okay, now I'm feeling stupid.

[lyssie]

But need to be enlightened.

Someone please explain to me why all m/f relationships are 'unequal'. I really,really don't get this statement.

Is it that the men always think the woman is a fragile flower?

Or is it that only one is on top all of the time, or what?

Because, I don't get it at all.

(and furthermore, don't get why f/f or m/m are 'equal' if m/f isn't.)

Comments

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you're defining a relationship and under what kind of context. If it's academic in any form of way (feminist, psychoanalytic, er... marxist, post-modern, etc) or just generally analytical of the situation. Err... and it depends on the couple and what they do. So... the only answer I can give you is more questions.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Sexual. As a couple, dating, whatever.... And I... Didn't have any kind of context, that I know of. I just keep seeing it said. "m/f relationships are unequal."

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Mmm...Marxism...

[stexgirl2000.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll give it a shot. There is the arguement by some that slash is more egalitarian and allows more freedom in writing stories because in Real Life society favors males over females and holds us all to strict gender roles. Therefore, because of that it is more difficult (or in the view of some people--not all!--impossible) for men and women being true equals in a relationship and that transfers itself to male-female stories in fanfic.

Therefore by writing slash, the writers are being subversive and by-pass all the gender roll expectations. Two men, being that they are not bound by traditional male/female gender expectations, are thus considered to equal partners in the relationship. Feelings and emotional issues can be explored more fully that way.

I suppose this can be applied to female/female slash stories as well.

If I have not explained this clearly or fairly enough, I will gladly stand corrected.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*considers* All right. That makes sense to me. I suspect my problem is I've never seen the relationships I write as unequal.

Hrm.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

What puzzles me is when slash writers write a same-sex couple, and then give them traditional gender roles, making one very femme and one very butch, especially when it's not really in character. Usually it's a case of one man becoming very femmy, once he realizes he's in love. Aside from the out-of-character issues, I'm never sure how that's getting away from traditional gender roles. (Perhaps for the individual man exploring his femme side it is, but in terms of relationship dynamics, it's not.)

I suspect the actual necessary component of writing a relationship that's not bound by traditional gender roles is actually in the mind and intention of the writer, more than it's in the gender of the characters.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

And then, of course, the problem with that very good argument is that some slash feminizes one of the men.

But yes, I agree.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

It has to do with either the presumption that men and women aren't able to fully transcend their gender roles and expectations, or the presumption that patriarchal (or, heck, matriarchal, if you're being daring) society automatically puts different genders on unequal footings. As with all gender politics, there's an element of it that's sort of true by definition, and an element that's highly YMMV.

Personally, I think it's not so interesting a statement as it was fifteen or twenty years ago. As a rejection of traditional gender roles, it's not significantly more complex than the gender roles themselves, and inherently includes a tacit acceptance of their validity, by saying the only way to reject them is by rejecting mixed-sex relationships.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Ahh...

So... The people writing slash are simply perpetuating this myth instead of trying to smash it.

If it is a myth. I really haven't done extensive research. sigh.

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

IMO, all well-balanced relationships are unequal. And that's for any pairing, or multiple numbers, same sex or opposite. A friend once said men and women weren't made to be equal, they were made to be complementary. (As in forming a complement [something that completes or makes perfect], complete.) If you bring equal amounts of things into a relationship, I think that relationship is doomed to either fail, stagnate, or be unerringly boring.

But that's my opinion.

[stexgirl2000.livejournal.com]

Well said! I agree.

:ponders for a moment:

It's the concept of how the characters complement each other (and cope with the trials and tribulations of being in a relationship) that ultimately draws me to a story--het or slash.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Equal and complementary aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

And, in terms of gender or social roles, the idea of "complementary" is disturbing to me. "Slave and master" are complementary roles, but far from equal ones.

If your friend meant personalities and not roles, saying complementary personalities need to make up a relationship is probably true enough, but I don't see what it has to do with social roles. The two don't seem highly connected to me.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Apparently it;s all about penetration. Oh, and sexism, for men hate women and oppress them. With penetration.

Now, you may think that the way to attack m/f sexism it to write something with men and women in an equal relationship. But you'd be wrong. The thing to do is to write about those woman-hating, oppressive men fucking each other omg!

