umm i need reassurance that my presence is wanted but i canât ask for reassurance because thatâs really Embarrassing and it wouldnât feel genuine if i asked for it
AnasAbdin
styofa doing anything
Keni
taylor price
we're not kids anymore.

titsay
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if i look back, i am lost
Peter Solarz
Mike Driver
will byers stan first human second
Misplaced Lens Cap
dirt enthusiast

oozey mess
đȘŒ
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
RMH
One Nice Bug Per Day
almost home
art blog(derogatory)
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@lynnforrest
umm i need reassurance that my presence is wanted but i canât ask for reassurance because thatâs really Embarrassing and it wouldnât feel genuine if i asked for it
If you would be so kind as to reblog this if you feel insecure about your writing skills.
We need platonic friendships
Today, as I went through a few more boxes lingering from my no-longer-so-recent interstate move, I found some of my notebooks from high school. I went through some internally messed up periods back then. I battled depression. I can admit that now. I couldn't then. The entire time, particularly my senior year, I stubbornly refused to face the fact that I was indeed depressed. I knew I was broken, my friends knew I was broken, but the idea of medication and/or therapy TERRIFIED me. I thought it would advertise to the world that something was wrong with me like a giant I AM DEPRESSED tattoo on my forehead. I couldn't put words to one of the things that depressed me back then, but reading my teenage words now, it's so obvious. I craved male friendships. I didn't see myself as much of a "girl"--I still don't--and I loved spending time with guys and being validated as an interesting person by guys and doing "guy things" like paintball. Sure, I had crushes on guys (which never went anywhere because I couldn't be myself around them, because I hated on myself SO hard for not being girly enough to attract their attention). But people, mainly other girls, would always assume that I had a crush on one of my single guy friends because why else would I want to hang out with them all the time? Yes, they were easy on the eyes. Yes, they were nice people. But they were my friends. I never wanted us to be more than that. I wanted guys I could be myself around, whether it was to play with airsoft guns or watch movies or talk about our love lives (generally the lack thereof). In combination with other things, not being able to articulate my feelings back then nearly drove me insane. It was one of the many ways I called myself broken, stupid, useless, unworthy of love, unworthy of life, etc. (I never attempted suicide, but I entertained the thought throughout my senior year.) Here's the point of this post: Writers, I beg you to give us more platonic relationships. Whatever the sexuality and/or romantic preferences of your characters may be, give them friendships with people who they technically could be attracted to romantically and/or sexually. Please. Especially if said character isn't currently in a relationship. Show people who have friends without ever entertaining thoughts of dating and/or sleeping with them. My teen self needed more of these stories. My current self still needs them. I'm kicking myself right now because my Pitch Wars MS doesn't do that when it totally could have. (What the HELL were you thinking, self of three years ago?!) Now I'm struggling to remove the romantic element of their relationship from my brain, but thanks to my mentor's feedback, I think I can do a damned better job of experimenting with the situations in which such feelings may or may not develop. (The revisions aren't done yet, so time will tell how successful I am.) Whatever happens with that MS, I'm writing other novels and revising completed novels to ensure that they have platonic relationships. Because I need them. Because maybe someone else does too.
Me: *sees a female character doing something terrifying and badass*
Me: *deep breath*
Me: *delighted pterodactyl screech*
Exactly.Â
Imagine a wall full of circular holes, that circles can keep walking in and out of with no difficulty.
Now imagine that the triangles manage to get the resources together, after years of not being able to fit through the circleâs holes, to drill a single triangle space into the wall.
Now imagine that the circle â who previously supported the triangleâs efforts because they are well-rounded (har) and value equality â Â comes along and sees the construction project. But instead of being happy, they get angry.
âWell, I wonât be able to fit through your hole!!!!â the circle cries.
âI helped you get the drill!!!!â the circle shrieks.
âMake it fit me too!!!!â the circle demands.
