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preussisch_blau) wrote2008-03-20 03:08 pm
preussisch_blau) wrote2008-03-20 03:08 pm
For those of you who may not have seen this...
This, right here must be seen to be believed. ((Kidnapped from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thimpressionist, by the by.))
Honestly, if you can stop your brain from screaming in agony about how inane she is, there are a few valid points worth exploring. However, that involves sifting through the tripe, which I was barely inclined to do.
The first problem with her essay is that it smacks of misogyny, and not on the part of men, but on her part. Of course, that's one of the shortcomings of radical feminism. I have yet to meet a radical feminist who does not look down on other women who do not conform to their views of feminism and what women should be. It's a great way to perpetuate the actual subjugation of women. Personal opinion aside, the two main sticking points which really made me feel she was being misogynistic was that she first assumes all men view women as sub-human. Not so. Certainly there are men out there that think like that. Ironically, those same men, whilst congratulating themselves for their superiority say that they are inferior by their justifications for subjugating women, but I digress. She then proceeded to say that even gay men subjugate women, without explaining how they do. If anything, reality shows that a woman is more likely to subjugate a gay man, deriding him as being sick or sinful. How many stories are out there of families disowning their children or siblings upon finding out the person is a homosexual? Far too many, if you ask me. One could argue that the women in those families are being forced by the patriarchy to do so, but I’d like to give women a bit more credit than that and say that at least half of such women honestly believe that what their relative is is something to be ashamed of and derided as wrong, and as such are not being forced to disown the relative by their husbands and fathers.
The second point where I have to say she is a misogynist is because the essay, and what comments of hers I read, seem to place the blame more on the primarily female fan-authors for neither breaking out of slash writing norms nor writing more femmeslash. There is nothing against the generally male creators of shows, books, etc. for not writing more female characters, or creating female characters who people actually want to write. In fact, I note the author fails to realise that many of the fandoms that allow for fanfiction to begin with tend to not have a very structured plot. Even if the source material is well-written, with a loose plot (such as that in Doctor Who or Phoenix Wright, to name two series that come to mind as having a lot of slash in fanon and pretty decent writing in canon [yes, I've played the Phoenix Wright games... STFU]) it is simply easier to write fanfiction. There's more wriggle room within the canon to work. There are more empty areas that people want to explain.
Of course, there are certain fandoms with fairly tight canon, such as Harry Potter. However, that has a fairly decent amount of femmeslash along with the slash, and the well-written fic often use other methods of removing women from the slash pairings. Typically by pairing them off with other women, but also by making other het pairings. However, it's not often you have such a character-driven canon, which is really what allows for fan-writing even when everything is planned out from beginning to end. Although in such a fandom, the writing tends to be more about character interactions and exploring the many ways different characters can interact, and a hallmark of good writing in those fandoms is plausibly making two enemies interact in a friendly and possibly even romantic manner without resorting to the trope of U.S.T.
However, more often than not, the sort of canon that allows for slash often times, due to weak writing, has less than desirable female characters. That is, the author of the canon (typically male) seems to be unable to write a woman that doesn't fall into stereotyped characters, such as the bitch or the cutesy girly girl. As a female, I don't want to write about such characters all the time, yet many canons do not offer well-developed female characters. It's possible to be a strong female without being a catty bitch, and often I have found that the cattier women in real life aren't really all that strong, and mostly act that way to appear strong. It is also possible to be a girly girl and love the colour pink and still be tough. Hell, some of the strongest women I know are some of the most stereotypically feminine women I know. (Your mileage, of course, may vary.)
Therefore, the initial problems with fanwriting are more faults of the source material. As noted here, the sort of source material that inspires slash often either lacks female characters or lacks females that a woman would enjoy writing because they are not true to real life women. However, in the source materials that do have female characters that women can identify with, or have primarily female characters, there is an abundance of femmeslash and het writing. The examples that come to mind for most are Xena and Buffy, but I would also bring up Sailor Moon and ReBoot (yes, I know, neither are live-action, but I don’t really watch a lot of live-action).
