#female-coded dean

the unbelievably female-coded narrative inherent in “i will agree to downplay my own intelligence in comparison to yours to keep the peace in this household that depends almost wholly on me being the smallest version of myself and never challenging your firmly-held belief in your superiority over me. it is but another sacrifice next to the loss of childhood, loss of freedom, loss of prospects. your continued dismissal of me is punishment as much as it is the hard-earned fruit of my labor.”

First, I think a big part of it has to do with emotional labor, particularly within the John-Dean-Sam dynamic. We know that from a young age, Dean was aware of what his father did and was performing emotional labor in caring for his father when he was tired after a hunt (like the "It's okay, Dad" anecdote), or drinking too hard--and being practically the only such emotional support John had/would allow himself. Also, having your sibling's life placed in your hands, being repeatedly told it is your responsibility, is certainly emotional labor. And being in a household with two strong clashing personalities, being forced into the peacekeeper role (as we see echoes of in s1), is emotional labor.

Another obvious aspect (though for some reason an especially contentious one in fandom it seems?) relates to Dean's domesticity and role as a nurturer. I really don't care to argue here about how domestic and nurturing Dean is or isn't, because I think for purposes of this post, it's actually sort of irrelevant. The point isn't that Dean was the best homemaker ever; what's much more interesting to consider is how, in the absence of a female presence, typically "feminine" tasks fell to Dean, whether he was willing or not. Dean says it plain as can be in 12.22 Who We Are: "I had to be... more than just a brother. I had to be a father and I had to be a mother, to keep him safe. And that wasn't fair. And I couldn't do it." Of course he couldn't, because he was just a kid only four years older than Sam. But that doesn't mean that the burden of expectation, that that role was his to fill, wasn't there.

Related to the last point is how Dean suppressed personal desires for the sake of family, which is so often expected of women. It's an extension of the caretaker role; anything he may have wanted must come second to his duty to family. The shapeshifter in 1.06 Skin has access to Dean's thoughts and says: "You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me." In fact, you could easily argue that the only desire Dean ever really allows himself to have or express is family. Opinions on Lebanon may vary, but I don't think it's at all out of character that Dean's greatest wish was for his family to be all together.

I also think that Dean's brand of vulnerability is something that some female fans would find relatable. I don't want to sound gender-essentialist about it and I don't think I would call this female-coding, because it's not necessarily a universal female experience (not that anything that could be considered female-coding needs to be universal--that would be impossible), but I can say that it's probably the primary characteristic that drew me to Dean. Dean's insecurity is rooted in his fear of his emotional needs being too great. He is insecure about how much he needs his family, and worries that that need is not reciprocated (whether it is or not isn't the point--this is about Dean's perception). In season 1, it's his feeling that John and Sam care more about killing the demon than they care about him. For many more seasons, it's his fear that Sam will leave him. He's terrified of being needy, of his emotions and his love being too much. I would venture a guess that within family structures, this is a trait most commonly associated with mothers/wives.

the complexity—the trauma inherent—the unrelenting, all-consuming emotion that rolls off him in waves at all times but that’s at the same time a private thing for dean, an intimate thing, a function through which he processes the world but not something to share and pass around lest he gets told he’s too much, (lorde voice) a liability, too emotional to make decisions, hurting others by the mere act of being hurt himself. 

dean is a tightly-wrapped ball of everything, every thought and trauma and expectation and every feeling, bundled against the cold air. he is quiet but he is loud. he is overlooked but he fills up a room with his presence. he is everything anyone ever thought he couldn’t be, constantly underestimated, he carries the world—and his brother—and the world—and his brother on his shoulders but is expected to not speak about it, to not make decisions about it, he’s only there to carry.

his constant fight for agency is absolutely definitive and it started way before fate came into the picture. it started at four years old, mother and father and child at once, his needs so deprioritized they were not even on the map anymore from the moment he acquired a baby. 

all these interactions where he makes clear: it is wrong for anyone else to be treated the way that i was, but i know this is my lot in life, who else is going to carry if not i? if they hurt you this way, let me carry you too, so only one of us has to do it.

that say: you have been hurt by the same things i have been hurt by but i feel like it shouldn’t have hurt me to begin with, and you showing your hurt is a slap in the face of every year i have clenched my teeth and not said anything. you’re saying i needn’t have done that, needn’t have eaten myself? how dare you.

that say: i absolutely resent that this was done to me but i will only ever say it in a roundabout way, because my personal pain is something that i carry as well, and if i can’t hold on to it, i’ll let go of everything else too, and it’ll all topple to the floor. 

that say: i didn’t birth this world—or my brother—or this world but i carried it to term and i bandaged its knees and i let it feed from my breast, on my life force, and if i rip that away, it’ll starve and that’s filicide. doesn’t mean i don’t know i go hungry.

the love and the anger that live in him don’t contradict themselves. they’re there for each other, they prop each other up. he trembles at his very core with life, for all that he was never meant to have one of his own. he knows he’s alive, and that fundamentally he wants to be alive. even when he was suicidal: the life that he had wasn’t his own, and he wanted his own but didn’t know how to get there. the frustrated helplessness, the rattling of chains. the spark that no one can put out.

a woman’s plight. a woman’s war. 

and to recognize all that in a MAN? 

a male character, who by all expectations should have had his agency handed to him on a silver platter, but instead passed it over to his brother—child—the world—brother instead so he won’t go hungry (and he took that agency to leave you in its absence. and you wanted that, no? if that’s what you wanted, then why does it hurt? did you expect him to half the agency you gave him neat with his baby fist and pass a portion back to you? did you really think—?) to see THAT in a MAN, it makes it all that much easier to root for his struggle to regain his agency. he as a man was supposed to have it, and it is righteous of him to fight for it now. as a woman watching, it’s easy to be like Yes. YES. and process all that injustice through a frame and a medium that mirrors your own struggle and that of your foremothers in a way that underlines its injustice, finally, that validates the fight. to be a woman watching a man carry the weight that women carry, and say: this hurts. to be a woman watching a man slice off heads and wield sawed-off shotguns and throw knives. to be a woman watching a man use his body to wage your own war. to be a woman watching a male power fantasy that’s a female power fantasy more than anything else. 

the way he embodies a woman’s plight and struggle and fighting spirit so all-encompassingly that the canonical divine feminine is introduced as a kindred spirit, his reflection, and goes to live in him for a year.

the way that he is everything he is so much that the only metaphors for it that begin to cut it are the primordial powers of the universe, divine figures.

he remains so self-possessed that no god or agent of god has ever swayed him on the basis of their divinity. he is their equal in essence but with the power to humanize if given the chance. to remake them in his image, you could say... if you were so inclined...

except the pain is dean’s and the hand is amara’s