Ok let's see if I can finally get back to all of your comments here: women and violence? So male power can express itself in unjustified physical violence while female power can express itself (more often) in justified violence (if you're superpowered) or magic.
I started typing a long response to this paragraph until I realized that you had already summed up my thoughts on the subject. Violent acts by women are seen as soul-destroying unless the woman is soulless (Drusilla - who kills another woman, Kendra); is directed at a non-human Big Bad/Demon; or in self-defense and in the line of duty with human MOTW we're not supposed to care about (S1 and S2: The Pack, Go Fish etc.) And even then, violence is slowly eroding Buffy's soul no matter how necessary; it's a cumulative effect.Willow's emotions take over reason Willow (Tough Love and Dark Willow) and she goes off either half-cocked or insane with rage and grief and in either case isn't really "in control" of herself and needs to be "tamed" in Grave by Giles and Xander. Faith and Buffy (later Dana on AtS) both succumb to depression or near-madness; Dru is driven mad by Angel. Anya is the only formerly-superpowered character or demon at the end who is not allowed to reclaim her powers "for good" and reintegrate her "shadow self"; while Spike HAS to reclaim his capacity for violence albeit 'for good' (and self-defense in LMPTM.)
Of course even justified violence isn't “allowed” for women.
My Ted meta was inspired by the fact that fandom focuses on "Buffy was out of control and abused her Slayer powers" and not "Buffy was defending herself and her mom from someone who had been psychologically terrorizing her and had just tried to kill her. The Thelma and Louise connection was something I caught only on rewatch and I really think it was accidental in that I doubt the writers knew the effect it would have in fandom? OTOH you can't understand her stance in Consequences, Dead Things, Sanctuary (AtS) and Villains without that episode.
Actually my therapist tells me that anger covers a deeper wound, a hurt, a sadness.
There's more to it than that IMO. In the Dance of Anger Dr. Harriet Lehrner wrote that "anger is a signal and worth listening to"; that it can be a signal that we are being treated unfairly, of injustice, etc; not just in the past as "a deeper wound" implies but right here and now. It does not tell us, she points out, how to react to a situation or what the solution is, only that there is something amiss. The way women have most often dealt with anger of course is to swallow it, turning into that "deeper wound" into depression and sadness. It's interesting that Buffy often expresses anger in the show but is considered a "bitch" and "too masculine" in fandom; but she very often swallows it, or breaks into tears in a very "feminine" fashion (Dead Man's Party, Empty Places, all of S6.)
Have you ever read Tiptree's The Screwfly Solution? Not female violence, the idea of in-group approved violence reminded me of it.
I tried and couldn't get through it - I couldn't tell what was what, when are we with the man in the room, when are we reading the letter. Things like italics etc would have helped greatly; readability is a thing with me.
On the subject though of group-approved violence and the banality of evil have you read Shirley Jackson's 1948 classic "The Lottery"? http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf It was written in the context of the end of WW2 and Hitler's final solution, and the Communist witch hunts in America, but there are so many other examples that it's impossible to count.
no subject
So male power can express itself in unjustified physical violence while female power can express itself (more often) in justified violence (if you're superpowered) or magic.
I started typing a long response to this paragraph until I realized that you had already summed up my thoughts on the subject. Violent acts by women are seen as soul-destroying unless the woman is soulless (Drusilla - who kills another woman, Kendra); is directed at a non-human Big Bad/Demon; or in self-defense and in the line of duty with human MOTW we're not supposed to care about (S1 and S2: The Pack, Go Fish etc.) And even then, violence is slowly eroding Buffy's soul no matter how necessary; it's a cumulative effect.Willow's emotions take over reason Willow (Tough Love and Dark Willow) and she goes off either half-cocked or insane with rage and grief and in either case isn't really "in control" of herself and needs to be "tamed" in Grave by Giles and Xander. Faith and Buffy (later Dana on AtS) both succumb to depression or near-madness; Dru is driven mad by Angel. Anya is the only formerly-superpowered character or demon at the end who is not allowed to reclaim her powers "for good" and reintegrate her "shadow self"; while Spike HAS to reclaim his capacity for violence albeit 'for good' (and self-defense in LMPTM.)
Of course even justified violence isn't “allowed” for women.
My Ted meta was inspired by the fact that fandom focuses on "Buffy was out of control and abused her Slayer powers" and not "Buffy was defending herself and her mom from someone who had been psychologically terrorizing her and had just tried to kill her. The Thelma and Louise connection was something I caught only on rewatch and I really think it was accidental in that I doubt the writers knew the effect it would have in fandom? OTOH you can't understand her stance in Consequences, Dead Things, Sanctuary (AtS) and Villains without that episode.
Actually my therapist tells me that anger covers a deeper wound, a hurt, a sadness.
There's more to it than that IMO. In the Dance of Anger Dr. Harriet Lehrner wrote that "anger is a signal and worth listening to"; that it can be a signal that we are being treated unfairly, of injustice, etc; not just in the past as "a deeper wound" implies but right here and now. It does not tell us, she points out, how to react to a situation or what the solution is, only that there is something amiss. The way women have most often dealt with anger of course is to swallow it, turning into that "deeper wound" into depression and sadness. It's interesting that Buffy often expresses anger in the show but is considered a "bitch" and "too masculine" in fandom; but she very often swallows it, or breaks into tears in a very "feminine" fashion (Dead Man's Party, Empty Places, all of S6.)
Have you ever read Tiptree's The Screwfly Solution? Not female violence, the idea of in-group approved violence reminded me of it.
I tried and couldn't get through it - I couldn't tell what was what, when are we with the man in the room, when are we reading the letter. Things like italics etc would have helped greatly; readability is a thing with me.
On the subject though of group-approved violence and the banality of evil have you read Shirley Jackson's 1948 classic "The Lottery"? http://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf
It was written in the context of the end of WW2 and Hitler's final solution, and the Communist witch hunts in America, but there are so many other examples that it's impossible to count.