Women in fantasy

[Zero Angel]

This is great

I raised a 20 year old daughter already, so I have been broken in, all my taboos about buying feminine undergarments are gone. My 8 year old is keen on this aspect, and we talk about it. She gets irritated that there is "every color" for boys, and pink for girls. We talk about it. I explain that the people who are making the clothes are afraid that people won't buy the other colors, so they don't make them, but that's silly because people don't buy them because they don't make them. The people are afraid of not making money, and they don't understand how modern girls think. That's why they do it.

Is that why? I think they do it deliberately to condition girls.

In other news, I really can't stand pink as a primary color in an outfit. It's great for accents or highlights, but as the main color it is sorely lacking.

 

[Chessie]

Pink is terrible, which is why my future daughter will someday wear unisex clothing. I can't stand pink. I also think there's a lot of conditioning going on.

 

[Scribble]

Is that why? I think they do it deliberately to condition girls.

I don't believe there are any twirly-mustachioed villains orchestrating colors to condition girls. It is so widespread, it would appear to be so, but there are too many players and none of them coordinated - except by social pressure.

If pink sells, you make pink. You make pink, and pink sells. Girls wear pink, so other girls, younger girls want pink too. They want to be like the other girls.

Who conditions girls? Girls condition other girls.

Social pressure of peers is the greatest force in humanity.

The trouble is that the options for girls are dictated by a market status quo. Who is going to risk a line of blue toys for girls? All the directors, marketing people, financial advisors in those companies, who is going to risk their jobs, their livelihood that pays their mortgage and feeds their kids, paycheck to paycheck, to be the one toy/clothing company to buck the trend? Not too many. That's why it keeps chugging.

It's not hopeless. What smart people who care can do is to come together to engineer the new "chic" for girls. It's like trying to hold back a river with a few stones. You need a lot of stones to change the course of a river.

 

[Scribble]

I'm not a huge Atwood fan or anything, but I've always thought The Handmaid's Tale could be pretty beneficial reading for people of any gender.

As a Canadian, and a fan of SF, this was "required reading" for me. I haven't read all her work, but I love listening to her talks and interviews. Atwood is brilliant and deeply insightful.

 

[Zero Angel]

I don't believe there are any twirly-mustachioed villains orchestrating colors to condition girls. It is so widespread, it would appear to be so, but there are too many players and none of them coordinated - except by social pressure.

If pink sells, you make pink. You make pink, and pink sells. Girls wear pink, so other girls, younger girls want pink too. They want to be like the other girls.

Who conditions girls? Girls condition other girls.

Social pressure of peers is the greatest force in humanity.

The trouble is that the options for girls are dictated by a market status quo. Who is going to risk a line of blue toys for girls? All the directors, marketing people, financial advisors in those companies, who is going to risk their jobs, their livelihood that pays their mortgage and feeds their kids, paycheck to paycheck, to be the one toy/clothing company to buck the trend? Not too many. That's why it keeps chugging.

It's not hopeless. What smart people who care can do is to come together to engineer the new "chic" for girls. It's like trying to hold back a river with a few stones. You need a lot of stones to change the course of a river.

Speaking of societal pressure, can we discuss skinny jeans? If ever there was a fashion style for women (and now it's bleeding to guys! O_O) that made them look absurd, it would be skinny jeans. The only people it looks normal on are size 0s and 1s, everyone else looks absurd unless they're wearing high boots. And sizes are absurd too! Use inches (or centimeters I guess now)!

Edit: suppose this is off-topic, apologies. We've already covered how absurd women's outfits are in fantasy though...

 

[A. E. Lowan]

My college mentor found herself accidentally pregnant (which brings up all sorts of other issues involving how a woman with 3 PhD's from Berkley can get "knocked up" in the modern era) and being an ardent feminist vowed that when her daughter was born there would be absolutely no pink. What did every single one of her enlightened and equally feminist faculty friends and students present to her at the baby shower? Pink stuff. How did the attempt at painting the nursery a woman-power shade of salmon turn out? A livid shade of pink that you could literally see from 3 blocks away.

What is Rowan's favorite color? You guessed it.

How many years have I been laughing at my friend? 10

My mentor is also an ardent environmentalist (let's just say she actually had me researching ways to compost kitty litter when I gave her a cat) and so vowed that Rowan would have only environmentally friendly, cloth diapers.

That lasted 3 days.

