I really don't think it's a question of whether we slashers think a female character deserves a male character. At least that's not a reason I've seen expressed for not shipping a certain het couple.
No, in general male and female characters don't have the dynamic we like, and so we ship characters who we think do have that dynamic. That it's rarely a man and a woman says more about the state of modern western media than us fanficcers, I think.
There's also the joy of mixing things up and doing something that just isn't ever done in published fiction. I mean, it's not as if there's any lack of het in mainstream media - we can easily get our fill there (and most of us, I think, do).
Now, I'm not in any the fandoms you mentioned (though I did watch a bit of SG1 and found myself shipping Jack/Teal'c, which isn't exactly a popular pairing...) but I don't recognise the reasoning you've put up as examples. Not shipping a het couple because the female character isn't good enough for him is something I've never seen since the early days of Gundam Wing fandom (and even then the bashing soon was deemed unacceptable by the m/m part of the fandom).
Also, I'm really not convinced that the same people ship all those pairings you mentioned. I mean surely there are different people in each fandom! Though there's bound to be some overlap, of course.
"She's just not interesting enough for me to care about her."
"She's just doesn't have chemistry with the male lead."
Yeah, but these two reasons are actually not taken from thin air, you know. There are problems with how female characters are written, and ignoring that is not helping anyone.
Take Doctor Who, for example (a fandom I'm actually in); the Doctor (the male lead) has had three main Companions (all female) during the new series, and while they all have large followings (both as characters and in a Doctor/Companion romantic relationship) only the first one was implied to have been romantically loved by the Doctor, while the last one was the only one meant to have a strictly platonic relationship with him. Why? well, it's not as if they've told us, but the first two companions were very young and conventionally pretty (one of them was even breathtakingly beautiful), while the last one was in her thirties (still younger- well, younger-looking than the Doctor, though!), very attractive but not in a conventional way, and not as thin as the other two (still got a great figure, though).
Guess what I ship? Yeah, they've got a fantastic dynamic, exactly what I like, while I'm not very fond of the relationship we're supposed to feel for. But Doctor Who has a lot of female main characters with different personalities, so we actually have some variety for once, and aren't forced to accept the only option available (which is almost always the case otherwise).
I think Doctor Who has problems with sexism in the writing, but at least there are more than one or two female characters in it.
Here via metafandom
No, in general male and female characters don't have the dynamic we like, and so we ship characters who we think do have that dynamic. That it's rarely a man and a woman says more about the state of modern western media than us fanficcers, I think.
There's also the joy of mixing things up and doing something that just isn't ever done in published fiction. I mean, it's not as if there's any lack of het in mainstream media - we can easily get our fill there (and most of us, I think, do).
Now, I'm not in any the fandoms you mentioned (though I did watch a bit of SG1 and found myself shipping Jack/Teal'c, which isn't exactly a popular pairing...) but I don't recognise the reasoning you've put up as examples. Not shipping a het couple because the female character isn't good enough for him is something I've never seen since the early days of Gundam Wing fandom (and even then the bashing soon was deemed unacceptable by the m/m part of the fandom).
Also, I'm really not convinced that the same people ship all those pairings you mentioned. I mean surely there are different people in each fandom! Though there's bound to be some overlap, of course.
"She's just not interesting enough for me to care about her."
"She's just doesn't have chemistry with the male lead."
Yeah, but these two reasons are actually not taken from thin air, you know. There are problems with how female characters are written, and ignoring that is not helping anyone.
Take Doctor Who, for example (a fandom I'm actually in); the Doctor (the male lead) has had three main Companions (all female) during the new series, and while they all have large followings (both as characters and in a Doctor/Companion romantic relationship) only the first one was implied to have been romantically loved by the Doctor, while the last one was the only one meant to have a strictly platonic relationship with him. Why? well, it's not as if they've told us, but the first two companions were very young and conventionally pretty (one of them was even breathtakingly beautiful), while the last one was in her thirties (still younger- well, younger-looking than the Doctor, though!), very attractive but not in a conventional way, and not as thin as the other two (still got a great figure, though).
Guess what I ship? Yeah, they've got a fantastic dynamic, exactly what I like, while I'm not very fond of the relationship we're supposed to feel for. But Doctor Who has a lot of female main characters with different personalities, so we actually have some variety for once, and aren't forced to accept the only option available (which is almost always the case otherwise).
I think Doctor Who has problems with sexism in the writing, but at least there are more than one or two female characters in it.