Can you please talk more about Loki’s relationship to women?

veliseraptor:

I love when you guys take my random meta bait. 

I could’ve sworn I’d written about this before, but since I can’t find it (search function failing me again!) I guess I’ll just…go ahead and possibly repeat myself a little. Maybe I’ll manage to be more coherent this time. 

Loki’s relationship with women, and specifically with femininity, is I think complicated by his own issues with gender and sexuality. I wrote (very briefly) about how Loki at his worst (i.e. in The Avengers) is performing a very “masculine” mode – he’s playing a warrior, which he…really isn’t. The rest of the time we see Loki as someone who does grandstand but not in the same way. Loki’s a fighter, but he’s not the kind of fighter he’s playing in The Avengers – which is, of course, where his infamous and (frankly) misogynistic aggression toward Natasha comes up. 

Loki is, in terms of gender coding, more “feminine” than (for instance) Thor, but also most of the other (male) heroes in the MCU. (Also arguably coded as queer, which is another bag but I’d argue also related.) The dismissiveness with which Thor treats him, especially surrounding his use of magic, in the first movie, coupled with the values of Asgard’s warrior culture, argue that that “feminine” coding marks him out. 

I’ve written about Asgard’s misogyny before, mostly visible in the way Sif is treated but also (both in and out of universe!) in the overall lack of women in significant roles, barring a) healers (a role classically designated for women) and b) Frigga, who is a Queen and therefore an exception. If the feminine is devalued on Asgard in the same way it is on Earth (which it seems like it is), then by implication Loki’s ambiguous status as a man (especially if you headcanon him as queer, which I do) is very much a problem.

That kind of sense of precarious status can, very easily, result in a difficult relationship with women, specifically a kind of misogyny (like that which crops up in gay men) and a need to dismiss and distance oneself from anything having to do with women. This is one of the reasons I headcanon Loki as never learning much healing, even though it would be useful – healing is associated with (female) healers, and he doesn’t need any more of those associations. 

At the same time: Loki clearly has a very close relationship with Frigga, and while he baits Sif in the scenes he shares with her he doesn’t actually treat her any differently than the Warriors Three. Outside of his line (again, clearly baiting) Thor during their fight on the Bifrost, none of his dismissiveness toward Jane is gender-oriented – rather about the fact that she’s mortal. In Ragnarok he also doesn’t treat Valkyrie differently as a woman. And except for those remarks about Jane and to Natasha, he doesn’t say anything specifically sexual to indicate that kind of attitude. So his behavior, overall, argues that he doesn’t see women as lesser or inferior.

Then, contextually, there’s said speech to Natasha, which is half directed at himself (everything he says can easily be applied inward). As always, Loki lashes out when he wants to lash inward – like he does with the Jotnar, for instance. The desire to downplay and push off the aspects of himself he feels are shameful drives him to externalize that rejection. And that speech, I’d argue, is also complicated by the fact that it takes place in a context where he is both a) actively trying to play a role and b) actively trying to play a role that’s more ‘classically Aesir’ than he really is (the conquering warrior isn’t a mode that really fits, even if he were running on all cylinders.). 

On a base level, I think Loki has a lot of respect for women, learned from both Frigga and Sif especially. But there’s also a defensive need, when he’s most insecure, to hold himself away from that in order to prove himself a properly masculine Asgardian.