The NationStates Feminist Thread II

[The Grene Knyght]

It's time for the....

To rise.

Pleasantly surprised for once at the direction this thread is taking.

[Mattopilos]

yeah governments are pretty shit at addressing anything that won't directly affect their popularity and/or their ability to rule.

To be honest, governments could easily bring domestic violence against men to the forefront of politics and get quite a lot of support to combat that violence. The problem is that most politicians don't consider it worth the effort. Sure, they could secure reelection on a platform of genuine good work, but too many of them want to play it safe, lest a bunch of SJWs bombard them with outrage about how dare they try to reduce violent crime.

I agree completely - it hurts their popularity, so they will move to the group that WILL do what they want.
Note: I find the use of feminism and SJW quite subjective, honestly. I have met many feminists and SJWs (or those called it) with very different views and methodologies. The terms have become buzzwords at this point, but perpetuated by those that look to one group that are labelled as such with great disdain and make the claim 'all SJWs/feminists are regressive leftists/libtards etc." It depends on the scope of what we are looking at, given how liberals can sometimes perpetuate the idea all right-wingers support Trump or are fascist supporters. That is my tiny rant.

[FelrikTheDeleted]

It's time for the....

To rise.

Pleasantly surprised for once at the direction this thread is taking.

Hahahaha.... I be a centre rightist, I infiltrate your ranks, not to mention that I support Humanistic Capitalism.

[The Grene Knyght]

Pleasantly surprised for once at the direction this thread is taking.

Hahahaha.... I be a centre rightist, I infiltrate your ranks, not to mention that I support Humanistic Capitalism.

Too late. You're one of us now...
One of us...
One of us...
One of us...

[FelrikTheDeleted]

Hahahaha.... I be a centre rightist, I infiltrate your ranks, not to mention that I support Humanistic Capitalism.

Too late. You're one of us now...
One of us...
One of us...
One of us...

It's in my head!

[Costa Fierro]

Hooray for public relations. I mean from a political perspective it's understandable because negative PR is always going to be an issue and minimizing the threat posed by outraged groups is always going to take precedence as opposed to doing anything substantial. And feminists know if they can scream loudly enough, their views will be taken more seriously, even if they're based on heavily skewed data or complete fabrications. That's what makes me extremely concerned with the radicalization of mainstream feminism.

So it seems we're all in agreement lets dismantle the state.

No.

[The Grene Knyght]

So it seems we're all in agreement lets dismantle the state.

No.

too late. it has begun.

[FelrikTheDeleted]

No.

too late. it has begun.

And so the fall of humanity has begun. :^)

(Its funny, Anarcho-Communism is my pet ideology)

[The Grene Knyght]

To be honest, governments could easily bring domestic violence against men to the forefront of politics and get quite a lot of support to combat that violence. The problem is that most politicians don't consider it worth the effort. Sure, they could secure reelection on a platform of genuine good work, but too many of them want to play it safe, lest a bunch of SJWs bombard them with outrage about how dare they try to reduce violent crime.

I agree completely - it hurts their popularity, so they will move to the group that WILL do what they want.
Note: I find the use of feminism and SJW quite subjective, honestly. I have met many feminists and SJWs (or those called it) with very different views and methodologies. The terms have become buzzwords at this point, but perpetuated by those that look to one group that are labelled as such with great disdain and make the claim 'all SJWs/feminists are regressive leftists/libtards etc." It depends on the scope of what we are looking at, given how liberals can sometimes perpetuate the idea all right-wingers support Trump or are fascist supporters. That is my tiny rant.

Yeah I can definitly see how feminist and SJW have become buzzwords divorced from their original meaning.

[Mattopilos]

too late. it has begun.

And so the fall of humanity has begun. :^)

(Its funny, Anarcho-Communism is my pet ideology)

If it is a pet, it must be a cat :^)

[FelrikTheDeleted]

And so the fall of humanity has begun. :^)

(Its funny, Anarcho-Communism is my pet ideology)

If it is a pet, it must be a cat :^)

It is, my dog is socialism. :^)

[Mattopilos]

If it is a pet, it must be a cat :^)

It is, my dog is socialism. :^)

huehuehue

Anyways, better stop with this ideological chat before the mods get their hammer out.

[New Edom]

I've always been just as uncomfortable being told I possess certain talents and strengths as a woman as certain weaknesses. Possibly even more so. I don't like being told that I am "mysterious" or have the power to influence others. I don't like being told that it's my job to spread "love" to the world. I don't like people underestimating me, whether that be my capacity to help or wreck.

I agree. To try and create a label for one's self purely from their gender (as gender roles do) is self-destructive in that sense. To express oneself by what you want to be expressed by is more important, imo. I mean, I hardly go around and 'act like a man' or to appear masculine because that is what is expected - do what you want. To underestimate someone on a single label, such as gender, is as bad as overestimating someone based on their gender.

It's my belief that achieving true personal power comes from being equally honest about both your strengths and weaknesses. If you don't know the former, you won't know what you can do. If you don't know the latter, you won't know how to overcome them, protect them from being exploited by others, and avoid screwing up things you have no business dealing with and therefore delegitimizing yourself. You are neither special or worthless based on your gender, man or woman.

Exactly - no one is perfect, and no one can ever be. To work on your weaknesses and make use of your strengths is important. To equalize the genders in the understanding there are strengths and weaknesses, whether that is part of their gender or part of the 'gender role', is an important thing to do, and a goal that should be aimed for. We must embrace ourselves on weaknesses and strengths.

For all the insistent talk about equality, many 3rd Wave feminists seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. They seem to want to be able to keep being vulnerable and protecred because they are women along with being able to challenge gender norms. They also do their best to control the conversation so that people cannot ask them hard questions they have to answer.

This discussion of sex is a good example. There are traditional behaviours that both men and women do that undermine consent, yet the female ones are not seen as undermining consent. For example if a woman starts grinding up against a stranger in a bar, is she not doing actions that in men are being condemned lately? If women on a television show or in a movie start ogling a man, talking about his body in a way that makes him visibly uncomfortable, are they not harassing him? Why is it cute if women do it?

It either needs to be true for everyone or maybe they--the zealots in the 3rd Wave--need to back off a little and let the conversation actually happen.

