#would start to cast doubts on what the roles of men (and by extension women but they only touched on women and *female masculinity*

[variousqueerthings]

the 1973 discussion between four trans women on the BBC is going to be sitting in my brain for the next million years

[script-a-world]

(sorry this is long) I'm creating a fantasy matriarchal society that's a combination of like America post WW2 and like the amazons/valkyries crossed with magical girls. I could use some help figuring out the gender dynamics, since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have the men be primary caregivers (1/?)

since there’s no reason to assume that the gender that gives birth has to be the caregivers) or if I should go the “matriarchal society would value childrearing above other jobs” route. Some thoughts I had: Women are the main magic-users in society (magical girl/amazons blessed directly by the god who rules the city with power)and that perhaps all young women are expected to go through military service of some sort before becoming matrons, politicians and doctors. (2/?)

Maybe women are associated with Life and Death and “important duties” that revolve around them, including duties regarding both killing and saving lives. So healing, leading armies, fighting, hunting, childbirth (possibly care?) and politics are feminine jobs, while “lesser duties” that revolve more around menial labor are relegated to men (manual labor, maintenance, ‘uneducated’ jobs, support jobs like scribe and secretary, cooking, cleaning, perhaps some jobs like fashion design or art). (3/?)

Do you think this is a good balance? What are some other ways I could divide gender roles? The world situation is a magical land with about early 20th century level tech (trains and private schools and like phones/radios).Also, what is the best way to objectify men in this society? I was thinking of making it so men are seen as useless/only for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure and siring children to women. (4/?)

They don’t’ actually create children or take the ‘important jobs’ (the poor dears just don’t have the brains for it, they’re too simple and direct, men don’t have the emotional maturity to handle serious issues, they lack empathy, they only want sex anyway so it’s not like you need to worry about their emotional needs, etc). I’d love some suggestions on how a society like this might work or if there are other ways to divide the gender roles, (5/?)

as well as some ways men might experience objectification in society. How would fashion be different, and how would this society put pressure on men to look or act in certain ways (and women as well). Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry for the long question(6/?)

Mod Miri Note: If you have a question that requires multiple asks, please use the google form! That way there’s no risk of parts of the question being lost.

Tex: “Do you think this is a good balance?” No, I do not. I disagree with the notion that a group of people ought to be objectified, neglected, abused, pigeon-holed, or otherwise mistreated under the guise of inversion as a way to tout a certain prescription of thought. I think this methodology perpetuates stereotypes, and with stereotypes come all the -isms that are used as excuses to treat people poorly just because they’re different from the originating group.

I’m going to be radical and say “none of the above”. There’s a few reasons for my answer, but aside from the brief overview in the previous paragraph, let me go through and try responding to all of your points in a more precise manner.

Let’s start with American culture post WWII - and I’m going to assume that, because of this choice, you’re working from an American perspective. This is important! But I’ll handle that detail in a bit.

Post-WWII culture is heavily influenced by WWII culture. For women, this meant enlistment in the military, as well as filling the gaps in the domestic labor force left by men being shipped off (History.com, The Atlantic). Their service in the military - quite often voluntary - was as critical and crucial as their domestic work (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2, Wikipedia 3). They usually received lower pay than men, true (though interestingly the women in the UK were often treated better; Striking Women), though governments of the time admitted that without women the war effort would have crumpled.

Rosie the Riveter is a popular piece of propaganda (where it was also considered patriotic for women to join the workforce and military service; National Women’s History Museum), but don’t let that dissuade you from thinking that women were not recognized for other types of work during the war. Many women in the US were recognized for their military service (USO), and other women’s histories endure today - Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Wikipedia), Vitka Kempner (Wikipedia), and Virginia Hall (Wikipedia). I’m going to toss in the official synopsis of Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in her own military to round things out (The Royal Family), complete with a picture of her in uniform (Wikipedia).

Many women after the war went back to strictly domestic duties, and I think that parallels their wartime efforts - both situations are of the “all hands on deck” type, but the play of gender roles here means that the duties of a functioning society are divvied up by different functional spheres - and make no mistake, men and women relied on each other equally as much to cover the gaps, despite the sexism inherent in modern Western society. The difference between war and non-war time cultures was that the latter wasn’t necessarily cultivated by patriotism that could unite the different “factions”. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History gives a thorough examination of this topic.

The following era - typified by the birth of the Baby Boomer generation - saw a marked increase in economic prosperity (Wikipedia). With that came increased social mobility for women (Citation 1), usually catalyzed by the actions of their fathers (Citation 2). This may typically be achieved by consistent, conscientious public policy formation (Citation 3). In short, many cultures - if they haven’t already - are realizing that it’s good for business to let women control how they participate in society and the flow of money.

In the US, this was precipitated by the boom of social development (American History; archived version). Aside from the Truman administration negotiating price fixing to prevent inflation, a significant factor was the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (AKA the G.I. Bill). This primarily benefited the Greatest Generation, though other pertinent legislation by the 79th Congress benefited the Silent Generation onwards: the Fair Deal, Revenue Act of 1948, Taft-Hartley Act, Employment Act of 1946, National School Lunch Act, and Hobbs Act.

It’s debatable how well this impacted long-term economic development, considering the almost immediate rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1947, which was heavily intertwined with the Truman Doctrine that precipitated the Cold War. The results of the war, at least economically, were… mixed (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2). I have no doubt that this impacted the social mobility of women in all affected countries - which is all of them, but I’m sure hairs could be split on this if you wish.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s tackle the Amazons.

The modern, popular interpretation (that is slow to be shaken by archaeological evidence) is mostly mythological (Wikipedia). While some ideas are thrown in the way of a Minoan Crete ancestry to the myth, there are more similarities drawn to the Scythian and Samartian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe (CNET). It’s possible that instead of the equally-extreme pole end of the gender dichotomy that is patriarchy-matriarchy, the Scythians just scandalized the Athenians with a comparatively more fluid society (Smithsonian Magazine).

As for Valkyries… there’s been a revival of them in pop culture, probably as a net-casting to see what’s out there aside from Amazons. TVTropes covers the many, many ways media utilizes them as a trope, to varying degrees of mythological and cultural accuracy. As they state, valkyries are a form of psychopomp, as they decide who among the battlefield’s dead will go to Valhalla (ruled by Odin) or Fólkvangr (ruled by Freya). Freya seems to have assumed the “type” (as opposed to characteristics salient to a particular individual) of a valkyrie, as the female counterpart the warrior archetype. To wit, Freya herself may be a type (Wikipedia).

Here’s where the issue gets thorny - modern popular understanding of valkyries, and by extension Scandinavian women, is skewed through the modern lens.

@fjorn-the-skald has a lovely series called Viking History: Post-by-Post, or An Informal Crash Course & A Historical Guide to the Vikings, that typically focuses on medieval Iceland. In his post “Lesson 13.c - Women in the Viking Age, Part III: Were Women “Vikings”?”, discusses the particular penchant of modern times to romanticize and/or skew history to their own biases - in this instance, how medieval Icelandic women functioned in their culture, as well as how valkyrie myths play into this.

The TL;DR of that is: “viking” women were a societal anomaly, the battlefield was a male domain (and they were expected to die on it), a woman’s prowess of the domestic sphere was highly respected to a level often equivalent to men, and the domestic sphere was the sphere of commerce. Scandinavian culture prized strong women, just as they prized strong men, and their culture rested upon the concept of different genders having their own distinct, complementary, and equal domains.

Fjörn builds upon this history in an ask about gender roles outside the usual dichotomy of male-female. Valkyries, and shield-maidens, may be classed as a third gender in medieval Scandinavian culture, because women were temporarily occupying the male role in their society. While valkyries are of divine origin, shield-maidens are not, though they seem to have taken on a supernatural bent by performing feminine qualities while living in the male sphere (something that they can literally wear, by the donning of their armor).

That probably comes across as distasteful to, especially, a modern American perspective, but many ancient cultures are like that. There’s a footnote on that ask about links to a contemporary perspective of same-sex relationships, as well, to round out that talking point.

With those historical and mythological details discussed, let’s move on to magical girls.

Interestingly, the genre and trope derive from the American TV show Bewitched (Nippon.com). Its evolution reflected Japan’s changing tone about female sexuality, focusing on girls.  Magical Girl doesn’t seem to be intended to attract the male gaze in a sexual light - and in fact was generated as a form of female empowerment by by way of growing up (TVTropes), but it seems to happen anyways (TVTropes).

Magical girls, as a genre, originated in the 1960s - the archetypical Sailor Moon encompasses not only magical girls, but also the kawaii aesthetic. Kawaii, incidentally, followed after the magical girl trope, and plays upon women performing as girls in society.

As magical girls are intended for young girls, a demographic known as shōjo, it is considered a subgenre of the target audience. Please note that shōnen'ai (Fanlore) and yaoi (Fanlore) are also subgenres of shōjo.

For some context, the adult female target audience is known as josei, the young adult men is known as shōnen, and adult male audience is known as seinen. Many manga and anime are often misattributed to the wrong category, so it helps to know which is which, and why.

Kumiko Saito argues (through an unfortunately paywalled article that I’m more than willing to disseminate to those without JSTOR access) that magical girls reinforce gender stereotypes as well as fetishize young female bodies. She argues this point more eloquently than I can, so I’ll be quoting a few sections below.

Page 148 (7 of 23 on the PDF):

The 1960s “witch” housewife theme waned quickly in the United States, but various cultural symbolisms of magic smoothly translated into the Japanese climate, leading to Japans four-decade-long obsession with the magical girl. Bewitched incorporated the concept of magic as female power to be renounced after marriage, thereby providing “a discursive site in which feminism (as female power) and femininity has been negotiated” (Moseley 2002, 403) in the dawning of Americas feminist era. Japans magical girls represented a similar impasse of fitting into female domesticity, continued to fascinate Japanese society, and came to define the magical girl genre. In direct contrast to the American heroines Samantha and Jeannie, however, whose strife arose from the antagonism between magic (as power) and the traditional gender role as wife or fiancée, the magical girls dilemma usually lies between female adulthood and the juvenile female stage prior to marriage, called shõjo. In other words, the magical girl narratives often revolve around the magical freedom of adolescence prior to the gendered stage of marriage and motherhood, suggesting the difficulty of imagining elements of power and defiance beyond the point of marriage. In fact, these programs were broadcast exactly when the rate of love-based marriage started to surpass that of miai (arranged marriage),4 which implies that the magical girl anime, founded on the strict ideological division between shõjo and wife/mother, may have been an anxious reaction to the emergent phase of romance.

