Ezra has an interesting post up about the way that privilege—white privilege and male privilege—are subtly used to define what’s considered acceptable discourse and shut out challenges to the system. If anything good comes out of this Imus controversy, maybe it’ll be that people see the term “PC” for what it is, which is a term that is used to declare insults aimed at less powerful groups protected while doubling up the social punishments for even legitimate (if humorous) criticisms of the powerful. And how non-white and non-male people have to play tribute to the hierarchy to gain admittance and how, once in, they live in fear of being ejected if they ever challenge that hierarchy. Ezra’s post is mostly about Gwen Ifill and how she is under pressure to keep her peace on certain issues, but I found this passage very insightful:
I was thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I was around a table — a table that’s usually all guys — and some of the folks were talking about the reports that female soldiers are routinely raped in Iraq. And I forget the exact context now, but someone cracked a joke, and folks were trying to keep the conversation on the light, sardonic plane it generally floats across, when the one girl looked up and said, “Yeah guys, because you know what’s real funny? Rape.”
You could’ve heard a pin drop. She was right, of course, and folks felt ashamed for having been called on it. The topic changed, the night went on. But it was a genuinely brave thing for her to have done, given the power of the humorless feminist archetype. The upside, after all, is that the jokes stop. But the potential downside is resentment, a PC reputation, and eventually and possibly, exclusion.
Boy, do I know what he means. For instance, I wanted to link this post by Sara and agree with her that it’s horrible that the NY Times is gunning for the defense (at no charge!) already, not only allowing them to try the case in public, but to spread misinformation that makes it easier to get rapists of the hook—such as the belief that rape is a compliment, that unless a woman martyrs herself by getting injured fighting back then it wasn’t really rape, etc. But I wasn’t going to, until now, because I’m not in the mood to fight off a bunch of people who want to threadjack this post in order to convey the opinion that my challenge to the dominant paradigms about rape is not welcome, and by the way, have I told you that you don’t get to run your blog how you want, but you have to defer to a bunch of misogynist assholes?
That’s why I love blogs—no entrance fee. The shut-out of dissent from less powerful groups in the major media (read that story—not one feminist to offer the contrary opinion that a woman should not get herself injured in order to “get” to be a rape victim, as if that’s what you want instead of justice and to make the perp stop raping) is slowed down by the fact that you can’t physically shut us out. Sure, there’s a lot of ways that some voices get marginalized, and we need to work on that, but at least we’ve made a step in the right direction and found a way to do an end run around the complete shut-out.
With that in mind, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Wonkette wrote an amazing article about how, for all the “free speech” people defending Don Imus, he was actively feeding a system that silences dissent from the groups of people—racial minorities and women—in the mainstream media. (Via.) And they do it without having to holler or engage in PC police behavior,* and it’s because they don’t have to. If you dissent, all they need to do is to restrict your access and shut you out.
Every time I’ve been on Don Imus’ show, he has reminded listeners that he “discovered” me. It’s not exactly hyperbole. He first invited me on when I was just a foulmouthed blogger who ran the gossipy political site Wonkette. As I recall, my first on-air conversation with him was about the Bush twins, or, as I called them, “Jenna and Not-Jenna.” Last fall I became a regular guest and took up slightly more serious topics (on my last appearance we talked about Senator John McCain’s Baghdad trip and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s lack of social graces), but the subjects hardly mattered. I had been invited inside the circle, and to be perfectly honest, I was thrilled to be there.
She goes on to blame her own ego for her failing in going on the show, which is an admirable bit of humility, but a bit off, I’d say. I’d say more it’s because she wanted a career and if nothing else, I admire Ana Marie for knowing exactly what white male ass needs kissing in order to get the keys to the door of the boys’ club. Well, admire her at times and get very angry at others, or usually, all at the same time. So I think her ego is irrelevant to this situation. What’s relevant is that in order to get into the club, she had to swallow her true opinions on bigotry and sexism, and kiss some ass. She tips her hat to the larger issues in the last paragraph.
My giving up the show, I acknowledge, is too little and too late. I doubt that I’ll be missed. It’s depressingly easy to find female journalists who will tolerate or ignore bigotry if it means getting into the boys’ club someday. (If only I were the only one.) And I’m not so vain that I think I brought something unique to the airwaves. In fact, I assume that one reason he had me on was the tantalizing prospect that I might say something scandalous or racy. That, and he and his cronies seemed to enjoy having the occasional guest they could leer at.
I don’t doubt that her ego probably compelled her to go on the show—few people are so calculating as to promote themselves at the expense of their own values without having that ego to motivate them. But again, it doesn’t matter. The price of admission is to cut out your tongue.
*Sometimes, though as the railroading of me and Melissa McEwan shows, they are willing to do an imitation of the PC Police. Granted, contrary to what the media plays at, it’s not the same. The wingnut version of the PC police relies on misinformation, can expect a lavish welcome without challenge in the media, and furthers the cause of oppression instead of fights it.
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The Little Mermaid is indeed an apt reference in this case. Boy, do I hate that story.
For the same reason that I hate the Velveteen Rabbit: You’re nobody until someone with privileged status validates you.
[…] Permalink| […]
And once again, the truth of what you mentioned, about power like this evolving to protect the powerful, is illustrated. I’ve seen this evolve, in exactly the way you say, to the point that many people think that people like Limbaugh and Imus are harmless, and only “bigots” - formerly known as “people who care about justice” - have a problem.
Sigh. No time to talk about this; it’s Monday and I don’t need any soul-crushing despair today.
It’s why Harry Potter bugs the crap out of me. I always have to sit there and wonder whether Rowling is clueless and therefore forces all of her characters to kiss the ass of the patriarchy in order to gain power, or if it’s a subtle critique of same. It really prevents me from enjoying the stories. Harry is a demigod because he was selected by birth, yada yada, and Ron, Draco Malfoy, Neville and most of the others are born into the aristocracy. But Hermione, the only girl character (Ginny doesn’t count, because she’s just a fetish object) and easily the least brainless one of the bunch, is the real hero of the story because she beats prejudice in order to gain power. Furthermore, she is the only one who doesn’t *have* to risk her life in order to battle Voldemort: she could just as easily say screw it and go to dental school. I would love to read the books if they were written from Hermione’s POV. But she’s routinely marginalized and only gets to speak to the extent that she helps out the boys. And dating Ron? Eeew. She can do better.
That NY Times article is appalling. The journalist let the last couple of paragraphs frame Anand Jon’s defense: the bitches are accusing him of rape for…what reason, again? This just reinforces the ideas that 1) women lie about rape, 2) that quid pro quo sex is licit (it’s not), 3) that women are responsible for getting raped, and 4) that there is a “fine” line between consensual sex and rape. I think my favorite part of the article was when his attorney described him as a “Gandhi-type guy”. Gandhi may not have been the most progressive guy when it came to women (more than some, less than others), but rape and coerced sex…um, no. It’s bad editorializing masquerading as news like this that made me stop reading the NY Times (and the LA Times, for that matter).
I think the “women lie about rape to bring successful men down” goes a wee bit past cutting out tongues, n’est ce pas?
” I would love to read the books if they were written from Hermione’s POV. But she’s routinely marginalized and only gets to speak to the extent that she helps out the boys.”
A children’s book writer who I know told me (and I assume is in a position to know, though it could still be misinformation) that Rowling wrote the book with a male protagonist because she was aware that, while girls will read a book with a male protagonist, boys are less likely to read a book with a female protagonist. After hearing that, I’ve always wondered if Hermione *is* the protag, to at least some extent.
Speaking of cutting out tongues: If women just knew their place everything would be fine.
I wrote a little bit about this on topic at Feminsit Gamers recently in response to an article reassuring us that women in the industry don’t have anything to worry about.
(Quoting a person who is angry at myths)
4) that there is a “fine� line between consensual sex and rape.
Right, because women hate sex, they can just barely put up with it to please their men.
It’s interesting, you know? We’re surprised if someone can’t realize when they’re talking offensively to others; there’s a dozen obvious clues that a person can pick up to realize their conversational topic is going badly.
But if a guy is forcing sex on an unwilling woman, suddenly it’s difficult to tell that she’s not happy about it. It’s not surprising if there was some kind of misunderstand.
