Ambiguous Name: Feminist Fantasy

The article and the laconic page basically describes: A work of fiction in which the story is lead by a woman (or women), the page in itself I have no troubles with, but the name invites misuse and I think it should be changed for these reasons: 1.- Looking at many examples, it seems that rather than reading the whole description (or even despite reading it) they see the word 'feminist' and who one adding an example written in a way that 'fits' some sort of feminist view so instead of having:

- Titlework is a story centered in a heroine her struggles with job, family, dail life etc.

We have:

- Titlework is a work that inverts the gender dynamics of the characters via...

2.- If the page is meant to list examples of fiction centered around women, then the word feminist shouldn't really be used for the title, since by its mere definition is a social movement for equal rights, not an adjective for "Things related to women", it promotes the misuse explained above.

3.- This one is probably a maybe, but having a trope dedicated to works centered around women titled as feminist invites way too much misinterpretation about what an actual feminist work of fiction looks like, rather a work than just happens to have a female protagonist in it.

edited 30th Jan '16 10:02:58 AM by RoseBride

Yeah, the name is bad. The article is trying to describe what you might call a sub-setting (another bad name, but you get the idea), a story that is set up to level-out or highlight gender differences.

Both words in the present name are a clear miss. It is not necessarily about feminism. The word fantasy has too much baggage. Fantasy as in wishful thinking? Or Fantasy as in High Fantasy setting?

Here are some suggestions: Gender Leveler, Gender Highlighter, Gender Role Tester, General Role Examiner, Sexual Social Deconstructor, or Gender Differentiator

My understanding was that it meant fantasy as in the genre that snooty literary types call "speculative fiction," which is inclusive of both science fiction and fantasy.

Yet more baggage.

Mmm so that means that the article in the first place really was about fiction works exploring the gender dynamics? Because then it wouldn't need just a rename, but alse an entire rewrite to fit the description wouldn't it?

Also I believe the broader term that wouldn't have that much of baggage would be fiction. (for example Feminist Fiction instead of Fantasy?)

EDIT: Sorry I was confused by the article description, pay no mind to the first paragraph

edited 30th Jan '16 12:44:52 PM by RoseBride

I always thought this was more a 'break from reality' fantasy where women are in positions were historically, or at least commonly thought that, they shouldn't have been at the time.

Such as stuff like The Boss's role during WW 2 in Metal Gear Solid 3.

edited 30th Jan '16 9:40:15 AM by Memers

It's a good point, and I have no gripe about the use of the word Fantasy, but High Crate did brought a good point too that it only adds more ambiguity to the name.

So before we get to a consensus about if it needs to be renamed or not, we should clarify what the trope was supposed to be about in the first place right?

edited 30th Jan '16 10:02:21 AM by RoseBride

The description and laconic both define this trope as basically "a Speculative Fiction work used to explore gender dynamics from a feminist perspective, usually by Playing With the relevant tropes".

Scanning the examples, they mostly seem to fit that definition. All in all, I'm not seeing what the problem is. Can you call out some specific examples or wicks that you think are an issue?

"Fantasy and Sci-Fi with "strong" women protagonists."

This is the laconic page, and the main entry has this: "At its most basic, this just means science fiction or fantasy whose main character is a woman who is the active center of her own story, making things happen"

Which in itself basically means: "speculative fiction centered on women" in no moment its taken for granted that said fiction examines the gender dynamics or relations to the male gender, it just says it can include such stories.

I already said in the first post that I have no problems with the page itself, but with the name, "feminist" means something related to feminism, a social rights movement, not a word to describe "female-related fiction" because not ALL stories centered around women will have feminists topics or storytelling, and it causes misinterpretation of both the trope and what a feminist work of fiction is like. They are not exclusive of each other, but they are not synonyms either.

The page can stay as it is, but the name does not reflect its use.

I brought it up to the disscusion page too, if the 'Feminist' part of the title stays, it lends field to Values Dissonance to appear too, because what one person considers feminist, it's not the same as other from another culture does.

edited 30th Jan '16 12:33:12 PM by RoseBride

Speculative Fiction Centered on Women is pretty darn close. I wonder, though, if it could be just Female Centered Fiction?

You don't need a Speculative Fiction setting to deal with the female issues/viewpoints.

That is true and another thing missinterpreted in the page given the context a work can be groundbreaking and feminist but if its not Speculative Fiction, it doesn't belong to the page either.

Female Centered Fiction sounds good to me, but Female (or Women's) Fiction too?

It also made me realize that maybe a page (either trope or useful notes) is needed to catalogue feminist works.

