Last week, mlawski at Overthinking It posted a graphic titled The Female Character Flow Chart. I saw it, thought, “Huh, interesting,” and that was that. Then a couple of days later one of my friends posted me towards some criticism of it, leading to discussion and more thinking on my part.

I was surprised to see so much commentary on it because it never occurred to me that the chart was aimed at someone like me, who already spends time thinking about the representation of women in the media. I don’t think good intentions (which I assume mlawski had) or intended audience arguments excuse all flaws (more on those in a second), but I definitely read the chart as intended for readers who hadn’t already thought about women in the media. I could certainly see someone running across this who hadn’t noticed those problematic tropes, the lack of dynamic female characters, or that many, many female characters are defined solely by their relationships to men and children could have an eye-opening, “aha!” moment.

Regardless of who it’s aimed at, I don’t think anyone’s wrong for reading it critically. There are two different braches of criticism that I’ve seen (though I haven’t looked around extensively; I haven’t even read the comments on the original post, since I looked at the post when it first went up, ages before the comment count rose). One is about the privilege and lack of nuance in the chart; the other is about the chart as reductionist when it comes to the characters in question.

The first, I can’t put any better than this post from homasse at deadbrowalking:

A wee bit down on this mess of a flowchart, you will find “Useless Girl” with the example being Uhura from Star Trek.

And why is this fail? Because, once again, feminism shows a woeful lack of awareness of race and the impact race plays.

Uhura was “useless” not because of her gender, but because of race–this chart ignores the political and social situation of when the show was made and the decisions made in regards to her character because she was Black: They couldn’t ever put her in charge of the bridge because people in the south specifically would have flipped out at a black woman being in charge (this was why Ensign Chekov was given the bridge and she never was even though she outranked him).

I’d also like to point out bossymarmalade’s post about Yoko Ono, someone who I consider awesome. It sucks to see people buy into the cultural storyline that she broke up the Beatles, when that is just false, and further, when she’s great.¹

So yes, I think there are some problems with the chart in that regard, and I’m glad people pointed them out. But I don’t entirely agree with the argument about the chart being reductionist, and diminishing the characters who are on it. Or rather — I do, kind of. The best way to put it was something said by my friend Jess: “Basically, if that one box ending in ‘strong female character’ wasn’t there, I’d like the chart a lot better.”

For me, that sums it up. I think the chart actually branches out into a lot more specifics than I’d use if I made something like it — like, there are multiple slots for women whose motivations come entirely from their kids — but the main problem I have is that any one of these slots/archetypes/clichés/whatever you want to call them can indeed be written well. They can be thorough, three dimensional, story-carrying, awesome characters.

My go-to example is Sarah Connor. Sarah is listed the character representing “Mama Bear.” And when I saw that, I went “a-yup.” TV Tropes has her listed as both a Mama Bear and Action Mom. The first Terminator movie is based on this premise: Sarah Connor must live, because her son saves the world. Not “Sarah Connor must live because she saves the world.” While she’s the awesome character, the series is always about her (at that point unborn) son. When we next see her in T2, she’s had John, and devoted herself to preparing him for his fate — and keeping him safe. When he rescues her, an act that explicitly saves her life, she scolds him for putting himself in danger. She’ll do anything, up to and including sacrificing herself, if it saves John. While Sarah is the protagonist of the first two movies, her motivation — the entire premise of the series — is based on protecting John.

The thing is, though, that Sarah is awesome. In the first movie, she grows from damsel-in-need-of-rescue to bandaging injuries and learning to make bombs. She’s the one who finally destroys the Terminator. She has help along the way, but she’s still a character who learns skills and saves herself. In T2, she’s even more complex. She’s in an institution because people believe she’s insane, but we as viewers know she’s right. But being right doesn’t make her entirely mentally able, though — it’s clear she’s got PTSD or something akin to it (and understandably). She’s amazingly kick-ass (her escape is my favorite sequence in the movie) and morally complex. We know she’d kill someone to save John, but she isn’t able to kill Miles Dyson, though she thinks doing so will keep Skynet from existing — and though she expects herself to be able to do it. And that’s without even getting into the sadly too-short lived TV show.²

Sarah Connor is a great character. She’s three dimensional and dynamic. She’s capable of carrying a story. But as much as I’d be all over a the story about how Sarah Connor must live so she can lead humanity in the battle against Skynet, I don’t know that it would necessarily be a better story than Sarah trying to save her son. Different, yes; certainly unusual. But Sarah Connor is both an Action Mama Bear and a great character. (And further, just because Sarah Connor is great doesn’t mean there aren’t other characters who fall into that slot who aren’t poorly written, or that the Mama Bear archetype is never problematic.)

The way I see it, while there are indeed plenty of archetypes and tropes out there that are problematic simply for existing — racist and sexist stereotypes, for example, which come up all too frequently — once you’re beyond those,³ just because a character (female or otherwise) hits an archetype doesn’t mean the character is poorly drawn.

A few weeks ago, my very smart friend Jen mentioned on Twitter that she was reading Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. My reactions, in order, were, “Awesome!” and, “Really?” Because (aside from superhero stories) Jen is not much for my beloved scifi/fantasy genres. So while I’d classify The Hunger Games as “book that you should read regardless of genre,” it wasn’t something I’d have recommended to her.

We had the following exchange:

Me: Ooooh. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts, though I probably wouldn’t have recced it to you.
Jen: I love dystopias! And I loved the movie of Battle Royale. So I think I will like this.
Me: How did I not know that about you??? (I guess I think dystopia = scifi = not so much your interest?)
Jen: I don’t see dystopia as sci-fi; if anything, it’s the reverse of historical fiction, which I also love.
Me: That is really interesting! I tend to think of it as just a sf subgenre, but I can see why you don’t.

