I came across this comic strip some time ago on a now defunct blog. The caption was implying that the girl was somehow hypocritical because she got pissed off with the sexism and cat-calling in society but then enjoyed the “same thing” in the last frame.
A list of books for Black men who want to support Black women and gain a better understanding of race tied to toxic masculinity, sexism, male privilege, misogyny and misogynoir (a hatred for Black women). After you finish this list, APPLY THIS KNOWLEDGE- PRACTICE IT. BE GOOD TO BLACK WOMEN. LOVE US BETTER: ✊ We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks This book will change your life. A Black woman took the time to not only explain why Black men can be sexist, she reveals how you are also oppressed and provides strategies on how you can heal. If you are able to heal, then you will be able to truly support Black women. - Here is the PDF: https://feminism.memoryoftheworld.org/Bell%20Hooks/We%20Real%20Cool_%20Black%20Men%20and%20Musculinity%20(449)/We%20Real%20Cool_%20Black%20Men%20and%20Musculinity%20-%20Bell%20Hooks.pdf ✊ Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought by Beverly Guy-Sheftall - check out a series of writings by different Black women ✊ At The Dark End of the Street by Danielle McGuire This is written by a white woman, however, this reveals Black women as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement and how (trigger warning) sexual violence was a contributing factor. ✊ Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde -Read all of it for sure, however, please read the essay “The Erotic as Power: Uses of the Erotic as Power.” It’s important that you understand why it is a terrible thing to sexually shame women. Lorde will also teach you that Black women don’t owe you anything romantically or period. We will support you, but we don’t have to be with you. Be ok that you may not be of interest when it comes to our sexuality. “Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.” - Audre Lorde ✊ The Womanist Reader ( a Womanist Anthology) edited by Layli Phillips - A lot of you as Black men only discuss feminism as if it is a dirty word. Learn that [white] Feminism is very different from Black Feminism. BUT now learn that Black women can want to dismantle patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. and not be a Black Feminist. THIS BOOK shows there are a series of Black women who identify as Womanist. There are also Africana Womanist, African Feminist, and Intersectional Feminism. A matter of fact, Black women can actually have all of these beliefs, but not label ourselves as any of these Black women ideologies. ✊ “Womanism” (the essay) by Alice Walker (Yes, the woman who wrote The Color Purple) - This can be found in the a Womanist Reader. In 1979, Walker coined the term Womanism. This is typically the reading that I have found has changed Black men’s perspectives on Black women… Some of you have been brought to tears by it. Get into it. ✊ In Search of Our Mother’s Garden by Alice Walker ✊ “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” (an essay) by Kimberle Crenshaw - In 1991, a Black woman coined a term that was intended to debunk why it’s difficult to be just “race first,” especially as a Black woman when we have various identities that place us at the margins (keep us oppressed just like you and sometimes more so). The term is “intersectionality.” Here is a PDF- http://multipleidentitieslgbtq.wiki.westga.edu/file/view/crenshaw1991.pdf ✊ Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology (an essay) by Deborah K. King If you have heard of W.E.B. Du Bois, double consciousness, imagine reading something as Black men discussing the various identities and intersections that we face as Black women. King shows how socially this keeps Black women in comparison to you and people of other races and genders at the bottom. Here is a PDF- http://web.uvic.ca/~ayh/318King%20Multiple%20Jeopardy.pdf ✊ Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins - It is just important. Period. and gain a better understanding of race tied to toxic masculinity, sexism, male privilege, misogyny and misogynoir (a hatred for Black women). After you finish this list, APPLY THIS KNOWLEDGE- PRACTICE IT. BE GOOD TO BLACK WOMEN. LOVE US BETTER: ✊ We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks This book will change your life. A Black woman took the time to not only explain why Black men can be sexist, she reveals how you are also oppressed and provides strategies on how you can heal. If you are able to heal, then you will be able to truly support Black women. - Here is the PDF: https://feminism.memoryoftheworld.org/Bell%20Hooks/We%20Real%20Cool_%20Black%20Men%20and%20Musculinity%20(449)/We%20Real%20Cool_%20Black%20Men%20and%20Musculinity%20-%20Bell%20Hooks.pdf ✊ Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought by Beverly Guy-Sheftall - check out a series of writings by different Black women ✊ At The Dark End of the Street by Danielle McGuire This is written by a white woman, however, this exposes Black woman as the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement and how (trigger warning) sexual violence was a contributing factor. ✊ Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde -Read all of it for sure, however, please read the essay “The Erotic as Power: Uses of the Erotic as Power.” It’s important that you understand why it is a terrible thing to sexually shame women. Lorde will also teach you that Black women don’t owe you anything romantically or period. We will support you, but we don’t have to be with you. Be ok that you may not be of interest when it comes to our sexuality. “Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.” - Audre Lorde ✊ The Womanist Reader ( a Womanist Anthology) edited by Layli Phillips - A lot of you as Black men only discuss feminism as if it is a dirty word. Learn that [white] Feminism is very different from Black Feminism. BUT now learn that Black women can want to dismantle patriarchy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. and not be a