rainwaterspark | Entries tagged with social justice

I try not to talk about politics too much, since it's beyond depressing right now, but today I was thinking about the current political climate and the Amazon TV show, The Man in the High Castle. Which seems particularly relevant now that we're seeing a resurgence of neo-Nazism, racism, and xenophobia.

The Man in the High Castle (TMITHC) is about an alternate history in which the Allies lost World War II and Nazi Germany and Japan conquered the US and divided it between them. (Let's ignore, for the moment, the practical impossibility of such a thing ever happening even if the Allies had lost.)

The show has also been very well-received—so well-received, it's been renewed for 3 seasons so far.

I tried watching the first episode, since I'm a history geek, but I had to stop halfway through because I was about to have an aneurysm out of rage.

Here's the problem: If you think about Nazi Germany and Japan occupying the US, you'd think there are going to be some groups who will be persecuted more than others. Black people, Jewish people, Slavic people, disabled people, and LGBTQ+ people on the Nazi side, and any-Asians-who-aren't-Japanese on the Japanese side. (I'll apologize upfront for the fact that I know less about Japan's concept of racial hierarchy than Nazi Germany's, but I know they did, in fact, have a racial hierarchy.) You'd think these groups would be the focus of this story and the core of the resistance movement(s), right?

Wrong.

Instead, The Man in the High Castle is all about The Poor, Super Oppressed White People (seemingly of Western/Northern European descent). There was one Jewish character in the main cast, at least as far as I remember from the 1st episode, and that's it.

It just boggles the mind, how much TMITHC completely misses the point of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.* How entire regimes centered on racism somehow get boiled down to Oh No, The White People Are So Oppressed Under These Regimes.** Spoiler alert: If Nazi Germany had conquered the US, you can get your bank savings that white Americans of Western/Northern European descent would have been the least oppressed.

And I've been thinking about the premise of TMITHC and why it's been critically well-received. I wonder whether white American viewers who are divorced from history are fascinated by a premise that they are the ones who would be So Oppressed by the baddest of historical Bad Guys, the Nazis and WWII Japanese, instead of a more historically accurate story in which straight, able-bodied & neurotypical white Americans would be safe and privileged and Americans of color, disabled Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans are persecuted.

Because when you juxtapose the white rebel fantasy of TMITHC with what's currently going on, it's...disturbing.

*Yes, I'm aware TMITHC is based on a novel. But not every novel should be adapted into a movie or TV show. Like, I find it very hard to believe Uncle Tom's Cabin would be seriously considered by anyone for a screen adaptation today, even though it was wildly influential in its time.

**At least from the first episode, I found the depiction of White People's "oppression" in the Japanese-controlled West Coast also very poorly done. They were allowed to speak English and follow their own customs, that white woman (forgot her name, sorry) even out-Japanese-ed the Japanese in aikido (which, by the way, was a pretty gross example of the pretty racist trope of White Person Who Out-Asians Actual Asian People).

Here's an interesting article about the gendered dynamics of emotional labor and its relation to autism (in particular, the under-diagnosis of autistic girls/women): https://autisticacademic.com/2016/09/11/emotional-labor-gender-and-the-erasure-of-autistic-women/

The post links to another post that talks about emotional labor generally.

I get the fact that emotional labor is something women are expected and socialized to perform and men are often given a pass on. At the same time, it's interesting to compare these experiences of allistic/neurotypical (NT) women with my own (as an autistic person), because I simply lack the instinct (socialization?) to perform emotional labor the same way NT women do, and therefore find some of their experiences...odd.

For me, it's in part because I place a lot of emphasis on clear communication. If someone doesn't ask me to do something, I won't do it. Sometimes I guess this makes me come off as rude, but I hate being expected to micromanage other people in any way. (This may also come in part from my own upbringing—one of my parents is very demanding, even domineering, when it comes to other people, which has caused me to be the complete opposite.) I'm obviously not a mindreader and it literally costs $0 for someone to communicate their expectations clearly to me.

On the flip side, I also mostly don't expect people to do things for me unless I ask them to. So I wouldn't be offended if my hypothetical romantic partner doesn't buy flowers for me every once in a while; if I want something romantic, I'll explicitly suggest something we can do together, and I'd get offended if I was always turned down. I'd be very weirded out if my partner got offended at something I didn't do when they never asked me to.

And, I don't know whether this is due to autism, my stubborn/rebellious streak from how I was raised, or something else, but I will absolutely not console/soothe a man's ego if he did something to make me feel bad. The idea that NT women do this is bewildering to me, because if I were expected to do that, I would think the dude's an asshole who doesn't respect my feelings, and nothing else positive about him would outweigh that enough for me to consider keeping the relationship.

Another thing that shapes my attitudes toward relationships and emotional labor is that I, myself, am autistic (as I said), mentally ill, and sometimes prone to negativity—so I've always envisioned that my ideal romantic male partner (since I am only attracted to men) would, actually, bear some of the emotional labor, because I don't have the spoons or temperament to carry all of someone else's emotional labor on top of dealing with my own issues.

So...yeah. Interesting for me to consider things from an allistic/NT viewpoint and how different they are from my autistic viewpoint.

(Content warning: discussion of rape and sexual slavery)

In response to C.S. Pacat's tweets as screencapped here, and also the resulting Tumblr discussions.

The question of whether Captive Prince (CP) is racist has waged for quite a while now, with the most common arguments being (in simplified form):

"CP is racist because it features a male protagonist coded as a man of color [Damen] who is subjected to dehumanizing sexual slavery and eventually falls in love with his white master."

vs.

"CP is not racist because Damen is not a man of color, since Akielos is based off Greece, therefore you shouldn't apply US racial politics to the situation."

Pacat's tweets that I linked to above don't address this debate per se, but on Tumblr a bunch of fans have held her discussion of Australian ethnic tensions as some kind of proof for the "CP is not racist" side of the debate—because the world of CP is meant to reflect Australian racial politics, not American.

I'm not Australian; I'm American. But I'm not commenting on the content of her tweets about Australian racial politics per se; my argument is that from the point of view of execution, CP doesn't escape racial issues just from this explanation.

Because here's the thing: There are plenty of ways to construct a metaphor exploring Australia's racial divide, championing a protagonist from a Mediterranean-coded culture, without including sexual slavery. The author could have accomplished her goal perfectly well by having Damen be a POW instead of a slave, for starters.

At the very least, Laurent could have acknowledged that his treatment of Damen was wrong (because, dude, just because the guy killed your brother in combat doesn't mean brutal slavery constitutes morally justified revenge).

