Gender and Slash: Linkspam #4

[linkspam_mod]

51stcenturyfox: Huh.

Uh... you do... realise that in fanfiction you can write female characters better and write them into healthy, hot, sex-positive relationships even if those don't exist in the source material, right? This is not really more farfetched than a story about two canonically straight guys falling in love with each other and running through a field of daisies and fucking all over desks and spaceships and getting m-pregnant?
"Badly-written in canon" hasn't stopped slash writers from giving any given (hot, natch) male character with two lines a vibrant back story and sexxins by writers. Nobody has to write female characters or het or femslash, and liking given male characters better than the female ones is of course up to the individual fan, but fic writers routinely FIX holes in canon:

merrykk: [Warning for comments: Use of ableist language] Female Space and fandom - I'm not hearing the same words

If I’m looking at the world in gender-binary terms, there has to be a default, and in my view, it’s female. Male isn’t unnatural, or alien, or lesser, or any of those negative terms; it’s simply not default. Along with that idea comes a variation of the Mother Earth idea, though stripped of spiritual or religious sensibilities. If female is the default, then male comes from female in a sense. And so in that case, “female space” in my mind represents most of the world. Men live in and shape the world just as much, but women bring it into being by being default, automatic, somehow. I suppose this could be considered sexist, but I don’t see a way to remove the idea that there is no neutral when it comes to being (as opposite living, or role choice, which can be neutral).

acrimonyastraea: We're all Doing It Wrong (except for me) [Part of series]

Instead of just complaining, I want to look closer at some of those reasons from a feminist perspective, keeping in mind that yes, internalized sexism is a real thing but also that sexism in the media and in the creation of female characters is a real thing, too. And also that women are individuals living in a patriarchal culture and we all will have different experiences and ways of coping with this reality.

skud @ Geek Feminism: On LambdaFail, women writing m/m erotica, and the queerness and/or misogyny of slash fandom

So, fandom being fandom, and things being always more complicated, the discussion coming out of this is pretty crunchy. Some of the questions/themes I’ve seen covered include:
Does romance/erotica ignore or erase difficult issues (eg. discrimination, oppression), and should we care? Or does escapism get a free pass?
Do fanfic writers have a duty to write the other respectfully and realistically when the “other” in question is gay men/MSM? How do we do this?
Why don’t fanfic writers write about female characters, anyway? Is this internalised misogyny?

freifraufischer: [Entry has been locked] Slash and Women and Metafandom Discussions

If you are straight, I welcome your support in helping to secure my civil rights. But don't believe that simply by writing fan fic about two men having sex you are acting as my ally. If you want to express your support for gay men, try doing something for gay men. Not for yourself.

calicokat: I've been trying to figure out if I have

I've been trying to figure out if I have anything to say on the whole "slash contributes to the erasure of women" debate and I think, mostly, I'd like to say it doesn't really have to, and I also know a lot of people on myflist are already well aware of that.

meri_sefket: One Fan's Experience

Self-examination is good. I learned a long time ago that if I feel defensive of anything it's time to step back and take a long hard look at myself and my activities. Sometimes I'm just angry and need to let it go, but sometimes there's something there I'm unwilling to look at and someone is pointing their finger right at it. This practice has made me a better activist and a better ally in real life and online.

tielan: on snowflakes and snowdrifts

What's my point? You can make choices for perfectly good, utterly rational, and totally unique reasons, and still be part of a bigger problem.

freifraufischer:[Entry has been locked] [Warning for comments:EDITED straight privilege (at the request of several affected readers) biphobia but is challenged]Femslash and the Lesbian Experiance. Or rather my lesbian experiance.

In my experience and as I percieve it, the majority of femslash is written either by lesbians, or bisexual women.

jerico_cacaw: [365days: Day 23] It's a woman ...