Interesting thought, filed away for “things to think about later,” though I never really did. Until I ran across this post on io9 in Google Reader. I clicked over because that was the first time I’d seen a cover or title for the final book in Wasserman’s Skinned series — which I will definitely buy in hardcover as soon as it comes out — and the actual post turned out to be a question of whether or not YA has moved on from scifi.

My initial reaction is, um, no, especially not given the fantastic success of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, as well as Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy, and a handful of others. But the post posits that the argument for YA not being big on scifi right now is based on not counting dystopias like the ones I just mentioned as science fiction. Interesting, especially because almost all of the YA scifi I can think of — at least published recently — is very near-future, is dystopian, or both.

Innnnnnteresting. So if you have thoughts, please throw them out in the comments! Do you consider dystopian novels part of a larger science fiction genre, or are they their own beast? Does it depend on the story? (Any recs? Because I need a longer reading list…)

So, speaking of what is big in YA, an interesting link: Girls Just Wanna Have Fangs:

Twilight is more than a teen dream. It’s a massive cultural force. Yet the very girliness that has made it such a success has resulted in its being marginalized and mocked. Of course, you won’t find many critics lining up to defend Dan Brown or Tom Clancy, either; mass-market success rarely coincides with literary acclaim. But male escapist fantasies — which, as anyone who has seen Die Hard or read those Tom Clancy novels can confirm, are not unilaterally sophisticated, complex, or forward-thinking — tend to be greeted with shrugs, not sneers. The Twilight backlash is vehement, and it is just as much about the fans as it is about the books. Specifically, it’s about the fact that those fans are young women.



I’m no fan of Twilight, but that’s not really what the article is about. It isn’t a question of whether Twilight is good or bad, it’s about why Twilight fans are greeted with sneers and disdain. Hint: because girls like it. And quality and content of the novels aside, that’s not an okay reason to dismiss them.

And continuing in that vein, tween stars. Jen (the same Jen as above) passed on a link she realized would be relevant to my interests: Smells Like an Ethnically Divided Teen Star System

The editor who chose to display the photos in this manner might argue it was simply artful to play up contrasts. And it’s not to argue that the “ethnic” stars have particularly dark skin (this is Hollywood, after all), just that they are racialized as not exactly white, and the positioning next to “whiter” stars makes this assertion stronger. Moreover, the juxtaposition eerily echoes the way in which leaked gossip in 2008 characterized Selena Gomez and Hannah Montana actress and singer Miley Cyrus (the arguably All-American daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus) as unfriendly rivals and ultimately positioned Gomez and purported BFF Demi Lovato, another Disney actress and singer also of half-Mexican heritage, in a separate camp from their more EuroAmerican counterparts at Disney. Is the conglomerate thinking of teen celebrity promotion in relation to ethnic blocs?

Interesting stuff. There’s also a good point in the comments; most of the ethnically ambiguous actors you see on Nick and Disney and even the CW are female; with the exception of Taylor Lautner and his Amazing Abs, the young, male heartthrob ideal remains pretty freaking white. I can think of a few other Disney kids who are ethnically ambiguous, and a few who are non-ambiguously African-American — but they aren’t kids who are being set up to follow the Zac Efron mold, either, which makes me think Lautner is an exception that proves the rule.

And now, because it is a lazy Sunday, I think I will take a nap. (Translation: I have no idea how to conclude this blog post.)

I keep trying to write an entry here about writing, but then getting too self-conscious about it. Maybe someday. In the mean time, when not able to come up with interesting content of my own, why not link to some other people’s content instead?

When I go through my Google Reader these days, I tend to go through interesting links using Read It Later, a FF add-on that I love. But unfortunately, this means I don’t have a way to tag posts with where they were linked from anymore, and so I don’t have credits for these. Suffice to say, they were all linked by awesome people.

Vague theme: feminism! Mostly but not entirely in sf/f!

And she’s cute, too!

So I opened up the email, and sure enough, it started off with a compliment about the usefulness of a particular article that I’d written. Great. Warm fuzzies abound. Unfortunately, the warm fuzzies vacated the premises in the next paragraph, in which the (male) writer concluded with the sentiment that it was nice to read such good articles written by “a cutie”.

I think I may have said something very rude at that point. It certainly left me feeling uncomfortable and a little creeped-out.

The problem I have with this isn’t just in the assumption that it’s OK for a total stranger (who I’ve never even seen in person) to comment on my appearance. It’s in the implication that the technical merit of my writing isn’t the important part here — that what’s important is how physically attractive I am. (And in particular with the form of words used, not just “cute”, but “a cutie”, which is a very neat way to suggest that everything important about a person can be encapsulated in their appearance.)

Yeah. It’s happened to me, too, and I don’t know what to say. Generally, women are socialized to want to be cute, to be recognized for that; but it’s so, so, so frustrating when that’s absolutely not what you want.

Off With Her Head? Why Fantasy Hates Good Queens

A few weeks ago we had a ball discussing the Top Ten Evil Queens of fantasy. But something occurred to me as I was doing my research: While I had no trouble finding evil queens, the only ones I could find that were depicted as being “good” were physically compromised in some way. (And I’m not talking about princesses here — I mean women in real seats of power.) The question this raises for me is, does power corrupt or are powerful women seen as dangerous in fantasy? Let’s take a look at the way good queens are hobbled to find out.

This makes me want to write a fantasy novel about a kick-ass queen immediately.

Are We Letting Boys Be Book Bigots?

