Blatant Sexism from the writers
I’m rewatching the series as an adult for maybe the fourth time and yet, I’m still shocked by the blatant sexism from the writers. The absolutely gross sickening things the men do, and yet they are always given some sort of ‘redemption arch’ or just later down the line everyone forgives them, compared to women being written off, usually punished and never to be heard from again. The only ‘evil’ woman that returns is Georgina Sparks and they make her end up with rapist Jack Bass who ends up being written as some lovable rogue?!
The way Juliet got shamed off but BEN somehow came away the victim ? Dont get me wrong, Juliet definitely did SUCH an awful thing to Serena with the whole framing drugs thing, but the fact that Ben got that whole arch when… Ugh.
How Vanessa just winds up ostracised and becomes super duper annoying when again, other SA guilty characters (including Chuck Bass!) get a happy ending.
Dont even get me started on Jenny. I get its a controversial topic, or I sense that at least, on here and theres a bit of a love/hate thing with Jenny but in my personal opinion she was so young and corrupted and borderline groomed, with a blatantly sexist Father and absent mother… Yeah, recipe for disaster. I get Taylor Momsen wanted to do other things so they had to write her off, but there’s just a running theme with how they treat female characters vs male characters.
I can’t remember if I’m correct in saying William ends up married to Lily yet again at the end… The same Willian who faked her cancer, scammed with Ivy, etc. And yet the arch that Ivy got? While Will is just happily sitting with the family at the wedding in the end?
There’s many more examples but I cant reel them all off now. Just a big observation I made that has made rewatching the show kind of difficult because its just sooo obviously bad.
As for the core four, its pretty much equal.