activists at barnard college providing “labels”, photographed by susan rennie and published in off our backs: a women’s newsjournal vol. 3 no. 6, february 1973
Black an white photo of two women, one standing, one seated.
Behind them is a hand-written sign reading,
“YEA – It’s a heavy trip. BUT! This is a chance to CHOOSE YOUR OWN LABEL instead of having someone else do it for you:
i can’t describe the emotions i’m feeling at seeing a 50 year old photograph mention asexuals
i can’t describe the emotions i’m feeling at seeing a 50 year old photograph mention asexuals and include an east asian woman.
I love my library.
[Stack of library books including The Fictional Woman, Too Fat Too Slutty Too Loud, History Is All You Left Me, More Happy Than Not, Drag Teen, The Moonlight Dreamers, Tell It To The Moon, and When We Rise. In the background is another stack of Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman mysteries without library stickers.]
I am not sugar and spice and everything nice. I am music, I am art. I am a story. I am a church bell, gonging out wrongs and rights and normal nights. I was baby. I am child. I will be mother. I don’t mind being considered beautiful, I do not allow that to be my definition. I am a rich pie strong with knowledge. I will not be eaten.
In the world of superheroes, because it’s such a melodramatic world with operatic undertones to it, most of the best ones have some sort of tragedy, deformity, or disability that is meant to add depth and poignancy to their heroism, whether that’s Bruce Wayne sobbing over his parents’ bodies or Bruce Banner forced to live a life of emotional repression in order to keep his dark side at bay. You could argue that Peggy’s cross to bear is Steve’s death, but we’d argue right back that she’s mourning him in a more or less normal, human way and her grief seems to be following a healthy evolution. No vows to dress like a flying rat over his grave or anything. She’s just taken what she’s learned from him and letting his memory inspire her. No, her cross is even more basic than that. In order to protect her mission from her co-workers, Peggy has to become the bumbling, ineffective Clark Kent/Peter Parker type, hiding her victories and strength from the very people she so desperately wants to notice them. And because this show is using the patriarchal and chauvinistic attitudes of the day as a backdrop for this story, Peggy’s sacrifice becomes all that much more poignant. She has to pretend to be dumber than she is and take no credit for her work in front of a group of men who already think it’s an insult that she be allowed to work alongside them at all. Peggy Carter’s kryptonite IS the patriarchy.
And yet fanfiction is an inherently transformative work which, by its very nature, strives to address or change some flaw that exists in canon, even if that flaw is “why isn’t there more of this thing?!” Fanfiction has addressed the lack of gay men by making straight characters gay; it’s addressed countless cultural misappropriations with wildly varying AUs; it’s addressed canon plot holes and timeline issues with fix-it fics and crossovers. Fanfic is the show your show could be like, if only you dared to dream.
But for all its transformative nature, fanfiction and fandom still suffer from a real dearth of femslash. Beyond the simple fact that very few girls exist in canon materials, the societal emphasis on the male gaze seems to have affected fanficcers’ creativity to such an extent that even in our own fantasies, we cannot give women a fair shake. Just as the answer to “Why is there so much slash?” cannot be boiled down to “ Well, straight girls are horny”, the answer to “Why isn’t there any femslash?” cannot be boiled down to “Well, straight girls don’t care.” The bias against female characters and female pleasure is an ingrained, institutionalized problem which won’t go away on its own.
The Test: “The show has a) at least one female character, b) who gets her own narrative, c) that is not about supporting a man’s story.”
Peggy Carter isn’t kicking butt because she’s trying to prove herself to anyone, she’s doing it because she wants to help people. That’s why she joined the SSR back in WWII, it didn’t change when she met Rogers, and it hasn’t changed since she lost him.
The test: “The show has a) at least two women; b) who talk to each other; c) about something besides a man.”
This is the lowest bar for female representation and not only does Agent Carter pass, but an entire sub-plot is nothing but two females talking to each other about everything but guys.
The Test: “The show has a disabled character who a) is not there ‘to be fixed’; b) whose narrative does not revolve around the disability; c) does their job while having a disability, not in spite of having a disability.”
Sousa is a wounded war vet who may not be able to chase down bad guys, but he has a voice in the group and does his job. He’s not trying to prove anything, nor does he have something to prove. You might even forget he’s disabled because it’s simply a part of who he is, not what he is.
The Test: “The show has a female character who a) has a traditionally masculine job; b) does not masculinize herself for the sake of the job; c) uses her femininity to her advantage; d) is not sexualized in the narrative.”
Peggy is allowed to be herself, and that means wearing whatever makes her comfortable. She wears skirts, has her hair done up, and her makeup is on point, for her, not for an audience who might want to sexualize her. And when she needs a day off to go hunt down bad guys without her boss knowing, she has no qualms in using his chauvinism against him. She even threw out that line about ‘until I’m married’ to convince the land lady to rent her an apartment.
The Test: “Can you replace the female character with a sexy lamp? If so, then you’re a hack.”
