#mysogny in fandom

[thehollowwriter]

I was suddenly reminded of the Captain Marvel movie and I remember how much hate it got for Brie Larson and Captain Marvel herself. "Mary Sue" "woke feminism" (though that's not what woke means) "girlboss character" and more were all thrown around and it was dragged as the worst Marvel movie ever. People hated how much of a "bitch" Carol was and Critical Drinker's review didn't help things either. Was the movie good? Not really, but the hate was overblown, especially when you remember that other pretty meh Marvel movies or media with gary stus were defended to hell and back.

So why the hate for Carol? The obvious answer is mysogny of course, but I feel "people don't like strong, confident, and skilled women that's why" is only partially true.

It's a different genre, but I used to and still kinda do watch a lot of romcom movies with my mom. Stuff like The Cutting Edge or those generic Hallmark movies and whatnot. When I think about it, it was very common for the female love interest to be like Carol. Headstrong, confident, speaks her mind, serious, "too emotional", doesn't take shit, extremely skilled at what she does, etc.

But these characters didn't get that same reaction. I know it's not 100% comparable to a marvel movie, BUT it shows that strong women are not new in movies at all. Hell, just look at the first Jurassic Park!

So what's the difference? Why does Captain Marvel get so much hate, far more than what could he justified "bad writing"?Well, I think it's the existence of the male love interest. You see, in these other movies, these women would be the bitch character, the self-absorbed, prissy woman who needs to be taken down a notch.

This will be shown to the audience by her firmly putting other characters in their place, being unashamed of expressing her opinion, being confident in herself and her abilities and refusing to be treated like shit. The love interest would appear to be her rival turned lover, and he would "put in her in her place" and make her realise she ain't all that. She "improves", they get together, and boom happy ending.

Though funnily enough, if you look back you'll see the woman was often in the right. For example, in The Cutting Edge where the female lead got angry at her trainer screaming at her or saying things like "I want to see your ass in the air", or rightfully shut down the leas being a pos to her, or was strict on who her skating partner was because well- she's the one in a dangerous position!

Her constant rejection of possible partners is potrayed as her being stuck up, prissy and picky, but in reality, if her partner is the wrong weight or height, if he's not skilled or confident enough, he could drop her in one of the moves (where all he has to do is stand there and hold her up) and she could easily break her neck or something when she hits the ground! No wonder she's strict! But nope, lover boy is here to "tame the fire."

In many movies the "overly strict businesswoman" is potrayed as friendless and incapable of joy, and also is framed as a bitch for wanting to do her job properly and being frustrated at the male lead getting in the way of that. Then, she learns through him not to be so prissy and "high maintenance" ("traits" that would have a male character be called hardworking and no nonsens), she quits her job, they get together, happy ending. Boom! The fire is "tamed."

Captain Marvel, however? There is no love interest. There is no one whose role is to ensure Carol is "taken down a notch" or to "teach" her to not be so """bitchy""" (aka self-confident and firm even when opposed by a man) Hell, the guy who kept telling her to control her emotions got explode-ified.

No wonder so many people (mainly men) lost their minds. This was a real taste of a "strong woman".not tied to or watered down by a man. The actual quality of the movie almost felt irrelevant, as all anyone could focus on was how "woke" and "overly political" it was. (Ignore the Iron Man movie where Tony made weapons for the military and was also kidnapped by middle eastern terrorists)

Others have pointed out that the problem isn't that there was a strong female character. It's just that the writing was bad. But when some people are whining about how an "insufferable bitch" Carol was, and how "feminism destroyed movies", I know they don't actually give a damn about the writing. They just wanted to see either a male hero, or a strong female character get torn down and put in her place by a male character.

Or maybe I'm talking nonsense, who knows.

[o4o41]

One reason Karai ("bad girl") turned out better than April ("good girl") in TMNT 2012 CGI version was

• "Bad girl" Karai had spunk and stood up for herself and was opinionated and initiative. Had more depth and motivation.

Edit: The thing that made her "bad girl" (and that happens in real life) was that she was defiant and went for anything she desired without asking permission or authority. Definitely. Patriarchy-defiant, probably. And devs of 2012 TMNT really noticed this in 2003 TMNT Karai. And besides the patriarchal demand of female behavior and repression, the devs really liked and invested into her more. She was a person, as a result.

