writing women out of fanfic

I remember thassalia from SG1 fandom, vaguely.

She's posted a meta about women and the removal of them from fanfic - you know, the stories where John and Rodney are the Best Things Evah, or where there's no 'Teyla' in Team?

I get a little angry when I put forth my "if there are no women" in the story hypothesis and get the "it's about the story not the gender" argument in return because the truth is that we as a society constantly strip women from the story. We as storytellers strip women from the story, and as viewers and readers, when we accept that, we're complicit. We allow mothers to be absent, lovers to only exist in context with the men in their lives, women to exist at the edges of the story and not at the heart.

And later,

We tell these stories, and we, in fandom, celebrate these stories of women, but we also deny them in equal measure everytime we write them out of the narrative.

This is probably why I have very little patience for the John&Rodney BFF genre, and only marginally more for the John/Teyla "reads like an 'insert the names here' romance novel" stories.

I'll bet that more people have written Teyla (or Elizabeth) out of the longer, plotty stories that could have reasonably contained them, but claimed that "it's all about the story and there's no place for the women."

"There's no place for the women?"

( Doubleyew-tee-eff? )

Today, I hate fandom.

Yes, greenconverses, this is my feminist rage. My feminist rage, let me show you it...

fic: "Pegasus Ascendant" - G

TITLE: Pegasus Ascendant
AUTHOR: Tielan
SUMMARY: What if the Wraith had never existed?
CATEGORY: AU, gen
RATING: G
NOTES: Written for the sga_flashfic 'Second Verse' challenge with some serious reduxing being done here. I've always wanted to write this kind of story, flipping everything on its head. It's been great to actually be challenged to do so!

There's probably more coming - I have a storyline laid out, whether I continue it mostly depends on whether I can find the time to develop it properly.

( Pegasus Ascendant: Welcome To The City )