Those last two posts are why I have a pretty different perspective on the concept of male entitlement than a lot of other women seem to.
[Epistemic status: tentative, but approaching something quantifiable.]
Most entitlements are invisible. They only really stand out as entitlements when we think the person in question is acting *unduly* entitled. For example, we don’t think of a person who wants to walk their dog without being hit by a drunk driver as “acting entitled”, because our social contract considers that something we *are* entitled to. When we decry someone as exhibiting entitlement, there’s an unspoken “unjustified” hovering there. This makes sense: calling someone “entitled” for, say, wanting to be able to vote is technically not inaccurate, but since the law and the broader culture consider it a *legitimate* entitlement, it becomes an example of Scott’s “worst argument in the world”.
When we say men are acting entitled, we’re saying they’re demanding access to things they aren’t *actually* entitled to. We lack a similar concept for women. I think this is because the things many women act entitled to are things most of society *actually does believe* they deserve. It’s not obvious to the world at large. To most people, these women are merely acting within conventional female scripts. To the people on the receiving end of that entitlement, though, it reads very differently.
Many women believe, or behave as though they believe, that they are entitled to a certain degree of intimacy from other women. Unlike entitlement to specifically *sexual* intimacy, this is mostly not coded as threatening. It is considered part of normal womanhood, to the point where we don’t actually recognize it as an entitlement. It’s just part and parcel of Sisterhood.
This phenomenon includes but is not limited to:
The normalization of trauma as a casual conversation topic
Physically fixing another person’s clothes or hair without asking (tucking in tags, etc.)
Commiserating over body issues, periods, etc.
Casual discussion of weight and calories
The near-ubiquity of hugs as greetings
All of these are things to which many women are socialized to feel entitled. Remember that I’m not calling entitlement an inherently bad thing. Food and shelter are entitlements! I do not want to belittle the importance of these particular feminine norms for those who find them enriching. What I am saying is that this constant white noise of emotional (and sometimes physical) intimacy that women are expected to share is more damaging to some women than the expectation of male sexual intimacy. This is very, very rarely acknowledged in a feminist context.
Predictably, the women for whom this is especially difficult tend to be neurodivergent. Autistic women who can’t be touched, eating disordered women who can’t handle calorie talk, women with PTSD who don’t feel safe in a space where assault is constantly discussed. Even women who are “just” private, or gender-nonconforming, or, hell, even just kind of weird can find these norms burdensome. But they are so integral not only to large groups of women but to the structure of feminist activism that it’s no wonder so many of us feel alienated.
And the thing about entitlement is that it’s invisible. Many men who act entitled to women’s sexual attention do not realize there is any other way. It’s simply the nature of things. If you call them entitled, they honestly won’t understand what you’re talking about. It’s the same for many of the women mentioned above. They don’t see how their expectations of entitlement might be burdensome or unfair, because that’s just what being a woman is all about. It’s a blind spot they don’t even seem to realize they have.
While this is true, it’s also the responsibility of a person who does have different requirements to say so. And comparing an expectation of hugging to an expectation of providing sex is kinda…we’re in two very different ballparks here.
I have a friend who hates to be touched so much that he has a phobia of it. Result: He told me and I have never once touched him without first asking permission and checking that it was OK.
I had a friend who had a specific trigger based on their past. They didn’t have to tell me, I knew them well enough to pick it up. Result: I’d warn them every time I knew it would come up in media and if it came up unexpectedly I would provide an excuse for them to escape the situation.
I have issues with an acquaintance who has placed continued and repeated sexual demands on me despite my stated refusal. Having mentioned this to my friend, he now places himself between me and said person when there is no escape.
In other words, you need to communicate. Obviously some people use power held over you to force you to conform to their expectations and that is never OK but in a social situation where you feel like people who expect a hug from you are encroaching on your boundaries….try maybe saying so?
And comparing an expectation of hugging to an expectation of providing sex is kinda…we’re in two very different ballparks here.
This is a matter of degree, I think. Sex is obviously (for most people) a more intense and involved experience than hugging, but many more people will expect hugs from you throughout your day than will expect sex. Think of it like a physical microaggression – an admittedly imperfect analogy, but a pretty clear illustration of how little things can add up and wear you down.
“If you want different norms, then say so” is good advice, and I frequently take it. But I also want people to be mindful of what it’s like to always have to be the one to make that request. Having no spaces in which to set your own norms from the get-go is a wearying experience.
And how often bringing up odd boundaries will result in accusations of “entitlement”.
An Ohio family sits on the picket line during the 1981 air traffic controllers strike. It ended after the federal government fired all 11,300 striking workers, banned them from ever being rehired, legally dissolved their union and sent in military air traffic controllers to replace them.
Yeah… we know the Clam Diver was “just outside” the town, which implies driving distance and not drunken stumbling distance. If Dean was so drunk that he couldn’t even make himself land on the bed and looked like he was lucky he managed to hit the floor… I mean, he got one shoe off and used it as a pillow.
If he was really that drunk, the bar wouldn’t have let him drive home. They would’ve called him a cab. Not to mention, aside from his tie headband and his shoe pillow, the rest of him looked relatively well put together (buttons buttoned neatly, coat on properly, etc.).
And did he really walk around the rest of the night wearing a pretty pink bra around his neck? Did he wear it to the liquor store where he bought that bottle? Did he wear it walking through the hotel? Because he was too drunk to care about his appearance in a town where he was pretending to be an FBI agent for a case where one boy was missing and another had been rendered mute by his experience?
And if Dean was really so drunk that he didn’t care about any of that, how did he end up in that spot on the floor without waking Sam up? Opening the door in the middle of the night, so drunk that he could barely stand up (and couldn’t even make it to the bed), and yet not so drunk that his stumbling and fumbling woke Sam up?
He was apparently messing with the TV remote as well? How? I mean… how did none of this apparent fumbling around the room not wake Sam up?
It’s like Dean was just tired of Sam pushing at him to just be “okay” again. Because Sam wasn’t really pushing Dean to be okay, he was pushing Dean to perform a specific version of Dean. Not because it would make Dean feel better, but because it would make Sam feel better about how Dean is coping.
Dean: I’m fine. Sam: Look, you’re not, Dean. You said you don’t believe in anything, and – and that’s not true, that’s not you. You do believe in things, you believe in people. That’s who you are, that’s what you do. I know you’re in a dark place and I just want to help. Dean: Okay. Look, I’ve been down this road before and I fought my way back, I will fight my way back again. Sam: How? Dean: Same way I always do: bullets, bacon, and booze. A lot of booze.
That’s what Sam needed Dean to be, to perform for him. To believe in something again, because yeah, Dean believes in people. He said it in 12.23:
DEAN: Yeah. You know, Cas has faith in this kid. SAM: Mm. DEAN: I hope he’s right. But me? I have faith in us. You, me, Mom, Cas. And Crowley. Sometimes.
But within an hour of that, 3/5 of the people Dean believed in were gone. And Sam’s now insisting that Dean just magically be okay with that, just let that go and just transfer all of that belief over to Jack, who Dean directly blames for the loss of the 3/5 people he believed in…
And now that giving Dean the “mission” to help teach Jack (with the hope that Jack might eventually be able to open the rift to fetch Mary again) has failed to help snap Dean out of his funk, Sam is desperate to at least get Dean performing the motions that used to signal his unhealthy coping skills.
Heartily pushing a beer on Dean at breakfast when he just wanted a sandwich, tolerating his music instead of complaining about it, ordering him food he’d normally complain about Dean eating, reading online reviews of a strip club to recommend it to Dean when he typically avoids strip clubs himself, buying Dean hair of the dog. It’s annoying to Dean, but after his display in the motel room, when Sam hands him that bottle, he forgives Sam.
What does he forgive him for? For pushing him to just be okay when he just wanted to be left to grieve in his own way.
Notice Sam doesn’t push him again after that.
Notice also that Dean never drank either breakfast beer.
Sam: You okay? Dean: No. Sam I’m not okay, I’m pretty far from okay. You know my whole life, I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost. Whether it was Dad or Bobby or… and I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas and I – I don’t know. I don’t know. Sam: So you don’t believe anymore. Dean: I just need a win. I just need a damn win.
Exactly the mental state Dean had diagnosed Cas with in 12.19. In the past, he’d still had Sam to believe in, the two of them against the world. Just fighting for Sam isn’t enough for him anymore. Something is different this time, and Dean doesn’t feel like he should have to perform the emotional labor to keep up a false front of coping for Sam anymore.
Like twig!Tasha told him in 12.20:
TASHA: Yeah. Family’s always complicated. Parents always see smart and strong and perfect. It’s only when you grow up that you realize that they’re just people.
Sam is finally seeing that Dean is just a person. Not that Sam had ever had illusions about Dean being perfect or whatever, but that act of always believing they could push through anything and come out the other side again isn’t the truth, and has never fully been the truth.
Heck, I’m watching 1.09 in the background while I write this up. And it wasn’t even the truth way back then… Dean kept up the “everything will be fine” act in front of Sam, essentially hid out behind a gas station and made his emotionally charged plea to John for help in the scene we’ve been paralleling to his prayer to God in 13.01.
In 2.04, Sam confronted Dean yet again on how badly he was handling John’s death, after the case they stumbled over while Sam visited Mary’s grave. I mean, THEEEEEMES. Dabb is pulling all of these themes from early seasons, and standing them all on their heads. Because in 2.05, after Dean had spent weeks putting up a front for Sam, the truth is forced out of him by psychic manipulation:
Dean: We hunt demons. Andy: What? Sam: Dean! Dean: Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn’t even touch. Sam here, he’s my brother… Sam: Dean, shut up! Dean: I’m trying. He’s psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you’re a murderer, and he’s afraid that he’s going to become one himself, ‘cause you’re all part of something that’s terrible. And, I hope to hell that he’s wrong, but I’m starting to get a little scared that he might be right.
Dean had buried all of this and kept it from Sam, much the same way Sam had buried some things that were pushed out in the open by another psychic manipulation (by a creepy ghost of a psychiatrist at an asylum, conveniently enough)… in 1.10:
Sam: That’s the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I’m not pathetic, like you. Dean: So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me? Sam: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We’re no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. Dean: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!! You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!
Sam did it. But just like Dean brushing off the confessions Andy pulled out of him after the fact because it had been coercion, Sam brushed off what he’d said in that asylum, too.
Now in s13, Sam is asking– nay, begging– Dean to just brush this off again, to fake it ‘til he makes it, and Dean is saying no.
It’s honestly the healthiest damn way they’ve ever reacted in a situation like this.
I have no idea how I turned this ask into actual meta, but here you go.
the only thing about Shape of Water that’ll be as awesome as the lady getting fish man dick will be the reaction of all the normal, non freak asses in the theater who had no idea there would be fish man dick and did not sign on for that
I know this is supposed to be a man and a woman looking at each other but all I saw was a transgendered man dreaming of being a Knight.
Are. Are you sure that’s not what it is? Because. That is absolutely how I saw it and I literally cannot see it any other way.
Yeah, nope that is the first thing I thought of too. He wants to be the knight in shining armor. or even Genderfluid bae as their own princess and knight
Same hair color, same eyes, same deep crimson color on the clothing, even the same flaring of the cuffs on the sleeves
I can’t tell if it’s water or crystal, but both are given the mystical properties of (self-)reflection and revealing the truth
If it was meant to be romantic between a guy and gal, their hands wouldn’t be touching at the fingertips like that. There’d be a fuller contact (i.e. palm to palm), or they’d be reaching out to each other but not quite making contact (to symbolize the divide that still separated them)
I want you to reblog this if you believe that two people can be very close and physically affectionate with one another, but still have a completely nonsexual, non-romantic relationship.
Even if the two people in question are capable of being sexually or romantically attracted to one another.
Because the friendship I share with someone I consider family in a way that transcends blood has been typecast as a romantic relationship ENTIRELY too many times, and I’m beginning to get sick of it.
It’s actually impossible to measure how many fucks a corvid give because there is no device sensitive enough to register such a tiny amount.
science/animal side of tumblr… explain to me the birb thing
Tail Pulling is a behavior noted in many corvids. The practical application is to create a distraction that will allow the birb to make off with the target’s food. Imagine being in the lunch room and a large fellow has a Twinkie you covet. You can’t just take it from him because he’ll defend his Twinkie. But if you thwap him on the back of his neck and then dash around to snag the Twinkie while he investigates, you stand a decent chance of enjoying spongey goodness. This is basically that in birb form.
Except corvids don’t only do this as a distraction. Sometimes they seem to just being doing it to mess with other animals/birbs. But to use my lunch room analogy, there are times you might thwap someone sneakily on the back of the neck just for amusement. Primates exhibit behavior that appears to be just be annoying other animals for amusement. Given how intelligent crows are, its not unlikely that this is a manifestation of an innate desire to just fuck with someone else for the fun of it. Such as this from the link above:
THANK YOU FOR THE BIRB KNOWLEDGE
BECAUSE IT IS FUN
This speaks to me on a molecular level.
birbs just wanna have fun
Sorry to hijack a little, but to put it bluntly, corvids are also pretty BALSY. They are more than prepared to harass other huge birds of prey which could deal them a lot of damage. There’s plenty of cases of corvids ‘riding’ other birds as well. It’s often to harass the larger bird out of the area, but as @red3blog said, they quite often (in layman’s terms) enjoy fucking shit up for fun.
‘Where the hell is the seatbelt on this thing?’
I mean they deserve a medal for having such huge bird balls imo
… You certainly are not wrong. Whoever they are. 😀
Someone get Cas the sunglasses.
They’re gay angels.
Rebelled against Heaven. Hunting an Angel/Devil baby and wanting to stay on Earth to be together. Ambiguously implied they’re the parents of the nephilim.
Someone tell me the director (Nina?) or costume designer or something worked on both shows :p
Are you fucking kidding me
My previous assessment – SUPERNATURAL WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN – still stands.
Tumblr backup 