breakinglight11 | Entries tagged with feminism

On Facebook, I frequently see ads for different companies that provide... let’s say romance content. Novels, comics, stuff like that. They’re clearly self-published and not high quality— they give you a sample chapter in the post, and they are too amateurishly written and poorly edited to be anything else. Whatever, there’s a lot of self-publishing in the Internet age. But even across different companies or mediums, there’s one element they absolutely all have in common without exception— a really prominent and explicitly codified element of coercion.

All of them. Every single one. They’re all heterosexual, and the woman is always sold, obligated, carried off, or biologically destined for the male romantic and sexual partner. I know this sort of thing has always been at least an undercurrent in the romance genre, at least the “sexy ravishment” kind, where the butch hero absolutely has to have the female protagonist, and his desire is part of the measure of her personal value. My view on the appeal of it is well explained in a line of Meredith’s in Dream Machine episode 2: “Sometimes... when you’ve spent your life afraid of being a slut... the only way you can enjoy yourself is when the decision is taken out of your hands.” It’s a way for women, the usual target audience, to indulge in a romantic fantasy like when they have a hard time conceiving of themselves taking any kind of sexual agency,

But in these on Facebook, the element seems even more literal and spelled out than that traditional “sexy ravishment.” The coercion is front and center, an explicit part of the scenario— “I am assigned to this man and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She’s sold to him. She’s in an arranged marriage. She’s marked by pheromones. Et cetera. Et cetera. I know there’s a market for that... but do these online romance novel companies produce no other kind of romance? Why are they ALL like that? It seems really... retrograde? Like, even less conscious of rape culture than the romances of generations past, as if it assumes that all women just really want to be relieved of the responsibility of choosing their own mate and just want to be handed over to a dominant man.

And I’m really not getting the draw here. I can get the “I’m flattered by how badly he wants me” aspect. I can even grasp the “he is the instigator and I am not responsible” or “we don’t need to discuss or establish consent for this because we are just so compatible” aspects. I DO NOT understand the appeal of the “I have literally no choice or say in this at all” idea. What is speaking to women in that? Is it the notion that you don’t have to look for your soulmate or doubt that you’ve found him, because that’s been pre-decided for you? Is it the assumption that more appealingly masculine men just take what they want? Is it just a thinly-veiled submission kink it’s assuming of the entirety of its readership?

I guess everybody’s got their kinks. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with enjoying problematic storytelling tropes, as long as you understand what their meaning is outside of the world of fiction. But these are so SPECIFIC to something that seems to make such an unfair assumption of what women are like or what appeals to them. Is the product designed for a market that niche? But it certainly shows up for me just because I’m a woman, and I can’t imagine they would have so little variation in subject matter unless they thought that’s just what all or most women wanted.

New post on Mrshawking.com!

"The elephant in every room"

We joke during rehearsals a lot— for fun, about each other, about the process, and even about the script. Even though these stories are my babies, I don’t want to turn them into some sort of sacred cows that are above critique or mockery. So I try to have a sense of humor about them, to keep a good perspective and in the interest of making them accessible and fun. The Mrs. Hawking drinking game rose directly out of this kind of joking.

One of the things that comes up a lot is how often characters talk about Mrs. Hawking when she’s not there. It’s a common occurrence in the scripts, so not only do we mock the frequency a little, we also mock the very fact. Lest you forget who the main character is, here are a couple of other characters who are here to remind you of how much we all need to focus on her all the time!

DSCF7653

They're talking about her right now.

Read the rest of the entry on Mrshawking.com!

I ask my students to refer to me as Professor Roberts. It's a position I decided to take when I first started teaching, and despite how I don't feel totally comfortable and confident doing it, it's one that I have stuck to.

I guess I'm not a hundred percent sure it's the right thing to do. After all, I'm only an adjunct professor, not a full one, so it may be claiming a title I don't really deserve. Also, insistence on titles (particularly ones you only have marginal claim to) tends to be a sign of being a self-aggrandizing asshole. I worry I'm coming off wrong in both of those respects, and as such I have a hard time being a stickler for it when they call me "Miss Roberts" or "Miss" or even by just my first name.

But the reason I do it is on a particular principle. People are less likely to respect the authority of women as professors and, whether consciously or unconsciously, are more likely to fail to use their proper titles when they are absolutely warranted-- like when they are indisputable, FULL professors. So I decided that in an effort to combat that, I would have them call me Professor Roberts just to get them in the habit of addressing their female college instructors that way-- even when they're young, or perhaps not what they expect a professor to be like, like me. I also think it helps shore up my personal authority, which I worry that my relative youth and inexperience undermines, but mostly because I want to contribute to that overall sense of how women professors deserve the same respect.

I've been watching Westworld on HBO, and I intend to watch it through to the end, but I'm not very satisfied with it. I mean, besides the fact that I've always had a huge mental block against sympathizing with robots as characters, as I still basically think they're always going to just be things, it's not that fresh a robots-as-people narrative. Basically, they're gaining sentience as their programming advances, and they're probably going to make humans pay for the horrific treatment they've undergone when utilized as things. I am absolutely sure that will happen if AI ever gets advanced enough in the real world, and we've seen it in stories a million times before.

But the thing that gets at me the most is the logic behind the Westworld park itself. It's appeal is basically presented as a place to indulge your darkest urges free of consequences-- specifically, they assume, things that take the form of hurting others. The park is full of robots, not people, so you can hurt or use them in any way you want and it doesn't matter. And that's basically the reason why people like to come.

Well. Even leaving aside what a morbidly cynical view of humanity is-- I don't even think that's all that representative of the way people's badness manifests. Personal I'd say most of the worst of us manifests not as sadism-- the desire to cause or the enjoyment of suffering in others --but rather as selfishness. It's not so much that you WANT other people to hurt, it's that you care so much about yourself and your own gratification that the harm you do to others doesn't matter to you. Sure, causing pain often gives us power over others, which is another thing we're all susceptible to, but again, I'd argue that you want the feeling of being powerful so much that you don't worry about causing pain. True psychopaths, who LIKE causing pain in and of itself, exist, but they're much rarer. Faced with no consequences for our actions, that morbid indifference to the feelings of others in favor of indulging the self is the true danger that is likely to come out of us.

