Gender roles in fandoms and literature
I can imagine that homosexuals and lesbians find it hard to identify with characters in mainstream novels, tv series and movies. I find it hard to identify with the wimpy, half-naked girls that abound in movies. Even a physically strong female character like Buffy feels wrong, because of her lack of intelligence and her wimpyness. Tough and wimpy at the same time. What a strange combination. Veronica Mars is an excellent tv series, but the little blonde girl who plays the main character isn’t really someone I can identify with.
It would be really refreshing to see more tough female characters, especially ones that don’t degrade themselves by wearing skimpy clothes. I’m not saying female characters need to look like nuns. It would be quite enough if they simply wore ordinary, tight-fitting t-shirts, as long as it isn’t ridiculously low cut and as long as it covers the belly. Hipsters are an abomination.
What would really appeal to me is books, tv series and movies where men are being exploited just a little bit more. Not only in ‘gay’ series and movies, but also in ‘straight’ fandoms. You actually get the impression that gay people are negative to the straight world. I’d be the last one to claim it’s perfect, but I don’t think you need to go as far as to condemn heterosexuality. Would all these gay activists like it if their parents too had been gay? If so, what if they’d never had any kids? Isn’t there room for everyone?
Personally, I’m not proud of or ashamed of my sexual preference. I was born with it. No more am I proud or ashamed of being nearsighted, good at spelling or at learning languages. The only thing I am proud of is becoming a vegan and maybe also of my writing, not because I was born with the ability or tendency to make up stories, but simply because I’ve worked hard on improving on that trait. The same goes for my knowledge of languages. I wasn’t just born with the ability to pick up other languages, I have worked really hard to learn and practice the languages I’ve studied.
Kids’ Culture – in Books and Elsewhere
Strangely enough, books for kids seem to be a little better att equality than books for grownups (at least here, in my country). Maybe that’s because the writer or the publishers are actively working on writing – or publishing – politically correct books. You very rarely find a book advocating a relationship where the female hero is submissive. Fortunately. That would be hard to take. Unfortunately, there are a multitude of vile books about princesses and fairies. Little girls are encouraged to identify with pink, sweet little ladies, if they’re not playing with the dreadful Bratz dolls.
If I had a daughter, and I sincerely wish I did, she’d never get to read a magazine about princesses or a book about a similar theme. That’s horrid and disgusting. They say the children of the 1970’s felt inhibited by the unisex fashion prevalent when they were growing up. That’s odd. I can’t understand that. When I’m able to find clothes I like, I always manage to find something that feels like female clothing, but with none of the lace, frills and blouses that you tie. I abhor all that.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a little girl. If I did, I’d have had to go looking for clothes for her, among pink, low cut, ultra short rags. It would drive me crazy. On the other hand, lucky me, I have a mom and a sister who can sew. My kids, if I have any, won’t have to wear any of that crap.
Women’s views on men (in literature and elsewhere)
Returning to yaoi – I recently read an interesting article about it – it turns out that Japanese women today – in the home of yaoi – would rather marry a homosexual man than a heterosexual one, if they marry at all or have a relationship. The men expect to be waited on hand and foot, like their fathers or grandfathers earlier.
They say that today’s Japanese men would like to marry the Japanese women of yesterday, and the women want to marry tomorrow’s men. I wish them luck with that, that’s all I can say. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s quite as easy as they think, being married to a gay man, if he even wants to get married, and if so, with a woman.
Apart from marriage and other longterm relationships, I think we’re getting to something new. Women want to consume young, beautiful, submissive males, in the form of actors, singers and characters in books, tv series and movies. At last we might have freed ourselves from the ancient custom of marrying as a sort of career. Today we want more out of life, than merely being supported financially. So far, we’re not dependent on male physical strength to protect us from other men, like we were for so many centuries in the past. Let’s hope that the situation in the world will stabilise so that we won’t need to again.
Slash and relations between the sexes in original stories
I also know there’s a small, but growing number of original authors, who use the equivalent of slash, that is homosexual relations in their stories. This includes published authors, like the writers of Swordspoint and the sequel A Fall of Kings – Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, and others, like myself.
Another author, who might not write slash, but at least a more equal love story, is Anne Bishop. Her book the The Invisible Ring, is about a male former pleasure slave. Another character is still a pleasure slave, also a male. In most fantasy novels that type of character would be female. In a touching scene at the end of the story, the two pleasure slaves say farewell, and the younger, now free guy, embraces and kisses the other guy on the mouth, and tries to express his affection and love for him. Despite this physical display of affection, they’re both heterosexual.
I won’t say that all modern fantasy writers use traditional gender roles in their fiction. Many of my favorite authors write stories that are equal enough for me to enjoy them. That goes for Charles De Lint, Garth Nix, Kristen Britain, Diana Wynne Jones and others. Even a writer like Ursula Le Guin, who chooses to write about societies where women are oppressed, does it in a way I can understand.
