Meta: Sort of. Lots of pointless rambling, bits of snark.

[lyssie]

There's been lots of meta regarding femslash, recently. Here, here, here, and here. If not more places I haven't seen yet. (also, to derail a moment, Femme_fic is hosting a poll about which fandoms to include this year)

And there's been a few bits and pieces I ended up chewing over at work, and thus, felt the need to then regurgitate (*murders analogy*). It's long. And possibly pointless.

One of the things that stuck out and struck me was the comment that boyslashers notice the lack of women more. To which I say: bullshit.

I can't count the number of times boyslashers have told me to my face that the female characters just don't interest them. That the canon spends no time on them so why should they?

To bring up ancient history, I'm sure some of you remember the gaytopia debates of Pegasus B. I'm sure more of you remember how those icky women started getting written into the universe. And some of you, iirc, were gleeful about writing them in, too. tsk.

Which is not to say they aren't noticing. But I think things like writing genre identity to be pretentious are a bit harder to pin down these days with so many of us wearing different hats.

A ton of you are going to look at my lj and conclude I'm a het-writer. And I suppose I am. I ship Kara Thrace/Sam Anders like it's going out of style (pls, no). But I write het and femslash and gen (and read whatever hits my fancy). If you looked at havocthecat, you'd give up, because she's scary, and she writes anything under the sun. Between the two of us, we've got boyslashers and girlslashers and hetshippers and threesome fans and gen writers galore; and some are female-oriented, and some aren't.

The lines are blurring more and more, because fandom is bigger and expansive and everyone has different kinks and ideas about what they want to write and read. The more you're exposed to variety, the more you shift and change--not that there aren't people locked into a certain pairing/genre/place. But that's far less common these days, and it usually ends up being people who are newer to fandom--give them time, and they shift. Sure, there are people who self-identify as 'primarily this' or 'primarily that', but almost all of them dabble in anything and everything.

And let's be clear, here: there is no section of fandom that has a better grasp on female characterization than any other. They all suffer from ingrained and learned traits ascribed to women, from what the media tells us, from what the canon tells us (or what it doesn't tell us, which is usually more likely these days). There is no utopia of characterization. There are excellent writers out there, who fail spectacularly at breaking those molds, and there are awful writers who come up with ridiculous concepts, but sparkling characterizations.

What I'm getting at is that it doesn't matter who 'notices' this trend more (though, I dare anyone to read the last several BSG posts from me and tell me I'm not noticing). What matters is what they're doing about it. Are they writing meta about the female characters? Female-centric fic? Are they poking their femslash friends into writing more with feedback and encouragement? Are they making women a central part of their boyslash epics? Or is everyone paying lip service to this idea of "gosh, the women are under-written in canon, that's so sad" and leaving it there, as though that's a solution all on its own?

It is hard to constantly write one gender or the other (and that's leaving out everything in-between, I suppose, which is also hard to write just one of). Sometimes, you just don't want to.

There have been 'fuck you, she's awesome' memes (I think it only went around once, though); and a 'which female characters have you written' list (which I started). We had a 'because we are awesome' fic challenge, and there's galpalficathon and femme_fic and femslash ficathons (06, 07, 08, 09...), and more that I'm quite honestly forgetting. There are, about every six months, femslash ficlet battles on fslash_today.

Do we need more? Less? Is something different required to sucker seduce new writers and old?

Another comment I noted said that the person liked writing women, but they always had to fill in the backstory canon didn't give them, and I'm a bit surprised. (for one thing, I've seen male characters with no lines turned into half of an otp with extensive backstory and fanon)

Is it really that hard to write a backstory? To fill in where canon has only given us scraps? rose_griffes wrote a fabulous character piece all about Jean Barolay, a woman who's had a total of twenty lines (if that).

Something prozacpark said recently has also stuck with me. So often, fic and media talks about women through the eyes of a man. They're the gateway drug and women are sort of the after-shock.

And, yes, that has changed. But not enough. Not to the point where I can look for a female action hero and easily find one (Iron Man, Batman, James Bond... where's the big-screen action-packed adventures of a woman? [note: please do not take this as license to proceed to bash things like Sex and the City, pls]).

Sure, we have Sarah Connor and Cameron, Kara Thrace and Sharon Agathon, Sarah Walker, Olivia Benson, Mary Shannon, Temperance Brennan, Catherine Willows, Dani Reese, Ziva David.... But they're usually an exception, and most of them don't get to run around blowing things up and shooting things. Mostly.

(I, ah, got side-tracked. Oops. Ahem.)

For female characters, and femslash, written or feedbacked in fandom, what it ends up coming down to is sheer numbers.

