19% of prime time television characters are non-human while only 17% are women

A Profile of Americans’ Media Use and Political Socialization Effects: television and the Internet’s relationship to social connectedness in the USA ― Daniel German & Caitlin Lally

There are more “non-humans” on TV than women. Talk about unequal gender representation in the media.

(via yourlittle-bird)

Let me make a bold guess here and say 97% of them are white, straight, cisgender and nondisabled.

(via ninja-toes)

Source: yourlittle-bird

I think there may be a perception floating around our culture that bisexuals are sort of a watered-down version of gay, and this is a big problem. This perception enables mainstream cultural creators to think: Oh, I should have some LGBT representation, let’s stick in a bisexual girl (this would never happen with a bisexual boy, because of a host of issues around homophobia). Then that bisexual female character can have a fling with another girl to attract attention/check the “diversity” box, but meanwhile she can mostly be involved in a relationship with a man, so she largely appears straight. (This has been the story line of so many TV shows involving “bisexual” characters over the decades.)

In case it’s not clear, I want to underscore the fact that I think this is wrong. This kind of representation of “bisexual” women essentially erases the existence of people who are bisexual. It’s flat, two-dimensional, bad storytelling based on stereotypes that primarily serves to underscore even more stereotypes.

Malinda Lo in “Beyond Diversity 101: On Bisexual Characters and YA Literature”

(via bisexual-books)

I’ve been seeing this quote going around, and I have to say that I couldn’t disagree more.

If the writer was right, then we would have expected to see way more representations of bi women than of gay men (for the “host of issues around homophobia”). This is factually not true. Gay men are much more widely and much more positively represented than bi men OR women (dare we hope for a trans* or non binary bi representation? I think not).

This passage chalks bisexual erasure up to homophobia or lesbophobia (“watered-down version of homosexuality”, “diversity box”). This isn’t the way it works. Note that bisexuals are the most hated type of characters for American heterosexual viewers other than IV drug users. That means more than gay and lesbian characters. That means it’s a biphobia and monosexism issue, not a homophobia/lesbophobia issue.

TV shows don’t feature bi men because bi men are thought to not exist at all. TV shows do feature bi women because we’re considered as sexy straight-but-kinky semi-pornographic eye candy for straight male viewers.

This has nothing to do with views of homosexuality, and everything to do with views of bisexuality.

(via tearingdownthatfence)

Source: bisexual-books

Hot sexy bi babes: media depictions of bisexual women

*** Which also happens to be Snippet #9. These snippets are taken from my book in writing, Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. For more, check out the notes for a bisexual revolution tag. ***


The curious case of bisexual women

In an article called Curiouser and Curiouser: the Strange ‘Disappearance’ of Male Bisexuality, British gay journalist Mark Simpson writes about biphobia against bi men, and compares their status to that of bisexual women. “It’s unques­tion­able,” he argues, “that female bisexuality is today much more socially acceptable than male bisexuality, and in fact frequently positively encouraged, both by many voyeuristic men and an equally voyeuristic pop culture.” [This quote is dealt with in greater depth earlier on the chapter]. In this section, I would like to look a bit deeper into this “positive encouragement” and to question whether it really is so positive. Continue reading →

Source: radicalbi.wordpress.com

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