Every now and then I come across discussions about the ethics of women (m/m slashers) writing stories about gay male characters despite not being gay men. A common (but not universally agreed upon) response is that this is ok since everyone knows it's not about real gay men, and the power dynamic is balanced out by the gendered power men have over women in society at large.
I didn't read all the comments, but since you don't appear to have contested this response, is it fair to say you agree with it?
Personally, I think justifying anything by saying it's 'balanced out by the gendered power men have over women' is pretty questionable. Basically, it seems like you're saying "it's okay for for group X to offend/marginalize group Y, because in society group X enjoys privilege that group Y doesn't".
Generally, society seems to moving towards equality, and gender/race privilege seems to be slowly being eroded. White privilege definitely still exists, but I don't think it's anywhere near as significant as it was 50 or even 30 years ago. At what point does one group's privilege become so insignificant that you can no longer justify another group's actions based on that privilege?
I say that privilege can't be measured, and so this point can't be identified. So I think that if it's unfair for women to write m/m slashfic (uh.. am I using the right terms here? I don't have anything to do with any of these fandoms, I just read your blog on Planet UCC) because it offends gay men, then it's unfair, and nothing about gay men (especially something like gender privilege, which after all they didn't ask for) can justify it. Honestly, this reasoning seems just as arbitrary as the reasoning which created race and gender privilege in the first place.
(I don't think it's unethical for women to write about gay men, even though they aren't gay men. As far as I'm concerned, you may write whatever you want. If it offends others, that's their problem - they can criticize your writing, tell you why it offends them, and they can even judge you based on your writing, but I don't think they can tell you it's wrong. If someone's writing offends you, ultimately you're free to not read it.)
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I didn't read all the comments, but since you don't appear to have contested this response, is it fair to say you agree with it?
Personally, I think justifying anything by saying it's 'balanced out by the gendered power men have over women' is pretty questionable. Basically, it seems like you're saying "it's okay for for group X to offend/marginalize group Y, because in society group X enjoys privilege that group Y doesn't".
Generally, society seems to moving towards equality, and gender/race privilege seems to be slowly being eroded. White privilege definitely still exists, but I don't think it's anywhere near as significant as it was 50 or even 30 years ago. At what point does one group's privilege become so insignificant that you can no longer justify another group's actions based on that privilege?
I say that privilege can't be measured, and so this point can't be identified. So I think that if it's unfair for women to write m/m slashfic (uh.. am I using the right terms here? I don't have anything to do with any of these fandoms, I just read your blog on Planet UCC) because it offends gay men, then it's unfair, and nothing about gay men (especially something like gender privilege, which after all they didn't ask for) can justify it. Honestly, this reasoning seems just as arbitrary as the reasoning which created race and gender privilege in the first place.
(I don't think it's unethical for women to write about gay men, even though they aren't gay men. As far as I'm concerned, you may write whatever you want. If it offends others, that's their problem - they can criticize your writing, tell you why it offends them, and they can even judge you based on your writing, but I don't think they can tell you it's wrong. If someone's writing offends you, ultimately you're free to not read it.)
Disclaimer: yes, I'm a straight white male