#power structures

[fflittermouse]

Kinda funny how a woman’s place is in the kitchen until they’re a chef, a woman’s role is to care for others until they’ve a doctor, and a woman is expected to effortlessly manage households but not businesses or corporations. It seems that a woman can do anything except be in a position of power.

[theweightofdivinity]

The ones who see first are never believed first.

Not because they are wrong,

but because vision disturbs those who live by sleep.

(Awareness threatens comfort… That’s the real offense.)

[mercifulcarnifex]

He lost no nut November....

I am deeply sorry for this, it wasn’t my idea.

[crooked-wasteland]

I've seen your tweet which criticizes the worldbuilding in Helluva Boss and how the Goetias feel like "Hollywood with royal titles" rather than true aristocracy, and I would like you to elaborate on that, if that's OK.

Thank you so much for this ask as I never got to expand on this point at the time. For those not in the know, the user is referencing this exchange on Twitter.

As much as the elites of our world would like to disperse the truth, the reality is that all societies are constructed around power. Who has power, how and why. That is the fundamental basis of every social dynamic from children on a playground to the politicians in our governments. So the very first thing we should even approach in regards to the narrative is how does power work in this universe?

So when I responded to Elcee in the tweet being referenced, I am evaluating power and power structures. Mainly there are two wholly different constructs of power between something like the aristocracy and celebrities.

The closest thing to an aristocracy we have in our modern day are the financial oligarchs of Capitalism. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc. They have control everything from how our political parties engage with us to how we think based on the wealth they were born into. They curate our lives behind the scenes in ways that sound worthy of a tinfoil hat, but isn't a conspiracy. The wealthy were threatened in the 1970s by an educated proletariate. In response to our questioning the Vietnam war, the higher education that was once free or at least extremely affordable suddenly became prohibitively expensive.

So much so that only the financial aristocracy could access it. Whereas working class individuals are forced to jump through hoops and prove themselves suitably subservient to the existing power of the oligarchy in the form of scholarship applications, teacher recommendations and application letters before being granted access. This is not a mistake or how it's always been, this is by design.

Meanwhile, Celebrities are not elites. While we think of celebrities as being overpaid and living in luxury, it only takes a glance over at Chappell Roan to see the difference. When Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or any large corporate CEO walks the red carpet, they are treated as royalty. When celebrities walk the red carpet, they are commodities.

Celebrity is the modern day face of the American Dream. Gone are the days of a single family home and a white picket fence. The boom of content over art, luxury over practicality, and excess over comfort is directly the result of selling to the world the idea of capitalistic success, which just amounts to perpetuating the system of turning humans into money. And for as much money as these celebrities make, it has been proven over and over again that they are just as susceptible to poverty as any other working class individual.

Celebrities are products we buy, and when we stop buying them, they vanish.

Meanwhile the aristocracy, the financial oligarchy, thrives in obscurity.

The difference in power is about who still has it when we no longer see them. And the more invisible and pervasive it is, the more real it is. However one as an individual thinks about the celebrity class, they are simple a different type of specialized tool to the true power behind the scenes.

With that differential in mind, the Goetia function more like celebrities rather than CEOs, and while Elcee fails to see the bigger picture, that subliminally tells the audience that someone with the title of prince, with armies sworn to his allegiance and infinite cosmic power, is no different than a working class joe.

This isn't intentional propaganda, however. It's not her trying to further the agendas of Jeff Bezos intentionally. Just like my other post covering how Medrano tries to excuse cheating, not realizing the only time one can argue such a blanket concept of forgiveness for such a betrayal can only happen when the option of choice is non-existent (ie Divorce is not on the table for reasons outside of the characters’ choices), this is the danger of not engaging with media with your mind turned on. You will innately, no matter how careful someone tries to be, engage with the material through the eyes of the creator.

Celebrities and average people are the same: commodities in the face of real power. But Medrano cannot tell the difference between someone like Elon Musk and his employees. She sees the aristocracy, the ones who were born into a legacy of wealth, as “hardworking average folks”. And if you aren't thinking, you might find yourself implicitly believing that too. Deeper entrenching the power they have over you as an individual and society as a whole.

