Memo to Writer Dudez, aka Fuck You, Rape Culture

[caitri]

Dear Dudez,

Please, please stop trying to write stories in which dystopian worlds are best articulated through who owns the female body. We realize that as bearers of penises, the thought of one's body not belonging to you is exotic and more than a little bit creepy, but to FIFTY PERCENT of the POPULATION of the fucking GLOBE, it's a brutal fact of life that is a very real struggle.

You realize the shit you write about is real, yes? That women are raped every day? That in an "enlightened" (ie "Western") culture, we are "only" held up to impossible standards of beauty, BMI indexing, expectations of dress and hygiene, social mores, and that AT ANY FUCKING TIME AT ALL, a man can decide that we don't meet them and then write about it on the internet or on newsprint or talk about it on the air, or physically accost us (and again, thanks to rape culture, it will ALWAYS be our fault), or hell, go into the fucking gym and shoot us. This doesn't even touch on issues of obtaining birth control, rape kits, health care,etc ad nauseam.

And everytime you say what you're doing is a "critique", even as your main characters are flawlessly sexualized or appear to have minimal problems dealing with their horrible pasts, I really just want to throttle you.

(And yes, Mr Itoh, I know you died of cancer two years ago. YOU ARE NOT EXCUSED.)

So, in short: Dudez? Go fuck yourselves.

Love,
Me

Comments

[aadarshinah.livejournal.com]

amen sister

[caitri.livejournal.com]

^5

[joirerson.livejournal.com]

AGREED.

Just... trying to think of coherent agreement, and only coming up with sputtering. Did you see Sucker Punch? I read the io9 and jezebel reviews and decided it sounded too... everything you just said.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

I haven't--I'm too afraid of what it will do to my blood pressure. *grump*

[tn-tiger.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm disagreeing with you AT ALL...but do you consider it better when a woman (Margaret Atwood, for example) puts that issue at the centerpice of dystopia? someone who knows what it's like to have her agency limited and doesn't make it seem like an exotic non-western problem?

[caitri.livejournal.com]

Yup, as a matter of fact I do, at least in this case. (Actually, come to think of it, it doesn't irritate me when Whedon does it either.) I think the difference might be that she grapples with the issues in a meaningful way, acknowledging their horror, as opposed to a weird kind of voyeurism (eg Bacigalupi or Snyder). Itoh was much better than the other two, but there was a whole subplot about one character not having a real consciousness/soul until she had to develop it as a way to deal with the rapes--WTELF??

[tn-tiger.livejournal.com]

And to top off this discussion...just in case your blood pressure is ever too low...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-mendelson/mpaa-thinks-a-young-women_b_840958.html

[caitri.livejournal.com]

WTELF?

[amine-eyes.livejournal.com]

THIS THIS THIS DE THIS THIS.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

EPIC icon is EPIC.

[amine-eyes.livejournal.com]

Bashir makes everything epic :D

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

What was I going to say? I'm too busy admiring your icons.

(Seriously, though, well said, caitri!)

[caitri.livejournal.com]

<3

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

Oh dear lord, more books to avoid but a good reason to use this icon. Seriously I think it can be written and dealt with interestingly as you mention Wheadon does, but he does it from showing the horror and not shying away from the mental issues it will leave.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

The irritating thing is the Harmony book was SO good until the end. *is SO BEYOND PISSED OFF*

[100wordspermin.livejournal.com]

I saw a trailer for Sucker Punch before Red Riding Hood and it made me a sad and furious at the same time.

Grr.

[caitri.livejournal.com]

I knooooooooow!!!