‘Star Wars’ Needs a New Approach to Gender—Not Just More Women

Because, after all, the lack of women in Star Wars is not arbitrary. Star Wars is a genre picture—and the genre is, broadly, boys’ adventure. The series is devoted to battles, adventure, politics, more adventure, and more battles. Girls certainly can—and certainly do!—like all of those things. But the fact remains that the genre has historically been focused on boys. Which means that it has been a lot more concerned with providing points of identification for guys than with points of identification for girls. It’s not an accident that it’s Leia rather than Han who ends up in the swimsuit and chains, right? (Even though she remains, even in chains, badass.)

Genre and gender, then, are tied up together. Sci-fi imagines different worlds—but those different worlds are governed in no small part by particular narrative expectations. The galaxy isn’t as far away, nor as teeming with possibilities as it looks.

Read more. [Image: 20th Century Fox]

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   An insight into the lack of women- and how those present are portrayed- in the Star Wars saga (if you scroll down, there...

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    reblogged for the link in the word ‘badass’

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46. thedrinkoflife reblogged this from j4n3m3 and added:

    No it’s not. But even SW isn’t even close to as bad as its often portrayed. Once you’re into the extended universe there...

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48. raeliz reblogged this from theatlantic and added:

    I can’t really comment too much on this article, as I haven’t read any of the books the author talks about, but can we...

49. j4n3m3 reblogged this from joebagofdoughnuts and added:

    besides, it’s not true that Scifi has a very strong focus on men. StarTrek: Deep Space 9 - female Bajoran as liaison...

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