Women in fantasy

[Feo Takahari]

We don't lack for harangues. I read dozens of them before I ever got involved in feminist stuff. What got me involved was one person who clearly and politely explained the problem and invited me to help.

You have to remember that just because you've given twenty people polite explanations doesn't mean the one you're currently arguing with has heard any of them. If you're polite and he's rude, you might as well move on to the next one. But if you're polite and he's polite, maybe he'll explain your position to the next person, and you won't have as many people to either explain to or harangue. (And what else can you do--hit him over the head with your protest sign?)

P.S. For what it's worth, this is also how I handle the anti-evolution crowd.

 

[Ophiucha]

-snipped for space-

Ignoring your optimistic view of the ratings system and market research for a moment, let's say that executives have in front of them a completely accurate split of every person who watches every show. That is irrelevant, frankly, if they don't do anything with it. Women are viewing their shows more. Here's what that translates to: more yoghurt ads, more ads for PMS medicine, more cleaning supply ads, and absolutely no reflection on the content of the show.

I don't really care if they know we're watching. I don't really care if they change the ads to fit the viewers. I want to see them change the content. I want to see them ask real questions about what we want to see instead of just queueing up a few Weight Watchers ads and calling it a day. I have had NBC and other websites pop-up a survey about 'what I want to see' and nowhere on those questionnaires was I asked 'would you like to see more female protagonists?', because they never ask. They ask me what time slots I prefer, what genres I like, how many hours/week I watch TV - in gaming, they ask me which game consoles I use, what genres I like, how many games I buy per month.

That's all great, and it gets you some stats. Women age 18-24 are PC gamers, prefer strategy games, buy 1-2 games per month. (That is a stat I made up based on myself, for the record.) Maybe, if that demographic also happens to be the biggest (or, at least, the ones who answer the polls more often), they'll make a few extra strategy games. Which is awesome. The problem is that when I boot up that game and it's still only got a playable male character and there are misogynistic jokes and busty babes make up the majority of the female cast. (And let's not get into how they respond if the game does poorly because of this.)

Maybe all of this could just be a case of male writers trying to please and not really getting it. But honestly, I can't help but wonder if they honestly care at all as long as we'll still put up with it. Which is a point that was brought up earlier, I think, with the Kim Possible discussion. I think women are used to casual misogyny, used to having to empathize with male characters, used to seeing all of the women be dead or damsels and so we... don't really mind watching shows that feature that? Whereas shows that break those standards, shows with prominent female characters, just do so poorly with male audiences that the studio execs cut them (no matter how many women are watching). And, I mean, I'm guilty of that, too. I kind of hate the writers of Supernatural, particularly after a certain female character was killed this season (no spoilers, but if you're watching, you know who I mean). Does that mean I stopped watching the show? No. Why? Crowley's fun, Dean's hot, and Game of Thrones has been a bit boring this season and I need my fantasy fill every week. So if I happen to be picked by the Nielsen company I guess I am just another tick on the female side of Supernatural viewership and they're just going to keep thinking I'm happy with that, and that's part of the problem.

But then, it'd be a lot easier to change the channel if there were anything better to change it to.

 

[Devor]

Whereas shows that break those standards, shows with prominent female characters, just do so poorly with male audiences that the studio execs cut them (no matter how many women are watching). And, I mean, I'm guilty of that, too. I kind of hate the writers of Supernatural, particularly after a certain female character was killed this season (no spoilers, but if you're watching, you know who I mean). Does that mean I stopped watching the show? No. Why? Crowley's fun, Dean's hot, and Game of Thrones has been a bit boring this season and I need my fantasy fill every week. So if I happen to be picked by the Nielsen company I guess I am just another tick on the female side of Supernatural viewership and they're just going to keep thinking I'm happy with that, and that's part of the problem.

I would offer, maybe you're in the minority of women in which shows you're interested in, because you do keep naming the shows I would say appeal towards men. Maybe you just don't see the female targeting as much with the subset of shows you're interested in?

I bolded a piece above because it's a thing, and I think I've mentioned it before. Women will sort of absorb a genuine interest in anything, no matter what it is, even the sort of sordid misogynist things we don't talk about in public. Something can appeal to men in the extreme and still carry a reasonable female audience. But for whatever reason, men don't pick up female interests anywhere near as much. Veering too feminine will rapidly lose the male audience, so you only see it happen when the female audience is sizable.

