#also the implication is that men don't have a gender and white people don't have a race?? what?? lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaotic-neutral-knitter · 11 months

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begging the people who make harassment prevention trainings to understand that you can just say “Black woman”

#i'm sorry but the editor in my brain yelled at 'this worker has protected characteristics of gender and race' lmao #say what you MEAN #also the implication is that men don't have a gender and white people don't have a race?? what?? lmao #this is for my volunteer position at a science museum #it was the typical 'watch a video and identify how this person fucked up'

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transmascpetewentz · 4 months

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One Challenge For People Who Deny Transandrophobia

I have one challenge for anyone and everyone who denies transandrophobia for any reason that has to do with transmasc advocacy allegedly harming trans women. Seeing as you all are very adamant in your stance against trans men demanding basic respect in queer spaces, this should not be difficult for you to do if you have thought about your reasoning for holding such opinions.

My challenge for all of you is to answer this one question:

What is one way that transmasc activism harms trans women directly, or is transmisogynistic in some way?

Now, because I know that some people will put together words that don't make sense to avoid answering the question but sound intellectual, here are some logical fallacies that your answer must avoid for me to consider it completing the challenge:

You must not include any criticism of the word transandrophobia that does not meaningfully engage with the activism and discussions that trans men have been having.

No comparisons to any sort of hate groups (MRAs, TERFs, etc). Point out the specific ideas that you disagree with instead of saying "this is just like [x]."

You cannot cherry-pick the concept of intersectionality or cite any particular white woman's interpretation of the ideas proposed by Kimberle Crenshaw to discredit transmasc advocacy without engaging with the new ideas we have put forth.

No whataboutisms; do not base your argument around the idea that trans women should be centered in trans men's spaces and discussions.

Avoid making use of a strawman. Try to think of the most compelling argument you've seen for the existence of transandrophobia and refute that instead of trying to attack the weakest possible argument (that probably hasn't been made in good faith).

Acknowledge the fact that closeted, non-passing, and passing trans men exist, and do not treat non-passing trans men as having a less legitimate male or trans experience than those who pass. Don't bring up passing trans men to say that all trans men have male privilege, because just like trans women, trans men who pass still face transphobia.

No projection of cisgender dynamics of gender and sexuality onto trans spaces, as while those aren't totally irrelevant, they are irrelevant to whether or not transandrophobia is a thing that exists.

Acknowledge that trans men are oppressed by misogyny, just like trans women and transfems are. Also, acknowledge the existence of intersex trans men and trans men of color.

Don't bring up individual trans men who have done certain bad things that do not implicate the entire area of transmasc activism or transandrophobia theory.

Do not mention Israel or Palestine, or bring up other irrelevant issues that you may disagree with me or other prominent trans men in these spaces on.

As stated, all that I am looking for is one (1) argument. I have searched through a lot of posts, a lot of articles about this subject, yet I have not found one coherent argument that avoids basic logical fallacies and doesn't just throw words together to sound like it's refuting anything. I can and will respond to all of the arguments that I get that fit this criteria. You can send them to me in asks or in the notes of this post.

#wentz.txt #transandrophobia #queer discourse #intersectional feminism #feminism #long post #i'd love to see people attempt this #i'm willing to have a good faith discussion if you are able to outline literally one talking point that makes any sense + avoids fallacies

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sleepynegress · 25 days

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Your post about Loustat paralleling Ruby and Christina makes so much sense. I haven’t rewatched lovecraft in a while though what specifically would you say makes them relate?

Whew! Where to start. I feel I probably need to play catch up for Ruby/Christina's dynamic on Lovecraft Country because that's probably the one fewer people who follow me are familiar with so... This is Ruby and Christina:

Ruby is a rock/blues singer in the 1950's Chicago, and like our man Louis, she has done most of the work holding up her family. Also, like Louis, a lot of the challenges she faces are deeply racist, and because of her gender full of misogynoir as well, more than today because of the past setting of the story... Her shade and body type also come into play when compared to what her sister, who is lighter-skinned and thin could get away with in life. Christina is the daughter of the leader of a centuries-old white male-dominated magical cult, in which she is clearly the most talented in wielding magic but she has no say-so and cannot inherit the same privileges because of sexism, something that is *always* intersected with racism which that cult has deeply ingrained traditions in. Despite it all, these two fall in love. The biggest similarities I see in Christina and Lestat are...

both... are not just white but white-white blonde hair blue-eyes.

have a measure of self-loathing because of some trauma devolved from whiteness (Lestat stalked and tortured and piled into a bunch corpsed reflections of himself) and (Christina always considered a "protected" possession beneath white men and not an equal because of her gender)

are powerful supernatural beings, a wizard (I just feel that's the more likely adjective over witch for her) and a vampire

are narcissists

woo and manipulate, seduce, their partners into being with them, by lending their own privilege to give them protection or higher status, via whiteness

both are desperate to connect with their Black partner in ways that are impossible because of innate privilege deferential w/in the times they live and their own psychological shortcomings - Lestat opening the relationship and Christina going through the pain of a "lynching" to try to understand Ruby's day-to-day fear

are ultimately toxic to their partner and all other healthier relationships they have - Ruby's family especially Leti and Louis' family, most importantly Claudia

genuinely love their partner but just don't have the capacity or ability due to past traumas, narcissism, and that huge gulf in empathy for their very different lives.

The biggest similarities between Louis and Ruby are.. that they are broken by racism and the responsibilities of existing and maintaining for others while they are invisible in their plight. Both are uniquely beautifully human, vulnerable beyond what any other people in their lives "see" and that makes them both entrancing and vulnerable to the Lestat and Christina.

These are both queer interracial dynamics that take a really empathic and honest eye to render well, especially in this day and age. Both of these cultural spaces are riddled with discomfort, judgment, and fear, which mostly lead to dishonest depictions; and self-censoring, but they have subverted that for the most part.

Both I would say have been exceptionally well done and if really looked at critically beyond the chemistry and romance, I do think some interesting wider sociological conclusions/implications could be gathered from them. I think that's in part because of the freedom of the genre space. When it's supernatural or fantastical in some way, often the heavier issues are rendered more honestly. I'd absolutely love to read a dissertation really breaking it down.

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golvio · 6 months

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So I've got...some complicated feelings about this. Some of them more analytical, some of them more personal. I get pretty long-winded when I think out loud about this guy, so I'm putting my thoughts behind a cut.