• While the "good girl" TMNT 2012 April turned out as a distorted image of a patriarchal idea for what a "good girl" is supposed to be like. A luckluster puppet of the system's ideology for what it is supposed to be or even look like. (Brother Grim pleased the patriarchal system and made their females into harmless, housewife, helpless personnel who were singing happily while getting exploited with housework. Those men didn't care for those portrayal of the 'proper good characters' rather than forcing gendered behaviors into their sexist fairy tales. For example. Female characters and stories suffered as we never really knew about them. They were cutboard cutout.)

Edit: I was watching this tiktok reel before making this post:

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSrUJhgdx/

[charls-lamen]

Ok now that its 2025 and the alt right trying to get into every space possible to spread hateful rhetoric I feel like we gotta really start considering the impact of discourse that gets brought up. Especially in regards to minority.

Is there a poc character you think is poorly written and they annoy you? Talk about ways they can be improved but don't just shit on them you are giving racists a chance to co -opt that language to shit on them to be against poc representation while not being accused of anything.

Do you want more female representation in fandom ? Talk about your fav ships with women start those weeks on Ao3 where people write for certain ships and make more of those for m/f and f/f ships.

Don't correlate liking m/m ships to be about internalized mysogny and centering men. Don't correlate making a f/f side ship in a fic to being about caring about m/m ships more. You are creating a situation where the only way to ship discourse free is to ship a straight ship. This kind of argument will definitely be used against LGBT media. Don't get me wrong. Suggesting that being a fan of gay things and enjoying them is anti women somehow has always been homophobic.

And the tendency to double down on hating poc has always been racist.

But with the rise of faccism just across the world and the real threat of massive censorship looming in the States i feel we really can't afford this level of bigotry. These arguments that seem minor will have their language co-opted and used as a progressive way to censor stop indulging those arguments.

If you want more of a certain kind of content encourage it create it. Don't shit on content for being popular, don't discourage people for making it.

Shame doesn't inspire passion. And fan works are free art you need that passion for content.

[burnt-tortellini]

mini rant/controversial marauders takes

“the marauders fandom is mysoginistic-“ it is a RARITY for a marauders fan to not either be a cis teenage girl or a teenage transmasc, both of which have experience being women. either all of you have internalised mysoginy/developed mysogny during your transition OR the media is just male centric

male centric/a fandom for a media that has predominantly male characters ≠ mysoginistic please stop watering down words

the characters we know the most about are sirius, remus and peter because we see them on screen. the second most is james because we see him in a flashback and third most is lily because we hear about her through her relationship w other characters. of COURSE people are gonna focus on sirius/remus/peter/james

regulus is focused on becasue his character (raised death eater who directly revolts) is interesting, the fandom is entirely self motivated if you want to see more lily make more lily.

jegulus isnt a thing because youre ignoring lily its a thing because you lot love gay men

wolfstars personalities got switched for 0 reason, remus isnt some bad boy he was actually terrified of people discovering hes a werewolf esp authority figures

the “remus sells drugs to buy his rich friends presents :(” trope is weird! as someone who was a part of the british lowerclass its really weird!

the marauders were canonically popular arseholes who bullied people

every single marauders character has become an OC/projection atp. tell me three canonical things about peter… ill wait…

ok thats all, have a good day, be respectful in the replies please xx

[kanamori-kamper-moved]

23, 18, 16, 1, 7 for the askgame :-)

23. Ship I’ve unwillingly come across?

Probably skyshipping or the fact that there are like 10 yusho x Yuya (which is literally FATHER AND SON INCEST??) fics on ao3. Life is pain.

