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haremstress, ender839 and I were chatting the night away and the topic of gender and talking frequency came up. Pop science holds up stats like 20,000 daily words spoken by the average female compared to 7,000 by men, a rough ratio of 3:1. It's the kind of thing where minor scientific data gets blown up into supposed incontrovertible evidence of hardwiring differences, but it isn't a topic that I particularly care to sort into either the biology or culture box. I find the idea that being apologetic for merely talking a lot to be rather ridiculous. Sure, you can spend your day talking about unimportant things -- gum-snapping prattling, coffee-klatch chitchat, other related crimes -- but you know, considering male and female spheres and things like stereotype confirmation fears, not to mention the more frequent devaluing of "female" interests relative to "male" interests of comparable (lack of) merit, it's pretty hard for me to get behind statements like these:
BUT actually the real reason I am posting (yay for ramblypreambly) is the idea of honor, maleness and privilege. This isn't overly related to the above, but I was thinking about it ages ago and never got around to posting, so there I am. It seems to me that it's very hard to find noble women in fiction. You have a strong presence of the noble honorable man, a man who has power and because he doesn't use it, is noble, righteous, honorable. Privilege is lurking here in the archetypes, however, at least it seems to me, because power favors men historically, so they have more of a luxury of showing their noble largesse. Why is it that I can't really think up a female Atticus Finch? Or why, if there was one, can I not envision her having the same appeal to people as the male one does? Atticus teaches Scout, yeah, and it's great, but where are the stories of adult Scout, teaching her own, oh I dunno, Jem II?
There's a lot of female archetypes that spring from the womb of that necessity born of lack, but when I think of the idea of the heroine (or if you prefer, female hero), I feel saddened by the fact that she apparently has to take a different form from her male counterpart to resonate. Because she has no mother, because she's the first, because there's no history to tap into and invoke the power dynamics that enable men to effortlessly occupy those archetypes. It makes me sad and frustrated even if it is just fiction, because though I roll my eyes at fan culture sometimes (okay, a lot), I'm still a fan and I don't like being told "No, you can't go here, off limits." And it's annoying because reality propagates, and that fact never stops being annoying in context of gender (and race, and other such areas). The lack of tradition makes it hard to get one going, unless you have the temerity to say that even in this day and age of supposed post-sexism, females having females to identify with in fiction is a worthy goal and not, in fact, a totally square one. Hell, males having females to identify with, how's that for zomg!original.
Unless I'm missing something. After all, being well-read is only an illusion I (happily enough) let others mistakenly believe of me. Is there a female Atticus? Where her plainness, idealism, and earnestness makes her larger instead of smaller? I'm just inclined to say "Not much" because it so much incorporates the playing-against-expectations idea thatsummersdaughter and I have been talking about. Is it the kind of figure that could never hope to change perceptions because it already requires perceptions to have changed to resonate? There's a lot of other figures to pick on and make similar points, but I keep thinking of Atticus. I could say similar things about male characters in ASOIAF, but I just wanted to see if I was the only one who perceived this, um, privilege of archetypes? Not that I think thoughts that have never ever been thought up before, just would like some feedback, I suppose. Did that make any sense, privilege of archetype?
ETA: As soon as I finish cleaning up this journal I'll give access to the rest of the people I haven't yet given it to. [DW]
ETA2: Since ice cream (especially melted ice cream) doesn't really require biting or chewing, is it okay to have some after you've brushed your teeth for the night?
haremstress, ender839 and I were chatting the night away and the topic of gender and talking frequency came up. Pop science holds up stats like 20,000 daily words spoken by the average female compared to 7,000 by men, a rough ratio of 3:1. It's the kind of thing where minor scientific data gets blown up into supposed incontrovertible evidence of hardwiring differences, but it isn't a topic that I particularly care to sort into either the biology or culture box. I find the idea that being apologetic for merely talking a lot to be rather ridiculous. Sure, you can spend your day talking about unimportant things -- gum-snapping prattling, coffee-klatch chitchat, other related crimes -- but you know, considering male and female spheres and things like stereotype confirmation fears, not to mention the more frequent devaluing of "female" interests relative to "male" interests of comparable (lack of) merit, it's pretty hard for me to get behind statements like these:I am pretty quiet, though, so I do my part to uphold the honor of men.Dude. Stoicism has its place and all, but you know, you are not an ancient Roman, and life is not reserving a blue ribbon to hand out to you for proving your unyakking manly worth. I don't know where this stereotype of the insipid chatterbox woman and the silently suffering man came from, though the observation (that has been documented, even if I can't find my link at the moment ... and I'm pretty sure that study has a female:male verbosity ratio close to 1:1) that women apparently talk more in private one-on-one situations and men more in public settings (including mixed-gender situations) seems to me to indict ideas of male/female spheres. I do know that it makes me laugh when people convince themselves that something that is coded male is better when it's very possible (and likely) that after a certain point it only remains seen as better because it is coded male.
BUT actually the real reason I am posting (yay for ramblypreambly) is the idea of honor, maleness and privilege. This isn't overly related to the above, but I was thinking about it ages ago and never got around to posting, so there I am. It seems to me that it's very hard to find noble women in fiction. You have a strong presence of the noble honorable man, a man who has power and because he doesn't use it, is noble, righteous, honorable. Privilege is lurking here in the archetypes, however, at least it seems to me, because power favors men historically, so they have more of a luxury of showing their noble largesse. Why is it that I can't really think up a female Atticus Finch? Or why, if there was one, can I not envision her having the same appeal to people as the male one does? Atticus teaches Scout, yeah, and it's great, but where are the stories of adult Scout, teaching her own, oh I dunno, Jem II?
There's a lot of female archetypes that spring from the womb of that necessity born of lack, but when I think of the idea of the heroine (or if you prefer, female hero), I feel saddened by the fact that she apparently has to take a different form from her male counterpart to resonate. Because she has no mother, because she's the first, because there's no history to tap into and invoke the power dynamics that enable men to effortlessly occupy those archetypes. It makes me sad and frustrated even if it is just fiction, because though I roll my eyes at fan culture sometimes (okay, a lot), I'm still a fan and I don't like being told "No, you can't go here, off limits." And it's annoying because reality propagates, and that fact never stops being annoying in context of gender (and race, and other such areas). The lack of tradition makes it hard to get one going, unless you have the temerity to say that even in this day and age of supposed post-sexism, females having females to identify with in fiction is a worthy goal and not, in fact, a totally square one. Hell, males having females to identify with, how's that for zomg!original.
Unless I'm missing something. After all, being well-read is only an illusion I (happily enough) let others mistakenly believe of me. Is there a female Atticus? Where her plainness, idealism, and earnestness makes her larger instead of smaller? I'm just inclined to say "Not much" because it so much incorporates the playing-against-expectations idea that
summersdaughter and I have been talking about. Is it the kind of figure that could never hope to change perceptions because it already requires perceptions to have changed to resonate? There's a lot of other figures to pick on and make similar points, but I keep thinking of Atticus. I could say similar things about male characters in ASOIAF, but I just wanted to see if I was the only one who perceived this, um, privilege of archetypes? Not that I think thoughts that have never ever been thought up before, just would like some feedback, I suppose. Did that make any sense, privilege of archetype?ETA: As soon as I finish cleaning up this journal I'll give access to the rest of the people I haven't yet given it to. [DW]
ETA2: Since ice cream (especially melted ice cream) doesn't really require biting or chewing, is it okay to have some after you've brushed your teeth for the night?
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