On the one hand, I definitely noticed that TotK's Ganondorf was more preoccupied with his appearance, not necessarily in a stereotypical "vain villain who never shuts up about how beautiful they are" or a "gym bro who spends more time checking himself out in the mirror than actually working out" sense, but in a "he's very conscious about the image he projects and wants to maintain careful control of how other people see him at all times" way. I'm glad I've got confirmation that I wasn't just seeing things. Also, that TotK discusses how he uses attractiveness to manipulate people, as implied with how he portrayed "Princess Zelda," had some really interesting implications about his life as the Gerudo king and his personality and skills in reading people that Nintendo never followed up on, because god forbid we give this character any recognizable traits that could inspire curiosity about who he is as a person or discussions about gender roles in ways that aren't "He pretends to be a cute little white girl because he's an Evil Degenerate."

On the other hand...it kind of contributes to the way I've been weirded out by how the game itself treated him and how certain fans treat him. The game itself made a lot of effort to dehumanize and un-person this man as a character even while making his human form visually appealing. The fans themselves are celebrating this a validation of their seeing him as a sex symbol, calling him "a bi icon" because both men and women are attracted to him, etc.

Like...there's all this discussion about Ganon's appearance and how sexy people find him, but not much consideration of what *he* might want, or how he feels, or what he's attracted to. I know that's kind of a goofy question to ask about a fictional character who can't really have opinions on things beyond what the writers give him, but...it's just kind of...objectifying?

For example, I don't take any issue with headcanons that Ganon might be bisexual, or at least enjoys the attention he gets from people of any gender, since I've got my own headcanons about him being queer, but I do get weirded out by the assumption that just because both men and women find him attractive that means he *must* reciprocate their desires and be bisexual. It's the same thing that weirds me out about fan art pre-release that portrayed him as this airheaded himbo jock because fans wanted to ogle his sexy body without having to deal with his intelligence, his anger, his negative qualities, or his potential dangerousness.

There's this tendency to objectify him in both the game, whether as a "monster" to slay to prove the player/Link's mettle as a hero, or as a trophy to symbolize Rauru's dominon over the frontier territories of his kingdom. And then there's a tendency to objectify him in fandom, presenting him as a pinup devoid of his original personality, or trying to shape him into a "good Ganondorf" that the fans would actually like to be friends with by sanding off all his sharp edges so they can access his body, which they find beautiful, without having to deal with the parts that might complicate that or that they'd dislike.

Fandom as a whole seems to have a blind spot when it comes to the objectification of masculine characters, particularly because it's like, "Oh, BOYS can't be objectified! Only pretty (white) ladies can get objectified!" Nevermind that objectification is a phenomenon that's super commonly done to nonwhite men in tandem with the more overt and violent dehumanization that comes with racism, especially men with darker skin. And there doesn't seem to be much of an interest in exploring what that might mean for Ganondorf as a character, whether just as discussing double-consciousnesses and exploiting expectations to manipulate people, or to explore how being treated like a piece of meat or a pretty ornament who exists only for other people's pleasure can really warp a person.

I guess...this is something I've been thinking about since playing Slay the Princess, which asks a lot of questions about objectification, how people's complexity can be dismissed and ignored when they're shoved into the Love Interest archetype, and how being limited in this way in the eyes of others can seriously hurt and warp someone even if it's being done in the "nicest," most paternalistic and "benevolent" way possible. It presents the core relationship as being a fundamentally unequal power balance; no matter how fearsome and terrifying the imprisoned party becomes, she is always at your mercy, she lives and dies based on the choices you make, and the "nicer" routes are potentially just her saying what she knows you want to hear and auditioning for your sympathy because like it or not you're her warden. It also forces you to ask yourself what makes you come to love somebody, and to consider the possibility of loving somebody while also acknowledging their thorny, messy, contradictory, and dangerous parts. I wish I could see more works considering this for Ganon, as opposed to regurgitating tired old "Destroy This Mad Brute" tropes or turning him into a "safe," palatable, easy-to-digest love interest.

#loz thoughts #ganondorf #racism mention tw

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transfaguette · 1 year

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i personally agree with transandrophobia/transmisandry but I deeply, deeply disagree with the MRA slant taken by a lot of other transmascs. I think trans men face an intersection transphobia, misogyny, and sexism, but I really dislike frequent implications that 'cis men suffer under patriarchy too!'. Of course they do, bigotry hurts everyone, but just because white people are affected by racism doesn't mean we need to bring them into the discussion. society is just not there yet. I feel the same way about feminism. we are not at a point with the more disadvantaged where cis men's needs can be addressed. This isn't a hate post, I just want your input. We disagree fundamentally but have a similar goal, so I'm curious what your reasoning here is.

I am not the best person to speak about race, but my understanding is that the relationship between men and the patriarchy and white people and racism are not identical. Like, generally there are very few if any things that most white people could do to have their whiteness stripped from them. There may be some groups that teeter on a gray area here, but generally speaking. It is, on the contrary, very easy for manhood and masculinity to be denied to men who do not act according to what a man "ought" to be. Gay men are sissies and men who cry aren't real men, etc. Toxic masculinity does hurt everyone, including cis men, it is a tool for repression and control. Anyone who challenges those ideals is punished and ostracized. I think there is room for many types of discussions and focuses with feminism, I don't think men's liberation at all takes away from women's liberation. We are all working towards the same goal, which is liberation from the oppressive gendered standards in our society.

I also think a holistic approach is just, necessary to build a framework that doesn't ultimately fall back on agab and hard definitions between man and woman, cis and trans, binary and non-binary, etc, because ultimately those are all arbitrary.

#asks

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nobodybelivesimstraight · 2 years

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SAIKI K WITH A CRUSH HEADCANNONS

Genre: Fluff, Friends to lovers vibe, saikis awkward ngl.

Wordcount: 1090

Warnings: talk of food(Bullet 12,13,15,16 and 17,) slight implication(but not intended) over-achievement issues(Bullet 18 and 21) btw /j means joke.

E N J O Y:)

Intended for: it's intended for NBLM(Non binary loving men) but no pronouns are used so anyone can read but be respectful and understand this is meant for NON BINARY people. Cause there are also a couple implications that it's for non-binarys so don't be mad.

