#this is why reading older feminist works is so important
Note
I’d love to hear you talk about PJ Harvey and queerness, if you’re so inclined!
OH MY GOD ANON I LOVE YOU reveal yourself so i can kiss you /joking and platonic (unless...)
this is gonna be really long so TL,DR, A Lot of PJ's work can be interpreted to be about a sapphic and/or gender non conforming experience.
OKAYYYYY SO
PJ Harvey, despite having never actually said she isn't straight, has written some Very Queer music, both in subtext and fully in the lyrics.
a few examples -
Dress could be interpreted to be about feeling the pressure to be a stereotypically girly girl and trying to navigate social situations where it's expected you have a boyfriend -
'Must be a way that I can dress to please him
It's hard to walk in the dress, it's not easy [...]
Filthy tight, the dress is filthy
I'm falling flat, and my arms are empty
Clear the way, better get it out of this room
A falling woman in dancing costume'
but failing to do so because it's just not you. feeling uncomfortable in a dress, trying and failing to have normal interactions with guys - which of course cishet girls can feel as well, but hits particularly hard as a queer, gender non conforming, girl adjacent person
O Stella, while the symbolism makes it about a religious idol, could be interpreted to be about idolising an older girl. Oh My Lover is about being totally fine with a partner's hypothetical polyamory.
Man-Size is a big one, before i even knew the term gender envy i was Deeply Aware that that was what man-size is about (in my opinion, at least) - wanting to things that guys do but not being able to cos you're a girl.
'Good Lord I'm big I'm heading on
Man-sized got my leather boots on
Got my girl and she's a wow [...]
I'm man-sized no need to shout
Let it all, let it all hang out / out out out'
fantasising about a reclaiming of power while presenting in a more masculine way - WITH A GIRLFRIEND I MIGHT ADD - before going back to feeling as though that is unattainable -
'Silence my lady head
Get girl out of my head
Douse hair with gasoline
Set it light and set it free'
like, 'get girl out of my head' is a pretty queer thing to say, yknow?
and 50ft Queenie -
'Hey I'm one big queen
No one can stop me [...]
Hey I'm the king of the world
You ought to hear my song
Ah come on measure me
I'm twenty inches long'
which is at the same time using male terms - even though the song is called Queenie, and that word is used a lot, she specifically calls herself King of the world, and proceeds to make fun of the perceived importance of a particular male organ, while at the same time saying she's better than them
more songs with gender and lesbian undertones - Yuri G, Catherine, to a degree A Woman A Man Walked By / The Crows Knows Where the Children Go (that one's quite explicit, word of warning if yu haven't heard that one before) - and songs that are covers of songs written by men without any pronoun changing - Shake Your Hips and I Can't Get No Satisfaction are two notable examples of that.
and then there are her songs that are just sapphic without being specifically gendery - My Beautiful Leah, Claudine the Inflatable One - i first thought that Down By the Water was about sneaking out to meet a sapphic lover under the bridge in the dead of night, a doomed romance, but there are lots of better and far more likely interpretations than that.
Polly herself has also said a lot of things that just kinda read queer. Like Patti Smith before her, she has said that she writes her songs from a place 'beyond gender', and just writes them as stories, sometimes from a male perspective. But of course, to a queer audience, you can hear her singing and *know* she's singing from a male perspective, but also can't help but to hear it as queer as well.
bit of a quote to go with that -
You've said that you don't like to think in terms of gender when it comes to music. Why do you think the gender issue, especially the concept of you being a feminist, is constantly mentioned with your work?
'I can only presume that, especially in the early days and early those labels tend to stick, but I know that I really played with gender in my lyrics, and I might sing in the shape of a man or I might sing in the shape of a woman. Or I might be dressing women in a loving way as a man or as a woman, or sometimes as neither. Sometimes more as just an essence, a feeling or an atmosphere. And I think that feels quite natural to me, but I think for some people it's not natural, and that's where the gender issue seems to become quite important.'
she was also adamant that she didn't want to be seen as part of riot grrrl, but rather as part of grunge - grunge was a very very aggressively male genre, and i don't think she thought riot grrrl had the right idea about how to go about empowerment - she took herself more seriously than that i think. she didn't want to be called a feminist, because she didn't want to be called a 'female artist', but rather just an Artist.
her gender presentation, moving from fairly neutral in 1992 (big black leather jacket, black boots etc, to the hyper-feminity of the To Bring You My Love era, 1995, also comes into play - she was showing femininity to be a performance, while also using it to her advantage, she didn't actually dress like that normally, no one wears that much eyeshadow, it was closer to a drag show than an actual outfits, a lot of the stuff she wore on stage. which is another one of those things that makes sense to a cishet girl, but gains more complexity as a queer person.
there's probably a lot more i can say on this, but that's everything off the top of my head! i cannot tell you how excited i was to get this ask, PJ Harvey is so much of how i've explored my own gender and sexuality, i could talk about this for a very long time!
#thank you so much for the ask!!#not joking i was so so so excited about this one :D#pj harvey my beloved <3#pj harvey#gender#<3#thank you anon#i won't kiss you don't worry
43 notes
·
View notes
Text
Late Spring and Aşk-ı Memnu Part 1
I have watched the first half of the film. I am writing down my first impressions regarding the comparison in case I forget them.
The biggest difference between Noriko and Nihal so far is that Noriko - being twice the age of Nihal and living in a far more modern society - has a social life outside of home. She is aware of the society she lives in. She is a part of a community. In the very first scene of the film she is participating in a ritual and socializing with other, mostly older women. She is friends with her father’s friends, she has female friends of her own age. She is a social, content, happy person. She is a part of a community. Nihal isn’t a part of any community outside of her father’s mansion.
Another very important difference is that Adnan Bey actively wants to get out of his long companionship with his daughter. The marriage between him and Bihter happens because he wants it to happen, he himself kickstarts the plot and destabilizes Nihal’s life. Whereas both Noriko and her father are perfectly content with their way of life and the aunt character is the one who wants to drive both to marriage.
Noriko’s decision to stay with her father is also framed by her as her looking after him which is never the case for Nihal and her father. Nihal does act out the role of the servant/slave girl “Pervin” and pretends to serve her father when a child, but she never actually serves him or aids him in anything: Both because she is a child and they are rich with plenty of servants, but also because of Nihal being the one who is “looked after” because of her sensitivity and weak health. In the ending passage of the novel Nihal is worried if either her or her father will be “left alone” one day when the other is gone, but for the most part Nihal’s wish to have her father to herself doesn’t really have the veneer of selflessness.
Noriko is also very much aware of what she is up against. She knows what marriage is and very consciously does not want it for herself. So far it is not very clear why she doesn’t want it besides her unwillingness to leave her father. Nihal’s aversion to marriage definitely has something to do with her youth and her tie to her father, but it is also a somewhat political/feminist stance: She is disgusted with the arranged marriage market.
I understand why these female characters’ unwillingness to marry, their aversion to their fathers’ remarrying (and in Nihal’s case her intense jealousy and hatred towards Bihter whom she admits is only guilty of being her father’s wife) and their wish to forever stay with their father has been read as incestous. I don’t think “incest” is the right word to use here. There is nothing sexually deviant or abusive going on here. But these two characters live in a society where they aren’t a part of the workforce (Noriko was reportedly working during WW2 but not now). They won’t make their own living. Nihal’s father says to her that she has to marry because one day he will die and there will be no one to look after her. From this perspective Noriko and Nihal aren’t girlbosses refusing marriage and making their own lives, they are rejecting adulthood and work: They are a cross between Peter Pan and Bartleby the Scrivener. There is something societally “wrong” here.
Cycle of life is so that parents usually die before their children, and children must have families of their own for life to continue. Furthermore Western critics who posit the “incest” theory regarding these two works come from cultures where adult children are supposed to be less dependent to their parents. So I totally understand and even agree that there is something “unnatural” going on here in terms of a traditional patriarchal heteronormative society. BUT “incest” is the wrong word to use, it is not a sexual deviance, there isn’t a hint of sexuality.
I will write the second part of this short meta after finishing the film, maybe tomorrow. I will definitely write an academic essay too on this topic after doing more research.
@riverwife and @cor-ardens Thank you for giving me the idea for this comparison.
@cor-ardens @la-pheacienne @artemideaddams @princesssarisa @ariel-seagull-wings
31 notes
·
View notes
Note
As an Asian and a major fan of the Jedi, I just wanna slap Lesyle Headland in the face. I'm so tired of ignorant Westerners (aka faux white feminists) like her and Kathleen Kennedy shitting on the Jedi. They're basically insulting and looking down on my people and their culture. I wish Kathleen Kennedy got fired. I wish that SOMEONE could hire an Asian person to direct the Acolyte instead of a white Western woman like Lesyle Headland. She should just go back to making a 3rd season of Russian Doll or whatever. Why is it SO HARD for Disney to hire Asian people to be in charge of a Star Wars series or movie???
The anti-jedi rethoric is very annoying and it upsets me that lucasfilm doesn't try (i might be wrong about them not trying but alas) to at least direct creators working for canon material to stick to GLs original meaning without the very prominent legends bias we know older fans have. You and everyone to whom this characterization is important (I'm one of them!) has every right to be upset about the things she said, but I just want to point out a few things:
We don't know how Acolyte is going to turn out. The statement is worrying but we've seen actors/directors say things in interviews that just don't reflect on what we actually get. (Favreou does this all the time) I say we wait. I'm not an optimistic but I think we can hold off saying it will DEFINITELY be awful until it actually comes out.
Again, it's very upsetting having yet another show trying to be "jedi critical" but I can't help but notice that Filoni, Favreou and multiple other writers have been doing it for years and everyone still watches and reads everything they put out. Not many people seriously call for them being fired. The fact that I've seen way more anger and aggressiveness towards Lesyle is... telling. Go all the way on the critiques of the material when the show comes out (I will) but don't be blind to the fact that she is one of the first openly queer women leading a prominent Disney production. There will be fans being awful to the show just because of it + Amandla's race and gender. Sometimes will be hard to tell which kind of anger someone is expressing but I'll highlight that is NEVER productive to side with bigots, even when you're rightfully angry for different reasons than them.
