My nightmare + Diminutive song lyrics + Goblins drama

The difficulty with being someone who is denied a right that is treated like a privilege is, the people doing the denying will not want to admit that they are doing or believing something wrong. They will so violently work to deny that THEY are responsible that the issue becomes totally obscured by their attempts to lash out at the people who would dare point out to them that something unfair is being done.

Right now, I'm talking about sexism specifically; but this applies for all of it. It's far easier to get defensive and deny that you, personally, are responsible for even the tiniest part of a problem than it is to gracefully accept that there is a problem, and to resolve to work as hard as possible not to be a part of the problem in the future.

Number one important thing: This story pretty much identifies my number one problem with the anti-birth-control legislations going around lately:

"I was forced to be pregnant" on Tumblr
"I was forced to be pregnant" on Livejournal

(Same story, two different places in case you prefer one over the other as a blogging media.)

Pregnancy should always be the choice of the person who actually has to deal with it. Men get ridiculously entitled about women, sex, and children. Society indoctrinates them to believe that yes, they Deserve To Win the Woman-- that Woman is a prize-- and that if they don't, it's just because they didn't try hard enough to earn it. And worse, society also indoctrinates men and women alike to treat women as never fully achieving adulthood. Is it acceptable for someone to call a man 'boy' to dress him down? No. But any time anyone wants to assert their superiority over a woman, they can and will call her 'girl' (or go straight to cursing, if that's their preference), and it's not even considered weird.

This has been on my mind for a while. It's difficult to listen to the radio, because if I do, nine times out of ten the songs are about how the woman in an imaginary relationship needs to take back her cheating / abusive / negligent / otherwise cruel boyfriend because, really truly, he actually loves her.

How about 'Pina Colada'? The set of the story is that the man was looking through the classifieds for some new woman to fuck because he was bored of the old one. But, silly me! It's ALL OKAY because the ad he answers turns out to be hers, so they deserve each other and it all works out. How about Cat Stevens' 'Wild World'? I want to like Cat Stevens, but I just can't when the whole purpose of that song is to tell someone he is addressing as 'girl' that she shouldn't go out into the world and away from him because she'll be sorry, it's way dangerous. It's also present in multiple Beatles songs, and much as I love the Beatles, I always felt especially uncomfortable about the following two songs for related reasons:

Better all the time
I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her
and kept her apart from the things that she loves
Man, I was mean, but I'm changing my scene
and I'm doing the best that I can

Run for your life
Well, I'd rather see you dead, little girl
than to catch you with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
or I won't know where I am

You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man, that's the end, little girl

Now, what really bothers me about all this-- the lyrics in the music, the general refusal to accept women as equals and the intentional separation of them by use of diminutive pet names and terminology-- is that it's abusive all the way down to the core. It's manipulative, and it's ugly, and the worst part of it all is that nobody wants to acknowledge it.

If I talk about these issues, I get labeled an "angry feminist" by my coworkers or friends. If I point out that some of these coworkers and friends ARE in and of themselves sexist (especially those that are female, because it freaks me out to have other women telling me that I should do all these societal standard things because it's pretty unladylike not to), not only do they become outraged, they become immediately defensive. Beyond that point, NOTHING I SAY will get through. It doesn't matter if I have proof of the sexism or not. The response I get is not "what? I don't want to be sexist! How am I sexist?"-- it's "How DARE you infer that I could possibly be sexist, little girl!"

Another recent example that seriously depresses me caught my attention late last night, before I went to bed. Tarol Hunt, that guy who does that comic called Goblins, got into another internet fight with someone accusing him of being a rape sympathizer.

Here's the rundown:

-Goblins and Gunnerkrigg Court are being pitted against each other in a relatively meaningless internet competition to vote for your favorite webcomic. They're in the final round, and unfortunately, it's an internet contest, so lots of people are badmouthing both comics back and forth.

-A presumably female commenter commented claiming that Goblins' most recent page had some nasty rape implied on it, and that she was offended, and that the comic was misogynistic.

-Predictably, the fans exploded over it. Some hate Goblins for being misogynistic now, while others hate this woman and are trying to send her death threats for criticizing their beloved comic.

-Worst of all, Tarol Hunt's response was to Very Maturely insist that no way, he totally isn't a rape sympathizer or a misogynist! And how dare she call him that! He's very, VERY offended that she hasn't offered him an apology for her totally unfounded statement.

Now, here's the thing. I've been reading Goblins for ages. And the most recent page DID briefly confuse me. Because of the paneling and the choice of words on part of the demon, even though I was fully aware that the demon should be addressing the AU MinMax (the blonde bald guy), and not Kin (the naga), I wasn't immediately sure. I was confused, and had to reread the comic, wondering why he'd called her a bitch after she did what he wanted, let alone threatened her with being attacked by demons in the afterlife.

