We Women Warriors

Cranky mood. Although had a lovely evening, MD and I went to a local diner, had drinks and dinner, then off to see the documentary We Women Warriors at our church, we were supporting a member of our social justice committee - who is fighting for the rights of displaced women in Columbia. He's from Columbia, and his wife is still there, and he will most likely return in the next few months. Prior to the film - he gave a thirty minute slide-show on the area, the issues involved and how guerilla/paramilitary and police infighting along with drug cartels were displacing women and children in the mountain regions of the country. Afterwards, he provided a brief Q&A period complete with graphic descriptions of the some of the atrocities committed by the paramilitary and DOS - police/FBI presence in the country. As heartbreaking as his presentation was, the film itself is rather uplifting and demonstrates what can be accomplished through non-violent, non-aggressive and peaceful means.

It's a 2012 documentary that was directed by Nicole Karsin and Laura Gabbart.

We Women Warriors follows three native women caught in the crossfire of Colombia's warfare who use nonviolent resistance to defend their peoples' survival. Colombia has 102 aboriginal groups, one-third of which face extinction because of the internal conflict. Despite being trapped in a protracted predicament financed by the drug trade, indigenous women are resourcefully leading and creating transformation imbued with hope. -- (C) Official Site

It focuses on three women, Doris, Ludis, and Flora. Doris is a tribal governor for a group of farmers up in the mountains, they are fighting against the fumigation of their crops - to destroy the coco leaves which provide their sole source of income. Plaintain farming is not as lucrative or practical. They are also fighting to keep the police and paramilitary out of their area - they've done this with negotiation, peaceful protests, and legislative measures.
Doris is now a councilwoman for her area. Ludis - lost her husband to police, who executed him when a paramilitary mercernary accused him of being a guerilla fighter - when he wasn't.
Then she was put in prison for a year for being a guerilla supporter, when she wasn't. Ludis now runs a micro-economy of women weavers, who are struggling to make a profit from their work. She's re-married and has four children. Flora - is tribal governor of her village and a councilwoman, she has worked peacefully to get the police presence out of her village, and to fight against the Free Trade Act, in addition she is working to build micro-businesses for women, to run, and make money, so they can be self-sufficient.

If you haven't seen the film? I highly recommend it. It's compelling. Not at all what I expected and rather uplifting. It also managed to help me articulate something that has been bugging me lately...in regards to heroes or how our media - books, tv shows, movies depict superheroes and female heroes. We seem to think a hero has to be violent? That a kick-ass female heroine is one who kicks ass literally. Who kills with her bare hands or with a gun or a bow and arrow. Who is physically aggressive. Same with male heroes.

Yet in this documentary - I saw three heroes who never hurt anyone. Who do not fight with their fists but with their voices and how they live their lives. They speak out. They weave their bags and garments. They build their own homes. They farm their land. They show compassion and raise their children. That's heroism. Not being able to shoot someone dead from 50 yards or punch them. But being able to go up to them, speak to them, and explain, peacefully and unarmed. And survive.

Ships that pass in the night and Books that disappoint, also save the public libraries, please.

1. Day 18 – A book that disappointed you

Ah, what to pick? The last five books that I read disappointed me. There aren't that many good novels out there at the moment, or I'm not reading them - most likely the latter.

The Elizabet Naughton novel Wait for Me disappointed me. ( Read more... )

What's always frustrated me about the following genres is this:

* Romance novels - focus too much on getting the two characters horizontal or in the sack, then don't seem to know what to do with them once they got them there? Okay, we reached our main goal...now what? Also often the sex is anti-climatic. Too much UST or sex, not enough banter, story, character development.

* Sci-Fi novels and Fantasy novels: focus too much on the setting, world-building, hardware or software as the case may be, mythology, or theme (ie...this is a morality tale about (fill in the blank) - and not enough time on character development, character relationships, plot, and building those characters. Yes, yes, it's nice to have the schematics of how to build your very own space ship or how ley line magic works - but seriously, if I wanted to read about that - I'd check out a book on building my very own space ship not be reading it here. Give me more story, less world-building. This is also true with theme/moral/philosophy based sci-fi - less moralizing/philosophizing - more story.

* Mystery novels - too much time spent on the plot mechanics or how we are going to solve the murder of the week, with all the procedurals bits and pieces, not enough on characters or actual plot.

* Literary novels - too much time spent on writing beautiful moody descriptive passages that while philosophically moving, take us nowhere. Too little plot, too little character development, too much realism and prose.

Another specific book that disappointed me was Mockinjay - book three of The Hunger Games. I still think this book would have worked better in third person. In first - it's sort of sluggish. Katniss doesn't do much in the first half of it, except worry about things and try to figure out how she feels towards people. Also if it had been in third person they'd have been able to develop Finnick and Joanna better, along with Gale and Pris. First person narratives can often become slightly whiny. Particularly with female heroines, for some reason. Male not so much. Kim Harrison's Ever After had the same problem. I think the book would have been better if it had been in 3rd person - because we could have been in on the action, instead of hearing about it after the fact because our pov person isn't there.

* Speaking of books? If you live in NYC, or Brooklyn, or have family who is? Please sign this petition to save the New York Public Libaries from demolition by the Bloomberg Economic Developer Act.

http://signon.org/sign/save-new-york-city-libraries/?source=search


( the rest of the days )

2.Day 21 - Favorite ship

You know this can be interpreted more than one way, right?