Which leads to my next point: we should be (I know we already are, just to remember the focus) advocating for diversity on the writing room. That's the space we have to a big cast of opinions and perspectives in the same project, while we only have one director/a few producers. And I think it's important to acknowledge that in that department they've already have gone really far just in the last couple years. We have Debora Chow. Diego Luna was producing Andor. Regardless of the end result, Lesley is an openly queer woman. EVERY SINGLE LEAD BESIDES EWAN IS A POC. This was unimaginable ten years ago. This is just a reminder to not let yourself fall in despair, we're getting there.
Kathleen Kennedy is incredible at her job. I'm not discussing her opinions because they aren't that relevant: she doesn't make any creative decisions. She makes executive and strategic ones, and Star Wars has put out more content under her administration than ever. She is one of the reasons it's so diverse now. Push for her to do better, to hire people who have a vision that aligns with what star wars is meant to be, but calling for her being fired is echoing the dudebros who blame her for every detail that aren't even under her control.
None of this erases the underlying racism in the refusal to understand Jedi culture, you (we) are rightfully angry, specially if Acolyte turns out to be exactly how she said it will. I just think there are more effective ways we can have this conversation and pressure Lucasfilm to do better than boycotting a show we don't even know if is really problematic yet, lest they decide it's easier to stick to the "standard" white straight male pov because it cuts off both the "wokenism" complaints and the ones that what they're doing isn't the right kind of diversity. (see also: target)
#like im all in for calling out what Lesley said#but I've seen every single note on that post simce im op#and I'm gonna say that the aggressiveness is disproportionate#specially because filoni has said and done much worse#star wars is an angry fandom by definition#sometimes is important to remember that a lot of the fandom will be angry for a very different and worse reason (star wars is woke now!!)#and I really don't want to help Those Guys#sorry about this being long but I've been noticing this since that post blew up#important reminder that this is simply me trying to be realistic and pointing out how i believe it's the healthy way to interact with this#byt like if you want to be super pissed about it have it your way i just felt the need to point this out since it was directly sent to me
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
thoughts on 3 body so far (episode 5), as someone whos read the books and not yet watched the drama
to get the obvious out of the way its very unnecessary to set it in england :/ but we all know that so.
i love wenjie i think zine tseng is perfect for her i really love wenjies scenes (for the most part. whhyyyy did they make her get with evans. like i groaned so hard. and they completely skipped over her actual husband and how she well. murdered him.) but yeah in general i think her parts are done really well. few complaints there. also she is gorgeous. Rosalind chao is great as well but I think the writing for old!wenjie is not as good as for young! Wenjie. That’s not ms Rosalind’s fault tho obviously I think she did really well with what she got.
besides wenjie i really like jin cheng as well. i get shes filling part of wang miao's role from the books and she is partially based off of cheng xin from book three and i think jess hong is a really good choice for her. even just appearance-wise she is perfect for what i imagined cheng xin to look like. and her attachment to the follower character in the game is a great set up for how her story might go if she follows cheng xin's footsteps.
i think auggie should be older. it seems like they want to make everyone all like a group of school friends so thats why they made her younger but i dont really think that it works.
lemme elaborate....... i........ do not care about auggie at all lmfao. honestly i welcome more female characters but if she is to fill wang miao's place as the nanotech expert... wang miao.... who is a man in his fourties... why are they replacing him with a girl who barely looks out of grad school. and shes cso and developer of groundbreaking tech already? SHE SHOULD BE AT THE CLUB. not trying to be MARY SUE ALERT but its unrealistic, and it kind of ruins making him into a female character imo. she should be middle aged!! fucking cowards!! it seems like they just made wang miao into a woman just so they could have a pretty face to slap on as the main character (though she is SO not my type but whatever thats not important.) if they wanted to genderbend and actually be ~feminist~ or whatever, they would have cast a 40+ year old. again, i get they want it to be this friend group so maybe it would be strange that she would be older than the rest of them but also they could have just.. not done that. so anyway. yeah. she kind of annoys me. she is too young. too pretty but in like such a hollywood way that it turns me off. also shes boring. and annoying.
in general, other than wenjie and jin, im not particularly attached to any of the characters. not necessarily a bad thing bc the books themselves were much more plot driven over character driven, so yeah. kind of a neutral statement. i do like will (even though...... he should be chinese -_- though i guess i am grateful that they did seemingly make an effort to make the cast diverse, rather than just make them all white brits.) and i like uhhhh *checks notes* tatiana, mainly because i think shes extremely pretty lmao. i think the guy who plays old!evans is great, i do Not care for the guy who plays him when he is young. cringe. gigachad looking ass. wade is good too, when i saw his name show up i was like omg what are you doing here????? hes a bastard but hes fun. also like shi, i think the actor they chose is great and fits really well. i did prefer him in the books tho he was so much fun in the books. saul fits in well, if hes the luo ji character i can Definitely see him wasting government resources to do fuck all as a wallfacer lmao. godspeed king.
i think them making all these characters who are going to go on to be key players in the future all know eachother to begin with is funny. and not a great choice. unrealistic. in the books like most of these people had nothing to do with anyone else, either to begin with or at all. and now theyre all somehow friends? in the books the main characters were scattered all over the place (or.. well.. at least all over china) but now u gonna tell me 90% of the ppl doing important shit for the human species were all like buddies in college or smth instead of just some randos in the right place at the right time with the right (debatable) credentials? less believable to me. like for example the zhang beihai adjacent character being the cheng xin adjacent character's boyfriend before everything goes down. like girl did they even meet in the books? idr
sophon is gorgeous, so is her outfit, though i hope they keep the japanese aesthetic shes got going on from the books, i think it was a very telling and important, if not large part of the books for her to latch onto japanese culture specifically.
the sophons... in the book it was just miao who was given the universe blinking vision but now its basically everyone on the nightside of the planet? how did they do that with just 2 sophons. i mean. idk maybe. sure. they do travel close to the speed of light. i aint doing the calculations to know what is or is not plausible at those speeds. but damn these poor things are so overworked. they need to unionize. wish they kept the numbers on the photographs tho instead of just in their retinas. that could have been really cool.
the sequence of the sophons unfolding over earth was cool and all just kinda funny bc they had just established in a previous scene that they needed like a supercollider in orbit to unfold one and now they can just unfold willy nilly? ok.
uhhhhhhhhh. yeah thats all for now. i have more onions but im sleepy tired and thats all i can rememver i wanted to say. im enjoying it. just kind of bitter at them making it british but thats old news. i think if i were watching this blind without there being a book series to compare it to its very solid! some hollywood esque quippy humor and added annoying romance (particularly with wenjie) and stuff that im not thrilled with but over all its well done imo. definitely going to have to reread the books when im done and also watch the drama :)
1 note
·
View note
Text
i'm not on anyone's side—except for maybe the side of the people, the israeli, palestinian, jewish, and muslim people, all of whom didn't ask for this—but that's about it, though.
(to assume that i'm taking sides is sick, tbh).
the problem is that, like the conservative nutjobs who are quick to slam palestine and kiss netanyahu's ass, those who are like “israel deserved it” are quite literally just as bad because those 600 people were civilians—and like i said, most of them weren't israeli, either.
it's like when someone who claims to be pro life feminist tries to tell me that they're feminist because they think abortion “hurts women” (when we all fucking know it doesn't): it only makes you tone deaf because you failed to realize the real enemy here more than likely because of your own ego.
now, i had to read up (a bunch of times, no less) on the whole israeli-palestine conflict mainly because no one will give me a straight answer but also because i was born in the 90s, almost half a century after those two countries were started; of course i'm going to want to know some things, and i'm guessing most of you (that is, any gentile person under the age of 27) who are on the side of palestine here don't know about hamas—or you do, but you don't realize the threat they present to the world. they are extremely racist and anti-semitic (they deny the holocaust ever happened for god's sake). they committed this act. they killed those innocent people. the ones on the side of palestine who do know about them know exactly what i'm talking about: they are legitimate terrorists. the problem is that the media likes to conflate and distort the truth.
and herein lies the flaw with the newer generation in learning about these things.
i actually have to go out of my way to read, but how many of you have? how many of you who are posting “i stand with palestine” know why you're posting it (aside from being against the ethnic cleansing that happens there)? how many of you who are griping about palestine being labelled as terrorists realize why they're being labelled that and that it's actually not them but hamas because this was the work of hamas?
listen, gen z. listen to the millennials, we're your older siblings. listen to gen x and the boomers (yes; even with our beef with the latter, listen to them for once), they're your parents and grandparents. they're the ones who saw this from the very beginning.
we live in an era of extreme misinformation, and not reading up on these things, only taking them at face value and failing to realize that life isn't clear cut, only contributes to that.
you guys are supposed to be like magellan, making new “discoveries” and giving us new info and enlightening us, but really, i just see a bunch of 20-somethings who prove to me, time and time again, that you guys actually don't know shit and it really just looks like you're doing it to seem important. i'm aware i sound like an old lady complaining about the kids down the street, but these kids are careless—and at this point, i don't think it'll help to say “you'll learn” because knowing your egos and your level of resentment, you won't.
and saying israel deserved it, all because they're aggressors and their government is genuinely oppressive, saying those 600 people had to die, is genuinely despicable; when i really think about it, i honestly don't give a fuck how much you support palestine.
you are quite literally as bad as the conservatives rallying around israel, the "maga" crowd who are treating this as if it's a game of risk (i dare you to look that up, too); if not, i'd say you're way worse because you don't see the violent antisemitism at work here (and i'm not jewish, either, so that's saying something). or you do, but you need someone like me to point it out to you because you can't read and think for yourself, that takes too many brain cells.
i mean, holy shit, you guys are supposed to be the generation that told us sexuality can be gray and fluid for some people: you know that can be applied to life as a whole, right? you know nothing in existence is black and white... right?
ignorance comes with a price, and i know this because you preached it to me... and you guys are going to pay, if not now, then eventually.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
I’m an evolutionary dead-end
#childfreebychoice
There were countless individuals before me who successfully reproduced and passed on their genetic material, generation after generation, from single-cell organism to homo sapiens, until this very point in the history of my personal phylogenetic tree. I am not pregnant, I never was and I never will be. I got sterilized on December 12th 2022 and it feels like a second birthday to me.