I mean, I can imagine if I were in a scenario like this-- leaving aside the other problems with the workings of Westworld, which are beside my point here --I might have fun being the best shot in the West and beating a horde of rampaging gunslingers by being the fastest draw. That appeals to my sense of adventure and excitement, plus the thrill of being the best. I could see conceivably being so selfish that I care so about my enjoyment in that way I don't care that I subjected a bunch of people to painful death. But it adds nothing to that appeal to see the men I beat twitching and gasping in pain as they die from the bullets I put in them. I could see prioritizing my sense of fun such that I didn't care that I killed them. But having to witness their suffering is distasteful, such that the imposition of their pain is a consequence that would make my victory less fun. I think it would be to most people.

But even beyond that-- the version of the "dark urges" the park is designed to caters to? Is this totally one-note, stereotypically masculine conception. Basically, the form of indulgences it expects its guests to want are all extremely retrograde masculine fantasies, mostly sexual, violent, or a combination of the two. Sure, given how toxic they expect people to want to behave, you'd expect them to appeal to people's toxic masculinity, but there's no appeals to any impulse that are not coded masculine. It's all just about the chances for brutal violence or increasingly outre sexuality.

I can't figure out if it's intentional or not. Is it as a statement of how prevalent such fantasies are in people, or even how hypermasculinity encourages it? Or is it because the SHOW can't imagine dark impulses under any other encoding?

If it's intentional, there has yet to be any explicit acknowledgment that Westworld is designed under that assumption. I've seen no commentary on the problem of that conception. There's been no connection of the horrors being committed to the idea that they rise from hypermasculinty-- in fact, the only suggestion the show gives is that it comes from HUMANITY in general, rather than specifically from males. And I don't think depicting an idea without any form of critique, in so many words or otherwise, counts as commentary.

On top of that, most of the women characters in the show have been portrayed in really limited ways. The only female guests tend to be either wives supporting the adventures of their husbands, or else having identical dark urges to straight men. (There's been some portrayal of lesbianism, but it all smacks of "chicks that act like straight guys" rather than women attracted to other women. By contrast, the one bisexual dude's orgy? A woman riding his dick, another woman making out with him, while the one other guy... rubs his belly. Cowards.) The women host robots fall into a pretty stark virgin-whore dichotomy. Again, if there was some suggestion of critique of this, that women suffer even more when people act like objectification is just okay, then I might see it as a meaningful choice. But again, I've seen no sign of this.

So it's increasingly striking me as unintentional, which is both a staggeringly limited view of humanity-- even humanity's darkness --and also misogynist. I mean, why do women come to Westworld in this universe? Just to support their husbands' hero hypermasculine-coded hero fantasies, or if they want to indulge in THOSE EXACT SAME HYPERMASCULINE FANTASIES themselves? Is there nothing here to enjoy that's actually geared toward the interests of women-- or even the ways women specifically tend to break down? If nothing else, where are the hot male whores throwing themselves at female guests?

I'm only three episodes in. Maybe they'll deal with it. But I don't think it's been handled well so far.

Kind of had a breakthrough this weekend in the justification of one of my theories. I prize analytical thinking really highly (and in fact have been called upon to teach it in recent years) and as such I like to come up with codified assessments to assist in my understanding and interpretation going forward. Usually they’re about the craft of storytelling; sometimes they go a little broader than that, but most of the time it’s me working out my thoughts on how people convey ideas to tell stories.

I spend a lot of time thinking about female gaze. It’s my pet feminist issue, and I work to specifically tell many of my stories from that perspective. Female gaze encompasses a number of dimensions, but one of the most fundamental ones is how men are regarded as objects of attraction. And I have long believed in my gut that the key component of female gaze is vulnerability. By which I mean, that to the feminine perspective responds powerfully to the presence of vulnerability in the regarded object—perhaps even is drawn more strongly by it than anything else.

For example. Between a man who is beautiful, and a man who is equally beautiful but demonstrates some kind of vulnerability, be it physical or emotional, I would say most women are more likely to find the second man more appealing. Even between a beautiful man and a somewhat less beautiful man with greater vulnerability. Still the second one will be more appealing.

I have mountains of anecdotal evidence. Everywhere from the popularity of hurt/comfort and angst scenarios for male characters in fan fiction written by women, to the development of my own obsession with Captain America. The Steve Rogers character in the comics always bored the hell out of me, because he was so perfect and without texture. But the character in the film? A heartbreakingly gorgeous man with fears, insecurities, uncertainties, and even some feminine encoding? THE RECIPE FOR SEXUAL OBSESSION. Apparently!

(As a side note, I love, love, love this essay on how much feminine encoding the MCU portrayal of Captain America actually has. It articulates a bunch of things I felt and fell in love with about that version of the character.)

I didn’t come up with that idea on my own. I encountered it in an article several years ago that I can’t seem to find today. In that article, it mostly was examining that idea from a sort of BDSM context; if I recall correctly, it was about how femdom expressed. That part of it I couldn’t speak to, at least partially because I don’t think they supported their assertions that well. But that central IDEA, that the female gaze reacted so strongly to vulnerability, that part rang true in my bones.

So I’ve believed that for a long time on a gut level. But as a theory, I really couldn’t intellectually justify it except that it felt right. Which is not sufficient for analytical conclusion. Even “I have evidence that this phenomenon happens” is not the same as being able to articulate the REASON why it happens. And I couldn’t. After all, what’s to say it isn’t just a preference of SOME women? If I’m going to generalize it broadly, I need to be able to attribute it to something about the straight female condition.

This weekend, however, I think I finally was able to do that. And I think the root is in violence against women. One in three women will experience violence from her partner worldwide. Straight women are drawn to one of the greatest possible dangers against them. These two simultaneous facts makes any indication that a man will not be dangerous to them INCREDIBLY attractive. And I think the presence of vulnerability we tend to read as a sign of that.

Now, of course it’s not necessarily an accurate sign. But here’s the logic that I think applies. Men are not socialized to show vulnerability. Of course everyone has it sometimes, but they are encouraged to hide it. Specifically, they are encouraged to cover vulnerabilities with aggression. It’s that aggression that makes them dangerous. So there’s this sense that the willingness to admit and show things like fear, insecurity, or weakness marks a man as on the opposite end of the spectrum from aggression— and therefore, safe.

I would argue that any kind of indicator of what traditional masculinity would characterize as softness— sensitivity, femininity, delicacy —can fall under the heading of “vulnerability display.” These are also things men are culturally “not supposed to show” and they often face ridicule for these as “not befitting of a real man.” So, for example, a man who admits having qualities that are considered traditionally feminine is making himself vulnerable to attacks from other men who would perceive him as weak and unmasculine because of them. Therefore, that man’s willingness to own the qualities that could encourage others to attack him is perceived as making himself vulnerable.

