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Ego Meme and Subtle Mysogyny
1. Reply to this post if you'd like some ego boosting.
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you, only you, and why I think whatever I do about you.
Alli-kun so totally stroked my ego. No one has actually said I'm FUNNY before!!! *slips him a twenty on the side* ;)
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I've been rereading the Belgariad, by whathisface, recently and I'm finding it harder and harder to ignore the subtle mysogyny in it. There is some overt feminism - some women might actually be good rulers! - but the mysogyny slithers into all of the crevaces and may end up with me no longer reading the books if I reach the point where I can't stomach it... which would be a first for me; I've stopped reading books because I didn't like them, but not because I liked them but disapproved of the assumptions and values of the world created.
Let me explain what I mean by subtle mysogyny, since I'm here. Take the character of Polgara - the daughter of Belgarath and a powerful sorceress and disciple of Aldur. There is an overt reference to and sidestepping of overt mysogyny when she is declared the last - her father says he wasn't used to the idea of women as disciples or equals and the implication is that was obviously wrong - but the subtle mysogyny infuses her entire existence as a character through the following:
1) differences in sexual mores based entirely on gender. Belgarath and many of the other disciples are all sexually active, and often lustfully so. Polgara, despite living thousands of years and loving several men, is a virgin on her wedding night and appears to have no sexual desires whatsoever. In fact, the only female character to demonstrate sexual desires is turned into a snake.
2) differences in moral demands. The male disciples are allowed to be violent and overtly powerful. It is seen as a basic part of their nature. Polgara's only fits of violence are destroying a bedroom when her father outsmarts her, and is portrayed as a childish fit.
3) differences is the types of roles. The disciples are active or exploritory. Polgara's main tasks are taking care of people via manipulaiton, be they the Arends or her own family.
4) a bloody fucking annoying emphasis on the inscrutability of women. Every time I turn around in these books, there's another one. We're the same species, people; don't you think we can set these ideas of the cultural differences between men and owmen aside and approach each other as people??? And don't even get me started on the whole idiocy around Belgarion's wedding where all the young men getting married looked baffled and all the women looked smug.
5) the whole fishing nonsense. Men like to fish. Women don't understand it, but agreeing to clean fish is betraying womanhood. C'mon, it's a hobby, people, not some sort of amazing and perplexing thing. Incredibly, women can even fish and enjoy it! I know, shocking.
6) the relegation of woman's influence as manipulation. Even if it's presentd flatteringly, it's still women who manipulate instead of act.
I could probably come up with more, but honestly - can't we let this fallacious men are from mars, women are from venus nonsense GO already?
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you, only you, and why I think whatever I do about you.
Alli-kun so totally stroked my ego. No one has actually said I'm FUNNY before!!! *slips him a twenty on the side* ;)
-----------------------------
I've been rereading the Belgariad, by whathisface, recently and I'm finding it harder and harder to ignore the subtle mysogyny in it. There is some overt feminism - some women might actually be good rulers! - but the mysogyny slithers into all of the crevaces and may end up with me no longer reading the books if I reach the point where I can't stomach it... which would be a first for me; I've stopped reading books because I didn't like them, but not because I liked them but disapproved of the assumptions and values of the world created.
Let me explain what I mean by subtle mysogyny, since I'm here. Take the character of Polgara - the daughter of Belgarath and a powerful sorceress and disciple of Aldur. There is an overt reference to and sidestepping of overt mysogyny when she is declared the last - her father says he wasn't used to the idea of women as disciples or equals and the implication is that was obviously wrong - but the subtle mysogyny infuses her entire existence as a character through the following:
1) differences in sexual mores based entirely on gender. Belgarath and many of the other disciples are all sexually active, and often lustfully so. Polgara, despite living thousands of years and loving several men, is a virgin on her wedding night and appears to have no sexual desires whatsoever. In fact, the only female character to demonstrate sexual desires is turned into a snake.
2) differences in moral demands. The male disciples are allowed to be violent and overtly powerful. It is seen as a basic part of their nature. Polgara's only fits of violence are destroying a bedroom when her father outsmarts her, and is portrayed as a childish fit.
