leora
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Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in the "leora" journal:
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02:33 pm
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Sexist Fiction
So I recently read a book I quite enjoyed that takes place on a sexist world. On the one hand, I want to say, this book is sexist. But on the other hand, I don't mean that in a bad way. What I really mean is, this is a work of sci-fi/fantasy that is deliberately set on a world that is sexist. That the sexism seems very deliberate and interesting, and that it does not come across as if the authors (it is co-authored) are sexist.
So, I was trying to figure out what makes the difference between sexism in a story seeming like a choice to show a sexist society versus just seeming like an annoyingly sexist work. And I think the key element is is the reader supposed to recognize that this is sexism and it is not good.
I think that comes across very clearly in this work for several reasons. The largest reason in this case is that it is one book in a series. The series spans multiple planets and cultures, and most of them aren't sexist. The cultures we know best from the previous books are not sexist. So, this comes across as: yes, this universe also contains worlds and cultures that are pretty explicitly sexist and this is one of them. Also, the sexism is very clear. It's not like there's a smidge of sexism that somehow snuck in. There are legal differences between the rights for males and females. It reads like a deliberate choice. Also, the society is very much not set up as flawless or a model. At first, it actually seemed quite dystopic, but by the end of the story I felt more like it was a very human society in that it had some large flaws and some really good points. It felt like a society that could clearly improve, but that was trying to run a world in a way that would be good for its people.
Now, in this case, being part of a series made it really obvious that the sexism was a deliberate choice. I am wondering about how you draw that line in one-off books between this is bigoted and it reads like the author is a bigot, versus this is bigoted and that is intended to be part of the story being expressed. Perhaps I am biased enough myself that I just assume a good light if I enjoy the story and blame it if I do not. Or perhaps there are other things I am picking up on. How does an author make it clear that they want to convey sexism to write about sexism. Now this can come across pretty clearly if it's very dystopic and sexism is the main thrust of the book. But what about if you want it to be one element among many. I would say that in the book I read, sexism was not the main element to that society nor to the story. It was just one aspect of that culture. One flaw that that culture happened to have.
Perhaps it's one of those things that you can do it, but it's difficult and should only be attempted if you really think you can pull it off. It does seem easy to fall into simply offending people. But I am curious what other people's takes on are how to distinguish those two categories of bigotry in books. Because I don't think authors should only write about completely unbigoted societies or always use fantastic racism (too lazy to link to the trope, so I'll spare your day from being eaten by tv tropes, but basically where you invent categories for bigotry such as humans are bigoted against the aliens and vice versa). On the other hand, I really don't want to read bigoted crap, nor do I want people to get the message that bigotry is okay. It can be hard to portray the characters as bigoted and not seem to be saying that it's fine to be this way, especially if many of the characters are decent people on the whole, but grew up in a bigoted culture and thus are realistically mainly good, but sometimes annoyingly bigoted.
Okay, out of thoughts on this. Especially as I mainly found it thought-provoking rather than conclusion-generating.
Current Mood:  tired
Tags: books, personal, questions, thoughts, values
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01:15 pm
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Well Then...
Okay, Dreamwidth is once again usable. This leaves me with the conundrum of to what extent should I use it. Ethically, I like it better than LJ. Security-wise, I like it a bit better. Eventually I should test it a little for weaknesses (nothing to harm anyone, just to know how secure I feel different aspects of it are). I do expect DW to care more about security and to probably be more responsive to security issues brought to their attention. Although I still intend to use both sites with JS off most of the time.
Lots of my friends are still on LJ, but some are on DW. And if I move primarily to here, I may encourage some to move. Or I may encourage some to stop reading me... I need to think about it. But first, I definitely need food.
Oh yes, and things have been happening in my life. I should possibly write about some of them. Hmm, although some of it relates to someone who is on LJ and is not on DW. That makes me more inclined to write about it on LJ. Interesting. Food for thought perhaps, but not food for food, so I should cook food.
Current Mood: hungry
Tags: meta-journaling
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12:24 pm
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*sighs*
I've been putting off using Dreamwidth because I can't get a style I can use in Dreamwidth ever since my custom style from LJ stopped working properly on DW. Today I tried to fix that. None of the styles I can use as a free user are me-friendly, or if they are, I can't find a way to customize them to be so. I don't know how to fix this style. So, I think I'm stuck just continuing to not use DW until someday more styles are added. This is frustrating and stupid. But it is still the case.
Current Mood:  annoyed
Tags: meta-journaling
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12:43 am
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A meme
The meme is to describe what you look like through text.
I am between 5'2" and 5'3" tall. I have long, brown hair that is mostly straight, but as it is forever getting horrible split ends since I hate going to get my hair cut, it ends up somewhat wavy at times. My hair is thick and plentiful and constantly shedding. When I first moved in with my partner, I warned him about my hair. I told him it would end up everywhere. He fully accepted that known risk. He was still surprised. He asked me later, when we weren't living together (the first time was just for a summer and then I had to go back to school), how did my hair manage to get into books that were never even opened during the time I was there? I told him, that's what my hair ~does~ and I had warned him. However, ever since I cut it after college the heart went out of it and it no longer generally attempts to lasso random objects and then propel them violently across the room without my knowledge or to strangle people who get close to me. This is a useful thing, but it's a bit sad. All the life has gone out of my hair.
