Sidetracks - February 18, 2013

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

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➝ Why Are We So Ashamed of Our Women Heroes? makes a great point:

If a young woman in middle school or high school hangs up a poster of Barack Obama in her room, this is seen as acceptable. It's fine for women to admire men and want to be like them.

If a young man (the same age) hangs up a poster of Hillary Clinton in his room, this is seen as odd (maybe even troubling, is he gay? Oh no!).

➝ Having caught up on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, I found this essay particularly revealing re: my feelings on parts of the storyline. What I feared would happen...happened. Oh well.

➝ I just found metanews. How awesome! \o/ Everyone go share your meta!

➝ I found this essay by Myke Cole interesting, especially in regards to fear. However:

No matter what an author intends, once the work is written, published and sold, it’s out of the author’s hands. You can’t control how a reader will interpret your work, nor should you try.

That is followed by:

Because I don’t want to piss people off. I don’t want them to focus on assumed subtexts and agendas. I want them to sit back, relax, and enjoy a rocking adventure.

...dude. If you don't want to piss people off, don't say "you can't control how a reader will react" and then say "I WANT them to just RELAX and enjoy the story the way I WANTED THEM TO." I also like the insulting "assumed subtexts". I usually really enjoy and feel safe reading the essays Aidan features, but this was an unhappy surprise. :(

➝ Sexism against women is more personal than "sexism against men." Food for thought.

➝ I love this. Via The Mary Sue.

Sex is the most pervasive method of categorizing people. [...] According to gender identity theory from infancy onward, whether a person is male or female pervades almost all human activities and experiences. —Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, "Men and Women Are From Earth: Examining the Latent Structure of Gender"

➝ A super great quote from Jessica Chastain about women fighting in the film industry. "Please don't allow the media to perpetuate the myth that women aren't supportive of each other." ♥

➝ A short film with a twist I actually liked! Moon Dust.

➝ I watched this video with no context and was totally crying by the end because of surprise feelings. The imagery of the little boy saying "I'LL WAIT." s;dlska;sdka;kds

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➝ Oscar Pistorius is charged with murder after shooting his partner.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Renay,

Sorry Myke's article didn't work for you. I wanted to drop by and say that I appreciate you challenging Myke's thoughts here on Lady Business. I value your opinions about these sorts of things and, though I didn't see associate those two comments originally, you have me thinking again of the article.

Cheers,

~Aidan
A Dribble of Ink

[renay]

That's just my inner fan coming out to flip tables (how many times have I heard "I don't want to control response to my book, I just don't want any of those weirdos responding with FANFIC!"). ;) I would have said it over there, but although I feel safe enough in your space to be like "HEY!" when it's you, not so much when it's an author I have only heard of tangentially. I don't want to make your guests angry!