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ugh! (dumb feminism and beowulf rant)
11 years ago
General
So I was reading through some Beowulf stuff looking for a particular passage in conjunction with the 2007 movie.
I stumble across some commentary on how beowulf movie has better characterzation and gender roles than beowulf the text.
Mostly they're talking about how wealhtheow in the text only has the purpose of sleeping with hrothgar and getting drinks.
In the movie it is claimed she is much stronger because she's brave enough to stand up the beowulf and blahblah blah. Go movie for not giving into the gender stereotypes of the past where women were property. NO!
Look I think feminism is important, I think gender roles can be harmful for both genders and I want to see a world where people don't feel like shit for fitting into a box, but I hate, hate hate hate people trying to discuss a "problem" without the faintest concept of what they are talking about.
Wealhtheow in Beowulf does look pretty and give out mead, but that's not because women were just mindless property to serve men.
The king and queen were not master/servant, the ideal of the society was the gold-giver/peace-weaver.
The king went to war, got treasure, passed that treasure out among the fighters.
The queen was like a yin to his yang, she helped with diplomacy, because the anglo saxons understood there is a balance. Where the men go off and fight the women stay and take care of the home and town.
More subtly Wealhtheow's passing the mead is a ceremony, the order the mead is given is important, it denotes honor, and surprise surprise it's a diplomatic action. That's why she gives it in a certain order and gives it to beowulf at a certain time. It's showing the king is the most important in the mead hall and beowulf is a damn important guest.
Her other action in the text is talking about her sons. she wants to ensure their place on the throne and is worried about beowulf taking the throne from them.
That might seem a little more petty but it's not just "I want my babies to succeed" it's politics. That shit was important because if something went wrong people didn't just die, the entire community died.
Note that at the end of Beowulf, after Beowulf is dead, the people grieve, and it's more than grief for a man, grief for a king, they are grieving for themselves because they are absolutely fucked. This was a time where kings weren't just butts in a seat they were out on the battlefield as well.
All the more reason the queen is such an important half, because you need someone to see a bigger picture and play politics because if the king bit the dust, there better be a plan B for a leader that can defend the community before another group came in.
All of this is contrasted with the movie version, where the queen makes comments about sleeping with beowulf, does put hrothgar to task for not doing shit about grendal (that's not so bad) but also derides him for sleeping with grendal's mother (spoiler, this movie was bad)
Sure she's stronger than this idea of a servant woman that's property, but she's hardly a truly strong character and she's a far cry from putting a rest to these "gender roles" that have been vilified.
"strong woman" in this context is just "aggressive bitch" which doesn't really help anyone in terms of gender roles, it just furthers the idea of power and aggression is to be valued.
The original anglo saxons did have gender roles, the genders were two sides of the same coin, two points of balance. Men had certain expectations and women had others and the point of this was not one is better than the other, but that one NEEDS the other or you are screwed.
Admittedly this is hard to pick up on if all you have for context is just the text where wealhtheow is present and no other understanding of the society at all, but that's a bit of the point.
Ultimately this idea has me so angry because not only is it doing an injustice to anglo saxon society and Beowulf text, it's a disservice to anyone that gives a damn about gender roles and society.
Trying to make a point of any social issue when you don't know what the context is is stupid and counter productive. You end up cursing something you don't understand and promoting something downright stupid (because it won't help us to dismantle gender roles if the method to do that is to say "if you're not aggressive or pushy, you're just weak")
just...ugh...
I stumble across some commentary on how beowulf movie has better characterzation and gender roles than beowulf the text.
Mostly they're talking about how wealhtheow in the text only has the purpose of sleeping with hrothgar and getting drinks.
In the movie it is claimed she is much stronger because she's brave enough to stand up the beowulf and blahblah blah. Go movie for not giving into the gender stereotypes of the past where women were property. NO!
Look I think feminism is important, I think gender roles can be harmful for both genders and I want to see a world where people don't feel like shit for fitting into a box, but I hate, hate hate hate people trying to discuss a "problem" without the faintest concept of what they are talking about.
Wealhtheow in Beowulf does look pretty and give out mead, but that's not because women were just mindless property to serve men.