Quoted:
There are no excuses for rape, ever. Its easy for a man to get a willing sex partner, all he has to do is be charming, considerate, well mannered, well groomed, pay attention to personal hygiene and hold back from giving the lady a list of weird sexual preferences until…oh, I’m being silly aren’t I? Well there are always the ladies of negotiable affection.
PC is a bit of a double edged axe. Yes it can be used to the advantage of the marginalised but it can also be used to stifle debate in the way some politicians are trying to stifle debate about the institutionalised mysoginy of some Islamic sects here in Britain now.
Agreed. The biggest problem with the PC police thing is that the media’s relentless need for “balance”, i.e. to shut up the bullshit from the right (which never works) means that for every person held accountable for what he really did, the media feels obliged to air every bit of shit flung by the right—no matter how false—without correction.
Can I have an Amen.
And it’s doubly irritating (triply?) when you know, just know, that the “moderator” knows he/she is hearing horseshit and would love, just love, to throttle the assholes on live TV. But nooooo.
I was litening to Anderson Cooper the other night on what could have been titled “Sex and the Wingnuts.” Everything from curing homos to purity balls and he had to sit there and pretend to give equal credence to everything the whackos said. I was torn between rapt fascination and utter fury.
The worst part of that article for me was the statement about him not being able to keep his “promiscuity” under control - in reference to his being sanctioned before for groping / assaulting someone. Um, “predatory” and “promiscuous” are very different things. A very irresponsible choice of words.
“[…]I was litening to Anderson Cooper the other night on what could have been titled “Sex and the Wingnuts.â€? Everything from curing homos to purity balls and he had to sit there and pretend to give equal credence to everything the whackos said.[…]”
The amount of shit that man can endure with a straight face is beyond amazing. I remember watching Wolf Blitzer (sp?) as he interviewed David Duke on the Situation Room (I’m such a damn nerd), and he had to put up with Duke calling him (Blitzer–sp?) a member of the “Zionist Conspiracy” and an “extremist Jew.” These people certainly have much more restraint and patience with stupidity than I do.
Mandolin:
If that is indeed true (and it rings at least slightly true to me), it’s very sad. Some of the best teen/tween fiction out there features a young female protagonist: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and Jeanne DuPrau’s ongoing City of Ember series.
Quoted:
Dan, that’s true (well actually, I haven’t heard of City of Ember, but I’ll take your word on it), but I’d also point out that a) Phillip Pullman is himself a man, with an obviously masculine name–there’s a reason the Harry Potter books have “J.K.” and not “Joanne” on the cover; and b) the female protagonist of that trilogy spends the whole first book being a total tomboy, with a crowd of boys for friends, and rejecting all things feminine. I vaguely recall that one of the ways Lyra starts to feel that Mrs. Coulter is not all that is when she makes her dress up and sit still. And the second book is from a boy’s point of view. So I suspect that if boys are reading Pullman despite the female protagonist, there might be a few reasons she’s the exception.
[/threadjack]
Had an interesting conversation yesterday that made me think of you. I’m a member of a pretty wild-and-woolly motorcycle club, one of a handful of gay bike clubs in California, and we have a habit of picking out-of-the-way places to meet for runs, like small town bars. It’s always interesting to notice the moment when the local heterosexual men realize that the rough-looking bikers that have filled their bar are ALL FAGS, and that we’ve got them completely outnumbered. It’s usually early in the day, before the homophobes are liquored up enough to start a fight, but there’s usually a particular moment when they all clench their sphincters at once and hurry out the door. It’s not as if we’re being loud or menacing, or paying attention to them at all - our mere presence makes it happen. The staff usually loves it, because we’re generally polite, well behaved, and good tippers to boot.
We were kind of laughing about that, and one of my buds said “You know what it is, it’s fear of rape.” That hadn’t occurred to me before, but there may be something to that. I bet a lot of guys never feel that frisson of fear their entire lives.
Having read your recent articles about how women feel about rape, I found myself wishing you could see how men behave when the tables are turned, even just a little bit.
