Spelman College Celebrates the Inauguration of 11th President Dr. Helene D. Gayle

"Congratulations to Dr. Helene D. Gayle on being inaugurated as the 11th President of Spelman College! We're excited to see all the great things she will accomplish. #SpelmanCollege #HeleneDGayle #InvestitureCeremony #HigherEducation

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Hollywood Tries Its Hand at Video Essaying

Trying my hand at pop culture writing, and sharing some admirable people's work.

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (remix remixed 2013) by Laura Mulvey: http://mediacommons.org/intransition/2014/03/04/intransition-editors-introduction Andrew Dominick’s “Blonde” (2022) is often hyper-focused on minuscule moments of Marilyn Monroe (played by Ana de Armas) in states of pose (and some times repose). In these moments, Dominick seems to be covering some of the same territory as thinkers,…

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i got to class and my professor said "i have a meme i think you'll really like" and showed me this

i refuse to be embarrassed of who I am and what you once were just because you changed and think I should too

I love you bi Dean I love you gay Dean I love you transmasc Dean I love you ace Dean I love you-

I might be slightly emotionally attached to earlyklok cuz I love thinkin abt the buildup of this love and the foundation it's built on even if things get shaky over the years ;-; )o

Still in the closet in his 20s, nowhere near comin out in his 30s either.. he'll get there eventually !!

Two things that are simultaneously true:

1. Gender and sexuality are complex and can be fluid. An identity isn't always fixed and can change with time for many reasons

2. It is not acceptable to force others to change their gender or sexuality and the mantra that they (queer people) can change if they only "try hard" is both cruel and homophobia and/or transphobia

im her kind of girl -> positioning yourself outside your assigned gender

shes my kind of boy -> queering your attraction to someone of seemingly the opposite sex

literally a tumblr post. "it's always gay sex no matter who sleeps with me" "my gender is bisexual" "boygirl boydyke femmefag". a decidedly not mainstream and very queer sentiment. this is where zoomer queerness is going. less emphasis on labels, embracing ambiguity. how did gerard way hit it exactly. in 1 almost-throwaway line. what?

Anyways what grinds my gears specifically about the Barbie movie is the same thing that ground my gears during the feminist courses I took in college. Fundamentally, feminism is an analysis of gender. You cannot examine what a woman is or how women are positioned in society without also examining what gender is and how gender is created, maintained, and replicated on a societal level. This is an unavoidable part of the larger feminist project. And yet. In many cases. Feminist analysis focuses solely on the gender binary. Gender is analyzed through the lens of binary gender. You have men, and you have women. Furthermore, much of feminist analysis (particularly older analysis) focuses on heteronormative expressions of gender, because this is the driving force behind misogyny.

The problem with this occurs when feminists treat binary gender as a natural and normalized thing, as opposed to the artificial creation it actually is. Once you start looking at gender solely through the lens of “woman experience” and “man experience,” you can very easily fall into the trap of gender essentialism, where you take one specific group of women’s (and men’s) experiences, and you treat those lived experiences as a rubric by which all other women (and men) should be measured. This is how the white feminism we all love to dunk on was created; 2nd wave white middle class feminists began speaking to one another and formulating a list of Common Experiences that later became the Universal Woman Experience, to the detriment of woc, lgbtq+ women, disabled women, etc., who often found that their experiences with womanhood didn’t make the list.

And like. This is my problem with the Barbie movie. It falls into this same trap of gender essentialism. In the Barbie movie, there are two genders: Barbie and Ken. These categories are immutable and unchangable, and have very specific, rigid rules that must be followed. All the Barbies are femininity idealized; some Barbies are allowed to be fat, or black, or visibly disabled, but all of the Barbies are hyperfeminine. Every Barbie wears heels. Every Barbie has perfectly styled hair and perfectly matching outfits. Every Barbie has perfect makeup at all times. Every Barbie always looks runway-ready, no matter what her circumstances are. Likewise, every Ken is a study in idealized masculinity. While the Kens do wear colorful outfits that match the movie’s glitzy, saturated aesthetics, the Kens all have chiseled six packs and flawless skin. There is no fat Ken, or ugly ken, or feminine ken, and there is no Barbie who wears a crew cut and work boots. Weird Barbie comes the closest to gender nonconformity, but her nonconformity is mocked at every turn; the rest of the barbies treat her as though she’s diseased, and weird barbie herself treats her short hair, messy makeup, and baggy clothes like a curse she’s gotten used to bearing, as opposed to a source of joy or comfort.

And like. The movie is so allergic to showing any visible deviation from this gender binary that it fundamentally destroys its own premise. We’re meant to believe that Stereotypical Barbie is becoming less perfect, and that this is a good thing, but we’re only ever shown this imperfection once; as a disembodied 1-second shot of cellulite that could belong to anyone. You never see the cellulite on Margot Robbie’s body. You never see Barbie’s imperfection manifest physically; instead, it remains in the abstract realm of imperfect thoughts. Likewise, the movie spends a long time critiquing toxic masculinity, but never extends that critique to masculinity itself. Ken’s moral lesson is that he’s just Ken, as in he’s just a man, but the movie doesn’t bother presenting an alternate version of what it means to be a man beyond vaguely gesturing towards the abstract notion of Masculine Man, But Good This Time, Because He Is Nice To Women Somewhat. So while the movie might’ve had some salient points with regards to gender and feminism, it gets lost in the simple fact that, just like mainstream feminism, it offers a shallow critique of women’s position in society without critiquing the underlying binary structure that constitutes women’s oppression. In essence, it decries patriarchy while continuing to uphold the gendered norms that reinforce patriarchy in our day-to-day lives.

And like. I’ve been seeing a bunch of posts about how it’s bad, morally, to critique the Barbie movie for [insert women’s solidarity reasons here]. But like. The thing is. Why the fuck should I care about solidarity with the fucking Barbie movie. According to the Barbie movie, my butchness is undepictable. I am a shameful exile from womanhood just like weird Barbie; doomed to helping other women realize their full feminine potential without ever reaching it myself, cursed with butchness because of some latent trauma. The Barbie movie doesn’t care about my lived experience as a woman, just like the Barbie movie doesn’t care about weird Barbie’s lived experience as a Barbie. The movie doesn’t care about racism, or classism, or about anything other than a universalized hashtag Woman Experience. If you liked the Barbie movie, fine. If you saw yourself in it, good for you! But don’t try and tell me that the only reason I don’t like the Barbie movie all that much is because Im allergic to fun, or haven’t read enough feminist theory, or just need to practice solidarity better. Feminism isn’t a cudgel you can use to silence people who disagree with you.

I posted recently re: an assertion that Dean is attracted to underage girls (based primarily on his comments about teen girls in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" & "After School Special"). OP's angle was roughly: "Dean could have pedophiliac attractions as a result of having been sexually-assaulted in childhood."

While that's a reasonable-enough take, I personally disagree. I don't think Dean is attracted to teen girls. IMO, a close reading strongly suggests that what he's doing in those scenes can be boiled down to "crude humor attempting to gross out Sam."

But I also wanted to talk about Dean's general demeanor toward young women, because we see a fair amount of interaction between him & teenage girls, including Claire, Krissy (from "Adventures in Babysitting") & Marie (from "Fan Fiction"), and it's markedly different from how Dean approaches adult women. With adult women — up to & including grandmothers (S14:E13 "Lebanon," S11:11 "Into the Mystic") — Dean flirts the way he breathes. And it's explicitly acknowledged that his flirtation doesn't necessarily indicate that he wants to sleep with the women he's batting his eyelashes at (as Pamela says, "You don't want me... You just like to flirt").

This is just how Dean's most comfortable interacting with women. Frankly, I have to imagine he's not even conscious of his behavior most of the time. (Some of this style of interaction can probably be traced back to a lack of female role models/parental figures/etc. during crucial developmental years of his childhood. But some of this is simply because Dean really enjoys sex — and thinks everyone should enjoy it — and he's just extremely comfortable with himself in that particular context.)

But how Dean interacts with adult women is not at all how he interacts with teenage girls who end up in his social sphere. There's no casual flirting with Krissy or Marie, no smoky innuendo with Claire. And when Jody brings up the "sex talk" over dinner with Claire & Alex, Dean doesn't leer or snark — he's ready to bolt from the room. The way he treats these girls, it's clear they fall into the category of "kids," not "women," and that that's not a sexual category for him. Instead, Dean seems to slip into a more familial role. The way he interacts with Krissy & Claire isn't terribly dissimilar from how he treats Ben (adjusted for age) or Jack (once he finally warms up to him). [Although he leans into more of a "cool older brother" vibe than a "dad" vibe with the girls — likely sensing that they'd resent/find patronizing any attempt to be a substitute father — whereas he gives off more "dad" energy with Ben & Jack.]

Ultimately, we have tons of evidence that Dean cares about kids, treats them with respect in their 1-on-1 interactions, & has a generally protective attitude towards them. And everything I've seen suggests that this treatment is applied equally to boys and girls, younger kids and older ones.

