sorgere del sole

motherfuckingoj:

davyjonesing:

leatherpumpkin:

i’m crying??????

the fact that they’re talking about this, actually attempting to address the issue instead of staying silent and cowardly like the industry tools in the directors video, is giving me so. much. liiiiife.

Asshole studio exec: “Well, I wouldn’t fuck her.”

George Clooney: “Well, she wouldn’t fuck you!”

Stieg Larsson was an extremist, not a feminist  

When Rooney Mara, star of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, suggested that Lisbeth Salander was not a feminist, Stieg Larsson’s partner knew how to put her down. “Does she know what film she has been in?” asked Eva Gabrielsson, who shared much of Larsson’s life until his death in 2004. “Has she read the books? Has she not had any coaching?”

In case you were in any doubt, the questions were rhetorical. To Gabrielsson, Mara was another ignorant Hollywood star. If she had taken the trouble to understand The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo before playing its goth heroine, she would have realised that Salander’s “entire being represents a resistance, an active resistance to the mechanisms that mean women don’t advance in this world and in worst-case scenarios are abused like she was”.

[…]

Except that Larsson wasn’t a feminist – or not a consistent one. He wrote with real anger about the oppression of women with white skins. When others tried to do the same about the oppression of women with brown skins, he denounced them as racists. My friend and colleague Johan Lundberg, the editor of the Swedish journal Axess, has done what I should have done and read Larsson’s obscure book on honour killings. He waited for the release of the film to give us his findings.

Larsson did indeed break off from writing the Millennium trilogy to intervene in the debate about the “honour killings” of two Kurdish women in Sweden. Far from worrying about the suffering of women, Larsson and his co-author said those who campaigned for the rights of women in immigrant communities wanted “to portray all male immigrants as representatives of a single homogeneous attitude towards women”. They had sexist as well as racist motives. They only talked about honour crime because they wanted to divert attention from how white men raised in the “patriarchal structures of Swedish society” abused and murdered women as a matter of course.

This article (from January 7th in The Observer) highlights one of the main arguments of modern feminism - we see it all the time in our online activist community. This author finds Larsson’s apparently dismissive attitude toward the suffering of immigrant women as racist and sexist because Larsson is presumably fighting against Western feminism’s tendency to paint entire othered religious/cultural groups - ESPECIALLY the Islamic world - as comprehensively abusive and misogynistic. 

This is the crux of so many feminist divides in the modern age. It all starts with “women in the west aren’t oppressed because they aren’t getting stoned every day like Muslim women” and extends to the complaints of this author. I have not read Larsson’s piece on the honor killings yet but I’d very much like to - I find it hard to believe that someone who so actively fought against the sexist trappings of western patriarchy, and the abuse of women that it breeds, would have taken this opportunity to belittle the deaths of WOC. I would hope - and suspect - that he was simply (and passionately) condemning the western attitude of feminist superiority, which paints all of Islam as violent and radical, and allows white feminist voices to drown out the voices of the WOC of whom they speak. I am assuming Larsson believes that the pervasive feminist perspectives on the Islamic world are brewing racism in the sense that we are dehumanizing and vilifying the men of entire nations/cultures/religions just as we use the women of these groups as oppression porn and unfair bases for triumphant comparison / feelings of cultural supremacy.

But maybe it’s just not that simple. The author accuses the far left of pussyfooting around the rampant murders and abuses of WOC in other cultures for the sake of political correctness and to avoid being decried as racist.

What are everyone’s thoughts?

"In the 2006-2007 television season, 35 percent of the writers of broadcast network, prime-time programs were women, according to an annual study by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. In the 2010-2011 season, that number had dropped by more than half, to 15 percent."

— Why is Television Losing Women Writers?

Furthermore 

unknowablewoman:

Sexist trans men, check your motherfucking male privilege already.

Some thoughts on female privilege 

First off, I want to specify that I wholeheartedly believe women are given the shorter end of the stick damn near most of the time both socially and systematically, in the US and all over the world. I do not need to list any of those reasons here, because all of my fellow feminists of course know what they are. And if you follow my blog, you know that these are reasons for which I am an activist. 

That all being said, I’d like to discuss the idea of “female privilege”, a concept that sends many a tumblr feminist into a flying rage. I understand and empathize with these reactions, and I wanted to add my own into the dialogue.

