tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489915595496337926.post1764849814018813875..comments2023-10-30T11:58:20.915-04:00Comments on Retconning My Brain: Space Girls Gone Wild. For Real Real.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405019346861244737noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489915595496337926.post-57119744732341142072009-07-22T09:12:27.579-04:002009-07-22T09:12:27.579-04:00@guardian.orion I hope you don't mind the dela...@guardian.orion I hope you don't mind the delay. I've been thinking about the best way to answer this. There isn't really one way to define feminism. I suppose everyone takes it sort of personally and interprets it how they'd like. There are certainly textbook (and dictionary :) ) definitions of it, but I've found it to be a very individual thing, usually based on peoples' personal experiences and education.<br /><br />I think it IS about equality generally, but it's not flat out, across-the-board equality. The fact is that males and females are biologically different, and that men and women have are treated differently by society (I should give the caveat right now that I differentiate between biological sex and social gender). To, I think, explain the Oxford definition, feminism is focused on women because women are <i>not</i> equal. It's focused on getting us there. One of the oft-used and still-true factoids is that women make 70 cents to the male dollar while working in equivalent jobs. Female attorneys are passed over for partnership because of fear they might have children. Women are expected to be both full time mothers and to have full time jobs (depending on the socio-economic class of the family), while men are just expected to have jobs and help out with traditionally make jobs when they get the time/inclination.<br /><br />Those examples are generalizations, of course, but they exist still. <br /><br />I don't think a story where a character paid no attention to sex or gender would be feminist. It would be, for lack of a better word, white washing reality. That would be like asking if a story where people pay no attention to race would be considered racially progressive. No... race still exists. People are treated different based on race, gender, and sex (and sexuality and religion and yadda yadda). Similarly, characters doing the same thing would feel wrong and fall flat to me, as a feminist. <br /><br />So to me, and I have no idea if this has been insightful at all, feminism is about recognizing the differences between sexes and genders and writing stories that don't pigeonhole females or women based on those differences. It's not just about women having the ability to wear pants, it's about them not being an object of desire or derision just because they choose to wear a short skirt. Unfortunately, that desire/derision can come from both men and women.<br /><br />(Tangentially, I think men should be able to choose to wear skirts, too, but it's going to take a long time before society's cool with that.)<br /><br />I don't have this idea of a perfect world where men and women are absolutely the same. I don't think that's possible, and I'm not sure I'd want that anyway (a world of one biological sex, I guess). Feminism is about making the world we do live in a better one for women, where women aren't sexualized or maternalized in fiction, where they earn as much as men for doing the same job, where they're not judged for choosing a career over a family, etc. etc. <br /><br />I have no idea if this made any sense. Please feel free to ask for clarification. I appreciate that you asked in the first place, and I wish I could be more clear.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02405019346861244737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489915595496337926.post-821447367941562872009-07-21T15:15:20.125-04:002009-07-21T15:15:20.125-04:00If you don't mind my asking, how would you def...If you don't mind my asking, how would you define feminism? I'm male, and though I've always believed that persons should be treated the same regardless of their sex, ancestry, etc., I've never been comfortable with the term 'feminist', nor have I been entirely clear what it entails.<br /><br />I think part of the difficulty I have with the term is its association with females particularly, rather than with equality in general. Is discrimination against males (for females) opposed by feminism, or only discrimination against females (for males)?<br /><br />The Oxford Dictionary of American English says that feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men," which sounds like it considers equality paramount, but which also makes clear that it's focused on women . . . which doesn't seem to track.<br /><br />I'm curious what you think of this, given your allusion to types of feminism (and to feminism in general). Would a story in which male and female characters are simply treated equally be feminist? If so, would a character in the story be a feminist if they, like the story, paid no attention to sex except where relevant (attraction, medical care, etc.)?guardian.orionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639732018854965638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489915595496337926.post-80314559268600996022009-06-20T13:51:03.018-04:002009-06-20T13:51:03.018-04:00I feel like female-fronted titles are an excellent...I feel like female-fronted titles are an excellent chance for writers to, I don't know, show us that it's not still 1955 in their heads. But they don't seem to follow through on this so much. I think it's all part of the attachment to the golden/silver age, and the "average" comic geek/writer's inability or unwillingness to realize that there are women out there reading comic books (and feminist men as well) that may not want to see the same tired old stereotypes we've been seeing for sixty years. One step forward and two back is still a step back. <br /><br />(Thanks for the info on the covers. I read the info wrong on the DC page, I think.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02405019346861244737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489915595496337926.post-60109447051381531432009-06-20T00:38:09.819-04:002009-06-20T00:38:09.819-04:00WTF indeed. I'm equally at a loss as to what t...WTF indeed. I'm equally at a loss as to what the writers think they're doing. I <a href="http://maidofmight.net/2009/06/power-girl-2-review/" rel="nofollow">didn't like the issue either</a>, for all the reasons mentioned above (I didn't even get the blood play thing: I was just really uncomfortable with all the torture and pain and terrified helplessness and constantly COVERING POWER GIRL'S FACE). And what <em>was</em> up with the "hysterical mom-scientists and rational guy-scientists"?<br /><br />The upcoming "Space Girls Gone Wild" storyline is not reassuring. From these first two issues it definitely looks like the writers are going for "hard-working women just trying to get by who constantly (and I mean constantly) have to deal with sexism, but don't want to.", and that's <em>not</em> what I expected from a Power Girl comic.<br /><br />(BTW the cover you didn't get is by Amanda Connor, the interior artist.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com