Page 150 (9 of 23 on the PDF):

The combination of magical empowerment and shõjo-ness framed by the doomed nature of transient girlhood naturally created ambivalent, messages in Akko-chan as well. In the societal milieu in which Japan was undergoing the politically turbulent era of Marxist student movements at the largest scale in the postwar era, Akko-chan’s super- human ability to transform into anyone (or anything) is quite revolutionary, implying a sense of women’s liberation. Despite this potential, her metamorphic ability never threatens gender models, as she typically dreams of becoming a princess, a bride, or a female teacher she respects. The use of magic is also largely limited to humanitarian community services in town. Akko-chan’s symbolic task throughout the series focuses on how to steer her power to serve her friends and family, leading to the final episode in which she relinquishes magic to save her father. Akko-chan embraces the cross-generic mismatch between the radical idea of empowering a girl with superhuman ability and the hahamono [mother genre] sentimentalism idealizing women’s self-sacrifice. All in all, the new setting adopted in this series, that a mediocre girl accidentally gains magic, became a useful mechanism for the underlying theme that the heroine is foredoomed to say farewell to magic in the end. This rhetorical device transforms latent power of the amorphous girl into the reappreciation of traditional gender norms by equating magic with shõjo-hood to be given up at a certain stage.

Saito discusses the thematic shifts in the magical girl subgenre in the 1980s to a more sexualized view, and the according rise of both an older audience and otaku fans, the latter of whom, she clarifies, make a habit of recontextualizing canon to categorize characters into stereotypes that are stripped of the majority of their original context.

On pages 153-154 (12-13 of 23 on the PDF):

The conventions of the magical girl genre transformed significantly against this paradigm shift. Both Minky Momo and Creamy Mami originally targeted children, recording a decent outcome in business and eventually leading to the revival of the genre. Because the plots are directly built on the genre clichés, however, the jokes and sarcasm of many episodes appear comprehensible only to adult viewers equipped with the knowledge of the Töei magical girls. The intrigue of these programs largely lies in the way they parody and mock the established genre conventions, especially the restrictive function of magic and the meaning of transformation. The genre is now founded on the expectation that the adult viewer has acquired a diachronic fan perspective to fetishize both the characters and the text’s meanings.

Creamy Mami presents the story of fourth-grader Yū, who gains magical power that enables her to turn into a sixteen-year-old girl. Yū’s magical power is more restrictive than Momo’s, for her superhuman capacity simply means metamorphosis into her adult form, who happens to become an idol singer called Mami. Given that the magic’s ability is self-oriented cosmetic effect and bodily maturation, the heroine’s ultimate goal by means of magic is to grow old enough to attract her male friend Toshio, who neglects Yū’s latent charm but falls in love with the idol Mami. The series concludes when Yū loses her magic, which correlates to Toshio’s realization that Yū is his real love. Mami’s thematic messages teach the idea that magic does not bring much advantage or power after all, or rather, magic serves as an obstacle for the appreciation of the truly magical period called shõjo. The heroine gains magic to prove, although retroactively, the importance of adolescence preceding the possession of “magic” that enables (and forces) female maturation.

It’s noted in the article that the 1990s-2000s period received criticism for showing a physical maturation of girls, so codified euphemisms via garment changes such as additional frills and curled hair were used instead. This “third-wave” magical girl challenged standing norms of its predecessors by doing things such as likening adult responsibilities (“childrearing and job training”) as a sort of game, as well as the transformation implying that the character’s power is in being herself, something that juxtaposes previous norms.

Due to shifting power dynamics and other changes in Japan’s culture, it became more common for boys to become magical girls as well, further separating the magical girl concept from a strict reflection of gender roles. As such, Japanese culture - insofar as my English-based research can guide me - no longer immediately implies a direct and distinct correlation between magical girls and the female gender.

An analysis of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM) by Tate James (2017; PDF) discusses an additional dimension of the magical girl genre. Two pertinent points of the piece is that 1.) PMMM dismantles archetypes pitting women against girls, and 2.) PMMM reinforces the gender stereotype that the best type of girl is a passive girl.

Now for the issue you’ve raised about who ought to be the primary caregiver of children.

Consistent, immediate, and continuous interaction between a mother and her child benefits both of them (Citation 4, Scientific American 1, Live Science, Citation 5, Scientific American 2, UNICEF, WHO). Mothers have a distinct neurobiological makeup that predisposes them toward caring for infants (Citation 6), and likewise infants have a predisposed preference to their mother’s voice and heartbeat (Citation 7). I would like to think that is sufficient evidence as to why nearly all cultures encourage mothers as the primary caregivers.

This said, cultivation of a father-child dyad is immensely beneficial to the child (Citation 8, Citation 9), and can alleviate the effect of maternal depression on the child (ScienceDaily). Partnered men residing with children have lower levels of testosterone but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Citation 10). It’s interesting to note that higher prolactin levels in the mother’s breastmilk has a correspondingly higher level of sociosexual activity with their partner in cotton-top tamarins, which stimulates pair bonding (Citation 11), as well as in other species (Citation 12).

Paternal postpartum depression is recently recognized in fathers, to severe and reverberating deleterious effects on themselves and their family (Citation 13). Screening tools for detecting depression in Swedish fathers is not sufficiently developed, and many men may be passed over despite reaching cut-off suggestions in other criteria for depression (Citation 14).

It has been observed that while human mother and fathers have the similar oxytocin pathways, the exhibit different parenting behaviours when exposed to elevated levels of oxytocin - primarily that fathers will react with high stimulatory behaviour and exploratory play (Wikipedia).

Men being socialized in a culture of stoicism and an encouraged reaction pattern to violence have poor mental health that can culminate into death and other long-term effects (Citation 15). Suicide in the US is currently the leading cause of death at time of posting this response, that the total suicide rate increased 31% from 2001-2017, and in 2017 male rates were nearly four times higher than females (NIMH).

On the topic of magical culture: it’s incredibly difficult to research because it’s a component of overall culture, and one that’s not typically available to strangers/foreigners/the uninitiated. As such, a lot of authors default to what they already know. It’s not a bad thing, but if someone wants to reach outside their comfort zone, they’re going to have some trouble.

I’m going to go off the three, four-ish, cultures you’ve already come to us with: American, Scandinavian, Scythian/Samartian, and Japanese just to round things out.

For a very, very rough overview of America, we have:

Native Americans of the contiguous US

Hawai’i

Alaska

Whatever the colonizing peoples brought over (including, but not limited to, English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian)

Whatever the myriad cultures of Africa brought over as slaves

Hispanic

NB: I’ve put Hawai’i and Alaska as separate items because they’re not part of the contiguous US.

European settlers were of a few groups:

The merchants working on charters

Indentured servants from the merchants’ homelands

Slavs

Immigrants in post-colonial eras

This is an important distinction because 1.) contemporary culture matters a lot politically, 2.) how people came to the US determined how they and their family were treated, and 3.) the contemporary job culture determined their social class.

(Slavs, as a note, are the origin of the English word “slave”, something that Western Europeans historically liked to propagate.)

I’m not going to go into the details of everything the US has to offer in terms of cultural diversity aside from a nudge in the direction of Santería. What you pick up to research is up to you.

Scandinavian folk magic is known as “trolldom” (Swedish-language Wikipedia), and the region was known for their cunningfolk. Please note that klok/-a, klog/-e, and related words relates to the English word cloak, and these people are so named because wearing one was an integral part of how they interacted with the supernatural.

The InternetArchive has a book (albeit in Swedish) about the history of magic in Sweden, which is available in multiple formats. If you’d prefer to have something in English, you can either buy this book, or inform your library you’d like to them to buy it for you.

I’m a little surprised you hadn’t mentioned either the völva (Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia) or seiðr (Wikipedia), as they’re quite a well-known part of Scandinavian folk culture. Fjörn, as always, is my first stop for this area of research, with the post “Lesson 7 - Viking Spirituality”, the Víkingabók Database, the tag of Old Norse words, and the post “Norðurbók: A List of the Tales and Sagas of Icelanders” as incredibly good starting points. I encourage you to peruse them, especially because the words you learn will help you be more precise during research.

The Scythian culture is quite far reaching, as they had occupied most of the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, and much of this area can be found in modern-day countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, among others. Because of how far their peoples spread out, the Scythians intermixed with their neighbors, and as such there are sub-groups to the culture.

The Sarmatians were more Russian, as that’s where a large amount of their territory laid, and were absorbed into early Slavic culture. Both their and the overall Scythian language group is eastern Iranian.

In order to help you orient yourself, here’s a map from Wikipedia:

Description: Historical spread of Iranian peoples/languages: Scythia, Sarmatia, Bactria and the Parthian Empire in about 170 BC (evidently before the Yuezhi invaded Bactria). Modern political boundaries are shown to facilitate orientation.

Japanese magical culture is intrinsically tied to their religion, and as such it would be beneficial to read about Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. The wiki for Japanese mythology is a thorough primer, though if you get stuck, then I’m sure @scriptmyth would be glad to help you on not only this culture, but others.

As for the jobs you’ve proposed - I’m going to jump right into scribes because the irony of that is it’s historically a male-dominated job, and is the progenitor of jobs such as “public servants, journalists, accountants, bookkeepers, typists, and lawyers”. It is, with even greater irony, European women that are noted in Wikipedia, and that medieval women are increasingly thought to have played an integral part in manuscript writing (New Scientist, Science Advances).

I’m not the best person to ask for medieval culture, unfortunately, so you’ll need someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject to direct you to the finer points.

