy to be around him when he sat near them. stede being a more traditionally authoritative and ruthless pirate captain may have made the crew respect him more, but it wouldn’t make them like him. stede, overall, is uncomfortable being in a traditionally masculine state of power, and is also REALLY BAD at being in this position. and then enter ed. ed is really soft-hearted and less macho deep down, but his problem is that he is very good at PERFORMING masculinity, even though he doesn’t like it very much. it’s easy for him to threaten and yell and inspire fear in people, but really it is all a performance. we see this through the various exaggerated illustrations of blackbeard and black pete’s ridiculous story about him. however, we learn that ed is very vulnerable deep down, deals with trauma, and cries multiple times. he doesn’t like being this fearsome pirate all the time. although they come to see and appreciate each other more fully as their relationship grows, stede is initially so enamored by ed because as “blackbeard” he’s able to PERFORM masculinity so well, which stede finds himself just unable to do. and ed is initially so enamored with stede because he’s incapable of performing masculinity and just kind of lets all his quirks and less masculine qualities be expressed. ok this was super long hbo pls renew the show so i can STOP

[verycharismaticdragon]

As the novel guy(tm), I need to set the record straight: Wen Kexing is not compared to a wife just once in the novel, he and Zhou Zishu have an elaborate roleplay about being ~husband and wife~ that gets brought up time after time. Where Wen Kexing, the strongest mf in all jianghu not counting the literal immortal, pretends to be a poor bullied wife whose husband is giving her a cold shoulder 😩

And he's having so much fun with it too like *GASP* "are you abandoning me now that you've toyed with me?" *GASP* "how could you go to a brothel when your old wife is still alive?!" (they were there for information) *starts reciting confucian rules for obedient and virtuous wife*

He also cooks and is all like "something made by human hand has real flavor, and it may even have ~love~, when you taste it you'll be able to tell 😘" this man is malewifing it up SO hard. To the point that I haven't seen a single novelverse fic where he's referred to as 'husband' - I think because he self-ids with 'wife' so gladly in canon it doesn't feel right to use anything else.

So yeah, novel!WKX is not just "compared to" a wife, he's wearing the moniker purposefully and with a lot of joy.

That said, if you saw "husband and wife" and thought "oh, just another BL recreating gender roles but with two men 🙄"... Wen Kexing is the top, actually.

More specifically, he's an example of my favorite danmei trope 少女攻 shàonǚ gōng - a.k.a young maiden top. The concept of shàonǚ gōng seems to have originated as a pushback against "masculine top, feminine bottom" cliche. You all know that one: the top is physically strong, stoic, and wise to the ways of the world, occupying the role of either the protector or the aggressor; while the bottom is kind, emotional, and naive, slotted into the nurturing role if not outright damsel'ed... yeah, it was really prevalent in the '00s. And much criticized since then for 'regurgitating traditional gender roles' or 'gender essentialism with the serial numbers filed off', as some ppl put it. Now, I don't quite agree with those assessments, but that'd be a tangent; the important thing is, a number of BL concepts that saw a rise in the '10s are actually deconstructing this exact cliche.

Shàonǚ gōng trope in particular seeks to decouple the traditional gender role stuff from the characters' preferred positions: shàonǚ gōng is a top, but he is also sensitive, emotive, and nurturing - often much more so than his partner. (Yes, Luo Binghe is another example of this trope!) In other words: the purpose of this trope is to fuck with the portrayal of the top as traditionally masculine, and it's done by giving him traits, values, or interests that would typically be assigned to the female lead (in m/f) or the bottom (in m/m).

Of course, since the time this trope started appearing (TYK in specific was written in 2010-2011), the discussion on gender has come a long way, and shàonǚ gōngs wearing every gender hat with style now comes off as more gnc / queering the binary than anything. Which is a fun optic! My nonbinary ass is thriving here!

But I'm also not... entirely joking when calling these characters "a guy who is a femme but also a top". Broader femme identity is about approaching traditional femininity in a queer way; and the shàonǚ gōng concept also engages with traditional femininity as mapped onto queerness, if from a fairly different place. So yeah, while I'm saying it light-heartedly (i mean, we are talking about for-the-bit guy yuri poll), Wen Kexing is very femme-aligned, by virtue of his character archetype.

Of course, if we have a guy who is femme-aligned, it would only require the tiniest leap of logic to say his relationship could well be guy yuri-aligned. But what about the other half of that equation, Zhou Zishu? Well, first of all, I gotta say that you can transfer the same dynamic where ZZS is the husband while WKX is the top onto a story where they are both women, and it would still work in a perfectly queer way.

But aside from this, Zhou Zishu is also extremely mom-coded - though that may not come thru to eng audiences because he's specifically "strict chinese mom" coded. Think Evelyn Wang from EEAAO; Zhou Zishu is basically the same with his kids. He may say harsh things, but that's only because he wants the best for them. (Btw he and Evelyn also share a character beat of actually doing their best to not be the parent their parent (figure) were to them.)

And in a different vein, he's also mom-coded because for most of the novel he's doomed to die. You know, I'm actually very curious if anyone wrote any analysis on the intersection of "dead mom" and "dead shifu" tropes because both are supposed to die to facilitate their child's coming of age... interesting stuff.

You could also btw say wenzhou are yuri-coded because of how their interactions after a certain point are laden with delicate heartache of not being able to keep the one you love... (novel is a HE though, dont worry.)

So basically we have one guy who's a virtuous wife and one guy who is a strict mom and the guys are dating. That's very yuri.

Propaganda:

For Vanoe: "vanitas promised his canon love interest, as a romantic gesture, that if she started to become a monster, he would kill her so she wouldn't have to suffer. and then later when discussing how vanitas will eventually turn into a monster himself, he said he wants noe to kill him when that time comes. pretty yuri. also i'm a lesbian and i like them"

"Idk they have such a homoerotic shoujo manga dynamic but they're guys. Or maybe not that much but you gotta admit this would be exquisite yuri if they were girls. Noé the gothic romance heroine etc etc"

For Wenzhou: "Basically in their family unit Wen Kexing is the wife but Zhou Zishu is the mom. Also there are lots of genderbends of them around but the best ones are those where Wen Kexing goes super hard on femme but Zhou Zishu deadass has the same personality and appearance - like shoutout to those artists/writers u r the real ones. Also lesbian Zishu still being called "husband" by Wen Kexing, mwah chef's kiss! He would SO be a butch."

