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

[mskatej.livejournal.com]

The dumbest thing I saw yesterday was the claim that fandom is not just a female space but a *feminist* space.

LOL WTF

Sorry, but I've seen way too much casual misogyny in fandom to accept that claim as anything other than absurd. And if someone thinks that finding slash hot and hanging out online with other women is all it takes to be a feminist, they're doing it wrong.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

OTW? What's that, then?
As previously noted, I'm of the generation when any sort of fandom was the preserve of virginal white males, so I think it's wonderful that there are any women at all involved in any form of fandom. But people wanting to build a wall round the ghetto? Hmm, strangeness.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

There is an argument to be made by someone with a much thicker skin that women writing m/m slash is inherently self-hating and dysfunctional. Although, hot. Yeah.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

Organization for Transformative Works. It - oh, Google it, it's too hard to explain.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that googling will lead to boggling..

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see.
Obviously I'll need to read more before I form an opinion. Oh, wait, this is the interwebs.
I hate it. And not just because they can't spell organisation.
How can they establish all fan fiction as being legal when it rips off someone else's ideas?
And how can a space be predominately female without being exclusively female? Golf club syndrome anyone?
I remember when slash was a transgressive act, not an academic pursuit.

[anthimaeria.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. I'm waiting for this hubbub to pass. Which it will.

I think it's marvellous that female fans organise stuff in spite of their ladyparts...

Yes, we just cram it all up our vaginas.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Not an argument with much of a leg to stand on, though (the same could be said of the argument for slash being inherently feminist; I think it's impossible to say such a broad and diverse category of fiction is inherently anything).

[temaris.livejournal.com]

The simple matter is that gamers and programmers are generally surprised when a female turns up. Their default assumption is that all their fellows are male. They don't declare a 'male space' because they don't need to. I think this would be described as male privilege. They're cool with it, they think it's great -- but their default assumption on a gender neutral name is that it's a bloke.

The default assumption on a gender neutral name within media fandom, for me, is that it's a woman -- it's not always true, and it's cool when it turns out to be a bloke, I think it's great. Maybe this is female privilege, or female media fan privilege -- but I don't see a lot of female privilege, so I couldn't swear to it ... *g*

I have other problems with OTW. But objecting to them stating that historically media fandom has been female dominated is ridiculous. It's not a statement of intent, or a statement of division or exclusion. It is a fact, and a fact that I keep seeing people automatically recoiling at. I don't know why. Maybe because OMG it's not true! or OMG women media fans are asserting a history for themselves! or OMG they're excluding anyone else from participating!

Because female fans should shut up about their own history. Because women in a majority position should pretend that isn't really true. Because stating that a history contains fact X means that it will and can only ever continue containing fact X. Because stating a historical fact means we hate men. (bwuh?)

Such alarums over something so absurd. Objecting to a fact of history is... kind of ridiculous.

I hope you know that I am as aware of misogyny and misandry in fandom; of female misogyny to both fellow fans and to characters; of some women's disdain for and ill manners to male fen. But to pretend that the numbers and facts are not in fact something worth mentioning is silly.

It's interesting, and different, and worth knowing. Not because 'only women are allowed', but because it's historically been a closed female culture, and we don't have many of them. Not because 'no men allowed', there are, always have been men involved and 'allowing' never came into it; but because it's one of the few things that they haven't been in the majority for. And there aren't many of those, especially where the men and women haven't really cared about the gender split, or the numbers.

Particularly it's important when women asserting their historical presence as majority participants in something precipitates such ire.

Weirdly, I had my doubts about them including that statement -- and the more objections I see, the more glad I am they included it.

[mskatej.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you. I'm incredibly confused by all the objections to fandom being referred to as a predominantly female space, given that it's factually accurate.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I think I slightly misexpressed myself in dashing this off, because I was really thinking of the 'female and therefore feminist' or perhaps more simply 'female and therefore mystically positive'. Female because there are lots of women, involved, yes, and that of course that's interesting, but female and therefore automatically better = not so sure.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I think what makes me wary - and I know it may well just be me - is the shift from 'this is female-dominated which is interesting' to 'this is female-dominated and therefore better, or perfect, or not to be targeted by the powers that be'.

[anthimaeria.livejournal.com]

*nods* Female chauvinism. And the "not to be targeted by the powers that be " argument just annoys me. Even if fans own the servers, it will not insulate them from any liability for posting illegal content.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I'm not really close enough to it to completely be clear, but it came out of a response to a commercial archive that was launched in the summer, and the LJ/Six Apart kerfuffle over adult content. There are some very well known (and well respected) fan names that are part of it, and its mission seems to be creeping a bit from archiving to defending or even crusading.

I'm not expressing myself very well on the femaleness argument, but while I think it's interesting and all, given all the sci-fi fanboys, it's...a hobby, that naturally appeals more to some people than others. I spent half my bloody life in PTAs and mother-and-baby groups at one point. I *know* female communities, the good, the bad and the frankly scary. Maybe that's it. The minute someone says 'and the really great thing is, we're all female!' I'm off. Unless I'm not.

[temaris.livejournal.com]

Someone started in on 'sacred female space' at a con once and I was just aghast, beacuse really, *no*. I mean, yay people feeling that they have that space, but it overlaps with fandom, it isn't an essential feature *of* fandom.

