The NationStates Feminist Thread II

[Arridian Islands]

Yeah, I don't know why america gets oil from Saudi Arabia. I live in Canada, we have oil and we're not a shithole. You could inspire Saudi women to rebel. Look what happened in Tunisia, that nation is now a democracy.

You know that Canada is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, right?

You can get off your high horse.

When did I say I like my government?

[Vettrera]

You know that Canada is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, right?

You can get off your high horse.

When did I say I like my government?

Shifting the goalposts is always fun huh

[Dakini]

You know that Canada is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, right?

You can get off your high horse.

When did I say I like my government?

You didn't, but you did suggest that Canada was doing something better by not importing oil from Saudi Arabia (by the way, Canada totally imports oil from Saudi Arabia for use in eastern Canada) like the USA does (by the way, the #1 seller of oil to the USA is Canada). There's also the bit where Canadian oil comes from the tar sands, which is super expensive to extract and awful for the environment, but that's diverting from the point.

Everyone deals with Saudi Arabia in some fashion. Saudi Arabia is even on the UN human rights council for what must be some kind of a joke.

[Forsher]

Whether it's Emma Watson now making a stupid feminist remake of "Beauty and the Beast--because you know old folktales need to be remade to be politically correct or young women will kill themselves--

How is it stupid? There's nothing wrong with adapting a fairytale to be more appealing to modern audiences and modern children. No one will portray the rape of Sleeping Beauty by the prince, for example, which was one of the earliest written versions. An extreme example, but 1930s Snow White wouldn't fly today either. You can do much with source material, just look at how Tangled diverges from the original story, but is still recognizably Rapunzel. Barbie came out with an adventurous Rapunzel a decade earlier. The fact is that too-passive heroines aren't appealing anymore to many parents. All I can find so far that can be considered feminist is that Belle is now a hobbyist inventor. What's wrong with that? Her father's an inventor, doesn't it make sense for him historically to pass his trade to his daughter as he lacks a son?

I think you're being clouded by your grudge against Emma Watson for whatever reason.

To be honest, fairy tales tend to be pretty short and bare-boned. I mean, you don't really have a 90-odd minute plot that goes random witch stuff, living in tower montage, hi, let down your hair, and however it ends (been a while since I read a Rapunzel), can you? I have seen Tangled, but I haven't seen the classic Disney "princess" movies (except Pocahontas, which I remember not liking and nothing else) so the following might not be particularly well-placed commentary coming from me.

Basically, apparently there's a lesson plan out there about something which we might understand as "Sexism in Disney's fairy tales". Everything I know about this comes from this article. I thought, perhaps, this thread would be interested in it. I've spoilered my thoughts due to the aforementioned "haven't actually seen the movies" problem.

Anyway, this lesson plan has created such a ruckus it would be a shame not to give it a bit more oxygen. Because the point that is conveniently lost in all the outrage is that, from a feminist perspective, the examples used do indeed promote, possibly even glorify, a misogynistic world view.

Yes, men are also pigeonholed in traditional tales; they are beasts, handsome princes, dwarves and knights in shining armour. Supporting female characters - wicked stepmothers, ugly sisters and evil queens - are stereotypical, too. No one is saying that these hackneyed character types are positive or uplifting either.

The starting point to note here is that the context of "traditional" is totally ignored by this "commentator"... not that if you look at fairy tales more generally you don't find peasants, tailors or shoemakers (for example)... and therefore things end up being presented as though we're dealing with stories which are able to have contemporary occupations (wrong) and are, in some sense, authored (wrong). Also, that we're talking about fairy tales and the like seems utterly lost on the commentator... fairy tales aren't short stories, they don't look like them and they don't work like them. There's an interest corollary here... can traditional, non-authored tales be authentically recreated without adaptation by whoever is authoring the latest version? That is, would a classic Rapunzel storyline for Tangled actually be less authentic than Tangled?

note 1, to my knowledge, some of these are authored in two senses. Firstly, some fairy tales aren't really traditional stories. Secondly, some particular written versions can be very influential (that French guy and Cinderella, for example).

note 2, despite what I said about authenticity, I'm not sure if it's authentic if you change stuff like why Beast is a Beast and how the curse operates

Beauty and the Beast:

"The movie says if a woman is pretty and sweet natured she can change an abusive man into a kind and gentle man," says the lesson plan. (The idea that this movie is about domestic violence was also raised in a 2012 thesis entitled "Passively Ever After: Disney's Cinematic Abuse in Beauty and the Beast".)

If that's true, the film's "villain" Gaston doesn't seem to fit in (I am aware of Gaston because of his song), but more importantly it means the point of the story's been lost in adaptation. That is, Beast is cursed because of his arrogance and will only be released if he is able to get someone to love him when he isn't arrogant. As it is Disney, I would guess it's just a bad adaptation.

Cinderella:
This story propagates the belief that women are household skivvies, beauty is all-important and marriage to a handsome prince is a woman's ultimate goal.

Um, it shouldn't do that first thing. But maybe it does, again, I haven't seen the film.

I'm not sure that Cinderella can be said to have an ultimate goal... I mean, her plot is mostly about having an opportunity to not be something she wasn't meant to be. And by meant to, I mean that her father is a fairly important dude, which is why the family gets invited to a royal event.

Cinderella undoubtedly never does anything whatsoever to improve her situation and has to end up being saved by the Fairy Godmother, by being given the opportunity to be who she really is... i.e. the pretty daughter of some well-off dude, so I'll give it the middle bit.

Sleeping Beauty:
Female characters don't get much more passive than this. As early as at her christening she is betrothed to marry a prince in order to unite two kingdoms. She's finally awakened from a deep sleep by the kiss of her true love.

This one has probably been adapted noticeably because all I remember of the start of Sleeping Beauty is that he parents forget/exclude a not nice fairy godmother (or whatever they're being called here) who then curses Beauty to death after gatecrashing... but she jumps the gun and the last invited godmother tempers thing. (Note, the kinds of gifts that are given to the baby are a great starting point to look at the values of the society that authored the story.) I do not remember the prince thing at all (which doesn't make sense because, hey, this is a primitive time travel plot).

The problematic part of this is the kissing, rather than CPR. Easy adjustment.

Snow White:
According to the lesson plan: "She doesn't mind house work because she is sure a rich young man will soon come and take her away."

I may have seen this one. I remember the Heigh-ho song after all. I don't remember it, so once again I am left with the bad adaptation problem.