It isn’t just in fantasy you can follow the evolution from traditional male chauvinist stories, to more appealing, modern stories.
Since I hardly read modern science fiction, it would be hard for me to think of any examples of modern writers, but on the other hand I have clearly seen how the old writers from the 1950’s depicted the relations between genders. The best one, in my opinion, are the ones that don’t really have any relationships between a man and a woman. Besides, funnily enough, you can easily find homosexual undertones in the relations between the heroes.
This goes for mysteries and thrillers too. My experience is that books, in this case mysteries, from the Mediterranean, South America and so on, are too sexist for me to endure them. The same applies to German books, strangely enough. French books are a sort of borderline case. There is hardly any nationality that doesn’t produce this kind of stale stories about women, but the French books I’ve read are usually acceptable.
I was quite surprised and amused when I read a thriller, which I believe was written in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. The way women are described isn’t quite as dreadful as in Mary Stewart’s books, which I kind of like anyway, possibly because of her settings – often exotic and fascinating places. Still, at least one woman in this thriller by Helen McInnes – I can’t recall the title right now – is one of those Jane Austen-ish nineteenth century wives.
This annoys me enormously, but fortunately, there were also two typical slash relationships. Not fully evolved, naturally, only some kind of subconscious attraction between the hero and first an old friend of his, who dies in the story, and a new acquaintance. In both case it’s clear that the hero is a typical submissive, when he’s relating to these two men.
Years ago, he was happily married, but his wife died. One might wonder how this submissive male could stand to be married to a young woman who will have expected him to dominate her. In any case, this latent slash relationship more than compensated for the tiresome depiction of a marriage.
The various mystery writers differ widely. For instance, Ngaio Marsh. In her mysteries I’ve found one of the worst depictions of a marriage, where the relations between the couple are just as screwed up as in Mary Stewart’s books. The husband is some kind of brutal macho man, but in other ways more refined. His name is Alleyn and he’s vaguely aristocratic. The wife can be independent and tough enough, on her own, but when she’s attacked by a killer, she relishes seeing the killer being attacked in his turn, by her husband. Afterwards, she throws herself into her husband’s arms, like a little girl, to be comforted. Ugh. To Ngaio Marsh’s defence might be said that she’s quite old, as far as mystery writers go. She was born in 1895, -97 or -99. Her date of birth isn’t known for a fact, because her father only had it registered in 1900. She also never married and might have found the role models for her literary relationships in old texts, or modeled them on her parents’ marriage.
On the other hand, Dorothy Sayers belongs to the same generation, but her depictions of the relations between the genders are quite different. Her Lord Peter Wimsey is totally equal, at least in the actual love affair. For instance, he tells Harriet Vane, his future wife, when she’s admitted to having had lovers. “So what? So have I.” Or something along those lines. In his case, females.
MIchael Innes who is a little younger than Marsh – born in 1906 – is quite acceptable in his depictions of marriage, but in no way before his time, when it comes to equality. Unlike in stories by the Marsh and Stewart, there’s nothing in the relationship between Appleby and his wife Judith, that makes you sick.
Finally, I’d like to mention the greatest queen of mystery ever – Agatha Christie. The relationships in her stories vary greatly.
The Man In the Brown Suit is about a young girl who goes out looking for adventures and ends up in Africa. She wants to find a real Neanderthal man, who will hit her over the head and drag her into a cave. In the end she finds him.
In Taken at the flood or – as it’s also known – There is a tide – there’s a woman who at first spurns a suitor because he wasn’t in the war. He was a farmer so he wasn’t drafted. The woman finds this weak and unmanly. But when she finds out that he once killed a man someone unsympathetic in some way, possibly a blackmailer – she changes her mind. She finds his proclivity for violence attractive.
In Towards Zero there are two kids, who are poor. The woman marries a rich man and the young man is some kind of gigolo. They love each other and would rather marry each other, but can’t afford to. The books ends with the woman getting her husband’s money after he’s revealed to be a ruthless killer. She ends up with her true love. Christie describes the young man sympathetically, though that seemed unlikely, considering what she’d written earlier and simply because of the times.
The Tommy and Tuppence series is quite equal too. Tuppence is a modern emancipated woman. She’s been a bus driver or something like that during the first world war and after that she can’t return to being the obedient vicar’s daughter. In one of the books about the fun couple, she skillfully manipulates a young reporter, so she can pump him for information. She pretends to be a weak, helpless woman to make the young man tell her all she wants to know.
