Your Local Queer Classicist

Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.

The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.

In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.

1. Your body is not your own.

1a. Your body is a site for other’s desires.

If they want you to be beautiful, it is cruel of you to deny them that. If they want you to be feminine, it is cruel of you to deny them that. If they think you should reproduce, it is cruel of you to divest yourself of reproductive duties.

1b. Your body is owned by the state.

Reproductive laws that can affect cis women also affect you, but you cannot weigh in on them, because you are not a woman.

Anti-trans laws affect you, but you must not bring this up; you are never the “real” target, even when you are, because you are not “really” trans.

When the legislation talks about “protecting” your fertility, you should feel lucky to be safeguarded from yourself.

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2. Your experiences are not your own.

Your childhood does not exist. You cannot claim girlhood if you are a man, and you cannot claim boyhood if you did not grow up within it, and no other visions of childhood may exist. Your history, however you define it, is fundamentally incompatible with who you are.

Forms of sexism which are aimed at women, by a binary logic, cannot be aimed at men or mascs. If your experiences contradict this, either you are invalidating your identity, or you are appropriating womanhood.

It is your duty to blithely dissociate yourself from any trauma patriarchy may have inflicted on you. Men cannot be affected by these things even if it happens to them personally. A “real” man must be stoic and uncaring.

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3. You are a “default” body.

You are to be assumed affluent, perisex, binary, and passing, with no legal or situational barriers to medical or social transition, and no reproductive concerns to speak of — unless your nonconformity can be used to dismiss you.

You are assumed to be able-bodied, sane of mind, white, and thin — unless your mental health or appearance is good for mockery.

You are to be treated as essentially cismasculine. Being treated as if you are cis is a compliment, even when it is erasing your lived experiences, and even if it is known and true that transfems have their own unique struggles from cis women too.

- - -

4. You are an “aberrant” body.

4a. Your body is a site of fascination. You (are presumed to) have a gestative capacity, and a fun extra hole. These traits are relevant when others assess your attractiveness and their kinks. They are not relevant in the context of your health. You’re a submissive little bottom, right?

(Your body is something to conquer and claim. This may be done to emphasize your femininity, deny your androgyny, or defang your masculinity.)

4b. Your body is a site of disgust. Any steps you may take to masculinize yourself are “ruining” your “female” features, regardless of any joy you personally take from the changes, and regardless of if you engage with medical transition or not.

(You are killing the woman you are supposed to be. Stand trial.)

4c. Your body is too unattractive to be sexually violenced. It doesn’t happen. When it does, you have anatomical privilege, because you are (presumed to be) in possession of a vulva, and victims with those are of course always believed. But it doesn’t happen, because you are essentially a cis man, and of course men don't get raped.

(It is not possible to be targeted for this violence because you are transmasculine. It is always misaimed violence, intended for someone else. Apologize to her for taking up her space.)

4d. Your body is a proxy for other’s ideas about activism. Womanhood is good, and manhood is bad, and things in-between are uncomfortable and hard to classify; therefore, a detransition back to cisfemininity would be a preferable state of being, wouldn’t it?

(Your transition is at odds with good feminism.)

4e. Your body is a joke. Men don’t menstruate. Men don’t gestate. Men don’t lactate. Men can't have breasts. If the suggestion sends people into hysterics, you must take it lying down.

(Remember; comedy is subversion, and you are an “abberant” body.)

4f. Your body is a hypothetical and not a lived reality. If men could menstruate or gestate, that would fix patriarchy. It would not result in men being denied at the door of the gynecology office, surely.

(To entertain your existence is a rhetorical inconvenience.)

4g. Your body is a source of put-down. You are a cunt, a pussy, a fembrained bitchmoid — and it isn’t sexist to refer to you as such, because you are a man. Your disinclination to be reduced to bioessentialist biogotry is simply proof that your masculinity is fragile. It is not proper for you to object to it, even when it is the same rhetoric spewed by patriarchy itself, and even if it would be equally galling to say to a woman, cis or trans.

(Have you not considered that your trans body is privileged under cis patriarchy?)

4h. Passing is universal to all transmasculine bodies and all life situations. Closeted, clocky, queer, or femme trans men and mascs cannot exist, and are not subjected to the same violence as women or other queer men. Legal gender markers don’t matter. Medical access isn’t a concern. People from your past cannot possibly be vindictive enough to out you, because queer or not, you have male privilege.

(Have you considered that you simply aren’t trying hard enough to pass?)

- - -

5. If you are inadequately masculine, pre-transition, nonbinary, or bi-gendered, you cannot “really” be a man.

Remember; you are a lost little girl when you need to be talked down to.

