Slash/Yaoi misogyny bingo

[sqbr]

Reading this misogynist slash fangirl bingo card I started thinking about how much more effective it would be if you put the contradictory squares next to each other. It's rather like solving a jigsaw puzzle making them all be contradictory, including the "Sod it, this doesn't quite fit but I'll put it there anyway" stage :D (And yes, no "Free Space", it mucked up the order)
Slash Mysogny bingo card

Note: Not all slashers/yaoi fans are misogynist, not even (necessarily) when they use these arguments. But if you manage to fill an entire row all at once then you probably are.

I had some gaps, then came across this post about Uhura bashing in the Star Trek kink meme via friendsfriends. The "GLBT activists" pushing for Kirk/Spock is a good example too. Thanks for the inspiration, Star Trek fandom!

Comments

[ex_peasant441]

Huh. I cheerfully admit I'm misogynistic in my fanfic and I don't check a single square. I guess that is the difference between someone who admits it and people who don't. Interesting.

[sqbr]

Also it's less about misogynistic slash as it is about misogynistic slashers.

[ex_peasant441]

Yep, good point but... it's more complex than that.

I write what I write because I enjoy it, that then raises the question of why I enjoy it. Why don't I like writing about women? Why, when I do write about women, do I take such pleasure in portraying them in an actively misogynistic society? After all, it is fantasy, I could do what everyone else does and pretend that vampire society is an island of enlightened tolerance in a sea of Victorian values.

OK, so partly I'm doing it as a way to lash out at feminism and political correctness, but that is a fairly recent addition (I've always had an uneasy relationship with feminism but I've only been as actively hostile as I now am for the last couple of years or so) and I chose to only concentrate on the men long before that.

The problem is then how do I tease out what of the remaining part of my preference for men is societal based misogyny, and what part is a result of my own complex gender issues? Because I obviously want to address the former while the later is fine and me just using fiction for the thing all authors use it for - to play out our fantasies.

And then, by extension, I wonder how much women who are using the bingo card excuses are facing similar problems. After all, wanting to spend time as a man in our fantasy space is hardly uncommon or in any way illegitimate. But for girly girls it might be a hard thing to admit.

And then of course that segues into all the usual thoughts where I wonder about how much of a responsibility we have to write 'inoffensively' or 'representationaly' and I am so far from having answers to those questions that I still tend to just blink a bit and go find something else to do, because I frankly lack the moral hardware to sort it out yet.

[sqbr]

Fair enough, those are difficult questions. Hmm. (Once again, I spend a while trying to think of a deep reply and have none :))

[onceamy]

I have called, maybe, one or two girls in my fandoms over the years (NCIS and Harry Potter) Mary Sues. I also call the boys Gary Stus --- I'm grey haired like that.

But then again, I was a het shipper before I was a slasher --- I beat the card at its own game. \o/

[sqbr]

Oh, yeah, some of those arguments are fine by themselves. But if you accuse a female character of being a Mary Sue AND a slut AND boring at the same time then you might be in trouble :)