“bodies associated with cis women are harshly stigmatized, made taboo, and policed as part of misogyny, often in violent ways or with the threat of violence” and “not all women have vaginas and not everyone with a vagina is a woman” and “trans peoples’ bodies are harshly stigmatized, made taboo, and policed as part of transphobia, often in violent ways or with the threat of violence” are not mutually exclusive facts and in fact all of these things are deeply interlinked, and should not be used as gotchas! against each other
Look i dont wanna sound like a Fandom Mom or whatever but what do you think women over 25 or so are supposed to do? Do u really think theyre supposed to drop all their interests and just talk about taxes and marriage or whatever? It seems like 25+ year old fanboys do not receive this kind of “ooh cringe” reaction either. There are guys in their 40s with comic book collections and shit and people might think theyre a nerd at worst, not a freak who shouldnt be trusted
(Apologies to OP for blasting on here with this wall of text but I get so angry about this whole “lol women over 30 in fandom are so cringe” thing, so)
Women over 30 are supposed to quietly fade into the background of other people’s lives. We’re supposed to give up everything for our husbands (going to expand on this later, bear with me here) and children, and play second fiddle to them. This idea is reinforced by a lot of media the people on tumblr consume. Women as heroes? They’re all young, beautiful and single. The “strong” woman that kicks ass? Young, beautiful and single.
And before y’all @ me with counterexamples, sit your ass down and count the movies you know in which older women (over 40) or women who are married and have kids play a role besides “mentor for the young” vs the number of movies in which the woman who gets to do important stuff is, well, young, beautiful and single. Sit down and count the number of women actors over 40 that you know about vs the number of women actors under 40, and THEN do the same for men. Yes, you’re allowed to google their ages. The results will surprise you!
Don’t even get me started on the ideas about motherhood. For one, try being childfree and over 30. If you think being childfree and young is bad enough, let me tell you that nope, it gets worse.
Then there’s these posts that run around everywhere, including and especially tumblr, that tell people that “if you have children and don’t give up everything for them and always put them first you’re a TERRIBLE MOTHER”. Holy fuck they make me angry. For one, next time you see one, notice how it’s always about the mothers. You don’t see posts calling out the dads for not putting their children first 100% of the time.
Second, holy fuck how entitled are you even??? Do you really expect that everyone drops their passions, interests, careers and relationships just because you showed up on the planet? Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Get a grip and realize that the world isn’t about you all the time. Mothers are people, too, and people deserve to have some me time. Even if it occasionally comes at the expense of their children. It’s a good lesson to learn, actually. Makes you, well, less entitled. Also, let me introduce you to the concept of single mothers, who often have to work jobs that make it necessary for them to leave their children with friends, relatives or neighbors. And when the kid is old enough to look after themselves for a few hours (usually around 12), well, they get to look after themselves. It’s either that or fucking starve.
And now for the husbands. “But we left that concept behind in the 50s! Nowadays, women can work and do their own thing even if they’re married!” Ahahaha sure, Jan. Let me tell you, the woman is still expected to, if necessary, be the first to drop their job, hobbies etc. and do the unpaid and often unappreciated work. Relationships where these things are shared equally or the guy does most of the work around the house and stop working are few and far between.
I can already hear people going “straight culture ew” but every time you, the queer youngster, post or reblog something about how older women in fandom are cringe or how mothers should always put their children first, you’re showing that you’ve adopted that culture without even reflecting on it. Oh, sure, your wonderful, equal queer relationship will be different, but you’re still expecting your parents to adhere to those norms, thereby perpetrating them.
Not entirely willingly, mind. I was young, religious, and I made
the naïve mistake in thinking that all Christians were like the ones I had
encountered at my home church: warm, tolerant, kind. I fell in love, and we did
what young, hormonal Christian teenagers did: rushed into a marriage.
I realized my mistake almost immediately, but it took far
too long to get out.
Personally, I endured abuse at the hands of my new husband—mental,
physical, sexual, economic, emotional. You name it, he did it. Brutal is an
understatement. He systematically broke me down until I was a shell of a human
being. I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout and physical side effects,
and I probably will be for another decade at least.
That’s personally, but let’s talk his family. Because he was
an extreme case, yes, but he was raised with the idea that women existed to
keep their mouths shut and their legs open. I spit out two children faster than
I could whip my head, because birth control wasn’t part of god’s grand plan for
my life. I was fulfilling my purpose as a mother, and wasn’t that great? My
husband didn’t want the first baby. He wanted me for himself, see? Abortion was
unthinkable, but he fully expected to carry a baby—my baby—to term, then give
it away.
Keeping him was my first rebellion. Keeping the next one was
my second.
