i remade! check pinned post >:3

you could say that fandom is the female gaze in its most tangible, autonomous form - it’s media for women by women, without bureaucracy and hurdles and censorship, something that never had the chance to develop because mainstream media for women is usually controlled by men. there are very few creative spaces that offer the anonymity and autonomy of internet fandom where we can all truly let our freak flags fly. 

but that doesn’t mean female gaze is absolved of the issues that permeates typical forces of oppression. the female gaze is aimed at different directions, and it ranges from sexual attraction to escapist fantasy, but the female gaze when it becomes an en-masse multi-community movement has the swaying power to focus on certain characters, ships and narratives. and when it does, it paints a very telling picture of who and what it values. 

female gaze regards desire/attraction first, and in white supremacist culture this means the hierarchy of white dudes, then white women, then men of colour, then women of colour. looking at overall patterns in who gets written about and who gets shunned, female gaze in fandom patterns seems to be pretty representative of the social hierarchy that ranks most-to-least valuable/humanised people. 

introduction to fandom studies tells us about the values of fandom as mostly-female created space, but it rarely goes beyond that. the female gaze can be racist. it can be imperialist, ableist, transphobic, misogynistic, despite it being a  concept that aims to subvert the male gaze because it did not develop in a vacuum; it developed in a society that’s oppressive and marginalising, therefore it bears the capacity of being equally oppressive and marginalising just like all other forms of media. 

If (and this will 99% most likely happen) there are post-Election Day voting disputes that go before the Supreme Court with Amy Coney Barrett on it then she will side with the conservatives making these decisions 5-4. (Justice Roberts actually sided with the liberals on this one.)

State election cases that might come to the court will likely have to do with accepting/counting mail-in ballots that come in after Nov. 3rd, counting ballots after election day, etc. These votes will be especially important for the GOP to stop because mail-in ballots are more likely to be democrat and will have the power to swing areas that are close. (Read up on the Florida 2000 “”recount”” and how the Supreme Court helped Bush win.)

Today (October 21, 2020) the Supreme Court blocked a lower court order that had allowed Alabama counties to implement curbside voting. The changes were meant to accomodate disabled and elderly voters afraid of coronavirus. This means that curbside voting will remain banned. 

“Supreme Court sides with GOP in refusing to extend Wisconsin deadline for absentee ballots received after Election Day.” (article)

aaaaand….

this news comes on the same day that Amy Coney Barrett has been confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.