Women in fantasy

[Steerpike]

This may be treading old ground, but what stops media separation from being a solution? There's already media that caters to boys, so all that's really needed is more media that caters to girls.

Separate but equal? I think we've tried that

Seriously, though, all segregation does is perpetuate sterotyping, and as I pointed out above, male intake of media that sexualizes or marginalizes women impacts how males view and treat women, so again segregation of media leaves a problem.

 

[Devor]

Apropos of comments relating to why the issue matters, or whether it matters that certain media is marketed directly toward males and is therefore immune from criticism of gender bias:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect

It is but one reason as to why the issue is important, why something like the Bechdel Test can be important (I'll point out that it was this inconsequential test that is directly responsible for spawning three threads and extensive commentary on the issue on this site alone), and why awareness of the issue is something that is of benefit to any Fantasy writer and to the genre as a whole.

The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one. It just says to the man, "Think about sex. Great, now think about something else. Gotcha!" But that only says what we already know about the male brain. The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality. It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.

 

[Steerpike]

The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one. It just says to the man, "Think about sex. Great, now think about something else. Gotcha!" But that only says what we already know about the male brain. The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality. It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.

There's a lot more research out there on this and related topics. The point, however, is that even if males are the only ones consuming media they don't exist in a vacuum and the potrayals of women in the media can impact how males view females in their day to day lives.

 

[Mindfire]

Separate but equal? I think we've tried that

Seriously, though, all segregation does is perpetuate sterotyping, and as I pointed out above, male intake of media that sexualizes or marginalizes women impacts how males view and treat women, so again segregation of media leaves a problem.

Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?

 

[Steerpike]

Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?

It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.

 

[Mindfire]

It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.

Not with regard to race, because "race" isn't real. But the differences between boys and girls are quite real and also much easier to account for. You don't have to construct blue and pink ghettoes or anything. All that's needed to account for that difference is to do what the toy companies have done: have one division focus on boys while the other focuses on girls, and then continue that division up into adult media.

Note, I'm not advocating for media segregation, it just seems so blindingly obvious as an idea that I figure there has to be SOME good reason why nobody's tried it yet. I can't be the first person who's thought of it. And as I said, it seems to work great for toy companies. So the question remains, why hasn't anyone tried it (aside from Hasbro)?

 

[Devor]

It's true the "equal" part never came to bear, but I agree with what the Supreme Court said, which is that separate can't be equal. In other words, even if blacks in the segregated south had access to the same quality of services as whites, but the two were forced to be separate, I think you still have a problem. So no, I don't think that it would solve the problem just to try to bring the "equal' part to fruition. I don't think it can be done, in any event.

Wow did that get off topic fast.

I think Mindfire's point is just that some products can be marketed to men, and others to women, and that can mostly be fine (edit: he ninja'ed me with a post I'll respond to in a moment). I think it becomes a more serious problem when it appears that an entire industry is marketed to one or the other, like graphic novels.

But there have been people who've given their daughters G.I. Joe or cars or superhero dolls, and the girls still talk to them and care for them like they would a barbie doll. Arguing that you can't design a product for one or the other would be ignoring that there are a handful of basic differences between men and women.

 

[Nihal]

Why is it so hard to portray women as people?

There is no need at all to focus in creating separated, highly targeted media. To be fair, I usually hate, hate "women targeted" products. They usually end stripped of the "male values" (violence, etc), exaggerating the "women values" (romance, emotional, etc) instead. How a caricature is helpful? Wouldn't it be easier to get rid of all the bad writing and target your product using the tastes and interests of your audience as parameter?

 

[saellys]

Apropos of comments relating to why the issue matters, or whether it matters that certain media is marketed directly toward males and is therefore immune from criticism of gender bias:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...6/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect

It is but one reason as to why the issue is important, why something like the Bechdel Test can be important (I'll point out that it was this inconsequential test that is directly responsible for spawning three threads and extensive commentary on the issue on this site alone), and why awareness of the issue is something that is of benefit to any Fantasy writer and to the genre as a whole.

This is an excellent resource and I foresee myself referencing it in many discussions to come. Thanks for sharing.

The weird thing is, that research actually says nothing about whether the scantily clad image is a positive portrayal of the woman or a negative one. It just says to the man, "Think about sex. Great, now think about something else. Gotcha!" But that only says what we already know about the male brain. The male brain tends to fixate on one thing at a time, and that's a basic component of male sexuality. It isn't even fair to extrapolate that to the gender tropes we've been discussing, which may not even be sexualized.

So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage Playboy spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.

Well separate but equal didn't work because the equal part never happened, and thus the separate part merely enforced the unjust imbalance. If the equal part actually comes to fruition, wouldn't that change things?

Separate but equal didn't work because you can't treat people equally if they're separate. Or at least it's really really hard to do that on an institutional level, especially when "separate" would by necessity be implemented long before "equal". As Steerpike said, dividing media along gender lines will just make it easier to perpetuate stereotypes.

 

[Devor]

Note, I'm not advocating for media segregation, it just seems so blindingly obvious as an idea that I figure there has to be SOME good reason why nobody's tried it yet. I can't be the first person who's thought of it. And as I said, it seems to work great for toy companies. So the question remains, why hasn't anyone tried it (aside from Hasbro)?

The reason is simply that the differences between men and women shrink as we age and our brains develop more along with our experiences and less with our dispositions. What happens a lot with women, in particular, is that they start to empathize with people who aren't women, which brings them into a lot of interests they may not normally be predisposed to, creating situations like the ones we've been discussing.

