hsapiens | On reactions to female characters

I just wish we'd *see* more female characters who are treated as well as male characters by the writers. Too often, they're weird soap opera caracatures.

I suppose.

But I think of of Rydras points is that being a soap opera caricature (or underwritten, or a Marty Stu, or even having no lines/screentime) doesn't really seem to stop a lot of fanfic writers who happily supply whatever text, subtext, backstory, or depth they require for their favored male characters.

So, if fanfic writers can spin gold out of little or nothing for so many male characters, why are the deficiencies of female characters seemingly in so many cases such unsurmountable showstoppers?

Most fanfic writers are women. Based on my own reactions and those of friends I've talked with about this, we get *so* pissed off at the poor representations of women onscreen that it makes it very difficult to overcome them. We're personally invested. When a woman character is written stereotypically, we're faced with a portrayal that mirrors the same crap we have to deal with in RL. Female stereotypes are *rarely* positive. Even the few that are, such as say the Good Mother, come with additional cultural baggage. It's *rare* when a woman is well written. Men are, by far, much more accurately represented in fiction. It doesn't hit women where we live when they're not. I can't, for example, take Sam Carter seriously. She's been ruined over the years. I have a *tough* time writing her because of that. If I try to stay as close to canon as I can (J/D are *so* doin' it ;-), I'd have to write her in such a way that would turn my stomach. So I avoid her like the plague. The only option would be to deviate very far from canon and that's an issue of it's own for me. There may be other reasons why women characters are treated differently than men in fic, but that's a big one for most folks I know. Besides, if I'm writing, or reading, smut, I *do* find women boring. ;-);-)

I agree 100% here. I really want more strong and wonderful women on my television and in my books and in my fic.

This particular essay addresses something different, though: fandom reactions to female characters. And really, this is a lot like the race discussion prompted by Ronon the Barista fic a while back. Ronon the Barista isn't racist; it's the context that makes it so. It's looking to patterns in our reactions and our thoughts for what they say about our own attitudes and ourselves rather than as condemnations of the source material. Not that the source material is spotless and shiny -- I'm VERY clear that I despise what is often done to women in canon -- but looking at how we react to a poorly sketched female character as opposed to a poorly sketched male character, for instance, is illuminating.

I would so dearly love to see a show where the woman fleeing the bad guy didn't trip or break her heel or break down in sobs/tears...all so the hero can help/save/defend/comfort her. I really hate that I know what people mean to say when they bitch about someone "feminizing" a guy because I hate that complex of stereotypes and I think it's as inappropriate to women as it is to men and ultimately says that to be weak and soft and indecisive is to be female when I know that's flat out wrong.

Bingo.

I'd like to think I hate the female characters I hate for pretty legit reasons, and most of those reasons are creative decisions TPTB have made and so it's not really the character I hate so much as what they've done to her. I don't hate Sam Carter, for example, but I truly, absolutely, 100% despise the way TPTB took her potential and flushed it down the toilet to make a much weaker character.

I'll admit I hate even the idea of the proposed (still wishing this was a rumor!) two female co-leads Supernatural is apparently getting. Why? Because The CW shows don't have a great track record with representing females, and the show itself already has a distinct formula that will inevitably be thrown off kilter by adding these women (no show can be a drama without UST between a man and a woman...). Maybe they'll be great, who knows? But I live in fear, for last year's attempts to integrate new characters (two of them female) fell very, very, very, VERY flat with me.

Thinking about complaints of Mary Sue vs. Marty Stu made me stop and look at my biases. My Mary Sue threshold is much lower than my Marty Stu, I realized. It's more noticeable to me that a woman in a story would have so many accomplishments whereas I let it slide more for a male character. I have been a bit stunned by that revelation.