In the following text, I want to write down some of the thoughts and reflections I had about the topic of (not) having children and why I am convinced, that (female) sterilization is a political act of emancipation. Quoting the feminist movement during the 60s and 70s: “the personal is political”, I wish to give you some insights of the implication of this radical act of self-appropriation. After having undergone the procedure, I decided to write a text, that I would have enjoyed reading many years ago when I thought about sterilization the first time.
In case some of you are triggered by this topic: This is my personal opinion, my personal choice for my body and my future. I am not saying, what i did is best for you or anyone else. It is important to me that everybody always has the freedom of choice.
Yet, in my eyes, having children is a thing only for people who really want to become parents. And, even more importantly: People who decided to become parents should be aware of the scope of engagement, the responsibility and the severity that is connected to the act of bringing a person to life. This decision is always to be made consciously and carefully.
Why I don't want to be a parent
Listing all the reasons against having kids and discussing them in detail would take too long and maybe also be too controversial. If you want to get inspired about some of the reasons, you can read "No kid - Quarante raisons de ne pas avoir d'enfant" by Corinne Maier. I share many of them, but my personal list exceeds 40 reasons by far ;)
Just to make this clear: I never wanted kids. I, 34 years old today, identify as a cis woman but I never saw myself as a mother nor did I ever envision "having my own family" as a life goal.
All my friends know that I am not a huge fan of children. And, most importantly: I am not willing to invest the time and money into such a life-changing project. I have enough hobbies and interests to keep myself busy for at least 200 years. There's simply not enough space in my life for my own offspring.
“People who don’t have kids are egocentric and self-centered”
Provided that one has access to affordable contraceptives, the choice of having kids or not immediately becomes one that has to be actively made. And, from that point on, it always becomes an egocentric choice. Often, people who voluntarily decide against reproduction, are seen as antisocial and egoistic, demonstrating a lack of solidarity because they do not provide the future generation, future working forces, future tax-payers, future pension-payers. You probably already see where this is going... The personal and societal reasons, most people name for having children are egocentric as well: "I want to leave some traces here on planet earth", "I don't want to be alone when I'm older", "I want to pass on my values/genes/beliefs". Having kids because there’s a need for human beings to care for you when you’re retired, financially and physically, is also quite self-centered... isn’t it?
Or, a very common phrase is "it is just part of life" - which shows, if anything, a lack of reflection. Life is so full of incredible things. Having kids is just one of them. "It has always been like that" is also not a valid argument. Period. If you disagree, then please think about what that means for suppression of minorities, women and POC, the exploitation of nature, the burning of fossil fuels and so on and so forth... Can we please move on?
The fallacy of the "mother instinct" and the ideal of a "good mother"
The so called "mother instinct" which is the idea that woman just have an internal drive to care for others, especially children, is a social construct that bares no scientific background but can be very useful when one aims to naturalize the societal inequality of women and men. There is no scientific evidence, that women just generally care more than men, but, if we all believe, that women have a natural, inherent drive to care for children, it is way easier to make them stay at home with the kids, give up a career and accept to be underpaid or not paid at all.
The idea of a "good mother" with all the associated concepts and expectations has been used for centuries to establish and solidify patriarchal structures within society. There is this idea of this strong bond between a mother and her kids that is unique and indispensable and especially important during the first three years of life. If the mother is not (sufficiently) around during this time, the child will suffer great psychological damage that can never be fully healed. Of course, the mother cannot be replaced by any other person, neither father, grandparents or other family members, friends or other loving kin. So, if the mother’s not available to the child for whatever reason, the child will be broken for the rest of it’s life and the mother’s to blame.
I guess, I don’t have to tell you, that there is no scientific evidence for this bullsh*t either and that we, as a society should drop these misconceptions rather sooner than later.
Enforcing the duty not just to bear children, but also to devote their lives to the upbringing of their kids, exerts an enormous pressure on women. Womanhood has long been and still is directly connected to motherhood. Only those women who bear children and care for them are real women and thus, only those who make their children the utmost priority, are good mothers, good women.
Sarah Diel describes the background of these ideas and the associated suppression of women very well in her book "Die Uhr, die nicht tickt" which I strongly recommend.
Care for others is independent of the bloodline. If one feels the need to care for others, this does not necessarily mean that the beings cared for are one's own offspring. Donna Harraway says it in perfect terms: "Make kin, not babies!". Care, intimacy and responsibility for others are incredibly important, but can be shared between all humans and even across species, not just between mothers and their kids.
“But isn't there an alternative?” - Some words on contraception
Let's get everyone on the same page: Contraception is still a problem with a variety of unsatisfactory solutions and eventually, still a women’s.
Even though, there is a promising idea for men on the rise, called RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance), it seems like there's no real interest taken in developing the product by pharmaceutical companies. The first time this popped up on screens dates back to more than a decade ago and there has still no real progress been made. The research on RISUG or “vasalgel” was mostly done by the Parsemus Foundation who now seems to have sold the idea to a private company. On their website, they claim, that the product will be on the market, “as soon as clinical studies and regulatory approvals are completed”. Whatever that means... The only thing I know, is that I am not willing to wait for this it to arrive on the market.
So, to put this prospect aside, when we discuss solutions to the contraception problem, we basically have the following options with their corresponding PIs (PI = pearl index):
Condoms; PI of 18-21
Hormonal contraception (pills, rings, patches, implants, injections, IUDs, you name it); PI varying from 0.05 to 9, depending on the method
Heavy metals (copper IUDs); PI of 0.8
Some unsafe alternatives like spermicide creams or gels, withdrawal and "fertility awareness methods" that in my opinion do not really count as contraceptives due to very high pearl indices of >18
Vasectomy (male sterilization; PI 0.1) and female sterilization (tubal ligation; PI 0.5)
(I took the PI values from here)
The only options here, that can be used by men are condoms and vasectomy. Hormonal contraceptives have a looooooooong list of side effects that are not just diverse but also in parts severe, the most dangerous being the increased risk of blood clots (elevated risk of thromboses, strokes, pulmonary emboli and heart attacks) and cancer (breast and cervical cancer). And not to be forgotten: The adverse effects on the psyche like mood swings, depression and decreased libido.
Hormonal contraception and copper IUDs have the huge advantage of being extremely safe and also reversible. For anyone, who is not sure about whether they wanna have children or not, this is the way to go - in monogamous and/or tested environments - until better options are available. Quick reminder on the side: Condoms are still the only contraceptive option around that also protects against (some, not all) STDs...
Whoever is willing to have a permanent solution: sterilization is the only option.
Female sterilization is actually the method of contraception mostly used worldwide with high prevalence in Asia, Latin and North America. Around the world 219 million women are sterilized whereas only 16 million men underwent vasectomy (source). The usage of the different methods of contraception by continent can be seen here:
Figure 1: Contraceptive prevalence among married or in-union women aged 15 to 49 by method and region, 1990 and 2011. Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affair (2013), Trends in Contraceptive Methods Used Worldwide. Population facts No. 2013/9.
Why this digression on contraception? Because the number of suitable options is limited. I was on hormonal contraceptives for roughly 10 years. I was one of the lucky ones who experienced only mild side effects. But still, at one point, I decided that I want to get off the hormonal treatment and got a copper IUD. Since then, I enjoy the physical and mental benefits of a natural menstrual cycle. I am again a lucky one to have only mild discomfort during my period and I do not suffer from conditions like e.g. PCOS or endometriosis. Overall, my reproductive organs do fine. And yet, getting the IUD installed was one of the most painful things ever. Not so much because of the rather intense pain, but more because of the quality of the pain. It felt like some part of me, deep within my guts, that was not supposed to be touched by anything ever, was hurt. Ugh.
Never again.
I was looking for a better option. Yes, vasectomy is a way smaller intervention than a tubal ligation, which is always performed under general anesthesia, but for various reasons, that I also discussed thoroughly with my partner, I wanted a permanent solution for myself.
And I was incredibly lucky. I found great support not just from my friends and my gynecologist, but there’s also an information center in the city I live in, where I was given all the necessary information and direct contact to doctors that do tubal ligations. I expected the process to be extremely tough because I had listened to the story of a lady, aged 29, who had fought six months to get the procedure done. I was scared. But the path unfolded surprisingly smooth and a few months after my first visit at the information center, I got sterilized.
“But what if you change your mind?”
This is what people always said to me, when I was telling them, that I do not intend to have children: "Wait until you're older!" "I thought the same, when I was your age" "I'm sure you'll change your mind".
The comments became less as i grew older, especially after turning 30, but still, occasionally, I got to hear the same old phrases.
As if it was impossible to be certain of whether you want to have a family or not in your 20s. As if women are not capable of taking this decision on the basis of emotional and/or rational reasons until they passed a certain age - that is, of course, defined by society.
Society claims, that at a certain moment in life *flick*, like magic, a woman’s kid-switch is engaged in the brain, that sets off the internal clock which will take away the steering wheel of rationality. And everyone knows that this is going to happen, except the woman herself.
Young women, even kids, that talk about their wish to have a family one day are never treated as their wishes were irrational or will fade "once they get older".
I personally made the experience, that the older I got, the stronger I was convinced that I won’t have children. Of course, I had moments of insecurity that this might change one day. But this is normal and happens with many more or less important life choices like getting tattooed, signing up for a school or university, moving to another city or breaking up with a partner. Doubts are normal.
I will have to live with the consequences of my decisions. And so do you with yours.
