#fandom sexism

[theflashjaygarrick]

After thinking about the comic fandom's prioritisation of white male characters I feel like it's a self fulfilling cycle.

Mainstream discourse around superhero comics is all about how white male centric the genre is. The general consensus in fandom is that women don't like female characters because they are badly written and 2-dimensional in most nerd franchises.

And if you go in with that mindset you'll fairly assume that the characters who have the best runs and most interesting stories are the white men. And if you look at fandom spaces and people are waxing poetic about characters like Jason Todd and Tim Drake and acknowledging that characters like Babs, Steph and Cass exist this only will reinforce this perception. So the person getting into batfam go and ask for the best stories about the Batboys or read summaries about their arcs, only seeing these women as background characters in male characters stories.

But the thing is that isn't strictly. I mean I 100% agree that comics are sexist and racist but that doesn't mean that there aren't phenomenal and iconic runs starring and entering female characters (including queer women, disabled women, and WOC). Cassandra Cain and Kate Kane probably have two of the best character bibles out of the entire batfamily in the form of Batgirl 2000 and Batwoman: Elegy. Selina and Babs both have more well received story lines/runs than Jason Todd does.

Great stories with nuanced female characters exist but the assumption they don't means that people don't look for them. So instead they draw upon stories with the Batboys (minus Luke Fox, JPV and often Duke) in their fan art and fan fiction and discussions and accidentally obscure the stories of female characters in the batman mythos even more.

And the cycle continues.

[sassydefendorflower]

I want to talk about something. I want to talk about ableism in fandom. And sexism in fandom. Oh, and racism in fandom.

Mostly though, I wanna talk about how the discussion about these things often gets derailed because people don't understand what trends and typical behaviors actually are.

Whenever a Person of Color, a woman, someone disabled, someone queer (or an intersection of any of these groups) points out that certain fandom trends are bigoted in some shape or form, half the replies seem to be "but they are my comfort character! Maybe people just like them better because they are more interesting!" or even "people are allowed to have headcanons!" - the very daft even go for a "don't bring politics into fandom" which is a personal favorite because nothing exists in a vacuum and nothing is truly apolitical. But alas~

What most of these replies seemingly fail to understand is something very, very simple: it's not about you.

You, as an individual, are just one datapoint in a fandom. You are not the trend. You do not necessarily depict the typical behavior.

When someone points out that there is racism in fandom, that doesn't mean every fan is racist or perpetuating racist ideas*. By constantly mentioning your own lack of racism, quite often, you are actively derailing the conversation away from the problems at hand.

When someone names and describes a trend, they don't mean your headcanon specifically - they mean the accumulated number of headcanons perpetuating a harmful or outdated idea.

I am not saying this to forbid anyone from writing fics about their favorite characters or to keep anyone from having fun headcanons and sharing their theories and thoughts - quite the opposite actually. A critique of a general trend is not a critique of you as an individual - and you're going to have a much better, and more productive, time online if you can internalize that. If you stop growing defensive and instead allow yourself to actually digest the message of what was pointed out.

I am saying this to encourage some critical thinking.

Allow me to offer up some examples:

Case 1: A DC blogger made the daring statement that maybe Tim and Jason were such a popular fanfic focus because they are the only two undeniably white batboys. Immediately someone replied saying "no, it's all the fun traumatic situations we can put them in!". Which is an insane statement to make, considering the same can be said for literally ANY OTHER DC Batman and Batfam character.

The original post wasn't anything groundbreaking, they didn't accuse anyone, didn't name any names... but immediately there was a justification, immediately there was a reason why people might like these characters more. No one stopped to take a second and reflect on the current trends in fanfiction, no one considered that maybe this wasn't a declaration against people who like these characters but a thesis depicting the OVERALL trend of fandom once again focusing on undeniably white (and male) characters.

(don't get me started on the racebending of white characters in media that has a big Cast of Color and the implications of that)

Case 2: A meta posted on Ao3 about ableism in the Criminal Minds fandom caught my attention. A wonderful piece, very thoughtful, analyzing certain characterization choices within the fandom through the lens of an actually autistic person. The conclusion they reached: the writing of Spencer Reid as an autistic character, while often charming and comforting, tended to be incredibly infantilizing and at worst downright ableist. They came to that conclusion while CLEARLY stating that the individual fanfic wasn't the problem, but the general fandom trend in depicting this character.

Once again, looking at the replies seemed to be a mistake: while many comments furthered the discussion, there were quite a few which completely missed the point. Some were downright hostile. Because how dare this author imply that THEY are ableist when they write their favorite character using that specific characterization.

It didn't matter that the author allowed room for personal interpretation. It didn't matter that they noted something concerning about the entire fandom - people still thought they were attacking singular people.

