Why do people scream "Feminist Agenda" when there is a female lead?

[Qizx]

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.

Quoted for truth, I believe too many people are far too set in their ways and refuse to budge even an inch.

OT: I think sometimes women characters are thrown in/added JUST to have a woman character, that is something I hate. Adding something or someone to a story JUST to have that thing or person type there isn't good story telling. You should be able to have your characters be a character who IS a male or female. Don't have a female or a male then make up their reason for being there.

 

[Cicada 5]

Because male leads are the default in male-targeted or general audience products

Female leads are required to justify their abhorrent presence.

Actually it's a result of the Toyota model being applied to entertainment.

This is a result of the fact that for whatever reason, men AND women tend to identify more with men filling specific roles and archetypes within a story, and are more willing to accept men filling said specific roles or archetypes. And given how when a male character is treated terrible no one cares, and with the fact male characters have a much wider range and variety of actions and consequences they can have without people screaming like banshees about it (of ALL political leanings) there's just more freedom there for writers there.

So with that being the reality of how we, the people (not just ivory tower elites who make up a tiny fraction of the population) want, enjoy and consume our media, the only wonder there is about it is how anyone can be surprised.

OT: OP, the reason is because everything is political in that regards, and the reason for that is because modern Western Feminism has taken the radical stance, disconnected from reality, that everything is sexist, everything is problematic, and it's the job of feminists to point it all out. When you're dealing with a group willing to make anything and everything political, and are willing to lie about it to get things done (the Mad Max nontraversy being a good example of this) it's inevitable that a reactionary stance will be taken by some in response. Radicalism begets radicalism, which is why Western Feminism is the most powerful force working against equality in the First World, but that's a discussion for another thread down in the basement.

"
The reason few people raise an eyebrow over how a male character is treated or that they "have a much wider range and variety of actions and consequences they can have without people screaming like banshees about it" is because male characters pretty much outnumber female ones in fiction. People are much more critical of female characters because there are few of them compared to male characters and even fewer that are written well.

 

[JimB]

In general if you believe in "patriarchy theory", "rape culture", "cultural appropriation", "micro aggression", "mansplaining", "male privilege", "toxic masculinity" and the list goes on then I consider you to be a man hating feminist.

This is going to be very hard to do from my phone while driving (thank god for text-to-type), but because it's important I'm going to try.

I agree that feminism in general has a problem with terminology. Believe it or not, feminism is actually a very intricate field of study, and a lot of technical jargon gets adopted to describe specific ideas. The problem comes when people who have not made a serious effort to study attempt to use those words without understanding what they actually mean, so that patriarchy becomes defined to be "a bad thing men do" rather than referring to the specific idea of a society that is set up to grant disproportionate power to men.

Another problem is that there are a lot of people calling themselves feminists whom I would not apply that label to. Maybe this counts as a No True Scotsman fallacy, but I believe a feminist is defined by taking social and/or political action intended to foster gender equity, whereas a lot of people calling themselves feminists are clearly just trying to express their anger, which is a goal that has nothing to do with what a feminist ought to be trying to achieve. In fact, I would argue that expressing anger is actively detrimental to the cause, because it drives away people who suddenly feel attacked, whether or not those people actually have anything to fear from feminists.

I support feminism because I think gender equity benefits everyone. When things are fair, when the best person for a job has it without regard for gender, everyone profits. I believe that as a feminist, a person has a duty to argue from a desire to improve the world for everyone, not to try to take away what anyone has in some misguided belief that punishment is the same thing as improving the world.

It is from that viewpoint that I say to you, aba1, that I do not hate you. I do not want to take away anything you own, nor to insult you for anything you believe. I would like to show you as much respect as I can, which I believe means being direct with you when I think you are wrong rather than treating you like a child who cannot handle being criticized. I hope you would do the same for me.

Yet despite this, you have declared that I am probably your enemy because I believe things you don't. Not because I want to do you any kind of harm, but because I do not think the same things you think.

Though I think a feminist has a duty not to speak from a place of anger, I cannot in good conscience can dim any feminist who does so when people keep saying things like what you did. You are, though I believe it is not your intent to be so dictatorial, that you intend to hold your good opinion of me hostage and miss represent my feelings unless I acquiesce to your right to tell me what to think. You are refusing to engage with me for favor of slamming you are refusing to engage with what I believe doors in my face for having a perspective that differs from yours.

Yet despite the tiredness I feel at your insistence that you and I are (probably) enemies for no reason other than not thinking the same thing, and despite my anger at you for not respecting me enough to even discuss your specific ideas and mine, I do not hate you. I do not want to take anything from you. You are safe from me. I am no threat to anything you possess.

I do not know how to finish this post, honestly. I want to say something like "Keep hating me if that's what you need to do," but I hate it when people give me permission to do shit they can't stop me from doing, so...I guess the ball is in your court. Sorry for the lame finish.

 

[Something Amyss]

With no mockery intended, I believe the logic here is, "I'm right because I'm me. They're wrong because they're them."

I would go more towards it not even being a thought process, but a reaction. We're talking about people who are used to being pandered to. As a result, they see this as a loss state, that something is being taken away from them. There is a fairly stable and constant level of pandering, and one becomes accustomed to it. It's very easy to speak, to react, without thinking. And I've had to deal with this with a lot of my friends.

There was some serious irony in that question even being asked, though.

 

[Something Amyss]

I agree that feminism in general has a problem with terminology.

I think the real problem with jargon is that even when they try and change the jargon to be more accessible, it becomes a euphemism treadmill sort of thing.

 

[Vanilla ISIS]

I don't know.
Why do some women scream "patriarchy" when a guy says "hello" to them on the street?

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Also, ironically, straight white males have trouble projecting themselves onto characters who don't look like them, while asking everyone not like them to project onto a straight white male.

Um, okay. Well that's patently false. Firstly, why is it just straight, white men who apparently have trouble projecting on to characters who aren't straight, white and male? Suppose for a second that this is true (it's not. source: happen to be straight, white and male and have been able to identify with characters who weren't straight, white or male), would that not also be true for any one else, regardless of their straightness, whiteness and maleness?

OT: I think it's mainly down to a combination of really vocal and strongly opinionated people from all sides rubbing up against each other and a lot of charged media about the other side floating about the place making everyone mad and putting them on a hair-trigger. That's not to say there won't be people wailing about it anyways, for what ever reason.

 

[aba1]

In general if you believe in "patriarchy theory", "rape culture", "cultural appropriation", "micro aggression", "mansplaining", "male privilege", "toxic masculinity" and the list goes on then I consider you to be a man hating feminist.

This is going to be very hard to do from my phone while driving (thank god for text-to-type), but because it's important I'm going to try.

I agree that feminism in general has a problem with terminology. Believe it or not, feminism is actually a very intricate field of study, and a lot of technical jargon gets adopted to describe specific ideas. The problem comes when people who have not made a serious effort to study attempt to use those words without understanding what they actually mean, so that patriarchy becomes defined to be "a bad thing men do" rather than referring to the specific idea of a society that is set up to grant disproportionate power to men.

Another problem is that there are a lot of people calling themselves feminists whom I would not apply that label to. Maybe this counts as a No True Scotsman fallacy, but I believe a feminist is defined by taking social and/or political action intended to foster gender equity, whereas a lot of people calling themselves feminists are clearly just trying to express their anger, which is a goal that has nothing to do with what a feminist ought to be trying to achieve. In fact, I would argue that expressing anger is actively detrimental to the cause, because it drives away people who suddenly feel attacked, whether or not those people actually have anything to fear from feminists.

I support feminism because I think gender equity benefits everyone. When things are fair, when the best person for a job has it without regard for gender, everyone profits. I believe that as a feminist, a person has a duty to argue from a desire to improve the world for everyone, not to try to take away what anyone has in some misguided belief that punishment is the same thing as improving the world.

It is from that viewpoint that I say to you, aba1, that I do not hate you. I do not want to take away anything you own, nor to insult you for anything you believe. I would like to show you as much respect as I can, which I believe means being direct with you when I think you are wrong rather than treating you like a child who cannot handle being criticized. I hope you would do the same for me.

Yet despite this, you have declared that I am probably your enemy because I believe things you don't. Not because I want to do you any kind of harm, but because I do not think the same things you think.

Though I think a feminist has a duty not to speak from a place of anger, I cannot in good conscience can dim any feminist who does so when people keep saying things like what you did. You are, though I believe it is not your intent to be so dictatorial, that you intend to hold your good opinion of me hostage and miss represent my feelings unless I acquiesce to your right to tell me what to think. You are refusing to engage with me for favor of slamming you are refusing to engage with what I believe doors in my face for having a perspective that differs from yours.

Yet despite the tiredness I feel at your insistence that you and I are (probably) enemies for no reason other than not thinking the same thing, and despite my anger at you for not respecting me enough to even discuss your specific ideas and mine, I do not hate you. I do not want to take anything from you. You are safe from me. I am no threat to anything you possess.

I do not know how to finish this post, honestly. I want to say something like "Keep hating me if that's what you need to do," but I hate it when people give me permission to do shit they can't stop me from doing, so...I guess the ball is in your court. Sorry for the lame finish.

