random thought exercise

[fuyu]

Meet Grim Eyes, a hunter in the highly matriarchal hyena society of Digger. (Unless you already read Digger. ... Which you should anyway.)

I'm curious. What are people's gut reactions to this? I think it makes for an interesting thought exercise, so feel free to tell me what you think. Anon comments are fine of course, IP logging is off.

Comments

[dev-chieftain.livejournal.com]

KILL IT WITH FIRE

I don't really have a gut reaction to it.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

I really do like how she turned sexism in on itself-- I mean, if you had a matriarchal society, isn't that what the sexism would look like? I've actually stopped reading Digger recently, I should get back to it. I think it's pretty cool.

A few days ago I actually wrote a story about hyenas and the inversion of sexism in matriarchal culture, too (absolutely nothing to do with Digger). So I've been thinking a lot about this.

[fireholly.livejournal.com]

I think my gut reaction was ARGH FURRY to be honest, but then it decayed into one that's pretty similar to yours. The woman's obviously a misandrist and completely casual about it, and my instant reaction was something along the lines of 'ha, that's funny, stick it to 'em'.

And I don't like that. Because if I reverse the genders she becomes a horrible 'he'.

So, yeah, I feel quite uncomfortable.


From a fictitious point of view, I think it makes a pretty interesting point that prejudice isn't an exclusively male thing - it's a simple lording-it-over-the-underdog reaction, and that's supported by situations I've seen in everyday life (for instance, I'm only starting to notice the patronising, slip-up-once-and-they'll-have-you, women-are-the-default way that men (particularly straight men) are treated in fandom, one of the most liberal societies ever).

My own gut reaction, though, suggests a lot of truths about myself and my society that aren't totally happy.

[unicorn]

More disturbed that I find myself going "whatever" and then catching myself when I'm very tired than anything else; I spot the hidden meanings of this stuff faster when I'm fresh. After that I pretty much echo maladaptive.

[flidgetjerome.livejournal.com]

I saw it coming, really, even before this panel. I mean, she's a leading matriarch of said highly matriarchal, firmly established society. How else was she going to react to this little boy thinking he could do a woman's job?