"In the U.S. when we hear the word race, a lot of people think that means African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander… A lot of people when they hear the words sexual orientation think it means gay, lesbian, bisexual. And a lot of people when they hear the word gender think it means women. In each case the dominant group doesn’t get paid attention to.

As if white people don’t have some sort of racial identity, or belong to some sort of racial category or construct, as if heterosexual people don’t have a sexual orientation, as if men don’t have a gender.

This is one of the ways dominant systems maintain and reproduce themselves. Which is to say the dominant group is rarely challenged to even think about its dominance, because that’s one of the key characteristics of power and privilege: the ability to go unexamined, lacking introspection. In fact, being rendered invisible in large measure in the discourse about issues that are primarily about us."  - Jackson Katz [x]

jawdust:

hipstersbleedroses:

Open question to the Internet: Why is it apparently mysogynistic of men to get excited about the Olympics women’s beach volleyball because there’s pretty ladies jumping about in tight sport bikinis, when half of the female Tumblr population has done little else this week but perve over the Olympic male swimmers in their tiny swimming trunks? 

Because female athletes aren’t considered to be serious competitors. Because the women’s football tickets are being given away, and the men’s football tickets cost thousands upon thousands of pounds. Because female athletes struggle for sponsorship unless they’re stereotypically aesthetically attractive enough to get modelling deals whereas Wayne Rooney’s neanderthal face gets paid millions. Because male athletes are valued because of their prowess, their skill, their charm, and female athletes are valued for their bodies. Because Michael Phelps breaks records and is a national hero, and Ye Shiwen breaks records and is accused of doping. Because the male gaze is a product of hundreds of years of oppression, of complex gender dynamics, of sexualisation and sexual exploitation, and there’s no female equivalent. Because the female exposure of the body is a sign of vulnerability, of sex, of reproduction, of physical use and nothing more, whereas male exposure is a sign of confidence, of power, of physical strength. Because women are naked on the covers of magazines to pleasure men and men are naked on the cover of magazines to inspire other men. In other words, the world is backwards, and twisted, and complicated, and your observation is perversely oversimplified.

jayzeroeee:

This man speaks the truth. Women are fighting the wrong battles to get rid of all the sexism and misogyny in the world. It’s girls like Chris talks about in the video that are ruining things for other women. You go and fight the good fight for equality, but meanwhile there is a girl somewhere preying on men and linking them to her Amazon Wishlist undoing everything you’ve done.

These women use their bodies and “nerd” status to get men to buy them shit. You may think this stuff only goes on in the “Live Sex” section of a porn site, but it happens all the time on YouTube to unsuspecting nerds. When these guys finally realize they are being used they unsurprisingly hold women at a very low level.

In short, the feminist cause is being eroded from the inside.

thank-you to two males for holding women to their own stupid standards and telling them how to be a good feminist.

this…. I can’t…

apart from the fact that this guy is an asshole, what is the point that you are trying to make Joe?

that I should just give up on feminism because there are some who are “eroding” it?

or that to be a “proper” feminist I should shame other women because they don’t hold the same values that I do? or because they don’t live up to your, a man’s, ideal?

feminists, just like any other “ists” are varied and multi-faceted people. we don’t all agree. and we don’t have to. 

I just can’t

I’m trying to just fathom this and come up with a response but there’s an angry buzzing in my brain

this: “When these guys finally realize they are being used they unsurprisingly hold women at a very low level.”

is summed up perfectly by xkcd: 

I don’t hate all men because one man hurt me.

these guys shouldn’t hate all women because they were stupid enough to get used by one.

"July 30 2012 Aussie girls in their teens and on display. These young women are out on the town barely old enough to drink and exposing skin to get access to clubs in a growing trend that will shock parents."  -

Girls on show

I can’t even.

What the fuck is this misogynistic shit? Coming from other women?

“Do you want to go out looking like a hooker?”

;alkdfjsa;lksdfj;asdljk

angry keysmash

feministhistorian:

LEGO Friends - LEGO & Gender Part 1

transcript here.