The triangles, barely holding it together enough to get a triangle hole together, stare at the circle in confusion.Â
âYou have all the holes you need,â the triangles explain. âThis is for us. You donât need to fit through our hole, too.â
âYOUâRE BEING UNEQUAL AND HURTING MY FEELINGS!â the circle wails. âI DONâT SUPPORT YOUR HOLE IF IT DOESNâT FIT ME TOO. GIVE ME MY DRILL BACK.âÂ
âItâs not your drill, itâs our drill. You helped us get it, because you said you cared.â
âI ONLY CARED WHEN I THOUGHT YOUâD MAKE A HOLE EVERYONE COULD FIT THROUGH. YOUâRE PERPETUATING INEQUALITY!!!â
âWhy is it up to us, the small group that has never been able to fit through the wall at all, to make a hole everyone can use? Why isnât it up to you, the people who have been able to cross back and forth at will for years? We just want to see the other side; why are you yelling at us?â
âI DIDNâT ASK TO BE BORN A CIRCLE, OMG. IâVE HAD TO WORK HARD ALL MY LIFE TOO. YOUâRE JUST BEING BIGOTED AGAINST ME BECAUSE OF SOMETHING I CANâT CONTROL, JUST LIKE EVERYONE IS AGAINST YOU.â
âYou are interfering with our project and asking us to comfort you while weâre trying to make progress. Please leave.â
âIâm going to tell everyone about this,â the circle warns. âNobody will support you now.â
âApparently nobody ever did,â the triangles sigh, getting back to work.
Itâs kind of sad
That we have to draw comics using colorful shapes
To explain systematic inequality to people
Reblogging again because yes good
Another reblog.
Pretty sure âmoney canât buy happinessâ is meant to actually mean âdonât neglect emotional health and caring for the people in your life in the pursuit of more wealth than you needâ, but instead middle-class and rich people use it to tell poor people âdonât strive to have financial security even though I have itâ.
I want to give this post a hug
#yes ALL aces
support sex repulsed aces support sex positive aces support sex neutral aces support sex negative aces support sex indifferent aces support sex favorable aces support aces who are ace because theyâve been abused support aces whoâve never been abused in their lives support aces who love chicken nuggets and dinosaurs support aces who donât fit ace stereotypes support alloromantic aces support aromantic aces support aces who arenât comfortable with their orientation support aces who couldnât be more proud of being ace support neurodivergent aces support cold and detached aces support flirty aces support disabled aces support aces who have sex support aces who donât have sex support trans aces support cis aces support aces who are constantly hated for who they are support aces who are surrounded by loving and accepting people support nonbinary aces support ace people of color support aces who are told they donât exist support aces who are told that itâs just a phase
SUPPORT ALL ACES
A ramble on the stigma of birth control
I'm in pain today. It's normal and expected and that doesn't make it any more fun, but it does coincide with the Planned Parenthood debacle. I call it a debacle because, as a scientist, I combed the internet for sources for both sides of the argument, the argument on whether or not Planned Parenthood is illegally selling body parts from aborted fetuses. I could find no evidence supporting the claims that this is true. I could find no evidence supporting the claims that living humans are being vivisected for their organs. I saw depressing pictures, images of preterm and stillborn babies, harrowing tales of loss and pain and heartbreak. I saw real stories usurped by an anti-organizational movement. (I've seen some images posted, unwanted and unwarranted, @-ing users on Twitter. That is so freaking not cool.) If you want to see an example of what I mean, read this Huff Post article. The link to Alexis Fretz's story in that article is not one to click lightly. I can't stand the fact that Planned Parenthood is being demonized for its association with abortions. Time for a tangent: Pro-lifers, how have you not yet figured out that this tactic isn't making you any friends? Shoving YOU'RE A MURDERER! in the faces of women struggling with the impact this pregnancy will have on the rest of their lives isn't going to change their minds. It's going to make them hate you. (Also, perhaps you should look at the men involved too. You might not be aware of this biological fact, but a woman doesn't spontaneously get pregnant, mmkay?) Back to the birth control thing. As far as I can tell, many people seem to equate birth control with abortion because it's avoiding unwanted pregnancies, and pregnancies are related to sex (HEY THEY DO GET HOW BIOLOGY WORKS), and sex is bad. This has a huge impact on teenage girls growing up in conservative environments. Because artificial hormones are associated with birth control, any non-birth-control-related use of them adds a stigma. An assumption that because you're on a medication that CAN regulate whether or not you get pregnant, YOU MUST BE HAVING SEX. In high school, a friend took medication for a bad acne problem. Though it had a particular brand name (that I can't recall right now) and was intended for acne, it was essentially birth control. People looked at her differently, adults and fellow high schoolers. They dared to make snide comments behind her back and to her face. They believed they had the right to trash her reputation based on a single prescription. Imagine how much worse it would have been to actually take birth control. So I didn't, not until I finished college. I put up with the monthly pain that woke me in the middle of the night and left me puking in the bathroom for hours, the pain that kept me home from class unless I got it under control in time, because I didn't want to be called a slut for taking medicine that would make my life better. I didn't want to go to Planned Parenthood because I didn't want anyone to know I'd gone there. But at least I had the option of going there. We must keep that option open. I wish I could change the collective mind of conservative society, but as that's a far more difficult problem, let's keep Planned Parenthood around. Because girls should have a way to get the medication they need to live their lives like normal people. Because women (including trans women!) should have access to safe options for their health and access to understanding healthcare providers. Because women who choose to have abortions should be able to get them in safe, sterile, experienced environments. You may not agree with abortions, but that doesn't mean you have the right to tell a woman she can't have that choice. What good is humanity's free will when you provide only one option to choose?