Fanfic writers can spin gold out far less than nothing, I believe, and what we do and don't grab onto says a lot about us. I do think this issue is complicated by the human tendency to caricature even well-written, complex characters -- I think of this as forcing pop culture characters into well-established cultural roles whether or not ti fits because we like the story. And then there's those whole thing about viewing the character not for herself but basing it on how she relates to the writer's OTP. Add in that fanfic is recreational and that it's often cathartic or "fix its" or enjoying a fantasy rather than a writing exercise undertaken with a careful eye to honing the finer points of characterization and plotting...well, I suppose I'm going far afield here from the point.

It's hard to separate that issue from the gender issue but my own admittedly limited and unscientific experience has produced far more vitriol against, say, Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1, than Ethan Gold in Queer as Folk, though both characters are the subject of a lot of bashing.

Ok, I went and actually read the post (my bad, I didn't read it before, just responded to the quoted passage ;-). This looks like the typical anti-feminism crap that's been on the rise for years. Yes, we *should* use the same standards when we judge male and female characters. One of the things that means is that we're going to slam female characters who are jerks (or who are so badly written it's hard to tell *what* they are - Carter comes to mind). And, as one of the commentators on that thread mentioned, we bring our own personal morality to the table when we do. I, for example, am pretty much a monogamist. Serially, at least. :-) I will view a character who 'cheats' on a boy/girlfriend/spouse with disdain. It isn't that they're being sexually 'free', it's that they're breaking a trust (assuming exclusivity was expected by the partner). I put cheats in quotes simply because there can be all sorts of 'slippage' I'll accept in fiction that would have me walking away from someone in a New York minute if it happened in real life. Life's too short to put up with untrustworthy people in my life. If a person will break trust with a lover or spouse, they'll break trust with a friend. At least that's been my experience. Doesn't matter, btw, if they're male or female. I've never quite understood the carte blanche some men seem to think they have to behave like randy goats and not have anyone call them on it. (If I hear the phrase 'boys will be boys' one more time, I'm liable to explode. My ex-mil used to say that... no wonder her sons were so screwed up. ;-)

On Sam Carter in particular, I have a soft spot for her. While everyone was cringing over her "reproductive organs" line in the pilot, I *like* that woman. I love the woman who walked into a room of superior, dismissive officers and made them respect her. That line has become a joke but I honestly liked it. I'll take a year's worth of lines like that rather than the Samantha Carter who, I'm supposed to believe, as a military officer and veteran of the first contact team can't make a room filled with subordinate officers listen to her. I have nothing but pure contempt for what the writers did to MY Sam Carter.

To rediscover my love for the character, I had to seek out some extremely well written gen fic. Once she's freed from the relationship baggage and allowed to be defined by who she is, I find she's a very interesting woman. There are cool aspects to Sam that can be explored. If I can ignore Daniel's blithe comment to Sam that she should dress in native dress because that's what anthropologists do, if I can ignore Jack's making jokes with the Jaffa guards while an SGC member bleeds profusely in the prison cell, if I can ignore BOTH Daniel's and Teal'c's falling into bed with women despite their own marital status -- I can disregard some of the stupid things I hate so very much about what they did to Sam.

I am not saying that I like the Sam who makes blundering command decisions and is patted on the head afterwards by the men. I am not saying that it doesn't royally cheese me off when Sam folds under pressure that isn't even a tenth as bad as getting through the Air Force Academy would have been. I am not saying that I like the doe eyes of death. I really, really, really hate all of that shit. They continually undermine her and make her a sucky character when she isn't. Or, she didn't start out that way and she isn't crappy 100% of the time. I *can* find the woman I admire and respect inside that crap ("inside every crappily-wirtten major is a wonderful captain doctor waiting to get out!") and I have read the works of many authors who found it.

Again, the quote isn't about saying you HAVE to find a particular female character to your taste. It's to look at your reaction to a similarly written male character and compare the strength of your reactions.

My issues with Carter come down to too much crap to ignore, from the first season on (she shoulda shot Jonas, but they wouldn't let her because she's The Girl - grr!). One of these years, I'm going to try to write something using canon Carter, but it won't be pretty. When I pull the entirety of her portrayal together, I come up with someone I wouldn't want to be in the same room with. Definitely someone I wouldn't trust to pick up a loaf of bread from the store for me.

As for the line in COTG, didn't bother me at all. :-) Seemed a touch naive, but I *loved* the attitude! :-) What's bothered me for years is the lengths they've gone to to make her The Girl rather than making her, y'know, a *character*.

As you know, I'm not even remotlely into any kind of fandom or fanfic or most any other noun with "fan" as the first three letters. But what you quoted here really resonated with me. I think it would be a good policy if applied to REAL WOMEN and not just female characters.

There's a concept.

It's sad that this topic has to be raised time and again but such is the way of consciousness raising. It's done in steps and has to be reinforced. This was the first time I thought about the Marty Stu vs. Mary Sue issue and I had the realization that I *do* view them differently. Hopefully being aware will help me free myself from that aspect of prejudice. One bit down; two thousand or so more to go.

I do view characters through my own moral lens, absolutely, but I suppose I also see that life isn't black and white and people aren't always perfect. I have my issues that I can't get over: rape, child molestation, and the like so I can totally see how infidelity is a "no go" deal-breaker. I don't think that's a problem or what's being discussed in this essay because that's an issue and not a "it's ok when men do it but the woman must DIE" reaction.

My annoyance comes not from a character's flaws but the writers' inability to see that they're flaws or to use those flaws to explore a topic or character. It's like writing a rape fic so that two characters can get together and have "healing sex" without ever understanding or acknowledging the devastating nature of rape. Just, no. And now I'm far afield from the point so I'll stop rambling. ;)

I agree about the difference between a character's flaws and flawed writing. I can accept a character as realistic (even if I don't like them) when they're jerks and well-written as such. Snape comes to mind. No way would anyone confuse him with a 'nice guy'. Yet (and I'm a book behind, so don't tell me ;-), he's apparently at least making a serious attempt to redeem himself... without changing his basic personality, which is disagreeable in the extreme. I don't like Snape as a person, but I *adore* him as a 'good guy' antagonist. He fits his milieu.

Carter, on the other hand, has been so poorly written as to be nonsensical. Is she strong? Is she independent? Is she a freakin' Air Force officer? Who can tell? They tell us one thing while showing us something else, but the consequences don't match up with what we see. They're trying to tell us the sky is green even though we can see darn well it's blue. With a character like Snape, we *know* his flaws and they're consistent. What we don't always know is where his loyalties lie and that's intentional. We're *supposed* to question his every move. But his actions are consistent with what we *do* see and know. They're also consistently ambiguous where they're supposed to be, if that makes any sense. Carter's just all over the map. Is she 40 or is she 12? Who knows?

Farscape was a great example of women characters (and men, and others, for that matter ;-) who were pretty darned consistently written and not entirely black and white, or even sane. :-)

I think the point here is not that disliking a female character is problematic but whether you respond equally as strongly when it's a male who is equally as poorly written. I will in no way disagree with you that Carter has been written in a way that sets my teeth on edge; I think it undermines so much of who she is and what makes her cool and interesting.

So, for instance, when Jack took a turn for the "cosmic giddiness" to the point of undermining his portrayal as a cunning leader of above average intelligence and gravitas, did you find yourself equally disgusted and annoyed and alienated from the character as when the writers screwed up and wrote Carter as unprofessional and making decisions that undermined her credibility as an officer? Did you want him to disappear with the same fervor you wanted her to disappear?

Do you condemn Carter for her inability to commit to her fiance Pete while the married Teal'c's implied night with Shaun'ac failed to raise a quibble? What about Daniel's time with the princess before the sarc twisted him? Or did you assume that was platonic before he did the sarc one time too many? What about his fling with the Destroyer of Worlds the very week after the dramatic and powerful death of his wife? What about his willingness to abandon the search for Sha're because Heliopolis was more compelling? None of these are particularly stellar moments of moral strength and dedication for the characters. Do you think less of Teal'c because he was willing to leave his wife and his son to the mercy of Apophis because the Jaffa's freedom was more important to him? How about his blindness to Jack's well-being because he was bent on revenge on Tanith? There's nothing wrong with finding a behavior wrong and off-putting and repulsive and even irretrievably wrong. The question is does the male get a free pass for a behavior while the female is condemned and hated? Is he authoritative while she's the bitch? He's complex while she's inconstant?

