Following up on this whole saga:
Dear Fellow Geeks,
No one is hurting you when they wear superhero t-shirts without memorizing every title the character has appeared in. They’re expressing enthusiasm—novice enthusiasm, but enthusiasm nonetheless—for something you care deeply about and have done your damnedest to evangelize. That they don’t have the same degree of geek cred does nothing to diminish yours.
And right now, at this moment in time, this little girl is exactly who she wants to be: Princess Darth Vader. Truly she has won at life.
(via thegreatestguyintheworld)
Anonymous asked you:You’re right on the mark with Feminist Frequency, but I think there’s some problems with Felicia Day that Perez’s meltdown accidentally brings up. As a guy, Felicia Day feels like she’s “nerd bait”. She’s cute enough that a nerd won’t have a meltdown over her looks, and…
The reblogging is truncating this stuff, the whole posts are great.
Another thought about the nerdbait thing: We can look at that more closely. The whole reason the concept of “nerdbait” exists is because of the way guys in the gaming community view women. I think it’s being falsely portrayed as something that women do to men. As the anonymous that eschergirls is responding to here points out (though I assume unintentionally), it’s still about how the guy views the girl as being attainable, and accessible, because she’s into, or won’t be turned off by “nerdy” interests, and most of all, still considered fuckable.
Many characters created for a male audience often get criticized as being “nerdbait” characters. Tali’Zorah from Mass Effect, here’s looking at you. But these are characters created for men, by men, to satisfy that “I want to fuck her and she might actually let me” mindset. And there’s a huge difference between a character created to appeal to a certain demographic, to satisfy a certain desire, and a human being whose interests and motives and career choices are way more varied and more important than simply existing for the pleasure of the nerd audience.
Beyond that, so what? Gamer dudes tend to get upset when they identify someone as attention seeking; it’s a negative thing. But why is that? They seem to feel on some level that they’re being used. That they’re offering their resources “kindness, attention, gifts, etc.” on someone. They expect an exchange: I’m being nice to you, so you’ll have sex with me. Or show me your boobs. Or cyber with me. Whatever it is, they see their kindness and attention as a currency.
Sexual politics are complicated beasts, but often the only power male-centric cultures and societies afford women at all is sex, while tightly controlling it. Women are supposed to remain appealing, and sexually available to the one particular viewer, but if they are sexually available to others, that’s bad. That becomes attention whoring. If Felicia Day was being an awesome attractive nerd girl just for them, it’d be fine. Their special nerd girlfriend. But if she’s doing it for a wide audience, or because that’s what she wants to do, that’s bad, that’s nerdbait, that’s attention whoring.
Even if a woman is intentionally playing into a “nerdbait” role, it, despite still being derided by nerds in the culture, is one of a few acceptable roles women are allowed to play in nerd and gamer culture, and one of the few visible examples of women in the culture, so it’s not surprising that some might intentionally seek it.
If you have a problem with that, then it’s up to you to help change the culture that drives the forces that put women into that role, whether they want to be, or not. A great place to start would be valuing women as members in the community for their interests and accomplishments, and not just as sexual objects, and viewing everything that they do through a sexual lens.
Anonymous asked you:You’re right on the mark with Feminist Frequency, but I think there’s some problems with Felicia Day that Perez’s meltdown accidentally brings up. As a guy, Felicia Day feels like she’s “nerd bait”. She’s cute enough that a nerd won’t have a meltdown over her looks, and…
The reblogging is truncating this stuff, the whole posts are great.
Another thought about the nerdbait thing: We can look at that more closely. The whole reason the concept of “nerdbait” exists is because of the way guys in the gaming community view women. I think it’s being falsely portrayed as something that women do to men. As the anonymous that eschergirls is responding to here points out (though I assume unintentionally), it’s still about how the guy views the girl as being attainable, and accessible, because she’s into, or won’t be turned off by “nerdy” interests, and most of all, still considered fuckable.