[Mattopilos]

I agree. To try and create a label for one's self purely from their gender (as gender roles do) is self-destructive in that sense. To express oneself by what you want to be expressed by is more important, imo. I mean, I hardly go around and 'act like a man' or to appear masculine because that is what is expected - do what you want. To underestimate someone on a single label, such as gender, is as bad as overestimating someone based on their gender.


Exactly - no one is perfect, and no one can ever be. To work on your weaknesses and make use of your strengths is important. To equalize the genders in the understanding there are strengths and weaknesses, whether that is part of their gender or part of the 'gender role', is an important thing to do, and a goal that should be aimed for. We must embrace ourselves on weaknesses and strengths.

For all the insistent talk about equality, many 3rd Wave feminists seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. They seem to want to be able to keep being vulnerable and protecred because they are women along with being able to challenge gender norms. They also do their best to control the conversation so that people cannot ask them hard questions they have to answer.

This discussion of sex is a good example. There are traditional behaviours that both men and women do that undermine consent, yet the female ones are not seen as undermining consent. For example if a woman starts grinding up against a stranger in a bar, is she not doing actions that in men are being condemned lately? If women on a television show or in a movie start ogling a man, talking about his body in a way that makes him visibly uncomfortable, are they not harassing him? Why is it cute if women do it?

It either needs to be true for everyone or maybe they--the zealots in the 3rd Wave--need to back off a little and let the conversation actually happen.

Problem is we are not talking about 3rd wave feminists, and the movement is broad, as has been described. Not all of us try and play the victim, and rather focus on gender equality from both sides. Criticize those that don't, for we would as well.
As with the sex talk, I am all about consent, and see what you describe as something worth discussing - I would see that as going against the consent of a man/woman if the woman did that when the person did not want them to. I think we are in agreement there. And the discussion part? I think both sides have a distorted view of 'who ogles who' is appropriate. I have no problem with it, as long as it doesn't go 'too far' i.e. going into sexual harassment territory with the individual inflicted by the discussion, or not stopping it when they ask and are clearly uncomfortable with it.
The discussion needs to happen, and I fault most of the liberal left, and the alt-right for the discussion not occurring in a level-headed and constructive manner.

[New Edom]

For all the insistent talk about equality, many 3rd Wave feminists seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. They seem to want to be able to keep being vulnerable and protecred because they are women along with being able to challenge gender norms. They also do their best to control the conversation so that people cannot ask them hard questions they have to answer.

This discussion of sex is a good example. There are traditional behaviours that both men and women do that undermine consent, yet the female ones are not seen as undermining consent. For example if a woman starts grinding up against a stranger in a bar, is she not doing actions that in men are being condemned lately? If women on a television show or in a movie start ogling a man, talking about his body in a way that makes him visibly uncomfortable, are they not harassing him? Why is it cute if women do it?

It either needs to be true for everyone or maybe they--the zealots in the 3rd Wave--need to back off a little and let the conversation actually happen.

Problem is we are not talking about 3rd wave feminists, and the movement is broad, as has been described. Not all of us try and play the victim, and rather focus on gender equality from both sides. Criticize those that don't, for we would as well.
As with the sex talk, I am all about consent, and see what you describe as something worth discussing - I would see that as going against the consent of a man/woman if the woman did that when the person did not want them to. I think we are in agreement there. And the discussion part? I think both sides have a distorted view of 'who ogles who' is appropriate. I have no problem with it, as long as it doesn't go 'too far' i.e. going into sexual harassment territory with the individual inflicted by the discussion, or not stopping it when they ask and are clearly uncomfortable with it.
The discussion needs to happen, and I fault most of the liberal left, and the alt-right for the discussion not occurring in a level-headed and constructive manner.

I would welcome it too. You are among the few self declared feminists on this site who is not just following a party line though. What I've gotten back for years is a kind of orthodoxy. Feminist leaders havve, for the most part, isnisted on Mary Koss's view of sexual misconduct for years. It is taught and promoted by many, so that is why I say 'many 3rd Wave feminists'. PSAs often reflect the views of these people.

Nearly everyone who agreed with me that there are ways women undermine consent in the last two years around here was a self proclaimed feminist who denounced any views other than 'female victims, male perps' (with exceptions made for LGBT individuals who were male of course) as misogynistic. So I'm not imagining this problem. And I've become wary of how to move forward when there is so often a public effort to silence a more balanced view. How do you propose that we deal with that?

[Mattopilos]

Problem is we are not talking about 3rd wave feminists, and the movement is broad, as has been described. Not all of us try and play the victim, and rather focus on gender equality from both sides. Criticize those that don't, for we would as well.
As with the sex talk, I am all about consent, and see what you describe as something worth discussing - I would see that as going against the consent of a man/woman if the woman did that when the person did not want them to. I think we are in agreement there. And the discussion part? I think both sides have a distorted view of 'who ogles who' is appropriate. I have no problem with it, as long as it doesn't go 'too far' i.e. going into sexual harassment territory with the individual inflicted by the discussion, or not stopping it when they ask and are clearly uncomfortable with it.
The discussion needs to happen, and I fault most of the liberal left, and the alt-right for the discussion not occurring in a level-headed and constructive manner.

I would welcome it too. You are among the few self declared feminists on this site who is not just following a party line though. What I've gotten back for years is a kind of orthodoxy. Feminist leaders havve, for the most part, isnisted on Mary Koss's view of sexual misconduct for years. It is taught and promoted by many, so that is why I say 'many 3rd Wave feminists'. PSAs often reflect the views of these people.

Nearly everyone who agreed with me that there are ways women undermine consent in the last two years around here was a self proclaimed feminist who denounced any views other than 'female victims, male perps' (with exceptions made for LGBT individuals who were male of course) as misogynistic. So I'm not imagining this problem. And I've become wary of how to move forward when there is so often a public effort to silence a more balanced view. How do you propose that we deal with that?

How to deal with it? I deal with it the best I can by promoting more male involvement in the rights of women, as well as ALL domestic violence and rape (not just for women or for men). I think the best we can do as of yet is the create a discussion within the feminist 'movement', as well as those that are on the fence/neutral on the issue to see a more nuanced view, in where is it an issue of equality for all, not just a women's or a men's issue. I have talked to a few feminists myself and have seen what some of the better ones are like, and they are open to a discussion. I think getting to them when they are not in groups is the only way as of yet to make a difference, or else it will just be a shouting contest.

