ext_1799 ([identity profile] alixtii.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] life_wo_fanlib 2007-05-26 01:19 pm (UTC)

Re: stupidity vs. sexism

Unfotunatly, I've seen women saying that or something which could be interpreted like that.

I'm a little skeptical on the "could be interpreted" front. It's very easy to feel excluded, yes, especially when people aren't talking to you.

Well, for me it's kind of exclusionary. Why wrote stories only for a women audience?

Well, mostly because it's the audience that's here. Some people write what they want and don't care what other people read it. Some people write the stories they think the audience (which is predominately female, and shares certain experiences) wants to read. Other people find it important to be writing for women as a community that doesn't get written for very often, since almost all of the media that is produced (throughout history and throughout the world) is geared to males. Some people--like myself--find they can say things from a position within a community of women that would damaging or disempowering in a different context. The reasons for writing to an audience of women are probably as many as there are fen.

So, if I get you right, women wrote fanfiction and come to fandom because it's a cultural niche for women?

Well, I'm not sure what direction the causality flows--in large part it's become a cultural niche for women because women wrote fanfiction and came to fandom, and most likely the causality flows both ways--but the fact is that it is a cultural niche for women that should be perserved.

They don't come here because, well, I don't know, they have enjoyed a fictionnal universe and are wanting to explore it more?

Whoever does anything for only one reason?

And I don't think that fandom was built by women, it was built by individual.

No, sorry. Women on Earth in the 20th century didn't get to be individuals--the social context is too oppressive, they're always being interpellated in certain ways as part of a pattern of sexism in a sexist society. Calling them "individuals" isn't a way of disregarding the gender issues at work here.

You see, I tend to treat the men who act like assholes in the exact same way that women who act like assholes.

You and I have the privilege to be able to do that because we're male, and if we want we can just ignore the entire history of assholish behavior of men against women across the millenia. Whereas women can never forget the fact that they're female, and the social context that goes with that.

Yes, but fandom is not limited to that and should not be limited to that.

But that aspect of fandom should be preserved and I don't see what the issue with those who utilize and value it fighting against its co-optation.

But I tend myself to think that capitalism is the real issue here, fanlib didn't seemed motivated by a patriarchal logic for me but by a logic of profits.
That's why I don't get it when people are picturing that like a fight between patriarchy and women.


The issues intersect; "patriarchal logic" and the "logic of profits" are very much tied in to each other. Fen have been discussing the way the gender and capitalism issues intersect long before the FabLib discussion began (other people in this thread have been showing you links to those discussions, and you can find more just by browsing at [livejournal.com profile] metafandom); it's not just a random attack on a Board of Directors who just happen to be male, but an acknowledgement of a pattern within which this is only an example.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting