girlofprey

Bad Girl's Guide series by Cameron Tuttle

This is sort of a recommendation as much as anything, but the Bad Girl's Guide series is one I really enjoyed when I was younger. I'm honestly not sure how easy they are to find anymore, but there seem to be some listings on Amazon at least. They're not books to take seriously, but they were books that were genuinely, a little flippantly, about not pleasing anyone - not just 'how to get what you are supposed to want' or 'how to be sexily naughty', but genuinely just fun little books. Subjects covered include 'how to leave tire tracks in a car', 'how to repel (not just attract) men', and 'ways of getting off the hook'. To be honest, I still have my copies and haven't read them in years (besides getting them out just now), so they might be super-annoying now, but I remember really enjoying them about 10 years ago.

Happy International Women's Day, everyone, we are 50% of the human race, and we deserve 50% of the days, and 50% of the month's, not just one!

I got my redundancy letter yesterday, and it turns out on top of the redundancy payment my parents predicted, I'm getting paid for 20 working days notice, so another four weeks pay on top of that. Plus what I earned through furlough this month until I was made redundant. So I'm actually not too bad off for money, and genuinely contemplating not even jobsearching until spring when hopefully the country's in a better spot and it's hopefully less of a risk. I don't know, though. I think I'm going to call Citizen's Advice tomorrow and see what my options are, as someone unemployed who doesn't actually want to go to a workplace any time soon.

It's a week until the clocks go back, and everything gets darker. I'm still trying to rearrange my sleeping schedule, so we'll see how that goes. It just feels like nothing's really going to happen until at least Christmas. All I'm looking forward to at the moment is an announcement of a new Sims expansion on Tuesday, and even that's reserved after the Star Wars bullshit they were pushing last time. I'm looking forward to the PS5 as well, but that's over a month away. The American election will be over by then. I'll have had to pick up another prescription. No point pinning any joy on that right now.

It still blows my mind that 'bitch' is so widespread these days. I kind of get it, I mean it's a fun word to say, satisfying. But it literally means dog, if you call a woman a bitch you are literally calling her an animal, subhuman. And it's still so accepted. You can call a man a bitch of course, but the insult there is that you're calling him a woman, which I guess is to a man what being an animal is to a human. Still not exactly positive for women. I still say bitch occasionally, but pretty much only for comedy reasons. I've really tried to cut down on it in my language in general.

The Laugh of the Medusa by Helene Cixous

I read The Laugh of the Medusa in university, as part of the Theory part of my English course, and it honestly changed my life. It's a very short read, but so concise, and powerful. I think everyone should read it, but especially women, just in case it has something in it for you. Here it is in full, although it was originally written in French and I think that's a translation of a revised version, so I don't know if it's the text I read in university. But it reads the same.

And particularly this passage:

"To write. An act which will not only [...]; it will tear her away from the superegoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty (guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being "too hot"; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and for not having any; for nursing and for not nursing ... )"

Made me rethink everything I thought about women and sexism and the way people thought about me, and the way I thought about myself. It is an amazing essay.

“If women allow themselves to be consoled for their culturally determined lack of access to the modes of intellectual debate by the invocation of hypothetical great goddesses, they are simply flattering themselves into submission (a technique often used on them by men). All the mythic versions of women, from the myth of the redeeming purity of the virgin to that of the healing, reconciliatory mother, are consolatory nonsenses; and consolatory nonsense seems to me a fair definition of myth, anyway. Mother goddesses are just as silly a notion as father gods. If a revival of the myths gives women emotional satisfaction, it does so at the price of obscuring the real conditions of life. This is why they were invented in the first place.”

-Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman, 1978


For some reason I remembered or heard the above quote as 'the best way to keep a woman down is to tell her she's a goddess', which must have been a summary I guess. I don't entirely agree with all of the above quote now - although I'm an atheist who doesn't actually believe in gods of any kind - but it still represents some problems that I have with a lot of ways women are talked about. It's also my entire problem with 'magical girl' characters, especially when they're one of the few, or the only, female characters in a story. Women are human. Writing about women as humans is okay, and accurate. You can write about ordinary women, struggling with things. That will also be interesting, if you make it as interesting as it is in real life. And probably mean a lot more to a lot of women.

