Thats not how it went in the IDW Verse Decepticons are workers fuelled by a political ideology gone wrong, Autobot are just the rest of the populous who's leader is a police officer and Female's are just another form like beast bots. And the Quints are a near none entity who's only appearance was interacting with Megs near the beginning of the war.

 

Insultingly simplistic, horrendously misogynistic and goes against EVERYTHING in the IDW continuity.

 

That's an awful idea.

 

That too, yeah. And since the Transformers don't have a biological gender definition or stereotypes to work from, the body couldn't be the problem anyway, no matter how it was shaped.

Abort! Abort! Extract your foot from what you just put it in, and back up as quickly as possible!!  

zmog

 

I don't want that origin to happen since it contradicts IDW canon (or does it, with info creep and all that? Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun), and also because I can't stand the Quintessons, although Roberts proved he can write them scarily, with Eugenesis, but... I'm really the only person who can see how that origin could very easily be written as a story about female empowerment?

No-one? I'm on my own here, aren't I...  

 

It probably could be a easily written in and might even be good. But the question is do we really need a story about female empowerment? Why do all the stories focusing on female characters have to be about them fighting for their right to be treated as equals all the time? I know that sounds weird, and even a bit contradictory, but so much Science-fiction focused around women deals with this over and over again. I just... Just show them as equals. I'm sorry, I'm not doing a good job of explaining this.

So far, every single female character in IDW hasn't been treated differently from any the male characters and that is rather refreshing. Oh yes, you'll have a quick "She?" moment but after that it's business as normal. Can't we just keep going with that?

Plus, I have a horrible feeling that any attempt to write a story of that nature might be a repeat of the Arcee SL, a story with good intentions but poorly executed.

 

I actually agree with ye completely, about that. I was just challenging the idea that that origin story is inherently "horrendously misogynistic".  

I prefer to be optimistic.  

 

Nothing wrong with optimism(that's really hard to type without turning it into Optimus) I'm all about that good stuff.

 

Ain't that the truth? We've been fans too long, the word "optimist" sort of auto-corrects itself in our brains...  

 

I suppose it's similar to how the old "rape-revenge" plotline can be "about female empowerment", but in the end, is still about victimization and conflict and presenting a world-view that is inherently hostile to women.

To paraphrase a female friend of mine, one of the things she likes about the Transformers fiction is how, as a space adventure about genderless alien robots, it carries the potential to be a narrative setting where the constant background noise of patriarchy/gender-struggle is refreshingly silent. It becomes a level playing field because of the elimination of this sense of "difference" (with all the baggage that goes along with it).

zmog

 

Indeed, it's very much a thing that I like too. It shouldn't be a thing in the Camian's story at all, and it isn't. It should never occur to anyone they need to prove themselves.



To reference other comics, Wonder Woman has *so many* stories where 'sexist guy shows up to either show her up (for 'rivals') or defeat her (for outright villains), creates trouble for a bit and she puts up with, then she takes him down 'defeating' his sexism.' And sure, she wins, but the meta subtext is 'there's tons of sexist guys who challenge Wonder Woman and she needs to put up with this crap regularly.' And I'm all, "I don't want or need to read stories where Wonder Woman finds empowerment, I want to read stories where Wonder Woman is simply being awesome because she's inherently empowered."

 

Well, she IS Wonder Woman, so she shouldn't really have to prove anything, though I suppose there's already so much subtext in her backstory anyway, what with the "amazons", and the thick masculinism that is built into classical Greek culture.

And since Wonder Woman is very much a part of "our world", I guess it stands to reason that because our world is still pretty harsh on women in many ways, Wonder Woman stands as a symbol that reflects resistance to (and triumph over) that adversity. She ends up being more of a role model for "fighting women" than as a model for a "perfect society" where that wouldn't be needed.

In Transformers at least, since they are NOT part of "our world", and their native world is one where gender difference as we know it doesn't exist, then it really can be "sexism free zone"... though of course it's not quite there, since even in a "genderless" scenario, masculinity is treated as a generic default assumption, if only in language.

zmog

 

And having the story happen *once* does make some sense, or her dealing with the backlash of actions she's done only having the responses tinged with sexism makes some sense... but the precise 'sexist guy shows up to prove he's better than WW' thing is one of the most common WW stories.

Now there's a list of superpowered sexists in the world because writers think it's *the* story to do with her, she can't just be a feminist icon, she has to get challenged for it constantly... Hercules has filled the role a few times. It's sooo overused.

Indeed.


