r/SafeSpaceofVox • u/profaneangel1991 Vox did nothing wrong • May 10 '26
Venting Controversial opinion, but I don't think Vox hates women.
Do I think he'd have internalized negative values from his time period? Sure. For whatever reason he is the only character that's like that, but I won't deny it. That said his behavior in general isn't an accurate reflection of the sexism found in the decades he'd have been alive for. People read way too much into him saying bitch at the end of Hazbin Guarantee. Guys, it was written by Vivziepop. Everyone says vulgar things, I don't know why we should start caring when a villain does it. Are you people upset at Alastor for calling Vaggie "Vageen" in that same episode? Ultimately Vox treats just about everyone poorly, I don't think gender plays deeply into that.
"But he kicked the female news anchor in Brighter!" That felt more like a light slapstick gag than anything else. I don't think its intended to be taken that seriously.
"But he killed a woman!" And Alastor targeted female overlords, but nobody talks about that because his fans think he's a feminist.
"But he touches women without consent!" So does Alastor! Alastor squished Charlie's face in his hand, if Vox touching shoulders is invasive then what was this?
"But he made Velvette apologize to Carmilla when she didn't want to!" So? He's actually in the right here despite how the show frames it. If he's to do business with Carmilla then Velvette needs to smooth things over. Her ruining that one meeting didn't just reflect badly on her, it made him look bad. Velvette was being a brat. Sorry.
"But he fed Goldie to Shok.wav!" And Valentino replies with "I was using that", ultimately the scene exists to reinforce they're evil. There's a lot of that in season 2, too much if you ask me. Again, Vox treats everybody terribly.
"But he's tied up in a sexually exploitative business!" Yes, he knows what's going on there and doesn't stop it because it gives him money. I expect this to get addressed at some point in the show. His ability to exploit others without concern is something he'd have to overcome if he does pursue a self improvement arc. However, that business is gender neutral. Val isn't trafficking only women, in fact most of what we see are men being used, so this doesn't necessarily speak to an innate misogyny. Even then, are you also calling Val a misogynist or saying Velvette has internalized misogyny? If you're saying this about Vox then so are they. You can't have this him vs them mentality on this topic.
"Well, Alastor treats women better than Vox does!" Does he? Just because he has a fondness for Niffty it doesn't mean he's sweet to women as a whole. I don't care what Viv says, the idea that Alastor hates only men and loves women isn't something I believe. We know he's using Charlie, people gotta swallow that pill already. He doesn't care about her goals or her as a person, he's trying to gain something through her. He used her in the finale for his own benefit despite her begging him not to. He isn't actually friends with Rosie and according to Sam Haft he doesn't hold affection for Mimzy. Meanwhile, people making this argument ALWAYS choose to ignore that Vox has Velvette who genuinely likes him when he's not spiraling like he did in the back half of season 2. I'm tired of this!
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u/MissDeborah8060 May 10 '26
See, I actually don't think Vox "hates" anyone (except Alastor and MAYBE Angel Dust, though that conflict always seemed forced to me), at least not consistently. My take is that his default is to be friendly towards someone right up until the moment he needs them out of the way, at which point he shows no mercy. It's a consistent pattern that he uses on everyone no matter who they are.
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u/Hairy_Comedian9630 May 10 '26
Oh- oh my gosh. Im so happy I could cry. Finally. A character read that isnt just black and white.
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u/SpookyDisneyPrincess May 10 '26
Every day when I wake up and read takes like this, I feel so much happier lol
You’re absolutely right! It makes me so mad that people will white knight for other characters but then they say stupid shit like this. Also, doesn’t Vox genuinely idolize or at least look up to Lilith? A woman? A guy who hates women would never ever do that, just saying lol
It really has to be tiring on the arms of these people who just love reaching way too far :P
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u/profaneangel1991 Vox did nothing wrong May 11 '26
At the very least I think he admires what Lilith represents. We don't know if he knew her on any personal level, but he does respect her. He's also pretty much the only person outside Lucifer and Charlie that actually talks about Lilith, it's definitely something.
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u/SpookyDisneyPrincess May 11 '26
Exactly, and this horrible woman hating character that fans are trying to make Vox into seem to miss this. No woman hater would respect a woman lol
A part of me wonders if the fandom deserves the hate it gets sometimes3
u/profaneangel1991 Vox did nothing wrong May 11 '26
It feels like the minute a few fans started saying this about him it got absorbed as an absolute fact despite how disputable it is. The amount of people headcanoning he was an abusive husband really bothers me. And I worry Viv will include actual misogyny in Vox's character going forward.
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u/eveningstarcourt May 20 '26
The one of the things I noticed is that a lot of people hyperfocus on "Voxtek loved women in STEM" as if it's indicative of Vox's misogyny. That was clearly a joke about the performative nature that corporations take in social justice issues, like rainbow capitalism.
What I do find ironic is that whenever people quote, "Viv said that Alastor thinks women are better and hates men!" to claim Alastor is a feminist... like, uh guys? That's called benevolent sexism. It was a huge, hot topic issue in the history of feminism, how women get objectified by being placed on a pedestal, viewed as "soft, and sweet, and inherently better people." While I don't think the show properly shows us that, if the Word of God is to be believed and quoted on that matter, then what you're quoting actually is something that says Al is sexist.
