I really feel like you are confounding several ideas here:
1. That Mary-Sue "supporters" (such as myself) love all Mary Sue fic and champion it. I don't; bad writing is bad writing, I don't care how canon OR how mary sue your story is. My support is in the right of the author to write what she wants to write.
2. That everyone agrees on a definition of mary sue. If you've found a fandom-wide accepted definition of mary sue, let me know, because I haven't, and I've been looking.
3. That all Mary Sues are constructs of the culturally privileged; that WOC mary sues don't exist, or if they do, they are defacto not mary sues.
Comments such as this: Mary Sues will always be a power fantasy, and they're also a power fantasy that uses the kyriarchy's standards of power and importance. Assumes that your definition of mary sue as "the ultimate special woman, the ultimate token woman, and the ultimate celebration of her existence as a cultural construct" is the only or the only correct one. Which it isn't.
I'm not saying that given your definition of mary-sue fic, that your points are not good and valid. They are. I thought this was the most important point you made: If this is our idea of empowerment, tearing down other women for not fitting into some perceived feminine ideal, I don't want into it. Yes, I agree, completely. But wielding the sledge-hammer of "You wrote mary-sue fic! Be ashamed, be very ashamed!" only encourages a writer stop writing, not adjust her perceptions nor attempt to improve her skills. It convinces a new, uncertain writer that her fantasies are something to be ashamed of, not that there are social and cultural constructs to her story that she has perhaps never realized existed before.
I guess to me, the idea of being a "mary sue supporter" is more about offering a nurturing, supportive environment for writers to learn from their mistakes, as opposed to an oppressive environment that punishes for sins/faults that the writer may not even be aware of.
no subject
1. That Mary-Sue "supporters" (such as myself) love all Mary Sue fic and champion it. I don't; bad writing is bad writing, I don't care how canon OR how mary sue your story is. My support is in the right of the author to write what she wants to write.
2. That everyone agrees on a definition of mary sue. If you've found a fandom-wide accepted definition of mary sue, let me know, because I haven't, and I've been looking.
3. That all Mary Sues are constructs of the culturally privileged; that WOC mary sues don't exist, or if they do, they are defacto not mary sues.
Comments such as this:
Mary Sues will always be a power fantasy, and they're also a power fantasy that uses the kyriarchy's standards of power and importance.
Assumes that your definition of mary sue as "the ultimate special woman, the ultimate token woman, and the ultimate celebration of her existence as a cultural construct" is the only or the only correct one. Which it isn't.
I'm not saying that given your definition of mary-sue fic, that your points are not good and valid. They are. I thought this was the most important point you made:
If this is our idea of empowerment, tearing down other women for not fitting into some perceived feminine ideal, I don't want into it.
Yes, I agree, completely. But wielding the sledge-hammer of "You wrote mary-sue fic! Be ashamed, be very ashamed!" only encourages a writer stop writing, not adjust her perceptions nor attempt to improve her skills. It convinces a new, uncertain writer that her fantasies are something to be ashamed of, not that there are social and cultural constructs to her story that she has perhaps never realized existed before.
I guess to me, the idea of being a "mary sue supporter" is more about offering a nurturing, supportive environment for writers to learn from their mistakes, as opposed to an oppressive environment that punishes for sins/faults that the writer may not even be aware of.