Fandom, Entertainment, and Women

[author_by_night]

(Thanks to bitchetfor inspiring this rant)

A of the time, you can't really win with women characters. It saddens me how if a female character isn't strong enough, she's a Mary Sue and antifeminist, but if a female character has a personality, she's a slutty Mary Sue. (BTW, I've come to really hate the term "slut." It never used to bother me that much - but then I realized how many times it's been used to degrade other women.)

This often happens when a female character ends up with Person A, but fandom wanted Person A and Person C to get together. Case in point - at a comm I was in, a female character had never been mentioned much. As soon as the character got with someone romantically, she was suddenly a slutty, mouthy bitch. 

Of course, the fact that the slut shaming is acceptable IRL doesn't help. A friend of mine recently wrote about a character was slut shamed by a man. Almost everyone in the room thought it was supposed to be funny; they wanted the female character to be pregnant, and the man saying all that stuff to be her Baby Daddy. The way they saw it, she was a slut because some man said so.  I repeat - the way they saw it, she was a slut because some man said so. Does that scare you? It should.

Then there's our friend Taylor Swift. According to Taylor Swift, if you wear high heels and cheerlead, you're a hussy who deserves to lose your boyfriend to the sweet chick in glasses - oh wait, she's become a bit more like you, because it's also bad to be ugly. (And Taylor Swift looks just hideous in sneakers.) You also have movies where if a guy leaves his sexy girlfriend for his new crush, it's okay. But it's not okay for the crush to look like a real person - even she has to be sort of sexy. Just not, you know, too sexy. It's sort of like we're still in the 1950s - a true woman should have nice thighs and a sexy glow, but if she does anything else, she's a slut. And also, we're supposed to be angels of the house who keep our men happy so they won't want to leave us, as they can't help their sexual desires. After all, what a man needs is a good woman to teach him how to  behave.

And now this has translated into the way fanbases react to female characters. Characters who are "too womanly" are mocked as much as "sluts" who... I don't actually know what these vapid whores do. Ginny Weasley from the Harry Potter series is often called  a slut because she dated three guys in two years. Seriously? She's a teenager. Like a teenage girl, she dates.

Often I think that women can be sexist because we've been taught that we're threats to each other. But you know what? Any guy who thinks we exist to get into hot catfights is a creep. And any guy who would date both you and your slightly prettier best friend is an asshole. And fictional women are fictional. They're not actual threats to anyone. No girl deserves to be called a bitchy slut.

When I actually get off my ass and publish a book, my female characters are going to be strong. You know why? Because I like other women. No matter what they where or whose ship they sink.

Comments

[lukecanwaltz88.livejournal.com]

This is part of the reason why I only dip my toes into the metaphorical pool of fandom... people can be ridiculous sometimes. Just because one character gets in the way of an OTP doesn't make her/him a bad character or a "slut" (I hate that word, too.) or whatever. I ship my ships and love my characters for my reasons that I don't need to justify with anyone else... and I honestly don't care what they think, because I go by the 'ship and let ship' policy. If you like the ship, awesome! Let's talk about it. If you don't, that's fine, too! We can even talk about it. Let's just be civil and kind and mature about our difference of opinion. And that doesn't include insulting another character like you mention.

*eyeroll* People.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

I actually find the term ''strong female character'' to be problematic in itself, since it implies that ''strength'' consists of certain specific characteristics, and because you then have to decide what makes a 'weak' female character. And, typically, a 'strong' female character is defined as one who fills a traditionally 'male' role (action hero/scientist/soldier etc) whereas women who show traditionally 'feminine' traits are derided as 'weak'.

[daintress.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Yes. That is the problem with that terminology in a well-spoken nut shell.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

However, the Strong Female Character will still be easy on the male gaze and will, naturally, fall in love with the male hero This comic is pretty spot on:

http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=311

[daintress.livejournal.com]

Unless she is Brienne from Game of Thrones. In which case, she will be awesome. ;)

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's not a bad point. I guess when I use it, I mostly mean strong in development - that she's not a female character who exists just to say the ditzy punchlines or get the guy. So a 1950s housewife could be a strong female character if her role was developed so she was more than just that. I do think sometimes there's problems in that SFCs can still portray women in an idealized way.

[chocolatepot.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people mean it that way and just don't explain it out that they mean "well-developed" - it's just that there are other people who do specifically mean "physically strong" and say that and poison the well, to an extent.

[daintress.livejournal.com]

Not speaking particularly of fandom, because like you, I think our fandom attitudes are just a reflection of RL ones...

It is definitely true that women see other women as threats to their own happiness. I have this problem often in making female friends. I have very few, and every single one of them is self-assured and knows her own value...so that she isn't threatened by whatever she perceives my value to be. I have difficulty making friends with girls who have low self-esteem because no matter how nice I am to them, they seem to perceive me as a threat. And then they treat me that way, and it makes me angry, and we aren't friends anymore. :P

I have been called a slut (by my own step-father, and years before I ever considered sleeping with anyone), a prude (by everyone else, for not wanting to sleep with anyone), a tease (for desiring positive male attention even though I wasn't interested in sex), and just about anything else you can imagine.

And I think that not only do these insults come more frequently from other women than from men, but they also hurt more. These are the people we have the most in common with in the world, you'd expect a bit of solidarity among women. But it never seems to be there.

[scionofgrace.livejournal.com]

I hope you write a book about multiple likeable strong female characters.

It's one thing I liked about the last season of Stargate SG:1. Sam and Vala weren't competing. They were both strong, capable women. Neither was "movie star" glamorous (though they couldn't escape "TV-star prettiness"). Both were portrayed as desirable by men, and they were friends, hanging out after-hours and looking out for each other.

What we need is more intelligent discussion about women, and gender roles in general.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

You also have movies where if a guy leaves his sexy girlfriend for his new crush, it's okay. But it's not okay for the crush to look like a real person - even she has to be sort of sexy. Just not, you know, too sexy.

This is a pretty succinct summary of She's All That (especially the part where the nerdy girl goes to the beach with the cool guy and his friends and when she appears before the cool kids in her bathing suit everyone's eyes are falling out of their heads because it turns out, OMG, she has a KILLER body! But she's wearing a modest one-piece suit, so she's still a NICE GIRL [TM]). It's really pretty tiresome how so many movies are about "ugly ducklings" who "blossom" when made-over, even though they were really beautiful to begin with (Anne Hathaway in the first Princess Diaries movie, Rachel Leigh Cook in She's All That, etc.). The only times I've seen the "ugly duckling" not be naturally drop-dead gorgeous was in any movie where Janeane Garofolo actually gets the guy--not to say that she's ugly, because she's not (and when she's gotten the guy it was never after an intensive makeover that turned her into an entirely different person). One of the really great things about The Truth About Cats and Dogs was that it wasn't only about JG getting the guy who liked Uma Thurman's looks (a gender-swapped Cyrano, really), it was also about the friendship between two women and how it transcended competition over a man.

[sea_thoughts]

I find it so tiring and frustrating when people vilify characters like Ginny or River for their confidence and attitude but don't even blink at those same attributes when they're demonstrated by men.

I look forward to reading your book.