well behaved women

"If" Black Women Were White Women"

Written, apparently, in the style of 'What if Men Could Menstruate' by Gloria Steinem. To quote fiction_theory: There is some discussion of sexual assault in the essay - but I feel it is worth it.

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I'm disappointed.

I can't say I expected miracles from the book. Indeed, my first and strongest motivations were the cover, by an artist i am very fond of. Hey! It looks awesome! I am shallow.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ride isn't promising.

John Clute at SciFi Wire

That, on the other hand, Lake’s savagely pollarded heroine never seems to shut her mouth should come as no surprise either, I guess: because it is clearly not part of Lake’s belief system, or of his writerly strategy over the long consolatory pages of Green, to treat the savageries of immurement Green suffers as a child as ultimately deforming. Wolfe, whose example has clearly shaped Green, may be the only contemporary author of American fantastic literature consistently to treat damage as damaging; Lake adheres to a sunnier version of the costs of being born in prison: that spunk will unlock the barred door.
[...]
It is here we come to something of a sticking point, which is rage. The young peasant girl Green (she refuses to use the name her owner gives her), who has spent most of her life in a deep Skinner Box being shaped, refuses to accept her destiny. After all her travails, she tells us, “I was still me“, and my heart sank. The person we have thought she was—the aleph self gaining some dark noumenousness from her immurement in the heart of the Wolfean world she had been selected for as an infant—turns out to be a cloak that only half conceals a moderately sophisticated Liberal Humanist teenager from California with anger issues. Made berserk by the thought that she—a simple illiterate peasant lass from a subsistance rice paddy—has been bought and educated by immortals whose nature and purpose on the plate of the world we have not yet learned, Green kills one of her teaching Mistresses, scars her face so she cannot become a concubine, and escapes with Dancing Mistress into the City.

Kyra Smith at Strange Horizons:

Specifically, there are two ways in which we can interpret Green’s sadomasochistic lesbianism. We can see it as the sort of empowering lesbianism practiced by apparently kick-ass fantasy heroines or we can see it as yet further evidence that Green has been completely broken by her time of enslavement. Either reading is discomforting, the former because it strikes me as a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of homosexuality to view it as more legitimising than heterosexuality, and the latter because it implies a direct causal relationship between abuse and ‘aberrant’ sexual behaviour. In both cases, Green’s sexual preferences are reduced to something illustrative rather authentic. The upshot is that there is no sense of emotional reality to her attractions beyond shared orientation and the possibility, perhaps, that the author finds the idea of two girls getting it on a bit hot. Or one girl and a catgirl. I’m not joking.
[...]
I think I would have had less of a problem with Green had I been able to shake the suspicion I was meant to think she was awesome. She does kick-ass fantasy heroine things like kill people, sleep around, win fights and be Chosen By The Gods (yes, she’s that too) and her only flaws are the sort of flaws it is acceptable for a strong woman to have—i.e. she is a little bit impulsive, a little bit ruthless and just too gosh darn stubborn sometimes. Because of this, and her general disinclination to give a damn about anyone else, she never felt like a real person to me.

I am especially tired of this. I am tired of being fed the archetypes, either the Girlfriend or the Tough Chick (or fascimilies thereof). And yes, even today they dominate, though simply having the Tough Chick can be seen as a step forward. In more varied, subtle forms--and in their base forms, both are stories that very much deserve to be told, and that I want to read--but they dominate the field. Either the woman is the love interest, or she is the Faux Action Girl, possessing traditional "male" skills, almost always portrayed as emotionally ackward, lacking or wounded, with a tragic past or downright inhuman callousness. Now, I love these kinds of girls--but the point is that largely no other kind of Action Heroine is allowed to be. She can't be chirpy and happy and still kick ass. She can't be a soldier, tough and dangerous on the battlefield, that comes home and is just an ordinary human. There must be something wrong with her for her to be dangerous and tough in a physical (or mental) way.

She can't be strong as a woman, with only traditional "female" traits; if she is, critics and readers (usually female readers) alike revile her. If she does posess traditional "female" traits, she is relegated to the role of the girlfriend, who can't "understand" what the hero goes through, and is generally relegated to unfailing, selfless support on the sidelines. (There are exceptions! I know there are exceptions! But that is exactly what they are--exceptions to the rule.)