I have spent literally hundreds... debatably over a 1000 hours studying feminism, MRM, MGTOW, anti-feminism, traditionalism, egalitarianism, humanism etc and I can tell you with 100% certainty that I very well know what those terms mean. I am not some scrub who glossed over these things and didn't consider them from multiple points of view. I have had hundreds of conversations and debates with feminists and people from all other movements on these subjects in the interest of gaining a greater understanding.

I started off as a feminist and watched as time and time again feminists both in media and directly around me would do massively hypocritical things. They would sit there going on about how men have all the best positions in society talking about CEO's and politicians and how it was unfair women never had those positions, then proceed to get upset and dismiss me based on my gender when I pointed out that men make up 75%-80% of the homeless and 95% of work place fatalities showing they make up most of the lowest in society as well (which makes up a far larger percentage of the population too). They would complain women deserve equal rights while literally ignoring that men have less rights in the western world than women. They talk about how it was horrible men had the vote while women didn't ignoring that in some places it was as little as 10 years that men even had the vote longer than women. Before that it was based on land ownership so some women did vote and in general most people men and women did not. In fact men had to give up one of their rights just to get the right to vote something that women never had to do (conscription). It goes on and on and on.

I have seen feminists scream feminism is for equality for men and women and turn around and picket mens rights conferences. I have seen them champion bills to reform rape policies and specifically word it to make sure only men can be rapists. This is only me touching the tip of the iceberg too. It wasn't until I was told by feminists that I wasn't allowed to be a feminist because of my gender that I really stopped and took a step back to look at other perspectives to really see all these things and much much much MUCH more. All that said I don't hate feminists because they are feminists as the old saying goes "don't hate the player hate the game". My problem is with the movement not inherently the individuals. You see this all the time too I can assure you that the vast majority of anti feminists are people who got that way because they actually know a LOT about feminism.

I know you likely just think I am some angry fedora wearing neck bearded guy but I can assure you I am well researched and I don't talk shit unless I know what I am talking about.

On a side note this is mostly because its funny and a great example of my point I remember I was on a BDSM social media network and a feminist doing research on domestic abuse asked people to do these surveys. The surveys were set up based on gender where men were set up to prove they didn't abuse and women prove they weren't abused. ON A BDSM NETWORK. A place where people consensually hit each other... cause that won't bias the results at all XD. This was a funded research paper through a major university too.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

This, so much this. A lot of people are ready to pat backs because of a perception of being progressive, even when that example of "progress" really isn't progressive and when said "progress" is also counter productive.

I think that is a sad result of the times we live in. The product doesn't really matter as long as it is ideologically pure (well, interpreted as being so). I also think it's a great example of the horseshoe model.

I don't think it's just the times we live in, because this sort of thing has been going on since at least the late eighteenth century, and probably a lot longer than that.

Can't we just agree that if a character is well written then it ISN'T a feminist/MRA agenda trying to screw something up?

Are the two things mutually exclusive? I'm not so sure.

Yes they are mutually exclusive, because the "men's rights movement" is very openly an anti-feminist movement, and MRAs are very openly anti-feminists.

People have me slightly worried about the new Star Wars. I don't care if the main character is female, but I don't want it to be laden with corny girl power messages either. No choice but to reserve judgement, I suppose.

You know that complaint of a "corny girl power message" is going to come up no matter what happens, because one of the three main characters is female. Which is kind of funny because it shows zero historical memory, or self awareness regarding the franchise, because in the original trilogy Leia exists, and she's one of the three main characters of the original trilogy. People continently forget that sort of thing when they're looking to blame politics for their own prejudices.

 

[Cicada 5]

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.

Not seeing how Olivia from Scandal, Cookie from Empire, Alex from Quantico, Rey from the recent Star Wars flick are rape/revenge stories. I'm not even sure how you got that from Frozen.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

The feminist algorithm:

1. Find a stupid post about females in film by one guy or a small group OR intentionally misinterpret an argument as sexist despite not being so

2. Claim it being representive of ALL MALES.

3. Patriarchy!

Seriously, I'm pretty sure most big stories can be followed to small cases ballooned by click bait websites to a male movement and that's without talking about feminists complaining when it's "the same male protagonist again".

That's a very one sided claim to make, that unfairly tars a large movement with the minority of said movement.

So in name of fairness... The anti-feminist algorithm:

1. Find stupid post about "man hating" in modern society made by one feminist, or a small group, and/or misrepresent an argument as "misandrist" despite it not being so.

2. Claim it's representative of ALL FEMALES and ALL FEMINISTS, and complain about those dirty "manginas and sad betas."

3. Global "gynocentric" oppressive matriarchy conspiracy!

See it goes both ways, especially in this particular case, because we're not talking about how people default to: "Same old male protagonist again. Instead we're talking about how other people default to: "Feminist Agenda!" When there are any female leads in action movies anymore. Really it's two small groups intertwined in a web of outrage directed at each other.