"Wen Kexing is compared to a wife twice in the show and at least once in the book iirc. Canon malewife + wears red eyeshadow and rocks a red robe in his Ghost Valley Master getup + his husband is an emo assassin, they are so incredibly yuri even if they're guys"

For Ineffable Husbands: "Well due to neil mentioning that they was plans for a fem presenting 1960s scene of the two of them that never ended up happening, there's a lot of fanart of that. Plus, they are an angel and a demon, and both technically don't follow the gender rules of humans and many other species on earth, so while they do present very masculine throughout the show, they could be any gender and therefore they seem very fitting for this.(I do apologize as I don't quite understand what guy Yuri is despite your definition so I am guessing and have no clue if they count."

"Looks like m/m on first glance but they don't actually really have gender and Crowley dresses as a woman for a good few years canonically"

"theyre male presenting in the show but they dont really have gender so they could be wlw if they wanted to"

"While both characters spend most of their time presenting as male, they are supernatural beings without any real sex or gender. Crowley appears as a woman multiple times, and one scrapped scene included both Aziriphale and Crowley as women in the 1960s. Additionally, it’s very common to find “Ineffable Wives” fanworks, with both characters appearing as women. As well as having been an immensely popular fandom ship for many years, it has been confirmed that Aziriphale and Crowley are canonically in love with each other."

"Regularly turned into women in fanart. Both Aziraphale and Crowley are incredibly gender. They have been together in some sort of way for 6000 years. Heavy yearning. Cringefail. Divorced and married at the same time. Literally an angel and a demon. What more could you want?"

"theyre literally genderless and can be anything ever!!!"

"Their genders are ineffable and they have hopelessly pined for centuries"

[annebrontesrequiem]

Femininity and Bridgerton

So 27 days ago a lovely anon said that they’d be glad to hear my thoughts on femininity and Bridgerton, and since I’m now finally free from school I decided to stop playing Genshin Impact and binging Disney movies and actually do something.

This is going to probably be very long (spoilers it’s 1,800 words long), so more under the cut.

So, a few things. Firstly I am specifically talking about Bridgerton, as the way that femininity is portrayed in media is a very complex and arduous topic. Secondly this is obviously just my opinion and you can absolutely disagree, even tell me if you do I love listening to different perspectives. Thirdly I’m talking about a show that is very heteronormative (the painter and Benedict aside as I’m focusing mostly on Daphne in this post), and presents a very specific part of straight, cis, upper class femininity. So keep that in mind as well. Also as I’m going to be talking about patriarchy, femininity, and masculinity I know that there might be a few TERFs that crawl out of the woodwork and just… don’t. This isn’t for you and while I’m at it please go read some actual feminist texts. Also I know that this is a period piece but I will be addressing that don’t worry.

Also I am going to be talking about that one scene so trigger warning I’m going to be talking about sexual assault.

Also full Bridgerton season one spoilers.

----

So, all that set up out of the way, let’s talk about femininity in the Bridgerton series.

A good deal of Bridgerton focuses on the ways in which women are often confined by their role as women in society, as well as how they subvert that role for their own gains. This is used well in some cases, such as when the Viscountess uses the network that is forged between servants and women of the upper class to subvert Daphne’s marriage to Nigel Berbrooke. Being a period piece with a (mostly) diverse cast it also allows for women of color, specifically black women, to be portrayed in a very feminine light, where in society at large they are usually not allowed to inhabit such a space. However in attempting to subvert the status that women often occupied in Regency England the show accidentally reinforces views of femininity and its value.

Let’s talk about Eloise and Daphne. Eloise is very outspoken about the difficulties that comes with being a woman in society, wishing to break out of the confines of femininity. Daphne, on the other hand, wishes to stay within the traditional woman’s sphere, get married, have children, run a household. And while in text these two women often debate the meaning of their position as women, each making very valid points about their status and how they’re confined by it, the framing makes it seem that Eloise’s position is ultimately the “better” one.

Full disclosure, Eloise is my favorite Bridgerton character. I love her outspokenness, her determination to make something out of her life, the fact that she attempts to make the oppression of the society around her explicit. However I think the way she is framed as this, for lack of a better term, “girlboss” in the making is often reductive. The show seems to have this idea that Daphne is in some ways inferior in goal to Eloise. That is, Eloise’s value isn’t that she is an ambitious person whose status as a woman hampers said ambition, but rather that she is in some ways morally and intellectually superior to Daphne by rejecting her femininity and repressing qualities that are considered less masculine and thus lesser.s It presents this idea of women’s empowerment wherein one is only empowered if they deliberately step out of traditional femininity, either in appearance or in life path, rather than confronting a society that sees femininity as inferior. Daphne’s wish to continue in the traditional sphere of womanhood is somehow lesser, and she only becomes truly empowered later in the series when she becomes more aggressive (we’ll talk about that later).

That Eloise has her own book where she presumably falls in love and gets married makes this all the more confusing. Does she then lose her intellect and her status as an empowering woman? The messages feel very mixed. In portraying Eloise as enlightened for actively resisting the woman’s sphere and Daphne as needing to learn to be more “assertive” to gain said enlightenment, the show accidentally presents femininity as inherently passive, inferior to the assertion that is more traditionally masculine. This is something that modern period dramas often fall into. Empowered women are only empowered by attempting to transcend their femininity, to become more masculine. The bottom line isn’t to present women and femininity as equal in all ways to men and masculinity, but femininity is something reductive that must be shed to truly become equal.

Since we’re talking about Daphne I want to examine her character arc within this lens as well. Daphne is adamant that she wants a love-match. She is also very aware of the importance of presentation, as well as the importance of reputation. This is a very solid foundation, as is a way where Bridgerton taps into the complexity of the role of women in regency society in a good way. However as the show goes on this complexity seems to fade in favor of making Daphne, again I’m sorry, a “girlboss”. This is made explicit in the scene in which Daphne violates Simon’s consent, as well as the way in which this act is framed.

Now you can tell immediately from the framing of the scene in which Daphne violates Simon’s consent what this is supposed to be interpretated as. From the music to the triumphant looks on Daphne’s face, this is supposed to be a moment in which Daphne has finally gained control of her life. And yet in doing this, and in presenting this whole scene as a result of Simon’s “betrayal” – and thus something his has to take the blame for – the show is making a value judgement. Daphne can only become strong by becoming “assertive” (ie aggressive) to the point of violating someone’s consent.