That's the part that bothers me most about the series in retrospect. It ties into the race issues, but it also overlaps with the problem of a toxic, or at the very least unhealthy, romantic relationship. We still have the narrative of a dark-skinned man forced into slavery for a white man, who nearly flogs said dark-skinned man to death and also sexually assaults him by proxy (twice, once unsuccessfully, once successfully), and the result is that the dark-skinned man falls in love with his white master, who never really apologizes for his treatment of him.*

(*And in case someone wants to come after me because Laurent did apologize vaguely in Book 2—no, I don't view that as enough, especially since it was a very general apology that didn't really acknowledge all the horrible things Laurent did to Damen...particularly the sexual assault by proxy, which is the most egregious thing to me that much of the fandom doesn't acknowledge.)

Also, I presume colorism is no less of an issue in Australia than it is in the US, so having the male protagonist of color specifically lust after blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned people is still discomfitting.

The first time I quit Tumblr, it was because of getting involved in a very nasty debate about feminism with a sexist douchebag, combined with the extreme depression and anxiety I had been experiencing at law school that made me respond erratically to other people on Tumblr. This time, what's making me quit Tumblr? The trash "ace d*scourse"? Nope.

It's frustration with Tumblr social justice.

1. I really dislike the tendency on Tumblr to interpret what other people say in the worst possible light, and then "call them out" for that. Because yes, words mean things, but social media often isn't a place for eloquence and a lot of people will write short posts that are somewhat vague in meaning to an outsider. It's given me social media anxiety, because I feel like I have to be ready to explain every single thing I type on the internet, and I have to constantly worry about whether something I say will be interpreted as accidentally _phobic.

What many people on Tumblr don't seem to take into account is that there's an ocean of difference between someone who says something offensive out of ignorance and someone who says something offensive because they're actively bigoted. The fact that posts containing unintentional mistakes can be immortalized and misconstrued as examples of intentional bigotry makes me incredibly paranoid.

2. When social justice is used to demonize other people for the purposes of an agenda—i.e., when acephobes claim that arguments for asexuality being not heterosexuality (wow, what a radical argument! /sarcasm) are "homophobic," somehow—I view that kind of social justice as dead. Maybe it's extreme of me, but it's something that I just can't stand.

3. I also think Tumblr sometimes doesn't distinguish enough between "ugh oppressor class" and "every single individual in an oppressor class is a trash person." This gets me because, hey, I've been in the first situation. I am the person who is going "ugh neurotypical people" all the time. But I don't go out of my way to say that I think every single neurotypical individual person is out to hurt me or is a trash person. (Even though a lot of neurotypical people have hurt me. A lot.)

For most of my life, I didn't identify as a feminist, despite the fact that I did hold feminist beliefs, because I thought feminism was about hating men. When I learned that feminism wasn't about hating men, it was a revelation to me. "Ah! I can identify as a feminist now!"

My beliefs are still the same as they've always been. I still care about subpar representation of women in fiction and the media, discrimination, wage gap issues, gendered violence, etc.

But I'm breaking away from Tumblr feminism/social justice because, once again, the lines between "gender justice" and "hating men" seem to be blurred.

This is not something I oppose for abstract reasons; it's something I oppose for deeply personal reasons. Whenever I see "men can't be trusted," "all men are violent predators," I feel a deep personal turmoil.

Because these sayings aren't part of "no one can be trusted" or "everyone can be a hurtful douchebag." No; the unsaid implication from these is that "women can be trusted; even if women do bad things, at least they're not violent predators," etc.

It is acceptable, in Tumblr spaces, to say, "I don't trust men." People defend people's right to say this without insisting that they "give men a chance," "#not all men," and so on. However, if I were to say, "In my life, I have been emotionally hurt by women far more often than by men, therefore I tend to be mistrustful of women"—which, by the way, is not a hypothetical, this is actually a truth of my life—I would probably be labeled a raging misogynist, or told "I just have to go out and meet more women, because most women are lovely, supportive people."

If I said, "Most of the men I've met are lovely, supportive people"? People would just dismiss my experiences as outliers. "Still, most men are violent creeps and therefore untrustworthy. You were probably just associating with a fringe community of men."

I'm trying to paint an equivalence for logical purposes, but the truth is it's not quite equivalent. I don't avoid women, I don't say I hate all women; I am clearly aware that I do have/I've had positive relationships with a few women. But the more I see these "all women are lovely and caring, all men are violent predators" rhetoric, the more paranoid and rebellious I get, and the more my own feelings are pushed to an unhealthy extreme. I feel like my own experiences don't matter; that I have no right to be mistrustful of women despite experience after experience of being hurt or let down by (allistic) women. It's starting to give me even more hostile feelings towards women, exacerbating preexisting issues I've had (such as finding it a severe challenge to write female protagonists—I'm far more comfortable writing male protagonists, and yet Tumblr feminism tells me that that can be the case only if I have internalized misogyny).

So, for the sake of my mental health and trying to maintain a more healthy, balanced view of humanity, I'm removing myself from Tumblr.

(...Well, not entirely, because I still have to follow Stimtastic's tumblr. Damn it. That's always the problem—if there's even one Tumblr I follow, I'll inevitably get sucked back into Tumblr. Sigh.)

Once in a while, I'll see posts about authors writing masculinity/femininity in fiction. Sometimes it's the tired trope of "female authors can't write male characters authentically" (but, somehow, the reverse is usually not said about male authors?). Or, sometimes it's "straight female authors horribly mangle gay male characters." Like, the argument that straight women shouldn't fetishize gay men, the same way straight guys shouldn't fetishize lesbians, is understandable enough. However...

1. Is there any empirical data that most women who write about gay guys are, in fact, straight? I've seen fandom surveys that suggest that the majority of women who write/read slash fanfiction, at least, are actually LGBTQIAP+ (including lesbian women who write m/m slash fic). And I know of at least one confirmed example of a slash (original) fiction, with something resembling the seme/uke dynamic, written by a bisexual woman. I mean, if the point is that cis women generally are guilty of fetishizing gay men...that's a slightly different point than cis straight women alone fetishizing gay men.

2. One post I read talked about how most fiction about gay men written by (allegedly) straight women doesn't deal with the problems gay men face in navigating masculinity.

...I'm not questioning this, but, as someone who mostly reads and writes speculative fiction...oftentimes fantasy/sci-fi worlds try to break the mold by having a non-heteronormative environment. And I think this is a good thing, just like I think it's a good thing when spec fic has societies that aren't racist, or aren't sexist, etc.

The part about masculinity also suggests to me that the character(s) in question have to have internalized certain norms—the American norms of masculinity, in this case. But what if an author wants to write about a character who hasn't internalized these norms, or who rejects them? Or if an author just isn't interested in exploring constructs of gender that way? I mean, as a female writer, I am personally deeply uncomfortable with writing female characters who navigate femininity. What does this mean—that I, a female writer, cannot write an authentically female character, much less an authentically lesbian character?

