feminism grumping
Jan. 9th, 2016 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo there's a popular movie series where a character used to be titled 'Princess' but now they're apparently addressed as 'General'
... okay, my attempt at spoiler avoidance is transparent, there's probably only the one movie...
but
It's low level pissing me off because it's a demotion being promoted as feminist, when actually it involves devaluing feminine titles and feminine coded work.
See in an actual functioning monarchy, you've got a monarch at the top. Commander in chief. And then you've got like princes and princesses, who can do regent stuff or have their own commands, and given that she was commanding troops when she was way young, they're clearly boss of troops in that particular system. But they're also boss of the politicians? Senate stuff? And they can be diplomats. On a diplomatic mission. With diplomacy involved.
You know who doesn't do senates and diplomacy? Generals!
A princess is more boss than a general, and diplomacy is a better solution than war, and yet talking has become, god help us, feminine coded.
Celebrating that she's no longer addressed by a title with so many facets is like celebrating sticking her in a boy coded box, and it's just making me grumbly every single time I see a gif set go past.
Princess is second most boss with only Queen above her, in a non-sexist monarchy.
General is much more limited.
... okay, my attempt at spoiler avoidance is transparent, there's probably only the one movie...
but
It's low level pissing me off because it's a demotion being promoted as feminist, when actually it involves devaluing feminine titles and feminine coded work.
See in an actual functioning monarchy, you've got a monarch at the top. Commander in chief. And then you've got like princes and princesses, who can do regent stuff or have their own commands, and given that she was commanding troops when she was way young, they're clearly boss of troops in that particular system. But they're also boss of the politicians? Senate stuff? And they can be diplomats. On a diplomatic mission. With diplomacy involved.
You know who doesn't do senates and diplomacy? Generals!
A princess is more boss than a general, and diplomacy is a better solution than war, and yet talking has become, god help us, feminine coded.
Celebrating that she's no longer addressed by a title with so many facets is like celebrating sticking her in a boy coded box, and it's just making me grumbly every single time I see a gif set go past.
Princess is second most boss with only Queen above her, in a non-sexist monarchy.
General is much more limited.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 04:56 pm (UTC)She's a General (The General) in the Alliance, in which she doesn't seem to have held other formal rank as of the beginning of the OT (when we meet her, she's a spy who's just been discovered, not a member of the command. She's on a diplomatic mission as a member of the Imperial Senate, not as a Princess, and Vader contradicts her on the grounds that that body has just been dissolved). Probably if she was around other people from Alderaan she'd still be addressed as Princess.
The New Republic also does not seem to be a monarchy, although it's hard to tell from the thirty seconds of screen time it gets. The title alone implies it's a representative democracy like the Old Republic, with no monarchy.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-09 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-10 07:16 am (UTC)(Star Wars does have a big problem with devaluing non-military and female coded work, see Padme's entire subplot being cut in the PT, but Leia's been working with the military for her entire time on screen, from the espionage mission we first see her on to command as of ESB to fieldwork in RotJ.)