Eve (The Bible) vs. Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Eve
Buffy Summers
Remaining time: 2 days 5 hours
Propaganda below the cut:
Eve:
Hi. It's me. I run this blog and make the polls. I submitted Eve because I kept waiting for someone else to do it and then no one did, so the blasphemy you see before you is all mine.
Anyway, it seems kind of silly to explain why Eve is a victim of fandom misogyny. It's pretty self-evident. But I went and reread the relevant chapters in Genesis for this (because I'm just that dedicated to procrastinating lol) and yeah, unsurprisingly, Adam's agency in the eating fruit from the tree of knowledge incident is totally erased. The Bible does acknowledge that Eve was talked into trying the fruit by the snake, just like Adam was talked into trying the fruit by Eve, but Eve is depicted as a far more active agent than Adam. Here's the quote (using NIV for the sake of simplicity): "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." So apparently Adam was just standing there the whole time ig? Just twiddling his thumbs, having nothing to say while his wife actively broke the one rule God gave them about living in the garden of Eden (and He threatened to kill them btw if they didn't follow this rule). And then Adam also breaks that rule, not out of any desire to do so, but just because his wife gave him something to eat. So I guess he has to eat it. It can't be helped!
But of course it has to be written that way, because the point of the Adam and Eve myth is to be an origin story for the patriarchy. That's how creation myths work; they're explanations for the way the world works. There are seven days in a week because that's how long it took God to make the world and also take a nap ig. And women exist because God didn't want Adam to be lonely. But that's not why women have to be subservient to men, it's specifically a punishment for Eve's crimes, or as God so delightfully puts it: "Because you have done this […] Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
Also, let's be so for real, God totally set Adam and Eve up! He builds this beautiful garden right? And then in the middle of the garden He puts a tree that Adam and Eve aren't allowed to eat from. But importantly, the tree's fruit are what grants you knowledge of right and wrong, and also knowledge in general. Before they eat the fruit, Adam and Eve do not have the capacity for knowledge. Like everything else in the Adam and Eve story this is is yet another creation myth explanation for how life works; this is how humanity gained the ability, or at the least the potential to be knowledgeable and ethical. So, in other words, not only is God sticking this really enticing thing right in front of Adam and Eve and just daring them to test His boundaries, He also does this while deliberately denying them the capacity to differentiate right from wrong!!!!! God basically punishes them for pursuing the very thing that could have prevented them from eating the fruit in the first place! Total set up!
Anyway, I know just spent a long time talking about the text, and this is a tournament about fandom misogyny, not the misogyny of the source material, but I think it's relevant because the Bible is famously a pretty influential book. The Adam and Eve story didn't invent the patriarchy, it's a creation myth, an explanation for something that already existed. But it did provide annoying sexist uncles everywhere with ammo for their bullshit sexist beliefs. You see, they insist, we can't challenge the patriarchy, because it's not some bullshit artificial hierarchy that ultimately makes the world worse in every way. No, it's divinely ordained because God decided it would be womankind's collective punishment for Eve's actions.
All of which is especially annoying given that literally all she did was eat some fruit! Her son Cain killed his own brother for no fucking reason! And this was after Adam and Eve gained knowledge and like ethics or whatever from eating the fruit and presumably passed that ability down to their descendants and by extension to all of humanity. So when Cain killed his brother, we know he did so with the capacity to understand right from wrong which is not something Eve was capable of when she committed her big sin (eating fruit). But somehow Eve's actions, not Cain fully murdering his brother, are the origin of all sin??? Make it make sense!!!
Well actually, the reason it doesn't make sense is completely the fault of fandom misogyny. You see, the concept of "original sin", i.e., the idea that Eve invented sin by eating the fruit, is actually not in the source material at all (and by source material I mean the Old Testament of course). See that stuff is a later Christian interpretation that takes the already quite misogynistic text and makes it way more misogynistic for no real reason. I cannot stress this enough, this shit is fully Christian fanon. As a Jew, I can't remember a time when I didn't know this story, but I only learned that Christians believe that original sin shit about Eve by reading His Dark Materials when I was like eleven. And another thing that's fully fanon is this common portrayal of Eve as this like sexual seductress who uses her feminine wiles to make Adam eat the fruit. As you saw, that actually has zero basis in the text. That fucker didn't need any convincing. She literally just gives him the fruit and he eats it like the fucking dope he is.