That being said, there is also no guarantee that mothers do change their mind and regret their decision. An article by Orna Donath went viral a few years ago, because she interviewed several Israeli mothers who got interviewed on #regrettingmotherhood. This is not representative. But this might be an under-reported problem. Further research is needed.
A final statement
I am incredibly happy that I had the possibility to get the surgery done. I am thankful to life in a part of the world where various options for contraception are available and affordable. I am thankful for the people around me, who supported me in the process. I am grateful for the people who did the operation, so that everything was safe and without complications. And last, but by far not least, I am proud of my body that it handled everything so well. I feel incredibly strong, empowered and self-conscious and I am looking forward to deepen the relationship with both my body, my femininity and my sexuality, knowing that I never have to bother my body with contraceptives again.
Recommended to read:
No kid - Quarante raisons de ne pas avoir d'enfant by Corinne Maier
Die Uhr die nicht tickt by Sara Diehl
Kunskapens frukt (Engl: Fruit of knowledge, germ: Der Ursprung der Welt) by Liv Strömquist
Schwangerwerdenkönnen by Antje Schrupp
Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation by Sophie Lewis
Recommended to watch:
A documentation about young women and their journey to getting sterilized in Germany
Recommended to listen to:
The interview with Milena, mentioned above, who fought six months to get sterilized in Switzerland at age 29
Recommended to follow:
@tiffany.jmarie on instagram
For support and further information:
https://www.selbstbestimmt-steril.de/
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
reading that very fun piece against queer presentism & thinking again about the idea of the literary canon
the main contentions in this piece are that queer writers ought to look for historical queer writing, and that there's a lot of it which is often & unjustly ignored, to our detriment. at least some of the problems the article writer is getting at seem to me to be historiographical, which is what i say about nearly everything. anyway it helpfully lists several things i'd never heard of, alongside some things i had. i am admittedly a lazy reader & as a result not at all well-read. most of my interesting or difficult reading was done in school, which i don't think is that uncommon.
you can kind of tell that this is common to some extent because on tumblr where there's a strong interest in evidence of historical gay people, there's a continual air of surprise around evidence of queer lives & a particular focus on arguing that certain people you've already heard of are gay (shakespeare was gay! fight your english teacher about it! keynes was gay! fight your econ teacher about it! they don't want you to know!!). i don't entirely disagree with this preoccupation—i spent my fair share of time arguing with teachers—but it seems kind of sad, honestly! as a dull & boring gay myself i like to hear about the less- and even non-famous historical gays. but more importantly there's more writing out there than they teach in school, & as various ongoing astroturf campaigns make unpleasantly evident, what makes its way into school libraries & onto school curricula is extremely political.
i guess this is the question i find most interesting. whence canons, wherefore canons, will we ever be done with them? probably the solution instead of long tumblr posts is to actually read a) more books and b) scholarship about those books, plus what other very clever people have said about canons, but i am simply not going to do that because my focus is shot & i am, anyway, a fool.
so a few things, i guess:
1. many people do most of their expansive reading & get a sense of what they like & what literary history looks like from school, which is a solid intention of high school & college literary survey classes.
2. these surveys tend to focus on a certain set of works, which are understood to be both good & influential or important, and are thus 'canonical.'
3. there's a lot of fighting about what goes or doesn't go in the canon or whether we ought to have a canon at all; the survey of literature with which one is usually presented in one's eleventh grade english class or one's required freshman english class or whatever tends to be eurocentric, white, male, & straight, which sucks
4. there have been various initiatives to open the canon, with mixed success; my own high school education was comparatively fairly wide-ranging (we read achebe, morrison, ondaatje, and wang wei, in addition to our shakespeare, steinbeck, and austen). but consider, e.g., 'the yellow wallpaper', which was not an enormous success in its own time but was successfully championed by feminist scholars of the 1970s, who argued that it reflects an important sort of 19th century women's writing. kate chopin, too, benefited posthumously from this activism. there are probably others whom i am failing to think of, due to knowing almost nothing about anything.
5. why not argue for expanding the literary canon? why not argue that some of these writers ought to be taught in school? i love the focus on the queer self-education, but why stop there? the piece includes a call to publishers (print these older works anew! make cheap editions, new translations, accessible anthologies!) but none to curriculum composers, who surely look for what is available but can also generate demand in a way which is miserably familiar to anyone who works in a library & abruptly finds themselves expected to produce >15 copies of some school book on no notice.
6. is it just passé now to talk about the canon? are we anti-canon? this seems kind of pointless to me because surely we are all still going to be (peripherally, at least) subjected to AP english & so on for several more years, & we may as well try to get the kids to read some interesting things. i don't really see how we could get out of The Canon, however limiting we find it; it seems kind of unavoidable to me that we should have some sort of list of widely-known, well-read literature which is generally understood to be good, useful, representative, or educational in some way.
but if you got this far please do feel invited to comment!
#sorry 2 be like this. unlikely 2 improve but still sorry#it is just soup in here#you should read the article instead of my post
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
Oh yeah i see what you mean! Tbh it was clear to me a few years ago (when i read THT) that Gilead is uuuh not that impossible to create exactly in this current situation and politicsl climate; my first thought yesterday when I found out about roe vs wade being overturned was "so the US is getting even closer to being Gilead". And yeah, the tv adaptation getting so popular was not a good thing in handsight, imo, not to mention how they completely misunderstood and butchered the main idea and message of the book at some point, so i stopped watching the tv show ... smh there's more seasons coming out when they literally covered the book in s1? It's weird bc Atwood is, as far as i know, still advising on the show. I'm curious to know what you mean by Atwood's feminism in relation to her age and Elizabeth Moss' hypocrisy as I don't keep tabs on either of them lol. And side note: when you get back to reading and find the strength for a chunky 600-page read, The Blind Assassin will amaze you ❤️
yep!!! im someone whos only seen the show (so far, but i do plan on reading the book) and a part of me appreciates the access the show provides to the story, as the books are just something a lot of people aren’t interested in; a part of me appreciates the fact that it allows a story that, at its core, is a feminist one, to creep into the mainstream; a part of me appreciates handmaids-themed protest creeping into the real world; another part of me hates how the show and its hollywoodized version of the story waters it down to something so easily digestible, cliffhanger-filled and money-driven. on one hand it’s a step forward, on the other hand it’s a step back for feminism.
re: atwood’s age, i mostly meant that there tends to be a large difference in how younger generations view feminism vs how older generations view feminism. ask an average gen z-er what they think the word means and they’ll probably be quick to touch on intersectionality, diversity, and pronouns; ask an average baby boomer what they think the word means and they’ll likely mention the right to vote, or further “basic” points of second-wave feminism (the right to work, the right to bodily autonomy etc). both interpretations are important and vital to the movement, but both interpretations are very different yet somehow manage to shape feminism as a movement in equally impactful ways.
that’s why i find atwood’s feminism very fascinating because, while it stems from a decades-old interpretation of what feminism means, it’s still relevant (and i’d argue her literary contributions are vital) to the movement as we know it now. on the other hand, tht fails in its explicit inclusion of minorities i.e. trans men, poor women, women of colour — which would likely not be the case if tht were written today. tht is a product of its time but it’s extremely progressive for its time but it still holds up but it could also be argued that it’s a little outdated. so there’s a lot going on there and i don’t have any conclusions about any of it, i just think about it lol.
re: elizabeth moss’ hypocrisy, all i meant w that is that she portrays the main character in an inherently feminist story… while being in an (among other oppressive labels) sexist cult, and denying any comparisons between gilead’s sexism and scientology’s sexism. she’s definitely making some choices. lmao
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
Unfortunately the post you reblogged about the perception of autism as something only cool people have was written by a terf. (I agreed with the post so I checked out op’s blog, got bad vibes, searched “trans” and found ugly stuff real fast)
Hi there anon!
So I've been waffling back and forth about how to reply to this but here is (sort of) where I have ended up:
Terfery is bogus. I don't need to elaborate on this. Terfery was embarrassing, destructive, self-cannibalising and reactionary when I first encountered it in like, 2012. In 2023, amidst a quite frankly astounding and terrifying backlash, even moreso. Socially isolating terfs from fellow feminists, activists, and (possibly) queers is a legitimate tactic of activism and I think it is a quite effective one. You treat our siblings, friends and allies like that while calling yourself a feminist? Go take a long walk off a short pier, mate.
And yet...
I do not really want to recieve messages like this.
I understand the impulse and I think the fact that you go out of your way to send me this underlines something important - we have a culture on this corner of the Tumblr that terfs ain't got no friends. It is not controversial to be like "yo fuck feminists that oppose trans liberation and have a gender-essentialist worldview" and that's unequivocally a good thing. I am glad that you trust my politics enough to send me this. I am glad that my politics shine through enough that I would obviously support your anonymous suggestion (except it is not a suggestion, you just gave me this information to, idk, fill out a bingo card and draw my own conclusions with, but nonetheless).
And yet, I do not really want to recieve messages like this.
I gave up social media activism many years ago. It made me miserable. It made me miserable to be around. It made my spaces of respit miserable and it meant I was always fucking on and I am not saying I am a great activist now but at some point you realize you'll just burn yourself out on that shit when instead you could like, idk, talk kindly to young queers who haven't worked out their internalised shit yet and help people come out of their freshly cracked eggs and support your older queer friends in their quests for parenthood in this wretched world. Make sure that anyone in your social circle knows that if they fuck around with gender essentialism they'll find out real soon but not because you make a big deal out of hating terfs but because you are loud and proud about having declared the old ways of doing gender over and done with. Hopefully?
I don't know. If you are my friend or you've followed me for a long time or we're mutuals or whatever and you see me behave in a way that makes you feel unsafe on my blog I think it is fair to reach out. "Hey, Skeppsbrott, this person you reblog a lot of art from is a quite vocal terf on their main blog and I really wish you wouldn't". "Hey, Skeppsbrott, I think you are being way too charitable to the debate happening on that post you just reblogged. This is my read, I hope you'll reconsider."
