Lulu the Grasshopper

Hannah played the part well, but she is no Caitriona Balfe. “Nay contest”

Nothing chaps my ass more than when a woman is pregnant and the husband says “I want a son. I hope it’s a boy.” WHY? Why do we place a higher emphasis on giving birth to healthy boys than we do girls?

Geneva is supposed to be some jewel now because she manipulated Jamie into sleeping with her, she planned it for a time she was ovulating, and the 50/50 toss up landed on a boy? What if she had “given him” a daughter? Are Faith and Bree worth less in people’s eyes because they’re girls?

I’m not sure why, but for some reason a lot of people in this fandom (maybe it’s just people in general) seem to equate Free Speech with Hate & Bullying or Harassment. Why is it so hard for people understand: Disagreeing with someone, voicing your disappointment with someone, disliking someone, critiquing someone on your own blog, and even calling out someone directly for abusive behavior IS NOT HATE. IT IS NOT BULLYING.

Shippers as a group have been singled out and repeatedly accused of being bullies. Below are some very serious accusations thrown at shippers by William Shatner:

The issue is with how they (shippers) bully with their beliefs and silence by mobbing.

If you really want to believe it’s not about shippers, then you are free to. You are wrong imho.

A 24 year old girl is old enough to know what bullying is and to get a taste of her own medicine

Nobody is blaming innocent fans. Those that terrorize other by pretending to ignore what has been said are my target.

You and your group terrorize the fandom.

If you don’t call out the bullies they won’t stop. They are stopping tonight!

[to shipper expressing disappointment to Sam - no abusive language used] That’s right. Call him out, bully.

[on shippers tagging Sam in shippery tweets] And do you think [Sam] hasn’t seen what these bullies do in his timeline? 90% of them include him.

If I find that you harass or try to shame Sam or Cait, you will be dealt with.

[re: shipper tagging Sam about her disappointment] Report her for targeted harassment against someone else.

After this day, June 8/16, when Shatner made all of these allegations, Shippers as a group have yet again been faced with a new barrage of people accusing us of being the “bullies” and “haters” of the fandom. 

Why? Are these accusations warranted?  Well, no. They are not. 

As you can see from above accusations, Shatner clearly is saying 2 things: 1. the act of shipping is the bullying. Bully “with their beliefs,” terrorize by “ignoring (context is about denial articles),” harass by “tagging Sam and Cait” in shippery tweets. 2. standing up for yourself, expressing disappointment in someone’s behavior is bullying and harassment. “That’s right. Call him out. Bully.”

Shatner throws around very explosive and emotional terms: Bully!, terrorize!, harass! But what exactly is the action warranting these labels? Shipping & standing up for yourself.

We need to clearly establish what is, and what isn’t  Bullying,  Harassment & Hate.

What it IS:

Bullying

use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. synonyms:persecute, oppress, tyrannize, browbeat, harass, torment, intimidate,strong-arm, dominate;

Harassment

the act or an instance of disturbing, pestering, or troubling repeatedly; persecution:

aggressive pressure or intimidation. synonyms:persecution, intimidation, pressure, force, coercion

Hate

to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy; to hate bigotry. 

Abuse IS:

humiliation & shaming (i.e. calling people “cray cray” or “delusional” or 

name calling (c*nt, etc)

threats (”shippers should finally kill themselves,” “maybe you should just kill yourself,” “you will be dealt with,” “I can make you go away”)

intimidation/abuse of power (using your celebrity to target a group of women and falsely villainize them to your 2.4 million followers)

What it IS NOT:

NOT Bullying 

expressing disappointment of a person’s actions that have caused hurt to oneself or others.

calling out directly (tagging person) abusive behavior in someone (i.e. calling out a bully).

discussing words and actions by other people that you disagree with, explaining why you disagree.

disliking someone, be it based in logic or not.

critiquing a person’s ethics.. Creating discussion around critiques of the show.

