Feminism and Joss Whedon
I've seen an awful lot lately about whether or not Joss Whedon should be considered a feminist, and how the label can be justified or refuted based on various elements of his TV shows.
This is mostly in response to this, which is very very long (just as a warning), and in case my entry enters tldr-land, which I completely disagree with.
The general argument there seems to be that in order for a writer to truly be considered a feminist, the female characters must be universally strong, unemotional, and sexually dominant. Guess what? That's not how reality is, either.
For one thing, I've argued before that depiction and advocacy are two completely different things. (Plenty of Joss's characters are murderers, too, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't support that kind of behaviour.) But that's not really what my point is here.
Feminism is the idea that women are and should be considered equal to men (really that people of all genders, strictly defined or otherwise, should be equal), but that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does.
It means that women should be treated equally and not be judged for their choices or their actions, thoughts, or emotions. At least not any more or less or differently than men would be judged for the same. In other words, if we're going to judge people for their choices, judge them on the merits of those choices, not based on whether the chooser is male or female.
That is, a feminist woman is still allowed to desire men in her life, and can still even depend on men to assist her with some task she, as an individual, is (or believes herself to be) incapable of performing by herself. She can use her body and sex as a means to an end if she chooses, and she can do things that fall into traditional gender roles or not. She can be emotionally strong, or emotionally weak, or emotionally indifferent.
When Buffy asks for Xander's or Giles's help, it's not because they are male, it's because they are able to help, just like when she gets Willow's or Cordelia's or Faith's help.
When Riley is about to leave and Xander (correctly, if harshly) berates Buffy for not being a good girlfriend to Riley, it's not because she's female and has a particular role in the relationship, it's because both (or all, if you choose) people in any relationship have certain responsibilities to each other when it comes to things like emotional support. Were the situation reversed, Riley would have been guilty of the same thing.
Being empowered means being able to make the choice to act independently or to ask others for help, and being able to do so without the fear of being judged for it. But it doesn't mean being infallible or always right, or always 'the strong one', because women, like men, are human, and humans have weaknesses. Nobody's perfect, right?
And similarly, a feminist writer should not be disallowed from writing a story in which there exist women who are abused or taken advantage of. Again, they aren't being abused or taken advantage of because they are women, and that makes a huge difference. (Though I think an argument could even be made that if all the Dolls in Dollhouse were female, it still would not have an un-feminist message.)
People, male and female, are abused and taken advantage of all the time in real life. And that's what Dollhouse was all about, and it was violent and very uncomfortable. I wouldn't assume for a second that Joss wrote that show because he just wanted to oversexualise women and show them being abused by male corporate overlords. I mean, really, if all he cared about was T&A, he could have written a far simpler and far less interesting show (and it probably would have lasted for more than two seasons).
But don't pretend, for the sake of a faulty position that Joss Whedon isn't sufficiently pro-woman, that men weren't just as equally taken advantage of on that show. I'd say between Paul, Victor and Topher, there was plenty of abuse to go around. (And what Adelle did to Victor ranks pretty highly in terms of reprehensible behaviour.)
We're supposed to be uncomfortable at first, and horrified later by ... well, just about everything.
Dollhouse was an extremely twisted show in a truly disturbing world, in which many characters, male and female, were subjected to similar abuse. I don't think it invalidates Joss's feminist cred.
And to counter the usual ridiculous arguments about Firefly, which I've heard a lot. I think Inara was actually one of the best characters on the show.
Every time Mal called her a whore, she called him on it. I think it was less because of the word itself and more because she knew Mal was trying to assert himself as somehow better than her because of the choices she made in her life. (I make a similar argument about most words - it's not the word itself, but the context and use that make certain words offensive.)
I'm not sure where the author of this piece gets the idea that a Companion is 'the most celebrated job a woman can have in the 'verse'. It's a respected profession, for sure, but it's still a choice Inara made at some point and there are plenty of other respected professions for women and men. Why should she be judged for it any more than Kaylee should be judged for choosing to be a mechanic or Zoe for choosing to be a soldier?
Why should any strong, well-developed female character (or, for that matter, a real woman) not be allowed to use whatever physical attributes or skills she has to be successful in life? Provided it's truly a choice (a debate for a different time), doesn't feminism dictate that we not judge a woman for that choice?
Inara won't let Mal or Jayne or anyone else push her around. And when her client, Atherton, acts more like an owner than simply a paying customer, she pretty quickly turns against him.
I think all of that makes her a damn good character.
People are complex. Some of their actions may contradict some of the things we previously knew about them. That doesn't invalidate everything that came before; it augments it. Not every action can be categorised in a nice little box. And even if they could, how is it any different to judge someone for choosing an action that happens to line up with 'traditional gender roles' than to judge them for choosing one that doesn't?
