A question I get often is “What about women transforming into men. Why is no one interested in that.”
My thoughts:
Ah yes the infamous F to M transformation. There are a number of reasons that it is less popular. A man turning into a woman is very symbolic. It represents a loss of power both physically and socially. Where the inverse transformation of a woman to man would be accompanied by an increase in social status and physical strength. A story about a loss of power can let you explore the true nature of a character where an increase of power doesn’t make the character face any hard decisions.
Another part of it is that men do treat women like crap from time to time. Granted women also treat men like crap but the difference is in the aggressiveness. A man will initiate the crap giving, a woman will rarely walk up to a man and give him a hard time. This is why when a transformation is portrayed it is usually in to an attractive woman because an attractive women has to worry about unwanted sexual advances but an attractive man does not. It is part of the mating game we play with each other that the male is the initiator.
You also have the issue of social norm. A woman who acts manly is just tomboyish. She is still an accepted member of society provided she is attractive that is. A man who acts womanly is an outcast, a person of questionable morals and sexual orientation. There is a much harsher reaction to men acting like women that the reverse. Again this is probably due to the perceived power differential and an the different roles in mating.
And then there is the basic audience for this sort of thing. Most of the audience for this thing is going to be male. Why is Laura Croft female? Because your average gamer doesn’t want to stair at a guy but for 15 hours of game play. Same idea here. Transforming a man into a woman means more attractive women to look at. The opposite mean less attractive women. And if you go to the very base of the male psyche on this thing a man transformed into a woman is a woman who is interested in all the stuff men are interested in. She would like action movies, football and burping. In a sort of twisted way it’s a dream woman.
Well what about a woman to man transformation wouldn’t that make a dream man? Not really. Women are more psychological in there fantasy. It’s about personality and how a man makes them feel as opposed to T and A. A dream man has to be manly. Strong and confident and at the same time compassionate and caring. A woman to man doesn’t really satisfy that fantasy because part of the transformation story is to be out of your depth and overwhelmed, not strong and confident. Also to be perfectly honest women are pretty shitty to one another so compassionate and caring would be a stretch as well.
A man to woman transformation story is a simple one. It’s about loss and confronting your own bigotries and the past sins. A woman to man transformation story would have to be more complex. I am not saying it’s can’t be done but all of the easy plot points are gone when you reverse the situation. The story would have to be about something else something transformational for a woman. Because that is what these stories are about. Not the physical transformation but the mental one that occurs after the transformation. Being transformed into a woman is about learning to be a better man strangely enough.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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16 comments:
Great explanation here! I'm impressed.
I find the idea of female to male transformations really upsetting - not that I have anything against real world F2M transsexuals, but in my fantasy life it freaks me out - to me Women are perfection and men are ugly why should I enjoy seeing a goddess become demoted to an ugly thing like a man?
I enjoy transformation in the same non-fetishy way I enjoy alternative history or science fiction. Seeing how you can be the same person, but suddenly, your social role and how people view you abruptly changes. I'm a straight woman, and dislike the sexual fantasy elements of a lot of transformation stories.
However, I do think female-to-male can be done well. If you're a woman whose sense of social identity comes from being a nurturer or a very competent head of household, it can be a "loss of power" when you turn into a man. You're praised for being good with kids as a woman, but suspected of being a pedophile as a man. Maybe you ran a textile business, but people don't take you seriously as a male merchant because that's "domestic work." What if all men in your society grew up with warrior training? You don't know jack about swords, and they send you to war? What if a man challenges you to a duel? What if most men in the society are literate, and women aren't? You see where this is going. The social elements of transformation fascinate me rather than the sexual parts.
I also think the idea that all women want to be "swept off their feet" is a little silly. Not all women are like romance novel heroines, you know! ;) I like transformation for messing with people's ideas about gender, rather than enforcing them.
A beautifully strong sociological answer here- it's not just about "can we do this well", but "can we convey meaning".
I mean, look at how many stories get made into movies that are real flops in reaching the audience. Just because you can make something look pretty and somewhat marketable doesn't mean it's necessarily going to have a major impact. Having taken a class revolving around gender identities, masculinity does define femininity in Western cultures, and therefore it is an accepted thing for women to try to be men. A man being a woman makes the general society - men and women - 'uncomfortable' and tries to get us to re-evaluate our perspectives.
I really like this guest comic. It reminds me of Samurai Jack.
Can't say I really agree with your premise. We live in a society that does, and always has, valued women's lives more than it values men's. And women frequently get away with behavior men simply cannot. Women's status is generally higher than men's in multiple areas. Women also just plain get away with more.
As for the idea that men are the initiators of hostility: this is a joke, right? Women initiate aggression all the time, although men are often reflexively blamed for it anyway.
Pardon, but where the heck do you live, Dean? And further, what sociology or psychology classes have you taken?
Women have been consistently viewed as lessers throughout Western cultures (and in many Eastern), and they haven't been put in 'harm's way' because they have (and still are, by some) viewed as too weak and frail. Sociologists have found that masculinity begins defining femininity as early as kindergarten, while psychologists have found that there are equal levels of aggression amongst sexes- men tend to be more directly aggressive (and hence apparently caught more often) while women tend to be more passive aggressive.
There was a Ron Shneider movie called "The Hot Girl" which had a woman to man transformation.
A very succinct explanation, may I save that. I will make sure you get credited for it.
@Frostfire Credited? You writing a paper or something?
I live in America "Green Dream," how about you?
The simple fact is that we live in a society that values women's lives over men's lives. It starts with the "women and children first" mentality, but goes much deeper than that. If a woman initiates violence against a man, it's viewed automatically as the man's fault.
