Tag: sexism

Categories
writing

Where do all the women hide?

I’m sure none of I’m about to say comes as a surprise to anyone reading this blog. But I still think it’s important to say over and over again, as a reminder to myself and others. Because women (and people of color, and people with non-binary genders, and people who aren’t heterosexual [including the dreaded bisexuals]) are not wild animals that hide in trees every time film crews happen to be around.

There are a lot of Indie speculative films that I’m excited about, but the more I build my list, the more painfully obvious it become that women are so rare in these imagined worlds, they might as well be unicorns. I don’t know how any of these people reproduce. At best, you get small films with two male characters and a single female character caught between them (Ex Machina. Z for Zachariah). At worse, it’s an entire team of men, sometimes if you’re lucky with some racial diversity, and the Token Tough Woman. Sometimes there’s also the Token Love Interest Woman. Often, they’re the same woman.

I recently had the privilege of reading some stories by unpublished writers (though I don’t think they’ll remain unpublished for long) and partway through the pile, I couldn’t help but notice that the characters within were either all male, or with a token female. There was only one story I read that had a female main character. I don’t blame new writers for this kind of thing. When I was just starting out, most of my characters were male. The first two novels I ever did for NaNoWriMo had male main characters. I was a couple years into writing my own stuff before I ever wrote a female main character (Hob Ravani, whom you will all get to meet soon, promise) and she was completely surrounded by men.

I think for me, it was partially an outgrowth of the writing I did before I switched to my own original fiction: I wrote a shitload of fanfiction. And with a few exceptions (like Sailor Moon) here and there, my fanfiction was always about male characters, because those were the ones in the anime series or book series or movie that were interesting.

Which brings us back to my list of movies and its depressing lack of women.

I know female characters can and do have interesting stories. I write stories about them now myself. But it’s this vicious cycle where we’re surrounded by media that tells us only men have interesting stories… and the education for the production of that media sure doesn’t help. Look at the beat sheet bible that gets used and overused for film writing: Save the Cat. I don’t think Mr. Snyder is expressing more than the constant background level of societal sexism when he frames all conflicts and characters as being about male characters, and getting the girl, and so on. But it still sticks with you. And then you go and write stories about men, because women are obviously boring and don’t do anything but be the girlfriend.

I finished writing and editing a second-world fantasy novel this year. One of the basic world building concepts was that where the story takes place, the female to male birthrate is two or three to one. And I still had to have it pointed out to me by my long-suffering beta reader that while there were a lot of women as background, almost all of the characters with actual speaking roles were men. And it made no sense. On the edit I went through and changed every male character into a female character unless I had a specific reason he needed to be male. Much better.

I’m working on a screenplay now, for the classes I’ve been taking. Of the core set of characters, one is female and three are male; I can’t really help that, since those three are on a tank crew in a country where crews are all male. But as I’ve continued on, I’ve made a very conscious effort to write the side characters as female unless I have a reason to make them male. And the same principle can be very easily applied to making certain characters of color exist in writing, and characters with different sexualities/gender identities, etc.

And no, this is not “forcing” “political correctness” into my writing. This is actually acknowledging that women exist in the fucking worlds we build as more than furniture in the background. Just like we do in real life. This is challenging my unconscious mental presumption that all characters somehow must be male unless there is a defining need for them to be female. And if other people have a problem with it, it tacitly forces them to admit their sexism (racism/homophobia/transphobia) out loud and attempt justification. Sometimes, in situations like that, people finally listen to themselves talk. Sometimes, other people are listening. It’s a start.

I look forward to the day when I have to go through a story or script I’ve written and switch some of the characters to male because there’s not a realistic enough number. Maybe then I’ll have finally purged that bias from my system.

Categories
movie

The Young Ones trailer makes me :/

Saw the trailer for this movie right before Dead Snow 2. (Which was AWESOME by the way. AWESOME, My review for that will be doing up on the Skiffy and Fanty blog too and I’ll try to remember to link it here.)

On its face, there’s a lot of stuff that I should like. Draught apocalypse! Climate disaster! Science fiction! Western genre cues! But… ugh.

“She’s a flower. Someone needs to appreciate her for more than cookin’ and sewin’.”

Wouldn’t that be revolutionary. Or wait, you know what would be even more revolutionary? If instead of men talking about how a woman should get to be so much more than her stereotypical qualities, she actually got to fucking be more than that.

