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I'm really tired of the "woman sad about her arranged marriage" trope, especially if that woman is royalty.

I am sure that many women across time were sad about their arranged marriages, but I'm sure a lot of others were excited, ambivalent, or resigned. Again, especially if you were royalty! I am sure if you were born a princess, you were trained from birth that your whole purpose in life was to marry someone important to solidify the power of the person on the throne. And honestly, it's an important job, if it wasn't, they wouldn't have tried so hard to do it.

That woman isn't just marrying another king or prince, she's going to be an ambassador of her country. She's supposed to be there promoting good relations. She isn't just a woman being sold off, she has a job! Also, if she is marrying the reigning monarch (or the heir), she may well end up running the country if the king is off at war or he dies when the heir is really young. That happened a lot throughout history! (or maybe she marries the third son and helps him find his way to the throne. Good for her)

It just feels like a modern sentiment being projected back. In Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet's mother first brings up marrying her to Paris, Juliet's basically cool with it and says she'll try to like him. She would have known this was going to happen because that is what rich women do, they marry into another family so their two families can be buddies. What else would she even be expecting?

It wouldn't bother me so much except that it's all we see! Give me a story about a woman who is like, "Cool, I shall give it my all!" Or she's like rolling up her sleeves and planning how she's going to get the court on her side and rule France, power behind the throne style (these women are mostly portrayed as villains, but who is to say the king would do a better job?). And also, have a little faith in women's fathers? You think men in the past didn't occasionally consider the happiness of their daughters? Not even a little bit?

There are women who get excited about their arranged marriages *today*. It can do so much more in a plot than create conflict

if your culture has a tradition of arranged marriages it also probably has a lot of faith in the institution of marriage brokers. so like yeah if i was sixteen and boys were confusing and i was irritatingly horny for guys i knew it would be a really bad idea to actually spend time with, i'd be pretty relieved to know some lady who has done nothing but broker successful power marriages for 50+ years is currently finding me a decent husband, with the input of my dad (who knows what problems men can have) and my mom (who definitely knows what problems men can have).

like. instead i just had to spend my sixteenth year of age horny for random-ass boys who i never did anything with anyway. if i could have been handed a blacksmith or merchant or something that could have been a bit more sensible use of all our time.

Idk like I think there's a really misogynist way that women are expected to consider being murdered and assaulted as like 1000x worse than anything else that could happen and do everything possible to avoid it and like it's unarguably bad! But constantly whenever I mention going hiking or whatever people are like 'omg you're going camping alone as a woman??? what if you get murdered?????' Actually by far the way I am most likely to die doing that is... some sleep deprived or drunk driver crashing into me on the way there! But no one tells you to avoid driving, meanwhile there's so much pressure on women to like, always stay in other crowded super safe areas or at home to Protect Their Virtue and it's like lol I would actually rather live an interesting life doing things that I enjoy

Here’s a cool trick to see if a man actually respects you: try disagreeing with him

A friend of mine did something with online dating where, before meeting a person, she’d say no to something minor without a reason for the no. For example: “No, I don’t want to meet at a coffee shop, how about X?”, or “No, not Wednesday”, or “No, I don’t want to recognize each other by both wearing green shirts”. She said how the potential dates reacted was a huge indicator of whether she actually wanted to meet them, something I readily believe.

I’ve mentioned this to a few people and sometimes I get very annoyed and incredulous responses from guys about how are they supposed to know that it’s a test if the girl is being unreasonable? How are they supposed to know that and let her have her way? I find it difficult to explain that if you find it unreasonable for someone to have a preference of no consequence which they don’t feel the need to explain, then you are the one being unreasonable. You can decide for yourself that it sounds flaky and you don’t want to date her, but you don’t have a right to know and approve all of her reasons for things in order to deign to respect that she said no about it. Especially in the case of someone you haven’t even fucking met yet.

The point isn’t to know it’s a test, the point is that if you would only say “yes” if you knew it was a test, then what if it’s not a test, but because she hates coffee shops, or because she’s attending a funeral Wednesday and doesn’t know you well enough to want to share that, or whatever else? Because if you’re making rules for when other people can have preferences and not explain why… yeah, that is a thing they can reasonably want to avoid.

