On women in SPN fandom, how they are awesome, and why I think we should do more with that
A special note: I am aware that I am posting this on a new episode Thursday and that it may get lost in the shuffle, but it's something that's been on my mind, and I wanted to get my thoughts out there in post form. This meta has nothing to do with SPN 5x12--in fact, it has not even aired in my time zone at the time of posting this--but do feel free to discuss tonight's episode in the comments if you find it relevant in some way.
I AM GOING TO POST SOME THINKY THOUGHTS NOW. I've been reading some of the recent talk on metafandom, particularly bookshop's post (and the pages of comments) about women and slash and how there tends to be this erasure or villifying of women (and I am guilty of the erasure bit in my RPF, at least a lot of the earlier stuff). In the interest of full disclosure, for those who may not be aware, I am a bisexual cisgendered woman and a third wave feminist.
While I don't necessarily agree with everything that's being said, particularly not the idea that male/male slash is inherently misogynistic, I do think the topic is worth looking at. In a fandom like SPN, where our POV characters are men and the text is often problematic*, or in CW RPF, which is often filled with girlfriend/fiancee hate and where, in terms of who is being written about, men outnumber women at least three to one, I feel like it's more important than ever.
* = I am fully aware of all the discussion about misogyny in the SPN canon, and I agree with some of what's been said there, too, but I want to focus more on fandom's response for this post.
Like Jo! I love Jo! I admit that I didn't like her much at first, when it seemed that she was being written solely to antagonize Dean and be his love interest, but she grew into a strong character in her own right before her and Ellen's demise--which, I would like to say here, I feel was a tragic and necessary loss for the hero archetypes Kripke et al. seem to be shaping Sam and Dean into. It's unfortunate that they WERE women and awesome ones to boot, but their deaths were not necessarily ABOUT them being women, if that makes sense. ANYWAY, I LOVE Jo, but I've never felt the need to write about her in my journal or talk about her in depth over IM. Not since S2, anyway, and I feel like I have to examine WHY that is, why I write so many men's stories and not enough of my own, why I am more likely to scream at my fellow fans about how badass or heartbreaking that thing Sam did was and not spend enough time squeeing about how much I loved Ellen being a badass in that other scene.
Because the thing is--WE DO. We say how awesome Jo and Ellen and Meg and Jess and Pamela are, we post picspams of Danneel and Adrianne and Sandy and Katie, we write pages about how SPN can be problematic in its treatment of women. But there is such a dearth of femmeslash and female POV fic in general in this fandom that I make victory arms inside my head whenever one is posted, even if it's a pairing or author I don't care to read. We have to go out of our way to cheer on these women, make super special posts for them, in a way that we don't necessarily do for Sam and Dean or Jared and Jensen because our love for the boys is constant and almost an unconscious response. And there are still huge amounts of misogyny within our fandom (and ourselves, if I'm honest), both internalized and overt, and that makes me cry inside.
For example, compare the overall fandom reception of Castiel to, say, that of Anna or Ruby. (I will go on tangential record here as saying that I love Anna, LOVE S3!Ruby for the most part, and take issue with S4!Ruby for a number of reasons, not all of which are my feelings about Sam/Ruby.) In fact, think about how much hatred fandom spewed the entire summer before Ruby and Bela had even been on the show. Think about how often Sandy, Danneel, and Genevieve have been erased, ignored, turned into evil cheating "bitches," etc. so that Jared and Jensen could skip off into the sunset together. Count the number of times "girl," "girly," "pussy," and so on have been casually used as derogatory terms in fic, generally to mean variations on "weak" or "overly emotional."
I'm not saying that writing odes to Sam's cock or Jensen's ass is a bad or misogynistic thing--in fact, I think it's pretty cool that we can all come together and talk and write so openly about our sexual desires--or that even the majority of our fic needs to be about women's stories, but I WOULD like to see more of it and see it become a rising trend in our fandom, and I would like to see less of those of us who identify as women cutting ourselves down for the sake of fictional/fictionalized men.
SO this is my goal! I am going to write at least one fic every month this year about a woman from her POV. It might be Danneel (likely) or Sandy, it might be Jo or Jess or Becky, it might be an OFC, it might be someone in a totally different fandom if I get the urge! These fics will pass the Bechdel test and will not be about the women's relationships with men, although there will likely BE some relationships with men, het or otherwise. (January is almost over, so its fic will not be posted until next month, BUT. Yes.) Because I can advocate for change all I want, but if I want to SEE change, I have to be part of the solution.
I AM GOING TO POST SOME THINKY THOUGHTS NOW. I've been reading some of the recent talk on metafandom, particularly bookshop's post (and the pages of comments) about women and slash and how there tends to be this erasure or villifying of women (and I am guilty of the erasure bit in my RPF, at least a lot of the earlier stuff). In the interest of full disclosure, for those who may not be aware, I am a bisexual cisgendered woman and a third wave feminist.
While I don't necessarily agree with everything that's being said, particularly not the idea that male/male slash is inherently misogynistic, I do think the topic is worth looking at. In a fandom like SPN, where our POV characters are men and the text is often problematic*, or in CW RPF, which is often filled with girlfriend/fiancee hate and where, in terms of who is being written about, men outnumber women at least three to one, I feel like it's more important than ever.
* = I am fully aware of all the discussion about misogyny in the SPN canon, and I agree with some of what's been said there, too, but I want to focus more on fandom's response for this post.
Like Jo! I love Jo! I admit that I didn't like her much at first, when it seemed that she was being written solely to antagonize Dean and be his love interest, but she grew into a strong character in her own right before her and Ellen's demise--which, I would like to say here, I feel was a tragic and necessary loss for the hero archetypes Kripke et al. seem to be shaping Sam and Dean into. It's unfortunate that they WERE women and awesome ones to boot, but their deaths were not necessarily ABOUT them being women, if that makes sense. ANYWAY, I LOVE Jo, but I've never felt the need to write about her in my journal or talk about her in depth over IM. Not since S2, anyway, and I feel like I have to examine WHY that is, why I write so many men's stories and not enough of my own, why I am more likely to scream at my fellow fans about how badass or heartbreaking that thing Sam did was and not spend enough time squeeing about how much I loved Ellen being a badass in that other scene.
Because the thing is--WE DO. We say how awesome Jo and Ellen and Meg and Jess and Pamela are, we post picspams of Danneel and Adrianne and Sandy and Katie, we write pages about how SPN can be problematic in its treatment of women. But there is such a dearth of femmeslash and female POV fic in general in this fandom that I make victory arms inside my head whenever one is posted, even if it's a pairing or author I don't care to read. We have to go out of our way to cheer on these women, make super special posts for them, in a way that we don't necessarily do for Sam and Dean or Jared and Jensen because our love for the boys is constant and almost an unconscious response. And there are still huge amounts of misogyny within our fandom (and ourselves, if I'm honest), both internalized and overt, and that makes me cry inside.
For example, compare the overall fandom reception of Castiel to, say, that of Anna or Ruby. (I will go on tangential record here as saying that I love Anna, LOVE S3!Ruby for the most part, and take issue with S4!Ruby for a number of reasons, not all of which are my feelings about Sam/Ruby.) In fact, think about how much hatred fandom spewed the entire summer before Ruby and Bela had even been on the show. Think about how often Sandy, Danneel, and Genevieve have been erased, ignored, turned into evil cheating "bitches," etc. so that Jared and Jensen could skip off into the sunset together. Count the number of times "girl," "girly," "pussy," and so on have been casually used as derogatory terms in fic, generally to mean variations on "weak" or "overly emotional."
I'm not saying that writing odes to Sam's cock or Jensen's ass is a bad or misogynistic thing--in fact, I think it's pretty cool that we can all come together and talk and write so openly about our sexual desires--or that even the majority of our fic needs to be about women's stories, but I WOULD like to see more of it and see it become a rising trend in our fandom, and I would like to see less of those of us who identify as women cutting ourselves down for the sake of fictional/fictionalized men.
SO this is my goal! I am going to write at least one fic every month this year about a woman from her POV. It might be Danneel (likely) or Sandy, it might be Jo or Jess or Becky, it might be an OFC, it might be someone in a totally different fandom if I get the urge! These fics will pass the Bechdel test and will not be about the women's relationships with men, although there will likely BE some relationships with men, het or otherwise. (January is almost over, so its fic will not be posted until next month, BUT. Yes.) Because I can advocate for change all I want, but if I want to SEE change, I have to be part of the solution.