denying a truth doesnât erase it
"News flash: no one wants to know who youâre sleeping with, straight or gay." This line comes from a blog quoted in an article on the Mary Sue discussing complaints about non-straight people in Chuck Wendig's Star Wars: Aftermath. I'm pissed. Let me tell you why. First of all, just because people have a certain orientation DOESN'T MEAN THEY'RE HAVING SEX. We queer people aren't constantly prowling for future sexual partners, huffing and puffing with unsated sex drive between each tryst. (Also, I highly doubt this blogger has heard of asexuality.) There are virgin queer people. Celibate queer people. Queer people in committed monogamous relationships (which, by the way, includes bisexuals and pansexuals). Oh hey look guess what WE'RE PEOPLE TOO. (Yes, there are queer people who do sleep around, but guess what? Straight people also do that! Shocker!) Secondly, as far as I can tell, this blogger's complaint didn't come about because OH NOES PEOPLE ARE HAVING SEX (which happens alllll the time in books, including Star Wars books). It came about specifically because characters were queer, and apparently people reading the book are getting tied down and forced to accept that reflection of reality. News flash: just because you don't like a truth doesn't make it any less truthful. (Also, don't whine about supposedly being made to accept something you don't like when you're doing that to other people, you hypocrite.) Now, I haven't read the book, so I don't know if queer characters actually do have sex in it. But my points still stand. So kudos to Chuck Wendig for representing more of humanity's spectrum in Star Wars. I discovered that the blog post in question was a donotlink from the Mary Sue page, so I read it. I wish I hadn't. Apparently queer people don't deserve representation because, per category, less than 2% of men/women (ack binary) are gay/lesbian and less than 1% are bisexual. Add it up, and you're talking about erasure of 4.6% of the US population. (Note that the statistics on that blog post conveniently exclude others on the QUILTBAG spectrum.) That's nearly 1 in 20. According to him, 1 in 20 people aren't worth representing. I'm going to have to disagree with that. Forever. *waves* Hi, anti-gay blogger person. We're here, we're queer, and many of us are better humans than you.
"I suck at being a girl." I said this all the time when I was a kid. When I was a teen. Even as an adult. For a while, I said it because I was ashamed that I wasn't girly, that I wasn't interested in makeup or hair or skirts or babies or anything remotely pink. I didn't cook until I got married, I can't sew (though I can put on a button!), and please don't ever ask me to iron anything. Instead, I threw footballs. I shot guns. I ran as hard as I could and threw as hard as I could because I wanted to hang out with the boys. I injured people unintentionally because they didn't expect me to be as strong as I was. I loved science and science fiction and superheroes and any story with a woman who kicked ass without wearing heels or a dress or needing rescue. I don't throw footballs often anymore, and I run because it's good for me, but the rest of it is still the same. Which means I still suck at being the stereotypical girl. And I like it. I like stomping on stereotypes, on gender roles, on the stupid black and white perception we have of gender. I have geeky stuff in my work office, in my home office, in my bedroom. I play video games with or without my husband. I can cook now, but I add alcohol and/or nerdy flair. (For example, I once made Kyubey cupcakes.) I can't express how much I adore the #PrettyHeroes Twitter hashtag. My smile won't stop growing as I scroll through everyone's tweets. I hate the remark and the narrowmindedness behind it that started the hashtag, but I love the outpouring of support and community that followed. I love knowing that I'm not alone, that I'm not wrong, that I'm not broken. I hope the kids of today (whether they be girls or boys or genderqueer) can see this trend and ignore the idiocy of those too blind to realize how cool they are.