@ all the angry dudes in the replies: the point is not to trick or manipulate men. The point is to see how a potential romantic partner reacts to a minor inconvenience.  If they say, “oh, ok, would seven work instead?” or “well there’s this Armenian tea house I’ve been meaning to try out, want to go there?” then that’s a good sign that they’re safe to date.  If they throw a fit and/or demand to know every little detail about your rationale over something as simple as rescheduling dinner plans, that’s a bad sign. A really bad sign.

It’s like this, dudes. Women in Western society are socialised to cooperate and compromise. Some men are socialised to get all their own way, all the time.  These dudes are incredibly dangerous to women their partners,* and the only way to tell them apart from the OK guys is to pay close attention to how they react.  If you’re one of the OK ones, this isn’t about you. Learn to take “no” for an answer, and you’ll be fine.

*Updated to reflect the fact that abusive men can target any gender, and the fact that I used this screening tactic to good effect during my Big Gay Slut phase.

The thing a lot of the men reblogging don’t get – they think this post is telling women to lie. They think this post is telling women to start a fake argument and to be manipulative.

Actually, this post is doing the opposite. This post is telling women to be straightforward, and forthright, and upfront about their values and opinions.

This post is telling women, “I know you’ve been socialized and conditioned to nod and smile at everything a man says your whole life, since you were 4 years old and your grandma told you that little girls should be seen and not heard. I know that by now it’s second nature to you, and you probably don’t even realize you’re doing it half the time. You don’t even realize that the laugh that just came out of your mouth is a laugh of appeasement, rather than a laugh of genuine humor. ”

It’s telling women, “Force yourself to resist your conditioning. Consciously make an effort to be open and honest in that initial conversation, when you’re making small talk, about small things. If he says something you don’t quite agree with (and he inevitably will, because nobody agrees on everything), don’t smile and concede the point like you’ve been trained to do. Consciously make a point of vocalizing your real opinion.”

It’s telling women “If a man doesn’t respect your real opinion about a small, insignificant issue when you first meet him, then he’s not going to respect your real boundaries later on when you’re in a serious relationship.”

so I just found out, there’s this spider, the yellow garden spider, and the female spins  a strong center line and attaches it to her abdomen and hangs off of it. the male shows up, builds his own little web nearby and starts plucking the strands to seduce her with vibration

are you telling me a fucking spider can figure it out but we have men who still can’t find a clit??

yeh but she kills him afterword *squints* so what you saying?

she can “oscillate her web vigorously while she remains firmly attached in the center” so she don’t need you, boy.

shake that thang

Under the Burden of Adversity by Teodor Axentowicz

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

🗝

Just remember. There is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are only fake geek boys. Science fiction was invented by a woman.

Specifically a teenage girl. You know, someone who would be a part of the demographic that some of these boys are violently rejecting.

Isaac Asimov.

yo mary shelley wrote frankenstein in 1818 and isaac asimov was born in 1920 so you kinda get my point

If you want to push it back even further Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673) wrote The Blazing World in 1666, about a young woman who discovers a Utopian world that can only be accessed via the North Pole - oft credited as one of the first scifi novels

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

PbbBFFTTBBBTBTTBBTBTTT so desperate to discredit the idea of Mary Shelly as the mother of modern science fiction you didn’t even do a frickin google search For Shame

And if you want to go back even further, the first named, identified author in history was Enheduanna of Akkad, a Sumerian high priestess.

Kinda funny, considering this Isaac Asimov quote on the subject:

Even Isaac Asimov ain’t having none of your shit, not even posthumously.

You know what else was invented by women? Masked vigilantes, the precursor to the modern superhero. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905. The character would later inspire better known masked vigilantes such as Zorro and Batman.

Got that?

Stick that in your international pipe and smoke it

I have literally been telling people this for over a year.

the first extended prose piece - ie a novel, was not, as many male scholars will shout, Don Quixote (1605) but The Tale of Genji (1008) written by a woman

The first autobiography ever written in English is also attributed to a woman, The Book of Margery Kempe (1430s).

The day may come when I find this post and do not reblog it, but it is not this day.

I think I might have broken my finger reblogging this. 

EVERYONE TAKE A MINUTE TO JUST APPRECIATE THE FACT THAT DONALD GLOVER EXISTS AND KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK IS UP