Either way, all too often I'm given stereotypes, or archetypes. I want to read about people. Female people.

There are a variety of reviews. Some are very good. But the good--and this is key as I consider them as a whole--simply do not address the important issues that the critical reviews do, or if they do they gloss them over.

Daniel Hemmens at FerretBrain:

It gets worse, considerably worse, when she returns to her home. Suddenly Copper Downs goes from being not merely more affluent than her homeland but objectively better. Green states, quite clearly, that:

My captors had been right. Rather I should have been on my knees thanking the Factor for what he had taken me from.

Now I know that this is partly Green giving in to despair, but nothing in the text challenges this conclusion. It’s rather an object lesson in the dangers of taking on too many genre stereotypes at once.

Had this been the story of a white man who was taken away from his pseudo-European farming village and conscripted into the armies of the Dark Lord of Evil then I would have been overjoyed to find him returning home to realise that his long lost homeland was a poverty stricken shithole and his father was a bastard who never cared about him. It would challenge the assumptions of a genre that frequently glamourises poverty, and it wouldn’t have any creepy overtones (unless you want to make a big thing about militarism).

Make the white man a south-Asian woman, however, and you start getting into difficulties, because now you’re not saying “being poor sucks” you’re saying “being foreign sucks”. Turn conscription into slavery and you’re not saying “you might be better off in the army than on a farm” you’re saying “you might be better off as a slave in Europe than as a free man in your own country.” Add in the courtesan angle and you’re saying “it is a good thing for south-Asian women to be sold as sex slaves to European men.”

I hope I don’t need to point out that this really isn’t okay.

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Another Merlin post, this time a bit of a linkspam to articulate, well-thought out opinions, specifically concerning where Merlin falls through in gender and race issues.

How Not to Handle a Woman: The Problem(s) with Morgana

The White Mists of Avalon: Thoughts on Morgana's Race


And this, not on Merlin: [IBARW] It's not murder, it's a metaphor

Abstract: If you're going to argue about a text's metaphorical or allegorical representations of race, you may want to take a look at how it treats actual people of color before forming your conclusions about the subversion of racial stereotypes.

This includes huge problems I have with a frequent approach to supernatural genres: associating the plight of minority groups with the plight of supernatural beings that actually feed off of humans/are animals is actually pretty insulting in its own right.

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Announcement: I have no idea how I am going to survive Multi-Cultural class this quarter even remotely sane.

The teacher is great. The class would be agonizing instead of infuriating if he wasn't, and after having a long talk with him it's actually not as stressful and upsetting for me anymore. But oh my god, the students...

Today a woman tried to tell me that by dressing scantily, women were 'asking for it.' And then defended the stance at length, one of her arguments being 'it's like putting a steak in front of a dog.' Then right after class, my two table mates (both female) condescendingly did their best to put me in my place. I was ready to spit nails.

People are so goddamn determined to IGNORE the male in this scenario. THIS IS NOT ABOUT A WOMAN'S MANNER OF DRESS. This is about one sentient, conscious, thinking being making the deliberate conscious choice to assault, violate and brutally harm, mentally or physically or both, another sentient, conscious, thinking being.

In other words: STFU. I'm not buying your piping-hot misogyny. Even Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler couldn't sell it.

They also tried to say the women 'weren't respecting themselves.' I wish I'd thought to say at the time; 'no, you aren't respecting them, or yourself, by trying to make excuses for rapists. Get the hell out of my gender and planet.'

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On Hating Female Characters.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about how many readers seem to hate female characters more than they hate male. Or rather that the same behaviour from a male character is okay but someone inexcusable in a female.

NO KIDDING. I read and enjoyed this post a while back, but a link popped up on my flist, and I returned to it and decided in light of some recent comments I'd read that it needs to be sung from the rooftops.

She also has a very good post here: The Advantages of Being a White Writer Highly recommended.

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I was thinking about white privilege, and racism and all the -isms and the baggage that goes with it. On top of what I have as a white person, even as a girl and a feminist there have been and probably still are sexist views that I've subconsciously absorbed and not yet unearthed or examined.