Now, for the record, I didn't assume rape; I assumed violence. But it wasn't completely clear, and I knew what SHOULD be happening. So some of that is poor word choice. I think having a demon call a guy 'bitch' isn't necessarily the most obvious choice when there's a woman right there, especially to someone who might just be looking at the front page of the comic, and not reading through the archives. So, while I think the woman totally overreacted, I also think Tarol Hunt seriously overreacted.

He also has gotten into arguments about this sort of thing before, and to be quite honest, I was disappointed with the level of his maturity handling it then. The fact of the matter is, he's really sensitive about this issue. There are only three or four female characters in his comic, and one of them is an in-joke about a man playing a sex-object female character in a D&D game.

Kin's backstory? Is that she was enslaved for years, which she spent being beaten daily and then raped while she was still injured.

So regardless of his personal feelings with regard to this woman's misunderstanding of the latest page's intended effect, Tarol Hunt ought to know better than to complain loudly and angrily that he is being unfairly persecuted for having a potentially misogynistic comic. My guess? He feels really uncomfortable about such accusations, because they have some basis in reality. When you only have four female characters, and two of them are embarrassing stereotypes, I think it's easy for an intelligent person to connect the dots and worry 'oh, geez; this doesn't reflect well on me. One of my characters is a slutty bimbo stereotype, and the other is a rape-survivor who fell in love with the first guy she saw after she was freed from her torturer.'

There is reason for Tarol Hunt to be concerned that his comic might be construed as misogynistic because it is definitely sexist, and it has a dearth of background female characters just chilling out and being female characters, not having any tragic sexual violence visited upon them. Is it misogynistic? Well, I'd like to say it isn't. But I'm biased-- I clearly don't have much of a problem with it because I continue to read the comic, despite any gender imbalances going on.

But is Tarol Hunt an adult who should know better than to start a shitstorm over a moderately valid complaint? Yes, he is.

Stuff like this IS male privilege realized. Instead of just quietly clarifying, "I hope this page is clear; this is what's happening in the page, and if multiple people feel that it's not clear, I can redo it", he goes and starts shit on the internet. Am I supposed to believe it's sincere when he then belatedly posts in his blog, "Guys, REALLY, please stop threatening this woman on my account"?

It'd feel a lot more genuine if he wouldn't start the shitstorms in the first place.

Entirely related - That is to say, Wisconsin's war on women starts with wages

Apparently Wisconsin has decided that women don't deserve equal pay to men; read all about it.

This is utter bullshit. This has to stop. Apathy and defeatism are the disgusting slugs in the belly of the internet.

I have some congressfolk to write.

Edit: Honestly, I read this one too the other day, and while I consider it more of an opinion piece, I still think it's important and accurate. I've definitely experienced what Valente is talking about here; I can say something MANY TIMES, but my companions-- male or female, but especially male-- will later say the same damn thing as if it is their unique and original idea.

This is not slapstick; this is extremely frustrating, this is being ignored, and this is being shunned and treated as a second class citizen.

Pointing this out repeatedly to Danny got him to start crediting me my ideas. It's easy when you're not the person being ripped off-- when you're not the artist whose work is being copied, or the author whose words are plagiarized-- to laugh and go 'what are these people even talking about? I guess I understand in theory, but it's not like it's that big a deal'.

Belittling the frustrations of other people-- laughing at them while also refusing to acknowledge that you are hurting them-- is no way to solve a problem. I'm very grateful that Danny eventually came around and started to point out when something is my idea. It makes me feel a LOT more willing to excitedly tell people when something is Danny's idea, as well.

But you know what still happens around the D&D table? Whenever it's my turn during a combat, I usually have to repeat myself four or five times. Especially if I have a question. This doesn't happen to the guys around the table, and I assure you, it's not because my voice is of a more dulcet tone. This is something I wish could be improved. Until it's acknowledged as a problem, however, it can't be fixed. And in the meantime, it is being ignored.

To immediately demonize a woman for daring to criticize someone else-- no matter who they are-- is criminal. It is an effort to silence that woman and keep her from speaking, and that is not a worthy or acceptable aim.

To ignore, shun, or laugh off a woman's input is equally criminal.

Listen to the people around you. All of them. Even the ones you don't like very much. We are all humans. We all deserve the right to speak, the right to live, and the right to try to make our lives better.

The government we have right now is doing a shit job of helping that to happen. We are entrenched in outdated notions of societal structure, and the importance of religious affiliation to societal integrity. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THAT from the ground up. Make it happen. Don't vote in politicians who're willing to do crap like this.

Please, listen to me. Listen to us. Women are people, not prizes, not children, not possessions.

And in a moderately related note, it is this attitude, this backwards creepy sexism, that makes me reject the 'marriage' custom. The ritual selling of the woman to the man, dolled up to look as attractive as possible so he will feel like he's getting something valuable? No thanks. I wouldn't inflict that one someone I love. I certainly wouldn't accept anyone who claimed to love me trying to inflict that on me.