Women in the Jossverse

[pfeifferpack]

I review a lot and tend to get wordy. While doing a review the character of Lilah came up and I started to reply to the authors response but as it got longer and more off topic decided to post it here instead. I wonder if other saw the same things I did or if I've misread the subtext, missed something that others have caught

Comments

[zabjade]

You have lots of really good points there, Kathleen. I think a small part of it has to do with the fact that feminism was in an odd place at that point (and still is a bit, today), where it was almost considered shameful to be a girly-girl. So the female characters who weren't super powered in some way had to be punished for holding to the girly ideals of the past and led by the hand by men.

I really like that you mentioned William in this, since Spike has a lot of unapologetically feminine behaviors and tendencies and technically cross dresses (since he got his coat from a woman).

[pfeifferpack]

Yeah I think William really embraced the inner feminine and so did Spike. He was confident in his maleness enough to express the other part of himself unashamedly. He cried without "shame", was openly emotional..both traits often incorrectly considered to be "unmanly". He proclaimed loudly he was loves bitch and man enough to admit it! He never acted in a way to "prove" his masculinity. That's one reason I loved him so

[zabjade]

I'm gender fluid (so sometimes I feel female like my body is, while other times I feel like I'm male) so the whole battle of the sexes thing seems odd to me. That's why I love Spike and Buffy so much as characters. They both straddle that line between one gender and the other and are just themselves. Spike is very much more comfortable with that, while Buffy is still struggling to be a normal "girl" despite doing and feeling things that are supposedly masculine.

I think the fact that she DOES have some of those "masculine" tendencies is part of why it's considered feminist. Buffy's allowed to be that, even if she isn't comfortable with it. And then it's up to us awesome fanfic writers to pick up the balls the writers dropped and help Buffy to realize it's okay for her to just be herself.

[pfeifferpack]

Exactly and basically you are simply you and that is how it should be.

Spike was rather like that and Buffy struggled but I think Spike could have helped her to learn to just be who she was.

*hugs*
Kathleen

[ginar369]

Boxing people into specific gender roles. I hate it. My step-mother tried to do that to me in high school. She decided I wasn't girly enough and forced me to wear dresses every day for months. The other moms in the neighborhood tried to talk to her but... I usually just wore jeans under my skirts and took the skirt off at the bus stop. I played three sports in HS and lettered in one of them! I love working on cars, loved shop class, hate flounces and ruffles. I can't stand the color pink. But I love cooking, I crochet and I gave birth to two children

[pfeifferpack]

Great point about Cordy. Yeah she had many more choices. I found her character to be among the strongest actually. She even had faster character growth/maturing IMHO.

Yeah on the gender roles issue...everyone should be who they are and in many people that changes as a day progresses for that matter. I think some of the problem with people just accepting is fear. Not so much fear of the person they are trying to box up neatly but fear about their own identity.

*hugs*
Kathleen

[ginar369]

It's kind of funny. Cordelia is basically the only female character to know her own self-worth. And to not let anyone make her question that. She knows who she is, what she wants and demands respect for it. The inverse would be Anya. She used to know who she was and what she wanted and demanded respect for it. Then she became human and lost that. Cordy became part demon but never lost it.

The rest of the ladies never seemed to know their own self-worth. With the possible exceptions of Lilah and Eve. But Lilah was constantly thwarted by the men in her life.

[pfeifferpack]

Great comparison between Cordy and Anya. How interesting that they were Xanders only real love interests in the series and were in that aspect so different!

*hugs*
Kathleen

[deamonqueen21]

I so agree on your opinion on Cordy, ginar369. She was indeed the first woman in the series to show the real woman power. She was independent and knew exactly what she wanted and she did what she wanted because it was what she wanted. She didn't take anyone's shit, including Angel's. She was snarky and a bit of a bitch sometimes but she showed gentleness and kindness in moments she needed to be. I really admire Cordy's character, although I have to agree with pfeifferpack what BTVS and Angeltv creators did to her character was indeed inexcusable

[deamonqueen21]

I so agree with most of your opinions Kathleen. BTVS was supposed to be a feminist show, and it was if you viewed it with the same innocence as an 8 year old child or with the POVs of the viewers in that time and age. But really many of the ways they treated women in the show contradicted to that kind of view. I am a feminist myself and I can say that with certainty that the show wasn't doing the female species that much of a justice. As you pointed out, most of the women in the show were either working under or relying on the male half of the show or were all forced to look cooler through supernatural means and those women who weren't super powered up or touched by the supernatural part of the series or were made weaker than they should be were either killed off(Tara, Joyce, Jenny, and Anya) or you are forced to viewed differently or hate their character because they are evil then they get killed off (Cordy, Darla, Lilah, and Eve