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<blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 7500094" data-attributes="member: 50987">[MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION]:&nbsp; People don't always refer to the &quot;damsel in distress&quot; trope as sexist, because it's not always the case.&nbsp; (Nor is it all people, either...some folks spend a lot of time studying this sort of thing.)&nbsp; It's not usually a problem to have a female character need rescue in a story.&nbsp; But if the damsel is not only in distress, but also powerless, and mocked, and stripped of her humanity, etc., purely for the sake of contrast with the main character who conveniently has all of the power and humanity and respect...well, you can see how that's a problem.I agree with you that social change being very slow, and I agree that things can look different when viewed from opposite ends of a timeline.&nbsp; There's a lot of important history between Rapunzel and <s>Princess</s> General Leah, and not all of it is very comfortable for my privileged male brain to learn about.&nbsp; &nbsp; So I agree that some authors wrote in a manner that readers will find offensive today, and I acknowledge they are being criticized for it.&nbsp; And I agree with you:&nbsp; it's unfair.But it is also necessary.&nbsp; I think that type of criticism keeps us from normalizing or dismissing something that took our society a long time to move away from, and keeps us from slowing down when we still have so far to go.&nbsp; We should strive to understand what happened and why we felt it needed to change, and that's hard to do if we dismiss or ignore the problematic nature of the past.&nbsp; Especially the parts of the past that we love. That's all I've got.&nbsp; I'm going to put my Serious Social Critique hat aside, and go back to being a silly moogle.&nbsp; I'm not downvoting any of these authors for moral or ethical reasons, and I'm not going to try to change anyone's minds about how to vote.&nbsp; In all honesty:&nbsp; I'm downvoting whoever has the fewest points in the hopes of bringing this contest to as quick of a close as possible.&nbsp; (shrug)&nbsp; That's as good a reason as any.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CleverNickName, post: 7500094, member: 50987"] [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION]: People don't always refer to the "damsel in distress" trope as sexist, because it's not always the case. (Nor is it all people, either...some folks spend a lot of time studying this sort of thing.) It's not usually a problem to have a female character need rescue in a story. But if the damsel is not only in distress, but also powerless, and mocked, and stripped of her humanity, etc., purely for the sake of contrast with the main character who conveniently has all of the power and humanity and respect...well, you can see how that's a problem. I agree with you that social change being very slow, and I agree that things can look different when viewed from opposite ends of a timeline. There's a lot of important history between Rapunzel and [s]Princess[/s] [i]General[/I] Leah, and not all of it is very comfortable for my privileged male brain to learn about. So I agree that some authors wrote in a manner that readers will find offensive today, and I acknowledge they are being criticized for it. And I agree with you: it's unfair. But it is also necessary. I think that type of criticism keeps us from normalizing or dismissing something that took our society a long time to move away from, and keeps us from slowing down when we still have so far to go. We should strive to understand what happened and why we felt it needed to change, and that's hard to do if we dismiss or ignore the problematic nature of the past. Especially the parts of the past that we love. That's all I've got. I'm going to put my Serious Social Critique hat aside, and go back to being a silly moogle. I'm not downvoting any of these authors for moral or ethical reasons, and I'm not going to try to change anyone's minds about how to vote. In all honesty: I'm downvoting whoever has the fewest points in the hopes of bringing this contest to as quick of a close as possible. (shrug) That's as good a reason as any. [/QUOTE]

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