When was the last time you wrote a female character? · 7:17am Mar 20th, 2014
To begin: this post assumes that the reader is male. Hopefully ladies will find this bit of musing interesting as well. Maybe the inverse of this discussion applies to women writing about men; I don't know.
Now take a good, long look at this picture. It contains an important truth, one that many us have forgotten.
She's got lips, and those feminine lashes, and she might be wearing some makeup--she's really cute, all told. My buddy Stereo_Sub showed me this picture, and it gave both of us pause, because it reminded us of the fact that Vinyl Scratch's gender is female. In fact, it might even be accurate to call her a woman.
The only reason we don't normally apply the term "woman" to the ponies is because we are so well trained to say 'mare.' Sure we can argue that in pony society the terms 'mare' and 'stallion' might not be as loaded as 'woman' and 'man,' but this bit of equivocation is just that--a bit of equivocation that lets us back away from the fact that the ponies have genders just like we do.
It feels strange, doesn't it? There's a difference between thinking of a character as a mare versus thinking of the same character as a woman. It's so easy to think of the character as a colorful marshmallow blob with four hooves and giant eyes, who moves via the magic of Flash and communicates through a disembodied feminine voice. In fact, many of us aren't even in a position to mentally connect the word mare with the fleshy real life mammal that it usually represents. No, to us it's the word for a talking four-legged cartoon creature.
On the other hand, every single one of us knows full well what a woman is. The creatures called 'women' are much harder to deal with than, say, unicorns, or dragons, or deadly three-headed goat/snake/tiger chimeras. Apart from being infinitely more dangerous, they are also infinitely more familiar--we know the meaning so well that we cannot escape the full force of the word "woman" the way we can "mare."
The symptoms of this mindset are subtle, but important. There is one obvious result: the incredible lack of heteronormativity in fanfics. Fics with a major element of lesbian characters getting past orientation-related issues are the exception, not the rule. In most fanfics, nobody in Equestria blinks at homosexuality.
We could chalk this up to an extreme lack of male canon characters, or to the fact that we're in a demographic that is learning to leave the worst of heteronormativity behind. However, let us imagine for now that it is evidence of the difference between "mare" and "woman." This is sort of a different route to the same destination, sort of. The Social Justice Warrior insists that "love is love" and homosexuality should be seen as normal, not alternative; the brony glosses over how alternative and Other it is when he's talking about two abstract "mares" instead of two flesh-and-blood "women."
Maybe some of you are with me on this: I find it all too easy to let the fact that Rainbow Dash has the property "female" slip into something that I'm only aware of intellectually. Scratch is one of those characters whom it's very easy to create a genderblind image of. This picture jarred that image loose without actually contradicting it; actually we both really liked being reminded to add femaleness back into our mental images. Somehow, we had both been leaving it out. If it felt somehow strange or interesting when I identified Vinyl Scratch as a woman, why? If all of a character's lines and moments were delivered by a distinctly female person instead of by a Flash puppet, would that "feel" different?
Total genderblindness is nice and everything, but sometimes it's incorrect. Next time you're trying to create a voice or a moment that's driven by the feel and flavor of a character, see if you can catch yourself being genderblind for no other reason than because you don't know any better. And then tell me the results, because I need to do some soul-searching on this subject too.
The next step, now that we want our characters to be women instead of mares, is to interrogate what are and aren't markers for female-ness. Rarity has her thing with clothes and fashion and looking pretty, but are we satisfied with letting those stereotypes be the only thing we do in order to make her feel "feminine?" Just sticking a big flag on a character does nothing to move past "has Rarity traits." This is a question I don't know the answer to.
As we all take this journey, we will inevitably run into an obstacle in the form of a question: Do we as men have the ability to write about female-ness without leaning on artifice and cliche? Maybe, maybe not. But we can try, and maybe we should stop pretending that we don't have to try.
You distinguish between "woman" and "mare" (and "feminine") but you fail to actually define what you mean by "woman". You talk about homosexuality like it even has anything to do with the distinction there (which, in fact, it really doesn't).