Do you find it as annoying to be asked to believe that Daniel earned not one but two or maybe even three doctorates before he was 24, that he is an expert in Mayan archaeology and Egyptology and British archaeology and mythology from all over the world as you find it annoying to be asked to believe that Sam's an ace shot, an expert in hand-to-hand combat, a PhD in astrophysics, a Desert Storm vet, AND she spent two years writing the program that dials the gate all before she shipped out to the Pentagon -- and all before she was out of her 20s? (Or thereabouts?)

They're both implausible but does one fly under your radar while the other sets your teeth on edge? I had the unsettling realization that when I thought about it that I was willing to suspend my disbelief for Daniel far more than for Carter and I'm not even a Carter hater. THAT is what the essay gets at and I'm not very happy with myself after looking at the issue.

Huh. This is interesting... mostly because I didn't have any conception of such biases in my former corner of fandom. Unless the author is a horny male writing plastic exploitative lesbo Barbie sex, women in femslash stories tend to be treated with a bit more consideration than this.

IMHO. :)

I have two responses here:

1. WORD. One of the reasons the responses to female characters matters to me is because we reflect our Real World thoughts and prejudices in it and that, ultimately, is what I truly care about.

2. You know I'm going to ding you on the fan thing, right? I mean, if you're not built that way, it's cool but I wouldn't dismiss all fandom because it's not a traditionally valued means of expression. Hell, romance novels aren't, either, but I am inordinately fond of Pride & Prejudice. Fandom has its share of batshit crazies but it also is a vibrant community of women discussing deep issues and critiquing texts and it's fascinating from that stand point. It can be an expression of female sexuality and desire in a forum that defies control by men and society (although this issue is about internalized messages from society). In this modern era, popular culture is our campfire and it's how many women frame our discussions and our stories. Like ethnography, it's often more illuminating of those who observe than those who are observed. It's a fascinating phenom anthropologically. Also? I love that it's essentially a female space. Not because men are excluded -- far from it -- but women are more likely to gravitate to it for whatever reasons. It's a world largely built by women to reflect us and I just think that's all kinds of crazy cool.

I often make a blanket statement of finding Sam Carter a much more compelling character when she no longer has to carry the relationship baggage that I hate (oh! it's an AU! Who cares what happened to make it different or wanything about the alternate universe -- what we all REALLY want to know is who's Sam sleeping with in THIS one?) but that's imprecise.

The baggage I dislike is all about her relationship baggage with men because that's all we see -- and every time I see it, it's done in a way that undermines the character for me. I can totally see how femslash removes this problem. I don't think, though, that even those who never so much as touch het fic are immune to the messages of society and I wonder how that plays out in the fic? I haven't read enough to have any knowledge so I can't speak from authority.

I found gen fic to be far more even handed in its treatment of the characters. I still love me my slash but I find myself evolving into a gen reader when what I want is a good SG-1 adventure and a slash reader when I want me some hot and satisfying emotional/physical/whatever porn. Those two rarely crossover.

I don't think, though, that even those who never so much as touch het fic are immune to the messages of society...

Hardly - not even big gay femslash writers live in a vacuum. Our biases just reveal themselves in different ways.

... ways which I am currently too tired to properly articulate at the moment. :) But they're there. And stuff.

*curses your intellectual conversation-y thing*

I am not dismissing fandom because it isn't something that interests me any more than I would dismiss any other perfectly valid pasttime/interest just because it doesn't happen to interest me. Believe me,

immlass and I have had this conversation. :) For whatever reason, I have a very large number of friends who are fans of RPG and fanfic type things, and it just doesn't do anything for me. But I would never dismiss it. Everyone is entitled to their own varying interests.

