get on your knees, hands up.

[darkindegrees]

I had my first exam yesterday. It was biology and it didn't go as bad as I thought it would. The essay question was on enzymes so it was a frigging gift. Mind, it was on what affected rates of reaction with graphs and you then had to name the independent variable so if you didn't know what each would look like on a graph you were pretty screwed but

Comments

[darkindegrees]

Tbh, it was more wank about Katie than Morgana as a character but it definitely bled over--on the kink meme for a while and in one of the comms (I think it was an Merlin/Arthur one but I can't find it anymore), before the mods squished it, there was a "debate" which amounted to Katie can't act and makes Morgana wooden and awful and we hate her and she should die. It reeked off "she's pretty and speaks her mind and therefore uppity and smug and that is unacceptable". There's a comm out there which is supposedly just full of people anonymously hating on Merlin, particularly Katie and Morgana but I've specifically refused to even ask what it's called.

I think that's amazing about your grandmother--there are people today who don't believe anywhere near as strongly in education, especially for females, and it's been nearly a hundred years since she was born which is just ridiculous. Sometimes I think fandom can't do that because it's so full of women and, for some reason, it's completely okay for women to hate on other women! It has never been more obvious to me than it has in fandom that when there are a large group of women together there will be subsets who seem to enjoy spending their time criticising other women and treating them like dirt because they can. Because they think it's right, or they have ridiculous standards for women which no one can actually reach. It's a bit sickening and it's something I always feel the need to bring up when I hear someone say, "Oh, we don't need feminism anymore women can work and vote!"

It's completely fine! I get ranty in other people's comments more than I would like to admit >.

[bewarethespork]

I adore both Katie and Morgana to bits and am now glad that I haven't really paid attention to merlinxarthur in forever. As much as I love the pairing, I could do without the whole girls-are-evil mindset that so many slash fans seem to have.

Sometimes I think fandom can't do that because it's so full of women and, for some reason, it's completely okay for women to hate on other women!

That is such a good point! I'd never really thought of it that way, but I think you're right. Sometimes a woman's worst enemy really is other women.

"Oh, we don't need feminism anymore women can work and vote!"

You know, I am not much of a feminist at all - but I would never say we don't need feminism. I do think that sometimes feminism as a movement is a bit impenetrable to outsiders because of all the (completely justifiable) rage and bitterness of some feminists - it makes it hard to really engage with them and discuss things, because if someone is raging at you, you tend to feel like you're being targeted, even if you're not. But the ideas behind it - equality and giving women voices and agency and the freedom to do what they want, not what they're expected to do - I will defend forever, even if I don't do it in the same way that other feminists do.

[darkindegrees]

Yeah, sometimes slash fans get really out of hand. I will freely admit to the fact that I used to absolutely adore Harry/Draco in HP absolutely ages ago and the hate there for Ginny and the "die for our ship" attitude many of the fans had towards females was just so bizarre.

I think I'm a louder feminist on the Internet than in real life because I can take a deep breath before I respond on the Internet--when faced with something that's rage inducing IRL I tend to become very short with people, use sarcasm to a ridiculous amount and roll my eyes a lot. It's not bitterness but it definitely is "I think you are an idiot and I am clearly expressing that" and a lot of people have got extremely annoyed with me in the past for it. I've found over time, too, that some people think my reaction to them failing to grasp the concepts or importance of feminism has contributed to their belief that all supporters of feminism are crazy, which I don't even know how to deal with. Especially because being short with people, sarcastic and rolling my eyes is pretty much my default reaction when something/someone annoys me.

The ideas behind feminism are exactly the reason that I've sat down with so many people and tried not to get ragey and angry and shout--because they are good ideas, they're brilliant ideas and, personally, I could never understand why someone wouldn't support that. So, yeah, although I can get angry at people when discussing feminism I still try to, you know?

/incoherence.

[bewarethespork]

I was quite mad about Snarry back in the day, much to my embarrassment. I was a Sirius/Remus fan, too, and it always made me a little ill how some people would slam basically every single female those two knew if there was even the tiniest chance that they'd get in the way of their magical OTP.

I think I'm a louder feminist on the Internet than in real life because I can take a deep breath before I respond on the Internet

I know exactly what you mean! I think I'm the same way.

I've basically decided that even if I don't call myself a feminist, if I support the ideas behind it then I should share them with people, and I think I'm in a good place to do it because I don't share that rage. I can sit down with people and go, "Yeah, look, I know all the anger can be hard to work through, but if you put that aside, there are actually all these ideas that I think we can all agree are pretty cool." I figure that if that's something I can do because of my lack of personal baggage or whatever, then I should do it, even if I don't choose to call it feminism.

[/equal incoherence]