First and foremost this man could care less about gender heck it's not like he can even see it.

Listen bro we got to start this off by bro never thought he'd ever be even remotely attracted to somebody let alone wanna be in a relationship.

Man would have no clue what to do with himself he's never even thought about liking somebody how could he ever date them.

Never been In a relationship before so like 88% of his knowledge Is from what he's seen in shojo mangas and shows.

No he would not take ANY advice from his friends cause he knows they'd come up with the stupidest things known to man kind.

Thought about asking Teruhashi but decided against it since she would probably think it's a plan to ask her out.

He would probably first developed interest in you because of how normal you are and than after......

I feel like he'd be some what nervous talking to you and would definitely read your mind to see how you feel about him before making any moves Whatsoever.

He will use your mind against you.

But not in a bad way he'll use it to see what you like what you don't and what type of gifts to maybe get you.

Anonymously ofc.

For examples on Valentine's day he'll get you candy he knows you like cause he read your mind.

And on white day since you don't know who gave you the candy you'll put then on your desk hoping the person whom there for gets them. 🔫🤭

Which he does.

Even if he doesn't like the candy he'll still take it.

May even still eat it.

Will leave you little notes saying "thanks for the candy" and/or "I got them thank you".

Sometimes if he notices your having a bad day or nervous for/failed a test he'll go up to you a try to comfort you.

Keyword: Try.

And If you didn't get a good score on a test he'll change for you.

He loves the way your face brightness up when you see you didn't end up being the reason Mrs Chonyun hates her job. (Even though we all know it's nendou).

Will compliment you.

Wether it be about your outfits your intelligence or just random quirks of yours hell compliment it if he feels like it.

Extremely attentive you can't hide anything from this kid(and I mean anything).

If your friends with his friends he'd go to group hang outs with them just to see you(as if he doesn't already get dragged along any ways).

If not he'd probably use clairvoyance to "coincidentally" run into you in the hallways.

Would make the slightest attempt at socialism with you.

He's never been one to initiate conversations so he would be kinda awkward but trys his best.

Would either split or buy coffee jelly with/for you but no he'd never fully give you his. (he doesn’t love you that much/j)

He wouldn't make any moves on you in public cause well..... Privacy.

But In private that's a different story, he'd try all the body languages if man had led lights he'd turn them slightly red you know?

He wouldn't use any pick up lines tho because he thinks there cringy and dumb.

Hes not really the type to shy away from his feelings but he his the type to be completely obvious to what's happening to him.

But dw once he finds out and/or understands he'll make some moves(maybe even say oh wow to you/j yournotTeruhashi)

He'd confess....................Eventually.

Scratch that he'd read your mind and depending on how you think about him and your likeness chart toward him he'd confess(if you don't know it's the chart that was mentioned in the volleyball episode and valentines day episode show how much a person likes you thing).

Again this guy has never been on contact with any romantic feelings for anyone before so he lowkey as no idea what he's doing.

The way he confesses to you is probably by giving you a note to meet him behind the school.

He's blunt.

Like super blunt (it's saiki what did you expect🤨).

The way he confesses is Litterally just a "I like you" in the most monotone voice known to man kind.

And no, against popular belief (apparently) my man saiki here isn't that expressionful.

He's deadarse looking directly into your soul while he confesses his feelings to you.

You say yes cause you love him obviously🔫🙂.

And he hold his hand out for you to hold for a little bit.

He thinks things that require physical contact Ex: holding hands, hugging, hand around shoulder. Things like that are intimate and romantic.

He just wants to touch you tbh.

He then pulls away and offers to walk you home.

You say yes🔫😊.

He walks you home and you two talk about swaggy things like school, cyborg cider man number 2, the kid next door, how dumb his friends can be, how you both are like the only two people in the school who aren't head over heels for Teruhashi.

You know just chillin with each other.

You guys get your house and he waves good bye to you giving you one of his very rare smiles.

He waits till you get inside your house to walk away because there are crazy people out here.

All in all he's happy you like him.

your happy he likes you🔫😃.

You two are a power duo.

◡̈⋆🄷🄴🅈(●’◡’●)ﾉ it's me this wasn't a request I just wanted to to this. I'll probably do a continuation to this about my head-cannons of what dating saiki would be like. Until then have a good day and stay cool bro😎.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᵇᵗʷ thank you for 33 likes on my last post it's highly appreciated. Also this is quite a colorful one cause I like color some kid saw me working on this in a coffee shop and asked if I was gay. I'm not btw I just like✨c O l O r✨

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sorin-sunchild · 24 days

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Wait whats the issue with saying tma/tme?

Similar to what happened to AGAB terms, people have started to use TMA/TME to just mean 'Binary AMAB trans woman/binary AFAB trans man' occasionally parcelling it out to nonbinary people as well based strictly on your AGAB/SAB or perceived AGAB/SAB. The creation of a new binary isn't a good thing, especially one defined by a specific type of oppression/bigotry that is not black and white in it's real life execution. It will always involve ignoring, excluding and erasing the experiences of those who don't fit that strict binary but still experience what it's talking about.

AMAB trans women are the most effected by systemic transmisogyny (after all they are the intended target of it). They are the most affected and the worse affected group. The way others can be affected is not equal but it's also not acceptable and it still happens - circumstantially or otherwise. 'Exempt' means immune to, free from, never experiencing or having to experience X *ever*. Bigots aren't kind and are well known for simply lashing out at anyone with any resemblance to a group they hate.

The line especially gets blurry if one is intersex. An AFAB intersex person, after all, could have gone through a masculinising puberty and be affected by transmisogny for simply looking 'masculine/like a man' in the transphobes eyes. Bigots rarely give a shit about what your personal identity and actual AGAB is. If they want to be transmisogynistic towards you, they will. In this way you will not be 'exempt' simply for not being an AMAB trans woman. There are people who will *never* experience even a lick of transmisogny but it's not strictly based on one's AGAB or gender.

Considering point 1 and how many people use TMA/TME alone to describe someone's identity e.g. 'TMA so-and-so' ...don't you think it's a bit weird referring to trans women specifically by the oppression they face? Not as women, or trans women, or trans femmes but basically 'victim of transmisogny'. It's like referring to your ssa friend as 'lesbophobia affected' instead of 'a lesbian'. It's just strange to centre the persons oppression and not their gender/actual identity to me I dunno. Trans women deserve better than to be constantly reminded or told of their inherent 'inescapable victimhood' to the point where it becomes how they're identified as trans women.