Look, if you dislike the amount of homosexuality in fics, that's one thing - and I can understand it. Fanfiction in general, not just MLP fiction, tends to be awash with gay relationships, male or female. This fandom happens to write overwhelmingly to the lesbian side, but that's at least in part due to the massive discrepancy in how many males vs how many females appear in the show (and other materials). Even more so when you look at those who have a well-defined speaking role.Is this a problem? Perhaps a bit, but frankly, I do still see plenty of straight relationships portrayed in fics.
A million fics rehashing the idea of "getting past orientation-related issues" would also be rather silly. We're literally talking about a world where things like love, harmony, and friendship are real forces inside the world. There's not been any indication, as far as I've ever heard, that Equestria has any bias against homosexuality in canon. There've been a few fics that have, in fact, taken this angle and worked with it quite well, but this kind of blindness is not a bad thing.
The show itself actually treats the characters as fairly gender-neutral, and that's not a bad thing either. You seem to be implying that treating the characters more as "women" means that they need to be more "womanly" - which, let's face it, flies directly in the face of established characterization in at least two cases (specifically Applejack and Rainbow Dash). More to the point, is it necessary? I don't really see people treating the mane six as "marshmallow blob with four hooves and giant eyes", anything well-written mostly treats them along the lines established in canon. It would make even less sense for writers to start treating them differently. Should Applejack suddenly start wearing dresses on a regular basis? Maybe Rainbow Dash should take cooking lessons... You see, the problem is that you failed to define exactly what you mean by "woman", leaving only some of the more ridiculous internet interpretations - aka "get back in the kitchen and make me a sammich".
For the record, this is coming from a woman, not a man.
It's early, and I might have more to say, or smarter, later on. And I probably quoted the wrong parts. But I wanted to say this is a good post, and talk about some specific parts.
Woah there, buddy. While it's possible that there are some guys who are the reasons behind that, I think there are a lot of other reasons as well. If it was due to gender differences, you'd expect to see the female shipping authors addressing more heternormitivity than the male ones-- me, NintendoGal55, LadyHart21, Cryosite, Peroth E, Midnight Dancer... but I don't think that's an issue we like to take up. One reason is that in most of the big ships, it's considered cliche by now. I can point you towards a lot of early fics that were centered around a pony trying to deal with coming out to a more homophobic Equestria, or used that as a major plot point. Applejack particularly was forced to jump through those hoops pretty often. So these days, starting everyone off with a "bi is the norm" or "already out and dealt with" situation is more to avoid rewriting the same time all over.
Another big reason is the question of tolerance in a land of magical talking ponies. Some of us just don't like to deal with real, sad, social issues in Equestria. The show canon lets us get away with this in terms of feminism and gender identity (which I'll talk about below) so it's easy to headcanon homosexuality into it.
I'm on the fence here. On the one hand, I totally applaud this. On the other hand, there's nothing more gross to be than an overly feminine Rainbow Dash. As much as Rainbow-Dash-as-guy-stand-in is insulting, Rainbow Dash as secretly girly and sweet is waaay more gross.
The thing that needs to be remembered when writing Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Spitfire, Vinyl Scratch, and other "masculine" female characters is that they're not guys, they're girls who rejected femininity.
While Equestria seems to not have issues with gender equality that we have on earth, there are acknowledged gender roles-- Royal Guards are male; Rarity acts "ladylike" and expects Blueblood to fall into the role of gentlecolt by paying for their date, holding doors, etc; at sleepovers, girls are supposed to give each other makeovers... Now, these seem to be lightly enforced (we don't see AJ or Dash getting teased for liking sports the way they might on Earth) but they still seem to be there. So for girls to reject that still seems to take making a choice that those are not things they're going to be involved in. It's part of their self-image.
So, with characters like that, the acknowledgement I see most often ignored is that they are different. Especially with AJ and Dash, the other two theirs of their friends default to "normal girls" while both of them have expressed annoyance or unease at being seen as "girly."
