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[Leafsnail]

Then I went "Wait, where the hell are the women?"

I'm pretty sure that's for yaoi shipping reasons.  Otherwise the pairing concentration could drop below 90%.

[Duke 2.0]

 If you want girl countries you'll have to turn to a webcomic for that. I only keep away from that place because while the artist is somewhat neutral about America and the jokes he's in are amusing the fans just fucking hate him/us.

[Vector]

Then I went "Wait, where the hell are the women?"

I'm pretty sure that's for yaoi shipping reasons.  Otherwise the pairing concentration could drop below 90%.

There's what, one female main(ish) character?

In a cast of 20+?

You know, I actually don't notice in a lot of media.  I don't keep count, I mean.  But in this case, it just pisses me off.  Especially because the base starts engaging more with a character when gender-swapped sketches come out, and producing more fanworks in general with the dudely version.

Even the Watchmen fandom is better about this, and their main pairing (Rorschach x Nite Owl) has a flaming misogynist they could use as an excuse for women-bashing.  But they pretty much don't.  I've only seen one instance of it... =/

If you want girl countries you'll have to turn to a webcomic for that. I only keep away from that place because while the artist is somewhat neutral about America and the jokes he's in are amusing the fans just fucking hate him/us.

Bah, I already read that.  The girls basically aren't characters, though, you know.

Hetalia does have genderswapped versions of all the characters.  It's just that they're pretty much never part of the story.

[Lysabild]

What's wrong with Humon now?(It's a girl btw) She makes it clear all the time that it's made primarily from her understanding of the world from her place in the world. Her comic is just a lighthearted take on events from her point of view, with countries primarily in male form as the actors.


You guys and your "OMG SEXIST" gets really boring/tiring/frustrating sometimes.


Also, I enjoy Hetalia and I have never watched or read the Anime, I just browse the pictures/comics made by fans.

[Vector]

You guys and your "OMG SEXIST" gets really boring/tiring/frustrating sometimes.

I didn't say OMG SEXIST, I said I hoped there'd be more girl characters.  Because I liked the comic.  And I wanted there to be more girls, because I thought Hungary was cool (for a while, anyway, until she basically became nothing but Austria's maid), and if they'd developed Ukraine and Belarus more their dynamic with Russia would've been really awesome.  So much interesting character development possible... but no, it was not meant to be.

The one whose tired sexism really bothers me is the fanbase.  They don't even use the girl characters they have, most of the time!  I get so tired of US/UK stuff =/

Also, I have no problem with Humon--she does all kinds of cool stuff, and it feels more like she's talking about "male stereotypes in a country" than "this country is maaaaaaaaaale."  I'm just saying that if my gripe is "I want personified countries with girl characters kicking ass too," SatW is not the webcomic to fix that problem.

[Korbac]

Vector - perhaps developing your own webcomic / story / whatever with badass female characters might get the ball rolling?    I haven't really noticed the lack of female representation in the media (being an ignorant man, of course) but now you mention it, there are certainly just plain more male characters in stories / films / serials or what have you. (except in emmerdale and things like that, but that doesn't exactly portray them in a positive light)

[Vector]

*sigh*

The thing is, dude, I already have so much work to do that it's like my ears are shitting things for me to do at high velocity.  I'm studying two languages this summer, doing mathematics, preparing a course I need to teach, reading in preparation for my honors thesis in rhetoric, playing Metal Gear games because I'm almost certain there's another big thesis there...

I have writing ideas I think about sometimes, but it's so hard to write a female character in the cultural setting we're currently living in.  If you write a female soldier, you have to think about the problem of rape in the military... she can't go around and seduce all the dudes in an actively sexual way because of the pregnancy-and-rape problem--and if she did, anyway, you'd have to deal with the cultural context of slut-shaming.  LOOK MORE MANDATORY SOCIAL ISSUES =/

The fact remains that to write a strong female character who exists within this culture, you will probably have to write about the prejudice she encounters--or the flavor will be entirely too unrealistic.  It will feel off.  And the thing is, it is precisely for this reason that I used to hate reading books about or by women when I was younger.  Books about men don't need to discuss those issues... they can talk about problems that apply to everyone, problems like Truth rather than simple equality.  I feel like that is part of the appeal.  When you write about a woman, you are always writing from a place of weakness.  Then there is that problem of being trapped within feminist symbolism, so that the interactions of your female main character with male characters becomes charged, imbalanced, symbolic in a way that they would not be if the genders were reversed.

