Why do people scream "Feminist Agenda" when there is a female lead?
- Thread starter Parasondox
- Start date
Recommended Videos
And those people are a full order of magnitude fewer then the people who think these people are the norm in any group. Say what you will about dem evil conservatives, you'd have to dig into some very radical corners to find accepted of this idea being tolerated.IceForce said:
You realise that goes both ways right?Fox12 said:
Creators should have the freedom to tell any kind of story they want. Unless they have want to have a negative representation of a woman or minority. In that case they are mysoginist cisgendered shitlords (really being the normal of gender is an insult now? and before i get flamed the hell out of for calling cisgendered normal, the thing that is the norm in any area is normal and we all know that the there are far more cisgendered than any other kind of people as far as gender goes.) and nobody should play your game or they are also mysoginist shitlords.
It might have something to do with the fact that time and time again when anything has a female lead that lead is not just a lead that happens to be female, as would be the sensible and truly unbiased thing to do. No, that work constantly has point out "hey look! This lead is female!" in the most blatantly obvious ways possible, and that's when the work's own advertising isn't constantly focused on that very thing or even when that female lead's very EXISTENCE is about taking over the spot of an already long established and well liked male character.
If a work as a female lead, chances are very very good she is going to be as stereotypically "tough girl" as possible, (anything less is always seen as sexist) constantly moaning about being "a woman in a man's world" in some way or another, having to deal with misogynistic assholes from both sides of the gender fence, and even those that aren't misogynistic will feel compelled to praise her or even point out that she's doing something men are usually the ones doing. It's not hard to for anyone to assume that a Feminist Agenda is involved with a female lead when most of the time the work acts like it does, intentionally or not.
Of course, often enough Occam's Razor kicks in and it's just misogynistic assholes being misogynistic assholes.
If a work as a female lead, chances are very very good she is going to be as stereotypically "tough girl" as possible, (anything less is always seen as sexist) constantly moaning about being "a woman in a man's world" in some way or another, having to deal with misogynistic assholes from both sides of the gender fence, and even those that aren't misogynistic will feel compelled to praise her or even point out that she's doing something men are usually the ones doing. It's not hard to for anyone to assume that a Feminist Agenda is involved with a female lead when most of the time the work acts like it does, intentionally or not.
Of course, often enough Occam's Razor kicks in and it's just misogynistic assholes being misogynistic assholes.
Zontar said:
I'll happily admit that my post wasn't exactly substantive, but "my perception is the reality" is not exactly a convincing counter argument.
I have to leave in about 2 minutes, but if you really want to do this dance I can flesh out my points later on.
This at least isn't total bullshit. Male disposability is indeed a thing in fiction and, to a lesser degree, in reality.
Because for all the belly-aching about another bland male toughguy lead, there's a helluva lot of bland female leads the last few years that have all the same problems in that they're indistinguishable from one another. Jessica Jones is not all that interesting character in the series, which was a big let down because pretty much every other character and person in the show I looked forward to seeing MORE than the titular character for how fucking bland she was(sorta the same problem as Daredevil had, it didn't want to commit to being a part of a comic book universe unless it was convenient, though at least Murdock wasn't boring when he was on-screen and not relying on everyone else to carry his ass and the fighting didn't look like he would rather be doing literally anything else).
Think of most female leads that have been popping up the last few years that have been raved about, they're largely just the same basic character, they have trauma in their background that happened relatively recently, they work past it, the end. And for some people, they see it because they saw the male leads and how similar they could be, but there's people giving points for swapping a character's genitals about and turning a pretty minor, but somewhat interesting character into just another antagonist in a rape-revenge story. Because that's what so much of it all boils down to. Many female leads are just rape-revenge fantasies(whether they be literal or metaphor). Jessica Jones, Maleficient, even Frozen to a point was raved about because Anna was going to be used for her title to get a guy in power and it was averted.
And people don't really like that when they're told that male leads are boring and they can't be told apart because they're all "Steve" when the thing that replaces it is just the same thing with a set of tits and bodily betrayal baggage.