Another fault that can be taken with most source materials is that many creators do not know how to portray female characters as heroes. History is filled with tales of men rescuing women. Even female authors such as Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey fall victim to this. They create wonderfully strong female characters that initially, any girl could look up to with pride, but then shortchange those characters by making them still submissive to men, or requiring of a man to rescue them and make them ‘complete’. That, and when they write homosexual men (and I have yet to see a homosexual female in any of their novels), they write them with one as a hypermasculine man, and the other as a hyperfeminine woman. This certainly does not encourage the average fanwriter to write any different. After all, these women are published authors, and they conform to this standard, so it must be true, or at the least, what people want to read.
That addressed, I move on to the second problem with her essay, and that is the misandry. Another notable problem of radical feminism is the rampant misandry inherent in the thinking. This is also evident when she states that all men subjugate women. Again, not all men are out to keep women down. Yes, there are men out there like that, but if we are to take the narrow-minded opinions of a few men as representative of their sex, then we must do the same for women. Which, given how the author smacks down and derides those who disagree with her, I am led to believe that we must take her opinion as representative of the innermost feelings of all women. Personally, I find the thought of taking the opinions of the few as the beliefs of the whole repugnant and offensive.
The third problem is the lack of facts. If she indeed has done extensive research, where are the results? Where is the hard-core evidence that all men are out to keep women down? Where are these mystical fanfictions where the characters “turn straight” at the end? As mentioned before, the author of the essay claims gay men subjugate women, yet did not offer a scrap of evidence to prove it. Now, perhaps somewhere else on her blog there is evidence for all of these points, however, one would think that when writing an article likely to attract those outside of your usual reader-base, that you link to other articles to back up your point. Certainly include a footnote referencing it. Any academic knows the value of footnotes.
I do not doubt that there are more problems (a minor one being how superior she behaves in both the essay and the comments), however, I could not endure the misanthropy and pedantic writing style long enough to dig deeper into the essay. As such, any other discussion worthy topics that I missed, or flaws that hinder her worthwhile points that bear mention, I encourage you to point out and discuss.
thimpressionist, by the by.))Honestly, if you can stop your brain from screaming in agony about how inane she is, there are a few valid points worth exploring. However, that involves sifting through the tripe, which I was barely inclined to do.
The first problem with her essay is that it smacks of misogyny, and not on the part of men, but on her part. Of course, that's one of the shortcomings of radical feminism. I have yet to meet a radical feminist who does not look down on other women who do not conform to their views of feminism and what women should be. It's a great way to perpetuate the actual subjugation of women. Personal opinion aside, the two main sticking points which really made me feel she was being misogynistic was that she first assumes all men view women as sub-human. Not so. Certainly there are men out there that think like that. Ironically, those same men, whilst congratulating themselves for their superiority say that they are inferior by their justifications for subjugating women, but I digress. She then proceeded to say that even gay men subjugate women, without explaining how they do. If anything, reality shows that a woman is more likely to subjugate a gay man, deriding him as being sick or sinful. How many stories are out there of families disowning their children or siblings upon finding out the person is a homosexual? Far too many, if you ask me. One could argue that the women in those families are being forced by the patriarchy to do so, but I’d like to give women a bit more credit than that and say that at least half of such women honestly believe that what their relative is is something to be ashamed of and derided as wrong, and as such are not being forced to disown the relative by their husbands and fathers.
The second point where I have to say she is a misogynist is because the essay, and what comments of hers I read, seem to place the blame more on the primarily female fan-authors for neither breaking out of slash writing norms nor writing more femmeslash. There is nothing against the generally male creators of shows, books, etc. for not writing more female characters, or creating female characters who people actually want to write. In fact, I note the author fails to realise that many of the fandoms that allow for fanfiction to begin with tend to not have a very structured plot. Even if the source material is well-written, with a loose plot (such as that in Doctor Who or Phoenix Wright, to name two series that come to mind as having a lot of slash in fanon and pretty decent writing in canon [yes, I've played the Phoenix Wright games... STFU]) it is simply easier to write fanfiction. There's more wriggle room within the canon to work. There are more empty areas that people want to explain.