18. A ship this fandom has been sleeping on

DEFINITELY Kazuma x Vetrix from Zexal. They literally have chemistry and like a good half of the WDC arc is dedicated to Vetrix planning his revenge on Faker because he believed he killed his boyfriend. Vetrix was in LOVE with that man I tell you. There are multiple times where Vetrix says how Kazuma was the most intelligent and crafty man he knew, and even if he was evil, his plans were started with good intentions. YUGIOH OLD MAN YAOI IS REALLLLLLL

The character everyone gets wrong

it’s either Syrus or Yusho for me. It feels like the GX and Arc-V fandom has a hateboner dor both of them when both of them have done almost no wrong. Syrus is literally just a Self conscious teenager who’s worried he won’t amount to anything and while Yusho is kinda stinky poopoo for leaving his family, by the time he was reintroduced to the story it was at the time where the shows writing was imploding on itself so technically it’s not his fault. HES JUST A DAD WHOS TRYING TO BE JOYOUS

16. I can’t understand why people like this thing

I don’t See the appeal of main girl x main guy yugioh ships. I was a big fan of peachshipping when I was a child but now I’m just kind of annoyed with it.

Yugiohs writing has an issue with mysogny and general sexism, to the point where the woman don’t do anything unless it’s for the sake of a man. Hell, it’s even worse in Zexal. Half of Yumas female friends are just apart of his harem and have no personality than “I like Yuma” and contribute nothing else to the plot. It’s really sad because their designs are VERY cute yet they do nothing with it.

The worst example of this is the fact that people legitimately ship Kaito x Droite/Dextra when it’s origin comes from sexism. Dextra was randomly made to have a crush on Kaito just so Vetrix could beat her ass in a duel like five minutes later, then her crush was forgotten entirely after this.

In conclusion, straight ships in yugioh are not that good!!!

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

No character, but I have mild annoyance when I watch Vrains because the way people treat Aoi Zaizen is absolutely disgusting, stop acting like she’s a damsel in distress and that Yusaku has to save her like HOLY SHIT. Also Yusaku is canonically gay so nice job calling yourself out on your bigotry!

That’s it, I think

[thehollowwriter]

It sure is interesting watching the Arcane fandom celebrating Maddie's death and hating her when I know for a fact that if she was a guy everyone be like "our beloved master manipulator" "rip king" "he prioritised work over his love life and died terribly isn't that relatable" "I wish he had more screentime" and making edits and shipping him with a male Caitlin

[strawberry38]

Attention! Mysogny alret!!

I really don't like Fandom's bratty and spoiled segment of the fandom.

(Rant: This painfully oblivious people don't understand how much and how many struggles it took from some effing decent real feminists to adress issues on gender inequality and make themselves seen, heard, represented, respected, unabused. Only for obnoxious fan brats enter the internet and start to give a hard time for the writings of the female characters. You know you need a long time to sit in the corner and think what your doing until then please do us a favor to stfu)

[hakuna-machete]

This is what happened to the original Teen Titans cartoon. It was massively popular with girls and instead of marketing and selling to girls they just canceled the show

[willowways]

I know we all love Sofia x Katya posting (I do too they’re great) but we need to address the sexism in the film

Katya is treated like a typical feme fetal when her behavior is a clear result of her being ABUSED and that abuse is sexualized more often than not

Also (and I know this is more of a fandom thing but still) NO OTHER WOMAN BESIDES KATYA IS TALKEDABOUT

Elaine nope

Luciana nada

Sofia … god help the sole who Stan’s Sofia

Hell when Katya is talked about it’s either people misinterpreting her and goncharovs relationship or complaining that she “gets in the way of goncharov and Andrey” like she doesn’t HAVE HER OWN FUCKING CHARACTER ARC AND TRAGEDY

The mysogny in this fandom is unbearable at times

[thesharondefenseleague]

why is Sharon so hated?

like i get ship wars are a thing and i get mysogny is a thing but like i feel like it especially bad for her compared to others

my only guess is lack of content and poor characterization if u a mcu only fan and that in combination with ship wars and mysogny created this situation but it just feels like i missing something else

It’s always been shipping. Steve is one of the most widely paired characters in the fandom, but she has the most canon validation, so others need to take her down so their ships are less “threatened” by her existence in the MCU.