Just because Peggy is the title character doesn’t mean she can’t be overshadowed by her male counterparts. In Agent Carter, Peggy is more likely to hit you with a sexy lamp than be the sexy lamp. Angie also passes the sexy lamp test as the supporting character.
The Test: “The show has a) character(s) who rival the main character’s job or love interest; b) have reasonable skill in the job or allure for the love interest; c) are likeable or at least respectable.”
This fails when a rival is made either a complete idiot or horribly unlikable, but only to make the main character look good. In Agent Carter, Jack is chauvinistic but no more than expected for the time period. He’s intelligent and stays only a few steps behind Peggy who had an advantage over him because Stark confided in her. But this only gave her a head start, Peggy has to use her smarts and wit to keep ahead of him which only showcases how clever she is.
7. Passes the Brittle Sword Test:
The Test: “Even a warrior’s sword has to be able to bend, otherwise it becomes brittle and breaks.”
Peggy is certainly very strong but when her friend is killed, she first kicks a lot of butt, and then takes a moment to mourn and cry. Peggy is not made to look cold and heartless in order to make her appear to be a strong character, she’s allowed to have emotions.
The Test: “The female character can be swapped with a male character, with little to no edits, and the narrative still makes sense.”
Peggy’s character does follow several tropes typically seen in male led storylines, but her characterization and personal plot points are uniquely feminine. Her fighting blatant chauvinism, her difficulty in finding a safe place to live, and other aspects of her story would not make sense if Peggy was Peter.
The Test: “The main character a) is given a partner or work rival; b) this character is immediately set up to be the love interest; c) and they may be instantly despised by the main character in order to force sexual tension.”
Peggy is given a partner, Jarvis, and a rival, Jack. Neither are set up as the love interest. This means that her interactions between them are not meant to further a ‘will they, won’t they’ sub-plot, but to actually further the plot. This serves to give Peggy, Jarvis, and Jack their own identities.
The Test: “The female character a) has no female friends outside of work; or if she does a) she spends over half the time talking to said friend about work and/or relationship; b) the friend does not help to further character development; c) they are only there to bounce exposition off of.”
While there is mention of Peggy’s job at ‘the phone company’, she spends most of her time talking to Angie about customers, apartments, and other girls. Peggy’s reluctance to put Angie in danger shows character evolution. Angie gives Peggy an existence outside of her work environment and offers more facets to her character.
There are many things I love about Phryne Fisher. One of the biggies is how much she likes and is protective of women.
And one of my favourites:
An autistic, academically gifted university student in an otherwise all-male student body is framed, stalked, bullied and slandered.
Phryne doesn’t lay the blame on her, fixate on her differences or say her treatment is justifiable. She imitates her behaviour to understand it, opens up her home as a safe haven, and tries to see the world from the girl’s perspective rather than deciding to coach her to pass.
The way that we learn about Helen Keller in school is an absolute outrage. We read “The Miracle Worker”- the miracle worker referring to her teacher; she’s not even the title character in her own story. The narrative about disabled people that we are comfortable with follows this format- “overcoming” disability. Disabled people as children.
Helen Keller as an adult, though? She was a radical socialist, a fierce disability advocate, and a suffragette. There’s no reason she should not be considered a feminist icon, btw, and the fact that she isn’t is pure ableism- while other white feminists of that time were blatent racists, she was speaking out against Woodrew Wilson because of his vehement racism. She supported woman’s suffrage and birth control. She was an anti-war speaker. She was an initial donor to the NAACP. She spoke out about the causes of blindness- often disease caused by poverty and poor working conditions. She was so brave and outspoken that the FBI had a file on her because of all the trouble she caused.
Yet when we talk about her, it’s either the boring, inspiration porn story of her as a child and her heroic teacher, or as the punchline of ableist, misogynistic jokes. It’s not just offensive, it’s downright disgusting.
the reason the story stops once hellen keller learns to talk is no one wanted to listen to what she had to say
how’s that for a fucking punchline
It’s not that I disagree that we should all be aware of what a badass Helen Keller became, because she had a long and amazing career as an activist and yes, a feminist hero. It’s that somehow when people talk about the ableism of the way Helen’s story is told they always seem to forget this: Anne Sullivan, her teacher, was blind. Seriously. From Wikipedia:
“When she was only five years old she contracted a bacterial eye disease known as trachoma, which created painful infections and over time made her nearly blind.[2] When she was eight, her mother passed away and her father abandoned the children two years later for fear he could not raise them on his own.[2] She and her younger brother, James ("Jimmie”), were sent to an overcrowded almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts (today part of Tewksbury Hospital). He, who suffered a debilitating hip ailment, died three months into their stay. She remained at the Tewksbury house for four years after his death, where she had eye operations that offered some short-term relief for her eye pain but ultimately proved ineffective.[3]“
Eventually some operations did restore part of her eyesight, but by the end of her life she was entirely blind. Also:
"Due to Anne losing her sight at such a young age she had no skills in reading, writing, or sewing and the only work she could find was as a housemaid; however, this position was unsuccessful.[2] Another blind resident staying at the Tewksbury almshouse told her of schools for the blind. During an 1880 inspection of the almshouse, she convinced an inspector to allow her to leave and enroll in the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, where she began her studies on October 7, 1880.[2] Although her rough manners made her first years at Perkins humiliating for her, she managed to connect with a few teachers and made progress with her learning.[2] While there, she befriended and learned the manual alphabet from Laura Bridgman, a graduate of Perkins and the first blind and deaf person to be educated there.”
