Sexist stories (not sexism IN stories) against females

[gold.august]

If there is one thing I hate about a lot of yaoi-fanfiction (I prefer original m/m slash myself), it is when every single female in the story is a bitch or something. I've seen it so many times, again and again, and I've always found it sickening. I know that mostly young teen girls write it, which I view as ironic in a hypocritical sense, but that kind of a mentality seems rather unhealthy and jealous, even?

I've had an instance when I was dating a girl back when I was a teenager, and after like 2 months she decided to show me a few of her stories. We had gotten together because we both liked art, and I do love drawing more than writing. What appalled me was that in all her stories EVERY SINGLE GUY was gay, and ALL the women were bitchy and/or antagonists.

Why? How...?

I know that stories don't ever have to be realistic, but still-- you want a sense of realism in a story anyway, right? Even in fantasy or science fiction, there are some laws that are kept in all stories, right? I just find that a world in which all females are angry horny bitches that try to turn males straight (because somehow all of them are gay, or maybe all the heterosexual men got eaten?) is just a waste of writing. I am sorry if this offends anyone, but really. :/

I do not mind it if there are sexist characters in a story, that is a character. That is their flaw. But when a story itself is sexist, that's just ... no. That's all it really is. Just, no.

Then again, if there is a world where all the men are gay, I truly would not blame the females for being bitches. Hell, I'd be one of them.

I mean, I have never, in all my life, come across a story in which all the woman in the world somehow were lesbians and all the men were abusive assholes that forced woman to be straight (I bet they'd all be rapists or something...!). If I wrote that I'd probably get my head beaten off for being such a sick person-- which makes me want to write one as a parody. I'd write it well, but make sure it's bad all the same. NOT that I agree with sexism against men either ... it's just not that common.

And nooo I'm not talking about something a texan politician would write (no offense, but have you seen the attacks on planned parenthood? I may be Canadian, but thanks Obama for supporting woman, and stating that females are not an 'object of interest' <3 ).

And for those who disagree with me, I do not see why females should be viewed as such. I am a female, I do not, and would never in my life, try to make a man straight to fuck me O______O;.

BLAH, I guess that's ... all I have to rant about on that subject.

PS. To be fair, I do know that most of the stories I'm talking about are written by teenagers.

[Slutcow]

From what I've gathered, sexism is more prevalent among females than males. Self-loathing has always been a woman's most tragic constant.

[botticelliangel]

I agree whole heartedly Gold. I have a bi/yaoi fic in which the majority of my reviews are complaining that the girls are still a part of it, even though I have made it perfectly clear from the beginning that the characters are bisexual.

I personally do not believe that females have an inherent bitchiness, or any of that bull shit. I believe that our society teaches girls to hate girls. All you have to do is turn on any reality television program, hell the radio, anything (!) to be slammed with subtle sexist nonsense promoting the idea that all girls are bitches and underhanded. And unfortunately a lot of us don't think about it because we haven't been taught to question what we see, hear, and read. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when girls do buy into it because they think that it is "what every girl does".

Maybe my views are just a little shaped by my education: psychology and gender studies, but I cant tell you how many times in the real world I have heard a girl say to me "That's the reason I'm never friends with girls, their all bitches." Wow... kinda pisses me off, partially because I feel insulted that they would say that when I am a girl. Hello! Do you listen to anything that you say?! I also get mad that they so easily put themselves down without a second thought... without even f*cking realizing that they are destroying themselves. (and people wonder why clinical depression is so much higher in females than males?) In fanfics where aspects of the society are amplified the "all girls are bitches" card gets pulled really often.

Now saying this I still love the reviews, and I am not going to budge from my decision to write however the heck I want to write the story (as far as that goes anyways, if someone was to tell me my plot had developed a black hole I'd listen).

But the strange truth is for those of us who know to look for the sexism, we are still products of the environment around us. The best we can do is try to teach others to look at the accepted belief of what women are, challenge it, and have the humility to realize that we hold stereotypes too.

Really really trying to practice nonjudgmental thinking!!!!

[Imasuky Lomae]

I write yuri and just don't talk about males unless it's vital, and it's pretty easy to just write them out all togather without being nasty about it.

[Ayato]

My stories tend to lack females because I am terrible, utterly terrible, at writing females. They turn into air headed morons and I end up wanting to shoot them in the face. I do write some females but not a lot and it's something that I'm working on because even my heterosexual stories have trouble with females. In a few the female ended up the antagonist on purpose, one or two just sort of happened.

The older stories of mine have either no women at all or have women who are snotty, arrogant little brats and that really reflected the females I knew in real life. Only knew one who wasn't holier-than-thou-art. As I've aged I've met more people of all different types and I like to think I've improved on that whole bit.

I've never had anyone complain about my having women in a story unless they're complaining that the antagonist, who is a woman, is such a horrible woman. Which is the point of her being the way she is.

