Slash vs women

[beccaelizabeth]

I used to be in fandoms where there were mostly Babes of the Week. They existed solely to have UST with one of the guys, and then at the end of the episode the women went away and the guys went home together. So we ignored the women, because the only real relationship was these two guys who cared about each other more than anything else in their lives. Hence, slash.

But that was a while ago, and there are TV shows with actual women in. Persistent characters with agendas of their own. People as well rounded as the guys ever were. And some of them are dating guys. But TV being TV, they usually break up eventually, or someone gets fridged, or they leave for a spin off show. So I guess I felt like, okay, looking at this, the key relationship? Still two guys. So, more slash.

But now it’s creeping me out: There are women who never break up with their guys, who maybe get married to their guys, who have rings and commitment and stick by them through thick and thin and the world exploding. But we’re in the habit now. We go looking for the two guys. And way too much of the time, we’re the ones who break them up, or fridge them, or figure someone else will write their spin off show. Sometimes we even rewrite whole episodes so the guy gets the girl’s role. And I’ve been reading it, because hey, still slash.

But seriously, what the hell?

I know a lot of good reasons to write slash. I’d dearly love it if more canonical media wrote a wider range of sexualities and relationships. I like this aesthetic we’ve got in slash where working out your relationships and sex life and saving the world a lot are all just part of the one life story, all different parts of being a person, all interesting.

But it’s creeping me out, how much easier it is to find fic where the women are erased than fic where we’re celebrated.

My favourite fanfics now are poly. Because the fandoms have actually already got great het relationships with great female characters, so instead of erasing anything, we just add a little. Or a lot. It’s all good.

But it creeps me out on TV when there’s a show that kills off all the women, silences them, makes them serve the guys’ plots. And it double creeps me out in fanfic, where we’re pleasing no one but ourselves, and the same damn problems crop up.

I want to exist in my stories. Why so difficult?

Comments

[baronjanus]

Why indeed? I'm asking, from a writer's pov. Is it just habit? And if so, how to break out of it? I don't believe in "too old to change".

I mean, I'm even looking at my icons, and not a lot of women there. I don't know why, there are plenty women characters I adore. I just... I guess a line of thought might be "they can handle themselves". Pepper can handle herself, Tony can't really. Zoe can handle herself, it's the various guys on Serenity that could use some shaking and readjusting. Maybe it's that? Maybe I'm making terrible excuses.

[baronjanus]

Probably should add that to "nonwhite chars" ponder.

[baronjanus]

And while I'm spamming your post: I'm watching the new Ironside and I wonder 1, what you will think of it, and 2, how fic and fandom will handle it.

[beccaelizabeth]

It is not F&SF, so I'm unlikely to think of it at all.
I read on wiki they cast a walking person as a wheelchair user though. Not a great sign.

here via metanews

[thirdblindmouse]

I think many people like m/m for its own sake, just as many people like het, femslash, polyfic, and gen for their own sakes. I don't see anything in that to beat yourself up over.

If you're having difficulty writing fic about female characters and want to change that, consider which fandoms you've been writing. Are you writing fic in fandoms you were drawn to because you like the female characters and their relationships, or are you writing fandoms you were drawn to because you like the male characters and their relationships? If the latter, no wonder you haven't been inspired to write fic involving the women.

There are plenty of het-focused fandoms out there if you want them -- probably the majority of the fandoms in existence are het-focused. There are also many femslash fandoms, and a handful of OT3 fandoms. (Have you considered Haven? SFF series with a female star and popular f/m/m OT3 with all sides of the triangle fully developed in their own right.)

Re: here via metanews

[beccaelizabeth]

on tumblr:
http://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/58504759474/a-ranked-list-of-the-most-popular-relationship
A ranked list of the most popular relationship tags on AO3.

There's other graphs but that was up on my dash this morning.

Het does not to me look like a majority of that list.


It's not a problem to like m/m. It is a problem to break every relationship and write women as creepy hateful useless versions of themselves, to prop up m/m. I have read waaaaaay too much fic that can't seem to imagine that a new relationship is still awesome even if your ex is actually a good person. Character bashing isn't limited to women, but the more I read, the more prevalent it seems to be.

Liking m/m? Fair enough.

Hating or at minimum erasing women? Big problem.

Re: here via metanews

[thirdblindmouse]

AO3 is an archive started by slash fans; I doubt it's representative. If you take other websites such as Fanfiction.net or Wattpad into account, I'm sure there's more het than anything else. But even if stories about women were a minority of the fic out there, that wouldn't make them less worth reading. Going instead to m/m stories and wondering where all the women are seems disingenous. If you want to read more fic with women, seek out the stories that involve women. As havocthecat says, femslash authors would appreciate more comments and kudos.

Re: here via metanews

[havocthecat]

I would like to be quite clear: Femslash is not the place to go for a lot of comments and kudos, which people deserve to be warned about. And while yes, we would always like more - just like everyone else - that doesn't mean that we're desperate for them. I feel like you've gotten the wrong idea about what I said.

But I don't think the point of this post is really that beccaelizabeth wants out of dudeslash fandom.

It sounds to me like beccaelizabeth isn't saying that m/m is bad, or the fact that all m/m is, by nature, male-focused, is the bad thing. It sounds to me like what is being said is that certain m/m portions of fandom have written women in a misogynist fashion, and that, in and of itself, is a habit that some m/m slashers have gotten into, and that habit is wrong. Not that m/m in and of itself is wrong.

Re: here via metanews

[beccaelizabeth]

*points at last paragraph*

yes, that. I still like m/m, but there's corners where bad things happen.

