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![]() post Buffy s3 Yes, of course she is. Well, duuuuh! She kicks ass and she doesn't have to assume a male 'butch' demeanour to get away with it. She fights darkness, saves the world and hands her homework in on time. Her strength isn't undermined by a pseudo-submissive role that so characterised the female TV superheroes of yesteryear (Wonder Woman - secretary, Bewitched - housewife, I Dream of Jeannie - marshmallow). Most importantly the series does not treat her with the stereotype nor the kid gloves that is typical of television's treatment of 'minorities', she has faults, she makes mistakes, sometimes she gets away with them and sometimes they nearly destroy all creation. She's not a woman, she's a person.
Well, maybe not. Back before the Watchers were conceived the Slayer was a feminist icon, but as has happened so often before a patriarchy imposed itself over the top of a completely female occupation. The Watchers are a male-centred society. How many have we seen so far? Five by my counting (up to the present UK episode) all men but for the one was hell-bent on unimaginable power. You can bet in centuries past that the gender ratio was even worse, how many women would have gotten the education necessary to become a Watcher? In the army who would you say is in command? The soldiers or the generals? When a Watcher dies it's a tragedy. When a Slayer bites the bullet it's an occupational hazard. So a Slayer has a Watcher like a dance troupe has a manager and a prostitute has a pimp. Giles is nice, and Giles is sweet and Giles truly cares for Buffy but he is the single Watcher we have encountered that has allowed himself to come so close to their charge, to defer to her judgement on occasion, and he was censured and dismissed for it. The Watchers claim total authority over the Slayers including the power to try and imprison them for their natural lives. This authority has no supernatural origin as the Slayer's does, they assume it because they feel it is their place. What about the one Slayer who bucked the Watcher's authority? She's portrayed as an irresponsible, self-serving tramp. So Buffy can keep staking vamps until she's doing it with a wooden zimmerframe but she'll never truly acquire the liberation that feminism seeks.
Postfeminism? Postfeminist writers have criticised the feminist movement for seeking equality within the structures of male society. The Slayer isn't feminist, she's postfeminist. She's a empowered woman within a structure that cannot be anything but inherently female, so much so that the label of 'female' is superfluous. Only women can be Slayers, therefore it's only women that set the standard of achievement within the field. Equality doesn't come into it. It would be like men demanding equality within the field of ovary donors. But just because the Slayer doesn't slip into an easy category doesn't mean she's not a good role model for the viewers and TV's bean-counters. Go to Masquerade's Feminism in BtVS
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