So Anne Sullivan, disabled and born into serious poverty, learns the manual alphabet from a deaf and blind friend; passes that alphabet on to her deaf and blind student. This isn’t the story of an abled-bodied teacher swooping in to ‘save’ a disabled child; it’s a series of disabled women helping each other. Helen Keller’s story is the story not of one badass disabled woman, but of two. Anne and Helen were lifelong friends; Anne died holding Helen’s hand.
Also is there a book called “The Miracle Worker”? I thought that was the movie/movies based on “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller. But I could be wrong. And I didn’t learn any of this in school in general but that’s neither here nor there.
I can recommend the ‘62 version of “The Miracle Worker” with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. It’s blatant about Sullivan’s impoverished background and eye problems – her rage on Helen’s behalf isn’t abstract at all, it’s very, very personal. And that’s the most amazing thing about this movie: Anne and Helen are the angriest people on earth. I have no idea if that was erased from the remakes but in the original they are both allowed to have a ton of anger about what has been done to them and what they have been denied.
Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Here’s a picture of Helen Keller meeting Charlie Chaplin:
omfg I am so mad right now because not only did the kids biography of Helen Keller I read when I was younger erase all her activism, but it very explicitly completely erased anything about Anne being blind herself.
There were scenes of her WATCHING Helen from across the room or yard, and it was all very “oh my, I just MUST save this poor little disabled girl, no other deaf blind person has EVER BEEN EDUCATED and basically it was awful and shitty.
I think everyone should read Helen and Teacher. It’s an absolute brick of a book, hundreds of pages, but it is wonderful. It’s about their whole lives, right up to Helen’s death in old age. It talks about Helen’s feminism, socialism, and campaigning for everything from equal rights to sexual health. Helen Keller was not a syrupy, greeting card girl who existed to make able people feel warm and fuzzy, she was a tireless academic, political activist and writer. She was making noise about the issues she cared about from the moment her partnership with Annie Sullivan began, and she never stopped.
“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’ ”
“Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grow-up.”
“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly. “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”
“Well, let’s not talk about that now,” said Peter.
The one I wanted to throttle was Polly. Lucy is possibly young enough not to really get it yet but Polly was a grown-ass woman and should have known better than to talk that kind of shit about a young woman wanting to stop being a child.
Susan wanted to grow up. She wanted (as mentioned in ‘The Horse And His Boy’) to fall in love and get married. She worried, she protected, she mothered. And she was the only one, the only one out of all of them, who got it right. Aslan told them they had to move on. To grow up. To find him in their own world.
Susan was Aslan’s big fucking success. The others couldn’t do it. They couldn’t take the lessons they’d learned in Narnia into their own world. They couldn’t make a difference there – no, they all spent their time obsessing with getting back. Narnia was heaven for them and they couldn’t function anywhere else, so Aslan took them back one last time to suspend them forever in the only world they wanted.
Narnia was not Susan’s heaven. Narnia was not what Susan wanted. Eternal youth and innocence was not what Susan wanted. Susan wanted to grow. Susan wanted to grow up. Susan wanted love, and family, and her own world. Susan’s heaven was the one drawn from Earth, from a life lived to the full.
Since I was a kid, I have always thought of ‘The Last Battle’ as a very sad story because it is ultimately a story of failure. All the ‘kings and queens of Narnia’ die and are brought back to the dying magical world because they couldn’t accept what Aslan had told them over and over about growing up and moving on. They weren’t supposed to come back. It was a final act of mercy that Aslan allowed them to do so, since they couldn’t bear to live in their own world.
I think Susan would visit them someday, with her queen’s crown and her blazing red lipstick and the lines of growth and character on her face, and very gently explain to the perpetual children in Narnia that she was thankful that Aslan hadn’t taken her with the others. That she was thankful for her children and grandchildren, for boyfriends and husbands, for a life that was full and happy and productive. That she never needed Narnia to be happy. That she missed them, that she’d mourned for them, but she wouldn’t change her own choice for anything.
The other thing is that they had all already grown up once, in Narnia. In Horse and His Boy, there are references to how men try to be Susan’s lovers — and while this may not be intended in a sexual sense, it’s very much a thing that happens to adults, not children.
Whatever childhood she’d managed to cling to after being sent away from the Blitz and having to be mother to her siblings had ended. Puberty doesn’t go two directions, even if they returned to being children physically when they came back through the wardrobe.
The fact that she wanted to move and grow again, that her version of femininity wasn’t Lucy’s or Jill’s or Polly’s, was enough to deny her paradise? Really?
knitting in the dark 