Think of most female leads that have been popping up the last few years that have been raved about, they're largely just the same basic character, they have trauma in their background that happened relatively recently, they work past it, the end. And for some people, they see it because they saw the male leads and how similar they could be, but there's people giving points for swapping a character's genitals about and turning a pretty minor, but somewhat interesting character into just another antagonist in a rape-revenge story. Because that's what so much of it all boils down to. Many female leads are just rape-revenge fantasies(whether they be literal or metaphor). Jessica Jones, Maleficient, even Frozen to a point was raved about because Anna was going to be used for her title to get a guy in power and it was averted.
And people don't really like that when they're told that male leads are boring and they can't be told apart because they're all "Steve" when the thing that replaces it is just the same thing with a set of tits and bodily betrayal baggage.
Really the reason why both men and women, along with boys and girls, tend to identify more with male lead protagonists and antagonists is because femininity and womanhood are seen as less capable on a societal level. You do make a good point, that people of all political leanings will scream bloody murder when a woman does any action, or suffers any consequences that are considered out societal norms for women. This is partially because of the limited way in which women are viewed and that femininity and womanhood are seen as lesser. A lot of people, regardless of their political leanings, or identification as feminists for that matter, get pretty uppity when women show any agency in fiction. This is why it's a good thing that women are getting more opportunities to play leads as both heroines and villains, because when it's done good it more often is getting praise, when it's done poorly it's more getting called out for being poorly done. Instead of the bad being defended as perfect because sexism.Zontar said:
You're really off base on the idea of "modern Western Feminism", because nowhere is feminism a collective of people who hate men and masculinity. Modern Western Feminism hasn't changed as much in the last century as most anti-feminists insist, core feminist philosophy is still essentially the same as it's always been. There are serious issues in western and most eastern society that prevent men from showing any trait, or emotion that can be even remotely perceived as feminine. This is because femininity, womanhood, and anything female is instantly classified as lesser and weaker by most of the world socially. Feminists are only radical because they want to do away with the idea of gendering everything, to break down the idea of stereotyping by gender, and to remove limitations on expression based on gender and biological sex. That is seen as a radical idea, but only because it challenges power structures that are traditionally dominated by men, men who desperately want to protect that gender exclusivity to preserve their own power.
Radical feminists are not strictly speaking radical, or feminist. They toss most feminist philosophy out the window in favor of biological essentialism, in an attempt to destroy the concept of "gender", for the sake of "equality". In reality what they do is counter productive to feminism, because their ideal sets gender rules and stereotypes in stone based biology. That's not radical, because it supports a patriarchal society geared to make femininity the lesser and masculinity the superior. This excludes men from feminine roles and expression, at the same time it excludes women from masculine roles and expression, removing any agency in gender period. Most "radical feminists" also tend to be sex negative, saying things like all heterosexual penetrative sex is rape, because women cannot consent, backing up the idea that female automatically means a lesser person. The reason being is that sex between a man and a woman, as a concept promoted by "patriarchal" types, cannot happen with out some sort of emotional, or financial coercion. Another patriarchal idea "radical feminists" support is trans exclusion and erasure, by making the genders exclusive to biology and thus separate on a fundamental level, removing all personal agency in relation to gender. "Radical feminists" also support the "patriarchy" by being excluding to sex workers, because sex workers, specifically female sex workers, aren't supposed to have the agency to consent. Along with that female sex workers violate very male ideals of purity and "acceptable" norms of female sexual expression. With all of that in mind, self proclaimed "radical feminists" are a very small minority, a sexist minority, and a minority that is generally ignored and categorized the same as the "manosphere", anti-feminists, and open sexists, by feminists and people generally interested in gender equality.
Feminists who follow actual feminist theory are actually very concerned with gender equality, with removing the walls of gender identity, allowing people to express themselves freely, naturally as feminine, or masculine they are, regardless of their biological sex. Feminism has made great strides in putting women on a more equal footing with men in many facets of society, but not all, and sexism is still a big issue. Another thing feminism has done and is doing, is normalizing masculine expression amongst women. At the same time feminism is trying, unsuccessfully to my mind, to normalize and detoxify feminine expression from men.
Which highlights a problem with feminism, that many take issue with as well, and is why I don't identify as a feminist. Feminism focuses almost entirely on the point of view as seen from the feminine perspective. While a patriarchal society is oppressive to both men and women, making unfair assumptions and demands of both. Still the assumption is that the problems faced by both men and women are entirely societal, when likely the problems are both nature(biological) and nurture(societal). This means you can't reasonably address problems men have in both femininity and masculinity, at least not the same way you address those same issues with women. A larger problem with feminism is that it's largely binary, thus it tends to let people who identify outside the binary fall through the cracks.