I have never understood the objection to politically correct language. I think that behavior drives attitude. What in the world is wrong with regulating your language to reflect that you either are or hope to become a decent human being. We have every right to object when people spew bigotry. The speech is just as free when I object to bigotry as when someone else spews it. Somehow this has been manipulated into a frame where bigotry is free speech but objection to bigotry is considered a PC demand for censorship.
And another thing.
When people behave outrageously, it seem foolish, to me, for them to be mocked or criticized for things they have little or no control over, instead of the outrageous behavior.
What the hell do we care that WPE has a codpiece and a swagger, or that Al Gore has gained weight and wears earth tones. WPE is killing people and Al Gore is warning of impending disaster. It is politically incorrect for media persona to play at being comedians and gossips.
The silencing you describe here and the silence Pam complained of in her recent post are related.
Here’s how. I don’t see PCness as quite the smoke screen Ezra does but, yep, it deaden’s the debate.
We each have to stop enabling. We each have to find our own toungue and dare to use instead of letting talk show personalities put words in where our own silence hangs dead in the air. We’d come in for some correction and it would be a good thing.
I swiped this from Allie on Shakes thread:
`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that’s all.’
hey, bewilderness - I have another one for you, though I have to paraphrase (and paraphrasing poetry should be some sort of crime) - its by Jack Spicer (except for the bits I remember wrong)…
***
Dante would have blamed Beatrice
if she turned up alive at a local bordello
Or Newton gravity
if the apple fell upwards
What i mean is
words
have a way of mysteriously turning against us
“Hello,” says the apple,
“Both of us were object.”
***
Also - I am so glad other people felt the same way I did about that NYTimes piece. I still can’t figure out why the author (or editor) thinks the perp “likes” models. There is nothing in the article that indicates that; rather, it appears he doesn’t even recognize them as actual people. I was so appalled, I immediately looked for some way to comment back to the Times about it… and then remembered they couldn’t care less.
You know Gwen Ifill may not have happened that way, right? Someone on the show could have been mocking Bill Donohue. It’s hard to tell because Imus apparently can’t speak English.
ooo, the analogy is so good.
Not only does the mermaid have to give up her tongue to get legs, but every step she takes feels like walking on broken glass.
In other words, those like Wonkette who get to enter the club for a while, not only have to keep silent about some things, but they have to tread carefully.
****
I remember bringing up Hermione, and what I felt was general sexism in the HP books here before. What bothered me most was Amelia Bones being killed off-page after one appearance. The same was done to Vance, too. Most women are either in traditional occupations(teachers, housewives,nurses), evil, or dead. Tonks is an exception but… she’s also portrayed as somewhat incompetent? ::headdesks::
It’s not that the books are bad, exactly(some of the female teachers are in science and math, although they are also basically off-page), but they could be so much better.
Rowling has said that she writes as “J.K.” instead of “Joanne” because her publisher did not want prospective male readers (this is children we’re talking about) to know that the author was a woman. “K” is not even her real middle initial. She doesn’t have a middle initial, it’s a pseudonym. So if you’re looking for sexism in HP, you can start with the dust jacket.
Tony,
Now that’s something to consider - fear of rape. It could be what scares homophobic men. After all, they’ve been raised to believe that men dont’ take “no” for an answer.
So if a man hit on them, would they take “no” for an answer?
Ironic how cultural attitudes that are deeply ingrained in men create a backlash when the whole paradigm is flipped on them.
Boys are raised right from the beginning to consider anything female to have the potential to pollute them, causing a loss of status, which is why the color pink is such a monumental taboo.
“Boys are raised right from the beginning to consider anything female to have the potential to pollute them, causing a loss of status, which is why the color pink is such a monumental taboo.”
That’s the conventional wisdom (boys won’t relate to girl characters) but so far, for my own son, not true. At 7 (and a half!) he watches Kim Possible and Winx Club, though not as much as Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh and TMNT. Obviously, I’m not telling him to quit watching that sissy crap. But I also don’t think he’s ever gotten any shit for it from his peers, and I know at least one of them also likes KP.
It’s more than that, I’m afraid. As we were discussing during the Late Unpleasantness, the “out” groups have to work especially hard to follow the rules of society, while the “in” groups can break the rules when they wish, and be rewarded for it. So, ladies, no cussing, but if you’re a privleged white man (like Shrub) then you can cuss all you please, and your sycophants will praise your “manliness” (even though the same folks would come down hard on Clinton for such “manliness.”)
