she’s a snarl-toothed seether

Katniss describes the process as leaving her raw, vulnerable, a plucked bird ready for roasting. It's an interesting visual, what with her mockingjay wedding dress, her role as the girl on fire and a symbol for the rebellion, and of course the outcome of the war. But that's neither here nor there of course.

This passage used to make me genuinely sad as a 13 year old. Again she describes herself as plucked, raw. What's a bird without its wings?

People have taken to calling Katniss a "I'm not like other girls" main character. She repeatedly talks about how freakish the Capitol residents look, how Snow's puffy lips are unsettling, how she dreads being left to her prep team's whims and having yet another aspect of her agency taken away from her. It goes to show how reading comprehension is in the gutter these days. Collins' intent with writing the Capitol as she did couldn't have been more obvious. This is a YA series, of course the social critique is on the nose. Katniss was a traumatized child even before the games, starved and poor, responsible for the survival of her family. Of course these foolish beauty routines seem outlandish to her as an outsider, and that's because they are, people have just grown accustomed to them.

The first time I felt the need to shave my legs was the night of my high school graduation party and by the time I was done with one leg I knew it wasn't worth it. It felt wrong and it still does.

I hope young girls today have stories that depict body hair as a normal, human thing to have. I hope they know this expensive quest to remove all human aspects and render one's body as that of a wax doll isn't worth it.

From a young age, you are told not to hang out with boys and “they only want one thing” and you hear stories in the news of women being kidnapped, assaulted or murdered by men. Or that if you go out, don’t be surprised if your drink is spiked and to take measures to prevent this etc etc. Fathers especially hate the idea of their daughters being around men because they fear for their safety. There is this general idea that is taught to you as a woman, specifically as a young woman (16-24) that there are men out to get you and you need to be very cautious.

But if you say that you’re scared of men, you are immediately met with statements like “don’t say that” “not every man is bad” “you shouldn’t generalise” “well then how do you expect to find a boyfriend?” “what about your dad or brother?” “that’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

"What I am calling 'heterosexualism' is not simply a matter of males having procreative sex with females. It is an entire way of living which involves a delicate, though at times indelicate, balance between masculine predation upon and masculine protection of a feminine object of masculine attention. <...> As a result, men presume access to women while women remain riveted on men and are unable to sustain a community of women.

<...> When a woman is accompanied by a man... she is usually no longer considered fair game. As a result, men close to individual women - fathers, boyfriends, husbands, brothers, escorts, colleagues - become protectors (theoretically), staving off advances of other men.

<...>

What a woman faces in a man is either a protector or a predator, and men gain identity through one or another of those roles."

"In other words, the logic of protection is essentially the same as the logic of predation. Through predation, men do things to women and against women all of which violate women and undermine women's integrity. Yet protection objectifies just as much as predation. To protect women, men do things to women and agains women; acting "for a woman's own good," they violate her integrity and undermine her agency.

For instance. In early iterations of the bible God never told Eve not to eat the apple. He told Adam. Adam himself never told Eve so she didn’t know it was wrong. God wasn’t mad when Eve ate the apple, he was only mad when Adam did. Meaning God fully supported Eve’s wrong doings and had no issue with her doing so. He only cared when the man stepped out of line and disobeyed him.

Another fun one is this:

Throughout the bible men have gone to the furthest reaches, endured untold punishments, climbed the highest mountains to hear the words of God. BUT when women prayed to him, God came to them. He didn’t send them on these tedious and dangerous missions to hopefully hear his voice. They asked for him and he immediately went to them. Meaning God honestly couldn’t be bothered dealing with the whiny men and made them suffer just to hear his voice but when a woman pleaded, he was instantly there to comfort or speak to her.

And then, with Jesus, there are many many instances where he straight up told men to mutilate themselves if they lusted after women. Like you are looking at her with lust? How about you gouge your own fucking eyes out you pervert? Or if they wanted to touch in lust he was straight up like cut your own hands off. Its better to be handless than to hurt a woman like that.

This isn’t to even mention that the man had female disciples that he CLEARLY liked better than his male disciples. Like he clearly didn’t care about his male disciples like he did his female ones. Like that man was like a big brother to those women. And THEN, when he rose from the dead, he didn’t trust men to spread the word or to show himself too. He chose Mary. He chose a woman.

So, all in all, the mythos of the bible has been used to hurt and control women. This is absolutely true and Im not discounting the harm. But its REALLY fun to make the fans of it mad by telling them that God clearly cared more about women and loved them more than men in the bible. And they get mad, like really mad.

And if they claim it’s not true, just tell them God never made a woman walk to him for his word like he did men and Jesus said it was better for a man to mutilate himself than to hurt or lust after a woman.