Is it sexist? My story

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by Lucresia, Dec 12, 2019.

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  1. chencking

    chencking [Daolord Grammar Nazi]

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    "a girl shouldn’t be thinking of those types of things" seems a bit sexist. The character is forcing a gender stereotype on the other. I don't think it's a big deal as it is, and that's why your teacher/professor didn't make it a big deal.

    Characters can be imperfect but a good author has to understand, acknowledge and even utilize that. They do not necessarily have to acknowledge it in text, but they must somehow. Just as it is difficult for an author to write a character smarter than themselves, it is also difficult to write one who is less discriminatory.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 12, 2019
  2. craBebe

    craBebe Well-Known Member

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    It's a creative writing class for school man, pretty much any sex/violence/taboo behavior will probably be remarked and frowned upon.

    Also, poking fun at sexuality isn't the most PC thing. Keep in mind, Universities have basically become the most PC environments on the planet, the liberal arts department even more so.

    It's important to know your audience.
     
  3. Lucresia

    Lucresia Well-Known Member

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    I guess so, thank you for giving me your thought. I'll just put it behind me and let it go.
     
  4. SenjiQ

    SenjiQ [Wise, for a Bird]

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    Your first mistake was a creative writing class...
     
  5. Green Apple

    Green Apple Actually I'm secretly an orange.

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    So she is a woke sjw. Run
     
  6. Ai chan

    Ai chan Queen of Yuri, Devourer of Traps, Thrusted Witch

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    You shouldn't worry about your story being sexist or whatever. You know Lord of the Rings? Yeah, that story is full of racist slurs. Do people care? No, because Tolkien is great. Once you're great, nobody will care either.

    But before that, there will always be people offended by whatever you do. Rule of the thumb is, don't give a damn. If your instructor doesn't like it, quit the course or report it to his or her superior. You should not restrict yourself on whether your work is sexist, or racist or offends their sensibilities.

    Whoever tells you that your story is sexist in a creative writing class, is not qualified to be an instructor of a creative writing class. Unless the class description specifically mentions the ban on sexism or 'sensitive issues', in which case it would be your wrong for not obeying the rules. But if there is such a ban, that's not really a creative writing class and you shouldn't be joining one.

    If your instructor is just informing you though, and not expecting you to change it, that is fine. As long as his or her personal preferences don't reflect your marks, that is not a problem, just take it as constructive criticism. Everyone has an opinion, your instructor has the right to state his or her opinion. It's only when your instructor's personal preferences are reflected in your marks or you're harassed in class for what you wrote that you have grounds to take legal action against them.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
  7. Green Apple

    Green Apple Actually I'm secretly an orange.

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    The rabbit hole of western woke outrage goes so deep that it is enough to have 1 person offended about the colour of a cookie to get it removed from the shelves. And in education they have as much power unfortunately.
    Higher ups are rather to be unreasonable and give up a fight then resist and have a possibility of a lawsuit
     
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  8. GoldSweeper

    GoldSweeper Active Member

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    Feminist teacher shd be fired. Complain to whoever is in charge. The teacher is probably being sexist against you
     
  9. Kutaifa

    Kutaifa Pokémon trainer

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    Lol
    Why is it that people who shout that woke people are always offended by everything, are the ones that seem to be the most offended of all
     
  10. DocB

    DocB "I see you, little mouse! Run along"

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    not offended, the emotion that most closely resemble what i felt when writting my post is "looking at the titanic sink, while wondering what happen to those guest that got diarrhea from eating bad clams"
     
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  11. Kutaifa

    Kutaifa Pokémon trainer

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    Can this point be more superfluous?

    I don't recall ever reading a racial slur in Tolkiens work. Can you give me an example of such an instance? If not, then don't construct obvious fallacies in someone else's work to support a flawed notion.

    He/she legitimately only wrote: I am currently taking a creative writing class. My instructor told me that she like my story but it is a bit sexist.

    It's as if your overreaction is similar to the group on which most of your hatred lies. Lol

    You lot have created an echo chamber where bruised egoes and notions of self-superiority are succinctly reinforced.

