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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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Male power fantasies in fiction are still very common, I think you'll find. There's an entire section of literary criticism in which the ur-narrative is The Hero's Journey. Being the Son of Heaven or some other kind of Chosen One comes standard.

Reality is, ultimately, its own check on these things, I think. Most women know they aren't actually queen of very much. Time comes for us all, and most of us grow. Some of us still like to imagine being Batman now and then while we're at it, and that's okay.

I think it might actually be harder to mock women for not being powerful just because, unlike men, we're not failing in our gender role by lacking power. Which isn't fair to men, that they should be mocked for not aligning with a gender role, but I think some of the difference that you are seeing actually comes from there.

The Hero's Journey

That is generally considered good writing because it involves character growth. The hero's journey is easily contrasted with the more common female iteration being the Mary Sue, who has no journey, just an endless parade of successes.

Male power fantasies in fiction are still very common, I think you'll find. There's an entire section of literary criticism in which the ur-narrative is The Hero's Journey. Being the Son of Heaven or some other kind of Chosen One comes standard.

This is actually the initial inspiration for this insight, the difference in how defensive people get about male power fantasy fiction versus female power fantasy fiction. The women tend to get far more upset about their Mary Sues being criticized than the men do when their comparable fiction is criticized. And this ties into the gender roles you mentioned. When men get mocked for identifying too much with Goku or Captain America, most of them seem to eventually learn to sheepishly roll with it, and maybe if they're lucky and earnest they take some enduring inspiration about the value of hard training and hard virtue. Men enact their gender role by doing, and all but the most obstinate or gifted will eventually figure out that they're not the Main Character because their actions provide tangible feedback that they're not cracking home runs every at-bat, or clearly the strongest fighter at the gym. At a certain point they accept that they shouldn't expect to stumble into a fortuitous encounter that radically changes their destiny.

This is also a more developed genre, with stronger conventions about how to justify the fantasy, and a longer track record of subverting it. Even in the 80's, Eddings was mocking his own Chosen One for being a meathead who needs to shut the fuck up and just do what The Prophecy tells him. The breakout from the 90's, Wheel of Time, is about how being the Chosen One is an insane nightmare of relentless suffering. I'm unaware of any of the women's stuff subverting itself even now. AIUI, it's still blank-slate-but-sassy 17 year old world famous assassins immediately captivating the billionaire were-faerie Prince, played totally straight, and the fans of that genre get extremely upset when someone notices that this stuff is on the level of the schlockiest old comic books.

Conversely, women's gender role is more along the lines of being recognized for enduring general value/importance. This allows much less in the way of feedback, because having low-grade people/competitors fail to recognize that value before someone much higher status comes along to see it is a mainstay element of the fantasy. And so I observe women in their 30's getting more defensive than middle school boys when their power fantasy schlock is criticized for being schlock.

End result is that I think by 30, there are many more women who still think they might get swept off their feet by a handsome millionaire if they just have the right Maid in Manhattan encounter, compared to the men who still think they're going to be a rockstar who does MMA and invents new tech on the side.

The power fantasy of being a "king" is about having agency. If a man fails at it, that sucks for him. Maybe he can recapture a bit of the spark doing home repairs, splitting wood, or building some cabinets.

The power fantasy of being a "queen" is about having a king, who's kingdom you've hijacked to fulfill your hedonism. If the woman fails at it... it usually still sucks for the man she's settled for. She recaptures a bit of the spark by relentless riding her poor man for more gibs.

But I'm sure you have a different interpretation. Women experience themselves a lot different than how others experience them.

Everyone experiences themselves differently than how others experience them. I've yet to notice any difference in the amount of self-delusion or self-rationalizing between men and women honestly. We're excellent at both as a species (arguably an adaptive trait, which might explain why its so common in everyone).

But that not withstanding, your point logically applies flipped. Women will experience men much differently than men experience themselves.