Who says femslashers don't do meta?
Feb. 5th, 2010 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiI don't have a tag for femslash meta in particular, in much the way I would presume most boyslashers don't have a tag for boyslash meta; being a femslasher is the point from which I approach all my fannish meta.
I have compiled the following list of posts, however, at the request of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
carolyn_claire, with metafandom-style blurbs, as posts of mine which do address femslash as a genre in a fairly direct way, however. Altogether it's too large for a LiveJournal comment--although not, I'm fairly certain, for a Dreamwidth comment--so I'm posting it here. The list is ordered like a flist; the top post is the most recent and some posts link to some of the posts below them.
alixtii: Femslash and the Lesbian Experience. Which Is Clearly Not My Experience.: my impression has always been that in more or less exactly the way that m/m slash isn't actually about real-world gay men (in a way that some interlocutors have found problematic, to say the least), femslash isn't about lesbians.
alixtii: Meta: Girlslash OTPs: One "difference" that has never been quite so easy to demonstrate, however, has been my claim that femslash fandom is less OTP-oriented than m/m slash fandom. To me, girlslash is something one finds hiding in the interstices of a canon--and indeed, it's one of the things I really love about it. [The really interesting stuff happens in the comments, with a large discussion of the history of femslash. --Ed.]
alixtii: Why Femslash Is Different, Part 1,001: There does seem, however, to be a sense that these "feminized" versions of the (male) characters are somehow OOC. But nobody ever complains about "masculinizing" female characters, do they? Ever wonder why not?
alixtii: Meta: Gazes in/and/of Criticism: the femslasher's gaze is a gaze which sees woman as its object from a position within a community of women.
alixtii: WNG Femslash: I've noticed that WNGWJLEO doesn't seem to be a trope in femslash--or at least the femslash I've read--the way it is (or has been) in m/m slash fandom. (I do wonder if WNG is more likely to be a trope in fandoms which are more OTP-centric than Buffy femslash fandom tends to be, fandoms like XWP or Law and Order or Wicked.)
alixtii: Is "Q-Based Narrowing" Narrowing Based on John de Lancie or Desmond Llewelyn?: Literal-Minded provides [. . .] some good examples to parallel the femslash:slash relationship, in particular rooster:chicken, thumb:finger, square:rectangle, rectangle:quadrilateral, lesbian:gay (which of course is the obvious one when we're comparing to femslash:slash), and senator:congressman.
alixtii: More Thoughts: "femlash" : "slash" :: "microwave oven" : "oven"
alixtii: Thoughts: The problem with lumping both femslash and m/m slash under the same "slash" label isn't only that somehow femslash always seems to end up dropping out of the discussion altogether (no matter how much some might protest that they really do mean both brands of slash), but that the grouping just plain doesn't make much sense. [. . . O]ne can't help but ignore one or the other when using the term "slash"--the two types of fic are just too disparate to fit comfortably under one label.
alixtii: yuletide and Slashcentricity: Not that I really have that much of a problem with fandom's slashcentricity, not really. [. . .] But I do weep (okay, not literally) to see perfectly wonderful female characters being passed over.
alixtii: On Fraught Taxonomy: when do we actually use the gen/het/slash distinction? When we meta, certainly, but many if not all of us recognize that the definitions are fluid and know enough to define our terms before we begin. (And when we do make assumptions--such as that femslash is or isn't a subset of slash--we often end up in vexed situations.)
I have compiled the following list of posts, however, at the request of
carolyn_claire, with metafandom-style blurbs, as posts of mine which do address femslash as a genre in a fairly direct way, however. Altogether it's too large for a LiveJournal comment--although not, I'm fairly certain, for a Dreamwidth comment--so I'm posting it here. The list is ordered like a flist; the top post is the most recent and some posts link to some of the posts below them.alixtii: Femslash and the Lesbian Experience. Which Is Clearly Not My Experience.: my impression has always been that in more or less exactly the way that m/m slash isn't actually about real-world gay men (in a way that some interlocutors have found problematic, to say the least), femslash isn't about lesbians.alixtii: Meta: Girlslash OTPs: One "difference" that has never been quite so easy to demonstrate, however, has been my claim that femslash fandom is less OTP-oriented than m/m slash fandom. To me, girlslash is something one finds hiding in the interstices of a canon--and indeed, it's one of the things I really love about it. [The really interesting stuff happens in the comments, with a large discussion of the history of femslash. --Ed.]alixtii: Why Femslash Is Different, Part 1,001: There does seem, however, to be a sense that these "feminized" versions of the (male) characters are somehow OOC. But nobody ever complains about "masculinizing" female characters, do they? Ever wonder why not?alixtii: Meta: Gazes in/and/of Criticism: the femslasher's gaze is a gaze which sees woman as its object from a position within a community of women.alixtii: WNG Femslash: I've noticed that WNGWJLEO doesn't seem to be a trope in femslash--or at least the femslash I've read--the way it is (or has been) in m/m slash fandom. (I do wonder if WNG is more likely to be a trope in fandoms which are more OTP-centric than Buffy femslash fandom tends to be, fandoms like XWP or Law and Order or Wicked.)alixtii: Is "Q-Based Narrowing" Narrowing Based on John de Lancie or Desmond Llewelyn?: Literal-Minded provides [. . .] some good examples to parallel the femslash:slash relationship, in particular rooster:chicken, thumb:finger, square:rectangle, rectangle:quadrilateral, lesbian:gay (which of course is the obvious one when we're comparing to femslash:slash), and senator:congressman.alixtii: More Thoughts: "femlash" : "slash" :: "microwave oven" : "oven"alixtii: Thoughts: The problem with lumping both femslash and m/m slash under the same "slash" label isn't only that somehow femslash always seems to end up dropping out of the discussion altogether (no matter how much some might protest that they really do mean both brands of slash), but that the grouping just plain doesn't make much sense. [. . . O]ne can't help but ignore one or the other when using the term "slash"--the two types of fic are just too disparate to fit comfortably under one label.alixtii: yuletide and Slashcentricity: Not that I really have that much of a problem with fandom's slashcentricity, not really. [. . .] But I do weep (okay, not literally) to see perfectly wonderful female characters being passed over.alixtii: On Fraught Taxonomy: when do we actually use the gen/het/slash distinction? When we meta, certainly, but many if not all of us recognize that the definitions are fluid and know enough to define our terms before we begin. (And when we do make assumptions--such as that femslash is or isn't a subset of slash--we often end up in vexed situations.)
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Date: 2010-02-05 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-05 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-02-06 12:24 am (UTC)