[ SECRET POST #2187 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2187 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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05. [repeat]


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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]














06. [SPOILERS for Once Upon a Time]



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07. [SPOILERS for amazing spiderman]



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08. [SPOILERS for Nu52 Stormwatch]



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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]















09. [WARNING for rape, sexual assault, gore]

[SCP Foundation wiki]


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10. [WARNING for rape]



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11. [WARNING for abuse]



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12. [WARNING for child sexual abuse]



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13. [WARNING for rape]



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14. [WARNING for violence, RL deaths]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #312.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 (not broken, but being reported as malicious?) - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - personal attack ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[visp]

Internal Consistency

Adding a few biological differences in fantasy races that don't really interact with the main story is different from creating a world with humans at a primitive stage of development in it, and then changing how human societies behave at a primitive stage of development. Grubby, dirt-eating peasant societies aren't civilized and enlightened, deal with it.

Also, the whole point of the series is a deconstruction of the medieval fantasy tropes, and chivalry. You can't deconstruct chivalry without taking an honest look at what happens to women in cultures where they are disenfranchised and have to rely on chivalry instead. And to do that, you have to acknowledge that rape happens.

[(Anonymous)]

When and how does GRRM ever "deconstruct" misogyny/rape in ASoIaF, though? I quit in the middle of book 3 and never saw it happen. I've gotten the impression that Sansa and Dany's storylines might be heading in that direction, but...

[visp]

Cersei is bitter and twisted, mainly because she's denied any chance to excel because, as a woman, she's just a brood cow - and she has to watch her twin brother be granted everything she's denied. Lysa Tully murdered her husband because even if he was kind to her, she hated the fact that she was forced to marry him and forced to abort her first child, instead of being able to marry the man she loved. Mirri Maz Duur kills both Drogo and Dany's unborn child because even Dany's kindness to her doesn't outweigh the fact that Dany's the queen of the tribe of assholes that raped her. Dany repeatedly says that she'll never permit slavery because her brother sold her to Drogo and that's not something that should happen to anyone. Arianne Martell attempts a coup against her father when he doesn't see her as an equal to be brought in on his plans regarding her future and marriage, and instead expects her to meekly follow along.

[(Anonymous)]

Cersei and Lysa are two of the books' most-hated characters, whether or not that was GRRM's intention. Either way, he doesn't seem to give either of them much dignity and a lot of their contentions with society can easily come off as shrewish hysteria. He seems to prefer female characters who don't "whine" about their sexual abuse (i.e. Dany and Sansa), or at least, they get a better deal.

I just don't think any of those are examples of rape being deconstructed, they're just examples of women who are pissed off their situation.

[visp]

So, what's rape being deconstructed, if not looking at the short and long-term effects it has on women, and how they respond to it?

[(Anonymous)]

Cersei and Lysa would be good examples if they were written with any kind of dignity. Instead they're written as shrill, conventionally "hysterical" overprotective witch-mothers who make everyone's lives miserable. Like I said, he seems to show preference to the female characters like Dany and Sansa who suck it up and don't make noise about it.

[visp]

Dany doesn't suck it up - she razes cities and bases her anti-slavery views on her past. Cersei is written with sympathy and dignity, and also has "sucked it up" for 15 years. "Hair grows back." Sansa is one of the most disliked characters out there, so I'm not sure where you're getting this info from. The worst one is Lysa, and there's a point to her being such a messed-up creature: it disproves the "but patriarchy is ok so long as the guy is nice to his subordinate wife." Because even then, it's not enough to stop her from hating her life and going nuts, because she's still not free.

[(Anonymous)]

..So basically what you're saying is that you don't want "rape being deconstructed", you're saying that you want to see rape being deconstructed in the way that YOU think it should be.

[(Anonymous)]

Either way, he doesn't seem to give either of them much dignity and a lot of their contentions with society can easily come off as shrewish hysteria.

That's not how I interpreted those characters in the slightest, especially Cersei. Her inner thoughts in her own chapters show that she has very reasonable issues with the patriarchal society that she lives in. But her chapters also show us just how warped and paranoid her environment has made her.

Also, Sansa is still a little girl and hasn't had to go through nearly as much in her short lifetime as Cersei has.

[(Anonymous)]

Almost all of Cersei's chapters deal with misogyny and how living in a patriarchal society has affected her.

[(Anonymous)]

are you suggesting that primitive human societies are by their very nature misogynistic? Because history would argue with you. It might be common, but it's certainly not the ONLY way it ever worked. I'm guessing that you assume that women are automatically weaker, then, if they're always subjugated?

[visp]

No, history would say I'm right and that a few exceptions do not disprove a rule. Also, due to sexual dimorphism, yes, women tend to be physically weaker than men, which has historically meant they got the shittier end of the stick in the more primitive societies, where being able to club the most people on the head meant you were boss.