The men in this trailer do stuff. They seethe with manpain and point guns at each other! The women are pretty much objects in the trailer. We get mom, who is literally tethered to some kind of mysterious device (looks interesting, I admit I’m curious), and sister, who is apparently there for the men to squabble over. She pretty much never speaks for herself, just shouts at dad about his dad failings and then says a line I couldn’t quite catch at the end, but the men certain talk about who gets to have a claim to her.

Obvious metaphor alert! Blonde girl in white dress (possibly pregnant) that men are fighting over while they simultaneously clash over bringing life to the barren land!

Barf. Barf barf barf.

I’m just… aggravated. Just this entire trailer aggravates me. You know what’s just amazing and revolutionary? Women exist in the world as people. We are not just sister or wife or mother. We’re fucking people. We have an existence outside of whatever proprietary relationships men can claim.

Women characters should also be people.

This isn’t a new problem. And you know, sometimes I could even be on board about the walking metaphor if it weren’t just one. More. Goddamn. Thing. I’m just so sick of it that my tolerance has hit zero. Maybe I’ll change my mind about Young Ones after I see another trailer where Elle Fanning gets to do more than stare blankly at the camera. As it is, I have a feeling I’ll end up leaving the theater pissed off because I’m tired of seeing white dudes having manpain wars over a metaphor with flowing hair and tits.

Categories
movie sexism

The one truly creepy thing in Ghostbusters

Happy 30th birthday, Ghostbusters!

I saw the 30th anniversary rerelease of Ghostbusters last week and man, that movie is still freaking gold. It’s hilarious. Catch your chance to see it on the big screen while you can. I’d even go so far as to call Ghostbusters one of the formative movies of my life. It’s had a very definite effect on the development of my sense of humor, for sure. I watched it when I was still young enough to think the ghost in the library was the scariest thing in the world, but it was just. So. Funny. My whole family still quotes lines from it at each other. My older brother’s ambition was once to attain a coffee mug that said Back off man, I’m a scientist.

There’s one thing bothering me about it now, though: the way Venkman just creeps on Dana. Venkman basically makes it clear from moment one (“I’m going to go to Ms. Barrett’s apartment and check her out. I mean check it out.”) that he is trying to get up her skirt. Dana throws him out of her apartment, (“Mr. Venkman, would you please leave.”) and is very obviously not interested… at first. And then, inevitably, she ends up finding him charming as he refuses to go away and by the end of the movie Venkman basically assumes she’s his girlfriend and there’s no indication to the contrary.

I think it says a lot about the amazing timing Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver have that it’s all pretty darn funny and charming. And really, there’s a lot of creeping that goes on in that movie, to hilarious effect. Louis also creeps (very unsuccessfully) on Dana. Janine, frankly, creeps on Egon.

But Venkman gets the girl.

I mentioned how I felt icky about this to my housemate as we left the movie, and she said “Yeah, that didn’t age so well.” Except it’s not an age problem for Ghostbusters. The creeper model of relationship development is still a mainstay in film. I’d almost argue the average creepy relationship in movies has, if anything, only gotten creepier.

Ghostbusters was always like that. The movie didn’t change, I did, and now it just bothers me. Now I can’t help but think, Jesus, if someone was that resistant about leaving my house after I told them to go, they’d get pepper sprayed or put in an armlock. It’s not okay behavior. It’s creepy. And yeah, you can excuse a lot of this stuff as comedy. Except for this: I remember how I felt about this movie when I was a kid. I thought Dana and Venkman were super romantic (as super romantic as you can get in a comedy movie that involves a giant, evil, marshmallow man at least) and an amazing couple.

Confession: I was a total creeper, in high school. I basically tried to hang around guys (because I didn’t realize or admit girls were an actual option, not that I would have been less creepy at girls) and refused to go away under the belief that if I just stuck around long enough they would suddenly realize just how wrong they were to not want to kiss me. I even complained about how boys only wanted to date bitches instead of nice girls like me. No really.

Movies aren’t reality. I get that. They’re art. They’re commentary. They’re a reflection. They’re wish fulfillment. They’re a lot of things. Movies—stories—also have a lot more meaning than we like to admit. Stories instruct, and stick with us, and in ways we don’t necessarily realize. In reality, you do not obtain a significant other by refusing to go away until they decide that maybe they do like you. Relationships are not created by erosion.

So why do we keep telling ourselves stories where they are?

Categories
science fiction sexism

The Shrill Sound of Not Shutting Up

So I was just thinking this morning, about how back in my undergrad days I wrote a paper wherein I mentioned that use of the adjective shrill to describe a person can be generally considered a red flag for sexism. That class involved peer critiques, and I subsequently had a male classmate who took a lot of umbrage to that statement explain to me, in a very animated way, how I was totally wrong.

