We Have Seen the Enemy and She is Us

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Title: We Have Seen the Enemy and She is Us
Creator: LeFey
Date(s): 2001?
Medium: online
Fandom: multi
Topic: writing fanfiction, Misogyny and Fandom
External Links: online here; WebCite
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We Have Seen the Enemy and She is Us is an essay by LeFey at Slash Sluts.

Part of a Series

Excerpts

There are moments when I am a little uncomfortable writing M/M slash fanfic. It is not because of the sexual content. I understand and appreciate the erotic nature of this genre. I just feel lost at times because it is such a male world. I realize that it is often a perfected male world, made perfect by the women who write slash. Women, however, are often portrayed as the enemy in this world.

...I was lurking at a certain TV series message board. The show was in danger of being cancelled and the male lead had supposedly come on the message board and posted, as himself, asking for fans to write to the network and save the show. This happened over a month before I ever discovered the message board so the entire drama had played out by the time I arrived. After the initial plea for support, the actor came on several more times, and each message displayed increasing anger. Later posts trashed his network, and without naming them, his female co-stars. In his later apology for the brashness of his posts, he stated how much he respected his male co-stars and one actress who played a platonic friend to his character.

Beaded through these posts was a discussion about whether this really was the actor saying these things. Some showed proof it was by his confession during an on-line chat that he did post on the board. Others still weren't convinced. Those that disagreed that it wasn't really him, or worse yet, posted their disappointment that he would air his grievances in this way were taken to task in the same harsh manner the actor had used against his network and fellow actors. An all too familiar reaction in fandom that the actor can do no wrong.

If it was the actor posting I was thinking: you don't really like working with women, do you? If it was a delusional fan creating these messages, I thought: you really don't like women, do you? These posts fit perfectly the "fan" pattern I have seen so many times since I first stumbled into internet fandom. "The actor" was angry at his nameless unprofessional co-stars who, it was made clear in his apology, were his characters love interest on the show. "The actor" never went into detail so the post could easily be read as a fan's jealous rant about the women on the show.

This idea was reinforced by several posts from women participants who thought the show could be saved if all the women characters were cut and only the men remained.

Many of the M/M slash stories I have read seem to me to play out the ancient societal edict that a man must be the total focus of a woman's life, and gaining his affection is the culminating accomplishment of her life. Yet the woman herself is still not worthy of the man, and the writer substitutes another man as the victor.

Female M/M slash writers are often ridiculed if they create a strong female character as the protagonist. She has committed that most heinous of all crimes, writing a Mary Sue: a character who is achingly beautiful, the smartest person in the room and always has the best dialogue. Of course, it is the heart of the M/M slash genre to perfect our male characters in just this way. And who will acknowledge that many of us identify with one of the male characters and are really writing that perfect image of ourselves through him? All writing is Mary Sue writing in some way. So there are few portrayals of women because the author will incur scorn from the women of her writing community. The standard is that men need to be the focus.

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