Questions, questions...

[botias]

I hear a bit about the emasculating of men and it's always a bad thing. From what I can tell to be emasculated is to be made indecisive, physically weaker, less or asexual, ineffective, to be removed from a position of leadership or barred from attaining one.

I have to wonder, what is the equivalent for the feminine and why do I hear so little about it that I don't even have a term for it? And this emasculation stuff sounds like it would bad for a woman too. Is the macho the good stuff to have for both sexes, and men have just been bogarting it for so long that it's been named after them?

I'm trying to think of a feminine quality that may have been stripped from Buffy. Maybe her ability to form connections with other people and give and receive emotional support. Why is this defeminizing not decried? Why is endowing her with a strong drive to kill and destroy and the physical power needed to indulge it with particular effectiveness, lauded without exception? (There probably are exceptions, I'm guessing fundamentalist Christians don't go wild for the whole women with battle axe's thing.)

If Spike becomes less sexual and less violent, but more self-aware, empathetic and caring, has he taken a net loss? (That would be him, and not his sizable harem of horny fans with bad-boy kinks you couldn't straighten with a sledgehammer.) When Buffy becomes more authoritative, sexual and powerful, but less empathetic and caring is she making a net gain? How come nobody seems to be able to do both at the same time?

Comments

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

Good stuff. I've mused on this, albeit much less coherently. I'd love to get a chance to really hash this out, but at the same time it makes me despair. Do you get that? That all these years of feminist discussion and analysis and deep, painful, soul searching, and on a really fundamental level the world still clings to the analysis that when Mr. Rochester looses his eyes, that's a metaphor for loosing his balls...and that loosing your balls is the absolute worst thing that could ever, ever, ever happen. I'm writing this on the fly, and I have to run, but yeah, I love your brain.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Thanks! At this point, I'm thinking that being emasculated is bad for anyone, a man or a woman. I might even go out on a limb and say that a lot of these uber masculine guys like Mr. Rochester may even require a bit of emasculating in order to be considered good family men or even good partners to a woman. This is not to say everyone wants or should want a good family man, yada, yada.

[rahirah]

I would say that by the end of the series Buffy has been stripped of this ability, and believe me, it has been decried lots. And then the other side comes back with "You just want to turn Buffy into a weakling!" and then there's a huge flamewar about gender roles and the subverting thereof. *g*

[botias.livejournal.com]

It's not that it's not decried, it's the way it's decried that seems different to me. When guys are emasculated it's sometimes seen as a wrong-headed ploy to make the women around them appear more masculine, but when women are defeminized, it doesn't seem like people speculate that it is done to emphasize the feminine in the men around her. Further, emasculated men seem more likely to become objects of sympathy than defeminized women.

And anyway, isn't emasculating your competition a time-honored method of making yourself appear more masculine by comparison? Guys seem like they do this to each other all the time, playfully and otherwise. Is an emasculating woman any worse than an emasculating man? I'm guessing it's more that when men start falling below women on the masculinity totem pole that panic sets in and name calling ensues.

[rahirah]

Well, I actually think there's several different things going on here.

1. Female characters who exhibit traditionally 'masculine' traits and male characters who exhibit traditionally 'feminine' traits. For example, Spike often codes feminine (he wants to talk about the relationship) and Buffy often codes masculine (she generally resorts to violence to solve problems.)

2. The practice of making one's secondary characters, regardless of sex, less comptent/strong/intelligent/sensitive/whatever than they ought logically to be in order to make one's lead character, regardless of sex, seem more competent/strong/intelligent/sensitive/whatever. BtVS tends to do this whenever the plot requires it. It's easier to forget that Willow displayed Power X two episodes ago than to explain why she's not using it now in this situation which would seem to especially call for it.

3. Emasculation proper, in which a character is rendered literally or symbolically impotent or asexual. (It would be better if there were a gender-neutral word for this, but I can't think of one.) Angel and Spike are the obvious exanmples, but I would say that by the end of the series, Buffy is another one; she becomes a chaste warrior queen who has banished her dark and dangerous sexual urges.

I very rarely see people getting upset about #1. It's mostly #2 and #3 that irritate people, and I think that conflating them leads to confusion.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Excellent insights as usual. :) Thanks! I do think that #2 and #3 get conflated. I'm not sure emasculation is not kinda appropriate either way. I understand that the testosterone is a key hormone driving the sex drive in both sexes.

I read an interesting essay by one of my favorite romance novelists, Teresa Medeiros, where she interprets the symbolism of Smashed in a completely different way than the writers intended. All about destroying the useless shell of her former life, her presuppositions about what it is to be 'normal' and a 'nice girl' that could never serve who she really is. She embraces her dark and dangerous sexuality and emerges into the sunlight the next day a women, one with a truer knowledge of herself. *sighs wistfully* It would have been so true to reality of the 'verse, but conflicted with their 'very special' message that sex with bad boys is bad, and using people for sex is bad, and... bad, bad, bad Buffy.