Many characters created for a male audience often get criticized as being “nerdbait” characters. Tali’Zorah from Mass Effect, here’s looking at you. But these are characters created for men, by men, to satisfy that “I want to fuck her and she might actually let me” mindset. And there’s a huge difference between a character created to appeal to a certain demographic, to satisfy a certain desire, and a human being whose interests and motives and career choices are way more varied and more important than simply existing for the pleasure of the nerd audience.
Beyond that, so what? Gamer dudes tend to get upset when they identify someone as attention seeking; it’s a negative thing. But why is that? They seem to feel on some level that they’re being used. That they’re offering their resources “kindness, attention, gifts, etc.” on someone. They expect an exchange: I’m being nice to you, so you’ll have sex with me. Or show me your boobs. Or cyber with me. Whatever it is, they see their kindness and attention as a currency.
Sexual politics are complicated beasts, but often the only power male-centric cultures and societies afford women at all is sex, while tightly controlling it. Women are supposed to remain appealing, and sexually available to the one particular viewer, but if they are sexually available to others, that’s bad. That becomes attention whoring. If Felicia Day was being an awesome attractive nerd girl just for them, it’d be fine. Their special nerd girlfriend. But if she’s doing it for a wide audience, or because that’s what she wants to do, that’s bad, that’s nerdbait, that’s attention whoring.
Even if a woman is intentionally playing into a “nerdbait” role, it, despite still being derided by nerds in the culture, is one of a few acceptable roles women are allowed to play in nerd and gamer culture, and one of the few visible examples of women in the culture, so it’s not surprising that some might intentionally seek it.
If you have a problem with that, then it’s up to you to help change the culture that drives the forces that put women into that role, whether they want to be, or not. A great place to start would be valuing women as members in the community for their interests and accomplishments, and not just as sexual objects, and viewing everything that they do through a sexual lens.
If you aren’t a fan of Patrick Stewart (Captain Jon Luc Picard of STNG), this might make you ask yourself why not?
“Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn. Curiously, I never felt fear for myself and he never struck me, an odd moral imposition that would not allow him to strike a child. The situation was barely tolerable: I witnessed terrible things, which I knew were wrong, but there was nowhere to go for help. Worse, there were those who condoned the abuse. I heard police or ambulance men, standing in our house, say, “She must have provoked him,” or, “Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.” ~Patrick Stewart
By: Independence House, Inc. Hyannis, MA
Please share this.
And- I find him even sexier now ;-)
(Source: kiwi-princess)
“Hindsight is always 20-20, but last time I checked almost every president since Teddy Roosevelt tried to do something on health care and wasn’t able to do it. It was the right thing to do, and sometimes you don’t get a second chance to do the right thing.” — Former North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge
“Republicans did a great job of misinforming … and scaring the American people. So did the insurance companies, and the fact is when you explain provisions of the bill, the American people support it. …I’m embarrassed for Congress that they didn’t pass health care reform long before we did. Far too many people in Congress think that they are there to get reelected and that’s unfortunate. We’re there to work for the American people, and that’s what we did. We passed a measure that allows millions of Americans to be insured. It allows people with pre-existing [conditions] to get covered.” — Former Ohio Rep. Steve Driehaus
“You have to vote with your conscience and do what’s right. In my district, I had 350,000 who had no health insurance. I came from a migrant family, and I knew the seriousness of not having insurance and people dying because they couldn’t go to the doctor. It was the right thing to do, and if I had to do it again, I would do it again. It was now or never.” — Former Texas Rep. Solomon Ortiz
"—
Politico spoke to Democrat lawmakers who fought to pass the Affordable Care Act — and who were voted out as a result. The consensus? No regrets.
That’s because they did the right thing.
(via inothernews)
(via wilwheaton)
In Defense of Sansa Stark
Sansa Stark must be one of the most hated characters in A Song of Ice and Fire. The vitriol levelled against her is often frightening in its intensity, surpassing that for actually horrific characters like Joffrey and Ramsey Bolton. Her crime? The unforgivable fact that she is a pre-teen girl.