Look. I agree with a lot of things this woman says in her videos, but I just really think she’s wrong here, or at least I have not experienced the gender stereotyping she accuses LEGO of, and I have played with LEGO all my life and still do as a 19 year old (feminist) girl.

My first problem is the accusation that all “normal” LEGO sets are marketed and geared towards boys. I have never, ever, come to this conclusion. It is her own fault for thinking that firetrucks, police stations, pirates, space things, castles etc are for boys only and do not cater for girls. Isn’t the whole point of feminism that girls can do what boys can do and vice versa? Because there ARE restaurants and houses in the city range, which boys are encouraged to play with as well, obviously. Hell, I just got the Space Shuttle set for Christmas and there is a boy and girl astronaut included. I played with pirate sets, my cousins’ city sets, and have a lot of Harry Potter sets, and we also had a Paradisa set which my male cousins played with too. I have never witnessed LEGO advertising that seems to be gender stereotyped, except for maybe the click its which I consider to be separate.

Now, I will admit that the press releases and quotes from LEGO in this video regarding the girls sets are upsetting, but its seems that they were driven to make separate sets by consumers demanding girls be represented, because the CONSUMERS have decided that girls can’t play with firetrucks and policemen. Which is the entire problem. Obviously LEGO never felt the need to distinguish up until people demanded it, because why can’t girls play with all their regular sets? Sure the boxes for city are blue, but the boxes for HP are red (and the sets have purple bricks in them actually), kingdoms is green, pirates gold (like a map), they are coloured to match their themes, not to match genders. Maybe they picked blue for city because they were trying to make it a neutral colour, the colour of a city sky, or the colour of a police station, and it has nothing to do with boys or girls, because that’s how it SHOULD be. She is the one putting that label on.

I really feel like her argument here is flawed, but I will keep an eye out for the part II to see what she says about the advertisements, as just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and I’d like to see if it’s as horrible as she says.

This is amazing.

Mace Spray by The Jezabels.

This song is fucking amazing, and these guys were fucking amazing live.

I just have a question for people too, though, what do you think of the lead singer’s haircut? I’m considering getting it but I don’t know if I have the right shape face.

Here’s a reference. Yay/nay?

I don’t want to live on this planet anymore. 

Exhibit A  - “The Nice Guy”.

“ I’m NiceGuy. Why did I make this site, if I’m Nice? Because: Ameriskanks (mostly) Suck*. (“Ameriskanks” means “North American females” obviously.) And yes, they ‘re horrible beyond imagination. Don’t shoot the messenger. It’s actually a good thing for me to come out and say this- our biggest critics are our truest friends because they show us how to improve ourselves. In this case, I’m giving an entire gender the criticism it needs to improve itself.”

Exhibit B - “The World According To Bob”.

“You can’t make wrong into right by doing wrong more effectively. It’s time for real MEN to stand up and take back our families, our society, and our self respect. It is not a crime to be born a man. It is not a crime to act manly.” 

The article linked to is what he supposes would happen if all women ceased to exist.

hearmesquee:

bubbsnugg:

Miss Representation a Feminism Documentary on Women/Media

The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their ‘Liberated Sexuality’  

twelvebats:

Yesterday, two new comic books from the “New 52” relaunch of DC Comics provoked some online controversy: Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws. They were controversial in particular because of the way they depicted women, notably with the aggressively fanfictiony on-panel sex between Batman and Catwoman, and Starfire’s transformation into a promiscuous tabula rasa who can’t even remember the names of the men she sleeps with, and seeks out emotionless sex with both of the two male main characters while they essentially high five about it.

Since pointing out my issues with Starfire yesterday, I have received numerous e-mails — from men — accusing me of slut-shaming. Since there are a lot of people who don’t understand the sexual dynamics that are in play here both creatively and culturally, I’d like to dissect this a little bit and explain why these scenes don’t support sexually liberated women; they undermine them, and why after nearly 20 years of reading superhero books, these may finally have been the comics that broke me.