Black Feminist. THIS BOOK shows there are a series of Black women who identify as Womanist. There are also Africana Womanist, African Feminist, and Intersectional Feminism. A matter of fact, Black women can actually have all of these beliefs, but not label ourselves as any of these Black women ideologies. ✊ “Womanism” (the essay) by Alice Walker (Yes, the woman who wrote The Color Purple) - This can be found in the a Womanist Reader. In 1979, Walker coined the term Womanism. This is typically the reading that I have found has changed Black men’s perspectives on Black women… Some of you have been brought to tears by it. Get into it. ✊ In Search of Our Mother’s Garden by Alice Walker ✊ “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” (an essay) by Kimberle Crenshaw - In 1991, a Black woman coined a term that was intended to debunk why it’s difficult to be just “race first,” especially as a Black woman when we have various identities that place us at the margins (keep us oppressed just like you and sometimes more so). The term is “intersectionality.” Here is a PDF- http://multipleidentitieslgbtq.wiki.westga.edu/file/view/crenshaw1991.pdf ✊ Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology (an essay) by Deborah K. King If you have heard of W.E.B. Du Bois, double consciousness, imagine reading something as Black men discussing the various identities and intersections that we face as Black women. King shows how socially this keeps Black women in comparison to you and people of other races and genders at the bottom. Here is a PDF- http://web.uvic.ca/~ayh/318King%20Multiple%20Jeopardy.pdf ✊ Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins - It is just important. Period. One day I will add more to this list Black men. I just hope that you read it. I love you, but I’m calling you to do better by Black women.
If you were the girl who was hated by the parents of every person you ever dated in school, you probably grew up into the girl who’s now hated by all your friends’ significant others.
I see you. I know you never did anything wrong. It’s not your fault. You’ll find your people.
this is really important so i’m posting it here because it’ll probably get removed and the original poster may be banned, but this is literal documentation and proof that terfs and transphobes are directly connected to the far-right and have roots in racism, homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism. it really is all part of the same oppressive system, so there is no disconnecting transphobia from conservatism. there is no such thing as a progressive transphobe as much as they may want you to believe. it has nothing to do with biology or protecting women or children, none of it is founded in science or logic, it is purely hatred and and attempt to justify bigotry.
[Transcription:
I got radicalized into the far-right on TikTok. Well, technically I didn’t, but an account that I made did, and this is a graph of what that looked like. I just published this study, and I’ll link it in the comments, but I’ll also break it down right now, here.
So I wanted to examine whether or not transphobia is a gateway prejudice that leads to like, broader far-right radicalization. It’s been pretty clear for a while now that the far-right is transphobic, but we wanted to see whether being transphobic alone was enough to lead you to the far right.
So I made a brand new TikTok account and followed 14 creators known to post transphobic content. Then I started scrolling my ‘For You’ page, and I started exclusively engaging with transphobic content, and I documented the main narratives of the more than 400 videos recommended to me. We also double-blind coded this, meaning that another researcher also watched every video and coded the narratives, and then if we ever disagreed, more researchers would come in and perform a tie-breaker. Once we removed sponsored videos and videos that had been taken down before they could be double-coded, we were left with 360 videos.
Of the 360 total videos, 103 were homophobic or anti-trans, 42 were misogynistic, 29 contained racist narratives or white supremacist messaging, and 14 endorsed violence. Obviously, TikTok didn’t just like give us neo-nazi content immediately. I actually didn’t get my first Nazi symbol until video 141. But the more I interacted with transphobic content, the more I was fed not only more transphobic content, but also homophobia and misogyny and racism and antisemitism. So I didn’t actually have to interact with racist content to be fed white supremacist content, I just had to engage with transphobic content.
What you see in this graph is the TikTok algorithm starting off with a normal feed — memes, recipes, whatever — and then going “OHH, you’re transphobic! Have you tried hating the gays? What about women?”
So, it appears that transphobia can radicalize a TikTokker.
Around video 400, you’ll notice an interesting spike in far-right figures, hate symbols, antisemitism and calls to violence. That’s when I reached fascist TikTok and set my phone on fire. 400 videos might sound like a lot, but if a user watches each video for an average of 20 seconds, they would end up watching 400 videos in just over 2 hours. So, a user could basically download the app at breakfast and be fed the overtly white supremacist, neo-nazi content before lunch.
Trends that should stop: having “evil” versions of female characters wear more revealing clothes and act more sexually aggressive than the “good” version, because that demonizes women’s sexuality and ties it to having lower morals and it’s just generally a shitty gross trope
yeah if you dont socialize boys from birth to only see women as sex partners/objects and normalize healthy non-sexual/romantic friendships between men and women
This is exactly what I was talking about the other day. It’s not even just the bizarre urge to sexualize children, it’s that they’re sexualized with the explicit purpose of then policing their hypothetical sexuality. Little girls have sexuality forced on them for the sole purpose of teaching them that sexuality is meant to be shameful.
