One (1) Query and One (1) Grrrr.
Jul. 12th, 2004 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ashinaeWolfsbane potion. Remus takes it. I know that at the time of the full moon, he'll turn into a wolf, then curl up and go to sleep. Now, what I'm pondering is, does he curl up and go to sleep because:
(a) the potion essentially knocks him unconscious (it's like Contac C for werewolves!)
or
(b) when you're a werewolf with no desire to hunt human prey, it's better than spending all night scratching your ears and licking your bum.
I can't remember having the explanation for this in-text, but then, I'm a pretty typical dumb blonde and could have possibly missed it. Hee! Ahem, yes. Or has it been said anywhere, or is there one that makes more sense, or... what?
It's sad when you're reading a genuinely funny essay about the frustrations of fandom and fanfiction and poor characterisation and bad sex scenes when BAM! Everything is destroyed once again by yet another writer saying something about "badfic" writers turning grown men into weepy thirteen-year-old girls. GAH. Dude, do NOT make me write another essay about the inherent sexism in that.
Weepy != girly
Got that?
Weepy = baby. Weepy = immature.
How could saying otherwise, that someone who cannot control their emotional reactions must be a girl -- how can that possibly be anything but a sexist remark? The one person I have known in my life who cried over every little thing that went wrong was a very emotionally fragile teenage boy, whereas my two best girl friends only ever cry when they are under extreme stress because they've always had good, mature, adult coping skills. The people who have absolutely no control over their reaction to cry over every upset, who have such poor emotional coping abilities, are infants. Children. People who are very, very immature.
It is not. a. female. thing. All right? Stop giving in to society's gender expectations by saying it is. Just stop.
(a) the potion essentially knocks him unconscious (it's like Contac C for werewolves!)
or
(b) when you're a werewolf with no desire to hunt human prey, it's better than spending all night scratching your ears and licking your bum.
I can't remember having the explanation for this in-text, but then, I'm a pretty typical dumb blonde and could have possibly missed it. Hee! Ahem, yes. Or has it been said anywhere, or is there one that makes more sense, or... what?
It's sad when you're reading a genuinely funny essay about the frustrations of fandom and fanfiction and poor characterisation and bad sex scenes when BAM! Everything is destroyed once again by yet another writer saying something about "badfic" writers turning grown men into weepy thirteen-year-old girls. GAH. Dude, do NOT make me write another essay about the inherent sexism in that.
Weepy != girly
Got that?
Weepy = baby. Weepy = immature.
How could saying otherwise, that someone who cannot control their emotional reactions must be a girl -- how can that possibly be anything but a sexist remark? The one person I have known in my life who cried over every little thing that went wrong was a very emotionally fragile teenage boy, whereas my two best girl friends only ever cry when they are under extreme stress because they've always had good, mature, adult coping skills. The people who have absolutely no control over their reaction to cry over every upset, who have such poor emotional coping abilities, are infants. Children. People who are very, very immature.
It is not. a. female. thing. All right? Stop giving in to society's gender expectations by saying it is. Just stop.
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Cry, Baby, Cry
Date: 2004-07-29 04:09 pm (UTC)Weepy != girly
Got that?
Weepy = baby. Weepy = immature.
I think there's another view to consider. It is this: women/girls do cry more than men in general and that's the reason crying is associated with weakness or, as you put it, immaturity.
Why is crying easily such a bad thing? Laughing easily certainly isn't, and even shouting easily gets less negative response than crying does. Is sadness somehow a lesser emotion? Is sentimentality?
From this perspective, it's the negative view of crying that's sexist. It's not necessarily to say one sex does this while the other does that, but it certainly is sexist to diminish what one does while elevating what the other does.
Good lord, I'm wordy. Possibly also incoherent. Sorry about that.
Date: 2004-08-01 03:23 am (UTC)If a person cries whenever they have a disagreement with their partner about laundry, when they get mildly reprimanded at work, when they can't find their car keys, when... anything of any degree of "bad" happens, as is essentially what this characterisation issue is about, I'm afraid that simply can't be defined as either "male" or "female" behaviour, yeah? So when someone criticises this by using the phrase "crying like a girl" ... gah!
I've actually gone on at much greater length about this before, quite some time ago. My biggest frustration is that while it is of course more likely that a woman WILL cry, we shouldn't say that she's crying just because she's a woman. If a guy started crying over a long distance commercial, he should never, ever get teased for acting like a girl. There is absolutely nothing wrong with crying.
I do understand that, yes, women do cry more than men do. I also feel that this is largely because it is socially unacceptable for men to cry. I have absolutely no negative view on crying. I do it a fair bit myself! And, hey, two of my favourite things in the world are Lord of the Rings and Farscape, where a great deal of crying goes on by members of both genders! :D