Unfortunate Thought Exercise

[dagas_isa]

Inspired, in part, by this post in ffrantsrants.

So then what twists of characterizations would get a female character to be labeled "boyish" or "masculine" in a decidedly negative way?

The original post:

Every time someone uses the word 'girly' to describe a male character, there's bound to be many comments/protests/rant about gender stereotyping. To be honest IMO it's (the comment section) boring and distracting and I no longer read it.

...

So why have I never seen any negative comment about the use of the word 'boyish' in ffrant? Have I missed something in the previous entries? I understand that many of the rants are about yaoi/slash so it's rarely an issue but the rant(s) exists, I think.

I think saying that the use of a certain word that could refer a certain stereotype (girly) is wrong while not mentioning anything about another word that could refer to the opposite of that stereotype (boyish) is still discriminative. IMO it's essentially the same thing; gender stereotyping. So why do they only have problem with one word and not the other? Seriously, have I missed something?

Most of the commenters jumped on the train and explained in more spot-on and eloquent language that 'girly' and 'boyish' have entirely different connotations, and that the connotations are unfavorable to both women and to femininity in general.

My response, and the basic thesis for my thinkiness:

I've noticed, it takes a lot more for a woman to suddenly become boyish/masculine that it does to make a man girlish/feminine. If a female character started acting in a stereotypically negative male way(for example, becoming too aggressive), she'd probably get labeled as a "bitch" or another female-centered pejorative word before she gets called a man or masculine.

On the other hand, a male character who is perfectly masculine all other respects but just happens to express an emotion like joy or sadness a little too profusely to be IC, will be likely labeled as "girly" or another female-centered term.

Expanding from that with a specific example:

For a starting point, take Kanzaki Nao, the character in my icon though you could probably substitute any cis female character who follow even some feminine stereotypes.

She's pretty stereotypically "girly": Her speaking style is feminine, she almost always wears dresses/skirts, she's very emotionally expressive, and her main skills involve emotional and social intelligence in contrast to the male hero's and villain's high level of mental intelligence.

((She's also pretty much the opposite of passive and after about a quarter of the way through the manga, useless. Her social and emotional intelligence are actually what let her be powerful in story context.))

In other words, not only is she stereotypically girly, but her feminine traits are often treated not only as endearing, but as real (and sometimes dangerous and scary) assets.

How much twisting would I have to do to her character for someone to notice not only that I was making her OOC, but 1) deliberately masculinizing her and 2) doing so in a negative way

1. I could put in visual/verbal cues. Maybe have her say something like "I hate dresses." I could maybe have her speak less formally, maybe indicating that she uses "boku" instead of "watashi" as her first person pronoun.

That would probably be the most obvious way that I could masculinize her, but while it would get the OOC labels, I don't think, by itself, anyone would connect it to negative masculine traits. Actually, there'd probably be a lot of people who like "boy Nao" better if I didn't change much else about her personality.

2. I could change her behavior. I could make competing with Akiyama and Yokoya her main focus. I could make her less diplomatic and less empathetic in exchange for making her more logical and more aggressive. I could downplay her animated emotional reactions, except for anger. I could amp up her pride and make it arrogance or bravado.

I think those are all fairly masculinizing traits, and that the result would be an OOC characterization of her that people would notice and respond negatively to. But then, if say, I didn't do the first thing above, would people actually perceive the changes to her character are based on negative male stereotypes? Or would her behavior get her labelled a bitch or a Mary Sue?

So my impression is that, without this big build up, I'd have to do both 1 and 2 to really convey this idea of negatively-stereotyped masculinity. And, even more importantly, I would have to do this intentionally and through exaggeration, and bluntly.

On the other hand, were I writing Akiyama, I would just have to write him as little too emotionally expressive, or have too obvious of a soft spot, or show him a little helpless in a triggering (for him) situation, for the "girly" accusations to come flying in. There'd be no trying involved. I'd just have to execute some of my ideas poorly (or even too realistically, maybe).

So it's not just that "girly" is more likely to be associated with troubling traits, but that the bar for a man being labelled girly or feminine is much lower than what it would take for a girl to be labelled as boyish or masculine.

Comments

[willow]

Ideas:

Being masculine is supposed to be something everyone should want to attain to - that is when the gender divide isn't being pushed that girls should be girls and boys should be boys and never the two should mix.

Which means than when they do mix, when a boy is seen as being girly, it's not just about (seen as) feminine traits, it's that feminine traits are devalued and that men are supposed to have a leg up in avoiding them. Therefore to end up there anyway, he had to 'fall' much further and since the fall is so much longer, in perspective, then he has to be triply diligent not to slip.

Strict gender roles confine everyone. But it's not 'manly' to admit it.

[dagas_isa]

Definitely this. Masculinity gets painted so much as the natural/neutral state of being in this society with any kind of femininity being a performance, which kind of ignores the ways in which a lot people have to perform or hide parts of themselves just to be appropriately masculine.