I'm sure there's some early seasons femmeslash out there, although I haven't sought it out. I'm actually tired of fics that are written just for two characters to have sex and that's the whole story.
Personally I am hardly spiritual at all, so I doubt it's something I could identify with
I've been all over the map spiritually but I've been an atheist the last few years. A part of me wants to be "spiritual" again but I'm just not feeling it. A part of me is just fine the way I am.
combating a male-centric, misogynist spirituality with a female-empowering one is something I consider important,
Some of the feminist theology I read at the time feels like a bit of fantasy now, and there was a lot of optimistic turning the traditional structures religions inside-out, but other times it was just replacing "He" with "She" but not deconstructing the basic paradigm altogether. And some of it ends up supporting gender essentialism. But I do still think it's important to be able to think in those terms, to conceive "femininity" as well as masculinity as natural, divine, as essential, as Self not Other. Until that's a common view we can't move beyond it.
Which seems to be saying the opposite of what Chosen attempts (and for some fans, fails) to say in giving a higher value to individual power rather than the action of doing something together from which many people benefit
I take Willow's "superiority" in Hush and denigration of the other girls with a few grains of salt in the same way I take Buffy's "my emotions totally give me strength". It would be more troublesome if Hush came after Chosen. (The joke about bake sales is repeated in TKIM, but the image of the coven this time is of a more serious group. But that doesn't change the way that young women's explorations of feminist spirituality is dismissed. In a season in which the "little bad" - Maggie is the one female college professor and scientist we see, and she's a villain. That wouldn't be a problem by itself if there were other positive depictions of women in sciences and academia.)
a certain degree of making oneself dependent on the goodwill of the general public.
You've seen the slogan that goes back to the '70's or '80's? "What if our schools well-funded and the Army had to hold a bake sale?" "Bake sale" is definitely gendered to begin with.
I also understand people who say "sometimes playing nice isn't enough, and expecting us to play nice all the time can be oppressive".... I sure am reading a lot into bake sales. Do I make sense here at all?
Absolutely. It's not unlike how people who are activists are called "extremists" (Queer Nation for instance) and told to sit down, be quiet, be patient, work within the system, when the system is inherently fucked-up.
Re: 2/2
I'm sure there's some early seasons femmeslash out there, although I haven't sought it out. I'm actually tired of fics that are written just for two characters to have sex and that's the whole story.
Personally I am hardly spiritual at all, so I doubt it's something I could identify with
I've been all over the map spiritually but I've been an atheist the last few years. A part of me wants to be "spiritual" again but I'm just not feeling it. A part of me is just fine the way I am.
combating a male-centric, misogynist spirituality with a female-empowering one is something I consider important,
Some of the feminist theology I read at the time feels like a bit of fantasy now, and there was a lot of optimistic turning the traditional structures religions inside-out, but other times it was just replacing "He" with "She" but not deconstructing the basic paradigm altogether. And some of it ends up supporting gender essentialism. But I do still think it's important to be able to think in those terms, to conceive "femininity" as well as masculinity as natural, divine, as essential, as Self not Other. Until that's a common view we can't move beyond it.
Which seems to be saying the opposite of what Chosen attempts (and for some fans, fails) to say in giving a higher value to individual power rather than the action of doing something together from which many people benefit
I take Willow's "superiority" in Hush and denigration of the other girls with a few grains of salt in the same way I take Buffy's "my emotions totally give me strength". It would be more troublesome if Hush came after Chosen. (The joke about bake sales is repeated in TKIM, but the image of the coven this time is of a more serious group. But that doesn't change the way that young women's explorations of feminist spirituality is dismissed. In a season in which the "little bad" - Maggie is the one female college professor and scientist we see, and she's a villain. That wouldn't be a problem by itself if there were other positive depictions of women in sciences and academia.)
a certain degree of making oneself dependent on the goodwill of the general public.
You've seen the slogan that goes back to the '70's or '80's? "What if our schools well-funded and the Army had to hold a bake sale?" "Bake sale" is definitely gendered to begin with.
I also understand people who say "sometimes playing nice isn't enough, and expecting us to play nice all the time can be oppressive".... I sure am reading a lot into bake sales. Do I make sense here at all?
Absolutely. It's not unlike how people who are activists are called "extremists" (Queer Nation for instance) and told to sit down, be quiet, be patient, work within the system, when the system is inherently fucked-up.