Come the end of s14 and the beginning of s15, I’ve been taken aback by the scene of Rowena and Gabriel, and the whole Ketch thing. I couldn’t really pinpoint what was bothering me in them until I started talking more about the representation of sexualities in spn (notably in my gay crowley post), which lead me to think about the sapphics. It hit me then: why I could never get behind the way the fandom seems to have accepted bi Rowena as canon is because the way the show portrays her attraction to men is lesbophobic.
disclaimer: I’m not saying that bi Rowena hcs are lesbophobic per se! It’s about the narrative here, as well as why lesbian Rowena hc is important to me personnally.
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Men as enemies
In her very first scene she has nailed two men on the ceiling, and she’s drinking tea. She’s introduced as a powerful woman for which the life of men doesn’t matter. In her second episode, she keeps targeting men and specifically pimps. Besides the whole… Rowena recruiting vulnerable women in the same way these men did, which is fucked up and I won’t even come near that. This episodes talks about sex trade, and it’s portrayed as smth so evil even demons (whose morality is represented by Crowley) won’t get involved in. All in all, these men deserved to die, and every one of them was killed by a woman. Rowena not only saves these women, but she offers them a fancy dinner and to teach them magic. They took a topic about men’s control on women, and made it about reappropriating your power.
Even though spn has shown magic wasn’t a woman-only thing, Rowena’s arc still makes it so. The Grand Coven is all about other women, every witch she knows are women, the people she wants to recruit are women. Witches are a woman-only place, in which they learn to hurt men. And it’s emphasized by the way they relate the Grand Coven with the Men of Letters! The MoL are a symbol of patriarchy, and they are the ones who burnt the witches and stole their work. Rowena’s target isn’t Dean per se, it’s Men of Letters. It’s men as a class. And that’s what makes her threatening, it’s an inherent part of her character. She goes against the idea of a mother (against the fake image of the mother portrayed with Mary’s memory), by only caring for Crowley for his position of power. She’s manipulative, and she uses her womanhood to do so. Either to relate to other women and convince them to join her, or by using her motherhood to trick demons to do what she pleases. She fits perfectly the “evil manipulative unloving woman” trope by the way men are explicitly her enemies, and the way she twists her womanhood to make it a tool against men.
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Not like other girls
In parallel, the way Rowena interacts with women is quite different. We can notice that everytime she shows some care or gives some help, it’s towards women. Though this care is limited: she still manipulates her cellmate, and uses women as weapons when it comes to it, though it wasn’t her first intention. While trying to recruit women, Rowena wants to create her own Coven, having to resort to teaching non-witches as she’s not on good terms with the other witches - and as such, she’s not on good terms with other “regular” women. What we know very quickly about Rowena is that she’s been kicked out of the Grand Coven, the big witch club, because she was “too powerful” and a threat to them. She’s disturbing gender in the way she doesn’t align herself with its expectations. She also doesn’t seem to have friends or any witch on her side - she’s alone. She doesn’t fit with the others, she's being excluded from and by them, thus making her different.
And the main show for that is the way she interacts with Charlie. She’s one of the first characters Rowena speaks to as an equal, and without trying to get anything from her. They argue, but when Rowena gives her speech (that I’ll come back to) about how they’re similar, it’s not in order to manipulate Charlie into doing something for her. What does she have to gain in preventing Charlie from working? It’s not her motivation here, though we’ve learned that Rowena does everything for her main goal - what is she achieving here? While Rowena insults Cas and Sam, and wants to kill Dean and Crowley, she merely argues with Charlie, suggesting conversations longer than any other she had before in the season. These scenes are Rowena honestly relating to Charlie, as she’s never done with anyone yet, and (imo) flirting with her.
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On sexuality
When Rowena is introduced in s10, her sexual attraction is first a non subject. We learn she’s Crowley’s mother and this doesn’t really raise the question of Crowley’s other parent (in the same way Crowley’s son never raises the question of his other parent, which participates in making Crowley canonically gay). This goes further this time though, as Crowley states, during his “Rowena was a bad mother” tirade that he “didn’t even have a father!”. It’s not the way it’s un-said which goes and puts a distance between Rowena and men, it’s the clear fact she was raising a son without a man. She gives an off-handed explanation for that, talking about an orgy. Now, that’s super interesting for multiple reasons:
First, it’s the first time Rowena’s sexuality is acknowledged, and it’s in a dialogue which is actively distancing her from close relationships with men. The orgy choice participates in her figure of an evil woman, and the whole imagery around witches and living in a nonconventional way. Not only did Rowena not raise Crowley with a father, but she’s having a kind of sex that adds to her image of a bad mother, a kind of sex which is frowned upon. Secondly, Spn has been using group sex has a way to imply same-gender sex at multiple occassions, which lead me to assume the orgy (which already refers to an image of “all gender” sex) included women. If I connect the dots here, I’m gonna assume Rowena had sex with multiple women (gn). And if men were involved, it was in such a no-string attached way that Rowena didn’t want to acknowledge or inform the potential “father”.
