Markup View

Author: Wii

Jun 18th 2012 at 2:16:59 AM

I'm looking at both Masculine Fear and Feminine Fear as a unit; I mean, it seems pretty obvious that this was suggested so it could be the "male answer" to the Feminine Fear YKTTW, and even in the slim chance that it wasn't, that's what it will end up as. Feminine Fear is blatantly an AudienceReaction trope in the making, and I'm arguing against its creation over there, as well. The premise of "Feminine Fear" is "there are things, such as rape, which women fear more than men and therefore, fiction involving these things affects women more deeply. Therefore, this trope will document works of fiction that affect women more strongly than most men". That's a really cleaned-up version of the mess that is the Feminine Fear proposal, and it has some extreme issues beyond even that. It has nothing to do with works that discuss the fear of women InUniverse, and it has nothing to do with works where WordOfGod confirms that they were ''trying'' to evoke a stronger reaction among the female audience; all it is is "I am a woman, and I think that I am affected more strongly than most men by this work of fiction/this subject matter because of that."

Sure, this isn't as overtly problematic yet, but the proposal is only one line so far. And it isn't about masculine insecurity, either (I thought we already had that as a trope, but I can't find it anywhere... huh. That definitely needs to be made if I'm not just missing it.); the proposal and the mirroring of Feminine Fear suggest that it's about actual threats to a person's well-being based upon  sex, like diseases (prostate and testicular cancer as an example) that are exclusive to men, or injuries (the sponsor suggested castration; even though this can technically be done to the external female genitalia as well). Actual threats. Not "am I manly enough?" or "am I feminine enough?", actual threats. Broaden it a bit and it could cover something like, say, a man's fear that if he files for divorce his wife will get custody, but even still.

This needs to either about be InUniverse examples where characters [[DiscussedTropes discuss]] things that men fear more than women, or about works of fiction where WordOfGod confirms that the intent was to get a stronger reaction out of men based on their beliefs about what men find more scary. I think that that's the only way to keep this from being wildly subjective and inflammatory.