Welcome to the fifth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans! We have a full plate to offer you: from G4 to Wizard, and from princesses to perverts.
Comics
First up, Jenn revisits an old debate between Ragnell and Scipio in her post Sexual Dimorphism and Feminism and looks at the scientific position on sexual dimorphism in the human brain. She notes
Fundamentally, I and other feminists must adapt our philosophy to incorporate the findings of science, and vocalize the fact that science cannot and should not be used to justify unequal treatment.
Over at Snap Judgements , Carla laments Joss Whedon’s impending run on Runaways by bringing up examples of his treatment of Kitty and Emma in Astonishing X-Men. In Unscrewing the Inscrutable, Marionette makes someone at Marvel take a moment to think. Jeremy versus the X-Men and finds a link between comics and being a stay-at-home-dad. And jlg1 looks closely at Pantha in Nobody helped me. Nobody cared.
Soyoerika discusses breast physics, bras and Arisia over at Zamaron:
Brothers and Sisters, I invite you to join me in a round of boggling at this
so-called character design. While I can buy the impracticality of the eighties
outfit, I simply cannot wrap my brain around the current outfit at all.
To go along with this, Kalinara offers up her analysis of Manly Men and Buxom Babes. Meanwhile, Ragnell studies Black Panther and Storm’s first fight as a married couple. She also covers for us the sexist trainwreck known as Wizard Magazine’s “How to Draw” series and the reactions from the female superhero fan community found on livejournal.
We’re all holding our breaths waiting to see who’s going to be cast as Wonder Woman, and Amy Reads over at Arrogant Self-Reliance is no exception. While many of us have an inkling of who we’d maybe want to see, Amy’s main concern is that the actress cast demonstrates the wonder of her namesake.
Web Comics
Though she’s been a fan of Scott’s Kurtz’s PvP for awhile, Robyn discusses her hesitation of remaining a regular reader in her post In Which I am Annoyed by PvP.
Also, make sure to check out how to draw comics the Planet Karen way.
Writing
Cassiphone, at Velvet Threads writes of the camaraderie and literary experience that she encountered after sending in a story to Fantasy and Science Fiction for the Slushbomb. Racy Li wonders why there isn’t and makes her case for there to be more of a connection between science fiction and erotic romance in Erotic Romance: Science fiction’s forgotten stepsister. Malachi explores the relationship between fiction and feminism by looking at the “princess syndrome” in fantasy. In the post On Cartography and Dissection, little light writes beautifully about being the Other.
Video games
Baring all about her love for video games, Blitzgal interprets the implications and frustrations about being a woman gamer, and gives a few helpful suggestions on how games could be better in her post But why do her boobs have to jiggle like that? And at her blog, Wonderland, Alice gives a run-down of Games for the Ladies. Lake Desire points us over to Fiona Cherbak’s piece, the Game Industry’s 100 Most Influential Women and also directs attention to some of the misogynistic elements in the ever-popular Katamari Damacy.
On the feminist gamer livejournal community, tekanji asks for input on how to measure feminist elements in video games. At Old Grandma Hardcore, Tim writes about Grandma’s semi-disastrous appearance for a discussion on women gamers for G4’s Attack of the Show. Bonnie Ruberg asks if there is there a gender divide in the narratology vs. ludology debate.
Television
In Life on Mars: Isn’t that where men come, BetaCandy gives us the goods on BBCAmerica’s show, Life on Mars. Good (as in feminist), it ain’t:
The minute a young woman with stereotypical prettiness gets a closeup, I know
she’s either going to get hurt or get laid.
Mickle, over at The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller identifies the Women in Refrigerator syndrome in the Season 2 of Lost. Beware the spoilers! Desdenova takes NBC’s new show Heroes to task for the poor treatment of its two token female characters. Sageness posts her thoughts and discussion with thete1’s about gender and race in Stargate Atlantis.
Anime
We only have one anime-related post for this edition of the carnival, and it’s about a subject that’s near and dear to my own heart: Cattygurl discusses some of the Kick-ass Women of Anime.
Reviews
Martin guides us through Ursula K. LeGuin's young adult novel Voices. Sleestak informs us about Shanna the She-Devil by Tony DeZuniga at Lady, That’s My Skull. Cassiphone looks at the female protagonists of Kylie Chan’s White Tiger and Tim Pratt’s True Adventures of Ranger Girl. And Heidi Meely gushes about Virgin Comics’ Devi.
