On International Women's Day... and brony discrimination · 8:17am Mar 9th, 2015
So I guess you could say, on first glance and judging by my profile pic, that I am not your usual type of brony and one could easily assume (and wouldn't be mistaken) that I tend to lean on a specific side of the spectrum. It's already March 9th over here, but screw it. I don't have school tomorrow and this issue is now nagging at me at the back of my head. This will not be your typicall "rant". Rather, I'd like to seriously address and discuss in a civil manner (even if the content is not, and if you think I was not civil as well, then I apologise) an issue I think it's important. Keep reading and you will see what I mean.
So I came across this piece of shit today. If by the time you're reading it's already deleted, don't worry, I'll try to rescue the "juicier" bits. I'd advise not to click on the link if you have few neurons left. The intelectual holocaust will take a terrible cost on you. Seriously, I think it's idiotic, immature, if not to say shameful. I don't care if you see my FB profile, this is an issue I think it needs to be addressed.
The admins of the page "Cool Story, bro. But it needs more ponies" posted a picture of Rarity with a description reading: "Apparently today is international women's day. So, when will we get an international men's day?". Even if the admin was genuinely ignorant to the fact that there even is an international women's day, the rest of the comments did not make things better. Some asked "When is International Get Back in the Kitchen Day?", others joked about International Men's Day and about "equality" between both genders. The worst I saw was one that read: "We don't need an international mens or womens day, what is international womens day even for anyway? Like celebrating having a vagina I guess" [bolding mine]. I don't care if it's a troll or not (my Spidey-sense says it's not, but I'll give this bastard the benefit of the doubt), this comment I think is sexist and mysoginist. This same person would later post another comment saying: "This is for the people who still think women in 2015 are still oppressed and only women deserve more rights in most countries." Followed by this picture (basically this was the to-go answer for any feminist comment in the thread):
Another admin posted: "Today is 'Stop Oppressing Me' day", and got 7 likes for that alone.
... So I made the... Er... Mistake? Call it whatever you want, but the fact is that the whole post was full of mockery and misinformation. The logical thing I thought to do was to actually explain why we need a Women's Day at all (translation is not accurate grammar-wise, so let me know if you have questions regarding its content). Some called me a bigot (?), others went on about how stuff affects both genders and shit (and I'm seriously questioning if people have a reading comprehension problem, but whatever). Another guy said that "its [sic] not the 'patriarchys' [sic] or mens [sic] fault if women are too lazy to have aspirations beyond working part time hours or pursuing more risky professions like men do" [bolding mine again] (this comment got 3 likes). If you see the thread (if you still can), I never talked about women in a certain country or culture, I always talked women as a whole (US, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc.), which makes the comments about "women in the first world" and "in western/civilised societies" (the latter denomination —"civilised", I mean— I think is even racist) completely irrelevant. I would think that people are smart enough to know that they don't need a reference to know that women are the main victims in "honor killings" (which, for those who don't know, is what usually muslim parents do when their daughters damage their family honor/reputation by refusing to marry someone, dating a person their parents do not approve of, etc.), genital mutilation and wage difference. This is a real oppression that still exists to this day. By this I don't mean to say that only the girls are the ones who have it rough, far from it, but the point of this day is to raise awareness to the fact that one gender is clearly not treated in the same level as the other. If it were International black day, I'd be talking about blacks, on Gay Pride Day I'd talk about gays, and so on.
Obviously, men are also victims like women are, but not to the same extent, and even then, the problem stems from the same source: Patriarchy. Now, before you start the flame-war, let me clarify that I do not think men are the root of all evil, but we are just as much affected by a patriarchal system as women are (it doesn't express itself the same, but that doesn't mean the oppression is not there). I identify myself as a straight man, I'm happy with my sexuality and am not ashamed to admit it, but even still, with me being on the side of the "OK team" (the guys who are usually never bothered for being straight and having a penis), I have also been subjected to the drasted male standards. God knows how many times was I beaten up for not being "manly" in Jr. High, or how many times my very own mother told me to behave a certain way ("chivalrous" or some other bullshit) because "girls like machos", or how many tears I used to hold back because "boys don't cry", or being told to shave or not to adjust to a beauty standard. Being feminist is not about females overpowering males, but a struggle to destroy this dreaded patriarchal system that oppresses both genders and prevents them from expressing themselves any way they want.