Snow White works for the dwarves in exchange for food and board. I think this starts because she looks too young? pretty? to just kick out, as was the initial intention (I seem to remember). She's got no idea about princes or whatever... her story is all about being too trusting of strangers who weirdly keep almost killing her.

Again CPR issues. Unless they drop the coffin.

The Little Mermaid:
"This one drastically changes her physical appearance so as to be more attractive ... The price is that she can't speak. No problem, she has nothing of value to say anyhow. She is saved by a prince."

Have seen snippets of the film. Don't remember the original. Don't have anything to say about it as a result.

My general impression is that you end up just banning plots, character arcs and character motivations for the simple reason that in sum they add up to a problem. The issues are best revealed in context (a lot of these stories are set in motion by powerful female characters and/or are driven by such*), not by a single-minded focus on one character.

*Which is, of course, interesting when they're all basically the same character. Hence, the in sum bit (luckily, when making movies, your need to get a 90 minute plot gives you an opportunity to give the villains independent characterisations, which differentiates them).

[New Edom]

Whether it's Emma Watson now making a stupid feminist remake of "Beauty and the Beast--because you know old folktales need to be remade to be politically correct or young women will kill themselves--

How is it stupid? There's nothing wrong with adapting a fairytale to be more appealing to modern audiences and modern children. No one will portray the rape of Sleeping Beauty by the prince, for example, which was one of the earliest written versions. An extreme example, but 1930s Snow White wouldn't fly today either. You can do much with source material, just look at how Tangled diverges from the original story, but is still recognizably Rapunzel. Barbie came out with an adventurous Rapunzel a decade earlier. The fact is that too-passive heroines aren't appealing anymore to many parents. All I can find so far that can be considered feminist is that Belle is now a hobbyist inventor. What's wrong with that? Her father's an inventor, doesn't it make sense for him historically to pass his trade to his daughter as he lacks a son?

I think you're being clouded by your grudge against Emma Watson for whatever reason.

I'm not against things being appealing to audiences. What I don't like are socio-political agendas mixing up with art and then being told I have to like it because otherwise i hate women. And I'm tired of feminists lecturing people about every bloody thing as though somehow depicting a drama set in a historical period--sorta--is going to be demeaning to women rather than simply sorta realistic. Like all the stupid feminists who complained about Game of Thrones' sexism and wantd to see fantasies where women were all wonderfuly independent. The articles written trying to attack traditional fairy tales act as though in the 18th Century or 19th Century when anthologies of these started to be published should have had their time machine in place to know how to write things that were never sexist. I suspect them of wanting to change all literature so nothing ever offends them rather than considering other reasons why stories are told as they are.

[New Edom]

How is it stupid? There's nothing wrong with adapting a fairytale to be more appealing to modern audiences and modern children. No one will portray the rape of Sleeping Beauty by the prince, for example, which was one of the earliest written versions. An extreme example, but 1930s Snow White wouldn't fly today either. You can do much with source material, just look at how Tangled diverges from the original story, but is still recognizably Rapunzel. Barbie came out with an adventurous Rapunzel a decade earlier. The fact is that too-passive heroines aren't appealing anymore to many parents. All I can find so far that can be considered feminist is that Belle is now a hobbyist inventor. What's wrong with that? Her father's an inventor, doesn't it make sense for him historically to pass his trade to his daughter as he lacks a son?

I think you're being clouded by your grudge against Emma Watson for whatever reason.

To be honest, fairy tales tend to be pretty short and bare-boned. I mean, you don't really have a 90-odd minute plot that goes random witch stuff, living in tower montage, hi, let down your hair, and however it ends (been a while since I read a Rapunzel), can you? I have seen Tangled, but I haven't seen the classic Disney "princess" movies (except Pocahontas, which I remember not liking and nothing else) so the following might not be particularly well-placed commentary coming from me.

Basically, apparently there's a lesson plan out there about something which we might understand as "Sexism in Disney's fairy tales". Everything I know about this comes from this article. I thought, perhaps, this thread would be interested in it. I've spoilered my thoughts due to the aforementioned "haven't actually seen the movies" problem.

Anyway, this lesson plan has created such a ruckus it would be a shame not to give it a bit more oxygen. Because the point that is conveniently lost in all the outrage is that, from a feminist perspective, the examples used do indeed promote, possibly even glorify, a misogynistic world view.

Yes, men are also pigeonholed in traditional tales; they are beasts, handsome princes, dwarves and knights in shining armour. Supporting female characters - wicked stepmothers, ugly sisters and evil queens - are stereotypical, too. No one is saying that these hackneyed character types are positive or uplifting either.

The starting point to note here is that the context of "traditional" is totally ignored by this "commentator"... not that if you look at fairy tales more generally you don't find peasants, tailors or shoemakers (for example)... and therefore things end up being presented as though we're dealing with stories which are able to have contemporary occupations (wrong) and are, in some sense, authored (wrong). Also, that we're talking about fairy tales and the like seems utterly lost on the commentator... fairy tales aren't short stories, they don't look like them and they don't work like them. There's an interest corollary here... can traditional, non-authored tales be authentically recreated without adaptation by whoever is authoring the latest version? That is, would a classic Rapunzel storyline for Tangled actually be less authentic than Tangled?

note 1, to my knowledge, some of these are authored in two senses. Firstly, some fairy tales aren't really traditional stories. Secondly, some particular written versions can be very influential (that French guy and Cinderella, for example).

note 2, despite what I said about authenticity, I'm not sure if it's authentic if you change stuff like why Beast is a Beast and how the curse operates

Beauty and the Beast:

"The movie says if a woman is pretty and sweet natured she can change an abusive man into a kind and gentle man," says the lesson plan. (The idea that this movie is about domestic violence was also raised in a 2012 thesis entitled "Passively Ever After: Disney's Cinematic Abuse in Beauty and the Beast".)

If that's true, the film's "villain" Gaston doesn't seem to fit in (I am aware of Gaston because of his song), but more importantly it means the point of the story's been lost in adaptation. That is, Beast is cursed because of his arrogance and will only be released if he is able to get someone to love him when he isn't arrogant. As it is Disney, I would guess it's just a bad adaptation.

Cinderella:
This story propagates the belief that women are household skivvies, beauty is all-important and marriage to a handsome prince is a woman's ultimate goal.

Um, it shouldn't do that first thing. But maybe it does, again, I haven't seen the film.

I'm not sure that Cinderella can be said to have an ultimate goal... I mean, her plot is mostly about having an opportunity to not be something she wasn't meant to be. And by meant to, I mean that her father is a fairly important dude, which is why the family gets invited to a royal event.

