Help! Need strong women, STAT!

[jane_elliot]

I just read a story that made me ill, containing all of those horrible romance novel stereotypes that pervade a lot of het fic: rape equals love, women are naturally submissive, the weakest man is totally capable of holding down a strong woman and raping her

Comments

[lothy]

I hate that stereotype SO MUCH. I especially hate that the submissiveness at least is still the norm in romance novels (I think rape as love is at least less common nowadays in published fiction, though it still happens more than I'd like).

I'm actually reading a series of paranormal romance novels right now that I love mainly because the women are never submissive (and sometimes even dominant!). But that's published fiction.

I think you've probably seen all the het fanfics I have bookmarked, though?

(I've used this icon because that is one canon pairing where the woman would NEVER be submissive. In fact she rather likes being in charge.)

[jane_elliot]

What drives me nuts is when I read fanfic with those stereotypes, because for the most part (i.e., the well-written part) fandom seems to consist of intelligent, independent-thinking women, and I just find it so hard to believe that a strong independent woman wants nothing more than to be dominated. *sigh*

I actually started reading one of my own het fics. At least I know that in stories I write, the women will always kick ass:)

[lothy]

What I hate the most is when it's an assertive woman in the story, and then the alpha dominant male comes along and makes her "realise" that all she really wants is to submit. Because of course he knows better than she does what she wants, in the two minutes or so he's known her.

I like D/s fics, I like slavefics... but that's when I'm looking for a power imbalance, and it's written as a kink. Not as "normality".

Have you read Lit Gal's het fics yet? She always writes strong women, including sometimes femdom.

[jane_elliot]

I know! I'm not a huge fan of D/s anyway, but I absolutely *loathe* the assumption that women are naturally submissive. Especially since most of the women I've met aren't submissive in the least:)

[lothy]

Okay, the paranormal romance novels I mentioned before? I was reading the author's website and found out that she started off writing fanfiction... so I did a Google search to see if by any chance her fanfic was still online anywhere, and found someone's recs post linking to this Harry Potter author. I don't have 100% confirmation that it's her, but there can't be many fanfic authors around called "Jean Johnson" who've gone pro.

She seems to have written mostly Hermione/Snape, at least in her longer stories. I don't like the pairing much myself, but thought I'd refer her on to you.

[jane_elliot]

Ooo, that's one of my favorite het pairings! Thanks!

[lothy]

I hope you find some stories worth reading :)

Jean Johnson - Bad Link

[marshadenise]

While I verified the links when I posted the hub, this one was wrong. She may be removing her fan fic from the web, most professional writers wind up doing this for various reasons. I replaced link with her Yahoo Group page. One archive she posted on was closed.

This is why I download everything I like and place it in text files. I learned that when Willow centric Buffy fan fics and archives started disappearing.