We need to teach them to take an interest in all sorts of stories, not just the ones that feature kids like them. This means exposing them to a lot of different stuff. We should, of course, encourage kids to find themselves in books. That’s a wonderful and powerful thing. But we should help them find people who are different, too, so they learn to value other ways of being in the world. If we don’t support books, movies, TV programs and music that show these other ways of being, then we are contributing to the problem.

This is a debate I keep running in to: Will boys only read books about boys? I love this article for doing a take-down of why that’s an attitude that has got to go. Of course everyone wants kids generally to read more, and it seems like boys read less than girls; but focusing books more on boys and what’s culturally considered boy-themed stories is really not the answer.

Speaking of boys, girls, and characters…

Ladies, Please (Carry On Being Awesome)

I certainly have seen girl characters who were too perfect: who were beloved by all, beautiful (though they always thought their mouth was too wide or possibly their bosom too generous), and eventually elected queen of the universe. (Sometimes literally.)

Let us think of the Question of Harry Potter. I do not mean to bag on the character of Harry Potter: I am very fond of him.

But I think people would be less fond of him if he was Harriet Potter. If he was a girl, and she’d had a sad childhood but risen above it, and she’d found fast friends, and been naturally talented at her school’s only important sport, and saved the day at least seven times. If she’d had most of the boys in the series fancy her, and mention made of boys following her around admiring her. If the only talent she didn’t have was dismissed by her guy friend who did have it. If she was often told by people of her numerous awesome qualities, and was in fact Chosen by Fate to be awesome.

Well, then she’d be just like Harry Potter, but a girl. But I don’t think people would like her as much.

Indeed!

And finally…

now that we’ve got that clear, and you know that i’m not here…

One of the first things I ever did in the course of this dialogue was to reject the knee-jerk judgment of the Spock/Uhura relationship as a sexist reduction of Uhura to The Girlfriend role, some sort of sad step backwards from her empowered position in TOS as a professional woman with no need for a romance. …

However, the Just A Girlfriend nugget and the assertion that she is made less by her romantic involvement with Spock continues unabated, so I figured I’d give full voice to what I hadn’t before.

Simply put: Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.

(Via the previous article)

I really appreciated this. I grew up on TOS, and definitely super enjoyed (but didn’t 100% love) the reboot movie. ¹ But I definitely grew up on the narrative about Uhura as a career woman, and how that was totally progressive and awesome, and it never occurred to me to look at why she was depicted that way (let alone to question its awesomeness).

My eyes: opened. Always a good things.

First, an excuse. For a change, it’s not that I’ve been too busy or too lazy to blog. It’s that I’ve been unable to use the computer for non-necessary… anything. For a few years, I had occasional wrist pain. For a year and a half, I had moderate wrist pain, and protected against it by wearing wrist braces at work. Problem dealt with.

Then, about six weeks ago, moderate wrist pain became, “Oh holy shit I can’t use my hands,” wrist pain, and I am now in physical therapy twice a week. I’m lucky, as these things go, though; I’ve got insurance, and it isn’t carpal tunnel and it isn’t nerve damage, just a combination of muscle weakness and strain, brought on by overuse and bad posture. Anyway, it’s getting better. Huzzah!

So here’s some reading for you.

I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress made some critical comments about Bill O’Reilly and his comments on rape victims. She was then stalked and harassed by his producer. Here’s her account of the story (the “interview” is expected to air at some point soon), and the very important conclusion:

The main issue remains: O’Reilly should offer an apology/explanation of why, when a woman is raped and murdered, it’s relevant what she was wearing or how much she was drinking. O’Reilly never asked me for a statement nor invited me on his show before sending Watters to harass me. Since I’m a 5 ft, 100 pound woman with an opinion that he doesn’t like, perhaps O’Reilly believes I deserve to be treated this way.

Racefail ’09

Okay. This one is… massive. Much more so than a few paragraphs and a couple of links can explain, but basically, a discussion started in January, about writing the other in science fiction and fantasy. Writer Elizabeth Bear made a post about writing the other; Avalon’s Willow made a post critical of Bear’s actual writing of people of color, and what started as a smart exchange quickly spun into several other conversations, some productive and some racist, and many still going on. Aside from writing the other, discussions covered cultural appropriation, racism and the (lack of) representation of people of color (as writers, characters, and recognized as readers) in sf/f, and anonymity on the internet, among others. And all this comes on the heels of the casting of the racist casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.

You can get a basic summary, and links to more detailed explanations, here.

It’s been vast and overwhelming to follow. I’ve done a lot of thinking but no writing on it because, aside from my wrist problems, I don’t think that I have anything to add. One thing the conversation has made clear to me is that some voices are valued over others, and it’s the voices of people of color that too often aren’t heard. As a white person who’s trying to find a way to be an ally despite my privilege, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that wouldn’t be about me and my experiences. There may be value in them in some ways, but those are more personal and less related to the general conversation. So they’re not useful here, as far as I can tell.

So a few posts that really stuck out to me:

I Didn’t Dream of Dragons

When I was around thirteen years old, I tried to write a fantasy novel. It was going to be an epic adventure with a cross-dressing princess on the run, a snarky hero, and dragons. I got stuck when I had to figure out what they would do after they left the city. Logically, there would be a tavern.

But there were no taverns in India. Write what you know is a rule that didn’t really need to be told to me; after having spent my entire life reading books in English about people named Peter and Sally, I wanted to write about the place I lived in, even if I didn’t have a whole bookcase of Indian fantasy world-building to steal from. And I couldn’t get past the lack of taverns. Even now, I have spent a number of years trying to figure out how cross-dressing disguise would work in a pre-Islamic India where the women went bare-breasted. When I considered including a dragon at the end of a story, I had to map out their route to the Himalayas, because dragons can be a part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition—they do not figure in Hindu mythology.