So, er, yes. I did kind of get the impression you were throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. I don't think a historically female fandom makes it super-special and better than sliced bananas, but I do think it's a fact worth mentioning, and important to who we are and what we become -- because history always is.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I think I've expressed myself very badly here, in conflating whatever OTW has said in public about female community with my knee-jerk anxiety about the argument that slash=female space=special that I see coming from folk that have been involved with it; and that just seems to be a view across a great divide.

I think it's impossible to say such a broad and diverse category of fiction is inherently anything

Yes. Gosh, yes.

But I'm kind of being serious - I could quite easily see someone who was not sympathetic to slash seeing it as a weird and disordered response.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

it will not insulate them from any liability for posting illegal content

*sigh*

See, that's my big problem with it. To be honest, I am willing to bet that OTW end up with a policing system that looks very, very similar to LJ's much-derided adult-content statementing.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

My argument-fu is weak when running out the door to collect the kids, but I figured I didn't need logic or consistency.

*picks up baby and dries it off*

[snorkackcatcher]

I think the analogy with open-source is an interesting one -- in fact, it struck me while I was reading this that I see the shared space and community effort features a lot in my other big hobby, philately, despite the fact that the gender ratio is pretty much the exact inverse of fandom, which suggests it may be more a function of a type of culture, not necessarily something linked specifically to gender.

As for OTW/AOOO, my attitude has basically been: nice idea, but I'll wait till something concrete emerges before getting too interested. Until then, it's just wibbling.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be part of a "community" that includes fangirls? DO NOT WANT.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I didn't have anything else to compare it with, but there are all sorts of shared interest groups, aren't there?

OTW - yes, I've also been waiting until it actually changes into something concrete. The part of it that seems to be about legitimising fanfic is making me slightly go 0.o but I'll wait to see what happens. Can't actually imagine it impacting on my life, but there you go.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

LOL. *offers the batshit*

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

How can they establish all fan fiction as being legal when it rips off someone else's ideas?

Not to beat you with an umbrella a la Britney Spears or anything because I quite like you (from reading you on P's LJ here), but this is a topic sentence that's been ripped a new one over the years. I'll simply give you a name: Shakespeare, and a quote:

"Fanfiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by folk." - Henry Jenkins

Dislaimer: I'm buddies with a lot of the women involved in OTW, although I do agree with P. that a few of them take the feminist manifesto to unwanted extremes. This new organiz/sation is a direct result of several online businesses (LJ being prime among them), for which we pay and quite well too, TOSing us for inferred obscenity based on terms which they refuse to disclose and which were initiated by a tiny but vocal right-wing religious group with an axe to grind. Now let me just say that regardless of her political views, no woman likes TPTB pointing the finger in accusation at her new-found delight in exploring her sexuality. When it turns into "You, over there, and you and you! You're EVIL for thinking/saying/drawing these things. Bad woman, no biscuit!"...well, then things like OTW make more sense.

And the Japanese gay porn stars in my icon agree with me. Heh.

[geoviki.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, except for the last *counts* 9 words. Because I think the reaction to the 6A/LJ brouhaha had a lot of the: they're targeting sexually-unusual fandom stuff that's 90+% woman-created. Therefore (this line of thinking goes) they're targeting women, whether or not they intend to. American law, at least, has recently embraced the idea that unintended consequences upon one group like this are actionable. And some women are truly pissed off that corporations like LJ are coming down on the expression of their sexual fantasies in a way that they haven't done with men's fantasies. And then are refusing to explain their 'rules' until a man like Henry Jenkins steps forward; they'll answer him.

The business of "female = better = perfect", though, is hogwash as far as I'm concerned. It's a place for fans with similar interests, that's it.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hokay... I'll be a bit restrained on this, one, because I don't know you from Eve, and two, because I'm playing at P's house, and should be nice to the other guests.

But.

"Shakespeare" has been a long time dead. And, pace Stoppard, I'm not seeing a lot of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern slash. If you're talking about Will ripping off other writers ideas, rather than being ripped off, his dipping into Lambs histories is in a different class from him dipping into Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta".

Grabbing some else's fictional character is stealing, pure and simple. I have NO objection to someone writing a tale of gay underaged wizards at boarding school: calling them Harry and Hermione is theft. Pure and simple. Go and use your own imagination.

"Fanfiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by folk." - Henry Jenkins

That is such a wanky statement that I have problems knowing where to start - myth, by definition, is unattributable. Contemporary myth is a nonsense term - it makes no logical sense whatsoever. If it's contemporary, you can point to authors.

I'm not sure about the relationship between OTW and other commercial concerns - I do worry about "inferred obscenity". Gay porn, especially where it involves under-age sex, doesn't require a lot of inference. It's porn.

I don't mind women exploring their sexuality. Even when I don't get to watch. But if they choose to explore it through underage characters having sex, it's porn. If they explore it through tales of non-consensual sex, that's porn too.

Does that make them evil? Depends on your definition. Does that make them guilty of breaking laws? Depends on the laws. They're usually pretty well defined.

I don't have a problem with porn, even that not aimed at me, but I have a hell of a problem with anyone claiming that it's not porn because they write it, whether that person is gay, straight, male, female or transgendered.

And I'll see your Japanese gay porn stars and raise you a sexist, rapist racist...