I have very pale skin. I do not tan. I sometimes look like part of me is tan. This happens if I get a sun burn and then it goes through a tanned phase as part of the healing process. I don't know why I either don't tan or don't tan enough to not be very pale, but that is the way it is. This does not make me goth, even if I am wearing black clothing. Black is useful for many people. I'm just naturally pale.
I have brown eyes. Most people say they look normal. One of my friends says she can see the scars in them. Sometimes I look at them in the mirror. Everyone says that they look normal, but they creep me out. It's okay, so long as I don't look at them in the mirror. I think it's because I have to look at them with my eyes... probably the left eye is looking at the right eye. Probably something like that. They probably don't look as asymmetrical as they do to me. The right one probably doesn't look kind of dead to other people. And other people never notice if they're not looking where I'm looking. The net effect is that, to me, it's a bit like they're not my eyes in the mirror. They didn't used to be that way. But everyone says I don't look blind, so you can probably assume they look like normal dark brown eyes. Oh, and they have dark brown half-circles under them most of the time. This is my legacy from about 10 years of nearly constant sleep-deprivation. They are less than they used to be. Maybe someday they will be gone. I've noticed using moisturizer, at least temporarily, decreases their appearance. I view them much like I would view a scar. They are one of the most visible signs of the mostly invisible damage, but most people won't realize this and tell me that I don't look disabled. I do though, I look roughly like countless other people with invisible disabilities.
I'm either thin or an average weight. I'm somewhere between 112 to 117 pounds. I've had issues with different scales giving me different information. I haven't checked recently, but short of active health problems or medication use my weight is stable. It never seems to be affected by either diet or exercise, except for starvation. If I am starving, I will lose weight. So, it's probably about where it always is.
I have breasts just big enough to make bra and swim suit shopping difficult without making it incredibly difficult. I have large hips. You would think that these facts would make me look soft or curvy or feminine. They don't. I am sharp and pointy. Well, my breasts aren't especially sharp, but the general impression I give, if I'm not careful, is sharp and pointy. I can easily do severe or stern if I pull my hair back, so I usually don't pull it all back. My ancestry is primarily Russian with some Polish and Spanish thrown in (and some other things). I think I do look pretty much like a Russian Jew, but I also see some of the Spanish influences. I've seen pictures of stern looking dark-haired Spanish women and I think, yeah, I could be related to that.
Oh yes, I have a stereotypically Jewish bent nose. I also have a non-stereotypically broken nose. Due to an accident many years ago while playing tennis, my nose got broken. It didn't seem like such a big deal at the time, so I didn't have it checked. Thus it set wrong. My nose veers off to one side and looks weird and big and asymmetrical. I sometimes ponder getting it fixed, but mainly because I wonder if it actually causes functional problems. If so, then it's likely a good idea. If not, it doesn't seem worth the effort.
My belly button is an innie, which is only sad because I've never seen an outie belly button in person and would like to. Although I have seen some interesting belly buttons.
My fingers and toes are both on the long side. The fingers can bend forward or backward. I routinely crack my knuckles (which hurt if I don't crack them) by bending them backwards. I used to crack them normally, but people would comment about how I shouldn't crack my knuckles. I do actually make efforts to reduce knuckle cracking around people who say they find it actively annoying, but I'm not going to stop because someone else thinks I should for my own sake. However, once I was told not to crack my knuckles like that, so I immediately responded by cracking them by bending my fingers backwards. The person did not know what to say to that and I realized the usefulness of this. Since then I've cracked them by bending my fingers backwards and nobody ever comments about it. Or if they do, they comment about how I can bend my fingers backwards. This is a significant improvement.
Personally, I don't care for how I look, although I didn't include all of the details for why. But there are people who seem to find me very attractive. Personally, I view myself as sufficiently attractive. I don't think I'm especially pretty, but I've never been rejected by someone based on my looks. So, my looks are good enough for my needs. There's really nothing where my appearance has particularly mattered. I suppose a few parts in plays, but I didn't do much acting. Most of the time I'm too busy being upset with my body's inability to function well to be upset with not having a nicer form. My form isn't horrible, even if it's not gorgeous either. And the difficulty in functioning has been an obstacle to things I wanted.
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Tags: personal
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01:34 pm
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And done
I created ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) polyamory. Now to settle in for some quiet journal use. I was heavily involved in LJ, but I think I'm mainly hoping to just be a quiet user of DW and avoid politics and drama. We'll see how well that works.
Current Mood: hungry
Tags: meta-journaling, personal
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05:05 pm
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I made my first community
I know I want to duplicate two of the communities I maintain on LJ here, because their purposes are important to me. I just did so for one of them. advice now exists. I expect it will be small at first, but may grow. I may need to refine the rules a bit as it grows. Feel free to umm offer any advice on improving the profile or whatever. If I'm going to actually have a place on Dreamwidth, then I need to set-up the things that matter to me. The advice comm really has. We help far too many people with far too depressing problems. If this site grows, it'll probably have use for a similar community.