The wiki for women in war links to a lot of lists, so I would suggest poking around for historical references by era (that will likely lead to by culture) to orient yourself on how women have participated in war in the past. There’s quite a bit of mythology to be found there, as well, so if you pick up some specific goddesses you get stuck on, then pop over to @scriptmyth.

Likewise, the wiki for women in government is an interesting read, as is women in positions of power. Since both are primarily modern-times oriented, I would suggest looking at the list of queens regnant for a more historical perspective. I would have difficulty giving you more than that, as you would need to pinpoint your reference cultures first.

As history often neglects women’s contributions to society if they weren’t a ruler or similarly powerful ruler - and, frankly, that frequently applied to men as well the further back you go - I’m going to toss a couple of starting points at you for the area of medicine:

Women in medicine § Ancient medicine - Wikipedia

Women in medicine - Science Museum: History of Medicine

One thing to keep in mind is that as goalposts changed for medicine - the standardization of knowledge and the need to attend a medical school to be legally allowed to perform medicine - the availability of women to participate went down.

Another is that medicine, historically, relied upon herbal medicine, and Wikipedia itself notes that there’s a heavy overlap with food history - something that’s traditionally a domain of women. This abstract by Marcia Ramos‐e‐Silva MD, PhD, talks about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and the first page available tells you that medieval women were in charge of quite a lot despite not being allowed to participate in the male-dominated sphere of war. The Herbal Academy dips briefly into not only the saint, but other historical aspects of herbalism that might interest you.

The wiki of women in the Middle Ages, along with that of Hildegard of Bingen, nicely rounds out this particular topic.

I need to bring out the fact that Ancient Egypt was and is well-known for the equality and respect afforded to their women - in the interest of staying on subject, particularly in the field of medicine (Ancient History Encyclopedia). Isis was well-known as a goddess of healing (Wikipedia), an aspect she has in common with goddesses in many other cultures (Wikipedia). As an added side-note, Merit Ptah in her popularly-known context has been concluded to be an inflated misunderstanding - and misconstrued interpretation - of a historical figure with significant fabrication (LiveScience, Oxford).

The presence of women in medicine fluctuated in every culture, an in ancient times often shared some correlation with the use of magic (Citation 16). Healing, historically, has a high correlation with the supernatural - and if you care to look, women are usually responsible for the domain of the supernatural. (Or at least the feminine part, which was complementary and complemented by the masculine part.)

I’m going to hop back to politics real quick to bring up abbesses, particularly the social power they exercised as women heading religious orders. An article by Alixe Bovey for the British Library gives the TL;DR of medieval women and abbeys, though if you’d like something with a bit more detail, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Edna Power is also available.

Abbeys, with their rise and fall, are important to modern American culture. Midwives, to be even more particular, have the most direct impact. In Western Europe, a midwife may under certain circumstances perform baptisms. This was a debated topic of its time, as baptisms were rituals of the Church, and the Church had strict regulations allowing only men to perform their rituals.

During the 1500s - and up to the 1800s, in some cases - midwives were defamed to be witches. You’ll notice that this corresponds to a standardization of medical knowledge, with its corresponding legal restrictions on who may practice medicine. For the Church, the politics playing behind the scenes of midwifery and female physicians fluctuated with their observations about women’s power relative to their own (Citation 16).

Malta is an excellent case study of this phenomenon (Citation 17), and encapsulates the movement of witchcraft accusations that took place throughout this period - something historians noted as corresponding to the rise of Protestantism (ThoughtCo). There’s some debate that the increasing orientation to wages in contemporary economy facilitated this adverse behaviour against women, as well as various other social pressures as politically mitigated by the Catholic Church (Wikipedia).

As the practice of medicine was segregated according to sex - male patients to male physicians, female patients to female physicians - there were proportionally fewer men in trades such as midwifery than women despite the medieval shift toward male encroachment of territory (Wikipedia). This corresponding money- and thus male-oriented intrusion into the female sphere of medicine can be seen with the invention of the obstetric forceps (JSTOR). The rising culture of appropriation constituted the witchcraft trials that, incidentally, influenced American culture during their colonization years.

A pertinent name to remember for American history of the witchcraft trials is Margaret Jones, a Puritan midwife and the first person to be accused of witchcraft in the trails taking place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia).

The Salem Witch Trials, as an offhand note, could well be an anomaly due to ergotism (Citation 18).

One thing I’m willing to bend on - a little bit - is manual labor, but mostly because you’re describing something very similar to what’s already been invented: corvée labor. There’s plenty of other forms depending on what culture you’re going for, though unlike what you’re proposing, does not necessarily imply the direct and permanent subjugation of people.

I will absolutely quibble with the idea of “uneducated” labor equating to “less valuable” labor - universities offer non-vocational degrees, typically in the areas of research and/or religion, and guilds were created as a means of quality control (that unfortunately got out of hand and committed crimes such as rent-seeking). Women in guilds were a thing, vulnerable to the same fluctuations as their other occupations outside the house.

If we are defining “uneducated” labour as “menial” labour, then this set of occupations inherently varies by culture, as does its relative weight of importance. One example of this would be writing; it may be menial but important, whereas holding negotiations could be a “major” role but wouldn’t exist without the support of workers “less than” them.

Correspondingly, gender divisions may not necessarily mean an assignation of “lesser” or “greater” when compared against each other. In medieval Europe, at least, the creation of textiles was split along the general lines of spinning and weaving. Women held the former (hence “spinster”), and men held the latter. Spinning was often not formalized into guilds then, but it was an important cornerstone of the economy that could support entire families. A guest post on The Freelance History Writer’s blog seems to indicate that this gender division was due to influence by the Bible, which seems to corroborate with the history of both professions as detailed on Wikipedia - the further back we go, and also the less connected to Christianity, the more textile work women presided over. This granted them greater control over their presence in society, since the selling of textiles was useful leverage to support themselves and others.

A similar discrepancy can be found with agriculture. Hamer women in Ethiopia are traditionally the one to cultivate sorghum, a cornerstone crop to their diet, and they exhibit preferences in which varieties they grow according to criteria such as which is easiest to grind and long-term storage feasibility (Citation 19). Accordingly, there’s been an increasing orientation around the growing of crops rather than the pastoralist habits of their men, with trading standards occuring at one goat for one Dore (“pile of maize or sorghum”) (Citation 19).

A study examining the male sphere of hunting within a society discusses the various cultural implications of defendable vs non-defendable meat sharing, with respect to how the meat is distributed and its corresponding social range (e.g. immediate social circle vs entire community), something I find interesting given that the kilocalories obtained from meat is roughly equal to that of the female sphere-acquired agriculture/gathering (Citation 20). The division of labour along gender lines when it comes to food flow in a community seems, historically, to be both comparable and compatible to each other - a recurring theme with many of the topics I’ve already covered.

Gender roles in their historical perspective - especially the further back you go - are often complimentary to each other, and are an economical way to divide up the burden of maintaining a society to a functional level. There are plenty of exceptions to this (see: third genders), as well, and many cultures exhibit the idea that a productive person is good for society; their roles may look a little different from the person next to them, and not only is the work considered equal in terms of importance, but also with a bit of poking around, you’ll find that few cultures have harsh punishments for anyone “stepping outside” their predicted roles.

Men are already objectified plenty. That their treatment by society looks different than women’s, or other genders, is by no means an excuse to sweep things under the room and pretend that they have it best - or worse, purposefully ostracize them in a fictional work to further mock, ridicule, and isolate them. This contributes to the societal issues in your culture that you wish to address, and stems from a uniquely pervasive perspective from modern American culture that differs from many other cultures in the world.

TL;DR - The way you wish to objectify men is already being done, especially in American culture. It is harmful, and will have an impact that will reach further than you might anticipate. This approach is counterproductive to your goals, and the cultures/media you cite either directly contradict your beliefs of said sources or otherwise undermine your beliefs. It is vastly more productive to take a deeper look at the origins of the issues you wish to address in your writing, as well as the reference material that you wish to use. Learning perspectives outside your native culture will benefit you immensely, and the results could surprise you.

Citations

Citation 1 -  PDF - Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., Voena, A.. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-372, 07.

Citation 2 - PDF - Fernández, R.. (2014). “Women’s rights and development,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol 19(1), pages 37-80.

Citation 3 - PDF -  Duflo, E. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4: 1051-79.

Citation 4 - PDF - Crenshaw J. T. (2014). “Healthy Birth Practice #6: Keep Mother and Baby Together- It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding.” The Journal of perinatal education, 23(4), 211–217. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.4.211

Citation 5 - Faisal-Cury, A., Bertazzi Levy, R., Kontos, A., Tabb, K., & Matijasevich, A. (2019). “Postpartum bonding at the beginning of the second year of child’s life: the role of postpartum depression and early bonding impairment.” Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 1-7.

Citation 6 - PDF - Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T., … & De Pisapia, N. (2017). “Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), E9465-E9473.

Citation 7 - PDF - Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.

Citation 8 - PDF - Pan, Y., Zhang, D., Liu, Y., Ran, G., & Teng, Z. (2016). “Different effects of paternal and maternal attachment on psychological health among Chinese secondary school students.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(10), 2998-3008.

Citation 9 - PDF - Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). “Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years.” Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. doi:10.1037/a0027836

Citation 10 - PDF - Lee T Gettler, Mallika S Sarma, Rieti G Gengo, Rahul C Oka, James J McKenna, Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone: Variation by partnering status and residence with children in US men, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2017, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 67–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eox005

Citation 11 - PDF - Snowdon, C. T., & Ziegler, T. E. (2015). “Variation in prolactin is related to variation in sexual behavior and contact affiliation.” PloS one, 10(3), e0120650.

Citation 12 - Hashemian, F., Shafigh, F., & Roohi, E. (2016). “Regulatory role of prolactin in paternal behavior in male parents: A narrative review.” Journal of postgraduate medicine, 62(3), 182–187. doi:10.4103/0022-3859.186389

Citation 13 - PDF - Eddy, B., Poll, V., Whiting, J., & Clevesy, M. (2019). “Forgotten Fathers: Postpartum Depression in Men.” Journal of Family Issues, 40(8), 1001-1017.

