Tory vs. the F-Word
So my new crack these past few days--besides, of course, the FFX replay, which is to the last save point--is reading the archives at, say, Feministing. Or this crackin' blog (that particular link is image-heavy, maybe NWS, but I love it for containing the line "[I'm] wondering if fangirls are the future of feminism.")
I have never really considered myself a feminist. More of a of-course-men-and-women-are-equal-now-let's-get-over-it-and-talk-about-new-stuff-ist. And, yeah, I've lived in enough of a privileged liberal bubble for my entire life that I could get away with it. Hell, I've barely experienced any discrimination/hostility/put-downs for being queer, never mind female; it's one of my basic assumptions that the answer is always "yes, I can, and should," or "yes, women can, and should." I entertained presidential fantasies. You know.
And I never really had any direct interest in feminism or women's studies or that general intellectual area. (Which I would now, after extensive study reading two blogs, categorize as "what this world, as it is, does to women--who, btw, do kick ass, thank you--and how we can go about making things better in that regard.") It was pretty much a "you people and your quaint little categories" reaction.
That started changing--because you will never escape fandom with me!--when the idea for Stars bit me in the ass. Because--I've rambled about this extensively before, but will condense--what drove me to write that thing was not just "oo, shiny" or "oh fuck, Stella's HOT" (well, some of the latter), but the fact that this fic, rare for me, seems to be Saying Something. And the ideas and the characters started catalyzing when I stopped and thought, "wait a minute, how would people react to an independent female superhero at X time? Or to a woman beating up Nazis/being a doctor/running an international munitions firm in 1942/1966/1972?" And the answer was generally "not well."
And that started me thinking--mostly at the hindbrain level--about how society shapes women as opposed to men. Which I'd never really thought about before. And then it kind of all exploded to the front when I randomly clicked through to Feministing from a general political blog, and...
...now I find myself sitting here thinking, "I'm a feminist."
That's new.
I have always had a vague aversion to the word. Mainly because I vaguely associate it with female chauvinism, which is one of my major pet peeves. I happen to like men; of the people I've known personally, I've had far more quarrels and abuse issues with women than with men; and my general goal with this sort of thing is equality. I get pissy when either primary gender treats the other like second-class people who think only with their dicks/uteri/wallets/cars/mall gift cards. It strikes me as defeated the point.
And that association--is the sort of thing one just sort of osmoses from the culture. Along with the idea that feminism has done its job--hey, look, we can vote, we don't have to take our husband's name, there are ovaries present in sports and politics well, sort of, and we're all over the workplace making less money.
So, yeah, I didn't consider myself a feminist, because the culture has tacked a miasma of "radical man-hating" around the word. (I did know enough to know that there's sex-positive feminism, versus the old all-sex-is-rape trope that gets trotted out now and then by people who don't like Firefly, but I admit that that was pretty much it.) And I like my bras, because otherwise they bounce and it hurts; and I have a decent prospect in life; etcetera. Mostly you'd just hear me ranting from time to time about how I believe in equal-opportunity consensual objectification, thank you. (Which I blame on reading Elfquest at a young age, where all the hot elves of both genders are half-naked and horny.) Or the bits of annoyance that, yeah, it's not exactly fair that possessing one set of genitals gets you held to a beauty standard that entails spending massive amounts of time and effort and money, not to mention starving yourself and wearing uncomfortable shoes, while possessing the other set of genitals entails you to shave only the visible bits. Especially the starving yourself bit; that I get cranky about, especially after reading another blog. But.
I think my train of thought has--not quite derailed, but has paused at an intersection of several tracks and is sitting, mulling, and sending the people out with the blankets for the sleeper cars. But at least it's acquired a shiny new label to add to its collection: feminist.
On an irrelevant note (B-flat!), I give you the "501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to toasters - yes, that's correct, the kitchen appliance."
On a Stars related note (A!), I need to reboot my writerbrain. (kink_bingo fucking exhausted me.) I've been poking at it. Brainstorming. Got my hands on the scans of the old origin stories for Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Hen's past and inner life is finally coming together in my head. And it's also become clear that this fic is spawning sequels. God help us all. Mostly the Yellowjacket arc, which would need to be in a separate thing for timeline and tone issues, and which I'm, frankly, fucking terrified of writing. All issues of huge sprawling writing projects aside, I know how it should go, and I don't know if I can go there.
