I’m trying to find “Whipping Girl” by Julia Serano on the internet because I can’t afford it right now and I just can’t seem to find it anywhere. If someone happens to have a pdf link, I’d be forever grateful.
Please?
I am incredibly grateful to my parents for giving me both kinds of toys. I preferred the dolls, but at least I know that was my own honest choice.
I still find most commentary on the sexist division of girl toys and boy toys to be rather lacking. Of course if is terrible that girls and boys are given toys that encourage them to enact stereotypical gender roles ways so young; this type of socialization might prime them to fill specific roles later on in life. But people are still undervaluing “girls toys,” equating them with passive frivolousness. And how sexist is that? The sentiment is that “gender neutral” toys, always verging towards “boys toys,” are constructive, educational, and worthwhile. Dolls aren’t. This is the kind of sentiment that dismisses the value of “women’s work” of care-giving later on in life.
“Boys toys” tend to be physically complex. “Girls toys” tend to be socially complex. The complexity of the imaginary play that children often engage in with dolls is intangible and made invisible early on—because you aren’t looking. It is so much easier for a child to say “look what I made” and get a pat on the back than to say “watch me engage.”
I played with lot of different types of toys. Sure, I liked to build things with legos. But I much preferred my dolls. And guess what? All forty or so of my beanie babies had individual personalities. They had roles, romances, they interacted with each other in complex ways. There were smaller subgroups of birds or bears. I used them to create a complete micro-society. But an adult passerby would see that pile of critters as a rather useless and excessive collection.
Understanding social complexities, the kind of play which “girls toys” encourage, is undervalued from an early age.
Let’s please stop with the “dolls are dumb” rhetoric. It isn’t helpful. It’s still sexist. The problem of gendered children’s toys won’t be fixed by allowing free access to “boys toys” for all, but by seeing the value in diverse types of play, and encouraging all children to engage in them.
Re-reblogging for commentary.
And to add that dolls ought to be marketed/designed in a way that encourages that kind of creative play, rather than the way they seem to be done now, with pre-packaged personalities and an emphasis on how “sexy” they are.
I have had dolls for like, ever, and it is part of the reason I am now a writer (because I can easily come up with diverse personalities) and a seamstress (because I made tons of doll clothes) and restorer (I used to get used dolls from toy stores and wash and clean them up). This hate-on for girl’s things is annoying as shit. The problem isn’t that girls get “girl things” it’s that girl things are devalued in this society.
In addition to all of the above commentary, this is a really valuable discussion about how these roles do a disservice to everyone - the male-coded kid is getting a toy that has physical utility, the female-coded child is getting one that has social utility and both children are being actively discouraged from using the other toy. Ideally, both children should be encouraged to develop both skill sets because SKILLS ARE AWESOME.
Faith, and this kind of stuff, actually really bugs me… Faith was extremely predatory, and I think this conversation may conflate that with ‘swinging both ways.’
^This, OMG.
One of the things that really bugged me about Faith was that she seemed to once again be part of a PSA anti-sex (Joss Whedon has a lot of those on Buffy, if you ask me). Like, she was ‘evil’ and part of her evilness was that she was always interested in having sex with everyone and not really being ‘in love’ and this ‘thing’ that she had for Buffy only seems to ‘exist’ to be part of her ‘being evil’.
Ugh, I loved Faith, but I really really hated the way Joss treated her.
The Strange Case of Love in Elementary
With the premiere of the megasuperawesome pilot episode of Elementary, I thought it a good time to talk about something that has realllyyy bugged me for the last few months.
I’ve been in this fandom since we first caught wind that HBIC extraordinaire, Lucy Liu, would be playing Watson, and became a bonafide stan when Elementary kept dishing out consistently awesome stuff (New York! Recognition of canon addiction! A Holmes that’s not a special snowflake douche! POCs in important, recurring roles!).
And because being an Elementary fan means having to deal with a bunch of ignorant twats, I’ve spent most of the last year on livejournal going through argument after argument of thinly-veiled racism, sexism, and queer fetishization. I’ve only recently become active on tumblr and I’m not even on it much, but a person doesn’t need to spend a lot of time here to see that it’s more of the same. It’s possibly even worse. And though it is great to see so many people unwilling to take such bullshit, even when said bullshit is never-ending and refuses to shut up, for the love of god -there is one statement that anti-Elementary peeps keep churning out that even a few pro-Elementary fans will concede to: the assertion that it would be super problematic, sexist, and homophobic should this version of Holmes and Watson ever enter into a romantic relationship.