Take a look at the porn battle--on the whole, while femslash has a slight presence (BSG femslash having a slight edge over SG (there's just more women), and I'm not sure on the rest of them), it's still buried in amongst metric tons of boyslash and het. And I imagine if you added up the femslash and het, you'd still come short to equaling the sheer number of boyslash prompts.

And that doesn't even touch how many people feedback which pairings. Nor does it touch how many fic challenges and ficathons go under or fall by the wayside due to a lack of interest.

Yes, it's true: popular pairings are going to get more feedback. That still doesn't mean it isn't annoying as hell to see really badly-written boyslash (or het or femslash) getting lavish praise while something that's slightly different, or simply just better, is ignored.

But that's true all the time, really, and isn't endemic to differences between femslash, boyslash, gen and het.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The chick on Chuck is Sarah. It's painfully obvious that they aren't always sure what to do about her, but they're clearly trying very hard to make sure she isn't just the hot chick Chuck likes.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Ah! Thank you. I was too lazy by then to go see. *edits in*

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I know she's a cop, so it isn't often she'd do it. Sigh.

[cujoy.livejournal.com]

Nice Meta.

The Chuck character's name is Sarah Walker. And she's pretty good. Now, given the light tone of the show, her FBI disguises often involve fru-fru mini skirts and Princess Leia costumes and such, but overall, she's on equal footing with Chuck in so far as characterization goes. (i.e. we've already learned that *surprise* they both had strained relationships with their fathers). There are two supporting female characters on the show. Chuck's sister Ellie, who is clearly competant, smart and supportive, but is very much a background character. Another rapidly rising character is Chuck's co-worker, Anna, who is an adorable and hilarious goth-girl. Her role has definetly been increasing.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I forgive Chuck for some of Sarah's costumes and underwear shots because the show believes in fanservice equality, and so we have endless scenes of Captain Awesome in various states of underdress too.

On the Sarah/Chuck front, they also do a pretty spiffy job of a reversal on the classic spy/sweet normal thing trope with them.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Awesome. *edits the name in*

I was trying to pick one or two from current-running shows, and ended up with her, having seen people talking about her. (I know I missed out on more than a few, sadly)

[endis-ni.livejournal.com]

Actually, this is for me a major selling point of Chuck- I like every female character on there. Sarah is full of hero-chops, and there's no question of her deferring to Casey or Chuck just because of her gender.

Ellie is a warm, compassionate and capable doctor, so while she doesn't have the arse-kickery of Sarah or Anna, she's still a really good character to look up to.

Anna's more or less the token female tech support, so I guess I embrace her as a sister-in-arms. Okay, the description is actually pretty reductive of someone who's actually a very interesting character, with her own sense of humour and affection.

Even the female guest stars do pretty well. Jill is the only misfire so far- while being very competant in her chosen field, she's bloody annoying. Lou the deli owner, on the other hand, only showed up for three or so episodes, but had more personality, skill (culinary, in this case) and likeability than some other series can dream of.

Hmm. Should deer really be that teal colour?

This is the comment in which I reveal that I've been this huge a geek since I was wee!Havoc.

[havocthecat]

You know what, though? I think that's just a facile excuse, honestly, and I'm not saying that maybe it used to be true, back in, what, the seventies? Even still, we had Wonder Woman to carry us through, and even syndicated reruns of Trek had Uhura, at the very least.

But even in the eighties, we had things like Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Remington Steele, and in the nineties, we had female characters, like Tessa Noel on Highlander, and Xena, and Dana Scully on XF, and later, on the same series, Monica Reyes. Even bridging the eighties and nineties, we had things like Star Trek: The Next Generation, which gave us Tasha Yar and Kate Pulaski for a season each, plus Deanna Troi and Bev Crusher, and spawned other series with other, highly awesome characters, and a bunch of wonderful secondary characters.

Saying "television and other popular media used to be focused entirely on male characters" is talking about decades ago, and the media sources are different now. They have have changed, even if not to the degree I want. It's not the seventies. The young fen are the ones who've grown up with thngs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with gobs of women, and Charmed, again, with gobs of women, all of whom are the stars of the show, with special, sparkly destinies and the power of sheer awesome to carry them through the plot.

So why is it that now, not in the seventies, do we still get all of this "women wanted to identify with men if they wanted someone to identify with" stuff?

For the record, I grew up when there weren't as many female characters on tv, and I still found women to identify with. I hunted high and low, and I found female characters to love. If I could do it, when I was a kid and less discerning than I am now, then fen now can do it too. I don't know, I think fen of this generation can find more female characters to identify with in one night of television than I could have in a month back when I was growing up.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I think that while women weren't as much of the focus during the 80's and the 90's, producers were at least making an effort to include them.

Now?

Not so much. The new Stargate series? Five men. One woman.

And that's in science fiction, y'know, the genre that's supposedly pushing the boundaries.

At least with the procedurals and things like Bones, NCIS and the like, they've got more than one woman, and the women do interact with each other.

[mtgat]

We need another Xena. Otherwise, we're continually fighting an uphill battle with (in general) fewer characters who get (also generally) less time.

<3 your brain.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

YES. OR something similar. Dammit.

[havocthecat]

HI, LYSSIE. ILU. WOMEN ARE AWESOME.

I would say more, but I have to stop posting comments on meta so I can go and do productive things with my night. Productivity sucks.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I see how good you're being... All productive-like, there. *amused*

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I have comments to make (in spite of my disinterest in slash).

One of the things that stuck out and struck me was the comment that boyslashers notice the lack of women more. To which I say: bullshit.

I can't count the number of times boyslashers have told me to my face that the female characters just don't interest them. That the canon spends no time on them so why should they?

Er, yeah. I don't know a lot of people who write slash... or rather, I don't know anyone on LJ (in my usual circles) who writes slash exclusively or almost exclusively. But I have certainly seen posts elsewhere by people who do who use that reasoning--that the female characters aren't given much attention, so why should they bother. And I definitely have seen posts that state or imply that the female characters are getting in the way. That being said, I'm guessing most of us write what's most interesting to us. Is the amount of slash a reflection of personal taste? What's readily available in any given show/fandom? Both, probably.

Moving on... So often, fic and media talks about women through the eyes of a man. They're the gateway drug and women are sort of the after-shock.

And, yes, that has changed. But not enough. Not to the point where I can look for a female action hero and easily find one (Iron Man, Batman, James Bond... where's the big-screen action-packed adventures of a woman?

Hm, I have thoughts about this... nebulous thoughts that aren't yet fully formed. I may have to come back here or make a post of my own later. For now I'll just say: being new(ish) to fandom stuff, I hadn't spent much time before thinking about what attracts me to certain shows or movies, enough to become a "faithful fan." But there does have to be some character that I identify with, or want to be like.

And yes: we haven't really been given much in terms of a well-written action female lead in the movies. It annoys me when I read comments that movie execs don't want to make movies with female leads because they're box office poison, when the root of the problem is how that female lead was written. I watch several superhero/action movies each year--and it's not because I'm going to the movies with a male significant other.

(You've posted a lot more about this than I ever will. So I'll just stop now. *g*)

'Nemesis' shout-out, yay, thanks! Also thanks for the femme_fic poll link. I wouldn't write as much without the (much-detested) deadlines of a ficathon.

[meresy.livejournal.com]

Er, yeah. I don't know a lot of people who write slash... or rather, I don't know anyone on LJ (in my usual circles) who writes slash exclusively or almost exclusively. But I have certainly seen posts elsewhere by people who do who use that reasoning--that the female characters aren't given much attention, so why should they bother. And I definitely have seen posts that state or imply that the female characters are getting in the way. That being said, I'm guessing most of us write what's most interesting to us. Is the amount of slash a reflection of personal taste? What's readily available in any given show/fandom? Both, probably.

*puts up hand as srs boyslasher in a 90% boyslash fandom, if not a prolific writer*

You are right, as far as I am qualified as a ~*~boyslash insider~*~ to judge. All of these things are true at once, at greater or lesser rates depending on fandom and other factors.

Some people are idiots who think the female characters aren't "interesting" enough to write about, to which I say what and GTFO.

Some people love boyslash to death while at the same time (gasp!) writing about the ladies, fangirling them, opining they don't get enough screen time etc. It's ridiculous to assume slashers are in any way better at that than some other genre-liking subset (WTF), but it does go on.

Some people write the female characters in their slash gracefully, even as they are writing them out of a relationship with one of the BSOs (beloved slash object). Some idiots make them into harridans or kill them or otherwise suck and should be condemned to fic hell.

For my part, it's not that the female characters aren't interesting, it's that the het and the femslash aren't as much, as genres. (And in my primary fandom, damned unfortunately hard to come by). I mean, take Due South. I dearly love Frannie Vecchio, for she is made of win, but Benton Fraser is gay as a maypole and dS het often gives me the WTFs. (I have a place in my heart from Frannie/RayK and believe Frannie/Eliane femslash is a noble tradition indeed, and I'll read it but it doesn't... grab me. I don't like AUs in general either.)