Remember; manhood and womanhood are diametric opposites, exclusive states of being.

Remember; poverty is not an excuse.

- - -

6. If you are inadequately feminine or too masculine, you cannot “really” be queer.

Remember; you are a “default” body.

Remember; you are essentially cis.

- - -

7. If you are too assertive or too unwilling to serve as a punching bag, you cannot “really” be a feminist.

Remember; men cannot be feminists.

Remember; men cannot need feminism.

Remember; your masculinity is most readily acknowledged when it provides a rhetorical threat.

- - -

8. If you really insist on your masculinity, then it must be in service to others. You owe them labor, defense, money, and deference.

You are not owed equality or reciprocity, because men are responsible for patriarchy. You are on the hook for the patriarch’s debt, and you are presumed to share his wallet.

(A man is a protector and a provider. I thought you wanted to be a man?)

- - -

9. Your interest in your own autonomy is indistinguishable from power-grabbing.

Your self-determination and self-advocacy aligns you with patriarchal interests, or is a sign that you are too battered by patriarchy to self-determine in the first place. Someone else must decide these things for you. Someone else must speculate on your motives. You do not get to speak for yourself.

- - -

10. Your inclusion and representation is not important.

10a. When you notice your absence from culture, art, and storytelling, others ask; why do you not simply project your experiences onto cis men? Remember, you are a default body. Surely you are different from other queer people who need direct representation.

(When you try to do that, you are classically fembrained and illiterate for thinking a given character could have transmasculine subtext or themes.)

Projecting onto cis women is akin to killing them.

Why are you not satisfied with mpreg fanfic?

10b. When you make your own art and stories, you are playing with dolls. It is unimportant, juvenile, and easily dismissed much in the way that people discuss teenage girls who act as culture-makers.

(If transmasculinity is not present in the world of art, it must be because it has no artistic merit.)

- - -

11. Your erasure is proof that you have nothing to offer.

The muffling of violence done to you or your brothers is proof that no violence occurs in the first place.

The muffling of you or your brother’s contributions is proof that none of you contributed in the first place.

The removal of your brothers from the historical narrative is proof that they didn’t exist, or that they never stood in solidarity with other feminists and queers.

Silence is proof that you need not speak.

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12. Denying any danger that you may be in is affirmative to your masculinity, because men cannot be harmed.

There are no statistics that say otherwise if we never read them.

There are no patterns of abuse if we never speak of them.

There are no dead if they are recorded as femicides.

There are no victims if we do not speak their names.

- - -

As we all know, thanks to the support of the good people of Tumblr, Tylenol has experienced a meteoric rise to second place. Even though her competition is stiff, I believe in Tylenol's ability to go the distance.

But let's take a look at the competition:

Elmer seems to be a lovely boy. I have no qualms with Elmer, and think he would look fantastic on a beer can. But what about Elmer's campaigns? Who is the power behind the throne here, and how have they managed to find such breakout success on this competition?

A handful of wealthy donors are trying to buy this competition.

At the end of the day, all donations are good donations here. This is a charity event so every penny earned is going to help animals in need. But it's not lost on me that Elmer's current ranking is thanks entirely to a few individuals with the financial means to put their thumbs on the scale.

Tylenol's donors, comparatively, are small and numerous, mostly $1-10 donations from many passionate believers in what she stands for (autism and pain relief I think).

Overall, the donations tell a very different story than what the base ranking shows you. Elmer is held aloft by just 24 donors and bolstered by a few wealthy patrons, whereas Tylenol has won the hearts of literally hundreds of people. Even the current third place, Abby, owes her ranking to numerous small contributions rather than one or two large ones.

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

Take my gay cats, Tumblr!

this is what i am going to start referring people to

Before i begin, people unfamiliar with a) homer or b) ancient greek as a language should not be trying to criticise or defend this translation besides the whole 'wow what an achievement' thing. I'm sorry, it just proves you dont really know what you're talking about.

There seems to be misconceptions about this- i hear people saying Emily is the first woman to translate homer. This is incorrect. She is the first PUBLISHED female translator for the ODYSSEY into ENGLISH. Other female translators like Caroline Alexander do exist and deserve much more praise. Heck, Anne Dacier was translating the odyssey into french 300 years before wilson. Unfortunately this misconception has lead to ANY criticism of Wilson being flagged as purely misogyny, and while I do not deny there being some misogynistic criticism of wilson, this statement usually boils down to blind anti-intellectualism.

The one credit I will give wilson for her translation is the corrected translation for what Telemachus calls the slave girls, rather than sluts, whores or creatures as some did, she refers to them as 'female ones'.