Re: here via metanews

[havocthecat]

probably the majority of the fandoms in existence are het-focused.

That used to be the case! As beccaelizabeth pointed out, with graphics, it is no longer the case. It hasn't for a while. And while there are "many femslash fandoms," as you say, femslash ships still tend to be the minority compared to both het and m/m slash. If you write to get dozens of comments and kudos, honestly, femslash is not the place for you. That said, femslashers are a pretty welcoming bunch, for the most part, and do not tend to require that one is Only Ever A Femslasher, No Writing Dudes Allowed in order to call oneself a femslasher.

(Some of us just had this discussion recently. If you want to check out femslash, I can point in some of the directions on LJ and DW. Tumblr, not so much.)

Personally, I tend to write and read about the female characters, with a few exceptions to that rule. So I'm all for anyone who wants to do more of that, whether they continue to primarily write about men or not. And thank you to beccaelizabeth for examining and noting tendencies in a fandom type I'm not a part of.

Haven is a lovely series and absolutely wonderful when it comes to its treatment of Audrey Parker! I'm afraid it suffers terribly from a case of One Girl In All The World syndrome, however, as all the other women have either been put on a bus or killed off (or had their minds wiped) for one reason or another - and the only woman left on the series who isn't Audrey has become a villain and is being written as hating/jealous of Audrey due to a romantic rivalry with another man. Which. Very frustrating. Again, I love Haven and I've watched every episode of every season. But it absolutely makes my skin crawl when I see another woman brought onto the show, because I know exactly what's going to happen to her in the end.

If you want to watch a show that has one woman who makes friendships with other women and then loses them, but maintains her relationships with a bunch of men - all while investigating psychic abilities that are more curse than blessing and her own mysterious background - then Haven is the series for you. It definitely has a nice X-Files vibe to it; I know that I started watching it specifically because it reminded me of XF and had a lot of the things I liked, without the things about XF I didn't like.

I will say, the poly writers for Haven are, by and large, excellent and the fic tends to be well-balanced and doesn't shove one-third of the trio off to the side for a 'preferred' two-thirds.

(Hi, here from metanews. The volubility is all mine, though.)

[laisserais]

I just saw this great quote on tumblr about feminism. It perfectly encapsulates my thoughts about the current state of affairs in slash:

I also started realising that I’ve been a female misogynist my whole life, and had a lot of unlearning to do too. Change starts with eliminating the noxious parts of yourself you have internalised during socialisation in a misogynistic culture. Feminism isn’t just about stopping the abuse of women by men, it’s about stopping the abuse we do to ourselves and others by genuinely beginning to believe we deserve to be treated as less than human.

And internalized misogyny doesn't even have to be active hatred. It can just be an awareness that femininity is valued less than masculinity--so if you're a feminine person, you're anxious to divorce yourself from the perceived taint of femininity.

I think part of the prevalence of slash pairings is due to the fact that by having one character act as woman-proxy (fandom's little black dress characters, typically) women can read stories where two equals meet and fall in love and save the world. Whether or not we are aware of it, we've absorbed the message that women are for saving. In the overly simple binary construction, men are the heroes; women are mostly decorative.

And even though we know we are strong and independent, heroic maybe, even, I think we tend to feel isolated, like we're freaks or worse: we're failing at performing femininity by being strong and capable. So there's a touch of guilt there, as well. (Damned if we do, damned if we don't.)

By stripping all of that out of a character, there's like, an ideal fantasy that we can project ourselves onto? Obviously not totally consciously--this doesn't mean all fanfic is Mary Sue insert fic or anything. Just that the gender politics are nullified, or transmuted into sexual identity politics, which are easier to deal with. (and equally therapeutic, if the number of queer women in fandom is as large as it seems to be.)

Since the women on the tv share, to some degree, the 'taint' of femininity, it's pure escapist fantasy to erase them.

(here via metanews btw. Excellent post!

[baronjanus]

I do wonder if there's a tendency among femslashers to also brutally remove the women's boyfriend/husband/heterosexuality. I don't remember that, but then I have not touched femslash in about a decade, and things changed drastically.

[havocthecat]

Generally not, as a matter of fact. It happens sometimes - as it also happens sometimes in het with either gender of rival (usually women, I'll be honest) - but it's generally frowned upon and there has been negative talk about it for years.

[baronjanus]

Glad to know it's a nicer space :)
Mind, there's been negative talk about this post's topic too - the treatment of women by m/m slashers - for years, but things don't get that much better.

[havocthecat]

Oh, you're absolutely right about the fact that there's been talk about this post's topic for years. I've been one of the people doing the talking about that. I don't know whether it's gotten much better; I don't tend to read much m/m slash. But the fact is that m/m slashers are doing some of the talking about it now, and I find that highly encouraging.

[baronjanus]

No, no, what I meant is that m/m slahers have been ranting about this for years :) I was around for that (so was Becca, I'm sure), nodding and agreeing and trying to do better. And this was before the big boom of... I'm not even sure when and how it happened, but there's a lot more visibility and a LOT more people around now than there were. Which is cool! Very cool. But also means ancient discussions are brought up because it seems not enough had improved over the ages.


(my first hit on the random icon button wins again!)

[havocthecat]

I think a lot of the talk maybe was kept within m/m slasher circles, then, because I haven't heard about it from that direction until the past maybe five years. I'm glad that it's expanding! Because, like I said, I've been having this conversation for years myself, but until five years ago I was always told I was wrong and I didn't get it. And again, I've never thought that all m/m slashers are like that!

I would like to see a permanent level of improvement, though, and seeing the discussions become more visible always helps - or helps me feel better, at least.