[New Edom]

I would welcome it too. You are among the few self declared feminists on this site who is not just following a party line though. What I've gotten back for years is a kind of orthodoxy. Feminist leaders havve, for the most part, isnisted on Mary Koss's view of sexual misconduct for years. It is taught and promoted by many, so that is why I say 'many 3rd Wave feminists'. PSAs often reflect the views of these people.

Nearly everyone who agreed with me that there are ways women undermine consent in the last two years around here was a self proclaimed feminist who denounced any views other than 'female victims, male perps' (with exceptions made for LGBT individuals who were male of course) as misogynistic. So I'm not imagining this problem. And I've become wary of how to move forward when there is so often a public effort to silence a more balanced view. How do you propose that we deal with that?

How to deal with it? I deal with it the best I can by promoting more male involvement in the rights of women, as well as ALL domestic violence and rape (not just for women or for men). I think the best we can do as of yet is the create a discussion within the feminist 'movement', as well as those that are on the fence/neutral on the issue to see a more nuanced view, in where is it an issue of equality for all, not just a women's or a men's issue. I have talked to a few feminists myself and have seen what some of the better ones are like, and they are open to a discussion. I think getting to them when they are not in groups is the only way as of yet to make a difference, or else it will just be a shouting contest.

I'm wary of that too. Nearly all publicly recognized male feminists strike me as morally compromised in one of three ways.

1. They throw other men under the bus in a slavish attempt to please feminists. (Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz, Robert Jensen being examples of this)

2. They just accept the party line from well known feminists like Valenti, Green, Ensler, Steinem, Watson and others. These often seem to be upper middle class white guys who think that since their life is good, others' lives must be great too. It's also a weapon of shame they use against conservatives and libertarians.

3. They actually turn out to be acting like feminists to get cachet.

I've very rarely seen any such who actually focus on men's issues outside of the acceptable list such as supporting LGBT rights, encouraging male sensitivity and men's rights that are actually mostly women's rights like paternity leave.

So I'm not sure your proposed idea will work. How well do you think it has worked in terms of recognizing female on male abuse for instance?

[Mattopilos]

How to deal with it? I deal with it the best I can by promoting more male involvement in the rights of women, as well as ALL domestic violence and rape (not just for women or for men). I think the best we can do as of yet is the create a discussion within the feminist 'movement', as well as those that are on the fence/neutral on the issue to see a more nuanced view, in where is it an issue of equality for all, not just a women's or a men's issue. I have talked to a few feminists myself and have seen what some of the better ones are like, and they are open to a discussion. I think getting to them when they are not in groups is the only way as of yet to make a difference, or else it will just be a shouting contest.

I'm wary of that too. Nearly all publicly recognized male feminists strike me as morally compromised in one of three ways.

1. They throw other men under the bus in a slavish attempt to please feminists. (Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz, Robert Jensen being examples of this)

2. They just accept the party line from well known feminists like Valenti, Green, Ensler, Steinem, Watson and others. These often seem to be upper middle class white guys who think that since their life is good, others' lives must be great too. It's also a weapon of shame they use against conservatives and libertarians.

3. They actually turn out to be acting like feminists to get cachet.

I've very rarely seen any such who actually focus on men's issues outside of the acceptable list such as supporting LGBT rights, encouraging male sensitivity and men's rights that are actually mostly women's rights like paternity leave.

So I'm not sure your proposed idea will work. How well do you think it has worked in terms of recognizing female on male abuse for instance?

That's the thing - I am not sure myself if that will work. However, it is clear fighting them in groups hasn't worked, and simply makes them push back harder than before. I am no theorist of feminist thought or anything, so I couldn't really give a rigid and to-the-point solution on this if I tried. If anything, what I have said above is the strategy I would go for, because I have found 'talking on the level of the individual' makes them listen better than trying to engage a group, where people within it will sway the conversation in another direction. And honestly, they aren't ENTIRELY wrong on the 'female on male' abuse in the sense of numbers... for rape, maybe. For domestic violence, they have some distorted view of the numbers. Either way, they aren't very accepting of it being a problem at all, and placing it within their scope of 'what is unacceptable in our system' is the only way we can sway them - it is either 'their problem' or 'not a problem'.
TL;DR hasn't worked in any great capacity, but I place blame on the tactics used to push those views into their scope. It needs to be more 'personal' and less whole-gender based or they will push back again. We need to appeal to individualism to remove the stigma of the male victim of DV and rape.

[New Edom]

I'm wary of that too. Nearly all publicly recognized male feminists strike me as morally compromised in one of three ways.

1. They throw other men under the bus in a slavish attempt to please feminists. (Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz, Robert Jensen being examples of this)

2. They just accept the party line from well known feminists like Valenti, Green, Ensler, Steinem, Watson and others. These often seem to be upper middle class white guys who think that since their life is good, others' lives must be great too. It's also a weapon of shame they use against conservatives and libertarians.

3. They actually turn out to be acting like feminists to get cachet.

I've very rarely seen any such who actually focus on men's issues outside of the acceptable list such as supporting LGBT rights, encouraging male sensitivity and men's rights that are actually mostly women's rights like paternity leave.

So I'm not sure your proposed idea will work. How well do you think it has worked in terms of recognizing female on male abuse for instance?

That's the thing - I am not sure myself if that will work. However, it is clear fighting them in groups hasn't worked, and simply makes them push back harder than before. I am no theorist of feminist thought or anything, so I couldn't really give a rigid and to-the-point solution on this if I tried. If anything, what I have said above is the strategy I would go for, because I have found 'talking on the level of the individual' makes them listen better than trying to engage a group, where people within it will sway the conversation in another direction. And honestly, they aren't ENTIRELY wrong on the 'female on male' abuse in the sense of numbers... for rape, maybe. For domestic violence, they have some distorted view of the numbers. Either way, they aren't very accepting of it being a problem at all, and placing it within their scope of 'what is unacceptable in our system' is the only way we can sway them - it is either 'their problem' or 'not a problem'.
TL;DR hasn't worked in any great capacity, but I place blame on the tactics used to push those views into their scope. It needs to be more 'personal' and less whole-gender based or they will push back again. We need to appeal to individualism to remove the stigma of the male victim of DV and rape.

