Whatever the reasons for Whedon quitting Twitter (yet again), it’s clear the discourse around Avengers: Age of Ultron has reached a vile tipping point. That’s not OK.

But assholes on Twitter shouldn’t distract us from having a real conversation about this, so we’re going to talk about Black Widow... like adults.

A lot has gone wrong with the way Black Widow has been treated in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — before, during, and after Age of Ultron. There were signs before the movie premiered that the studio and even Scarlett Johansson’s co-stars weren’t willing — or able — to take the character seriously.

Once the movie came out, there were a metric ton of problems with how the character’s story arc was presented. And after everyone digested all that, the backlash started. A backlash that seemed centered on Joss Whedon as a person, and not on having a real discussion about the movie.

I’m done. This sucks, because I loved the X-Men with the fierce love of a thousand suns when I discovered them lo those two-decades-plus ago. It also sucks because some parts of Marvel movies are fun, and it’s possible for film directors and Marvel to do these things right.

Instead, we get nineteen overwhelmingly sausage-fest movies, no movie starring a female superhero in sight, the old double standard (Stark or Star Lord can be playboys and it’s fun and funny, but any woman who MIGHT sleep with someone is a whore!) married to rape jokes both onscreen and off, and women reduced to receptacles once again.

And, cherry on this shit pie, people label Whedon a feminist.

Fuck this noise. I’m done.
http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/no-avengers-for-me/

The author of A Voice for Men’s marital rape apologia is a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan. No, really.

Amartya Talukdar is a Men’s Rights Activist and self-described “dedicated humanist” who’s written numerous posts for A Voice for Men — most notoriously, the explicit apologia for marital rape that I wrote about earlier this week. In that post, Talukdar declared that “marriage is a licence for sex” and lamented that if marital rape is made illegal in India, men denied sex by their wives might have to resort to masturbation, prostitution, or cheating to find sexual relief.

That’s right; he seems to think that it’s more of a crime for a woman to “force” a man to turn to masturbation than it is for that man to force sex on his unwilling wife.

Well, it turns out that Talukdar has some other, er, interesting beliefs as well. In a series of recent Tweets, he’s revealed himself to be a Holocaust denier and Hitler admirer who believes that Hillary Clinton is a “Jewess.” No, really.

Twitter Harassment Is Not Just a Joss Whedon Problem: The Age of Ultron Director Explains Why He Deleted His Account

Buzzfeed has asked the Avengers: Age of Ultron director why he left Twitter, and “harassment from feminists” was not his answer.

Speaking with Joss Whedon over the phone, Buzzfeed got straight to business after over 24 hours of the Internet speculating why he left the social media site. Was it militant feminists, they asked?

“That is horseshit,” he told BuzzFeed News by phone on Tuesday. “Believe me, I have been attacked by militant feminists since I got on Twitter. That’s something I’m used to. Every breed of feminism is attacking every other breed, and every subsection of liberalism is always busy attacking another subsection of liberalism, because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause.

“I saw a lot of people say, ‘Well, the social justice warriors destroyed one of their own!’ It’s like, Nope. That didn’t happen,” he continued. “I saw someone tweet it’s because Feminist Frequency pissed on Avengers 2, which for all I know they may have. But literally the second person to write me to ask if I was OK when I dropped out was [Feminist Frequency founder] Anita [Sarkeesian].”
When we first reported that the creator had deleted his Twitter account, there was no indication as to why. There was a joke in his feed not too long before about getting in trouble with Marvel for what he’s said online, but beyond that there was simply no direct reason given. Many, however, took the criticisms and flat-out insults and threats being thrown his way over Age of Ultron, and in particular over Black Widow’s storyline, as reason for his departure. And yeah, things went a bit wild from there.
http://www.themarysue.com/joss-whedon-why-he-left-twitter/

So have you been following this whole #HowToSpotAFeminist thing on the Tweeter? The hashtag was started a couple of days ago by some right-wing radio dudes as an excuse to say mean things about feminism. By yesterday it had turned into a monster, with some feminists jumping in to try to combat the forces of darkness; as I write this at 7:28 AM Wednesday it’s still going strong.

