If men stopped working…the world would continue on.
If women stopped working, then things would get ugly.
What?
there has been an instance where this happened. it was 1975 and icelandic women decided not to work for one day.
working as in cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, doing chores and so on, not only “not showing up to your workplace”. women did nothing that day, except showing up in reykjavik and protesting for gender equality, equal pay and equal representation in parliament, you know, cool stuff.
you know what happened? havoc. men were left with food to cook and children they never took care of to pick up from kindergarden and entertain for the day. they went en masse to the food shops buying sausages because they could cook nothing else, they had to bond with children they never spent more than a couple hours a day with. they struggled combining their work day and the domestic tasks they had to sort out. and this just for one day.
iceland in 1975 stopped working and things indeed got ugly. so ugly that women in the following decades became woke AF and soon it happened that women became president, took half of the seats in parliament and achieved one of the best living environments in the world.
is your astonishment solved now?
We already know what happens to countries when the majority of the male workforce is removed. It is called “war.”
If you want to read Highly Documented and Very Historical accounts of how countries function without internal male labor, you can start by diving in to World War 1 and World War 2! (I’m just gonna talk about the Allied forces because my English is best
and I know the most about them, but the Axis powers had similar
dynamics!)
See, when the warring civilizations threw every able-bodied man they could at war fronts all over the planet, this left enormous labor vacuums. Not only did the countries have to function without male labor, but they also had to funnel vast amounts of food, clothing, ammunition and weapons to the men in combat. By WW2, women were needed in every possible role that didn’t include active combat.
If you send millions of men to combat, then the resulting millions of empty, necessary, “male” jobs must be done by women. That’s just how it works.
This is an British WW1 poster from 1917. It says it succinctly – every woman who takes a “male” job in the military, frees up that man for active combat.
One thing that you can’t get enough of in war is bullets! With men spending bullets but not making them, the women need to do it. These WW1 posters from around 1918 are pretty cool – the woman “doing her bit” has shades of Art Nouveau, I think.
Here’s an American WW1 poster in which the women are dressed as mechanics, train drivers, military support, manufacturers, farmers and nurses. I like the cool Victorian shoes and the baggy trousers. Isn’t it funny to think that this happened between the Victorians and the flappers?
In WW1, you couldn’t even afford to spare able-bodied men to drive ambulances in warzones. Ambulance drivers on the Front were largely women. They picked up the wounded and dying men and took them to field hospitals staffed largely by women.
By WW2, the women of the Allied nations were SO ON TOP OF THIS.
Here is a Canadian lady from the 1940s. Women in Air Force support were vital – men were the fighter pilots, women were transport pilots – as well as doing the support roles like aircraft maintenance and preparation, parachute packing, communications and intelligence, managing the radar, plotting the weather, and, of course, doing the catering. The language on this poster shows that the woman does all of this necessary work to get the fighter pilots in the air. Every non-combat military job that a woman took meant one more fighter pilot and soldier in active combat.
Back at home, people functioned fairly well without men in WW2. Everyone’s seen this American WW2 poster, you know she’s encouraging women to get into the factories and make All The Stuff!
HEY WE STILL NEED LOTS OF FOOD TO EAT AND THERE ARE NO MEN TO MAKE THE FOOD, SHOULD WE STARVE?
NO WE SHOULD NOT
THIS AUSTRALIAN LADY IS GOING TO FARM ALL THE THINGS
Land Armies (staffed by Land Girls) were super necessary to feed everyone at home PLUS everyone at war. Land Girls were used in both WW1 and WW2. While farming was a “protected occupation” (male farmers wouldn’t be forcibly drafted into the military, because their jobs were too important to a functioning society) the majority male farmworkers decided to enlist voluntarily. This left elderly or disabled male farmworkers to do intensive work. By WW2 they had some tractors to help, but most farming was still done by hand or with draft animals, especially since the steel and fuel for the tractors was more needed on the Front.
This American lady found a cool old-timey tractor, which is just as good as an ambulance…
But this British lady has to do her plowing with a draft horse! The weathered old farmer, too old for combat, is very grateful.
FOOD COMES FIRST!
okay but LOOK at some of these other Plushy Man Jobs, Necessary To Prevent the Downfall of Society, that American women needed to do RIGHT NOW TO BEAT THE NAZIS:
AMERICAN WOMEN! THESE ELEVATORS AREN’T GOING TO OPERATE THEMSELVES
I CAN KEEP GOING FOREVER
TAKE THE JOBS FROM MEN!! TAKE THEM!! SEIZE THEM!! DRILL THE THING
Oddly, even without men at work, “women’s work” still got done.
Children were still mostly looked after. Large communal childcare programs were set up (they were quickly closed after WW2, though.) Food was prepared. Households
ran. Single women stayed single. The countries functioned. The world still turned. MILLIONS OF MEN
were WIPED OFF THE PLANET but the world still turned.
In fact, the Allies won both WW1 and WW2.