Little Red Cap
by Carol Ann Duffy

At childhood's end, the houses petered out
into playing fields, the factory, allotments
kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,
the silent railway line, the hermit's caravan,
till you came at last to the edge of the woods.
It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.

He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud
in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,
red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears
he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!
In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,
sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,

my first. You might ask why. Here's why. Poetry.
The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,
away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place
lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,
my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer
snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes

but got there, wolf's lair, better beware. Lesson one that
night,
breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.
I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for
what little girl doesn't dearly love a wolf?
Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws
and went in search of a living bird - white dove -

which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.
One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,
licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back
of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with
books.
Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,
warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

But then I was young - and it took ten years
in the woods to tell that a mushroom
stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds
are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf
howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,
season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon
to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf
as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw
the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother's bones.
I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.
Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.

-

This is probably the first poem I ever loved.

It's women's month. My plan is to post something every day, but it might not be much, I don't want to write essays every day. And it might be a bit basic, and it might be white, because that's largely what I've been exposed to, but it is things I love and want to share. I had a plan for myself to watch a bunch of female-centric films and shows and to read books by women, but I think now a lot of it will still be playing Ghost of Tsushima. Which stars a man and is probably mostly made by men, but has some really nice female characters in it. I'm still going to make an effort to do the other stuff though.

Sunless Sea is a really good game, but it's very frustrating. It's set up so most of the time you'll die and have to start again, just having learned something new. But that also means you have to go through the same early game setup over, and over, again, pretending to be surprised by all the new revelations, and hoping you get the same lucky breaks as you did before, knowing how long it will be till you're set up enough to actually see something new again. As a result, I spent a lot of yesterday playing with a captain called 'Shithead'. Shithead was probably my most successful captain, and I was a little bit worried I was going to win the game with her. But then she died to a random wandering boss monster I couldn't defeat or get away from. So I get to start again. With Isobel. I'm hoping she will do just as well.

I'm so desperate for them to put horses in the Sims I'm ready to go back to Red Dead Redemption and ride those horses. Even though I know what a pain it is to play that game. Do they put the instructions in a handy menu screen or sheet of paper in the game box? No they do not. You just have to try to remember how to make your horse stop, or aim a gun. Currently they're speculating on the Sims forums that we'll get a romantic Paris-themed pack next, despite really very little evidence. If EA thought just not releasing any information about what new content was upcoming for the Sims would stop people speculating and then being disappointed, I think they have made a misstep.

I can't remember if I said we were being called back to work on 1st July previously in this journal, but I was incorrect - my manager actually said 'the beginning of July'. And hasn't given any further update on exactly when this is. Next week? The week after? I'm going to text him and hope for a response.

I've just realised women don't have a month. People talking about Pride month got me thinking about it. We only have a day. That doesn't seem like much for an entire half of the world's population. Maybe I will have a women's history month. Maybe in August.

I hate every aspect of discourse that isn't "accepting that you aren't in control of everything, and don't know everything". I saw a conversation happening on twitter in response to some new twat that's around - I think it was Patterson Jones or something - and someone pulled out the quote "Chaos is the eternal feminine", and was saying no, the eternal feminine is creative, the eternal feminine is life-giving, and something else that makes us sound like magical fairies. Instead of 1) femininity and masculinity are made up, they are literally what we talk about when we talk about gender as a social construct, and 2) chaos is what twats see when the talk about women and equality, because it is that idea of men letting go of control, or the idea of control they have, and reassure themselves of by trying to control other people. Accepting that other experiences are valid, even if you'll never have them or really understand them, is a big part of fighting sexism, and I would argue you can associate that a little more with women than with men, because women are taught so often to co-operate rather than compete - I think women are more likely to accept another person's difference from them, and to be aware that whatever plans they have for a situation might not come off just because you never know how other people are going to react, and what they're going to want to do. It's the fact that twats - and twats in more than just sexism - see this as 'chaos' and are afraid of it that is the problem. And I genuinely think that to deny that is to misunderstand the problem.

