I loved this scene so much. The actors play off this pairing as flirty and adorable in a way the characters really weren’t in the novels IMO.
That said, when she said the line, “Girls see more blood than boys,” my husband was all confused and like, “What, warrior women, she means?”
So I just looked at him and started listing off, “Blood from their periods every month, maybe blood from sex, blood from childbirth, blood from tending and washing the wounded and dead…That’s been true for most of womankind all through history.”
And he got very, very quiet.
I’ve reblogged this before, but I’m reblogging again for the commentary because this little exchange is like a wink to the female audience that I really loved and I guarantee you that any woman who saw this would know exactly what she means. There are a pretty big chunk of men in the world who don’t think that “women’s work” or women’s bodies are worth knowing about. Also I think find it really amusing when he tries to pass off his ignorance with, “you’re different, you’re not like other women” and she immediately shuts that down.
Jessica Chastain is an outspoken proponent for pay equity in Hollywood, an indefatigable voice fighting sexism in story lines and bottom lines. When Octavia Spencer told her women of color need to be included in the conversation, Chastain listened. While developing a holiday comedy for the two actresses to star in, Chastain brokered a “favored nations” deal, bundling their salary and led to both women getting paid five times their original asking salary.
“I have a story, and you guys are gonna be the first to hear it,” said Spencer to a panel on Women Breaking Barriers at the Sundance Film Festival. Fifteen months ago, Chastain approached her about doing a movie together. (The two have been good friends since they both starred in “The Help”).
“She wants to do comedies, and I wanna break out of period pieces,” she said as the crowd chuckled. “I love ’em! They’ve been kind to me! But I kinda wanna play someone who resembles me in some fashion.” When the subject of pay equity between men and women came up, Spencer agreed wholeheartedly:
“We were dropping F-bombs and getting it all out there. And then I said, ‘But here’s the thing, women of color on that spectrum, we make far less than white women. So, if we’re gonna have that conversation about pay equity, we gotta bring the women of color to the table.’ And I told her my story, and we talked numbers, and she was quiet, and she said she had no idea that that’s what it was like for women of color.”
Spencer paused as she choked up. “These are happy tears!” she assured the crowd.
“I love that woman, because she’s walking the walk and she’s actually talking the talk. She said, ‘Octavia, we’re gonna get you paid on this film. You and I are gonna be tied together. We’re gonna be favored nations, and we’re gonna make the same thing.’ Fast forward to last week, we’re making five times what we asked for.”
The crowd cheered before Spencer added: “Now, I wanna go to what the men are making!”
The deal resulted in a heated bidding war, with Universal beating out Fox and Paramount. The untitled holiday comedy will be produced by Chastain with her company Freckle Films. “We’re just sitting there sipping coffee, going, ‘Oh my god! Women are in demand,‘” said Spencer.
Me: So when you see the 4 year old boy pull the little girl’s hair…
Students: He likes her!
Me: Now they are around 11 or 12 and he grabs her arm and wrestles her to the ground even though she calls him a jerk and yells at him to leave her alone.
Students: That is just how boys are.
Me: Now they are 18 and he grabs her arm and–
Students: Oh, that’s not okay.
Me: Really? How would he know? How would she know? How would you know? You just told me that for the first 17 years of these children’s lives that you thought it was cute, sweet, and natural for a boy to grab a girl and be rough with her.
Students: Oh.
Me: Oh, is right.
I think the “women are mysterious” thing can also come from:
1) Women actually being quite clear, but not telling men what they want to hear. ”She said she doesn’t want to talk to me? So many mixed messages and confusing signals!”
2) Women not having cheat codes. ”I tried being nice, and she didn’t have sex with me. I tried being an asshole, and she didn’t have sex with me. Come on, there’s got to be some kind of solution to this puzzle!”
3) Women not being a hive mind. ”First a woman told me that she likes guys with big muscles. Then the very next day a woman told me she thinks muscles aren’t attractive at all. Make up your mind, women!”
4) An individual woman doing something confusing, and instead of asking “why is she doing this now?” men ask “why do women always do this?”
While we’re having a lot of lovely discourse on here about how Joss Whedon writes heroines and how people in general write heroines based on the leaked WW script, I’ like to actually address another part of the problem: how you write the dudes in the story. Because the guys will inevitably interact with the heroine and therefore their writing has an effect on how the film views her.
“Feminist Fantasy” is a term I sometimes see used to describe fantasy/sci fi/supernatural stories that have powerful female characters. Thing is, feminist fantasy, much like feminist theory, evolves as time goes on. What would still be acceptable as FF back in the 90s may come across as cliche or even regressive today because opinions change as time goes on. And that’s a huge part of why the leak WW script rubs people the wrong way, especially how the guys act and how they impact Diana’s role.