Now, I just need to decide whether I want to make polyamory or polyamorous as the community name. And then I think I will have what I most want on this site set-up. Other than obviously having all of my friends here.
Current Mood:  accomplished
Tags: links, meta-journaling, personal
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11:07 pm
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Tough Choices more or less made
I have 39 userpics on LJ. I get 6 here. Choosing six was hard. 10 would have been fairly easy, six was tricky. I tried to pick by function. I need something appropriate for general use, something to represent me. I was originally going to go with a different userpic, but it looked wrong with my style, so I picked reveries. I just wish it looked better in tiny userpic size. Some images shrink down better than others. The large version is quite pretty if you ever want to look it up. I personally am quite a fan of Maxfield Parrish (as may be obvious) and a lot of his stuff is online and you can look at copies. It's pretty stuff. So, that was one.
Then I needed a general use commenting userpic. I use ouroboros all the time. It's my general intellectual/academic/rational (with some other meanings as well) userpic, so I needed it.
Then, as much as I wish I didn't, I need something appropriate for using when sad things happen. If I'm commenting with condolences on a death or some other tragedy, I do not want to be using a happy smiling userpic or something silly. This was actually more vital on LJ where my default userpic is Ecstasy. Commenting with something called Ecstasy for such a reason is just all wrong. But anyhow, iris is my sad userpic and I need one for that purpose.
Then I needed a userpic that was actually me. Sometimes I want to be more direct in my comments and use a userpic of myself. Sometimes that feels more right. So, one of those went in.
Then I needed a userpic for when I'm being a bit of a smartass or when you shouldn't take me too seriously. I have 3 of those on LJ, my squirrel, my this is not a pipe, and my I have no mouth and I must scream. Each of them also serves other functions as well. But I went with the one I made myself, because I made it myself.
Finally, I needed something kind and compassionate for when I am trying to be more emotionally supportive. Something warm. I have a few of these on LJ, such as lion and lamb and butterfly in my hands. Again, each also has other layers of meaning and purpose. But I went with tea, since it was made as a gift for me and because people tend to like it.
It means I don't get to use my parrot or my dolphin, both of which have very specific functions in representing specific aspects of who I am. I don't get to use the meadow pic or the butterflies, which both represent parts of my past. And I don't get to use in the water, which is what I almost made be my default userpic and I quite like. Oh and my larch, which is one of my three religious userpics. And my Rodin sculpture which is a userpic I have but hope to never use. It's for when the iris is not enough. Hmmm... and none of my do not mess with me userpics made the cut. I hope I won't need them. Oh and... others as well. I have built up a fair bit of a userpic collection over the years, and each one has its own story, purpose, and meaning.
I begin to see why people tend to want more userpic spaces. But I know they are expensive. There have to be limits. Let's see how well I manage here with 6 after being used to having more spaces than I could ever fill. I think I have about 100 free spaces on LJ. Certainly more unused spaces than I have used ones.
Well, if I decide I don't like my choices I can change them. But we'll try this out and see how I like the ones I went with. And I can still use the others on LJ. Maybe I'll appreciate them more too.
Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: meta-journaling, personal
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10:12 pm
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Progress
With help from Phoenix, I now have my journal set up with good usable colors. With help from advil, I now have less of a migraine.
I should upload some userpics.
I'm really missing the ability to view other people's journals in my style. That's a disability issue as far as I'm concerned. However, I do mostly read my friends/subscriptions page anyway. But it means I'm a bit less likely to read the things that don't display in it. The system style also isn't as good for me as the one I have on LJ, but it is a lot better than LJ usually does for system styles (I use lynx on LJ). What I like about it is that the background is a light grey, rather than pure white. Somebody thought about glare. This means I probably will be able to read system pages with less difficulty than a lot of stuff put on the web. I like that. It could be better for me, but this is better than pure black text on a white background.
I also don't want to judge Dreamwidth too much yet, because it's so young. You simply cannot do everything at once. So, I want to wait and see how it develops. I mean, it's still in beta. So, I don't really mean to complain about any missing features. It's just a question of how much I want to use it currently based on where it currently is. That and I really don't know what using an LJ with a free account is like these days, so it's not like I'm comparing a free LJ account to a free DW one. I'm comparing a permanent account on LJ to a free one on Dreamwidth. Of course I'll have fewer features. The question is more about how usable will it be with what I get.
I am looking forward to seeing how things go. And this is starting to actually look like a journal. I just need to pick my userpics... that's hard. Which ones do I want to use? Do I want the same default pic as I use on LJ? Decisions, decisions.
Current Mood:  sick
Tags: meta-journaling, personal
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10:49 pm
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I have a journal
So, now I have a DreamWidth journal. I also have a migraine, so don't expect me to do much with it for a bit. Also, since this site is still very beta, I can't customize the colors of my journal yet, which means I can't yet read things on the site. I know the site is young, so it's understandable, but it means this will mostly sit for a bit until things get a little more usable. Meanwhile, I'll poke around and get used to the place.
Current Mood: sick
Tags: meta-journaling
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