NOT Harassment

tagging someone to call out abusive behavior

tagging someone to express how they disappointed or hurt you

tagging someone pretty pictures 

tagging someone about facts or observations like Google thinks they’re married to their co-star, or they would make pretty babies.

tagging someone in any kind of tweet that that person has historically LOVED and shown us so by repeated likes and other direct engagement encouraging more tweets.

NOT Hate

disagreeing with and disliking a person’s ethics (choice of words and actions) and saying so.

disagreeing with and disliking creative choices and saying so.

disagreeing with and disliking a particular message being presented in art, or marketing. (i.e. this show is too rapey, this marketing campaign is insulting to women.)

Shippers are a very opinionated, passionate bunch. We have a specific set of beliefs we favor, and standards we measure things to.  We enjoy FREE SPEECH and the LIBERTY to love the things we love, and voice our thoughts about all sorts of things. We also are allowed to stand up for ourselves if we are attacked (which we have been repeatedly attacked for about 20 months or so now, so ALLOW US SOME SENSITIVITY).

We see love between Sam and Cait. We ship it. We are passionate about it. We love to share it. We love it when Sam and Cait have engaged with us in the past. We love it when Sam and Cait just do their own damn thing and it’s filled with flirty innuendo and snuggles and kisses and heart-eyes and grooming and giggles. WE GO APE SHIT OVER THAT AND WE ARE NOT ASHAMED.

We have certain strong ethical standards.  Those include our rights as women to be able to fan in safety. Our right to stand up for ourselves if we’re being ridiculed for our beliefs. Diana wants to be condescending? We will express our annoyance at that. William Shatner wants to villainize & silence a portion of women in fandom? We will put up a stink. Shatner wants to ridicule the “CaitSam” shippers (He was making fun of shippers on his TL)? We will tell him to shut it. That is our right. Someone wants to bully us, we can stand up for ourselves.

We have certain standards when it comes to creative choices of our favorite book series (see, we don’t hate Diana! We love her books). If Ron decides to spend 2 episodes showing a rape instead of dealing with Jamie’s healing and Claire’s love for Jamie and role in healing him, we have a right to express our disappointment in such a creative choice. Or if he decides to diminish Jamie and Claire’s story in order to fit in all the minor plot points, we’re allowed to say he’s missing the point.

We have strong opinions about how women should be represented in television and marketing. If Starz misses the mark on this by assuming all we care about is what’s under the kilt, or by insinuating a portion of their fans are unable to differentiate between JC & SC,  we will voice our opinions about that. Or if they subjectively change the “female gaze” and romance to more of a political war drama, maybe we’ll speak up and remind them why they were so praised by critics in Season 1. 

This is about women. 

William Shatner has an agenda to silence women in fandom. You can clearly see from his tweets from the day this all started that he has an issue with women doing fandom how they want to (shipping, in this case). He has an issue with women standing up for themselves and expressing disappointment in how they are treated.

I’m reblogging this because it is more relevant today in the Outlander fandom than it was on June 8. Because all of the *male* Outlander cast members have been brown-nosing William Shatner this week. 

They are sucking up to the man who has said these things about women:

“A woman’s place is in the fridge.” & “This woman [a fan asking a question] is dangerous: put her in the fridge.”

[To Kate Mulgrew] “You say you wept? Wow. That’s so female. I can’t imagine the captain of a starship weeping.”

[To Denise Crosby] “Stick out your tits.” [was an acceptable comment because she was the one with the tits in TNG.]

[About “full-bodied” women] “Come on! They’re fat!”

They are sucking up to a man who apparently didn’t value a woman’s voice when she told him “No.”

[Celeste Yarnall on William Shatner flirting on set] “I can describe it in one word. Relentless.”

Remember when Terry said we have a right to ship

Remember when Sam said he loves all fans

Remember when Cait said she loves all fans

Remember the SHOCKING outpouring of supportive shippy comments on Sam’s IG.  

Those are the things that matter.  WE are not the problem.  WE are not the minority.  WE are accepted and valued by more than just other shippers.

The toxic people are very few.  

Don’t let them yuck on your yum.  Don’t let them succeed in their agenda of making you scurry and hide.

Don’t let them ruin your joy.