excluding somebody because they’re a “bastard” is sexist too

wendynerdwrites:

riahchan:

kingsnovv:

There is a lot of rhetoric that it is sexist that a “bastard” or “illegitimate” child being included in the line of succession ahead of a female legitimate child is inherently sexist. This argument is, of course, given while ignoring the context that the bastard v. legitimate child dichotomy is sexist as well as classist.

Declaring certain children as bastards and other children as legitimate is a way of controlling women’s sexuality and bodies. It upholds the patriarchy by convincing women that if they want their children to succeed, they have to reproduce exclusively within the confines of marriage. Marriage in Westeros is not something you can simply leave. Marriage strips women of their agency almost completely, putting them at the will of the men they married – most often, people they did not choose and in many cases didn’t even know. Given that birth control is extremely limited (moon tea, the pullout method), if you want to have the right kind of children, you lose sexual agency.

Of course, this isn’t always true. Some bastards can rise high in the world. Especially if they’ve been legitimized by a King. Only, you have to have a certain amount of connections and social clout to be able to legitimize your child. Therefore, only bastards born of men/women who are of the highest class have a chance of gaining access to the same privileges their natural born siblings do. 

This policing of who gets to have their children be an heir to what the father holds often penalizes poor women more than it does wealthy women, because wealthy women can have their children legitimized more easily (sometimes not even by the desicion of the king, but through their own social power, see the Mormont ladies). Poor women are at the whim of others, their agency stripped doubly (by being a woman, by being poor). This all goes to reinforce what kind of woman a man should marry, and what sort of person is fit to rule. It helps perpetuate systems of power that make sure that the governed are truly divorced from their rulers. This is a system of power that is so marked, remember, that people are labeled with it with their surname. Essentially, they cannot escape the circumstance of their birth.

Declaring a bastard as King essentially undermines the legitimacy of this system (which punishes both women, and the poor). That this was done by high lords who have a stake in this power structure makes it radical. After all, it could undermine their own hypothetical claims, or anger their wives who, like Catelyn, feared having another woman’s child usurping her own. It undermines a deeply entrenched system in a highly visible way. It’s a symbolic decision with potentially radical consequences. 

This is just something that’s ignored in the ‘so closed minded’ electing Jon as King over Sansa arguments. And in order for your sexism/misogyny arguments to be truly salient, you need to account for how seixst and misogynistic the whole bastard thing actually is. Undermining this dichotomy is a huge step towards more female empowerment in this society.

via @kingsnovv‘s tags

#starkbowl#the weird sansa vs. jon debate#meta#this post isn’t vagueblogging anybody since it’s incredibly pervasive in the jonsa fandom#i’m not even going to delve into why i think jon makes a better king during a war because he has martial skills#in the end#the
sansa v jon debate is essentially a waste of time because they will end
up coruling either as siblings or by getting married#sansa will be the queen of peace but she is not daenerys#she’s not gonna ride in the vanguard guys#and that’s what the north needs rn#wanting sansa to be queen because you like sansa is one thing but acting as though electing jon wasn’t radical is illogical imo#both decisions had the potential to be radical

Not to be a dick, but the only thing said in any of the above that is right is that the decision could be radical. But in all the wrong ways. (also, as for this somehow helping lower-class women and the North needing a king in the vanguard atm: NO. OH MY GOD NO. SORRY BUT THAT IS COMPLETELY WRONG. But I’ll get to those further down)

No one is arguing that it isn’t radical, but it’s still illogical, as the preference for legitimacy still undermines the foundation for dynastic politics on which the entire power structure is based. Acknowledging that isn’t sexist. Yeah, it’s a system based on ELITISM, but that’s not going to be changed any time soon. Are poor women screwed in this system? Yes. Does caring about the whole bastard thing make things automatically sexist? No. Elitist? Yes. But that applies to literally everyone. One of the few foundations for security that ANY woman have is the security of their children. Does that favor some women over others? Yes. But that does NOT make understanding the importance of such an aspect of this culture (ESPECIALLY when considering a country that needs all the dynastic ties it can get) sexist. Unless you have time to completely undermine the entire concept of a dynastic feudal society, then there is nothing positive about this. Radical? Yes. But not in a good way. Poor women are even more screwed by such a destabilizing act in a time of extreme crisis than they are by the legitimacy system. Sorry, but it’s true. 

No one is denying that ignoring Jon’s bastardry is a radical thing that, in fact, does have some underlying merit to it. The problem is that a) It’s specifically being ignored in service of disenfranchising the more deserving woman and b) In context, it’s disastrous in practice. It just is. 

