You should probably delve that particular line of thought more deeply, tbh.
I know you meant this flippantly but I came out as nonbinary last year; having (especially white) men act like entitled toddlers online was a helpful push into embracing more femininity.
And I fully agree, the way the op posted it with “counter point” already send the discussion in the wrong way.
I think the ‘discussion’ failed the moment someone said “how come men are angry at women doing ‘x’” and the entire fucking thread is full of men talking about men.
Like I’m not surprised, I’m just mildly amused I’m yet again changing accounts for awhile while my inbox fills with angry men shouting messages at me I never read. Every. Single. Time. A thread about an experience a woman has with men being shit in it is always filled with comments from men “nuh uh, whatabout…!” in response.
Every. Time. It’s so fucking embarrassing I wish I could literally just not be my gender for awhile. We’ve been in power for almost the entirety of humanity but oh my God a woman made a comment about how shitty men are to them, so let’s constantly make absolute ironic assholes of ourselves.
Peace out, men, you continue the trend of making us all look like whiny babies who can’t handle not being talked about, and not being The Normal.
Yes, it’s not a counter point but rather an also important parallel discussion. We need to have higher standards for male role models, or we will continue to have incels fill the space.
I feel like it’s awfully interesting though that we have ‘parallel discussions’ whenever someone says “hey this specific thing sucks for women.” The original question posited here was:
Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?
The question is why do men complain about female leads, which they do, when the majority of leads are still male, which they are. The answer to that isn’t “we need better male role models in movies” (though it would obviously help as well) as it’s dodging the original question.
You can’t really compare the two movies,
I’m not exactly, I’m asking why:
A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
Can be true, but also John Wick can never falter and that be fine. Kinda seems like a double standard to me.
First, I’m confused as to why you’d need to segregate books and film by gender, these all have either a male or non-gendered lead: Captain Underpants, Nate the Great, Hal The 3rd Class Hero, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Treasure Island, Danny the Champion of the World, The Outsiders, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Percy Jackson (all 40 billion of the series), The Giving Tree, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Bridge to Terabithia, James and the Giant Peach, Holes (series), Where The Wild Things Are, The Heroes of Olympus (more Percy Jackson I think), Ender’s Game, Winnie The Pooh, Narnia (series), The Wind In The Willows, The Indian in the Cupboard, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Neverending Story, I Am Every Good Thing, Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like it), King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Wild Robot (series), Stuart Little, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Lord of The Flies, Calvin and Hobbes (series), The Dangerous Book for Boys, The American Boys Handy Book.
(You didn’t specify age, so I tried to add our family suggestions for about 4-12. Once he’s older, depending on your thoughts on the language, we also have a lot of suggestions for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)
I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
John Wick gets a pass, though?
These problems existed long, long before the modern far-right movement started. It’s partly why it works so well. This male egotism in media existed before, and less resistance to it also used to exist. That change in social atmosphere means that men can be manipulated into further and further misogynistic beliefs. All it takes is dogwhistles and a loud, angry, entitled male gamer, and you can radicalize thousands of people into misogyny. And they will repeat that cycle with more or less any boy or man they know.
I’m sorry you’ve written so much here I want to underscore and shout to the heavens, yet there is so much and I fear I won’t do it justice. Fascism is on the rise, and young men-- just as last time–are carrying it forward. Misogyny has become an assumed character trait in huge swaths of men, to the point you see insane arguments online about how men ‘have it harder’ than the gender held in captivity less than a lifetime ago. It wasn’t until the 1960’s in Vancouver, BC that women could get a loan without a man co-signing (and it was a credit union, not even a large bank.) I grew up and lived as a male, white, for over 40 years, and right now is on par, if not worse in many cases, than it was in the 90’s. Men now rail at the idea they can’t always be ‘the default.’ That the reason for these pronoun-forward changes is because it’s always been man-first, from not even bothering to test drugs on women to ‘room temperature’ being what a bunch of middle aged white men, such as myself, find comfortable. To men being the vast majority of main characters, to the goddamn Bechdel test being oh-so-relevant.
So I wanted to add a quote about just how long this has existed, and the sheer length of fight women have had just to exist unchained. I have not gone through the fight you have, yet I hope you’ll allow me at your side.
"You see, when I was growing up at the time of the Wars of the Medes and Persians and when I went to college just after the Hundred Years War and when I was bringing up my children during the Korean, Cold, and Vietnam Wars, there were no women. Women are a very recent invention. I predate the invention of women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn’t know how to sell the product. Their distribution techniques were rudimentary and their market research was nil, and so of course the concept just didn’t get off the ground. Even with a genius behind it an invention has to find its market, and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn’t make it to the bottom line. Models like the Austen and the Brontë were too complicated, and people just laughed at the Suffragette, and the Woolf was way too far ahead of its time.
So when I was born, there actually were only men. People were men. They all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am the generic he, as in, “If anybody needs an abortion he will have to go to another state,” or “A writer knows which side his bread is buttered on.” That’s me, the writer, him. I am a man." -Ursula K. Le Guin, 1992
I’ve begun to prefer scifi written by women, because then at least I know its not going to be completely cringe.
If you haven’t, check out Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Absolutely fantastic novel.
I got back into scifi books recently as an adult and was disgusted to find that virtually all of the “great” scifi authors are menwritingwomen trope goldmines.
Asimov is so, so difficult to read through now that I’m older, as the female characters are just… ouch. The ideas are there, but good gods I wish he’d just avoid writing out conversations at all.
I appreciate what you’re saying, however:
Women are, regardless of any other stat, still under-represented. 2000-2009 is depressing.
I always think of Metallica’s Saint Anger:
🎶 Medallion noose, I hang myself
Saint Anger 'round my neck
I feel my world shake
Like an earthquake
Hard to see clear
Is it me? Is it fear?
I’m not even angry with you
I’m not even angry with you
I’m not even angry with you
I’m not even angry with you
🎶
Yet the real lyrics are:
I’m madly in anger with you
I’m madly in anger with you
I’m madly in anger with you
I’m madly in anger with you
… sigh…
Discoteca, muñeca, la biblioteca
As someone who slashes their zeroes, ouch.