Indeed, let's just look at a great comic like Exiern: it's viewed as comic and funny if men get killed. But violence against women is viewed as some sort of deeply awful event. I'm pretty sure Drawemos has killed a ton of men in his comics, but has yet to kill one single woman in his comic. Now, why would that be?
I have taken multiple sociology and psychology classes, thank you very much, and I assert it again: women's lives are valued WAY WAY WAY higher in this society than men's. Women are automatically, by default, assumed to be in the right if they use violence. Men are viewed as automatically in the wrong if they use violence. Even though study by multiple researchers has found that women are every bit as likely to initiate violence as men, our society automatically excuses the women and condemns the men.
Indeed, sociologists have consistently found that women can outright murder men and get away with it, because they're women and are assumed to be innocent. Not long ago, a woman in Detroit poured a pot of boiling oil on her sleeping boyfriend. He died within hours at the hospital. Yet I suspect that folks like you would assume that HE must have done something wrong, and SHE must have been justified in her action somehow.
After all, violence by women against men is always justified, right?
Although I am a fan, one area where Drawemos consistently disappoints me is in his persistent portrayal of women as innocent victims. It's like women are not adults who make adult choices. Women are just perpetual victims, and never responsible for their own behavior.
Hasn't anyone ever pointed out to you guys that the best way to infantalize women is to excuse whatever violence they use, and to assume that they aren't responsible for their own actions if they become abusive and violent?
Drawomos, do you want to do something actually brave, that actually talks about the reality of women in society? Try reading this book: "When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence" by Patricia Pearson.
This woman got drummed out of the feminist movement just for showing that our society consistently portrays violent women as victims instead of perpetrators.
You want to infantalize women? Here's a good way to do it: pretend that any violence they perpetrate is the fault of the men in their lives.
You want to do something truly courageous in your comic, dude? Then study how women automatically get away with murder just because they're women. Because that's how our society actually works.
Sorry for so often mis-spelling "Drowemos" by the way.
I love your comic.
No response I see. That's OK. Drowemos, I'm going to repeat my recommendation: if you really want to talk about violence and women, check your own comic. How many men have you killed in your stories, vs. how many women? Why is it funny when you kill men, but some sort of tragedy if a woman gets killed--which, by the way, I don't think you've ever actually done.
I'm a father of two boys. I love them both dearly. So, what, it would be funny if they got killed but my daughters lived?
Read Patricia Pearson's book. Women get away with murder all the damned time, and our whole society instantly excuses them simply because they're women. Its like women aren't adults, they're just perpetual children and victims because they're smaller and lack penises.
A good friend of mine, Trudy Schuett, is deeply involved in the domestic violence industry. She has been for decades. One of the things she's consistently noticed is that women can abuse children, abuse their elderly parents, even abuse the men in their lives, and are almost always excused for it. And no, don't kid yourself that because the women are smaller and weaker, they can't hurt men. All they do is use weapons, or wait until the man is asleep and then take a baseball bad or a frying pan to him. Indeed, like I mentioned above, last year in Detroit a woman waited until her boyfriend was asleep, then poured a pot of boiling vegetable oil on him. He died within hours in the hospital. The Detroit PD called it one of the worst cases of domestic violence they'd ever seen.
Can we stop, please, pretending that women are just perpetual victims? Can we start treating them like adults who often themselves behave like monsters? Or must we continually be Politically Correct and constantly treat women like innocent victims no matter what they hell they do?
I have a friend who recently was not just physically attacked by his wife, and hurt him badly (because he's a really good guy who would never, ever hit a girl, no matter what she did to him) but then had her divorce him and lost all access to his children. Because he was the man and assumed guilty of everything.
It's about time we as a society stop pretending that women are perpetual children and thus perpetual victims. You have a great opportunity to show that with Exiern. I hope you try.
Sorry Esmay I wasn't ignoring you i just have way too many message boards and other things to check. Your post flew under the radar. Are women less violent than me? No idea. I am not talking about violence or cruelty. We are all bastards and no one gender, race, nation, religion, class or any other group of humanity has a higher proportion of bastards then the next. Men are bastard, Women are bastards, Albino circus jugglers from Russia are bastards. We are all violent cruel asses to one another no exception.
In this discussion it’s important to distinguish is the difference between protections and status. You argue that women have more protections in society both structurally and culturally. This may be but protections don’t define your day to day existence it’s your status that does that. It is often the case when someone has more protections in a society they have a lower status. Women are protected by the law because society sees them as helpless compared to men.
This is what I am talking about. Being treated like a lesser being is corrosive to soul. One could make the same argument again any minority they have more rights and protection under the law but that’s not the problem the problem is societal bigotry because that impacts your every day life where laws only come into play when something has gone wrong.
You’re claiming that a woman can get away with murder more easily. I am claiming a woman will be insulted by construction workers more easily. Both can be true. But you know what, I walk past a lot of construction sites but never once wanted to murder someone.
I understand how frustrating it is when someone uses the legal system against you. Your stories of women abusing he system are heart wrenching. But men abuse the system too. As do those blasted Albino Russian circus jugglers (oh how I hate those jugglers). If you are a bastard you will look for any advantage you can get you hand on, man, woman or other.
We are talking about the same thing really. Women are treated like they are retarded by society. This means both that in the day to day life they are treated like crap but also when they do something horribly wrong they are given a presumption of innocence. You are talking about the loopholes I am talking about the normal operations. I guess you could say if you are an honest woman you have a worse life and if you are a dishonest man you have a worse life.
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