The topic of rape culture is a very long and arduous one which I will not be diving into, but I do wish to point to the fact that men are supposed to be aggressive, both sexually and otherwise. Men are the ones who always “want it”, who are uncontrollable, and who are willing to be aggressive to get what they want. This toxic idea of sex and masculinity is what I felt Daphne dipped into during this scene, and instead of presenting it as horrifying or a betrayal on Daphne part, it is presented as the climax of her character arc. I believe a showrunner once said that it was imperative to the “education” of Daphne Bridgerton. Thus is Daphne’s strength no longer her determination to be happy within the sphere she has been placed in by patriarchy, but her willingness to take back her life, no matter the cost. And yes this could’ve been a message about how men are also assaulted, but that is not at all what the showrunners wanted you to get out of this scene.

Lastly I want to touch on the men in the Bridgerton universe, because the devaluation of femininity also affects men no less than it does women. All the men in the Bridgerton universe are either bad people or rakes. Name me one (1) man in the Bridgerton universe who is presented as feminine, either in appearance or personality. And no femininity is not the same as being gay, the painter is not feminine. To be a man worthy of screen time or romance in the Bridgerton universe one must be as traditionally masculine as possible, and ready to make that your defining character trait.

Now I know that this is a large romance novel issue, as someone who has read three of the Outlander books I am unfortunately aware of how romance novels fall into this derivative state. But just because something is common that doesn’t mean it is any less worthy of criticism. The argument that it’s simply being “period accurate” is also something I don’t accept. Yes the regency era was incredibly patriarchal, but that does not mean that the women within it were helpless and could only break out of that helplessness by rejecting their own femininity. Jane Austen is a classic example, but I will also point to women such as Elizabeth Gaskell, the Bronte Sisters, and George Eliot in terms of English women who were highly intelligent and worthy of acclaim despite still associating themselves with their status as women in society. For a broader historical view I’d also like to present Catherine the Great and Empress Josephine who, despite being viewed in an often very derivative manner by the men around them, rose to great prominence and power.

In the end this is a larger societal issue and not one that my post will magically fix. But I will say this: we need to stop telling women and girls that the only way to get rid of patriarchy is to reject femininity. In doing so we say that masculinity is indeed the better trait, that by repressing one’s emotions and one’s femininity one can attain equality. We also need to stop telling men that the only way to ensure their own value to be aggressive, to tap into that toxic masculinity which we spoon feed them from birth. This hurts everyone, men, women, non-binary people. It makes the world a worse place and only when we stop trying to wiggle our way out of femininity and actually acknowledge its status as equal to masculinity will we achieve this.

I believe Bridgerton wanted to do that, wanted to present the complexities and anxieties of women living in a patriarchal world and the way in which they can subvert that world to their advantage. However it falls into the same trap it seems to be attempting to get out of, and at the end of the day one is left with a sense of vapidness. Though I may like Bridgerton (so much so that I binge watched the series twice and am even considering reading the books) I think that we need to acknowledge its flaws, because only then will we be able to move forward and make media that is more enjoyable, more nuanced, and ultimately better in terms of expectations and norms.

Like I said this is a very complicated topic, but I hope I got my point across well. Thank you if you read all the way through this and I hope you have a lovely day!

[tanadrin]

Conworld idea: a society with the following gender roles and grammatical categories for animate nouns: children (can’t marry, can’t own property, don’t live independently), adult men, adult women (can both marry, can’t own property, can live independently), non-childbearing women (can own property, don’t live independently--live with grown children or extended relations), eunuchs, and politicians. These social roles are fluid, but not porous; by which I mean, there are very specific trajectories along which an individual may move through them, and their boundaries are heavily policed, by law and custom.

Children are not considered to have a gender, and are dependents of their family; they are treated accordingly. Social roles only begin to strongly adhere to children as they approach their coming of age, in their middle or late teens. Adult men and adult women correspond to something like our own “gender conforming heterosexuals.” Men are traditionally the group from which warriors and strength-based professions are drawn. Women are traditionally domestic laborers and child-rearers. But adult social roles are closely tied to how power and property are used in this society. Men and women don’t own property themselves. They have the use of property through their own and each other’s families; and, as this society has become less based on agrarian kinship networks and begun to urbanize more and create extensive political organizations akin to states, there’s also public property, administered by the eunuch class, which those bereft of family can use; and property-owning women (but not eunuchs) are free also to rent out their property, though this is more common if they don’t have many kin to support.

“Non-childbearing women” primarily corresponds to “post-menopausal women.” This category is based on the hypothesis that menopause is evolutionarily beneficial because it help create a class of individuals in a band or tribe whose knowledge and wisdom (and extra pair of hands) can help ease the burden of shared labor. In this society, this role has become so important that it is only this category of individual that is considered competent to own land. The traditional justification is that NCW are mostly the elder members of their kinship networks, and must ensure their younger relatives are provided for. A group of related NCW will usually administer the property of the kinship network using consensus-based decisionmaking, and allied groups of elder of NCWs will form powerful political factions. But, NCW does not only include post-menopausal women: it includes anyone with the social role “woman” incapable of bearing children. This includes infertile younger women, any intersex or male individuals who, on reaching adolescence, elects not to be a man (which is not a fast track to power and prestige, by the way--there are still power gradients within these roles, and young NCW are treated very differently from honored elder NCW), and women who do not have sex with men (nuns, sworn virgins, lesbians, etc.).

Eunuchs only loosely correspond to the “NCW” category, in that this group is best understood as “non-reproductive men.” But unlike the NCWs, physical characteristics (the lack of, or a damaged, penis or testes, in this case) is generally considered important. So any individual who’s been castrated by accident or misadventure; and any man who, on reaching the age of majority, or at some later point in their life, opts to be castrated so they can become a eunuch.

Eunuchs, like NCWs, can own and administer property; but they do so on behalf of society as a whole. Their social role is something like “monk” or “priest,” in that they are considered to have connections and duties which transcend kinship affiliation. As this society transitions from agrarianism to urbanism, they form the core of a nascent bureaucratic class. Eunuchs have different property rights from NCWs, because the social group their property is attached to is different. Eunuchs can’t bequeath their property, and it reverts to the state on their death.

However, distinct from eunuchs is the class of person who elects not to have the male social role on reaching adulthood, who does not have a penis or testes. These individuals belong to a group best classified as “politicians.” They are decisionmakers, diplomats, and leaders, in some ways the public equivalent of the NCW; but they are also merchants, spies, priests, senior bureaucrats, temple administrators, scholars, and scientists. In other words, they encompass the professions which are detached from the kinship system. They cannot own land, but they can own movable property.

