#fandom misoginy

[rey-jake-therapist]

The way some fandoms clearly hate women is really appealing. It shows in the way they either villainize female characters or significantly reduce their importance in the male characters's life. Some go even as far as claiming they're not real characters but only living metaphors of said male characters's sexuality. In certain m/f ships, female characters are reduced to walking uterus and aren't allowed to have any other desire than becoming wives and mothers; damn them if they want friends and have other plans for their future, cause only the male character's happiness counts.

I'm all for tolerance towards headcanon's but the stuff I've read lately.... Big yikes.

[khr-guilded-cage]

I don't undertand why people use beauty and strenght to define if a character if good or not

"But she is ugly and weak." And? Even if she was, she still a better person, a better written character

You can dislike the character, maybe because of their actions or the way they are written, but calling a character 'flat chested' to insult her just...no dude

[aphantpoet]

In the ATLA fandom there's been a lot of discussion about the new Azula Comic. personally, I haven't read it yet but I was inspired by some of the interpretations I've seen about the characters, interpretations that I believe to be in bad faith. That is not to say that there aren't criticisms you can have about Azula's actions but it is to say that the fandom often focuses on the wrong things in regards to her character. many of these interpretations paint her as bad not because of what she did but because she was angry and mean. So, in dishonour of this criticism I've compiled a list of girl characters that I think would get the same criticism if their shows of movies came out today.

General Leia Organa (Star Wars, OT): Princess Leia was fierce and not afraid to sass back, she was capable and, in some ways, ruthless. She was willing to let Han and Luke be gentlemen and open the door to her cell but she was an active participant in her rescue. If the OT came out to day I have no doubts that her comments like "Someone as to save out skins" and "I don't know where you get your delusions laser brain" would be whines about insistently by Toxic fan boys. Considering the amount of misogyny in the Star Wars fandom and the reaction to little Leia in Kenobi, this one's basically a freebie.

Brandy Silvers (Detentionaire): For a synopsis on the series just look at any of my posts under the Detentionaire tag. Brandy Silvers starts off as a comedic annoyance of a character. She claims lee Ping as her boyfriend after his newfound popularity. She's obsessed with status and materialistic. Despite this, Brandy is capable and attentive; being help on a few missions and remembering Lee Pings favourite dessert. Her character gets better after they "break up" , she gets together with his friend Cam and chooses not to break up with him after he's ousted from his presidency, her hidden vulnerabilities are shown and she becomes a pretty good person. Still, I think the kinds of fans I'm taking about here wouldn't care about those facts and would only focus on season 1 Brandy, who can be a mean girl and a drag as a character.

Sue Ping (Detentionaire): Lee Ping's scary and sweet mother. Sue Ping is a capable and mercurial. despite how harsh she can be with her son she genuinely loves him, this is seen in in moments like when she gives lee one night off from his year of grounding so he can go to the fair and where she gets into a clog gun fight with the new principal who was using a sweatshop as a detention. Once again. I do not think the kinds of people I'm critiquing would care about that nuance and would only focus on how she is loud and harsh with her son, like when heis sabotaged by a classmate with a pen that fades and it causes him to fail a math test.

Tina Kwee (Detentionaire):Tina Kwee is Lee Pings capable and idealistic love interest. When her little sister claims the fall for the big prank Kwee is quick to suspect that lee put her up to it and is very angry with him, she searches to prove her baby sister's innocence and is rude to Lee in the process. Tina is capable and not unwilling to ask hard questions. She gets mad at lee when he puts hi s foot in his mouth on several occasions but she's ultimately vital to stopping the conspiracy.

Angelina Demartinez (Detentionaire):Cam, lee's best friends, bratty little sister, Angelina is initially presented as a terror. Angelina has only three apperances; A background mention in the after math of one of her pranks, a photo of her punching her brother after he gets her a backpack and an actual episode. In the episode she is initially confirmed to be bratty and easily bored, she goads her older brother to watch a horror movie while he is babysitting her. Though the siblings to bond a little bit after after the horror becomes a reality. This one is also a freebie; fandom misogyny+ a kid acting like a kid.