Citation 14 - PDF - Psouni, E., Agebjörn, J., & Linder, H. (2017). “Symptoms of depression in Swedish fathers in the postnatal period and development of a screening tool.” Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 485-496.

Citation 15 - Pappas, S. (2018, January). “APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” Monitor on Psychology, 50(1).

Citation 16 - PDF - Kontoyannis, M., & Katsetos, C. (2011). “Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800).” Health Science Journal, 5(1), 31.

Citation 17 - PDF - Savona-Ventura, C. (1995). “The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.” Medical history, 39(1), 18-34.

Citation 18 - PDF - Woolf, Alan. (2000). “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Journal of toxicology.” Clinical toxicology. 38. 457-60. 10.1081/CLT-100100958.

Citation 19 - PDF - Samuel, T. (2013). “From cattle herding to sedentary agriculture: the role of hamer women in the transition.” African Study Monographs, Suppl. 46: 121–133. [Alternate PDF link]

Citation 20 - PDF - Gurven, Michael & Hill, Kim. (2009). “Why Do Men Hunt?.” Current Anthropology. 50. 51-74. 10.1086/595620.

Further Reading

Harry S Truman § Domestic Affairs - Wikipedia

Marshall Plan - Wikipedia

Interstate Highway System - Wikipedia

Medieval Icelandic Law (The Grágás) – Women’s Rights: On Reclaiming Property during Separation. By @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s Library

“Notes on Valkyries and the like?” by @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s chronological tag on women

Epigenetic correlates of neonatal contact in humans - Development and Psychopathology

Feral: So, obviously, everything Tex just said- round of effing applause!

I do want to hone in on one specific part of your ask, “since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them” and direct you to this blog post on Mythcreants specifically addressing the Persecution Flip Story and why it’s not a great idea from a social justice perspective.

Happy reading!

[regeek]

Essay of the North: Dragons, Masks, Ghosts, and Despair

Welcome to the next part of my essay about the Four Sister guardians. This one actually focuses on the sister guardians as individual characters. The thing that first drew me to these four characters as a subject matter is how thematically relevant they are to each book. In my opinion, each of the four books in the third Deltora Quest series has a central theme: in Dragon’s Nest it is dragons, in Shadowgate it is masks, in Isle of the Dead it is ghosts, and in Sister of the South it’s despair. Each of the guardians does a lot to tie these themes together, and each can be seen as sort of an embodiment of that theme, at least of the darker aspects of it. Another interesting thing that ties each of the sister guardians together is that each is a reference to another character in mythology or fiction, so I’ll talk about that here. The guardians are all beings of decay and subversion, so each is a subversion of some classical cultural archetype. Each of these characters, by being so thematically significant, help set apart the third series of Deltora books as a more powerful, resonant story than most youth fantasy stories. 

First let’s start with Rolf the Capricorn. He is the antagonist of Dragon’s Nest, the start of the series. The main theme of Dragon’s Nest is the dragons themselves, and the crux of the story is Lief struggling with understanding these ferocious and powerful creatures. At the start of the story few in Deltora understood the dragons and their role in the ecosystem, so Lief has to learn if he can trust them as he embarks on a quest where they play an integral role. The dragons represent the harsh but important aspects of the natural world. From a distance they seem like dangerous monsters, but are actually vital parts of the environment in Deltora and must be respected. Although people fear them, they are actually keeping Deltora safe and balanced. The first test Lief faces in this series is reconnecting with the dragons and earning their trust.

Rolf is the embodiment of distrust and fear of dragons. Like the dragons, he is the remnant of a long-gone part of Deltora’s history, but not a part that should be brought back. His people are the biggest victims of the dragon’s rage, an entire society laid to waste by their fury. However, the fate of Capra is not what it seemed. In actuality the Capricorns were driving the dragons to extinction, and their obsession with beauty and artifice led to their destruction. They are a warning to the people of Deltora, an example of what will happen if they do not coexist with nature. But Rolf has nothing but resentment for dragon’s and all they represent. He has no interest in the modern state of Deltora, obsessed with a past that will never come back. He is deeply xenophobic, not just towards dragons but to all non-Capricorns. He would rather see the nation destroyed than integrate with it, helping the Shadow Lord doom Deltora to the same fate as Capra.

 Fittingly, he takes the form of a false dragon. His appearance is described as hideous, like something our of a fever dream. He represents everything people feared about dragons, with none of their natural beauty. He seeks to exploit people’s reservations about working with dragons, making Lief question whether he can count these mysterious beasts as allies in his quest. His ultimate goal was to make it appear that the Ruby Dragon had joined the Shadow Lord as the guardian of the Sister of the East. Every step of the Shadow Lord’s plan with the Sisters was to convince the King of Deltora to abandon his quest. In this case to stop the quest before it even started, he cast doubt on the ability to work with the dragons at all. Rolf’s role in the plan was to drive Lief to abandon Deltora to the same fate that befell Capra. 

Rolf is obviously based on a satyr form Greek mythology. He can be seen as a dark mirror to Pan, the greek god of nature. Pan was a being of music and sexuality, an amusing contrast to Rolf’s cowardly, pathetic persona. Over time Pan came to be associated with Pagan and Satanic beliefs, fitting given that Rolf is not what he appears to be. Rolf can also be seen as a parody of Mr. Tumnus from the Chronicles of Narnia. Mr. Tumnus was a faun encountered very early by the protagonists, and was a helpful guide for them. Lief and his companions also encounter Rolf pretty early in their adventure, but he is far from helpful. Although Rolf bears a physical resemblance to various goat-men throughout history, his personality and goals are the opposite of almost all of them.

The next guardian is Kirsten of Shadowgate, also known as the Masked One. Masks are the central motif of Shadowgate, with various types of masks being used by different characters for different reasons. Masks are used to hide your real identity with a new one of your own creation. The Masked Ones use their masks to turn on their old identities and create a new one for their new society. Laughing Jack can be thought of as wearing a mask in the form of his fake persona. Lief struggles with having masks placed on him against his will, overriding his own identity. Lief is shown for the first time a possible other life, one without the responsibilities and hardship of being the king, but with nor personal freedom. 

It starts off with his physical resemblance to Bede, which drives Bess to force him to take the place of her son. At first Bess’s projection of Lief begins simple enough, making him learn to sing like her son did. Lief is too kind to turn her down, and finds himself being drawn deeper and deeper into the Masked Ones. This culminates in him having a mask literally forced onto his face, and he has to tear it off to regain his own identity. The result is a horrifying experience for him in which he briefly loses his mind, and ends with him scarring his face. These scars are a reminder of his experience, and also serve as a permanent physical distinction between him and Bede. 

The book is structured to make you think Bede is going to be the antagonist, serving as a dark reflection of Lief. However, Bede is revealed to be a victim of the real villain, Kirsten. A character barely mentioned earlier, who nobody in the story thinks very much about, is the one behind everything. Kirsten is interesting among Deltora antagonists in that she begins affecting the plot very early on. Long before the heroes find her or even know of her existence she is pulling strings to drive the plot. The obstacle Lief must destroy in this story is not a reflection of his own identity, but someone who has removed their own identity completely. There are many masks in Shadowgate, but none as elaborate as Kirsten’s. 

From what we know of Kirsten’s past, it sounds like she spent a lot of life being overlooked by others. Despite being beautiful, her face was paid attention to, so she created a new one. However, Kirsten is different from the rest of the characters in that both of her identities are “masks” and in her double life both of her personas are artificial. Her phantom is the embodiment of her allegiance to the Shadow Lord, a mask that moves on its own. The Masked One is a projection of her power and rage without having to reveal her true self to anyone. Her victims get no insight into the person killing them. She twists the culture of the man who rejected her, taking the form of a mask with nothing beneath it. But the version of Kirsten Lief and the others meet in the castle is also a “mask.” Its how she sees herself and wishes to be seen by others, but is just as fake as her phantom. Her external beauty disguises her horrific nature, and she forces Bede to live in her pretend reality with her. Her castle is an extension of this illusive reality, a world under her control that disappears upon her death. Appropriately she has reduced the other object of her rage, he sister, to nothing but a face by trapping her in a locket. Mariette no longer has a physical presence in the world, but still has all the things Kirsten will never have. 

It is hard to look at Shadowgate and not see the influence of the Phantom of the Opera. The Masked One bears a physical resemblance to the Phantom, and murders performers to keep imprisoned a beautiful singer. Kirsten is a twist on character of Erik, wearing the physical appearance of Christine but performing the horrific action of the Phantom. Piecing together her identity is a key part of the plot, though the protagonists do not realize there even is a mystery until the end. The Masked One does not hide the image of a face burned by acid, but that of a beautiful women. Amusingly, Lief’s journey in this novel can be compared to Christine’s. Like her he is tutored in signing by a charismatic but untrustworthy figure in a mask, and he ends up with facial scarring like Erik. Also, while singing is used in Phantom of the Opera to communicate and empathize with the Phantom, in Shadowgate it is used to transmit coded warnings about the villain.

Isle of the Dead is about ghosts, the various ways in which the dead and action of the past still haunt us in the present. The most literal example of the ghosts of the past is Verity, and actual ghost keeping record of dark deeds past. Laughing Jack is on the run from the ghosts of his past, literally and figuratively. He can even be thought of as the “ghost” of James Gant, an identity left behind by a man who still wanders the world in search of something. Bone Point and the Lady Luck are places forever haunted by the dark memories of what happened there, showing Lief and the others a recording of it they cannot interact with. Lief and Barda free themselves from the Lady Luck by “correcting” the events of the past, and their battle with the Sister of the West requires they put together various other ghosts, like Verity’s memories, Doran the Dragonlover, and the Diamond Dragon. 