Of course not all women are the same. We don’t all have exactly the same feelings, attractions, or even totally identical social encoding. But I think that this is why so, so many women are interested in stories where men cry, experience powerful emotions, are uncertain, or “in touch with their feminine side.” Not all women; we are not a monolith. But a large number, given what we do share from our experience of existing in the world as women. And I would suspect that of the women who DO NOT find themselves drawn to vulnerability, they are the ones who do not have as strong a concept of the problems stemming from traditional masculinity.

So I think I finally have a thesis on this that I can actually support. You may disagree. But I really do believe this. Vulnerability is the key component of female gaze because it acts as an indicator of an absence of the kind of masculine aggression that is most dangerous to women.

Saw the new Ghostbusters this weekend. I admit I went with a fair bit of trepidation, given some of the early indications, but after all the backlash from jag off internet misogynists, I was going to throw money at this thing whether it sucked or not. So I went in the first weekend to register at the box office, and my verdict is that even though it is technically flawed in many ways, I had a blast just enjoying the fun of this extremely delightful film. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!

Now I actually believe the first Ghostbusters is a really good, lightning-in-a-bottle kind of film, and I am generally not a fan of remakes, especially of lightning-in-a-bottle classics that don’t really bear comparison. But the fact of the matter is, we’re in a culture that is reimagining existing IPs almost entirely right now, and if they’re going to do it, it makes sense to actually try and put a fresh spin on those IPs. Giving women a presence in a context where they didn’t get to be is about the best possible way to achieve that, so even bearing all that in mind, I was definitely going to support this film.

The charm of the movie lies in the characters, as I would argue any truly engaging storytelling does. Based on the marketing I was afraid we were going to get “female equivalents” of the original cast, which I thought was a bad move— particularly since that seemed to be at fault for relegating the one black Ghostbuster again to the only non-scientist role. But they were actually all fairly unique and interesting, with relationships I cared about. Kristen Wiig’s Erin was chased away from her fascination with the paranormal by public derision and the desire to establish a respectable reputation in scientific academia. Her childhood friend and former partner Abby, the Melissa McCarthy character, is a fearless eccentric dedicated to proving her paranormal theories and showing the world that ghosts are real. Kate McKinnon’s Holtzmann, easily the breakout character, is a hilarious mechanical genius with a skewed point of view and buckets of awkward, out-there charm. Leslie Jones’s Patty Tolan is a tough, practical optimist who’s an expert in the history of New York City and rolls to adapt to deal with the weirdness around her. (You may be interested to know that the trailers cherry-picked all of only a handful of Stereotypical Sassy Black Woman moments, and I found her to be much more of a witty, insightful comedic presence. Others may disagree, and she could have been less stereotypical than she was, but I thought she was way more nuanced than the commercials suggested she’d be.) Easily the best moments are when these characters are hanging together doing Ghostbuster stuff, and you wanted to just watch them figure out their shit as they go and use cool gadgets to bust spooks. All the performances are good, and special mention goes to Chris Hemsworth, who is both hot and hilarious as basically the airheaded bimbo they hire as a receptionist because they like looking at him!

The writing, unfortunately, is not great. It doesn't have the philosophical underpinnings of the original-- check Moviebob's excellent exegesis on it in this video. It’s packed with great ideas that are either not fully explored or could have used an extra pass in the script editing process. The biggest problem to me was how choppy and weird the pacing was. The whole movie smacks of something that was cut up and reassembled in the editing room due to last-minute fears and insecurities. They would talk about doing a thing or a thing happening, then the very next scene things would sort of happen just as they talked about it—I can’t quite articulate what the problem was, maybe too little conflict, maybe too predictable, maybe too much telling with the showing, but it was somehow odd. Also, it was clear a lot of stuff got cut out, which led to weird transitions or total lack of any kind of sensible explanation for how we got from point A to point B. It also meant a lot of things never got the payoff they deserved. I liked the idea of making Patty a historian of New York, giving her a particular expertise even though she wasn’t a scientist, but it didn’t lead to anything substantive enough. There was this suggestion that the villain, who was pretty underdeveloped, was sort of the dark-reflection of Erin and Abby, which is a very interesting idea, but it was never realized in any way.

But the whole thing was a ride for me. Once things got going, I found myself having so much fun laughing at the jokes, enjoying the character interactions, and cheering at the cool busting action. It made me not really care so much about the inconsistencies. There are lots of little low-polish things— a lot of the dialogue and humor was clearly improvised, and a lot of it goes on a bit too long, there are subplots that really don’t make sense, and the final act is a logistical clusterfuck. But it was so damn fun. Getting to see cool female characters bust ghosts made me clap and yell and throw my fists in the air. Holtzmann's dual-weilding proton guns was one of the coolest action bits I've seen in a flick in years. And I’d like to point out that with the exception of Kate McKinnon, all the actresses were older than the original actors were in Ghostbusters ’84. That meant a lot to me, with my morbid fear of age-related feminine obsolescence.

And moreover, it’s going to mean a lot to kids. It might be an emotional rather than critical response. Bernie rather insightfully said it might be like Pacific Rim was for him-- a movie I found to be utterly ridiculous but he found a spiritual experience. But that means kids will feel it even more strongly. And not just little girls who are crying out for girl heroes. When I saw it, there was a little boy in the audience just down the row from me— LOSING HIS SHIT IN GLEE at every cool thing the ‘Busters did. It made me so happy. Not just for his infectious joy, but because it flew in the face of every asshole executive who ever declared that boys can’t be interested in or identify with girl heroes. As in_water_writ said, those are HIS Ghostbusters. For a whole new generation of kids, their Ghostbusters are women. And that makes it a blast despite any imperfection.

And I know I have terrible taste in music, but I actually like the new theme song cover. 😁

I know it’s a waste of energy to have any feelings at all with dumb comedy franchises, but Zoolander has annoyed me on an ideological level for a long time. When it came out when I was in high school, everyone I knew loved it while I just didn’t get why it was supposed to be so funny.

But the more I think about it, the more it makes me kind of angry. It basically has one joke to it, the absurdity of male models. Yes, when I was a little older I saw that there was SOME commentary on the constant-need-machine of the fashion industry with the whole Derelict thing. But mostly you’re supposed to laugh because you recognize how dumb and frivolous any man who models is, not to mention how silly the whole idea of a man modeling.