That seems actionable to me. Like yeah I probably should pay attention to the politics of people who very often end up in my reblog chains! I definitely should pay attention to the changing rethoric used by gender essentialists! I do not, however, want to spend energy wondering whether every post I reblog might possibly be made by a terf and feel guilty if I perhaps missed one. I also struggle with the anon ask as something that demands a response but which also demands it publicly. Would you have noticed if I removed the post but never replied to your ask? Would you get suspicious if I never DID reply to your ask? I guess part of why making it an anon ask is that the act of condemning terfery in an ask is more potent than removing a jokey and a little mean but nonetheless fair post about autism that got like three hundered notes. No one really suffers from that post, that's kind of the conundrum here. Either way, I am not here to scorch the earth, but then again -
"Hey, Skeppsbrott, this person you reblogged a post from is trying to become a tumblr funnyman so that they can infiltrate more people with transphobic propaganda"? Yeah. I guess that is not so different from what I commented above.
Perhaps at the end of the day I am just really, very, terribly equipped for social isolation tactics. I just can't really bring myself to do it. Call it trauma or poor constitution or whatever. It just brings me this great, deep sadness, where I look at who I was and can't help but wonder what I would have gotten lost in if there hadn't been people who looked me sternly in the eye and said "that's fucked up. Get out now before I too grow to hate you".
Or maybe I am just a coward. That is entirely possible as well. Even quite likely.
Thank you, anon, genuinely. I appreciate it. But maybe next time, don't?
xx
0 notes
Text
Jessica
Jessican i saw you on The street two blocks from yourold apartmant and you looked right at me and you said some thingbut i could not hear what you said. I was a block away and you forgot to talk loudly like always I miss your mouth and i miss your eyes or cutting things up, for dinner
Missed but not forgotten and write me if you see this hugs and kisses.
Long Beach
I remember us playing board games like yahtzee I kept messing up words to let you win to make you feel special and important and I hope you did. You deserve it and You
deserve every thing,
Whole foods’
I brushed past you, next to the vitamins, at the front! Big and buff You smelled like Oak wood
You
Kind. Caring. Kil;s the spider
Red Ball
You kicked a red ball over to my yard. Caught a glimpse through the fence,
You had pale brown eyes and I never saw a thing like it before. Thought about tearing it down right then. Knock
On my door when you are ready.
Piedmont
You always cared so much about me. We drove into the city one winter night and sat at the pier, feeding bread to geese. You wanted to see the seals but your parents were waking up soon. I’m sorry for ruining your favorite silk shirt. You told me how much it costs.
Tgirl
GWM lookin to we can smoke some J’s with F or CD baby and kick our feet up an d read a good book .Help me ?
Dump Your Girlfriend
Ok
You
Does the taxes
Files the cabinet
Alphabetical order
And?
Why did we never get an ‘and
Little things
Small spots onyour forehead, little freckles. I Still have room in my bed
FOR ‘Wendy’
FOR ‘Wendy’ we USED TO DRIVE .. STILL LOOKINGfor>
CD COLLECTION:
You were carrying one of those binders filled with disks. Black plastic
and Velcro . You dropped one. Our eyes crossed and your ran
Back across the fence
Notes on
I have been working towards a feminist theory of light, which bends, maybe, into the palm of my hand, and can fit, absolutely, into small spaces, between fingers, cracks, and openings, of floors, walls, between legs, and thighs, into and against,
the roof of my mouth
And so please, Say it like it happened, really, You were there, I promise: You had to be there, You had to see it, I know, It’s not funny when I tell you about it, Now; But you were there, I saw you, Please, Just tell me, please, just tell me, about how you where there, where I was, where I was, Why I won’t be mad, I promise, to ball up fingers, To reach towards
A feminist theory of light
A theory, Sorry, I got off track, which stretches and spans across, the sink I cleaned it so, Now it shouldn’t be dirty but, The dishwasher, sometimes, can leave streaks on, the cups, because the water is, hard here, I said, it’s undrinkable, I heard; from friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friends, from confidants, from people who have been told things, things ends-up like, things got turned up over-side down,
about perspective,
it’s in the dishwasher, which is likely dirty baby, simply put, it will leave streaks on cups, because the water is so hard filled-up with calcium, minerals, and other things, invisible, that can harm a woman’s health.
I think about smears.
Lost Car on PCH
My car broke down on the PCH last summer. You towed it. Was a bit surprised to see a female mechanic. I think you picked up on that. I didn’t mean any disrespect. You had long hair, brown curls, a smoker’s cough. We chatted for a bit,and I got too scared to give you my number. Couldn’t tell if you were flirting. I was old then, and I’m older now, clean-cut, silver haired. Let’s meet up. If you want.
Lows
We met at lows urinals. I looked at u cus u Pist loudd. U Were in to it. I Could all ways tell. Do u want to, all of
me?
1 note
·
View note
Quote
Women were denied knowledge of their history, and thus each woman had to argue as though no woman before her had ever thought or written. Women had to use their energy to reinvent the wheel, over and over again, generation after generation. Men argued with the giants that preceded them; women argued against the oppressive weight of millennia of patriarchal thought, which denied them authority, even humanity, and when they had to argue they argued with the "great men" of the past, deprived of the empowerment, strength, and knowledge women of the past could have offered them.
Gerda Lerner, from The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870
#gerda lerner#feminism#women#this is why reading older feminist works is so important#I mean really older! read christine de pizan and hildegard of bingen#read feminist works from all the centuries#we do have a history. it is patriarchy and misogyny that tries to obscure it to us
74 notes
·
View notes
Text
Happy back-to-school y’all
I’ve attended and worked at a couple of super liberal universities. I avoid the gender studies departments for obvious reasons and I still had a lecture in which the female prof gave a brief overview of TERFs and proclaimed her hatred of JKR. Being openly critical of gender ideology, the porn industry, kinks, and ‘sex work’ are the kind of things that can ruin your future in academia. Not to mention the fact that any speech or actions that could be labelled transphobic (ie. defining woman as adult human female) can get you a suspension according to many universities anti-hate-speech policies.
So, here’s a list of small and smallish (small in terms of overt TERFery, some may require more effort than others) radical feminist actions you can take as a university student:
(this is a liberal arts perspective so if you’re a stem gal this may not apply. but also if you’re in stem maybe you can actually acknowledge that women are oppressed as a sex class without getting kicked out of school. idk)
(Note for TRAs hate reading this: One of the core actions of radical feminism is creating female networks. This is not so that we can brainwash people into being anti-trans. This is because female solidarity is necessary for creating class consciousness and overturning patriarchy. It is harder to subjugate the female sex when we stand together.)
Take classes with female profs. Multiple sections of a class? Pick the one taught by a woman. Have to chose an elective? Only look at electives offered by women. When classes have low numbers they get cancelled. When classes are super popular, universities are forced to consider promoting the faculty that teach them
Make relationships with these female profs. Go to office hours. Chat after class. Ask them about their research. Building female networks is sooooo important!
Actually fill in your end of year course feedback forms. Profs often need these when applying for tenure or applying for a job at another university so it is very important (especially with young and/or new profs) that you fill out these forms and give specific examples of how great these women are. Go off about what you love about them! Give her a brilliant review because you know the idiot boy in that class who won’t shut up even though he knows nothing is going to give her only negative feedback because he thinks any woman who leaves the house is a feminazi b*tch.
(note: obviously don’t go praising any prof - female or male - who is blatantly racist, homophobic, etc.)
(Also if you have shitty male profs write down all the horrible things they have done and said and put it in these forms because once a shitty man gets tenure they are virtually untouchable)
(also also, leave a good review on rate my profs or whatever other thing students use to figure out if they want to take classes. idc if you copy paste your feedback from the formal review. rave about the class to your friends. do what you can to get good enrolment for that prof for reasons above.)
Participate in class. Talk over the male students. Say what you mean and mean it. Call out the boys when they say dumb shit
Write about women. If you have the option to make a text written by a woman your primary text in an essay, do it. Pick the female-centred option if you’re writing an exam-essay with multiple prompts. (Profs often look at what works on their syllabus are being written about/engaged with as a marker of whether to keep those texts the next time they teach the class. If there are badass women on your syllabus, write about them to keep them on the syllabus) Use female-written secondary sources whenever possible.
(pro tip: many women in academia are more than happy to talk to you about their papers. expand your female networks by reaching out to article authors through email and asking them about their cool shit)
Get your essays published! Many departments have undergrad journals you can publish in. This will ensure more people read about the women you write about and will demonstrate to the department that people like learning about women
Consider trying to publish your undergrad essay with a legit peer-reviewed journal. If you can do it, your use of female-written secondary sources boosts the reputations of the women who wrote those secondary sources. Also this helps generally to increase scholarship about women’s writing!
Present your papers at conferences! Many schools have their own undergraduate/departmental conferences that you can present at. Push yourself by submitting to outside conferences. Bring attention to women’s works by presenting your papers. Take a space at a conference that would otherwise be reserved for mediocre men
Talk to your profs and/or your department and/or your university about mandating the inclusion of female works in classes if this isn’t something they do already
Sit next to other women in your classes. Talk to them. Make friends. Form study groups. Proofread each other’s essays. Give each other knowing looks when the boys are being dumb. Just interact with other women! Build those female networks!
Be generous with your compliments. A female classmate and I were talking to a prof after class and the classmate told me (out of the blue) that I always have such interesting things to say. I think about that whenever I’m lacking confidence about my academic skills. Compliment the women in your classes for speaking up, for sharing their opinions, for challenging your classmates/profs, for doing cool presentations, etc.
Talk to other women about sexist things going on on campus. Make everyone aware of the sexist profs. Complain about how there are many more tenured men than tenured women. Go on rate my professor and be explicit about how the sexist profs are sexist
Be active on campus and in societies. If a society has an all male executive or is male-dominated, any women who join that society make it less intimidating for more women to join. Run for executive positions! Bring in more women!
(Pro tip: Many societies’ elections are super gameable. You can be eligible to vote in a society election sometimes just by being a student at that university — even without having done anything with the society before. Other societies might just require that you’ve taken a class in a particular department or attended a society event. (Check the society’s governing documents.) Use those female networks you’ve been building. If you can bring three or four random people to vote for you, that might be enough for you to win. Societies have trouble meeting quorum (the minimum number of people in attendance to do votes) so it is really super achievable to rig an election with a few friends. And don’t feel bad about this. The system is rigged against women so you have every right to exploit loopholes!)
(Also feel free to go vote “non-confidence”/“re-open election” if only shitty men are running. Too often people see that only candidates they don’t like are running and so they give up. But you can actually stop them getting elected)
Your campus may have a LGBTQIA+alphabetsoup society. That society definitely needs more L and B women representation. It may be tedious to argue with the nb straight dudes who insist that it’s fine to use “q***r” in the society’s posters and that attraction has nothing to do with genitals, but just imagine what could happen if we could make these sorts of societies actually safe spaces for same-sex attracted women and advocated for our concerns
Attend random societies’ election meetings. Get women elected and peace out. (or actually get involved but I’m trying to emphasize the lowest commitment option with this one)
Write for the campus newspaper. Write about what women are doing - women’s sports, cool society activities, whatever. Review female movies, books, tv shows, local theatre productions. Write about sexism on campus. We need more female by-lines and more stories about women
Get involved with your campus’s sexual assault & r*pe hotline/sexual assault survivor’s centre/whatever similar organization your campus has if you can. This is hard work and definitely not for everyone (pls take care of yourself first, especially if you are a survivor)
(If your campus doesn’t have an organization for supporting survivor’s of sexualized violence, start one! This is probably going to be a lot of hard work though, so don’t do it alone)
Talk to your student council about providing free menstrual hygiene products on campus if your campus doesn’t already do this. If your campus provides free condoms (which they probs do), use that as leverage (ie. ‘sex is optional, menstruation is not. so why do we have free condoms and no free pads?’)
If you’re an older student, get involved with younger students (orientation week and such activities are good for this). Show the freshman that you can be a successful and well-liked woman without shaving your legs, wearing heels, wearing make-up, etc. Mentor these young women. Offer to go for coffee or proofread essays.
Come to class looking like a human being. Be visibly make-up less, unshaven, unfeminine, etc. to show off the many different ways of being a woman
Talk to the custodial staff and learn their names. (I know there are men who work in this profession, but it is dominated by low-income women) Say hi in the hallways, ask them about their lives, show them they’re appreciated
Be explicit with your language. When you are talking about sex-based oppression, say it. Don’t say ‘sex worker’ when you mean survivor of human trafficking. This tip is obviously a bit tricky in terms of overt TERFyness, so use your best judgement
That’s all from me for now! Feel free to add your suggestions and remember that feminism is about action
831 notes
·
View notes
Text
Conventions of Fantasy Monarchs, Queens, and the Subversion Thereof
I think a lot about Megan Whalen Turner’s use of monarchy in her novels and how that compares to royalty as presented in children’s fantasy fiction (as well as adult fantasy fiction, although I think there has been a strong turn away from rulers as absolute moral arbiters in the past twenty-five years, maybe, in favour of portrayals that are not necessarily more nuanced or realistic but are certainly more corrupt and far from divine) and Turner as a feminist writer and how these two aspects of her writing are interlinked. The nature of her approach to her Queen’s Thief series, however, requires a finer focus to begin from the wide view. While other authors world build with brick and mortar, Turner’s books create their world through origami. Each book is a separate piece and is folded into the next.
In "The Thief", Turner starts by establishing the three kingdoms of the Little Peninsula: Sounis, Eddis, Attolia. King, Queen, Queen. Although “The Thief” is wholly Gen’s story, the King of Sounis appearing briefly at the beginning, the Queens of Attolia and Eddis appearing at the end, they are established as the powers that be, the decision makers, the three figures trying to maintain their country and their identity in balance with the martial and economic pressures from all out sides. We know little about any of the monarchs, beyond that Sounis is older and Eddis and Attolia are both young. That the young women are queens, not princesses, is immediately a quiet triumph, an eyeshiver of subverting the unquestioned status quo (you think now, as an adult, of all the uninterrogated eternal princesses in your media, the young women without fathers or with fathers specifically deceased, and the refusal to permit their ascension to an adult title).
Indeed, in “The Thief” it is impossible to envision them as princesses for they are not given names. This is not an oversight on Turner’s part, not a diminishment of their personhood or, at least, not a diminishment of personhood that is not considered part of the parcel of governance. The three monarchs are frequently referred to simply by the name of their country, even dispensing with King/Queen of [Country]. Of course this implies a degree of the individual as their country, their country as the embodiment of the individual, the placing of country before self which, in and of itself, calls on the typical mythos found coupled with a hereditary monarchy. But it also shapes the reader’s understanding of the dynamic between the three monarchs as equal. Queens instead of princesses is adult and the further step of country in lieu of title degenders them, allowing the reader to move beyond their expectations for these titles, these roles, based on previously consumed media or even an awareness of those monarchies which continue today.
It is easy to overlook these socially conditioned expectations; the woman who is a doctor but regularly addresses as “Ms.” without second thought versus the rudeness of anyone forgetting to address a man by his professional credentials. Turner lifts the reader away from expectations they may have for such archetypes as ‘king’ and ‘queen’ without any fanfare given for what she is doing.
Moving beyond the scope of the three monarchs, into the matter of Eddis and Attolia, the only female characters in "The Thief". When the women appear, Turner sets up a familiar feminine binary between the two queens. Eddis is ugly but kind. Attolia is beautiful but cruel. Subsequent books prevent this from being a reductive portrayal of women without invalidating the initial descriptors. Eddis is never described as particularly attractive, but in certain eyes she is beautiful, without it ever seeming like a case of a perceptive/quality man perceiving a non-traditional beauty. Her kindness is tempered, prevented from being a weakness as she makes hard, sometimes ruthless decisions in “The Queen of Attolia” and those decisions are not motivated by possessing greater kindness than Attolia. Instead, she is equal to Attolia in her fierce love and protection of her country and its people. Attolia, the supremely beautiful woman who is cruel, is not the beautiful but evil queen not because she is not truly cruel, but because her cruelness is an expression of her ruthlessness. It is not petty, this is not a governmental expression of a Madonna-Whore dichotomy. It is two women who are physically very different operating in very similar roles with identical goals.
The physical difference is not significant; it is fact.
The important difference, the real dichotomy, is not a question of which of these women is good and which is evil, which woman is ugly and which is beautiful, which woman is pure and which is corrupt. It is, in fact, not a reflection of the women at all, but a reflection of the society and men around them.
More than the other books, the complete understanding of how Turner has taken superficial expectations of kings and queens and the portrayal of two women who, by existing in the same text will always in some way be positioned against each other, is achieved in “The King of Attolia”. Not, as might initially be thought in “The Queen of Attolia” in which the Wicked Queen is given the history and explanation that Explains her; for once we understand why she is wicked, will her actions not seem more understandable and forgivable? Turner in fact says no, Attolia’s cruel acts remain cruel; the nightmare consequences of one particular action continue throughout the series in the form of literal nightmares. “The Queen of Attolia” also gives Attolia a stand-in for someone who appears to be filling the role the evil advisor who leads a good woman astray for his own power and gain in the form of Nahuseresh.
“The King of Attolia” has a protagonist who is not of the nobility and from his perspective the reader gains a deeper understanding for how Attolia the country has been affected by Attolia the queen, the disruption of tradition rippling out to a disruption in the land and its greater politics. Initially, Attolia is a queen governing without a king, contrary to tradition. As a result, Attolia is surrounded by men wishing to control the country through her, their own schemes kept at bay by Attolia making ruthless example of a few individuals and setting the survivors against each other, focusing their attentions on the immediate threat of their peers rather than the abstract threat of not having direct control of Attolia yet. There is a sense given that the history of Attolia’s reign has been a steady escalation of ruthlessness as the scheming and the impatience of her barons persists and under the distraction of infighting, spies, beheading, and torture she secures alternate sources of power which strengthens the tie of loyalty binding the lower classes to her by instituting policies of a non-traditional nature like: meritocracy in the military, terms of indentured servitude having finite limits, and financial compensation for people working for the crown.
Attolia’s political actions, once the reader comes to understand them, are actions which elevate the powerless in her country and in doing so it enables to cement her own power: the power of one who, traditionally, would also be powerless. That we only become aware of this, truly appreciating the impact of Attolia as queen, instead of just the difficulties and hardships personally suffered, from the point of view of an insignificant young soldier and guard, who both fears and is loyal to the queen, imbues this interpretation of Attolia as one of greater truth than what is shown in the previous books. The narrator of “The King of Attolia”, Costis has a simpler view of the matter, a man on the ground view. He has no experience of living under the rule of anyone but this queen. He is not affected by the wider inter-country politics, his position is one formed by experiencing Attolia’s rule. It does not read as propaganda or apologia for the actions of this woman which are influenced by our ancient history and the politics therein.
Turner’s series has now come to an end and the number of main female characters never expanded beyond Eddis and Attolia but, in a genre that frequently fails women, even now, Eddis and Attolia are nuanced characters, powerful characters stretching the expectations of their archetypes and growing beyond them. The way Turner constructs her novels builds slowly and subtly into works that are feminist, despite the predominance of male characters, and strong with class solidarity and an anti-monarchial bent, despite the majority of the protagonists and point of view characters being members of the nobility. The genre and demographic do not need to steer the politics and ideas of a narrative and, in turn, those aspects cannot be accurately represented by simple numbers and Megan Whalen Turner demonstrates this often overlooked truth with each of her books.
#this would just be a first draft in my uni days#sometimes you need to write until you find the point#the thief#the queen of atolia#the king of attolia#megan whalen turner#The Queen's Thief series#maybe i'll revise this later
215 notes
·
View notes
Text
A Brief And Concise Summary Of Is Wrong With The ACOTAR Series
I think we can agree that a lot of ACOTAR is pretty iffy. Consider this a very brief refresher.
