Fanfic 'feminism': The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

[deathpixie]

A few links popped up on various friendslists recently, so I thought I'd compile them for people to read.


The Good is from Jezrana, on Insane Journal, who I found via a [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] post. Here, she brings some much needed sense to a very scary place.

The Bad: Dissenter (who seems to be the same [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] who comments first on the next link below), and her essay on slash as misogynistic. Jezrana's post is in response to this, which is the same pseudo-intellectual twaddle as the next post:

The Ugly: [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s post on Firefly as a propaganda vehicle for the male patriarchy, and in her comments states her belief that Joss Whedon rapes his wife, since anyone who wrote Firefly has to be the worst example of men ever.


Both Dissenter and _allecto_ have comment screening policies, in that they delete anything that contradicts their rather offensive drivel. I've always loathed this type of feminist, the sort that seems to believe the greatest sin anyone can commit is to be born male - if you have a penis, according to them, you have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. *grfs*

Comments

[doqz.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting case, because in many ways this woman is applying the same logic Joss does in his approach (http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271). But she's applying it to him and takes it to the logical absurd.

His own thesis is that: "Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished. (Objectification: another tangential rant avoided.) And the logical extension of this line of thinking is that women are, at the very least, expendable."

Implicitly he sees himself as fighting against that trend. This person basically goes a step farther and argues that he is intrinsically part of the mindset and he can't escape it even if he tries. (Presumably because he has the wrong plumbing)

P.S.
This is pretty much tantamount to me re-fighting old flame-wars on your dime. SO if you'd rather I nixed this and took this to my own LJ, let me know.

[deathpixie]

No, you're good - distraction is fine right now. :) And yeah, I did have that particular article of his in mind when I was reading this stuff, but I had a horrible internet connection over lunch and couldn't search for it. You don't still have it linked somewhere, do you?

But you're right - extremeism of any form is counter-productive, imo, because it only serves to alienate and infuriate those you're trying to get your message to. Mind you, I don't think _allecto_ is really trying to educate or illuminate - she's got the tone of someone wanting to cram her viewpoint down people's throats, regardless of what they might think.

[doqz.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it's more a case of preaching to the choir rather than proselytizing, but who knows.

And the link to Whedon's essay is in my post above, but also here:-) ---

http://whedonesque.com/comments/13271

[deathpixie]

Gah. Completely missed the link was there. My bad. Thanks.

And given they all comment on each other's posts, I think you're right about the preaching to the choir there. That kind of cliqueish self-congratulation always tarnishes an argument, imo, especially when you take steps to prevent a dissenting (pun not intended, hah!) opinion being presented.

[chandri.livejournal.com]

This person basically goes a step farther and argues that he is intrinsically part of the mindset and he can't escape it even if he tries.

Which interestingly, is the part that makes me want to grab these two and bang their heads together. Because implying that men can't escape any of their (ostensibly) biologically-ordained gender behaviours implies that women can't, either, that humans are immutably hardwired with such behaviours, which is as ridiculous as it is depressing. If Joss is intrinsicially part of the mindset because he's male, then isn't she, as a female, intrinsically part of the mindset of marriage/babies/makeup/high heels/need-a-boyfriend?

It makes steam pour out of my ears, because I prefer to think that the human brain is more flexible than that.

[doqz.livejournal.com]

It's a fairly popular approach in a number of disciplines, unfortunately. Personally I blame the late Edward Said who was largely responsible for introducing 'orientalism' into history departments in the 1970s.

He argued that any study of the Middle East not written by an Arabic scholar will automatically be prejudiced and reflect the innate ethnocentrism and colonialist attitudes of the authors, because they can never escape the memetic environment where they were brought up.

It became fairly popular with a number of scholars studying minorities - ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

It's a very tempting world-view. "If you are not one of us, you can never fully relate, you can never fully understand and you can never fully transcend the original sin of your ethnicity, gender, etc."

[seraangel.livejournal.com]

I'm always somewhat bewildered by that point of view. Anyone with more then a thimbleful of empathy can usually think their way around how others may feel. Yeah, you might have to do a bit more research then someone already in that culture but research isn't a horrible thing anyhow.

It was what always amused me about people who kept telling me I should write about what I knew rather then doing things like writing from the point of view of a World War 2 soldier (The story I had been writing at the time.) because I obviously had never been to war, so I wouldn't know what that was like.

In other words, people are dumb.