Although these seem like arbitrary and stark divisions, in the history of this society they have emerged quite naturally. In the ancestral agrarian kinship-grouping, which probably had simpler “man/woman/older woman” social roles, older members of the kinship group were seen to be those best suited to decisionmaking on behalf of the whole group; and menopausal woman, detached more clearly from the concerns of individual subsections of the kinship group, more suited to this task than men. But as the society began gradually to urbanize, and larger communities to form, the old kinship systems had to adapt. The non-reproductive male class (eventually formalized as the “eunuch” class, above) provided a role which operated on behalf of the community as a whole; as urbanization intensified and the need for formal hierarchy increased, a detached sub-group of the NCW class formed the core decisionmaking group at the top of the social pyramid. “Child” as a distinct genderless subgroup is a reflection of the fact that biological elements are not seen to be strictly determinative of role, and some freedom of individual choice is allowed.

Another way to look at these social roles might be through the lens of our own. Societies with fewer such social roles group larger archetypes among them; societies with many can make more fine-grained distinctions. So although the classical male “nerd” is not a gender-conforming man (”jock”), they’re still definitely not a (gender-conforming) woman. An observer from our society would more or less recognize “adult man” and “adult woman”, although in some ways these roles would be very narrow: hypermasculine and hyperfeminine in their ideals, respectively. A member of this society would probably confuse our “male nerd” category above with their own “eunuch” category; we would understand this category to most closely resemble “less masculine men.” The manner of dress and behavior of eunuchs is much less elaborate than that of either men or women. Politicians and NCW both have positions of authority, and are widely deferred to socially; but the manner of dress of the former resembles eunuchs more, and the latter, less colorful women’s clothing, and less ornamentation of the body.

Children are allowed to play at any of these roles, because to some extent they could end up in any of them. But once someone is seen by society as clearly occupying one of these roles, it would be very hard (and considered deeply unnatural) to try to change them. To some extent, social pressure definitely plays a role: what we might consider simply a gender-nonconforming boy or girl will be strongly steered away from the ordinary “man/woman” roles in this society. It certainly is not better than our own--the coming of age of the eunuchs would be particularly traumatic--and in many ways it is much less free for the individual, especially given that members of it will tend to rely on their extended family for support throughout their lives.

[skykittywhatchamahcallit]

The Bugis ethnic group of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, recognizes three genders beyond the binary. Calalai refers to people who have female sexual characteristics but present in traditionally masculine ways, often cutting their hair short and dressing in men’s fashions. They also take on a social position similar to men’s, transcending some restrictions placed on women. Calabai are people who have male sexual characteristics but occupy a role like that traditionally occupied by women. Yet calabai don’t identify as women, reject the restrictions that women experience, and do not have their sexual characteristics altered. Calabai often oversee weddings and manage each aspect of the ceremonies. Bissu, another gender, embodies the totality of masculinity and femininity. Bugis people believe that bissu surpasses other genders, encapsulating a spiritual role. Bissu people often wear flowers and carry sacred daggers to symbolize their expansive identity. They perform spiritual rites and are thought to bridge the worldly and the divine.

^includes females

That’s literally only one excerpt from the second article. It’s literally not all males or intersex people. Sorry you can’t read, hope you get better.

A quick query for radfems:

If you insist on biological essentialism- that women are just adult human females- then what pray tell is so insulting about the terms pregnant people/people who have periods/people with vaginas/people who can get pregnant?

Is that or is that not also the essential pieces of this “adult human female” biology you’re so bent out of shape about?

[gutsymmetry]

something i’ve been thinking about is averyl and raine and the differences between them as forms of lesbian (proto)feminist leaders.

i think the essential difference i might have already talked about?: that raine is a fundamentally anti-social leader, where averyl is pro-social. raine seeks to destroy the structure of mainstream society and all its male-dominated values and goals; averyl seeks to inhabit that structure and subvert it from within by occupying the traditionally male seat of power. they’re trying to accomplish similar goals but through different means and both of them would probably laugh at the idea of taking the other’s approach because they reflect different values. interestingly, averyl and raine come from very similar backgrounds--they were originally poor, marginal young women who were pressed by circumstances of life into fundamentally unwanted and transactional heterosexual partnerships, only to shake off male control later in life and achieve self-actualization both as leaders of like-minded people and as lesbians. and while they’ve learned similar lessons from those experiences, the internal value systems that resulted are not the same.

raine is a revolutionary, where averyl is a reformer. raine has certainly internalized the values and standards of the culture at large, but on a surface level will disavow and revile them. she has no issue with grabbing the system and yanking it inside out, such as during her episode, when she kidnaps, physically maims, and holds for ransom several powerful men in order to achieve the political security of a female city councillor. while she has to live in men’s world, she wants allies for herself in high places, and she has no issue blowing up the foundations of any given power structure to achieve it. her ultimate goal is to achieve the liberation of enough women that the whole thing (”the whole thing” being “patriarchy”) topples, although given a moment of bitter realism she’s probably capable of realizing it won’t happen during her lifetime. she wants it all to end, she wants it to explode, and she doesn’t care who gets hurt.

averyl, by contrast, very much maintains her culture’s values. she prides herself on her capabilities as a warrior, hunter, and military leader, as well as her ability to plan and lead during rare peacetime. these are the ways she demonstrates her fitness to lead. as chief/king, she takes the traditional position in ceremonies and rituals, and by and large allows politics and drama to go on as it always has--except with herself in the most powerful position, capable of intervention when politicking, violence, or exploitation moves too far away from her guiding values. she certainly subverts traditional expectations in every respect as a woman and a lesbian (i even have an au on discord where she marries a woman, gives her the harclay name, and they rule together), but there is no dramatic and total overhaul of the system. it’s probable that averyl wouldn’t be able to rule at all if she tried to totally change the way her people have traditionally lived.

they also have two different approaches to their lesbianism, and those approaches are tied into their leadership as well. averyl’s lesbianism is very visible, something that is inextricable from her masculinity, and i spoke on her old blog about how she would be read very easily as a lesbian by people of the mountain culture, due to the cultural memory of an old, old gender category that had come to designate gnc gay people. because the major landmarks of a chief’s life have to be lived in public, and because averyl has a flair for the dramatic and a love of being a show-off, of course she would have that au where she publicly marries another woman in defiance of all sense. she is “out” as much as it is possible for a historical fantasy type character to be. she incorporates her sexuality into her appropriation/subversion of masculinity and power.

raine, by contrast, is extremely private about her sexuality. despite her uses of violence against men, her leadership of her women is predicated on friendship, bonding, and shared values--on her similarity to them, not her difference. making her sexuality visible would only lead to disintegration and alienation of her bonds with her predominantly heterosexual (or at minimum heteronormative) charges. whereas averyl gains and maintains her leadership by exploiting a typically male expression of authority, raine does so by emphasizing the commonality of women’s experience, by placing herself in the same position as other (heterosexual) women. identifying herself as a lesbian (in whatever expression of such might be available to her at the time) would raise all kinds of homophobic and gendered (cf. wittig) anxieties and even outright destroy their trust in her. (this isn’t to say that averyl doesn’t experience homophobia or Gender Distrust, but that she’s just in a very different position to deal with it.)

of course all of this re: their sexuality is most relevant in their historical (and in averyl’s case, tame of groans) verses, versus their engagement with sexuality in the modern day.

