"If you switch your brain off as an end consumer and just pick entertaining media that presents itself in front of your face, odds are you're going to end up disproportionately with stuff created by men."
What we are spoon-fed... is male content, male gaze, male perspectives, male interests, male success, male attitudes, male mindsets, male stories. Joel Soloway (I knew her as Jill Soloway) was the writer/director of "Six Feet Under" gave a talk once that I loved... (online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnBvppooD9I) and they have a bit that's like, "So much of TV is Watching Men Do Things Men Like To Do. But I want something for ME! I like feminists arguing! Like... what if we could see an argument dissecting the patriarchy... in a STADIUM! Like, what if there was a whole section in the paper about it EVERY DAY? Like... what if I was encouraged to throw a party and make my whole family watch Lena Dunham and Roxanne Gay talk for 4 HOURS... and then like celebrate with everyone who agrees with me with a small riot through downtown that the news reporters refer to as 'home team excitement'... huh? What about THAT?"
It's the subtlety combined with the omnipresence of the in-power view, right? All the people who "can't find" female talent, exactly because they've never looked for it, and blame the women they never find to hire, rather than themselves. And to me this directly mirrors how the talk about race or disabilities or LGBTQ identities or whatever, works. The othering. The distance. The elevation of your own identity/preferences/culture/experience/friend circle ABOVE that of others who you don't know/understand well. The assumption that it's the OTHER person's job to change/assimilate/fit in, and more than that, it's not just their responsibility to being concilliatory, they have to WANT to do it, too. The idea that any help/aid/accommodations is a special request and/or is taking away from the resources of power/control.
That sort of shit. It all seems to work the same way. I love Audra Lourde's "There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions" which explicitly clarifies how her intersecting identities are taught to fight and oppress one another... even in herself by the society we live in and the ways we divide up which identities are powerful and which are unworthy. (3 minutes... a wonderful thing to listen to every day TBH) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CPAlSVaiL8
To me, if half the population can be sacrificed to a belief system/structure of human value/worth... they'll CLEARLY sacrifice anybody. I remember a guy once telling me how gay people "are rare and that proves they are unnatural" to explain his disgust... and I was like, "Hmm,... that's quite a claim. I seem to remember your girlfriend has green eyes, yes? That's only like 3% of humans. Green eyes are EXTREMELY rare! Is she unnatural? Because her green eyes are WAY more rare than gay people, who are at LEAST 10% of the population. Like maybe you should reconsider what you think is rare, and why diversity is *so* diverse and the mathematical lessons from that, before blaming people for your disgust that they're born/live different from you. NATURE is DIVERSE, haven't you NOTICED?!"
Really, I just think humans are neurotic and bordering on insane... as a SPECIES. We... are not very mentally/emotionally stable, logical, or coherent, which is fine I suppose, until we violently defend our neurotic illogical incoherent instability, that is.
To me, if half the population can be sacrificed to a belief system/structure of human value/worth... they'll CLEARLY sacrifice anybody.
Consider at least one belief for which a lot of Americans have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice absolutely anybody whatsoever: the deaths of four white male sitting Presidents (and injuries to more) have proved insufficient to override the Divine Right of Guns.
I remember a guy once telling me how gay people "are rare and that proves they are unnatural" to explain his disgust... and I was like, "Hmm,... that's quite a claim. I seem to remember your girlfriend has green eyes, yes? That's only like 3% of humans. Green eyes are EXTREMELY rare! Is she unnatural? Because her green eyes are WAY more rare than gay people, who are at LEAST 10% of the population.
A fun exercise might be to work out what percentage of the population are straight white abled cis het culturally-Christian Anglo-diasporic males-that default human presumed to be the protagonist of the world.
But if we (white dudes) don't have guns, how COULD we possibly HAVE freedom if we can't protect ourselves?! *gasp* *sputter* *faint*
With so many rules against black people (men) having guns historically in America, clearly there are lots of people white dudes don't think should have guns.. those are the gun laws/control that even the NRA apparently supported. It's almost as if America is trying to see how much hypocrisy you can live by/spout and still live, I think.
