Hello! As of today, I’ve reached 300 followers, and to commemorate this momentous occasion, I’m hosting a giveaway!
What you’ll win
- Any figure from amazon (or any other reliable figure site) worth up to 50 USD (shipping not included)
- Any wig from a reliable site up to 35 USD (shipping not included)
- I’ll commission a piece for you, anything you want!
You don’t have to be following me, but if you do, and you win, you’ll get an extra special something at the end! Shipping internationally will not be an issue!
It will end on June 30 at 11:59 EST, and I will be picking a winner immediately after using a random number generator. Likes don’t count, only reblogs, and as many times as you want (without upsetting your followers)! Sideblogs are fine, but not giveaway blogs.
Make sure you keep your ask boxes open, as that is how I’ll be contacting you! I will wait three days after the giveaway ends. If you do not answer by July 3, I will be picking a different winner.
Thank you, and good luck! >uo
Interview with creator of Merida: What do you think it means to be a Disney princess?
I think it means being pretty, being sweet, having long flowing hair, and waiting for your prince—and I think that’s the overall message. There’s nothing about being who you are, utilizing your own…
THANK YOU SO MUCH
I’ve been saying this forever but no one ever listens to me. We should teach girls that no matter who they are they are good and worthy. That they can be complex creatures. That they can be both strong and weak. That there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be independent and nothing wrong with wanting to find their prince (or princess). There’s nothing wrong with wanting to work outside the house and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to work inside the house.
The Disney princesses possess all of these characteristics. That girls can be different and they are all still princesses because of their differences.
Further more. Even if these were “flaws” what is wrong with showing girls with flaws. Girls are humans. Humans have flaws. I hate the idea that a role model has to be perfect. Perfection is hard and easily shattered.
That’s my youth pastor’s last name.
Essie Ballet Slippers and Essie Fiji
Presidential Kitten
There are similar narratives about men who only shed tears over/with male teammates, or men with whom they served in the military. And similar narratives about fathers/sons: I have heard a man tell the story of how he “held it together” when his daughters were born, but “lost it” when his son was born. He told this story in front of his kids, as if it might not negatively affect his daughters (or the wife who birthed them) to know he was singularly overwhelmed by the birth of a son.
This isn’t a neutral narrative. It reinforces the idea that women’s value to men is less than men’s value to other men. And in a film that barely features female characters at all, to see Spock explain to his partner that a lack of emotion is evidence of his care for her, then weep for his male friend, is problematic, to put it politely. (Which is to say nothing of the fact that his partner is a black woman, and his friend a white man—in a film already engaging in whitewashing.)
"Melissa McEwan, writing about Into Darkness on Shakesville.
I am struck by this call out since “MANLY TEARS” are a THING in shounen anime. Obviously Alex Louis Armstrong subverts by crying about everything, but you can see where I’m going.
(via aboutwaifuz)I have many reasons why I think the connection with Spock to this issue is misunderstood.
And I wrote it.
But it was spoiler filled so I had to delete it.
All you have to know is I made a good case.
Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning
In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.
Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.
In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.
I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.
Who cares? Why it matters.
The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.
But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.
In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.
Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:
Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.
Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.
Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale.
In this particular construction of gender:
- Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.
- Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.
Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculineWaria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:
- Zachar: male
- Nekeveh: female
- Androgynos: both male and female
- Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender
- Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people
- Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)
Kathoey (often called ‘ladyboys’)
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.-Robert
Excellent overview of non-binary gender categories. Sadly, Western imperialism has all but extirpated many traditional concepts of non-dualistic sex and gender categories through residential schools and religious indoctrination. -Q
This gives me all kinds of gender life and power.
The thing is while. In Thailand these terms and ideas exist they are still seen as fringe, spectacles, or undesirables. They face a lot of discrimination and abuse still. I mean we even have terms in Western culture but that doesn’t necessarily mean we as a society accept the people these terms pertain to.
We feed Tiger in a box so that he and Zinny can get used to each other without attacking each other. I found him just sitting in there and staring at his bowl this morning. I guess he’s associated it with food but got the association backwards. Silly.
