The Evolution of Criticizing a Male-Authored Comic as a Female Reviewer

[Content Note: Rape culture; misogyny.]

Step 1. Write a detailed review about a comic tie-in. You don't really need to be angry at this stage, although nothing is stopping you from being angry because anger can be a healthy natural response to oppression. But let's be honest, if you've been reviewing for awhile (or even just consuming media for a few years), this is so much of the same shit on a different day. If you had to describe your feelings at this point, they would probably be "welp, that's a damn shame, better go write up a review to save everyone their five bucks and also from being triggered into a PTSD episode and losing the afternoon".

Step 2. Post the review on your best friend's site because you know there will be fully one-billion male trolls and mansplainers. And on a friend-of-a-friend's site because you really are just trying to save everyone their damn five bucks and also because at this point it's kinda become a piece for women to talk about how wearying it is to yet again have another fictional 'verse being consumed by on-screen rape like rape is the intellectual property equivalent of Galactus the planet-devourer. WINTER IS COMING.

Step 3. Weather, as predicted, fully one billion male trolls and mansplainers in the comments, all of whom are very very interested in explaining that you interpreted the comic incorrectly and that of course we aren't meant to see the wives as ungrateful and gosh you'd think the little ladies like yourselves would have heard of unreliable narratives before and also trigger warnings are so silly and you sound very angry and irrational and hysterical and emotional and childish and naive and you are a fascinating creature from another planet, worthy of considerable study like the odd specimen you are.

Step 4. Watch in amazement as the comic's creator says that the rape in the comic was necessary because without it the women being kept in slavery are "spoilt young girls". Watch him one-up the mansplaining trolls by calling your review "incredibly subjective" (read: unobjective, biased) and "very angry" (read: emotional, hysterical) but also "fascinating" (heard *in a Spock voice*). Watch him tell another critic that she is throwing "a teenage temper tantrum", and isn't realistic or practical for wanting rape to be handled with caution and care in comics.

Step 5. Make silly meme gifs, because there is literally no way I can make this entire episode more ludicrous than it already is when, you know? I was really only trying to save everyone their five bucks and from being triggered for the afternoon, so way to make it worse and to prove the point more by defending the use of lazy, disrespectful rape narratives in fiction. I said it before and I'll say it again:

Apparently my freedom is something I should sell for water and shade, and I should only give that up if the abuse is bad enough. In the movie, the chastity belts read to me as one more symptom of the wives' captivity; in the book, the chastity belts become a symbol of why they had to leave.

 

All memes made by ImgFlip, I do encourage everyone to make their own, lol.