Speaking of which, because the Bible needs Eve to be the guiltier party compared to Adam, in order to justify her punishment and by extension the patriarchy, it inadvertently results in Eve being a way more interesting character than her husband. Adam is a passive loser who does nothing of his own accord. Eve gives him fruit from the tree of knowledge, and he has no thoughts about it, head fully empty. He eats the fruit because his wife gave it to him. But Eve has motives! It's not just the snake manipulating her, she wants to gain wisdom! She's curious! Within this creation myth framework, she is the reason human beings have knowledge and wisdom. If it weren't for her eating the fruit (and getting Adam to eat it too, because he certainly wasn't making going to make any decisions on his own), we wouldn't have the capacity to know things, to understand right from wrong, or to learn. Eve gave us that!!!! She's kind of amazing!!! She's not supposed to be, obviously, we're supposed to judge her for her disobedience. But idk, I like having knowledge. Learning is one of the best things about being alive imo, and according to the Bible's creation myth, we only have that capacity because Eve decided to break the rules, to defy God openly. And she lived to tell the tale. That's fucking iconic, who's doing it like her?
So shout out to my girl Eve! What a legend! She doesn't deserve the hate and it's definitely not her fault that her husband is a little bitch.
Buffy Summers:
The fandom and punishes her for having relationships outside their OTP of choice
Fandom blames her for Spike's attempted rape of her and in general acts like she owed him her love. In general, fandom is very focused on fighting over which of Spike vs. Angel "deserved" her.
She's an iconic hero with cool hair and deserves better than being reduced to a reward for either manpire.
She gets reduced to just the question of which hot vampire she's going to end up with and then people say crazy victim blaming shit about her to top it all off.
She's the TV Protagonist of All Time.
Moderator's note: this next propaganda entry was too long to put in list format (at least according to tumblr, i tried) so it's indented instead:
I've seen a lot of people in the notes confused at Buffy's presence in this tournament and claiming that she's universally beloved. And I sort of get why they think that. From what I've seen at least, in recent years Buffy Summers has become a lot less controversial due to a variety of factors. And I get how that can make it seem like she's not actually subjected to much fandom misogyny. But what people need to understand is that a big part of the reason that Buffy (the character) elicits such defensiveness in some fans is because a lot of us witnessed literal decades of absolutely rancid misogynistic bullshit directed towards her.
When I first joined the fandom (circa 2012) like every other take I saw was about how Buffy was the worst part of her own show. This is an insane opinion to have, not only because Buffy is just such a fantastic character, but also because I cannot stress enough just how central her character is to show. It's her bildungsroman, everything is a metaphor for what she's going through. The tone and vibe of any given season is entirely dependent on how Buffy's feeling at the time. Like half the characters are there to be narrative parallels to her. The supporting cast is great, don't get me wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen a protagonist who protagonisted harder than Buffy Summers. So I genuinely don't understand what there is to like about the show if you don't like her.
Anyway, as I was saying, she was hated on constantly, called whiny for having what is essentially textbook clinical depression, called selfish despite constantly sacrificing her wants and needs for the sake of everyone else, victim blamed for being sexually assaulted by her ex, and generally punished for not grovelling more for forgiveness for her every mistake. Newer fans might not be aware of all that, hence the confusion, but I was there Gandalf. I remember.
And you don't just have to take my word for it, I have proof.
gabriellabelle ran a livejournal dedicated to Buffy between about 2006 and 2012. It's honestly kind of a miracle that her livejournal is still up. It's a really valuable resource, in part because a lot of her meta still holds up (I don't agree with everything she says or anything, and some of her takes are certainly of their time, but she does have some interesting and insightful analysis that I'm glad is still readily available) but for my purposes, it's also a very well-organized reminder of what the fandom was like back then. gabriellabelle was a Spuffy shipper who actually liked and cared about Buffy as a character, and this put her in conflict with a lot of other Spuffy shippers (not all of them obviously, and it's worth noting that misogyny in the Buffy fandom was certainly never a phenomenon exclusive to Spuffy shippers, that was just who this blogger specifically responded to most because it was her corner of the fandom) who often reduced Buffy to being nothing more than Spike's love interest and reward, while also simultaneously hating on her for not being nice enough to Spike. And I think you can really get a sense of just how dire things were by reading what accusations she had to defend Buffy from. So here is a sampling:
In this post, she argues against the legitimately common take at the time that Spike's actions in Seeing Red should not be constituted as sexual assault. If you're not familiar with that scene, I'm not going to go into specifics, but trust me, the idea that this was ever up for debate is patently absurd. And for all the many many problems with how the writers handled this scene, one thing they never did was suggest that the nature of Spike's actions were even remotely ambiguous. Multiple characters (including Spike!) describe what Spike did as a rape attempt, because that's just obviously what it was. To suggest otherwise requires a level of mental gymnastics that is almost impressive in its delusion. Truly, these people were shooting for a gold medal in fandom misogyny.