Princess Ursa; Lets face it, looking at Ursa in the comics, if she wasn't Zuko's idealised mother she would be lambasted. Azula is basically a dark version of her mother. The only real difference is that Ursas parents were free to tell her that hitting people's not okay while Azula's weren't and didn't want to. My sympathies to Ursa for her abusive situation but, if she wasn't shown as Zuko's soft mother, she would be basically forgotten at best.

[os-eclipses-tamen-son-yuri]

I dont have anything new to bring to this conversation tbh; but it's tiring how people would rather let their (internalized) misoginy go unchecked and not even try to see why men are usually more popular as characters and ships, than to stop blaming (usually) sapphics when we complain about how men-centered most fandom communities are.

I dislike to use the word "representation" in these contexts because usually the problem is not representation but visibility.

"If you want to see sapphics then write them yourself!"

We DO...oh we do. There's not a "lack" of sapphic media because art goes beyond what your mainstream publisher has on their catalogue. There's plenty of sapphics and non-sapphics that create sapphic art or woman-centered media.

But if we are going to play by capitalistic rules one cannot deny that, on a large scale, these works are usually overlooked and undersupported BECAUSE men-centered works are just, specially in fandom spaces, more popular.

Of course I'm not gonna force anyone to stop writing their mlm fanfics and threaten them to write sapphics at gunpoint. Because people cannot be forced to do something they don't enjoy. Which is precisely why people have to at least do a bit of introspection and ask themselves why (usually) they enjoy male characters more. (If I see the "badly written women" excuse one more time I will combust).

Fandom spaces are not the "safe haven" people make them to be, and even if people want to pretend; misoginy, homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism,etc, still run rampant in these communities.

If someone asks you to maybe check yourself on one of these to analyze how you build relationships with art and media and the subjects and themes they depict and your response is to complain to the person and say that it's a "you" problem you are a coward, and also, that's just overall very shitty behaviour and usually proves their point.

Do whatever you want, I don't care. Just dont come whining to us sapphics when we rightfully complain about misoginy.

[allthefarminggames]

tags by OP

This. I've seen barely fanart of Reina on tumblr compared to March, and AO3 is DEAD when it comes to fics with her as a love interest.

People be like: "we love tsunderes!!" But when the tsundere is a woman then she's the most annoying character in the franchise

People be like: "we love mean characters!!" But when that character is a woman then she's evil, and uncomfortable, and actually we don't like her

People be like: "we love kind characters!!" But if the character is a Black man/woman then they're ignored and never talk about or deemed boring

People be like: "stop spreading hate and negative" And the hate and negative will be pointing out misogyny and racism in fandom spaces

[bambispaceship]

Interesting how everytime Star Wars was written for female gaze, the fandom always does its own cleansing

[rey-jake-therapist]

Hob Gadling's wives and girlfriends, the forgotten women of The Sandman

DISCLAIMER: the following posts contains major spoilers for Season of Mists, World's Ends, The Kindly Ones and The Wake.

A couple of weeks I told @writing-for-life my next meta would be about the women who shared Hob's life. There's not much to work on in the comics for most of them, but the fact remains that they exist and that Hob probably loved them all. And his second wife in particular, Margaret/Peggy aka Jim, had a story dedicated to her journey, in World's Ends.

Hob's canon romances always interested me because these women were all mortals, while he was not. We know he had at least one kid who died, and he saw almost all his lovers/wives die while knowing he would never follow them in the grave unless he wanted it. We didn't see it happen with Gwen, but it will, eventually.

