[ SECRET POST #549 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #549 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Going to be doing some advertising until the 15th!

livelongnmarry [LJ comm] - fandom auction type place! For a good cause.
Juxtapose Fantasy [website, art/fic] - Yaoi/slash fans - have you visited JuxtaposeFantasy yet?

Secrets Left to Post: 12 pages, 298 secrets from Secret Submission Post #079.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 3 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

IAWTC so hard. The fact that women are thought of and treated as extensions of/relations to men rather than as people in their own right, and the "default human" is considered to be male, is basically the essence of sexism. Everything else stems from that.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

Completely wrong. The main character himself is only a medium to tel the story. He is just an extension of the main narrative purpose. Female characters are no different. You're just biased.

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

Thanks for correcting me, anon! Now I can see just how wrong I was for thinking that there is any sexism in fiction!

I...really don't even see exactly what you're responding to with this declaration of "completely wrong." I never said that female characters were somehow inherently different than male characters. They're both...fictional people created to tell a story. I just commented on the different ways they're often treated.

Re: 129

[paperclipchains.livejournal.com]

He is just an extension of the main narrative purpose. Female characters are no different.

Pretty ridiculous claim to make about stories that are centred on human growth (i.e. of the main character)

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

But in said stories the main character itself is only an extension of the writer's belief, the sex is something completely irrelevant. A good story is a story that doesn't compromise anything.

Re: 129

[paperclipchains.livejournal.com]

Having a female main character compromises the story?

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

Lovely strawman arguments are lovely.

Re: 129

[relmneiko.livejournal.com]

Sex is irrelevant to the writer's belief and the story, wut?

Because of the way society is structured, men and women can have very different experiences. Writing from the perspective of the female experience DOES make a difference.

Go read some Virginia Woolf or some Margaret Atwood or something. :/

Icon very relevant. :D

Re: 129

[obnoxdwfanbrat.livejournal.com]

If sex were irrelevent to the writer's belief in the story, then one of two things would happen. Either one, the protagonist would assume the sex of the writer or of someone on whom the writer based that character, or two, the writer would arbitrarily choose a sex and the distribution would be about random. A quick gloss over the writing lists tells me that the only Pixar films that were written by women at least in part were Toy Story 2 (which features the wonderful Jessie, but only has a small writing credit for the female writer), Monster's Inc. (which has a proiminent female writer, but which features only one major female character out of three, a toddler), and Cars (can't speak, haven't seen it). Notably, Finding Nemo, which has the amazing character of Dory, was written all by men.

The sexism here is that the presence of female cahracters as points of identification for the female writers is absent, and that there are so few female writers. It's almost as if these women have had to masculinize their way of thinking about stories in order to make it in the biz. Furthermore, even their pieces are somewhat lacking in female characters... in some cases, moreso than the male writers'.

Another issue is that the message this gives to children. Children are very important in constructing their own gender concepts becuase they have to interpret what they see. The movies and shows to which we expose them play a part in how they conceive of gender. In all these peices, they see a male character leading and a female character following. What does that tell them that they are supposed to do? It's not inherently or intentionally sexist but it reflects a sexist thread in society that is dangerous. To those of us who are female and realize that most protagonists are male, it's very hurtful, becuase it's basically a smack in the face--it says that society doesn't value us for ourselves, but for our use to men.

So the writers don't mean to be sexist, and aren't themselves sexist, but their natural assumptions and outside factors have turned them as a group into an agent of sexism without their consent.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

So you're saying that the default is... Female?

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

...what.

No, I'm saying that the default human is human, and male and female are both variations on that, each no more valid than the other.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

So it shouldn't matter if the main character is male or female then.

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

In an ideal world where men and women were treated equally, nope.

In this world? Yeah, it kind of does matter. I'm not saying it's the most important thing in the world, but it's not completely inconsequential, either.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

If you're preaching that it shouldn't matter, why push it?

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

Because right now, it does matter. And you seem to be implying that ignoring that is the way to fix it. Which, sorry, it isn't.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

Characters in fiction are just a medium to tell a story. Their sex is not important as in the end they’re only an extension of the narrative intention. Both males and females have no real personalities, they're just used as part of a bigger message; their existence is tied to that of the plot or the atmosphere. That's what I meant, you’re complaining about ultimately meaningless literary definitions.

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

That's, uh, one extremely abstract way of looking at it.

But it is most definitely not the only way or the "one true correct" way.

One thing I will say: if this is true, what is "the narrative intention"? And what does the consistent valuing of males over females as human beings say about it?

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

Don't you understand, fellow anon? Female leads struggle in the male leads' world!

brb being oppressed

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

Get off your damn high horse, fellow anon. Fact is, most are male and it's getting repetitive.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

So? Write a story with a female lead then if it bothers you oh-so much.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

The sex of the lead character shouldn't matter. A story is good because it is good, not because of the main character's sex.

Re: 129

[(Anonymous)]

You win 100 Internets.

Re: 129

[lolwahtradio.livejournal.com]

What?

Re: 129

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

Er, I'm not exactly sure what you're asking about, but I'll try to explain...what I'm talking about here is the use of marked and unmarked categories in classifying people. "Unmarked" people are considered "normal," and their gender/race/sexuality/etc goes unquestioned. It isn't used to define them as a person. But people in the "marked" category are often thought of or treated as more "X" (where X is any of the following: female, non-white, queer, disabled, the list goes on) than they are "human."

I'm trying not to get too deep into the philosophy and politics of it, though, because uh, fandomsecrets is not the place. Also, I have a headache right now. :/ So this probably isn't very clear.

Re: 129

[obnoxdwfanbrat.livejournal.com]

Technically, without the intervention of certain genes and hormones that cause the development of male genital and neurological features, embryos develop into female humans. However, this is completely irrelevent to the topic at hand.

Society presents male as "default" and female as "other." Truth is that neither is "default" in anything but the most basic sense, kind of like how albinism/lack of pigment is the default without the intervention of a color-causing genes/melanin. The default person ought to be just a person of random gender, but the way society and its fictional sseries are constructed present male as the default, as the nexus of understanding, and female as sort of a cultural special interest group that males need not identify with. Consider how women are expected to identify with male figures of particular cultural salience in absence of a comparable female figure, for example.