I have never really considered myself a feminist. More of a of-course-men-and-women-are-equal-now-let's-get-over-it-and-talk-about-new-stuff-ist. And, yeah, I've lived in enough of a privileged liberal bubble for my entire life that I could get away with it. Hell, I've barely experienced any discrimination/hostility/put-downs for being queer, never mind female; it's one of my basic assumptions that the answer is always "yes, I can, and should," or "yes, women can, and should." I entertained presidential fantasies. You know.
And I never really had any direct interest in feminism or women's studies or that general intellectual area. (Which I would now, after extensive study reading two blogs, categorize as "what this world, as it is, does to women--who, btw, do kick ass, thank you--and how we can go about making things better in that regard.") It was pretty much a "you people and your quaint little categories" reaction.
That started changing--because you will never escape fandom with me!--when the idea for Stars bit me in the ass. Because--I've rambled about this extensively before, but will condense--what drove me to write that thing was not just "oo, shiny" or "oh fuck, Stella's HOT" (well, some of the latter), but the fact that this fic, rare for me, seems to be Saying Something. And the ideas and the characters started catalyzing when I stopped and thought, "wait a minute, how would people react to an independent female superhero at X time? Or to a woman beating up Nazis/being a doctor/running an international munitions firm in 1942/1966/1972?" And the answer was generally "not well."
And that started me thinking--mostly at the hindbrain level--about how society shapes women as opposed to men. Which I'd never really thought about before. And then it kind of all exploded to the front when I randomly clicked through to Feministing from a general political blog, and...
...now I find myself sitting here thinking, "I'm a feminist."
That's new.
I have always had a vague aversion to the word. Mainly because I vaguely associate it with female chauvinism, which is one of my major pet peeves. I happen to like men; of the people I've known personally, I've had far more quarrels and abuse issues with women than with men; and my general goal with this sort of thing is equality. I get pissy when either primary gender treats the other like second-class people who think only with their dicks/uteri/wallets/cars/mall gift cards. It strikes me as defeated the point.
And that association--is the sort of thing one just sort of osmoses from the culture. Along with the idea that feminism has done its job--hey, look, we can vote, we don't have to take our husband's name, there are ovaries present in sports and politics well, sort of, and we're all over the workplace making less money.
So, yeah, I didn't consider myself a feminist, because the culture has tacked a miasma of "radical man-hating" around the word. (I did know enough to know that there's sex-positive feminism, versus the old all-sex-is-rape trope that gets trotted out now and then by people who don't like Firefly, but I admit that that was pretty much it.) And I like my bras, because otherwise they bounce and it hurts; and I have a decent prospect in life; etcetera. Mostly you'd just hear me ranting from time to time about how I believe in equal-opportunity consensual objectification, thank you. (Which I blame on reading Elfquest at a young age, where all the hot elves of both genders are half-naked and horny.) Or the bits of annoyance that, yeah, it's not exactly fair that possessing one set of genitals gets you held to a beauty standard that entails spending massive amounts of time and effort and money, not to mention starving yourself and wearing uncomfortable shoes, while possessing the other set of genitals entails you to shave only the visible bits. Especially the starving yourself bit; that I get cranky about, especially after reading another blog. But.
I think my train of thought has--not quite derailed, but has paused at an intersection of several tracks and is sitting, mulling, and sending the people out with the blankets for the sleeper cars. But at least it's acquired a shiny new label to add to its collection: feminist.
On an irrelevant note (B-flat!), I give you the "501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to toasters - yes, that's correct, the kitchen appliance."
On a Stars related note (A!), I need to reboot my writerbrain. (kink_bingo fucking exhausted me.) I've been poking at it. Brainstorming. Got my hands on the scans of the old origin stories for Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Hen's past and inner life is finally coming together in my head. And it's also become clear that this fic is spawning sequels. God help us all. Mostly the Yellowjacket arc, which would need to be in a separate thing for timeline and tone issues, and which I'm, frankly, fucking terrified of writing. All issues of huge sprawling writing projects aside, I know how it should go, and I don't know if I can go there.