I'm sure part of it is my own personal circumstance—I'm autistic, which probably has to do with why I've never assimilated stereotypical gender norms, and I may or may not be genderqueer. The result is that I have zero interest in navigating current-day American experiences with femininity and masculinity in writing because both have always seemed pointless to me.

Part 1

One thing is that a lot of Tumblr people say "the specter of cis heteroromantic aces is a bogeyman, since, according to an AVEN survey, hetero aces make up less than 1/4 of the ace community, and there are barely any hetero aces on Tumblr! [same goes for aromantic heterosexuals, although there are no numbers for aros]"

So, I mean...I don't want to center the ace community on hetero aces (although I've kind of been forced to by the acephobia), but...I sort of wonder about this claim.

That hetero aces could be a minority of aces, I think is reasonable, but I *do* think that the lack of presence of hetero aces and aro hets on Tumblr isn't necessarily indicative of real numbers.

The thing is, hetero aces and aro hets are most likely to face erasure and not know of their sexual orientations. For one, those hetero aces and aro hets who genuinely don't feel like they experience discrimination...aren't identifying as ace/aro, they're identifying as straight. For another, asexuality, despite what some Tumblr people might think, is still not well known among the straight population at large; therefore, the average person out there is most likely to think, "Hey, I [a person with a binary gender] experience romantic OR sexual attraction to the gender opposite mine, therefore I must be straight!" As for their missing romantic or sexual attraction, they'll probably assume "Oh, I'm just a late bloomer" or "I just need to find the right person."

(I'm speaking from personal experience here, as a person who was 100% certain I was straight before realizing I was actually heteroromantic ace. [Although now I'm not even sure I'm heteroromantic ace and think I might be hetero-aro-spec, if that's possible.])

Plus, there are other, more general factors that impede realization that someone could be asexual: for example, gender stereotypes (women are expected to be sexually passive; a man may not want to admit to himself or others that he doesn't experience sexual attraction due to the hypersexual masculine "ideal"). Also, it's extraordinarily difficult to identify a lack of something. An asexual who likes sex, or at least is neutral towards sex, for instance, may not realize they don't actually experience sexual attraction. Same with an aromantic.

I suspect the population of hetero aces (not sure about aro hets) is larger than has been counted, because a few times when I've seen "Asexual Men 101" posts on the internet, I've seen a bunch of comments from men who talk about how they've always wondered why they've never felt sexual attraction or the urge to do something sexual with a woman. They're most likely not on Tumblr, and I'm guessing they're not even aware of AVEN.

As for the lack of hetero aces on Tumblr...well, with the acephobic culture on Tumblr being what it is currently, what hetero ace would be confident enough to be out? (I certainly am not.)

If not for the fact that I need a DCEU-positive and Marvel-critical space, I probably would've quit Tumblr and never looked back, because boy has that site become horribly toxic and off-putting.

Case in point: a recent baffling intra-LGBT debate that has become incredibly vicious and toxic, arguing that "cishet" asexuals (by which they mean cis heteroromantic asexuals, and cis aromantic asexuals for some bizarre reason) and "cishet" aromantics (cis aromantic heterosexuals) don't belong in the LGBT community, since they're "actually Straight." Except oftentimes the acephobes/aphobes don't distinguish clearly enough between whom they're attacking and just throw all asexuals under the bus.

Complicating matters is the fact that aces have been split in the debate, with some homo/bi/panromantic aces also claiming that "cishet" aces shouldn't be part of the LGBT community. Basically, if this "discourse" has been successful, it's that it has splintered the asexual community. (Which, incidentally, has made it harder for the asexual community to police its own since it has become so scattered—as this is a frequent criticism I have seen from acephobes who claim that somehow the asexual community is more racist, homophobic, ableist, etc. than the general population.) I have even seen an asexual arguing to redefine asexuality in order to make it more palatable to allosexuals (including non-straight acephobes) which is...um...what?

It's baffling because, as far as I know, this toxic debate is entirely on Tumblr only, and many LGBTQ+ communities are actually welcoming of ace and aro people in real life.

It's also baffling that there are non-ace/aro LGBT people claiming "cishet" aces/aros are Straight, but none of them actually cite a cis heteroromantic heterosexual person saying "Oh yeah, het aces/aros are straight." Even though, you know, you have to be considered straight by straight people to be Actually Straight. And reading posts from a lot of heteroromantic aces makes it clear that they often don't feel welcome by straight people.

In case my own position isn't clear: cis heteroromantic asexuals, cis aromantic asexuals, and cis aromantic heterosexuals are NOT STRAIGHT. Calling aces/aros "cishet" is already a microaggression (that has unfortunately spread even to people who are not acephobic or arophobic) because "cishet" has been used to refer to cis heteroromantic and heterosexual people, a.k.a. Straight people. And if you're ace or aro, you automatically don't fulfill those three criteria.

So acephobes go around claiming "cishet" aces don't experience discrimination (if they remember to distinguish between hetero aces and other aces in the first place), and then they aggressively attack aces (or, perplexingly, people they perceive to be "cishet" aces, who are often not even ace, aro, cis, or straight in the first place), gaslight them, harass them, and even send death threats to them just for being ace. I mean, irony much? Hell, I had the *audacity* to make a post on my Tumblr (where I have literally less than 10 followers) about how I found acephobia upsetting, and then I got a message from an acephobe telling me to delete my Tumblr. I'm not even joking about this.

Plus, it is incredibly heartbreaking that I have to read posts like these from "Evil 'Cishet' Aces" who have been driven to self harm/suicidal ideation/suicide attempts because they feel broken due to heterosexism and yet have been deemed "actually Straight" by acephobes. Newsflash: if your "social justice movement" is causing people to self-harm and consider suicide, you're not a social justice movement, you're actively oppressing people.

I am one of those Evil "Cishet" Aces* as well (*I mean, I prefer not to identify as heteroromantic ace anymore just because my gender and romantic identities are a bit more wobbly than that, but hey, it's not like acephobes would care). I am fortunate not to have experienced corrective rape, abuse, or mental health problems as a result of my sexual orientation, as many other aces have. However, these are the fun things I've had to deal with:

Constantly having my identity invalidated and constantly being infantilized by being told "I'm just too young to know" and "I'll like sex when I actually have it" (FYI: I'm in my mid-twenties).

Being told "I'll never get a boyfriend" if I keep insisting I'm asexual and being told that I shouldn't talk about my asexuality if I'm dating a guy.

Having to field intrusive questions from my parents about my lack of sex life when I was in a relationship (and my sister, who is also ace and also in a relationship, has to deal with the same).

