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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 4, 2011 6:58:22 GMT -5
Sometimes I read books that I dislike. I usually give them away, to thrift stores, or donate them to charities, etc.
And then I read books that I not only dislike, I believe they are actively harmful to people who read them. Those books I do not give away, I do not sell, I do not let others have them because it is against my moral code.
Those books, I burn, so that their damage is not inflicted on others.
Twilight is included in that list. So is Teen Witch by Silver Ravenwolf.
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invision
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Post by invision on Jun 4, 2011 10:25:57 GMT -5
Sometimes I read books that I dislike. I usually give them away, to thrift stores, or donate them to charities, etc. And then I read books that I not only dislike, I believe they are actively harmful to people who read them. Those books I do not give away, I do not sell, I do not let others have them because it is against my moral code. Those books, I burn, so that their damage is not inflicted on others. Twilight is included in that list. So is Teen Witch by Silver Ravenwolf. Since when is Twilight actively harmful to the people who read it? Seriously, people are not that open to the power of suggestion. If they were, free will wouldn't be... Well. Free. James
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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 4, 2011 11:36:47 GMT -5
Since when is Twilight actively harmful to the people who read it? Seriously, people are not that open to the power of suggestion. If they were, free will wouldn't be... Well. Free. Mmmm, no, people are. Especially when they're younger. That's why parents do this thing called parenting, to guide their children through the minefield of information surrounding us. My friends who are parents screen all the books that their kids read until their kids hit their teens, pretty much. Because kids are open to the power of suggestion to a larger degree than adults are. Adults are also open to that power, or things like advertising wouldn't work. Or cultural paradigms/tropes that get repeated ad nauseam in our various forms of story-telling. Even when we're aware that these ideas are tropes, we're still affected by them. If we're fish, culture is our water. Whatever is in our culture is what we are living and breathing on -- you can't escape it. You can only try and change it. Twilight actively promotes misogyny and abuse (not to mention sex-negativity). Mind you, so do a lot of other things, but the reaction to Twilight that I've witnessed has been frightening. When women of all ages are saying that they want boyfriends just like Edward and Jacob -- an abusive psychopath and a stalker/pedophile -- I'm thinking there's a problem. The books teach young girls that it's ok if their boyfriends engage in behaviour that is very much not ok -- and as abusive relationships are all too common in our very messed up culture, I'm loathe to support anything that says they are and should be the norm. This is also the problem I have with many romance -- er, rapemance -- novels. It doesn't bug me if they're fluff -- I love a good Dark-Hunter book every once in a while -- it bugs me if they actively promote abusive relationships as healthy and things we should aspire to. Like Twilight. These views are harmful and they do have an effect on people. (Also I'm not entirely convinced that we have actual free will in the first place, so that argument really won't work with me.) This is, of course, all my own opinion. You're welcome to disagree.
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andy
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Post by andy on Jun 4, 2011 13:06:34 GMT -5
Since when is Twilight actively harmful to the people who read it? Seriously, people are not that open to the power of suggestion. If they were, free will wouldn't be... Well. Free. Mmmm, no, people are. Especially when they're younger. That's why parents do this thing called parenting, to guide their children through the minefield of information surrounding us. My friends who are parents screen all the books that their kids read until their kids hit their teens, pretty much. Because kids are open to the power of suggestion to a larger degree than adults are. Adults are also open to that power, or things like advertising wouldn't work. Or cultural paradigms/tropes that get repeated ad nauseam in our various forms of story-telling. Even when we're aware that these ideas are tropes, we're still affected by them. If we're fish, culture is our water. Whatever is in our culture is what we are living and breathing on -- you can't escape it. You can only try and change it. Twilight actively promotes misogyny and abuse (not to mention sex-negativity). Mind you, so do a lot of other things, but the reaction to Twilight that I've witnessed has been frightening. When women of all ages are saying that they want boyfriends just like Edward and Jacob -- an abusive psychopath and a stalker/pedophile -- I'm thinking there's a problem. The books teach young girls that it's ok if their boyfriends engage in behaviour that is very much not ok -- and as abusive relationships are all too common in our very messed up culture, I'm loathe to support anything that says they are and should be the norm. This is also the problem I have with many romance -- er, rapemance -- novels. It doesn't bug me if they're fluff -- I love a good Dark-Hunter book every once in a while -- it bugs me if they actively promote abusive relationships as healthy and things we should aspire to. Like Twilight. These views are harmful and they do have an effect on people. (Also I'm not entirely convinced that we have actual free will in the first place, so that argument really won't work with me.) This is, of course, all my own opinion. You're welcome to disagree. The argument that girls and women (of course, the reason why boys and men don't read romance novels is because they're so clever) who read Twilight are too stupid to figure out that it promotes the wrong kind of values is in itself a lot more misogynistic and harmful than the series. It's not like even a very young girl is going to base her whole world view on a single book - most people send both their sons and their daughters to school (although I understand why you'd think that's harmful too), even very young children are exposed to a lot of different relationships (at school, in their family, in the media, etc), they read other books, etc. We as a society stopped believing that girls and women are naive, impressionable and stupid beings who can be morally corrupted by romance novels halfway through the 19th century. I hate this kind of thinking and the way it gives the impression that the self-appointed 'intellectual elite' has the duty to look after us stupid people who enjoy romance books and censor as many books as possible because that's the only way to make sure that us stupid people don't do something which could harm us - such as having some kind of independent thought and deciding what books we want to read for ourselves and consequently no longer need them.