Because, yanno. Shrill just gets used to describe women more because our voices are higher pitched than men’s. So when we’re loud it’s even more high pitched. It’s just accurate.

Yeah, dude, you’re right. I don’t know what could possibly be sexist at all about implying that the very pitch of our voices is grating when we’re being loud, as in: saying things you don’t like. (Seriously, has anyone ever been described as shrill in a positive way?) And it gets applied to men too, so it can’t be sexist! (Because goodness knows, men have never been insulted by the implication that they act/sound like women.) I’m sure there is absolutely nothing demeaning about a strongly voiced fact or opinion being reduced, in effect, to nothing more than an annoying sound.

You know. It’s not what you’re saying. It’s just the way you’re saying it. Being all loud and stuff. It hurts my delicate ears. Can’t you be sweeter?

Of course, recollections like these don’t just float up out of the blue. My brain got wrenched in that direction last night thanks to Tangent Online’s special review of the Women Destroy Scifi issue of Lightspeed.

First off: oh my gosh the reviewer said nice things about my story, AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, (she screeched with shrill delight. Huh. Doesn’t really work, does it?)

Generally speaking, the reviews are solid; while I’ve disagreed with various reviewers from time to time, I think the site does yeoman’s work when it comes to sorting through the massive number of short stories out there. (With occasional notable exception.) Where it just gets kind of special is in the response to Christie Yant’s introduction, and then David Truesdale’s “closing thoughts,” which could be better titled Oh you silly lady writers, being all wrong about everything and stuff.

I’m not going to really wade into this. Natalie Luhrs, Amal El-Mohtar, and E. Catherine Tobler already did an amazing job at their respective sites and you should go read those. I just want to point out one thing. In the entire special review, the word shrill gets used twice. (Emphasis in both quotes added by me.)

Once by Martha Burns:

In addition, the authors play with tropes regarding femininity and don’t worry that the decision makes one too much or not enough of a feminist. They do not have to worry that the project makes one shrill. Voila. And the stories work.

(Which is a very positive statement that, I think, acknowledges the historic use of the word.)

And then once by Dave Truesdale:

The sad thing, and this is something I can’t help but fear, is that the closer these hypothetical weary travelers get to the SF community down there in the plush valley, looking to find rest, refreshment, and perhaps a place to call home, what they will first hear wafting up on the wind from that village in the valley below are cries and exhortations that it is not a nice place to visit, much less to consider making it a home. The shrill cries of racism!, sexism!, and homophobia lives here!, Beware and stay away!, will drive the travelers away before the decent folk of the village have a chance to tell them how life really is, there in their village where all are welcome and the occasional ne’er-do-wells are shown the road out of town.

“Shrill cries” is pretty much the summation of Truesdale’s characterization of the various in-genre blow-ups of the last couple of years–which was at its most basic one of the major motivating forces for the existence of this anthology and its resounding success on Kickstarter. Apparently not only are we totally wrong, we’re incredibly loud and annoying while we’re at it. His poor, delicate ears.

Considering Ms. Burns had only just said that we “do not have to worry that the project makes one shrill…” Well.

Hopes: dashed. I love the smell of irony in the morning.

(Have I mentioned the Women Destroy Scifi issue of Lightspeed? Because you should totally go buy it.)

Categories
clothing feminism

Socksism?

Sometimes it’s the little things.

So I go to REI to get some more smart wool light cushion socks because I like wearing those with my Docs, and I need a few more pairs. After purchasing my socks, I noticed this.

wpid-img_20140510_130551.jpg

wpid-img_20140510_130534.jpg

Those are two pairs of the socks I bought. You’ll noticed the pair on top, which is a kind of light gray-green, is marked as “women’s” and has only women’s shoe sizes listed. Whereas the one on the bottom, which is a sort of gray-brown, is unmarked and has both men’s and women’s shoe sizes list. I guess unmarked means gender neutral, though maybe that’s supposed to mean “default to male” for all I know.

This is just silly. It’s silly.

I loathe this gender coding of color BS to begin with, and this one just seems particularly dumb. So men and women are allowed to wear gray-brown, gray, or black, but only women should be wearing gray-green (gosh that’s so super hyper femme) or that historically girly color, purple? Yikes.

Still dreaming of the day when we’ve done away with this men’s versus women’s clothing nonsense entirely. Seriously, people. Wear what makes you happy.