In the time I belonged to that family, I watched my
mother-in-law endure the same, though less extreme mistreatment. I watched every
young female family member be groped by the family patriarch. “That’s just how
it is.” I was shamed for making a fuss about it. I watched an older cousin try to sexually assault my teenage
sister-in-law and she was the one who
felt ashamed. We women made family dinners while the men sat on their asses. My
husband and I lived with his parents for a short time. She and I would go to
work each morning—an hour each way—with our husbands sitting in their robes in
the living room, playing video games. When we returned hours later, weary,
exhausted, they hadn’t moved. The standard greeting? “What’s for dinner.”
That’s his family, and yes, some families are sexist, but let’s
talk about church. That’s where all of this is validated, encouraged, taught. Imagine
my shock, when I went to my new husbands’ family church and encountered muted
xenophobia and racism, a heavy dose of homophobia, and some damned overt sexism
(see above.)
Equal roles, but different. Sound familiar? This is still
being taught to little girls today.
In church, I listened with quiet disgust as pastors preached
about how awful my sister—one of the gays—was. I piped up and asked how that
sexual sin was any different than the two young church kids who’d just been
caught “in a bad way”, soon to expect their first baby. Sexual sin is sexual
sin, isn’t it? I sure did get an earful for that one. We did church boycotts:
Disney, Target. Every Sunday School class: Job, cookies, and lets pray God
saves the moos-lims before they all come over and blow us up. We revered
people with white savior complexes who went to be jesus’s hands and feet and
save the poor, helpless Africans.
Hate and ignorance, wrapped up in the holy Scripture.
Hallelujah.
Meanwhile, I endured this abuse. This abuse, and every door
slammed in my face as my husband hit me, tortured me. “Stay true to your vows,”
the pastor would say. “You have communication issues,” our sister-in-law
would tell us. My mother-in-law: “Linds, you just have to accept it. Love is a
choice.”
“But what about the part where it says that husbands are to
love their wives like Christ loves the church?” I asked.
My brother in law, joking: “This is why women aren’t
supposed to speak in church.”
This America is alive and kicking, kids. It’s never gone away; it’s just been lurking,
behind closed doors. “Pass the casual racism and meat loaf, would you? And get
me a glass of water while you’re up. Ketchup, too.” What I’m scared about,
truly, is that I know this. And these ideas are now validated. Now mainstream. Almost
50% of our population believes this is
a good idea.
“It’s our time to take America back.”
What in the hell, if they’ve been saying these things behind
closed doors, and if they believe them In The Name Of God—what in the hell are
they going to say in the open, now? What in the hell are they going to do?
The 50s are revered as the aspirational yester-year, days
gone by. Progress, as we call it, is godlessness to them. We, the godless libs,
took Jesus out of schools. We’ve gone wrong ever since.
This is the America people want back, and that’s my first
fear.
The second is this:
I got out. And I’m terrified that this, my success story,
won’t happen anymore.
I’m the rare statistic. I un-brainwashed and educated myself.
I got counseling (against every Christian advice) to treat severe post-partum
depression. In the process of becoming a healthier person, I realized
what a goddamn mess I was.
It took three tries and a pastor-pseudo-therapist legitimately
telling me, “You know if he hits you again, Linds, I’m going to have to tell
you to leave.”
All regretful, like it was bad news.
“Why should I stick around and wait for it to happen again?”
I asked.
He didn’t have an answer. I left the next week.
It took a few boldfaced lies (it’s temporary, it’s just a separation), and a few miracles, and a
large support system of family and friends who all but plucked me out of that
hell.
For leaving? My price was excommunication. From his family,
our friends, our church. I am the heathen who Divorced my Husband and broke our
home. In that entire city, only three people talk to me now.
(No loss, but it took a long time to recognize that.)
I never, ever would have made it on my own. I had two small children,
a new job that barely paid a living wage, and I was, as I’ve said, a shell of a
human being. I left him and went straight to the human services office. Without
subsidized childcare, healthcare, and food supplements, we would have starved
or been homeless. It never would have been possible.
These are the services that will probably be cut first.
How will anyone in my situation ever be able to leave? They
won’t. Not to mention federal funding for shelters, crisis counseling for
families, healthcare for abused women, and legal services for domestic violence
victims. Throw in a court system that doesn’t value women, and a cultural mentality
that believes what happens behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors… What hope do abused, trapped women have? None in hell.
If this is what makes America great again, I want out. I’ve
been there, done that, and I’m never, ever doing it again.
You’ll take it back over my cold, lifeless body.
