Whose story is it, anyway?

[kadymae]

So, I'm reposting here something I wrote on another platform a year ago, in response to this article about the controversial Canadian play, Pig Girl, because I think it gets to WTF is wrong when identity politics get taken to a useless and divisive extreme.

Comments

[the_emu]

I hadn't heard about that play until now, but to your broader point, yes - what you said.

And also. To suggest people can't tell other people's stories dismisses the importance of allies.

If only women can write women, doesn't that reinforce the idea that women's stories are only important to women? And that strong female characters are the product of fevered feminist imaginations? I think it matters a lot that Joss Whedon brought us Buffy, and that Aaron Sorkin brought us the women of West Wing. By all means, men are open to criticism when they tell women's stories badly, but please, please, let's continue to normalise men appreciating women as whole and interesting people.

(And so forth for race and class and sexuality etc.)

8^-