Fandom, Feminism, and FUN

Fandom, Feminism and Fun! In an enthusiastic effort to combine academia and obsession, Kate and Kaya are doing super fun research about fandom culture, feminism, and social media. Please participate in our surveys and contribute to exciting #science! sc_online_t(856045,"riveters","#000000"); Tumblr Users Online Counter

[grimm-fairy]

What do you call the male version of a “Mary Sue”?

The protagonist. 

[therewas-a-girl]

OH THE GLORY OF THIS SHADE AND THE TRAGEDY OF THIS TRUTH

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

you know what’s really genuinely unsettling? the degree to which men fucking do not want to sympathize with/be interested in women.

male audiences will happily watch a dozen superhero shows, but then something like Agent Carter or Supergirl turn up and they’re panned from the first trailer and have to struggle for ratings. male audiences will watch countless installments of a franchise as long as it’s about men doing man things but the second a character like Rey or Furiosa or god forbid four entire female Ghostbusters steps up and takes a position of prominence it’s “pandering sjw bullshit”.

it’s not pandering. men just aggressively don’t want to have to be invested in a woman’s narrative and it’s really gross.

[batmanisagatewaydrug-deactivate]

anyway re: everyone telling me to “Stop making this a gender thing” or some variation on that

this isn’t like… an opinion I’m pulling out of my ass here? this starts where earlier than tv shows and hollywood blockbusters, when all the kids in a class are reading Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or Eragon o Lord of the Rings or Maze Runner or whatever the hip book is right now. the books like that, the ones that become popular reading, are overwhelmingly about male leads, because male is still considered the default. 

there’s a split in YA literature, between books that are “for everyone” and “for girls”, and that’s honestly the entire issue in a tiny little box right there. stories about men are supposed to be accessible for everyone, but stories about girls are seen as 1.) inherently for women and 2.) something that only women will care about.

men grow up in a society that doesn’t make them go out of their way to get into the heads of women and empathize with then. historically it’s been very easy for men to not engage with female-led media if they don’t want to, whereas (like someone else commented on this post) girls and women have had very little choice in the past because everything was about men. we didn’t even question it.

and now the women are arriving in mainstream media in ways that say they’re important and they matter and

small (or sometimes not so small) but loud-enough-to-be-acknowledged groups of men lose. their. shit.

because they think there’s something inherently Not For Them about a woman’s story, and they never learned how to deal with it.

(also once again, because  LOT of ya’ll don’t seem to get this here: I’m trying to talk about knee-jerk reactions to female-centered works - often before they even come out. not whether or not you personally thought [x show or movie] was good. ya feel?)

[afabtwink]

I remember being in like 3rd grade and asking my teacher why almost all of the books were about boys. She told me that girls will read books about boys and girls, but boys only like to read about boys. I was so floored by that. I’d had to read from the perspective of boys my whole life, it was so normal to me. I couldn’t believe people would reject something just because it was from the perspective of another gender.

[yourwholelifeisa1dblog]

did a cursory search for academic writings about one direction & thought i’d share the results, in case others were interested. haven’t read these yet, so ?? but some of these sound really great. if you need help accessing a pdf, send me a message with your e-mail and i’ll attach it – i’ve got university library privileges. add others you know of?

Korobkova, Ksenia A. “Schooling the Directioners: Connected Learning and Identity-Making in the One Direction Fandom” (2014).

VanCant, Brianna. “Whovians and Directioners: Challenging the Fangirl Identity” (2014). (thesis)

Hartati, Nur. “The Structural Procedures in the Translation of Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction the Biography Book” (2014). (thesis)

Nguyen-Phuong, Jessica. “’All You Need Is Love’: The Rising Importance of Celebrity Status, Social Media, and Fandoms in the Music Industry” (2014). (thesis) – can’t access this one without a Claremont Colleges affiliation, which maybe you have?

Arnold, Katharine. “The Fangirl Gaze: The Influence of Gendered Media Audience on Emerging Sexuality” (2015).

Black, Rebecca W. and Ksenia A. Korobkova. “Contrasting Visions: Identity, Literacy, and Boundary Work in a Fan Community” (2014).

Mendelsohn, Kaya. “Gender in Fandom” (2014).

[yourwholelifeisa1dblog]

a few more written & published in the last year:

Allen, Kim; Harvey, Laura; & Mendick, Heather. “'Justin Bieber Sounds Girlie’: Young People’s Celebrity Talk and Contemporary Masculinities” (2015).

Jones, Rachel E. “‘I’m Happy Just to Dance to the Best Song Ever’: A Comparative Musical Analysis of The Beatles and One Direction” (2015). (college writing contest submission ?)