Cinderella undoubtedly never does anything whatsoever to improve her situation and has to end up being saved by the Fairy Godmother, by being given the opportunity to be who she really is... i.e. the pretty daughter of some well-off dude, so I'll give it the middle bit.

Sleeping Beauty:
Female characters don't get much more passive than this. As early as at her christening she is betrothed to marry a prince in order to unite two kingdoms. She's finally awakened from a deep sleep by the kiss of her true love.

This one has probably been adapted noticeably because all I remember of the start of Sleeping Beauty is that he parents forget/exclude a not nice fairy godmother (or whatever they're being called here) who then curses Beauty to death after gatecrashing... but she jumps the gun and the last invited godmother tempers thing. (Note, the kinds of gifts that are given to the baby are a great starting point to look at the values of the society that authored the story.) I do not remember the prince thing at all (which doesn't make sense because, hey, this is a primitive time travel plot).

The problematic part of this is the kissing, rather than CPR. Easy adjustment.

Snow White:
According to the lesson plan: "She doesn't mind house work because she is sure a rich young man will soon come and take her away."

I may have seen this one. I remember the Heigh-ho song after all. I don't remember it, so once again I am left with the bad adaptation problem.

Snow White works for the dwarves in exchange for food and board. I think this starts because she looks too young? pretty? to just kick out, as was the initial intention (I seem to remember). She's got no idea about princes or whatever... her story is all about being too trusting of strangers who weirdly keep almost killing her.

Again CPR issues. Unless they drop the coffin.

The Little Mermaid:
"This one drastically changes her physical appearance so as to be more attractive ... The price is that she can't speak. No problem, she has nothing of value to say anyhow. She is saved by a prince."

Have seen snippets of the film. Don't remember the original. Don't have anything to say about it as a result.

My general impression is that you end up just banning plots, character arcs and character motivations for the simple reason that in sum they add up to a problem. The issues are best revealed in context (a lot of these stories are set in motion by powerful female characters and/or are driven by such*), not by a single-minded focus on one character.

*Which is, of course, interesting when they're all basically the same character. Hence, the in sum bit (luckily, when making movies, your need to get a 90 minute plot gives you an opportunity to give the villains independent characterisations, which differentiates them).

They're full of shit.

1. Belle actually refuses to put up with the Beast's abuse, and makes a bargain to stay to enable her father's release. You notice that feminists aren't screaming about a story like "Spirited Away" which has the same basic theme. This is an old type of story which has little to do with her being female except insofar as women and men marry and marriage was considered desirable. Belle is actually intelligent and resourceful. And you're right, Gaston and her refusal to put up with him gives the lie to this idea.

2. The Little Mermaid is basically about a silly teenaged girl who has obsessions, is a bit spoiled, and makes foolish choices--and teenagers do that sort of thing. What's interesting about the story is that her father is the one who actualy has a story arc, in which he realizes that by both coddling and suppressing his daughter he kind of made this happen along with his bad relationship with the villain.

3. Yeah the Snow White one is idiotic. The Dwarves work in a fucking MINE--and Snow White does the housework. Real drudgery and no fairnes there.

The reality is that Gender studies programs are perpetuating this sense of victimhood, and so women and men who go through it weirdly feel bad about things that are relatively innocuous and have obviously changed. Maybe they should stick to doing weird poems and unpleasant plays and leave the rest of the world alone.

[Giovenith]

Beauty and the Beast:

"The movie says if a woman is pretty and sweet natured she can change an abusive man into a kind and gentle man," says the lesson plan. (The idea that this movie is about domestic violence was also raised in a 2012 thesis entitled "Passively Ever After: Disney's Cinematic Abuse in Beauty and the Beast".)

I actually could agree that 'Beauty and the Beast' is one that is a bit problematic. I've seen a lot of abuse victims get those bright starry eyes and insist, "I can change him!" as fantasies of fairy tale weddings and laughing over hard times past clouds their minds. However, looking at the movie as a whole, it's clear the creators had nobler intentions.

Gaston is purposely designed to be an absolute raving misogynist and we're rightfully meant to condemn him for it. He throws Belle's book in the mud and tells her it's not good for women to think too much, he only likes her for her looks, he disrespects her family, and he threw a goddamn wedding in her backyard without her knowledge because he just assumed she would instantly agree to marry him when he asked. Even if the Beast carries unfortunate implications upon closer examination, it is clear that the writers of the movie were trying to work in decidedly anti-misogyny themes. For all the Beast's faults, he is praised for being supportive of Belle's intelligence and love of reading, gifting her with an entire library and allowing her to teach him how to read. Unlike Gaston, he learns that to earn a woman's love you have to listen to her and respect who she is, not project a shallow fantasy of your own desires onto her.

Cinderella:
This story propagates the belief that women are household skivvies, beauty is all-important and marriage to a handsome prince is a woman's ultimate goal.

1) Cinderella being forced do all the housework was portrayed as a bad thing, forced upon her by an abusive household, not as something that women should aspire to imitate. Her abusers were also other women, so to say that the movie was forcing females into one role is pretty ridiculous.

2) While Disney did have a bit of a tendency in its earlier years to reinforce the trope that "good people are beautiful," the movie never outright says that it's Cinderella's beauty which is important about her, but her heart. She saves mice from traps and doesn't let her situation embitter her. They were guilty of portraying all nice people as beautiful, but not as portraying that beauty is what makes us valuable.

3) The movie, and most versions of the fairy tale, don't really portray Cinderella as wanting to go to the ball for the sake of catching the Prince's eye. She goes because her life is boring and frustrating as shit and this is the only opportunity she has to have some fun. Even when she arrives as the ball she initially tries to avoid the Prince and doesn't know why he wants to talk to her, and although she finds herself attracted to him she really doesn't intend to make anything of it once she leaves the ball, preferring to cherish the memory and move on with her normal life. So no, getting the prince really was not her goal, it's just something that happened.

It should also be noted that years later in the 2000s, Disney produced a sequel to Cinderella, "Cinderella III: A Twist In Time," in which magic is used to make it so she never got to put on the slipper and marry the prince. She proceeds to go on an epic adventure to restore the time continuum with only help from her animal friends, but in the end, the Prince falls in love with Cinderella all over again while seeing her as just a dirty but brave peasant and not a glittering princess. She is given the choice to restore her old timeline and once again become the maiden who fit the slipper, but she and the prince decide against it, both feeling that how they have met is irrelevant to their love and Cinderella personally finding more self-fulfilment in the new happily ever after that she worked hard to create herself. The whole message of the movie was that although Cinderella did really luck out and have a traditional happily ever after, she as a person never needed it to happen that way, she really was a strong and intelligent enough woman to beat the odds regardless of whatever magic or beauty was at play.