That's so very true. Thanks for posting that. :)

Whoa. Like, I got the point of the post. Really.

I could respond with more, but I honestly can't remember how I reacted during the height of all the hullabaloo (though I DO remember thinking it rather stupid of people to scoff at Sam's accomplishments and say nary a word about Daniel).

I think my wording was extremely unfortunate because I think you're taking my comment as directed at you, which it wasn't. I meant it as directed towards myself -- those aren't questions I can answer in a way that makes me proud of my own assumptions and biases. I apologize for making it seem as if I was attacking your opinions or positions. :)

I pretty much was like, "ok, it's t.v. requirements and limitations to have Daniel an expert on every single thing in archaeology and to be able to speak the language of the week no matter what it is" but I was flat out bitchy about Sam conducting an autopsy or being a "legend" at the Academy who holds ALL the records.

Once I started thinking on it, I came up with a lot of examples that if I reversed the genders, wouldn't have flown under my radar so neatly. Sorry it seemed to be an indictment of you. It wasn't *meant* to be.

If it isn't your cuppa, it isn't your cuppa. I wasn't certain, given your singling out "fan" as being something you wanted no part of if it was a shorthand reference or if it had deeper meaning.

I'd hate to see you pass up something that is a lot of fun to watch and, at times, participate in, but if you aren't built that way, then nothing is going to make you suddenly decide it's a very appealing thing. I'm not an RPGer and I don't get video games or even most computer games so I grok the concept of "just not your thing."

Nope, definitely just a "not my cuppa". Which is why I said, "not remotely interested in," and not, "not remotely respectful of." HUGE difference. :)

I suspect my lack of interest in fandom has similar reasoning as my lack of interest in roleplaying. There is a degree to which playing characters and examining stories is my JOB. I take it very seriously, and don't see it as something to do for play. I suppose it's much like someone who spends all day at a computer, and gets home and wants to do something else for relaxation. Or something.

You're welcome, hon. I think here it's preaching to the choir, no? We've had this discussion before. I'm chagrined to say that even being aware of the issue, I didn't fare as well in my self-analysis as I expected. I let myself down and hoped maybe someone else would benefit by having her consciousness raised by it, too.

One of these days, I'd love to have the discussion because it's an area I'm fairly ignorant in but tonight is Friday, I've had a tough week at work and home, next week promises to be a doozy, and I'm planning to sit back and enjoy the premiere of Dr. Who.

I'd wondered if we've had this discussion before. Was feeling a little deja vu there. ;) ;)

I've never been guilty of writing Sam in a negative or sexist way, but my guilt has been under-utilization when she's actually in the story. If I'm going to include her, then it had better not be for two lines and then she's gone. The same for Teal'c. I mean, sure, the boys are Da Boyz and we love to write things as if they were the only ones in our universe *g* but c'mon now. It'll get mighty boring after a while. ;)

And the remedy to "boring" is Not to bring in Homophobic Sam to "spice" things up. *cringes* I really hate it when they do that.

I'm positive I haven't always been fair toward Sam...but it came to the point for me that I realized the negative energy wasn't doing me (or anyone around me) any good. I do get the stepping-back and really looking at what you're doing/saying and how you're reacting, but I think for many people, especially at the height of fandom drama, emotion will rule over logic. And fear of that emotion will make anyone with a differing POV really hesitate to get into the mix - maybe I played in the wrong places, but it felt at times that if I supported Sam, I was somehow an Untouchable. Same thing for not liking Vala.

Ultimately, at least now, for me it's about believing a character should be doing the things they're doing because they would, not doing the things they're doing because the writers need to fill in a hole (sometimes half a hole, and sometimes only to create another hole). That, I think is one of the primary reasons SG-1 lost me quite a while back. I didn't believe the story was there to support the characters, I believed the characters were there to support the story, come hell or high water. ALL of the characters. So all the little things I was able to ignore tipped the scales.

But that's rather another discussion, so I should shut up about that.

On reactions to female characters

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