Stay Pretty or Die: Gender Dynamics in Geekdom

art by Amy Mebberson

Sexism is something all of us here at LGG&F are familiar with. Positive gender dynamics, or the relationships between people of different genders, is an important component of feminist storytelling. We all know that the messages we consume in our favorite media will normalize positive behaviors and ideas, or negative ones. That’s why it’s so important that everyone gets fair representation, and everyone gets treated like a human being, not an object. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case, even in geekdom. More often than not, men are treated like people and women are treated like objects: by the plot, by other characters, and in real life. Recently I stumbled upon a particular trope that is especially good at articulating this double standard: “Men get old. Women get replaced.” Not only do some of the most popular geeky stories take this trope for granted, but incorporate it into the basic plot structure.

Spoilers for the Captain America movies, Doctor Who, and The Legend of Korra after the jump.

Agent Carter: “Hollywood Ending” Review

After a whirlwind eight weeks, we’ve arrived at the end of Season 2 of Agent Carter. This season has certainly had its ups and downs, hasn’t it? This week, does Team Carter get a Hollywood ending? Well, yes and no. Spoilers after the jump.

Agent Carter: “The Edge of Mystery” and “A Little Song and Dance” Review

First, let’s get one thing out of the way:

ANGIE ANGIE ANGIE ANGIE ANGIE ANGIE.

(Spoilers after the jump.)

Agent Carter: “Life of the Party” and “Monsters” Review

We got a double dose of our favorite secret agent this week, although the episodes were each a little Peggy-lite. First in body, as Peggy was still recovering from her grievous injury, and then in mind, as she made a series of uncharacteristically stupid decisions.

Spoilers after the cut!

Agent Carter: “The Atomic Job” Review

Yet another week and yet another Agent Carter episode has come and gone. “The Atomic Job” probably wasn’t my favorite episode, but it let us get to know a couple more reoccurring characters a little bit better, and they were super fun to watch. Hit the jump to find out my thoughts, and spoilers are up ahead.

Agent Carter: “Smoke and Mirrors” Review

There’s nothing quite like sitting down to an episode of Agent Carter after a long day of work, and it’s an especial delight when said episode delivers above the expected level of awesomeness. This week’s episode of Agent Carter was chock full of plotty intrigue as Peggy and her posse got down to business, but it also gave us a much-coveted look into Peggy (and Whitney)’s past.

Spoilers below the jump!

Agent Carter: Season 2 Premiere Review

Oh Miss Carter, it’s been entirely too long.

Something funny happened about a week ago: I was half-watching a playoff football game on ESPN when I suddenly heard the voice of Hayley Atwell. Looking up, I discovered that they had finally decided to leverage the mighty power of the Disney corporation (owner of ESPN, Marvel, and ABC) in order to promote the best part of the MCU. Yes, friends, ESPN was airing an Agent Carter commercial during its highest-rated broadcast of the year.

With a dynamite premiere, hopefully the show is going to be able to keep some of those new eyes focused on Agent Carter, and earn us all a Season 3.

Trailer Tuesdays: Agent Carter Season 2

Season 2 of Agent Carter is finally almost here! After being pushed back two weeks due to the president’s last State of the Union address (#ThanksObama), Agent Carter is set to premiere next week on January 19^th with a two-part episode. I can’t wait! So let’s dive right in.

Sexualized Saturdays: Rape, Agency, and Marvel’s Women

It seems that when you want to make a woman into a hero, you hurt her first. When you want to make a man into a hero, you hurt… also a woman first. (x)

Vague spoilers for Jessica Jones and a trigger warning for rape throughout this post.

I’ve spent the last week watching Marvel’s Jessica Jones miniseries on Netflix. (I’ve still got a few episodes left, so no spoilers for the finale, please!) While it’s very good, it also seems to buy into a common problem that plagues female characters, especially the hard-boiled/hero types: whether mentally or physically or both, its women have been violated.

Sexualized Saturdays: Weaponized Femininity

One of the very first in-depth conversations I ever had with my college roommate was about Legally Blonde. We’d both seen the movie before, so when it came up when we were flipping through channels, it was something we were both willing to procrastinate our homework over. Elle went to Harvard and won her case, and at the end of it all I turned to my roommate and said, “I always hated that Elle won her case because of some hair care thing.”

“Really?” she said back. “I always liked it because of that—I liked that she didn’t have to entirely change who she was in order to succeed.”

Fast forward many years, and I’ve come around to my roommate’s way of thinking. We often think of badass ladies as ladies who succeed, in some way, in a masculine field—the only woman in the cast of an action movie, or the only female scientist, or so on and so forth. These ladies succeed because they’ve proven themselves the best, or at least competent, in a field that is held in high esteem by men. When a woman succeeds because of her gender or gender expression, it’s more a form of weaponized sexuality—a woman is able to seduce a man or confound him in some way with flirtatious behavior.

However, it’s rarer that we ever see a woman succeed because of her life experience as a woman. Though all genders can use products marketed to women, it’s often women or people assigned female at birth who grow up with the societal obligation to not only use things like cosmetics or hair care products, but also to become excellent at using them as a form of gender expression. In other words, using these products proves that one is truly “a woman”. Women are constantly told that they should aim to be the “after” photo in the makeover story, but are constantly shamed for their knowledge—women who use lots of makeup are deemed “high-maintenance” or “spoiled”. Yet women who don’t use makeup are seen as not caring about their appearances. It’s basically a lose-lose situation.

So that gets us into something that we usually don’t see in media—weaponized femininity. This differs from weaponized sexuality—a woman is not confounding her enemy with sensuality, but rather, is using the tools of her societal-prescribed gender expression—cosmetics and the like—to win battles.