    And that's just sad and outright pitiful.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  12. Miserys_End

    Miserys_End 「Lv1 Pretend Person」I'm the preson i pretend to be

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    I can only be glad I went to school 30+ years ago. You knew what gender everyone was, you didnt have to worry about half the student body being medicated, and people didnt get butt hurt over the stupidest things. Here's a meme that shares your pain...
    [​IMG]

    On a side note, we had a estimate done to remove a troublesome stand of trees from a property that was being sold. The cost to just cut down the trees and not haul them away was in the thousands of USD. Hauling them away cost nearly double. Logger is not just making 20$ per load of trees anymore... dude is getting paid to cut, and haul it, then can turn around and still sell it. The landowner gets jackshit unless it is "good quality " timber.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2019
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  13. Green Apple

    Green Apple Actually I'm secretly an orange.

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    Why do you assume I'm offended?
    Can't I gossip or make fun of sth?
     
  14. Kutaifa

    Kutaifa Pokémon trainer

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    If this: "The rabbit hole of western woke outrage goes so deep that it is enough to have 1 person offended about the colour of a cookie to get it removed from the shelves. And in education they have as much power unfortunately.
    Higher ups are rather to be unreasonable and give up a fight then resist and have a possibility of a lawsuit"
    If this isn't a butthurt comment on a simple: My instructor told me that she like my story but it is a bit sexist.

    You were offended and felt the need to tout on the unreasonable SJWs opinion. You turned the discussion from being one on a legitimate criticism, to a crusade against opinions that you disagree with, because you don't like their opinions. You were triggered, responded and then drowned in a cesspit of NU affirmations.
     
  15. Ai chan

    Ai chan Queen of Yuri, Devourer of Traps, Thrusted Witch

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    Sigh. I removed that because I didn't want to extend the argument. I respected that you have an opinion and while I do not agree with your opinion, I do not think it requires argument over your attack. But you quoted me anyway, so fine, let's talk about it. Also, what do you mean by 'superfluous'? Be clear in your argument and avoid one-word uses without giving an explanation because that makes your argument worthless to the discussion.

    First, let's talk about you. You used "lol" twice which should mean "laugh out loud", but it's clear that you're not actually laughing. You're actually triggered and offended by my reply. Probably seething in anger? I don't know. As for me, I have the right to be offended too because SJW had directly attacked me in the past.

    Now let's talk about Tolkien. It is no secret that Tolkien has been labelled as racist in the past. Was he really racist in real life? Who knows, he died before Lord of the Ring was popular and people who knew him were kind enough not to talk crap about him after his passing. But from an interview, it was hinted that Tolkien himself was not racist, but he included racism into his works to make it feel alive.

    The reason why people call him a racist was reflected in his works. Basically, his works generally said the good guys are only white, mostly blond and blue eyed humans (Dunedain, Rohirrim and Gondor) and blond elves. Even dwarves were treated as an antagonist in some stories. On the other hand, people who dress like Arabs or African(Haradrim), have dark skin, and slant-eyed are all evil.

    You can read it yourself, how Tolkien's description of them (particularly of the orcs) were so heavy with hate it was overflowing from the books. I personally do not have a problem with this, as it makes the story feels more alive. Some people do, and you can't deny that racism is mentioned a lot in the story, even when it's just fiction.

    Now my point, is if those critics are the OP's creative writing instructor and instead of giving constructive criticism, decides to attack the Tolkien for his content, do you think we would have gotten something as great as LotR? They didn't have Woke and SJW culture back then, so Tolkien was safe due to the virtue of being born earlier. The same can't be said for these days.
     
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  16. Kutaifa

    Kutaifa Pokémon trainer

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    I'm not gonna engage in an extended discussion where rhetorical analyses will be your primary argument.
    You said that he used racial slurs. Your words, not mine. Where does he use racial slurs?
     
  17. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Huh, I also kind of share @Kutaifa's opinion. To me it feels like most of this thread is over-reacting towards the teacher, or at the very minimum jumping to extremely fast conclusions based on so little information.

    @Lucresia was your instructor's feedback for you negative overall? Or was it just neutral/positive with a side comment?

    I mean, obviously I wasn't there, but to me the way the OP is written it just looks like a neutral comment on the side that doesn't necessary imply that the instructor hates @Lucresia or is out to lynch @Lucresia or "fail" them for whatever reason.

    It's actually very similar to the type of comment I would personally make if I genuinely felt that way.

