alias_sqbr

I have to admit, I get really fed up with the double standard applied when association with women seems to automatically devalue a genre (I would include fanfic in this, but for a "real world" example, take romance writing), but any insistence on a genre being "women's space" is seen as exclusive and inflammatory when it is used in a positive way or brought up by the women themselves.

Same. In fact I think we agree on a lot of things. We may even agree on pretty much everything and be shouting past each other :)

And as I said in my post, I'm definitely not objecting to fandom being called a "primarily female space" (well, except with the fact that this gets a bit ambiguous when we're talking about OTW, but I think we agree there)

I'm not entirely objecting to it being labeled a "female space" (which is different), though I'm still figuring out quite how I feel about that. I've seen lots of people who see it as a female space express themselves in very inclusive ways which affirm the role of women without trying to belittle or marginalise not-women, and I'm sure you do it that way too. I certainly enjoy having a female dominated nerdy place to hang out from time to time after the fierce maleness of nerd circles in general, and see how precious and rare that is and why people want to protect it.

What I'm objecting to is the minority of women who do define fandom as a "female space" in an exclusionary way and who automatically pigeonhole anyone who doesn't 100% fit their idea of "female fanficcer " as male/part of the patriarchy and thus the bad guy (heck, this has happened to me as a gen fan)

The world may "belong to men". But it belongs, specifically, to straight cisgendered men, and gay/trans/genderqueer etc "men" don't tend to get the full force of male privilege. And a man who is being all obnoxious and priviligey doesn't deserve our time..but that doesn't describe all not-women with a dissenting voice.

Look, I agree that people whose taste doesn't match that of the majority of fandom (and this includes myself) have to just put up with it. But if it's not a matter of taste but of heterosexism or whatever then I think people have a right to speak up and rock the boat, even if they are male.

To give an example: I think gay men and transpeople etc have a right to express an opinion about how the group they're a part of is presented in fanfiction in the same way that women have a right to express an opinion on how they're presented in fiction aimed at men, especially since it's not like there's a subgenre of fanfiction aimed at gay men or whatever that they can go read instead.
That said, I think presenting it as a simple case of straight people fetishising homosexuality is as wrong as seeing it as a simple case of men putting down women's writing. I'm not saying we have to agree with their opinions, just that they have a right to express them without being shouted down or ignored, and this doesn't always happen.