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

[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. ;)