My partner is only dimly aware that the media landscape is a cesspool of misogyny and erasure of women’s experiences and voices.

I do most of the selecting of what we view because she just doesn’t have the patience to sift through all the dross and dreck. I make every effort to select a wide range of movies and shows that have as a feature some semblance of gender parity, and nothing that is beset with overt misogyny at the least.

She’s shocked when she sees programs and movies aimed at “normals” as it seems like they are from a different world.

I’m a little shocked, too, but I’m mostly immune to it as one just could not function as misogyny and dismissal of women is everywhere.

What we watch is like a world where women weren’t treated like rape candidates for having an opinion, a world where women get to have their own detective buddy stories.

I don’t do this out of some sense of nobility or to be some ridiculous white knight. The fact is I just can’t fucking watch TV shows and movies where we all have to pretend that women don’t exist. I just can’t do it. And I won’t do it.

I was absolutely thrilled in 2004 when Battlestar Galactica gender-flipped Starbuck and it was revealed the show would have just as many female main characters as male ones. I wouldn’t have even bothered to watch the show otherwise.

But damn, when I have to watch a TV show aimed at a more general audience, it is a trying experience. The culture is so broken it is hard for me to even think about it.