The main paper I will take a look at in this post is that below, because I believe it accurately sums up a lot of the issues about wilson's Odyssey. I will then go on to link a variety of other useful resources.

Without further ado:

HOMER’S ODYSSEY THREE WAYS, Whitaker, R

Wilson regards odysseus as 'not heroic' and her translation thus mischaracterises him to make us feel that way as well. (many examples in the paper and links below)

Wilson attempts to play down the wrongdoings of the suitors and polyphemus (ditto)

Wilson's thoughts on slavery:

"[t]he need to acknowledge the fact and the horror of slavery, and to mark the fact that the idealized society depicted in the [Odyssey] is one where slavery is shockingly taken for granted, seems to me to outweigh the need to specify, in every instance, the type of slave"

This causes her to lose great deals of accuracy by translating many varied words as slave

Wilson's tone is far too colloquial, while also retaining archaic elements leading to inconsistency in her style.

Whitaker's examples of colloquialisms include:

‘You must be joking’ (1.64); ‘babysit’ (7.12); ‘She looked astonishing’ (8.367); ‘whooshed’ (10.55); ‘snuggling’ (10.218); ‘cutest’ (10.278); ‘Teenagers’ (11.38); ‘pointless to talk of hypotheticals’ (11.465); ‘she glugs it down’ (12.106); ‘tote bag’ (13.438); ‘cushy’ (14.47); ‘make nice’ (14.387); ‘standoffishness’ (15.72); ‘games of darts’ (17.168); ‘cottoned on’ (18.95); ‘pace themselves’ (21.295, of drinking wine); and ‘fluffy pillows’ (24.257).

And archaisms include: 'seven days and ten', 'fleet-foot deer', 'vernal dawn'

Her use of pentameter is natural for the english language and so stops her from using poetic style and imagery. Most of her translation is prose divided into lines.

Wilson removes homeric repetition and adds her own variatio (so to speak) to stock phrases and blatantly mistranslates epithets.

There are also a lot of translation errors as Whitaker sums up:

"Straightforward blunders include attributing a speech to the wrong speaker, producing a character formerly unknown to the Odyssey, and misidentifying another. 33 Among Wilson’s other infelicities are numerous mistranslations,34 lines skipped by the translator,35 and mistakes of fact.36"

Other stuff

HERE is a WONDERFUL website you can use to compare classical translations, including Wilson's.

THIS is one specifically for the odyssey, and has Wilson's too.

Wilson mistranslates various ecological terms (which i am sure @ulises-aithon could speak about if asked), but one example would be mistranslating the word 'kedron' or 'juniper' (i believe) into Citron, which is native to south-east Asia and would not be on Calypso's island...

Addionally available are the posts of the absoloutely brilliant @katerinaaqu who has talked a lot about this. Here are a few:

On the mischaracterisation of Odysseus

On ecological inaccuracy, this is what I mentioned earlier.

On accuracy, with @paralleltranslation

Also there is this by @bubbles-burster

This by many different people

More mischaracterisation chat

This is as much as I will dig up right here and now. There is plenty more like it if you go looking.

TLDR in my opinion you should steer clear but you should be free to form your own.

For once...man being called "brilliant" or any other cosmetic epithet of that sort is totally undeserving! Honestly!

no I am not brilliant by any means. I am just another person who tries in this modern world to raise some awareness of her own culture that is unsurprisingly misunderstood which is obviously a thing for any culture at any given time. Trying to give some insight from my own perspective as a person who was lucky enough to have parents to wish to teach me things about our past and present since as long as I can speak and walk and also I was lucky enough that we had such great teachers and professors in university to receive a spherical education

This education even if I never got to use to my actual professional career I am hoping to use to raise awareness of certain things that are obviously getting lost in translation (pun intended) which is absolutely normal so I do try to use my knowledge in combination to my perspective to bring some awareness here. Whether I succeed or not is up for history to decide I suppose hehe

Enough with the dramatics let's get down to it (sorry it gets long and you can disagree with me if you want but honestly I do believe these wholeheartedly)

reference:

the proportions on the header band have improved, but I think I maybe should have doubled the weft threads for the warp.

I started weaving the spear, penelope, and the right border via double-weave with the intent to leave the remaining warp threads unwoven (as they would be on penelope's loom on the pot), but predictably this is giving me tension problems. I either need to increase the loom weights or just weave the black layer and leave the orange warp threads unwoven, and then switch colors once I get to the heddle bars in the drawing, with the black warp threads floating on top. (I guess weft-faced tapestry would be a third option, if I add a ton more tension.)