How interesting.

In my blog post for today, I talk about aspects of my character that often make other people uncomfortable.

One major point I left out (not becuse it doesn't count but because I'd gone on too long already and it really is its own post) is how these aspects (such as outward intelligenve, ambition, motivation, self-assertion, etc.) are often considered "unfeminine."

I frequently wonder if I would have to go through the same struggle about my personality if I happened to be a man.

Earlier today I read an opinion piece about the stoning for promiscuity of an Islamic girl, whose crime had been to love a boy of another sect.
The writer said that Islamic moderates should rise up and denounce this, but they don't. The stoning permission in the Koran, I think, is raw, primitive emotion and the emotion is possessiveness. Men want to control the womb, but they cannot.
My point is that I don't think it's 'envy'. They don't want wombs. They want power.

In some ways, a lot of feminist thought is beginning to make a lot more sense to me than it did at one time.

The objectification of women. Oh, yeah! I hope you do write about that one day. My post today deals with that.. but not as articulately as you do it.

Peace,

~Chani

I never cared for Whedon, or any of projects, either, but he just went up a notch in my estimation.

I think Mary G has the right of it -- it isn't so much "envy" in the case of most men, though there are the rare few who do actually care about the bonding process -- most men just want the power. They *like* feeling superior. And, for the record, women DO NOT have the market cornered on manipulation. Men manipulate just as much, if not more, than women do -- women're just more upfront about it.

I don't mean that to sound as man-bashing as it does. It doesn't make it less true.

Thanks for bringing this up. I never would have found it otherwise.

I admit I watch Whedon's stuff, but I've never gotten why people think he's so radical. I hadn't heard about this upcoming movie, but I'm glad people in his position are talking about it and its cultural implications. Americans (and I am one) get all up in other people's business about how they treat their own (e.g., Khalil), but we're not exactly innocent, just more repressed.

It's depressing, really. The whole lot of it.

I love me some Joss Whedon. I'm glad I read this piece!

I'm a long-time Whedon fan. Thanks for this.

I don't know much about Buffy and nothing about Whedon, but this makes me want to. I don't know what it means that, while I read, I assumed that the writer was a woman.

I've loved Joss since the start of Buffy, and then he writes something like this and I love him even more. However, I do agree with those that say that it's more about power than it is about envy. The 'envy' explanation suggests that there is something rational at some level, in the same way that saying she was stoned 'because she loved the wrong boy' suggests some recognisable logic to their actions.

With regard to those who don't like Buffy, I've sometimes found that it's because people catch the occasional episode and it seems very formulaic and rather silly what with the monsters of the week and all. You have to watch it in whole season arcs, preferably on a box set consumed in 72 hours, to really get it. For me, it's never been about the feminism so much as it is about the narrative. I'm a narrative junky. Joss is a masterful storyteller who is always in complete control of his material and characters. Just when you think you know where the story is going, he upends your expectations but in a way that makes complete sense in retrospect.

The fact that the story centres on a kick-ass hero who happens to be female certainly doesn't hurt. But I can argue either side of the 'Buffy is a feminist icon' versus 'Buffy is deeply conservative' depending on my mood and inclination.

Of course, I also completely accept that people have watched whole box sets of Buffy (occasionally under house arrest by me) and still not recognised the genius that is Joss. To such people I say 'Have you tried Firefly?' or occasionally and sadly 'We'll just have to agree to differ.'