Categories
science fiction sexism someone is wrong on the internet

Dear John C Wright: Please stop lying.

No really, John C. Wright. You flounced, you’re not my problem any more, I don’t have to care about your bullshit misogyny and gross homophobia. I’m done with you. Stop wasting my time.

Only then you go and pull this shit.

I have this problem, you see. Most of the time, when there’s someone saying stupid things on the internet, I can make myself get up and walk away because I seriously have better things to do with my limited number of minutes on this mortal coil. Like read books. And write. And play with my cats.

But when it’s a particular brand of stupid shit on the internet, when it’s someone saying things that should be connected to actual real facts, I. Just. Can’t.

I already had an inkling that Mr. Wright had some problems with the truth after his flounce. But this just confirms it. So let’s play some whack-a-mole, shall we? Please, don’t consider the following comprehensive, exhaustive, or final. I invite you to play your own round of Spot The Bullshit. It’s fun for all ages! Enjoy slogging through his comically overwrought paragraphs! My brainmeats may never recover!

Robert Heinlein could not win a Hugo Award today.

Not calling this out as an untruth necessarily, but because I am so, so fucking sick of this.

First off (at the risk of inviting hordes of flying monkeys to my blog for failing to bow at the feet of the Heinlein) you say that like it’s a bad thing. Second off, he won a Retro Hugo for best novel, for Farmer in the Sky, in 2001. This is not to say that if Farmer in the Sky had been on the actual 2001 Hugo ballot, it would have won. No, I’m pretty sure Harry Potter would have nutpunched poor Bill Lermer and gained the victory without breaking a sweat.

I’m also forced to wonder at the implied assumption that, had Robert Heinlein been born in 1977 (or 1967) instead of 1907, he would be writing the exact same stuff in 2014 that he wrote in 1954 (The Star Beast) or 1964 (Farnham’s Freehold–holy shit, I hope not!). Feels kind of insulting to him that if he’d grown up in a different time he wouldn’t have maybe had some different opinions, but I guess that shouldn’t be surprising coming as it is from someone who has attitudes about gender roles that might have been more at home in the Victorian era.

But that’s a discussion for a different time, a different place, and probably to be had by people who are a lot more personally concerned with Heinlein than I am. Let’s get back on track.

Orson Scott Card publicly expressed the mildest imaginable opposition to having judges overrule popular votes defining marriage in the traditional way. The uproar of hate directed against this innocent and honorable man is vehement and ongoing. An unsuccessful boycott was organized against the movie Ender’s Game, but he was successfully shoved off a project to write for Superman comics.

This is what’s commonly known as a lie. Orson Scott Card has a history of virulent and public homophobia dating back to the early 90s (oh look, Salon has been kind enough to collect a non-exhaustive timeline!) The straw that broke the homosexual’s back, so to speak, was him joining the board for the National Organization for Marriage in 2009–the loathsome organization that worked to pass Proposition 8 in California and then tried to defend it with blatant, pathetic lying in court. His involvement in NOM was specifically cited by the campaign to boycott the Ender’s Game movie, by the way.

Even better, Wright doesn’t even believe this line of shit himself. To quote a comment he posted in his own blog in response to someone pointing out that hey, OSC is in trouble for sticking his hand into the political blender when it comes to same-sex marriage, not for being a Christian:

Hence if Mr Card, a Christian, expresses what Christian should hold, he does and he must express the idea that homosexual acts are sins. When Mr Card is being punished for speaking out against homosex, he is being punished for being a true Christian.

Huh. I thought you said it was just incredibly mild opposition to judicial activism. Not “homosex.” Whatever the fuck that is. But if you read that entire post (I suggest you have an airsickness bag on hand first) it’s painfully obvious that Wright’s concerned about OSC being boycotted and punished for being, gosh, virulently homophobic because their opinions are totally similar, OSC is just so much more mild than him.

(Aside: This quote is from a hilarious thread in which Mr. Wright debates with a commenter whether or not Mormons are Christian and thus deserving of help.)

Mr. Wright, stop lying.

Likewise, Theodore Beale was expelled from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers America (SFWA), our professional union, on the rather specious grounds that he repeated comments from a members-only bulletin board to the general public.

Nope. Beale is an embarrassing (racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic) shitstain in the shorts of humanity in general, but what got him finally thrown out of SFWA was using the organization’s official Twitter feed to promote a racist, misogynistic screed. Here’s a post Amal El-Mohtar wrote prior to his expulsion, with screenshots of said screed. I don’t know, something about those professional organizations. They don’t like it when members try to drag them through the racist, sexist shit.

