This Is What It Comes Down To
Tag: Feminism
Toronto Terrorist’s Motivations Start To Become Clear
So it turns out that Alek Minassian, the man who drove a van into a crowd in Toronto yesterday, killing ten people (mostly women, as was his intention) was indeed a terrorist of sorts. No, not Muslim, not Christian, incel:
Toronto Terrorist Deliberately Targeted Women
For those who didn’t follow that first link, “incel” means “involuntarily celibate”. Yes, there’s actually an online movement of people who feel oppressed because they can’t get laid. Why yes, they’re almost all white men. Why do you ask?
Incels have built up an elaborate alternate reality where they themselves are hideous (when you see pictures, most are pretty ordinary-looking. They just have ridiculous standards – there are whole conversations about wrist thickness), and thus doomed to never have sex ever, because society is prejudiced against ugly white men more than anyone else. This would just be ridiculous and pathetic if they didn’t spend all of their time working themselves up into a frothing hatred of “Chads” (sexually-active men) and “Stacies” (sexually-active women, also known as “Femoids” and “Roasties” [known as such because labia allegedly look like roast beef], who are assumed to deliberately deny incels the sex they deserve out of spite), hero-worshiping Elliott Rodger and planning their revenge on the world that has so cruelly cast them out.
Because Alek Minassian is a white man, the media will try to fit him into the “mentally ill lone wolf” narrative. And he may indeed be mentally ill, but that’s not why he did this. He’s a terrorist. But because his goal – his and his movement’s – is primarily to terrorize women, he won’t be called that.
A Powerful and Important Read
…about all of these sexual assault and harassment revelations coming out these days.
This is a conversation that we need to have. People who have been silenced for too long are finally gaining a voice.
The Unforgiving Minute by Laurie Penny.
Tough Girls Post Added To Essays and Reviews Page
Tough Girls, Class Differences and Rape Culture has been added to the Reviews and Essays page. I decided to bring this over from my old blog early on, since it’s key to understanding several other essays that are coming up soon.
I’m proud of this essay, but it’s pretty raw. Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault.
Spotlighted Link: Sartorially Smart Heroines
I meant to do this sooner, but it seems that I’ve managed to wait until exactly the right time.
Why is it the exact right time? Because Sartorially Smart Heroines has come off hiatus!
(Okay, maybe I’m a little late, since the hiatus actually ended almost two weeks ago, but still.)
(Though one could argue that the hiatus itself was on hiatus more often than not.)
As the name suggests, Sartorially Smart Heroines is a blog that analyzes the outfits, costumes and armor of female characters from pop culture…not all of whom are actually heroines; the very first post I read on SSH was an analysis of Mama Gkika from the webcomic Girl Genius, who, like all the Jaegermonsters from that comic, is a war-loving super soldier who happens to be on the protagonists’ side.
It may seem an oddly specific niche – not that that’s anything unusual on the Internet – but it’s actually a very effective way to: 1) provide a feminist analysis of female bodies and how they’re presented in art and fiction; and 2) promote awesome female characters whose creators actually take them seriously.
And while you’re there, you can catch glimpses of the blogger’s upcoming fantasy novel First Empress, which I, personally, am eager to see completed.
Sartorially Smart Heroines puts up a new post every Sunday, and also has a presence on Tumblr.