A while back I was reading Anne Bishop and she made a remark about 'feminine' in her books. The quote is on my profile, I liked it so much, and it goes like this: "....the gist of it being whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and whatever she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't.""

And I had to reevaluate what I, a girl, thought of as feminine. I mean, what does feminine mean?

1. pertaining to a woman or girl: feminine beauty; feminine dress
....
4. belonging to the female sex; female

(I deleted the two between because, to be frank, they very demonstrably displayed the very cultural manipulation of roles that I'm complaining about.)

And what is our cultural view of 'feminine', especially in regards to clothing? Delicate. Pink. Satin. Lace. Frivolous. And what cultural image does all that feed into? The 'fragile' woman. The one that needs to be protected. She can't run in it, and it sure as hell isn't going to offer her any protection against the world. The one that needs the man to make decisions for her (frivolous, clothes as too important) and, for example, control her money.

So when you're talking about theoreticals, and societal views, and stereotypes and archetypes and tropes, fine. You can use feminine in that manner all you like. But what 'feminine' really means is 'female.'

And we can be whatever we damn well want to be.

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Oh good god.

The Demise of Off Our Backs

An examination--brief--of classism and racism--extensive--within a 'radical' feminist organization. The racism is awe inspiring to behold, fountaining up in a mess of hot, frothing entitlement, malice and prejudice.

Basically, a WOC calls the racist white women on their racism, and one explodes in messy rage, spiteful, appalling and horrifically racist and sexist language, and apparently is now seeking to bring charges against her. (Excerpts in the first link.)

I'm ashamed to know they call themselves feminists.

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A fifteen year old girl was sent to the hospital in critical condition after being gang-raped for two and a half hours. Fifteen people stood around, watched, and did nothing. Some joined in. She was only found--her life was only saved--because someone heard people bragging about it.

"As people announced over time that this was going on, more people came to see, and some actually participated," Gagan said.....The victim was found unconscious and "brutally assaulted" under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene "reminiscing about the incident."

...."This just gets worse and worse the more you dig into it," Gagan said. "It was like a horror movie after looking at the evidence. I can't believe not one person felt compelled to help her."

I don't have any commentary for this. I'm just full of pure hatred; rage and terror and concern.

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Marjorie M. Liu on Roman Polanski: Forgive me (again) while I take a moment…

I've posted a barrage of posts on this issue, but this one was especially appreciated by me. Because people are actually saying, 'we shouldn't charge him because the victim has forgiven him!' Disregarding the fact that maybe she just doesn't want to give him an opportunity to make her life hellish all over again. And I would like this to be trumpeted from the rooftops:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Not if, maybe, or possibly—he did it. He did it, he did it, he did it. And then, like the coward son of a bitch he is, he fled the authorities.

Now, most people would say, “Wow, that’s horrific and unspeakable, and he should be punished for his crime. Not just because he hurt a young girl, but because he might do it again.“

Carolyn Jewel: Maybe you'll want to skip this post. Or not. Your Choice

I really thought we'd moved past the days when we blamed women for the violence committed against them. I really did. I didn't think anyone in America today could stand up and blame a 13 year old girl for the actions of a 43 year old man who gave her alcohol and drugs before he got around to having sex with her -- because, damn, she kept saying no!

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Meeting the Beast: Ginger Snaps and Feminist Werewolves

That is--ultimately--the real reason I never saw it, and am more and more frustrated with supernatural movies starring girls in any way. Just stop it, okay? I really want us to be claw our way past the eternal 'female sexuality/power is dangerous and evil and we must hammer this home with a thousand ham handed metaphors.'


In other news--the second-to-last Fringe episode was so fucking satisfying. I don't even have the words. Like, normally we're very quiet watcher in our house but there were some shouts of triumph. I mean, when I saw who picked up the phone I hoped it would happen, but I didn't really expect it to. And it did! &hearts &hearts &hearts Fringe!

...Olivia needs a hug. And is a badass.

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Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced

I would recommend this to men or women. This is a beautiful little piece, and while many of the comments are made of win, there are a few that are rage inducing.


