For some reason, female characters seem to have rape, pregnancy, and miscarriage in their top five choices for character growth. In my opinion, that's bovine-sourced organic fertilizer.
I'm just going to name some female characters. How many were or were implied to have been canonically raped, pregnant, or miscarried by way of character development? If its so prevalent, it should be most of 'em, right?
Chell (Portal)
Glados (Portal)
Alyx Vance (Half-Life)
Jade (Beyond Good and Evil)
Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
Faith Connors (Mirror's Edge)
Samus Aran (Metroid)
Princess Peach (Super Mario)
Jessie (Pokemon)
Misty (Pokemon)
Dawn (Pokemon)
Marge Simpson (The Simpsons)
Lois Griffin (Family Guy)
Meg Griffin (Family Guy)
Beverly Crusher (Star Trek)
Tori (Star Trek)
Jane Eyre
Portia (Merchant of Venice)
Juliet (Romeo and Juliet)
Batwoman (Batman)
Stephanie Brown (Batman)
Cassie Cain (Batman)
Catwoman (Batman)
Wonder Woman
The vast majority of Joss Whedon characters
Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games, though I still haven't finished the third book)
Uhura (Star Trek)
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (BSG)
Eliza Doolitte (My Fair Lady)
Anya Stroud (Gears of War)
Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
Molly Weasley (Harry Potter)
Bellatrix Black (Harry Potter)
Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)
Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Astrid Peth (Doctor Who)
River Song (Doctor Who)
Sarah Jane Smith (Doctor Who)
Donna Noble (Doctor Who)
Amy Pond (Doctor Who)
Please note that I actually had to remove some of the Doctor's female companions.
I'm not sure what's so wrong with pregnancy to advance the character development. It's not like men often get pregnant, and an SO's pregnancy is often used as character development for men as well.
The odd thing is that I've seen plenty of people say women's rapes aren't discussed enough (it's not like there's a Law and Order show focused mainly on sexual assault or anything), but then they turn around and complain that it's used too much. I've had someone who agreed with the former move goalposts to say they were doing it "wrong" and they should "fix" the new Tomb Raider game by removing any explicit reference to Lara being sexually assaulted. And, as always, there's nary a peep when media show men being sexually assaulted. Heck, it's often played as a joke.
I've been hearing this a lot lately, except it's just been "sexual assault". Dornbeast tacked pregnancy and miscarriage onto it by way of moving goalposts (note that the post she was responding to said nothing about pregnancy or miscarriage), and it's still wrong.
I mean, you could even include Ellen Ripley, under a very loose definition of "pregnancy", except she's commonly cited as one of the best Strong Female Characters ever.
Personally, I think male sexual assault should be discussed more, and shouldn't be a joke. You want equality, you got it; let's make male rape as bad as female rape. Let's get the FBI to change their definition so women can actually rape by envelopment, as well as the other places where men can't be RBE, like the UK. Let's devote more resources to male victims of domestic abuse, which make up around 40% of the total in the US. Let's try to end prison rape, which disproportionately affects men. Let's ask why men who have been raped, including a then 12-year old boy, have been forced to pay child support. Lets change the Safe Haven laws so they're unisex. Lets give men as many contraception options as women. Lets have women added to the draft.
Of course, people will then start asking why feminism, which is supposedly about equality, wasn't doing all of this already.
EDITL @ Browngirl: The odd thing is, I'm not even an MRA. I don't think focusing mainly on any one gender is the way to achieve gender equality. It is telling, however, that you assumed I was one because I care about men's issues and criticize feminism, as a movement, for ignoring them.
I like the part where they linked to my post, but pre-emptively banned me from commenting on their journal. I call that cowardice.
I also like the part where they say ServiceWomen.org is about helping all victims. Well, perhaps they should change the name*. As for that tumblr post full of male victims of rape, it seems many of the people reblogging it are doing so specifically to show they care about male rape. You really think it would be reblogged as much if not for the original post saying it wouldn't be? Heck, the meme that women are blamed for their rapes is simply not true**, and men are still being assaulted (Dominic Scullion) and killed (Luke Harwood) over false accusations of rape, in first-world countries. Project Unbreakable was started in 2011. A whopping two years ago. It never reached out to male survivors, AFAIK, they just came. I can't find any information at all indicating Male Survivor is actually a feminist website, instead of a website that some feminists support. Most of the time, feminists only say they care about men's issues when they're accused of not caring about men's issues.
Also, why are you bringing racism into a discussion of gender issues? Were you low on social justice points?
Also also, my disagreement with McGuire wasn't about having her character raped, it's about her assertion that rape and pregnancy and miscarriage are common for female characters. I'm not sure if you're this poor at reading or just lying. But given that you've banned me from responding, I can take a guess.
No matter how much you NAFALT, Ayesha, you know as well as I do that the vast majority of feminism's efforts to address rape, now and in the present, have gendered rape and abuse as M>F. In fact, feminists often specifically refer to rape and abuse as "gendered violence" and "violence against women". You have mentioned nothing about stopping the people claiming to be feminists who do erase and ignore male victims. And you weren't able to provide a single feminist-created initiative that has been primarily about addressing the societal erasure of male rape or abuse. Rather telling, I think.