That name sounds like it'd be easily misused as a list of works with female protagonists.

Really I do not see a trope here at all. I mean I could see it if it actually was what I thought it was in my previous post but not what other people are claiming it is.

edited 31st Jan '16 8:18:35 AM by Memers

How about something like Distaff Counterpart Fantasy (or Fiction?) I'd like to include speculative fiction but wouldn't that make the title too big?

EDIT That's a good point, an actually since this trope is most definitely not about actual feminist works than it has the danger on falling into People Sit On Chairs

edited 31st Jan '16 9:35:59 AM by RoseBride

I thought this trope was about when a feminist author creates a story where the plot and characters fit their own gender views. Like Writer on Board, but for the entire length of the story.

I thought that as well when I first found it, but looking at the description, nope it's not, it's about fantasy and sci-fi stories with a female protagonist making things happen. It really has little to do with feminism stories or authors, which is why the request was made to change it.

I also would like to add, that looking back I don't think it falls on People Siton Chair by itself, otherwise things like Girl-Show Ghetto and The Smurfette Principle wouldn't exist, but it does have a danger of people thinking it is.

edited 31st Jan '16 1:04:08 PM by RoseBride

I think my idea should be a separate trope, since it clearly already exists. Feminist Fiction or something similar.

It does sound like a good idea but before getting ahead of ourselves, we need to sort the name issue, any suggestions?

edited 31st Jan '16 4:46:59 PM by RoseBride

@16: Those pages have completely different purposes though. Girl-Show Ghetto is about what audiences tend to think about women-targeted entertainment. The Smurfette Principle is an objectively quantifiable ratio of male:female characters found in a work. The "trope" here is basically about a work that features "strong female protagonist", which is a really vague term.

I meant that this trope was caused as a response of sorts to those pages, not that the things they describe are inherently related to the present trope, because both are tied down to the representation of women in fiction, and this trope is about fantasy works centered on women.

The "Strong" female character only appears in the laconic page because is the short version of a female protagonist whose actions drive the story and make things happen

Not every fictional woman will fit the description, not even if they're the protagonist (because female characters are more often than run the risk of being written as passive protagonists)

Finally the trope is about Speculative Fiction (Sci-fi and Fantasy) not about every media out there centered on women.

edited 2nd Feb '16 9:09:37 AM by RoseBride

I'm really sorry (I kept waiting for someone to post something but nothing...) for the double posting but I made a Single Proposition crowner here, to see if the trope is to be renamed or not.

Honestly, I don't think that "Speculative Fiction with a female main character" is tropeworthy, but the description supports the definition I used earlier just as well, and since the examples seem to follow that one rather than "female main character", I'd suggest just cleaning up the description to make it clear that that's what the trope is.

According to the description "female main character" is not the only quality of it (and if it was I would share your opinion), even the laconic page specifies "strong" female character, which again in this case means a character with an active role in the story, making things happen, not things and the plot happening to or around her (that would make her Pinball Protagonist and not an example of the trope)

Really I think I've explained it over, thrice in the thread already.

If what you have a gripe with is the proposed names, why don't you propose one? the thread was literally made for that.

What you proposed does have merit, but in order to leave the page with the name (and with truly feminist fiction in mind) a TRS would still be needed, rather than just a regular clean up, because it would be a whole restructuration: Change the description almost entirely, purge the examples not belonging to it, specify how Values Dissonance comes into play, rewrite the examples, possibly new trope image and quote etc. Etc.

If you are up for all that then go ahead but make sure you can come to terms with the fact that: female main character ≠ (truly) feminist fantasy, before anything.

edited 2nd Feb '16 8:06:42 PM by RoseBride

We already have any number of tropes for "strong female character" (Action Girl, Silk Hiding Steel, etc), and "one of these other tropes, but they're also the main character" isn't any more tropeworthy than "female main character".

I don't have a problem with the name, so I'm not sure why you brought that up.

Basically, the page at it exists now says that it's a Speculative Fiction work with a strong female protagonist, then lists a bunch of reasons why Speculative Fiction is a good genre for exploring feminist themes.

What you're suggesting is that we remove everything but the first part. What I'm suggesting is that we remove the first part and make the article entirely about the second part. We're redefining it either way, as the current definition is confused and contradictory. Rewriting the description and checking for bad examples and bad wicks will need to happen either way.

edited 4th Feb '16 12:49:03 PM by NativeJovian

Ideally, I'd like to keep the name, and make sure examples are limited to works that fit both "Feminist" and "Fantasy". That's the reason I used the page quote that I did.