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Sexism in Catelyn bashing


salinea

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I don't think you read my post correctly. If somebody dislikes a character purely based on their gender, then it seems as if they will dislike any other character that is, or otherwise typifies said gender, or gender roll.

The way you quoted me makes little sense, as the only place that I may have used 'false empiricism', was in the later half of the post. Even then, I think this arguement suffers from a distinct lack of specificity as to what people are being sexist about. I really don't think that people dislike catelyn because she is femal. And I don't think that is the qualifier for anybody else making this argument. Which leaves us with the only other gender specific aspect that defines catelyn, being a mother. (Is that it? feel free to tell me how catelyn is so representative of women, and why people dislike this).

So the problem with the catelyn sexism argument is that nobody is being very specific as to how it is sexist. Sex is genetic, whereas gender is largely variable with respect to differences in cultures. I even think that in the effort of typifying Catelyn as the symbol of femininity in ASOIAF, people are being sexist, because they don't seem to realize that people differ regardless of gender. To me, Arya, or Brienne are just as female as Catelyn or Sansa, or Cersei.

I guess I choose to judge imaginary people by the contents of their chapters rather than their imaginary race or sex. :P

But here I think you are touching on the heart of the issue which is by sexism are people meaning what I'll call overt sexism as in a negative opinion of those who's gender happens to be female and a desire to keep/put those that are female 'in there place' or is it what I'll call a more subtle sexism that has to do with negative views towards feminine archtypes that leads in some cases to extreme hostility towards those characters who strongly fit the archtype, but are also flawed, as most humans are, so that the archtype is no longer pure, but not so extremely flawed that the archtype is lost.

I do think the accusation is thrown around too freely sometimes. In one of my earliest posts long ago I received the accusation from a group of for the most part reasonable regular posters at the time for expressing some negative views of Dany who it happens I dislike strongly. Somewhere upthread someone even used Dany as the example for those who are sexist :( which obviously I disagree with, but don't want to diverge there at least in this post. Just pointing out that I was female made the accusation go away (though I do think it possible for females to have self destructive sexist views towards women as well and that a very small minority do) and as we came to understand, if not necessarily entirely agree with, where each other were coming from all was good. Well with the exception of one Dany fanboy/fangirl who determined if I was a girl than I must be a fat ugly one for which I determined that particular poster was benenth my notice. :rolleyes: So I do think sometimes wolf is cried to freely with this, but that doesn't mean sometimes the wolf isn't still in the room.

For the most part I don't think there are that many posters with overtly sexist view. Disliking any particular female character doesn't necessarily make one sexist and it doesn't seem common for someone to show up that dislikes all or even most of the female characters. The exception to this is those sometime very vocal posters whose dislike for a character degenerates into wanting to see that character "raped". It is somewhat mitigated if that character is such a one dimension monster that they can be written off as unhuman; however, none of the POV characters are that. Although men can be raped, the act is essentially an exertion of power and domination over the person put in the female position. It is about putting the woman 'in her place'. IMHO those who express their extreme ill will towards a character as a desire to see that character raped as opposed to simply killed do harbor a degree of overt sexism. This is dishearteningly common to see on various threads here.

The subtle sexism is actually the one I think may be more common and I'd like to explore more. Attaching the archtypes of the Seven to the 5 female characters you mentioned I'd say in Arya I see mostly the Stranger, in Brienne a mix of the Maid and the Warrior, in Sansa mostly the Maid, in Catelyn mostly the Mother, and in Cersei the Mother with also a bit of the Father thrown in a mix that is highly flawed. Of course, no one is completely an archtype and all have at least a touch of everything thrown in. My point is that certainly while all are equally female some mirror traditional female archtypes more closely than others. I also think of the Seven archtypes the most popular among the typical audience of fantasy would be the Warrior and the Stranger with maybe a few young women also identifing with the Maid. My hypothesis is that with the archtype of the Mother and to a lesser degree that of the Maid only a certain pure perfection is tolerated and that flaws are reacted to with a disproportianate degree of anger and hate by some folks who may not even realize the root of their feelings. I think this happens with both the characters of Catelyn and Sansa and that it is a subtle sexism toward the traditionally feminine. That doesn't mean that every individual poster who doesn't like one or the other of them dislikes them for this reason, just that it is something that does prevade the overall disproportionate degree of vitriol these characters seem to receive.

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Even then, I think this arguement suffers from a distinct lack of specificity as to what people are being sexist about. I really don't think that people dislike catelyn because she is femal. And I don't think that is the qualifier for anybody else making this argument. Which leaves us with the only other gender specific aspect that defines catelyn, being a mother. (Is that it? feel free to tell me how catelyn is so representative of women, and why people dislike this).

Did you read the thread, at all?

Just curious.