[alwaysfirst]

Importance of Nurturing Entrepreneurship in Young Girls

To affect real change, we need to begin to nurture entrepreneurship in girls when they are in elementary school. We must teach them not only the financial and other skills they will need to succeed, but also to see themselves as entrepreneurs and leaders through hands-on experience and interactions with female role models. It’s a vicious cycle, and the only way to break it is to get more women, including women of color and diverse heritages, into the entrepreneurial pipeline. In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis on entrepreneurship programs for women on college campuses. A number of organizations offer entrepreneurship programs or teaching materials for children and teens. Junior Achievement’s Be Entrepreneurial program and VentureLab each have downloadable curriculums available to educators, for example, and Young Entrepreneurs Academy runs a year-long, after-school program in 168 American communities. Research tells us that girls perform better in girl-only environments, so it is imperative that we support smaller organizations and help them develop more entrepreneurship opportunities for young girls. In this golden age of globalization, digitalization and start-up booms, India is clearly seeing a revolution vis-à-vis women entrepreneurs. Today’s women entrepreneurs do not come only from the established business families or from the higher-income sections of the population, they come from all walks of life and from all parts of the country. From running sports media firms to construction companies and security and detective agencies, women are dabbling into fields that have traditionally been bastions of male domination. The role of women in our society has changed drastically in the past few decades and for the better. Women are now occupying the corporate positions previously regarded as masculine and are outpacing their male counterparts in some areas. The gender stereotypes which were more prevalent in the society decades ago are breaking slowly. Women bring a different set of perspectives to problem solving that can enhance the quality of the solution. Women bring a unique set of issues and experiences that can help in decision making enhancing the quality of the decision. It is observable that women entrepreneurs have proved to be a strong driving force in today‘s corporate world. They are competent to balance their duties of both motherhood and entrepreneurship but they comprise of almost half of all businesses owned today. Woman can pick up a job any day, but if she becomes an entrepreneur she can provide a livelihood to 10 more women. The uncultivated talents of young women can be identified, trained and exploited for various types of industries to increase the productivity in the industrial sector as well as the nation. Now a days even after facing so many obstacles The Indian women is now becoming an educated and economically independent.  Read the full article

[destroyyourbinder]

the girls not like other girls / coming home

One thing a lot of detransitioned and reconciling women have noted is that the only female-centric space they were permitted to have or felt comfortable in was a trans-specific one (i.e. a support group for transmasculine people) and I think this is extremely important to note, whether you are a female person who is trans-identified or an outsider to this whole experience.

As a child, I felt extremely alienated from straight-girl spaces and girl-socializing, even though I had no understanding of myself as a gay kid or as being attracted to women (even though I can see that I was attracted to other girls in retrospect) or even as particularly gender non-conforming. I figured I was "not like other girls", but I had only a crude understanding of this. I was not allowed to express my non-conformity through my appearance-- my mother forced me to wear my hair long and to wear typical girl's clothes, and I was only allowed a certain amount of token resistance before relatively severe abuse kicked in-- so I had little to appeal to in my young brain to explain why I was ostracized from girl groups or why I felt an affinity for boys or fellow strange girls.

I can see now as an adult that there was quite a lot at play: I was awkward and weird in general and had trouble making friends with kids for many reasons, especially with socially astute children who were beginning to learn about and focus on social hierarchy. I found socializing overstimulating and scary in general, and did not want to socialize in a way that involved testing social boundaries and exchanging social information, although I did enjoy the company of my friends. I preferred socializing alongside other children while we had a shared goal, like playing a game of some sort or building a structure. Because a lot of toys and activities intended to inculcate femininity in girl-children are intended to facilitate the former kind of socializing-- such as a jewelry game where girls display how well they can dress themselves according to status-rules and monitor each other's standing, or a kitchen playset where girls are intended to mimic not just making meals but making meals for family members-- I had very little interest in activities designated for girls. I also had a complicated relationship to boy children, where I often thought they were full of shit, boring, and little assholes, but since they were the only ones engaged in things I wanted to do (like jump off the swings) I had to interact with them. I sought out their company and input because even at a very young age I knew male attention and opinions were considered more legitimate, and I figured I could maybe be taken seriously if I spent time with the people who were, well, taken seriously. Maybe they would even approve of me, maybe I could even be better than them. Boy children have intense social structures as well, and they are complicated in their own right; I think some women who prefer or once preferred the company of boys/men like to say their socializing is "simpler" or "easier" or "without drama", but I don't actually think this is true. I think it's easy to forget when socializing with boys or men as a female person that you are not considered the same sort of being as them, and so the fact that it may be easier to interact with boys or men is not a property of men or male socializing in general, but the fact that you are only interacting with a truncated form of their socializing, since you are "only" a girl or woman interfacing with the male world. What I found to be true is that it was sometimes simpler as a female child to interact with boys given that you have no real social position with them-- you have avoided the hierarchy simply by not having the standing to enter one. Boys do not really know how to treat you if you are not readily submitting to a girl role and not easily sexualizable; you sort of fall between the cracks, which can be preferable to being the shittiest girl in a group of girls. I found I was not really at the "bottom" (boys never took me seriously enough to even consider me a true failure) but I could never enter their social structure no matter how hard I tried to play by their rules. I tried to make it clear I had standing with boys through competing with them and trying to outperform them at their own games. Prior to puberty, I tried to compete with boys physically, whether it was by playing bloody knuckles, doing backflips off of the playground equipment, holding races, or doing one-armed pullups. When this no longer worked, I switched primarily to competing with boys and men in intellectual domains, and invested a lot of my self-worth in how good I was compared to boys and men in traditionally male intellectual pursuits like math or logical reasoning, or by competing with the men interested in less masculine areas (but who were still considered the most serious and worthy contenders) like fine arts or writing. I maintained this mentality until I was in my early twenties. I can't say it was a good look.