I think my point is that you can try too hard, sometimes.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Speaking of societal pressure, can we discuss skinny jeans? If ever there was a fashion style for women (and now it's bleeding to guys! O_O) that made them look absurd, it would be skinny jeans. The only people it looks normal on are size 0s and 1s, everyone else looks absurd unless they're wearing high boots. And sizes are absurd too! Use inches (or centimeters I guess now)!

Edit: suppose this is off-topic, apologies. We've already covered how absurd women's outfits are in fantasy though...

Yes! One word for guys - meggings.

 

[Mindfire]

I despise skinny jeans. And the male versions are worse. I don't see how anyone can be comfortable in those.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I despise skinny jeans. And the male versions are worse. I don't see how anyone can be comfortable in those.

I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans. I AM a writer, after all. Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on. But I know they bite in a bit on the female form. Don't guys have it worse? Why would they wear that?

 

[Mindfire]

I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans. I AM a writer, after all. Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on. But I know they bite in a bit on the female form. Don't guys have it worse? Why would they wear that?

"Fashion", and apparently girls find them attractive. For some reason. Fortunately I abandoned the futile struggle for female approval long ago and have never been beholden to the tyranny of fashion.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I discovered a very long time ago that confidence is far sexier than anything I can wear, and have never looked back. Therefore, I am comfortable... and happy.

 

[Scribble]

I'm a bit too... well... comfortable around the bottom for skinny jeans. I AM a writer, after all. Got the whole Earth Mother thing going on. But I know they bite in a bit on the female form. Don't guys have it worse? Why would they wear that?

I fit better in jeans than I used to. I work in a video game company in a metropolitan city, mostly "hip" people 25-40. If I look around the office the style is mostly t-shirts and skinny jeans. I wouldn't wear them if I was still rocking the belly I had 75 lbs ago. Do we have it worse? At least women tend to gain weight proportionately. To my eye at least, it's fine. Men... it's all in the belly. We look oafish when overweight. A big guy in skinny jeans, doesn't work.

You have to wear clothing that suits your body type. I remember when the low-cut jeans were in for girls, and these poor young girls were cramming into these jeans with muffin tops popping over to fit the styles.

Typically speaking, fashion trends flow from Europe/UK to North America. Most European countries, except for Greece, have 5-10% full-bodied people, while in the US, it's 30%. Basically, a third of the people this side of the Atlantic don't suit fashions that most people are wearing there. This creates an environment where a growing majority of people are faced with fashion images that don't match their body shapes, and this creates a ton of psychological problems for girls.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

I think that societal expectations for physical appearance are getting much harder on young men recently (and among young gay men they are BRUTAL), causing increasing cases of eating disorders and exercise disorders. But more importantly, women in general DO wear our extra weight more proportionally because we're supposed to have it as insurance against lean times to help in feeding and raising small children. It's called the Earth Mother figure for a reason. We carry our fat on the outside, under our skin and over our organs. Men, on the other hand, carry it mostly in their cores and then radiate it out, infiltrating their organs. It's why obese men are so much sicker than obese women. You guys just aren't meant to carry the load.

 

[Scribble]

My dad is eating and not exercising his way into very bad health. Heart problems, diabetes, the weight is killing his back and knees. My step-dad, super healthy. At 70, he can outrun me on the track!

My guy fitness philosophy is this: We all get old. there are two kinds of old, the good kind, and the kind that lives in pain. You want to increase all your chances of being the good kind of old.

If you look good in jeans, that's a nice side effect.

If you do it only to look good in jeans, you won't be happy. I feel good and people say I look good, since I dropped the weight. I am always carrying that last 10 lbs. it might not look like much, but science shows it is not good for men, it shows there is more fat in my core around my organs, and that is not good. My kids need me around for the long haul, in good form. But... I like my Friday wine, I like my Sunday dessert. You've got to live a little, as they say.

I actually enjoy training, but I don't obsess about it. I just try to enjoy living in my skin as much as I can, for as long as I can.

 

[Zero Angel]

Yes! One word for guys - meggings.

O_O

My fiancee and I recently went shopping for her. She despises skinny jeans in spite of being skinny, so the entire day consisted of us going to every single store, finding the one style of jeans that weren't "skinny" if they existed at all, then finding out they didn't have her size. It was like 5 hours of wasted life. I'm still quite perturbed by the entire thing.

