fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #782 ]

[ SECRET POST #782 ]

⌈ Secret Post #782 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 165 secrets from Secret Submission Post #112.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 2 3 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I really, really don't think you should be blaming women for this one. There are very few female characters who aren't somehow shitty, there are few canons which pass the Bechdel Test - ie, allow female characters to have the same sorts of interesting human connections & emotional depths as male characters, and it's those connections that's what shipping is made of. Because female characters aren't allowed to have those things, they DO often read like personality-lite entities who exist only for the satisfaction/fulfilment of male characters. Slash is a rightful rebellion against that. I've never felt that slash is as misogynistic, per se, as any of the canons I've slashed; usually much less so, as it allows women to exercise their desires. That women identify with characters who don't have a marked gender isn't such a bad thing. But god, the world needs better female characters. In everything I've ever fanfapped over, I've seen - off the top of my head - three female characters who were compelling enough that I'd actually like to be them, compared to at least a dozen such men. *huggles icon*

There are very few female characters who aren't somehow shitty, there are few canons which pass the Bechdel Test - ie, allow female characters to have the same sorts of interesting human connections & emotional depths as male characters, and it's those connections that's what shipping is made of.

I'm going to disagree with you here, or at least amend it to highly popularized fandoms. I've had no problem finding canons with female characters that interest me greatly, but many of those tend to fall below the mainstream (or the series themselves are dominated by females). But I have some pretty strange tastes in fandoms anyway, so I can understand your point. I probably actively avoid the kinds of series you're talking about.

*nodnods* Probably true - I may have strange tastes in characters, as well. But still, the mainstream SUCKS and slash fandom makes it slightly better, for me. :P

Haha, the mainstream does suck most of the time. I'll agree with that.

I think my problem with this debate, is what constitutes shitty, and how do you measure whether a characters connection with other characters is interesting? To be honest, I don't seem to have a problem finding non-shitty female characters whom I find interesting and well written and worth exploring in fandom. I also think this muted by the popular trend to love and explore not well written men who are constantly fleshed out in fandom and are deemed intriguing even if canon source doesn't give us anything.

I think it is interesting that you talk about women wanting to identify who characters who don't have a marked gender. But male characters are still marked as male, most of slash fandom is not dealing with androgynous or genderless characters. The fact that the two characters are male is very much a part of that appeal.

When I say 'marked gender' I mean that in our society, a male gender is seen as a neutral state, and it's a female gender that needs qualifiers. This happens in numerous ways - eg. women's rights are referred to as some sort of separate category from human rights, books on topics which affect women are seen as women's literature rather than mainstream literature, etc. But yes, the fact that slash fandom targets male characters because they're male characters is one reason why I adore it - it makes women's desires central, and normalises the act of desiring men (female heterosexuality is paradoxically taboo - we're meant to just be perved at, not be the ones doing the perving). I often wonder if slash would exist without sexism. I'm not sure that it would - at least, not in the rule-34 way that it does IRL.

I think you have a good point about the fleshing out of badly-written or bit-part men, though. People really don't put as much effort into the female characters. :/

See, I think slash would, but it might not have a slash for slash's sake. There are plenty of people that are interested in it just because they are interested in same gender dynamics. There is also the standards thing, because I do think people have higher standards for what makes a female character interesting as opposed to what makes male characters interesting.

And I also think there is a point, where while slash is rebelling against sexism in most texts it also reinforces said sexism and creates a bit of its own shades as well. Its like a double edged sword, while you get rid of the sexism that may be inherent in the female character in the text, you bring it in with the idea that the answer is to exclude them all together. The idea that men are intrinsically more interesting because they are considered the default and that their bonds are somehow more stronger or powerful then any bonds that women may forge is deeply troubling to me.

As I am not heterosexual and do not really desire men (which, I should say lesbian slashers don't tend to write slash because they desire men, so the slash community isn't all that uniform in its motivations), and unlike a lot of fandom, I have a much harder time warming up to male characters then to female characters.

I think because of this my response to sexism in the text in regard to female characters is different from yours, (which isn't to say yours is wrong), but when I don't like how a narrative treats its female characters my response is either a) drop the series entirely and never look back or b) explore female characters through fandom, whether it be in a gen, het, or femslash way. But then for me, even if the female character is marked as woman first, I don't necessarily mean that strips that character to be uninteresting or even flat. It depends on the canon really.

