As a woman (and, secondarily, a queer woman, but that doesn't really has as strong of an impact on this position in this case) whose primary focus and interest is on female characters, I find I am routinely offended by what *I* most often hear about slash, which has been, "Well, we slash because the male characters are the *interesting* ones; the female characters aren't well-written/well-acted/well-conceived/well-developed/insert-excuse-here enough to get me into writing about them." I find myself (often silently, sometimes vocally) offended by the idea that None Of The Women Could Be Interesting Enough To Warrant Attention.
As a friend said, if folks can write a NOVEL about the guy we saw once for part of a page of HP, or as a silent extra in a scene in LotR, or who brought Picard that one padd that one time...and develop that character into someone well-rounded and thoughtful and developed...folks can BLOODY WELL write an interesting female character (who DOES get more screen time than that!) IF THEY CARE TO. We're fans. It's what we do. We take the TINIEST moments and turn them into epic tales and endless meta.
And for those who don't care to write about the women, then I'd MUCH prefer they just say, "Not my interest; I'm more focused on X for my own reasons," rather than try to claim that the female characters "aren't interesting enough" or "aren't worth the time" because that implies--to me--that WOMEN cannot be interesting or worth one's time...and I find that harmful and insulting.
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As a friend said, if folks can write a NOVEL about the guy we saw once for part of a page of HP, or as a silent extra in a scene in LotR, or who brought Picard that one padd that one time...and develop that character into someone well-rounded and thoughtful and developed...folks can BLOODY WELL write an interesting female character (who DOES get more screen time than that!) IF THEY CARE TO. We're fans. It's what we do. We take the TINIEST moments and turn them into epic tales and endless meta.
And for those who don't care to write about the women, then I'd MUCH prefer they just say, "Not my interest; I'm more focused on X for my own reasons," rather than try to claim that the female characters "aren't interesting enough" or "aren't worth the time" because that implies--to me--that WOMEN cannot be interesting or worth one's time...and I find that harmful and insulting.
So...thank you for writing and posting!