Cultus Dispatches: Femslash Is a Political Act

Fans who have been reading and writing Tolkien-based fanfiction for more than ten years quite possibly remember a time when "femslash" wasn't even a term. While slash sites nominally accepted it, it really wasn't being written, and it's no wonder: As the last several Cultus Dispatches columns in our series on writing about women in fanfiction have detailed, the Tolkien fandom went through a pair of phases where writing about women and writing slash were controversial acts. Caught in the crosshairs of this dual intolerance (it was about ladies! and it was gay!!!), femslash really didn't stand a chance.

But, as we also detailed in last month's interview with Elleth, a concerted effort by fans to not just normalize but celebrate writing about women—and femslash in particular—has pushed back the tides of intolerance and introduced a whole new genre to the fandom. This month's column Femslash Is a Political Act (and Other Observations of Tolkien Fandom's Genre Non Grata) by Dawn Felagund looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data about femslash: how many people write it, how many people read it, and who exactly are among those groups. The results show that femslash has skyrocketed in popularity among readers in recent years, portending that maybe it won't always be the new genre on the block (much less a "genre non grata"), possibly due to its use as a political expression by fans who feel marginalized based on gender, sexual orientation, or both.

Posted on 20 February 2023 (updated 25 March 2023) by SWG Moderators