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profbuttersI've been wanting to say something about this for a while, and after Secret #30 on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
simsecret , I thought now would be a good time. For those of you who can't be bothered, it's mostly about how "misogynistic" and "puritanical" ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dicreasy 's Legacy is, but it ends "at least you can't claim to be a feminist. You either, PB."
Well, it's hard to respond to something that specific. The narcissist in me is righteously pissed off to be tossed into an afterthought like that. Moving along.
Yes, I do think of myself as a feminist. I'm not going to back away from the "f-word." All feminists don't agree about everything. For example: I think single-sex education really has a place. I went to a largely female college and an all-female college in Britain and I think it was good for me. Some people would think that's anti-feminist, because don't I want equal opportunity? Oh, well. I do strongly support LGBT civil rights, and I think that's pretty clear without getting all preachy.
As for the ethics of SC: yes, it does have an ethical underpinning. It didn't start that way. It only started as a handicap: two "vanilla" ones that I thought I could keep up. Also, at that time there weren't a lot of Strict Family Values legacies. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the 90% or more legacies that aren't. I've laughed my butt off at the shenanigans in Candi and Toast's writing, just to pick two.
As it went on, it started acquiring some kind of depth (I think.) It wasn't until Gen 6 or 7 that I had Lytton explicitly come up with the family motto: "I Will Be Good." (That was retconning for you.) What's happened is that every Goodytwoshoes, especially the heiresses, have to wrestle with what that means, because Rosie never said (i.e., the author was sloppy) and they've had to keep up family traditions.
It hasn't always been easy or perfectly clear. To Sunny, "being good" was like being a Miss America contestant: bright, cheerful, attractive, and competitive. Ruby's "being good" meant spending most of her adult life looking after a disabled husband who was not worth it. Do I advocate that for everybody? Hell, no. For Emerald, it took the form of an uncritical devotion to family. Emerald was easy to push around. For Sophia, it's been flying the flag of "to thine own self be true." One consistent thing, though: you may have noticed that they don't lie. Even Cecil doesn't lie. . . a lot. He prevaricates, but he doesn't, technically, lie. Delightful NEVER lied. She was very clear that she wanted lots of lovers. They may have deceived themselves, but that wasn't her fault.
Cecil is a funhouse mirror of Squeaky Cleanliness. He's got the details all right and the essentials all wrong. I suppose if you thought he was the moral compass of SC, you might think it was misogynistic or puritanical, but he's not. To the extent that there is a character who's the moral compass of SC (and a pure version of that would be very, very dull), it's Lytton. Lytton, who knows more about the individual heiresses than anyone, except possibly Mortimer. Both of them have raised daughters, and both have stepped in to support heiresses. Lytton, who is gentle, and peaceful, and as Jack called him, "a man without guile." I suppose my characters demonstrate a lot of different ways of "being good," and that is ethics of a kind.
I don't like to get more specific than that. I think that obvious morals are really dull, and I want different readers to be able to find something they can like and relate to. Besides, I have to maintain SOME kind of mystery here. I might get more explicit when SC is done, but right now I'm too busy resuscitating my neighborhood and my Legacy to do that.
PB
simsecret , I thought now would be a good time. For those of you who can't be bothered, it's mostly about how "misogynistic" and "puritanical" dicreasy 's Legacy is, but it ends "at least you can't claim to be a feminist. You either, PB."Well, it's hard to respond to something that specific. The narcissist in me is righteously pissed off to be tossed into an afterthought like that. Moving along.
Yes, I do think of myself as a feminist. I'm not going to back away from the "f-word." All feminists don't agree about everything. For example: I think single-sex education really has a place. I went to a largely female college and an all-female college in Britain and I think it was good for me. Some people would think that's anti-feminist, because don't I want equal opportunity? Oh, well. I do strongly support LGBT civil rights, and I think that's pretty clear without getting all preachy.
As for the ethics of SC: yes, it does have an ethical underpinning. It didn't start that way. It only started as a handicap: two "vanilla" ones that I thought I could keep up. Also, at that time there weren't a lot of Strict Family Values legacies. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the 90% or more legacies that aren't. I've laughed my butt off at the shenanigans in Candi and Toast's writing, just to pick two.
As it went on, it started acquiring some kind of depth (I think.) It wasn't until Gen 6 or 7 that I had Lytton explicitly come up with the family motto: "I Will Be Good." (That was retconning for you.) What's happened is that every Goodytwoshoes, especially the heiresses, have to wrestle with what that means, because Rosie never said (i.e., the author was sloppy) and they've had to keep up family traditions.
It hasn't always been easy or perfectly clear. To Sunny, "being good" was like being a Miss America contestant: bright, cheerful, attractive, and competitive. Ruby's "being good" meant spending most of her adult life looking after a disabled husband who was not worth it. Do I advocate that for everybody? Hell, no. For Emerald, it took the form of an uncritical devotion to family. Emerald was easy to push around. For Sophia, it's been flying the flag of "to thine own self be true." One consistent thing, though: you may have noticed that they don't lie. Even Cecil doesn't lie. . . a lot. He prevaricates, but he doesn't, technically, lie. Delightful NEVER lied. She was very clear that she wanted lots of lovers. They may have deceived themselves, but that wasn't her fault.
Cecil is a funhouse mirror of Squeaky Cleanliness. He's got the details all right and the essentials all wrong. I suppose if you thought he was the moral compass of SC, you might think it was misogynistic or puritanical, but he's not. To the extent that there is a character who's the moral compass of SC (and a pure version of that would be very, very dull), it's Lytton. Lytton, who knows more about the individual heiresses than anyone, except possibly Mortimer. Both of them have raised daughters, and both have stepped in to support heiresses. Lytton, who is gentle, and peaceful, and as Jack called him, "a man without guile." I suppose my characters demonstrate a lot of different ways of "being good," and that is ethics of a kind.
I don't like to get more specific than that. I think that obvious morals are really dull, and I want different readers to be able to find something they can like and relate to. Besides, I have to maintain SOME kind of mystery here. I might get more explicit when SC is done, but right now I'm too busy resuscitating my neighborhood and my Legacy to do that.
PB