Receiving confused and disbelieving reactions when I say that I'm asexual but still want to marry a man some day ("How is that possible?").

As a result of the above, constantly being afraid of not being able to find a romantic partner who will accept my asexuality.

Not feeling represented in media, even though pop culture shows m/w relationships everywhere, due to how ubiquitous sexual attraction is in relationships in fiction/on screen.

Struggling and failing to reconcile media/culture's message that "sex is great and everyone wants to have it, especially in the context of a loving relationship" with my own complete lack of sexual attraction or desire for sex. This led to my internalizing certain nonconsensual dynamics as what "normal, loving sex" looks like (it's only by luck that I never ended up in a sexually coercive relationship before I learned what asexuality was).

You'll probably notice that none of this happens to straight (cis heteroromantic and heterosexual) people.

Basically: Tumblr is a weird place, and LGBT people who want to exclude aces/aros have a lot of misplaced anger, but instead of directing that anger at straight people (the people they're actually angry at), they use it to punch down on a community that's still struggling for visibility and acceptance and confused teenagers trying to figure out their identities.

I am the last person to say "men cannot identify as feminists/analyze fiction from a feminist viewpoint." However, at the same time I have seen, on occasion, examples of men who try to analyze fiction from a feminist viewpoint and turn out to have a colossal blind eye to certain gender issues, thereby perpetrating kind of skewed gender analyses. It's the same reason why I would not feel comfortable saying "this book is a profound and nuanced exploration of issues faced by the black community"...because I'm not black and lack that kind of expertise and personal experience. And I think it's wounding when someone outside of a marginalized community proclaims a work of fiction to be positive for a marginalized community when an actual member of that marginalized community finds it harmful.

The particular example I have in mind is Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.

I've talked about this book before; I haven't disguised the fact that I dislike the book. I wouldn't tell a female fan who found the book empowering for women that she's wrong, but I think the way the book is obsessed with the beauty/lack thereof for the female protagonist is, at the very least, not feminist; the female protagonist has close to zero agency for most if not all of the story and is also portrayed as completely incompetent for the first half of the story (not to mention that, bizarrely, she actually has less characterization in the book than some of the male characters); and most female side characters are portrayed as vain, shallow, and/or jealous rivals and get less characterization (and less presence) than the male characters. (Also, the book treats East Asian culture in a gross way, but that's a whole different problem.) There's certainly a strong case to be made for the idea that the book perpetuates a lot of rigid and unhealthy gender stereotypes regarding women.

So when a male reviewer comes along and says "I think this book is empowering because it's telling girls they shouldn't dumb themselves down for a guy, and self-love results in your best, most beautiful self"...I'm going to have a major problem with that. Because that reading of the book completely ignores the fact that the female protagonist (Alina) is completely obsessed with how "plain-looking" and not beautiful she is for much of the book, until she suddenly gets a beauty makeover. It only reinforces the stereotype that it's natural and expected that girls will obsess over their appearances and want to be "beautiful," and it also comes with the unpleasant undertone that only beautiful women are competent and valuable.

[Given the ending of the trilogy, I think it's pretty safe to say that that reading is also probably objectively wrong, since the last book ends with Alina completely giving up her powers so she can fade into anonymity with her boyfriend.]

(Without further delving too much into the details of the book, there's another reason why the above reading is strained: when Alina initially suppresses her powers, it's not because she had a crush, but rather because she didn't want to be taken away from her only friend. So it's kind of a weak argument to say she was "dumbing herself down for a guy," since she was initially motivated by friendship.)

There are positive ways to spin a message about self-acceptance, but it's a stretch to say that was what Shadow and Bone was going for, based on more than a skin-deep understanding of gender issues faced by girls/women. So ultimately what I want to say is: guys, if you want to talk about gender issues faced by girls/women, please educate yourselves first.

One of my paranoias, as a writer, is of accidentally writing an unhealthy romantic relationship. Why do I say this? Because I grew up absorbing messages that most kids do, i.e. "If you love someone, you'll always be there for them," "Loving someone means putting their needs before your own," etc. But as I got older, I learned to unpack those assumptions, and I learned that, taken to the extreme, all those attitudes are actually unhealthy. For example, subsuming one's own needs to one's partner's needs is actually unhealthy. And so on. Yet sometimes, it's hard to draw a precise line between "definitely not problematic" and "definitely problematic."

I used to be fairly active on Tumblr, though I've dialed down quite a bit, and my initial enthusiasm has also waned a lot. I'm the kind of person who (perhaps because of my autism) likes to follow rules and likes knowing what's the Right Answer vs. the Wrong Answer. I initially thought social justice was all about getting the Right Answers, but I came to realize that there are no "Right Answers" because people within a marginalized community don't agree on what's feminist vs. sexist, what's racist or not, and so on.

And so someone like me, who's eagerly absorbing all this information in search of the Right Answers, gets horribly confused when they see some feminists praise a show for being feminist, and other feminists criticize the same show for being sexist, and worst of all, if you disagree with one or the other opinion, the OP criticizes you for being a terrible and sexist person.

In the end, I suppose, in order to be productive, I have to find a way to let go of my anxiety that someone out there will take a look at what I've written and find it problematic. It's a hard position to accept, especially concerning something like trying really hard not to portray an unhealthy relationship, but that's the only realistic thing to do.

I still haven't watched Avengers: Age of Ultron yet, but I've finally heard the full context of the Black Widow "sterilization = monster" quote, and I'm copying it here, for future reference, because now that I've heard the whole thing I just...I really don't see how it's defensible.

"In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised...they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It's efficient, one less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier, even killing. You still think you're the only monster on the team?"

#1: The line saying sterilization makes it easier to kill is explicit. There is no other way to read that line. And I'd hope everyone can agree that equating inability to have children with an easier time killing is complete and utter crap. It is explicitly equating an inability to have children with an inability to have empathy and "normal human" emotion, which is a huge insult to everyone out there who is infertile or who just doesn't want to have children, and which has no sound basis in fact.

#2: From a logical standpoint, THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY FREAKING SENSE. Having a child is "the ONE thing that might matter more than a mission"???? Not even a romantic partnership or close friendship would matter more than a mission?? For crying out loud, the idea of romantic relationships compromising peoples' abilities to carry out assassin/spy missions is the oldest cliché in the book; why in the world would that not occur to the Red Room????

Also...women can choose to get abortions???? Or use birth control???? It's not like the ONLY WAY to prevent women from having children is sterilization??? (On the flip side, women can choose to adopt children?? It's not like being biologically unable to have children would prevent women from being a mother if they really wanted to be???) Also, some women—hold on, this might shock you—do NOT WANT to get pregnant?????

