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Everyone's favorite: misogyny in fan-fiction.
Usually, when the subject of pervasive (often subconscious) misogyny in fanfic (especially slash) comes up, I either (a) run and hide or (b) wind up playing devil's advocate, because -- well, because that's what I do.
It's not that I don't think there's misogyny. I totally agree that there is. And it's pervasive, though probably often subconscious. The tendency to squash female characters -- whether by casting them as helpless weaklings or as scheming bitches (or somewhere along the continuum), whether they have any relationship with the slash objects in the first place, whether the female characters themselves are canon or original -- it's everywhere. Or, I mean, it's everywhere I've looked. I don't play in a wide range of fandoms.
Where I tend to get snarled at is in maintaining the position that the squashing of ex-wives and -girlfriends is at least as much because they're exes as it is because they're women. Castigation of exes, male or female, deserving or not, is something people do. I think it's very, very likely that many slashers beat up on the male leads' female exes (or the exes' reputations) out of some sort of sympathy for the leads themselves. Carolyn Plummer (The Sentinel) and Stella Kowalski (due South) get a lot of this, though there's no canon evidence that Jim or Ray -- or anyone else, frankly -- dislikes either of them as much as some fans seem to. Samantha Wells (TS) and Alex Barnes (TS) and Victoria Metcalfe (DS) and Meg Thatcher (DS) get hit as well, but at least they all (to greater or lesser degrees [g]) present actual dangers to the leads in question. Lisa McCall (Sports Night) gets it in canon from Dan and Dana as well as from Casey. The trouble, really, is that there are no (well, damned few) female leads whose (the world being what it is) male exes can be similarly shredded. If we had them, though, I believe we'd do it -- if Megan Connor (TS), for example, whom people seem to like okay, had an ex, he'd be a no-good bum who hadn't deserved her. Right?
Of course -- and this is why it's just been devil's advocacy, because I do agree -- the thing of it really is that it hardly matters why female characters get it between the eyes in the court of fannish opinion. The point is that they do, and that there's so often so little use for it. Most stories need conflict, and most conflicts need some sort of antagonist, but girl-bashing without purpose is just as sloppy as use of other devices without purpose -- and it's worse, because no matter what the intention was, the perception is that it's a female character getting a drubbing.
Which brings me to the thing that got my thoughts churning in this direction. Family Portrait, by Journey.
Setup: AU. Widowed!RayK has two children. He and Fraser become friends, then lovers, etc. It's not a bad piece of work, I found, if a little predictable in some places and idealistic in others. But whatever -- the thing that sticks in my mind is a moment about a third of the way into the thing where Ray and Fraser, not yet lovers, have just put the kids to bed:
The other mentions of Stella in the piece are not unflattering, but not high praise either. Ray donates some clothes to Goodwill, the kids know she's watching them from heaven, that kind of stuff. And a few things occur to me at this point.
1. Was it necessary to kill the woman? Talk about doing damage to a female character!
The slash-fandom-is-inherently-misogynistic camp would, and I think understandably, be all over this. Killing a "rival" (on behalf of Fraser, in this case) is, obviously, the most final and drastic action one can take against her. It's hard to look at that and not see misogyny, at least a little bit.
On the other hand, possibly the writer thought it was kinder to kill her. Rather than have a divorce and the resulting custody issues with the children, however amicable, which would at a minimum diminish the children's devotion to Fraser as The Other Parent, thus (ipso facto) casting Stella in an unfavorable light since Fraser is the hero of the piece, it's possible the writer decided to leave the readers and the characters with good memories of Stella. She's not an obstacle to the Fraser/Ray romance at all, nor to the relationship between Fraser and the kids, so this is better than keeping her alive and making her a Bad Guy [tm].
But if that's the case ...
2. Why take the time to make her a bad mother?
That shoots the above loophole right in the foot, unfortunately. The Sainted Stella argument would work, if the kids had been the most important thing to her and Ray had initially been utterly lost without her, &c. The Stella Didn't Care argument would work if there'd been a messy divorce and the kids had hardly noticed she was gone. But combining them results in She's Gone And We Don't Miss Her That Much, which just looks ... misogynistic.
I don't think the writer is a woman-hater. I don't think too many of us are, no matter what our levels of insecurity and self-loathing. But this isn't a piece that was sloppily-written; it sure looks like everything in there is in there because of a deliberate choice on the writer's part. So I have to wonder why she made the choice to smear the name of a dead woman.
It's not that I don't think there's misogyny. I totally agree that there is. And it's pervasive, though probably often subconscious. The tendency to squash female characters -- whether by casting them as helpless weaklings or as scheming bitches (or somewhere along the continuum), whether they have any relationship with the slash objects in the first place, whether the female characters themselves are canon or original -- it's everywhere. Or, I mean, it's everywhere I've looked. I don't play in a wide range of fandoms.
Where I tend to get snarled at is in maintaining the position that the squashing of ex-wives and -girlfriends is at least as much because they're exes as it is because they're women. Castigation of exes, male or female, deserving or not, is something people do. I think it's very, very likely that many slashers beat up on the male leads' female exes (or the exes' reputations) out of some sort of sympathy for the leads themselves. Carolyn Plummer (The Sentinel) and Stella Kowalski (due South) get a lot of this, though there's no canon evidence that Jim or Ray -- or anyone else, frankly -- dislikes either of them as much as some fans seem to. Samantha Wells (TS) and Alex Barnes (TS) and Victoria Metcalfe (DS) and Meg Thatcher (DS) get hit as well, but at least they all (to greater or lesser degrees [g]) present actual dangers to the leads in question. Lisa McCall (Sports Night) gets it in canon from Dan and Dana as well as from Casey. The trouble, really, is that there are no (well, damned few) female leads whose (the world being what it is) male exes can be similarly shredded. If we had them, though, I believe we'd do it -- if Megan Connor (TS), for example, whom people seem to like okay, had an ex, he'd be a no-good bum who hadn't deserved her. Right?
Of course -- and this is why it's just been devil's advocacy, because I do agree -- the thing of it really is that it hardly matters why female characters get it between the eyes in the court of fannish opinion. The point is that they do, and that there's so often so little use for it. Most stories need conflict, and most conflicts need some sort of antagonist, but girl-bashing without purpose is just as sloppy as use of other devices without purpose -- and it's worse, because no matter what the intention was, the perception is that it's a female character getting a drubbing.
Which brings me to the thing that got my thoughts churning in this direction. Family Portrait, by Journey.
Setup: AU. Widowed!RayK has two children. He and Fraser become friends, then lovers, etc. It's not a bad piece of work, I found, if a little predictable in some places and idealistic in others. But whatever -- the thing that sticks in my mind is a moment about a third of the way into the thing where Ray and Fraser, not yet lovers, have just put the kids to bed:
"Yeah, well, bedtime's when you find out all the good stuff."
"The good stuff?"
"Yeah, you know, everything, what went down at school, who sat next to who, what so-and-so said when that other kid said that, what went right and what went wrong."
"Ahh."
"Yeah, that's where the goods are. Most important time of the day." Ray fidgeted on the swing looking down at his hands on the slats. "Stella. She, well, she wasn't always able to, you know, get real involved with the bedtime stuff."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, well, her job was important to her and there always seemed to be a brief to read, or notes to type up, or forms to fill out. You know, something."
"Ah." Ray looked up quickly, but Fraser had his head back and was studying the stars.
"Yeah, well, I kinda think...I kinda think, she missed out, you know? And now, there's no going back and changing it for her, you know. She just missed it." To his fury, Ray's eyes started to fill and his voice dropped. "And sometimes, I'm just so mad about that. Not that it does any good, now. But it just bothers me that she didn't take the opportunity that she had to...know them. To love them. Even if they were little. She just fucking missed it." He leaned his head back and put his arm over his eyes for a moment. "Anyway, so I make sure. I make sure, you know, not to miss it. Not to be too busy. I don't want to miss anything."
The other mentions of Stella in the piece are not unflattering, but not high praise either. Ray donates some clothes to Goodwill, the kids know she's watching them from heaven, that kind of stuff. And a few things occur to me at this point.
1. Was it necessary to kill the woman? Talk about doing damage to a female character!
The slash-fandom-is-inherently-misogynistic camp would, and I think understandably, be all over this. Killing a "rival" (on behalf of Fraser, in this case) is, obviously, the most final and drastic action one can take against her. It's hard to look at that and not see misogyny, at least a little bit.
On the other hand, possibly the writer thought it was kinder to kill her. Rather than have a divorce and the resulting custody issues with the children, however amicable, which would at a minimum diminish the children's devotion to Fraser as The Other Parent, thus (ipso facto) casting Stella in an unfavorable light since Fraser is the hero of the piece, it's possible the writer decided to leave the readers and the characters with good memories of Stella. She's not an obstacle to the Fraser/Ray romance at all, nor to the relationship between Fraser and the kids, so this is better than keeping her alive and making her a Bad Guy [tm].
But if that's the case ...
2. Why take the time to make her a bad mother?
That shoots the above loophole right in the foot, unfortunately. The Sainted Stella argument would work, if the kids had been the most important thing to her and Ray had initially been utterly lost without her, &c. The Stella Didn't Care argument would work if there'd been a messy divorce and the kids had hardly noticed she was gone. But combining them results in She's Gone And We Don't Miss Her That Much, which just looks ... misogynistic.
I don't think the writer is a woman-hater. I don't think too many of us are, no matter what our levels of insecurity and self-loathing. But this isn't a piece that was sloppily-written; it sure looks like everything in there is in there because of a deliberate choice on the writer's part. So I have to wonder why she made the choice to smear the name of a dead woman.
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