That may work. I wonder if since we're focusing on things here if a new thread, focused on exploring this approach wouldn't be a good idea. At the men's resource center where I live, the center focuses on male survivors of chldhood sexual abuse by providing ashelter and counseling center, but it also supports the White Ribbon Campaign. One of the leaders there had a slogan on his door: Two of the historic problems in our society are women being owned and men being disposable. I felt that this approach was a good one, but I've often had it rejected by people who claim to be feminists and had few words of respect from others who also did.

On the other hand, there was a strong reaction here to Galloism's example being rejected and almost mocked by Chessmistress. So perhaps there is a pinprick of light at the end of hte tunnel. What do you think?

[The Alexanderians]

So it seems we're all in agreement lets dismantle the state.

You know this would imply that the revolution's enemies are frenemies and are probably the most heroic of the lot?

[Giovenith]

So recently I watched bits of Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and it left me feeling a little analytical. Labyrinth has always been an extremely weird and highly interpretable film, but it's also noteworthy for having been very popular among young girls. Now with David Bowie as one of the stars and scenes like the "As The World Falls Down" sequence that would seem obvious, but I've also felt that it went a little deeper than that, I think the movie speaks to young girls on a more psychological and social level that they might not necessarily be aware of. While on the surface it seems like your typical fantasy adventure filled with puppets and raw nightmare fuel that only the 1980s could provide, I also see it as dissection of some of the less talked about aspects of the female experience, one that has not been successfully replicated since.

In you aren't familiar with Labyrinth, it centers around a 15 year old girl named Sarah who at the beginning of the film is going through a bit of a rough period: Her mother has left her father in order to be with a fellow actor, leaving her father to remarry and he and his new wife have another child, Sarah's baby half-brother Toby. Although her new stepmother does not mistreat her or anything, Sarah finds herself at odds ends with her presence as is typical with early stepparent-child relations, and becomes frustrated with now having to cut into her own interests (mainly rehearsing her own acting skills) and free time in order to help out with Toby. One night when she is forced to babysit him, Toby starts acting particularly difficult as babies tend to do, and Sarah out of frustration wishes that he would be taken away by goblins. Her wish is unexpectedly granted by David Bowie I mean Jareth the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), and when Sarah immediately takes what she said back and demands that he return her little brother, Jareth tells her that she can have him back if she can find her way through his labyrinth in a set amount of time, and thus thrusts her into a dark and magical realm in order to go on a quest to rescue her brother. Throughout the movie, David Bowie I mean Jareth repeatedly acts a bit like a creepy stalker, demonstrating a kind of twisted infatuation with Sarah and eventually making it pretty clear that what he really wants is her to stay with him forever and allow him to use his sparkly fushigi powers to give her everything she's ever wanted. In the end Sarah rejects his offers to make her dreams come true and rescues her little brother, returning to the real world but still able to occasionally speak to the friends she made along the way.

To make it short, Labyrinth is at it's heart a story about learning to let go of your own personal fantasies in order to fulfill your real life responsibilities, and I believe a deconstruction of the lenient attitude towards overindulgence that we tend to instill in young girls and even adult women. What I mean by that is that at least in our society, there tends to be this implicit attitude that females have more of a right to behavior and expectations that we might otherwise consider selfish or entitled in men. "Daddy's little princess" is a common parenting attitude and women being obsessed with pursuing luxury is still a pretty persistent stereotype. In media aimed at females, there is a strong tendency to have the stories and themes revolve that around the main female character being intrinsically "special" in some way and the environment where she dwells needing to be forced to recognize that, often to the point where the female gets to leave her mundane environment completely and ascend to some higher life that always hers by right to begin with. In young media that's stories about discovering that you're a long lost princess, or being born with magical powers, or having a poorly explained talent for singing and/or dancing that will immediately rocket you to stardom just by performing on stage once. In older media that's the pandering stories you see in chick flicks like your, "Oh I was a terrible bad man until you opened my eyes with your love and your flower shop skills and now I will chase you down to the airport at the last possible minute and ask you to marry me," and your, "Oh I am an ancient sexy vampire with millions of dollars who has loved no one before until you came along because you're sooooo different from all the others," and your, "That's right girl, you're so selfless and pure, you'll let the man you were going to marry marry his best friend and be rewarded by finding three adorable puppies in your house which will lead you to a beach with a Christmas tree on it where your TRUE love will propose to you" (yes, yes that is a real movie.)

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that - it is just fantasy, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little escapism here and there, and it's far from unique to women. However, I think escapism tends to permeate women's media on a much heavier scale than it does men's media, and I think in general there is far less urgency to remind females that this can't actually be expected from real life. While again, this is not at all unique to either gender and does not apply universally, it is in my personal experience that women more often than men seem to get it in their heads that it's normal to be expectant of a luxurious life with little to no real work on their own part and that if it's not given to them this is some absolute miscarriage of justice. It's not uncommon to see love advice articles telling women that they deserve no less than a man who matches fairy tale perfection, and if he doesn't, he was just a narcissist or a sociopath or a toxic person anyway (seriously, go on Psychology Today online or just type "sociopath" in a Google search and watch how many discussions and articles are just scourned women diagnosing their exes with personality disorders for the most normal of asshole behavior). You haven't dealt with horror until you've dealt with late 30s - 60 year old divorcees with kids who still believe that they're just waiting for their "fairy tale wedding and happily ever after" to come and have developed a martyr complex over the fact that it hasn't yet (I've personally dealt with two, have seen more.) This probably ultimately stems from the time when women stayed at home and depended on their husbands to determine the quality of their lives, back when all a woman really could do to improve her life was hold herself to high standards and make demands of others, but it really, really doesn't mesh well with our modern gender dynamics. These ideals are not only annoying but hold women back, because you'll have control over your own life if you constantly expect others to reward you just for existing.

