What Would Female Rimmer Be Like?

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

No, not Arlene, much though I enjoy her as a character. Someone posted a prompt in the Kink Meme about what Rimmer would be like if he'd been born female in the RD universe (but presumably with the same family background): http://starbuggers.livejournal.com/317.html?thread=78909#t78909

My instinctive reaction is that's a really difficult prompt because I find it really hard to imagine. So many of Rimmer's personality traits come from his family's expectations of what he's supposed to be and achieve as a "red-blooded heterosexual male" (heavy sarcasm). Would female!Rimmer even have joined the Space Corps or would she have been pressurised into marrying a "nice boy from a good family" and producing the next generation? Would she take refuge in meaningless affairs like her mother?

I'm working on the assumption that Io, as seen in "The Beginning", is basically the universe's 1950s throwback. Rimmer's classmate Wendy wears a similar outfit to his mother in "Dimension Jump" despite the difference in age. However, the fact that Rimmer's class is mixed does indicate that it perhaps wouldn't be impossible for female!Rimmer to divorce her parents like Arnold and strike out on her own. It would certainly make for a very different dynamic with Lister.

Whilst I've never read a female!Rimmer fic apart from those involving Arlene, I have read a few with female!Lister (not Deb), which I find much easier to imagine. I suppose it's because he exhibits quite a few qualities often stereotyped as female, for example his open sobbing at romantic films. (Although I'm female and have never done that.) :p

If you made it through my ramblings, have this link to Diminua's fic with a female Lister. The difference it makes to her dynamic with Rimmer is remarkable. Link to part 1; each chapter has a link to the next: http://diminua.livejournal.com/31604.html

Comments

[kahvi.livejournal.com]

I do get what's being said there, but I have to say that part of me still wants to scream "BUT WHY WOULDN'T IT BE ARLENE?!" You're very right, I think, in pointing out that without knowing more about Ionian society (no, I've not yet seen The Beginning; was accidentally spoiled here, but happily so; HEADCANON IS NOW REAL), we really can't know how it would affect a female Rimmer's upbringing...

...that said, people are so much more than their gender. I honestly think it's absurd to think that any female Rimmer would be all that different from Arlene, give or take some modifications due to background. Then again, I'm very much a nature rather than nurture person. :p And keep in mind, if Rimmer is gay - we all agree Rimmer is gay yes? :p - or non-straight or non-neurotypical etc. etc., that'd obviously affect him or her too.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the spoiling; I thought I remembered you being around here during Series X. I was very careful with spoiler cuts during it, obviously, but our mod lifted the spoiler cut requirement a while ago. :)

Yes, I couldn't help wondering if Doug had read your Io fics when I saw "The Beginning". ;)

I think the thing about Arlene is she's very deliberately set up as having a superiority complex based on gender to make a point about Rimmer. Not an entirely successful one, as we never see him behave as badly as she does in the disco scene. The implication is that she's gained a measure of confidence from being brought up to regard herself as superior to men and has probably found it easier to get into the Space Corps. (Yes, I realise that last bit could also apply to Arnold.)

Arlene / Arnold are special cases due to their bizarre upbringings. Whereas Deb is a female Lister in any circumstances.

I do agree that people are obviously more than their gender and a female Rimmer would have the same basic character. Just trying to figure out how she would behave with the added ingredient of sexism in the mix. And yes, I do agree that Rimmer is essentially gay (although not completely incapable of loving a woman - witness Nirvanah), so add repressed sexuality and self-hatred and a society which probably doesn't even bother to legislate against lesbianism because it's considered so unthinkable.

Oh God, I just imagined a scenario where a confused, desperate young Arnold stumbles into cruising on Io and gets caught by an undercover police officer. Male homosexuality is of course highly illegal. He's packed off to the JMC to escape charges.

If anyone wants that bunny, they're welcome. ;)

[metalkatt.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think he'd have ended up like his mother. I have a suspicion that she wanted a girl at the end, and went to a different gene bank to try to get one... and then Arn happened.

I'd have liked it if he'd ended up like his (Ver and my headcanon) great-great grandmother, who helped lead the miners' rebellion against the conditions under which they were forced to work. >.> Yes, I did used to play Red Faction; hush. Ver and I had to come up with a geneaology and backstory for some of our people, and... yeah. *returns to lurkdom*

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

How sad - if Rimmer had been the only girl he would probably have been loved. Or at least, only abused emotionally, not physically. :/

[saylee.livejournal.com]

I posted that prompt, and now I'm feeling silly for doing so, because your assessment makes sense. I wanted it precisely because I've seen a few female-Lister AUs but never a female-Rimmer AU, unless we're talking Arlene. What I was imagining was a Rimmer who had somehow ended up in the same place, but whose beliefs about men and women and sex were different because of different experiences, and whose dynamic with Lister was consequently different, but didn't know how to achieve that myself, and I think you point out precisely why.

