SWC The Strong Women of Star Wars (NY Times Article)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/m...wars-their-own.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

There's also this one, which is more about the fandom specifically. I'm thrilled to see such a pronounced shift in the series and fan community from TFA onwards, I'm just impatiently waiting for the "Another female lead?" morons to get with the program.

 

Damn Jedi council forums just totally got called out by New York Times

"
This plethora of female-friendly “Star Wars” destinations can be fun for men, too, who can find perspectives and analyses that are often overlooked on male-dominated mainstream fan sites. The hosts of “Fangirls Going Rogue” estimate that their listenership is equally split between men and women, and Amanda Ward of “Rebel Grrrl” said her podcast was particularly popular among fathers looking to connect with their daughters over the series.

But not every male “Star Wars” fan is excited about this turn. Sites like the Jedi Council Forums, a bustling message board on TheForce.net, can sometimes marginalize contributions from women. “On the boards, there’s real scorn showed toward shipping as a phenomenon,” said Rachael of “Scavenger’s Hoard.”

In her experience on forums, Ms. Barr said, “a lot of women were called outsiders if we had a different opinion from the mainstream.” Even when most men are welcoming, she said, “all you need is one persistent person to make your experience really bad.”

 

Yeah, I caught that and just went, "...Oh."

 

Was that during the prequel days/shortly afterwards? I was too young to be cognizant of anything of the sort at the time, but I'd hazard a guess that what we're seeing now is more of a widespread, mainstream thing, no? Or am I completely off-base?

 

Welcome to the "You and the Rest of Us" club. They're called trolls. What an incredibly inane complaint to have on the Internet, especially when you say the majority treats you well.

 

I was a little surprised by that, too. One person ruins a forum for you? Really?

I think the whole 'women fans of Star Wars' thing is a little more complex than these quote would imply. I got into SW in 1977 when it was just 'Star Wars'. Back then, there were endless articles about how ground-breaking Princess Leia was even though there were practically no other females in the movie. This was the 1970's, so Princess Leia was a Big Deal then. And in SW fanfiction fandom that sprang up whole out of ST fandom it was 95% female writers and editors ( we're talking photocopy and snail-mail days ). For me, it was like, "Guys like Star Wars? Really? Who knew?".

 

I am not trying to tarnish or belittle the recent emphasis placed on strong female leads in movies and in written fiction...

but that NY times article reads like a "plant" ...

those of you familiar with journalism and the public relations machines employed by law firms, campaigns, interests/activists groups, etc.. know what I am talking about...Whether contrived or not, the minute a platform like the NY Times focuses on and critiques a trend, that observation becomes politicized (especially in the current political environment)

But apart from that... For me, I don't even look at the recent female leads in Star Wars as anything political. Their placement feels natural and actually contributes to the story and the Star Wars universe. I will wait before commenting on Felicity in Rogue One, but when watching TFA I never thought to myself "wow she can pull it off" or ... "they put a girl in Luke's role instead of a boy" .. it just seemed natural and that stuff never crossed my mind, and the story and film had more depth and richness for it

I actually think news publications or forums making a big deal of the casting decisions for female leads "cheapens" them... it makes their placement look deliberate and political (and even if their casting is deliberate, deliver it in a more subtle natural fashion, and people will forget that)

 

Well about 150 women were once marginalised and eventually pushed out of this place about a year ago


This reaction with popular media happens when discussion of something that mainly women like gets banned in a popular forum I guess.

It probably didn't have sexism behind it though imo.

 

I don't think it was to do with sexism, i agree and people are not pushed away for being women

the topic which was banned was mainly very popular with women, so I think this may be where the article is stemming from. I think women feel like their voice is taken away maybe

 

I'm a woman, I dislike everything about shipping and don't have any problem with male or female leads. Not everything has to be about men vs women.

 

I quite agree.

 

Well, no, it's impossible to speak for 50% of the population. We're not a monolith bound together by our synchronizing periods for gods' sake.

It's hard to say that there is no sexism on the JCF. I've seen it. Maybe it's not as blatant as say YouTube, but if there are multiple threads where there are/were bold mod warnings about racism and sexism on specific threads then that means both there's sexism and that the mods are trying to fix it. Which is great, but I mean, you all aren't paid and you're not omniscient and not everyone reports a sexist post.

Not to mention that I think some topics are inherently sexist and the way these topics are hammered over and over on certain threads has the sexist flavor but nothing you can put your finger on.

And hell, we have two people talking about how they hate shipping right here as a good example. In fact, most shipping threads I've gone on tend to be derailed by people who don't like shipping. That's not on the mods or the boards, but it's something to just... think about I guess. A data point.

I do think there is a noticeable difference in the places where women dominate the conversation about Star Wars. That doesn't mean the JCF is bad or the mods are sexist, it just feels like a different world sometimes.

 

Oh Anakinfan, you know I know this! You are absolutely the first one to call it out and I agree with what you say 99% of the time. No mod on the boards I go to puts up with sexism. I've been impressed by that since I've come to the boards, I think you guys do a hell of a job.

But IMO and obviously mileage varies, when you can't have a thread about Rey without someone talking about how she's a Mary Sue, or Jyn Erso without the debate about how she was put in there for political correctness (or some variant of this argument) or Ahsoka's only value is she's Dave Filoni's "fetish". And don't even get me started on every thread on Padme Amidala.

And yes, shipping which I do disagree on. It's not a problem with random baiting and trolling. It's a problem when the topics and parts of fandom that women in this fandom tend to dominate are consistently derailed and trolled. That's a problem with sexism, not just baiting. If every shipping thread is derailed, then that's also an issue with sexism. If most or every female character appreciation thread is derailed while the male character threads aren't, that's a pattern, right? And no, disliking shipping is not sexist. But looking down on it because it's something women are into is. (I don't like threads about legos. I don't have any interest in legos. But I don't go into threads about it and talk about my dislike of them and derail the lego talk. But that happens with shipping all the time.)

I can see how that's frustrating to hear as a mod. I mean, what can anyone even do about that? And I'll grant that my vision is more limited than yours because I can leave a thread while you're stuck policing it, or ignore a user that I find egregious while you have to see what they're posting. So I can get an impression of a sexist thread and never go back and maybe it's resolved, who knows?

But seriously, I come here all the time. I go to the places that I would consider dominated by women. The conversations and interactions are like night and day. I get a lot out of both, but there is a stark difference.

 

You...sure know how to paint a picture, Sepra.

 

Thank you!!

I don't know if Sepra's post was calling me out or some such, but Anakinfan is quite correct here, some of us just don't like shipping, nothing to do with being sexist or being a misogynistic (which I certainly am not) and the thought that a dislike of shipping just for the sake of it equals sexism boggles the mind.

Apologies if I have the wrong end of the stick here.

Edit: re-read Sepra's post, seems to be clear cut, I didn't know people go into shipping threads de-railing them, if that is a problem then it seems to be something that should probably be looked into. Especially if they are saying shipping is "a woman's thing".

 

There's a reason why I don't go into shipping threads and it has nothing to do with sexism. I'm not one to tell random people what they they should do/watch/read or telling them they have bad tastes or whatever. If we're talking about character threads and shipping about that character is mentioned, then yes, both sides should be able to civilly express their opinions without having to resort to childish arguments on both sides.
And Mary sue criticisms never made any kind of sense to me.