And while I've been told that The Race Card is a bad thing, it allows an analogy most times. So. It's like saying "white/black relationships are bad, because white people are racist. so we should only write about white people."

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

While identifying the exception in that analogy as being that male-female relationships make up about 85-90% of relationships and interracial relationships make up about 20% of relationships, I'd say that's sort of where I start to scratch my head about the logic of it all... it's not so much a subversion of gender roles, as an implicit acceptance and avoidance of discussing them, really.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

So... I should stop writing Sam/Jack fic where they're both equal, and she wears him out...

sigh.

I feel so stodgy.

[kkglinka.livejournal.com]

And people like me just get left out in the cold altogether. I want to see polyamorous, bisexual fics. You'd think more people would use this as a solution to the bitter-triangle-competition situations.

Like, you know, have Ivy, Harley and Joker all have sex together. Except, um, Ivy would probably strangle Joker to death with a vine and Harley would laugh her ass off before realizing her puddin' was dead. So clearly the plants represent a fourth sexual entity and depending on the type of plant, are either male, female or both.

Sam/Jack vs Jack/Daniels? Put all three of them in bed together.

Batman/Robin vs Batman/Bat-Signal? Put all three of them in (a very large) bed together.

Archer/T'Pol vs Trip/T'Pol? Alley-oop, off they go into a jeffries tube.

Honestly. The least people could do is show some creativity.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Sam/Jack vs Jack/Daniels? Put all three of them in bed together.

No good; it still means no one writes me Teal'c fic. :)

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

OT3 does, occasionally, happen...

[lavidaessueno.livejournal.com]

"Is it that the men always think the woman is a fragile flower? "

This touches on something that fascinates me about fandom in general and SG1 in particular: the need to have a damsel-in-distress character. With SG1, there's a bit of a problem. Jack is clearly the Knight in Shining Armor. Teal'c is neither a damsel nor distressed. Sam, though a damsel, is rarely in distress in the traditional sense and would put up a hell of a fight should anyone try to portray her that way. Therefore Daniel, with his floppy hair and glasses, at least in the first season became the DiD by default and remains such in a lot of fic even though the character depicted on the show isn't even close.

So it seems that if the m/f relationship isn't unequal, some people are compelled to contort another relationship, be it m/m or f/f, until that relationship is unequal.

Or something.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I didn't even see this discussion and it's already full. Erm, if you think I hijacked your other post, that's not what I meant to do, and I apologize. I'm not used to people who pick something to discuss and only want to talk about that one very specific thing and not even anything related to it. ^^; My conversations usually veer all over the place.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

hrm? No, I didn't have a problem with that. I've just been seeing the 'equality' thing around for a while, and I suspect I write all of my pairings equal and thus... eh, I don't know. *handwave*

I still feel kind of stupid to not see it, I suppose.

[livilla.livejournal.com]

So... all those "Sam being on top" fics I read were hallucinations?

Hmm. All right then.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Yup. Of course, even then, she's still subjugating herself to the needs of a man. After all, there's no way a woman could want sex.

[theta-g.livejournal.com]

Assuming women don't want sex is the jaded version of fearing they don't ;-)

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

*deciphers* And, see, I never assume or fear they don't.... hrm.

[thekatebeyond.livejournal.com]

I may get ripped for this, but I personally object to the term 'equal' ever being applied to human beings. Amounts are equal, numbers and weights are equal. How do you measure the equality of human beings? Are they equal in character? How do you measure character? Are they equal in power? How do you measure power?

In the civil sense -- equal rights, or equal pay -- it makes perfect sense. Those are measurable concepts. But when we say that two people are equals, what we are really saying is that one does not have power over the other. As someone in a fifteen year relationship, I can tell you that is always a misconception. Both partners have power over each other, in varying and ever-changing degrees depending on circumstances. If not, why would they stay through the bad times?

This concept of 'equality' is a part of the societal syndrome that makes us look down on stay-at-home parents, devalue domestic life, and have unrealistic expectations for marriage. What we should be looking at is whether a couple has mutual respect and love. Those are the only two essentials to a happy relationship.