But the TV audience of women is sizable, and it does happen. WB, for several seasons, openly said it was targeting women and only women with every show.

Also, although you argue for wanting more female protagonists, I don't think it's actually as influential in drawing female viewers as you might expect. Fringe, for example, has a strong, non-sexual female lead but was one of the few shows on the list that skews male, at 0.95. Supernatural, on the other hand, is the show you're complaining about, which skews female at 1.27. Their overall ratings weren't too far apart. For a couple of seasons they aired at the same time. Yet, the problem show appealed more to women than the one with a leading female role.

By the way, off the list I posted, my favorite show was Grey's Anatomy, and I can't stand Family Guy. Also I'm a stay-at-home dad who only owns a Wii and loves platformers. I mention all that because sometimes people don't realize how much an attitude towards a conversation doesn't always reflect much outside the conversation, and then people assume a whole lot which isn't true. I studied marketing and econ at a business school, and I follow both TV and Gaming, a little, because I'm still fascinated with the marketing aspects of it all. But please, don't mistake my disagreements about a marketing assessment for an endorsement of all sorts of things I'm not talking about. I keep saying "Market Research is a science," and the thing about science is that it makes no value judgments*. Saying that women aren't as drawn to female protagonists as you think is a factual statement, not a value judgement on whether there should or should not be more female protagonists.

In TV, I don't really think there's a problem, except with some of the premium channels like HBO. But then, I watch a lot of shows with female leads. In fantasy novels, I think there's a problem, but that it's mostly less antagonistic than it's made out to be.

*Weird. According to Chrome's spellcheck, judgement is right, but judgements has to lose the e. What's the deal?

 

[Devor]

I don't really care if they know we're watching. I don't really care if they change the ads to fit the viewers. I want to see them change the content. I want to see them ask real questions about what we want to see instead of just queueing up a few Weight Watchers ads and calling it a day. I have had NBC and other websites pop-up a survey about 'what I want to see' and nowhere on those questionnaires was I asked 'would you like to see more female protagonists?', because they never ask. They ask me what time slots I prefer, what genres I like, how many hours/week I watch TV - in gaming, they ask me which game consoles I use, what genres I like, how many games I buy per month.

Also, I do want to respond to this, just as an aside. Those are the surveys trying to figure out which ads to show you. Those aren't the surveys trying to figure out which shows to air. Those are done a lot differently. Usually they set up in malls at a handful of select cities - cities which, taken together, are pretty good representations of the country's demographics. They offer free movie tickets to show people pilots in a little poll booth setup. Sometimes there's even a camera tracking taking your eye movements. They ask several things so you don't even know what they're really testing, the show or the ads. And they get a lot of information indirectly - they don't care about what you say you'll watch, but what you actually watch, which are very often not the same thing.

Also, the questions can get weird. If the show was a person, what kind of person would it be? They ask those kinds of questions because they need to interpret the results qualitatively to figure out which direction to take the show. There's usually not a straightforward answer, where everyone is going to say "this show needs A." But if they can pick up the vibe you're getting, they can add or remove elements to fix the vibe or strengthen it.

 

[Ophiucha]

Addendum: female protagonists who aren't written by JJ Abrams.

I'd concede that women do not necessarily watch a show just because it has a female protagonist, but I don't think that's out of a lack of desire for a good one, but rather how shows with female protagonists are marketed, what genres they are, what sort of women these protagonists are, etc.. There is no 'female Dean Winchester' heading her own TV show. There is a lack of variety among the female characters we have. I feel like women might have a lower tolerance for rehashed female protagonists - like, there really are only a handful in non-soap operas, so when they come out with Olivia Dunham anyone over - what? - 18? is just going to say 'yeah, I've already got Dana Scully' and ignore the show. But this tends to happen, a lot, with female protagonists. How many of today's fantasy leading females can be described as 'human women in a love triangle with two supernatural creatures, at least one is a vampire and the other is either also a vampire or perhaps a werewolf'? Loathe though I am to give Twilight any props, it changed things enough from Buffy by having Bella be separate from the supernatural action - the passive protagonist to Buffy's peppy and active role in the narrative - that it could thrive, but none of the derivatives have had quite the same power. A few young teen girls who didn't grow up on Buffy (and let's be honest, my generation watching Buffy is basically just making up for our tragic lack of Xena, though with more romance) watching the shows where the women are active. And I refuse to believe that Scully wasn't heavily influenced by Clarice Starling before her. We get stuck in these little loops of the same character being used over and over again, whereas male characters get a lot more personality and... professions.