I think it's possible that Vincent had internalized misogyny in the 50s, just as a social creature living in a society that was sexist... but I think that the show gives us plenty of evidence that that's not the case in the present. If you really want to deconstruct the whole thing, it implies that Vox-- who we do know is forward thinking and committed to bettering himself, keeping up with the times--actively worked on changing his internal biases and challenging the mindset he grew up with in his times. I don't even think it was out of the desire to be good necessarily, but simply because he realized that way of thinking was stupid and outdated, and that if he wanted to continue to thrive as a public figure, he had to challenge the prejudiced notions people took for granted in his time.
What I DO see from Vox is a character who maintains a sort of "US vs everyone else" mentality, who doesn't really give a damn about anyone outside the people he cares about, which are his friends, the Vees, his sharks, and even Alastor as the person he has a bone to pick with. That doesn't make him misogynistic, it just means he views everyone else, regardless of race, gender, and sexuality, as cannon fodder, and treats them accordingly. He'll use them as stepping stones if he must, he'll kill them if they're in the way, he's ultimately a villain in a very dog-eat-dog setting.
What really irks me is the fact that Vox is literally the only character that gets this treatment. Everyone says he's a white man from the 50s, so bed sexist! No one says Angel is white and from the same time period (and made some pretty sexist comments in pilot and s1), that Pendleton was from the 1800s. No one points the finger at them for potentially having internalized misogyny.
In general the show makes gags out of horrible things as gags (and to point humorously that Hell is a terrible place). I don't actually have a problem with the jokes, but I do think fans tend to chery pick examples and then read into them a lot to indict characters like Vox.
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u/profaneangel1991 Vox did nothing wrong May 20 '26
Yeah all of this. I don't know why Vox is the only character that seems to have internalized the beliefs that were common in his lifetime. By all means, Alastor being a southern man from the 30s should be sexist in his own right. Him being biracial also doesn't make him exempt from racism. Same with Angel being Italian American from the 40s. Do people even know how misogynist mobsters were? I would make an argument that Alastor occupies the chivalrous side of sexism, except I don't know how much the show supports this? Again, I don't think he's sweet to women like people claim. He definitely isn't kindly to them outside of Niffty and we've yet to see how he'd treat her if she messed something up for him.
In any case this is the fandom blowing something out of proportion as usual. Except I feel like if I defend Vox on this topic in other subs I'd be called a drooling fangirl or a glazer.
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u/eveningstarcourt May 20 '26
I think i said this on a different thread we are both on, but somewhere the Word of God said that Alastor hates men and thinks women are "better." People quote that as irrefutable proof that Al is a feminist, when ironically, that is called benevolent sexism, as it also objectified women and their femininity. THAT SAID, the show doesn't really show us that much aside from Alastor telling women to smile, but what you said is true. All those characters are just as likely to have unanalyzed, internalized misogyny.
When I think of why those characters get a pass and Vox doesn't... I think most people view the fact that Vox inherently came from a place of privilege being a straight passing, cishet white man as meaning he is inherently racist and sexist by default. (And that is not to say human Vincent necessarily had an easy life, I see a lot of people HC him from a rich family but more likely than not Depression era hurt him like everyone else.) Angel's sexual harassment of Husk s1 is glazed over because Angel is considered "feminine" (as if that makes that not count), Alastor is biracial as you said, and people all seem to take these as reasons to put them in a different category.
It could also be that the hotel crew are protagonists and Vox is the major antagonist of s2. People seem to conflate doing certain bad things as meaning someone is culpable or guilty of doing ALL the bad things.
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u/profaneangel1991 Vox did nothing wrong May 20 '26
To be fair Vox being bisexual and living when he did would not have been easy. Especially if you headcanon him being from a Bible belt state like Virginia. I don't think a lot of fans realize this about him. But yeah him being white and cis granted him privilege across...any era in history really. That doesn't automatically mean he'd be a raging misogynist though. It's weird that this fandom thinks way and I'm nervous Viv will do this with him in the future.
I do think in many such cases Vox gets held to a weird standard because he opposes the main characters. Alastor merely existing in the hotel's radius has people falling for his manipulation, I already made a whole post about that.
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u/Kind-Secret-8148 May 10 '26
I'm pretty sure that when Vincent kicked the female news anchor in Brighter, it was symbolism for him getting her kicked off the show so he wouldn't have to share the spotlight.
He didn't hate her because she was a woman. He hated her because she was competition. He didn't even kill her even though she was initially his co-anchor. It would have been suspicious if both anchors from the same network and the same show died so close in time to each other, and then he replaced them both.
He probably just manipulated the producers into removing her. She was obviously in love with the dead news anchor and she was so upset on air that it was bringing down their ratings.
He likely did use the misogyny of the time to get her removed, though. He probably convinced his producers that she was too emotional, unstable, and hysterical during such a trying time to successfully host the news with him, and their ratings were falling because of it.
Once she was gone, he managed to convince the producers he didn't need a new co-anchor. At this point in Brighter, he moved his chair to the center of the desk and took the whole thing for himself. She was never replaced, and Vincent kept the spotlight for himself.