I’m perfectly capable of enjoying the idea of “person A, a hero, ‘saves’ person b, a villain, with the power of love” in a fictional context, and all the different ways it can play out, while also recognizing that it’s a bad idea to try to save someone from themselves if they’re dangerous in real life. I’m an adult and I understand the difference. My enjoyment if hero/villain ships in fiction does not inform my real life relationship choices. On the contrary, they allow a safe outlet me to explore and live out these ideas without suffering negative consequences in my real life.
This continued insistence by self-described feminists that I actually don’t know the difference, and am potentially endangering myself by consuming fiction featuring that trope, is not helpful. It’s not progressive or radical. It’s not liberating or empowering. It’s not “smashing the patriarchy.”
On the contrary, it’s nothing but a rehash of old misogynistic stand-bys: that women can’t be trusted to understand their own thoughts and emotions, that they have to be told what they feel and think and why, that women are blinded by innate naivety and compassion, or by sexual desire, that women need a guiding hand to protect them from their own bad judgment.
The fact that it’s women applying this to other women this time around. does not magically make it okay, does not make it less condescending, less patronizing, less violating. Women have been enforcing misogynistic social norms for other women for ages; this is nothing new. It’s no different than when my female Sunday school teachers told me that my body is inherently a temptation to sin, and I must take counter-measures to prevent others from falling from grace by covering it at the expense of my own comfort. It’s no different than when they told me that women who aren’t virgins are equivalent to chewed up gum or licked cupcakes. Sexism doesn’t stop being sexism because it’s enforced laterally.
It’s funny that these people keep implying that women who enjoy this fictional trope have a savior complex. From where I’m sitting, we aren’t the ones trying to save people who don’t need or want to be saved.
Honestly I think we need a name for this kind of condescending “it’s for their own good” themarysue-style fauxminism and I’m formally submitting “helicopter feminism” as that name.
Tag: bullshit
kinda funny when english teachers say stuff like “i can tell if you didnt read the book” or “i can tell when people bs their paper”
no you cant. you can tell when people are bad at bs-ing their paper. i didnt even read the sparknotes and i barely skimmed the wikipedia and you gave me an A. you kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies
you kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies
when guys are like “girls over [relatively low weight] shouldn’t wear [revealing article of clothing]” a lot of the time they are trying to get women above that weight to say “OH REALLY?” and post a picture of themselves looking good in that article of clothing. It’s a creepy power play designed to prey on both women’s confidence and their insecurities and trick them into posting revealing pictures of themselves for the sexual gratification of men who they otherwise wouldn’t have given the time of day. It’s a sleazy pick-up artist tactic. It’s negging. When you see an all-too-common post that’s like “bigger girls shouldn’t wear bikinis” and the response is him getting “owned” because a woman replied with pictures of herself looking beautiful, he’s not getting owned at all, he’s getting exactly the result he was hoping for. They’re basically saying “You sure showed me by sending me, a huge sexist creep, a picture of yourself in a bikini! PLEASE don’t send me nudes, I don’t know if I could take the humiliation!”
The scary thing is that I’ve had a guy admit this to me. He said something about “fat girls always have ugly tits”. I am fat and a girl. I said “no, they don’t.” He said “prove it”. When I made it clear that a) I had nothing to prove, b) why the fuck am I gonna care about some beanpole-in-a-meme-shirt’s opinion?, and c) I wasn’t EVER gonna send him shit, he went crazy. Straight up admitted that the technique always worked blah blah, I must have been a dude pretending to be a girl blah blah, and basically had a temper tantrum till I blocked him.
So 100% guys that do this are garbage and even if they’re not, remember that you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROVE ANYTHING TO ANYONE” ^^^^^^^
just moving along like everyone else 