I need a new pair of glasses.
One thing I really hate is being called not feminist enough or, worse, misogynist. I'm just the right level of feminist (as is everyone else who identifies feminist) and not misogynist at all.
This is usually the reaction (direct or indirect) to any claiming of mine that I prefer to write men instead of women because I don't relate to women in most texts/shows.
Instead of being me being anti-feminist and misogynist...I think it's directly related to being tired of seeing women through the male gaze. And an ever deeper issue of me being tired of not seeing my own face.
With men, I can look distantly at actions, choices, thoughts and think...yeah, that makes sense, I can see that happening, that seems realistic enough. I'm not a man. I don't ever suffer any sort of disconnect when reading about them.
With women, I can't be objective. I'm always looking at thoughts and actions through the history of my own self. I think, would I do that? Would I think that? Because I can never completely divorce myself from a woman I'm reading about/watching on tv.
Often times, I think the only thing I have in common with women in these books or shows is our shared sex and/or gender. Outside of that, interests, thoughts, decisions, choices...always feel so alien to me. Granted, the moment shoes/clothes/hair/makeup, etc are brought up, my eyes glaze over and I start looking for the clicker. Or, even worse, when each and every main woman lead has to experience certain things too predominate in every culture. It never really feels like an honest treatment of real issues and instead feels a lot like this woman being taken down a peg.(This? Right here, happens so much more often than you think.)
Watching/reading women in media makes me long for someone I can look at and say, hey. I know you. Too often, these women are a reflection of what men see, think. And then I go away discouraged, unhappy, and confused.
I'm not even saying that these aren't accurate portrayals of women. They can be. There are women of all kinds in the world and it does them a disservice to say these women in these books or in these shows aren't realistic. Because that's drawing lines about what is and what isn't a real woman. I'm only saying that a majority of them aren't me.
And if you start making these women characters you write about more recognisable (in your estimation) you get accused of writing someone ooc or mary-sue.
Truthfully, I just don't have spoons for this shit. I want to come into my space, write what I want, and not fight a battle I feel was lost before I was born.
This is usually the reaction (direct or indirect) to any claiming of mine that I prefer to write men instead of women because I don't relate to women in most texts/shows.
Instead of being me being anti-feminist and misogynist...I think it's directly related to being tired of seeing women through the male gaze. And an ever deeper issue of me being tired of not seeing my own face.
With men, I can look distantly at actions, choices, thoughts and think...yeah, that makes sense, I can see that happening, that seems realistic enough. I'm not a man. I don't ever suffer any sort of disconnect when reading about them.
With women, I can't be objective. I'm always looking at thoughts and actions through the history of my own self. I think, would I do that? Would I think that? Because I can never completely divorce myself from a woman I'm reading about/watching on tv.
Often times, I think the only thing I have in common with women in these books or shows is our shared sex and/or gender. Outside of that, interests, thoughts, decisions, choices...always feel so alien to me. Granted, the moment shoes/clothes/hair/makeup, etc are brought up, my eyes glaze over and I start looking for the clicker. Or, even worse, when each and every main woman lead has to experience certain things too predominate in every culture. It never really feels like an honest treatment of real issues and instead feels a lot like this woman being taken down a peg.(This? Right here, happens so much more often than you think.)
Watching/reading women in media makes me long for someone I can look at and say, hey. I know you. Too often, these women are a reflection of what men see, think. And then I go away discouraged, unhappy, and confused.
I'm not even saying that these aren't accurate portrayals of women. They can be. There are women of all kinds in the world and it does them a disservice to say these women in these books or in these shows aren't realistic. Because that's drawing lines about what is and what isn't a real woman. I'm only saying that a majority of them aren't me.
And if you start making these women characters you write about more recognisable (in your estimation) you get accused of writing someone ooc or mary-sue.
Truthfully, I just don't have spoons for this shit. I want to come into my space, write what I want, and not fight a battle I feel was lost before I was born.