The first time Rowena shows some kind of attraction towards someone, it’s with Lucifer in s11. Once Crowley realizes Rowena’s working with him, he says:
So you're just gonna let the big strong man boss you around? Whatever happened to the super-duper awesome coven #girlpower?
This line puts Rowena once again as a “feminist” figure, #girlboss, who doesn’t need a man. It comes as a surprise to Crowley that Rowena would put herself in such a situation with a man, because she’s been actively keeping a distance with them in her life. Crowley’s surprised Rowena isn’t into her “girl group” anymore. And though it’s likely it was more intended as a fake-woke dialogue, typical of 2015s, it reasserts the gender dynamic of witches and the way Rowena’s never shown interest in men. To which Rowena replies:
Lucifer is no man. He’s perfection.
She doesn’t think of Lucifer as a man, she sees him as the devil, a being with great power who can help her rise to Heaven’s throne - to more power. She wants to be in his good graces, in the same way she later on wants to be on Amara’s side.
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And love
It’s in late season 10 that the topic of Rowena’s love gets explored more. We’ve known she doesn’t love Crowley, and she bursts into laughter when she reads she needs to kill something she loves for a spell. I love that plot, because she doesn’t even need someone she loves, but something. I always say, when Spn wants us to know a character is attracted to the expected gender, it easily finds a way to make it so. Here, it was the perfect opportunity to bring out some man Rowena had known in all these centuries. And yet, what she loves is a young man she’s known as a boy. The way she’s excluded from a romantic plot can be read as aro-coding. It adds to the trope she’s fitting, of the “unloving powerful man-hater woman”. What Rowena does love, in the end, is family and kindness. And though she loves Oskar, she still goes through and kills him, thus loving her freedom and power more than him.
This plot isn’t used to “reconnect” her with a more accepted motherhood. Indeed, it’s interesting to me the way she refers to herself as Oskar’s aunt. She’s not a mother figure to him, she’s an aunt. She wasn’t a good mother to Crowley not because it was Crowley, she wasn’t a good mother because she doesn’t fit the mother role. Personally, I also associate the “aunt” with this image of the lone aunt, always doing whatever wherever. Once again, it asserts an image of Rowena as someone without romantic relationships.
The aro and lesbian coding overlaps as a lot of writing lesbians characters goes through not showing romantic interest towards men, in a way where it’s a non-topic. I do believe reading Rowena as aro is fair as well, I don’t want to erase that in this post.
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Loving men as redemption
In s11, Rowena is back trying to recruit witches, and she’s still being distant towards men. It’s by s12 that we can notice a more important shift in her character. She’s not as much of a villain figure anymore, after the whole Chuck-Amara-end-of-the-world thing, she reasserts what’s important to her and how to get it. I like this quote from the wiki:
She becomes desperate for a normal life, having grown tired of the supernatural world and goes as far as to seek out romance.
I don’t really see it that way, but the wording here is a good representation of what’s happening and how heteronormativity is impacting Rowena’s character. In spn, a “normal life” always implies a heterosexual life, and that’s what we see here. Rowena starts to go on dates with men, and though she’s always using them, keeping her manipulative side but topping it with a gold-digger trope, it’s still some attention towards men she’s never shown before. I wouldn’t say she’s “seeking out romance”, I don’t think that’s how it was intended (she’s still seeing love as a weakness by then) but I do believe it’s not a coïncidence if, as Rowena is leaving the villain role, she’s shown interacting with men in a more personal way.
Rowena’s view of love is given some explanation in s12 during a conversation with Crowley. To me, it’s one of the main examples of how Rowena’s character has shifted, because we’re given another story about Crowley’s “father”. Spn isn’t known for its consistency, but it’s telling how by wanting to humanize Rowena in this scene, they make her… attracted to men. The way the orgy story got dropped and forgotten just makes it even more queer, and a stronger evidence towards Rowena’s original aro/lesbian coding.
