A comment I got on a site called Anime Feminist

[feotakahari]

“The problem is that men come along, see a genre that is fundamentally not about them, and then co-opt it and make it about women suffering instead. It's like they can't accept, for one moment, that a story in the universe exists and isn't about how great men are. Men also write grimdark stories where everyone suffers, of course, but it by no means makes up the majority, or even remotely close to a majority, of all stories written by men. Yet 100% of Magical Girl stories written by men are about specifically women suffering. Do you not see the discrepency? That being said, even if 100% of all stories written by men were about suffering, not just the Magical Girl ones, it'd still be dubious for them to write Magical Girl stories - because it's about them taking a genre meant for women and instead making it about what men want to see. 90% of anime is already heavily male-oriented, and yet men seem intent on making the remaining 10% cater to them too."

This post physically nauseates me. That is not a figure of speech.

I'm trying to figure out how to express how I feel about the idea of genres as walled gardens, into which some kinds of people can enter while others must be kept out. The closest I can come is to try and imagine how I would feel if someone told me that it was wrong or bad for someone like me to write stories that were "meant for" someone else. As it turns out, how I feel is like I'm going to throw up.

Comments

*showing my age here*

[flamingsword]

I can see where people are coming from in criticizing the doggedness of men to take stories that are not about them and somehow make it about them. My Little Pony porn being posted to the MLP main tag, a tag followed by thousands of kids, on tumblr springs to mind. There were several bad actors that could not be convinced that they were creating a chilling environment and ruining things for little girls, despite being told such by actual little girls.

And when women and non-men take men's stories and make them about non-cishet men or about the female side characters then we are terrible pornographers who have to be chased off of blogging platforms, even when stuff is tagged correctly or posted in locked communities. (Yes, I am still bitter about LJ)

Sometimes we get cease and desist orders. Sometimes we get sued. Not all of the C&D'ed webrings were hosted by women or had greater than average female participation, but when people wanted to portray a delegitimizing picture of such fandoms, they were heavily painted as being for women and effeminate or gay men.

Mens stories are "legitimate" in the mainstream in a way that womens and queer folk's stories are not, so to make them more "legitimate" to men, the women/ whoever in the stories must virtuously suffer. Women suffer, queer men suffer, lesbians suffer and die in a proportion much higher than anyone else ...

There is so much about our culture that makes me want to cry, vomit, shake things, and send everyone to therapy.

Re: *showing my age here*

[feotakahari]

You’re not wrong. Sailor Moon had plenty of dark content on its own, but it doesn’t get to be considered “mature” like Madoka Magica does, and I think that’s because it’s considered too “girly.” Still, that’s a problem with fandom and culture, not with Madoka Magica or Sailor Moon.