In Isle of the Dead time is portrayed as all-consuming and unforgiving, and the effect of entropy on this story makes the protagonists feel like they are becoming ghosts too. The Sleeping Dunes show how a moment of passivity can lead to you being erased from history and forgotten, like the Amethyst Dragon was for years. Blood Lily Island shows how the passage of time can slowly destroy you. The island looks harmless but it slowly kills you without you even noticing (Rodda thought she could slip a little metaphor for despair past me here too- not on my watch!) Even the mighty dragons are shown to be vulnerable to the power of eternity, with Veritas being trapped by the Sleeping Dunes and the Diamond Dragon being stripped to bones by fleshbanes, which grew to great numbers during her sleep. The Lady Luck shows how you can’t escape the past or the passage of time. Its’ victims were doomed to eventually lose more than they can afford, and its pursuit of Lief and Jack makes them literally unable to run from the past forever. Isle of the Dead is a book concerned with eternity, how the passage of time destroys but also preserves people and ideas.

Doran is not quite a ghost as he is more undying than undead. He has guided Lief and the others through most of their adventures, and the memory of his actions is a great tool for them. However, each time they encounter someone who remembers Doran, they explain that he is long dead and the world he live din has changed. But Doran has been here the whole time, a final taunt from the Shadow Lord. In order to complete his life’s work, he must be destroyed by those he inspired. Doran’s actions are great allies to the king of Deltora, but the man himself is turned into an obstacle. The purpose of this design was to discourage anyone trying to destroy the Sisters, making them feel like they had to destroy their own history and what they hold dear. 

But there is another “ghost” which provides Lief the opportunity to triumph over this challenge: the baby Diamond Dragon. Named after her mother, she shows how the legacy of the past is transferred down to new generations. Discovered on her mother’s bones, she is a glimmer of hope in a quest that seemed doomed. She shows that even as the heroes and icons of the past fades away, their legacy lives on in new generations. Just as Forta carries on the legacy of the Diamond Dragons, Lief carries on the work of Doran. The discovery of Forta allows Lief to beat the Shadow Lord’s trap. Doran’s last moments are of hope, not despair. He was meant to create depression about the past, but his death is a moment of hope for the future. 

The revelation of Doran as the guardian of the Sister of the West is a shocking one, a twist on the usual pattern of these books having a battle with a big creature at the end. But those familiar with Arthurian lore perhaps should have seen it coming. Doran is an example of the Fisher King archetype. Many versions of the Fisher King appear in the tales of King Arthur, and many modern fantasy tales that follow the structure of those stories use a similar character. The Knight of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is an example, and Azor performs a similar role in the Ixalan story for Magic: The Gathering. The Fisher King is the final guardian of the Holy Grail, a spiritual and mental challenge after a gauntlet of physical one. The Fisher King is a king who possesses the Holy Grail, but has been cursed by the eternal life it provides. The Fisher King is kept in an immortal but crippled state, forced to watch the land around him with as he lacks the strength to protect it. To retrieve the Grail Percival must let the Fisher King pass away and rest by proving he can protect his kingdom for future generations. Lief does a similar thing by revealing Forta to Doran and letting him finally rest knowing their is hope for the future of Deltora. 

Sister of the South is a story about despair, a theme that has been running through the previous novels but takes center stage at the end. Lief’s journey in series three has slowly been eroding his faith that he can protect Deltora and be a good king. The final Sister is the ultimate challenge to his confidence, and the final phase of the Shadow Lord’s plan is to make his believe there is no way he can win. The endgame is to create a scenario where the land is condemned to die one way or the other. But to build up to that dilemma is a series of challenges to Lief’s optimism, both in his belief that Deltora can be saved and whether it even should. The Shadow Lord does this by guarding the last Sister with an embodiment of Deltora itself, manifesting the cultural flaws of the land into a plot to destroy the kingdom from within. 

How fitting it is that after battling all sorts of hideous monsters, the last battle for the fate of Deltora is against a common citizen. The story of Deltora began when the Shadow Lord exploited the societal weaknesses of the city of Del to seize power, and the climax involves history repeating itself, raising the question if Deltora will ever be strong enough to oppose the Shadow Lord. Paff is the ultimate test of Lief’s abilities as king, challenging him not as an adventurer but as a politician. She turns the citizens of Del into her own weapon, presenting them with a threat their king cannot protect him from and drives them to seek shelter in paranoia and ethnic tension. Lief is forced to question his abilities as king when that question is being posed by his own citizens. And of course Paff herself is a citizen of Deltora too, representing all of Lief’s failures in a single person.

Paff is such a tragic figure because, even though her crimes were horrific, it’s easy to understand what drove her to the Shadow Lord. Nobody, absolutely nobody, treats her with kindness or respect. She was alone and unloved. Lief rescued her from the Shadowlands, but never gave her a feeling of freedom. Yet he never suspected anything was amiss with her, unaware that a deadly enemy was hiding in plain sight. Lief was unable to help Paff but also unable to understand her, never imagining that she was capable of such horrors. Of course, Lief never imagined ANY of his citizens were capable of creating the fake plague, and realizing that it must have been done by one of his subjects but not realizing who it could be was agonizing for him. Paff created a wave of despair within him by forcing him to wonder which of his subjects was a traitor, and that any of his allies could be his enemy. Her plan involved destroying the trust of the people of Deltora in each other, in their king, and of the king and his people. 

The end result of Paff’s machinations is Lief’s lowest point. As he encounters the Sister of the South he realizes he is no different from his enemies. He could have gone down the same path they did, and is tempted to do so at the end. He is as imperfect as the rest of Deltora, and in order to save the country he must destroy one of its citizens. Let Lief’s empathy gives him strength. Even after all Paff has done, Lief still has pity for her. Realizing how similar they were let him understand her pain, and he gave her an opportunity to atone, even after all she did. Yet the Shadow Lord revealed himself unwilling to provide such mercy, taking Paff’s powers and throwing her aside like a used tool. Paff had given too far into despair by this point, and rather than be redeemed she destroyed herself with the greatest symbol of the country she betrayed. 

Before we talk about the cultural references baked into Paff’s character, I’d like to talk for a moment about the creature she controlled, as it is pretty unique among Deltora monsters. Like the Masked One, it is an extension of Paff’s power, its horrific appearance and strength contrasting the unassuming, harmless appearance of its controller. It is a creature of black oil, its lack of shape representing the hidden, insidious threat to the kingdom. It can attack several people at once in all directions, representing how Paff’s plot endangered every level of Deltoran society. The two heads are an unusual feature, unlike anything else in Deltora’s bestiary. The heads being a dog and a bird lack any biological purpose, suggesting that its appearance is more about symbolism than biology. As strange and varied as Deltora’s monsters are, all of their appearances served some sort of purpose. The creature Paff summons feels more like something from ancient myth or religion, not something that belongs in the natural world. It brings to mind the two-faced Roman god Janus, or the cherubim, and angel with the heads of a man, an ox, and eagle, and a lion. 

The more mythical appearance of Paff’s creature got me thinking, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the cultural icon Paff references is the last book of the Christian Bible. The Book of Revelations, also known as the Book of Apocalypse, is a complex and confusing part of the Bible, so I’m going to tread lightly here. The book presents a vision of the end of the world, with human society being destroyed and the people of earth being judged by God. Appropriately, the Sister of the South features an apocalyptic scenario with the grey tide, a final judgment for Lief and the people of Deltora. More specifically the Book of Revelation describes two beasts that bring down human civilization, which I think are inspirations for Paff and her creature. The first beast is a huge monster made up of different animal parts, like Paff’s creation. It caused people to follow it, like how the people followed Paff’s propaganda about the plague. The second beast is a false prophet, which “breathed life” into the image of the first beast, and brought death to those who would not worship it. Paff herself is clearly a parallel to the second beast. Yet like all the other guardians, the story that Paff references is subverted by her. The Shadow Lord’s plan is based on an apocalyptic story he participated in, and he seeks to put the people of Deltora in the same position with the Grey Tide. The first beast was described as a seven headed dragon, yet it is seven dragons that save Deltora, rather than destroy it. Fittingly, unlike in Revelations the land of Deltora is not destroyed, and Paff fails to overthrow society. The “prophecy” the Shadow Lord created does not come to pass, and the despair his plan weaponized is defeated by hope. The story ends on an optimistic note detailing a long era of peace and tranquility. 

These four characters are twisted and sad people, sympathetic yet dangerous. They are representatives of the failures of Deltora, tools for the Shadow Lord to destroy the kingdom from within. Lief’s journey to destroy the Four Sisters is about him coming to terms with the weaknesses in himself and his kingdom. Every step of the way he is shown that he cannot save the kingdom without destroying parts of it. Each of these characters are examples of what Lief could become, and he has prove himself different from them in order to succeed. As Lief battles them externally he is forced into an internal battle, one that has been building up over the course of the series. That will lead us to the next essay, about Lief’s psychology and why the Four Sisters quest is such a difficult and personal one for him. 

[popwasabi]

“Picard” S1 Review: Doesn’t boldly go but is nonetheless engaging

Produced by CBS All Access

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Isa Briones, Allison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, Harry Treadaway

Many fans had high hopes for “Picard” going into CBS All Access’s continuing voyage into the Star Trek franchise.

Fans wanted to see the lore finally expanded into the future after its previous three ventures (Enterprise, Abrams Trek, and Discovery) took place in the past, bring modern themes and ideas to Star Trek’s futurist’s world view in a way that felt fresh and relevant, but most importantly continue the story of the franchise’s greatest captain; Jean-Luc Picard, of course.

(He’s the best captain. This is not up for debate. Don’t @ me!)

In some ways the new series succeeds at this. We get glimpses of the previously untouched world of Star Trek post “Nemesis,” new themes that are resonant with real world events and exploratory, even critical, of the Federation’s worldview, and of course plenty of Picard himself as he navigates the strange new galaxy he inhabits.

But Picard ultimately misses the mark due to rushed storytelling, half-baked side plots, and just plain poor execution overall. It’s sad because “Picard” and this very talented cast and production team have their moments throughout this first season’s ten episode run but somehow even with 10 episodes of content to work with fans still end up with a somewhat jumbled mess.

(Me by like the eighth episode.)

This isn’t to say “Picard” isn’t worth your time if you’re an avid Star Trek fan or just someone who likes Patrick Stewart in this role in general but the first season will leave you still hungry for more and not in a good way.

“Picard” continues the story of the titular captain, now retired admiral, many years after the events of “Nemesis” as a retired Jean Luc reflects on his life in Starfleet and of his late friend Data who gave his life for his. A synth ban has been enacted in Starfleet after a major riot on Mars some years prior and Picard is understandably sour on the idea, given his relationship with Data, while also fighting Starfleet on not helping the exodus of the Romulans after the supernova that wiped out their homeworld in “Star Trek (2009).” When a young woman comes seeking Picard’s aid after an attack by mysterious assailants, revealing that she is an android and the possible daughter of Data, and gets killed, it is up to the retired Admiral to find her twin sister before she suffers the same fate.

Before we get started let’s throw out some of the bad faith arguments on why this series wasn’t all that good.

“Picard” doesn’t suck because it has “politics” in it. At this point, if you are complaining about the existence of social viewpoints and political/philosophical discussions in your Star Trek, or let alone any series for that matter, I don’t know what the hell you’ve been watching the past few decades. Star Trek has always been more than just a show about cool-looking spaceships and laser beams, you neckbeards.

(Hell, even the other “Star” got more going on in it than that.)

It’s also not bad because of female representation or “girl power.” Again, Star Trek has always had this and frankly having a few more instances of the women of Trek taking center stage doesn’t even come close to rebalancing the scales on the overall massive representation of cis white men across the genre and even the series anyways.

Also get the fuck over the use of curse words in this series. While certainly some instances in this show felt awkward, the use of the word “fuck” does not dilute Star Trek’s overall story.

(It would have made earlier season’s funnier for sure.)

Now that that’s out of way let’s get into the real reasons that, for me at least, the series fell short of an otherwise promising goal of delivering great new Star Trek.

The main problem stems from the series overall jumping off point in its first episode. Picard is understandably still upset about the death of Data and having him deal with survivor’s guilt is a great way to bring this character into the future and reexplore the humanist viewpoints Data touched on in the older series. But also having Picard deal with his fallout from Starfleet, both from the synth ban AND the Romulan exodus, creates chasmic diverging plotlines that never quite come together. The story really needed it to be one or the other. Either Picard wanting to advocate for the continued existence of synthetic life or the rescue of the Romulans post super nova. The latter is touched on a bit through the addition of the character Elnor but doesn’t quite work given that majority of the Romulans in this series are portrayed as villains.

There is definitely a post Brexit, anti-immigrant hysteria message being told there but not enough depth and nuance is given to make it look like Starfleet was particularly wrong here to abandon them given that they do end up being spies committing espionage in the Federation and the clear villains of the first season. The showrunners could have brought these two stories together by perhaps making Soji a Romulan bent on bringing down synthetic life because maybe her twin sister died in the riots on Mars, making Picard have to choose between his commitment to both minority groups abandoned by the Federation but of course, that’s not what the series goes with.

Also suddenly shoehorning in a convoluted anti-synth worldview into the already ultra-secretive Romulan empire was muddled to say the least.

(A decent summation of the Romulans, pretty much ever. Also why is the only Asian actress in this scene in Osaka depicted as an alien, Mr Kurtzman?...)

Some of these ideas could’ve been saved through better editing and pacing though but not enough is done in this first season to mitigate these issues. Too much of plot is told through plain exposition; people sitting down and talking for five-ten minutes about prophecies and backstory instead of having the story simply show us instead. It makes the pacing often slow even by Trek standards and grinds the action to a halt even when there are lasers being shot at one another in the next scene.

Many of these plots get barely any attention too. The Borg cube, why it’s abandoned, and why Hugh is working for the Romulans through the Federation is given surface level development at best. Seven of Nine returns and at one point is momentarily hooked up to the Collective and she doesn’t really say much about it after it happens. The new character’s Rios and Raffi both have side stories given to their development that get touched on once and never brought up again. Dr. Jurati straight up murders her lover and is set to turn herself into the Federation and it’s just kind of forgotten about in the finale. And Elnor, well, he gets to do his best Legolas impression slicing and dicing fellow Romulans with his sword I guess.

(He is still best boi though :3...)

The main co-star however, Soji the perfect android, has a particularly rushed development going from a scientist unknowing of her nature, to supposed prophet of doom, to predictably the savior all in one season. Her arc needed more time to develop with perhaps her Romulan love affair with Narek being the first season’s main driving force and her realization as an android being the climax. 

Instead we get basically four seasons of Battlestar Galactica’s Sharon arc crammed into one season and it unfortunately makes the story feel half-baked.

(Ok, Boomer.)

Don’t get the wrong idea, all these new characters have great individual moments as well throughout the season but sooooo much side plot is shoved in already into a muddled overarching narrative that it feels like several seasons worth of storytelling stuffed and edited down into a ten episode arc. Why the series felt it needed to conclude this robust story about synth hating Romulans in “Picard’s” first season feels like an unforced error in this reviewer’s opinion even if Sir P Stew only has maybe a couple seasons of extensive acting left in him anyways.

But the season isn’t completely worthless, as much as this review has been spent dunking on its less than stellar parts. The cast is exceptional, even working with the spare parts they’ve been given. Episode 5’s “Stardust City Rag,” in particular, stands out as a good mix of old and new Trek, with a decent dosage of cheese featuring Patrick Stewart trying on a French accent in a space bar. Santiago Cabrera is delightful as the ship captain Rios while also playing various forms of himself in AI form in equally enjoyable roles. Evan Evagora is fun as the deadly yet somewhat aloof Elnor, even if his character doesn’t do all that much except cut up a few Romulans. Seeing Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprise their roles as Riker and Troi respectively in episode 6 was heartwarming and felt the most like TNG out of all the episodes. And Jeri Ryan seems liberated in this series in this version of Seven of Nine, no doubt glad to be rid of that restrictive corset and Rick Berman’s meddling hands.

(Big “Fuck you, Rick Berman” energy going on in this scene.)

The production value is obviously high level as Trek has rarely looked this good on the small screen. There’s some great cinematography throughout the season whether it’s Picard’s chateau winery, the haunting nature of the Borg cube, or the synth homeworld in the season’s final beats. The spaceships look cool as always and the world of the future feels well futuristic.

The musical score is also top notch, with a great opening theme that feels very much in line with Trek at its futurist glimpse into a hopeful cosmos.

The season’s best moments though are between Picard and Data and will remind you why they were more than likely your favorite characters on TNG. Generally speaking, exploring the humanist themes of artificial intelligence in new Trek was a good choice and having Picard deal with survivor’s guilt kept the pulse of the muddled story still beating. Brent Spiner is still great as Data and will remind you all again how talented he has always been as an actor and though his age seeps through the makeup a bit he is nonetheless still a perfect android.

Though the finale as a whole is underwhelming, the characters do share a nice final moment that is both touching and reminiscent of everything a fan loves about Star Trek. It’s a great cap to an otherwise ok return to Star Trek for TNG’s top characters and its truly touching in the best way that this franchise has always been known to be.

(Deactivating my emotions chip because I just..can’t! I just can’t, ok! *Sobs*)

But great acting and high production value can only mask so many flaws with a convoluted plot and “Picard” unfortunately suffers from the bloated and uncooked nature of its many ideas. What the story really needed was three season arc not just ten episodes and it shows. I guess the plus side is with this particular plot wrapped up it leaves the door open for new ideas and a fresh start in the second season but it does feel like an overall miss for Picard’s homecoming back into the universe of Star Trek.

Overall, though there are worse ways a Star Trek fan can spend their quarantine than watching “Picard” and there’s certainly enough here for fans to latch onto and have hope for better things in the next season.

Hopefully things are less rushed or at least more focused in the second season and we can see a more proper return to form for both Picard and future Star Trek.

Here’s hoping the producers and writers make it so…

VERDICT:

3 out of 5

Let’s hope we get a return of Q in the next season.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Over the past few years, Americans have grown increasingly divided on issues of sexual harassment and misconduct. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, rank-and-file Republicans have become even more skeptical of women who report harassment.

But now Democratic voters are facing their own high-profile #MeToo test.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been accused of sexual assault by Tara Reade, an aide in his Senate office in 1992 and 1993. Biden has denied the allegation, saying that it “never, never happened,” but, of course, this isn’t the first time that Biden has been accused of improper behavior. The previous allegations weren’t as grave, but last year, eight women, including Reade, came forward to say that he had made them uncomfortable by invading their personal space or touching them inappropriately.

So far, though, relatively few Democratic voters seem ready to abandon Biden over the allegation, despite its seriousness. According to surveys from HuffPost/YouGov and Economist/YouGov at least around half of Democrats haven’t heard enough to say or are unsure whether they believe the allegations against Biden are credible. Only about 15 percent of Democrats say the allegations are credible.

It’s tempting to interpret this as a sign that Democrats aren’t as committed to believing women when the reputation of their own presidential nominee is on the line. But the reality is complicated. Even though Democrats are much more supportive of #MeToo issues than Republicans are overall, that doesn’t mean Democrats are unified — some, like young liberal men, are a lot less progressive on these issues than others. What’s more, there’s evidence that voters’ views of the Democratic Party and Biden himself are likely doing more to shape their reactions to Reade’s allegation than their preexisting stances on the #MeToo movement are. And with so many Democrats focused on defeating President Trump — who has far more sexual assault allegations against him — it’s possible that many Democrats are willing to look past this accusation.

Democrats aren’t uniformly progressive on #MeToo issues

Even at the height of the #MeToo movement, not all Democrats thought the increased attention on sexual harassment and assault was a good thing. And there’s still a fair amount of variation among Democrats on these questions. We looked at 13 waves of a survey administered by Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape from October 3, 2019, to January 2, 2020, and found that Democrats were divided on how they perceived sexual harassment and gender equality.1 Some of these differences are predictable. Democrats who identified as conservative, for example, were more likely than moderate or liberal Democrats to say that women who complained about harassment caused more problems than they solved. But some divisions were less foreseeable.

Young men, for instance, were more likely than older men or young women to say that women who complained about harassment caused more problems than they solved — particularly young men who identified as very liberal. In our analysis, we found that 32 percent of very liberal men under 45 held this view compared with just 16 percent of very liberal women in the same age group. What’s more, only 26 percent of very liberal men 45 and older held this view.

And on the question of whether respondents would be more comfortable with a man than a woman as a boss, it was these younger, very liberal men who disproportionately said that they would be more comfortable with a male boss (31 percent). Just 13 percent of very liberal women under 45 said the same, as did 25 percent of very liberal men 45 and older.

This kind of complexity isn’t that surprising, though, because sexual misconduct hasn’t been a partisan issue for very long. According to a working paper by political scientists Mirya Holman and Nathan Kalmoe, there weren’t substantial differences between Republicans’ and Democrats’ views of the importance or existence of sexual misconduct prior to 2016. And setting partisan differences aside, women tend to be more supportive of the #MeToo movement and its goals than men are. The notion that young lefty men are substantially less progressive than older men on gender issues and sexual misconduct is a little less intuitive, but it squares with other research indicating that Democrats (particularly men) who supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary were disproportionately likely to hold sexist viewpoints.

Partisanship and ideology are likely playing a big role

It’s also possible that most voters’ reactions to Reade’s allegations don’t reflect their views about #MeToo at all. For instance, it might seem reasonable to expect that Republicans and young, very liberal men would be most likely to disbelieve the allegations against Biden. But that’s not really what we’re seeing in the most recent polling data.

According to a HuffPost/YouGov poll from May, the opposite is actually true — despite their greater skepticism about the #MeToo movement, Republican voters are much more likely than Democrats to say that Reade’s allegation is credible, perhaps in part because the accusation was covered widely in right-leaning media outlets when it was first revealed. And even though the Nationscape data indicates that younger male Democrats are generally less sympathetic toward women who report harassment, Democrats under 45 are much likelier than Democrats 45 and over to find Reade’s allegations credible — and more than twice as likely to say that Biden should be replaced as the nominee.

These groups don’t have a lot in common on #MeToo, but what they do share is a propensity to dislike Biden — Republicans because of partisanship, and younger Democrats because they were disproportionately in Sanders’s camp. Political scientists say that’s not very surprising. “Voters are not necessarily looking at this allegation and thinking about it purely as a #MeToo issue,” said Shauna Shames, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Camden. “Most are seeing the allegation through the lens of their party and their ideology, and that’s shaping how they process the information that’s coming out and evaluate whether it’s credible.”

Having Trump — who has been accused of sexual assault by some 25 women — as a foil may also help Biden. “Even among #MeToo supporters who might doubt Biden over the allegation, most will support him over Trump because of the extensive misconduct allegations against Trump,” Kalmoe told us in an email. Kalmoe also thinks that Trump might avoid making as much political hay out of Reade’s allegation as he otherwise might to avoid drawing attention to the slew of accusations against him.

At this point, a lot depends on what happens next — specifically, whether more women come forward with sexual assault allegations that are as serious as Reade’s. But it’s possible that even if it doesn’t change the polls much, this single accusation could hurt Biden by dampening Democrats’ feelings about their nominee. For instance, according to polling by Morning Consult, Biden’s favorability numbers fell as the Reade story started to gain more traction in the media. And Jesse Rhodes, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told us in an interview that, while Biden probably won’t lose many votes over Reade’s allegation, some Democrats might be less likely to volunteer for or donate money to his campaign.

But the response to Reade’s latest allegation is also an important reminder that the #MeToo movement doesn’t exist in a vacuum, even for Democratic voters. “Some #MeToo advocates are evaluating these allegations with a nuance that goes beyond the simple ‘believe women’ motto,” Kalmoe said. And with Trump on the ballot against Biden, Democrats might be even more inclined to cast a skeptical eye on Reade’s allegations.

[the-courage-to-heal]

                                         Flying Monkeys 

         (The Narcissist’s Tool for the Smear Campaign)

The topic today is about the role of flying monkeys, who can become flying monkeys, how the narcissist recruits flying monkeys against the target, why does the narcissist use these flying monkeys, and then I’m going to give you a mini survival guide for dealing with flying monkeys.

First of all flying monkeys are also known as the:

entourage

accomplices

enablers

extension of the narcissist

campaign managers

They’re out there recruiting other people, kind of in a way like religious people might knock on your door and try to recruit you into their religion. They’re trying to convert you into the religion of the narcissist, which is reality by the narcissist.

So the role of these flying monkeys is first of all abuse by proxy.

Abuse by proxy is when the narcissist gets other people to abuse you. That way the narcissist gets to abuse you but through these people. They’ll reject you, they’ll make you feel not good enough, they’ll shame you, maybe they’ll put you in a bad situation, they’ll tell you that you’re crazy, things like that. This way the narcissist looks like the one that’s clean. They’re not involved.

The flying monkeys are also used to spread rumors and gossip.

This is one of their most prevalent roles. They are addicted to gossip. Usually these people go around and spread rumors and gossip that they heard.

Flying monkeys do the narcissist’s bidding. That’s what the smear campaignis, is they’ll do whatever the narcissist wants. The narcissist wants them to go out and talk badly about you and spread lies about you or the narcissist wants them to outright abuse you or to make you feel like you don’t belong. Or maybe they invite you to a place where they know something horrible is gonna happen for you and you’re not going to be comfortable there, those sorts of things.

Flying monkeys make the narcissist feel like they’re important and special. They help the narcissist feel like they’re grandiose, like they have high status, like they’re famous or a celebrity, which is what the narcissist wants to feel. Narcissists often have a whole entourage around them just like a celebrity needs an entourage in order to feel secure about themselves.

So who can become flying monkeys?

There are two different categories of people.

The first category is the naive.

The naive are people who are just clueless. They can’t see it, they can’t fathom it, they’ve never been through anything like that, so they can’t even imagine that somebody would do such a thing to just make up all these lies about you and spread them across town. They just can’t even fathom that a human would do that or maybe the naive is also the fawning type.

This is the type of people who when faced with a fight or flight dilemma, they choose fawning instead where they just melt into into a strong, dominant personality to feel safe and they don’t realize what’s happening. You might have noticed that even you became one of these flying monkeys when you were in your naive state before you woke up, before you figured out what was going on.

The second category of people who can become flying monkeys are the toxic.

These are the people with no boundaries. They love gossip and drama, they’re addicted to that stuff. They have an integrity problem and usually they want something from the narcissist. They want status, they want flattery, they want favours. They’re getting something out of the narcissist, which is why they’re willing to do their bidding.

How does the narcissist recruit flying monkeys against the target?

Typically what they’ll do is they’ll go out around town or your community or however you knew this person, maybe even your office. Maybe it’s a romance in an office or maybe it’s a boss or a co-worker. They go around and tell everyone that you’re the abusive one or that you’re crazy. They’re usually going to play one of those two things.

Essentially they’re going to project and say that you’re the abusive one meaning you are doing all the things that they were doing to abuse you. Maybe they even call your family members and they try to convert your family members into their reality or maybe this is even happening within your family.

Abusers love to call you crazy when you figure out what’s going on because they have to discredit you. If they don’t go around telling people that you’re crazy, they might believe you.

When the narcissist tells you that you’re crazy that should set off an alarm bell for you to recognize it’s a smear campaign. That that’s a clue, that the narcissist is going to do the smear campaign.

They’re also going to play the role that they’re just “concerned” about you. Women narcissists do this more often than men. They’re “concerned” about your health and reveal information that was none of anybody’s business, something that you didn’t want out there.

This happened to one of my clients. His wife started telling her family and their friends, their mutual friends, that he was drinking a lot and he wasn’t. She started telling them that he had some kind of alcohol problem and he overheard this conversation.

They’ll spread these kinds of rumors about you.

Or maybe they find out that you went on an antidepressant and so then they run their mouth and tell people how they’re just so “concerned” about you because you’re so depressed.

It’s an incredible betrayal when they reveal something that really happened to you or it’s a total lie and they’re making something up just to pretend that they’re concerned about you and your health.

Essentially the narcissist spins this web of a false reality and casts it out among this group of people. Then people subscribe to that reality. It’s like they become engulfed into that web of a false reality that they think is very real because the narcissist appears so convincing with an enormous amount of energy and emotion about the topic.

It really seems like it could be true to a certain point, especially to people who just don’t know. But the people who are subscribing and fully knowing, the toxic, who are partaking in this because they’re getting something out of it, they will gladly subscribe to that reality even if they know that it’s a false reality.

Why does the narcissist use flying monkeys?

First of all they like to discredit the witness. They like to discredit you so that you don’t reveal your truth or so that maybe you’ll just be so ashamed and terrified that you won’t say anything, instead you’ll just swallow it all.

Maybe they know that you have the balls to tell the truth and tell people in your community, your family, your circle of friends, your office and they don’t want you to reveal that truth. So they have to discredit you so that people aren’t really sure who’s telling the truth.

Maybe it looks that you are totally the one who’s lying in this situation when that’s the exact opposite of reality.

Sometimes the narcissists will come up with flying monkeys even if you didn’t even have a relationship with this person. Maybe you just innocently walked into a new job and this person just started targeting you. Maybe they instantly had a jealous competition over your talents, your abilities, your position, your alliances or something like that. Or maybe it’s because somebody likes you who doesn’t like them and they want the favor that person. Any kind of jealous competition can stoke up this kind of situation where narcissists will grab some flying monkeys or create flying monkeys in order to go against you.

Part of that jealous competition is that sometimes narcissists just don’t like that others like you. Maybe a person who like syou doesn’t like the narcissist or maybe they do like the narcissist and now the narcissist wants to triangulate to make sure that the person likes the narcissist better than they like you. For whatever reason, they can’t let you have that kind of friendship or alliance with the person.

The narcissist doesn’t have to get their hands dirty abusing you because they can recruit all these other people to do that work for themselves.

And finally, they’re going to use mobbing against you so that you feel alone and unsure of your reality.

When it’s one person against one person that gaslighting can be really challenging. When it’s a whole group of people who are subscribing to that reality, and then you, you’re going to feel really alone. You’re going to really be tempted to doubt yourself and your perception of reality. The flying monkeys can be a very powerful ally for the narcissist.

Here’s my Quick Survival Guide for dealing with flying monkeys:

First of all stay in integrity.

Commit to 100% integrity so they have nothing to use against you and part of that is responding instead of reacting. Check out the 3 videos I did on this topic.

Stay in integrity because if you freak out, if you do something wrong, if you abuse the narcissist back or just scream and look like you’re crazy then they have something to use against you, especially if you do this in front of a group of people. Narcissists love to do that, they love to provoke you in front of a whole group of people, at a work meeting, at a family dinner, you and your partner going out with mutual friends or something like that.

That’s the worst part is they’ll get you to react and look like you’re the crazy one and they’ll use that against you. Staying in integrity avoids that scenario.

The second is to opt out.

Opt out of this game. So what does that mean? That means going No Contact when possible.

Most definitely go No Contact with the narcissist and also go No Contact with their flying monkeys. You want to block them most definitely on social media. Why? Because that will be a source of torture for you. The narcissist will leverage social media and all these people against you and if you’re in that phase where you’re stalking and you’re going online and you’re obsessed with finding out what’s going. You’re going to see their posts and it’s just going to drive you insane. You’ve got to opt out of that by going No Contact with all those flying monkeys.

I wouldn’t just delete them off your friends list. I would block them so you set yourself up for success, so that you don’t even tempt yourself to go look and then go down that downward spiral and get derailed for days from your projects, from your energy, from feeling good.

Another suggestion is don’t try to convince them of the truth.

People are going to see what they want to see. If they’re believing in the narcissist, the naive just don’t get it. They just don’t see it and you trying to convince them of the truth is not going to help. That never works, not one time that I tried it, it never worked.

Your true friends are going to recognize it, they’re going to stand by you, they’re not going to question you, they’re going to have your back right away.

The other group of people, the toxic people, you definitely don’t want to try to convince them of the truth because they don’t want to hear the truth. They’re getting something out of that relationship with the narcissist.

So don’t try to convince them, it’s going to be a huge waste of your energy and probably what’s going to happen at the end of that conversation or that attempt to convince somebody is you’re going to feel even more doubtful about yourself.

You’re going to doubt your reality. It’s going to be hard to be assertive and own your reality.

Sometimes there are situations where you can’t entirely go No Contact with the flying monkeys, say say it’s a roommate, it’s someone that you live with, say it’s someone in a closed community, they’re part of your church, they’re part of your school, they’re part of some group of people you can’t cut out. Maybe you’re still at the job and you can’t leave the job yet because you don’t have a new job lined up. Be careful not to share personal information with the flying monkeys.

You want the absolute minimum contact with the flying monkeys in these cases. Share nothing personal, just talk about the weather, talk about sports, talk about something absolutely meaningless. Whatever you talk about be sure it doesn’t have any kind of emotional connection to you or reveal anything personal about your life. They would use all that against you and all of that will get back to the narcissist, which will then have a double impact on you.

And finally when possible move away.

If this is your next-door neighbor, if this is someone in a small community, move away from there, get away from there. If it’s in your immediate environment like that, for example if you’re in a work situation, you can manage this for a period of time. You can learn how to grow better boundaries, how to set and enforce boundaries, how to respond versus react but that’s a temporary solution. You don’t want to stay in there too long. You don’t want to keep that job long term. Start looking for another job, quietly of course. Definitely don’t tell anyone in that office, not even someone you think is your ally who might accidentally reveal that information to the wrong person. Get a new job as soon as possible so you get out of that environment as soon as possible because managing all those boundaries and being on guard on a daily basis is going to drain a lot of energy that you could be investing in other areas of your life.

And finally I just want to give you guys the benefit.

The smear campaign is devastating. Dealing with flying monkeys is horrible. I’m sure there are a lot of people who have committed suicide because there was a whole group of people against them and they just felt so invalidated, so alone, so deeply doubting of themselves that they couldn’t find a reason to go on. They didn’t find a way out, they didn’t even know what was happening. It can be that serious.

The benefit of the horror of this whole experience is that you learn who your true friends and allies are.

Maybe you didn’t know who they really are. Life has this way of revealing people over time and it may not be today but at some point people will reveal themselves to you. At the very least, be grateful that these people revealed themselves to you. They showed you that they are not your friends. Now that you know this you know to no longer trust them. You’re no longer sharing with them and giving energy to them, now that you now know not to go there for friendship, for loyalty, and for trust.

So if you’ve been through this experience of dealing with flying monkeys or if you’re going through this experience right now, if something in this article helped you, let me know in the comments.

source

[spryfilm]

“Guerrilla” (2017)

TV Series/Drama

Episodes: Six

Created by: John Ridley

Featuring:  Idris Elba, Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay

It was always going to be difficult to follow up an Oscar winning screenplay, particularly for a film like “12 Years a Slave” (2013), but John Ridley had his work cut out for him with this story of politics and racism, in the just released on DVD miniseries “Guerrilla” (2017). What Ridley has done is remarkable; he has created a dense drama about a time that many are too young or ignorant to probably even realise happened. It was a time when many of the police were nothing more than racist sexist bullies, where woman’s right meant nothing, the only kind of person to be was white male and privileged. It echoes the state of many countries that elected right wing governments who are now facing questions regarding how they want to treat their citizens. It would be easy to say this is a reflection of Trump as well as his cohorts but it has happened in the UK, Australia, as well as shifts of governments much like the recent German elections – the world os in a truly sad state.

In many ways the world was a very different place in which “Guerrilla” is set, but there was a growing tide of radical activism in many countries that sought to challenge the status quo of the idea of power, where this power flows from as well its general legitimacy when minorities were being discussed. Representation was a massive issue in terms of getting across ideas that were not white, male or straight to a public that needed to know why they should care about issues that did not have a direct effect on them. There can be such a disconnect between the haves who feel by right they should have a say the way society works, as well as the people who are seen as poor minorities who actually live within that society.

“Guerrilla” is really primarily a love story set against the backdrop of one of the most politically explosive times in U.K. history. A politically active couple (played by Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay) have their relationship and values tested, when they liberate a political prisoner and form a radical underground cell in 1970s London.

This is not only a gripping drama as well as an edge of your seat thriller, but it also acts as a kind of historical document that through some fiction illustrates what it was like to be non-white to a larger extent, as well as a non-white male to a lesser extent. Through each episode we move through some pretty tough decisions that are made by each character as they arrive at some harsh realties about the country they are living in as well as what some of the power players within the country want to do. These decisions will have adverse effects on not only their lives, but the wider community in which they all live. What Ridley does is to show viewers from a ground level, some of the events that not only provide motivation, but also that these groups are not isolated by geography. Throughout the world, in the US with the Weatherman as well as Germany with the Baader- Meinhof Group these people can see the only way forward is to use rhetoric as well as public displays of revolution to highlight their plight. We see what it not only takes for someone to see injustice in their society or community, but also how far they can be pushed before they see a need to take drastic real, as well as socially destructive action against the government.

The cast is large, as you would expect with a socially conscious miniseries, it is led by Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay, who are the definite leads, with able support from superstar Idris Elba (who also acts as a producer). Pinto and Ceesay are excellent in their roles as partners who are involved in political activism as well as attempting to make lives for themselves. They play off each other wonderfully in both their personal lives as well as their political radicalized one. The other interesting aspect of their performances is that they do they feel apart from the power structures that surround them, but Pinto is an Indian woman and Ceesay is an African man – so they are in a way culturally disparate from each other. While I enjoyed having Elba in this show I could not help but feel like it was some kind of ‘stunt’ casting, in that I was taken out of the plot when he appeared. I am in no way taking away from his talent, obviously if you have someone of his caliber available then you grab it with both hands, but I felt he was a little miscast, he is an imposing figure onscreen, sometimes his bigger than life parts can cast a long shadow. On the other hand it is some of the smaller parts that are the most memorable, in particular the always-talented Zawe Ashton playing Omega is a highlight as is Daniel Mays, starting to become a staple on British television, his talent is always evident.

The series as I have said is written by Ridley, he has also directed three of the six episodes, which he has done very well. There can be nothing better than writing a series, then directing a large portion, you know the material inside and out, with any questions being answered by the author himself. The remaining three episodes have been directed by Sam Miller who has a great eye, as well as having an affinity for directing period pieces as is evident with “Guerrilla”, possibly the most important and serious show he has worked on in his career. Ridley has chosen well with his directing partner, Miller has an extensive CV in directing television shows over a wide range of genres, as well as working with top-notch talent, “Guerrilla” is proof that he has to be one of the top television directors working in the UK today.

This is not a perfect show, but if you are looking for socially relevant television that has a definite beginning, middle and end then this is for you. However there is a major part missing or at least reduced, that is the part of the African woman (actually generally women in general), as well the part they played during this time of major upheaval as well as challenge to the norms and attitudes of the time. “Guerrilla” is written from a male perspective, which as I have said shows, the main characters are mostly men. The leading female character is not of African descent, but of Indian decent in Freida Pinto who is no doubt an excellent actress as well as compelling, inhabiting her role with both anger, as well as empathy – it would have been a little more even if she had been of African descent.

If you want to watch a show that is easily binge worthy, as well as a history lesson and a timely reminder of how much society has not changed then you will love this show. With so many average television existing, as well as many that leave you with cliffhangers at the end of the final episode I found “Guerrilla” refreshing as well as compelling, I recommend this highly.

“Guerrilla” is out now on DVD.

Freida Pinto as Jas Mitra in Guerrilla (Episode 4). Photo: Sky UK Limited/SHOWTIME

Guerrilla, First Look Starring Zawe Ashton © Sky UK Ltd.

DVD review: “Guerrilla” (2017) “Guerrilla” (2017) TV Series/Drama Episodes: Six Created by: John Ridley Featuring:  Idris Elba, Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay…