Representation in fictional media has been shown to be an important component of social justice, allowing not only for more inclusive and diverse stories but also a distinct impact on changing social intolerance regarding marginalized groups. In this piece, though, I argue that it is not only the explicit representation we should be concerned with, but the implicit as well – what prejudices and biases are we unconsciously embedding into our narratives, and do we have a responsibility to investigate those biases during our creative processes? As such, this piece looks at the following dilemma: If the narratives that we consume impact the way that we understand ourselves and others, is there an ethical responsibility for artists and creators to develop narratives that do not perpetuate implicit biases of marginalized identities? By working through each part of this dilemma, I intend to encourage the reader to grapple with this dilemma in their own art, rather than offering a definitive answer. 

This piece considers the way that we can use fictional narratives, especially secondary world stories, to examine the way that gender is translated from one world to another, and how that translation often perpetuates gender stereotypes, hierarchical biases, and sustained gender oppression. In the final section of this paper, three concepts of narrative design are defined: gender-apparent, gender-insinuated, and gender-absent. All three concepts explain how gender can be presented in secondary worlds, with gender-apparent narratives referring to gender being presented explicitly, gender-insinuated as implicitly, and gender-absent as excluded, and the benefits and detriments of all three. The goal of this piece is to provide methods of analysis for fictional narratives in relation to the presentation of contemporary gender systems and the possibility of perpetuating damaging ideologies.

In examining the father-daughter relationship through a lens of critical kinship studies, it is necessary to incorporate the broad analysis of patriarchal systems to understand the ways that power dynamics are reiterated in the small-scale space of the family. Adding narcissism into that power dynamic, understanding the cultivation of narcissistic behavior in fathers through the encouragement of a sexist system that is designed to uphold those behaviors, further complicates the way that power, abuse, and trauma are communicated across father-daughter relationship lines. N. K. Jemisin's novel, The Obelisk Gate, the second book of the Broken Earth series, depicts the intricacies of this father-daughter relationship and, I argue, acts as a fantastical metaphor for the clash of patriarchal and matriarchal power and the desire of narcissistic father-figures to dismantle the matriarchal power in ways that necessarily pushes the daughter back into a gender-oppressive system to sustain his own view of reality. Using the relationship between Jija and Nassun in The Obelisk Gate, I seek to reconcile the raw trauma of Nassun's experience with the reality of personal trauma as a narcissistic-abuse survivor, to show the ways that narcissism and patriarchy in Jemisin's work intertwine to embody the impact of modern systematic oppressions on small-scale family kinship and relationships.

The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the work of educational institutions, moving us from our physical classrooms to online learning spaces and requiring educators to reconsider their pedagogies. This chapter describes the research process of the authors, who were asked to gather information on the pedagogical methods of virtual institutions to consider how to best incorporate those methods into traditional institutions forced temporarily and suddenly online. While the authors initially conceptualized their project as addressing a binary opposition between online and in-person learning, with online learning providing greater accessibility and in-person classes generating a stronger sense of community among students and faculty, our data demonstrated that the benefits and drawbacks of both styles are not so cut and dry. Rather, a feminist pedagogy which centers the importance of both community and accessibility should integrate positive elements of both in-person and online learning. In this chapter, the authors describe the shortcomings of their own binary thinking around this project, address how interviews with women’s and gender studies students and administrators informed their thinking about online pedagogy, and then reflect on their personal experiences in virtual classrooms during the pandemic. The conclusion discusses the valuable novice feminist pedagogy that resulted from this research.

Even with a significant increase in representation of minority identities in popular media – especially in stories of speculative fiction – the ways in which inclusivity is designed must be examined, with Lovecraft Country standing as a useful example for this scrutiny. Adapted from a novel of the same name, the show Lovecraft Country swapped the genders and sexualities of a few characters from the book to increase representation. The ways that these swaps reified tropes about diverse identities is the central concern of this analysis. Using Fields and Fields's conceptualization of racecraft as a "mental terrain of pervasive beliefs," this piece seeks to identify how pervasive beliefs and rules about identity were implicated in the series. The characters of Montrose Freeman, Ruby Baptiste, and Christina Braithwhite all undergo gender and/or sexuality swaps in the adaptation from page to screen, but the ways in which stereotypical assumptions around gender and sexuality are preserved in the narrative work mostly to reproduce negative tropes around these identities. This argument details narratives of violence, avoidance, and sacrifice that are given to these gender- and sexuality-swapped characters, and illustrates how, ultimately, these narratives provide detrimental instead of productive representation of diverse identities.