Sure, there are lots of girls’ books, but the heroine usually follows the rules to the letter, and makes adults’ lives better; (Like Pollyanna or Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm) she doesn’t break the rules and/or make up her own.* She certainly doesn’t run off to sail the river on a raft, or explore forbidden forests, or play hooky, or do anything that makes for good drama. The most excitement she gets in life is wondering who she’s going to marry. When she does wonder about any other subject, it’s usually pink ghetto stuff like clothes, hair, makeup, cooking, etc. @ No wonder most kids find these girls’ books boring; I find them boring too.
That’s why I’m not surprised that Hermonie is a such a straight arrow. Though the thought of Harriette Potter and Rhonda Weaseley racing to the rescue of their nerdy friend Herman (who’s trapped in the boy’s bathroom by a troll) does bring a smile or two.
*OK, one of the most popular girls’ books in Grandma’s time, Elsie Elsie Dinsmore, does break the rules; she refuses to read a non-Biblical book to her father on Sunday, (ohhh, the daring!) so he beats her until he realizes how rightous she is. She grows up to marry her father’s best friend (!) and have lots of kids and grandkids.
@The big exception to this rule is Pippi Longstocking, who neither follows rules, nor worries endlessly about her hair, clothes, and makeup, nor sits around wondering who she will marry, but like I said, she’s the exception, rather than the rule.
The belief that boys won’t read “girl books” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They don’t because their elders tell them that boys don’t do that.
Terry Pratchett has a series of children’s books based on the education of a young witch named Tiffany Achings. They’re pretty good, as most Pratchett’s books are, in using the tropes of the tale (that is, your basic coming-of-age story in a fantasy setting) while demolishing them. Tiffany’s smart and she has to be, as the Discworld version of witchcraft has more to do with being a quick, decisive thinker when no one else is able to than spells and potions. Plus, the books feature the Mac Nac Feegle, and tiny Celtic warriors are just cool, like talking gorillas.
Tony, friend of mine has a similar theory, inre: gays in the military. She says - and she’d know - the reason the military is scared of turning loose teh gays is that they know how shitty women get treated whilest in the service. Quite simply, my friend says, the brass and the common homophobic solider is afraid of living in the fear they force on female soldiers.
And for whatever it’s worth, gay and lesbian bikers are among the best tippers if one wished to break things down that specifically. For whatever reason, bikers of all stripes enjoy visiting our small college town when the weather’s nice and the ol’ hawg’s begging to be taken out for a spin, and they come in our restaurant. A parking lot full of Harleys with rainbow stickers on them means a happy waitstaff. And they’re much more polite than the football crowd.
Actually, I learned the other day that our establishment is considered one of the more gay-friendly joints in town, and that’s kinda neat.
I also find that article really interesting as a demonstration, again, of how we’re supposed to be sex objects but not too much. I mean, if this had been a teacher telling his high school students, “I can get you into college, you just have to have sex with me, this is how all the girls get into college,” he’d have been drawn and quartered in the media. But because the girls involved were models—even though they were the same age as our hypothetical high school students, in some cases—they were in the business of sex appeal, and so obviously they really wanted to have sex with everyone, and so how could Jon have committed rape?
Argh.
She certainly doesn’t run off to sail the river on a raft, or explore forbidden forests, or play hooky, or do anything that makes for good drama.
Hm. Anne of Green Gables kinda does, but it’s all in a cute “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do!” way.
Re: Children’s books with a girl protagonist
Those are sadly lacking in the ‘mainstream’, but here’s one;
“Hey World Here I Am” by Jean Little
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol15no2/heyworld.html
It’s more of a diary/poetry thing, I don’t remember the format much anymore, but the part that struck out to me, was the parents being impressed that their girl is dressing up to be a nurse, which is good because it’s a career, but then they were more impressed when she corrected them that she’s a doctor.