First of all, they hammer that stupid, unnecessary term, "male model." Why would you need to specify that a man is a male model, unless you think it's weird that a man even is a model? Secondly, Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson do not look like models. I mean, people might find them attractive, but they’re not beautiful or even of the unusually extreme features your average female model is. The fact that they could be passed off as models speaks to the much lower bar men have to be considered attractive. Men don’t have to be beautiful! In fact, men AREN’T beautiful! The idea that you could be invested in the beauty of men is silly! And look what idiots they are. Any dude who would want to model would have to be a moron, right? Also, I’ll admit, there is one actually funny thing about the movie— Blue Steel and its variants —but it ties into the notion of how absurd it is that dudes even would model. Look how silly dudes are when they try to present themselves so as to be aesthetic!

I don’t mind people poking fun at the modeling or fashion industries. But I wish they were aiming for the INDUSTRY rather than basically JUST the idea of aesthetic men. Even the new one’s marketing campaign ties into this. I mean, thanks to a marketing tie-in, those actors are making appearances as their characters in actual, real Valentino couture. What’s the joke there, if they’re basically just doing what actual models do— that is, wear and demonstrate high-end clothes? It’s only funny if you think it’s funny that they’re BEING MODELS. I get really, really irritated at anything that feeds into the myth of Men Not Being Hot, and that’s basically all I see in those films.

A major tenant of my feminism is that I believe that men and women are basically the same, with more variation between individuals than between the two groups at large. By nature, at least. Any overall differences you do see I believe are largely the result of socialization. We receive very different messages, both deliberately and implicitly, from the culture in which we live. Because socialization is powerful, a lot of the trends we tend to see of “how women are” versus “how men are” come to being as a result. It can’t really be proven, I guess, because there is no way to remove the effects of socialization, but I still maintain that outside of that, men and women are basically the same.

When I was in high school, I remember the first time I ever felt annoyed when somebody told me that “men are just more visual than women.” Meaning that it was just in men’s nature to respond more and be more invested in the physical appearance of potential romantic partners. Even back then I responded very negatively to the implication that men and women were just naturally different. But at the same time, I was annoyed— because at the time, that seemed to fit with my own experience.

At that point in my life I was not particularly invested in the physical beauty of men. I didn’t have much interest or take any enjoyment in checking dudes out. In fairness, I didn’t really experience much in the way of attraction to other people until I was eighteen or so. But even then, what was even theoretically attractive to me only sort of lined up with being good-looking. So I only reinforced the stereotype. And that really annoyed me.

A number of years back, however, I experimented with something. I decided, consciously and deliberately, to give myself permission to ogle men. To care about, check out, and enjoy the physical beauty of men. Not that I wasn’t “allowed to” before, but I made a point of telling myself that if I wanted to do it, I could. There was no reason that if I ever wanted to, I couldn’t look at men the same way we expected men to look at women. If I’d absorbed any social conditioning that had told me I couldn’t do that or that I shouldn’t want to, I was consciously letting go of it.

And you know something? It was like a switch got flipped. Suddenly I got what the big deal about pretty people was. It was FUN to check them out, ENJOYABLE to look at them. Now boy watching has become a favorite hobby! And as I’ve said before, it feels powerful to think that sometimes things need to appeal to my eye, that what I want to see is worth delivering on. FEMALE GAZE IS EMPOWERING, Y’ALL.

Now, I’m not saying this is uniformly a good thing to start/discover in myself. Sometimes I go overboard. I do tend to get a little bit stupid over it, and I have on some occasions crossed a line where it got absurd. Like, grow up, Phoebe, you sound like a frat boy. Objectifying people is not a great habit to be in (even if I’d argue it has it’s time and place.)

But the fact that this happened seems like pretty good support for my theory. I was able to decide that it was okay for me to do it if I wanted to. And in the absense of any restriction, real or artifical, I found that I wanted to. Not much different than a man would.

Of course all people are different. Some people are interested in this sort of thing and some aren't. But more men don't than we generalize, and probably more women would if they felt like they were allowed.

I remember when I first saw Iron Man 1 in theaters. I found Tony to be incredibly hot, and this annoyed me, because he was a jerk, and I didn’t like the idea that such jerkiness wouldn’t kill my attraction to him. Every time I see Jon Hamm, the guy who plays Don Draper, out of character, I’m always struck— “He’s so attractive! Why do I never notice this?” I watch a ton of Mad Men, he’s super-handsome, and he looks fabulous in the period drag. But it’s because his character, while admittedly interesting, is such a jerk that I find him completely repellent when he’s portraying the man. This pleases me, because as above, I don’t want to be attracted to jerks.

There’s a tired old stereotype that women are attracted to jerks. It’s the only explanation some can manage to come upon for why certain awful men have no trouble finding women, when men without their obvious downsides get ignored. It irritates me a lot, as it gets used as a justification for men to treat women badly. So I get annoyed when it seems I verify the stereotype by wanting to jump Iron Man’s bones, and smug with myself when I blow it by being immune to the charms of a Don Draper.

But the truth is, women AREN’T attracted to jerks. Women are attracted to the qualities that enable men to be jerks in such obvious ways without experiencing the immediate social pushback that stops average people from being jerks. When Tony says something rakish and nasty, he’s displaying his wit. When Don solves a problem by saying something aggressive rather than apologizing, he demonstrates guts. Tony may have a huge ego, but it shows a wellspring of self-confidence. And everybody likes good-looking people; beauty can allow people to get away with murder. All of these things— beauty, wit, confidence, courage, power —make people attractive to others. While the use they put these qualities to may be undesirable, or even off-putting, the fact remains that they still require the possession of these qualities in order to perpetrate them. And that is what is sexy.

I think that’s an important thing to remember. It’s a shame that kindness and gentleness aren’t so paramount on that list of attractive qualities that the absence of them can cancel out the approval, but I think this explains what’s going on there. At least, a hell of a lot better than the theory that people actually like badness and being mistreated.

I made myself a promise that anything I wrote longer than than ten minutes was going to pass the Bechdel Test. It is not a very high bar to include at least two female characters who talk to each other about the point of the story/something besides a man, so I am determined to do it. I have succeeded since I instituted this rule, which includes all Mrs. Hawking stories, Mrs. Loring, The Tailor at Loring's End, Puzzle House Blues, and Adonis. Heh, Adonis only has one speaking male character period, a fact with which I am extremely pleased.

For the record, I do not believe that the presence/lack thereof of female characters in storytelling is a reliable indicator of whether the piece evidences a feminist or sexist worldview. I think you can usually tell through observation whether a story exists in a universe where women are viewed as complete people. I have seen plenty of stories with female characters that do not meet that metric, and even some with all male characters that do. I've written some of the latter, specifically in the standalone scene or ten-minute form, so I seriously hope that comes through.