Sleeping Beauty:
Female characters don't get much more passive than this. As early as at her christening she is betrothed to marry a prince in order to unite two kingdoms. She's finally awakened from a deep sleep by the kiss of her true love.

This criticism ignores something very critical: Every other female character in the movie. (Well, except maybe Aurora's mom)

Despite the title, "Sleeping Beauty" really isn't actually about Sleeping Beauty herself. The main force and focus of the plot is really on the three fairies that protect Princess Aurora and the villainess Malefiscent, a powerful and dangerous sorceress who I might remind has been consistently ranked as the #1 most beloved and feared Disney villain decades after the film's release. The film centers around the conflict between these four supernatural women, and everyone else involved are pretty much nothing more than chess pieces in their game. Aurora is pretty much useless, but her Prince is pretty much useless too! He gets easily captured by Malefiscent and then the good fairies have to come and save his ass. He doesn't have any weapons on him so they create a sword and shield for him, only for him to get stuck in some evil thorns so they have to come and save him from THAT too. Malefiscent turns into a badass dragon to fight him, and the three fairies yet again pretty much have to walk the guy through the steps to kill her.

Everything important that happens in that movie is due to the will and power of females, just not Sleeping Beauty's herself. The prince could easily be replaced with a brick for all the help he is without three women dragging him along the whole way. Malefiscent, though evil, is portrayed as beautiful and intimidating at once, dangerously calculating and intelligent (she is never portrayed as crazy or hysterical as many evil females are, but completely genuine and sober in her ruthlessness), and nigh limitless in her power, a force that no one but the good fairies could ever have a hope of standing against. "Sleeping Beauty" is a movie about powerful women fighting other powerful women over goals that have nothing to do with beauty or men, but rather control over the fate of the world in which they inhabit. RARELY do we get stories like this in the modern age.

Snow White:
According to the lesson plan: "She doesn't mind house work because she is sure a rich young man will soon come and take her away."

This one is a bit more legit since Snow White, unlike Cinderella, actually genuinely did believe that a prince would eventually come to save her. However, Snow White is also only 14 years old, so it's not exactly a big travesty or outlandish misportrayal of women that she has unrealistic ideas about romance and men. Young adolescents do constantly daydream about the opposite sex, that's just a fact of life. The dwarves don't attack her and let her stay because, again, she is a 14 year old little girl, one that claims to have just nearly been stabbed to death no less. The huntsman sparing her can also be chalked up to this. I'd like to think that it's a GOOD THING that adult men are unwilling to murder and would rather protect minor girls because they are minor girls and for little other reason, because what other reason do you need? It's a 14 year old child, we're supposed to take care of those.

Yes, Snow White is very enthusiastic about cooking and cleaning, a.d that could be taken as a reinforcement of the stereotype that women are most happy being household servants. However, it can equally be interpreted as a positive portrayal of Snow White's lack of arrogance or snobbery. She comes from royal blood and yet she had no qualms with getting dirty and doing humble chores, she's a grateful person who wants to thank the people who are helping her instead of thinking that she's entitled to help just by being a princess or beautiful woman. She doesn't look down on the dwarves (er, figuratively anyway) despite their odd nature, she treats them with kindness and is genuinely interested in what sort of people they are, and they give the same to her. Heck, there's even a part where they shoot down misogyny, after Grumpy the dwarf says he doesn't trust women because they are manipulative (!) the other dwarves telling him he's being a paranoid asshole and subsequently punish him for being rude to Snow White. You can really tell that Snow White and the dwarves honestly care about each other, a relationship of love between men and women without explicit romance involved, which I think is a pretty.positive thing.

The Little Mermaid:
"This one drastically changes her physical appearance so as to be more attractive ... The price is that she can't speak. No problem, she has nothing of value to say anyhow. She is saved by a prince."

This is again a gross simplification of the plot that ignores all context.

In the beginning, Ariel is already thoroughly obsessed with humans and deeply wishes to be a human herself long, long before she ever falls in love with her human prince. She is portrayed as rebellious against her father, adventurous, and possessing a very intelligent curiosity. The movie more or less says that Ariel only originally fell in love with Eric because he was the first human she ever saw up close. Ariel didn't want to be a human because she loved Eric, she loved Eric because she wanted to be a human.

Even so, Ariel originally doesn't seem that serious about Eric. She makes up plans on a whim to try to talk to him but never goes through with them, seeming content to just play just a statue of Eric that she found much like a real teenage girl would play with a poster of her male pop star crush. What actually drives Ariel to abandon her old life and be with Eric isn't really Eric himself, but her father: Ariel's father hates humans, which in all fairness is because they eat fish which are sentient beings to merpeople, and when he finds out that Ariel has been collecting human artifacts and has a crush on one, he angrily destroys her entire collection that she loved and worked hard for years to amass. This is why she leaves home, not because she was desperate to have a man, but because her father had broken her heart and she felt disrespected and unwanted in her family. She's tired of being under her father's control and makes a decision out of anger and sadness to essentially run away from home and be with people who she thinks will understand her, which includes Eric.

She gives up her voice to become human, yes, but you can't count this as a knock on account that Ariel giving up her voice is explicitly portrayed as a BAD THING. For one thing, Ursula the witch wants her voice solely so that Ariel won't be able to tell anyone about her predicament and she can later screw her over, it's a Faustian gambit, not an advocation that women speaking is unimportant. Secondly, Eric fell in love with Ariel BECAUSE OF HER VOICE. Before he met her in person he heard her sing, and he determined that he would marry the girl whose voice he heard, the voice of the girl who saved his life from a burning ship. Despite Ariel sacrificing her voice to be with him, it turns out Eric wants the woman he loves to have a voice above all else, not be silent. In spite of that, he gets to know Ariel without her voice, and he falls in love with her over again without knowing it's her who had the voice. When she regains her voice, it's just further confirmation that he wants to be with her. If anything, the message there is that women often do things to themselves that they think men will like, but that men who are actually worth being with would never ask those things of them. A real man wants women to speak, and women shouldn't listen to negative influences (Ursula the witch) who tell them otherwise.

