«that piece of the oppressor»
I’ve read a lot of great essays about how fandom is female-majority and creates a female gaze and a safe space for women and etc. But spend five minutes in fandom and you’ll have an unsettling question.
Why does a female-majority, feminist culture hate female characters so much?
It’s not a question of if it happens. (...)
We all know that fandom does this. We all know that it’s fucked up and symptomatic of internalized sexism. What’s really fucking weird about it, though, is that the women doing this hating often aren’t ignorant. These are feminists. These are women who can go on meta-analyses of the writing. Some will hide behind pseudo-feminist reasons for their hate-oh, it’s the writing, we just aren’t given strong female characters! (...)
We know it happens. What I want to know is WHY.
Link al post originale, e a sei delle possibili spiegazioni prese in esame
7) Women attach themselves intensely to only the male characters, then loathe women who inconvenience these men or have different goals from them.
THIS IS PRETTY MUCH 95% OF WHAT I’VE BEEN SEEING.
I see it again and again and again. Most of the fawning and fangirling and squeeing is over male characters. Female characters, even when reasonably well-liked, simply get lower levels of attention. I’d say this is probably due to more women being sexually attracted to men than to women, but honestly lesbians do this too. I’ve even caught myself guilty of it, and that’s painful to admit but it’s true. I can give all the excuses about how it’s just easier and more cathartic to work through my issues by torturing men because it’s less personal and doesn’t carry the same baggage, but the end result is the same.
(...)
I think [one reason could be that] we’re so eager to prove that we’re not biased against men in favor of women (like that’s even a thing) because if we were obviously our opinions would be unreliable and we could be discounted and ignored.
But part of it…I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t this horrible, deep-seated idea that men have more personhood than women do. Men in fiction get to be people. They get to be sympathetic even when they make bad choices. They get to be forgiven. We love them, and I’m not sure if it’s sexual love or idealism or that, flying completely in the face of #4, we identify with the default, and therefore love men like we love ourselves, but see women as the Other.
Perché:
È un discorso lungo e complicato (soprattutto quello accennato nell'ultimo paragrafo) e credo che ci tornerò sopra in futuro, perchè mi rendo conto che praticamente tutto quel che sto leggendo/facendo ultimamente punta in quella direzione. Magari un giorno riuscirò a tirarci fuori qualcosa di organico. Per ora, solo qualche appunto sparso.
E Audre Lorde: The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us. Perché, come sanno fare solo i poeti, spiega tutto.
Why does a female-majority, feminist culture hate female characters so much?
It’s not a question of if it happens. (...)
We all know that fandom does this. We all know that it’s fucked up and symptomatic of internalized sexism. What’s really fucking weird about it, though, is that the women doing this hating often aren’t ignorant. These are feminists. These are women who can go on meta-analyses of the writing. Some will hide behind pseudo-feminist reasons for their hate-oh, it’s the writing, we just aren’t given strong female characters! (...)
We know it happens. What I want to know is WHY.
Link al post originale, e a sei delle possibili spiegazioni prese in esame
7) Women attach themselves intensely to only the male characters, then loathe women who inconvenience these men or have different goals from them.
THIS IS PRETTY MUCH 95% OF WHAT I’VE BEEN SEEING.
I see it again and again and again. Most of the fawning and fangirling and squeeing is over male characters. Female characters, even when reasonably well-liked, simply get lower levels of attention. I’d say this is probably due to more women being sexually attracted to men than to women, but honestly lesbians do this too. I’ve even caught myself guilty of it, and that’s painful to admit but it’s true. I can give all the excuses about how it’s just easier and more cathartic to work through my issues by torturing men because it’s less personal and doesn’t carry the same baggage, but the end result is the same.
(...)
I think [one reason could be that] we’re so eager to prove that we’re not biased against men in favor of women (like that’s even a thing) because if we were obviously our opinions would be unreliable and we could be discounted and ignored.
But part of it…I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t this horrible, deep-seated idea that men have more personhood than women do. Men in fiction get to be people. They get to be sympathetic even when they make bad choices. They get to be forgiven. We love them, and I’m not sure if it’s sexual love or idealism or that, flying completely in the face of #4, we identify with the default, and therefore love men like we love ourselves, but see women as the Other.
Perché:
- Mi ha sempre un po’ sconvolto, girovagando per il fandom di Teen Wolf, scoprire che c’è un folto gruppo di fan che odia Allison non per le carie originate dalle sue interminabili sequenze con Scott, ma perché, dopo essere stata manipolata da un nonno criminale nel credere che Dereck&company hanno ucciso sua madre, ha per un certo periodo deciso di vendicarne la morte cercando di sterminare i suoi assassini.
- Non smetterò mai di sentirmi a disagio per il fatto stesso di scrivere praticamente solo slash, e leggere praticamente solo slash, senza riuscire a conciliare l’interesse per il femminismo, l’amore per certe autrici e la celebrazione della creatività femminile che è l’essenza stessa del fandom con il fatto che, comunque, buona parte di questa creatività femminile è volta a celebrare soggettività maschili.
È un discorso lungo e complicato (soprattutto quello accennato nell'ultimo paragrafo) e credo che ci tornerò sopra in futuro, perchè mi rendo conto che praticamente tutto quel che sto leggendo/facendo ultimamente punta in quella direzione. Magari un giorno riuscirò a tirarci fuori qualcosa di organico. Per ora, solo qualche appunto sparso.
E Audre Lorde: The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us. Perché, come sanno fare solo i poeti, spiega tutto.