You know what? THIS. IS. NOT. OUR. FUCKING. PROBLEM. You do not goddamn well get to tell your victim, the victim of your privilege, to 'stop living in fear' and to 'stand up for yourself instead of being so polite'. You do not get to tell other women that because you have been naive and sheltered enough to think that walking the streets alone at night is as safe as visiting your grandfather, they don't get to be careful of their safety and have a healthy wariness of men.

And oh my god, you do NOT FUCKING GET to tell a woman that being wary of a privileged section of the population that statistically--overwhelmingly statistically--assaults, violates and takes advantage of her is on the same level as racism.

Fuck you, a thousand times over. This is what women and girls grow up learning. This is not 'living in fear' and if women do live in fear you have no fucking right to criticize them for it. This is a sane reaction to the insanity the world likes to visit upon us in the form of rape, assault, sexism, abuse.

I linked to deeply intelligent articles about this issue a while back. I can't be coherent right now. It's beyond me.

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VAGINA FEST: ROUND TWO

Only one Fringe prompt so far! **cries** I love this show too much to be believed.

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The Dos and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally (Broader than Lambda, and more important than I can stress.)

fiction_theory: That's the problem with slacktivism, with the idea that you can sit back, make some nice nifty posts, put up a banner or two on your social networking pages, and suddenly you're as invested in the struggle as someone who lives it every day.

That's the difference between real allies and faux-allies. Real allies want justice. Faux-allies want cookies and fringe benefits and nifty buttons. They want quick, cheap rewards. Thus, faux allies get upset when they're told that the cookies are reserved for those who have gone hungry for decades, not for those who haven't missed a meal in their lives. Real allies just want to see people get fed so nobody goes hungry again.

kaigou: In which the dog invents a new term

Pop quiz! Name the moron who made this statement!

“I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan.”

If you answered "Jackson Rathbone," you get a cookie! And thus, I hereby propose:

rathbone /ˈræθboʊn/ [rath-bohn] v.
1. To appropriate or fake membership in a minority group, based on a belief that such appropriation requires little effort to be sufficiently convincing: She thinks hair dye's all it takes to rathbone it.
2. To hoodwink, or be hoodwinked by, faked membership in a minority group: He totally rathboned the casting director.

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A chilling list of celebrities with daughters that are supporting a child rapist.

Not to mention:

loligo:

If by "no hint of a repetition" you mean, "fled to Paris and starting screwing 15 year-old Nastassja Kinski," who has said in interviews since then that she was sexually exploited by people in the film industry as a teen and had no adults looking out for her -- so it doesn't sound like she looks back on the "relationship" fondly.

He has enough of a history that no sane parent would ever let him babysit, shall we say.

sheafrotherdon: A helpful diagram

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you think Roman Polanski should not face the consequences of his own actions. (Unless, of course, you're someone who believes living in France for thirty years is akin to weathering a jail sentence, in which case I don't even know what to tell you, Jed.)

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you suggest that society has no business punishing their attackers.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you suggest that a person's wealth or job should mitigate the fact that they're a rapist.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if, when those victims and survivors tell you that there is no way on earth a convicted rapist should be allowed to live his life consequence-free, you tell them they're not considering all points of view.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you do not acknowledge that they have a very particular, lived experience of what it is to live within a culture that implicitly and explicitly makes rape possible, and that it is a very different experience from that of someone who has not been assaulted.

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you do not imagine that right now someone is being told "Roman Polanski can get away with it - what makes you think I can't?"

You are not supporting victims and survivors of sexual assault if you don't listen to them, especially because they have no obligation to educate you about what you don't seem to understand.

You are actively contributing to the silencing of victims and survivors if you do any of the above. So here's the bottom line - don't do it.

From here, a small collection of links that includes a list of artists that aren't supporting the rape of a child. Neil Gaiman! Hart Hanson! Luc Besson! **clings desperately**

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A brief collection of pertinent voices on the Polanski matter, because they have deeply relevant and important things to say:

Polanski's defenders lose sight of the true victim

And inkstone: Oh my god part 2

Polanski Apologists in Translation


Roman Polanski Raped a Child: A Primer

Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child

Second, Polanski was "demonized by the press" because he raped a child, and was convicted because he pled guilty. He "feared heavy sentencing" because drugging and raping a child is generally frowned upon by the legal system. Shore really wants us to pity him because of these things? (And, I am not making this up, boycott the entire country of Switzerland for arresting him.)

