okay but like. girls being made fun of for liking things that are either marketed toward them or popular (or both) is REALLY prevalent?? and like?? sexist?? like blatantly sexist??? and if you actually read the article its like?? talking about destroying the idea that a girl is “less than” just bc she likes popular stuff? like man that’s important please stop
The bolded excerpt from the article captures it really well.
“Liking something popular doesn’t make you lame. Discounting someone for having some of those same interests does.”
And this is something that happens pretty exclusively to women. The article even points it out. When men enjoy things that are popular among men, no one comments on in, certainly not in a negative way. No one laughs at men for liking CrossFit, or beer, or watching football. It’s okay for men to like things that lots of men like because mens’ interests are good and valuable from a societal perspective. Because men are good and valuable. But when women like things, those things become the subject of shitty, sexist jokes that further the belittlement of the interests of women and women in general.
This is just another way for men to shit on women and to further brainwash women and girls with internalized misogyny. This becomes another case of “I’m not like other girls.”
“Oh she likes pumpkin spice lattes and Sex in the City? That’s so gross and lame. I like Guinness and WWE. I’m just not like other girls.”
As though being like others girls is so bad. But thanks to the idea that liking what other girls like makes you a “basic bitch” and thus lame and to be laughed at, another generation of girls is growing up thinking that women and the things they enjoy are detestable and to be laughed at while the interests of men are somehow superior and preferable. That girls doing things that make them happy is some sort of sad joke.
And that’s complete bullshit.
And the first comments make me wonder when exactly tumblr decided that it’s ok to make fun of white girls for everything…
Tumblr loves the phrase “white girls” because it lets them indulge their apparently overwhelming desire to shit on girls for liking girly things while pretending they are actually talking about whiteness and are therefore free of internalized misogyny (and free to also shit on girls who say that they are “not like other girls” because they don’t like the completely innocuous things that tumblr just said girls are terrible for liking.)
You could write a very detailed sociology paper on all the ways that women on tumblr have found to shit on other girls while pretending they are actually doing something else. See also, the exorbitant hate leveled at celebrities who are popular with teenage girls for relatively minor things that is secretly more about getting to imply that the young female fans are terrible for liking this person than anything to do with the celebrity. (Or show, movie, book, whatever…)
This Buzzfeed article does a great job of gathering some of the most potent social media postings about Zayn Malik’s separation from One Direction. Some are funny, some are sad, some are really super dramatic.
But what aren’t funny are the comments on this article. In the comment section, older people and people who feel they’re “above” the boy band, bash on the young girls’ reactions to Zayn’s departing.
This is gross.
Okay, so yes. The world is not over. The apocalypse has not arrived. Death is not knocking on my door. But a very important figure in pop culture has just rocked the current face of entertainment.
Zayn Malik is one of the only Pakistani celebrities in all of Western pop culture. His presence in a popular boy band has been crucial and uplifting for many Muslims and people of color. The kid has an amazing voice and he’s put up with a ridiculous amount of shit over the course of the last 5 years. The fact that he has left One Direction is not a throw-away, frivolous event, but something that has connotations and deeper meaning across our popular culture.
That is what’s happening today. And I don’t care if you feel sad about it. It’s very possible that you do not and will not feel the repercussions of this event. This, however, does not mean you should disrespect those who do.
Here is something for your consideration:
When a sports team loses or an athlete is traded, people cry. They cry, they get angry, they scream at their TVs. Sound familiar? The only difference between this picture:
And this one:
Or this picture:
And this:
Is the gender and age of the crying parties.
The reaction to Zayn’s leaving One Direction is being laughed at, brushed off, and mocked because it is young girls who are presenting it. To dismiss the emotions of teenage girls is dangerous, antifeminist, and ignorant.
As for comments like this:
Sure, you’re right, Sara. They aren’t The Beatles. But they are The Beatles of our generation. They have roused the same enthusiasm, garnered the same fan base, and appealed to the same audience demographic as The Beatles did in their day.
To make the easy comparison, here’s a picture of The Beatles’ fans:
And here’s one of One Direction’s fans:
One Direction is a band that has had a positive and lasting effect on many people, has brought together friendships, and has helped many young girls to feel beautiful and part of something important. Do not dismiss the emotions and reactions to this event just because of who they’re coming from. No one is asking you to like or care about One Direction. Just don’t be a dick.
From the personal diary of H.M. KOVARIAN, 50/15/5145
At
some point I went through all the Doctor Who wiki to try and work out
when exactly A Good Man Goes To War was set and if I had any leeway with
the timelines and whatnot. I think I got the year either right or not
overly wrong.
The ceremony was a stupid idea.
Manton
gave a little speech, directed at his soldiers, about how it is the
highest honour for a woman to be a mother. About how marriage isn’t
marriage without kids (that directed, I know, at me- he knows what I
did),
Hey, Moffat, I stole your line! A year or so back, in
your intro to the Good Man Goes To War bit of the Guide To The 2011
Series, you talked about how marriage can’t be considered real marriage
unless you’ve had a kid. And really pissed me off. So…er…congrats. More on you later.
about
how we must show Amy the utmost respect now. And her husband, too, if
he arrives and proves to be an ally. (There has been talk about this
possibility- it seems incredibly unlikely even to me, but we do not know
what sort of man Rory Williams is.)
I really like the Legend
Of The Last Centurion thingy they played with a bit in Series Six. I
like the idea of Rory pretending to be an ancient, vengeful creature
when he’s really…not.
Anyway. He dreams of a new Mary and
Joseph with a little female Jesus- a dream soon to be dashed, I fear.
More so than they have been already, for things did not go as planned.