And the resulting power/gender/employment vacuums shaped the gender dynamics of most of Tumblr’s parents and grandparents.
consider this: Obi Wan’s been in love with Anakin for years, hopelessly pining. he’s fought side by side with him throughout the clone wars, they’ve saved each other countless times, and, in his eyes, they have an unshakeable bond. they’re each other’s closest friends. he sees Anakin struggling, and sees his anger and sadness, but when he reaches out he gets pushed away. Anakin goes to the chancellor instead of Obi Wan, and it hurts, but he understands: Obi Wan is a jedi, after all, and Anakin is angry with the council. Anakin slips farther and farther from him, and obi wan can’t be there for him, even though he wants to be, too wrapped up in the war.
then, his troops turn against him, try to kill him. he survives, and his first thought is Anakin: if the clones are turning against the jedi, then he must be in danger. Anakin’s alive thank god, but Obi Wan then has to watch as the man he loves casts aside the jedi order (and therefore him) and falls to the dark side. then, he watches as Anakin kills defenseless younglings. he’s anguished and horrified: the man he loved is gone forever. he goes to Padme, because he’s desperate to find Anakin, and that’s when his heart is truly and utterly broken beyond repair. this man he loved, the man he’d always loved, had never been his at all, and never could have been.
Ok no, you know what? I AM pissed right now. I had a very dear friend of mine literally break down crying in my arms when I told her that asexuality exists and that she might be asexual like me and that she was not broken or the only person on this planet who didn’t feel any sexual attraction to anybody. I used to have another friend who was told by her family that she was useless for her husband and that there was something wrong with her because she did not feel sexual attraction. She went through several relationships involving sexual actions that she did not want but went through anyway because she thought she had to. When she told me that she actually never felt sexually attracted to anyone she had basically already resigned to being a weirdo, being abnormal, being less than. I used to hate myself. I still struggle with that but I really used to hate myself because I couldn’t get myself to feel the same things that other people seemed to feel. When I realised asexuality was a thing and that that thing might be something that actually described me and my situation and how I felt, I was so relieved – mostly because I had thought I was alone and then suddenly there were all these people who felt the same thing, who had the same experiences. For the first time since puberty started basically I did not feel awkward and weird and somehow less than everyone around me. I felt like a whole person. I felt complete. So how DARE you say that asexuals are “basically straight”, “just identifying as ace to avoid straight privilege”?! How DARE you mock that moment of relief that so many people on the ace spectrum experience when they realise that they are not alone, that they are not the only ones feeling like this, that they do have a community and support and people they can talk to about their experiences?! Shame on you!
You know the most flabbergasting thing about saying “Luke killed his father/was totally ready to do it to Prove a Point” (aside from the fact that you’re factually wrong if you claim that), and have it be something negative, is not just that he literally doesn’t do it, it’s because that if Luke had done it, it’d have been the traditional ending to his Hero’s Journey.
Luke killing Vader and Palpatine is what a traditional hero in this sort of setting would do.
And the whole point is that Luke DOESN’T.
He doesn’t kill one (or both) of the penultimate villains of the story. He doesn’t do the Right and Just and Proper thing and kill the villain, who is is father. It would’ve been treated as Tragic but as Necessary.
He doesn’t, and instead asks for a rescue, rather aborting the end of his traditional hero’s journey and turning it into something else. And you want to use that as something negative?
See this is why I find Luke and his arc much more complex than what many people give him credit for. Luke subverted many tropes, and one of them was killing the bad guy. By choosing love over revenge, and accepting his own Dark Side instead of repressing it, Luke managed to do something different and equally effective than merely killing the two villains. Some people say “What a dumbass, he threw his lightsaber away!” and it’s like: “NO, YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT!”, Luke’s greatest victory wasn’t killing the bad guy, instead it was acknowledging the darkness inside himself and accepting it as a part of him without letting it consume him completely, as well choosing love over revenge, which, given the context that the movie and the new EU has given us, it wasn’t an easy choice: prior the whole Father reveal, Luke genuinely wanted to kill Vader for revenge for what happened to his father (for what he believed), his uncle and aunt, his childhood bff Biggs, Obi-Wan, for the damage done to Leia and later Han….and even in “redemption plan” he still was a bit to succumb when Vader tried to put Leia in danger. Killing Vader would had been the easiest choice, but he chose no, and of that, he made something even better.
i know that some folks love telling creative people that “you should be doing it for fun because you love it not for the compliments” but creative people thrive on feedback whether it’s critical or just complimentary
so when i write fanfiction and don’t get any actual feedback i feel like i spent all that time and energy doing it for nothing because i’m not getting feedback from the people i wrote it for
doing something you’re proud of and then presenting it to the sound of utter silence is like the worst feeling on earth
I know the feeling of this.
i like to think: what if you were in a play and you spend all that time learning your lines and your cues and going to rehearsal for hours and hours and being bone tired and then getting up on stage opening night and giving it your all only to be met with silence from the audience at the final curtain call. No one would question why that upset them.
