The Shadow Sanctum

sugaryumyum:

I absolutely love you all and have no problem with you identifying as fat (as you are fat and it’s hella awesome) but please, for the love of all that is holy, stop acting as if your size 12/14/16 body has the same mental, physical, spatial, and societal issues as my size 32 does.  You don’t understand.  And it’s fine that you don’t understand!  It doesn’t make you a bad person!  As long as you treat me with respect and dignity and get that this world is fucked up in varying ways, I still think you’re awesome! 

You not being able to understand or feel what it’s like to live in a 300/400/500 pound body doesn’t reflect on you as a person.  But you not taking into consideration that someone in a 300/400/500 pound body has different issues and difficulties than you…well that kinda does make you a bad person.  Because you’re not stepping outside of yourself long enough to examine how different degrees of otherness exist and work.

We’re all fighting our own battles.  And while our battles are both on the field of Living as Fat…you have more ammunition than I do.  In this society, in this world, you have advantages that I don’t.  Your degree of fatness is more accepted by society than mine is.  And, again, I stress that it doesn’t make you a bad person or a fatphobic person or a bad fatty.  It just means you have privileges that I don’t.

You’re more likely to receive a job and make more money.  You’re more likely to be treated well by doctors.  You’re more likely to fit into desks and be able to squeeze through tight spaces.  It’s easier for you to find clothes that you can fit into, like, and afford.  You’re more likely to be able to adopt children and less likely to have your food choices watched and judged.  You’re less likely to be insulted, mocked, harassed, or attacked.  Hell, you’re even more likely to be taken seriously when you talk about fat/body acceptance!

I love you.  And the privileges you have are based on nothing that you’ve done or gained intentionally.  It’s just the way the cards were dealt.  Again, your privilege doesn’t make you a bad person.  But if you read these words and your response is to tell me how NONONOIHAVEITBADTOOLETMETELLYOUHOW… Well.  Then you might consider rereading this and thinking about what you need to do differently in order to further the cause of acceptance and the ending of oppression.

Your privilege doesn’t make you a bad person.  Refusing to acknowledge it does.

ETA: I’m sorry but I have to add this. 

A 200 pound person is treated differently than a 500 pound person.  It honestly never occurred to me that that would be argued.  If a 300 pound weight difference didn’t impact how someone was treated?  Fatphobia wouldn’t even exist, now would it? 

The way society treats and judges and shits on 200 pound people is bullshit.  If you’re towards the smaller side of fat, your struggles are real and they suck and they need to stop!  And I will yell and scream for your right to own and control your body and to be treated with dignity and respect with my dying breath.  But our struggles in this world are different.  And acknowledging that doesn’t diminish your pain or your feelings.  It just fucking validates mine.

Freaking word. I’m a size 16-20 depending on store. I’m just under 200lbs at 4’11. I have had doctors fat-shame me and try to push me into getting gastric bypass surgery. I have dealt with shit because of my weight, but it is nothing like what someone 300lbs or 400lbs etc goes through, and if people are seriously arguing it’s the same fucking thing… idek.

I love urban fantasy. I have for years. I started out with Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde series, then discovered Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake books, and longed for more. For a long while, it just didn’t exist. Annnnnd then it boomed.

Unfortunately, there’s a pattern in urban fantasy that I have a huge problem with and has been turning me off the genre more and more. And that’s the treatment of women in urban fantasy. You would think this wouldn’t be an issue. After all, most urban fantasy these days features a tough, competent, kickass heroine. What could go wrong? Well, a lot of things.

Most prevalent is the overwhelming tendency to completely defang women. Hear me out. Most modern urban fantasy has a heavy romantic subplot and borrows heavily from romance tropes. Being a writer myself, I follow a lot of writing circles, and I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone say, “I have this awesome heroine, but she’s so capable, she does everything! And I need to make the hero sexy! And nobody will find the hero sexy if the heroine can do better than him!” 

Ignoring the obvious solution of having the hero and heroine have completely different and complementary strengths, far too many writers go for the TSTL solution. If I had a penny for every time I saw a heroine do something completely out of character… *sigh*

Like, oh, storming off for no good reason and doing something utterly stupid that nobody competent in their field would do. Usually because, well, the hero suggested it, and thus he must be wrong. And if there was a good reason for the heroine to disagree, great! But that’s often not it at all. It’s a matter of cutting off her nose to spite her face. It’s a plot device to put the heroine in a position where the hero has to come to the rescue and save her from her own stupidity — and frankly, this is just insulting. And it’s common. Ridiculously common. And it’s lazy writing.

