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]

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.

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.)

[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.