unpopular opinions no. 92:

[parthenia]

I feel I ought to have an opinion about OTW, just because of the sheer volume of posts about OTW crossing my screen, but I still don't really get it.

Also, the emphasis on 'female community' drives me fucking mental. Sorry. I have many female friends, I think many women are awesome, I can see that fanfic brings loads of women together in a wonderfully countercultural anti-capitalist way, and I think it's marvellous that female fans organise stuff in spite of their ladyparts...I even am a woman myself. But I just don't get it with claiming the femaleness of the fanfic writing community as some special condition in need of praise and attention.

I mean. It's mostly a product of the sodding subject matter, isn't it? The majority of open source code writers are probably male. Gamers are predominantly male. Do they spend their time warbling about what a quintessentially male community they've created, apart from the couple of female programmers and gamers who've wandered by who are a bit of an anomaly but are all right PROVIDING THEY PLAY BY OUR RULES???? DO THEY? Actually maybe they do.

GAH. GAAAAAH, I SAY.

OK. I know I'm out of line with many of you. I just think that our attempts to claim the moral high ground for our odd little hobbies are very strange indeed.

If I had more time, I would love to explore the world of machinima a bit more (films and videos made using gaming software, like World of Warcraft); my son watches simple Runescape videos on Youtube.

I love the fact that the Internet has helped all this amateur, underground culture flourish. I came across a site today with links to recent good machinima,like this rather nice music video. Beautiful texture. Note the quintessentially male comments on the video. *g*

ETA, post-metafandom linkage. Oh holy fuck. I did not intend a personal rant dashed off on a Friday to be listed by Metafandom (to the point where I nearly specifically said so). Still, this is the way of the interwebs. I will reply to comments, eventually. Please be nice.

ETA 2: Don't you lot have homes to go to? *clears glasses, wipes tables, starts to stack chairs*

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

This is interesting territory, and possibly linked through the "correcting a false assumption that most of one's audience are making" statement.

For the 4/5 of the world who are not Christian, fear of someone wearing a cross is, to a greater or lesser extent, greater than that of someone wearing a turban (actually, fear of someone wearing a turban being a terrorist is more or less restricted to people with no contact whatsoever with Sikhs, since they haven't been involved in any terrorist outrages outside India). Anyone professing to be a Christian would probably be linked with the current christian crusades in Afganistan and Iraq, and the wider Christian agenda of crushing any signs of Muslim statehood anywhere in the world (an assumption shared by a large part of the world).

So you made the assumption that I shared your perspective, which was a false one.

You're assumption that groups of people are seen as groups of men is, as you say, based on American Standard English (or at least, your perception of American Standard English) and seems from the minutely divergent standpoint of Standard English to be largely a false one - my default view of such groups as HR professionals, graduates in Law at Scottish Universities and junior doctors is that they will be female.

I'm tempted to offer an easy out, that you are talking about an American group (for I'm making the assumption that's what OTW are) and therefore my objections are mis-directed: if women in America feel, by default, excluded, then you, and OTW, are best placed to decide how you react to that.

But from any other point of view, it looks like special pleading: if "Non-female" means "No girls allowed!" then surely "Non-male" must say "No men allowed!".

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

But from any other point of view, it looks like special pleading: if "Non-female" means "No girls allowed!" then surely "Non-male" must say "No men allowed!".

1) That isn't what they said. "Woman" isn't the same as "non-male" and "non-female" isn't the same as "male."

2) My point exactly is that saying something about women may mean one thing while meaning another when said about men.

In a simpler example, the adjective "tall" refers to different heights for men and women, because "tall" means above average height, and the average heights are different for men and women.

my default view of such groups as HR professionals, graduates in Law at Scottish Universities and junior doctors is that they will be female.

Is this because you typically assume that groups are female, or because in your experience those particular groups are female? There are groups in America that people assume are female, but that's because those groups are or more often are.

If you had to picture the average ploomp enthusiast, which you figure they were male or female, without knowing very much at all about ploomp?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

" 1) That isn't what they said. "Woman" isn't the same as "non-male" and "non-female" isn't the same as "male."

Not sure what you mean by "they" - I was referring to your comment that "Non-female" says "No girls allowed!"

Not sure I want to take this into "tall", either, or "heavy", "short", "thin" or "blond(e)". I was saying that a predominately female space is equivalent in terms of exclusion to a predominately male space.

Given that I know more law graduates are female than male, I'd tend to extend this to medical or accountancy grauates as an assumption.

I have no idea what a ploomp enthusiast looks like. I have no preconceptions about ploomp. Except that it sounds cuddly.

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Not sure what you mean by "they" - I was referring to your comment that "Non-female" says "No girls allowed!"

I was still talking about OTW, and your statement about testing "we honur our female etc." vs a statement about honoring male etc. etc.

I was saying that a predominately female space is equivalent in terms of exclusion to a predominately male space.

I think you are wrong. I don't think you can say, "Well, if it would be bad when we treat group Y in such a fashion, then it must be wrong when we treat group X" that way. Sometimes groups X and Y are different, either because of innate differences or historical or social ones. And men and women are sufficiently different for historical and cultural reasons that saying, "Well, it would suck if men did it" isn't necessarily a reason for women not to do it.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can say, "Well, if it would be bad when we treat group Y in such a fashion, then it must be wrong when we treat group X"

I think that's the divide in opinions, right there, and it seems to be pretty much unbridgeable. Personally, I find it really odd in a semi-corporate statement about fanfic, but there probably are instances where I would also feel that men's and women's situations were not reversible. I *know* i'm conflating various things here, but while I think it's interesting that this fan corner is full of women, I don't feel it should necessarily be a defining feature.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"Well, it would suck if men did it" isn't necessarily a reason for women not to do it."

Um, well no - that isn't what I'm saying: there are many things that men can do, and actually do, that women can't or shouldn't: pee standing up (possible but messy), produce semen, etc...

What I'm saying is that sexism applies to both sexes - a sexist action in one gender is sexist in the other. If you differ as to the definition of sexism, then we aren't really arguing about the same thing.

Also, and I'll post about this across in my own journal,the argument "It isn't wrong if we do it" is a very, very dangerous one.