This is going to be both longer and more heartfelt than I normally do on the internet, so I apologize in advance.Â
Yesterday, a reader asked me about a panel called âWriting the Otherâ that Iâd been asked to do at NerdCon this October. I answered here. In response, people posted things like this and this. I was horrified; Iâd clearly failed utterly to represent my feelings. I reached out to Justina Ireland, who listened as I poured out my heart to her, and then encouraged me to cut open a vein on the internet to make my position more clear. I should emphasize that all thoughts in this post are mine and donât reflect upon her at all; they are me, unfiltered, and you can easily find her to chat about her thoughts on all of this on twitter.Â
So about cutting that vein. I would rather be a closed, flippant asshole on the internet in order to protect my soft heart parts. Itâs ever so much easier to face a crowd when youâve got your performer smile on. Itâs a lot easier when someone judges you when theyâre only judging the chaff that you threw out to dazzle.Â
And I know that if I post my true thoughts here, itâs gonna be judged just as hard, only itâs going to be harder for me because Iâll know itâs my true self being parsed.Â
But I guess Iâm gonna do it. Catch my body, friends.Â
So here is what I told her, more or less. Now Iâm telling you.Â
I should say upfront: this past twelve months has been an incredibly challenging one for me on the internet. My internet presence grew far faster than my ability to understand all the ramifications of that enormous presence, and for the first time, Iâve found myself having to deal with online rumors and whispers. Before, people used to come straight to me if they heard something that sounded unpleasant, asking me to confirm or deny. Now, I am a Thing, a Behemoth, a Movement. Obviously it has its good points, as well. But only a few years ago I was published by a small press and my books didnât even make it to commercial bookstores. So itâs been a growing experience, and I slip and fall more than I like. Iâm not entirely sure I like being a celebrity, either. I miss being Maggie the human, seen truly, some days. All days. I know. Whine, whine, whine.Â
That doesnât actually affect what I need to change and do going forward, but itâs what we call backstory.Â
First, about the âWriting the Otherâ panel: Iâve emailed NerdCon. If the panelâs not about race, Iâd like the panel title changed. If it is, Iâve asked to be replaced as a panelist. I wish Iâd understood the ramifications of the phrase âWriting the Otherâ beforehand, so I could have known to ask the con more questions about who else was on the panel and what I was expected to bring to the table, but in my ignorance I honestly didnât think that they would pitch me a race panel without the word race or culture in the description and with only one POC person on it. I like to think that they didnât understand the title either, but I wonât know until they reply. Should I have been more instantly attentive? Probably. Yes, obliviousness, yes, privilege, yes, I was very eager to have a chance to finally talk about my own OCD/ suicide issues that I see misrepresented in fiction. Glorified or made silly. And yes, I know when I say that, every POC is saying: TRY LIVING MY LIFE.Â
Iâve said this on the internet before, but I had a very specific cultural childhood. I grew up in the Irish music world, which I know hasnât been repressed in a very long time, so itâs not relevant in a conversation on oppression. I mention it because itâs an extremely specific culture â I grew up with hours of Irish music practiced every day, bands, immigrants, fleadhs, bodhrans, mythology, food, clothing, a specific way of story-telling rooted in culture. When I imagine trying to teach someone else how to write that culture, I feel exhausted. How could I possibly explain to them ⊠a way of thinking? Even if they researched forever and got nothing actively wrong, how could they possibly do as good of a job at writing the tiny nuances, the colors of the art, the jokes about the language, the references to songs that hadnât been sung for two hundred years? The best person to tell that cultural story is someone who lived that cultural story.Â