As a massive fan of Sansa, even I must admit that she is difficult to like at first. She’s spoilt and a bit bratty. She fights with her fan-favorite sister and trusts characters who the reader knows are completely untrustworthy. She is hopelessly naive and lost in dreams of pretty princes and dashing knights. She acts, for all intents and purposes, like the eleven year old girl that she is. Most of us were pretty darn unbearable to older people at that age (and that’s fine, because they were also pretty unbearable to us). Robb and Jon, although older than Sansa, are similarly misguided and bratty, with Jon’s constant “poor me, I deserve so much more” attitude at the Wall, and Robb’s clumsy attempts at being the Lord of Winterfell. But these mistakes are only reprehensible to readers when they come from a girl, interested in girly things and making girly mistakes. Because viewers have been taught that “girly“ is automatically bad.
I love bad-ass, sword-wielding heroines as much as the next person (Arya and Brienne are two of my other favorite characters in anything ever), but the focus on this sort of female character — the oft-cited “strong female character” — seems to suggest that femininity is still bad, and that women can only be strong by adopting stereotypically male roles and attitudes. There’s nothing wrong with Arya declaring that being a Lady does not suit her and forging her own path, but saying that all female characters must take this attitude is as sexist and dismissive as saying that all female characters must be weak and take a backseat in events. Femininity is not bad, just as masculinity is not necessarily good.
Sansa plays an important role in the narrative, because she shows how societal expectations of women completely screw them over. She believes in everything that her parents and her septa have taught her. She believes in stories, and she believes that the greatest thing she can do is marry the prince (who will, of course, be chivalrous and honorable and handsome and kind) and have his children. She has spent her life in the cold castle of the North, dreaming of stories of tournaments and beauty in the south. Because people want her to be that way. That is how they think the ideal young woman should be. And it almost destroys her. Worse, it brings the reader’s hatred down on her, because even though women are told they are only “good” if they fit into this role, the role itself is seen as weak, manipulative, stupid and generally inferior. It is the Catch 22 of being a woman, both in Westeros and in our own world: no matter what you do, you are criticized, especially if you don’t act like Arya Stark and fight to become “one of the boys.” And so some “fans” of the series declare that they wish Sansa would get raped, a woman’s punishment for daring to act how she has been taught. For daring to act feminine, and making mistakes while doing so.
And all this hatred misses the fact that Sansa is one of the strongest individuals in the entire series. In a world where people drop like flies, in an abusive situation that would break so many people, Sansa survives. Sansa endures. She stays strong, and she never gives up. As Brienne says to Catelyn, she has a “woman’s courage.” She learns how to play the game. She wears her courtesy for her armor, and she listens, and she adapts, and she keeps her cards close to her chest. She learns how to smile and curtsey and use her words to keep going long after other, older, more experienced players, including her father, are destroyed. But she will not kneel. She will not weaken. She remains strong, and she remains determined, because the North remembers, and her day will come. Her “woman’s courage” keeps her alive and in the game where characters like Arya would not last five minutes.
Most impressive of all, Sansa maintains one key part of her personality that others might dismiss as “weak” or “feminine”: her kindness. She manages to be brave and gentle and caring, despite the trauma she goes through. She shows love and affection to little Robert and to Tommen. She puts herself at risk to save Ser Dontos, using her words and her courtesy to trick Joffrey into doing as she desires. She cares for and calms the people of King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater, despite the fact that she is so young and so inexperienced and few of them have ever done anything to help her. She knows that if she were Queen, she would make the people love her, because she cares about other people, even when her own life is torn apart.
Traditional femininity is not innately inferior. It has its own kind of strength and its own kind of power, and Sansa Stark demonstrates that better than any other character I’ve encountered. She is not fierce or rebellious. She is not ruthless or brutal. But she is strong. She is a survivor. And that should not be dismissed.
(via karenhealey)
Life is too strange not to stop and enjoy the tentacles every so often.
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