People are using it to basically assess whether a person is or isn't allowed to talk about how transmisogyny or transphobia in general affects anyone of any group. Again this is needlessly exclusionary. Reminds me of how 'no uterus no opinion' was/is used with the intention of telling cis men to back off discussion of cis women's reproductive rights etc but also excludes trans men by assuming their lack of a uterus based on gender and excludes trans women from talking about issues affecting people of their gender simply due to assumedly not having a certain body part.

I don't think people who use it often consider the wider implications and you aren't bad necessarily just for using it. I'm sure some do find it useful, but it's not useful on a wider scale. If it's useful to you then use it for you but maybe we can back off using it for others based on assumptions?

There's many areas of grey when it comes to how transmisogny affects people. People who aren't trans women saying they are affected by transmisogny isn't because they all want to be victims so bad or talk over trans women. It's because they know what they experienced and they don't want to be shoved into another binary box and have their experiences silenced because a bunch of strangers online have black and white thinking. This has never nor will it ever be a good thing to do to someone.

Do I think I've ever been personally affected by transmisogny? No. But that doesn't mean that other trans masc NB people haven't and never will or can. Trans women and trans femmes, especially AMAB ones are always always ALWAYS going to be the most affected and the most vulnerable to it and the ones who have the most to gain from it being fought but that does not and will not ever mean that everyone else is miraculously never affected at all i.e. exempt. That's my personal issue with the TMA/TME dictonomy.

#transmisogny #trans #trans*#transgender #exorsexism #intersexism #also not to do with you specifically anon but I thought after the last hate one I'd turned anon off oops I didn't but I will now #long post

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drbased · 5 months

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Another tear down: lightning round.

'no one back in the day cross dressed' - literally no one apart from maybe the hardcorest of hardcore conservatives (or the particularly sheltered and ignorant) believes this. Everyone knows crossdressing exists and always has existed. But they have to put that in, because the picture they show literally is of crossdressing; If they simply put 'no one back in the day played with gender', people could simply point out that the lesbian couple are cross-dressing, and that's not 'playing with gender'. So they have to package the two things together - one real but not relevant to bolster the legitimacy of the other, fake one. They have to package the two things together because 'playing with gender' is a functionally meaningless phrase.

Since gender has no application in the real world, the only way it can be 'expressed' is via real-world things like cross-dressing. But there's no real way to prove that cross-dressing has anything to do with gender identity. And that lack of ability to 'prove' gender is, ironically used to bolster its legitimacy. This is the equivalent of saying things like 'the warmth you feel in your heart towards your fellow human is proof you have a soul'. Like... there's no real way to prove the connection between those two things, and that's the point. It's deliberately unprovable, as all religious thought is.

Trans activists in particular are desperate to find historical basis for their belief system. But the thing is, two lesbians half-cross-dressing in wedding attire has a perfectly occam's razor explanation that exists comfortably without the need for 'playing with gender' to come into it. It's like seeing a picture of a group of people sat around a fire telling stories and saying 'see! that's proof that people worshipped Blorzep, God of Stories!' It's a form of rhetoric where you jump ahead to your own conclusion, taking normal, easily-explainable human behaviour and adding your own spiritual explanation onto it.

(also 'half masc' - be honest, suits aren't 'masc' - they are male - men are expected to wear them. and as for the 'femme' - well women were expected to wear white on their wedding day, and white is associated with virginity, something expected of women. you cannot take these 'masc' and 'femme' concepts away from their biological implications. they don't exist in the abstract; there are intrinsically linked with, and enforce, sex roles - the same sex roles that, curiously, result in mass oppression of the female sex. trying to distance yourself from any of this context is the opposite of analysis, and the opposite of feminism)

#my writing

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sapphos-darlings · 6 months

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In a wlw relationship, does one person usually has preferences in regards to things that would often be gendered in straight couples, like lifting the other up, guiding or being guided in a dance, having your hands on her waist or hers on yours, or do most just don't really have much of a preference and enjoy doing either? Do those gestures mean something, is the one doing the 'top' and the other the 'bottom'? In straight relationships, people often atribute meaning to those things, but I don't know how that works between women. I'm figuring out my sexuality now and I want to date women from now on, but I'm trying to concile that with the heteronormative context I've been in until now, because I keep trying to understand, but I don't, and I think I have to if I'll be dating other women.

It's not quite that black and white and definitely not as rigid as it may seem! There is a culture of butch/femme in the dating scene for gay women, and a more widely spread idea of top/switch/bottom from the gay scene in general, though this one is more relevant to gay men than it is women. The reasons to why this exist are complex and historical, and our other mod (Lavender) may be better equipped to tackle that side, but contemporarily speaking, these roles are not as relevant as they were earlier in lesbian/bi history and subculture.

To establish first: there is generally a celebration of "true" equality in gay relationships, of being free of the sexist implications that have been placed on straight relationships, and the ability to move on the spectrum from feminine to masculine in terms of behaviours, activities and appearance freely. Particularly in relationships between women, the lack of a direct patriarchal influence in the relationship is generally celebrated as a positive. However, in the past, the butch party would assume the traditionally masculine role. Femmes had the appearance and behaviour of more socially acceptable women and provided "shelter" for the gender non-conforming butch lesbians, who dressed and behaved in a masculine manner, sometimes living in the male role in society altogether, regardless of the actual gender identity of the butch in question. These roles were often assumed for survival, and we're talking pre-80s culture here, from the 1900s upwards, during very "nuclear family" and "traditional values" times, the majority of which homosexuality was labeled as a mental illness or was illegal altogether. But it's our cultural heritage, which in better times has become less of a cornerstone of survival and hiding in plain sight and more of an identity, a celebration of who we are - so butch and femme survive to date, and are mostly regarded as valid and beautiful identities to take on in the community.

I'd still say that in modern dating, they're less prevalent than they were before. We still have masculine women and feminine women dating each other, surely, but we also have masculine women dating masculine women and feminine women dating feminine women and women dating women who just don't fit anywhere specific on that spectrum. It's very much up to a person's nature and preference; playing into each other's strengths, rather than holding onto a specific role. For example, I'm naturally quite strong, and love picking up my small partner and hauling them around the house for the sheer joy of it. Picking people up is delightful and my partner loves to be picked up. Meanwhile, we do house maintenance together as a team, both of us know how to wield a hammer and work with nails, and if we had a car, we'd be tinkering with that together.

