Fanfic Archive Adds Download Options

[Worldwalker]

Will being male/female/other, etc., matter less if we make it matter more?

Is it going to help if we say "it's bad to discriminate against women, like that book that was 'unacceptable' because it didn't have a sufficient number of women in it, but it's okay if women are the ones discriminating"?

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I continue to maintain that it's bad to divide people up by gender (or age, color, or anything else). I think people should be seen as people, and the only way to do that is to stop doing other things.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by citac

Elfwreck already posted the link to OTW 's TOS and Fandom and male privilege, and this might be another link of interest to some: Ilyka Damen

Thanks for the link, in addition to the previous one; but they're both rather anecdotal.
What I'd appreciate are links to facts and figures for the topics under discussion - anyone got any?

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I don't have a problem with a book being primarily mono-gendered.

I think most writers write their own gender best, and I'd rather have good characterisation than bad merely to fill up a quota.

If the book is supposed set well into the future, then I expect that things to be quite a bit more centered & realistic. This book isn't even realistic by todays standards.

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I have to disagree here.

Would you say that a book that featured almost all women was "simply unacceptable"?

Of course I would, since it isn't the least bit realistic!

Do you want those books (and everything else) that have to have one person of just about every definable group, including the smart kid who is, naturally, a geek, and the one in the wheelchair who is always optimistic about everything, because they give you a frontal lobotomy along with your wheels? The books whose message is "life sucks; deal with it" because they have to be "relevant" to kids whose lives suck, instead of being, say, some of the Tom Swift books, that presented something really cool to aspire to? How many women is "enough" women? How many men is "enough" men? Where do the people who don't present as either fit in?

I don't count characters. I don't check to see how many of them look like me. When you get right down to it, nobody but me is exactly like me anyway. What I care about is whether a character is interesting to read about, not whether they stare back at me when I look in a mirror. All my life I've read about people who are younger, older, different races, different genders, different nationalities, and I don't think it was until I got into high school that someone told me I was supposed to care. I told them where to get off, and went back to reading the books I enjoyed.

Good stories are what matters. A good story can have anyone in it. If someone writes good male characters, or good female characters, or good characters that they carefully avoid mentioning any sex in connection with, more power to them; if it's a good story, I'll read it. And if the story is no good, it doesn't matter if it's got ten clones of me in it; it's still no good.

Freedom from discrimination means freedom from discrimination, not just discriminating a different way. Counting characters ... saying a book isn't acceptable because it doesn't have enough women, or enough men, or enough left-handed, black, bald, tall, middle-aged, unmarried, Nigerian truck drivers, is just another sort of discrimination. Isn't that what we're trying to get away from?

Good stories are what matter to me as well. But as I said, if the book is set in the future, and it doesn't even come close to being even slightly realistic even by todays standards, then it is very hard for me to take it seriously. The same goes for any books that are women centric to almost the exclusion of men.

I'm not looking for a representative of me, but I am looking for something that is hopeful, and realistic of what is true now & should be even more so in the future.

This was & still is the appeal of the original Star Trek. If a writer today, can't even write a book supposedly in the future by even those standards or todays, then in MY personal opinion, it isn't a very realistic or good book.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Will being male/female/other, etc., matter less if we make it matter more?

Is it going to help if we say "it's bad to discriminate against women, like that book that was 'unacceptable' because it didn't have a sufficient number of women in it, but it's okay if women are the ones discriminating"?

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I continue to maintain that it's bad to divide people up by gender (or age, color, or anything else). I think people should be seen as people, and the only way to do that is to stop doing other things.

It's kind of hard to be seen as a person if you aren't even in the picture to BE seen don't you?

[citac]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Thanks for the link, in addition to the previous one; but they're both rather anecdotal.
What I'd appreciate are links to facts and figures for the topics under discussion - anyone got any?

Well, I've never had to look for statistics since it's something I deal with every day, but a search for women's fannish activities statistics on Google gives me Geek Culture: An Annotated Interdisciplinary Bibliography, Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Fandom, Participatory Culture and Gender and Fan Studies (Round Four, Part Two):Will Brooker and Ksenia Prasolova (with links to previous parts). Fandom, Participatory Culture has a bibliography at the bottom of the post, and Geek Culture is a detailed bibliography. Bacon-Smith, Camille. Science Fiction Culture. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. under Science Fiction Fans mentions the demographic composition.

The second portion of the book examines the cultural developments brought on by changes in the demographic composition of the SF community: the increased prominence of women, gays and lesbians, and cybergoth youth culture. Though science fiction fans have long claimed tolerance and open-mindedness among their virtues, Bacon-Smith delineates the ways in which white male fans have resisted the incursion of others. SF fandom began with pulp era stories of technological heroism; while women were accepted and even welcomed by male fans all along if they identified themselves with this male agenda, by the late 1960's many women wishing to participate had different interests and tastes, having been drawn into fandom by non-scientific fantasy (e.g. Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons) or non-print media (e.g. Star Trek). Having brought change into the culture, these women faced a backlash from traditionalist male fans in the 1980's. Similarly, lesbian and gay fans have historically found tolerance in fandom, but had little voice until the New Wave movement of the 1960's. Bacon-Smith reports that, ironically, many gay fans now find it more difficult to admit their interest in science fiction to the gay community than to announce their gayness to fellow fans; as an identity-defining culture itself, science fiction fandom has represented a threat to the increasingly politicized gay community.

[emphasis mine]

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

It's kind of hard to be seen as a person if you aren't even in the picture to BE seen don't you?

You've got a point. That's a real problem. I've never read a book, not one single one, that has had ME in it! All those characters are ... someone else.

I'm not in a book! I don't exist!

