Showing posts with label Sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sexism. Show all posts
Monday, December 9, 2013
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I had the great fortune of stumbling across Amanda Hess' article, "It Was Like a Pile of Kleenex...", over on Slate this afternoon. I say great fortune because it was a super interesting article about female authors' inability to connect with literature that is widely considered to be part of the Western literary canon; Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and others were all discussed by a panel of female writers. If you've read some of the so-called great works of these authors, maybe you have a guess as to why their writing makes women feel the way they do.

The second part of this "great fortune" is in the impact these same works are said to have had on young men. Hess recounts Elif Baufman's anecdote about reading Henry Miller for the first time, only to find that the guy she was dating at the time had lifted his stories up onto a pedestal, internalizing the narrative and becoming much of what she hated about Miller's works. That idea stopped me.

I began to wonder just how much influence a book can have on the formation of identity. Could it truly be the case that a narrative, a foreign perspective can be taken so far as to mold a person? If so, what sort of implications does this have on my beliefs about the impact of video games and other media on personality, actions, etc.?

As it turns out, realizing the truth required little thought. As soon as I began to dissect the idea, having originally thought it ludicrous, my mind was pulled to a rather dark summer over a decade ago. At the height of my hero worship, I was consuming classical epics, comic books, Harry Potter, and more at something of a breakneck pace. I began to envision myself swinging on a strand of silken web toward someone bleating for my help. Naturally, in my dreams, I saved her or him.

The problem, of course, isn't with the dream. At one point or another, we all fly or do something fantastic while we recover from the world. The trouble starts when the line is blurred. Say, for example, you start to map out a costume, a vehicle, and an ideology. Say, just for example, that you begin to build that costume. What if the only thing that stopped you from doing something stupid was a suspicious mother and her ability to convince you of your foolishness?

I still have those costume plans in a box somewhere.

Having grown up digesting fiction and historical literature, I built who I am today. I've long since abandoned my notions of costumed crime-fighting and Hogwarts, but I certainly still dream of it. That mentality, the hero complex as a former love called it, bleeds into everything. It informs my personal, professional, and emotional choices. All of it is founded in the words of someone struggling to spread their own perspective, their own story.

Imagine, then, what it means for young men to grow up reading the misogynist manifestos that are increasingly rare, yet present, these days but were a dime a dozen in the past. Imagine what it means when young men grow up dreaming about objectifying and ruling. I doubt you have to work to hard to see the results. I'm not sure those fantasies end with drawing a costume.



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Friday, October 18, 2013
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You know, I make a pretty good effort to talk about various issues of equality. I haven't had the opportunity yet on GFP, but if you were one of my groupies over on They Call Me An Egg, there is a good possibility you saw some posts arguing for the rights for classically oppressed people; namely for women and homosexuals.

So, perhaps, you'd image that I would argue just as vehemently for "men's rights". After all, I'm a man. Why shouldn't I argue for the rights of my people? Why shouldn't I react with thinly veiled bitterness and hatred as the world changes beneath my feet?

Well, perhaps I've jumped too far ahead of myself. Men's rights activists are exactly what they sound like. They're men arguing for the rights of men. Here's the problem though: generally speaking, rights for men come at the expense of the rights of others. Here's one of my favorite examples from one of the lovely dirtbags activists on the Reddits :

"Sure, living with injustice is so much better than fixing it."- a Redditor discussing the need to make sure both men and women are made to pay alimony when the situation necessitates it.

What's that you say? That doesn't seem like such a crazy concept? Why, no, it doesn't. Essentially what's being argued here is that both men and women need to be held to the same standards under the same situations. That is equality, right?

The problem with the men's rights movement is that it isn't about equality. Just as radical feminism, radical secularism, and radical religion aim only to suppress and oppress others for their own benefits, so, too, does the men's rights movement, seemingly made up only of radicals, aim to retake their place as the rulers of the world. Here is a quote that is far more representative of the thinking of the MRM:

"'Women are marginalized.' Does anyone seriously believe this when it's so obviously untrue?"

And that's the issue. Men's rights activists are not arguing for equality. They're arguing against common sense in a desperate grasp to remain the majority, the iron fist that continues to oppress everyone else. I absolutely hate when members of any marginalized group point their finger at me, saying how "you do this" and "men do that". Admittedly, a lot of the times they are not wrong. Many times, however, they are overgeneralizing and arguing for reforms that, if carried to their conclusions, would just wind up with reverse discrimination.