What I do question about the "female-disliking as a rule" part of fandom is basing the criticism on the character due to their femaleness and just that, because I can't understand the idea that just being a woman in a text is enough to make the character wholly unlikable.

it makes women's desires central, and normalises the act of desiring men

...wut? By taking women out of the equation and depicting the men being perved after as completely uninterested in them? Normalise, I do not think it means what you think it means.

No, I'm pretty sure of what I mean there. Making desiring men so normal that everyone does it as a matter of course - just as desiring women is supposedly so normal that everyone does it, just as we're repeatedly told that female bisexuality is supposedly a ploy to attract men, just as women are supposed to admire the looks of other women rather than of men - is normalisation. Denormalising male heterosexuality is another side of the same coin. Slash is by women for women, and taking women away from being sex objects and instead allowing us to be author and audience for a consumption of men is pretty cool imo.

One thing I haven't much thought about before, but maybe denormalising male heterosexuality is something women do in fandom in order to make it feel 'safer'? I dunno about that one - lately all my slash characters have been bi - but I can see it.

Femdom. Look into it.

What makes you think I haven't? :) I'm confused as to what you mean, though.

I understand this, although I don't always agree with it. (My personal belief, summed up, is that there's a constant interaction between the sexism of a canon and the internalized sexism of its fans, and both contribute to the problem.)

But there's a difference between "I find it difficult to get enthusiastic about female characters because they're written first as Women, as The Other, and only second as actual people" and the kind of venomous double-standards you see often in fandom. Spend a while looking at the use of the term "Mary Sue," or the frequency with which misogynistic slurs crop up in fandom (both het and slash), and it becomes hard to believe that all or even most female-character-hating fans are acting largely out of rebellion against sexist writing.

Also, obligatory "you're looking in the wrong place," but I can see other commenters will get to that. (I just finished reading an Octavia E. Butler series. I'd do that every time my Sexism Rage and Racism Rage meters fill up for my canons, but I'd run out of her works pretty fast.)

(My personal belief, summed up, is that there's a constant interaction between the sexism of a canon and the internalized sexism of its fans, and both contribute to the problem.)

This.

The Mary Sues part is the worst, imo; the term is gendered, sexist, and - ah hah - if you put the male protagonists of a lot of canons through Mary Sue Litmus Tests, they fail. Hard. The biggest fail I've ever run was Jesus Christ. But failzy male protagonists still get loved over, because fangirls can accept that guys are failzily too-special.

The way women are encouraged to be spiteful towards other women is an issue that runs way beyond fandom, but again, I can't blame female fans for doing this (even in cases where it the canon isn't deliberately promoting those women as hateable); it's just part of the whole trap, and it wasn't women who set it up. Ramp back on the bashing, and look at characters in a mature way? For sure. Spite is immature and is part of the problem. But I don't blame women, as individuals, for feeling they have to 'compete' for approval by destroying other women. Especially not teenage girls, who are the worst offenders, and who are probably the most exposed to the bombardment of media messages that's designed to make them feel inadequate compared to over-sculpted canon women.

I am indeed probably looking in the wrong place, but that in itself is part of the problem; WHY IS THERE A WRONG PLACE TO LOOK FOR AWESOME WOMEN? The fuck?

As frustrating as it gets, I try not to blame girls who do this--just to correct them where possible. It's a difficult balance, because shrugging and saying, "well, the patriarchy made them do it" risks denying them agency, which is what the patriarchy does to women in the first place...but refusing to admit that society shapes these attitudes is just wrong.

And yeah. Whenever I see someone actually dismissing feminist criticism of a work, or complaints about lack of well-written female characters, with, "you're looking in the wrong place," I wonder if they actually see what they're saying for that reason.

I am late to the discussion on this topic and am just absorbing what others have written, but I did want to take a moment to bask in the glow of another Octavia Butler fan. ♥

It is also a rightful rebellion to write about those female character, using the bits of characterization that they are endowed with and building them into complex characters.

*nods* Agreed. Perhaps I'm taking the easy road here, but I love my slash ships, and writing what I love is good for me. :P

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #782 ]

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