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I only have time to say this one quick thing, but I want to get this down:
Yes, you are both entirely correct, and the point here is that it is possible to write a Rainbow Dash who has a girly side without having her secretly want to be girly and/or sticking her ass back in the kitchen. Look at Dash's giggling and squealing moments in canon.
But more importantly, it is also possible to see the characters as more "girly" without changing a single thing. Imagine a distinctly female looking person delivering Rainbow Dash's lines in canon. Exact same inflection, nothing changed except the fact that now you can no longer ignore the fact that she is a woman and not a talking rainbow-haired alien. This is especially true with AJ, who has no giggling cute moments that I can think of.
Oh and interestingly I disagree with putting too much focus on the girls "rejecting" femininity. Look at TMB, in which AJ and Dash both have a side that's a kind of alternate expression of soft girliness. Aside from being interesting, this fits with the show's moral of deconstructing things like guards always being male.
Note that in strict canon, nobody ever tells AJ or Dash that they're strange.
Then there are schools of thought that say a male writer cannot write a female character (and, more extreme, should not).
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Well fuck their 90s shit.
It is highly unfortunate that this world still has man-haters who use the spine of a leather-bound SCUM Manifesto to get themselves off every night.
More seriously, that feels less like man-hating and more defeatist, which is even worse.
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No, they don't, and that's what I meant by not having the issues with gender equality that we do.
But, this is the part I was getting at, in strict canon, they are still strange.
The example I always turn to is the sleepover in Look Before You Sleep. The book says they do makeovers. Rarity understands this because it's exactly the sort of traditionally feminine thing that she loves, and Twilight also understands it because even if she's not really girly, she's "average." And the "average" girl understands makeovers. Only Applejack doesn't get the point, because she is different from an average girl.
To really drive home the point, think of the whole scene R63ed. Elusive is still all for proper moisturization and exfoliation, and Applejack is still confused by the idea... now where is Dusk Shine in this, as an average guy hanging out with his male friends? Suddenly Elusive is the odd stallion out, because he falls the farthest from the norm. That's where AJ is in the canon episode.
AJ and Dash both have traditionally feminine sides, and they both have parts that are deciedly non-feminine. I actually went into this once on the AppleDash forum:
So the important thing with them is to actually recognize that what's thought of as "feminine" is actually a couple of different scales-- you have how aggressive/gentle someone is, how much attention they pay to appearance, how empathetic they are, how much emotion they allow themselves to show. Being more masculine on one doesn't mean the character can't still be very feminine on another-- Rarity is very aggressive, she's just so feminine otherwise that she never comes across as manly (just as a bitch sometimes.)
Hmmm
My issue here is:
I don't really see that as a problem. The fact that Rainbow Dash is female is in no way contradicted, she's always been female. I've never seen her as not-female.
But what you issue suggests is that in being a female, her femaleness must be front and center. Why? Why can she not be an athlete and a friend first? Why does she require a tag, unless that tag is relevant to the story.
If we were to change the references, I could argue that the fact that Nick Fury is black isn't addressed enough in the Avengers movie. To be fair, it is not, in fact, addressed. He's an officer and a soldier and a generally sneaky person, but neither his maleness[1] nor his blackness is ever really brought to the fore.
This is not an issue, unless the tag matters: in Look Before You Sleep the fact that AJ isn't traditionally girly is a plot point. In most episodes, gender is irrelevant, so it's not addressed. In The Return of Harmony no one's gender is a factor. Because in the story, no one's gender is a factor. Which is the correct way of dealing with it, in that case.
Maybe I'm just i a minority who never accidentally misgenders them because they aren't "girly," but I don't see why Rainbow Dash's lack of girliness is an issue here.
[1] Avengers does pay needless attention to gender; if anything that would be a better target of this criticism. Black Widow's femaleness isn't just front and center because of that bodysuit, it's a factor in every scene she's in. That's the norm in US film. However, I'd call that norm the problem. This is why the characters in MLP feel real to me: they're not stereotypes given voice. They're complex people who seem to exist beyond their labels.