Reporter's transcript of grand jury proceedings I could not even try to read this. Braver people than I are welcome to, the excerpts I read quoted were too horrific.

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I don't even know how to deal with this.

I'll try by starting from the top. Roman Polanski orally, vaginally and anally raped a child. A thirteen year old girl. And then fled from the authorities after pleading guilty. Finally--finally!--he's been arrested, 30 years after the fact.

Apparently some people (a huge list of celebrities) think that's inappropriate.

To quote meganbmoore:

Apparently, significant portions of the world (or at least, celebrities) think that an adult drugging and then vaginally and anally raping a 13-year-old begging the adult to stop doesn't really count as "rape-rape" and since it was 30 years ago and the offender is an "Artist" you're just a meanie picking on an old man. It's just so awful that he had to live in "exile" for thirty years because he didn't like the jury's verdict and ran away from the law, and made good movies (Presumably. Not sure I've seen any of them.) and surely that's enough suffering."

Tilda Swinton is on that list. Monica Bellucci. Pedro Almodovar. Angelica Huston was apparently in the house when it happened.

ETA: Natalie Portman. Kristin Scott Thomas. Whoopie Goldberg says 'it's not 'rape-rape!'' OH MY GOD WORLD WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY


I...I can't even express my horror, and my terror, at reading this. In this world, raping a child is apparently something famous people should get away with, because they're famous men and so we should pity them for committing rape. I knew about the courts' and society's indifference to rape in general, and the abuse and blaming of the victim, but I don't

I don't even

I just can't deal with this. I need to go home and hide under the covers. I don't want to grow up in a world like this. I don't want to live in a world like this.


ETA: People have been talking about how the ~big bad publicity wanting judge~ gave him a larger sentence than was expected--he raped a fucking child you scum--and I would like to present this little piece of logic in terms they'll relate to, as in terms that completely discard the fact that he raped a little girl.

para1: Actually during the plea deal Polanski was asked if he understood that the court was free to sentence him as they pleased. That he was given no guarantees for his sentence. And said: "Yes." (I understand that the judge might fuck me over.)

And still plead guilty. So. Surprise. Not.

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NuSpidey stories: Marvel writer officially comments on the rape of Michelle Gonzales

The Marvel writer, Fred Van Lente, responded with 'well, I know he pretended to be someone she cared about and had sex she could not possibly give informed consent to, but it wasn't rape! Don't be silly! It was a bad, bad thing though.' Finishing off with a snide comment about how 'he insults parapelegics too!'

What a loathsome little toad. Not to mention delusional. Yes, dear, it is rape. Not debatable.

However, since he admitted it was a bad, bad thing, one would think he would actually, as a writer, deal with it as a bad, bad thing, right? No. He treats it as comedic; as a burden to Peter, since now she thinks they're in a relationship, and does not for one heartbeat address the fact that Michelle has been physically and emotionally violated by a complete stranger, she has the right to know she has been raped, and it is a horrible, traumatic thing that has happened. Instead Peter lapses into self pity. (small section quoted from post)

The comics industry of today, people.

A beautiful, coherent entry on the subject.

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Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!

Only rapists can prevent rape

These are lovely, but the fact that they're necessary is rage-worthy.

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Okay! Character derailment, character derailment. Book!Sookie would never have allowed some male to act like and say that he owned her, never mind say it herself. Never. She's very clear on the subject, repeatedly, as any sane woman is. Are these writers honestly stupid enough to think that's romantic?

Why do so few writers--TV, movies, books, music, anything--have enough brains to comprehend the concept of a partnership? You know, what a healthy relationship is supposed to be? Then again, these are the same writers that tried to write a verbally abusive asshole who sexually harasses his employees as a protagonist. I'm actually not surprised. Nauseated, but not surprised.

I really wish the book and TV characters would meet. SouthernGentleman!Sam would kick sleazebag!Sam's ass to the curb.

How did I miss this the first time through? Oh right, I clicked away the minute Bill muscled up and started snarling at her for going somewhere without his permission.