    For example, if I read a novel that is heavily based on stereotyping Mexicans behaving like X, Y, and Z -- my comment would be that this novel seems to stereotype Mexicans. This does not mean that I thought the novel was "bad" or that I hated the novel or that I think that the author is racist. Like many others pointed out, there can be plenty of reasons why a story might have rape or murder or misogyny or all kinds of things -- and I like a lot of these novels and many of these controversial topics make it into my own writing. However, the observation is factual, just like saying: "This novel contains stockholm syndrome."

    The broader issue, at least in my opinion, is that (published) authors should be conscious about the message and impression that their story pushes.

    Note that being "conscious" does not mean you have do the socially acceptable thing -- in fact, a lot of iconoclastic authors and individuals will intentionally reject social norms and taboos with enormous effect -- and it's deeply intentional despite their awareness of exactly what they're doing.

    If you are a Chinese author are you write an ultranationalist story that sends a message that Koreans are evil and you should kill all the Koreans...

    ...you should be conscious of what kind of ramifications your novel has on the broader public and how it sways opinion.

    The reality is that popular culture is controlled by media -- and this includes authors just as much as it includes Hollywood.

    If you write a novel that glorifies slavery or encourages violent behavior against religious minorities or discrimination or perpetuates a stereotype against X/Y/Z ... you should be cognizant of it and take responsibility for what kind of social repercussions your writing can produce.

    The most immediate example I can think of is French author Renaud Camus's book Le Grand Remplacement (English: The Great Replacement) -- which coined the term "white genocide" and sparked the flames for an entire political movement that rippled across far-right movements all over the world. A number of terrorism shootings and ultranationalist shootings (including the 2019 El Paso shooting) are connected to ultra-nationalists who were inspired by the book and referred to the book prior to going on their rampages.

    It's an extreme example, but I think it's a salient example of the power that popular media holds over people.

    For more average writers, the collective content of everyone's works contributes to a narrative.

    If a majority of authors/TV/movies perpetuate cultural phenomenon like (smoking is cool!) or (black people are criminals!) or (let's have sex without condoms!) -- then it enforces popular perceptions that ultimately end up swaying the society of people that you live in. It ends up biasing people to behave according to the worldview of popular artists/authors even though technically it doesn't have a basis in fact.

    As a result, a comment along the lines of: "I don't think gay people actually act that way" or "Chinese people don't actually believe in seppuku that's the wrong culture" or "Mexicans don't actually eat tacos for every meal" -- are often neutral comments intended comment on an inaccuracy moreso than serve as strict ("I HATE YOU!") criticism.

    Seriously, taking criticism too seriously is an unfortunately common thing... :blobsweat_2::blobsweat_2::blobsweat_2: Usually the reader/reviewer doesn't care that much, and they're only saying it because they saw it and decided to mention it. The only person who cares that much is the author themselves, who sometimes feel like the criticism is a personal attack on themselves -- whereas in reality it's just a comment on what they read.

    It's obviously not something I would pull hairs on -- but a remark left here or there doesn't hurt anyone.

    For that matter, if one person remarks on it, there's greater likelihood that someone else may remark on it (or they're thinking it but not sayin it), so at least you're better able to prepare yourself. If doing something inflammatory or controversial was your intention, then you can pretty much ignore the comments and feel comfortable about yourself. If it wasn't your intention, then I guess it helps to ask them to elaborate further.

    tldr; I don't think OP's teacher is trying to flunk OP; based on the way it looks to me, it's just a benign comment
     
  18. Ai chan

    Ai chan Queen of Yuri, Devourer of Traps, Thrusted Witch

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    You are making me do all the work. If I say there's no God, would you ask me to prove there is no God? Why won't you instead prove that there is a God? I've already given you what's racist about the story.

    Prove me wrong. Prove that there is no racial slurs. You disagreed with me. Go ahead and prove me wrong. It must be convenient to live in Land of the Easy, huh?
     
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  19. Green Apple

    Green Apple Actually I'm secretly an orange.

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    I get it. You try so hard to be edgy you don't even pay attention to the messages you comment about.
    My message about woke rabbit hole is a reply to another commenter in the thread, who touched upon that topic. It wasn't a direct reply to op.
     
  20. Kutaifa

    Kutaifa Pokémon trainer

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    I know for a fact that there isn't. You think there is. The land of easy must be a place where constructing lies is accepted when done to support an argument.
     
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