Talk:Misogyny in Fandom

Renaming the page

Could we do here the same thing we did with the "antisemitism in fandom" page and turn it into a positive instead? Maybe "gender in fandom"?--Doro 20:37, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

If we change Racism in Fandom to Race in fandom...--Sherrold 21:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I like that idea.--Doro 21:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it's already Race And Fandom, fwiw. There's no page just on racism that I can find. --Arduinna 00:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, other than the page for RaceFail '09. --KTJ (talk) 00:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I still think the page should be renamed Women and Fandom or something like that so that there is also a space where we can talk about all the positive things women do in fandom. See for comparison Judaism and Fandom and Race and Fandom. --Doro (talk) 18:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather have two pages. I think misogyny in fandom is a weighty enough topic to carry it's own page. And honestly, I'm a bit creeped out by the idea of creating a "yay, women" page with a "oh, btw, these are the many ways in which people think women suck!"subsection. Gut feeling, but there you have it. --Anenko (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be two different pages because otherwise it's going to get too long. --KTJ (talk) 00:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

What exactly would be on a page about Women and Fandom? Most of Fanlore content is about female fans, and works created by female fans. I'd be more interested in a page about Gender and Fandom. You have fans who are accused of presented themselves online as men for the attention. There's the idea that specific fandoms and types of fandoms are "male" or "female" (writing Star Wars fanfic = female, building model ships = male, for example). I vaguely recall, from the early days of the OTW, there being some outrage about a journalist writing about vidding as if it was something male fans had led the way in.

And I still really, really dislike the idea of folding a complete article about misogyny and fandom into a general page about women. Whatever else comes of this discussion, I hope that isn't it. --Anenko (talk) 08:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I hope not too. Specifically, a page on women and fandom should be dedicated to female contributions to fandom. As you said, it is a gut feeling. To me, trying to combine the misogyny discussion into a page on women in fandom a) trivializes the problem of misogyny in fandom b) feels like it lets women down. It really is two different subjects. A better idea is to build on the subsection in the misogyny page that describes how women (and men) address the problem of misogyny, make it public, take responsibility and put a stop to it.

I have to admit I'm a little steamed on this subject right now. I just came off an article about a woman who received fifty death threats because she ran a Kickstarter to send her little daughter to techie camp. --KTJ (talk) 23:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I really like your ideas for a Gender and Fandom page! I think we should have that for a more general/overview approach to the topic and then we can link to this one as a more specialized topic. --Tiyire (talk) 11:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I also vote for a separate Gender and Fandom page, for all of the above reasons (Anenko had some good ideas on things that could be on it.). There should be a link to the Misogyny and Fandom page. --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

While we're at it, we can start a Gays or LGBT In Fandom page. Right now, there is a Homophobia in Fandom page but no page about LGBT contributions to fandom. Same issue. --KTJ (talk) 20:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Two separate pages would work fine. What doesn't work is having no page to tell the tale about women's contributions to fandom and no page to link to. --Doro (talk) 10:13, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think we can all agree on that. --KTJ (talk) 21:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

While in no way disagreeing with anyone about anything said here, if there's to be a page about women's contribution to fandom, there should also be a page about men's contribution. (Or, if the page is about Gender and Fandom, then it should have sections to cover both.) What fandoms and/or activities appeal more to men/women? Also men's involvement in fandoms where the majority are women. (I know, to my chagrin, that I tend to assume that non-gendered pseuds belong to women—and sometimes I'm wrong.) --Greer Watson (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I came here tonight thinking I would add to my prior comment suggesting also a page for men's contributions. I can remember guys like Alan Lappin, Allan Asherman, Mike Sobota and many others adding to early ST fandom with writings and art. Just check out Spockanalia for starters, you'll see lots of male names on important articles. Also Winston Howlett and Probe. Plus David Gerrold, but we all know about him. There's also people like Scott Shaw!, Vaughn Bodé and the amazing Bob Sourk. For some time I have wanted to come in here and post an article about an essay that came out in Sourk's Destiny zine ca. 1974 about the established science fiction fandom vs. ST fandom coming in. It should by all means be done. --KTJ (talk) 10:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

So where does this leave us? Start with Gender and Fandom and break out Women in Fandom and Men in Fandom if it grows?--æþel (talk) 15:07, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Reorganizing Page

The above thread seems abandoned. Gender and Fandom has been created and this page is in need of reorganization and clarification. I think it would be good differentiate more clearly between treatment of fans, treatment of characters by creators, and treatments of characters by fans. If that leads to more pages I'm not sure what the page titles would be. And it's possible that everything that falls under "treatment of characters by creators" belongs on Women in Refrigerators or something because that's not exactly fandom. – caes (talk) 16:52, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that those splits are basically a great idea, but you're right that "treatment of characters by creators" needs some workshopping to make sure it fits under our wiki's scope. Some brainstorm-y thoughts on that:

• We should definitely mention and link to Women in Refrigerators but WiR/fridging is not a shorthand for all creator->character misogyny. Rather, it's a very specific kind ("the victimization of a female character in order to advance the dramatic arc of a male character") and there are lots of other ways misogyny from creators towards characters happens, so we should bring up other kinds as well.
• ...but we don't need an essay on it. Currently it looks to me like everything under Misogyny in Fandom#Sidelining or killing canon female characters should be removed from the page for being irrelevant to fans particularly, although maybe it could be moved to a section on the talk page to maybe be workshopped?
• What we should really do with the "treatment of characters by creators" is focus on fan reactions/pushback against that, it seems to me? Which is what "Women in Refrigerators" is. Or The Hawkeye Initiative.
• In the same way Anne McCaffery's homophobia gets pushback (eg, The Tent Peg Statement), her misogyny gets pushback too. (On my mind because of recent FFA discussion — but maybe there are better examples.)

Hopefully these are helpful thoughts? - Hoopla (talk) 16:21, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

pairing names

Isn't first the male then the female name (whether first or last names) far more common? I mean, I get 9,920 google hits for "Sheppard/Teyla" only 2,520 for Teyla/Sheppard and 8,890 for John/Teyla vs 3,140 Teyla/John, 303 for Emmagan/Sheppard, 352 for Sheppard/Emmagan, and 650 for Emmagan/John (usually hits where both are actually their full names) and the only hits for John/Emmagan are for Torren. Similarly it's 8,310 for Sheppard/Weir vs 3,190 for Weir/Sheppard...--Ratcreature 21:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear -- it's that "Teyla" is her first name, and "Sheppard" is his last name. If it were Teyla/John, or Sheppard/Emmagen it would be fine -- it's not the order, it's which name is chosen. You never see Rodney/Sheppard (or Sheppard/Rodney) -- you either see Rodney/John or Sheppard/McKay. --Sherrold 01:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this is very noticeable with Ronon, too. I almost always see him listed by his first name, even when the other half of the pairing (usually Rodney or John) is listed by last name. --Kyuuketsukirui 08:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Ha, I see Ronon was mentioned in the main page. --Kyuuketsukirui 08:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I understood that it was about the first/last name thing, but I think naming order is also notable. And not just because in some fandom nomenclature it has implications for who is the dominant partner, but more general about giving importance. I mean, e.g. it is almost alway Mulder/Scully, rarely Scully/Mulder.--Ratcreature 09:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Harassment Against Women in Fandom

http://www.themarysue.com/the-all-too-familiar-harassment-against-feminist-frequency-and-what-the-gaming-community-can-do-about-it/

http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/675153.html

I can't stand that this is happening, and it seems to be happening more, not less. --KTJ 00:11, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed on both accounts. And here are some more examples in videogame fandoms: http://sirhellsing420.tumblr.com/post/26258685601/its-sad-that-even-a-successful-woman-like-felicia and http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/rape-culture-in-gaming/ -Jaetion

We need a section (maybe even a separate page) just for convention harrassment. I'm hoping to get back to this and write something, but meanwhile here's a link to geek feminism wiki's page on the topic.--æþel (talk) 18:03, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

SFWA controversy?

Do we want a page on or otherwise reference this recent controversy? It touches on a lot of misogyny in sf issues.--æþel (talk) 01:47, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Irene Adler

I stripped Irene Adler out of the "not giving enough weight to canon love interests" example, because she's not a canon love interest in the stories, and it's actually pretty reasonable to give more weight to his relationship with his friend of many years over a woman he interacted with a couple of times while she was getting married to someone else. There are probably better examples that could be used here. Greenygal (talk) 18:11, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Hate directed at the wives and girlfriends of male celebs

I think it's worth including a section about it but I haven't really seen any writeups that address the issue in a more or less comprehensive manner. People like the Sophie Hunter skeptics and Goss go to great lengths to bash these women and it'd be great to somehow ackownledge it on Fanlore but I'm at a loss what to include in the text or how to structure it. -- Baycitybomber (talk) 11:46, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. I definitely agree that is an important topic to fold into this page. I'll keep thinking about the question of structure. Most of the examples of this that I've seen tend to be part of/an extension of tinhatting - has that been what you've seen as well? - Fandomgeographies (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Not necessarily, tinhatting is more like a subsection of it. IMO it has more to do with fans having a type of fantasy about the celeb, either about him being in the tinhatter's prefered RPF ship or about him being available to them which is why the existence of a girlfriend/wife threatens to ruin the fantasy (see e.g. here). -- Baycitybomber (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I have certainly seen it. I know exactly what you're talking about. I also think it should be included, whether on this page or another. Erotomania ought to be addressed at some point. --KTJ (talk) 03:44, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Irrelevent Section

The "Ignoring/sidelining female fantasy & science fiction authors" section has nothing at all to do with fandom? It's about pro authors in the publishing industry. Can it be deleted? – caes (talk) 09:43, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Fantasy and science fiction are a great deal of what media fandom is about. Many female creators of these works, like male ones, started out as fans. When female creators are ignored or sidelined, it sets a bad example for young girls and women who might have taken these creators for role models and imagined themselves as creators also, becoming the next generation of same. Perhaps an explanation is needed, but I think that section needs to stay. --KTJ (talk) 07:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)