[rahirah]

That was exactly the way many fans interpreted it at the time. When the ME writers finally explained what they meant it to symbolize, there were a lot of dropped jaws...

[botias.livejournal.com]

ME is not interested in writing about the sex lives of super heroes, unfortunately. Though it seems like the process of examining (and shedding as necessary) girlish fancies and societal expectations about what makes a 'good girl' would be rich and apt area to explore. ME apparently wanted to write about the sex lives of depressed young women discovering the downside to having sex with abusive alcoholic bad boys instead, even when it violated the reality of their verse. Or something. Sometimes I'm not sure what the heck they were writing about, sounds like maybe they weren't sure either...

[molly_may]

Is the macho the good stuff to have for both sexes, and men have just been bogarting it for so long that it's been named after them?


Ha! Good question. The word emasculation bothers me for the very reason you bring up, that it equates all the bad, weak traits with femininity. Weakness and ineffectiveness are unattractive qualities in any character (or person), but I would also argue that they are very human characteristics, the kind of thing that even people who have often been strong and decisive in the past might suffer from at different periods in their life. I guess what I'm saying is that what some might consider "emasculation" of a character is to me a kind of character development, a way to see a different facet of that character.

Maybe her ability to form connections with other people and give and receive emotional support.

I would say that while the previous seasons, particularly S6, is about her lacking in these abilities, S7 is all about Buffy regaining these traits. Everything from giving Dawn a cellphone in "Lessons" to sharing her power with the Potentials worldwide in "Chosen" is about her ability to connect with others. There are lots of missed connections throughout the season - Buffy drops the phone in CWDP, leaves it at home in "First Date" - but it's all building to "Chosen" when she makes that ultimate connection. As for giving and receiving emotional support, she does so notably with Willow in STSP and Spike in "Never Leave Me" and "Touched". All while still being able to swing a mean battle axe! Heh.

If Spike becomes less sexual and less violent, but more self-aware, empathetic and caring, has he taken a net loss?

Well, I don't think so, but I'm a big fan of Souled!Spike.:)

[botias.livejournal.com]

it equates all the bad, weak traits with femininity.

I had the same thing occur to me when I wrote that, but I'm going with the theory that just cause masculinity is one way, doesn't mean that femininity is the opposite.

Definitely true about Buffy in S7, she really seems like she's making all kinds of progress. I'm a big fan of Souled!Spike too, I have to admit. Spike had macho to spare, and more maturity, self-awareness and control and less with the obsession only makes him that much more attractive to me.

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

Maybe there isn't a term for defeminizing because empathy and caring are *seen* as strength for women who are mothers and nobody messes with mama ;). It's too bad that ME didn't show Buffy finding that kind of power while keeping her other strengths. There were lots of opportunitieswith Dawn and the potentials. I hated it but it could be fanwanked that showing Buffy lose those traditional strengths was just as ground breaking. After all, a man can be unmanned but a woman's strength is so internal[ and I'm not talking genitals here.] that it can't be robbed so easily. Personally I think ME just set aside that set of strengths as unimportant.

If Spike becomes less sexual and less violent, but more self-aware, empathetic and caring, has he taken a net loss? (That would be him, and not his sizable harem of horny fans with bad-boy kinks you couldn't straighten with a sledgehammer.) When Buffy becomes more authoritative, sexual and powerful, but less empathetic and caring is she making a net gain? How come nobody seems to be able to do both at the same time?


I think we can all agree that well balanced people *are* both. but how many well balanced people are there in the real world? As for fiction well balanced characters get boring fast.

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

Revisited this to see what else anybody had to say and saw my post looked weirdly sexist and that's not how I meant it. So just forget I said anything. k?

[botias.livejournal.com]

On the contrary I liked your post. Though I don't know if I read it how you meant it or... I just have 3 kids to chase after. I'm typing as fast as I can. Hee! I know that vulnerable feeling when the post just kinda sits there...

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

just feeling like maybe it sounded all wrong. that's happened before to me.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Except that's not what you were saying you said you didn't like the way your post read so... anyway :)

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that there isn't a term for defeminizing, except the one we've made up :), because guys and their issues are either more scrutinized in our society, or possibly scrutinized in different forums via different modes. It's more private too. If I lose my empathy and ability to connect with my kids due to stress or lack of support or something, and turn into 'battle axe' mom or even throw in the parenting towel and transfer most of my effort and attention to other things, like a career, it's a lot less visible to my society than if I fail to successfully manage my dept. at work because I'm not authoritative enough. I genuinely think our society finds the latter more important anyway, to its detriment.