Manton gave his speech, and then he gestured to Amy Pond, up above them
all in her prison with her baby. She was dressed in white, like a ghost,
and she looked so small with the crowd beneath her.
If this
fic had a subtitle, it would be, simply, ‘Who undressed Amy’? Because
when she was kidnapped, there’s no way she was wearing that white gown
thing she gave birth in. Someone must have undressed her while she was unconcious. (Fun fact: That maaaaay be why I reacted so strongly to this.) Even before we knew that other stuff happened at Demon’s Run – something that left Amy barren – we knew they stripped her.
They raised their hands to her. Some of them clapped. Amy looked down
on them. I have read Manton’s primitive fairytales- the ones with which
he controls his lackeys- and Amy Pond looked in that moment much more
like a warrior of god than any of the soldiers down below.
With a
thousand men and women staring up at her, she raised her hand to her
chest. She undid the buttons on her gown, one by one, with her sleeping
baby in her other hand- and slowly but surely she disrobed entirely,
stood naked before us.
We all of us saw it, the scars and the
stitches crisscrossing on her skin. We were all of us forced, for less
than half a minute, to see. Her body altered by childbirth, legs
unshaven, breasts limp- eyes cold and calculating. She stared at me.
I got chills when I wrote that. Amy really does have no agency, no hope whatsoever here, and yet she still finds
a way to fight back against her captors, even if it’s just by showing
them the true price they’re all paying. It’s just…it just seemed so
in-character for her. Amy Pond knows a lot of things, but mostly I think
she knows how people’s minds work. She knew Kovarian would see her and be ashamed. It was the only triumph she was gonna get, and she took it without a second thought.
I looked back, of course, at the thick red lines. I could not be
ashamed of my own handiwork, of the collateral damage, of the egg I
broke. But eventually, like almost all the others did, I turned away
from Amy Pond. I have seen places on and in her that even her real own mother had not…
Madame Kovarian (who earlier in life, it is noted, gave up a daughter with red hair) slips up a little there.
it seemed obscene for her to be showing to men what only women had seen-
Madame Kovarian terrifies me in this because she geniunely believes she
has a right to Amy’s body. Why? Because a) she needs it for a higher
purpose and b) …the even more terrifying reason…she thought Amy had,
through having sex, through being promiscuious, relinquished her own right to it.
This is what Madame K says later to her: “Think of what you were before
we found you. A vacant, pretty face who dressed like a slut and sold
her mouth to men! You were a nothing then, and you are a nothing now. A
human incubator.” Madame K is utterly and totally a misogynist and the
worst kind of victim-blamer: Amy Pond is not the correct sort of woman,
so she deserves everything she gets. It’s horrible…
…and
I’d be lying if I said some tiny part of it wasn’t influenced by
fandom. I love Amy. Adore her, and relate to her a lot. It stings when
people call her things like “just a pretty face” “not a character” “ a
wank fantasy” and so on. Some people say things like “Moffat obviously
hates women, because he wrote Amy as a slut.” I shouldn’t even have to
talk about what’s wrong with that, and yet…I did talk about it, because I
think that might even be what the fanfic is about in some sense. Or at
least what sparked it.
Who owns the body of a woman who’s not real?
I
know the Amy I’m writing about in this fanfiction isn’t, can’t be, the
exact same Amy Steven Moffat wrote into a glass tube. (Aside from
anything else, I thought about the implications of her kidnapping and
pregnancy, and he didn’t.) I mean, this Amy swears; original Amy is on a
children’s show and can’t. The characers who surround this Amy can say
the word ‘rape.’ And that’s just for starters.
But…characters
are always real people to the people who love them. So I was writing
Amy as if she was a real person: not created by Steven Moffat, not
created by anyone, just a person who walked into my life with all those
particular, horrible experiences. If someone had said those things to
the real-life Amy, that woman who doesn’t exist, they would have been…a
profoundly terrible person. Amy’s not real, so it’s all a moot point.
But at the moment I wrote Kovarian’s dialogue, I wasn’t thinking any of
that. I was thinking, “How dare you judge this person by what happened
to her, instead of what she is.” Amy says almost that exact thing, at
the end of the story.
Dr White reached for a control pad and
turned the lights off in her cell. I do not know if he punished her- I
don’t think he did, and certainly not in that way, I watched the
security cameras even after dark. But she did not get her DVDs, I know
that much.
The punishment MK was thinking of is exactly what
you’re thinking, too. (I dunno if I went too far with that line. Maybe I
did. I suppose this is at its core a story about misogyny, but I don’t
know.)
Things They Talked About In The Playground is
absolutely the most – important? – fanfic I’ve ever written: it
influenced my original work massively. I’ve loved Doctor Who since I was
sixteen, I’m twenty-six now, it’s been with me for a massive part of my
life.
But mostly through my adulthood.
I used to work in a school playground; kids absolutely talked about Doctor Who.
I hope they will for many years to come, but I am certain that some of
them, especially the girls, will watch the Amy pregnancy arc later on
and wonder – Who undressed her? Who spread her legs? My story gets a bit
meta at the end. MK tells Amy children will talk of her in the
playground, but there’s a real playground, real children, in real life.
Amy herself sums up what was pretty much the reason I wrote this story:
“They
still might talk about this in the playground,” she said. “When and if
the story ever gets told. And they’ll wonder, eventually, they’ll
wonder. They’ll wonder who stripped me. They’ll wonder who cut into me.
They’ll wonder what went where, when that was done. They’ll wonder. And what will their parents tell them, when they ask?”
I want to teach my future kids to be critical of the media they consume. I’ll most likely be that parent. I may not – beyond “judge people by what they do, not by what was done to them” – know what to tell them.