When it comes to roles in dancing or such, it's up to a person's personality and their level of confidence - the one who is confident and tends to take a leadership role in general will likely feel more in their element leading the dance as well. Similarly, in sex, it's up to personal preference: what you like doing, what you don't, and what experiences feel good to you and what doesn't work out. Some people are natural tops, some are natural bottoms, most people like to switch around depending on what the specific activity is all about. Sometimes a top is a dominant personality, sometimes they're a very soft person who simply enjoys to be in "lead" of the act, similarly for bottoms, they may be masculine or feminine or anything inbetween, there isn't a set place for "the woman" or "the man" in a relationship between two women, as it is, and as it should be, a relationship between two women.

In my experience, there isn't an expectation that in any given couple, one of them will assume a masculine or a feminine role and vice versa. This tends to come from the heterosexual world, and is often summed up in the rather unintentionally homophobic, ever-repeating question of "so, who's the man?" Nobody in a relationship with two women is the man, unless one of them or both of them specifically want to be the man, or feel like "the man" is an identity for them. Same with being "the woman". Ultimately, we are all just people, and these are gender roles that patriarchy and heteronormativity enforce across the gender and sexuality spectrum. Inherently, all of us share some traits in common with these roles, but very few of us fit into the set boxes neatly with all our limbs comfortably inside. In gay relationships, one of the most freeing things is to be able to let go of all of that and focus on who you are as a person, and who your partner is, and what you two have together, how you fit each other, how your strengths work into each other's weaknesses, how you support one another as a team.

Restricting yourselves down to one party being "a man" and the other being "a woman" in all things would be unnatural and clip the wings off of the potential you two have together to be strong exactly as you are, regardless of societal expectations.

Hope this answers your question!

#mod sade #ask

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caffeineandsociety · 4 months

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White cis gay men are often seen by mainstream society as the default face of The LGBTQ+ Community; this is both caused by, and feedback loops into, the way white cis men are privileged by society. When it comes to representing The LGBTQ+ Community, white cis gay men are often relatively privileged over other subgroups.

HOWEVER.

Gay men, regardless of race or AGAB, are...you know, still oppressed by society at large. In fact, many homophobic tropes about gay men have a uniquely gendered bent to them, from the "effeminate limp-wristed fruit", to the "burgeoning predatory bear", to the "devious AIDS vector" (which is also frequently aimed at trans women, thanks to popular bioessentialism and proximity to transphobic "deception" tropes), to the "greedy decadent hedonist who would destroy society as long as he gets his quickie at the club"-

And cisheteropatriarchal society FUCKING LOVES IT when people end up parroting these tropes in the name of "feminism" and "uplifting other queer subgroups".

Now, I want us all to think back to the ToddInTheShadows video about James Somerton for a moment. Remember what that video was calling out - the way Somerton's very limited original content was, primarily, repeating common misogynistic and transphobic tropes, but spinning them not as misogynistic and laterally queerphobic stereotypes, but as Very Common Bad Behaviors By Privileged Subgroups Of Oppressed Groups.

I want us to recall - he got away with this for years. He got well-meaning people, who nominally knew better, absolutely eating it up. He probably very sincerely believed it himself! How does that happen?

Consider the trope I highlighted. The "greedy decadent hedonist who would destroy society as long as he gets his quickie at the club".

Consider for a moment, how important it is to recognize how white cis men are relatively privileged over other queer subgroups - and how that kind of relative privilege can serve as a blinder to the suffering of other queer subgroups - and how, as a result, there are prominent white cis gay voices who don't see the problem with gentrification, or with highly censored rainbow capitalism; how that relative privilege can turn into throwing people under the bus...

And I want you to consider just how easy it is for criticism of that pattern to slip right into repeating that trope. Into an implication that every white cis gay man is Jeffree Starr or some shit. Into an implication that Jeffree Starr's flamboyant aesthetic is inextricable from him, personally, being a shitty I-got-mine sellout, especially if you can tie it to a critique of the misogyny in the makeup industry. Oops! We're now on a runaway train straight into homophobia town!

And the thing is, just like the example with James Somerton, you usually won't even notice it's happening. Look at how many people watched Somerton's videos. Again, he probably believed everything he said himself. We Live In A Society. We live our lives simmering in this toxic brew of stereotypes. We internalize them. After ToddInTheShadows pointed it out, of course, so many of Somerton's former viewers became thoroughly unable to unsee it - but before that? It was background noise. Of COURSE women fetishizing gay men is more of a problem than lesbophobia and misogyny! Of COURSE the presence of a single-digit number of wlw couples in children's media proves queer women are super privileged over queer men! Of COURSE trans people are being divisive by trying to distance themselves from their AGAB, that's TOTALLY inherently the same thing as denying the shared history of the communities! Because the assumption that women are just that airheaded and reckless and frivolous, and trans people are just playing pretend, is such a common set of beliefs in mainstream society, that it was just taken for granted until someone came along to shine a big, bright, glaring spotlight on it.

The lesson we need to be taking from that is not James Somerton Is A Bastard; it's the importance of being CAREFUL when criticizing lateral aggression from an oppressed group to make sure that it's not looping right back around into its own flavor of lateral aggression.

In the case of gay men, for example, we need to be careful NOT to reinvent the same old stereotype that's been around...presumably since the first time someone decided that the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were the gay sex more than the closed-off cruelty.

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musical-chick-13 · 4 months

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Barbie Movie = White feminism

I do genuinely get what this movie was going for. And I think what it was going for is genuinely admirable: the idea that, as a woman, even if you do everything """right""" according to prejudiced society, if you are thin and white and young and stereotypically pretty and personable and not intimidating, you will still suffer the effects of misogyny. No woman is immune.

However, I think that message got...muddied. This is probably going to get really long, so I'll put the rest under a cut.

The narrative focus is on how different the Real World is from Barbie Land regarding the treatment of women, but in Barbie Land, there are WOC in positions of political power. Racism and transphobia don't seem to exist (at least, not in any way that we see). These things, as we know, do exist in the real world, so if the intention is to highlight the disparity between locations, the fact that other forms of prejudice are never even MENTIONED is a little odd. I don't think this was done with malicious intent, but as you said, the discussion of feminism in this movie is...very white.