This year we honor performer, actor, writer, and icon Miss Piggy for more than forty years of blazing feminist trails with determination and humor, and for her groundbreaking role inspiring generations the world over.
I love the Brooklyn Museum, but why are they giving one of the few awards honoring women to a fictional puppet pig voiced by a man? Could they really not find a real human woman who was deserving of this?
don’t you know it’s not good for your hair to wash it every day. you have to use sulfate and paraben free shampoo. you have to wash your hair with conditioner instead. you should stop washing your hair for a month because actually your scalp has the natural ability to maintain itself. greasy hair can make your acne worse so make sure you wash it every day. you have to use this three step regiment on your face EVERY SINGLE night. buy this $70 serum and use it with the 10 other serums you have but don’t combine them. don’t use anything on your face except a gentle cleanser and moisturizer. do NOT use moisturizer on your face you are DESTROYING your skins natural moisture barrier! acne is just for teenagers you’ll grow out of it :) oh no but adult acne is sooooo common. just take birth control and your acne will go away. cut out all sugar and dairy and your acne will go away. actually those studies are fake, get light therapy treatments instead. take accutane and your acne will go away, only a couple of those kids killed themselves! shave your armpits because it looks better. if you shave your armpits you’re not a feminist. actually shaving your armpits is for HYGIENE. wax your legs. wax your bikini line. but waxing any part of your body can give you ugly ingrown hairs and permanently damage your skin and follicles and besides that’s the patriarchy. (but get laser hair removal instead.) don’t have an eating disorder because that’s too much but definitely do intermittent fasting. don’t eat carbs. don’t eat sugar. don’t eat fat. actually your brain uses carbs as its main energy source. actually fat is necessary but only good fat. you have to DRINK MORE WATER!!! drinking 8 glasses of water per day is a myth. burn fat and get toned by doing these exercises. but cellulite is natural and 99% of women have it so you HAVE to embrace it. take diet pills. ummm don’t you know those are meth?? take NATURAL diet supplements for weight loss. take THESE vitamins to cure your depression and clear your skin and make you better at sex and make your vision better and speed up your metabolism and make your digestion better and make you focus better. i know the ONLY right answer but you have to pay me for it. follow my blog! listen to my podcast! subscribe to my email newsletter! buy my snake oil!!
bimbo tiktok… feminine urge posts… let men be masculine affirmations… i predict the next internet trend is gonna be about how being a tradwife is the only true form of feminism bc uhhhhh *reads card* it gives back women the jobs they had before Big Capital made them go to offices and carry steel pipes
(Ed: This story involves some potentially triggering content, folks, so consider yourselves warned. Particular advisories around sexual assault, especially in public settings.)
Just a day: As you know I’m always busy doing stuff. Recently, this has mostly involved hanging out with my friends and getting back into my routine, going to some gigs and other stuff I could write about at length but instead, I’m going to write about a Thursday. In a future blog post, I’ll talk more about Primavera, but this felt more… urgent.
I’d had a normal day at work and was going to meet with Will to give him lots of congratulations on being a new homeowner and for having good job stuff happen - seriously, super proud of him - and to watch Wonder Woman at the cinema by his house, hoping to generally have a nice evening. To get from my office to see Will I have to ride the Piccadilly line from virtually one end to the other. Nothing abnormal about this, I settled in on an incredibly busy train with my phone and switched myself off to the world outside of my seat.
I heard the girl next to me offer her seat to someone and I saw a blind man hovering next to her, he graciously accepted it and I watched out of the side of my eye as he felt out the world around him to sit down. I, of course, felt that immediate guilt that I think most people would of not noticing him and offering their seat first, but it was a busy train and I was involved in my own little world. This thought rapidly evaporated as I felt his hand on my knee. He had his hand rigid and unmoving, but unmistakably on my knee.
I didn’t want to cause a fuss, he was blind and maybe he just needed to know about the world around him or something, but mostly I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I coughed and shuffled in my seat, no change. I should’ve said more, but instead, I crossed my legs and turned my body away from him and he finally moved his hand. However, he simply readjusted himself and so now his hand was resting under my arm. He did nothing but touch, he didn’t move his hands or put it anywhere else but he was touching me.
For a time I uncrossed my legs and his hand moved back there. I should’ve gotten up and moved away. Changed trains or raised my voice to him. Anything. Instead, I messaged my friend. I told her about how uncomfortable I was feeling and she was sympathetic and told me to get up and move. The train was about to pull up at the next station so I was going to do exactly that, I’d only have to wait a few minutes for the next train after all. And then he stopped touching me, so I didn’t move. I should’ve still gone. He was still taking up my space, he stuck his elbows out instead, but no longer could I feel his hands on me.
He remained like this until he got off the train, where I watched his as he got off, and I watched as he reached out just a bit further than he needed to and brushed his hand against a different woman’s breast. It was too much of a coincidence. I felt sick.