Dozens of posts have been made in illustration on why some of the Catelyn hate is deemed sexist by many. To wit, we don't think that Catelyn is judged by the same standards that many people use to judge other characters. For instance, Ned is flawed and his errors led to the downfall of his family, but we didn't see so much Ned hate as we do Ned love. There are plenty of flawed, emotional, sometimes irrational, characters in the series. That's why this is a good series.

Finally, unless you're contending that no sexism was involved in any of the people's dislike of Cat, then I fear that you're also missing the original intent of the thread. Which, again, makes me wonder whether you had bothered reading the thread.

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I don't think you read my post correctly. If somebody dislikes a character purely based on their gender, then it seems as if they will dislike any other character that is, or otherwise typifies said gender, or gender roll.

Unless, as I said, that character typifies the gender in such a way as to reinforce the negative stereotype the reader holds, or alternatively the character doesn't partake of many of the traits that the reader dislikes about the gender. So, a reader may like Sansa (as I said) because she reinforces their sexist views about women's 'proper' role, or like Arya because she doesn't have the female traits the reader dislikes. These attitudes are just as much sexist as disliking every female character.

The way you quoted me makes little sense, as the only place that I may have used 'false empiricism', was in the later half of the post. Even then, I think this arguement suffers from a distinct lack of specificity as to what people are being sexist about.

As Terra says, the rest of the thread has a great deal of specific discussion about that. I didn't see the need to repeat it all.

I really don't think that people dislike catelyn because she is femal. And I don't think that is the qualifier for anybody else making this argument. Which leaves us with the only other gender specific aspect that defines catelyn, being a mother. (Is that it? feel free to tell me how catelyn is so representative of women, and why people dislike this).

You're operating on a very narrow definition of sexism here - apparently, you think sexism is merely a negative reaction to traits that are peculiarly female. But it's more complex than that. It's about the expectations that are placed on women, too. So, a lot of the time you'll see people complaining that they don't like Cat because she 'should have gone back to WF to look after Bran and Rickon', accusing her of 'weakening' Robb by staying and 'bossing him around'. This is often based upon a sexist attitude to the 'proper' role of women.

So the problem with the catelyn sexism argument is that nobody is being very specific as to how it is sexist. Sex is genetic, whereas gender is largely variable with respect to differences in cultures. I even think that in the effort of typifying Catelyn as the symbol of femininity in ASOIAF, people are being sexist, because they don't seem to realize that people differ regardless of gender. To me, Arya, or Brienne are just as female as Catelyn or Sansa, or Cersei.

I guess I choose to judge imaginary people by the contents of their chapters rather than their imaginary race or sex. :P

I don't think I've ever read anyone suggesting that Cat is the symbol of femininity in ASOIAF. Where do you get that?

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Very thoughtful post ShadowCat. :)

Again and again, she is put in impossible situations. It's like that Kafka story about the mouse chased by a cat, with the walls closing in around it, until it is caught between the cat and the trap.

Angalin, I agree with you more or less. I can certainly understand people projecting their dismay at the fall of House Stark onto the main POV who describes this fall. It can be frustrating that through betrayal, (a lot of) bad luck and (some) bad judgement the Starks were doomed. While someone like Tywin can lose a battle and end up way more powerful (by falling into the hands of the Tyrells).

The trials and tribulations of Catelyn resulted in more sympathy from me (and a naive hope that she and Robb would find a way to succeed despite all the obstacles! :P) but I can see how others could have a different reaction to that. That's how GRRM writes. They don't die in glorious battle but instead fall in a very gritty, bloody way.

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hey, I haven't read all the new thread yet so maybe I'm just repeating things but isn't the Catelyn bashing quite unsexistic? The general feelings towards the various female characters indicate to me that we want them to fulfill the feministic ideals for women. The People that hate Cat usually also hated Sansa while loving Arya on the other hand. Sansa is exactly all that feminists world wide hate in women while the proactive and opinionated Arya is what they like and, surprise surprise, people prefered Arya over Sansa. Brienne is another example for our approval of women that seize male roles in their society.

The same could be said on Catelyn. She is hated for failing the modern feminist standard, not for representing it. She is politically active but she fails and fails and fails. (even if she has a few temporary successes on the way). She is also not strong enough in our eyes (the profound effects of her family's deaths on her psyche) which is also irksome to pro feminists because that implies that she should have stayed at home and left the politics to the men. Also her aversion to war and willingness to give profound consessions to avoid any risk draws our attntion to the differences between the female perspective and male perspective and possibly their incompatibility to assume each others' roles.

You may say we have a double standard here but it is the feminist double standard and not something else. We want the characters to follow our standards but when they try and fail we get mad at them.

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You may say we have a double standard here but it is the feminist double standard and not something else. We want the characters to follow our standards but when they try and fail we get mad at them.

I suggest you do go back and read the entire thread. Not only is it considerate, so that you're not bringing up oft-repeated arguments, but there are also some very good rebuttals to the section I've bolded.

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