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Everytime someone trashes Megan Fox, I kind of have to laugh in their face. There was some guy whining about what an evilwhorebitchslut she was on some community, and I just had to go, "really? really? You have to sort of lather your misogyny over everything? You can't even keep it in your pants?"

It would be offensive--it is offensive--but it's such a sad textbook case. Oooh, the ~scary female sexuality~. Oooh, a woman who's gorgeous, knows it, enjoys it, isn't ashamed of it and doesn't take shit from anyone about it.

SUCK IT UP HONEYBUNCH! **loves her**

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Not only do I have to deal with the show itself shunting Sookie to the background, I have to deal with the fandom. Making constant snide remarks--constant snide icons, constant snide videos, constant snide everything--and when they do say they like her inevitably they follow it up with criticism that amounts to 'I only like her because she's my self-insertion method. Why isn't she fucking this guy? Why isn't she fucking that guy? I want him, and I'm safely in the real world, so why isn't she disregarding her ethics, personal standards and safety to jump him? What a bitch.'

I know you don't have to desire girls to like them, guys. Quit being so wretched, if you please.

Which segues into: tonight I saw a comment about how they thought they should be inserted into the True Blood world so they could sex up Eric. My first thought was; "Eric? I think I should be inserted into the True Blood world to sex up Sookie!" (My first thought. Seriously.) WHUT. I mean, Alex is pretty smokin', threesomes totally A-OK in this bizarre fantasyland, but COME ON GUYS. Anna Paquin is sexy as hell, holy crap. And Sookie is the most adorable little badass that ever adorabled.


this is how I stay happy on the internets, guys. With the attention span of a manic squirrel, and an armour of sheer crazy.

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Okay, so this is the only Twilight fic I have ever and will ever read and I only read it because I was greedy for another this girl writes and man, it is kind of awesome. Like, so awesome. It kind of makes me like the character oh my god! (I love the line about her mother.)

On a less upbeat note--jesus, guys. Fandom in general. I can't even get angry over this, the issues at the root hurt so much. Stop hating on the girls. Stop it. Just because they're in the same show or book or movie as the guy you like. Just because they have spine and don't jump him the second they can. Just because they don't have that insulating layer of fiction between them and have the common sense not to get off without reserve on dangerous men, or get in the way of your OTP. Please. It hurts. I'm trying to nose through fic and meta and whatever on new and old fandoms alike and I'm just like...god, guys. Please.

This message is brought to you by someone calling Sookie filthy names because they perceived her as being...what, not nice enough to Jason? Who in the series has hit her, stolen from her and generally treated her like shit and in the book series has thrown her to the wolves at every possible opportunity. I feel so wrung out from dealing with this in every fandom I come across.

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I'd also like to direct you over here for an image comparison.

I've seen at least three people--and only three because I haven't involved myself in the discussion--whine self-importantly about how objecting to the casting is racist too! Oh you poor little white person, how dare anyone ask to be equally represented in the media! How dare they say that 90% white casts everywhere and all the time are unfair! Are your poor little self-righteously entitled feelings hurt? Boo hoo.

No, really. This is my sympathetic face. Come closer so I can punch you in the kidney.

On a happier note, I'd like to direct you the new Star Trek, Uhura, and why feminism and the struggles involved in it are different for white women and women of color A must-read.

This is why Tara in True Blood made me roll my eyes and black Bonnie in Vampire Diaries made me grit my teeth. They can't have an ethnic heroine, but they'll throw in a sidekick--in True Blood to enact some appalling ethnic stereotypes, in Vampire Diaries to obliterate the series' awesome supporting cast to make it more like Twilight--and I'm tired of it.

Why Young Readers Don't Like Romance Novel Rapists.

I'm a little bit in love with this article.( Read more... )In the end, I think this statement by yasaman, here, sums up my views.

But I, like poster Amanda Hess, take exception to being told to just "go with it" and read the rape-tastic romance novels. Hess says, "Young readers don’t just find the fashions and soundtracks of 70’s romance novels ridiculous—they find the very romantic ideals they’re based on offensive," and that's exactly it for me. One of the reasons I'm so hesitant to read romance novels is because of the possibility of running into these tropes. I'm all for placing books in their historical context: one of my pet peeves is people expecting things from books that are anachronistic, i.e., expecting that 18th century novel to be progressive on matters of race. You can hope for it, but skeevy race or gender issues are part of the historical territory. But when someone says that you should read and enjoy it anyway, and go with the "zeitgeist," despite all of the ways it actively hurts you...um, no.