And I need you guys, both anti and pro, to realize how much that doesn’t make any fucking sense. So I’m going to debunk the most common explanations we’ve been given of why this would supposedly be omgsooffensive and hopefully, we won’t have to bare witness to this again.
If Barbie was an actual woman, she would be 5’9” tall, have a 39” bust, an 18” waist, 33” hips and a size 3 shoe.
• Barbie calls this a “full figure” and likes her weight at 110 lbs.
• At 5’9” tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 and fit the weight criteria for anorexia. She likely would not menstruate.
• If Barbie was a real woman, she’d have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.
• Slumber Party Barbie was introduced in 1965 and came with a bathroom scale permanently set at 110 lbs with a book entitled “How to Lose Weight” with directions inside stating simply “Don’t eat.”
i’m always reblogging this.
I’ve reblogged this a million times and will ALWAYS reblog it. She is so beautiful…It’s a great message.
I always reblog this when I see it on my dash.
You cant just NOT reblog this
I am incredibly sick of people right now
TW :: abuse, assault, harassment, pretty typical cismale fuckery
Just last week I happened to be awake at 3 am and heard “go away, stop it” from outside my apartment window. Of course I was worried and wound up going outside with my cell phone and my pocket knife (the cell phone so I could pretend I was on it). I found a woman across the street, 18-20, somewhat drunk and trying to pull away from a guy claiming to be her boyfriend. After walking to the end of the block and back I sucked it up and stopped right next to them and asked her if she was okay. No. I asked if she knew him. Yes. I asked if he was her boyfriend. No. I asked if she wanted to go with him. No. I told her she could come with me. He wouldn’t let go of her arm and kept talking to her with the platitudes women are familiar with - come on baby, I’ll take you home, just hang out with me, we were having such a good time - and eventually he gave in after seeing I had my finger on the dial button, but he was vibrating on the spot and he was pissed. Then he kept talking to me with all the insults women are familiar with - bitch, cunt, stupid fucking slut, etcetera forever. And of course he went after her for “leading him on.” I got her in a cab from my front door and went so far as to make sure I didn’t turn on any lights when I went inside so he wouldn’t know that my apartment was on the basement level facing the street where he was standing.
But this isn’t a problem or anything.
A few months ago I was working late shifts at work and getting off at 3 am. I only live a few blocks from there, so I was walking home. This was when there was a series of attacks against women in my neighbourhood. Not rapes, but escalating attempts to harm women, involving choking. So yes, I was on red alert. A group of five men from the bars saw me walking home. They started calling out to me - again, with all the lines women are used to (that, by the way guys, are not in the least bit attractive) - hey baby, where you goin, come on just stay and chat, a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be going home alone, where do you live. I ignored them and walked faster, and they sped up to keep up with me. Five men in their 20s. Following me home, drunk, and getting progressively angrier that I wouldn’t talk to them. “Why the fuck you being so rude? We just want to talk, quit being such a frigid bitch.” *guffaw guffaw* “Baby come on slow down, have some coffee with us.” I walked even faster, still not talking to them. I have foot and knee injuries, so this was getting really painful and I couldn’t have broken into a run if I’d tried. They thought this whole thing was quite hilarious and quite rude of me, never mind that I’m the one being followed home by drunk strangers. I finally looped a block and backtracked to the main road, which is really well-lit, and plopped myself dead centre in the middle of the ambulance-police combo that is in front of one of the bars every Saturday night without fail.
But street harassment isn’t a problem or anything.
Walking down a bright road in daylight, men lean out of car windows and honk and cheer at me and my friends. This has been happening since I was 14. Many of them are stuck at the same light we are, so we spend a good two minutes listening to them ask us to flash them. “Just show us your titties, we’ll give you each $5!”
Going to a bar and getting my ass groped at the bar as a precursor to offering to buy me a drink. I don’t know if men think this is a demonstration of their sexual abilities, or what, but it happens all the time.
Walking home from Walmart at 10pm and having a guy walk by me say “nice titties” thinking I can’t hear him because I have headphones in. Worst of all, spinning in anger and having to keep my mouth shut, because it could get a lot worse really fast.
