all the internet did was give him a place where he didnt have to worry about being punched in the face when he says what he thinks
“he’s not like that in real life” just means “he’s not like that when there are repercussions”
I feel like too many people take that for granted. That somehow we’re allowed to be utterly rude offensive people towards each other…As long as there’s no direct repercussions for being like such. I think a lot of people misjudge just what it means when someone acts utterly different when they know there’s no laws holding them back, and what that says about them.
Rebageling because although I know you all know that Superman was always an immigrant story, that last little bit about Clark finding solidarity in an immigrant community is wholesome an a new-to-me idea.
Judith Butler says that J.K.Rowling and the transphobic TERFs do not speak for feminism at large.
If you haven’t heard about Judith Butler before, here is a short summary: She is one of the most important gender theorists in modern times.
When right wing extremists despair about postmodern gender theory, she is probably one of the thinkers they are referring to (not that they have ever read her).
She has shown how social structures, language, the stories we tell and the roles we play strengthens the oppression and marginalization of women. In other words: For her gender is definitely a cultural and social phenomenon, and because of that she is on a collision course with the so-called “gender critical feminists” (TERFs) who want to reduce gender to biological sex.
I strongly recommend that you read the recent New Statement interview with Butler, where she addresses the thinking and the tactics of TERFs in very clear terms. The interview is behind a paywall, but you should be able to access a couple of articles for free.
Still – in case you are locked out – here are some important excerpts.
She refuses to think of transphobic TERFs as mainstream feminists.
I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. If you are right to identify the one with the other, then a feminist position opposing transphobia is a marginal position. I think this may be wrong. My wager is that most feminists support trans rights and oppose all forms of transphobia.
So I find it worrisome that suddenly the trans-exclusionary radical feminist position is understood as commonly accepted or even mainstream.
I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.
She dismisses J.K. Rowling’s idea that allowing people to identify as they want will be a threat to women in women’s bathrooms.
The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise.
This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality. Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them.
She dismisses the idea that the term “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” (TERF) is a slur.
I wonder what name self-declared feminists who wish to exclude trans women from women’s spaces would be called? If they do favour exclusion, why not call them exclusionary? If they understand themselves as belonging to that strain of radical feminism that opposes gender reassignment, why not call them radical feminists?
My only regret is that there was a movement of radical sexual freedom that once travelled under the name of radical feminism, but it has sadly morphed into a campaign to pathologise trans and gender non-conforming peoples.
My sense is that we have to renew the feminist commitment to gender equality and gender freedom in order to affirm the complexity of gendered lives as they are currently being lived.
She does not accept the idea that the term gender can be defined once and for all, for example in reference to biology.
We depend on gender as a historical category, and that means we do not yet know all the ways it may come to signify, and we are open to new understandings of its social meanings.
It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women… Their abiding and very real sense of gender ought to be recognised socially and publicly as a relatively simple matter of according another human dignity.
She also says:
It is painful to see that Trump’s position that gender should be defined by biological sex, and that the evangelical and right-wing Catholic effort to purge “gender” from education and public policy accords with the trans-exclusionary radical feminists’ return to biological essentialism.
It is a sad day when some feminists promote the anti-gender ideology position of the most reactionary forces in our society.
So there you have it: One of our leading feminist philosophers are comparing TERFs to the transphobic extremists of the right. And she is right to do so.
It is important to stress this: TERFs are not representative of feminism. They represent a toxic fringe movement that at this point in time does more to help right wing misogynists than women.
By the way, if you’ve ever jumped into debating with radfems or other exclusionists, this is a must-read.
Look at how Butler is dissecting the TERF position. She isn’t arguing on their terms - half the goal of exclusionists is to draw you into an argument over their false premise, in order to get you to legitimize their position. No, Butler is doing exactly the right thing, and pointing out their whole foundation is flawed. Her deconstruction of TERF ideology is most cutting because it’s effectively, concisely, and clearly explaining that the premise of their beliefs is wrong at every level - that what they propose is not for debate because it is fundamentally false.
Anyway, I’m just absolute in adoration over how she talks about these topics. She’s not just tearing down TERF rhetoric, she’s dismantling it with the precision of a master.
Really seconding this now that I’ve read the full interview, and I highly recommend y'all do the same. This is a masterclass in combating exclusionary rhetoric by dismantling the premise, which is precisely where it is most flawed and most in need of interrogation.
It’s blessed it hear a respected philosopher saying what I’ve been saying for years. Some of these finer points get lost in Accepted Tumblr Rhetoric, and it really is worth hearing the nuances from someone whose job it is to think really hard about this shit.
Also, she identifies as non-binary, so she’s getting this stuff right for non-binary people as well. Something a lot of y’all forget about and stuff up on when you focus on binary trans people.
at least one cryptid definitely does exist in the sense that it was an actual creature who encountered and really freaked out a couple of humans- Mothman!
<art src- Tim Bertelink>
it was a barred owl.
see, owls have a really bright eyeshine at night, and in a really unusual color- blood red.
and barred owls have the brightest eyeshine of them all- so bright you could swear you were looking at the oncoming headlights of the Hellfire Express!
at close range, the eyeshine of a barred owl would be almost blinding- like shining a bright flashlight directly into those bicycle spoke reflector things. like this:
and wouldn’t you know it, barred owls are found in the areas where Mothman was first sighted.
so what presumably happened was that several people had very close encounters with one or several barred owls, and the red hellfire glare of the owl was so bright that it made the owl’s eyes look the size of fucking softballs!
and since it was night and the owl was moving the shape of it was too indistinct to make out, so the humans’ brains extrapolated a body outline for this unknown creature that was MUCH bigger than the owl actually was! it’s also stupid difficult to judge distances in the sky at night so they may have thought the owl was further away when it was almost on top of them. and HEY PRESTO, A LEGEND WAS BORN.
but this doesn’t mean that Mothman was never real, quite the contrary! Mothman is real in the only place that matters,,,, in our hearts
support owl conservation efforts in your local area though, and you may someday see a Mothman of your own!
That’s hysterical, because that’s exactly what he says about me.
My gran told me about the time a barn owl started hunting in a graveyard near where she lived, and a lot of people were sure they’d seen a ghost for a while before someone pointed out that nope, owl. (This was during the blackout, so no streetlights, light from windows, torches - on a moonless or overcast night you’d barely even see the owl, nevermind get a proper look at have a chance of identifying it.)
The news keeps mentioning the same two or three little “family owned” businesses that got hurt in outbreaks of panic but can’t seem to come up with any more than that.
That’s because downtown is dominated by places Starbuck’s, Rite-Aid, Target, Apple, Microsoft, Nordstrom Rack, Whole Foods, Men’s Warehouse, Payless, AT&T, Sprint, Doc Marten’s and other big chain brands.
Brands which themselves cost hundreds of people their livelihoods or homes when they came here, which people were already angry about before any of this happened.
Oops, I forgot the scientology building got vandalized too. Poor babies.
And STILL, the most that’s happened to the majority is a little graffiti.
Vandalism of business was already commonplace in a city where so much business was lost to gentrification, and the relationship between several major companies and its citizens already strained for very good reason. In fact, this isn’t even a downtown location, but a beloved bowling alley people were hoping to see reopen a couple years ago:
And here it is now:
Damage to inanimate things such as property is an inevitability when large numbers of people are angry together. It’s also undeniable that American law enforcement violates people’s rights every single day, people have protested that for generations without seeing it get better, and outrage over that is justifiable no matter whose bricks or plaster or linoleum gets caught in the crossfire. All media attention to “damaged businesses” is a distraction from what actually matters, on top of being ridiculously overblown.
rocker-socks said: This perhaps may be a bit of a stupid question, and one I could be incredibly incorrect on as I haven't been to church in years, but why is Gabriel treated as Aziraphale's boss when Aziraphale ranks higher in the third sphere? Principalities rank higher than Archangels in Angel Hierarchy, and while Archangels are there to ensure fulfilment of roles (such as Armageddon) Gabriel would still rank lower than Aziraphale, so his treatment towards Aziraphale is a tad confusing for me.
Terry and I were of the opinion that, in the world of Good Omens, archangels and Archangels were different things.
