crankySometimes I have bitchy days. Sometimes I've been woken up repeatedly during the night to arbitrate disagreements between the cats, or it was too hot to sleep, or I have lots of deadlines I need to take care of, or I just have a really painful zit in my ear. Whatever. I am a person, I have a right to the ball, and that ball includes the occasional bitchy day. Sometimes, I am not a happy little bundle of sunshine and zombie puppies, ready to spread my pathogenic joy across the world.
On those days, I tend to stay mostly in my room (or the nearest available equivalent), working industriously on whatever pisses me off the least, and interacting only with people whose response to my being snappy is "Yes, yes, dear, aren't you cute when you try to bite me, here, have a rawhide chew." I don't answer email unless I have to, because it's never nice to take somebody's face off just for asking when the next book is coming out (An Artificial Night, 9/10; Late Eclipses, 3/11; Deadline, 5/11, by the way). At that point, if you pursue me into my hole, well...
The reason I bring this up is that I've seen a tendency to write off female characters who aren't always sweetness, light, and the joy at the end of the sunshine tunnel. Jean Gray may destroy planets, but she does it while baking cookies, while Emma Frost saves the world and sneers. Jean is thus clearly the better heroine, more deserving of love and compassion and all that other wacky stuff. Wolverine, on the other hand, is an unremitting bastard, and that makes him cool. That makes him edgy. Because he's bad, see? He's bad.
I once had a proofreader return a scene from one of the Toby books with the note that Toby was being a real unbearable bitch. I wrote back, and suggested that for every instance of "October Daye," they substitute the male protagonist of their choice (they went with Harry Dresden) before looking at the scene again. The complaint was summarily withdrawn. To which I can only say, seriously, what the hell? Why is it tough and cool and all that other stuff from a male protagonist, but incredibly bitchy and hateful and awful from a female protagonist? Why do we all have to be Pollyanna, all the time?
Now, I am a natural Marilyn Munster, which means that ninety percent of the time, I'm happy and bubbly and ready to slather you in plague-carrying bats. But that doesn't mean that the Wednesday Addams girls are somehow less valid, or less deserving of their own stories. And it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have a grumpy day once in a while. I'm just not allowed to use my grumpy day as an excuse for immuno-depressant smallpox.
Hmmph.
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June 7 2010, 20:46:25 UTC 7 years ago
Even Wednesday Addams has an occasional bubbly, happy day. Balance in all things.
June 14 2010, 15:27:41 UTC 7 years ago
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June 8 2010, 00:43:08 UTC 7 years ago
That last sentence SO MUCH. The useless milk sop who needs saving and just the pure ineffectiveness and limp-wrist flailing of all the characters included is why I just do not GET the sparkle-vamp series. It's just so many useless characters who have somehow found each other, and now they are "popular" role models. (???!)
Give me a tough, classy, smart woman who knows her boundaries and can say no firmly and knows where to kick bad guys. One who knows when to just walk away from a drama llama, and who knows she's truly capable and that anything she can't handle right away she can eventually figure out, perhaps with help from friends and some solid research. That's the kind of character I look up to.
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June 7 2010, 20:54:12 UTC 7 years ago
I've been called a bitch lots of times :) I don't aim for it, but I am precise in how I talk to people. If someone asks me a question I try to give them as specific an answer as possible, even when it means bluntly telling someone their so is cheating on them or those shoes really do not go with that outfit. So, I'm a bitch. Ok. I'm still going to love cupcakes and bright colors and sunny days and zombies and everything else that's me. I've learned that there are enough people who appreciate my honesty and love me for whatever else it is they see in me that I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not. Neither do you, and I'm really glad that you don't.
Besides, "bitch" is just a code word for "doing something I don't like to me or doing something I do like to someone else". It doesn't translate to "mean" or "wrong" or "evil," but it usually does mean "why does she get to and I don't?!"
