The South PacificBoard

—RMB ^LIVE— —Discord ^LIVE—

—Ministry Office— —Tidal Force— —Service Records———Service Ribbons—

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Apply to Join the SPSF!
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Twice a day, NationStates updates, and delegates change all over the world. Some warriors appear only at the height of the battle. Like the tide, the SPSF Tidal Force flow to their target all through the day.

If you can’t or don’t want to update (the times - 12 AM and 12 PM EST - can be very inconvenient!), don’t have time to learn the ins and outs of military gameplay, but still want to contribute to the South Pacific, then the Tidal Force is for you.

What does the SPSF Tidal Force do?

• Washes away traces of raiders from native regions

• Supports SPSF Update Force missions

• Supports our allies when in need

How do I sign up?

You need only three things to sign up to the Tidal Force:

• An email address, so you can join the World Assembly.

• A nation in TSP. This is your main nation, and we will send orders to it.

• A second nation, known as a ‘puppet’. If you don’t already have one, click here to make one. This nation is the one you will use to participate on missions. All actions such as moving to other regions, endorsing nations, etc. in military operations will be performed using this nation. (You don't want the enemy to know your true identity, after all.) You will have to resign WA membership and admit on your puppet nation for Tidal Force missions, resulting in the temporary loss of endorsements on your main nation. Only sign up if you are willing to do this.

Finally, to apply, follow these steps:

• If your main nation is admitted to the World Assembly, resign now.

• Log in to your puppet nation, or create it if you have not done so already.

• Go to the Settings page.

• Add your email address into the E-mail box near the bottom of the Settings page (make sure this is the same e-mail address as on your main nation if you already have one).

• Pick out one of our SPSF Flags from the folder and upload it as your puppet nation's flag!

• Apply to join the World Assembly with your puppet nation.

• Check your e-mail, and confirm your admittance into the World Assembly (applications should arrive in around a minute or less).

• Join our Discord for further instructions and training

• If you don't want to or can't join Discord, send a telegram to Eshialand or Pacific shores that looks like this (example below):

Now what?

Whenever we have a mission, it will be made known to you via discord, this dispatch, and a post tagging your nation on the Regional Message Board. If there are no current orders, you may return to the region and endorse the Delegate and all members of the CRS. In general you can expect to be on missions most of the time - we aim for at least one new mission every day.

When you're given a mission, these are things you might be asked to do:

• Move to a region - you'll be given a region link. Click on it and look for the "Move to this region" button.

• Endorse a nation - scroll to the bottom of the nation page and click the endorse button. You can only do this if both nations are in the region.

• Cross-endorse on a nation - click the endorse button. Check the list of other nations who have endorsed that nation, and endorse them too.

• Cross-endorse in the region - look for other SPSF nations in the region and endorse them all. You should be able to recognise them by their SPSF flags.

If you become delegate, we expect you to treat the region with care and don't do anything you weren't told to! You might be asked to do these things:

• Detag the region - this washes away the advertisements raiders have left on a region. We have a guide to this here: page=dispatch/id=1190714

• Ban and eject a nation - go to the nation's page, scroll down to the bottom and click "Ban and eject". You may not have enough influence to ban the nation yet - don't worry, just wait another day for your influence to grow.

This is the SPSF Tidal Force roster!

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Why?

Because women are inferior, and therefore things associated with us are inferior.

I find it interesting how there is no way for a woman to just be, as we're always a type. Meanwhile, men can luxuriate in their anonymity, not having to define themselves in every decision they make. Women can never be ourselves, but rather the sum total of the opinions people have of us based on our choices. Nothing a woman does can be unmarked, because male is the baseline upon which everything is judged. Of course, this all is not to say that men cannot be marked, but rather that they constantly have the option to be unmarked, comfortable in anonymity, someone who can define themselves as them rather than having assumptions made about them.