Especially since our female co-lead is a Latina woman. She gives a very vulnerable, deeply personal account of what it's like living in the world as a woman and all the angles of oppression she faces for that (something so emotionally weighty it is the key to the plot's resolution), and there is...zero discussion in any of that about what life is like for her as a woman of color, or any of the expectations that are placed on her because of that. If Gloria's experiences with misogyny are so integral to the movie's themes and to her relationship to the world at large, why not include...anything about racism or racial identity?

I also feel like there's just...a very simplistic view of how the patriarchy works. Which, no, you can't break down the intricacies of an entire oppressive social system in the space of a two hour movie. But to suggest that just...acknowledging? Misogyny? Is enough to successfully fight back against it is...the most charitable thing I can call that is "overly-optimistic."

(Like. Trust me. We're aware of the expectations placed on us as women and how much those suck. We can't "rob the patriarchy of its power" just by talking about the patriarchy.)

And the idea that...just coming into contact with patriarchal ideas will completely brainwash you? I get that everything is exaggerated in Barbie Land and that it's not a one-to-one representation of real life, but that sat...weirdly. With me. Yeah, people are absolutely going to internalize some negative or inaccurate things about women by virtue of living in a patriarchal system, but plenty of women (as well as people of other genders) go through life without falling all the way down the misogyny rabbit hole. Outside of Stereotypical Barbie and Weird Barbie (who both had plot reasons for being "immune"), this was every woman. To the most extreme degree. And, again, I just...kind of question why. What is the implication supposed to be here? Are women inherently comically-susceptible to propaganda? Is it impossible for them to de-internalize misogynistic ideas of their own accord, to the point where someone else who is miraculously free of misogyny needs to "debug" them? The optics of this confuse me a little bit.

And there's some other stuff, too, that fell flat for me. Barbie Land is supposed to be a place where the men are treated like women are treated in real life, but we don't...really see that until much later in the movie, when they talk about how the Kens don't have places to stay and have no political representation. (And, sorry, but the solution to "the Kens have no home" is not "the Barbies need to let them stay with them." It's "build the Kens their own homes and make them accessible." You are entitled to safe and secure housing by virtue of being a person. You are not entitled to sharing housing with someone you're romantically interested in.) And the way that Barbie handles her unwanted relationship with Ken is...pretty much exactly the way women try to navigate unwanted advances from men in real life: avoiding explicitly romantic activities by saying she has social obligations, keeping a physical distance in the hope that he'll give up on trying to kiss her, making her annoyance as clear as she can in the hopes that he'll take the hint and leave her to her own devices. Women in real life do these kinds of things to avoid actively rejecting men (because sometimes actively rejecting them means they hurt us, or worse) and although Barbie's behavior isn't done as a defense against potential misogynistic violence, she's still acting in exactly the same way in exactly the same context as people who do have that fear. Ken is the one instigating this relationship, and Ken is the one who keeps trying to reestablish the relationship's boundaries. So even in the face of all of this, the specific takeaway is supposed to be, "The solution to oppression is not to make men oppressed the way that women are because look how equally horrible it is." But between the way Barbie and Ken's relationship is framed and the lack of specificity in how the Kens are treated, we don't actually have a consistent depiction of men being oppressed in the way that women are, which throws that whole message off.

But mostly...maybe this is just a me thing, but I question why we need a story about how It Would Also Be Bad If There Was A Matriarchy. We can barely even get people to discuss the misogyny that currently exists and admit that it's still a problem; we are not in danger of replacing the current system with the inverse by Going Too Far In The Other Direction, not any time soon. I just don't think that discussion is valuable right now because there's no chance of that outcome--of elevating women so much they become Oppressors Of Men--even happening. (Note: I am aware that some r*df*ms/t__fs are VERY much pro-subjugating-men-because-they're-inherently-evil, they are the minority, the general population is not anywhere NEAR that point of view.)

There were some really good things in this movie. America Ferrerra's monologue about how no matter which way you live as a woman, you're "doing it wrong" was incredibly true and incredibly relevant. The Mattel executive being SO insistent that he Loves Women but has exactly zero of them on his board. The fact that the Ken Movie sold out in-universe and made a bunch of money pre-release just because it was about a man. Making fun of the "Just take a girl's glasses off, then she's Pretty™" trope. THE DEPRESSION BARBIE WITH PANIC-ATTACK BARBIE SOLD SEPARATELY. I laughed a lot and there were a lot of genuinely emotionally-resonant moments, including from the standpoint of "Oh hey, I see/suffer from this type of misogyny too!" But I don't think this movie was saying anything particularly new or profound about feminism. Which it's okay if a movie isn't profound! I like plenty of things that exist just to be fun or enjoyable! But I got the feeling this movie was trying to be profound and make some sort of grand, revolutionary statement. And even if it wasn't, a lot of people are acting like it's the key to solving sexism and I just don't think that's merited.

#T__FS THIS POST IS NOT FOR YOU 'WOMEN' INCLUDES TRANS WOMEN. END OF. THEY ARE NOT A SEPARATE CATEGORY OF 'WOMEN-LITE'#OR 'FAKE WOMEN' OR 'WOMEN WHO ARE OTHER™' OR 'WOMEN AND TRANS WOMEN.' THEY ARE WOMEN.#multi t(ASK)ing #barbie discourse #barbie and feminism #I don't. really know how to tag this?#I don't want it to show up in the general movie tag but I want people to be able to block this post if they want to #behold! a creation!#I am precisely several months too late for this discussion but. what can you do #mel's media criticism

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tremendouskoalachild · 1 year

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Chapter 2 is a Merrin POV?? 😳

Gotta say, Merrin gnashing her teeth is a very sexy image.

And the two Jedi are cool with this? I guess I would make allowances for babygirl Merrin too but damn.

Girl, same.

I did wonder how they were going to approach the Nightsisters after Merrin's introduction - since TCW overwrote the whole "there are many Force-using witch clans on Dathomir, and the Nightsisters specifically use the dark side and are unambiguously evil outcasts" thing and made Dathomir seem like a sparsely populated wasteland firmly under the Nightsisters' control (not to mention the weird species retcon shenanigans). Merrin seems like a good kid, so is their magick darkside? Usually but not necessarily? Was Talzin a corrupting influence on an isolated unique Force culture that happens to have a red death-obsessed aesthetic? Is the implication that Merrin basically got spared because her evil family were genocided??