I'm not sure it's entirely fair to judge these shows by percentages regardless, though. I mean, I feel like women just watch more TV than men in general. Saying more women watch the news than men doesn't mean that men care less about the news, just that women leave the TV on more. Women are still more likely to be stay-at-home mothers/wives than men are to be stay-at-home husbands/fathers, so they probably just watch the TV while they're taking care of the kids or whatever. I went browsing the Nielsen polls and apparently African Americans watch more TV than white people (despite being an actual minority in this country, unlike women who are 51% of the population). And I know they'd like to see more black characters in fiction - this is a well-vocalized talking point in their community, and they've done studies on the effects of black children who grow up with primarily white TV. And yet there are still fewer POC characters on TV than there are POC people in America. I don't want to co-opt their discussions, and there are differences in how the two play out on network TV in particular, but it's worth noting that this is not an issue unique to gender.

These issues are incredibly multi-faceted, and have roots going back generations. It's not as simple as saying 'they're aware that women watch their shows' or even that they're trying to target a certain audience, which they definitely don't always do. The shows they target towards women don't necessarily attract as many women as the shows they target towards men, and I've yet to see any evidence that suggests they really understand why. And I wish more networks would do something other than condescend to the women who decide to pick up a show like Supernatural or whathaveyou. It's about understanding what, exactly, appeals to women, why, if that's even okay (internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug), and acknowledging that even with the best intentions, a staff of 8 male writers and 1 female writer - a common distribution - is not going to always yield the desired results. There are problems on all levels of the entertainment industry, but I feel like tossing out that execs are 'targeting female audiences' is erasing the innumerable problems with how they go about that, their condescending attitude towards many of the female fans, and ultimately how little it seems to have changed the content on their networks. I don't think it's malicious in intent, just... a lack of forward thinking and a few too many men in high positions who think they understand women better than they really do (not through their own fault, perhaps, but there's only so much they can understand).

Mostly, I just think we should hire more female writers and let them decide for themselves what appeals to a female audience. Then we might reach something of an equilibrium. And we should stop acting like execs will always change with the tides of money, because let's be real, sometimes they get stuck in their ways, too. TV is more fluid than most industries, and it's still problematic as heck, but publishers. Have mercy, they still try to get women to initialize their names to hide their gender. Do women read? Yes, I'm fairly certain more than men. Does that matter? Apparently not... and the books we get all have awful covers that nobody wants to buy and be seen reading. Bless Amazon for the Kindle.

P.S. Maybe 'judgements' is... used more in the UK? I can't say I pluralize the word often... but that is rather strange, yes.

 

[Feo Takahari]

While this regards a different industry, I feel like it might be relevant. (Warning for profanity and clips from Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.)

 

[Devor]

Ophis, I only have like five minutes, and then I don't care about this conversation anymore ever.

But targeting - I should post something in Marketing sometime about targeting. It doesn't work the way you think it does. For instance, I tried to watch Supernatural, as a guy, and my reaction was "I can't watch these pretty boys." But even that's a weird example. If you tell people to rank a list of like five things, "dialogue," "Character," "suspense," and so on, men and women will rank them differently. It's much less about the number of women on a show and much more about the type of show, the way the characters speak, how complex the plot is, or the kind of character arcs / relationship developments, and so on.

Also, looking just at the fantasy television shows on the primetime networks right now, I don't think there's any shortage of women leads. Take Once Upon a Time, Revolution, Beauty and the Beast, or the Vampire Diaries. That's compared with Grimm, Arrow and Supernatural. That's not an overwhelmingly male-marketed group by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Ophiucha]

My final post on marketing/target audiences before I'm out.

I'll focus on one thing. The shows you mentioned, excluding Revolution. One, Revolution does not star a female protagonist; at best it stars two protagonists, one of each gender, but I would argue that Billy Burke's character is more prominent, at least in the first few episodes (as that's all I watched of it). Two, that show is written by JJ Abrams (discussed above) and Eric Kripke (who created Supernatural). Mercy.

