#but the post that trigger THIS post was about zuko being like 'women's work.... assassination

[mixelation]

I’m annoyed with fandom takes that are like “this male character isn’t sexist because he hangs out with [SPECIFIC FEMALE CHARACTER(S)] who kick ass [like a man could]”

First of all, being afraid of women isn’t somehow the opposite of misogyny. Secondly, it’s not the job of women to instill anti-sexist thinking in men by being more badass than them. That’s just gross? Thirdly, I’m much more interested in male characters who can think of women as human beings. “All women are scary badass monsters” is not much of a step up from “all women are delicate flowers” imho. (Not to mention writers who really lean into the former also tend to show that women who aren’t ‘strong’ as disgracing their gender, which is gross.)

#good examples of this are fanon kiba vs shikamaru #fanon!kiba respects women because his mom sister and kurenai are Scary #meanwhile canon shikamaru is sexist because Women Are Scary #but if we REALLY want to compare them #we have to say: okay so shikamaru has a lot of overbearing badass women in his life #and no one has ever challenged his way of thinking of women as some sort of other thing #who exist to torment and bully men #meanwhile kiba also has a bunch of Scary Women but if we want to use this as a case study of why kiba is anti-sexist #(there's not a lot of canon evidence of this bc kiba isn't actually all that fleshed out BUT I'LL LET FANDOM HAVE THIS ONE) #we have to say: kiba comes form a family where there's very little in terms of gender specific roles #he hasn't been taught to think of women as some sort of Othered group #and we have to show him both recognizing hinata's strengths as a kunoichi and her many shortcomings as a shy mess of a human #you have to show him actually thinking of the women and girls in his life as PEOPLE #not just 'oooh scary. i am very feminist' #but the post that trigger THIS post was about zuko being like 'women's work.... assassination?' #which might be kind of funny but the post propped this up as being anti-sexist #like okay..... do you even know that the words you're saying mean?