Bailey, Dorie. “Beefing Up the Beefcake: Male Objectification, Boy Bands, and the Socialized Female Gaze” (2016). (thesis)

Haney-Claus, Megan Katherine. “One Direction and the Marketing Machine" (2016). (thesis)

[klemmonsforkaya]

Fuck your white horse and a carriage

Get your Riri Valentines hot off the press

(made by the OG ladies in jammies Cibel // Tara) (“made with colored pencils: the most gentle of coloring tools”)

[inkskinned]

a secret code between women: are you safe? in a contact of eyes. i’m here if you need me, the littlest shift of a skirt, of an inclined head, of watching the man who is asking you to smile, bitch. you aren’t alone on the walls of restrooms, i was where you are too. the quiet doling of emergency numbers, the shelters. the space between two women in a largely empty train station. the waiting game of two women strangers who walk, quietly and quickly, to their cars in abandoned parking lots, who watch to be sure the other leaves safely. text me you get home safe. the tally marks of drinks on hidden wrists, carefully disguised as other things ever since men picked up on what it meant and used it to target the “weakest link.” 

my father tells me we have nothing to worry about. last night he sent me one of those email chains that say at the top “Safety Tips For The Women In Your Life!!!! Don’t Let Her Die!!” 

me, and the stranger on the train. she is asleep and the man is asking me who i am going home to. i feel tears pricking the sides of my eyes. i am 13 while he towers over me. he reaches out one hand, and while i don’t know how she knows, she speaks up without opening her eyes: “If you touch my daughter, sir, I will murder you.” Whatever he grumbles is lost in history, because this moment I am so grateful for the existence of other people that I cannot breathe.

I am 19 and on my phone when i become aware of a 13 year old girl is smiling nervously at a man who’s saying disgusting things. I grab her arm. “There you are, cindy,” I say, and then look at the man like he is bile. “Do you need something from my sister?” i ask, and i walk away with her. she cries later.

this is the way of things: a silent, secret web. our promise to each other that despite our differences, when it comes to the wire, we become family, instantly. the unspoken promise. i’m here. i’m watching. i’ll witness.

[hotsauceharry]

Girl Power // Women’s March on London

[stfueverything-deactivated20230]

[getaproperjobyoudicks]

HE DID THAT!

[princeaemondtargaryen]

The movie looks great! I only hope the fangirls drooling over Styles can at the very least spend 5 seconds thinking about the real brave men who died in Dunkirk. Which is why I kinda hope Style’s character dies just so they can truly appreciate the gravity of it.

[cantquitu]

Damn, I guess my degree in History and my career in the film industry, not to mention my working brain, have done nothing to prepare me, a Harry Styles fangirl, for the gravity of the subject of the evacuation of Dunkirk. Thankfully there are gamer-boys on the Internet to remind me of what I may have missed. What would I do without them, right?

[hicup]

Actually friendly reminder to comment on that fic.

Leave one word “subscribed” comments

Tell them “consider this extra kudos <3″

Leave that essay on that old fic

Tell them if you’ve reread it once. Tell them if you’ve reread it 100 times 

Tell them how much you’ve seen their writing grow

Tell them when you rec their fic

Tell them how much you can see their passion

Tell them when the fic made you grin when it made you cry when it made you FEEL

leave that comment. You’ve got nothing to lose but .02 seconds of your time and everything to gain by making an authors day.

[thehairiestfeminist]

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

I remember going to a women’s film festival and feeling a slight amount of trepidation, but actually it was fantastic. Some of the films made me cry because they really spoke to me.

Andrea Arnold on the lack of women directors in film

[feministlikeme]

Mike Pence Thinks Working Mothers Damage Their Kids’ Emotional Growth

Donald Trump’s running mate has some interesting takes on women in the workforce.

CNN dug up a letter he wrote to the editor of the Indianapolis Star in 1997, in which he called out mothers in the workforce because, ladies, Mike Pence wants you to know that you truly cannot have it all. “For years, we have gotten the message from the mouthpieces of the popular culture that you can have it all, career, kids and a two-car garage,” he wrote. “The numbers in this federally funded study argue that the converse is true. Sure, you can have it all, but your day-care kids get the short end of the emotional stick.” 

Our future Vice President ladies and gentlemen (and everywhere inbetween).

[ithelpstodream]

[micdotcom]

Though it’s a tough list to narrow down, here’s more about the five ways women’s issues were ignored in 2016.

[redofthehood-deactivated2022070]

Male privilege may be more obvious in other cultures, but in so-called Western culture it’s still ubiquitous. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it’s invisible. It is so pervasive as to be normalized, and so normalized as to be visible only in its absence. The vast, vast, vast majority of institutions, spaces, and subcultures privilege male interests, but because male is the default in this culture, such interests are very often considered ungendered. As a result, we only really notice when something privileges female interests.

Lucy Gillam, When Worlds Collide: Fandom and Male Privilege

[towlersnow-deactivated20210528]

Musical Elitism can contain toxic sexism. Just ask One Direction

Letting sexism determine your opinion is uncool

[excerpt]

it has been shown time and time again that the negative connotations surrounding One Direction and pop music, the negative connotations of being considered a One Direction fan, the dismissal of One Direction and their success by music critics and the poor treatment of One Direction fans by the music community are very largely rooted in sexism.

Good article. 

[binah-lance]

man, teenaged girls aren’t allowed to have a genuine interest in anything without being ridiculed for it. if a girl likes ugg boots and starbucks she’s stupid and stereotypical, but if she likes combat boots and obscure coffee houses she’s a hipster wannabe and is trying too hard. if a girl listens to boy bands and other popular artists she’s a dumb follower, if she reads comics or plays video games she’s a poser/fake geek girl, if she likes sex she’s a slut but if she doesn’t like sex she’s a prude, if she wears makeup she’s fake but if she doesn’t wear makeup she’s a slob, if she has low self-esteem she needs to learn to love herself but if she has high self-esteem she’s overconfident and vain, if she’s interested in politics she’s a crazy social justice warrior but if she prefers to stay out of social matters she’s a dumb airhead. girls are literally mocked for every single thing they like or do, no matter what those things are, and i’m really really sick of it.