Misogyny in Fanfiction
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| Title: | Misogyny in Fanfiction |
| Creator: | Laura Jacquez Valentine |
| Date(s): | April 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Misogyny in Fandom |
| External Links: | Wayback; WebCite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Misogyny in Fanfiction is an essay by Laura Jacquez Valentine.
Summary: "Why you'll often find me waving my hands around and shouting."
Versions of this originally posted to Prospect-L and FCA-L. Updated 28 Jan 02. It is at listen to me! listen to me! essays.
Excerpts
I've started more than a few arguments by saying that I think slash (and fanfiction in general) has a misogynistic streak. Women who seem real to me--intelligent women with human failings and human strengths--will often get written as really rotten people in fanfiction.The phenomenon is widespread enough that one can characterize the forms that it takes. The most common ones in my experience are:
- routine portrayal of ex-wives or ex-girlfriends as crazy bitches or neurotic freaks
- routine dismissal of canon female characters as unimportant, even when the reverse is clearly true.
- not-uncommon discussions of how much better sex is with a man than with a woman
I'm going to pick on the Sentinel writer Francesca, because I think she doesn't get picked on enough. Specifically, I'm going to pick on "Nature's Outing", which is certainly not the most egregious offense in the world as these things go.Carolyn rubs me in all the wrong ways in this story. Granted, if Nat and I split and he ended up with another guy, I don't think I'd take it well, and Carolyn certainly has a right to be upset. It would have to be disconcerting, to say the least.
On the other hand, she's really, really nasty, and Jim later implies that she was like that a lot during their marriage, so it's not a one-time deal in this universe: she's the kind of person who rips into people in extremely nasty ways. And I don't see it in canon, and I *hate* seeing it in stories.
It's the repeated and regular occurrance of this kind of characterization of female characters that makes me feel that fanfiction in general, and slash in particular, has a misogynistic streak a mile wide.
Now, granted, part of my problem with "Nature's Outing" is that, when I read it (I just looked at the archive date, and it's the same day my first TS story was archived), there wasn't any sense of it setting up stuff for later on. That it *did* is what saves it for me--I mean, so many times bitchy Carolyn is just *pointless*--but that doesn't change my initial reaction to the characterization, and on re-reading, I still react that way (even knowing what comes afterwards).
Honestly, what happens in "Nature's Conferences" is what keeps "Nature's Outing" from being a story I can't re-read. No matter how much I like the dialogue and the pacing and the sex scene. The particular characterization of Carolyn (presented in "Nature's Outing" in isolation) is one that makes me feel like kicking people in the head (er, I'm kinda a bitch myself...)