Still there is one problem with feminism that limits it's abilities to help, which is also the biggest problem feminism has. A large number of men dismiss feminism and feminist theory out of hand, without reading any feminist literature, or even listening to feminists with anything on their minds other than pure dismissive derision. That issue can be fixed by men, especially those in power, being able to take women and "femmefolk"* seriously, which they don't. The only way these societal issues can be addresses is equally by both genders and the gender nonconforming. At least that's my opinion.
That's also besides the fact that feminism in general tends to have issues with internationality, which I have touched on here.
*"Femmefolk" is a catchall term for everyone who expresses and identifies as feminine including women(both cis and trans), men(both cis and trans), gender nonconforming, and regardless of sexuality(hetero, gay, ace, etc...). Also important to note that identify feminine, or masculine, doesn't directly reflect one's gender identity as a man, woman, neither, or etc... Meaning men can identify feminine and still be men, while women can identify masculine and still be women, while those who identify as both are neither can still identify primarily feminine, or masculine, without it directly reflecting their gender identity. That's also regardless of weather or not the person is a masculine trans woman, feminine trans man, masculine cis woman, or feminine cis men, and etc... Confusing I know, but people are weird and identify in weird ways and express themselves in weird ways.
On a final note, the reason that feminism should does and should control a majority of the narrative is because of societal privilege. Men have a disproportionately high number of social advantages compared to women. Just for example: Women have to justify professional technical expertise more, women are more likely to be interrupted and spoken over in an office setting, and hell women are more likely to be experience casual sexual harassment more than men in public spaces.
These three Robot-hugs comics sum this up far better than I can. Weather it's in the tecnical [http://www.robot-hugs.com/technigal/], or professional workplace [http://www.robot-hugs.com/workplace/] settings, to just typical levels of harassment [http://www.robot-hugs.com/harassment/] that women face. I know I've posted a lot of these lately, but that webcomic has done a good job of opening my eyes to things more.
Anyways I hope that helps people understand feminism isn't some fascist conspiracy to destroy men, as it's often portrayed as.
Radical feminists are not strictly speaking radical, or feminist. They toss most feminist philosophy out the window in favor of biological essentialism, in an attempt to destroy the concept of "gender", for the sake of "equality". In reality what they do is counter productive to feminism, because their ideal sets gender rules and stereotypes in stone based biology. That's not radical, because it supports a patriarchal society geared to make femininity the lesser and masculinity the superior. This excludes men from feminine roles and expression, at the same time it excludes women from masculine roles and expression, removing any agency in gender period. Most "radical feminists" also tend to be sex negative, saying things like all heterosexual penetrative sex is rape, because women cannot consent, backing up the idea that female automatically means a lesser person. The reason being is that sex between a man and a woman, as a concept promoted by "patriarchal" types, cannot happen with out some sort of emotional, or financial coercion. Another patriarchal idea "radical feminists" support is trans exclusion and erasure, by making the genders exclusive to biology and thus separate on a fundamental level, removing all personal agency in relation to gender. "Radical feminists" also support the "patriarchy" by being excluding to sex workers, because sex workers, specifically female sex workers, aren't supposed to have the agency to consent. Along with that female sex workers violate very male ideals of purity and "acceptable" norms of female sexual expression. With all of that in mind, self proclaimed "radical feminists" are a very small minority, a sexist minority, and a minority that is generally ignored and categorized the same as the "manosphere", anti-feminists, and open sexists, by feminists and people generally interested in gender equality.
Feminists who follow actual feminist theory are actually very concerned with gender equality, with removing the walls of gender identity, allowing people to express themselves freely, naturally as feminine, or masculine they are, regardless of their biological sex. Feminism has made great strides in putting women on a more equal footing with men in many facets of society, but not all, and sexism is still a big issue. Another thing feminism has done and is doing, is normalizing masculine expression amongst women. At the same time feminism is trying, unsuccessfully to my mind, to normalize and detoxify feminine expression from men.