It makes me wonder: how does he do it? How does he manage to be completely invested in a relationship knowing that the people he loves will all grow old and die, while he will stay the same and live forever? I would have loved it if the comics had him discussing that, and I still hope in the show he will. We never saw what his last conversation with Hob was, after all... I like to think that Dream stayed a bit longer than usual with Hob, and that they opened up about their respective lives and experiences with love. Audrey is still alive and probably in Hob's life at this point, it would be nice if she showed up, met Dreams and asked him embarrassing questions... but I digress haha

Before I continue I'd like to confess that not being a shipper, I don't read Dreamling fics - I rarely read fics revolving a ship in general... I prefer Morpheus x oc or non romantic fics -, so any comment I can make about the fandom is based on what I see on social media, and not on fanfic contents. I'm sure that Hob's wives and girlfriends are often evoked and maybe sometimes, even more developed there than they are in canon.

Hob's first wife: Eleanor

Eleanor's just a portrait, we don't know much about her except that Hob probably cared about her since in the show he still calls her "my Eleanor" long after she died.

She exists only to show that Hob's situation stabilized after he started making money. Also, their son's death and hers may have been the first time that it hit Hob in the head that while he could live forever, he couldn't prevent his loved ones from dying. The loss of his family affected him very much and yet, he still wanted to live. I'll probably write a meta later about how his situation purposely mirrors Morpheus', about how they both lost everything they loved at some point but reacted in a completely different manner.

Hob's second wife: Peggy/Jim

We meet Margaret/Peggy/Jim in World's End. She pretends to be a man hence why she calls herself Jim, as she did during all the trip during which she met Hob Gadling. It's quite obvious that she did it for safety issues, as she would have probably not been allowed to travel on a boat let alone work on one if she had revealed as girl without a chaperon, and she clearly enjoyed the freedom and advantages she got as passing for a man. It's good to emphasize how brave she was to do that, as if her secret had gone out it could have put her in great danger.

Hob was the only one who saw through her, but he protected her secret. He also confirmed her doubts that he was much older than he seemed, a secret she protected as well. It seems she never believed he was immortal though - see the part about Audrey - .They bonded over having secrets they could possibly not reveal to anyone else, so it's a really sweet love story.

Later, in The Kindly Ones, we learn that Peggy died in his arms, during the Blitz. If they had kids, he doesn't say, but it's obvious he loved her very much and was deeply affected by her death, as he says on Audrey's grave, in The Kindly Ones, that Audrey's the first woman he was with since Peggy died.

Now I know that certain fans want Peggy to be trans or non-binary because she disguises as a man and asks to be called Jim. It's generally not as much because they care about her character or representation,than because it would make Hob canonically queer. Now I have no problem with anyone's headcanons: there are no right or wrong headcanon, no stupid or offensive ones - as long as they're not hateful, homophobic, racist, transphobic etc. - and whatever makes people feel represented and happy is fine by me. That said, I personally believe it's a bit simplistic to reduce a woman's refusal to follow societal norms to her being a man or non-binary, but again, whatever floats your boat guys.

I personally think that Peggy/Jim was written as a strong young woman who wanted to travel and see the world, knew she couldn't do that if she was seen as a woman, so she disguised as a man, took a man's name and enjoyed the role because let's be honest: the life for white men during this period was wayyyyyy funnier and easier than for women. What do you mean, it still is? I don't understand, are you saying institutional patriarchy is still very much a thing? *pretends to be shocked*.

You can find many stories like Peggy/Jim's in modern literature, and of course, in real life!

As for Hob, he knew Peggy was a woman quite early, and when he talks about her on Audrey's grave he says "Peg' ", not "Jim", which tells me he kept seeing her as a woman. But again, that's my headcanon and I won't argue about that, I just feel like Peggy/Jim deserves better than being discussed solely regarding Hob's sexuality. Her story is one of my favorite in the comics :)

Talking about the particular subject of Hob's sexuality is immortal and even though the comics doesn't mention any male boyfriend, he seems open minded and hedonistic enough to have at least tried... I always headcanoned Hob Gadling as pansexual, because it doesn't make sense to me that a man who lived for hundred of years would be straight, simply.