It took a while to really sink in what had happened. As soon as it did, I felt just disgusted at a person for doing that. I don’t want to believe that someone could fake or exaggerate a disability such as blindness to inappropriately touch a woman without her consent, but my faith in humanity is not what it once was. But as time passed a creeping feeling stripped away at me, pulled away my armour and left me feeling defenseless.
This man had touched me, he had invaded my space, made me feel uncomfortable and then continued to do it to someone else. I’ve never described myself like this but I felt utterly violated and dirty and it was getting worse with each moment that passed. This intense clawing feeling at my skin that nothing was right, I could only just bring myself to breathe properly.
I was so grateful to see Will so soon after leaving the train; he helped me feel a lot lighter about the situation and in the days since it happened has just supported me so incredibly. Honestly, he brought back a sense of normality and safety for me and I can’t stress how thankful I am for that. But I don’t feel comfortable on trains at the moment, such a mundane part of my life that I have to do every single day, but I hope so much that this guy gets his just desserts for what he has done.
It took me a full day before I reported it to the British Transport Police, but I did and they were so helpful. They listened, they were sympathetic, they took me seriously. I don’t know what else I expected but I was quickly referred to two separate departments for further investigation. I went into a station and made a full statement on Saturday afternoon and had to relive it. It might be one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do, but the officer who took it was gentle but thorough, we took down as many details as possible in hope that something, anything will help track him down. Thankfully Oyster cards should be easy enough to trace, so here’s hoping that they should be able to find him, and hopefully, he won’t be able to do this to another woman again.
I know that what I’ve experienced isn’t anything in comparison to what other women go through. It’s a blip on what some people think they can get away with, but these people need to be held accountable. People need to tell their stories, maybe not publicly like I’m doing, but at least to their friends, to people you trust, to police. Don’t let these people take away who you are from you. And wherever possible, don’t let them think they can do it again.
To end on a positive note, Wonder Woman was great and helped me feel more in control, at least a bit - honestly, it’s so great to see a woman take centre stage in a superhero movie - and lots of people should watch it so that we can have more female-led superhero movies, please.
Thank you.
Sophia Probert is an aspiring writer as well as a general crazy person who works with numbers for a living. She rambles on about wrestling, music, movies, politics, life & the meaning of nothing at @distortthecode, will yell into the void about keto and exercise on @carveachange and post millions upon millions of selfies on Instagram.
Yet #lgbq people and #transgender people are the dangerous ones to society!! Yeah right. Examine that #whiteprivilege #racism #sexism #transphobia and #homophobia at the door. And, What he said below ⤵️
I have been writing this post for a few days because I cannot stop thinking about the particular way that Depp v. Heard has been playing out in fandom not just over the course of this trial in Virginia but over the course of the past few years. One of my friends commented recently about the way in which fandom can train people to see things which are not there by taking fragments of media out of context and scrutinising them for small ‘tells’ which hint to the ‘real’ story often in support of a shipping narrative similar to the way that fragments of this trial are decontextualised and recontextualised, pored over in minute detail, and tea leaves read to support the idea that Amber Heard is lying, that Amber Heard is an abuser.
Much of what is circulating on social media about this case are outright lies at worst — the idea that Amber Heard quoted The Talented Mr. Ripley on the stand, which Snopes had to debunk — and pernicious victim-blaming nonsense and abuse myths at best.Milani Cosmetics’ decision to wade into the trial by suggesting Heard claimed she had used their specific concealer before it was released (she didn’t, the palette was used as an example of colour correcting concealer palettes) and insinuate that she must therefore be lying about having been abused falls into the latter category. The idea that if someone misremembers what brand of concealer they used over half a decade ago they are lying about being abused is appalling, it’s laughable. And it’s everywhere. This should be disturbing to anyone watching this case who truly cares about victim advocacy regardless of where you fall on the question of who abused who because the mainstreaming of abuse myths hurts all victims. There is no such thing as using an abuse myth to defend a victim or expose an abuser; if Heard is an abuser the logic underpinning that conclusion cannot be abuser logic without causing incredible social harm to victim advocacy.
And I have seen in fandom the way that people engage in wilful misreadings of all sorts of things to support an idea which is contrary to all reality. The prime example of this for me is Loki. Last summer I became unhealthily obsessed with the way that Loki fans who were opposed to his relationship with Sylvie concocted all sorts of wilful misreadings not just of the show itself but of interviews from the cast, writers, director, and even the composer — which would then go viral, racking up thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of likes.
There was a post on here and on twitter which took out-of-context quotes from several people involved with the show to frame them as contradictory and made some joke about people in a group project not agreeing on what it was about. This post got tens of thousands of likes and shares but if you read the quotes in their full context it was plain that all of the people speaking were in fact in total agreement on what the show was about. There was a cohesive behind-the-scenes agenda but it didn’t matter. Natalie Holt, the composer, mentioned in several subsequent interviews that her words had been taken out of context and twisted to imply something she emphatically was not saying. Other quotes were taken out of context and had bad faith readings applied to try to frame Kate Herron and Sophia Di Martino, both bisexual women who have expressed support and allyship with the trans community, as transphobic in order to justify online abuse and harassment of them. The same people doing this were simultaneously perpetuating harmful transmisogynistic rhetoric about ‘autogynephilia’ in order to frame the relationship as problematic and twisting Julia Serano’s academic work on the topic to support this even after she had expressly disagreed with this and called it out.