I would like to say first and in the strongest possible terms that I absolutely support the right of women to embrace and act upon their sexual desires in whatever way seems right to them, within consensual boundaries. My sense of justice is inflamed by the double standard that tells us that every person a man sleeps with makes them more of a stud, and every person a woman sleeps with makes them a little less valuable and less respectable. I know this in particular because unlike all the guys who sent me angry messages last night defending the sexual honor of an imaginary character, that double standard is something l have had to live with and be judged by for my entire adult life.

And that is why books like Catwoman and Red Hood make me so goddamn angry.

Let’s start with Catwoman. The writer and artist have decided that out of all possible introductions to the character of Selina Kyle, the moment we’re going to meet her is going to be the one where she happens to be half-dressed and sporting bright red lingerie. That is in fact all we see of her for two pages: shots of her breasts. Most problematically, we are shown her breasts and her body over and over for two pages, but NOT her face. No joke, we get a very clear and detailed shot of her butt in black latex before we ever see her face looks like. Can’t you show us the playful or confident look in her eye as she puts on her sexy costume? Because without that it’s impossible to connect with the character on any other level than a boner, and I’m afraid I don’t have one of those.



Like I said, I’m on board with the hot ladies; part of what got me into comics back in the day was being a 12-year-old girl who looked at strong, beautiful characters like Rogue and Jean Grey and Storm and wanted to be like them in large part because they were so sexy and confident and had exciting romances. Those books managed to offer characters that I’m certain appealed to men as well, but always felt like people instead of window dressing. I have long maintained that to bring in more female readers, superhero comics don’t even need to specifically target women as much as they need to not actively offend them. This is not an insanely hard to thing to do, and yet here we are.

The money shot that most people have latched onto in Catwoman, however, is the one where Batman and Catwoman have sex on a rooftop. “What’s wrong with Batman having sex?” You might ask. There’s nothing wrong with Batman having sex. Or Catwoman, or Starfire, or any other hero. The problem isn’t the plot point. If you’re an adult, you’ve probably seen dozens if not hundreds of movies that included sex scenes. The mere fact that a piece of media depicts a sexual act doesn’t tell you very much about how that scene is going to make you feel. You might be titillated, or bored, or grossed out, or any number of things. Your reaction depends not on the facts of what happens, but on the way it’s presented. And while as with all aesthetic opinions your mileage may vary, this does not look sexy to me; it looks like a creepy fanfiction drawing.

Here’s the question, though: Why? I know why Catwoman and Batman would have sex; there’s nothing wrong with the idea. We saw him hook up with Talia in Son of the Demon and that was pretty cool. I mean literally, why is that last page a full-page splash of Batman actually penetrating Catwoman? Why do we need to see that? What does it accomplish or tell us about the characters that would have been lost if that page had been omitted?

The answer is nothing. They just wanted to see Catwoman and Batman bang on a roof. And that is the whole problem with this false notion of “sexually liberated” female characters: These aren’t those women. They’re how dudes want to imagine those women would be — what Wire creator David Simon called writing “chicks with d*cks”. They read like men’s voices coming out of women’s faces. Or worse, they read like the straight girls who make out with each other clubs, not because they enjoy making out with women but because they desperately want guys to pay attention to them.

This is not about these women wanting things; it’s about men wanting to see them do things, and that takes something that really should be empowering — the idea that women can own their sexuality — and transforms it into yet another male fantasy. It takes away the actual power of the women and turns their “sexual liberation” into just another way for dudes to get off. And that is at least ten times as gross as regular cheesecake, minimum.

Here is what it looks like just before Starfire tries to initiate sex.

