Skip it if you're tired of it.

[meganbmoore]

Disjointed ramblings regarding gender (and some on race) ahead.

So, at lunch today, Mom and I somehow ended up talking about about children's toys.  Likely because she helped me out in the church nursery today, and Jackson will be staying with them next weekend.  I mentioned that i'd also looked at the toys for little girls when I'd been shopping for Jackson's Christmas and birthday gifts, and I'd noticed that there didn't seem to be many action figures for little girls*, but that I remembered there being action figures for little girls when I was a kid.  At that point, with no prompting at all, she said (in that parent voice that says "this was annoying to live with, but I'm glad I have the memories") "She-Ra!  By the power of...Greyskull!"

Then I asked what action figures Myles always had and what shows he watched, and she rattled off He-Man, Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, G.I.Joe and a couple others whose names I've forgotten.  I asked if she remembered any of the lines there, but all she remembered was that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made him obsessed with cheese pizza.  I don't think this means that she liked She-Ra more, just that I ran around the house yelling one thing all the time, while he ran around yelling half a dozen things.  (ETA:  But with equal amounts of actual yelling going on.  Sorry, i'm still giggling a bit at my mother's "By the power of Greyskull!"  Also, she spoiled the second of Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe books.  As I have been put in charge of acquiring them for her since we're both reading them, I shall just have to make sure she doesn't read them before me!)

And while I was typing that paragraph, I got a phone call asking to speak with "a male registered voter."  I asked for a repeat, and then clarfied "you are saying a male registered voter, right?" He said yes. I said there were none, and then he asked if I was a registered voter.  When I asked why he asked for a man if he could talk to me, he stuttered and then started to say something about equal polling.  I hung up.  I can get polls specifically aimed at either gender, but only wanting to talk to me if there isn't a guy in the house?  I don't think so.

Anyway, during that conversation (at lunch, the phone call was just amazingly well timed), something clicked for why some of the things I've linked to lately-specifically Whines When Girls Smoke, Flirt, Shoot, And Fly Fighter Planes and Says Girls Don't Like Action Things Unless They Feel Inferior To Men-seem worse than your run-of-the-mill stupidity.  Both put themselves forth as wanting fiction for women and female roles...as long as those roles and those pieces of fiction are "approved."  Give us fiction meant for women and give us female characters, but keep them separate, away from things men might like.  Don't let female characters do things male characters have always done.  Keep them in their proper place.  Prominent women, central women, are ok as long as it doesn't affect male domination in anything outside of traditional roles or certain types of fiction.  Roles and genres approved of as being ok for women.

Specifically, it makes me think of Separate But Equal.  I don't know if what I'm referring to is as well known by that term outside of the U.S., so for anyone who doesn't want to click that link and doesn't immediately know what I mean, it refers to segragation laws in the U.S. that where black people and white people were given public services (public restrooms, schools, public transportation, water fountains, etc.) but there were different services available to you based on the color of your skin.  It gave black people "rights," but the services given to them were vastly inferior to those given to white people.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing representation of gender in fiction to generations of racism and segregation (though it is a result of generations of sexism) but I do think there's similar thinking going on.  It's easy to say "I'm not sexist, I just think men and women are different and should be treated as such,"  just like it's easy to say "I'm not racist, I just think blacks and whites are different and should be treated as such."  And usually, people who say it genuinely mean it, and will loudly protest against something they see that's glaringly sexist or racist.  At the same time, though, there are many forms of sexism and racism that aren't obvious, and that have always been treated as "natural."  These forms are the kind people argue against and are afraid to admit to, because they tend to challenge their worldview, and threaten them with having to examine their own privilege.  It's why no one likes to have something they like criticized, because that criticism might make them admit there could be a flaw, and then there's the fear that they could be "wrong" for liking it.

This is also why people get accused of seeing racism and/or sexism everywhere.  Some people do that.  Most accused of it don't.  It's just that, once you start to become aware of the fact that there are prejudices and inequalities in fiction beyond the obvious ones that everyone can recognize, you start to see how prominent those problems are, and how they're often the default.  But I think you're much more likely to find a person who refuses to admit there might be a problem with something because they fear that doing so will challenge them than you are to find a person actively looking for things to complain about.

