http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/
'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative
By Kameron Hurley
I'll post just one passage here:
Stories tell us who we are. What were capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us whats important.
If women are bitches and cunts and whores and the people were killing are gooks and japs and rag heads then they arent really people, are they? It makes them easier to erase. Easier to kill. To disregard. To un-see.
But the moment we re-imagine the world as a buzzing hive of individuals with a variety of genders and complicated sexes and unique, passionate narratives that have yet to be told it makes them harder to ignore. They are no longer, women and cattle and slaves but active players in their own stories.
And ours.
Because when we choose to write stories, its not just an individual story were telling. Its theirs. And yours. And ours. We all exist together. It all happens here. Its muddy and complex and often tragic and terrifying. But ignoring half of it, and pretending theres only one way a woman lives or has ever lived in relation to the men that surround her is not a single act of erasure, but a political erasure.
Populating a world with men, with male heroes, male people, and their women cattle and slaves is a political act. You are making a conscious choice to erase
half the world.