writing women out of fanfic

[tielan]

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?

So these authors who don't write the female characters into their long, plotty stories are telling me there's no place they can use someone with a Pegasus upbringing, someone who can physically kick ass or handle a weapon, someone who has experience both in being calm and in getting angry, someone who can take the lead or sit back and let someone else take over, someone who has enough knowledge of technology to finish off Rodney's work, and who has enough knowledge of people to know how to refocus Rodney McKay without calling him names?

Are they telling me that women are useless in fanfic, when Teyla can do pretty much everything Lorne can do - and more besides - except give military characters a direct order which they must obey, and pee her name on a brick wall?

Or are they telling me there's no place they can use someone with the terrible va-ja-jay because if they did, the dicks might accidentally stray into them, causing massive brain breakage among hardcore slashfen? (Because no dick should ever be soiled with the evil va-ja-jay.)

*sigh* And now I'm fretting about the SGA genficathon and just how much "there is no Teyla in Team" we're going to see there.

Sure, there's loads of support for Teyla among the fans...but not too much of it seems to filter into fanfic. Fandom is okay with women in theory, just not in practice.

I suppose it could be seen as ironic that I don't get angry at TPTB half as much as I do at the fans for this kind of behaviour. However, TPTB are just men. Forty-to-fiftysomething men from another age and another time, writing in a male-dominated genre, in an all-male environment. It's not an excuse - nothing excuses the exorcism of women from narrative IMO - but it's a reason.

What's (female) fandom's reason for cutting women from the narrative in a female-dominated, female-populated environment, eh?

Today, I hate fandom.

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

Comments

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

But didn't you know, John and Rodney are the best things evah, OMG! *eyeroll*

Seriously though, if the story is specifically a pairing, then my expectations for involvement of other characters, be they female or not, is limited. I accept that McShep is probably not going to feature much of Ronon or Teyla. And expecting it to is probably not in the best interests of your sanity. We're talking about an area of fandom which mainly deals in smut - how do you get a woman into smut revolving around a male homosexual relationship? It's just a tad unrealistic to expect the same mileage for all characters all the time.

That said, when it comes to gen, fic still revolving around the two white males that fandom likes to imagine are fucking just annoys me. Not to say I haven't enjoyed some of them but good gen that services all the characters and does that well is about as rare as rocking horse turds. I learnt that if I want woman!fic in SGA, I read het or stuff by people who write good character pieces. A very sad reflection really.

One of the reasons I've not really engaged in debate about gender before is actually down to feminism. Every time I hear that word I hear someone blathering on about how women should be treated the same as men based on an antiquated view that female=male. No, they shouldn't, because physiology aside, women's brains do not work the same and women need different things than men. Don't get me wrong, I believe in gender equality 100% - women should have the right to go about their life how they see fit and not be discriminated against for having a vagina, amongst many issues - but I cannot stand large amounts of the diatribe I hear about feminism because so many of the people who subscribe to it talk such utter shite.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

We're talking about an area of fandom which mainly deals in smut - how do you get a woman into smut revolving around a male homosexual relationship?

Well, but there's a limit to this principle. There is some fic that is just PWP or otherwise is very limited in its ambition...but otherwise, if you're writing about characters, that necessarily involves dealing with, even if only indirectly, the people who are important to them in their day-to-day lives. People don't have sex in a vacuum (again, unless you're specifically writing the kind of story where they do--not actually a bad thing, but that's only a certain percentage of fic).

I used to write Ethan/Giles slash all the time back in BTVS, and Buffy was always an important presence in these stories--whether she was actually in the story or not! Giles's life was so much about her, it would have been ridiculous to pretend she wasn't a powerful influence on how he chose to deal with other aspects of his life. And given the amount of talk of "team love" one hears in SGA, it shouldn't be controversial to say that a story about John and Rodney getting together in any but the most limited sense in which Teyla (and Ronon) might as well not exist wouldn't be true to the characters.

[tielan]

Pairing fic is comprehensible in its exclusion to a certain degree, although it depends on the scenario, too.

If the story is long and set in Atlantis or in a situation where other people are present (or might reasonably be expected to be present) one would expect a certain degree of interaction and involvement. "No man is an island," etc, etc.

But I'm also talking about fics set in Atlantis, with a crisis in the city, and Teyla (and Ronon and Elizabeth) are set to one side, without even being enlisted to ask questions, provide support or conflict. I'm talking about fics that send Teyla (and Ronon) out of the picture for no reason other than that the author doesn't have the imagination or intelligence to think up a way to use her.

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

I love slash, but I also get bored with the prevalence of John/Rodney fic. I understand that there's may be little room for heavy Teyla characterization in a John/Rodney romance fic, but what about Team!fic?

I'm always kind of horrified when someone writes Team!Porn that explicitly excludes Teyla. Ronon, John, and Rodney are all in it and Teyla's totally absent? That makes no sense. the really shitty thing is that it's women who write the stuff that excludes female characters.

People will reply abd say that the reason for this is because Teyla and Weir aren't well-developed. Bullshit. I've seen tons of fic featuring Lorne and Zelenka and even Bates, so that theory doesn't hold water. The only reason for this rejection of women characters is some kind of sublimated misogyny within these female authors. They have an easier time getting into a man's head, because on some level they disdain what women think and feel.

[tielan]

on some level they disdain what women think and feel.

This could explain the reason that when fans move into slash, they never return to het. The perception is that het is merely "soppy romance" while slash is "cool and edgy".

You'll find this attitude reflected in a lot of slashers: "Oh, I used to write het, but I discovered the boylove and have never been back."

*growls*

It would be an interesting study, wouldn't it? To look at the psychological make-up of females in fandom who write het-and-slash compared to those who only write slash and see how they view themselves and their gender.

It reminds me of a reading I did in my final year of uni, actually. The author ran an experiment with 10 year old children and computers back in the mid-90s. When given a series of work to do, the girls tended to do the work while the boys deviated and played games on the computer.

She asked the teachers to interpret it, and the teachers' responses were largely, "well, the work must be too easy for the boys, so they go off and play games."

Intrigued by this, the author took the experiment to another set of teachers, but only gave them the data and swapped the results.

When faced with the knowledge that the boys were doing the work and the girls were playing games, the teachers said, "The work must be too hard for the girls, so they go off and play games instead."

Honestly. There's no winning if you're a woman.

[rhianona]

My boyfriend and I discuss women on Atlantis and SG quite a bit.
as he puts it, the creators seems to be filling a quota by showing "oh look! we have female characters in these amazing roles!" but are dishonest with what they are getting at. They are there but they are not used. As N put it "I don't know what they are doing with the women in SG. I blame crystal meth for it. Though they had plot lines involving exploding tumors, which I also blame on drug use."

So we have this character in Elizabeth who basically ends up doing nothing in the way she was meant to - i.e. diplomatic guru. And then there is Teyla who is a cliche and while has the potential to be interesting isn't really b/c she is not used.

One last funny, N asked me what I was doing and when I told him there was another hullabaloo about women and he said... you mean McKay?

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

From the desk of the Anthropology/Archaeology student:

Women have been written out of history for eons. Except for outstanding women like Cleopatra and Elizabeth #1, most women aren't ever mentioned. Women fought together with men during wars, had impact on politics, and societies in general.

Someone once remarked during a showing of the 2004 film "King Arthur" with Clive Owen, when women were seen on the battlefield that this was not true to history and they were pointed out how wrong they were. It was an excellent possible view of how things might have been and of the Arthur legend.

Men...wrote us out. Why... you're guess is as good as mine.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

'For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.' - Virginia Woolf

'Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history,
she learns she is worth less.' - Myra Pollack Sadker

Your comment reminded me of these quotes that I used in a West Wing fic.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

I wish I could write a big long post about how awesome you are and how I totally agree and how I'm pissed at fandom too, but my arms are fucking killing me (I have severe tendinitis in both of them) and I need to stop typing and get off the damn computer. So I will just say: ITA and thank you.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

Yes to all that, and it seems to happen in most fandoms.

I'm someone who centres on a female character - CJ (West Wing), Miss Parker (Pretender), Susan (B5), Elizabeth (SGA - sorry!)...could go on and on. They draw me in, it's the women (often a couple in a show, though I tend to focus on one) I relate to and see the world through.

I honestly don't understand the misogynistic river that runs through fandom.

[greenconverses.livejournal.com]

Rage on, feminist, rage on.

I have nothing to add at the moment, but I suspect I may soon. Just dropping by to give this post a hearty endorsement of WORD.

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

See, I can understand "Sheppard & McKay show yayness" on the male perspective, coming from a few male SG1/SGA fans I know who don't care for Teyla for example, and just by mere percentages a proportion of females who happen to be the same sounds reasonable but you're right, it's an overwhelming percentage and I don't think the prevailing fandom bias can be explained purely by the two male leads having more backstory or even just the love for male slashing.

It's quite odd and rather concerning to see TPTB behaviour of not doing much with female character not just mirrored in fandom but in fact amplified. :(

[fishphile.livejournal.com]

I do think this has some weird comment on how women view themselves in this society, especially those inclined to SF fandom.

Incidently, the original post comment is how I feel about people of color in fandom, but that's another story.

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's a whole other subject. Another that's slow to change.

I think it comes down to who the shows are presented for. TPTB think they're writing for the male populus, age 15-25. So, the women usually don't have too much of a place on the show, except as tokens. This also applies to people of color. This is one reason I always loved Carter, whom they have kinda stripped of all strengths on Atlantis. Teyla is also strong, but she's on a leash, so to speak.

Personally, I believe a lot of the fandom out there are young, male and female, barely skirting thru the Mary Sue syndrome. When those stories are not accepted, they write around it. There is a huge chasim between these stories and some of the great writing I've had the pleasure of reading. Reading one of those fics is like getting a stink bug on my tongue. Same reaction and the distaste lasts forever. (The things you discover while working on a dig...)

THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY. Please do not slash and burn me because of it.

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

I forgot to add, I watch SG-1 for the whole team, but in the beginning I watched it for the serious eye candy, Michael Shanks and then Ben Browder. If the character Daniel Jackson had been less of the accurate portrayal of an anthropologist/archaeologist, I would have stopped. But, he is and I never have.

With Atlantis, the reason I watched was the character of John Sheppard. What got to me was not the fact that he is serious eye candy, but the story in the beginning. He was so lost and alone, I wanted to know more. I felt for him. The angst was very thick. And, I loved it. Being a geek, most of my friends thought I'd click with the geek characters of McKay and Zelenka. I do, but John is sooo much more angsty.

I love Carter, Teyla, Keller (although I really miss Carson, who was an ideal man, kind, sensitive...)and Elizabeth. All strong female characters, who are rarely allowed to demonstrate how strong they are.

This is to please the viewers TPTB think are watching. I wish they'd paid attention when Ben Browder said during SG-1, ...the viewers are intelligent, sensitive people you shouldn't underestimate... or something to that effect...

[tielan]

Regarding "who TPTB think are watching and who's watching," I think that fandom makes up a very small microcosm of the actual viewerage for a show.

Fandom would have, what, several thousand people in it? Maybe up to a hundred thousand people (globally) who take a further interest in the show than merely watching it each week?

The viewership of the show is probably in the region of a couple of million people. That's people who switch their TV on from week to week, then switch it off at the end of the show and never think further about it other than to wonder what's going to happen next week.

So I think that "the fans" are a very different group to "the viewers".

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Very good points!

I was going to nod thoughtfully and act relieved about the fact that my co-written epic SGA fic featured pretty much only het and femslash, both explicit, but when I looked at your example of Teyla, I did realise that she was the only one who didn't get to have sex in our epic. And while I'm fairly certain it's not about Auburn's and my automatic distaste for vaginas (check these lj interests (http://auburnnotlisa.livejournal.com/profile)), I'm torn at what else this says about us--someone in the Team had to take her unwilling position in the story we wrote, and I don't think it would've been better to make Ronon the one to switch sexes and then refuse all intercourse, but still. Hmm.

[beanie-j.livejournal.com]

But didn't you know, John and Rodney are the best things evah, OMG! *eyeroll*

Seriously though, if the story is specifically a pairing, then my expectations for involvement of other characters, be they female or not, is limited. I accept that McShep is probably not going to feature much of Ronon or Teyla. And expecting it to is probably not in the best interests of your sanity. We're talking about an area of fandom which mainly deals in smut - how do you get a woman into smut revolving around a male homosexual relationship? It's just a tad unrealistic to expect the same mileage for all characters all the time.

That said, when it comes to gen, fic still revolving around the two white males that fandom likes to imagine are fucking just annoys me. Not to say I haven't enjoyed some of them but good gen that services all the characters and does that well is about as rare as rocking horse turds. I learnt that if I want woman!fic in SGA, I read het or stuff by people who write good character pieces. A very sad reflection really.

One of the reasons I've not really engaged in debate about gender before is actually down to feminism. Every time I hear that word I hear someone blathering on about how women should be treated the same as men based on an antiquated view that female=male. No, they shouldn't, because physiology aside, women's brains do not work the same and women need different things than men. Don't get me wrong, I believe in gender equality 100% - women should have the right to go about their life how they see fit and not be discriminated against for having a vagina, amongst many issues - but I cannot stand large amounts of the diatribe I hear about feminism because so many of the people who subscribe to it talk such utter shite.

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

We're talking about an area of fandom which mainly deals in smut - how do you get a woman into smut revolving around a male homosexual relationship?

Well, but there's a limit to this principle. There is some fic that is just PWP or otherwise is very limited in its ambition...but otherwise, if you're writing about characters, that necessarily involves dealing with, even if only indirectly, the people who are important to them in their day-to-day lives. People don't have sex in a vacuum (again, unless you're specifically writing the kind of story where they do--not actually a bad thing, but that's only a certain percentage of fic).

I used to write Ethan/Giles slash all the time back in BTVS, and Buffy was always an important presence in these stories--whether she was actually in the story or not! Giles's life was so much about her, it would have been ridiculous to pretend she wasn't a powerful influence on how he chose to deal with other aspects of his life. And given the amount of talk of "team love" one hears in SGA, it shouldn't be controversial to say that a story about John and Rodney getting together in any but the most limited sense in which Teyla (and Ronon) might as well not exist wouldn't be true to the characters.

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

I love slash, but I also get bored with the prevalence of John/Rodney fic. I understand that there's may be little room for heavy Teyla characterization in a John/Rodney romance fic, but what about Team!fic?

I'm always kind of horrified when someone writes Team!Porn that explicitly excludes Teyla. Ronon, John, and Rodney are all in it and Teyla's totally absent? That makes no sense. the really shitty thing is that it's women who write the stuff that excludes female characters.

People will reply abd say that the reason for this is because Teyla and Weir aren't well-developed. Bullshit. I've seen tons of fic featuring Lorne and Zelenka and even Bates, so that theory doesn't hold water. The only reason for this rejection of women characters is some kind of sublimated misogyny within these female authors. They have an easier time getting into a man's head, because on some level they disdain what women think and feel.

[tielan]

on some level they disdain what women think and feel.

This could explain the reason that when fans move into slash, they never return to het. The perception is that het is merely "soppy romance" while slash is "cool and edgy".

You'll find this attitude reflected in a lot of slashers: "Oh, I used to write het, but I discovered the boylove and have never been back."

*growls*

It would be an interesting study, wouldn't it? To look at the psychological make-up of females in fandom who write het-and-slash compared to those who only write slash and see how they view themselves and their gender.

It reminds me of a reading I did in my final year of uni, actually. The author ran an experiment with 10 year old children and computers back in the mid-90s. When given a series of work to do, the girls tended to do the work while the boys deviated and played games on the computer.

She asked the teachers to interpret it, and the teachers' responses were largely, "well, the work must be too easy for the boys, so they go off and play games."

Intrigued by this, the author took the experiment to another set of teachers, but only gave them the data and swapped the results.

When faced with the knowledge that the boys were doing the work and the girls were playing games, the teachers said, "The work must be too hard for the girls, so they go off and play games instead."

Honestly. There's no winning if you're a woman.

[rhianona]

My boyfriend and I discuss women on Atlantis and SG quite a bit.
as he puts it, the creators seems to be filling a quota by showing "oh look! we have female characters in these amazing roles!" but are dishonest with what they are getting at. They are there but they are not used. As N put it "I don't know what they are doing with the women in SG. I blame crystal meth for it. Though they had plot lines involving exploding tumors, which I also blame on drug use."

So we have this character in Elizabeth who basically ends up doing nothing in the way she was meant to - i.e. diplomatic guru. And then there is Teyla who is a cliche and while has the potential to be interesting isn't really b/c she is not used.

One last funny, N asked me what I was doing and when I told him there was another hullabaloo about women and he said... you mean McKay?

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

From the desk of the Anthropology/Archaeology student:

Women have been written out of history for eons. Except for outstanding women like Cleopatra and Elizabeth #1, most women aren't ever mentioned. Women fought together with men during wars, had impact on politics, and societies in general.

Someone once remarked during a showing of the 2004 film "King Arthur" with Clive Owen, when women were seen on the battlefield that this was not true to history and they were pointed out how wrong they were. It was an excellent possible view of how things might have been and of the Arthur legend.

Men...wrote us out. Why... you're guess is as good as mine.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

'For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.' - Virginia Woolf

'Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history,
she learns she is worth less.' - Myra Pollack Sadker

Your comment reminded me of these quotes that I used in a West Wing fic.

