Gender Workshop: Age of Ultra Sexism? Edition

Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke

So I have now seen Avengers, Age of Ultron, and oh, androgyne! will this post contain spoilers!

Though I’ve only just seen the movie days ago, it’s been weeks since I became aware that there were quite a number of significant debates focussed on sexism and Age of Ultron. Any number of articles could be referenced, but I’m going to draw exclusively from io9’s Meredith Woerner and Katharine Trendacosta and Salon’s Marcotte, because they take on a particularly interesting and revealing moment in Age of Ultron, but seem to miss enough that there’s room for me to add.

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Reality, warts and all

I am glad that Caitlyn Jenner can be who she really is, but this image brings up a few important points about who else she really is.

rolemodel

One other thing about the cover photo bugged me: if we’re going to celebrate acceptance of her identity, shouldn’t we note that she’s older than I am (she’s 65), yet she gets the full fashion photoshop treatment to make her photo look half her age? Apparently there’s still something shameful about reaching a distinguished age.

I have been given permission to ogle!

ogle

By Science!

In a letter to Science Careers, a post-doc asks what she should do about an advisor who’s frequently trying to peek down her shirt. The answer is a boon to men in positions of power everywhere.

As long as your adviser does not move on to other advances, I suggest you put up with it, with good humor if you can. Just make sure that he is listening to you and your ideas, taking in the results you are presenting, and taking your science seriously. His attention on your chest may be unwelcome, but you need his attention on your science and his best advice.

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The hero was the one with the coolest name: Imperator Furiosa!

We just got back from Mad Max: Fury Road.

I was disappointed. Everyone kept telling me it was some kind of crazy feminist movie. I kept waiting for the castrations, the misandry, the “I HATE ALL MEN” shrieks, the long didactic lectures about the superiority of women, and the goddess worship, and it didn’t deliver. Instead, we got a lively action movie with non-stop pacing, and an ensemble of men and women working together as equals, and being equally human…

Oh. Hang on a sec.

I guess that makes it a radical feminist movie. It was pretty good, I recommend it. Just go in expecting what it is, a vivid rapid fire thrill ride that manages to avoid tired tropes, using women as props for men to be manly around, or being patronizing.

These people actually exist?

thepenisisevil

A site called “Biblical Gender Roles” contains a terrible list of 8 steps to confront your wife’s sexual refusal. There are so many assumptions packed into that site, there doesn’t seem to be much point to arguing over the details — first thing to fix would be this Biblical attitude that women are chattel who must be subservient to their husband’s commands. The author is very concerned about this little problem:

How should you as a husband handle it when your wife directly refuses to have sex without a valid reason? Is there anything a Christian husband can do about this?

I wish he’d explained what a “valid reason” would be. I think “I don’t want to” is a valid reason, so maybe all of this Christian writer’s steps are irrelevant. But here’s all of his advice to control an uppity wife.

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Gender Workshop: Justice Foreshortened is Justice Only in the Eyes of Jerkwads Edition

Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke.

Recently prolific news aggregator Lynna brought to my attention a legal case concerning someone guilty of sexual assault out of the Land of Silver that, shall we say, fails to glister overmuch. Unlike the attractive sparkle of a rich acanthite vein (which, it should be noted, was never found in Argentina: a premature naming by aspiring and greedy colonizers), this case burns with the unflickering monochromaticity of a neon sign reading, “ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS”.

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Online Gender Workshop: Be Confused, Be Very Confused Edition

Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Veronica Quaife Crip Dyke.

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they were slogging through the twists and turns of translating “transsexual” into the language of a hypothetical world where sex == gender. As expected, there were some difficulties. Some of these difficulties arise from confusion at the statement, “just what does it mean to say that sex == gender”? While frustrating for those honestly attempting to answer the question, the confusion, I judge, is fair given that actual advocates for using sex in place of gender or gender in place of sex rarely show much of the totality of what they intend to convey by conflating the two.

There are, of course, languages where there is only one term for both sex and gender. Those folks will have had some leg up on the work. Nonetheless, the confusing world of communicating across others’ assumptions that sex == gender does not end at the creation of a definition, not even at the creation of a satisfying one. While the discussion about the implications of those definitions will continue in the original thread, here we will take things just a step further.

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