(Tangential, but: Honestly, one of the things I love about Dean is the respect he has for women despite the way he grew up. A lot of men who come of age in a "boy's world" see women as almost some kind of alien creatures, beautiful but unknowable, desirable but not really people — not in the way it matters. Dean might not have a particularly nuanced understanding of gender in society, & he's definitely absorbed some misogynistic tendencies from the world around him — who hasn't? — but he's got the basics right. He's starting from a place of "women are people." With a lot of guys, it feels like even if they get there, they still have to stop & recalibrate sometimes, consciously reset their assumptions. But with Dean, it just feels like his default position. Maybe it's because he cares so much more about the hunter vs. civilian divide, maybe it's something else... IDK. But that's just the sense I get from him: that this is second nature.)

i get so mad when ppl say riddle would be ignorant/clueless towards lgbtq+ stuff bc he was raised sheltered. no the fuck he wouldn't. maybe he'd start out that way yeah but as Soon as its implied he doesn't know something hes taking that shit to heart and learning everything he could EVER know about it. hes making a fucking study of it. he knows more than you actually

*snickers in knowing what the AO3 König tag includes*

i revisited this article that states this:

Text:

"Different Name, Same Dynamic

What Nicole describes is a classic pattern of domestic abuse, one that is often associated with a male abuser and his female victim. But intimate partner violence (IPV) happens in same-sex relationships, too, and — like in heterosexual relationships — the abuse is categorized by a pattern of behavior in which one partner seeks to gain power and control over the other. A 2013 report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) found that lesbian women are more likely to experience physical violence from a partner — and they accounted for 19% of IPV homicide victims. (This is a staggering proportion considering that only 1.5% of women in the U.S. self-identify as lesbian and 0.9% as bisexual.)"

And bases the entire article, which talks about IPV in wlw relationships, off this source. The articles main point is to talk about how women are can and do abuse other women in relationships.

And maybe I'm misreading something but this cited source does not actually talk about lesbians or queer women in general as perpetrators of either IPV or IPV resulting in homicide...like at all. "Lesbian women are more likely to experience physical violence from a partner" does not mean "Lesbian women are more likely to abuse their (presumably women) partners". You can't make that kind of logical leap. Why?

Because closeted lesbians date men. And those men abuse them. Bisexual women date men. And those men abuse them. Queer women date men, and those men abuse them.

I searched the study the article cites to see where this particular statistic could be. I found:

Hate violence survivor and victim demographics. Lesbians make up 19% of hate violence survivors and victims. This says nothing about being perpetrators, yet the entire article is about women as abusers.

There's another section in the study that does talk about perpetrators/offenders demographics, and these are the categories it covers: gender identity, racial and ethnic ID, age, total number of offenders, relationships (as in, landlords, family, coworker or employer, etc), and site. Not sexuality (which I was honestly surprised at).

People often say lesbians are the biggest abusers of the LGBT+ community, and then they use that to justify being lesbophobic and misogynistic, but that 19% statistic doesn't remotely support this claim.

I did some Googling and can't seem to find anything supporting the claim that lesbians are perpetrators of IPV more than any other gender + sexuality combo. This isn't to say lesbians never abuse or are never abused, but....there's just no numbers to support the claim. The one thing I can find is that according to the CDC, about two thirds of lesbians surveyed reported only having female perpetrators against them. Note that "female" does not denote a sexuality. Also note that the overwhelming majority of bisexual women are victims of IPV from male partners.

Reading this reddit thread also brings to light some other issues with the idea that lesbians are the biggest perpetrators of abuse in their relationships. They cite a CDC survey, I believe.

I'm just endlessly frustrated by this idea that lesbians are uniquely violent in the LGBT+ community. I'm too tired to get into why this belief sucks, or why people are even willing to believe such an unfounded stat in the first place. It's obvious.

hey cutie wondering if you have any recs on books on greek mythology? something not too dense...

hmmm like nonficiton? most of my books in that area are from my required readings in uni so they are bit dense, but i remember classical mythology by william hansen being fairly beginner friendly in my first year (plus the cover is gorgeous). I haven't read it but greek mythology by stephen fry seems like a good starting point for a lot of people. after you read those and get a sense of some of the stories, I would just suggest maybe jumping into some of the plays/epics because they play a very important role in the grand scheme of greek mythology. the oresteia by aeschylus is the biggest probably, a trilogy of plays that follows the story of Agamemnon, clytemnestra, cassandra, ect. ofc theres also the Iliad in which emily wilson just came out with a great new translation, and the odyssey is a staple too. Sorry I can't be more helpful!

hi i need some help!

i am going to be attending a christian university in the fall. this school is funded by a religion that believes in very traditional gender roles, as well as marriage being between one man & one woman. it's bad enough that you can be expelled if you are found to be dating someone of the same sex.

with that, i know i will not be able to take any classes on gender and sexuality that don't align with those beliefs. but as a closeted queer person myself, i so desperately want to learn more about those subjects. i just have to do it outside the school setting.

if any of you have recommendations for books, textbooks, video essays, free lecture series, etc., on gender, sexuality, or queerness in general that you recommend, i would so greatly appreciate it!!

this semester's reads (spring '24)