There was a question about how guys do the skinny jeans. It's really not comfortable. I've been told by some that they tuck, but for more than one reason I refuse to do that. Nowadays at least they have skinny jeans for guys if they want them (in fact, they have TOO MANY), but 90 lbs ago in my life you usually had to buy girl jeans. Why can't we just have a selection of EVERYTHING??? I guess that's what the internet is for, but the sizes aren't standardized either!

But anyway, back to women in fantasy before the mods get back...

 

[Scribble]

But anyway, back to women in fantasy before the mods get back...

True, this isn't an OT forum. Sorry, I got caught up in the conversation!

Here's an on-topic question.

Have there been any fantasy stories you've read that portrayed a realistic matriarchy? If it wasn't realistic, what was it that bothered you. If it was, what did they do well, in your opinion?

 

[saellys]

Pink is terrible, which is why my future daughter will someday wear unisex clothing. I can't stand pink. I also think there's a lot of conditioning going on.

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but I can't imagine what all this pink would be conditioning us for.

Prepare yourself to constantly correct everyone who guesses your daughter's sex incorrectly, which will happen approximately thirty-six times per day, then deal with strangers getting huffy at you for dressing her ambiguously. I speak from almost two years of experience. People have this bizarre notion that it's crucial to know the biological sex of an outwardly androgynous infant before they interact with them, as if it makes any difference to their one-sided conversation.

I requested no pink at my baby shower, and everyone did a wonderful job of finding gender-neutral gifts... but there were very few clothes. I dyed bold-colored onesies for my daughter before she was born; after she outgrew first batch in about a month, I had no time to make more. When I shop for her, I try to avoid the trappings of "girliness," which extends beyond pink to frills and bows and lace and glitter and "sassy" slogans and other useless augmentation that would just get in her way when she's trying to explore the world around her. I also try to avoid licensed characters whenever possible. (They're not even relevant to her interests since the only television shows she has ever seen are Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)

It's really, really hard. Truly gender-neutral clothing is rare, and often stupidly expensive. And even if you do find it, you still have to deal with people saying "Hello, young man!" which may not outright bother you, but after the hundredth time it starts to rankle on principle. I gave up correcting people after someone told me it was "dangerous" to dress my kid that way, and eventually I started buying slightly more gendered (but practical) clothing, still in as broad a range of colors as I can find.

Right now in my daughter's closet there is a T-shirt from Old Navy. It's bright pink. Wicket the Ewok is on it, along with the logo for Return of the Jedi. It was screenprinted with glitter ink. But you know what? I love that shirt, and I love how my kid looks in it, and she loves it too, and the whole of parenting is compromise. There are worse compromises than incorporating the color pink. A color cannot be inherently bad; it just is. Society's relatively recent overuse of pink for girls is gross and often depressing, but complete abstention from the color is an unnecessary limit.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Prepare yourself to constantly correct everyone who guesses your daughter's sex incorrectly, which will happen approximately thirty-six times per day, then deal with strangers getting huffy at you for dressing her ambiguously. I speak from almost two years of experience. People have this bizarre notion that it's crucial to know the biological sex of an outwardly androgynous infant before they interact with them, as if it makes any difference to their one-sided conversation.

Best answer I ever heard to the question "Boy or girl?" is from the movie Undercover Blues and is one I fully intend to use one of these days.

"God, I hope so."

 

[Chessie]

Saellys, your comment just made me burst into laughter. I can't believe someone would suggest you dressing your kid in another way. LOL

Slightly back on topic, I noticed the villain I'm creating for my soon to be WIP was starting to resemble a stereotypical wicked witch. So I made her gorgeous and rich. And married with children. Her motivations deepened but I like this new twist since it makes her a bit more human. She's still a nasty sorceress but I enjoy that part of her.

 

[CupofJoe]

Have there been any fantasy stories you've read that portrayed a realistic matriarchy? If it wasn't realistic, what was it that bothered you. If it was, what did they do well, in your opinion?

I haven't seen what I would call a matriarchy. In the few stories I've read they were a conventional patriarchy with women instead of men. I would hope for something new and different and not just find-&-replace king for queen...
I would hope for a different approach from a female dominated society to that of a male.
I've worked with male and female bosses for 25 years and yes - they have all been different.
but I felt that the genders were more similar internally as groups than any other facet.
In general the men were dictative and political whereas the women were collaborative and open. Maybe that is a cliché but maybe it's true as well.