In the end, the relationship that is really the focus of the moral is that of Ariel and her father. Her father realizes he made a terrible mistake by not respecting Ariel and is frantic when he finds that has disappeared from home. When he finds out about the deal he made with Ursula he volunteers to take her place in it, sacrificing himself to save his child, and making Ariel realize in the most devastating way possible that he truly did everything he did out of love and a desire to protect her in spite of her mistakes. The ending message of the movie is that her father must learn to trust Ariel to make her own decisions in life, that there comes a point in every parent's life that they have to trust that they raised their baby well and let them go no matter how scary it feels, and more tacitly, that men must trust women to make their own decisions and live their own lives. Ariel says as much in her famous solo, "Part Of Your World":

"Bet you on land, they'd understand,
That they don't reprimand their daughters - bright young women, sick of swimming,
Ready to stand."



A lot of the other Disney princesses carry far more strong portrayals than even those, and it would be dishonest to exclude them. The most obvious example would be Mulan, which is pretty much the most blatantly feminist movie Disney has ever created. Mulan lives an explicitly patriarchal ancient China, told that her purpose is to be an obedient and physically attractive wife, bare children, and mind her tongue in the presence of men. When her elderly father is drafted to fight in an upcoming war despite his clearly frail condition, Mulan disguises herself as a man and runs away in the night to take his place in the war despite it being explicitly stated that if her true sex is found out, she will be executed. She initially does this not out of desire for glory or to prove herself as good as men, but out a selfless desperation to save her father's life.

Once at the boot camp, Mulan repeatedly fails at the training, though so too do her fellow soldiers. All captured in the fittingly named musical number, "I'll Make A Man Out Of You," Mulan discovers that it's not just women who have stressful and unrealistic expectations set on them, but men as well, as she and the other soldiers fail to keep up with the regiment and are tacitly told that they are not real men because of it - which hits Mulan especially hard for obvious reasons. During the bridge of the song, Mulan has failed so badly in her training that she is handed her things and told go home:

"You're unsuited for the rage of war,
So pack up, go home, you're through,
How could I make a man out or you?"

At this point though, Mulan actually won at her original goal. She didn't want to be a soldier, she did it to save her father, now that she has the military's official permission to go home she could stay safe and they would not come back to make her father fight. She accomplished what she set out to do. But at this point, Mulan realizes that that's not good enough - she does not want to go home, and she turns back to the camp. Mulan continues the training, this time not doing it for her father, but doing it for herself. And it is only when that she begins to do it for herself that she succeeds where she once was failing and inspires the other troops to improve as well. Mulan learns that they key to success is letting go of what others think and expect of you and go for something because you want it, and in the process, the soldiers unwittingly learn how to be "real men" from a woman.

When the soldiers inevitably discover that Mulan is a woman, they initially turn their backs on her, but in the heat of an emergency realize that man or woman, Mulan was the one who lead and inspired them, and decide to follow her again. They wind up disguising themselves as women in order to enter a palace, and Mulan defeats the villain as a woman using both a paper fan and sword - symbols of feminity and masculinity respectively, showing that traditionally feminine things can be just as useful and strong as masculine things, and that no one has to embrace one or the other. i.e., Mulan's source of strength is not becoming a man and eschewing womanhood, but rather by disregarding whether or not something is "masculine" or "feminine" and utilizing aspects of both based on what best works for her. In the end, Mulan is honored in front of her entire society as a hero, and not as the male soldier she disguised herself as, but as the woman who broke the law to become a soldier, proved the system wrong, and saved the entire kingdom by doing so. She hopes these things will make her father forgive her, but upon returning home, her father discards all of the Emperor's gifts and honors and instead embraces her - telling her that no matter what she does or what anyone thinks of her, he will always be proud to call her his child.


The analysis of Disney that thesis provided is vapid and blatantly dishonest. There are plenty of things to criticize Disney for, but the degree to which the writer ignored context, misrepresented plot details, and left out examples that were inconvenient to her preconceived conclusion is absolutely shameful.

[Jello Biafra]

I missed this when it was posted, forgive me.

No problem; it happens to all of us.

I highly doubt that anyone ever implied to these boys that they could get away with rape. We generally don't think of people we admire as capable of bad things like rape, heck, we generally don't think of most people we know as capable of such things. We as a society already have an understanding that rape is bad, we assume that the vast majority of the people we know understand this and would never cross that line - it's one of those things that is so obvious it goes unsaid, much like murder. Good people don't rape or murder, ergo, we hold an expectation that those we see as good will not rape and murder; to suggest that we would tell people we see as good that they will receive a pass on those things in the event that they commit them is pretty ridiculous.

I think you're right that nobody ever explicitly said "If you rape we won't care", but is it possible that other infractions from these boys were glossed over because 'boys will be boys'?

So why then did the boys rape and the town defend them anyway? Well obviously I'm not an expert, but the answer I see is that humans are simply nowhere near as dedicated to their principles as we tend to think of ourselves as. We make a lot of dumb and hypocritical choices in the heat of emotion and social pressure, things we might never do or say otherwise. Think of the Milgram experiment where scientists were easily able to coerce completely normal people into committing what they believed was murder by electrocution, or the Stanford prison experiment where completely normal young men whipped themselves into an insane frenzy of paranoia and torture all over a make believe game of cops and criminals. The people in those experiments never harbored a secret desire to or permissive attitudes towards murder or torture, it's just that humans placed under the right circumstances can and will do just about anything - that includes you and me. It feels easy and comforting to think that people who do bad things were just always secretly okay with bad things all along, because it helps us to trust those whose morals we think we're sure of, but the truth is a good deal of people who commit atrocities never thought they could do something like that until they did.

This is reasonable.

I consider Steubenville an exception because normally, we really don't see widespread cover ups and dismissal of rape like this from small towns or anywhere. In any case of an alleged rape there are going to be believers and disbelievers, that's just the nature of any claim, but most of the time rape charges tend to be a private matter to the police, those directly effected, and maybe a bit of hushed taboo gossip between friends of friends who don't want to start trouble with something they have no way of knowing the truth of. I feel like some feminists tend to portray anything less than mass community outpouring in support of the alleged victim complete with flowers, picket signs, and chanting for the alleged rapist's head is somehow a tacit support of rape, but we have to remember that this isn't how the real world works for almost any crime. A community minding their own business when it comes to a case of a crime is not the same thing as a community not taking the crime seriously, but those who would portray Steubenville as common act as though it is.

I guess this is true; I was thinking that the reason we don't see widespread cover ups like these more often is because they're successful, but of course that's a claim that really can't be argued.