No one is saying that every good heroine has to shoot guns/swing a sword and be better at it than men or it's sexist, or that the only strong female character is a man with breasts, and no one is saying that a princess is automatically a weak character or that the girl next door is useless.  (Ok, some do, but we try to ignore them.)  We're just saying that it'd be nice if it were considered normal for women to have those roles in addition to more traditional roles-just like men can be politicians, scholars, warriors, etc. without it being unusual-unless it's a situation (pregnancy, WWII battlefield,  etc.) where there's no way it could happen.


*Mind you, there may be some and I just didn't see them, or they may have been in the rows of action figures for little boys and I just missed them due to their being outnumbered 40-to-1.

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly with your rant. I feel very lucky that, when I was a kid, I had for heroines not only She-Rah but also Oscar from Roses of Versailles, the three girls from Cat's Eyes, Clementine, and a few girls of sports series. It was still not a lot, but it was something.

I can get polls specifically aimed at either gender, but only wanting to talk to me if there isn't a guy in the house? I don't think so.
I can probably explain this if you want (having worked in polling/interviewing places for a short time).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I really wish I'd been able to watch Rose of Versailles as a kid. (Even though I'm still on ep 9.)

Go ahead and explain the polling thing. My problem wasn't so much that he wanted to speak to a guy as it was that he couldn't really explain why he could only talk to me if there wasn't one.

[ms-treesap.livejournal.com]

This is also why people gets accused of seeing racism and/or sexism everywhere. Some people do that. Most accused of it don't. It's just that, once you start to become aware of the fact that there are prejudices and inequality in fiction beyond the obvious ones that everyone can recognize, you start to see how prominent those problems are, and how they're often the default.

Yes, exactly. I like to think of it as the more enlightened (no pun intended) perspective, although it is harder to live with.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

In almost every kinds of surveys you can find there are very specic quotas about how many women and men they want to interview (They also almost always have some for age; then there's usually a bunch of other quotas which depend of the subject of the survey). At a call center they try to follow how the advancement of the quota goes; so when it starts being unbalanced (much more many women interviewed than men for example), they're going to give consigns like : you can still interview women, but try to have males in priority. It seems likely that's what was going on. Why the interviewer wasn't able to explain that, I don't know... maybe he just felt unbalanced (they probably had a scrip under their eyes that they were supposed to follow...)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's true that, once you start seeing it, you can't stop, even when you just want to turn off part of your brain and enjoy something silly. But that doesn't mean you're actively looking for something to complain about. It just means that you're trying to be more aware of problems that exist, but that may not always be obvious.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "we try to interview an equal number of men and women, and we've spoken with more women" really is something they should be taught. "It's...uh...it's for equal polling" sounds more like "Oh bleep I'm in a hole dig dig dig."

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, they should. But usually the formation for that kind of job is, like, one hour long.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

Someone already said exactly what I said about the polling thing. The only other thing I can say is that I do know that companies like Hasbro feel that their main demographic is males, though I cannot explain why this is. The rest of your post . . . didn't make sense to me, to be honest.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

How so?

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

"Specifically, it makes me think of Separate But Equal. I don't know if what I'm referring to is as well known by that term outside of the U.S."

It's well enough known here, not so much in the context of the United States but in the context of South Africa during the `eighties.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

. . . I feel like I see good female characters all the time. I feel like I see good fiction with no gender demographic all the time. Even Lost, which had about three or four women when it started, one of which was done passably well, now has some amazing female characters. Maybe I'm just selective, maybe it's that I tend to avoid things that are very popular, not because of popularity, but because of lack of appeal. I see some subtle sexism, yes, in terms of gender roles, but not often, and it feels to me like it's leaking out of fiction and society slowly. The shows that do have poor characterization, for females or in general(and if they have bad female characters, they usually have bad characters to begin with), I just ignore. They don't feel worth it to me in any form. So maybe I just have a different outlook, because I don't feel I see what you're seeing.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But with a similar meaning?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

