aesmael

Two sorts of things which have been bugging that I think are probably meant to be pro-women.

1) Sitcoms, where a male character expresses something sexist in the presence of women, either who gets mad at him or who the presentation of the show promises will 'get even' with him off-screen. A lot of the time it looks like not 'sexism is bad, don't be sexist' but instead 'everyone knows this but don't say it in front of women because they don't like it' with a side of 'sexism is okay so long as there is comeuppance'.

This dynamic tends to feed the idea that men are socially disadvantaged relative to men because women hold power over them primarily in the form of controlling access to sex (as if sexual assault and rape were not prevalent, and as if these shows do not commonly depict men harassing and pressuring women into unwanted sex and humorous in an 'it's funny because it's true' sense), but also depicting women as generally bossy, controlling and otherwise humorously abusive toward men - showing a social fiction where men are obliged not to express what they consider right and natural and true in the presence of women because women (in this imaginary world) dominate society via various channels of interpersonal coercion.

Despite sending the superficial message of 'don't express sexism', I don't think this is a very feminist depiction.

2) Webcomics, mostly fantasy webcomics in my experience, which seem to be attempting to establish feminist credibility by having characters encounter a bunch of men acting in a strongly misogynistic, derisive way and then having them shown up / beat up / whatever by the heroic leads, often women.

Really, if someone wants to make a feminist / pro-feminist fantasy webcomic I would rather see an example of a world in which sexism is not a problem than one in which our heroes keep beating up the occasional gang of louts who think they're hopeless. As much as it can be satisfying to see expressed sexism flung back in someone's face, I really want to see more examples of worlds where sexism isn't even a problem people have to deal with. Especially since a lot of the time these happenings feel to me, not insincere, but as if these are staged events to establish for us that either our leads are truly virtuous because they won't stand for sexism or, if women, to clarify that they are indeed Strong Female Characters.

It bugs me, and I am having difficulty expressing why. Maybe because when this happens with female characters the only reason they succeed at standing up to the Token Sexist Jerks is because they have some kind of elite ability, and the way the confrontation is framed any random woman would have been cowed or worse - 'confronting sexism is for heroic or elite women only' message. Maybe because I come away with the feeling authors who do this think all sexism is of the overt sort and the way to confront it is by having a bigger stick. Maybe because I get frustrated that so often it seems people can't imagine the idea of a society which lacks sexism, racism, ablism, queerphobia, etc. and thus the only way to have a remotely humanist sort of work apparently is with these staged, stark black hat - white hat confrontations.

Yes, this one gets crossposted to my journal and feminist_rage.

Recently I read another few months of Everything Jake, September to the end of 2001. ( Spoilers: Everything Jake - 2001 )

I also tried Freedoom for about a day. As it turns out, sounds and graphics and especially creatures are a large part of what makes Doom work. The replacement sounds are much softer and lack the impact of the originals. The replacement sprites are lacking character too. In part this is probably due to the sounds being relatively softened (although they seem good for the arch vile replacement) but also, I just do not find the designs interesting. Am not finding myself drawn to learn more about these creatures and that fascination is a very large part of what draws me to Doom in the first place.

Apparently keeping the same gameplay but replacing the sounds and creature designs can pretty well kill my interest in a game. I suppose I will give it a look again at some later point if I remember to. Not written off as an idea, but not personally engaged by the present execution either.

Forget the preamble ramble. I want to be reading again. So I am. These are the things I am reading today accompanied by brief reactions. Look how far behind we are!

a denizen's entertainment

1. Geeky, philosophical and scientific things... [Still love the zombie movie. Not interested in reading the environment link again, but recall both agreeing and disagreeing with parts. Now, the paper on the hypothetical weakless universe? That was so fascinating I did not read it last time, wanting to save it for when I could better appreciate it. It looks to me like the purpose of this simulation was to probe the anthropic principle. Which is a tricky thing to phrase and apparently rather contentious, but the experiment appears to demonstrate that whatever factors constrain the laws of this universe to be what they are, at least in the case of the weak nuclear force it is not that were things different there would be no observers to observe this. It seems I misunderstood from the abstract, but what they did is no less fascinating. Please, do take a read of it yourself - it is fascinating and reinforces just how much I want to get back into astronomy.]

Everything Jake
Unlike most times I do this while reading through a comic, I am not going to link to individual strips to give reactions. I want to save talking about this comic until I am caught up.

Google Reader shared items

1. Accordian-style USB drive actually solves a problem [via soltice. Not really clear on how it solves the problem of loseable caps.]
2. I have no words :O [via gentle_gamer. Way back last time I was reading and using Reader, shared some posts I intended later to write on. Seems then gentle_gamer found lost_angelwings's blog interesting enough to inspect from this. And the links here linked, bizarre comic indeed. Manga girl Jesus.]
3. What is Darwin? [via soltice. Interesting. Content took me a bit to find though.]
   

Paradise Lost

1. Introduction [This looks very much in reference to the poem's contents. I will read it after the poem, when I have hopefully some context for this.]

Not really so much for a day, but more than none and I feel okay about it. Got distracted by being happy, which is a pretty decent distraction.

This joke, it could have come right out of Excel Saga. That is a good thing.

Over here.

Since reading through Cat and Girl I have read through a few other webcomics, none of which inspiring enough passion in any direction for me to write about, although they did manage to make me laugh very occasionally. Now I have to go back and change that.

Several days ago I was reading Cheshire Crossing, the comic Andy Weir is working on since Casey and Andy became too unbearable to finish. It so far is not plagued by the problems of his previous comic, perhaps because the cast is almost exclusively female. The art, so derided by all discussion of the comic I have come across, does not bother me - but then I do so often say I am without taste and enjoy things which are terrible.

This is not why I am writing this post. I am writing now because of a scene in the third volume (Cheshire Crossing is released in volumes) which, when I finally realised the reference ruined my nearly successful efforts to get to sleep that morning. Yes, Mary Poppins, water-melted in battle with a Wicked Witch of Oz, is cured by a "spoonful of sugar".

Cat and Girl are Highly Derivative 2
Cat and Girl answer Your Questions
Cat and Girl find Buried Treasure
Cat and Girl invent a Sincerity Machine (this is the kind of thing which makes me laugh, sincerely)
Cat and Girl have Decoder Rings (Policy: If I laugh aloud, I link it)
Cat and Girl versus Current Events (Because it was topical once, dammit!)
Cat and Girl play with Fire (I will stop adding to this list if Cat and Girl stops being great. Deal?)