As for why Steubenville behaved the way it did, I feel like that's an answer that would require a lot more insight into the nature of the town than I as a randie on the internet could garner from just a few articles. There could be factors at play we don't know about which separate it from similar towns. If I had to take a shot in the dark though, I would say that it was a Follower The Leader effect - some prominent presence in the community took the first step towards blaming the victim, and the many people who were already nervous about the town's reputation saw it as an easy way to ease their fears and jumped on board. Fear, convenience, and a sense of social permission are always the biggest factors at play when people abandon their morals. When people feel their familiar structures crumbling, they become susceptible to influence, and will hook onto the first thing that they think will restore normalcy and chase the uncertainty out of their presence. In many instances, that means lashing out at the people who brought the problem into notice instead of the problem itself (coincidentally, this is how I see feminism's current general response to its own recent unpopularity), because it's easier to get mad at the disruption to your life than to change yourself.

I suppose this makes sense.

[Yootxtlalkaan]

I live in Canada, we have oil and we're not a shithole.

i think the first nations would dispute that statement

[Jello Biafra]

I'm not sure where you got that from. According to this study, Twitter users slut-shame equally.

There was a maleness classification bias in their calibration sample in after-the-fact analysis of tweets identified as "aggressive" (gender annotator classifying as male 44.8% of accounts in sample instead of 37.4%). Then the gender annotator's classification of "aggressive" tweeting users identified by their algorithm. was 42% male and 48% female.

When the summary says that 50% were women, that is out of a classification of "male," "female," and "unknown / institutional," and means that women had the edge on men in this sort of activity on Twitter.

It's not completely clear where the 50% comes from, but they measured calibration errors in the gender annotator that were biased towards maleness in gender classifying the "aggressive" tweets. Applying that calibration error directly gives 51% women and 35% men, give or take some rounding error.

The human came up with 55.7% women, 44.3% men vs. 49.5% women and 50.5% men in the gender annotator - once the institutions were removed.

Mind you, this is anti-female slut shaming activity specifically. Per the below, we would not typically expect the gap to narrow any when we consider anti-male slut shaming activity.

Technically speaking, we don't know this - unless we're assuming that 'slut' and 'whore' are terms used only for women. If so, then men can't be slut-shamed, since men aren't referred to as sluts.

It shows that women hold double standards favoring women more often, and that men hold double standards favoring men more often. It shows that women have more conservative attitudes towards sex overall. (6% gap in liberal attitudes, 24% gap in conservative attitudes, for a giant 30% gap outside of double standards.)

Both men and women are more likely to have self-serving double standards, which means that men and women are somewhat similarly likely to approve of female promiscuity (37% vs 41% for a 4% gap, not particularly significant), while women are much more likely to disapprove of male promiscuity.

So then if women have the power to set slut-shaming standards, why haven't men adopted womens' views about male promiscuity?

[Giovenith]

I think you're right that nobody ever explicitly said "If you rape we won't care", but is it possible that other infractions from these boys were glossed over because 'boys will be boys'?

Sure it's possible, anything is possible. It's not something I could ever honestly suggest is the truth though because I do not personally know those boys or their families. It's possible they could have been treated in any number of ways in response to any number of behaviors. I've never seen these boys' upbringing, you've never see their upbringing, we should not be so arrogant as to presume that we are in any position to be guessing what it was like.

[USS Monitor]

How is it stupid? There's nothing wrong with adapting a fairytale to be more appealing to modern audiences and modern children. No one will portray the rape of Sleeping Beauty by the prince, for example, which was one of the earliest written versions. An extreme example, but 1930s Snow White wouldn't fly today either. You can do much with source material, just look at how Tangled diverges from the original story, but is still recognizably Rapunzel. Barbie came out with an adventurous Rapunzel a decade earlier. The fact is that too-passive heroines aren't appealing anymore to many parents. All I can find so far that can be considered feminist is that Belle is now a hobbyist inventor. What's wrong with that? Her father's an inventor, doesn't it make sense for him historically to pass his trade to his daughter as he lacks a son?

I think you're being clouded by your grudge against Emma Watson for whatever reason.

I'm not against things being appealing to audiences. What I don't like are socio-political agendas mixing up with art and then being told I have to like it because otherwise i hate women. And I'm tired of feminists lecturing people about every bloody thing as though somehow depicting a drama set in a historical period--sorta--is going to be demeaning to women rather than simply sorta realistic. Like all the stupid feminists who complained about Game of Thrones' sexism and wantd to see fantasies where women were all wonderfuly independent. The articles written trying to attack traditional fairy tales act as though in the 18th Century or 19th Century when anthologies of these started to be published should have had their time machine in place to know how to write things that were never sexist. I suspect them of wanting to change all literature so nothing ever offends them rather than considering other reasons why stories are told as they are.

Doing a new take on a classic story doesn't prevent you from going back and reading/watching older variants if you're interested in them.

Incidentally, I've seen a good piece of feminist propaganda published in 1867 or thereabouts that consisted of a couple dozen true stories about women involved with the Civil War. So you can have strong female characters without making it unrealistic. They won't necessarily be able to follow the same path as a male character in the same setting. For example, none of those Civil War women were officers leading armies into battle. But "realism" isn't a good excuse to have all the female characters sit around wringing their hands waiting on a man to save them. It's not what actually happened. There are some roles where it makes more sense historically to have a male character, but that's a separate issue from the characters' personalities, or what people will go out and do even when it's not officially their job.

SOME media portrayals of strong female protagonists in historical settings are unrealistic, and it's fair to criticize them as such -- but that doesn't mean the goal of making female characters more independent is a bad goal. Putting female characters in traditionally male jobs and ignoring social attitudes from the time is unrealistic. Having female characters that go out and do stuff despite their lack of formal authority, or despite society trying to discourage them, is historically accurate.

[New Edom]

I'm not against things being appealing to audiences. What I don't like are socio-political agendas mixing up with art and then being told I have to like it because otherwise i hate women. And I'm tired of feminists lecturing people about every bloody thing as though somehow depicting a drama set in a historical period--sorta--is going to be demeaning to women rather than simply sorta realistic. Like all the stupid feminists who complained about Game of Thrones' sexism and wantd to see fantasies where women were all wonderfuly independent. The articles written trying to attack traditional fairy tales act as though in the 18th Century or 19th Century when anthologies of these started to be published should have had their time machine in place to know how to write things that were never sexist. I suspect them of wanting to change all literature so nothing ever offends them rather than considering other reasons why stories are told as they are.

Doing a new take on a classic story doesn't prevent you from going back and reading/watching older variants if you're interested in them.