I really hope that the show will give us Peggy/Jim's story on screen, she highly deserves it. I love this character, I just wish it would be clearer in the comics that she's the future Mrs Gadling... I learned through social media that the Peg' he mentioned on Audrey's grave was the Peggy he met in World's Ends. It's very confusing, the way it's written.

Hob Gadling's girlfriends

We of course don't know every girlfriend that Hob had, in the comics we're just introduced to two: Audrey, and Gwen. We learn a couple of other names in The Kindly Ones though: Lisabet and Anne.

Audrey

Audrey's another woman who's never part of the conversations, yet the panel dedicated to Hob's reaction to her death is the first panel that made Hob sympathetic to me. But whenever this panel is discussed, everything that's related to Audrey is ignored so the focus is entirely on Hob's concern for Morpheus. Before I read the comics, I had no idea that Hob had just buried his lover, and begged Morpheus to resurrect her because the pain of losing her was too hard to handle.

A bit like for Margaret/Peggy/Jim, it's not clear at all that in Season of Mists, the woman we see with Hob in bed is Audrey, the woman whose grave he visits in The Kindly Ones.

It's really in The Kindly Ones that we can see how much he cared for Audrey, as he cared for all the lovers he had before but died. The reaction he has, he admits it himself, responds to a question we probably all asked: does he ever get used to it? Become insensitive, with time?

The answer's no:

I always wondered why Morpheus visited him at this moment: was it because he felt his pain and wanted to be here for him? Or was it because he wanted to say one last goodbye and it happened to coincide with the moment Hob was drowning in his grief? Was it because he himself needed a friend, more than ever?

Anyway he certainly didn't expect Hob's request. For the first time that we know of, Hob asked Dream to use his supernatural powers. Hob, the immortal who saw all the people he knew die, not only wasn't used to it but asked Dream basically the same thing as Orpheus asked him: help him to get his lover back. It must have been very painful for Dream, but poor Hob couldn't know that. I doubt he even knew that Dream had once been married and had a son.

So yeah, afterwards he runs after Morpheus and tries to make him confide in him, he even feels his friend's death is imminent and he shows a deep concern, but that's not all that this panel is about. I think it's about saying that no matter how old you are, how many lives you lived, how many people you loved and loved you.... The death of a loved one is always painful.

2. Gwen

Gwen is Hob's last girlfriend that we know of. She's also, in his own admission, the first Black woman he dates. Considering that Hob used to be an enthusiastic slave trader who needed an ethereal entity to tell him that slavery was wrong to think that he should find another way to become rich, I find this information.... interesting. After 600 years, it was about time... did he refuse to date Black women because of guilt for what he did? Or because he remained racist for a long time and didn't think Black women were worth his attention?

I feel very protective of Gwen, first because I dislike how she was written as a moral caution for Hob, as she absolves him for his sins but without knowing the extent of his sins - she has no idea he's immortal and was a slave trader - . When she appears in the show - and I really hope she will! - , I hope she'll be written in a way that she doesn't exist solely for Hob to express his guilt while being too coward to tell her the truth about what he did.

I was going to say something very personal about me, but I'm not sure the comparison I want to make would work, so I prefer keeping it for me, finally. If anyone's interested in knowing me better they can join me in private though :)

The second reason why I'm very protective of her is that as Audrey, on social media she's generally treated as non existent by the fandom - who focuses entirely on Hob's grief regarding Morpheus' death - . I recently saw a wish regarding Gwen that made my blood boil and almost made me hit the 'deactivate' button, but I'm not here to start a war, let alone to point fingers. I just really wish some people paid more attention to what they wrote, because some stuff I've read these last days came off as very insensitive.

And I'll conclude with one last panel featuring the gorgeous Gwen:

Also tagging @violetoftheendless and @tickldpnk8 , in case you're interested in discussing this subject :)

[prodigal-explorer]

questions to ask yourself when critiquing a female character:

1. is she boring, or are you saying that because she’s a girl?