How we got to where we are in our real lives is mirrored in the media we consume. And that isn't an accident.

[marigoldman8]

I've been studying The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli as of late (know your enemy type shi) and it's got me thinking a lot of anarchic thoughts:

If politics demands cruelty to succeed, maybe the problem is not that people are too soft... it's that the system rewards sociopathy (and it should not).

We don't have to accept that rule by heartlessness and cruelty are the only ways to exist!

Machiavelli writes The Prince at a time where godliness and benevolence were virtuous traits in a leader. He writes it like an instruction manual for any wanna-be successful politician. Essentially, he says be feared, not loved; rule with cruelty because kindess is easily forgotten. "A man will sooner forget the death of his father than the loss of his inheritence" is a good way to set the vibe.

In my opinion, if morality and politics are incompatible, that says more about politics than it does morality. And every single leader today has to be Machiavellian to be successful. You have to cheat and feign and backstab constantly to get to power.

When power is built on cruelty, it's going to favour those socialised to wield it.

Now, while this is already obviously harmful on its own, it's also so incredibly exclusive. Machiavelli (to some extent) almost touches on this in The Prince but in a very sexist way... because it is. Women and men are not socialised the same and men, due to socialisation, are better at politics (and who set that system up???). The way women are socialised puts us at a disadvantage in political spaces.

Some examples!:

🔆 In the UK Parliament, men are much likely to get their points heard because they are more willing to interrupt in an obstructive manner. This is an illegal action but, being men and often being white and gerontocratic, they do not care. Women are less likely to be heard or valued because they do not interrupt obstructively. (Shaw, S. 2002)

🔆 Another UK example, Margaret Thatcher (😬) had voice training in order to sound more like a man and used to wear shoulder pads in order to look like a man.

🔆 In the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor had to make her idiolect more like a man in order to be valued more. (Jacobi, T. Schweers, D. 2017)

Women are unacceptable in politics. That should not be accepted. And if it continues to be, politics should not be accepted.

While I haven't read any studies specifically referencing disabled people, queer people, or people of colour in Western politics (likely because there are too few examples of this), if you've ever understood any intersectional theory, you'll understand that this applies to anyone who isn't a white man.

Our political system isn't broken because it's cruel, it's corrupt because it punishes kindness, compassion, and creativity.

I don't believe that this is human nature. We are collaborative creatures inherently. Perchance, capitalism has eroded that but through mutual aid, community care, and solidarity I truly do believe that we can form a society where a system like the one we're in doesn't need to exist. We already know how to exist like that in little ways. We do it every time we share, protect, or love someone without expecting power in return. Anarchism is in finding time to take your peace outside of the grind and talking with people you love, finding joy in nature, and creating anything at all that isn't inherently 'profitable' or 'productive'. We can do this on a larger scale, too!!

If power demands cruelty, then maybe true power is what happens when we refuse to be cruel.

That is why I'm an anarchist.

🌼

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Abstract

This grounded theory study explores how individuals assigned female at birth (AFAB) who identify as gender non-binary navigate and respond to the male hegemonic gender binary. While existing research has examined non-binary identity development, little scholarship has focused specifically on AFAB non-binary experiences or on how patriarchal gender structures shape their identity construction and social navigation. Guided by feminist queer theory, this study sought to generate an explanatory model describing how AFAB gender non-binary individuals pursue liberation from gendered expectations while navigating cisnormative social systems. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 participants aged 21-47 who were assigned female at birth and described their relationship to gender as unanchored to the binary. Interviews were analyzed using Corbin and Strauss's grounded theory methodology, including open, axial, and selective coding and constant comparative analysis. Findings indicate that participants resist restrictive gender roles, negotiate social recognition, and develop strategies to navigate barriers created by the male hegemonic gender binary. Participants described tensions between legitimacy, authenticity and legibility, pressures surrounding gender presentation, and efforts to construct lives less constrained by gendered expectations. This study contributes a grounded theoretical model that illuminates how AFAB gender non-binary individuals resist, reinterpret, and strategically navigate gendered power structures. The findings offer implications for clinicians and researchers seeking to better understand and support gender-diverse populations.

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[dirthh]

‘Right Underneath Our Noses’ [OC]