This is not the wank you're looking for.

[annerbhp]

I want to say something about the F word. You know the one I mean: Feminism.  Oh, has there ever been a term more misused and misunderstood than Feminism?  How often do you hear things like “Feminism is where men suck and women refuse to shave their legs, right?” and most recently “Feminism means being loud and bitchy and eviscerating people for

Comments

[beanpot]

Wordy McWordy Pants.

I especially appreciate the "layered" aspect. I've discovered it is tragic if a female character develops another layer. Whether it's developing a crush, telling someone off who deserves it, deciding to stand up for herself, etc. Painting with a broadbrush here, but there are those who like their female characters to fit into boxes. This is the smart girl. This is the kick-ass girl. This is the snarky girl. This is the ditz. And there they shall remain never to develop another element or expand or grow. Tis a shame really.

I've also be reading on the Third Wave of Feminism in the Post. I need to find that article as it touches on this element that it's flexible and has room for those who stay at home to raise kids, those who never have kids, those who work outside the home with kids, etc and so on. That exploring every aspect of who you are - and not what people think you are - is a good thing and that choices are even better.

[annerbhp]

Well, women with all those layers become very confusing and when we are used to seeing ourselves in little boxes, it's sort of uncomfortable and maybe hard to relate to when women characters develop these things we maybe never allowed ourselves. That's the hardest part of identity issues, I think, the idea that we make choices to define ourselves in specific little cubbies, and that these choices aren't always harmless

[beanpot]

I found the article and then the chat with Naomi Wolfe. A very interesting read.

The article which is actually a review of a book.

The Chat

[holdouttrout]

I always felt guilt about not wanting to be a scientist. I liked science okay, but it wasn't where my heart was.

[surreallis]

Oh, this is excellent. I just... I always feel like when I make these sorts of posts that I don't explain myself well, so when someone else does it and they DO seem to explain themselves well I get all excited

[annerbhp]

I always sort of flinch to post anything like this, because I'm never certain that I actually am explaining myself well (or that I am just writing "well, duh" stuff), but my silence was beginning to weigh on me, so I thought I might as well say something. Lol

[surreallis]

What is very interesting is that for me, I find so much more Feminist debate and openness to the discussion in my online experience than I do in my real life.

See, for me? The ONLY feminism discussion I ever hear or can participate in is online. My offline friends and family have no interest in discussing it, and if I bring it up I get The Eye. I was totally introduced to the concepts and ideas online. Not that I didn't have a healthy interest in it before the internet, but I had no circle of peers to really direct me. So while offline life is frustrating, it's the online people who are more frustrating because they have everything at their fingertips and still refuse to see.

I know that once I started looking at feminism and applying it to myself, and once I started to change, that all those uninteresting female characters that I hated... suddenly became much more palatable. In fact, I started to love them a lot. Hardly coincidence, you know?

[annerbhp]

all those uninteresting female characters that I hated... suddenly became much more palatable. In fact, I started to love them a lot. Hardly coincidence, you know?

And that's the magic, right? We always talk about how hard Feminism is, but there are some pretty awesome rewards too. :)

[lastingdreams8]

I recently took a Gender and Communications course, and I couldn't agree more with this post:)
Thanks for sharing this with us:D

[annerbhp]

Ah, that must have been an interesting class! I wish I had thought to take something like that when I was in school. :)

[holdouttrout]

*nods emphatically*

I've been thinking about this "lack of good female characters" myth. I love so many women characters, some who are radically different from each other, that it's hard for me to understand how someone can look at all of them and not like ANY of them.

I admit that there is a problem with how many (though not all) female characters are written, portrayed, or represented. It's what you said about women being objects instead of subjects--sometimes even my favorite female characters are presented as objects, and that makes me uncomfortable or disappointed.

Even so, I think it's important to celebrate the good representations. It's not helpful to say, "Look, all female characters are crap," but it might be worth it to look at where writers/actors/etc are getting it right. Where is the stereotype being pushed out or ignored? Where is it being subverted?

[nomadicwriter]

Often, I think, the problem is that there is a character who is generally a good representation who has moments - individual episodes or scenes across a TV series with many episodes - of being poorly represented. And often I get the frustrating feeling that people are seizing on those bad moments as an excuse to dismiss and dislike the character. It's like, with SG-1, you could cherry-pick Sam's 'reproductive organs' speech from the pilot and Gemini where she makes some dumb choices and Threads where a lot of her plotline is about her romantic choices and stitch it together and say, "look at this terrible representation of a female character, the Stargate writers totally cannot write women". Which is not accurate and not helpful even as critique, and yet I see it all the timeIn a way, I think it's actually the same binary mindset issue that causes problems with point three above: "it's not about YOU, even if you are the one who committed the act." People act like there are only two possible states, Sexist or Not Sexist, and if

[annerbhp]

people are seizing on those bad moments as an excuse to dismiss and dislike the character. It's like, with SG-1, you could cherry-pick Sam's 'reproductive organs' speech from the pilot and Gemini where she makes some dumb choices and Threads where a lot of her plotline is about her romantic choices and stitch it together and say, "look at this terrible representation of a female character, the Stargate writers totally cannot write women".

The problem I have with this is that these specific moments don't make Sam a bad character. They make her a layered, interesting, flawed character. I love Sam more because she gave a stick up her butt speech about her vagina and obviously had a chip on her shoulder from living in a boy's club. I love that she wanted to watch Boyd and his men die in slow motion from a black hole because she let her curiosity override her humanity. I love that she let her replicator double manipulate her and that in Threads she proves just how relationship challenged she is. These moments are exactly what makes her a

[nomadicwriter]

They make her a layered, interesting, flawed character.

Oh, I definitely agree. But so many people in fandom seem to seize on any negative trait and wave it about to justify how the writers are terrible sexists and that's why the viewers can't be blamed for hating the character. At the exact same time as they seize on every positive trait and scream Mary Sue, and use that to justify why the audience can't be blamed for hating the character.

(Nothing pushes my Hulk Smash! button in SG-1 fandom quite like people calling Sam a Mary Sue. I just want to leap on people and start punching them in the head until they concede that there is no standard in the universe by which Sam could qualify as a Sue without catching Daniel in the same net. But no, Daniel's skills are awesome; Sam's are "unrealistic". And people honestly aren't even aware of what they're doing there, which is the most insanely frustrating thing.)

[ziparumpazoo]

Feminism is based on the idea that values and judgments and stereotypes are socially constructed, that from birth we are all programmed to approach the world in a specific manner, so much so that we usually are not even aware of them, which is what makes them so damn dangerous. This. Yes. Thank you for putting it in plain english

[annerbhp]

Yeah, it's hard to know where to pick your battles and it's got to be frustrating too that even if you are very conscious of what values you imprint on your children, there are still a million other imputs being provided elsewhere, like school and tv and books and your kids' friends and their parents. So giving them tools to think about everything around them is more valuable than the actual answers themselves.

I mean, the stereotypes (all women drivers suck), this sort of profiling is an evolutionary benefit, a left over from the days when a quick analysis of an opponent/food source/etc, using what limited visual clues you have, was a survival necessity. And maybe it still is in social situations. Maybe we can't turn them off, but we can at least learn not to take them at face value.

I dunno, it's a tough thing. But the fact that you engage with it and think about it, well, that is more than most parents do.