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

[alias_sqbr]

Mm. It would be great if there was a metafandom type place which covered all such fandomy stuff (or at least the ones I care about :D) but I feel reasonably certain that the different groups would Not Play Nice. *insert the parable of scans_daily*

I think the "Boys are icky, and so is everything they like" attitude comes from a mix of an understandable siege mentality and the general human tendency to demonise the Other. It does make it annoying for girls like us who like "boys stuff" as well as "girls stuff".

That said, we live in a sexist society with a long history of women being marginalised. So a "women's space" really isn't the same as a "men's space", and imo can sometimes be a good thing. I personally think it's great that women can express themselves in fanfic etc in ways they generally can't in the wider world. But that doesn't give us lisence to be prats about it.

I have this metaphor about slashers being like drag queens, but it's probably best left in my head :)

I can't speak for the rest of the board, but have you met Cathy Cupitt? She's quite a local SMOF and a staple at Swancon, so I can't see her being unaware of the male aspects of fandom. But afaict all she writes is slash. Naomi Novik does vids, too, but not AMVs (which are where the men come into it in a big way afaict)

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

I totally hear you on the Not Playing Nice part. It's worse than herding cats.

Which brings me to what, on reflection, I think my fundamental problem with the gendered language is: I don't actually see fandom as a female space. It's far too big and diverse to be laid claim to by any one faction. There are women here. There are men, too. There are also people who identify as neither. We all have space under the fandom umbrella. Sometimes the spaces overlap; sometimes they don't. Basically, I see I see fandom as a neutral space, and also I think any organisation that purports to try to support fandom should try to preserve that neutrality.

I've met Cathy, but only in her capacity as a SMOF. I think I gave her some of my Contreau as a bribe at a fan olympics a couple of swancons ago. I would like to know more about the board's fandom credentials - what their gateway fandom was, what they're currently active in, what do they produce now, what have the produced in the past... Get an idea of where they're actually coming from in relation to my own experiences.

[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.

[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.

[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)