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]

Well, I'm a woman too so am not the best person to ask :) (I actually feel a bit weird answering the question for this reason, so anyone with a better grasp of this stuff is free to correct me)

The perception has been growing for a while, to be honest I first noticed the "the only people who aren't women who like what I like are male chauvinist pigs" attitude when it was (indirectly) used against me (as a woman who likes plotty gen and science and other boyish things), and this meant that when people like alchemia complained about this sort of attitude marginalising them I had a certain base sympathy, and I started to think about what fandom would look like from a gay male/transgendered/genderqueer perspective. (For example, telling someone who was born a woman and has gone through hell and high water to gain any acceptance as a man that they're an "honorary woman" for liking fanfic and not being a misogynist is kind of rude..)

The only ones I have an actual link to are the rant I linked to above, and the comment that sparked this rant, where a (I think) FTM transexual was talking about feeling marginalised and was told that "being a dude in fandom is kind of like being a straight ally at a queer social event" (which I won't link to since I think the person who posted it feels a bit embarrassed about it now in retrospect :))

In general women are a lot less directly aggressive than men, so it's more subtle than the open misogyny you get in male spaces. But there have been several times I've seen gay men or trans people say that they're not comfortable with the way their group is portrayed by slash and they got an immediate reaction of "This is by women for women, if you don't like it then sod off" and "It's impossible for me to be prejudiced against gay men because I'm a lesbian" without any attempt to look at whether or not slash perpetuates homophobic/transphobic etc attitudes. I mean there is also a lot of very intelligent discussion about the gender/sexuality etc issues in fanfic, but that doesn't negate the bad stuff.

[dkompare.livejournal.com]

Through all of these discussions, there's a fascinating conflation of things like genre, affect, narrative, and style with gender and/or sexuality. That seems to be how our culture is encoded (I'm not gonna say "hard-wired," because much of that line of thought is BS). Thus, for example, not only is the idea of fanfic constructed very differently from "outside" and "inside" fandom (speaking very broadly), each construction immediately implies particular codes about gender and/or sexuality.

Like you, I'm a gen fan, for the most part. I totally get slash, and value it as a mode of culture, but it just doesn't do anything for me. More or less the same for shipping (to an extent). I find myself wondering if that's because of my gender and sexuality, or if that's because of my taste formation (not high or low, but relative to all sorts of stuff in culture), or something else, and I'm not sure.

So, then, as someone who considers himself a fan, but isn't into slash or shipping, I've had a difficult go of it on LJ. I'm not going to "pass" as someone who is into it, but I am familiarizing myself with more concepts and issues, because I am very interested in the broader endeavor of fandom, or, to be more precise, if less proper, "fannishness."

To flip this on its head, one of my former students (now getting her PhD in Communication Studies) is a het female whose fannish passion is professional male sports. Not in a sexual mode (that's secondary, according to her), but as sports, i.e., as a "guy" would typically do. She's found it incredibly difficult to find a place in this world, as male privilege locks out or shuts down women's perspectives, and dominant discourses of femininity (and feminism) tell her she's either supposed to only be in it for the "hot guys" or reject it altogether. The upside is that she's found it an incredibly fertile ground for exploring issues of gender, passion, expertise, and marketing in contemporary culture!

Anyway, I think I'd like to see more discussion (in general; this particular discussion is very engaging!) about what makes some artifact or practice "male" or "female" or "gay" or "straight," and what about the folks who say "none of the above, thank you"? I'd like to do this without dismissing the problem of the very, very real politics of gender bias and male privilege in the world overall, but still get at the "stuff" that makes stuff gendered in the first place.

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, good points all. I think it's very easy for "girly" women to justify the exclusion of "boyish" women (or "girly" men etc) with the argument that the wider society constantly promotes the masculine to the detriment of the feminine, without realising that this is only true for "boyish" men, and that it's actually pretty tough for "boyish" women. (I say as a woman with a Phd in maths who likes hard sf)

But at the same time...someone has to defend girly things.

I'm glad you student was able to turn her experiences into a learning experience :)