Case 3: I wrote a fic about abortion in the FMA(b) fandom (actually I've written a weird amount of fics about abortion in a lot of fandoms, but alas) and I got hate comments for it. Because of that I addressed the bias in fandom against pro-choice depictions of pregnancies. I pointed out that the utter lack of abortion in many omegaverse stories or even mpreg or het romances, painted the picture of an unconscious bias that hurt people for whom abortion was the only option, the best possible ending. The response on the post itself was mostly positive, but I got anon hate.

(which I can unfortunately not show you since I deleted it in the months since)

And I'm not overly broken up about it, but it also underlines my point: by pointing at a general problem, a typical behavior, a larger trend... people feel personally attacked.

This inability to discuss sexism, ableism, racism, transphobia, etc in fandom without people turning defensive and hurt... well, it damages our ability to have these conversations at all.

Earlier I said YOU are not the problem - well, i think part of this discussion is acknowledging that: sometimes YOU are in fact part of the problem. And that's not the end of the world. But you can only recognize yourself as a cog in the machine, if you can examine your own actions, your own biases, your own preferences critically and without becoming defensive.

And, again, this is not to keep you from finding comfort in your favorite characters and headcanons. This is also not to say that I am free of biases and internalized bigotries - I am also very much a part of the system. A part of the problem.

This is so you can comfortably ask yourself "but why is there no abortion in this universe?" or "why are my favorite black characters always the top in my slash ships?" or "why do I write this disabled character as childish and in need of help?" - and sometimes the answer is "because I am disabled and I want comfort", and that's fine too.

There is no one shoe fits all in fiction. There is not a single trope that captures all members of a group. There is no single stereotype that isn't also someone's comfort. No group is a monolith, no experienced all-encompasing (or entirely unique).

There is never a simple answer.

But that doesn't mean you should stop questioning your own biases, your own ideals.

Especially, if you grow defensive if someone points out that a certain trend you engage in might be racist. Or sexist. Or queerphobic. Or fucking ableist.

*this does not mean negate the general anti-blackness perpetuated by most cultures as a result of colonialism and slavery

[rey-jake-therapist]

People say they want more flawed female characters but they can't even handle TROP Galadriel.

If it had been a male character who had behaved like Galadriel did in season 1, rude and bossy, people would call him "broody" and "tormented". He would be everyone's favorite "baby girl".

But Galadriel gets to be called a b*tch.

[venux777]

‘annabeth chase bashing’ ‘matchmaker piper mclean’ ‘cinnamon roll hazel levesque’

[divorce-quartet-memes]

pov i'm trying to read mcyt fanfiction

[silvermoon424]

Can we all please start using the phrase "fandom husbandry" from now on, thanks

[justanisabelakinnie]

"We need more strong, fleshed out, well-developed female characters of color!" you bitches couldn't even handle the Madrigal women.

[yourhighness6]

It's funny to me when people insist that "ATLA was really feminist" as if there wasn't really only one feminist message which was the very generic "girls can fight too" spiel that every 2000s show had going on whenever they briefly tried to jump on the feminism bandwagon or whatever

[sarafangirlart]

I can only name 3 instances of this and the character getting sidelined in all of them is black (gee wonder why…)

[elenorasweet]

Fanfic about "The Batfamily" that leaves out Cass, who has been legally Bruce's daughter longer than Damian has existed: oops i forgot i guess i just don't know much about her

Drawing of "The Robins" that doesn't include Stephanie, who WAS a Robin: lol okay but you don't count as a Robin if you didn't spend long enough in the role obviously

Fanart featuring "90s Young Justice" that leaves out Cassie, Greta or Cissie: yeah but like they were never as close as the others plus they're boring to me

I fucking see you and I see what all of these things have in common.

[ferocioustrout]

(person who physically cannot care about a character unless theyre hot and can be shipped yaoi style voice) no you don’t understand it’s not that I don’t like women it’s just that all of them in every piece of media are horribly written mary sues who are evil and bad. not my epic male blorbo who I ship with some guy he interacted with once and has every superpower, committed war crimes, and had 3 lines though. he’s awesome and well written and if you really think about it he’s the best character in the series

[azurecanary]

The people on Reddit need to shut the fuck up about K Tanaka actually

[foulfirerebel]

Had a whole rant planned about Gravity Falls and the fandom having horrible double standards, but wanted to express it in brief. So here goes.

"We want more women and girl characters who make mistakes!"

You guys couldn't even handle Mabel Pines.

[torchwood-99]

"Work, skills and traits that have traditionally been seen as characteristics of and appropriate for women shouldn't be derided or minimised in favour of skills and traits associated with men, and should be respected"

is a valid point, but so is;

"women shouldn't be forced to stick to work, skills and traits that are traditionally seen as womanly, even if they are valuable and important to society, and they have every right to resent and dislike a societal role and code of behaviour that has been inflicted on them regardless of ability, interest or inclination, because of something as arbitrary as gender".

Period heroines complaining about needlework and housekeeping, and fantasy heroines dreaming of sword fighting and adventures, are not a problem, and actually do give voice to the many women in the world who didn't and still don't fit into what society has decided women should be.

