I'm in ur fandom, queerin ur narrative

[sabinelagrande]

So, I decided I needed a break from doing linguistic theory.

And I used it to write meta about gender norms. ::headdesk::

But anyway, mercurtin started this discussion about the verse I've been working on (see Fever High and Get Down and Crawl) and ladycat777's Marriedverse, so blame her. She makes some really excellent points about why these stories simply don't work as stories about canon females. I went off in a totally different direction, based on the shorter comment version of that post, and also this got long; I'm posting it here, but I strongly suggest reading her post first.

I should also point out that while ladycat777 is lovely and moist and sticky and what not, we're not affiliated in any way; I actually haven't finished reading her het McShep stories, though what I've seen is excellent.

It's funny, because I've been thinking of the Meredith in my head as TV ugly; I picture her as being the "cleans up real nice" type, rather than being inherently physically unattractive. By some standards- which I think are particularly salient in this instance, because she's living in a pre-industrial, pre-mass-communication galaxy- she's quite attractive. Though, I think it's precisely her conscious rejection of the resources afforded her in regards to physical beauty (because this whole project is really about playing with the different resources accessible by men and women; see the next chapter) that makes her a dangerous figure.

She's the kind of girl that I think would only be licensed for John sexually- TV John certainly wouldn't date her, but he might pick her up at the bar and sleep with her, never to call again. Part of the reason John has this long period of "Don't think about her don't think about her don't think about her I wonder if she gives good head Fuck! I thought about her" is that he can't understand why he feels so drawn to this girl that he'd never consider. He can't parse it; he's totally lying to himself about not wanting a relationship with her, because 1) he thinks it's what she wants 2) he's got it really deeply ingrained in his head that guys like him and girls like her don't end up together.

Part of my secret sub-surface motivation for this story is writing something queerer than queer. Having John and Rodney get together- we've seen it, we've written it, we've manipped it, we've come to terms with it. And their relationship falls into a very predictable, very well-precedented pattern; you can fit it really nicely into a situational bisexuality paradigm, especially if you throw Keller into the mix too. In contrast, with Meredith, John's trading the entire system for this (somewhat dark and unhealthy) relationship with this woman he's not really supposed to take seriously in the first place.

I think John's already got seeds of this in canon, though. Nancy, even from what little we see of her, is in no way the stereotypical military wife; I can't even conceive of her participating in phone trees or baking cookies for the boys. The women he's attracted to in canon don't fit it either- Teyla, Larrin, you could make a very strong argument for Weir- but instead fit this whole other complex that I don't even want to get into right now.

(Also, as a personal aside, I feel like I should point out that not all women married to soldiers are military wives. I'm thinking in particular of a colleague of mine, who's a very liberal, very pacifist, very highly educated bioarchaeologist who's married to a man who's in the US Army. ::shrug:: So it does happen.)

So yeah, he's rejecting all sorts of norms; I don't think he's got a very high level of awareness about it, but I think there's at least a little knowledge on his part. And other people have a higher awareness of it than he does (which will be a point later).

On a related note, gail19 asked:

Did Meredith donate eggs before having her tubes tied? Cuz *enquiring minds* really need to know.

I bring it up because I think the answer is part of an important point about gender. The same system that leads guys like Rodney to want to pass on their genes all willy-nilly makes girls like Meredith run screaming from motherhood. I'm not saying that Rodney would be a bad father; I think he'd be sort of adorably flustered by the whole endeavor, but it seems to me that he's got a very flippant, very naïve view of what it would be like. But, I know that Meredith would be extremely cognizant of the fact that any kid she had would be her kid, first and foremost. Rodney wouldn't have to leave his work if he had a kid, he'd never have any physical discomfort- it's a very low risk proposition for him. Meredith could die. And I think both of them would receive the same sorts of input, this constant societal pressure, the rhetoric of "you're so smart, you have to pass on your genes". Rodney ended up accepting that, but it just ended up making Meredith even more angry.

So, no, I don't think she did, and certainly she and John aren't going to have any kids. Also, I think they'd be really awful parents in this iteration.

So, yes. I am very good at pretending I know what I'm doing. ::sage nod::