[ SECRET POST #3778 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3778 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 36 secrets from Secret Submission Post #541.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. http://i.imgur.com/Q2KBhhl.png

[(Anonymous)]

That women writers are sexist does not necessarily prove that women and men writers are equally sexist. Those are two different claims.

I actually think the whole mindset is probably misguided (I mean focusing on peoples' personal sexism as the central key to a feminist approach to literature) but if you're going to argue on those terms at least be sensible.

[(Anonymous)]

What is this book about, and how is it sexist?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

The book's about wannabe actors in a fantasy world. The sexism's basically this: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-confessions-female-nice-guy/

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Sooo it's sexist against guys? I'm really not sure what you mean by linking the article.

Re: OP

[ninety6tears]

I'm also confused. And what a fucking stupid article.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Copy-pasting:

It falls into the whole Madonna/Whore aspect of what the article's talking about. It seems to be written from a worldview where there are Good Girls who don't have sex, and there are Bad Girls who are "sluts" and have no morals, and guys always fall for the Bad Girls and ignore the Good Girls. The catch is that it's mostly written from the perspective of the men who're having sex with the Bad Girls, so it's contrasting these shallow or manipulative relationships with the deep and loving but totally not homosexual, nothing to see here relationship between two men. It reminds me of the way yaoi fanfiction turns any woman who "gets in the way" into a shrieking harpy.

(To be clear, this is the way that one specific series is sexist. Other authors can be sexist in completely different ways.)

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

It falls into the whole Madonna/Whore aspect of what the article's talking about. It seems to be written from a worldview where there are Good Girls who don't have sex, and there are Bad Girls who are "sluts" and have no morals, and guys always fall for the Bad Girls and ignore the Good Girls. The catch is that it's mostly written from the perspective of the men who're having sex with the Bad Girls, so it's contrasting these shallow or manipulative relationships with the deep and loving but totally not homosexual, nothing to see here relationship between two men. It reminds me of the way yaoi fanfiction turns any woman who "gets in the way" into a shrieking harpy.

(To be clear, this is the way that one specific series is sexist. Other authors can be sexist in completely different ways.)

[(Anonymous)]

This secret is giving me "John is bad at math = John is bad at math, but Jane is bad at math = women are bad at math" vibes, if that makes any sense.

Furthermore, like the first comment says, any acts of sexism Women Authors in General commit are a drop in the bucket compared to Men Authors, because there are vanishingly few Women Authors who write books all about men and their fascinating ways, while the two female characters are 2-dimensional Mysterious Erotic Temptress and Shrew Wife paper dolls.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that a lot of female writers, especially in fantasy, do write in a way that comes across as sexist. I mean, you kind of give them the benefit of the doubt that it doesn't reflect their real values and they are just writing sexism as a reality in the story they are telling, but yeah. Some of my favorite books of all time are Mary Renault's historical fiction, which take place in ancient Greece/surrounding areas. There is shockingly little female presence in them, and when it is there, most of it is extremely negative. I assume she meant to write sexism as a reality in the world of the ancient Greeks and it reflects in her male character's mindsets, but even I'm a little put off by the fact that many of her works don't include a single female character that challenges these notions. But then again, Mary Renault was a liberal lesbian who ran off with her gf to Africa in the middle of last century, so I have to assume she doesn't suffer too much internalized misogyny.

But anyway, yeah. Books with female authors don't inherently have better written female characters. I'd be curious to see statistics from the, say, top 50 fantasy books written by men and the top 50 by women, and see if there is a significant difference in female presence and how the typical heroine (or female villain) compares.

[illiadandoddity]

See, the reason I tend to prefer female authors is less about whether or not the writing is sexist, and more about whether or not the female characters are being described in that uncomfortably sexualized way that male authors so frequently do. I remember reading this one book series in which the female protagonist kept describing using her magical powers "like an orgasm" (and it wasn't like it was some kind of sex magic, she was thinking hard to control the weather), among a lot of other things. I felt like the male author was doinG literally everything to telegraph "THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF WOMAN I WANT TO FUCK, AND SHE WOULD WANT TO FUCK YOU, TOO, MY MALE READERS!" It made me so uncomfortable, I stopped partway through book 2 and never picked it up again, even though the story was interesting.

I'm not saying that kind of thing would never happen with a female author, but it happens with a LOT of the male ones.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I have the same kind of distaste when women's power is only depicted as centered in their sexuality.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yuck. I take your point.

Re: OP

[illiadandoddity]

Female authors can definitely be sexist, but at least their female characters are unlikely to come across as the author's wank fantasy.

[(Anonymous)]

There's certainly some sexism there. I winced at an older fantasy book I reread where a man was being awful towards women so he was turned into a woman as a punishment. I mean on one hand I can see the karma aspects being appealing, but on the other did you have to frame being seen as a woman specifically as a punishment? At the same time I'd rather see women doing stuff and some of it cringeworthy than them just being sexy lamps.

Plus I forget who said it, but I remember someone saying that if you hold even the most cringeworthy male character portrayal by a punished female author next to the most cringeworthy female characters by punished male authors, the male character will always be less cringeworthy. If nothing else, you don't usually have male characters fondling their balls in the mirror while questioning if their female crush will be impressed with the size and heft of them.