In this post, she responds to a lot of anti-Buffy takes, but the main one she addresses is that a lot of fans felt that Buffy didn't do enough to atone to Spike (yes, that Spike) for her treatment of him in season 6, and demanded that she deserved to be punished more.
In this post, she responds to fans calling Buffy selfish, which again, that's just a very very odd thing to say about Buffy Summers.
In this post she defends Buffy from people who call her whiny for having depression.
Also, she wrote this crackfic that was a parody of a lot of Spuffy fics from this era in which Buffy has to beg for forgiveness from Spike and her friends for how horrible she is. It's a pretty accurate if over-the-top summation of what a lot of fic at the time was like.
There's probably a lot more you can find by looking at this livejournal and older fandom stuff in general. I just need people to understand that the state of the fandom on tumblr now is not reflective of how things used to be. And to be clear, it's not like there's no modern day fandom misogyny directed towards Buffy. I've seen posts from this year where people victim blame Buffy for the bathroom scene, and the only real difference between those posts and the type of shit people were saying back then is that nowadays people use woker language to try to obscure the fact that they're doing textbook victim blaming, whereas back then people were comfortable saying whatever. But things used to be so so much worse, so it annoys me when people (unintentionally) whitewash that by saying that Buffy has always been beloved or whatever.
This isn't all the Buffy propaganda that's been submitted, there's also this ask and this ask but tumblr is really giving me trouble with the lengthy propaganda under polls, so i'm just going to have to link those two.
maybe we’re just frustrated because you’re taking 15 minutes to order 4 items between multiple “ummms” and asking people on the phone what they want and all their 8 customizations instead of coming with a paper or text with all the orders on it and all we wanted was to take less than 3 minutes to order a single item or we planned it around an appointment or work and didn’t account for someone who doesn’t move their car up the drivethrough because they’re on their phone have you considered that or were you busy being a skinny paragon of virtue
in hindsight, growing up as an aromantic person who didn't know aromanticism was a thing...it woulda been really easy for me to assume that something was wrong with me, that I was "broken" or "missing" some piece of humanity.
luckily I was autistic, oblivious, and had a huge ego. it literally never occurred to me to frame it as a "me" problem. i just thought every single person i knew was a dumbass
wish online communities discussing autism in women weren't like, doing their best to contribute to the false perception there's a distinct Autism For Boys and Autism For Girls, when the whole time it's just social enforcement of gender roles influencing behavior
"Algospeak is just superstition / not real / blah blah blah" I get that you probably don't respect anyone whose income depends on YouTube enough to speak to them, but if you would, you'd figure out that there are in fact words you can't say on the platform without risking a video not just being demonetized, but even search banned or deleted entirely.
"Transgender" literally used to be one of the context-sensitive banned words on YouTube. I'm the reason that got fixed 5 years ago. My video was the one that got deleted citing a "child safety" policy because I said "transgender" in a video about Super Mario Galaxy and you used to LITERALLY not be allowed to mention trans people in anything that could be assumed to be "kid friendly" (like Mario.)
As tempting as it is to say that there's no excuse on Tik Tok bc you shouldn't be doing Tik Tok for a living, videos there absolutely will be suppressed if the topic you're speaking about isn't entirely positive and social media is supposed to be for conversation. If you can't have conversations about certain topics without your video being hidden from people, that's censorship!
Instagram's captioning tool straight up bleeps out swearing FOR you if you don't do it, too.
The platforms ARE censoring people, each to varying levels of severity, and y'all are fucking up the conversation about this by pretending they don't.
at some point, you have to recognize that the detrans grifters who cry about how t made them bald and spend their sad pathetic adult lives pretending like they were completely unaware of the effects of masculinizing hormones and treat trans people like they're all diseased or mentally ill children who cant think for themselves, and the roided out cismen with full beards who have no intention of actually transitioning but say shit like "im gonna play wnba now haha" to make a mockery of trans women even though you know for a fact that if you ever used she/her for them they'd punch your face for emasculinizing them, are the exact same type of person.