While I did have some female friends as a child and adolescent, I found it very hard to maintain these friendships, even with other weird girls. There is something inherently anti-supportive and destructive about a friendship with another girl based on how much not-like-the-other-girls you are. I found myself insecure and paranoid that my weird girl friends thought I was too "normal" or too "preppy" or too "girly" for them, that the criticisms and frustrations and vitriol they leveled at girls who ostracized them or who tried to coerce them into femininity work they didn't want to do or who simply made them feel bad were also things that applied to me. I found myself frustrated, too, at my friends for "betraying me" by buying into things or behaving in ways that escalated my insecurity that I was somehow actually, truly inferior for being a girl, and one who couldn't even girl right at that. We were all caught in a bind where we believed both that girls were stupid, but also that we were freaks for personally resisting what we thought was stupid about girls. I can now recognize this as the classic psychology of oppressed people, born of continual abuse by hierarchical superiors and horizontal hostility between people frantically attempting to avoid this abuse and make sense of their situation in a way that allows them to survive it without summoning punishment for resistance. Grooming girls, particularly those prone to be resistant to patriarchy, into this psychology is convenient: it prevents them from recognizing what is really going on and from having solidarity with and compassion for each other. Instead of fighting who was hurting us, we were occupied with fighting each other over who was too obsessed with boys and who was trying too hard to be cool. The trick about this thinking was this: it wasn't that Christina *wasn't* too obsessed with boys. She was, and it was hurting her directly, as well as damaging her long-term development into a woman with a strong sense of dignity and personal agency, and it meant she was willing to damage her friendships for the sake of a dipshit who would dump her in two weeks. We just took the situation as a personal affront to our insecurities about it being proved Cosmically True that girls were stupid sluts, rather than digging deep and giving a shit about Christina and putting the blame where it belonged: the teenage boy four years older than her. Ironically, the straight girly-types were in some ways more successful in resisting patriarchal pressures than we were: at least they had each others’ backs when they complained about boys with each other, at least they were able to share strategies for mitigating the worst of the misogyny they faced. We were left in the cold.

Bizarrely, when I started interacting with other female people who were basically the same Weird Girls, but who didn't call themselves such, those who framed their issues as a gender identity or gender dysphoria problem rather than in the misogynistic way I had framed it in my childhood, I got along much better with them and felt much more understood. It was partially this feeling, that of finally understanding other female people, not being severely ostracized, and having the relief of not being so paranoid of other female people that I was alienating them pre-emptively, that convinced me that my experiences were transgender experiences rather than "just" “regular girl” experiences. Because misogyny had been removed from the table almost entirely-- both in the sense that we were all female people together and that we were not framing all of our experiences, including with other female people, through a lens of potential sexist violations of our humanity-- I felt like I could relax for once in my life. I was no longer obsessive about policing myself and the female people around me. With no male people around, and no longer worried about whether my feelings and reactions had anything to do with my inherent inferiority or not, I was no longer afraid of what my interactions with others indicated about who I really was. Of course, if you stay in transgender community long enough, a lot of these anxieties will resurface in your thoughts and in social hierarchy. Who hasn't seen a literal dick-measuring contest on an FTM message board or trans men accusing other trans men of being "trenders"? But by then, you are no longer permitted to name what's going on, nor have an inkling of where it comes from. Because being transgender has nothing to do with sexism, it's just a medical condition. Or an identity. And men aren’t catty, they don't do that sort of social thing anyway... right?

Sometimes this is what I think people mean when they say discovering they are transgender is like "coming home". It's like taking your shoes off or sliding into bed. It's relief, a relaxation of something painful, annoying, constricting. But turns out I never knew a comfortable home, so I was easily able to feel at home in a home where I was afraid, confused, and never quite clear what was going on. Was I a trender or was the guy shouting about trenders a trender? Did I really belong with these other female people or was I a faker, a poser, a loser here, too? Did I have to believe that misandry was real and defend cis men's behavior to protect myself, or did I have to flagellate myself for having the "privilege" of failing to be feminine enough?

Sound familiar yet?

When detransitioned and reconciling women discuss how having relationships with other women is healing, this is a large part of what they mean. They mean both the good relationships-- healing, genuinely supportive female friendships-- and finally getting a radically honest perspective on bad relationships, too. I had to pop out of understanding myself as "not a girl" or "not a woman" to even acknowledge that I was having classic girl-girl, woman-woman, female-female dynamics in my relationships, nonetheless see how this dynamic played a role in my disidentification and general life course. I could not see that I held responsibility for how I behaved in these relationships, nor have compassion for both other women and myself, until I was able to first see that I was not a separate type of being from the girls for whom I once held contempt. I don't think disidentified and/or trans-identified female people are much different from female people who recognize themselves as women for this reason: female people who call themselves such still separate themselves into "bad women" and "good women", women who get into trouble and women who don't, women who sacrifice their own selfhood and the women who hold onto something. There are whores and madonnas, but also there's prudes and girls who actually put out; wives who take care of their husbands and wives who need to shape up and the wives who need a life; the boy crazy girls or the sad old cougars, the women who settled down, and independent women who have some self-respect; there's women who know how to do their face and hair, and women who don't take care of themselves, but there's the women who try too hard and they look like clowns, you know.

I catch myself doing this, even still, but I know we're all doing it, and I know why. I know I'm not not-a-woman for being insecure about how much femininity I've internalized-- that's universal-- I'm just one of the women who erred on the side of judging myself for giving up my self rather than judging myself most harshly for whether or not I stayed out of trouble.

[slobozan-shitposting]

No-no, that's not what I was talking about.

I wanted to portray Lotara more realistically: she's a woman who's a part of a male dominated hierarchical institution and she occupies position traditionally reserved for men. I explore how systematic misogyny affects her and her perception of herself. I took inspiration from Casca (berserk) and Oscar François de Jarjayes (the rose of Versailles), so in my interpretation, Lotara wants to be treated like a battle brother who just happened to be too unlucky to be born female, yet though the legionaries respect her, they can't treat a baseline human *and* a woman like a SM.

In Ukrainian language masculine grammatical gender is traditionally used as both masculine and neutral, while feminine is exclusively for women. So when I describe her perspective, I use masculine form for "captain" to show that she doesn't want her sex/gender to be seen and marked in speech.

I've finally finished a fanfic (f/f and wh40k), in fact, my first since ehhh middle school. It's in Ukrainian, my native language, and right now I'm trying to translate it so English speaking part of the fandom can fall for my yuri propaganda too. The problem is that Ukrainian has grammatical gender and in some parts of the text it works better than without it in English. There's a difference between "she was Lotara's only friend (feminine)" and "she was Lotara's only friend (neutral)", how the hell do I show it in English? Or another example: calling Lotara "lady captain" or just "captain Sarrin" makes sense in Ukrainian, but sounds strange in English. My fanfic is about a woman in a position traditionally reserved for men, it's about gender-sex first and foremost, so it's really important here.