An art instructor in my childhood said something to me I’ve never forgotten – that a work of art isn’t complete until it has been experienced – seen, heard, etc. That this wasn’t just some abstract concept, but a visceral truth for the artist – that the work wasn’t DONE until the end result had been witnessed, appreciated, critiqued – whatever, it didn’t have to be positive negative knowledgable, it just had to happen as the concluding event, the final brush stroke.
Some folks who don’t get it go about thinking we make art or write fic because we crave praise or attention or fans, or even that some writers/artists thrive on negativity and drama (and to be sure, all of these things are true some times!). But that’s too narrow an understanding of why we art. I think my art teacher was telling a fundamental truth about the psychology of creativity – that art is a communal experience, that until we share our creative work and see how people respond, we do not have closure on that work.
Art is communication – and communication shouted into the void is frighteningly isolating. We need our readers our viewers our audience. We need to hear what you think. We need to converse in comments, answer your counter thoughts or thoughtful critique, we need the conversation – that’s what art is 🙂
Never feel bad for desiring feedback – it’s not some extra frill that exists outside of the creative process. It is a critical part of the creative process – and if you cannot find your audience in one venue, don’t give up. Keep putting your art out there until your audience finds you 🙂
Yes: that.
I don’t make art because I enjoy it. I make art because I am trying to communicate. And if it fails to elicit any response at all, or I can’t even tell if anyone saw it/read it then I have failed, or will suspect I have failed, to communicate and I’m gonna feel bad about that.
I am currently in the process of porting a lot of my older fanfic onto AO3, because I want it all in one place/don’t want it to be lost/want to revise it to be a little more in-line with my current standards of both quality and language use. It’s so quick and easy! I can’t remember why I didn’t do this before!
…oh, right, she says, as the hit counter goes higher without the comments, or even the kudos, to match. Because I feel like I’m screaming into the void.
I come from very comment-heavy fic environments, and like most fanfic authors I have known, I am a little twitchy about “what if this is awful what if I am awful what if nobody likes my shit at all.” So when I have 50 hits and one kudo, I actually feel pretty rotten, which makes me less eager to do the job of cleaning and posting.
This is hence a plea on behalf of all fanfic authors: remember that the people who write the stories you enjoy are not getting paid for their time in anything other than “you did good, have a cookie” comments from people. Please consider commenting if you liked a story. Please consider leaving a kudo if you read all the way to the end. There are stories that are qualitatively bad that I’ve left kudos on, because hey, I read them, they gave me an hour of enjoyment, they deserve a cookie.
We have infinite cookies to give. We should share them freely, because wow, does it suck when fanfic makes fanfic writers sad.
That’s all.
This feels particularly relevant to a lot of chatter I’m seeing cross my dash.
Writing is hard. Writing is scary. Writing takes time and effort and care and love love love. Which is true of any fanwork of course, but fanfiction also requires a significant investment from its audience before it can even begin to be seen. With art or gifsets or any other visual medium, the work can be consumed, appreciated, and commented/reblogged/whatever within seconds. It takes longer than that just to read the description on a work of fanfiction.
But in the same vein, your fanfic writers give you hours of entertainment in return. Whether it’s a smile or a sob delivered in ten minute ficlets or 100k monsters you’re still reading at 3 am, fanfiction will give you a level of immersion unique to the fandom experience. With fanfiction, the characters live forever and the story never ends.
Still, that commitment from the audience means we’re already looking at a sliver of the same attention, without hope of the same scale of interaction and response. That makes what we DO get so very critical.
If you read something, take a moment to click those kudos or likes or whatever. If you liked it, leave a comment, If you loved it, love your fanfic author back and tell them. TELL THEM EVERYTHING I PROMISE YOU WE WANT TO HEAR
Remember that the only thing that nourishes fandom creators are your responses. Your fanfic writers are timid, starving creatures. Feed them. Love them. I said the characters live forever and the story never ends, but that’s only true if the storytellers keep telling stories. To do that, they need an audience. Make sure they know they have one.
I’ll go one small step further. Yes, it’s simple and takes a fraction of a second to leave kudos or like a tumblr post. It’s the thank you button at the end of the story. It’s also wonderful if you leave an AO3 comment or send the author a tumblr ask thanking them or flailing over their words.
But just like the lament I’ve heard from so many artists, writers’ audiences can’t grow without reblogging. I try to keep a relatively balanced blog, combining art, meta, fic, and a little bit of everything I enjoy. But I do try to reblog stories that I love.
Nothing is more exciting for a writer than to suddenly have a lot of mysterious new traffic to an old story, with a fresh crop of kudos and comments from a new group of readers. I have a fic rec that’s mostly stocked with older stories and fandom favorites, but I really love finding stories that I’ve missed, stories that might not have received a lot of attention in the past, or new stories from writers that don’t already have a huge audience.
So go forth and read, leave kudos and comments, but also spread the good words around. I, as a writer AND a reader, will be grateful to you.
eirenical17 