Which brings me to fear and misgiving in writing stories with characters of color. Iâm not the real thing. Iâm super white and Celtic and neurotic and probably an asshole, and Iâm really only qualified to accurately write the narratives of white Celtic neurotic assholes. I had a massive crisis last night because several of the posts I read said that I had no place writing POC characters, that my voice wasnât welcome, that I shouldnât even try. My crisis? My next novel is supposed to be entirely centered on a big fractured Mexican American family. I knew I wasnât going to ever get it perfectly right, even with Mexican beta readers. I knew it was never going to be as nuanced and true as my big messy Irish-American family in the Raven Cycle, because one was mine, and one was studied. It would never be as valuable. I know that, infinitely. I believe it on a gut level. But I could do studied diversity, at least, instead of only super white Celtic neurotic asshole narratives for the rest of time.Â
But crisis: it hadnât occurred to me that my characters of color might not be welcome. I read the posts telling me to get back in my lane, and I read them again. I drafted an email to my agent, all ready to tell her to cancel it; I would veer back into my own lane if I wasnât welcome in the other, I wasnât going to force my point of view onto the shelf. I slept on it. I woke up. I found I was still having a crisis.Â
Crisis was complicated by interpretations of my blog post taking turns I had â again, obliviously? â never anticipated. Folks were saying I wanted to sweep in as a grand white savior. I donât want that â all I want is more specific stories from more POC writers, and for my own my books to be better reflections of the world. Thatâs it. I donât know how to say that I think itâs important that all of us hold ourselves to that standard, without being told that Iâm trying to get points. I donât need any points, because as every POC writer is well and sadly aware, white, easy books sell just fine. And as for doing it for the ego stroke and back pat â well, thereâs no ego stroke for me in finally starting to write the world as it really looks. Thereâs only shame that I havenât until now. I just want to be an ally, and a non-white-washing writer who happens to also appear on the bestseller list sometimes. I clearly donât know how to frame my words to get this across â I obviously failed yesterday, and I donât know how to do it right. I still fumble in this post.Â
Crisis was complicated yet further by the absolute worst takeaway from this weekend â a thing I simply canât handle. The internet took the quoted dialog from my previous post â a member of the industry referring to âunpopular racesâ â and attributed it widely to me. It broke my heart when a reader told me sheâd heard I said she was an unpopular race. She hadnât read my post, just a copy of a copy and the context was lost. It makes me freshly miserable â months ago I had this wonderful Saudi co-author with an absolutely incredible story, and to hear that I couldnât sell it because Saudis were a so-called âunpopular raceâ floored me. If even I canât convince the establishment that a Saudi YA with my name on it will be commercial, what then? In my blog post, I thought it was clear that it wasnât me rendering them âunpopular races,â and yet the internet was very, very eager to say that it was me. It was like opposite day. I was being told I was the very thing I thought I was fighting. Crisis time.Â
Justina asked me if I wanted to fix the system. Yes. The only answer is yes. Do people ever say no? Donât answer that. I know they do. But how? Iâm good at teaching writing. Right? Maybe. Thatâs what Iâve heard. But writing retreats/ workshops are incredibly limiting. In my trailer-park pre-published days, I sure would not have been able to afford them. There has to be a way to open these up â people have maybe seen me asking about teaching at alternative schools on Twitter. Just flailing. Trying to figure out what I could do from where I stand. Trying to figure out how to enable more diverse, specific voices in YA. Not my voice. But right now the only thing I specifically can control from my crisis-desk is adding characters of color to my novels while I try to stand by and look like Iâm ready to be useful if I can be. Not because the world needs me in particular to write POC. But because, as a popular bestseller, my voice is louder than others and if Iâm just writing white narratives, what does that say?Â
I asked Justina if it would help or hurt if I wrote a sprawling magical novel with POC in it. And she said: both.Â
Iâm going to try to do more of the former than the latter. I canât promise that it will succeed, only that I will try. And I know that anything I say can be taken out of context. Man, I know. I KNOW. Thatâs the risk we take â Iâm taking it again right now. I just hope that if you read this, and youâre upset, youâll come to me. Maggie, the person, not MaggieStiefvater.com the behemoth.