It’s one thing if, hey, the heroine runs into odds that she can’t beat, or an enemy that’s stronger than her, or gets outwitted by someone equally as capable. But that’s not what’s happening. These are situations the author is forcing the heroine into by making her act out of character for the purpose of giving the hero a moment to shine. Why not put the characters in situations where both their skills are needed? But, that wouldn’t allow the heroine to be the damsel in distress, now would it?

One of the other major issues in urban fantasy in regards to women is how the heroines relate to other women. In a genre that is so focused on strong female characters, it is pretty shocking how few heroines actually have relationships with other women. Often, other women are not friends and allies, but the enemy. Often, the heroine looks down on other women. And you see the same trope over and over again — the leather-clad dark and tortured gun-toting heroine whose strength is all physical or perhaps supernatural.

This is really just the whole “girl in the boy’s club” thing rearing its head. Femininity is derided while masculinity is put on a pedestal. Rarely do we see women who enjoy feminine things, and when we do, it’s usually a slight touch rather than an integral part of the character. Even Anita Blake, with her stuffed penguin collection, dismisses and derides other women. It’s been a long time since I read the books, admittedly, and I haven’t read the recent ones, but of the early series, all the characters that I recall her being close to were male.

(Mind, the problem is not that masculine-leaning heroines exist. The problem is that they are the sole archetype that we see commonly in urban fantasy heroines.[1])

Very few urban fantasies actually pass the Bechdel test (two women, who talk to each other, about something other than a man). For a genre that is supposedly woman-focused, that’s just sad. Where are all the relationships between women? Most of us have friends who are women, mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. Where are they?

So what’s the solution here? It comes down to writers being aware of the social implications their fiction will have. Because words have meanings, and stories have power. If they didn’t have power, Piers Anthony’s Mode books wouldn’t have helped me when I was a suicidal teen, and Mercedes Lackey’s books wouldn’t have helped me come to terms with my bisexuality.

When even supposedly strong heroines are undermined at every turn and cannot succeed without the aid of a man, the underlying message is that of Well, if $awesome character can’t do it, why should I believe I can? Women are already at a disadvantage in society, with all the negative messages lobbed at us. We should be able to read fiction that empowers us, not reinforces that we are nothing without a man.

I am not saying that heroines should be all-powerful, because that would be boring. But if you’re writing about a top-notch FBI agent, you don’t have her forget basic gun safety. You don’t have her barging into trouble without thinking about it. You don’t have her so distracted by the hero’s good looks that she misses the villain’s move and gets trapped (and yes, I have read this). It sends a very negative message.

So how do you get around it when you need the heroine to screw up somewhere? Well, make it a believable screw-up, not something that a rookie would do (unless your character is a rookie, but most of the heroines I’ve seen in urban fantasy are purported to be some of the best at what they do). Or, hey, maybe she doesn’t have all the information, makes a decision on what she knows, and then finds out that she was missing a vital piece of the puzzle.

But you know what I’d love to see more of? I’d love to see more heroines who get themselves out of that pickle, rather than heroines who have to be rescued by the hero. But, how do I manage an alpha hero and heroine and their power struggle without having one or the other knuckle under? Not everything has to be a power struggle, although they can be fun to write. The best alpha heroes I’ve read have been adept in their own field but respected the heroine in hers and listened to her opinions. But what if they’re both experts in the same field? Well, hey, they’re probably going to argue — but the automatic reaction shouldn’t be for the heroine to be the one who’s wrong. Mix it up a little. Or hey! Maybe they’re both wrong.

There’s a lot of focus on alpha heroes in urban fantasy and a need to make them sexy. You know what? The sexiest heroes I’ve read aren’t the ones who are always rescuing the artificially created dumbass heroine — they’re the ones who respect the heroine, her abilities, her strengths, and love her for who she is. The ones who aren’t threatened by a strong woman. The ones who know when it’s appropriate to take a backseat. The ones who know when it’s time to stand their ground, and when it’s time to say, “Hey, you know more about this than I do”, or “I don’t agree, but let’s compromise.” It’s not an all or nothing situation. 

I’d love to see more women who have relationships with other women, too. I’d also like to see a greater breadth of heroines — heroines of color, heroines with disabilities, queer heroines, etc! Or hey, maybe not the heroine but a lady friend who is one of the above, or someone deeply involved in the story. I’d love to see more focus on this, because the lone uber!heroine surrounded by a sausage-fest is getting old.

This is something that writers have the power to change. Let’s change it.

[1] I know there are exceptions to this. Please do not focus on them. This is a widespread issue, and the fact that there areexceptions does not negate that the overwhelming majority of urban fantasy heroines fits only one archetype.

(Source: alinamorgan.com)