Of course, there are certain fandoms with fairly tight canon, such as Harry Potter. However, that has a fairly decent amount of femmeslash along with the slash, and the well-written fic often use other methods of removing women from the slash pairings. Typically by pairing them off with other women, but also by making other het pairings. However, it's not often you have such a character-driven canon, which is really what allows for fan-writing even when everything is planned out from beginning to end. Although in such a fandom, the writing tends to be more about character interactions and exploring the many ways different characters can interact, and a hallmark of good writing in those fandoms is plausibly making two enemies interact in a friendly and possibly even romantic manner without resorting to the trope of U.S.T.
However, more often than not, the sort of canon that allows for slash often times, due to weak writing, has less than desirable female characters. That is, the author of the canon (typically male) seems to be unable to write a woman that doesn't fall into stereotyped characters, such as the bitch or the cutesy girly girl. As a female, I don't want to write about such characters all the time, yet many canons do not offer well-developed female characters. It's possible to be a strong female without being a catty bitch, and often I have found that the cattier women in real life aren't really all that strong, and mostly act that way to appear strong. It is also possible to be a girly girl and love the colour pink and still be tough. Hell, some of the strongest women I know are some of the most stereotypically feminine women I know. (Your mileage, of course, may vary.)
Therefore, the initial problems with fanwriting are more faults of the source material. As noted here, the sort of source material that inspires slash often either lacks female characters or lacks females that a woman would enjoy writing because they are not true to real life women. However, in the source materials that do have female characters that women can identify with, or have primarily female characters, there is an abundance of femmeslash and het writing. The examples that come to mind for most are Xena and Buffy, but I would also bring up Sailor Moon and ReBoot (yes, I know, neither are live-action, but I don’t really watch a lot of live-action).
Another fault that can be taken with most source materials is that many creators do not know how to portray female characters as heroes. History is filled with tales of men rescuing women. Even female authors such as Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey fall victim to this. They create wonderfully strong female characters that initially, any girl could look up to with pride, but then shortchange those characters by making them still submissive to men, or requiring of a man to rescue them and make them ‘complete’. That, and when they write homosexual men (and I have yet to see a homosexual female in any of their novels), they write them with one as a hypermasculine man, and the other as a hyperfeminine woman. This certainly does not encourage the average fanwriter to write any different. After all, these women are published authors, and they conform to this standard, so it must be true, or at the least, what people want to read.
That addressed, I move on to the second problem with her essay, and that is the misandry. Another notable problem of radical feminism is the rampant misandry inherent in the thinking. This is also evident when she states that all men subjugate women. Again, not all men are out to keep women down. Yes, there are men out there like that, but if we are to take the narrow-minded opinions of a few men as representative of their sex, then we must do the same for women. Which, given how the author smacks down and derides those who disagree with her, I am led to believe that we must take her opinion as representative of the innermost feelings of all women. Personally, I find the thought of taking the opinions of the few as the beliefs of the whole repugnant and offensive.
The third problem is the lack of facts. If she indeed has done extensive research, where are the results? Where is the hard-core evidence that all men are out to keep women down? Where are these mystical fanfictions where the characters “turn straight” at the end? As mentioned before, the author of the essay claims gay men subjugate women, yet did not offer a scrap of evidence to prove it. Now, perhaps somewhere else on her blog there is evidence for all of these points, however, one would think that when writing an article likely to attract those outside of your usual reader-base, that you link to other articles to back up your point. Certainly include a footnote referencing it. Any academic knows the value of footnotes.
I do not doubt that there are more problems (a minor one being how superior she behaves in both the essay and the comments), however, I could not endure the misanthropy and pedantic writing style long enough to dig deeper into the essay. As such, any other discussion worthy topics that I missed, or flaws that hinder her worthwhile points that bear mention, I encourage you to point out and discuss.