and what it comes down to is...
I am only half-heartedly following the George R. R. Martin feminism/rape/etc internet debates, but here's what it comes down to in Sady's words:
That’s what it’s actually like, being a woman: Playing nice with every random asshole, because this random asshole might be the one who hurts you. And then, if he hurts you anyway, they’ll tell you that you led him on.
This line totally resonated with me, because I do play nice with people in general--often because I like to think I am generally a nice person, and curious about other people's lives, and willing to talk to just about anyone for a few minutes at a time... but also because, as a woman, I know that someone might hurt me simply for being a woman who does not respond nicely to their approach. Yes, we can have the "there's violence against men too, men get robbed/face random violence" discussion, but it's far less likely that a man will be hurt for simply not responding nicely to someone's request to chat than that a woman will be. And that bothers me, A LOT. The social conditioning to be nice bothers me; the consequences for not being nice bother me. Fuck the lot of it.
At any rate, I'm not fully caught up on the Martin books, and I'm sorta vaguely trying to avoid spoilers, so while I do think discussion of sexism and representations of rape in fantasy is an utterly fascinating topic, now I'm paying more attention to how these discussions are being framed, and who is expressing which viewpoints, and so on.
That’s what it’s actually like, being a woman: Playing nice with every random asshole, because this random asshole might be the one who hurts you. And then, if he hurts you anyway, they’ll tell you that you led him on.
This line totally resonated with me, because I do play nice with people in general--often because I like to think I am generally a nice person, and curious about other people's lives, and willing to talk to just about anyone for a few minutes at a time... but also because, as a woman, I know that someone might hurt me simply for being a woman who does not respond nicely to their approach. Yes, we can have the "there's violence against men too, men get robbed/face random violence" discussion, but it's far less likely that a man will be hurt for simply not responding nicely to someone's request to chat than that a woman will be. And that bothers me, A LOT. The social conditioning to be nice bothers me; the consequences for not being nice bother me. Fuck the lot of it.
At any rate, I'm not fully caught up on the Martin books, and I'm sorta vaguely trying to avoid spoilers, so while I do think discussion of sexism and representations of rape in fantasy is an utterly fascinating topic, now I'm paying more attention to how these discussions are being framed, and who is expressing which viewpoints, and so on.