Being “accidentally” groped on buses and trains frequently (they say they’re stumbling and that’s where their hands end up, but come on: I’m on the same vehicle, there was no jolt, and even if their was my hands don’t wind up on them), and not being able to complain without everybody thinking you’re crazy.
Dancing at a bar and having a guy slide his hand down the front of my pants. And then getting thrown out for elbowing him and shoving him away from me.
Getting told to smile by strangers (always men), and being told to cheer up, like I owe them a certain mood.
Having a guy you slept with once sit outside your house for seven hours, and then try to follow you inside while you pretend not to notice his car, and then disregard your requests through the intercom to leave you alone. And then, when you finally call the police, having the policeman call you back to say “He’s leaving, but he sounded sincerely sorry. You shouldn’t be so hard on him, he sounds like a nice guy.” Yeah, give him your home address then.
Having male customers look you up and down like you’re on the menu, and not being able to slap the customer who grabs your ass while you’re cleaning tables because you’ll be fired.
Finding out your sister’s employer felt comfortable uttering threats to punch her in the face for accusing him of being unfair, and her not feeling like she could tell anybody.
Having my male boss feel like he can touch me, rub my shoulders, call me honey and sweetheart and baby, and him being right, he can do those things, because everybody calls you oversensitive if you complain about those things.
Being followed home numerous times, both on foot and by car, being forced to talk to the guy who sits next to you on the bus for 45 minutes straight, and since I couldn’t think of a non-threatening way not to give him my phone number, I did so that I could get away. It took him a year and a half to stop calling me. Being told I’m paranoid for carrying any kind of protection, and stupid for not protecting myself, I’m a misandrist for assuming the worst of strange men, and stupid for having a conversation, I’m rude for asking men to leave me alone, and stupid and weak for not being more direct and assertive. Being told to go out and have fun more, stop being so uptight, and having that thrown in my face when something happens, because if I had some morals and didn’t advertise myself as, I don’t know, being alive or something, nothing would have happened. Being told to give him a chance and then being told to stop leading him on. Having to know all of the escape routes on my way home, and sending staff to the dumpsters in pairs. Having it be a fucking brave thing to do to stand next to a girl so she can walk away from the guy trying to bully her into going home with him.
And then having to listen to people say, “You’re exaggerating. Men aren’t like that, quit trying to see the worst in people. Men get harassed too, just ignore them and walk away. It’s the same thing.” Listening to people just step right over the fact that if woman deems a guy creepy, she’s told she’s being too critical and she needs to lower her standards, but if a man deems a woman possessive, controlling, demanding, jealous, bitchy, clingy, psycho, on her period, whiny, or outright dangerous he’s commended on his standards and congratulated on a bullet deftly dodged.
How many women does it take to bring these things to light before people stop thinking we’re crazy, over-critical bitches?
men need to read this and shut the fuck up.
stop defining yourself by these numbers that mean nothing. You’re not a doll or a piece of meat or something with some set dimensions that you have to fit into. Your life is so much more than the sum of everything you eat. It just makes me so sad and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not like she has any shortage of people telling her she’s beautiful and gorgeous and perfect, but I think stuff like that just reinforces this idea that you are a face and a weight and a height.
Sometimes I wish I could just break all the mirrors and reflective surfaces, all the scales and tape measures and things, and just force people to spend a month, or a week even, not thinking about their bodies and just making themselves happy just being the way they are.
“
| — |
http://thatisnotfeminism.tumblr.com/post/28209303221/one-of-my-classmates-has-a-thinspo-blog This is all perfect. |
“…to be fair, these princesses aren’t radical. They aren’t pushing the envelope of femininity. They are only reflecting the fact that ideal femininity in the West has changed such that the perfect woman now incorporates some masculine character traits. “Some” is the operative word here. Today’s ideal woman is still feminine, but she works, wears pants, and plays sports. She may even be a sports fan and drink beer. But she also preserves her femininity, especially those aspects of femininity that mark her as “for” a (just barely and totally benevolently of course) dominant male. She still doesn’t disagree too vigorously or laugh too loud. She marries a man who is slightly older, more educated, larger, taller, and makes a bit more money at his job that is just slightly higher prestige. And, no matter what, she looks, dresses, and moves in pretty, feminine ways.”
Me *sarcastic*: Yeah, sure, I’ll want lots of home & cleaning products for Christmas!
Awesome Boyfriend: I wouldn’t mind gaining some of those… it actually would make my life simpler. The automatic dishwasher, for instance! *dreamy eyes*
