Misused: Real Women Dont Wear Dresses

I don't know if this trope was YMMV and converted to in-universe only, but I rarely see it outside of the YMMV pages, where it's always describing fan criticism of a girly half of Tomboy and Girly Girl, the Distressed Damsel, The Chick or any female character who gets criticised at all (regardless of whether or not she's a DD or in a group dynamic).

I've taken a few off YMMV pages here and there but this seems to be a trope requiring a lot of cleanup. There's quite a few YMMV pages on the Related.

I'm pretty sure it was a fan reaction page at one point in time, used for documenting fan perceptions of feminine characters as antifeminist. See the whole Cosette vs. Eponine kerfluffle in Les Mis fandom for a good example. I'm not sure why it was changed; possibly it devolved into complaining about "feminists" and ended up a casualty of the Great Sexism/Creepiness Purge, but that's just my guess.

I've fixed the thread title; it's Real Women Don't Wear Dresses. The change to the trope happened in 2011 - check here.

Imo we should just scrub the ymmv entries and ban people for adding them as the warning is there on the page.

The entries on the page are a jumbled mess of misuse.

edited 22nd Mar '15 3:45:39 AM by Memers

Had a feeling that was the case.

And yeah, even the regular examples page as it is now is a mess. (The Peanuts example, for instance. IIRC, Peppermint Patty isn't shown as being better or worse than the other girls because of her tomboyishness, and the Robin Hood example is used as another excuse to complain about Kate^note I haven't watched the show but almost every Robin Hood example I see on trope pages are Kate complaints. The Percy Jackson and Mafalda (to grab two at random) seem legit, but a lot of them are just "Tomboy and Girly Girl have different ways of doing things" without saying if the Tomboy's way is portrayed as better.

So my guess was right, it changed because it devolved into a misogyny-fest; lovely.

There are 2 issues I have with this page.

The image is just awful. It compares a civilian woman with an armed police officer and then says that one woman is 'tough' and 'competent' because she's dressed in a masculine way, and not, you know, because she's a trained police officer. Even if a better image can't be found I think we should still get rid of this one.

Also the line: "Between a woman in trousers and one in a dress, the odds are the trouser lady is going to be the Action Girl of the pair" is just ridiculous. Action Girls, both in fiction and in real life, wear trousers not because feminine=bad but because dresses/skirts are unpractical and even dangerous in combat situations. A better description should be written about how it's more about feminine behaviour/mannerisms being seen as weak and not about wearing practical clothing.

edited 27th Aug '15 10:46:04 AM by Clanger00

Completely agree with cutting off YMMV misuse. The page even says that it's not an audience reaction trope, and should be for in-universe examples only.

I also totally agree with Clanger00's criticism of the page image. It's an awfully misleading picture. This might be better suited for the Image Pickin' forum, though.

Firstly, not every setting is a realistic one. There can be settings where a character can successfully fight in a frilly dress without any hindrance whatsoever. Practicality of outfits/weapons/vehicles/attacks/hairdos/etc is really only an issue in otherwise realistic settings.

Second, not every Action Girl is a melee fighter. An action girl could be a magic user, or maybe a badass driver in a car. Or she could just dual wield machine guns and mow down mooks while wearing the frilliest of dresses.

So I'd say, both "feminine behavior" and "feminine outfits" should stay in the definition.

edited 27th Aug '15 11:50:35 AM by Rjinswand

Image Pickin' is closed to new threads right now, but put the page and a note to start a thread about it on your To Do list, and when IP reopens (which should be sometime after the 8th of September, at the rate we're going) you can start a thread.

Ever since it was changed from an Audience Reaction trope, it's been incredibly inconsistent. Half the examples used to be made up of inversions and subversions.

I'd argue that the Audience Reaction version was a lot more valid than this retooled one. I always thought that the Audience Reaction one could work - if it underwent the same way as Unfortunate Implications and each example needs a link to confirm that someone noted it. That should prevent the misuse it went through before.

Bumping so this can stay open for discussion. I rather like the idea of going back to the audience reaction usage, but I'm open to persuasion.

It does seem to be that the attitude this trope demonstrates is far more prevalent in Audience Reactions than in-universe. When it was first reworked, most of the examples were subversions and inversions. Even the page image doesn't quite fit. There maybe could be a small section of in-universe examples, but I think the Audience Reaction is what fits best.

As said already, going the same way as Unfortunate Implications would be a good way to prune the natter. Providing a citation link to someone demonstrating said attitude to go along with an example is a good damage control option.

I say this because the in-universe rework of the trope has been in and out of the repair shop already and it's clear that it doesn't work.

Locking as part of New Years Purge.