Fandom, Feminism, and Socialization

[lotesse]

I've been trying to understand why feminist critique, both in fandom and outside of it, has such potential to cause me pain. Because I know that it's necessary, god above I do, and I wouldn't banish it for the world. But I do get that sinking, painful, want-to-look-away-now feeling, and I'm not usre that I like it.

This semester has been one of major feminist conflict for me. I have an instinctive attraction to the feminism of women like Virginia Woolf, Emma Goldman, Carol Gilligan, and Ursula LeGuin--the idea that women should not have to turn to the yang side of things to be good feminists, the idea that there is another way of doing things that has traditionally been alotted to women that's worth hanging on to.

Gilligan is a perfect example of this: she points out that men and women tend to view moral dilemmas differently, men focussing on rights and women on responsibilities. Only men's way of thinking has been regarded as correct and/or mature by the psychological establishment. Gilligan argues that the other way, the one that has traditionally been sociallized to the female role, is just as valid. LeGuin does this, too. She talks about writing with the female voice, tellling the yin-ish stories. And I like this idea. This feels like somewhere where I belong. Because I do, as a person, value caretaking above individual achievment. Heck, I'm a socialist. Something Le Guin mentions: the story has been definied (by men) as a thing with a conflict, something that moves the way a thrown spear does. She rejects this, talks about the novel as a vessel, as a carrier bag, something to tuck bits of things into.

Okay, all well and good. but a lot of these ideas are criticized as being part of feminist backlash, trying to tie women to the domestic role again. And I want to say, "no, really they aren't. All women don't have to be like this, it's just that I am, and I don't want to be devalued for it." But I can see their point. And it makes me oh so anxious.

Perhaps it's that I vehemently don't want to be part of the problem. I see the reality of sexism, and I want to make it better. I want to help. And I hate feeling like I'm supporting the misogynists by being the way I am.

Or maybe it goes even deeper, to a desire to not be controlled. I hate the idea that all these things that I think and feel, that I think are me, are really the result of my brainwashing at the hands of those who I would oppose. I want my thoughts to belong to me, not to someone else. And yet I know that there are women who have stuck their heads in the sand and refused to recognized the reality of sexism, and I know that they impede the progress of feminism. It happens. but I don't want it to happen.

I don't want my pleasures to turn out to be guilty ones. When LeGuin or C.S. Lewis or even my own darling Tolkien makes me happy, I don't want to think that it si only so because my thoughts and feelings are not my own. Re-reading Anne, I realized that Anne's life made me happy, and wasn't that horrible, because she goes to college and all but then goes back home to raise six kids and Gilbert gets to have a career. I felt this pang of anger towards myself for enjoying this portrait of the feminine mystique. And then I thought that LeGuin would talk about writing motherhood, writing the yin story, that Gilligan would talk about the fact that Anne chose to help individulas rather than fight the system, and that it maybe wasn't so horrible after all.

The end of the matter is that the things that make me happy, the images and dreams that I most cherish, are not going to be acceptable to a certain brand of feminism. And that makes me very, very afraid, because the success of the feminist movement is something very dear to my heart. And when the things that I love are accused of sexism, it's going to freak me out, because it will plunge me into re-evaluating myself. Someone over on miriam_heddy's journal brought up shaving, but for me the equivalence isn't there. I know that, when I do shave, I'm caving to social pressure. I don't do it often, but I recognize that it makes me far less likely to wear skirts. I know my motivations in that scenario. I'm not acting with complete courage, perhaps, but I'm certainly not deluding myself. And it's that delusion that I worry about, that I will do anything to end.

If the things that I love are sexist, if I love them for the wrong reasons, then I regard that as something I must change. Because I am determined to lead the self-examined life.

Comments

[nocash.livejournal.com]

Also, I can't think of anything more stereotypically feminine than writing slash fiction in an effort to remove the threatening element of both sex. And the fact that you're using other people's characters for your gay porn is removing the threatening element from writing fiction.

[lotesse]

For the last time, this has nothing to do with anyone else's thought but my own. Why is it that self-evaluation seems to be so hard to grasp? No one has told me that I'm a bad feminist. I'm just trying to find my own way.

I don't want to listen to anybody's dogma.

Ooh, ooh, I want to be first!

[perotine.livejournal.com]

You're a bad feminist.

I doubt I'll be the last.

Also please learn what the word "ad hominem" means

((HUGS))

[lotesse]

Also? I write het. and femslash. I've written some slash, but nothing explicit. I prefer to examine women's bodies and minds.

[nocash.livejournal.com]

My well-reasoned disdain notwithstanding, there are many more female fanfiction authors than male ones, in my experience.


Try making your own characters.

[hyel.livejournal.com]

You try stop being an asshole.

Also, come troll me here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/hyel/779595.html), please, and stop trolling Lotesse who never did anything to you. I'll be willing to go through the old tired discussion about fanfiction there too. Come on.

OR IS THIS SPAM TOO?!

[emmaone.livejournal.com]

as a matter of semantics, he's not trolling you. i am fairly sure that he belives in the arguments he is presenting, and it is not being done just to make you react in a certain ridiculous way. debate != trolling

Re: OR IS THIS SPAM TOO?!

[lotesse]

No, I think that it is trolling, although far more benign than some that I've seen.

For one thing, this topic is not about fanfic. It's not even about writing or by necessity, fandom. So by popping up and talking about how fanfic sucks or is inferior or whatever, nocash is both being unwarrantedly offensive and derailing the conversation.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

lotesseflower, I apologize if you're not looking for further debate in your journal, but I came over here from hyel and I felt moved to respond.

