Latent misogyny in modern media

By Chalsie Choi - Hong Kong SAR

The most pressing issue regarding the representation of women in the media is often not misrepresentation or the lack of diversity, but rather an overall lack of women. Women have always existed in society, and yet it seems that only recently have they been represented in society. It may seem that “women have always been there”, and men often protest the addition of more women in the casts of books, movies, or games, by saying “there are too many women”! They are, of course, wrong. Women only consist of around 18% of all media. The prevalence of men feeling like there are too many women already in the media is because of the inherent patriarchy of society, whether intentional or not. Society, at large, is used to the default being the man, and the concept of “humans” did not, by default nor definition, include women whatsoever until recently. Misogyny not only includes latent contempt of women but the whether-purposeful-or-not lack of inclusion of women. And even if they’re included, they only have half or a third of the lines men have.

An extremely common problem that plagues today’s fandom spaces is the incessant difference between male characterisation and female characterisation. Fans of any media will accept or argue that male characters have a deeper inner world even if it wasn’t given to them by the creators, that the complexity of their characters has simply not yet been tapped into, and therefore it is up to the fandom to make up for the creators “negligence” and create an entire personality for them. Whether they are characters who only have a single appearance, a minor character who died before act 3, or are past friends, usually deceased, who appear occasionally in flashbacks, all male characters are taken as intriguing or warranting their own special storyline. Meanwhile, female characters are looked at with a Doylist lens, at simple face value. If they are not given a backstory or well-written characterisation by the creator, then that’s all there is to them, even in a universe where everyone is a person with real-life goals, flaws and dreams. Even if the female character has context and characterisation with which it is possible to create an interesting inner world for her, there seems to be little interest within fandom to do so. This is ridiculous but unfortunately is a very real phenomenon. This is even prevalent within women, and shows the endless indoctrination and encapsulation of casual misogyny in our everyday life, whether within schooling, architecture, medicine, or media. Name something meant to be “gender neutral” and it is a guarantee that it was not designed with women in mind.

Arguably one of the cornerstones of misogyny tests is the Bechdel test. One might wonder why a test intended to detect female representation be misogynist. Indeed, what is misogynistic about a test made for satire about the lack of feminine representation, that people use as the industry standard for representation, who take it as a hardship to arrange instead of it being a right women deserve, and has become a guise for men to pretend that they are feminist under? What is so misogynistic about that? A test that requires media to feature 1. Women 2. One conversation between women 3. That conversation to not be about boys is the bare minimum for any piece of media. We take it as a given that men will have meaningful conversations, that they will feature in any piece of media, and that they will not only talk about romantic prospects. Women have no such luxury. We have to fight to even be seen on screen. And even then, it is seen as “too much”.

Origins of the Bechdel test:

Women are the most hated group in the world — and not just by men. Even some women hate other women simply because they are women. That women are more inclined to be rude, opinionated, stubborn—and that they are the exception. The idea that women evolved from men, even though men are physically incapable of creating new generations and would have died out extremely early if that was the case, the fact that any woman, no matter whether their character is unique or clichéd, would get hated on, be told that they’re “cringe”, dressed inappropriately, not feminine enough, too feminine, too conservative. No matter what a woman does she will get criticised, not only by men but by other women too. It seems that despite men being allowed to have a hundred thousand depictions of a “dude” (a truly standard man, with no defining features other than “chivalry”) that is formidable (wears black and has the astounding ability to end fisticuffs), and “cool” (see above), women are not allowed to have three versions of a woman that they find inspiring and awe-inducing. Perhaps it’s the lack of diversity on screen. Perhaps it's because writers make women boring. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. No amount of hypothesising could truly put into words the true extent of the inherent hatred of women in our world.

That’s not to say that there aren’t matriarchal communities or societies where women are unconsciously put before men or on the same level as them. However, the majority of the modern world is ill-suited towards women, and that is something that cannot be denied.

Bibliography

Criado-Perez, C. Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. 2020.

Tumblr. https://rnorningstars.tumblr.com/post/698118112915161088/fandom-approaches-male-characters-from-a-watsonian. Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.