Straight White Males as default: How it's wrong.

[Purpelia]

Actually I see nothing bad in that. Yes they will newer enjoy such a convention as it is indeed not meant to cater for them. But as long as they accept this and behave and do NOT attempt to force the convention to cater to them instead of the target demographic it's all fine and well.

That's why bronies run their OWN conventions.

Just for the record. I know you can't tell but I am one. Just saying.

My issue is that it seems many people on this thread don't make that distinction. Or worse yet belong to people who are not as cool as we are.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

I wouldn't have a clue how to write about women, or gay relationships.
I'm not one and haven't had one.

Being an SWM, I can relate to SWM and therefore find it much easier to write about them.
Considering most of my 'writing' centres around a limited amount of NS military RP, the SWM-prevalence has a kind of canonical defence behind it though.

[Indira]

To be honest, the majority of lead characters I've read don't fall into this SWM category. Some do, but this is far from de-rigour, so I would ask for sources on his claim that the majority of modern fantasy writing falls into these categories

[Nailed to the Perch]

No one is saying he does.

The problem that tends to happen in a lot of these threads about broad social trends is that the conversation goes like this:

"This is a broad social trend that is a problem."
"Give me an example of someone conforming to this trend."
"Okay, here is one example."
"So you're saying that THIS PARTICULAR EXAMPLE is bad and racist and sexist and has to be done differently?"
"No? I'm saying it's an example of a broader trend that is a problem."
"Then why did you specify it?"
"Because people wanted an example!"
"So you DO think it's bad and racist and sexist etc. etc.!"

Think of it this way: is it racist for a business to hire a white guy for a job?

Is it racist for every business in the world ONLY to hire white guys for jobs?

No one thinks that George R. R. Martin, personally, is a horrible racist who should have been obligated to make the Lannisters a family of black disabled lesbians. People may think that his series is an example of how the fantasy genre tends to default to "white people and dragons." The problem is not any single author or any single book. I haven't read A Song of Ice and Fire yet, and I'm perfectly willing to believe it's great (and I fully intend to read it once the series is complete). The problem is that it's really, really, really easy for me to pick up any random fantasy or sci-fi book and find a bunch of straight white male characters, and disproportionately hard to find gay or non-white or female characters in non-token roles. That can't be fixed by any one author; it can be fixed by a whole lot of authors individually making a point of thinking, "Did I make this character a straight white dude for a reason, or just by default? And if it's the latter, could I make them female or gay or non-white and still have a story that's just as good or maybe even better?"

Actually A Song of Ice and Fire was brought into the discussion as an example of a series that sports a wide variety of characters, genders, sexualities etc and is definitely to be lauded for the way it handles these themes.

That's why it's extra weird EM thinks we're saying GRRM is being racist...

But other than that you're correct!

Duly noted! I'll look forward to reading it a little bit more, then.

[Purpelia]

It's the same thing with homosexuals or Asians or even being a white male. If a character does not need one of those things to be his defining trait than you might as well not mention it at all.

You know, it's possible to write characters who aren't Smurfette. A character can be Asian without their Asianness being a "defining trait." (See, for example, the previously mentioned Joan Watson on Elementary.) Bob can have "just married and very much in love" be a defining trait (or "cheating on his spouse," or "widowed," or "missing his spouse back home" or whatever) exactly the same way when his spouse is named Roger as when his spouse is named Lisa. The perception of "not a straight white male" as a "defining trait" is exactly the sort of thing those of us advocating against a "default" sort of character are trying to address.

Are you arguing with me or against me? Because I can't tell. I explicitly made a point of saying that unless it actually is a defining character trait none of that needs mentioning. To use your example. If the author just says "spouse" and newer goes beyond that including not giving a name than any and all assumption about said spouse including gender are in the mind of the reader.

[Nimilia]

Actually, the second version seems considerably MORE interesting...

But we can still probably do better.. Right?

How about unprivileged trans-genital overweight otherkin multi-ethnic goths of color saving CIS scum from their SWM privilege?

Nahh, the SWM demographic would just read things into that which you couldn't possibly have intended.

[Southern Patriots]

I wouldn't have a clue how to write about women, or gay relationships.
I'm not one and haven't had one.

Being an SWM, I can relate to SWM and therefore find it much easier to write about them.
Considering most of my 'writing' centres around a limited amount of NS military RP, the SWM-prevalence has a kind of canonical defence behind it though.

Do you feel bad about oppressing non-SWM peoples with your SWM default?

I think you should apologize.

[Esternial]

I really don't care much. For decades people have had the ability to fantasize, so use it.

[Tlik]

"You Bastard."

"No, that was a camel."

*chuckles*

[Nailed to the Perch]

I wouldn't have a clue how to write about women, or gay relationships.
I'm not one and haven't had one.

How to write a gay relationship:

Write a straight relationship. Now, change all the times you refer to one of the characters in that relationship as "he" or "she" to the other pronoun. If their name is strongly gendered, change it to a different name. Gay relationship written!

How to write a woman:

Just write a person, and then name that person "Susan" or "Marla" or "Nancy" or something. Woman written!