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 4, 2011 14:52:26 GMT -5
The argument that girls and women (of course, the reason why boys and men don't read romance novels is because they're so clever) who read Twilight are too stupid to figure out that it promotes the wrong kind of values is in itself a lot more misogynistic and harmful than the series. It's not like even a very young girl is going to base her whole world view on a single book - most people send both their sons and their daughters to school (although I understand why you'd think that's harmful too), even very young children are exposed to a lot of different relationships (at school, in their family, in the media, etc), they read other books, etc. We as a society stopped believing that girls and women are naive, impressionable and stupid beings who can be morally corrupted by romance novels halfway through the 19th century. I hate this kind of thinking and the way it gives the impression that the self-appointed 'intellectual elite' has the duty to look after us stupid people who enjoy romance books and censor as many books as possible because that's the only way to make sure that us stupid people don't do something which could harm us - such as having some kind of independent thought and deciding what books we want to read for ourselves and consequently no longer need them. Just to chime in, I really, really agree with this. As quite a few posts in this thread (my own included) will testify, we read these books and thought they were the bomb [and Edward was our Super Dream Fantasy Guy and we wanted to be Bella and we got so involved with the story etc]. Then, we stepped back and took a second look and all of a sudden, we were like 'what the fuck was I thinking?'.* Teenagers are impressionable and influenced by many things, but just because you're influenced by something at one point, doesn't mean that that view sticks. I used to be adamantly pro-life; now, I couldn't be less pro-life (that's a different issue, but you see my point). We're able to make our own minds up about stuff, too. *I've kind of bound people up in my own experience of the book, sort of generalising from what's been said. If you think other posts have been taken out of context, then disregard other posts and take it as my experience and the experiences of friends and family of mine who have said the same.
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rayyychul
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Post by rayyychul on Jun 4, 2011 15:26:38 GMT -5
Enjoying novels that promote misogyny is misogynist. Whether or not women take the misogyny with a grain of salt is not the point. The point is that it is there when it doesn't have to be. Stephanie Meyer could have written Twilight without all the sexism, sexual dominance and abuse that she included.
No, women do not have to base their belief system on one (or two or three) novels, but that doesn't make writing novels that promote gender inequality are okay. If women don't have to take misogyny to heart, then why are there women's rights movements? Why is there feminism, for that matter?
Sorry, but your entertainment is not more important than gender equality. As long as people keep thinking, "Well, it's just a novel. It's not a big deal," then misogyny will continue to exist.
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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 4, 2011 15:29:29 GMT -5
The argument that girls and women (of course, the reason why boys and men don't read romance novels is because they're so clever) who read Twilight are too stupid to figure out that it promotes the wrong kind of values is in itself a lot more misogynistic and harmful than the series. It's not like even a very young girl is going to base her whole world view on a single book - most people send both their sons and their daughters to school (although I understand why you'd think that's harmful too), even very young children are exposed to a lot of different relationships (at school, in their family, in the media, etc), they read other books, etc. We as a society stopped believing that girls and women are naive, impressionable and stupid beings who can be morally corrupted by romance novels halfway through the 19th century. I hate this kind of thinking and the way it gives the impression that the self-appointed 'intellectual elite' has the duty to look after us stupid people who enjoy romance books and censor as many books as possible because that's the only way to make sure that us stupid people don't do something which could harm us - such as having some kind of independent thought and deciding what books we want to read for ourselves and consequently no longer need them. Actually, I'd find it equally harmful for a male-identified person to read Twilight and be that influenced by the ideas presented in it; the fact that "boys don't read romance novels" (which, by the way, is blatantly untrue -- I have plenty of male friends who read the same romance novels I do and they love them) has nothing to do with them being "more clever" and everything to do with marketing and societal pressure. And I never said anything about stupidity, as that would be ableist. I said that these ideas are harmful and they leave impressions. Speaking as a person who has been through several abusive relationships before I finally broke the cycle...it seems like you think my argument is that if I had only been smart enough I wouldn't have gotten myself into that situation in the first place. To the contrary, I recognize that what I had been taught -- by previous experience, by cultural norms and tropes -- was that these relationships were normal. It's very common for victims of abuse to not recognize the abuse until they're out of it, and that was true for me. It has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with what we're taught since we're young. Culture is the water we live in -- escaping the nastier aspects of that culture is difficult for everyone and, again, has nothing to do with intelligence. And again, I don't mind romance novels -- I read them. I mind the rapemance novels that portray abusive relationships as the standard we should aspire to. I also never said that girls and women are unable to make up their own minds. I said it was difficult to escape cultural tropes. For me as well. (You may notice that in my original post I mentioned Teen Witch along with Twilight. I read Teen Witch when I was 12, and I carried around the horrible lies and bad history and just really bad ideas for ten years before I finally figured out that SRW is full of crap. And when I say I carried the ideas around, I mean I defended them like a zealot (or Twihard). I don't like the idea of giving that book away and the same thing happening to someone around that age who is just as impressionable as I am/was.) I honestly think you didn't read my post that carefully and you are posting a knee-jerk response. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to read my arguments instead of jumping on me for things I didn't say.
