help, help, I'm being erased!
*facepalm* Okay, look. I am both queer and female, and you know what's not okay? Implying that one of those things is more important than the other and should more strongly dictate my reading and writing habits.
Intersectionality: it's a thing.
Also, can we stop phrasing this whole mess in terms of a gender binary? There are a lot of gender identities represented within fandom, and plenty of them are being erased right now. Stop it, fandom!
In the great sprawling land that is the internet, it makes no sense to say 'there should be more x!' and mean 'there should be less y!'. There is, in fact, room enough for everything. I think there should be more femslash, I think there should be more genfic about female friendships, I think there should be more women-centric vids. That doesn't mean I think there should be less of anything else, because I am not a fan of lecturing a majority-female community about what they can or can't do.
Besides, I don't want there to be less slash anyway - it's about people like me, it's relevant to my interests! (Which is not to say every queer person connects with guyslash in that way.) No type of fanwork is the distinct product of a particular group, and as such you can't dismiss anything as having less value in terms of identity politics - 'straight women write slash and are anti-feminist!' etc. Um, no.
I tell you what there should be less of, though: misogyny and character-bashing and double standards! That's the stuff that makes fandom feel hostile to female characters sometimes, and you see it in guyslash and het and gen and poly and even, depressingly, in femslash. (I read a femslash story this one time that didn't even pass the Bechdel test, it was tragic.) And I think it's overly simplistic to talk about fandom just in terms of fanworks, when people's meta and squee and discussion has just as much impact on the overall environment. LJ/DW/IJ fandom is more than a fic archive!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to the Kahlan/Cara fic I've got open in tabs, whilst listening to the song I'm about to vid Merlin/Arthur to. I never before though that would make me feel ~edgy~.
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comment(s) at Dreamwidth. Comment using your Dreamwidth account or OpenID.
Intersectionality: it's a thing.
Also, can we stop phrasing this whole mess in terms of a gender binary? There are a lot of gender identities represented within fandom, and plenty of them are being erased right now. Stop it, fandom!
In the great sprawling land that is the internet, it makes no sense to say 'there should be more x!' and mean 'there should be less y!'. There is, in fact, room enough for everything. I think there should be more femslash, I think there should be more genfic about female friendships, I think there should be more women-centric vids. That doesn't mean I think there should be less of anything else, because I am not a fan of lecturing a majority-female community about what they can or can't do.
Besides, I don't want there to be less slash anyway - it's about people like me, it's relevant to my interests! (Which is not to say every queer person connects with guyslash in that way.) No type of fanwork is the distinct product of a particular group, and as such you can't dismiss anything as having less value in terms of identity politics - 'straight women write slash and are anti-feminist!' etc. Um, no.
I tell you what there should be less of, though: misogyny and character-bashing and double standards! That's the stuff that makes fandom feel hostile to female characters sometimes, and you see it in guyslash and het and gen and poly and even, depressingly, in femslash. (I read a femslash story this one time that didn't even pass the Bechdel test, it was tragic.) And I think it's overly simplistic to talk about fandom just in terms of fanworks, when people's meta and squee and discussion has just as much impact on the overall environment. LJ/DW/IJ fandom is more than a fic archive!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to the Kahlan/Cara fic I've got open in tabs, whilst listening to the song I'm about to vid Merlin/Arthur to. I never before though that would make me feel ~edgy~.
-- This entry has
comment(s) at Dreamwidth. Comment using your Dreamwidth account or OpenID.