Like so many other groups fighting for "equality", men's rights activists simply want a shift in their favor that ensures they can be the ones pulling the strings. However, unlike so many others, I'm not sure these guys really have a leg to stand on...unless you count the one built out of hatred and fear of an equal society.


So, what are your thoughts on the Men's Rights Movement?
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Women in Comic Books: Why Not?

I remember being 5 years old and sitting, doe-eyed, at my grandparents house every Saturday morning. I wasn't there for breakfast. I'm sure in my parents mind I was there to visit and have family time. I knew, even at five years old, that I was there for the X-men.

Marvel's bunch of mutants from the Xavier school had recently enthralled me. I loved the smooth talking Cajun Gambit. The punchy, take-no-prisoners attitude of Wolverine appealed to me even then. I loved the near naked, strangely sexualized Jean Grey and Rogue.

And I think that's where the problem starts for most young comic book fans.
Seriously, how do those proportions even work?
Source: http://bit.ly/1en5ESX
When I was a kid, what I wanted out of my comic books could be boiled down to two things; boobs and battles. I wanted to see my male favorites kicking the teeth out of bad guys like Venom, Carnage, Magneto, and Juggernaut. I wanted my female favorites to stand there looking pretty in outfits that I could have no conception of just how impractical they were to female warriors. Admittedly, I was a kid, and, as all kids do, I eventually grew up. For me, the days of boobs and battles, whether we're talking in comics, classical literature, films, music, or otherwise, are long over.

I took a 12 year break from comic books. I just didn't have the money when I was fourteen, and my dad had grown out of the hobby; no more freebies. In August 2013, I made my way back to the books that had defined my conceptions of heroes as a child. Spider-man, the X-men, Batman, and more began filling up boxes that had only been collecting dust for a decade.

Yet, as I spent and read, I found that things haven't changed all that much. Female characters, for the most part, are still relegated to the role of love interests, catalysts through death, and eye-candy. Progressive, popular females like Batwoman and Captain Marvel have their books rebooted and their creative teams gouged. In the case of Batwoman, her being a strong, lesbian female who wanted to get married was too much for the comic world, inciting her AAA writer to leave the book when DC refused to let her commit to the woman she loved.

I admit, there was a time when I let myself shrug these problems off with a "that's just comics" attitude. Then I started doing some research.

It only makes sense in any business to play to what your customers want. With comic books, it seems only natural to assume, then, that big businesses DC and Marvel should be writing stories about buxom bimbos without brains; right? As it turns out, the majority of comic book readers are not teenage boys. In fact, most comic book readers are mid-twenties to their mid-to-late 40's. Yes, we are still mostly male, but recent statistics show that women represent as much as 25% of comic book readership.

With that being the case, why is it so damn hard to get an interesting female character? Why is it so tricky to write a woman that can be pretty or not, can be smart or not, yet compelling enough to get people to pick up her book week after week? Ostensibly, it's all about the cycle.

As I was told recently at my local comic shop, women simply don't make for interesting storytelling. As if looking into a darkened reflection, someone my age, someone who grew up reading comics for the same reason I did was telling me that women do not make interesting, compelling characters, and that, my friends, points to the issue.

The big two, Marvel and DC, continue to push out AAA titles that feature lame-brained, eye-candy that gives rise to this backward idea. A lot of men grow up and realize that poorly written female characters are simply that; a product of poor writing. However, too many more think it is symptomatic of the gender. The big two, just like any other form of role model--make no mistake; their characters are role models--has a responsibility to craft an open worldview for young men, old men, and women to draw from. We rag on Miley Cyrus for acting like trash yet its okay for one of the most popular mediums in modern entertainment to train readers to think that's how women act, should act-as a rule?

It's especially frustrating to me in the case of Marvel. The X-men were originally conceived as social commentary against bigotry and oppression. That team, black, white, blue, male, female, were all in it together. Spider-man was written to be this every-man; anyone who ever felt the sting of poverty and the pain of lost love, male or female, could connect with the Web-slinger. Unfortunately, Marvel has since betrayed the essence of those characters, both in their writing and in the company's inability or lack of interest in encompassing real characters of both genders.
Image's Rocket Girl features a female lead that A)looks like a real person and B)is a bad ass time-cop
Source:http://bit.ly/1ebv3yW
Look, I'm not going to make the change by myself. Me dropping a chunk of my weekly contribution is not going to topple Marvel or DC. Having said that, I hope taking my money to companies like Image, Dark Horse, and IDW at least helps keep their female lead books afloat.

Are you a comics fan? What do you think about the state of female characters in the big two's books?
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