Funnily enough – though that’s really off-topic – in one of these books you’ll find examples of how words change meaning. ‘Make out’ must mean something else in that book from maybe the 1920’s. Back then it has to mean something like flirt. If not, Tommy is an extremely tolerant husband and Tuppence a unblushing exhibitionist, who will make out on the tennis court with another man. I won’t even get into the words queer or gay, though they’re not typical of this book anyway.
Finally, in Appointment With Death, you’ll meet a self assured young woman, who is a medical student. You get the impression she’ll be qualified soon, and I’m guessing she’s in her late twenties. She meets a young man in distress – a guy who is a few years younger than she is. He is being oppressed by his horrible stepmother. The stepmother is murdered, the stepson is a suspect, and the doctor-to-be decides to save him. Of course they end up together. The book makes it clear that the young med student is dominant and the young man a submissive. She was recently engaged to an older, dominant colleague, imagining herself partial to a man like that, but she soon found that she hated it.
The way I see it, earlier books, in this case mysteries, fall into three main categories. The first type are the traditional stories, where women are objects, submissive to men. In some cases the author really enjoys exploiting the women and there’s a clear sexual motive. In the second type, there are hardly any women at all. They are presumably still submissive, but invisible and there are clear, but latent homosexual ties between the men. Finally, there are a few where the relations between men and women are depicted in a tolerably equal way. Not like today, naturally, but enough so a modern reader might enjoy the stories.
Slash and Yaoi
Slash and yaoi are getting more and more popular. Both deal with romantic love and sex between men or youths. None of that is completely new, but what is quite unique, I imagine, is that both writers and readers are women, at least the great majority. What surprises me personally, is that sometimes those women are lesbians. In any case, it’s women, who are interested in reading about men involved in sexual relations.
I’ve read many explanations for this. Among others, the fact that these types of fandom (stories written by fans – that is ordinary readers, tv viewers and movie goers) lack positive female characters/role models. That is probably true, but I suspect that slash – the western variety – would be popular anyway.
Another explanation is that the young women who read, watch tv or movies like to identify with their favorite character, who is male, naturally. Most heterosexual young women are fascinated with attractive men. If they identify with a male characters they can hardly – if they’re heterosexual – feel particularly enthusiastic over a female partner for that man. So they pick the male character they like second best and make him the first guy’s lover.
Besides, many men aren’t ashamed of admitting they are turned on by watching two women in a sexual situation, something that doesn’t have anything to do with increased openness and tolerance for homosexuality. Why shouldn’t women be allowed to get turned on by watching two (good looking) men together? These phenomena are probably caused by the same thing.
I think it’s interesting to note that rise of this interest coincides with a time of increased equality in the western world, maybe in Asia too. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe, though naturally I don’t know for sure, that there are a great number of slash fans in the Middle East.
Either way, I think slash and yaoi is connected with increased equality.
One reason that is often mentioned as an explanation why women like to read about men who are lovers, is that we’re not happy about our role in society. Women are stilll, despite the increased equality, subordinate to men in many contexts. For instance, we usually get paid less for our work. Besides, men are still over represented among violent criminals. That might lead to a sense of dejection, that after so many thousand years, we women still risk being beaten, raped and killed by men. How many men are raped and killed by women?
Naturally, there’s also a reaction to this increased equality. Either because of low self esteem or maybe a wish to rebel against what they feel is the feminism of an older generation of women, some young women choose to submit to male dominance. They pose nude, give private sex shows in front of their webcams and they also claim to be eager to be treated as slaves by dominant macho men.
I won’t go into that, because it doesn’t interest me and I don’t really know much about it. It’s completely alien to me.
Looking at the average slash or yaoi story, you’ll find that the lovers are two men, even if in yaoi one of them is a feminised boyish or even girlish youth. No submissive woman. Possibly a submissive male, but usually two relatively equal males.
Naturally you’ll get that in a lesbian relationship too. Two equal people in a relationship. Straight authors naturally lack the interest in this type of thing, but why don’t the lesbians enjoy reading about it? I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to that question.
In any case, the point is that we – heterosexual women who read and write fan fiction and especially slash – don’t like to identify with a submissive woman in a relationship. The ‘pure’ relationship between two men appeal more to us.
You mustn’t think fanfiction fans are very numerous. Unfortunately. There are still many, particularly older women, and possibly teenagers, who enjoy reading the old type of romantic fiction, with couples consisting of a dominant, older, well-to-do man and a younger, beautiful, but submissive female.
There’s no accounting for taste. Personally, as a fan fiction author, who also writes slash, I can only say I’m glad that there are some people who like my type of story.
What is Slash Fan Fiction?
To put it simply, slash means a m/m pairing. Some people say it goes back to K/S which means Kirk/Spock, from Star Trek, The Original Series. Others say it goes all the way back to Sherlock Holmes and Watson. What do I know? It might even go back to Homer’s stories about Achilles and Patroclus. The stories can be about affectionate glances exchanged between young boys or hardcore porn between two consenting adult males. And also rape and other non-consensual sex and S/M.
