Things that make me go Hulk Smash (No Actual Avengers Content)
One of the things I've found the longer I am in fandom - especially the longer I'm in parcipatory fandoms and not just reading/watching things without interacting directly with others - is that my patience for offensive bullshit decreases by the second. And by orders of magnitude.
I trust my friends list to be both assertive enough - and I'd like to hope I can trust myself to have learned by now to pause and think before reacting - to let me know if I ever step over a line and call me out on it. If I've fucked up, I would really like to know about it so I can a) not do it again and b) try to make up for it if that's possible.
That being said, I've been starting to see some really shitty misogyny turning up more and more in the corners of fandoms that I'm in and that I love
While I don't think anyone saying or doing any of those things is actually on my friends list, it's made me angry enough that I'm making this post instead of just futilely yelling inside my head about it at work (which is both boring and super unproductive and I'd rather tell myself stories, thanks.)
When U2 was my primary fandom, there were occasional fads for making the Edge's first wife (who he divorced with what was reported to be some acrimony) the Great Villain of stories. I don't think I ever did that - I hope like hell I never fell into that trap, I certainly don't remember doing so - and even at the time it struck me as kind of gross, although I really couldn't articulate WHY very well. Fandom has done a lot in terms of educating me for both vocabulary and theory, and now I can actually look back and see that for what it was -- misogynistic, lazy storytelling.
I know that my lines for RPF are different to other peoples', and I totally respect that -- I've been in fandoms where I've been totally okay with male characters' wives/partners being written about, and fandoms where I've really not been. This post isn't about that at all, this post is because I feel it bears repeating that as fun as it is to talk about RPF and pretend to tinhat things occasionally, there's a point where speculating about people's ACTUAL relationships turns from 'discussion of fact/possibilities' to 'being creepy and gross'.
Casting a participant in a relationship that the author has no actual personal knowledge of as a villain or evil or awful just because the relationship split up is a jerk move.
Calling a woman slutty because she wears clothing the author might not personally wear is both ignoring the fact that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT AND MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES and is also slut-shaming, which I would like to think we can all agree is gross regardless.
Judging people's choices to have children (or to not!) and how they handle raising, educating and housing those children is also a jerk move.
It's a completely lazy move from a pure storytelling perspective too, because there are any number of reasons a relationship may not work out that have nothing to do with EITHER party being shitty people. Even though one party may feel wronged (and could be understandably hurt/upset about it!), that doesn't necessarily mean the half of the relationship that the author isn't wanting to write fic about is terrible, horrible and deserves to be slandered nine ways to Sunday in your story. It's entirely possible to write about people being upset about relationship problems and breakups without leading the story into ladyhating territory, it just takes more work and thought than defaulting to the easy narrative.
Frankly, a story where Things Didn't Work Out and another relationship winds up happening later is way more interesting to me if I can actually read it and enjoy it instead of having to back button out feeling like I need a shower because all I can get from the story in front of me is "this woman is in the way of my pairing and therefore is the worst and so I'm going to contribute to every shitty narrative that society already shoves down our throats about women here too."
I've also never understood how people who claim to like a person or a character can be equally as invested in hating the people that person has chosen to have a relationship with and therefore could be fairly safely assumed to be "someone they enjoy spending time with".
I would ten times rather read stories where characters' real partners are vanished if the author can't bring themself to portray them as real, well-rounded figures with good points as well as flaws, because as problematic as aspects of that first option are, it's still infinitely preferable to me to Disney-villaining and/or outright cruel treatment.
So, you know. Can we just please say NO to adding more misogynistic bullshit to the internet?
[This isn't quite as streamlined as the post I wrote in my head about this at work on Friday, but largely all I remember of that is a generalised feeling of rage, so. :/ If anyone wants to talk more about this I'm happy to do so, just with the caveat that a) timezones and b) work mean that I will probably be replying slower rather than faster. Also, as unlikely as it would be (does this even count as meta?), while I wouldn't mind people linking personally, please do not metafandom/other equivalent newsletter link this.]
