Sexism
Lately, I've been rather frustrated about the still-predominant, terribly sexist ideas that are so deeply ingrained in people's minds even in this age of relative female emancipation. It sucks. Once you start seeing it, and thinking about it, you realise it's fucking everywhere. It annoys and frustrates me to no end, and it's aggravated by the fact that most people - and in my own, sexist experience, most guys in particular - just don't see it. (Though there are most certainly enough women who accept and reiterate the same stupid clichées that belittle them.) As a consequence, most people consider you a hypersensitive, bitchy mimosa if you start pointing out all the small markers of sexism in everyday-life.
I work for a local newspaper and went to see and write about a children's organ concert today. The whole thing was nicely arranged, with a fairy tale and pictures, narrated text underscored by the organ music. Logistically and artistically, it was all really nicely done. BUT. That fairy tale? It was fucking teeming with the same old sexist clichées, with some racism, heteronormativity and aristocracy-is-cool-forget-about-working-your-way-up mixed in for good measure. The only woman in the tale is a princess, who at the end of the tale of course does get married. All the people who participate in the great challenge that forms the centre of the plot, and all the important personages in the two kingdoms, are men. There are no non-white characters. There is one straight, white romance, and it's fucking superficial. "Hey, look, my curse is broken! Now that I'm young and pretty again, do you wanna marry me?" - "Uh, sure, I guess." Happy ending. Yay.
This is what we're teaching all those kids, the next generation? Really?
It annoys me. It makes me feel powerless and angry and misunderstood like a grumpy teenager -- only that I deeply believe that I have a valid concern here, and that the problem is a profound one. But if I point the problem out to people, the vast majority nevertheless treat me as if I was moping about my uncool parents forbidding me to dye my hair black.
Why am I ranting about all this stuff, which certainly isn't exactly novel and revolutionary, in a blog nobody reads? I guess I needed to vent. Because I have to write a newspaper article about that concert, and I'm forbidden to criticise people who are quite probably also members of our not-too-vast readership. I felt the truth needed to be written down somewhere, however, so here it is.
I work for a local newspaper and went to see and write about a children's organ concert today. The whole thing was nicely arranged, with a fairy tale and pictures, narrated text underscored by the organ music. Logistically and artistically, it was all really nicely done. BUT. That fairy tale? It was fucking teeming with the same old sexist clichées, with some racism, heteronormativity and aristocracy-is-cool-forget-about-working-your-way-up mixed in for good measure. The only woman in the tale is a princess, who at the end of the tale of course does get married. All the people who participate in the great challenge that forms the centre of the plot, and all the important personages in the two kingdoms, are men. There are no non-white characters. There is one straight, white romance, and it's fucking superficial. "Hey, look, my curse is broken! Now that I'm young and pretty again, do you wanna marry me?" - "Uh, sure, I guess." Happy ending. Yay.
This is what we're teaching all those kids, the next generation? Really?
It annoys me. It makes me feel powerless and angry and misunderstood like a grumpy teenager -- only that I deeply believe that I have a valid concern here, and that the problem is a profound one. But if I point the problem out to people, the vast majority nevertheless treat me as if I was moping about my uncool parents forbidding me to dye my hair black.
Why am I ranting about all this stuff, which certainly isn't exactly novel and revolutionary, in a blog nobody reads? I guess I needed to vent. Because I have to write a newspaper article about that concert, and I'm forbidden to criticise people who are quite probably also members of our not-too-vast readership. I felt the truth needed to be written down somewhere, however, so here it is.