Feels like it will be a tough work and I'm gonna use outdated English words more than I normally do.

[culturalsociologyblog-blog]

“Do you really need that much space?”: The sexual politics of manspreading

By Fernanda Rodriguez R.

At the end of September 2018, a video by Russian activist Anna Doygalyuk went viral (Toronto Sun, 2018). In the said video, it is possible to observe Doygalyuk throwing a liquid in the pelvic area of various men on public transport in order to interrupt their manspreading: the male practice or tendency to sit in public spaces with their legs wide open, occupying at least two single seats (Jane, 2017). During the “demonstration”, Doygalyuk accuses the men in her country of gender aggression and her obligation to do something about it (Torornto Sun, 2018). However, one of Doygalyuk’s victims in the video, Stanislav Kudrin, confessed right after the video went viral that the stunt was staged (Torornto Sun, 2018). Despite this, manspreading remains a popular and controversial subject among both men and women. Indeed, the practice was even outlawed from public transportation in Madrid during the summer of 2017, citing the campaign “#MadridSinManspreading”[1] as the reason for the ban (Ahluwalia, 2017). Consequently, theories on gender and symbolic interactionism may provide an interesting outlook concerning this practice, due to the relevance of commonplace interactions and the sexual politics involving the microaggression[2] that is manspreading.  

 Video: Manspreaders on the Subway

 According to Mead (1962), the self is wholeheartedly linked to the social experience. Individuals are able to acknowledge that within any given society there are certain values and norms, which need to be integrated into the self. This process of socialization persists as long as people engage in social interactions (Mead, 1962). Therefore, Mead’s theory presents itself as a gateway for social interactionism, which serves as a micro-theoretical schema that analyzes the actions and perceptions of individuals in relation to one another as the process that shapes social reality (Blumer, 1969). Likewise, Goffman (1959) argues that to better understand the mundane interactions of people, it is best to think of them as actors conducting a performance. Namely, individuals actively devise particular impressions in the presence of others. A decisive element of these impressions are sign vehicles, such as clothes, ethnicity or gender (Goffman, 1959). In fact, gender represents a crucial feature in an individual’s performance.    

According to West and Zimmerman (1987), gender is an acquired and enacted status, unlike sex, which is based in biologically received genitalia. They view gender as a resulting element of social circumstances since the classification of individuals into labels such as “man” or “woman” is conducted in a clear social manner, which makes them appear natural thus reinforcing the apotheosis of gender. In other words, the implication that gender distinctions are an intrinsic feature of human beings reinforce and maintain the patriarchal social order (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Moreover, in a social structure in which men exert their dominance and profit from it, the modification of such a system remains disadvantageous for men even when this transformation would benefit society as a whole (Connell, 1987). Accordingly, Jane (2017) argues that manspreading is a clear instance of latent sexism against women since it not solely displays the privileged status of these men, but is also devised as an effective symbol of what it means to be male in a social space.

The problem of manspreading, however, is not a “new” phenomenon as illustrated by a cartoon-campaign founded by CityLab dated back to 1918 (Grant, 2016). Likewise, feminist photographer Marianne Wex conducted a thorough photographic study of the subject in 1979 in her book “Let’s Take Back Our Space: Female and Male Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures” (Bridges, 2017). Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the issue has escalated in recent years. Previous research conducted on the subject of body language has stated that positions involving the “exposure” of genitalia, as well as ample movements are more frequent in men than in women (Davis & Weitz, 1981). Furthermore, historically there has been an enduring social narrative for females of all ages to embrace closed and restrained positions in order to avoid any public display of control and openness (Jane, 2017). To many, these ideas may seem archaic and outdated, but empirical evidence has demonstrated that women’s physical stance nowadays remains in alignment with these confining “ladylike” poses (Jane, 2017). The human body is otherwise disciplined to the structures of inequality within the social order, and the idea that men require - and are entitled to - more space is one type of privilege from which plenty of men benefit (Bridges, 2017). Symbolically, positions that are broad and provide a significant degree of exposure are typically adopted by dominant individuals, while positions involving closed limbs and small gestures are common among deferential and meek individuals that make use of less amount of space (Jane, 2017). The perquisites linked with power carry the implication that individuals may exert their “claim” to behave in a particular manner without taking into consideration the social expectations regarding a specific situation. Therefore, a man that engages in manspreading can be perceived as an individual that it is not solely employing a gender-power marker, but that is also commanding the physical space: the adoption of such a dominant posture has the dual and co-constitutive function of both stimulating and reflecting a state of control (Jane, 2017).

Feminism allows individuals within this social order to challenge the current inequitable structure (West & Zimmerman, 1987). After all, as stated by West and Zimmerman (1987): “gender is a powerful ideological device, which produces, reproduces, and legitimates the choices and limits that are predicated…(p.147)”. Accordingly, feminist activists and groups have adopted a series of strategies in order to fight the “epidemic” of manspreading. First, there is the popular trend of “naming and shaming”: in said practice female activist have opted for taking forthright videos or photographs -occasionally with a somewhat humorous tone and other times in more seriousness- of men displaying obvious signs of manspreading (Jane, 2017). Later, these images are uploaded to social media platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr, among others. A second technique used by anti-manspreaders is that of directly confronting the culprits while also explaining to them their wrongdoing. Lastly, other activists have decided to “fight fire with fire” by sitting in a manspreading-manner on public spaces, sometimes even engaging in “leg battles” with the original manspreaders who try to intrude in their personal space (Jane, 2017). For instance, according to an article titled “Watch out, manspreaders: The womanspreading fightback starts now” by The Guardian, women in various parts of the world are appropriating the practice in the name of feminism (Sanghani, 2017). Big celebrity names such as Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, and Chrissy Teigen are rejecting the narrative that states that women should sit with modesty and coyness, instead they are sitting with their legs open and sharing the outcome online, thus motivating hundreds more to follow in their footsteps (Sanghani, 2017).  

Even if these encounters can be deemed as trivial when they occur as isolated cases of “micro” sexism, Jane (2017) argues that the rationale behind these protests is that when coupled together all these isolated incidents comprise a significant social issue. Namely, a single male commuter extending his dominance over several seats on a train, bus, or tram while other travelers are forced to stand may not be considered more than a small inconvenience at the time. However, this small gesture is but a symptom of a more substantial issue regarding the preservation and imposition of a male-dominated social order. Moreover, Jane (2017) argues that the development of a pattern concerning these “minor” actions may evolve into a powerful emblem of “toxic masculinity”.  