Women don’t have a lot of social/institutional privileges, which is why, in general, and in the greatest sense, men are the oppressors and women are the oppressed. The system actively and damagingly works against women.

Instead of talking about female privilege - privileges women hold over men - I think it might be a better idea to look at the case-by-case bases throughout which men face discrimination, or some kind of shitty situation because of their gender. Let’s not look at it as women having privilege OVER men in these cases (which might be true at times).

Look, guys. The patriarchy inherently favors men across the board, but that doesn’t mean little boys don’t grow up in similarly restrictive ways as little girls do. The pressure to be masculine can have very damaging effects upon a boy’s psyche. The social script for manliness allows for independence and assertion, yes, but it can also shun things like affection and creativity. Every day I log into facebook and see that some male douchefuck has hacked a friend’s facebook and written a bunch of “I like penis” statuses. Men cannot be gay, cannot be effeminate, cannot be loving. Not to mention that the courts actively work against men in custody and domestic violence cases.

Does this mean we have to go around yelling for men’s rights!!!!1! No. Because everything that makes life tough on a dude can be accomplished and rectified through the recognition of feminist ideals. If we can prevent girls from being packaged as pretty & pink doll-loving food-making mothers-in-training - if we can smash the gender roles that have kept women back all these many years - then we can finally stop seeing “girly” things as the inferior woman’s choice. If women aren’t the parents-by-default, more men could get custody of their children. If women can stop being pegged as emotional airheads who aren’t allowed to be aggressive or ambitious, then being affectionate and loving will not be gendered traits exclusive to women. 

Is there such thing as female privilege? Rarely & barely. But there IS such thing as the patriarchy hurting men. Not NEARLY to the extent that it hurts women, but just because it happens at all makes it worth recognizing.

Classy.

"Sexism in 2011 is a different, more subtle beast, which shows itself in insidious ways: it is there when a man shouts out a sexualised comment as you pass in the street; it is there when your male colleague makes a joke about it being your time of the month; and it is there when you are called a slag, a bitch, a whore or told you are not as good at map-reading or driving or any of those other quintessentially “male” skills you are deemed too dim to master.
And, as Boycott points out, if a woman objects to any of this – even if it makes her feel uncomfortable – she is somehow seen as poo-faced or not a good sport."

—

Guardian UK Article “Why Sexism is no Laughing Matter”

(via bigassfemme)

couldn’t even appreciate this because I was too busy laughing at “slag” and “poo-faced.” 

newwavefeminism:

womenaresociety:

Unbelievable.

A must watch. This video by the Women’s Media Center, “Sexism Sells—But We’re Not Buying It,” shows several real-life examples of prominent figures in the news making disgusting, extreme sexist remarks, specifically about the presence of (in reality, the lack thereof) women in politics. Obsessive, dehumanizing analysis of women’s appearances? Equating women in politics to having “nagging voices” that remind men of their wives? Fears of castration? It’s all here!

Just so everyone knows…

A tip for all nice guys: Any touching without direct consent is Breach of Consent. 

greengrey:

likeproust:

tumblinfeminist:

Generally, we collectively recognize the groping and grabbing that happens with alarming frequency on public transportation, for example, as problematic—but many of the men who rightfully disdain this behavior nonetheless engage in casual touching without consent in other contexts. 

We euphemize nonconsensual but nonviolent touching as “making a pass” or even, simply, “being friendly.” But it is not friendly; it is entitled.

This tends to be a point of contention for straight/bisexual men who can’t imagine how it’s possible to meet, date, flirt with, and eventually become sexually intimate with a woman without ever touching her without her consent. The worry tends to be expressed as, “It won’t be sexy or smooth if I ask,” but that’s not true. Asking a woman, “May I take your arm?” or “May I kiss you?” is actually quite likely to be considered both sexy and smooth, with the additional bonus of being respectful.

What’s decidedly not sexy and smooth, however, is making a woman feel uncomfortable, or even triggering her, if she’s a trauma survivor, by touching her without her consent.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, because in the real world, not all consent is VERBAL, at least in my own experience, and I think that’s okay. Or, rather, it can be okay if both parties are on the same page.