Seriously, consider two characters:

One doesn't have much of your personality, but is the same gender.

One has a personality very close to yours, but is the opposite gender.

Which one do you see yourself in? Apparently, most people would go for the chromosomes, not the personality. I'm the opposite. I don't care if someone who's like me is a man, a woman, or a tentacled alien from Alpha Centauri. Not to mention, of course, that I read and enjoy books where nobody is a whole lot like me. I'm looking for a good story; if I want a reflection of myself, that's what mirrors are for.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

You've got a point. That's a real problem. I've never read a book, not one single one, that has had ME in it! All those characters are ... someone else.

I'm not in a book! I don't exist!

Seriously, consider two characters:

One doesn't have much of your personality, but is the same gender.

One has a personality very close to yours, but is the opposite gender.

Which one do you see yourself in? Apparently, most people would go for the chromosomes, not the personality. I'm the opposite. I don't care if someone who's like me is a man, a woman, or a tentacled alien from Alpha Centauri. Not to mention, of course, that I read and enjoy books where nobody is a whole lot like me. I'm looking for a good story; if I want a reflection of myself, that's what mirrors are for.

Now you are just being difficult for the sake of. You know that I wasn't saying that I "personally" wasn't being represented in books.

Women make up half of the population, but someone writes a book about life in the future with a huge space station that is populated & only about 2 women show up & neither is of any importance or has anything meaningful to do. Yeah that's really realistic. NOT!

If this is what the future is going to look like I'm glad I won't be around to see it!

[JaneD]

Ummm, is it off topic at this point in the thread for me to say "Thank you!" to the AO3 mods for adding the download option? Most of my fanfic reading is done on my kindle, which is just perfect for the purpose. As much as I love my calibre, not having to copy & convert everything is going to be a real blessing.

[Worldwalker]

I don't think I'm serving any purpose by continuing this discussion. I doubt if anyone will be able to persuade me that it's a good thing to divide people up by sex, and I'm not going to be able to convince other people that it's a bad thing. There's no middle we can meet in here, so we're going to have to agree to disagree.

In closing, to rephrase something I saw referring to religion: Anyone who can require other people to put appropriate numbers of women in their writing can require you to put appropriate numbers of men in yours. I don't know about anyone else, but I truly do not want a Committee of Political Correctness passing judgment on what I write.

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Now you are just being difficult for the sake of. You know that I wasn't saying that I "personally" wasn't being represented in books.

Women make up half of the population, but someone writes a book about life in the future with a huge space station that is populated & only about 2 women show up & neither is of any importance or has anything meaningful to do. Yeah that's really realistic. NOT!

If this is what the future is going to look like I'm glad I won't be around to see it!

What you said.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I don't think I'm serving any purpose by continuing this discussion. I doubt if anyone will be able to persuade me that it's a good thing to divide people up by sex, and I'm not going to be able to convince other people that it's a bad thing. There's no middle we can meet in here, so we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Too many entrenched opinions to make for a useful debate.

Interesting opinions ... but entrenched.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I don't think I'm serving any purpose by continuing this discussion. I doubt if anyone will be able to persuade me that it's a good thing to divide people up by sex, and I'm not going to be able to convince other people that it's a bad thing. There's no middle we can meet in here, so we're going to have to agree to disagree.

In closing, to rephrase something I saw referring to religion: Anyone who can require other people to put appropriate numbers of women in their writing can require you to put appropriate numbers of men in yours. I don't know about anyone else, but I truly do not want a Committee of Political Correctness passing judgment on what I write.

I KNEW that sooner or later someone would bring up the term "Political Correctness."

This is what others always bring up to avoid being held accountable for behavior or attitudes that are out of step for the current times.

This has nothing to do with being PC, and everything to do with what is realistic for the current times & for the future.

I'm not requiring anyone to think a certain way, read certain books, practice any one religion, or put a certain number of men or women in their books.

All I'm saying is if I notice that what is in the book is not only unrealistic for 2010, but most assuredly for how it will be in the future, then I PERSONALLY will never read any more of that authors books.

Since they are not interested in reflecting the reality of even todays world, and I'm not interested in reading about a backwards future.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I don't count characters. I don't check to see how many of them look like me.

I take it you've never heard of the Bechdel Test, a.k.a. the Mo Movie Measure, based on a comic strip by Alison Bechdel called The Rule.

In the comic, one character insists that she only watches movies that pass the test--
1) It has to have at least two women, who
2) speak to each other, about
3) something other than a man.

(She notes that the last movie she watched was Aliens... in which Ripley and Newt talk to each other about the monster.)

Some people apply the test to books or tv shows, with similarly disappointing results.

The point isn't which movies pass or don't pass. Passing is definitely not a sign of a feminist movie; not passing doesn't indicate misogyny. But the fact that few movies do pass, especially very few award-winning movies, says something about our society--it says "women's voices are irrelevant. You can include them if you want, but they're not *necessary*."

Counting characters, noting gender and race of people involved, is essential to understanding hidden oppressions and negations. We *notice* anything unusual, out of the "ordinary"--and because of that, tend to think they are better represented than is true. Tokenism is not representation, and the only way to get past it is to pay attention to numbers.

That doesn't mean instituting quotas, but it does mean acknowledging that we're getting a limited, filtered viewpoint. "White male" is not a neutral state for humanity; it's as biased as "Latina woman" or "queer Muslim;" it's just that the biases of the majority group are less obvious to other members of that group.

[alexkitty23]

can someone tell me how to download ebooks...I'm kinda confused

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by alexkitty23

can someone tell me how to download ebooks...I'm kinda confused

There's a menu bar on top of the story and there should be a Download button. When you click on that another row of options will appear and give you the formats you can choose from to download.

Hope that helps...