Video: When a "lady" manspreads

Nevertheless, the effort of these feminist to stop the practice of manspreading are not without opposition. While the feminist discourses have often made use of scholarly literature to support their claims, most of the claims produced by the male opposition have dubious argumentation (Jane, 2017). The most popular counter-claim is that men require to sit with enough space between their legs in order to guarantee the comfort and protection of their genitals. However, this claim has proved to be completely unsustainable by actual medical data, which conforms with West and Zimmerman (1987) argument regarding the naturalization of constructed criteria that comes with an individual’s biological sex. Meanwhile, others argue that the issue is a matter of etiquette and thus, should be genderless. Moreover, the discourse around manspreading is also often disregarded as merely another rant created by the desperate and troubled minds of feminists. In the meantime, what is certain is that those female activists concerned with the issue of manspreading have been successful at raising awareness regarding the prevalence and universality of this disrespectful practice since campaigns to “stop the spread” have gained a lot of negative and positive media coverage on the international stage (Jane, 2017).  

In conclusion, when considering the handling of space in relation to the performance of gender, the matter of power becomes fundamental since space communicates a non-spoken message of individual status (Jane, 2017; Macionis & Plummer, 2012). Arguably, males tend to occupy more space than females, whose femininity has been traditionally associated with how little space they cover (i.e. the positive connotations of the word petite to describe feminine-looking women). Meanwhile, masculinity is often connected to the portion of the area a man dominates (Macionis & Plummer, 2012). Through these interactions that are being challenged by the feminist movement, from which manspreading is a sterling example of “doing gender” in modern times, it is possible to observe the power relations in the everyday of men and women. Women, who more often than not, see their plea for privacy and personal space overtaken by men.    

 References

Ahluwalia, R. (2017, June 8). Madrid bans manspreading on public transport. Independent. October 3,

2018 from https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mandspreading-madrid-spain-ban-public-transport-bus-metro-behaviour-etiquette-a7779041.html

Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Berkeley: University of California Press

Bridges, T. (2017, February 8). Possibly the most exhaustive study of “manspreading” ever conducted. The Society Pages. Retrieved October 5, 2018 from https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2017/02/08/possibly-the-most-exhaustive-study-of-manspreading-ever-conducted/

Connell, R. (1987). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Davis, M., & Weitz, S. (1981). Sex differences in body movements and positions. In C. Mayo & N. M.Henley (Eds.), Gender and Nonverbal Behavior (pp. 81–92). New York: Springer.

Jane, E.A. (2017). ‘Dude … stop the spread’: Antagonism, agonism, and #manspreading on social media. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 20(5), 459-475. doi:10.1177/1367877916637151

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Anchor

Grant, M. (2016, February 10). Anti-manspreading cartoon from 1918 shows that manspreading has been going on for longer than you thought. Bustle. Retrieved October 5, 2018 from https://www.bustle.com/articles/140936-anti-manspreading-cartoon-from-1918-shows-that-manspreading-has-been-going-on-for-longer-than-you-thought

Macionis, J., & Plummer, K. (2012). Sociology: A global introduction (5th ed.). Harlow, England: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Mead, G.H. (1962). Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Charles W. Morrised. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Sanghani, R. (2017, November 23). Watch out, manspreaders: The womanspreading fightback starts now. The Guardian. Retrieved October 5, 2018 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/23/manspreading-womanspreading-fightback-metoo-resistance-physical

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286

Toronto Sun. (2018, September 27). Watch: Russian woman allegedly pours bleach on 'manspreading' train passengers. World News. Retrieved October 3, 2018 from https://torontosun.com/news/world/watch-russian-woman-allegedly-pours-bleach-on-manspreading-train-passengers/wcm/218dcb14-55bb-4665-80be-402c351b2d5e

West, C. & Zimmerman, D.H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125-151.doi:10.1177/0891243287001002002

[1] In English, it translates to #MadridWithoutManspreading

[2] Microaggression is defined in Sue et al. (2007) as: “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative insults…(p.271)” against marginalized individuals or groups.

[jkottke]

"Today's Masculinity Is Stifling"

For The Atlantic, Sarah Rich writes about how stifling masculinity can be for some children and their parents.

As much as feminism has worked to rebalance the power and privilege between the sexes, the dominant approach to launching young women into positions that garner greater respect, higher status, and better pay still mostly maintains the association between those gains and masculine qualities. Girls' empowerment programs teach assertiveness, strength, and courage -- and they must to equip young women for a world that still overwhelmingly favors men.

Last year, when the Boys Scouts of America announced that they would begin admitting girls into their dens, young women saw a wall come down around a territory that was now theirs to occupy. Parents across the country had argued that girls should have equal access to the activities and pursuits of boys' scouting, saying that Girl Scouts is not a good fit for girls who are "more rough and tumble." But the converse proposition was essentially non-existent: Not a single article that I could find mentioned the idea that boys might not find Boy Scouts to be a good fit -- or, even more unspeakable, that they would want to join the Girl Scouts.

If it's difficult to imagine a boy aspiring to the Girl Scouts' merit badges (oriented far more than the boys' toward friendship, caretaking, and community), what does that say about how American culture regards these traditionally feminine arenas? And what does it say to boys who think joining the Girl Scouts sounds fun? Even preschool-age boys know they'd be teased or shamed for disclosing such a dream.

While society is chipping away at giving girls broader access to life's possibilities, it isn't presenting boys with a full continuum of how they can be in the world. To carve out a masculine identity requires whittling away everything that falls outside the norms of boyhood. At the earliest ages, it's about external signifiers like favorite colors, TV shows, and clothes. But later, the paring knife cuts away intimate friendships, emotional range, and open communication.

Rich talks about her young son's current penchant for wearing dresses and wishes there was room in society for activity like that.

What I want for him, and for all boys, is for the process of becoming men to be expansive, not reductive.

Reading this, I thought about the amazing one-step process for getting a bikini body I read recently: "Put a bikini on your body." It's not perfect and this is a lot to ask of society, but perhaps an analogous definition for masculinity is that when a man or boy or someone who identifies as male does something, that's masculine.1 Chugging a beer is masculine. Wearing a dress is masculine. Being brave is masculine. Crying is masculine. Playing sports is masculine. Not playing sports is masculine. Comforting a friend whose team lost before celebrating with his team is masculine. Anything and everything is masculine. You might argue that broadening the definition of the word to this degree diminishes its power to denote anything meaningful. And you'd be right, that's the point.

Correspondingly, when a woman, a girl, or someone who identifies as female does something, that's feminine. And when someone who identifies as, for instance, genderqueer does something, that's genderqueer. Playing sports is feminine, wearing a dress is genderqueer, etc.↩