~Mod R

[aiuragf]

yall saying the saiki k fandom is getting toxic as if the fandom is already pretty shitty already *cough* internalized mysogny aka hating on the girl character like teruhashi, ignoring the wlw representasion *cough*

[charlesleclerrc]

i love gaby and 100% agree that the hate around her is ridiculous and comes from mysogny and racism, but acting like emily doesn't get hate from this fandom is just not realistic

[taciturnrebel]

If you hate female muses and women in general. We can't be friends or mutuals, simple as. I shouldn't be surprised tbh to see mysogny in this fandom where there are so many strong female characters. 🙄🙄🙄

[h8theam]

I don't want to respond to the original post because I don't want to be unnecessarily mean but listen, I know shipping is fun and guessing what the narrative will do is fun and all, bones is not the thing holding bkdk back.

I saw this post implying that bones was obsessed with 'heteronormativity' and boy will they regret it when they catch up to the Manga like? Have you looked at Horikoshi? The 'romantic subtext' you see is built on mysogny, this happens over and over again. The narrative refuses to write well developed, compelling relationships with women because it doesn't respect them so the Fandom turns to the relationship that is getting developed which is between men. In the end, the underdeveloped m/f relationship will win because that's what the narrative believes women are for.

[miraculousladybug-confessions]

“Attention! Mysogny alert!! I really don't like Fandom's bratty and spoiled segment of the fandom. (Rant: This painfully oblivious people don't understand how much and how many struggles it took from some effing decent real feminists to address issues on gender inequality and make themselves seen, heard, represented, respected, unabused. Only for obnoxious fan brats enter the internet and start to give a hard time for the writings of the female characters. You know you need a long time to sit in the corner and think what your doing until then please do us a favor to stfu) Tag fandom mysogny please.

Topic: Mysogny I really don't like how Fandoms act bratty and spoiled when harshly discussing about and bashing certain characters. I'm telling you, if a female character comes off as a damsel in distress and sexy woman or confident and self assertive. Suddenly their whole character is irrelevant, even though their complexity and interesting in deep writing.

Women hating on each other is an ultimate success for patriarchy regime. Well done girls.” 

[strawberry38]

This April was such a character. So underappreciated. Most women and girls on internet can't be appretiative and count any positive points a character has. They do not even fucking really know anything about the source matherial, the show. They only come to internet to complain and put down characters without anything at base. They see the surface and some rumors they have heard and then get their all stupid effort to put down their own kind that presents themselves because it's not like we had any more characters that carried colors and energy to them. Why not get rid of them entirely? Hypocrisy, entitlement, sad feminist wannabes who what to appear better and tougher? What the fuck is that.

April was a bold girl, she didn't hesitate to speak her mind, she stood her ground with Irma when surrounded by men, and dealing with a very demanding and a displeased man, a man in power, also Vernon always wanting to put them both down and take their place, and steal/have a better video content than them. Two men with more power were opposing them and they still stood strong protecting each other ("aren't you ashamed?" ). This could mirror the realistic patriarchal power and the influence women needed to deal with or keep themselves in touch.

April also had a flaw which made her interesting, real. She was so obsessed with getting a new scoop she forgets anything else, even safety, those instincts. She is very passionate of her works and is gladly involves in a work that includes risk and action. April was awesome. And pseudo imposter feminists who destroy an image and representation of various women or any women [could you just kindly send a kind critique at that, could you fucking do that?!] with very seconds of an eye-bat with no problem and nothing to face their fucking immaturity need to just shut up!!

So… I made a thing. What does Dinner Date Barbie + the firefighter fashion pack, and a lot of modifying, equal? A doll that would approve of my current diorama!

Dinner Date Barbie + firefighter fashion pack =

April O'Neil Barbie! I gave the doll a current body that had plastic rather than rubber legs (plus articulated elbows and wrists), and I removed the pink firefighter strips from the outfit and added yellow pockets to the shirt and pants to match the source photo. I also painted those boots white (they were black), added a watch, and made a belt. And of course the Channel 6 microphone! Removing the earrings was also fun. lol Overall, I’m pretty proud of this. Mattel never made one, and the only thing we ever got was action figures, so I took it up a notch.

Her eyes were blue started in season 8; before that, they were just kind of black, but each subsequent series has her with blue eyes (except 2003, in which they were green).

Source photo (apparently I need to swap her watch hand lol):

A more detailed shot of all the goodies used: