#female coded

Jeff Buckley's journal: "...how can people resist the urge to connect somehow?…can people feel my eyes on them as I do theirs on me? do we all know that we’re here in this social prison system?..."

He’s not, actually. Not the way Tumblr’s been talking about it.

To quote Inigo Montoya: “You keep using [those words]. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Look... real talk, this is a post about why all the “female coded” and “wife coded” Dean stuff and all the excessive feminization is making me grind my teeth for very legitimate reasons–and it’s a post I’m partially making because I’m not the only one. So if you get pissed at me on principle and think I’m being oversensitive or being a fun-killer, you are also pissed at the dozen+ people I’ve been mutually venting with for weeks.

But if this topic is not something you’re cool with examining, perhaps you should stop reading. Cool? Cool.

Otherwise, if you have an open mind, let me elaborate and perhaps even educate:

Aside from the complete lack of awareness as to any nuance with regards to what that female/wife coded or whatever stuff should mean in terms of literary framework, it’s all just very heteronormatively tinged. It’s been turned into Dean as Woman Lite for the sake of projecting onto him, and in doing so it’s not only feminized queer men to the point of fetish but also—strangely—kind of removed the queer element in the process?

And by that I mean: a lot of the feminine traits or coding involved in the layers of Dean’s character is about him being bisexual. You can’t divorce it from the fact that it’s about queer coding specifically, not about positioning him in a traditionally “female character” role in the narrative structure.

Dean’s pretty, he’s nurturing, he’s kind, he likes to cook, he has like one scene about women’s underwear, he likes a Taylor Swift song, he likes chick flicks but pretends he doesn’t... okay, and? Good for him. He’s still not a woman, nor is his character filling the typical role(s) of a female character in the structure of the story–which is what “female coded” usually should refer to or align with regards to literary analysis.

There are stories where a male character is essentially put into the role of Woman–or, at least, by the typical frameworks of stories. Not a macho hero but more akin to a heroine, damsel in distress, punished for emotions considered to be “weakness”–those are all variations. But they don’t apply to Dean. For example: Dean being nurturing or emotionally open or crying isn’t inherently feminine; if he punished himself for it, or the story did, then it would be “feminine coding” because it would be positioned in opposition to his masculinity–but that’s not the case, or the point.

If any "feminine” traits involved are specifically about that queerness and the breaking down of toxic masculinity, it’s not the same as “female coding.” And I do mean the breaking down toxic masculinity, not masculinity entirely, which is an important distinction. Masculinity (as we know it per nebulous societal constructs) is not an inherently toxic thing.

And what’s important to realize is you cannot discuss feminine coding for queer male characters the same way you would for het characters who are just in a unique narrative framework. They’re different things. If you need an example on the flip side: “strong het female character with masculine coding” is not the same as “female character with masculine/butch coding because she’s queer.”

So that’s not to say “Dean has no feminine traits attached to him,” but it’s about why those aspects are included. Dean’s a bisexual man, and cinematic tools connected to feminine traits are being used to convey his queerness! That’s not him being “female coded” the way people are making it out to be.

The feminine stuff connected to Dean seems ~obvious~ to eyeballs looking for it because it’s meant to stick out a bit for those who aren’t looking that hard. It’s in the ~language~ that the general audience and everyone outside of the SPN universe will need to understand. It’s to the end of solidifying queerness in the only coded way that’s available. This is how it had to be done.

And by people banging on about WOMAN and FEMALE and WIFE and DAUGHTER it’s just almost completely removing what the limited coding aspects of importance are actually signifying and included for at all. Namely: queer male narrative, and deconstructing toxic masculinity. 

But in all those incorrect womanly words tossed around, it then becomes more of a het thing in the vocabulary and lexicon, and that’s part of why it’s so egregious.

It’s all tied to so many harmful things... heteronormative gender roles, the sexist idea that being emotional or nurturing is inherently “womanly/feminine,” and the insidious binary thinking that a character’s traits and behaviors have to be divided into “masculine” or “feminine,” which are not even universal concepts but rather nebulous societal constructs. And then, there’s the fetishization and woobification of queer men as if they have to fit gay male stereotypes, top/bottom discourse, slurs, some good old fashioned homophobia or biphobia... it’s running the gambit out there in the quest to turn Dean into Woman Lite and all of it is bad. Sometimes what’s classified as “feminine,” like being flustered around hot dudes (because he’s bi), isn’t even ~inherently womanly~ or feminine at all and is just about being queer.

So many women and afab people seem to be lowkey operating with the idea of like... oh I can’t relate to Dean properly unless I break him down and mold him into a box that appropriately fits the label of more or less "woman” I know in my head. And in doing so in the name of unspoken projection, it’s often distorting the character beyond recognition–when relating to a character should not have to be limited to gender this strictly.

The socially-labeled “feminine” things attributed to Dean + much more are queer coding cinema techniques that double as a way to deconstruct the false Classic Toxically Masculine American Hero in SPN context. And that is sorely needed, and radical.

Dean’s a complex, masculine, bisexual male hero who has these character traits, and sometimes feels he has to hide them. But slowly over time he learns to let the toxic masculinity walls down more and more, and slowly his bisexuality also becomes more and more apparent and even central to the story as he falls in love with a man-shaped being. 

That doesn’t make him feminine coded, or eldest daughter, or malewife, or mom, or absolutely only a bottom, or repressed, or whatever the hell else is starting to become popular pervasive fandom gospel.

And like... I get the idea of “let people have fun,” okay. I do. But when word salad starts to get taken as legitimate canonically-based meta, and when corners of fandom are getting uncomfortable with the way all of this is consistently tinged with sexism or biphobia or fetishization or woobification, and you scroll on your dash and half the people talking about Dean are calling him girl/woman/daughter or attributing teen girl personality traits to him with no basis in sense and with blatant projection, it’s tiring. It’s harmful. It’s “what the fuck are you even saying” and “why can I not find decent blogs to follow.” It’s “why can’t we have nice things” and “I am once again asking everyone to stop being so weird about this.”

Dean’s not female coded. He’s a masculine bisexual man, on a surface level and on a metanarrative level.

And that’s fine, actually.

It’s fine.

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Hi there!

I absolutely agree! Tolkien does not have that many women, but they are very different, very interesting and they do not shy back from being feminine, and being feminine does not prevent them from being strong.

I must admit that I was attracted to that trope when I was a child, all that ‘not like other girls’, but we should really know better than playing into the trope that male coded activities are better. It’s internalized sexism, and it robs women of their choice in another way. If they have to comply to male role models to be respected where is the choice?

Same holds true for men who do things that are coded female. It is no surprise, that Samwell Tarly is less liked than other characters. The only thing that saves Samwell from receiving the same hate as Sansa is the fact that his intellectual enterprises are male coded.