Women in the Jossverse

[pfeifferpack]

I review a lot and tend to get wordy. While doing a review the character of Lilah came up and I started to reply to the authors response but as it got longer and more off topic decided to post it here instead. I wonder if other saw the same things I did or if I've misread the subtext, missed something that others have caught

Comments

[zabjade]

You have lots of really good points there, Kathleen. I think a small part of it has to do with the fact that feminism was in an odd place at that point (and still is a bit, today), where it was almost considered shameful to be a girly-girl. So the female characters who weren't super powered in some way had to be punished for holding to the girly ideals of the past and led by the hand by men.

I really like that you mentioned William in this, since Spike has a lot of unapologetically feminine behaviors and tendencies and technically cross dresses (since he got his coat from a woman).

[pfeifferpack]

Yeah I think William really embraced the inner feminine and so did Spike. He was confident in his maleness enough to express the other part of himself unashamedly. He cried without "shame", was openly emotional..both traits often incorrectly considered to be "unmanly". He proclaimed loudly he was loves bitch and man enough to admit it! He never acted in a way to "prove" his masculinity. That's one reason I loved him so

[zabjade]

I'm gender fluid (so sometimes I feel female like my body is, while other times I feel like I'm male) so the whole battle of the sexes thing seems odd to me. That's why I love Spike and Buffy so much as characters. They both straddle that line between one gender and the other and are just themselves. Spike is very much more comfortable with that, while Buffy is still struggling to be a normal "girl" despite doing and feeling things that are supposedly masculine.

I think the fact that she DOES have some of those "masculine" tendencies is part of why it's considered feminist. Buffy's allowed to be that, even if she isn't comfortable with it. And then it's up to us awesome fanfic writers to pick up the balls the writers dropped and help Buffy to realize it's okay for her to just be herself.

[pfeifferpack]

Exactly and basically you are simply you and that is how it should be.

Spike was rather like that and Buffy struggled but I think Spike could have helped her to learn to just be who she was.

*hugs*
Kathleen

[nmcil12]

Excellent observations - when you really start looking at how the women are treated in the series - I can't see where all the "Buffy is a feminist" description is applicable. Yes - Buffy being that described "counterpoint kick ass female to the damsel in distress" is applicable but when contrasted to Buffy the young woman it totally falls apart for me

[pfeifferpack]

LOL I try not to remember what they did with Cordy and Connor! Talk about rubbish writing IMHO. She had been a mother figure to him for heaven sake and having it be that it was not Cordy after all didn't really help.

Yeah it kinda isn't a feminist show...it's a really excellent show and all the characters are so 3 dimensional it does do a better job than most. Maybe it reflects feminism at that stage? The characters are relatable because we all know those characters in one way or another...maybe they were reflecting the way society IS not how it should be? It did break many old tropes just by having females in certain roles, I do give them that.

*hugs*
Kathleen

[spikesjojo]

Because it turned these things into tropes used to often that it no longer seems feminist

[pfeifferpack]

Good points.

I will say that Tara and Willow did a LOT for breaking ground for LGBT roles being mainstreamed.

We're approximately the same age and I fully agree that especially compared to the shows when we were young it is quite feminist. I remember them still teaching the "little women" how to be proper wives and mothers and Mary Tyler Moore was the only career girl seen regularly. Wonder Woman had a bit of an empowered woman bit to it but again it was one with special powers. I think things have changed a lot since Buffy (it has been quite a few years even if it doesn't seem like it) and if done today perhaps some things would have been presented differently.

*hugs*
Kathleen

[itsnotmymind]

The Buffyverse isn't perfect where feminism is concerned, but one thing they did consistently pull off, especially on Buffy the show, was a wide variety of female characters, powerful, fascinating, and complex, with interesting relationships with each other as well as the men. In addition to the ones you mentioned, there's Faith, who, in my opinion, had the most well-done redemption story on either show

[pfeifferpack]

I don't know how I managed not to mention Faith! Oh yes her story was wonderfully done. I always thought it sad that no one seemed to ever call Buffy on the carpet for her plan to feed her to Angel though. Faith messed up but no worse than many other characters but the price tag on her screw ups was so high. She was rather like Spike in that

[itsnotmymind]

Yeah--I didn't want to imply that Spike is always sexist, or that he never displays some very anti-sexist attitudes. Because he does, at times, and one of the big reasons why I ship Buffy/Spike is because of the gender-swappy elements. But even in his best moments, Spike is still a man, and that shapes his attitudes. And there's very clear onscreen evidence that the ways in which it shapes his attitudes are not always positive.

I don't think men related to William as a woman. I think they related to him as a man perceived as insufficiently masculine. That is absolutely a gender issue, and it even has its roots in sexism against women, but: Feminine and female are not the same thing at all. A feminine man is treated very differently by society than a feminine woman, who is treated very differently than a masculine man, all of whom are treated very differently than a masculine woman. And of course what makes a person feminine or masculine can differ depending on the culture.

*hugs back* Thank you for this post!

[freecat15]

Great essaye, Kathleen, and something always lingering there in the back of my head, but I never quite connected the dots

[nmcil12]

I would even argue that it was her human part that was strong enough to follow through on the need to kill AngelAbsolutely - Buffy showed great strength when she sent Angel into the Acathla vortex but along with this is the contrasting negative impact that surrounds her love relationship. And I'm not going on an anti-Bangel rant but speaking to the premise that she is so overwhelmed by her love and needs that it has grave and damaging effects on her life. And the reason this is important as a "feminist theme" is that millions of woman are negatively impacted by being taken over by a dependence and their emotional needs in relationships and in our cultural those relationships are usually with men. These women are physically and emotionally abused and controlled by their partners. We know that a great many people were killed by Angel/Angelus and that this happened because Buffy was unable to deal with Angel becoming this killer/monster

[freecat15]

No argument there about the first paragraph. There's absolutely no doubt about the very negative impact the relationship with Angel had on Buffy, on her view of relationships as such and mostly on herself. It's one of the few letdowns of the show that it's never really addressed.

I think the wish of having a loving partner is pretty normal, though, especially when still so young, and that goes for women and men. And I don't think the show made a point of her needing a boyfriend to be completed. The opposite, actually, since she was repeatedly shown stronger without, and she realized she didn't need one just after her 20th birthday, which I think is exceptionally early, and she stayed with this decision until the end of the show (since Spike never was her boyfriend

[nmcil12]

One of the MANY reasons that I hated The Twilight Times conclusion and Angels/Twilight lure of Love and Happiness telling Buffy that she will never find happiness and love without him -

[nmcil12]

In my Anya Voice "all I can say is