Which highlights a problem with feminism, that many take issue with as well, and is why I don't identify as a feminist. Feminism focuses almost entirely on the point of view as seen from the feminine perspective. While a patriarchal society is oppressive to both men and women, making unfair assumptions and demands of both. Still the assumption is that the problems faced by both men and women are entirely societal, when likely the problems are both nature(biological) and nurture(societal). This means you can't reasonably address problems men have in both femininity and masculinity, at least not the same way you address those same issues with women. A larger problem with feminism is that it's largely binary, thus it tends to let people who identify outside the binary fall through the cracks.
Still there is one problem with feminism that limits it's abilities to help, which is also the biggest problem feminism has. A large number of men dismiss feminism and feminist theory out of hand, without reading any feminist literature, or even listening to feminists with anything on their minds other than pure dismissive derision. That issue can be fixed by men, especially those in power, being able to take women and "femmefolk"* seriously, which they don't. The only way these societal issues can be addresses is equally by both genders and the gender nonconforming. At least that's my opinion.
That's also besides the fact that feminism in general tends to have issues with internationality, which I have touched on here.
*"Femmefolk" is a catchall term for everyone who expresses and identifies as feminine including women(both cis and trans), men(both cis and trans), gender nonconforming, and regardless of sexuality(hetero, gay, ace, etc...). Also important to note that identify feminine, or masculine, doesn't directly reflect one's gender identity as a man, woman, neither, or etc... Meaning men can identify feminine and still be men, while women can identify masculine and still be women, while those who identify as both are neither can still identify primarily feminine, or masculine, without it directly reflecting their gender identity. That's also regardless of weather or not the person is a masculine trans woman, feminine trans man, masculine cis woman, or feminine cis men, and etc... Confusing I know, but people are weird and identify in weird ways and express themselves in weird ways.
On a final note, the reason that feminism should does and should control a majority of the narrative is because of societal privilege. Men have a disproportionately high number of social advantages compared to women. Just for example: Women have to justify professional technical expertise more, women are more likely to be interrupted and spoken over in an office setting, and hell women are more likely to be experience casual sexual harassment more than men in public spaces.
These three Robot-hugs comics sum this up far better than I can. Weather it's in the tecnical [http://www.robot-hugs.com/technigal/], or professional workplace [http://www.robot-hugs.com/workplace/] settings, to just typical levels of harassment [http://www.robot-hugs.com/harassment/] that women face. I know I've posted a lot of these lately, but that webcomic has done a good job of opening my eyes to things more.
Anyways I hope that helps people understand feminism isn't some fascist conspiracy to destroy men, as it's often portrayed as.
Sure, but presumably the character isn't bad because they're a woman or minority. If a character is a woman or minority and they're bad people, that's fine. Not only is that fine, it's relatively common in fiction. And it's not a controversy. If you're characters are bad because they're a woman, a man, or a minority, then that's sexist or racist. You can make something that's racist or sexist, of course, but you're not immune from criticism, and you're not entitled to funding for your project.jayzz911 said:
Because politely disagreeing with someone is a dying art. You either totally agree with someone or hate everything they stand for. The middle ground of reasonableness is getting smaller every day.
Probably because it most often has less to do with them being a female character and more to do with how the character it pushed or sold on the fact that their gender matters in the first place? I mean, perhaps it is simple misunderstanding why the complaint is there and how it isn't the trait itself in the character, but the attitudes other put forth in response to the trait?
Maybe I am not visiting the right places online, but I have never actually seen the whole "I am mad this character is female because they are female" thing actually occur in the wild. It is always called up like some boogieman strawman though to mock or criticize people, usually with a wide brush so as to get those who call shenanigans about ideological or moral pushes for change or special attention.
Instead, I always see "I don't like that these people want to change this character I have been a fan of for years to another gender because of their ideological beliefs" or "Why do people keep promoting the character's gender when talking about it, why can't they separate the quality overall from that trait?" or "Why do people point to the lack of this gender like it is inherently bad." Sometime I even see "Wait, that character was a female? Why? That doesn't make sense".
Never actually seen a "I don't like the character being this gender because it is a woman". The protests always seem to come from places of more rational complaint rather than the fairly over the top way it is presented here.