I'm sorry... That I broke my promise. That I would never get sick or hurt. And that I would catch for every single game you pitched. That's what I said, right? But when you put so much faith in me like that... Even though it made me really happy... I got hurt, and left the game halfway through.
Skyler White (Breaking Bad) vs. Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Skyler White
Martha Jones
Remaining time: 2 days 4 hours
Propaganda below the cut:
Skyler White:
she ‘got in the way’ of Walt doing murders, cooking, meth, and didn’t respect he was doing all these crimes and emotionally and physically abusing her for the ‘good of the family’. Essentially called her an evil bitch for not wanting to be exposed to danger and thinking her husband is a bad person because he couldn’t swallow his pride and take the cushy job his successful friend offered in order to pay for his cancer treatment and instead decided to cook meth and kill people. Oh and she cheated with an old flame (again because of Walt’s crime and abuse) but that’s worse I guess.
She’s literally just a normal woman who reacts to things the way a normal woman would and people lost their fucking minds about it. Hell she even helped Walt launder the money with a car wash like she set that shit all up herself and he and the fans still hated her.
obvious choice but skyler is ROUTINELY called the worst character in breaking bad and has been since like 2008. any conflict in the show and there will be people insisting she has some fault just because she "is annoying". also an eternal victim of "i don't like her because she reminds me of my mom"
breaking bad is the most fun show ever if you learn to love skyler white. her immediate suspicion of walter and constant attempts to support her family both with and against him are vindicating. she's smart, much more business savvy than him and a better liar. constantly looked down upon in-universe but explicitly uses it to her advantage at every step. she is awesome
Walter white is the worst human being in the entire show and everyone was like “she’s awful for trying to get him to stop manufacturing drugs.” Let’s not even mention the fact that he almost rapes her in the first season while she’s like eight months pregnant and no one ever talks about it ever.
She’s actually pretty cool and has the best line that no one ever quotes: “someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”
She's one of THE poster children for fandom misogyny victims. People reduced her to being Walt's bitch wife as if she wasn't a) 100% in the right in every argument against him b) better at doing crime than him to an extent that's straight up hysterically funny.
As I said, she's actually really really good at doing crime and there's something inherently very entertaining about watching this completely normal housewife/office worker turning out to be really good at money laundering and negotiating with criminals and coming up with cover stories. She has a failed writing career that she appears to be using coming up with cover stories for her husband's meth dealing as an outlet for, which is also really funny. She literally writes a script for him to use. There's also a really hilarious scene where the show cuts to Skyler on the wikipedia page for "money laundering" that made me laugh really hard. We love a wikipedia warrior.
The fandom blames her for all the problems that her husband Walter faces and calls her the worst character despite there being literal nazis and cartel members in the show. They also call her a slut, bitch, etc, even though the things she's done are not even comparable to the horrific actions that the male characters do.
She is smart as hell and strong asf for putting up with Walter's bullshit. Amazing at thinking on her feet. Isn't given enough credit for her intelligence and strength
Famously called a bitch by many brba fans for simply not being cool with her husband cooking meth and killing people
Where to even start… According to fandom, cheating on the husband who refuses to divorce you is magnitudes worse than murder and running a drug empire. Every criticism of Skyler I see boils down to the "nagging housewife" trope. She's not perfectly subservient so she must be evil and terrible. And yet Walt is cool and suave… okayyyyy…
Skyler is literally a human being who reacts perfectly rationally to the situation she finds herself unwillingly facing. That old man should have died in the car wash.
Maybe the most famous victim of fandom misogyny ever. Fandom acts like she was worse than Walt because she didn't want him to make meth.
Skyler wanted what was best for her family. Unlike Walt, she truly broke bad for her family. She made tough choices, not always good ones, but she was an abuse victim in a very unusual position. She is also great at lying and schemes.
goddamn near every single action she took in the show was a pretty reasonable reaction to her husband and his meth empire bullshit (including the affair because he literally refused to sign divorce papers before that started). and also she’s literally raped on screen by her husband who a bunch of bb fans actively idolize
Skyler White has to be the most unjustifiable hated female character. Even some of the actors are confused why she was considered the bitch.
how can Skyler White not win this. or at least come close. she's arguably the prime example in recent widely-popular culture what with the absurd degree she was demonised for acting in an entirely rational manner considering she was an abuse victim and for most of the series blatantly a hostage? I mean we can't possibly illuminate the extent of the (ongoing ad hanc diem) Skyler White misogyny but there are multitudinous video essays on the subject it's a riduculously widespread and rampant phenomenon. but that's not to minimise any of the other instances and Skyler ought to do well enough anyway given the vastness of her situation so. just our thoughts on the subject we'll be voting for Skyler since she's such a ridiculously prime example of misogyny
Skylar White doesn't need propaganda because she is famously one of the most hated female characters on TV, like, ever but wow the misogyny the character STILL faces is absolutely atrocious, to this day ppl call her a bitch for not wanting her (abusive!!) husband to become a drug lord who kills ppl.