Self, why don't you write women?
Seriously, I hadn't realized the lack of female characters in my fanfic. I'd like to say it relates to my genderless-ish issues, but that wouldn't explain why I mainly read slash, then male-centered gen, then male-centered het, and never ever femslash. :(.

kookiety: Can't Buy My Love

I do not always like the fictional women.
Political correctness or sense of obligation, bonds of sisterhood, whatever it is - let me fling it out of the window - I do not like all the women in fiction. But the minute I say it I shall be devoured byfangirls who are attempting to be feminists and yadaya - I'd rather keep my mouth shut and nod and politely ignore.

inmyriadbits: whoops that got long and thinky about women and stories. Plus meme

I've been seeing a lot of posts and discussions recently about writing female characters in fanfic. There are too many for me to address specifically, but it seems to boil down to what it always tends to in fandom: there are a lot of people out there, each with their own backgrounds and reasons and hang-ups and issues. Oh, fandom. And as usual, my reaction tends to be: whatever you do, it's usually a bad idea to let fear or anticipation of other people's opinions control your actions, especially when those opinions prevent you from creating things. Others' opinions expanding your worldview and inspiring you to take action is one thing; beingguilted or pressured into action is something else.

acrimonyastraea: Part 1 There aren't enough interesting women to write about [Part of series]

Are there awesome women in TV and movies that many women relate to and feel inspired by? Yeah, I have many favorites. How many of them are written in such a way that I never feel yanked out of the story by the reminder that This Is Probably A Man Writing a Woman? Precious few. So I think the accusation of internalized sexism against women for not finding more female characterswonderous and inspiring is something that shouldn't be flung around so easily when many of those characters remain fraught with sexist stereotypes/tropes/storylines.

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The moderators are discussing feedback concerning Warnings and hope to post later today; until we decide what our policy is, we will continue to try to warn. ETA: The post we hope to post today will solicit feedback. Sorry for the confusion/ETA.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I deeply disappointed that the 'straight privilege' in freifraufischer's post is warned for but not the biphobia.

I am doubly disappointed that the rebuttal (http://fairestcat.dreamwidth.org/522265.html?format=light) to freifraufischer's offensive assertions was not linked.

I understand that warning and deciding when to warn is a highly subjective issue. I do not want to tell the mods what to do or how to do it. But when someone tells me my friends do not exist or are lying about their identities for some kind of bisexual street cred-- and this goes completely unchallenged, while other offenses are warned for left and right-- it does not sit well with me. And I know I'm not the only one.

[linkspam_mod]

We're still trying to standardize our warnings--in this instance we may have used "straight privilege" as an umbrella warning but rest assured that we do think that biphobia is worth warning for. Thanks for your comments which will help us refine our warnings scheme, and apologies for our failure in this regard.

The rebuttal by fairestcat, given that it came a bit later, is still in our posting queue. It takes us some time to post links, in part because we have to read the posts and comments for warnings before we do.

[trobadora]

"straight privilege" as an umbrella warning

When a queer person exhibits biphobia, "straight privilege" is a very poor choice of words. "Monosexual privilege", maybe.

[linkspam_mod]

Very fair point. Thanks.

[trobadora]

I completely agree with this comment.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. I'm not only surprised at the warning, I'm also surprised at the quotes (mainly of the second post, because it looks as if there was nothing wrong with it).

[cimorene]

That's a good point. I decide whether to read a post based on the pull quote, and if I judge the post is likely to be too enraging to deal with, I don't read. If the post is offensive like that one is, it's a good idea for that vehemence to be represented in the quote.

[gloss]

The moderators are discussing feedback concerning Warnings and hope to post later today
Is there somewhere to add to this feedback? Because I've been quite grateful for the warnings, actually.

[linkspam_mod]

When we post, we'll be asking for feedback. Apologies for the lack of clarity.

[dashakay]

I know the post is now locked but I would argue that there is a significant amount of biphobia and queer policing in freifraufischer's post on Femslash and the Lesbian Experience.

[linkspam_mod]

Thanks for commenting. It seems that we may have used "straight privilege" as an umbrella warning but as you'll see, you're not the only one who thinks that we should have warned for biphobia as well. Apologies for our oversight. Do you think we ought to add the warning even though the post is locked?

[dashakay]

No problem. It's just that, as a bisexual person, I haven't been so profoundly enraged by an LJ post ages.

If it were up to me, I'd add it. There may be some people on freifraufischer's friends list that drop by here. And I don't know your policy fully, but perhaps it's good to call out the privilege and biphobia even without the full post.

[(Anonymous)]

Not to pile on, but 'straight privilege' as an umbrella in a post where a queer person is queer policing and exhibiting biphobia also seems to add to the perception that the current debate is strictly 'straight women vs. queer people.' The erasure of queer slashers and queer women has been a sore point in this debate, and one I don't think you want to worsen.

[cimorene]

Agreed. The poster says explicitly that she's a lesbian, and her erasure of bisexuals depends on painting them as play-acting straights, so if anything her attitude is the opposite of straight privilege.