The short answer is, the People at the Top. You may not be surprised to discovered that, in patriarchal cultures (which describes most cultures), this is men. We can be more specific, however: bottom-to-top position in this hierarchy is determined by many things, and the closer one gets to the top, the richer, more educated, and lighter-skinned these men get. Upon discovering that the People at the Top are predominantly wealthy, white, Western males, understanding gendered rules and expectations becomes a lot easier. Patriarchal hierarchies of dominance vary from place to place (and even time to time), but the patterns of wealth, education, skin colour, ability, age, sexual orientation, and so on are fairly consistent.

As many people have discussed, not only in terms of gender but also in terms of race and other categories, the People at the Top do not actively and consciously determine and define gendered rules, necessarily; rather, it is largely through their mere existence as Normal and Best (or Default, as some say– I like that) that definitions of other persons are shaped relative to them. Male equals normal, female equals abnormal or deviant; male equals default, female equals Other.

That’s the short answer, but it’s not whole answer. The more accurate, complete, and much longer answer is: everybody. We all decide what gendered rules and expectations will be, by following them. And perhaps even more importantly, by punishing those who deviate. It comes so naturally to us it seems biologically innate to call the boy in your eighth grade class who was caught wearing toe nail polish a fag. Hatred and fear of deviance, however, is not innate; it is learned. We are taught early and often that deviation is bad, most appreciably by being punished, ourselves. Normal/good little boys do not play with dolls; they pretend to shoot each other. Normal/good little girls do not pretend to shoot each other; they sweetly and passively care for their dolls. Full-grown men do not cry. Full-grown women do not have double mastectomies. Et cetera. This is reinforced to us all our lives. We witness what happens to those who deviate, and we learn to participate in their persecution, be it in the comments section of Youtube or NPR, or on sports teams, or in ballet class, or in our classrooms, or within our own families (this is often referred to as gender policing). If you are not doing the persecuting, chances are you might be persecuted– so which side would you want to be on? This is the question faced by every single person who lives within the confines of patriarchal culture.

The next time you hear someone tell a young man “boys don’t cry” (or “you throw like a girl”, or whatever), call to mind the question: Who decides what the rules are when it comes to gender and sex? You do. Either through your inaction or by validating that young man’s feelings, you are helping to decide what the rules are.

In order to contemplate the rules and think about how you’d like them defined, they first have to be recognizable. For most people, gender rules are normative and it would never occur to them to question them. Those who do are said to be “challenging Nature” and pushing “unnatural ideas”. Challenging our conceptions of “natural” is a good place to start.

When I came across this open letter, I felt grateful to the author, but I also felt nervous reading it, as a “white” person. Could I ever read a letter like this, intended for a black man, with sincerity? Am I subconsciously, permanently tainted with racial prejudice? Then I got to part where Dyson, the author, says, “in America, we are taught to fear black men.” And whether or not I can read a letter like that with sincerity stopped mattering right then, because she had just spoken the truth, and the truth speaks not only to the subconscious self, but to all Selves. Yeah, I thought, we are. Who teaches us that? I instantly recognized that as true, but could not pinpoint particular moments in my life when I felt like I was being taught to fear black men. I guess this has just been a part of my general societal education, and is deeply rooted in me, whether I like it or not.

It’s really not easy to recognize one’s hand in oppression (of any kind). It’s painful. It’s humiliating. It’s depressing. Whether it’s small-time oppression or full-scale oppression, most people seem interested in justifying their behavior and, really, avoiding guilt.

I know that my friend knows what they’re talking about, concerning cognitive biases; I have seen them realize, acknowledge and begin to work through their own. It takes a huge amount of humility and honesty to even begin that process. I also understand why oppressed people resent their oppressors even after they have begun this process– but it can’t stay that way forever, if things are going to change for the better. Begrudge them, punish them, but eventually, work with them. Recognize them for the ally they’ve become.

I felt guilty reading that letter, like I didn’t deserve to. I’m still trying to work out precisely what that means. My friend also said that acknowledging one’s participation in oppression is only the first step…”the end of it is what you do after you know that about yourself.”

Reblogged from MotherWise:

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First I would like to start off by thanking you for creating a wonderful social networking site that brings people together with family, friends, and their community. It helps small businesses grow, and lets us create communities that suit our personal interests. We can spend time relaxing and talking with friends, or sit back and play some games with all the apps you have for us.  

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“To me being a feminist is about treating men and women the same,” Martin is quoted as saying in this Telegraph article. “I regard men and women as all human – yes there are differences, but many of those differences are created by the culture that we live in, whether it’s the medieval culture of Westeros, or 21st century western culture.”

Of course, I am dissatisfied by so many definitions of feminism nowadays, so I shouldn’t be too harsh. But by his own definition, Martin’s literary works are surely not feminist.

While Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice female characters are arguably more three-dimensional than most other fantasy of the same ilk, I find their stereotyped natures tiring. Cersei is the seductive slut; Arya is the tomboy; Catelyn Stark is the steadfast mother and wife; Sansa is the sweet and innocent princess in need of rescue; blah blah blah. Predictable, and therefore reliable. To some degree this can’t be avoided, right? Fiction, especially fantasy, functions at least partially on the familiar, shared assumptions (read: stereotypes) about kinds of people to anchor us while guiding us through a fantastic and impossible story. Besides, not all of Martin’s female characters have been created from drab stereotypes (Brienne of Tarth, for example).

No, what truly bothers me about Martin’s comment about feminism, and the serious slack cut him by supposedly feminist bloggers, is his constant depiction of rape, domestic violence, and other forms of sexual violence as attractive, arousing, enjoyable. This is where Martin gives himself away: a feminist does not depict rape as sexy and enjoyable.

Why stop at sexual violence. Martin glorifies battle and the taking of lives throughout the series, a huge portion of which is devoted to high-def, graphic scenes of beheadings, disembowelments, torture, and other “glorious” aspects of war and the violent societies in which the story takes place. The content is patriarchal, and is consumed largely by a patriarchal audience (men and women alike). War is cool, rape is sexy, same old, same old. To his credit (?), Martin makes lame attempts to suggest that war isn’t all cool: look, you could get your sword hand cut off, and then no one will want to fuck you– least of all your sister. Wow, is that the best he can do? Can we drop the feminist act now?

And besides, there is a whole realm of racism in A Song of Fire and Ice that we haven’t even touched on yet. Highly illuminating read on that topic here!

Whatever the case, I (mostly) enjoyed reading these books. I even (mostly) enjoyed the one or two episodes of the HBO series I’ve seen. I don’t think there is anything wrong with enjoying works of fiction that are inherently racist, sexist, classist, and so on (unless it’s for those aspects that we enjoy it, of course)– but that we like or enjoy something should not stop us from critiquing it. Or from calling out its makers when they say shit like, “Ima feminist LOL.”

Fantasy doesn’t have to show rape as sexy, or war and killing as glorious. It doesn’t have to paint all the people white or all the heroes male, though it is true that you will sell more novels if you do these things. But if you choose to do so, as an author, then you have forfeited the right to call yourself feminist. As readers, we have the right to read what we enjoy, but I think we also have a responsibility to question that literature, even literature we praise. When useful criticism like this happens, valuable conversations can take place about issues that matter IRL (that’s IN REAL LIFE for you non-nerds out there, though sometimes I think nerds forget IRL exists).

Let’s also not forget that there is really great fantasy and science fiction out there which questions, analyzes, deconstructs, and parodies gender, race, class, age, ability, and so on, and dreams up whole new ways of conceptualizing these things. A Song of Fire and Ice is not the end-all, be-all of fantasy literature, and even if it were, that shouldn’t stop us from questioning it, taking it apart, and assessing it from different points of view.

Now I’d better get a head start on the Martin fans; I hear them trying to break down the door as I write!

‘Tis true that good movies are hard to come by in Cambodian cinemas, but that doesn’t stop me from going most every Sunday. Now that I can (mostly) afford it, I will shell out to see films I would never have considered back home. I’d have probably preferred a sharp stick in the eye to Beautiful Creatures, for example. But these are desperate times I live in.

Having read an interview with the authors of the B.C. series some time ago, I was looking forward to seeing if their ambitions with an anti-Bella female protagonist would translate in the films. Well, shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. I haven’t read the books, so maybe I’m giving the authors too much credit as it is, but the movie’s version of the protagonist Lena wasn’t exactly light years ahead of Twilight’s Bella.

It was sort of refreshing to see the female protagonist fanning her lover after he had swooned, and to see him in awe of her magical powers. (Sort of interesting, too, was that this witch story was set in a very Christian town in the South.) The pluses basically end there. The film (and books, presumably) focus on the boy’s perspective, which is all well and good except that Lena remains bland and personality-less. And for whatever reason, female witches, though not male ones, can’t control whether or not their “true nature” is ultimately good or evil. Unlike boy witches, their fate is predetermined and revealed on their 16th birthday when they become “a woman”. This is a form of ageism that I particularly despise, but I guess they can’t be blamed for using it, how else would this story have worked?

A much bigger hitch, though, was that this movie is a carbon copy of almost all the “romantic” movies I’ve seen in the past couple years. Yes, I’m desperate, I’ll see just about anything in the Kingdom because I love the Big Screen experience, but if I have to watch one more moody, melodramatic, I’m-pushing-you-away-but-don’t-leave-me-I-can’t-live-without-you teenage love story I am going to punch out the nearest theater steward.

On the same note, I can no longer stand overly long make-out scenes, with which B.C. was rife. Sex scenes are always a bore, but I actually prefer them to make-out scenes now because they take up fewer minutes of my movie-viewing time.