June 14 2010, 15:28:58 UTC 7 years ago
Distressingly true.
June 7 2010, 20:58:31 UTC 7 years ago
And the list goes on and on and on...
June 7 2010, 21:04:11 UTC 7 years ago
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June 7 2010, 21:02:15 UTC 7 years ago
Women somehow are supposed to have a sell-by date or something - as you might imagine, I tend to ignore such things. I'm not a commodity, after all.
I may work very hard at being kind - and fair, even though that's a completely manufactured concept possible only through sentient intelligence - but attempting to be anything other than honest doesn't work and some days - that makes me a very pointy stick.
I have three different kinds of tomatoes planted in the garden - so I have something to look forward to. They also don't care if I curse or praise them, so guess what. They get a lot of attention. ^^
I also have 'dogshit burrito' on pre-load for anyone who calls me a bitch...or something. They'd have to work a little harder to get anything more original. In my head, other things. ^^
And for the record, all the tough, cool, nasty things they let the boys get away with aren't appealing in the least - and I don't understand their attraction at all, but I'm expected to take it onboard anyway. Here, have a raw egg shampoo, Bubba. Want flying lessons?
So not taking it personally - love, me. Tomorrow will be better.
June 7 2010, 21:22:47 UTC 7 years ago
"I was not put on this earth to be a perfect cup of tea. Deal."
Yes, I would only change the one word, because- hey- you are SOMEONE'S perfect cup of tea! (Your own!)
Oooh, what sorts of tomatoes do you have planted?
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June 7 2010, 21:04:05 UTC 7 years ago
June 14 2010, 15:32:44 UTC 7 years ago
June 7 2010, 21:05:19 UTC 7 years ago
Everybody has her bitchy days, including me - I can be a bitch queen sometimes (and Husband can tell stories about that, and I don't want him to, because that would be horribly embarassing).
I love female characters that are NOt the cute sweeties who smile all the time and speak in pink letters covered in sweet-smelling roses. :) Jean Gray? Me loves. When I write female characters, I always try to give them edges - and defnitely, I let them have their bitchy days. *ponders own stories* Hm, there are only a few female characters in them that are really completely fleshed out, but those few who are, do have their edges.
For myself, I stopped wearing masks. When I have a cranky day, I warn people that I am in a bad mood. When I feel like being bitchy, I just am. I'm human, I fail, and I can't always be nice.
June 14 2010, 15:33:17 UTC 7 years ago
Your lack of masks is awesome to me.
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June 7 2010, 21:11:55 UTC 7 years ago
But as to the main point of your post---word. Seriously. The double standard is alive and well in this regard and in a lot of other allied ways as well. Somehow, a hero that is less than perfect is interestingly flawed, while a heroine that is less than perfect deserves to be savaged, and if she is perfect, well, she can be savaged for that too. I think it comes from the fact that for much of our history, women weren't really supposed to have agency, and so there's this idea in our collective hindbrain that female characters should...I can't find the right word, but in its absence I'll say "apologize" for having agency. Or perhaps "earn" the right to have agency by also filling their conventional female role to perfection.
I.e. this is the same problem that leads to the "supermom" syndrome, the idea that it is fine to be a noble-prize winning physicist or microbiologist or ceo, just as long as your house is pefectly clean and you're a cookie-baking Mom at the same time.
June 7 2010, 21:20:23 UTC 7 years ago
SO using that line!
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June 7 2010, 21:14:27 UTC 7 years ago
I'm NOT bitchy. I'm very neutral. There's a difference. Mostly one that you can only tell when I'm being bitchy/having a bad day.
And... um... in your books they're pretty much having a BAD DAY.
June 14 2010, 18:03:40 UTC 7 years ago
June 7 2010, 21:20:13 UTC 7 years ago
June 14 2010, 18:03:47 UTC 7 years ago
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June 7 2010, 21:24:27 UTC 7 years ago
I'll always go with the bitch over anyone else, because they're interesting. Wednesday Addams and Daria Morgendorffer were my childhood aspirations. They kind of still are.
