#feminisn

[turbomitzvah]

Fuck JERFs

[jdaviana]

I’m just like other girls

I hate it when guys say “I’m not like other guys”

Saying this makes you exactly like other guys. You are not being a saint by saying this. You are still a piece of shit. And if you can’t accept that you are just like everyone else. You think you r so different by having few female friends around you and not being addicted to 🌽. Good job! you just got to the minimum level of humanity. Thanks for not 🍇ing every woman you see. Bitch this is the BARE minimum if you think this makes you diffent you re just worse…

Girls are more intellectual in this. Girls can acknowledge that in the end we are the same in the core. Whatever we do which layers we ad to ourse we are still the same in the end.

[paigegonerogue]

Something that TLOU HBO did that I loved was that they let Ellie be an actual, real fourteen year old girl.

I feel like so many shows just assume that teenage girls are inherently unlikeable, so they portray them as stupid, annoying pests who should never be take seriously. Sometimes if they don’t do that they’ll go in the opposite direction, making their teen girl characters distance themselves from the demographic by being so unbelievably charming, mature, and witty that it becomes impossible for real people, especially real teenage girls, to live up to it. (As great as The Last of Us Game is, it very much does that).

A lot of times that ‘perfect teenage girl’ philosophy also carries over to appearance, with teen girl characters always dressing and looking mature, stylized, and unrealistic.

(Not the main point of the post, but you can absolutely see how these portrayals harmfully affect real teen girls by making them feel like they aren’t worthy of love unless they conform to impossible standards) (is this getting about me? Pfffffft, nooooooo…)

But The Last of Us HBO doesn’t do that. It lets Ellie be a real teen girl with all her faults. It doesn’t portray her as annoying or idealized, it portrays her as a real person who deserves to be taken seriously, and that’s something that will always help the flawed-14-year-old still inside me. She’s awkward and abrasive and charming and funny and brash and sweet and it sees her not as a pest but as a person. Someone who doesn’t always look perfect or fashionable. She’s someone who cries and screams and gets flustered without it being something to make fun of.

Craig Mazin, the main writer for the majority of the show, doesn’t see being a teen girl as something inherently wrong. I think it’s because he has a now-adult daughter who it’s clear he adores. He wrote Ellie with so much respect and care, and it’s clear he loves the character (and is also a fantastic show runner)

Thank you, Craig Mazin

[invisiblewoman1996]

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[female-gaming]

All mainline Pokémon games after Pokémon Crystal (2000) let you play as a girl!

Platforms: Gameboy, DS/3DS, Switch

Playable Female Character: Varies, Customizable, Nameable

Skin tone options: Not in older games, limited, curly hairstyles are available

Female Combat: Turn-based, same as male characters

Genres: Role-playing

Impractical femininity: Varies, but often yes

[themousefromfantasyland]

Barbieland, Patriarchy and Unequal Systems of Power

Spoiler alert!

Ken and the other Kens are the antagonists of the story. After he and Barbie go to the real world, Ken comes back to the Barbieland inspired by the real world's Patriarchy. He transforms Barbieland in Kendom, where Kens have all the power and all Barbies are submissive to them.

Barbie, the resistance led by Weird Barbie, and a mother and daughter she met in the real world, then save the day by pointing out all the inconsistencies and injustices women have to deal with in patriarchy. This fixes the brainwashing the Kens did on all the Barbies.

One criticism I see on the internet is that the movie was too nice and forgiving towards the Kens, and I disagree.

I don't think Ken is the villain of the story, but patriarchy itself.

I think the whole point of the film is that the patriarchy corrupts everyone, fails everyone and that unequal systems of power always breed their demise.

In the status quo of Barbieland, Kens has no jobs, are effectively homeless, and have no positions of power. They have no real independence and are just accessories to Barbies and Barbies are often dismissive of them.

This doesn't mean that Barbies are villains and Kens are the good guys. That's absurd. Barbies are often very nice and gentle with Ken, but because they are dolls. There's no real malice in any of them, which avoids all the more terrible consequences of these types of unequal systems. But it's still a system where some have all the power and resources and the others have to watch by the waist side.

The most important part here is that although Ken brings the patriarchy to Barbieland and brainwashes all the Barbies, there's no indication that he is doing that on purpose.

All we see is that Ken falls in love with a world where men rule and women are submissive and try to establish that in his homeland, and for some strange reason, all the Barbies agree with that. The Kens did not force anything on them. The Barbies for some reason, gave up their independence to live in a Ken world. There's even a joke comparing the Barbies' situation with the indigenous people's infection by colonizer's diseases, and I think that's the key to understanding the concept. If patriarchy acts like a virus that infects the Barbies, there's no indication that the same isn't true with all the Kens.

Patriarchy is a virulent ideology that infects everyone, men, and women alike. Several analyses link the Kens' sudden infatuation with patriarchy with young boys falling down the alt-right pipeline, and I think they are all correct. But there's also a subtle message here on girls being brainwashed by conservative movements.

Think about all the ways women can also be enablers of the patriarchy, of how much-internalized misogyny is a thing. Of all the women who somehow became fans of Donald Trump. Of all the TERFS. Of all women in Evangelical megachurches. Of Anita Bryant.

Is only by reminding them that the patriarchy doesn't give a hoot about their needs and well-being that they are rescued from these dangerous ideologies.

And now we reach the most important part.

The patriarchy is a system where men control and exploit other men, with misogyny being the only thing that gives this giant mess common ground. It's by making women the enemy to be controlled and exploited, that men forget that they are also being controlled and exploited.

In the end, the Barbies trick all Kens into fighting each other, and while they are busy fighting each other, the Barbies quickly reach power again.

Because Kens replace the unequal power system of Barbieland with an even more unequal system, a system that is so much worse that it actively feeds on their worst insecurities, the Kens lose, and Barbies win the day.

In the end, they are much glad that they lose, some even missing the company of their Barbie friends.

The Barbies forgive the Kens, but because they aren't saints, and won't give them everything they always wanted after being jerks with them for so long, they give a slightly more presence in Barbieland's judicial system. But this is enough to make them happy and bring peace back to Barbieland.

They are dolls, there's no actual malice in them. At their worse Kens are just jerks seduced by a poisonous real-world ideology. Real-world patriarchy is much, much worse and much more violent.

And by finding humanity in plastic dolls, maybe we can also fight cancerous ideologies that devour the brain of otherwise decent people and bring a more equal future to our real world.

[withthebands]

[kind-of-crazy-butthatsokay]

"if barbie girl was written in 2021"

Ladies and gentlemen...

Yes. Listen. Now.

I adore this. I've been listening to it on repeat and it just gets better every time.