3) differences is the types of roles. The disciples are active or exploritory. Polgara's main tasks are taking care of people via manipulaiton, be they the Arends or her own family.
4) a bloody fucking annoying emphasis on the inscrutability of women. Every time I turn around in these books, there's another one. We're the same species, people; don't you think we can set these ideas of the cultural differences between men and owmen aside and approach each other as people??? And don't even get me started on the whole idiocy around Belgarion's wedding where all the young men getting married looked baffled and all the women looked smug.
5) the whole fishing nonsense. Men like to fish. Women don't understand it, but agreeing to clean fish is betraying womanhood. C'mon, it's a hobby, people, not some sort of amazing and perplexing thing. Incredibly, women can even fish and enjoy it! I know, shocking.
6) the relegation of woman's influence as manipulation. Even if it's presentd flatteringly, it's still women who manipulate instead of act.
I could probably come up with more, but honestly - can't we let this fallacious men are from mars, women are from venus nonsense GO already?
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Done.
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you, only you, and why I think whatever I do about you.
I shall.
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I could use a boost
(and yes, the Belgariad is sexist. I can usually tell when I LIKE NONE OF THE FEMALE CHARACTERS. I wonder if the ones he wrote with his wife are any better?)
Re: I could use a boost
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Sounds good. Count me in.
Ok
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He just has no idea about women. Or anything else, really. Every concept in the book is given the same flailingly juvenile treatment. He makes a stab at a morally ambiguous 'oh, the bad guys are just like us, really' moment, and gives it about as much depth as I just gave that sentence. No, seriously, that's IT. Then it's back to 'oh, but they are, really, and here's some that are really just PATHOLOGICALLY evil, so we can make our big thunderous speeches and kill them with our god-moded powers while saying things like "I AM JUSTICE!!" lololol'
Everything in the series is resolved immediately. Bad guys have done something awful! Oh, let's kill them all on the next page. Oh no, my wife came into the room as i was saying something that, taken out of context, sounded really bad! Oh, let's get together and talk on the next page, phew, CRISIS AVERTED! Oh, no, we're trapped in a DEATH PIT! We'd better get out of it on the next p- Oh, wow, that was quick! Ha ha ha! We sure are deserving of our smug, invincible air of superiority! (Oh, but we've all had hard times, so that makes it all right, because we have hidden depth, and are thus free to act like spoiled asshats.)
You want to know how bad it gets? Toward the end, one character DIES, and then, within TWO PAGES, is brought back to life by a FRIENDLY GOD.
Eddings TRIES to give his female characters power and character, but he just doesn't have a freaking clue how it's done, so we wind up with controlling mother-figures like Polgara, for whom it's clear Eddings has some kind of sick reverence, and 'passionate' firey redhead characters, like that other one. Oh, hey, here's a good one. In the second series, a woman is raped (offstange) by a raider (note somber and realistic treatment of wartime horrors), and then, in the next paragraph (naturally), she gets to cut his nuts off (offstage). See! JUSTICE! And plus that makes her a strong character, you see, because she got to cut his nuts off and also she got raped and you have to get raped or be treated otherwise appallingly to be a strong female character.
But really, the portrayal of the boys is no less pathetic. They're all the same mental age -- somewhere around fifteen or so. They like fishing! They rib each other in friendly ways! They don't understand girls, but are enchanted by them! Boys are foolish and insensitive and emotionally baffled by their passionate, irrational feminine counterparts! Neither sex understands the other! Ha ha ha! It's crazy! (shoots self)
There are 'mysteries' and 'twists' and they're so predictable it never actually occured to me to be surprised. Every concept is treated with appalling stereotypicality. Shall I give another example? Every character in the party is some sort of secret royalty. Yes, ALL OF THEM. If not now, then just wait til they marry one of the other, more MONARCHOUS characters in the party. IT'LL HAPPEN.
This is, at the bottom line, like something a kid would have written after his first few D&D games during school break, taken and hailed as the second coming of fantasy literature. Every saving throw is made. Every Bluff and Persuade roll is made at a natural 20. And I think that here, we finally have the answer to our perplexing riddle.
Eddings isn't mysoginist. He's just a child.
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Live long and prosper~
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