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.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

Well, I don't think it's entirely a myth. Yes, we do have gender roles and expectations, n all societies. Unable to be transcended? That's where you start getting into some iffy territory. They're perpetuating the idea that gender roles and expectations are an inescapable trap, unless you avoid the entire situation of having to deal with them.

[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."

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

But omg one of them has to be "feminised" or it'd be two people of the same sex shagging each other!

[rosewildeirish.livejournal.com]

Personalities, etc. Having two nurturers can work in a relationship, but sometimes it's better to have one who likes to nurture and one that likes to be nurtured, for example. And if it's the reverse, two people who keep expecting the other to pick up the slack...that's a recipe for stress and disaster, right there.

"Slave and master" is inherently ripe for abuse and disaster. It's rare you find a couple, het OR gay, that manages to make that kind of relationship work long-term. It's a question of balance, and those roles rarely balance.

[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.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean consensual slave/master - non-consensual slave/master is "complementary" in terms of social roles as much as anything else is. That's my issue with using that adjective in a discussion of roles. Roles should be equal (or consensually negotiated not to be, which has at its base an assumption that they are equal at the start for that to be given).

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

The real problem, as nos pointed out, is that they're both white. Start throwing Teal'c into the mix. Teal'c/Sam? ;)

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised it's as much as 20%, actually.


Anyway, yeah... I don't get how that's Challenging Gender Roles.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Yes. You're just reinforcing traditional stereotypes.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

I think... too many of the pairings I've read/written flipflop back and forth on the 'traditional' gender roles.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Mmm...Marxism...

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

It may not be, but I live in an urban area, so even 20% felt kinda low. But there are minority groups that have very high out-marriage rates - it's something like 70% for Japanese and Native Americans here. In all likelihood, it's something like 10-15%, roughly on par with statistical rates of homosexuality in a population. So it may be a bit more like saying "Writing two white people together is racist and accepting white privilege, so all fic couples should be interracial" that the reverse.

Representing higher/more accurate rates of homosexuality and bisexuality in society, or getting into gender identity (although this rarely seems to be a concern of fic writers; I've never heard anyone say this was why they write X or Y), now that it may be doing. But that's a far cry from challenging gender roles, as you say. It just seems to reinforce them to me - "You can't put a man and a woman in a relationship, it's Inevitable! that she'll be oppressed".

[kkglinka.livejournal.com]

*grunt*

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Word. I don't think anyone's ever challenged anything by removing it entirely while, err, still going with the old formula with some new-looking pieces.