Generally the calls of feminism only occur when there is some spotlight on the character's gender being relevant in the first place with regard to wider culture. When you have people making a deal of the gender like it is somehow relevant, especially if choice in the gender being female is being promoted as something morally good, you tend to get people calling that out as pushing an ideology. Be it an appeal to cosmic balance like the total number of protagonist's who share one trait or another is a scale to be set, or simply an argument that using a female character makes something inherently better, if the gender of the character gets promoted as a point of important when it doesn't actually matter, it will get people calling that attitude out. Myself, I think trying to point to a character's gender like it is some freakshow trait is pretty sexist to boot, but that is neither here nor there.
Honestly, the game Undertale nailed how to do that stuff right. Not just a female protagonist, but homosexual relationships, issues of racism and so on. It did it perfectly, by not making a spectacle about how it was doing it and instead just making a quality experience in a game. Not yet seen anyone upset the protagonist was a girl either, or the relationships within it. By not treating it like a freak show to market on, a game where you talk with a spaghetti making skeleton was more mature on those topics than a lot of media I have seen making a big stink about what they were doing.
Pretty sure there is some saying about those who actually do stuff and those who just say they do stuff for the attention that brings them, can't recall at the moment.
Maybe I am not visiting the right places online, but I have never actually seen the whole "I am mad this character is female because they are female" thing actually occur in the wild. It is always called up like some boogieman strawman though to mock or criticize people, usually with a wide brush so as to get those who call shenanigans about ideological or moral pushes for change or special attention.
Instead, I always see "I don't like that these people want to change this character I have been a fan of for years to another gender because of their ideological beliefs" or "Why do people keep promoting the character's gender when talking about it, why can't they separate the quality overall from that trait?" or "Why do people point to the lack of this gender like it is inherently bad." Sometime I even see "Wait, that character was a female? Why? That doesn't make sense".
Never actually seen a "I don't like the character being this gender because it is a woman". The protests always seem to come from places of more rational complaint rather than the fairly over the top way it is presented here.
Generally the calls of feminism only occur when there is some spotlight on the character's gender being relevant in the first place with regard to wider culture. When you have people making a deal of the gender like it is somehow relevant, especially if choice in the gender being female is being promoted as something morally good, you tend to get people calling that out as pushing an ideology. Be it an appeal to cosmic balance like the total number of protagonist's who share one trait or another is a scale to be set, or simply an argument that using a female character makes something inherently better, if the gender of the character gets promoted as a point of important when it doesn't actually matter, it will get people calling that attitude out. Myself, I think trying to point to a character's gender like it is some freakshow trait is pretty sexist to boot, but that is neither here nor there.
Honestly, the game Undertale nailed how to do that stuff right. Not just a female protagonist, but homosexual relationships, issues of racism and so on. It did it perfectly, by not making a spectacle about how it was doing it and instead just making a quality experience in a game. Not yet seen anyone upset the protagonist was a girl either, or the relationships within it. By not treating it like a freak show to market on, a game where you talk with a spaghetti making skeleton was more mature on those topics than a lot of media I have seen making a big stink about what they were doing.
Pretty sure there is some saying about those who actually do stuff and those who just say they do stuff for the attention that brings them, can't recall at the moment.
The method is scorched-earth ideological warfare, popularized in tone by Rush Limbaugh with his "I'm just the little guy standing up to the massive progressive powers destroying America". His term for feminists is "feminazis".
Right-wing talk show hosts mimic right-wing politicians in both their style and purpose of rhetoric. The goal is exactly the same - to maximize the degree of power of their ideology, no matter what the cost.
Right-wing talk show hosts mimic right-wing politicians in both their style and purpose of rhetoric. The goal is exactly the same - to maximize the degree of power of their ideology, no matter what the cost.
Probably because they're fed up of every tumblr and Escapist user screaming 'Patriarchy!' at shit that's not actually offensive to women.
Aside from the veracity of the idea, it seems like a total non sequitur in their logic. "I'm fed up therefore any female lead is part of a feminist agenda!"?chocolate pickles said:
As a straight white male I'd like to make a slight correction. Some have trouble projecting but the majority (or at least, that I've met) are with playing characters that don't look like us. Some prefer it as either a form of escapism or to get a different outlook. It's the publishers that operate on the logic you stated.undeadsuitor said: