Heh.

[alixtii]

Part two of the Will Brooker and Ksenia Prasolova discussion on gender and fan studies has been posted to fandebate (as well as Henry Jenkin's blog). This discussion is particularly interesting to me because of the following statements from Will Brooker:

For a male fan or scholar to explain his fandom of a cult text in terms of “Claire Bennet is hot!” (even jokingly) would conjure up all kinds of negative connotations and sad stereotypes of a guy in a dark room with a screen full of cheerleader pics and a floor scattered with Kleenex. But it’s not unusual for a female fan or female fan-scholar to add, perhaps lightheartedly, “and it doesn’t hurt that the main characters are totally cute guys!” or admit that she writes slash because she’s turned on by the idea of those cute guys getting it on. I wonder how it would sound if I said I wrote stories about Claire and her hot cheerleader friends romping in the locker room. I don’t think it would be celebrated as an example of resistant fan creativity.

*whistles innocently*

Comments

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

how does femslash and slash parts of fandom compare on this issue? I know theres a few people who will argue that m/m slash is by definition by women. Maybe they are no longer surprised by others showing up from time to time but some do have an issue with it. Is this more common in slash fandom than femslash? If so, why might that be?

i also wonder if to what degree the fandom might be more accepting of your presence because of your being known to hold radical feminist views, than another guy who writes similar fic but doesn't identify that way, or does but doesn't discuss it in their fannish journal?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

how does femslash and slash parts of fandom compare on this issue? I know theres a few people who will argue that m/m slash is by definition by women. Maybe they are no longer surprised by others showing up from time to time but some do have an issue with it. Is this more common in slash fandom than femslash? If so, why might that be?

I can't speak for the m/m community but I've certainly never heard anyone argue that, say, a fic I wrote for femslash_minis wasn't femslash. Since I don't have your experiences in m/m (no one's argued that the fic I wrote for maleslashminis wasn't slash either, although I've only written a couple of m/m fics and a whole lot of femslash), I really can't compare or theorize.

i also wonder if to what degree the fandom might be more accepting of your presence because of your being known to hold radical feminist views, than another guy who writes similar fic but doesn't identify that way, or does but doesn't discuss it in their fannish journal?

Well, yeah. I mean, teh_no can have very anti-feminist views (and be a jerk besides) and people think less of him for it. Men in fandom do get judged, just as women in fandom will get judged, and the level of suspicion may even be that much higher (and I don't have a problem with that). But ultimately one gets judged on what one does and believes, not primarily on their gender (which can be hidden anyway).

The thing is, I'm assuming that all the males (and females) involved as formal interlocutors in the debates at fandebate are academic feminists (and so far, that seems to have been a safe assumption). So Will has the same tools as I do to establish cred, were he to want to do so.

And Will did mention his writing m/m slash in the debate, as having written slash.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Im not sure that its accurate to call gender "hidden" online- people almost always assume. And if they assume wrong, the individual may be the one blamed for "deliberately misleading" (or sock puppetry for attention). rather than being hidden (which would be very freeing), imho, it seems to be more comparable to being closeted or not, passing or not passing etc(which is more constraining to me).

But ultimately one gets judged on what one does and believes, not primarily on their gender

I'm not sure how to judge the degree to which such things happen in fandom- when I first found and got interested in meta discussions I encountered this alot- is it because this was a minority that was "loud" or is it that common? I've learned to avoid most of these people/places and stick to my own corner mostly- but how representative is that (likely not very). But comments like "You not a woman, you won't understand [slash subject]", "I'd never read/listen-to a slash fic if I knew it was by a guy", "men can't write slash, they write gay fic" etc are placing gender first, before the individual can even act to be judged.

"Formal interlocutors" means the people paired up for debates, or the people discussing in the threads?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But comments like "You not a woman, you won't understand [slash subject]", "I'd never read/listen-to a slash fic if I knew it was by a guy", "men can't write slash, they write gay fic" etc are placing gender first, before the individual can even act to be judged.

Hmm, it'd really depend on what one ended up in putting into the "comments like those" category. People make generalizations about gender all the time, of course, but I think very few of them are intended as universal prescriptive rules rather than just descriptive (possibly over-)generalizations. When claims that gendered experience provide certain insight go over the line could be a fuzzy boundary etc. I never heard anyone say " "I'd never read/listen-to a slash fic if I knew it was by a guy" although of course that would be their prerogatve.

"Formal interlocutors" means the people paired up for debates, or the people discussing in the threads?

The people paired up.for debates.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

that people make such comments "all the time" I think is concerning - its so accepted and so 'natural' people are unaware of their doing it or how it reinforces their opinions about others. We wouldn't be so dismissing of comments like "you're a girl, you wouldn't understand [sports subject]" or "I'd never see a movie with a [person of certain ethnicity] in a lead role".

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, when I talked about generalizations that get made all of the time, I wasn't just talking about statements like that (which in my experience are in the minority) but also ones like "Women make less cents on the dollar than men" and "Most low-paying jobs are worked by ethnic minorities and teenagers" and such. And sometimes the two types of generalizations blend into each other with a fuzzy boundary in between.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

ok, the context confused me, sorry.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I'm no longer sure that all males and females in this project dare acadedmic feminists (though I'm not sure what you mean by that). In my terminology, that means someone who not only identifies as a feminist (as Henry does) but who consciously and deeply integrates feminist/gender theory/ideas into hir scholarship. For example, I asked Henry about the lack of gender analysis in his current retrofuture comics analysis.

I can give you the names of several males who write feminist sf criticism who are feminists: Mike Levy, Robert von der Osten, Brian Attebery (all of whom I know, and whose work I know). Peter Fitting has written very good stuff on feminist utopias but I haven't met him.

I in no way see WB as a feminist by any definition of the term.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

My usage of "academuc feminist," here, to Alchemia, is deliberately broad, probably much broader than I'd use the term in other contexts, and deliberately keeps open the possibility that one can be a bad academic feminist (as may be the case with HJ more recently). How deeply feminist theory is integrated into Will's work is extremely suspect, but he does seem to be using the tools in some conscious fashion.

If nothing else, it's probably a good thing to give an interlocutor the benefit of the doubt.