A conversation I WANT to have

The world of fantasy should not be all White People + Various European Architecture + Magic (possibly dragons). The world of fantasy also shouldn’t be White People + Various Asian/South Asian Architecture + Magic. It’s not White People Gaining Power From Kachina Dolls. It’s not White People + Dark Savages + Magic. It’s not White People + Voudoo (Hoodo, Obeah, Santeria). It’s definitely not White People + All 4 of the previous mentioned practices, mixed up and rolled into one.

… So the conversation I want to have now is – what next? How do we start? Do we use the internet and go small press the way various erotica writing female writers have utilized it – making a space for themselves? How do we make space for ourselves? Do we embrace the labeling? Do we embrace the separate little bookshelves in the bookstore? The African American Lit. The Asian Experiences. The Jewish Commentaries? With their little signs? Do we accept those labels? Do we try to burst out? Where do we move next?

One possible “what now?” solution might be found in Verb Noire.

Ryda Wong has collected many, many, many more links about RaceFail here.

Other Links

Crossing Lines: Deconstructing Black Superheroes

I know a lot of people out there wonder why it matters. These are, after all, only imaginary superheroes. Why does the way they are created and portrayed matter so much? The answer is because they perpetuate the stereotypes as they play on them, they reinforce these ideas within the minds of fans. We are meant to look upon most superheroes as just that — heroes. We are meant to look up at them as people to emulate and aspire to be. This makes it especially unfortunate that black superheroes and specifically the ones chosen for this list are part of a pattern that continues to portray black people on the basis of opinions and stereotypes formed decades and even centuries ago, a pattern that continues to erase black women from any kind of discourse or agency. For a medium that endeavors to look into other worlds and possibilities, it seems reluctant to release the preconceptions of this one and that’s a true shame. This list doesn’t help dispel any of that at all.

Via The Angry Black Woman.

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part I: The Formula

Apart from the presence of the supernatural and a kick-ass heroine (often wearing leather pants and wielding a semi-automatic), which are big parts of the urban fantasy formula and traits readers look for in these books, I’d argue that the framework boils down to two things: character and world-building. This genre is primarily character-driven: the main characters are at the hearts of these series, and readers keep coming back because of the connection they feel with them. And world building: readers want a world they can fall into, that they can believe in, often similar to ours but the fun comes in seeing the differences, in imagining what it would really be like if these things really happened. When these two things come together, along with the tropes that cause readers to seek out these books in the first place (vampires, kicking ass, etc), you have a successful urban fantasy novel and series. I believe this is what readers are looking for, and what writers in the genre are striving for.

(Also check out Part II: When Things Go Wrong and Part III: Deconstructing Urban Fantasy. Via The Swivet.)

Phtoshop Adbusting

A photoessay of an adbusted subway poster, that started with perfected pictures of singers — the original ads — and added the menus from Photoshop that make such perfection possible. Powerful stuff. (Recommended reading: No Logo, which I’m currently 3/4 of the way through.)

And finally, a “this is so stupid I can’t even get properly annoyed” link: Sci Fi Channel Aims to Shed Geeky Image With New Name. Right. Because “SyFy” rebranding will make science fiction non-geeky, and attract women. Yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, as a woman who already likes science fiction and geekery, all I can think is, you know, I prefer not to associate with the ludicrously misspelled.

That’s it. More… Someday.

This is a total blogging cop-out, but I’m in the midst of moving at the moment, and my cable is shut off until it’s hooked up at the new place, and I’m drinkingpacking all night tonight, so I just don’t have time to do a full post about it. (Also: I will answer the rest of the Dr. Horrible post’s comments when I do have time!)

Luckily, I saw the movie with my BFF Poison Ivory, and she hit all of my major comments in this post right here. Spoilers included, obvs.

And now back to taping boxes and finishing that bottle of wine.

Oh lordy, this sort of thing again. While I don’t find that article particularly offensive (though… fairy tales? Really?), it’s back to a whole bunch of pretty dumb concepts. Specifically the one-two punch of “Scifi is for boys and girls don’t get it!” and “Girls who do like scifi are amaaaaaazing and I looooooooooove them.” On the assumption that I don’t need to retread why either one of those points is ridiculous, let’s move on.

I’ve been the half of a relationship who loves scifi, with a significant other who thought it was, at best, silly — but mostly thought it was kind of dumb and immature. And it is indeed frustrating, but guess what? The way to deal with that was not being thinking about how awesome the dude in question would have been if only he had liked the same things I did. Because here’s a thing about relationships: why would you ever be in one if you aren’t happy with the person you’re dating? Not an idealized version of who you’re dating, not what you hope that person can someday become. Why would you date someone if you don’t like him or her for who he or she is?

Look, I have no real qualifications for giving relationship advice. I’ve been in a few serious relationships but am single at the moment. I’m not a therapist. But here’s a quick rundown of how I survived and (gasp!) enjoyed being in a relationship with a non-scifi-lover. And guess what? It wasn’t by trying to change him. It was pretty much all things I did, and internal decisions on my part.*

ONE: Accept that you and your partner have different feelings about scifi, and his feelings are not positive. You know what? Science fiction certainly contains great literature, great stories, and great concepts and characters; it also contains a lot of things that are ridiculous. It’s associated with being a big nerd. So it’s kind of on you to accept that hey — you love something that’s nerdy and sometimes ridiculous.

This wasn’t such a big deal for me, but I do my best to empathize with people who have a hard time with it. That scifi is nerdy and ridiculous is not a negative thing, or a negative reflection of you as a person. It’s not bad. It’s not a problem. It is what it is; you are who you are. Know thyself. Embrace thyself. Don’t be ashamed of who you are or what you love: that’s painful. If you’re secure in your own tastes, you’ll not just feel better overall, but you won’t feel as much need for your partner to love what you love to validate you.

TWO: Relationships are about people coming together, not becoming each other. It’s not just that you shouldn’t need your partner’s approval to validate your interests, it’s that it’s completely okay to have interests and hobbies that you and your partner doesn’t share. There’s no reason why you should do everything together, and it’s always seemed to me to be way healthier to have your own identity than to get subsumed by a relationship anyway. Yay for feminism, which has certainly helped me learn and internalize that idea.

THREE: Respect goes both ways. Your partner may not like scifi, and may not get scifi, but that doesn’t entitle your partner to make disparaging comments about something he knows you love. Communication is hard, and calling someone you care about out for making you feel bad is often even harder, but regardless of how he feels about the genre, he should respect you — your intelligence, and your taste — enough to not say things that will make you feel shitty about a hobby you love.

However, this is a two-edged blade. He has every right to dislike scifi, and to think it’s ridiculous. Expressing those feelings in a way that’s still respectful to you is hard, but if he does, guess what? He’s not any less intelligent than you are, and there’s nothing wrong with him for not getting it. You’re not entitled to disparage him for that, either.

So yeah, it’s hard to talk about it, sometimes. Ideally, he’d be able to enjoy your glee when you find something you really love and adore even if he doesn’t get it, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes, the best you can do really is to respectfully simply agree to disagree and change the topic to something neither one of you will find frustrating.

FOUR: If you feel you must — really, truly must — try and get him into science fiction, there is no magic combination of shows/movies/books that is guaranteed to work. Approaching in terms of “girls like fairy tales,” or “boys like space ships,” isn’t going to fly, because this isn’t about what a group of people allegedly likes. It’s about what your partner, specifically, might like. You know your partner’s tastes in stories and characters; only you can gage what he or she might appreciate.

My recommendation, if you’re going to do this, is also in how you approach it. Tell your partner, “Hey, I think you might like this one, I think it would be cool if we watched it together.” Be prepared to accept a similar overture in response, or even to suggest one. Don’t over-intro or spend too much time talking up whatever you’re suggesting: you want him to feel free to respond genuinely, not to force himself to have a positive reaction to please you — that will only lead to resentment down the line. Be okay with giving up or turning it off if he doesn’t like it after all. Be prepared for him to like one or two specific shows or books, but not interested in the genre as a whole. Try not to be too disappointed if these things happen, because not everyone will get it.

Hey. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Either way as long as what he does get is that it’s important to you and a part of who you are, and as long as he likes you for who you are… Well, at the end of the day, does it really matter if he gets science fiction or not?

* From this point forward, I’m talking from my perspective, which is as a woman who loves scifi dating a dude who does not. This relationship is obviously not indicative of all kinds of relationships out there. So not only may what works for me not work for everyone, but I’ve got no idea how this might apply to other kinds of relationships.

Conversation from work yesterday:

Coworker: And besides, superheroes must have great carbon footprints.

Me: That’s true. When Superman flies home to Kansas to visit his folks, he definitely isn’t taking a plane! Not like Lex Luthor, taking a private jet all over…

Coworker: See, there’s saving the world…and then there’s saving the world.

This article (via Chaos Theory) is absolutely excellent. Both in its analysis of the show Beauty and the Geek (which is fascinating and touching, despite being incredibly shallow), and in its analysis of why it’s so uncomfortable to add Nicole and Sam, the female geek and male beauty, to the show.

But I think there’s also more to it than that. I’ve discussed the idea of a reverse-gender cast with GC before (as we accidentally watched all of season two together in a New Years marathon last year. In one sitting,) and have always been against the idea. Which at first struck GC as odd, what with me being, you know, a female geek and all. But there are two points I’d like to make about this.

First: I don’t like having Sam in the competition against the female beauties. First off, because a lot of their challenges are things which are, in this society, gendered as male activities*, such as the week they were building bottle rockets. As GC pointed out, there’s a much bigger chance that at some point in his childhood, Sam had already done that, or at least known kids who did and was familiar with it. But it isn’t just that.

The stereotype of the shallow, sexy woman is also invariably tied to low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence. The theory seems to be that the cliche beauty, the sort found on the show, uses her body in place of brains, and thus has never tried to use her brains. She may not be dumb, but she’s uncomfortable and doesn’t like being put in a position where her smarts and not her body are being judged. So that’s what the show does. It repeatedly challenges these walking stereotypes to learn something, and to be confident in their newly-acquired knowledge, and in almost any competition, the most confident wins.

The thing is? Good looking men aren’t socialized that way. That stereotype does exist for guys, but with guys, “lack of confidence” and “attractive” aren’t inextricably linked. Where beauty for women is generally passive and objectified (literally meaning they’re at their prettiest when they’re not contributing anything but good looks), it isn’t for men; a man can be attractive and shallow without getting the message that he should shut up. So to have a contest such as the one where the beauties had to debate against each other, but throwing him in the mix, is unfair. The show is a learning journey, where the beauties gain that confidence. Sam, raised in a society that can appreciate his opinions as well as his attractiveness (not to mention one which urges him to be competitive while it urges women to be supportive and gentle), is not lacking in that confidence.

And then there’s the matter of judges. Society already values male opinions over female one; in a contest where there are, what, eight women stumbling to find an answer and one guy (who, while not especially well-spoken, is also not shy or nervous), who is going to stand out more? I’m not saying that he didn’t genuinely learn his material and present it well, but regardless, the whole competition was already biased in his favor.

