fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6170 ]

[ SECRET POST #6170 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6170 ⌋

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

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[Genshin Impact]

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[FFXIV]

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Notes:

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nope. It happens in otherwise good media too. That's the insidious nature of misogyny, it can be found anywhere, not just in people and media that can be conveniently tossed aside as "oh, well it's complete garbage anyway."

But if misogyny is insidious, why would that only be so on the writing/production side, and not on the watching/reading/consumption side? Why is it beyond the pale that some people would dislike female characters due to misogyny, regardless whether those characters are well-written or not?

+1000

"Other people have an unconscious bias that comes through in their creative work, but not me."

Which is more likely? - there's misogyny in a male dominated industry where most producers are male, most directors are male, most writers are male, and most actors are male so the female characters in that industry are almost always misogynistic and the women watching it are tired of it OR the female characters are just like the male characters and it's the (apparently only) women watching it who are misogynistic.

Because it's only women or people in female dominated hobbies and spaces who get called misogynistic for not liking female characters.

Men get called misogynistic for not liking or wanting female characters, as well. That even came up here the other night: men viewing Turning Red as an extremely niche film that they couldn't possibly understand or relate to, because "it's a girl."

You're treating this as an either/or situation, where the options are mutually exclusive. But in a culture where we're all socialized to have at least some misogynistic attitudes, then the more likely scenario is that it's both: there's misogyny present in writing, and misogyny present in people's likes and dislikes. Some characters are written misogynistically; some are written fine, but misogyny colors our perception of them.

No, I'm just tired of people coming into female dominates spaces and expect us to perform perfection while ignoring what we actually want and like, because women always have to put the feelings of others first. God forbid a woman like anything that isn't what she should as deemed by any other person on the planet.

Hey, women, you're not doing your hobby in a way that I, the perfectly moral person, expect you to, therefore you're bad women.

Just. Fuck off. I'm so damned tired of you people. This is my HOBBY.

Something being a female space does not make it above criticism or immune to real-world bigotry and bullshit. Fandom is no more sacred than dudebro reddit boards.

Members of dudebro reddit boards don't generally castigate other members of on board for not performing up to some moral code that changes based on what each individual dudebro likes. No, it's female spaces that get THAT treatment. In fact, now that I state it like that, it sounds an awful lot like antis.

I get called names for not liking one female character, and then called names for actually liking another. Called a liar for saying I like a third, and then called even more names for stating what I like about her that you don't see in most female characters. You people are exhausting. How bout you all just stop with the name calling no matter what people like or DON'T?

LMAO bullshit dudebro boards don't get gatekeepy about likes and dislikes.

Lmao yeah, those places are brutal.

Who is "you people?" What group do you think I belong to?

There really is an expectation that everything women do must either be improving for them in some way, or for someone else's benefit. Even when we're doing something for ourselves on our own time, this still holds true. It pisses me off.

Lmao right?

'Fiction has inherent biases but *I* am no mere mortal and am above all of that.'

The sucky reality is that misogyny permeates everywhere in society and yes this does come out in fiction sadly, but this also exists in us too. People in general, not just fans, are so goddamn harsh on female characters that 'overstay their welcome' in any given movie/show or who 'take up too much room'. Female characters have to be excellent and above par for the media in question... but they also can't exist in the narrative too much because THEN she's taking away from the MEN and WE CAN'T HAVE THAT.

How do people not get how absurd that is?

No one is claiming that their above any and all biased. We're just saying that maybe, maybe, MAYBE when you get a bunch of women who don't like specific characteristics that male writers give women instead of fawning over them because they're better than the shit we got in the 70s, MAYBE they have a point. And maybe we can interrogate the writing instead of immediately calling the real, live, breathing woman who is bringing forward issues a misogynist.

Apparently basic respect is asking too much.

Why are you assuming that everyone is like you? Some people in fandom are assholes about women. Can it not be the case that there are some people who hate female characters due to misogyny, and others who are critical of female characters due to perennial tropes they don't like?

What these people are missing is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing badly-written female characters, because they DO exist and they're worth pointing out and discussing. I'll happily point out which female characters in my fandoms are badly written and why.

But when somehow almost every female character in all forms of media ever is badly written? That's not a problem with the media, that's a personal bias speaking.

Yeah, that's the thing: it can be both. It is both.

I don't know how to say this delicately, but this conversation is very...self-involved? It's a lot of people treating their own experiences as the most representative ones, and dismissing the experiences of the other side. But both sets of experiences are "representative" in that they're all things that do happen in fandom. Women who are fans of female characters have encounters with people who talk about those characters in misogynistic ways; women who are critical of female characters have encounters with people who try to pressure them into liking certain characters. And each side, at the end of the day, is talking about people who have been jerks to them, not about every single woman in fandom. The general reaction, though, has been, "you must be talking about me, for I am a woman in fandom with opinions on female characters. How dare you?"

This is not to say there haven't been some asshole comments here; there certainly have. But most of it amounts to, "these are my frustrations, and here's why I have them."

Finally some sanity.

Both can be true anon, that's the point. You may not like that because it perhaps makes you feel bad? But it's the truth. The people are not magically free of misogyny but somehow the fiction is, it just does not work like that.

For example: the books or shows I've consumed, written by women, that were unfortunately dripping with misogyny. Because sadly we are not immune from internalising a lot of bullshit.

And when we point out that misogyny as a reason we don't like this or that character, we're accused of misogyny because we're not supporting women, we're only "focusing on the men," we're fill-in-the-blank. Anything other than we might have a valid fucking point.

You also don't think the other side might have a valid point, which is as frustrating to them as this is to you.

They might very well have, but it's not going to serve them well to piss us all off by claiming we cannot possibly have a point, we're all just misogynists. Not only are they indicating that they're unwilling to hear us out, but that they also will turn on us at the drop of a hat if they don't like what we have to say. Doesn't exactly make for a conducive conversation.

We, on the other hand, are focused on the writers and the producers so we can have MORE female characters. More varied, more women together in the same show/movie. We'd get more female whump, we'd get more fandom. If you like what's coming out right now, great, but we'd like MORE. We'd like something we can be in fandoms over, too.

But the minute we talk about what it is we're seeing over and over and over that stop us from doing that, we're called misogynists. And when we object to being called misogynists... we're called misogynists AND trolls.

One of these groups is harming real women, and it ain't us.

But this is just both of you saying the same things about each other, and going around in an endless circle of, "I won't hear you out because you're unwilling to hear me out." There have been a few very even-handed comments, and those have been firebombed as surely as the incendiary ones have.

I'm not sure anyone really has the moral high ground, here. Probably everyone needs to take a break from fandom for a spell.

There was a nice almost-coversation up top, where someone detailed out why they had issues with most female characters, and then someone asked why it was only female characters that people did this with, and they answered, and it was all very civil. Not a name called at all.

But I really don't think you can both-sides this one. One side wants just wants to discuss what they're seeing that they don't like, and the other immediately calls them names and says that the media is objectively fine and if they don't like it, they're the ones that need to change to suit the media. You can't have a discussion with people like that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #6170 ]

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