The idea of “prove the boys wrong” is one that has been done to death since my childhood. It’s a typical plot or subplot. Girl wants to do X thing, boys say she can’t since she’s a girl, girl proves boys wrong, boys learn their lesson. Here’s the thing: that is no longer feminist fantasy. Because that is real life for so many women, having to constantly prove themselves to men over and over and still be looked over next time due to being a woman and have to do it all over again. Feminist Fantasy has moved into the realm of Fury Road and Wonder Woman 2017–where the woman never has to “prove” anything, at least not to the men on her side. She’s accepted as a capable human without a whole arc proving herself such.
Max never questions Furiosa or even the wives because they are women. The times he does argue or question are purely logistical and have nothing to do with belittling them or asserting his preconceived superiority as a man–he’s usually just checking the plan. While Capable does comfort Nux, it’s Nux who proves himself to the wives by getting the rig rolling again. While Nux learns to see them as people, the onus is not on the wives and other women to make that happen. Steve only offers the barest concern for Diana being a woman, mostly just related to how she dresses in London. Other than that his main issue is the Ares thing which he does not ever use to declare Diana naive and in fact it’s noted in-universe that she may even have a point before Ares shows up. He doesn’t just humor her about Ares, its treated more as a conclusion he disagrees with but can’t prove wrong so they simply operate based on their differing conclusions (Diana’s of “Ludendorf is Ares” and Steve’s of “idc if he is or not we’ve got to stop the chemicals”) until the Ares question becomes unavoidable. The other men similarly don’t belittle Diana or creep on her, the most we get is Sameer’s “
both frightened… and aroused
” joke when she beats a guy up and Sameer jokingly commenting on wanting to see her island.
How the men act is important compared to the WW 06 script, because the 06 script is much more regressive. Both the heroic and villainous men act like creeps and belittle Diana, sexualize Diana, lecture Diana. Essentially, guys treating Diana badly is a thing both the bad guys and the good guys do and she just has to deal with it. Which is just shit, from a feminist perspective. The idea that the guys who are heroes are going to treat women as badly (or even just almost as badly) as the bad guys and the only difference is the heroic guys are the ones who change their minds when she “proves herself” is really, really old. It’s simultaneously discouraging to women and insulting to men by saying that all men are pigs and women just have to deal with that, and it’s the “strong” women who do and change the mind of the “good” men…who are still going to be pigs but maybe less so towards you since you proved yourself. The idea of a guy who’s not a pig is not a thing.
Feminist Fantasy has moved beyond that. Feminist Fantasy is no longer where women are able to constantly prove men wrong–it’s when they don’t have to prove men wrong before being taken seriously as people. Because that shows a future, a past, a world where a woman can simply be accepted as a potential expert, or a warrior, or whatever else the character is doing without having to “prove” it to any man in the vicinity because that still places the men as having power over her. It’s not that they can’t prove men wrong–some still will sometimes and all of them could if directly challenged to–it’s that they don’t have to. Guys who are on their side simply accept that yeah, a woman can be that badass while guys who aren’t on their side, well the opinions those guys have a) don’t matter as much and b) because they’re the bad guys, she’s more focused on stopping their plans than proving her worth to them.
Women having to “prove” ourselves more than men before being taken seriously is not aspirational fantasy anymore–it’s where we are, more often than not. The fantasy is that we only have to prove ourselves to the same degree as any man written in the same situation would, and be treated equally to them. We already know the real world is not there yet (see every “Rey is a Mary-Sue compared to Luke and Anakin” argument ever) but the idea that escapist fiction can’t be a bit ahead of the curve on that should be eyeroll inducing at this point.
So my dad used to teach human evolution at the University of Minnesota, right? And his favorite thing was discussing Native American cultures and bashing misogyny.
So he’d start off class by going “Raise your hand if you think you know why men hunted and women stayed back in the settlements” and most kids would raise their hands. He’d list off a few various reasons and kids would slowly start participating. Then he’d go “How many of you think it’s because men are stronger” and of course most of the males would raise their hands with a few girls. He’d then proceed to rip apart the patriarchal views they had all been taught. “No,” he’d say, “It’s because if five men went out and three or two came back no one would bat an eye. They’d grieve sure, but society would go on. Now if five women went out and three or two came back you know what would happen? Society would collapse.”
And it was true. For many Native American cultures the only reason women did what they did was because the men couldn’t do it. We are (usually) taught a twisted, self-aggrandizing form of history despite evidence suggesting the complete opposite of it.