Megatrouble rebuts Thomas Disch’s claim “that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly and Ursula K. Le Guin’s contributions to science fiction are overrated” in her post Shelly, Russ, and Le Guin: How to Hide the Canons; Or, What Could Have Been a Really Fun Party if Not for Thomas Disch.
The Harlan Ellison Incident
The feminist SF fan community acted in outrage when Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis at the Hugo Awards. In response to the incident, Kadymae writes her manifesta Nice Girls Don’t… in which she states
if it had been me up there on the stage at the Hugos and Harlan Ellison put a hand where it didn't belong, at the very least he would've been shoved away and asked, "What do you think you're doing, asshole?"Yonmei points out that Harlan Ellison has always been a sexist creep. Lis Riba reported on the whole incident herself and asks, “What does a woman have to do to get a little respect in this industry?"
Fandom
Peaseblossom, in her post How Much XP for a Blow Job? discusses the sexism that some women have to endure just to play a game:
Telling someone (or implying it, or complaining about it to a third party) that
she gets special treatment from the gm because they're romantically involved is
as adolescent as it is sexist.
Becky encounters in her post Hey, didn’t I used to write for a website called GeekGirls? Time Out New York’s idea of nerd girl, or rather, the NILF.
Melody Kitty loves being a fangirl, but she’s sick and tired of the objectification and depowering of superhero women. In another post, she challenges the geek fan community as a whole to stop stereotyping and be more observant of women within the community. Similarily, Willow wonders how we could open up dialogue with fanboys away from stereotypes to prove that we care about female characters in If The Fanboys Think We're Jealous, How Do We Win?
And last but not least, make sure you swing by Ladyjax’s blog, she’s holding a call of submissions for Boom Tube: a zine about Race, Culture and Fandom. Issue one’s theme will be dedicated to fans of color focusing on their experiences.
Thanks for reading! Mark your calendars; Revena at The Hathor Legacy will be hosting the next carnival on October 16.
11 comments:
Bravo! This is absolutely wonderful. Thank you for sharing these links with us, and for being kind enough to include me in on the deal.
Ciao,
Amy
The link to the Pantha article is broken. The correct link is:
http://jlg1.livejournal.com/70629.html
Oh, I see. It's just missing the "l" at the end.
Marionette--Thanks and fixed! Also, just want to note to everyone that I fixed the first link for the carnival's main page, and corrected the spelling on Revena's name. (So sorry, Revena!)
corrected the spelling on Revena's name. (So sorry, Revena!)
Heh, no problem! I get people misspelling both my internet handle and my real first name all the time... I'm used to it. ;-)
Good job on the carnival! I'm still making my way through all of the posts - so much to read!
I think this paragraph "Peaseblossom, in her post Adventures in Lame encounters in her post Hey, didn’t I used to write for a website called GeekGirls? Time Out New York’s idea of nerd girl. Here's a hint: they claim that nerd girls are only good for one thing." is messed up as it doesn't say what Peaseblossom is posting about and goes into another post.
Ahh, I see what happened! It's now fixed.
Damn, there's some great stuff in here. Thanks for putting it together!
And thanks, too, for the link. Now I'll finally feel justified in writing a really geeky post about queer issues and the Martian Manhunter, and submitting that, too.
Ooo, that sounds like an awesome post, little light--one I'd definitely love to read!
Aw, see, now I'm gonna have to.
J'onn J'onnz is the most underused, underexplored, generally-wasted character in the DCU, as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, here's someone who's always in everyone's head, but always alone. He can take Superman, but never comes in as a heavyweight. He's got no more reason to be attached to human beings than any other species on Earth, has sixty-hojillion different identities including a cat, a gorilla, and a Japanese businesswoman, is hugely popular in the Southern Hemiphere because he sees them being ignored as bullshit, and he hangs out with so many superheroes that his idea of a normal Earth outfit is underwear-on-the-outside-of-nothing, a cape, swash-topped boots, and nothing else.
And then they go taking this guy who has no set physical form, who grew up in a culture where nobody did, and they write his culture with entrenched binary gender--even with no sexual reproduction!--and they write him homophobic more than once. I mean, the hell?
...right, I'll get cracking.
That is fascinating! And brilliant. Once again, I. Can't. Wait.
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