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broadenandbuild t1_jatd3q2 wrote

Reply to comment by jesse-taylor in Banning Words Won’t Make the World More Just - The Atlantic by vaikrunta

I would attribute this partly to a rise in toxic femininity and the tendency to infantilize adults.

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AtLeastThisIsntImgur t1_jatktdd wrote

You wanna define that phrase?

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BeeBee_ThatsMe t1_jatnm8o wrote

People shifting all the blame on men.

Which is funny, because people will blame everything on how women are socialized to be different from men. Well who does all the child rearing? Apparently women. So Women, more than men, are socializing men and women to be different way more.

So how is it that toxic traits arise from socializing, and aren't women's fault? Are we finally ready to admit that men and women are different, and it's not from socializing?

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spotted-cat t1_jatnevn wrote

Toxic femininity is the MRA way of saying internalized misogyny — women slut shaming each other or being classist, ableist, or racist, etc. But the worst offenders are TERFs, SWERFs, and tradwives — and before someone jumps down my throat about the tradwive thing:

  1. There’s a difference between a SAHM, homemaker, and tradwife

  2. The tradwife ideology was originally popularized by white supremacists. Google it.

  3. If you don’t believe in the TERF to Nazi pipeline, you may wanna go take a look at J.K. Rowling’s twitter account. Or google the names of any diverse character in Harry Potter — IE the only Irish kid is only good at blowing things up (that’s a reference to the IRA) and the one major Black character is named Kingsley Shacklebolt which translates to, “King of the jail,” or “King of shackles.” Again, google it.

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Hinoto-no-Ryuji t1_jauazv8 wrote

I’m not here to defend Rowling and her TERF views - she’s awful, and her getting validation for her politics from the popularity of her books is reason enough for anyone to put them aside.

But her actions have led to an honestly fairly disingenuous effort to make the books seem far worse (morally) than they actually are. Are some of her naming conventions suspect? Sure. She’s pretty incurious when it comes to anything outside her British milieu, and therefore kinda shit at accurately portraying any of it. But characters like Kingsley and even Cho are only really problematic in their names alone, and as characters lack literally any other stereotypical hallmarks, which would be more concerning. Seamus, meanwhile, only blows things up in the movies, so that’s a total non-starter. It’s fine to critique and dislike the books (The house elf liberation subplot raises far more eyebrows than a few lazy names), but they aren’t the racist Nazi shit Twitter seems to want to paint them as.

(And before it gets brought up: the goblins, at least in the books, lack anything that would cause someone to associate them with Jews. The characteristics they share are characteristics shared by most fantasy goblins; if they were actually meant to be antisemitic, they’d be using their position in wizarding society to subvert and/or control it. They’d need to “complete the metaphor,” as it were. At worst, they’re just another example of Rowling not picking up on the implication of the tropes she’s incorporating.)

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Avhumboldt-pup0902 t1_jaudhx2 wrote

Other people have written on Cho playing into the stereotype of the tragic and sad Asian girl who loses, through death or other circumstances, her white love interest (Miss Saigon, Madame Butterfly). So there is that to contend with as far as her actual character.

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Hinoto-no-Ryuji t1_jaunts9 wrote

An interesting avenue to explore, for sure.

On the one hand: narratively, Cho serves primarily an avenue to create a complex romantic entanglement for Harry. In Book 4, her being involved with someone objectively pretty great forces Harry to contend with unfair, jealous dislike of a decent guy; in Book 5, the fallout and trauma that his death inflicts on her creates a wrinkle that put an ironic twist on things. None of this narrative purpose leans even a little bit on Cho being Asian, and the narrative never plays up her being so (her physical description is exclusively in realm of "black hair" and "freckles" and - especially - "good looking"). Indeed, Cho could be any other race, save for her name - a trend that extends to all of the few PoC (Patil twins) in the books. This lack of leaning into racial caricature when it comes to other PoC could lead one to giving her the benefit of the doubt: Cho being Asian is incidental to her role in the narrative and therefore any associations with "Pining Oriental Beauty" are unfortunate coincidence born (as so many in the books and especially their expanded universe are) of ignorance of those tropes in the first place. Rowling is many things, but she's rarely (never?) been actively racist, even in terms of narrative stereotype; I don't think it's unbelievable that she just didn't think of the optics.

On the other hand, given the rather distinct lack of PoC in the books at all (IIRC, the only other explicit ones *are the Patil twins*, and I think also a minor Slytherin?), one could argue that Cho being even passively Asian is enough to raise eyebrows. Why is this character, of all of them, explicitly PoC? Maybe balanced out by the totally benign Patils, but food for thought, nonetheless.

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Avhumboldt-pup0902 t1_jaup49r wrote

Yea, it's been a very long time since I've last re-read them. The slam poem "an angry letter to JK Rowling from Cho Chang" is my primary source for the critique. Which, maybe in Harry Potter is passable but looking at it from the perspective of western writers writing Asian characters is a bit different.

I also think in the grand scheme of her digging her heels into transphobia and aligning herself with right-wingers to that end, who generally are very racist, it's hard to uncouple.

But I agree, it's certainly good food for thought!

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AtLeastThisIsntImgur t1_jau2cyd wrote

I think you're giving MRAs too much credit. When I see them talking about TF they normally mean 'making fun of men' or 'getting all my stuff in the divorce'

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lingonn t1_jav4f2u wrote

Internalized misogyny is honestly the most hilarious concept of modern times. Not only are men responsible for all the woes of the world, anytime a woman does something wrong it's only because they have been brainwashed by men. Zero agency.

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