Something that inevitably comes up in conversations about female character representation is the fact, that, given two minor characters with only bit parts in a work, the male minor character is likelier to acquire an enthusiastic fanbase while the female character gets ignored.
Or if there are shallow, badly-written male and female characters, fans will often contentedly ret-con the male character to build someone more interesting, while saying ‘I don’t care about [female character], she’s shallow and badly-written’.
Both of these are things that happen; in the statistical aggregate, you can pick up a pronounced tendency to develop male characters more. Some of the reason is certainly internalized misogyny.
But lately I’ve seen people claim that the only conceivable reason this happens is internalized misogyny. Posts have circulated saying things like ‘okay, if you want you can go around adoring male characters while saying you just don’t find female characters interesting. But at least be honest that your reason is internalized misogyny.’
And, wow, no. “In the statistical aggregate, fandom focuses on male characters probably because of our sexist society” is completely true. ‘You, personally, random fan who happens to care a lot about a male character, need to admit that it’s because of internalized misogyny’ is not only way out of line but also false.
I love all of this except the very end, which I’m not sure about. I realize that “putting the pressure to do better where it belongs – on content creators and the media” is a Thing among feminists. But it’s always bothered me.
Maybe there are other ways to apply the aforementioned pressure, but when I hear that phrase I mostly think of people on the internet complaining about how [insert show/book/artist here] is sexist. Complaining that a political opinion piece or something like that is sexist is entirely reasonable: someone has an opinion, and you disagree with them. But political criticism of art bothers me because I feel like the implied message is “it is Morally Wrong for this art to exist in its current form.” It’s inherently not about adding to the marketplace of ideas, but about silencing.
I’ve heard a fair number of accusations of sexism or general problematicness about many things that I like, and not only that I like but that I identify with and that I think capture in some way the experience of being female for me (the HBO show Girls, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Taylor Swift, and terrible historical romance novels, to name four). And I worry about a future where people dilute the art that they want to make, or don’t make it at all, because they’re afraid of criticism.
I feel like art is one of the superpowers of the human race. Like, someone can have a complex internal experience and convey it to someone on the other side of the world. I think that’s really cool and it’s really improved my life in a lot of ways and I get scared when people start policing it.