I mean, it's one thing if the Red Room is meant to be portrayed as some ignorant sexist organization and is criticized for having these nonsensical misogynistic ideas...but as far as I've heard, Age of Ultron doesn't do that.

#3: I don't get it. I've mentally bent over backwards trying to read the "monster" line as not referring to sterilization. At best, the "monster" line refers to the fact that sterilization makes killing easier (which, as I said above, is 50 shades of screwed-up), but even then it's referring to the fact that she has killed AND the fact that she was sterilized.

That's the most charitable reading that's reasonably possible, and I don't even think it's the most intuitive reading, because the entire focus of Natasha's dialogue is the sterilization (everything after "They sterilize you"—whenever she says "it" and "thing"—refers back to that sentence), therefore it would make the most sense that the "monster" line refers to the sterilization as well.

To read "monster" as only referring to "killing" would mean cutting that sentence in half and disregarding the first half and everything else Natasha says before, as though monstrosity can only be associated with killing and not with sterilization, and I just don't see how that reading is reasonable. Take this sentence, for example: "I love pasta. Pasta is delicious in every shape it comes in. When you cook it al dente, it melts in your mouth. It tastes great, especially with tomato sauce. It's the best thing ever, you know?" Theoretically speaking, you could say the last sentence refers to "tomato sauce" and not "pasta," but...who would understand it that way?

To put it another way: Assume Joss Whedon really did intend for the "monster" line to refer only to the fact that Natasha killed people. If that's the case, why have her talk about sterilization at all, and at such length? Why not have her say something like,

"The Red Room trained me to be an assassin. I killed people...men, women, children. You still think you're the only monster on the team?"

???

I could go on, but my point is, semantically speaking, Natasha's dialogue is problematic, period.

And if someone wants to claim I'm taking this line of dialogue "out of context," the entire scene preceding this is about Bruce telling Natasha they can't be together solely because he can't have kids (which is the worst reason ever not to have a relationship when Natasha never even said she wanted kids and is so procreation-normative I can't even), and the scene ends basically right after Natasha finishes speaking. You want context? The whole freaking context of the scene is about being able to have children.

Man of Steel gets a lot of things right when it comes to its female characters, but there's another aspect of the movie that makes it surprisingly feminist-friendly and a definite contender for most feminist superhero movie pre-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—its portrayal of Clark and his attitudes towards women.

Clark respects women on a profound level, which is clear based on his interactions with female characters throughout the movie:

- Faora: Clark is never once surprised to see that Faora is Zod's second-in-command, he never questions her credentials or her skill, he fights her as an equal, and he has no sexist resentment about getting "beaten by a woman."

- Martha: Let's talk about Clark's relationship with Martha. Let's talk about how he has a close and healthy relationship with her: she is his anchor, his heart, and when he's finally figured out where he's from, he comes home to her, and promises no one can take him away from her.

- Lois: Clark always respects Lois's agency. From the first time he saves her on the scout ship, he waits until she consents before taking a look at her wound. He never once tries to tell her not to board the Kryptonian ship or stay out of the battle for Metropolis for her own safety—because he respects her choices as a grown, intelligent woman and wouldn't demean them by presuming he knows better or can act in her own best interests.

It's something that's so easy not to notice because it's an absence rather than a presence of doing something, but it's incredibly important. How often do we watch a superhero movie and we see male superheroes making decisions for their female love interests in order to "keep them safe" and act in their best interests? It's patronizing and it strips them of any agency. And sometimes, to make things even worse, the narrative punishes women for ignoring the man's attempts to keep her safe (*cough*Amazing Spider-Man 2*cough*). So it's frankly amazing that Clark not only avoids overriding Lois's interests to "keep her safe," but she also isn't punished by the narrative for exercising agency, either—both times when she willingly heads into a dangerous situation, she ends up playing a crucially helpful role with her knowledge and ingenuity.

Heck, Clark doesn't even tell Lois what to do even when his secret is at stake. When Lois finally meets him at the cemetary and tries to interview him, he doesn't tell her, "You can't run my story." Instead, he poses questions to her, to get her to think about his perspective. "What if I don't want my story told?" "What do you think?" In the end, he trusts her—he trusts that she will take the information he's given her and make the right choice on her own.

- Chrissy, the waitress: The obvious is that Clark was willing to stand up for her when she was being sexually harassed, and no one else did. The not as obvious is that he respected her wish for him not to get into a fight and ended up walking away.

He respected her wishes not to get into a fight. This is why Clark isn't a chauvinistic, knight-chivalrous faux-protector of women: because listening to the woman who is affected by his actions is more important to him than beating up a guy for disrespecting her.

Basically, Clark is an amazing role model when it comes to respecting women.

Also, let's talk about Clark himself. In certain ways, he doesn't really fit the "ideal" of masculinity—he's quiet, introverted, soft-spoken, and kind. He's openly affectionate with his mother. He doesn't like violence. He expresses grief, and anguish, and he seeks comfort in Lois after he kills Zod. He presents an alternative to traditional masculinity; indeed, he embodies a healthy kind of masculinity.

To me, it's incredibly thrilling that the current cinematic Superman is one who embodies healthy masculinity and respect for women, and it's amazing that Man of Steel is one of the most feminist-friendly movies to date.

I'm starting to wonder if I've developed some sort of general anxiety because of law school. It's not bad enough to result in panic attacks and physical symptoms (...yet), but I find myself worried and feeling uneasy nearly all the time, and to put it mildly, it really doesn't feel good. It sucks to constantly have a voice in my head telling me that I've failed/going to fail at everything, that everything I write is worthless/inarticulate/stupid/accidentally offensive.

I've been trying to have a "Tumblr detox," so to speak, since (as I mentioned in a previous post) Tumblr has been the catalyst, if not exclusive cause, of my current anxiety. But it's like trying to quit an addiction/unhealthy habit, and so far I haven't been that successful. Today, oddly enough, I happened to stumble upon what I call the "dark side" of Tumblr—namely, r a d f e m and T E R F blogs (I'm spacing the words out in the hopes that they won't appear in a Google search, and from here on out I'll refer to them as RF/T-RF respectively). Up till now, I had actually been unfamiliar with what the RF/T-RF position was, except I had a notion that they were considered Bad by the "liberal"/"SJW" portion of Tumblr.

Well, today I finally found out. And yes, they are very transphobic, and it's bad.

But their idea that "gender is constructed"?

( Read more... )

I know it's terrible timing because I have a final exam tomorrow and my brain hasn't been working so well lately so I'm just hoping I don't fail, but right now, I'm furious.

And unless things get a lot better in the future, I'm 100% done with the MCU fandom.