Point two: let’s talk about being female and geeky. It isn’t easy. Though male geeks tend to appreciate your existence, society overall is confused, baffled, and just doesn’t know what to do with you. You’re smart, but instead of being judged on competence, you’re judged on looks. But the thing is, inherent attractiveness isn’t even the point. Different things tend to be important to geeks as compared to most of the rest of the population, and one of the major differences is that looks (and with them, fashion, the ability to use make-up, or do your hair) are waaaay further down on the priority list.

Look at Nicole. She’s not ugly, but she doesn’t dress with attractiveness in mind. Especially when she’s surrounded by other women, all of whom are concerned primarily about being attractive, the message is that she’s lacking. Actually ugly or not, she might as well be, because not caring means being ugly, and being ugly means, well…dealing with it.

This is not a society that’s kind to the unattractive. At all. And when all you want is to be judged by your intelligence, and instead you spend your life having all of your hard work barely noticed but your physical attractiveness scrutinized…well, it’s hard. It’s frustrating. Being yourself without apologizing for it is hard, because no matter how awesome you are, you’re fully aware you’d be treated better if you were prettier.

So back to the show. The reason having the female geek on a show where the geeks all get makeovers and learn to better fit in with society is that it’s damn hard to not do that. It strikes me as very much taking someone who has, consciously or not, rejected the patriarchal idea of female beauty, and trying to shoehorn her right back into it. Because the thing is, guys can be appreciated for being geeks. Which isn’t to write off their legitimate struggles with social awkwardness or attractiveness; when I said this society isn’t kind to the unattractive, I meant that, full stop. Both genders. But for men, there are other ways to contribute to society and be appreciated for them. For women, it’s beauty first, kindness and femininity second, and everything else after that. So for male geeks, learning to jump these hurdles and conquer personal demons is a bonus. It’ll make life much easier, sure.

But for a female geek? It’s akin to saying, “You’re really great at what you do. But you’d be better if you were prettier and easier to get along with.” Which is the same damn thing women are told every day. It isn’t subverting the societal message of what a woman should be, it’s reinforcing it.

I get enough of that in my daily life, as someone who’s female and a geek. I identify with Nicole, and it’s rare to find someone on reality TV (or, for that matter, TV generally) I can see myself in. I really don’t want to see her buy into this.

* Mostly unrelatedly, fuck you and your “boys are different” campaign, Playskool toys. Because sure, only little boys like toy trucks and want to run around…but at least they make girl toys! Play houses! With play kitchens and a play washing machine! Seriously, fuck you.

Okay, so last year at some point, I found a book that looked kind of neat: Nightlife by Rob Thurman, an urban fantasy novel about half-brothers, one of whom is half-monster, the other of whom is fully human but is among the world’s greatest ninjas. In their New York, a troll lives under the Brooklyn Bridge, Puck is a used car salesman, werewolves run the mafia, and the protagonist’s monster side of the family is conspiring to destroy humanity. Clearly, it is up to the brothers to stop them. I enjoyed it enough that when I discovered its sequel, Moonshine, was available, I picked it up and tore through it.

The books aren’t perfect; the second book’s writing and plotting is smoother (not surprising, as the first book was Thurman’s first ever book), but there are elements of it that didn’t sit as well with me — I’m always a little ambivalent about plots that center around rescuing the hero’s true love*, and I deeply detest basically all variants of, “Our love would harm you so we must not be together!”

With that said, as I read the book I kind of felt like it was written by a woman. I think that’s because I’ve spent a lot of time in fandom, a largely female-dominated space, and there are a few things fandoms tend to latch on to: angsty, brooding protagonists; ninjas; non-heterosexual characters; strong, devotion-driven bonds between male characters (and given the reaction to Supernatural, I’ve got to say, especially brothers), for example. This book has all of those in spades. It didn’t read like something that came out of fandom, but because of those associations, despite being a series that’s heavily weighted towards male characters, it read to me as though it had been written by a woman.

Then I found out the author has a LiveJournal, and found this in the userinfo:

I am female. Rob is short for Robyn. Quite a surprise to most, as was apparent at my first book signing. People looked to my right, left, behind, and eventually focused on a nearby loitering guy who was there delivering coffee to the bookstore (and never mind the distinctive you-know-who logo on his shirt.) Rob. Robyn. Female. I am woman, hear me…ah, hell, just get me a coffee with caramel and whipped cream.

Interesting!

But it does make me wonder a little, so excuse me while I pontificate at the internet. I kind of feel like fandom/the internet (the combined force) is creating new tropes for genre fiction, based more heavily on female desire and female readership. For me, the disconnect between a guy writing the sort of stuff I associate with female readers was pretty big. I have no idea if Thurman has a fannish background, but it was the elements I find over and over in fandom that caused me to associate the series’s style with a female writer (and I definitely wonder about the male/female breakdown of the books’ fans).

Now, I’m always hesitant to try and split things into “what girls like” and “what boys like”, but he tropes of genre fiction — and basically every other kind of fiction, now that I think about it—all come from the assumption of what male consumers want. Hence, I don’t know, sexbots and explosions**; certainly hence the fact that it’s only recently that women are evolving out of several static archetypes.

What I’m kind of wondering, though, is if thanks to the internet and fandom — places where women write for their own entertainment and for an audience that’s largely other women — there are a set of new emerging new tropes, which cater to a presumed female consumer. I don’t know if they’re really showing up in the publishing industry yet, since most of what I read is aimed a lot younger than the writing I’m talking about, but maybe it’s starting the slow transition from the internet to mainstream publishing? Which would be neat. Whether or not it’s “what girls want” it would still be a broadening of the genre, and I feel more comfortable about “what girls want” being driven by people who are actually female (which is not the power structure in, um, any industry).

