What “Archive of Our Own” Refers to
I just saw a bunch of “Stop shoving your feminism in my face” type comments on that other post. So I’m going to be pedantic and point out, yet again, where the name came from.
Astolat’s post proposing an archive was titled “An Archive of One’s Own”. This is a reference to A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, which is described on Wikipedia as:
“An important feminist text, the essay is noted in its argument for both a literal and figurative space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by men.”
Astolat called for name suggestions for the archive. Nobody ever came up with anything more popular than the original reference, and the slightly modified ‘Archive of Our Own’ stuck.
AO3 welcomes people of all genders, but the very name itself is a reference to feminist thought and female writers. This should be–but isn’t–obvious to many fans today.
Answering this comment because I think it’s important:
this is fine and all but I and many other people don’t really appreciate the type of feminism that puts women on a pedestal above men and acts like men are the root of all evil. a lot of the time in fandom I really get the feeling this is the sort of mindset people have here. I think people in that post assumed it was that sort of thing, having no context.
ftr the people I saw on the post are people I’ve talked to and/or am mutuals with, so I think my assessment of the situation on their side is pretty accurate.
There are assholes in every movement. I’ve certainly seen the occasional piece of truly anti-male rhetoric. But, on the whole, you’re talking about a type of feminist strawman who rarely exists in practice. Anti-feminist dickheads have been spreading the idea of this type of strawman for years to try to discredit the entire concept of feminism. (And, yes, many people who spread this dumb view are themselves women.) They have a vested interest in suppressing feminism.
Fanfiction has always had enthusiasts who are men and who are other genders, but it’s very much a piece of women’s history. When your kneejerk reaction is “But men!”, that’s not coming from a good place, even if you’re not conscious of it.
It’s like trying to reclaim knitting and quilting for men.
Fanfiction is just as self-evidently associated with women as knitting and quilting are, but it has become mainstream and cool enough in recent years that people constantly try to shake off the ~icky girl cooties~. They claim they’re being “equal” or “fair” or “inclusive”, but what they’re actually doing is getting upset that the overwhelming majority of fic writers are women and trying to minimize that any way they can.
It shouldn’t be necessary to always provide context to prove that men tried to steal something from women. Men regularly take not-for-profit crafts done by women and try to monetize them. Men regularly take a women’s thing mainstream. Men regularly get lauded for doing something women have done before. This isn’t anti-male to point out: this is the reality of the sexist world we live in.
Look at any discussion of Henry Jenkins vs. all of the female scholars of fandom history for a good example. Henry actively credits and promotes female scholars, but reporters and their like still turn to him before they’ll call up a woman for a quote. Even men who are well-meaning and try to curb this tendency can’t magically fix our culture. No one person can.
In this case, a bare bones history of AO3 is that astolat got pissed at FanLib, a venture capital startup site run by men to monetize and sanitize fic. It ran ads that implied fic writers are men. She made a post referencing Virginia Woolf. Lots of women got on board because we too were pissed about FanLib.
The monetizing was shitty, but more than that, this was always blatantly a gendered conflict.
We all knew it back then, and it was driving our rage. That’s part of why the name ‘AO3′ stuck. We named the archive after a famous feminist essay about making space for women’s writing in a sexist, hostile, male-oriented world because that is the problem we were facing.
I get that you guys lacked that context. That’s part of why I made this post. That doesn’t change the fact that your reactions were coming from the same anti-feminist propaganda that has infected our whole culture. The problem isn’t that anyone said something mean or that I think you need to be called out or anything like that.
The problem is that your first instinct was to assume it was all bullshit. It never occurred to you guys to even wonder whether the twitter poster might have known more than you and been referencing real events that happened exactly as they said.
It doesn’t make you bad. It does mean you need a history lesson.