As for the other shows, I can't help but notice that... the ones with male leads are generally more well-received (and by proxy, have bigger budgets), with one exception. The fairy tale ones. Once Upon a Time is generally regarded as better than Grimm. Perhaps that is just because it has ties to the Disney company and can use more modern icons of fairy tales by using Disney's names and imagery, perhaps it started with a higher budget, perhaps it is just a genuinely better show. Indeed, going over to Metacritic, by and large most shows with male leads have higher scores than ones with female leads. Is that because of the gender of the protagonist? I'd like to think it isn't, but to say "well women don't watch Beauty and the Beast as much as they do Arrow" seems sort of pointless when everyone agrees that Arrow is a vastly superior show. Is it marketing at fault? Is it the execs just giving it a bigger budget? Are execs not taking risks - could a show like Supernatural have done as well if they had just changed Dean and Sam into two sisters on the road instead of two brothers, and were studios unwilling to take that sort of chance? Or does it just never occur to them to even consider taking that chance unless the show is about romance and love triangles and fluffy fairy tales instead of about shooting demons in the face with a shot gun?

Is it a coincidence that the promotional image for Beauty and the Beast, despite being about the female lead, has the male lead in the foreground and the female lead behind him and to the side? That nearly all promotional images for Once Upon a Time feature the gender-diverse cast instead of just Snow White? That there doesn't seem to be a single promotional image for The Vampire Diaries that doesn't emphasize the steamy love triangle? Revolution is the only show here that ever really features a female protagonist purposely ahead of the male lead, and even then it is about 50/50, alternating with the male lead from image to image. Even Fringe, referenced above as a rare TV show about a non-sexualized female lead, has few promotional images that feature her and her alone, and only one in a couple dozen that have her in the foreground with the men in the back. One promotional image even has her in a submissive pose to a male character.

Is it a coincidence that there are no women in the promotional images of either Supernatural or Grimm, while shows like Once Upon a Time will shove characters like Rumpelstiltskin into an image despite him being far less prominent than at least three female characters? That Arya, Cersei, Catelyn, and Sansa appear less on promotional material than Jaime, Jon Snow, Robb, and Joffrey? (Daenerys is the exception, and let's be honest, it's because she has dragons.) I've seen Theon Greyjoy on more promotional materials than Sansa. Theon Greyjoy! Why would you ever want to advertise to people that his character is on a show? This even happens a lot with Gilmore Girls. There are nearly as many promotional images for that show that feature Jared Padalecki as there are for Supernatural.

It's not malicious, I really don't believe that, but it can only happen so many times before you have to wonder if it's intentional. And if it is intentional, it's not women they're targeting these images and ads to. It's all the men who won't watch a show that doesn't advertise, even emphasize, that it's got a male character in it. TV execs, maybe rightfully, think that women will watch a show regardless of the gender of the character (that doesn't mean we wouldn't like more female characters, merely that we're more than okay with male ones). And they know that men don't watch shows with female leads. So why market to women when they'll watch it regardless? They target men, because men are the ones who they need to convince to watch a show about a female lead; and sometimes, that leads to sexualizing the woman in question, turning away women who'd rather watch Supernatural just because - hey - there are no women to be talked down to and sexualized. It's backwards, I know, but it's easier than forcing yourself to like poorly written, male gaze-y characters on the other shows.

But don't think for a second we don't want a good female protagonist. We're just used to not having it.

 

[Mindfire]

*snip*

For the record, Kim Possible did so well that Disney brought it back for an extra season after the show ended due purely to fan demands. I'm willing to bet most of those fans were female. But Disney has always skewed towards a female audience, or at least Disney channel has. In fact, that's why Disney bought up Marvel and Star Wars. They wanted more IPs that appeal to boys because their own stuff was so girl-oriented.

 

[Ophiucha]

Yeah, the Disney channel was definitely more female-oriented than Nickelodeon was, at least when I was a kid. I have no idea what either of them are showing these days. Cartoon Network seemed to be more for boys, but then they'd occasionally have shows like Totally Spies, so who knows. But I can definitely see them buying a few more male-oriented things just to broaden their horizons (and for some more awesome rides at Disney World). Star Wars is definitely more popular with men, though I think Marvel is up in the air. Marvel seems more popular with women than DC, anyway. Not sure why... *coughChrisEvanscoughRobertDowneyJrcoughcough*

 

[Mindfire]

Marvel seems more popular with women than DC, anyway. Not sure why... *coughChrisEvanscoughRobertDowneyJrcoughcough*

To say nothing of Tom Hiddleston. Good lord, my sister will just not shut up about him. I don't get it. -_-

But yeah it's a little harder to tell now but historically, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have generally skewed male while Disney skewed female. And Disney has been trying everything they can to get more boys on board from Jetix to acquiring Power Rangers to Disney XD, etc. But all the "for boys!" actions shows they came up with didn't have the desired result. Some were decent, some were blech, and overall they just couldn't beat CN at their own game. So they decided to try a different strategy: acquiring properties that already appeal to boys, like Marvel and Star Wars.