[kittydragondraws]

This Fandom is Weirdly Misogynistic and Ableist

Yeah great title there bud.

So originally this was going to be a half-baked rant about how people disrespect V, but the more I brainstormed that I came to realize. This fandom in general has a problem with misogyny and even ableism towards not just V, but Uzi as well. Heck, I would almost say Uzi moreso.

When it comes to personality butchering, I'd say V gets it worse. The number of times I've seen people make her sound like some petty, vengeful ex makes me want to rip my laptop screen off its hinges.

And most of the reason they do this, episode 4.

When Uzi and V are together in the cabin, V tells Uzi that it's better to stay distant because she'll have to kill Uzi next. Afterwards saying that N's made friends with rocks before, and that he'd move on from her death just fine.

Now, I honestly love this scene. It's a moment where Uzi and V get to be together and V gets to show her true colors without having to hide them from N. She expresses her desire to kill Uzi, because she believes it'll keep N safe, and tells her about the rock friends to make her feel like she's just some cheap novelty to N. This scene is great.

Yet apparently, some people looked at this scene and saw it as V being jealous of Uzi's relationship with N and wanting to kill her over it.

Now I just have to ask... why. This scene is so easy to understand when you just sit and think about it, so why did so many people default to it being a ship thing?

Maybe because she's just a pantless whore who exists just for people to thirst over. At least, that's what Reddit bros and Discord trolls would have you believe.

Now, I do feel it's a bit stupid to look at an unpopular female character and say "well you'd like her if they were a guy", but with V I have a feeling that's exactly the case.

V's not fan service, she's not a hoe or some crazy ex. She's just trying to keep herself from losing one of the few sane constants in her crazy, messed-up life.

But of course, she can't be an intelligent or deep character, she's just a petty woman upset at Uzi for stealing her man and who needs to put on some pants.

Now Uzi, I'd have to say her treatment is worse. Not just because it's the same sexist bullshit V has to put up with, but because she's neurodivergent.

Okay, that was a lie, she's not canonically neurodivergent. But she does have a lot of traits of a neurodivergent person. Being a social outcast, thought of as weird because of her interests and behavior.

Most people who headcanon Uzi as neurodivergent seem to agree that she could have autism, ADHD, or BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), and I just wanna talk a bit more about her unofficial BPD diagnosis because I think that's the most fascinating out of the three.

In this image I highlighted some symptoms that feel very similar to personality traits Uzi has. Like, it's so similar it almost feels weird to say Uzi having BPD isn't canon.

Now I know what you're going to say, "But Kitty this is just people's headcanons."

And you know what? Fair honestly. But even if Uzi doesn't have autism, ADHD, or BPD, she almost definitely has some form of trauma and you'd be hard-pressed to try to argue with me she's neurotypical.

Uzi's not a pick me, she's a traumatized, possibly neurodivergent, girl trying to hold onto the first friend she's ever made.

Or hey? Maybe she should just suck it up and learn to take care of herself.

Honestly, this post is just a TLDR version of this.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Women's Suffering in HOTD

One of the most common criticisms of GOT was the excessive abuse (usually sexual) of women. They injected needless and very graphic rape scenes and excessive female nudity (coupled with a pointed lack of male nudity and sexualizatio). Every single female character was sexualized at some point, even if it wasn't written in the books.

HOTD creators expressed how they wanted to cut down on the frankly disgusting treatment of women in their show. They have made a massive deal about this being a "feminist" story that targets the damage of the patriarchy. Which is all well and good, one of the Dance's primary themes is the damage the patriarchy does. However, the way HOTD portrayed it is extremely hypocritical.

From the very first episode, the suffering of women in HOTD was glorified. Aemma and Laena's deaths were changed in the show to be more humiliating to the women. We are shown in detail how traumatic and awful their final moments were.

Now, showing the horrors women were subjected to is not a bad thing. HOTD, however, doesn't necessarily portray this as wrong. The suffering is almost fetishized by the writers and is fully fetishized by certain parts of the fandom.

The moments of great suffering of the women are shot in a way that is meant to make them look delicate and pretty. Again, this isn't necessarily bad, but there's never a moment where the true devastation and horror is shown apart from that. The lines about the injustice women face are paired with messages about the honor of suffering.

The fandom's perception of this is especially telling I think. Certain groups in the fandom glory in how the suffering of women is made pretty. They love how Alicent is reduced to the victim who cries pretty. They revel in Helaena's perpetually sad eyes and lack of agency. They hate Rhaenyra for fighting and wanting to change her circumstances.

Rhaenyra is made to be smaller and more "palatable" so that she may fit the idea of a "good victim" better. Rhaenyra's decision to fight the standards forced on her are what make her into a "gray" character, rather than her morally ambiguous decisions. She is made to be wrong by both the story and the fandom because she isn't suffering prettily enough.