Why is she contorting her body in that weird way? Who is she posing for, because it doesn’t even seem to be Roy Harper? The answer, dear reader, is that she is posing for you. News flash: Starfire isn’t being promiscuous because this comic wants to support progressive notions of gender roles. Starfire is being promiscuous so that you can look at pictures like this:



If you really want to support Starfire’s “liberated sexuality” like she’s somehow a person with real agency, what people should really be campaigning for is more half-clothed dudes in suggestive poses to get drawn around her, since I’m sure that’s what she’d like to see. But people don’t really want that, do they? Because it’s not about what Starfire wants. It’s about what straight male readers want. And they want to see Starfire with her clothes falling off. And hey, hey — there’s nothing wrong with that specifically, but let’s be honest about what’s happening and who we’re serving (or not serving) and at whose expense. And let’s be honest about the fact that this treatment happens almost exclusively to women, which is a huge part of what makes it so problematic.

Incidentally, while Starfire here seems to want dead-eyed sex with people whose names she can’t remember that she specifically says should be divorced from emotion, that’s very much a departure from her previous incarnation, were she came from a culture that was primarily about love, not being available for joyless hookups with random dudes:

Conversely, if you would like to see an example of an extremely well-done superhero sex scene, check out the Spider-Man/Black Cat hookup from Amazing Spider-Man Present Black Cat #1 by Jen Van Meter and Javier Pulido, where Felicia is presented as a tough, sexy lady who knows what she wants sexually and unapologetically goes out to get it. Visually, the morning after is presented on a level playing field with Spider-Man hilariously hanging out in his boxers. Note: This is also a scene where the two superheroes have sex without knowing each other identities, and yet it couldn’t feel more different from Catwoman.

There’s lots of room for these books and I welcome them, the same way I welcome Empowered, which I think is particularly successful at having fun with cheesecake in a very self-aware way. It’s good for comics to have well-executed sexy books just like it’s good to have well-executed sci-fi comics and well-executed horror comics and good comics in any genre. The only reason there might be a problem with a sexed up superhero titles like Empowered was if that was the way women were depicted all the time. And the problem is that in a lot superhero comics, it kind of is.

Below on the left, I submit to you one of the starkest visual differences between men and women in superhero comics. On the ground, we see how the editors and writers and artists have chosen to dress a male Lantern, and standing above him we see how they have chosen to dress a female Lantern. These characters didn’t appear out of thin air one day; someone designed them to look the way they look, and designed it for a very specific reason. And those design choices shape the way that the universe treats women generally. And on a more personal level, it also plays a big role in how DC Comics tells me they see people like me. Because I know that institutionally, they don’t treat men like that; we’re never going to see a major hero like Hal Jordan in a costume like one on the right as imagined by Deviant Artist Bionarri.



And the problem isn’t Star Sapphire. Or Catwoman. Or Starfire. Or Dr. Light raping Sue Dibny on the Justice League satellite or that stupid rape backstory Kevin Smith gave Black Cat or the time Green Lantern’s girlfriend got murdered and stuffed in a refrigerator. The problem is all of it together, and how it becomes so pervasive both narratively and visually that each of these things stops existing as an individual instance to be analyzed in a vacuum and becomes a pattern of behavior whose net effect is totally repellent to me. As an anomaly, maybe Starfire could be funny, the way the big-breasted, over-sexed Fritz (who even got her own porno comic, Birdland, which is pretty good if you’re into that) is often funny in Love and Rockets, mostly because the series is already packed full of incredibly diverse, fully-realized female characters. But as the 5,000th example of a superhero comic presenting female sexuality in tone-deaf ways, it’s just depressing.

In Red Hood and the Outlaws, this is DC Comics tells me a male hero looks like, and what a female hero looks like:




In Catwoman, this is what DC Comics tells me a male hero looks like, and what a female hero looks like:



This is not an anomaly. This is the primary message that I hear. And it one that I only hear about the people who are like me — the women — and not the men.

And the problem is that when I look at these women, I would very much like to see confident ladies who enjoy sex and are having a fun sexy time. But what I see instead are women who give me the same impression as creepy dead-eyed porn stars mechanically mouthing “oh yeah, I want it.” And that feeling of coerced sexual enthusiasm is the creepiest, saddest, most unerotic thing I can imagine. And if I were able to have a boner, seeing something like that would make me lose it every time.