So why am I writing this? To vent frustration in my life and in my virtual life? Not exactly. I think it's something worse: hypocrisy. You see, first came the "Equal-Estria" scandal (which I didn't see first hand), then the "True Bronies" shit on DeviantArt (which is how I found out about Equal-Estria), then My Nationalist Pony and now this. I know nobody is perfect, but I'd expect the people of this wonderful fandom that I am part of to be more consistent. I actually feel disappointed. The way I see it, it's like those right-wing Jews screaming at the top of their lungs to genocide arab nations (I don't want to get into that discussion about Israel and Palestine, I am merely exemplifying how one group of people we would think should know better about certain stuff would repeat those same attitudes). We were (and still are) labeled as faggots and horsefuckers and here I stumble upon a thread that says women are lazy, they "celebrate because they have a vagina" and that they put forth this day to plead "Stop oppressing me". Whatever happened to the love and tolerance we supposedly preach as a fandom? Is it not valid when it's asking for girls to be really equal (and even worse, since we're fans of a show directed and starred by girls!)? When was the "brony" fandom hijacked by mysoginists and Christian fanatics (Equal-Estria/True bronies)? I like to think this fanbase is mature enough to get past these issues. We are seen as more open minded because we like seeing girl-horses with rainbows and hearts in their ass cheeks every week, yet here we are repeating the same stereotypes that others throw against us.
This isn't me ranting on my blog section at 2AM, this is me being genuinely concerned as to where this fandom is going. Obviously, I am not going to throw it all away because of a bunch of dumbasses in a Facebook page, but it's been almost five years since we were brought together by this wonderful series, and it seems that we cherry-pick the aspects in which we apply what we learn on this damned show. Have we really learned the lessons Twilight and her friends learn, or is it just a mask to hide those negative aspects of ourselves? Our "enemy" is too big to think in just dreaming to go to Equestria. As Marx's 11th Thesis says: "philosophers have done nothing more than interpret the world in different ways, but the point is to transform it". We need to truly aply what we learn on this show in our lives and not just when we please. I know, it sounds silly, but I doubt the idiots of ISIS would change their minds if we threw them flowers and friendship letters. I believe actions need to be taken, and it looks like we haven't advanced in our evolution as a fandom. These idiots can take our name and our show, and masked by them they push their reactionary agendas. It's a serious issue that I think all of us, as bronies, at least need to think about and discuss, and I wouldn't be writing this if it were the first time I saw this kind of behaviour, but it's not the first, it's the fourth. I don't care if only one person sees this. If you, the only guy who managed to read all of this, agree or don't agree with this post, that is more than enough for me. It means that at least my message has spread to one brain that will deal with this information as it pleases. Go ahead and post this in your wall or in your group, I don't mind. My concern is that we need to eliminate these double standards (against gays, against women, etc.) because we ouselves dealt with them a long time ago back when we started watching the show. We should know better than to act this way, and yet I see that the number of people that failed to learn anything these past five years is bigger than I imagined (and maybe even bigger than what I imagine now). Should we keep acting like our fellow bronies don't have their contradictions or should we seek to erase these preudices and apply the lessons our heroines learn day by day? Despite all of this... I have hope.
You know, I actually love the idea of a "Stop oppressing us day". I don't know what the original guy who said it meant, but I imagine a day where any one, be they man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, or anything else can come together to fight for the rights of all. I think that if that were to happen, we'd find that we're all oppressed in one way or another. We're doing this whole civil rights thing wrong. By focusing on one group at a time we only further segregate each other and raise that group at the detriment of others, while limiting the number of people that will back the whole project. The enemy is not any group, as the current approach suggests--screams really--but rather ignorance. Ignorance is our enemy. Only when all of us can come together as a whole and realize this, when we stop pointing fingers at one another, will we realise that there never was an enemy to fight at all. One day we will finally realise that we really aren't all that different. Then, and only then, will the oppression end. Alas, it's naught more than a dream now, as a dream it's ever been. But we will keep chasing that dream, and we will continue to chase it to the ends of the universe and the ends of time if we have to. We will chase it forever until the man who had a dream has finally rest in peace, his dream fulfilled. His dream is my dream, and I hope it's your dream too.
Anyway, the original reason I came here was to PM you about that cypher(hopefully you know what I'm talking about), but I guess this is as good a place as any other. I used this decoder here:
Decoder
(be sure you type the key in the right box)
This is the picture with the key, code, and type of cypher:
s18.postimg.org/kf47zn5pl/vigenere.png
And just to be sure you get the right code in just copy paste this:
kdtkvovprvsfpyfm
2928722 Eh, the point is meant to raise awareness, actually. That some people go and take it as an attack against another group entirely is another issue. However, as I said, I'm actually worried that these kind of attitudes are not pointed out within our fandom and erased. If there are still idiots like these after five years, I think we're doing something wrong (or worse: not doing anything).