The primary driver of all of this is of course misogyny but if anyone pointed that out the deflection was to gesture towards Sophia Di Martino/Sylvie and Kate Herron being white women, particularly in contexts where the people doing this were challenged on why they didn’t hold Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson to the same standard. The exact same deflection is used to dispel any notion that misogyny might be a factor in the virulence of people’s anti-Heard sentiment: that defending her is “white feminism” and that she is exploiting “white woman’s tears”. This really illustrates the way that people in fandom have — in the words of one of my friends who I was speaking to about this the other day — learned a particular vocabulary but not an analytical toolkit.
“White feminism” and associated terms like “white woman’s tears” were coined to describe the unique tools which white women have at their disposal to (a) oppress racialised people and especially Black people, and (b) recruit others — particularly white men — to do the same. These terms do not apply to dynamics between white women and white men because white women cannot be racist towards white men. Depending on whether the white men in question belong to other marginalised classes white women can be ableist, transphobic, homophobic, or enact other forms of oppression against them but they cannot specifically be racist, so gesturing to their race in order to deflect from questions about double standards applied to a white woman versus a white man is a total non-starter and yet it happens all the time in these discussions. In fact the reason it happens is because (Depp’s struggles with addiction notwithstanding) the white men in question don’t have any other known marginalisations along which the white women might be oppressing them. So we have to make something up.
What’s really disturbing in the case of Depp v. Heard is that gesturing to “white woman’s tears” implies that white women are in fact the oppressors of white men and that they are more likeable and sympathetic figures to the general public. This posits either that misogyny is not real or that it does not apply to white women and is not a factor in the way that the general public assesses alleged abuse, which is not just untrue but actually dangerous. At a certain point the truth of what happened between Depp and Heard becomes immaterial when people are talking about the way the pro-Depp side is presenting and mainstreaming arguments which are extraordinarily harmful to victims of abuse. In fact, the victim-blaming rhetoric which is being pushed under the guise of “advocacy for male victims” is an uncanny echo of the transphobic rhetoric which was perpetuated in Loki fandom under the guise of “calling out transphobia”. What is happening here is that people are removing terms from their original political context where they were used to criticise oppressive power structures in order to support and uphold the paradigms they were coined to critique.
The disconnection of these terms and ideas from the power analysis they’re a product of also means that even when people are able to recognise that particular arguments are harmful they’re not able to see them in their full context as Depp and his team wielding systemic power and privilege to oppress and marginalise not just Heard but anyone identified as sharing a class with her. There are all sorts of posts and threads about the fact that it’s important not to allow Heard’s ‘diagnosis’ of borderline personality disorder to add to stigma that people diagnosed with BPD face with no recognition of the fact that this stigma is the exact reason Depp’s team wanted her characterised as having BPD at all. The argument from them is that she is a bad person and she is an abuser because she allegedly has BPD: they are stigmatising people diagnosed with this disorder in order to character assassinate her. Yet none of the people writing these threads about the importance of not letting this colour your perception of people with BPD have stopped to question why his team even considers whether she has it or not of any relevance and how this relates to the way he could be trying to exercise power and privilege in order to silence her. It’s insane to me that I even have to point this out.
What is absolutely fucked about all of this to me too is the proliferation of “amber heard supporters dni” in people’s bios. A lot of ink has been spilled in fandom on the overwhelmingly performative, virtue-signalling nature of a lot of dni criteria and this is what sticks in my throat when I think about this. People who put this in their bios are largely following the crowd and have done no actual research into the case beyond whatever distortions of the truth that have been leaked by his legal team cross their dashboards and timelines, if that. There is no curiosity about her allegations or her evidence or any desire to understand why people might support her when seemingly the entire internet has decided she is a monster, and what it comes down to is that people are virtue signalling by showing that as a matter of principle they do not stand by a woman who has made allegations of serious physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. What is considered virtuous in fandom is close-minded reactionary hatred of a woman who accused a powerful man of domestic violence. It is considered virtuous not to investigate her allegations. It is considered virtuous to declare that you hate her because everyone else does.
This hatred is so completely outsized in response to her perceived crime it absolutely dwarfs any outpouring of vitriol around someone like Harvey Weinstein because it’s not actually coming from any moral outrage about abuse itself. What is fuelling this outrage against Amber Heard is misogyny and victim-blaming, and that’s the fatal irony of all of this. Even though people are mired in cognitive dissonance about “who abused who” many of them show that underneath it all, even if they can’t admit it to themselves, they really do know she is a victim and that he is an abuser or else they would not apply victim-blaming tropes to her nor abuse apologist talking points to him. It’s the fact that we all know, really, instinctively, who is abuser and who is victim, that Depp supporters have to protect themselves so fiercely from this uncomfortable truth by making not just Heard herself but anyone who speaks in her defence or to the facts of the case personae non grata and acceptable targets for harassment and bullying themselves. It’s because we all know, really, in our hearts, that the power differential favours him that it’s necessary for him and his supporters to indulge in pernicious victim-blaming abuse myths to paint her as the villain. It’s because we know this that his supporters have to accuse everyone who questions his obvious DARVO tactics of “not thinking men can be abused”.
