feotakahari

Gavin makes me think about the real reasons behind positive discrimination.

I've always thought that when stories positively discriminate against minorities, it's to avoid offending minorities. For instance, the teenage black girl in Luann is too generous with her time and energy, but always in ways that run her ragged rather than cause problems for anyone else. I thought that the writer was afraid of seeming racist by giving her meaningful flaws that other characters might resent.

One time only, I read an article that argued differently re: Will Smith. It said white audiences are scared of black men, so the positive discrimination against his characters is to make him as nonthreatening as possible. I went "huh, interesting" and then never thought about it again.

Mice Tea is targeted towards traumatized bi women, cis or trans, who are scared of straight cis men. As the only love interest who's a cis man, Gavin is heavily focused around being nonthreatening. The only interpersonal conflict in his route is when he's wrongly seen as a threat, and everything he does in response to that shows he will never hurt Margaret. He actually gets to have more rough edges in other characters' routes, because he's not in a position of power over Margaret.

Now I'm thinking back about all the other positive discrimination I've seen in fiction. How much of it was really about making the characters inoffensive, vs. making them nonthreatening?

Still thinking about that D&D DM who was worried that if he said no to a hypothetical character a hypothetical woman made, and his reason was that it was too silly, she’d call him sexist and get him brigaded for it. He seemed to think this was an inevitable consequence of “normal” people wanting to play D&D. The question I wish I’d asked him was, what do you do when anyone accuses you of being sexist? If calling someone sexist is an automatic win, then that’s a bigger and more pressing issue than anything to do with D&D!

Never say something about men that you wouldn’t feel comfortable saying about black men.

“I was raised IFB - my infertility made me “less than” other women. I was allowed to seek treatment but only treatment that they felt honored life. That meant no insemination or IVF. My recurrent miscarriages were seen as sin in my life. Adoption was OK - particularly overseas adoption.”

Jesus Christ, literally.

There’s a certain kind of feminism that’s like Atlas Shrugged for gender. They think men only live and function because of women’s support, so women should stop interacting with men and let them drown in their own filth. I’ve gotta wonder what proponents of this ideology think of women who can’t function in the desired manner. I can’t imagine them treating a woman with ADHD or schizophrenia positively.

I think “it’s sexist when people write more porn about men than women” is supposed to be the same argument as “it’s racist when people write more porn about white people than black people.” I don’t think it really works that way, though.

I’m not sure “objectification” is the right term for what authors like Percival Everett do. The sexy women don’t get interiority or a clear sense of their motivations, but at the same time, they get all the decision-making. It’s a mystery what they’re deciding based on, without clear motivations, but they still get to initiate and control the relationships, while the men are portrayed as completely helpless and incapable of choosing not to have sex when offered.

Now that I think about it, if “born with a penis; forced to perform a female gender role” is problematic, doesn’t that mean “born with a penis; forced to perform a male gender role” is also problematic?