Dear nocash:

I can't think of anything more stereotypically feminine than writing slash fiction in an effort to remove the threatening element of both sex.

That is a profound misapprehension of slash, rather than an accurate summation, and it suggests to me that you have no familiarity with it, either practically, through reading or writing, or academically, through the studies of Henry Jenkins and others. Or possibly that you have read it dismissvely and contemptuously rather than with an unbiased critical eye.

And the fact that you're using other people's characters for your gay porn is removing the threatening element from writing fiction.

The moment you trot out the "other people's characters" strawman in an argument like this, everyone in a hundred mile radius gives a giant yawn and disregards you.

[nocash.livejournal.com]

They do?

that baby is so cute (and tired of your bullshit!)

[emmaone.livejournal.com]

god NOCASH didn't you know that trotting out valid points is way boring
as an aside I have no idea what is at www.friendsofjesuschrist.com but I'm too tired to find out

Re: that baby is so cute (and tired of your bullshit!)

[middlebrowwatch.livejournal.com]

that baby is bruised.

Re: that baby is so cute (and tired of your bullshit!)

[emmaone.livejournal.com]

i'll bruise your damn face

or am i being too masculine

vrooooooooooooooooooooooom

Re: that baby is so cute (and tired of your bullshit!)

[cesario.livejournal.com]

And the fact that you're using other people's characters for your gay porn is removing the threatening element from writing fiction.

I will allow that you were probably not aware that this is a debate the fic writing community has engaged in a million times, so for the sake of my good name I will address your point.

1) Fanfiction cannot be accurately characterized as gay porn. A majority of it is not pornographic, nor does it involve homosexual relationships. And when there are gay relationships and pornographic elements? Those things do not in themselves invalidate the quality of the story.

2.) The threatening element of writing fiction is present whenever you sit down to write. Using characters who were initially conceived by other people does not make the job of writing a good story any easier. Writing story about another person's character involves discovering some new truth about them and their situation.

Ahab's Wife, if you didn't know it, is fanfiction. So is Wide Sargasso Sea, and many other books featuring characters that were originally the conception of another author.

[perotine.livejournal.com]

Oh man. So first he doesn't actually understand what your hawt gay porn (don't tell me it's otherwise) is, and secondly you bring out the OMG STRAWMAN? No one worth their salt will ever read slash fiction with "an unbiased critical eye". Call it a way of knowing the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Nocash's point is absolutely right and should be addressed as such. What Lotesse and everyone like her is doing is pseudo-writing because they don't have the skill or the courage to put their minds to actual fiction.

[lotesse]

Do you doubt that I write what I say I write? My fic is all here.

Fandom exists separately from original fiction. Fanfic is not motivated by the same desires as original writing. Personally, I'm not terribly interested in original fiction. i'm an academic and an editor. But I enjoy the online fanfic community, and fic is pretty fun, and whatever.

[ghost-whisper.livejournal.com]

No one worth their salt will ever read slash fiction with "an unbiased critical eye". Call it a way of knowing the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Wow, can you say predjudiced much? You might as well be saying that no one who drinks wine can do so with any ounce of professionalism (Because OMG they must be an alchoholic!1!) Nice to know that we can still find intolerance in fandom, and the breed hasn't gone extinct.

Judging the quality of someone else's writing by what they choose to write about, how they choose to write, and/or their beliefs, especially when the probability is high that you haven't read any of it, isn't going to make you been taken seriously. Then again, I suppose we know where the comment about not reading slahs with a critical eye comes from. Rather than lacking the critical eye, you lack the reading skill.

By the way, I have to wonder if the childish need to go piss in someone else's sandbox was prompted by jealousy.

[perotine.livejournal.com]

Um, you might want to check the timestamp before you go off about "reading skill", darling. And everyone has read this chick's trash; it was debuted at www.reallybadfanfiction.com to great fanfare.

Comparing slash to wine-tasting has just nullified any possibility of your ever being taken seriously. Congratulations.

[perotine.livejournal.com]

The fact is you're refusing to acknowledge that writing original fiction is apparently too scary for people like Lotesseflower and yourself, which is amusing but also kind of sad.

In regards to your "publication" argument: Atlanta Nights was published. QED.

[cesario.livejournal.com]

I like that you chose to delete my comment from your journal and reply to it here so that no one can see the points I made in my entry and judge your response to it for themselves. Very classy.

Otherwise, anyone who read your comment would see that you chose to ignore me when I said that most of us do write original fiction.

And it is true that crap is published. I wasn't making a quality judgement on the work by fic writers which has been published. I was merely pointing out that they are, clearly, writing original fiction.

[middlebrowwatch.livejournal.com]

the main reason fan fiction has no value to anyone except frumpy lonely people is cause only shitty characters are used. Wheres the story where Addison Dewitt, John Shade,and the Underground man join forces to buy Charlie Brown a nicer christmas tree.

[perotine.livejournal.com]

Yes, I chose to ignore you because I don't care about your original fiction. I care about your idea that your dearly beloved slashfic is somehow and in any way worth valuing as anything other than crap. That said, I'm not the one writing gay sex fanfiction, so I'm pretty sure I'm still a coupe hundred notches above you on the Class-O-Meter.

[lotesse]

cesario, welcome. I'm glad you're willing to debate this one. I was planning on just ignoring it. I've had this conversation a few too many times over the years. But if you want to take them on, you've my blessing.

[middlebrowwatch.livejournal.com]

so i guess that means you wont let me use your cunt as an ashtray? :(

[capn-jil.livejournal.com]

gay marry me nocash