badasszombiespinster:

Okay, so guys, gals and non-binary pals, today I’ve got a bit of a task on my hands.

I have a whole bunch of writing to do today for my art project, which, as some of you may know, is about designing and doing the concept art for a fantasy video game, where all of the characters I have time to design will be women and/or non-binary, people of colour and MOGAI (some of my characters will also be disabled and/or neurodivergent, however the latter isn’t easily conveyed in a drawn design, but it will be mentioned as an aspect of their character).

Unfortunately, this idea has hit a bit of a speed bump. One of my art tutor’s (who happens to be a SWERF) is making my life difficult and is basically pushing me to write an essay “justifying” myself and my actions against men (who, in her mind, I’m “oppressing” by not designing male characters oh no). And I’m fully willing to do this, even though its gonna be emotionally taxing in the long run, because I am sadly not very good at vocalising my opinions and feminist thoughts (I get stuttery, choke on my own words, panic, and I end up coming up with a jumbled mess). It took a great deal of effort to even convince her that the term “POC” to refer to people of different ethnicities (who aren’t white) isn’t racist and KKK equivalent (to be clear, she didn’t understand the difference between calling someone - and I hate to type this - “coloured” and “person of colour/people of colour”).

Now, part of this includes writing as to why I made the decision to make all of my character designs women/non-binary. Part of my decision was due to time constraints - all of my important characters were women/non-binary, and I only have time to design the important characters in preparation for the final pieces and presentation - but also partly because I didn’t see the need to create male characters, or feature them as people of importance. A large part of the storyline is these characters standing up to patriarchal systems and oppression, but my tutor argues its “not really equality” if I’m not including men, and says I’m oppressing them by creating an all women/non-binary cast of characters. I tried to explain to her that oppression can’t go both ways but my words became jumbled and she didn’t really listen. So now, she’s asking me to explain it in written words. Trouble is, I don’t really know how to write it either. Its a kind of complex subject, and not one I’m used to explaining unlike objectification, representation of queer characters and POC, etc. So I’m asking for help. 

If anyone could help me out with explaining this, please reblog this with your ideas on this subject and how to write it out. I’d really, really appreciate it (please note: I will just block you if you come into my inbox complaining about male oppression or being a TERF. I’m not asking your opinion; I’m asking how to elaborate on feminist theory)

1. tibble812003 liked this
2. nicomrade reblogged this from the-space-enby
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5. vava-chan-take-over-the-world reblogged this from the-space-enby
6. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: And I’m sorry but I can’t really talk for non-binary folks here so ye
7. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: Also, if she doesn’t want you to talk about equality because you don’t have any male characters, you can talk about equity, in which people who are the most in need are given more then the ones who are at the top or some shit I guess? It’s late I need to go to sleep, sorry if this isn’t helpful
8. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: this happened to someone you know)
9. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: So yeah for the whole showing that men aren’t oppressed you can just like use my little story like even though my big bro has been like awful at school for as long as I remember, my father never threatened him to stop sending him to school, whereas he did it for me (he also said that he was going to marry me to an old man that was gonna hit me everyday but meh, ya dont need to say that but remember that this could help you make her feel empathy especially if you say this
10. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: Is it reasonable? No, but he is a little piss baby so just let him cry (of course after that we’ve got to imagine that inside the little boy and the little girl the cakes are divided in by organs in which we see that the stomach (white people) receives more the the other organs (poc) or whatevz, etc etc)
11. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: but he still wants more because that’s what he is has grown with
12. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: Having an all women/non-binari cast isn’t oppressing them bcause men already have representation everywhere, it’s just like the thing with the number of cake each children have, let’s say that there is a little boy with 10 cakes and a girl with 2, the boy is habituated to receive more then the little girl so the day he receives 9 and the little girl 3 he starts crying and says it’s unfair, that it’s oppression, the little boy still have more than the little girl
13. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: help see that what is “feminine” isn’t bad,
14. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: While people of the male category also have problems, (I’ll give them that) it mostly isn’t because of their gender, if we don’t take into account the idealization of toxic masculinity and all of that but it’s linked to it, like I’m taking about their sexuality and the way they choose to represent themselves (clothes, way of talking) and how once it’s seen as “girly” it means that it’s bad and all kind of stuff, wich come back to having more female leads bcause it will
15. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: All of this makes most women feel unwelcome, that plus the lack of representation make the world of video game pretty unappealing to most of them, which is why having a cast of mostly female character is a way of fighting against that, it will make the women playing relate to the character more, all the while forcing the men playing to see the women as a “person” and not as a replaceable piece of ass he can ogle at while playing as he try not to jerk himself off
16. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: which is why you want to give the female gamer representation, and like you can maybe talk about how female gamers are usually seen, if the idea of a female gamer is most of the time idealized by the male gamers paradoxically, they harass and threaten them, which is why most female gamers tend to not reveal their gender
17. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: First of all you could start by explaining how society right now is controlled by white cis men, and how everything is designed to please the male gaze, starting with video game, like how many game with a male lead characters are created every year and compare them to how many games with female leads characters are created, I’m pretty sure that the is a big difference
18. vava-chan-take-over-the-world said: Ok, so I’m not really an expert here but I can give you an exemple that I faced directly and I don’t know I guess I’ll ramble from there and if you can finc interesting things to take feel free
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