So Jewish girls, Islamic girls and hispanic girls get made fun of for having thick eyebrows their entire life, but when a white girl draws on eyebrows to look thicker itâs, â#eyebrows on fleek!â? So black and Latina girls get made fun of for having big lips their entire life, but when a white girl draws on to look really big itâs, âgorgeouss and inspiringâ? So black girls get made fun of for having braids or dreadlocks their entire life, but when a white girl does itâs, âjust a style and they can do what they want with their hairâ? So Islamic girls get made fun of for wearing bindis/henna/hijabs, but when a white girl does itâs, âtotes coachellaâ? So Native American people get mocked for their ancestors wearing headdresses or feathers, but when a white girl does itâs, âartsy and cuteâ? Does anybody else notice a pattern??
a tired ramble about a tender subject
If there's a word in the English language that describes a mixture of sadness, disappoinment, and anger, I don't know it. And that's me right now. I've been busy with an interstate move, so I'm just now catching up on the details of the Nazi romance fiasco. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I'm not succeeding. I was raised evangelical Christian. Now, I don't know what label to use. Not because I don't consider myself Christian, but because I can't stand what that label dominantly means in today's American society. I can't stand the anti-Planned Parenthood, the anti-socialism, the anti-gay marriage, and many other anti- things associated with the "Christian" conservative right. Right now, in particular, I really can't stand the Christian anti-Semitism. Partially because I see where it's coming from. I too was taught, both between the lines and overtly, that Jews are the old and Christians are the new. That's not okay. THAT IS WRONG. As far as I know, God never said "I only love Christians." (If that's somewhere in the Bible, please point it out to me.) He loves everyone. Also, didn't He call Jews His chosen people? What is wrong with you, if you're a Christian, hating/demeaning/erasing His chosen people?! In my opinion, if you call yourself a Christian, you love people because God loves people. Regardless of their religion, their life choices, their sexual orientation, their skin color, their culture, ANY OF THAT. When you're not doing these things, you're failing. When you're policing others' thoughts, you're failing. If you're a Christian and reading this, perhaps it sounds like I'm policing you right now. How does that feel? It sucks, doesn't it? I dare you to keep reading anyway, because I'm not done yet. If you want to be a "good witness," you have to be a good witness. I'm talking about how you live your life. I'm talking about how you come across to others. Are you living the way you tell others to live? Are you showing God's love to the world? Or are you running around telling people that they're going to hell for not following a certain set of rules? That's not witnessing. That's pushing your beliefs onto others. Love people. Show people the love you believe God has for us. Once you get their attention, once you get their interest, once you get them asking you questions, then you can start sharing. But only then. And even then, be gentle, be understanding, be patient. What does that mean? LISTEN TO OTHERS. (You'll learn something. I promise.) And then wait for them to make the first move. You'll gain no friends -- possibly enemies instead -- if you shove your beliefs down their throats. If you don't want Muslims forcing you to love Allah or Scientologists forcing you to do... whatever it is they do... can you blame others for seeing you in the same light when that's exactly what you're doing? TL;DR -- Listen. Love. Do your best to understand where others are coming from. Don't assume your conversion story, whatever that may be, can apply to others. Everyone followed a different path in life to "now." And please, check your own thoughts: you may bring more prejudices to the conversation than you realize.
everyoneâs journey is different
I told myself to stay off social media this morning. I succeeded for about an hour and a half. (My house won't pack itself...) However, I'm glad I did. I learned some things. I was reminded of some things. I'm writing them down before I return to packing so I don't forget. 1) It's okay that I haven't published a novel yet. I'm not a failure because people younger than me are published and I'm not. People older than me are releasing debut novels, and I may be older than them by the time I get one. I still have a long way to go in my writing journey. My writing gets better every day I try to write even if I can't see it on a day-to-day basis. 2) Everyone's journey is different. Whether it be writing specifically or life in general, everyone's journey is different. The "Enough" post floating around Tumblr was a gentle smack in the face to stop comparing myself to others already. I'll get there if I keep working at it. If I don't get there, I'll be a better person for trying. And I'll have learned so much along the way. 3) A lot of us find similar challenges and/or stumbling blocks on our journeys. Anxiety. Issues with religion. Sexuality. Self-doubt. Days filled with my-writing-sucks-what-the-hell-was-I-thinking. Representing diversity in our writing. Fighting erasure. 4) It may suck away too much of my time, but I'm meeting amazing people and discovering so many new things and changing my view of the world (hopefully for the better) by participating in the writing community on Twitter. I'm so grateful for that. That felt good to write. Now I'm going to pack for at least an hour. I hope.