Mr conveys nothing except that someone is male. Miss or Mrs defines a woman by her marital status, and about the level of conservative values she may harbour. A Ms declines to answer the question (though a Mr declines nothing, as nothing was asked of him), marking a woman as rebellious or liberated, depending on how someone interpreting her preferred title views the world.

A woman can do nothing with her hair without being judged. Even to do nothing marks us as unkempt, untidy. To have short hair we seen as unfeminine and "butch", probably lesbians. To have long hair holds a whole host of other ways to be marked, with the various styles and colours that are expected of us. A man can simply have short hair and be fine, with little attention called to it and thus is unmarked.

A woman with makeup on is defined by that. A bold red lipstick, heavy eyeliner and lots of eye shadow may be seen as garish and overtly sexual (as anything feminine is), conveying a lack of class and intelligence (as anything feminine does). A hint of blush and a tinted lip gloss is subtle but conveys class, just enough to conform to her femininity, good for a place of business where appearance might be important, given it is also not overtly feminine. Having no makeup at all for a woman is a sign of not caring about her appearance. On the other hand, a man with no makeup is a man unmarked. Men can wear makeup, and therefore be marked, but he has the choice not to be. He is able to choose, which is something denied to women.

I've often been called "_____ for a woman", typically belligerent, loud, or fun. On the other hand, I have never heard the same said about men. Men are given more freedom to express themselves in their behaviours, and thus have more ability to express their personalities while remaining unmarked. They are not "that" kind of man; they are simply who they are. A problem of this is also that women are often minorities in fields of power. When that happens, we become representatives of our gender as a whole, which does not serve to make us an unmarked hegemony, but rather make every woman to be who you now are. If you fail, you fail for every woman in the eyes of those around you. If you succeed, you succeed for yourself. This also puts more pressure on women to perform, which leads to more markers, like "driven" and "career oriented", which can be seen as "too aggressive", something relatively unmarked when applied to a man.

Now, some may say that women have it worse in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, so why do women in countries like France and Canada complain? Comments like those are problematic, mainly because they distract from the existence of this oppression, the being othered that occurs at every level of society. Oppression that is more blatant in one area does not negate oppression to a lesser degree elsewhere; it is not a zero-sum game that can be won -- rather, when anyone is oppressed, everyone loses. Many who do not see this otherness, or distract from it by pointing to history or across the globe, and insist that women truly are equal . . . are men. This is not an opinion, but simply a fact. The reason many men do not see this largely silent oppression is because men are the ones who benefit from the patriarchal structures that make this othering of women possible, treating us as inferior in subtle ways, eroding our confidence in ourselves and our ability to succeed. When confronted with the fact that your privilege comes at the expense of others, or even that you have privilege at all, can be hard to accept. Society largely reinforces the idea that men are strong and capable; taking that to heart only to have it revealed that they might not have gotten to where they are on their own can be disheartening, something they might want to reject.

This marking of women conveys itself into even places where one would think these physical traits and external features wouldn't matter, like the internet. The very language we use, aside from marking marital status, reinforces the idea of a woman being lesser or extra to the baseline that is manhood. Markers like ess and ette make a word feminine, and therefore lesser. An actor is someone serious about their role and dedicated to their craft. An actress is a ditsy starlet who obsesses over her looks. Serious professions, like doctors or lawyers, do not use these markers to denote women, because the professions are serious, and therefore have no place for the lesser denotation of womanhood. A doctorette or a lawyeress has no place safeguarding your health or ensuring the law is maintained.

When we make women the other and mark the other as inferior, while men can choose to remain unmarked, we do no favours to either gender. Why is masculinity fine, but femininity something to be afraid of? Why are serious, more masculine (though not too masculine) women considered serious, while a bright, cheery woman in a dress considered less so? It baffles me, and is something society as a whole should consider every time they make assumptions based on external factors. What is driving this train of thought? Why do I consider this person this way? Should I penalise someone because of how they appear to me, or realise my own internal biases and experiences have shaped what I consider good or appropriate?

Asking these questions won't solve the problem, but it might just help each of us make things a little bit better.