The critique I actually lend credence to sometimes is the one about how constructing a world in which bias X doesn't exist can make it easier for an author to stop thinking about bias in general
Absolutely, except that it seems to me that such erasure takes a slightly different path -- I mean, usually when an author's heading down that road of "we don't have to think about bias" -- that most likely they're writing from a position of privilege, and their inclusion of any bias-related things (people, sexes, ethnicities, etc) are relatively minimal. Like... oh, say, writing about the US antebellum period and not having any speaking lines given to any black characters, and not having anyone express the least bit of racist word or thought. That's erasure, and that's different from positing a world in which there are plenty of black people, and none of them have to deal with being treated as inferior due to skin-color. I mean, I suppose it's possible that an author might have two main protagonists who are both gay men, and leave out bigotry because the author "simply doesn't want to deal with it", but I don't see that as being the same kind of erasure that comes from the "not having to think about it" mode that I think you're meaning, or at least that I'm reading out of what you're saying (or maybe just riffing off what you're saying and heading off into my own reality? because it's rather nice here, for the most part, this morning, barring a few natural disasters).
Anyway, from what I've seen of writerly attempts, if the writer wants to erase or avoid nasty things like sexism in the workplace or racism in the classroom, the writer is more likely to just not have or show any women in the workplace, or any PoC in the classroom: there! now we don't have to deal with that nasty stuff (which in turn makes me wonder if writers realize that the logic has become: the reason we have that nasty bias stuff is because of these characters, as though getting rid of women would miraculously clear up any and all sexism forever and ever amen. I mean REALLY. It's a lot harder to peg when the author is being purposefully avoidant of that nasty real-world stuff when the author is also writing about the very characters -- women, LGBTQ, PoC, etc -- who'd be erased in the first example due to raising the problems by their mere existence.
Hrrmm, or maybe the avoidance in the second instance makes it even more noticeable, because we expect to see bias/negative when we see members of a certain class?
I guess part of it is also that I think it's really kinda sad, that our measure for "this is realistic" when it comes to fiction is "does a gay man have to suffer homophobia". I would like to think that the experience of suffering homophobia is not what makes a gay man a 'real' gay man, and that our next generations who -- I sincerely hope -- have to deal with less and less of it will not, therefore, be considered "less real" as gay adults, simply because we managed to make the world a better place. Honestly, isn't that kinda what the argument is, underneath? And if I extend it back to the analogy of women's fiction, isn't the message then that to be a "realistic" representation of a woman, she (person or fictional character) must suffer some form of sexism? Aren't there other, better, less destructive ways to determine whether a story is "realistic", because when I flip the argument over and look at its logical conclusion (that the sole measure of "real" is that one suffers negatives), it's both depressing and, well, sad.
no subject
Date: 25 Oct 2010 06:46 pm (UTC)Absolutely, except that it seems to me that such erasure takes a slightly different path -- I mean, usually when an author's heading down that road of "we don't have to think about bias" -- that most likely they're writing from a position of privilege, and their inclusion of any bias-related things (people, sexes, ethnicities, etc) are relatively minimal. Like... oh, say, writing about the US antebellum period and not having any speaking lines given to any black characters, and not having anyone express the least bit of racist word or thought. That's erasure, and that's different from positing a world in which there are plenty of black people, and none of them have to deal with being treated as inferior due to skin-color. I mean, I suppose it's possible that an author might have two main protagonists who are both gay men, and leave out bigotry because the author "simply doesn't want to deal with it", but I don't see that as being the same kind of erasure that comes from the "not having to think about it" mode that I think you're meaning, or at least that I'm reading out of what you're saying (or maybe just riffing off what you're saying and heading off into my own reality? because it's rather nice here, for the most part, this morning, barring a few natural disasters).
Anyway, from what I've seen of writerly attempts, if the writer wants to erase or avoid nasty things like sexism in the workplace or racism in the classroom, the writer is more likely to just not have or show any women in the workplace, or any PoC in the classroom: there! now we don't have to deal with that nasty stuff (which in turn makes me wonder if writers realize that the logic has become: the reason we have that nasty bias stuff is because of these characters, as though getting rid of women would miraculously clear up any and all sexism forever and ever amen. I mean REALLY. It's a lot harder to peg when the author is being purposefully avoidant of that nasty real-world stuff when the author is also writing about the very characters -- women, LGBTQ, PoC, etc -- who'd be erased in the first example due to raising the problems by their mere existence.
Hrrmm, or maybe the avoidance in the second instance makes it even more noticeable, because we expect to see bias/negative when we see members of a certain class?
I guess part of it is also that I think it's really kinda sad, that our measure for "this is realistic" when it comes to fiction is "does a gay man have to suffer homophobia". I would like to think that the experience of suffering homophobia is not what makes a gay man a 'real' gay man, and that our next generations who -- I sincerely hope -- have to deal with less and less of it will not, therefore, be considered "less real" as gay adults, simply because we managed to make the world a better place. Honestly, isn't that kinda what the argument is, underneath? And if I extend it back to the analogy of women's fiction, isn't the message then that to be a "realistic" representation of a woman, she (person or fictional character) must suffer some form of sexism? Aren't there other, better, less destructive ways to determine whether a story is "realistic", because when I flip the argument over and look at its logical conclusion (that the sole measure of "real" is that one suffers negatives), it's both depressing and, well, sad.