As a Sci-fi fan and a female and radical Trekkie, I certainly feel the confines of ‘mainstream television’, I’ve come to not expect much of it; and my response to my lack of expectation is to STOP WATCHING, stop buying, as oppose to just accepting. Television, outside of the CBC that misses it outside of news a lot of times recently (whatever happened to stuff like Kids In The Hall?), are a conservative medium. It takes MONEY for television, and traditionally those that have money are male white and conservative. So, I stick to books nowadays, there are barriers, most publishers are still slanted to the right, as evident by “J.K.” Rowling’s experience, but because it’s cheaper to publish, it’s more accessible. Then there is blogging, and online fiction. Fanfiction is great, bold new worlds where Paramount dare not go, and then, when I really like someone’s fanfic, I read their original too, and then their recs, and it goes outward from there.
I still think fondly of the shows I used to watch, but, not going to watch anymore, not unless it’s really good, I won’t settle for scraps. Paramount really dropped the ball at the end of DS9, and then Voyager, both in overalll quality and their refusal to truly go where no one has gone before (teh gay, male gay, and female characters beyond the 1/3 ratio), I think it’s a rather sad metaphor that Voyager was going back in time all the time, and DS9 returned to Klingon clap trap where it’s honourable to fight and kill those who didn’t want to fight… There are some ‘official books’ I’ll read, the one by Garak’s actor I liked, and I plan to check out the Cardassia one by Una…Una who writes slash fanfiction online! The rest, I stick to online fanfiction, I’ll come back to official if it’s GOOD, when it has teh gay and it’s not token, when the female characters aren’t props, etc. …and if they somehow outlaw fanfiction which expends on the canon that was limited by TV and manage to enforce that, well, I’ll just tune out completely.
- MG
…oh cont’d, for progressive sci-fi, screw Paramount, try Ray Bradbury! He scoffed at complaints that The Martian Chronicles doesn’t have enough female characters and suggested that the solution to that was that the reader find something that does, and/or pick up her own pen…which I actually agree with. Especially since Ray Bradbury /does/ have stories which feature female characters and respect them. Written in 1950, “The Fox and The Forest” features a couple both of whom are scientists, in an end of the world future. They fled into the past because their government wanted to force the husband to return to work at the bomb factory and the wife at the disease-culture unit. So there are some ‘typical gender role’ where he protects her, but it’s 1950…
The narrator in ‘The Dwarf’ is a young woman, and I think Aimee is strong because she ‘dared’ to rebuke Ralph the Alpha Male for making fun of the Dwarf whose writings she admires. I’ve also felt that ‘Ylla’, part of the Martian Chronicles, did make a point about the controlling husband being awful, and how this is destructive to Ylla.
More female protagonist rec, this time by a female author…this can be read by teens, with a strong stomach. “The House of Spirits” by Isabella Allenda, the story of a family, several generations to the backdrop of an unnamed South American country that was probably Chile, politics told through the veil of ‘magical realism’. I really like how the issue of abortion is dealt with, the doctor Jamie does not judge, in the case where his brother’s girlfriend is pregnant he still performs it, no judgment. At the same time one other female protagonist has decided to keep her pregnancy in spite of the gang rape that might have meant her child would be a result of it as opposed to her lover, it’s a /personal/ choice of the woman. I rather like that books, it’s uplifting in the ways that women can be strong in what ways they could, their spirits strong. There are male characters, the ebil grandfather for example, who I can find no forgiveness for, but otherwise it is the story of women rich and poor.
- MG
“The belief that boys won’t read “girl booksâ€? is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They don’t because their elders tell them that boys don’t do that.”
Some of you people are really dense. Boys dont read girls books for the same reason that boys aren’t interested in playing dressup or playing with dolls or playing house. Because we’re too busy making forts in the woods and / or being pyromaniacs, burning anything we can get our hands on.
Stop trying to erase gender differences. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Let me reiterate. If you think you know a “changed man” who isn’t an asshole, you dont. He is either one of two things:
1. A liar
2. A weakling that would be at the bottom of the male totem pole had he not become dominated by a woman first.
In either case, you’ve proved nothing. The psyche of the average male is defined by competition with everything else around him. That is the primary reason men are ‘assholes’. Get used to it.
the female protagonist of that trilogy spends the whole first book being a total tomboy, with a crowd of boys for friends, and rejecting all things feminine. I vaguely recall that one of the ways Lyra starts to feel that Mrs. Coulter is not all that is when she makes her dress up and sit still.
