Diversity

[sarillia]

This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot recently but due to the nature of the topic and the stereotypes about people on different sides of the issue, I want to make it clear that I'm not interested in proselytizing and I am interested in hearing from people who disagree with me.

So, a disproportionate amount of media is about white, able-bodied, straight cis men. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing characters who fit into all those categories. However there is a discussion to be had about how the media both reflects and influences the way we see the world. I'm sure most of you have already seen these arguments.

Personally, even if I didn't agree with them, I would still want to write about people who aren't represented very often. Female characters who are gay or disabled and written well are very important to me because of the way I relate to them and get so happy to see them treated with empathy. I'd love to give that feeling to other people.

Now this is the part that I'm really interested in hearing about: there are people who agree with what I have said so far but who are afraid to get things wrong so they avoid writing about people they don't have personal experience with. I recently said elsewhere that I don't understand people who do this (and then got congratulated for not having massive crippling anxieties like other artists and I laughed and laughed) but I was wrong. I do understand the fear of getting something wrong.

What I don't understand is what makes this different. I get if you are always afraid of getting things wrong on any topic that requires research. But why does this one get defended where others are met with "just get over it and do the research"? I suspect there are two related reasons.

First is the spectre of the "Social Justice Warrior". I admit they exist and as much as I always end up arguing when someone uses this term, I also argue with people who perform the behaviors it describes. I also think they get more attention than they deserve and reasonable people often get slapped with that label. They are not that difficult to avoid if you know how and I would be happy to give some tips for separating the reasonable people from the ones to avoid (tips that don't begin and end with "if they're visibly angry then don't listen to them") to anyone who wants them. The social justice that I'm familiar with is a productive place that welcomes all voices and I would like to see some people get past their gunshy feelings after encountering SJWs and find their way to the more welcoming brand of discussion that I know.

Even putting aside the whole SJW thing, people seem to be terrified of being called racist or sexist or anything like that. So now I'm going to explain the way these things are seen in the circles I run in. I never use words like "racist" as a noun and I don't use them to describe people, only behaviors. Because everyone is capable of doing things that contribute to institutionalized oppressions and marginalization and that doesn't make you a terrible person. Jay Smooth gave a TED talk about this view of things and I can dig it up if anyone is interested.

Now that I've rambled on about something that is only vaguely related to writing, I want to get to one tip for Doing It Right for those who are nervous: have multiple people who fit into each group. It's fine for some of them to be stereotypical. There are always people who fit the stereotypes in real life. The problem comes when they are the only representation of that group in the media. So have a variety of characters. Strong Female Characters(tm) and women who are delicate flowers, gay people who are obsessed with sex and gay people who are hopeless romantics, butch lesbians and femme lesbians, trans people who are extremely dysmorphic and others who are comfortable in their skin but are still a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth, disabled characters who overcome all their problems and others who make peace with their limitations, and everything else you can think of. I don't like advice that says "stop writing x". I prefer "Go ahead and write x but also try writing y and z to balance it out".

I also want to welcome anyone who wants to try writing about issues that I have experience with but has questions to PM me. I have disabilities that include mobility problems, chronic illness, and mental illness, and I'm bisexual and homoromantic. I will do my best to explain my thoughts instead of just telling you what to write or not to write.

So, um, this got long. Thoughts?

I hope I don't regret posting this

Comments

[agilebrit]

I think part of the reason it's different is because if you get a fact wrong about a gun, people don't take it personally, or attack you personally, if you do--whereas you run a very real danger of that happening if you get something "wrong" about race or sexuality. It's like walking through a minefield. Look what happened to Piers Morgan on Twitter this week, when he said about a transwoman that "she was a boy until she was 18." The trans* community landed on his head like a ton of pissed-off bricks--and he's an ally. I understood why they did, but I'm not sure if he ever got it or not.

I, for one, do not need that kind of shitstorm.

As for the writing part, I write characters and I don't particularly worry about checking boxes for the sake of diversity. Hell, in my last thing I didn't even describe the characters other than the hair color (black) of my female protag. If people scan her as white (in a secondary world fantasy), that's... not really my problem. Ditto with my protag in this other thing; he might be black and gay, but it never actually comes up as part of the story I'm telling. It's difficult to describe a main character in first person; I don't often bother. This may be one of my own limitations, but I'm writing short fiction here; it's short on description anyway.

There's really no good answer to this, unfortunately--other than "write what you want to write and maybe take a look at what you default to and see if changing that up would change the story in an interesting way." Which is what I do anyway, usually.

[sarillia]

"write what you want to write and maybe take a look at what you default to and see if changing that up would change the story in an interesting way."

This is kind of my stance. I hear people talk about how characters "just come to them" being one way or another but I think it's worth looking at trends. Actually I think it's worth looking at all kinds of trends in your writing and seeing if there's anything you could change up and challenge yourself with. There's nothing wrong with sticking with what's familiar and comfortable if you want to but I think there's also nothing wrong with seeing if this is what you're doing.

I actually just watched the whole Piers Morgan thing this morning and I have to admit that I rolled my eyes the whole way through. I think his original questions were fine since he's not well-versed in the subject and he was probably saying what most of his viewers were thinking, but when he called Mock back he could have been less defensive about people telling him that there are problems with what he was saying. It could have been a good opportunity to explain to him and his viewers some Trans 101 stuff but that's not really what happened.

I'm not sure guns are a good example of something that people won't get personal about. I've seen people get very hostile if you get something about a gun wrong if they think the misunderstanding is due to you being pro-gun control.

[agilebrit]

Well, when I said "guns," I meant the more technical aspects, like (an example from another story of mine) getting the number of bullets the mag holds wrong. The Hubby fact-checked me on that, and I showed him the gun that held 18 (17+1) rounds, because I had done the research.

I think what happened with Piers was he said something he thought was fine, and no one gently took him aside and said "what you said was wrong and here's why." He was, instead, met with insta-hostility and reacted accordingly. It was a trainwreck all around.

I like writing from different viewpoints. My necromancer started out male (because I do default to male protags), but I changed him to female because it made the character more interesting. For me, it's all about what works best for the story and going "but what if" and seeing what happens.

[sarillia]

That's what I mean too. I have honestly seen an innocent technical mistake get interpreted as "I don't know what I'm talking about because I hate guns and want to take them away from everyone". Granted, these were extreme cases but I think just about any disagreement can get hostile. I understand that it's no fun when it happens and can put you off asking questions though. I've just noticed that some people can shrug off hostility on one topic but use it as an excuse to not ask their questions on other topics.

Seems like we're coming from slightly different places but ending up with very similar processes for our writing.

[inkdust]

That's kind of my stance too. Many of my characters do come about one way or another that's hard to consider changing, but when their concepts are more open I like to take a look at what I might change to add to the story.