/my rambly, possibly slight OT 2c

In summation: some people suck and use insane troll logic to explain their stupidity. Some other people just have preferences. *hands*

Oh fandom, you strange beast. Trying to suss out what's going on can be Sisyphean.

@lyssie:
And let's be clear, here: there is no section of fandom that has a better grasp on female characterization than any other. They all suffer from ingrained and learned traits ascribed to women, from what the media tells us, from what the canon tells us (or what it doesn't tell us, which is usually more likely these days). There is no utopia of characterization. There are excellent writers out there, who fail spectacularly at breaking those molds, and there are awful writers who come up with ridiculous concepts, but sparkling characterizations.

WORD to that.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Good LORD, mottoed to the Nth degree! May I add that this essay is excellently written, and may I link to it?

(You know how I feel. Every time a boyslasher starts to whine about there not being any interesting female characters, I want Jennifer Walters to punch them in the goddamn face. Yeah, it's easy to not see interesting female characters if one is incredibly myopic.)

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and certainly =)

(you should see me when hetshippers start trashing the female half of their pairing. srsly, guys, wtf)

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

One of the things that stuck out and struck me was the comment that boyslashers notice the lack of women more. To which I say: bullshit.

Well. Nothing annoys me like boyslashers claiming that their wanting no female characters in their fiction is actually a feminist impulse because at least the women aren't being written badly (which is something I have seen way too often). And, you know, as crappy as badly written females are, I'm sure no women at all is a lot worse?

media talks about women through the eyes of a man. They're the gateway drug and women are sort of the after-shock.

I think that possibly plays a large role in women not identifying with female characters, too. I mean, looking at the point of view positions in fiction as Subject vs Object or I vs Other, women, when seen through the male gaze, are almost always in the Object/Other position. So when women approach literature/TV/whatever, they have to make a choice: either identify with the OTHER/object position or continue to see themselves as a Subject/Self and therefore identify with the man, who is more often in the Subject position. And, I guess, that can be a hard choice for some?

So I do think that generally, the way our texts are written sometimes makes it harder for women to identify with other women (and, really, even within the texts, this isolation in seen in the almost complete lack of female/female relationships). But I also think that at a certain point, people should realize how they're approaching these texts and make a conscious decision to *like* female characters. (Or, at the very least, not ignore them?) I have a tendency to strongly dislike certain types of female (and male) characters, but I see that as a flaw in my own reading and try to look past my instant hatred to what may be good in these characters and often end up genuinely liking them. But, yeah, it does take effort, and unfortunately, most people aren't willing to put in that much work in their entertainment.

So, really, as you said, it's very much about what you, as an individual, choose to do about what you're being exposed to. Like, Ron can think Kara is a slut, but if the fandom refuses to read her that way, then his view, even though he is the creator, is the one that becomes kind of obsolete. And that's the fun thing about fandom: that it can evolve and to a certain degree, it has some influence over canon and sometimes, it allows for multiple interpretations and different readings. Many of female characters I like are the ones that fandom hates, but my reading of them is often different from theirs. So really, people finding all female characters boring are lacking something in their own approach to the text. There have been interesting, compelling, awesome women in every fandom I have ever been in, in every text I've ever read, even the crappy ones from classes where the cool women always had to prove their worth by suffering or dying, and I kind of feel sorry for the people who refuse to read them the way I read them because they're missing out on, well, half the world by ignoring the female half of the fictional experience.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Nothing annoys me like boyslashers claiming that their wanting no female characters in their fiction is actually a feminist impulse because at least the women aren't being written badly (which is something I have seen way too often).

That line of country is just complete asshattery and ridiculous. Damn. one day I will rule the world and produce things which require 50% women as a bottom line

Like, Ron can think Kara is a slut, but if the fandom refuses to read her that way, then his view, even though he is the creator, is the one that becomes kind of obsolete.

Or, y'know, if Katee Sackhoff and Michael Trucco go "bitch, pls, wtf, no" and basically have their own version of canon... ;]

And yes, to your other points. Sigh. More women. More women talking. I don't ask for much, dammit.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Word. To the N. I am much too tired of all this shit to say much more. Plus my time is reserved for ficcing awesome women. And auditioning my ass off to play some.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

anyone who says that slash has the best fic is imho delusional.

And the same can be said about every genre. A lot of it just depends on the sheer amount of fic out there. If it's a smaller fanbase, smaller amounts of good fic are produced. Larger, larger amounts (oh, god, I've been having this conversation since 1998 and it was X-Men fanfic vs non-X-Men fanfic *laughs*)

[havocthecat]

This would be why I've written gobs and gobs of Kate Heightmeyer fic for SGA. I so get that love of creating backstory.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*sleepy, but has fed the cat and thought*

And the sad thing is, I agree with you. It irritates me (and I think I said it's insulting), but I think boyslashers tend to a) be a larger population, and b) have a tradition of meta and discussion because of the many times someone has wandered into fandom and gone "....but why yaoi?"