[Raymy]

I think that the AFF site probably has more than 50% females, maybe even up to 90%? (one of the admins could site a better figure) The irony is that we all seem to enjoy each other, mostly, but this phenomenon of sexist stories is still accurate. You'd think a mainly female gathering would demonstrate the "bitchy, antagonistic" side of us, but our interactions don't manifest that way. Just the fanfic. So I wonder if the characterizations from one story perpetuate the way others are written. I know that when I like the way a male character is portrayed in a story I've read, it influences the way I write him in my own story. I think we have to make a conscious effort to give the females a more realistic personality, drawn from our real life family, friends and coworkers while in keeping with canon, if possible. Hopefully, we can influence future stories with well-written females, even if they're side characters because we like to write Yaoi.

[BronxWench]

I'm editing and posting an older fanfic of mine, with a female protagonist. Het is not my strongest area for smut, but I do like heavy innuendo, and although the fic is not explicit, it's certainly suggestive. I find I get far fewer hits, not because it's an older game fandom, but because it's het. The slash is what "sells" in a sense. Still, I'll persist because I'm enjoying fleshing out the female canon characters and my PC protagonist, and making them strong and realistic women.

[Windrider Shiva]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who sees that, especially in fandoms with a lot of yaoi, but with a canon heterosexual couple. Final Fantasy is rampant of that, for having experienced it first-hand (and possibly having contributed to it. Yep... *shakes head*)

Personally, I like to add a female character or two to my stories, even if I write yaoi. I just try to make them fit in the story without turning them into a stereotyped female. I draw my inspiration from those video games mostly, so I'll avoid the damsel-in-distress healer and the drama queen antagonist. I'll rather go for fight-abled, strong-willed women when I write fantasy. In modern-ish stories, they're not so different than the average girls you interact with in your daily life... just like my male chars.

They're less present, but they're there and if they're there, they have some sorta role. It kinda adds to the whole "credibility" thing, even if I write about males mostly. And it adds variety.

Another reason why I don't have a lot of female characters... I feel writing about them would be writing about me, and well, I want to write about other people. Something I don't necessarily relate to. At some extent, of course.

Edited November 11, 2012 by Windrider Shiva

[excludes]

I've noticed this not only in stories, but, as the OP mentioned, in media as a whole. I've always wondered why, consistently and across the board, in yaoi manga where two guys like each other, there's always a female who's pissed off about it. But this all falls under a greater whole of females generally being depicted as caricatures in most media - at least in my opinion. Females are nearly always depicted as either being a sidekick to a male character (the supportive, sweet wife, the woman behind the man, the nice girlfriend), the love interst/unobtainable sexy woman, the rape victim, or anything else that does not depict the female as a human being with her own independent story to tell, but something stereotypically "female." (Incidentally: this is in no way to trivialize rape, of course; this is to say that there are in fact tragedies that can happen to women that are bad that are not related to their personal space and physical body, or that emphasize their physical vulnerability specifically as females). What bothers me about this is that when it comes to specifically females, you often see their identity reduced to their most base and rudimentary physical form, where the question is "what can or can't be done to her?" - Compared with male characters, where you often see higher traits involved unrelated to their physical body (cognitive function, work ethic, social issues, etc).

It had got to the point where I would rather not see females present in a story/show/movie/etc at all, because more often than not they are portrayed in a way that ruins it for womankind. I don't think it's meant in deliberate intent to hurt women; rather, sadly enough, it's what we're exposed to from every direction in the media, so people write women that way without even thinking about it, it's just what comes to them from the exposure and experience they'd had. More often than not, if a woman has strength of character in something that actually isn't directly related to stereotypical "female" traits (love interest, supportive little helper to a male, mother, seductress), the writer also makes her into a sex object at the same time. That is to say, you will be very hard-pressed to find a woman written the way men usually are: no mention of how pretty/sexy/young she is, and purely appreciated for higher virtues like courage, work ethic, intellect, etc. Compare this to male characters you often see in films or stories where there's no emphasis on their physical appearance (they could be old men), but the emphasis is on their power, intellect, profession, etc.

Female characters wind up unlikeable because they are often written as merely the sweet love interset/unobtainable love interest/seductress, which leaves them as hollow stereotypes and empty shells, and I think that to be likeable, a character must be fully fleshed out as a real person to whom the reader can relate. Likeable female characters I can think of: Haruhi from host club and Leela from Futurama. Notice of course they made them both at least somewhat 'pretty' (yes, Leela too, despite her one eye - she has the 'sexy' figure and not a belly like Fry has). But I digress, they're likeable because they are fleshed out as human beings with struggles to which the audience can relate. Morgana in Merlin is likeable because she is strong and not portrayed as absolutely evil despite being a hated witch (she had struggled, too, and she knows compassion); in contrast, Gwen of Merlin had been reduced to the sweet wife and love interest, and a pawn of Morgana at times. It's hard to relate to a stereotype like that (again, note also that of course they had to have Morgana be "pretty and sexy" because people just can't make a female character who is appreciated for higher virtues like power and strength without also being 'hot and sexy').

If you're gonna write female characters, be very careful about not depicting them as stereotypes. I think it's this depiction of females that deters a lot of female readers from hetero fiction: the female isn't someone they can like or relate to.