strangetomato | A whole lot of isms, but mostly heterosexism.

Given that this Sunday, May 17, is the International Day Against Homophobia, it's interesting that I was recently called out for being heterosexist. To my face, by a lesbian. I was pretty embarrassed. (Not that it would be any better to have this pointed out in another way, but I felt pretty careless.)

I had designed a quick little poster for a community Seniors Appreciation Day event, and all of the clip art used on it (yeah, go ahead and laugh at the clip art, but my job isn't as a designer - there's no time or money to make it nicer) featured elderly male/female couples.

In my defense, I was lucky to find anything that showed seniors being happy and doing anything besides sitting on a couch at home (no joke - many of them actually featured graveyards). We wanted dancing and eating and having fun AND elderly people, and I barely found that. There's literally nothing that tackles ageism AND heterosexism. It seems like you can only tackle one of these issues at a time (though there was a little racial diversity in there, I'll give them that much).

It's amazing how easy it is to be heterosexist. Unlike homophobia, you do it by default, by doing nothing. I like to think I'm pretty good about this stuff, because I actually think about it most of the time and even point it out to other people when they say something that assumes the world to be straight (you get mixed results when you suggest that someone's baby might actually grow up to be gay, let me warn you, true though it may be). So if I can do it by accident, then you can too. If you're constantly vigilant about it, then I salute you, but it can be tough to get it right all the time.

To relate this back to sims, it's got me to thinking about portrayals of LGBT characters in sim stories, just like any other media. I've read some interesting articles and posts on this topic recently (relating to different fandoms, but same difference), and it really is worth considering. I try to write about characters first and foremost, and so they have flaws and make bad decisions and all that, but I do try to be conscious of the messages my stories are sending, whether intended or not.

As for homophobia, I did make a very conscious decision to include that in my sim world, as much as I love the idea of a world without it. My sim world simulates the world I live in, and that includes most of its problems too. Also, there's no way to examine something if you ignore its existence, and I'm very interested in exploring gender/sexuality in my characters. It's something of a theme in my story, I suppose, if you want to put that much weight on it (which is probably a bit of a stretch).

So how do you feel about this as a creator or reader of sim stories? Feel free to discuss it in the comments, if you like.

Also, go ahead and critique the way I do things in relation to this topic, if you want to, so I can further consider and examine them. I know I could always fall back on "it's just a sim story," but I don't actually believe that excuses me in any way. I'm putting content out into the world, so I'm engaging in the way things are portrayed, even though it's a small and very specialized audience.

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I kind of agree and disagree with this? Like, I definitely don't think I would have called Strange heterosexist just because she didn't think about homosexuality and equal representation this one time, but the poster itself probably does come across as heterosexist.

And I agree that yeah, it is impossible to represent every single group, but I can imagine that if you belong to a minority that is constantly not represented it will eventually get to you. I think the poster DOES matter - even if it's not a HUGE deal. The little things are meaningful.

Also, what I'd really love to see is homosexuality dealt with in cartoons or kids television. I know that seems sort of random, but it's really something that you don't get to see and it'd be nice for kids to be presented with openly gay characters to relate to. :\

I was more thinking that there are probably a LOT of groups that aren't represented in culture -- for example, in the United States people of Asian and African-American descent are usually represented in most instances, but homosexuals as well as Native Americans, people of Middle Eastern and Indian descent, etc. are often not represented. It seems to me that you'd be hard-pressed to find something that represents EVERYONE at all times.

To me it just seems like more of a "choose your battles" kind of thing. While I'm sure it must be irritating to feel like you're not being represented on a community event poster, there are bigger fish to fry -- your example of homosexuality in cartoons and children's programs is a great one -- and I just feel like there are some things you just have to let go. Aside from white males, almost everyone faces prejudice or misrepresentation or lack of representation in American culture, and things would probably get out of hand if everyone was constantly challenging everything that they saw.

Does that make sense? I've been writing papers for school for two weeks now and my brain is absolute mush so I'm not sure if I'm even explaining correctly what I'm trying to say. I wasn't meaning to say that it doesn't matter at all that there were no same-sex couples on the poster -- just that maybe that something like that isn't the kind of thing that is worth getting upset over.

Hee, yeah I gotcha. I know it would be next to impossible to represent every group or anything like that. I don't think Strange should HAVE to do it either, because well... it'd take years and nothing would get done obviously. So I'm sure the poster is fine and that after awhile it's just getting nitpicky. But I can also understand why the other person who wasn't being represented (especially if this is something that happens A LOT) would speak up and say: "Hey, you forgot about me."

And yeah, there are bigger issues, but I don't think that takes away from some of the smaller things either. And it's always good when someone makes aware of something that you honestly just hadn't thought of. So I think it's good that the lady spoke up, but yeah I definitely would never say that Strange is heterosexist because... she's really not. Just talking to her you can tell that she is very aware of sexuality and representation and all that good stuff.

Exactly. It's not that she shouldn't have said anything about it, but maybe the way she brought it up could have been a bit politer since there was obviously not any bad intentions behind the poster.

Yeah, she wasn't really rude about it, but she was pretty direct. I didn't mind. (I should have added that "this story may have been exaggerated to make it more interesting.")

The "should have been more polite/should have worded it differently/etc." thing is what's generally known as a tone argument. That link is fandom- and racism-specific, but it applies to other oppressions, too.

I think what some people might not understand is that much of the time, the only time someone will point out an -ism in their everyday life is when they genuinely think highly enough of you (general you) to know that you're probably not intentionally being a jerk, so they say, "Hey, [thing you did/said] wasn't cool." I mean, I'm not really interested in getting into a debate with Fred Phelps, for example, because he isn't going to listen and it'd just be a frustrating and exhausting waste of time. But one of my friends, someone who I know to generally be thoughtful and have good intentions? I am going to point it out, because I don't think my friends want to unintentionally be jerks. Does that make sense? (It's a bit late here; I'm getting talky.)

That makes sense, and I think I misread the entry and thought that the woman actually outright called

strangetomato heterosexist, which doesn't seem to be the case.

However, I have always been taught that you catch more flies with honey. Not that people shouldn't stand up for themselves, and not that people should be pleading or fawning when they address important issues -- but in general, calling people names or accusing them of being racist or sexist or homophobic (even if they are) just aggravates the situation and leads them to shut out any positive message they could possibly receive. Firmly but politely telling someone that they are infringing on your rights is the best way to approach things, I think. But that's just my opinion. :)

I agree that if someone were to fly into a rage or something it'd be perhaps just slightly inappropriate, but I've never actually seen that happen. What I have seen happen essentially boils down to, "Hey, if you don't tack a 'please' onto that 'stop stomping on my fingers!' then I'm just not going to listen." which I think isn't very cool.

I also agree that to some extent when you're trying to explain things to people who are just starting out on this, and whose knowledge of oppressions is thus understandably simplistic, it can be hard to get them to listen when you start using words that to them means, essentially, "Bad, evil, puppy kicker!" I like "problematic" and variations on that theme for that very reason. It's not so loaded, it doesn't make people instantly go into defensive mode, but it still gets the point across that what they did/said upset you. I think we basically agree. :)

A whole lot of isms, but mostly heterosexism.

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