So how does this all relate back to Labyrinth? Labyrinth is basically the complete opposite of this message, stating instead that becoming too wrapped up in your own ideals and desires can cause you to abandon the things that actually matter. Before the movie even begins this is already at play, with Sarah's mother having an affair and leaving her husband in order to pursue a significantly more decadent and glamorous lifestyle with her new lover (who is, as we see in photos, also depicted by David Bowie). Despite disliking her parents' divorce, Sarah still in some ways wishes to imitate her mother by becoming an actress herself, and often gazes at newspaper clippings of her mother's success. Sarah's situation is actually a quite relateable one, to the point where I myself have gone through nearly identical circumstances, the frustration of having a stepparent that you do not like and having to rearrange your own comfort in order to cater to a new life setup that you never even wanted in the first place, and I'm sure many other girls have dealt with similar situations. You really do feel like you have been cheated in that scenario, and so it becomes more understandable as to why Sarah might be tempted to escape to a more self-focused life, especially when her circumstances are a direct result of others focusing on themselves. However, the way in which this happens quickly makes her see the error of her ways, as even for the most frustrated older siblings having your baby brother kidnapped is a pretty terrifying prospect - Sarah realizes that she can't blame her own sadness on innocent Toby, and by rejecting all of Jareth's advances and gifts in order to save him, rejects repeating her mother's mistake of abandoning the people who need you in order to satisfy your own dreams. After she has saved him, she gives him her childhood teddy bear that she had used as a security blanket for so long before stuffing away her mother's newsclippings and other fantasy-esque memorobilia into her drawer - accepting that it is time to grow up and start living in the real world, or at the very least, learn to temper her fantasies so they don't ever get in the way of doing what she needs to ever again.

I think that ultimately this is a pretty sobering but also empowering message for girls to take away. Getting to be the princess is not always the right path to take, offerings to be treated as special for the sake of it are typically only provided by less than trustworthy people that cause more problems than they solve; Jareth himself says that he will only give Sarah her dreams if she promises to always obey him, i.e., holding yourself to unreasonably high expectations can often leave you at the mercy of others in more ways than one. How many women out there stay in loveless or abusive relationships because of what the man provides? With self-determination and the choice to do the right thing comes accepting that you're not always going to get exactly what you want, but also maybe a chance to discover that you wanted wasn't really what you needed. It forces a lot of self-examination, which can really only ultimately build you up and help you to better achieve your potential.

If anyone hasn't seen the movie I would really encourage it, it's very well done and is trippy enough to warrant a huge variety of interpretations. Plus David Bowie guys, David Bowie.

[FelrikTheDeleted]

You know this would imply that the revolution's enemies are frenemies and are probably the most heroic of the lot?

Oh Simon.....

[Costa Fierro]

So recently I watched bits of Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and it left me feeling a little analytical. Labyrinth has always been an extremely weird and highly interpretable film, but it's also noteworthy for having been very popular among young girls. Now with David Bowie as one of the stars and scenes like the "As The World Falls Down" sequence that would seem obvious, but I've also felt that it went a little deeper than that, I think the movie speaks to young girls on a more psychological and social level that they might not necessarily be aware of. While on the surface it seems like your typical fantasy adventure filled with puppets and raw nightmare fuel that only the 1980s could provide, I also see it as dissection of some of the less talked about aspects of the female experience, one that has not been successfully replicated since.

In you aren't familiar with Labyrinth, it centers around a 15 year old girl named Sarah who at the beginning of the film is going through a bit of a rough period: Her mother has left her father in order to be with a fellow actor, leaving her father to remarry and he and his new wife have another child, Sarah's baby half-brother Toby. Although her new stepmother does not mistreat her or anything, Sarah finds herself at odds ends with her presence as is typical with early stepparent-child relations, and becomes frustrated with now having to cut into her own interests (mainly rehearsing her own acting skills) and free time in order to help out with Toby. One night when she is forced to babysit him, Toby starts acting particularly difficult as babies tend to do, and Sarah out of frustration wishes that he would be taken away by goblins. Her wish is unexpectedly granted by David Bowie I mean Jareth the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), and when Sarah immediately takes what she said back and demands that he return her little brother, Jareth tells her that she can have him back if she can find her way through his labyrinth in a set amount of time, and thus thrusts her into a dark and magical realm in order to go on a quest to rescue her brother. Throughout the movie, David Bowie I mean Jareth repeatedly acts a bit like a creepy stalker, demonstrating a kind of twisted infatuation with Sarah and eventually making it pretty clear that what he really wants is her to stay with him forever and allow him to use his sparkly fushigi powers to give her everything she's ever wanted. In the end Sarah rejects his offers to make her dreams come true and rescues her little brother, returning to the real world but still able to occasionally speak to the friends she made along the way.

To make it short, Labyrinth is at it's heart a story about learning to let go of your own personal fantasies in order to fulfill your real life responsibilities, and I believe a deconstruction of the lenient attitude towards overindulgence that we tend to instill in young girls and even adult women. What I mean by that is that at least in our society, there tends to be this implicit attitude that females have more of a right to behavior and expectations that we might otherwise consider selfish or entitled in men. "Daddy's little princess" is a common parenting attitude and women being obsessed with pursuing luxury is still a pretty persistent stereotype. In media aimed at females, there is a strong tendency to have the stories and themes revolve that around the main female character being intrinsically "special" in some way and the environment where she dwells needing to be forced to recognize that, often to the point where the female gets to leave her mundane environment completely and ascend to some higher life that always hers by right to begin with. In young media that's stories about discovering that you're a long lost princess, or being born with magical powers, or having a poorly explained talent for singing and/or dancing that will immediately rocket you to stardom just by performing on stage once. In older media that's the pandering stories you see in chick flicks like your, "Oh I was a terrible bad man until you opened my eyes with your love and your flower shop skills and now I will chase you down to the airport at the last possible minute and ask you to marry me," and your, "Oh I am an ancient sexy vampire with millions of dollars who has loved no one before until you came along because you're sooooo different from all the others," and your, "That's right girl, you're so selfless and pure, you'll let the man you were going to marry marry his best friend and be rewarded by finding three adorable puppies in your house which will lead you to a beach with a Christmas tree on it where your TRUE love will propose to you" (yes, yes that is a real movie.)