Simply put, it's a hard problem.  I do have a book idea I'm working on, but so often I start working and I think "No, Vector, you can't do that, it's ridiculous.  A girl doesn't get to just set off on an adventure.  You can't write a fantasy novel in this time and place and have her act this way... it's illogical.  What about her parents?  She's still someone's property, in that era..."

And so on, and so forth.  So, I am working on it.  I have a story which I think will be very promising.  I'd like to have a female heroine and a male POV character, with all sorts of rigamaro, but, you know, this sort of thing is so tricky.  I'm trying for a love interest without a Love Interest, so that the main characters end up buddies rather than in love at the end.  Go off, defeat the villain, yadda yadda.

But all the same, I don't know how to balance it yet.  It's one of those things where I suspect it will take years to develop an understanding of how to write it non-crappily.

At the very least, I do know I have years and years to think about it.

[Korbac]

I'm sure it'll be really good, Vector! I see what you're saying about the social issues, but if you feel that people are going to pick up a fairly standard book, with the only difference having the main character as a woman, and then have them say "This doesn't cover the issues women face in their lifetime!" Then I think you're presuming the worst. I will agree there doesn't seem to be much of this type of media, but I to be honest doubt there'd be a backlash from sensible people about it. After all, in this age of supposed equality, all it would take is a smattering of "All stories about men don't spend the entire plot their time talking about male problems; why should this one about women?"

Best of luck to your endeavours, anyhow! 

[JoshuaFH]

Yes Vector, I'm sure that your story will be great. Plus, fiction has the magical property of being able to set it in any setting, where an imagined world can exist where such social issues are not the norm. People are not so bound by societal values that they can't suspend their disbelief in a fantasy world.

You'll do great Vector, I know it.

[Criptfeind]

Cfoofoo! Where are you! I am sadded that he is not here. 

[Realmfighter]

I have Learnt That Gay Pride Parades are not that Much Fun if you go by yourself.

[Leafsnail]

I guess there are some settings that can work or characters you can base it on if you want something set in the past.  The story of Boudicca is probably my favourite in those terms (partly because, due to a previous exam, I can recite several random passages from the story in Latin).  Basically, the Romans thought that, since her husband had died, they were now free to take over his empire and rape her daughters.  They were wrong... she gathered a large army from neighbouring tribes and fought them.  She may have been defeated in the end, but not before burning down several key towns including Londinium.

Also interesting was that the text, written by a fairly contemporary Roman (Tacitus), was actually quite respectful of her and to some extent sympathetic.

[Aqizzar]

Size 30 Men's normal or cargo shorts are apparently in such little demand that WalMart doesn't keep them in stock, or keeps them in the children's section.  I'm skinny, but I know I'm not unnaturally skinny.

The world also conspires to make me a racist, but I'm doing a good job of keeping that in check.

[Bauglir]

So the DMPC I introduced in the first session with the intent of him being the obvious totally-gonna-save-the-world, DM's-pet-character type didn't actually get killed in the first session. Players were slightly more effective than I thought, and bothered to heal him after he went down. That's mildly irritating, since I'd never planned to roleplay him. Like, at all. Hooray for improvisation, I suppose, but I'll need him to die in the second one. Still, no plan survives contact with players, and it's not like I can't adapt to get the Generic Quest of Worldsaving set up.

[Heron TSG]

Size 30 Men's normal or cargo shorts are apparently in such little demand that WalMart doesn't keep them in stock, or keeps them in the children's section.  I'm skinny, but I know I'm not unnaturally skinny.

Goddamn, I have this problem too. Apparently 30 is the smallest size that most non-specialized stores carry in Men's sizes. I wear a 28 or 29. I recently spent hours wandering around to a bunch of different stores before someone told me this. I did find a really neat store chain that carries smaller sizes, though: Grant's House of 1,000 Pants.