This entry also posted at dreamwidth.
comments/ view comments at dreamwidth.
I trust my friends list to be both assertive enough - and I'd like to hope I can trust myself to have learned by now to pause and think before reacting - to let me know if I ever step over a line and call me out on it. If I've fucked up, I would really like to know about it so I can a) not do it again and b) try to make up for it if that's possible.
That being said, I've been starting to see some really shitty misogyny turning up more and more in the corners of fandoms that I'm in and that I love
While I don't think anyone saying or doing any of those things is actually on my friends list, it's made me angry enough that I'm making this post instead of just futilely yelling inside my head about it at work (which is both boring and super unproductive and I'd rather tell myself stories, thanks.)
When U2 was my primary fandom, there were occasional fads for making the Edge's first wife (who he divorced with what was reported to be some acrimony) the Great Villain of stories. I don't think I ever did that - I hope like hell I never fell into that trap, I certainly don't remember doing so - and even at the time it struck me as kind of gross, although I really couldn't articulate WHY very well. Fandom has done a lot in terms of educating me for both vocabulary and theory, and now I can actually look back and see that for what it was -- misogynistic, lazy storytelling.
I know that my lines for RPF are different to other peoples', and I totally respect that -- I've been in fandoms where I've been totally okay with male characters' wives/partners being written about, and fandoms where I've really not been. This post isn't about that at all, this post is because I feel it bears repeating that as fun as it is to talk about RPF and pretend to tinhat things occasionally, there's a point where speculating about people's ACTUAL relationships turns from 'discussion of fact/possibilities' to 'being creepy and gross'.
Casting a participant in a relationship that the author has no actual personal knowledge of as a villain or evil or awful just because the relationship split up is a jerk move.
Calling a woman slutty because she wears clothing the author might not personally wear is both ignoring the fact that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT AND MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES and is also slut-shaming, which I would like to think we can all agree is gross regardless.
Judging people's choices to have children (or to not!) and how they handle raising, educating and housing those children is also a jerk move.
It's a completely lazy move from a pure storytelling perspective too, because there are any number of reasons a relationship may not work out that have nothing to do with EITHER party being shitty people. Even though one party may feel wronged (and could be understandably hurt/upset about it!), that doesn't necessarily mean the half of the relationship that the author isn't wanting to write fic about is terrible, horrible and deserves to be slandered nine ways to Sunday in your story. It's entirely possible to write about people being upset about relationship problems and breakups without leading the story into ladyhating territory, it just takes more work and thought than defaulting to the easy narrative.
Frankly, a story where Things Didn't Work Out and another relationship winds up happening later is way more interesting to me if I can actually read it and enjoy it instead of having to back button out feeling like I need a shower because all I can get from the story in front of me is "this woman is in the way of my pairing and therefore is the worst and so I'm going to contribute to every shitty narrative that society already shoves down our throats about women here too."
I've also never understood how people who claim to like a person or a character can be equally as invested in hating the people that person has chosen to have a relationship with and therefore could be fairly safely assumed to be "someone they enjoy spending time with".
I would ten times rather read stories where characters' real partners are vanished if the author can't bring themself to portray them as real, well-rounded figures with good points as well as flaws, because as problematic as aspects of that first option are, it's still infinitely preferable to me to Disney-villaining and/or outright cruel treatment.
So, you know. Can we just please say NO to adding more misogynistic bullshit to the internet?
[This isn't quite as streamlined as the post I wrote in my head about this at work on Friday, but largely all I remember of that is a generalised feeling of rage, so. :/ If anyone wants to talk more about this I'm happy to do so, just with the caveat that a) timezones and b) work mean that I will probably be replying slower rather than faster. Also, as unlikely as it would be (does this even count as meta?), while I wouldn't mind people linking personally, please do not metafandom/other equivalent newsletter link this.]
This entry also posted at dreamwidth.
comments/ view comments at dreamwidth.