What counts as news for me
Feb. 27th, 2011 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggYesterday I went to a rally in support of the protesters in Wisconsin. At first it was difficult to be in such a public place with so many people, but I kept telling myself that I had to do something and this really was the least I could do.
Today I had a great time celebrating KE/Surrealist Dreamer's birthday. We both talked about our fictional characters, and she helped me work out how to handle a potential Unfortunate Implication that emerged in my Naraya project(s).
Right now, there are three Narayan "story sets" in my mind. There's the main storyline, which takes place in the 700s by the Narayan calendar and centers on a middle-aged female character and her current and former students; the female characters are many and diverse, and so are the male characters. There's this other thing that takes place much earlier in Narayan history (haven't worked out the dates yet); KE/SD came up with this one character she wanted me to use, so I inserted him into the timeline and, without really planning it this way, surrounded him with female characters who are, once again, pretty diverse in their personalities and abilities. There aren't yet many male characters in that one, but the way the cast is shaping up, it looks like the male characters are turning out to be different enough from one another. And then there's the "future" series which I've posted bits of on my LJ; I realized, to my chagrin, that in those stories, set around the turn of the first millennium since the founding of Naraya, the characters can pretty much be divided into two distinct classes: guys (and I do mean guys, not men or male humans) and nerds. The important male characters who are more cerebral than physical are the most androgynous/least conventionally manly of all the male characters (there are some rather bookish boys in other programs, like the Historians and the Astronomers, but those are just in the background so far). I've been working on some female characters who aren't bookish or nerdy or cerebral, but I keep failing to work them into any storylines. Of the female characters who do get to participate in stories so far, the ones who have exceptional physical capabilities have them as sort of auxiliary skills. Even the werewolf girl, who is stronger and faster than most human boys, is also smarter than most human boys, and she's valued more for her encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world than for her physical abilities and more for her tracking skills than for her speed, strength, or fighting skills. She's quite capable of chasing down a fugitive and wrestling him to the ground, but the powers that be don't expect that of her and instead value her for the ability to lead others to the target. Crow is supposed to be a badass fighter, but she's more valued for detective work, and the people who give her assignments attribute her fighting ability to her being a smart strategist rather than to her being strong or tough in the same way as comparable male agents.
This has been bothering me because the society depicted in my circa 1000 pieces is supposed to have gone through some major expansions of women's rights and of what it's socially acceptable for women to do. So one would assume there would be more intrasex diversity, especially more diversity in the kinds of roles women are encouraged to play in society, ca. 1000 than in the earlier centuries. But when I look at what I've actually put on the screen, at which characters are getting development and what their abilities and specializations are, I'm seeing the opposite of that. Of the three story sets, the one set latest in the timeline is also the most self-indulgent, so part of the problem is that I let my own issues take over the cast list. I've spent pretty much my whole life chafing at the notion that girls and women can't be more intelligent than boys and men, so when I sat down to write something self-indulgent, I went overboard in the opposite direction and started churning out variations on "female character who is very, very smart and valued for that" while letting male characters fall where they may. Unfortunately, when I pull myself out of "Stand back, we're doing SCIENCE! LOL!" mode and look at the bigger picture, there's this unintentional subtext that girls have to exceptionally intelligent before they can be remotely interesting or admirable. Either that, or the fictional culture hasn't really improved on the gender roles front as much as I thought it had, it's just shifted the roles around a bit so that women are more often "allowed" to be intelligent and educated in addition to nurturing and men have started to consider obviously intellectual pursuits somewhat effeminate. I'm still not comfortable with this, but my friend helped me think of a way to handle it that I hadn't considered before.
Today I had a great time celebrating KE/Surrealist Dreamer's birthday. We both talked about our fictional characters, and she helped me work out how to handle a potential Unfortunate Implication that emerged in my Naraya project(s).
Right now, there are three Narayan "story sets" in my mind. There's the main storyline, which takes place in the 700s by the Narayan calendar and centers on a middle-aged female character and her current and former students; the female characters are many and diverse, and so are the male characters. There's this other thing that takes place much earlier in Narayan history (haven't worked out the dates yet); KE/SD came up with this one character she wanted me to use, so I inserted him into the timeline and, without really planning it this way, surrounded him with female characters who are, once again, pretty diverse in their personalities and abilities. There aren't yet many male characters in that one, but the way the cast is shaping up, it looks like the male characters are turning out to be different enough from one another. And then there's the "future" series which I've posted bits of on my LJ; I realized, to my chagrin, that in those stories, set around the turn of the first millennium since the founding of Naraya, the characters can pretty much be divided into two distinct classes: guys (and I do mean guys, not men or male humans) and nerds. The important male characters who are more cerebral than physical are the most androgynous/least conventionally manly of all the male characters (there are some rather bookish boys in other programs, like the Historians and the Astronomers, but those are just in the background so far). I've been working on some female characters who aren't bookish or nerdy or cerebral, but I keep failing to work them into any storylines. Of the female characters who do get to participate in stories so far, the ones who have exceptional physical capabilities have them as sort of auxiliary skills. Even the werewolf girl, who is stronger and faster than most human boys, is also smarter than most human boys, and she's valued more for her encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world than for her physical abilities and more for her tracking skills than for her speed, strength, or fighting skills. She's quite capable of chasing down a fugitive and wrestling him to the ground, but the powers that be don't expect that of her and instead value her for the ability to lead others to the target. Crow is supposed to be a badass fighter, but she's more valued for detective work, and the people who give her assignments attribute her fighting ability to her being a smart strategist rather than to her being strong or tough in the same way as comparable male agents.
This has been bothering me because the society depicted in my circa 1000 pieces is supposed to have gone through some major expansions of women's rights and of what it's socially acceptable for women to do. So one would assume there would be more intrasex diversity, especially more diversity in the kinds of roles women are encouraged to play in society, ca. 1000 than in the earlier centuries. But when I look at what I've actually put on the screen, at which characters are getting development and what their abilities and specializations are, I'm seeing the opposite of that. Of the three story sets, the one set latest in the timeline is also the most self-indulgent, so part of the problem is that I let my own issues take over the cast list. I've spent pretty much my whole life chafing at the notion that girls and women can't be more intelligent than boys and men, so when I sat down to write something self-indulgent, I went overboard in the opposite direction and started churning out variations on "female character who is very, very smart and valued for that" while letting male characters fall where they may. Unfortunately, when I pull myself out of "Stand back, we're doing SCIENCE! LOL!" mode and look at the bigger picture, there's this unintentional subtext that girls have to exceptionally intelligent before they can be remotely interesting or admirable. Either that, or the fictional culture hasn't really improved on the gender roles front as much as I thought it had, it's just shifted the roles around a bit so that women are more often "allowed" to be intelligent and educated in addition to nurturing and men have started to consider obviously intellectual pursuits somewhat effeminate. I'm still not comfortable with this, but my friend helped me think of a way to handle it that I hadn't considered before.
