skywaterblue (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skywaterblue) wrote2010-10-27 10:34 pm
skywaterblue) wrote2010-10-27 10:34 pm
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Man, beatonna, you're making me facepalm.
Look, Kate Beaton, no one doubts there's tons of sexism towards female creators. Not just in comics but pervasively throughout the arts, we know that women are judged not just on the content of their ideas and characters but on their bodies. And we know that women are under-represented in museums, and in the history books.
No matter how true this is, however, throwing a shit fit on Twitter over the phrase 'I want to have your babies' doesn't change the fact that this is a phrase primarily used BY WOMEN towards OTHER WOMEN which almost certainly originated in fandom as a reaction to a lack of positive expressions about feminine sexuality. In fact, the whole rant strikes me as way odd - I have literally never heard a man use this phrase. The very phrasing suggests the speaker has a uterus.
And when people point this out and your response is to continue to be butthurt because people are missing the bigger point, you look about five years old. Ranting about sexism towards your work only works if it's ACTUAL sexism, and if people become rightfully skeptical that you know whence you talk, they have every right to continue to question.
(Wider, I think this is indicative of a problem in which female creators are divorced from female fandom, yet male creators are fully capable of existing in both worlds with their fandom careers lauded as an important training ground for their later work.
In large part I think this has to do with the economic pressure of having a career in a capitalist society which by and large, values female gendered media less than that aimed at a male audience irregardless of how much actual money the works may bring in. There's a bigger pressure for the few women who do make it into comics, or screenwriting, to pretend OR REMAIN IGNORANT of fanwork, because it singles them out as 'different' and 'female'. Yet that pressure seems to continue the cycle in which women's fandom/media is perceived as of-lesser-value. While I don't want to suggest that every woman who makes a creative work has to serve a female audience, I think so long as there's no pressure for women who 'make it' to have to speak up for the rest of us we'll never see the wider change that would be required.)
So, sorry, Kate Beaton. I still want to have your babies.
No matter how true this is, however, throwing a shit fit on Twitter over the phrase 'I want to have your babies' doesn't change the fact that this is a phrase primarily used BY WOMEN towards OTHER WOMEN which almost certainly originated in fandom as a reaction to a lack of positive expressions about feminine sexuality. In fact, the whole rant strikes me as way odd - I have literally never heard a man use this phrase. The very phrasing suggests the speaker has a uterus.
And when people point this out and your response is to continue to be butthurt because people are missing the bigger point, you look about five years old. Ranting about sexism towards your work only works if it's ACTUAL sexism, and if people become rightfully skeptical that you know whence you talk, they have every right to continue to question.
(Wider, I think this is indicative of a problem in which female creators are divorced from female fandom, yet male creators are fully capable of existing in both worlds with their fandom careers lauded as an important training ground for their later work.
In large part I think this has to do with the economic pressure of having a career in a capitalist society which by and large, values female gendered media less than that aimed at a male audience irregardless of how much actual money the works may bring in. There's a bigger pressure for the few women who do make it into comics, or screenwriting, to pretend OR REMAIN IGNORANT of fanwork, because it singles them out as 'different' and 'female'. Yet that pressure seems to continue the cycle in which women's fandom/media is perceived as of-lesser-value. While I don't want to suggest that every woman who makes a creative work has to serve a female audience, I think so long as there's no pressure for women who 'make it' to have to speak up for the rest of us we'll never see the wider change that would be required.)
So, sorry, Kate Beaton. I still want to have your babies.
no subject
Exactly. The phrase isn't "I want you to have my babies", which would indeed be a deeply creepy thing to say, and is something no one actually says.
She's saying now that people are focusing too much on that one example, but it's the only example she gave. A blog post probably would have been a better forum than Twitter for that particular rant.
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What's weird is I was reading it backwards (because it's Twitter) so I first saw her follow-up comments saying "That was just an *example* of sexism! People are missing the point!" So you know, I was expecting that there was a wider point and people were focusing on the wrong thing. But... nope, it really was just a four-tweet attack of that phrase specifically.
And you're right, she's totally off-base about who uses it and why. I'm sympathetic if it rubs her the wrong way, but if anything the cutesiness is about us (fangirls) playing with our femaleness and sexuality, not objectifying her. I have never heard it used by a man, but I have heard it *directed* at men and inanimate non-gendered things, not just female creators. I could see criticizing it from the angle of "We're women! We emphasize how much we love things by saying we want to have babies with them!" and maybe that's problematic. But it is not "critiquing a person's work based on their looks". And then playing it off as YOU MISSED MY POINT, SEXISM EXISTS when people disagree? Um, no.
no subject
I couldn't tell what bothered me more and still can't - the number of female comic creators I know who were instantly 'that's RIGHT, you tell 'em!' or the general idea that someone who became a rising indie comics star through LJ doesn't apparently know LJ (and consequently, female fandom). Does it bother me more that she said it and you'd think she would know better, or that so many other women-in-comics followed suit?