Which leads me to thinking about why some men can’t seem to read body language. If I back away from you, put space between us, don’t meet your eye, and otherwise make it abundantly clear that I’m not interested in being any closer to you, those are powerful signals that you should know how to read.

But I think the problem is not that men don’t know how to read those signals - it’s that some men don’t care. OP is right that there’s a sense of entitlement - they think they should be able to take what they want, regardless of what the girl is saying or doing.

I’ve been lucky in most of my relationships with men in that the guys I’ve dated have always been respectful and a little shy. Whether I’ve made it clear I’d like to be touched through non-verbal cues or by flat out asking them to kiss me, I’ve always been the one in control, and frankly, I think ALL heterosexual relationships just work a little bit smoother with women in the driver’s seat.

How different would the world be if men were the ones making it clear they welcomed touching and women were the ones in charge of making the first move?

If a guy asked if he could kiss me, I’d laugh at him. 

Isn’t casual touching just a part of flirting? And not just flirting, but a part of life; people touch all the time. Yes, we all acknowledge that groping/grabbing/verbally harassing is shitty and wrong, but it’s not like guys are the only perpetrators of the “casual touch.” Women lay their hands on guy’s arms, touch their shoulders, give them friendly swipes. (To be overly generalizing and ciscentric, but you get the idea). A great amount of people who haven’t been through trauma (and also those that have) casually touch. It’s a (normally harmless) part of our culture, of many cultures, that is instigated by more than just cismen. There is a line, and I don’t think casual touching, that’s not excessive/forceful, quite crosses it.

Something I don’t like about these kinds of discussions is that it heaps all this responsibility upon cismen when the key to a healthy relationship is communication. By both or all parties. If a guy (or girl) (or anyone) takes your arm without your permission and it’s outside of your comfort zone, you can reflect your discomfort with body language or simply verbalize it, like you expect whoever you’re with to verbalize things. Relationships, whether never quite begun or just for one night or for a lifetime, are among many things about determining each other’s comfort zones and how to make each other happy. Most likely whoever it is is not a dbag and won’t press the issue. If they do, it’s out of casual-touch zone into harassment zone and it’s a different topic altogether.

And then there’s this by the second poster:

Whether I’ve made it clear I’d like to be touched through non-verbal cues or by flat out asking them to kiss me, I’ve always been the one in control, and frankly, I think ALL heterosexual relationships just work a little bit smoother with women in the driver’s seat.

Does anyone else find this really problematic?? Why is anyone in the driver’s seat? Weren’t we just talking about entitled cismen when they think THEY are the ones “in control”? The way this discussion has played out it seems like men should be asking permission and women should be doling out the rules. Sorry, no.

You know who also like consent? DUDES. They like consent, communication, respect, knowing when to back off when you’ve gone a little too far, learning how to be around another very complex human being, and they ALSO like their own voices/concerns in the relationship being heard, and appreciated.

Yeah, there’s an extent to which men are the major perps when it comes to fondling and incredibly oppressive, inappropriate behavior. But sometimes we need to stop seeing the world in a men-need-to-do-this light instead of a people-need-to-do-this light.

And while I am at it 

indefensible:

karion:

• Can you name three powerful/famous women whose lovers saved and sold their private texts and messages?  Can you name even one?   I can only think of JLo’s first husband.
• And yet I bet you can name at least five men whose lovers have run to the press to sell their saved messages and their “wild romp” stories.

Which do you think is more likely?

• That powerful/famous women - married or not - don’t send racy emails and texts?

• Most men observe a bro code of sorts and it is a gross deviation from that code to make public the private messages between lovers.

Two words. Sex tapes.

Oh yeah, those awesome bros, broing it up and respecting the privacy of lovers when they release sex tapes and nudes. I totally haven’t seen nudes of a ton of women in Hollywood. Gotta love those bros, so much more honest and loyal and loving than us scheming ladies. 

when anti-feminists say “but you are completely ignoring how sexism harms men!!!1!” 

Sorry that in my discussion of gender that had to do with pregnancy, women in the workforce, abortion, or anything similar I did not bring up sexism toward the male binary. I know that when I talk about apple pies, I always need to throw something in about peaches and blueberries to cover more of the fruit spectrum. Who cares about relevancy?