I made these points in a reblog, but I want to re-state them in their own post, so that it shows up in the main tag.
Mad Max: Fury Road is a story about sexists, told by non-sexists.
I know itâs a bit confusing, because weâre so used to seeing stories about sexists told by sexists. Weâre so used to sexism being portrayed by sexist male filmmakers for the sake of a sexist male audience, that weâve been fooled into thinking this is the only way sexism even can be portrayed.
eabevellaâs review of MMFR pointed out that the villains never call women âbitches,â nor are they shown overtly leering at the women in the film, and took this as evidence that the villains in the movie are not sexist. That they objectify women, but only in the way that they objectify everything, and their objectification is in fact quite egaitarian.
While the assessment that the villains are not shown leering or spitting gendered slurs is correct, Iâm going to go ahead and say that the conclusion eabevella drew from this is wrong, wrong, so very wrong.
See, thereâs a great lie weâve been told â that in order for an audience to understand that a character is sexist, women must be humiliated on camera.
The truth is this:
When a male character calls a female character a bitch in a movie, that is not the filmmakerâs way of showing the audience the character is sexist; that is the filmmakerâs way of showing the audience that the characterâs sexist point of view is worth hearing.
Read that paragraph over and over until it sinks in.
Mad Max: Fury Road makes it absolutely clear that the villains are sexist, and it does so without ever once implying that their sexist point of view is worth hearing. Instead, we learn that they are sexist second-hand, through context and world-building.
We see that the wives have been dressed in ridiculous, impractical gauze bikinis. We see that the wives are not only young and healthy, but also model-pretty. Through these subtle details, the narrative makes it clear that Immorten Joe, the villain, chose these women not just as useful stock, but as sexual objects in which he took sexual pleasure.
In contrast, when the movie introduces the audience to the wives, the movie makes sure to portray them in as humanized, and non-sexualized a manner as possible. Even when they are literally bathing together, we donât see any water running down chests while the models arch their backs and run their fingers through their hair and sigh pleasurably. Instead we see a bunch of women perfunctorily rinsing off legs and feet, looking exhausted. When they see Max for the first time, they take on fearful, closed off expressions, and project fearful, closed off body language.
Compare this to, for example, Theon Greyjoyâs castration in HBOâs Game of Thrones. We know he was castrated, even though no one ever says the word âcastrationâ and the camera never shows a penis being lopped off. The filmmakers manage to convey that the mutilation has taken place, but respect the character enough not to make a lurid scene out of it (and yet proceed to make lurid scenes out of every possible denigration and mutilation of every possible female character they can cram into their commercial free timeslot).
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As for Imperator Furiosa, it is hard for us, the audience, to not see Charlize Theron as a beautiful woman. But when we compare her appearance in the movie to that of the wives, itâs clear to see that Imperator Furiosa is, in fact, the opposite of what Immorten Joe and his war mongering culture view as desirable, beautiful, or womanly. They do not sexually objectify her because to them she is sexless.
If we ignore our own biased understanding of Furiosa â as a character that a beautiful actress is portraying â and instead immerse ourselves in the culture of the Millerâs world, it becomes obvious that Furiosa has taken great pains to make herself genderless under the villainsâ gaze, and that her efforts have succeeded.
From Entertainment Weekly:
It was Theron herself who unlocked the image of the androgynous warriorâa woman who has escaped the fate of other women by erasing her gender.
âI just said, âI have to shave my head,ââ Theron recalls. Furiosa is a war-rig operator living in a place where all other females have been enslaved as breeding and milking chattel. But Furiosa is barren and therefore of no value to the despot Immortan Joe and his soldiers. She is considered worthless. âThey almost forget sheâs a woman, so there is no threat,â she says. âI understood a woman thatâs been hiding in a world where sheâs been discarded.â [x]
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The villains in the movie are absolutely misogynist. They are absolutely sexist. They do absolutely view beautiful women as sexual objects that exist purely for the male gaze.
But the movie is not about them.
The movie, instead, portrays sexist men as obstacles for the heroes of the movie to overcome.
Beautiful analysis.