 

[saellys]

Okay, full disclosure: I cheated. I subtly edited my statements to intentionally draw out a reaction from you so I could use it as an example. That was unfair and I apologize.

Apology accepted. I'm glad I wasn't just imagining it.

And you're also losing an opportunity to get someone to understand your views who might not otherwise if you just wrote them off as a simpleton.

Are you sure you're looking for someone receptive and not just someone who already agrees with you?

At this point, I'm looking for someone who won't just mindlessly play devil's advocate and regurgitate the same bogus points that I've responded to over and over and over. My screening process in public places thus far has boiled down to mentioning the Bechdel test (oh noes! I said it!) or some variant thereupon in a group of female friends and seeing whether any of their boyfriends jump in with "I don't see why that should be important." That has actually happened. We were all out at a bar having a good time, so I limited myself to a pithy, "You wouldn't because you've always been able to see yourself as the hero of any story throughout history," and then spoke of other things.

If that means someone who fears a feminist Helter Skelter doesn't make it onto the Education Express, I can live with that because my own sanity will stay intact that much longer. Sorry if that's callous or counterproductive, but refraining from long-winded conversations like this out in the real world is becoming a form of self-care for me.

A couple months ago I had a two-hour, indescribably frustrating discussion with my husband about rape culture, which strayed down all the rabbit trails you might expect, and terminated with my husband reassuring me that he agrees with everything I said. I asked why the eff we had just spent two hours talking about it, and he said he just wanted to give me some practice.

In short, he was being intentionally obtuse to make me jump through the hoops of explaining a concept he already understood. He was playing devil's advocate and repeating despicable opinions for no reason. This is actually something I encounter way more often than people who honestly don't understand. It's the real-world equivalent of an Internet troll saying "Don't feed the trolls!" when they finally get tired of poking people with virtual sticks. I told my husband I don't need practice from him; I have Mythic Scribes.

Case in point: You don't actually believe that feminists are out to subdue men and erase them from their own stories or sexually objectify them or Other them, and yet we just spent two pages talking about it, culminating with the claim that it's still my responsibility to have a meaningful conversation with the people who honestly do believe that. The gist is that discussions like these are exhausting and go nowhere and if I waste all my time on them in the vain hope that the other person will be swayed by my patience and politeness, I won't be able to do anything productive on my own.

And if that shot was directed at me, I was only suggesting ways to communicate your views that might be more effective from a pragmatic standpoint. Whether that's feminism right or wrong is your call I suppose.

Or we could silence the radicals. MUHAHAHAHAHA! But on a serious note. I don't think it's a matter of louder per ce. But the constructive dialogue needs to take center stage and the radicals need to be marginalized. Please note that my statements may not apply to you specifically. I'm more referring to feminism I encounter in general.

Except I do communicate my ideas that way. And more importantly, I can't do anything about feminism as a movement, only the way I practice it, which is already in line with what you recommended, so even bringing up feminism you encounter in general is not applicable to our interaction and does nothing but divert and slow the constructive dialogue we're supposed to be having. See why this is frustrating?

 

[Feo Takahari]

At risk of getting overly personal, Saellys, I can't help but notice that your approach to this entire thread has been in terms of "scoring points". Every time you get the chance to quote someone in such a way as to make them look like an idiot, you jump on it, to the point that when multiple people argue with you at once, you ignore anyone who can't easily be jumped on in favor of repeatedly singling out the one who can't (often misinterpreting their statements or even quoting them out of context in the process.) If you want to make this a "constructive dialogue", you need to do your part as well.

 

[Jabrosky]

But don't think for a second we don't want a good female protagonist.