He was libeled with the same typical menu as above. [The “list from above”–ed: You know the selection: racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, insensitivity, fascism.] (By odd coincidence, the falsely accused racist here is also Hispanic.) That the expulsion was done in an irregular and ad hoc fashion casts an additional pall of shame over it.

(Note, I’m guessing the “falsely accused racist here is also Hispanic” is in reference to Larry Correia. I’m leaving the Correia issue alone because I do not know enough about the guy other than the fact that I think he’s an asshole, and still cannot be bothered to slog through the festering cesspit of his blog to investigate.)

Quoted from the screenshot of Beale’s blog post: [For context that should probably be unnecessary, NK Jemisin is African-American.]

Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious reason that she is not.

And:

Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without external support.

Yes. Beale is totally not racist at all. [/withering sarcasm] Stop lying.

Back to Wright’s bullshit fest.

Likewise, Elizabeth Moon was “uninvited” from being the guest of honor at a large convention for making the rather unremarkable remark that immigrants to the United States should assimilate.

If you actually care to read the article linked to, you will find that once again that Wright is going for the incredibly dishonest minimization route. Now, maybe it was just the assimilation comment that got Elizabeth Moon uninvited. Or maybe it was this:

I know – I do not dispute – that many Muslims had nothing to do with the attacks, did not approve of them, would have stopped them if they could. I do not dispute that there are moderate, even liberal, Muslims, that many Muslims have all the virtues of civilized persons and are admirable in all those ways. But Muslims fail to recognize how much forbearance they’ve had.

I feel that I personally (and many others) lean over backwards to put up with these things, to let Muslims believe stuff that unfits them for citizenship, on the grounds of their personal freedom. It would be helpful to have them understand what they’re demanding of me and others – how much more they’re asking than giving.

Context matters. Considering that the large convention in question is WisCon (pretty much the most liberal scifi convention that has ever liberaled), I’m more surprised Wright even managed to mention it obliquely without his poor conservative fingers bursting into white-hot flame from the hellish proximity of so many un-shaven she-devil feminists.

Likewise, under the editorial guidance of Jean Rabe, two well-established science fiction writers, Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, in the SFWA house magazine made comments ranging from the complimentary to the utterly innocuous about lady writers and editors breaking into the field. That issue also featured a toothsome sword-wielding Amazon in chain-mail bikini. All three were fired.

Wow, going there are we? The original comments in the Bulletin, however they might have been intended, were not complimentary, nor innocuous. The inflammatory and trollish way Resnick and Malzberg decided to respond (“liberal fascists,” really?) earned just the ire for which it had been aiming. That Wright chooses to describe the chain-mail bikini-wearing warrior woman as “toothsome” honestly just goes to prove every fucking complaint women had about that cover. Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg had a regular column that was discontinued because a large portion of the membership didn’t feel like paying to see ourselves belittled in writing; to my understanding, that’s not the same as firing. Jean Rabe resigned, though I suppose one could argue if she felt pressured, but she was ultimately not fired either.

Stop. Lying.

None accuse Mike Ashley of any evil intent against women. Yet if you look at the Wikipedia entry for this anthology, there is only one quote from a critic, mocking his lack of diversity.

Wikipedia: the best source ever for iron clad proof of the existence of conspiracies.

And then Wright goes of into a giant, frankly masturbatory stroke-fest about his cherished belief that he and people like him are persecuted. Keep reading if you want to feel a sense of creeping, disgusted awkwardness.

It’s a free country. Mr. Wright is entitled to his own opinion that the evil liberal thought police are out to get him, and I really could not give less of a shit if I tried. But just like climate change deniers, evolution deniers, moon landing conspiracy theorists, 9/11 truthers, and every other flavor of disingenuous nut scrabbling for justification, he is not entitled to his own facts.

Kindly stop wasting my time.

Sashay_Away

Stop lying. Asshole.

(PS: Natalie, IHU SO MUCH RN.)

Related links: 

HERE. If you want to watch someone try to take on the tortured “logic” in Wright’s post–which I noped right out of and went for the low-hanging fruit of completely dishonesty–Foz has taken a stab at it. Foz deserves all the cookies.

Natalie has also opined about Lying Liars Who Lie.

Popelizbet has an absolutely gorgeous takedown of some of the quasi-philosophical bullshit asshattery that the rest of us didn’t want to touch. NO REALLY READ THIS IT’S SO WORTH IT.

Marissa Lingen makes an excellent point about Heinlein that I only touched on here in the lightest possible sense.