(edit) That probably sounded wrong because I was only responding to Mindfire and then stopped. But media segregation mostly doesn't work because women are inclined to break it. By contrast, there's very few men reading romance novels, for instance.

 

[Devor]

So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage Playboy spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.

Well, you can't just characterize male sex drives as bad just because it works that way.

 

[Nihal]

The reason is simply that the differences between men and women shrink as we age and our brains develop more along with our experiences and less with our dispositions. What happens a lot with women, in particular, is that they start to empathize with people who aren't women, which brings them into a lot of interests they may not normally be predisposed to, creating situations like the ones we've been discussing.

I disagree in this one. The majority of what composes "womanly" behaviour is something learnt. You learn to fear and squeal when seeing bugs, you learn to be kind (c'mon, kids are evil!) in the same way you learn moral values, you learn to love and pursue the beauty, you learn that males "should" care for you. That's why women and men are more alike today than 50 years ago, for these stereotypes are start to being discouraged now.

The inverse is also true, with all the "men don't cry" story.

 

[Steerpike]

Yeah, a lot of the differences between males and females are societal results of gender bias and segregation, so it's hard to point to them and say "See, that's why we need gender bias and segregation!"

 

[Mindfire]

So you want clarification on whether the portrayal of the scantily clad woman was positive or negative? What would that mean, exactly? Is there some shade of distinction between the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated vs. a Victoria's Secret model vs. a vintage Playboy spread? If they're all sexualized, and they all make men think about sex, and thinking about sex makes men view women more negatively, the distinction between positive and negative becomes a moot point.

Simply thinking about sex causes men to view women negatively, huh? Clearly the only solution is that men must never think about sex. Ever.

What's that? You got married to the love of your life and you happen to think she's super hot? Well too bad. If you actually have sex with her, nay, even contemplate having sex with her, it might make you think about her negatively. Celibacy is the only way to ensure your relationship remains one of mutual respect. And while you're at it, get her one of those chastity belts. And a burqa too. Just in case. Heck, why not eschew marraige altogether and go live in a monastery? Truly this is the only way we poor, degenerate man-animals can ever find true salvation from our hopelessly lustful ways.

 

[Devor]

I disagree in this one. The majority of what composes "womanly" behaviour is something learnt.

The majority of what we ascribe, sure. But this article, for instance, summarizes many of the differences between the male and female brain. There've been other studies, of course, showing that those differences happen on a continuum, not an absolute, so I don't mean to overstate.

However, I was talking about a specific trait that's been observed by marketers. There are more women taking on "male interests" than the other way around.

 

[Steerpike]

However, I was talking about a specific trait that's been observed by marketers. There are more women taking on "male interests" than the other way around.

That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. I don't think that's a good argument. Again, it's looking at the situation a few steps too late, where you already have bias at work and reflected in attitudes and then take that as justification to market in a biased way because, hey, that's how people are.

 

[saellys]

Well, you can't just characterize male sex drives as bad just because it works that way.

I can see how you got that angle from my post, so I'll clarify, and then I think we should get back to women in fantasy.

A sex drive, a physical reaction, cannot possibly be good or bad. It just is. It's totally natural to feel a physical reaction when presented with a sexualized image, whether or not the image is positive or negative. Sometime after that, when given the opportunity to rate a female tester, male study subjects gave her lower marks than the control group.

I gather that you think the sexualized images were negative, and that's what caused negative marks, but I'm saying that when it comes to sexualization, objectification, submission, and the like, images I see in advertising all day long are basically on par with porn.

I think what we need is more research into what happens between seeing an image and interacting with a woman in person. Otherwise the justification becomes "men can't function normally when they think about sex," and then we'll have to consider all men permanently disabled because they're constantly bombarded with sexualized images, and therefore constantly thinking about sex.

 

[Devor]

That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong.

Please note the context of what I was saying. I was explaining to Mindfire why media segregation doesn't work for adults.

By the way, a lot of the people here who have been talking about Marketing that way have never studied it.

 

[Mindfire]

That's not surprising in patriarchy. However, a lot of arguments seem to boil down to "well, marketers have figured out what works," as though that settles the issue of whether something is good or bad, right or wrong. I don't think that's a good argument. Again, it's looking at the situation a few steps too late, where you already have bias at work and reflected in attitudes and then take that as justification to market in a biased way because, hey, that's how people are.

Here's a question. What's wrong with boys wanting action figures and guns and girls wanting dolls and etc.? My sister and I are pretty much a textbook example of the traditional boy/girl dichotomy. I gravitated to Batman and Transformers, she gravitated to Barbie. I chose to major in engineering, she chose to major in art (specifically, animation). I'm into martial arts, she wants nothing to do with it. Granted, sometimes our interests do match. We love pretty much the same cartoons, and we used to go at each other with water guns all the time. And she's less into super-girly stuff than she used to be. But our interests are still inclined more one way than the other. It's not like this never happens and the toy companies are just making stuff up. Is it wrong for these differences to occur? Is it wrong for parents to buy their kids gendered toys and other media? Should we all raise our kids like that one Canadian family where the parents make their son wear girls clothes and ban him from playing with absolutely anything that has a gun on it?

EDIT: I apologize for starting this tangent. Perhaps a new thread is in order?

 

[saellys]

It's not wrong for these differences to occur, or for gendered toys to occur, or for parents to buy gendered toys and media. When those are the only options and the whole thing becomes a self-perpetuating stereotype on both sides, there's a problem.