2. is she annoying, or are you saying that because she’s a girl?

3. is she a bully/overly aggressive, or are you saying that because she’s a girl?

4. is she a crybaby/overly sensitive, or are you saying that because she’s a girl?

5. would you like or even tolerate this character more than you do if she was a boy?

[aphantpoet]

Aang’s trauma is valid but so is the trauma of other characters in the Avatar Franchise. 

This isn’t even an ATLA exclusive thing but it’s an example of larger fandom Misogyny.

It’s like people can’t accept that a bad trauma response is still a trauma response. they’ll ignore and excuse the behaviour of male victims while discarding the trauma of Fems and other minorities when they act out.

it’s disturbingly fascinating

“You can’t criticize Aang! He’s a child!”

So are Katara, Toph, and Azula yet you all have no problem tearing them to pieces.

[youngerfrankenstein]

Female Character Ask Game

One of your favourite female characters?

One of your favourites from when you were a child?

What’s a female character you look up to?

A heroine you love?

A female villain you love?

A female character who got done dirty by the narrative?

A female character the narrative wound up being much better to than you’d thought it would be?

A minor female character you love anyway?

A female character you started out disliking but came around to?

A female character who could kick your ass?

A female character who’s ass you could kick but WHY WOULD YOU? YOU MONSTER?

An interesting female friendship?

An interesting femslash ship? (Canon or otherwise)

An interesting familial relationship with female characters? (Mother and daughter, sisters, etc.)

Female character you would defend with your life?

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

Random rant: I'm an agnostic who was raised Christian, as I've mentioned many times, but it doesn't change the fact that it pisses me off when people write to Muslim women, I love it when they say Islam is misogynistic and then write misogynistic comments about it being " "Take care of your husband", or texts about cleaning the house, or classic texts about September 11… Yes, I often see such comments in shorts and it's a problem that is not talked about (You don't have to mention the texts about taking off the hijab… Because you can see that women can wear whatever they want, unless… that he doesn't agree with your fucked up social norms…)

The very fact that misogyny is accepted as long as it is directed towards Muslims is fucking fucked up (For me it's on par with religious fanatics, they piss me off just as much), and the worst thing is that many people are silent about it (Especially radical feminists…Although they prefer to attack trans and intersex people…)

Yes, it was a rant, I just saw so many comments towards Muslim women on YouTube shorts that I'm fed up (And these are not isolated cases, they are frequent and it sucks, I also see queerphobia, but it is at least publicized, misogyny while towards Muslims it is passed over in silence and it's fucked up)

If the argument for being misogynistic towards women is their head covering, then fuck you, you prove that it's not Islam that's the problem, it's you

If we fight for women's rights, let's fight Islamophobia mixed with misogyny (as well as trans misogyny), because what I see in the comments on the short is too common and we should stop being silent about it, if you are silent, you are not a feminist

Now that I have your attention:

[paranormeow7]

phenomenon I see on here a lot. if any tumblr users come in and reply to this with “WOW THIS IS SO ME LOL” you are proving my point

[rey-jake-therapist]

And when they're not accused of not being written "well" they're villainized and/or sidelined because they're in the way of a m/m ship or a self/m ship, or they're shipped with the male character but stop acting like the perfect self insert they headcanoned her as, or simply because they talk back and don't let the male characters walk over them.

They're "too boring" until the moment they throw a piece of bread to their whining brother, slap the main character who acted like a utter idiot, in which case they suddenly become "problematic " or "evil".

Funny how people who say they don't like female characters because "they weren't written well" have no problem coming up with a million different stories and theories for equally boring male characters.

[shamelesstragedyenjoyer]

My roman empire is how Stephanie Brown was fired from being Robin for doing something her male counterparts would have easily gotten away with

"Screaming birds sound an awful lot like singing [...] But you seem to be enjoying The fruits of my labour that came to me too young

When he took my virtue I'm glad it seems to serve you

That I was born a daughter and not a son"

-The Fruits (Paris Paloma)

[alxastrx]

"End of beginning" is very much Sophie Foster coded but I fear no one cares about my overpowered beautiful daughter enough to make the connexion.

