Flipping the pronouns...
So I was reading a couple of things on flipping pronouns in novels:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/classic-fiction-genderswitching
http://benjaminrosenbaum.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-view.cgi/1/entry/976
Which I found interesting, and seem to follow the tendency of even feminist writers to struggle with creating gender stereotypes in their characters.
I do have to wonder, though, do nonbinary/genderqueer folks have any less trouble with this - particularly if they are fairly aware of the phenomenon to begin with? Or is my experience a bit exceptional?
Ever since I was a kid, it never occurred to me to write anything other than female protagonists, and lots and lots of female characters. This could be due to my isolated upbringing, I suppose, but even when I would consume media and then make up my own stories about it, I would naturally swap out the male leads to substitute Twapa instead.
It’s actually kind of bizarre, but I usually only wrote gender conformist “stereotypes” as villains or minor characters or parents. Twapa and her friends were all quirky, clever, often vaguely androgynous (in fact characters being confused for boys or girls was a theme I often used in my childhood stories). It probably helped that in-universe they were all talking animals/anthros.
Now, as an adult who actually UNDERSTANDS a bit better what I’m doing, it’s an interesting exercise to imagine the current (Title Unrelated) incarnation of these characters if they were sex-swapped. Unfortunately, due to the QUILTY-ness of the cast things get a little complicated - even if you swap ONLY the characters’ sexes, you have to decide whether their sexual orientations are relative to their own sex or are fixed on an attraction to a particular sex (do gay characters become het?) and do you assume that characters would retain the same tendencies towards “gendered” traits or would they swing to the same degree into the stereotyped behaviors and tastes of the gender that matches their new sex (for instance, would Mara be a boy who dresses in goth-lolita fashion or would he embrace a masculine identity)?
Twapa, who is already kind of a jerk and a bully, would come across as a misogynist douchenozzle. Fiar acting like a leader and protector would be kind of a positive thing, but her neuroticism would likely cause her to read as weaker and more unstable than her canon male counterpart. The nature of the potential Twapa/Keer ship would become INCREDIBLY problematic.Interestingly, though, a lot of the characters and the implications of their personalities and actions would remain pretty much the same. Tho IMO Misha becomes kind of a way cooler character if female, though I wonder if the shyness would come across differently? Erin kinda turns into a snarky bastard, but Erin and Twapa already have a tendency to act more like brothers than sisters, heh.
Lots of people do “gender bending” in fanworks and stuff, but I dunno how many people really sit down and think through all of the implications. It’s a good exercise, even for someone like me who naturally writes androgynous characters!
XD
(I could write a whole nother post on the uni-gendered world of ambaia... but that's for another time.)
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/23/classic-fiction-genderswitching
http://benjaminrosenbaum.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-view.cgi/1/entry/976
Which I found interesting, and seem to follow the tendency of even feminist writers to struggle with creating gender stereotypes in their characters.
I do have to wonder, though, do nonbinary/genderqueer folks have any less trouble with this - particularly if they are fairly aware of the phenomenon to begin with? Or is my experience a bit exceptional?
Ever since I was a kid, it never occurred to me to write anything other than female protagonists, and lots and lots of female characters. This could be due to my isolated upbringing, I suppose, but even when I would consume media and then make up my own stories about it, I would naturally swap out the male leads to substitute Twapa instead.
It’s actually kind of bizarre, but I usually only wrote gender conformist “stereotypes” as villains or minor characters or parents. Twapa and her friends were all quirky, clever, often vaguely androgynous (in fact characters being confused for boys or girls was a theme I often used in my childhood stories). It probably helped that in-universe they were all talking animals/anthros.
Now, as an adult who actually UNDERSTANDS a bit better what I’m doing, it’s an interesting exercise to imagine the current (Title Unrelated) incarnation of these characters if they were sex-swapped. Unfortunately, due to the QUILTY-ness of the cast things get a little complicated - even if you swap ONLY the characters’ sexes, you have to decide whether their sexual orientations are relative to their own sex or are fixed on an attraction to a particular sex (do gay characters become het?) and do you assume that characters would retain the same tendencies towards “gendered” traits or would they swing to the same degree into the stereotyped behaviors and tastes of the gender that matches their new sex (for instance, would Mara be a boy who dresses in goth-lolita fashion or would he embrace a masculine identity)?
Twapa, who is already kind of a jerk and a bully, would come across as a misogynist douchenozzle. Fiar acting like a leader and protector would be kind of a positive thing, but her neuroticism would likely cause her to read as weaker and more unstable than her canon male counterpart. The nature of the potential Twapa/Keer ship would become INCREDIBLY problematic.Interestingly, though, a lot of the characters and the implications of their personalities and actions would remain pretty much the same. Tho IMO Misha becomes kind of a way cooler character if female, though I wonder if the shyness would come across differently? Erin kinda turns into a snarky bastard, but Erin and Twapa already have a tendency to act more like brothers than sisters, heh.
Lots of people do “gender bending” in fanworks and stuff, but I dunno how many people really sit down and think through all of the implications. It’s a good exercise, even for someone like me who naturally writes androgynous characters!
XD
(I could write a whole nother post on the uni-gendered world of ambaia... but that's for another time.)