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Saturday, April 23, 2016

Women and Feminism in Writing, Part 1

Declined panel blog post #1. Women and Feminism: How to Create Stronger Characters

Personally I enjoy the Merriam-Webster Dictionary full definition of Feminism which states that Feminism is "the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes."

Why I like this definition so much is that it doesn't single out the dichotomy of two sexes as it does with its 'simple' definition of "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities."

Why the difference or personal preference? The full definition explicitly states where the equal rights should take place, which in doing so highlights the areas in which their are not equal rights between all sexes. The second definition has more ambiguity, and is harder to pin down where the differences in the power structure exist. Which gets me to the second point, that not all people define themselves as a man or a women, and as such the full definition includes all variances of the sexes, and doesn't exclude others as the simple definition does.

Think of it this way, If I have a bag of skittles and I pick two colors out to be men and women, and they get equal rights, what about the others that aren't included in those two. The problem with the simple explanation is everything is okay if you're one of the two colors, but what if you were a color that was left out? In the past, other colors get additional rights based solely on their arguments that the other excluded colors are not as good as them, and then are allowed into the group, leaving the other colors to fend for themselves, or try and separate themselves from the group in order to gain access.

Now if I take a bag of skittles and say every color has equal rights, none are excluded and left out. There is no need to state, or prove that one color is better than another, and everyone has the same rights, protections, and opportunities as everyone else. So the full definition is my favorite.

Now that we've gotten that taken care of, I'd like to talk about why I was interested in hosting this panel in the first place. I've read many books, so many, where I wonder how and why the sexes are displayed as they are even in future contexts. Men usually save women, women are usually sexual slaves without a choice on who they wish to sleep with, women are still treated as commodities, and the military are all male and still only willing to sleep with women. Scenarios also don't reflect the current statistics today where about 1 in 5 people in the population consider themselves to be gay, and with today's youths displaying more acceptance on gender fluidity, those number will change.

My pitch for the panel was:

This workshop will look into some of the ways you can beef up your female, and male characters to create interactions that go beyond the surface, and provide an underlining respect for their actions. It will discuss ways writing might unconsciously be playing into female and male stereotypes, and ways to keep the characters strong throughout the entire character arc.

I recognize by stating male and female characters, I exclude those who chose not to identify themselves as either, and although I plan on discussing that issue, most of the books written today involved characters that identify as one or the other.

With this panel I wanted to explore how social aspects of our own lives play into character and world building, and how to recognize when it is destroying your characters, and how it helps to build them up. I have this problem myself, unconscious biases are incorporated in our everyday lives, we are bombarded with the stereotype of female and male characters all the time through TV, movies, books, social media, advertising, etc. The skill is catching when this slips into your story, and making the book stronger for it. 

I also wanted to talk about plot devices that usually center against female sexual assault, and how to determine if there is another way to move the story along, or if it is a valuable plot point. I've read some really bad books with sexual assault where it was thrown in there almost on a whim and never dealt with later, and I've read some really great books where it was a major part of the plot-line, character arc, and essential to the story. I want to provide tools for the reader and writer to understand which of these two are being played out in novels. 

I will also go over the, Am I a Lampshade test, and ways to tell if you're playing too much into the stereotypes that your main character has turned into a lampshade that helps to move the story along, or isn't an active part of the solution of the novel. 

These questions to ask yourself when writing or reading a novel can be carried through to any genre out there. I've read regencies where the female characters are an equal in the relationships and story-lines, I've read contemporary fiction where characters are no more than arm candy and can't make a decisions for themselves if their lives depended on it (which in some cases they did). Knowing when to ask yourself for more, or the author for more, is not only helpful in improving writing technique, but being aware of when these issues are also displayed in real life. 

Reading is an active mind exploring device. We take in everything we read, we internalize what is happening with the characters as we feel their emotions, and go through the adventure with them. Having novels that depict women who are equals, who are not used as plot devices, who are actually characters in their own right, is essential to our constantly developing minds and especially to those of our younger readers who develop their own sense of selves while consuming our material.

References:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism
http://www.gallup.com/poll/183383/americans-greatly-overestimate-percent-gay-lesbian.aspx

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