You'll get no credit from me. I know feminists who do actually do a good, sincere job of addressing men's issues. Most of them are highly critical of mainstream feminism, for some reason. And most tellingly, if feminists in general do care about men's issues, why do most feminists assume someone isn't a feminist just because they're talking about men's issues in feminist spaces?
* Don't feminist's frequently assert that gendering non-gendered things is sexist?
** It's asserted by many feminists that teaching women precautions against rape is somehow blaming them for their rape. Despite asking several times, I have yet to see one assert that advising people to take precautions against any other crime is the same as blaming the potential victim if they are victimized. Heck, has any man in the Western world ever successfully used "she was asking for it" as a legal defense when accused of raping a woman during your lifetime?
The latest Tomb Raider shenanigans back when that trailer came out made me grind my teeth. For fuck's sakes, apparently no-one's allowed to do anything broaching these oh-so-fucking-taboo subjects unless they fulfil the ethereal, undefined requirements of every single fucking feminist on the planet to 'respectfully' treat the subject of sexual assault or rape. A literal impossibility.
Of course, there's the fact that almost none of them paid any attention to the fact that as a result of Lara resisting the attempted rape, she is nearly killed. I literally heard not a single good argument as to why they shouldn't do it. All I heard was incorrect generalizations like the ones I just quoted, about how "all female characters" have to go through rape or attempted rape, which is an outright lie.
To add to your list:
All the primary female characters of Wheel of Time (there's probably some shit buried in there with minor characters, the Forsaken or the Shaido, it's been a long time since I read some of those books)
Eowyn (Lord of the Rings)
Ariadne (Inception)
Aki Ross (Final Fantasy: TSW)
Clara Clayton (Back To The Future)
Sarah Connor (Terminator)
Dory (Finding Nemo)
Granny Weatherwax (Discworld)
Nanny Ogg (Discworld)
Leia Organa (Star Wars)
Mon Mothma (Star Wars EU)
Zia (Bastion)
Malik (Deus Ex: HR)
Captain Shinobu Nagumo (Patlabor)
Noa Izumi (Patlabor)
Kanuka Clancy (Patlabor)
George (Famous Five)
Anne (Famous Five)
Stephanie Plum (One For The Money)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Nw3zyY
I suppose the poison can only recirculate for so long before young men and women finally reject it outright and break the feedback cycle. At least, I certainly hope so.
On Politics Being Personal
First, a non-random selection proves nothing. Seriously. You want to say that something happens, you need a random selection, or you might - with the best of intentions - end up cherry picking the counter examples.
Second "in the top five" means there's at least two others. Meaning each character you list has to have more than three clear top choices for character growth.
Third, "seems to" means there's a perception by at least the speaker/author who said "seems to" but one could reasonably guess that the intention was to say that the perception was more general.
Given that, "should be most of them" is completely invalid - most generously, "unproven", but from a position of sound reasoning, "unproven" and "completely invalid" should be equivalent - the second used to admonish one's self if one has tried to advance something unproven as meaningful without appropriate caveats.
You end by asking if any man in my lifetime has used the defense that "hey, we had sex, but you can't say that it wasn't consenting!"
I'm guessing that you want to think that "she was asking for it" is used to mean something else. But the "she was asking for it" defenses were all intended to establish *precisely* that - that no one can claim that if there was sex, it was not consenting.
Which we have no proof the person making the quote had either.
>Second "in the top five" means there's at least two others. Meaning each character you list has to have more than three clear top choices for character growth.
And yet, the three mentioned were the only ones described, and in a pejorative manner.
>Third, "seems to" means there's a perception by at least the speaker/author who said "seems to" but one could reasonably guess that the intention was to say that the perception was more general.
Okay?
>Given that, "should be most of them" is completely invalid - most generously, "unproven", but from a position of sound reasoning, "unproven" and "completely invalid" should be equivalent - the second used to admonish one's self if one has tried to advance something unproven as meaningful without appropriate caveats.
3/5 top choices for (female) character development would most likely make up a majority on their own, as the person quoted was pretty clearly implying. They don't.
>You end by asking if any man in my lifetime has used the defense that "hey, we had sex, but you can't say that it wasn't consenting!"
No, I didn't. I clearly asked if any man has ever successfully used a defense of "she was asking for it" in court against rape accusation. The term is generally used to refer to the concept of women who supposedly have somehow done something that "earned" their sexual assault, which is pretty clearly misogynist, and, many feminists claim or imply, a commonly accepted practice.
>I'm guessing that you want to think that "she was asking for it" is used to mean something else.
Yes, the actual meaning.
>But the "she was asking for it" defenses were all intended to establish *precisely* that - that no one can claim that if there was sex, it was not consenting.
No, you're confusing the question of whether the female victim is blamed for their sexual assault - you know, the thing I clearly referred to in the preceding sentence? - with the question of whether the sex was nonconsensual - you know, the thing that's necessary for sex to become rape? - which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with victim blaming. Sex crimes often turn into a he-said she-said.
You seem to have completely misunderstood me. Several times over, in fact.
When have you seen *any* defendant claim that the woman had "earned" sexual assault, rather than claiming consent? Ever?
So you're either discussing something that never happened, or trying to argue that "she was asking for it" is not the same argument as "the sex was consenting".