But do not mistake me. There are ENOUGH all-male, or too-many-male, casts out there at this point that I think it's almost uniformly preferable to make an effort to include more women. I know sometimes you imagine a piece a certain way and it needs to be that way; I've been there, I get it. I respect authorial vision probably more than most other Angry Media Critic Feminists. But I also believe that so-called "authorial vision" is sometimes influenced by our prejudices more than we realize. We are all socialized to see Straight White Men as our default center of the story, and sometimes the stories for other people don't spring to our minds because we just don't see them as having stories worth telling. That is something all artists need to make an effort to GET OVER. And sometimes getting over it means consciously deciding to make a character a woman (or some other figure underrepresented in fiction) in order to start changing our ingrained assumptions.

I thought of this because it occurred to me that my Cabin Pressure fan ficton that I've been noodling on may technically pass, but only on a technicality. It's challenging in this case because what of what I've chosen to write about-- someone else's cast of four main characters, only one of whom is a woman, those characters specifically talking about romance, the setting is self-contained where the only other characters present are a horrible nasty couple that is fighting with each other. Even if those two female characters talk to each other, it's tough to not make the subject in that context a man. So I do understand that sometimes it's not as easy as it should be. But I don't want this to be my first piece of substantial length (a runtime of about thirty minutes) to fail since I made my vow. So I am going to make sure it passes legitimately before it's finished.

As we write the Adonis sequels, I figure we'll probably EVENTUALLY have to include another speaking male character. If we do, I kind of want to make them fail the reverse Bechdel Test. If there has to be more than one male character, they won't talk to each other, and if they do, it won't be about something besides a woman. 😝

Another bit of noodling for the eventual sequel to Adonis. I struggled with this one, as I knew the idea I wanted to get across but was having a really hard time representing it in the right manner.

One of the things I want to explore in these stories is the components of gaze, specifically female gaze, but really the workings and effects of gaze in general. The second story's plot will be about the building of their revolution against the establishment in Rome. Morna, being the master tactician that she is, realizes that she can cultivate people's fascination with Aidan as an incredibly beautiful popular hero in order to rally allies to their cause. This is in conflict, however, with the fact that Aidan has a very fraught, painful history with being the object of gaze. Balancing Aidan's personal issues with the pursuing of the cause makes for an interesting struggle to explore during the next movie. The words here aren't quite right, nor do I think I hit all the nuances-- should they protect Aidan more, is this value as a tactic too high, what's the cost, how are we torn, how much do our choices pain us, how much should we just trust him, blah blah blah. But like all these 31P31D pieces, I'm mostly just trying to explore the ideas and figure out where they need to go in order to be properly represented.

( Day #18 - "The Stuff of Their Dreams" )

I have so many writing projects that I need to accomplish in the near future, and I find it helpful to lay out a plan and prioritize so I know what to focus on. So here’s what I’m thinking, at least for the next two months or so.

I have plunged into draft 4 of the new musical, Puzzle House Blues. I am making the last round of edits to the text before I arrange a second reading. Troy has made excellent progress on the composition of music and lyrics for the songs, for which I am providing some editorial input. I expect all of that to get finished in the next few weeks. Then we’ll have to make rough song recordings so we can play them to our readers, to enable them to get the full narrative effect.

The other major thing I have to work on immediately is my new screenplay, intended to enter into this year’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest. I made it into the top ten percent of all entries last year with The Tailor at Loring’s End, so I want to have something to enter this year as well. I have yet to talk about that piece here on the blog, but now’s a good a time to introduce it as any. It’s a little tough to explain, but it’s a sort of a feminist creative experiment. I wanted to take a set of gendered tropes, roles, and power dynamics and fill them with members of a different gender than the ones we’re conditioned to expect. The aim is to highlight the existence of those tropes by taking them out of the gender contexts we’re accustomed to so that familiarity does not permit us to ignore them. Basically, it’s an epic set in an alternate history with a matriarchal Ancient Rome, where an exalted female general challenges the empire when she falls in love with a beautiful male slave-turned-gladiator. I am calling it Adonis, and it will involve certain things that I’m not used to writing about, but I think it has the potential to be a really powerful story. The draft’s about thirty percent done at this point, and needs to be ready for a submission deadline at the end of July.

Lastly, when August comes around again, I would like to again participate in 31 Plays in 31 Days, where you write a play of at least one page in length for every day of the month of August. It has done wonders for my productivity in the past, giving me lots of great short pieces and even chunks of larger scripts that I otherwise would not have written. So I’m excited to do it again. Last year, I mostly produced the latter, many of which would later become the meat of Vivat Regina, the second Mrs. Hawking story. I would love to get a start on the as-yet-untitled third installment the same way, although any new writing I produce during that time would be welcome.

Finally got around to watching all of Anita Sarkeesian's "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" series. She does a very good job, with a polished, well-informed approach that improves in precision with each installment of the series. I was slightly frustrated by how pretty much all her examples are presented free of context, but not because that I thought that diluted her point-- if the trope is that widespread EVEN WHEN THE EXAMPLES ARE MORE NUANCED, there is definitely an issue to be recognized. But I do often find myself wishing for more discussion of particulars and design choices, even though I know her work isn't the format for it.

Part of her point is a call for the abandoned of overused tropes and the inclusion of women in different roles in video games. It got me thinking about less represented story and themes that could be used. Through a somewhat convoluted train of thought, it struck me that motherhood has never been much explored in this medium. It's a female experience that is powerfully motivating, and yet one I find is not often explored in a context of how it can make you act like a hero (which is a frequent end that video games need a catalyst for.) Motherhood is often coded as simply loving and nurturing, when I believe it is also protective and motivating to action.

I started thinking about how you could translate that to an adventure video game. Maybe a story about three generations of women, with the middle one as the protagonist. She is driven to undertake an adventure for her daughter's sake, attempting to figure out how to be a mother from only the memory of her own mother, who is dead/otherwise not present but who casts a long shadow on her. I could even see maybe the first third or so of the game involving rescuing the daughter, but after that, it's about raising/protecting/teaching the daughter as they continue along on the adventure. The protagonist could be struggling toward a larger goal out in the world, but her personal journey is in mothering her girl in a way that's both influenced by her mom's example but still finding her own path. I think it could incorporate traditional video games structure by means of themes that would be different on both a subject matter and a gender representation level.

Also, I miss my mom and I'm thinking about this stuff.