I wonder how you would get that Rimmer into the same situation our Rimmer is in - as hologram companion to the last human alive. Would she still have divorced her family at fourteen? If so, then she might have joined the Space Corps to have something to live on, but would she care about her career in the same way if she hadn't been pressured to be an officer? Or would Mr Rimmer have pushes a daughter the same way, if only because his military dreams meant more to him than gender roles (or if he'd pressured her towards the Space Corps, while her mother pressured her to be the same type of woman she was)? Would it make a difference if all Rimmer's brothers were sisters?

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

No need for embarrassment; I understand what you're getting at and you've given me a lot of food for thought. I have all kinds of scenarios buzzing around my brain, but at the moment they're refusing to coalesce into fic.

So, imagine a female!Rimmer who looks like Arlene, but hasn't been brought up to regard her own gender as superior. It raises many questions - does the JMC assign bunkmates of different genders together? You would think so that far in the future, but would Arlene worry about sharing quarters with male Lister? Would she keep that fact from her parents?

Would female!Rimmer have been pushed to join the Space Corps, but only as a means of meeting a male officer and making a "good" marriage, if she was the only girl?

Alternatively, what if, after three girls, Rimmer's mother made a last ditch attempt for a son with the gardener (possibly with her husband's tacit approval). When a fourth daughter arrives, they take out their bitterness on her, causing her to divorce them at 14 and try to show them that being female doesn't mean she can't be an officer.

Please remember, all these theories are working on the "Io is 1950s Britain" scenario which was very heavily implied (arguably shown, given the costumes) in "The Beginning". I imagine that male Lister would still be our Dave, completely bewildered at his bunkmate's behaviour. But possibly softer in his attitude because we have seen he has a side to him which you can call "chivalrous" or mildly sexist depending on how generous you're feeling.

Why yes, I have thought too much about this. ;)

[nice-girls-play.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I saw the question and my brain coughed up "Jen from The IT Crowd, only more neurotic." I don't think that's too far from the truth -- I think Rimmer still would have born the burden of being the 'disappointing one' that didn't live up to Daddy's expectations. And Mr. Rimmer might have been frustrated even more to see his "last chance" for a young officer material lad bearing his name turn out to be a girl. Older brothers aren't much kinder to younger sisters who have been branded as the family scapegoat than they are to younger brothers. I think whether she had expectations of joining the space corps or finding a nice husband and settling down, I think she still would have rebelled (divorcing her parents, running off to join JMC) and yet longed for approval. Maybe her goals on Red Dwarf would have been altered slightly -- passing astronavigation AND finding a proper husband -- but, honestly, I don't know that they would be.

With Lister, I do think the dynamic would be somewhat different. I think Lister would be more gentle with his ribbon initially before devolving into the relationship we see in The End. I wonder if the other JMC staff would be more cruel in *their* treatment if Rimmer, given how western humor and culture loves to see social climbing women taken down.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

Agreed that the Rimmers would probably be just as cruel. Possibly with less physical and more emotional violence, but just as cruel. :(

I've been trying to imagine how female!Rimmer would have been treated in the aftermath of a liaison with a male (but still concussed) McGruder. I imagine much the same but with some sexism thrown in.

She might have been ashamed of it rather than clinging to it to bolster her self-esteem, but not for the "dubious consent" reasons, rather because she'd had a one-night stand.

The more I think about this, the happier I am that the Rimmers only had sons. :/

[nice-girls-play.livejournal.com]

My brain just goes down darker and darker alleys the more I think about it: I think, among the women on the Dwarf, she might be considered a bit of a throw back -- someone whose ineptitude as a technician and extreme test anxiety would be seen as an embarrassing reminder of archaic stereotypes about women attempting to adopt traditionally male professions and skill sets.

With regard to McGruder, my brain goes a couple of different places -- if McGruder is still Yvonne (as opposed to Ivan or John), I can see that almost proceeding as it did in The Last Human, with Yvonne not completely sure that happened and waiting for Rimmer to come forward, while Rimmer would just prefer to pretend it didn't happen -- maybe still clinging to her parents' conservatism, maybe just repressed in general and, in her mind, Not A Lesbian.

If it's a male McGruder, I think he would be vilified by most of the female crew, laughed at by most of the male crew (minus Lister) and Rimmer... maybe proceeding as male Rimmer did in the series, clinging to false bravado: "Yeah, we had sex. I'm a modern 23rd-century woman. I don't need a man to marry me to get off. So what? I'll be at the Love Celibates meeting, thank you very much." Whether she actually feels that inside is another story.

The darkest alley I've got is how it would change her dynamic with a Kochanski-smitten Lister. I think her jealousy would be a lot more evident and maybe less impenetrable to her -- "you're messing with my technician... who is also my bunkmate... who is also vile and disgusting and eats his own toenail clippings and why you'd want to trifle with his affections is frankly beyond me but *stop it, you homewrecker*."

(oh dear, I think I want to write this now)