Wait wait wait--someone thought Frozen wasn't feminist enough because it portrayed women being less than perfect under pressure? Obviously the writer doesn't think women haven't had it drilled into them enough that they have to fit a certain mold or they're worthless; no, we need feminism to get into the game of policing women's worth, too. *Resists the urge to break all the things*
I mean, I do understand the defensive impulse: Too often, "X did bad things because X made bad choices while walking wounded" can be used to say "Traumatized women are weak and/or evil" if X is a woman. Still, there is a huge difference between depictions of women being imperfect and sexist depictions of women, and I'm angry at the idea that women have to fit a mold of perfection even in fiction.
The idea that a (real) woman hurts no one and does nothing with real consequences leads to things like the Broken Bird trope, analyzed brilliantly in the essay Broken Birds, Damage and Brave New Worlds (http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/broken-birds-damage-brave-new-worlds/). This trope doesn't only suck for women, either: Stories without consequences are untrue to life and the human experience, making them simply bad fiction.
On the male side of the One True Trauma Reaction is the infamous and insidious phenomenon of manpain (http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/145564.html), where men are only allowed to hurt for the "right" reasons--all too often the horrific and senseless deaths of the women in their lives. As the vidder points out, all too often men aren't allowed to cry for themselves, only for their failure to be there for loved ones and especially women. Because obviously women's lives aren't their own but the responsibility of men, so that a woman's death is not a loss to be mourned but rather an evidence of a man's personal failure. *shudders* I can't even.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-10-19 01:37 pm (UTC)I mean, I do understand the defensive impulse: Too often, "X did bad things because X made bad choices while walking wounded" can be used to say "Traumatized women are weak and/or evil" if X is a woman. Still, there is a huge difference between depictions of women being imperfect and sexist depictions of women, and I'm angry at the idea that women have to fit a mold of perfection even in fiction.
The idea that a (real) woman hurts no one and does nothing with real consequences leads to things like the Broken Bird trope, analyzed brilliantly in the essay Broken Birds, Damage and Brave New Worlds (http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/broken-birds-damage-brave-new-worlds/). This trope doesn't only suck for women, either: Stories without consequences are untrue to life and the human experience, making them simply bad fiction.
On the male side of the One True Trauma Reaction is the infamous and insidious phenomenon of manpain (http://thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org/145564.html), where men are only allowed to hurt for the "right" reasons--all too often the horrific and senseless deaths of the women in their lives. As the vidder points out, all too often men aren't allowed to cry for themselves, only for their failure to be there for loved ones and especially women. Because obviously women's lives aren't their own but the responsibility of men, so that a woman's death is not a loss to be mourned but rather an evidence of a man's personal failure. *shudders* I can't even.