Guys, before you throw up, there’s also femslash or femmeslash, which of course means a f/f pairing. There’s no historic background really, because frankly, it’s a less popular type of fan fiction.
Oddly enough, slash, meaning m/m sex, is very popular with lesbian writers/readers. Huh? Yes, it’s true. Don’t ask me why. I mean, as a straight woman, I can’t find much interest for femslash, and I would have thought it would be the same thing, only the other way around, for lesbians. But obviously not.
Of course, you also have straight males devouring femslash and naturally, straight females who love slash. But that’s hardly the same thing, is it? It would kind of be like gay men loving femslash, and believe me, that’s probably never been heard of in fan ficion.
I’ve read all kinds of explanations of why women write and read slash. A popular one is that there simply aren’t that many good female characters in any fandom. Why that is, I really don’t know. Others say that female readers tend to identify with their favorite male characters, and obviously it would be hard for them to feel very worked up about a female love interest. There are also some who simply enjoy reading stories about two hot males together. I mean, if one hot male is cool, then two must be even better.
I’m not exactly sure why I love it so much myself. All I know is that I’ve been getting ideas about slash fan fiction or original fiction for ages. Ever since I was a teenager. It’s probably a combination of the three above explanations. On the other hand, I also love writing about a pairing that includes one hot male and a female who is at least a little like me. I’m only human. 😉 This, of course, falls under the heading het adult, or even gen, if it’s totally lacking in sex.
Improving your writing
If you feel a bit unsure about spelling and grammar, what should you do? That depends. Do you care? Do you want to improve your writing? If you do, there’s a lot you can do.
What’s most important is to realize there’s a problem and be prepared to change.
1. Use the spellcheck function in your word processing program.
2. Re-read your text a couple of times. Just posting your work somewhere without editing doesn’t give a good impression at all.
3. Ask a friend to read what you’ve written. Two people can find more mistakes than one. This is something very simple. If you don’t have a friend who is better at this than you are, ask a teacher, parent or other relative, or ask someone online to be your beta reader.
4. You can read a book (or books) about spelling and/or grammar. Do your homework. This doesn’t have to be boring. It’s up to you to decide how much you can take in at a time. No teacher is going to grade you. You’re the one who says when you’ve had enough.
5. Perhaps you can take a creative writing course or a course of English, if you want the largest possible audience (of course all this depends on your nationality/ethnic group). If you’re a native English speaker there might still be courses about your own language. Check it out. This might be the most strenuous thing you can do to improve your writing, but also the most useful except for the following hint.
6. Read. As many books as possible. Fiction, non-fiction. Anything really. Jane Austen. A mystery. Harry Potter. Read whatever you enjoy.
Reading doesn’t just help you improve your language skills, it also gives you more to write about. There’s just one thing you have to be aware of. It’s difficult, perhaps impossible to write science fiction, or a thriller if you only read romances or vice versa. ‘Write about what you know’. This is very good advice.
That doesn’t mean you have to write about what you yourself have experienced. You can also write about what you’ve read a lot about. Or heard about from others. That doesn’t mean any gossip you might have picked up on the bus or at work. I’m talking about what you might have heard from a relative or a friend about a particular country/culture, profession, hobby etc. If you want to write about something you don’t know much about you will have to do research.
So read a lot. In fact not just books. The queen of mystery writing, Agatha Christie, once mentioned how important it is to read newspapers and magazines. It certainly can’t do any harm. Nowadays we also have radio, tv (including tele-text) and the internet. Keep up do date with the latest news. Go to the movies and/or watch DVD:s too.
7. This is something I haven’t tried myself, but I’ve been told that joining a critique group is a good idea. If you know other people who write or are willing to read and critique your work, this might be extremely useful. Getting feedback on your stories is vital. Just remember that other people aren’t divine. If you’ve seriously considered the critique and still don’t agree, just forget it. But in general you might want to be open to the fact that what you’re writing isn’t always perfect right away. No one starts out perfect.
How long is a short story?
If you want to get your story published in a magazine or ezine there’s usually an upper limit for how long the story can be. It’s understandable, but personally, I can’t write stories that short. How can you develop the characters or the plot in just 1000-3000 words (or even less)?
What do you think? Do you prefer short short stories that are getting more and more popular these days, or do you agree with me that a story needs to be a little longer to qualify as a story?
Starting with novels, I’ve always heard that they’re supposed to consist of 70000 words and more, and a novella (or a novel for kids) needs to be at least 30000 words long. That has to mean that anything less would be a short story. Maybe it’s time to have more levels. For instance short short story, short story and long story (or possibly, though this sounds illogical, a long short story). Why not? I’d be interested to know what you guys think.
