chat

8177 readers

171 users here now

Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.

As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.

Thank you and happy chatting!

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net

Quimby@hexbear.net

ZoomeristLeninist@hexbear.net

SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net

InsidiousTrackers@hexbear.net

Exhausted after hearing colonialist arguments (midwest.social)

submitted 1 month ago by clark@midwest.social to c/chat@hexbear.net

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Spoke to a family member today. Talked about how I'm gonna write a student thesis on Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China. Was promptly met with "but why not write about women like Margaret Thatcher? So many more references and much more recent!"

Cue me asking why I should study a known European figure rather than somebody more unknown (and more interesting imo) overseas? Family member goes on to tell me how "easy it was for medieval women overseas to gain power, they just had to marry their emperor husband!", and how European history is so much more interesting and tragic and worth analysing because everything is so complex in Europe compared to those "primitive cultures." Family member then jumps to how Europeans have invented EVERYTHING and how everybody else copies us (clothes, music, science) and Europe is the sole inventor of everything apparently. I get up and leave.

Apologies for the rant. Do y'all have any supporting words or advice on how to speak to these individuals? I thought I could post this here because I appreciate y'all's anti-colonialist attitude, but do feel free to remove if it's appropriate.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] clark@midwest.social 2 points 1 month ago

You can tell them that you would rather write about someone cool like an empress rather than someone pathetic who only ever rose to the ranks of Prime Minister. If Margaret Thatcher had been half the woman with half the ambition of Empress Wu Zetian, she would have done a coup d'etat the queen of England, ripped the crown off her corpse, and reinstated absolute monarchy in England. Instead she meekly settled for Prime Minister. Pathetic.

I lol'd at this, especially keeping in mind that this family member of mine thought Margaret Thatcher was so iconic to have risen to power in a patriarchal world (like Wu didn't do the exact same thing).

Unrelated but have you read Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao? It's at like the intersection of sci fi and fantasy and is directly inspired by Wu Zetian. I also think it's a book all leftists should love because it's very much a revolutionary story that rejects every bullshit defanging and subversion that Western revolutionary stories put in to sabotage revolution (For more on those sabotaging tropes: https://redsails.org/the-swerve). If you haven't read it I cannot recommend it enough. It's so damn good.

My friend actually introduced this book to me after I told her I'd be studying Wu! Strongly considering reading it now that you vouch for it, too.