You know what I think I am most fond of, out of all the tropes and male/female mores Anne Bishop plays with in her Black Jewels books?

The whole 'uncontrollable lust' thing. Heat, rut, whatever you want to call it...I don't think I've ever seen it handled in fiction before in a way that didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth. In her books, it either happens to a long established happy couple or the unaffected female is given the chance to leave and she makes the clear choice to involve herself.

When it's in an unestablished relationship, with people who don't know each other that deeply, it freaks the girl out and he manages to calm down. He backs off.

Like, I don't know how often this needs to be said to sink in. Pushing a girl into a sexual relationship with a flimsy narrative excuse is not romantic. Or hot. Or impressive. It's just rape, even if she likes it after she says no.

Apparently it needs to be said a lot, because the perpetrators don't seem to be listening.

I'm getting kind of tired of this. When you say 'Sarah should have realized the Labyrinth was never really about her at all' as a prelude to pairing Toby/Jareth? It's about the dumbest thing you can say. She NEVER THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT HER. I've seen this kind of thing before--dismissing the female character this way--but never quite so stupidly. She always thought it was about rescuing Toby! I keep seeing some idiot posting the above, and it's been grating on my nerves, especially since the tone is so derisive.

Not to mention what I have to say about turning a movie about a girl growing and changing and defeating a Labyrinth on her own wits, bravery and discovered maturity into one more story about 'oh, it's all about the boy!' in that appalling comic. And, or so I've heard, taking away all her growth and happiness. It's as bad as a substandard fanfic.

Not even counting, of course, the fact that comic-Jareth would be a pedophile to a really terrifying degree. Infancy, man. Infancy.

You know, contrary to pretty much every romance novel on the face of the earth? A guy who ignores you when you say 'no' to his advances is not romantic. It is not sexy. It is not a pleasant experience in any way, shape or form. It's called sexual harassment, and in some cases stalking. Please, romance actually, writers in general, stop it. Your 'hero' is a creep. Specific author: the cumulative effect was that I couldn't even stand to finish your story, because I remembered being in high school and being harassed by some guy that would not leave me alone, and your story put me through it again. I could not bear to read the ending, where the heroine--okay, I skipped and scanned a little from a vestige of futile hope--the heroine jumps him on the beach. Just no. You are trivializing something ugly by presenting it as romantic and explicitly rewarding the behavior.

GTFO my planet.

(This has been building up for a long time.)

[Tehran, June 15. Image via Getty] (i got it from here)

So, when you see this woman with red fingernails, she's not just risking arrest for holding that sign, she's risking it for the shade of her nail polish.

I don't feel that I have anything helpful to say on this matter except for: this is important. This is happening now. Do not ignore it. The previously linked page has a collection of links at the end to other articles relevant for this issue.

Conn. teens mishear, beat man

A 16-year-old girl thought she heard her mother being assaulted by her boyfriend and rounded up some friends who beat him up, only to learn later that the couple actually were having sex, the woman and police said. The girl misinterpreted the woman's amorous screams, and she and four other teens went to the woman's bedroom in the Torrington home on June 6, police Lt. Bruce Whiteley said Thursday.

Oh dear. I'm laughing, but in a horrified sort of way. I mean, on one hand if she'd been right, yay, but as it is....how embarrassing. And, of course, poor guy. Jeez.

I thought I'd built up a callus against the stupid, nasty things people write about female characters and other women.

But condemning a character--who has been sexually abused--for being badly triggered by sexual assault, implications or threat, and in malicious, cruelly critical language (I can't bear to go back and read it for specifics) goes so far over the line I'm nauseous.

And, of course, they didn't criticize the male characters who had suffered similar treatment and reacted just as badly. Just the girl.

I...I can't even describe my hatred. I was almost shaking with anger. Saying vicious things about someone, verbally abusing and treating her with contempt because she was raped is just....

