Why You Don't Harrass A Sci-Fi Author

So yesterday I had a little run-in with an annoying stranger on Facebook, and I posted about it. The post was picked up by Buzzfeed and spread rapidly on the internet. For some reason, though, this morning the post had vanished.

I'm uploading it here, for your sharing and laughing pleasure.

Stranger guy sent me a bunch of annoying "hi" "hi sexy" "what's up?" messages, which I didn't answer, plus pictures of his face, over the span of about three months. Over lunch yesterday I had this conversation with him:

THIS is why you don't mess with a feminist sci-fi writer! ;)

The Girls Got It: Sexism in America's Next Top Model and Project Runway's Current Seasons

Reality TV presents a subjective eye on real humans doing semi-real things. And, despite the comments that Matt McGorry has dealt with about the choices of his very-much-fictional character on Orange is the New Black, most people watching reality TV know that they're seeing a filtered version of life.

Project Runway is a show that offers a lens into manic time schedules, difficult fabrics, and colorful designers. The show wheels between utter brilliance (the Ultimate Hard and Soft episode of Season 11) to downright silliness. We've seen 'heroes' and 'villains' on the show; we've seen triumph and heartbreak. We've seen artificial moments created entirely for sympathy or laughs, and we've seen some surprising glimpses into humanity.

With that understanding in mind, S14 of the show has brought us some classically wonderful Project Runway elements already: an unconventional challenge (greeting cards!), and some kickass women designers (Ashley! Candice! Laurie! Amanda!) It's also brought us the necessary evil of groan-or-giggle-worthy product placement, and the unnecessary evil of sexism on the part of the male designers.



Take a gander over at this season's America's Next Top Model, and you see the same thing on both accounts.

So what's up with this sudden strong trend?

Over on ANTM, we have a grungy greaseball of a beach bum pretending to help a woman he's super interested in banging, and then talking about her behind her back. We have a Fedora Guy suffering from a possibly terminal case of I'm a Nice Guy syndrome, making catty comments about a female contestant's fake boobs and how you can't trust women with fake boobs. Both of these wonderful examples of masculinity also repeatedly remind us that they are horny and not really that picky about which female will hurry up and relieve their condition.

Women should be pretty, but not too pretty. They should be around, but not win the competition. The second they put up any kind of fight, the once 'hot' women are suddenly unattractive, not all that talented, and need to go home. Having an opinion is abrasive, being quiet is vapid and empty headed.

Maybe I expect a bit more of this sexism from the boys over on ANTM, considering many of them are young and aggressively straight, but it's disappointing to see these comments and views carried over to Project Runway. Edited to add: I'm mainly speaking of Joseph's decision that his opinion is the only one that matters and that his female team-mate needs to do as he says, and nothing else, dampen her personality, and basically not speak when someone asks what they're doing, and Jake's temper tantrum about his female team-mate having ideas about their outfit.

Many of the Project Runway viewers are not upper class buyers. They are working class people who spend 8-10 hours a day working in a store or office, who watch the show with a glass of wine, and who vote in the polls, talk about the designers on social media, and turn up to events when the designers finally get a small show or clothing line. They are the people who hand over their hard earned money or credit card to buy a piece from their favorite PR designer. As such, many of them are choosy with their hard-earned money. And many of them are women. These women don't want to spend their money on a designer who clearly looks at women as lesser beings in this modern year of 2015.

Sometimes I hear gay men say something along the lines of, "But I'm gay! I'm not being sexist, I just don't like women!" This is absolutely not, in any way, a good excuse for acting as if your male parts give you better tools for solving problems or creating art, for controlling the 'wild females' in your midst, for cracking jokes about their menstrual cycles, for calling them false endearments with a snarled lip, for laughing at them for 'just being girls'.  This does not save you from one very important fact: You are still a sexist.

#teamladies

1989, Taylor Swift, and Sexism in Media

1989 just came out, and everyone’s talking about how Taylor Swift has grown up so much and finally made an album that people are proud to listen to. But she’s actually had great songs for a few years now… you just never heard them.

Part of the problem with Taylor Swift as a brand is that her singles are rarely her best songs, and the general public doesn’t realize how much better she is on the album tracks than the 3 minute megahit you hear on the radio every half hour. While I can appreciate the histrionics of faux dystopian revolutionary freedom fighter Matt Bellamy or the sparkling, earthy wails of witchy Florence Welch or fae-like Christina Perri, Taylor Swift seems to veer closest to silly when she’s leading a brash singalong about never getting back together or life at 22, complete with self-deprecating spoken-word comments.

In her quieter moments, though? Taylor Swift is an impressive songwriter. By her second album she showed potential, but it was her third album when she really blossomed. Her specific images, much like Lorde’s, are so pointed and vivid that they create a universal feeling. Never is she better than when she’s describing a scene:

I walked through the door with you, the air was cold,
But something ‘bout it felt like home somehow and I
Left my scarf there at your sister’s house,
And you still got it in your drawer even now.

Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze.
We’re singing in the car, getting lost upstate.

Much has been said about Taylor Swift writing from personal experience, though I would venture to say people who think that’s odd or problematic aren’t writers. Writers draw from the well of their experiences. Her songs have become stronger as they’ve become more specific and evocative, drawn so directly from life experience that sometimes you feel more like you’re reading her diary.

Some of her best lyrics, from “Innocent”, show her ability to craft devastating poetry out of more subtle images and words:

Wasn’t it easier in your lunchbox days?
Always a bigger bed to crawl into
Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything?
And everybody believed in you?

Some of her other best songs (“Enchanted”, “The Last Time”, “Holy Ground”, “State of Grace”, “Long Live”) deal in similar deep subject matter, delicately impacting word play.

One of the other greatest issues with Taylor Swift has always been the is she/isn’t she media storm that has always surrounded her. Much of that isn’t her fault, of course, because fame came to her very early, before she could form opinions on a range of adult issues like feminism, relationships and sex.  In the early days she, much like I did once, bought into an image of herself as a pure, innocent, chaste girl in a world of handsome boys and mean cheerleaders. She played the outsider by way of tennis shoes and t-shirts and glasses. The sexist media, sensing an opportunity to cause trouble, latched onto her ideas and multiplied them in every article, every interview, laughing and pointing at this “good girl” who was also dating boys. Taylor Swift, like many other girls that age, struck back by insisting that she was not “one of those girls.” The cycle of viciousness spiraled downward from there, until at some point she broke out of her media-spun dichotomy and realized you can love love, love relationships, love boys, date often and still wear 1950s dresses and be a good person. There are no “other girls” to not be like. Women can be as complicated and multifaceted as men, despite what the sexist media says.

To me, 1989 is that realization in one album. It’s less apologetic about romance, it’s more honest about flaws in both side of every relationship. The style of the songs feels drawn from Lorde, from Lana Del Rey, from other women who have been strong in their message from the beginning. The songs are cohesive and interesting and mature. And the songwriting is good.