 

[runic knight]

It mostly seems to be on Twitter and the like. Which, I'll be honest, I trust tentatively, with how easy it is to make a throw-away account to stir up trouble. I've all too frequently seen fake accounts on all "sides", trying to project bad images of those sides and it's honestly just a massive pain to deal with.

I'll be honest, I'm really not a fan of the trend either. If your work, be it video game, movie, or whatever, is any good, you shouldn't have to rely on advertising the gender, ethnicity, etc. of your characters. Because doing so makes it clear you have nothing better to present.

Also, correction on Undertale, the protag has been stated to be of ambiguous gender and sex for the purposes of individual interpretation. So, you thinking they are female isn't wrong, but it's also not "canon" or whatever you want to call it.

Wait, they aren't a girl? Looks a lot like Dora the Explorer to me. Coulda sworn the referred to the protagonist as a her at some point too, but I'll take your word it is intentionally ambiguous.

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.

The official Twitter account of the new Ghostbuster movie is full of people complaining that it's a feminist movie because the lead characters are women.

Much worse, the new Mad Max was considered a "feminist" movie only because it happened to have a female lead next to the prominent male lead.

What do you think about it?

I thought the only ones trying to push mad max as a feminist movie were feminist sites themselves, resulting in people calling that out for being rather blatant straw clutching. If someone was being honest in making that claim though, then I agree, they would be rather silly too.

As for Ghostbusters though. A movie series that had 4 beloved actors gets reboot with a full cast gender switch, and even gets pushed by some sites as a righteous jab at the caricature presented in the OP, and you wonder why people are complaining? Hell, it is also twitter, where depth of opinion is harder to demonstrate and people are resorted to short blurbs expressing singular ideas in as shallow a way as possible.

So like I said before

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.

Do recall, being upset that there is a female lead doesn't mean it is because the lead is female itself that is the bad thing, it could be a change from something they wanted more, it could be the way that decision is promoted and treated, or it could be the way others react to, defend the choice or even attack those critical of the decision. Far too often I see people dismiss those sorts of complaints under a wide sweep of "you just don't want female protagonists", which is a fairly dishonest representation.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's because people go into thing wanting to confirm their suspicions so they look for everything that supports these suspicions (even if that means misinterpreting what's going on) and ignore everything that contradicts them. Just look at what happened with Jessica Jones.

 

[The Lunatic]

Feminism definitely has an image problem. I'm unfortunately not surprised that more and more people are finding "Feminist" to be a negative term.

I do wonder what the movement can do to repair it's reputation at this stage, if such a thing is even possible.

 

[JimB]

I don't know. Why do some women scream "patriarchy" when a guy says "hello" to them on the street?

I cannot answer that question, since I have never in life seen that situation.

 

[aba1]

Yes they are mutually exclusive, because the "men's rights movement" is very openly an anti-feminist movement, and MRAs are very openly anti-feminists.

That's not inherently true. The MRM and anti-feminists are different groups all in of themselves just like MGTOW's and Redpillers. There is a lot of cross over though because the two aren't mutually exclusive. So a MRA can be a feminist as well theoretically but for the MRA's at least it mostly has to do with feminists showing up at just about every public event to shut it down by calling police pulling fire alarms and just general protesting. I think that would turn most people off the group though.

There are actually feminists who are very popular with MRA's and even former feminists in the movement. Camille Paglia (not sure if I spelled her name right) and Christina Hoff Sommers are both feminists the MRA's largely support.

 

[Naraka]

Because the other side do exactly the same thing and demonstrated there is an audience for idealogical outrage.

So you're just trying to sink to the level of an "Other side"? Brilliant.

Yes they are mutually exclusive, because the "men's rights movement" is very openly an anti-feminist movement, and MRAs are very openly anti-feminists.

That's not inherently true. The MRM and anti-feminists are different groups all in of themselves just like MGTOW's and Redpillers. There is a lot of cross over though because the two aren't mutually exclusive. So a MRA can be a feminist as well theoretically but for the MRA's at least it mostly has to do with feminists showing up at just about every public event to shut it down by calling police pulling fire alarms and just general protesting. I think that would turn most people off the group though.

There are actually feminists who are very popular with MRA's and even former feminists in the movement. Camille Paglia (not sure if I spelled her name right) and Christina Hoff Sommers are both feminists the MRA's largely support.

Maybe there are some nuggets of corn in that pile of dung, but be real, "MRA" covers that whole world for those of us not involved. You literally couldn't pay me to spend any more time with any Dudes-With-Acronyms, so I just don't care about whatever fine distinctions exist between "Broken Men Who Hate Women" vs. "Broken Men Who Are Terrified of Women".