some stuff isn’t just a trope, you know? in the movies, we’re introduced to women who are “experts” who have trained for years, who live and breathe and are willing to die for whatever the male main character has never even experienced before. and then he takes the reigns and upstages her, instantly, with a little bit of friendly bewilderment because, come on, it’s not antifeminist, he’s just good, he’s standing there having shown he’s actually more powerful than she’ll ever be - and we buy it. and then we go home and when we live and breathe something we still ask ourselves. “am i actually good at this? or is some fool going to walk into this presentation eighteen minutes in and offer a sarcastic and biting correction?” we wait for the man to show up and prove that, despite awards and training and an excellent job position, we’re actually just secretly incompetent.
the trope isn’t just setting up for us “this man is good at what he does” – the fact that the trope demands our male hero upstage the woman says: even an incompetent man will always be better than the best woman. he could have upstaged the sage boss or whatever other male in power exists in the movie. but he doesn’t. he upstages the woman to earn his pack order because she is, intrinsically, the weakest link. the real fight will be man against man. it always is.
and i wish, i wish it stopped outside of the theater. but the number of men who try (gently) to assure me that they’re actually better at what i have multiple degrees and years of experience in - it tells me it worked. men are always looking to be the hero, to interrupt, to upstage, to flip the woman on her back and expose her to all your fellow men - see! for someone who has been doing this forever, she’s just another woman. i am reminded by a man this is called mansplaining. i said “it’s a system of silencing women” and he said, “no, it’s just an accident.” in the movie, he sees himself pointing to my equation on the board, having just walked in. “here’s the flaw,” he says. in the real life, i’m too frustrated to speak. in the movie, he’s inevitably right.
elle woods flipping her hair and saying what, like it’s hard? was a funny line. it’s funny because in every other movie, it’s said by a guy.
its probably why there are so many inept guys who think theyre better than women whose jobs are literally to know what it is theyre doing.
yenoodlethings liked this shudurpa liked this
shooting-a-star-at-the-moon reblogged this from merridelicious
shooting-a-star-at-the-moon liked this
merridelicious reblogged this from inkskinned
merridelicious liked this
arikaito reblogged this from munihuang
aliferous-ly liked this munihuang reblogged this from fivewrites
sunsickdaze reblogged this from gupdoo3
gupdoo3 reblogged this from inkskinned
quentoe liked this locusnegotium reblogged this from themumblingmouse
mayax81 liked this
chanpaiki liked this sunflower-with-teeth liked this
emberwritesinsight liked this
magnificentmistressofmagnetism liked this inkamumbles liked this
starlight1012 liked this
justabitchbaby liked this
balderdashboard reblogged this from linskywords and added: In law school, the very first day of legal writing class, we went around the room and as an ice breaker had to name our...
grapplemace liked this
onlyfeministthoughts reblogged this from puttingherinhistory
the-wrathful-trilobite liked this
nicole-hoot118724 liked this
oumeoi liked this mirroredinyourstare liked this
books-away reblogged this from dongwater
books-away liked this
agaricamagicka reblogged this from dongwater
my-gaymical-romance reblogged this from dongwater
my-gaymical-romance liked this firefly7probably liked this
inkskinned posted this
- Show more notes