This is the dark, dirty secret of Amerika: Women are not free.
a man: men now have to think before they speak, they are afraid to be criticized or accused of something, can we believe that we have to live like this now?? uwu
all the women that had to grown up being super self-aware of what they wear, what they think, what they say, how they act, where they are, with whom, etc in every aspect of their life, all the time, in this sexist society (especially women of color, non-straight women and trans women): good. finally you all have to learn how to behave.
Also how can Arthur Conan Doyle write a character like Irene Adler 1891 and have her 1. Outsmart Sherlock Holmes and get away with it and 2. Be in no way a damsel or love interest to Sherlock.. But every modern retelling not only has her be a sexual /love interest character but she is posed as being very very smart… But never smart enough to just outwit him, get away with it and move on? Women can be smart, sure, but no one is allowed to be smarter than Sherlock.
It’s been over 120 years and Irene is, at her best, never as decently treated as the original.
HAHAHA HOLY SHIT WE WERE LOOKING AT PICTURES OF SURGERIES IN CLASS AND ALL THE GUYS WERE HOOTING AT THE SLICED BREAST ONES AND THEN THE TEACHER SWITCHED TO A PENIS PIC WHERE IT WAS CUT OPEN AND SOME 300LB JOCK DOUCHEBAG FAINTED RIGHT OUT OF HIS CHAIR BOYS ARE WEAK BOYS ARE FUCKING WEAK
you mean to tell me
that there was a god damn CUT OPEN BOOB
IN SURGERY
AND BOYS WERE STILL SEXUALISING IT
FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING FUCK DOES NO ONE SEE HOW FUCKED UP THIS IS
When I took human anatomy, all the boys were *thrilled* to hold the breast implants, but when the professor brought out the jar of preserved penises we had no male volunteers to handle them. THEN she brought out the penis that had been dissected to show the different canals (it split into three more-or-less even sized pieces) and I think 3 boys went straight down like a sack of potatoes. Several more followed when she started pulling it apart and holding it up for the whole class to see. It was like that scene in Dracula Dead and Loving it where Mel Brooks is trying to gross out the med interns. Like, literally. It was hilarious.
Bonus: my anatomy professor (who is a woman) informed me that she had not once, in her 20 years of teaching the class, had a female fainter. Women are hardcore.
If you think trans women shouldn’t be in women’s sports because you think that makes them male I want you to know I personally deeply dislike you and find you to be a vile person.
a good take. another option: sports are only segregated by gender in the first place because men are piss babies who cant stand the thought of losing to a woman, so just stop catering to fragile masculinity in the first place and divide the teams by skill level, or weight class, or any other actually meaningful criteria
Look I’m sorry but if you think the reason sports are segregated by gender is because MEN will lose then you are delusional. I hate to say that as a woman but it’s just straight true. They have waaaaay more testerone than us and it makes them stronger and faster and that’s just a fact. There are obviously exceptions but it’s true the great majority of the time and I think it’s okay to be honest about that. Women don’t have to be men to be just as good and valuable as men. I think we hurt women by pretending we have to be as physically strong as men because we’re not gonna win that battle. Why can’t we just be ourselves and value that?
I understand what you’re saying but you’re stating a lot of things as fact that really aren’t. Testosterone and hormones in general are really not the catch all you think they are. I’ve talked about this in another post I made but I don’t expect you to have known that but you should read this. Basically, sex is really complicated and multi-faceted and testosterone doesn’t realy work that way. There’s many things that go into it.
There’s also the fact that it is absolutely impossible to separate sex and socialization. WE can’t state for a fact that men are superior athletes because socially everything we’ve been told by that has been shaped by the idea that men are better. The article linked above mentions multiple times where sexually “male” athletes who, because of the way their genes were expressed, were considered women and did not experience any sort of advantage over their sexually female competitors. as well as referencing that no studies really prove that testosterone gives athletes an advantage. So those aren’t facts.
And yeah, womens leagues now are a necessity because mens leagues are forcing them too. But if we want to go back to the beginning of pro mens sports in north america. They’re not totally wrong. Sports were going to be mixed gendered but men had their feelings hurt. It’s changed since then, definitely. But They’re not wrong.
Womens leagues are amazing and they shouldn’t have to be compared to mens leagues to be that way. They don’t need to be physically superior to men. They don’t need to face off against mens teams to have worth. But we need to start acknowledging that men are put on that platform not because of sex and how that links to talent disparity. but because we live in a very sexist world that’s trying to portray biological sex as something concrete and simple when it is not. Women’s leagues are a necessary product of a shit system designed by men to make women and trans people feel they are lesser. They’re women trying to build themselves back up and find a place in that system. But the system relies on the fact that they are lesser.
Steel Phoenix Studios 