This was present in a lot of cultures in the past before white colonization (see: imperialism and genocide)
In Australia the Aborigines believed that women were more powerful than men and closer to gods because of their ability to give birth, and men would make themselves bleed just to be like women when they came of age
In the Philippines many people held practices which celebrated a woman’s first menstruation, encouraged free sexual exploration before marriage for young men and women, and believed women to be spiritual leaders, so that the only way a “man” could be one was to become a woman (transwomen were able and even encouraged to marry, and were identified as women within the community)
Also in the Philippines economic structures defined power, so a man who was poorer than his wife would take her name, and daughters would inherit and become heads of the family if they were the eldest
Westerners love to flout how great they are at women empowerment when it comes to other cultures that treat women badly, but actively try to hide the fact that there are thousands of other cultures who treated women better centuries ago than they do even today
And that’s a fact.
I would also like to add that in pre-colonial Philippines, women can divorce their husbands and get abortions. It angers me that now, a Filipina can do neither.
Also, fun fact. The Spanish friars noticed that men had penis pins which were damn painful to put on. They asked the men why. The women FLATLY REFUSED to have sex with them if they don’t have any of those. The men also said it increased the woman’s pleasure.
another weird thing about beer is that it has weird masculinity connections to it. “ya i’ll get a beer, i don’t want none of them girly drinks” Jimothy, you’re drinking wheat juice with a 5% alcohol content and my mixed, fruity, “girly” drink is 40% alcohol and tastes great
O.KAY *CRACKS KNUCKLES* I AM ABOUT TO GIVE YOU AN EDUCATION
BEER IS TRADITIONALLY A WOMAN’S DRINK, IT IS THE MOST FEMALE OF ALL OF THE DRINKS. FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS, BEER WAS MADE AT HOME BY WOMEN, TO BE CONSUMED BY WOMEN AND CHILDREN–IT WAS ACTUALLY A SOURCE OF NUTRIENTS FOR MANY HOUSEHOLDS. WOMEN CREATED THE CRAFT OF BEER, AND FOR MOST OF HUMAN HISTORY THAT IS WHO YOU’D BUY IT FROM: MANY WOMEN MADE ADDITIONAL INCOME BY BREWING AND SELLING BEER FROM HOME. IT WASN’T UNTIL THE ERA OF INDUSTRIALIZATION THAT BEER BEGAN TO BE BREWED IN FACTORIES. AND ONCE BEER WAS BEING BREWED ON A LARGE SCALE, IT MADE TO START MARKETING IT TO ALL THE MALE FACTORY WORKERS WHO SUDDENLY HAD EXTRA INCOME. HENCE AN AGGRESSIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO RE-BRAND BEER, A DRINK INTRINSICALLY TIED WITH WOMEN’S HISTORY, AS A ‘MASCULINE’ BEVERAGE.
EVEN BETTER, FEMALE BREWSTERS WERE THE ORIGINAL WICKED OLD WITCH. THE TROPES WE COMMONLY ASSOCIATE WITH STEREOTYPICAL WITCHES ARE ACTUALLY BASED ON THE TRADITIONAL BREWSTER. CAULDRONS & HOT STEAMING POTIONS = BEER BREWING. THE WITCH’S HAT: BELIEVE IT OR NOT POINTY HATS WERE ACTUALLY WORN BY BREWSTERS WHEN SELLING THEIR PRODUCT AT MARKETS: THE ENORMOUS HEADGEAR HELPED THEM STAND OUT, AND CLEARLY TOLD EVERYONE ‘YO MOTHERFUCKA GET YOUR BEER HERE’.
CATS AS FAMILIARS: CATS WERE COMMONLY USED TO PREVENT RODENTS FROM GETTING INTO THE WHEAT. EVEN THE BROOMSTICK IS RELATED TO BEER: A BUNDLE OF TWIGS RESEMBLING A BROOM WAS USED AS AD FOR ALEHOUSES
so basically, beer is the ultimate woman’s and witch’s drink
REBLOG ME
fuck u guys, i didn’t spend 20 min fact checking for 3 notes
I am impressed at this much knowledge
Also, anthropologists say there is much evidence that women invented agriculture, and that the first semi-permenant agricultural villages were established for the primary purpose of facilitating beer-brewing.
That’s right: Civilization was invented by women. For beer.
in a list of things I didn’t ever need…Nazi Superheroes are definitely on it…
Wait does Nazi Kara get pants? Between this and RedK I am seriously not a fan of Kara only getting pants when she’s evil.
waittt! but actually! Why do we equate pants with evilness! I love pants! 😦
Astra too! Hmm. Women with pants = threatening? Less available for the male gaze? (I like Winn, but just thinking of how he made Kara’s outfit, even though she’s the one who said she loved it and kept wearing it). I’m thinking of that post about lesbian fashion “not looking hot for men and men hate it.”
I mean, these are sexy outfits still–they’re catsuits, not baggy pants, but I still wonder if it’s somehow, unconsciously, “women acting like men? Wearing pants? Having agency? Evil, stop it!”
Question of Smoke 