[Southern Patriots]

How about unprivileged trans-genital overweight otherkin multi-ethnic goths of color saving CIS scum from their SWM privilege?

Nahh, the SWM demographic would just read things into that which you couldn't possibly have intended.

I think I agree with you.

[Funkadelia]

As a gay man, I could not give a rat's ass as to who is included in the stories. I just care whether or not it's a good story. I don't get why this is a big issue for people.

[Dakini]

That's why bronies run their OWN conventions.

Just for the record. I know you can't tell but I am one. Just saying.

My issue is that it seems many people on this thread don't make that distinction. Or worse yet belong to people who are not as cool as we are.

There also seems to be this thing where the convention websites don't specify their target audience. I can totally see some clueless parent going "oh, my 5 year old daughter loves My Little Pony!" and signing up for it.

[Purpelia]

How to write a gay relationship:

Write a straight relationship. Now, change all the times you refer to one of the characters in that relationship as "he" or "she" to the other pronoun. If their name is strongly gendered, change it to a different name. Gay relationship written!

How to write a woman:

Just write a person, and then name that person "Susan" or "Marla" or "Nancy" or something. Woman written!

Not quite. You also have to add periods.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

I wouldn't have a clue how to write about women, or gay relationships.
I'm not one and haven't had one.

Being an SWM, I can relate to SWM and therefore find it much easier to write about them.
Considering most of my 'writing' centres around a limited amount of NS military RP, the SWM-prevalence has a kind of canonical defence behind it though.

Do you feel bad about oppressing non-SWM peoples with your SWM default?

I think you should apologize.

The only oppression I participate in revolves around gunboat diplomacy, napalm and howitzers.
And jackboots.

[Southern Patriots]

I wouldn't have a clue how to write about women, or gay relationships.
I'm not one and haven't had one.

How to write a gay relationship:

Write a straight relationship. Now, change all the times you refer to one of the characters in that relationship as "he" or "she" to the other pronoun. If their name is strongly gendered, change it to a different name. Gay relationship written!

How to write a woman:

Just write a person, and then name that person "Susan" or "Marla" or "Nancy" or something. Woman written!

That works if you're writing for children.

If you're writing in a fashion that really explores a character, you have to understand that people aren't clones of each other and things like gender, sex and sexual preference impact part of what makes a person who they are (or even how they act).

[The UK in Exile]

How to write a gay relationship:

Write a straight relationship. Now, change all the times you refer to one of the characters in that relationship as "he" or "she" to the other pronoun. If their name is strongly gendered, change it to a different name. Gay relationship written!

How to write a woman:

Just write a person, and then name that person "Susan" or "Marla" or "Nancy" or something. Woman written!

Not quite. You also have to add periods.

hahaha! Double Entendre!

[Esternial]

As a gay man, I could not give a rat's ass as to who is included in the stories. I just care whether or not it's a good story. I don't get why this is a big issue for people.

I agree. Going into such discussions over a story ruins it and makes me suspect that person cannot enjoy a fantasy novel without turning it into an issue.

Like the same people that start to argue why goblins are implausible creatures.

[Southern Patriots]

As a gay man, I could not give a rat's ass as to who is included in the stories. I just care whether or not it's a good story. I don't get why this is a big issue for people.

Too much free time, First World problems, and lingering resentment against SWM's as a whole.

[Saiwania]

Which is bullshit spread by fearmongering racists.

I'm not convinced. The world as a whole, is a lot less diverse than in most majority White nations which have lax immigration policies and are letting in lots of non-Whites who are subsequently reproducing at a faster rate. The Chinese for example, comprise a little over 19% of the entire world population at 1.35 billion people and the vast majority of them belong to the Han ethnicity. The total number of White people world wide? Estimates have it between only 800 to 900 million, barely even half as you can see.

Oh, poor you. Why does this idea trouble you? Do you think that you'll get treated as poorly as minorities are currently treated?

Perhaps, but at any rate; I don't like the idea of living where I don't have the social privileges that I'm used to. I admit that I'm a mild racist in that I don't believe any race is inherently superior but I still believe in self segregation and prefer my own.

[Dakini]

How to write a gay relationship:

Write a straight relationship. Now, change all the times you refer to one of the characters in that relationship as "he" or "she" to the other pronoun. If their name is strongly gendered, change it to a different name. Gay relationship written!

How to write a woman:

Just write a person, and then name that person "Susan" or "Marla" or "Nancy" or something. Woman written!

That works if you're writing for children.

If you're writing in a fashion that really explores a character, you have to understand that people aren't clones of each other and things like gender, sex and sexual preference impact part of what makes a person who they are (or even how they act).

If you know anything about people who aren't exactly in your demographic, you'll know that there's much more variation within a particular demographic than between them.

[Forsher]

That's become debatable given that this started off as "write what you know," remember?

No, this started off as challenging the notion of straight white male as default, remember? It's right there in the thread title. I'm not interested in getting into the minutia of your process, only in how it relates to the topic at hand. If your writing is one step removed from Doug wearing a belt on his head and his underwear on the outside, that's you, not what the thread is about.