I'm furious because the announcement of Sharon Carter appearing in Captain America: Civil War, which should have been a surprise to NO ONE who is familiar with the Captain America comics, is somehow sparking backlash. People are hating Sharon Carter because of the possibility of a Steve/Sharon romance (which, again, if you read the comics, should be a surprise to NO ONE), for several reasons.

1. Because it ruins Steve/Natasha or Steve/Tony or Steve/Bucky - Jesus effing Christ, the last thing I want to see in a fandom that I thought was relatively mature is the kind of shipping wars that infamously dominated the Naruto and other anime fandoms. First, there's this concept called "being able to enjoy multiple ships"—hell, *I* shipped Steve/Bucky but I also ship Steve/Sharon. Second, Steve/Sharon is CANON. People are free to dislike a canon ship on a personal level but canon ships should be entitled to a bit of respect? I mean, I'm not a huge fan of BuckyNat in the comics, but I'm not going to throw a fit if that becomes part of the MCU later (though I guess now that's unlikely because of Bruce/Nat).

And third, stop erasing female characters for the sake of slash ships. I enjoy the biromantic!Steve headcanon as much as anyone else, and I've read and written a lot of Captain America slash fic, but seriously, stop using that as an excuse to put down female characters.

2. Because "it's creepy" - Sigh. Is there something a little weird about Steve dating the niece of someone he used to love? Maybe. But freaking God, people are acting like it's incest or something when Steve obviously never married Peggy, making him COMPLETELY UNRELATED to Sharon. And people are acting like it's "manipulative" and "weird" that Sharon would get involved with Steve knowing that he sorta-almost had a relationship with her aunt, even though (a) how is it manipulative? CATWS shows us that Steve is the one who seems to be trying to initiate something with her, and she's always been incredibly professional around him (which is very in line with her character in the comics), and (b) so Sharon grew up admiring Captain America, like every other American in the Marvelverse, so what? Like people never end up in romantic relationships with someone whom they've admired for a long time?

3. Because Sharon/Steve never worked out long term in the comics - Neither has basically any other romantic relationship. Seriously, Marvel hates keeping romantic couples together; Sharon/Steve getting broken up multiple times is not some kind of aberration.

4. This is the one that infuriates me the most: "Because it's problematic [from a social justice standpoint] to have Steve fall in love with a blond white woman [instead of a man or person of color]."

Really? You're pulling the social justice card to justify your dislike of a female character because she's white and blond?

First of all, Marvel could have cast Sharon as a woman of color, and/or as bisexual, and/or as trans if they really wanted to. But they didn't. That's entirely on them, not the character.

Secondly, so where was your anger when Marvel had Tony fall in love with a white woman? When Thor fell in love with a white woman? When Steve fell in love with Peggy, a white woman???

Of course I want to see more women of color and relationships with women of color in the MCU. I would've been thrilled if Pepper Potts, Jane Foster, Peggy Carter etc. were racebent. But if you're singling out Sharon Carter for being a white love interest, I call foul.

And it bears reiterating: You want a canon bisexual Steve Rogers? I'm with you. But for crying out loud, stop erasing female characters for the sake of male slash ships.

I'm really disgusted that people are using a social justice explanation to justify why they hate a female character and/or the ship.

.

Now for the obligatory "Why am I angry?" explanation.

I'm angry because, as you might have gleaned, I love Sharon Carter in the comics. There are many female characters I enjoy in fiction, but very few whom I can identify with on a personal level. Sharon Carter is one of those few female characters. She's badass and fearless even when she's just a normal human being surrounded by superpowered beings. She's dedicated to her job and willingly puts duty over love (and how many female characters are written that way?), but she clearly cares very deeply for the people she loves (Steve being one of them). She's not afraid to be angry or prickly or reserved and she's never ashamed, either. She's often treated horribly (because she's a female character in comics, unfortunately) but in the hands of a good writer she's really, really great and her relationship with Steve is sweet, supportive, and genuine.

So yes, Sharon Carter means a lot to me and it really, really infuriates me to see people on Tumblr turn on her. I previously took a break from the fandom because I had issues with their uncritical praise of CATWS and certain ways they viewed/treated Bucky, and I came back because there was a lot of interesting and thoughtful discussion about Age of Ultron, but unless things change in the future, for now I'm done.

(I hope the DCCU fandom really gets going once DC movies start rolling out because I want a new fandom home. :( )

This is probably the wrong time to do this since my first final is tomorrow, BUT I thought I'd start collecting links related to Avengers: Age of Ultron as a handy reference for later.

[work in progress]

all the reasons aou's black widow was not black widow

The Violation of Black Widow

"I’ve just returned from seeing Age of Ultron, which proved to be both formally a shambles and so ideologically toxic on every level that I found it difficult to enjoy even those isolated moments that provide competent entertainment."

More about Black Widow

On Hawkeye and the heteronormative family ideal

Honestly, I get irritated when I see things like "Marvel is (supposed to be) more feminist than DC!" or whatever. I feel that blanket statements like that are pretty useless because the level of feminist-friendliness varies dramatically from title to title for both Marvel and DC.

Also, I keep hearing all these terrible things about a lot of Marvel's top writers right now, and that's a pretty big turn-off (the only DC writer I've heard bad things about right now is Lobdell).

Aside from social justice concerns, I find myself having a really hard time clicking with most of Marvel's current titles. Thor? Nope. Captain America? Bleh. Iron Man? I read all of the Marvel NOW! run and was constantly asking myself why I was reading it. It seemed like the worst kind of sci-fi soap opera, complete with "Tony Stark is the Chosen One" and "Tony Stark was adopted!!!" nauseatingly clichéd plot twists.

The only titles that work for me right now are new ones, like Ms. Marvel and Loki: Agent of Asgard. Also, I'm going to give Moon Knight and Elektra a try. But considering how much I'm a fan of the MCU films, it really seems pathetic that I can't stand a lot of Marvel's current series.

Some links here for future reference:

Remender criticism
Some more Remender criticism
- Highlights: Of the recent stuff he's written, he fridged both Rogue and Scarlet Witch in Uncanny Avengers, fridged Sharon Carter in Captain America, and retconned Cap's continuity so that Steve's father was abusive and Steve actually sympathized with his abusive father

Bendis criticism (a summary post)

Gillen criticism (mostly dealing with Young Avengers, but there are mentions of his other stuff too)
- Kieron Gillen's ableism

(...And a few months ago, there was the whole incident in which Brian Wood was accused of sexually harassing a woman at a con.)

[Content note: mention of rape, unhealthy/abusive relationships. Also, spoilers.]

I want to like Scandal. Earlier on, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I want to support a TV show that has a dynamic black female lead, artistic cinematography, taut suspenseful plots, gay characters, and a variety of strong female characters.