Weâre In This Together: On Queerness and Identity Policing
Yesterday, a prominent blog posted an opinion/rant/something about queer people who only date the opposite gender. I wonât link to the article, but essentially the author argues that because her bisexual friend hasnât come out to many people and doesnât date other women, the friend isnât truly queer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the whole thing quickly devolved into biphobia. As Iâm not bi or pansexual, I canât speak on that particular issue, so Iâd direct you to some awesome people like Tristina Wright and Leah Raeder for more. Rather, what has kept me thinking about the article is the identity policing within itâthe idea that there are special qualifications a person must meet in order to be considered queer, and that the authorâs friend doesnât meet these qualifications because she hasnât been public about her identity.
This, to me, is ridiculous and scary. Are there privileges associated with being bisexual and dating or marrying the opposite gender? Absolutely. Are there also privileges associated with being gay and not having to see your identity systematically erased on screen and in books the way bi and pan people do? For sure. With every sexuality and gender comes its own set of privileges.
But hereâs the thing: as queer people, all of usâno matter of who we date or who weâve come out toâare constantly treated as less than. Those of us who are in the U.S. live in a country where fully half of the population still believes that homosexualityâthat who we areâis a sin, and Iâm sure those numbers are even worse for trans folks. According to the FBI, in 2013, the most recent reported year, over 20% of all hate crimes targeted LGBTQ+ people. That amounts to over 1,200 hate crimes committed against LGBTQ+ annuallyâand those are only the ones that get reported. To give some context, thatâs several percentage points more than crimes motivated by religious hatred, a truly scary fact considering queer people make up such a small portion (about 4%) of the population. And although the statistics I linked to are slowly decreasing (though not for trans people), they are still unbelievablyâand horrifyinglyâhigh.
My point is this: no queer person is truly safe. The idea that someone is ânot really queerâ just because of who they date and who theyâve come out to is nonsense. Simply by asserting their own sexuality or gender, in whatever context that might be, queer people open themselves up to constant abuse and rejection. They lose friends. Theyâre shunned by family members. In many states, they can be fired. That says nothing of the violence they could be subjected to, or the suicides that over 30% of queer youth attempt. All queer people have to live with this, no matter who they decide to date.
Being queer in this world is, for lack of a better phrase, really freaking hard. Thatâs not to say we all experience the same amount of oppression. Iâm a white gay boy from Connecticutâcompared to many, I have it easy. I canât even fathom what trans women of color, for instance, must struggle through on a daily basis. But although some of us are much more privileged than others, weâre all, in some way, bound by these insecurities. By these shared fears.Â
And.
And.
Out of that fear, weâve built something great. We have queer support networks, queer blogs, queer activists. We have people who raise awareness about their gender, who talk about intersectionality, who do everything they can to make younger queer folks like myself feel more comfortable in their own skin. We have community. And in this great big community of rainbow stripes and purple unicorns and queerness, all of usâall of usâneed to belong. The gender we date or marry? Meaningless. How many people weâve come out to? Doesnât change anything. If a queer person wants to be a part of this community, they are a part of this community.
***
On June 26th, the day marriage equality finally came to the U.S., I cried. I lay in bed and I read through my Twitter feed, and I teared up right there at my computer. It was all so amazing, to see my little corner of the internet let out a communal whoop, to watch all of the years of struggle melt into a moment of celebration. I wish I couldâve jumped through the screen right then and hugged all of my queer Twitter friends. These are the people who helped me understand my own sexuality, after allâthe people who gave me the courage to come out to my friends and parents and to the whole online world, and the people who offered me nothing but support when I did. And now here they all were, joking and celebrating and virtually hugging, savoring this amazing day.
As queer people, we are no different than everyone else. We are simply human beings who want to love and to be ourselves. But off and on for thousands of years weâve been told that weâre vile, that weâre less than, that something about who we are is wrong. Weâve forged this bondâthis communityâout of that oppression. Weâre all different: weâre rich and poor, black and white, book nerds and physics geeks. Weâre dating the same gender and the opposite gender and others who donât identify with any particular gender at all. But no matter who we are, weâre bound by this communal identity, this struggle, this⊠hope. Neither how many people weâve come out to nor who we decide to date will change that.
We could spend all day pointing out each of our various privileges, and I honestly donât think thatâd be a bad idea. But something we canât do is police how other queer people decide to carry themselves, because the moment we start on that road is the moment the community weâve built falls apart.
Weâre in this together.
Please donât forget that.