No, people do not hate Yuna more than Tidus.
There's a womenlovefest event going on that I've only just become aware of - "We love the women that fandom hates." Besides being a needlessly incendiary, spiteful and combative title, this event has two very obvious problems
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No, the whole thing was bothering me for the exact reasons you've outlined. I try very hard to find positives about female characters even if I think there is extensive sexism at the core of their portrayals, however the confrontational tone of this community coupled with an atmosphere that is anti-critical... there's just a tone lately in fandom that salvaging female characters in fandom is a more important exercise than critical readings of misogynistic/sexist portrayals. Like, you should defend every element of female-centric cliches and characterization even if it's patronizing and damaging because to aim any crit at all in the direction of a female character is hatred. :T
Basically, thank you for articulating this with far more eloquence than I could have ever managed.
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There's just a tone lately in fandom that salvaging female characters in fandom is a more important exercise than critical readings of misogynistic/sexist portrayals. Like, you should defend every element of female-centric cliches and characterization even if it's patronizing and damaging because to aim any crit at all in the direction of a female character is hatred.
This is a good point. I've noticed this too and it's really frustrating. :T
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I saw this referenced somewhere else with the caveat "well, it doesn't have to be widespread hatred of the character, it could be just one time you saw someone say something mean about her", which really seems to undermine the whole point. It's the internet. Somewhere, someone is spewing bile about every. single. thing. ever. Is more purposeless bile spewed about female characters than about their male counterparts? I don't know. Without anything but ~feelings to back me up, I'm inclined to think yes, and that'd also be something interesting to talk and think about ( ... )
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Ahem. Anyway, yeah? Community like that might actually be super cool.
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I think it would be interesting - but to be honest I think we already have a lot of that discussion going on, if not consolidated in one place. This objection is based less on thinking that's a bad idea, of course, and more on experience as to how these discussions usually go (poorly). Either way, it's a lot more worthwhile than what's going on, and makes me a lot less cranky than the subtle implication that I'm a misogynist for disliking Fleur Delacour (she was supposed to be unlikable!).
(As for Isabela - you know, the weird part is I've never actually seen that much slut shaming when talking about her? I mean, I haven't been as out and about as much as normal, but most people seem to like her and I've never seen her called a slut in a malicious way. For me, the bigger problem is how people keep fucking modding her to be white!)
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One of the original points of the event was also to talk about characters that you've personally disliked in the past, but that POV seems to have disappeared by now. It's also weird to see characters like Morgana and Gwen from Merlin in the same fest when the other gets much more different reaction from fandom than the other, but sometimes it's hard to find a definition for a hated character. In FF7 fandom Tifa and Aeris are massively popular on one side of fandom and massively hated on the other, and it depends a lot on which side of fandom you land on who is the more unpopular one.
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I'll confess to being somewhat hypersensitive when it comes to character bashing, which had a lot to do with the whole Aeris vs. Tifa thing as well as bashing being practically used as a fanfic trope in anime fandom (or that was my perspective back in the day, before Smallville taught me that Western fandom does it just as much), so it will probably be something that I'll always be on the watch for. But yes, who's hated and who isn't is a subjective experience most of the time, and drawing lines between acceptable and unacceptable feelings is simply impossible. I do feel it's important (and interesting) for us to examine why we react to characters the way we do, and wish there was more meta about that.
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I'd love more meta about that! Yet another thing that would have been a better idea than this one, haha. If you write anything on the topic, let me know.
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s that shouldnt matter because the way fandom consistently, frequently tears down female characters is both aggressive and combatitive.
Where does fandom consistently, frequently tear down female characters? Do you mean to say all fandom? Because that is not true. Do you mean to say all female characters? Because that is not true either. Some female characters, in some fandoms, are frequently torn down, of this I am sure. Many (if not most) of the characters I've seen posted about so far are not among them.
If its angry and aggressive its because it should be.
Why should it be?
Furthermore I dont get your point about Ginny, was there problems in the way she was written? Yes.
Then what's wrong with pointing them out? How is it being sexist to honestly and openly discuss the problems?
But thats the thing there are problems in how many character in HP were written, there are problems with many female characters in general when it comes to writing they dont get as much attention or as much ( ... )
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Then what's wrong with pointing them out? How is it being sexist to honestly and openly discuss the problems?There is no problem with analyzing the text and characterization for Ginny and Cho and it is not sexist to do so. I never implied or there was or if I ddid then I did not mean to. Analyzing is a good thing in fact. But perhaps we ran into differently people because for every person writing well thought out meta about ginny there was at least 10 other people ranting about what a slutty bitch she was ( ... )
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. Some people would say that m'gann in young justice is badly written because she has feelings for a guy and acts on those feelings, even though those feelings do not overwhelm her character nor are they the focus of her character the fact that they exist at all is an affront to people. because women cant have emotions without seeming pathetic, weak, needy, boy crazy etc etc.Can I ask where you're looking and finding these opinions? I don't doubt that you've heard it before, I'm just wondering where this stuff is being said and whether or not the people saying it are older ( ... )
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You mentioned 'greater degrees of scrutiny for women than for men' and it reminds me of a new widespread fandom term that I really want to hurry up and die because it's fucking obnoxious and that's 'strong female character'. There's something about this term that feels strangely limiting, despite the many ways you could define a female character to be 'strong'
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