From my own blog: The deeply pathetic intimation of violence. Because duels for honor are a thing?

Categories
rants sexism sfwa stoopid

You only hate boobs because you hate freedom.

Or: the most hilarisad thing I heard this weekend.

So, this ties back into the SFWA thing from last year. You know, the bulletin cover that made me sigh profoundly and roll my eyes? And then the wanksplosion that caused me to write a post to specifically say “Fuck you” to Malzberg and Resnick? It is the gift that keeps on giving. Only this time it’s just funny, in the same way watching a cat fall off a desk is funny.

There is apparently a petition circulating in regards to the SFWA bulletin because…censorship! And first amendment! And freedom! The petition is courtesy of David Truesdale. If you’ve never heard of him, read the review he did of Apex Magazine #55 and that’ll basically tell you what you need to know. He’s also, it’s important to note, not a member of SFWA, which makes the entire concept of this petition extra wtf-y.

The link to Radish Reviews really covers most of the mockery that immediately springs to mind. Holy double bonus fuck you asshole points to David Truesdale for his super gross allusions to slavery! Because not being able to belittle entire groups and enjoy scantily clad women courtesy of a professional organization is totally same as the injustices and crimes perpetrated upon countless people throughout history!

But three points.

One: While there is arguably a “female gaze” in operation in movies like, say, Twilight, “men get objectified too” is a bullshit argument. Particularly when the objectification being cited involves the big muscular manly man ideal. I’d argue most of the time, that stuff isn’t made for female consumption; it’s created as the manly ideal men are supposed to want to meet. (Another mention here, and a succinct summation here.) Which is, yes, still incredibly fucked up, but send your thank you note to the patriarchy and its ridiculous love of over-emphasized sexual dimorphism and gender roles.

Two: At this point, the moment I see the phrase “politically correct” I automatically roll my eyes. Because it is invariably a whiney, impotent asshole defending their supposed right to not only aggressively be an asshole, but to aggressively be an asshole in a sandbox over which they have no control. Here’s your “you tried” gold star.

Three, and by far the most important: SFWA is a professional organization. And it’s not the only professional organization of which I’m a member, so don’t even try to blow smoke up my ass on this one.

I’ve also been part of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) for years (far longer than I’ve been part of SFWA, actually). During those years, not once has AAPG sent me a bulletin that contained pictures of scantily clad women draped on rock formations or pretending to study seismic lines while sticking their pert bottoms in the air. Not once has AAPG sent me an official communication that included dismissive discussions of “lady geologists” and how hot the first wave of women in petroleum geoscience looked in bikinis. AAPG, I will also note, has an online moderation policy for its content that reserves the right to delete racist, sexist, and otherwise offensive comments.

(I suppose this must be because as much as they love oil and gas, they hate freedom. Or something.)

Now, this could be because I just haven’t been reading the bulletins carefully enough. And it’s not because geology as a science managed to completely avoid historical sexism. And it’s not that the G in AAPG actually stands for “gynocracy” because trust me, if you’ve ever been to the national meeting, you’d know that there are still way more men in the field than there are women.

So I’m just going to throw this out there: maybe there aren’t bikini babes in the AAPG bulletin because, I don’t know, AAPG is a fucking professional organization that has women in its membership and wants to maintain its credibility as an organization in the public eye.

How fucking hard is that to figure out?

I don’t give two shits if the historic legacy of an industry is one of bikini babes codified sexism. You know what? One way or another, that’s how it is in most industries! There is a difference between understanding the roots of one’s industry, and perpetuating and celebrating it. There’s a huge fucking difference. Particularly when those historic roots being perpetuated in a modern context are insulting to a big whack of your membership and the public.

The publications of an organization are its face to both the public and its membership. Effectively, what is in those pages is viewed as being in line with the organization’s values and vision because the organization fucking paid to put it there.

SFWA members don’t pay their $90 annual dues to be told what to think or how they should express themselves in the pages of the Bulletin, nor do they want their own thoughts (through their articles or columns) to be deemed “acceptable” or “right thinking,” or adhering to some jumped-up (always subject to change at whim) PC style manual by some hootenanny “advisory board”” of boot lickers. [from here, pdf from main post]

Yeah, you know what I don’t pay $90 for? Being belittled by the professional organization of which I’m a member.

Go fuck yourself.

Categories
feminism sexism

The paralyzing guilt of being good at math

I’m okay at math. Or at least I was. I haven’t done anything more difficult than long division and some statistics in years, and the thing about math is that it’s a language. If you don’t use it, you tend to forget how to do it. (Though conversely it’s easier to pick back up on the second go round.)