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that - it is just fantasy, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little escapism here and there, and it's far from unique to women. However, I think escapism tends to permeate women's media on a much heavier scale than it does men's media, and I think in general there is far less urgency to remind females that this can't actually be expected from real life. While again, this is not at all unique to either gender and does not apply universally, it is in my personal experience that women more often than men seem to get it in their heads that it's normal to be expectant of a luxurious life with little to no real work on their own part and that if it's not given to them this is some absolute miscarriage of justice. It's not uncommon to see love advice articles telling women that they deserve no less than a man who matches fairy tale perfection, and if he doesn't, he was just a narcissist or a sociopath or a toxic person anyway (seriously, go on Psychology Today online or just type "sociopath" in a Google search and watch how many discussions and articles are just scourned women diagnosing their exes with personality disorders for the most normal of asshole behavior). You haven't dealt with horror until you've dealt with late 30s - 60 year old divorcees with kids who still believe that they're just waiting for their "fairy tale wedding and happily ever after" to come and have developed a martyr complex over the fact that it hasn't yet (I've personally dealt with two, have seen more.) This probably ultimately stems from the time when women stayed at home and depended on their husbands to determine the quality of their lives, back when all a woman really could do to improve her life was hold herself to high standards and make demands of others, but it really, really doesn't mesh well with our modern gender dynamics. These ideals are not only annoying but hold women back, because you'll have control over your own life if you constantly expect others to reward you just for existing.

So how does this all relate back to Labyrinth? Labyrinth is basically the complete opposite of this message, stating instead that becoming too wrapped up in your own ideals and desires can cause you to abandon the things that actually matter. Before the movie even begins this is already at play, with Sarah's mother having an affair and leaving her husband in order to pursue a significantly more decadent and glamorous lifestyle with her new lover (who is, as we see in photos, also depicted by David Bowie). Despite disliking her parents' divorce, Sarah still in some ways wishes to imitate her mother by becoming an actress herself, and often gazes at newspaper clippings of her mother's success. Sarah's situation is actually a quite relateable one, to the point where I myself have gone through nearly identical circumstances, the frustration of having a stepparent that you do not like and having to rearrange your own comfort in order to cater to a new life setup that you never even wanted in the first place, and I'm sure many other girls have dealt with similar situations. You really do feel like you have been cheated in that scenario, and so it becomes more understandable as to why Sarah might be tempted to escape to a more self-focused life, especially when her circumstances are a direct result of others focusing on themselves. However, the way in which this happens quickly makes her see the error of her ways, as even for the most frustrated older siblings having your baby brother kidnapped is a pretty terrifying prospect - Sarah realizes that she can't blame her own sadness on innocent Toby, and by rejecting all of Jareth's advances and gifts in order to save him, rejects repeating her mother's mistake of abandoning the people who need you in order to satisfy your own dreams. After she has saved him, she gives him her childhood teddy bear that she had used as a security blanket for so long before stuffing away her mother's newsclippings and other fantasy-esque memorobilia into her drawer - accepting that it is time to grow up and start living in the real world, or at the very least, learn to temper her fantasies so they don't ever get in the way of doing what she needs to ever again.

I think that ultimately this is a pretty sobering but also empowering message for girls to take away. Getting to be the princess is not always the right path to take, offerings to be treated as special for the sake of it are typically only provided by less than trustworthy people that cause more problems than they solve; Jareth himself says that he will only give Sarah her dreams if she promises to always obey him, i.e., holding yourself to unreasonably high expectations can often leave you at the mercy of others in more ways than one. How many women out there stay in loveless or abusive relationships because of what the man provides? With self-determination and the choice to do the right thing comes accepting that you're not always going to get exactly what you want, but also maybe a chance to discover that you wanted wasn't really what you needed. It forces a lot of self-examination, which can really only ultimately build you up and help you to better achieve your potential.

If anyone hasn't seen the movie I would really encourage it, it's very well done and is trippy enough to warrant a huge variety of interpretations. Plus David Bowie guys, David Bowie.

Why is this necessary?

[FelrikTheDeleted]

So recently I watched bits of Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and it left me feeling a little analytical. Labyrinth has always been an extremely weird and highly interpretable film, but it's also noteworthy for having been very popular among young girls. Now with David Bowie as one of the stars and scenes like the "As The World Falls Down" sequence that would seem obvious, but I've also felt that it went a little deeper than that, I think the movie speaks to young girls on a more psychological and social level that they might not necessarily be aware of. While on the surface it seems like your typical fantasy adventure filled with puppets and raw nightmare fuel that only the 1980s could provide, I also see it as dissection of some of the less talked about aspects of the female experience, one that has not been successfully replicated since.

In you aren't familiar with Labyrinth, it centers around a 15 year old girl named Sarah who at the beginning of the film is going through a bit of a rough period: Her mother has left her father in order to be with a fellow actor, leaving her father to remarry and he and his new wife have another child, Sarah's baby half-brother Toby. Although her new stepmother does not mistreat her or anything, Sarah finds herself at odds ends with her presence as is typical with early stepparent-child relations, and becomes frustrated with now having to cut into her own interests (mainly rehearsing her own acting skills) and free time in order to help out with Toby. One night when she is forced to babysit him, Toby starts acting particularly difficult as babies tend to do, and Sarah out of frustration wishes that he would be taken away by goblins. Her wish is unexpectedly granted by David Bowie I mean Jareth the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), and when Sarah immediately takes what she said back and demands that he return her little brother, Jareth tells her that she can have him back if she can find her way through his labyrinth in a set amount of time, and thus thrusts her into a dark and magical realm in order to go on a quest to rescue her brother. Throughout the movie, David Bowie I mean Jareth repeatedly acts a bit like a creepy stalker, demonstrating a kind of twisted infatuation with Sarah and eventually making it pretty clear that what he really wants is her to stay with him forever and allow him to use his sparkly fushigi powers to give her everything she's ever wanted. In the end Sarah rejects his offers to make her dreams come true and rescues her little brother, returning to the real world but still able to occasionally speak to the friends she made along the way.