Now that Festival is over, I find myself with minimal outside commitments that have deadlines and places I have to be. I think this is a good state for me for the time being. I've been feeling overwhelmed and pressed so much, and I want to turn my attention to writing projects primarily. So, for the time being, I will join no projects, make no outside commitments, and give myself no deadlines that aren't related to the pieces I want to be writing.

I need to write the next draft of my new musical, Puzzle House Blues. I got a lot of good feedback from friends at a reading dinner as well as from my collaborator Troy, and I need to implement it. It needs some restructuring, so I think I'm going to write a new outline and then rearrange and reshape the scenes based on that.

You may remember that last year I entered my screenplay, The Tailor at Loring's End, in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. I actually did really well, making it to the Quarter Finals. I want to have something new to enter in that competition this year. I won't have feedback from my professional teachers on this one, but I have a new idea that's worth a shot, so I'm going to give it a try.

My new idea is pretty weird. It's dark and a little kinky; I want to make a feminist point in a way that may be really off-putting to mainstream audiences, which could reduce my chances of having it go far in the contest. But I really like this idea and think it would make an amazing movie, so I'm going to make the attempt.

I might write about the story here, get a little feedback. The particular weirdness of it makes me slightly embarrassed to talk about it, but I do think it's an interesting idea. We'll see how I feel as I develop it a little more.

A lot of talk has been going on around the idea of Ask versus Guess culture. Captain Awkward has some great thoughts on the matter here. This is, if you haven't heard, the difference in interaction styles between people who prefer to always overtly ask questions/make requests and situations with low context and established behavioral rules, and people who prefer to deduce the right answer or the proper thing to say or do based on a lot of context and a lot of pre-establishment. Like, people who think it's okay to ask "Can I crash at your house?" and people who think it would be too presumptuous to make the request. This is mostly stuff I've been musing about on my Tumblr, but since my Tumblr is otherwise just nonsense I thought I'd transfer it over here.

I am a Guess culture person. Partially it's my upbringing, partially it's my damage, partially it's my sense of how one demonstrates consideration for other people. I think if we lived in a perfect world, it would always be superior to Ask, because then all communication would be clear and everyone would just explicitly state their needs. But in the world we live in, I don't think it's that clear-cut.

I would vastly prefer not to make someone uncomfortable by asking them for something they feel they bad about not being able to give, and I really hate being asked for something that I am unable to give. I feel an extreme pressure to always be kind, generous, accommodating. Partially I think this is socialization, how women are made to feel like they always have to make everyone cared for and comfortable, and partially because I think being giving is a good thing to be. But when somebody asks me to do it, I feel like there’s no way I can refuse without seeming selfish, exclusionary, or mean.
I hate people inviting themselves to things I’m doing or hosting; it messes up the dynamic I’ve planned for. I hate being asked for rides, I’m not a taxi service. I hate being asked to borrow money, I’m not very liquid and my resources are limited. Or maybe I technically CAN do all these things, but I just don’t want to. But how can I turn down “Can I come?” without seeming mean to the person asking? How can I refuse to share what I have without seeming greedy or ungenerous?

I really do think people judge you for not being willing to do these things. They think you’re mean or a bitch or selfish if you turn them down when they ask. And as much as I can ill-afford doing a lot of those things, I am more afraid of people thinking I’m an asshole for saying no. So I feel obligated, even if it’s not good for me. Not everyone who asks does so with the true assurance that it’s okay to say no.

Additionally, Guess culture also accounts for people who are not ABLE to assert themselves. Because Ask culture requires people who are assertive of both their needs and their boundaries, and that’s really hard for a lot of people.

Guess culture posits, basically, “The safest course is to say nothing.” And I think that recommendation is used in a lot of contexts. Like, every time feminists suggest, hey, don’t go up and act like you’re entitled to that woman’s time, they’re basically suggesting “The safest course [to respecting her and allowing her to feel safe] is to say nothing [to her].” Not to Ask her and back off if she says no, but to just not Ask her at all, Guess that she wants to be left to her own devices. Because it accounts for people who may not be assertive enough to hold their own boundaries. Saying, yeah, you always need to be able to push back against things you don’t want has some problematic implications. Especially if you extend it to things like consent.

Honestly I wish I could feel more comfortable asking for things. But I am TERRIFIED of somebody thinking, "How dare you presume? How can you be so self-centered?" It makes it hard to get things like raises, or even something like networking, when I feel like I'm presuming on somebody else's time and resources. But it's something incredibly difficult, and I worry about situations where people can't assert their own needs, or the fallout of someone thinking I'm rude for asking. That’s why I default to Guess culture. If we don’t impose on each other, no one is ever put in an awkward position where they feel obligated to something they don’t want. Yeah, it definitely has drawbacks, but it has advantages too.

It doesn't take knowing me very long to know that I have a thing for extremely beautiful men. I've never been shy about that fact, and indulging that part of myself is something I really enjoy. Female gaze is my pet feminist issue, partially because I think it's a small thing that is a good indicator of a number of much larger, more important matters of respect towards women. An acknowledgement of female gaze is the acknowledgement of women as sexual beings with preferences, agency, and desires of their own, and do not exist solely for the needs of men. It's an equalizing thing, an indicator that women aren't so different from men after all-- we're all visual, we all physically objectify each other sometimes.

But also it's important to me because I feel it so strongly. I get A LOT of joy out of looking at men I find physically attractive, probably more than the average person. It makes me feel good to exercise my ability to be the subject rather than the object; it makes me feel powerful, like my viewpoint and my desires matter. Generally, it's a fun thing for me. Sometimes, I want to just spend an evening parked in front of Tumblr or one of the Marvel films and do nothing all night except abandon myself to hard-core objectification mode and enjoy that warm, tight feeling it gives me in my chest.

I've also mentioned before, with no small degree of bemusement, how... stupid it can make me. Sometimes I have literally been so consumed with the beauty of a particular gentleman that I cannot think straight. It's like a cloud creeps into my brain, so slowly I don't notice it at first, but before I know it it's like my judgment has been fogged up. It sounds completely idiotic to say that, but I swear it sometimes happens and I feel like an absolute moron. It's like the worst stereotype of men, and here I am actually experiencing it. Most of the time it's not that big a deal-- I'm sure I've frustrated a friend or two with my occasional inability to hold a conversation after discovering a new screenshot of Captain America, but generally it hasn't really been a problem. I just sort of muddle through it and when it passes I move on.

But recently it's struck me just how much trouble this tendency in me can be. It's mostly been no problem because it usually only happens to people who aren't actually present, who I'm not interacting with in real life. But it can color my interactions with real person to an absurd degree. It makes me place a value on those people that they might not otherwise deserve-- what might otherwise not be appropriate. And when my judgment is already demonstrably less objective. That part of myself scares the hell out of me.