[raksha38.livejournal.com]

I wish I could write a big long post about how awesome you are and how I totally agree and how I'm pissed at fandom too, but my arms are fucking killing me (I have severe tendinitis in both of them) and I need to stop typing and get off the damn computer. So I will just say: ITA and thank you.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

Yes to all that, and it seems to happen in most fandoms.

I'm someone who centres on a female character - CJ (West Wing), Miss Parker (Pretender), Susan (B5), Elizabeth (SGA - sorry!)...could go on and on. They draw me in, it's the women (often a couple in a show, though I tend to focus on one) I relate to and see the world through.

I honestly don't understand the misogynistic river that runs through fandom.

[greenconverses.livejournal.com]

Rage on, feminist, rage on.

I have nothing to add at the moment, but I suspect I may soon. Just dropping by to give this post a hearty endorsement of WORD.

[missyvortexdv.livejournal.com]

See, I can understand "Sheppard & McKay show yayness" on the male perspective, coming from a few male SG1/SGA fans I know who don't care for Teyla for example, and just by mere percentages a proportion of females who happen to be the same sounds reasonable but you're right, it's an overwhelming percentage and I don't think the prevailing fandom bias can be explained purely by the two male leads having more backstory or even just the love for male slashing.

It's quite odd and rather concerning to see TPTB behaviour of not doing much with female character not just mirrored in fandom but in fact amplified. :(

[fishphile.livejournal.com]

I do think this has some weird comment on how women view themselves in this society, especially those inclined to SF fandom.

Incidently, the original post comment is how I feel about people of color in fandom, but that's another story.

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's a whole other subject. Another that's slow to change.

I think it comes down to who the shows are presented for. TPTB think they're writing for the male populus, age 15-25. So, the women usually don't have too much of a place on the show, except as tokens. This also applies to people of color. This is one reason I always loved Carter, whom they have kinda stripped of all strengths on Atlantis. Teyla is also strong, but she's on a leash, so to speak.

Personally, I believe a lot of the fandom out there are young, male and female, barely skirting thru the Mary Sue syndrome. When those stories are not accepted, they write around it. There is a huge chasim between these stories and some of the great writing I've had the pleasure of reading. Reading one of those fics is like getting a stink bug on my tongue. Same reaction and the distaste lasts forever. (The things you discover while working on a dig...)

THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY. Please do not slash and burn me because of it.

[ninja007.livejournal.com]

I forgot to add, I watch SG-1 for the whole team, but in the beginning I watched it for the serious eye candy, Michael Shanks and then Ben Browder. If the character Daniel Jackson had been less of the accurate portrayal of an anthropologist/archaeologist, I would have stopped. But, he is and I never have.

With Atlantis, the reason I watched was the character of John Sheppard. What got to me was not the fact that he is serious eye candy, but the story in the beginning. He was so lost and alone, I wanted to know more. I felt for him. The angst was very thick. And, I loved it. Being a geek, most of my friends thought I'd click with the geek characters of McKay and Zelenka. I do, but John is sooo much more angsty.

I love Carter, Teyla, Keller (although I really miss Carson, who was an ideal man, kind, sensitive...)and Elizabeth. All strong female characters, who are rarely allowed to demonstrate how strong they are.

This is to please the viewers TPTB think are watching. I wish they'd paid attention when Ben Browder said during SG-1, ...the viewers are intelligent, sensitive people you shouldn't underestimate... or something to that effect...

[tielan]

Regarding "who TPTB think are watching and who's watching," I think that fandom makes up a very small microcosm of the actual viewerage for a show.

Fandom would have, what, several thousand people in it? Maybe up to a hundred thousand people (globally) who take a further interest in the show than merely watching it each week?

The viewership of the show is probably in the region of a couple of million people. That's people who switch their TV on from week to week, then switch it off at the end of the show and never think further about it other than to wonder what's going to happen next week.

So I think that "the fans" are a very different group to "the viewers".

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Very good points!

I was going to nod thoughtfully and act relieved about the fact that my co-written epic SGA fic featured pretty much only het and femslash, both explicit, but when I looked at your example of Teyla, I did realise that she was the only one who didn't get to have sex in our epic. And while I'm fairly certain it's not about Auburn's and my automatic distaste for vaginas (check these lj interests (http://auburnnotlisa.livejournal.com/profile)), I'm torn at what else this says about us--someone in the Team had to take her unwilling position in the story we wrote, and I don't think it would've been better to make Ronon the one to switch sexes and then refuse all intercourse, but still. Hmm.