What's Wrong With Feyre/Rhysand (juxtaposed against Feyre/Tamlin)
Rhysand drugs and sexually assaults her in Book 1
This is "for her own good". Because he "has no choice". Despite the fact that, from what we know of the plot, Amarantha thinks that Clare Beddor was the one Rhysand was diddling, and is only interested in Feyre because Rhysand, "her" man male, has taken an interest in her.
If we extrapolate from this we can figure that Rhysand is the one directly putting her into danger.
Now, let's be clear: drugging someone is bad. Sexually assaulting someone is bad. One could argue there were extenuating circumstances. But if, in such a situation, what your mind goes to is "I know, I should assault this person... for their safety" I have questions about your moral qualities. There were a million things he could have done. He could have done whatever he did to Clare - that is, remove her ability to feel any pain - easily. He could have helped her escape. Under The Mountain, he - while still there unwillingly - has a lot of power, as Amarantha's side piece. Maybe this would have resulted in him being punished- however, he is hundreds of years old and a badass motherfucker, and she is a nineteen year old human girl.
Now, onto Tamlin. Obviously not a lot of people really ship F/T anymore after ACOMAF, because compared to F/R, it's boring. I read another person's post about it, which was very enlightening: they said that Feyre's personality is essentially a mirror. When she is with Rhysand, she's snarky and malicious- because she is "bouncing off" his energy. When she's with Mor she's super feminist and "in awe of her strength". On the other hand, Tamlin is kind of an empty character. He's a pretty boy with anger issues, which should be more interesting than it is. SJM manages to make him bland. Because Feyre has nothing to bounce off of, (a lot of this is from the person's post), she and Tamlin together is mainly just him introducing her to his world.
What Tamlin Does: prevents a skinny twenty year old from going on dangerous missions with him and combat-trained soldiers, accidentally blows up a room with her in it, and, at the end, prevents her from leaving the house.
This is not a Tamlin apologist post. Obviously it was really fucking gross of him to do that, and their relationship was toxic. However, a lot of his abuse stems from their inability to communicate, as well as own negligence. He does not knowingly and purposefully sexually assault her or rape her mind. And tbh, leaving a girl without combat training at home while he goes on missions with a bunch of muscled sentries is... kind of reasonable?
Again: not a Tamlin apologist post. It was abuse. However, if Rhysand is "allowed" to sexually assault, mind-rape, and drug Feyre "for her own safety", why is Tamlin demonized for preventing her from leaving his mansion "for her own safety"?
Another pertinent point: Rhys is never punished for sexually assaulting her. It is brushed off as part of his "mask" or that his hand was forced. Jesus Christ my dudes, his hand was not forced under her skirt. If he has to maintain his gross rapist abuser tyrant oppressor mask... why? Who did that benefit beside him? None of his actions remotely helped Prythian. They were done solely for his buddies - five people safe in a rich hidden city - and no one else, which is explicitly stated.
Finally, the power dynamic is fucked up. Feyre is less than twenty five years old. Rhysand is 500. There is a tendency in fantasy romance to romanticize a centuries year old man with a young girl, because the man does not show symptoms of age, and so it is easily ignorable. However, can we just briefly acknowledge how fucked up it is? Rhys is over five times older than Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and other known predators/abusers. She is twenty. That is really fucking gross. She is in a vulnerable position and he takes rampant advantage of that.
If he had wrinkles, liver problems, and erectile dysfunction, more people would acknowledge it.
Let's be clear: I'm not saying writing a book with an uneven power dynamic is automatically bad. For example, in The Locked Tomb series, which is in my opinion THE BEST FANTASY SERIES THAT HAS GRACED THIS EARTH (lol i'm starting fires), one main character Harrowhark Nonagesimus is in a position of power over Gideon Nav, the other main character. However, this is not glossed over or romanticized. Gideon resents Harrow for this- there is a relationship of mutual antagonism, fraught with unwilling familiarity and intimacy from growing up together. They are roughly the same age. While there is a certain power dynamic (in that world, there is a dynamic of necromancer and cavalier, i.e. sorcerer and sword) the "empowered" character (Harrow) emphatically respects her and does not abuse this power, although both would of course deny this, and she does make a show of threatening and being aloof. In short, while Gideon obeys her, Gideon also has power over Harrow, and the idea of what is essentially slavery is not romanticized.
Feyre Doesn't Face Any Consequences For Her Own Actions
Let me present a radical notion: a guy preventing you from leaving his house does not justify completely fucking ruining his country and harming the people inside it.
In other words: Tamlin does not deserve what she did to him.
I know that sounds iffy. We're conditioned to think that if someone is an abuser, then they are the scum of the earth, they deserve to die, torturing/murdering/doing anything to them is completely A-OK. However, here's another radical notion: someone harming you does not justify you doing worse.
Obviously, the effects of psychological abuse can cause you to hurt other people (see: Nesta), but Feyre deliberately and maliciously (oh, God, that insufferable POV of her in Spring Court; she reads like a cartoonish Disney villain) dismantles his country. She uses sexual manipulation (Lucien), torture (causing the sentry to be whipped), and mind-rape (who didn't she do this to? lol).
A summary of the entire first half of ACOWAR: "It smelled like roses. I hated roses. For this capital offense against my olfactory system, Tamlin and the entire Spring Court deserved to burn in hell. I knew exactly what I was doing. I smiled at him sweetly: no longer a doe, but a wolf. He didn't see my fangs.............." *aesthetic noises*
Man. I'm starting to think SJM had a horrible experience at a Bath & Body Works and took it out on the rest of us. Don't do it, Sarah!! I know Pink Chiffon and Triple Berry Martini are way too strong, but don't take it out on an innocent population!!
She steals from Summer Court (there are, yk, other solutions to theft. Like maybe asking politely) and ruins Spring Court. Her boyfriend - yeesh sorry, MATE - does nothing while a dozen Winter Court children are murdered.
Now: moral ambiguity is not automatically bad. Again using The Locked Tomb as an example, in the second book (spoiler alert), Harrowhark has a sort of moral ambiguity. She was raised from the beginning to worship the King Undying as God, and so she obeys him without question. Because of this, she commits a lot of crimes in His name: she "flips" - i.e. kills - the life force of planets, and she plots murder (albeit the murder of someone who tried to kill her first). There is no attempt to justify this. There is also no attempt to paint her as a virtuous and yet also badass Madonna figure. She is desperate, plagued with the "wreck of herself", and the book clearly displays her moral pitfalls. While her POV is of course colored by her mindset, it also is limited by her lack of information, and we as readers can acknowledge that.
BACK TO ACOTAR: Feyre is seen by everyone as gorgeous, formidable, and essentially perfect. Rhys sees her as flawless, "made for him", wonderful, beautiful, blah blah blah. (THEY ARE SO BAD FOR EACH OTHER; THEY EXCUSE AND GLORIFY EACH OTHER'S CRIMES, IT'S SO BAD, GUYYYS). Tamlin is insanely batshit in love with her, or whatever. To the Night Court she's the High Lady. In this way she personifies the Mary Sue character. (Excerpt from the TV Tropes page on Mary Sues: "She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal." Sound familiar?)
There is the Ourobous scene. And yet, paradoxically, while presented as an acknowledgment of her flaws, it is in fact a rejection of them. She sees her own brutality... and instead of recognizing that she has these deep, deep moral flaws and realizing that she needs to grow and be better, she in fact "accepts" them.
Guys: Self love means: "I'm important to me, so I'm going to get a massage today after work", or "heck, why not splurge on some expensive lotion, you only live once" or "you know what? I had a tough day today. I'm going to get that strawberry cupcake". SELF LOVE DOES NOT MEAN "oh, I accept all the war crimes I have done, I love myself". LOVING YOURSELF DOES NOT MEAN ABSOLVING YOURSELF OF ALL WRONGDOING.
It's this refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing that is so grating about ACOTAR. It's so goddamn one-sided. And you can tell that after Book 1, SJM decided to completely change the trajectory simply because of how jarring Book 2 reads compared to the first one.
Also: Feyre is a very, very young girl (compared to the other ruling fey) who did not know how to read for the majority of her life. She has no experience whatsoever in politics. Her being High Lady is not a win for feminism.
Rhysand: He Sucks
First, he is 500 years old. He should be written as such, not as some 20 year old virile frat boy feminist. Fantasy is all the more compelling for its elements of realism, which is a concept that SJM does not appear to grasp.
Second of all, his morals are absurd. He is written as the Second Coming of Christ, as someone who can do no wrong, ever, and his flaws only serve to make Feyre love him more. Anything shitty he does is written as part of his "mask" and she can See Beneath It and knows that it "hurts" him to maintain this "mask".
Fellas, WHY DOES HE HAVE TO MAINTAIN THIS MASK???? There is no reason for it. If A) he does not give a shit about Court of Nightmares (we'll get back to that), only about Velaris, and B) Velaris is hidden/protected from the world, what is he pretending for?
It would not hurt him politically to be seen as someone who cares about his country.
"Pretending" to be "Amarantha's whore" does not in any way shape or form benefit the macro-world that is Prythian. In Amarantha's name, he commits atrocities. He commits war crimes; he systemically oppresses entire societies. It doesn't even really benefit Velaris, because Velaris is already hidden.
Let me put this in a real-world perspective. This would be like if Donald Trump was suddenly like: "I know I was a shitty president but IT WAS ALL PART OF MY MASK, WHICH WAS TO PROTECT THIS MICROCOSM OF PRIVILEGED PEOPLE THAT I CARE ABOUT". Like: okay? Sorry, or whatever, but I don't actually give a shit. What about the parents of the children who died? What about Clare Beddor? What about the people who were held in slavery, murdered, tortured?
Rhysand: omg it sucks that my cousin Mor was oppressed by this toxic misogynistic culture from the Court of Nightmares.