Actually, men can be and are abused, including in some cases by women, but abuse is about power and control. This is why the majority of male victims of abuse are marginalised in some way or otherwise vulnerable (young actors getting started in their careers, for example). It is also unbelievable historical revisionism to pretend that #MeToo has only ever been about female victims of abuse. It’s important for a number of reasons to recognise that abuse is a function of power and control and a tool for enforcing power and control but in particular it’s necessary to acknowledge this because otherwise the only explanation left for why there is such a gender disparity statistically between who perpetrates abuse and who is a victim of abuse is the TERF explanation that men are innately more violent, which is not true.
But to believe that Depp is Heard’s victim despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is to completely eschew this power analysis of their relationship. It is to believe that there is power parity between a twenty-two year-old just getting started in her career and an A-list global celebrity with multi-million dollar mansions all over the world and his own private island. It is to ignore the reality that throughout their relationship she was surrounded by his staff and his security, that even the nurses who saw her after his beatings were on his payroll. To believe that he is her victim even after it was ruled in the UK to a civil standard that he abused her is to posit the MRA belief that women are always immediately believed when they allege abuse and that this imbues them with massive social power to ruin men’s lives “for no reason”. The fact that people seriously argue that the UK legal system favours women is absolutely astonishing. But not only is it not true that women are not believed in general, it is also not true that Amber Heard was believed! The rewriting of history around this is fucking breathtaking. She was getting called a lying gold-digger from the start. The only person who has ever been hurt by these allegations is her.
But at this point the need for it to be true that Depp is Heard’s victim is compounded not just by a desire to keep loving Johnny Depp but also by years of participation in a movement against Heard which, if she is a victim, is morally indefensible. These are people who cannot accept the guilt and shame of having participated in a harassment campaign which is fundamentally victim-blaming and misogynistic in nature and targeted not just against her but other victims speaking out in her defence. They cannot accept this truth so they choose to look away. The furthest you will get one of these people if they do listen to facts about the case is “well they’re both bad”, which itself is a victim-blaming cop out and dangerous rhetoric which prevents victims from recognising that they are being abused and seeking or receiving help.
The other day, I saw some old tweets between Depp supporters talking about how disturbed they were by the behaviour of other Depp supporters in the wake of his replacement by Mads Mikkelson in Fantastic Beasts 3. This was fascinating to me because in this conversation these two people confidently proclaimed that Depp himself, being a kind and gentle soul, would never condone the harassment of Mikkelson or Mikkelson’s fans. But this is ridiculous and totally disconnected from reality since it’s a documented fact that Johnny Depp’s legal team has been purchasing bots in order to provoke harassment of people speaking out in defence of Amber Heard — many of whom are abuse victims themselves — and it would not remotely surprise me if they had also directed this abuse at Mikkelson and his fans.
You can see this bot activity for yourself in any one of the hashtags his supporters are pushing. This “sweet and gentle man” is haunted by his misogynistic rants in texts to friends in which he describes lurid fantasies about burning Amber and desecrating her corpse, the texts in which he called the mother of his children a ‘cunt’, the property damage he committed in the past. The cognitive dissonance it requires to describe this man as ‘gentle’ irrespective of whether you believe he is a victim must be immense. But it’s also required in order to keep believing that Johnny Depp is who people want him to be, and part of shoring up his image as a gentle man means demonising a woman who was twenty-two and just starting out in her career as an actress when she met him and trying to convince yourself she somehow had the balance of power in their relationship.
If you look at any of the hashtags his supporters are pushing you will also see something even more disturbing, which is the way that supporters of Johnny Depp are also extending the abuse apologist logic and absurd conspiracy theories they spin in defence of him to other abusers. It’s worth pointing out that Marilyn Manson, a close friend of Johnny Depp’s, is now suing Evan Rachel Wood for defamation and many of Depp’s supporters are raking her over the coals in the exact same way as Amber Heard and I’m left wondering what is the limit of what people will believe? In five years will I see “evan rachel wood supporters dni” in people’s profiles?
What is amazing to me too is that there are people discussing the ‘fandomisation’ of this trial — the fancams, the memes, etc. — who are speaking about how disrespectful it all is toJohnny Depp as if it’s not precisely the response he and his legal team want. The more people make fancams of him being ‘savage’ on the stand (an odd choice of words given the furore over his racist Dior Sauvage ad campaign, not to mention the fact that he is the subject of horrific abuse allegations) and TikTok videos drawing attention to the disparity in crowd size between his and Heard’s fans the more people are encouraged to respond to this case emotionally rather than logically. People are manipulated into thinking supporting Depp is the popular stance and shown that they will be socially ostracised if they criticise him; people are encouraged to lean into nostalgia around his movies and remember how good he used to make them feel (and feel anger at Heard for “taking Jack Sparrow away”, never mind the fact that Depp had already left the franchise before Heard’s Washington Post op-ed was published); people are guided down a path well-worn with misogynistic tropes about lying, gold-digging, perfidious women out to ruin good men’s lives.
