I've been drifting my way through the various other postings of ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fandom_snowflake, and I came across this gem of a challenge from oldtoadwoman:
The thing that actually caught my eye, however, was this reply statement:
To wit, I see that subtweet you did there, bro, not actually engaging it to #metoo where you might have to deal with lots of people telling you how wrong you are about the goals and aims of the movement. Because you are wrong - it's not about women needing to be defended from men, it's that men behaving awfully is so prevalent everywhere that nearly every woman has a story of being assaulted, endangered, or creeped upon by men. The solution to that problem is not men defending women from other men. It's men not behaving awfully, not assaulting women, not being creepy. Men calling out other men on their behavior is helpful, but not if done in the way that gets mentioned in the next paragraph of the quote.
The second part, while you enclose "white knight" in quotes, bro, to suggest that you know it's a term rather than an actual white dude acting as a knight, you appear to lack etymological knowledge of the phrase. Because while white knighting is about dudes defending women, it's more specifically about dudes defending women who don't need to be defended, in a manner where they expect to be flattered and praised for their defense, in the most obnoxious way possible while claiming "chivalry", and to signal to other members of the MRA/PUA community that they're one of the bros, bro. It's not a good thing to white knight someone, individually or collectively, because it doesn't actually improve the situation of the person supposedly being defended. It substitutes one ass for another, I suppose, which might be good for a person who knows how to deal with the second type of ass more than the first, but it doesn't actually improve the situation.
The third part is the nonsensical assertion that women need someone to defend them in any way, shape or form, and that the options presented to them must be either that an individual defends them, playing into the purity culture idea where patriarchal control of women is essential to safeguard their "virtue," passing them from father and brothers to husband, with a heavy side of slut-shaming and insistence that any woman not under the control of a man is dangerous, or that the state must defend them from men, playing into the idea that women are fundamentally weak and hysterical creatures that manipulate men into giving them what they want, when what they need is a good strong man, instead of a socialist/Communist (and by extension, atheist) government that will hurt everyone in its hubris that it knows what's best for everyone. The false dichotomy requires you to accept the premise that women need defending in the first place. To that, we note the original quotation above and its context - if you try to force women into a particular role because you think that's what they're supposed to do, you will find compressing water and gases to be significantly easier. And less explosive when rapidly decompressed.
I'm sure there's more fractal wrong contained in that tweet, but those were the obvious things that I picked up on. And, as promised, significantly more economical than I used to be when taking apart a bad idea.
---
Not specific to this particular incident, but specific to the challenge idea, I can unequivocally say that I've improved my writing technique a lot even in the couple years that I've been posting to the ARchive. If I wanted to make it easy and obvious, I still remember many of my original attempts at fanfiction, composed t[mumble] years ago, with the 60s Batman serving as the frame story, but mashing it up with characters from video games turned into Batman villains appropriate to the show's aesthetic. The stories themselves never made it past a single page on the lined paper that was the writing notebook. Trying scriptfic at this point might be a research opportunity, but I can guarantee it would turn out a lot more like a script instead of a summary. I could also point at a piece that I composed t[mumble] years ago, which was essentially attempting to imitate the style of Bill WAtterson's Calvin-As-Private-Eye Tracer Bullet without actually referring to the character as such. It worked, in that the audience laughed at the spots where I intended them to laugh, but that may have been helped by the fact that I was reading my own work, and so I knew where all the spots were supposed to be for exaggeration and the like.
I could also take a look at some of my earlier work on various RP forums and webcomic forums, as well. Crossovers and fusions and character things and other parts that are probably still in those places, or that may have been archived by the WAyback. They'd need some significant cleaning up to be presentable at this point, or I'd essentially have to admit to remixing myself. (Not a bad thing to do, but I get the feeling that entire chunks of those stories might be excised or heavily reworked to match my current level of knowledge.)
But really, the last couple of years have been big on the growth of the writer-person, too. I've done a lot of writing of things I would not have considered in my earlier years - various slashes, alternate universes, some of my own universes, and generally having the confidence to post stuff that I don't actually know how it will be received. (And using the fact that I have a lot of kudos emails to try and inspire a younger fen to start posting, too...) So it's been a good journey. And it's going to get better with time and more practice.
fandom_snowflake, and I came across this gem of a challenge from oldtoadwoman:- List at least one thing you've gotten measurably better at
Don't fashion me into a maiden that needs saving from a dragon. I am the dragon, and I will eat you whole.I can tell what the general tone of the disapproving side of Twitter was going for wwith the first comment that the feed chose to give me back, a commentary about how someone would tell their sons not to marry such a draconic woman. Far outsripping that side is the commentary track saying that this is a right and just sign for an apparent girl to be carrying. I agree with this - the world would do better for having more dragons and less maidens that think they have to be rescued from them.