Also Rhysand: lol whatever, who gives a shit about Court of Nightmares. They all suck. They meanie. Lol what did you say? That there might be other girls just like Mor who are oppressed by this system? Lol whatever. I can't do anything, I gotta maintain my Mask. I gotta sit on this throne and show the entire Court that not respecting women is completely okay.
In summary: by parading Feyre around as his "whore" (!!) he demonstrates by example that it is completely okay for the Court of Nightmares to abuse their women.
A good ruler cares about all his people. Rhysand cares about a tiny tiny fraction of his people: those who were fortunate enough to be born into Velaris.
God, I'm exhausted. Onto Nesta:
The only character who successfully breaks the Mary Sue effect Feyre exerts on her people is Nesta. Her POV for the first half is a joy to read.
Obviously it sucks that Nesta was a huge bitch to Feyre for the beginning of her childhood. However, it was wrong for Rhysand to threaten her- he is a man male with a huge insane amount of power, and it is not okay for him to threaten to bring the brunt of it down on a young girl because she was a bitch to his girlfriend.
I've seen a lot of discourse on the morality of F/R sending her out of Velaris. Here is my two cents:
It was okay for them to cut her off of their money. If they don't want to enable her self-harm, that is their choice. Again, it's their money, even if it wasn't fairly earned (Rhysand born into an enormous fortune).
It was not okay for them to banish her from Velaris with the implication that she was an embarrassment. Let me explain.
If Rhysand and Feyre are talking to her as sister/brother-in-law, then that is that. They have the complete right to express disapproval and try to help. However, they should not be using their royal privilege against her.
If they are talking to her as ruler to subject, then they have the power to banish her from the city. However, a ruler would not give a shit about a random subject getting drunk and having sex. So, they should not be talking her about her problems as a ruler to subject.
I've heard it compared to her being sent to rehab. However, rehab is a system designed to help people with certain problems. It has specialized medical centers and involves therapy. Nesta gets her life threatened multiple times. It is not rehab.
In summary: why did SJM inflict this upon us. Throne of Glass was actually good! GAHHH! After the first few books she completely whipped around and introduced the idea of males and mates and fey and that C is actually A and the quality took a huge nosedive. Sigh.
Final horrible but unmistakable truth: The entire ACOTAR series reads like a bad A/B/O fic. I hate to say it but it's true. We're lucky there were no heat cycles. OH WAIT
#anti sjm#anti rhysand#anti acotar#anti acofas#anti acomaf#anti everything#anti feyre#to some extent#mentioned: the locked tomb#mentioned: gideon the ninth#mentioned: harrowhark nonagesimus#anti#strongly anti#pan-int#that's my ao3 tag!#meta#my post
245 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hi!How are you ? I wanted to ask you about something. I would appreciate any info you can provide on this or anything related to this. If you're busy i totally understand. No worries.
I learnt about this today.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTXNm8psak1/?utm_medium=copy_link
Why was this history never taught, never spoken so much. Like it was non existent. It broke my heart to read about this. What do you think about this and the lack of knowledge about this? Don't such stories matter? Is it because they were women? The boisterous freedom speeches describing colonialism, our history textbooks so many media outlets but i hear this story today!!!??
Please suggest any books that i can read to learn more about this and stories most of the history books leave out.
Thank you.
hello! i’m sorry this took long, it’s festival season and i’ve been busy at home.
if you mean why it wasn’t taught in schools, then that’s a tricky question. because on the one hand these are obviously very important stories and school textbooks have typically had biases that need correction, but also on the other hand, school textbooks would typically be devoid of the nuance you learn in college while studying labour and everything. this history is taught in college, and has in fact been a pretty big deal for the past fifty years when you’re studying colonialism and gender or labour histories. there is also always new research being done on this in academia, and always new books being written on this. feminist and subaltern history has in fact done wonderfully well in indian academia. so, you know, we talk about it all the time in college.
not all of it always translates into popular histories — which i’m guessing is what you mean by why this is never talked about — and why that doesn’t happen is complicated. sometimes there is obvious politics, like how with the freedom movement the congress occupies most of the space (you can guess who that helps), or how tribal leaders are hardly ever mentioned; or how with medieval india the north is prioritized and the south or the northeast largely ignored. but also, more importantly, there is always new work being done, there are always new sources that someone accesses, and in that sense no work of history is complete, because something more could be discovered that changes everything. and because the time we live in changes, older sources are always being read and reread and lead to new interpretations: like recently queer histories have grown, so we’ve gone back to ancient hindu and indic writings and combed through them again with a clearer picture of what to look for.
and that’s something that has been happening lately; there have been more diverse stories written and brought into the mainstream over the last seven-ish years. these are the most recent ones that have been well-received —
the coolie's great war: indian labour in a global conflict, 1914-1921 by radhika singha: about the non-combatant indian labour that was part of the first world war; looks at how the war was fought on the backs of such labour
lady doctors: the untold stories of india's first women in medicine by kavitha rao: how women became doctors and accessed medicine in the 19th century; looks at how they navigated caste, family, gender tensions
makers of modern dalit history by sudarshan ramabadran and guru prakash paswan: short biographical collection about people who have been important to dalit history; also looks at how dalit agency worked in modern india through these stories
ayo gorkhali by tim i. gurung: it’s about the gorkha kingdom, the people, and particularly how they were militarized during the encounter with the british
most of these build on the academic work that has existed since about the 1980s in india —
elementary aspects of peasant insurgency in colonial india by ranajit guha: looks at how peasant consciousness developed in colonial india, it’s a pioneering book, and ranajit guha gave birth to subaltern studies so a classic, really. his other work is great too, and if you want a more theoretical work, check dominance without hegemony
labour matters: towards global histories by sabyasachi bhattacharya: an anthology about global labour and also about how history needs to be transnational, especially while studying things like mobility
castes of mind by nicholas dirks: about how caste identities and categories were created/reinforced in colonial india and its implications for modern india
an endangered history by angma dey zhala: it’s about the chittagong region and how religion, colonialism, culture, and ethnicity interacted and how european encounter changed (or not changed) the region
ayahs, lascars, and princes by rozina visram: about indians in britain during the empire days, probably the most relevant to what you asked
thuggee by kim wagner: about banditry in 19th century india and how it emerged in the specific context created by colonial socio-economic policy; how it was further criminalised
for popular histories you can keep track of publishers, that way you’ll know anything new that’s being written. aryan books does indic histories, navayana is great for all writings on dalit history; then there are the big ones who are better with popular history (penguin, harper collins, rupa etc). academic publishers (oxford and cambridge university presses, springer, brill, routledge etc) are also good if you’d like conventionally academic writing.
and also lastly, the instagram page that you got your story from is great! there are so many of these coming up lately who bring history and heritage into the mainstream and they’re every bit as important! here are some favourites —
ancient indian art
itihasology (bonus points because they’re friends!)
pangsau history project
the heritage lab
india lost and found
i hope that helps clear things up for you :)
139 notes
·
View notes
Text
I guess I'm thinking about gender again. Philosophically speaking. I'm trying to get my head around this constant problem I have with it.
Gender is always so weird for me because like... fundamentally, conceptually, I'm more of a gender abolitionist... human beings are all just a grab bag of traits trending in two major directions based on hormones, but it's only our innate urge to categorize and build complex categorical schemas that gives gender any meaning... there is no gender in nature, there are just individuals with traits, and so in myself I don't feel like gender has any meaning other than the experiential
but on the other hand I very much perceive gender first when I look at a new person, because that categorization schema is so deep in my brain, and I don't know how to unlearn it. So I'm simultaneously experiencing the philosophical certainty that gender is fake and arbitrary, while ALSO experiencing this foundational bias to sort people into one category or the other based on their looks.
All this is further complicated by the fact that I have a very real preference towards women, in the sense that like... one, okay, I'm kind of afraid of men? Or, I distrust men? Or, I'm afraid of and distrustful of men in a way that I never am of women--unfamiliar men are potential enemies until they demonstrate to me that they are not the enemy. I feel a kinship with women that is instinctual. Even when women individually suck, they're still my people. Even when individual men are lovely and admirable, they're still something other. They're foreign to me, in a similar way that someone raised in China is foreign to me.
By the way I'm very much including transwomen in the kinship circle, I vibe very much with people who WANT to be here in the female kinship circle.
When I was younger I was very "whatever" about my own gender. When I was in elementary school I used to crossdress and I would be very excited when I passed as a boy (I had to stop this when my chest came in). I used to think a lot about being born as a boy, or being a boy in a past life. I craved (but never got) validation from my male peers. But I also was aggressively feminine outside of that--I refused to wear pants, I liked pink and purple and sparkles, you know, the whole 9 yards. Even a that time I think I perceived women as being my people, or at least the people I was most interested in when it came time to pick favorite characters or choose a historical person to do a report on. I feel like my relationship to "womanhood" changed a lot as I left high school and entered college--like when I was in high school I thought of myself as just being A Person, not a girl or a woman or a female; I was agender within my own mind, you know? But then as I got older, I got on the internet and I started seeing all this feminist discourse and seeing myself as part of a shared experience of oppression, and that was really the first time that I started to think of myself as a woman rather than an individual: in seeing myself through the eyes of strangers and understanding how their perception of me fundamentally changed their treatment of me
I'm 29 now and I still don't know jack shit, frankly. The way that gender is imposed on a person externally is important to me, because that's the main reason I even think of myself as having a gender. But on the other hand, some people obviously feel so strongly about their innate gender that they're willing to change their whole lives in order to migrate from one category to another, which is sort of inconceivable to me, but obviously very real for them.
I'm stuck in this ideological vs experiential paradox, where my own personal experience of gender is so inverted from most of my friends' experience that I cannot begin to reconcile it. I wasn't a woman until the world made me a woman. I don't understand why it doesn't work like that for everyone.
anyway this is a long ass post and if you read it then uhhhh thanks for listening
16 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
nhormeanings-blog
Nhor
jaes-aerie
If u look like Kazuma Kiryu DM me
vannia8
Untitled
root-bash-blog
Untitled