I've had my misgivings about you-go-girlism for a while. This crystallized a few of them. Yes, I do have a couple super heroines and female video game characters I like, but I recognize that these are characters in a story. By virtue of being fictional, a story can disregard facts for the sake of being interesting, so a fantasy setting can get away with there being roughly the same number of men and women in a medieval army if it makes the story interesting. I can forgive a lot in a story, as long as it is interesting.
I do agree, though, that boys and young men have become obsessed with the "badass woman" trope. In small doses, it's fun, but some guys need to start telling themselves "It's only make believe" again, like when they were kids. I don't what the genesis of this phenomenon is. Expression of latent sexually submissive desires? Not being able to conceive of a female character as anything other than a man in a woman suit, and writing accordingly? A desire for strong, larger-than-life women stemming from a general frustration with/distaste for many women today? As the therapist, I leave this to you to sort out. :)
My sticking point is sports. What if a girl is so talented, a prodigy even, in a sport that playing with physically limited girls is not competitive enough, and she plays with boys to challenge and improve herself, and actually does well on a boys' team by virtue of her own skill and ability, and not because the girls are going easy on her? I doubt that prodigy is the sole domain of men.
IIRC, Spartan girls were required to play sports, just like the boys. So the idea of women being active in sports is not unusual. I do think there is room in athletics for Athena/Artemis women who partake in masculine activities because they are legitimately skilled and strong enough for it, but retain their femininity. A pipe dream? Perhaps, but then where did Athena and Artemis come from? And further afield, war goddesses like the Celtic Morrigan?
Being an androphile, I don't often think of the deep inner workings of women's psyches, though my sister assures me that it consists of "boys, clothes, boys, backstabbing and intrigue, boys, popularity, and did I mention boys?" Whereas she confessed that men have much more complex motivations than women. When I asked her what she thought the biggest motivation is, she responded, "Why are you guys obsessed with honor?" If I have to explain, she'll never understand, and if she understood, well, she would be a man.
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I've had my misgivings about you-go-girlism for a while. This crystallized a few of them. Yes, I do have a couple super heroines and female video game characters I like, but I recognize that these are characters in a story. By virtue of being fictional, a story can disregard facts for the sake of being interesting, so a fantasy setting can get away with there being roughly the same number of men and women in a medieval army if it makes the story interesting. I can forgive a lot in a story, as long as it is interesting.
I do agree, though, that boys and young men have become obsessed with the "badass woman" trope. In small doses, it's fun, but some guys need to start telling themselves "It's only make believe" again, like when they were kids. I don't what the genesis of this phenomenon is. Expression of latent sexually submissive desires? Not being able to conceive of a female character as anything other than a man in a woman suit, and writing accordingly? A desire for strong, larger-than-life women stemming from a general frustration with/distaste for many women today? As the therapist, I leave this to you to sort out. :)
My sticking point is sports. What if a girl is so talented, a prodigy even, in a sport that playing with physically limited girls is not competitive enough, and she plays with boys to challenge and improve herself, and actually does well on a boys' team by virtue of her own skill and ability, and not because the girls are going easy on her? I doubt that prodigy is the sole domain of men.
IIRC, Spartan girls were required to play sports, just like the boys. So the idea of women being active in sports is not unusual. I do think there is room in athletics for Athena/Artemis women who partake in masculine activities because they are legitimately skilled and strong enough for it, but retain their femininity. A pipe dream? Perhaps, but then where did Athena and Artemis come from? And further afield, war goddesses like the Celtic Morrigan?
Being an androphile, I don't often think of the deep inner workings of women's psyches, though my sister assures me that it consists of "boys, clothes, boys, backstabbing and intrigue, boys, popularity, and did I mention boys?" Whereas she confessed that men have much more complex motivations than women. When I asked her what she thought the biggest motivation is, she responded, "Why are you guys obsessed with honor?" If I have to explain, she'll never understand, and if she understood, well, she would be a man.
-Sean
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