The thing that actually caught my eye, however, was this reply statement:
Hate to rain on the parade, but isn't the whole point of metoo movement the reality that women need someone to defend them?If this were my younger self, not yet wise and trained in the library arts, I might have gotten into a reply war with them. Or spent about five thousand words angrily spiking the idea. Experience prevails in this matter, however, in two ways: One, I consulted the profile and saw the retweets and activities of the person making the statement, coming to the right and proper conclusion that replying to them would be unlikely to produce any movement on their part on the matter. The second is that I might be able to be a little more economical, words-wise, in the delivery of my annoyance / vitriol.
Instead of an individual "white knight" defending them, they need government, the courts, and other institutions to do the "white knight" thing for them.
To wit, I see that subtweet you did there, bro, not actually engaging it to #metoo where you might have to deal with lots of people telling you how wrong you are about the goals and aims of the movement. Because you are wrong - it's not about women needing to be defended from men, it's that men behaving awfully is so prevalent everywhere that nearly every woman has a story of being assaulted, endangered, or creeped upon by men. The solution to that problem is not men defending women from other men. It's men not behaving awfully, not assaulting women, not being creepy. Men calling out other men on their behavior is helpful, but not if done in the way that gets mentioned in the next paragraph of the quote.
The second part, while you enclose "white knight" in quotes, bro, to suggest that you know it's a term rather than an actual white dude acting as a knight, you appear to lack etymological knowledge of the phrase. Because while white knighting is about dudes defending women, it's more specifically about dudes defending women who don't need to be defended, in a manner where they expect to be flattered and praised for their defense, in the most obnoxious way possible while claiming "chivalry", and to signal to other members of the MRA/PUA community that they're one of the bros, bro. It's not a good thing to white knight someone, individually or collectively, because it doesn't actually improve the situation of the person supposedly being defended. It substitutes one ass for another, I suppose, which might be good for a person who knows how to deal with the second type of ass more than the first, but it doesn't actually improve the situation.
The third part is the nonsensical assertion that women need someone to defend them in any way, shape or form, and that the options presented to them must be either that an individual defends them, playing into the purity culture idea where patriarchal control of women is essential to safeguard their "virtue," passing them from father and brothers to husband, with a heavy side of slut-shaming and insistence that any woman not under the control of a man is dangerous, or that the state must defend them from men, playing into the idea that women are fundamentally weak and hysterical creatures that manipulate men into giving them what they want, when what they need is a good strong man, instead of a socialist/Communist (and by extension, atheist) government that will hurt everyone in its hubris that it knows what's best for everyone. The false dichotomy requires you to accept the premise that women need defending in the first place. To that, we note the original quotation above and its context - if you try to force women into a particular role because you think that's what they're supposed to do, you will find compressing water and gases to be significantly easier. And less explosive when rapidly decompressed.
I'm sure there's more fractal wrong contained in that tweet, but those were the obvious things that I picked up on. And, as promised, significantly more economical than I used to be when taking apart a bad idea.
---
Not specific to this particular incident, but specific to the challenge idea, I can unequivocally say that I've improved my writing technique a lot even in the couple years that I've been posting to the ARchive. If I wanted to make it easy and obvious, I still remember many of my original attempts at fanfiction, composed t[mumble] years ago, with the 60s Batman serving as the frame story, but mashing it up with characters from video games turned into Batman villains appropriate to the show's aesthetic. The stories themselves never made it past a single page on the lined paper that was the writing notebook. Trying scriptfic at this point might be a research opportunity, but I can guarantee it would turn out a lot more like a script instead of a summary. I could also point at a piece that I composed t[mumble] years ago, which was essentially attempting to imitate the style of Bill WAtterson's Calvin-As-Private-Eye Tracer Bullet without actually referring to the character as such. It worked, in that the audience laughed at the spots where I intended them to laugh, but that may have been helped by the fact that I was reading my own work, and so I knew where all the spots were supposed to be for exaggeration and the like.
I could also take a look at some of my earlier work on various RP forums and webcomic forums, as well. Crossovers and fusions and character things and other parts that are probably still in those places, or that may have been archived by the WAyback. They'd need some significant cleaning up to be presentable at this point, or I'd essentially have to admit to remixing myself. (Not a bad thing to do, but I get the feeling that entire chunks of those stories might be excised or heavily reworked to match my current level of knowledge.)
But really, the last couple of years have been big on the growth of the writer-person, too. I've done a lot of writing of things I would not have considered in my earlier years - various slashes, alternate universes, some of my own universes, and generally having the confidence to post stuff that I don't actually know how it will be received. (And using the fact that I have a lot of kudos emails to try and inspire a younger fen to start posting, too...) So it's been a good journey. And it's going to get better with time and more practice.