Of course, then the question becomes, why these tropes? That I haven’t worked out yet, but I’d definitely be open to ideas and discussion about a) whether or not this seems to be going on or if it’s just in my head; and b) what is it about these kinds of stories (especially the beautiful, angst-filled male lead) that appeals to women?

*Doubly so when it’s a male protagonist rescuing a female love interest, because that so often reduces her character to… well, a plot point instead of a character. Particularly annoying in this novel, because I’d really liked the girl in question and the plot effectively took her out of the book. There’s only one other female character, and while she’s quite awesome, I still feel a little cheated.

**It’s worth noting that every female geek I know loves explosions, however.

First off, I’m sorry things have been kind of scarce around here…most of my blogging time has gone to gathering the links for this, The Tenth Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction & Fantasy.

There were a couple of subjects I ran into a few times each; either bloggers responding to one another, or coincidentally covering the same topic from a different perspective. I’ve grouped those together at the top; then we get into posts separated by media.

Enjoy!

TOPIC: CASSANDRA CAIN
Things start with Kalinara at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, whose post,“Of Course She Is…” My Problem With Cassandra Cain, is a criticism of the current Batgirl. Kalinara looks at Cass not as an exciting, unique character, but instead as a collection of traits that the writers thought would be really neat:

Her past is tremendously angsty. Okay, I can dig that. She was trained as an uber-assassin by a villain. Makes sense. He was abusive and scary and raised her without the capacity for speech. It’s a bit over the top for my taste, but it’s original at least. And ties into a particularly neat ability to read people’s body language like a book.

And naturally, she’s not really a killer! After all that, she only killed someone once! When she was too young to know what she was doing! And she ran away immediately afterwards! At the age of 8. And she lived alone, incapable of speech until she hooked up with the Batclan at age 16/17 or so. …now we’re getting to things that I start to find hard to swallow. It’s such a cliche. Someone raised to be a killer, but somehow managing to be so pure that she only did it once. When she couldn’t possibly be blamed? And then immediately left? Because she was so good at heart, she couldn’t take it? Oh, brother.

Johanna at Comics Worth Reading agrees in Batgirl’s Creepy. However, in More About Cassandra, jlg1 disagrees:

Even though it’s a modification of the suit, the stitches, as a design point, suits her character as a silent, no-nonsense fighter. She doesn’t make wise-cracks, or intimidate through words. She gets right down to business and fights. It’s actually sort of refreshing that she doesn’t engage in that cliched, belabored hero-villain rhetoric. And another thing the suit adds is the intimidation and mysteriousness factor. “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot” and all. The fact that “creepy” comes up is some sign that it works, to some degree.

More about Cassandra:
Does Batgirl Have A More Flattering Angle?
This entry was supposed to be about Cassandra Cain
Oh yeah…Art…
Shades of Batgirl
Batgirl Bruhaha

TOPIC: MARY SUE

At The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller, Mickle tells us why she considers Mary Sue a sexist term:

So, yeah, any female equivalent of Rocky is going to have aspects of Mary Sue-ness – because Rocky has aspects of Mary Sue-ness.

But we only call River a Mary Sue, not James Bond. And seriously, which is more deserving of the title of Mary Sue – James Bond or River?

At The Uncanny Soyo there’s a response: girls, women, spaceships.

In Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary to Popular Belief…, I give my own take on why Mary Sues happen, and why I enjoy them.

In other fun Mary Sue links, a fifth grade teacher uses Mary Sue as a teach aid, and who knows how many of us need Mary Sue Anonymous?

(Then, in Speaking of Terms That Need to Disappear, Mickle also tackles the idea of fanservice.)

TOPIC: CHILDREN OF MEN
The movie, a dystopian film, premiered last month, and reactions to it were across the board.

First, a fairly in depth review by Maia at Alas, A Blog. At Feministe, piny mostly agrees, adding:

The thesis of the movie — and I understand that we aren’t meant to take it so literally — is that this is what happens when people lose hope. Why have they lost hope? Well, there are no children; there have been no births for nearly two decades. If there were children, everyone would be less inclined to horrific behavior towards other human beings, because we would have some hope for the future that would give us reason to love each other. In other words, if only women weren’t all infertile (of course, sterility is always the woman’s fault, even in the future), society wouldn’t look like this.
(Adoration)

At Plucky Punk’s Happy Land…Grr…Spit…, Vanessa disagrees that the movie has a sexist message: Best. Movie. Ever.

TOPIC: SUPERGIRL

Karen at Like Scratches in the Sand shows us DC’s attempt at wooing female readers to the Supergirl title: Supergirl: Now Safe for Female Consumption?

At One Diverse Comic Book Nation, Loren also reacts to the DC announcement: DC Looking For A Few Good Women…To Read Supergirl.

At her blog, Ami Angelwings has another take-down of the message:

Maybe this is cynical, but the way he’s singling out women as the people who dislike Supergirl, it’s almost like he’s telling the male readers, “hey if you’re unhappy with what we do, blame those GIRLS”. >:|
(Promises, Promises)

Jared also gives us his thoughts on Supergirl:

By focusing on the “girl” at the expense of the “super,” Berganza and Co. have denied female readers their power fantasy. So why then would a female superhero want to read a book that goes so directly against why they like superheroes in the first place?
(That’s Not Really Super, Supergirl.)

TOPIC: WOMEN IN SPIDER-MAN:
Jesse writes about Mary Jane as Peter Parker’s wife, not as Spider-Man’s trophy, in Joe Quesada versus Mary Jane.