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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 4, 2011 15:32:17 GMT -5
Enjoying novels that promote misogyny is misogynist. Whether or not women take the misogyny with a grain of salt is not the point. The point is that it is there when it doesn't have to be. Stephanie Meyer could have written Twilight without all the sexism, sexual dominance and abuse that she included. No, women do not have to base their belief system on one (or two or three) novels, but that doesn't make writing novels that promote gender inequality are okay. If women don't have to take misogyny to heart, then why are there women's rights movements? Why is there feminism, for that matter? Sorry, but your entertainment is not more important than gender equality. As long as people keep thinking, "Well, it's just a novel. It's not a big deal," then misogyny will continue to exist. This. Said much more succinctly than I could.
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Post by tastyink on Jun 4, 2011 15:52:19 GMT -5
Wherever Twilight is mentioned, misogyny debate ensues. What have you done to the world, Stephenie Meyer?!
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rayyychul
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Post by rayyychul on Jun 4, 2011 15:58:08 GMT -5
Wherever Twilight is mentioned, misogyny debate ensues. What have you done to the world, Stephenie Meyer?! Added four more novels that tell women they're nothing without a big, strong man to take care of them
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invision
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Post by invision on Jun 4, 2011 17:12:28 GMT -5
Just to note, if you're so influenced by a book like Twilight that it's dangerous to you, you'll also be influenced by everything you read, everything you see on TV (including advertisements), and everything everyone around you says or thinks.
Dear God, if Twilight is dangerous to you, so is absolutely everything else.
James
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rayyychul
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Post by rayyychul on Jun 4, 2011 17:20:16 GMT -5
Just to note, if you're so influenced by a book like Twilight that it's dangerous to you, you'll also be influenced by everything you read, everything you see on TV (including advertisements), and everything everyone around you says or thinks. Dear God, if Twilight is dangerous to you, so is absolutely everything else. James What were you hoping to accomplish with this comment?
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invision
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Post by invision on Jun 5, 2011 0:57:18 GMT -5
Just to note, if you're so influenced by a book like Twilight that it's dangerous to you, you'll also be influenced by everything you read, everything you see on TV (including advertisements), and everything everyone around you says or thinks. Dear God, if Twilight is dangerous to you, so is absolutely everything else. James What were you hoping to accomplish with this comment? I was commenting on how irrelevant and useless it is to declare a book as dangerous, and to burn it instead of give it away for such a reason. James
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Post by KatjevanLoon on Jun 5, 2011 20:08:06 GMT -5
I was commenting on how irrelevant and useless it is to declare a book as dangerous, and to burn it instead of give it away for such a reason. James It's cool if you think my moral code is irrelevant or useless. It is my moral code, and you are allowed to disagree. Note that I am an individual, and I am commenting on books from my personal library. I am not an organization, I am not buying up all the books from the store and burning them, I am not a government censoring books. There is a rather large difference between an individual doing it and a large organization doing it. I would think it rather messed up if the government, or a large organization, started burning books for the same reasons I've stated I would burn a book. Because then it's not an individual making a choice based on her moral code that she will not share a book with one, maybe a few other people -- it's an organization making the decision for thousands of people. That said, when my book is published, I do hope that some groups get really offended and start burning my books -- because that would be the best press ever.
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Post by Dodger Thirteen on Jun 5, 2011 21:02:44 GMT -5
Book burning is covered under the right to free speech here in the US, so it's legally acceptable. My opinion? If you want to buy a book and burn it, by all means. Thank you for contributing to the economy and not our trash.
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