The repeated assertion that “she shit in his bed” (proven false, but nobody cares) and associated scatological puns on her name are intended to associate her with disgust. The posting over and over of his severed finger without censorship or content warnings is intended to shock and upset people in order to make the associated accusation that “she cut off his finger” (also proven false but again, nobody cares) stick in people’s minds. These things are fed by his team to the media in order to discredit and undermine her so that nobody is listening when she describes the horrific abuse she suffered at his hands during the fight in which he lost his finger or if they are they don’t believe her. The fancams of Johnny Depp “being savage” and the videos making fun of her sobbing so hard she can’t breathe and reenacting her allegations to mock her for them are two sides of the same coin both of which benefit him and his narrative. He is being lionised and she is being demonised, exactly as he wants. And it is exactly as he wants. This is a man who texted one of his friends that he would give her “total global humiliation”. The man stated in black and white exactly what he wanted so I’m not sure why anyone would think he would be appalled by any of this.
On a final note, I wonder how many people have actually read the op-ed that she is currently being sued over? I think people should and bear in mind that this is the speech Depp and his team is trying to silence. It barely even alludes to him and the bulk of it is about the need to expand protection for victims of abuse in general. Remember that.
The images beg the questions: why does little girls’ clothing “need” to be tighter, shorter and more constricting than boys’? Is it easier to move in such clothes? Play in them? Run in them? What is it grooming girls to wear later? How is it grooming them to perceive themselves? - Peggy Orenstein
I’ve seen this post before and it makes me angry every time, by the time these kids are adults they will think this is normal, that this is the norm. Finding comfortable clothes shouldn’t be as difficult as it is, and even more in the case of children.
Ah, just what we need! A Gauguin v2.0 for the 21st century art world; complete with western male savior complex, fetishization of “primitivistic” ideals, and unabashed objectification/commodification of women! He would fit right in at the MoMA, that’s for sure.
In all honesty though, ever since I saw Urban Erotic at Jack Hanley Gallery last week I’ve been struggling to answer many questions raised by the phenomenon that is Alphachanneling, along with droves of other androcentric artists that are similarly celebrated in a seemingly baseless manner today. In the end I’m still left scratching my head, but have generated some theories for possible explanation of his popularity and success in the general art world. I should preface this however with a personal acknowledgement of the following discourse as misanthropic albeit factual, and would like to contextualize my hypothetically-perceived vitriol as a self-aware tactic — it’s no secret that people have serious complaints about art and the ‘world’ in which it exists, but exploring and identifying an issue of injustice is the first step to suggesting solutions and reform, and my aim above all is to do simply that. (I don’t actually hate this guy, I’m just trying to make a point or something).
Alphachanneling is a Swiss-born, Oakland California-based artist whose lush, watercolor depictions of erotic scenes were reportedly first recognized via Instagram, with an enthusiastic base of followers that is continually expanding. Apropos to the spirit of artists who present work on digital platforms, there is an alluring anonymity and esoteric quality of artists discovered through Instagram, and Alphachanneling is no exception. Frequently assumed to be female, most viewers are surprised to learn that the artist is in fact a man, and his legal name is still unknown to the public.
In an excerpt from Jack Hanley Gallery’s press release for Urban Erotic — Alphachanneling’s first ever solo exhibition — the show’s title is reportedly derived from a fictitious world created by the artist, where “women are exalted and sexual acts are supreme,” and “the conversation of sexuality as an expression of the higher self flourishes…believing that sexuality is the most wholesome prayer to life and thus the artist’s delicate watercolors and drawings strive to be a celebration of all life’s glorious and fantastic pleasures.” These sentiments are communicated through the work, and the face-value appeal of his aesthetic is fairly straightforward. His drawings are pretty! He certainly has an eye for harmonious colors, intricate patterns, and image composition — the latter which is influenced by sensibilities in eastern art and often times evocative of complementary yin and yang components within the frame, a compositional style that satisfies and welcomes the viewer.
I’m personally a fan of his monochrome garden scene triptych (the only works in the whole show that are absent of human figures), and his washy, less line-driven watercolor charts of figures and couples represented in various multiples and configurations.
It is apparent through the simplified, stylized manner in which Alphachanneling depicts bodies that he is someone who has closely studied anatomy and is very familiar with the human form — a quality that is particularly evident in its absence, especially when one attempts to render forms with such bold lines and simple gestures as he does.