At Me Myself and I, Liliaeth has an interesting rant about the “designated love interest” and why it makes for uninteresting characters. She looks specifically at Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Rant: The Designated Girlfriend.

Also dealing with Spider-Man, The Four Color Media Monitor has an interesting piece on MJ: What is so wrong with Mary Jane?

GAMES

In I’m Just A (Gamer) Girl, and That’s All That You’ll Let Me Be, the Heroine Next Door debunks the myth of the Gamer Girlfriend, and takes on the idea of the Hot Gamer Chick.

In the Girl Gamers LJ Community, filthy_bonnet recalls dealing with guys whose minds are boggled by “being beat by a girl”, and asks the eternal question: Is this a common experience for girl gamers or do I just keep versing jerks?

Steve-O, at Taller Than Thou, writes Dead Rising: my own stupid little annoyance, an analysis of the guns and weapons used by a female character, and how they show her to be a fantasy rather than a character in her own right.

100littledolls postulates: Link (of Zelda) is less a character in his own right, and more an instrument for female characters: Link, A Tool?

At New Game Plus, Lake Desire posts about Objectivity and Gamer Kinship. Her more recent posts also deal with being a female gamer, and are worth looking at.

COMICS
At Remix’s Corner, Remix talks about Catwoman in On Catwoman. The question: is Catwoman an empowered woman? Or is she just a male writer’s fantasy?

In Alex In Wonder Land, there’s an in-depth analysis of Perez’s Wonder Woman reboot, covering topics from the removal of Steve Trevor as a love interest to Diana’s costume, and a lot more: Revisiting the Perez Era: Making Wonder Woman political.

In ID-ing Identity Crisis, Kalinara explains why she doesn’t think Identity Crisis was a story about rape, making a powerful point: It’s the fact that Identity Crisis was NOT about the rape that made the inclusion so damned offensive.

Also dealing the rape in Identity Crisis, there is a very powerful post by Loren at One Diverse Comic Book Nation, in which he acknowledges he is a rape survivor, and gives his thoughts on the storyline in that light: A Personal Story: Identity Crisis and Rape.

Over at 4th Letter!, Hermanos has given us a list of the top three Black women in comics: She Got That Good Hair: Top 5 3 Black Women!

At In One Ear, there is a hilarious post: Advice for Artists and Writers: Getting the Elusive Female Audience. (There’s also a follow-up: Writing Minorities: How to Approach Gay Characters.)

TV, MOVIES, BOOKS, WRITING

At Riba Rambles: Musings of a Mental Magpie, Riba Lis implores Smallville’s creative team to include some female heroes: In Justice. She’s also got another post of note, Don’t be such a skank – an Arisia gripe, about parties that are invite-only (unless you’re hot).

In her entry, Oh, Look, A CAN OF WORMS! Let’s watch Mary open it again! at Tangled up in blue, monkeycrackmary writes about being a feminist, and wanted to have female characters she can identify with when she watches TV:

It’s not fair for a black kid to watch tv and only see white people when they’d also like to see black people. It’s not fair for a gay teen to watch tv and see only straight people when they’d also like to see gay people. And it’s not fair for me to watch tv and only see male people when I’d also like to see female people.

There’s a response by wemblee in her LJ, the definite fraggle, where she notes:

But when debates about misogyny in fandom, or in source texts, roll around, as much as I enjoy those debates for the most part, I often leave feeling like I’m a bad feminist since I always identified with those male characters reflexively.
(yeah, I’m gonna regret this…)

Over at The Hathor Legacy, Ravena explains why she likes the romance between Kasidy and Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space 9: Kasidy’s Convictions.

Ladydreamer posted an excellent rant at the WB in feminist_fandom: Argh.

In Carmarthan’s LJ, An Old Song, she has an interesting post about finding female characters she enjoys in different mediums:

I can see how a woman who is fixated on TV–with its narrower range of choices–and a few particular genres (narrowing the range further) could have trouble finding the specific type of female characters she loves, especially given that most TV still has the male characters outnumbering the women by at least 3 to 1. I don’t think it’s necessarily sexist–the odds are generally better for people with narrow tastes to find male characters they like on TV because there are a lot more choices.
( On narrow genre tastes, female characters, and the wider variety of books)

At Megatrouble, there’s a great post: Four Reasons Why Heroes Bothers Me:

Whoa, hold up. You both think Niki is a strong female character because she’s a mom who strips on the internet? Is that all we’re looking at here? Is this why this woman is empowering? Because to me, it’s more than just “Niki can strip.”

Check out the comments, too; there’s some great discussion.

Another Heroes post: at ’til there was rock, you only had god, Desdenova reinterprets Heroes as social commentary: More Heroes, Now With Bonus Feminist Theory.

At Amateurverbs, Becky has a post on the problems with fantasy she’s encountered while writing fantasy: I Write Stories. It’s the first in a series, so check back for more.

Another awesome Heroine Next Door post deals with the breakdown of masculinity and femininity: Re-defining heroic feats.

At Oh My Fair North Star, Harper gives us a quick lowdown on some ass-kicking female characters: …and she’s gotta be fresh from the fight!

Over at Divided We Stand United We Fall, there’s a humorous look at Nancy Pelosi’s new position: Nancy Pelosi tempted by the One Ring.

UrsulaV of Bark Like A Fish, Damnit! hits us with a post about fanfiction, childhood, and the biggest, scariest moster of all, sex: Further Thoughts on Fan Fiction…

And finally, at Suzy Says there’s a detailed and spoiler-y response to the movie Pan’s Labyrinth, from a feminist perspective: Pan’s Labyrinth.

Is that not enough feminist sf&f for you? Well, no worries! The call isn’t up yet, but the next Carnival will be at Women’s Work — But Can She Spin?