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Apr. 5th, 2017 03:25 amI have been reading all the things about Buffy because 20th.
... many people are not particularly fussed about evidence if it gets in the way of their preferred reading, especially if that evidence is a 'ship.
I mean you can read Willow and Buffy as single in the last season, and learning to love themselves etc etc, but in Willow's case you have to ignore the actual sex scene, and Buffy ends the show by saying I Love You to a guy, it's just he happens to be on fire at the time. But single. Because feminist.
It is not in fact more feminist to be single. The trick to writing feminist relationships is to make them actually about the woman and her needs. Stuff like putting her career first and listening to her and doing what she actually says she needs and being emotionally supportive. In an ideal world stuff like woman sees guy thinks he's worth pursuing and does so successfully. Because then it's about her choices. The only things that are not feminist about relationships are when it's about what a man wants and can talk her into, and it reflexively centers the man. And oh look, with Willow, real easy to avoid, seeing as there's no man in there. And yet, plural times, I seen this interpretation.
There's nothing wrong with being a wife or mother, it's just when people are ironed flat to fit into stereotypes of those roles there's a problem. Just like there's nothing wrong with being a woman who kicks arse, but there's problems when she's flattened out into being just that (and second best at it). And the makeup thing? Makeup is fun for everyone, all people have the option to paint themselves colors, even if the guys mostly stopped at nail varnish. What is no fun is sticking women in the double bind where their character hates girly things and never spends time on them yet somehow is perfectly made up at all times, or ironing them flat into painted up pretty and then hating on them for vanity when they do the only stuff the story allows them.
Also feminist is giving men a full range of feelings and a wider range of wardrobe options and centering girly things for everyone. Because men get ironed flat too, and it's creepy weird.
And then there's single point authority through competition for dominance vs networks of multiple expertise in cooperation. The latter, apparently, is feminine? Because humans really like to sabotage themselves? I mean women compete, don't get me wrong, but the ideologies that say someone has to be lone loner lonely grimdark, that's apparently patriarchy. Because reasons.
Ugh.
But everyone who can stand up will stand up, could have the power, will have the power.
That's a much better and more effective way.
And that ending would not have been undermined if everyone walked away in one big polyamorous group, or got their emotional support with a side of romance as well as all the regular platonic stuff, so I don't know what show the reviewers were watching, but I like my one better.
... many people are not particularly fussed about evidence if it gets in the way of their preferred reading, especially if that evidence is a 'ship.
I mean you can read Willow and Buffy as single in the last season, and learning to love themselves etc etc, but in Willow's case you have to ignore the actual sex scene, and Buffy ends the show by saying I Love You to a guy, it's just he happens to be on fire at the time. But single. Because feminist.
It is not in fact more feminist to be single. The trick to writing feminist relationships is to make them actually about the woman and her needs. Stuff like putting her career first and listening to her and doing what she actually says she needs and being emotionally supportive. In an ideal world stuff like woman sees guy thinks he's worth pursuing and does so successfully. Because then it's about her choices. The only things that are not feminist about relationships are when it's about what a man wants and can talk her into, and it reflexively centers the man. And oh look, with Willow, real easy to avoid, seeing as there's no man in there. And yet, plural times, I seen this interpretation.
There's nothing wrong with being a wife or mother, it's just when people are ironed flat to fit into stereotypes of those roles there's a problem. Just like there's nothing wrong with being a woman who kicks arse, but there's problems when she's flattened out into being just that (and second best at it). And the makeup thing? Makeup is fun for everyone, all people have the option to paint themselves colors, even if the guys mostly stopped at nail varnish. What is no fun is sticking women in the double bind where their character hates girly things and never spends time on them yet somehow is perfectly made up at all times, or ironing them flat into painted up pretty and then hating on them for vanity when they do the only stuff the story allows them.
Also feminist is giving men a full range of feelings and a wider range of wardrobe options and centering girly things for everyone. Because men get ironed flat too, and it's creepy weird.
And then there's single point authority through competition for dominance vs networks of multiple expertise in cooperation. The latter, apparently, is feminine? Because humans really like to sabotage themselves? I mean women compete, don't get me wrong, but the ideologies that say someone has to be lone loner lonely grimdark, that's apparently patriarchy. Because reasons.
Ugh.
But everyone who can stand up will stand up, could have the power, will have the power.
That's a much better and more effective way.
And that ending would not have been undermined if everyone walked away in one big polyamorous group, or got their emotional support with a side of romance as well as all the regular platonic stuff, so I don't know what show the reviewers were watching, but I like my one better.