In this new backstory, we learn that Rowena not only did know with whom Crowley was conceived, but she also loved him. She loved and was abandoned, broken hearted, and since then has decided love was weakness. Rowena’s distance and disinterest for men has felt the need to be justified, and this justification is the good-old “she’s been hurt by men” as if lesbianism (and/or being aro) could only happen after heterosexuality was tried and rejected. We’re told that before everything, before being a powerful witch, Rowena was a “normal” woman, in love with a man. That’s the story we’re told in this important and iconic dialogue where we get to go deeper into Rowena and Crowley’s relationship. And this story is merely heteronormativity erasing two seasons of character development and lesbian coding.
Thankfully, Rowena doesn’t go back to this “old self” afterwards. It’s only in late s14 that she shows some interest towards men again, with Gabriel, who once again isn’t really a man but an archangel. But then comes early s15. For one Buckleming episode, Rowena is suddenly enamored with Ketch. This happens right before she sacrifices herself, putting the safety of others before her own life, emphasizing how much she’s trying to do better, to be better. And by that point, Rowena isn’t a villain at all anymore, which seems to make her open to loving men romantically. This thing with Ketch is the only time we see Rowena loving a man. What was that, if not sexist writing? If not an (unconscious) bias to portray Rowena as part of the good team? If not some kind of last gift, to finally allow her to have her redemption and a “normal” romance?
I really can’t take her infatuation with Ketch seriously when this isn’t even acknowledged after this sole episode. In the end, Rowena gets her throne, and she gets it alone.
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Lesbian Rowena
So, it’s pretty clear by now I believe Rowena has been actively written as non-attracted to men from the start, and this “attraction” only starts to show up as she got on the “good” side. First by implied sexual attraction (Gabriel), then by romantic one (Ketch). By around the same time, Rowena is partly allowed to love women as well. The only implied long-term relationship we learn about is the one with AU!Charlie. It’s done through a line which has been cut, not even going all the way to (re)assert Rowena as sapphic.
Thankfully for the sapphic rights, Rowena has been made canonically sapphic in s10! When talking to Charlie, Rowena is trying to make her see how they’re not so different. She starts listing, “absent parents”, “always outside the mainstream”, and “sexually progressive.” These words make clear that Rowena isn’t straight, but their meaning goes further. I respect seeing it as ambiguous enough to still make bi Rowena work. However, in the context of s10 described above, I can’t understand it as anything than an euphemism to say “lesbian.” Spn has never said “bisexual”, nor “lesbian”, even for Charlie. The canonisation goes through “he’s not my type. as in, he’s not a girl”, it goes through Claire being called “biker barbie” and only caring for men in a familial way. It goes by making Rowena call herself an aunt, a figure associated with lesbianism as well. It goes by telling a lesbian character that they’re the same, specifically when it comes to sexual orientation.
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When I started writing this post, I didn't mean to make a "lesbian Rowena" case. I originally wanted to expand on the way her "attraction to men" only starts showing up as she becomes "good", and the inherent lesbophobia in that. I wanted to put some light in how bi Rowena seems to be consider canon by so much of the fandom, when there isn't a lot to go with when it comes to her attraction to men.
However, as it went, I just kept finding new things, especially in s10, convincing me that Rowena had been introduced (intentionally or not) as an aro lesbian character.
Still, I'm not saying bi (or other) hc are lesbophobic. I simply wish we would put more thoughts into how heteronormativity shapes the way queer characters are written, as well as the way we read and understand these characters. The more time I spend in fandom spaces, the more I realize how much homophobia there still is to deconstruct. Let's ask ourselves: What was the basis for bi Rowena, before Ketch? Why so little lesbian Rowena?
For more thoughts around these questions, I recommend to read my gay Crowley post, in which I talk more about the unconscious biases of reading characters as bi, pan, or gay.
rated M for canon typical violence & language - 6.8k - Mary Winchester (& Amara/Mary)
-> read on ao3 <-
"It's a matter of days until she crosses paths with another hunter. And she might not be recognized, but what could she say if they asked her name? Or where she learned to be that good? She can't be Winchester. She can't be Campbell either. She's not sure she can even be Mary."
- Mary is brought back from the dead by Amara (again). This time, she doesn't want to do the same mistakes. This time, she wants to be herself. Whoever the hell that may be.
edit: @theelazarus made EPIC art inspired by the fic that everyone should go look at!!
