#how much steph should be struggling with misogyny in story is questionable

[rmbunnie]

no shade to anyone but it kinda gives me the heebies when i see people like "oh Steph is just like Jason but without all the melodrama lmao!" like. no she isn't actually? I love Jason and I LOVE Steph but they honest to god are not that similar. The most interesting events in Stephanie's story like her diying her vigilante work and all the personal life stuff going on with her are not at all applicable to Jason and Jason's death had implications for him and a butterfly effect that Stephanie's death simply did not hold for her. Both are tragic events but the context around them is like not the same, at all, even a little. Of course they have things in common like the kinda snarky demeanor and rough home life, but for them to be "pretty much the same" you have to be playing pretty fast and loose with personality and tone for both of them, and it's kinda a disservice to both as unique characters. Also idk it just rubs me the wrong way to pitch a female character to the fandom as like "omg she's just like your favorite boy except without the most interesting parts! Isn't that something?" but who am i to decide it's kinda just a pet peeve of mine lmao

[aingeal98]

so, steph in the canon text choose to carry her pregnancy to term and give her child up for adoption. this is generally understood to be bc the writer of that issue/run was pro life, but taking the text at face value, what does it say that steph chose what she chose? is it coherent with her character? could it be read as another symptom of internalized mysoginy? or is it incoherent with her character/would it be more thematically interesting to have her have an abortion?

Really really good question I've been mulling this over in my head for weeks. To answer the last question first, I honestly think the issue with the pregnancy arc is less about the choices Steph makes and more to do with how clunkily anti abortion Chuck Dixon is. Like I do think it's very possible to be fully pro choice but also unwilling to abort your own pregnancy. I fought alongside my friends to repeal the abortion ban in Ireland but at the same time I can never picture myself ever getting one, because for me the second I become aware of it it's real to me, not just a clump of cells. But I know full well that's just my own sentimentality and there's no scientific backing, like logically it IS just a clump of cells and also there's a whole patriarchal society dedicated to stopping women from having bodily autonomy, which is why I'd never try and push that belief on others or discourage them from whatever choice they feel is best. So basically I would struggle hard to ever do it, but if you want to, hell yeah abort that thang! No judgement from me or moral reasoning needed from you.

And because of this I could see Steph being the same. I could even see certain story beats playing out the same if they were allowed just a bit more nuance instead of being a conservative after school special. Steph lashing out at her mom and counsellor for suggesting an abortion, not because it's a Bad Thing to do but because it feels to her like her mom is already trying to sweep this under the rug like it never happened, and Steph herself hasn't even come to terms with it. Steph feeling isolated from her peers, again highly plausible it just needs better dialogue than what we got in the original. We could even have scenes of Steph grappling with the idea of an abortion, and wondering how much of her aversion to it is her own choice and how much is internalized misogyny. I think her arc of deciding to have the baby and give it up works best, although a well written abortion au would be super interesting to read.

So basically for me the choices Steph makes in the original run are very coherent with her character, and what actually makes it fall flat is the clunky dialogue and heavy handed anti abortion writing. If Steph was written by someone other than Chuck Dixon during that time, I could see her being pro choice while also being unwilling to abort the baby herself. And it could have been written with a lot more nuance and acknowledgement of what teen mothers go through, instead of just what Chuck Dixon thought Good Teen Moms should do and say in this filthy world of liberal values.

From what we got in canon, I'd say Steph probably grew out of the anti abortion mindset as she got older. I don't think she'd ever regret her decision, but I do see her looking back and cringing at some of the ways she acted because wow the internalized misogyny JUMPED out. And if she ever came across another sobbing teenager with a positive pregnancy test, I'd say modern adult Steph would make sure they knew all their options with zero judgement. And helping that young girl would probably dredge up a million different emotions that she would struggle to name.

So tl:dr, taking the text at face value Steph has boatloads of internalized misogyny specifically around abortion. But I don't actually think her choices are out of character, more so that the entire narrative is written less as a story and more as a moralizing conservative rant on pro life where everyone feels like a caricature. It would actually be quite simple to tweak the dialogue and clunky scenes and end up with similar character choices just... better written. Where her mom and counsellors aren't evil for suggesting abortion but Steph still feels hurt and lashes out anyway. Where her peers say the wrong things and leave her feeling alienated. Where she weighs her options and gets more narrative space to mull over all the consequences. It would be my preferred way to rewrite the arc, but there are a lot of changes that could be made and I'm open to reading about all of them.

Thank you for the ask! Sorry it took so long to respond I was chewing over the whole concept haha.