the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.
women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.
what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.
i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.
fuck, man. write better material.
a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.
god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.
this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.
we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.
i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -
it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.
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DP x DC Prompt
Batman grunts a greeting at the boy Selena has introduced as "Danny" as if it's totally normal for a kid to be hanging out on a rooftop with her, kicking his legs out above the edge as if he's not 20 stories up.
Selena shares an equally amused glance with Danny that has Batman scowling harder than his usual as the boy gets up, stretching out from his hunch to reveal a 6 foot 2 build not unlike Jason's.
"Wow, spot on," Danny whistles, grinning at Selena. "I owe you a twenty."
"Darling," Selena purrs, hand finding purchase on his upper bicep. "I never exaggerate."
"Looks like Catwoman's got a new scratching post, B," Nightwing cackles in his comm, which is probably why Batman finds himself gritting out a--
"Little young for you, isn't he?"
The kid--in a hoodie and jeans, seriously, where did Selena find this guy--stares at him incredulously before his mouth stretches into an uncomfortably wide grin, revealing fairly sharp canines. He strides forward.
"What can I say, Mr. The Batman," he says, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. He must be around the same age as Dick. "I've got a thing for powerful women in black."
"See you for dinner tomorrow Lena," he says, hand lifted in farewell as he heads for the edge. He pushes himself over the wall with one hand, dropping over.
Batman clocks Selena's lack of alarm and doesn't flinch. Thirteen seconds later, there's no resounding thud when Danny's body would've met the pavement and she's still smirking at him.
"No metas in Gotham," he growls.
Selena throws her head back and laughs. "If I see any, I'll be sure to call. Now," she kisses his cheek, "I better go. I've got a date tomorrow."
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if i was president of fanfiction it would be required that before anybody writes fanfiction set in s4 of tma they must answer my comprehension test which is comprised of only one question “how do you feel about basira hussain” and if they answer wrong theyre immediately sentenced to 50 years of hard labor in the salt mines
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seeing the same people who complained that zutara fandom adultified katara & insisted that she was just as much of a child in the show as the rest of the gaang now having a meltdown over some vague ass interviews that might imply katara is no longer taking as much of a motherly role in the live action because “it ruins her character”… funny, i thought yall said zutara shippers were just making that up?
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barbz are so fucking stupid it makes me sick. y’all doxxed, harassed and threatened a tik toker for being the one to TELL THE TRUTH about nicki, and use the sarcastic “so family is off limits” comment as if that’s cute? doing a fabulous read on nicki “cokehead” minaj defending and endorsing her rapist, pedophilic husband and brother and surrounding herself with violent men while simultaneously degrading women are the same as a sixteen year old saying her opinion online? the barbz getting other accounts banned/doxxed who speak out against her? leaking megan’s mother’s gravesite? making dehumanizing edits and disgracing megan’s character (and nicki liking and reposting these comments as well)? nicki minaj is a 41 year old grown ass multimillionaire woman, please stop excusing her childish and dangerous ass behavior because of how she grew up. even the insinuation that she doesn’t know any better because of her upbringing is also an extremely disgusting thing to say. her long ass incoherent rants on twitter are not “iconic”, it’s EMBARRASSING.
nicki loves to play villain and victim when it suits her. you’d think her defense of her husband and brother would be the line drawn for people, but it’s treated as something to bypass and ignore and “not consider as a fan of the music”. nicki is NOT your friend. she is NOT your family. parasocial relationships with celebrities who will never know you are dangerous. it’s one thing to be fan, it’s another to blindly follow, support, and justify anything your fav does. if you can excuse the disgusting actions of one, that means you have never stood for the principals and morals you claim to have. fuck, some of y’all must be doing lines with her cuz the amount of delusion, hate, and ignorance that so many barbz exude needs to be studied. do better.
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