It takes me back to when I was obsessed with Alain. I just found him so attractive that I couldn't think straight around him. I mean, I was also eighteen and had never experienced feelings of romantic attachment to a real person before, so I had much worse sense of how to handle that situation. But because I found him so beautiful I made decisions as if he were a much better man that he was, as if it gave him a value he didn't really have. And this did not work out well for me.

I learned a ton from that awful experience and would never get into that mess ever again. But there's a small part of me that's really glad he's put on weight and doesn't have that raw beauty anymore. And I can feel that tendency in myself still. I have to watch myself really carefully to make sure it doesn't lead me to do things I'll regret. And I hate that shallowness in myself. I would do well to find the way to rip that part out of me. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the physical beauty of others, but it shouldn't have so much control over me.

Lately, as I've gotten more into feminism and related forms of social justice, I've come up with what I've found to be a way of addressing a lot of the criticisms people have to certain techniques used in SJ theory. I'm sure someone else has thought of this in some form or other, but I've never seen it quantified, and I find it really effective when pointing out the flaws in many of these critiques. I call it the Perfect World argument.

I'm sure if you're at all interested in or on the side of social progress you've heard someone resent what they usually call "reverse whatever-ism," such as when some compensatory preference is given to a member of a disadvantaged group, or when a member of a majority/privileged group is not welcome in a space or conversation. For example, when white people are told that it is not for them to weigh in on certain racial issues because they are white, or when men are excluded from certain feminist spaces because they are men. This offends a lot of people, often because they are so accustomed to their privileged status that it is difficult for them to be forced to take a subordinate position in anything, but also because they think to themselves that if discrimination based on sex or color is a bad thing, it is a bad thing in any case, so men or white people should be no more excluded than people of other genders or races.

This is flawed because it is an example of what I call the Perfect World argument. It is a theory that, in pure raw theory-land, is technically correct. That "technical correctness" is what a lot of critics hinge on to justify their objection. It is even something that social justice agrees on (in its purely theoretical state.) But it is not a valid argument because it assumes social conditions other than situation at hand being perfect-- that no larger inequalities exist already that require mending or compensating for. The equivalent of trying to find the actual speed of a racehorse when you're assuming the horse is spherical and the track without friction. The "Perfect World" in this case would be one that was not systemically racist and sexist, where all examples of racism and sexism occurred on a micro-scale between individuals as opposed to being an undercurrent that affects us all unconsciously to some level or another. In that world, any behavior that contributes to less of the injustice at hand in any sense, in any case, is a net positive. In that most generous interpretation, I understand people without a huge amount of study into the state of social justice who are otherwise well-meaning defaulting to that seemingly logical perspective. They may even think that by speaking out against ALL prejudiced behavior, they are modeling correct behavior for others.

But we DO live in a world that is systemically full of bias. And not all kinds of bias, either, there is obviously a substantially greater amount of prejudice against people of color than white, and women and gender-variant than men. The scales are already so unbalanced that you are not actually aiding in the cause of bringing more justice into the world by advocating for somebody who already has significantly fewer disadvantages. So when you, for example, stand up for the right of a white person to contribute to a conversation about and for people of color, you are actually just making yet another example of privileging white voices-- you've added another drop in bucket of white presence and representation while taking a scoop out of the much small bucket of the presence of people of color. It's assuming your racetrack is so frictionless and your horses are so spherical that your calculus for the speed they're moving at is a million miles off.

So, "Perfect World Argument"-- a point of view that isn't exactly wrong in a pure theory sense, but assumes outside conditions being equal when they are not, and so is not applicable to the situation under the conditions in which it actually exists. I have found this a really helpful concept for explaining to people why a lot of pure theories are not appropriate to real world justice issues. People tend to respond better to hearing, "Well, you're not wrong in theory, but it doesn't account for all the uncontrolled variables."

I remember when I ran the plot of my latest full-length play by morethings5. His response was, "That's such a Phoebe story." And the reason for that was that it prominently dealt with issues around babies.

I write a lot of things that have babies in them. Pregnancies, new babies, lost babies. Babies that change things, that very seriously matter. If I ever become famous and get an author page on TV Tropes, this thing about babies will get listed. I didn't realize I did it until recently, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me. Because issues about babies are such a huge thing in my head.

I am a mess of contradicting feelings about them, a miasma of conflicting desires. On one hand... I love them. On at hand, I think they're the most important thing in the world, babies, children, your children. I feel a strong compulsion to be a mother someday. And while not everybody has the urge for children, I feel like if you do have it, it is a singular thing that is not comparable or equivalent to any other need you have in your life.

A baby is never negligible, never an insignificant thing to be disposed of lightly, even when should you decide that pregnancy or parenthood is not for you. While I acknowledge that abortions have to exist for the good of society, and that they can absolutely be the right choice in many situations, the idea of them makes me hurt in my guts. There are childless couples who would KILL for a baby of their own and can't have one, and their pain is enormous. Again, I respect a woman's right to do whatever she feels is appropriate for her own body, but it makes me ache to think that people who want babies can't just connect with women who don't want to keep their babies.

But at the same time... pregnancy terrifies me. Frankly TERRIFIES me. I just have this knowledge in my gut that it would be an awful experience for me, unpleasant at best and completely miserable at worst. I'm already prone to nausea, I would probably have it constantly if I were pregnant. My hips are very narrow, carrying and birthing a baby could just not work. And God forgive me for being so shallow and vain... but I think of what it would do to my body and I just freeze. During it, the thought of being big and ungainly, of taking up so much space, of everything being a gross swollen mess due to the hormones and the physical changes... and after, the stress put on everything by the birth, being bloated or stretched out or sagging or scarred... I shudder. And the body never really comes back. Not for most people, who don't have a dietician and a physical trainer constantly at their disposal. And that scares me more than I can convey.

I feel disgusting and small for caring that much about it. For wanting a baby, but being too vain to want to go through one of the most fundamental experiences of life that's part of it. And there is a season to all things in life, nobody gets to be beautiful forever-- especially if its my kind of beauty which is of the particularly ephemeral sort. I am fortunate that things worked out for me in such a way as I got to experience what it's like to be that lean and strong and firm kind of beautiful for a while. But still, the thought of losing it for inevitable reasons is hard enough without thinking that pregnancy might make it hit all the harder.

People have said I'm a prime candidate for adoption. I don't want to be pregnant, and I couldn't give a damn about biological connection to my baby. Don't care the lineage, the gender, the color. Just want a baby. But I get scared to think of that because it's so difficult to adopt. Expensive, so vastly advantageous to the rich, and often heartbreaking since you could for any number of reasons lose the right to the child before the adoption is legally finalized. Again, no moral condemnation of abortion here, but if it came down to my needing to BEG some woman to please let me adopt her baby instead of abort it, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Of course, if pregnancy seems so terrible to me, I can't say I don't understand why somebody would rather abort than go through it even if they don't have to keep the baby.

But still... but still... I can't shake that part of me that says that your child is too important. The Most Important. And if you have to go through painful difficult undesirable things for the sake of your child, that's part of what it is to be a parent. The love and responsibility that is so strong that you sacrifice your well being for theirs. That notion feels right to me in my guts. Because that is what grows out of the nature of the bond between parent and child.

Here is what makes me believe in that bond. It leads into my other fear related to having a baby-- the fear that one's self is subsumed into it. How often do we hear about parents-- usually mothers --who's entire life revolves around their children? That they lose their own interests and even their personality to being Mommy? That is chilling to me. I would HATE that. As much compulsion as I feel toward being a mother, that seems awful and terrifying to me. But I would want to be a good parent-- to be the kind of parent that is everything their child needs. I am a pretty self-absorbed person. Am I too selfish a person to be as selfless as that would require? Am I too selfish to be happy making the shift that motherhood would require?

And yet. And yet. This comes back to the thing that makes me believe in the enormous power of that parent child bond. As much as kids take over their parents lives-- as much as they demand and necessitate and impose on their parents-- their parents LOVE THEM. Are madly, crazily, IN LOVE WITH THEM. Would do ANYTHING for them, WOULD DIE for them. No matter how much of a pain having kids is, it is rare indeed to find a parent who doesn't love their kids more than anything.

That gives me hope. That maybe I can be a parent, despite my vanity and selfishness. That my love for them would be greater than my love for myself. And that I don't have to choose between being a miserable parent and having that part of me go unfulfilled.

I keep taking about "in my guts." That's where my desire to someday be a mother comes from. And so that's where a lot of my feelings around children come from. Maybe they're not totally reasonable or fair from an intellectual standpoint. But I can't shake them.

Had a photo shoot for Lame Swans yesterday, the third we've had so far. I was feeling pretty awful, and I really do not know what I'm doing with these photography jaunts, but fortunately everyone is patient and willing to help me out such that somehow we muddle through. I'm really happy with how the images look; now I just need to lay them out and edit them to my satisfaction to turn them into a comic book.

niobien has really been my muse for this project. Not only is she so pretty, she's a joy to take pictures of. Her face and carriage are so expressive. Also, because she has talent and experience in ballet, an art I've become very interested in recently, she was the perfect person to build this project around. Look at what a supermodel she is.

Gorgeous. I've been extremely lucky with all my models. They have tried hard, been patient with my muddling through, and best of all did a great job acting with their physicality and facial expressions alone.

There's something in my head, though, as I take and look at these pictures. Recently I have been exposed to a number of blogs and resources that highlight issues of objectification of women in comics. It's a thing that eats me, the frequency with which female characters are just incidentally presented in sexually objectifying ways, because of an often underlying, unconscious assumption that female characters are only interesting if they're sexy. My comic book has mostly female characters, so I have a strong desire to create an example of the medium that bucks that convention. When I ask them to pose, I try to let the acting of the moment and the shape of the dancing decide how they hold themselves. There is some concern, of course, for the aesthetics of that posing, but I try to make it about the image rather than the body of the model. Everyone I asked to participate is a good-looking person, and I think that adds to the charm of the visuals, but I want them to come off as pretty people, not pretty objects.

But on the other hand, the dance which is the motif I have chosen to tell my story is about a celebration of the capabilities of the physical. Showcasing the body as it performs ballet is the true visual richness of this graphic novel. I need to do it to achieve the right effect. But I find myself struggling to balance things like inclusion and focus on faces with inclusion and focus on bodies, especially given that the images have to fit in a specific layout. I don't want it to be like I wrote a story about ballet that doesn't actually show any ballet. It's an interesting challenge. I hope I'm up to it.

Yesterday, July 26th, 2012, marks the one year-anniversary since I first started doing @HipsterFeminist, my once-daily joke Twitter feed. I have missed a few days here and there, as evidenced by the fact that one year later Rhoda has 358 tweets rather than 365, but I've been pretty good about posting something most days-- even if it's not the funniest thing in the world, I try to put up SOMETHING. Lately I've even managed to be topical!

I am currently up to 59 followers, which I think is the highest stable number I've ever had. Sadly the number goes up and down with ad accounts appearing and disappearing, and I lost a handful-- including Holly Pervocracy, alas --I think when I tried to do my first attempt at a plotline, when Rhoda stalks her ex's new girlfriend. I'm just guessing, but I think the humor may have gone to much to the "haha, Rhoda's actually a crazy woman" with that string for some people's taste. I want the joke to be primarily "Haha, Rhoda's doing feminism wrong!" and come off that way rather than implying to anyone "Ha, feminism!" or "Ha, women!" Ah, well, I did my best. But it's made me reluctant to try another plot thread for fear of resorting to lower-grade humor out of the need to keep the story going somehow in the very limited 140-characters-a-day format.

Not sure where I'm going from here. I do plan to continue, as I am enjoying the challenge and that fact that 59 people do in fact find it funny. If you are among the subscribers, thank you very much for indulging my little project. I am always interested in suggestions if you have any, and of course joke ideas.

blendedchaiteasuggested I have Rhoda read Fifty Shades of Gray, which could be really funny... except it might mean I have to read it myself. And even for the sake of my art, I'm not sure I could subject myself to that...

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All Eyes on Me

"Do you know why heroes boast? Because it makes them brave."

Entries tagged with feminism

Romance companies that peddle solely coercion

New post on Mrshawking.com -- "The elephant in every room"

Term of address

Apparently only dudes in Westworld are complex enough to have darkness

A breakthrough in my theory of female gaze

Bustin’ makes me feel good

Pointless irritation with the Zoolander films

Basically the same

Women (don't) like jerks

Bechdel-ing my work

31 Plays in 31 Days, #18 - "The Stuff of Their Dreams"

Writing plans for July and August

Ideas stemming from "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games"

No commitments but writing for a while

My perspective on Ask versus Guess culture

Really beautiful boys

The Perfect World argument

I write about babies a lot

Lame Swans photography

Happy birthday, Rhoda May Biddle