Happily, the hashtag is proving to be very educational. So I would like to share with you The top 10 shocking “truths” about feminism I’ve learned from #HowToSpotAFeminist. You may want to take notes, as some of them are truly shocking indeed.
1) Feminists are fat and ugly with stinky, hairy armpits and no one likes them

2) Feminists have smelly vaginas that may contain sand, cobwebs

3) These ugly, fat, hairy, feminists with stinky armpits and cobweb-filled vaginas sometimes resort to ad hominem instead of serious man logic

4) Feminists are Jews, or they’re controlled by Jews, or, I dunno, something to do with Jews

5) Feminists don’t know what “real feminism” is, and need to have some doofus on the internet who refers to women as “cumsluts” explain it to them

6) Feminists think they are equal to men, even though they sometimes need to have things repaired

7) Feminists for some weird reason think that rape is bad even though they’re so ugly no one would even want to rape them

8) Feminists aren’t real women, possibly because they don’t like Hitler enough

9) They have kept alive by men for all of human life and still are with male taxes.


More:http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/06/the-top-10-shocking-truths-about-feminism-ive-learned-from-howtospotafeminist/?fb_action_ids=10206618712537511&fb_action_types=news.publishes&fb_ref=pub-standard&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B672727146167387%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22news.publishes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22pub-standard%22%5D

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a revitalization in Black Pride. What’s even more refreshing is the validation of women of color. Black Girls ROCK! and My Black Is Beautiful are just two of many organizations and movements aimed to give the experiences of Black women a fighting chance against Eurocentrism.

If you scroll around Tumblr, YouTube, or Twitter, you’ll be amazed at the unbendable pride of our sisters. Natural hair aficionados eagerly share their curl pattern secrets to women who’ve been told chemically processed hair is the only way to achieve true beauty. Plus-size women of color provide flattering wardrobe alternatives to those who rarely see their body types reflected in seasonal lookbooks. LGBTQIA+ folks courageously share their experiences in the blossoming world of indie film, captivating audiences worldwide with raw stories of strength.

This is so necessary, considering how the mainstream media eagerly belittles and mistreats the cultures of people from the African Diaspora. Instead of relying on limited representations of the greatly desired “American Dream,” we are now seeing an influx of diversity across all gender, racial, and ethnic spectrums.

But with any change comes an inevitable pushback. Nowadays, there is a far-reaching hesitance towards expressions of Black Pride. Black Pride is either categorized as divisive, militant, or—as of recently—“racist”. Let me break it down really quick: Since Whiteness has been used to debase and malign other cultures, people attribute racial/ethnic pride as an exclusive practice when in reality, its main focus centers on providing a counterstory to negative expectations surrounding those experiences.

Remember, Blackness is only defined as dangerous because Whiteness has been the only lauded model for everything.

Last time I checked, Blackness hasn’t been used to define other experiences.

Read more: http://www.forharriet.com/2015/05/does-my-blackness-offend-you-too-bad.html#ixzz3Z3Srz9cQ

At the door is a quote from American televangelist Pat Robertson: "Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

The quote is there ironically, of course. The teenagers congregating in D11 are members of Auckland's Western Springs College Young Feminists Club, who are here for an informal focus group. They're a bonfire – light the kindling with a question, and seconds later they're ablaze with chatter.

"I'm Posey," a member begins. "Some of the stuff that goes on in society and school gets me really worked up. Watching the typical day-to-day things, it's like, Oooh." Asked what "stuff" the 17-year-old means, and the group comes alive: catcalling, sexual harassment, feeling unsafe walking alone at night.

"The way women are portrayed on TV is a big thing for me," says Healy Jones, 17. "Watching shows where there's only one woman who's ditzy and can't do anything, that really pushed me to join."

The group came together last year after a wary few noticed a double standard in the school's dress code.

"We had some friends who were continuously getting pulled up by teachers, and it was really unfair: 'I can see your bra straps – you're a distraction,'" recalls the group's co-leader, 17-year-old Thomas Rands. "We had issues about the language teachers were using."

With two others, Rands set up a Facebook group then sent a notice around the school inviting students to discuss the issue. Come lunchtime, more than 40 teenagers had convened to go through the school's dress code, line by line. Senior management took their comments on board, and changed the wording of the policy. And, with that, the club was born.

"At first, I wasn't anti the group, but I wasn't 100 percent for it, because I was caught up in the mob mentality," says 17-year-old Marlon Drake. "Everyone is freaked out by the connotations around the name feminism.