Fandom as a female space

[alias_sqbr]

So there's a been a lot of discussion on metafandom about fanfic-fandom as a female space, both wrt OTW and (looking back) in general.

This has bugged me a bit, especially when I've seen some of the practical implications. Nothing I have to say here is all that new or exciting, I just feel better getting it out.

Now with respect to OTW my main problem is that they claim to be speaking for all creators of "transformative works", many of which (like machina, parody etc) do not come from "primarily female communities". But I'm assuming this contradiction will be ironed out one way or another in time (I asked on their feedback page, so we'll see) and don't feel too comfortable giving them crap about their policies until I'm sure of what their policies are.

(EDIT: I am so totally not accusing OTW of the stuff I'm complaining about below, it's just that discussions about OTW stirred up general-fandomy-people's nasty opinions.)

Unlike a lot of people, I have absolutely no problem with fanfic-fandom being a feminist space, or a safe space for women (I only wish it were true of sff fandom). And the fact that most fanfic is written by women is a basic fact that's silly to deny. Men who come in going "But..you guys should stop talking about kissing and start doing more explosions!" are being equivalent to a tourist complaining about those silly chinese people putting soy sauce on their pasta instead of bolognaise(*).

My problem is when fanfic-fandom is treated as equivalent to "women's spaces" like the women's room at uni. (EDIT: this isn't quite what people are doing, certainly noone says men aren't allowed. Here's the best essay I could find on the subject after a brief search, and here's the same basic idea expressed in a much dodgier way)

Unlike deliberately female spaces, fandom isn't defined as being female, it's just the
collection of everyone who likes fanfic etc. As it happens it has ended up mostly female for historical etc reasons, but that's different from a social group which was deliberately and explicitly created to cater to one group. There are plenty of all-gender social events for non-female people to go to, but if a man likes fanfic then it's not like can just go to the "mens fanfic club" and discuss it there, this is all there is.

I'm trying to think of examples...the best I can think of is that childrearing used to be "women's work" and is still pretty much done just by women. This has led to single fathers being excluded from parenting rooms and parenting groups which just assume that everyone who wants to use them is female.

Similarly, gay men and trans or genderqueer people are often excluded from fandom-y things along with the straight cisgendered men, with the argument that fandom is a women's space and they are not women, so they should shut up. I've seen it happen a bunch of time, and I don't like it.

On the whole, it seems to me that the not-women(**) in "female spaces" are more likely to be the sort to buck traditional gender roles and so be already marginalised in the wider society. Defining these spaces so rigidly that these not-women are excluded or marginalised here is beyond just defending ourselves from the patriarchy, it's perpetuating the patriarchy in it's oppression of a different group.

(*)And from the sound of things, a lot of male academics in this area are like italian chefs going on about how Marco Polo invented pasta, and who only reference the chinese at all to smirk about how they have no idea how to cook pasta sauce. To extend this metaphor past breaking: at the same time, that doesn't change the fact that spaghetti bolognaise is delicious, and not everyone who likes it hates China (or soy sauce) *is now hungry*
(**)And self identified women who don't fit the everyone's definition of "woman", like transwomen.

Note: I have a new policy of cutting down my internet time quite dramatically, so this was written on the fly. Sorry if it's all crap! EDIT: Haha, and now I've been metafandomed. Hi guys, I appreciate the comments but may be slow to reply :)

Comments

Re: Replying to both at once

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

To be honest I can't see how email is preferable to lj comments on a specific "leave your input here" post which (I would assume) is read by the same person. On lj I can point to a comment later on when discussing things with other people and make sure I'm not repeating an earlier, already answered question/suggestion.

Yes, otw_news comments go directly to the Community Relations committee.

The idea of more chat-style discussions, and more general discussion/suggestion threads hosted on otw_news are ideas we're considering -- we're still inventing our outreach too, trying to find a balance between the more formal needs of a non-profit Org, and the free-for-all discussion preferred by fandom. We still have some work ahead of us in getting the balance right, but we intend to keep trying stuff until we find a combination that works.

signs of a policy I didn't understand and you hadn't explained rather than the fact that you're still figuring things out

We opened our metaphorical doors as soon as we could, so that fandom could get directly involved in the creation of the Org. We are not like stereotypical corporations in that regard. We want to serve fandom, and to do that we must be by and for fandom and co-operatively invented by fandom. That's the stage we're in now.

In fact, the website isn't even the final version; it's stage two, and has barely anything on it yet compared to what we have planned. It's practically a shell. So, yeah, the set-up isn't even close to anything like finished, and won't be until the end of the year, I'd guess. And even then, that's just getting the ground floor built; after that, there's a whole heap of other projects that have been suggested.

Speaking just for myself, I expected criticism at this stage. Perhaps not quite so much, and certainly not for some of the reasons given, but certainly that it would come from every quarter. But then, I've heard what people say about WASFF, and I've also seen the good and bad of how that's turned out.

Re: Replying to both at once

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

Also, thanks for sticking up for us; I saw one of the comments you made about me being a real person. :)

Re: here from MF...

[alias_sqbr]

OTW does not, IMO, make that equation. Perhaps a change of phrase would make that better-understood, but it seems to me that many people are intent on hating OTW no matter what they do or say.

Oh, no, I didn't mean to imply that OTW were being anti-trans or whatever, just that the discussions about OTW have brought other general fandomy-people's dodgy opinions. I think my post was a bit ambiguous, sorry.

And I agree that people are being disproportionately negative about OTW, I mean I don't like everything about them, but they obviously mean well and are still figuring things out so I think they deserve a lot more benefit of the doubt than they're getting.