When I read these comics and I see the way the female characters are presented, I don’t see heroes I would want to be. I don’t see people I would want to hang out with or look up to. I don’t feel like the comics are talking to me; I feel like they’re talking about me, the way both Jason Todd and Roy Harper talk about Starfire like two dudes high fiving over a mutual conquest (left).

I’ve heard people citing everything from Starfire’s cultural background to her recently experiences with slavery(?!) as reasons for her promiscuity, the same way I’ve heard that it is totes cool for the debut issue of Voodoo, the first black female character to get her own DC ongoing series, to open with her stripping on her knees while men throw money at her, because she has a previously established history of being a stripper. But let’s be honest — they didn’t make her a stripper because they really wanted to create a positive and well-rounded portrait of sex workers and how they exist in our culture. And you want to know how I know that? Because this is not what that looks like:

This is not the picture of that. And honestly I don’t care if the final art next week reveals that she’s reciting the Vagina Monologues or long excerpts from books by Gloria Steinem; it is not going to change the way looking at the image makes me — or a lot of women — feel, or the message it sends about how that comic regards ladies.

Female characters are only insatisable, barely-dressed aliens and strippers because someone decided to make them that way. It isn’t a fact. It isn’t an inviolable reality, especially in a comic book universe that has just been rebooted. In the end, what matters is what you choose to show people and how you show them, not the reasons you make up to justify it. Because this is comics, everybody. You can make up anything.

Most of all, what I keep coming back to is that above all, superhero comics are nothing if not aspirational. They are full of heroes that inspire us to be better, to think more things are possible, to imagine a world where we can become something amazing. But this is what comics like this tell me about myself, as a lady: They tell me that I can be beautiful and powerful, but only if I wear as few clothes as possible. They tell me that I can have exciting adventures, as long as I have enormous breasts that I constantly contort to display to the people around me. They tell me I can be sexually adventurous and pursue my physical desires, as long as I do it in ways that feel inauthentic and contrived to appeal to men and kind of creep me out. When I look at these images, that is what I hear, and I don’t think I even realized how much until this week.

In many ways, the constant barrage of this type of imagery (and characterization) is not unlike the sh*tty neighborhood I used to live in where every time I walked down the street, random people I didn’t know shouted obscene comments about my body and told me they wanted to have sex with me. And you know, maybe a lot of those guys thought they were complimenting me. Maybe they thought I had tried to look pretty that day and they were telling me I had succeeded in that goal. Maybe they thought we were having a frank and sexually liberated exchange of ideas. I’m willing to be really, really generous and believe that’s where they were coming from. But in the end, it doesn’t matter that they didn’t know it was creepy; it doesn’t matter that they “didn’t get it,” because every single day I lived there they made me feel like less of a person.

That is how I feel when I read these comics.

And I’m tired. I’m so, so tired of hearing those messages from comics because they aren’t the dreams or the escapist fantasies or the aspirations that I want to have. They don’t make me feel joyful or powerful or excited. They make me feel so goddamn sad that I want to cry, because I have devoted my entire life to comics, and when I read superhero books like these I realize that most of the time, they don’t give a sh*t about me.

I have been doing this for a long time, now. I have lived in the neighborhood of superhero comics for a long time. And frankly, if this is how they think it’s ok to treat me when I walk down the street in a place that I thought belonged to me just as much as anyone else who lives here, then I’m not sure I want to live here anymore.

Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/22/starfire-catwoman-sex-superheroine/#ixzz1YilVnrTr

So the boys at uni have this competition going with at least one of the girls, whoever hooks up with her first gets a six pack. 

Anyway I didn’t find out about this til later in the night but I think they must have been making jokes when we were at the pub on Friday so I just said off handedly to watch themselves because I’m a feminist or something like that.

I was telling my mum this today and she goes “you probably shouldn’t say that if you want a boyfriend.”

areyoufuckingkiddingme.jpg

That sentence just set feminism back about 5 years.

Later she asked if I was lesbian.

Should feminists have to spend exactly half their time, energy, and resources working on behalf of men to be taken seriously? Catherine Redfern thinks not.

Dressed to Kill 

rosalarian:

Whenever I complain about how females are portrayed in mainstream superhero comics, inevitably half a dozen people pop up to tell me this:

“Men are idealized in comics, too.”

Yes. Yes they are. I am aware of this. While I think the idealism is harmful, that isn’t actually what I have a problem with. (Well, not the main thing.) Because while the men are impossibly muscular and the women are impossibly skinny/boobular, the men aren’t being sexualized out the wazoo.

It’s not the characters’ bodies themselves that are the biggest problem, but how they are dressed and posed. Tits out, ass out, lips pouty, legs spread, hips cocked, eyelids at half mast. Outfits that make Wonder Woman’s star spangled panties look fit for a Mormon picnic. Short skirts, cutouts, stilettos, fishnets, thigh-highs. I’m not describing Playboy here.

You don’t see male heroes wearing these costumes or posing like this. Outside of statistical outliers like Namor, their costumes tend to have full coverage, and when they pose, it’s to inspire fear, not boners.

To prove my point, I spent yesterday morning creating this:

Looks pretty ridiculous. You would never see this as a serious illustration. Comic fans would be in an uproar. Way too much man-ass. And you know he’s not going to be graceful on those heels. And why is he looking back with a come-hither look?

You might be thinking that I drew him extra sexy, just to prove my point. Well, perhaps you’d like to see the source image:

Yeah, I literally drew Man Canary right on top of her. (*snicker*) I drew Black Canary’s skeletal position, then added the idealized male superhero physique over top. See, it really isn’t his muscles that are freaking you out. It’s the fishnets doing their best to contain those man cheeks.

And it’s not just heroines who deal with this:

(Compare to original)

I feel uncomfortable looking at this. And also, perplexed. How is that costume staying on? I know most comic artists don’t have much experience with real-world fashion, but let me tell you, double sided tape does not work all that well in combat situations.

I get that some of these characters are “using their sexuality to blind men so they can attack them,” and I bet that could be an effective attack. But there are so many chicks doing this that even the dumbest, most weak-willed superhero/villain is going to catch on eventually.

And lest you think DC is all alone in this, I present you with this little gem:

(Compare to source)

SO MUCH BULGING MAN PELVIS!!! For everyone!

I actually had a lot of fun with this one. Most of the characters are actually pretty covered up. But between Black Cat’s absurd front zipper and her pose, yeah, it’s ridiculous.

There were so many more images I could have parodied, but I got tired of spending so much time rendering man ass.

Dudes, I want you to imagine a world where most of the portrayals of your gender in comics look like the above. Are you going to think “Well, I really like the stories so I’ll just suck it up and read this anyway”? Or are you going to be alienated from reading most comics? Be honest. Are you willing to stare at that much thrusting crotch just to find out if Spiderman is gonna win?

Lots of people in the comics business look at their demographic breakdown and think women don’t like superheroes. The creator of DC Women Kicking Ass made a very apt point when she said, “Let me put it this way, if you keep keeping putting food on a kid’s plate and they don’t eat you do you assume they don’t like to eat or they don’t like the food? Right.”

Women like comics. And not just flowery manga and autobio stuff. We like superheroes.

I don’t have a problem with cheesecake, and I don’t have a problem with lady-flesh. (I make a fair amount of money drawing lesbian porn.) But there’s a time and a place for it. Unless you are specifically going out of your way to create porn comics, stop putting porn in comics. Stop using Playboy for anatomy references! (I wish I was kidding about that.)

Now, there will still be many of you who are unconvinced, who think us ladies are making a big deal out of nothing, that this is trivial. Many of you will bring up examples of female superheroes who are covered up, non-sexualized, and non-idealized. I’m not denying that those characters exist, and that there are several. But there are still far too many female characters more concerned with showing- off ass, rather than kicking it.