* Actual literal Ship? Simple. No contest. The Tardis. While Moya on Farscape had her charms, the Tardis is just plain innovative and wonky. It's the only ship in the history of sci-fi that I know of that defies physics completely, and can go back and forward in time and space, without following any rules. Or maybe that's just its drivers?

* Relationship or "Ship" defined by fan terms as a romantic fictional character relationship. Not sure if can be platonic. I'm guessing not - because people don't tend to, ahem, go bat-shit crazy over platonic relationships. Romantic ones, yes. Platonic ones, not so much. I mean have you seen any shipper wars over Buffy and Willow's friendship? I didn't think so. You can more than one friend after all. But being a relatively monogamous based society - you can't have more than one "TRue Love" or "romantic relationship" - well not at the same time and without being vilified at any rate.

This becomes a rather boring meme if we did "ship" literally - because that's not controversial. I really can't see many fans fighting over whether the Starship Enterprise or the Tardis is the better ship. Okay, maybe they would, but the Enterprise fans would lose - the Tardis is a)bigger than the Enterprise, b) can go an unlimited number of places, c)can land anywhere and hide in plain sight - either by looking exactly like a British police phone booth, or just being invisible, d)can go back and forth in time, e)can deliver people places without teleportation malfunctions.

It should be noted, prior to 2002, I always defined "ship" as well an actual ship either a sea-going vessel or flying one. Like the Tardis, Moya, Starship Enterprise, Galatica...Millenium Falcon and Firefly. There's a limited number of ships in fiction and I can't remember most of them.

Anyhow...favorite RELATIONShip? Eh...this is a difficult question. I have about five or six. And it's mainly based on how interesting they were.

* Most Torturous and the worst nickname? Spuffy or Spike/Buffy - this ship's torturous for two reasons, 1)the bat-shit crazy fandom. I don't know what it is about this particular pairing that drives normal, law-abiding, fairly sane folks bat-shit crazy? Doesn't matter if they like it or not. Actually some of the people who hate it - have reacted far crazier than the one's who loved it. Nothing derails a public discussion forum faster than the Spuffy ship. 2) the way the writers handled it, and every other professional writer who has written about it has - which is basically to relentlessly tease the audience to death. Their writing style reminds me of a magician's sleight of hand...where's the card? Oh there's the card, no wait, it's not there, it's over here.

Both of these factors make this ship sort of difficult to enjoy. It's just too bloody painful. I finally gave up on it and on the writers, sadistic bastards. I'm not that masochistic, thank you. I require some sense of closure.

* Most romantically satisfying and resolved, not to mention subversive? Aeryn Sun/John Crichton -This ship reminded me a great deal of Spuffy, except minus the bat-shit crazy fandom (possibly helped by the fact that I began watching it two years after the show had been cancelled and the fandom dispersed.) and the indecisive writing. Crichton/Aeryn is better written than Spuffy was and more rewarding. It had the gender reversals. Aeryn is the tough fighter pilot or rogue pilot, Crichton the weaker, more feminine scientist/explorer.
Crichton is often the girl in their relationship - he admits his feelings but never is quite certain of hers. In the 4th season this flipped around a bit, but Aeryn still felt more masculain - a protector, to Crichton's nurturer/compassion.

It was resolved well - they got married, they had a kid, they saved the universe, and had a happy ever after. It also has comic books - but I wisely ignored them or rather just couldn't locate them. (actually the latter).

* Fun romantic ships or ships that were the most fun and entertaining? Doctor Song/Doctor Who, a marriage of equals more or less. I was admittedly less than satisfied with certain aspects of Song's arc and felt Moffat like a lot of male writers out there has some unresolved Mommy issues, but other than that? It was gleefully fun. And I loved it to pieces. The other one is Doctor Who/Tardis

* Best family ships? My favorite ship of the entire Buffy and Angel series isn't what you'd think. Spike/Angel/Connor/Darla/Dru - yes, the fanged family, and it's a shame I can't do that ship as a circle. That was my favorite ship. I thought they were fun. And loved the chemistry between them. It also helped that the fandom didn't go batshit crazy over them, and the writers dealt with them fairly consistently and not either overtly moralistically or teasingly.

Actually what killed Bangle for me as a viewer, besides that IWRY, was Darla and Angel. I was over Bangle long before Spike entered the scene. As were the writers. Once I saw that pairing, I knew Buffy wasn't Angel's true love or first love, that was Darla. He had a deeper bond than Spike did with Dru. Darla and Angel got each other. They were, as Darla states at one point, soul-mates. And Connor was their result. I also adored Angel/Spike. I was disappointed that the writers didn't explore the Spike/Connor relationship more on the series - this may explain why I liked Bryan Lynch's comics - he actually did address it and play with it.

Currently my favorite ship on tv is Cora/Regina/Charming/Snow/Emma/Henry/Neal/Bae/Rumplestilskin/Hook on Once Upon a Time - it's also a lot of fun and sort of needs to be done in a circle for you to get it, with lots of interacting lines. I could very easily get obsessed over this ship. I love complicated ships that are not just about romance, but have all sorts of other subtexts. You can do more. Romantic ships are frustrating, because it's like what I stated above regarding the genre, the writers spend all this time trying to get them to have sex, and then, once they do - it's...okay, now what? But with non-romantic relationships or relationships that about more than well sex, you don't have that problem.
There's no dead-end.

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