Martha Jones:
She was the first main Black companion on Doctor Who…I'll just talk about the fandom racism/misogyny itself and not the racism/misogyny in the show itself. She was subject to overt and subtle misogynoir from the fandom, especially since she came after white fan-favorite companion Rose Tyler. People disliked her for having a crush on the Doctor, which Rose also had, and was unfavorably compared to Rose. There's a lot more, but I don't want to write a whole essay.
She's a medical student, and incredibly smart and capable! In her stories, she's incredibly compassionate to those around her, and offers emotional as well as medical assistance. Also, she has incredible style!
Martha gets absolutely shafted by the fandom, most of whom cannot seem to forgive her for not being Rose Tyler. That she dares to leave the Doctor and live her own life is apparently an act more evil than any the Daleks could dream of. A lot of fans insist that Martha's race has nothing to do with why they dislike her. A lot of fans are fucking liars.
Martha is competent and intelligent and screams way less than usual for a companion so she is clearly excellent.
I think fandoms been very racist and misogynistic towards her, relagating her as some spineless woman always pining after the doctor instead of a badass MD who saved the day many times
Not only misogyny but racism too. Martha is an incredibly smart and brave character who doesn’t get half the credit that the Doctor’s other (WHITE) companions get. She gets dogged on by the fandom for a lot of reasons that are overlooked or forgiven when Rose Tyler does a lot of the same things.
She was the only RTD companion who wasn’t given superpowers in order to save the day. Girl saved the world with nothing but gumption and a good pair of walking boots.
I still see hate fics for her in the big year of 2026 please god she's not getting in the way of your ship she walked away from that bum ass alien 15 years ago
So many fans consider Martha a "rebound" companion for 10 and say that she only cares about impressing him or something. Completely ignoring the fact that she was charmed into coming with him! Just like everybody else who travels with the Doctor. She also canonically SAVED THE WORLD by giving the people something to believe in and got to leave on her own accord without something terrible happening to her. She's also shown to be incredibly smart and talented, quickly adapting to situations even if she might be freaked out at first. And after she leaves she gets to work with UNIT (and im pretty sure she also appears in the Torchwood spin-off series) and eventually she ends up with someone who understands what she's been through. Martha is SO MUCH MORE than just a rebound companion or a girl obsessed with the Doctor. Sheis (at the time of meeting her) being trained to be a full on doctor who has incredible will power and a clear desire to help others.
I was part of the crowd who hated her for "getting between" my ship and "replacing" Rose. I even avoided rewatching the season she was in when i rewatched most everything else. (Just to be clear i wasn't part of the fandom during this time and i didn't spread the hate). After seeing her on this blog i started thinking back and reflecting on my opinion of her and concluded that i was being super misogynistic and racist. I decided to rewatch her season and even just a few episodes in i could tell how amazing Martha is. She's everything you could want in a companion, she's smart, capable, compassionate, brave, she balances The Doctor's personality really well. In fact i found myself more annoyed with The Doctor for how shittily he treated Martha, and the writers for not handling the whole thing better. All this to say: Martha get behind me i will defend you with my life and the lives of everyone who has ever hated her
Skyler White has faced a lot of fandom misogyny, so much so that I have heard about it despite never watching a single episode of Breaking Bad.
However, the song about Martha Jones on a compilation album that was sold on physical CDs is about how she needs to stop having emotions, especially her crush on the Doctor, because the fans hate her and Rose Tyler is destined for the Doctor. Don't read the comments on the YouTube video if you don't want to get very angry about it all, seventeen years later.
challenging all white women to put in even half the effort they spend on fearmongering to other white women about parking lot abductions to instead support MMIWG initiatives if they want to actually make a difference in protecting women
i am so sickkkkkkkk of people seeing misogyny perpetuated by a man and automatically going "well SOMEONE'S closeted" omfg you know that men hate women even when theyre attracted to them right??? why are you more interested in making fun of gay people than hating misogynists. you fucking freak
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