But unfortunately, Scandal also wanders into problematic territory more often than not.

I originally dropped the series during the second half of Season 2 because the "romance" between Olivia and Fitz was driving me nuts. I hate love triangles, and I hate the concept of "forbidden romance," but perhaps most of all I hated how misogynistic and unhealthy it came off at times. Jezebel already has an article about how Olivia and Fitz's relationship is emotionally abusive, which I won't rehash, but I'll say that Fitz ordering his staff to follow Olivia, watch her, and take pictures of her—even when she's sleeping with another man—after HE was the one who ended their relationship—without her knowledge or consent whatsoever—is really stalkerish, controlling, and not okay. Also, there was a scene where after their relationship was "over" they met at some occasion, had sex in a room, and then he blames her for HIS sex urges.

I jumped back on the Scandal bandwagon when I heard about the Josie Marcus running for president plot, and episode 3x06 "Icarus" had one of the best denunciations of societal sexism that I've ever seen on TV. Which pleased me greatly! But then, of course, they just had to write a situation to kick Josie out of the presidential race for the worst reasons, because it was clear that they weren't willing to pit Olivia against Fitz in a presidential election. And so they dropped the entire plot about supporting the potential first female president of the US. If it wasn't for the fact that I was curious enough about "the big reveal" to stay on, I would've dropped the season then and there.

This compounded my disgust when watching episode 3x07, when it's revealed that Mellie was raped by her father-in-law and so her oldest child might actually be Fitz's father's child. Which...just, why? The more rape is depicted in popular media, the more normalized it is and the more people come to expect rape (of women, never of men) as inevitable. The only way I could see this being used for dramatic payoff is if Fitz one day discovers that his oldest child isn't his—but so what? Is he going to blame Mellie? Because it would be disgustingly misogynistic of him to blame a rape victim. But if he doesn't blame Mellie, there's no dramatic payoff. Was this written to give more gravitas to Mellie's assertion that she's sacrificed a lot for Fitz? Because what, giving up her thriving law career for his political one wasn't enough? Sticking with a dead marriage wasn't enough? Was it just written for shock value?! Whatever the reason, it was a terrible, terrible move.

And there are lots of little things that make me feel as though Scandal isn't as great with feminism as most people seem to think. Characters, especially Mellie, keep throwing around the terms like "whore" and "slut" to degrade other women (and even gay men). Aside from Josie Marcus's epic speech, there's a lot of "we're living in a patriarchal society and you have to play along" without a lot of openly calling out how unfair sexism and misogyny are. And let's not even get started on how Olivia and Mellie, arguably the two most powerful women on the show, are mortal enemies because of the whole affair between Olivia and Fitz.

Apart from gender issues, Scandal is also very allosexual-normative, as most TV series are, but it's incredibly grating to me when the characters always assume that if a character isn't dating/in a relationship (read: having sex) with someone, that character must be gay. Uh, no, how about asexual or aromantic?

Finally, I just want to take a moment to talk about the plots of Scandal so far. One recurring theme seems to be: you can cheat/do terrible things, and as long as you own up to it (kinda) and cover your tracks well enough, you won't suffer any real consequences. See the lack of political fallout from people learning about Defiance. See the revelation and the backtracking of "Olivia Pope is the President's mistress." And, sure, you can argue that this is a realistic message, because in real life, anyone with enough power and money can get away with anything. But this is not a positive message, in fact, I'd say it's a very toxic message, and it disappoints me that Scandal seems to be portraying this as a positive thing.

So far, there's lots to like about Beware the Batman, but there are also some problematic elements as well.

First off, I have to say, it's pretty rad to have Tatsu Yamashiro/Katana, a Woman of Color, as Batman's sidekick, especially when that role has been traditionally fulfilled by white males. We also get a cast of recurring female characters, such as Barbara Gordon (and I'd dearly love her to show up as Batgirl some day), Lady Shiva (also a Woman of Color), and Magpie. (Though, of course, the number of female characters is far from parity with the number of male characters.)

Yet the show is also guilty of "funny harassment" in regards to Tatsu's relationship with Jason Burr. When they first meet, she saves his life, and from then on he is constantly trying to win her affection even when she's made it clear she's not interested. Worse, by episode 9, she actually begins to come around and has a dinner date with him. Such stories reinforce the idea that men are entitled to persistently harass women for a romantic relationship because eventually they will give in, which is a very, very problematic idea.

There's also Bethanie Ravencroft, a therapist who Bruce starts going out with, though it turns out she was working for a villain all this time. And even though Bruce says he always knew she was working for a villain, it still doesn't negate the "girlfriend turns out to be evil seductress" trope. Also, it's kind of terrible that she died in a pretty gruesome way, while the villain she was working for, Silver Monkey, survives (so far), continuing a trend of female characters tending to get Killed Off For Real at higher rates than male characters.

Something I noticed that made me pause and think a little was that Tatsu is always covered up in terms of her clothing, while Magpie and Shiva, who are villains, display much more skin (particularly Magpie). Perhaps I'm reading a bit too much here, but I hope it isn't a case of equating evil woman with slutty clothes. While we're on the topic of character design, I'm also going to express my disapproval of Tatsu and Shiva wearing high heels. Dude, they're martial artists, why are they wearing heels?!

It's still a bit early to have a definitive opinion on female characters in Beware the Batman. Batman's world is less of a boys' club than it's typically portrayed, but BTB still has issues to work through. I enjoy the main characters and the animation enough to look past its flaws for now, but Your Mileage May Vary with this one.

On a non-feminist-related note, I really enjoy the fact that Alfred in BTB is portrayed with a shaved head, bulky build, and a cockney accent. They give a totally different feel to his character. Also, Batman/Bruce Wayne's voice is perfection.

I actually wrote this some time ago, but forgot to post it here. So here it is:

Silver Linings Playbook is a romantic comedy that brings up a lot of interesting issues, most notably that of mental illness, but ultimately glosses over them in favor of focusing on the feel-good romance story.

It’s not often that you have a movie that features characters’ struggles with mental illness, and one could argue that the fact that the audience is asked to sympathize with a protagonist who has bipolar might help to alleviate the social stigma of having mental illness. However, the film itself does not address the problem of stigma. It’s alluded to a few times in the film, but never explored in any meaningful way. Mental illness stigma is a huge problem in our society, and the film’s lack of awareness of this important issue is pretty disappointing.

I’ve seen reviews of the movie that wondered whether the film was ultimately propagating a “love (not medication or therapy) conquers depression” message, and other reviews that pointed out the protagonist was taking medication in one scene (but whether he did so throughout the rest of the film is not shown). Just the fact that there is confusion on this point is problematic, as a common misconception about depression is that if people “try harder”/meet the right person/whatever, they can “get over” it, which can be a harmful assumption.