And I hate that everything is on the level of children nowadays. So many progressive issues seem to only be going forwards because "what will the children think?", and children are important and lovely, and progressive issues should absolutely move forward, but...adults are the point of the human race. They are the plan of our DNA, and the ultimate form of us. It's not bad to consider them too, or work to make things better for them, or...to consider adult issues, in a complex way, that is accepting of the fact that we all have flaws, we will always have flaws, it's only how far that should go that should need to be discussed. I followed a teacher recently on Twitter, and she was very interested in representation in children's books - which is important, absoulutely - but every question seemed to come back to 'what about children, how will children react to this, what are we teaching children'? And...you can discuss these subjects in terms of adults. Ideally, you should be, since that's literally what society is mostly made up of, or the effective part of society right now. I know it's difficult with the internet, and not knowing what kids are seeing or have access to, that you wouldn't know they had access to or want them to see. But. Adults should be the point. In socialism and social theory. Almost always. I know that a lot of problems start in childhood, with what we're taught. But adulthood is where they end. And where we can actually confront those issues and think about them.

And I hate that entertainment is all on the level of children nowadays, I can't believe everything is Disney, it genuinely took me a while to realise that all the Disney films (obviously), Marvel films and Star Wars films are all Disney at the moment. Someone was talking about the new Star Wars film at Christmas and how some people had issues with it, on one of the podcasts I watch, and someone just replied mildly with "It's for kids, though. Star Wars is for kids." As a reason why people shouldn't criticise it or expect too much from it. When the films are great and everyone loves them, it's great, they're for everyone, but when they're bad, you know, it's just a kid's film. That's a fucking shame, since most of the films that are popular and are the most seen at the moment are all kid's films. We don't really have so many big films for adults anymore, apparently. And everyone's just saying "yeah well, the Marvel films won't really get into [that subject] too deeply, because Disney won't have it". And ffffffhhf. That is the level of the mirror that is currently being held up to life at the moment. I know there are other films than Marvel and Star Wars out at the moment, I know that, but nothing's really taking off like Die Hard at the moment, is it? And I know that kids are where the money is, and I know that films that can appeal to all ages are always going to be more popular than very mature films, just because they have a wider audience and kids aren't super-critical. But at the moment it seems like that's all there is, like that's the big stuff we're all looking forward to. And I don't understand the obsession with Disney films in adults in America, and I don't understant the obsession with YA literature, and I don't understand the way people defend it as great and that it should be the most popular in the world. Like...if you like that stuff, fine, but - the reason why Young Adult literature is called Young Adult is because it is sub-adult. It is written for people a little too young for proper adult books. That is literally what it means. And even if it touches on very serious subjects and themes, it's never going to go into them with the same exploration and depth that an adult book would, because it is by definition written to be shallower than an adult book. That is basically the definition of the type of writing. That's why it exists. It will never be on the level of an adult book because it is Young Adult. We should have things for adults too. Adults are still growing. An adult can look at a subject much more freely and objectively than a child ever could, and should be encouraged to do so. That's the definition of a mature mind, and our media should reflect that. And I know there are very worthy, serious films and books out there, and incredibly incredibly gruesome horror films out there, that's not what I'm talking about. There should be films that are fun for adults that can casually and without shying away acknowledge adult topics, and look at them, and ask questions about them. We should have those. They should be big news.

Learning to love and value yourself is an important part of progressivism. Learning how to get over yourself is another important part.

And I hate Tony Stark, and hope he dies within the first few seconds of Infinity Wars and isn't spoken of again.

This has been my hate post.

I've just seen a 'Girl Power Fashion' segment on the Lorraine show, to celebrate the anniversary of British women getting the vote. At no point did they say you don't have to wear high heels, and feel precarious all the time, or wear make-up, since your actual face is fine, or follow fashion if you don't want to. It was about slogan t-shirts.

Also, yesterday on This Morning they interviewed a man who genuinely believed he'd been visited by aliens throughout his life, and lost his virginity to one of them, and had fathered numerous alien children. So maybe it isn't just the weird 'feminism vs' bits, and they really are just turning into Sky News. Taking advantage of a man's probable mental illness for a bit though is a little too much.

Dear women,

You're not the worst. You're the best.