We need a dispute on the "misuse": Straw Feminist

I hate to say it, but Mercury has a point. If feminism is defined solely as the belief that women are equal to men, then under the current rules anyone who uses this position in a villainous or antagonistic context is automatically "straw". It's kind of like a black character who argues about inequality in any capacity and uses that argument for an alternative agenda. That doesn't make them "straw", though. It merely demonstrates that, like any platform, it can be corrupted.

For it to be straw, the entire intention of the character has to be proving that the ideology itself is the problem.

edited 31st May '11 2:54:19 AM by KingZeal

I'll use a more PC example.

Letsay I want to create a character that illustrates issues with typical conservative positions while being a conservative. Is this character automatically a Straw Conservative?

I think yes tentatively. Characters created to illustrate problems with a viewpoint at the very least have a high risk of being Straw. Still it probably depends on the degree to which the character is well rounded.

> Still it probably depends on the degree to which the character is well rounded.

Then that should be indicated.

For example, letsay we had a conservative character who held a pro-corporal punishment view along with other conservative positions. Throughout the course of the story s/he undergoes therapy for child abuse, has an epiphany and renounces his or her beliefs in spanking. Without necessarily renouncing their fiscally conservative views or even having them proven correct in-story.

That's obviously not a Straw Conservative.

Having a character created to express views the author sees as wrong and then see the error of their ways and renounce some or all of them sounds pretty straw to me.

"Having a character created to express views the author sees as wrong and then see the error of their ways and renounce some or all of them sounds pretty straw to me."

Then all characters with a political affiliation that renounce any aspect of their beliefs are Straw? So, for example, a Christian studying the bible and deciding that he can make an argument that God does not hate homosexuals is a Straw character?

Might be irrelevant but there's The Nostalgia Chick. The woman who plays her (Lindsay Ellis) is a feminist but the character has ideals like Real Women Never Wear Dresses that apparently drive Lindsay crazy. She's also supposed to be a horrible, hypocritical person.

edited 31st May '11 10:04:29 AM by emeriin

Sorry for taking a while to reply again. My computer is broken, and so I've been either posting from an i-phone or hoping to be in front of a school computer (as I am now). Apologies, this is kind of long...

My basic position is that in reality IMO, people tend not to dramatically change their views (although the may moderated them), and so if you are writing a work where you have someone representing an ideology you don't like "seeing the light", then you are pretty clearly writing an Author Tract.

I do admit that I'm not so sure that the person seeing the error of their ways is necessarily a straw man, although I think that there is a good argument that they are, since the character fits the "exists to be disproven" aspect.

Regarding that conservative and corporal punishment example, while I see your point about the character adjusting one aspect of their beliefs but not others, it still sticks out at me that a character of the opposing ideology (whatever it is) is presented as starting out as a violent person because of their beliefs and needing treatment to become better. I'm still leaning toward seeing that as a strawman characterization of a belief system.

I think that in general, the right way to make a character who holds the opposite viewpoint from you is to show how them as an average person who has some specific traits that are shaped by their ideology. Making them dysfunctional suggests that the author thinks that believing x ideology makes you dysfunctional. *

The straw man doesn't have to change his ideology, that's Easy Evangelism. He just has to get "knocked down," and apparently proven wrong.

A Straw Feminist either believes men and woman should be equal and gets knocked down (rare) or believes woman are better than men and gets knocked down (more common, and has very little to do with actual feminism).

That's well-put. Would you agree though that having Easy Evangelism in a story is a big red flag that there's an Author Tract going on?

Yes. There are obvious exceptions—maybe it means Mind Control or whatnot—but mundane Easy Evangelism is pretty much only found in an Author Tract.

Sorry for being late to the party, But.....

The majority of this discussion agrees that a straw <insert ideal here> exists solely to be knocked down. Where "ideal" is an simplified and/or exaggerated version of itself. Now let's move on.

With that definition, What can we do to the usage of Straw Feminist on the Wiki?

edited 31st May '11 7:15:48 PM by pokedude10

@ Madrugada, Fast Eddie and Shale That's fine for it to be a simple concept but we need someone (or people who understand what the trope was intended to be) to make an edit that elaborates on the page itself describing how the Straw Feminist is portrayed in fiction and how it connects to other tropes, not just two or three but as many related tropes as possible. For example: How are they being proven wrong? What is being proven wrong? Why is what they say called wrong? What does it have to do with what people call a feminazi? With a little clarification I'm sure we can help all understand what this is meant to be or Needs A Better Description.

It seems that several things are needed in order for the position to be considered straw:

1. The position held by the character is not actually the position that proponents of the movement believe in. Or, it's a very extreme version that ignores the valid statements made by the more moderate incarnations of said movement and is inherently flawed.
2. A problem arises which perfectly capitalizes on said flaws which are ultimately used to prove that the opposition was Properly Paranoid.
3. The position is not modified or reevaluated without said flaw, but instead discarded wholesale. In this case, a woman who believes that women objectively makes better parents than men does not amend her beliefs when faced with the crackwhore mom whom she helped get custody which ultimately lead to the death of her child. She either continues to defend her position as it was or she completely renounces all feminism as a whole (including the belief that women can be intellectually equal to men) and advocates misogyny.

edited 3rd Jun '11 5:28:21 PM by KingZeal

Here's my problem with the term "straw". According to the people in this thread, anyone who exists to espouse a position and then be proven wrong is a "straw" [insert position here]. But under that definition "straw" articles should fall under tropes are not bad, since it can be used constructively. "Straw" [insert position here] is almost exclusively used negatively.

As for the "misuse" of Straw Feminist, the term has been used very frequently around the internet, including by actual feminists, to mean the stereotypical man hating feminist that may or may not exist or be common. I understand that this disagrees with the supposed definition of "straw", but that is how it is commonly used. If we don't want people making that "mistake", we should rename the trope.

Actually, now that I think about it I can't recall any examples of a "straw" feminist. I can think of lots of examples of characters being given political opinions just to be shown wrong, but with feminism all I can think of is extremist feminist caricatures. That is, characters that are extremist examples of feminism, but they aren't really used to make any sort of point. Maybe characters that fit the definition of "straw" feminist do exist, but the kind that doesn't make a point seems far more common to me.