[leportraitducadavre]

I don't know if you've written about it already, and if so you can just redirect me if you'd like, but there's obviously a lot of gay undertones to Naruto and Sasuke's relationship, and all the suggestive illustrations. How much of it do you think was consciously intentional by Kishimoto?

I'm sorry but what "clear undertones" are you referring to? Why does the friendship between two males have to be represented in a particular (usually Westernized) way so that it's not confused with romantic interest? It's prototyping homosexual romantic relationships so that they are labeled within a standard that the reader identifies them with.

It's perfectly fine to ship SNS if that's the desire of those who consume the manga, but to justify that choice on the premise that "Kishimoto planned it because there are clear indications of what I consider a homosexual romantic relationship to be" is dangerous (encapsulating homosexual relationships inside one specific dynamic diminishes the relevance of romantic LGTB+ bonds that do not develop on the same premise), and fetishizes same-gender relationships.

Kishimoto wrote similarly premised relationships throughout the manga, highlighting the relevance of having a "rivalry" between two people within shinobi culture, in that sense, Sasuke and Naruto are no different from other characters.

At the same time, this idea of a "romance clearly planned by the author" usually also hides the shipper's ideology that romantic love is intrinsically superior to any other kind, nullifying the relevance of other bonds that do not fall into this category. Sasuke is constantly relying on his love for his family to carry on throughout the manga, yet that bond is diminished by many SNS fans in order to give more relevance to his bond with Naruto. His friendship with the main character is also of incredible importance, yet somehow Sasuke considering Naruto his best friend isn't as relevant as him seeing him as a romantic partner, as that kind of bond is, to them, superior.

There is a huge market for queer products to enjoy within Japanese media and that is a much better place to explore such dynamics, as they are specifically designed to address such a demand. Seeking queer representation within products aimed at a largely cis-male, heteronormative audience encapsulates LGBT+ relationships under toxic and/or heteronormative codes and behaviors by stripping them of their self-identity and fetishizing their interactions in the process (here).

Furthermore, I've seen people questioning Kishimoto's own sexuality because "he's clearly a closeted gay as he wrote SNS" which destroys their whole stance as "LGTB+ supporters" because not only did they decide to publicly question the sexuality and "out" an author based on his fictional work, but also decided to lock same-gender relationships into a single dynamism, where the idea of "romance" is encapsulated in a largely antagonistic relationship with obsessive undertones. We call that "toxic" when it's a heterosexual relationship, so why wouldn't it be for a homosexual couple?

What exactly is different about that dynamic that allows an LGBT+ couple to explore the kind of bond that we consider toxic and unbalanced within a heterosexual relationship? Usually, many of these issues fall back on an internalized misogyny where, because women are usually inferior both physically and mentally to men, they cannot develop this kind of union in the same way that men can. The relationship remains equally toxic and dangerous for both parties, but because they now don't find a concrete visualization of this imbalance (because, again, they perceive women as inherently inferior to men), they do not regard it in this way.

As I've said, shipping SNS it's alright, I personally can't see any romantic dynamic to get behind in the manga (which is, again, a personal preference of mine as I don't think Kishimoto cared much for those types of bonds), finding queer subtext in media is a common practice and was born out of the need for representation of a minority within a highly repressive society; but to see it as the only valid reading of a product and justify the lack of canonization of the couple under the premise of "social homophobia" within a community that the shipper usually does not know anything about (such as Japan) is a dangerous and senseless practice. Even more so considering the well-known and mainstream Japanese Yaoi market that exists and could use more support.

I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude to you in any manner, but your ask allowed me to explore a difficult and important topic that I tried to address very carefully because I think that people got completely desensitized with and, in their attempt to become a "supporter", they fetishized LGTB+ relationships.