He was a superficial thinker... all it took was green eyes and a gentle pull on his very thin thought to pull it apart like a cinnamon bun.
What we are spoon-fed... is male content, male gaze, male perspectives, male interests, male success, male attitudes, male mindsets, male stories. Joel Soloway (I knew her as Jill Soloway) was the writer/director of "Six Feet Under" gave a talk once that I loved... (online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnBvppooD9I) and they have a bit that's like, "So much of TV is Watching Men Do Things Men Like To Do. But I want something for ME! I like feminists arguing! Like... what if we could see an argument dissecting the patriarchy... in a STADIUM! Like, what if there was a whole section in the paper about it EVERY DAY? Like... what if I was encouraged to throw a party and make my whole family watch Lena Dunham and Roxanne Gay talk for 4 HOURS... and then like celebrate with everyone who agrees with me with a small riot through downtown that the news reporters refer to as 'home team excitement'... huh? What about THAT?"
It's the subtlety combined with the omnipresence of the in-power view, right?
All the people who "can't find" female talent, exactly because they've never looked for it, and blame the women they never find to hire, rather than themselves. And to me this directly mirrors how the talk about race or disabilities or LGBTQ identities or whatever, works. The othering. The distance. The elevation of your own identity/preferences/culture/experience/friend circle ABOVE that of others who you don't know/understand well. The assumption that it's the OTHER person's job to change/assimilate/fit in, and more than that, it's not just their responsibility to being concilliatory, they have to WANT to do it, too. The idea that any help/aid/accommodations is a special request and/or is taking away from the resources of power/control.
That sort of shit.
It all seems to work the same way.
I love Audra Lourde's "There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions" which explicitly clarifies how her intersecting identities are taught to fight and oppress one another... even in herself by the society we live in and the ways we divide up which identities are powerful and which are unworthy.
(3 minutes... a wonderful thing to listen to every day TBH)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CPAlSVaiL8
To me, if half the population can be sacrificed to a belief system/structure of human value/worth... they'll CLEARLY sacrifice anybody. I remember a guy once telling me how gay people "are rare and that proves they are unnatural" to explain his disgust... and I was like, "Hmm,... that's quite a claim. I seem to remember your girlfriend has green eyes, yes? That's only like 3% of humans. Green eyes are EXTREMELY rare! Is she unnatural? Because her green eyes are WAY more rare than gay people, who are at LEAST 10% of the population. Like maybe you should reconsider what you think is rare, and why diversity is *so* diverse and the mathematical lessons from that, before blaming people for your disgust that they're born/live different from you. NATURE is DIVERSE, haven't you NOTICED?!"
Really, I just think humans are neurotic and bordering on insane... as a SPECIES. We... are not very mentally/emotionally stable, logical, or coherent, which is fine I suppose, until we violently defend our neurotic illogical incoherent instability, that is.
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To me, if half the population can be sacrificed to a belief system/structure of human value/worth... they'll CLEARLY sacrifice anybody.
Consider at least one belief for which a lot of Americans have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice absolutely anybody whatsoever: the deaths of four white male sitting Presidents (and injuries to more) have proved insufficient to override the Divine Right of Guns.
I remember a guy once telling me how gay people "are rare and that proves they are unnatural" to explain his disgust... and I was like, "Hmm,... that's quite a claim. I seem to remember your girlfriend has green eyes, yes? That's only like 3% of humans. Green eyes are EXTREMELY rare! Is she unnatural? Because her green eyes are WAY more rare than gay people, who are at LEAST 10% of the population.
A fun exercise might be to work out what percentage of the population are straight white abled cis het culturally-Christian Anglo-diasporic males-that default human presumed to be the protagonist of the world.
Reply
With so many rules against black people (men) having guns historically in America, clearly there are lots of people white dudes don't think should have guns.. those are the gun laws/control that even the NRA apparently supported. It's almost as if America is trying to see how much hypocrisy you can live by/spout and still live, I think.
He was a superficial thinker... all it took was green eyes and a gentle pull on his very thin thought to pull it apart like a cinnamon bun.
Reply
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