Yes, I know it's a fictional character. I'm aware. But fiction is a reflection, no matter how fantastical. We read it for the people. People who treat a female character like this are willing treat a female person like this. They are people, just on paper. Representations.

I feel like all the good cereta and coffeeandink's post did for me are gone. I just...can't even describe how sick I feel.

May you rot in hell, whoever the fuck you are. And at the moment, I mean that most sincerely.

You know that appalling Hollywood trend of being unable to write female villains without fetishizing and overemphasizing their sexuality, generally channelled through an absurd desire for the hero, no matter how it contradicts previous or probable characterization?

Yeah. Apparently if Michael Bay is making the movie, you don't even get to escape that if you're an EVIL GIANT ROBOT FROM SPACE. There were also pretty skeezy racial undertones in both of his Transformers movies, though, (I've only heard about the second movie, but given the first I'm not surprised) so go figure. **shoots him in kneecaps** Michael Bay, just...pass beyond my plane of existence. Please.

Not to mention what I hear he's done to Mikaela.

"....the gist of it being whatever a woman enjoyed wearing was feminine and whatever she didn't enjoy wearing wasn't."

-Anne Bishop "Heir to the Shadows"

...for such a little line, a throwaway paragraph roughly in the middle of the book, damn that hit hard. Because, you know, even though I should know better, on a certain level I bought into the myth of 'feminine'. Dresses. Pink. Society's carefully sculpted mould.

Anne Bishop! ♥♥♥♥

It's funny because in the Black Jewels world I think the relationships--besides the bad ones, which are really bad and acknowledged as such--are some of the healthiest I've seen in fiction. And she is very clearly saying something; along with a story and characters I love, there's a strong and very welcome commentary on gender roles and interactions.

And it's set up explicity, the Protocol and Queens and Warlords, taken to exaggeration in fantasy, and yet doesn't for a minute come off caricatured or as slapping us in the face with it.

Anne Bishop, so much love. **fangirls like mad**

cereta: On rape and men (Oh yes, I'm going there)

Because men raping women is systemic, and cultural, and yes it is the patriarchy and it is misogyny and it is men thinking they are entitled to women's bodies. "Well, what did she expect, getting drunk like that?" isn't salt in the wound, it is the foundation of the problem. The idea that if a woman is not actively preventing a man from sticking his penis into her (and even then, if she's an enemy), he is doing nothing wrong, and hey, who can blame him, IS THE PROBLEM.

I...just can't put how beautiful this is for me into words. And the comments are wonderful as well, and it almost hurts, how good that is, how true that is, and yet how much it hurts. Some days I'm full of fear and resentment and I hate that but I can't help it, I hate that fear that is always there, that is INTELLIGENT in this culture and in this place. And I will not be ashamed of myself; I will not be ashamed of the fact that I have a right to interested in sex and look good and be self confident, to have breasts and a brain and a right, god fucking damnit, to say no.

And I'm old enough to know that something close to frantic self-loathing because of the way the culture, media and people around me try make me feel about myself is not the answer, sometimes it still surfaces. Sometimes I almost hate who I am; but I've never yet wished I wasn't a woman.



And THIS POST--this made me cry. I hate that we have to say it, but I love, in a sharp and angry and desperate way, that it's being said.

She will not tell you because most of the time, she has no words for this. She will lock the things away in a box and put it in the dark, and it only comes out of the dark when she decides to walk an extra fifteen minutes to avoid the boys with the pebbles, an extra circuit around the school corridor to avoid the boy who touches her with clinging eyes, not to go out at all because it's too late at night. It comes out when she takes the short path anyway, goes out anyway, walks home anyway: as the feeling, unspeakable, and the words My own fault Should have known. She will not tell you because, even years later, even as a feminist, all she hears is everyone in the world telling her This isn't important, this doesn't count, this didn't happen. It's a misunderstanding It's not that bad It's harmless.

ETA: And I just realized what I said. I'm old enough to know. I'm old enough to know because I had to discover it myself, because I couldn't share and be told by anyone else, because we're told to be ashamed of ourselves.

They've already replaced Marian with a blonde chick. How cute. Not only that, but their new poster doesn't even have Djaq and yet already has the blonde shoehorned in.

ROBIN HOOD, YOU FUCKING FAIL.