Many women probably would appreciate that, and certainly those identifying as feminists would, but one thing I want to point out is that oppressed groups in general have an unnerving habit of internalizing and uncritically accepting the very stereotypes responsible for their oppression. For example, I've seen women endorse the very gender roles and stereotypes that have been used to support patriarchy. Sometimes they embody the stereotypes themselves, other times they cite them as a reason for disowning other women, but either way they help propagate them to other women's detriment. Mind you, I don't advocate letting men go off the hook, but you don't necessarily have to be a man in order to perpetuate gender inequality.

That said, men have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot too. Lots of guys bitch and moan about how society supposedly treats women with kid gloves, yet they can't get through their thick troglodyte skulls that this kind of chivalry came about precisely because men decided women were too weak and sensitive to take care of themselves. Similarly, patriarchal society's equation of masculinity with dominance and toughness has produced millions of so-called "nice guys" whinging about how women ignore them in favor of "bad boys" or "thugs" or whatever. Frankly, we men are our own worst enemies.

 

[Ophiucha]

Yeah, I've definitely known one or two women like that in my life. My own mother borders on that, sometimes - she's a classic for calling any woman with even the slightest bit of authority the gendered slur of your choice. Really irritating. There is definitely a balance to be struck, and you sometimes get those characters that break through it, but many women do perpetuate patriarchal stereotypes. The question is really what is the role of media in helping break those stereotypes, and what role has media had in starting those stereotypes to begin with? Would women hate dumb blondes as much if the media didn't keep relying on that trope, reusing it over and over again? And it'd still be nice if there were more female writers and producers and executives to help navigate the tangled web; leaving men to do it just ends in... well, what we have now.

All that said, I'm not sure I've ever met a woman who wouldn't watch a show because it has a female lead, no matter how much internalized misogyny they've got going on, and I've known many who would actively give a show a try because of it. Which is why all the advertisements and posters that downplay the place of women in a show (or movie or book) always just sort of come across as clearly targeting men, since I've known many who are turned off by female protagonists. My own husband - and you all must know by now that I wouldn't have married a sexist guy - is definitely a bit more critical of female characters than he is of male characters. It's just sort of... conditioning. And a result of the lack of range we get, I think. Again, how many of the female characters on TV are human love interests in a supernatural couple and/or FBI agents? Some exciting variants include 'also supernatural character in a supernatural couple (though the dude is always still supernatural as well)' and 'maybe a police officer instead of an FBI agent'.

I mean, if all male characters were time travelling immortals or sociopath consulting detectives, I bet we'd be a bit more critical of them too. Just look at Elementary, the American modern day adaptation of Sherlock. Obviously that is literally the same character, but there are very few people who like both that show and the BBC Sherlock adaptation. People don't want two interpretations of the same character - and a lot of female characters are basically exactly the same person, with different hair colours and maybe this one likes Emily Bronte more than Jane Austen. Which is about the same as you could say for the two different Sherlocks (for instance, the American one keeps bees; take that, Benedict Cumberbatch).

 

[Mindfire]

*snip*

My point was that, in general, feminism seems to have devolved into a sort of group therapy session where women gather together to express their frustrations and exorcise their bitterness. Which is fine I guess, but all this talk of not needing men kind of misses the point of yes, you do. If you want a group of people to change their behavior, then you need to actively engage with those people. Thinking you're going to convince men that they need to do things differently by actively excluding them from the discussion is counterproductive at best. If your cause is going to gain any ground then yes, you need men. It's as simple as that. If you ignore them simply because you assume they won't listen to you or you're just too good to bother with them then, surprise, you're not going to make any progress. And yes, some people will simply not want to engage at first due to a knee-jerk reaction against what you're saying. Thank the radicals for that one. But you still have to engage if you want to get anything done. That's simply the hand you have been dealt. Is that fair? No. It's not. But it's the reality. You can't discuss women's problems with only women and somehow hope that through osmosis or whatever men will start magically giving a crap. Looking at this as an outsider, that, IMO, is feminism's greatest failure.

 

[Mindfire]

*snip*

I think it's important that we remember some people genuinely like the "classical" family arrangement where dad does certain things and mom does others. Just because this stereotype hurts or holds back some doesn't mean it isn't a valid choice for those who want it. Likewise there are guys who genuinely like traditionally masculine things and that's okay. The easiest way for this equality business to go completely crazy is if we start trying force people to like things they don't want simply in the name of correcting the balance. You know that whole "becoming what you hate" thing. For example, while there may be some sexism in toy marketing, forcing boys to play with barbies and forcing girls to play with nerf guns is not the answer. Just because someone makes a choice that lines up with a stereotype, doesn't mean that choice is invalid.