To be fair, I don't really see the differences that "woman" and "Mare" bring up. When I imagine any character in the show (and any I write for that matter), I see them as people first. What they are does not really factor much. To me, a female is a female, regardless of what they are. It helps that I view them as human as well.
The idea of them being "colored marshmallow blobs" never once crossed my mind. Kind of weird to say that I don't really see the differences when they clearly have differences (human vs. equine). But I just done see it. They talk, the feel, they have defined genders so then, what's the issue? It's not like we are dealing with beings we cannot define. Beings that have no clear gender, or even clear humanity. So long as we can understand them, see some of us in them, then there should be no real reason to say "she's not a woman/she not a man"
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I think this somewhat relies on having a single definition of feminine, which I think is one of the things that the show is basically speaking out against - there are different ways to be a girl.
Applejack doesn't seem terribly intersted in the fancy dancy stuff, a lot of stuff we might call "girly", but I don't think she even really sees that as a rejection of feminity as much as a rejection of a culture which she doesn't feel like she's a part of - she's a country girl, not a city girl. She is to some extent Apple Bloom's mother, and is the second most motherly of the mane six - we've seen her be protective of and cutesy towards both Apple Bloom and Bloomberg. I think viewing Applejack as rejecting feminity is probably incorrect - she just has a different concept of what being a mare means, and views being "girly" as being petty, ungenuine, vain, and/or shallow. This is a pretty common real-life mode for women, incidentally - there are a fair number of girls I've seen who sort of reject being girly in this way, basically as being something that spoiled brats indulge in, rather than being something to aspire to.
On the other hand, Rarity definitely sees herself as female and wants everyone else to know that she is a lady, but on the other hand, she feels awkward about being a nurturer, which is considered to be a major feminine trait. She is very involved with the traditional trappings of being a lady, but on the other hand, doesn't actually hold to some of what a "traditional lady" is supposed to be. She is female, but she is not effortlessly feminine in all ways - rather, she spends a great deal of time to make sure everyone remembers.
The most feminine character is clearly Fluttershy. She's a shy, demure nurturer who loves animals and foals and cute things and who is very beautiful. Even in her moments of aggression she follows the Mama Bear trope. And she does it all effortlessly, something more than one story has picked up on being a source of admiration (and maybe a little jealousy) between her and Rarity - Rarity has to TRY to be a lady, but Fluttershy possesses a huge amount of natural grace.
The most masculine of the girls is clearly Rainbow Dash, who is brash, outspoken, has little tolerance for social games, has a "boyish" manecut, thinks dressing up like a superhero is awesome, and is very athletic and competitive in ways that we would ordinarily associate with men. Of all the cast members, she's probably the one who can be most argued to have rejected femininity. Even still, though, she doesn't reject all of it, and doesn't seem resentful about BEING a girl in any way - she just doesn't like some stuff. If anyone rejects feminine traits outright, it is her.
Then you've got characters like Twilight Sparkle. Twilight is undoubtedly a girl - she was super excited over makeovers and a girly slumber party. She is effortlessly female. On the other hand, however, if you asked Twilight Sparkle to describe herself, I'm not sure if "mare" would even enter her mind when she does it. It isn't that she isn't feminine - she certainly is, even though being a nerd is viewed as a masculine trait - but I'm not sure to what extent she consciously thinks of herself as a girl. This isn't about rejecting femininity, but more is about personal view of identity - Rainbow Dash might consciously reject being girly (seeing it as "uncool"), while Rarity actively works to be girly. But with Twilight, I'm not sure that it really enters her mind at all. She is one, of course, but I don't think she defines herself by her allegiance with or opposition to feminine concepts or ideals at all.
What about Pinkie Pie? She loves the foals, and in some ways is actually kind of like a very extroverted teenage girl... but on the other hand, she doesn't really seem to think about the trappings of femininity at all.
