[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Why do people have to sort themselves out into "men" and "women"?

Why do people assume I'm male if I don't specify? Why not assume every person without a gendered name is female until proven otherwise? (How often have people mistaken you for female? I can point to half a dozen refs here at MR where people casually called me "he," and could come up with a dozen or more on other boards.) (Mostly, I am amused by this. Especially when it happened when I was actively breastfeeding.)

Women's identities as women are erased unless we go out of our way to make them known--at which point, we're accused of gender politics, for not wanting to be assumed to be something we're not.

Even in something that should be as inclusive as fan fiction, where we should be dealing with minds, not bodies, some people have to make a distinction. Are we reading the story, or staring through the computer at the person behind the keyboard? Why can't things be made for people?

Women *are* people. What's wrong with making a space comfortable for one group of people, and saying "if another group finds it useful, they're welcome too?"

That's a big reason why OTW bothers me: they want only a specific type of writer,

I have no idea where you got this. The OTW wants to support all fanworks--fanfic, art, podcasts & vids, and possibly other endeavors as they become known. It doesn't favor one type of writer over another. They worked to make their archive welcoming of types of works that have been rejected from other places, but the AO3 doesn't forbid genfic or male authors.

Their terms of service state: "The Archive of Our Own is a place for fanworks, including fan fiction based on books, TV, movies, comics, other media, and real-person fiction (RPF)." (It also says, "You understand that the OTW does not prescreen Content or review it for purposes of compliance with the ToS. This includes but is not limited to story information, story content, text, graphics, comments, or any other material. Content is the sole responsibility of the people who submitted it. You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, or badly spelled.")

It's particularly offensive when I see someone say, in effect, "we've been mistreated, so now it's our turn to mistreat other people" ... often the oppressed become tyrants the instant they get the chance.

In what way is the AO3 or OTW mistreating anyone? Where is their tyranny?

There are all kinds of writers, just as there are all kinds of fans. It makes me highly uncomfortable to see an organization say that female RPF slash writers are "real" fanfic writers but male literary gen writers are not.

The organization as NOT said that. A person, who may be involved with the organization (I don't know current membership or board member identities), may have said that; that belief may be why that person is/was involved in the OTW; that doesn't make it official policy.

George W Bush doesn't think my religion is a real religion; that didn't make it US policy that my religion didn't exist when he was president.

And yes, they have presented themselves as the face/voice of fanfic; if necessary, I can go dig up examples.

I would very much like examples. I know they have claimed to be *an* advocate of fanfic, *a* voice; I don't believe they've ever claimed to be, or to want to be, the only one. (They may have claimed to be the only one intending to provide legal support to fanfic authors; if you know of any others, I'm pretty sure they'd love to know about them & coordinate their efforts.)

It's when they try to define what fanfic is,

The only attempts they've made to "define fanfic" are in regards to where the line is between fanfic and "original fiction," which is technically not allowed on the archive. They're still working on this policy; right now, they don't need any hard-and-fast rules, but they will before they start hosting artwork, because that starts getting into serious bandwidth drain.