Final Fantasy X's Women, i.e. Dagas_Isa is SMART

[auronlu]

dagas_isa  -- writing under my very favorite icon of hers -- had an interesting and thoughtful post comparing Yuna and Nao of Liar Game. Much thinky thoughts were posted.

However, I must snip out this paragraph and frame it on the wall, because it's so obvious, and yet I never quite crystallized the thought:

Plus, Spira appears much bigger in the sense of gender equality than our world is. As far as I can tell, there's really no intentional sexism in the way that Spira's drawn out, and it's possible to find women incorporated in the military, sports, and in the religion. That is, any sexism in X isn't so much within Spira, as it is in the people who produced it.

Purple emphasis mine, of course.

So yeah. We have our Lucils and our Donas and our Elmas and our Lulus and our random blitzers and Shelinda the Token Doormat. We have rather more male than female characters being movers and shakers within the storyline. We have Unnamed Mother Syndrome for Rikku, Yuna, Tidus and Seymour. But in the world itself, as opposed to the cast we happen to bump into, it appears that women might pop up in any role.

Except. Deflation time. I see no female maester, no female leader of any group from Al Bhed to Ronso, until we get LeBlanc in X-2, who is not the most flattering leader-figure. Maybe Spiran women can be in any role -- military, religious, sports -- but there is still a glass ceiling?  Or do we blame that on game designers' allocation of PC/NPC roles?

It still looks to me like it would be a lot easier for Lucil to make maester (or meyvin) than it would be for a woman in our world to get signed as a free agent in Major League Baseball or acquire "President" as a job title.

Also, Bechdel Test. Flying Colors. There are conversations [not about men] between all female PCs, and between a number of NPCs and PCs. (Even the Marshmallow of Yevon).

This post is tangentially related to the whole "why are women not being written in fanfic" conversation being carried out in some other fandoms. One thing our canon has which some fandoms do not: Women. Lots. In many different roles.

Cf: LoTR.  (sigh)

Comments

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Regarding "no female Maester," I think that's because Yevon is supposed to be the Spiran version of Oppressive Organised Religion, and one way of conveying that notion (to us, humans from Earth) is to make it appear patriarchal.

I think this is also why we're inclined to assume that there's more female than male summoners (though that's actually not the case, thanks the_sweet for pointing it out) - sending women off as sacrificial lambs is just what an Oppressive Religion would do, yes?

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

"I think this is also why we're inclined to assume that there's more female than male summoners (though that's actually not the case...)"

I mentioned the tons-of-male-summoners above as well.

On the one hand, we can acknowledge the things we don't see in Spira: no female maesters at this particular time, though 4 is a very small sample size on which to project 1000 years of history.

On the other hand, if we start making assumptions like "summoners are usually female, because women are sacrificial lambs in most religions" in flat contradiction of the world of Spira actually presented to us: Braska, Isaaru, Ohalland, Gandof -- then we're in danger of distorting the world of Spira with real-world sexist stereotypes that aren't there.

I hope I didn't phrase that too strongly, but, well.

Also, I'm not gonna assume that Oppressive Organized Religion = no women in upper echelons. That seems like it's projecting western patriarchal monotheistic religions onto religions that may be structured differently. (Cf: the Vestal Virgins, who despite our assumptions about virgin-roles were often the most politically powerful and publicly visible women in Rome.)

I read Yevon as a critique of Christianity, but I may have been projecting; I wonder if non-westerners read Yevon as closer to Confucianism or some of the state religions out there, which could be very different. The temples with all the aeons (most of them elemental and/or nonhuman) make me think of Shinto.

My point is that I want to use dagas_isa's approach: look at the world of Spira and analyze what we actually see, rather than importing sexist/western/religious assumptions from our world that don't fit.

So, on the side of "maybe a glass ceiling?" we have:
-- No female maesters
-- No female leaders of Ronso, Guado
-- No women inside the inner court of New Yevon
-- Team captains currently all male

All of these a very limited sample size: four maesters out of thousands of years of history, E.G.

Vs:

-- A woman leading the Djose Knights, elite force of the Crusaders
-- Plenty of women in the military, both Crusaders (unorthodox) and Warrior Monks (more orthodox)
-- Every temple has nuns' wing, monks' wing equally balanced
-- Floorplan not coincidentally mirrors the massive figures of Yunalesca and Zaon facing each other across the Cloister of Trials entrance, apparently the most revered figures in the temple
-- Aeons' fayth are sometimes male, sometimes female, and at least one appeared to be a priestess
-- Priests' robes showing different ranks, priestess' robes showing different ranks, similar insignia
-- integrated professional sports teams with women free agents (if you follow real-world sports, this is HUGE)
-- Nhadala, LeBlanc leading factions
-- Equal numbers of male and female summoners (Braska, Isaaru, Zuke, Gandof, Ohalland, Yu Yevon vs Yuna, Dona, Belgemine, Yocun, Lenne, Yunalesca(?))
-- A nun appointed to Captain of the Guard
-- women may be guardians (and not always to female summoners; Zuke has Lulu as his best guardian)
-- Bechdel test
-- people talk about women by referring to their roles/jobs, not as women... e.g. people in Besaid telling Tidus to go to Lulu for advice because she's the best guardian, people reacting to Yuna as a summoner not as a woman, the gate guard at Mi'ihen saying Lucil is currently the best of the knights, or (in X-2) both Baralai and Nooj reacting to Yuna as High Summoner or as a sphere hunter.

In sum, there are some signs of a glass ceiling, based on very limited evidence/sample sizes. There are many signs of equality of the sexes in all parts of Spira's public and professional spheres.

BUT ... GETTING BACK to original topic

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Regarding the possible glass ceiling, I want to restate dagas_isa's thesis which started this whole thread, since it's gotten somewhat lost in this very fascinating discussion:

"I'd blame this on the designers, personally. Just because, in the sense of Spira as a world, there's no sense that people like Yuna, Dona, Lucil, Lulu, etc. are particularly unusual in being women in their roles even though there's a lack of female group leaders within Yevon (among other places).

Or in other words, the fact that the leaders of Ye Old Oppressive Religion are men seems to be less for institutionalized or cultural reasons [within Spira] and more for the reasons that in this world, it's hard to imagine that the leader of an organized religion could be female."

and, her original post:

"Any sexism in X isn't so much within Spira, as it is in the people who produced it."

That's making some assumptions. However, it's making assumptions based on what we see of the culture within FFX, and the culture of Square-Enix. Which, despite having made some strides in portrayal of female characters, caters to some real-world biases which are problematic (e.g. "If we're going to have three female protagonists as our party, we must spend lots of time futzing with clothing changes and having them jiggle for the camera").

I can see the argument that no female maesters in game = indicative of in-game cultural norms. But I can also see dagas_isa's rebuttal of that argument. I'm split about 50/50 on it.