welcome to the fest

In the last week or so, the comics have been veering in a direction that seems strange and I’m just trying to understand Tat’s intentions. Are these just comics about trans people being part of the patriarchy? At first I didn’t think he would do something like that, but as the comics continued, it kept getting more uncomfortably undeniable that these were shots being taken at folks whose gender doesn’t match their body. There’s a strip where a male character is chided for acting in a gender nonconforming way, but that one seems really discordant with the rest.

I also noticed that people have stopped posting the daily comics in that forum. Have others noticed the same thing? I haven’t ever stepped into the Sinfest community before, but I am curious to get what people here are feeling.

I made an account just to comment on this, in fact. As a nonbinary trans person the comic with the Johnbie presenting a piece of paper mocking nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people made me really, really dysphoric.

I can't speak for anyone else (certainly not Tat), but my perception is that he's taking aim at gender. Radical feminism tends to view gender as an oppressive system - hurting all people, but particularly females, as it is hierarchical. I am of the same mind, personally, and am a gender abolitionist.

I also noticed nobody had posted the last couple of comics, and have done so. Not sure what it is besides the usual folks being off the forum for a few days.

October wrote:I can't speak for anyone else (certainly not Tat), but my perception is that he's taking aim at gender. Radical feminism tends to view gender as an oppressive system - hurting all people, but particularly females, as it is hierarchical. I am of the same mind, personally, and am a gender abolitionist.

I also noticed nobody had posted the last couple of comics, and have done so. Not sure what it is besides the usual folks being off the forum for a few days.

You sure speak for me, little sister. I guess that's pretty succint on that matter.

Tat is finally hurting sexist assholes where it hurts: their made up "passes" to keep reinforcing misogyny and sexism.

I've waited so long for him to finally tackle that subject upfront e I'm NOT dissapointed <3.

I hope to see what else he got in store for us. Also, now I get why the haters are resurfacing in this forum, lol.

GOOD.

Keep 'em coming, Tat. Keep 'em coming.

October wrote:I can't speak for anyone else (certainly not Tat), but my perception is that he's taking aim at gender. Radical feminism tends to view gender as an oppressive system - hurting all people, but particularly females, as it is hierarchical. I am of the same mind, personally, and am a gender abolitionist.

I'm all with you. And that's the point where the past week of strips left me personally kinda confused with what I consider mixed messages. On the one hand we got the in-comic representation of the Patriarchy, D-Man and D-Corp along with D-Corp controlled mainstream media and capitalism, all enabling Fembots, the Robomf-district, the Bomf-district, catering to men who in their pursue of sex treat women as disposable and such turn into Johnbies. So Johnbies have since been a symbol for men mindlessly following the cult of masculinity as we've seen with the church and their worship of the Pimp, Porn, Violence and all these stereotypically male behaviors and characteristics like anger, lack of caring emotions etc.
All in all a pretty clear picture, that partly gets carried further through these past weeks.

• * A Johnbie claiming that reductionary societary roles are good, right, scientificLink
  * Another Johnbie signing up for that model.Link
  * Reinforcing that this behaviour is required or else it's being forced on youLink Link
  * Women being brain washed into docile sex slaves while man are turned into ravaging beasts.Link
  * Theo experiencing the force of the patriarchy for liking something only girls have to like.Link
  * ... seeing what is expected of him, violence, disregard for women, competition.Link

The way this is communicated for this arc is the image of drugs being fed to people, similar to how stories are fed to people. When they take them without scrutiny they turn themselves into tools of the system.

Here is my problem with that arc, as in the theming is unclear to me. From all prior ways this was expressed the Sinfest version of patriarchy has clearly defined roles as described above. You have a role, it's not up to you, you better follow it.

• * Why does the Johnbie wait for Miko to make a decision what kinda role she wants? (on completely tangential note, what was Miko looking for in that place anyway, why did she point towards the pink pills and what did she expect should have happened ^^')Link
  * Why, when she protested, did the Johnbie offer her to switch roles in any way?Link
  * Why is a Johnbie using woke-lingo to mimic radical queer discussions? (your take on this may vary, but that's how I encountered the term POMO") Link
  * Why is a Johnbie completely breaking with these roles and why is a Devil Drone, even after first questioning this behaviour, accepting it in any form? Both entities are usually symbols of mindlessly following the patriarchy, so what's their explanation?Link
  * That last strip is using attack-helicopter level insults to belittle people who protest the classical patriarchal roles, by defining their own new terms. Using the term "gender" here, I assume with a negative connotation. And in the following strip this protesting behaviour is further scrutinized when Miko is commenting on how she sees dozens of different flavors of gender all over the place.Link

And this is where the mixing of themes gets really weird. First Johnbies and Drones go rogue. Now the freshly minted theme of literally feeding people ideologies (typical patriarchal roles) gets used to paint anti-patriarchal protest-behaviour in a negative light. Also notice the sign of the pharmacy Miko was in earlier amongst the rest. The place that allowed her to chose her own role - but only in two very distinct patriarchal flavors.
The picture all this paints, to me is one where two completely opposite ideologies

• * blindly following the old doctrine of strict male-female roles
  and
  * breaking with all this and defining your own identity based on your individuality

are considered one and the same, both being a scheme by the dominant cultural force, the patriarchy. Which makes no damn sense to me ^^'. Abolishing the need that people feel to conform to some kind of rigid structure is in my ways currently happening by people living a counter culture. It's a long arduous process, but I see that as our tool to reach that goal. Painting both dominant and counter culture in the same light makes me wonder, what fine razor Tat expects people to walk that lies between them. Even further, I believe that 'Nique is a prime example of how people in real life are living this counter culture. With her being a positive main character in this comic, I really wonder what I'm misunderstanding here. Is her expression of herself not anymore an example that Sinfest wants people to follow? Are her actions completely different from what I believe these gender-critical strips are talking about? If so, how? I don't understand the intent.

Tat is finally hurting sexist assholes where it hurts: their made up "passes" to keep reinforcing misogyny and sexism.

And if you don't mind me asking, are you referencing the, in recent years ever increasing discussion about how people identify? Or are you talking about something else? Because I'm very unsure what you mean by "made up passes".



Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Hey Ruby, I see where your confusion lies in the message of the narrative because you see a contradiction between calling out both of those ideologies. But you should be aware that the comic is not meant to disparage individuality and self determination so much as the enforcing of labels themselves.

They really are very similar.

Ideology A (blindly assuming the old masculine-feminine boxes) is traditionally oppressive.

Ideology B (inventing new boxes to designate what falls outside ideology A) is also oppressive, because it is built on the platform of ideology A, which assumes that there need to be boxes. They are still conforming to a gender structure, even if it is one they invented.

The answer is clearly that we need to stop enforcing boxes and giving them names, whether they are a part of A or B. Gender isn't fluid or multitudinous, or anything. It just doesn't exist. Sex characteristics exist and have material and social impacts.

janelane wrote:Hey Ruby, I see where your confusion lies in the message of the narrative because you see a contradiction between calling out both of those ideologies. But you should be aware that the comic is not meant to disparage individuality and self determination so much as the enforcing of labels themselves.

They really are very similar.

Ideology A (blindly assuming the old masculine-feminine boxes) is traditionally oppressive.

Ideology B (inventing new boxes to designate what falls outside ideology A) is also oppressive, because it is built on the platform of ideology A, which assumes that there need to be boxes. They are still conforming to a gender structure, even if it is one they invented.

The answer is clearly that we need to stop enforcing boxes and giving them names, whether they are a part of A or B. Gender isn't fluid or multitudinous, or anything. It just doesn't exist. Sex characteristics exist and have material and social impacts.