June 14 2010, 18:04:04 UTC 7 years ago
June 7 2010, 21:49:17 UTC 7 years ago
:-P
June 14 2010, 18:04:13 UTC 7 years ago
June 7 2010, 21:50:42 UTC 7 years ago
My response was, "Only ten?!"
The problem with the word "bitch," in my opinion, is that it is used to mean, "refused to have sex with me, God's gift to women," "treated me like an idiot when I was acting like an idiot," and "unacceptably rude for no reason at all."
June 7 2010, 22:09:00 UTC 7 years ago
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June 14 2010, 18:04:41 UTC 7 years ago
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June 14 2010, 18:05:51 UTC 7 years ago
Your icon pleases me.
June 7 2010, 23:19:23 UTC 7 years ago
Keep writing Toby just the way she is. I love her for her kickassness. (That's not a word, but it ought to be.) And feel free to let the bitchiness reign from time to time. I fully believe that people who are drippy-sweet happy 24/7 will someday explode all over everything.
June 14 2010, 18:09:48 UTC 7 years ago
June 7 2010, 23:20:18 UTC 7 years ago
I really would *also* like to see a lot less of the "being a total jerk = awesome badass" when it comes to male characters.
June 14 2010, 18:09:55 UTC 7 years ago
Gendered emotions are friggin' stupid.
June 7 2010, 23:36:06 UTC 7 years ago
And everyone has cranky days. Everyone. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to take a nice big bite of a reality-muffin.
Re: Gendered emotions are friggin' stupid.
June 8 2010, 07:47:44 UTC 7 years ago
Re: Gendered emotions are friggin' stupid.
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Re: Gendered emotions are friggin' stupid.
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June 8 2010, 00:14:53 UTC 7 years ago
I kind of feel a need to chime in on this. I agree with everything that's been said on this thread, especially that there's a definite power imbalance in traditional male and female roles in all kinds of fiction: the right to become angry and to take action is far from fairly distributed between male and female characters. I do think some of that power imbalance, though, comes from male characters often being written as unrealistically competent, emotionally resilient, and self-reliant, even when things don't go so far as to make them outright intimidating or violent. It'd be nice to see more stories in which both male and female characters spent a little time wallowing in unreasonable, excessive grief *and* stomping around in variably unjustifiable levels of rage before pulling themselves together and kicking butt.
June 14 2010, 18:11:25 UTC 7 years ago
Welcome!
June 8 2010, 00:21:03 UTC 7 years ago
June 14 2010, 18:11:40 UTC 7 years ago
So-called Moodiness
June 8 2010, 00:42:42 UTC 7 years ago
**ahem** Anyway, the double standard really bothers me. Male characters show their "strength" by being jerks to everybody all the time, but when a female character is at all nasty, then she has a mood problem. Ugh! I'd like the male characters to be civil once in a while and the female characters to be allowed to have a nasty conversation or five if they feel like it.
BTW: I just finished the first Toby book today, and if anybody deserves to be in a bad mood, it's her.
BTW again: Is the song "Ghost of Lilly Kane" that I heard you sing at Marcon about Lilly Kane from Veronica Mars??
Re: So-called Moodiness
June 14 2010, 18:16:21 UTC 7 years ago
BTW1: Yes, that's sort of my thought.
BTW2: Yup! It's going to be on the new album.
June 8 2010, 01:14:01 UTC 7 years ago
June 14 2010, 18:16:32 UTC 7 years ago
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June 14 2010, 18:16:50 UTC 7 years ago
June 8 2010, 01:25:05 UTC 7 years ago
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June 8 2010, 01:45:30 UTC 7 years ago
Now I'm wondering which Toby scene the proofreader objected to. Was it in one of the books that's been published so far?
June 8 2010, 08:59:07 UTC 7 years ago
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