Feminist Pub X: Regulars and new faces welcome, consciousness raising is a possibility.

[CaptChaos]

The old pub now has less than 10 posts to go, so I thought I'd start a new one. The old one can be found here

This is a place for feminist pom pom waving and talking about stuff which might not need a thread for itself.

Fill your boots.

AnnieLobeseder, I laughed, but I'm afraid threads like that intimidate me too much to post. All of you on it though, you are amazing and brave.

sorry, i know i post lots of links to blogs, but this is really good:

mediadiversified.org/2014/09/09/black-men-need-to-support-black-feminism/

"As a black man and a feminist, I find it incredibly disturbing when other black men fail to recognise the struggles black women face. They try to tell us about their experiences, instead we tell them tackling racism is more pressing. Who says that we can’t tackle both racism and sexism together? Why must one be eradicated before the other? If you are truly about equality and respect, you’ll listen to women and their experiences. History will tell us that the two are intertwined, especially when we observe the treatment of black women during slavery.

The harsh realities which many black men don’t understand is that whilst being black is hard, being a black woman is much harder. That is why it’s important to listen then understand. Don’t derail or make it about you."

I was watching Amadeus last night. Forgotten how much fun it was. But nobody said anything about his sister who was quite as famous as he was in their early days.

Are you talking about that very long thread about how we poor women are so defensive about MRAs? Only just saw it.

Back to work...

I like your links, Petula. They're always interesting. Also, I have just womanned up and posted on the gaming thread if anyone is interested.

I like the links to blog posts. Gives me things to read on my commute! I'm trying to read more around intersectionality as there are a lot of things (as a white, middle class hetero woman) I'm just oblivious to and I need to be more aware of what I'm saying.

Has anyone been following the Janay Rice/Ray Rice situation/issue? I was reading a piece in the Guardian this morning about how we shouldn't watch the video of the attack as it's basically glorified entertainment. I've seen a few comments that given that she is in full on Stand By Your Man mode, and didn't make the video public herself that we have no right to be viewing it, it takes away even more of her own agency to have this made public against her wishes. I'm torn because I see their point, but on the other hand, it draws attention to DV and maybe she will eventually get out (even though she doesn't want to at the minute and is angry he has lost his job because of it). I don't know. I feel like we need to see this, to bring it home to people, but on the other hand it is such a massive invasion of her privacy. I don't really know what to think.

Annie I missed the thread last night (gah) but I laughed at your Inigo Montoya pics. I was too late to the party to say so though.

I love how these guys are so predictable in their style and then get so adamant that we can't tell if they are men. Comments like "your rudeness has no place in this thread..." and the constant "examples / citation please" make me think the boards they learn this on must be really fucking tedious places of contant tone policing and the giving of lists of shit. You could say "the sun rises in the east" and someone would ask for a fucking citation.

thanks terraria and hoppy!

the sad thing about the ray rice thing is that it has now moved to a "well look it's her decision to stay with him, women don't want help themselves blah blah blah" without continuing to actually examine the male violence at the core

many people look for excuses to wash their hands of DV, and this is one such opportunity

(please note i am NOT blaming janay rice for that. i know what i like to think i would do in her situation, but i'm not her and i'm not in her situation)

lol flora

"ad hominem" and "logical fallacy"

it is exactly like sixth form debating

Spent the morning on the MRA thread. What a cunt. Well done all. I have put my wide eyed, patient hat on at the end (it slightly slipped when I looked at the F4J site) to try and contribute.

Isn't it interesting that all the issues that the MRA are concerned with are in the hands of men anyway? FFS, how is that hard to compute?

The boards probably aren't like that, cause they are also full of the same brand of Mortifying Dickhead and they don't have any women to boss around.

No no no, listen to ME! I am a manly manshape and you are talking amongst yourselves WRONG, about subjects I am willfully ignorant of! Do it my way!

And the Mortifying Dickhead comment was bloody brilliant.

Reading that other thread, I have the image of us all sitting in a pub when some bore comes over to ask the ladies for a "debate" i.e. to listen to him bore on about some interesting aspect of feminism on his terms without reference to our lived experience. Some of us will patiently try to answer his questions but he doesn't listen, some will angrily engage with him but he gets shocked and says there's no need for it, we're just having a "debate" after all and some of us will listen in a bit agreeing with the other women but trying to ignore him and talk amongst ourselves. Sometimes I'm the second one but more and more I've been feeling like the type (maybe there are others) who sits scowling and getting drunk before yelling "GET TO FUCK!" through angry spittle.

Apparently Janay was hitting her husband, so it's reasonable for him to have knocked her out. So that's ok then

The MRA thread is a cesspit of teenage male privilege. The main protagonist has no clue what he's talking about, and obviously thought he could come and school the stupid mummies. Git.

precisely capt. it's like rape - people will have a checklist they want to go through in order that they can wash their hands of that incidence and avoid having to confront the big issue. so for DV:

• she was hitting him (in reality they were slapping at each other i believe - i haven't watched the video)

• she hasn't left him

• she has defended her privacy

check
check
check

so not a "legitimate" DV incidence then, no need to confront male violence at all, move along please

In my head Flora, you sounded just like Father Jack in Father Ted when you said that 'Get to fuck'. Fabulous!

Reading that other thread, I have the image of us all sitting in a pub when some bore comes over to ask the ladies for a "debate"

If that's the case, I must be the one ripping the piss out of him, and having a good old laugh at his expense. Knew those lessons from my mum would come in handy .

zazzles, in your research into games you are thinking of buying, is there any way to find out how many women developers were involved? i suspect there isn't that level of information, but it would be interesting to know i think in terms of comparing games for their portrayal of women as background/bystanders/objects/protagonists, and the way that them as playable characters are designed too

Hey Petula, just saw this question from you, and only gotten back to the computer now. As far as I know, there isn't a way to find out the number of women developers in the actual game until you buy it - most games have a 'credits' you can view, which are exactly like the film credits you see when you have viewed a film. So if you are happy to buy/borrow the game from someone and watch the credits and count the women developers, then yes, you could work out the proportion of owmen vs men developers. There are some very prominent women developers out there, but they stand out simply because they are not male. As I alluded to in my critique of Tomb Raider, they obviously didn't have a woman's input into the game, otherwise they wouldn't have infantilised her so fucking much .

Oh, and btw, I only put my critique of Tomb Raider here to protect it from the Rash of Mortifying Dickheads we have had here lately .

I remember the first Tomb Raider reboot promos, wow Lara looked so real! And tough!
Then I read an interview with one of the male creators. He used paternalistic language about Lara - the (presumed male) player was going to guide Lara around the game, not be her!

our ambassador of mortifying dickheads is back, how thrilling

He has the whole internet and he picked reddit? Really? How dull.

Yep Briar, you should see the 'making of' videos they have in the game - more paternalistic crap about how they want Lara to go on a journey to 'find herself', so they have made as infantile as they possibly could. She seems to have the emotional and psychological development of a really insecure teenager, not a confident young woman seeking to confirm who she is in life.

thanks for responding zazzles, that's interesting. i wonder whether someone like anita sarkeesian might look at the numbers and whether that has an influence on the portrayal of women. but developers may be so overwhelmingly male then it would make no difference

That reddit forum actually had a thread about an evil feminist conspiracy in gaming!!

In more exciting news, I have just submitted an application for a job I would rock at.

Ha penguin Father Jack is probably spot on. zazzles yes I forgot that one!