The king and queen were not master/servant, the ideal of the society was the gold-giver/peace-weaver.
The king went to war, got treasure, passed that treasure out among the fighters.
The queen was like a yin to his yang, she helped with diplomacy, because the anglo saxons understood there is a balance. Where the men go off and fight the women stay and take care of the home and town.
More subtly Wealhtheow's passing the mead is a ceremony, the order the mead is given is important, it denotes honor, and surprise surprise it's a diplomatic action. That's why she gives it in a certain order and gives it to beowulf at a certain time. It's showing the king is the most important in the mead hall and beowulf is a damn important guest.
Her other action in the text is talking about her sons. she wants to ensure their place on the throne and is worried about beowulf taking the throne from them.
That might seem a little more petty but it's not just "I want my babies to succeed" it's politics. That shit was important because if something went wrong people didn't just die, the entire community died.
Note that at the end of Beowulf, after Beowulf is dead, the people grieve, and it's more than grief for a man, grief for a king, they are grieving for themselves because they are absolutely fucked. This was a time where kings weren't just butts in a seat they were out on the battlefield as well.
All the more reason the queen is such an important half, because you need someone to see a bigger picture and play politics because if the king bit the dust, there better be a plan B for a leader that can defend the community before another group came in.
All of this is contrasted with the movie version, where the queen makes comments about sleeping with beowulf, does put hrothgar to task for not doing shit about grendal (that's not so bad) but also derides him for sleeping with grendal's mother (spoiler, this movie was bad)
Sure she's stronger than this idea of a servant woman that's property, but she's hardly a truly strong character and she's a far cry from putting a rest to these "gender roles" that have been vilified.
"strong woman" in this context is just "aggressive bitch" which doesn't really help anyone in terms of gender roles, it just furthers the idea of power and aggression is to be valued.
The original anglo saxons did have gender roles, the genders were two sides of the same coin, two points of balance. Men had certain expectations and women had others and the point of this was not one is better than the other, but that one NEEDS the other or you are screwed.
Admittedly this is hard to pick up on if all you have for context is just the text where wealhtheow is present and no other understanding of the society at all, but that's a bit of the point.
Ultimately this idea has me so angry because not only is it doing an injustice to anglo saxon society and Beowulf text, it's a disservice to anyone that gives a damn about gender roles and society.
Trying to make a point of any social issue when you don't know what the context is is stupid and counter productive. You end up cursing something you don't understand and promoting something downright stupid (because it won't help us to dismantle gender roles if the method to do that is to say "if you're not aggressive or pushy, you're just weak")
just...ugh...
truth allround
Thank you for pointing out the flaw of every SJW ever.
No seriously, your rant was good and i applaud you for explaining the context, it just sucks when people don't get it and just shoehorn an opinion that has no real validation
Course it's not true of any group generally seeking to help a minority group or otherwise attempting to improve society (SJW is often used to label anyone with strong views in that context) but it really sucks to see people so eagerly defend an ideal without any clue as to how it may actually works in the situation.
It's just tiring to see people be overly eager about an issue and either blow something out of proportion, which results in an aggressive us vs. them attack (because now the problem seems huge and critical), or to not understand that the context is different from what they are used to and can't be judged and dealt with by just simple motions from a cursory glance at the problem.
The second point is true in a looooot of things. It's why relief efforts in other countries often can struggle. The volunteers approach problems from their own point of view and fail to recognize problems from the point of view of the natives in trouble.
Teachers can fail to see the problems a student faces because they don't yet understand the context of the situation the student is in.
this is getting to be a long reply. Point is yes, it's super frustrating to see people pass judgement without attempting to learn
It's not easy, but it's not like nothing can be done.
Women should be viewed as equal and if the only option is "weak woman that is a servant to men" or "aggressive woman uninterested in her husband's shit" then the latter is a much better option.
The issue is that wasn't actually the options. The person in question had a good point for the wrong problem, so it just came off as dumb
And that's the problem. Good points get pushed into nonsense like "radical feminism" and dismissed. An earnest effort in the wrong situation does harm rather than good even when the person isn't actually being nasty and aggressive themselves, just ignorant.