To make it short, Labyrinth is at it's heart a story about learning to let go of your own personal fantasies in order to fulfill your real life responsibilities, and I believe a deconstruction of the lenient attitude towards overindulgence that we tend to instill in young girls and even adult women. What I mean by that is that at least in our society, there tends to be this implicit attitude that females have more of a right to behavior and expectations that we might otherwise consider selfish or entitled in men. "Daddy's little princess" is a common parenting attitude and women being obsessed with pursuing luxury is still a pretty persistent stereotype. In media aimed at females, there is a strong tendency to have the stories and themes revolve that around the main female character being intrinsically "special" in some way and the environment where she dwells needing to be forced to recognize that, often to the point where the female gets to leave her mundane environment completely and ascend to some higher life that always hers by right to begin with. In young media that's stories about discovering that you're a long lost princess, or being born with magical powers, or having a poorly explained talent for singing and/or dancing that will immediately rocket you to stardom just by performing on stage once. In older media that's the pandering stories you see in chick flicks like your, "Oh I was a terrible bad man until you opened my eyes with your love and your flower shop skills and now I will chase you down to the airport at the last possible minute and ask you to marry me," and your, "Oh I am an ancient sexy vampire with millions of dollars who has loved no one before until you came along because you're sooooo different from all the others," and your, "That's right girl, you're so selfless and pure, you'll let the man you were going to marry marry his best friend and be rewarded by finding three adorable puppies in your house which will lead you to a beach with a Christmas tree on it where your TRUE love will propose to you" (yes, yes that is a real movie.)

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that - it is just fantasy, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little escapism here and there, and it's far from unique to women. However, I think escapism tends to permeate women's media on a much heavier scale than it does men's media, and I think in general there is far less urgency to remind females that this can't actually be expected from real life. While again, this is not at all unique to either gender and does not apply universally, it is in my personal experience that women more often than men seem to get it in their heads that it's normal to be expectant of a luxurious life with little to no real work on their own part and that if it's not given to them this is some absolute miscarriage of justice. It's not uncommon to see love advice articles telling women that they deserve no less than a man who matches fairy tale perfection, and if he doesn't, he was just a narcissist or a sociopath or a toxic person anyway (seriously, go on Psychology Today online or just type "sociopath" in a Google search and watch how many discussions and articles are just scourned women diagnosing their exes with personality disorders for the most normal of asshole behavior). You haven't dealt with horror until you've dealt with late 30s - 60 year old divorcees with kids who still believe that they're just waiting for their "fairy tale wedding and happily ever after" to come and have developed a martyr complex over the fact that it hasn't yet (I've personally dealt with two, have seen more.) This probably ultimately stems from the time when women stayed at home and depended on their husbands to determine the quality of their lives, back when all a woman really could do to improve her life was hold herself to high standards and make demands of others, but it really, really doesn't mesh well with our modern gender dynamics. These ideals are not only annoying but hold women back, because you'll have control over your own life if you constantly expect others to reward you just for existing.

So how does this all relate back to Labyrinth? Labyrinth is basically the complete opposite of this message, stating instead that becoming too wrapped up in your own ideals and desires can cause you to abandon the things that actually matter. Before the movie even begins this is already at play, with Sarah's mother having an affair and leaving her husband in order to pursue a significantly more decadent and glamorous lifestyle with her new lover (who is, as we see in photos, also depicted by David Bowie). Despite disliking her parents' divorce, Sarah still in some ways wishes to imitate her mother by becoming an actress herself, and often gazes at newspaper clippings of her mother's success. Sarah's situation is actually a quite relateable one, to the point where I myself have gone through nearly identical circumstances, the frustration of having a stepparent that you do not like and having to rearrange your own comfort in order to cater to a new life setup that you never even wanted in the first place, and I'm sure many other girls have dealt with similar situations. You really do feel like you have been cheated in that scenario, and so it becomes more understandable as to why Sarah might be tempted to escape to a more self-focused life, especially when her circumstances are a direct result of others focusing on themselves. However, the way in which this happens quickly makes her see the error of her ways, as even for the most frustrated older siblings having your baby brother kidnapped is a pretty terrifying prospect - Sarah realizes that she can't blame her own sadness on innocent Toby, and by rejecting all of Jareth's advances and gifts in order to save him, rejects repeating her mother's mistake of abandoning the people who need you in order to satisfy your own dreams. After she has saved him, she gives him her childhood teddy bear that she had used as a security blanket for so long before stuffing away her mother's newsclippings and other fantasy-esque memorobilia into her drawer - accepting that it is time to grow up and start living in the real world, or at the very least, learn to temper her fantasies so they don't ever get in the way of doing what she needs to ever again.

I think that ultimately this is a pretty sobering but also empowering message for girls to take away. Getting to be the princess is not always the right path to take, offerings to be treated as special for the sake of it are typically only provided by less than trustworthy people that cause more problems than they solve; Jareth himself says that he will only give Sarah her dreams if she promises to always obey him, i.e., holding yourself to unreasonably high expectations can often leave you at the mercy of others in more ways than one. How many women out there stay in loveless or abusive relationships because of what the man provides? With self-determination and the choice to do the right thing comes accepting that you're not always going to get exactly what you want, but also maybe a chance to discover that you wanted wasn't really what you needed. It forces a lot of self-examination, which can really only ultimately build you up and help you to better achieve your potential.

If anyone hasn't seen the movie I would really encourage it, it's very well done and is trippy enough to warrant a huge variety of interpretations. Plus David Bowie guys, David Bowie.

Good review. I concur with most if not all the review.

[FelrikTheDeleted]

So recently I watched bits of Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and it left me feeling a little analytical. Labyrinth has always been an extremely weird and highly interpretable film, but it's also noteworthy for having been very popular among young girls. Now with David Bowie as one of the stars and scenes like the "As The World Falls Down" sequence that would seem obvious, but I've also felt that it went a little deeper than that, I think the movie speaks to young girls on a more psychological and social level that they might not necessarily be aware of. While on the surface it seems like your typical fantasy adventure filled with puppets and raw nightmare fuel that only the 1980s could provide, I also see it as dissection of some of the less talked about aspects of the female experience, one that has not been successfully replicated since.

In you aren't familiar with Labyrinth, it centers around a 15 year old girl named Sarah who at the beginning of the film is going through a bit of a rough period: Her mother has left her father in order to be with a fellow actor, leaving her father to remarry and he and his new wife have another child, Sarah's baby half-brother Toby. Although her new stepmother does not mistreat her or anything, Sarah finds herself at odds ends with her presence as is typical with early stepparent-child relations, and becomes frustrated with now having to cut into her own interests (mainly rehearsing her own acting skills) and free time in order to help out with Toby. One night when she is forced to babysit him, Toby starts acting particularly difficult as babies tend to do, and Sarah out of frustration wishes that he would be taken away by goblins. Her wish is unexpectedly granted by David Bowie I mean Jareth the Goblin King (played by David Bowie), and when Sarah immediately takes what she said back and demands that he return her little brother, Jareth tells her that she can have him back if she can find her way through his labyrinth in a set amount of time, and thus thrusts her into a dark and magical realm in order to go on a quest to rescue her brother. Throughout the movie, David Bowie I mean Jareth repeatedly acts a bit like a creepy stalker, demonstrating a kind of twisted infatuation with Sarah and eventually making it pretty clear that what he really wants is her to stay with him forever and allow him to use his sparkly fushigi powers to give her everything she's ever wanted. In the end Sarah rejects his offers to make her dreams come true and rescues her little brother, returning to the real world but still able to occasionally speak to the friends she made along the way.

To make it short, Labyrinth is at it's heart a story about learning to let go of your own personal fantasies in order to fulfill your real life responsibilities, and I believe a deconstruction of the lenient attitude towards overindulgence that we tend to instill in young girls and even adult women. What I mean by that is that at least in our society, there tends to be this implicit attitude that females have more of a right to behavior and expectations that we might otherwise consider selfish or entitled in men. "Daddy's little princess" is a common parenting attitude and women being obsessed with pursuing luxury is still a pretty persistent stereotype. In media aimed at females, there is a strong tendency to have the stories and themes revolve that around the main female character being intrinsically "special" in some way and the environment where she dwells needing to be forced to recognize that, often to the point where the female gets to leave her mundane environment completely and ascend to some higher life that always hers by right to begin with. In young media that's stories about discovering that you're a long lost princess, or being born with magical powers, or having a poorly explained talent for singing and/or dancing that will immediately rocket you to stardom just by performing on stage once. In older media that's the pandering stories you see in chick flicks like your, "Oh I was a terrible bad man until you opened my eyes with your love and your flower shop skills and now I will chase you down to the airport at the last possible minute and ask you to marry me," and your, "Oh I am an ancient sexy vampire with millions of dollars who has loved no one before until you came along because you're sooooo different from all the others," and your, "That's right girl, you're so selfless and pure, you'll let the man you were going to marry marry his best friend and be rewarded by finding three adorable puppies in your house which will lead you to a beach with a Christmas tree on it where your TRUE love will propose to you" (yes, yes that is a real movie.)

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that - it is just fantasy, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little escapism here and there, and it's far from unique to women. However, I think escapism tends to permeate women's media on a much heavier scale than it does men's media, and I think in general there is far less urgency to remind females that this can't actually be expected from real life. While again, this is not at all unique to either gender and does not apply universally, it is in my personal experience that women more often than men seem to get it in their heads that it's normal to be expectant of a luxurious life with little to no real work on their own part and that if it's not given to them this is some absolute miscarriage of justice. It's not uncommon to see love advice articles telling women that they deserve no less than a man who matches fairy tale perfection, and if he doesn't, he was just a narcissist or a sociopath or a toxic person anyway (seriously, go on Psychology Today online or just type "sociopath" in a Google search and watch how many discussions and articles are just scourned women diagnosing their exes with personality disorders for the most normal of asshole behavior). You haven't dealt with horror until you've dealt with late 30s - 60 year old divorcees with kids who still believe that they're just waiting for their "fairy tale wedding and happily ever after" to come and have developed a martyr complex over the fact that it hasn't yet (I've personally dealt with two, have seen more.) This probably ultimately stems from the time when women stayed at home and depended on their husbands to determine the quality of their lives, back when all a woman really could do to improve her life was hold herself to high standards and make demands of others, but it really, really doesn't mesh well with our modern gender dynamics. These ideals are not only annoying but hold women back, because you'll have control over your own life if you constantly expect others to reward you just for existing.

So how does this all relate back to Labyrinth? Labyrinth is basically the complete opposite of this message, stating instead that becoming too wrapped up in your own ideals and desires can cause you to abandon the things that actually matter. Before the movie even begins this is already at play, with Sarah's mother having an affair and leaving her husband in order to pursue a significantly more decadent and glamorous lifestyle with her new lover (who is, as we see in photos, also depicted by David Bowie). Despite disliking her parents' divorce, Sarah still in some ways wishes to imitate her mother by becoming an actress herself, and often gazes at newspaper clippings of her mother's success. Sarah's situation is actually a quite relateable one, to the point where I myself have gone through nearly identical circumstances, the frustration of having a stepparent that you do not like and having to rearrange your own comfort in order to cater to a new life setup that you never even wanted in the first place, and I'm sure many other girls have dealt with similar situations. You really do feel like you have been cheated in that scenario, and so it becomes more understandable as to why Sarah might be tempted to escape to a more self-focused life, especially when her circumstances are a direct result of others focusing on themselves. However, the way in which this happens quickly makes her see the error of her ways, as even for the most frustrated older siblings having your baby brother kidnapped is a pretty terrifying prospect - Sarah realizes that she can't blame her own sadness on innocent Toby, and by rejecting all of Jareth's advances and gifts in order to save him, rejects repeating her mother's mistake of abandoning the people who need you in order to satisfy your own dreams. After she has saved him, she gives him her childhood teddy bear that she had used as a security blanket for so long before stuffing away her mother's newsclippings and other fantasy-esque memorobilia into her drawer - accepting that it is time to grow up and start living in the real world, or at the very least, learn to temper her fantasies so they don't ever get in the way of doing what she needs to ever again.

I think that ultimately this is a pretty sobering but also empowering message for girls to take away. Getting to be the princess is not always the right path to take, offerings to be treated as special for the sake of it are typically only provided by less than trustworthy people that cause more problems than they solve; Jareth himself says that he will only give Sarah her dreams if she promises to always obey him, i.e., holding yourself to unreasonably high expectations can often leave you at the mercy of others in more ways than one. How many women out there stay in loveless or abusive relationships because of what the man provides? With self-determination and the choice to do the right thing comes accepting that you're not always going to get exactly what you want, but also maybe a chance to discover that you wanted wasn't really what you needed. It forces a lot of self-examination, which can really only ultimately build you up and help you to better achieve your potential.

If anyone hasn't seen the movie I would really encourage it, it's very well done and is trippy enough to warrant a huge variety of interpretations. Plus David Bowie guys, David Bowie.

Why is this necessary?

Does it matter?