While the romance is sweet, I’ve seen the point brought up that it implies that only people with mental illnesses can understand each other (as the two leads are both bipolar, I think, and actually bond over their shared experiences), and I think that’s a valid concern.

I’m not at all an expert on mental illnesses (what experience I have is related to depression), but I wonder whether bipolar was sensationalized in the film. The protagonist, Pat, is shown to be somewhat violent on two accounts. I can’t say whether people with bipolar are never violent, and to be fair the audience effectively “forgives” Pat’s outbursts because he’s the protagonist, but I worry that these depictions reinforce common assumptions that people with mental illnesses are violent and dangerous. Also, the way Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence’s character) apparently slept with everyone in her office while depressed because of her husband’s death struck me as somewhat…odd, to say the least.

In terms of other issues, the film is not terrible with female characters, but certainly not great. There are far fewer female than male characters in the main cast, and only one of them (Tiffany Maxwell) gets any significant screen time. There’s also the fact that while protagonist Pat idolizes his (ex-)wife Nikki, she’s the direct cause of his mental breakdown and subsequent institutionalization for 8 months due to infidelity, and Tiffany is indirectly the cause of her husband’s death by car accident when she stopped wanting to have sex with him. I’m not really a fan of the implications here.

Comics in general are infamously known for catering to the male gaze, and there's been a fair bit of controversy around DC's New 52 for just that reason. Here's another article about how the female gaze is close to nonexistent in comics, which makes the point that while all sorts of justifications are drawn up for why superheroines have to wear bikinis, male heroes are covered from head to toe. The article also points out a recent trend of having superheroes cover up even more: just look at Superboy/Kon-El, who went from the very modest jeans and T-shirt pre-New 52 to a full-body Tron suit in the New 52.

One example was particularly startling to me. I looked through Red Hood and the Outlaws #6 at random--yes, that Red Hood and the Outlaws with the sexism problems (Kenneth Rocafort's art may be pretty, but he does not know how to draw women*). That particular issue actually featured Jason Todd naked for most of the issue--and yet Jason's musculature was barely defined, which is pretty odd considering he's the combat-happy Red Hood. In other words, Jason was hardly sexualized despite running around naked (there was much more attention paid to Starfire's butt than Jason's abs).

At least the issue of sexualization in comics is far from monolithic even within the current DC titles. Carol Ferris's Star Sapphire outfit finally looks more like a bodysuit and less like a bizarre stripper...thing. And Aquaman/Arthur Curry tends to have shirtless scenes in at least half of the Aquaman issues (as opposed to his wife, Mera, who is drawn as a sexy woman but never gets gratuitous naked scenes/butt shots/spine-breaking arched poses). Still, I'd have to agree with the above article that we're very far from parity when it comes to opportunities for female gaze vs. male gaze in DC comics. (Can't really speak for Marvel, though.)

* Argh, his cover for Batman/Superman #8 made me cringe. It practically looks as though Huntress had her stomach and intestines sucked out of her abdomen, leaving behind a cave. D: Power Girl also looks like she's been on a serious diet...

Hmm.

The second season is not at all off to a good start.

So first off, the fact that Vincent comes back with amnesia is straight out of Romantic Clichés 101. Because being "in love" is apparently not as exciting as "falling in love," therefore they play the old amnesia card to get to write about Vincent and Cat falling in love all over again. Except it's just so transparently done for romantic drama that it's not even funny.

Perhaps even more worrying is that this "second time around" plot is becoming straight-up problematic.

Beauty and the Beast stories can be really beautiful when done well, but they also have the potential to be really problematic. Even in their most benign forms, they often have consent issues. BATB 2012 is veering into outright abusive relationship territory.

First off, Cat literally puts her entire life on hold to search for Vincent for 3 months. She doesn't really show up at work (uh, generally not okay in real life, guys), her sister can't even get a hold of her...basically, her entire life revolves around finding Vincent. It's one thing to love someone a lot; it's another thing to be destructively obsessed with your romantic partner. Tess even points out that her obsession with Vincent is kind of ruining her life.

Even worse is the fact that Vincent kidnaps her and actually physically hurts her to the point of bruising. This isn't romantic anymore; it's bad news. While she makes it clear that what he did was not okay...it's still a pretty big elephant in the room. I mean, this kind of stuff happens in some abusive relationships, too. Guy hurts lady, promises not to do it again, lady forgives him. It happens again. And again.

Ignoring consent is so not okay.

Physical harm to your love interest is so not okay. It doesn't matter if "he didn't mean it" or she forgives him after he apologizes. Any time you're dealing with anything even remotely resembling an abuse narrative, you have to be REALLY careful, and BATB doesn't do that.

And I'm sorry, but Cat's obsession with Vincent and her constant assertion that he'd never hurt her (up until he does) really devalues her as a character. She no longer has that much of a life outside of him, and that's kind of screwed up.

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Page Summary

Current politics & The Man In the High Castle
Emotional labor, gender, and autism
On Captive Prince's racial politics as "uniquely Australian"...
Quitting Tumblr & politically incorrect frustrations
Masculinity and femininity in fiction
Acephobia, pt. 2
Tumblr culture and acephobia
Reading and gender issues
Doing the right thing...when you're not sure what the right thing is
We need to talk about Black Widow...again
Man of Steel - Feminism and healthy masculinity
Personal stuff, & a trip down the 'dark' side of Tumblr
I'm so done with the MCU fandom.
Collecting Avengers: Age of Ultron critiques
Miscellaneous Marvel ramblings
Scandal - Empowerment, Misogyny, Writing into Corners
Feminist perspective - Beware the Batman
Feminist Review - Silver Linings Playbook
Gaze in comics
Catching up with Beauty and the Beast

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On my world, it means hope.

(The fundamental belief in the potential of every person to be a force for good)

Entries tagged with social justice

Current politics & The Man In the High Castle

Emotional labor, gender, and autism

On Captive Prince's racial politics as "uniquely Australian"...

Quitting Tumblr & politically incorrect frustrations

Masculinity and femininity in fiction

Acephobia, pt. 2

Tumblr culture and acephobia

Reading and gender issues

Doing the right thing...when you're not sure what the right thing is

We need to talk about Black Widow...again

Man of Steel - Feminism and healthy masculinity

Personal stuff, & a trip down the 'dark' side of Tumblr

I'm so done with the MCU fandom.

Collecting Avengers: Age of Ultron critiques

Miscellaneous Marvel ramblings

Scandal - Empowerment, Misogyny, Writing into Corners

Feminist perspective - Beware the Batman

Feminist Review - Silver Linings Playbook

Gaze in comics

Catching up with Beauty and the Beast