[appomattoxco.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what I meant by "internal" it's harder to see when woman or even a man loses that sort of strength. Or maybe it's considered so private we don't look for it? It's a shame because it's the stuff that makes civilazion civil.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure how I got here but I'm glad I did. A very interesting discussion. I love your point about the asymmetry of de-gendering. When a man loses traits that are thought of as male he’s emasculated, a sissy, a girly man. He’s diminished to the state of the female. When a woman loses traits thought of as female she’s de-feminised but the name for that is not brother or manly girl but bitch. The lower state is not male but animal. Which is to say that there’s a hierarchy operating that runs from man to woman to ‘not even human.’

As far as Spike and Buffy in S7 go I don’t think Spike lost his aggressive power or Buffy her ability to love but they both suppressed those qualities for much of the season through fear. Spike was afraid of becoming lost in rush and crunch and Buffy that caring too much for those she was meant to protect would paralyse her should she fails it had before when Glory captured Dawn.

She embraces her dark and dangerous sexuality and emerges into the sunlight

This kind of argument always seems weirdly self-contradictory to me. It seems to be saying that sexuality is a good thing to be celebrated but by describing it as dark implies that it is still bad. Sort of having your cake and eating it and not following the logic through to its conclusion. To put it another way Spike gets a sexual kick from killing things. Sexual is dark and sexual is good. Does that mean killing things is good?

[botias.livejournal.com]

Thanks for dropping in!

Which is to say that there’s a hierarchy operating that runs from man to woman to ‘not even human.’

That’s been accepted truth in most all places and times and really it’s just begun fading away in this one. It think there is a difference between a woman who is out of touch with her feminine side and one who is very in touch with her masculine side, enough so that she successfully dominates many men. Since women have no balls, I heard someone suggest the term ‘Thatchers’ as the seat of a woman’s masculinity. ;)

What inspired me to write this post was someone was talking about S4, and how all the men were emasculated that season. Giles, Xander, and Spike were all flailing badly and apparently Riley was not inspiring. I often hear people criticize ME as having a twisted notion of feminism, one that requires that men be rendered less masculine as the women are rendered more so.

It seems to be saying that sexuality is a good thing to be celebrated but by describing it as dark implies that it is still bad.

To me sexuality is just powerful, and can be constructive or destructive, be expressed violently or reverently. You've caught me though. I'm really kind of running off at the mouth there, saying that Buffy embracing the dark and dangerous in her sexuality is a good thing. From a fantasy standpoint, I'm all for it. Screw that sexy, dangerous vampire into the ground baby! That way, I can vicariously. But ME is not in the fantasy business, (unfortunately) and from a character standpoint... while I think it's important that Buffy should accept her 'dark and dangerous' sexuality as a natural and not a 'bad girl' part of herself, I don't have Any Idea Whatsoever to what extent she should embrace/indulge it and still be healthy and happy.

ME seems so wrapped up in making Buffy take the consequences for not keeping her darkness in check that they don’t seem to say much about her not feeling bad about herself just because it's there, or showing her successfully weaving it into a healthy life in some way.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you for tolerating the spam!

What inspired me to write this post was someone was talking about S4, and how all the men were emasculated that season.
Ah context, I get it now I think. Although I’m not sure I agree with that someone’s premise. For Spike maybe. It’s interesting that he only comes on to Buffy overtly in Superstar when she’s less powerful. Although the interaction with Faith-in-Buffy in Who Are Youwhen she has the power is pretty sexy. But if emasculation is referring to unsexing S4 Xander is more sexual than ever, unless you count the linoleum, and Giles gets out of his tweed straight-jacket and into bed with Olivia. And he sings. Guh.

What the season does do is remove men from positions of authority. Maybe people find Riley too comfortable with the idea of women being in charge, first Walsh then Buffy. Giles is no longer acting as Watcher and Xander’s McJobs are repeatedly pointed out to confer a lower status. But I have problems with thinking of authority as an inherently masculine quality and as one person has to be in charge then by definition having that be a woman in a given situation necessarily means that a man is not. I wouldn’t say that makes him less manly or ME twisted feminists for not seeing him as such.

To me sexuality is just powerful, and can be constructive or destructive, be expressed violently or reverently.
Yes. I’m sorry for being all twisty with words, I think it’s the word dark that’s the problem. It’s rather like sexuality in a way, just as sex expresses the emotional state of the participants, ‘dark’ takes on the meaning of the context it’s used in whether sensual/mysterious or violent/destructive. Which makes it a fine word for plays and poetry but rather a blunt instrument for any attempt at analysis. Or not even an instrument, more some kind of amorphous goo that reaches into every crevice, obscuring every meaningful point.

If you take darkness to mean the type of self-loathing anomie, the urge to lash out and destroy that Buffy was subject too in S6 then I’m not sure that feeling bad about it can be separated from being aware of it. ME’s philosophy is perhaps best stated in the argument she has with Spike in NLM. He says, effectively, that she needs that hate to fight, she says she doesn’t and later tells Giles that you can’t beat evil by doing evil. Ultimately I think she might be right.