I often see people making the argument that women writing slash fiction gets more criticism than most other portrayals of things, or louder criticism, etc. I've been trying to parse out for a while why that response irks me, and I think I've settled on these three(ish) things:
1. There has been criticism of men depicting lesbians (or women together sexually) for probably decades, and so to present women depicting men together sexually as uniquely targeted feels a little disingenuous.
2. Fandom has a nasty habit of shutting down critical conversations about things like racism in fandom, and so if it feels like you're not seeing those conversations, it's probably because they have already been shut down or attacked. Those conversations end up being smaller, more niche, and often targeted with the worst backlash, and I think they are likely happening on places outside of Tumblr more than the conversations about women writing slash fiction.
3. Women writing slash fiction is a huge part of fandom, and so just by virtue of prevalence, it will likely end up being the thing facing the most critical analysis or criticism.
When I speak critically of women writing slash fiction, it is 1) me being critical of a community (fandom) that I am part of, where the way people write directly impacts me and where I am most likely to be able to make a difference, 2) me speaking from a point of relative authority (as a woman who has written and read quite a bit of slash fiction) compared to speaking about something like how men portray lesbians, and 3) me speaking about one of the most prevalent things I see in fandom.
I think we have a responsibility to approach the communities we are in with a critical eye and to not accept the status quo or some originalist interpretation of decisions made decades ago as good enough. I want our community to be better which means that, yes, I will be critical of it.
I see regular, casual, sometimes cruel misogyny in the ways that people write slash fiction. I see homophobia and transphobia and acephobia. I see racism. I see issues that pop up, time and again, that are far more prevalent and often even tied into the ways that people approach slash fiction, and, selfishly, it can make reading slash fiction miserable.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it hard to enjoy a story when the female characters are treated as slutty gold-digging bitches while the men are all perfect, maligned angels, or when Black characters are relegated to the sidelines, or when characters of color are treated as sexually aggressive brutes, or when bisexuality is treated like a pass-through sexuality to get from the woman of then to the man of now, or when asexuality is treated like a plot point to work through instead of a legitimate sexuality.
(the "ish" is that, if you think other things should be criticized more, then criticize them. But stop implying people talking about this issue should stop simply because we're too loud about it.)
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