I've generally preferred to see any works in the MLP universe as xenofiction, so I would rather develop wholly new gender archetypes rather than using humans as my model. I know, however, that most stories aren't written like that, and see the world as a parallel to our own, so it would make sense to address our feminine understanding. Even then, I don't think it is appropriate to tie any mare in the series to the identifier of woman, or lady, at least not in the social sense. The idea of a woman or a man, in gender, is only a role; it can be refused or accepted as one wishes. Most humans relate to these roles in some way, as they are culturally omnipresent, but that doesn't mean that anyone needs to identify with them.
Yeah I think you're over-thinking this, or at the very least focusing on the wrong element. Truth is you shouldn't be thinking about how female a character must be or representing femininity properly. The problem with your hyper manly Dashes, or Vinyls isn't that 'they're not representing their gender enough' but rather they are not representing the cultural influences of the setting.
That's the -true- secret people are missing when it comes to female characters, but it applies to everyone regardless of gender. What elements of these influences they reject, what ones they don't care about, what ones they follow, what ones they don't even consider etc. This is something that applies to every character ever and honestly shouldn't be some sort of special magical idea... but somehow it does go over peoples heads, thinking female is some sort of 'special other' rather than just another person with different expectations applied to them from society as a whole.
Your thought process should never be 'How would a girl react to this' but 'How would this character react to this.. based on who they are and what their experiences have made them into?' These ‘feminine things’ you’re thinking about are picked up from the world around them, not inherent elements of having the gender.
1943037 post pretty much spells out this concept in a lot of ways when you go over each character and how they handle these things. At the end of the day we still end up with PEOPLE who have reacted to their worlds culture and expected gender norms in different ways. Their upbringing being a big part of it.
A hyper masculine Dash seems out of place for two reasons. One being it straight up doesn't match up with who she is in the show (Duh) but also because there really isn't any heavy cultural reason someone -would- take on such a strong anti-girly 'This is how I am and you're going to like it! Can't judge me for being a girl!' stance. In a world where those pressures often are much weaker or straight up don't exist at all why would you be so intense about it? Even if you did have a very masculine lady pony there is a good chance she wouldn't think much of it unless there was good reason to;Maybe she was raised in Canterlot with a lot of unicorn ponies who took Raritys 'lady like' logic to heart? But even they have a healthy respect for the Wonderbolts...so yeah it’s still a bit thin.
Either way when people do this without thinking they often end up with horrible stereotypes or anti-stereotypes that serve the same purpose. With MLP it’s even worse; applying -our- worlds standards which should be alien to the character in a lot of ways.
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I've had some time to think about this, and recently it came up in my writing, for reasons.
The key part of my post is "are you being genderblind simply because you don't know any better?" Sure you can argue that it's sexist to acknowledge Applejack's gender when the actual show almost never does, but when it comes to background ponies, it seems wrong to never consider the fact that they've got a gender along with a gag, a quirk, or a role.
Basically: This image reminded us that 1) a girly interpretation of Scratch is possible, and 2) that I've been ignoring the very possibility of such a thing.
I extended this ephiphany to Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and it seems you guys felt the need to straighten me out there. Part of me, though, is still clinging to the idea that it's not good to detach so far that you stop being surprised when someone makes Applejack out to be genderqueer or some shit (*cough cough*).
Because even with Applejack, I think it's good to really work with what Bookplayer said: remember that Applejack can be nurturing and Rainbow Dash can be ditzy. We can look for ways that those qualities can pull them away from ultra-genderblind characterizations.
And with Scratch this is much more important, because she's a blank slate, and it's up to us to decide how gendered she is. You may not want to write gendered characters, and I totally see the merits of that approach, but personally, I don't want to actually forget about gender.
We could throw Bookplayer's observation about slumber parties out the window and go with 1944400 and 1944733 's point of view that ponies may very well have no gender norms at all, but that might be the wrong decision for certain stories. Apart from stories that are inherently gendered for one reason or another, sometimes stories are inherently human--and they are brought closer to home if they have more of a connection to the cisgendered humans that we interact with every day.