[alias_sqbr]

See, I think parts of fandom can be called a "female space", if only in a descriptive sense. And if you use the word "fandom" to just mean these spaces, and everyone knows that's what you mean, then that's ok (in the same way that people here sometimes use "fandom" to mean "Perth fandom" when it's clear from context). The problem is when it's not clear from context what "fandom" means, which is the case with OTW.

Mm, I understand the "Who are these people?" reaction, I'm lucky in that I know Cathy's lj nick and broad fandom history from cons, and came across an lj-comment where Naomi Novik was "outed" as another very involved fanficcy person (I don't feel comfy revealing this stuff myself since they obviously don't want that done publically). The (possibly not representative) impression I get from them and other people I've seen be involved is a lot of acafans into typical stuff like Supernatural, Buffy etc as well as actorfic etc and some vidding. Some of the board members give fairly specific info on their bios.

Re: Replying to both at once

[alias_sqbr]

You're welcome :)

I think people are being way too paranoid about you guys. I mean it's one thing to say you're doing everything wrong (a guaranteed complaint against any organisation doing anything ever) but I don't get the assumptions of malicious intent. Even if I didn't know you personally, everything OTW has done and said seems to me to quite obviously come from a love of fandom. If I didn't think you were interested in doing what's best for fandom I wouldn't bother complaining when I think you're doing it wrong :)

[alias_sqbr]

Hey, you're welcome, the only reason I noticed this stuff is due to generally getting involved in discussions about gender, race etc and having my brain opened up everytime I say something wrong and someone politely points out my assumptions. Pay it forward and all that :)

Re: Replying to both at once

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

The OTW sees most of the criticism as a good thing for exactly that reason; we want people to engage and help, and a lot of the critique so far *has* been helpful in honing the Org's policies, wording, and general thinking about how to approach things.

I'm not sure where the more vitriolic mistrust is coming from either, but change is scary, so it may in part be motivated by fear, which is understandable enough.

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. Parts of fandom are female space, but if you're going to talk about the parts of fandom that are female, you've got to attach some sort of modifier to the term 'fandom' so, as you say, everyone knows what you mean. That context is missing here. On one hand, they talk about valuing all fans and fanworks (Fandom as a vast, sprawling whole), on the other they're obviously talking about a specific subgroup (subset fandom) and seemingly assigning priority to it. They're trying to be all-inclusive while actively privileging the experiences of one group, and that sort of thing usually doesn't work.

I think knowledge of where they're coming from is fairly important considering that, as Cathy said, they're basing OTW's aims and ideology on where the board members and immediate supporters are coming from - their history and their experiences, which is not necessarily the experience of you or me or any other fan picked at random. I realise that OTW was born out of some very specific incidents (fanlib, strikethrough, boldthrough, etc) but the number of people aware of and deeply affected by those incidents (strikethrough and boldthrough in particular) are fairly likely in the minority of fans when Fandom is viewed as a whole.

What's interesting to me now is that they've just brought on someone who is a comics buff. A woman in comic fandom can not be unaware of the gender imbalance present there, and the problems that creates. Comics fan hubs also tend to be primarily found off lj and on creator or news boards.

Re: Replying to both at once

[alias_sqbr]

I was pondering, and I think part of it is that unlike most fandom groups you're deliberately not coming across as amateurs, but as a formal, professional organisation (and for very good reasons). I think that set off people's automatic "Evil Corporate Overlords" alarms :)

Also, thanks for responding to my question on otw_news!

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I just stumbled over this googling for something else... i hate linking to FW, but the original stuff was deleted. link (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:mT9lSja9-FcJ:www.journalfen.net/community/fwgreatesthits/20236.html+alchemia%40livejournal.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us&client=firefox-a) Someone posts about a disagreement about switchknife's gende between me and someone else because they thought switch was another person in fandom that had wank about their gender.

Someone points out that switch at one time id'd one way and later changed- therefore we were both "right"- which is basically denying the identity of a trans person by saying that they are "still" their birth sex- thus they can never be the "real" man or "real" woman that they id as / transitioned too, and that its everyone's right to drag out the trans person's past to "reveal" what they "really" are. :-/ (that said, i've no idea if switch was trans or not, i just know they were going by genderless pronouns for a long time before they left)

I didn't know the other person (Cravache), or what actually happened with that situation, but I think that wank, among a couple other incidents, caused an increase in paranoia in this part of fandom re gender. It was shortly after that, a person on my flist left because people said he was really a girl because he wrote too much like one in their opinion (and i think that is who pauraque was thinking of in the post I linked to above)

[alias_sqbr]

Good points all, though I think things like strikethrough and boldthrough are symptomatic of the precarious place fanfic holds in general and the unreliability of corporate "public spaces", and countermeasures like the archive will be generally useful (if only for the specifically designed opensource software used to run it)

You might be interested to read cupids_bow's official response to my question, it looks like they are going to address some of this stuff soon, which is good.

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Tthe strikethrough and boldthrough incidents are definitely symptomatic of the unreliability of our current content hosters, but, as incidents go, they only directly impacted on a few people. In addition to the small scale, I think parts of the incidents in question are actually rather divisive, which makes using them to gather support - and good publicity - somewhat problematic.

Good to see that there's a faq on the way. Oh, and I got an e-mail with the beta TOS in it for review the other day. At first glance it's looking fairly good.

[alias_sqbr]

True. I think it's good as an inspiration to the founders of the org (which it was), but poor as a generic rallying point.

Good to hear.

Sorry to lose this in my inbox for so long, but on the plus side since more than a week has passed they've actually started doing some of this stuff now :) (Or at least making official statements about the fact that they're going to be doing this stuff, and that maybe they've been a bit ambiguous in their language. Which is a start)