Even with Arcee and her issues, there's no sense that she needs to prove herself or such. A big social issue she has is people grouping her in with the troublemaking fighter types if anything.

 

Yeah that is one of the pluses of the Camnien fembots so far....to bad Chromia is ruined because of the twist and it makes Windblade look bad.

 

This made me think of those appliance transformers from revenge of the fallen, maybe some of them could have been female? We haven't had that much diversity in robot mode, no cassette sized females, no really off the wall Sky Lynx style female designs. I think this needs to change.

 

I'm not saying it's not overused... but that's also the nature of a legacy comic like that... there are only a finite number of basic stories that ever get told about these characters, and they seem to cycle through them under the assumption that the newest generation of readers needs to see it again. Wonder Woman has been a character with a decided feminist bent for a long time (since the 60s, anyway), so that's always going to be one of her recurring themes... working on that assumption that women ARE still always being faced with adversity and chauvisnism, and need an empowering heroine.

Other characters tend to have their motifs and schticks, and often this means their stories get old and repetitive as well. A similar trend was when black characters would frequently have to face off against pointedly racist threats. On one hand, it was speaking directly to a need for representation and empowerment reflecting real-world issues... seeing a black or female character dealing with issues that are specific to the realities of black or female readers... but on the other hand, it also reduces their gender or ethnic status to a narrative gimmick.

But I still see what you're saying. And it would be nice if Wonder Woman could just be a "heroine" instead of a "woman's heroine".

I want this to happen so much. Part of the problem with the typical "fembot" design is its tendency to eclipse any other aesthetic or functional considerations by pushing "slim and pretty" to the forefront, and ignoring all the other variation that makes Transformers fun. Every time somebody holds up Strika as an exception, it kind of highlights just how bad the situation is. Depending on the art style, the new RID cartoon's Strongarm is a welcome addition to the Fembot canon precisely because she looks more like a "transformer" than a "fembot", and that's rather rare.

But as you point out, there are a lot of other types that rarely get used.

BH Ripclaw deserves an honourable mention because she at least got some page time in IDW's BH series. And anyone who mentions Glit deserves a slap, because when counter-examples are that obscure and arcane, they might as well not exist.  

zmog

 

This is exactly why I want more and better female (and even gender fluid/genuine genderless) representation in Transformers. It has such potential but it's still mired in all the same issues as most other franchises. Treating male as the default (and it's more than just language, and even saying 'it's only language really understates how important language is given it' the primary tool we use for communicating ideas) undermines everything. Because a completely alien species of robots still managed to have male as a default and female as some kind of optional extra.

You're right about Wonder Woman and other 'Strong Female Characters', the standard for a lot of male writers to establish how strong she is by have a sexist male challenge her abilities on the basis she is a woman. When if it were really about empowerment her prowess would not be questioned even by her enemies, like it is with Batman and Superman.

 

I agree

I want the female characters to be treated like male characters
Not like they are weak or "UNIQUE".
Both characters must have equal representation in the comics,this is will not only make things interested for both male and female fans but also remove the sexiest way to treated female characters.

Characters in fiction should not be judged/portrayed according to their gender but by their personality and strength
You are right about Wonder Woman topic

 

Well, that is how the fiction has been written up till now, but language is really the main factor that reinforces that. It's not "only language" because it doesn't exert a significant normalizing force, but instead because it stands alone as perhaps the single most pertinent barrier in this fiction. Because of the abstracted biology of Transformers, a paradigm shift occurs the moment you break up the he/she linguistic bias (okay... and stop drawing all females with boobs and lipstick as a way to 'differentiate' them).

Well, let's not forget that Wonder Woman (and other female heroines in genre fiction) were also a vehicle for female, feminist authors to "fight back" against patriarchy as well. I wouldn't invalidate that trope entirely, since it is still a lot of about empowerment, and the direct confrontation with symbols of oppression.

Which is not to say that your disagreement isn't itself a suggestion of progress... where even "the struggle" is supplanted by the quiet assurance that a standard of equality has been established, and that it now just needs to be reinforced.

It's two different forms of escapism I guess... one that sees a hostile world that one is empowered to fight back against, and the other is a world where a marginalized person no longer even has to fight, because society has evolved. I'm not sure if we're there yet, so I think that oldschool pugnacious feminism, and "fighting back" narratives (for all sorts of marginal groups) are still going to resonate with many people, especially when more utopian versions are challenged by realities before them. I think both approaches are valid forms of empowerment... though one does become a bit more trope-ish, I agree.

And certainly the second mode suits Transformers a lot more.

zmog

 

Hm. Well damn.

That could work too.