[nyxelestia]

I think the prompter meant you are acting as if all human civilizations were patriarchal and assholes to their women. That attitude generally only applies if you are looking at the European/Euroasian region for the last couple thousand years - which, to be fair, many Westerners, particularly Americans, are stuck doing because the overwhelmingly vast majority of their "world" history education only really teaches them about ancient Europe, which is on its own extensively patriarchal.

If you look at all of human history all over the globe, the human race is quite a bit more egalitarian than that - there are plenty of matriarchal societies, or civilizations which didn't really care all that much about gender/sex/ect. The matriarchal or don't-give-a-fuck civilizations just tend to be not that well known because of the Western world's focus on, well, the Western world.

Pretty much the reason I tend to refer to my high school World History Class as "World" History Class, and why I say the only difference between it and European history was the timescale.

[visp]

Well, East Asia's views on women were pretty harsh, and the Middle East still treats them like property in a lot of places, so where exactly were these "other" egalitarian cultures?

[nyxelestia]

India and China have some pretty extensive periods as matriarchal societies - in fact the modern mandarin Chinese character for 'surname' has the radical/root character for 'woman' in it because for much of Chinese history, the culture was matriarchal and things like surnames and inheritance came from mothers, not fathers. Various African tribes were often matriarchal or didn't really care about your gender so long as you were a good warrior/shaman/leader/whatever was important for that tribe, as were many Native American tribes across North and Central America as well. For all that the Middle East is harsh on women today, in much of its history it was very pro-woman - during the very early stages of Islam as a religion, it gave women rights to things like divorce, wages, and property during a time when most women across Europe were still basically their fathers' and husbands' chattel. And despite Western perception that polygamous marriage is inherently harmful to women because of its current state in Mormonism and some forms of Islam, it can actually be a major advantage to women even within patriarchal cultures. The misogyny of Islam is an extremely modern thing.

Societies on the whole tended to lean towards patriarchy over matriarchy, but it was nowhere near as exclusively patriarchal as the European region. However, Europe's patriarchal leanings are a big part of the reason why we don't see any traces of ancient matriarchies or neutral societies today - as Europe colonized the world, it took its gender attitudes with it. Often in 'new worlds', merchants would only trade with men or leaders would only negotiate with men, taking power away from women, which certainly wasn't helped by the general attitude of attempting to copy Europe to gain prestige with the resident conquerors/occupiers of the nation, including/especially on things like gender matters.

The Chinese spoken language never has and still doesn't distinguish gender in the third person - however, the written language recently (as in 'a few centuries' recently) gained male and female differences, rooted in European influence. Meanwhile, I've met more than one Indian feminist who's convinced that modern Indian misogyny is all Britain/Europe's fault. Which is bullshit, as India - and China! - both also have periods of sexism and patriarchy from long before Europe colonized the world en masse. It's just not exclusively patriarchal like European history.

Though really, even Europe isn't exclusively patriarchal in its history, either. There's speculation that some Bronze Age cultures were matriarchal, and some pre-Roman/Christian pagan tribes may have been matriarchal, too. Not to mention Minoans, whose inheritance was matrilineal and whose religion focused on goddess and priestesses. And all that mythology about Amazons probably has its roots in some grain of truth, considering how extensive, detailed, and prevalent it is.

It's mostly a time period thing rather than a region thing. In most places around the world, if you look at all their history, there are periods of matriarchy, patriarchy, and whatever else fall in between. On the whole, humanity leans towards patriarchy, but that's mostly connected to military power. Very few, if any, of the "big" ancient civilizations, the ones we hear about the most (or at all) were rarely or never matriarchal simply because they depended heavily on military imperialism to become that big, and militaristic societies were usually patriarchal because power was in the hands of the best warriors, which were nearly always men due to their extra strength and running speed. Smaller and more peaceful cultures - or at least more mercantile or agricultural cultures - tended to be at least more open to matriarchy because power was in the hands of whoever could maintain the food supply and a roof over the head, and in that instance sex doesn't really matter as much. Unfortunately, when the major imperial military forces of Europe started spreading around the globe, the relatively peaceful nature of these cultures made them easy to stamp out, taking their matriarchy history with them, often never to be heard from again.

[visp]

China crippled women for aesthetic purposes until less than a century ago and still is mainly a male-run government, so kanji-symbol nonetheless, counts as patriarchy. Islamic cultures had some times where women weren't very oppressed, but still were at no times matriarchal, or even equal.

[nyxelestia]

Again, it's a history thing. Yes, for many centuries China crippled its women for aesthetics, and no, Islamic cultures were never matriarchal. It's just that those periods are not all of those cultures' history. Like I said, along with where, you also have to look at when in history. In many cultures, the gender hierarchy is basically "it's complicated", with some matriarchies thrown in. While most civilizations were patriarchal, few were as oppressively patriarchal as the ones our own culture descended from and that we learn about today.

I think perhaps in the process of elaboration I lost my point a little. I was just trying to say that your comments came across as "throughout all of human history women were oppressed by the men", whether you intended it that way or not, and the anon above was objecting (as am I) because history as a whole isn't quite like that.