Discussion prompt

[amaresu]

Provided by el_staplador

Class differences in femslash. Some of my favourite rarefandom pairings, particularly in Shakespeare and opera, feature a lady and her maid. Or think about Gwen/Morgana in Merlin, or Jenny/Madame Vastra in Doctor Who. What are others' experiences with writing or reading class inequalities?




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Comments

[amaresu]

I think part of it is how I view their power dynamics. Like, if I can see that the person in the less-powerful role would never have to fear bad things happening to them if the relationship went sour then I'm okay with it, but otherwise it feels like too much of an abuse.

Chelsea/Miss Dickinson from St. Trinian's is one of the very few Teacher/Student relationships I can get behind because I feel like Chelsea would never be in danger of having bad things happen to her because she decided to end the relationship. Or even if the relationship just ended badly. Jenny/Madam Vestra is another one where I don't think anything bad would happen to Jenny if things didn't work out. If for no other reason than I just don't think it would occur to Vestra to leverage her power of Jenny in that manner and if it did she wouldn't do it.

What I find really interesting is how drastically my opinions on these types of relationships has changed as I've gotten older. When I was a teen I found nothing wrong as long as it was the person with less power initiating the relationship. I think I somehow thought that meant they had more controll? Or possibly I hadn't yet realized that not only do relationships, even "true love" ones, end, but that they can end badly. I'm not sure. I just know that things I had no problem reading 12 years ago I find squicky as hell these days.