 

[Ophiucha]

Of course, Mindfire. Even though I am (obviously, like lord if you haven't figured this out by now) a feminist, I'm also ridiculously feminine, a housewife who enjoys cooking almost as much as writing, wears pretty vintage dresses and presses flowers, and I mean - my icon on this site has a bunch of pink and I use a heart to separate the links in my sig. It's about giving everybody a choice in how they express themselves and not shaming people for it if it's not the same as what we consider 'normal'. Has anyone seen those ridiculous Depends ads that are like "panty liners? look at these! they're pink and feminine!" *tosses aside* "now these are for men" and then they pan over to the exact same product but in green packaging because pink is for girls, yo.

And to gently ease this topic back towards fantasy, I think we still see this sort of thing occur in publishing. There are gendered covers, which make all books with female protagonists look... kind of the same? Like, they could be about completely different things but they're still going to have a woman from the chin or neck down holding or wearing some symbolic item from the story and very little else going on. If it's a 'deep' work, then you just get a zoom up of her face, probably with symbolically coloured lipstick or something. And as a fan of the romance genre, I must say, sometimes books get shoved in the romance section for no reason other than the fact that they have a female protagonist. I mean, some of them have no more romance than, like, the sixth Harry Potter book but because it's a woman telling the story, it's just sort of defaulted to that section. And I've got opinions about how they separate fantasy, sometimes. If it's fantasy/romance, it often ends up in romance. If it's fantasy/YA, it often ends up in YA. Again, I doubt it is something they do with malicious intent, but browsing the nearest Barnes & Nobles makes fantasy look a lot more masculine than it really is because all of the Vampire Diaries sorts of books get put somewhere else in the store.

 

[Mindfire]

snip

Yeah, the same thing happens when covers are whitewashed. For whatever reason, publishers seem to think it's more important for a cover to represent what they think people want to see rather than representing what the book actually is. A practice that benefits no one. Go figure.

 

[saellys]

At risk of getting overly personal, Saellys, I can't help but notice that your approach to this entire thread has been in terms of "scoring points". Every time you get the chance to quote someone in such a way as to make them look like an idiot, you jump on it, to the point that when multiple people argue with you at once, you ignore anyone who can't easily be jumped on in favor of repeatedly singling out the one who can't (often misinterpreting their statements or even quoting them out of context in the process.) If you want to make this a "constructive dialogue", you need to do your part as well.

I'll try to keep an eye on this in the future. I do make an attempt to reply to anyone who addresses me or one of my points, but the honest truth is that I don't have time. I'm squeezing all this constructive dialogue into the two hours a day that my daughter is napping (or, like now, during a few stolen minutes when my husband is with her and I'm putting off something else I should be doing), and that's also my writing time. Any lack of response is not out of choice, but I will readily admit that "I have nothing to say to this" has been my rationale for omitting certain portions of someone else's quoted statements in the past.

My point was that, in general, feminism seems to have devolved into a sort of group therapy session where women gather together to express their frustrations and exorcise their bitterness. Which is fine I guess, but all this talk of not needing men kind of misses the point of yes, you do. If you want a group of people to change their behavior, then you need to actively engage with those people. Thinking you're going to convince men that they need to do things differently by actively excluding them from the discussion is counterproductive at best. If your cause is going to gain any ground then yes, you need men. It's as simple as that. If you ignore them simply because you assume they won't listen to you or you're just too good to bother with them then, surprise, you're not going to make any progress. And yes, some people will simply not want to engage at first due to a knee-jerk reaction against what you're saying. Thank the radicals for that one. But you still have to engage if you want to get anything done. That's simply the hand you have been dealt. Is that fair? No. It's not. But it's the reality. You can't discuss women's problems with only women and somehow hope that through osmosis or whatever men will start magically giving a crap. Looking at this as an outsider, that, IMO, is feminism's greatest failure.

I have said absolutely nothing about not needing men. I also said nothing about ignoring them. I said that if they aren't receptive, I leave them for someone else in order to preserve my own sanity. I've tried to be as detailed and specific about this as I possibly can, so I really don't understand your insistence on projecting all of feminism's perceived problems onto me, using language that does not reflect what I've described, and make them my responsibility to fix. I'm not going to evangelize ALL the men even if they don't want to listen to anything I want to say. I'm going to do what I can.