I almost ended up going for an applied mathematics minor to go with my bachelor’s degree. The reason I didn’t was because one of the geologists I worked with at the time pulled me aside and laid down some truth: How much do you really like math, Rachael? Eh, not that much. Well, if you get any kind of degree, even a minor in math, and it gets around the office you’re working in, you will be The Math Guy. All of the other geologists will fling the math at you in the hopes it will stick, so they don’t have to do it, because geologists are lazy. So unless you want to spend the rest of your life doing math, get a minor in something else.

I followed his advice. I didn’t get a minor in something else, I got a second major in Japanese Language and Culture. (Still waiting for the other geologists to fling their Japanese stuff at me. So far, no luck.) I might have been okay at math, with the potential to be good at it, but I never really liked it. Not enough that I wanted to keep doing math outside of a context that involved a hot Russian doctoral candidate teaching us three dimensional solids.

I was telling my friend John Dee about this while we were hanging out in the Oklahoma City airport and waiting for our flights. Yeah, John, I was almost the math guy. And I was trying to articulate to him how I still sometimes feel a little guilty that I’m not the math guy, entirely because I’m a woman.

It’s a weird, weird thing to think about, but there can be a lot of pressure you feel, if you’re a woman who is even peripherally interested in math, engineering, or science.

Because this is the thing. When you’re a woman, you spend a lot of time getting told by the media, by your peers, even by teachers, that girls just aren’t good at math. Our ladybrains can’t handle it, because logic! And masculine things! And we’re diaphanous right-brained creatures of art and emotions (and presumably bullshit). Math is a Man Thing. And then from the other side you hear over and over and over again that there are not enough women doing science, engineering, and math. Because no shit we can do it, so we have to overcome the institutional barriers in or way.

(And then this traitorous voice in your head asks, do I not like doing math because I don’t actually like doing it, or because the patriarchy has convinced me in its horrid, insidious way that I shouldn’t, just like I’m still deep down emotionally convinced that I hate my body?)

I was actually interested in doing geophysics instead of pure geology, when I went back to Uni for my bachelors. Then the undergrad counselor pulled me aside and basically said the program was just way too hard, and way too much math. I have no idea if he ever gave that line to a man who was interested in geophysics. Ultitmately, I’m also glad I didn’t decide to keep going and beat my head against those physics classes (because I would have, I’m damn stubborn sometimes, and it would have been miserable), but thinking about it still makes me so angry I could spit nails.

It feels almost like, if you can prove people wrong, then you should. Like there’s some kind of obligation to not let the side down and give the essentialist nonsense more fuel. Like you have something to prove on behalf of an entire unfairly maligned gender. Only you know it will never be enough proof to get those guys to shut the hell up.

I don’t want to do math. What’s wrong with that? Why should I feel compelled to spend my life doing something I don’t like just because some impotent, bald asshole wants to believe he’s superior by grace of chromosomal lottery? (And where did this secondary bullshit narrative come from, that math as an academic topic is somehow more worthy a pursuit than geology, or literature, or dance for that matter?)

There are days when I really do wish I had a math minor on my diploma, just so I could wrap that paper around my fist and then punch anyone who says girls can’t do math. Fuck you, I can do math. I just choose to not. Which is a million times better than being an condescending asshole and choosing to open your damn mouth.

Life is really too short for this nonsense, and I resent that it’s still got its claws sunk into my brain. Do what you’re good at, as long as it’s what you love.

Categories
feminism movie

In the previews… sigh.

So, I saw three movies this weekend because we’re finally back to having movies I actually want to see in the theaters woohoo! I don’t have a problem shut up no you have the problem That made for an excellent weekend. There is seriously nothing I love more in the world than sitting down to watch a movie with popcorn and maybe a beer if I’ve got enough room in my calories for the day.

That meant I also got to see a lot of previews this weekend. And yay, there are more movies coming that I want to see! But I noticed something else… of all the previews I saw this weekend–for eight different movies!–literally only one of them had a female main character. And that one would be Gravity, with a trailer that prominently featured Sandra Bullock. (Way more than the previous trailers, actually.) I’m already just geeked to see this movie, and I’m sure it’s going to scare the shit out of me.

But all of the other trailers for new movies were basically one or two or three male characters, and at some point you’d get to see a woman briefly so you’d know she was the love interest for the hero. Oh, and quite a few women in bikinis in the background of some of the movies, of course. I’m… really disappointed.