Only to the extent that hanging out with your friends and having fun instead of sitting around looking pretty is “unfeminine.” Plenty of people think it is, obviously, but that doesn’t make Lyra the character any less a realistic young girl.
Her dynamic with Will irritates the hell out of me, though, when she’s either doing whatever he says or acting like a total idiot.
Mercurial Georgia, will you marry me? I have pretty much the same attitude… Check out Joan of Arcadia, as a media project. It got so screwed by Les Mooves (in content, before being canceled)
Though I was a very wierd child, ie, reading all kinds of young adult books for girls (mostly because I found them more fantastical than book about male protagonists)…
Anyways, beyond the word, I want to add in Jean Craighead George as someone who’s really influenced as a person, though books like both Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain. She seems to be more forgotten in today’s age of Harry Potter, but the lyrical emotions set in her words is pure magic…
[…] If the mermaid is to become human she must cut out her tongue - is a blog entry at PANDAGON that somebody sent me this morning. Thank you, for sending it. […]
Wonderful post. I usually consider myself “up” on body modification, but I hadn’t heard of the pinky-toe thing before I don’t think. I suppose it’s less severe than having ribs removed for corsets! I’ll need to do some research on that item - it’s hard to imagine a shoe being more important than a body part, I’m very curious if people regret doing it and what shoes they are doing it for! It reminds me of foot-binding. I have a lotus-flower shoe I intend to make some sort of mixed media art out of it with a political message to it.
It’s difficult to ride that fine line between fighting the pre-packaged sexualization of women and not being so militant that you strip them of their rights to….well…strip. You know what I mean - I get angry about the back-slapping jokes - the Howard Stern mentality of some folks, but I’m a girl who loves sex and uses sexy clothes and has a big ol’ mouth too. If a woman really wants to be a stripper, who am I to say she shouldn’t be? I don’t have to even like it and I can be mad at whatever forces shaped her to want to be a stripper.
As for the Imus thing, I blame the guys at the top of that food chain and the sponsers more than Imus. They have been paying that man for years and have validated him by giving him millions - they are really the ones to blame - the money drives everything.
I put a link to this article in my blog I loved it so much.
http://blog.allzah.com/?p=658
White male - your fear is showing. I guess you are suggesting that if guys are naturally a**holes, we should imprison all male children at about 5 years old to take violence out of the world, right?
I think White Male is the guy who most women roll their eyes when he turns around after speaking.
I would never try to erase gender differences - but I think we disagree as to what constitutes a gender difference.
I don’t call them “changed men” I call them mature.
I think it’s pretty funny you have decided that all men are either like you or they are liars or losers.
You are perpetuating the sterotype that being caring and empathetic and interested in anything beyond cars, beer and the silverscreen action blockbusters means you aren’t masculine. You are like the guys who used to give my husband sh*t when he took off a week after our baby was born to take care of me and the baby - they were calling him whipped and asking him why my mother couldn’t come do it. I would call THEM a bunch of A@@holes.
Some of you people are really dense. Boys dont read girls books for the same reason that boys aren’t interested in playing dressup or playing with dolls or playing house. Because we’re too busy making forts in the woods and / or being pyromaniacs, burning anything we can get our hands on.
Dude, GI Joe is a doll. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.
And as regards books, you could do worse than handing adolescents _Sophie’s World_ by Jostein Gaarder, although you’d really have to stretch to call it sf.
I think that “White Male” should ask himself what exactly is likely to happen if conclusive proof is ever provided that what he says is true.
Re children’s books, TV shows, and the like:
My 10-year-old son is hardly a gender warrior. He’s a self-proclaimed geek who loves video games, robots, and legos. But recently he was telling me that someone ought to write in to Lego to tell them to make female mini-figures for their Exoforce series, because it’s stupid that there are no girl characters in Exoforce.
He also told me, two years ago, that Starbuck was the best character in BSG 2003 because she is the best pilot.
