A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[eldargal]

Well Women in Refrigerators is the name of the trope, it refers to female characters who are killed solely or further the character development of a male character, usually their love interest but also sometimes sister, daughter or mother. It happens far too much, but less often lately. I don't recall it happening in GW fiction much at all, more than compensated for by this example which was just terrible. It is also inherently sexist as it literally reduces female characters down to a tool to develop mens stories rather than having their own story.

[White Tiger88]

Well Women in Refrigerators is the name of the trope, it refers to female characters who are killed solely or further the character development of a male character, usually their love interest but also sometimes sister, daughter or mother. It happens far too much, but less often lately. I don't recall it happening in GW fiction much at all, more than compensated for by this example which was just terrible. It is also inherently sexist as it literally reduces female characters down to a tool to develop mens stories rather than having their own story.

I see, Yet the male Characters stories are all getting so damn emo\annoying.............. I mean $#(! kill off the ONE woman who was both pretty and could kick the crap out of anyone she wants for no reason other then the author got stuck. (Why do i suddenly get the feeling Morathi will get killed next.....followed by every character people like randomly so felix and his dwarf butt buddy can keep making books....)

[eldargal]

Yeah I'm really worried about Morathi, Hellebron, Alarielle and Ariel now. I have a nasty suspicion instead of improving gendr diversity with End Times GW are going to go the opposite way and try and make it appeal more to just the straight male dudebro type by getting rid of all the icky women on the assumption focusing on a vague idea of the demographic they have is better than trying to broaden the appeal. Hopefully I am wrong.

[White Tiger88]

well with the apparent "No new model or no model yet style of deaths.......lots of characters are screwed. If they kill the shadow king.......or malus darkblade I will rage like a pissed of tiger.

(Mind you I am hoping for somenone sucky female elf characters.......like oh maybe a vampiress elf?)

[CoffeeGrunt]

I haven't read the Nagash book sadly, however Dead Wife Backstory is something that really annoys me, (but also something I overlook in Last Of Us even if it really reduces Sarah as a character massively.) I'm trying to think of recent games/videos that use it as a core feature, though. Most go with the Orphan backstory now, which I have my own issues with in general, though it's not necessarily sexist.

[Mr Mystery]

Changing the subject a bit....

We currently live in a patriarchy, that much is clear, and its something that has been reinforced somewhat over the last few centuries at least.

But....is there any evidence of a different way? I appreciate this sounds like a loaded question, but that is not my intent. I'm just interested as to whether is a noticeable point in history where it kicked off, at least as far as Western society goes?

[Kirsten]

three million year ago?

[eldargal]

Changing the subject a bit....

We currently live in a patriarchy, that much is clear, and its something that has been reinforced somewhat over the last few centuries at least.

But....is there any evidence of a different way? I appreciate this sounds like a loaded question, but that is not my intent. I'm just interested as to whether is a noticeable point in history where it kicked off, at least as far as Western society goes?

Possibly. Some researchers say they see evidence of widespread matriarchy in Europe (and possibly elsewhere) but it is highly debated. Personally I think we probably had an egalitarian society up until patriarchy developed alongside the development of farming. Some areas of the world certainly seemed to have more matriarchal cultures

I’m gonna depress the hell out of all of you. ready? ok go

so, that “stop devaluing feminized work post”

nice idea and all

but the thing is, as soon as a decent number of women enter any field, it becomes “feminized,” and it becomes devalued.

as women enter a field in greater number, people become less willing to pay for it, the respect for it drops, and it’s seen as less of a big deal. it’s not about the job- it’s about the number of women in the job.

observe what happened with biology. it’s STEM, sure, but anyone in a male-dominated science will sneer at the idea of it being ‘for real,’ nevermind that everyone sure took it more seriously when it was a male dominated field. so has happened with scores of other areas; nursing comes to mind

so the thing is, it’s not the work or the job that has to be uplifted and seen as more respectable. it will never work out, until people start seeing women as respectable

but there’s a doozy and who the **** knows if it’s ever happening in my life time

"observe what happened with biology. it’s STEM, sure, but anyone in a male-dominated science will sneer at the idea of it being ‘for real,’ nevermind that everyone sure took it more seriously when it was a male dominated field."

Personal anecdote time! I’m in a biology graduate program. An acquaintance wanted to introduce some guy to me because his son was thinking about becoming an undergrad science major. When he found out I was in the biology department, he grinned and said, “Well, I guess that’s kind of related to science.”

I gave him what I hope was an icy look and said, “Isn’t it strange how men outside the field started saying that right around the time biology majors shifted from mostly male to mostly female?”

The guy got this look on his face like he was about to play the “just a joke” card, and then an older woman who had been standing nearby, talking to someone else, turned to me and said, “The same thing happened with real estate.” She went on to explain that, over the course of the career, the male-to-female ratio among real estate agents had dropped, and the pay and “prestige factor” of that job dropped along with it.

Same thing happened to literature. Used to be poetry was the medium of educated men, and novels were “the trashy, unprofessional writings” of women. The more poetry women wrote, the less esteemed it became, and the more men wrote novels, the more value novels had. Now YA novels are frowned on, and also considered women’s territory. If I could find it, I read a few months ago the personal experiences of a female scifi writer and the bias there. Women are expected to write “less intelligent” soft scifi while hard scifi is for men and considered superior. One is valued more than the other based on the genders that tended to write them, and now men and women are pigeon-holed into those genres and disrespected if they don’t adhere to them.

This is probably like 90% of the reason for the backlash of “Anti-gamers” when it comes to women in nerd culture. Nerd culture isn’t really respected anyway and even though it originated as a massive boys AND girls club (really more a girls club since the first ever sci-fi nerd convention was created by women for their love of star trek) but there’s probably a subconscious knowledge that whatever respect they do have (and it’s getting more respect right now too thanks to nerds growing up into people with money and making movies) that it’ll be “lost” if taken over by women because we’ve been taught over and over again that women ruin everything.

NO GURLZ ALLOWED!!!

Why? Because we live in a society that has been hard wired for centuries that to BE a woman is weak so anything women excel at must be also weak and of no value, hence why we try to keep women out of EVERYTHING and then once they get in people scoff and go “yeah well it wasn’t that hard to begin with that’s the only reason you got in at all…”

[URL="http://seananmcguire.tumblr.com/post/98035631455/typingsdrawings-deskgirl-pyrositshere"]Source[/URL]

[Mr Mystery]

Thought for the day.....

Doctor Who - only 6 female writers over it otherwise glittering career.

Bit of a poor showing really.

[eldargal]

Yup, and none under Moffat last I checked.