Like here, where Merrin refers to herself as dark, in contrast to Cal's light. I seriously hope they go somewhere with this and we don't end up with another grey jedi scenario...

Cool description.

Casually burning an enemy to death. That's my girl!

Brood-y. So it's not Cal's POV but the narrative style of the book I guess. Sure why not. Or maybe Cal has infected Merrin with his way of speaking.

People wearing helmets drinking through a straw will never not be funny to me. And hey, gender neutral pronouns for the stormtroopers. I still think the metaphor works better if the Empire only employs white men but I'm pretty sure that ship sailed years ago. Then again Merrin might just be respectful.

Oh and the POVs switch mid-chapter. Bye Merrin. 😒

Stormtrooper armor smells sugary when cut by a lightsaber? Jesus christ.

Also Cal you don't have to add "for them" if you already said "odds against". I get what you're trying to say though.

Cal being careful not to steal master Kenobi's catchphrase. Appreciate it.

The droid also gets neutral pronouns, only to be called "it" in the next paragraph. Nice going, Cal... take some lessons from Merrin please.

Not Cal perpetuating the stormtroopers have bad aim stereotype. Honey, they hit pretty consistently in the game and you would have died so many times if I hadn't lowered the difficulty enough for my shitty reflexes.

I could watch Merrin do her thing all day.

Good to see the whole dark side Nightsister thing addressed, even a little bit.

#jedi battle scars

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roobylavender · 4 months

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when you say feminism theoretically frees us "all" from gendered oppression - i can understand why you feel this way, but the politics of that statement are about as radical as the barbie movie. an anticolonial movement like that of the Palestinians or of the vietnamese in the 80s didn't seek to free "both" the colonized and the colonizers, even though undoubtedly both IDF and american soldiers felt some negative effects like deteriorating mental health, etc from continuing their neocolonial occupation. the black american civil rights movement did not seek to free "both" black and white people, though some whites were negatively affected by gerrymandering and "separate but equal" laws. patriarchy harms men in the sense that the recoil of a gun hurts the one who is pointing it at his victim lol. true women's liberation WILL harm men just as the anti-slavery struggle disadvantaged white slave-owners, just as any liberation movement will cause the oppressor to lose the privileges he enjoyed beforehand. if you can't even acknowledge that the oppressor benefits at the cost of the oppressed, what sort of activism do you really believe in? or do you simply not take feminism as seriously as other liberation movements and ideologies?

also one more thing - "frees us all from gendered oppression" umm who do you think is behind the gendered oppression? do you think it materialized from nowhere, and it just suddenly appeared in society someday? if it benefited no one, if it helped no one, why would it exist? like this thinking is naive at best and actively misogynist at worst lol. men are the ones who are enforcing the gendered oppression in question, this is a non-controversial fact. imagine saying antiracism will "free us all" as if whites are harmed just as much by the system of domination that they enforce.

respectfully, that comment in the tags was a very generic one i made in reference to the male loneliness epidemic specifically and i really don't think you or i are stupid enough to believe that i think that all feminism boils down to generic inclusivism. obv oppressors will be at the other end of the gun by virtue of the way the movement would work on a material level and i wholeheartedly support that. my only implication by that comment is that it is baffling to see resistance to feminism wrt to how it revolutionizes relationships and human interaction, whether within the general international environment or within specific subcultures, bc it ultimately seeks to strike down gendered hierarchies that are harmful to everyone. that's something i speak to from my own experience as a pakistani woman living among other pakistani men and women. i can simultaneously acknowledge that certain gendered expectations have been made permanent via systems maintained by men and that this has in turn harmed men in my own immediate environment, many of whom i nonetheless have a litany of complaints of. i don't feel the need to explain my entire life story to you and frankly you aren't entitled to it but part of my feminism is very much driven by the hope that pakistani boys and girls younger than me are brought up and witness to a better ideology and means of maintaining relationships with each other than were any of our parents or grandparents. i really am somewhat baffled by you taking a split-second tag i made and reading whatever all of this is into it as if i've ever said anything else indicative of it. i would love to have a conversation with you on this in good faith if you're willing to bc i pretty much agree with everything you believe feminism to be. my comment simply was not directed at any of this nor should it have been taken to be

#like can we relax. jesus #outbox

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maestra-maria · 5 months

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On conversations with youth about digital literacy through the lenses of social justice and mental health

Even though we live in a world where gender, racial and class stereotypes reflect themselves in all facets of society, many of us still struggle to see STEM as a field that is also tainted by these. Science has long been taught and reproduced to be seen as an unbiased and "pure" human discovery. To this day, many people consider science to be indisputable and systematic. However, any field of study that continues to be dominated by mostly white men in Western institutions, will inevitably have racist, sexist, homophobic and classist dimensions. While this reality has long been documented by mostly scholars of color, our current education system tends to replicate these narratives of the fields of science and technology being unbiased and totally reputable.

Right now, with the rise of media tech giants like Google, Meta and AI technology, we are all being shaped by the decisions that the people in these companies make. Like most major companies in the US, these are companies owned and ran by white people. Additionally, they are companies, who have stocks and billions of dollars in revenue that dictates their decision-making. When we have that much money running these corporations, questions of legality, ethical use of data and censorship of content are also seemingly inevitable. Yet, when we have conversations about these media tech companies with students, rarely do we talk about the implications of the lack of diversity and the economic machine that runs the content that we see.

There is plenty we can talk about. For example, it has been studied by many researchers that the lack of diversity in media companies reflects itself onto the algorithms and AI content they publish. Students, if allowed the space to explore this within the classroom, can come to this conclusion on their own, really. They have plenty of examples to draw from as they are mostly frequent consumers of digital media and AI technology. At the same time though, while we should take kids' ideas and see what they notice, it is important for educators to have a sensible approach when discussing the effects of AI technology. The reality is that social media algorithms produce societal perceptions of beauty, mainly associated with thinness, whiteness and consumerism. These algorithms are making students unhappy, causing serious effects on their mental health, body image and even relationships.

While it is true that social media companies do not "create" the content but rather users do, we need to have conversations with students about the role that these companies have in encouraging this content and even funding it. Lessons around this should also include the personal relationships that we as consumers have with this content, how we can be aware of what companies are doing with our engagement on these apps. There is so much space for lessons and engagement with these topics with students. The issues of corporate responsibility, AI bias, our personal relationships with apps and screens, and the racial, social and political implications of all of these factors are important and worthwhile.

Yes, it takes more planning on our part as educators because curriculums are not updated to include this content and technology is moving faster than curriculums can keep up. However, as a Gen-Z teacher that grew up with social media, there is nothing I wish more than if someone allowed me to express what I see and how it makes me feel. Having an adult to guide me to learn about how my use of social media gets shaped by corporations and how that use then affects me and my personal life would have enabled me to become more independent and find meaning in my education. Our students have access to all the information they need online. Many of them are becoming discouraged by school, they don't see a purpose in learning from a textbook when they see that they can just "Google" it. It's important for teachers to understand that to a certain extent, they have a valid point. While I think there is obviously more value to education than just Googling, in many schools, students are not encouraged to think of the "whys" and they are simply asked to memorize and test. Education is not a top-down approach and we need to provide windows and mirrors for students by teaching them about these issues surrounding technology whether they are directly affected or not.

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chokecherrylore · 10 months

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It doesn't really add anything to the discourse, and honestly, my opinion is just one of many, there will also be those out there that are far more articulate with their thoughts and opinions than I am.

Bi/pan/mspec lesbian discourse, my low grade take.

I don't enjoy the label, I think sapphic as a descriptive label for those who find attraction to multiple genders but prioritize their "non men" relationships was perfectly acceptable.

I also don't love people just going around saying things like "absolutely lesbians can be attracted to men sexually." For a number of reasons this statement makes me, a lesbian, uncomfortable, and I say this as a lesbian who has a transmasculine partner who uses he/him pronouns, who's partner is trans and defines their gender with the word butch. That still doesn't make my partner a man. Ya know?

I also think it's quite frankly, a wee bit misogynistic, that from all the research I've done and the discussions I've witnessed as part of the larger "queer" community, that lesbian is often the MOST debated and divided identity. Apart from bisexuality and pansexuality I suppose, but even then, why is lesbianism often targeted with this line of thinking. Why is lesbianism so often hit with, "yes well just remember sexuality is fluid, and you could find a man attractive"? Genuinely, I swear I don't see this hot of a debate surrounding gay men and their "ability to be attracted to women."

BUT

Here's the caveat to everything I've said above, I don't think people who use the label bi/pan/mspec lesbian should be treated as automatically transphobic/lesbophobic/biphobic ect. Do I personally feel like a label that as far as I'm aware, surfaced because of transphobic people calling lesbians in trans relationships bi, can be "reclaimed"? No. But it's also not my life.

I used the label bisexual for a really long time because of comphet. Technically, from my own gender perspective, I'm not a "woman," so according to lots of people, I can't even use the label of lesbian. Gender and sexuality are incredibly complex, and there are a lot of reasons why someone might prefer one label to another. I just don't think it's my place to tell how people how to identify, even if I don't love the implications it might have on my personal identity.

Locking yourself into a complete echo chamber and deciding that every single person who even hints at being okay with bi/pan/mspec lesbiansim makes people act like goddamn Puritan witch hunters.

This was long and rambling, and it's full of contradictory feelings because those are my honest feelings. Sometimes our feelings aren't black and white, sometimes they're messy. Sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they're not an indication of our morals. Sometimes they just are feelings.

#cherry rambles #discourse #lesbian stuff i guess #needed to get my brain thoughts out on this one because i keep seeing both sides and i dont really agree with either... on everything

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dentos-wife · 1 year

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Romantic sparks would be an explicit indication that the person you are with is someone you want to have a romantic relationship with.

Yeah because i don't believe in the "I was in love this entire time without noticing it" thing. While 2 friends can enter later in a relationship, in normal times a frienship rarely, and this regardless of gender, allows such a developpement since the two friends feel tied by a special bond that romance could ruined for it was not their motivation in the first place. That's why I don't like people teasing a man saying a woman "is just a friend" because when he genuinely feels that way towards her, imagining being in a romantic relationship with her would make him feel awakard since a bound like friendship is precisely a different kind of love than romance.

That's what I meant by Chrom and Robin doesn't reak romantic vibes or sparks. While I hate the F!Robin / Chrom convos because of the whole fanservicey stuff compared to the deep conversation he had with M!Robin, what I liked was that it showed that regardless of gender, Chrom acts the same way with Robin (unlike the writers). Both in their own way showed a complicity that goes beyong romance but is not romance but is superior to romance because it has deeper roots. That's personnaly the only meaning I see in Chrom and Robin's bond deeper than fates.

I actually am glad that M!Robin is being pushed because we all know that if it was F!Robin, all hopes for her relationship with Chrom to stay platonic would have been buried by the fandom. Now dealing with people who can't comprehend that two men can mean the world to each other while loving romantically someone else (because YES it is possible) or dealing with people that can't comprehend that a man and a woman can mean the world to each other while loving romantically someone else is something due to people being more invested into romance in general than friendship which is a pity. Because it's what is Chrobin's relationship to my eyes.

And now I feel like we know who to blame for those awful support chain that Lucina has with Female Robin. Unless he was talking about Male Robin and in that moments Lucina is misogynist. Thanks Gerome

Fascining anon thank you for answering me! I guess it's how I see a lot of Pokemon ships, Ash and Dawn feels more sibling like to me. Never feel ashamed for liking a pairing more platonically and please tell this to people in the Pokemon fandom who go nuts when people hold hands...

However I do have to question a friendship never getting romantic sparks it can happen, just like it can never happen, nothing in this world is black and white, while I do think most friendships don't take a different course and the implication a man and a woman can't just be friends is obnoxious I do think it's possible to take that direction, people are friends before they start dating right? I've also heard the term, I married my best friend.

I do think everyone is waaay too hyperfocused on romance in general though and it carries over to shipping all the time yes

But even I, an aromantic ship things so there's something there in fictional ships and relationships that is nothing like real life somewhere. As for what it is, I have no idea and I don't know if there are studies on it

#anon asks #this is why yes I don't think fiction and reality are 1/1 #there are nuances #there are shades of grey

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