Recent discussion throughout fandom about gender roles in fic has got me thinking about… guess what? Gender roles in fic.
I know. How original of me, right?
But yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. This is a debate (or several, really) that comes in cycles in fandom: what we expect out of the characters we write/read, how those characters conform to or defy gender role stereotypes, how our own sexualities are implicated and come into play in the way we create and consume fan material. As a long-time consumer (and occasional writer) of fic, this is stuff I think about from time to time, so this time some of my thoughts are here for your perusal.
I had a recent discussion with some other fen about one of the cliche comments on fic that we both love and hate at once: ‘I like how your boys were boys‘ aka ‘You did such a good job making them feel like real men, you know?’
Meant as a compliment, yes, and one that’s got more thought put into it than a simple ‘OMG loved it!’, but still frustrating at the same time. Who’s to say what being a ‘real man’ entails? Moreover, who’s to say what a ‘real man’ is in the first place or even that such a creature exists? To get all academic about it, I’m going to point to Judith Butler, whose theory that gender is performative is quite apt here.
Basically (and I mean very basically), she says that we all have ideas in mind of what our gender is, and we behave accordingly, dressing and speaking and acting in ways we find compatible with the gender ideals in our heads. Thing is, though, says Butler, those ideals are completely invented, and what invents them are exactly the acts and gestures we make. So, you know, we’re pretty much making—or, in Butler’s terminology, performing—our genders as we go along.
Right.
Longwinded, but (I hope) relevant.
I have mixed feelings about this theory of Butler’s, but at its core, I like what it says about gender being a non-fixed entity. So, to get back to the fic issue, when a female character is written wearing short skirts and nail polish and wearing her hair loose and flirting with male characters, we think of a certain type of woman. Likewise, when a male character spends all his free time in the gym and goes out drinking with his buddies and uses an abundance of ‘dude’s in his speech, we think of a certain type of man. Those aren’t necessarily what so-called ‘real women’ and ‘real men’ are like at all, of course, but the writer has chosen to write in ways that call up gender images in the readers’ minds.
Now, while I would very much like to see more fic that includes characters (male, female, and other) who are believably real-feeling and complicated (maybe that girl with the short skirts doesn’t shave her legs and likes steampunk novels, maybe that guy likes to wind down from his workouts by knitting and touching up his own nail polish), and while my favorite fic is usually populated by those sorts of characters, I’m going to venture a likely-unpopular opinion here:
What’s wrong with writing the stereotypes?
No, I don’t want stories entirely populated by stereotypes, and if I’m going to connect to a protagonist, that’s easier done with one who feels like a real person with a complex set of personality and gender traits. But good writers should be able to paint the beginnings of a character portrait with a few sketched-in phrases, and I honestly don’t see anything wrong with calling upon some ubiquitous cultural stereotypes to do it, provided it serves the story well.
For all that unexpected elements like Xander Harris’s canon Snoopy dance and Qui-Gon Jinn’s fanon camaraderie with Mace Windu add depth to their characters, so, too, do tried and true character traits we’ve seen a million times like Dean Winchester’s stubborn refusal to talk about his feelings and Elizabeth Swann’s headstrong desire to live life to the fullest.
For me, fic is fantasies and imagined scenarios full of imagined people. In the hands of a skilled writer, I’m fine with some of those imagined people being this post’s titular manly men and flirty ladies. Not all of them, no, and preferably not my main characters. But writing is a creative endeavor, and as far as I’m concerned, that can include the ‘shorthand’ stereotypes of gender roles that have been performed (in the Butler sense) over and over until they create an automatic image in a reader’s head. If a story’s protagonist goes to a bar that’s populated by girls in short skirts and nail polish and flirty head tosses and guys doing tequila shots with their buddies and calling everyone ‘dude’, then I’ve got an immediate idea of what that bar’s atmosphere and clientele is like, and that quick way of doing it can be a mark of good writing, rather than simply conforming to social constructs of gender.
So bring on the stereotypes where needed.
As long as it’s my protag who ends the night touching up his nail polish or reading her steampunk.