Conversations within a larger topic of discussion just don't happen, right? In case you've forgotten, this was the post where this conversation started.

Oh, that's okay, then. There are gays and women and blacks and elves in my story.

It's just the main char who is an SWM.

Maybe it's because you are straight, white and male... It's completely understandable that you're writing from the characters viewpoint, as its one you know about and are comfortable with.

You repsonded along the lines of "Yeah, if it's an autobiography". (That's neither an accurate quote nor an accurate representation of what you said. It is the vague idea though.)

I'm not sure who you think you're talking to at this point because, below, you committed the Cardian Sin and confused to vaguely superficial names. This quote: Forster Keys, Australian, at university.

What the monkey fuck are you talking about?

You misattributed part of my post to Forster Keys, who I had quoted. Cardian Sin happens to be a misspelling of Cardinal Sin. Don't worry, it happens reasonably oftern due to the whole Forsher/Forster problem (is my fault, I was a nation second).

This quote: Forsher, Not Australian, not at university.

Kipling was an Anglo-Indian (ish). Mowgli? Just plain old Indian, as far as I can tell.

Oh good lord.

Guy who lived in India and always felt Indian writing about an Indian boy who it was entirely plausible was an Anglo-Indian in the modern sense (ish)? Turns out it probably isn't the latter part (hence plain old Indian) but that doesn't invalidate the former.

What I am saying is that elements of ourselves get put into our stories. So, when we don't specify a skin colour or anything we kind of look at it and (if we think of it at all, which I maintain is unlikely unless prompted... look at Neo Art's story that he was telling us about, without any plot details... grr; to clarify, what I am saying is that he didn't notice the point he's telling us about until prompted) we find that we've got a lot of white characters. I'm pretty certain that an author who isn't a white person (and particularly one who isn't in what I am going to label, in full knowledge of the terms dodginess, the white world) is going to find that a lot of their stories have non-specified (i.e. the defaults) who aren't white (let alone SWMs).

I am also saying that we're going to write ourselves in somehow. We're going to find a character and just subconsciously start writing our personality into them. Unless we're doing that deliberately.

Holy shit, this is like trying to unpack a Rubic's Cube. For fuck's sake, dude.

Are you really just trying to find out why this has happened? Because we established that in the fucking OP. We know why it's happened. Neo Art talked about how it happened to him, I talked about how it's happened to me. We know why it happens.

The Article (which I read and noted criticisms I had following that reading in initial post here) outlines a rather different reason to what I am suggesting here.

The reason why I bring up Neo Art's little story is that it supports my idea that we just don't think about the colour of our characters skin when we are creating them in the first place. I clouded that somewhat by pointing out the specific thing I was taking out of Neo Art's post (not all of it was particularly relevant) but this is what I was using it for.

The point is it doesn't have to. It is not actually integral to the process. As an artist, as someone who nominally makes shit up for a living can in fact take a basic assumption they may not have been aware of and challenge it. Authors check assumptions in their stories all the fucking time to see if that's where the story really should go, if they are telling a story that's already been told or just repeating themselves.

The only thing this discussion is meant to do is point out an area that hasn't been examined, the assumption of the white straight male as the default setting.

It is not the unbreakable bond between the author and the character. It just isn't. In the same way that Paul Auster didn't have to be a dog to write a book from a dog's point of view, or Kipling did not have to be a mongoose to write Riki Tiki Tavi, or an Indian boy raised by wolves to write a story about an Indian boy raised by wolves.

The fundamental problem here is the tension between the post that sparked this conversation and the thread's topic... they're not quite the same.

So, yeah, what I am saying in large part is that, in many stories, you could invert the colours of the skins of the characters and the resulting unnatural tones wouldn't matter at all because they're never really given much thought in the first place, to the extent that we are getting a "white" vibe off them because that's what we are.

[Distributist Chestertonia]

The problem tends to be that most readers of speculative fiction are straight white males, as are the authors, and many of them feel more able to identify with someone as close to an idealized version of themselves as possible. As more women, gays, and people in other ethnicities read and write speculative fiction everyone will realize the breadth of people with whom one can identify. I see it more as a problem of simple ignorance rather than racism, sexism, or homophobia.

^This. As a straight white male, I actually tried writing a story about a dialogue between a gay man and a straight man. One meaningful one. It was poorly received by my creative writing class - especially the one explicitly gay guy in our class - because essentially I do not know how Christians tend to interact with a long-time friend whom they've just learned is a homosexual. I know how I would, so I wrote from that perspective; and that's the trouble.

It's demographics at work. If it offends you, write something for the audiences you want to reach out to. But don't expect writers to write outside of their expertise - most of them being SWMs, as you put it.

[Nimilia]

Do you feel bad about oppressing non-SWM peoples with your SWM default?

I think you should apologize.

The only oppression I participate in revolves around gunboat diplomacy, napalm and howitzers.
And jackboots.

So you mean you write about a bunch of men stuck on boats in the middle of the ocean without any female companionship?
I've read stuff like that :3

[The Steel Magnolia]

Did... did I seriously spawn a page argument because I pissed off some My Little Ponies fans fifteen pages ago?

Jesus Christ.