That said, basically everything else about Alphachanneling’s work beyond it’s formalistic niceness is kind of problematic. First of all, I couldn’t not notice the fact that this is his first exhibition is painfully apparent in the installation of the work — in several of the frames (which were definitely purchased in packs of multiples at Ikea) the works on watercolor paper weren’t even centered properly, leaving some internal edges of the matboards exposed. Once my inner-fusty-institutional-artist-self was able to see past the presentation faux pas, I then noticed the overwhelmingly consistent theme of white, heterosexual, male-centric subject matter in almost every single depicted scene.
Furthermore, the only people of color present in the work are either shown servicing the male (as seen in the above androcentric jungle orgy, featuring one vaguely brown and/or just tan woman as one of the three different hands simultaneously tending to the man’s genitalia) or simply showcased (i.e. othered!) on their own within the frame, not really doing anything except passively existing in a sexualized, objectified manner seemingly arranged for the viewers’ own pleasurable consumption.
InTiger Girls Just Hanging Out Waiting for Some Trouble (above), topless, large-breasted girls of varying skin tones are draped languorously from a tree wearing nothing but animal print loincloths (because, obviously, that’s where all women of color come from: the exotic jungle). In Untitled (below), three leggy women whose skin was literally colored with a black colored pencil sport ‘ethnic’ beaded headdresses, cheetah skin shirts, and absolutely nothing from the waist down except for high heels, idling in some tropical, African-esque landscape.
Now the androcentric, racially screwy sexualization of women is bad enough (it’s hard to imagine a more commonplace philosophical vantage represented in art and society, like what else is new), but what I find particularly vexing is the discrepancy between what the work actually is, and the vastly different manner in which Alphachanneling is spoken about and depicted through reviews, interviews, and other written content. In an article written about him by Jerry Saltz for New York Magazine in 2014 —
(side note: is it not a bit curious that the only legitimate recognitions of Alphachanneling to be found online are all posted after this endorsement by the rather inflated persona of “art critic bad boy” that is Jerry Saltz? Huh).
— Saltz comments on a quote from the artist about his work being ‘a devotional prayer to the feminine principal,’ saying, “I knew it! The worship of female power, the female body, and pleasure. It wasn’t just a ‘perv,’ but someone obsessed with the idea of something. Someone inexplicably driven to make a visual philosophy.” Saltz goes on to defend Alphachanneling’s from anyone that might dismiss his work for its’ obvious pornographic, tropic quality: “All of Alphachanneling’s art is erotic without coming off as blatantly gratuitous bad-boy, cartoony, big-tits/big-dick sexism…[featuring] coupling in all forms, with any number of people, and mixed races.” Oh really, Jerry? Suddenly heteronormative erotica where all women are nyphomaniacally only servicing the sole male or sometimes each other if the male is present within the frame (if male is not present, women are depicted just ‘hanging out,’ doing nothing but gazing toward the viewer) constitutes interesting, innovative art that’s worthy of public endorsement?? Suddenly, bodies of work that consistently portray only one male among beautiful women, a sole male agent that’s basically the same-looking guy from scene to scene that almost definitely bares an uncanny resemblance to the artist (I conjecture wildly), suddenly this constitutes ‘not-pervy’ erotic art??? That part still fails my comprehension.
A recent review of Urban Erotic in the Huffington Post presents another amusing quote sourced from an interview with the artist: “I’m not deliberately avoiding a male-centric or masculine expression, I’m just making the things I haven’t been able to find in terms of the eroticism out there.” Oh really, Alpha-male-channeling? Well I’ll be! Didn’t know that there was a scarcity of men treating women like human blow-up dolls in erotica out there.
It really is refreshing to see traditional gender roles reinforced in depictions of sex these days, like the painting above which is from a series of a blue male spanking and variously penetrating a pink woman. Hard to find such good, socially progressive erotica this day and age.
Not that I’ve presented a particularly compelling case to do so, but if you still want to see Alphachanneling’s Urban Erotic you have one more day to do so — the last day of the show is Sunday, April 17th at Jack Hanley Gallery which is open from 11am to 6pm, and located on the second floor of 327 Broome Street, New York, NY 10002. In parting, I leave you with an anomalous scene in the exhibition which is the one singular piece I can honestly say I doenjoy,Bitch Losing Patience with Bad Kitty:
The first question in this Ubisoft customer survey is “What is your gender” with “Male” and “Female” as permitted responses; if you choose “Female,” you’re dumped into a screen that informs you that “your profile doesn’t suit the survey.”
Games companies have got a lot of stick over the years for their failure to understand, cater to, and appreciate their masses of female customers, but it’s a rare thing for a company’s commercial blind-spots to be so vividly illustrated in two screens.
At Target this lady told her son he couldn’t have a Wonder Woman doll because “that’s for girls” and then bought her daughter the same one. It got me thinking about how often I see people bar young boys from appreciating girls/women as protagonists and heroes, and my own experience with it as a kid.
Yes, all of this!
Also, Matilda is super cool and boys should be inspired by her because she loves reading!
Can you believe margot robbie did this stunt on her own without any wires while wearing high heels
we had to hear stories about fucked up shit jared leto was doing for a year for his 5 seconds of mediocrity while this woman was out here actually becoming a gymnast?????