So sorry, no, mentioning that Jon being a bastard counts is not sexist. ESPECIALLY in a case where the whole reason the North was saved was because of the connections forged through the FEMALE line in House Stark. Throwing out the importance of legitimacy by way of Catelyn Tully’s children is bad and nonsensical and doesn’t do any women, rich or poor, any favors atm. They’ve undermined the entire system of alliances and successions by doing this at the worst possible moment. Pure and simple. 

Sorry, but a lot of these structures/traditions in a feudal society often did have a practical purpose, and weren’t just based on bigotry. That does include ones that were, in fact, bigoted in practice. And legitimacy is a prime example. How were people unified and alliances formed? Dynastic marriages. And by announcing that heritage doesn’t matter and that bastards can,in fact, just supplant the surviving and capable legitimate heirs basically tells any potential allies not to bother doing business with you because there’s no security in it anyways.

On top of that, as I mentioned, it does in fact undermine one of the few sources of security SOME women had in those societies. Catelyn had very good reasons to be threatened by Jon. The favor he was shown threatened her position, her life, and the positions and lives of her children, pure and simple. And caring about the complete undermining of one of the few sources of security a very few amount of women have IS NOT SEXIST.

…And, with all due respect… No…? This will not help poor women? Maybe noble-born bastards might have more of a chance now, but bastards born to common women are still as fucked as ever. The only bastards who will be able to take advantage of this precedent will be the ones with power structures behind them, i.e., the ones who are related to yet more rich, titled land-owners. So no. This doesn’t help women at all. It makes women even more disenfranchised.

Also, quite frankly, Sansa, by virtue of Jon being king, is endangered. Far more than Jon would be if it were her crowned instead of him. Her ruling and declaring him legitimate could have had all the significance you’re attributing to Jon’s rise, while granting unprecedented power to a woman AND keeping invaluable traditions, alliances, and lines of succession intact. 

AND FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH: a ruler who is riding in the vanguard is actually the opposite of what the North needs now. They need a ruler who can provide stability. It would be one thing if they had a dozen heirs and a solid, established, comfortable line of succession in play but no… They don’t. So any king right out there in the vanguard is just begging for another dangerous power struggle and instability.

Not to mention, it puts the soldiers in general, having a high-profile target out in the open? Yeah, Robb’s riding in the vanguard actually wasn’t a good thing. It required his army to use energy they could/should have used fighting the actual battle instead trying to keep him alive and out of enemy hands, and put giant targets on the backs of the men surrounding him. (also, remember how Jon running out in the open decimated the ONE strategy his army had? Like, perfect example of what I’m talking about. What saved them? The army that came courtesy of dynastic connections from Sansa’s Tully heritage. Go fig)

On top of that, you need your top military commander/ace at times like this focussed on the war effort only. Being King requires focus on things like infrastructure, diplomacy, public service, the law system, etc. Those things can actually count more than ever in times like this. JON’S TALENTS are to the North’s best advantage if he is focussed solely on what he’s best at. Jon serves the North better as Master of War, not head of state. 

So, in fact, no, Jon on the throne is not what the North needs, ESPECIALLY not now. It certainly will not benefit any poor women, either. 

There are dozens of reasons Jon as King makes no sense. And, sorry, being a bastard IS one (of many). Recognizing that is not sexist.

Yes, both decisions have potential to be radical. But “radical” =/= “good”. One could be radical in a good way. The other, not so much, and ESPECIALLY not for women of ANY social class!

(But also, yeah: a king riding in the vanguard is actually kind of a huge disadvantage rn. Like, such a bad idea. Really bad.)

So I can’t speak to all of this, but:

• the idea that admitting bastards to the line of succession helps women is rather odd. Putting bastards into the line of succession massively privileges men over women b/c it gives men far more flexibility over whether they acknowledge a child as their heir, and potentially allows them to disinherit their lawful children if they don’t like them. (See Aegon IV and Daemon Blackfyre, for example.)
• the idea that it helps poor women is rather odd too. For one thing, we’ve already seen that the bastards of highborn women are treated differently than the bastards of smallfolk women with  the case of the Great Bastards who got last names, titles, land, and Valyrian steel swords, and the lesser bastards who got nowt. For another, if peasant marriages are anything like their equivalents in medieval Europe, the line between bastard and legitimate is blurred by looser marriage customs.
• So who would this help? A very small group of women who are the mistresses of lords or royals, who might, might get to see their children inherit the lordship or crown of their fathers…if their fathers decide to acknowledge them and then put them ahead of their legitimate children.
• Who would this hurt? Potentially a lot of people, given how much it would destabilize Westeros’ system of inheritance and succession. It’s highly unlikely that the eldest legitimate child is going to passively allow themselves to be disinherited, and the wife’s family is also going to feel threatened by the undoing of dynastic alliances. So just as with Renly’s “meritocratic” drive for the Iron Throne, this is something that’s going to have really negative consequences as a precedent.