I get it: these movies are made for teenagers. But cartoons like Toy Story and Up were supposedly made for children, and people of all ages can enjoy them. Is it impossible for Hollywood to make a movie about teenagers that isn’t just for teenagers? I am quite sure there are plenty of teenagers who are bored by that crap, too.

Are movies like this still being made because there is genuine demand for them, or are they made to perpetuate certain cliches upon which so many high-grossing films are made and about which books and movies are quickly and easily produced? Are we really interested in buying this crap, or is the movie (and book) industry just that good at convincing us we are?

(On a more personal note: is the fact that these movies make me nauseous a sign that I am maturing into a real, live adult? Maybe that’s a bit optimistic…)

His Name May (or May Not) Be My Name, Too.

via His Name May (or May Not) Be My Name, Too.

Consider, if you will, Alex Bilmes, the editor of Esquire, talking about women featured in the men’s magazine. At first, one has to admire his earnestness: he doesn’t deny the fact that women are objectified in every sense of the word, on the same level as sports cars. Of the women featured in Esquire, he said, “I could lie to you if you want and say we are interested in their brains as well. We are not. They are objectified.” He further describes Esquire women as “ornamental”.

Well. Okay, we’re on the same page, at this point. Notice also how he said “we”. This guy’s an asshole, and totally unashamed of it.

We begin to diverge when he tries to claim that Esquire is “more honest” than women’s magazines in terms of its depiction of women. Women’s magazines only feature a certain type of woman, according to Bilmes. Esquire, on the other hand, objectifies women who are “more ethnically diverse, more shape diverse.” He also added that “in fashion magazines women are much thinner. We have older women, not really old, in their 40s.”

So Esquire is an equal-opportunity patriarchal establishment, by Bilmes’ own assessment: they will objectify any vagina-carrying entity (under 40, of course), be they black, white, thin, fat (not too fat, of course), unlike those backwards fashion magazines. Tasteful.

It’s interesting that he doesn’t see the irony (or hypocrisy) of his “older women” comment, either, but after all, he’s the editor of Esquire– one shouldn’t be too harsh.

(p.s. fashion mags, Esquire may be a sad waste of glossy paper with an ass for an editor, but you’re not off the hook. I might feel better if you publicly owned that you objectify women to make money off of them.)

Reblogged from Week Woman:

The author of this post has asked to remain anonymous; she wrote it in response to Nikki McWatters's piece, "Predatory Teenage Girls", in the Huffington Post 

When I was 15, like many teenage girls I had crushes. Not just sexual urges toward people, but platonic or intellectual ones as well. There were several girls in my school who I had a major crush on in that I wanted to be like them or at least inhabit their social sphere.

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Okay, just kidding, that’s old news. And yet it’s not.

Virgin Mobile USA thought better of a clearly inappropriate holiday ad that had gone up online after Richard Branson was like, “Um, no.”

When I think “Christmas Surprise” I think “Chloroform your partner”. In all seriousness, though… I get such a kick out of Mad Men because the absurdly misogynist caricatures of the advertising moguls of Madison Avenue seem exactly that: absurd. But then one realizes: they are still making ads. Only now some people have the good sense to get pissed off when those ads attempt to derive humor from the suggestion of sexual violence.

On the production side of things, however, seemingly little has changed. Take American Apparel ads, for example. I have despised AA ads since their store came to East Lansing while I was in undergrad there. This was how they debuted their new store to Michigan State University students back in 2005.

These ads were banned by the ASA in the UK, as they were considered exploitative and practically pornographic. Getting banned is nothing new for AA. A visit to the AA website reveals that this is not just the theme of their outdoor and print ads; virtually every single [female] item for sale on the site is model in the same pornographic fashion.

For whom are the commodities in these ads intended? Women: does this ad make you want to buy this t-shirt? Why or why not?

These ads scream: MALE GAZE.

American Apparel has long claimed that their ads are unique, progressive, and inventive, because they portray women who are not necessarily professional models, who are not airbrushed or digitally perfected. (Apparently they believe that this promotes self-esteem.) If anything, all that says is that any woman can be turned into a personality-less fuck object. Now that’s progressive.

What has always struck me about AA ads are their resemblance to pornography: vapid, inane expressions, sexually-laden yet childlike behaviors, suggestive postures, faces off an assembly line. How can these ads claim to be a celebration of the natural female body when a) all of these women are of a very particular look, shape, and size and b) their target audience is voyeuristic men and insecure women?

AA is telling us that fat or flat are both repulsive, even “natural” women require makeup, and the only hair you should have is on your head.

I suppose all of this is unsurprising given the kind of person AA’s founder is.

There is nothing unique, progressive, or inventive about what AA does. The “Mad Men” were doing it long before AA ever arrived, and they’ll be doing it long after it’s dead.

Make yourself heard with a survey.

Reblogged from The World of Special Olympics:

The following is a guest post in the form of an open letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night's Presidential debate.

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow.  So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

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