But there's a big difference between whether or not the characters are good characters, and whether or not they're treated as equals. What tends to happen is that things make sure they include female characters, and then have no idea what to do with them, or are afraid that too much focus on them will alienate people.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

I see being treated as equals to be fairly arbitrary without context. All that matters is good characterization, on the whole. In, say, an action or supernatural show, I guess, being treated as equals is a big deal, though I honestly watch very few of those, Lost and Firefly being the closest. And both do, or are currently doing, very good jobs at equalizing female characters. And, no, I don't see many instances of not knowing what to do with female characters. But, admittedly, I'm not sure I have the best range of experience to analyze this. There are about five or six shows I've liked or watched all of, and I can be picky with film, too, I guess, though not as much. I'm sorry, your words still don't seem true to me, but, as I said, I'm not sure I would know.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Then I would recommend analyzing past the surface level. How are they treated in similar situations? What roles do they play? What assumptions are made about them in the text? Are those assumptions questioned? How do they react to the same thing? Which comes forward more to deal with a problem? Which comes up to the solution to the problem? Who has judgement cast on them more? Who is made the focus? If it starts with an equal focus on two characters of opposite genders, does it end with equal focus? Who are more pivotal moments centered around? When characters are portrayed negatively, what traits are used to make them be seen in a negative light? Are those traits given to both genders, and are they portrayed the same when given to both genders? Etc.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

Even asking those questions, I am not seeing any large amount of inequality. Maybe somewhat in Lost, but then things changed. As I said, I may not be reading or watching anything where these are large issues. I would analyze something here in this manner, if you like, but doing so would require large amounts of spoilers.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Not too sure how it all worked in America but, from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid):

The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services, and provided black people with services greatly inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indians and coloureds. The education system practised in 'black schools' was designed to prepare blacks for lives as a labouring class.

("Indian" here meaning South Asian). The situation in South Africa was much better known than the situation in America back when I was at school, probably because the South African segregation era was still at its height while America had been beginning to grow up since the `sixties (as far as I can tell).

[rhap-chan.livejournal.com]

Really insightful and thoughtful. I totally agree.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I love your crayons!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. Firefly has excellent female characters on their own terms, but do note they are:

1. A subordinate
2. A whore
3. A crazy person
4. The mechanic

And half of Kaylee's characterization is her crush on Simon and alternately cute and pathetic attempts to woo him (see the episode with The Dress).

Edited because HTML is mean.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Somehow I want to connect this with a post I read on the journal of A Person I Will Not Name Who Is Not Getting It And Apparently Does Not Want To, about some fictional utopia in his head where everyone wanted racial differences to disappear and now These Young Kids seem to think that they should prize being black and stuff.

Which is to say that there's a line between celebrating diversity and making differences the only notable things about a character. Or something like that. I will hopefully think to come back to this when my brain is less tired.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction too!

(And man, I just remembered going through the crayons at the nursery last week, and finding my old ones that my mother donated when I outgrew them. My name in her handwriting was a big clue.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that Zoe and Inara have the most composure, dignity, and sense of self of any character on the crew. But here's a question: Why is Inara the one who has to change? Why, in Serenity, where it's hinted that she and Mal might finally get together, is she the one who has changed her lifestyle to be a more conventionally acceptable one, despite the fact that, of the two, she was the more socially acceptable one?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Connect in a good way, I hope. I might want to read that post. Most of those conversations have moved to a level that I can't really keep up with.

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

...I stole my older brother's ninja turtles games/figures and played with those because they seemed to do a hell of a lot more things than my girltoys ever did. At least until I got a Princess Gwenevere figurine (she had a magnet in her hand--that was fuuuun). But I'll definitely say this--nowadays, girl toys seem to be more limited to "we dress them up and change their diapers" than they used to be. At least I could shoot SkyDancers up into the sky like rockets.