Otoh, I also disagree, because I think femslashers DO notice. They just don't take the time to write about it because they're too busy writing their girls. (although, given the recent spate of conversation, I think it may also have been that most of them didn't realize there was a lack).

Also, from my perspective, I'm used to seeing writers of every genre talk about women and the lack thereof (the last two weeks has caused reams of it from BSG fans).

Which was why I ended up rambling about what writers classify themselves as and then got side-tracked (and also why I didn't teal deer at you for no reason)

I also was trying very desperately NOT to demonize slashers. As I said to Kali further up, show me a "women get in the way of my OTP" slasher, and I can show you a "I hope x female character blows her brains out" hetshipper. I can show you gen fans who are happy when female characters they hate die.

And if I get into talking about the lack of female characters I am so not going to have time to finish my breakfast. *flees*

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Hm, I hear the Resident Evil movies are pretty good (Milla Jovovich FTW), but as I have not seen them personally, I cannot tell you if I think they are suitably awesome from a woman's standpoint. But. Milla with a GUN.

I would add Fifth Element but I am probably biased because I love that movie liek whoa.

Tomb Raider is debatable.


TV-wise, due South has the awesome that is Francesca Vecchio and Inspector Thatcher, and they don't get enough love because everyone's ALLLLL about the Ray/Ray or the Ray/Fraser (augh). I am almost motivated to do a photo essay spam on the awesome thereof, but I am lazy when it comes to writing meta.

Burn Notice has the extremely kickass Fiona Glennane, who does indeed get to blow things up/shoot things on a fairly regular basis. And I have to give props to Michael's mother in that, aka Sharon Gless, who played a kickass lady in her time (yay, Cagney and Lacey!)

[timjr.livejournal.com]

The Resident Evil movies are awesome from that standpoint. Hell, the big two asskickers in most of the movies are Milla and (insert name of big female costar here, as it changes in all three movies).

Admittedly, the horror genre has this strange love/hate relationship with women. I could go on and on about the Final Girl trope, but I won't. But it is about subverting the power into the hands of the female who would normally be the victim.

Like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or Ellen Ripley in the Alien films. Admittedly there's also a bit of theory wherein that 'power' is associated with 'male-ness' in these, but that's another can of worms entirely.

On a side note, I always feel like I need to bring up The Descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_descent) in these discussions, since it needs to be talked about more.

It's a standard haunted house trope, subverted so they can't just walk out the front door. (Replace 'haunted house' with 'deep spelunking caves').

For 90% of that film? There are no men. It's just women, caves, and some seriously screwed up stuff they have to deal with, and kick its ass.

[timjr.livejournal.com]

The problem is crap like this (http://www.cinemablend.com/new/We-Don-t-Need-More-Female-Superheroes-11455.html).

We're still getting it crammed at us that boys like to play Cops and Robbers, girls like to have tea with their dollies.

Rigid, stupid categorizations that media and society believe are their best route to maintaining order and large profit margins.

If you do see a female action lead nowadays, she's almost definitely outfitted in some way to sexualize her highly. The thought being, I suppose, that if she's seen more as a sexual object than an independent ass kicker, the less emasculating she is to the male audience. (sadly, that's probably true. Nothing worse than a butthurt man who's been made to feel inadequate. Especially if it's by someone he traditionally views as lesser. This is the biggest problem, really. That our "traditional" values are cyclical and self perpetuating.)

Hell, I personally have had arguments with folks about the term 'chick flick', coming at this argument from the opposite angle. I always say that the term lumps a bunch of concepts foolishly together, and that the label is designed to make men turn away, or feel less manly for liking it. A terrible thing, really. Heaven forbid a man actually likes a movie about a man and a woman getting together. He might actually end up respecting women, and then we'd all have to! Abandon ship! Man the torpedoes!

Etcetera, etcetera.

Now, for all I can think, there's only one reason I can think of to try and restrict the action genre to boys-only.

"Well, if a woman can be seen to kick ass, they might actually want to be treated equal."

Or some other freaking terrible thought.

But you know what? I bet a lot of that thinking is there. Even in the big corporations. You keep men and women in bins, you force-feed them a product that makes them think that the bin is the way of life, and that way you just pour in the profits without ever having to break boundaries. Because boundaries are, in fact, part of your business.

Ugh.