Mitchell’s Feminist Relationship Advice for Heterosexual Men (& everyone else too)

For better or worse I’ve ended up having way too many conversations about romance/sex/etc advice recently, so I thought I might as well collect my thoughts in one place (and just in time for Valentine’s Day too, sometimes coincidences are fun). It’s a good time for it anyway; the mainstream culture is always so terrible about these sort of things, and I think it’s especially important to push back against that in this age of the Sexual-Predator-in-Chief.

This is a serious post despite the snark.

I’m afraid this may feel disjointed in places, as it’s mainly a collection of things I’ve found myself saying or wishing I had said in response to things people have said to or around me, but so be it. I’m fairly certain the core ideas should still come through just fine. That said, I’m not entirely sure who the target audience is here: I’ve tried to keep this mostly at 101-level for accessibility but I’m not sure I entirely succeeded, and also I’ve tried to address various different stages here so it’s unlikely it all is likely to be applicable to everybody.

(And as this excellent piece I encountered the other day points out, patriarchal relationship norms aren’t good for men either. I think it’s always a worthy effort to undermine them.)

[I likely won’t have much to add, but I’m here agreeing with these points.]

 

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Chapter Two

Content warning for child abuse and self harm. Also any chapter featuring Dobby is probably going to involve discussion of slavery and possibly mental illness. But first can we just talk about this?

Where do you even start. I mean, this thing is clearly coded female – look at the lips (and the weird fur suggests eyelashes). It’s also wearing very fancy shoes and carrying an only slightly less fancy hat. What was the chapter artist reading when they did these? Because it certainly wasn’t the actual books.

Anyway. Post under the cut.