Let's let the actions speak for themselves in the context of the characters and the story, but not as they should or shouldn't be associated with people of any particular gender.
This is mostly in response to this, which is very very long (just as a warning), and in case my entry enters tldr-land, which I completely disagree with.
The general argument there seems to be that in order for a writer to truly be considered a feminist, the female characters must be universally strong, unemotional, and sexually dominant. Guess what? That's not how reality is, either.
For one thing, I've argued before that depiction and advocacy are two completely different things. (Plenty of Joss's characters are murderers, too, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't support that kind of behaviour.) But that's not really what my point is here.
Feminism is the idea that women are and should be considered equal to men (really that people of all genders, strictly defined or otherwise, should be equal), but that doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does.
It means that women should be treated equally and not be judged for their choices or their actions, thoughts, or emotions. At least not any more or less or differently than men would be judged for the same. In other words, if we're going to judge people for their choices, judge them on the merits of those choices, not based on whether the chooser is male or female.
That is, a feminist woman is still allowed to desire men in her life, and can still even depend on men to assist her with some task she, as an individual, is (or believes herself to be) incapable of performing by herself. She can use her body and sex as a means to an end if she chooses, and she can do things that fall into traditional gender roles or not. She can be emotionally strong, or emotionally weak, or emotionally indifferent.
When Buffy asks for Xander's or Giles's help, it's not because they are male, it's because they are able to help, just like when she gets Willow's or Cordelia's or Faith's help.
When Riley is about to leave and Xander (correctly, if harshly) berates Buffy for not being a good girlfriend to Riley, it's not because she's female and has a particular role in the relationship, it's because both (or all, if you choose) people in any relationship have certain responsibilities to each other when it comes to things like emotional support. Were the situation reversed, Riley would have been guilty of the same thing.
Being empowered means being able to make the choice to act independently or to ask others for help, and being able to do so without the fear of being judged for it. But it doesn't mean being infallible or always right, or always 'the strong one', because women, like men, are human, and humans have weaknesses. Nobody's perfect, right?
And similarly, a feminist writer should not be disallowed from writing a story in which there exist women who are abused or taken advantage of. Again, they aren't being abused or taken advantage of because they are women, and that makes a huge difference. (Though I think an argument could even be made that if all the Dolls in Dollhouse were female, it still would not have an un-feminist message.)
People, male and female, are abused and taken advantage of all the time in real life. And that's what Dollhouse was all about, and it was violent and very uncomfortable. I wouldn't assume for a second that Joss wrote that show because he just wanted to oversexualise women and show them being abused by male corporate overlords. I mean, really, if all he cared about was T&A, he could have written a far simpler and far less interesting show (and it probably would have lasted for more than two seasons).
But don't pretend, for the sake of a faulty position that Joss Whedon isn't sufficiently pro-woman, that men weren't just as equally taken advantage of on that show. I'd say between Paul, Victor and Topher, there was plenty of abuse to go around. (And what Adelle did to Victor ranks pretty highly in terms of reprehensible behaviour.)
We're supposed to be uncomfortable at first, and horrified later by ... well, just about everything.
Dollhouse was an extremely twisted show in a truly disturbing world, in which many characters, male and female, were subjected to similar abuse. I don't think it invalidates Joss's feminist cred.
And to counter the usual ridiculous arguments about Firefly, which I've heard a lot. I think Inara was actually one of the best characters on the show.
Every time Mal called her a whore, she called him on it. I think it was less because of the word itself and more because she knew Mal was trying to assert himself as somehow better than her because of the choices she made in her life. (I make a similar argument about most words - it's not the word itself, but the context and use that make certain words offensive.)
I'm not sure where the author of this piece gets the idea that a Companion is 'the most celebrated job a woman can have in the 'verse'. It's a respected profession, for sure, but it's still a choice Inara made at some point and there are plenty of other respected professions for women and men. Why should she be judged for it any more than Kaylee should be judged for choosing to be a mechanic or Zoe for choosing to be a soldier?
Why should any strong, well-developed female character (or, for that matter, a real woman) not be allowed to use whatever physical attributes or skills she has to be successful in life? Provided it's truly a choice (a debate for a different time), doesn't feminism dictate that we not judge a woman for that choice?
Inara won't let Mal or Jayne or anyone else push her around. And when her client, Atherton, acts more like an owner than simply a paying customer, she pretty quickly turns against him.
I think all of that makes her a damn good character.
People are complex. Some of their actions may contradict some of the things we previously knew about them. That doesn't invalidate everything that came before; it augments it. Not every action can be categorised in a nice little box. And even if they could, how is it any different to judge someone for choosing an action that happens to line up with 'traditional gender roles' than to judge them for choosing one that doesn't?
Let's let the actions speak for themselves in the context of the characters and the story, but not as they should or shouldn't be associated with people of any particular gender.