Incidentally, I've seen a good piece of feminist propaganda published in 1867 or thereabouts that consisted of a couple dozen true stories about women involved with the Civil War. So you can have strong female characters without making it unrealistic. They won't necessarily be able to follow the same path as a male character in the same setting. For example, none of those Civil War women were officers leading armies into battle. But "realism" isn't a good excuse to have all the female characters sit around wringing their hands waiting on a man to save them. It's not what actually happened. There are some roles where it makes more sense historically to have a male character, but that's a separate issue from the characters' personalities, or what people will go out and do even when it's not officially their job.

SOME media portrayals of strong female protagonists in historical settings are unrealistic, and it's fair to criticize them as such -- but that doesn't mean the goal of making female characters more independent is a bad goal. Putting female characters in traditionally male jobs and ignoring social attitudes from the time is unrealistic. Having female characters that go out and do stuff despite their lack of formal authority, or despite society trying to discourage them, is historically accurate.

Sure, you make some good points here. What I find annoying among many feminist critics of folk tales, history and popular stories is that they write and talk insisting that there are only the most negative possible implications for women and girls in traditional stories. It always is written of as though traditions only esxisted to hold women back from their desires. I've also noticed how often there are negative reactions to more realistic depictions of women struggling against gender norms.

Here's a good example: reviews of the 2010 version of "True Grit".

One reviewer on feminist frequency

The movie follows Mattie on her quest for revenge against the man who killed her father. To help her in this venture, she hires notorious U.S. marshall, Rooster Cogburn, known for his ruthless grit. The marshall initially dismisses and ridicules Mattie because of her age and gender, however she convinces him of her competence and they set out on the trail to find the killer.

I would argue, since I've seen the movie three times--it is one of my favourite movies--that her gender is not even referred to. Cogburn focuses on her age and size. There is never any reference to her being a young girl by Cogburn. Anyway; moving on.

The main point the writer makes is this: "I think feminist characters should, like feminists in real life, push beyond the societal norms, challenge gender roles and the institutions that actively work to maintain them." So in other words, a young woman who defies the customs of her time in the context of the movie, even though the writer inaccurately believes she was held back by one character in particular because of her gender, is not good enough. She doesn't deliberately challenge the gender nroms--in short, she ought to be, according to this writer, accuse people of patriarchy in some form or other. So I wondered if this was exceptional.

Next: an article in Raw Story by Amanda Marcotte argues that Mattie is less of a feminist than Marge Gunderson in "Fargo" because she is a more grim, violent and unflinching character than Marge, who is more nurturing and peaceful.

An article in bitchflicks also reports that "True Grit" is not a femnist movie. The author states this:

I conclude that while Mattie Ross may be considered a feminist character (loosely) True Grit is neither a feminist movie nor a movie that reinforces the patriarchal heterosexist narrative. It is a human condition movie, and one worth watching.

This is not to say that some feminists have not expressed admiration for themovie, and indeed most of the writers above have said it has good qualities as a movie--but that some of the most prominent feminist writers who critique popular entertainment dismiss Mattie Ross and similar characters as epitomizing feminist values.

So what does this say to me? Well for a start, it makes it very clear that when feminists say that feminism is just about equality, they're being deceptive. This is further proof that what they want is equality based on particular values. And that is why I am suspicious when feminists write that they want to rewrite stories. It strikes me as being more about propaganda than about just imagining a good story. It's the equivalent of say re-writing "Jurassic Park" from the point of view of Intelligent Design. Maybe that might make a different story that is interesting, but people would be right to suspect that the purpose might be to eclipse and eliminate any story that contradicts creationism.

[Tahar Joblis]

The human came up with 55.7% women, 44.3% men vs. 49.5% women and 50.5% men in the gender annotator - once the institutions were removed.

In the calibration sample. Not in the total pool of "aggressive" tweets. The general sample was 48-42 according to the gender annotator, i.e., 53-47. There was no human review of the total pool.

So. The calibration sample points to an underrepresentation of women by the annotator; the annotator points towards women having about a six point edge in "aggressive" use of "slut" and "whore." In combination, these do not point towards equal usage.

Technically speaking, we don't know this - unless we're assuming that 'slut' and 'whore' are terms used only for women. If so, then men can't be slut-shamed, since men aren't referred to as sluts.

The use of the exact word "slut" or "whore" is not the only means by which slut-shaming occurs. Male promiscuity is often attacked using variant terms (manwhore, for example), leaving the traditional "slut" and "whore" disproportionately female-targeted.

So then if women have the power to set slut-shaming standards, why haven't men adopted womens' views about male promiscuity?

Who is to say men aren't adopting those views?

Men have become more hostile towards promiscuity, including but not limited to male promiscuity, over the past several decades. The rise of the reverse double standard and fall of the traditional double standard, as well as the fall of sexual liberalism in general and rise of sexual conservatism in general, are trends where women have led.

Nor was the original traditional double standard something that was necessarily the result of male attitudes.

On that note, nominal attitudes are only one piece of the puzzle. I have known plenty of bisexual polyamorous liberal feminist women very well. Intellectually, they have, to a woman, disapproved of slut-shaming, generically. Individually and personally, I have seen most of them, sooner or later, talk smack about a promiscuous woman on the basis of that promiscuity. (If you look around, you can find lots of articles and blog posts written by guilty-feeling feminists trying to figure out why they kept slut-shaming people even after deciding slut-shaming was a bad thing. It's not just the ones around me.)

Study after study has shown, similarly, that women tend to be hostile towards women perceived as promiscuous. I will not pretend I have confidence in explanations for why this happens. There is no shortage of explanations, but I don't place particular confidence in any of them past noting the fact that it is women, not men, who have more negative attitudes towards promiscuity; and women, not men, who regularly engage in slut-shaming behavior.

Then there's the inconvenient fact that the narrative surrounding slut-shaming focuses intently on clothing, and style as signifier. Women talk more about style and fashion than men do; not every man is fashion-illiterate, but more among that group are men than women. Not every clothes horse, fashion fan, and style savant is a woman, but they're more often women than men. Women are much more likely to form an opinion on what a hemline means about someone in the first place (for good or for ill).

[The Grene Knyght]

Hey guys, some questions:
Are we moving towards a gender-less society? Is such a move possible and/or even a good thing?
Does the idea that we should move to one invalidate the struggles of transgender people (Just throwing this one out there anyway, even though I would unequivocally argue no)?
How would sexuality function under such a society?

I can absolutely see gender as a social construct, one that defines irrational hierarchies and as such must be removed (whether or not that is happening, or even can happen: lol idk). But with that idea in mind, I've often struggled to reconcile sexuality into this equation. Certainly sexuality cannot be a social construct (or rather, it is, but only to varying degrees from person to person), but sexuality at the same time is so intrinsically tied to gender. I din't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll open it up to the floor and we'll see if we can hammer out some more solid theoretical ideas or if someone has some stronger ideas to share with me...

[Philjia]

Hey guys, some questions:
Are we moving towards a gender-less society? Is such a move possible and/or even a good thing?
Does the idea that we should move to one invalidate the struggles of transgender people (Just throwing this one out there anyway, even though I would unequivocally argue no)?
How would sexuality function under such a society?

I can absolutely see gender as a social construct, one that defines irrational hierarchies and as such must be removed (whether or not that is happening, or even can happen: lol idk). But with that idea in mind, I've often struggled to reconcile sexuality into this equation. Certainly sexuality cannot be a social construct (or rather, it is, but only to varying degrees from person to person), but sexuality at the same time is so intrinsically tied to gender. I din't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll open it up to the floor and we'll see if we can hammer out some more solid theoretical ideas or if someone has some stronger ideas to share with me...

Just because the ideas of femininity and masculinity may be largely social constructs, that doesn't mean that it can't be a positive thing to use them. The idea that only men should be masculine and only women should be feminine is bad, but the existence of masculinity and femininity isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

[Chessmistress]

Just a little thought, since cartoons are interesting but there are more important issues.
Today 25 November is the International Day for the elimination of violence against Women:
http://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/

Why This International Day?

Violence against women is a human rights violation.

Violence against women is a consequence of discrimination against women, in law and also in practice, and of persisting inequalities between men and women.

Violence against women impacts on, and impedes, progress in many areas, including poverty eradication, combating HIV/AIDS, and peace and security.

Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. Prevention is possible and essential.

Violence against women continues to be a global pandemic.

[Galloism]

Just a little thought, since cartoons are interesting but there are more important issues.
Today 25 November is the International Day for the elimination of violence against Women:
http://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/

Why This International Day?

Violence against women is a human rights violation.

Violence against women is a consequence of discrimination against women, in law and also in practice, and of persisting inequalities between men and women.

Violence against women impacts on, and impedes, progress in many areas, including poverty eradication, combating HIV/AIDS, and peace and security.

Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. Prevention is possible and essential.

Violence against women continues to be a global pandemic.

A day to push for less violence against the class that suffers the least violence.

Ok, I guess. Maybe next we have a getting white people into politics day.

[The Plonks]

Hey guys, some questions:
Are we moving towards a gender-less society? Is such a move possible and/or even a good thing?
Does the idea that we should move to one invalidate the struggles of transgender people (Just throwing this one out there anyway, even though I would unequivocally argue no)?
How would sexuality function under such a society?

I can absolutely see gender as a social construct, one that defines irrational hierarchies and as such must be removed (whether or not that is happening, or even can happen: lol idk). But with that idea in mind, I've often struggled to reconcile sexuality into this equation. Certainly sexuality cannot be a social construct (or rather, it is, but only to varying degrees from person to person), but sexuality at the same time is so intrinsically tied to gender. I din't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll open it up to the floor and we'll see if we can hammer out some more solid theoretical ideas or if someone has some stronger ideas to share with me...

Just because the ideas of femininity and masculinity may be largely social constructs, that doesn't mean that it can't be a positive thing to use them. The idea that only men should be masculine and only women should be feminine is bad, but the existence of masculinity and femininity isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

I think the existence of masculinity and femininity is bound to happen in any society that doesn't actively try to stop it.

[Frenline Delpha]

Just because the ideas of femininity and masculinity may be largely social constructs, that doesn't mean that it can't be a positive thing to use them. The idea that only men should be masculine and only women should be feminine is bad, but the existence of masculinity and femininity isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

I think the existence of masculinity and femininity is bound to happen in any society that doesn't actively try to stop it.

I think it's bound to happen regardless, and trying to completely stop it is an idiotic idea. Some men and women like to be masculine, and some men and women like to be feminine.

[Chessmistress]

Ok, I guess. Maybe next we have a getting white people into politics day.

USA already had it: November, 8, 2016.

[Galloism]

Ok, I guess. Maybe next we have a getting white people into politics day.

USA already had it: November, 8, 2016.

Touché.

[Frenline Delpha]

USA already had it: November, 8, 2016.

Touché.

I'll admit, even if I disagree with her point, that that made me laugh.

[Giovenith]

I think the existence of masculinity and femininity is bound to happen in any society that doesn't actively try to stop it.

I think it's bound to happen regardless, and trying to completely stop it is an idiotic idea. Some men and women like to be masculine, and some men and women like to be feminine.

"If norms are oppressive, try to foster acceptance of deviations, don't try to destroy the norms themselves - that's a fool's errand."

*nod*

[The Grene Knyght]

Hey guys, some questions:
Are we moving towards a gender-less society? Is such a move possible and/or even a good thing?
Does the idea that we should move to one invalidate the struggles of transgender people (Just throwing this one out there anyway, even though I would unequivocally argue no)?
How would sexuality function under such a society?

I can absolutely see gender as a social construct, one that defines irrational hierarchies and as such must be removed (whether or not that is happening, or even can happen: lol idk). But with that idea in mind, I've often struggled to reconcile sexuality into this equation. Certainly sexuality cannot be a social construct (or rather, it is, but only to varying degrees from person to person), but sexuality at the same time is so intrinsically tied to gender. I din't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll open it up to the floor and we'll see if we can hammer out some more solid theoretical ideas or if someone has some stronger ideas to share with me...

Just because the ideas of femininity and masculinity may be largely social constructs, that doesn't mean that it can't be a positive thing to use them. The idea that only men should be masculine and only women should be feminine is bad, but the existence of masculinity and femininity isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

Fair point. Still interesting to think how such a society would form.

Just because the ideas of femininity and masculinity may be largely social constructs, that doesn't mean that it can't be a positive thing to use them. The idea that only men should be masculine and only women should be feminine is bad, but the existence of masculinity and femininity isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

I think the existence of masculinity and femininity is bound to happen in any society that doesn't actively try to stop it.

Not necessarily. Ideas of masculinity/femininity change both with culture and time. So it really depends what you mean here when u use these terms. Do you mean ideas of what constitutes man and woman? Or ideas of masculinity and femininity as you (or we) understand them