just saw a post talking about the misogynistic phenomenon of men frequently offloading household tasks to women & expecting us to do them... and describing it as "learned helplessness"
we are putting that term on the shelf
Learned helplessness is the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. In humans, learned helplessness is related to the concept of self-efficacy, the individual's belief in their innate ability to achieve goals.
literal first paragraph of the wikipedia article for learned helplessness. this is a depression symptom. it is frequently caused by lifelong abuse from controlling authority figures. it is the exact OPPOSITE of an abuse tactic and would most likely be displayed by the WOMEN in that kind of scenario!!
the actual relevant term for what the man is doing is probably "weaponized incompetence" which is an abuse tactic. please for the love of fuck do not conflate the two
actually im doing really well except for the fact that everything makes me sad and the things that dont make me sad make me angry. but other than that im fine
The really unfortunate thing about mental health progress is that sometimes you realize you've made it in the form of "wow, I haven't felt this bad in a fucking while"
On the one hand it's a bit of a pick me up in a dark place to know that this will pass because it has passed before on the other hand sometimes it isn't entirely a pleasant thought to go "wow, I used to feel like this all the time. That was pretty fucking bad. It's pretty bad right now too also."
Someday your current baseline will be the sort of thing you consider A Really Bad Day. It does get better.
My stance is that before you embark upon writing your own mythology retelling, you should actually read the source literature you're basing your retelling on as opposed to simply relying on other retellings.
And this is NOT gatekeeping. Not when I’ve got all the material at @arthurianpreservationproject at least for Arthurian Legend. Many translations of Greek myth are available on the Internet Archive as well.
Everyone has bias so basing your stuff on retellings is not only taking someone else’s interpretation at face value, it’s in poor taste. Read the myths and form your own opinions and ideas. Wikipedia and blog posts are not sufficient if you intend to adapt for yourself.
To add to this, not only is this not gatekeeping, this is pushing the gate wide open. This is telling artists to go explore and frolic in the pastures and ancient woods beyond the fences.
As ever, I'd like to direct people to this quote by Michael Moorcock:
To this day I advise people who want to write fantastic fiction for a living to stop reading generic fantasy and to go back to the roots of the genre as deeply as possible, the way anyone might who takes his craft seriously. One avoids becoming a Tolkien clone precisely by returning to the same roots that inspired The Lord of the Rings.
The same applies to retellings (and adaptations, for that matter, since one user brought it up in the tags). For example, you are less likely to write a TH White clone if you go and read Malory for yourself, or for that matter go further back to Malory's own sources such as the Vulgate Cycle. Another example, you are less likely to become a Madeline Miller clone by reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for yourself.
And for heaven's sake, don't do what I did as well for years which was rely on summaries and articles. Try and go as in depth as you can, and face the work on its own terms (but don't be intimidated by its age, either).
Because as Ragnelle said above, by approaching these works by yourself, you will likely come to your own conclusions and not just parrot someone else's. Ideally as well, you will be less likely to end up parroting tired and terrible tropes (particularly racist and misogynist tropes) that have their origins in other people's retellings, as well as flanderisations of the characters and misinterpretations and generalisations of the stories themselves brought about by pop culture.
You know technology literacy is dying because I saw this meme with 76k likes
F11 the full screen button? You’re scared of the full screen button? F10?? It opens the menu bar???
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I'm glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don't ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don't ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
Never stop learning+ Never stop sharing what you learned