Just… sigh. I’m still excited for some of the new movies and I’m sure I’ll go see quite a few of them. But would it cause the world to spin out of control and threaten all of humanity if women got to be in the lead and not have to take their shirts off occasionally?

Could be worse, I suppose. I could have been hoping for a queer main character to pop up. HAHAHA RIGHT. And keep in mind, I didn’t set out this weekend to count boobs versus penises in the previews. It just got to be so glaring I couldn’t not notice.

Also, I saw the preview for the new Robocop. I’m kind of interested sort of maybe, I think there’s a good chance I’ll see it, particularly if nothing more exciting is out that weekend. But I will note, I had about thirty seconds where I thought oh holy shit is the black guy that just got shot going to be Robocop oh no wait never mind. Because that would have been unexpected. (Please note, not that well acquainted with the original film; I was only 7 when it came out. But if I do end up seeing this new version I’ll make sure to give the old one a full watch.)

Anyway. Looking forward to the next round of movies, just… not as much as I could.

Categories
movie sexism you need to do better

Hey Thor 2: Star Wars Called, It Wants Its Poster Back

I had about three seconds of excitement yesterday when Marvel dropped the new Thor: The Dark World poster on Twitter. I’m so excited about that movie, I can barely stand it. And I really loved most of the posters there were for the original Thor. So… yay! And here it was!
thor poster
Well. That’s sure a thing. I don’t like the composition (she says as if she has more artistic ability than the average potato).It’s really… busy. Unlike the posters for the first movie. But more than that… wow. It feels really familiar. Reeeeeeeally familiar.
iron man poster…wow. Yeah. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking about. We have to go back further. Much further. Like maybe…
star-wars-return-of-the-jedi_movie-poster-01A bit like this, perhaps. Except while they put Leia in the stupid-ass bikini, at least she’s not clinging to anyone. But of course, Star Wars really owes its artistic allegiance to far pulpier roots…
UFO_MovieArt_01
Just as an example. That’s art from a release called UFO from the 70s. Though then we need to add a little side of this just for full replication:
eileen-dreter-barely-a-lady-cover-art-by-jon-paul-ferraraAnd there you go.

Why the hell are we still doing pulp movie clingy woman and manly men posters in the year 2013? There is just so much about the poster that I really, really don’t like. About both the TDW and IM3 posters, really. I’m not a big fan of women with their necks broken, to start with. But the position is so classic clingy damsel in distress oh let me lay my hands on your manly manly chest so you can save me. I loathe it. Particularly because in IM3, Pepper was pretty fucking awesome. She saved Tony’s ass twice. She was not the damsel in distress.

That gives me hope that maybe the TDW poster is a big troll just like the IM3 poster kind of was. (Or maybe we’ll get an awesome joke poster for Captain America 2, like this idea.) But it just upsets me on a basic level to see another awesome female character turned into the visual clingy appendage of the guy. I actually like Jane as a character. She kind of fell by the wayside when I first watched Thor because I was too busy losing my shit over the complexities of Loki. But in subsequent viewings, I’ve come to really like Jane.

In a super hero movie, it’s nice to have some normal human characters around who aren’t just living furniture. That they’re regular people means yes, they occasionally need their bacon saved by the super hero, because that’s what super heroes do. But both Pepper and Jane are eminently competent women, and they solve some great plot problems by being excellent at what they do. While I didn’t really buy the Thor/Jane romance in Thor, I loved that Jane was the one who decided to kiss him. I loved that she was impulsive and smart and very much had a life and a being outside of the whole romance angle.

The one thing that I’m still mad at Thor for was what I felt was the lazy writing. We need some redemption–quick, have him instantly fall in love with someone and that will make him a better person because boobies are magic! It was cheap, formulaic, and trite. I’ll still be seeing the new movie who knows how many fucking times because Loki. And Sif. And Loki. And Frigga in armor. And Loki. But I’d love to not give myself a headache from rolling my eyes through the rest of the movie. At this point I’m already assuming that Jane will get kidnapped by Malekith and Thor has to almost die again to save her life because obviously Malekith blowing shit up across the Nine Realms isn’t sufficient motivation for the man to be self-sacrificing. Barf. (I’d love to be wrong, by the way.)

I’m sick of shit like that. I’m so sick of it. It’s ultimately disrespectful (if that’s the right word) of two really awesome characters. It reduces Jane to just being an object to motivate Thor, and it reduces Thor to someone who can only stir himself to do great and noble things and grow as a person if his dick warmer is in danger.

Really. Do better.