So much for “boys won’t watch/read/relate to girls.” How about “boys won’t watch/read/relate to crippled human beings who aren’t allowed to do anything fun, and girls shouldn’t be forced to do it either?” I think the conventional wisdom is backwards — boys don’t reject girls in fiction because girls have cooties, but because girls in fiction have typically been portrayed in very boring, restrictive ways. Let the girls be action heroes too, and all of a sudden the boys are cool with it.
But part of the problem is the process by which books become pop culture. Books, in general, do not have a problem. There are about a bazillion books for kids featuring exciting adventures with female main characters. Same is true, at least in fantasy/sf, for books for adults. But notice what migrates to the TV screen or movies?
I like “The Dresden Files.” I enjoyed the books a lot, and I like the TV show. But the thing I noticed first about the books, when I started reading them, was that they were atypical in that the main character is male. The market was flooded (still is) with series about women who are PI’s, cops, secret agents, or amateur detectives, solving mysteries and kicking butt in a world that’s just like ours except the supernatural works. Women investigate, have sex with, and kick the asses of, vampires, werewolves and magic-users, using their own powers, such as necromancy, telepathy, magic, or Really Big Guns. The genre really took off with the Anita Blake series by Laurell Hamilton (which, sadly, has degenerated into soft-core porn), but there are a *lot* of other examples around nowadays. “The Dresden Files” is the only one with a male main character.
So, notice which one gets made into a TV show?
Alara I have a completely unconfirmed suspicion that Tanya Huff’s Victory Nelson is being converted to TV.
As regards kid’s books/tv I have to put in a plug for Tamora Pierce’s work which just about always has a girl as the main character. Ditto Diane Duane’s Widardry series which features a solid partnership.
TV wise I have to give it up for a local TV series Maddigan’s Quest which combines a girl as the main character and a post nuclear apocalypse.
I recommend Garth Nix’s Abhorsen books. The young women in them are strong, smart, and everything you’d want from a story book hero. Lirael, the protagonist of the second two books, starts off as a librarian. As someone who loved books from a very young age, I thought this was just neat. Lirael doesn’t even end up paired with off with anyone at the end.
Anyone else read Patricia Wrede’s “Dragons” series? “Dealing with Dragons”, I think, is the title of the first one? They’re pretty awesome, and the main character’s a princess, and my little brother (10 y.o.) thought she was super awesome. Actually, on the topic of boys liking female main characters, his favourite Disney movie when he was little was “Mulan” — I remember him cutting his hair with garden shears ‘cause she cuts her hair off with a sword in the movie to pass as a boy…
(He’s an awesome kid. He was reading “Robinson Crusoe” when I last went home, and asked me to read over his book report for it, nand he basically picked up immediately on the fact that the narrator (Crusoe, of course) is a total racist asshole, and said more-or-less exactly that in the report. I took the opportunity to plant the seeds of doubt in narrators’ truthfulness, of course.)
Blood Ties, the show, is absolutely wonderful, btw. It’s airing on Lifetime and iTunes now. It really shows what Dresden does wrong when you compare the two. Plus, another female main character was added, which balances out things a bit more (IMO). I love how Vicki’s been kept intact and strong as a character (even if I get annoyed that a nearsighted/going blind woman takes off her glasses around half the time).
From what I understand, using first initials instead of first names is something of a norm in the British publishing industry. That’s why we have J. R. R. Tolkien or A. A. Milne, even though they didn’t need to hide their gender. At least for the UK market.
It still may be something that the UK publishers choose to cling to rather than challenge, showing first names and letting the gender of authors be obvious. Or a custom that wasn’t challenged, because doing so was seen as a risk, rather than as greater honesty. Misogynists will assume that whomever is doing the writing must be male, while people who don’t have strong feelings one way or the other won’t be turned off.
I’m not quite as sure of why the US versions use her initials. But since the US market for her books grew out of the UK market, changing the author’s name might have reduced the recognition of the books as hers, causing the US to use the name that US readers who had caught on to the books in the UK versions.
“The Dresden Files� is the only one with a male main character.
So, notice which one gets made into a TV show?
You don’t think that might have had something to do with, say, attempting to distinguish itself from Buffy or Charmed?
i love mermaids